I Roasted a Chicken

Roast Chicken - pg. 110

Seriously. I roasted a chicken. I'm not sure I've ever done that before. Seasoned with salt, pepper, rosemary sprigs and garlic cloves. Ya live, ya learn.

Oh yes, it is very good!

74 down; 231 to go

Marinate Those Greens!

Marinated Chard - pg. 216

(This is our front door from the foyer looking out onto the front porch, which has nothing to do with anything, but it cute eye candy. That's a Steve Handelman lantern on the wall.)

We spent the weekend in the Bay Area. Dinner at Ajanta with Scott and Wayne after delivering Scott's quilt to him. Impressionists at the Legion of Honor (and lunch). Ikea, Ethnic Arts (to pick up our 3rd David Marsh end table), Pendragon (one of my favorite bookstores anywhere), and the Oakland Pasta Shop from which we brought home all manner of good stuff, including roasted eggplant salad and bar-be-qued chicken for dinner that night (which was Monday). Grilled liver and onions at Saul's, too, from which I brought home kosher dills (I begged for them; I'm shameless).

So, we've been eating leftovers from that meal and other stuff, and "day old" fresh pasta from the Pasta Shop. And pickles. But last night I nuked fresh eggplant parmesan from Trader Joe's which was wonderful! And made some marinated kale to go with. Alice recommends marinated chard as an appetizer/snack, but says you can prepare any greens that way. I had some kale in the frig, so kale it was. Once again, the results, served warmish, were better than I'd anticipated.

This morning I took Stuart in for his second kitten shots. All his previous foster moms and caretakers were happy to see him and his big feet. This afternoon I joined a health club, which I really need to do. Tonight? Who knows. Oh yes, last night our new book club met for just the second time to discuss Larry Watson's Montanan 1948. Pretty decent group, all things considered.

73 down and a mere 232 to go

New Ingredient; New Appliance

Tomatillo Salsa - pg. 232

Randy and I have just given up on our Cuisinart combination blender and food processor. It's a lousy appliance and is going to the thrift shop, instruction booklet and all. We decided that what we really need is a pretty basic blender, one that actually works well and isn't too much of a pain to clean. Internet research revealed that an awful lot of buyers are loving their Kitchen Aide hand-held blenders, so last night we found one at the local Target and brought it home. (I don't want or need a food processor; I enjoy whacking stuff up with a big, sharp knife.)

A new appliance needs a new ingredient, don't you think? How about tomatillos? I've had tomatillo salsa at Mexican restaurants, but haven't ever cooked with them myself. Alice describes a basic tomatillo salsa: tomatillos, jalapenos, cilantro, garlic and a little salt. Alice recommends a variation that adds a mashed avocado, so I threw one of those in, too. All blended with the new appliance. What a great job it did! Wow! I didn't have to turn the setting up any higher than "1" (it goes from 1 to 9) to blend perfectly in just a few seconds. And I actually had good control over what was going on.

It splashed a little bit, but the minor resulting mess was much, much less than the mess I usually make cleaning the damned blender. The new appliance was extremely easy and fast to clean. The thing I've always hated about traditional blenders is cleaning them. Taking all the pieces apart, washing them, drying them, putting them all back together again. Aargh. Takes twenty times longer than the actual blending. Well, those days are OVER. I'm in love with the hand-held.

So we had tomatillo salsa over Trader Joe's enchiladas (which were disappointing), and on flour tortillas (which were good). Looking forward to tomatillo salsa over chicken, fish, oven-roasted veggies, on corn chips. Maybe it's even time for more quesadillas and nachos. All easy-to-fix stuff that's my idea of good early summer food.

Otherwise? Sewing like a maniac to finish Scott's quilt for his sister. And I've just survived 2.5 days of having a builder here working on the eternal list of "little things" that need adjusting and fixing and touching-up. These guys are wonderful, but I find their presence in my house, when it goes on for days at a time, to be seriously disruptive. Pisses me off. On the other hand, our viga ceilings are looking really spiff now after their year of shrinking since installation. And you wonder why I need chocolate....

72 down; 233 to go

Salad for Dinner

Rocket Salad with Parmesan - pg. 237

Alice loves rocket. In these parts we call it arugula, so I'm not sure how she comes to call it rocket, living as she does only 4 hours drive from here. At farmers market Randy and I nearly always buy the "spicy mix" of lettuce for salads since we love stuff like arugula and spicy mustard greens.

