Looking for Stability.

Saturday, Post-Thanksgiving

Made Bell Peppers Stuffed With Rice, page 293.
 
A few variations were presented.... I went with the slightly curried rice mixture / grated cheddar / vegetable broth (I use Better Than Bullion).
Major steps of this recipe: (1) get the pepper shells ready  (2) get the rice mixture ready  (3) au gratin for the top!

Things learned:

• you have to steam peppers a bit before using in a stuffed peppers recipe
• "'Au Gratin' is a term that in America, is usually associated with cheese. But the term may refer to any light but thorough topping of fine fresh or dry bread crumbs or even crushed cornflakes, cracker crumbs, or finely ground nuts on scalloped dishes or casseroles. . . ." (p 961)
• missed the instruction to oil the baking dish ... didn't make a difference at all. (mine is ceramic)

Things I'm proud of:

• making a steamer out of tin foil, with a toothpick.  [note: purchase a steamer basket next time in a store]
• making an improvised curry powder of my own, without the typical spices I'd count on like turmeric and dry mustard
• deciding to make my "au gratin"-topping crushed walnuts — it's what I had on hand (like the tin foil steamer) and I took license from the Au Gratin definition, although not in the recipe specifically for Bell Peppers Stuffed With Rice, because it seemed like it would taste good....and it did.

What I'd do differently:

• definitely make more rice [peppers these days are gargantuan. ...they take more than the prescribed rice mixture]
• maybe put a tiny bit of teeny butter bits in the walnut au gratin topping?  might help it brown and turn amazing-delicious
• or stick with the bread crumb Au Gratin I or II, page 961 — and maybe add pine nuts to the rice mixture for a little protein

Verdict:

• delicious
• cute  [it's a meal tucked in a pepper.]
• old-fashioned/real feeling
• not especially pretty
• but classic — and impressive in that way
• very worthwhile

Future:

• Interested in trying the variations with cream / tomato sauce -- Parmesan / monterey jack -- basil / oregano ....
• imagining that the tomato sauce / basil & oregano might bring back the stuffed peppers my mom used to make when I was in elementary-high school... I think those used meat sauce.... but suspect this would bring the taste memory back. 

Goldberg Variations

How did I do with my list?  I got a lot of my list of cleaning and jobs done — but not all.
Enough to feel fine hosting Beth here.
Beth visited. ...and has now returned home.  A good weekend.

Best thing about the past week and this blog was T & Kellie advising me to freeze the lentil soup.
I did!  In ziploc quart bags.  It made my freezer look very frugal and utilitarian.

I have one bag's worth on the stove right now.
[note: in the future, freeze in smaller bags or smaller portions.... a quart bag of frozen-slab-of-soup is difficult to maneuver in a soup pot.  It worked out alright though.]

After Beth left,* in the anticlimax of the weekend, I steeled myself against the creeping ennui.
Effective strategies:

• lie down on the sofa with the nap blanket, reading the newspaper on my phone, like someone on bedrest. but only for 35 min.
• get up and make the bed
• listen to The (Glenn Gould) Goldberg Variations ...and then the Mamas and the Papas
• do a load of laundry
• decide on dinner
• not spending money will feel better than spending money
• conveniently the freezer is full of soup!
• what else though..... 
• there are potatoes in the cupboard.
• baked potato?  .... too spartan for tonight.
• consult the Joy!

Tonight's dinner: 
Lentil-Split-Pea-Soup
and
Oven "French-Fried" Potatoes, page 300.

Hardly more effort than baked potatoes, with just a little bit of olive oil, and -pow- you've got a special treat, to go alongside your soup.  Who needs McCains and OreIda?!






Other things to keep the day afloat:

• draw something, even something small
• watch Master of None

*[removed from this telling is the missing of the scheduled train — because of a subway trip that took 45 min. instead of the reliable 15 min.?...or because I hadn't allowed the possibility of that kind of delay, and so hadn't set aside an hour for the trip? — sold out Northeast Corridor trains...and an eventual ticket for 66% more than the original...and hanging out in Penn Station for a few hours with B., who graciously took all of this in stride and is still my friend.]

