A variation on this viral TikTok recipe ~ a bed of zucchini, a brick of feta, and some fresh basil, parsley and baby spinach give a green slant to the dinner proceedings, perfectly timed for anyone looking to forego the meat on a Friday in Lent. The baking of the veggies and cheese at 400 degrees is what does most of the work – some saved pasta water makes it as light or as creamy as you like it. Fridays call for simple dinners like this.
The doubly-devastating whammy of finding out that two of our favorite food haunts in Ogunquit were closing – Amore Breakfast and Bread & Roses – put Andy and I in a funk, as we had already bee missing that Beautiful Place By the Sea for a couple of years. The only solution I could think of to ameliorate some of our sadness was making this attempt at approximating the Chocolate Oatie found at Bread & Roses. (B&R are actually shifting their operation just a little further up the coastline, to Wells.)
There wasn’t anything exceptional or especially wonderful about the chocolate oatie that they offered – it was a basic chocolate and oatmeal bar – but the circumstances and moments in which Andy procured this particular sweet treat were always magical. It meant we were on vacation, visiting one of our favorite places on earth, and we were together in the old knotty pine room. It meant there were either lilacs blooming outside the window, or the cozy smell of burning leaves to accentuate a blazing fall. It meant that the beach was nearby, whether in sun or rain or hints of snow. It meant time with my husband, time with my family, and time with our Ogunquit friends. That simple little oatie, as humble and unremarkable as it might otherwise be, came imbued with a power and enchantment that signified happiness and joy and ease.
It’s been too long since we’ve been to Ogunquit – it’s been too long since we’ve been anywhere actually – and Andy and I feel that longing keenly. This is my small way of bringing some of its magic back to us, in the same way that a Rosa rugosa bush in our backyard reminds us of the Marginal Way every time it blooms and lends its spicy perfume to the breeze.
{For this chocolate oatmeal bar, I used this recipe, and substituted pecans for the walnuts. I’m thinking of modifying it a bit, maybe incorporating some coconut flakes since I have to get rid of half a bag.}
This little cake recipe hails originally from Burma, where its subtly sweet richness arises only slightly from a very runny batter. It doesn’t go sky-high but its lowly stature belies its delicate taste, made from a lovely combination of coconut, cashews and some freshly ground cardamom. Any chance to make use of the mortar and pestle is a happy day in the kitchen for me. While the recipe calls for semolina flour, I used wheat flour for the first one I made, and bread flour for this one – and both turned out edible. The magic is in toasting the flour and coconut first, then letting the coconut milk soak into that for fifteen minutes. Some butter and brown sugar and eggs round out the main cake mix, and that dash of cardamom makes all the difference. Full recipe here – this is a grand yet rustic way to see out the winter
Fiending for some hint of summer, I approximated a grilled rib summer dinner with an oven-baked slow-burn set of Carolina pork ribs, served with a new take on mac-and-cheese (that infamous feta pasta dish) for a winter turn at this typically summer plate. After baking at a low and steady 275 degrees for over four hours, the meat fell off the bones, and after another bit of broiling, the sauce caramelized and I didn’t even need Andy to put anything on the grill. It will do have to do until the snow melts, and outside grilling can begin in earnest. We’re starting early this year…
After mastering this no-knead bread recipe that used a packet of active yeast, I got a little too big for my britches, thinking I could create and conquer a sourdough starter from scratch, using whatever yeast was floating in the air. Like some naive mad-scientist, I eagerly read up on various methods of making one’s own sourdough starter, settling for a seven-day endeavor that seemed easy enough. It began with some whole wheat flour and filtered water, set up in a dim, warm place and a mason jar, and on that first day things started happening according to plan.
I followed each step, at the proper intervals, powering through the funky-wet-sock odor of days two and three and four, watching and tracking its rise and fall, feeding it with bread flour and lukewarm filtered water every day, and then on the nights when it was hungry again. Everything seemed to be coming together and advancing as expected. The smelliness slowly subsided into a more beer-like yeasty scent, and the rises and falls were more dramatic, until after a week it seemed that it was time. So well had it gone, that I named my starter ‘Nellie’ for its smelly beginning, and my own adoration of Nellie Oleson from ‘Little House on the Prairie’. (What? You think I’d adore someone as basic as Laura Ingalls? Please. Nellie are I are deep calling to deep.) It is said that the naming process is an important part of creating a proper sourdough starter. It builds trust, and a bit of a bond that makes it all taste better. Unfortunately, Nellie was about to turn on me like a pet monkey.
