House Spouse

Andrew had a big birthday last week. He turned 30, so we celebrated by having a grown up dinner at Nightwood with a few close friends. There was so much food and fun and conversation, that I hated that it went so quickly. Today, I recalled that I made him carrot cupcakes for his 29th and posted about them exactly one year ago today. (I’m wondering why it’s been a year since I’ve made those delicious things.) Reading that post reminded me that my forgetting to give him his carefully selected birthday card is kind of a trend.

Also, last week a big decision was made. After some back and forth emailing between my advisor and me, I realized that it would be impossible for me to finish my thesis in time for a May graduation. So, I stopped writing. Possibly for good. I’m in the midst of deciding whether to take one more course in the fall and be done with a general MA or finish the thesis for the research degree. I’m leaning dramatically toward the former, but have not yet made that official. I don’t want to think about school for the next several months. So much so that I don’t even care to write about it anymore. I reached the burn out stage so long ago that I’ve been running on fumes since before I even took my comps. And now they’re burned up too.

I’m disappointed, to say the least. I feel like a failure for not being able to finish as quickly as other friends of mine have been able. But I’ve been consoling myself by thinking about how fantastic this summer has the potential to be, how a whole year of obstacles and stressful situations is behind me, and how I’m in a job I love, married to the person I love, and about to move into an apartment I love. So that’s that.

In a fashion typical to me, I celebrated my decision and the much more enjoyable weekend that followed by making something from scratch: fresh pappardelle with a creamy mushroom sauce. I followed these instructions from Gemma on Pro Bono Baker for the pasta and this general idea from The Kitchn. I wanted to try Ruhlman’s ratio for fresh pasta, but my book got packed away with all the other cookbooks in my kitchen (hence the photo taken on the moving box. Andrew’s idea.). The sauce was OK, but nothing to write about. Rather than share my mediocre version of the recipe, I’ll just suggest tossing your fresh pasta with roasted tomatoes or a pesto of some sort.

If you’ve never made fresh pasta, it’s worth doing at least once. You don’t need a fancy pasta making machine (I’m still leaving the Kitchen Aid attachment on my Amazon wish list though!), just a large flour or cutting board (or a counter you can cut directly on), a rolling pin, and a pastry or pizza cutter. I prefer the latter. The result is a simple meal that feels really special. It’s perfect for a Sunday night, because it does take longer than throwing a package of dry spaghetti into pot of boiling water. It’s completely worth it though. The work pays off when you take that first bite into what you know was merely flour and eggs just a half an hour ago.

Fresh Pappardelle
Serves 2

Ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour
2 eggs (get them as fresh as you can)

On a large surface, dump the flour. Make a well in the middle.

Crack the eggs into a bowl and pour into the well. Begin mixing with your hands from the inside out until the dough comes together in a ball. Knead for a few minutes until smooth, sprinkling flour onto the board if necessary to prevent sticking.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and allow to rest for at least 5 minutes. I go a little longer, if I have time.

When rested, roll out your dough. I usually go pretty thin, about 1/8 inch thick. I also try to roll it into a long rectangle to get even lengths on my strands of pasta.

Using a sharp knife, pizza or pastry cutter, cut the dough into 1/2-inch strips.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and slide the pasta in. Cook for about 2 minutes and drain. Toss with fresh vegetables, olive oil, a sauce or pesto and serve.

There are only a handful things I miss about being a full-time student. Getting breakfast during the week is in the top three. My friend Jason and I used to meet up in the morning regularly, but for some reason, we let about two years pass since our last breakfast date. Yesterday, we had the opportunity to catch up over tea, coffee, vegetarian biscuits and gravy, steamed kale, and poached eggs with roasted red pepper sauce. The icing on the cake (or should I say, the cream in the coffee) was when I looked out the window and saw that someone had graffitied an out-of-commission mailbox with the words “SOLBREM PROLVED.”

Lucky me, I had a camera in my bag.

