No sooner did I come home from Nova Scotia than I started cooking like a half-screwed-in lightbulb. Oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies the night of my return. (Due to experimentation with the flour quantity, they resulted in, as I said, chocolate-chip tuiles.)
Braised radishes, very pink [standard indoor photo quality disclaimer, though I think the more recent photos don't suck quite as much]:
Then Friday night... you know, the thing is this: I somehow manage to convince myself that X won't take all that long. I had a zingy brainstorm about an alternate way to use the butternut squash, peppers, and jalapeños. Bought lamb for it. Friday, it was already almost 9:30 when I got home from the gym-- you know those days you end up two hours behind yourself? one of those. But, I thought,
"All I have to do is brown and stew the lamb and throw two dishes in to roast. Twenty minutes prep time, then I'll just sit around while everything cooks quietly, by itself."
Right. So how did it happen that when the meal was done I hadn't had time to wash a single dish? (Yes, I ate at 11:30.)
The dish more or less deserved it:
Lamb curry. Cross between a curry and a stew. Browned lamb; sautéed onions and garlic; roasted bell/jalapeño peppers and butternut squash (done in separate dishes to allow for their different cooking times). A slice of bread, a giant slug of beer, and six ice cubes after I tasted a nibble of the roasted jalapeño, I opted to soak up the capsaicin with a few purple potatoes. Half a beer in the liquid. Standard Indian spices. Toasted squash seeds to top. Served on steamed wheatberries. (Oddly, the final time around I had to eat it without adequate grain, and then it tasted too-- sweet? tangy? something didn't work.)
Really the only galling element is the yield: about five servings. Why do I care? I had one of those classic Whole Foods shopping moments, that's why. I only go there for meat. So there I am, bargain shopping, hmm okay that's the stew meat and the two marginally cheaper options require serious butchery, ha no way am I buying the expensive tenderloin or whatever, okay, stew meat, affordable, fine. One-and-a-half pounds, please, nice butcher man. He wraps it up and slaps the sticker on. Which is when I realize
Holy @#$% I am spending fifteen dollars on meat.
So that was last Friday. And as I mentioned, I was immediately gripped by the desire to bake a pie. Such was my fervor that I actually walked the leftover three dozen tuiles to
Lucy's so that I could justify making more dessert. I came home that evening fully prepared to spend the capstone of the weekend baking alone in my kitchen. Did I mention that Yom Kippur was less than 24 hours away?
You will not be surprised to learn that I did it anyway.
Fortunately for my social life and the pie, my downstairs neighbors invited me to watch the penultimate (sob) Sox game. We each had seconds. Sunday afternoon, a friend and I polished off a slice apiece. So only one, lone slice lurked in my fridge over the fast day.
Tuesday night I had a quick-turnaround article to write. Stayed up 'til nearly 3 a.m., woke up at 7 a.m., went to a gallery for the article, went to the day-job office, finished article, did my job. How do I rest? Pick up the farm share (overloaded, as stated earlier), send a friend a card, buy mushrooms, go to the gym*, buy 12 pounds of flour, sugar, etc. since the apple pie took every tablespoon of non-bread flour I had in the house. (Naturally, I was already elbow-deep in butter when I thought to check; I imagined calling up the neighbors to ask for, literally, a cup of flour.)
* I finally triggered myself to get to the gym semiregularly by checking my bank statement.
Lug everything up the stairs. Yes, it's already 8 p.m. Yes,
Project Runway night. Which didn't get watched, because I immediately turned into a Tasmanian Devil of swirling roasting energy convincing myself that stuffed spaghetti squash and semi-ratatouille won't take that long.
"Twenty minutes prep time, then it's just hang out while the two dishes roast in the oven," says I. In the back of my mind, I think about baking another apple pie; neighbor has given me a tip to improve the cohesive power of my powdery crust dough.
I forget the real name for the semi-ratatouille. It is a real dish. Tomatoes out, fennel in, serve room-temp, stir chopped olives in after cooking. Here it is, ready to go:
So maybe it's because I was, clearly, high on fumes. Or maybe I never knew that you're not supposed to add tepid water to a Pyrex dish that's been sitting in a 450' oven for 25 minutes. Either way...
Kaboom. Picture taken after I removed the spaghetti squash, obviously. That oven is still on. Mechanically I picked up the phone and said, blankly, "Mom, I just exploded a Pyrex dish in the oven."
I count myself fortunate:
- I didn't get hurt.
- The fennel ratatouille was
above the squash. Can you imagine my distress if I'd had to throw away
all those vegetables? A big slice of the farm share. Ugh. I finished the stuff on top of the stove. Have to admit that I did, er, crunch on a tiny piece of glass last night, and it has, um, put me off my ratatouille lunch, but I should be fine if I stir through the stuff carefully. Right? The first two servings were unsullied.
- I don't care for spaghetti squash. Though hey, maybe I would've loved it stuffed Italian-style.
The ratatouille turned out all right on the stove, though lacking that browned taste.
Still, I'm saddened by the loss of the dish. My blondies dish! Look how well-loved it is!
It's from my beloved first-edition, no-corrections, note-scribbled copy of The Big Yellow Cookbook, whence also cometh my pie crust recipe.
If anyone comes across a 7"x11" Pyrex baking dish that will fit my old dish's blue plastic lid, buy it and I'll reimburse you. Until then, no bar cookies. !
By the way, you'll note that I was then short an entrée. Couldn't make a cheese sandwich after all that. I took the already-chopped peppers and made a mushroom-pepper omelet sandwich.
Went to sleep, late. Woke up, late for a meeting. Raced through another day. Several social options on the books, plus the missed
Project Runway rerun and the final
Gray's Anatomy Thursday before my writing class starts up again. (How dumb do I feel tweaking my weekday plans for TV? I wish they'd move GA back to Sunday.) So what do I do Thursday night? Well, hang out with a friend. But then!
Parsnip tart, as brainstormed.
"Twenty minutes prep time...." 
Delicious, though I could've done with more of everything. The tart's so minimalist that you need two large slices to count as a main course. Neighbor's tip does help: apple cider vinegar.
(Note that I am perfectly aware that I'm spending way too much time alone in the kitchen, and yes, I know it's kinda sad.)
So it's something like 11:40 and I'm finally emerging from my kitchen vortex, remembering that I already had chocolate earlier in the day (er, twice. Remember the late-for-the-meeting bit?). When I came to, I found myself spattering the (just-cleaned) stove stirring homemade chocolate pudding in a (just-cleaned) saucepan.
Sick. Sick. I've even started rereading the
Julie/Julia Project blog--
again. (If you like to read about cooking, the blog beats the
blook.) Last night I forced myself to eat leftovers. I wouldn't even let myself wash up the dinner dishes. But oh, the itch to bake another apple pie.
And-- oh fear me-- I still have fennel, half a leek, cabbage, jalapeños, parsnips, mushrooms, and salad greens in the fridge.
