baked butternut squash kale risotto

i moved into a new apartment last weekend! it is still mostly in shambles, but the kitchen is set up, snaut has adjusted and is back to his ornery self, the water pressure in the shower is truly remarkable, and i’ve been sleeping well. things are off to a great start.

i made dinner at home for the first time tonight — i was inspired by this recipe, which showed up in my reader this week. perfect for a chilly san francisco night in a new, warm home!

baked butternut squash kale barley risotto
(adapted from real simple)

2 T olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cups butternut squash (not gonna lie, I used the 12 oz., pre-cut bag of it from TJ’s, but you could peel, seed, and cut up a whole one if you want)
2 brat-sized sausages, cut into bite-sized pieces (i like the garlic herb ones from TJ’s)
salt and pepper
1 cup pearl barley
1 cup white wine
2.5 cups vegetable broth
5 oz. kale (i used half the 10 oz. prepackaged bag from TJ’s…are you seeing the trend? the new apartment is a very short walk from TJ’s…)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1 T butter

preheat the oven to 400. hope the oven thermostat is correct because you forgot to bring the oven thermometer from your last apartment. make a note to get one of those.

if you have a dutch oven, get that baby on the stove over some heat. if you don’t have one because you’re saving it for your wedding registry, a big, short saucepan or even a stockpot will do just fine.

pour in a few tablespoons of olive oil. put on some christmas music while the oil heats up!

add the onion, butternut squash, sausage, salt, and pepper. sauté until the onion is translucent, five minutes or so.

feed the cat so he stops being so damn underfoot all the time, jeez!

stir in the barley and toss/toast it for about a minute.

stir in the wine and let it burn off for a minute or two. while you’re waiting, pour yourself a glass. mmmm, charles shaw. (hey, moving ain’t cheap. and neither are apartments in san francisco. you can use nice wine if you can afford it, moneybags.)

add the stock and kale; cover the pot and let the kale wilt for a minute or two. then uncover it and stir in the wilted kale. bring the everything to a boil.

if you’re using a dutch oven, throw the lid on that baby and stick it in the preheated non-dutch oven. if you’re a hopeful woman living in sin, transfer the contents of your trusty stockpot to an oven-safe 2.5-quart casserole dish with a lid, cover it, and put that in the preheated oven. (bonus points if it’s vintage pyrex!! you’re going to make an awesome wife someday!)

bake it for 35-40 minutes.

change into pajamas and type up the recipe while drinking more wine and cuddling with the cat. eat a few potato chips for a snack if you must.

once the barley is tender and the liquid is mostly soaked up, take your delicious-smelling meal out of the oven. make a mental note to get some mitten-type potholders because the ones that you hold but don’t fit onto your actual hands really don’t cut it.

mmmmm

stir in some parmesan (about half a cup) and a tablespoon of butter for good measure.

let cool slightly to soak up the rest of the liquid and serve in brightly colored bowls with more parmesan and more wine. watch some TV while you eat and be super thankful for your awesome life!

breakfast for dinner!

things are happening. i got a job! a social work job! it was not ideal, but i did my best for a while, until i quit. because i got another job! another social work job! so i took it. and i’m on day 6 and it is super exhausting but i am loving it. also, john and i are talking about doing all kinds of exciting things. and they all involve money! more money than we have! so we’re trying to budget and save more and spend less.

yesterday, after a few hours of boring and anxiety-provoking (for me, anyway) financial discussion, we were hungry. and since we’re not honey badgers so we couldn’t go hunting, and since we’d just spent hours looking at how we spend our money so we didn’t want to go out and spend more money, and since who doesn’t love breakfast for dinner (i certainly do), we decided to make breakfast for dinner with stuff we already had in the kitchen! like rotten bananas! and half-and-half that wasn’t bad yet! and peanut butter!

i started with this recipe as a guide and made some substitutions and additions — it’s pretty forgiving. these are a little heartier and more crumbly than classic buttermilk pancakes — perfect for dinnertime.

pantry dinner pancakes

makes about 7 5-inch pancakes

1/4 cup peanut butter
3/4 cup half-and-half
1/2 cup milk (soy milk would also be fine, or all milk would be fine, or all half-and-half would be fine, if you were really crazy. just get to 1 and 1/4 cups of some kind of milk-ish substance.)
1 mashed up, overripe banana
1 cup whole wheat flour (or regular flour, if you hate healthy whole grains)
1/2 cup quick oats (or whole oats, if that’s what you have)
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
chocolate chips

in a small bowl, combine the peanut butter, milk, and banana.

in a medium bowl, combine the flour, oats, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir until just combined (don’t over stir!!!).

drop by 1/3 cup-full onto a heated, buttered skillet and cook for a few minutes on each side, until done. (if adding chocolate chips, sprinkle them on top of each pancake right after you pour the batter onto the skillet.)

enjoy with maple syrup and some bacon/sausage/ham you have in the fridge/freezer and feel good about not spending any money on dinner and still eating something delicious!

biscuits!

