Jambalaya

I just moved again, my fourth time moving in the past four years. This is exhausting only because there's constant re-adaptation to a new kitchen, which is actually a real thing. I don't know how electric burners work?? Why does the oven light go on and off?? Just how cold IS my freezer? Also, because I've always lived with other people, everyone else always provided all the culinary hardware, which means that I've been getting inventive. 

Did you know you can actually shred cheese with a vegetable peeler? 

(Like a fool, I forgot to take pictures, so here is my brother and some nice pink skies.) 

Anyways, I made some jambalaya so fine that I thought I had been kidnapped as a baby because actually I MUST be Cajun.

This explains everything!

The real thing about jambalaya, is that you can adapt it to all your personal cravings.
After reading several recipes it appears that most people don't put shrimp in it?
But my mama always puts shrimp in her jambalaya, so I did too.
You can make it on the stovetop, or in the oven or both (I did both.)
You can add okra, or not.
You can add sausage or not.
You can make your own cajun seasoning or not.
It's great.



Mostly I liked making jambalaya, because it made me feel at home, and feeling at home is suddenly a rare and special thing. 
Lately, I find myself asking questions such as, do other people make a place a home?
Is home just where you feel safest? 
Sometimes, when these questions are too much, I sit in my small green bathroom, and watch a trail of tiny black ants crawl from the east end of my bathtub near the faucet to the west end where I keep my shampoo. 
I like the ants, because the ants are not concerned with questions of home or place or belonging. 
They just keep walking. 

The point is. 
This jambalaya is worth you time. It will make the air smell thick and rich and spicy. 
It will bring you back to the tactile, real version of yourself. The part of yourself that only exists in the HERE NOW.  
But mostly it tastes really good. And fills you up. 

You will love it. 

And I love you. 

XOXO



Jambalaya 
via AllRecipes.com 

These are guidelines, adapt as you please. 

2 tablespoons peanut oil, divided
1 tablespoon Cajun seasoning
10 ounces andouille sausage, slices into rounds
1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 onion, diced
1 small green bell pepper, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 (16 ounce) can crushed Italian tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 1/4 cups uncooked white rice
2 1/2 cups chicken broth

1. Heat 1 tablespoon of peanut oil in a large heavy Dutch oven over medium heat. Season the sausage and chicken pieces with Cajun seasoning. Saute sausage until browned. Remove with slotted spoon, and set aside. Add 1 tablespoon peanut oil, and saute chicken pieces until lightly browned on all sides. Remove with a slotted spoon, and set aside.

2. In the same pot, saute onion, bell pepper, celery and garlic until tender. Stir in crushed tomatoes, and season with red pepper, black pepper, salt, hot pepper sauce, and Worcestershire sauce. Stir in chicken and sausage. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. Stir in the rice and chicken broth. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes, or until liquid is absorbed. (I actually ended up putting my Jambalaya in the oven at 375 F, for about half an hour because my electric burners didn't seem capable of cooking everything evenly for a long period of time.)

Kale Salad with Cherries and Pecans

Beloveds, 

I'm officially eating kale. 

Kale is such a thing. 

It's a super food, apparently. It's hipper than arugula, better for you than chard, and way more exciting than lettuce. 

Why kale?

Well, my sweet darlings. 

Being an almost 20 year old is really bizarre and complicated sometimes. And if kale will make my life more hipper, more better and more exciting, I am so down.  

Also, Fleetwood Mac lyrics have officially become my life. There's this line from the song "You Make Loving Fun" that pretty much sums it up: 

I do believe, in the miracles, but I've a feeling it's time to try

I do believe, in the ways of magic, but I'm beginning to wonder why

Right now I like to think that my official eating of kale as well as my official return to running and dance will be my miracles. 

I've a feeling it's time to try. 

COME AT ME FEBRUARY. 

xoxo 


Kale Salad with Cherries and Pecans
from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook by Deb Perelman

This is really good. I forgot some things, like the cheese and pecans. But by all means. Do it. Go crazy. XOXO 

Salad
1/2 cup pecans
8 ounces kale (recommended varieties, Tuscan, Lacinato, Cavolo Nero, Black)
4 ounces radishes
1/2 cup dried cherries
2 ounces soft goat cheese, chilled

Dressing
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons white white vinegar
1 tablespoon smooth Dijon mustard
1 1/2 teaspoons honey 
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and spread the pecans on a tray. Toast them for 5 to 10 minutes, tossing them once or twice to make sure they toast evenly. Remove from oven and set aside to cool. 

