I didn’t get any cooking done this morning. School work took up the whole five hours (included in that time was a ninety minute National Geographic movie on space exploration), but we had an unexpectedly fine time. For some inexplicable reason, even though it was a gray, rainy mess outside, we didn’t indulge in our usual Monday Morning Grumpfest. This unusual turn of events was a special treat, one that left me with a tummy full of warm fuzzies.

At least that’s how I would still be feeling if the kids had gone straight to their rooms when I sent them upstairs after lunch (an experiment of peanut sauce over glass noodles [oops, I guess I did do a little cooking after all]—the kids didn’t like it, but I think it was the odd-textured noodles that they reacted to and not the sauce which I happened to find delish) instead of playing a rousing game of Alligators and Chase and Shriek. I now have a sore throat, and I wasn’t even playing their game. Not intentionally, anyway.

But I’m hopeful that The Baby Nickel will soon quit bouncing around beside me here on the bed, reciting (over and over and over again) “There Was A Little Turtle,” and that my café con leche will soothe my raw throat, and that those warm fuzzies will make a return visit before the rest hour is up. In the meantime, I’m going to tell you about my new oatmeal, something that warms my tummy regardless of what day of the week it is or how well my children are behaving (or not).

I love oats in any form (if you don’t believe me, look here and here and here and here and here), but I really like oatmeal, so light and nourishing. With a thin dusting of sugar and a few glugs of cold milk, it becomes The Perfect Comfort Food. (My husband and I have agreed to vehemently disagree on this topic.)

A few weeks ago I bought a bag of steel-cut oats and tried out a new kind of oatmeal. Sadly, the kids revolted. They didn’t like the chewy little beads and begged me not to ever make it again. I only halfway respected their pleas: I don’t make it for them anymore; I make it for me.

Because as it turns out, I happen to love those chewy little nubbins. I cook me-self up a pot o’ porridge (sorry about lapse into Irish brogue; we watched Billy Elliot last night) and then stash it in the fridge. Then midmornings when I get hungry (I don’t like to eat oatmeal first thing in the morning, preferring instead to have a piece of toast with my morning coffee), I pull out my container of precooked (and, I’ll be honest here, gross-looking) oatmeal and spoon a bit into a ramekin. I pop the oatmeal into the microwave for a warming jolt, then sprinkle on some dark brown sugar or maple syrup, add some dried strawberries (or toasted walnuts and dried apples or coconut, dried bananas, and pecans), top up the cup with milk and slurp away.

The best part of the whole deal is that the kids don’t ever pester me for a taste, a bit of knowledge that sweetly gilds my warmly-fuzzied oatmeal lily.

Steel-Cut Oatmeal

I find this oatmeal to be a bit more viscous than oatmeal made with rolled oats, but once it is reheated and mixed with milk, that component almost totally disappears leaving you with just the toothsome little bits of goodness. Yum-yum.

4 cups water
1 cup steel-cut oats
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon butter

Put the water in a saucepan and bring it to a boil. Add the oats and salt and stir well. Put the lid on the saucepan and remove it from the burner. Turn the burner to low and, if you have a gas stove, return the saucepan to the burner. (If you are like me and have an electric burner, keep the pan off the burner for a minute or two while it cools down; otherwise, the oatmeal will bubble over and make a mess of your stove.) Let the oatmeal simmer for another 20-40 minutes, stirring every five minutes or so (and more often towards the end of the cooking time).

When all the water has been absorbed, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla and butter. Put the lid back on the kettle and let it cool to room temperature, at which point you can transfer the oatmeal to jars or plastic containers before storing them in the refrigerater.

To serve, dish the desired amount into serving bowls, reheat in the microwave (or, if you are microwave-less, in a pan on the stove top), sprinkle with sugar or syrup, fruits, and/or nuts, and milk or cream.

Yield: 4-5 good-sized serving, or 8-12 midmorning snacks

About One Year Ago: Potato-Leek Soup

This has been a week of abysmal mistakes and abject failures, kitchen-wise.

There was the following, not in any particular order:

*The butternut squash salad with tahini dressing. It was probably my fault that it turned out smooshy and bitter and gross; I think I over-roasted the squash and I didn’t have cilantro and my tahini is ancient.

*The baked carrots were totally the fault of the author of the recipe book, though it might be my fault for choosing to make something out of a cookbook that is decades old and was published to promote the Troy-Bilt rototiller.

*The chocolate-filled puff tarts were ho-hum as was the upside-down apple tart. (Maybe I’m getting picky?)

*The purple cabbage with apples needed a number of changes but wasn’t good enough to entice me to make it again.

*The honey cakes—oh, the honey cakes!—the eight little loaves hadn’t been in the oven but for five minutes when I spied the little glass of premeasured spices sitting on the counter. For that mistake I almost cried, and then I threatened to drink five bottles of hard lemonade (but I didn’t). Miss Beccaboo came in and sat down on the edge of the sofa where I had hurled my beleaguered body and said, “Everyone has bad times,” and then she draped her little self over mine in a giant hug.