Following a simple sourdough starter bread recipe, I crafted the dough you see here using the starter, and let it “rise” for 24 hours. It bubbled and expanded a bit, but nothing like the product a simple packet of active yeast had produced for me in the near past. In fact, when I poured it out of its bowl, it became a literal pour that no amount of flour could solidify or correct. Nellie, hating her name or hating her environs or simply hating for the sake of hating, refused to contribute to this batch of bread. In fact, she had seemingly worked to deconstruct my dough, inhibiting any natural rise that the bread flour would have made, turning it into liquid mush. Maybe she just didn’t like her name.
This dismal cooking catastrophe, one of the worst when you consider the time invested, has soured me completely on sourdough. I will stick to my simple no-knead bread from a packet of yeast and do things the old-fashioned, simpler way. Perhaps one day when I’m retired, and have more time to monitor things such as the intricate rise and fall of a starter mix, I’ll try the sourdough thing again. And I won’t name her Nellie.
Positing this as a late-night snack doesn’t mean I didn’t have it for breakfast. When I found a container of candied orange peel on the counter and saw that it was still good, I whipped up a batch of chocolate chip cookies and added some in – because chocolate and orange makes for a killer combo. I also happened to have a new box of Trader Joe’s Blood Orange Rooibos tea on hand, which only adds to the greatness of happy combinations. When the universe conspires to pair things up that belong together, it is folly to resist.
Once in a great while this entity we all populate and frequent and despise – known generally as the internet – and all its accompanying mess that we know and abhor – known as social media – produces something that is actually useful, particularly when it comes to dinner in a hurry. In this case, it’s a viral recipe that is making the rounds of TikTok, and if you enjoy feta and pasta, then this one is definitely for you. Here, as best as I can recollect, is how to do it.
Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Take a casserole dish and pour a container of cherry tomatoes into it. Plop a block of feta into the center and drizzle with a healthy bit of olive oil, salt, pepper, and whatever seasonings you enjoy (basil and oregano and parsley for example, or that container of generic Italian seasoning that we’ve all had in the back of the spice rack since 2008). I added some red pepper flakes for a bit of heat, and some fresh garlic cloves, crushed. Shove that into the oven for about 20 minutes, and cook a pound of whatever pasta you want. I used a penne for this one. Go for al dente, and reserve a bit of the water for later (maybe 3/4 cup or so). When the tomatoes and cheese are done, mash them all together, add the drained pasta to the casserole dish and mix well, adding however much pasta water needed to get the desired consistency, and you have a simple but amazing dinner, done in a little over 20 minutes. The addition of some freshly chopped basil is recommended near the end – I made this on a very snowy day so we didn’t have any in the house and no one was going to get any, so this plain version had to suffice.
I thought it was a gimmicky fad at first, like cloud bread (don’t ask, don’t tell), but this one is a definite keeper – and I’m not even a big feta fan.
Valentine’s Day in the age of COVID doesn’t change our household much. We were never V-Day diners out – so much hype and hoopla with subpar service – and often on one of the snowier days of the year. Not sure what the weather will be this year (though it looks like Tuesday is set for snow as all my office Tuesdays have basically been) so for now we will hunker down and stay warm and cozy inside rather than venturing out and about.
These chocolate chip cookies are all the sweet treat I need anyway. A new favorite recipe in our household, this version was studded with chocolate chips on the outside, inspired by some Disney recipe seen online. That’s how most of our traveling is done these days.
As for Valentine’s Day, I’ll see if I can explore some long-distant memories of this silly faux holiday later today. Love should always be in the air, so if this is our reminder of that then I won’t knock it too hard. And any excuse for a sweet treat is a fine thing by me.
