In Which Monday Menu Mayhem Bounces Back

YOU GUYS.

There are explanations to be made involving travelling for work, moving (Hello, Scout Camp!) having one day out of fourteen to get settled after moving, and then an epic hurricane that knocked out power to everyone I know for at least 3 days.

But explanations are boring, and I have a feeling you didn't notice one way or another that this blog has been shockingly void of new material since July (!!).

So let's just get right back in to it, shall we?

And, starting back on the right foot, I of course have no photo to offer of the Ten-Hour Chicken I made for  Ma, Pa, and Baby Bro Jones on this glorious Labor Day.

I do, however, have an explanation.

It's a Gwyneth concoction, and it's actually the second time I've made it: you squeeze a half a lemon over each end (front/back, top/bottom, whatever you want to call it) of the chicken, then thoroughly salt-and-pepper the whole thing.  Stuff the lemon halves and 3-4 cloves of garlic into the chicken, put it in the pan, and put another 3-4-5 cloves of garlic in the pan, seal tightly with foil, then cook at 200 for nine and a half hours.  At the nine and a half hour mark, you pump the oven up to 400, remove the foil, re-salt-and-pepper, and chuck back in the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until the skin reaches desired brownth.

This is some of the best chicken I've ever eaten.  The foil seal and slow cook keeps all of the moisture in, and all of that lemon and garlic infuses in to every square inch of the chicken.  Additionally, the juice that ends up at the bottom of the pan makes for (literally) effortlessly delicious gravy.

The original recipe calls for the chicken to be cooked breast-side down for the nine and a half hours, and then flipped when the browning needs to occur.  We tried this the first time, and the problem becomes that after nine and a half hours, the chicken falls the frak apart.  In a great way.  In a glorious way.  In a way that makes it impossible to be flipped intact.

Make this chicken, friends.  Make it right side up, and enjoy every bite.

In Which Monday Menu Mayhem Reviews a Book.

Remember what I said last time about the apologizing?  Right.

In the way that A Lot Like Love is frothy, fun, sexy nonsense, If His Kiss Is Wicked is delicious, substantial loveliness.

Next time I hesitate about reading a Jo Goodman book, someone bash me vigorously about the head with a sharp object, mmmmmk?

(This is my second Goodman book, if you’ll recall. Last year I read the highly recommended Never Love a Lawman. I’ve been sitting on this one since then for reasons known only to The Goddess of Deciding Which Book to Read)

The place to begin when reviewing books is with the summary. But I have to be honest, I have no idea how to summarize the plot of this book, and I don’t really want to. It’s best when it unfolds before you, because it’s so layered and nuanced, and no summary I could give would do it justice.

What I will talk about, though, is the relationship between the protagonists, Emma and Restell. It is not spoiling anything to say that Emma seeks Restell out for protection, Restell provides it, and their relationship grows from there. Two of their exchanges had me so enthralled that I had to note them.

The first comes when Restell proposes marriage, and Emma questions him on a great number of things, including his logic for making such a proposal and his reasons for not making the same one to her cousin:

“No.” He sipped his tea. “I am not going to propose to your cousin, Emma, so you should not entertain hope on that score.”
“I only suggested it to point out the failure of your reasoning, not because I hoped you would act on it. If we were to marry, you could expect to hear regular reports on your failures of reason. That should give you pause.”
“That depends. Would you apprise me of them at breakfast or dinner?”
“Breakfast, I suspect.”
“Then it presents no problem. I will be reading my paper and am likely to ignore you.”

This exchange, in case you were wondering, is perfection crispy-fried on a stick. Two droll personalities (clearly established), hashing out that most romantic of pursuits in the least romantic way possible. And yet the idea of the contented, real love the picture presents is flawless (after all, who doesn’t know a happily married couple who engages in that sort of behavior?)

The second passage that caught my attention comes after they are married, right after Emma realizes she loves Restell. She comes home and collapses on the chaise with a cold compress over her eyes. That’s where Restell finds her:

“Lady Rivendell announced to your mother, your married sisters, and Marisol that I clearly love you. You will not credit it, Restell, but I am certain she’s right.”
Restell found a space on the chaise where he could sit. He lowered himself somewhat slowly to that spot as he considered his response. “So you came home and prostrated yourself across the chaise. Yes, I can see how that would be the thing to do. The compress makes me think the feeling has not passed.”

Goodman is the master of showing not telling. I mean, look at those passages. Emma wants Restell even at the beginning (note that she does not want him to propose to her cousin), but she never makes any grand declaration. Rather she proceeds cautiously, making sure he has thought everything through.

