appreciate the calm

When life is calm, feel gratitude. Appreciate silence and appreciate sleep. Appreciate people walking slow if they are doing so to stay longer by your side. Appreciate being lost and the time it takes to find your way back.  Slow the heck down, busy self, is what I am trying to say. 

A couple of weeks ago, my mom’s friend Mary Anne Davis sent us an outdoor pizza oven as a house-warming gift and please let me tell you how phenomenal I find this lil’ item. I want to cook everything on it. Why stop at pizza?

Strawberry/Green apple Crostata

Dough:

1 ¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon kosher salt

1 ½ teaspoons granulated sugar

1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

½ cold water (pour ½ cup cold water into ice immediately prior to using)

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

Pulse the flour, salt, and sugar together in a food processor. Add the butter pieces and pulse until rough chunks form.

Combine water and ice, and cider vinegar in a large mixing cup. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons at a time over the flour mixture and pulse until the dough comes together, adding more of the liquid as you go. Do not overmix the dough, so scrape together the remainder bits of dough with your hands at the end (be so careful of the blade, I say from experience).

Shape the dough into a flat disk and wrap tightly with saran wrap. Chill dough overnight (can be chilled up to 3 days).

Filling:

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1 pound fresh strawberries, rinsed and quartered

1 small granny smith apple

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

2 dashes Angostura bitters

¼ cup packed brown sugar

1 tablespoon arrowroot

1 dash black pepper, freshly ground

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

Egg wash (whisk 1 tablespoon water with 1 egg)

Turbinado sugar for finishing

Sprinkle white sugar over strawberries, stir, and allow to macerate for about 30 minutes.

Peel the apple and grate on the large holes of a box grater. Drain strawberries of excess liquid and combine with grated apple. Sprinkly on the balsamic vinegar and bitters and allow to sit for 10 more minutes.

In a small bowl, mix brown sugar, arrowroot, black pepper, and salt. Gently fold the sugar mixture into the strawberry mixture.

When dough is properly chilled, roll out into a rough circle, about 1/8^th inch thick. Pour strawberry mixture into the center of the dough and gently fold edges around the mixture.

Brush all exposed edges of dough with egg wash and sprinkle with turbinado sugar.

Okay, here we diverge. If you are using my pizza oven: preheat oven to 700 degrees. Cook for 4 minutes then rotate 180 degrees and cook 4 more minutes. Remove, allow to cool, and serve with Bluebell. Be a rockstar.

If you are using a convention oven (which would also be fabulous), preheat to 400. Place crostata on baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Cook for 15-20 minutes, then rotate and cook for another 10-1 minutes (watch for crust to brown). Again, serve with vanilla bluebell, because why would you not?

exhaustion and the time off it sanctifies

Oh hey you guys, its me, the absentee lover of food, now owned by real job!

The sleeves on my white coat may be touch short, but I just roll them up and look really prepared (like a good startled intern should look). And maybe I still jump a little every time my pager goes off, but I am secretly so satisfied when I call the number back and complete the task asked of me. Anyway, I am still here, alert and oriented x 3.

My surgical residency started last week and despite the constant busyness from about 6 am to 6 pm, I am having so much fun! I feel some sense of purpose in scurrying quickly around the hospital, up and down the stairwells, from patient room to patient room, in and out of ORs. I am actually on the rumored “easy” rotation (plastics) and could not be more thankful for the smooth transition from fourth year (absolute freedom) into first year of residency (indentured servitude).

Actually, I think this surgery lifestyle currently serves me well, or at least solidifies my priorities veeeerrrrrry concretely. I know I portray an active presence in the kitchen on this blog, but truthfully, the invested foodie lifestyle ends there…in the kitchen. Rarely do I sit still long enough to enjoy a meal I have creatively expended myself on at the table with my husBen. This is a very important place, people, and I do believe in it. But only in my most tired moments can I sit still and hear my own fork hit the ceramic plate and clink a glass with the person I love most…. usually, I just feel too busy. Now I am physically exhausted after a day at the hospital and truly covet that space. So, pull me up a chair and lets re-invest in dinner, whatever time it finally hits the table.

I had last Sunday off (we are required 1 in 7 days off, at a maximum of “80 hours a week”) and all day I felt inspired by the idea of donuts (maybe the appreciation of having time to allow dough to rise). I wanted something savory so I could still call it dinner, but I absolutely could not fathom going to the store….so this happened….

