Ina’s Cheddar Corn Chowder. Also, Vampires.

I realized it had been awhile since I fell all over myself telling you how Ina is my favorite person in the world besides Taylor Hanson and Michelle Obama (now there is a dinner party I would like to be invited to), so last week I got the original Barefoot book out of the library and set to work. I don’t own this one, and having now spent some time with it I don’t know WHY, since it’s lovely and easy and all the things I love about Ina, and plus if I had my own copy I could be sure that all the crumbs in the binding were mine. 

It was my friend H’s birthday (also, PS, I got her a Twilight jigsaw puzzle for which she went so gangbusters it almost made up for the fact that I was so embarrassed about BUYING a Twilight jigsaw puzzle that when I went up to the checkout counter at Borders I got this awful case of verbal spew and was all, “It’s a Twilight jigsaw puzzle. It’s not for me. It’s for my friend. It’s her birthday. She really likes jigsaw puzzles. And Twilight. I mean. It’s not for me.”) and she asked for something on the lighter side, so I made a big green spinach salad and the cheddar corn chowder.

IT WAS REALLY GOOD CHOWDER OKAY. Rich but not at all the kind of thing that makes you feel gross afterward, and so flavorful and autumn-y and just–cheerful. Can food be cheerful? This food was. I divided the recipe in thirds, since the original makes chowder for twelve people, but honestly even if I had made the full amount it probably would have been gone by the next day. 

Dear Ina: I hope you make this for Jeffrey on his birthday, along with your coconut cake and a nice bottle of wine, and I hope you got him a Twilight puzzle too, because the kids are just crazy for that Robert Pattinson. Many happy returns to you both from us here at Kitchen Door.

Oatmeal Pumpkin Breadcake

First of all: how effing bent is my loaf pan? That’s embarrassing. I need a new one.

Second of all: I made oatmeal pumpkin bread on Sunday! It made me popular at work. To be fair, it’s closer to cake then to bread, and cake tends to have that effect on people.

If you, too, would like to be popular in your place of business, you can follow this recipe, adopted from cooks.com: 

1 c. quick cooking oatmeal
1 c. hot low-fat milk
3/4 c. pumpkin (I roasted and pureed the real kind, cause I had it from the CSA, though I imagine the canned stuff would work just fine. I actually love the canned stuff.)
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 c. butter, melted
2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. white sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tbsp. baking powder

For the topping: 2 tbsps. brown sugar, 1/4 cup oatmeal, 1/4 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In large bowl combine oats and low-fat milk; allow to stand 5 minutes. Stir in pumpkin, eggs, and melted butter. In a separate bowl mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Gradually add dry ingredients to oatmeal mixture. 

Place in a greased 9 x 5 loaf pan, and top generously with brown sugar, oats, and nuts. Bake 55-60 minutes or until tests done. Cool on wire rack. Makes 1 loaf.

Squashed.

Because apparently I am on crack I signed us up for a winter CSA, which means that from now until December we’ll have like ten pounds of pumpkins and squash and onions to eat our way through every week. I don’t really know why I thought this was such an awesome idea, since my boyfriend has never once in our entire relationship (or his entire life) said, “You know what would be awesome? If we could have some gourds for dinner.” No  matter. I’m determined to convert him, and lucky for me every magazine I’ve picked up lately has been chock-full of squashy goodness. A lot of the recipes tend to call for stuff I don’t have lying around, though, so I’ve had to get a little creative.

 

I made this pasta dish the other night–butternut squash roasted with olive oil, salt and pepper, then mixed with spicy Italian sausage, a little onion, some whole-wheat shells, and mozzarella cheese. I put the whole thing in a baking dish and sprinkled it with a mix of bread crumbs and parmesan, then stuck it under the broiler until it got all brown and crunchy. Tom had seconds. I’m just saying.

Shut Up and Chive*

We got a bunch of chives in the CSA this week–perfect for mixing in with some hummus, or with sour cream on mashed potatoes. It’s still a lot of chives to get through, though, and I was trying to figure out what to do with the rest of them when I remembered this totally delicious goat cheese and herb omelet I had at Gaslight not that long ago. Sadly (SADLY) I didn’t have any goat cheese, or enough eggs for an omelet, but I DID have some cream cheese and really excellent bakery bread. Thus, I give you: egg sandwich with herbed cream cheese on 8-Grain.