If you like the way these look, it’s easy enough to replicate. Use your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, then roll the tops and sides in a plate of mini chocolate chips. The tighter and more crowded they are at that raw dough stage, the better, as they will slightly spread apart once baked, as seen here. That kind of magic still thrills me.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
So, this big box of Girl Scout cookies arrived the other day, probably because I ordered them. Swept up in the excitement of the season, I may have gone a little overboard, though as much as I’ll pretend to be giving them away they will likely be finished off by the end of the weekend. That’s how I roll these days, and if I have to be rolled around in the new future, let it happen, I won’t care…
Keeping up almost a year of social distancing, my Mom and I have kept in contact through meal exchanges, often in the driveway donning masks, and it has turned certain dinners into virtual mental meet-ups grounded in culinary connections. It’s the best we can do in these perilous times, but there is a great deal of comfort in it, especially in a dish of Filipino food like this bowl of mung beans. My Mom learned how to make a number of Filipino dishes from my Aunt Luz, and she in turn taught me how to make things like pancit and sweet and sour fish.
There are a number of dishes that still bring us together, even when we’re apart – and it’s the same way we can feel connected to people we’ve lost. Food, especially comfort food, and especially in the middle of winter, can be a way of making mental connections with those we love. The act of breaking bread is a sacred ritual, and since we can’t do it together these days, we find other ways to make a meal mean something. A virtual family dinner if you will, until spring returns and we can gather outside like we did at Thanksgiving.
Even my late Aunt Luz, who is probably one of the greatest cooks I’ve known in my life, sometimes had trouble with her flan. I remember visiting her apartment in Washington, sitting in their little kitchen as her bath of flan was pulled from the oven, and the little ramekins were floating in a curdled mess of eggs and burnt sugar. Quietly, I took it in, expecting some sort of yelling fit as her husband – my favorite Uncle – would have uttered had he been involved. Instead, she laughed it off, and I got my first lesson in gracious dignity while in the kitchen. Andy’s Mom had similar difficulties – according to him she was about 50-50 when it came to producing a decent flan. For my very first attempt at this Filipino leche flan, I was hoping for something that didn’t burn the kitchen down.
Yes, my bar is that low.
Suzie challenged me to give it a whirl, and of course I took her up on it, perhaps over-confident from our last kitchen skirmish (which feels like ages ago). The online recipes I read were quite enthusiastic about how easy a leche flan was to make. The ingredients certainly seemed simple enough: a dozen egg yolks, a can of sweetened condensed milk, a can of evaporated milk, a teaspoon of vanilla extract, and some sugar.
The instructions seemed simple enough too: line a baking dish with some cooked sugar (boil it with a couple of tablespoons of water) then add the egg mixture and bake in a water bath. There were a few things I didn’t do right – the melted sugar freaked me out a bit, so I took it off the heat way too soon, resulting in the relatively clear liquid and coating you see at the end. Next time I’ll be brave and let it go dark.
I strained the egg mixture, which was a good move, as some of the egg whites were caught before they made it into the final dish. I whisked it as gently as possible, per instruction, but bubbles will be bubbles and that didn’t bother me. The flecks of vanilla bean, while decadent, weren’t quite the creamy look I was going for – another mistake of mine for putting in vanilla bean paste instead of vanilla extract. (A reminder that being fancy isn’t always necessary.) Other than that, though, this turned out surprisingly edible, if not downright decent. I’ll give it another go in a while, and send some to Suzie.
A batch of leftover carnitas makes for a scrumptious pulled pork sandwich with a spicy twist. Adding some salsa verde, pickled jalapeños, and fresh cilantro lends it a verdant heat, recalling its original incarnation, but atop a bulkier base. After years of avoiding sandwiches (perhaps a lingering bit of trauma from running away from grade school, middle school and high school memories) I’ve found my way back to this simple way of lunching, albeit with something better than bologna. A similar thing recently occurred with hot dogs.
Now it’s lunchtime again, and I’m starving.
It was a cold fall day, not as frigid as the days we’re having this week, but we felt it more sorely, the chill unaccustomed after a summer of warmth and sun. Gram was babysitting us, so I couldn’t have been much older than ten or eleven. My brother and I had been outside playing in the leaves, jumping and tumbling in the piles beneath the maple trees. The chill and damp eventually got to me, so I came in for a lunch with Gram. She hovered over the warm stove after pulling a plate of leftover chicken out of the refrigerator. Stirring in some flour to a pan of melted butter, she briefly described the steps of making creamed chicken on toast, prompted by my inquisitive curiosity. Years later, I would understand that she was making a roux, the standard starter of any decent cream sauce.
