I'm the worst.

I really wish I could post more often, but I pretty much don't cook at all any more (thanks Trader Joe's and Amy's frozen meals for keeping me fed on weeknights!).

Right now I'm living in a sublet with limited cookware/appliances, working a lot, and was icked out by a couple mouse sightings, so I just haven't been cooking at all.

Hopefully I will soon-ish get a lease for an apt with a friend or two and be more at home again [finally], and then I will certainly get back into cooking and posting. I miss it [and my Austin apartment/kitchen] a lot. NYC has a lot of great qualities, but housing is not one of them. Wish me luck! :)

JBG Organics volunteering

Just so you don't miss the takeaway: Please think about what you eat and how it got there. Try not to waste food. And use less plastic/throwaway packaging whenever you can. 

The other day I didn't have to head into my internship because my coworkers were out of town for a meeting. I decided to sign up to volunteer at Johnson's Backyard Garden farm because when you volunteer for 5 hours, you get a box of veggies. I also have become more curious about farming since my mom grew up on a farm, going back to Kansas for my grandpa's funeral reminded me that I wanted to get a better sense of what it entailed, and visiting California for work and seeing the farms and fresh food pushed me the extra mile. I understand farming conceptually, but I have very little experience with the actual labor and science of it.

I worked at the greenhouse, which meant that I started out by seeding Kohlrabi into 46 little planters with 128 little seeds. There was this little suction board with 128 little holes on it, and I shook the seeds out until there was one in each and then poured off the extras. Then I set it on top of the tray with some soil in it, turned off the suction, and then set everything back up again. Repeat 46 times. Once the seeds were all in, I got my hands real good and dirty filling up the rest of the planter boxes (excuse my incorrect terminology) until they were level with the top. I made a grid on the pavement of all the planters so that we could water them a few times. Because I was doing winter seeds, the greenhouse guy took them back to store in a cooler until it was time for them to actually start growing.

My next task was to weed out in the greenhouse itself. This got... hot. It was about 100 degrees while I was working (8 am - 1 pm), which meant, I'm guessing, that the greenhouse was 110+. I certainly felt it. I got a bit woozy in there, especially being in jeans and such. The planters covered the floor of the greenhouse, so in order to get back and pull weeds, I had to drag out a row hop over alternating clear patches I created, and balance while I pulled weeds and then came back. I did not love it, but I think it was because I was getting tired and very hot. It was nice to get a big bucketful of weeds though, in terms of seeing your work make a difference. That was definitely one bonus of the work as a whole. I was a bit surprised at how many dead butterflies, moths, and crickets there were, but it made sense once I thought about how enticing it would be in there but then hard to get out and then very, very hot to survive in. I also pulled weeds outside around the greenhouse, and while it was a big relief to have some wind movement and less humidity, the direct sun wasn't too much of a break.

My last little task was to move out some peppers that had grown up enough that they were almost done with the greenhouse. I set them out on this pallet area so they could get some water while they adjusted to the sunshine and spent more time in the greenhouse (I think) before they got sent full-time to the fields. Good luck little guys!

Finally, at 1, after drinking two 32 oz gatorades and my water bottle, I picked up my veggies (transferring them to my reusable bags, of course) and headed home. Phew! My neck and back were very sore, and I was pretty excited for my shower. I think I will definitely volunteer again when my schedule allows (and perhaps when it is a little cooler) to get experience in the sorting/loading space as well as out in the fields for a harvest or something.

More than anything, it really made me appreciate even more how much, I mean an incredible amount, of work goes into every single thing I eat. I already work so hard not to waste and to buy exactly what I'll eat, whether at the grocery store or restaurants, but this was further incentive to do my best. And it also made me feel like food was so cheap even though sometimes I bemoan prices in my head while I shop. I know organics and local foods are sometimes a little more expensive, but you're paying to have people take care of your food, and people just need a little bit of money. And as the guy I worked with said, JBG was great because Johnson pays a little more than minimum wage. Where would we be without people farming our food, and yet they only get minimum wage most of the time? I'm not going to get into the politics of it all and subsidies and all that headache, but I do think there are serious, sad problems with our value system of work in this country (and probably around the world). Farming and education are two of the most important jobs that exist, the end, and while teachers make more, there is such a low level of respect and tribute paid, financially, to those absolutely integral jobs.

Please think about what you eat and how it got there. Try not to waste food. And use less plastic/throwaway packaging whenever you can. 

Also, tell me what kind of veggies I got! I'm not 100% sure about exactly what's what, so I welcome any insights. 

egads!

It's April 19, and I haven't posted in about a month. What has happened? Well, I have been cooking less.