*The red lentil coconut curry. I bought red lentils with the express purpose of making this curry, but then, after I had already spent ample time chopping and sauteeing, I discovered that the can of coconut milk sitting on the shelf in the back hall was actually a can of coconut cream. I called Mr. Handsome and wailed my sob story into his eardrum. He, under my frantic direction, petitioned Coworker Sam for coconut milk (they were working at Sam’s house) and Sam found some and Mr. Handsome ran it home to me. But I didn’t have any cabbage for the curry and I forgot to chop the kale that I was using as a substitute and then I didn’t add the kale early enough so it didn’t get sufficiently tender, and all in all, it was rather disappointing (albeit nourishing).

*The Spanish rice (that I made last week, but while I’m on a roll I might as well tell everything) that never got all the way soft and I made my family eat it anyway.

(It wasn’t just in the kitchen that I was having problems. Last night I hopped into the shower and started to wet my wash cloth, but I noticed it felt funny, light and smooth and thin. I wiped the water out of my eyes and looked down. I was holding my pair of clean panties, still folded but wet. I had grabbed them off the floor where I had tossed my pile of post-shower clothes. I am losing it, I tell you, losing it.)

The chickens, at least, ate extra well this week.

This morning I woke up determined to have a kitchen success. I intended to make several new recipes (I don’t know when to call it quits, do I?), but just in case the apple chutney, pumpkin cream, and mashed potato cakes flopped, I would also make some pots de crème. I had made these pots of spoonable chocolate before, but this time around I was going to use Baileys in place of the rum, so with that minor adaptation, it classified as an experiment.

As I anticipated, it was a flaming success all right.

My small jug of Baileys was nearly empty (bedtime toddies of spiked hot chocolate have a way of depleting the liquor cabinet), so when I went in to town last night to drop off Yo-Yo at a friend’s house and pick up a friend for Miss Beccaboo, I stopped at the ABC store. The girls followed me in (the friend’s mother had said it was okay for me to run by there—I wasn’t being irresponsible, I’ll have you know) and stood very still, taking care to keep their arms close to their sides and not touch anything because I had warned them against being spazzy.

Then this morning, while the kids were still finishing up their granola and corn chex and milk and dried strawberries and raisins and apple coffee cake and hot chocolate (it was just a hodge-podge breakfast, but written out like that it sounds rather impressive), I whipped up a blender full of the silky chocolate, along with several tablespoons of cream from the new jug of Baileys. I let the girls sniff the bottle’s contents and they were pleasantly surprised at how good it smelled.

And after lunch when I gave them each a little spoonful out of the test cup, they positively purred with pleasure. So, even though this is supposed to be an adult dessert, it’s not really, at least not according to the children’s tastebuds. Keep this in mind: if you are going to be serving this to an intergenerational group, make a couple sans spirits for the young’uns; otherwise, you may instigate a revolt of the tiny people.

Oh, and speaking of Baileys, I once knew this girl—still do, in fact—that went camping with her dread in-laws and before she would get out of her sleeping bag in the morning, her husband had to bring her a giant mug of coffee, a full half of which was Baileys. (That same husband also served my husband a mug of Baileys, but my husband fell asleep before he got to the bottom of the mug.)

I don’t think these pots de crème will make you fall asleep. They’re more likely to make you swoon in ecstasy and then tear your clothes off and run out of the house buck naked. (I just watched Like Water For Chocolate.)

And, for the record, I have never torn my clothes off and run outside naked.

At least not where pots de crème were involved.

Chocolate Pots de Crème
Adapted from Christmas from the Heart of the Home by Susan Branch, a book that the Langdons, family friends of ours, gifted to me eighteen whole years ago

As I already said, the original recipe calls for rum, but I found that to be too strong. I love the Baileys (as if that weren’t already clear) and I think you could up the amount—maybe to a total of five or six tablespoons—and still not overdo it, though I’m not sure how that would change the consistency. Also, you could substitute other liquors, such as Crème de Menthe, Amarula, or Kahlúa, or, if you don’t like alcohol, feel free to leave it out altogether.

If you prefer, use three-fourths cup of whole milk in place of the cream and milk.

Use your favorite chocolate; if you skimp on quality, the end result will suffer. I used 60 percent Ghirardelli chips, so I didn’t have to bother to chop them first.

½ cup milk
1/4 cup heavy cream
6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
1 large egg
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
pinch of salt
3 tablespoons Baileys Irish Cream
whipped cream, for garnish

In the jar of a blender, combine the egg, salt, sugar, vanilla, and chocolate. (I put the egg in first because I don’t want it to come into direct contact with the scalding milk.)

Heat the milk and cream in a saucepan just till it gets to the boiling point. With the blender running, carefully add the milk. Blend for about thirty seconds. Add the Baileys and blend briefly. Pour the chocolate into four or five of your smallest, funkiest dishes. Cover with plastic wrap and chill thoroughly.

