Alizarine

Cheeseburgers and Parmesan steak fries

Last weekend Jeff decided to make the most incredible burgers in all the land, and, as is his wont, he scoured the internet for just the right recipe.  He opted to leave out the brisket, choosing to go with a 50-50 sirloin/chuck thing, but other than that Jeff followed the fake Shake Shack burger recipe to a T.  Divine.  While Jeff made the burgers happen, I decided to see if Ellie Krieger's new cookbook could show me how to make acceptable steak fries.  My hopes were low; my skepticism was high.  How could Ms. Healthy Eating Means One Teaspoon of Mayo possibly deliver anything other than substandard fries?  But the recipe looked very easy, and potatoes are cheap, so I decided to give her a chance.

INGREDIENTS

• cooking spray
• 2 large russet potatoes (about 1 1/2 pounds total)
• 1 tablespoon canola oil  <-- I opted for extra virgin olive oil because there's something about canola oil that makes me think "weird and not good enough"
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan (3/4-ounce)
• Salt

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.  Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray.

Cut each of the potatoes in half lengthwise.  Rest each half on its flat side and cut each half lengthwise, straight down into 4 even slices.  You will have 16 slices altogether.  Cut the rounded edge off of the outermost slices so each slice can lay completely flat on either side.  She is such a control freak!!  Put the potatoes into a medium bowl and toss with the oil.

Place the potatoes on a baking tray and bake for 20 minutes.  Sprinkle the potatoes with cheese on their up-facing side and continue to bake for another 15 to 20 minutes (maybe I was using smaller potatoes, but mine were done after 12), until they are crisp and golden brown. There is no need to turn them.  Season with salt and serve immediately.

These were in fact awesome.  Not as awesome as actual french fries that are *fried,* but awesome as far as steak fries go.  A perfect side man to Jeff's over-the-top front man.  Also, don't believe her when she says that four fries equal one serving.  They equal one half of a serving.

Jeff just said, "Next week: venison."  JOKE.  We've spotted a male and female deer walking around our backyard a few times.  Whenever we see them, we run for our cameras, but so far Jeff has been the only one to successfully photograph them.

I took some photos on my drive home from work Friday.  

These are my favorite telephone poles in Champaign County.  Fabulous double triangle design.  Something compels me to keep track of this kind of thing.

After an exceptionally rainy October, the fields are finally dry enough for the farmers to harvest the corn and beans. 

I love watching the corn change from dark blue green in summer to a light golden beige.  I'd imagine that people who want blond hair look at corn this color and ache.  Or maybe that's just me.

I don't think I've ever seen the corn get this old and bedraggled.  It's kind of creepy and I will miss it when it's gone, although I won't miss the feeling that I'm driving down a hallway.

I also admire this enormous ornamental grass somebody is growing on Philo Road.  Hypnotic in the breeze!

And finally, please admire this substandard photo of Nico Case.  We saw her Friday night at the Canopy Club.  Her voice is a force of nature and I was so happy to see her live.  Thank you Jeff!

Buttermilk chocolate cake

Have you ever thought about your death row meal?  The meal you'd ask for on the day that you're going to be executed?  As screwed up as the whole idea of capital punishment is (and I'm sorry, I'm against it; there's no scenario you can throw at me that will change my mind, even if the victim is Jeff, Poof, Bun, or U2), and as crazy as the idea of eating before being put to death is (how can you possibly eat anything at all that day?), the death row meal I come back to again and again is simple: an entire chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.  No question about it.

 

I've made a number of chocolate cakes over the years, ranging from humble (Mom's "wacky cake") to snooty (Jeff's birthday cake) to experimental (pour a Guinness in there!), and the best thing I have ever eaten was a chocolate cake I had in Florence.  I will go to great lengths in the name of chocolate cake.  Yesterday, though, I was feeling thrifty and had some oddball ingredients I needed to use up: buttermilk and whole wheat pastry flour.  None of my cookbooks were interested in helping me, so I asked my pal The Internet.  After wading through many recipes on the dubious-seeming iFood.tv, I found a recipe for something called Chocolate Lover's Cake.

