Finally, an Oven!

In a fluke April storm, our oven stopped working. It has now been numerous weeks.

Whereas before, we made pizza-stone pizzas at least two times a week, we had to do without...

And today, we realized we could use the darned thing! And so here it is:

mushroom

spinach

onion

Feta cheese

mozzarella

chopped cherry tomatoes

And, of course, deliciousness!

Mediterranean Pizza

I had a lovely, lovely, Christmas. This is the tail end of a weekend of singing, family, scrumptious treats galore, too much egg-nog-and-rum, and a hovering spirit of goodwill.

Mmmm.

(On the pizza: swisschard, kalamata olives, feta cheese, kimchi)

Also I accidentally stole all of Ma'ams precious stinky-fish salad (and a fried fish ball) for tomorrow's lunch, and learned too late she meant to gift it away. Truly I felt bad, but my mouth tomorrow will likely get over it...

<3

Octopus in the Lunch

As I was pondering sleep, Simon got the urge for late-night crackers and cheese, and whisked me off to the supermarket to achieve this goal. Passing by the sushi display, we say these tiny little octopus; they were willingly purchased at the sound of my too-loud squeal of disbelief and delight.

Returning home, I realized they were intended to be eaten on the day they were bought, so I had to make a new lunch to incorporate them for tomorrow. This involved a base of seaweed ramen and spinach, which Simon garnished with carrots because he required more color:

Then the rest of the lil' guys were added. They're slimy, and will presumably taste of soy sauce and sesame seeds, which is what they were cooked in.

Here lies the lunch that has been laid to rest until the day after tomorrow: leftover homemade mushroom pizza, cukes, and a greek salad of tomato, spinach, feta cheese and kalamata olives. Got two different themes going on here...

Mother's Pizza Crust

This is the yeastless pizza crust my dearest Mother used to make all the time when we were wee ones. She stopped sometime during our formative years in favor of frozen store-bought dough, but making this after a long day of work brought back warm memories of a large, rambunctious, and endlessly ravenous family.

It was:

1/2 c. flour

sprinkle salt

1 tbsp olive oil

a few tbsp water

and stir, and stir, and form, and roll out. Then simply bake with toppings (sliced tomato, spinach, and feta cheese) until your hunger-induced oven-checking deems it done.

And mmmmm.

HIKING

Finally a beautiful day; finally nothing to do. I mapped out a route through the Catskills, and here is what I found:

10 miles of hiking

5 1/2 hours

1 protein bar consumed

3 water bottles quaffed

1 tin salmon + 1 Reeses cup given to somewhat starving bearded man with large pack and very slow shuffle

1 old couple met

(25*9) - 3 = 222 pictures taken

1 diner visited

1 feta burger, 1 million fries, and 1 diet coke digested

$10.64 spent

11 truck-driving songs heard

1 stomach a'rumbling at the end

2 calves very tight

1 forearm bruised (how?)

1 shin scraped

2 socks filled with mud

1 head of hair irreversibly mussed

It was the perfect day...

Spinach Pizza Repeats-a

We used this simple crust:

1 pkg yeast dissolved in 1 c. warm water

2 c. flour

2 tbsp olive oil

salt & pepper

lots of basil

oregano

After the crust rose, we rolled it out and spread it with olive oil and pesto, and then used sliced-up tomatoes instead of sauce. After covering that with spinach and diced onions, and then had to face our differences. Simon didn't want to eat some "strange-tasting" block feta cheese, so I put that on my side, and he covered his with crumbled feta (bought today) and green peppers. When I say covered, you can see that I truly mean covered.

A Salad.

For this salad, we fried a diced chicken breast in:

olive oil

butter

basil

garlic

lemon juice

and then added:

tomatoes

baby spinach

cucumbers

feta cheese

and then drizzled the leftover frying mixture over the top for dressing. The plan was to put this mixture in a wrap, but I was more in the mood for a simple salad, and it was fresh and delish.

Couscous is Wonderful (A Rediscovery)

Sick of taking tuna wraps to school with me for lunch, I rummaged through the forgotten nethers of my food supply drawer and found a container of couscous my mother had given me. I always thought couscous was a rice relative, but realized today that it was in fact simply tiny bits of pasta. Because of this, it takes five freaking minutes to prepare; you boil water, dump in the bits and immediately remove from heat, let sit for a few minutes, and you have a meal!

