Kate F____, Girl Reporter

I haven’t really done this before, but I thought I’d start mentioning products that I really love once in a while. I’m inspired to begin the product plugging because a few weeks ago I want wandering helplessly through Trader Joe’s (I don’t know why, by grocery shopping turns me into a confused, helpless little thing; it’s pathetic), trying to remember why I was there, and I found myself standing in front of the refrigerated part of the produce section, eyes slightly glazed. I quickly unglazed when I spotted this (only not opened):

Mâche!!! And for half the price of one of those “mesclun plus mâche” mixed plastic boxes at Whole Foods! I love mâche, it’s my very favorite salad green. It’s also called “Lamb’s Ear,” because the delicate little leaves are shaped like, um, lamb’s ears. Somewhere deep in my psyche resides a Best Salad Ever, made with mâche, but sadly at the moment I can’t remember what else was involved, because I was so excited about the tender little greens. The leaves are bound together at their bases in little clusters–they are darling, as well as delicious:

We ate pizza one night, and then lovely salads of just the mâche and my plain mustard/sherry vinegar vinaigrette.

Salads in winter taste so good.

As I said in the last post, we spent a lot of time this weekend working around the apartment. While the kitchen didn’t get any new touches, we did talk and think a lot about what it needs to make it feel complete… I need to upload a more recent photo, since we have added door pulls, etc. since this was taken, but as a reminder this is basically where the kitchen stands now:

We are struggling with how to hang art and shelves–the walls really are not in good shape, and we’re worried that we’ll make major trouble if we drill into them. On the other hand, I desperately want to run two shelves along that long left wall, one at the height of the top of the fridge surround, and one enough lower that I can store the coffee canister, etc. on it. I’d paint them white and we’d give them enough of a lip in front that we could have under-shelf lighting under the bottom one to light the counter. That would help with problem 2, which is lighting, which….sigh. I can’t even think about that right now.

We don’t know how to start with shelves. Do we shell out and have a professional come in? Do we experiment a bit with the lathing? I have become quite adept at using self-adhesive wire mesh and putty to patch large holes. Still, it’s overwhelming! But once we work out the shelf problem, we can also figure out how to hang some art above the sink–probably just my “Tea Revives You” print (which I need to frame), but maybe that plus a bunch of smaller things if we work out a good system. Maybe a hanging rail or something for a flexible system and fewer holes?

Keep Calm, Tea

On a simpler front, I am trying to decide between these two completely different clocks, both from Urban Outfitters. We nearly bought a really amazing vintage clock in France but we decided not to get entangled in issues of ancient battery sizes or hard wiring…

Choice One:

Choice Two:

Tricky! (By the way, the orange one is 8 inches wide; the white is 15 inches!)

I hated meatloaf as a kid. Too wet, too mushy. In fact, I can’t remember ever eating it until I started dating Ben and going home to visit his family with him. Christy, my mother-in-law, is the eldest of 8 kids, so obviously her mom had to cook in bulk. As a result, Mrs. Rio made meatloaf in sheet pans (or big pyrex pans, I guess), not loaf pans. I know it’s not rocket science, but to me it made meatloaf a totally different food, with a much better top-to-interior ratio and no mushy dampness. At age 24 or so I ate my first-ever meatloaf sandwich. Now I’m obsessed with meatloaf, though it has taken me several tries with Christy’s recipe before I got anywhere close to her results. This recipe is very, very approximate–I used about 2/3 of the can of tomato sauce this time, which improved the texture a lot (mine was always too wet), and I think Christy actually uses more like 1.25+ pounds of meat.

Christy’s meatloaf
“Preheat oven to 350 degrees

In a large mixing bowl, combine:

1 pound ground beef
1 egg
1 8-ounce can tomato sauce (any brand)
1 cup Progresso Italian-style bread crumbs Note from Kate: I tried it with organic italian breadcrumbs from whole foods and it was a bust. Stick to Progresso.

Mix thoroughly. I use my hands to make sure everything is well mixed - there’s nothing worse than biting into a clump of breadcrumbs… When it’s all nice and smooth, put the whole thing into an 8 X 8 ungreased baking dish (or pan or pie plate). Bake for 35-40 minutes or until the middle is no longer pink.

When I double this recipe, I use a 9 X 13 pan, and it works just fine. I bake it a little longer, close to an hour.”

I baked potatoes and roasted broccoli and we went for full-on Americana:

Very productive weekend, though I still didn’t cook much. Ben made cookies… We spent most of the time cleaning up the apartment and organizing things, so it’s feeling very fresh and nice right now. Photos to come, perhaps…

Once again I am posting erratically and cooking even less. This is, of course, weeks out of date. Still, I wanted to post the delicious meal that we enjoyed at our friend Kabir’s apartment on New Year’s Eve, prepared by his talented fiancée Nicole.

The men contributed to the meal by playing Nicole’s new Wii. Kabir also sported one of the feather-tiaras Nicole had bought for us girls (backwards):

Fetching, no?

Meanwhile Nicole turned out an absolutely perfect roast beef, accompanied by pureed cauliflower (so good; it was laced with a truly indulgent amount of parmesan!) and roasted brussels sprouts. I’m really hungry right now thinking about it.