Last week Randy had a bug to make arugula "pesto" which was really good. So, we bought a lot of just plain arugula, enough for his "pesto" and for me to make this salad. Just arugula with a basic vinaigrette, topped with shaved curls of parmesan and toasted walnuts. Okay, I just basically heated the walnuts in my omelette pan on the cook top. What I didn't know before this was the thing about using a vegetable peeler to cut curls of parmesan. Boy, was that slick! Way easier than grating hard cheese.

Saw two movies this weekend: Ironman 2 and Toy Story 3. The first didn't have the sass of the original, but the Toy Story franchise has just gotten better with every installment. As a dedicated Barbie lover and collector, I especially enjoyed the Barbie and Ken subplot in Toy Story 3. Yes, I saw it in 3D. Love 3D. And, I finished John Pipkin's "Woodsburner," part of my library adult summer reading program. "Woodsburner" is historical fiction, based on a fire accidentally set by Thoreau the summer before he went to Walden Pond. The fire nearly destroyed the town of Concord.

71 down; 234 to go

Getting Sauced

Bagna Cauda - pg. 230

This is pretty cool stuff, although served warm. Butter, olive oil, thinly sliced garlic, lemon zest, a pinch of salt, and (wait for it...) 10 anchovy fillets carefully stripped from 5 salt-packed anchovies. Alice must really like playing with her food. Although, pain as it is to fillet those salt-packed anchovies, I read somewhere today that they are bigger and something elser (I can't remember what) than the canned ones. (Is bigger really better?)

Bagna cauda is Piedmontese for warm bath. The warm bath is the olive oil/butter that all the other stuff is in. You use it as a dip, in the traditional manner, but we used it as a sauce over wild Alaskan sockeye salmon fillets and oven roasted veggies (potatoes, carrots, red onions, and green beans all cut into pieces about the same size and tossed with a bit of olive oil and salt).

This fish and veggies thing is my current favorite dinner. Put everything on parchment lined baking sheets and stick the whole thing in the oven. The veggies for 15 minutes, then add the fish for another 10-15 minutes, all at 400 degrees. Season and sauce as you wish. Clean up is a breeze. Well, it would be anyway since Randy cleans up when I cook....

Otherwise, I'm enjoying our new kitten, Stuart, who was a gift to my husband for his 60th birthday last week. I want Stuart to be a traveling cat, so we did some errands today and voted in our special election. Currently reading "Woodsburner" by John Pipkin as part of my summer adult library reading program. And spending too much time of Facebook.

70 down; 235 to go

Peach Salsa

Peach Salsa - pg. 231

I know, I know. You can buy the stuff at Trader Joe's. But, I made some. There will be variations in the future. We ate a whole bowl of the stuff tonight on quesadillas. It will be better when I can get better peaches. I still have lots of red onion, jalapenos and cilantro to make tons more. And there is something to be said for fresh, fresh, fresh salsa.

69 down; 236 to go

Getting Back Into the Groove

I'm finally getting back into the groove after bugs and travel. The library now is totally organized, which is a good thing. It's such a pleasant room -- I really enjoy hanging out there. The books are optimally arranged. All the art that needs to be placed and hung is in the little closet so I can take things out and place them, one by one. Our cross and sun collection is hung in the dining area on the big arched wall so that there is plenty of room for the collection to grow. I've order museum putty for pots and baskets and such. I must be a nester, maybe a bird, in some part of me. I feel SO much happier and more productive when my environment is in order.

I really enjoyed our time in Concord last week. I got a whole new view of US history. E.g., what part of "well-ordered militia" don't the gun nuts understand? And, if early Concordians are typical examples, citizens have never trusted their governments and have always hated taxes no matter who was running the show! Of course, they've always wanted what taxes pay for, they've just not wanted to pay for it. They resented having to actually pay for the Revolutionary War almost as much as they resented that tax on tea.... And, I have a renewed interesting in the literature that grew out of Concord, especially since I realized that one of my favorite "shot heard 'round the world" figures, Rev. William Emerson, was the grandfather of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Connections. It's all about connections.

This morning I'm just catching up with assorted paper pushing and bill paying. Not my favorite thing to do, but part of straightening up my nest nonetheless.

Oh yes. Last night for dinner I made a pasta dish with leftover Simple Tomato Sauce and Trader Joe's spinach-chive linguine. A few bacon pieces scattered on top with chopped parsley and parmesan. Oven-roasted cauliflower, which I absolutely love. A Romaine salad dressed with the leftover honey-mustard sauce from last night's dinner. Nothing new, but nearly all stuff I've learned from TAOSF.

What I've Just Read

Montana 1948 by Larry Watson. A short novel about a family caught in a moral dilemma. Which is more important, family loyalty or doing the right thing? The first would be easy. The second is hard and life-changing for everyone involved. Well written. Spare. Reminded me of Annie Proulx whose work I love. A good book. Not a great book, but a good book. I read this for my new book club.

