Carrot cake oatmeal

A variation on my steel-cut oats, with shredded carrots and cream cheese added in. For the fruit, I added golden raisins (which are optional). You could add walnuts or pecans if you wanted, and more maple syrup.

Make a batch of steel-cut oats. You can do it in your slow cooker, or on the stovetop, like this:

4 cups water
1/2 cup cream
1 cup steel-cut oats
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 tablespoon each cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, salt
Some kind of dried fruit

Put the water and cream together in a big pan and bring almost to a boil. Add the rest, turn the heat down to low, and simmer for about 20-30 minutes or until thick and gloppy. Let cool a few more minutes before serving.

That's the basic recipe. To make this, about five minutes before the oats are done, stir in two shredded carrots.

In a cup, mix about a quarter of a box of cream cheese, at room temperature, with a long drizzle of maple syrup (you can adjust the proportions, depending on how rich/sweet you want it).

Serve with a spoonful of cream cheese mix on top, and stir before eating.

The garden has begun!

It's still not quite spring here in Massachusetts. There's still (STILL) snow on the ground, and although daytime temperatures are now consistently above freezing, night temperatures remain mostly below freezing.

But spring is coming.

The days are longer, the snow is melting off, and next weekend will be Daylight Savings Time.

So, because I can't wait for concrete evidence of spring any longer, I started my garden this weekend.

It doesn't look like much. Several containers of herbs and cold-weather crops in my chilly sunroom, thoroughly watered and awaiting germination. I turned my downstairs bathroom into a seed-starting greenhouse of sorts, by jacking the temperature up in there and laying out flats of tomato and pepper seeds. Next weekend I'll rig up some cheap metal shelving with lighting, and move the tomato and pepper seeds under the lights.

Once the snow has melted and the ground has thawed enough for me to work it, I'm going to plant more cold-weather crops (kale, spinach, arugula, chard, beets, butternut squash, cauliflower, cilantro, leeks) right away. And in May, once the danger of frost has passed, of course everything will go in the ground, including all the herbs and seedlings.

In the meantime, I've got my container garden to cultivate. Kale, spinach and arugula, plus all the herbs except for basil and dill (oregano, thyme, tarragon, chervil, sage, parsley, chives, rosemary, etc.).

I hope I'll have a little army of sprouts in the next 8-10 days. I'll keep you posted!

Winter tart with potatoes, mustard greens, leek and bacon

I'm not quite sure what to call this dish. It's somewhere between a tart and a quiche. And it was good, and filling, but it needed...something. Not sure what. More cheese, perhaps? Or herbs. Feel free to experiment.

Anyway, it gave me a chance to use something I haven't used in a while: pie weights.

Pie weights are little ceramic marbles. Sometimes you need to cook the pie crust before you cook the filling (like in a lemon meringue pie), because the crust will take longer than the filling. But if you just put the crust in the oven, with nothing in it, it will puff up weirdly and ruin the shape of your pie. So you gotta put something in there to weight it down while it cooks. Like pie weights. But you can also use uncooked dried beans, or uncooked rice, and it does the same thing. (You can even use the beans/rice afterward.)

Note: this recipe makes two full-size tarts. You can use regular pie pans, you don't need a tart pan.


So, to make this tart/quiche thing, make a pie crust, roll it thin, and bake it at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes (with your pie weights) until browned and done. Remove and let cool.

For the filling:

1 bunch mustard greens, chopped (or any other winter green: kale, chard, collards, etc.)
1 leek, sliced
lots of bacon, cooked
1 potato, sliced thin
4 eggs
1 cup milk
salt and pepper to taste
goat cheese

Layer in the cooked pie crust like so: potato, greens, leek, bacon. Mix the eggs and milk together, and pour into the pie crust. You want the mixture to come almost to the top of the crust; if you don't have enough, add more egg/milk until it rises to that level. Cover with goat cheese crumbles. Bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes, or until the custard sets. Let cool a few minutes before serving.

Black bean and plantain empanadas

When I went to Buenos Aires (a beautiful, glowing, halcyon memory that warms the cockles of my March heart right now), one of my favorite experiences was going out into the South American 'burbs for an authentic asado and empanada-making lesson. A little old Argentine lady showed us ("us" being me and the other 8 or 10 people who had signed up for the day) how to make traditional beef empanadas from scratch. Then her husband fired up the grill, complete with all the traditional meats (skirt steak, short ribs, flank steak, pork loin, sausage, blood sausage, tripe, sweetbreads and beef kidney). Then we busted out some wine and ate it all. Good times.



The asado.



Isn't Buenos Aires beautiful? Sigh.

