Pondering in-store magazines, bread and beans

01/24/2011 Nichole 2 Comments

I had the opportunity to sit at Barnes & Noble by myself for an hour or so last week, and I spent most of that time reading magazines in the Starbucks cafe area. I hadn’t intended to buy a drink, but I felt guilty about taking up space there and reading a bunch of magazines that I wasn’t going to buy. So I had a caramel brulee latte, and it was great.

(I mention this because one of this week’s recipes is from a magazine I looked at that day.)

On the one hand, it isn’t a library. I always kind of feel like I should buy at least one magazine before perusing it. (I never actually do buy one, though. “Feeling” so rarely equals “doing” in my world.) On the other hand, they wouldn’t put the magazines right next to the cafe tables and so very far from the checkout if they didn’t expect people to sit down and read them. Right?

Anyway, here’s what we’re eating this week:

Monday: Eggs & veggie sausages

Sometimes it feels like this is all I ever cook.

Tuesday: Spaghetti

The children will both eat all of their spaghetti if I make garlic bread and withhold it until they’ve cleaned their plates. Maybe I should make garlic bread with ever meal.

Wednesday: Hawaiian chicken

This is from the most recent issue of Cooking Light, which I did not buy when I was at Barnes & Noble.

Thursday: Bean & potato gratin

Thursdays are supposed to be Bittman Bean Night, according to my menu planning template. That hasn’t been happening with great regularity, though. This, however, is a Bittman bean recipe. So maybe this is the start of something.

Friday: Pizza

If all goes according to plan, we’ll be having dinner with my brother. He’s fallen deeply in love with the new Dominos pizza, so I’m guessing that’s what we’ll be having.

Eating, recipes

Muffins are the best reason to buy bananas

01/21/2011 Nichole 3 Comments

I noticed a few days ago that the bananas we bought last week were looking worse for the wear, so I told Pete that we should make some banana bread with them. Here’s something charming and also sometimes inconvenient about my children: They never forget anything. And so first thing this morning, Pete asked when we would be making the banana bread.

So I pulled out my Southern Living cookbook and went about gathering the ingredients. And then I found that I’d somehow run out of all-purpose flour, but I did have a ridiculous amount of whole-wheat flour. I don’t do very many on-the-fly ingredient swaps, so I had to ask the internet whether or not I could use one flour in exchange for another. The internet said that cookbook author Rose Levy Beranbaum says that’s OK, so long as you add some extra water. And so I ventured forth.

I guess that wheat swapperoo made me feel a little footloose and fancy-free, because I also decided we’d make muffins instead of a load and I starting monkeying around with the recipe. It started with a little cinnamon. And then I remembered that Alex’s grandmother had given us a bag of blueberries from her front yard, and that they were in the freezer! So I tossed in a cup of those, too!

I know! The wild night is calling!

Anyway, Pete mashed the bananas while admiring his strong muscles. Then he mixed the wet ingredients together while Poppy stirred the dry stuff, and then we put twelve large dollops of batter into my muffin pan. The rest of it went into some free-standing silicone muffin cups and then into the freezer. Once they’re frozen, I’ll put them into a freezer bag. And then when we’re in need of an easy muffin fix? I’ll pop them straight into the oven.

Now I’ll spend the rest of the day trying not to polish off what remains of the dozen we already baked, because they are crazy delicious.

Banana-Blueberry Muffins

Whole-Wheat Banana-Blueberry Muffins
based on Southern Living’s Banana-Nut Bread
2 cups whole-wheat flour
1 cup sugar*
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup frozen blueberries
1/2 cup butter, melted
3 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon water
3 very ripe bananas, mashed
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Prepare muffin pan; set aside. Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine the first 4 ingredients in a large bowl. Stir in frozen blueberries. Make a well in the center of the center of the mixture.

Stir together mashed bananas, eggs, water and vanilla; add to dry ingredients, and stir until just moistened. Spoon into muffin cups, filling 3/4 full.

Bake at 350 degrees to 20 to 30 minutes. Remove from pans immediately and let cool on wire racks.

*This seems like an excessive amount of sugar. I’d like to try to cut it or use something else, but I’m not sure what. Any ideas?

Reading, Screen time

The things I’m reading: A few good books about war

01/18/2011 Nichole 4 Comments

One of my two favorite classes in college was listed in the course catalog as “Vietnam literature.” I thought it sounded interesting, so I signed up for it. Only to find out that it was actually “Literature of the Vietnam War,” which was at first disappointing. Then the class actually started. It was a small class, and we were able to have some great discussions. We even went on what I believe was the one and only field trip of my college career. We’d read Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” — which is, it should be noted, so horrific and awful and The Things a Brother Knows heartbreaking and true (or not) and also sometimes even funny — and he was doing a reading in a city about 6 hours away. So we decided we’d borrow a school van and trek down there, and it was a wacky and lovely time.

I’ve read a lot more “war fiction” since that class. I don’t care for the very detailed, this-battle-happened-like-this sort of thing but rather the emotional and aftermath stuff. Dana Reinhardt’s “The Things a Brother Knows” is the first book about the war in Iraq that I’ve read. Although it might be about Afghanistan; I don’t think the location is every specifically mentioned. Wherever the war is, “The Things a Brother Knows” is the story of a boy whose 18-year-old brother joins the Marines right out of high school, goes to said war and then comes home. He’s wounded, but not physically, and the whole family is struggling to deal with that. It isn’t a terribly long book, but it’s effective. I read it in its entirety last night, and it made me cry a few times. It also made me go to bed far too late and thus be overly sleepy today. (OK, fine. Books don’t make people stay up too late. People make people stay up too late.)

So! If you like books about families and sadness and dealing with things, you should read “The Things a Brother Knows.” And also “The Things They Carried.” Both of which can the found in the “Things” section of your favorite local book emporium.

(Thus ends the Lamest Book Review Ever.)