An Undomesticated Halloween

Aside from dressing up as an over-sized M&M and eating tons of candy, my favorite thing about Halloween as a kid was eating homemade roasted pumpkin seeds.

Until recently, I was always too timid to turn on the oven and try this out for myself. When Avo carved the pumpkin Wednesday night, I summoned the courage to roast the seeds (instead of tossing them in the trash like I usually do). In case you're wondering, here is how you do it:

How to Roast Pumpkin Seeds

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Dig out the innards of the pumpkin. Search for the seeds. Don't be timid. Once you get over the initial "ick" factor of having your hands covered with pumpkin pulp, it's sort of fun.

3. Toss the seeds -- and any leftover muck -- into a colander and rinse will cold water.

4. Spread the seeds in a single layer on baking sheet and toss with oil (canola will do). Coat lightly and sprinkle with salt.

5. Bake for 25 minutes or until nicely toasted. Let them cool and then store in an air-tight container. You won't be keeping them for long since they're too yummy to resist!

It's a good idea to make them a couple of days before Halloween since once the candy comes out, all bet's are off and nobody will be interested in the seeds -- no matter how good they taste.

And if you want to get really fancy about it, you can toast pumpkin seeds with sugar and spice or curried pumpkin seeds.

A Cooking Emergency

Many people I know -- including Avo, Dori, my dad, and my brother -- find cooking relaxing. It's the perfect antidote to a long, stressful day at work (or in my dad's case, a long, relaxing day of horseback riding and dog walking).

Me? I almost had a nervous breakdown yesterday trying to make broccoli soup. I am not exaggerating. Let me explain.

I was halfway through Giulia Melucci's recipe for Broccoli soup when I realized I hadn't yet added the 1/4 cup of cream required. I scanned the directions, but didn't see anything specified about when to add the cream.

Take a look for yourself:

Giulia Melucci's Broccoli Soup

Ingredients

1 tablespoon butter, plus another for finishing (optional)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 carrot, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
cups broccoli florets
3 cups chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/4 cup cream
1 lime, juiced

Directions

1. Melt the butter in a large heavy pan over medium heat, add the onion and carrot and salt. Saute until soft, about five minutes.

2. Add the broccoli, stir to coat, then add the chicken broth and cumin. Raise the heat to medium high, bring to a simmer, return heat to medium and cook until broccoli is very soft, about 15-20 minutes.

3. Puree the soup in a food processor, or with an immersion blender. (My preferred method, so much easier than transferring to a machine, if you don't have one, you should.) You might want to add another tablespoon of butter here for a richer soup--that's not where I'm at today but I think it's a good move. Add lime juice and a few grindings of pepper and your virtuous meal or first course is ready.

Perhaps a cooking pro would innately know when to add the cream, but I'm still a novice. Panicked, I e-mailed Giulia, whom I met recently after stalking her on Facebook. My broccoli was already pretty soft and I was ready for step 3, but I didn't want to proceed without the cream. What to do?

Things were rough going before they took a turn for the worse. I realized with horror that the cream leftover in the fridge from when I made my parents chocolate mousse a week and a half ago had curdled. I'll spare you the description, but it was not a pretty sight.

I hurried out in the rain and stopped at several bodegas before finding one with cream. Would Half and Half do? I wondered.

Still, no word back from Giulia, so I made a move and dumped in 1/4 cup of cream.

The next challenge was transferring the soup into the food processor since -- no surprise here -- I don't have an immersion blender. In fact, I don't even know what an immersion blender is. It sounds like some sort of SCUBA gear to me.

I poured the entire pan full of soup into the food processor before noticing that the soup was seeping out onto my kitchen counter.

By this point, I was dripping sweat into the soup. Taking a deep cleansing breath, I mopped up the mess and managed to salvage some of the soup. Good thing I moved my laptop off the kitchen counter before this step!

I tried the soup and it's pretty tasty (I didn't add lime to it). But I'm not sure it was worth all of that stress. And I realize now that Avo is probably sick of broccoli dishes -- especially since I just made orecchiette and broccoli with walnuts yet again!

Maybe one day I'll find cooking relaxing. But for now, I'll stick with Tension Tamer tea.

Update: I heard back from Giulia who was baffled by my message. "What cream? I didn't say to add cream, did?" Apparently, she made the soup with cream last week, but this week, she cut the cream and added lime. All that stressing for nothing! Well, not nothing -- I have the soup to show for my efforts, and it IS nice and creamy. I'm just pleased that I knew better than to add the lime to the cream. "You've got natural instinct," said Giulia. Well, I'm getting there.

If I Can Cook, So Can You

For the first time in my life, I am experiencing the satisfaction that comes from having a refrigerator full of food that I made.

In addition to the hummus and Ful Mudammas that I made recently, I also have leftover orecchiette with broccoli and walnuts (yes, that's my favorite dish lately). I felt amazingly satisfied watching Avo pack lunch with food that I had prepared. It sounds corny, but it feels good to nourish the people you love.