I've since tried to duplicate that empanada recipe, with only half success. I still can't quite get the dough right, and I don't know why. I'll keep trying.

In the meantime, empanadas were furthest from my mind this week. I was in a I'm-totally-over-this-winter funk and just not very interested in cooking. I ate a lot of cheese for dinner.

Then in a fit of random wandering around my kitchen, looking for inspiration, I opened the freezer and beheld a box of puff pastry.

"Mmmmm...butter," said my wintry brain, and I immediately started thinking of ways to use the puff pastry.

Here's what I came up with.

Not as good as Buenos Aires, but still pretty darn good. And with puff pastry. (And I got my cooking mojo back!)

olive oil
1 large ripe plantain, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 red pepper, chopped
2 cups cooked black beans (or 1 can)
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped
cumin and cayenne to taste
fresh lime juice
1 large egg
2 packages puff pastry (four sheets), thawed
queso fresco or goat cheese

Start by sauteeing the plantain in olive oil and butter until soft and cooked, and remove. In the same pan, add more olive oil, and saute the onion and red pepper until soft.

To that, add the beans, spices, cilantro and lime juice, and cook for another 5 minutes or so, to let the flavors meld. Remove from heat. Mash with a potato masher and let cool.

Cut each sheet of puff pastry into four squares. Mix the egg with a little water to make an egg wash, and brush that along the edges of each square. Place a couple tablespoons of bean mash in the center of each square, and top with a little goat cheese. Fold the corner over to make a triangle, and seal by pressing down the edge with a fork.

Place your empanadas on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper, and put a little more egg wash on the top. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes.

Don't those look good? Three will make an adult meal, and this recipes makes 16.

You can serve with salsa, but I made a traditional Argentine chimichurri instead.

For the chimichurri:
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 shallots, peeled
2 cloves of garlic, peeled
a big bunch of parsley, stems and all
salt and pepper to taste

Whiz that all together in your food processor, dribbling the olive oil in. Remove and add a little more olive oil, until you have a green soupy mass. Let that sit for two hours before serving.

Survey results, and how I furnished my new house for less than $1000

Thanks to everyone who filled out the survey! (It's still running, if more of you want to ante up.) Most of you wanted more cost-cutting tips/kitchen hacks; and the biggest surprise was that many of you requested more personal info/stories/more about me.

So, I'm gonna take a leap and tell you about my other blog, Two Blind Cats. It's just plain ol' me. I suppose I should take after my heroes like Pioneer Woman and combine the two blogs into one all-purpose one--and be assured I'm planning a major blog overhaul, so that may actually come to pass. In the meantime, I'll cross-post more often, and add more stories.

I'll start with my own struggles with broke-dom. Mostly it revolves around accumulating, and now trying to pay off, a crushing amount of credit card and student loan debt. How did I accumulate all that debt, you ask?

1. Getting my MFA at an Ivy League university, and financing it entirely with loans. Pro: a graduate degree from an Ivy League university. Con: that and a dollar will buy you a cup of coffee.

2. Living in New York for a decade. Fully half my take-home pay went to rent; the rest went to student loan and credit card payments. Add in a NYC wardrobe (designer clothes and shoes), a penchant for travel, and a love for high-end restaurants. Keep in mind I was working in publishing/nonprofits, and making the crappy paycheck to boot. As an old theatre professor of mine used to say, "There's no profit like nonprofit."

So 100% of my paycheck went to bills. Literally. Rent, utilities, subway pass, student loan payments, credit card payments. That's it. Notice that list did not include food; travel; clothing; going out; medical expenses; savings; or anything else.

So the credit card balances kept growing, even though I was throwing big chunks of money at them every month.

Then when I got married, my husband brought his own credit card and student loan debt to the table. Plus a whopping child support payment.

And I had to take a 35% pay cut from my high salary in NYC, just to be able to work in California, because the economy there was so much crappier.

So once again, a good 95% of our COMBINED salaries was going to bill payment. Rent, child support, utilities, student loan payments, credit card payments. Not including food, gas, savings, 401ks, etc. Or our wedding.

Clearly that was unsustainable.

Fortunately, with the move to New England, we're both making better money. So we can afford rent on a house (a whole house in the Boston suburbs rents for only about 10% more than we were paying for an apartment in San Diego), car payments for two new cars (at 0% financing), and savings, and I'm able to budget food, gas, etc., in as line items instead of using whatever's left over at the end of the month.

But that still means almost all of our combined money is still going to debt payment. I'm paying that off as fast as I can, and I'm happy to say that I can see the (distant) light at the end of the tunnel. Not as fast as I would like, because life always gets in the way. We had to move cross-country; then we had to both get all-new winter wardrobes, since we'd moved from San Diego; then there was Christmas; I got a new job and we had to get an additional car; and of course, we had to outfit our big new house, as we jettisoned as much as possible before moving cross-country.

