A “normal” work week, waiting for spring

It’s been cold and grey with temps in the 40s and 50s all week.

I’ve been saying spring is arriving at a stately pace this year. The blossoming trees and tulips are done, and we’re on to Irises and Lilacs. And lots of wet foliage. And barn swallows nesting in the eaves at Helen C. White.

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Let’s see if I can remember what I cooked. On Monday, I biked to work with a change of clothes, with a plan to bike to the community center to help with the Monday prep for the Tuesday breakfast, but it was threatening, and I didn’t want to get stuck out there on the east side at like 6:30 when the buses aren’t running so frequently, and there’s no place to park my bike under cover. So I swapped for the car, which gave me the opportunity on the way home, even though it was raining hard, to stop at Target for cat litter – got 4 jugs ‘cuz it was on sale – and return an overdue library book. Got in, showered, and had pie & ice cream for dinner (already promoted that Ad nauseam).

On Tuesday, still grey and rainy, I drove again to Goodman to serve the breakfast. Potato pancakes – we had 120 and I fried most of them Monday – with rhubarb sauce that I also made Monday. Pretty satisfying to see the plastic tub of stalks transformed into a steam table pan of pretty pink sauce. And a spinach and cheese and tomato fritatta. We had a tub of diced tomatoes donated to the food pantry – must’ve been from a taco place or something.

After breakfast I headed to work and got a good bit accomplished on my online course, recorded a welcome, posted discussions. I opened it early for the students, but summer classes don’t really begin until June 19, so I’ve been taking it easy, just trying to get the basics up. I stayed in the office until about quarter to six, and had a bagel for dinner when I got home, half cream cheese and tomato preserves, half Jarlsberg with Siracha. And I fried all the tired old apples from the fruit drawer in butter and cinnamon sugar, and ate a helping with a dab of sour cream on top.

After I got into bed I remembered that I had wanted to bake something for my 11:30 meeting on Wednesday that was after my 9:00 class. I ran down to the freezer and got out two sticks of butter to soften, and in the morning, made this whole wheat chocolate chip skillet cookie, inspired by Heidi.

I walked in instead of biking, because it was still drizzley and cold, and I was quite pleased that putting a clean folded towel under the lid of the pan that contained the still-warm cookie kept it from getting damp from steam.

Wednesday night I made rice, cooked with a jar of Frontera Salsa and home made veggie broth. I was trying to make a version of corn rice from my new grain bowls cookbook, Bowls of Plenty, that is cooked in corn stock made from the cobs of fresh corn, with the caramelized kernels folded in at the end. I made one of accompaniments – chipotle crema, soaked cashews pureed with canned chipotle chiles, but even with the crema, my version was not quite what I envisioned. The rice stayed a little crunchy. So, OK for a week night dinner, probably better for leftovers later, and certainly NOT very photogenic.

Thursday I made another Heidi-inspired dish – vegetarian shepherd’s pie. Her version is actually vegan, the potatoes mashed with coconut milk. I used lentils instead of split peas, cooked the filling in olive, rather than coconut oil, tossed in a little shredded coconut, and mashed the potatoes with milk and butter. It was quite delicious, but not vegan.