The Minutemen and Their World by Robert A. Gross. Winner of the Bancroft Prize in 1977 (google it). Read at Mount Holyoke right before a visit to Concord. Using the research methods of social history, Gross writes an engaging and illuminating story of the lives of ordinary Concordians before, during and immediately after the "shot heard 'round the world" at the North Bridge (the first Patriot shots in the Revolutionary War). Gave me a whole new perspective on a lot of contemporary social and political issues. My favorite Concordian was Rev. William Emerson who is the grandfather of Ralph Waldo Emerson, which leads us into the great literary history of Concord: Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne and the Alcotts. I loved this book. No soap opera is as good as real life.

Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America by Ellen Chesler. An exhaustive and exhausting bio read on the 50th anniversary of The Pill. Not always an easy read unless you really want tons of detail, but certainly illuminates the life and personality of Sanger. I now very much admire Margaret for her tireless and politically savey fight for the most basic of human rights, the right to control one's own reproductive life. We all owe her a lot.

My Mother Was Wrong About Cauliflower

Roasted Sliced Cauliflower - pg. 299

Oh hell, let's be honest. My mother was wrong about a lot of things; cauliflower was just one of them. She wasn't much of a cook. Then again, she wasn't much of a mother, either. But, I digress. Last night I oven-roasted sliced cauliflower, served with a sprinkling of bread crumbs and chopped parsley. Oh my! Delicious! As long as the oven was on, I roasted the last few asparagus spears still lurking in the frig. And some sweet Italian chicken sausages from Trader Joe's which were mighty tasty with a little mustard smeared on them. Randy made a Romaine salad.

Otherwise, as long as nothing is totally screwed up in my life right now (how unusual is THAT!?), I'm just moving forward with my ever-so-long list of stuff that needs to be done. I like working on that list. Makes me actually believe that I'm accomplishing something. Still, having been around the sun a few times, I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop. When life is good, I never forget that "this, too, shall pass." Cheery thought, no?

68 recipes completed; 237 to go

Tomato Sauce with Bacon and Onion

Tomato Sauce with Bacon and Onion - pg. 265

I made a batch of Simple Tomato Sauce from fresh tomatoes from farmers market. This is great stuff to have in the frig since it can be the base for all sorts of very quick dinners. Tonight I made a TAOS recipe (sort of) with the sauce and some fancy pancetta from the fancy deli/market in Berkeley. The recipe actually just calls for using fresh tomatoes, but I figured the Simple Sauce would do just as well. While the pancetta was certainly good, rather more ordinary bacon would have been okay, too. I used green garlic in the sauce which made a milder flavor. And, I oven roasted a batch of asparagus for something green on the plate.

Yesterday I volunteered at the Central Coast Cactus and Succulent Society's annual show and sale. Wow! I've found my flora niche, so to speak. I can see that my collection will start mostly with agaves. I love agaves and they will do well here in pots.

Oh yes, I saw a very strange movie yesterday. The Good, the Bad and the Weird. A Korean western set in Manchuria in the 30s with decided Tarantino influences.

Best of all? It's true. The bugs are dead. We've got our house back. Yeah!!

67 down and 238 to go

Alrighty Then...

Gary Coleman and Dennis Hopper are gone. So are the wood-boring beetles in the library woodwork. None of this happened quickly or easily. The house is pretty much clean, reorganized and back to normal. Yeah!! As you might imagine, I'm feeling a whole lot better emotionally now. Got a pedicure and a haircut this morning. Yeah!! Went, with Randy, to the Central Coast Cactus and Succulent Society's annual show and sale this afternoon after a nice Thai lunch. Yeah!!

In the spirit of Alice's very latest cookbook (theme is techniques to learn by heart), I made a no-recipe dinner. Trader Joe's lemon pepper noodles. Bacon. Garlic. Parsley. Olive oil. Parmesan cheese. Tasty and pretty quick.

Do I have anything remarkable to say? Hell no. Only that I love, love, love having my house clean and organized. It means that I can go on to do more productive things with my time. It's the same way I feel about making the bed first thing in the morning. All is right with the world and I can get on to bigger and far more interesting things. Like cook, garden, play with our cats, read, bead, sew. You get the picture.

Life Is Weird, But Peas Are Good

Green Pea and Asparagus Ragout - pg. 316

Clearly, life has been unsettled of late. And I've been depressed about various things. And sidetracked. Between the last new-recipe cooking entry on May 5 and today, I only made sweet tart dough. Which was intended for a lemon tart, but that didn't happen. I ate the dough. Raw. Does that tell you I've been miserable, or at least distracted?