Momentum

Making Lentil Soup, page 134 for dinner.
Keeping it going!

Well, more like a cross between Lentil Soup and the Split Pea Soup further down the page, since the store only had "heritage" lentils — which were $6 for a few cups...which felt a bit too "Jack and the magic beans"...or Emperor's New Clothes...or some other story in that vein....   The split peas were 1/3 of the price.  So it's the lentil soup, with split peas...and without bacon or pancetta.

I wish I'd seen the recipe adaptation "Lentil Soup with Greens," which is merely putting a bunch of spinach or kale in the pot. ....In retrospect, that seems obvious .

I also wish I'd noticed that the recipe makes 10 cups of soup. ...In retrospect, I could have made a half batch.   That's a lot of Lentil Split Pea Soup.

Curious about how my cleaning went?
....I did some laundry and dug out the Joy of Cooking from one of the book boxes.  I moved furniture to see if I could improve things — (verdict is still out...but the change and related cognitive jog is probably a little good for warding off Alzheimer's).    I also made a great list of all the things to do before Beth arrives on Friday.  It's a really good list.  I felt accomplished enough.  Way to go Joy of Cooking!
While the soup is simmering, I'll be washing a set of sheets (washing sheets wears me out — so I have a backlog of about four sets), and cleaning my coffee pot with Bon Ami, and changing the vacuum cleaner bag (so that I use it tomorrow night).  Working through the list!

At the rate this metric ton of soup is cooking, I might get through lots more list-items than that before sitting down to dinner.

Joy + Vitality

What returned me to this space today, years later, of all days?

This morning, I half-woke, and then re-dozed, to Andrew Solomon talking about depression on my radio....
Just as I was thinking: "maybe just sleeping all day is fine...maybe it's not terrible not to leave the apartment for a full weekend...it's not too late to go back to sleep for a while...what else is there anyway...,"  he was saying that rather than the opposite of happiness, he came to understand depression as the opposite of vitality.  And I thought, "yes. exactly. I think that's close to being right..." as I closed my eyes again, to take another hour or two from the day.
[It's not as miserable as all that can sound...I mean, I was also really appreciating the perfection of my fluffer-comforter and sheets — clean-feeling and perfectly weighted...just the right warmth, highlighted by chilly spots when I would shift my feet around...cat tucked into my knees, low purr...]

When I got up, I was still thinking about that vitality bit though.
It seems close to the aimlessness and lack of ambition that's been shuffling me through dawn to dusk...


So I made coffee and wondered what I could do to encourage "vitality"...to work against the creeping ennui.
Biscuits could be a fine start.  A baby step.  A stopgap.
I've been making Quick Drop Biscuits a lot, for late breakfast on weekends over the past few weeks.
It started as a resourceful reach when I had no bread and few ingredients....
It continued because they're amazing.

So I made biscuits and more coffee.

I thought about how the warm smell makes things feel better — more directed, resurrected. ...and about how the outside of the biscuit is just barely crunchy and salty...and the inside fluffy and buttery...like edible magic.
Like a feeling as good as my bed, but sitting up, in proper clothing.

Then I thought about this old blog... I thought about how it felt oddly productive and fun...how my memory of that time (tinted with a deceptive nostalgia filter) is that things felt promising and young and full of potential and wholesome and good.
(Although in reality, I think my tendency to give in to sleep — the dark hedonistic erasure of time — was just as strong then...)
And then I missed that time, this blog together — and I felt vitality crawl further away...
And then I thought, with fresh resolve, fueled by perfect biscuits: well, that's within the realm of possibility once more! No reason it's gone!

See Quick Drop Biscuits, page 639.

In related news:
Now I'm going to clean my apartment!
[And maybe unpack some boxes of books — including The Joy of Cooking!  (oh, I neglected to mention that in my life-paralysis, I've stopped unpacking boxes when I move to new apartments. ...and I call apartments "new" even 5 months after moving.  So I've been looking up Joy recipes online, which sometimes takes 30 minutes, even though I have a real, full copy within twenty feet of my kitchen.)]

I am!  Because: Vitality! I will have you!

Stay tuned.