This wrap had:

couscous

broccoli

feta cheese

chopped green olives

salt

It was hard to eat because there was no cohesiveness (mayonnaise or mustard would have probably worked), but it was tasty just the same.

(Not Quite A) Vegetable Enchilada

I visited Bee this weekend at her school, and we spent glorious hours playing celtic music with two beautiful friends. When we stopped, hunger struck, and we hurried to the dining hall. Here I snuck fresh vegetables into my bag to bring back to school with me. It's called a budget, people, and living this way is tough -- taking chances on sour milk and risking the wrath of the hawk-eyed lunch ladies. But the payoff is divine! This dinner used the vegetables deliciously.

1. Fry wheat wraps in olive oil on high heat.

2. Make a pile in the center of:

spinach

cucumbers

broccoli

green olives

green pepper

onions

feta cheese

3. Roll up and put in baking pan; cover with shredded Parmesan cheese.

4. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or so, until cheese is melted.

They were a strangely filling meal, which I did not expect. And vegetarian! Although we are assuredly not.

pasta and broccoli and mango and gin

This was a simple dinner; penne pasta mixed with slightly-steamed broccoli, and topped with olive oil and feta cheese. Delicious, though, because it tastes so healthy.

Then we trooped over to watch The Road, which depressed all five of us to a noticeable degree; Jesse came back and wolfed down chocolates, Sean wandered restlessly about the house, Simon descended into silence, and Hannah and I broke out the alcohol.

I have had a can of mango nectar sitting in my refrigerator for an unacceptably long time, and I had brought it with me tonight (perhaps because of the birch beer experiment). I haven't had any juice to drink for months and months because of its superb sweetness. I find it strange that I can stand any amount of sweetness in chocolate form, but fruity sugar has become unbearable in any substantial concentration.

So! I made this one more bearable (and simultaneously delicious) by adding more gin and more vanilla seltzer.

Bean also made wheat-honey bread today, but I have no proof!

Good eggs are better than bad eggs.

I walked home from class, disproportionately weak from hunger, daydreaming about delicious foods with which to fill myself for lunch. When I got home, I realized I had a whole head of fresh, bright-green broccoli to use up.

I put about 2 cups of broccoli on to steam while I scrambled up 2 eggs in a bowl with some milk, salt and pepper. Cooked those; threw in some feta cheese and a diced mushroom, and added the still-crisp broccoli.

And then wolfed that baby down! It's amazing how much fresh vegetables make you feel good.

More like dreggs...

I attempted to deviate from my usual refreshing breakfast of cereal and cold cold cold milk by using up some of the farm-fresh eggs my Mother instructed me to take back to school with me. A good idea, I thought, would be to fry up one of those suckers, and while doing so toast an old, almost-stale piece of sourdough bread topped with sliced mushrooms and feta cheese.

However, the egg looked like roadkill; the bread was (as mentioned) old, and the mushrooms lent a strange flavor. There weren't even any good pictures to show for all my trouble.

Leftover Stir Fry

I have been told that stir fry is usually the first thing people learn to cook, but I grew up in a household of all-American meals, so this was a new and exciting time for me. I used only broccoli, and the sauce, which was supposed to be a sweet-and-sour combination, consisted of:

3 tbsp vegetable broth

1 tbsp soy sauce

2 tsp balsamic vinegar

2 tsp brown sugar

dash of chili powder

Under the unsure direction of my beloved roommate, I heated some grapeseed oil in the wok for a couple of minutes on medium heat, and then added half of the broccoli and poured in the mixed up sauce. After a minute, I added the rest of the broccoli and stood there for a few minutes, whereupon I declared it done. For me, raw vegetables are as delicious as cooked ones (and often more so!), so whether they were cooked or not was unimportant. To the mixture I added a tsp of cornstarch dissolved in cold water to thicken it up, and dumped it on a plate.

It was delicious! But there were leftovers, so today I used them in my lunch. This is simply a whole wheat wrap with the stir fry remains, basil-tomato feta cheese, and a few walnuts on top. I wrapped it up and brought it to class with me, expecting it to be a strange combination, but I was pleased to find that the flavors went well together like SO!