 

The cake this recipe makes is one of those humble, heavy but not damp, utilitarian cakes I'd imagine I'd bake on a semi-regular basis if I were the mother of several horrifying teenage boys, boys who barge into the kitchen, scoop cake out of the pan with their bare hands, shove the cake into their faces, and leave a bunch of crumbs all over the floor without even thanking me, those jerks.

 

INGREDIENTS

 

• 3 cups whole wheat flour  <-- I had whole wheat pastry flour, which you can find in the hippie-flour section of most stores; you know the brand, the one with the unappealing Wilford Brimley-esque bearded man with the little hat?
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup cocoa  <-- I tried Dutch, but I'm sure regular cocoa would be fine here.
• 3 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 1 cup cooking oil <-- Annoyed at the vagueness, I did a 50-50 mix of canola and vegetable oil.
• 3 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 cup hot water
• Chocolate frosting (recipe follows)

DIRECTIONS

 

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

In a separate bowl, beat eggs, and add buttermilk, cooking oil, and vanilla.  I used an electric hand mixer.

Add to the dry ingredients and beat until smooth.  I continued to use the hand mixer for this, but I didn't beat it forever.  Just enough to get to "smooth" and that was it.

Add the hot water last, and mix well.  Again with the mixer.

Pour into a greased and floured 9 x 13inch baking dish, and bake in a 350F oven for 45 to 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

When completely cool, frost with chocolate frosting.

 

CHOCOLATE FROSTING

 

This frosting recipe comes from Martha Stewart's recipe for Surprise Cookies.  We didn't have enough chocolate chips in the house yesterday, so I had to find an all-cocoa recipe instead.  This one is out of control, and those cookies were incredible enough to inspire me to scrawl "INSANE!" on that page of Martha's pretty pretty cookbook.  I'll have to show you how to make them sometime.

 

FROSTING INGREDIENTS

• 3 cups confectioners' sugar
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 1/4 cup plus 1 1/2 t. cocoa powder  <-- "Not Dutch!!" Martha's commands thee.  Also, can't she just say "a heaping 1/4 cup"?  Jeez.
• 1/4 cup plus 2 T. milk  <-- DITTO.
• 3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS

 Place confectioners' sugar in a medium bowl. Whisk in butter and cocoa powder. Add milk and vanilla, and whisk until well combined.

NOTE: This cake is even moister and better on Day 2.

Butternut squash lasagna

The cornerstone to last weekend's fall dinner party was butternut squash lasagna.  I apologize for the mediocrity of this photo; I always forget to take pictures when people are serving themselves and eating.  These two pieces were all that remained at the end of the meal.  I highly recommend making it for vegetarians and carnivores alike at Thanksgiving or any time of year.  I would have no problem serving it to Natalie Portman, and I am confident that I would win that particular Top Chef elimination challenge, hands down.

I have a great fondness for recipes with surprising secret ingredients, and this lasagna (recipe by the dependable Giada De Laurentiis) has a fabulous one: cookies.  OMG READ ON.  Notes in italics are by me.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 lbs butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1-inch cubes  <-- Err on the side of too much b.n. squash.  If you use the bare minimum, the lasagna seems pointless, like "what else is in here besides noodles, sauce, and cheese?"
  
• salt
• pepper
• 3 amaretti cookies, crumbled  <-- Unable to find these, ever, like me?  Use a few bashed almond biscotti, or if you're really in a spot like I was last week, go with 5 or 6 crushed Pepperidge Farm's ginger men.  I thought those tasted even better than the biscotti, plus they're nut-free.
• 1/4 C flour
• 3 1/2 C whole milk
• 1 pinch nutmeg 
• 3/4 cup lightly packed fresh basil leaves 
• 12 lasagna noodles (oven ready or no-boil type)  <-- These are a joy to work with.
• 2 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella 
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Heat the oil in a heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the squash and toss to coat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Pour the water into the skillet and then cover and simmer over medium heat until the squash is tender, stirring occasionally, about 20 minutes. While this is cooking, get going on the sauce.  Cool slightly and then transfer the squash to a food processor. Or just mash it with a potato masher.  Add the amaretti cookies and blend until smooth. Season the squash puree, to taste, with more salt and pepper.  It should be delightfully sweet and salty.

