Treat Yo Self Week(end)

Well really just MYself, I have no idea what you guys were up to. If it was also your birthday, however, I hope you managed to fit in at least some of the following:

Breakfast involving bacon and avocado.

Champagne and a movie.

Child who was very focused on your present.

Child who considered herself present enough.

Any of the main three categories of Indian food: 1) Crunchy;

2) Spicy; 3) Creamy.

A cocktail ridiculously composed of both bourbon and champagne.

Of course, that was just for my birthday and everyone knows that Friday birthday really equals birthweekend. (I'm pretty sure this is reasonable. My birthday twin Susie is currently holding her family hostage for cake and she's a scientist.) So I figured the ol' cook-em-book shelves must be holding some ridiculous indulgence in their depths and hey, what do you know! Cookbook #52: Pedaling Through Burgundy (Sarah Leah Chase, 1995) is Freeeeeeeeeeeeench! Provenance: Mom, I think? Previous recipes on this blog: none, which is a SHAME. Quel dommage!

You know how various cultures are always poaching eggs in a tomato sauce and I'm all, "Good on ya Italy and Spain and Israel, etc."? Well, Burgundians apparently gave it some consideration and decided "Tomato sauce is good, but what if we swap in an entire bottle of wine and a not-insignificant portion of butter? And then also serve it as a FIRST COURSE?" Nicely done, mes amis.

Oh, there's bacon in there too.

Of course, this decadence comes at a price.

And that price is dirtying every pan in your possession.

 For dinner I decided to go with the Everyday French Vegetable Soup.

Recipe: butter, wine, every vegetable.

Of course, this responsible eating comes at a price.

Sigh.

Verdict: French food is exhausting if you are the one-pan type, but it is also delicious. I wanted to cook every recipe in this book and then buy her other cookbooks and cook every recipe in them. Two thumbs sticks of butter up.

Cookbook #53 is just called Pizza (Diane Morgan & Tony Gemignani, 1995), which is probably the best book title I have ever encountered. Provenance: Christmas gift from in-laws. Previous recipes on this blog: any time there has been a homemade pizza, it has come out of this book. This pesto-covered bad boy, off the top of my head. The New-York style dough is generally my go-to. A 12-inch pizza feeds the four of us, particularly when it is covered in half a pound of cheese, as in the case of this Spinach Ricotta Pizza.

Oh, sorry, that's half a pound of cheese not counting the titular ricotta.

It's actually a little unnerving.

Solution: pile of raw lettuce.

Balanced!

Verdict: this book contains both my standard pizza dough and standard pizza sauce, which are two very important human staples. Excellent for treating yo' self.

Anyway. As of Sunday, Anna is all set up for summer.

Phoning this in is my gift to myself

Here is how I celebrated our super-important PROJECT HALFWAY POINT MILESTONE: making easy-looking Pinterest dinners for a couple of days. Breaks are important! Absence makes the heart remember how convenient the internet is! Wait, hmm. Anyway, the following things were very nice and low-effort--Smoked Salmon and Asparagus Sandwiches:

I like when people think to put a healthy dinner on top of bread.

Bean Bowls with GUESS WHAT MYSTERY INGREDIENT TOPPER Poached Eggs:

You were probably going to guess it anyway.

With all the dinner-prep time I saved this week, I had plenty of time to visually confirm our achievement of Full Toddler.

And that is all because it's my birthday and I'm going to eat tacos now.

Magazines and midpoint

I want to open with the weekend's most impressive and ambitious cooking project, Anna's "Mother's Day Pie." According to the chef, it involves cheese, eggs, chocolate chips, and animals, and takes five days to bake.

She's definitely my daughter. And a pretty good candidate for 16th century court life.

I realize that makes Cookbook #49: Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook (Better Homes and Gardens, 1996) look a little dull in comparison, but were we really expecting thrills from Magazine Week? I mean, post-demonfish, obviously. Magazines should be dependable and middle-of-the-road! I'm pretty sure demonfish were totally mainstream in 1979! At any rate, Better Homes and Gardens comes through with a very easy, entirely satisfying Mulligatawny Soup.

