Movie Night.

It's snowing. It's freaking snowing. Ugh. I trudged home in the mess this evening, my toes turning into little individual icycles. I don't mind the snow, but I DO mind improper footwear. Tomorrow I'm ditching my sneakers for boots, which means it's winter. Tonight, we're hanging out in South Africa with Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds. Did you know I love action movies? Because I do. Especially bad ones. I'm not sure yet if this one is good good or bad good.

Incidentally, that kale experiment from the other night turned out brilliantly. It was: a leek and an onion, softened in olive oil, then all the kale, chopped into big pieces, plus salt and pepper, red pepper flakes and 4 cups of homemade chicken stock. Simmer simmer simmer, add a can of chickpeas. Eat!

Got my sticker!

I waited in line for 90 minutes. I took this picture at the beginning of the wait - the line was behind me down the block, and in front of me it wrapped around two floors of an elementary school and then into the crazy basement room where we always vote. The line was nuts but there were kids walking around hawking baked goods and marked up Dunkin Donuts coffee, so that was pretty funny. I hope you vote today, too!

Experimenting with homegrown kale

I've got three or four hugely overgrown kale plants in the backyard that are still thriving even though it's so chilly out. (Winter coat, day one. Boo.) I'm experimenting with two bunches worth at the moment, and also trying to figure out  how to use up leftover roast chicken and leftover rice. Will report back.

Deep Dish

So I made a ridiculous deep dish pizza for dinner tonight. And now I'm in something of a pizza coma. So. much. gooeyness. I'm all for a thin crust, Neapolitan style, artisan pie (in fact, I usually do thin crust when it's homemade pizza night), but deep dish is like comfort food made pizza. Probably because it's a cheesy bread bomb and hits all the right buttons. I'm not going to share the recipe here because I followed Nick's instructions pretty much exactly (by way of CI).

Two notes, though: my sauce took twice as long to thicken up and it was still a little liquidy. Don't be like me, simmer your sauce until there's no standing liquid left or it'll sog your pizza a bit. Also, if you use a spring form pan (it was the only 9" pan I had), it's ok to take the sides off after cooking if you want, but you'll have to put them back on to contain the gooeyness once you're ready to cut into the pizza.

Happy Sunday, folks.

Chocolate Chip Coconut Oatmeal Muffins

Hurricane Sandy was, for us, a non-event, for which I am incredibly thankful. School was closed so I didn't have to go to work and Adam went in for a few hours but was home by 11:30, as the T stopped running in the early afternoon. I had anticipated our power going out mid morning, so I got up and showered as usual and then cleaned the whole house (including folding and putting away four loads of laundry!) and then everything on my list was done. By 9:30 in the morning. By 11 I was certain the power would be out any minute, but I wanted chocolate chip muffins (Perhaps I saw someone eating one on TV or something? Who knows where these whims come from). So I set to baking. The batter for these was done in less than ten minutes and they were out of the oven 15 minutes after that. Awesome.

Mini Chocolate Chip Coconut Oatmeal Muffins
adapted from an old Gourmet recipe
makes 18-20 mini muffins

This is a dessert muffin for sure, but since it doesn't have frosting (and therefore isn't a cupcake) it's totally ok to eat it for breakfast. I used coconut instead of walnuts because I felt like it, and I only had sweetened coconut so these are not a subtly sweet muffin, and they are incredibly moist. You could bake in traditional size muffin tins and then you'd get six instead of 18 and they'd be longer in the oven.

1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 egg
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly (1/2 a stick)
1/4 cup whole milk
1/3 cup rolled oats, toasted slightly
1/3 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 400F.

Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. In a small bowl combine the egg, milk and butter. Pour the liquid stuff into the dry and mix until it's almost combined, add the oats, coconut and chocolate chips in and mix just until there's no dry stuff showing.

Line a mini muffin tin (or two) with paper liners. Use a tablespoon to fill each tin with batter just to the top, about a tablespoon for each. If you're using disposable mini muffin tins, put them on a cookie sheet for ease of transfer and stick them in the oven. Bake for ten minutes, rotate the pan and bake for 2-5 minutes more, until a toothpick inserted in the muffin comes out clean.

Remove muffins from pan and cook on a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temp. Mini muffins keep in an airtight container at room temperature, for 5 days.

Area Four

Adam and I finally ventured into the all! new! Kendall Square today after a shopping blitz at the Cambridgeside Galleria. Incidentally, that's my new strategy for shopping, which I loathe: what do I need? Go in fast, get it, pay, and leave. No dilly dallying. Don't make eye contact with the tweenagers. I was in and out of Sephora in less than 6 minutes, but I got the mascara I needed, word.

But back to Kendall. There are all sorts of new restaurants over there and I haven't been able to check any of them out yet, but we both had pretty good weeks at work so out we went for celebratory pizza at Area Four. We split an appetizer special - big long crouton with fresh ricotta and broccoli rabe and chili garlic oil. The broccoli rabe was cold, like fridge cold, and I wished it had been at least room temp, but the flavor was good. The pizzas were great - piping hot and savory as all get out. Adam got the putanesca, not shy with the anchovies, and my clam and bacon was indulgently rich. Yum.

Avocados

Oh hai, friends! It's been a while, eh? Sorry about that; I'm going to try and do better. In fact! I'm going to attempt NaBloPoMo again. Thanks, Erin, for the kick in the pants. Oof, we'll see how it goes. Let's ease into it, shall we? How about I tell you this weird thing I do: I text my sister when avocados are on sale. She loves them and they are expensive. I also buy them when they are on sale and put them on my toast for breakfast. Yep.

See, I told you we were starting small. See you tomorrow.