Melt the butter in a heavy medium-size saucepan over medium heat. Add the flour and whisk for 1 minute. Gradually whisk in the milk. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer until the sauce thickens slightly, whisking often, about 5 minutes. Whisk in the nutmeg. Cool slightly. Transfer half of the sauce to a blender. Add the basil and blend until smooth. Return the basil sauce to the sauce in the pan and stir to blend.  Marvel over how awesome your green sauce looks.  Green!  Season the sauce with salt and pepper, to taste.  Position the rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 375 degrees F.

Lightly butter a 13 by 9 by 2-inch glass baking dish. Spread 3/4 cup of the sauce over the prepared baking dish. Arrange 3 lasagna noodles on the bottom of the pan.  They will expand a bit while baking, but they won't grow enough to reach the ends on the dish.  Don't take it personally.  Spread 1/3 of the squash puree over the noodles.  Note how easy it is to spread things on hard, uncooked lasagna noodles.  It's more like playing with Lincoln Logs, especially putting the green planks on the roof, which is the most satisfying part of L.L. construction.  Sprinkle with 1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese. Drizzle 1/2 cup of sauce over the noodles. Repeat layering 3 more times.

Tightly cover the baking dish with foil and bake the lasagna for 40 minutes. Sprinkle the remaining mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses over the lasagna. Continue baking uncovered until the sauce bubbles and the top is golden, 15 minutes longer. Let the lasagna stand for 15 minutes before serving.

Serves 12 (one piece each).

Side note: you can freeze this before baking, taking it out a couple of days ahead of time so it can thaw in the refrigerator.  You can also cut the recipe in half and put it in one of those cute, smaller glass baking dishes that sometimes come nested inside those big 9x13s. 

 

Above: our cross-eyed beauty.

Bûche de Automne

Jeff and I had a fall dinner party for our family, and once again I felt the need to roll out the LOG.  Tyler, Poof and I made and decorated the log with a small pumpkin, a leaf garland, a couple of cardinals, and a small mouse/rat, and it became the centerpiece of a table laden with fall goodies.  Over the past year, I've learned that the yule log can and should be made throughout the year, and my only regret is that I never made a summer log.  It's totally happening next year, though.

 Earlier this week, I painted a gourd to look like an owl.  Just 'cause. 

More coverage and recipes to come! 

Mint chocolate cookies after a lousy day

How lousy was it?  My morning began with a phone call to an irate parent whom I finally reached after researching and trying five different phone numbers over the course of three days.  The less said about this the better, but apparently I am a rotten teacher.  A few hours later I was injured in a freak nose vs. Masonite mash-up that drew blood:

(Jeff, who took this photo, says he thinks the cut is badass and rather sexy, so there's an upside to my day of suffering.)

I came home, wiped out and demoralized (even more than usual!), and craving chocolate.  And this is where my recent food hoarding paid off.  Stashed in the freezer was a Ziploc bag loaded with little chocolate cookies just waiting to be baked!  All I had to do was turn on the oven and plop them onto a cookie sheet.

I made these cookies on a regular basis during my first year of teaching.  Those were the days when I could walk into a store, buy an entire package of novelty chips, and eat them in an afternoon with no physical consequences.  And in the same way that people read the cereal box as they eat breakfast, one day I found myself examining the recipes on my bag of Hershey's mint chocolate chips.  Eventually my interest in warm cookies outweighed my chip-eating sloth; I made the cookies and they were outstanding.  Then, for whatever reason, Hershey's stopped printing the recipe on their bag, and I sadly concluded that the cookies were lost to me forever.