Also, including apples and raisins in a soup makes it an easier sell to 3-year-olds.

Provenance: ...was about to type "Mom" out of habit, but then I noticed that the bookmark in the middle is a ticket stub with the 2000-2001 UT basketball schedule on it. And it's marking a page with something called "Pizza Fish Fillets." So...I'm going to say I probably married into this particular book. Previous recipes on this blog: none. Future recipes on this blog: entirely possible.

Cookbook #50: Better Homes and Gardens Complete Book of Baking (Better Homes and Gardens, 1995). Provenance: Mom. Previous recipes on this blog: none, but I've definitely used it in the past. Recipe: Peanut Butter-Struesel Coffee Cake.

Did you know you could put peanut butter in a coffee cake?

I feel like coffee cake is an under-appreciated category of baked good because it's not especially pretty or exciting, but have you had coffee cake lately? It's delicious! Even if it does sort of, uh, disappear when surrounded by a Regan brunch.

LOOK THERE IT IS. Over by the mimosa. In front of the cake.

Verdict: I feel like BH&G more or less know what they're doing. I also like the occasional sign of laziness, such as the phrase "Price higher in Canada" under the U.S. price on the inside flap. Do your own calculating, consumer! This isn't a math book.

Cookbook #51: Sunset Cookbook Cla--wait a second, 51? FIFTY-ONE! We're over the hump! And you know I packed most of the really high-quality stuff into the first half, so it's downhill from here in more than one sense!

Anyway, Sunset Cookbook Classics (Oxmoor House, 2000). Provenance: Mom. Previous recipes on this blog: none. Purported number of cookbooks included in this volume: eight. Number I am counting it as: one. (One of the "cookbooks" is just appetizers and one is...cooking with a wok. Chapters, I say!) Recipe: Vermicelli with Vegetable Sauce. Terrible secret: I used capellini instead.

Imagine those noodles 0.3 mm thicker.

Verdict: good, easy, mushrooms not too noticeable. Decent start to the second half! Maybe I'll check out that wok section soon.

Ivy's having a very studious phase right now.

Mostly studying the trajectory of crayon to mouth.

Just a somber, somber girl.

Magazine Week commences with some low-hanging fruit

I realize that Cookbook #48: The Best of Bon Appétit (Bon Appétit, 1979) really belongs in the History Week series and probably deserves at least a month of me trying to recreate all of the amazing pictures in it, but I'm going to be lazy and use it to kick off Magazine Week instead.

...as of 1979.

Provenance: The same library sale that provided my Cooking Light book, though this one is a much better get, historical-artifact-wise. You know how I'm always complaining about the lack of nice color pictures in these things? Well, good news! My wish has been granted, albeit by one of those evil fairy tale genies.

I think those are pickles.

I just registered for a cauldron at Crate and Barrel.

This one isn't too appealing, everyone knows I don't really like shrimp.

WAIT A MINUTE.

(Shivers.)

Recipe: Steak with Onion, Green Pepper, and Tomatoes. I think I've discussed the fact that steak-cooking is one of my weak areas, so I'm always looking for guidance on the subject. I figured this BA collection was a little dated, but it might still help me with basic technique.

Hrm.

Here's where I admit how little regard I have for 1979 cuisine: my first thought wasn't "That's probably a typo meaning oven-broiled, although that still doesn't help me," but rather "Of course they want it OVER-broiled, that demonfish appetizer has placed a curse on their tastebuds."

I regular-broiled it.

I also made swiss chard with walnuts, but there was nothing distressing about it.

Verdict: this book is awesome, clearly. You have no idea how close I came to making Meatloaf With A Golden Halo. And now you really want to know what that entails. Yeah, I'm afraid I might come back to this one.


The girls enjoyed some ice cream this week.

