Spinach Salad with Bacon

SPINACH SALAD with BACON

When the pandemic lockdown began, the thinking was that we would be quarantined for about two weeks. (That was three months ago.) I stocked up on food, including snack foods. Mentally I was treating it like "snow days." A few days inside and then things would be back to normal. 

But as the days at home went on and on, I kept eating like I was on vacation. Then it became comfort eating. We had extra treats. I baked more. And then I realized my pajamas were tight. So after some mental struggle I realized that I had a rare chance, one where I had total control over the foods we ate. I alone am making food decisions for our household. Three meals a day. 

No more lunch out at the local Southern cooking buffet. No boat ride across the lake for dinner, where we are usually tempted by appetizer and dessert. No weekly book club (which I have missed desperately) where we take turns bringing the dinner that always includes dessert. Instead of looking at this as a hardship, I saw it as an opportunity for a food reset. So weeks ago I began planning meals with more vegetables, more whole grain foods, more fruits as treats. And I'm happy to say the pajamas already feel better. 

Our local restaurants re-opened a couple of weeks ago, but we have opted to stay home longer. Just not ready to jump back in the deep end yet. And so we continue to eat vegetable focused meals. We are "learning to like" whole wheat pasta. ("Learning to like it" is what the little granddaughters say when they have a food they DON'T like.) I am making more sheet pan meals, which as easy to cook and easy to clean up and loaded with veggies, and making the occasional meatless meal.

Our salad supper--spinach salad and whole wheat pasta salad

So today I share a spinach salad we are loving. I made it for the third time last week. I only made a half recipe for the two of us. Before someone tries to do the math and divide 1/3 cup in half, stop! You don't need to get out the calculator. Just get out the 1/3 cup from your measuring cup set and fill it halfway. That's practical "kitchen math." (FYI, 1/4 cup divided in half is 2 tablespoons.)

SPINACH SALAD with BACON (adapted from NYT Cooking)

1 to 1-1/2 lb fresh baby spinach 

2 hard-cooked egg, coarsely chopped

6 slices lean bacon

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon finely minced garlic

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1/4 cup finely minced parsley (optional)

Pick over spinach and remove tough stems and blemished leaves. Cut into bite-size pieces. (There should be about 16 cups of of spinach.) Put spinach in large bowl. Sprinkle eggs over spinach.

Fry bacon until crisp and drain well. Chop or crumble the bacon.

In a small skillet, heat oil and add the garlic and bacon pieces. Cook briefly, being careful not to burn the garlic. Bring to a boil and add the vinegar. Remove from heat. Let it cool one minute. Pour over spinach and egg. Add parsley if using. Toss to coat.

The second time I poured the dressing over the spinach as soon as I took it off the stove. It really wilted the spinach, which is probably how it should be. But we decided we liked it better not quite as wilted. The first time I made it, the dressing had cooled a minute while I sprinkled the egg over the spinach. We liked the salad better with that tiny cooling off period.

This last time I had a small amount left and popped it in the refrigerator for lunch the next day. It's not particularly good left over. 

EDITOR'S NOTE:  I just realized that I had already posted this recipe a month ago and here it is again. Yep. We liked it that much.

Video Cooking Class

BANANA MUFFS

I haven't seen the little granddaughters in so long it hurts. But the pandemic has kept us apart. We, of course, have done FaceTime visits, but that's not the same. Then Mommy had a brain storm. One thing they love to do when they are here with me is to cook. So we cooked together this week. Together apart. It was the closest thing to being in the same space that we've had in months.

Because we planned this ahead I had time to order a tripod for my iPhone. Back in the day, I did cooking demos on the local television station as part of my job. This reminded me of the setting up we did. Except they used real cameras and had real cameramen. But the "think it through" process was the same. I made sure everything was set out. And Mommy made sure the little girls had the same ingredients and tools set out and ready.

