Weird Tasty Pasta Dish (and Formatting!)

I know Brussels Sprouts aren’t everyone’s thing, but I like them. I especially like them roasted. So it made sense as I was attempting to figure out how to fulfill my craving to turn them into a pasta dish- another one of those things I like so much I forget that not everyone is willing to eat it three or four nights a week.

Pasta with Brussels Sprouts:

• 1 16oz bag frozen Brussels Sprouts (yes, I buy frozen veggies. You know what I like about frozen veggies? They don’t go bad in my fridge if I forget about them for a couple weeks. Is the flavor and texture exactly the same? No. But most of the time it’s still damned tasty)
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic (I pre-mince my garlic and store that frozen as well)
• 1 Tablespoon butter (I used unsalted, because that’s what I keep around for baking)
• 1 generous pinch rosemary
• 1 scant shake thyme
• 1 handful breadcrumbs
• Enough oil to liberally coat the bottom of my cast iron skillet
• Two people’s worth of spaghetti (because that’s what I have on-hand. Linguini would be better. I think bow-tie pasta would be perfect*)
• Salt and pepper

I always feel weird writing how I do this, because it’s so utterly winging it. I wasn’t sure I was making a pasta dish when I started, or what was going to go into it. But I started by cutting the frozen Sprouts into pieces. I halved all of them, and cut the biggest ones into fourths. Even the itty bitty ones. The reason is that then all the inside leaves get all coated in oil and crisped, too. By making them all roughly I knew they’d cook in roughly the same amount of time.

While I was doing that, the butter went into the cast iron on a hot stove. I left it there to sizzle and pop until it stopped, so that it would clarify and not smoke when I roasted the Brussels Sprouts in the oven (did I mention I turned the oven to 400 degrees?). Once it was ready, I added oil to the pan to generously coat the bottom, gave it a minute to heat up, and dumped the Brussels Sprouts in. Salted and peppered, added garlic, rosemary, and thyme, and put it in the oven.

Once that was in, I started a large pot of water, heavily salted it, and turned the heat to high. The pasta would go in once the water reached boiling. I aimed for just tender. Different pastas take different amounts of time, so

Every ten minutes or so, I checked on the Brussels Sprouts stirring them with a big metal spoon to ensure even browning. It took about half an hour.

With both cooked, I took the cast iron skillet with the Brussels sprouts out of the oven and tossed in the handful of breadcrumbs. I gave it a stir, then dumped the pasta in and poured a smidge of olive oil on it. Gave another toss, then divided between two bowls.

I grated parmesan over each bowl. There are schools of thought that not all pasta dishes should be doused in cheese. I don’t ascribe to them. I firmly believe in the power of cheese to strengthen just about any dish. I have yet to hear complaints from anyone eating my food ;)

Ways to improve this dish:

1. Nuts- I would add them about 2/3 of the way through the roasting process, so they don’t burn. I’d imagine just about anything chopped up would do (chop whole nuts in the food processor, by hand takes forever and is messy)
2. Bacon or Prosciutto- both pork products, so left out of the equation with my pescetarian boyfriend. I’d say, skip the butter and cook the meat on the stovetop first, then remove but don’t drain the pan. Chop and sprinkle back in with the breadcrumbs at the end. You could chop it before cooking and cook in the oven, but the pork sticks something fierce.
3. A cheese sauce- Not sure how I’d do this. Probably make it on the stovetop while the Brussels Sprouts cooked, then poured it over everything at the end. Would be lots of work, though.

Tonight: black bean soup and fried polenta! (the things I made when I'm not willing to go out in the cold to the store)


* While all semolina pasta may taste the same, different shapes have different textures and food-complimenting properties. Thin noodles are good for light sauces, seafood, and small pieces of stuff. Thicker noodles are good for thicker sauces. Shapes are useful for gripping things, and for pasta with lots of big, oddly sized stuff in it. Ziti with grooves is actually the ideal for red meat sauce, regardless of tradition. Bow-tie I think would work for this because you can pierce it with a fork easily and get a good pasta to Brussels sprouts ratio.

