Still upacking, and now the holidays are here

Well, we are in our new house, and still trying to get settled. This is the largest house we've ever lived in, and it is strange to be able to have space for all of our belongings. We are not fully unpacked yet, but the main level of the house doesn't make me cringe any longer, so that's a good thing. One of these days we will get around to hanging pictures, but I do wonder if we will ever be fully unpacked. No matter what size house I move into, whether it's smaller or larger than the last place I've lived, I find that I always need at least one piece of furniture or something in order to fill that one space. You know that space - that area that your eye invariably moves to that just seems wrong, empty. There are a lot of spaces like that here, yet in an odd way I'm enjoying the emptiness.



This picture was taken a few days after we moved into the house, and it shows all of the open space that surrounds us. You can't quite make out the cornfields that can be seen from our backyard, but they are there. Perhaps it's the open space around that is opening my eyes and helping me enjoy some of this stillness.

Several friends and family have asked for pictures of the house, and I should have taken pictures of the house the day before Thanksgiving, when we celebrated the holiday with Patrick's mother and the house looked good. But, I didn't. Yesterday because we were having leftovers, we thought we'd get a jump on the decorating and pulled out the boxes of Christmas decorations. Now there are decorations everywhere, but nothing is decorated. Our thin false tree that we bought for our small condo in Norfolk is standing in our living room without any ornaments looking quite sad and lonely. Let's hope I can get this posted and the decorations up!

Speaking of the leftovers...




We very rarely have the same recipes year after year for the holidays. Both of us love to try new recipes, and experiment with different flavors. This year the only thing that we have made before was Creamed Corn Gratin that I got from Bon Appetit magazine. It is so good that we have made it every year for Thanksgiving since I found it. The first time was part of a Thanksgiving meal we prepared and delivered to some of Patrick's co-workers that were working on the big day while we were stationed in Italy.

I was impressed with all of the side dishes we made this year, and I will be making them all again. I have always found that most Thanksgiving Sweet Potato recipes are too sweet, but the Sweet Potato Puree with Brown Sugar and Sherry that we tried this year was fantastic. I'm looking forward to using the leftovers to make sweet potato ravioli or gnocchi, or perhaps both!



I particularly loved the Cranberry Nut Rolls . I am going to be making these again and again to have with soups, but especially for breakfast. I had a wonderful breakfast of leftover rolls toasted with butter - um, yum! The only thing that I may do next time is make them a little smaller, to maximize the crust.


The Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Apples were very easy to put together, and would be good as a side dish for any fall or winter dish.

P.S.
Just click on any of the links to get the recipe links! Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Memories and Faraway Friends

I have been thinking a lot about Thanksgiving and what it means to me. I'm not sure if it's just because of the upcoming holidays, or "holidaze" as I like to term it. I think it is because we are so far away from most of our family and friends, and I miss spending time with them. I especially miss cooking for them.

Most people spend the holiday with the family and a select few friends. Before I was married, I only knew the holidays as time spent with family. Gatherings around the table with family, that always ended with discussions about politics. Sometimes fun, but always loud! The food for my family was never the most important thing, it was the gathering and the the love. My grandparents were originally from the New England area, and the dishes I grew up with were all traditional New England Thanksgiving dishes. I miss spending time with family, but I have to admit I do not miss Creamed Onions!

Then I was married, and we were gone. First to Seoul, South Korea where we celebrated with friends. I can't remember many of the details of our first Thanksgiving there, other than the panic of preparing my first big meal for a group of people! We knew how hard it was to be away from family for the holidays and decided to invite anybody who wanted to come. Now that I think about it, it wasn't a huge party, I think there was a over 10 people. But that was more people than I had ever served, and we had to buy more plates, silverware, napkins and glasses! The second year we co-hosted Thanksgiving for a group of mostly single sailors and marines with my friend Chasity who lived 3 floors below us. It was great, and besides the fun, I remember it was the first time I had ever had pecan pie!

Since then, I have celebrated Thanksgiving in 3 different countries, and at least 7 different cities. I've been lucky enough to celebrate through the years with all sets of our families. We've traveled to Dallas to celebrate with Patrick's father and step-mother. Soon after I met my father, he became ill, and we came here to St. Louis to spend the last Thanksgiving that my father got to see with him and his family.

I think about all of the friends that I have fed at our house, and all of the friends who have fed us at their houses. I also think about good friends that I have not had the opportunity to celebrate with. For all of the times that family is far away, friends have become family, and I miss everyone of them.

