Justify My Fennel

Mom called me a few weeks ago to chat. We got to complaining about our fennel. “Mine isn’t making any bulbs,” I said.

“Mine isn’t either,” she replied. Earlier this spring, we had split a six-pack of bronze fennel seedlings. We had checked the tag carefully to make sure it would make bulbs. We’d been assured it would. It hasn’t.

“Guess we got sold a bill of goods,” I grumped.

The fennel has been making really pretty leaves, though. It looks wispy and airy in the garden. I read in one of my garden magazines that fennel flowers are good for bees, butterflies, hoverflies, and other amusing pollinators. So when my ne’er-do-well vegetables started to bloom, I didn’t stand in their way.

I thought bronze fennel ought to earn its keep at least once this summer, so I snipped some leaves into a cucumber salad. Not only does the leaf look great against the pale green of the cucumber, but the flavor complements the sweet-sour of apple cider vinegar and a pinch of sugar in the dressing.

I, though, am not the one who has most been enjoying the fennel this summer. I went to the garden today to admire my fennel, and I found something that makes up for any disappointment I might have felt before. There was a big fat black swallowtail caterpillar munching down one of my plants.

Hooray! You keep at it, sweetie. When you finish that one, there are three more just like it.

Cucumber Salad
Better get some before Swallowtail finishes it all off...

4 cucumbers
1 small sweet onion
2 t salt
2 t sugar
¼ c apple cider vinegar
3 T olive oil
A few grinds of black pepper
2-3 T snipped fennel leaves

Slice the cucumbers and onions. Toss them with the salt and set aside for half an hour. Briefly rinse them, then drain well.

Meanwhile, whisk the rest of the ingredients together. Toss them with the cucumbers and onions. Done!

Black Diamond Watermelon

Look at this thing.

My mom bought me a Black Diamond watermelon from Untiedt's at the Minneapolis Farmers Market. It's practically black on the outside and screaming red on the inside. Scarlet red. Hester Prynne red.

I can't quite believe how sweet it is. In fact, I'm concerned that I forgot how sweet it is, so I might have to go eat another piece right now to make sure I remember right. About how sweet the watermelon is.

It's really sweet.

Berry Tart

When I tell people what I did yesterday, they say, “You did WHAT now?” Together with two other women, I hosted a baby shower.

This is seemingly a thing about as far removed from my regularly scheduled life as is possible: my house filled with a dozen straight women dressed for a summer party, toting colorfully wrapped packages and ready to talk about babies and children.

Except that the pregnant lady we’re showering is Katrina. She and all her friends, as it turns out, have many things in common. We love books, for one thing (that shower probably had the highest percentage of MFAs at any gathering outside the Loft). We loathe baby shower games; none were planned and no one missed them except to express relief at their absence. And nobody was shy about enjoying a good lunch made of fresh summer produce, or about having a slice of berry tart for dessert.

Berry Tart with Lemon Cream
This dessert is no less delicious for its ease of preparation; you can have the whole thing done in an hour from start to finish. It serves twelve—one slice for every lady at the party plus one more for Katrina to eat later. You know, so the baby can have a piece too.

Half a box of graham crackers (14 sheets)
⅓ c sugar
½ t cinnamon
1 stick butter, melted
10 oz (1 ¼ packages) cream cheese at room temperature
1/3 c sugar
2-3 T fresh lemon juice
1/3 c heavy cream
2 pints assorted berries, washed/hulled/pitted/rendered fit to eat
¼ c jelly or preserves

Heat the oven to 350°. Smush up the graham crackers. I sealed mine in a Ziploc bag and steamrolled them with a rolling pin until they were fine crumbs. Stir in the sugar and cinnamon, then drizzle on the melted butter. Stir up well. Dump into a 10 or 11" tart pan with a removable bottom. Press crumbs into the sides of the pan first, then all over the bottom. Pop this into the oven to toast for 10 or 15 minutes, then cool completely.

Meanwhile, put the cream cheese, sugar, and lemon juice in a bowl and beat them together. Dump in the heavy cream and blend this until smooth.
While you are waiting for the crust to cool, get the berries ready. Wash them, do any hulling necessary, and dry them off. Finally, prepare the jelly or preserves. If you’re using preserves, put them through a strainer–you only want the goo, not the solids. This is going to be your glaze. Warm it up just enough to melt it.