For his part, Restell questions Emma a bit more on the chaise:

“Does [this newfound feeling] make you afraid?”
“A little.”
“Then I am not the only one. That is good to know.”

So much subtlety! Such depth! I love love love this book. It’s absolutely freaking glorious. Just go read it, OK? I’ll even loan you my copy if you promise to bring it back.

In Which Monday Menu Mayhem Cannot Get Its Act Together

Yesterday was a holiday so it doesn't count, right?

Right?

So I totally cooked, but then got distracted by things like Alias marathons, fireworks, people playing Katy Perry songs about fireworks, John Adams on HBO, and the shockingly bad dialogue from Independence Day.

I was like, 12 when that movie came out.  I remember it being a lot more badass.

And then it was way too late to be Mayheming, and I hoped you all would understand.  I'm only human, and this summer is already kicking my ass.  And it's only July 5, you guys.

We had to go with simple cooking this weekend, because nothing else about this glorious three-day-off-ness was simple.  I roasted some cauliflower.

Gwyneth told me how to do it-- 425 degree oven, olive oil-salt-and-pepper-tossing, 35 minutes with the occasional stir.  Donezo.

This recipe was a little shocking to me because I kind of adored it.  A lot.  I am not classically a cauliflower fan ("Why the eff would you make it, then," you ask? "Er... Because I'm out of my mind?") but this was awesome.  The sweetness was perfect, and there was enough caramelization to make me srsly happy.

No picture.  I think I might have failed to mention how much I absolutely do not have my act together.  I didn't forget to mention that?  OK.  Good.

In Which Monday Menu Mayhem Apologizes

It is with a thousand apologies that I beg your forgiveness for the lack of Thoroughly Obsessed Thursday last week.  You may or may not know that I was travelling, and quite honestly, Thursday came and went without my even thinking about this blog.  Sacrilege, darling.

At any rate, I've still got a buttload of reviews up my sleeve AND I COOKED THIS WEEKEND.  Somehow.  I cooked.

It was way simple, too.  Basically Gwyneth told me to cook up some soy sauce, honey, mirin (Substitute with sake?  Yeah, sure!), ginger (Which you should not lose in the bottom of your Whole Foods bag), and cilantro (Which you should not ignore, because you're "one of those people" who can't even look at cilantro without getting squicked).  Once that's all cool, she told me to marinate some salmon in it.

Presto.

I liked this recipe, though I think I would have liked it better if we had let the salmon marinate longer (than an hour).  The honey makes sure everything gets a little crispy under the broiler, and all of the flavors blend perfectly with the salmon.  I do recommend boiling the marinade down afterward to make a sauce, but I do not recommend boiling it down to the point that it turns into a preliminary version of tar.  Like I did.

We've been experimenting with a lot of marinades lately (to dress up my constant servings of protein), and while this was not my favorite, I think it has a lot of potential, and I would like to play with it some more.  I would also like to try it on the grill (As opposed to in the broiler, per the recipe and our own cooking limitations) but that will have to wait for another time.

Up next?  Reviews like you've never seen them before!!

In Which Monday Menu Mayhem is Hot

Greetings mayhem-ers, from sunny, hot as hell Phoenix. Yep, that's right, we're on the road this week, and I've already begun to regret my books-for-forced-reading choices. Don't worry, I'm sure I'll get over it.

In the meantime, we cooked! Somehow, in the midst of a truly insane Father's Day weekend (Yay Dad and Granddads Jones!), I made Chilled Cucumber Soup for dinner.

And boy, would Boy Scout appreciate it if I never made such a thing, like, ever again.

It's not that it was bad, it was just not really anywhere in the vicinity of good. Something about cucumbers and a whole mess of onions (red, scallions) seemed like just the right thing, but then turned out not to be.

Full disclosure: I used fat free dairy products in the making of this soup (Greek yogurt and half & half), and left out the dill, mostly because I couldn't find any anywhere. Granted, I didn't try too hard because it's not my favorite thing in the world, but nonetheless, if I had found some, I would have used it.

Anyway, you're supposed to stick 2 cucumbers, a red onion, 6 scallions, the yogurt and the half & half in the blender. Which I did. Then I added the lemon juice as required before serving. I did not garnish with shrimp because I did not feel it was necessary. It was just the two of us, after all, but I suspect this is half of Boy Scout's problem. If only because he told to me outright that that was part of his problem.

I really did take a picture if the soup, but right now it requires more effort than I have to expend to figure out how to get that picture from the gallery in my phone to this blog entry right here. It is a shockingly difficult task.

Voila. Monday? Check. Menu? Check. Mayhem? Check. Stay cool out there.

