food – Sconnie Molly

jaggery & neem

Last week was Ugadi, which is the New Year celebration in Karnataka (where my husband is from). He and I don’t usually do much to celebrate festivals or holidays, though I wish we did. We happened to have made dinner plans with a good friend of V’s mom, who lives in Seattle. She actually introduced V’s parents and is the sister of V’s dad’s brother’s wife – so, she’s family, and really the only family we have here.

Prema Aunty made us a classic thali-style feast of sambhar, pappadum, rasam, chapatis, black eyed peas, and kaseri bath. I wished her happy Ugadi and she told me that traditionally the holiday is celebrated by ceremoniously eating a combination of jaggery, which is sweet, along with some neem leaves, which are bitter. Sometimes in your own random portion, you get a larger amount of jaggery and sometimes you get a larger amount of neem. This is symbolic of what we should expect, and greet with equanimity, from life: a mix of sweet and bitter circumstances. (I’m sure I didn’t explain this very well, but Google is there for you if you’d like to learn more.)

This year is not even half gone, but it’s already brought a bounty of both ingredients. It’s hardly a novel idea, and most cultures have idioms to the same effect – “look on the bright side!” “there’s a silver lining in every cloud!” – but given recent events, it sort of resonated with me more strongly than I would have expected. The “greet with equanimity” part reminded me of V’s dad; he was always the picture of Zen, no matter what. It could have been a year full of nothing but neem and he would still find things to be joyful about. And in the jaggery times, no one smiled bigger or laughed harder. It wasn’t just an attitude of “be positive”. He carried himself like a person who understood that neither good times nor bad times last forever, and who possessed the sort of spirit that could withstand any bitterness while relishing every sweetness. I aspire to be such a person.

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I’m going back to Wisconsin a week from tomorrow for 5 days and I can’t wait to see my family, biological and otherwise.

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We switched insurance providers beginning April 1, so there are officially no real barriers standing between us and starting IVF, except of course my own fear of picking up the phone and getting the ball rolling. I need to get over myself and just do it. By the time I blog again I will have at least made the call, and then we’ll be on our way to daily injections and super fun side effects and embryo testing and major anxiety and all that jazz. CAN’T WAIT.

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After that great meal at Prema Aunty’s, we were craving more Indian food, so on Saturday we went to a dosa place in Issaquah. It was…magnificent. As much as it pains me that paneer is not really a big thing in south India, dosas come very very close to making up for it. V’s mom is visiting in August, and this time I SWEAR TO GOD I will finally really learn how to make them. We BOTH will.

dosas jaggery, personified

What I’m Reading:

I gave up on King Leopold’s Ghost and spent a few days on Miriam Toews’ Women Talking. It was okay, but sort of tedious.
I’ve moved on now to Shane Bauer’s American Prison, which is the book-length story that grew out of his Mother Jones article of a few years ago. Surprise: prisons are fucked up! Private prisons are *really* fucked up!

What I’m Eating:

Crap, mostly, tbh. I’ve made one or two genuinely healthy meals in the last several days but mostly it’s been cereal, bread, pasta, and sugar. God that looks even worse in print than in my Fitbit log. Who am I kidding…I haven’t been actually logging anything for weeks.

What I’m Watching:

We bought the current season of Schitt’s Creek since it isn’t streaming anywhere yet because we really missed it. David and Patrick are everything.
The last season of Game of Thrones, for obvious reasons.

What I’m Fuming About:

Our landlord, or more specifically, the property manager. It is too stupid to even get into but I am on the warpath.
Why is basic economy even a thing?? Airlines are like “this is for our more cost-conscious customers” like that isn’t fucking everybody but the .01%. Your cost-conscious customers don’t want to pay $315 to fly from Seattle to Madison without getting a seat assignment OR any overhead space because it’s not like $315 is any kind of bargain when you can pay $50 more to have the goddamn overhead space! You know I’m going to spend that extra $50! Why are you like this????

kere-the-charges-are-correct-sir-the-airline-36277854

Pumpkin Bars of the Gods

It’s funny how quickly you adapt to the norms of a new place. After less than 3 months in Seattle, if I forget my reusable bags when going to the grocery store, I feel an inordinate degree of shame and conspicuous “other”-ness. The smell of weed on the street is so common as to be unremarkable. Dogs have just as much a right to be basically anywhere as I do. Tipping is as expected at a coffee shop or counter service café/diner/food truck as it is at a sit-down restaurant. Everything is expensive, it just is, but I barely notice anymore.

