The Search Concludes

I have:

1. Eaten pizza in so many places.

2. Eaten so many styles of pizza.

3. Eaten pizza with so many ridiculous toppings.

4. Made pizzas (incredible, excellent, good, terrible, and horrid).

5. Learned to not just eat pizza just because it is there (I am not in college anymore, after all).

6. Gotten really picky about my pizza, especially since I became one of those really annoying people who avoids gluten.

7. Lost patience with bad pizza.

8. Never stopped searching for the perfect pizza.

9. Wished every pizza was a combination of my three favorite pizzas: that from The Bluebird in Leland, Michigan, that from Pequod's here in Chicago, and that from Mother Bear's in Bloomington, Indiana.

10. Finally discovered how to make a pizza that is not only as good as those three pizzas but, actually, way BETTER. And no, I am not sure how this is possible. I think it has to do with science.

So here's the thing. You're going to need a fair amount of patience, a medium-sized cast iron skillet, and a serious love for pan-style pizza. You know, sort of like Pizza Hut, but without the chemicals. Sort of like the best pizza you've ever had. We're talking about a crispy outer crust that is perfectly greasy and slightly blackened, and pillowy, billowy inner crust, full of air bubbles and extreme softness.

You might need to go to the store. You'll need yeast, bread flour, olive oil, kosher salt, and water. That's it. While you're there, get your toppings! Pizza sauce, mozzarella (shredded, full-fat mozzarella from a bag is perfect), and, well, not much else. I really love the simplicity of pepperoni on this, but it's not crucial. Just make sure you don't put too many toppings on. You don't want to weigh down this beautiful masterpiece! Some cooked sausage might be nice, or even onions, green peppers, and mushrooms if you're my mom. But keep it simple. Santa would want it that way. (And that dude's on his way, so you'd better make him something good.)

Okay, are you ready? Let's do it. This recipe has a lot of words, but it's just for clarification. There honestly aren't very many steps or much labor at all! You don't even have to knead this dough. Come on, we're making a pizza!

Best Pan Pizza, Ever
adapted from the recipe for Foolproof Pan Pizza by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, who is a brilliant mastermind over at Serious Eats

makes two 10" pizzas
active time: 10-15 minutes
total time: 9-24 hours (yes, you heard that right)

2 1/2 C bread flour
2 t kosher salt
1/2 t instant yeast
1 C + 3 T warm water
2 t extra-virgin olive oil
pizza sauce
shredded mozzarella (fresh mozzarella won't work)
toppings (keep it simple!)

Mix flour, yeast, and salt with a whisk in a non-metal large bowl. Add water and olive oil. Mix with a wooden spoon until flour is all mixed in. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and rest on the countertop in a draft-free spot for 8-24 hours.

The original recipe tells me that the dough will "rise dramatically" and fill the bowl. This didn't happen to me at all, even after 24 hours. I was very worried, but the pizza ended up being perfect, so if you don't get the drama, don't worry! I also find that my dough needs at least 12 hours, but not necessarily more. Just do whatever is convenient.

Sprinkle flour lightly on top of the dough and split it into two pieces. Form each into a tight ball, coating each one lightly in flour. Pour two tablespoons (sounds like a lot, but do it!) into each of two 10" cast iron skillets. If you don't have two, or if you don't have any, you can use 9" round cake pans. Place a ball of dough into each pan, rolling it around to coat the ball evenly with oil.

Using a flat palm, press the dough around the pan, flattening slightly. The oil will rise up and attempt to escape. Keep that oil in the pans -- it is a very important part of the pizza! Cover each tightly with plastic wrap and let dough sit for two more hours on the counter. After the first hour, place an oven rack in the middle position and preheat oven to 550 degrees F.

After two hours, use your fingertips to press dough around until it fills each pan, popping any large bubbles that appear. Spread it evenly around the pan. Top each round of dough with 3/4 C sauce (or so), spreading it all the way to the edges. Spread with the cheese all the way to the edges. Add other toppings, but be conservative.

Transfer pans to oven and bake 12-15 minutes or until tops and underneaths are golden brown. Cheese should be bubbly and slightly golden brown, so if you need to, broil the tops for a minute. If bottoms are not as crisp as you'd like, you can place the pan over a burner and cook on medium heat, moving the pan around and cooking for 1-3 minutes or until crisp.

Cool for 5 minutes, then slice it and, finally, eat the magic. Watch as your whole life changes and your family falls in love with you all over again. Total perfection, an amazing accomplishment, and no travel required.