In Which Monday Menu Mayhem Comes Back With a Vengeance.

Friends, blog-ees, countrymen.

First if all, thank you for your epic amounts of patience with my absentee-ism.  It's been a long-ass two weeks (Two out of the last three Mondays I have dined at the Legal Seafood at Logan Airport.  And those are not the only two times I have been to Logan in the past two weeks).  I had intended to be back in full-force last week, but this was one of those "vacations" that doubles as the exact polar opposite of a vacation, and I'm afraid I had to spend all of my spare time last week sleeping, decompressing and... reading :)

Yes, I have five book reviews in my back pocket.  No, I'm not going to break them out right now.

NOT ON MONDAY MENU MAYHEM!!

So.  As we bust through the first half of 2011 (holyhellhowdidthathappen?) we bust through MMM paradigms.  We are not a Nigella-only establishment any longer.  We still heart Nigella, and we will still cook from Nigella Kitchen like nobody's business.  But enough of this self-limiting nonsense, yes?

This weekend was filled with cooking and cooking and more cooking, which is a little shocking, because I'm on this new diet (I promise not to mention this excessively... I can really think of nothing more boring than that... I'm also not an advertising campaign for anything except books, so I'm not going to name the diet.  I'll just say it's working).  ANYWAY, I'm on this new diet, and I basically can eat... chicken.  So this cooking thing was surprising and heartening, given that I was afeared the MMM would have to go away for a while.

I made kale chips.  Dude, I don't even know what came over me.  I've been hearing a lot about them recently, and then a friend on Facebook made them and posted about it, and basically my thought process was "If someone I know in real-life is making them and it's not only the food of my faux-BFF Gwyneth Paltrow, I must be able to make them too."  In other words, it became less an ambrosia, and more of a mortal food.

It was super easy too!  Tear up some kale.  Toss with olive oil.  Roast for about 10 minutes at 400.  Also, use considerably less salt than I did.  Potato chips these were not, but as far as toasted leafy greens go, they got thumbs up from none other than a seriously skeptical Boy Scout.  After announcing that they were just "aiight," he proceeded to keep stealing pieces out of the bowl while lecturing me on the fact that I was removing them from Scout Camp to my office for the week.  I'll take that as a "like."

There was also the traditional roasting of the tomatoes, which is truly one of the great seasonal ironies.  Must roast fresh tomatoes.  When are tomatoes the best?  In the broiling summer sun!  How do we roast tomatoes?  By turning on the oven for HOURS at a time.  This is also a Gwyneth recipe: more chopping, more tossing with the olive oil (also salt and pepper), and then thrown on a cookie sheet face up for about 3 hours on 275.  Voila.  I really try to save these for things... salads, sauces, soups... but then I just eat them out of the bowl in about 10 minutes.  They're that awesome.

That's not all we made this weekend, but that's about all I'm prepared to sum-up for the time being.  My hands are out of practice with all of this typing...

Happy Monday, everyone.  And thanks for having me back.

In Which Monday Menu Mayhem is Disappointed

Another weekend, another Nigella recipe.

A word about this: we've now been dissecting Nigella Kitchen since the beginning of the year.  I don't know how you all feel about it, but I have been generally pleased with the experience.  That said, it's coming up on June, and I'm running out of recipes that I want to make out of this book, in addition to the fact that I now have the Gwyneth Paltrow Bible, and Boy Scout regularly cooks from Barefoot Contessa's Back to Basics.  The next few weeks are pretty insane in the membrane, but I think that come June 1, we'll extend our Mayhem into other venues.  Oh, Nigella's still on the... menu.  We're just expanding the choices.

In the meantime, Sunday night meant the trial of My [Her] Mother's Prized Chicken.  Photographic evidence:

Yes, there is chicken under there.  As is a serving of white rice.

This recipe was actually a huge disappointment to be.  When something is called Your Mother's Prized anything, you know it's got to be something special.  At least, that's my interpretation of that title.  What this boiled down to (har) was a poached chicken soup.

You brown a whole chicken, add vermouth, carrots, leeks, and celery, over it with herbs and cold water and simmer for 2 hours.

That's it.

So yeah, I should have known it would have been awfully boring (In fact, I did... I added a huge glug of white wine with the cold water), but somehow I expected it all to magically pull together.  The healthy dose of mustard prescribed for serving in the recipe along with salt and pepper saved us from bland-hell, but ultimately I came to the conclusion that if I wanted chicken soup, my own made-up recipe was better.  And as far as fancy, long-cook Sunday dinners go, there are a lot better ones out there.

