music in my kitchen

Do you ever have those moments, normally in the midst of some utterly mundane activity, when all of a sudden you are completely at peace?

I may be sending women back a few decades when I share this, but for me, those moments most commonly occur for me when I'm in my kitchen.  Tonight's Introspective Mundane Activity involved peeling the safety seal off of a new bottle of Hunt's ketchup.  There was really no good reason, which is what made it such a delightfully calming moment - opening a new bottle of ketchup has absolutely no symbolic significance (unless you really want to dig, Dr. Freud) and I would hardly consider it a life-changing experience.  Yet, as I was prying up the edges of the seal and pulling it carefully back from the bottle, I just had this moment where all was right in my world and I could honestly say that I am happy with where my life has brought me.

I generally try to stay away from existential dilemmas and my life-long angst around them (Sword of Damocles and all that) on the blog because I like to keep things generally light-hearted (so that when I occasionally go on a babbling streak about something I care about passionately, there's a better chance people will listen). To tell the truth, though, I have not been very happy with my life over the last year.  I think that is one of the reasons this is only my sixth post in 2012.

Other reasons include my wacktastic work schedule lately.  It's about to either settle down or get a lot crazier, but I'm excited about some changes taking place and looking forward to the new adventures I'll have as I learn my new position and work my way up this new "corporate ladder."  Nevertheless, in the past few months, I've needed to work later than I'd prefer some nights, resulting in a dinner schedule that is erratic at best.  Since I've stuck primarily to familiar recipes, dining out a little more frequently, and more dinners involving prepared foods, I haven't felt inclined to share, especially in the face of the writer's block that apparently also struck me mid-January.

Fortunately, it appears my recent obsession with current events and political hot topics, leading to last night's post (which went a bit further from the point I was trying to make than I'd prefer), has broken my inadvertent silence.  I might even start taking pictures of food again!

Let's not go overboard, folks.  Tonight's dinner was veggie burgers and fries.  But first, a word from our sponsor: Fantasies for a Future Kitchen....


{cue shimmery deedly-deedly music and wiggling fingers}

I have this vision in my mind.  Actually, it's kind of like a collage of many visions which all combine to create My Perfect Kitchen.  It's spacious, of course, but efficiently designed so that all the things I need are near me.  It's big enough for a small breakfast table, probably, and a baker's rack.  Not only is there enough space for all my stuff, but there is space left over for more!  So now I can fit in a stand mixer and... my Bose SoundDock, so I can charge my ancient iPod while listening to its eclectic mix of music out loud while I cook, rather than through my earbuds with the iPod unceremoniously tucked into my apron pocket.  Maybe I can even sing along without Mister thinking I've lost my marbles.

{shimmery music fades, returning us to my small but happy and efficient urban kitchen}


There was music in my kitchen tonight, though, despite my iPod being plugged into my computer to charge while I labored over frozen fries and frozen Boca patties (we're all about the brand placement tonight, folks!).  Actually, while we're on the subject, I would like to put in a little plug for Ore-Ida.  Ordinarily, I buy the store-brand fries (as well as just about anything else), but there was a sale on Ore-Ida, so I picked up a package of "Extra Crispy" fries.  They really are!  Seriously - crispiest, tastiest fries I've ever cooked in my own kitchen.

But wait - there's more!  They sing!


Yes, really.  They sing.  Or whistle, or scream bloody murder.  Whatever.  At one point, they kind of sounded like bagpipes and for some reason, I found that so amusing I thought I actually might like to listen to bagpipes (ssshhhh! don't tell the "Irish" bar across the street!).  Seriously, I noticed a kind of sizzling noise when I stirred them halfway through cooking, but when I pulled them out of the oven, they were making a whole heck of a lot of noise.  It wasn't unpleasant, though, it really sounded like they were singing for me.

I truly never thought I could write a fun post about veggie burgers and fries for dinner, but I also never knew fries would sing for me.

sleep is for the week

No, that was not an unintentional spelling error, it was a very poor pun.  I am ridiculously exhausted and for no good reason, other than being in a more or less constant state of sleep deprivation.  So, on Friday nights while the rest of the world is gallivanting around my neighborhood, I am struggling to keep my eyes open and form coherent sentences.  As such, I find that where I used to stay out until the bars closed, I'm old and tired and ready for bed before midnight as my body, aware that we've reached the end of the standard work week, tries to make up for the hours and hours of "lost" sleep I didn't get this week.

It's super cold in Philadelphia, which is a stunning way to welcome Springtime - I think it is actually below freezing right now and the heat keeps kicking on.  I decided, as I was leaving work and walking through rather blustery conditions, that there was nothing special enough about today/tonight/the recent past or foreseeable future to warrant a walk through the cold, windy night for the privilege of paying $25 for tofu.

Instead, I made a pit stop at Superfresh for black beans and fries and cooked up some bean burgers.  The excitement never ends.  One of the things I truly enjoy about my husband, however, is the bizarre and thoughtful conversations we have after dinner. Tonight we talked about clonal trees and Methuselah, a tree thought to be 4,800 years old; the oldest living non-clonal tree.  Last night we discussed the Hadron Particle Collider and how the Earth nearly imploded in 2008.  Which, of course, led to the most romantic thing said all night:

If the whole world has to implode, I hope I implode with you.

I know.  We're kind of like Romeo and Juliet.  I'm just waiting for our movie to come out.