If you are Tom, right now you are saying, “KATIE THAT IS DISGUSTING,” but I am not lying when I say to you it was maybe the best egg sandwich I’ve ever made. So different than the normal egg’n American I usually throw in a frying pan, and kind of pretty and sophisticated-feeling to boot. I bet it would be super good with tomatoes, too, but we didn’t get any of those this week. Blight, you know. 

ANYWAY. This sandwich is good and if you have random chives lying around you should make it. The end. 

* Alternate titles for this post: “Chive-r’s Ed,” “Chive Wire,” “Chive In”. I’M SORRY OKAY.

Maple Pecan Oatmeal Cookies

I made these cookies to send to my dad. They’re frankly more oatmeal-y than anything else, but still pretty tasty. I made a vanilla sugar glaze because I wanted them a little sweeter, and also I like how it makes them all shiny. 

Recipe is here!

Randomness, and Icebox Cake

Have I talked here yet about H&J?

H&J are the people who introduced Tom and me one thousand years ago, when I was a junior in high school rocking the acrylic nails and Tom had a Growing Up Gotti blowout. Good times. ANYWAY, H&J dated back then, and then we got to college and H moved to Florida and J moved to North Carolina and they didn’t date anymore and a bunch of years went by, and then they randomly got back together and now they live literally five blocks from us in Boston, two hundred miles from where all four of us started.

WEIRD RIGHT?

Anyway, the point is that way back when J’s mom used to make ice box cake, which like, I don’t even know what ice box cake IS except that it involves chocolate wafers and whipped cream and, well, an ice box, and I think it is what you eat in heaven if you’ve been really good. Seriously, at 4AM on New Year’s Day 2003 Tom and I stood in front of my refrigerator and devoured pretty much a whole cake like savages or secret eaters, and I am not lying when I say it was a VERY GOOD START to that particular year.

You guys. I had not had an ice box cake in five years, and then yesterday happened, and GROWN UP H & J BROUGHT ONE TO MY HOUSE. I nearly wept for joy. And then I ate a crap ton of it.

Because some things never change.

 

(P.S. Smitten Kitchen explains it better. Go read their post while I shove my face.)

Eat Your Feelings

You GUYS. I’m going to get published.

Argestes, a literary magazine out of Iowa, has picked up a story of mine for their Fall/Winter ‘09 issue, which is…pretty much the most exciting thing to happen in my life since I got to the episode of Lost where Sawyer and Kate do it and then escape from the Others. SO. You know. Pretty exciting.

Obviously, the only appropriate response was to drink a lot of champagne and bake cookies, which is EXACTLY WHAT I DID.

Have a recipe! And celebrate.

 

1/4 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/8 tsp salt

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

2/3 cup all purpose flour

1 cup rolled oats

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/3 cup chocolate chips

1/3 cup chopped pecans

1/3 cup flaked coconut

 

Preheat the oven to 350. Beat the butter for 30 seconds, then add sugar, baking soda, and salt; beat until well-combined. Beat in egg and vanilla, then flour, then stir in oats and coca powder. Add chocolate chips, coconut, and pecans. Dough will be thick. Spoon onto a baking sheet–small cookies work best, I think–and bake for eight minutes or so. 

Eat. Drink. And feel damn pleased with yourself.

This salad will make you popular.

No seriously. People will like you if you make it for them. I used it to woo new/old friends (Hi Shana and Adrienne!) over the weekend. It’s super easy (as are all of my favoritest recipes), and there is pretty much no junk in it so you can feel good about yourself even if you eat thirds. Which I did. 

All you need:

4 ears of corn on the cob, boiled

2 bigass tomatoes, diced

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained

1/3 red onion, finely chopped

2 ripe avocados, peeled, seeded and chopped (not smashed!)

juice of one lime

salt and pepper to taste

 

What to do:

Slice the kernels off the corn, mix the whole shebang together in a big bowl, give it a squirt with the lime juice, season until it tastes good, and throw the whole thing in the fridge for an hour or so. You know what? Done.

Pizza Face.

Whole-wheat dough with broccoli, red peppers, and onions. Yum.

Easy Summer Dinner

One CSA eggplant sliced thin and grilled with some olive oil

One CSA tomato

Some shaved parmesan cheese

Piled on 8-grain bread and thrown back on the grill for a few.

I dunked it in some balsamic. Yum.