Bread, Wine, Salt

Another potluck, another dish shared and this time Husband was so pleased with it that he requested it again. (I would say that he even went to the store to pick up a missing ingredient, but he loves going to the store, so that doesn't signify.) Once you've decided to take the plunge and cook some beans, you may find yourself wondering how to turn them into to chili, and then you'll remember that the crazy woman who talked you into cooking dried beans in the first place promised you a recipe. And then you'll come looking for it, and so I figured I'd better get it up here. This is a great potluck recipe, because it comes together quickly once the beans are cooked (and if you use canned I promise not to tell, just be sure to rinse them well.) the cornbread topping makes it easy to transport without any sloshing and dribbling, and it's easy for folks to serve themselves so they don't hold up the line. The chili itself is vegan, and you could easily s...

If two people in two days tell me in real life that they miss me here on the tubes, does that say good things about my writing, or bad things about my real life presence? Anywho, the past two weeks of silence were brought to you by my “Why am I writing this? Five people read it and I'm in regular contact with them anyway.” crisis. (Hi, five people!) The crisis actually only lasted a week, but then I got food poisoning (not from my cooking) and while I considered posting just long enough to sing the praises of my favorite ginger tea, I decided I'd just curl up in a ball instead. The family has to eat no matter what crisis I might be having, and a favorite around here is black bean quesadillas. ( Don't forget to shred your own cheese! ) They're easy, filling, healthful, and once you've made the big pot of beans, you're all set up for another easy dinner later. Just add rice. Dried beans are a great pantry staple, because they're cheap, nutrit...

My lunches are pretty plain. The four-year-old got leftovers (his request) today and the toddler and I got more ravioli. Some of the lunches over at What's for Lunch are so much prettier and more creative than mine, but I still post my pictures. I have two reasons. The first is you, dear reader, who probably came here from there. I love checking my stats after I post a lunch box, because it means I can see the map light up with visitors from all over. The other reason is that I enjoy looking at the lunches so much, even the ones which aren't pretty, that I feel like I ought to share something of mine in return. So here is what we had for lunch today. If you're a visitor or you've been lurking, please take a minute to say hello. Pinto beans, cornbread , peas, apple ginger muffin cheese ravioli and mixed veggies, apples, pound cake Containers are Ziploc brand.

All in Just One Cookie by Susan Goodman and Timothy Bush If there is a small person in your life who loves cookies this book is a great way to introduce the idea that ingredients all come from somewhere other than the grocery store. Grandma gets a call that guests are coming over so she starts whipping up a batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies. Her cat and dog do research online and in real books, to find out where the flour, butter and the rest of the ingredients come from. There's a simple narrative and a lot of sidebar type sections, so you can read as a bedtime story or take the time to dig in deeper. My then three-year-old loved it, and I think it would be quite popular with kids who are independent readers as well. The illustrations are charming, and the full recipe is given at the end of the book so you can try it out, too. (This is an unsolicited review. No goods or services have been received in exchange for this review. I am not affiliated with the auth...

If I could only take one thing with me to a desert island it would probably be my cast iron skillet. It would be useful for bashing the local fauna on the head and for cooking said fauna over an open fire.*  Though I am not on a desert island my cast iron skillet is still in daily use, and has developed such a lovely patina that I don't need to grease it to cook an egg so long as I have properly preheated it first. There are a few tricks to cast iron, and anyone who loves their cast iron will tell you what they are and they'll all be different and you'll get confused. Here's what I do with mine: cook with it often, scrub with hot water and a plastic scrub brush, heat it dry on the stove-top, repeat. It is a frying pan. Its ancestors helped tame the West. You don't need to coddle it. My favorite (right now) use of my cast iron is cornbread. There are two basic forms of cornbread: Southern and Yankee. Southern cornbread does not have sugar in it. Yankee...

