My Baby Boy Came Home and Asked For Shepherd's Pie

The 19 year old - the one that decided at the age of 15 he was thoroughly done with being parented, who decided he was done going to school in 9th grade, who was sneaking out the window at 12 or 13 to run drugs for neighborhood thugs, who used to rifle through my dresser and steal things to buy cigarettes and pot, who used to get so violently angry that I consistently called the cops because I was legit afraid of him, who had to go inpatient at a psych hospital, who got kicked out of his last roommate's house because, in a drunk rage-fit, he threatened to kill his roommate - has decided now that he does need to be parented.

Daddy left for Georgia early Saturday morning, grabbed him, and immediately turned around and drove back. My baby boy is home. He's aware that living here comes with conditions. My house, my rules. There will no smoking in the house, no throwing butts outside the house, no weed anywhere near the house, If I tell him to go for a walk because he is becoming agitated (a good sign shit's about to go down) he will go for a walk. That usually calms him down. He will go back to school, he will actively participate in working on his mental/behavioral health and cooperate with his therapist, and he will actively seek employment. He will respect my personal space and his sister's personal space. The goal is to get him out and on his own, successfully adulting as soon as possible.

In return, he gets to stay in our damp basement with the drain in the floor because water runs under the door every time it rains (but at least that affords him some personal space), have access to proper hygiene facilities, and gets to eat mum's cooking. That, to him, is the biggest perk. Before his father and I made the decision to offer him this opportunity he had asked for my shepherd's pie recipe. I don't generally use - or write down - recipes and I haven't made shepherd's pie in so long I couldn't remember what I put in it. When the decision was made for him to move, he first request was that I make him a shepherd's pie when he got here. We made one today together. I used to use TVP as the meat substitute but I don't have access to that anymore - at least not the kind I used to use that was in chunks - so I googled vegetarian shepherd's pie recipes for a suitable meat sub. The best suggestion I found was crimini mushrooms. They have a hearty, meaty texture and don't really taste mushroomy when cooked in gravy.

For posterity, here is my approximation of a recipe.

For the stew:

Half a stick of butter and about an equal amount of olive oil
1 diced onion
3 cloves of garlic, minced
(This is where I added about a teaspoon of salt to help draw the moisture from the onions.)
1 pound of crimini (or Baby Bella) mushrooms, diced
5 medium carrots, peeled and diced
3 stalks of celery diced

Melt the butter with the olive oil over low heat while you chop the veg. Chop and drop veg - in the order listed - into the pan as you go. I used my big, deep saute pan but a Dutch oven would work nicely here as well.

Between the garlic and the mushrooms, cut 3 pounds of red and/or gold potatoes into chunks and cover with water, well salted. When that comes to a boil, it should take about 20 minutes or so for the potatoes to get soft. (19 helped with the potatoes so I didn't have to interrupt my veg chopping, but you can let onions and garlic sweat over low heat for long enough to do this.) 

When the veg is all in the pan, add about 1/4 cup of flour and stir continuously for 3 or 4 minutes to brown the flour a bit. Make sure the flour is evenly distributed among the veg and completely coated in fat. Pour in one 12 oz beer and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. When that starts to thicken pour in about half of a quart of vegetable broth or stock, a bit more salt, lots of pepper, some Worcestershire sauce, a generous teaspoon of smoked paprika, and (if you have it - I do because I'm a complete anglophile) a dollop of HP brown sauce. Pickapeppa sauce would work too.

Let that simmer, stirring frequently, until it reduces by about half and the gravy is thick.

Meanwhile, your potatoes are probably done. Drain them and return them to the pot. Mash them up with whatever you usually put in mashed potatoes. I used a splash of buttermilk, half a cup of sour cream, and the other half of that stick of butter, and plenty of salt and pepper. I also prefer to hand mash my potatoes - I like them a bit lumpy.

Right as you take the stew off the heat, add in a package of frozen peas and stir. Dump the stew into a casserole dish. I used my favorite red one that is slightly smaller than a standard 9x13 pan. Top with the mashed potatoes. Top that with about 4 ounces of grated extra sharp cheddar. Bake at 400 for about 30 minutes or until the stew is bubbling up and the cheese is browned.

