We're Dishwasher People

Our dishwasher is out of order. For a couple of weeks, it went through a phase where it would only let us run it once a day. Generally not a problem.  Helpful, actually--an appliance with a conscience, reminding us to save water. Now it won't start up at all. It needs a new part that may or may not be more expensive than just getting a new dishwasher. We shall see.

Washing dishes can actually be a nice, meditative activity. Calming. Soothing. With a real sense of accomplishment at the end. Except that I can see it getting old very quickly. Once in awhile washing dishes by hand can be a real treat. But get a day where everyone is home all day. The dishes will add up. And every person in this family, including myself, is a dish, glass, and silverware junkie. We can't help but use a different glass at every meal, and two in between. Josh and I lived for years without a dishwasher. Now that we have one, we go out of our way to create dirty dishes. And why not? Guess we need to have some dirty dishes boot camp around here. And fast.

Autumn

Wow, no posts for awhile! Did you ever just get so bored of yourself you just couldn't stand it? I guess that's what's been happening with me.

Fall is here. In western NC, fall is pretty amazing. You're just driving along, and suddenly become overwhelmed by the beauty of a red-leafed maple. It's downright dangerous. School is in full swing, the nights are cool, you can wear a sweater, and pumpkins!  I have to talk myself into fall, because I love summer so much. But these are the things that make it bearable, and kind of wonderful.

I haven't been cooking too much, but I have been making a lot of soup. Our CSA ended a couple of weeks ago. Before it did, we received lots of winter squash: mostly delicata and butternut. Squash soup is the simplest and most delicious thing since tomato sandwiches (remember those....?) Really simple: roast your squash, slice and then boil up some apples, saute onions, mix it all together in a pot with some stock or just water. Then puree in a blender, add a little milk or cream, and that's it.  You can add a bit of brown sugar, salt and pepper. Or go wild with ginger and cinnamon.

Beautiful, simple soup. And it matches the trees.

Sunday Morning

I'm loving this three day weekend. We've had so many busy weekends in a row, Josh and I decided that we should make no big plans for this last weekend of summer. Not that we've been bored by any means. Just taking things as they come, a swim Friday evening, bike ride Saturday morning. Then lots of loafing Saturday afternoon, followed up by some ribs on the grill for dinner. This morning I woke up refreshed; a rare thing for Sunday mornings of late. I decided to make the kids some pancakes.

Sometimes, there is nothing better than a big pile of pancakes. It doesn't have to be Sunday morning. A big pile of pancakes can be great for a weeknight supper, or a Tuesday afternoon lunch. (note: this photo is from a Tuesday afternoon pancake pile that Willem and I decided to have one day while Josh was at work and Miles was at a friend's house.) I use the recipe from my old 1970's Betty Crocker cookbook, the one with the orange cover and very retro food photography. Page 57. Simple as can be. Well, using pancake mix might be simpler. But since I always seem to have the dry ingredients: flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, sugar--why not mix them up from scratch?

Willem was super excited when I mentioned pancakes. Miles, not so much (he wanted cereal.) But then I whispered "chocolate chips" and he was on board.

Something about my kids. I think I've mentioned this a few times already. They're pretty picky, and I think somewhat food spoiled. Meaning, they get great food all the time, and don't really appreciate it so much. Anyway, the reactions to the pancakes were as follows:

Miles rated them: Awesome!

Willem rated them: Why the hell are there chocolate chips in my pancakes?! I don't like chocolate chips. 

I had to find a couple of pancakes with fewer chocolate chips, and pick them out. Then I ate Willem's too-chocolaty ones myself. 

Josh had coffee only, and left to go fishing. I think he's on to something. 

Take the Peppers Out

In the interest of "getting organized" and "being more disciplined", I finally loaded the month's worth of photos from the camera to the computer. There were some from our beach trip. August really did have me in a heat-induced fog, I barely took any pictures at all during that trip. Not even one beach shot! Here's one of the boys from our last night of vacation:

After camping for four nights and cooking all our own food over a fire and on the camp stove, we treated ourselves to a nice dinner out. This was in front of the restaurant. As we were walking to the car, we noticed the sun sinking right across the way, over the water. Miles and I got our cameras and snapped some pictures of it.  This sign was advertising karaoke and congratulating someone for something. We were in South Carolina, south of Charleston, and the food was low country. They have a specialty in that particular area called Frogmore Stew, which does not involve frogs. Rather, it's shrimp, chorizo sausage, potatoes and corn in a sort of a broth. My mother-in-law tried it, and she loved it. I ate a bite of chorizo and it was amazing.