The Intersection of Opposing Ideals

At a recent holiday party, I got into a discussion about food and cooking with some of my friends, both swapping delicious recipes and just generally the joys and difficulties of day to day cooking. One couple I am friends with recently moved, and they both work from home. So they find themselves having to find new ways to organize cooking, as previously the man in the relationship did very little of it. However, being home more, and enjoying cooking himself, they are working together more in the kitchen.

I said that it’s always more fun when you have both people working together, but that Mr. Bo is not so much fond of cooking, and therefore I do all the cooking and he does all the washing up.

They were surprised. Knowing that I’m a feminist, and that I strive for equality, and that I am in many ways a tomboy (I <3 tools), they were taken aback by the fact that I let things fall into the stereotype. And to be honest, it was something I struggled with as well for a while. Eventually, though, I had to give up. And here’s why:

I really, really like to cook.

Cooking brings me the wonderous, tasty, life-giving food, yes. But it’s also a form of therapy for me. Nothing cures a long day or just a grouchy mood like taking a few extra minutes to do something special with my food. As long as the problem is not “I am so hungry I can’t think straight” (in which case Mr. Bo kindly brings me snackage) preparing food actually does wonders for my mental health.

No so for Mr. Bo. Which is not to say that he does not like to cook, but it is a thing that has to happen to provide the tasty things for eating. Surprisingly, there are things that he is incredibly good at, such as making rice or thickening cream sauces, which I a horrible at and therefore always get him called into the kitchen. And I often call him in just to chat and keep me company. But cooking doesn’t feed his soul the way it does mine.

Which is not to say that I didn’t struggle with this arrangement when it formed. Initially, I didn’t really think about it. I come home and I relax for a little bit, and then what I want to do with my evening is usually fix dinner. And it’s just as easy to cook for two as one. And when Mr. Bo went pescetarian I took it as an opportunity to try a lot of new and different recipes. But over time it began to feel stifling, and like a chore. As though I was falling into the trap of the dutiful woman who does all the cooking and cleaning while the man brings home the paycheck and then gets to lounge around (or do repair and yard work). Which is a false dichotomy, both because it’s not an equal distribution of tasks and because we as a society tend to view those “masculine” jobs as being more important. It’s assumed that there will be dinner on the table each night, and the floors will be cleaned and the surfaces dusted, etc. But it’s praiseworthy that the yard get mowed or the gutters cleaned or the broken thing fixed.

Also, it’s a false dichotomy because the only reason most women don’t know how to do these things is because they haven’t been taught. It’s not hard to hammer a nail or refinish a piece of furniture, and I built my new dresser (well, assembled, but it was an “all assembly required” kind of assemble). I did this because my parents made sure that my brothers and I all knew how to change a flat tire, hammer a nail straight, fix ourselves dinner, and sew a button back on.

But to get back on topic, eventually the arrangement with dinner began to chafe. And we talked about it, and we tried different things, and what we found was that for the most part I really wanted to cook dinner. As long as it was understood that this was something I was doing because I enjoyed it and not because either he or I felt I was obligated to do it. And there are certainly nights where I am not in the mood, and Mr. Bo cooks, or we order in.

Still, occasionally, the inner radical feminist chafes at the system we’ve created. And while I understand the “Down With Patriarchy” sentiment, the reality is that when one lives with someone, one is required to compromise. I seriously doubt I would have a different setup were I living with a woman. When single, I would occasionally fix dinner for the whole apartment, or invite friends over for a large dinner, just so that I could feed a group of people. It is a driving need in me to cook, not just for myself but also others. I can attempt to rebel against this part of me in an attempt to live up to the Ideal Feminist in my head, but I’m left feeling incomplete. Or I can cook. And feel whole. And find other ways to satisfy my Feminist Ideal.

I may talk about those more some other time. I may not. First, I need to remember to post more than once a month.

Apparently, I’m the Only One

One of the bloggers I read occasionally writes about his six year old daughter. This may come as a shock to those who know me, but I don’t mind (mostly because he tends to be more about being a good father than about “my pwecious babygirl”). His latest installment in “trying to be a good parent while working 60 to 80 hours a week” involved her handing him a list of things she wanted for the upcoming holiday, most of which consisted of Barbie toys.