First of all, the past few months I have been working part-time at Galaxy Cafe, a locally owned restaurant in Austin. One of my best friends from home (or really, our shared forced church experiences growing up) is the GM of one of the locations, and she offered to let me work there for a while until I found myself a full-time job. It isn't, of course, amazing pay, but I will say that I get to spend my time there with pretty great people. Everyone is really nice and fun, so it makes me hours there pleasant, and the customers are pretty friendly as well. Also, I like the food. This (and my employee discount) is partly why I have been cooking less - I work and spend more time away from home, and I often just eat after a shift. But I have a couple other jobs on the table, so cross your fingers for me that one of them works out and I can keep moving on up! :)

Second of all, I have been teaching more! A couple nights a week, I teach my GRE classes with Kaplan just off UT Campus, so that has prevented me from really cooking dinners because those nights I'm away from home from about 5-9 pm. I really enjoy it, so other than putting a strain on my evening and dinner calendar, it's a good thing to have on my schedule.

Third of all, I've been in and out of town a bit or had visitors. A friend from college came to visit for about a week (it was glorious!), I went back to Fort Worth for a weekend to go to a wedding with my boyfriend and then we went to San Antonio for a couple days because he had a conference, and then my parents came in town, so of course I got treated to several delicious meals out. But it has limited my cooking and grocery experiences as well.

I've baked cookies a couple of times and have gotten into the habit of making some very delicious salads for lunches (right now, I'm eating Central Market mixed baby greens + herbs, cucumber, campari tomatos, avocado, strawberry, and feta salad with lemon juice). Believe that I'm not a big time salad girl most of the time because I really don't love peppers, carrots, onions, and other typical salad ingredients. But I do love fruit and cheese and nuts and herbs and salads that are a little more fun and exciting like that, so when I have the ingredients to make my own, I love them! Also I sort of chow down pretty hard on food, and I like that salad takes a lot of time to eat because it keeps me occupied and feel more full than when I pound back a sandwich in 5 minutes. Yup.

I think I have a couple sets of pictures on my camera of some food that I have managed to make in the past month, so I'll get those uploaded and post soon. I need to get back in my habit with this thing! My cookbooks are lonely, I'm itching to mix and measure and enjoy delicious homemade food, and my camera hasn't been put to use in a while (really, it's a bit sad that I don't use it to take pictures of other things after its illustrious time spent photographing amazing sights abroad. sigh).

Anyway, I've missed you! And if you're there at all still, maybe you've missed me, and I'm sorry for not being around. Be back soon with food pictures!

new apron

My "aunt" Jan gave me a cute new apron and two coffee mugs from Anthropologie, so I thought I would show you my pretty little red apron in action today baking cookies. Thanks Jan! Actually, my cute little oven mitts are also from Jan from Anthropologie. They've been in battle a bit and have some stains to show for it, but otherwise are faring well. I especially love watching my boyfriend use them.

juicing

After a few conversations about it with my boyfriend and a viewing of Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead (on Netflix instant watch, check it out), we decided to try out a juice diet/fast. Our original plan was 3 days, but we went 46 hours before deciding we wanted dinner. On the one hand, it was challenging, but on the other hand, I felt pretty good and most of my hunger wasn't real hunger. More on that later. I'd definitely do it again.

In the documentary, he goes on a 60 day juice diet and encourages several people to try it out with a 10 day juice cleanse. We decided on 3 days because we weren't as unhealthy as most of the people in the film who were trying it out, and I wanted to make sure that I picked a really feasible amount of time so that my willpower would last. Not to throw him under the bus, but while I was definitely hungry and ready for food, my boyfriend was the one who was really ready to eat. I felt hunger, but once I had a glass of juice, I was pretty full and could last a few hours before the next dose. I think some of the impact on our slightly different responses can be a result of

• gender (he needs more calories and we were drinking about the same amount)
• activity level (we both workout, but since I don't have a job, I'm not as out and about as much)
• muscle mass (going back to calorie needs)
• mental need for food

Don't get me wrong, I love food. I think about it, I almost exclusively watch the Food Network, the highlight of my day is usually cooking or going out to eat for dinner, and I spend a good amount of time with recipes thinking about what to make next. Like many people, a lot of my best moments have involved food and friends together. That said, it wasn't so hard for me not to eat it because I knew that 3 days would end relatively quickly and then it would be back in my life. It wasn't a radical lifestyle change, just an experiment. I would like to stress that I am a pretty healthy person in general, so it could inspire a significant life change and shift in eating habits for a lot of people who really need it. 

