Cooking: Taco Thursday

I suppose food is not a healthy obsession unless you're a chef, and I ain't one. I think if I were a chef though, I might hate home cooking if I had to create and taste all day. But as a home cook, I love thinking all day about what I'm going to eat. I'll even think of what's going to be my over the top food reward after a long hard run. My food obsession sometimes even spills into my work as a librarian. I created this slide to be an ice breaker for when I zoom with my students class week.

I think of tacos as the perfect food, one I could and did eat every day on a spring break surfing trip in Sayulita, Mexico. This week I needed to get rid of some leftover carnitas in order to cook something new, and so I crisped it up in a little bacon fat and then topped it over a blanket of melted Pepper Jack cheese and sprinkled lots of cilantro and chopped onion. Pork in some kind of chile verde base has become my favorite, and so I spooned a bit of Herradura's guacamole sauce which has tomatillos in it and a little sour cream.

I should probably write a taco cookbook, titled Tacos, Seven Days a Week.

Manic Monday or When I Realized, Hey I'm Happy?!

It's been two years since I had a break in my equanimity and sat down with a therapist. We pored through his DSM and figured out that I was suffering borderline personality disorder aka a classic midlife crisis, one I had not experienced so intensely since my early 20s and which impelled me to seek out DBT or dialectical behavior therapy in conjunction with my couples therapy with him. Couples therapy which we stopped in spring. And DBT which I stopped only this past July. Yesterday I realized, I was happy despite my promise to think about returning to therapy in the fall. Patrick always used to comment that I didn't seem to want to be home because I was always busy, busy, busy at either the ceramics studio or the quilt workshop or some outing with my friend Julie. And now? Well I'm still a whirlwind of activity, but my daily tasks are not so much occupation to distract myself from existential angst or job burnout. I really really enjoy these activities. 

Sunday night, however, I was not a happy camper because I had finished my most onerous task of folding laundry and putting it away into a cheap, broken IKEA dresser, which then segued into organizing my athletic wear into gym baskets and bemoaning where was I gonna put all my shit?!? And then a resolution to buy a new larger and sturdier dresser. And maybe I was still feeling still some organizational anxiety because I then looked at my shelf of all my art tools and took to sketching in my clay journal the porcelain containers I plan to make that will be uniform and aesthetically pleasing. 

I know that one day I will look at my shelf and see my fountain and calligraphy pens, Micron pens and Sharpies, graphite pencils, colored pencils, paintbrushes, and scissors all neatly arrayed in beautiful pottery. And find a cute basket or clear containers to house paper and stencils. 

And then it was Monday, and I decided to wear gym clothes to work because I could now find the items I need for running. 

Seriously, how could my app not show some elevation climbs because I ran pigeon toe some serious hills? However, it felt good to move my body and rack up some mileage for the 87 mile Challenge Run/Walk for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a virtual race I signed up for as an incentive to get back into running half marathons. I'm not gonna feel guilty for having that kind of nervous and physical energy anymore if I can help it. 

I later shopped at Whole Foods to buy a birthday present because I've always liked to give things consumable and came home to this pleasant harvest surprise.  

I'm glad I told the hubs NOT to dig out the eggplant and pepper plants from our vegetable garden. Japanese miso eggplant or stuffed Mexican peppers anyone? 

And then got to making dinner. Slathered bbq sauce (both Ray's hickory and Duke's Alabama white) on boiled pork shoulder country ribs. Prepared a macaroni and cheese casserole. 

Thawed frozen broccoli, whipped a dressing of mayonnaise, sugar and apple cider vinegar, chopped red onion and bacon and added golden raisins and sunflower kernels to make a salad. Took out the leftover 3 bean salad from the refrigerator.

Even the hubs said I seemed to have gone all out for dinner, but really I semi-prepared some of these dishes the day before and was just "shopping my pantry and freezer" so as not to waste food and taking immense satisfaction from that.

I may have woken up that Monday morning to go to work, but really it felt like such a chillaxed day because I was doing the things even at work that give me pleasure and peace.

Test Kitchen: Sinigang Na Baboy

I'm writing a cook book. Nothing of course for mass publication, but rather a vanity printing of family recipes cooked by my parents for me to give to their children and grandchildren. But before I record those recipes for posterity, I have to test them out. And so I've been writing zines of individual Filipino dishes for my niece and nephews--that's gonna be a separate blog post. But first a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon and a slice of home baked sourdough from Cecilia, slathered with lots of Irish butter because I hadn't eaten lunch yet that Sunday.

