Hungry Times Two

Scott and I are so many things right now.  Jobless. Unemployed. "Between Jobs," which is one of my least favorite terms, as I imagine us physically bookended by work.  We prefer the term our financial advisor shared with us - the "Intentional Sabbatical" - when we told her we'd both gone and resigned from our jobs in Oregon and planned to move back to North Carolina. We thought she'd "Tsk" us into shame, but she was actually supportive of our need to stop the needle on the record of life and make some drastic changes.  While we're not in a terrible situation financially, we're trying to watch the spending, and though I avoid a spreadsheet like most steer clear of the plague, I know one of our biggest spending categories is food. Like, duh. Have you seen Scott eat? Do you know the damage I can do in a cheese shop?  I won't pretend that I fully know what I'm doing, but I have made some adjustments to our meal expenses...

One of our first garden hauls, on the best tea towel ever. Three zucchini plants. Three! Were we mad with garden fever, or just not paying attention when we planted two green and one golden/yellow zucchini in our community garden plot in June? It's now August, and at one point last week, I couldn't tuck anything else in our crisper drawers because the zucchini crowded everything else out. I can't complain, though, because it's turning out to be a versatile item in our kitchen this summer. Here's a brief rundown of ways we're using these summer squashes, which are fruits, botanically, but we won't tell them that: Raw zucchini salad with tomato vinaigrette, from Sheri Castle's The New Southern Garden Cookbook. Taking a vegetable peeler to a cold zucchini turns out to be a very good idea when you top the ribbons with a flavorful tomato dressing. Easy, fast, delicious.  Creamy zucchini lime dressing, from Cooking Light July 2018. The s...

One of the trickiest but also most rewarding things about moving to a new place is adapting to the food scene and culture. A common response Scott and I heard when we announced our Oregon move to friends and family was " OMG. The beer. The wine. The FOOD. " While we're very excited to try out many of the notable restaurants, plentiful food carts/pods, and the crazy explosion of breweries and wineries, I'm most thrilled about having access to the fresh local produce and seafood of Oregon. Not only do I enjoy home cooking but let's face it -- it's often cheaper to make food than to dine out. Despite the sales tax-free shopping, Oregon food can be expensive, and with one of us (me) being on a brief "job break" at the moment, meal planning and sticking to grocery lists is an important budget focus.

One of my favorite pastimes is to visit the library & peruse new and old cookbooks. I think this is probably most definitely violating copyright law, but when I check out cookbooks and find recipes that I like, I'll copy them and file them in my almighty 3-ring green food binder. This binder holds recipes torn from magazines and newspapers, family recipes emailed and handwritten, takeout menus, and paper menus from restaurants we've visited and enjoyed. It's my big book of food awesomeness, and I'm always in search of items to keep it growing. When a friend mentioned the Food52 Cookbook Club on Facebook, I figured it would be a fun way to experiment with foods I might not normally cook, and to expand my horizons beyond the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library stacks.

On the first day of 2018, the scene is set.  The fireplace is blazing. Our dog Loretta is curled up on the love seat next to me. Candles on the mantle are flickering. My small-ish second glass of red wine blooms warmly with each sip. There's no Netflix on the TV.  No radio blaring the latest news.   Quiet. Gentle. Cozy.  I'll have a second and third helping of this in 2018, please and thank you. 

We're back with another edition of "Hey, we used to be bloggers." I am not so sure who reads blogs much anymore (hi Moms!) but hell, if e-newsletters are in again and the ' 90s "flatform" shoe is making a comeback , maybe we have a shot. As I nurse a gin and tonic made of nothing but the finest (here's to you, cheap Chek tonic cans from the Mount Pleasant, SC Bi-Lo - sometimes you just buy things to get the job done, especially when you're en route to Vacation Weekend after a slight detour to fix a flat tire on I-26...), I'm mulling over what's happening so far in our garden plots.  We went Tomato Crazy this year, planting 6+ mixed varieties in our raised beds that kinda-sorta get sufficient sunlight in our backyard, and 8 seedlings in one of our two Winterfield Community Garden plots. Hopefully we'll soon pick beautiful Red Delicious, San Marzano, Black Krim, Blue Gold Cherry, Brandywine, and a few "mystery" tomatoes,...

As I type, there's a very warm and furry canine snuggled to my left (she claims she can proofread) and an icy Campari and soda to my right. Oh, the contrast. Every summer we say "No more" to the Southern humidity, but here we are again, sweatin' and cussin' as we take turns watering the community garden plots in the mornings, and ducking in and out of the evening heat, the back screen door slamming, to take things on and off the grill. Scott is especially drawn to the west coast this time of year, or at the very least the high country areas of Western North Carolina, where the temps are 10+ degrees cooler than down here in the flatlands.  I wouldn't mind a little mountain getaway for this time of year. Normally Scott is the more sensitive one, but this weekend I nearly had a meltdown in all kinds of ways at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market . Too many people + 90 degrees by 10 am = one escalation of a situation for this crazed lady. Let's just s...