Then, my day got even better. I was able to get not one, but two chapters turned into my advisor. I’ll certainly have revisions. Lot’s of them. But it’s nice to know that I’m 55 pages closer to the end of this chapter in my life. I kind of hate it when people use a book as a metaphor for their lives, but it feels appropriate here, given that I am literally chapters away from a major life change.

Lately, I’ve been panicing in the evenings that my advisor is going to tell me that my thesis is failing work and that I need to re-write it. Which will mean that I can’t graduate in May. Normally, when I find myself plagued with unfounded fears, I write about them and then laugh at them. But I’m not so sure this one is that unfounded. It feels like a very real possibility. And, unlike with most of my anxieties, I don’t exactly have a back up plan for what to do in case of an emergency.

(I swear that soon, I will stop writing about my adventures with this stupid thesis.)

I’m working so hard to not dwell on this anxiety, however, which is aided by the fact that this week is Rick Bayless week in our house. That’s what we call it when I plan a week’s worth of groceries around Rick Bayless recipes. When it’s Rick Bayless week, I never get derailed before getting home by the thought of take out, because I know that nothing I can pick up on my way home from work will compare to what Andrew and I have planned for dinner. There are so many crossover ingredients, too, so Rick Bayless weeks are easy on the bank account. Here’s a recipe from Authentic Mexican. We decided to make it last Sunday evening because we had a bunch of tortillas that needed to be used up right away. Bayless calls it a Mexican lasagna of sorts. I’ve been referring to it as enchiladas verde pie. It’s so delicious that we made another version of it later in the week with sautéed spinach and mushrooms.

Budin de Tortillas (Layered Tortilla Casserole)
From Authentic Mexican

Ingredients
12 corn tortillas
2 cups tomatillo sauce (recipe below)
3 chiles poblanos
1 1/4 cups crema or thinned commercial sour cream
1 1/2 cups grated melting cheese

Preheat oven to 350F.

Quickly fry each tortilla in a small amount of vegetable oil for 2-3 seconds on each side. Drain well.

Roast the poblanos over an open flame on the stove top until blackened. Place in a bowl and cover and let cool. Peel (I usually end up rubbing the skin off under running water), stem and seem. Slice into 1/2-inch pieces.

Line the bottom of a 9-inch square baking pan using 3 tortillas (they’ll overlap slightly). Spread 1/4 of the sauce, cream and cheese and 1/3 of the chiles. Make another layer with three more tortillas, sauce, cream, cheese and chiles. Repeat until you have four layers. The top won’t have chiles.

Bake for about 30 minutes. Rick Bayless says to cover it first, but I didn’t and it browned really nicely on top. We also added a bit more cheese to create a nice top. Strew with opion rings and radish rounds or serve with a mixed green salad with cilantro-lime dressing (made by blending chopped cilantro, lime juice and zest, salt and pepper and vegetable oil in a blender. You can add a jalapeno or 2 serranos for heat.).

Quick-Cooked Tomatillo Sauce
(makes about 2 1/2-3 cups)

Ingredients:
1 lb fresh tomatillos, husked and washed
3 chiles serranos (or 2 jalapeños)
5-6 springs fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 large clove garlic, peeled and roughly copped
1 T vegetable oil
2 cups broth (I use vegetable)
Salt

Boil the tomatillos and chiles in salted water until tender, about 10-15 minutes. Drain.

Purée the tomatillos, chiles, cilantro, onion, and garlic in a blender or food processer. Process until smooth. RB says to retain “a little texture.

Heat the oil in a large skillet. When well-heated, hour all the sauce in at once and stir constantly for 4-5 minutes, until darker and thicker. Add the broth, return to a boil, and reduce heat to medium and simmer until the sauce is thick enough to coat a spoon. This should take about 10 minutes.

Season with salt to taste.

This week I reached a major milestone with my thesis: I turned in a chapter. Now, you might be thinking that I should have been turning in chapters for at least the past month. And you’re right. Kind of. Because I changed my topic from something I’d written on only once before to the theological method of a theologian I’ve written no less than four research papers on, the brunt of my work left after I turn in another chapter will be mostly revising.