Somewhat better now, although it's been 3 steps forward and 2 steps back. Maybe more like 2 and 1/2 steps back. But, I managed to crank out a meal tonight. Just some Trader Joe's chicken sausage ravioli with the very last of the Simple Tomato Sauce. And (ta-dah!) Green Pea and Asparagus Ragout. Tasted good, although I'm not sure I'm much into ragouts -- all that stuff whacked up into little tiny pieces. I guess I like my veggies a bit more chunky. But, it was nice to chaw on fresh green peas and asparagus. Yah good love fresh veggies.

66 down and 239 to go -- must pick up the pace since this pace is pathetic

Up to Our Ears in Animals

Dinner tonight was swell. Chard frittata slices sitting in pools of simple tomato sauce. Oh yum! And there's plenty of frittata leftovers. Maybe for breakfast tomorrow?

For lunch, I made some liver, potatoes and onions. And a blood orange balsamic reduction for the liver. Good grief. Talk about gilding the lily....

Our local bobcat paid us an extended visit this morning. I think it's a girl. She's a doll. We enjoyed watching her so much.

Then our project manager came up with the Ecola bug-killer-guy to investigate what can be done about the wood-boring beetles that are continuing to eat the woodwork in the library. Heat treatment. Which means I have to take EVERYTHING out of the library. And then, of course, put it all back. Oh thrill. These animals I could live without.

There's a lizard in the garage. Cute little guy. But he belongs outside, not in the garage. I think he left this afternoon, but I'm not sure. If he gets into the house, he's cat food. So let's hope he leaves. Soon.

On the way home from our late-afternoon coffee date, I saw our local doe-and-2-fawns. The babies are growing fast, and learning about life around roads very quickly, thank heaven. But still nursing if mom stops for a rest and look around!

After dinner? Lots and lots of swallows showed up. Wow! What a show! Today, life is good.

Quick Catch-Up

Saw a good movie-- The Secret in Their Eyes. Good murder mystery, even though --nah, probably because of the fact that --we know the killer half way through the flick. Argentine; I was surprised how little I needed the subtitles. Won the Oscar this year for best foreign language film. Read a crumby book-- A Reliable Wife. I read it, but don't bother. Believe me. Don't bother. It's a highly unreliable book.

New plant!! Euphorbia tirucalli. It's my new baby. I love this plant. Won it at the raffle at the monthly meeting of the Central Coast Cactus and Succulent Society. Mine was the LAST ticket drawn and I still won the plant I'd had my eyes on from the moment I walked into the room. Yippee!!

All my children have paws, you know. They sent a card and had their dad take me out for breakfast. They got me a cool new octopus-themed apron from Anthropologie. They cuddled with me on the settle at the end of the day to read and enjoy the fireplace.

Haven't cooked anything interesting, but I did have some wonderful Gliddon Point oysters at Pier 46 Saturday. For lunch. That's my idea of lunch. A diet Coke and 6 oysters on the half shell.

Day 89 - Pasta Alla Puttanesca! Ah Naples!

Spicy Tomato Sauce with Capers, Anchovies and Olives - pg. 266

You may recall that I now have a small stash of salt-packed anchovies. Today, I filleted 3 of them. I am now qualified to do brain surgery on goldfish. The things I'm learning to do!

Really, I love this dish. Plenty of garlic, olives, parsley, olive oil, capers. Fishy, spicy, olivey. What's not to love. And since I first had to make up a batch of Simple Tomato Sauce, I now have enough sauce to tackle something else new. It was all pretty easy, too. Even the filleting, although I did tackle that one when I was certain that all the cats were sound, sound asleep this afternoon.

It was a good day for deer sightings. One was nose-pressed-to-the-glass outside the foyer this morning. And this afternoon I saw the first fawns of 2010 -- 2 tiny babies out with their mom. So small! So cute! And just dumb as boards as their mom herded them out of the middle of the street.

I'm taking a break from Homer, reading a rather trashy page-turner from a recent best-seller list. I think the list is called Trashy Page-Turners. Sometimes a reader just has to have a little fun.

65 recipes down and 240 to go (blows me away that I'm cooking all these new things)

Not By Alice Alone

Well, I suppose one COULD live by eating just from TAOSF, but I'm also now working from another new (to me) cookbook: "Healthy Eating: Use the Glycemic Index for Optimal Health." Now THAT'S a title that should send any normal person running in the opposite direction! But the great color photos sucked me in. That, and the fact that I knew this would be a lot of protein and veggie dishes. Plus, these recipes are pretty easy and quick to make for dinner. Seriously, as I thumbed through the book I just wanted to cook and eat everything! It's my kind of food. Alice would approve, I'm sure.