I asked Nicole for the cauliflower recipe and she was kind enough to write in with the technique:

“It’s one of the very few recipes in my life that I’ve made up. For our NYE dinner I think this is what I ballpark did:
Start with 2 heads of cauliflower, broken up into tiny pieces (easier for the mashing part). I use at least some of the stem, so as to not be too wasteful, but try to cut those up tinier since they are tougher. Mince 4 or 5 decent size cloves of garlic, and saute in a large pot in olive oil, till just golden but don’t over cook. Add in all the cauliflower and enough water to just come to the top of the cauliflower. Add salt and pepper. Let simmer uncovered until the cauliflower absorbs almost all the water and is tender enough to be mashed.
Note: You don’t want to add too much water and completely submerge, because you don’t want to be stuck with overly soggy cauliflower, and you can always add more water as you go if you see it needs it. When the cauliflower is tender, mash it up using a fork or spatula, making it as creamy or lumpy as you like. I like the mash to be very moist at this point so it can soak up the next ingredients without ending up too dry. What you’re going for is a mashed potato vibe. Add seasoned bread crumbs and grated parmesan cheese. This is where I really start eyeballing, but I’d start with 1/2 to 3/4 c. each and work from there. I sauteed some sliced baby portabella mushrooms in a different pan in some butter and olive oil, and at the last minute stirred these in. You could also stir in a tsp of fresh herbs. This served 7 people healthy portions.”

Thanks, Nicole! The cauliflower was killer, guys. So good, and I’ll definitely be making a half batch soon.

Delicious: A fun meal with a great group; my favorite way to ring in the new year.

On Boxing Day we all headed over to Eastern Oregon to stay at Sunriver, near Bend, and ski at Mt. Bachelor. We needed two cars, since Ben and I would drive straight back to Portland and Mom, Dad and Tom would return to Eugene.

The changing views on the drive over:

We crawled over the pass at about 18 miles per hour, passing all the Semis putting their chains on and squinting through the driving snow. It was a relief to hit the Eastern side of the mountains and see the snow taper off! We got to Sunriver in time to relax a bit in the (very nice and very large) condo before dinner.

Mom had worked many hours to prepare food before heading out. She made a big batch of Osso Bucco a couple days before we left, and brought the makings for sauteed cavolo nero (Italian kale) and a risotto Milanese (with saffron).

Lovely kale! (Meticulously cleaned and chopped by Tom; we had the stems in omelets and scrambled eggs for lunch.)

Delicious, warming winter food:

The next day I fell down and hurt my back, so instead of driving into Bend for a fun dinner out, we ate pizza at home and watched Monster’s Inc. I really, really enjoyed it, but I was also on painkillers so maybe I should watch it again to be sure it’s really that funny?

On Friday the Davidsons got to town for *their* week of ski vacation. They came over for a big lasagna dinner–again, Mom had spent hours making huge sheets of lasagna before we got to town. Yum.

We played Taboo and visited until it started to get pretty late. Ben and I were leaving the next morning to drive (3-4 hours) back to Portland and fly home. The less said about the messy 18 hour travel day with a very sore lower back, the better. Instead I will focus on the stunning landscape we drove up Highway 97 and then through the Warm Springs Indian Reservation on Route 26. (It’s a classic case of forcing Native American tribes onto harsh, arid land, but the terrain is very gorgeous to look at.)

The holidays may be the only time of year when my family’s food obsession seems normal–after all, who *isn’t* constantly cooking around Christmas? Ben and I headed out to Oregon on the Sunday before Christmas and stayed a week.

Christmas Eve we always cook at the home of wonderful family friends, the Davidsons. The menu always varies: One year it was Chinese food (I think that was my favorite) and this year there was an enormous beef tenderloin. We started with lovely salads with cheese, roasted pears, and walnuts. Along with the beef we had broccoli two ways: spicy roasted and pureed; squash, beans, roasted potatoes and sweet potato fries. (Sadly all my photos of the food were horrible!) We pulled crackers and wore the paper crowns while we ate and played out miniature plastic instruments, or read fortunes with those little cellophane fish.

After dinner all the “kids” went for a little walk in the misty, cold night:

Christmas morning we slept in a bit, and then started to open our stockings while Tom made popovers and 40-minute eggs. There was also bacon. Soooo good:

Not long after:

I played around with a very cool new present, a portable photo studio with light diffusing panels and little lights. Maybe I’ll be able to use it for finally-well-lit food shots? Here’s a test with the awesome Polish crêche I grew up with:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Side note
The little hippie grocery store near my house has great produce. Non-Pacific Northwesterners, writhe in envy at the mushroom bounty:

(Note the “Mushroom Mountain” sign)

Doesn’t Romanesco Broccoli look like an alien world or an enchanted forest if you get up close?

More to come…

Happy 2008! I have tons of photos from the trip home to upload, and lots to write about. In the meantime, here I am with my Dad, midway up Mt. Bachelor on my lone ski day last week. Shortly after this was taken I cracked my tail bone on a tile floor in the lodge and was out of commission for the rest of the trip. Sigh. Dad looks pretty hip in his snowboarder-style bandana, right?

(Photo by Sunriver Photography)

Back soon with actual food, which I know has been more than a little sparse in these parts recently. I pledge to get back to cooking as soon as possible!