As Boy Scout said, there was nothing wrong with this dish, but there was certainly nothing spectacular about it, either.

In Which Monday Menu Mayhem is Way Ahead of the Game

I made this recipe so long ago I might not be able to tell you everything I remember about it.

No, I'm just kidding.

(But I might not be)

Last week was Dinner with Granny and Granddad Jones Week, and since Granny is the one who bought me the wondrous book, I try to cook from it with them when I can.  And thank goodness for the miraculous iPad.  Without it, there would not be a picture of our glorious creation:

So this is the Mortadella and Mozzarella Frittata.  I really wanted to make something springy and light-- it was not an awesome day weather-wise, but it's May, dammit!  Time to stop slaving over a dutch oven and make a move toward easy and quick.

This was very easy and quick, too.  Six eggs, chopped mortadella, chopped mozzarella, parsley, and a little bit of fresh parm, all thrown in the frying pan and then LEFT ALONE.  I have to emphasize this, because I have a tendency to stir, and had to re-read those directions about twelve times in order to ensure that I wasn't supposed to do anything but stare at the pan.

After about 5 minutes you transfer your (oven-proof!) skillet to the broiler, and let the top finish cooking.  Pop the frittata out of the pan and cut it like a cake.  Serve alongside this plain green salad, made better with Gwyneth's Mustard Vinaigrette (already a favorite).

And there you have it.  Simple.  Elegant.  Filling.  I'm excited about it because it was delicious, but it also lends itself to any combination of meats, cheeses, and veggies, and you better believe there will be experimenting in the future.

In Which Monday Menu Mayhem Makes Chorizo and Chickpea Stew

This is one I've been dying to make pretty much since I got the book.

First of all it uses bulgur wheat, which I have never worked with.  And the first step calls to toast bits of angel hair pasta, which is then cooked with the wheat.  I also have decided that two of my new favorite things are chorizo and chickpeas, so... yeah.  That part's pretty self-explanatory.  Behold:

Needless to say, this stew was incredibly filling.  And with the presence of apricot pieces and cinnamon, it's a little bit... weird.  Like, "I'm pretty unsure about these first couple of bites" weird.  Boy Scout was seriously skeptical.  But by the end of the meal he had announced that it was perfect, don't change a thing in the future, and I'm almost with him.

This Egyptian-inspired dish (taught to Nigella herself by an Egyptian friend) uses things in (what we would consider) unusual combination.  You know, like cinnamon and apricots and chorizo and canned tomatoes.  But it was delicious and wholesome.  And it was quick and easy to make.

I think in the future I would omit the apricots, or at least, I wouldn't freak out if I made the dish and forgot them.  They definitely added flavor, but the savory-spiciness was so good, it was almost jarring to have that extra bit of sweet, too.  Definitely worth investigating.

Once again we have a dish that was probably better the next day (Boy Scout?), but once again it does perfectly well on day one.

Hooray for Monday!

In Which Monday Menu Lives, Sleeps, Eats, and Breathes Mayhem

My goodness friends.  What a weekend.

The relocation of Scout Camp was at once exhausting (ohholyhellmovingtakesforever) and exhilarating (more cabinet space! more counter space!)  But after one and a half days of takeout and pizza (the movers' food of choice), I finally took matters into my own hands on Saturday night, made Scout drive me to Whole Foods, and made not one, not two, but THREE Nigella dishes.

OK, one of them was a repeat, but I can't quite bring myself to care.

Firstly there was the Chicken with Lardons and Lentils, a one-pot meal that is originally intended for one according to the recipe instructions:

(Note the terribly appetizing cleaning supplies and the Le Creuset box in the background.  WE DON'T MESS AROUND, FRIENDS)

Having never cooked with lentils before, I was nervous about doubling everything (for two) and what it would do to the consistency of the thing.  In the end, all was well, though, as this hearty, healthy meal gave us the energy to... get up from the couch and get ready for bed.  I did double the lentils and the liquid, but rather than putting in four cups of water (as called for) I did three cups of water and one cup of wine.  Sure, it was a lot of wine (good drinking wine, too!), but I felt like adding flavor was better than not.

The other best part of this meal was that in the end there was plenty of lentil stew left over, and when we added in the shreds of extra chicken from our individual breasts (har har... breasts) (sorry, I'm still loopy) there was plenty enough for lunch the next day.

Oh yeah, and it did need the added salt and pepper.

