Quarantine Cooking: Easter Weekend Meals

Last night was Good Friday, and so for supper, I decided to bake a Mushroom & Swiss Cheese Quiche and a Broccoli & Cheddar Cheese Quiche.  I had walked four miles roundtrip to buy the broccoli and put it out on the counter with all the other ingredients to go into the quiches.

I collected a bunch of tiny branches of thyme to pluck its leaves.  You know that scene in Good Fellas, where the mobsters are in prison and are cooking Italian food in confinement?  They have nothing but time, and so they slice the garlic carefully thin with a razor blade?  That's how I feel these days.  I had nothing but time on my hands to denude these tiny herb branches of their teeny, tiny leaves to flavor my quiche.  I also chopped a white onion for my mushroom quiche.

I also chopped the Chef's Medley Mix of Mushrooms and a few more Crimini mushrooms as well as three small cloves of garlic which I macerated with a teaspoon of coarse salt.  I also blind-baked two pie crusts in a 400 degree oven for 12 minutes--don't forget to prick the pie crusts beforehand. I should have baked it for 8 minutes longer to make for a less soggy crust when you pour the custard.

Into my cast iron on medium high heat, I sauteed the onions in a couple tablespoons of butter.

Next went in the chopped mushrooms, thyme, and garlic, which I sauteed for an additional ten to fifteen minutes to drive off the moisture.

While my mushrooms and onions were getting caramelized, I blanched the broccoli florets and started grating my cheeses:  Cheddar, Gruyere, Emmenthaler, and Baby Swiss.  I have so much leftover cheese!  Macaroni and cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner next week.  I should probably pre-grate and bag for storage in the freezer before they get moldy.

Next I layered the mushrooms and Swiss cheeses into one pie shell and sprinkled nutmeg on top. In the other pie shell, I layered the blanched broccoli and Cheddar cheese--I wish I had thought to sprinkle cayenne pepper on it.

In my batter bowl, I cracked six eggs plus one yolk, a cup of milk, and a cup of heavy whipping cream and then blended.  I forgot to add a couple of teaspoons of salt that the Kitchn's How to Make a Fool Proof Quiche called for, but I've hypertension and figured there was plenty enough sodium in the macerated garlic and in the cheeses.

 I poured the custard into the filled pie shells.

Bake the quiches in a preheated 350 degree oven for 40 minutes--my husband likes his quiche well done, and so I had to put the broccoli quiche into the oven to cook for longer.  However, I wish I had just left it out while it still had that jiggle in the middle which would have made a more velvety and soft custardy interior THOUGH both were divinely delicious which my neighbor whom I shared this quiche supper with can attest.

 Leftover quiche for next week's meals.

Once a month before work, I make a run to McDonald's for a Sausage McMuffin.  However, during the pandemic, I just couldn't because my local McDonald's doesn't have a drive-thru.  And just because McDonald's thinks it owns the name for my favorite sandwich, it can't trademark or own the rights to a basic recipe of English muffins, sausage patty and cheese. I just bought a bag of frozen precooked sausage patties at Grocery Outlet, always have sliced cheese on hand, and had a bag of English muffins in my fridge for the past month, which was fresh enough. 

I nuked the patty in the microwave for 30 seconds and then plopped the sausage in a frying pan for some of that brown Maillard deliciousness on which I laid a slice of Cheddar to heat and melt and toasted an English muffin.  

I have to have ketchup on my sausage muffin because really it's just a pork hamburger for breakfast.  

And because it's the first meal of the day, coffee instead of cola. My sausage muffin was yummy, and I wanted another, but don't want to gain the quarantine fifteen.

And tonight for dinner, we're eating leftovers because I've got rugelach to bake today.

Quarantine Cooking: Taco Thursday and Cookbook Organization

If not marriage to a guy who can't eat the same meal two nights in a row (though yes we rotate leftovers to every other night), I would eat tacos everyday.  I basically lived off quesadillas and burritos every day in college.  I had pulled carnitas from the freezer and was elated to have stocked produce for the tacos in my fridge.

I love greenery encased in a white corn (which is sweeter than yellow) tortilla taco: carnitas, chopped white onion, cilantro, pico de gallo, and butter lettuce with lots of lime squeezed on top.  I had forgotten to garnish my tacos with my favorite Valentina sauce--they were that yummo.

