hostesses with mostesses

If you come and stay at our house, you WILL eat well.

Watch. Out.

We had some Romanian missionaries staying at our house. Obviously. Because we are heathens. I jest! Because my mom had read about their work through our church (rest assured, that if your opinion of missionaries has been culled, like mine previous to this, from reading The Poisonwood Bible, these are nice missionaries. Non-forceful, non-judgmental, helping-orphans-and-alcoholics missionaries), and had supported them for a long time, and invited them to our house.

And they were completely lovely and, as with any houseguests, I had to make sure they ate better food at my house than they ever had at anyone else’s house because I have to be the Best Hostess In The World. (We’ll call it the Martha Stewart complex)

Like so much of life, I have decided to begin this post with dessert first.

 

It all began with my megabag of apples from apple picking. I tend to become daunted when there is a large quantity of any one food item in my house, because I fear things going bad and food getting wasted. Food cannot be wasted.

So I cut up some apples… pretty red apples, adorably tiny green apples…

I mixed together the wet and (half whole wheat!) dry ingredients for Lots O Apple Cake, a recipe I’ve made before and loved.

Like last time, the batter was wiiiiiiiiiiicked sticky.

And the combining of the batter with the apples left me wondering, like last time, whether I was really going to pull this thing off.

And lo and behold, just like last time, they did indeed come together, and quite beautifully.

  

And two delicious apple cakes emerged from my oven. I actually froze them prior to the arrival of our guests, planning them for some sociable future occasion, which indeed emerged.

  

I highly recommend this recipe. It’s reasonably healthy, reasonably easy, a great way to use up a glut of apples, and a big hit.

Now, as it turns out, our church event attracted a rather tiny crowd (weeknights are tough), but as is typical for Greek women who see people going away hungry from a place in which we served food as the ultimate evil in the world. So I also made a double batch of my chocolate truffle brownies.

No, they didn’t mold. That’s white chocolate up top. Just for kicks.

  

We ended up serving NONE of those at the event (there were leftover sweets from a lunch at the church earlier in the day) so we sent some on the road with our missionary pals, I took some in to work to feed my grateful coworkers, and I froze the rest. I’m choosing to forget that for the time being. I’ve been on a real sugar attack lately.

As for dinner- a real treat!

My mom made my grandma’s sausage soup, mmmmmmmmmmmm.

 

This thing is so simple and so the ultimate in winter comfort. I don’t know what it is, but she chose to use BREAKFAST SAUSAGE in this soup (those little links with no particularly distinctive flavoring), and with the tomatoes, beans, potato, and pepper-onion flavor base, as well as a tickling of fresh and dried herbs, it is SO UNBELIEVABLY DELICIOUS.

So satisfying, too :D

Guests were also treated to pieces of my pumpkin spelt bread. To die for. Excellent for soup dippage.

(I was also carrying on a tradition, because my grandmother- a seriously amazing bread baker- always served this soup with her homemade baguettes).

 

Though I didn’t take pictures at the dinner table, since I try not to impose my awkward blog photoshoots on houseguests, I had the leftovers for lunch the other day, so I got to ogle at the gorgeousness of this soup.

   

I will gladly post the recipe, but please don’t make any healthy substitutions. My grandmother lived to be 87 and she attributed much of her longevity to eating chocolates in bed :D

She was a healthy person and ate a mostly Mediterranean diet, but also ate food that was SATISFYING. And sometimes that means full-fat pork sausage. You’ll drain it. Get over it.

My Grandmother’s Sausage Soup

1 pound pork breakfast sausage, cut into 1-inch lengths
1 14-ounce can sliced stewed tomatoes
2 cups water
1 large onion, diced
1/2 green pepper, diced
1 15-ounce can kidney beans, drained
1 teaspoon dried thyme (can use a mix of fresh and dried)
2 tablespoons dried basil (see above)
1 large potato, diced (we use red potato, unpeeled)
salt and pepper to taste

Brown sausage in a 2-quart pot and drain off fat. Deglaze the pan with the stewed tomatoes, then add water, onion, and green pepper. Bring to a boil.
Lower heat, return sausage to pan and add beans and herbs, with salt and pepper to taste. Simmer 45 minutes.
Add potato and cook covered for 20 minutes or until potato is tender.

virtuous

So everyone I hang out with now is frighteningly un wasteful (Steve got rid of his trash can. You are not allowed to throw things away in his apartment. He saves plastic bags, cuts them up, and stuffs pillows with them).

I am not that far, but I am wicked virtuous about not wasting food. It is too delicious.

We begin with broccoli stems (and a few old mushrooms).

I was trying to recapture an awesome curry I ate at Sunflower this summer. They used Japanese curry which tastes… better. Somehow. Well not better, but different, in a way that is complementary to broccoli.

So I used my curry powder I stole from my dad which he got in Hong Kong, figuring Hong Kong was closer to Japan than India is (liking my logic?)

Also it has “whacky” (or wah kee) in its name, so there’s that.

Gave the veggies a sautee in peanut oil with ginger and garlic, tossed in some water and let them steam, took out the brothiness and mixed it with a bit of corn starch to make a sauce, and put it on top of a wee bit of brown rice.

So good!

Next up: vair old and brown bananas.

Vair ugly.

But I forget how ugly they are because I remember all the goodness they bring to my life in the form of OATS!

I’ve taken to making a big batch of oats for the week and then reheating individual bowls in the morning to save time but still have a flavor vastly preferable to microwave oats (ew.)

How it’s did:

1. Chunk up bananas and toss them in a medium heated pot. They won’t caramelize, as would a single banana, but they form this awesome fluffy sugary… thing.

