National Carrot Day Song

Dinner’s not quite ready yet, but to tide you over, here’s a lovely little song about carrots. Hilarious.

It is Totally the Year of the Pot Roast

One of my favorite food bloggers, The Pioneer Woman a. k. a. Ree, declared 2008 as the year of the pot roast, inspiring me to try my hand at one mid-western culinary stand-by I had yet to tackle. Mr. X could hardly believe that the simple perfection of a pot roast had never graced my kitchen, and to be honest, I could hardly believe it either. (And to be doubly honest, it still hasn’t; I made this at his house.) It’s not that I’ve never had pot roast before. I mean, I was born in South Dakota. But my mom wasn’t really one for cooking up huge chunks of meat, so it certainly wasn’t a staple dinner of my childhood. And I’m not really one for the huge chunks of meat, either. It never occurred to me to buy a huge beef shoulder or whatever it was I bought and throw it in a pot. Trust me, it will occur to me in the future. Often.

The beauty of the pot roast is twofold: It takes about three hours of oven time to properly cook a huge chunk of meat, enough time for your kitchen (or entire apartment, if you live in the city) to become warm and delicious smelling. This is splendid during cold, cold winters. And because you’re pretty much just leaving it in the oven for those three hours, the amount of effort you actually put into what amounts to a substantial pile of food is minimal. I like minimal. Oh wait, and there’s a third beauty: A pot roast doresn’t require a ton of expensive ingredients. I like inexpensive.

8 Random Things

There has been no food this week. No time for cooking. We’ve been subsisting off toast and brie and white wine over here as Crystal frantically packed her entire life in preparation for a move to Spain that, well, hasn’t quite happened yet. Talk about being in limbo–she’s just waiting for the Spanish Consulate to approve her visa. She had to cancel her Thursday afternoon flight and there is still a vast amount of uncertainty about when she will be able to move. This week has been busy and overwhelming and not a little emotionally exhausting, so frankly, I haven’t been anywhere near an unprepared food product.

To make it up to you, oh faithful readers, I’ll play a little game. My old coworker, who writes excellent and entertaining bits over at Must Be Motherhood, passed along this meme: Share eight random things about yourself. Well ok.

8. I own a pair of shoes I’ve never, ever worn but can’t bring myself to throw away. They are beautiful but so uncomfortable that even slipping them on for a second hurts. Walking around in them is unimaginable. They’ve been in my closet now for seven years. I don’t  know why I still have them.

7. I love photographs of my hands. When I was young and dreamed of being a photographer I took a whole series of photographs of my hands. I find them strangely compelling.

6. I’ve probably only read about 60 percent of the 500+ books I own. And I keep books I didn’t even really like that much. I always claim it’s because they might be useful for a paper someday.  (And, like my former coworker, I can’t stop reading a book once I’ve started, even if I don’t like it. It does feel morally wrong!)

5. I am usually starving when I wake up in the morning, now matter how late I ate the night before. And I mean starving. Stomach shouting in protest, near-nausea, weak, and inevitably grumpy starving. That is about the only time of day I am ever that hungry.

4. I am much more of a traditionalist than I ever thought I’d be.

3. My family (all 57 million members of the extended version included) mean the world to me. The hardest thing about living in Boston is being far away from them. I sometimes have a hard time understanding people who aren’t close to their families.

2. I never thought I was a gym person, and in fact almost never exercised when I was younger. Now, if I don’t go four or five times a week I feel antsy and unwell. I have no idea how this happened.

1. I have a hard time admitting that I want to move back to California. I didn’t want to be that girl, but I just miss it too much.

Well, that was fun. And in turn? I’m passing it along to the few people I know who read this blog on a regular basis: Lisa, Brilynn, Mr. X, and Miss Crystal (now that you have a blog of your own, it’s time you joined in the fun and games).

I promise I’ll start cooking again this week, once the house is cleaned and there’s time for a grocery store trip again. Once I’ve slept.

Snag a good deal!

The Slow Foods USA online auction is going on through next Tuesday, June 26, and almost everything is currently going for far less than it’s worth. They’re offering all kinds of things from baskets of artisanal foods to dinners at restaurants like Gramercy Tavern to stays in Italy and Napa. Either they’re not getting much traffic or…or…they must not be getting much traffic, because bids are currently pretty damn low. So go check it out–you can support an awesome organization and possibly get yourself a stay on a vineyard for $100.

Day o’ Salads: Corn and Black Bean Salad with Cumin Lime Vinaigrette

I try to eat salad everyday. It’s usually just some mixed greens and carrots with whatever salad dressing I have in the refrigerator, but occasionally I’m capable of getting creative. And my creativity was encouraged by Lisa over at La Mia Cucina, who’s throwing a Salad ‘Stravaganza. She asked for my salads, and I am only too happy to oblige. And yesterday, I obliged with not just one salad, but two. Two salads in one day? Am I crazy? Well, yes, but that shouldn’t have been your first indication of that.

