So I have been cooking, honest, and have even been feeling like there have been some of those tiny victories, using up leftovers, making tasty things that everyone eats, learning how to use the new oven, I just have not been taking many pictures of the food.
If food has been made and eaten and not Instagram-ed has it really been made and eaten?
But first I want to tell you about this NPR story that I listened to Tuesday when I was driving home. It’s heartwarming, premature twin baby boys gotten out of Ukraine and to relative safety by a specialist evacuation team made up of U.S. Army veterans. But I felt funny while listening to it – I mean, the babies were born to a surrogate for an American couple from Chicago – although the dad is Ukrainian. So when I heard that I thought “jeez, you have to be rich as F, er I mean pretty wealthy to hire a surrogate” – although I know there are less wealthy people who spend all their savings on a surrogate. But these babies got out and there are tons of other people and babies still in Ukraine, not getting evacuated by a specialist team. The director of the team says his company database has 14,000 people who have applied to be evacuated. And the twin babies weren’t even on the list – it was some kind of special case. And when I was listening I was also saying to myself, “wait, what about the surrogate? Where’s she?” Tuesday was International Women’s Day, remember. It wasn’t until the end of the story when they got to Poland and had a champagne toast that they mentioned that yes, the surrogate got evacuated with the babies.
And now – Saturday afternoon – the NYT just popped me the headline for this story, about more babies born to Ukrainian surrogates.
…. OK, well really not OK, because Ukraine is still happening while I’m here in the US going back to food. And while Ukraine is at front of mind, there’s still looming environmental and political catastrophes. I got a really hellacious cold sore this week, both my bottom and upper lips, and we all know those are caused by stress. And eating too much sugar. And caffeine. And by having the herpes virus, that Medlineplus says most of do by age 20.
Here’s my most recent sourdough, which I guess is the first one baked in the new oven. I fed the starter some rye flour, and then used the same flour to sprinkle on top before cutting the slashes
March 6, 2022 sourdough loaf
I cut it in half, and stuck half in the freezer, since I felt like we haven’t been going through bread that fast – but I ate the last slice of the first half for Saturday breakfast with leftover spinach fritatta on half – the fritatta was Friday-night-before-the-symphony-quick-supper – and cream cheese and pumpkin butter on the other half – see overleaf. I found the last jar of pumpkin butter in the basement fridge the other day.
Some of the half loaf went to garlic toast to go with pasta with sausage, greens (spinach), and cream, that was Tuesday’s dinner that I made while still mulling that Ukraine story. Kind of like this recipe, half a batch.
I also made this coffee cake, that has a coffee swirl, from Edd Kimber’s One Tin Bakes. I have it from the library – I think I’ll buy it. The only problem is the one tin is a 13 x 9 pan, so kind of large for us, while my other recent fave baking book, Yossey Arefi’s Snacking Cakes, is all 8-inch cakes, smaller.
Monday I made turkey barbecue with meat from the turkey back that I’d simmered into stock Saturday. I was going to make soup, but Mark suggested the bbq, and it was a good suggestion. He thought since I’d made that cabbage & potato pie for Saturday dinner, I must have cabbage, but there was only a tiny bit left, so I walked over to Trader Schmoes Sunday afternoon and got a bag of pre-shredded cabbage and some buns. Monday morning I mixed up the turkey meat with barbecue sauce and left it in the oven on timer, and mixed up the coleslaw, too, and left it to marinate.
Tonight I’m going to make pizza and one of them will be turkey bbq with corn. The other one will be pepperoni, and shallots, and maybe some fresh tomato, although the sauce looks pretty tomato-y.
Here’s the dough, and the sauce. It’s from purchased canned tomatoes because I’m all out of the local ones I froze last summer.
The dough has some sourdough in it – you can see a bit of the rye, I think. I think I’ll partially bake that third crust and freeze it for future pizza.
Here’s what the pizza looked like leftover on Sunday morning
We had waffles for Sunday breakfast, NOT sourdough, Mark’s mom’s sour cream recipe, with grassfed Nancy’s plain yogurt that was on sale at the co-op but somehow doesn’t taste as good as regular standing in for the spur cream. They’re eggier and squishier, and the rest of the fam likes them better than the sourdough, but I like sourdough better.
I guess progress has been being made on the domestic front. I got the tax stuff organized last weekend, and what couldn’t be uploaded was dropped off at the accountant on Tuesday. And this weekend I’m doing laundry, washing rugs and changing sheets.
It’s the first weekend of UW spring break so I’m trying not to work too much, although I have sent a few work emails.
The kitty cat’s doing better at relaxing then me.