Smooth Sailing to Turkey Town

I'm usually engulfed in flames on this Wednesday before Thanksgiving, but not this time around. Not this year. Nope. I am not cramming a ninety-dollar turkey into a too-small roasting pan. I am not making lists and oven schedules. I am not conquering the horrid, filthy-spirited crowds in the grocery store pre-holiday rush. I am not driving, or flying, or packing Murray's giant suitcase for a trip. And I am so, so thankful.

I am, in fact, sitting on the couch, listening to said dog snore and snuffle, being utterly thankful for my furnace and my sweater that are protecting me from the fifteen degrees outside, and gearing up to tell you about this one-stop turkey stop that you'll really be quite smitten with. You will want to start thinking about concocting this dish after the guests have left, when you're tired of heavy foods, and you just need some easy work-week lunches that you don't have to think about much at all. 

But about that whole I'm-relaxing-today thing. First of all, let's be thankful for new holiday traditions, because that's exactly what got me out of this whole Thanksgiving mess in the first place. For the second year in a row, we've had a Chicago Thanksgiving on the Saturday before Real Thanksgiving. It was, I believe, my mother's idea in the first place, and she is brilliant, so it makes quite a bit of sense that this would be a success. My immediate family comes here, and Andy and I host. We have Thanksgiving-ish foods, but, truly, anything goes. We drink too much, laugh a lot, and eat quite a bit of cheese. Murray sniffs everyone, because that is his best thing, and we want to make sure everyone has a job in which they can succeed. 

The glory of all of this is that I get to do the planning and shopping and gathering well before all the, you know, regular people do theirs. The stores are still stocked, the lines are shorter, no one is grumpy yet, and if I forget something the day before the meal, then I can go out and get it without feeling like I am willingly tossing myself into an erupting volcano. It's so, so good. Holiday hosting has never been so peaceful.

So, then there's round two: Andy's family. While we would typically be loading up the car right now to travel to Indiana, we're not this time! Indiana is coming HERE to Chicago, and all we have to do is go downtown, park the car, get in an elevator, and travel upwards to the 36th floor of Andy's cousins' apartment, where we will enjoy our first-ever high-rise Thanksgiving. (Food provided. Glorious.) I have been assigned to dessert, so I'll rattle around in the kitchen a little later today and come up with some sort of fashionable way to get sugar into the bodies of fourteen people. I think I can do it. This is all pretty sweet, right? 

Now that you know where to find me today and tomorrow, let's just make a plan to see each other next week. You bring the Thanksgiving salad that I taught you how to make, and we'll talk about whether or not we ended up surviving the holiday weekend. I'll bring the whiskey. I know, I know! That's all? That's the best I can do? Forgive me. Relaxation, you see, is the name of the new game.

Thanksgiving Salad

serves a lot 

1 C farro

1 C barley

3 bay leaves

4 C butternut squash, peeled and cubed

1 large sweet potato, peeled and cubed

1 onion, diced

5 stalks celery, trimmed and diced

5-8 cloves garlic, chopped

2-3 big handfuls of green beans, trimmed and chopped

1 C dried cranberries

2-3 C chopped or shredded turkey

small handful of fresh sage, chopped fine

sliced almonds

fried onions

olive oil

salt and pepper

red pepper flakes, optional

parsley, optional

flavored vinegar, optional

Preheat oven and your empty roasting pan for 20-30 minutes at 450 degrees.

Cook barley and farro with the bay leaves for about 10 minutes, or until soft but still chewy. Drain, remove leaves, and set aside to cool. 

Toss butternut and sweet potato with a few tablespoons olive oil and take that hot, hot pan out of the oven. Pour mixture onto the pan and spread evenly. Roast in the oven for 20-30 minutes or until browned and slightly caramelized (every oven is so different when it comes to roasting times, so just keep an eye on it and toss every once in a while to see what the underneaths look like). 

Heat another 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil in a big pan or dutch oven. Sauté onion, celery, and garlic until onions start to brown. I like them caramelized, so I'd recommend adding small amounts of water as the onions cook, and scraping the pan down as you go. Add sage and cook for another few minutes. Then add green beans and another splash of water and cook on medium-high for a few minutes. Make sure the green beans cook only long enough to turn bright-bright green. Turn off heat and stir in cranberries.

Combine roasted vegetables, grains, and onion mixture in a giant bowl. Toss well, adding salt, pepper, and olive oil to taste. I would strongly recommend using a flavored olive oil for this dish! I used garlic olive oil, chipotle olive oil, and a smattering of red pepper flakes. This would also be a great time to add in a handful of chopped fresh parsley if you have it. A dash or two of a flavored vinegar also compliments this dish. I used cranberry-pomegranate vinegar and it was worth repeating.

