I made moussaka last week, using the version in the Joy of Cooking. It was really, really, good. I will make it again sometime, though it took an hour and a half to get it into the oven, so "sometime" is a long way off.

We went to a Greek restaurant with my parents, and I got my mom's leftover moussaka, and then I wanted more. And we keep buying eggplant at the store, so finding new things to do with it is good.

Also, happy fall! It's my second-favorite season. I like to watch things change.

Some months ago my husband decided he wanted chocolate cake, but had trouble finding a recipe that called for cocoa rather than chocolate. (He eventually found one. That was the night of the icing fire.) After that I asked my mom for her Wacky Cake recipe, which I finally made last night (not exactly the one linked to, but close enough). Turned out really well - moist and chocolaty. We skipped the icing, though, as I was short on time.

I think it turned out so well because of the secret ingredient. It calls for 2 cups of sugar, and after I measured about 1/3 cup of sugar I discovered that was all we had. We had some light brown sugar, but it was dried into a solid block. Tried stabbing it with a knife and barely made a dent. Luckily my faithful assistant came up with the bright idea of grating it. Even more luckily, he grated it while I ran off and did some work upstairs. Sounded like he was scrubbing pots.

Today, spurred by an article in the paper about farmer’s markets that still have local produce this time of year, we ventured to the Worthington farmer’s market, which is really hard to find. We didn’t see any of the greens that are supposedly available, perhaps because we got there too late, but did get some squash and shallots and sausage.

Originally published at Scriniary - Wordpress.

Apparently I’m two or three months behind on cooking posts.

Stuff I can still remember making lately, for a generous definition of lately:

* Mexican tomato soup with cornmeal dumplings: Kind of interesting. If I make it again - and I may not - I would use a less strongly flavored oil for the dumplings than olive oil. (From Cooking Light, but I can’t find the recipe at their site yet.)

* Black bean cakes: beans, pepper jack cheese, onion, coated with cornmeal. They were really good (and also made a tasty breakfast). (Also from Cooking Light, also not on their site yet.)

* Corned beef, steamed cabbage, and soda bread. (No points for guessing what day this is from.) The bread, alas, did not bake all the way through, despite sounding deceptively hollow when thumped. A second attempt with an extra 10 minutes of baking time fared much better.

* Tuna noodle casserole. Not very exciting, but it’s easy to double and it freezes well.

* Tamale pie. Basically used the recipe from the Joy of Cooking, but replaced a third of the ground beef with either zuchinni (yummy) or broccoli (good but weird). And replaced much of the salsa with canned tomatoes + various herbs, spices + aromatic veggies. And left out the cheese the second time. I guess I pretty much used their dough recipe and made up my own filling. Also easy to double and freeze.

* Chicken soup with dumplings. I love dumplings.

* Black bean tortilla bake. From Skinny One-Pot Meals. With a lot less cheese than it calls for, because it wanted a lot of cheese. And the second time we didn’t have any nonfat ricotta anyway.

Originally published at Scriniary - Wordpress.

A somewhat belated food post, courtesy of my Christmas present (a digital camera) and my boyfriend's Hanukah [1] present (a food processor).

He made tasty latkes. These are potato (and onion and carrot) from 10 days ago. We both commented that they were much better than we expected, which sort of raises the question about why we made them if neither of us likes them. I guess now we know we like them after all.

We've also had zucchini latkes (v. tasty! esp. with sour cream - we did not make the yogurt sauce in the recipe) and potato latkes with jalepeno serrano. The latter didn't have much heat; probably grating rather than shredding the hot peppers would have worked better.

[1] Google says that two k's is the more common spelling, but the boyfriend said he prefers one k, and since it's his present, one k it is. And no C.

Happy Solstice!

Randomness

•Hey, I'm Time's Person of the Year! And so are you.

•Meme: I need to use bigger words. Excuse me, I mean, I should employ more extravagant language.

pollyc's Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 8
Average number of words per sentence:	17.25
Average number of syllables per word:	1.42
Total words in sample:	2363
Analyze your journal! Username:
Another fun meme brought to you by rfreebern

•David Louis Edelman surveyed people about why they bought the books they bought. Top three reasons: They read other books by the author, a friend recommended it, and they judged the book by its cover. Those are generally my reasons as well, and the reasons I try to write up posts on books that I like.

•Finally saw the new Bond movie Casino Royale yesterday. It got good reviews, I had thought, but I was disappointed. There was nothing really big wrong with it, but there were a lot of niggling little problems that kept me from really enjoying it.

