I meant to tell you about our lunch yesterday (which was also our supper the night before and our lunch today): a curry made with red lentils that go all soft and tender so the lentil haters in my family don’t have any texture issues to rebel against. Coconut is the background flavor, and there are peas and sweet potatoes to bulk it up. Cauliflower would be tasty, too, but I didn’t have any.

We eat it over rice like curry is intended, but I think it would be mighty fine served in a bowl solito—a thick, creamy, nourishing stew, perfect for counterbalancing the sweets that flood our kitchens this time of year.

The kids like their curry (though to be honest, they aren’t huge fans of this dish—they prefer this one) with raisins and sunflower seeds, but I take mine with a side of briefly sauteed spinach and a sprinkling of coconut. Yogurt is quite nice, too.

Red Lentil Coconut Curry
Adapted from Simply in Season

1 onion, chopped
1 tablespoon coconut oil (or butter or canola oil)
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
2 teaspoons curry powder
½ teaspoon each turmeric, cumin, black pepper
1/4 teaspoon each red pepper flakes, and cinnamon
2-3 curry leaves (or bay leaves)
1 13.5-ounce can coconut milk
1/4 cup soy sauce (I used tamari)
1 cup tomato sauce
2 cups red lentils, rinsed
2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped in cubes (about 4 cups)
2 cups peas
1-2 teaspoons salt

Put the lentils in a medium-sized saucepan, cover with four cups of water, and bring to a boil before reducing the heat to medium-low and simmering for 15 minutes, or until very tender. Set aside.

Put the sweet potato in another medium-sized saucepan and cover with water (but just barely—no more than 1 cup) and bring to a boil before reducing the heat to medium and simmering until almost fork-tender. Add the peas and cook for another five minutes. Set aside.

Melt the coconut oil in a large soup pot and add the onion. Saute for about five minutes, until tender but not browned. Add the garlic, ginger, and spices (down through the curry leaves) and saute for several more minutes, stirring steadily. Add the coconut milk, soy sauce, and tomato sauce and simmer on low heat for about 15 minutes. Add the cooked lentils and vegetables (with their broth) and salt. Stir to combine and heat through. Taste to correct seasonings.

Serve curry over rice with desired toppings: sunflower seeds, cashews, grated coconut, raisins, yogurt, etc. A banana might be really nice, though I’ve never tried it.

Yield: an awful lot

This same time, years previous: chocolate truffle cake

There was so much activity today. Such a variety of happenings, all of it low-key and none of it fancy, but enough to keep the house buzzing.

First off, there were chores and abbreviated studies before my friend’s kids came to spend the day, at which point I turned everyone loose.

I let my oldest daughter make her Christmas cookie of choice (each of the kids gets to make one kind of cookie—she picked New York Black and Whites) (I get to make whatever I want). And even though the sun was shining and the kids were outside in shirtsleeves, I cranked up the Christmas music. It is December 2nd, after all.

The girls jumped headlong into the holiday spirit, whirling and twirling around the kitchen.

The dance extravaganza morphed seamlessly into an intense game of dress up, complete with a smoking dandy…

clinking goblets…

and table manners that went above and beyond.

Lunch came and went…and so did the kids—outside.

The boys pretended to be groundhogs while the younger ones went down to the field and did Who Knows What.

Though I actually do know one thing they did. It seems there was some mock fight that involved long thin sticks and the littlest kid (not mine) got a handsome welt across the back of his neck. Battle wounds, one might call them. The inflictor helped patch up the inflicted, and all was well.

It was so glorious that I took my afternoon cafecito out on the deck. While I basked in the sun, I read and knitted and listened to the cackling chickens and chattering chillens and the clanking in the kitchen that was my daughter baking her cookies.

And then my husband came home five hours early and handed me some Pringles, after which he punched a hole in the ceiling. It was all legit—a solar panel project—but still.

I sat down at my desk to write but my ceiling-punching husband wouldn’t shut up.

Husband [in a quavery, twangy, highly-irritating voice]: Ethel!  Ethel, honey!

Me: silence

Husband: Etheeeeeeel!

Me: Shut up.

Husband: Ethel! Ethel, honey! Are you writing words, eh? Words like ‘it’ and ‘but’ and ‘gee’?

Me: sigh

Husband: Ethel? Ethel, honey?

And then my husband got an important email regarding the solar panels and I had to vacate my seat. To entertain myself, I took pictures of his cobwebby back. (He was crawling around in crawl spaces.)

Right about then my sister–in-law showed up. The kids immediately swarmed her, or rather the baby she was wearing. Bring a baby to my house and you automatically become a pied piper—it’s a promise.