Now it’s showtime. Spread the lemon cream evenly in the bottom of the cooled crust. Arrange the fruit artfully on top. Ideally, no cream would be showing through; but if you don’t have enough fruit to pull that off, don’t worry about it. Last, brush the jelly glaze over the fruit so everything is shiny.

Chill the tart at least four hours; you should probably eat it by the next day.

Just sayin'

Cherry pie with sour cherries from Maple Leaf Orchard.

Lemon Lavender Shortbread

I don't know what's wrong with me lately. I just can't get enough of lavender. I love the way it smells. I love the sight of it in my garden: the silvery leaves and happy purple flowers thrive in a hot, sunny spot where other plants might wilt. I can pretend that we, the lavender and I, are in Provence or Sicily under a baking and bright Mediterranean sun. Cheers, lavender!

Lately I even want to eat lavender. Every time I turn around, I'm finding a use for just a subtle hint of its scent and flavor. This week, those pretty flowers are in full bloom. If we bake them into shortbread, the palest of cookies, then we can still enjoy their color. Lemon zest adds more fragrance to the cookie; so do vanilla ice cream and fresh strawberries on the side.

Lemon Lavender Shortbread
10 T butter, softened
¼ c powdered sugar
1 ½ T granulated sugar
¼ t salt
1 ½ c flour
2 t lavender flowers; you may include some tiny, tender leaves
2 t lemon zest

Preheat oven to 300° F. Cream the powdered sugar, granulated sugar, and salt into the butter until light and fluffy. Sprinkle the flour, lemon zest, and lavender over the mixture and stir until well incorporated.
Pat the mixture into an 8 x 8 pan. Prick all over with a fork if you like. Bake until the shortbread is just thinking about turning golden brown; but take it out of the oven before it does anything much about that idea. This should take 45 to 50 minutes.

Cut the shortbread in the pan while it’s hot, then cool in the pan on a rack. Pop them out with a metal spatula. Serve to acclaim.

Here's to Julie

A few months ago, we reshuffled desks at work. Julie from account services moved into the cube behind me. "I don't want a new neighbor," I grumbled. "She'll talk to me. She'll try to have conversations."

Well, I found that I like sitting by Julie. She has an ear out for stray remarks that might fly over the cubicle wall; she'll volley right back. It's fun.

Like the day two weeks ago when it went from 50 degrees to 103 degrees overnight and the air conditioning wasn't on. We were sitting in the cube farm, panting slightly and trying to concentrate on work. I was thinking about how nice it would be to go home and have something icy cold... something refreshing... something like...

"Lavender-infused vodka tonic on crushed ice," I announced to the air around me.

"Yes!" Julie exclaimed without missing a beat. "And we could have those here? Now?"

No. Just thinking about booze doesn't make it appear. (Plus we'd like to keep our jobs.) But I did try making my daydream a reality when I got home.

I have two Munstead lavender plants in my yard. They're from Dehn's Garden by way of the Minneapolis Farmers Market. I learned they are winter-hardy one year when we had a long, warm fall and I didn't get around to cleaning out the herb garden. The following spring, to my surprise and delight, the lavender was not dead. It put out new shoots. Who knew?!

"Who knows if this'll work," I thought to myself. I popped some sprigs in a jar, sloshed in some vodka, and left it alone for a few days.

It did work! The lavender imparts a lovely pale green color to the vodka, which pulls perfumey and minerally notes out of the herbs. This may edge out gin and tonic for my favorite summer drink.
I'll bring Julie some lavender sprigs on Monday. I just know she's going to like this.

Lavender-Infused Vodka Tonic

4-6 sprigs lavender
1 pint vodka
Ice
Tonic water

Wash the lavender and stuff it in a pint jar. Fill the jar with vodka and screw on the lid. Leave in a cool, dark place for 3 or 4 days (you can taste and see if the vodka is flavorful enough). Remove the sprigs and pour the vodka in a bottle if you have one.

Make yourself a nice drink with vodka, ice, and tonic!

Just sayin'

Grilled salmon; romaine salad with strawberries, lavender, rosemary, and balsamic vinaigrette; fresh bread with olive oil, sea salt, and cracked pepper.

Kitchen's Done. Let's Drink!

My kitchen is done!