These are weak complaints and certainly nothing that keeps me up at night. Something is, though – I haven’t been sleeping very well lately and can’t quite pinpoint why.

My favorite thing about being here so far is the writing I’m doing. Which makes it sound like I’m being incredibly productive – I am not, and I’m just as full of false starts and languishing Word docs as ever – but I’m learning a lot through the classes I’m taking and can’t wait to see what else Hugo House has to offer. Hugo House is kind of like the Art+Lit Lab in Madison, but exclusively focused on writing, and with a much bigger budget.

We’re deep into fall now and so last night I made pumpkin bars. I have lamented in the past that they are too good to relegate to a seasonal-only existence, but now I think it’s probably for the best. Here is the recipe, if you are feeling so inclined.

Pumpkin Bars of the Gods (adapted from The Breadman’s Wife)

pumpkin bars

Ingredients

2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg (if you have it – not crucial)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
4 eggs
1 2/3 cups sugar
1 cup oil (see notes below)
1 can (15 oz) pumpkin puree
Frosting:
- 8 oz cream cheese, softened
- 1/3 cup butter, softened
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp milk

Directions

Combine the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, baking soda) into one bowl and set aside. In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, sugar, oil, and pumpkin until light and fluffy. Gradually add the dry to the wet, mixing well.

Grease a 13×9 pan. Spread batter evenly and bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes (or use the toothpick trick). Let cool completely.

While it’s baking, you can make the frosting, which we all know is the real reason we are here. Mix together the butter and cream cheese (your Kitchen-Aid works best rather than by hand), then add powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk. Mix it all on high until smooth and creamy and delectable. Frost the bars with a knife and, if you’re feeling fancy, sprinkle some pumpkin pie seasoning on top when you’re done.

Notes

The oil. Pouring a big ol’ cup of vegetable/canola oil into a recipe is not the most appetizing thing and pretty obviously not great for you. That said, this is a dessert, not a salad, so if you want to use oil then you do you, my friend. I substituted Greek yogurt (1:1) (yay protein!) and the end result was about 99% the same, with the texture of the edges feeling somewhat tougher for some probably chemical reason I don’t understand. I have also subbed applesauce with similar results, so the choice really is yours.
This makes a LOT of frosting. Haters may say even too much frosting. I don’t happen to think that there is such a thing, personally, but you’ve been warned.

i do not love amy schumer but there is no more accurate gif

What I’m Reading:

I took a one-day seminar on “writing your obsessions” at Hugo House with the author Steve Almond, and really enjoyed it/him, so afterward I picked up his book on the 2016 election, Bad Stories. I couldn’t recommend it more highly. Often, reading and thinking about that period of time now makes me incredibly depressed, but Almond synthesizes the myriad reasons why it happened the way it did so plainly and cleverly that I was more fascinated than sad.

What I’m Watching:

Last night we finished season 3 of Daredevil on Netflix; V and I agreed it’s better than season 2. I was not super invested in Karen’s backstory, but I suppose it was necessary for further character development. It’s a good binge. And it was pleasantly surprising to see a South Asian actor in a key role that was totally non-stereotypical.
There is allegedly a current season of The Amazing Race happening, but we haven’t been able to stream it, so we’re consoling ourselves with watching a random old season we hadn’t watched already. I think it’s the 17th? Nick is super verbally abusive to Vicki, and Chad and Stephanie just got engaged despite him also being a pretty big dick to her, which seems to be the running theme this time around.

What I’m Eating:

Well, clearly, the pumpkin bars. I did put literally the healthiest recipe I know in the crockpot yesterday to try and balance out the extreme quantities of sugar I was consuming. That curried vegetable and chickpea stew is kind of labor-intensive for something that goes in the slow cooker, but it’s worth it IMO, and it’ll clean out your vegetable drawer in a hurry.

What I’m Fuming About:

Flights home for Christmas and how expensive they are
Isis’s continuing “overgrooming”/”barbering” habit that we naively hoped would improve upon a move to a different climate but which remains the same. I’m wondering if CBD oil would help her. Or maybe CBD oil would help me. Or maybe…
Can’t seem to get a callback on any job applications to save my life. Or any bites on pitches that I’m sending out.