Top with fried onions and sliced almonds and serve at room temperature all by itself or with a simple cream-based soup (tomato! butternut! red pepper! pumpkin!) and bread.

Notes:

•You can use all barley, or all farro for this if you'd rather. It would also be terrific with orzo, brown rice, or wild rice. 

•Sage! Fresh will be excellent, but dried will also definitely work. 

•The fried onions are, to me, the thing that really makes this dish. I am skeptical of the French's brand, but Trader Joes' makes a much-less junky version of fried onions that are super delicious. You can also make your own, but no pressure here. This salad is already a bit labor-intensive!

•This salad saves well. Keep in tupperware in the fridge, and freshen it up with some olive oil or seasoning before serving. It tastes good at room temperature, but it also heats up well!

Murray gets especially tired after preparing Thanksgiving salad.

Kitchen Dog

He's the kitchen rug. He's always underfoot. He's a catch-all, he's gigantic, and he's exactly where my feet need to be. I have no complaints.

If I am cooking, which is much of the time, Murray is in the kitchen, too. He secures a convenient spot in the high-traffic zone between the sink and the stove, and he becomes an immense, furry obstacle. Most of the time, I don't mind, though. You see, I've spent my whole life wishing for a kitchen dog. Books and television and design magazines have always glamorized kitchen dogs, and I've just known that it was the one kitchen tool I've been missing all these years. And now I have him. I have the very best, and least useful, kitchen tool I've ever invested in.

He catches spills quite well, this dog of mine. He lays in the corner of the kitchen next to my feet and underneath the cutting board. Unflinching, he rests calmly while receiving accidentally-dropped bits of spinach, garlic, onions, coffee beans, broccoli, sprouts, carrots, jicama, milk, peppers, lime juice, corn, rice, cheese, nuts, and ham. Oh, and there's the time that Jimmy spilled coffee on him. And the time I spilled iced tea on him. Murray glanced up, and went back to sleep. His coat is insanely thick, you see, and he is undeniably tolerant. You could likely drop an entire set of encyclopedias on him and he'd really only look up slightly and lick your leg to say hello and confirm that he loves you. 

If Murray was the kind of dog who ate everything he found, or waited for scraps to fall, or wiggled desperately to remove cooking bits from his fur so that he could gobble them up, I'd be panicky and concerned. But we're lucky. He doesn't want to eat all the things that poison a dog: onions, garlic, chocolate, coffee. Fortunately, he really only likes a few foods, and he has extremely good manners in the kitchen.

When we're in the kitchen, and Murray is in the way and covered with vegetable scraps, and Andy is jumping around and playing us made-up songs on his ukulele, and the pots are boiling over, and I'm trying to cook and dance and maniacally pull everything together for dinner, that's when I am at my happiest. That's when I am absolutely, positively sure that I am completely alive. Everything is fast and loud and close, and, somehow, for a historically quiet, slow space-loving cook such as myself, this has become my safest, most glorious place. 

This is for Dawn, who reminded me that a jar full of moldy applesauce is not an appropriate greeting for all of my lovely readers to have to return to over and over for two months. Thank you for your patience, all of you.

Summary of Summer

September's Arrival:

Well, the questions shall now kick in! What happened to June? July? August? Summer was, as always, a perfect, elusive ghost.

I could list the things I didn't get around to doing this summer (berry picking, baking, organize my books by the color of their spines) but that would probably not do anyone any good, although let us please note that the entire contents of my refrigerator now basically look like this:

The logical (and correct) conclusion to make here is that I also did not find the time to clean out the refrigerator this summer. This weekend has held many small victories that I hope will get me back on the kind of track that has me communicating with YOU a bit more often.

I've de-molded the fridge, yes, and I've collected Murray's fur tumbleweeds from the closet floors. I've gone to the grocery store, finally unpacked suitcases and washed their contents, dusted the ceiling in the kitchen (what IS this phenomenon of dusty kitchen ceilings?), and attempted, in general, to organize the eight thousand piles of things that have accumulated in every corner of this house since the beginning of June. Phew.

Wasn't summer originally advertised as a relaxing sort of experience? The fury and fervor of summer, though, is what makes it summer, I suppose, and it was indeed a fast, furious, but very beautiful summer. I will, however, also very happily take this turning-off of summer, and the turning-on of the fall. Summer, thank you for your patronage, but it's September's time to shine!

And, you, too. I hope you are shining.

It's good to be back. I've missed you.