Thyme and Fontina donuts

¾ cup whole milk

1 ¼ ounces Crisco

1 package instant yeast

3 tablespoons warm water

1 egg, beaten

2 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 ¼ cups bread flour

1 ¼ cups all purpose flour

3 tablespoons fresh chopped thyme

3/4 cup grated fontina cheese

Crisco and bacon grease (life hack: you should save this always) to fry

Just a touch of powdered sugar, to serve

In a large glass measuring cup, heat up your milk for about 1 minute. Add Crisco to milk and stir to melt. Set aside to cool.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, add yeast, warm water and 1 tablespoon of sugar and stir just to combine. Allow to sit for 10 minutes (should be frothy if it worked). Once milk/Crisco mixture is cooled, pour into yeast mixture and briefly stir until combined (with paddle attachment, about 30 seconds on medium). Add in beaten egg, remainder 1 tablespoon of sugar, salt and half of the flour. Beat until well combined. Add in the remainder of the flour and beat at low speed (preferably with a dough hook at this point) until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl, about 2-3 minutes. Transfer to a bowl greased with olive oil and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled (takes about 1 hour).

When dough has risen, dump it out onto a flat surface dusted with flour. Flatten (gently!) with the palm of your hands into a square about 8 inches by 8 inches. Distribute half of your thyme and fontina cheese over the square then press cheese and herbs into the dough with your palms. Fold dough in half and repeat (dump the remaining cheese and herbs and press into dough with your palms). Flatten the dough (again, gently!) to ½ inch thickness and allow to rest again for 30 min to 1 hour.

Using a cookie press (or a wine glass and a screw top to a vinegar bottle like I did), cut the dough into donuts. Heat up your Crisco and bacon grease (in about a 1:4 ratio) to medium heat. Add in dough (but do not let pieces touch/crowd the pot) and cook on each side for about 1-2 minutes (you should watch for the dough to turn golden brown before you flip it over in the grease). Remove to paper towel lined plate.

Dust with powdered sugar (shake through your sifter) to serve. Seriously, damn good. 

plate piled high

Well, in the matter of weeks since I’ve been absent from this blog, I have managed to update a house (new plumbing, electricity, AC, kitchen, and yard after much family muscle), graduate from medical school, get in my first wreck, and start residency (orientation at least). Needless to say, it has been a busy season in my life.

Now, wait. If any of you just got hung up on that “first wreck” situation, let me elucidate: Tahoe-1, beat up Honda-0. It was just a teensy bump really, but obviously the Tahoe emphatically protected me by hardly garnering a dent, while totaling the car in front of me. Not the most fun I’ve ever had in a restaurant parking lot, but thankfully no was injured (despite the “headache” the dear driver of said-Honda thinks he has developed one week later, and despite the headache I have brought upon myself). Lesson learned: be a better driver, especially while operating a moving vehicle, especially a large one.

Further explanation: we hosted guests in our home a few days after we moved in (because we just really like over-loading our metaphorical plates), and I was doing a little brainstorming (while driving) for the first dinner party I would throw at Bartlett: crispy salt and vinegar potatoes…butter-basted salmon with hazelnut relish and crispy bibb salad…fallen chocolate cake with fresh whipped cream for dessert…mmm…then *crash*! At the least the meal turned out well. I truly needed a moment of good people around my table-- so rejuvenating and re-orienting for me-- to remind me of how satisfying it can be to love my friends in the way I know best, with food! 

First dinner at Bartlett

hazelnut pesto

toasted hazelnuts

clean

salt and vinegar potatoes

butter basted salmon with hazelnut pesto

fallen chocolate cake

...and the subsequent dinner at Bartlett...

Speaking of re-orientation:

I love a good "what should we do tonight" text circa 7 pm on a Friday night. It is a challenge almost, for my busy mind, to refrain from naming 100 energy-requiring things we could do and suggest instead that we all just get together and sit around (like everyone probably wants to do anyway). Last Friday night, after a week of surgery orientation and ATLS training, I bravely suggested an impromptu meal at my very messy house, sitting on whatever clean surface we could find. I prepped pizza dough and friends brought over toppings and bottles of wine. The gals sat in the kitchen on countertops and pulled up chairs and I slouched over my new oven, pulling pizzas off the absurdly hot pizza stone, one after the other: pesto and balsamic chicken with feta, then a pepperoni/sausage with fresh mozzarella and tomato sauce, then prosciutto and lemon/olive oil tossed arugula. The guys mozied in from the living room almost methodically after each pizza emerged, as if the rich smell of the dough and cheeses cued them forward, and we all piled another piece on our plates together. The night went on just so, until our bellies were full and our minds relaxed (and our house just felt more like a home by the minute).