3 days of fruit and vegetable leftovers from my juicer

In the movie, everyone who tried it talked about how much better they felt, they quickly lost some junk pounds, their skin really improved (part of what inspired me to try it), and their systems got nicely cleaned out within a couple days (yes, I'm talking about poop - and not just any poop, but getting rid of things that have been clinging to your insides for a while). They say that the first few days are pretty brutal physically and emotionally. I can't really speak to that because I mostly felt fine, and other than obviously being aware that I was only ingesting juice and water, nothing really felt or seemed or behaved differently in my body. 

Was it worth it? Definitely. I liked getting to try something new and challenge myself a bit. I definitely felt healthy knowing that I was only putting good things in my body. I did feel awake and energized throughout the day, and I think hoping that it would make me and my skin better had a good positive thinking impact on how it went. 

Some important things to remember if you try it out:

• This isn't fasting - you can drink as much water as you want, and, as far as I understood it, as much juice as you want
• Store bought juice is NOT equal to the juice you should make for this. We bought a gallon of juice from a local juice bar (sort of a brutal flavor) that was made fresh for me and then used a juicer to make the rest of it. If you do this, drinking glass after glass of OJ and apple juice is not the correct thing.
• When we think of juice, we think fruits. This should be heavily vegetable based. Fruits are important for balancing the flavors and masking some of the vegetable taste (apples, citrus, and ginger are great for this), but they aren't the bulk of it. 
• Read up on it. We based ours mostly off the movie, some recipes for the Mean Green juice used in the film, and some basic internet searches. 

My fridge with our first batch of groceries for the juice fast:

oranges, green apples, lemons, strawberries, cucumber,

blueberries, blackberries, carrots, spinach, kale, ginger

 the juice we bought: the love cleanse

cucumber, celery, parsley, coconut water, spinach, kale

*it tasted very intensely like these veggies; we always mixed it with 

apple, citrus, and other items to help with the flavor so we could drink it

An example of one of our homemade juice meals (for two):

• 1/2 bunch kale
• 1/2 bunch spinach
• 2 oranges
• 2 green apples
• 1 lemon
• 1 banana
• 1-2 carrots
• handful blueberries/other berries

new cookbook!

I saw a deal on Groupon the other day (I love that site! and living social) for the 75th anniversary edition of Joy of Cooking for $12 + shipping ($6), and I thought I just couldn't pass it up. I have definitely used the internet much more than the couple of cookbooks I have, but I thought a standard like this should definitely have a place on my shelf. I've made one cookie recipe from it so far (an interpreted version of snickerdoodles thanks to poor reading skills on my part), and I do like it. I think the format is a bit different, what with the ingredients listed as you use them and amongst the direction text, but I'm adjusting to it and I'll let you know my thoughts on it after more time with it. I'm excited to read more about different things and learn about food from it.

spices

I'm not sure whether or not I mentioned this before when I talked about how I stocked my new kitchen, but I thought I would go ahead and write a quick post about my spices. My mom's friend told my mom who told me about getting spices in bulk from stores like HEB. Luckily for me, HEB is the grocery store a few blocks from my house. So I went the bulk section when I first moved in and just beyond the granola and dried fruits and nuts and all that were spices. They had about 30 jars of various spices that you could scoop into little baggies. The first time I just got a few basics and the next couple times I went back to the grocery store (I try to go once a week and get what I want to cook that week), I kept adding spices as I thought of them or saw them in a recipe I wanted to try.

Here's the greatest part about it: I paid about $4 total for all the spice baggies, if that. My guess is probably a lot less since most of them came up, after being weighed, as like 5 cents or 10 cents or something. A few of the more expensive ones were about 70 cents. But really, it was amazing considering the a few aisles over the spices sell for like $4 each in the glass containers. And how often do we completely use one of those? This way, I can just get it as I need it and still pay less. My mom even had the idea (I don't know if she actually did it yet) of cleaning out some of her spice containers, getting spices in baggies, and storing the spices in the old labeled jars. For now, for me, I just have labeled baggies in a bag in my pantry, but hopefully I will figure out a nicer way of doing it. Maybe I could get some of those like 7-day medicine containers (you know, for people who take a drug cocktail everyday, it has little boxes for each day) and label those and it would be a small, scoopable container. Noted.

cuisinart hand blender

So I got a fun new cuisinart tool at costco before moving to Austin, and I've been trying to use it. It's a hand blender that has immersion blender, whisk, and chopper attachments. It's really handy and it's great for a small kitchen. I sort of made a mess the first time I tried to use the whisk attachment, but I figured out how to make it work. The chopper is fairly small and doesn't do too well with being completely full, but compared to not having those tools at all, it is great. And I know I will use the immersion blender a lot once it finally cools down here, in a few months.

