just a taste

In the kitchen, I am usually very involved with my cooking. I'm the girl with her ladle in the soup and finger in the cookie dough, making sure things are tasting good every step of the way. If I get something really good going, I might end up sating my appetite before the meal is even ready! There is always a danger of this happening in baking. Take chocolate chip banana bread, for instance. First of all, I got an extra scoop of semi-sweet chocolate chips at Henry's for the sole purpose of munching while baking. 1/4 cup of those chips ended up in the batter, on top of the 1 (heaping) cup already folded in. Many finger-licks (and even spoon-dips...let's be honest here) later, I reluctantly folded the batter into the loaf pan. Lo and behold, a hearty nugget of chip-studded dough had evaded the sweep of my spatula, and remained, resolute, on the bottom of the bowl. So I ate it. What's a girl to do, other than put a pot on for peppermint tea to soothe the inevitable tummyache?

While the bread bakes, I'm preparing dough for tomorrow's blueberry mini tarts, a thank-you for the guy at work who's been helping me get my e-mail back up and running. He's the unsung IT hero of our office; always ready to help, and never complains about our endless whinging when the system is down or I can't get the scanner to work. I figure I owe him, and he likes fruit-centric desserts, so clearly tarts are the way to go. I just have to make sure I leave some for baking.

[Side note: I wish recipes would stop being so coy with "4 ounces" of butter - Do not be fooled! It is a WHOLE STICK!! This being my first time baking with real butter in ages and ages, I am especially pained.]

Photos to come EDIT Um, these didn't last long enough to photograph :( which is actually a good thing, because it means people ate them!

unintentional vegetarianism, and the beauty of an empty sink

Somehow, over the past month or so, I've become a vegetarian. It sort of snuck up on me. Perhaps it started after reading food lit à la Michael Pollan and "Fast Food Nation," which put a huge damper on my taste for meat, especially beef. Normally I buy frozen chicken en masse from Ralph's, defrost a breast or two for the evening's dinner and the next day's chicken salad or wrap. I also regularly incorporated ground beef and turkey in my pasta sauce, or as called for in various Weight Watchers dishes. Now that I've discovered the endless possibilities of beans, tofu (cheap! so very cheap at Trader Joe's!), and quinoa (my latest love affair...helping me recover from the lentil disaster), slick chunks of flesh don't really do it for me anymore. When I eat out, I'll order meat, usually seafood - and I never pass up an opportunity for a fresh and tasty In 'n Out burger. But cooking at home, as I so often do these days, is almost all veg.




Which brings me to what's currently cookin': Glazed Tofu Meatloaf. OK so it cheats a bit - maybe a lot - with the ground turkey, but I don't think poor tofu could properly "loaf" alone (I am willing to be proven wrong on this one...bring on the tofuloaf recipes!). But you've got a whole package of tofu in there, and half a bell pepper. Plus, I've got some Easy Brown Sugar-Glazed Carrots simmering on the side - a delightful new (veggie!) side-dish find. Considering I'm not officially a vegetarian, and that this turkey is my first grocery store meat purchase in over a month, I think I'll be OK.




The wonderful thing about both of these recipes is the minimal amount of dirty dishes they produce. The meatloaf can be accomplished with a bowl, a whisk, a saucepan and a baking dish; the carrots, just a saucepan and a spoon. As much as I love cooking, I absolutely hate doing dishes, so a small stack of dishes at the end of the night is a reason to celebrate, indeed. Perhaps a small glass of wine will do the trick...


Looks like a hot mess, but it's actually pretty tasty!