Vegetarian Hodgepodge (might actually be a pastiche)

Rei and I have not been motivated to cook. My husband Zeke has essentially been laid off (he manages an amenity at Facebook and Facebook has shut down the amenities as they’ve encouraged employees to work remotely). As a result, we have reverted back to our habits from before he went back to work in August when he was responsible for 98% of the cooking.

This isn’t a good thing on any level. It’s not like the food Dad makes is bad or anything; we just have no motivation to cook because we know Dad can do just fine. Thus we stay holed up in our room and office respectively instead of in the kitchen. Not as fun, but it’s easy. But now that Adam is home and we are stocked up with provisions, Rei and I will most likely be cooking. Plus we need to take on the pantry challenge.

I’ve been glued to my desk and computer as we work through what COVID-19 is going to do for my son at SDSU, whether Rei’s classes will be canceled or go online, and as I juggle the myriad of things that I do on a daily and weekly bases. Now my classes have been moved all online! (slightly conflicted but at least now I don’t have to wait until weekends to bake bread) (Update: Adam has been retrieved from SDSU so we are all self-isolating for the time being)

But last night we got a little creative and went vegetarian with burrata and sauteed mushrooms on toast (inspired by Laura Calder), eggs poached in cream (Julia Child) and steamed artichokes (they are in season from Castroville, CA).

Rei worked on homework (they re-annotated 200 pages of The Handmaid’s Tale in 36 hours — don’t get me started on that whole ordeal) as I got the artichokes started. I simply cut off the stems, added some water to the steamer (pictured in the back), and squeezed these ginormous beauties into the steamer.

After securing the lid (Rei will most likely mock me on this part), I put the steamer on med-high heat and went back into the office to do some more work. With my cocktail. I have no idea what you are talking about. I would never mock you for putting the lid on wrong when all you had to do was push down and twist. Definitely not. I just assumed you put on the lid and that was it.

After about 35 minutes, I went back into the kitchen to finish up dinner prep. Rei made some beautiful sourdough bread on Sunday but we’d eaten our loaf and Adam took a loaf back to San Diego to enjoy. Zeke got a nice rustic loaf at the market which I sliced up and brushed with olive oil. If you’d given me a day’s warning I could have whipped up another couple loaves, you know, and we wouldn’t have had to go BUY bread (the horrors).

I sliced up the mushrooms and Rei got the pan ready to saute them in butter to put on top of the burrata and toast. Rei likes to get fancy and flip the mushrooms. Rei insisted on an action shot. Well, come on! Doesn’t that look cool, though?

The burrata at the local market isn’t the best but it’s still really good. I decided to change things up by drizzling it with olive oil and sprinkling with some flaky sea salt. I didn’t particularly enjoy the olive oil (but then I never do when it’s one of the major flavors; I prefer it where the oliveyness is masked by other flavors in the dish).

Our girls have been laying an egg or so every other day and these are perfect for frying, scrambling and poaching. Actually, they are good in everything but with a limited supply, we try to consume these as close to their natural state as possible.

Which was unfortunately too close last night. Understatement.

Julia Child has an amazing poached eggs in cream recipe which we’ve made quite a few times. I decided not to follow the recipe 100% and they didn’t end up cooking all the way. I still ate (drank) them but Rei decided they needed more cooking and popped theirs in the microwave which resulted in overcooked eggs. Rei didn’t eat them. I’ll elaborate more later.

What you are supposed to do is put a dot of butter in the bottom of a ramekin along with a tablespoon of cream. Then add some water to the dish they are sitting in and bring to a simmer. Add another tablespoon of cream and put into a preheated oven at 375 degrees. They take about 10 minutes to cook and they will not look cooked when you take them out but will be when you sit down to eat.

Pro tip: follow the recipe.

While the eggs were in the oven, I put the oiled bread in on an upper rack. I forgot about them until Rei smelled the toasting bread and we pulled the perfectly toasted bread out of the oven. It was a little more charred than we would have liked, but not burnt. We’re terrible with remembering things, don’t you think, Mom? What were you saying?

We put the toast and toppings on the table (including some sliced avocado and the flaky sea salt) with the cooked artichokes and mayo to dip the leaves.

This was tasty and really easy. We should have made a small spinach salad to add some more plant based items to our meal but we were too lazy. We have baby spinach, goat cheese, craisins, nuts and seeds in the fridge and pantry but we just didn’t do it. I think that would have made a great addition or artichoke substitute.

Rei enjoyed some Rocky Road ice cream as they annotated about an hour later. I enjoyed the rest of my second gin and tonic as I continued to work in my office on my never ending To Do list.

Rei, now that the annotation hell is over, can you spare a minute to wrap this up? I really don’t want to wait another week (or two) to get this posted. It’s blog post 76 and a great midweek meal for our readers. TYIA.

But before you take over Rei, here’s a pic of the quiche that Zeke and I made the night before. It was perfect. Whole wheat crust (I think Rei made it; I was in the office). Sauteed leeks (with a little chopped yellow onion) and sauteed mushrooms (prepared by Zeke) were added to the blind baked pie crust. The egg mixture was poured over the veggies (5 eggs plus some whipping cream and whole milk, salt and pepper). And about 1.5 cups of grated Gruyere cheese. Baked for about an hour at 375 degrees. Perfection.

Ok, now back to you Rei. Snark away.

I was indeed the person to make the crust, but I showed Dad how to do it so he knows how. It’s pretty simple: a stick of cold butter smooshed into 1 1/4 cups flour (we use whole wheat but for sweet pies AP is better) and a pinch of salt, add cold water until it just comes together (DON’T OVERWORK; DON’T LET IT GET TOO WARM), and pop in the fridge for like half an hour! Then all you need to do is roll it out and blind bake it, and you’re set!

Notes: when you’re cutting the butter into the flour (that’s the proper term for smooshing but I like smooshing so much better), start with ~1cm cubes and try to press the butter pieces into flat bits. Know that the bigger the butter pieces, the more flaky the crust, and the smaller the bits, the more mealy. I usually go for bits a bit bigger than peas.

Also when you blind bake, don’t forget to poke holes in the crust before you bake or else the pie gremlins trapped in the dough will have nowhere to go and could create bubbles from their failed escape attempts.

Anyways, that’s it on my pie crust tutorial. Jeez, I’m getting hives from actually being helpful. Gross.

This dinner ended up being decent, in my opinion. I’m always up for artichokes, and mushrooms sauteed in butter will forever be a favorite of mine, but the eggs. The Eggs.

Let me provide some context. Whenever Mom and I don’t like a dish, I usually do so because I don’t like the texture, while Mom is more flavor oriented.

These eggs were really nice tasting (nice and creamy and buttery and what have you), so Mom loved them, but they were super undercooked (TOLD YOU SO, MOM!), so the whites were all slimy and slippery and gooey (not in the good way). I tried to counteract this snotlike texture by microwaving the eggs for a bit longer, but it was too long and overcooked the poor eggs. What did they ever do to us? Snotlike is a good description.

And on that cheery note considering the deserved versus received fates of the chicken periods in a shell (you’re not getting that concept out of your head anytime soon either; you’re welcome 😊), I shall leave you! Until next time, ciao, and have a werxcivrit day!

Rei and Terri

PS: Wash your hands, and stay safe, y’all! If you die, I’m gonna murder you.