February: Glad that's over

Guys, the sun was shining after work this week. Did you see it?

Did you see it?

Do you feel alive?

I feel alive.

I hereby declare that spring is here, mostly because I want it to be. I have had about all the darkness and hibernating I can handle this winter. We've spent one too many Saturday nights buying vacuums at Kohl's. I am ready for barbecues and bare feet. I want to ride my bicycle.

Thank God the tide is turning.

Cabin fever is hitting me hard lately. I'm starting to feel like a hamster in one of those plastic balls, circling the baseboards of a tiny room looking for an exit. My skin has barely seen the light of day since last November, when the sun started setting in the afternoon long before I piled on layers and shuffled my way out to the bus (except for that glorious week in January). My freckles are so far gone; these days, I'm just a blur of pale, pale skin.

So you can understand why a glimmer of sunlight after 5 p.m. was enough for us to throw open the curtains, pull on our boots and set out for a walk. We wandered away from our apartment, stepping over puddles and reveling in the sunlight. About 20 minutes into our walk, we popped into Whole Foods to grab what we needed for dinner. When we came out, the sun was down.

But we saw it!

Fleeting, yes, but at least there was a sign of better times ahead. Lawn chairs and wheat beers can't be too far away - maybe even with a plate of fresh tomato bruschetta on the side. It can't come fast enough.

For now, we're still dealing with the dearth of fresh produce that Minnesota winters plague us with, so I'm trying to be creative in the vegetable department. I came across this sassy little recipe on Epicurious one cold night when we were looking for something outside of the usual chicken and roasted root veggies. It's a light shrimp pasta that packs nutrients and color with arugula and (canned) tomatoes - both among the few acceptable options this time of year.

It's bright and soft, nicely saucy, and just the tiniest bit indulgent - a little white wine and a touch of cream never hurt anyone. Adam declared this a 4.5 star recipe - one of his new "go to" requests when I ask what we should have for dinner (the list looks like this: "Pot roast. Shrimp pasta.") I would call this a bit subdued to be a showstopper of a meal if you were, say, entertaining the queen or something. But, it comes together in not much more time than it takes to boil the pasta, making it a great option for a weeknight meal. Especially if you've got better ways to spend your time, like chasing after the sun.

Pasta with Shrimp, Tomato and Arugula
Adapted from Gourmet, December 1993 (found on Epicurious)

Note: The original recipe calls for one bunch of arugula, washed, stems discarded and chopped; this would be great, but to save time, I bought a tub of pre-washed baby arugula and used a few handfuls of that instead. Three handfuls will look like a ton at first, but it cooks down to nothing.

2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 pound raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp dried hot pepper flakes
1 onion, chopped
28 oz can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup heavy cream
3 handfuls baby arugula
1/3-1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, thinly sliced
Parmesan cheese, for serving (optional)

In a large, heavy skillet, heat the oil over medium. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes; cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Quickly add the shrimp. Cook, stirring, 1-2 minutes, until the shrimp is pink on the outside, but not quite cooked through (you'll finish cooking it later). Remove the shrimp to a bowl using a slotted spoon, taking care to leave as much of the garlic in the pan as possible. Set shrimp aside.

Add another glug of oil if the pan looks dry; add the onion and cook, stirring often, 3-4 minutes until it begins to soften. Pour in the white wine and the can of tomatoes with their juices; raise heat to bring to a boil,  then reduce heat back to medium, and simmer about 10 minutes, stirring often, to thicken the sauce. Stir in the cream, then the shrimp and arugula. Cook 1-2 minutes more, until shrimp is cooked through and arugula has wilted down. Just before serving, stir in the basil.

Serve spooned over hot pasta, topped with a dusting of Parmesan.

Just a girl and her pot roast

I am 28 years old, and I am aware of my shortcomings.

I can't get myself out of bed in the morning.
My interior decorating skills are slim to none.
I have a weird taste in most things. (As in, Netflix recommending a new category for me: visually striking father-son movies.)

In the past 6 months, I have not
been to the dentist
washed my car
mailed in a single Netflix movie

In the past 6 months, I have
read the entires series of the Hunger Games
watched the entire series of Breaking Bad
begun re-watching the entire series of Breaking Bad, yo

Right now I am not
having children
buying a house

Right now I am
not worrying too much
happy with how things are

I sometimes wonder if I should get my act together more. The truth is, I'm just not there yet. This is the most freedom and least responsibility I have ever had, and I'm enjoying the heck out of it. I can leave town on a weekend and not look back. I can stay out too late on a Friday, and roll out of bed and waste my Saturday. It's OK if my life is in shambles come Sunday night, with no clean laundry or food in the fridge, because I'm the only one who has to deal with it. Hey, at least we can say we had fun!

But, I also know that this can't last forever. It doesn't escape me that my peers are buying homes and having beautiful children in increasing numbers, and I'm still going to theme parties, dressed in 70s disco attire. I'll turn 30 in a little more than a year, and I suppose I'll want to feel a bit more put together by then. It will happen, in time.

For now, I celebrate the things I am good at - the small accomplishments of my regular days. And that, my friends, includes putting a roast into the oven, and cooking it long and slow.

Also, I'm good at Wheel of Fortune, and at making jokes - but we'll save that discussion for another time.

Being able to cook a proper pot roast doesn't rank up there with any actual life milestones, of course, but it does make me feel grown up, in a way. It is a sort of cornerstone for how I was raised, and there's great reward to me in being able to do a bang-up job in recreating the classic dishes that my mom made (and I'm sure her mom made as well). I feel like I'm moving in some direction, at least, and that works for me. For now, anyway.