Wash your kale and let it dry on spread out kitchen or paper towels. Then, with a knife, remove the rib from each stalk, leaving long strips of kale leaves. Stack the leaves in small batches, roll them tightly the long way, and cut the roll crosswise into thin ribbons. Add the kale ribbons to a large salad bowl. 

Thinly slice the radishes, and add them to the bowl. Coarsely chop the pecans and cherries and add them as well. Crumble the goat cheese over the top. Whisk dressing ingredients together in a small dish, and pour the dressing over the salad. Toss the salad until it is evenly coated with dressing. This salad is great to eat right away, but even better after 20 minutes of tenderizing in the dressing. 

Tomato Sauce

I like it when songs perfectly fit into the rhythm of your life. 

I like it when the lyrics are what you would have written, if only you had known how to say it. Like this one. 

I like this time of year, because things are wrapping up. 

I like this time of year, because suddenly it's all about conclusions and twinkle lights and endings.

I like this time of year, because people make a lot of top ten lists, and a lot of top twenty lists, and a lot of top fifty lists. 

I might make a top ten list.  

I don't know. 

I want to make a top ten list of moments that I do not want to forget. 

There are too many. 

I don't want to forget all the doughnuts and the one drink too manys and the 3ams and the kisses and the hands out of windows in fast cars and the learning how to write songs and the clouds and the walks in the morning and the being bored and the being busy. 

Mostly though, I do not want to forget how beautiful everyone is. 

Everyone is so beautiful. 

My roommmates stood around me and ate this pasta. 

They are so beautiful. 

It was a top ten moment. 

I don't want to forget. 

xoxo

mary 

Tomato Sauce

This is no work. 

Take 3 cans of nice canned tomatoes. Add a hunk of butter. How much depends on how nice and rich you like your sauce. Chop an onion. And combine it all. Let it simmer for a while. Until the onions are soft. Ideally for about an hour or more. If the sauce starts to stick to the bottom of the pan, simply add water. When the onions are soft your can add cream if you're feeling luxurious. Salt and pepper liberally. 

Combine with cooked pasta and crumbled goat cheese. 

Apple Tarte Tatin

Isn't it strange when you look around at all the people in the world, and realize that every single thing that they're wearing, they chose to put on that day. 

Isn't that insane? 

Clothes are perhaps one of the only things that people have any real control over. 

Dressing up is a way to be empowered. 
This Apple Tarte Tatin is like your Little Black Dress that shows enough cleavage so that you feel voluptuous but not slutty.  
It's perfect and easy going and classy. 

It's simple. 

It's divine. 

It goes with everything. 

And everyone loves it. 

 

Distressing Facts in Life Part I: Many people do not know what an Apple Tarte Tatin even is. 

 

Basically it's apples that are cooked in butter and caramelized sugar until they almost have the consistency of jam. It's a slice of beauty. 

Do yourself a favor. 

Get classy. 

Get the Little Black Dress out. 

Make Apple Tarte Tatin

Exercise some beautiful control in your life. 

Apple Tarte Tatin

via SmittenKitchen.com

6 medium apples (I used Pink Lady apples and they were oh so good.) 

Juice of half a lemon

6 tablespoons (3 ounces or 85 grams) butter

1 1/3 cup (266 grams) sugar, divided

Puffed pastry, chilled or a single Pie Crust

A 9-inch ovenproof skillet, heavy enough that you fear dropping it on your toes

Peel apples, halve and core apples. Once cored, cut lengthwise into quarters (i.e. four pieces per apple) and cut a bevel along their inner edge, which will help their curved exteriors stay on top as they rest on this edge. (You can see this beveled edge here.) Toss apple chunks with the lemon juice and 1/3 cup of the sugar. Set aside for 15 minutes; this will help release the apple’s juices, too much of them and the caramel doesn’t thicken enough to cling merrily to the cooked apples.

Melt butter in your skillet over medium heat. Sprinkle in remaining 1 cup sugar and whisk it over the heat until it becomes the palest of caramels. Off the heat, add the apples to the skillet, arranging them rounded sides down in one layer. Lay any additional apple wedges rounded sides down in a second layer, starting from the center.

Return the pan to the stove and cook in the caramel for another 20 to 25 minutes over moderately high heat. With a spoon, regularly press down on the apples and baste them caramel juices from the pan. If it seems that your apples in the center are cooking faster, swap them with ones that are cooking more slowly, and rotate apples that are cooking unevenly 180 degrees. The apples will shrink a bit and by the end of the cooking time, your second layer of apples might end up slipping into the first — this is fine.

Preheat oven to 400. Roll out your puffed pastry to a 9-inch circle and trim if needed. Cut four vents in pastry. Remove skillet from heat again, and arrange pastry round over apples. Tuck it in around the apples for nicer edges later. Bake until the pastry is puffed and golden brown, about 20 minutes.

