I’m also making a kind of apple-cherry pandowdy, still using up pie crust from pie palooza – I had edges of the onion cheese pies, that I trimmed and stuck in the freezer in November. It’s not precisely pandowdy – it’s a rolled crust, and not thick, but the filling has cherries and apples and brown sugar, so pretty much the homey idea required. And, anyways, probably “precisely pandowdy” is an oxymoron – there are many interpretations for this type of recipe.

Empty tart crust

Cubed, roasted sweet potatoes

Roasted vegetable tart, whole

Roasted vegetable tart, edge

Roasted vegetable tart, cut

Roasted vegetable tart, back

Cherry-apple pandowdy

Posted from my iPhone – at least to start

And cats -

Cats & my feet on the couch

Posted from my iPhone, picture & all – tho I edited the picture next day on my laptop

The new peppermint brownie recipe that Al saw on the cover of one of my cooking mags and wanted, is one of those annoying recipes where it’s all “3/4 cup mint chocolate chips, divided” and you melt some with butter and chop up the rest … and it has 1/8 teaspoon measures, too.

But the squash soup, that I’ve made many time before, came out truly silky with the new immersion blendor and there was far less to clean up than when puréeing in the food processor, and no awkward pouring and ladling hot liquids. Instead of just plain water in the soup, I put in some Thanksgiving turkey broth, that I thawed to make these Brussels sprouts (hope to make them today), and some leftover Francis Coppola fizzy white wine, that somebody brought to the cookie party and I opened on Christmas Day, that was good, but not that good.

After we ate our soup and rolls, I got into pajammies and we watched the Swedish Girl With Dragon Tattoo, and agreed it’s better than the new American version. Lisbeth is tougher, and the Swedish version is truer to the original book.  Though the new one is pretty to watch – of course, it does have Daniel Craig. And by bedtime, I’d gotten the cookies neatly cut, and everything was cleaned up. So the kitchen (and my stomach) back to rights, and oatmeal for breakfast today.

Peppermint Brownies

Silky Butternut Squash Soup (the recipe says)

Sour cream herb roll

Peppermint Brownies, neatly cut

End of year oatmeal

The first course was something I’d been wanting to try – making one of my favorite pizza toppings – caramelized onion, roasted squash cubes, and goat cheese – into individual galettes, with the dough wrapped around. I was afraid that I’d let the dough rise too much, so that the crust-to-filling ratio was off. But no big hunks of crust came back on anyone’s plates  – in fact, as Mark said, all the diners were members of the clean plate club. And as Terese says, you could put caramelized onions on cardboard and it would taste good – and that’s not counting the squash and cheese. I served it with a salad with a reduced-cider vinaigrette, and toasted hazelnuts and dried cherries.

I made baguettes, and put out plates with roasted garlic, Parmesan cheese and olive oil for dunking the bread.

The mains was a Lidia Bastianich recipe – everyone’s favorite Italian mama. Boneless chicken breasts, wrapped in prosciutto, dredged in flour (I used a gluten free baking blend)  and sautéed in butter, then cooked in a white wine wine and tomato sauce. You were supposed to do it all in a skillet; I did the sautéeing and made the sauce in the skillet, then transferred everything to baking dishes to finish. Lidia said after you wrap the chicken to whack it with the back of your knife to make the prosciutto stick – and it works – loved that, and the smell of chicken and prosciutto frying in butter. Lidia also says she usually doesn’t prescribe side dishes, but with this chicken, a lentil pilaf is delicious – it was lentils cookedg in water with bay leaf, onions, carrot and celery, just till tender, then drained, and heated with chicken broth and olive oil in a skillet to serve (I used my good veggie broth) and you add a few large handfuls of shredded spinach to steam on top. A forkful with the chicken, the sauce, the prosciutto, and the lentils, was perfect. For the vegetarian version, I dredged tofu steaks in flour then sautéed them in butter and cooked them in the same white wine tomato sauce. I couldn’t make myself put cheese on tofu, but there was Parmesan on the table. I’m having the leftovers for lunch one day this week.

Salted caramel tart for dessert – one with a gluten free crust. The crust’s not really the point, anyways, it’s the caramel and chocolate – and it’s the type of shortbread crust that you roll, but it falls apart and you pat it back into the pan, anyways. I think the regular flour version was a little smoother – less grainy – and maybe a touch better tasting – but only a touch.