The last step was to put in the backsplash. I chose 2 x 6 subway tiles from Mission Tile West’s Revival series in blue wash. They make tiles to order, so I had to wait forEVER! for them to arrive. Almost none of them were broken and the guys from Handyman Connection were very careful and efficient. So now I have six or seven square feet of field tile left. What should I do with it? Someone hit me with ideas.

Detail: Look what a good job they did! Also: oooh, bullnose.

To celebrate, let’s make something easy and fun. The new countertops are acid-proof and the backsplash means I can use the blender with impunity. Let’s make fruity drinks!

I got a pineapple on sale and the mint in my garden is green and glorious. Plus there is a brand new bottle of rum in the cupboard just begging to be opened.

Yeah, baby.

Pineapple Agua Fresca Mojito
This is fun because a) it can be made out of any fruit you want, really; b) it probably doesn’t need any added sugar; c) you can skip the booze and it is still delicious.

A pineapple
Water
Sugar to taste (probably none!)
Mint leaves
Rum

Peel the pineapple. Don’t worry about doing too good of a job; and you don’t need to bother coring it, either. Cut it into chunks.

Fill the blender with pineapple chunks. Pour in some water; the waterline should be maybe a quarter to a third of the way up the blender jar. Liquefy. Set a fine strainer over a bowl and dump in the puree. Repeat this until there is no more pineapple. You may be forced to eat a chunk or two, you poor thing.

When the puree is well drained, sweeten the fruity water to taste (you might not need any sugar at all). Pour it into a pitcher and chill well. The pulp is done for, unless someone knows of a use for it besides compost?

Now then. Tear up a mint leaf or two or three into a tall glass. Use a chopstick or the handle of a wooden spoon to smash up the leaves a bit. Drop in some ice cubes and a finger or three of rum. Fill up with agua fresca, stir, and enjoy!

Mustard Jar Redemption

I’m really sorry I didn’t take the picture earlier. This is all that was left by the time I got back to the kitchen from grilling the brats. The other diners were merciless; they took no prisoners.

At least they didn’t take the last spoonful of potato salad, too. Even if they had, I would be too busy being proud of my recipe to get upset. I like this one for two reasons:

1. It is fresh, simple, and immediate. There are only a handful of ingredients, but the vegetables can be locally grown and soon they’ll all be in season together.
2. The dressing is a great way to finish off a jar of mustard.

No, really. You know when there is only a little bit of mustard at the bottom of the jar or bottle? You can go in there with a knife and scrape all day. The jar will ring like a bell but you will not get enough mustard to season a sandwich. You can shake the bottle for twenty minutes but all you can get out of it are rude noises. But since there’s still a bunch of mustard stuck to the sides of the container, you stick it back in the fridge. “Stupid mustard,” you think to yourself. “I wish I had the cunning to use you up or the courage to throw you out.”

Well this salad dressing will take care of it for you! There’s probably just the right amount of mustard left in the jar. Take off the lid, put in the rest of the dressing ingredients, and shake. You will get a delicious salad dressing. You will clean up the container so it is fit to go in with the recycling. And you will have used up the last of that mustard. Aaah, closure!

Potato Salad with Dijon Dressing
Serves 6 to 8.

1 ½ lb potatoes (new red potatoes are great), scrubbed and cut in chunks
½ lb asparagus or green beans, snapped into 1” pieces
2 T Dijon mustard
2 T red wine vinegar
2 T lemon juice
1/3 c olive oil
3 T dill leaves, coarsely chopped
1 T capers

Boil the potatoes until just tender, about 20-25 minutes. In the last few minutes of cooking, throw the asparagus or green beans into the pot.
Drain the vegetables and plunge them into ice water to stop the cooking. Drain well. Chill.

Shake the mustard, vinegar, lemon juice, and oil until combined.

Close to serving time, toss the vegetables with the dill, the capers, and the dressing. If you leave the salad sitting in its dressing, the potatoes will absorb much of the liquid. Who knows; maybe you like that sort of thing.

Nettles called...

Oh, hi! Hey, nettles called. They asked me to tell you to stop talking about that part of your yard where “nothing grows.”

No way, you say. Nettles are something, all right. Look how mean they are! They are covered with these little stickers full of formic acid, the same stuff in ant bites and bee stings. You think you can be friends with nettles, but if you get close, they burn you every time. Amirite?

OK, you have a point. But if you just handle them right, nettles are cool. They can hang out in all kinds of snacks, like pasta and soup and frittata and stuff. Sometimes when you meet a vegetable and you can’t seem to get along, you should just do what you like to do until you get to know each other better, K?