And wow did I need to get myself off the cuisinart site before I went crazy making a wishlist.

new knives

Dana got me some new knives for my birthday! They are really snazzy and colorful in addition to being good knives. I'm pretty excited to get to use them.

They are komachi knives. I have the green paring knife, red tomato knife, blue utility knife, and magenta chef's knife. Below are two pictures I took, but it's worth googling to look at the images and reviews.

cookbooks

Well I officially own three four cookbooks, all my own! Yes, I still use the internet most of the time, but I will dabble in these and it's fun to have them on my counter. In my free time, reading through them and planning recipes with them is something I'm aiming for. In the order that I procured them:

Muffins. This is a little French cookbook that I picked up for 4 euros in Paris at a little market under a bridge (names are escaping me right now). So in addition to having lots of yummy looking muffin recipes, it is also an opportunity for me to practice my translation skills. Luckily, I can understand most of it without a dictionary, which is a great feeling. Also, I can read outloud in my terrible French accent in my kitchen and pretend that I am an eloquent and sensual French mademoiselle and I won't have anyone around to contradict my fantasy.

BLBC Cookbook. I mentioned this a while ago when I first finished it. It's a cookbook compiled by the members of my book club in Bulgaria that I put into book format via blurb. Then I ordered 12 for my family (at the neat cost of $6 each! still available and no profits). So a couple of my contributions are in there along with many others. I haven't truly read through it and tried anything yet, but I have eaten many of the recipes in the past year and they were tasty.

Barefoot Contessa at Home. Okay, I'll be honest. I never watch the show and she looked annoying (why I didn't want the show). But my mom gave this to me for my birthday. Then I saw the name. Ina Garten. I recognized it from SK and decided to give it a second try to impress me. I haven't made anything from it (give me a break, my birthday hasn't actually happened yet), but I read through a few sections and it looks good. Not healthy or like it will help me with my diet, but delicious. I'll be posting things from it soon enough.

The Essential Pasta Cookbook. Ebe gave this to me this past weekend for my birthday. It does include some recipes of how to make pasta by hand, but mostly it is for pasta dishes. It is really extensive and we both like how many pictures it has of all the food. Plus, I love carbs and Italian food.

my new kitchen

As mentioned in the previous entries, I am in my new apartment in Austin and thus have a new kitchen. Unlike the past two years, where my kitchen was outfitted more or less by the school and what previous residents had left behind, this time I had to get everything myself. My family really came through by having a lot of extra things they could share. There are a few things I still need to get to really be able to make everything I want to (a big soup pot, a hand mixer, a heave duty pot for the oven), but overall it is really well stocked.

I took some pictures and thought I would also make a list of what I have just to give an idea of the kind of tools I am working with. Mostly it is just another step I wanted to take to show that I just work with what I have and things turn out pretty well even though I don't have a impressive, top of the line kitchen. I also have quite the teensy pantry but I still feel like I have more food than I can eat in a week (well, than I should eat in a week).

3 mixing bowls (white with green)
4 mixing bowls (orange/yellow with flowers)
2 skillets
1 cast iron skillet
2 silver saucepans
2 porcelain (?) saucepans
6 pyrex glass dishes (circular)
1 pyrex square dish
1 loaf pan

target utensil set (30 pieces with all sorts of spoons, spatulas, graters, clips, measuring tools, etc)

cuisinart hand blender (with a whisk attachment, immersion blender, and chopping attachment)
stand mixer
electric tea kettle
crock pot

measuring cups
measuring spoons
storage containers

ikea dishset

6 big plates

6 small plates

6 wide bowls

6 silverware

6 tumblers

6 wine glasses

4 anthropologie bowls

4 small anthropologie bowls

4 bulgarian bowls

1 big bulgarian bowl

4 blue tumblers

Pantry:

Flour

Sugar

Powdered sugar

Brown sugar

Baking soda

Baking powder

Cocoa

Vanilla extract

Olive oil

Canola oil

Balsamic vinegar

White vinegar

Salt

Pepper

Cream of tartar

Basil

Curry

Cinnamon

Garlic

Rosemary

Honey

Syrup

Mustard

Ketchup

Jelly

Cheddar cheese

Parmesan cheese

Milk

Salted butter

Unsalted butter

Eggs

Tortillas

Bread

Peanut butter

Goldfish

Pasta

Canned tomatoes

Granola

Fresh vegetables and fruit

first attempts

So I said that I would write some throwbacks with some of the recipes I made before I started the blog. First, however, I thought I would show some of my first recipe-less disasters attempts at cooking myself a meal. As mentioned, I really couldn't cook at all before I went to Morocco to start life as a recent college graduate with a real job in the real world.

