Dinner for one
Feb. 8th, 2006 11:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidI tried to go to bed when I got home, but after tossing and turning, I still wasn't able to sleep: too hungry. So I got up.
I couldn't face having much light yet, so I started working by the light in the hood over the stove. I chopped five or six medium-sized onions and started them sauteeing in the cast-iron skillet. I let them cook on a low heat, wanting them to caramelize a bit, then started the next task, making dough. I did a very basic flatbread dough, no additions at all, and kept reminding myself that while I should have started the dough before the vegetables, doing what I can face doing is just fine.
Once the onions were nicely browned, I washed and roughly chopped most of the greens I'd gotten in last week's Boston Organics box. I wish I'd gotten around to using the spinach and arugula earlier. As I chopped, I thought about how I used to spend lots of time taking the stems off spinach, until I finally thought about how the stems are edible, just like gai lan or broccoli, so why bother to take them off? (If they're huge enough stems that they should be cooked, the leaves are likely heavy enough to be better cooked anyway.) I added the chopped greens to the onions, and let them melt down to so little. (By this time I was awake enough to handle having regular lights on.)
Once the greens were cooked, I formed the yeast dough into three flatbreads, topping each with a little olive oil (the grease layer to keep the crust from getting gooey), crumbled feta (the Israeli sheep milk feta TJ's now carries (note to self: buy more soon, to keep them stocking it)), black olives, and the greens (taking from the top to minimize the liquid). I put two of them in a hot oven (preheated to 450 F); there wasn't space on the top rack for the third.
While the pizzas baked, I started shredding leftover (multi-grain with flaxseed meal) challah into a casserole. I mixed in eggs and soy milk, then let it rest while I devoured pizza, putting the last one in the oven before I fell on the food.
Once I'd eaten, I went back to the bread pudding base. I wanted to make a savory one, for lunches for the week. I added the rest of the greens and pieces of kashkaval cheese (I would have used Parmesan, but I don't have any, and this was closest.), plus some salt and pepper. When the last pizza was done, I turned the oven down to 325 and put the bread pudding in for an hour. This gave me plenty of time to crumble the rest of the leftover challah to put in the freezer for future stuffings or bread puddings.
Of course, by now I was fully awake, and I stayed up later than I should have; starting to cook at 8 pm leads to late nights. Perhaps tonight will be an early night...
I had bread pudding for breakfast. As I suspected, I should have put in a bit more cheese, and more pepper. But on the whole, satisfying, not too wet, and a nice way to integrate vegetables into breakfast.
Nine jewels (navrattan korma) sounds like it might be an easy starting point for exploring cooking Indian food. Plus the nines are nice.
For JP locals: Red Fire Farm (where I got my farm share last year) is starting a distribution at the Co-op in JP, Wednesdays, 4-7. If anyone would like more information, I have spare brochures.
I couldn't face having much light yet, so I started working by the light in the hood over the stove. I chopped five or six medium-sized onions and started them sauteeing in the cast-iron skillet. I let them cook on a low heat, wanting them to caramelize a bit, then started the next task, making dough. I did a very basic flatbread dough, no additions at all, and kept reminding myself that while I should have started the dough before the vegetables, doing what I can face doing is just fine.
Once the onions were nicely browned, I washed and roughly chopped most of the greens I'd gotten in last week's Boston Organics box. I wish I'd gotten around to using the spinach and arugula earlier. As I chopped, I thought about how I used to spend lots of time taking the stems off spinach, until I finally thought about how the stems are edible, just like gai lan or broccoli, so why bother to take them off? (If they're huge enough stems that they should be cooked, the leaves are likely heavy enough to be better cooked anyway.) I added the chopped greens to the onions, and let them melt down to so little. (By this time I was awake enough to handle having regular lights on.)
Once the greens were cooked, I formed the yeast dough into three flatbreads, topping each with a little olive oil (the grease layer to keep the crust from getting gooey), crumbled feta (the Israeli sheep milk feta TJ's now carries (note to self: buy more soon, to keep them stocking it)), black olives, and the greens (taking from the top to minimize the liquid). I put two of them in a hot oven (preheated to 450 F); there wasn't space on the top rack for the third.
While the pizzas baked, I started shredding leftover (multi-grain with flaxseed meal) challah into a casserole. I mixed in eggs and soy milk, then let it rest while I devoured pizza, putting the last one in the oven before I fell on the food.
Once I'd eaten, I went back to the bread pudding base. I wanted to make a savory one, for lunches for the week. I added the rest of the greens and pieces of kashkaval cheese (I would have used Parmesan, but I don't have any, and this was closest.), plus some salt and pepper. When the last pizza was done, I turned the oven down to 325 and put the bread pudding in for an hour. This gave me plenty of time to crumble the rest of the leftover challah to put in the freezer for future stuffings or bread puddings.
Of course, by now I was fully awake, and I stayed up later than I should have; starting to cook at 8 pm leads to late nights. Perhaps tonight will be an early night...
I had bread pudding for breakfast. As I suspected, I should have put in a bit more cheese, and more pepper. But on the whole, satisfying, not too wet, and a nice way to integrate vegetables into breakfast.
Nine jewels (navrattan korma) sounds like it might be an easy starting point for exploring cooking Indian food. Plus the nines are nice.
For JP locals: Red Fire Farm (where I got my farm share last year) is starting a distribution at the Co-op in JP, Wednesdays, 4-7. If anyone would like more information, I have spare brochures.
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no subject
Date: 2006-02-09 09:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-09 11:52 am (UTC)(And sometimes I just simplify my menu :-)
I seem to forget between bouts of bread pudding just how easy and how versatile it is, starch, protein, and (frequently) veggies/fruits all in one.