Sixteen years later, I was shopping when my eyes landed on the mint chips.  I picked them up just to see if the cookie recipe had returned.  It had!  I raced home and made an entire batch, freezing two-thirds of them.  And here is the recipe, which I'm writing down so that it can be on my blog forever, never to be lost again.

INGREDIENTS

• 2/3 C butter, softened
• 1 C sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 t vanilla
• 1 C flour
• 1/2 C cocoa
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 1/4 t salt
• 10 oz. Hershey's mint chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS

Heat oven to 350.

Beat butter and sugar in a bowl until creamy.  Add egg and vanilla; beat well.  Stir together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt; gradually add to butter mixture, beating well.  Stir in mint chocolate chips.

Drop by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake 8 to 10 minutes or just until set; do not overbake.  Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet to wire rack.  Cool completely.  AS IF. 

Makes about 2 1/2 dozen cookies.

As the oven was heating, I looked outside and saw young Norris, stone cold munchin'!

Norris stood up and cocked his head--a respectable impression of Travis Bickle.  I found myself nodding at the little guy.

Surprise muffins

My parents got me my first cookbook for my 12th birthday:

 

Apparently my brother Ryan was in on it too:

The completely ordinary kids on the cover (remember when the media still felt it was OK to represent kids as ordinary?) were making muffins on page 65, and they were the first things I ever baked by myself.  And even though the pages of my cookbook are splattered with with batter and becoming increasingly beige, I continue to make them some 28 years later, although now I am not as afraid of the oven as I used to be, and I clean up my messes. 

 

Note about the baking time: they're way off.  These usually take more like 15 minutes for me, so check them at 15 and see what you think.  Also, I just make 10 of them; the muffins are less puny that way, and really, how many muffins do you need?  They're still good the next day if you microwave them for maybe 12 seconds, but beware: that jam turns to LAVA.

I love how a grease stain below "Makes 12 muffins" has caused the letters "od" to appear at the end of the recipe.  I have been known to O.D. on these muffins.  I don't really need a reason to bake them, but my favorite time by far is on snow days.  I like to play what I call Farm Woman: I get bundled up, the earlier in the morning the better, and shovel snow off my car and driveway.  Then I come back inside and fix myself a "country breakfast" of eggs and these muffins.  Sometimes even tea (hot beverages have always seemed like a luxury to me).  Yes, this is the life I would be living if I were a farm woman.

I would also like to say that these are true muffins: humble quick breads that are resolutely not bloated, face-sized morning cakes loaded with chocolate chips, frosting, crunchy toppings, streusel explosions, and the like.  They are merely a tastier alternative to toast.  Old school muffins forever!

Coincidentally, yesterday Jeff told me that he liked the way I wear my jeans.  I asked him what that meant (if I'm getting a compliment, I like to know specifics, otherwise I won't learn).  He said that a lot of the women he knows wear their pants in such a way that a roll of fat balloons out over the waistband, and he genuinely believed that this was some kind of trend.  I cracked up and explained the concept of "muffin top" to him.

Beta Pie

Next weekend my family is coming over, so I've spent the day in the kitchen making as many food items as I can in advance, including a butternut squash lasagna, chocolate chip pancakes, and HANDPIES.  I found a recipe for them in Martha Stewart Halloween, a special magazine featuring a freakish, white-irised Martha on the cover as "The Ghostly Equestrienne." 

It is filled with over-the-top Halloween ideas and recipes, many of which seem completely impossible.  You'd have to have spent hundreds of dollars and the entire summer creating her various crafts and decorations to pull of a Martha-magnitude Halloween celebration. 

But.  The little handpies seemed right down my alley.  Filled with sausage, apples, and onions, encased in a snooty French butter pastry that one would have to slave over, and delightfully *freezable*, the pies were irresistible to me already.  But the idea that a person could frolic around in the crisp autumn air, jumping in mountains of leaves and collecting acorns, PIE IN HAND...I found myself imagining this image again and again.  "I can't stop thinking about handpies!" I exclaimed last night apropos of nothing as Jeff and I drove home from the Virginia Theater. 