This Store

Your Rhubarb Miracle

I've heard that the rhubarb is beautifully out of control this for many growers this year, and we all know what kind of beautiful trouble that presents. Rhubarb is gorgeous, stoic, and sexy, but, really, how many things are there to actually do with it? Yes, there are always jams, compotes, and all the cakes and muffins. There are chutneys and sauces that go so well with pork, duck, and chicken. And, well, then my brain shuts off. What is left? What on earth do I do with the eight pounds of rhubarb that I just couldn't pass up at the farmers market yesterday? And, more importantly, what sort of advice might I offer to the rhubarb farmers out there who are so diligently searching for some new rhubarb applications and projects? Well, here we go. It's idea time.

Your next mission? Drink your rhubarb, everyone! Here's what's on the agenda: rhubarb cocktails, rhubarb soda, rhubarb by the gallon, liquid rhubarb! Pink gold!

Rhubarb Simple Syrup
double, triple, or quadruple this -- or fill up your bathtub!

2 C water
2 C sugar
4-6 stalks rhubarb, cut into 1" pieces
12 black peppercorns

Combine water and sugar in a large pot or dutch oven. Simmer, whisking, until sugar is dissolved. Add rhubarb and peppercorns. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 15-20 minutes, or until syrup has thickened somewhat. (As it's simmering, squash that rhubarb with a potato masher!) Cool the syrup in the pot. Once it's cooled a bit, pour through a fine-mesh sieve into a jar. Store in a glass jar in the fridge.

Other Additions:
Simmer with a sliced jalapeño or serrano pepper. Bang!
Simmer with bay leaves.
Simmer with strawberries or raspberries.
Simmer with mint, lavender, rosemary, thyme, or basil. Or a combination!

Applications:
Add simple syrup to seltzer or club soda.
Add simple syrup to a cocktail shaker with vodka, a shake of bitters, and some fresh herbs. Or make a giant bowl of punch with floating strawberries.
Pour over ice cream, or drizzle a little on plain yogurt.

O, rhubarb! You wear so many hats!

These Eggs!

Let's not dilly-dally! Let's not fuss around with stories and details (well, maybe just a little bit!). Let's just make some eggs! Right?

I love these eggs. LOVE. This, is, hands-down, my favorite egg dish ever. It's so easy. It's so versatile. It makes a perfect breakfast or lunch or brunch or dinner. This is, in fact, the recipe I've been using longer than any other. I can't wait for you to make these eggs.

If there is a food that you want to combine with eggs, put it in! Through the years, I have tried nearly every possible addition, and I'm not sure I could even declare a favorite. Every time I make this egg casserole, I say, this is the best egg casserole ever.

Spring is a delicious time to make these eggs. Most recently, I compiled fingerling potatoes, asparagus, green garlic, spring onions, white cheddar cheese, and chives. Mushrooms made it to the top, but not the insides (Andy's out on mushrooms, as we all know). I also love this casserole with cooked sausage as the bottom layer. I've used both ground pork sausage, bacon, and chopped spicy chicken sausage with great success. If there is a cheese you love, put it in! Or put it on top! Or use ten different cheeses! If there is a vegetable you love, put it in! Some of my favorites are spinach, red pepper, asparagus, onion, but I have tried some pretty wacky vegetables that have worked surprisingly well. Go southwest with it, and add pinto beans, corn, plus tomatoes or salsa on top. Go Greek with it and use spinach, feta, and olives. Go diner style and use potatoes, American cheese, and sausage. Go forest-style, and use asparagus, morels, goat cheese, and balsamic on top. Go Denver-omelet style and add onions, peppers, and ham. Agh! Everything is so good in these eggs!

Are you watching this process? The steps are: put things in dish. Put in eggs. Bake. That's it!

Poof! It's done! You will be so happy. I just know it.

Egg Casserole

from the Honest To Goodness Cookbook

serves 4-6, or double it to serve 10-12

Preheat oven to 350.

Whisk these four things:

6 eggs

1/3 C half & half

1/2 t salt

1/2 t pepper

Grease a pan with butter or oil. I use a 9x9" for a 6-egger, and a 9x13" for the 12-egger. Layer up your bits! I like to add a layer of cheese on the bottom (a hard cheese, like cheddar, usually) and then add vegetables in layers. Pour eggs on top. Alternatively, you can mix the vegetables in with the eggs and pour everything into the pan. It's up to you!

Bake for 30 minutes, or until set and slightly poofy. Add another layer of cheese while it's still hot.

Serve with hot sauce, a little balsamic, or salsa, depending on what sorts of ingredients you put in there. Slices of the egg casserole are also lovely on a sandwich.