I sat on the picnic bench at the playground across the street, watching my son and his friends chase each other around. “You seem to have this kid-birthday-party thing down.” said another mother. I shrugged and I think I remembered to say thank you. It was a very simple party, which is why I was able to pull it off. And that's the secret, if such a thing can be called a secret. I know my limits. I cannot pull off a four course dinner party, so I serve family style. (Though I think I once did a 3 course meal. That was before I had children.) I cannot manage a theme birthday party with handmade invitations and goody bags and decorations and a fancy cake. So I host parties on the playground and serve un-fancy cake. It's not that I'm a simplicity snob. I don't think that my family style dinners are better than other people's four course meals. In fact I think that four course meals are marvelous and I often wish I were the kind of mother who could do ...

This is from my archives, originally published in May 2006.  I was taking a class on the Hebrew Scriptures, which is why this starts with a quote from Deuteronomy, but even if you're not a Jew or a Christian the thoughts this reading triggered about food and what we do with it are still relevant.  When I wrote this four years ago there was a burgeoning awareness about food and the importance of knowing where your food comes from but it was not as widespread as it is today.  Even now though, there are plenty of people who think that what we eat and how we eat don't matter.  What we eat and how we eat and who we eat with all matter.  There is more to food than calories, more to nourishment than the recipe you choose. Nevertheless, you may slaughter your animals in any of your towns and eat as much of the meat as you want, as if it were gazelle or deer, according to the blessing the LORD your God gives you. Both the ceremonially unclean and the clean may eat it. ...

Except for the occasional magically delicious pasta salad , I am actually pretty bad at winging it. If I get towards dinner time and I don't have a plan then I end up saying “spaghetti” and grabbing the jar of sauce from the pantry. It's not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just that I'm happier when I don't feel like I'm resorting to an easy meal quite so often. So I need to plan. I went to the grocery store today, and before I went my husband and I talked through a partial plan. Here's what I'm going to make in the next couple of days: Black bean quesadillas (actually made these tonight.) Chili with beans and either chips or corn tortillas depending on the results of a future trip to the store. Beans and cornbread, adapted from the Pioneer Woman's recipe Braised cabbage with red beans and rice from the Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen Vegetable soup And there are two things I'd like to get to making in the next week: K...

Okay, so there's no recipe here. It's just boiling and slicing so we can get to the playground. The mini-ravioli are from Trader Joe's and are very popular around here. As you can see, the toddler couldn't even wait for me to take a picture before he snatched a sample. They cook in 15 minutes. I just put the frozen peas in the colander and drain the cooked ravioli over them. This warms the peas and helps cool off the ravioli so it's ready to eat or cover for transport. Sides today were a clementine and half an apple. The container is a Ziploc I found at Target. Check out the other bentos at What's for Lunch Wednesday.

ANaNoBloPoWriMoPhoToGoGo Or something. I'm as likely to post every day for 30 days as I am to become a GoGo dancer, but the improbable is not the impossible (and besides, impossible things are happening every day .) What I am likely to do is change my mind about stuff, even/especially stuff that I have written authoritatively about in the past. So when I talk about having to knead bread dough for 20 minutes just after the sponge stage and again after the first rising, you can hold out hope that I'll offer up an easier alternative sometime in the future. Like now, for instance. Using the recommended procedure in The Tassajara Bread Book (which I commend to you) you can cut out the second kneading and replace it with another rise which does increase the time a bit, but it's inactive time, so that's not so bad. Tassajara also gets you out of washing to bowl after the sponge, so it's environmentally friendly, too! Give it a try with this Oatmeal bread ...

Michael over at Herbivoracious is working on a cookbook. I'm very excited about it, and you should be, too if you're at all interested in vegetarian cooking that uses real food and plays with flavors. As part of writing the book Michael put out a call for recipe testers and I volunteered. He sent me a recipe for Pozole Rojo de Frijol, a vegetarian version of a traditional pork stew. I loved it. The kids liked it. The husband liked it. It must be said that not everyone at the table liked it, but I think that was my fault for misjudging the audience, not the fault of the recipe. I will make a couple of changes next time: I'll use slightly less lime juice, slightly less water, and I'll up the chiles. I used the minimum this time, and there was very little heat. Obviously someone trying to write a cookbook doesn't want his recipes reproduced all over the internet, but I am allowed to link to it. So go read the recipe , try it for yourself, and then ch...