This sign has been posted on my oven door for several days now:

Josh has grown a ton of peppers, and he's working on drying them out. He makes his own crushed red pepper flakes, which are great to cook with. Apparently, he does not trust that I'll remember that he's left peppers in the oven, (he's right) and thinks that I'll turn it on to preheat without looking inside first, resulting in...well, I guess some burned up peppers. Though, surely he realizes how infrequently I've used the oven lately. He also informed me that the crushed red pepper flakes contain pepper seeds! Ack!

I guess he thought that since pepper seeds bother me so much, that he should disclose this information to me. Some things are better left unsaid. I'll enjoy them anyway.

When Hamburgers Fall From the Sky

I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last post! Shameful! August has been so busy though. A round of visitors, a beach trip, more visitors, the start of the school year. Not to mention my own general laziness and malaise. This was one seriously hot bitch of a month. I haven't been cooking so much as preparing food. Because we have to eat.

So now I'm back, and I'll have to take baby steps to get into this thing properly again. This afternoon it's (finally!) cool so I'll turn the oven on and make roast chicken. With CSA corn on the cob and potatoes. If I get motivated I'll prepare the edamame that's in the back of my fridge: it needs to be shelled and boiled for a bit in salted water. For some reason, eating edamame seems like a slightly pretentious thing to do. I guess because I live in a town where people say things like: "Little Rainbow just loves edamame. He brings it to preschool along with his organic applesauce and veggie crisps." You know. But I like it anyway.

I'll leave with one thought, with hopes to be back tomorrow. The other night the kids and husband and I were sitting at dinner, eating tilapia, and the kids were eating very slowly. Because this is what they do when they don't love the meal we're having.  It was really frustrating me, and I kept asking them to please just hurry up and eat! Then it dawned on me: I think the kids actually believe that if they stall at meal times, if they wait long enough, that maybe a McDonald's happy meal will fall from the sky and onto their plate. Nice thinking kids, but it ain't gonna happen. Not on my watch.

Maque Choux. Bless you.

There are certain foods that people like that I really wish I could like, but do not. Mushrooms fall into this category. Bleu cheese. Cantaloupe. Fennel. It's not a very long list. Oh, and there's one more. Okra.

I've been trying to like okra for awhile now. But like my problem with mushrooms, it's a textural thing. Mushrooms are spongy and odd. Okra is slimy.

I've tried it fried, added to soup, in gumbo. Slimy, slimy and slimy. But recently I've had two separate conversations with okra lovers, real born and raised Southerners. I approached it politely. "Don't you find okra to be a bit, you know, slimy?" I asked. Not at all they insisted. Both of these people suggested stewed tomatoes and okra. Okra turned up in our box this week, so why not give it a try?

I found this simple vegetarian recipe for Stewed Corn and Tomatoes, or maque choux, on Epicurious.  Maque choux is a Cajun dish, based on a Native American one. You're supposed to use fresh corn, but I only had frozen. Wrong and I'm sorry-- and I promise next time to use fresh.

But everything else was completely fresh.
Homegrown peppers.

CSA tomatoes.

I made a couple of other changes. We had a big leek so I used that instead of the scallions. And I left out the jalapeno seeds, being a wimp about spicy stuff, and a hater of seeds in my food. Seriously, pepper seeds drive me crazy. Any time I cut one up, any variety, I have to completely remove any and all seeds from the pepper and from the cutting board before I can move ahead with slicing or dicing, or whatever.

So now that you know about more about my food compulsions than you ever wanted to. The maque choux. It smelled wonderful. The corn was sweet, the tomatoes delicious. The jalapenos were just the right amount of spicy. The okra. It tasted good. The slime was still there though. But I admit: the whole of stewed tomatoes and okra is pretty much larger than the sum of its parts.

More Tomatoes

If you come to my house right now, you'll smell two things: sunscreen and garlic. The boys and I stayed at the pool as long as possible, and when we got home we were starving. As soon as I walked in the door I started cooking. There's a pile of cherry tomatoes on our counter that's been growing larger every day. And I can see more out there on the vines, ready to be picked; cherries, Romas, the works.  Makes a person a bit panicky. I'm happy to say that our indoor tomato pile just became a little sauce, simmering on the stove. This is a tomato sauce with the barest essentials: cherry tomatoes, garlic, basil and oregano, salt and pepper, crushed red pepper. (I've mentioned that my husband has a thing for peppers. He made the crushed red pepper with last year's batch of peppers.) I heated a pan, poured in some olive oil.  Just threw everything in at once. The result: a little taste of summertime.

We had a jar of Alfredo sauce too. I stirred this into the fusilli, and topped it off with the tomato sauce. Kind of Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade of me. But addictively good. An achievement for someone who  maybe got a little too much sun today.