It's been a wild and crazy fall, and not really in the good ways. Lots of unforeseen expenses, money, work and life stress, and oh wait did I mention that I'm almost 6 months pregnant and the HORMONES! Oh, the hormones. Let's just say that the highs are high, and the lows pretty much suck. And it can change on a dime. Oh insanity, this is how you must feel.
But instead of giving in to those hormones and my very high stress level, I stress bake! And I cook. And I watch Project Runway and The X Factor. And I drink a LOT of water with lemon, juice and seltzer, and the occasional vanilla milk shake (I mean, if she can't drink alcohol, what's a gal to do?) But writing about myself watching tv isn't really fun for anyone (although I did find out that now Fraiser is streaming on netflix and I couldn't be happier), so let's talk about the stress baking and cooking, shall we?
Last weekend I happened to be off on a Sunday (so rare and lovely), so I made pumpkin pancakes. I didn't take any pictures of them, and they are but a lovely and distant memory, and I don't have the recipe in front of me, but you should all go google a recipe and make them immediately. They were the perfect fall breakfast, and I am a sucker for anything pumpkin. (I admit it, the one time a year I go to Starbucks is in the fall for their pumpkin spice latte. It's so badly good, I can't help it. Even in all decaf, thanks to baby Groucho, they are the tops.) So stop reading this, and go make pumpkin pancakes. Or grab a pumpkin spiced latte. Then come back when you are in your pancake or pumpkin coma.
Are we back? Good. So last night, I was feeling the stress of the world on my shoulders, and the tragedy of the empty cookie jar was bugging me. So first things first. There was a one day deal on shrimp at work (I don't normally like shrimp, but I'm telling you, I have always really enjoyed the shrimp I buy at Whole Foods. It is yum yum yummy, and they have decent recipes on their site to boot.) I had recently made the shrimp etouffee that I posted about around this time last year. So after looking around for some other recipes, I decided it was high time I wrote about making paella on this here blog.
My sister is all about anything Spain. The food, the cheese and most of all, the cheap spanish wine (love you, sis!) I keep trying to have her be a special guest columnist here, as she is a SUPERB cook in her own right. So leave some comments on here voicing your support, or bribe her with a bottle of wine and if we can convince her, I'll turn the reins over for a post or two. Anyway, she introduced me to my first ever paella. It's a surprisingly simple dish of rice and veggies, with a more traditional version having chicken or seafood in it as well. You need a nice big, shallow dish to bake it in (like a paella pan, or a large wide sauce pan worked for me in the past.) Not being an eater of chicken, I took a friend's tofu paella recipe and with a few tweaks of my own, came up with this gem. Now remember at how awesome I am at measuring things specifically (note, not at all) but this is close to the method I used.
Shrimp/tofu/some other protein of your liking Paella recipe
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 large yellow onion-coarsely chopped
1 large sweet red pepper-cored, seeded and coarsely chopped
2 cloves garlic-minced or put through a garlic press (my method)
1 standard size can (14 or so ounces) diced tomatoes- (it said to drain them, but I don't like to waste anything so I just reduced my liquid a bit and threw it in, juice and all.)
1/2 teaspoon each of salt, ground turmeric, dried basil, dried thyme and saffron (again, don't stress over this. If you are out of one of these, skip or of use something else you enjoy. Cooking is supposed to be fun, darn it! There is ENOUGH STRESS in the world! *breathe*)
3 1/2 cups broth (I used vegetable, and only used three cups since I had the juice of the diced tomatoes)
2 cups white rice
1 head of broccoli- broken into bite sized pieces
Veggie of choice if so inclined- I love my veggies so I used 1 zucchini squash, chopped up into bite sized pieces
Protein of choice- In the past for an all veggie version I used 1 lb of firm tofu, drained and cubed and 1 can (15 oz) of chick peas. This time I used half a bag of frozen lima beans (LOVE lima beans) and 1 lb of shrimp, peeled and devained with the tail removed because I am lazy and I don't like to stop in the middle of my meal to take apart my food.
Heat your oil in a paella pan, or 3 quart (ish) skillet over medium high heat (or so, you know your stove better than I do) and saute the onion, pepper, garlic and veggie of choice (but not the broccoli, hold off on that one) for about a minute until veggies start to become soft.
By the way, that is what a paella pan looks like (again, thanks to my sister for the Christmas gift of it.) A large shallow pan with two handles, one on either side. Mix tomatoes and spices in and stir every so often for 3-4 minutes. Stir in stock, beans or peas of some kind (if using) and bring to a boil. Add rice and bring to a boil again, before adding tofu (again, if using.)
Cover with a lid, or if you are using a paella pan or don't have a lid, use aluminum foil, and cook over medium heat for 25-30 minutes. At this point, all the liquid should have been absorbed, and add the shrimp (if using) and broccoli. Cover again and let it sit 5-8 minutes to lightly steam. This is how my finished product looked:
Soft Oatmeal Cookies (from allrecipes.com with my own adjustments after reading reader's comments)
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar (I used dark brown sugar because it was what I had)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda (I have a funny story about this part)
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
3 cups oats (it called for quick cooking, I used regular and they were perfect, so again, the point of this post is NO STRESS! Use what you have.)
1 cup assorted add ons of choice (raisins, walnuts, chocolate chips, dried fruit, candy, whateves!)
In a medium bowl (or if you are me and OBSESSED with your kitchen aid standing mixer, use that instead) cream together butter and both sugars. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla. Combine flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon and stir into creamed mixture (or if you are me, add each one into the mixer bowl one at a time, forgetting to put in the baking soda until the second before you roll out cookie dough. Oops! Pregnancy brain strikes again! At least I remembered BEFORE baking them.) Lastly, mix in oats. Then mix in assorted add ons of choice and chill in fridge for at least an hour. I split the dough into three batches: one with 1/3 cup raisins, one with 1/3 cup chocolate chips, and one 1/4 cup shaved coconut bits and 1/4 cup sweetened dried cranberries.
After the hour is up (I'm cleaning up post paella dinner at this point, in a happy food haze, forgetting the stress level of prior weeks) preheat oven to 375 and take dough from fridge and scoop into "walnut sized balls". (What do they mean by that? Are we talking walnuts in the shell? 'Cause that's a bit bigger than a regular walnut. I did about 2 or so inch balls, and left it at that.) Place balls on a well greased cookie sheet about 2 or so inches apart (I always use parchment lined trays because I am LAZY with clean up) and bake for 8-10 minutes. Allow cookies to cool on a baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
As much as I love cookies, I don't think I had ever made oatmeal cookies before! We tried all three types last night and could not decide which was the best, they were all so good! I recommend making them all and deciding for yourselves. It's worth it. And this recipe fit all the cookies I made PERFECTLY into my cookie jar. You can't beat that.
So after this upcoming week, hopefully the stress will subside a bit. The next few weeks will bring our babymoon over Halloween weekend, where my monkey and I are escaping to NYC for a few days, hopefully our only ultrasound, and then the Thanksgiving holidays! So things are looking up. But with the remnants of all this stress cooking I can count on two things; having very happy taste buds and not going hungry any time soon.
