Finally: rain. One radio DJ said that this might be the biggest storm southern California has seen in 70 years. Here’s hoping. I’ve tried to pack as many cold (“cold”) weather meals as possible into the week in anticipation of the inevitable October switch back to summer temperatures – 85° by Friday, as meanly confirmed by weather.com.
See, these are nice, warm, rainy-day meals:
Sunday: Meatloaf, baked potatoes, salad
Monday: Frittata with potatoes; salad
Tuesday: Gnocchi, salad
Wednesday: Tomato basil soup, crusty bread, cheese
Thursday: Curry and rice…and salad
It’s true, there is no lack of bagged, prewashed lettuce in the crisper.
My parents and I really like meatloaf. My boyfriend and brother seem to agree that if I’m going to bother mixing ground meat with other stuff and cooking it at all, I might as well make it into burgers. Perhaps they don’t understand that meatloaf is so much cozier, and that meatloaf means I don’t have to scrub the grills on the barbecue. I won’t get either of them started on the post-Christmas ham loaf.
Just in case this hasn’t become abundantly clear, frittata is a personal favorite. Like quiche, but easy! Like scrambled eggs, but kind of dinner-y! A few weeks ago I had an unexpected, almost dizzying, spell of inspiration and bought a bag of Trader Joe’s frozen roasted potatoes with peppers and onions. I set my sister to cooking them in the skillet while I beat ten eggs with some milk. To the hot potatoes we added the eggs, a handful of cheddar, some chopped up roasted green chilies, and leftover chopped tomatoes; tossed it in the oven; and – brilliant! It looked like a golden, slightly overcooked Spanish tortilla. My brother, after painstakingly picking out every tomato, managed to choke it down with glares and copious lashings of Tabasco. I may never make it any other way.
Speaking of recipes that will remain forever unchanged, I recently planned The Great Thanksgiving Menu of 2009, which looks very much like those of all years prior. Since this took five minutes, I backed up into Halloween mode – no sense rushing the best fiscal and calendar quarter of the year…as anxiety-fraught as it so often is.
My mom loves Halloween. But as the day draws nearer and busy schedules render the house conspicuously un-be-webbed and bereft of (tasteful) gargoyles, run-of-the-mill anxiety can become full-blown, we-forgot-to-order-the-turkey-style panic. I was driving somewhere (interesting and important, no doubt) around, say October 3rd, and passed a house with a pumpkin on the porch. I immediately called my brother.
“We need to go get the Halloween stuff out of the storage locker.”
“Huh? Now?”
“Yes, now! I just saw a house with a pumpkin on the porch.”
“So? Why do –“ There was a terrified pause; I knew he understood. “Has Mom seen a house with a pumpkin on the porch yet?”
Ta-da! (Tastefully) decorated house!