I recently purchased a little propane grill, and we have been grilling like crazy.

grillin

We’ve had the same basic dinner twice in the last week: chicken thighs marinated in Worcestershire and BBQ sauce and grilled; zucchini cut into strips, sprinkled with seasoned salt, and grilled; red and yellow bell peppers quartered and grilled; corn on the cob de-silked, oiled and salted, rewrapped in husk, and grilled. One night I made sweet potato fries as an extra side, and on Friday, I made biscuits for the first time!

I combined two recipes because I didn’t want to make a thousand biscuits (we devoured the 10 this recipe made between dinner and the next morning’s breakfast, oops), I wanted them to be cheesy, and I wanted to just use what I already had at home in the pantry/fridge.

small-batch cheesy biscuits!

1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
1/3 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small chunks (or use salted butter and omit salt)
3/4 cup milk
1/3-1/2 cup grated cheese (I used some cheddar and some parmesan-romano)
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees and spray a baking sheet with cooking spray (or butter it, if that’s more your style).
2. Whisk together the flours, baking powder, sugar, cream of tartar, and salt in a medium-sized bowl.
3. Add the butter chunks and cut in with a pastry blender, two forks, or two knives until you have a “coarse meal”.
4. Stir in the cheese and black pepper.
5. Slowly add the milk, stirring as you go until you have a soft dough.
6. Turn the dough on to a floured board (my dough was really sticky) and knead to bring the dough together.
7. Roll out (I actually just pressed) the dough to about 1-inch thick and use a biscuit cutter to cut out rounds (I used a 2-inch cutter). Reshape the scraps and keep cutting!
8. Place biscuits on prepared pan and bake for 12-14 minutes, until the biscuits are puffy and golden brown.

Makes 10 biscuits, which you’ll no doubt eat very quickly.

fun with ice cream!

I have one of the best roommate-friends a girl could ask for in Stephie Q., and she congratulated me on my MSW with an amazing gift: an ice cream attachment for my KitchenAid!!

The thing about homemade ice cream is you have to be very patient, and you have to plan ahead (freeze the bowl, make the ice cream mixture, refrigerate the ice cream mixture, churn the ice cream). I am better at one of those things than the other. . .but when we’re talking about straight-up eggs, heavy cream, half-and-half, and me being unemployed, not being able to make a batch a day is probably a good thing.

I had a bunch of buttermilk and lemons left over from my graduation party, and blueberries are starting to show up in the markets, so I decided to make some blueberry buttermilk ice cream as my inaugural batch. (Close second and next batch: Guinness milk chocolate.)

ingredients

I opted for the fancy custard-base version, but I got the heat too high and scrambled the eggs. Oops. I tried to thin them out with my immersion blender and re-strain them, but I still ended up with some egg bits in the ice cream. (You can’t tell in the finished product.)

I refrigerated the ice cream mixture overnight and then started up the mixer!!

churn, baby, churn!

Magically, after 25 minutes, I had delicious ice cream. The consistency was perfect soft-serve. I ate a little bowl and put the rest in the freezer to set up. YUM!

om nom nom

I think I taste a lot of ice cream, froyo, and sorbet in my summer.

msw

I finished grad school, and I officially have three new initials to put after my name!

Mom and Dad came out for graduation weekend.

lower legion of honor scenic vista

We saw some sights,

fun with old transit

I wore great shoes and my friends and I pretended we were at prom,

msw prom 2011

We celebrated with people who came from far and wide,

hooray for friends and family!

And the next day, we threw a party with lots of finger foods.

Menu items included:
- Pioneer Woman’s bacon-wrapped jalapeno poppers
- Pioneer Woman’s hot artichoke dip (from her cookbook)
- Stuffed mushrooms
- White bean hummus
- Deviled eggs (Mom makes the best ones with relish and mayo)
- Bacon-wrapped smokies (self-explanatory)
- Bacon-wrapped water chestnuts (soak the chestnuts in a mixture of Worcestershire, soy sauce, and balsamic vinegar for 30 minutes before wrapping them)
- Goat cheese toasts
- Caprese skewers (fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, and half a cherry tomato on a toothpick)
- Pioneer Woman’s best chocolate sheet cake ever
And lots of beer.