(Sidebar: We were there for "An Evening with David Sedaris."  He read new material for about 90 minutes and was charming and hilarious.  "How much were those tickets?" I asked Jeff, figuring, oh, twenty dollars tops.  They were in fact $55 each, i.e. about as much as we paid to see U2 last month!  Sedaris' extravagant stage setup included a lectern, a stool, a bottle of water, a microphone, and one spotlight.  No gigantic claws, cylindrical mega-screens, or rotating bridges to be found...the guy just stood there and read stuff...and yet we were tremendously entertained!)

So back to the handpies.  They took hours.  The filling was easy, but the pastry was a struggle--lots of trips to and from the refrigerator to keep that dough cold.  It ate up all of my parchment paper.  AND it didn't make anywhere near the number of handpies Martha promised (she said 24; I got 14, and I was rolling that dough as thinly as I possibly could!).  I baked two test pies, or as Jeff called them, Beta Pies ("It also sounds like a sorority, Beta Pi!").  Once I tasted mine, which I was in fact successfully holding in my hand, all was forgiven.  These hand pies are incredible.  You've got to make them!  Or even better, have some drone in your Omnimedia Halloween Sector 7G make them for you! 

(My notes are in italics.)

INGREDIENTS:

For the "pate brisee", which is what M. calls the pastry:

• 5 C flour
• 2 t salt
• 2 t sugar
• 1 lb (!!! 4 sticks !!!) cold unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons
• 3/4 to 1 C ice water

Combine flour, salt, and sugar in a food processor.  Add butter and pulse just until pea-size chunks remain.  With machine running, add the water through the feed tube and process just until dough starts to come together.  Transfer mixture to a work surface and bring together to form a dough.  Divide dough into thirds.  Flatten each piece into a disk, then wrap in plastic and refrigerate at least 1 hour (or up to overnight).

OK, I did all of this by hand and it took forever to hack all of that butter into peas.  You should use the processor unless you have way too much time on your hands for this kind of stuff.

-----------

For the filling:

• 1 lb bulk sweet Italian sausage
• 1 large onion, diced (1 1/2 cups)
• 1 t minced fresh thyme leaves
• 1/4 t pepper
• 1 T vegetable oil, if needed
• 1 T plus 1 t flour  <-- I know, I KNOW...
• 3/4 C chicken stock
• 1 medium Granny Smith apple, peeled and cut into 1/2" dice
• also: 1 large egg, lightly beaten

In a large pan over medium heat, cook sausage, breaking it up with a spoon, until no longer pink, about 5 minutes.  With a slotted spoon, transfer sausage to a plate.  Reduce heat to medium, add onion, thyme, and pepper (if pan is dry, add the oil).  If you are truly using sausage, how could that pan possibly be dry, Martha?

Add flour to pan and cook, stirring for 30 seconds.  Stir in stock and cook, stirring, until thick, about 1 minute.  Stir in apples and reserved sausage.  Remove from heat; let mixture cool.  (Filling can be refrigerated up to overnight in an airtight container.)

On a lightly floured surface, roll out one disk of dough into a 14 by 16" rectangle slightly less than 1/8" thick. 

OK, hello?  Less than 1/8" thick, you say?  Why don't you just tell us to roll it slightly less than MOLECULE THICK?  Geez.  This was the most challenging dough I've ever worked with, and you have to work very quickly and keep it moving or else it'll stick to the counter.  I typically roll dough like this between layers of plastic wrap or waxed paper, but it was more than happy to give me a hard time there too.  I don't know what to tell you other than try your best.  I was worried that the dough was seeming too gluten-y and thought it might turn out tough.  But the pies we ended up eating were made with dough scraps that I had wadded up and re-rolled a few times, and even they were fantastic.  Do what you can.  Try to make them thin, but don't beat yourself up over it if you can't get 24 pies out of this.  You're not a robot.  It's going to be all right.

