Some things have gone as planned – but even more have not.

We went to see the Black Keys in Milwaukee in Wednesday. Good show, especially the lights, but I was too tired and sick to really appreciate it. We had tacos at Belair Cafe with John beforehand. Mine were a little disappointing – vegetarian rajas – that I thought were supposed to be strips of roasted poblanos & onions. These were merely sliced and barely even sautéed. The margarita was really good but they forgot to bring it to me till after the food came.

I got my first CSA box Thursday – I was going to bike to get it but my throat was too sore. Purple asparagus, rhubarb, some really gorgeous spinach, green garlic, baby turnips with greens, lettuce, bok choy, even though I asked on my farmer’s end of season survey last fall for less Asian greens, please, more kale & spinach. I’ve been told the Asian varieties grow really well here in WI, though.

One of the things not going at all as planned is exercise, but Friday I managed a bike over to school woods to set up the tables and meet Mel, who was dropping off the liquor for his daughter’s grad dinner, scheduled for Saturday.

I made a high school graduation dinner for this girl 5 years ago (same year as Al) – this was her college graduation.

They had drinks & apps in the “garden”; really the back yard: asparagus rolled in puff pastry with cream cheese & Gouda cheese, and a couple of hunks of good local cheese (Willi’s raw milk cheddar, Marieka Gouda with fenugreek, and Hook’s aged Swiss) and crackers and nuts. Then moved indoors for the salad, that I plated – balsamic vinaigrette, toasted walnuts, Parm shavings. Then served family style, Lemon chicken (my version of this Ina Garten recipe; no dried oregano and I used bone-in chicken), really easy and good, and salmon that I just roasted brushed with olive oil, then poured parsley butter over, although I had considered several other more complicated preparations. This green rice by Heidi, that I also adapted a bit – cilantro instead of mint, green garlic instead of shallots. I think the rice was my favorite part of the supper. The desserts were pretty great too – and the only thing I photographed. Strawberry cake with a Victoria sponge cake base and mascarpone cream and Italian almond crostate. We turned on the air con because it was just too hot.

Sunday morning was library school graduation – quite nice, 11 of my distance students, two good speakers (more on that presently). Came home and tried to get motivated to bike to E. Wash and unload & reload the dishwasher and ended up taking Mark to the immediate care instead. At least the wifi was good there – I graded 3 or 4 students while I waited. And Mark seemed quite cheered up just by knowing he does indeed have a kidney stone.

After all that, I drove over to E. Wash to unload & reload the dishwasher – and see Stephen upstairs’s bandaged fingers – while the Saturday night guests were on the dessert course, Belinda came down to consult on where to go to get him stitched up – he broke a glass while doing the dishes and cut himself. We needed buns to go with our brats for dinner – we were sticking to our plan of grilling for dinner. I stopped by Jenny Market, and of course at 6:00 p.m. on a Sunday, only the most Wonder white bread crappy buns were left.

I opened 3 beers – 2 to boil the brats in and one for me to drink. Poured the beer into the pot with the brats, picked up the 2 bottles to drop into recycle, and came back to find an empty – I had just dropped a full bottle of beer into the recycle bin. So I had to crawl into the bin, clean it all out and turn it over on the grass to drain. Oh well, guess I needed something to do while the coals got ready.

I uploaded the grad dinner dessert pix thinking I’d work on this post in front of Sunday night TV – but I got dozy and here I am doing it now on my iPhone on Monday morning. Grabbing time because I must finish grading today. We never got the promised thunderstorms; instead the cold front blew in and now it’s almost too chilly.

I get almond tart & leftover salad with grilled potatoes & egg for lunch though – making the best of the weekends mishaps.