Cue the comments section filling up with people going all anti-girly-consumerism. Which, I have to admit, I kind of agree with. I was of an age to want Barbies when they came out with the one that said “math is hard” (and some other stupid shit, but that’s what I remember). I was pissed off over it, and I was six or seven, because I liked math. Well, that’s not true, I didn’t like math as much as I liked reading or science, and I wasn’t particularly good at the speed tests, but it was one of the places my tendency towards meticulousness flourished. I might not be the first one to turn my paper in (this was a big deal to me when I was in second grade) but I was sure all my answers were correct. And nothing pissed me off more than someone telling me that I (or the rest of my gender) was stupid.

But back to the topic at hand: the notion that girls shouldn’t be allowed to play with things that are “girly.” That somehow one Barbie or dress-up set will ruin the entire women’s lib movement and send us all straight back to the bad old days of corsets and arranged marriages and not being able to vote. I don’t buy it, and my reasoning is two-fold: children like playing make-believe, and will use anything they can get their hands on to do it (don’t give your boys toy guns? They will use sticks. And your red tablecloth is just as good a superwoman cape as one purchased at the store); children think they want what they perceive other children as having. They are not stupid, they know that Barbie and whatever are status symbols. The toys I begged hardest for were often the ones that ultimately never got played with.

I don’t think it has as much to do with what the child is playing with as it does how they play with it. And that’s where the parent really comes in. I think if you teach your daughter that she is strong and smart and capable, a pretty princess outfit won’t undo that. I certainly got all my girl friends to dress up as princesses with me. Then we slew dragons and invaded Nazi camps as spies and took them out. If we don’t teach our little girls that they aren’t allowed to fight and think, then there’s no harm in them doing it in fuchsia tulle, or using America’s Most Ridiculous Example of the Idealized Female Form to act it out.

Of course, as I got older, I acted out other things with my Barbies. . . but that might need to be another post ;)

SOUP!

I made soup! I suppose this isn’t much of an accomplishment, in theory, soup happens when you throw some stuff in a pot with water and apply heat. It ought to be easy. But the reality is that my favorite cooking methods all get as close as possible to charring something over a fire until it’s black on the outside and juicy on the inside (anyone up for camping next summer?). Part of me wants to learn how to hunt, so that I can have gotten that charred thing on a stick over a fire there myself. The reality with hunting is that from everything I’ve heard you spend a lot of time being cold and bored and holding very still. There’s a feminist rant in there for those who want to pry it out about the stupid tendency to teach girls that anything messy or violent is icky. And then they get to start bleeding five days out of a month. And we wonder why girls hate their bodies and don’t like to talk about their vaginas.

But Soup! I made some!!1!!11! Now, because of my aforementioned cooking method proclivities, I’m really good at knowing how plants and animals and herbs and spices will behave and react to one another when slightly browned from quick cooking at high heat. I don’t necessarily know how that same potato or carrot or onion or cube of beef will taste when gently brought to tenderness via a large pot of boiling water (or in the case of the onion and the beef, a short time in some sort of fat to soften it first). And I certainly don’t know how to spice a soup. How much is enough? When is it too much? Given that the broth I add with the water has salt in it, should I salt the onions while they get all translucent? Which spices should I use, how much of each, and when do they go in?

See, soup is hard.

But I seem to be coming down with something, so I wanted something soothing, and pre-made soups always disappoint. So, armed with the knowledge that I wanted to make a vegetable soup tonight, I went to the farmer’s market on my lunch break, and bought:

1 leek
5 small Yukon gold potatoes
1 bulb of fennel
1 bunch of carrots
2 tomatoes

I wanted turnips, but the only ones I found were $4 a pound, which is more than I’m willing to pay for a root vegetable. I spent maybe five dollars on those veggies, and not all of them made it into the soup.

By the time I got home, I 1) was very tired an sore and wanted to just crawl in to bed, 2) had realized that I had no idea what I was doing. So I crawled into bed with Circe (my laptop), and started searching online for recipes.

Hooray for the internet! Epicurious seems to think that the fennel, leek, and potatoes by themselves make a soup. The commenters seem to think this is a very bland soup. So I figured I’d use the recipe as a general guide in the land of steps of soup-making, and experiment.