Transfer to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper; top with a second piece of parchment.  Repeat with remaining dough disks, covering with parchment and stacking rolled dough.  Refrigerate 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375.  Using a 3.75-inch round cookie cutter (because we all have round cookie cutters of various calibrations lying around, don't we, Martha?), cut rounds from sheets of dough.  Place 2 tablespoons of filling in center of half of the rounds.  Brush the edges lightly with beaten egg.  Top with remaining rounds, pressing edges with a fork to seal. 

With a small leaf-shaped cutter (Are acorns and pumpkins acceptable here?  They're all I have!), cut shapes from scraps and adhere to pies with some of the beaten egg.  Alternatively, cut leaf shapes out of tops and add cutouts slightly off center to cover the open portion.  Let's all sigh in exasperation together, shall we?  Combine scraps and roll again.  Cut rounds and repeat to fill and form more handpies.  Place on parchment-lined baking sheets.  Brush with egg.  Refrigerate 15 minutes.  Once assembled, the pies can be frozen up to 3 days until ready to bake.  Do not thaw; baking time will remain the same.  I plan to throw caution to the wind and push this to 7 days. 

Bake, rotating sheets halfway through, until golden brown, about 40 minutes (my beta pies took 30).  Serve pies warm or at room temperature.

The tree of disapproval and also the CARDINAL of disapproval hereby disapprove of Martha's bossiness in the above instructions.

Book jacket design

My advanced students and I are working on an art project inspired by a series of classic novels featuring the artwork of fashion illustrator Ruben Toledo.  I spotted his gorgeous take on The Scarlet Letter at Borders last month and greedily scooped it up along with the equally fabulous Wuthering Heights.  "We've got to do something like this in art class," I thought, and thanks to the help of our school's librarian Kris G., we are.

Kris rounded up around 35 classic books, many of which had not been checked out in decades, and let my students and I design new jackets for them.  I pounced upon one of my favorite books, Main Street by Sinclair Lewis.  Using students as my models, I created the book's heroine Carol Kennicott and a cast of small-town bumpkins who resent her intelligence. 

I asked E., one of my Art 4 girls, to pose as Carol.  She fit the character's physical description, and she has this gorgeous little face that seems to come from another place and time.  I told her to look to her left in a paranoid kind of way and took a photo with my iPhone:

 

So she nailed it.  I asked other students throughout the day to put on "oh I HATE HER" faces and photographed them.  E.'s sister A., the scowling dark-haired creature on the back cover, was particularly convincing and hilarious.  I told the kids that the characters I'd paint would be loosely based on those pictures--loose to the point of caricature.  I painted the cover with watercolors and added a good deal of crosshatching with black ink.  I finished the cover today and am very happy with it.  We'll eventually laminate the new covers and the books will go back into circulation at the library.

And now here's Jeff holding the new issue of Elle magazine, featuring my wonderful sister:

Mini meatball soup and major Poof announcement

And now, how about a soup that actually looks kind of good?  I've been making variations on this soup for several years now, loosely based on a Rachael Ray recipe.  I've kept her meatballs but added a lot of tomatoes and pasta.  I made a big pot of this soup on my day off (Monday) and promptly stashed more than half of it in the freezer for future health emergencies and general laziness.  When I think of those soup-laden freezer bags, each one a passport to a night of not cooking, I feel like Barney Stinson.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 lb lean ground beef
• 1 egg
• 1/2 C Italian breadcrumbs
• 1/3 C freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
• 1 t garlic powder
• 1/2 medium onion, chopped, plus 1/4 onion, minced
• salt and pepper to taste (about a teaspoon of salt and 1/2 t of pepper, I think)
• 1 carrot, chopped
• 1 stalk celery, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 T extra virgin olive oil
• pinch nutmeg
• 5 cups chicken stock (give or take)
• 2 (28 oz) cans crushed tomatoes
• VARIETY DRIED OR FRESH HERBS such as oregano, basil, thyme <-- I just throw them in, maybe a teaspoon of dried oregano and smaller amounts of the other two.
• 1 t sugar
• handful fresh Italian parsley, chopped
• that half-full box of whatever odds-and-ends pasta you have

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 375.