1. Or at least, thing by thing. For our Dutch exchange student, this was the weekend of the senior prom. For me it was mother’s day, and a brunch at School Woods.
2. On Saturday, I got up and went to the Farmers’ Market on my own for serious shopping – potatoes, cheese, green onions, asparagus, eggs, meat – I think I spent $60. Then to Willy Street Co-op, to spend another $70 or so. I intended to stop by the house, drop off the fragile stuff, like bananas and strawberries, not have to transport them again, OJ to thaw, that kind of thing. My renters were home, so we got to talking – the furnace install seems to have gone OK, but we’ll all have to learn how to program the new thermostat. I have one electric mower and one push – I loaned them the power one to get over that very first mow of the season, but they were finished with it, so I brought it back home.
3. I had started out at 7:30, and by now it was almost 10 and I still needed to go to the regular grocery store. One of my library students was visiting from IL and I knew she was going to call me between 11 & noon, to meet back downtown for coffee. I’d get to hold her baby, so I didn’t want to miss her call. So I headed off to Sentry with my iPhone UN-silenced, and got through there pretty darn quick, and even had enough time to get my knives sharpened. On Wednesday (the night I made two dinners, salmon with asparagus and smashed potatoes that showed up again for breakfast on Friday, and beef enchiladas) my too dull knife bounced off the parsley I was chopping and scraped a thin bit of skin off the second finger of my right hand.
4. Home, put stuff away, ate a bowl of honey nut cheerios and home made granola with an apple cut up in it.
5. Biked downtown to meet my student, her husband, and baby Hannah. Went back to the market to get tomatoes from Mark’s favorite place, Canopy Gardens – on my first trip I’d been mostly buying for the brunch, not for us for the week.
6. Then I had to go to my office to send some emails and make copies of the invoice for the new furnace for the application for the energy efficient rebate. I guess I’ll get $275 back (out of the $3000 spent on the furnace) eventually – 6 to 8 weeks.
7. Home again in time to drive Joëlle to another girl’s house where they were all doing each other’s hair & makeup for the prom – they were so intent, no one even noticed when I walked in – they only noticed Joëlle, who had already done her hair – made her naturally curley straight – and eyes, and was in her sparkley dress.
8. Home again, started making the crusts for the mom’s day quiches – I inadvertently made sweet dough the fist time – 3 TBLS sugar to the 3 cups of flour, instead of the 1 TBLS I cut back to for savory pie. But that means there’s pie dough in the freezer now, for a future sweet pie
9. And the tree guy came to give us the quote on trimming several of our trees including the shrub by the back door that’s been hitting us in the face when it’s wetted down after a thunderstorm in the night, and the birch that hits the house and you can hear while you’re watching TV up at Mark’s.
10. Then I biked to Allen Centenniel Gardens on the UW campus – it used to be the home of E.B. Fred, Professor of bacteriology and president of the University from 1945 – 1958. In the early 1980s, my first few years in Madison, Mrs. Fred still lived in the house, and my friend Mary Terese Volkman, MTV, lived there with her as a kind of caretaker/amanuensis. We had a few picnics in the back yard where the gardens are now; somewhere I have a picture of me and my bike by a tree back there. And I remember taking a pile of records over, and dancing in the front hall to the Grateful Dead. The attic was scarey and full of bats. And bat shit.
11. We decided to go see Dark Shadows, the 7:05 show, so I had just enough time to bake the blueberry muffins, and eat a tomato sandwich. Dark Shadows was cheesey, but I liked it, just like I thought I would.
12. Home again, baked the cranberry corn muffins and the rhubarb upside down ones – a new invention, with chopped, sugared, and drained rhubarb in the bottom of each muffin cup, with a plain brown sugar muffin batter on top. Recipe real soon now, pictures below. Asparagus and bacon quiches. Took me till about 1:00 a.m., then I crashed on the couch with the cats until 3:00.
13. Sunday morning, roasted the potatoes. Cleaned greens and made vinaigrette. And took an extra bag of potatoes, baking pan, olive oil and garlic, with me. Good thing, too – I did end up making more spuds – I had to ask my own family to hold off on eating potatoes until the paying customers got enough, and til the extras were close enough to being done. Somehow, though, despite almost running out of potatoes, I felt like I had plenty of time for everything, and it was a leisurely brunch. Lots of little kids, and I got to sit down and eat with John & Mark & Ethan.
14. Home again, put the pans in to soak, and drank a beer on the back deck and read. John & Al were actually both here in the kitchen for about 10 minutes, and didn’t fight – pretty good for mother’s day.
15. Joëlle cooked Dutch food for us for dinner – meatballs and cheesy cauliflower. Watched game of thrones, resisted having another beer, and was really really sleepy by 10:30, so I crashed on the couch again till 12:30. My throat started getting sore.
16. Woke up at 5:30 a.m. on Monday with a full-blown sore throat, and that “what just happened feeling?” Got up at 6:30 for several hours of intense puttering around the house – unloaded and reloaded the dish washer, fished out 2 dough scrapers that had gone missing since cookie season from behind the big drawer full of plastic containers, put seldom used bowls & trays that’d been gotten out for weekend cooking away into the most overstuffed cabinets where stuff falls out when you open them, cat litter, coffee, bring in the newspapers, logged in to my online course and answered a few student emails, took out the compost, sorted newspapers for recycle, rinsed and cut up strawberries, got dressed & brushed my teeth, packed lunch. And still got to work before 9:00.
17. Whew

Upside down rhubarb muffins

I went to the doc this afternoon to see if I could get any of my aches & pains explained. She poked me and did a blood test and I’ll know in a few days. And I got busted for having to go for a colonoscopy – even though I said I’d never do that again – I guess they’re calling to schedule me also in the next few days.

