Fortunately, the New York Times ran this lovely article full of cucumber recipes, including one for Cooked Curried Cucumbers (which has a much lovelier photo of the finished product, I might add. As a photographer I should be ashamed but hey, it’s my kitchen and I was ready to eat.)

I only made slight modifications to the recipe – I didn’t bother to scoop out the seeds, I used rice wine for the cup of dry white wine and I also probably added 1/3 more curry powder.

Postprandial Notes: A nice, lightly spiced, refreshing side dish or condiment as part of a larger spread. They went really well with burgers. I think they could have used a touch more heat or maybe sharpness, which the original white wine would definitely have provided. That said, they are definitely a new summer staple.

There have to be about a billion (almost typed a dillion – ha!) pickle recipes. I am pretty openminded about my pickles – I like most except really sweet bread and butter types. The pickling cucumbers were pretty big and looked like they’d already been off the vine for a few days so I decided to go with something simple with ingredients I already had on hand.

To be honest, the real challenge was finding a big enough container – I had just enough large enough pickles that they didn’t neatly fit into any of the jars I had on hand. After a 30 minute crash course study of cucumber volumes in various glass containers, I decided to use my ceramic nabe.

Ingredients

• 3 pounds-ish pickling Cucumbers
• 8 sprigs of fresh dill, chopped
• 5 fat cloves of garlic, sliced fine & slightly crushed
• 2 cups of vinegar
• 2 cups of water
• 2 tbsps of non-iodized salt

Preparation

1. Put pickles in a suitable storage container, ideally not metal or plastic. Chop the dill and slice the garlic and throw in container.
2. Mix water, vinegar, and salt in a bowl and whisk until salt is completely dissolved. Pour over cucumbers.
3. Close container and park in the back of the fridge for at least 2 weeks before eating.

The pickles about 15 days in. Sampling data was taken at this point and results compiled below.

Postprandial Notes: I used a mixture of apple cider and white wine vinegar for my first batch. They were received pretty well but they’re a bit on the sweet side for my taste. I think I’ll go with a different vinegar next time. I may throw some raw onions and mustard corns in as well. For a different opinion, let’s have a look at Wayne below.

In the famous words of some random kid, “He likes it! Hey Mikey!”

This is a pretty basic salsa recipe (adapted from this one I found on Epicurious and easily customizable to your favorite tomato type or heat tolerance. I used a combination of yellow and cherry tomatoes because that’s what I have on hand and I encourage you to experiment with your own favorite tomato/pepper combinations.

Ingredients

• 2 medium-sized tomatoes
• 1 cowhorn pepper
• 12-15 sprigs of cilantro
• 1 large garlic clove
• 1 small onion
• juice of a half a lemon
• Salt to taste

Preparation

1. Chop the tomatoes and onions and add them to a bowl. I chop them coarsely but, depending on your onion tolerability, you may want to chop them finely.
2. Chop the garlic, the pepper(s) and the cilantro finely and add to the onions and tomatoes. Add lemon juice and salt and stir till well blended.
3. For maximum raw onion kick, serve immediately. For maximum flavor blending, let the salsa sit covered overnight in the refrigerator.

Postprandial Notes: I also made a batch of guacamole, substituting a cowhorn for two jalapeños. Here it is slathered all over a freshly grilled burger. Yum.

One morning in late May, I woke up to find that someone had pilfered nearly all the sprigs from my baby thyme bush. All but two of its lovely 12cm springs had been surgically snipped right at the base of the plant. I checked over the other herbs but they had remained untouched – who, I wondered, had so brazenly helped themselves to my thyme?

My answer didn’t come until the next morning when noises outside my window broke my slumber. I sat upright and looked out the window just in time to see a grackle, perched on the edge of the thyme pot, close his beak around one of the remaining two sprigs and give a mighty tug.

“HEY!” I yelled, bolting out of bed towards the door, “Get offa my thyme!”

True to his thuggish nature, he gave me a quick once up and down before flying just far enough away so I couldn’t reach him. We locked eyes in a Mexican standoff – him alighted coolly on a branch, head tilted cockily to the side; me, arms akimbo, hands on hips, glaring from beneath a worried brow. He blinked slowly as if to say, “Eh, I’ll just wait until you go to work.” and flew off.

A little research on wikipedia revealed that male grackles often line their nests with fragrant herbs to attract potential mates. Last year, thyme was the AXE herb of choice for the local grackle population. It turns out that lady grackles grow just as bored with last year’s trends as their human counterparts. The thyme bush has been untouched in 2010 but the mint has been ruthlessly savaged.

