Pink of Perfection

After such a lovely weekend, Monday morning could have felt like a major bummer. But the truth is, I’m still feeling glowingly lucky to have the funnest, greatest friends, to have danced with them in a driveway in Iowa and celebrated love, to have gone midnight swimming, and to have slept in a giant California King-sized bed. “It’s really great to know people for a long time,” I said to Katie while we were dancing to Michael Jackson. “It’s the best,” she said.

And then I spent this morning looking at Meg’s blog, which always makes me feel really happy. And I drank my coffee. And thought about adventure, and which one we should take next. You know that feeling, when you just want to set out for somewhere new, hop in a car, or start from scratch somewhere new? How do you scratch that itch?

And I thought about these scones that I made last week, which were truly quick and studded with lusciously ripe raspberries.

All in all, not a bad way to start the week.

Continue reading “Fast Raspberry Scones” »

When I swung my legs out of bed this morning, I did not feel that I was getting up on the wrong side. In fact, I was feeling confident about my to do list and how I was going to rain down check marks next to each item. I had an acceptable outfit in mind, and a coffee on the horizon. Life was looking good.

But, looks, as well know, can be deceiving, and a day that starts out fine can turn into a bit of a mess. You know what I’m talking about: you stub your toe, you bounce a check, you’re down to the last of your deodorant, you spend two-and-a-half hours in a waiting room. You screw something up at work, and then all of sudden, your outfit’s not looking so cute after all.

These are the kind of days I just like to scratch from the record. Get in bed as early as possible with a thoroughly engrossing novel, and close the bedroom door on the real world. But when your day is sucking before noon, this tactic isn’t all that successful.

In these moments, all I can do is try to remember all the things that are going well (new high score in Tetris!) and remember brighter days. Like Tuesday, for instance, when I was kicking so much ass at life that I actually made muffins for breakfast one morning. They were wonderfully moist with the wholesome, earthy heft of whole wheat flour and ground flax seed. This recipe, for sure, is a keeper. This day, though? Not so much. I just hope Annie was right.

Continue reading “Wholesome Blueberry Banana Muffins” »

Happy Monday!

Of course, what I really mean is, great to see you again. As lovely as the weekends are, I’m always happy to come back to this little corner of the world and say hello to you again. Hello! Are you in a crap mood? Are you still glowing from the weekend? Whatever your state, it’s good to see you.

Today I am having some thoughts about granola. Is there ever really a healthy granola? How can oats and nuts add up to 7 million calories? And then there is the matter of burning. I am thinking of taking up a second career as a professional granola burner. I can bake springy custards and roll out homemade puff pastry, but I can’t seem to make granola without having to throw away lots of browned bits. Oh well. As my mom says, “God isn’t finished with me yet.”

With these questions in mind, it was with great enthusiasm that I came across a particular recipe for granola that didn’t seem to be an oil-sugar sponge disguised as a health food with so much reputation it’s become its own slang. There was a relatively small amount of oil, the intriguing addition of egg whites, and the option of using a sweetener like agave nectar. This seemed like a very good granola to me, and the jar of only-slightly-burned stuff that I passed on to a friend last week got good reviews.

But I can’t help but think that the granola I really like is the one my mom makes. It’s full of shredded coconut and slivered almonds, and the recipe is written on a sheet of notebook paper tucked inside a yellow binder. There is a coffee can on the top shelf of her fridge filled with it. So on Mother’s Day Eve, I sprinkled a bit over a little bowl of strawberry yogurt. It felt good to be home.

When it comes to my own homemade granola, though, I’ll probably stick with this version. (Or this one, which I have yet to make myself but a friend brought to book club and was heavenly.) While there are some family recipes we carry on unchanged, there are others we have to discover and write for ourselves in order to suit the people we’re becoming, or want to become. There’s a place, though, for the recipes that transport us to another time and another age. I’ll keep my hunger for mom’s granola confined to trips home and those care packages I happily lug back to the city.

Continue reading “The Quest for Healthy Granola” »

As soon as I saw the page titled “How to Fry” in my Grand Diplôme books, I knew this lesson would really just be an excuse to make beignets. Ever since I sat in the French Quarter late one Friday night in March, my black dress dusted with tell-tale powdered sugar, I’ve collected recipes for these airy pillows of dough. But frying isn’t a cooking technique that gets much play in my repertoire. And so the recipes sat in my delicious account gathering internet dust. That is, they languished there until Super Bowl Sunday, when suddenly I had the gumption and urge to make these. My bravery fueled by coffee, I put on my apron and dug in the cabinets for the splatter guard.

