Monday, December 17, 2007

musings from a crockpot crackpot....

I have the ugliest crockpot on the planet. So ugly, that its ashamed to be photographed. Its so ugly it will never be retro, like those early 60's pink appliances. Its a melonish, mustardish, speckled moldy-orange color, and isn't even made of crockery, but some metallic, teflon coated substance that sits on a separate griddle. But like most things, its what inside that counts.

Today, there was split-pea soup inside. I've been a split-pea soup lover since childhood. Blame the George and Martha books. For those who were deprived, George and Martha are hippos and best friends. In one story, Martha makes lots split-pea soup because she thinks George likes it. George does not. George despises split-pea soup, but he doesn't want to hurt her feelings and pretends to eat it. So he is forced to find all kinds of devious ways to dispose of the stuff, my favorite being dumping the soup in his shoes. Since childhood, the image of him with soup in his shoes has made me smile, and contrarily I've turned into a grown-up who is very fond of both making AND eating split-pea soup.

For years I've used the split-pea soup recipe from the "Good Enough to Eat"cookbook. But this morning, stressed for time, energy and motivation, and the thought of having to do dinner was more than I could bear. Half-asleep, I threw in a Women's Bean Project Soup mix into the ugly crockpot with a ham hock and two cans of chicken broth and left for work. When I came home it was like alchemy. My normal recipe, which takes twice as much work, and couldn't compare. This soup was good. Like both the kids had two servings, good. Like you could throw it in a shoe, and serve it to hippos, good. And at this crazed, stressed out, impossible time of year, for the simple and sublime to happen at the same time ( in the most humble of crockpots) - is a true christmas miracle.

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Cobwebs & Cookies

First, I need to get the cobwebs, dust bunnies and stray bits out of dog hair out of the corners of this place... its been that long since I've visited my blog. Luckily, my blog isn't like my daughter's Tamagotchi where neglect sends it the thing into a squacking tizzy that reminds you how painfully self-absorbed you are for living your life instead of tending to your technology.

With that out of the way, its back to business. There has been knitting...
This started out as a Twinkle Diagonal Stitch sweater for me. A week after I saw the pattern in Vogue Knitting, I saw Nordstrom selling the same exact sweater from Twinkle for 381$.
That's insane, I thought, I can knit that *and* if I use the Lion Brand Thick and Chunky, I'll save myself 320$!! Feeling quite smart, I knit a gauge swatch that seemed close enough.. but not close enough for comfort. After two weeks of very enjoyable knitting, I tried on the body to find it wayyy to small. There is a reason that the Twinkle Classic Elite yarn is 17$ a skein, and Lion Brand is only $4.99. Karma does not like knock-offs. Happily, my daughter does.

And there has been eating. Saturday, I stopped by our local Indian market, looking for dinner and emptied out their frozen food coolers. I got frozen naan (that yummy flat bread), frozen Palek Paneer, frozen samosas, and spice mix for Chana Masala (Curried Chickpeas). It was all amazing... like getting really great take out, but half the price, and four times as healthy. I'm now on a mission to check out the frozen food sections of all the other ethnic markets in town. No more frozen pizza for us!

But the best discovery has been this recipe.
In a season of baking bacchanalia, chocolate chip cookies seem like a bit -well- boring. But these are everything a chocolate chip cookie should be. Sweet, but not cloying. Crisp, but not brittle. Chewy, but not gummy. I've tried the Neiman Marcus cookies, Toll House and everything in-between. This is the only recipe I've found worth the considerable restraint it takes not to eat all the dough before baking.