Nut Butter Brigade

Here is what happens:

The nut butter aisle lures me in!
But the prices turn me off.

Yet sometimes I fork over eight or nine bucks for a jar!
And I bring it home and end up enormously disappointed.

The layer of oil on the top is natural, I know, but it's disgusting to me.
It sloshes out when I try to stir the nut butter, which is usually so firm
that I give up on the whole stirring thing altogether.

And then the nut butter tastes like nothing but oil!
And it's not worth it! And I feel so sad.

This is why I have developed my own nut butter formula.
Now I am so happy. Let us rejoice, because this stuff is GOOD.

My new favorite variety is an almond butter that has a few basic, yet amazing, additions. The recipe is based on a few nut butter recipes that I've come across this week, so pardon the lack of reference to a specific site.

Alright now! Off you go! Prepare to give your food processor a run for its money. It's gonna get hot, and you'll need to be patient, but you can do it!

Almond Butter 

2 C raw, unsalted almonds
3 oz. freeze dried fruit (I love it with apples or bananas, but any fruit will do)
1/3 C dried unsweetened coconut
1/4 t vanilla bean paste
1/4 t salt
1/2 t cinnamon

Roast almonds at 350 degrees in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Watch closely! They should not change color much, but should become slightly fragrant and a bit softer. This should take about 8 minutes, but every oven is different!

Whiz the freeze dried fruit in the food processor until powdery. Add coconut, salt, cinnamon, and vanilla paste and whiz again to combine. Add the almonds and process, stopping to scrape down sides when necessary. The nut butter will look crumbly and NOTHING like nut butter at first, but be patient. Process for about 10-15 minutes, taking breaks when your food processor starts to get too hot to touch. Don't worry about leaving it alone while the device cools down -- this nut butter ain't goin' nowhere!
As you continue to process it, it will get creamier and creamier. Avoid the urge to add liquid, because you don't need it! Keep going, and soon you will have almond butter. Keep in a jar, either in or out of the fridge, depending on your desired consistency and temperature. Never give Whole Foods your nut butter allowance ever again!

Finally.

Winter kicked my ass. It did so with a coy smirk and a sharp-toed boot, and I didn't like it. Not at all. It was long, this winter. It was cold, wet, and miserable for a thousand months, and I have decided to hold a grudge forever. I repeat, FOREVER. Or at least until summer comes and the misery becomes a very murky memory.

But! Today is not winter, as you may have noticed, and I am not as cross as I was for the past seven months. I am starting to thaw out, recover, and put away my boots. Spring isn't a rite of passage around here, you know. It is earned. And now that I have earned it, I am not giving it back, ever!

This past Wednesday marked my return to the farmers market, and today was my second go at it for the season. It is glorious. The earth is actually alive, I have learned, and green things are growing out of it! It's nothing short of a miracle.

I will tell you what I bought: asparagus, leeks, spring onions, spinach, chives, potatoes, basil, irises, radishes, potted herbs for the small & mighty garden, and a corncob with which to make Murray some popcorn. It was all good. Really good. Let's examine the other things that are happening here in my springtime living room: the windows are open, real birds are making real sounds outside, the fan is spinning, a peach candle is blowing its summer-ness around, the sun is shining, the dog is sighing and snoring in the sunlight, those irises are slowly unfurling their petals, the chives' scent is whooshing in from the kitchen, the floors are divinely gritty with sand because we have all spent the entire week galloping along the beach. Everything is leafier and greener and softer and better. 

Spring! It is not on my list of things that I hate about Chicago. Midwesterners would, I suppose, all endure something pretty awful in order to have a true spring like this, and lo and behold, we have! I am really proud of us. We survived! We did it. Finally.

Four Things

But It's Too COLD To Eat

Drink This Potion

Birthdays call for giant jars of liquor. Birthdays call for potion!

For Andy's birthday in March, when I asked what he would like to drink at his birthday gathering, he said he'd like a very special drink, and he wanted to name it You Can't Tell Me What To Do. And, well, thusly it was born. We ended up having way more than we knew what to do with, seeing as though it was a very small gathering of people, and Murray stopped imbibing for some odd reason, but it's since been strained and seems to be holding strong in refrigerated jars.

It's based on a recipe called Rock & Rye, which has many variations, but, essentially, features rye whiskey and rock candy, all brewed up and aged before knocking the pants off the drinkers of it. I made a few alterations, and it was a seriously amazing potion. It was potent, and with a story to tell -- just like the birthday boy! It's reminiscent of a Manhattan, and of a zillion other whiskey- or bourbon-based cocktails that I have loved, but it has a springy zip of citrus, and the surprise of cloves, plus some other odds and ends that make it incredibly interesting and unexpected.