Once baked, use potholders to place a plate or serving dish (larger in diameter than the pan, learn from my messes!) over the pasty and with a deep breath and a quick prayer, if you’re into that kind of thing, unmold the pastry and apples at once onto the plate. If any apples stubbornly remain behind in the pan, nudge them out with a spatula.

Eat immediately.

Blueberry Blackberry Buttermilk Cake

This morning at 8:20 am, my cousin Claire sent me my weekly inspirational text: 

LIGHTEN THE FUCK UP.

She texts me this every Monday, religiously. That is just how beyond fantastic she is. 



It is the most important thing in the world to remember. 
I was having such a fine day today. I slept in. I went for a beautiful walk. I felt a lot of love for humanity and life and trees and just everything. 
I thought about the change from summer to fall, and how it's almost a physical feeling: you feel it in your bones. I thought a lot about how I need to find some new dreams to fit the new season. And then I started thinking too much, and suddenly I got overwhelmed with school and with life and how little I know, and how many people I talk to in a single day, and how much there is to learn, and where am I going and what am I doing and what will I do tomorrow and the next day and I want to talk to everyone and do everything, but I also need to read books and write and sing and how do you fit all of this into a day when things like Facebook exist? 

I don't know. 

The thing is, I want to be the kind of girl who simultaneously talks about Botticelli paintings AND rides a motorcycle.



And I had the realization that I'm just not that girl yet. 

I was feeling pretty terrible, until I remembered about LIGHTENING THE FUCK UP. 

And then I began to laugh. And I thought back to this weekend, which was kind of a dream, but also very weirdly wild, and I thought about all the crazy people I know, and I thought about this fantastic cake I baked late last night, just because I wanted to. 

And I remembered that things really aren't bad. 
Perfect? 
Never. 
Actually, that's a lie. 
Things are actually perfect when you eat this cake. 

But just because you do not know what is coming next, it does not mean that things are bad, and just because you are uncertain, it does not mean things are bad, and just because you are young and occasionally do ridiculous things that you maybe say you regret but actually don't, it does not mean things are bad. 
So just LIGHTEN THE FUCK UP. And bake that angst right out of your system. 
Right. Now. 

xoxo


Raspberry or Blueberry or Blackberry Buttermilk Cake
via SmittenKitchen.com who adapted from Gourmet, June 2009

I used blueberries and blackberries instead of raspberries as the cake originally called for. This is divine. A very tender, and very perfect everyday cake that takes minutes to whip together, and even fewer minutes to devour. 

1 cup (130 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon (2 grams) baking powder
1/2 teaspoon (2 grams) baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 stick (56 grams) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup (146 grams) plus 1 1/2 tablespoons (22 grams) sugar, divided
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest (optional)
1 large (57 grams) egg
1/2 cup (118 ml) well-shaken buttermilk
1 cup (5 ounces or 140 grams) fresh raspberries OR blueberries OR blackberries OR both
Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in middle. Butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan.
Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside. In a larger bowl, beat butter and 2/3 cup (146 grams) sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, then beat in vanilla and zest, if using. Add egg and beat well.
At low speed, mix in flour mixture in three batches, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour, and mixing until just combined.Spoon batter into cake pan, smoothing top. Scatter (see Note) raspberries evenly over top and sprinkle with remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons (22 grams) sugar.
Bake until cake is golden and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and cool to warm, 10 to 15 minutes more. Invert onto a plate.

Creamy Avocado Pasta

Cooking for one is difficult. 

My whole life I've always made things for groups of other people: birthday cakes, family dinners and parties.

This whole cooking for one thing is just... very confusing. 



Because now I can eat whatever I want whenever I want. 
It's very overwhelming. 
So I eat lots of scrambled eggs and apple fritters and cheese at weird hours. 
This is not how I intended to live my life. 
I intended to cook real meals and sit down at a real table with a cloth napkin and possibly a glass of wine. 
This happens exactly never. 

So I eat lots of avocados. Avocados are the perfect thing to eat alone. Which is great, because I'm very greedy when it comes to avocados. 

I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be ONE. To be alone instead of part of a couple, or part of a family. 



I buy my groceries alone. 
I debate with myself, alone, in the cheese aisle. 
In fact, the other day, in a moment of tremendous self-empowerment I bought four different kinds of cheese. And there was no one to tell me not to. 
I was alone. 

I am not whining. 

I am not lonely. 

There is a difference between being  lonely and being alone.  

And I like to be alone.
Yet, I think there's a huge stigma, in our culture, especially among people my age, that you are never supposed to be alone. 

