NaBloPoMo Part VIII: Sunday Meals

This weekend, I felt shut down mostly due to GRE's and feeling really exhausted and germy and what not. I recovered from the madness by going to bed at 12:30 am last night and not waking up until 11:00 am the following day.

I made some dinner tonight for the first time the whole week (negating Friday's quickie pasta dish) and it came out better than expected. Mac and cheese, green beans with almonds, and collard greens with yams.
The mac and cheese was an adapted Mark Bittman recipe that I modified with some newly purchased Truffle Salt from Draegers. Draegers is a high end grocery store in Menlo Park that occasionally stocks hard to find items. The Truffle Salt came from K.L. Keller. To be honest, I had no idea whether it was going to be good or not, but I saw that they used winter truffles, which was what I wanted (as summer truffles have less flavor), and the price was right at $12 so I went for it. I came home with a 2 ounce jar (real truffles are $100/oz), which is not too terrible for truffles, and justifies itself by making tasty mac and cheeses, popcorn, eggs, or use as a very pricey seasoning. Plus, when I opened it, the smell was intoxicating.

I also changed the Bittman recipe by not using regular milk (almond instead) and having multigrain flour for the Bechamel sauce. For the sauce, I used a cup of good medium cheddar (most of the block) and a 1/4 cup sheep's milk pecorino romano for the cheese, and did not leave that on the stove for too long after I turned the heat off. Instead, I let the oven do all the work of melting, and that seemed to help not crack the cheese, where the fatty stuff separates and the cheese starts to curdle and your mac and cheese tastes yummy but not creamy. After I loaded the pan into the oven at 400 degrees, I added the truffle salt, and some reconstituted dried and thoroughly washed porcini mushrooms into the cheese sauce (they sell at Whole Foods for $3-5 and it makes for good veggie broth). I may sprinkle the salt on after the next time to see if the flavor can be a little more intense. I know I can also use oil, but authentic truffle oil with the absence of chemical truffle is probably non-existent.

This mac and cheese was very good. Neither the boy nor I noticed the fact that my entire meal was vegetarian.

Some more thoughts on the Bittman recipe:
-I used only 2 cups of almond milk and I thought that was too much. I'd even go down to 1.75 cups for even more creaminess.
-The almond milk was still kind of sweet, but it worked with all the saltiness
-1 lb of pasta is way too much pasta for this. I used half of 1 lb for this sauce. Unless you are cooking for an army, use 0.5lb.

Tomorrow: Smoky, spicy collards with sweet potato.

NaBloPoMo Part II: Grilled Cheese Two Ways A
First installment of the grilled cheese series.

Basic Grilled Cheese.

Buy some bread. You don't want to go for hard crusty bread here. Leave the artisan bread at the store and go for something simple. Alvarado Street Bakery Sandwich Slices are wholesome and low fat without sacrificing taste. You may decide you want sliced sourdough. This is also okay. If you feel super fancy, you can go for sliced brioche. But heed my advice, simple sliced bread will shine here.

And the cheese. You want a smooth mouth feel, but not too gooey. You also want to be able to slice it. You want it to taste sharp, but not acrid. Aged cheese is more robust, but the flavor should be complementary to the bread. I prefer a medium cheddar, and I acquired some of this cheese Cream City Cheddar last year so I used that. Beecher's from Seattle would also make a great sandwich cheese.


Now to prepare the bread, smear the sides of each bread you use with mayonnaise. You do this to seal the sides, but it also does something indescribable to the flavor. If you hate mayonnaise you can use some other type of emulsified oil and protein product or omit this step entirely.

Cut the cheese into three or four thin slices and lay it across the bread to cover. Put the other slice of bread on top. Melt 1 TB of butter (or earth balance) onto the pan and let it get hot, but don't evaporate the butter. Grill the bread on a nice hot non-stick pan for 3-5 minutes depending on how crispy you want the bread. Add one more tablespoon of butter and flip over the sandwich for another 3-5 minutes. Serve crispy and hot with a can of tomato soup or just eat plain. But eat it right away because you wouldn't go through all this effort to eat something cold.

I know this is fairly basic, but tomorrow.. I take the grilled cheese and make it fancy in a two part installment called Special Occasion Grilled Cheese. Stay tuned.

NaBloPoMo Part I: Savory Butternut Soup
So I am half-assedly doing this narrative food post in the hopes that you

a) go out and make this recipe
b) add some shaved truffle salt and make it even batter.

Make your chicken stock. I found this to be very helpful today. Proper stock is a slow food and a product of roasted chicken and time. If you don't have time, you can get the stock out of a can, but it will be nowhere near as rib stickin'.

