Cooking Archives - magic is everywhere

Quick, cheap and delicious

It’s so easy for me to get distracted and forget to look for the magic.

Work has been bonkers. People are leaning on me really hard for stuff and I find it impossible to say no. (I’m working on it.) Consequently there just aren’t enough hours in the day.

I planned to stay up all night on Wednesday to finish (maybe?) a project that was due that day, but the internet went out at 3:00 am. Pretty fatal for a web developer (at least while working on a live site).

John was relieved because I’d been pushing for two weeks and he could see I needed rest. But I couldn’t sleep. I was too hyped up on stimulants (which I consumed because I thought I would be staying up all night and the whole next day).

At 7 am, the internet was still out. So I went to Sheetz, which has a quiet eating area with power outlets, free wifi and good coffee. I was miserable. I just wanted to go home. But I kept getting texts and emails from clients asking for updates. And then the lunch rush started and my anxiety kicked into overdrive, and I found myself desperately texting John. “IS THE INTERNET ON YET? PLEASE ANSWER ME.”

Guys, Thursday was the closest I’ve come to having a nervous breakdown, and I’ve come close before.

It took me two days to come down from the caffeine high. During that time it slowly dawned on me (again) that this is my life. It doesn’t belong to anyone else, least of all clients. I have to learn to say no, or at least “not now.”

This morning I remembered to look for the magic. The voice was turned up to 11 the entire time (YOU SHOULD BE WORKING!) but I looked for the magic anyway.

First I knitted a few rows in John’s scarf, but that seemed daunting because it’ll be quite a while before I finish. So I put down the knitting and gathered up the ingredients for pesto.

I had been thinking about making pesto because a) I love pesto and b) we have an enormous basil plant outside. I love basil and put it on lots of things, but I wasn’t making a dent in the plant.

Until recently, when I wanted pesto, I reached for a jar we got from Costco. The problem is we are out of Costco pesto and we can’t go to Costco without spending $400, which is about $350 more than I have right now (despite all the working). When I realized that making my own pesto meant we could actually have pesto without anyone going to Costco, I was sold.

Anyway, we had most of the stuff. Just a quick trip to Walmart for pine nuts and fresh parmesan, and…

The magic of this little jar of pesto isn’t in the home-grown basil or the easy recipe. It’s in the way it made me feel when I made it. Calm, secure, and fundamentally okay.

I don’t know how it works, but it works.

September 19, 2021

Actual Pizza

After the horror that was Strom-pizza, John suggested that I try again with instant yeast, so I did. And woo-eeeee! The dough turned out great!

The recipe I used said it makes 4 dough balls. We used two for making our pizzas and froze the other two. Once we tried it, we thought maybe we should split the recipe into 3 dough balls instead so the crust would be a little thicker in the middle.

Yum!

Salami and basil pizza — Not perfect, but edible! Go us!

September 5, 2021

Strom-pizza

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Our beautiful disaster.

I give you the strom-pizza:

It started this morning with a cheery, “Let’s make pizza for lunch!”

John looked dubious, but I was already measuring the flour.

I had a funny feeling that I interpreted as, “I used the wrong yeast.” But my main concern was that we’d be slicing our delicious pizza a little later than I expected.

The dough rose, and I flopped it out onto the counter. John was now 100% committed and had gone downstairs to find his pizza slider. “Why is it so sticky?” he asked.

“It’s fine!” I said, shaping the dough into a rough circle on the pizza slider.

Satisfied with my crust, I stepped back and implored John to make it pretty:

Then it happened.

Me: “You don’t think that’s going to slide off of there and into the oven, do you?

Him: “I hope so. We can’t cook it on this.”

Oh. no.

It wasn’t sliding anywhere. John wrestled with it valiantly, going to unreasonable lengths to keep our pizza pizza-shaped. In the end he had to fold it and cut it in half just to get it in the oven.

Order up!

I added a sprig of basil. Presentation is very important.

We took our strom-pizza to the couch so we could eat while watching football.

“I don’t like this restaurant,” I said. “We shouldn’t come back.”

John smiled. “Aw, let’s give it a second chance.”

August 29, 2021

Genius

In a stroke of genius, John suggested using the roasted garlic and herb no-knead bread I made yesterday as the base for some yummy bruschetta. Here is the result:

My unreal lunch — Yes. That’s really my lunch.

So easy! He just mixed fresh diced tomato (from our friends at Scenic View Orchards) with a little parmesan cheese and some chopped basil from our herb garden.

We make a pretty good team, n’est-ce pas?

August 25, 2021