She didn’t expound upon her method, mistakenly assuming I wasn’t as interested in this as I was in the later, reclusive years of Greta Garbo, but I was, and I paid attention to how she went about it. Adding some milk or cream, she stirred steadily, eventually adding the chicken and heating it through. The sauce became thicker, and she deftly toasted a pair of bread slices, buttering them just as the chicken and sauce were coming together. That butter seemed extra indulgent, but it also worked to keep the bread crunchy even with the creamy topping of chicken she spooned onto each slice.
It was a simple plate of comfort food, served by my beloved Gram on a frigid fall day. It was exactly what I needed when I didn’t even know what I needed, and I’ve kept that simple lesson with me for all these years. Nowadays, I’ll modify it for more flavor – the addition of some fresh garlic at the start, and my Mom recently mentioned she uses some celery salt when she makes it. It keeps Gram alive, and keeps us comforted on the cruelest winter days. There’s nothing fancy or excessively bombastic about its basic make-up, but much like my Gram it has its own subtle sparkle, and like her love for us, it came from the heart.
‘Happiness is a place between too much and too little.’ ~ Finnish proverb
The Danish concept of hygge has a different term in Finnish: Kotoilu. Our family friend Tuija taught me that, as I was referencing some lace cookies she had made many years ago during the holidays at the Ko family home. One of their first exchange students, Tuija came from Finland, and was one of those people who were there at most pivotal moments and family gatherings from my childhood. Thanksgivings and Christmases and birthdays and graduations, she was part of the Ko household, and as such was part of my happiest childhood memories.
The Ko family considered her one of their own, and after she finished her exchange stint and graduated high school in Finland, she returned to their home to start her college career. I still remember a sepia-toned photograph of her in traditional Finnish garb which hung in the dim hallway of their Victorian home. She was the same age as Suzie’s older brothers, so we were mostly removed from their adult concerns, content to remain in the unnoticed and untroubled background world that childhood afforded. Even so, I always admired Tuija and her artistic talents. That translated into the kitchen as well, and one of the desserts I remember so well is the Finnish lace cookie platter she once made, piling them in an elegant tower atop a pretty plate.
On their own, they were little works of art – lace-like snowflakes of sugar and butter and oats that practically melted in the mouth. They were the epitome of holiday warmth – hygge and kotoilu – all comfort and joy and holiday enchantment. That memory has remained one of my favorites for many years, and during my first few holidays with Andy, I’d found an approximation of the cookies that I made for him to share the warmth they always kindled.
This winter I asked Suzie if she had the original recipe, and her Mom got in touch with Tuija and from across the ocean it arrived. There were a couple of twists from the recipe I’d been using, and these turned out closer to what I remembered. It was a happy little kitchen triumph, and I’ve learned my way around the oven in the past few months and years of cooking. I sent some to my Mom who gave them her appreciative approval.
As I was making them, the wind raged on one of the chilliest days of the year thus far, but all I felt was that charmed holiday warmth of happy memories and family connections, no matter how much time has passed, no matter how many miles are between us. Thinking of Tuija, my Mom, Elaine and Suzie, my heart was warmed, rendering winter a most magical time, and connecting me to a blissful moment in childhood. We were all together back then, and in the delicate lace veil of these sweet cookies, it was almost like we were all together again.
Using ‘moist’ and ‘banana’ in a single post is certain to annoy and agitate the sensitive among us, so there you have it. This is a quick little mid-day snack featuring a recent banana bread success, something I can approximate on the regular (unlike pancakes). I don’t have a favorite banana bread recipe, I’ll just pull up a google search for ‘best banana bread’ and use whatever comes up. I have found a common thread in all the recipes that end up working really well, and that’s some sort of greasy element to add and retain moisture – usually an oil instead of butter, and some addition like sour cream of mayonnaise that lends extra oomph. Such was the case in this one, which used the latter (and Miracle Whip would not be an option). Happy snacking.
