Stories and Symptoms of Kitchen Withdrawl

Before I launch into the food, I must tell you a few Epic Beetle Things that happened this week. I've noticed that since I started teaching and therefore drawing up lesson plans, I tend to bullet A LOT MORE. huh. 

THE WEEK IN BEETLE

• I went grocery shopping and in the baking aisle somehow managed to kick my own shopping trolley really insanely hard? causing an almost instantaneous golf-ball bruise and severe embarrassment when, after getting a look of "are you a paraplegic" from the woman next to me, for some reason I felt the need to apologise to her? I don't know. I just said sorry. And limped off. 
• I got shamed. Not even by Nick the 4am security guy but by the disembodied voice of Nick the 4am security guy when, upon pushing the call button outside the gym on Wednesday morning, was asked, by a metal box with a flashing red light, "Isn't Wednesday your day off?" before apologising (again, why? to a metal box?) and starting to explain that since Thursday was field trip day THAT would be my day off and my day ON would be TODAY before Nick just buzzed me in mid sentence.
• The trailer to Thor The Dark World premiered and I had to be supportive for my boyfriend Chris Hemsworth and watch it a couple hundred times. He was a little worried because there was some talk that maybe his hair was too long? And that it was better hair in the first movie? But I was able to assure him that his hair most certainly wasn't too long, and that it actually looks better than it did before. Especially when it flips over his shoulder when he throws his hammer. He was glad to know that. He feels better now.
• BUT THE BEST ONE. Greatest teacher moment to date. GREATEST MOMENT TO DATE, YOU GUYS, AND THERE HAVE BEEN A HELL OF A LOT IN THE LAST THREE WEEKS. LIKE, MORE THAN I EXPECTED. I gave my girls an essay on Western Standards of Beauty and the Objectification of Women, and I sh*t you not, one of them, at the end of class asked to be excused from her mall shopping trip so that she could keep working on it in her room. I attempted to remain nonchalant as I said "let me ask your res life member" and secured permission for her. I then promptly went back to my faculty apartment, burst into tears of joy, called Mum, cried some more, and posted that sh*t on Facebook. BECAUSE OMG. [Beetle Happy Dance. Hasn't stopped since then. Nope, still doing it.]

OK TO THE FOODZ. 

I was looking through my Warrior Beetle photo files the other day, and came across the ones from the all day Doomsday Preppers cooking marathon I had before I left to teach, the goal of which being to minimize the starvation Mum would undergo during my absence. I would like it on record that when I was done, the three "foods" in the fridge that weren't just-cooked awesomeness (in neat, sharpie-labeled tinfoil packages with combination / order-to-eat instructions, obviously) were mustard, cheddar cheese, and yoghurt. I'm not actually being hyperbolic when I say that, either. The vegetable crisper was EMPTY. WHEN DOES THAT EVER HAPPEN. THINK BACK. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOUR VEGETABLE CRISPER WAS COMPLETELY DEVOID OF VEGETABLES. RIGHT?!?!

I have to hand it to Mum, though, her ability to survive on tomato soup and cheese toast is pretty impressive. It's one of those things that I feel the CIA should include in their training camps, you know? But still, it was four weeks not only without Beetle food but four weeks without Beetle food after 6 months of Beetle food, so I worried that her nutrient-deprivation-coping skills were seriously diminished.

As far as I know, though, she's still alive. At least, I spoke to her this morning, and I figure one of my Lovely Librarians would tell me if she was dying all over the place. (right, you guys??) Granted, when I see her on Saturday, maybe she'll be bent double from scurvy or her hair will have turned white due to lack of protein, or something equally dramatic, but as far as I can tell from over the phone, she hasn't turned into the culinary equivalent of Miss Havisham, wandering around the house, eating näkkileipä she can barely lift to her parched and papery lips, occasionally treating herself to a few frozen edamame and weeping at the memory of once was.

But back to the photos. And the food. And because I'm living in a faculty house with a dorm pit kitchen and honestly, you guys, all I want to do right now is pull out pristine mixing bowls and my pale green mixmaster and make omelettes and sauteed onions and fennel and spinach curry and lentil soup and roasted potatoes . . . OH GOD BEETLE STOP IT. 