This is for every member of our immediate families, as well as our friends that are like family: Chasity, Danielle, Tara and Marvin, Crystal and Rob, Shazi and Bernard, Shastie and Ed, Tammy and Marvin, Maureen and Tim , David, Valarie, Michelle and Dan, Craig and Mikal, and Sean and Shay. I'm sorry if I forgot anyone. I love you all!!

Moving and a simple recipe

It has been over a month since I've sat down with the computer, and tried to write something here. I wish I had a good excuse, but I don't think there is such a thing!

Things are still in flux, but we are not moving from the St. Louis area. The last time I wrote, we were most likely moving to DC. Well, the negotiations fell through for that job, so we decided to stay here. Within a week of realizing that we weren't moving to DC, a friend and co-worker of Patrick's put their house on the market. We have been to their house before and loved it. They bought in a little over a year ago, brand new, and he put a lot of work into the house. The biggest reason for wanting this house was the finished basement that Jim did. He put in a spacious bar and pool table which is staying with the house! SO... we put a contract in on it. We are moving right before Halloween. Which is VERY soon!

Now, the house that we are renting is the first actual house that either of us have ever lived in. We've lived in apartments, condos and townhouses - but never a house. And now we are going to have one of our very own. It's in the country, but close to Patrick's work in Illinois. You can see cornfields from the backyard! I'm not sure how I'm going to adjust to it, being the city girl that I am. But, I'm so excited. We finally are going to have room to put all of our stuff. We have so many beautiful things that we have picked up from our travels, and we've never had them all out. Plus, we are going to have room for guests! So, pack your suitcases, and come to stay for a while... I am looking forward to having visitors that I can cook for!

I haven't been cooking very much for the last month or so. Mainly just heating things up. But I was standing in line the other day at the grocery store, and was staring at the magazines, when I saw a picture for Ravioli with Apples and Walnuts on the cover of the October issue of Real Simple. So, I bought the magazine, and tried the recipe last night. It has been so long since I've served something good or even thought about writing, that I didn't think about taking a picture of the finished product, but it was absolutely delicious. I have to say I was a bit unsure as I was putting the ingredients together, because it didn't seem like much. But one bite changed my mind. I can't describe how the ingredients come together, but wow. This is definitely something that we will be making again, and soon!

Click on this link to get the recipe from Real Simple.

Life is a work in progress

I don't know about you, but lately I've been re-evaluating just about everything. I believe that my life has always been a work in progress, but for some reason now more than ever. I have never felt very comfortable with myself, physically or otherwise. I'm trying many different things, and one of them is that I joined Weight Watchers. I don't know if it has been apparent by the types of recipes I've posted recently, but I've been doing it for a few months now. I have lost 15 pounds so far. I still have a long way to go to where I would like to be, but it's O.K. I'm happy with how it is going.

We also may be moving, again. It is not definite, but it is a very real possibility. St. Louis was not originally in our thoughts as to where we would end up once Patrick retired from the Navy. So, moving is not a huge shock, but I did think we may be here for a bit longer than we have been! As always, I am excited for the new adventures awaiting us. However... I am not looking forward to moving only 9 months since our last move. In the last 14 years we have moved 7 times. It's always fun to live in new places, and experience new things. It's the actual moving I despise. The packing, organizing, the angry cats, finding a new home, and then the unpacking and trying to get everything in it's place.

We have collected so many objects and art from all of our travels, that we had over 11,000 pounds of, well, crap when we moved here. One of my many goals for the next month (HA, who am I kidding, next year) is to go through most of this stuff we have accumulated and to donate the things we do not need or want and throw away the things that no one else could possibly want. Sometimes I wish that I was one of those people who only had a few things and could move with a small moving truck. I've read several articles about the 100 Things Challenge. These people downsize their belongings to 100 articles. Some people have adjusted this a bit, and count a collection of say, books as 1 item. I know that I will never be able to downsize that much and truly I don't think I would want to downsize that much. I like my things too much, but I do think it is time to scale back and only keep the things that I need or love. There are some great articles and blogs out there about this, and the following are my favorites:

How to Live with Just 100 Things
The Art of Zen Living
Guy Named Dave's 100 Thing Challenge

I have been mulling over how to put into words some of the thoughts that are jumbling around in my head to end this particular writing, and nothing I type makes sense in the way that I was hoping. So, I found this quote that I thought was very apropos of both this blog and this tangent that my mind is on!

Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour. ~Arthur Schopenhauer

Pasta with artichokes and carrots

I know it's been much too long since I've stopped by to say hello. I have no real excuses, because honestly, I haven't been very busy. The only exciting thing that has happened this past month was that we got to go to the All Star Game that was held here in St. Louis. How often do you get the advantage of living in the city in which something big like that is happening? Patrick is a huge baseball fan, so we knew we had to go. We had a great time, and got to spend some time with friends who came from Virginia to see the game.



When we took this job, we knew that Patrick would be doing shift-work, and that the rotation would be every 3 months, switching between days, swings and mids. So, when his schedule changed again we weren't too upset. He is now working the swing shift which means he leaves the house just before 1 in the afternoon, and gets back home about 10:45 at night. The only real problem with this, as I'm sure you can guess, has been the change that I've had to do in order to get lunch and dinner ready. We like to have lunch before he leaves for work, and he normally takes his dinner in to work. I've come to realize that I don't like to do a lot of cooking at 9 in the morning. I'm just not quite awake enough to be wielding a knife with anything but trepidation before I've had coffee. Breakfast items are O.K. at that time, as are getting things started that need to cook for hours such as pasta sauce or a roast. But to cook the main meal at that time, and then eat immediately afterwards is just a little daunting at that hour. I really don't know what we have been eating, although I have vague recollections of some less than appealing foods. Things that I've tried to pull together as well as - horror of all horrors - prepared foods. Which hopefully explains my absence!



Needless to say, what I am attempting to do is begin cooking the day before. Which means that in the morning I'm not rushing around trying to get lunch ready. For the following dish - Pasta with artichokes and carrots, I made the sauce last night, so this morning all I had to do was cook the spinach fettuccine and crumble the goat cheese. I normally would prefer to use fresh artichokes, but this time I took the easy way out and used frozen. I love artichokes, but they can be unwieldy to prepare. This is a really great dish, very light tasting, which is great for the summer, but it is also very filling and best of all good for the waistline.

Pasta with artichokes and carrots
From "The Mayo Clinic Williams Sonoma Cookbook"


1 pound dried spinach fettuccine
1 tablespoon olive oil
16 oz frozen artichoke hearts, cut lengthwise into thin strips
8 carrots, finely diced
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/3 cup dry vermouth
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme or 2 teaspoons dried thyme
1/2 cup crumbled soft goat cheese

Fill a large pot three-quarters full of water and bring to a boil. Add the pasta and cook until al dente, about 10 minutes, or according to package directions.

While the pasta cooks, in a large nonstick frying pan over medium-high heat, heat the olive oil. Add the artichoke hearts, carrots, and red pepper flakes and saute until the carrots are tender, 5 - 7 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds longer. Add the vermouth, lemon juice and thyme. Cook, stirring, 30 seconds longer.

Remove 1/4 cup of the pasta cooking water, then drain the pasta thoroughly. Add the reserved cooking water and pasta to the vegetables. Stir and toss to combine.

To serve, divide among 6 individual plates. Top each with an equal amount of the goat cheese.

Open faced wasabi-horseradish crab melt

It has been almost 10 years since I first tried an open faced crab melt sandwich. Patrick and I had just moved back to Seattle, after living in Seoul for two years. It was a stressful time because Patrick was gone for almost a year of the year and a half we were home. We were living in Ballard, and because he wasn't home very much we weren't able to go out very much.

It was an unusual evening because Patrick was actually home, and we wanted to get out of the house and do something, but we didn't know what we wanted to do. We were not starving, but wanted to get a little something to eat - not a full meal. We got in the car and started driving around. We spotted this dive bar on the water, and it looked like a great place to hang out. I wish that I could remember the name of the bar that we stopped in, although it may not even be there anymore! It was a dark and smoky bar with a jazz band playing, and everyone seemed to know each other. I cannot believe that we only went there once, it was just the type of place we like to go to. We ordered some wine, but also wanted a little something to munch on. That was when we saw the open faced crab melt on an english muffin. As soon as we took one bite, we knew we had found something wonderful. I'm not sure if I can do justice in describing the seemingly easy combination of flavors that make up the delicious flavor of a crab melt.