This recipe makes a lot of beignets. As in, you will certainly be tired of flipping dough balls in oil before the dough is all gone. But you should soldier on, cause who wants to waste 7 cups of bread flour? These would be great to make at a brunch party where you could hand off the frying job. What I learned about frying is that it takes no real skill. It’s just a matter of keeping a close eye out for a deepening golden color, and then flipping.

Because I’m not a regular fryer, I didn’t have a thermometer to hang on the side of the pan. This proved to be no big deal and please don’t let it stop you from trying these. I remembered the advice of a Southern friend and kept the gas at medium or medium-low. I decided the oil was hot enough to start frying when a flick of flour sizzled when it hit the surface. I didn’t crowd the pan, and if things seemed like they were getting too intensely sizzly, I dropped the heat a touch more.

All I have to say is, thank heavens for book club. If I hadn’t been able to send six women home with a grease-stained paper lunch sacks filled with these powdered sugar stomach bombs, I don’t know what might have happened. Frankly, I might not be here today.

Continue reading “How To Fry: French Quarter-Style Beignets” »

a fresh start in the new year

image via j_bary

the snow on the windowsills

Season 1 of The Wire

Kandinsky at the Guggenheim

trying out the best $2 tacos in Brooklyn

bath salts at home with that amazing “I’m at a spa” smell

baked oatmeal for cold mornings

image via alicepopkorn

guided meditations at meditation oasis

and you, my pretties?

Allow me to introduce you to a new very special someone in my life…

To answer your unasked but anticipated questions: yes, it is as wonderful as they say; yes, it is absolutely the heaviest item in our entire household; yes, I feel rather lucky and pretty spoiled to be the recipient of this thing. But guilt aside, having this mixer on my counter feels like crossing a sort of threshold. I think I have just entered the realm of Fancy Baker Type. More importantly, if I ever needed a push to whip up more cookies and cakes (I didn’t), this is it. I’m positively chomping at the bit to feed people desserts.

Which is why last weekend you could find me in the eye of a floury storm. First up was banana bread. Now, I know people have staunchly held beliefs about what they want from their banana bread, and I wouldn’t dare to call this the best banana bread. But in terms of what I’m looking for — a tender crumb but not cakey, a pronounced banana flavor without other distractions, and a relatively healthy composition — this is it.

I served this to a highly discerning friend (the type who can actually identify notes of cassis and butter in the wine you serve her) on an overcast Saturday afternoon. She came over wearing a plaid shirt and suede boots, tucked her legs under her on the couch, and declared this banana bread delicious. That out of the way, we poured the tea, and the real talk could commence.

Continue reading “My Best Banana Bread” »

You bought a quart of buttermilk for one recipe and now you’re wondering what to do with the rest? So been there. Allow me to introduce the Ultimate Buttermilk Recipe Repository! I scoured the web for the best-looking recipes that call for a bit of buttermilk, giving us plenty of opportunities to use up what’s still left in the fridge.

Breakfast

• Wheat Germ Scones with Dried Fruit and Nuts
• Buttermilk Banana Bread
• Pumpkin Pecan Muffins
• Blueberry Buttermilk Pancakes
• Buttermilk Bran Muffins
• Buttermilk Oatmeal Muffins
• Pumpkin Walnut Flapjacks
• Strawberry Buckwheat Muffins

Continue reading “Ultimate Buttermilk Recipe Repository” »

You know when you’re hungry, and nothing sounds good, and you’re just trying to throw something together before you faint? You are motivated solely by hunger and struggling with one of those passing phases of what-to-cook ennui when, shockingly, you create something quite good. That is this quiche.

This “quiche” is a weeknight pinch-hitting blank canvas that can work with whatever ingredients you have; if you have eggs and milk in your fridge you can make this or a version of it. Someone who will remain unnamed said it reminded him of his bachelor days and a dish he used to whip up for the ladies called Impossible Quiche. But let’s not go there.

For me, our ingredients were portobello mushrooms, frozen spinach, and an onion. I found a knob of cheese in a drawer and grated a bit of that to scatter on top. But the rules here are practically non-existent: you could try bacon, ham, bits of leftover roast chicken; asparagus, frozen broccoli, peppers, leeks. Like a little black dress, this quiche can be dressed up or down, and best of all, it will go with pretty much whatever you have in your closet. I mean, fridge.

Continue reading “$5 Dinner (or less): Crustless Quiche” »