Since today is Sunday of a three day weekend, we are being a little lazy. Waiting for it to warm up to pursue outdoor activities, and trying to activate an old iPhone for our student. Ethan got picked up at 8:00 to drive back to Minnesota and college with his mom. I folded laundry, and made cherry-stuffed French toast for breakfast. I’m going to have to do actual work work later today, setting up my online courses that will start on January 23rd while I am at the ALA conference. And of course, all Wisconsin is in anticipation for the Packers/Giants game this afternoon.

Beet & beef borscht - becoming less soup and more solid

Pumpkin-cranberry muffins

Streusel-topped apple pie - a little too much streusel

Breakfast leftovers: Cherry-stuffed French toast, 1 piece bacon, plain French toast

So I’ve spent way too much of the weekend on the computer, trying to get the syllabi for my two courses written. They’re courses I’ve taught before, but I always want to update and add new material and readings … sometime I wish I could be one of those profs that just teach the same thing year after year …

I got out for a walk this morning with Rach – high 30s and sunny, no snow anywhere – it’d be just right if we were in Colorado, like in Boulder, NOT in the mountains. john posted a sleepy cat picture – wish I coulda spent more of the weekend like this, but I guess I did spend a lot of last night on the couch with cats holding me down. I watched the movie about Valerie Plame and only tuned into Saturday night life for a few minutes to hear Kelly Clarkson sing ger (What Doesn’t Kill You)” – which I guess was her first number. She’s not really my kind of thing, politically OR musically, but definitely one of those ear worm kind of songs – here’s the link to see her on Hulu, courtesy Rolling Stone.

We had a scrambler for breakfast, sweet potato, onions, Matt Smith’s spinach, Boursin (leftover from the cookie party), along with bacon and fresh bagels that I brought back from my walk.

Mark’s making soup for dinner – Ovens of Brittany Spanish Country Soup. It smells good. I made cup custards to eat with the last of the Moravian ginger thins – and Downton Abbey season 2 first episode. I seem to have gotten the custards out of the oven on time – they’re just the right jiggly-ness. Wish I could photograph the smell.

Cup custards cooling on a towel

Spicey squash soup with chile oil swirl

The recipe for this soup (from the Splendid Table’s emailed newsletter) says to top the soup, which already has chiles, tomatoes, chicken broth and the squash in it, with chopped jalapenos, garlic, cilantro, and lime. Their description:

A nice twist on the perennial autumn Butternut squash soup, there’s a jockeying of tart, savory, hot and sweet with the squash, tomatoes, vinegar, garlic and chile.

We ate it like this on Thursday, with the chopped topping on top of blobs of sour cream – the soup was thin enough that it all sank, but tasted good anyways. Last night I decided to thicken the soup a bit – it was easy to skim off a little cold liquid and mix it with flour, and whisk it back into the heating soup – and then buzz up the leftover chopped jalapenos, garlic, cilantro, and lime with some arugula & oil to make a smoother topping. It was supposed to be a little like this green goo for hummus topping from 101 Cookbooks; I was quite pleased with myself that I figured out I could use argula, that I had in the fridge, as a herbal substitute for parsley, that I would have had to buy. It still sank, but it still tasted good, and now I have extra green goo for topping hummus, too.

Generic chicken picture - I couldn't get the food I made with Matt's chicken to pose

Last Saturday at the Farmers’ Market, I bought half a chicken from Matt Smith. He grows big fat birds, so a half chicken was probably at least 3 pounds, a.k.a. as big as a whole grocery store chicken, a fryer anyways.

I roasted it, while I was at work, on time bake in the oven, I think it was Wednesday. I turned about half the meat into this greens & chicken casserole. I used the bones for stock, and threw in most of the aging veggies in the fridge, including the bunch of sage from the back deck that I roasted the chicken on top of. I forgot to put in the couple of handfuls of mesclun, darn – they’re almost still eatable, but it’s getting dicey. I plan on using at least some of the stock for a spicey squash soup I got from the Splendid Table email newsletter – I think they posted it on facebook, too, but I can’t link to it there. It has a lot of chiles and garlic in it, and then you top it with lime & cilantro. Besides the chicken bones, the stock had tomatoes and corn and leftover leek confit in it, so I think it’ll be really good in the squash soup.

And, I am just about to go shred up the last of the meat to put into Asian peanut sauce wraps; I made these to take to Chris’s farm party in 2009.