Get some hot peppers. Anaheim, serrano, hungarian peppers. Pick at least 6-8 and then cut in half and roast in an oven at 425 until the skin turns black and crispy..about 20 minutes. Let it cool and peel it off. Dice finely

You want to take a winter squash and peel it with a sturdy vegetable peeler. I used a combination of Rugosa (a type of butternut from the CSA) and Delicata (a little more 'starchy'). Cut squash into medium sized cubes, about 3 cups worth. Toss it in a pan with some curry powder, sea salt, and olive oil. Broil the squash at 425 for 15-20 minutes until fork tender.

Get an apple, an onion, a carrot. Cut the apple, peel the onion and carrot, and chop into small cubes. Stir fry the onion and apple and a 1/2 tsp of salt in butter until browned and sweet, but don't overcook. Add the carrot and the squash. Saute another 5 minutes and then throw in 3 cups of stock. Bring to a boil and add some more stock to replace what you lose. Simmer at low heat for five minutes, throw in the peppers and simmer another five minutes. Take off the stove. Puree with a blender, immersion blender, or food processor. Return to stove. Simmer but do not boil and adjust for sodium with a little salt. Some people want to add cream, but I added a hint of balsamic vinegar towards the end and then tossed in a spoon of sour cream when I was serving.

Enjoy with a grilled cheese sammie made with whole wheat bread and farmhouse cheddar. Eat the following day.

Gaza Massacre! Film at 11.


Basically, the shit is hitting the fan again in an entirely broken record sort of way. Palestinians fire rockets at Israelis for several days, during the holiday of Hanukkah no less. The embattled Israeli government, already under pressure to become more hawkish or risk the election of conservative nutjob Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu decides not to take the rocket firings lying down and batters down on Gaza with effortlessly disproportionate force. The UN cries about it. The impotent United States Government justifies Israel and continues to use its media to muddle an already convoluted and Byzantine tale of woe between Israelis and Palestinians. The destruction goes relatively ignored in a morass of power struggle and opportunism by both groups and at home the pressure is felt by an Israeli national like myself to respond to my friend's facebook comment by saying "Uh, its both sides that are playing war stupid, so how can the Israelis be committing the only war crimes."

It all gives me a gigantic headache and its not just the caffeine withdrawal of the past couple days. I am hoping that Obama will stabilize the region and convince this stupid politically driven killing to stop before a huge shit bomb flies itself over to the campus of Berkeley where Arab Israeli tempers flare up more frequently than bong loads. I want to start reading happier emails from my friend about the latest New York Gay Club and not about how disproportionately evil Tzipi Livni is compared to Ismail Haniyeh. Maybe I am selfish and helpless, but I really do feel exasperated for all of the children Arabs or Jews who can't play outside today because a few politicians could not do what is right and stop flinging bombs at eachother.

Response to my sister: Part 1
She sent me the following link extolling the purity of Dr. Bronner's soap

Note that the other products have a substantial amount of ingredients and chemical names. I chose to focus on Dr. Bronner first and then get into interpreting the other brands later when I have more time.

This is my email in response:

Not everything with a chemical name is bad for you and not everything without a chemical name is good for you.


Coconut oil saponified: sodium cocoate
Olive oil saponified: Sodium olivate
hemp oil:
43-62%Linoleic acid (LA) Omega-6*19-25%Alpha Linolenic acid (LNA) Omega-3* 7-9%Oleic acid Omega-9* 2-4.5%Gamma Linolenic acid (GLA, not shown)1-2%Stearidonic acid (SDA, not shown))8-10%Saturated Oils
jojoba oil:
* Eicosenoic Acid 66-71%
* Docosenoic Acid 14-20%
* Oleic Acid 10-13
peppermint oil and mentha arvensis (similar):
Menthol, menthone, 1,8-cineole, methyl acetate, methofuran, isomenthone, limonene, b-pinene, a-pinene, germacrene-d, trans-sabinene hydrate and pulegone.

Also note that Dr. Bronners does not have a preservative that prevents the rapid growth of bacteria or mold. You may want to throw it out after a few months. However, I absolutely love it for backpacking since it does not impact the environment very much. Caveat: I used a lot of it one time and it burned my eyes.

It occurs to me that no one reads this, and if they do they should delurk so I don't feel like a lonely angry woman on the internet with her rants. Wait I feel like that already..nevermind.

Detroit without us
I've been reading this book called The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. It is a post-apocalyptic journey of life after mankind assuming the non-human world is intact. The situation in Detroit is a fairly dire one, and the government has been summoned to rescue automakers who determine the livelihood of this city and the state of the American economy. However, Detroit has already been undergoing extreme poverty for a long time and these photos are hauntingly similar to the descriptions of the first chapter in the book of New York City. I can not help but think of what would happen if the bailout fails and the ensuing economic crisis destroyed cities in such a way that nature would actually take over. If the bailout fails, Detroit will be a live example.