Once fortified, I started with boiling all the pork, neckbones and shoulder country style ribs and chopping onions and tomatoes but leaving the chili peppers whole (a little bit of heat but not a lot to make the soup unpalatable) to infuse the broth and then remove.

And washing bok choi and trimming green beans and cutting up Japanese eggplant.

 

I know I've blogged before about sinigang, but I feel like I cook it differently each and every time, the reason being that I skimmed all the scum and skimmed more fat this time or pureed the tomatoes and onion in my blender last time or may not have had all the vegetables or am using a different brand of seasoning packet.

And my usual process of boiling down the broth to load with flavor and then adding the vegetables last or even reserving them for much later cooking (they're washed and trimmed and ready to put in the soup pot)when we're actually about ready to eat.

I wish I lived closer to my blood relatives because I would be cooking sinigang for them. 

My two Filipino neighbors, Cecilia and Roseanne instead are the recipients of my sinigang kits. I tell them to come over with their own food container into which I ladle them the soup and meat and then send them away with a bag of washed and chopped vegetables too.

Crafting Ambitions

I love crafting and the plethora of ideas I see online has turned me into a hoarder. I started taking classes in quilting, mosaics, ceramics, jewelry-making and the visual arts when I finished graduate school and acquired the requisite tools and supplies to hone whatever craft I was puttering on. BUT space is at a premium in a tiny 650 square foot condo, and so I'm starting to do the Swedish death cleaning and paring down my hobbies because I don't want my family to have to haul my crap out to a dump when I kick the proverbial bucket. These days, I aim for making ephemeral stuff like the goat cheese logs below that have been embellished with edible flowers.

Or this Halloween haunted house crafted with cardboard and probably painted with black acrylic paint and drawn with a silver Sharpie. But Halloween is this Saturday as well as the hubs birthday and so no time.

I've also been wanting to sew modern crosses into a quilt project, and so this linen and cotton pillow is inspirational. Now this is doable because I've got the linen and the cute Liberty of London lawn scraps.

And of course, I've got an embroidery habit, and I want to stitch the text on the t-shirt below, but on to a pillow or wall hanging and change it to "reads books, cuddles dog, stays home" because I don't love baking though I do love cooking, so maybe "reads books, loves cooking, stays home." Oh and then there was that embroidery hoop that I wanted to stitch, Sadie makes me want to be a stay at home dog mom.

And don't even get me started on my clay ambitions.

Cooking: Beef Stroganoff

The weather here in Northern California has finally dipped to a low of 59 degrees to a high of 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Since I was no longer sweltering and was craving something beefy in our meal rotation, I cooked beef stroganoff. My mise en place was comprised of beef tips or chuck beef cut into 1" cubes, chopped yellow and red onion, sliced crimini mushrooms, sour cream, butter, minced garlic, Dijon mustard, beef bone broth, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, chopped scallion, chives, and parsley. Oh and my glass of Chardonnay to deglaze the pan after browning the meat.

First I seared the beef chunks in olive oil (turn the burner on high and then turn the burner down to medium high)and continued to sauté them until they were caramelized or browned on one or two sides. I then removed the beef from the grease and set them aside. I added a bit of butter to the cast iron and sautéed the aromatics in the fat on that medium high heat. Once the onions were softened and the garlic cooked a bit down, I turned down the heat to medium and threw the rest of my wine to deglaze the pan of the fond and put the reserved beef back into the pan. I next poured some beef broth into the pan to prevent burning as well as the Worcestershire and soy sauces and Dijon mustard and let the meat and vegetables simmer in this sauce for a good 35 to 40 minutes on medium high to medium heat to further braise the beef.

All throughout the cooking of the stroganoff, I kept tasting and adding broth and maybe more soy sauce or Worcestershire for that umami sensation and consolidating flavors as as the sauce cooked and evaporated. I anticipated 30 more minutes of simmering to tenderize the beef and added the sliced crimini and turned up the heat back to medium high and stirred.

Even after simmering in the beef broth for a good thirty minutes, the mushrooms added more moisture even as I was trying to drive it off. And so I put a tablespoon of the beef sauce into a cup and mixed a couple teaspoons of corn starch before incorporating it back into the sauce. Finally after cooking for what seemed an ever such a long time, the sauce looked thick enough to be called a gravy.