What I came up with:

Chop one leek and one bulb of fennel (white and pale green parts only of both veggies), and heat, salted, in just hot-enough-to-melt butter at the bottom of a large pot with a couple cloves of minced garlic (or about 1/2 a tablespoon) until you finish chopping all the other stuff (aka: the leeks soften). Wash enough of the carrots that you will have half as much chopped carrot as potato (I used four. Oh, wash the potatoes, too!), and chop both up. Add some fluid to the pot before you put the newly chopped root vegetables in (a can of vegetable broth was not enough, so I added two cups of water and a boullion cube). Grind some black pepper over it, toss in a couple shakes of oregano, and what probably amounted to ¼ teaspoon of rosemary.

Realize that your favorite part about soup is the bread, which you are completely out of. Turn the heat off under the pot, put a lid on it, and trek to the nearest grocery store, where they will be out of sourdough rolls, so you pick up French Bread rolls.

Get home, shoo the Orange Fuzzy One away from the door, turn the heat on under the pot, and surf the internet. At some point, the boyfriend will come home and tell you that your soup is trying to boil over. Turn the heat down, take off the lid, and go back online. In ten minutes or so, poke your potatoes with a fork to see if they are done. If so, you have soup!

Sort of. My soup was really, really heavy on the stuff and didn’t have much broth to speak of (and most of that stuff was fennel and leek). So I pureed two food processor batches worth, which a) thickened the broth to opacity, and b) fixed the fluid-to-solid ratio to something more like what I wanted.

It was super tasty with the French Bread rolls to dip in it. I am very proud of myself for having made a decent soup without carefully following a recipe :)

A bunch of friends and I just spent the weekend at Tea's family's beach house. Technically, the season is over, but we had a birthday that needed celebrating, and we got incredibly lucky with the weather on Sunday (sunny and warm when it was supposed to be cold and rainy). Being me, and liking to feed people (and looking forward to any opportunity to play with fire) I made a bunch of different types of burgers we could grill. Some of them came out better than others (the crab burgers, for example. Though tasty, they fell to pieces when you looked at them. Luckily, I cooked them in a pan).

The one that blew everyone's mind, though, were the veggie burgers. I admit, I stole this recipe from someplace else, and then altered it just a little bit. I couldn't help it, the original were so bland, all the flavor was in the specialty condiments. I'm not a fan of specialty condiments. I don't like to be fussy with my food, and nothing seems more nitpicky than "this sauce goes with this, and that little jar is only for that dish." Build a meal that uses the same flavor palate, so I can just grate Parmesan cheese over everything, or ask for the ketchup once and squirt it both on my sandwich and a corner of my plate for dipping fries, or what have you. Long story short: I moved the spices from the condiments to the burgers. They are made thusly:

Drain and rinse a can of black beans and a can of kidney beans (15 oz cans of each). Add 1/3 cup of corn (canned, frozen, fresh, whatever), 1/3 cup of breadcrumbs, 1/3 to one half a small onion (the recipe says 1/4 cup. I might use more), 1 large egg, 1/2 teaspoon chile powder, and 1/2 teaspoon cumin. A couple or four generous twists of black pepper (or shakes, but I have a pepper grinder thing, so this is how I measure pepper), and just a tiny pinch of salt. Now, mash with a fork.

I suppose you could mash it in the food processor, but what I've discovered is that you want something coarser than that gives me. So I use a fork, and my aim is to at least puncture every bean in the bowl. You don't want to smash them to oblivion, because then it's too moist. but if you have two whole beans next to each other, they fall off the burger patty. So every skin broken, but not mashed to death is my goal.

Edit 1/24/2010: I used a potato masher tonight, and that gave me the same final texture as a fork with less than half the effort.

Form them into patties (hands work well. It is messy though), wrap in tinfoil, and freeze until ready to cook and eat. I like them with cheese, mustard, and pickles, but you can put whatever you wish on them. In any case, they are crazy tasty. They don't pretend to be meat, which makes me happy, and they don't taste like you're sacrificing anything for lack of a beef burger.

