mother-in-law salad

i'm sure lots of people would love to make a salad of their mother-in-law, but i happen to be blessed with TWO mothers-in-law who are both positively delightful. this is a salad my husband's mother threw together when we arrived at her home in tampa two weeks ago. i recreated it at home when i realized i could over-pay for a small quantity of queso fresco at trader joe's.

ingredients:

• 1-2 heads of lettuce
• 1 diced avocado
• 3 seeded, diced plum tomatoes
• 1 diced cucumber
• 8 ounces diced queso fresco, basket cheese or, if you must, fresh mozzarella
• 1/4 red onion, jullienned
• grilled chicken (about 3 ounces per diner)
• sliced olives
• olive oil
• the juice & zest of one lemon

prep:

• grill, dice juice, zest & tear as needed

actual cooking:

• combine

oh, it is soooooo goooooooooood. i can't even tell you.

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zuchotto

(daddy, mama, michael, nardo, kevvie, j, bill, sue, mary, frankie-baby, james, moi, joseph, jim & joe. mara & col were gone by then and old greg graciously took this one for us. and i have no idea where steven was. i kept asking and never got an answer.)

this past weekend, we had my favorite annual tradition: gaining four pounds in two days while the ice in our drinks melts way too fast in the sweltering northern virginia august. also known as the hughes cousins convention at uncles jim & frank's.

after a solid year of emails and obsessive, mouth-watering discussion, jim & i finally got to make our zuchotto. bill recorded it for posterity. because by the time it was unveiled, jim & i were SEVERAL margamaritas in. what? they're GOOD.

zuchotto is a dome-shaped confection compromised of layers of pound cake "bricks," whipped cream with roasted hazelnuts and whipped cream with chocolate chips, all generously doused with booze and set in the fridge for several hours.



so, basically, you line a bowl in cheesecloth, spray booze, then line it in bricks. which you spray with booze.


does my family turn it ON when there's a camera, or what? this was about 10am. if mama didn't do it, kevvie would have had to, but he was busy JUMPING OUT OF A PERFECTLY GOOD AIRPLANE at the time.



then a floor of whipped cream with whichever mix-in. you want to alternate. then bricks. then booze. repeat as necessary.



we used about five 8" pound cakes, 2 quarts of heavy cream and... um... some nuts & chips. and booze.


young james was SUPER helpful with disposing of leftover bricks. spread with nutella, natch.



did i say REAL whipped cream? cause: REAL. and unsweetened. trust me.







after a good spraying, wrap her in cheesecloth, cover with plastic wrap and chill for 7-24 hours.







perfect!


and HUGE. cutting through it wasn't doing my tendinitis any favors, let me tell you. so uncle jim took over and people started sharing cause-- whoa-- my uncle cuts a serious piece of cake.





(i mean, he DID jump out of a perfectly good airplane that morning!)

irish milk stout bread (or: beer for breakfast)

oh, hai! how do you like the detail on that picture? can you practically taste the beery goodness? or perhaps your screen isn't hd. mine is. because i have a new! fast! laptop! and a new! shiny! camera! and a new! fancy! mobile! hotspot! thus, i am blogging in bed and drooling over the pics of this irish porter bread which i actually made with a milk stout. mmmmmm. in order to keep myself in fancy technology upgrades, and creatively fulfilled, i'm back in the kitchen making sure daddy & bill still love me enough to give me fancy, spill-proof keyboards and a better camera than the one i gave a shower to. okay, TWO showers.

ingredients:

• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon EACH ground cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon. and allspice if you have that. i don't.
• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 1 1/4 cups brown sugar
• 1/2 a bottle of porter or stout
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 beaten eggs

prep:

• warm up your beer
• grease 2 8-inch round cake pans
• preheat to 350*

actual cooking:

• combine flour, salt & spices
• work in butter with a pastry cutter or your hands
• add sugar
• make a well in the mixture
• combine beer & baking soda
• pour the liquid & eggs into the well and still until just combined
• divide between pans
• bake for 20 minutes and then reduce heat to 300*
• bake for another 40ish minutes until bread pulls away from the sides of the pan
• enjoy warm or room temperature with the rest of the beer

what i ate on my summer vacation

Click here to view these pictures larger

a margamarita

these are the world's best margaritas. that's what i told everyone at nardo's graduation party, and i'm standing by it.