My fellow recent postgrad, Eryn, and I bonded together to feed ourselves (and generally spend every waking moment together, I'm only exaggerating by about an hour of individual time a day), and it was not pretty for a while. I really had this thing against using recipes; I wanted to be able to make good food based on my own know-how. Now, I realize that your own know-how comes after you research, learn, practice, learn from mistakes, and so on. Then you know what goes together and how flavors and ingredients work and so on.

Finally, I decided to give in and use recipes, starting with my beloved Smitten Kitchen, where I first learned how to produce something that tasted good by my own hands and raw ingredients. Before that, Eryn and I, we had some blunders. Things improved a bit and we were thrilled and proud; though looking back, I think that we may have overreacted. At least that tells you about the quality we started out with...

Wow, a really delicious Moroccan beef hamburger..sub..thing with soggy fried potatoes, mushrooms, and asparagus. 

An everything-but-the-kitchen-sink fritatta? What could be better?! 

 Proud of my ability to cook mushrooms. 

See? I really did start out with baby, baby steps...

YES! Cooked mushrooms! A true success story! 

At least we were using healthy, fresh ingredients: eggplant, mushrooms, and asparagus with rice 

Pasta with a homemade sauce that probably tasted good in spite of looking black and unappetizing.

Bon appetit!  That's frozen spinach, frozen peas, chicken, and mushrooms, cooked "Chinese" style, 

aka with butter and soy sauce. 

As we gained confidence with our fabulous cooking skills, 

we started introducing meat into our cooking exploration.

Now, a more respectable pasta dinner. Its the end of the beginning.  

sorry i've been mia

I haven't been posting lately because I haven't really been cooking. Exams ended on Monday, June 27, then I had other school/work related stuff until Friday, July 1. I spent the weekend saying goodbye to people and packing before my parents showed up on Monday, July 4. I did bake a LOT of cookies and another batch of oreo cheesecake cupcakes on Monday for my little goodbye pizza party with my students, but that's about it for the past few weeks. Once my parents got into town, we headed off to show them Bulgaria and then do a roadtrip to Serbia, Montenegro, and Croatia. It was incredibly beautiful. Last night we flew to Greece, where we will be sailing around some islands. I'm pretty excited to spend time with my family and relax. If I cook anything in my role as galley wench, I'll take some pictures and post them here. Otherwise, if I have internet and time again, I'll post a couple throwback recipes from the pre-blog days.

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer!

BLBC Cookbook

I just got a mountain of grading. Did I start tonight? Heavens no because I make silly decisions sometimes. I did, however, finish taking the word document of the BLBC cookbook and transforming it into a 120 page book for sale on Blurb. I think it took me about 6 hours to do, which really isn't so bad. I hope that the ladies of the BLBC like it and are all right with the executive decisions I made; at least I like it and will be excited to have one at home! For anyone else who is interested, here is the information:

BLBC Cookbook
$6 plus shipping for softcover
http://www.blurb.com/books/2242451

From the info page I wrote up for the book:

BLBC Cookbook

The ladies of the BLBC, or Bulgarian Ladies Book Club, for the 2010 - 2011 school year were all International women of the American College of Sofia. In addition to reading seven books, having deliciously hosted meetings, going away for a spa weekend, and rafting, we also compiled some of our (and our friends and family's)  favorite recipes into a cookbook. We hope you enjoy it!

The BLBC 2010 - 2011 Book List:

October:  

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

November:  

Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey by Isabel Fonesca

December:  

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

February: 

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence

March: 

Cold Snap: Bulgaria Stories by Cynthia Morrison Phoel

April: 

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

May:    

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

The ladies of the BLBC:

Abby Noel, Amanda Crocker, Carolyn Emigh, Hanna Soltow, Jaime Johnson, Jenn Lawrie, Jess White, Kate McKenna, Katherine Conaway, Kristina Pappas, Lindsay Bouton, Magda Bucior, Pei Pei Liu,  Shannon Savage, and Teresa Monicken

A special thank you to Kate McKenna for organizing the BLBC! 

Greek food

There is a reason I haven't posted in a while. Last Friday, May 20, was graduation. The students didn't come to school (but we did), and then we had the ceremony at 5 pm. We then didn't have school on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday as a result of some holiday (I will eventually read my students' journals and find out which one). So to take advantage of our 5 day weekend, about 20 of us went to Thassos, Greece. We left after graduation and drove down to Serres on Friday night, drove to the coast and took the ferry over to Thassos (island) on Saturday morning, and then proceeded to have a wonderful weeklong vacation on the beach. I was in heaven. It was the most relaxing vacation I have possibly ever had - no specific things to do except enjoy the beach, relax, have fun, and eat.