Now I’m watching Red Hot Chili Peppers get inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Anthony Kiedis gave the acceptance speech, and then they all took their shirts off to play. They closed with Stevie Wonder’s Higher Ground, and Ron Wood, Billie Joe Armstrong, Kenny Jones and George Clinton were all on stage – I didn’t realize Billie Joe was there till  Rolling Stone told me so. And next a True Blood repeat – seems appropriate somehow.

And so far the reviews I’ve seen for Dark Shadows are only so-so  – 2 1/2 stars in the Milwaukee paper. But I still just know I’m gonna love it – Johnny Depp, Tim Burton, Barnabas Collins, vampires – what more could you want? They’re all saying it’s stilted and the plot goes nowhere, but what do you expect if you make a movie based on a soap opera? Besides, it’s a Tim Burton movie, so it’s going to look great, and that’s what I’ll go to see it for. And, of course, Johnny Depp with fangs and Nosferatu fingers.

Posted from my iPhone at least partly

But what I really can not do is photograph rhubarb custard tart. Tonight’s version looks like it’s filed with bacon – didn’t think getting baked on a bacon pan would have such a transformative effect on the tart. I stole this shot from the National Gallery Cookbook – didn’t try to photograph the non-browning tart myself – although according to my blog post, we ate it.  Below is tonight’s, and another version from 2010 – ewww. Wonder if I could fix ‘em up with instagram.

Rhubarb custard pie 2010 - looka them kellers, Martha

Rhubarb custard tart 2012 - looks like bacon

The condition should improve on its own. However, the illness may last for months. Long-term or severe complications do not usually occur.

I had plans to cook a nice dinner – steamed asparagus, smashed new potatoes with lots of butter, salmon with chopped tomatoes on top, big salad. But Mark was just heading out for his walk at 6:15 when I got home, and the big dinner didn’t seem like such a good idea – so I just made the salad.

Now I think I’m going to go flop on the couch, and hope the cats will come to hold me down.

1999 – I still had a shape; I still could wear a dress and look pretty back then – I remember getting complimented on a black and red Laura Ashley dress (looked like the one on the left) that I wore the day I brought the peach tart to work. Now I have old lady big fat belly that makes my arms & legs look skinny in comparison even though they’re not. And back fat.

Here are picture of the tart – I had a little slice for breakfast with my bagel, after I came back from canvassing for the democratic party. 10:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on the  Saturday of the Mifflin Street block party is not a good time to go canvassing in Madison, WI – everyone was either out doing Saturday errands, partying or gone for the weekend. I had 100 addresses and talked to like 3 live people.

Tonight, still working on party leftovers, I had cauliflower and a little peanut dip to use up. I had carrots, and a can of coconut milk, plus a jar of the thin part of another can of coconut milk that I had used for the little lime syrup cupcakes. I wanted tofu to put in the curry, but when I went to the co-op on Tuesday, they were, somewhat unbelievably, out of plain tofu – only a few package of herbed – so I bought some little red potatoes, instead. I quick thawed some vegetable broth, by popping it out of the plastic yogurt tub it was frozen in, into a covered pot on the heat.

Even though Mark was not interested, I thought it was a pretty good dinner.

