Pink of Perfection

For as long as I can remember, I have been drawn to treehouses, deeply-cushioned reading chairs, down comforters–hell, let’s call a spade a spade–bed, sunny nooks on cold afternoons, and stews. What do all these things have in common? They are cozy, and I, my friends, am an unabashed fan of cozy.

Sure, I love sexy, and also adventurous, and certainly a taste of glamour from time to time. But give me a wisp of a nightgown, a blue and white teacup filled with hot chocolate, and a battered paperback and I will know just what to do.

Which is why last Sunday night I got into my head that I wanted to make a garlicky beef daube and have it simmering on the stove for an hour while I puttered around the newly-clean apartment, flipping through a magazine and tucking-in hospital corners. That is Sunday Night Cozy, a quiet and delicate mix of hands-off cooking and gentle productivity about the house.

But then I realized I am a complete dope: Sebastian would be drinking Mexican beer and cheering on the Giants in a bar on a divey drag of 4th Avenue, and my Sunday night would not see us lingering over glasses of cabernet and pretending we were in an old French farmhouse. Ah, reality. Instead, I decided to let the daube bubble away while I chomped loudly on another favorite meal (chips and salsa) while watching the Law & Order SVU marathon, blissfully alone. I’m telling you, sometimes life turns out even better than you expect.

But back to the daube. As I reluctantly pulled myself away from the television Sunday night, the daube was ready, wonderfully aromatic with thyme, garlic, red wine, and vegetables, and the meat was tender. I let it cool, then stowed it in the fridge before it would reappear on Monday night as a quick supper. And here we have yet another lesson learned in the book of “How to Eat a Decent Supper Most Nights”: let something cook slowly on the stovetop or in the oven while you have time to amble languorously about your home and admire the late afternoon light. And then stow it away for later in the week when you will have burst through the door, harried and hungry, looking for something wholesome to eat. Something that will restore your humanity when the world has taken it out of you. Something cozy. This is it.

Why does it take so long to learn the simplest lessons?

Garlicky Beef Daube
Serves 4-6, adapted from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything

Here’s what I love about this recipe: you don’t have to brown the meat. You get to skip that whole troublesome, splattery step. And while I find beef bourguignon to be quite a pain in the rear and perhaps not worth the time and effort (though I’m glad I tried), this is marvelously simple. Just chop everything up, let it marinate for a good long while, and then let it simmer a good long while more.

8 garlic cloves
2-3 pounds beef chuck or round, cut into 1-1 1/2 inch cubes
1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch thick rounds
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 1/2 cup dry red wine
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley

In a large dutch oven, combine six peeled and minced garlic cloves, beef, onion, carrots, vinegar, wine, thyme, and bay leaf. Stir, cover, and refrigerate for 1-24 hours.

After the desired period of marination, place dutch oven over moderate heat and bring to to a boil. Then lower the heat, cover, and let simmer for 1-1 1/2 hours, until the meat is tender. Remove cover and reduce liquid slightly, if necessary.

Peel and mince the two remaining garlic cloves, and add to the daube. Simmer for another five minutes and scatter parley over top. Serve with buttered egg noodles and something green, like green beans with caramelized shallots.

The schedule around our house has changed as of late. Before the sun has even winked an eye at the horizon, my number one guy slips out of bed, quietly dresses and heads to his studio. There, before I am even thinking of getting out of bed (or am thinking about it, but not exactly relishing the thought), he is pumping up a team of creative peeps, leading the charge in a daily mad dash to create three minutes of lively, irreverent, online comedy. This show will have scads of fans, I can just feel it. It’s kind of like Pee-Wee’s Playhouse for grown-ups.

As long as Sebastian and I have been taking evening walks together and talking about the future, he has wanted a situation much like this: a place to call his own, filled with creative energy and talented contributors, churning out popular content. I don’t think he bargained for the tight deadlines and early mornings. Those are just some of the unexpected perks. Sometimes when your dream life arrives, its actual form can be a bit different that the way you envisioned it.

You all know how I feel about people living out their dreams. I’ve been watching Sebastian these past few weeks stressed and tired, just as anyone starting a business would be. But from my vantage point, the picture is much brighter than perhaps the one in it can see: how remarkable to do exactly what you set out to do. It must take, I can only imagine, a tremendous amount of guts, talent, and more than a little bit of luck.