The whole family (minus me) was a bit dubious of the mushrooms subbing for meat, but everyone was thrilled with the results. I'm the only one in my family really behind this whole eating vegetarian thing but nobody missed the meat with the mushrooms and the rich gravy. 19 snapped a picture to send to his 21 year old brother just to gloat. His brother, jealous because he isn't eating mum's cooking, told him to fuck off.

Is that worth a fuck off?

We Be Jammin', Yeah!

My garden has been kind to me this year. I've had a bountiful harvest of eggplants, peppers, herbs, watermelon, but most especially tomatoes. I've made capresi, marinara sauce, tossed halved cherry tomatoes in cream sauces and pasta with pesto, and popped plenty of my chocolate cherry and sungold cherry like candy. I made salsa, had sliced tomatoes as a side dish with a variety of entrees, made fried green tomatoes. I was beginning to run out of tomato ideas.

Then one Friday at my neighborhood Friday-only pay-as-you-can pizza place, Moriah Pie (it's really cool concept for a restaurant and the pizza is delicious -- check it out here ) and one of their featured desserts for the week was homemade vanilla ice cream with sungold tomato marmalade and a thyme-infused shortbread cookie. It was DIVINE.

The next day I was Googling recipes for cherry tomato marmalade. None of them quite appealed to me but Mark Bittman's recipe featured on Epicurious gave me a template to work from. My first batch was fairly small. I had a generous 4 cups of diced raw tomato, skin on. I assumed that was about the right weight. I added the sugar and a generous amount of chopped lemon basil. (If you aren't familiar with lemon basil, familiarize yourself ASAP. It has a very bright, fresh flavor -- much more delicate than regular sweet basil -- with a lemony undertone. We planted two tiny seedlings this year that are both now big and bushy. It's quite hearty and easy to grow.) I ended up needing to add more basil, salt, and some lemon juice for some acidity. It was yummy, but I wasn't overly fond of the texture of the bit of skin in the jam. I also let it *almost* overcook and it was a bit stickier than I preferred, rather difficult to spread.

Yesterday I had considerably more tomatoes than I did starting my first batch. I blanched, shocked, cooled, and peeled them this time. This is the easiest way to de-skin tomatoes. (Best to do them in batches.) Bring a big stock pot of water to a boil and drop in 3 or 4 big tomatoes or a dozen or so plum or cherry tomatoes. When the natural juices inside the tomato come to a boil the steam will create pressure inside the skin and the tomato will split its skin - sometimes with an audible *pop*! Use a straining scoop to remove the popped tomatoes to a bowl of cold water to stop the cooking then transfer them to a colander to make room in the water for more tomatoes. You may have to switch out your water as dumping boiling hot tomatoes into cool water tends to make the water hot.

After you've blanched, shocked, and drained all your tomatoes, wait for them to cool before handling. Even after shocking them in cold water they can still remain too warm to touch for quite a while. Once they are cool, the skins should pop right off. If you pinch a cherry tomato right, the pulp squirts out like the inside of a muscadine grape when you pinch it. The larger tomatoes are a little more difficult. Prepare to get your hands messy. You will have to squeeze and pull to get the tomato pulp separated from the stem and the fibrous part of the tomato below the stem. Once you've peeled all of your tomatoes, you can either get your hands in and squish them or whiz them in a food processor or blender depending on what kind of texture you want. I found that hand squishing kept too many of the cherry and plum tomatoes intact and ended up giving it a quick whiz to break up whole tomatoes, but still have some chunks for texture. I ended up with about 8 cups of peeled tomato.

I rinsed out my stock pot and dumped in my tomatoes, a teaspoon of salt, 2 cups of sugar, two generous handfuls of chopped lemon basil leaves, the juice of half a lemon, and brought my concoction to a boil.

Then I settled in to watch Gordon Ramsey's Master Chef while they simmered away. In the episode I was watching, Gordon was instructing his contestants on how to make minestrone. One step involved putting a large sprig of fresh basil over the chopped vegetables, already covered in stock, to allow it to simmer and steep like the basil was a tea bag. I immediately went out and snipped off several large sprigs of lemon basil and tossed them into the pot. Then I decided I didn't want to spend the next couple of hours babysitting a stock pot of tomato jam. I turned off the flame, put the lid on, poured a glass of wine, and curled up beside the hub on the couch, eventually drifting off while watching vintage episodes of The French Chef with Julia Childs on Amazon.

