The Elephant's Child

It Just Won't Die.

My 1980's Oster Kitchen center:

And even when it does die, I've got another motor-base up in the attic.  I would like something different some day, perhaps the Bosh Universal. The food-processor attachment for this is on the small side. I wouldn't mind a full-size Cusinart instead.   But since the alternatives are really expensive, I'm glad I've got my near-indestructible Oster for now.  

Appearance, Weight Loss, and Women of a Certain Age.

I've noticed something about women over the age of 40.  When they lose a significant amount of weight, enough weight to bring them back to what they weighed when they first got married, or, say, fifty pounds or more, many of them look older.  Thinner, yes, but older.  

Conversely:  I've noticed that extremely thin younger women, women in their twenties, the type of gals who bemoan their lack of a curvy bum and their stick-legs, who have perfect body-mass-index numbers, often become much more beautiful with the added 10-30 pounds that many women retain after their first pregnancy. 

To give an example of how ridiculous our society's ideas of "healthy weight" are, to be in center of the "normal" weight range per the standard BMI tables, I would need to weigh forty pounds less than I did on my wedding day in 1996, when I wore a size six wedding gown.  I would need to weigh thirty pounds less than I did on my eighteenth birthday.  I would not be considered "underweight" per the BMI guidelines until I weighed, as a grown adult, approximately what I did in fifth grade. 

Everyone wants good health and everyone agrees that being severely overweight isn't healthy.  But maybe a healthy weight for each of us is not a number on a chart, but the weight at which the age lines of our faces are softened and our bones do not poke through our clothing.

 

Deliciousness! Accidental Cheese Tart.

Plan to make two 8x8 pans of lasagna.  Purchase more cottage cheese than normal because you usually don't have enough cottage cheese mixture when you make lasagna.  Mix up cottage cheese with two eggs instead of one because you're concerned your marinara sauce is too runny and nothing wrecks lasagna faster than wateriness. Don't forget your usual seasonings and salt in the cottage cheese filling.

Go skimpy on the Italian cheese blend when you assemble the pans because you're afraid you won't have enough, therefore ensuring that you've got a little left over. 

Assemble lasagna. 

Realise you've got about two cups worth of leftover cottage cheese filling.  It's got raw eggs in it, and it won't likely survive freezing.

Look in cupboard, discover just enough gluten-free pie-crust mix left to make enough pie crust for the bottom of a 9" round pan.  Fire up your awesome stove*, make crust, bake 12 minutes. 

Throw the remaining few ounces of mixed cheeses into cottage cheese mixture, mix well, and spread mixture on pre-baked pie crust.  Bake until you remember to take it out of the oven, or you're sure the eggs are sufficiently sterilized.  

OM NOM NOM NOM!

 

* I love my stove. I really, really do. 

Sunday Supper.

Some time ago we started a tradition of dessert for Sunday supper.  We don't normally have sweets in the house, nor do we often go out for ice cream, so gorging on a treat once a week is kind of nice. This is the gluten-free chocolate roll I made a few weeks ago:

Recipe was one of those listed as Kosher for Passover (i.e. no flour) in The Cake Bible.  I can't remember the name, but there were two roll-able chocolate cakes listed, and this was one of them.  Both were similar. This one used dark chocolate and eggs.  For the filling, I simply used heavy whipping cream which had been whipped to stiff peaks and very lightly sweetened.

Really Not Encouraging, Vegans.

I'd rather see "are delicious," people, when I'm searching for ways to get my family to like turnips.

Here's the turnip in question:

I'm hoping this is the largest one out in the garden. (It's 14" in diameter.)  This is my first year growing turnips, so I hope I can be forgiven for not knowing that I needed to periodically check them for size and dig them before they got too big.  Fortunately, I never got around to thinning the patch a second time, so there are going to be littler ones in there as well. 

Not Bad for a Half An Hour's Work.

I completely forgot about making a birthday cake for Sparkle Kitty until the morning before her birthday. Thankfully, I had already been planning to go grocery shopping that day, and was able to pick up what I needed for frosting and the cake.  (I use Bob's Red Mill's vanilla gluten free cake mix for the few times per year I need to make a cake. I do very little baking overall, and the mix comes out quite nicely textured and isn't too terribly expensive.)

I baked it on her birthday, cooled it in the fridge, and then decorated it after supper, copying the image by eyeballing it off the cover of one of her Sonic comic books. My filler stars are huge, my "black" frosting is really brown, and my base layer of frosting is anything but smooth, but hey, Sparkle Kitty was absolutely thrilled with the result.  Yay!

 

Something To Do With Spinach.

Start 2-3 cups (finsished amount) brown rice cooking.

Meanwhile, prepare the following and combine in large bowl:

2-3 cups coarsely chopped fresh spinach

2-3 roasted red peppers, diced.  Canned or jarred is ok. (Aldi was carrying 6 oz jars of roasted red peppers packed in olive oil for about $1.70 for a while. That's what I used, but roasting your own peppers is not hard and is a good way to use up red peppers past their prime.) 

In small bowl, combine and set aside:

1/4 cup to 1/2 cup combination of your choice of white Italian cheeses.

1 large glob real mayo (don't be stingy!)

1 slightly smaller glob sour cream

1/2 to 1 whole minced garlic clove

Salt to taste.

When rice is done, toss hot rice in large bowl with spinach and roasted peppers.  Add dressings and cheese mixture, toss again.  Serve immediately or refrigerate overnight and serve cold the next day. 

I'm sure there are other things you could add, but I was working within the limits of a sparsley populated pantry.  And hey, it tasted good with the Malbec I found in the trunk of the car.

On Spring and Summer Cooking.

With good cheese, fresh vegetables, and fire, all things are possible.

Sick! Sick, I Say!

Liberian Pumpkin, The Fast Way.

I did Liberian pumpkin soup this way this afternoon, and it came out pretty well.  A hat tip to my brother, who discovered that canned pumpkin works out well for this dish when you're short on time to cut up squash or pumpkin and simmer it down.

1 onion, diced

A few tablespoons palm oil*. (Source. Or an international foods market.)

2 Maggi cubes

1 can canned pumpkin (NOT pie filling, just pumpkin)

1/2 can tomato paste

I/4 t to 1/2 t (or to taste) powdered African hot pepper. (Source. Or you can use ordinary cayenne)

1 can canned chicken, equivalent amount cooked, diced chicken OR 1 can corned beef**.

Fry onions in palm oil until soft.  Reduce heat slightly.  Add Maggi cubes; crush and mix well with onion.  Add tomato paste, stir, and heat briefly.  Add canned pumpkin and meat.  Stir until well combined.  Add hot pepper to taste.  Lower heat further and simmer for a few minutes. 

Serve over rice.  Die happy.

*Not palm kernel oil, but plain palm oil. As long as it's not hydrogenated, it's nothing to be afraid of. It's loaded with Vitamins A and E.  Its greatest danger comes with its color: it can really stain things!

**See note on corned beef in comments.