Which is why I run a tight ship around my house. I don't want to spend any more money than I absolutely have to on stuff I don't have to--so that we can pay off our debts faster, so that we can spend that money on fun things like travel, rather than on interest payments and electricity. I wash all our clothes in cold water; I turn the thermostat down to 58 at night; I wash out and reuse Ziploc bags; I'm the turn-the-lights-off Nazi; I quit buying paper towels, and soda, and fabric softener, and all those other things we don't need; I save all my vegetable scraps and use them to make broth. And so on.

"Yeah, okay, great, what's this about furnishing your house for less than $1000?"

So, given all that, when we moved into our new big (rental) house, we had almost no furniture with which to outfit it. We had a bed, a guest bed, a sofa, and my red leather chair, and that's about it. No desk, no bookshelves, no kitchen table, nothing for the guest room, etc.

That was the algebra problem. "Given available furniture budget is $0, and given we need all these things, how to acquire them and keep spending as close to $0 as possible?"

Answer: Don't pay retail. (And, keep your eyes open.)

Between craigslist, the Salvation Army, the local furniture consignment shop, and ebay, I got everything we needed. And then some. A piece at a time, and it's all good-quality stuff. No cheap Target pressboard furniture, only two Ikea rejects, and only one slipcover required. (See pics here.)

Let me tell you, the Salvation Army here is a treasure. A huge furniture section, and I've also scored some great board games with no missing pieces (okay, the clay in Cranium was dried out, but I can replace that with some cheap Play-Doh, and I only paid $2.50 for Cranium).

So if you need cheap (quality) furniture, do this:
1. Start by asking around. I got my grandmother's mahogany dining room table and six matching chairs for free this way. My husband got a free drafting table from a coworker, who was jettisoning some stuff in preparation for a move.
2. Scroll craigslist and Freecycle on a regular basis.
3. Trawl your local thrift shops, Salvation Army and Goodwill and the like. I wasn't expecting to find anything at the Salvation Army, but I scored a dresser, a desk, an ugly but very comfortable second sofa, and a solid cherry entertainment center for $200 total. AND, yesterday, I scored four brand-new pieces of Pampered Chef stoneware, on 50% Off Day, meaning I got all four for less than the cost of one retail.
4. Did I mention I love the local furniture consignment shop? I've found all kinds of great housewares here (including a Waterford decanter, a matching set of 8 martini glasses, and a vintage picnic basket) and of course furniture (including a mahogany china cabinet, a prep table for the kitchen, and a vintage 60s armchair). Which won't help most of you, I know, but the point is to keep your eyes open for places like this.
5. There's always Big Lots and TJ Maxx. (I found a bunch of great throw pillows recently at TJ Maxx for cheap.)
6. Yard sales. (Not an option in winter in New England, but an option I plan to exercise when yard sale season starts up again.) Here's a fun yard sale map tool.

Be creative when necessary. The $40 sofa I got at the Salvation Army was ugly as sin, but with a $20 slipcover and a bunch of cheap TJ Maxx throw pillows, you'd never know. The cheapest new Ikea sofa would have set us back at least $300. I'll need outdoor furniture when it warms up; I'd love a bunch of Adirondack chairs and a wicker dining set for 8 and a hammock, but I'll settle for a $30 table from the Salvation Army and a bunch of mismatched folding chairs for now. Nobody cares what it looks like but me, anyway.

So for my $1000 and a few weeks of searching, I got:
dining room table and chairs (free, plus $50 in gas money for my parents to drive it up)
two desks ($85 and $50)
four Ikea bookshelves ($125 total)
a dresser ($50)
a sofa (and slipcover) ($40 + $20)
a china cabinet ($150)
a prep table ($80)
a rug ($40 on ebay)
a chair ($60)
several lamps (some courtesy of Target, the rest Salvation Army) ($60)
an entertainment center ($70)
a treadmill ($120)
a drafting table (free)

Not bad, huh? For a few hours of effort, I won't have to worry about furniture again for...well, hopefully years.

"Which has what to do with a cooking blog?"

I have a larger point, I swear. Here it is: Saving Money Is Really Just About Paying Attention.

It all boils down to that. I could wax rhapsodic about cutting coupons or Quicken or free shipping at Amazon or the lost art of darning socks or what-the-hell-ever, it all wraps back around to Paying Attention To Where Your Money Is Going (And Where You Want It To Go).