Wisconsin is swing state this election, so Barack Obama’s coming to Madison to rally democrats next Tuesday. I made the mistake of reading the comments on the announcement of the event in the online Milwaukee paper – Man, lotta hating there too.

The Co-op that I’m on the Board of Directors of has outgrown its parking lot, and they’re also going to dig up the street it’s on next summer, so we’re planning to put a driveway out the back. The building used to be an Eagles Club, before it was a grocery co-op, and it had two driveways going out that back then.  A small group of very vocal neighbors is hating on the co-op for that too.

But instead, mostly, today I just cooked. Well, I shopped at the farmers market, and went for what turned out to be a long bike ride: started going west to the credit union to drop off yet one more document for my mortgage refinance, then to Food for Thought, to see the cookoff, then to East Wash to unload the dishwasher and take out the trash. And finally back home, where I made challah, and soup, and roasted tomato sauce. And birthday pie, for Mark & Ethan. I tried a new method, where you drain the apple juices before putting them in the pie, and then make them into a syrup with cornstarch and pour them back in when the pie’s done. The recipe’s from the Greyston Bakery Cookbook, another one of those Zen monastery cooking operations, like Tassajara, but in New York instead of CA. The challah is a long skinny one – it’s fate might be french toast next week. I wanted a vegetable beef soup like my mommy used to make, and this soup came close – doesn’t have the shreds of soup meat, but it’s beef broth, and I diced up one strip of bacon and fried it and then cooked the onions in the fat – and left the bacon bits in the soup. The roasted tomato sauce was made from slicing tomatoes, what I got in my CSA box, and I froze about 2 cups of it; a cottage cheese container’s worth – it’ll be good for pizza. There was a little left in the cooking pot, so I used it to flavor the soup.

Tonight’s a case in point. I’m home alone, with Mark & Ethan off to Badger hockey, Al at O’Hare waiting for a flight to SF, John in Milwaukee, and the new foster kid at a friend’s. For early dinner with Mark & Ethan before the game, I made chicken bbq sandwiches, with meat I cooked in barbecue sauce yesterday, shredded and with a bit of added ketchup, honey, and salt. I made salad with John’s dressing – but that’s just the Good Seasons mix, made with sesame oil, soy sauce, cidar vinegar, and brown sugar for an Asian flavor. I made some chex mix, to use up that giant Costco bag of nut & rice crackers munch mix and some rice chips that fell off the top of the fridge so they were busted up just right, according to mom’s rules – no seasoned salt, fresh garlic and real butter, and I do put in the Worcestershire sauce even though she didn’t like it. I threw in some Wasabi peas, but I already tried that in a prior batch of chex mix – we liked it – so not that innovative. Old standbys, all.

I could get my tax stuff together. I could make enchilada sauce or do some other cooking and photograph it. I could read and make notes for the literary awards committee I’m on. But I think I’m going to take a shower, and watch TV, and maybe have a scotch. I have this movie called A Slipping Down Life about a musician and his wigged out fans, and I think there’re a couple of Robyn Hitchcock songs in it.

Meatball in soup

Meatball cut

Turkey meatballs on a plate

Here’s the recipe:

• approx. 2/3 cup matzoh meal
• 1/2 pound ground turkey
• 1 egg
• 2 TBLS – 1/4 cup half & half or milk (I used soy half & half, because that’s what I had)
• salt, pepper, and a few grates of nutmeg
• 1 TBLS chopped parsley
• 2 tsp. – 1 TBLS veg. oil for frying

Pour the matzoh meal into the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the egg and mix with a fork. Add the half & half, seasonings and parsley. Mix with the paddle beater until all is well combined. If you don’t have a stand mixer, or don’t want to use yours for this small of a batch, I am sure you could mix everything with the fork and your fingers. Roll into walnut sized balls and place on a plate. Heat the oil in a skillet and brown the meatballs in it – I only browned two sides because I knew I was going to cook them in soup. If you’re going to eat them as meatballs, brown two sides, then add a little water or broth to the skillet, cover tightly and steam for about 10 minutes.

Tonight for dinner we had the last of the cream of vegetable soup, and I made some muffins and sweet-sour cabbage to go with.

This morning, I ran the last slice of week-old meatloaf and a serving of macaroni salad down the disposal, hoping to avoid future stomach aches.