Shannon Phillips

I don’t have a picture to show of this because the entire contents of the baking dish were gobbled up pretty much as soon as it came out of the oven. I thought I’d post the recipe because it’s one of the few I have that’s really mine—it’s adapted from a recipe for baked macaroni & cheese that I found online somewhere, but my methods have evolved a lot over the years that I’ve been making this.

This is obviously a high-fat dish. You could try using low-fat cheese and skim milk, but I wouldn’t expect it to taste very good. Instead I just like to think of this as an indulgence, something I don’t make very often but fully enjoy when I do.

You need:
Pasta. Not a whole pound of it—about 12 ounces. I use whole wheat penne because I can never find whole wheat macaroni. You could certainly use regular macaroni if you aren’t on a whole-grain kick like me. Or you could use shells or whatever. I think the penne works well though, and I find the Whole Foods whole wheat pasta to be really very tasty.
Cheese. Definitely a base of cheddar, but you can also add other kinds if you want. A big spoonful of sour cream makes a nice touch too. You want about two and half cups of grated cheese (including the sour cream if you’re using it). I generally just buy a good-sized hunk of cheddar and use it all.
One egg.
Two cups of milk. I was thinking last night that I’d like to try using buttermilk next time I make this. It might make things tangy and nice.
A small onion, or half of a big one, chopped up.
About 3/4 cup of frozen peas.
Some chopped ham. I go to the deli counter and ask them to give me one quarter-inch slice of whatever sort of ham looks nicest. Then I cut it up into quarter-inch cubes. If I were going to make a vegetarian version I’d probably just leave the ham out. I mean you could try baked tofu or something, but I don’t know that it would get you much. Maybe you could use another veggie, like cauliflower.
half a teaspoon of dry ground mustard. I will probably leave this out when I try making it with buttermilk.
salt and pepper

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Set a big pot of water on the stove to boil. Grease a large baking dish. When the water is boiling, add your pasta and a tablespoon of salt. Stir it up and let it boil, stirring frequently, for 7-8 minutes, until it’s about half cooked.

Meanwhile whisk your egg and milk together. Add the mustard, about a quarter teaspoon of salt, and several grindings of pepper. Stir it up. Add the cheese too and stir it in.

Add some olive oil to a skillet, heat it up, and sauté the onions until translucent and just starting to brown.

When the pasta is half-cooked, drain it and return it to the pot. Pour the milk and cheese mixture over the pasta and stir it together. Add the onions, ham, and peas. Turn out the whole mixture into the baking dish. Try and get most of the pasta submerged in the liquid. Some of it will stick out and that’s okay.

Bake it for about half an hour, until the pasta’s fully cooked and the cheese on top is starting to brown. Let it cool for a few minutes before serving.

Our box seemed light this week, to be honest. We got a thin bunch of chard, a bunch of small and skinny carrots, a bunch of radishes, a bunch of asparagus, one stalk of green garlic, two leeks, a bag of baby lettuces, and a bag of walnuts. I think I can use up everything but the asparagus and the nuts tonight, in a chard frittata and a big salad.

Tomorrow I guess Robin and I will have fish sticks, and for dinner we’ll roast the asparagus and serve it alongside a wild rice salad with celery and walnuts.

I think we’re doing more house-hunting this weekend so I don’t want to plan meals I won’t be around to cook. I guess the next two dinners will be “something with fish” and “something with pasta,” though. I’ll have to see what’s in at the fish counter and browse some recipes. I think the pasta should be whole wheat penne baked with ham, cheese, peas and egg; it’s been a while since I’ve made that and it’s tasty, and feels more virtuous than macaroni and cheese even though it hits a similar comfort-food spot.

Last week we ended up having orange-glazed chicken breasts with steamed zucchini one night, and then the next night I mixed up the leftovers with some brown rice and sauteed onions. Sam liked it a lot more than I thought he would! I think he likes chicken more than I do—I tend to think chicken is kind of boring. Maybe if I get a chance on Sunday I’ll roast a chicken, and make stock from the bones.

Okay, you people don’t really care about pictures of pie. You want pictures of little boy! Luckily Sam just uploaded dozens of them to his Flickr account.

Here’s Robin in close-up:

Here he is running around and being a goofball:

Here he is on the slide:

Look at that soft baby skin:

And we’ll leave you with this:

There, that should hold you people for a while.