I don't want to give the power company any more than $50 a month, so I turn off all the lights and the computers and unplug rarely-used appliances and lamps. Starbucks doesn't need any of my money, so I brew tea and coffee at home and use travel mugs. I don't want to spend $300 on a sofa when I could spend $50 instead, so I lurk through thrift shops on my lunch break. Because I'd rather have that $250 to spend elsewhere.

I DO want to travel more often, and have a comfortable cushion of savings, and eat out at fancy restaurants once in a while. In order to get there, I have to pay off the debt I have, which means buying credit card payments every month instead of buying paper towels and Doritos.

Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.

My 25-year-old self would totally kick my ass right now.

Oh my God, I'm turning into my mother.

Roasted broccoli with parmesan

Most people object to broccoli for two reasons:

1. They've only had it cooked one way: boiled into limp, soggy oblivion.
2. The smell of cooking it that way.

Remember how I said you could roast any vegetable, and it would taste good, and you shouldn't ever boil anything? That included broccoli. Best of all, roasting it doesn't produce that broccoli smell.

All you have to do is chop a head or two of broccoli into large florets (save the stems for veggie broth), toss those with a little olive oil and salt, and roast on a cookie sheet at 400 for about 20 minutes, or until browned and crispy on the ends. Toss that with grated parmesan cheese and a squeeze of lemon juice.

I don't feel like cooking this week; and, adventures with Cheerios

Sometimes I don't. It happens.

What I really should say is that I don't feel like cooking anything NEW this week. I'll make a bunch of the old stand-bys instead, and because I'm sick to fucking death of winter, it'll all be carb-heavy and full of cheese and I'll drink a lot of red wine with it and then bitch at my husband about why he never gets on the treadmill, when really I should be getting on the treadmill my own self.

But I digress.

(I love my husband, even if we both never get on the treadmill.)

So instead I'll tell you about my latest shopping adventures, buying Cheerios.

"What's this about Cheerios? I thought you didn't buy cereal? Didn't you get all up on your high horse about not eating processed food and not spending money on convenience crap, and then you go out and buy Cheerios?"

Why, yes. Yes, that was me. I did get all up on my high horse about not eating cereal. And I fixed filling, cheap, nutritious breakfasts every morning, with homemade steel-cut oatmeal, and blueberry muffins, and poached eggs on quinoa, and all sorts of yummy things.

Which my husband refused to eat.

Well, I shouldn't say "refused." I should say, "he took it to work, buried it in the work refrigerator, forgot about it for a month, then brought home 49 Tupperware containers all at once and explained that he didn't like oatmeal."

When I asked why I hadn't been made aware of this information before I actually, you know, MADE the oatmeal, he would only say that he "grew up eating cereal" and "never got in the habit of oatmeal" and "what was wrong with Cheerios anyway, dammit?"

So mothers, let this be a lesson to you. You feed your kids crap, they grow up wanting crap. Then they ask for by name at age 42. It's a marketer's wet dream.

So, fine. I'd rather he eat Cheerios than nothing at all. (At least it's Cheerios, and not Lucky Charms or something.)

Of course, hearing that, he ran right out and spent $4.59 on a box of Cheerios without even thinking. Without even looking for a sale, or saying, "Let's go to Costco and buy some in bulk." Sigh. I could see I was going to have to take this cereal thing under my wing.

So I watched the sale flyers for a couple of weeks, and sure enough, one of the local supermarket chains announced a 4-for-$10 Cheerios sale.

Then I Googled "Cheerios coupons" and printed out a bunch. 75 cents off and $1 off 2 boxes, in multiples.

I took those to the store and used them to buy 4 boxes. The store gave me a register coupon afterwards, for $2 off 5 boxes.

So I printed off some more of those coupons.

And went back and bought 5 more boxes.

So then I had laid in a stockpile of 9 boxes of Cheerios, for a grand total of $1.20 each.

Not bad, huh?

I'll do the same again the next time there's a sale.

Now, of course, my husband thinks we have Cheerios for snack food, and he can eat nothing but Cheerios all day long and we'll never run out, because "we have all these boxes!"

So I had to institute a "Cheerios for breakfast only" rule.

(True story: one Saturday, I caught him eating a bowl of Cheerios for breakfast, lunch, and then for dinner. I finally put my foot down and said, "Stop eating Cheerios! You've been eating Cheerios ALL DAY!" "I have not!" he replied. "I haven't seen you eat one single thing today that wasn't Cheerios," I said. To which he replied, "Okay, but that's not the same thing as eating Cheerios all day.")

My secret plan is to save a couple of the Cheerios boxes, and place $1 generic-brand bags of Toasty-Os or whatever inside the Cheerios box. I bet he'll never know the difference.