It feels good to be done. Next step: find a job. I’ll keep you posted.

funny how it flies

a few weeks ago marked the five-year anniversary of my move to san francisco. five years is a pretty long time.

there’s not much about my current life that my 21-year-old self would have ever fathomed. considering my first months here — depressed, lonely, lost, dependent, disenchanted — my original san francisco self would have never believed i’d still be here after this much time.

she’d also have a hard time imagining that i’ve made real friends here, friends i want to be friends with for the rest of my life. and that i have a community here and that, for the most part, i feel loved and like i belong. and that i’m in grad school (even more amazingly, close to finishing grad school). and that i live in the richmond. and that i want to do life with a native californian. and that i can actually face confrontation and deal with ugly feelings and still maintain relationships. and that i can be okay on my own (but, admittedly, am better with people). and that i know so much transit trivia and have so many muni route maps committed to memory (okay, maybe she would have believed that one. . .i’ve always been a nerd.)

of course, i’m still me. i still listen to the mountain goats when i’m nostalgisky. i still love eating burritos as big as my head. i still want to be supremely competent and productive in everything i do. i still mentally collect and archive lots of weird data. i still get ridiculously lonely for no real reason. i still eat kashi every single morning, and i still look forward to it.

and even though i couldn’t have predicted nearly any of my current life circumstances five years ago, i’m pretty happy about how things have turned out. i feel like i’ve accomplished a lot in tangible (and less tangible) ways, which is important to an achiever like me. the next five years could be even bigger than these last five. . .and i’m probably equally as unable to foresee where i’ll be then. so that’s exciting.

—
“if i ventured in the slipstream between the viaducts of your dream, where immobile steel rims crack and the ditch in the back roads stop. . .could you find me? would you kiss-a my eyes? to lay me down in silence easy, to be born again.” – van morrison

archived heartbreak

i never delete anything from gmail. every single message i’ve sent or received since i opened my account in april, 2005 is archived and searchable.

scary, but also convenient: being able to search tens of thousands of messages comes in handy more often than i’d have thought. i’ve been able to find travel reservations, usernames and passwords, the chronology of events, even the specific date i went somewhere or did something.

tonight, working on updating my resume, i wanted to find out when i got each of my promotions at my old job. i figured i could just search my gmail for each of my job titles and find the oldest message, assuming i’d sent an excited email to my parents or friends upon receiving each promotion. sure enough, i found those gleeful, timestamped emails! but my search also turned up email threads with ex-boyfriends from the same period as the promotions. and in addition to exciting job news, those threads contained embarrassing, scrambling pleas; painful evidence of flailing relationships; pitiful last-ditch attempts to prevent everything from crumbling. just briefly glancing at them brought awful, visceral feelings from when they were written — knotted stomach, pounding heart, short, quick breaths. such a strong effect, even so many years later.

hidden in my gmail account are reminders of times i don’t look back on too fondly. but still, the nostalgic packrat in me can’t quite bring myself to delete them. maybe on some level, it’s comforting to be able to look back at the dysfunctional ways i communicated with and related to others — to prove i got through it, to show i’m making progress, and to confirm i don’t ever want to go back.

—–
“i held you in the coldest days, i held you in the coldest ways, i never know what to start to pick up and change.” – raa

easiest cookies ever

About 30 minutes from start to finished baking, no mixer needed, one-bowl cleanup, made with all ingredients you probably already have in the kitchen, and a chewy, brownie-like consistency: the easiest cookies ever!

easiest peanut butter cookies ever

2 eggs
1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 c white sugar
1 c peanut butter
1/4 t baking soda
1/2 t vanilla
Chocolate chips or other add-ins to taste

Preheat oven to 350. Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Drop onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet by rounded teaspoonfull. Bake for 8-9 minutes. Allow to set up on parchment paper for 5 minutes before transferring to wire cooling rack.

Makes 24 cookies.

my neighborhood is ridiculous.

all the bay area IGA stores (including the one that was 7 blocks from my house) went out of business recently, so now there are no regular old supermarkets within reasonable walking distance. finding items that are not standard eastern european and/or asian fare proves to be quite a goose chase.

this morning i needed three items to make breakfast: eggs (preferably local and organic); buttermilk (standard); and bacon (preferably deli-style/fresh/thick-cut).

the asian market on my block had none of the above.

the asian/russian/american market a block away had organic sonoma county eggs for $3.49 (not bad). but they only had pre-packaged bacon and old-world-style bulgarian buttermilk (which is made with yogurt cultures instead of cream cultures, making it thicker and more tart — could be good for some baked goods, but i’m not sure about pancakes).

the russian deli a block away had fresh thick-cut bacon (although it cooked up more like really fatty ham, so next time i think i will try another butcher shop a few more blocks away) but again, only bulgarian buttermilk. they do get bonus points for always talking to me in russian, though.

i had to go to the fancy-pants organic food co-op a few blocks away to find regular buttermilk.

it takes commitment to cook american in these parts.

my year in music

**Disclaimer: This is not a list of my favorite albums that came out in 2010. In fact, many of these albums did not come out in 2010. They did, however, enter my music library and my world this year. This was a year of old jobs, new jobs, old graduate programs, new homes; good decisions that turned out to be good decisions, good decisions that turned out to be bad decisions; more stability in some areas and more up-in-the-air-ness in others. These are the most listened to and most memory/nostalgia-inducing albums of my 2010, in no particular order.

