Work-Shirking, Anti-Feminist Spiced Banana Walnut Muffins

Of course, my title is ridiculous, but I was so taken with a recent article in O, “Muffin Manifesto” by Suzan Colón, that I had to repeat that line. The gist of her article is that, as the economy turned sour and she became self-employed, she turned to baking as aroma-therapy. While for her baking was simply a happy, mind- and body-occupying pursuit of pleasure, her friends acted as if she were “setting feminism back 30 years.” Fascinating.

I relate so much to the idea of her interest in cooking for her family being misinterpreted by her peers. I, too, have been taken aback when people view my blog as some kind of statement about their own relationship with food and cooking. As I always say, we all have the same number of hours in the day. While I spend more of them cooking from scratch than most of my peers, I then choose not to do scads of other things: garden, clean, sew, build, shop, watch TV, etc., let alone work full-time. Cooking (and blogging about cooking) is a very personal pursuit that brings me a kind of joy and peace that I find in few other corners of my life. When faced with others who seem to have taken the frequency and fervor with which I cook personally, I want to reply, “But it’s not about you!”

So, the muffins... at the end of the article is the author’s recipe for her favorite muffins, adapted to be healthier than typical muffin recipes. I was drawn to this because a) my people love a good muffin and b) I had a bunch of overripe bananas taking up counter space.

The finished product has finally been sampled by all and I would say it earned five stars all around. Made with applesauce, vegetable oil, egg and a few mashed bananas, these muffins are incredibly moist, even 24 hours after they were baked. And with the addition of cardamom and orange zest to the to-be-expected cinnamon, they have a wonderful, dynamic flavor. This recipe also gave me a chance to use my brand-new microplane rasp grater (thank you Aunt Eloise), which I love, love, love!

The only change I made to the recipe was to omit the nutmeg. I hate nutmeg (sorry Mom... I dislike it intensely). Otherwise, we got eight tasty, relatively healthy muffins from a recipe for six and everyone had a nourishing snack this afternoon before cleaning out the sandbox. Three cheers for summer vacation and overripe bananas!

Joseph & Giada, or Your Five-Year-Old Can Make Pesto

From In the Kitchen with Bossygirl archives.

First of all, if my five-year-old met Giada De Laurentiis, he would be rendered speechless. Joseph has been drawn to (and flirted with) beautiful women almost since birth ... a true Lee man.

Second of all, if Giada met Joseph, I suspect she would be equally smitten, if only because he loves to cook. My kids spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and we’ve learned that Joseph, unlike his truly omnivorous sister Sophia, eats better if he has a hand in preparing the meal.

As for basil pesto, no convincing was required. The kid who routinely picks the basil chiffonade off his dad’s homemade pizza LOVES pesto! Devours it. Kids are weird, right?

On to our culinary adventure. Short on time and long on basil courtesy my Ollin Farms CSA, Joseph whipped up a batch of Giada’s basil pesto. In about 5 minutes. And mostly by himself.

One quick word about the basil. The farm delivers the bunches with the roots still intact. Brilliant! You can place them in water like fresh flowers for a much longer shelf (or counter) life.

Using my trusty 17-year-old Cuisinart, Joseph was able to manage nearly all of this recipe solo. I merely measured for him and toasted the pine nuts. Other than that, he picked the leaves off the basil plants, pulsed, puréed, grated and tasted for seasoning. And it was outstanding! Nothing tastes more like pure, unadulterated summer. Sadly, our pesto wasn’t served with grilled tuna steaks as in the recipe – we simple served it over frozen ravioli. No judgement.

So, if you don’t have a five-year-old handy, you’ll have to tackle pesto on your own. Head to your local organic farm stand, grab a handful of basil and get cooking. Oh, and if someone wants to bring me the tuna steaks, Joseph and I would be happy to make our pesto again!

When Dinner is Just ... Awful

From In the Kitchen with Bossygirl archives.

I am so overdue to blog about all of the wonderful things that have happened in my kitchen in the past month, and yet I’m more motivated to write about tonight’s dinner, which was just awful! Terrible! How does this happen?

The menu was so simple, designed to be quick and easy since Ben had to leave at 5:00 for his second job (yes, that means we ate dinner at 4:30 ... sometimes when we do this, Sophia says “What, are we 80?”).

Here was our menu: organic chicken drumsticks and thighs, to be brushed with a lemon, olive oil and garlic dressing once off the grill, baked sweet potato chips (which were delicious the first time I made them) and sautéed fresh baby spinach. Easy peasy. Very little prep, low-maintenance cooking, quick and simple, right?

The result? Blackened chicken (inexplicably charred beyond recognition by our powerful new grill), oily spinach and overly crispy chips that tasted black as well. I am laughing out loud as I write this, thinking that it doesn’t really matter how easy or challenging a meal is. When you’re on, you’re on, and when you’re off, well, you’re off and dinner is nearly inedible.

Sophia was the only person to clean her plate tonight. I swear, that kid will eat anything

You call THAT home cooking?

From In the Kitchen with Bossygirl archives.

Wow, Mom, that looks amazing!” These were Sophia’s exact words when she saw her dinner plate last night. And what amazing dinner elicited such unbridled enthusiasm from such a small diner? Grilled Coleman uncured beef hot dogs (these really are amazing!), grilled corn on the cob (wrapped in foil with butter and salt) and sautéed baby spinach with garlic. And, until I heard her response, I never in a million years would have chosen to blog about this meal, because it would never make the cut.

The cut? When I started this blog, I decided that I would only write about meals cooked “from scratch.” To me, this had a very clear definition: buy a bunch of ingredients, chop them up, cook them up, serve them up. Very little if anything pre-made or packaged. I assumed, too, that this is how the rest of the world would define home cooking. So, last night’s dinner, while delicious, didn’t qualify as homemade to me. Yes, I shucked, buttered and salted corn, minced garlic and sautéed it with baby spinach, but this is unremarkable. In fact, most of the gaps between dates on my blog are either because we’re eating leftovers or because we’re having meals like last night’s (or, if I’m really lucky, we’re out). But Sophia’s enthusiasm, and a recent article in The New York Times, got me to thinking.

Michael Pollan, who wrote In Defense of Food, had a recent piece in the Times inspired by Julie & Julia and the rising popularity of food television. The article is long, and I certainly have no intention of summarizing it, but he did make one interesting point that stuck with me. He has a long conversation with a food-marketing researcher, Harry Belzer, about what people today consider “cooking.” According to Belzer, most people consider any assembling of ingredients to be cooking from scratch. Even just washing a head of lettuce and pouring bottle dressing on it. When Pollan tried to press Belzer on the number of people who still really cook from scratch, he learned that they don’t track that degree of home cooking because so few people actually do it. Ouch!

I was fascinated to find that my definition of home cooking was a) in line with Pollans and b) a less and less common activity. It validated for me my original intention in starting this blog, to capture the details of real homemade meals, and to celebrate the outcome of my sometimes considerable efforts to feed my family well.

But now, Sophia has me thinking. Hot dogs, corn, sautéed spinach. Does this a home-cooked meal make?