And Ivy finally got her chance to commune with weird blue cow.

Girl's Derby de Mayo Week

I found myself feeling a little over-themed again this past weekend, so I decided the best way to deal with that was to throw a Girl's Night Out on top of the rest of it.

(Clink!)

Emily and I started off at CRÚ: A Wine Bar (their weird capitalization and subtitle, not mine). We decided to have some fondue because...there was fondue on the menu, so obviously.

When you run out of things to dip, the waitress will try to sell you on more tomatoes and you'll be all "How about potatoes?" And she'll say "Might have to charge extra for more potatoes" and you'll think "I'm pretty sure tomatoes are more expensive than potatoes, but okay" and you'll get the potatoes and not even notice if you were charged extra, because: worth it. If she refuses to restock your potatoes, just ask for a soup spoon.

Then we went to Jasper's and had this blue-cheese-potato-chip pile of nonsense.

Note that at this point we have basically eaten queso and nachos, but fancy.

I also had shrimp and it wasn't even gross! So that's fun.

Girl's Night is full of possibilities.

Spent the rest of the night with chocolate, wine, and very outdated gossip magazines. GIRL THINGS ACHIEVED. Theme motivation restored.

Just in time, too, since the next day was Derby Day and this year was my first attempt at a Kentucky Hot Brown. I'm sure you'll be surprised to hear that white bread, bacon, turkey, and cheesy gravy are a pretty solid combination.

Responsibility Broccoli lurks.

A word of warning, however: before you dive into some leftovers for breakfast, you'll want to be pretty confident about the strength of your physical constitution. Wouldn't hurt to check the family tree in search of actual Kentucky heritage, I say.

Anyway, onward to Cinco de Mayo, an Americans-love-drinking-regional-alcohol-iday second only to St. Pat's, and way more fun to cook for. I started in the morning with Cookbook #45: The Essential Cuisines of Mexico (Diana Kennedy, 2000). Provenance: Mom. Previous recipes on this blog: Enchiladas de Fresnillo. Proof of this volume's gravitas: it lives on the fancy shelf. Recipe: Huevos en Rabo de Mestiza. Hey Erica, why did you make soup for breakfast: EGGS.

I also feel like my friend Alex would be interested to know that there was a very large amount of queso fresco involved.

Of course I loved this dish, as I have loved every egg poached in every tomato-based sauce since the beginning of time. The guacamole recipe was no slouch either.

Not that it's hard to make avocados taste good. How can you not like the only fruit comprised entirely of fat?

Verdict: I should stop being intimidated by this book and use it more often. Oh, well. See you in September, legit Mexican food!

Next up was Cookbook #46: Mr. Food Easy Tex Mex (Art Ginsburg, 1997). Provenance: Mom. Previous recipes on this blog: none. Literally judging a book by its cover: tempting. Good thing I didn't, though, since this Mojo Chicken made everyone eating it say "This is good" in a surprised-enough manner as to be vaguely insulting to previous things I have made.

It really is, though.

Verdict: this seems most useful as an introduction to Tex Mex basics, but a few things like the Mojo Chicken sneak in to liven it up. An unexpected success. He still doesn't get to live on the fancy shelf, though. (I'm not judging by the cover, I'm just taking it into consideration.)

Finally, Cookbook #47: The Hispanic Cookbook (Nilda Luz Rexach, 2000). Provenance: Mom. Previous recipes on this blog: none. Confirming that "Linguini with Tuna Fish" sounds less gross in Spanish: priceless. I know many of these recipes aren't Mexican, which is why I waited until Seis de Mayo to make Piñon Boricua.

"Plantains and meat." Seriously.

Verdict: this was fine, if pretty greasy. It was also one of the only appealing recipes I could find. I'm going to let you look up Sesos Empanados and Lengua Mechada and decide for yourself.

Ivy has been spending most of her time trying to figure out whether I'm more freaked out by climbing:

Or disappearing:

Who needs toys?