She and I split for our walk. While we were gone, my friend came to pick up her kids and my husband refinanced the house.

I made a simple supper of baked potatoes, broccoli, and corn, and my youngest got buttery potatoes all over the floor like he does every single time.

Now I am upstairs writing this and soon I’ll go back downstairs for our dessert/bedtime snack/supperparttwo: a huge pan of apple crisp. And then we’ll watch some more Human Planet and then I’ll terrorize my children by reading to them from A Christmas Carol.

The end.

P.S. There may be a little Glee after the kids are tucked in. Perhaps popcorn, too…

This same time, years previous: Mom’s new and improved cabbage salad, beef bourguignon, potatoes in cream with gruyere

So my cousin-in-law posted a recipe for a butternut pesto cheesecake and seeing as I had a bunch of butternuts in the back hall (thanks, Mom and Dad!) and oodles of pesto in the freezer (thanks, Me), I had no other choice but to make it.

When it comes to cheesecake, I’m ferociously fatalistic.

The original recipe was supposed to be some sort of healthy dip (all cottage cheese), but I tossed that idea out the window faster than you can say “reduced fat is gross.” People, it’s cheesecake! It’s dip! It’s CHEESECAKE DIP!

So I doubled the recipe and used half cottage cheese and half cream cheese. Because while I’m a huge fan of cottage cheese (for the record, cottage cheese is not a reduced fat food) (unless you get the reduced fat version) (which I don’t), I wanted the finished dip to have more of a … of a … well, creamy, cheesecake texture. The resulting texture was spot-on (though it’d probably be even better with 100% cream cheese) (if you’re that sort of person). (I’m not suggesting my cousin-in-law’s low calorie version wasn’t spot-on, because it probably was, but I just don’t know for sure because the only version I tasted was mine.) (Whew. That was exhausting.)

Confession: I did not like the crust.

Confession’s Confession: It was all my fault. Because I just tore up stale bread, tossed it with some melted butter and stuck it in the pan. It tasted exactly like what it was: wet, greasy, stale bread stuck in the bottom of a pan. Next time I’ll toast the bread crumbs, or maybe pulse up some Wheat Thins or something—like a graham cracker crust, but savory.

We ate the dip fresh, and semi-warm, for our Sunday night supper. It was good, but a little bland. Then it sat in the fridge for a couple days until I pulled it out to round out Tuesday’s lunch and it was fabulous: rich, flavorful, creamy, elegant. The kids dug into it like nobody’s business. And that’s when I decided the recipe was a keeper.

It’d be the perfect thing to contribute to a potluck or Christmas party or family reunion. Because:

a. it can be made well in advance (I bet you could slice and freeze it, just like the infamous pesto torte),
b. it’s easy to transport (cover the pan with plastic and set it on top of a couple ice packs in a box), and
c. the flavors are gentle and comforting.

In other words, it’s sure to be a crowd pleaser.

Then again, you could make it just for yourself, just because. That’s really all the reason you need.

Butternut Squash Pesto Cheesecake
Adapted from Kate over at Motley Mama

1 cup cottage cheese
1 8-ounce block of cream cheese
2/3 cup grated fresh Parmesan
2 eggs
½ cup roasted butternut squash puree
½ teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 cup pesto, thinned with olive oil (if necessary), and divided
1 cup toasted bread crumbs or savory cracker crumbs
2 tablespoons butter, melted

For the crust:
Toss the crumbs with the butter and press into the bottom of a greased, 8-inch springform pan. Pat crumbs firmly to make a bottom crust (no need to worry about the sides), and set aside.

For the cheesecake:
Put the cottage cheese into the bowl of your food processor and pulse until creamy smooth. Add the cream cheese, Parmesan, eggs, squash, and salt and pepper and pulse until silky. Taste to check seasonings (I added about another 1/4 teaspoon salt).

Pour half of the cream cheese batter into the crumb-lined pan. Drizzle half of the pesto over the batter. Carefully pour the remaining batter into the pan and drizzle with the remaining pesto. Using a table knife, gently (and artfully!) swirl the pesto into the batter.

Bake the cheesecake at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes. The cake should be puffy, but the middle should still be a little jiggly (just like your tummy will be after you eat it). Turn the oven off and prop open the door by wedging it with the handle of a wooden spoon—let the cake sit in the oven for one hour more.

Cool the cake to room temperature before covering tightly with plastic and transferring to the refrigerator to cure. After a day or two, serve with crackers.

This same time, years previous: all a-flutter, apple chutney