While rye would be incredible in this, rye is also really expensive, and I needed A LOT of liquid. I went with two handles of a middle-grade whiskey, and I don't regret it at all. I had good intentions to make the rock candy myself, but then I sort of forgot about it and then ran out of time. We ended up scooping some up at the candy shop, and no one knew the difference! And, of course, my good intentions parade carried through to the grenadine, too, but it turns out that it's easier to just buy bottles of it at the liquor store. I've seen Rock & Rye recipes that call for Luxardo cherry syrup, but it's crazy expensive as well, and, honestly, the pomegranate in the grenadine tastes remarkably similar to cherry flavoring, so nothing was lost! In hindsight, I imagine I might try to make a grenadine next time with POM juice and simple syrup.

All in all, this is a marvelous cold-weather elixir, but also transfers well to springtime, especially when it's topped with seltzer or club soda. We used tangerine sparkling water from Trader Joe's, but if you want to go all out, use Fever Tree.

You Can't Tell Me What To Do
Makes a lot. This is probably a good amount for 10-12 thirsty party people.

1 gallon whiskey
4 or 5 sticks of clear rock candy, removed from sticks and broken into chunks
24 oz. good-quality grenadine
12-18 cloves
6 pods of star anise
6 cinnamon sticks
2 oranges, sliced
2 lemons, sliced
1 giant knot of ginger, peeled and cut into chunks
1 bag frozen dark cherries
club soda or seltzer

Combine everything in a giant vat. (I have a four-gallon glass jar with a lid that I used, which worked well because it needs to be covered while it steeps, but any kind of glass vessel will do. If you don't have a lid, cover with plastic wrap or the like.) Steep at room temperature for at least 2 days, and up to a month. When you're ready to serve it, ladle into cups full of ice ("good ice" only, please -- don't ruin this liquid gold with cloudy ice from your freezer door) and top with club soda or seltzer. Drink as much as you can.

I Like It Twice

Look closely! Peer into that tiny bottom right-hand corner! 

And enjoy the illustration, too, won't you?

I'll Warn You

This has nothing to do with food. But you have to see it. It's hysterical.

Aquarium Salad

Terrifying fish are healthy fish!

Heading To The Bar

So, you know my quest for the perfect transportable breakfast food? Well, we're getting closer! 

These breakfast bars score high marks in the categories of Deliciousness, Healthfulness, Easiness to Transport, and Easiness to Make and Store. The flexibility is terrific, as you can make these with nearly any combination of fruit, plus they are bright and cheery and they smell like summer just landed with a beautiful THUD in your kitchen. I am very excited to try these with peaches and plums and cherries in the real summer, if it ever comes. The bars have sugar, but not too much, and you could honestly get away with less if you needed to. You could use these bars as a breakfast, of course, but they could absolutely be a dessert as well. They are so good with coffee or milk! I also imagine the flour could be replaced with another type of flour, such as oat flour or whatever it is that non-flour eaters are into these days. The next time I make these, there will definitely be nuts, and perhaps flax seed for some extra protein punch -- the recipe is very forgiving in that way. What's not to like, here, you say? Well. The only flaw is a very small one, in fact, and that is that they are incredibly messy, shaggy, and crumbly. Not a bar to eat in the car, not a bar to give to a child as they toddle around town, and not a bar to give to a plate-less grown-up who wants to eat a bar on the couch while watching the Colbert Report. So to that, I say to myself, get forks and tables and plates for everyone and get over it! Bars forever!

• Strawberry-Oatmeal Bars
• recipe derived from Family Fun magazine and also seen on some other blog with blurry pictures and confusing words
• 
  
• FOR THE CRUST AND TOPPING:
• 1 cup flour
• 3/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, cold and cut into small cubes
• 2 1/2 cups oats
• 2 tablespoons water
• 
  
