Procrastibaking

I'm really not that much of a cook, but I've always loved baking. There's something so pleasingly mathematical and precise and safe about it. A couple of teaspoons of this, a couple of cups of that, and voila, you will have yourself some completely respectable muffins/cookies/whatever. Also, I love nearly any recipe that involves the oven. It makes anything delicious. Garlic? Check. Tomatoes? Wouldn't eat them any other way. Hummus slathered on a piece of flatbread with some veggies thrown on top? Done, done, and done. The only things you can really do wrong when it comes to the oven are: not greasing your pan, keeping stuff in there too long, or you know, forgetting to wear oven mitts. (Sometimes you have a pan of chocolate chip oatmeal cookies gazing up at you all oozy and decadent and you just don't have time to go looking for things like oven mitts.)

Anyway, now that I've left cool, idyllic California for the humid, icky, seriously-why-can't-I-ever-have-a-good-hair-day-here East Coast I've found the oven has a major drawback: in a non-air conditioned apartment in New Haven in August, it has an unfortunate tendency to bear-hug the entire place in its overwarm, cuddly-bordering-on-needy embrace.

Unfortunately for my apartment and sanity, I tend to turn to baking most often when there are thing(s) I'd rather not be doing. Like confronting a mini-quarterlife crisis. Prepping for a week's worth of interviews at school. Et cetera. Procrastinating + baking = procrastibaking.

So I procrastibaked all weekend long. I had such an urge to procrastibake that I started making these blackberry orange muffins, which sounded like summer in a pan. I'd gotten all the way to zesting my orange and folding the blackberries into some flour when I realized I was totally out of eggs. Not only was I out of them, but I knew I was out of them--I'd picked up a dozen at Gourmet Heaven (which really should be renamed Usurious Passably-Stocked "We Sell Pop-Tarts and Thus Cannot Refer to Ourselves as Gourmet" Market) and then, deterred by the $7 price tag, put them back down. And then left. And yet here I was, midway through a recipe that called for two eggs.

Back in the day, my optimism might have led me to mix all the ingredients anyway, stick it in the oven, and "see what happened." This kind of thinking was smashed out out of me right good after I made white chocolate cookies that resembled nothing so much as a semi-solid, thick stew. Never again.

Google revealed as the solution (among other things, including vinegar, Egg Beaters, flaxseed oil, and "Go back to the store and just buy a carton of damn eggs") a whole mashed banana. Both eggs and bananas have a really bizarre, sticky, slick, difficult-to-replicate texture. It seemed to make sense. And sure enough, the banana mash and a little almond milk (I decided I'd go whole cow on the vegan thing since I'd already started--pun so intended) held the dry mix together.

Twenty minutes later (the batter was a lot thicker because of the lack of egg, so I didn't bake the muffins for quite as long):

Blue(berry) banana orange blackberry muffins. They say four fruits a day...

These guys were not bad given the last minute improvisations (and my accidental impaling of a few blueberries and blackberries in the mixing process, which led to a Smurf-blue batter). The banana flavor was subtle and the crumb a little denser, but aside from that...really not bad. I sprinkled some raw sugar on top of each, which gave the muffins a tasty little crunch.

I thought this and some five-ingredient peanut butter cookies (so easy: flour, peanut butter, agave nectar/honey/maple syrup, vanilla, baking powder) (unfortunately no pic available as they were eaten too quickly) would kick the procrastibaking right out of me.

But no. The next day, interviews still looming, I was seized with a sudden urge to make...naan?

That's right. Naan. I actually had a little packet of yeast, nestled among my baking tools, from my last procrastibaking spree. And I had flour. And sugar. And salt. And that's all you actually need to make a pretty delicious little piece of naan.

Little naan breads all ready to be baked...how cute are they?!

I was terrified to make these b ut they weren't bad at all, and the recipe I used was incredibly easy to follow. I do think I left them in the oven too long--they had more of a crunchy, bready texture than the soft pull of naan I'm used to--but that was easily rectified with a damp paper towel swaddling and a zap in the microwave.