Food
(for future reference, for when I get around to making my database)

Recent recipes: Pasta and Acorn Squash with Chipotle Cheese Sauce from The Best 125 Meatless Mexican Dishes, which I've made before, and a new recipe for a bean and tortilla casserole thing from Skinny One-Pot Meals that called for (nonfat) ricotta along with the (lowfat) cheddar. Both were good.

I got tired of eating meat all the time, although cheese is not exactly an improvement.

Writing Summary:

Word count is beginning to pick up after the flu and stuckness of last week. Not much to say about it though.

( Details )

Exercise Summary:
I've not been keeping records, but I have been walking.

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This week:
Walk more. Write more. Wrap Christmas presents.

I'm behind on food posts (again). Recent weeks have seen tuna/salmon noodle cassarole, chicken pot pie (twice), chicken cutlets with maple dill sauce (Cooking Light, Dec. 2006, too sweet, not going to make it again), and Beef Stew with Poblanos, Tomatillos, and Potatoes (also the most recent issue of CL), which I have now made twice and am going to be making again next weekend (in the crockpot next time).

We've been doing a lot of cooking on weekends and eating leftovers during the week. So much easier than cooking after work.

Roasted Chicken with Dried Plums and Shallots, Cooking Light, Sept. 2006.

Mmmmmmmm. I'll be making this again.

It has prunes. And fennel. And shallots. Mmmmmmmm. I *love* fennel.

It calls for four chicken breasts; I had two packages of three, so the two extras got turned into cooked chicken + broth (needed some broth for tonight anyway). Need the cooked chicken for Wednesday's dinner (stay tuned...).

Supposed to have brussels sprouts on the side; one of us refuses to eat them, so we had broccoli instead.

Aside 1: If they give away the recipes on their website, why do I subscribe?

Aside 2: One of my projects for my oodles of free time (ha) is to put together a web-based recipe database, so I can, say, look in the fridge and notice I have chicken and fennel and then do a search for recipes that include those ingredients. Also, so I can find recipes I like and make them again. It's hard to track multiple cookbooks + magazines + clippings + printouts.

Ok, it's really Pork Chops with Cherry Preserves Sauce (Cooking Light, Aug. 2006). But I should have read the recipe more closely before I decided to make it, as the sauce is just cherry preserves and a tiny bit of vinegar. Waaaaaaaaaay too sweet.

Next time I'll stick with the pork-and-plums recipe I love so much from a previous issue. That fruit sauce is dried plums+wine+chicken broth. Much less sweet.

And I thought I was lucking out since cherry preserves were on sale.

Writing is such a pain in the rear.

I'd hoped, when I started this book, to save myself from the endless round of rewriting that I had to do on the previous book. No such luck.

This week I finished typing in the revisions I'd scribbled onto printouts of chapters 4-6, then reread the book so far (it ends in early chapter 9). Unsuprisingly, it gets off to too slow a start, so I'll be deleting the last scene of chapter 1 and the second scene of chapter 4. Yay, more rewriting.

I also have to rewrite chapter 8, since I made a big change in chapter 7 to keep all my characters from getting killed.

Would anyone like to loan me a new writing process? This isn't as tedious as poring over the thing trying to add more description, but it'd be nice to write a scene and not have to rewrite it, or delete it, later. (My cuts files already have two chapter's worth of words in them, and that doesn't include the old version of chapter 1 or stuff that only got heavily rewritten. That means I've cut nearly 20 percent of what I've written. Fantastic.)

Anyway, today I am going to whip chapters 1 and 2 (now called chapter 1) into shape, and then write more of chapter 9. (I finally started writing new story again on the airplane [1]. It's been ages. (I will probably cut it again later.))

Yesterday I did no work on this book but did a million other things. Including making Peach Tapioca. That wasn't what I wanted to make (I need to hit the grocery store), but it was pretty tasty:

Peach Tapioca

1 15 oz can peaches, undrained
enough soy milk to make 1 c of liquid
~2 TBSP quick tapioca
cinnamon and brown sugar to taste

Mix everything in a saucepan and let it sit for several minutes. Bring to a boil, stirring occassionally. Turn off heat and let sit for ~20 minutes.

[1] This would have been easier if I had a non-wireless keyboard for my Palm. I had a laptop, but it seemed too much trouble to drag it out for the short Chicago-Detroit hop.

Last night's dinner was choucroute, more or less, from (as usual) Cooking Light. Pork chops, (turkey) sausage, and an apple, cooked in sauerkraut and beer.

I hate sauerkraut, but for some reason every time I run across this recipe it sounds interesting, so when I found it while making a grocery list, I decided to try it. This was a quick version since it used pork chops instead of a big hunk of pork.

It was good. Not too sauerkrauty. I'll have to revise my previous statement to "I hate sauerkraut when it's all by itself".