• FILLING:
• 1/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
• 2 tablespoons flour
• Pinch of salt
• 3 1/2 cups fresh fruit (I used strawberries and raspberries, but nearly any berry or stone fruit will do)
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1. Heat the oven to 375º. Grease a pan (whatever you have -- 9x9, 13x9, 8x10). I prefer Pyrex or ceramic, but I suppose you could use a metal pan if you were in a pinch.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Make the topping/crust: add the flour, brown sugar, and salt to the bowl of a food processor. Pulse once or twice to combine, then add the butter and pulse five or six more times until coarse crumbs form. Add the oats and pulse two or three more times.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Remove 1 1/2 cups of the mixture and set it aside. Add the water to the remaining mixture and pulse three or four times until it's just moistened. Press this mixture firmly and evenly into the bottom of the pan using your fingers or the bottom of a measuring cup.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. For the filling, whisk together the sugar, flour, and salt in a bowl. Add the fruit and lemon juice and gently toss the mixture using a rubber spatula until the fruit is coated. Distribute the filling over the crust.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Sprinkle the reserved crumb mixture over the filling. Bake until the top is golden, about 35 to 40 minutes. Let the pan cool on a wire rack for about 2 hours, then cut the sheet into bars. Store them in the refrigerator in an airtight container. They also freeze well -- wrap in wax paper and then in aluminum foil.

We're So Hungary!

Even without the incredible puns, goulash is really amazing. I've been so hooked this week that I've made it twice. TWICE! I'm not sure what led me to pull the card from the recipe deck last weekend, but I did, and it's really working its magic around here. And, DEAR GOD, it is so good as a leftover!

Points to note about goulash:

•It doesn't look appetizing. At all. And that's just all there is to it. 

•It requires a fair amount of cooking time in order to properly do its thing. Weekend-style low and slow works best, but cooking it fast and hard also totally works if you want to make it on a weeknight. 

•It's greatly improved by adding vegetables, but be selective! I'm hesitant to move beyond carrots, bell peppers, and celery.

•The recipe I use is my mother's, by way of her mother and her mother's mother. Quite a path.

•Hungary. Let's be honest. I don't know anything about Hungary except goulash.

•It needs to be a little spicy. I used to do cayenne, but now I have a new and improved variation which involves using jalapeño ketchup (rather than standard ketchup) for the heat.

•Goulash loves spaetzle, and so do I, but Andy is not a fan, so we go with egg noodles around here. Wide egg noodles, please. The egg pappardelle from Trader Joe's is amazing, but nearly any kind of egg noodles will work.

•I do believe you can make it with lamb or pork or veal, but I've always used beef. Cut it into very small pieces if you will be cooking it for under an hour. If you have the time to cook it for longer, then you can use bigger pieces because they will break down during the cooking process. 

•This just in! Goulash is not just about Hungary, although it is their national dish. It's popular in ALL of these places: Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, the Free Territory of Trieste, Germany, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Latvia, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, 
Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, and some regions of Italy. 
Say what! It's as common as a hamburger, for crying out loud!

•Using tomatoes in traditional goulash is completely forbidden by many Hungarian chefs. I would imagine, then, that ketchup would really be looked down upon, but that is what I use, so please don't tell Hungary. I suspect that my goulash is quite Americanized, but if you do some research, you will find that there are a zillion variations out there for goulash, just like any other dish that has any degree of popularity. So I won't feel too bad about it.

•You can put potatoes in it! Or bacon! Or beans!

•Use really good paprika if you can. And go with the sweet paprika.

•Make it right now!

Goulash

2 T olive oil
1 pound boneless beef stew meat, cut into small chunks
1 large yellow onion, diced
4 stalks celery, diced
3 or 4 carrots, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 C ketchup (I love jalapeño ketchup, as I mentioned, and Heinz makes a great one)
2 t sweet Hungarian paprika
1/2 t dry mustard powder
2 t salt
1 T brown sugar
2 T Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 C water
2 T flour
another 1/4 C water

In a dutch oven, brown your onions in a few tablespoons olive oil. After about 10 minutes, add meat, garlic, celery, and carrots and cook until everything starts to caramelize. Add water in small splashes as needed (in order to make sure the whole lot doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot). Scrape up all those nice brown bits as you go! Add paprika, salt, and dry mustard and stir until vegetables are coated. Add a little more water and cook another minute or two, or until paprika is fragrant. Add brown sugar, Worcestershire, ketchup, and 1 1/2 C water. Simmer for at least 30-40 minutes, or up to 3 hours. Blend flour and 1/4 C water and add to the pot, mixing it in to thicken the goulash.

Serve atop egg noodles, spaetzle, gnocchi, potatoes, polenta, or bread. We love it with egg noodles around here, as I mentioned, and sometimes we have garlic bread with it, too -- it's a great sauce sopper-upper.

So There!

Let's Reminisce

Easter!

I really do think it's so, so grand. While I don't celebrate Easter in a traditional bonnet-and-church sort of fashion, I do really love the holiday in a huge way. A holiday devoted to cute animals and candy and art projects and springtime and deviled eggs? Yes!