Ever. 

If you spend a Friday night alone, WHO ARE YOU. 

If you go to a show alone, WHO ARE YOU. 

If you eat lunch alone, then WHO ARE YOU. 

But I like it. 

It is okay. 

It's okay to not be part of something all the time. It is okay to not belong to someone. It is okay to take a break from people. It is okay to eat as many apple fritters and avocados as you wish. 

It is okay to make a strange avocado pasta sauce, just because it sounds weird and good. And it is okay to eat it all.  And it is okay to eat it on the sofa, in dying afternoon sunlight, without a cloth napkin or glass of wine, and it is okay to eat it in silence, and it is okay to be happy in that moment, and happy that you are alone.  

Creamy Avocado Pasta

The recipe says that this makes four servings. I adapted it for one. I also did not roast my tomatoes, was out of both lemon juice and pine nuts and was too lazy to deal with garlic. I give you the original recipe because I'm sure that it's superior to whatever adaptions I attempted... xoxoxo

recipe via theflourishingfoodie.com
prep time: 10 minutescook time:1 hour 10 minutes

INGREDIENTS
10 - 12 small Campari tomatoes, quartered
3 - 4 tbsp olive oil
4 servings of fettuccine noodles
2 ripe avocados, seed and skin removed
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 cup pine nuts
grated fresh Parmesan cheese
salt and cracked black pepper to tastePreheat oven to 300 ºF.

Wash and quarter the tomatoes. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Drizzle with 1 - 2 tbsp olive oil, just enough to make the tomatoes glisten. Bake for 1 hour in the oven.

Ten minutes before tomatoes are finished, fill a large pot with water and a sprinkle of salt. Bring to a rapid boil. Add the dry fettuccine to the water and cook until al dente.

While the pasta is boiling, add 2 tbsp olive oil, avocado, garlic, salt and lemon juice to a food processor. Pulse until the ingredients are smooth and creamy.

Strain the pasta, and combine with the sauce in a large bowl, until all the pasta has been covered.

Add the roasted tomatoes, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and pine nuts. Add some salt and black pepper to taste.

Strawberry Custard Pie

Let me tell you about something that is really spectacular. 

Friends. 



I mean. Friends are the people who hold your hand when you are crying because LIFE is just too much to handle, and friends are the people you jump on beds with, and friends are the people who you are so comfortable with you don't even have to talk, and friends are the people who get your thought machine and your laughter machine and your happiness machine going. Friends are the ones who serve as your wingmen, who text you inspirational quotes informing you to FUCKING LIGHTEN UP, who show you how to refold a paper crane six times until you finally know how to do it, who assure you that you didn't do anything TOO embarrassing last night, who dance with you in awkward public places, who call you at midnight, the ones who tell you that you better get it together, the ones who walk you back to your apartment late at night, who come to your shows, who write you letters telling you all the things you needed them to say without you even knowing that you needed them to say it, they're the people you spill to, they are the ones who somehow got your trust and wormed their way into your life without you even knowing it. And sometimes they are new/old strangers and sometimes you have known them since playgrounds and baby swimming pools. But somehow, they are THERE. 

Some come and go. Some never go away. Some keep your trust. Some lose it. 

And this is all painful and all good at the same time. 

Who can know why? 



All I want to say is that I am so impossibly grateful for the friends in my life. The new ones. The old ones. The best ones. Even the distant ones. 



They mean the world. 

I baked out all of this friend love into a Strawberry Custard Pie. Strawberry Custard Pie is dedicated to my frambly. For the good times and bad times we are about to have, and for all the talking and laughing we are going to do about it. 

I'm already so grateful. 

xoxo



Strawberry Custard Pie

Pie Crust from BAKED by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito 

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

3 cups flour

1 Tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup water

In a food processor whirl together the flour, sugar and salt. Cut the VERY COLD BUTTER into small pieces and blend until the mixture forms into pea-sized chunks. Dribble in water and whirl until dough just comes together. Or, you can just do all of this with your fingers! 

Take dough out of processor and knead until dough comes together. Divide into two, wrap in plastic wrap and place in freezer for one hour before using. 

Filling:
5 eggs
1 scant c. sugar
4 T. melted butter
½ t. vanilla

1/4 t. cinnamon

about 2 pints strawberries

1/2 recipe Pie Crust

Position an oven rack to the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350°.

Lightly butter a 9-inch pie plate. On a well-floured surface, roll pie dough into a circle large enough to cover the pie plate and hang 1 inch over the sides. Fit the dough into the pie plate, crimp the crust and place it in the refrigerator to chill while preparing the filling.