The highlight of last week’s dinners was certainly the agnello all’araba from The Silver Spoon cookbook—lamb cubes roasted with onions, honey, saffron and other spices. (I used honey that Sam’s dad harvests in his own backyard, from his own bees.) It wasn’t especially picturesque—just looked like brown lamb cubes in a setting of yellow onions—so I didn’t take a photo, but Sam raved about it and Sam is generally pretty taciturn about these things.

I did take a picture of the pie:
It wasn’t the most beautiful of pies (the strawberry juices overflowed the crust and made the oven smoke) but you can’t tell that when it’s cut up and plated, and it tasted great. Sweet-tart and flaky and yummy.

Sam liked the pie. But his highly approving reaction to the lamb made me think that maybe I should do like that one chick did with Julia Child, or that other chick did with Thomas Keller, and dedicate myself to the mastery of a certain cuisine via an iconic cookbook: in my case, Italian cuisine and the Silver Spoon cookbook.

And then I realized there’s over 2,000 recipes in The Silver Spoon, and it would take me about ten years.

And anyway, if the idea is to dedicate myself to a certain cuisine that will satisfy my husband’s hunger on some kind of a deep genetic level, then I should really be going for Arbëreshë recipes. Because Sam isn’t Italian, exactly: his family is Arbëreshë, Albanian by way of Italy. Trouble is, I don’t think there are any Arbëreshë cookbooks.

Maybe I should collect one. If you’re reading this, and you’re Arbëreshë, and you have an old family recipe, will you please think about sending it to me? If I put in online or even someday in a book, I promise I’ll credit you.

The other thing that happened last week: while I was at the farmer’s market buying things for Easter dinner, I saw a produce stand where they were selling stinging nettles. And I decided I had to try cooking with that shit! Once you boil them, see, they stop stinging. And they’re like a superfood, loaded with nutrients and antioxidants.

Unfortunately, my recipe for ravioli buried in stinging nettle broth wasn’t all that tasty. So no recipes or pictures on that one. Instead, feast your eyes on this:

Oh yeah. That’s spaghetti carbonara with real guanciale. What’s guanciale, you say? Why, guanciale is a cured pig’s cheek.

That sounds disgusting, you say? Oh no. Spaghetti carbonara is a big favorite of ours, but we generally make it with bacon. Bacon is, obviously, delicious, but authentic carbonara is apparently made with guanciale. I’d read this before. So when I walked out of the farmer’s market holding a bag of stinging nettles, and my eyes settled on a storefront emblazoned “Boccalone: Tasty Salty Pig Parts,” well. I had to check and see if they had any guanciale.

And they did. And it was delicious. Even better than bacon.

The other thing that I made last week, that was particularly good, was the false mahshi. It’s kind of an autumn recipe, but Sam said he liked it even better than borscht. (Even though I used sirloin tips instead of rib-eye like the recipe calls for.) With the beets and the red-dyed rice it was really pretty. I tried to take a picture, but the snapshot doesn’t really do it justice:

And I did cook the squid, and it was alright but not spectacular: I braised it in red wine and tomatoes and served it over spaghetti, but Sam and I both agreed that we’d rather have had pasta puttanesca. And Robin wouldn’t touch it.

Well. Anyway. Today in our veggie box we got a bag of baby lettuces, a bunch of asparagus, a bag of small potatoes, a bunch of chard, a bunch of radishes, several green garlic stems, two leeks, and a sweet bunch of thin, delicate new carrots.

Tonight we’re having creamy spring asparagus soup (I’ve already made it, and it’s tasty), with a salad of the lettuce, radishes, carrots, and green garlic dressing.

Tomorrow another veggie dinner: garlicky chard (using the last of the green garlic) and boiled potatoes with butter and dill. That’ll leave only one leek to deal with for the whole rest of the week.

I honestly don’t know what I’ll do with all the freedom; I think I’ll take each day as it comes. Stay tuned for more thrilling updates throughout the week!

Last week’s meal plan didn’t go so well; the pissaladière was a big hit as usual, but we had more leftovers from the pasta-with-greens-and-white-beans than I expected, and then for a couple evenings I was just disorganized with the shopping: so I didn’t make half the things I wanted to make. I did get all the veggies except the potatoes and the chard used up, though.