This morning I came downstairs and immediately commenced tomato jamming. I removed the sprigs of lemon basil and brought the pot back to a boil over medium heat. I patiently waited, ate breakfast, played on Twitter, stirred it periodically, pondered the meaning of life, debated whether I should go ahead and start on my psych homework, stirred again. The tomatoes bubbled away, reducing, concentrating. The water on the top cooked down to syrup and the syrup eventually evaporated away leaving a thick stew of tomato solids, shiny with the sugar. I wasn't sure if I'd hit the jam point yet or not. I tasted it, checked for flavor, added more lemon basil, and let it reduce a bit more. I'd reduced by about 2/3 of it's original amount by this time.

Eventually the idea occurred to me to put a teaspoon of jam in a small dish in the fridge for about 5 minutes to see what the cooled texture would be like. Five minutes I waited, stirring frequently, willing my jam not to burn to the bottom of the pan. I pulled the small dish out of the fridge and lo and behold -- I had jam!

I probably should have taken a picture at this point. Sorry.

I'd promised my mother I'd send her a sample of my next batch of jam because she didn't believe she'd like basil in jam. (She will soon find out the magic of lemon basil and admit to the error of her ways.) I had obtained a tiny mason jar containing a single shot of apple flavored "moonshine" for this purpose. Hub did the honors of emptying the tiny jar for me. He said it tasted awful. This was the second tiny moonshine jar I've used for tomato jam and I disposed of the last shot. It wasn't as bad as he said. Either way, the jar sure is cute.

While my tomatoes were simmering, I boiled the thoroughly cleaned jar, label removed, with the lid for about 3 minutes to sterilize it. I left it in the water to cool while the tomatoes simmered. Then when the tomato jam was done, but still boiling hot, I spooned jam into the sterile jar and screwed the lid on tightly. I know this isn't technically the correct canning procedure, but I think it'll keep the jam good for the amount of time required to mail it from Ohio to North Carolina.

The rest of the jam was dispersed into a variety of empty jars. (We generally save glass jars to reuse rather than recycling. Most of our "glasses" used for drinking are actually empty jars.)

I ended up with a total of about 3ish cups of jam. (Remember, for reference, the front jar is a 2 oz shot glass jar.) The other jars had been thoroughly cleaned in the dish washer but I didn't bother sterilizing them. Jam should keep good for as long as I need it to in the fridge without needing a sterilized jar.

I took the suggestion of mutual follow Twitterer @uncutmyhair and used some of the cooled jam in a grilled cheese sandwich -- provolone (because that's what I have) on multi-grain seeded bread. I didn't get a picture because I was hungry and ate it. It was as good as I had imagined.

I still have half a quart sized Mason jar of ricotta cheese my BFF and I made last weekend from local milk sitting in the fridge. I'm thinking maybe I need to make a ricotta tart with a flaky, buttery pastry crust and top it with a dollop of tomato jam.

Recipes to me are merely sources of inspiration. They are not direct edicts set in stone. If you want to make jam and don't have any lemon basil (in which case I pity you) use something else you have on hand. Thyme might be good. Salsa flavors like hot peppers and cilantro (if you're into cilantro, which I'm not - yuck!) and lime for the acid element would work well for a spicy tomato jam. You could spice it up like the Bittman recipe, but that doesn't look appetizing to me at all. Whatever you do, have fun with it and hit me back in the comments with your combination and usage suggestions.

I'm a Philomath! Wheee!

I took a test at https://high5test.com/ for my public speaking course. Our first speech, week after next, will be prompted by the results of this test. We are to introduce ourselves and explain an aspect of our lives or career goals in terms of at least three of our top five strengths. Mine are:

Problem Solver -- This is fairly self explanatory.

Believer  -- Note that this means that I'm motivated more by ethics than personal gain -- not that I go around believing in things. Although I still insist fairies are real.