Beat the eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla and cinnamon in a mixer, or with a whisk, until completely combined and pale yellow. Remove the pie shell from the refrigerator, strawberries into shell, making an even layer. Pour filling over the fruit.

Place pie on baking sheet and bake for about 1 hour or until the filling has set and the crust is light brown. Allow the pie to cool. Eat.

I Don't Know Pasta

I have been trying to write to you for an embarrassingly long time. 


But sometimes words just do not come to me. And so I sit and I type and I write many personal things that you do not want to know about that I do not want you to know about. 


I made pasta tonight:





Understand that this is something of a feat. Lately cooking for me has been things like, making toast, pouring coffee, adding water to raspberry Emergen-C powder, and buttering/cheesing/jamming/egging/putting-a-topping on said toast. 
And even this has felt like an ungodly amount of work. 


So. Pasta made: I grated three yellow squashes, and cooked them down in butter and bacon, and added some fresh basil, and then a spoonful of pesto, because I like extra basil. And then I wanted to make a cream sauce, but we had no cream. So I added a lot of mozzarella cheese and some parmesan cheese and some freshly cut tomatoes. 


And suddenly I had a meal that was not toast. 

I keep wondering what might happen have happened. 


Would I have succumbed to another toast meal if I hadn't made pasta? Might we have gone out to eat? What if I had made cookies instead? What kind of caloric difference would there be in my day if I ate cookies for dinner instead of pasta? Would I be asleep right now if I hadn't had that coffee at 2pm? 


This is what is so tricky about being alive sometimes. 


What opportunities do you take? Which ones do you hold onto? Opportunities are like friends, sometimes you slowly welcome them into your life, other times you let them go. 
But the knowing what to do? Knowing if you should make pasta or toast? Knowing which impulse or instinct to trust? 





It's so gosh-darn-well-dammit-I-don't-understand-why-everything-has-to-be-so-fucking-difficult.  


What do you do? 

I don't know. 


The point is. 


I made pasta. 


Huzzah. 


I Don't Know Pasta


I don't know how I made this. But there is bacon and grated squash and a lot of butter and cheese and some basil and pesto and pepper and salt. And tomatoes. Open your refrigerator door and use this as an opportunity to contemplate the confusion of opportunities. 

Catherine Newman's Donut Cake

The recipe promised that if I made this cake, my house would smell like donuts. 


That was reason enough. 





So I made the cake. I beat the butter and sugar together, I was careful. I even sifted the flour. I put the cake in the oven. 


And I waited for my house to smell like donuts. 





It didn't. 


I wondered if it was because my nose had somehow gotten accustomed to the smell, so I stepped outside and crumpled sage and rosemary between my fingers, and smelled it, to try and freshen things up. And I came back inside, and for the briefest hint of a second, I could smell the donut smell-- like yeast and sugary glaze, which quickly faded into the background scent of my house and the eggs my father made for breakfast. 


Disappointment.





Nothing is ever quite the way you think it will be. I don't know what I've expected for this summer, but it is different than I thought it would be. I don't know if I'm disappointed exactly, no disappointment can ever quite match the sadness of your house not smelling like donuts when it's supposed to, but there's a vague sense of something missing right now. And I'm not quite sure what it is. 


I wasn't quite sure what this cake would be like. 
It ends up that this is a very, very simple cake. 
A plain cake. There is no frosting, no extraneous steps. Just. Cake. It does not have the consistency of a donut. It does not waft donut smells, it's very name promises to be something that it's not. 


But you know what?


This cake is about as close to perfection as a truly simple cake can be. 


I think there is a moral or story here. 


I think I need to learn it good. 


xoxo

Catharine Newman's Donut Cake


via TheWednesdayChef.com

Makes one 9-inch cake

Darling, I am not kidding. This cake really is just beautiful. It would be especially lovely with some blueberries or strawberries, either mixed into the batter or served with a tall glass of cold whole milk or whipped cream. 

1 stick butter, room temperature
1 1/3 cups sugar
3 large eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
2 tablespoons cornmeal
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 cup buttermilk, room temperature

1. Heat the oven to 375°F. Butter and flour a 9-inch springform pan, and set it aside.

2. Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about two minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating to incorporate after each addition, then add in the vanilla. Scrape down sides of bowl with a rubber spatula. Set aside.

3. Whisk together the flour, cornmeal, salt, baking powder, and nutmeg. Add the flour mixture to the batter in 3 parts, alternating with the buttermilk, starting and ending with flour. Make sure each addition is incorporated before adding the next, but don't over-beat it at the end. Spread the batter in the prepared pan and smooth the top.

4. Bake until the top is puffed and golden brown and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Cool on a rack before serving warm or room temperature.