And the eating was good. Some of the other teachers introduced me to the Greek cheese salad (tirosalata), which is pretty much the best thing ever, or at least is in close competition with my other favorite food, queso. Tirosalata is a whipped cheese spread with peppers, and it tastes amazing. We spread it on bread, dipped veggies in it, and when we ran out of those, just ate it straight off the fork. I just googled the salad, and here is a recipe that I haven't tried but might well have to just so I can eat this stuff again soon. I think I ordered about 6 cheese salads over the course of the 5 days.

Of course I also ate many Greek salads. I avoided the onions, olives, and peppers, so I was basically eating the Bulgarian Shopska salata (cucumber, tomato, and shredded cyrene) with hunks of feta instead of shredded cyrene. I figured eating a cheese salad and a Greek salad would be a very healthy beach diet.

As we were on an island, I also enjoyed quite a bit of seafood - mussels, shrimp, calamari. I don't love mussels, but I ordered them several times and enjoyed the experience. When in Greece...

Okay, so I didn't really eat a wide range of food most of the time, but it was delicious. Mostly I just had to rave a little bit about the tirosalata, which I am definitely missing (but maybe my waistline isn't). Thassos was incredible, and I'm ready to go back anytime. 

gadgetry

No, not a kitchen gadget, one for the blog! I recently discovered how to create quick little response boxes at the end of every post. So now you should see three options at the end of all posts here on kitchen to kitchen, and you can share what you think about each post once you've scrolled down to the end.

The options are:
i'll make it
looks yummy
no thank you
So, if you feel in accordance with one of those reactions, just click the box and it will record your response. Also, if you think we're missing some obvious option, let us know and I'll go in and add it.

Any other feedback, requests, advice, comments, etc? Either post a comment or email/facebook Katie or me (if you know us), and we will do what we can to keep you happy.

Also, blogger tells me that our little blog has had over 1000 hits since we started it back in October, so thank you for coming by and having a look! It has definitely added to my culinary experience and exploration to play with taking pictures and get to post about how things worked out. It has also encouraged me to keep trying out new recipes so that I can keep sharing.

Note: I just wanted to make a little note of something in case people have noticed that I post quite a bit more often than Katie does. While teaching is absolutely a full-time job, it does give me most of my nights and weekends relatively free. Katie, on the other hand, is working a full-time job and taking night graduate school classes at the Harvard Extension School (I think I have the name right), along with some other things that take up her time. I've heard that she is cooking and has things to post, but I suspect that her life is just a bit busier than mine. In the meantime, I have free time and am enjoying cooking as a significant part of my personal winding-down time and hobbies, so that's why I am the one dominating the wires for now. 

Valentine's Day Cookies

Well, the actual recipe for these simple sugar cookies is in my last post. I took so many dang pictures of the cookies, though, that I thought it made more sense to just make a post solely devoted to the silly number of pink cookie photos taken. My lovely roommates were so good as to indulge me by consulting on how best to take pictures. They then asked if we could get some kind of poll/response on who had the better photo idea:
heart with gradient of colors or heart with mixed colors
so, please let us know which you prefer!
option a) gradient

option b) mixed

Then I just went on to keep taking pictures. I also got bored in the 15 minute wait time between cookies, so I started making designs out of them, like hearts and weird twists and other things that mostly turned into blobs. Lindsay advised me to layer colors and cut them to they would make checkered squares, so I have some of that going on too. Anyway, less talk and more cookies:

 Another of Lindsay's ideas for cookie design:

And no, I did not have a Valentine. But I did get chocolates from one of my student's for her Name Day and Birthday and another for her Birthday (it is a Bulgarian tradition to hand out chocolates to all of your friends/etc on your name day and birthday), and I am going out to dinner with a few friends, which will be delicious. After getting to play with food coloring and make cookies, I'm pretty happy with my Hallmark holiday.

Update: I also took 18 cookies to my advisory group today, and I am pretty sure teenagers never mind cookies, especially when they are given while they are stuck in a room during their lunch period. 

and kat, don't you cook somewhere, too?

I have become obsessive and a little insecure about making sure my English spelling, punctuation, and grammar are always correct. I am sure that they are not, but since I am now a teacher and taking colored pens with flourish to everything my kids write, I feel obliged to hold up my end of the deal and be damn good at English. At any rate, I am particularly aware of commas and am trying to use them appropriately and when grammatically correct, but I suspect that I often over- or under-do it (not that that's a word). Also, my brain is a little fried as I have graded 54 papers, 36 tests, 36 test corrections in the past 5 days and still have 18 papers to go to finish out this batch of assignments and get new ones in on Friday. I now understand why teachers desks are always full - I have three full trays of papers, stacks for each section and assignment, plus a range of textbooks that I use for lesson planning and fiction books that I have for my students to check out from me for outside reading. But this isn't my personal blog, so let's get back to the kitchen.