Philomath -- I'll get to that.

Thinker -- Mental exercise is, to me, something to do for fun or sport rather than a chore required to complete work/school tasks. I question things for the sake of questioning things.

Deliverer -- Note that this does not mean that I am the Messiah, but rather I take my commitments seriously and value my reputation for reliability.

A philomath is, simply put, one who loves learning for the sake of learning. The fact that I immediately latched onto this word because I'd never heard it before is evidence that my assessment results are correct. I have a natural curiosity of the world around me. I need to know all of the things. Well, until that thing bores me and then I move on to the next thing I need to know everything about. According to my test assessment results a philomath craves novelty.

My speech is going to be centered around career goals -- ABA therapy; why I want to be an ABA therapist; what turned me onto it; why I think it plays to my strengths.

I know it's been a minute since I blogged. Quick catch up.

I lost my job. My agency assigned a new position. I started back to school. That position ended, even though it was supposed to be temp-to-hire. I decided I was done with temping. I found my new forever job and got fired within 4 months because of bullshit. (I know it sounds like I'm not taking responsibility, but even my direct supervisors at the last two places agreed it was bullshit.) Now I'm unemployed and focusing on school. I'm taking 18 hours this semester and most of it on campus, taking advantage of the free time I have due to unemployment.

Oh, and the D&D thing never panned out. We couldn't find a group that we fit into to join because apparently we don't geek properly. Whatever. Elitist geek fuckheads.

Okay, all caught up.

So I want to be an ABA or Applied Behavioral Analysis therapist. I can start now as an ABA tech with a high school diploma, a clean record, and 40 hours on online learning. I *might* have a part time job soon at an agency I applied at back in June. They are expanding and hiring new techs, but their timeline hasn't been going to plan. They wanted things to be swinging by early July and here it is almost September and they still haven't launched the expansion. Cross fingers for me. If I get this job I can grow with them, climbing their ladder as my education progresses through and beyond a master's degree.

And now I know I'm a philomath and that totally made my day.

I Promised You Squash Two Years Ago

So.....I haven't written a blog entry in a damn long time. This is a thing I should be doing more often.

Also, it's the first day of school and I should DEFINITELY be blogging instead of getting a jump on homework, yes?

Yes. I thought so too.

I've been promising my squash casserole recipe forever, and I have one in the oven now so it seems like the time to make good. Remember, before we start -- this isn't the food blog where you get a long, annoying narrative followed by a nice, easy to follow recipe. I'm only here for the long, annoying narrative. There will be no nice, easy recipe at the end.

Squash casserole has been my favorite thing since forever. When I was a tot it was part of my mother's regular dinner rotation. I remember one time when she made it I asked for seconds. She gave me a choice between seconds or dessert. I chose seconds. And that's back when I actually liked sweets.

When I was a newlywed I asked my mom for her recipe and she gave me the basic rundown. She forgot to tell me to cook the squash first. Fuck you mom. Cooking the squash first -- indeed, HOW you cook the squash first -- is half the key to the whole thing. Well, 3/4ths of the key. Okay, maybe 7/8th of the key. The sriracha is just the kicker but I digress. (I digress a lot. Have you noticed?)

It took years but I took my mom's outline, as well as bits of ideas gleaned from various cookbooks (this was before the age of Google) and flat out perfected the recipe. And now that we live in the age of Google, I can't find a recipe like mine. Like I said -- it's the HOW you cook the squash. Every recipe I've seen calls for boiling or steaming the squash and then draining it and that's just nonsense. Boiling or steaming the squash leaves all of the flavor in the water and then you have mushy, flavorless nothing to put in your casserole. Fuck that. Sautee is the only way to go. When you sautee the moisture from the squash evaporates and the flavors concentrate and caramelize and it also involves a bunch of butter and butter makes everything better so put your damn steamer away and get out your biggest sautee pan.

I used to make this casserole for a very hungry family of 5. Now I make it for 3 and we have far more moderate appetites (no more growing boys). I'm giving you the smaller version. The larger version has an embarassing amount of butter, but you can double it.