What I’m Happy About:

Fall, duhhh. It’s gorgeous here.

seattle in fall

Sweet Potato & Spinach Pasta

I’ll write a *real* blog soon, but I did want to share this recipe with y’all because it turned out so deliciously.

Moving puts a real cramp in anyone’s diet, I think. Before you move, you’re trying to eat up everything you have, so you end up with a bunch of weird meals. Once you get to your new place, you’re starting your fridge and pantry mostly from scratch. So you go grocery shopping, get everything you think you need, come home to cook and then find that you don’t have any olive oil because why would you have thought to buy it because you always have it at ho – oh wait. To that end, we’ve had several delivery nights and nights of cereal for supper. Honestly, V would be happy having cereal for supper 4 nights out of the week if I didn’t strenuously object.

I basically halved this recipe to suit our needs, but I almost wish I hadn’t so we could’ve had leftovers. The pot was definitely scraped clean last night. AND, this is a one-pot dish!

Sweet Potato & Spinach Pasta (adapted from Build Your Bite)

Ingredients

1 box pasta (I used medium shells which absorbed the sauce really nicely)
dash of EVOO
1/2 a white onion, diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced (fairly small)
5 cups vegetable broth
S&P to taste
pinch of sage
pinch of thyme
2 1/2 cups fresh spinach
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1 1/4 cup grated Parmesan

Instructions

Add the EVOO to a good-sized stockpot on medium heat. Drop in the diced onions, garlic, and sweet potato. Let that cook for 8-10 minutes until the sweet potato starts to get soft.
Pour in the vegetable broth, pasta, and herbs and bring the pot to a boil. Mix well and cook for 10 minutes or until the pasta is al dente.
Turning the heat to low, add the cream, Parmesan, and S&P; stir well.
After the sauce has thickened, throw in the spinach and stir until it wilts.

Notes

If you are halving the recipe, you may need more than 2 1/2 cups of vegetable broth in order to get all the pasta to cook. Just put in enough so that everything is covered by broth.
I probably didn’t *exactly* halve the cream and the Parm. *shrug* So much the better. I may be entirely kidding myself to think that this recipe is healthy, considering all the aforementioned fat. But you can certainly adjust those amounts as you see fit.
I definitely did not have sage or thyme on hand when I made this. I skipped it. It turned out fantastic anyway.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Photo by Buenosia Carol on Pexels.com

Photo by Ela Haney on Pexels.com

A Tolerable Quinoa Recipe

Now how’s that for some clickbait? I am really getting the hang of this.

I decided to take a bit of a break from moaning about the vicissitudes of my life to share with you one of the very few acceptable quinoa recipes I know. As you probably are aware, I don’t like quinoa that much. I almost never order it at restaurants and I really only cook it when I know I’ve been eating too many brownies/cookies/chips. So this is what I eat to detox from all that magnificent joyful sugar. Done properly, it’s not TOO much of a drag. It’s also vegan and gluten-free, if those are things you care about.

The original recipe is called One Pot Tandoori Quinoa but I am not going to call it that because, as the author admits, it makes absolutely no sense. No tandoori oven is present here. This is a one pot on the stove recipe. So I will call it…

One Pot Indian-Spiced Quinoa

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive or coconut oil
1 cup diced sweet potatoes (not too big)
1/2 dices red or yellow onion (I used yellow)
2 cloves minced garlic
1 tbsp minced fresh ginger (I didn’t have fresh and had to use dried; that’s life, man)
2 tbsp garam masala
1 cup uncooked quinoa
1 1/4 cup (ish) vegetable stock
1 15 oz can chickpeas, drained and rinsed (I actually didn’t have any and just went without)
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes
1 tsp sugar
S&P to taste

Instructions

Pour oil into a large skillet and wait for it to warm. Once it’s hot, add sweet potatoes and stir.
You want to cook them for 5-10 minutes, depending on how small or large you diced them; smaller obviously doesn’t take as long.
Once they’re a little softer, add onions and stir. Add the spices and stir some more.
Add in quinoa, tomatoes, chickpeas, sugar, and vegetable stock. Bring it to a boil before lowering the heat and covering to let it simmer. It should take 20 or so minutes for the quinoa to cook and everything to come together.
Serve and congratulate yourself on being so impressively healthy. You are an earth goddess. You are fitness personified. Your glow is blinding.