Thai vegetable curry

2 cups of long grain white rice – like Basmati
about a cup of coconut milk, lowfat or the thin part OK
2 1/2 cups of vegetable broth or water

1 tbs. vegetable oil
2 small onions, sliced pole to pole
4 small red potatoes
1 1/2 cups – or so – cauliflower florets
3 carrots, peeled and chunked
Thai red curry paste – I used the canned kind, which is quite mild, probably about 1/4 cup – if its the hotter jarred kind, start with about 1 tbs.
3 – 4 tbs. peanut dip
1 1/2 cups coconut milk – most of a can – lowfat is OK
a good handful of frozen peas

Combine the rice, coconut milk, veggie broth, and water in a large pot. Bring to a boil and add about 1 tsp salt. Cover, reduce heat and cook for about 15 minutes until all the liquid is absorbed. Put the oil into a wide deep skillet. Heat, add the onions, season with salt & pepper, and stir. Rinse the potatoes, and slice them, and add them to the pot, too. Add the cauliflower and carrots, stir well, add a little water or veggie broth, cover, and cook for 10 – 15 minutes until the vegetables are cooked through but not mushy. Make a well in the center, and add the peanut dip and curry paste, and then add the coconut milk. Stir well. Throw the peas on top, cover, and cook another few minutes just til the peas are cooked. Eat spooned over the rice.

Raw potatoes with thyme, to be roasted

Raw potatoes with thyme, to be roasted

Raw potatoes with thyme, to be roasted

Roasted potatoes with thyme

Roasted potatoes with thyme

We had potatoes for breakfast again today. Then we went to see Rossini’s Cinderella, staged in 1930s Hollywood – so Cinderella and the ugly stepsisters were trying to parts in a movie. Snacked on some party leftovers, and now it’s time for dessert – maybe trifle, or I still really want rhubarb bars and vanilla ice cream – and game of thrones.

Anyways, last night was a different kind of party – a small drinks & snacks kind of thing at the dining club. It turned out to be almost a private party for about 4 couples, who’d coordinated. The wives are all teachers or principals (several retired) or other types of school administrators; the husbands occupations varied from lobbyist to contractor to doctor.

I had decided to make a variety of dishes – 3 desserts (but all tiny), 2 pâtés (1 meat, 1 vegetarian) and because it was a small group there was a good bit leftover – the only thing that got all the way eaten was the smoked salmon that I bought almost as an after thought. I wanted to try this potato spelt flat bread and thought the fish’d be good with it. I found the flatbread recipe by accident while looking for a plugin to put on my blog to make posts more printable, and liked the one that the blog with the potato bread uses, PrintFriendly. I made small batches of everything – no doubling any recipes – and halving others.

My favorites were the quesadillas, the goat cheese with sun-dried tomato, and the flatbread.

I also have to admit, Mark Bittman was right (sort of) about the crostini. I kind of have a hard time with Mark Bittman, because he’s such a know-it-all. And, I have a kind of a hard time with crostini too – getting them crisp instead of hard, but not too oily. I’ve tried olive oil sprays, softened butter, and Heidi has a nice method of tossing the bread slices in a large bowl with an oil/butter mix – but I think the time I tried it, I used a smaller baguette than Heidi had, because the oil to bread slice ratio was pretty high. The way Bittman was right is that in some interview or other, he was saying get rid of the cooking spray, even the fill it yourself olive oil spray, and go back to using a brush or your fingers. That’s what I did – put a little oil in a ramekin and brushed the bread. Worked better than all the other ways, and used less than the 1/3 cup of oil to 1 baguette in Heidi’s recipe. I didn’t measure exactly, but I’m sure I used 1/4 cup or less to one and a half baguettes.

So far, I’ve turned the leftover cupcakes into trifle, the sweet potato and edamame into a salad, with a dressing made of the parsley pesto that’s in the quesadillas, thinned with vinegar (but the edamame are still too crunchy; didn’t boil them enough) and gave a bunch of the vegetables and some peanut dip and some spelt bread to Rach. I’ve eaten too many malted milk balls, today, though, and feel kind of gross. Oh well, tomorrow’s another day to get back on the healthy eating program. Joëlle and I walked the CrazyLegs walk this morning, supposed to be two miles, but we Google mapped it, and it’s only two miles if you add on the additional distance to our house from the Stadium. We started on the Capitol Square by the Veteran’s Museum, and from there to Camp Randall Stadium only measures off to 1.6 miles. So not enough exercise to burn off all  the treats.

Finnish flatbread, not quartered

Finnish spelt & potato flatbread

Platter of flatbread quarters

Veggies to go with peanut dip

Lentil pate, chicken liver pate, goat cheese off in the distance

Goat cheese topped with sun-dried tomatoes

Sweet potato quesadillas

Sweet potato quesadillas

Basket of crostini

Coconut-lime baby cupcakes

Coconut-lime baby cupcakes

Leftover coconut-lime baby cupcakes - to be trifled

The last four hunks of flourless chocolate cake

Rhubarb streusel bars