Hungry Times Two

I'm renewing our segment "We've Got It Made," in which we highlight our joint ventures in the kitchen. HTT is in the house, baby. After sitting on the recipes from the awesome Mrs. Wheelbarrow class on Easter Desserts for nearly a month, I up and went to the grocery store this a.m. to ensure I had all the ingredients to make a pretty pretty pavlova . Since I won't be here for Easter, I thought it would be nice to make it anyway.

A friend in Tennessee sent this along, and I thought the sheer ingenuity behind it was worth sharing. This is a fish-stick I wouldn't mind eating. (I ate enough of the other kind in elementary school). As he noted, these are "stockers", so unlike wild-caught trout (catch and release), these are fine for all-you-can-eat grilling. Yum.

In addition to my latest read, Keith Richard's Life , (and yes, it's coherent), I'm also reading two food-related works. From SXC/Zsuzsanna Kilian The first is one I snagged via the incredibly helpful Interlibrary Loan at my library branch -- The Essential New York Times Cookbook by NYT food editor and writer Amanda Hesser . Hesser asked for reader feedback and sifted through all the published recipes -- from cocktails to sweet endings -- in the paper's annals and whittled it down to a hefty red doorstop of a compendium.

Erin's out of town visiting a friend, so in my search through the cupboard and fridge, I came up with a quesadilla. (Cue the grandma in Napoleon Dynamite !) Yes, it's the unheralded Mexican grilled-cheese sandwich, which I embellished with homemade pico de gallo. (gotta' get rid that cilantro that's threatening to rot in the produce drawer) That, plus a dollop of sour cream. (or in our house, Chobani Greek yogurt, Erin says it's healthier than sour cream) Even for a quick, cheap Saturday night meal for one, there can be art/presentation, thus my cutting the quesadilla into quarters, then filling in the gaps with pico and centering it with sour cream. Looks kind of like the old Santa Fe railroad logo, yes? (Any variation on the Zuni sun is always cool!) The meal was cheap, quick to make and tasty - three winning factors. For a beverage, I took a cue from my down-the-street neighbor Brian and picked up some Modelo Especial from our neighborhood corner shop (...

Here I sit, typing on this wee blog, with my back to my grandmother's china cabinet (which was originally a pantry for my great-grandmother's pump house , where all the men would go to have a drink 'cause my great-grand didn't allow liquor in her home, thank you very much). Peering into the glass door of the cabinet, I see nine jars of Christmas Morning Marmalade, which I rechristened "Pucker Up Marmalade" after Scott and I spent nearly two hours peeling, slicing, and seeding an ungodly amount of citrus fruit right before Christmas.

We're not dead yet, to borrow from mighty Monty Python. Just kind of sick, tired, and overwhelmed to get back into the swing of things post-holidays. Anyone else feel like a total slug getting back to work after ringing in the New Year? So. damn. painful. Well, I'll stop my griping and promise you this: we turned it OUT this holiday season, taking lots of photos and making and eating our share of tasty holiday yum- yums . And by that I mean we stuffed our face with: - Shrimp & Grits (made by Sir Scott, coming soon to a blog near you!) - Potato Gratin with Rosemary Crust (made by yours truly madly deeply...I rocked it - post coming soon.) - Southern goodies like pimento cheese (pronounced " puh - menna " if you can get your Southern drawl going) and boiled peanuts - A new thing I credit my mother dear for showing me: Pickled Okra! Holy cow, they are good with cocktails. Or just eating them straight out of the jar at 2am , barefoot, as you try your hardest not to ...

Recently two boxes of Giant-brand (generic) organic Mac & Cheese made it into our pantry somehow - methinks I know who squeezed them into a fully loaded shopping cart not too long ago. And then this week my grocery store trip went awry and I somehow figured we'd get by on random produce, rice, a cut or two of meat, and....magic? Let's just say the cupboard was pretty bare and we did the dreaded yet handy "Breakfast for Dinner" approach one night this week. Yep, grits, egg and veggie scramble, and a commendable approach at potato pancakes from one Scott Adams. So...those two boxes of mac and cheese - one Wisconsin cheddar and another white cheddar - came in pretty freakin' handy. Problem is, they fully brought the mac, yet not so much the cheese. Both boxes were dry, dry, dry. I had to poke around my bowl just to find any semblance of sauce. Here's my stance: if you're going to go the boxed mac and cheese route, do yourself a favor and forget "orga...

I introduce to you our new segment, "We've Got It Made." I know, right - cheesy yet oh-so-catchy. You may now roll your eyes, and continue reading, thanks. It's..wow...almost October, and while the last of the warm weather temps are fleeting and fading, we noticed our basil plants in our communal neighborhood garden are doing the same. Scott and I wanted to take advantage of the lovely herbs while they're still present and accounted for, so on Saturday night after a full afternoon of kayaking up and down the Potomac River, we set out to make pesto. Scott inspected the plants. And picked and picked and picked - two cups worth! I checked out the huge-ass pumpkins growing in the garden. And mourned the sad decline of beautiful sunflowers. Once inside, we combined forces to blend the basil, garlic, grated Parmesan cheese, pine nuts and olive oil, using the ever-handy The Joy Of Cooking's recipe . Indeed a joy. Yum. I boiled some fettuccine regate noodles (th...

Check this out! Our friends Eleni (a-lane-ee) and Joelle own Savor the Flavor catering and have started offering cooking classes . If their Facebook link shows up correctly, you get to see people cooking things from sushi to Italian to Greek (Eleni's family is Greek, so she's got special insight into ingredients and cooking methods for Greek cuisine). Way to go Eleni and Joelle - you're making better cooks of all of us!

Ladies (and dudes who read food blogs), the old cliche truly is correct: A good man is hard to find. Scott says he plans on posting here soon and I know that's true because he took photos last night of the evidence of his hard work in the kitchen (and a bad shot of me blending and cursing my over-salted hummus, but that's for another time). This blog needs to hear from the male counterpart of HTT , for real. Weary and ready for a glass of wine/foot rub/warm bath/instant transport to a Caribbean island/or whatever was most convenient and stress-reducing at the time, I came home to find my husband in the kitchen, trimming ends off of green beans and meat marinating in the fridge. Sweet! He was chopping sweet potatoes into wedges for roasting. Even sweeter! People, it's never good to have the women of the world always working to provide tasty eats. We work too, dammit, and it's hard coming home and settling right in to Domestic Goddess mode where we prepare yummy yet also ...