When I make a pot roast (which is celebrated like a holiday by some in our household), this is the only way I do it. Beef chuck roast + red wine + sliced onion; maybe tuck in a few carrots and potatoes toward the end. That's all I put into this baby, and I don't want it any other way. The red wine infuses the roast and then mingles with the juices, creating a meaty, rich reduction that is perfect for spooning over your plate. I like to crown the roast with rings of sliced onion, which caramelize a bit after roasting in the oven - a tip we can all thank my mom for. By the time you pull the roast out of the oven, the meat is so tender it slumps onto your plate, and you could eat it with a spoon - which might be perfect for scooping up the red wine sauce.

Bon appétit!

Red Wine Pot Roast
Note about the wine: For this, I have been using a light, fruity wine - Blue Fin Pinot Noir from Trader Joe's ($3.99!) is perfect for this recipe, and to drink alongside it.

Beef chuck roast - about 3 lbs
Small yellow onion, peeled and sliced into rings about 1/4 inch thick
1/3 bottle Pinot Noir
Tablespoon vegetable oil
Salt and pepper
Veggies (optional) - a few carrots, peeled; a few small red or yellow potatoes, peeled or not

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Season the roast well on both sides with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high heat; when the oil is glistening, carefully set the roast inside and brown on one side, about 3-5 minutes (if the roast feels stuck to the pan, it's probably not ready to flip yet - it becomes unstuck when it has browned properly). Flip and brown on the other side, about 3-5 minutes. Remove pan from heat, and spoon out and discard as much of the extra fat in the bottom of the pot as possible.

Pour in the 1/3 bottle of wine, and place the onion slices on top of the roast. Cover pot, and set in oven. Cook for about 3 hours total. If you're adding vegetables, squeeze them in around the roast after about two hours of cooking (you want the vegetables to cook for about an hour or so).

After three hours of braising in the oven, remove the pot and check the roast - it's done when the meat is impossibly tender and falls apart against your fork. If it's not quite tender enough, replace the lid and put it back in the oven, checking after 20 minutes or so.

When the roast is done, skim off any excess fat from the red-wine sauce (if there looks to be a layer of oil floating on the top; this isn't always necessary). Serve the roast and vegetables with the sauce spooned over.

Your highfalutin lifestyle

I'm a nerd about words - was an English major in college, love me some Boggle, etc., etc. Every once in a while, I come across a word that I like so much, it gets stuck in my head for days. (That's weird, right?) I've had periods of svelte and kerfuffle rolling around in there, and a long, unrelenting phase with bamboozled. Last week, a new one crossed my path - highfalutin.

I had a need to write this word in an email (as in, "Yes, I have already spent my paycheck trying to keep up with your highfalutin lifestyle") - and had to look it up on m-w.com to figure out the spelling (I was looking for "high faluting" - isn't that how you would spell it?). And there it was, in all its glory -

highfalutin: pretentious, fancy

It's one word when it seems like two; there's no 'g' at the end where there should be. It's pretentious and fancy. I love it.

And, serendipitously, that word came to me just before a series of highfalutin things came my way this weekend - a 50mm camera lens (check it out!), a brand new vacuum (hey, hey!), a dramatically drapey ivy plant (tres chic), and this utterly fancy dish - Chicken with Apple Cider Glace:

I'll tell you right away - the fancy name is just a ruse. There is nothing more to this dish than chicken browned with a toasty blend of spices, and an apple cider and onion sauce that has simmered away to a softened, lightly sweet glace. (Glace, pronounce "gloss," it turns out, is just a highfalutin term for a reduction of stock - I had to look that one up, too). I could eat the sauce in little succulent spoonfuls from the pan if I had to, but it's even nicer poured into a puddle around the chicken to mingle with the spices, and anything else on the plate.

This recipe is such a keeper - simple and light enough for a weeknight, but elegant enough for a dinner party. For a fancy plate, I like to place the chicken on a small handful of mixed greens (arugula or baby spinach, for instance) for a pop of color, with a scoop of mashed potatoes on the side. The sauce can, and should, go over everything, of course. 

Chicken with Apple Cider Glace

Adapted from Kitchen Window

For the chicken:

6 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp kosher (or other coarse) salt

1/4-1/2 tsp black pepper

1 Tbsp vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. 

Pat the chicken dry. Stir together cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and pepper; coat both sides of the chicken with the spice mixture (for 6 chicken thighs, I used almost the entire spice blend).

Heat oil in a heavy-bottomed skillet over medium high heat. When hot, carefully set the chicken in, skin side down, and cook until nicely browned - about 3-4 minutes. Turn the chicken and cook the other side, 3-4 minutes. Move chicken to a baking dish and bake in oven until cooked through - the time will depend on the size of your chicken thighs; mine were smallish and took about 20 minutes.

For the Apple Cider Glace:

1 1/2 Tbsp butter

1 medium onion, chopped (about 1 cup)

1 garlic clove, minced

1/2 jalapeño pepper, seeded and minced

1 bay leaf

2 cups apple cider (I've used a nice local cider as well as Simply Apple juice - both worked great)

1 cup chicken stock

3/4 tsp apple cider vinegar

3/4 tsp honey

Salt and pepper, to taste

In medium saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Saute onions, garlic and jalapeño pepper until just translucent. Add the bay leaf and saute a minute more.

Add the cider, chicken stock, vinegar and honey. Increase heat to bring to a boil, then reduce to medium heat and keep at a decent boil until reduced to about two cups, about 15 minutes. It will be slightly thickened, but still mostly liquidy. 

Serve sauce over chicken, and anything else that graces your plate (especially, mashed potatoes; a handful of spinach or other greens under the chicken is also nice).