Cooking for the Apocalypse:Stuffed Zucchini and Beet Salad

Hurray for Summer Veggies!

When I said I would cook for the apocalypse, you surely didn’t think I meant I would eat poorly, did you?

Of course not.

My first apocalyptic meal was zucchini stuffed with tomatoes, garlic, and chicken with a salad of roasted beets and mozzarella.

Yep. You want to spend the apocalypse with me, alright. While others will be fending off zombies/battling to death in the Thunderdome, I’ll be in my humble hovel, cooking all the deliciousness I can get my hands on.

I opted to use cast iron cookware, because it is super durable and pretty easy to use. Plus, you can use it as a weapon to beat your opponent in the Thunderdome. I peeled and chopped the beets, and tossed them in some oil in the cast iron skillet. FYI, beets look beautiful in cast iron:

To the left, the raw beets; to the left, the roasted ones.





I roasted them in the oven at 350. Again, I’ve got no access to outdoor space, so I’m simulating it inside with the crockpot and oven. In the real apocalypse, you’d stick your pan partway into the fire, but watch the heat – you don’t want to burn your tasty beets.

Let the beets return to room temperature, then toss them with some basil and some mozzarella you got from the enterprising guy who saved his cow from the doom. Eat with relish!

For the zucchini, toss some chopped garlic, two chopped Roma tomatoes, and the innards of 2 halved and scooped out zucchini with some thyme. Take two chicken thighs (or whatever chicken parts you have – it’d be okay to cook the whole thing this way) and toss them with oil and thyme and a little bit of your precious salt supply. Cook the chicken for 15 minutes in a Dutch oven over your fire (or in your 375 degree oven), then add the tomato mixture and the zucchini hulls to the pot. Cover and cook for 20 minutes more. Remove the hulls to a plate, and pull some of the chicken (you might save some for another meal, too). Mix the pulled chicken with the tomatoes, and fill the zucchini hulls with the mixture. Serve with a hearty portion of the beet salad and whatever moonshine you’ve managed to make in your still!

A return!

So… I haven’t posted in months. Let’s just acknowledge that. There are lots of reasons, and I’m not going to get into them. I’m trying my best to start posting at least twice a month. Goals! I have them.

My friend and colleague Tina has been posting about what she would wear to the apocalypse. Which, combined with the Snowpocalypse Trio that hit DC this winter, got me thinking about what and how I would cook for the apocalypse, which sounds like a fun thing to experiment with, right?

Yes!

So, ground rules:
1) I have no outdoor space. Thus, for the most part, fire as a cooking tool is not really possible. I will simulate things cooked in fire by using the Crockpot or the Dutch oven or the stovetop grill.

2) We are assuming that a brisk trade will spring up – so things I can buy at the farmer’s market are fair game. Also beans, because, although I’ve never seen them at the market, they are grown locally. Chicken, beef, buffalo and flour are all available locally. So is some dairy.

3) If I can make it at home, it’s cool. Bread, yum! Cornbread, yum! Rice, not so much (not local, to my knowledge). So, lots of grits and potatoes under things

4) Spices… salt will be available, but for the most part, herbs and chilies are what I’ll have to go with for flavoring things. I doubt there’s cinnamon locally available anywhere near DC. Sadly.

5) I’ll make at least one meal a month for the apocalypse, and will write about it.

A project to get me re-started. Fantastic!

On Bad Days

Today I woke up with my back hurting slightly less than it has for the past week or so. Enthused and encouraged, as I had been laying off the exercise until it felt better, I did some light yoga.

And promptly entered pain land again. Then I found a shit ton of spam on the web calendar I run with a friend. Then, the shower curtain rod fell and hit me. It holds up a pocket shower curtain that functions as the only real out of water's way storage in the bathroom. I couldn't get the damn thing up, so I angrily called John to come fix it and went to lay out my clothes for the day, which I usually do the night before, but had been too lazy to get to.

