of crock pots and childhood

I've been enjoying my crock pots a lot lately. Possibly the best part for me is having hot, moist, long-cooking sorts of meals that take only minutes of my attention.

I love, really love, hanging out in the kitchen and spending all day on a sauce. I truly do. But I absolutely, positively do not enjoy coming home tired and hungry and grumpy after a day of work and hoping for a creative impulse. I'm not going to find creativity then not matter how hard I look. So instead, especially in winter, I try to keep something simmering and ready. Something that satisfies on all sorts of levels. Winter is serious comfort food time.

My favorite food memories are almost all of Syrian or Lebanese meals, the food my grandmother cooked (and my mother, though mom was always a southern girl at heart.) I don't make many of these dishes anymore, unfortunately. Many, if not most, use grains as a mainstay and gluten is abundant. Still,  I long for those flavors.

 One of my favorites was a long, slow cooked dish we simply referred to as green beans and rice. It started with ground lamb or beef (most often beef during my childhood years due to relative costs) that we browned with chopped onions, salt, and pepper. Next we added lots of green beans, fresh or frozen, and a can or two of tomato sauce and an equal amount of water. This simmered, covered for hours and hours and hours. Seriously. The green beans almost, but not quite, melted into the sauce. This was then served over mounds of rice, first browned in butter (probably margarine when I was a child) and steamed. I loved it, still do to this day, though when cooking in my own kitchen I made it with diced lamb or beef more often than ground. These days, of course, I don't eat rice and I also can handle only the tiniest amount of tomato. In reality, I should probably stay as far away from any tomato as I possibly can, but every once-in-awhile I use a little. Just a little. Still, that means no tomato sauce at all, since it's pretty darned concentrated.

A few tomatoes in a large pot of food can add the flavor without so much tomato.

While trying to find a good lazy-day plan for a leg of lamb from Lava Lake Lamb, I inadvertently discovered an easy dish that is becoming one of my favorites. I love their lamb, and while I was not in the frame of mind for hours in the kitchen, I was sure as heck not going to waste that lamb. I decided to put the lamb in the crock pot and hope for the best. Then those green bean thoughts started dancing in my head. What if I put a couple of pounds of green beans in the bottom and layered the other ingredients? Now, when I say layer, I mean toss in randomly for the most part. They just end up in natural layers. I used what I had. Not wanting to chop an onion, seriously I was feeling that lazy, I used frozen pearl onions. I grabbed 3 small Roma tomatoes from the freezer and tossed them on top. Then I plopped the lamb on top of the veggies. I figured with that many watery vegetables, I would not need to add any more moisture. Good call, since there was plenty of broth produced without the addition of liquid.

What a delightful surprise. It was far better than I ever expected. The flavors were wonderful and even reminded me a bit of stuffed grape leaves, another childhood favorite. I have made this dish since, evening starting with a piece of frozen meat. I did mention the lazy part, right? It's virtually foolproof and not time-sensitive. It can cook 6 hours or 10 without issue.

I still love to spend hours in the kitchen when I have hours to spend, but it is utterly delightful to come home to dinner that's hot and ready and a house that smells like childhood.

ah, a new year

There's something about a new year that delights me. The promise, the possibility, the very newness of it. I love New Year's Day. And I especially love this one.

Looking back on 2012, I can, but won't, recount far more negative than positive in those 12 months. That's not to say nothing good happened in 2012. In the world, in my personal life as well, I see much to appreciate. It's just that so much of 2012 does not fall into that category. 2013 is all ahead.

I woke this morning startled by my own focus for the day. I want to clean my kitchen---top to bottom, and more reorganizing and optimizing than cleaning. Still, I want it squeaky clean, as well. This is not like me. It's not that I'm a fan of dirty kitchens or anything else for that matter. It's just that it's not my focus. I've often mentioned that I am the mess-maker extraordinaire and GK has kindly volunteered to take care of the cleaning. This is a delightful arrangement that works quite well for the most part. What I do give up is control. When he puts dishes, utensils, cookware, foods away, he decides where they are to go. It's a matter of practicality, of course. But when I reach for a specific knife and find another in its place, my body tenses and I suppress (usually) a slight grumble. My tools should be where they belong, right? Not in my wildest, craziest dreams would I consider walk into "his" garage and moving so much as a screw. And back on the kitchen end, you don't even want me to start on the frustration of spending twice as long looking for ingredients that have been moved as I spend making the dish I'm cooking. So today is kitchen "cleaning" day, and for a little while at least, I'll be able to find things in my kitchen.

It was easy to get his commitment  to help. It's pretty rare for me to ask for a day devoted to cleaning. When I do, I get cooperation, muscle-power, and encouragement. All the time, of course, he's in utter disbelief that I've said "let's clean." It's the best of all worlds for me and a most wonderful way to start a new year.

a bit of year-end nostalgia

I can't remember a time in my life, aside from a few bouts with depression long ago, when I was not enamored of food, just about every aspect of it. Cooking has long been my claim to fame, even though on a quite miniscule level. While there is much that I love about the way I cook and eat these days, I do miss a good deal of what I've left behind.

I miss coming home tired from work and starting yeast dough for a pizza that night. I've always made my own sauce, and it was ready and waiting in the freezer for the mood to strike. On several occasions, I made batch after batch of pizza dough from a recipe that had become muscle memory.  They were certainly not perfectly round, and the toppings were a bit esoteric for some tastes, I'm sure---artichoke, eggplant, feta cheese, fresh tomato, jalapeno peppers, anchovies, fresh herbs from the garden as well as the expected and accepted. I will never forget some of the children in our family discussing my pizzas. They all agreed they were the best they'd ever eaten. I loved that. And I miss it.

Yesterday, I served a lasagne as part of a buffet lunch. It had to be gluten-free so that I could even handle preparing and cooking it. I had to ask GK and my daughter to taste the sauce as I made it. It was big and heavy with several kinds of cheese, a bit of eggplant still hanging on in our garden, thin slices of summer squash, spinach, and of course, the somewhat spicy homemade sauce. As it came out of the oven to oohs and aahs from a few nearby family members, I was almost simultaneously sad that I could not enjoy it myself and guilty that I was serving something I don't look upon as healthy to people I love. It's a weird one, like pouring another drink for a friend who's had too many.

So I'm giving myself a few days to reminisce about foods of days past. At the same time, I refuse to fall victim to my own mental ramblings. Right now, I have the rear half of an organically raised turkey browning in the oven before I put in in a crock pot to simmer a bit with some vegetables. I'll remove the meat when it's done and let the rest continue to simmer. It may not be pizza, but it's still playing with food. And at the end, I can serve it guiltlessly to my family and enjoy it myself.

I won't deny feeling a little deprived occasionally, not so much by what I can't eat as by what I can't cook, but I wouldn't change a thing at this point. Well, maybe I'd speed up my progress with some new cooking skills. I'd like for people to look forward to what I'm serving, and pizza is sure off the table.