In the previous entry, Katie posted pictures of her kitchen so I thought I would do the same. I also think I might follow this up with another entry reflecting back on SK recipes that I have made and linking up. My sister commented on a post asking for more of my actual recipes, so I edited some posts and added a couple at the bottom of them (Courtney's scone recipe and Pia's tomato sauce), and will be sure to include recipes or links to future posts.

Here are some images of the Pink House family kitchen. I love the house that the school provided for the 4 of us on campus, even though my room has the quasi-faulty heater. It is a very homey space and I am instantly at ease and comfortable as soon as I cross our threshold. I really love our kitchen and while I miss my granite countertops from Morocco, both for utility and aesthetics, I like this kitchen much more for its wealth of appliances and the space and presence of our dining table in the kitchen. Without further ado:

Our kitchen... 

pretty straightforward - electric oven/stove, sink, microwave (to my left on my roommate's shelves), the dryer is the appliance opposite

the housekeeper came today and I cleaned up especially well after dinner for the picture, but it generally looks fairly nice but maybe with a little more evidence of our cooking exploits (each of us has a dinner that we cook one night a week plus Abby and I often bake)

Pantry that I share with Kristina - 

top two shelves are mine and in the fridge, I have the second shelf and left bottom drawer

My pantry shelves house things like:

• flour
• oats
• dark brown sugar (light brown isn't available here)
• dried papaya (for snacking)
• rice cakes
• honey
• homemade jam from Koprivshtitsa
• chai tea
• sugar
• yeast
• rice
• pasta
• granola

My fridge has:

• butter, several unsalted for cooking and 1 salted for my toast (oh, what an indulgence!)
• jelly/jam
• greek yogurt
• eggs
• mustard
• pesto
• cyrene cheese (Bulgarian cheese similar to feta)
• fresh basil, sage
• parmesean
• bread

I don't really keep that much in the house - I shop once a week and buy only what I need to make my weekly dinner, anything I plan on baking, and my daily breakfast and lunch. I keep flour, sugar, oats, and honey stocked so I can bake, but most things I buy on an as needed basis.

Another view of the kitchen, from my pantry (my GRE study book on the table, *sigh*)

Like I mentioned above, we have an electronic stove and oven (I think I am a bigger fan of gas, but I am adjusting), microwave (though I rarely use it and don't plan on starting, I found it easy to live without), and a lot of appliances after years of single girls moving in and out of the house - immersion blender, a variety of knives (though I generally stick with the ones Courtney sent me in Morocco), a rolling pin (I bought it because I cook enough with dough that using wine bottles was driving me crazy), slotted spoons and whisks and spatulas, four cutting boards, an electric tea kettle (I never would have suspected that I would use it so often), and many other little doodads that I find thrilling after the dearth of appliances in Morocco but no one else would be as excited to see. 

formative food feelings and recent recipes

Katie told me she's going to do a sort of kitchen survey post soon, which I am excited to see and read, and am planning on piggybacking afterwards, but until then, I just downloaded some recent pictures off my camera and thought I should post them. I know I posted several already from my time cooking here in Bulgaria - vanilla roasted pears, braided lemon bread, tomato and corn pie (what a hit!), homemade pop tarts... I think that's it. Anyway, here at Pink House, the four ladies each have assigned dinner nights so that Sunday through Wednesday, we only cook dinner one night a week and get to have a nice sit down family dinner. It's fun to cook for four people and I quite enjoy the family ambiance - we all sit and discuss our days, funny stories, enjoy eating together, etc. I also am a big fan of tradition in general.

