Weekly Dish

You all know the craziness which is our life; I have made no secret of the tightrope between home, work, home-work, work-at-home, marriage, parenting, etc. across which we madly dash day-in, day-out, and sometimes in-between the two. I hope that it either makes you feel less alone (yay! other people live crazily too!) or relieved that your own life is not this stressful (whew, at least my life is not this crazy!). I also hope that you have an hour or two in your day like our 5-7 pm, the time I’ve come to affectionately call the dinner hour.

In order to preserve some semblance of sanity for all of us, we’ve tried to set aside those hours for the three of us to spend in and around the kitchen. We usually sit Josie in her high chair right in the middle of our small space, and feed her dinner while we get our own evening meal together. Before we were parents, our nighttime eating patterns were haphazard and casual, wandering into the kitchen whenever hunger struck, leisurely pulling dinner out of our pantry and fridge, without a lot of fuss. These days, if dinner isn’t well underway by the time Josie needs a bath, we’re in serious danger of going to bed on yogurt and granola, especially if there aren’t leftovers.

So, as we hear grown ups are prone to do, we’ve developed somewhat of a dinnertime routine. It is, by far, my favorite time of the day — I am with my very favorite people, doing one of my very favorite things. But also, it invariably gets done, this making of dinner, and usually, it is, if not very fancy, very satisfying and good for my food-loving soul. If I accomplish nothing else in the span of 24 hours, something from start to finish that I can look at and say, “I did that today,” I at least usually manage to make dinner for my family.

When I tell you that this past week started with not one, but two, disastrous meals in a row, I hope you understand that I mean it when I say that it nearly sent me over the edge. The week before, we’d started classes with a sick baby, which meant no childcare, two sleep-deprived teachers frantically trying to prepare for students while comforting, holding, rocking, and carrying around campus a puny, sniffly toddler. It was quite a week. We survived the weekend and hoped Josie was getting better, but on Sunday, her fever spiked, so we took her to the doctor to discover that she had an infection in each ear.

By Monday evening, when I sat on the stool in my kitchen, stirring the risotto, I was sorely in need of a victory. Onions, garlic, white wine, arborio rice, and a whole quart of chicken stock were in the process of dissolving my exhaustion when I noticed something small and brown on my spoon. And another beneath a grain of rice. And, then they were everywhere, tiny little bugs. Bugs. In. My. Risotto.

I panicked, David took over and cleaned the pot out while I put Josie to bed, and we had grilled cheese sandwiches — all in all not the end of the world. But on Tuesday, after I’d grated and juiced lemons, minced garlic and jalapenos, and measured out the wine for pasta sauce, when the same tiny bugs floated to the surface of the penne I was boiling, I have to say that I teetered on the brink of insanity. If David hadn’t restrained me, I might have thrown out the entire contents of our pantry and eated a bag of potato chips for dinner. For the rest of the week.
You can imagine the trepidation with which I approached the dinner hour on Wednesday, and I resolved to use only food out of our refrigerator: that usually means soup or eggs. With the leftover roasted potatoes from Sunday’s dinner, half a bag of mixed veggies I fished out of the freezer, and the chicken stock I made on Tuesday afternoon to replace what had disappeared down Monday’s drain, a hearty, warm soup came together on my stovetop, without a single insect in sight. It may not have been much to look at, but it was real, homemade food, and at the time, it tasted like the best potato soup I’d ever had. What follows is not so much a recipe, per say, but an instruction guide for how to use what you have on hand and emerge victorious. It was, for this home cook, the formula that saved my dinner hour, and consequently my week.

What’s-In-Your-Fridge Vegetable Soup

What you need:

• Fat: Rendering bacon fat adds a nice flavor to potato soup, and that’s what I did for this version, but a combination of butter and olive oil will work fine too.
• Vegetables to saute for flavor: onion, garlic, and carrot was my combination, but you could also use shallot, celery or bell pepper.
• Other vegetables: I used 2 cups of leftover roasted potatoes and half a bag of frozen broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower, but if you have two heads of broccoli, or a bunch of carrots, or mushrooms, use them instead. Just make sure to think about the flavor combo; if you want mushroom to be the dominant flavor, don’t crowd it with another strongly flavored veggie like broccoli.
• Liquid: Homemade stock is always in my freezer; I used chicken stock for the potato soup.
• Garnish: I finished the soup by stirring in 1 T. cream and 1/2 cup grated extra sharp cheddar cheese. It had been a bad week — you can always sprinkle with toasted nuts or a dollop of creme fraiche if you want to be fancier.

What to Do:
I feel silly typing up instructions because I’m sure everyone knows how to make soup, but I’ll tell you a few things that I think make a difference in the final product. First, the basic method: saute the flavoring vegetables over medium heat until they’re soft and beginning to brown; I start with onion and carrot and add the garlic after the other two are soft. Next, you add the other vegetables, coat with the fat and flavoring, and stir in the liquid.
What makes it good (in my humble opinion):

• Puree half of the vegetables. This will make the soup thicker without added fat or calories, but still leave you a rustic texture to the finished dish.
• Coarse salt with flavor, like sea salt, not the iodized stuff. A lot of salt, and sprinkled in a handful at a time, after each step in the process, not right at the end. Taste as you go to make sure you aren’t over-salting and that the soup has enough flavor. Salt is what will coax humble potatoes and cauliflower into deliciousness.
• Homemade stock. I know, I know, this seems like a lot of trouble. But I’ve started keeping a bag in my freezer for vegetable trimmings, and after about two weeks, it’s full enough to make a huge vat of stock that will last at least a month, maybe more. And if you have the remains of a chicken, even better. It really does make a big difference in the overall flavor of soup, in my opinion.
• Simmer for as long as you can. The longer the soup has to hang out on the stove, the more its parts will melt into one, happy, yummy flavor.
• Eat with plenty of crusty bread. It’s mostly just vegetables and water, so why not?