2. Add oats and liquid to your liking (I added 2 cups each of oats, milk, and water). Cook until it’s hot and sort of burping (it’s too thick to really bubble!) but don’t cook til the liquid is absorbed, since one it is unnecessary and two it can result in burnage.

Once you’ve gotten to the burpy stage and the oats are starting to stick to the bottom, turn off the stove!

3. Wait.

Like magic, the oats will absorb the liquid and the oatmeal will become beautifully thick. As an added bonus, it will be cooler, so you can put it in individual tupperwares and be less skeeved out about the hot plastic giving you cancer (just me?)

Next thing to use up: old basil!

Made pesto. OBVIOUSLY.

Flavah. Garlic, hunk of parm, and roasted walnuts (cheaper than pine nuts and, in my opinion, deliciouser).

 

Grind to grittiness!

 

Then the actual basil, or as my people call it, Vasilikos! (βασιλικός) The royal herb.

Grindedy grind.

 

Stream in olive oil, adjust for seasoning (more cheese and nuts, OBVI) and there you have it.

Into the freezer for a taste of summer when it’s February and gross and I want to kill myself.

     

More green: one really cannot buy a small quantity of kale. They don’t seem to exist.

Here’s about half of the farmer’s market stash (for two dollah!)

The obvious choice, just to make it smaller, was soup. Virtuous: taking prehomemade stock out of the freezer! As far as I know they are both chicken… I think the one on the bottom my mom didn’t have white wine (which she usually adds to her stock) and just… tossed in some red!

   

For the oomph factor? Some farmer’s market sausage!

I read this:

And think this:

(Please, please, love Arrested Development and the short-lived but glorious character of Mrs. Featherbottom as much as I do)

The result:

This is a recipe-ish, not a recipe, but a brief synopsis:

Over medium heat, I browned two pork sausages cut into bite-sized chunks, then set the sausages aside. In their fat, I cooked up one small onion, chopped.

Then I added my stock (3 cups or so?) and brought it to a boil. Then I added my kale (half a bunch?) and a generous amount of salt and pepper. At this point I realized my kale was massive and I’d have to reduce its size. Thus, a bunch of boiling water from my kettle dumped on top (enough to cover the kale- this took a LOT, and basically filled my Dutch oven).

Then I just cooked the kale. For a long time. Probably 45 minutes. Then I returned my sausages. And some brown rice (why not?). And I cooked it for another long time. Probably another 45 minutes. This part probably wasn’t necessary, but yknow, Erin sent me a dramatic text message and obvi we had to talk about it.

The ensuing soup was sooooooooooooo beautifully flavored and sooooooooooo tender. Slow cooking is the way to go. Hurray for Sundays!

A final note: this was the day following the day I accidentally walked 11.6 miles and kayaked for an hour. I ate way, WAY more than in this blog. These were the things that involved *preparation*, rather than the things that involved *going to coffee hour at church and inhaling a donut* prior to the wholesome curry you see.

faaaaaaavorites

Life has been BUSY! Fun busy! So get ready for a seriously ADD post (remember I work with children all day. ADD is really all I know at this point).

Lately I’ve been lovin’ on…

1. Snapea Crisps!

My coworker Erin taught me about these.

Man oh man. Soooo crunchy, soooooo craveable.

KUDOS, ERIN (every day in group meeting we give the kids kudos for doing good things. This is definitely, definitely, a good thing).

I purchased these at Trader Joe’s, where I went with Erin and Kyle before heading out to an evening of another of my loves…

2. KARAOKE!

Enough said. Recessions is a great, great bar. Randomest, awesomest group of human beings I have ever shouted the words to Livin’ on a Prayer with.  

3. Stachoski Brand Charcuterie. Otherwise known as SNAUSAGES! (The rather gross, dog-food-reminiscent word my sister insists on using).

Had the lamb merguez one night. God I love lamb. I am a good and proper Greek girl.

This was a North-African inspired kinda thing with the merguez sausage (wonderfully herby and rich!) with brown rice and tagine.

Which brings me to

4. Tagine!

How I wish I had a proper tagine (the pot).

 
original photo here

But at least I can make Cooking Light’s recipe for eggplant and tomato tagine (the dish)!

Vair simple. Lotsa veggies: tomatoes, red pepper, eggplant (you salt it first), though interestingly, no onions. Is this a North Africa thing?

 

Cook up all yummy and scrumpsh (I used fresh tomatoes instead of canned so I cooked it a big longer):

 

Then add your eggplant and marvel at how awesome your house smells!

And eat with some nice snausage merguez!

I also enjoyed their Santa Fe Chicken Sausage with roasted red peppers, which was made the better for its fabulous accompaniments…

Corn (which was still faaaaaaabulous despite it being so late in the season. I did eat it the very day it was picked, love that :D)

Aaaaaaand

5. Heirloom tomatoes!

 

One in every color they had :D While stupidly expensive, they are really really exceptionally good.

With salt and pepper, oil and balsamic, and SCADS of fresh basil from our plant.

Especially great when sopped up with

6. Bliss inducing farmer’s market bread!

Whole wheat with sesame on top. MAN.

And finally, ending with dessert, a farmer’s market goodie.

7. Macaroons!

From the adorable Mennonites. They are SO yummy! And dangerously bite sized:

I took this picture… and then ate three.

I love that there are 7, because 7 is my favorite number and is also my…. BIRTHDAY! The 7th of October! In less than 3 weeks!

I am celebrating with a Columbus Day weekend trip to my new faaaaaaavorite place. Any guesses?