Easter dinner (such as it was... I had to keep reminding myself that Sunday was Easter) (sorry, we don't need to get into my religious convictions right now) was the Pork and Apple Hotpot redux, which was better than the first time, even though I can't tell you why (it might have been the improvisation of more flour and therefore thicker sauce...?).  Dessert was new, though.  Behold, Lemon Polenta Cake:

I liked this cake because it's gluten-free and lemony fresh.  It's made with almond flour and polenta, with the addition of a little lemon zest (in the cake) and a good soaking with lemon syrup after the baking.  Don't get me wrong, it's tart.  And it's sweet.  Like I like my... cakes.  And my men.

I think Scout was unsure of this one, but I wouldn't hesitate to make it again for a nice spring occasion, or really as a go-too dessert for gluten-free friends.

So there.  One week, two new recipes.  BLAMMO.

In Which Monday Menu Mayhem is Late, But Worth It

In a weekend filled with chaos and illness (parties! recovering from parties! attic cleaning! and all with no internets in the home!) I managed to make one of the biggest Nigella meals yet.

How does this happen?  Well, for starters, one has to be thinking clearly enough in advance to remember to bring The Book down from Scout Camp (check).  And then, one has to have a dinner party in order to excuse the cooking of excessive amounts of food (donezo).  Finally, Wendy Pan has to give you permission to cook the meal at the aforementioned dinner party (yeah, that's really hard).

Anyway, I decided to make the Standing Rib Roast with Mushroom Sauce and Cheddar Mash.

We took pictures, but unfortunately none of them managed to come out looking like food.

First, the rib roast.  Really huge, but really simple, just rub it down with equal parts salt, mustard powder, and garlic oil (Full disclosure: the recipe called for 1 tsp garlic oil and 1 tsp truffle oil... yeah.  Didn't have any of that.  Doubling up on garlic is never a bad idea, though).  Chuck the beast in a 425 degree oven until it's... raring to go.  (I'm sorry... but not really.)

The rib roast was disappointing to me.  I had never cooked one before, and neither had Wendy Pan, so we didn't really know what to expect.  I had bought a nice chunk of meat from a nice local butcher, but I have to say that I was not impressed with the cut.  It was rare (as we prefer it) but it was still dry and borderline tough.  The stuff around the ribs was amazing, but there was also a fair amount of fat mixed in there, too.  That said, the rub was divine.  Like, super duper divine.  Wendy Pan's already planning to use it on her new cooking obsession, pork butts.  It would also be rockin' on beef tenderloin, and really, any type of pork, and I will be using it on all of the above in the future.

The mushroom sauce, thank goodness, went a long way toward helping the dryness.  But then, it involved a stick of butter and a cup of marsala.  Can't really go wrong with that.  It really did have the perfect amount of sweetness and richness to compliment the beef.  The recipe called to add the roast's pan drippings, and I did... but I don't think I will next time.  It added an unnecessary amount of fat to the mushrooms, and not that much more flavorful goodness.

Finally, the cheddar mash.  Did you know that I make bangin' mashed potatoes?  No?  Well I do.  So I have serious expectations for mashed potatoes that are someone else's recipe.  These just called for potatoes, cheddar, and milk.  And even though I added more cheddar than these called for, I still found that they were pretty boring.  Like, if the cheddar's not going to add much more to the flavor of the straight mash, then why am I going to bother to add it?

Here's the thing about this meal: much of it was a learning experience (and fortunately the dinner guests fall in the "friends who are family" category and could be experimented on without paranoia).  I would totally serve the same(-ish) meal again, but now I know how to do it better.  Pick a better cut of meat.  Make the mushrooms straight out of the book (without drippings).  And make your own mashed potatoes, dammit.  (I'll tell you about them sometime.  They're epic)

Next epic Nigella meal?  Ham Hocs in Cider.  I'm not even joking.  Now I just have to find the time...

In Which Monday Menu Mayhem Gets Weird (In the Good Way)

At this point, it must be a little broken-record-y for me to talk about the insanity that is La Vida Jones.  However, this weekend was no exception, and thank ever-loving goodness Boy Scout looked at me on Saturday morning and said, "What are we cooking this weekend?"  There was one shot to figure out what we were cooking, get the ingredients, and cook.  Like, seriously.  Things could have gone very, very wrong.

But instead, we managed to figure out a recipe and a shopping list by (probably illegally) walking in to a Borders, finding the book we didn't have with us (no, we do not carry Nigella Kitchen around with us everywhere we go... shameful, I know), picking the recipe, and taking a picture of the ingredients.  That's not illegal... right?  Dame Lawyer Liberty, can I get a ruling?

Let me say that this is a very... European recipe.  A good recipe, but it's a recipe for Chili that no self-respecting neighbor-of-Mexico would make.  It called for oregano.  And only one can of beans.  And oh yeah... Mozzarella cheese:

Yes, that's rice under there, because to know and love Boy Scout is to know that he cannot eat chili without rice.  