Earlier in the day I had decided to organize my big black binder of recipes.  Right away, I had three piles for vegetarian which included starchy sides and quite a few vegan recipes here and there, pescetarian, and carnivore.

My final categories:  Appetizers & Tea, Vegetarian, Surf, Turf, Condiments (including sauces and dressings),Desserts, Mezze, and Friendsgiving.

Yes I can certainly subdivide recipes within each into other groupings like Northern European, Asian, Latin American. My Surf was a total mishmash of anything from the sea including seaweed and even if the only seafood ingredient was Asian fish sauce. The Turf chapter basically started with chicken, then pork, then lamb, and finally beef.  My Mezze section is basically comprised of all the Middle Eastern recipes I love.  I adore tea sandwiches and meals that's basically noshing on all types of appetizers--and so they merited their own section.  My Dessert contents were the skimpiest.  All of this organization was followed by a shallow dive into Bon Appetit's "Taco Nation."  This issue is my all-time favorite for sure.

Quarantine Cooking: Borlotti Beans

Normally I cook my Tuscan Beans with Northern White or Cannellini beans, but I had bought Borlotti beans and decided to use them in this recipe with some variations.  I was out of wine, and so I decided to make a Cosmopolitan before cooking. But I don't have a cocktail shaker, so my Cosmo is rather inelegant with the giant ice cube in my coupe glass.  I didn't have limes, but I did have candied cherries for garnish.  I'm not a fan I think of this cocktail and will likely just make spritzers with the cherry ginger fruit juice and candied cherries with soda water.

I set out the Italian sausage, Borlotti beans and a white onion first.

Key to my Tuscan bean dishes are lots of herbs:  sage, rosemary, thyme.

I don't think I've ever added celery before to this beans dish, but I suppose I had mire poix in my head though I was too lazy to chop carrots.

 I bought a fennel at the produce shop, but I had intended it for a salad.  And so I used the fronds and the stalky tops for my bean stew.

I had not soaked the beans overnight, and so I decided to instead boil the beans.  I should have brought it to a boil and then lowered the heat to a gentle simmer--the advice of Samin Nosrat for cooking beans so that they're tender throughout and not hard in the middle and then mushy all around.  I basically hard boiled my beans so that the skins were splitting for a couple hours.

My mise en place:  chopped Swiss and Rainbow chard, a box of vegetable broth in case my jar of chicken bone broth weren't enough, garlic and Spanish olive oil, chopped white onions, chopped herbs and garlic, and chopped fennel.

 After browning and sauteeing the onions, into the pot go all the rest of the ingredients which I simmered on the stovetop for 45 minutes or so.

I had ladled the bean stew into two glass casserole dishes for baking in a 400 degree oven for 35 to 40 minutes, one of which I gave to a neighbor, who brought over these home made dinner rolls the next day, which will be a delicious accompaniment with leftover stew.

Quarantine Comfort Food: Turkey, Avocado & Sprouts Sandwich

I could seriously eat a sandwich every day for the rest of my life.  I was in high school when I ate my first deli sandwich of ham and Swiss cheese at Togo's--what a revelation.  Then I fell in love in college with a grilled eggplant, roasted red bell pepper, provolone and sprouts sandwich at Intermezzo in Berkeley and Greens to go in Fort Mason. These days, I get excited if lunch is gonna be from Jersey Joe's or Specialty's or Mr. Pickles in San Mateo or Leonardo's in Millbrae.  I'm even content with a supermarket deli sandwich made on the spot and customized to my taste buds.  Mortadella or Caprese, count me in.  With lots of produce like lettuce, tomato, pepperoncini, pickles, jalapenos, onion and ample mayo please.  I had one slice left of herb roasted turkey and a couple of avocados and clover sprouts, and so lunch today was one of my absolute favorites until I make another grocery run.

Quarantine Eating & Cooking: Leftovers & Chinese (my approximation of the cuisine)

I am almost out of wine, and I don't count the bottle of Prosecco I bought to mix with the gourmet fruit juice mixers I have in my liquor cabinet.  I want to save the Chardonnay I have for a seafood pasta dish, and so I've been drinking all the other liquors like this martini......and now I'm super low on vodka:(

And I'm on my usual quest to not waste food, and so dinner one night was a baked potato, leftover green bean casserole, and creamed kale.