In this week’s box we got more of that Russian red kale (last week’s mystery veggie); a bag of mixed lettuce; a bunch of chard; a bunch of collard greens; a bunch of radishes; three slender leeks; two green garlic bulbs; a bunch of pencil asparagus; and a bag of fingerling potatoes.

Tonight we’re finally getting around to having that false mahshi (using both last week and this week’s chard, and I’ll probably substitute the leeks and the green garlic for one of the onions. I’m also using sirloin tips instead of rib-eye, because have you seen how much grass fed rib-eye costs?). Tomorrow Robin and I will have a salad (involving lettuce, radishes, and some left-over green goddess dressing) for lunch, and for dinner we’ll have garlic-roasted potatoes and pan-seared asparagus.

Friday lunch: leftover mahshi, if there is any. For dinner I want to try a recipe that came in the box, for sweet potatoes braised with apples and greens (I’ll use the kale and the collards).

Saturday will be about dying eggs, and prepping for Sunday night’s dinner. I don’t know that we’ll do much for Easter this year; Robin’s a bit young for a formal egg hunt, but we might hide some around the apartment. In some past years I’ve gone to the Easter service at our Unitarian church, but Sam’s not enthusiastic about it, and to be honest I don’t really even know how one goes about attending church with a toddler.

Anyway, we’re not having anybody over for dinner, but I still want a celebration-of-spring type meal. I’m thinking:

sorrel soup (recipe from the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market Cookbook)
agnello all’araba, or “arabian lamb” (recipe from The Silver Spoon cookbook, a wedding gift from my sisters-in-law which I’ve been meaning to delve into more. The recipe basically involves lamb cubes roasted in a mixture of onions, honey, saffron, cumin, ginger, and stock, with almonds and olives and cilantro added at the end).
fava beans, boiled and buttered
strawberry rhubarb pie

I can make the pie and the soup on Saturday. And something quick and easy for us to actually eat on Saturday, like maybe pasta puttanesca.

Monday I’m sure we’ll have leftovers. And Tuesday, if the leftovers haven’t run out, maybe I’ll take another stab at cooking squid. You shall not escape me so easily, o cephalopods!

Last week’s dinners were pretty much all successful. The mushroom-barley soup is easy, fairly inexpensive, and good enough that we had it again last night; the Tuscan style garlic-rosemary pork roast (Cook’s Illustrated recipe) always comes out well; and to my great delight the pan-fried sand dabs (they didn’t have catfish) were fun both to cook and to eat. I’m definitely going to try to work more fish into our menus.

The prettiest thing I made was this asparagus and gruyere tart, from a Martha Stewart recipe:

Greedy little fingers not included in the recipe! The tart with salad made a nice meal, and I think it would also be elegant as the first course at a dinner party.

This week in our veggie box we got chard, collard greens, asparagus, lettuce, a bunch of green garlic, a bag of Yukon potatoes, and a great frondy bunch of something that I’m embarrassed to admit I have no idea what it might be. Mom! What is this?

Tonight I plan to make a salad with green goddess dressing (involving anchovies and the green garlic) and pissaladière (we like anchovies!). Tomorrow Robin and I will have the potatoes and the mystery greens for lunch: I have some salt pork in the fridge, and I’m working on the theory that any sort of dark leafy green is good when boiled with salt pork and dressed with a little cider vinegar. And for dinner, a Cook’s Illustrated recipe for “Whole Wheat Pasta with Collard Greens, Beans, Pancetta, and Garlic Bread Crumbs” that I’ve made before and liked.

Saturday night’s dinner needs to be quick and easy since I’m off with friends for the day; I’m thinking the asparagus, roasted, and a couple of steaks. Sunday night I want to try this recipe for “false mahshi” with chard, beets, rice and beef.

Having thus disposed of all the vegetables, I’ll be able to get creative on Monday and Tuesday nights. There’s a couple of recipes I’ve been eying: one for Rustic Farro Soup with Sausage and Mushrooms, the other for Braised Squid With Artichokes. Squid! I know! Look at me getting all adventurous with the marine life!

