What makes you 'mushy'?

Recently, a student, writing for the school newspaper's Valentines Day issue, asked me what makes me 'mushy'? I replied, "nothing." Mostly, because I didn't need students to know what makes me 'mushy.' I mean, can't some things be kept secret from the students?

In all honesty, I find something oddly wonderful about.... The Neely's. For those of you who have cable, and watch Food Network, you may have stumbled upon Down Home with the Neely's. Patrick and Gina Neely are a young couple who own a famous BBQ place in Memphis, and have a show. The TV show displays their roots in Southern cooking, which relies on a healthy amount of meat recipes. However, their vegetable and carb-rich sides, could substitute as a normal vegetarian dish. Sometimes the recipes could use a modification or two in order to create a low-fat dinner, but really I watch the show because I enjoy watching them interact. Normally, I can not stand cheesy hosting, but for some reason I adore their loving banter. In the future,through discussing my issues with Rachel Ray, I will reveal my low tolerance for saccharine interactions. As a husband and wife team, they work in the kitchen teasing and flirting with each other, while demonstrating a talent for explaining the basics of cooking. Watching their friendly interactions, I smile and sink under my quilt, content with the world. What I find particularly pleasing is that despite an initial appearance of a gendered and heteronormative show, they actually do not gender their place in the kitchen. Patrick and Gina complete the entire meal together, both experts in cooking and entertaining. True, sometimes Patrick focuses on the meat and Gina on the baking, but that has more to do with their professional backgrounds; and in many episodes, both take a hand at each other's expertise. Personally, I hope this is a way to outline a changing trend occurring in American kitchens. For many people of my generation, our mothers did most of the cooking. Wonderful jobs they did, but the woman in the kitchen approach just is not practical when both people work. However, now, there is a plethora of answers to the question of "Who does the cooking in your house?"

And last night, in the spirit of the Neely's, I came home from my first class of the semester to a glass of wine and a home cooked meal made by A. Friends, when asked by my student 'What makes me 'mushy?' that is precisely what popped in my head.

Alex's Meal: Neely's Zucchini Gratin

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 6 zucchini, sliced into half moons 1/4-inch thick
• 2 plum tomatoes, chopped and seeded
• 1 tablespoon freshly chopped thyme leaves
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1/2 cup half-and-half
• 1/4 cup grated sharp white Cheddar
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan

Directions

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. Butter an 8 by 8-inch casserole dish.
In a large heavy bottomed saute pan over medium heat, melt butter. Saute onion and garlic until translucent. Add zucchini and tomatoes, about 7 minutes Add thyme, and flour. Season with salt and pepper. Add mixture to the buttered casserole dish.
In a medium size bowl, add brown sugar, eggs, and half-and-half. Season with salt and pepper. Pour the milk mixture over the zucchini and sprinkle with both of the cheeses. Bake for 30 minutes.

Veggie Fried Rice

In the spirit of the previous posting, I must be honest. Last night, I had the best of intentions. I was going to make a Ginger Bass with Garlic Spinach recipe. But after a wonderful day spent with my brother and his wife, I realized I forgot to go to Harris Teeter, and all I could do was muster enough energy to dial for Moo Shu Veggies. So, instead of giving you the wonderful recipe I was going to try for you, I will give you my version of veggie fried rice. This recipe is more of a meal then a side, with a emphasis on veggies and healthy and less on fried. It is absolutely wonderful, but just don't forget to grocery shop before!

Ingredients:

• 2 tb seasame oil (separated)
• 3 large eggs beaten
• 3 green onions chopped
• 1.5 cup of frozen peas
• 3 tb minced ginger
• 4 cups of broccoli
• 1/2 lb chopped asparagus
• 2 carrots sliced
• 2 cloves of garlic minced (or get a garlic press to make your life easier forever)
• 4 cups of spinach (at least)
• 3 cups of cooked brown rice
• 2 tb. of soy sace
• 1 tb hot sauce
• 2/3 cup of toasted sliced almonds (amazing addition)

1. Heat wok at medium, add 1 tb of oil, Cook eggs scrambled. 2 minutes. Remove from wok.
2. Add more oil to wok, throw in green onions and ginger. Saute until onions are soft.
3. Stir in broccoli, asparagus, carrot, garlic, stir fry 8-10 minutes.
4. Stir in spinach and peas, until cooked
5. Throw in rice, soy sauce, hot sauce and almonds.
6. Place veggie fried rice mixture in bowls with a bit of egg on top.