Because it is a very rich dish, I haven't made them in a very long time. But the other day, when I realized I had leftover crab from the crab and avocado quesadilla I had made for dinner, this was the first thing I thought about.

If you have never tried Bay's english muffins, I highly recommend them. You find them in the refrigerated section of the grocery store, and they are my favorite.

Some crab melts use a lot of mayonnaise and cheese, but I wanted to put a different flavor on these crab melts and make them a little healthier. I decided that a wasabi-horseradish would add some heat and flavor, and allow me to use less mayonnaise.

In order to cut some of the cheese, I used just a sprinkling of freshly grated Parmesan to the top of the melts to give just a touch of flavor. I plated the tomato to the side of my crab melts, but I put the tomato on top to eat.

Open Faced Wasabi-Horseradish Crab Melts on English Muffins

This is what I did, but you may need to adjust the seasoning to your tastes. If you do not like spicy food, use all mayonnaise in place of the wasabi-horseradish.

1 teaspoon olive oil
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1/4 cup finely chopped red bell pepper
1 clove garlic, finely mined
1/2 pound lump crab meat, picked over for shells and cartilage
1 teaspoon mayonnaise
1 tablespoon creamy wasabi-horseradish sauce
1 teaspoon lemon juice, or to taste
salt and pepper to taste
4 teaspoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese, or to taste
2 english muffins, split and lightly toasted
1 tomato, sliced

Preheat the broiler, and arrange english muffins on a baking sheet. Saute the onions, bell pepper and garlic in the olive oil until the onion is translucent. Combine the sauteed vegetables, crab meat, mayonnaise, wasabi and lemon juice. Season to taste with salt, pepper and additional lemon juice if needed. Mound the mixture on top of each english muffin and sprinkle with freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Broil the melts for 3 to 4 minutes or until they are warmed through and the tops are caramelized. Serve with tomato slices.

Old Clothes and Photography

Ever since I started this blog, I have been fighting with myself over what my intentions are. There are so many wonderful food blogs out there, and I doubt if I have read one-tenth of them! Some read like wonderful short stories, some have you drooling over the dishes that they describe, and most of them have fantastic photography.

Once upon a time, I loved taking pictures. I even thought that I would not make a half-bad photographer. But somewhere along the way I seem to have misplaced that particular talent. Some of this is for lack of trying, I didn't pick up a camera for years. And now that I started this blog, I am forgetting to take pictures of every step of the cooking process. Sometimes even forgetting to take pictures of the final product! I have been getting very frustrated with both the lighting in this house, and the cameras that I am using. I would love to lay the blame on them, but perhaps it could just be user error.

My intention is to write at least once a week. A recipe that I want to share with everyone, with beautiful pictures and intelligent writing. I haven't been living up to that intention, but I am going to try harder.

This particular dish is a prime example of my forgetfulness. I made this last night, and did not even once think of taking a picture. I know that Ropa vieja, or "old clothes" does not make a pretty picture, especially if you are taking it the next day without much fuss. But it is a wonderful dish. This version is not a traditional Cuban recipe, but it is one that I came up with one day when I didn't want to go to the store. My onions had gone bad, and I had no bell peppers, but I did have a beef brisket in the freezer, lots of spices and some rice. I know it takes a long time to cook, but it is something you can put on the stove and almost forget about. I try to make this a few times a year and stash some in the freezer for quick meals. I usually serve at least a few servings over rice. It is terrific in just about any Mexican or Cuban dish, nachos, quesadillas, burritos or tacos. It is also fantastic added to scrambled eggs for a hearty breakfast.

Ropa vieja or Shredded Beef over Rice

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 4 pound boneless top chuck roast, trimmed of all visible fat
salt and pepper
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 can crushed tomatoes
1 can tomato puree
2 cups water
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon celery salt
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon onion powder
1/2 tablespoon black pepper
1/2 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1/2 tablespoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon dried mustard
1 1/2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

rice, for serving

Heat the vegetable oil in a large heavy dutch oven over medium high heat. Season the roast generously with salt and pepper, and place carefully in the hot oil. Brown all sides of the roast.
Combine all remaining ingredients, except rice and pour over the meat. Cover and reduce heat to low. Check the liquid occasionally and turn the roast to get all sides in the liquid. Cook for 4 hours or until the meat is tender. Remove roast from the liquid and shred meat. Return the meat to the juices and increase the heat to reduce the sauce, if needed. Season to taste, and serve over rice.