I was planning to make Giulia Melucci's broccoli soup and Dori's moujadara (bulgar & lentils) today, but Avo said we should work our way through the food in the fridge.

Since it's raining out and I've already bought some ingredients, I may go for it anyway. I can't believe it might actually reach the point where Avo will have to tell me to take a break from cooking! Boy, have times changed.

Mujadarra can be made with either rice or bulgar. Here is Dori's recipe, which she made up herself:

1. Saute a thinly sliced onion in about 3-4 T olive/safflower/veg oil over med-low heat til carmelized (not burned), about 15 minutes.

2. Add in ... a cup each bulgar/lentils (you could do 1/2 cup lentils, too, which might be better)

3. Add in about 2-1/4 cups water (maybe 2 cups if 1/2 cup lentils; I just kept watching and adding water as needed at the end) and bring to a simmer, cover and cook for about 20 mins. Add salt & pepper to taste.

Yesterday, while walking through Prospect Park, I ran into two fellow moms I know from the neighborhood. We got to talking about cooking and they both confessed they've fallen into the old mac and cheese/chicken nuggets routine for their kids.

I started telling them about my recent experiences cooking and they seemed impressed.

"Seriously, just six months ago, I didn't cook anything. If I can cook, so can you!"

Suddenly, I'm like a recent convert to the gospel of home cooking. I want to share the good word with everyone.

My First And Last Recipe Exchange

Call me a dork, but I'm sorta excited that my friend Sam invited me to join her e-mail recipe exchange.

Yes, I realize it's a chain letter, but at least there is no financial scam involved. The goal is to get lots of new recipes, which sounds like fun to me.

Here's the deal:

You email a favorite, easy recipe to the first person on the list, move the second person up, put your email address in their place, and then send the email out to 20 or so of your friends. If no one breaks the chain, you’re supposed to get 20 recipes sent back to you.

I quickly sent out my recipe for my new go-to recipe Orecchiette with Roasted Broccoli and Walnuts.

Most of my friends e-mailed back immediately politely declining. Apparently, these e-mail recipe exchanges are quite popular and they've already received a ton of these requests. But, it's a novelty for me since nobody has ever asked me before -- until now, I wouldn't have had a recipe to contribute.

Luckily, a couple of people have taken pity on me and though they declined to officially participate, they've passed on some fave recipes.

Here is one I'm looking forward to trying:

Terry's Ful Mudammas (Broad Beans in Sauce)

Ingredients

• 2 cans (15-ounce each) cooked fava beans

• 6 cloves garlic, or to taste

• 1 teaspoon salt, or to taste

• 1 Tablespoon lemon juice, freshly squeezed

• 1/4 cup olive oil

• 1 1/2 Tablespoons parsley, minced

Directions

1. Press the garlic cloves through a garlic press into a medium bowl.

2. Mash the garlic and salt together.

3. Next, add the lemon juice, olive oil, and parsley to the garlic mixture and combine thoroughly.

4. Drain the beans well, rinse, and put beans into a large pot over low heat.

5. Add garlic mixture and stir with a wooden spoon to combine thoroughly.

6. Serve warm with the garnishes arranged on a platter.

In fact, I'm heading out now to buy some fava beans. I'll let you know how it goes.

And I promise not to send out anymore e-mail chain letters! I don't want to test the bonds of friendship any further.

Sex and Housework

Pick up that broom if you want some action in the bedroom. According to today's Wall Street Journal, doing housework helps your married sex life.

The new shows that for husbands and wives alike, the more housework you do, the more often you are likely to have sex with your spouse.

Earlier studies have hinted at this connection for men; the sight of a husband mopping the floor or doing dishes sparks affection in the hearts of many wives. But the more-housework-equals-more-sex link for wives, documented in a study of 6,877 married couples published online recently in the Journal of Family Issues, is a surprise.

Scrubbing the floor is no aphrodisiac, and seeing your spouse doing it usually isn't either. "My husband loves doing laundry, yet I don't get any thrill out of his doing it," says Chicago writer Julie Danis. And "I don't think he thinks it's sexy when I go around gathering the detritus of his daily life."

But for some high achievers who take a "work hard, play hard" approach to life, researchers say, working hard in one domain produces more energy for others. The study also found a correlation between hours spent on paid work and the frequency of sex in marriage.

"Rather than compromise their sex life" because of time demands at work or at home, "this group of go-getters seems to make sex a priority," says Constance Gager, lead researcher and an assistant professor of family and child studies at Montclair State University, Montclair, N.J. The study doesn't measure what proportion of spouses fall into this group, but she believes "they are on the leading edge of couples we expect to see more of in the future."

Many husbands and wives I interviewed offered an additional explanation—that housework may be a proxy for a general willingness to invest in shared interests, a symbol of commitment to home and hearth. Perhaps "working on the same task … makes the couple remember why they married—to be on the same team, to build a life," Ms. Danis says.

Maybe there's a connection between this study and the other study I wrote about recently which suggested that doing housework produced the same level of the feel-good hormone serotonin as being in love.