My blue sweater had disappeared. It was not in the drawer, the closet, the washer, the clean clothes pile, the drying rack or the pile of dirty laundry. Things disappear in this place all the time, but goddamn it not my clothes.

So I was stuck wearing a green sweater that is a tad too small - it shrunk a little. I got to school right on time rather than early and found a variety of student nonsense waiting for me, including a student who had changed all her punctuation to a larger font than the rest of her paper to gain half a page of length.

On a three page paper. It was irritating, so I logged on to Facebook to chill where I found someone's passive aggressive status update involving me. So I'm all hurt and pissed and want to be all FB dramz back, but I know that will solve nothing.

So I just carry on, and deal with unenthusiastic students, and rain, and a hurt back, and the fact that one amazing friend did not get into the PhD program he deserves, and the rain, and when I get home, I head straight for the cheese.

We never throw out the ends of cheese when we finish. Instead, I let them accumulate and grow mysterious in the cheese drawer until one day I have enough random bits (excluding rinds) to chop up and mix into Fromage Fort.

Fromage Fort is a recipe I found once upon a time that involves garlic, at least one soft cheese, wine, and whatever other bits of cheese you can throw in.

For the soft cheese: 2 or 3 ounces of goat cheese or cream cheese, or I bet even a cheapo brie would work (who ever had leftovers of a non-cheapo brie?).

For the garlic: 2 cloves. You don't want to overpower the cheese

For the wine: 1/4 cup or so of a dry white. Dry vermouth works well, as does the sauvignon blanc I used tonight.

The rest: hard bits of cheese left in the fridge from God knows when. I used a bit of parmesan, an old bleu, some manchego, and what I think was some provolone, but may not have been (it wasn't labeled and my memory is not serving me well). I had a couple of ounces of each, and chopped them coarsely with the knife before tossing the bits and the garlic into the food processor.

Once those are nicely minced, add the wine and the soft cheese. Process until well mixed, put in a serving bowl and each with crackers. I like it with Triscuits.

It took about 30 minutes to make, and soon, I was in a scented bath, an old show on the laptop, wine in a glass, and fromage fort with crackers set out nearby. 45 minutes later, I don't quite feel like a new woman, but I'm a little less cranky.

It's the simple things, really. Stuff I can do without thinking. Things that don't even need specific ingredients, just items that fit into certain categories. This is why learning to cook matters. So I can calm myself down, restore a measure of peace to my world, prioritize a little. Find a little stillness, a little bit of good in the pieces of old cheese in the back of the fridge on a bad day.

On Snowpocalypse!

The snow began around noon on Friday, and even though it didn’t start sticking until about 5:30 or so, it came down pretty thick and fast. We went to dinner on Friday around 7, and the roads were coated. About an inch and a half (by John’s estimate) had fallen, and we arrived intentionally an hour early for our meal. At 10 when we left, we were the last table to leave (only by 10 minutes and only because we were waiting for our check – we weren’t keeping the staff there so we could linger).  There were about 6 inches of snow on the ground. As you can see in the picture, the trees lining the sidewalks were bent over with the snow (we usually do not walk home via a romantic wonderland of branches).

The latest news I’ve heard about the upcoming  snow is upwards of 8 inches for Tuesday and Wednesday. Needless to say, not only have I been making lots of snow storm comfort foods, I’ve been thinking a lot about them too.

Friday night, we ate at Bibiana. More about that later. Saturday, we woke up to a world coated in snow. Clearly, oatmeal for breakfast was in order – steel cut, mixed with almond butter for flavor. Yum! For lunch, the cold demanded something spicy – kung pao tofu (recipe after the jump). 

I’ve been keeping tofu around because it’s cheap ($1.79 at Trader Joe’s),  it’s healthy, and it’s versatile. I don’t really use it as a meat substitute, because I kind of find fake meat gross. But, bland as it is in it’s regular state, it is pretty easily improved.