Robin’s Elmo obsession continues unabated (he is as I type these words watching Sesame Street with his Elmo doll clutched close, occasionally crooning small remarks to the doll). So I end up watching a lot of Sesame Street, and I have to say, with the perspective of adulthood a lot of the muppets take on a different cast than they held in my hazy childhood memories.

Take Ernie. I came out of my own Sesame Street watching days having formed the impression that Ernie was an awesome dude, and Bert a huge prissy stick-in-the-mud who was basically lucky to have someone like Ernie to bring some fun into his boring life.

Now I find Ernie almost intolerable. He’s so mean to Bert! He thinks he’s so funny, always laughing at his own jokes with that smug little snigger, but actually he’s just tremendously self-involved, inconsiderate, and rude. Ernie is literally the kind of guy who will invite a bunch of strangers over to the apartment and then bail, leaving his roommate alone to manage the chaos. Ernie is the kind of guy who will wake Bert up just so he has someone to talk to, and when he’s driven Bert to sleep in the kitchen with his unreasonably loud activities, he’ll roll over and enjoy having the whole bedroom to himself. Ernie will come up to Bert when he’s trying to read, distract him repeatedly, and finally end up reading the book himself.

My point here is that Ernie is not a cool fun-loving dude, Ernie is a jackass. Bert, on the other hand, is a really sweet guy with unexpected depths of sensitivity and compassion. Sure he’s a little cranky sometimes. If you had a roommate from hell like Ernie, you’d be cranky too!

And I’m not even going to address the whole gay thing, because frankly that takes Ernie from “roommate from hell” to “emotionally abusive boyfriend,” and Bert deserves so much better. So that’s all I have to say about Bert and Ernie!

We went to the beach last weekend; Robin looooooved it. He loved all the space to run and all the stuff to see. Sam flew his kite:

and Robin ran around like a maniac:

Sam has lots more pictures up on his Flickr account.

I guess the big news on the child-development front is that Robin is now fully weaned. Again, it just sort of happened. He crawled into my lap one night and fell asleep right there, without nursing. The next night he dropped off again without needing to nurse. So just like that, he was weaned.

No news on the house-hunting front. We’re still waiting for a response to our offer from the sellers and their bank. If we move to Oakland we’re going to have make time to come back to the beach!

This one is really sweet:

SFWeekly ran a really interesting story last week on ForageSF, the new service that offers CSA-like boxes filled with foods gathered from the wild. I think it’s a fascinating idea, but I won’t be signing up.

It’s not that I think foraging is too weird. As an ethnobotanist’s daughter, I grew up grazing on weeds. When my mom was here for a visit she reminded me of something I’d forgotten: the time I got in trouble at daycare for encouraging the other kids to eat Oxalis stricta, which I called sweet-and-sour, because it is. Both the leaves and the flowers are edible and tasty. I also remember going mushroom-hunting after rains with my mom, looking for white puffballs, and I remember her encouraging me to eat the ripe persimmons that had fallen to the sidewalk. She taught me which common berries are safe to eat (like sumac) and which are poisonous (like pokeberries), and which are okay to eat but simply don’t taste very good (like mulberries or false strawberries). I remember picking wild blackberries and wild strawberries for cobblers. Foraging is immensely fun.

But I wouldn’t eat something wild picked by someone I don’t personally know. Iso Rabins may really know his stuff. But I don’t know that he does, so I’m not going to eat the things he picks. Especially not mushrooms. You don’t fuck around with mushrooms.

And anyway, most of this stuff is immensely perishable. The point of foraging is to go out, scavenge, bring home your haul and eat it immediately, while the flavors are still strong and vibrant. Having a whole box of these greens at once would necessarily mean there was some stuff I couldn’t get to for days, and I’m pretty skeptical about how well it would last.
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And on top of all that, I don’t see the point in paying premium prices to get someone else to do the foraging for me. Part of the delight of making a dandelion salad out of weeds from the driveway is that you feel like Sacajawea, wise and expert in the ways of the land, a real woods-woman. If I paid forty bucks for a box of weeds I’d only feel like a sucker.

But in spite of that, I kind of hope ForageSF is a success. I think it’s good for us all to realize how many common and overlooked plants are actually totally edible, to be aware of the possibilities all around us. It’s certainly a nudge to me to dust off my old copy of The Dandelion Celebration, and a reminder that when Robin gets a little bit older, foraging is something I really want to share with him.