Last night I threw together an old stand by.
Potato Bowl
I thought I only had 20 minutes to throw something together before my class last night, so I picked out a big potato, baked it in the microwave, threw some cheddar, salsa, broccoli, and mushrooms on it, and it was delicious. Sometimes a microwaved potato is all you need.
If only I knew that both my students last night would cancel! I would have baked that potato up right.
PT's Dinner
PT got home and cooked himself up this amazing pasta dinner. He sauteed up some mushrooms, olives, garlic, and sun dried tomatoes in olive oil and threw it on some whole wheat pasta, finishing it with some fresh parmesan. He gave me a bite, and I’m sure I would have liked it but for my intense dislike of olives. In any case, the boy’s dinner beat the crap out of mine.
Pasta Salad Lunch
To make myself feel better about my culinary skills, this morning I got up early and made a pasta salad for our lunches. I packed mine so I could eat lunch before going to the gym, something I wanted to do right from work. Delicious!
This was the first time I’ve packed a lunch, eaten it at work, and gone straight to the gym when I got off work. I like it! That way I don’t go home and get distracted. I pack my clothes, my lunch, and I’m off! I’ll be doing this more often.
Mark Bittman had a blog recently about saving money by cooking at home. You know how much I love saving money by cooking delicious food at home, so I was all about this article. Unfortunately I already do everything suggested (eat less meat, cook more beans, grains, cook in bulk, buy on sale, etc), but I did want to try this no-knead bread recipe that apparently costs 68 cents to bake and was super easy.
1. In a large bowl combine 3 cups flour, 1/4 tsp yeast, and 1 1/4 tsp of salt. Add 1 5/8 cups of water and stir up until blended, it will be sticky. Let rise 18 hours.
Post Rise
I let it rise like 20 hours. The recipe says, ‘dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles’. Totally done, right?
‘Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.’
Done. Easy.
‘Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel with flour’ put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours.’
Um?
Could I have messed this up? I used a ton of flour when it says to use ‘just enough’, and look at my hand! Right now I’m an hour and 18 minutes into the let rise for 2 hours part. Though, the recipe says, ‘when it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.’ Unless this puppy is going to more than double its size in the next 42 minutes, I fucked up a recipe Mark Bittman made a point to say: ‘The method is surprisingly simple — I think a 4-year-old could master it — and the results are fantastic.’
So I’m not quite saying I should have kidnapped a 4 year old to make this bread for me, but I have some low expectations. What the hell did I do?
My only bit of solace comes in the last instruction: it may look like a mess, but that is ok. It sure as hell looks like a mess alright. This is God telling me to stop being so cocky about my cookies and muffins.
‘You think you’re Martha Stewert?’ I hear him scoff as I look down at my soggy, sticky dough. Who knew God scoffed?