Anyway, I have absolutely nothing interesting to say about our burgers, so I'll skip right to the menu.  I wanted to do something a little different this week.  I've actually wanted to do this for a while.  I did not use a single existing cookbook to construct my new menu - each of these recipes comes from a blog I've been following for a while, in one capacity or another.  You can link to all the blogs on the left side of the page and as I prepare each recipe, I will link back to the blog from which it came.

1. Seitan and Broccoli with Pantry BBQ Sauce from the Post Punk Kitchen, Isa's blog.

2. Pasta with Peppers and Sausage
3. Red, Gold, Black and Green Chili
4. Sicilian Market Pasta, all three from SusanV at the Fat Free Kitchen blog.

5. Meatless Meatloaf from Mama Pea at Peas and Thank You.  Mama Pea will have her first cookbook published this summer and I couldn't be happier for her.  You should pre-order the book - I'm planning to pick my copy up the moment it's out.

6. Wheatberry "Paella" with Chickpeas and Leeks, also from thePPK.com.  I'm pretty sure Isa can't write a recipe that doesn't include chickpeas...just an observation.  A fun story - apparently, she was posting about the same time I was poking around my bookmarks looking for fun food, because I went back to the PPK about a half hour after deciding on #1 and found this freshly posted recipe.  I feel kinda special about that.

7. Seitan with Prunes, a test recipe for the forthcoming UV2.  I think all the other testers are a little afraid of this recipe.  I'm not saying that I'm going into this without a little trepidation, but I will be the first person to test this recipe, despite it being posted about two months ago.  I'll admit, I'm a little worried about how Mister will feel about savory-braised prunes sharing a skillet with his seitan, but I'm willing to risk a fail dinner for the sake of testing this "scary" recipe.  You can count on a great and detailed post that night!  Unfortunately, I won't be able to share the recipe, but I'm sure I'll plug once again for you to buy the book when it comes out.

With that thought, I'm going to give up on consciousness.

short and sweet while my hands are clean

It's been a messy, dirty day.  One of the few things I do look forward to with the imminence of springtime is that the warmer, more humid days restore the moisture winter sucked from my hands.  I look forward to the day I can wash my hands without having to immediately slather them with hand lotion, before they become taut and shiny and feel all papery.  Blech.

Anyway, I'm waist to eyeball high with boxes right now and a little overwhelmed by the knowledge that tomorrow is our last full day in this apartment.  When I look around, it looks like there's still so much to pack, but when I pull out the boxes (the guys at the liquor store love me - they won't have to pay their recycling bill until March) and start putting stuff in them, I find myself running out rather quickly.  We had an early dinner (more in a moment) and then I got to packing up my kitchen, but I figured it was time for a Blog & Wine break, so I opened up my Malbec before I packed up the corkscrew.

Dinner tonight came to us via the talented (and busy!) hands of the cooks at Blackbird Pizzeria.  My intention had been for us to eat at Blackbird - less trash and clean up for me - but there was not a single table open in the whole joint!  Good for them - it's always great to see a business like that do so well while other pizza parlors only blocks from there are switching hands so quickly they're not even bothering to put up the new signs.  We ordered our food to go and flipped through Grid while we waited for dinner.  While we waited, it occurred to us that one reason there were no tables open was because they are not exactly fast food.  Anyway, we got our bag of goodies and took it home:

After far more deliberation than I felt the menu warranted, Mister decided on the Chickpea Salad Hoagie, which appears to be the vegan equivalent of chicken salad.  It was a lot of sandwich - probably about 14" (Mister's guess).  He started out enthusiastically enough, but he seemed to lose steam about halfway through, beginning to devote more of his attention to the fries.  Once he'd finishd the first half, he rewrapped the second half with great gusto, at which point I realized exactly how big a sandwich it really was and he made some comment about only being able to stand the texture one half at a time.

Mister takes his sandwiches very seriously.  If they aren't perfect, it's as though it is a personal offense.

Speaking of serious - these are some serious fries!  Mister and I agreed (as we conquered that pile with the zeal of people who haven't eaten fries since...well, okay, since Monday) that these are very, very good fries.  The outsides are perfectly crispy while the insides maintain a soft, light texture, and the folks at Blackbird have the salt thing down pat - not too much, not too little.  It's like the Goldilocks of French Fries.

As I mentioned, I got the Roasted Eggplant Grinder and it was astonishingly good.  I ate the whole thing happily, along with my share of the fries.  It's ever-so-slightly too oily, but that's really just my terrified-of-fat-calories side talking - the garlic-infused oil really makes the sandwich.  The marinated eggplant, broccoli rabe, and roasted red peppers certainly help create an amazing sandwich.  I definitely preferred this sandwich over their cheesesteaks, mainly because this sandwich had just a sprinkling of Daiya, rather than it being a main ingredient.  I think it worked very well on this sandwich because there were several other bold flavors to balance it out - it really kind of dominates the seitan in the cheesesteak.  Perhaps if the seitan was seasoned a bit more creatively, it would hold its own against the Daiya...food for thought.

Anyway, I'm about to run out of wine (and steam), so it's back to the boxes...let me leave you with a few glamour shots of our mess:

I don't know why I was surprised, but it actually took two boxes to pack all of my cookbooks.  I guess this makes sense, since I had three shelves devoted to them... 

I refer to this as my Fail Box.  This is probably the crappiest packing I've done yet.  I just kind of tossed all of my cookware into a really big box.  It's crammed in there pretty good and Mister already practiced picking it up, so I think it will make its way two blocks without any major damage.  It is neither orderly nor attractive, though.

from the floor to the middle

middle to the top...that's quite a pile

I have absolutely no idea what's for dinner tomorrow, so stay tuned!