Passion Pit, Manners
This year’s record of absurdly catchy electropop hooks has cemented its place as great road-trip-to-the-Cabin and pump-things-up-after-dinner music. Stupid, stupid, stupid catchy. Also love backup vocals from PS 22.

The Arcade Fire, The Suburbs
This one came out in 2010! I’m so hip and with it! This album doesn’t have the epic choruses that originally got me hooked on The Arcade Fire, but the more I listen to it, the more solid I realize it is.

The Head and the Heart, The Head and the Heart
Hey, this album came out in 2010 too! I have a lot to say about this album. It began when I went to visit an old lovey in Seattle this summer for a long weekend. It was a trip full of transit, fun, and girl-power adventure, but the highlight was the record-release show for The Head and the Heart at Conor Byrne in Ballard. I was floored by the three-part vocal harmonies, catchy melodies, and all-around stellar songwriting. Lyrics like “My roots are grown, but I don’t know where they are” just speak. Since that night in Ballard, I have sung along to every song on this album at the top of my lungs at least a dozen times. I haven’t liked a band as much as I like this band in a long, long time.
This album is also associated with a really strong, independent, assertive time in my year. The Seattle trip and finding this band was something I did on my own, just for me; I needed that time, and I realized I needed it, and I took it, and I was better for me and everyone else after it. When I think about it, so much of my music collection is linked to one dude or another, whether he introduced me to them or we saw them live together or we made out while listening to them or whatever. (What can I say, over the past few years I have exclusively dated dudes with excellent taste in music. It’s not what you’re like, it’s what you like, right?) But this is one of the few bands I feel like I found on my own and recognized the value of on my own. They are a damn good find, and if these new songs are any indication, their sophomore album is going to be even better: “Been talking ’bout the way things change / my family lives in a different state / and if you don’t know what to make of it / then we will not relate.” Tell me.

Freelance Whales, Weathervanes
Steph introduced me to this album shortly after we moved into our new house. I will always associate it with our first experimentations with the KitchenAid. Pretty, catchy, cheesy at times, a bit of a guilty pleasure, oh-so-very indie.

The xx, Xx
The xx opened for Hot Chip when John and I saw them at the Fox this year. I love how simple the instrumentation and vocals are, and I love Romy’s sexy voice. Great example of less being more.

Geographer, Animal Shapes
This is a legitimate 2010 album! I had heard of Geographer but never really got hooked until I heard “Kites.” Then it turned out there were weird connections with them, like my friend from school being roommates with the singer/songwriter. It’s a small city. These songs all make me bop and invent harmony parts, signs of good stuff.

Mumford & Sons, Sigh No More
This is another 2010 (in the US) album! I listened to these guys almost exclusively during my last few months at 41 Octavia. Foot-stomping goodness.

Feist, The Reminder
I know I’m really behind the times on this one, but belting out “What made you think this boy could become / the man who would make you sure he was the oooooooooooooooone, my oooooooooooone?” got me through quite a few nights this year.

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes, Up from Below
Tableau: The scene shop at West Valley College, safety goggles on, router in hand, crew from The Easily Distracted Theatre alongside, finishing the set for Foresight, Up from Below playing on the stereo. And the longer I’m away from my given home, and the more I wonder what “home” means, the more I realize it is wherever I’m with you. Hippies.

Sufjan Stevens, The Age of Adz
I’m only good to listen to this in its entirety about once every two weeks, but it’s complex and ugly and pretty and bizarre. My favorite elements are the metallic-chains effect in “Age of Adz” that sounds like Sonic when you rev him up and, of course, the use of Auto-Tune in “Impossible Soul.”

BONUS: Sufjan Stevens, Songs for Christmas
I only bought this box set this year, but I’ve been listening to it non-stop while baking and decorating and traveling and such. The arrangements of classic hymns inspire me for my own experiments in playing Jesus music, and some of the originals (“That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!” and “Did I Make You Cry on Christmas? (Well, You Deserved It!)”, in particular), are legitimately great songs, Christmas or not. Also “The Friendly Beasts” is my second favorite Christmas song ever (second to David Bowie and Bing Crosby’s “The Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth”), so bonus points for a great version of that.

Happy 2011!!