Start by melting half a stick of butter over medium heat in that big ass saute pan while you chop your onions. If you're of the (correct) idea that onions make food taste like food use one big ass onion here or two small onions. If you're meh about onions, use one small onion. If you're allergic to onions (*ahem* you know who you are) mercy on your poor soul, not being able to eat food that tastes like food. You can either dice or slice your onions -- this will depend on how you prep your squash. If, like me, you appreciate the squashy texture of squash, you want to slice the squash potato chip thin -- in which case slice your onions as thin as you can. I have an antique slicer thing, but the slicing side of a box grater works too. If you have a mandolin that works, but also fuck you because I've always wanted one and they're stupid expensive. If you (or your squash-phobic family) aren't into the glorious squashiness of squash, grate it and dice your onions.

Once you get the onions into the melted butter, salt generously. This helps to draw out the moisture. Slice (or grate) 3 pounds of yellow summer squash. (Dammit. Why didn't I take a picture of my pile of summer squash?) You can just dump each squash into the pan as you finish. Otherwise you're going to end up with so much squash on your work surface that have no place to work. You'll end up with a big ass pile of squash in your pan. (Imagine what a pile 6 pounds of squash makes!)

Salt generously again and stir until the squash and onions are incorporated and all coated with butter. You don't have to stir constantly, but do give it a toss every so often. As that sizzles away, steaming and smelling lovely, start working on the casserole part of the squash casserole. Grate about a pound or so (if you're going to or-so, or-so on the more side rather than the less) of the sharpest cheddar you can find. If it can cut a bitch, you're going in the right direction. Reserve a handful of cheese in a separate bowl for the topping. I usually eyeball this stuff, but if I had to guess I'd say I use a half  cup each of FULL FAT (if I catch you trying to low-fat this mother fucker we're gonna have words) cottage cheese and sour cream. Then 2 or 3 eggs, depending on how eggy you feel and/or how many eggs you've got. Add to that a little squirt of sriracha -- but just a little. We are going for personality here, not heat. Lastly, smash an entire sleeve of Ritz crackers. Putting them in a freezer bag and whacking them with a wine bottle works for this. Add a small bit of cracker crumbs to the dairy mixture to tighten it up a bit.

After you've done all of this, melt the other half of that stick of butter in a small sauce pan. Pay attention to it. Don't get distracted by Twitter and forget about it and almost burn it, like I totally didn't just do. (We're going to call it "browned butter" and consider ourselves gourmands. Shut up.) Add the crumbs to the melted butter to cool them so you don't pour hot butter onto your reserved cheese and melt it. Not that I've ever done that. (Shut up.) Mix the buttery crumbs with the cheese and set aside.

Keep an eye on your squash. It should be reduced by a lot by now, but you want it to be all the way reduced. You want the bottom of the pan to be completely dry and the squash and onions start to caramelize. You want it more than good and dead.

This looks pretty dead but we aren't scraping browned bits off the bottom of the pan yet. Keep going. Now would be a good time to play on Twitter because you've gotta wait this shit out. I probably should have mentioned before now that you need to preheat your oven to 350. (That's 176.667 if you're European. Weirdos.)

Now we're scraping browned bits off the bottom and may proceed to the next step. Turn the squash out of the sautee pan and into the dairy slop. Scrape every last bit of the browned bits in. This is pure flavor y'all. I forgot to tell you to add a very generous amount of freshly ground black pepper. Rich dairy dishes just scream for copious amounts of black pepper in my opinion. Mix the squash and the dairy slop up thoroughly. Check the mix for seasoning. No, a little bite of raw egg won't kill you. Shut up.

Turn the mix into a casserole dish and sprinkle the cheesy, buttery crumbs on top. I found this casserole dish at Goodwill for $3 and did a happy happy dance. I love red kitchen things. I also love casserole dishes. I especially love casserole dishes with handles. Admire my dish.

Bake for about 40-45 minutes. You want a browned, crispy top, bubbly sides, browned around the edges, and it should set like very firm jello. It should be gorgeous. Admire.

Let it set for 15-20 minutes before eating it. Play on Twitter and bask in the smell of deliciousness. I'll be serving it up later with greens and fresh sliced tomato from my garden. Be jealous.