cheddar – The Kitchen Illiterate

Squash and Swiss Chard Pasta Bake

We spent Thanksgiving weekend with my family in San Diego, and although I had some kind of notion that I would have something to share with you all here, I slipped firmly into vacation mode when I got down there, and barely even touched my laptop the whole weekend. I was far to busy being entertained by my favorite little person. I did cook Thanksgiving dinner with my brothers, as usual (they smoked a turkey this year!), but I didn’t get as intense about the meal as I have in the past. I didn’t come up with a cooking schedule, I didn’t try to manage every corner of the kitchen, I didn’t even have recipes for some of the side dishes we made. And while things might not have come out to the table as perfect as a Martha Stewart photo shoot, I was considerably more relaxed than usual. And that was definitely something to be grateful for (so was that smoked turkey; it was incredible).

We drove back on Saturday, and the drive was not so much something to be grateful for. I think in the future I’ll be much more willing to fly home for Thanksgiving; the traffic could have been worse, certainly. But my back still hurts from 10 hours in the car. And as soon as we got home, we were thrown into a very busy week. I’m just glad my mom sent me home with leftovers, because otherwise we wouldn’t really have anything to eat.
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Beer Cheese Soup

It was kind of a surprise to me when I realized how much I care about tradition. As a rebellious teenager (is there any other kind?) I saw myself as completely unconventional, someone who wanted to break with the past completely. But lurking under those attempts to figure out who I might be was the real me: the one who appreciates routine and sameness, the one who thrives on rules and order. The one who relies on the careful acting out of family traditions, and of personal traditions, year after year, in order to maintain the continuity that makes me feel safe and protected in what can be a fairly chaotic world.

One of those traditions is one I’ve written about here before: Every Christmas Eve, for as long as I can remember, my family has gathered to eat beer cheese soup. There are other key components to this tradition: the oyster soup that my Dad prefers, the beef stew that my Aunt Penny brings every year, and the tiny summer sausage sandwiches that accompany whichever soup you decide (or all three, as is more often the case). But for me, the beer cheese soup has always been the centerpiece. Over the years, the recipe has changed slightly, but the presence of the soup never does. And the soup held such a sacred place in my mind that I would not deign to make it any other time of year.
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Squash and Tomato Crumble

A few weeks ago, Matt of MattBites.com shared a simple little recipe that completely blew my mind, for these lovely vegetable crumbles. Vegetable crumbles! The name is so plain, and his single paragraph describing them is so quiet and unassuming. Oh, just vegetable crumbles. You know, simple. What?! No, to me this idea was almost revolutionary. I love, love, love it when a new culinary idea quietly appears in the course of my normal, daily reading, and this one refused to be shaken easily. Yes, a savory crumble. I had to try it.
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Mushroom and Broccoli Lentils

This might not look all that exciting, but assure you, it was. It was very exciting. And do you know what makes a big bowl of lentils exciting? Well, I’ll tell you: It’s Worcestershire sauce and aged farmhouse cheddar. These two simple ingredients make a big bowl of lentils positively mind-blowing. When I cooked up this little dinner I didn’t think much of it. I certainly didn’t think it would be worth sharing here. This was a simple weeknight dinner, to be consumed while catching up with my DVR or reading some dorky librarian’s magazine. But then I tasted it and knew it deserved so much better than that.
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Swiss Chard and Red Pepper Gratin

What? Another gratin? Has the kitchen really gotten this boring? Well, actually no. This gratin couldn’t be more different from last week’s Sweet Potato and Spinach Gratin. In fact, I’m not even really sure that this is a gratin. It seems a lot more like a frittata, but if the New York Times wants to call it a gratin, who am I to argue?