It may be the Easters from my childhood -- which I may have told you about a few years ago -- with their foil-wrapped chocolate eggs and stuffed bunnies that we searched for around the house in an exhilarating hunt, the Cadbury eggs and Peeps, the gorilla-fist-size cream-filled egg with my name on it from my grandma, the jellybeans (my dad always ate the black ones for us), and did I mention the amazingly thoughtful scavenger hunt? Well done, mom and dad. I mean, Easter Bunny. Well done, Easter Bunny.

It could be the Easters during college, when we dyed eggs, my best friends and I, at the red table in the kitchen at 214 W. Vine Street. There were messages in plastic eggs, and then a hunt, of course, and outside antics, and good food, and cardigans and photographs and birds chirping. And croquet, perhaps? Was there actual croquet? Or perhaps just a lot of talk about it? Everyone should at least think about croquet on Easter.

And then there were Easters from my post-college years, with egg dyeing, of course, and all sorts of festivities. Last year, though, was really special. We spent it with Andy's family, and, a few weeks before we headed to Indiana, we made a date with Andy's grandma to dye eggs on the Saturday before Easter. It was pretty incredible, this date. We did everything according to Grandma's Egg-Dyeing Plan, which means very carefully crafted colors, using exactly the amount of drops from the food coloring box's color chart. We nestled the eggs in specific amounts of plastic grass, arranged in a very specific way. And you know -- you don't mess with grandma's plan.

The Friday before Easter, we went to the Knights of Columbus, which, if you're in the know, you call K of C. If you are Andy, then you miss the boat altogether and think that when you're told "we're going to K of C" you think you're being invited to KFC, which is, of course, a bit different from K of C. He was quite surprised when we got there, but not disappointed, since he doesn't like eating meat off of bones. We were both surprised when we saw how small-town awesome it all was. Lenten Fish Fry at 5:00 pm at K of C included many things, but words do it no justice. Please view the following and you will understand how completely amazing it all was.

 Giant vat of Eastertime pudding!

 Giant vats of tartar sauce. Again, very large bowls. So much tartar. So very room temperature.

 So much pudding. So little time.

 The only thing that was labeled. It was actually really good hot sauce.

My third pudding cup.

KFC's got nothin' on you, K of C!

A Tisket A Tasket

The weekend is coming, and that can only mean one thing. 

EGGS IN A BASKET.

As a person who really only came into wet eggs a few years ago, I must say that this is all quite new for me. And now I really like wet eggs way more than I ever thought I would. Scrambled eggs still hold a very dear place in my heart, but a half-cooked egg is becoming more and more interesting to me all the time. Of all the variations out there, my very favorite wet egg preparation is this: egg in a basket. Or, you know, toad in the hole. Egg in a hole. Willy with a lid. Call it what you will, but just know that this is the most incredible thing to eat. And the ease! Pause here while I do swooning over its sheer simplicity. Let's do the thing where I tell you a recipe in the simplest terms I can come up with.

Egg In A Basket

Cut hole in slice of bread.

Crack egg into small bowl.

Heat butter in skillet.

Brown one side of bread and the hat.

Flip.

Add egg to hole.

Cook until desired doneness. 

Flip again, if you'd like, and cook for five more seconds to seal up the basket.

Okay, okay, wait. That was pathetic! I can do better:

Egg In A Basket

Cut hole.

Crack egg. 

Heat butter. 

Brown bread.

Flip.

Add egg.

Cook.

Flip.

Wait! One more! Shorter! Easier!

Egg In A Basket

Hole.

Egg.

Butter.

Brown.

Flip.

Egg.

Cook.

Flip.

And now, we've landed upon the newest name: 8-Word Egg!

My recent trick is to add some shredded sharp cheddar to the top so that when you do the second flip, the cheese browns and helps create that really nice seal on the top. I know that the traditional method is to not cook the second side, and to leave the egg quite wet and exposed, but give me a break! I'm still getting used to this whole wet egg thing. I need an expansive egg transition period, you know!

Also, a note on bread variety: once you try several types, you will find that there are kinds that work much better than others. If your eggs are large, they may not fit inside some bread-holes. You might need to use a larger glass or biscuit cutter to make the hole, or you may need a larger piece of bread. It's up to you, of course. I do really like a rustic sort of sourdough or country loaf for this project, but sandwich bread also definitely works. I've also been known to split eggs when the bread was too small to contain a large hole. So many possibilities with these holes and eggs!

So all of this talk brings me to 9:06 pm. We officially spoiled our supper with after-work ice cream, so a late dinner-snack might be in order. And if the 8-Word Eggs refuse to wait until morning, who am I to hold them back? We all know that eggs really must be allowed to be eggs.