Like, if you have 15 minutes, some cheese, and a couple of tortillas, maybe you guys could make quesadillas together. Then you’ll be just chillin’ with a beer, you and your new friend Nettles.

Nettle Quesadillas
1 bunch nettles (mine came from Harmony Valley)
1 cup shredded cheese
8 corn tortillas
2 T oil
Salt to taste
A dollop of salsa if you want

Wear gloves to pick the nettle leaves off the stems. Wash them well and spin them dry. There should be about 2 tightly packed cups of leaves.
Heat a tablespoon of oil in a heavy frying pan. Toss the nettles in the hot oil until they reduce in volume and cook through; you may need to throw a splash of water in the pan to keep things from sticking. Remove the cooked nettles to a plate or bowl and season to taste.

Wipe out the frying pan, add just enough oil to coat the bottom, and reheat. Lay a pair of corn tortillas in the pan. When they begin to puff up, flip them over. They should have toasty brown spots on them. Put about a quarter cup of cheese and a quarter of the nettles on one of the tortillas. Stack the other tortilla, toasted side down, on top.

When the cheese gets melty, flip the quesadilla over and cook until the last tortilla surface is toasty. Turn it out onto a plate, quarter it, and top with salsa maybe. Hand it immediately to someone to eat. Cook the remaining quesadillas in the same way.

Peace out!

Brown Study

For me, morels are from another world. Someone else knows them. Not me. Someone else from a morel family knows the secret: these seasonal markers, when the buds on this tree are just so, when these flowers bloom. Someone else takes a path, finds landmarks, turns here at this rock and arrives at this stump. In a town I don’t know, someone recognizes a man but will not greet him because, thirty years ago, his father came back alone to a place her father showed him.

I hope no one ever figures out how to cultivate them, either, because their mystery is part of their appeal. I hope they always stay scarce, ephemeral, and expensive. This forces a person to approach them with some gravity, mindfulness, and respect. For middle-class city dwellers, there are so few truly seasonal foods. Almost everything is attainable with a splurge or a search. It’s a comfort—to me, at least—to know that some things aren’t for sale because they truly can’t be bought at any price. Fresh morels, in any season but spring, are a thing like that.

Fresh morel pilaf, pan-grilled trout, and sorrel sauce

The pilaf
¼ lb fresh morels, rinsed well (they’re gritty!) and chopped roughly
1 bunch ramps or green onions, sliced (white part only)
2-3 T butter or oil
1 cup basmati rice
2 cups water or stock
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat the stock in a small saucepan and keep it ready. Heat the butter or oil in a pan with a tight-fitting lid. Sauté the ramps and morels until the mushrooms release, then resorb, their juices. Toss the rice into the pan and sauté a few minutes more until the rice starts to turn golden brown. Add the hot stock and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to simmering, cover the pan, and cook until the liquid is absorbed, about 20 minutes. Season to taste.

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The sauce
Make the sauce while you’re making the pilaf. Be sure it’s ready before you cook the fish. This one is modified from a recipe in Joy of Cooking.

1 carrot, chopped
2 sticks celery, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic
6 springs flat-leaf parsley
½ c water
½ c dry white wine
4 T butter, cut in little pieces
1 bunch sorrel, washed and torn or cut into 1” pieces
Salt and pepper to taste

Put the carrot, celery, garlic, parsley, water, and wine in a small saucepan with a tight-fitting lid and cook for 20 minutes. Strain the liquid and put back in the pot. There should be a half cup.
Heat the stock and whisk in the butter. Stir in the sorrel and let it wilt. Season to taste. Set the sauce aside while you make the fish.

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Pan-grilled trout

A trout
A pan

Heat up the pan for a few minutes. The trick is for it to be very hot. Lay the trout in the pan and wait 5-6 minutes; check inside and see if the inside of the bottom fillet is starting to cook. When it is, then flip the trout over and cook for another 5-6 minutes. The skin will be attractively brown and blistered. How fantastic is that?!

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To serve: I think it is fun to make a little arrangement of the trout on a platter and show it to the diners. So dramatic! Why should the cook be the only one to enjoy the fun?