As I said, this is not rocket science. But it has been reliable for us, and, in this season of life, reliable is what we need. Thankfully, the bugs in the pasta were the low point, Josie’s ears are cleared up, and the soup restored normalcy and comfort to our dinner hours. A small victory, perhaps, but a sweet one.

Whew. What a year. How often I’ve wished that I’d found the time to stop in here and tell you more about it, but, as it turns out, this past year swooped in like a mother cat and snatched us up by the backs of our necks, dragging us from one destination to the next without once stopping to ask us if we were ready to move again.

The number one reason for that constant motion, of course, is that we started 2008 with a docile infant, just learning to crawl, and ended it with a toddler who runs full-throttle everywhere she goes, laughing gleefully or shouting, “No, no!” at the top of her lungs, depending upon her mood and whether or not the cat is doing something that displeases her (poor Matilda, our little black kitty who joined our family in the spring; it seems she can do nothing right as far as Josie is concerned.) The presence of a toddler makes our days full and chaotically busy and delightful and maddening all at the same time. And that’s without adding in work and school.

One happy obstacle completed in 2008: I passed my General Exams and am now, officially, a candidate for the Ph.D., a distinction known in the academic world as A.B.D. (all but dissertation). The dissertation is a big, momentous thing looming ahead, but it is only one thing. And since I’m a girl who likes to pour my intellectual concentration wholeheartedly into one, focused job at a time, that feels like a huge relief. For now, our immediate task ahead, is for David to finish his thesis show and graduate (hooray!) with his M.F.A. in May. I can’t wait.

In the midst of all of this, I am, slowly, learning how to be a cook in this still-new parent-teacher-student life, and I hope to occasionally document the ways that this season is changing how dinner gets on the table (as it still manages to do, miraculously). One way is that we always have good eggs in our refrigerator. At our local farmer’s market, eggs are such a hot commodity that if you aren’t there promptly at 8 a.m. when the bell rings signaling the start of business, you’re usually out of luck. It’s one of the only days of the week we’re thankful to have an early riser: Josie gets us there on time, and usually, we come home with eggs.

And it’s a good thing: they have sustained us through many, many a long week. This preparation is one of my favorites for when we have an abundance of Swiss chard in our garden, which, this year has been pretty much all the time, save the hottest months of the summer. You poach the eggs right in the pan with the greens, so it’s a one-dish meal, and except for the cooking of the eggs, it’s a fairly lazy method: the onions can be left alone for a while to carmelize, and then the greens can wilt at their lesiure after that. Chard is laden with nutrients, but the flavor can be a bit astringent; in this dish, the bitterness is all lost beneath the cloak of creamy yolks and buttery onions. It’s a particularly satisfying meal on a cold night, a warming end to a long day. Or year, as the case may be.

Eggs in a Nest
I found this idea in Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, the informational and interesting story of her family’s move to a farm and conversion to locally grown food; you can find more recipes and information on the book’s website. It’s a great read, particularly if you’re interested in how we eat affects the world around us, and one of my favorite parts is that Kingsolver’s college-aged daughter, Camille, contributes recipes and meal plans at the end of each chapter. This recipe is an adaptation of her version.
1 large bunch Swiss chard, or other leafy green
1 large, or 2 small sweet yellow onions, coarsely chopped
1 T. olive oil
1 T. butter
3 cloves garlic
Coarse salt and cracked pepper
6 eggs
1-2 tablespoons heavy cream (optional)

Remove the stems from the chard leaves and wash all very, very well. Wrap the leaves in dishtowels to dry and set aside.

In a large skillet, heat the oil and butter together over medium. Chop the onions and chard stems into pieces roughly the same size, and dump into the skillet. Stir occasionally, but let them cook until the onions are brown and very, very soft, about 20 minutes. In my opinion, the flavor of the dish comes from well-caramelized onions, so don’t skimp on the time here; if you need longer, say because you’re bathing a baby or something, you can always reduce the heat and let them continue to get all golden and yummy. They’re pretty forgiving as long as the heat isn’t high enough to scorch them.

While the onions are cooking, roughly chop the chard leaves; I like to roll them into long skinny cylinders and slice them into thin ribbons, but whatever works for you.
Once the onions turn brown, season with salt and pepper, and add the garlic. Cook for another minute or two and dump in the leaves. Stir to coat with the onion mixture until the leaves are wilted. Turn the heat down to medium-low.
Make six depressions in the greens, each large enough to hold an egg. Carefully break an egg into each depression, making sure to keep the yolks in tact. Spoon a tiny amount of cream over each egg. Cover and cook the eggs for 4-6 minutes, depending on the size of your eggs and how well-done you like your yolks. When done, sprinkle a little coarse salt over all. We like to serve ours with biscuits or hearty whole grain toast.

If anyone is still out there checking in from time to time, I wish you and yours a full and happy 2009. Thank you for bearing with me as life has swept me away from this space for longer and longer periods of time; it means a lot when I hear from one of you to know that a recipe has been useful or that you’re visiting for the first time. I hope you and I both will have many reasons to return this year.

Yes, that’s snow! In southern Louisiana!