I’ve been pondering this Corn and Black Bean Salad for a few days. Now, corn and black bean salads aren’t really that unique. I see them everywhere, so I wracked my brain trying to think of some way to make this one different. Most of the recipes I’ve seen call for cilantro, and because my dear, dear wifey/housemate Crystal loathes the stuff, that was obviously not going to work. I thought and thought and thought, but it wasn’t until I started throwing vegetables into a bowl that an idea finally occurred to me. Isn’t that just the way it always works?

Andouille Sausage Cornbread

I woke up this morning with an intense craving. The other day I read Laurent’s post about sausage cornbread and I couldn’t stop thinking of it. It had to happen, and today was the day. The day of sausage.

It seemed a shame, as Mr. X had finally remembered to bring home more of the awesome bacon. I considered whether this sausage cornbread could become bacon cornbread, but the allure of the meaty sausage was too much for me. The bacon would have to wait. I rushed right out to the market for provisions, and left Mr. X sleeping and unsuspecting.

Because Who Doesn’t Like Talking About Themselves

Lisa over at La Mia Cucina, one of my daily reads, posted a fun and highly informative interview on Monday, and then asked her readers to join in the fun. Anyone interested could declare themselves, and she would send five questions to them in exchange for them doing the same for others. Passing on the chain of sharing, so to speak. I loved reading about how Lisa wanted to be an ichthyologist when she was younger (really? Sharks?) and since I love answering random questions, and thought it would be a fun way to get to know some of my other readers (if you exist…) I had to sign myself up.

Lisa promptly sent me five questions this morning. And here for your voyeuristic and entertainment edification, my answers:

Roasted Red Pepper Risotto–risotto with kick!

I found this recipe on Group Recipes, and for some reason their predictive logorithmic thingies suggested I wouldn’t like it. How could I not like this? I mean, it’s risotto. And it’s excellent. I had never considered flavoring the stock with anything, but I’m now convinced it’s the best risotto idea going. This risotto had a great kick from the cayenne and cumin, which balanced nicely with the sweetness of the roasted red peppers. Brilliant! And for once I did not over spice. It was also my first vegetarian risotto, made with the vegetable stock I made last week, so even Alex got to share. Crystal thinks it’s the best risotto yet.

I did change it up just a little tiny bit from the original recipe–I added the butter at the end, instead of cooking the leeks in it, as suggested. And I added the roasted red peppers nearer the end of the risotto cooking process, as well. Oh, and I used a bit of white wine to start it off. I can’t follow directions.

In the fridge?

Last week Sam at Becks & Posh showed the folks what was in her refrigerator, and ended the post asking her readers what their unedited fridges look like. Ever late to the game, here’s mine:

I share this small, old refrigerator with two other people, so we always have an overabundance of milk, mustard, and salad dressing. On the top: strawberries, half used containers of whipping cream, sour cream, pickled jalapenos, chipotles (six months old…is that bad?), and the ever-present yogurt. Some chocolate, some leftover beans, some leftover salsa.

Next shelf: Maple syrup (Crystal’s), tofu (Alex’s), leftover pineapple (mine), hummus, tortillas, and eggs (ours). Hiding in the back is the yeast and the lard, and probably some spaghetti sauce. There is a drawer with more cheese in it than you can shake a stick at. I think we collect it.

Bottom shelf: leftover chocolate zabaglione, chicken stock, orange juice, milk, buttermilk, soy milk, more yogurt, wine and more wine, and some pancetta. I have no idea what’s in the crispers: Alex’s is the full one and mine is the empty one, with what looks like some yellowing lettuce in there. Hm.

And of course, the ridiculously full door shelves, loaded down with salad dressings of all types, worcestershire, preserves from Crystal’s family’s beach house, peanut butter (always, always peanut butter, as I’m addicted to it), chili sauce, pesto, mustard, chocolate syrup. Jesus, I don’t even know what’s all in that door.

I try to clean out the refrigerator once every three months. Shared living situations always result in three-year-old bottles of tomato sauce and mayonnaise that’s turning blue. However, shared living also means that there’s almost always eggs somewhere in the fridge.

Menu for Hope

This year my parents refused to tell me what they wanted for Christmas. “Just donate to a charity,” my mom suggested, and I scoffed at the computer (we pretty much only communicate through email). No packages to open? No pretty shiny baubles to send through the mails? Charity? Bah.

Of course, my first thought was to donate to Planned Parenthood, as the raging pro-choice feminist that I am, but somehow I felt that donating in my parents’ name to Planned Parenthood just wouldn’t give the right message.

Then, I remembered the food bloggers’ charity: A Menu for Hope, and I want to tell all of you about it, too. This year, A Menu for Hope is raising money for the UN World Food Programme, and so far have raised over $36,000, which is pretty freaking amazing.

You can donate in increments of $10, and each $10 also gets you a raffle ticket in a drawing for all kinds of interesting food-related prizes.

The donation window closes this Friday, so get to it while you can and give some money to a worthy cause.