Another thing I wanted to mention after reading Katie's backstory is that my family also was always really insistent upon family dinners. I don't remember them as distinctly before the separation/divorce (I was in 5th grade), but I know they happened every night. After the divorce, they became a really important part of the time spent with whatever parent - Monday nights were always with dad and on a school night, dinner is the main activity, so that became a really big deal with him. Then, when we had weekends with dad - Fri, Sat, Sun - we were pretty much only allowed out one night a weekend (I say we, but I am pretty sure things loosened up a lot for my sister once I moved away to college, but this is all from my perspective, of course) and family dinners were a major thing to be planned in advance. With my mom, while we still alternated weekends, I think more about the regular Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday dinners and having our habitual places at the dinner table, mom next to me, pinching my arm fat or forking my elbows when I talked with my mouth full or put my elbows on the table; Ebe across from mom, facing the kitchen so I could sneak faces at her when I went in for more milk or water. I can't really remember what we ate or too many details other than a few specific nights (once I tried to cook and made a sundried tomato pasta that tasted good but I was miscalculated the portions, so we had a ton of food, and it looked weird and brown and I was eternally teased in my household until I started cooking impressive food recently) and that I definitely argued with my mom a fair amount and thought she was just such an idiot. Now, though, I look back and even though it is all very fuzzy, I appreciate having had spent so much regular time with my family. Even if they aren't spectacular memories, they clearly have made an impression on me because communal dining and having regular dinners with my team in college and friends since has been one of my daily joys.

I also have been thinking quite frequently lately, though I don't think I will go too deeply into it now, that there are a few somewhat negative side effects to this strong family connection to meals and dining. I don't remember really thinking about food or focusing on food much before the divorce - of course, I can't say how much of that is because elementary school kids probably don't think about food much in general as far as nutrition - other than liking Mexican food and queso and ice cream a lot. But after the divorce with mealtime becoming such a major familial act, I feel like I started fixating more on when and what I would eat. On vacations, it is one of the most important aspects -  meal plans, special treats, local cuisine, etc. Sometimes I wish that food wasn't something I loved as much as I do because I think I fixate and depend too much on it for pleasure and fellowship. In college, I thought much less about food than I did in high school or postgraduate life because I was so engaged with crew, classes, and boyfriends that I didn't need food in the same way - I found camaraderie with my team in boats and on the bus, I was intellectually stimulated by professors and in class, I was generally loved and cared for by my boyfriend. But in high school, struggling with dramatic relationships and friendships, not naturally fitting into the social world, denying the difficulties of a divorced household, assuming the roles of head of household well beyond my age and maturity, food was a comfort and a consistent joy. After college, I moved to another country, had a difficult and frustrating job, lived in a narrow and limited social circle, and discovered food as both entertainment and sustenance, as well as one of the few things I could exert any control over in my life. On a more promising note, though, I have found that cooking and interfacing with the sight, smell, and texture of the food throughout the process has heightened the pleasure that I attain from the dining experience and I don't feel the need to keep eating beyond satiation. Also, as I am overall quite happy with my job, living situation, and daily life here in Bulgaria, I am hoping to depend less on food. I do think, though, that I still struggle not having the relationship bonds that I had in college, so I think that is why cooking is something I still really enjoy - even though it's a manual task, it somehow fulfills that absence in my life.

I guess I digressed a lot. My apologies, it's very much a part of my personality to sidetrack, but I am able to assert that I generally am able to get myself back on subject and wrap things up. To prove myself a reliable source, I now give you some pictures:

making granola bars in Pink House kitchen, wearing my roommate's adorable apron

 braided lemon bread

 homemade pop tarts

 zucchini ricotta galette

 chopped garlic, parsley, and romaine and grated parmesan for romaine pesto

 romaine pesto in gutted raw tomato

 tomatoes with romaine pesto

 romaine pesto and egg stuffed tomatoes, ready for baking

 romaine pesto, tomato, and parmesan bruschetta

 romaine pesto and egg stuff tomatoes, bruschetta, and broccoli on a bed of lettuce 

(my monday dinner: sept 27)

 homemade granola muffins - no available baking dishes, so why not?

 homemade pizza dough with improvised romaine and basil pesto

 my Italian host mom's tomato sauce recipe

 pesto and mozzarella pizza, pasta with tomato sauce, and granola muffins

(my monday night dinner: oct 4)

My Italian host mom's tomato sauce recipe, told to me in so many vague words and gestures at our kitchen table in Siena, translated by me from Italian to English:

cover bottom of pan with olive oil 

add 2 chunks of garlic, smushed, and ¼ onion, chopped

add canned tomatoes, with liquid (400 grams), smush into pan (use fork or other utensil to smash tomatoes up in pan)

boil/cook for 15 minutes

add oregano and basil, salt and pepper to taste

Sometimes I add fresh basil with the tomatoes, caramelize the onions first, or add mushrooms with the onions. I have also made this when I didn't have canned tomatoes by boiling fresh tomatoes in a little water and adding some regular tomato paste if available. This takes a little longer, but it still makes a decent tomato sauce. I have read other recipes for making tomato sauce using fresh tomatoes that you blanch and then peel and deseed, so that is another option. I find that the longer and slower you cook the sauce, especially with fresh basil and well cooked onions, the better it tastes. Regardless, it is generally a crowd pleaser.