Go Green(s)!

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Citrus Collards With RaisinsDid you know greens are practically FREE?? I would have been eating greens years ago if anyone had told me how much money they would save me on my weekly grocery bill. This past week we spent $65 at Wal-Mart on groceries and maybe another $18 at Earth Fare. And our fridge is PACKED with food. (FYI for those not in the know: Greens are the big dark leafy things you pass in the produce aisle on your way to the cookies.)

After years of retching and gagging at the mere mention of things like "collards" and "chard," I actually tried some. Guess what? Delish! That is, if you bypass the good ol' southern method of boiling the hell out of them. (I'll never forget the first time I ate gray-green mush at my mother-in-law's home. Blair had to explain to me that the food was--in a previous life--broccoli.) I wish someone had told her a quick 3-5 minute simmer and wilt does the trick. 

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I Have Offended the Kitchen Gods

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The kitchen is not my friend. Not this week, anyway. I'm batting... well, I don't follow baseball and have no idea what a bad batting average is, but I know this: mine ain't good. 

Sunday afternoon: I make oatmeal-raisin cookies, the healthy version from my E2 cookbook. Only I don't have pastry flour so I use regular flour and the recipe calls for "rolled oats" and I'm not really sure what those are  but how different can they be from what's in the Quaker Instant Oats cylinder in our pantry? The recipe calls for an an Ener-G egg replacer and I use a different brand but so what. The result are cookies that taste unbaked and a lot of them. I insist on eating two of them anyway with a cup of hot tea because that's why I made the damn cookies in the first place, but I'm not fooling anyone. They're gross. 

Sunday night: I don't know what made me think an onion and carrot quiche would hit the spot. I think I was just excited that I had all the ingredients on hand. It wasn't bad, but any main dish recipe based on "3 large onions" is going to have repercussions.

Monday night: I never make dessert, but I feel the need to redeem myself after the oatmeal-raisin cookie debacle. I make a Blueberry mousse that ends up looking (and tasting) like a pureed Barney the Dinosaur. 

I've got a new recipe for Pad Thai scheduled for tonight that involves rice noodles. I'm scared.

I obviously need to appease the cooking gods. To that end, I'm going to light some candles around a spatula, sprinkle dried herbs around the kitchen, and offer up some extra-firm tofu. See if that helps.

Here's a recent New Yorker humor column that COMPLETELY captures my kitchen personality in just the first two opening paragraphs: "The Cursing Mommy Cooks Italian."

A Glimpse Into Why My Cooking Skills May Go Unappreciated...

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My soup looked JUST LIKE THIS. I even had the pretty white bowl working for me. My food never looks like the picture, so I'm stoked.Tonight I made Hearty Bean & Grain Soup. The soup is full of healthy foods like kale, kidney beans, and buckwheat. All in all, it took close to an hour to prepare. [My fault,  as I forgot to cook the buckwheat ahead of time.] Once I got all the chopping, food processing, sauteing, simmering and mixing in line, I was left with a heavenly pot of too-good-to-be true tasty soup. 

I also threw some thick french bread under the broiler. I'm a pretty staunch anti-white flour girl, but I didn't have time to get by the health food store this week and pick up something better. 

Blair came home from work, went for a run, then headed back to the kitchen to ladle himself a big bowl of soup. He returned to the front room 20 minutes later, where I sat typing on my laptop.

"I learned something about myself today," he said, easing down onto the couch.

"Really? What's that?" I asked.

"I learned I freaking LOVE bread." 

I sighed. "There was soup too. Did you even taste the soup?"

"Oh yeah, the soup was good." He paused. "But the bread spanked it."

Seriously. Some days you just wonder why you try...