I should be folding several loads of laundry, but am instead eating the last mammoth Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Egg from our Easter candy stash. And obsessively checking Facebook to see if someone’s posted something as funny as the comments on the “Cougar loose in VA” thread I saw last night. I was on the floor rolling around with laughter, crying.
It’s the little things, obviously.
At times like these — when my children are tucked into beds and husband is outside sharpening his hand planes — that my thoughts often turn to what a crappy mom I am. I don’t know why, but somehow the empty quietness of the house invites a million insidious thoughts.
One:Yelling at your kids makes you a bad mom. You love those soft, fleshy little ones, don’t you? I yelled at them several times today, ergo I’m a bad mom. A cold, heartless mom.
Two:Not cleaning various things in my house on a regular schedule makes me a bad mom AND housekeeper. I consciously chose today to not clean many, many things… Cause after the first fifteen times, who the F cares??
Three: I have been serving only frozen vegetables at dinner lately, and my remaining wholesome, organic root veggies from the winter CSA have withered to a wacky science experiment in my crisper. Our onions and potatoes are sprouting amazing tendrils in our cellar’s damp darkness. Clearly this means my boys will have some sort of undiagnosed developmental issue soon, and perhaps will begin telling all their friends that vegetables grow in the freezer.
I could go on, but it’s a little depressing. Maybe it’s the Reese’s, or my evening yoga class, or the last glass of wine just poured me by said husband — but none of that seems so serious right now.
Definitely not as serious as a giant cougar on the loose in southern Virginia.
But back to that laundry. What do you do when the noise outside dies down, and your neurotic internal monologue moves in? How do you reassess, get perspective?
Picture it. Julia Child in your kitchen at 5 PM on a weeknight. Perhaps things are going a little like this. Julia, in her high-pitched warble, is talking to you. TO YOU. You, with two children under five years old. You, with the husband who prefers Kraft macaroni n’ cheese to homemade. You, who cooked professionally in white tablecloth restaurants but now spend most days endlessly making variations on the PB&J theme.
And she’s saying, “Make a béchamel sauce, stupid.”
[Collective sharp intake of breath from readers!]
Really? A homemade white sauce? When dinner needs to be on the table in 30 minutes? But when Julia talks, you listen. At six feet, she’s kind of intimidating. Especially wielding a large chef’s knife. So I make a béchamel.
And it’s not hard! It’s damn easy! And then I add some grated sharp cheddar cheese and seasonings. Voila — a Mornay sauce! And then I add some cooked elbow pasta and vegetables — broccoli, or peas, or chard, or spinach. Maybe I get fancy and add some meat. Cooked sweet Italian sausage from High Point Farms! Or leftover cooked chicken from the crockpot! And then, sweet Jesus, I pour the whole thing into a buttered casserole dish and throw it in the oven. A half hour later (maybe even 20 minutes!), I have dinner.
Oh cheesy goodness. Thank you, white sauce. I owe you one.
And the kids, the husband, the erstwhile professional chef. We all eat the hell out of that casserole. For several days.
Then Julia sits down at my table. She sips her tiny glass of wine; she raises the glass to me.
“Bon appetit!” she trills. “I told you so.”
Lazy Cook’s Basic White Sauce (Béchamel or velouté)
[from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, 1970]
This is what the French call a mother sauce. Start here, then add whatever you want. Just follow a few basic rules and you’re good.
For a sauce to use for casseroles, or pasta (aka, homemade mac n’ cheese), this amount will work for a whole box of pasta — or even about 2-3 cups cooked rice. Makes about 2 cups sauce of medium thickness. I just made a kick ass homemade tuna noddle casserole with a béchamel base LAST NIGHT. It was a revelation…
I was taught to use equal parts fat and flour to make a roux. Julia does things a little different. I’ve done it both ways and for my purposes, either will work:
2 TB butter, unsalted
3 TB flour
2 cups milk (I use 2%, cause that’s we drink)
OR 2 cups chicken stock
Salt and pepper
Equipment: › A heavy-bottomed stainless steel, copper or enameled 6 cup saucepan or pot.
› A wire whisk [Preferably a flat wire whisk, like this one. This is some of the best money you can spend on a kitchen gadget. There are a few others, which is for another post…]
1) Melt the butter over low heat in the saucepan. Add the flour and blend with the whisk. Stir for about 2 minutes, making sure it doesn’t brown. You’ll have a frothy butter and flour mixture now — a white roux (roo).
2) *Warning* I am lazy. And I don’t have all day in the kitchen. So I throw caution to the wind. Instead of adding heated milk or broth to the roux, I just pour it in straight from the fridge. If you do this, pour it slow and steady, then whisk like mad to combine it. Never had a problem. Make sure you get into all the inside edges of the pot to get the bits of roux.