I started tonight with Vietnamese Beef Soup. Had to make a couple substitutions, thus yielding Atascadero-Vietnamese Beef Soup, but we got the basic idea. I don't think I've ever cooked with rice noodles before. It was just delicious! Tasty. Loaded with veggies. A little beef.

My Big Accomplishment for the day was to hang Tibetan prayer flags outside above the garage door. Last fall we hung them between 2 oak trees, but one tree lost a major branch in a storm, thus bringing down the flags. I decided to wait until the winter storms were over before trying again. The project moved ahead nicely, except for the huge bee swarm that came up the draw and past the house in the middle of things. First I heard them. Then I saw them. Then I got into the house, closing the garage door behind me, as fast as I've ever moved before in my entire life. Didn't want to get in their way....

Such is my life these days. Boring, but low-stress. One out of 2 isn't that bad. At least I'm not getting into trouble and not pissing anyone off.

The Iliad

I'm tired. Got up way too early this morning to get out of the house before a crew came to test our house for air leaks. Sort of. More or less. Something like that. We are a test site for all kinds of weird stuff. New passive-solar strawbale house and inability to say "no."

Anyway, last night I finished The Iliad, the first reading in The Lifetime Reading Plan. Yes, it's a good read, if you're into that sort of story. War, murder, pettiness. Great art reaches across centuries and cultures. However, it reminds me once again that mankind is still little more than a power-hungry, egotistical, murderous savage. And that we always have made our gods and goddesses in our own image. We don't know today why "God lets bad things happen to good people." In ancient Greece, even the gods could not control Fate. Same thing. I'm further amazed at the graphic nature of the killing in The Iliad. Makes modern media look nearly tame -- certainly no worse. Maybe The Iliad speaks clearly to us today because we haven't changed one iota since that time, nor has our arts and entertainment. I couldn't care much about any of the characters no matter how hard I tried. Well, I guess I'm a better person for having read The Iliad. We'll see. On to the next item on the list.

Day 88 - Remember Shelling Peas??

Spring Pea Soup - pg. 238

It's been a jillion years since I've shelled peas. I didn't even know you could get them at our local farmers' markets. It was fun to shell peas. Meditative. Getting back in touch with your food and all that. "What do you mean green peas don't come out of plastics bags and cans???" The soup was wonderful. Very Alice. Butter, onions, salt, peas and water. Delicious. I just served it with a loaf of fresh-from-the-machine bread, butter, and olive jam. Oh yes, big dollops of creme fraiche on the soup. Gotta have a little luxury.

This weekend I've been doing the ings. Shopping. Cleaning. Washing. You know the drill. But we did go out for breakfast this morning at a little local cafe that makes great biscuits. Yesterday I checked out the new T. J. Maxx in SLO and found 2 little saucepans, one a Calphalon (my favorites) to replace 2 seriously old and beat-up ones. And saw "The Art of the Steal," a documentary about the sad theft of the Barnes art collection. The more I see money and power in action, the more I hate it. Which reminds me that I'm within 14 pages of wrapping up The Iliad.

64 down; 241 to go

Sew On and Sew Forth

Sewed my brains out today. Finished the back for a large quilt. Made the binding for it. This makes 3 finished tops/backs/bindings in the pile to go to the machine quilter. Sew, I tackled another UFO in my pile which is to make storage bags for all my quilts. Well, that will happen one at a time, but at least I can start with the 3 in the pile. And maybe the 1 of mine that is currently at the quilter's shop. I started one after dinner.

Dinner. Yes. Fish and chips at Pier 46. I love the food there. And I sewed a lot. Did I mention that I sewed a lot?

Leftovers Again

But you'll hear no complaints from me! There was plenty of the bean gratin for dinner tonight. Since we're still in asparagus, I'll go through all the ways Alice teaches to cook them. Tonight? Boiled. Briefly. Then served at room temperature with a blood orange vinaigrette. We had a few pieces of Pier 46's wonderful pickled herring as an appetizer. Is there a cuisine on the planet that doesn't have pickled fish?

Gorgeous here today, although windy and chilly. But the air is crystal clear and you can see forever. Gawd, I love this place. And Randy reports that the Lonesome Turkey who's been hanging around here for the last couple weeks finally has a girlfriend. You go, Guy!

I'm shooting for completing the back for another UFO quilt, which will make it a total of 3 ready to be quilted. Yeah!