Yeah, I don't know what to say, either.

I'm sure that this is a recipe (like all soups/stews/chilis) that does better with age (Boy Scout, can I get a ruling?), but the flavor and spice manage just fine at the first sitting, thanks mainly to ingredient #1, chorizo.  

No, there is no bacon in this recipe. 

I know.  I'm still in shock myself.

Chorizo, ground beef, canned tomatoes, tomato paste, cocoa, oregano (I added some wine, natch), and then when it's all cooked and bubbly, you throw in chunks of mozzarella.

It's weird.  But it's good.  I'm still on the fence about whether to make it again... and how much I'm going to alter it when I do.

In Which Monday Menu Mayhem Works Well With Others

What an exciting weekend this was, friends.

That most elegant of elegant ladies, the lovely Dame de Laliberte came to Scout Camp to shake things up (and to help me deal with a dangerous overabundance of chardonnay).  As a result of this meeting of the minds (and the Cougar Town lovefest that followed) the Menu was not only Mayhemic, but chock-a-block filled with Nigella goodness.

Saturday tea (yes, dammit, we had tea... followed by apéritifs, natch) began with Pigs in a Blanket, which Nigella called Franks and Blanks, and so they shall henceforth be known.  Behold:

The awesomesauce of this recipe is indeed... awesome sauce.  The recipe didn't call for exactly equal parts dijon mustard, honey mustard, and sour cream, but that's what it ended up with.  I liked the puff pastry blankets, too (as opposed to the more biscuit-y blankets of my youth)-- they were light and crunchy and they hit the spot.

Cocktails (kir royales, duh) were followed by a simply superb meal of Nigella's Taragon Chicken, and Lady Lib's own home-made, hand cut pasta, and grilled asparagus:

In this one you brown the chicken and some scallions in the pan, and then cook them in vermouth and taragon in the oven.  Add some cream at the end to form a nice sauce, and you're good to go.  I have to say that I'm not normally a fan of taragon (no licorice for me, thanks), but the flavors in this dish simply cannot be denied.

And honestly, I never thought it could be so easy to make pasta.  Sure it's a long process, but my goodness, the results are well worth it.

(Those curious will note that I made the chicken, La Lalib made the pasta, and Boy Scout grilled the asparagus.  TEAM WORK, PEOPLE)

And so I thank you, my darling Lady Liberty, for shedding your light on our humble kitchen, and for leaving it a better (if messier) place than it had been before.

I'm just kidding.  It's always that messy.

In Which Monday Menu Mayhem Loses It (Again).

It is with great pleasure (really, I can't even quantify how much pleasure) that I announce that there is no new Nigella recipe this week.

(Wait for the pleasurable part...)

And it is all Boy Scout's fault.

Wow that feels nice.  For those who don't know, I am to blame for all of Boy Scout's life miseries.  He can't find his pen?  It's clearly my fault (even when I'm in another state).  He can't remember where he parked his car?  It's totally my fault (even when I'm in another state).  The good thing about this is that I am also responsible for the positive stuff, too.  He's deliriously happy?  MY FAULT.  (Right Boy Scout?  You're deliriously happy AND IT'S MY FAULT, RIGHT?!)

But I digress (insert Dramatic Music App faux gasps here).

So it's his fault, but it's one of the "good-thing-faults."  This weekend was the second anniversary of his twenty ninth birthday.  (Like how I did that, honey?)

ANYWAY.  All of the cooking this weekend centered around Favorite Scout Camp Foods, including clam chowder and peanut butter pie.  None of which originate from our bible.

This clam chowder is awesome though, and I say that as a person who is not normally enamored of clam chowder.  Now brace yourself, because it starts with bacon.  Shocking.  Right.  Then you add all the normal stuff, and not too much cream, which is one of my biggest clam chowder complaints-in-life.  Sometimes it's all just a bit much.

Speaking of "a bit much," that exactly describes the peanut butter pie, for which I do not have a handily available recipe.  It used to be called Ann's Peanut Butter Pie (thanks to Auntie Jones), but at this point I think I've made it more than she ever has.  Let's just say there's a stick of butter, a block of cream cheese, and a pint of whipping cream involved.

Yeah.  You're really better off not knowing that when you're eating it.  But it's 100% worth it.

In other news, I might actually finish a book this week!  Start planning the celebrations now.

In Which We Get Monday Menu Mayhem Back on Track.

OMG, friends.  I had time this weekend.  Not a lot of time, but time to read, time to knit, time to cook.  No telling how long this will last.  Or what it's going to do for my mental sanity.