• 1 part limeade concentrate
  
• 1 part tequila
• 1 part corona
• 1 part water
• over crushed ice
  

to fill a 3-gallon beverage dispenser, a part is 84 ounces (or 7 cans/bottles).

super-easy spinach lasagna

so... my camera? is still deadish. oh, yeah, i do have a warranty. and... i did call. okay, and they have sent me the shipping label, but... go to a ups store? oh, that sounds like a lot of work.

on top of that, geesh. i've got so much to do. first and foremost, i have to finish reading the discworld books before i start grad school. and yes, i DO MEAN that that project is a high priority. i'm doing a bunch of other boring life stuff, too, like gearing up to move (eventually), paying down student loans, fafsa applications for NEW student loans, et cetera, et cetera.

but! don't feel sad! blogging isn't the only thing i'm not doing much of! i'm also not COOKING much! yes! really! bill cooks dinner almost every night lately, and, let me tell you, i may never tire of grilled meat & grilled veg dinners. SO. GOOD.

i did make a spinach lasagna last night, though, which makes me feel good because it feeds us for three days so that's almost like i cooked THREE dinners. plus, it's vegetarian, low-fat, high-protein, super-easy and recession-friendly ($13 for three dinners for 2 = less than $2.50 a meal). and freaking yummy.

so... you can make one, too.

ingredients:

• about a half package of no boil lasagna noodles
• a jar (25 ounces or so) of your choice tomato gravy
• a 20-ounce bag of frozen spinach
• 8 ounces shredded part-skim mozzarella
  
• 15 ounces part-skim ricotta
• 1 large egg

prep: gloriously none!

actual cooking:

• beat together the egg & ricotta
• coat the bottom of an 8x13 pan with gravy
• add a layer of noodles
• add a layer of ricotta
• add a layer of spinach
• add a sprinkle of gravy
• add a sprinkle of mozzarella
• repeat the whole layering process twice more, topping with noodles, gravy & mozzarella
• bake for 45-60 minutes covered in foil (until the last 10 or so) at 350*
• blog it and feel like you actually did something.

very little, very late: locavore eating-- springfield ravioli & macaroni co.

this was so long ago that i can't actually remember when it was. sure, i could have checked the timestamp on the picture just now but... i didn't. get over it.

bill & i stopped at a deli in swarthmore in the hopes that we could grab some nice beer (the italian deli by our place offers a nice selection) and basically hit paydirt. bill took a while browsing the beer, so i wandered into the other room-- the actual deli room-- and lo! there was fresh everything-you-can-imagine. including "springfield brand garlic & basil napolitano's pasta" which is manufactured at 186 saxer avenue, springfield, pa 19064. this is so local that i actually know where it is. and that's big, cause i'm... not directionally inclined. (except when it comes to parking in center city. that i rock at.)

SO. i wanted to experience the pasta as fully as i could which meant keeping the recipe simple:

• pasta (water & salt for cooking)
• butter
• grated cheese

i followed the package instructions for cooking (6 minutes in boiling water), tossed with butter and sprinkled with cheese.

it was... fucking amazing. really. and LOCAL! points for greenness.


... so. why the radio silence? oh, lots of reasons. i'm gearing up to go to grad school at OMFGDREXEL. bill's just submitted his application for grad school at OMFGDREXEL, only to him it's more like, oh, just drexel, because he's been there before. additionally, we're watching out eating AND our budget here at chez bitchy, so the meals sort of run together. plus, christmas totally burned me out and my camera is dead. we're on the hunt for the 3-year service plan and really hoping a lot that "i forgot to close my water bottle before i stuck it in my purse and why no i don't use a protective cover for my camera, as you can see by the scratches and smudges!" doesn't void it.

but i'm working my back, slowly. i promise, mommy.