That night marks my new ideal, a transition in hope, if you will. I know this residency is going to eat me alive, but I never want to stop feeding people out of my home...even if it is just a last minute attempt at bringing my friends together over a quality meal. 

house

I vaguely recall a question on a behavioral sciences exam a few years back asking what the most stressful life change involved (on some “proven” psychiatrist’s scale I am sure) and getting the question wrong. I think it offered a) marriage b) moving c) something else privileged people like to stress out about. These days, I cannot be any more convinced that B is the exact right answer. Empirically proven day and day again. Let me tell you, my rock hard façade is showing a little tectonic shift over here. My impenetrable resolve weakens every time a subcontractor triples his bid or the time it takes to do the project. I acknowledge this house is old, but are they just trying to correct my overly visionary ambition or something?

Last weekend, husBen and I went to the city dump more times in one day than I previously thought possible. We even started to think it was kind of fun, as each time we pulled up, we would get to borrow hard hats and neon vests in order to safely pitch refuse off into a smelly abyss. It is funny what new home-owners get prideful about: we went to the city dump 4 times today, how exciting!

We closed on Friday, and by Saturday morning, several of our family members and over-indulgent friends descended upon the house like a swarm of adderalled worker bees. We chopped up ivy, spread mulch, hauled limbs away, fixed siding, and a litany of other things I hardly registered. This house needed love, but even more love than just husBen and I could offer. While we were working, my big brother texted me a reeaaaal casual question: How do you know God exists? I looked around me: at my “new” home in Houston TX, my healthy husband, my mom and dad and mother-in-law and practically-mother Mrs. Janet, at my friend Mel (each covered in layers upon layers of dirt/mulch/who-knows-what) working so hard for no other reason that they love us extravagantly. I could not, on my own, have orchestrated such provision. In fact, for each hard task in life I continually sign up for, God provides the very strength and support necessary to run hard through it. So the answer to Miles’s question merits more than a text; it merits a look at the lives God is present in and knowledge of whose eyes are interpreting that presence. These eyes see God’s reality with humility (listen, I know my vices) and gratitude (awe that He even cares). I wonder, how do you know?

do we look excited? or scared...

early morning at the dump

proof 

More pictures to come…and hopefully soon some pictures of our first opportunity to cook there!

some things are just beautiful

Quick recipe for the perfect summer pizza...

Homemade dough

Fontina, grated

Grilled peaches (toss 2 sliced peaches with a tablespoon of canola oil and grill each side)

Thyme, chopped, preferably fresh out of the garden

Bacon

Aged Balsamic, drizzled on right at the end

Pizza dough:

1 ¼ cups warm (100 to 110 degrees F) water

2 packages dry yeast

1 tablespoon honey

3 tablespoons good olive oil

4 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for kneading

2 teaspoons kosher salt

Combine water, yeast, honey, and olive oil in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Stir briefly (just about 2 second will do) then allow to sit for 10 minutes. Mix 3 cups flour and salt in a separate bowl. Add mixture to yeast mixture in the bowl and turn on your mixer to medium speed. Add in the remaining cup of flour and continue to knead on low speed for about 10 minutes until dough is smooth (you may need to sprinkle in more flour to keep it from sticking to the sides).

Remove bowl from stand, cover with a dishcloth, and allow the dough to rest at room temperature for 1-3 hours.

When you are ready to prepare the pizza, divide the dough in half and stretch out (or roll out) your pizza to desired size. Brush the top with olive oil then allow it to rest 15-30 more minutes before cooking.

Meanwhile, fire up your grill and allow it to reach high heat. When ready, turn dough out directly onto grill. Brush top (it will be the opposite side now) with olive oil. Cook for about 1-2 minutes (lift up the edges a little to check it and make sure it is not completely charring). Flip the pizza carefully. Top with ingredients of choice and cook 1-2 more minutes.

Remove promptly from grill and dive in!

Let my gratitude not (always) be in retrospect

I cannot even imagine what it would take to raise tiny humans into adequate adults. I wasn’t even so sure I could keep myself and husBen alive and well during our first year of medical school/law school when our firm repose occasionally deteriorated into childish histrionics (there were some tears and gnashing of teeth, mostly mine). Yet, mothers deal with irrationality at all ages and tirelessly rise to the occasion to come to the rescue. Good job, moms.