Firstly there was the Guinness Cupcakes with Bailey's Buttercream Frosting and Chocolate Whisky Ganache.  That wasn't a Nigella recipe, but damn were they good.  Like, Boy Scout and I ate at least two at every sitting.  So actually, they were very, very bad.

Back to the point.  This week's Nigella recipe was called Barbecue Beef, though honestly, I'm going to call them Nigella's Sloppy Joes for the rest of life.  I mean, what else would you call this?

What I really like about this recipe is how sneaky healthy it is: you start by processing celery, carrots, onions, and garlic.  OK fine... and bacon too.  Then you chuck the mush in the pot, add some brown sugar, the beef, and a mixture of canned tomatoes, tomato paste, bourbon, Worcestsershire sauce, and more brown sugar.

The result is super delicious and flavorful, without being too wet.  Don't get me wrong, it's still a PITA to eat (forks and knives, children), but it lacks the heavy, syrupy sweetness of the canned equivalent.  And while it is all from-scratch and stuff, it only took about a half an hour to make over all, and it was super easy.

Definitely going on the "to be made again" list.  For reals.

In Which Monday Menu Mayhem Catches Up

WELL.

After a harrowing weekend involving drying out from a minor (minor) wine spill and approximate drying times, the MacBook Pro is back up and holding together (Hear me, baby?  Hold together).

Apologies for the lack of obsession last week.  Between the ailing equipment and a busy week at work, there was simply no time to discuss the fact that I am indeed obsessed, but fortunately we'll be able to talk about that another time.

This week, we'll have the normal posts, as well as (count 'em!) two book reviews.  That's right, bitches.  I've been reading in my spare time.

However, we start back this week with a Monday Meny Mayhem, involving from-scratch Nigella brownies.  Like several other recipes in the past few weeks, I have to confess that I had made this recipe previously (even if I didn't write about it), so this was my second attempt.  Voila, la photo:

(Yeah, I really didn't take a photo, but read that.  It's pretty funny).

I love the flavor of these brownies, I love that they're from scratch, and I love that they don't involve melting chocolate in a double-boiler (though you do make them over the stove).  I'm not a huge fan of how cake-y they are.  The photo in the book shows drippy ooey-gooey-ness, and Nigella herself says that they should feel squiggey.  That's how I like my brownies.

When I cook these to their minimum time, they come out cakey (though soft and melting).  This time I confess I set the timer to five minutes less than prescribed, but was too chicken to take them out of the oven at that time.

Next time, I'm going to go for it.

In Which Monday's Menu Lacks Mayhem

Well friends, I did a shockingly little amount of cooking this weekend.

To be more precise, I cooked nothing.

That's not true, actually, on Saturday I made Bacon Dip, which, while not part of the Nigella pantheon of recipes, is still a family staple due to the bacony-cream-cheeseness of it all.  It's glorious.  And I've been known to eat it for dinner a time or six.

The problem with this weekend was that it was my birthday, and no one would let me cook.  As a matter of fact, it's only through an unfortunate family illness that I was allowed to make the dip-- we ended up being an appetizer short for The Big Dinner.

In any event, I have nothing to report except that I am the luckiest girl in the world, and I have the best family and friends anyone could ask for.  And also, there is no greater ice cream in the world than The Schmoo's homemade Oreo Cookie Ice Cream.  I ain't lyin'.

In Which Monday Menu Mayhem Messes With a Classic

Honestly, I don't know why I made this recipe.  I mean, there's nothing wrong with Nigella's Chocolate Chip Cookies, and you've got to give her credit for trying to get us to change our minds and our palates.  But let's be perfectly clear: nothing ever can/will/should surpass the Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookie in terms of excellence and infinite makeability.

That said, there is nothing wrong with the Nigella recipe.  It varies from the traditional in that we melt the butter, use superfine sugar (I wouldn't have bothered if I didn't have some in the kitchen anyway), and use an egg and an egg yolk instead of two whole eggs.  Also, the recipe called for milk chocolate chips, but I was NOT going to give up my semi-sweets.  The result was good, but not memorable.  Something akin to what you would buy at a cafe for $2 apiece.  I have nothing against them and would totally make them again... if only I didn't have a better recipe at my disposal.