Spices are pretty important here in order to avoid a totally bland end result, so be generous with your garam masala and anything else you choose to include.

It’s good rainy day food. It’s a good pre-brownie appetizer. 😉

Naan Pizza!

This is one of my favorite low maintenance vegetarian dinners. It is the collision of two beautiful worlds, two of my favorite countries: India and Italy. Is there anything “authentic” about this “dish”, in either culture? Oh my God no. It probably horrifies purists of either cuisine. But it is 1) easy 2) reasonably healthy 3) entirely customizable and 4) *delicious*.

Here’s how I do it, adapted from Umami Girl.

Naan Pizza

Servings: 2

Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

2 pieces any kind of naan
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1/8 cup tomato paste
1/4 cup tomato sauce
1/4 cup grated pecorino romano cheese
4-8 mozzarella balls (“ciliegine”, usually found in the deli of your grocery store)
a few spinach leaves
3-4 grape tomatoes, halved
freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Brush the olive oil over each piece of naan. Mix the tomato paste and tomato sauce together in a small bowl to combine. Spread evenly over each naan. Sprinkle some of the grated pecorino romano on top.

Here’s where you can really go nuts, individualizing-wise, but you know me: I keep it very simple. Depending on the size of your naan, drop about 4 mozzarella balls around the sauced area. Tear up a few spinach leaves and place them around the same area along with the halved grape tomatoes.

You want to bake this directly on the rack, no pan, but I absolutely do recommend either putting some aluminum foil or another pan on the bottom of your oven to capture any sauce or cheese drippage – yes, speaking from experience. Place the naan on the rack and bake for 10 minutes. Take it out – it should be bubbly – and crack some fresh black pepper all over.

That’s it! A 15-minute dinner (or snack) (or appetizer) (or lunch) (whatever you want)! You could add meat obviously, if you’re not vegetarian, or add pineapple or green pepper or any number of other toppings. The naan is a blank canvas for your imagination!

naan pizza

National Cookie Day

I said that this wasn’t going to be a food blog, and it isn’t, but I was informed that today is National Cookie Day and therefore I felt it only fitting that I repost my famous chocolate chip cookie recipe. I actually made them last night, totally unaware of the holiday eve.

My cookies don’t always turn out this perfectly round, because I’m lazy when it comes to shaping the dough, and I really don’t need them to be works of visual art to be the phenomenal salivary art that they are. So without further ado:

Molly’s Chocolate Chip Cookies (adapted from various Pinterest recipes)

Ingredients:

Stick and a half butter (high quality if you can), softened
1/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla (again, quality counts here)
2 cups flour
2 tsp cornstarch
2 tsp baking soda
Pinch of salt
3/4 cup – 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350F. Ideally you’ll have had your butter sitting out to soften, but if you’re like me and you literally never plan ahead that well, nuking it for 15 seconds should do the trick if it’s coming from the fridge. Add that into your electric mixing bowl. (This can, of course, be done manually with good old fashioned elbow grease but that is obviously not my preferred method.) Pour in the white sugar and brown sugar, mix well until there are no separate bits of butter.

Crack the egg in there and measure out 2 tsp of vanilla; mix again very well.

Most recipes will have you put all the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl before *gradually* mixing it in with your wet ingredients, but honestly, I’ve tried it both ways a dozen times and I can’t see that it makes a damn bit of difference. Don’t make life harder for yourself. Just dump the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt in the mixing bowl and stir, stir, stir. Once you’ve got everything well incorporated, add the chocolate chips and stir some more.

At this point I like to chill the dough for a little while – not a long time, because who wants to wait any longer than absolutely necessary to shovel these cookies in their mouth, but maybe 20-30 minutes. Go watch an episode of Parks & Rec or Arrested Development. Take a bath. Journal. #selfcare (That said, if you can’t wait, I’m definitely not judging. They’ll turn out fine, but might spread out a little more than they would otherwise.)

Lay some parchment paper on top of a baking sheet and drop your nicely formed dough balls on top. Bake for 10 minutes, NO MORE THAN 11. They won’t look super done, but that’s what we’re going for. This is a recipe for very soft, very chewy chocolate chip cookies. If hard and crispy is what you’re looking for, keep ‘er movin’, friend.