I have seen this parenting thing a touch more clearly in these last few years as some of my close friends and sister-in-laws have had their own babies. I realize now that these super-hero moms are still human at base and struggle the same way we (non-parents) do with a difficult task (theirs being living and breathing of course). I see, however, that I cannot claim to understand the unconditional nature of their love until I have my own kids; there seems to be no choice involved in whether or not they will wake up at all hours of the night for a kid in need, whether or not they will shell out their life savings to educate and/or bail out a kid, and whether or not they will clean up this or that thing that their kid projectiles out of any orifice. I cannot boast of that stage of understanding quite yet, full of its wholeness, its joys, and its inherent grip so tight around your heart it just scares me.

I got to spend Mother’s Day with all three of my “mothers” this weekend at the bay: my very own mom, the strongest, most selfless woman I know; my mom’s best friend Mrs. Janet, who was present in most of my childhood memories actually, and my mother-in-law Mrs. Patti (seriously how did I get so lucky with you?). I just want to say I love you ladies. You have greatly shaped the woman I am today (so, I credit you for my sass and my energy) and I hope one day to become a mother half as good. 

on the road to the bay

don't let Quimby fool you,
he loves a good road trip with his sister Eleanor

almost stepped on a water moccasin on this walk in Lamar!

I whipped up this pie for our Mother's Day meal together (literally, whipping is about as complex as the recipe gets) and I would highly recommend it for those Nutella lovers out there. It's at least 1% better than eating the Nutella straight out of the jar with a spoon...

so rich, so so rich

Nutella Pie with toasted hazelnuts

For the crust:

2 cups chocolate cookies, ground in the food processor

1 stick of butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine cookie crumbs (I used oreos and scraped out the white frosting from the inside (which I would not recommend eating all at once) and butter in a small bowl and mix together until it resembles wet sand. Spray a pie plate with non-stick spray and press crust mixture firmly down into plate and up against the sides (use a wide spoon). Chill for at least 15 minutes prior to baking. When ready, bake for 10 minutes then allow to cool completely before adding in filling.

For the filling:

2 cups Nutella

1 1/2 cups mascarpone (Italian cream cheese)

1/4 teaspoon of salt

handful of hazelnuts, toasted and chopped

In the bowl of a stand mixer, whip Nutella, mascarpone, and salt on high until fluffy, about 2-4 minutes. Pour fluffy filling into cooled pie crust. Top with toasted hazelnuts. Cool for about 1 hour in refrigerator prior to serving. See that wasn't hard...

Plasticity

This morning was perfect for a run; I snuck out of the house without waking up husBen or the dogs to a brisk 55 degrees outside, with a dark blue sky indicative of the hour. I meet my friend Leah a couple times a week to run the trail around Memorial Park, and this first day of my month off was no different.

Except that it was. When I arrived, for no reason at all, she suggested we run it in the opposite direction. Excuse me, but to a creature of habit and (confession?) an addictive personality, this seemed like a big deal to me at 6 o’clock this morning. I didn’t really have any strong emotion yet though, as I had not chugged my usual coffee on the way over, so I agreed.

As we were running, I felt myself more observant of my surroundings as I was trying to gauge our distance along the path in reverse: I noticed the trees and the people and most poignantly that moment when the color scheme switched from the warm yellow of the street lamps to a cool blue of the day waking up. And the sunrise over the this city, MY city, made me just want to throw my hands up to it in grateful reception (except that I didn’t want to draw attention to myself this early in the morning), as if to say, “thanks for helping me see life differently!”

Okay, okay, I can be a bit dramatic in reflection, but the point is that I need to appreciate change and transition and the new as I step into this next phase of life. A residency where my assignment changes by the month practically mandates adaptability. Made me wonder, how much in life do we forfeit in addiction to our routines?

Every Monday night, we do homemade pizza with the Roesers, a couple we met in our church a few years ago. Caroline usually makes the dough, then we come up with toppings based on what we’ve got handy in our refrigerators that week: roasted cherry tomatoes and burst burrata, (or) shrimp, bacon, eggplant and basil, (or) red onion, rosemary, parmesan and pistachios. A couple weeks ago, we decided to divert from the norm and declared it Thai Night. Bon Appetit did a spread in their March issue so we played with the recipes and again, found ourselves thankful for a little mix-up in the routine (lookie there, I am training for residency)…

massaman chicken

green mango salad

toasted coconut sundaes with candied peanuts

These recipes can be found at:

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/massaman-chicken

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/green-mango-salad

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/toasted-coconut-sundaes-with-candied-peanuts