Combine meat, egg, breadcrumbs, cheese, garlic powder, minced onion, and salt and pepper in a large bowl.  Be like me and do this with one hand (that way one will stay clean).  Roll this into a multitude of 1/2 inch meatballs and place them on an ungreased cookie sheet.  I find making meatballs that are literally 1/2 inch in diameter nearly impossible, but do try to make them as small as you can.  Bake for around 8 minutes, but check before you take them out of the oven.  They should look brown (not burnt, not raw).  Timing will vary based on how small you managed to make them.

Meanwhile, saute carrot, onion, celery, and garlic in the olive oil in a Dutch oven/soup pot.  Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and a wee bit of nutmeg.  Cook 5 minutes.

Add the two cans of tomatoes, broth, variety herbs, and optional sugar (in case your tomatoes taste especially acidic).  Bring to a boil, then bring the heat down.  Drop in the meatballs as they become available.  Toss in the parsley last (it'll stay greener).

Optional pasta addition: boil up whatever leftover pasta you have lying around and place a small amount in each soup bowl before dumping soup on top.  I keep my cooked pasta out of my soup pot because if you leave it in the refrigerator like that all night, the next day the pasta will have absorbed most of your soup's liquid and it won't be soup anymore.  If you are have a large family, though, add the cooked pasta directly to the soup pot and scoff at our DINK ways as you feed your teeming hordes.  

Serving suggestion: eat with some of that reheated leftover savory parmesan French toast you made the other day.

 

After a borderline lousy day at work (insane requests; sluggish, unmotivated, dog-sick students; meetings I didn't realize were canceled until I got there; general cluelessness), I was delighted to learn that my beloved Poof is going to be featured in the November issue of Elle magazine!  There she is, top right corner!  Poof knew this was going to happen months ago, but she managed to keep it a secret from her friends and viewers until now.  Poof explains:

Hi Everyone! I'm incredibly honored to be featured in the November 2009 issue of Elle Magazine! Some of you may be thinking, "cool....but why'd they want you in there?" I wondered the same thing when I was first approached about it- but here's a little background...

For a couple of years now I've been doing makeup tutorials (step-by-step videos) and product reviews on my YouTube channel! It's called "Beauty Broadcast" and it's grown to more than 32,000 subscribers, and it's quickly approaching one million views. I do videos on all things relating to makeup, hair, and skincare.

Recently, I did a series of celebrity inspired looks. One of them was based on Freida Pinto, one of the stars of the Academy Award winning film, Slumdog Millionaire. Out of the blue one day, I received an email from the people at Elle, saying they'd like to include some pictures from that video in their magazine, in a section about celebrity makeup. I was so PUMPED! But for the most part, I tried to keep my mouth shut about it until it actually happened. Today, I was notified by a viewer and Elle subscriber that I was in the magazine! I don't have it in my hands just yet, but she was nice enough to email me a picture.

So that absolutely made my day, as did the freaking-out phone conversation we just had.  Congratulations Poof; you deserve it, and I love you very much!

Ugly beef soup and Bunniversary

Summer has bid our house an angry SEE YA, and my thoughts have turned to soup, so much so that I am not immune to the downmarket charms of those little cookbooks that can be found near the National Enquirer.  Even the ones that are clearly advertisements for the Progresso family of products and shamelessly-phoning-it-in Michael Chiarello are fair game.  I bought one last week and used it to make the homeliest soup of my life, pictured above.  It was easy, warm and satisfying, though, so if you've got an hour to spare and don't eat with your eyes first, I highly recommend this liquid-y take on beef stroganoff.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 T butter
• 1 medium onion, coarsely chopped (I used maybe half of a giant sweet onion)
• 2 t finely chopped garlic  <-- Chop up some actual garlic, will you?  Don't use that stuff in the jars.  As Anthony Bourdain says, "Too lazy to peel fresh?  You don't deserve to eat garlic."
• 8 oz sliced fresh mushrooms
• 1 1/2 lb boneless beef top sirloin steak, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 6 C PROGRESSO beef-flavored broth <-- The cookbookvertizement advises us to accept no substitutes.
• 1/2 C dry sherry (or more PROGRESSO broth!)  <-- Because the two are basically the same thing.
• 1/4 C ketchup  <-- Officially throwing class and refinement out the window!
• 3/4 t salt
• 1/8 t pepper
• 2 C uncooked medium egg noodles  <-- I went with some earnest, possibly Amish-looking noodles.
• 1 8 oz container sour cream  <-- I tried Lite sour cream but feel that this soup may look better if you go with full fat.  Just a theory.