If you don't have a wok, you can use a large skillet. However, I recommend purchasing a wok because it is useful for many types of cooking, especially messy cooking. Since there is a lot of chopping in this meal, two people working cuts down the amount of time. It could take just 20 minutes, and there will be plenty leftover for a few workday lunches.

The Question of Take Out

By most accounts, I started cooking when A. and I started dating. Before then, my roommate and I would heat up frozen mixed veggies or a bagel. In fact, I remember calling a high school friend over for an evening to teach us how to cook. He made a delicious meal, but we were amazed that he was using the oven instead of the microwave-- the Ohhhs! and Ahhhs! When A. and I began to see each other, we were both living on very meager salaries, and there was no choice, but to cook. After many emergency clarifying conversations with my mother, I produced a few decent meals. Graduate school intensified the need to cook, and well, we both had more time to cook. In fact, we enjoyed cooking, and we tried complicated recipes. Although there were still incidents of cooking incompetence, like the Pizza Crisis of 2004, which occured in the spacious kitchen of my modified studio flat. In trying to emulate my friend's homemade pizza recipe, I burned the top and undercooked the bottom of the pizza- destroying all hopes for date night. Screaming and kicking, I ran to my bed and swore off cooking forever. However, even in that moment we didn't order out. A. quietly went to the kitchen and looked up my mom's tortellini recipe, and made it. Since the stove broke the next day, I still maintain it was the oven and not me. Even today, we reserve making homemade pizza for special days, where my patience is extra generous.

Due to the chaos of trying to juggle a busy job and graduate school, cooking turned into a chore, much like cleaning, an activity where I enjoy the product more than the production. Coming home from class late, or A. from work, we would both look in the fridge and realize we forgot to go shopping. Instead of spending the hour at the grocery store, it just seemed easier to get sushi or Indian. At least, we always make sure the takeout is something I could never make. We won't eat at most Italian or American-style restaurants because we both agree the equivalent could be made at home. However, we just got lazy. Last year, my first year of the PhD program, I went from saying only Asian cuisine, to eating a cheese sandwich at Mason. I mean really, a cheese sandwich? Hence, a period of time when we were paying too much for food. Thankfully, we changed this bad habit this year, and A. even helps out! I pack my dinner for school, or I plan ahead for those potential late nights by cooking a big meal the night before. Now, eating out or take out occurs only on the weekend. Perhaps a tradition started by my busy mother who went back to school as well, I don't cook Friday nights, which I maintain is perfectly fine, if we don't go have a five course meal at Cafe Milano (and who at my age does that anyways?). But even then, I, or we, wonder what is the average number of nights people eat out? And if you don't want to eat processed frozen food, how do you move around the general problem of cooking exhaustion?

Quesadillas with a twist....

A. and I stumbled on this meal last year, and soon became obsessed. It is super easy and yummy. Last night, while we enjoyed our quesadillas and Thursday night TV, I was reminded that good tasting food does not need to be complicated. I am sure this would be a favorite with children. You will need tortillas, a pound of shrimp, green onions, monterey jack cheese, and roasted red peppers.

• Preheat oven at 375
• De-shell shrimp, and sprinkle with cayenne pepper (maybe 1/2 tablespoon?). Chop pineapple into inch squares.
• On a grill pan, grill the shrimp and pineapple until cooked. Shrimp can be slightly undercooked.
• Meanwhile, chop 5 green onions and the roasted red peppers, and then the cooked shrimp.
• Assemble 1/2 cup of monterey jack cheese, green onions, and roasted red peppers, chopped shrimp, and pineapple on a tortilla. (Recipe makes 4 separate quesadillas.)
  
• After adding a little more cheese on top, which will make a glue-like seal to keep food inside, place another tortilla on top.
• Bake for 7 minutes, or until the cheese is melted
• Optional flavored sour cream: Mix sour cream, garlic salt (or powder), and juice of half a lemon. Put a dollup of sour cream on top of each quesadilla.