On the downside:

The study defined housework as nine chores: cleaning, preparing meals, washing dishes, washing and ironing clothes, driving family members around, shopping, yard work, maintaining cars and paying bills. Wives in the study spent an average 41.8 hours a week on these tasks, compared with 23.4 hours for husbands—a split that is fairly typical, and often regarded by wives as unfair. However, the effects of any fairness concerns among wives weren't measured in this study.

Let's hope that word of the study inspires husbands to do more laundry.

An Unexpected Delicacy

Remember when I was obsessed with Mark Bittman's 101 Simple Salads for the Season? It was fun working my way through Bittman's list, but then the season changed and I moved on to heartier fare.

Although I won't be able to get all of the fresh produce required for the 101 Salads, some of the salads can work even in Autumn. In fact, brussels sprouts are generally better this time of year.

70. Shred brussels sprouts in the food processor, preferably with the slicing disk. Toss with vinaigrette and crumbled bacon.

On Sunday night, Avo tried out the recipe, adding his own twist. After shredded the sprouts and frying the and crumbling the bacon, he threw them both in a wok and stir fried them. He tossed the mix with a vinaigrette dressing and the result was surprisingly tasty. Then again, anything tastes good with bacon.

It re-heated amazingly well for lunch yesterday.

Since Ruby is home sick and I strained a muscle in my back, I don't plan to do much cooking (or cleaning) today. But Avo is excited to make a meat lasagna when he gets home tonight. Can't wait.

Kasha Spells Comfort

It's been a dark, rainy week here in Brooklyn. Just the right weather for comfort food.

And when I think "comfort food," I think "kasha varnishkes."

Never heard of it before?

Kasha is toasted hulled buckwheat and varnishkes is the Yiddish term for farfalle or bow-tie pasta.

It's a classic Eastern European dish that was imported to America (and, in particular, the Lower East side), by Russian Jewish immigrants (like my grandparents). Even though I was a picky eater as a kid, I had no problem finishing off a plate of my mother's kasha varnishkes.

Then, in my post-college years in the East Village, I regularly ordered kasha varnishes at Ukrainian restaurants like Veselka.

So now that I've become a bit more comfortable in the kitchen, I thought it was time I see if I can make the dish myself.

People are very passionate about their kasha varnishkes. When I posted on Facebook that I was making them, old friends came out of the woodwork to announce that it was their all-time favorite dish.

My idol Mark Bittman wrote about kasha varnishkes in The New York Times:

To make a completely authentic dish, you must cook the onions in chicken fat. (You can use olive oil, but it’s not the same.) You can buy chicken fat, but it’s easy enough just to save the excess fat from a few chickens that you are using for other dishes and freeze it. When you have about a cup, cut it up and cook it over very low heat until the fat is rendered and the solids crisp up (save those solids, and eat them on crackers). Onions are never better than when cooked in chicken fat.

Unfortunately, I didn't have any chicken fat, but thanks to Avo, I had fresh chicken stock to cook the kasha. You can't have everything!

Kasha Varnishkes
(adapted from Mark Bittman)

3 cups chopped onion
3 tablespoons neutral oil, like grapeseed or corn (not olive oil!)
1 egg
1 cup kasha
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 cups chicken, beef or vegetable stock
1 to 2 tablespoons butter (optional -- I skipped it)
1 pound of farfalle (bowtie pasta)

1. Put the onion in a large skillet with a lid over medium heat. Cover the skillet and cook for about 15 minutes, until the onion is dry and almost sticking to the pan. Add the 3 tablespoons oil, raise the heat to medium-high, and cook, stirring, until the onion is nicely browned, another 15 minutes or so.

2. Meanwhile, beat the egg, then toss it in a bowl with the kasha. Put the mixture along with some salt and pepper in a heavy, large, deep skilled over medium-high heat. Cook, stirring, until the mixture smells toasty, about 3 minutes.

3. Turn the heat to a minimum, carefully add the stock, and stir once. Cover and cook until the liquid is absorbed, about 15 minutes (it took me much longer because my stock wasn't entirely defrosted). Turn off the heat. Stir in the onion, taste, and adjust the seasoning.

4. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it. When the kasha is just about done (or is already resting), cook 1 pound of farfalle pasta until it's tender, but not mushy. Drain it, reserving some of the cooking water. Use a fork to toss the pasta with the kasha and onions, adding some butter (if you want) and enough of the reserved cooking water to make the dish a little creamy.

The steps are simple enough, but it was hard for me to manage the timing of it all. Also, I realized too late that I don't have enough covers for my pans (so I used a large serving plate instead).

My other mistake -- I forgot to reserve some of the cooking water from the pasta and didn't add butter. So the result was not as creamy as Bittman recommends, but it still hit the spot.

Avo, who has never been a fan of kasha varnishkes, said that mine was even better than Veselka's. It would have tasted even better if I had made a pot roast and gravy to serve with it!

As if that wasn't enough comfort food for one day, I went ahead and baked oatmeal cookies (without the chips) with the kids.

A very comforting day!