I like to marinate the tofu in soy sauce (and other spices) and then bake it for about 15 minutes a side. It becomes crispy and richly flavored. I’ve used it in summer rolls to great success and it makes the kung pao really tasty.

The next dish wasn’t necessarily due to snowpocalypse. John and I have been having movie nights during which we watch a classic film and eat food based on the setting of the movie. Saturday night, we watched Some Like It Hot. The movie begins in Chicago, features women getting drunk on Manhattans, and ends up in Florida. We made deep dish pizza (using this dough recipe), plantains as an appetizer, and drank Manhattans. Delish! And really perfect for a cold night.

Sunday continued to be cold, and the walks definitely weren’t as clear as they needed to be, so we continued to hunker down. We had laid in some special foods just in case Bibiana was closed on Friday, so we made Sauerkraut with Kielbasa and some roasted potatoes. Really good winter stuff.

Today, we both had a snow day, although John made the trek to work.  I stayed home, and have basked in the break. Tonight’s meal is not really winter food, but it’s more like a wish for summer: fish tacos. But, I’m prepared for the rest of the week: pasta with salmon, lentils and rice, mushroom lasagna.

Winter food is important. Much of this is made from stuff I have on hand, but still, when you live in a city easily overwhelmed by snow in an unusually wet winter, you can avoid going stir crazy by thinking carefully about what and how to eat. I’m a little too restless to settle down and read, and I’ve already worked out once today (and plan a second go around later). So, staying warm, well-fed and mentally satisfied all come together in the kitchen.

On Depression

Shortly after my last post, I got very sick. I got a severe ear infection in both ears. They thought I might have mono (Thank God I didn't). That same week I had terrible problems with a student, and terrible problems with John. Two weeks later, I began to actually feel better, and I fell and broke my hand. That, combined with the stress of the end of the semester, and feeling like I could only deal with so much resulted in one of my old anxiety tricks: practicing avoidance.

In the past few months, things have just been... well, I feel like I've been getting slammed by one thing after another. One fight, then one rough therapy session, then student stress (which has been in abundance this semester). I once read a book that describes the way we feel in relationships like a gas tank: when we are happy and feel loved, we are full, we can go far, we can stretch and do things and love others, and take on challenges (go offroad, if you want to stretch the metaphor). When we're empty, it's all we can do to sit on the side of the road and think about pushing the car.

I think life is often like that. I think that our "gas tanks" or love tanks or energy reserves or whatever you want to call them can run out. We can simply be out of gas. We can dread going to work, even to jobs that we love, because we know we don't have the energy stored up to deal with needs.

This is not new, of course. This is depression. For me, it's not uncommon, although not my default state. I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and that's characterized not only by lying in bed with your heart pounding so hard in the throws of an anxiety attack (for no discernible reason) that your husband can feel your pulse with his hand lightly on your stomach, but also by carrying around a real burden of concern, sometimes genuine, sometimes more like guilt creating by your crazy brain, for everything. That burden can become depression, real depression, where you have to talk yourself into getting out of bed, or eating, or getting off the couch not because you're lazy, but because you've run out of steam.

It's like being flat, or black and white. There's a world of dimension and color out there, but you have no interest in it. And then you get sad, and your body hurts, partially because you've failed at convincing yourself to get out of bed, but partially because that Cymbalta commercial is true, and all that mental and emotional pain that you're now too empty to really feel is seeping into your muscles.

And I know, first world problems. Oh no! I was super sad! I feel ridiculous even acknowledging this. But things have kind of sucked for me lately. Things have been a struggle. The mere fact that I'm writing this means that they're looking up because this un-updated blog is just one of the many victims of my avoidance (my writing this also means my hand is being rehabbed, thank God).

And I don't really owe anybody an explanation, but I wanted to give one. Just like most things in life, this action says more about me than about anyone who might be interested. But that's the short and undetailed version of where I've been. I hope to be back soon.