It's also spring break, and the day before yesterday, the hubs and I ventured out to grocery shop--he to Draegers for ice cream and hamburger buns and me to Dean's Produce for vegetables.  I was so happy to have shopped my favorite grocery store--Anaheim instead of my usual Poblano peppers, Berlin bread from a Russian bakery because the Russian Rye was too dark for my liking though this bread is pretty dense too, scallions, dill, cilantro, Italian parsley, alfalfa sprouts, labneh, cilegini, sandwich pickles, chives.

I had half a head of Napa cabbage and didn't want that to go bad along with the leftover rice noodles and mapo ground pork and tofu I made a week ago.

This time for dinner, I sauteed the cabbage in my largest cast iron and then threw in half of the leftover Chinese make home (as opposed to takeout) Mapo in with it.

I remember not being able to find ground pork at Safeway and got this meat at Mollie Stone, a gourmet grocery store and wasn't gonna waste any of it.  A neighbor brought me more tofu and Chinese dried noodles and Asian coffee packets in exchange for a Borlotti beans and Italian sausage and fennel stew I made. 

I think I probably had these flat rice noodles in my starch drawer for almost a year, and so I was glad to use them.

Rice noodles after they're cooked dry out quickly and get hard, and so I knew it would be okay to throw them in with all the wet ingredients in the pan.  

The trick to cooking this dish was not letting the rice noodles get soggy and mushy by cooking off as much liquid as possible before adding them to the dish.  Also lots of chopped scallions and cilantro do a lot to enhance a dish with color and flavor, so thank goodness for my favorite produce store.

A satisfying dinner because I finished my Chardonnay.  It's okay. I'll substitute white wine vinegar or lemon juice in my seafood pasta dish.

Quarantine Cooking: Homemade Cornbread Muffin Tops

A few nights ago I found some leftover chili that I didn't realize I still had at the back of the refrigerator.  I'd run out of cilantro, but still had red onions and grated queso.  I decided to bake and serve cornbread muffins with the chorizo and ground beef chili.  I usually bake cornbread from a packaged mix, which I didn't have in my pantry.  However, I did have polenta and a little buttermilk left.  I halved a recipe and mixed in a bowl, 1/2 cup of all purpose flour and a 1/2 cup polenta with a 1/8 cup of dark brown sugar, 1/4 teaspoon baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, and 1/8 teaspoon of salt.  In another bowl, I microwaved a 1/4 cup of butter, let it cool and then added a tablespoon of honey, 1/2 cup of buttermilk, and an egg.

I then added the wet ingredients to the dry.  It made a very liquidy batter, but thought, oh heck go with it.  I also had a little too much batter to fill my muffin top pan, which I didn't bother to grease.

I baked my muffins in a preheated 400 degree oven for 20 to 23 minutes and was actually pleased by how golden brown they were. 

I loved the contrast between the crispy golden top and moist, soft interior.  The polenta had also added a nice crunch.  The muffin didn't need more butter, but again, why the heck not? My leftover chili dinner was supremely tasty and satisfying.

Quilting: So Far on the Campfire Quilt

I posted my quilt already stitched in the ditch on my machine, but I decided to quilt it more by hand.  I was so meticulous with the center, using rulers and marking pencils to draw stitching lines.

I auditioned threads and started stitching.  I was really pleased with my beginnings.

I was really admiring the single rows of stitching on the logs, but then the puckering and folds from my not smoothing and pin basting more happened.

As you can see below I have some wonky stripes and the medallion and the rest of the quilt is so NOT SQUARE.  I basically have one more row of hand stitches to add to a white log, and then I wrestle with stitching the borders and making them as flat and less wonky as possible.  I just might match stitch the borders and then slice to make as square as possible.

I'm liking so far how the stitching by machine is going on the borders.  Unfortunately, I started on the wonkier side.  Below is the side that was more square, and therefore a lot more pleasing to my eye.  I really took my time and didn't speed demon the stitching on my machine.