Next, slit the trout down the back and make a cut through the skin across the tail and across the body just behind the gills. Use a fork, the knife, a spatula, and a few muttered curse words to release the top fillet from the trout’s skeleton. Put this on a plate flesh side up and spoon on some of the sorrel sauce. Put a spoonful of mushroom pilaf on the plate and maybe some green frippery at the top.

Lift the head and tail. The skeleton should come off the second fillet, which you can then plate and sauce. So fancy. If you are not creeped out by the head, then don’t forget to pick out the tiny morsels of trout cheek under the gill plate just south of the eyes.

Bon appetit!

Heard it in a love song

...about spinach and watercress tossed with honey mustard dressing.

Cain't be wrong.

Kale: Take That!

You see what I did there?

I stripped the Russian kale off the stems; macerated it in olive oil, salt, and lemon juice for half an hour (props to AffairsofLiving.com); then tossed it with a sectioned navel orange and a pinch of toasted anise seeds.

Mmm-hmm. You're welcome.

First outdoor meal of the season

My young neighbor Jack rolled up to me on his Razor scooter on Saturday and we chatted. "It's a nice summer day," he remarked. "It might not be summer tomorrow, but it is today."

I agree with him, and quick while it's summer, I made the season's first meal that I ate outside on a lounge chair. It's a steak cooked rare; mushrooms sauteed with ramps and finished with Madeira; new potatoes with butter and chopped herbs; a green salad with tomatoes, black radish, romaine, and sorrel; and a nice glass of Malbec. Thank goodness for Harmony Valley. Life was getting so bland!

I did it all by MYSELF!

After using it twice, I came to regret the garbage disposal. My 100-year-old plumbing does not care to play nicely with it. (That’s OK, because for most of the year, my kitchen scraps go to compost anyway.) I was annoyed that I went to the trouble and expense of having it installed, and I didn’t want to spend another nickel to get rid of it. So I took it out! All by myself!

Except for help from an instruction manual, a how-to book, two online tutorials, and three people at two different hardware stores.

 

My lovely drain



Other than that, though, I did it completely unassisted! I took it out and replaced it with a regular drain and plumbing. It doesn’t even leak! Yaaaaay!

The kitchen is almost done, except for a tiny bit of painting and the backsplash. I put all my dishes and pans and cans and bottles in the new cupboards. We are ready to roll.

Which is good, because this week is the first Harmony Valley CSA share of the year. I can’t wait!

¿Quién sea La Anita?

My kitchen has countertops now! And the stove is in its new home, I have plumbing, and I have a dishwasher. (Dishwashers are magical! Why didn’t anyone tell me?)

My stuff is still in boxes in the basement, but I rummaged around and found enough pots, pans, utensils, and spices to make an inaugural chicken dinner.

Which, um, I cooked on the grill.

Well, I painted all day, OK?! And besides, it is all clean and beautiful in there. It still feels like a museum or a shrine, too special to mess up with spatters and drips.

I wanted to do something interesting to the chicken; but I haven’t been grocery shopping in a while, so I don’t have the usual deep bench of ingredients in the fridge. I dug through my “Spice Cabinet” box until I found something interesting:

I am ashamed to tell you how long ago I bought this box of achiote powder. But I am not ashamed to tell you WHY I bought it. Look at her!

I like food packaging that has pictures of women. La Contadina from the tomato paste can; the wheat farmer on the De Cecco pasta box; the mother and daughter that used to be on Amy’s Kitchen packages. I like their expressions of abundance, generosity, and the friendly pride of a good cook issuing an invitation to a meal she knows her guest will enjoy.

But La Anita? She is a little off.

First of all, she floats alone on her orangey-pink background. The De Cecco lady strides through her wheat field, Amy feeds her daughter a taste right from the stove, but where is La Anita’s context? Why is she holding that enormous roast bird? Dios mio, it’s as big as she is. For what occasion did she cook it? Where is the hot kitchen in which she labored to prepare it? Where are the half-dozen other people who cooked with her? Where is the family who will help her eat it?

Second, what are we to make of that look on her face? The tightened lips, the narrowed eyes, the arched brows… is it a smile? A smirk? Is she about to sneer? Is she barely keeping it together under the strain of holding that ostrich en achiote?

Who is she?

¿Quién sea La Anita?

Well whoever she is, I wish I’d tried her achiote paste a lot sooner because it is easy and adds good flavor to barbecued chicken. Thanks, weird lady.

Pie Haven, Pizza Fail

My kitchen’s still not ready for cooking, but it’s getting close!