We still used FaceTime but this was more interactive. They used an iPad. See it propped up on a box? They could watch me and I could see them. Baby Girl made banana muffins. The recipe is an old one and it's called Banana Muffs. Because they are a healthy eating family, Mommy liked this one because it only uses 1/4 cup sugar. And it's delicious.

We talked about the different kinds of measuring cups and what each is for. We learned how to properly measure. Squishing the bananas was the most fun! This was such a good set up. They could ask questions as we cooked and I could see what they were doing.

Seriously. This was the most fun. If you have any thoughts of doing this with your hobby—whatever your hobby is—spend the $30 for the tripod. I don't think it would have worked without it. I could easily tilt the camera down so that they could see into the  bowl and then move it back up so I could talk to them.

And because we had a Daddy-O handy, he could capture what was going on. He used his phone to get a few pictures and thankfully a little video. I think he was fascinated that this all worked. This video clip is only 4 seconds. See us in action!

Cheese Omelet

Some serious thought went into the recipes we chose. We wanted something suitable for their skill level. And we got lucky that these two foods worked together. Baby Girl (who just finished kindergarten) made the muffins. When she slid them in the oven (with mom's help,) Little Sister and I started the cheese omelets. No written recipe for us. Just a demonstration. I would do a step. She would copy me. It was a miracle. The timing was perfect. The 15 minutes baking time was just right to have a omelet lesson. And they had a complete breakfast. J-Daddy got the first plate and he gave it a two thumbs up. 

And after making two more omelets, the girls got to enjoy their own breakfast. I snapped a quick photo of them. I was still watching. Licking the plate clean is about the best compliment any cook could get. Baby Girl was licking the omelet plate and Little Sister got every crumb off the muffin paper. They make quite a team.

Mommy taught kindergarten for several years. And the teacher in her made this a real learning project. After we cooked, she had each of the girls write their recipes. I dictated the recipe and Baby Girl wrote it down. In her own way. Can you read it? If you are not fluent in kindergarten writing, the recipe (in an easier to read version) is below.

BANANA MUFFS

2 cups Bisquick baking mix

1/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons butter, softened

1 egg

1 cup mashed very ripe bananas (2 to 3 medium)

Preheat oven to 400º.

Combine baking mix, sugar, butter and egg. Beat vigorously for 30 seconds. Fold in bananas.

Fill 12 greased (or line with cupcake papers) muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake 15-18 minutes. until lightly browned.

While warm, you can drizzle with Thin Icing and sprinkle with chopped nuts, if desired. (The girls decided they liked them better plain.)

Thin Icing: Blend 1 cup confectioners sugar and 2 tablespoons water until smooth.

Sometimes I made 36 mini muffins instead. Bake them for 12-15 minutes. 

I'm not sure we will ever come up with two foods that work so well together, both in the timing and the food pairing. But I do think we will try this again. I really had a good time. I'm pretty sure they did, too. And Mommy got a few minutes to herself for a change. It was good every way we looked at it.

Souper Easy, Souper Delicious

TUSCAN PUMPKIN WHITE BEAN SOUP

After too many weeks of quarantine indulgences, I woke up yesterday with a new resolve to make better food choices. This is one time I can say without a doubt that what goes into my mouth is totally my decision. (Okay...so it's really always my decision. But I'm easily swayed.) No celebration temptations. No holiday spreads. No birthday parties to tempt me. No restaurant menu that begs me "order this!" It is all me. So if I go completely off the rails I cannot blame it on "Well, it was Easter." Or, "But it was Baby Girl's birthday and there was caramel cake." Or, "The covered dish dinner at church has the best food!" You know how it goes. In a normal year, I think we go from one holiday celebration to the next with not much time in between to get back on track.

It should be easier to make good choices while I've eaten every meal at home. But I can't say that I've done that. So this morning I looked over WW (formerly known as Weight Watchers) recipes. I wanted something easy. And I had to use what was on hand. Plus, it is ridiculously cool today. What's up with this crazy weather? This is a rare almost-summer soup weather day.