This is what happens when, despite some ungodly temperatures here in North Carolina, your garden decides to go forth & dispense some goodies. I have 30 cucumbers in my crisper drawer right now, y'all. What. The. Heck. Fortunately, I like a good cucumber challenge. (Get your mind out of the gutter.) The first thing I did when our Seed Savers Exchange A&C and White Wonder  cukes started showing up was to find a good pickling recipe. And with temperatures hanging in the 100 degree fun zone for nearly 2 weeks here, I needed one that didn't require processing them. Who could conceive of a hot water canning bath in that kind of weather?

I was so proud of myself, scouring for some new recipes, making a meal plan for the week with some nutritious foods, and hitting the grocery store early in the weekend. Then I made a shit dinner on Monday night. You may think shells with caramelized onions and blue cheese sounds like... a thing. A nice thing. An easy thing. A tasty thing. Sure, Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers cookbook, thanks for this idea. It sounded delicious. I like caramelized onions. You know I dig on some pasta. And the blue cheese - yes yes, I do enjoy the dairy products. It seems like it could work. But then I got overzealous with my food processor and the six (!) cups of chopped onions turned to paste. I turned to mushrooms instead. Bad idea. I forlornly served up the meal to Scott, who took a semi-enthusiastic bite. His face kind of fell. He pushed the shells around on the watery cheese sauce. I poked at a mushroom and took a bite. Oh my. I shotgunned my glass of pinor noir and thusly declare...

In the past week, Scott and I decided to call any opportunity a "Christmas Miracle." The little elderly dog lost in the park in our neighborhood, a week later found unharmed a few blocks away  -- a Christmas Miracle. Scott not catching whatever funky virus I had last week -- a Christmas Miracle. Receiving not one, but THREE packages of our favorite Berger Cookies from two friends in Maryland -- a Christmas Miracle. It's the little things, y'all.

In my last post I shared that we hauled back lots of apples from the N.C. mountains. Since then I've eaten apples in my oatmeal, cored into slices with peanut butter, in a sheet cake, with cheddar slices, and in a celery and blue cheese salad. Our dog Loretta enjoys wrangling the cores out of her red Kong . And yet we still have SO MANY APPLES. One half of our fridge is completely stacked with apples and one crisper drawer is full. We have a bounty of  "Nature's Toothbrush." (Ew.) Chopped Apple Cake, from the 1987 edition of the Trinity United Methodist Church, Charlotte, cookbook. (My dad was the minister there in the late '80s. The ladies there could COOK.) At night they multiply in our fridge like amoebas. They're taking over. I think I may become one.

Little did I know when I eagerly applied to take part in The Bitten Word' s Cover to Cover challenge that the task would be so...explosive. Learn all about it and my little mishap with Bon Appetit' s Brussels Sprouts Kimchi in their latest post, Cover to Cover 2013: Sides Dishes and Condiments. I'd follow the recommendation by the first blogger featured in the roundup and also slice the sprouts thin. Halves just don't cut it -- you wind up with big crunchy bites of spicy brassicas that find a way to kick your ass later too, if you know what I mean. (Ugh, I felt the need to leave that out of my submission, probably better for it, right?) I cook a LOT from BA these days. Their restaurant features are a bit too " so hot right now " but the recipes are usually right on the mark of challenging enough to be interesting but not so much that I can't find the ingredients or the tools to try them. And lots of vegetables usually, since that's a big goa...

Looking for something different to snack on? Need a break from that cheese tray or chips & dip rut? C'mon, you're better than that. Check out my guest blog post on We The Eaters for a lovely Italian pickled Giardiniera. It's a simple pickle featuring carrots, cauliflower and red peppers, but with enough zing to tell your taste buds to get happy. You know you need to eat more vegetables. So get canning!

I know all the cool kids do Pinterest. I had an account for a year or so a while back & I reached a saturation point with pinning all this stuff that made me feel pretty materialistic (ooh! Pretty dress! Ah! Gotta have that necklace!). Also, I spend my workdays at my desk, mouse and laptop and phone at the ready, for 8+ hours. I need a low-tech break. Thus my food binder, in all its glory.