Speaking of things that never need to happen again, I just do need to take a moment to discuss the oh-holy-hell-in-a-handbasket disaster that was last night's Oscars.  I love Anne Hathaway, but no amount of uber-sunny energy was going to save that snoozefest trainwreck.  There was nothing fun about the ceremony (save for a handful of memorable acceptance speeches), there was nothing funny about the hosts (can we spell A-W-K-W-A-R-D?), and, more importantly, there was nothing even remotely interesting in the winners.  Everyone who was supposed to win, did.  Not that that's a bad thing (I'm looking at you, Colin Firth... could you please stop looking at your gorgeous Italian wife and look over here?  No?), but a lack of Shakespeare in Love/Crash-style upset made it all an exercise in "Did I really even need to bother watching this?" dullitude.  Hell, even if The Social Network had won, I'm not sure that would have made things more interesting.

I have been an Oscar watcher since, well... A really long time.  Like, too-young-for-my-parents-to-let-me-stay-up-and-watch-the-whole-thing long time.  And this year was enough to make me want to give up altogether.  Dear Hollywood, The next thing you should reboot?  THE ACADEMY AWARDS.

OK.  Rant over.

In Which Monday Menu Mayhem is Late. And Other Kinds of Fail.

Well.  It was one of those weekends.  You know, the kind where you wake up Tuesday (!) morning and don't even feel like you had a weekend.  Despite the extra day (thank you, Mr. Presidents), I have no idea what happened to my time off, except that Boy Scout has new suits (!), I have a new knitting project (!!), and we did an awful lot of Nigella redux cooking.

There was firstly the epic fail version of Grasshopper Pie, which failed probably because I substituted (by necessity, not choice) one cup of marshmallows with one cup of Fluff.  We think (because we don't actually know) that this caused a distinct lack of setting.  In other words, we ate Grasshopper Soup for dessert on Sunday night, and I continue to weep at odd moments throughout the day.

Last night was much more successful, when the Scout and I re-made the Carbonnade a la Flammande (Beer Braised Beef Deliciousness) for my grandparents.  This time we did away with the initial oil and let the bacon (yummy, healthy/happy pig bacon from Vermont) provide all of the grease we needed... The result was much lighter, and much less rich.  This might also be due to the fact that we actually used a dark ale this time (hello, Newcastle) instead of Guinness.  Also making a HUGE difference: The from-scratch allspice made by Granny Jones (Did you know it's just equal parts cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves?  Us neither!), which was far more fragrant and flavorful than its jarred counterpart.  Don't buy allspice, kids.  Make it.

In Which Monday Menu Mayhem Enjoys Cooking with Beer.

Unspeakable tragedy this week: Both the laptop and the book (THE BOOK. THE ZOE ARCHER BOOK I JUST STARTED READING) have been left at Scout Camp.  While I try to wrap my mind around that (I have to travel to Florida tomorrow. Without a book.  WTF, and also FML) and resign myself to the fact that I will have to try the new Kindle borrowing system (Yes, kids.  Wendy Pan is reading paranormal romance novels.  Sign of impending doom?  Perhaps...) to finish the book on my iPhone (sigh), I can at least reflect on a weekend of successful cooking.

Like that's really going to help.

Have you ever heard of golden syrup before?  No?  Neither had I, until I saw it listed in several Nigella recipes.  And if you're like me, you go to the store and buy what you buy without exploring further, and when things like golden syrup are listed in recipes, you think "Pshaw.  I shall never be able to make this recipe because that ingredient is clearly only available in one specialty food shop in San Francisco, and clearly costs $22 per half-ounce."

When Boy Scout and I were in Stop and Shop a couple of weeks ago, I saw golden syrup.  Like, for reals.  And then I got really excited and bought some and hid it in the cupboard for a rainy day.  Or a sunny one, like this past Saturday, when I used it to make Guinness Gingerbread.

The thing that really excites me about golden syrup is that it pretty much is corn syrup, only it tastes like liquid toffee.  Because that's essentially what it is: cane sugar syrup.

And with it, I produced some of the best gingerbread I have ever tasted.  I mean, seriously.  I like gingerbread, but usually find it fairly bland.  It's one of those things that has a time and a place, but promotes nothing by way of craving or necessity.  This stuff is dynamite.  The Guinness and the syrup add a depth of flavor that is pretty rockin', and over all the recipe is low-maintenance and easy to make.

I also made (confession: for the second time) Irish Oaten Rolls, which contain Guinness as well.  They're pretty bland, but in a roll-like, comforting way.  You know when you're eating it that if it's going to hold you over pretty well if need be, and you can take comfort from it's relative healthiness- whole wheat flour, oats, and honey.

And with that, I leave you to enjoy your Valentine's Day.  In honor of the holiday, I give you some horrifying 80's dating videos.  Ohmyholyhell.




Side note: Is it bad that I'm seriously considering that Amazon six-pack? Hmm...