I served them with a super-simple daal featuring random spices (curry powder, cumin, chili powder, something else red, tons of garlic, and salt) and a pack of red lentils.

And then I sat down to write this blog.

Wonder what my next feat of procrastination will be...

Cheese (and mac)

Don't be fooled by this unfortunate mug shot, taken as quickly as I could before ripping off my oven mitts and into this dish. This buttery, crunchy, creamy, decadent mac and cheese was just...transcendent. And would you expect anything less from a Martha Stewart recipe?

It all started with me and the cheese section at Whole Foods (perhaps that will be the title of a future memoir). I noticed a few blocks of cheddar nestled alongside one another. Who knew there were so many types of cheddar? And fontina? And gruyere? On sale? Before I knew it, it was 11pm, I had bits of Cabot extra-sharp clinging to my hair, cheese-grating-induced finger cramps, and an enormous mound of grated cheese on my countertop.

The thing about mac and cheese is that it's hard to screw up, unless you pansy out and decide to go puritan: "Do I really need to put four pounds of cheese in this?" "Maybe I can use olive oil instead of butter to toast the breadcrumbs." Friends, no. This is a balls-to-the-wall mac and cheese. So unwrap that stick of butter, and then unwrap another. (And then maybe hit that spinning class tomorrow morning.)

The only real tricky part of the mac and cheese is making the white bechamel sauce (flour + butter + teensy bit of milk) which you have to stir and stir and stir until smooth and silky. Why, you ask? Bechamel sauce is the base for the creamy, cheesy sauce that will eventually cling to your tiny macaronis and sing to your heart. It's what unites the mac and the cheese, marrying them in the most perfect union.

Once you've made your bechamel, next comes the fun part: melting down all that cheese you grated.

Aww, yeah. It looks pretty innocuous, but that right there is four pounds of cheese melted down. No regrets here, baby.

The mac part of the mac and cheese is almost an afterthought--toss those little guys into this sauce, stir, throw into a (buttered!!) pan, and coat with (buttered!) breadcrumbs. Bake until golden--the color of sunshine and angels' halos.

When I was in France, my host mother would often serve ridiculous cheesy dishes like this one with a tiny salad (sometimes even just ripping the leaves off of a head of iceberg lettuce and tossing with olive oil and balsamic vinegar). I liked to think of those little salads as legitimizing whatever quiche or cheese souffle or potato gratin we were digging into. So serve this with a green salad (mine featured toasted pecans, beets, baby mixed greens, and goat cheese).

Then, if you're me, you'll have to roll right into bed. And bring the leftovers to work the next day.

Kimbap

Staple Korean snack.

Late Night Regrets

Whataburger, you get me everytime given you're just about the only 24hr service in suburbia.

4th meal - whatachicken with fries and water

UPDATE: The bread was toasted too long and the fries a little too salty.

Beer Bread

Not to gloat, but it was almost as good as mustang bread.

(Confidential to Alex: Can you come photograph my food? My pics are just not cutting it.)

Fresh Corn Salad with Basil

Fresh corn, basil and tomatoes from the farmers market + red onion, lime, and olive oil. Served with a dollop of yogurt.

This is not NY pizza, but...

...it's still one helluva good pizza.

Lunch today - Mama's Pizza 13" classic cheeze pizza

This is my new favorite pizza joint. My first taste of Mama's Pizza was during a Burleson shift. It was midnight, I had not eaten anything since before 6pm, and I was ready to have my way with the pizza in the break room. One word - nomilicious.

Does it make me a glutton if I had satieted my hunger but was still thinking about the pizza on the drive home, the next day, and craving it ever since?! Possibly...

I really hoped that Burleson was not the only location I could get my hands on this delicious 1" thick mama's special cheese pizza. Thank the person upstairs, there are many locations in the D/FW area. So I moseyed on down to the Arlington location.

(don't mind the grease >.<)

The pizza was just as delicious as I remembered it. I argue this is better than the Margherita at Campania's West Village and either the White Special or White Pizza at Coal Vines Uptown. Pizza off anyone?