I had looked for flat egg noodles at Trader Joe's which it didn't have, and so I settled for cooking rotini pasta instead. And then I scattered the chopped scallion, chives, and parsley atop the finished stroganoff.

And instead of incorporating the cooked pasta into the stroganoff, I kept it separate to spoon the stroganoff on top and to prevent the noodles from getting soft or mushy. I like my noodles al dente. I had posted these pics on a Facebook group called Quarantine Cooking, and an Irishman commented that he didn't understand us Americans eating stroganoff with noodles as he prefers rosemary roasted potatoes or garlic toast to sop up the sauce and that he thought noodles would be too soft for him. And so textures are all a matter of preference because I could see liking beef stroganoff on mashed potatoes or maybe even polenta with a little bit of Parmesan and butter. In any case, I now have a yummy leftover in the fridge for the hubs to eat if I should ever instead crave sushi or good Japanese ramen.

Flower Arrangments in Fall in Northern California

I came home last Friday to the hubs' latest flower arrangement. I love the palettes of red and pink and green.

And the occasional pop of yellow and orange to make it feel like autumn.

The hubs' birthday is coming up, and so I'm thinking of giving him poultry netting for his ikebana hobby. But the local hardware stores sell them in quantities too large for our needs, and so I'll likely order flower cages and cut floral food.

Ceramics: My Clay Fever Is Coming Back

It felt like such a stupid long time to get my mud on when I went through my mid-life crisis a couple years ago, and then the pandemic hampered my renewed interest in ceramics. But then I got a couple pieces fired in the past few months, and it has been so gratifying. Especially when I saw that my niece posted these pics of her daughter holding one of my collaborative pots--my friend, Meral threw the cup and I decorated its surface: rice paper blue Chinese decals with a blue celadon called Downpour. And ain't Dani a cutie?!?

As always I resolved to strive for quality rather than quantity. I think I've found a groove where on my one day of the week that I do clay, I hand build just one pot and then break it up with glazing a bisque pot or two. My glaze collection grew from two bottles of underglaze, black and white to a ROYBGIV array and one or two Cone 5-6 overglazes.  

This latest butter dish was a lot of fun, and now I'm considering giving my loved ones homemade gifts of a butter dish plus a block of my favorite Kerrygold or a salt crock plus a bag of Himalayan pink salt.

Cooking: Hot Dawg and Tom Kha Gai Redux

Sometimes I think I know what moms feel when they're cooking dinner for kids who don't want to eat what has been cooked for them  because me and the hubs sometimes have divergent wants for dinner, but I have to have some leftover on hand for him to eat while I indulge my own food craving. And so on one particular night, all I wanted was some semblance of a Chicago dog and he was so okay with a kids-themed meal.

And I got to empty the the pantry of a big can of baked beans, which I'll probably serve on some night this week with Southern barbecued spare ribs and macaroni and cheese--a hub's favorite. And so I'm starting to have a sense of what kinds of portions to cook. My Thai coconut chicken was even better another night because I cooked down the broth.

You can't tell, but my soup is a Tom Kha (containing coconut milk) and not a Tom Yum (“yum” refers to the traditional sour, salty, and spicy flavor of an array of Thai dishes) 

Someone on Facebook commented that my soup was not Tom Kha Gai because there was no coconut milk, but there is! A whole can of it, but I suppose it was not the usual colors of just white and green because of all the chile oil and the Yum Thai soup base broth. And so yeah, not authentically Thai but deliciously Thai enough.

Cooking: Shrimp and Grits

The very first time I ate shrimp and grits was at art camp at Arrowmont in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. I really liked it and vowed to cook it at least once I was back home. Cue to a year ago, I crisped the bacon, reserved it for topping all the while boiling the polenta and then adding the butter and cheese. Finally I sautéed the garlic and shrimp in the bacon fat and removed, reserving it for topping the polenta. Finally I poured the polenta into the pan and then topped the grits with the bacon and shrimp and chopped scallions and parsley. I could not repeat that success. Plating-wise, my shrimp and grits looked a hot mess. Last time I cooked and presented it in my dad's cast iron to rave reviews from my friend, Julie.

Like I said, my dish looked so inelegant and muddy rather than bright yellow, studded with pops of green and red and pink. I've a cup of polenta left and likely won't cook shrimp and grits for another year--it's so rich that it's more like a biannual dish rather than a meal in regular rotation.

And so now I'm pondering on what else to do with the small amount of polenta that's left in my pantry.