In Pursuit of Perfection

There are a lot of foods I’m horribly fond of, but don’t make myself. Oddly, most of these are things that I consider the pinnacle of their food type. Cinnamon rolls, for one, or flan. Only in the past few years have I unlocked the joy of guacamole (the secret: mash the avocados with your favorite salsa. Add Tabasco to taste. Do not salt, as the chips will provide that). But my second-favorite dip is easily hummus. Which ought to be easy to make. To whit, your basic hummus recipe:

Chickpeas
Tahini (sesame paste)
Garlic
Olive oil
Juice of a lemon
Cumin
Salt and pepper

Combine in blender, at varying ratios, until paste is achieved. Spread on stuff, or scoop up with pita.

The problem is, it never comes out quite right. I’ve tried a bunch of different combos, and it never tastes as good as store-bought. It’s flat, or there’s too much tahini (why does this stuff only come in big jars?), or the raw garlic is overpowering.

In my latest attempt, I roasted my garlic in the olive oil, then used that. It was not bad, but that would be one of the “flat” experiences. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t a “don’t come near me for three days” experience of the too much raw garlic time. But it was too legumy. If that can be said of the paste of a legume. It reminded me of unsalted organic peanut butter (yuck!). I think I need at least some raw garlic. And possibly more citrus. Maybe some of the lemon zest as well as the juice? And I’m definitely missing a spice.

So this is my working theory for next time:

1 can chickpeas, drained
1 clove raw garlic
1 clove garlic roasted in ¼ cup olive oil
Juice of one lemon
¼ to ½ teaspoon of lemon zest
¼ teaspoon cumin
Salt and black pepper to mood that day

Combine in food processor, blend until paste.

But what’s the spice I’m missing???

The Joy of the Greasy Spoon

For those of you who don't know, I am moving. Tomorrow. The city I live in requires that you get permits to block parking spaces with your moving truck, and you have to post about it 24 or 48 hours in advance. So today the Mysterious Mr. Bo and I went out and taped up our moving signs. And then grabbed breakfast, as he hadn't eaten and I'd only had a hastily aborted attempt at a bowl of cereal.

A couple blocks from our new apartment is a place called Capitol Coffee House. Looking at the sign, I expected your stereotypical slightly upscale coffee and pastry sort of place. Oh no. Laminated lunch counters, crappy little tables in the back, specials on printer paper slipped in plastic sleeves, and the old sign boards where you slide or snap on letters to tell you their menu. I got a bacon, egg, and cheese on an english muffin with a cup of coffee, and Mr. Bo got a 1 egg special (egg, toast, homefries) and coffee. And we sat down at the counter.

First of all, that was some mighty fine coffee. I almost wish I hadn't let them put cream in it, although wherever they're getting their cream, it was smooth and rich and so much better than at Dunkin Donuts (where I've stopped letting them use cream. I ask for milk instead). I wonder whether its some kind of fancy coffee, or just that they've managed to keep it hot without burning it the way most places do.

Secondly, an egg sandwich has no right being that tasty. It was just a fried egg, bacon, and a slice of american cheese on an english muffin. But it tasted divine. Best egg sandwich I've eaten. The bacon and the cheese provided all the flavor it needed, so there was no salting or peppering. Unless they're putting something in the butter, I think the food is flavored with old-man cantankerousness. As the cook and the guys behind the counter were all older, slightly surly gentlement. Mr. Bo was equally pleased, and wished that he had gotten two dropped eggs instead of one. Although he says it wasn't that it was cooked with spite or surliness, but onions.

He refers to their home fries, which I did not poach from his paper plate as the portion was not huge. But he says they were excellent. And with everything coming to under $10, I suspect the girls at my local starbucks will be wondering where I have gone.

Oh for the love of . . .

I have three other posts in the editing process, but I need to sound off on this now, because it makes me so angry.

Cankles. Aka: fat, swollen, or otherwise unshapely ankles. They are apparently the new thing women have to worry about. As though it's not enough that the entire rest of our bodies is considered fair game for scrutiny by everyone ever on the face of the earth. Now I have to worry about the fact that I have muscular lower calves, which get swollen when I stand for eight hours a day in heels. Not to mention the fact that, having seen clips of news reports on this oh-so-important subject, I google-imaged cankles, and I honestly can't tell you what what one looks like in real life. It's a made-up thing that people can bandy at someone to put her down.