So come with me through a torturous yet pretty tour. And keep your fingers crossed that BOTH Mum and I can survive for another week. 

DOOMSDAY PREPPERS COOKING MARATHON

Oven Roasted Baby Carrots with Sea Salt and Fresh Dill

Onion-Simmered Brown Rice

Cauliflower, White Bean, and Cherry Tomato Salad with Pan-fried Endive

I'll include a few recipe notes here and there, but other than that this one is aaalll about drooling onto your keyboard. It's sort of what I'm doing as I upload the photos. Enjoy! 

I would like to point out that carrots are beautiful when they're a bright raw orange and coated in olive oil AND when they're a pale cooked golden and tender. Especially if they are flecked with dill that's been burnt almost black.

Observe.

See what I mean? 

These, btw, are tossed in olive oil and sea salt, covered in an excessive amount of fresh dill, and roasted in a 450 degree oven for about half an hour. Done and done and DELICIOUS.

The Onion Brown Rice came about in the very scientific way of me realising that there was still an onion in our onion basket and Beetle needed to get rid of it, sharpish. What better place than a pot of brown rice cooking away on the stove? It does give it a nice sweet-yet sharp flavour, plus who doesn't love their comfort carbs with cooked onions?






I always forget how much rice cooks up. You put in what seems a normal amount, say, half a box. And then you realise that instead of a few modest portions you've in fact cooked a monthly-UN-refugee-handout amount. And that instead of an entire family eating it, it's pretty much all you.

Top Tip: The more you eat, the less guilty you feel.  

The Pan-fried Endive in one is courtesy of Yotam Ottolenghi who is a) A GENIUS OF EPIC BEYOND EPIC PROPORTIONS and b) one of the greatest things about my year abroad. Mike and I discovered Ottolenghi one afternoon wandering around Notting Hill and promptly decided to spend the next twelve months either eating inside, or waiting outside for it to open so we could go eat inside. It's literally, LITERALLY YOU GUYS the best food in the world. I still dream about those sweet potatoes. And that flourless chocolate cake. And the MERINGUES OH GOD THE MERINGUES. 

You see, this is what happens when you deprive Beetle of the necessary culinary outlets and/or
what she considers routine kitchen sanitation procedures.
I get a little intense. 

Sorry, back to pan-fried endive. And that salad. 

Taking a recipe for Fried Endives from Yotam's (in my head we are on a first name basis just go with it ok?) amazing cookbook, Plenty, and since I had fried fennel the week before to great success, AND since for whatever reason Mum is OBSESSED with endive, I decided to spread them over the top of a big veggie bean salad and see how that turned out. 

The base of the salad itself was steamed cauliflower, the awesome yellow cherry tomatoes you can ONLY get in the summer, and two cans of white beans, drained. I tossed them all together with olive oil, salt, and a lot of fresh thyme (see pic at right).








The endives (two of them, incidentally) I cut lengthwise in quarters and just let them caramelize face down in the pan until they were dark brown and awesome. It takes about 15 minutes for them to get really good and cooked. At least my pan did. I like 'em almost burnt, so maybe if you don't you should take them out a bit earlier.

Also consult a doctor because what is WRONG with you.

The best part is how the tips go all crunchy and curly. 

When you spread them on top, and then let the whole thing sit overnight, the endive amazingness soaks down into the rest of the salad. And, according to Mum, is BEYOND fantastic. 

There will be more GLUTEN FREE SPARKLE CUPCAKES this weekend, which, did you KNOW how fast teenagers can consume a cupcake? It's like . . . I don't know. It's like magic. There was also KARAOKE FUN TIMES last night, where I managed to stay out of the room that was singing One Direction. 

As I explained at the time: "It's not that I don't like them . . . It's just that I don't need to sing all their songs out loud one after the other. And you know them so much better than I do. But you go ahead. I'll be here when you get out."

"Go ahead. I'll stay right here." 

"Yes, I will watch your Bubble Tea."