On the cheese boards, I had Carr Valley Mobay and Hook’s Tilston Point for the blue, stinkier ones, and Widmer 4-year old cheddar and another Carr Valley Smoked Cheddar, and the Marieke Gouda with Fenugreek for the milder. With grapes and pomegranate and pear. I made Heidi’s roasted lemon chutney, but it was barely touched – I’ll be eating that for lunches this week too – on baguette slices with honey-ed goat cheese. Yum. It’s one of the few work luxuries that stuff like that gets to perfect room temp when I take it for lunch at my desk.

I made a big pot of soup with lots of greens and home made veggie broth, and little stelline – with parmesan to sprinkle on top. And a pan of corn bread with corn kernels – also frozen from last summer – and cheese – Farmer John’s white cheddar – what I used in my pie palooza pie – and scallions. And the sweet potato pie with a giant can of Costco whipped cream – good fodder for Costco jokes.

‘Course, I didn’t take pictures, but here’s what I’m having for lunch – yoplait (not what I usually buy in the yogurt department, but we had house guests) with home made granola, ww english muffin to toast here at work and top with sliced Widmer brick and a boiled egg, and an apple, that I think is one of the Ela honey crisps.

And WTF on the weather today?!

Lunch to go, 11/9/2011

Is it just too much busyness? Right now I am behind on grading assignments that were handed in by the 53 students I have in two courses a week ago Sunday and Monday – I’ve made it through approximately 5. I have a book chapter also due a week ago, and I’m in the midst of 21 advising appointments, by phone and Skype, and that’s not not counting the 5 or 6 additional students I’ve advised via lengthy and multiple emails.

I guess I just wish I could figure out if all these aches & pains are simply old age, or if I’m actually sick. Comfort food for dinner (but I’m really not sure I like this new portfolio slideshow with the thumbnails; maybe I can make them go away – and yep, despite my other griefs, I did get the thumbnails to go away – see image 4 for the “with”; w/o below):

Trader Schmoes ww English muffins with sun-dried toms, olive tapenade & mozzarella

Corn from the freezer heated with butter & tiny bit of cream

Improved with a dash of red pepper flakes

with thumbnails

Last night was our much anticipated stuffed-trout dinner. Mark bought $24 worth of trout at the market last Saturday, and dug up his baked trout stuffed with bread crumbs recipe (I looked at the card and not sure whose hand writing it is, not his mom’s, maybe one of his other wives <grin>). I didn’t think to tell him to line the baking sheet with parchment, so the fish skin stuck, and the trouts didn’t look so great – but they tasted good enough to make up for it. I made some RP’s Pasta pumpkin torteloni to go with – they shoulda cooked a little longer, they were a little tough, but they tasted good too. I think I will throw them in with some cooked dried pasta tonight, and make a pasta al forno with that sausage, tomato & peppers sauce that I made on Sunday, and we never ate on Monday. It won’t be quite Tony Soprano’s baked ziti, not with that pumpkin in there, but same idea – gooey, cheesy, saucy pasta, hot from the oven.

I think I actually accomplished pretty much at work, but it was stuff like trying to edit the departmental website through the content management system and cleaning out email and playing phone catch-up – unsatisfying and frustrating. Plus “the drilling in the walls kept up and no one seemed to pay it any mind” [Bob Dylan, Lilly Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts], except it gave me a headache. They’re doing whatever the equivalent of tuckpointing is for this 1970s brutalist style building where I work. The pants were kinda tight; not bad for standing and sitting, but any amount of walking caused them to give me a wedgie. While driving, I had an inspiration to take a bubble bath and shave my legs, but I got distracted from that idea by the I got home tired and cranky and headachy.

I ended up taking the car for a few errands – tho I should have biked – and decided that what I really wanted for dinner was a hot dog – not a gourmet dog, just an Oscar Mayer regular hot dog – of which I had two packs in the freezer. With sweet pickle relish and Durkee sauce. So I got half a pack out to thaw, and made my last errand a stop at the grocery store for the relish, and had the perfect hot dog for dinner.

Hot dogs cooked in the micro with just a little water, so theyre almost roasted - the way I used to make them for my kids when they were little