There were several cans of pumpkin in the pantry. Was there a sale? I don't remember buying so much. And I had a couple of cans of cannellini beans. (Note to self: buy more.) Chicken broth? Check. Onion? Check. And that's pretty much it.

In the interest of full disclosure, this is a meal I made for me and me alone. I am a soup lover. Daddy-O is generally not. He had asked for chicken and rice, so I had both pots going at the same time. With some cooked chicken from the freezer, his meal was easy, too.

When I first read the recipe I wondered why on earth would it call for 3-1/2 cups of broth and not use that last half cup. You know that a box of broth has 4 cups. Why would it make you have a half-cup left over? See my 2-1/2 quart pot pictured above? It would not have held another half cup of anything. Maybe that's the reason. Also, the soup is deliciously thick and creamy. Another half cup of broth and it would not have been quite so rich. I will figure out what to do with the half cup that is now hanging out in my refrigerator. Not messing with anything in this recipe!

TUSCAN PUMPKIN WHITE BEAN SOUP

olive oil spray
1 medium onion roughy chopped
3-1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 (15-oz) can pumpkin puree
1 (15-oz) can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Parmesan cheese (freshly grated is best)

Spray medium pan with olive oil spray and heat to medium-low. Add chopped onion and cook until tender, stirring occasionally, about 6 minutes.
Stir in pumpkin, beans, broth and oregano and simmer 8-10 minutes. Puree in pot with an immersion blender. Taste and adjust salt and pepper. (I added more pepper.)
Grate about 1 tablespoon of parmesan cheese over each serving.

Makes 6 1-cup servings

See how thick this is?

I am counting on this soup to freeze well because I filled one Souper Cube tray with 1-cup portions. It's already in the freezer. Those cubes will pop out and I'll store them in a freezer bag for later. I am happy to have four servings ready to eat later. And one more bowl full in the refrigerator for tomorrow's lunch.

As much as I like to cook, it's nice to think I can stay out of the kitchen every now and then. I'll make Daddy-O a sandwich!

Happenings Out Of The Kitchen

Pattern:  Habitation Throw by Helen Stewart

Yarn: A collection of bits and bobs of fingering weight yarns

Needle:  size 6

While it seems to me like I live in the kitchen now, that of course, is not completely true. I expected to do so much knitting during this stay-at-home period of the pandemic. And I have had time. Plenty of time. But I have not always had the concentration—or desire—to work on even the simplest projects.

So I was completely thrilled with myself when I cast off (that's knitter speak for "finished") this throw. Any blanket is just a LOT of knitting because of the size. This one measures 48x48 inches. It is not intended to be a full blanket, but a lap throw. Mine ended up a little larger than the pattern because I had plenty of yarn.

 And like everyone else who owns a sewing machine and has fabric on hand, I have made a few masks. I only had a little fabric tucked away but it was enough supply family and friends. This last batch was my favorite because I liked the colors. They are the same colors I always like.

Pattern:  Perfect Newborn Socks by Tabitha Gandee

Yarn: iknit2purl2 Supra in Castaway color

Needle:  size 1.5

And this sweet thing needed more socks, slightly bigger than the first ones. I used the same pattern but went up a needle size. Added a one repeat in the heel flap and a few more rounds in the foot length. These will last until fall maybe. Maybe. She is four months old now.

And then I ordered a new project. A kit that included the yarn and the pattern. Straight from a Facebook ad from a shop I had never heard of. I would have never done this pre-quarantine. (I am very suspicious of Facebook ads.) But I did it. And I love it.

The yarn is a silk/cotton blend that will be perfect for summer. And since we can have summer temps about 10 months of the year, I anticipate a lot of wear for this one.

I'm loving the simple pattern. This is exactly what my brain needs right now. Very little thinking required. The rhythmic motion of plain knitting is relaxing. And it's fun to see the triangle grow and the colors gradually shift.