I spend a lot of time scheming about how I can squeeze the most out of life, about how I can get the life I’m living to look more like the life I dream about. To watch someone you admire and love stepping into the dream scenario they have always imagined for themselves? It’s enough to make you want to get up early and bake. I carried a tole tray of these muffins to my guy and the Daily Special team in the hopes that this would show them what an amazing job I think they’re doing and perhaps to add a little sparkle to their day. What a fun, energetic, boisterous ball of fantastic energy they were! Forgive me if I sound as if I am bragging on their behalf, but nothing makes me happier than seeing people do what they love.

These pumpkin muffins had a nice autumn ring to them. They weren’t the best muffins in the world (in fact, I burned them), but if you split them open and ate the soft pumpkiny insides, they were very good. They arrived warm. And in this case, it really was the thought that counted.

Pumpkin Pecan Muffins
adapted from Gourmet

1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
3/4 cup canned pumpkin
1/4 cup well-shaken buttermilk
2 large eggs
3 tablespoons molasses
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup finely chopped pecans (about 3 ounces)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and drop 12 muffin wrappers into the cups of a muffin baking sheet. Melt butter in a medium-sized bowl. While the butter is cooling, sift together flours, baking powder, spices, salt, and baking soda. Stir in brown sugar. In the butter bowl, mix in buttermilk, pumpkin, eggs, molasses, and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Divide evenly among muffin cups and sprinkle with chopped pecans.

You know how recipes always call for a mere drop of buttermilk, but you can usually only buy it in the quart size? Wouldn’t it be helpful to have a collection of recipes that all require a bit of buttermilk so you would never have to waste a drop? If you have great recipes that require buttermilk please share them in the comments!

I am in full hibernation mode, are you? Shortly after nightfall, I’m under the covers with the lights out and getting up in the morning feels downright unnatural. All I want is to nest in my apartment with travelogues, a towering stack of cookbooks, and my Julia and Jacques dvds. Groceries will be delivered to my door, and I will send notice to my friends and employer that, regrettably, I will be unavailable until the magnolia trees bloom.

Continue reading “Eggs In A Hole” »

Perhaps because I’ve been watching Marilla and Anne in their cozy, old-fashioned farmhouse kitchen, I felt a particular urge on Saturday to hover over a stove for a couple of hours with glass preserve jars at hand. I have always wanted to make marmalade. Though in reality I usually sleep through the breakfast hour and rise in time to have a burger at one, there’s nothing I love more than the idea of a sunny breakfast table set with steaming coffee, pots of jams, and piles of baked goods. And when you have a Saturday night filled with holiday parties to attend, what gift for your host could be more charming than homemade marmalade?

Continue reading “Orange Marmalade” »

• High bandwidth

Forget kitchen twine (who has that on hand?) and pacing around in expectant circles, basting and changing the oven temperature. This is the lazy way to roast a chicken.

All you’ll need is a 3-4 pound whole fryer-broiler chicken, a cake pan to squeeze it into, and an hour and half to sit around while the chicken sizzles away in the oven and makes your entire apartment smell great. This technique has never failed me in yielding super-juicy chicken.

A little chicken this size will make skimpy-ish servings for four, but I think it’s best shared between you and a friend on a Sunday night with plenty of leftovers to use during the week in chicken quesadillas with chipotle-sour cream, late night chicken sandwiches with tons of mayonnaise, or a spicy chicken corn chowder.

I mention two tools in this episode that are by no means necessary (I have neither but could probably use both), but certainly make things a little easier. An oven thermometer is helpful in ancient and sometimes unreliable rental apartment ovens. The thermometer hangs right on the rack in your oven, letting you know how hot it actually is inside, no matter what the exterior dial might claim. Clearing up that discrepancy sooner rather than later can save you a lot of heartache, particularly when you’re baking.The other tool I mention is a meat thermometer. It looks kind of like a needle with a dial at the end, and you can stick it right into your chicken (or leg of lamb or steak or whatever) to find out if it’s done. It’s a cool tool to have since it saves you from wrecking the presentation of your dish by cutting into it before it gets to the table. Since, however, we opted not to tie our chicken’s legs together and left them splayed open in a rather unladylike manner, presentation might not be our highest priority at this juncture. All the same, each time you plunge a fork or knife into your chicken, you’re releasing juices that really ought to stay inside to keep things, well, juicy.