This weekend, dear sweet Katrina welcomed me into her well-appointed kitchen so I could work out some of my pie issues. Katrina and my sweetheart, Beth, who have been friends since their freshman year of college, sat at the kitchen table and talked.

I listened with only half an ear, enjoying the piano song of women’s voices in easy confidence with each other. My hands remembered the stiffness of butter cut into wheat flour, the elastic resistance of pastry as I rolled it out on Katrina’s vintage enamel baking cart with her wooden pin. I felt my shoulders release the fretfulness of paint chips, the uncertainty of countertops and light fixtures, the angst of constant shopping.

The next day I felt inspired to attempt some dough at home. I set out to answer this question: Can a person make a creditable pizza in an electric fry pan?

I’m loathe to say I couldn’t. But the fact remains I didn’t.

Were I to try again, I’d…

• Roll the dough out super-thin. The crust crisped up only to the thickness of a cracker. The rest of my quarter-inch-thick crust was rather steamed.
• Make the pan as hot as possible. Even this will not be hot enough.
• Flip the crust over like a pancake, then put sauce and fixings on top.
• Don’t expect the cheese to be toasted.
• Order delivery instead.

All I can fix in THIS kitchen

I have walls! I have paint! But still no horizontal surfaces.

While I was painting this weekend, I snuck around behind my back and tore off the rest of the window trim. I sanded and primed the sashes, too, while I wasn’t looking. What a jerk.

Now, for your and my amusement both, a list of things that happen in my friend John Reimringer’s book Vestments that have happened in my kitchen since last week:
• Smashing out wallboard
• Fixing wallboard
• Sanding and repainting window sashes
• Painting walls
• An enormous glass of whiskey

It’s Jameson on the rocks. Recipe: One Jameson. One rocks. Put in a glass. The End.

Swiss Seitan

I’ve just come home from vacation, and my kitchen looks like this:

See what I got? A problem! See what I don’t got: no stove, no sink, no countertops, no nothing. I’m tired; I’m crabby; I have to go to work instead of gad about all day in the sun with my girl. And now I have nothing to eat and nowhere to cook it.

But look! The workmen had to move some stuff out of the storage room to get at the electrical panel. Look what they unearthed!

It is my mom’s electric fry pan. She got it for a wedding present in the late 1960s. I drew the yellow lines around it to show off its majesty.

Well if this thing is here, then I am halfway to a good dinner. How about if I get out Mom’s Better Homes New Cookbook? It’s appropriate to the era.

Yeah, it was new back in the day, but not anymore. This might also have been a wedding present. What are these doing in my house?! Who can remember, and right now, who cares. These things are my ticket to some not-microwaved meals. Look at this goofy book:

“Men’s favorite?” With all due respect, men, who cares? I don’t need your approval to decide whether it’s good. And, in men’s defense, why does the Better Homes and Garden’s New Cookbook presume to know the salad preferences of half the human race? As my feminist scholar sweetheart would say, “It’s problematic.”

Oh get a load of this one:

This picture both co-opts, and eviscerates the potency of, the 1960s ethic of drugged-out spiritual exoticism. Nothing could be squarer than Susie Homemaker here, but she is all Lord Shiva on your ass with her Jiffy Cooking. Her dance both creates a meal from canned and frozen foods in 20 minutes and destroys any chance you might have had of enjoying home-cooked flavors from fresh ingredients. As an added ironic bonus, many people (possibly including the editors) may have missed the significance of this visual reference.

Enough ripping on Mom’s book. It is, along with its friend Electric Fry Pan, going to feed my ungrateful face. I deem Swiss steak to be a properly kitschy thing to cook. Also it has few ingredients and I have no prep space. Here are the directions.

As you see, it’s not a recipe. It’s truly just directions.

I don’t want to be as meat-tastic as things were in the 1960s. So I’m substituting seitan for beef. I’m not pounding in any flour or seasonings because seitan is already made of flour and seasonings. I’m also not going to simmer it until it’s tender because it’s already tender. I’m just going to whip it up and then steam a few potatoes in the microwave. No problem!

Look at it! It’s cooking like gangbusters, and it is starting to smell decidedly midcentury here in my basement.

And in twenty minutes, it’s food. I am just like Jiffy Cooking Lord Shiva Apron Lady.

Is it any good? Mmmehhhhhh… it’s problematic.