And while I've knitted I've enjoyed listening to this audio book series. If you are an audio book fan, you know that most books take hours and hours to listen from beginning to end. (The longest one I've listened to was 19 hours.) So I was excited to stumble across this series. I have been a fan of mysteries since childhood. These are short episodes, each complete story lasts around 3 hours. This story length fits into assorted schedules and it fits into assorted attention spans. Mine is not as long right now as it usually is. Wonder why.

I also discovered last week that I can access Acorn TV with my library card! I have many friends who love Acorn TV which is a streaming service that requires a subscription. I have always felt like I didn't have enough TV watching time to justify another subscription but the lineup of British television shows continued to tempt me. Then I got an email from our library system reminding patrons of the many services they offer. I was so excited to discover that I could access Acorn TV! Not all libraries offer this access but the list was very long. It required downloading the app, RBdigital. And in the set up process you can check to see if your library participates. It is not full access like the subscription service. It's limited to 3 borrows per month. Each borrow lasts 7 days. Plenty of time for me to watch a few things that I've wanted to see.

Funny what good things have come out of this quarantine. All of our time at home has meant a change up in our schedules. Hard times for sure for many people, but there have been little nuggets of positive things. Many of us have learned to Zoom. We've tried new recipes because we couldn't do our regular grocery shopping. And we've had time to just "be." What good things or new things have you found during this stay-at-home time?

Staying Home

How are you starting your days now? In this shelter-in-place world, I get up, maybe do a few chores, get dressed...and put on an apron. It's like my uniform now. When I put on an apron, I feel like I'm ready to tackle the day. It might be cooking something for the freezer, cleaning out drawers, or checking dates on grocery staples to make sure we use them in the proper order. And then there's the endless laundry to be washed, dried and folded. Not even going to talk about unloading the dishwasher. With all meals eaten at home now, the dishwasher is full every day. I like unloading it first thing in the morning. At least as much as I like that chore at all.

Because every day is almost like every other day, I don't have lots to talk about here. So I'll share some photos of our world right now.

Back when we were out and about—after the virus started but before the lockdown—our local businesses put up encouraging posters in storefronts around the town square. These are a couple of my favorites.

This was the movie that was playing when everything stopped. 

Kind of nice to see these encouraging words on my way home from a grocery pick up.

Y'all know we live out in the country. 

Way out in the country where we see signs like this one.

We have mostly stayed home for the last several weeks. Daddy-O has planted a garden. He will have to replant a few things that didn't survive an unexpected cold night.

But this tomato plant in a pot (it was the leftover plant after planting the garden) promises that we will have tomatoes  eventually.

And our iris are beginning to bloom. The purple ones were planted here by my mother-in-law so long ago. These hardy flowers just tend to themselves year after year. The beautiful coral ones came from friend Missy who sent me a box of bulbs—properly called rhizomes—after I admired the Instagram photos of her flowers. When she divided them, she shared with me. Who doesn't love a friend who mails you a box of iris rhizomes?

A large portion of my time is spent in the kitchen.  I've started putting things like carrot and celery sticks in glass containers when I clean them. They last longer that way. The celery here is in a glass dish with a snap-on lid. Don't want anything going bad. Good habits to continue going forward.

How happy I was to find this recipe yesterday on the counter (that is now all neat and clean.) Carol has made this delicious taco soup more than once for our book club gatherings and she always talks about how easy it is. "You just open all the cans and mix them together in the Crockpot." What good timing to find a recipe that does not call for perishable ingredients. It's delicious AND it's easy. What more could you want? 

I've had fun watching my celery root sprout. As a child I grew sweet potato vines but I didn't know about sprouting celery. Funny what new things you learn during a pandemic...and what now brings us pleasure.

We look forward to late afternoons when we enjoy the beautiful view from our backyard. Take a few minutes and sit down with us.

Sometimes we forget that we don't need to travel to find beautiful places. 

It's been right here all along.