Inspired by Ellie Krieger's Quesadillas 

My tormented relationship with Whole Foods.

Whole Foods, which I still refer to as Fresh Fields on a regular basis, continues to be a place that gives me too many emotions at once. First, the idea of a place where organic foods are heralded, environmentally sound practices are exercised, and animal testing free/vegan products are sold, give me great comfort. There is something about entering with your cute mini-cart and grabbing intriguingly labeled goods, which I am always sucked into (see my collection of wine), that gives me a calming feeling. There is no other place in Arlington that provides such a beautiful display of poisson: exotic types of fish or pre-made crabcakes, oh glorious crabcakes! Or go to the cheese section, where the cheese incident of 2005 occurred. In her sweet intentions, my sister, C, took a trip to Whole Foods to buy dinner for the rest of us, a welcomed gesture while we frantically packed to help her move out. Entranced by the varieties of gouda, cheddar, and brie, C found a wonderfully tasteful camembert cheese. One she could not resist. When she returned to the apartment, and unpacked her cloth shopping bag, she discovered.....the manna she fell in love with was a $20 cut of fromage. The horror!

In that moment lies the problem: it is everything that calms me which also disturbs me about Whole Foods. In that display of fish, where the heads remain attached so the fish can track your movements, a pound costs $20. The cheese arena, because it is not an aisle, but an arena of cheese, tricks you with displays explaining how it was handmade on a farm in Normandy by an artisan named Delphine. It is only later you discover how you spent $40 on Delphine's hand designed mold. Additionally, I experience problems of class while I am in Whole Foods. Why is it that if I want to eat healthy, hormone-free vegetarian food, must I go to the most expensive food showcase on the East Coast? If my food is without ingredients, shouldn't it be cheaper? Does this mean only privileged Americans should eat healthy? As I swing down aisles looking at the 37 varieties of almonds, I am reminded that at my local grocery store the choice between sliced and whole seemed to work fine for years. I just wish my Harris Teeter provided more organic choices then spinach. After all, as a sailor, even Popeye didn't just eat spinach.

Dutch Risotto, blaspheme!

The other night, after procrastinating on a textbook chapter pretty much all day, I decided to venture into creating Dutch Risotto. No, there isn't actually anything authentically Dutch about Risotto, or Dutch Risotto, but I have concluded that is decidely what I created. Using the Moosewood Simple Suppers cookbook, an amazing cookbook, I found a recipe for beer, risotto, cheese and broccoli-- and thought: Brilliant!

1. Pour a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a saute pan, add half a cup of chopped onions and let them saute until transparent.
2. Add two cups of risotto. Let the risotto brown.
3. Meanwhile, in a separate pan, warm veggie broth.
   
4. Pour one beer over the risotto, and here is the Dutch part... Amstel Light seemed to flavor it perfectly. While stirring, let the risotto absorb the Dutch import.
5. Once the risotto has been absorbed, add veggie broth a cup at a time.
   
6. Chop broccoli. Either steam the broccoli in a steamer, or put a little water in a bowl and microwave it for 5 minutes.
7. Toss in the broccoli, two cups of cheddar cheese with the risotto. Let the cheese melt.
   
8. Salt and pepper to taste

With this recipe, I added tomatoes. But, I think the acidity of the tomatoes took away from the yumminess. All of this took twenty minutes, a perfect weeknight meal. My husband, A, confirmed later that night that it is excellent reheated...

Yet another blog....

Sitting in the faculty room, family dinners, or generally with friends, I often get asked about my food. It never bugs me. In fact, I enjoy long conversations about ingredient choices and substitutions. Due to my particular diet, low fat and no land animals, I get many questions about how to create culinary treats that are not boring. Well, in order to streamline recipe emailing and perhaps track my cooking habits, I decided to create another blog. I don't claim to be a writer, but as a historian I love documentation! This year, my goal is to create two new dishes a week, and I hope to post it on the blog for my family and friends to try out or learn about pescetarian living. Because really, a former Salmon should only eat fish.