So, just to recap, all women are supposed to worry desperately about being perfectly beautiful all the time, because otherwise no one will love you. Even if the part of the body you're obsessing over isn't something you can actually do anything about unless you're heavy enough to have more important serious health issues to worry about. And once you acheive this unattainable beauty, you're just supposed to take the honking and cat-calling and constantly being hit on and uncomfortable looks from creepy people because isn't that why you're beautiful after all?

Seriously, people: Cankles?

Dear fad-loving media and people who think ankle shape determines worthiness as a human being: FUCK YOU.

By Way of Introduction, Part II: Feminism

I've been writing and deleting this post for over a week now, trying to say everything I want to have as groundwork for whatever I write on this subject. I realized today that they are all apologia for either offending someone or my own ignorance. But you know what? That goes against the whole point of this topic.

If you're offended by anything I say, don't read it. There are millions of other websites out there. If you disagree with me, I might be up for conversation in comments, or I might not. It depends largely on what's going on in my real life, and how much effort I have to put forth. Because I'm lazy and I don't actually care what you think unless it educates one or both of us.

I am not a woman's studies major, or anything vaguely resembling it. I am, however, female, and was raised by strong women. I don't like it when I get treated poorly, or see other women treated poorly, because of genitalia. Which it really what it comes down to. Last I checked, my brain resided in my head, not my pants. And my brain has absorbed an awful lot of information via the printed word. My library card is one of my best friends (although we're on the outs at the moment, as I am embarrassed to admit that I owe a late fine. I feel like they judge me when I return my books in an untimely manner. Paying late fines is like a walk of shame), and I've read quite a few books on feminism. If I go off half-cocked about something, and you know it, feel free to point me in the direction of an author or book that will educate me.

If our opinions on something simply differ though: tough.

By Way of Introduction: Part I, Food

This is something that has been brewing in the back of my mind for some time, and an idea that I've kicked around for months. What it boils down to is this: My friends are tired of listening to me ramble about food, or go off on tirades about women's rights and the related ills of society. So I'm putting them here, world, and you can either read them or not. I'll freely admit I don't have a particularly picky palate or anything, just a love of food. Eating it, making it, sharing it with others. Because food is, among other things, one of the mainstays of our culture. For generations, people have used food, and the table, and the habits and customs surrounding said, as a microcosm of our world as a whole. Which, when you think about the way people (at least in the Western world) tend to approach food, is kind of scary. We have some really messed up ways of interacting with food. Which is a fuel-the way we keep ourselves, going. It's also an experience- the act of sitting or standing and who is present and why and how during the consumption of food. And it is (or can be) a very sensual pleasure- the actual eating, how food looks, tastes, and behaves on our plates, in our mouths, in our stomachs.

All of which doesn't even begin to discuss the preparation of food, what we make and why and how. With whom and for what. Does it ruin a carfully coordinated multi-course event of flavor if we eat off of mis-matched plates (or-heaven forfend- with our plates balanced on our laps)? Is my pie any less delicious because I like to listen to old Metallica when I bake? And then there's who does the cooking in our culture. After all, this is yet another food blog by some girl with some free time on her hands and a kitchen. While most of the professional chefs in this nation are men. Which gets into the second topic of this blog, and will be addressed in part II of this introduction. Although, clearly, the posts as a whole will not be subdivided in this manner regularly. I find I can switch back and forth easily. And do, often without pause for breath.

I hope that the food portion of this becomes not just recipes, but actually how I go about making and deciding to make things, the whys behind not just the making of this particular dish, but what different kinds of food mean to me. And by mean to me, I mean not only what prompts the dish to be important to me, but most importantly, how it tastes. I'm sure there will be comments on restaurants and dishes friends make on here as well, but as I barely qualify as middle class- don't, in fact, if only my college debt was considered a factor by the government- most of what I consume, I make myself. For varying degrees of the word "make." Which is another rant in itself.

And now I must go make dinner.