I bookmarked this one a year and a half ago, and every time I came across it subsequently, it just didn’t catch my attention the way it had at first. But this week, for some reason, it stood out. I think it was the red peppers. I buy red peppers so infrequently in the winter that I can’t even remember the last time I had them. But the red peppers at the produce market last weekend were so brilliantly red I couldn’t resist them. And I was intrigued by what looked like a frittata with rice, which I’ve been eating a lot more of lately, so I decided I had to try it. I only wish I’d tried it sooner.
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Sweet Potato and Spinach Gratin

I’ll be honest, I had little niggling voices of doubt in the back of my mind as I started putting this dinner together. It sounds like a dubious combination: Sweet potatoes, spinach, garlic, and cheddar cheese? For reals? Well, I’m here to tell you, my friends, to allay your fears of a weird dinner. This is excellent! The flavors balance each other very nicely, and it is a wonderful cold weather comfort food dinner: warm and cheesy, but with the added kick of nutritiousness that sweet potatoes and spinach bring to the table: beta carotene, vitamin C, iron, vitamin K, the list goes on and on. I love it when I get my indulgence and my health boost in one place.

You might think that the cheese cancels out the benefits of the vegetables, but let me tell you, that is simply not true. Some vitamins are fat-soluble, meaning they aren’t absorbed in the body without a complementary dose of tasty, tasty, fat. So don’t skimp on the cheese. It’s good for you!
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Laura’s Mike’s Mess

My first year of college I wasn’t quite ready to leave the comforting embrace of my small hippie college town. Unfortunately, I found it a little bit tricky to find a job in that town. I graduated during the last serious plunge in the employment rate, in 2001, and it was not a good time to be a newly graduated Lit major, I can tell you that. I ended up working in various coffee shops and restaurants before I finally landed that first desk job, and while I was certainly extremely poor and had to defer payment of my student loans for too, too long, I wouldn’t exchange the experience for anything. I met great people, I had a lot of fun, learned to carry multiple cups of coffee at once, and I discovered what remains to this day my favorite breakfast: The Mike’s Mess from Zachary’s, in Santa Cruz, California. This year, I decided I need to try to make it myself.
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Squash and Pepper Enchiladas

I knew I had found my Walla Walla grocery store when I stumbled upon the Mexican food aisle in the Super 1 Foods. Queso Fresco, Mexican-style chorizo, Jarritos soda: I am definitely back on the West coast. I almost squealed aloud with glee when I spotted the nopales and chayote squash, and then again when I saw my favorite brand of refried beans, unavailable to me on the East coast (though now that I know they’re made by ConAgra, my affection is wearing thin).

I had been craving enchiladas for weeks. I have a pretty standard enchilada recipe that I usually swear by, but I thought perhaps this time I would try something different. And I am glad I did. These squash and pepper enchiladas might just supplant my stand-by chicken enchiladas in the roster of recipe favorites.
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Johnny Machete? Johnny Marzetti? Just call it delicious.

If you’ve been around here long enough you’ve heard me mention Gilmore Girls, many times. It’s one of the only television shows I’ve ever become addicted to (for longer than a week), and I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve watched the entire seven-season series through not once, but twice. And yes, I own them all on DVD. I don’t really know what it is about those fast-talking, witty ladies, but I cannot get enough, and I’ve gotten more than one person (like, pretty much everyone I’ve ever lived with) hooked as well, so I know it’s not just me.

What, in the name of all that is good and holy, does this have to do with food? Well, other than the fact that those Girls eat a lot of it, there is one particular episode (in Season 3) in which a strange casserole is mentioned: Johnny Machete. Nothing is said except that it contains cream of mushroom soup, and come on now, every casserole worth its weight contains cream of mushroom soup. It’s not called casserole glue for nothin’.
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Chicken Braid? Yes, Chicken Braid.

My housemate, Hilary, gave me this recipe a few months ago, and I made it twice in three weeks. Those who know me know that I rarely repeat a recipe, no matter how good it is, so twice in three weeks is really saying something. Hilary says her mom got the recipe from Pampered Chef, but this recipe can be found all over the interwebs, with very little variation. I suspect it may originally have been one of those Pillsbury package recipes, as every version I’ve seen calls for packaged crescent rolls.

I did not use Pillsbury crescent rolls, though. I used puff pastry, and it turned out splendidly, perhaps, dare I say, even better? Key point, though: the first time I made it I used Trader Joe’s puff pastry, and the second time, Pepperidge Farm, and the Trader Joe’s was a far better choice. The sheet of pastry was a better size, it thawed more quickly, and the flavor was much more buttery and light. Just so you know.
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