But enough about that pesky piece of business. I have some news.

Andrew and I are moving! After more than four years in our little one-bedroom apartment, we’re getting a bigger place. It’s a house, too, making the title of this blog a little more accurate. We’ll only have one floor, but still. Ironically, we’ll finally have the space I longed for when I needed to retreat from a blaring TV in the evenings and an office to duck into when I didn’t want to stare from the dining room table at a sink full of dishes as I worked on a paper, after I’m finished with school. I’m excited, nonetheless.

Last night, when changing the address on all of our magazine subscriptions, I realized how little I like our new street name: Whipple. I’ve loved or at least liked the street names of all my previous residences: Lilac Lane, Spruce Drive, Emmett Park, Dunhill Way, Maplewood Ave, Bell Ave. Whipple Street is weird.

When I pointed this out to Andrew, he asked, “Well have you ever really loved the places you lived in?” That’s my spouse, the most-of-the-time optimist. I’m glad he’s around during my moments of ridiculous observation-induced anxiety. When I’m turning all fatalist over something as stupid as a street name, he goes and reminds me that our new apartment has a pergola and grapevines growing in the back yard.

The only down-side of this great new apartment is that I will have to bike or drive to get to my preferred mode of transportation. The biking will be great, and it should be warm enough by the time we move in, so I am trying not to think about having to include a drive to the train station (the very one pictured above) in my morning commute to work. I hate to drive.

The other fantastic thing about the new place is the brand new oven and stove top (with 6 burners!). Perfect for baking sandwich bread, as I have been every Sunday for the past few weeks. Here’s the recipe I use (and a beautiful photo of the most recent loaf I made, taken by Andrew):

Half Whole Wheat Sandwich Loaf
(I wholeheartedly recommend spending the $40 on a digital kitchen scale. Such consistent success with bread-baking is worth it. I’m not kidding, friends, measuring by weight will change your life forever.)

Ingredients:
10 oz bread flour
10 oz whole wheat flour
12 oz water
1 tsp active dry yeast
2 tsp salt
1 T agave nectar or honey

Measure the flour into a large bowl and make a well in the center. Measure in the water and add the yeast. I like to let it dissolve a minute or two (it will create a foam on the surface of the water), before adding the salt and honey or agave nectar. Either by hand or using the paddle on a stand mixer, stir the ingredients until they begin to come together. I usually do this part by hand to make sure I get all the flour off the bottom of the bowl. Knead by hand or using a dough hook on a stand mixer for approximately 10 minutes.

Your dough is ready when you can pull a small section off, gently stretch it into a square and get it thin enough to be somewhat see-through when you hold it up to the light. If it tears easily before this point, keep kneading. Shape it into a ball, brush with a little olive oil and place it back into a large bowl and cover. Allow it to rise for approximately one hour. When you press it and it offers a little resistance, but doesn’t completely spring back, turn it out onto a floured surface, knead several times and allow it to rest for 10 minutes, covered.

While it’s resting, grease a loaf pan (I like to use butter). Shape the dough into an oblong shape and place in the loaf pan. Cover it with plastic wrap and place in the fridge. This is the proofing stage, when you let it rise for a second time in the shape you want it to bake in. Allowing it to do a cold rise in the fridge gives it a richer, more delicious flavor. You should let it rise for at least half a day.

At least 45 minutes before you plan on baking the bread, pull it out of the refrigerator letting it come to room temperature. Also pre-heat your oven at 350 and place a cast iron skillet in the bottom. Right before baking, score the top of the bread with a sharp knife. To bake, place the bread (take off the plastic wrap!) in the center of the oven and pour a cup of water into the heated skillet and quickly close the door.

Bake for 45 to 60 minutes or until the crust is a dark golden brown and the center reaches 200 F. Cool on a wire rack.

We keep our bread in the refrigerator during the week and slice it as we need it for toast and sandwiches. It keeps for about a week, but we usually eat it up in a matter of days.