When ready to serve, remove from the refrigerator and top with whipped cream.

About One Year Ago: Feminism, part one

I experiment with all sorts of new recipes.

But then, if you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you already knew that.

Take last night for instance. I made four new dishes for supper: baked carrots (gross), pickled red cabbage and apples (potential), bacon-cream cheese mashed potatoes (alright), and upside-down apple tart with whipped cream (fine). None of them were rave-worthy, so none of them will appear on this blog.

However, I do this really silly thing. I stash all the recipes I’m interested in and all the recipes I’ve made, even the bad ones, into a white, three-ring binder. I do this for the same reason that I don’t erase old addresses in my address book (I just cross them out and jot in the new ones)—I like to see my friends’ address trails. Likewise, I like to see my food history, what flavor combinations have been a hit and which ones have flopped.

It’s kind of a protective device too, because I have such a terrible memory. Say we’re talking about pumpkin bread and I’ve experimented with four different recipes and found my favorite, but the next year I find another pumpkin bread recipe and I think—hey, that looks good; I oughta try it—but, because I have saved all my failed recipes, I can glance back in my folder and see that I already tried that one and I hated it. So in a round about way (and in a perfect world because, truth be told, I don’t always scan through my white folder first), I’ve prevented myself from creating another flop.

This habit of mine can get a little cumbersome though, because despite taking notes and occasionally weeding through the piles, I still don’t know which recipe, of all the recipes I’ve tried, is my favorite. Huh?, you ask. I know, I know. This is getting very confusing. But let’s take the pumpkin bread example again. I may write “blech” on one recipe, but on the other three I may note “okay” or “the kids loved it” or “try adding less oil and an extra egg and omitting the nuts,” but, and here’s the clincher, I won’t remember how they compared against each other. And then, come pumpkin season, I’m back at square one, with a handful of recipes that need to be tested, again.

That’s where this blog has come in handy. It’s a record of My Very Favorites. When I find something I love, it must end up here if I am to remember it. And now that the blog index has bulked up a bit, I refer to my computer almost as much as I do my recipe box. (You do remember, don’t you, those quaint little boxes filled with handwritten recipes, ordered by category or alphabetically? Every kitchen, even one with high-speed internet, ought to have one.)

This chard-sweet potato gratin recipe is cropping up all over the web (well, so far on two blogs that I know of), so even though it feels kind of pointless for me to write about it here, I know I must post it if I am to remember it and then be able to refer back to it. And this is one of those recipes that I most certainly do not want to forget.

Swiss Chard and Sweet Potato Gratin
Adapted from Deb at Smitten Kitchen. (Also made by Julie at Dinner With Julie, if you want even more opinions and pictures.)

There appear to be lots of steps in this recipe, and it’s true, there are, but the flip-side is that you are making a satisfying one-course meal; there is no need to dirty any other kettles for a side vegetable, and you can quickly wash up the soiled pots and pans while the gratin bakes and fills your kitchen with an out-of-this-world, oh-so-glorious, downright delicious smell. (I am not exaggerating about the smell.)

3 pounds Swiss chard
1 onion, chopped
pinch of nutmeg
lots of salt and pepper
2 cups milk or cream
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 tablespoons butter, divided
2 tablespoons flour
2 pounds sweet potatoes (about two large), peeled and thinly sliced
a bit of dried thyme
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 1/4 cup grated cheese such as Gruyere, white cheddar, Parmesan, or a mixture

For the chard:
Wash the chard and cut the leaves off the stems. Chop the stems finely, put them in a little bowl and set aside. Roughly chop the leaves, put them in a separate bowl, and set them aside as well.

Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter in a large pot. Add the onion and saute till tender. Add the chard stems, the pinch of nutmeg, salt, and pepper and cook for another eight minutes, or until tender. Add the chard leaves and stir till wilted and soft. Transfer the vegetables to a colander and drain, pressing on them with the back of a spoon. Set aside.

For the white sauce:
In a smaller kettle over medium heat, melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter. Add the garlic and saute for a minute or two. Whisk in the flour and then slowly add the milk, stirring steadily. Increase the heat to medium-high and cook, stirring continually, till thickened. Remove from heat and set aside.

To assemble the gratin:
Put half of the potato slices in the bottom of a greased 9 x 13 pan. Salt and pepper them, sprinkle with a tablespoon of parsley, a tiny pinch of thyme, and 1/4 cup of cheese. Add half of the greens, more salt and pepper, another teensy pinch of thyme, another tablespoons of parsley, and 1/4 cup cheese. Pour half of the white sauce over top.

Repeat the whole process. Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup cheese over top.

Bake the gratin at 400 degrees for about an hour. If the top seems to be browning too quickly, loosely cover the gratin with a piece of foil (do not cover it tightly because the liquid needs to evaporate). To test for doneness, poke a fork down through to see if the potatoes are tender. Cool for about ten minutes (to allow the juices to absorb and so you won’t scorch your taste buds) before serving.

About One Year Ago: Brownies