DIRECTIONS

In a 5- to 6-quart Dutch oven (or similar large soup-making vessel), melt butter over medium-high heat.  Add onion, garlic, and mushrooms.  Cook 5 to 6 minutes, stirring frequently, until mushrooms are softened.

Stir in beef.  Cook 5 to 6 minutes, stirring frequently, until beef is no longer pink.  The idea of using a cut up steak instead of the conveniently-packaged "stew meat" is smart.  The meat in this soup is wonderfully tender, not that big square wad of dry Hubba Bubba that you can get if you go with stew meat but maybe don't have 6 hours to wait for it to become edible.  Do not skip here; buy the steak.  Stir in remaining ingredients except noodles and sour cream.  Heat to boiling.  Reduce heat to medium-low.  Cover and cook 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Stir in noodles.  Cover; cook 5 to 7 minutes, stirring occasionally, until noodles are tender. 

Stir in sour cream.  Cook 3 to 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until well blended.  You will not want to stir in the sour cream, by the way.  It will seem weird.  You already have what looks like a very good soup--why mess with it?  But the sour cream gives the soup a nice, odd tanginess.  I say go for it, but again, you should probably go with full fat sour cream.  The lite stuff never seemed to fully incorporate with the broth.  It *almost* did, but tiny s.c. particles were visible here.  Not a big deal taste-wise, but not beautiful either.

Eating this soup is awkward.  The earnest Amish-seeming noodles were too long to fit comfortably on a spoon and kept sliding back into the soup and splashing.  At one point some of them landed in my lap, soiling comfy around-the-house pants that *I had just washed.*  I recommend that you bash the noodles up a bit before adding.  I mean, it's not like the soup is going to look any uglier.

Serving suggestion: bread, and plenty of it.

 

Here's one Halloween home decoration area where I have Martha Stewart beat: actual vultures.  They roost in our trees and take off around the time that Poof's news broadcast (that I watch live on the internet from 5:30-7:00 a.m.) is over.

Saturday Jeff and I went to a pumpkin patch and I took a photo of a goat that reminded me of Bun.

 

Dr. Bunny Eddington Jolie-Pitt (she has many honorary doctorates and just liked the sound of J-P) came into my life on Columbus Day 2001.  She was a tiny stray kitten who had been cutely stalking me for about a week.  On that fateful day, I was picking up some groceries that had spilled onto the sidewalk (when you're single, you try to get every last sack out of the car and into the apartment in one trip).  Bun hopped onto my lap as I squatted down, and then she followed me up the stairs to my apartment.  I held her on the top step for a long time and named her Bunny. 

And now, after spending a tough kittenhood on the mean streets of Oregon, Illinois, she lives a life of ease.

 

She is occasionally stalked by her little sister.

Sometimes I like to put a hood on her and pretend she's Obi Wan Kenobi.

The Return of Chuck!

I haven't seen either of our woodchucks in well over a month.  We've had some backyard hubbub since school began--deck repairs, tree removal, Jeff's dad discovering one of the entrances to their subterranean lair and probably messing with it in some way--so I wondered if Chuck and Norris had left us for good.  As you can see from the photo above, at least one of them is back and chubbier than ever, undoubtedly gorging on our trees' fallen apples and getting ready for that long winter's nap.