After a decidedly stressful and busy summer of crazy house hunting & buying, moving, unpacking, and a conference visit to ATL for me last week, I came back to Charlotte on Saturday craving vegetables and all things not battered and fried or alcoholic. You know, that healthy stuff. So we hit up the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market and came back with loads of produce -- cucumbers, eggplant, zucchini and tomatoes. A bonus cameo in the photo below: our friends J&B brought over two jalapenos they grew in their garden. (I need to remember my rubber gloves when handling those! Once bitten, twice shy.)

Holy heck, y'all. Who turned on the faucet of life and stole the nozzle? I'm ready for a slow down. I didn't get to blog last week but I managed to make some pretty nice stuff for an Easter meal with my mom. The main course was this tasty asparagus tart . You could scatter sawdust on puff pastry and it would taste good, right?  I subbed in some grated Gouda and Parm for the super-expensive Gruyere. (Besides, do you think my sad little Food Lion up the street carries fancy cheese? We're lucky it's not all Velveeta and Cheese-in-a-Can!) I ate asparagus every day last weekend (Fri-Sat-Sun) so I racked up on seasonal eats - thankyouverymuch BarbaraKingsolver . Served with the tart was a delicious chickpea & roasted red pepper salad , a green salad with a lovely Green Goddess dressing that made my mother reconsider her distaste for anchovies, a baguette from Your Dekalb Farmers Market , and a homemade pound cake. On Saturday eve, we visited Scott's...

T to the G to the I to the F, y'all. Such a long week and lots of funky vibes & feelings. It's brutal. Kind of like these stabby-looking beauties: We acquired these rustic knives as Scott's dad's side of the family preps for the settling of two family estates. They may have survived Hurricane Hugo in 1989 down at the family's "Goat House" on Sullivan's Island, SC. Rather than tuck the tough old things into a drawer, we thought maybe they could add some interest to our kitchen walls. So, that's something. If you think it's more Fatal Attraction than Shabby Chic, please say the word. We don't want to be those weirdo folks taking a false stab (how puntastic!) at decorating. The only thing saving this deadly week: killer cookbooks borrowed from my local library . - Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi - Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights by Sophie Dahl The first has tons of delicious Mediterranean & Middle Eastern-influenced dish...

It's Friday. Let's make this short, sweet and fantastic. Yesterday I posted about my new-found love of eggs. Then last night I read in Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Vegetable Miracle (rereading it, as I now have a vaguely deeper understanding of how damn hard it is to grow your own food) about her family's favorite Eggs in a Nest dish. And what's in my email this morning? A friend sharing Eggs in Purgatory , which looks like something we need to cook NOW. I love it. File this under "Well, that was something": Last weekend while visiting good high school friends in the Raleigh area, we stumbled upon this at Harris Teeter: Gjetost, a cube of brown Norwegian cheese. A quick Google search indicated it's commonly called "fudge cheese," something the Norwegians like to fuel up on before they hit the slopes. Somehow I thought I'd be ok with that. My friends liked it; I thought it tasted like caramelized Play-doh. Next up: I need to fin...

Just a few quick things here, related to our new subscription to Cooking Light. 1)  Scott made this chickpea curry while I was out of town for work this week. I had the leftovers for lunch today and was all about it. We're trying to eat veg at home this year, and it's not too hard (well, not if you go out for BBQ when you need to. But don't go here . I discovered on Monday eve. that they do weird mess to their sauce. Too sweet! Icky.) 2) This recipe for curing boring breakfast toast resulted in a Nutella purchase. Uh oh. Danger danger. Never mind that as I type this, I'm dipping dark sourdough pretzels in the chocolate goodness. And smearing it over my laptop keys. Crud. 3) That is all for Cooking Light shout outs. But you need to get acquainted with this French Yogurt Cake from Bon Appetit. It's lemony, it's not too heavy, and it contains Greek yogurt so you can feel better about the whole deal when you pair it with chocolate or vanilla  Haagen-Dazs...

It's a solid week for home cooked meals at the Adams family wee apartment: Sunday, I baked this Lemon Loaf Cake , subbing in Greek yogurt for sour cream. I also whipped up some tuna salad in advance for quick lunches this week and made this white bean dip from Giada De Laurentiis (I don't watch her show, but her recipes are featured in the 2007 Food and Wine compilation cookbook I love.) The tip is a nice change from hummus - creamier and not as "earthy" tasting, if that makes sense. For Sunday dinner, I made these Moroccan Meatballs with Eggs , as a good friend recently gifted me with her leftover Rachel Ray magazines. Man, those babies are packed with recipes...it's almost too much for the eyes! The lamb meatballs were fantastically flavorful, but the eggs didn't set for me as they suggested, so I warmed the bowls in the oven to get them to soft-cook. It didn't really work but we ate them anyway, runny yolks and eggs whites and all, and we're b...