3) Crank your pan up to medium high and stir occasionally* until the sauce comes to a boil (or rapid simmer even). Boil for a minute, stirring to make sure nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan and burns. [* Most people think you need to watch like a hawk and stir the whole time. Trust me, you can even walk into the living room to discipline your kids while you cook this — just turn your heat down lower before you do.]
4) Done! Remove the sauce from heat and add salt and pepper to taste. Now, add additional flavorings for whatever you’re making: maybe dry mustard, LOTS of salt and 2 cups grated cheddar cheese for mac n’ cheese or similar casserole; or sautéed minced onions and sliced mushrooms, cooked down with a dash of soy sauce and Sherry, plus flaked tuna (and cheese! Why not?), for aforementioned tuna noodle casserole (based on this recipe). Add curry powder! Add fresh herbs! Add tomato puree! Add more exclamation points!
5) What if I screw up? Don’t screw up, it wastes time … but if you do,Julia has some tricks. Lumpy sauce? Force through a sieve, or put in blender, then simmer for 5 minutes. Too thick? Thin it with milk, cream or stock, a tablespoon at a time. Too thin? Boil it down, or add a butter and flour paste (buerre manié) and cook for another minute or so.
It’s Tuesday at 5:00 PM and the natives are restless. In less than 25 minutes my sanctioned television babysitting time will be over and then, God knows, I will be at their mercy. I’m not being dramatic. At this time of day I’m useless and wrung out. I need a nap. I need a drink. I need to alternate between both until someone passes out. Preferably someone under the age of 35. But, alas, I also need to cook.This isn’t a cooking blog, but you’ll see soon enough that I’m slightly obsessed with it. I’m not sure what came first: the obsession not to eat or the obsession to eat. It’s a psychological conundrum. I don’t have time for those anymore, so instead I just cook and eat whatever I want. Unless my kids are involved.
We belong to a wonderful CSA where we get seasonal, local, and organic produce. It is my heaven. This coming from the girl who gagged on asparagus until she was in college. Anyway, the winter CSA just ended. I have bags of washed and prepped greens in my fridge. Roots in my cellar. And nothing to eat. Spare me the lecture, enlightened ones. My kids won’t eat potatoes — mashed, fried, or otherwise. They have tasted and rejected kohlrabi, turnips, beets, and watermelon radishes. Ditto to parsnips, komatsuna and acorn squash.
Now, I am no dummy. I lovingly enrobe these veggies in butter, cream and salt as needed. I roast them in olive oil and serve them with dip. I add lumps of brown sugar and splashes of maple syrup. I sprinkle with crispy lardons and saute in bacon fat.
Still no dice.
But tonight. A breakthrough. Forget kale chips (those purported kid-friendly crisps). Forget kale puree in your chocolate cupcakes (who the hell has time to make kale puree AND cupcakes just to get their kids to eat veggies?!). Just make this dish. It takes a half hour to make. It’s (almost) a one-pot meal. Really. It’s that simple. You could have knocked me over with a feather. If there had been leftovers, I would have taken a picture to post. So there.
Creamy Tortellini, Kielbasa and Kale
(Or the “This kale doesn’t taste like kale. It just tastes like sausage and pasta!” recipe)
1) Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add kale, plus a large pinch of sugar, and cook for about 5-7 minutes (or longer) until soft and wilted, but still a bright dark green color. Drain and set aside.
2) Melt butter in a large, deep saute pan (3 or 4 qt. size). Add garlic, onion and a large pinch of kosher salt. Saute until onions are soft and translucent.
3) Slice sausage lengthwise, then slice crosswise into 1/2″ slices. Add sausage to garlic and onion mixture. Saute until sausage is heated through, and slightly browned. Then sprinkle flour over mixture, stir, and cook for about 2 minutes.
4) Add chicken broth to the pan. Scrape the bottom of the pan to get up all the tasty bits, then bring liquid to a boil. Once boiling, add the frozen tortellini. Cook, uncovered, until pasta is soft and starts floating easily to the top of the mixture, stirring often.
5) Chop the cooked kale roughly, then add to pan with tortellini, sausage and broth. Stir to mix. Then add cream, stir, and cook on low heat until the sauce thickens slightly. Taste and adjust seasonings (add salt or pepper) as needed. [I find that you don’t need much extra salt with the salt in the sausage and broth, so go easy.]
6) Serve pasta in shallow bowls, topped with parmesan cheese. Pass more cheese for topping at the table (something kids seem forever excited about doing). Do a jig. Pass out on the sofa. Pray.
A Room of One Zone 