So, if you’re stuck with a bunch of thyme on a hot day and want to make a nice refreshing salad that goes with with damn near everything, try this:

Ingredients

• 2 medium ripe tomatoes
• 2 medium-sized or 1 big fat cucumber
• 1 cup of cooked chickpeas, sans juice
• 2 tbsps of lemon juice
• 1 tsp of fresh thyme, chopped fine
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

1. Chop the tomatoes and cucumbers into chickpea-sized bits. Remove thyme leaves from stems and chop finely. Toss in a bowl with lemon juice, salt and pepper. Serve immediately or chilled.

Postprandial Notes: The lemon juice has a nice, light flavor and the thyme gives it a little kick. If you wanted a more mediterranean flavor, you could substitute vinegar for the lemon juice and add a splash of olive oil. Chopped parsley instead of thyme or perhaps half and half with thyme might be a nice addition. Maybe some capers and possibly a few sliced black olives.

Unless, of course, you’re talking about making 7-Layer Bars (thanks, Meagen Ryan!) a prerequisite for a birthday party. That is definitely a lifestyle change everyone should embrace.

The party was definitely Midwestern, all the way from the contributed food & drink – Steve Mandzik’s strawberry, almond leafy greens with vinaigrette, Jenn Bonsall’s homemade marshmallow fruit salad, the aforementioned 7-layer bars, chocolate and lemon cakes, countless sausages and hot/chicken/tofu dogs, buns, and condiments in addition to beer and vodka lemonade courtesy of Matt McNabb – to the the Midwestern cookbook our neighbors brought Wayne as a present.

In addition to literally bringing home the bacon (to wrap the hotdogs in, of course), I committed myself to four dishes: green bean casserole, potato salad, something involving Jello and Kool Whip, and Mac-N-Cheese cupcakes. Here’s my postprandial redux with recipes:

1. Green Bean Casserole

During the research phase, I spoke with a fair amount of Midwesterners and they all agreed that this is pretty standard party food. The basic ingredients – milk, one can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup, and green beans – definitely didn’t stir up as much debate as the topping. When one of my choir mates suggested potato chips for the topping, another looked at her as if she had just suggested topping a California roll with peanut butter. I was intrigued but I do love me some fried onions.

Ingredients

• 1 can Campbell’s Condensed Cream of Mushroom soup
• 4 cups of green beans
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 can of french-friend onions
• salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

1. Cook the green beans and set aside in a strainer. Whisk the soup and milk together until smooth in 1 1/2 qt baking dish. Add the beans and 2/3 cup of the french-fried onions. Bake for 25 mins at 350°F.
2. Sprinkle another 2/3 cup of the french-fried onions evenly over the top of the cooked mixture and bake for another 5 minutes, or until the onions are lightly browned. Best served warm.

2. Potato Salad

I’m kinda picky about my potato salad – I don’t like crunchy stuff in it (unless it’s bacon) and I’m not a huge fan of vinegar. I tend towards things involving dill and some mayo/lemon juice but I was committed to making something Midwestern. I started with this recipe because the author shares the same Germanic/Irish background that Wayne does and ended up modifying it as below.

Ingredients

• 2 lbs red potatoes
• 2 small onions
• 2 cups mayonnaise
• 3 tbs mustard (from a jar, not the spice)
• 1/3 cup cider vinegar
• salt and pepper, to taste

Preparation

1. Boil the potatoes until just done. Set aside to cool and drain. I leave the potato skins on (Cue the voice of my grandmother: “It’s where all the vitamins are!”) but you might feel otherwise. If you really can’t stand the idea of eating potato skins, it is much easier to slip them from their skins AFTER they’ve been cooked. Once cooled, place in a big bowl and break into chunks with a fork.
2. Chop the onions finely. Saute in some oil (or my favorite, bacon grease). Once cooked, turn off the heat and mix thoroughly in a bowl with the mayo, vinegar, and mustard. Coat the potatoes evenly and add salt and pepper to taste. Serve warm. Also tastes great from the fridge

This was hands down my favorite recipe of the day (that I made). Since I expected a couple of vegetarians at the party, I left out bacon but I have plans to make this again with sauteed bacon and onions. Very definite plans.

3. Jello Molds

A couple of years ago, I found an Easter egg mold for Jello and Wayne and I made some striped Jello eggs for his parents one year. It must have left quite an impression because what should I find under the Christmas tree this year but 3 Halloween-themed Jello molds – an anatomically correct heart, brain, and a tray for Jello eyeballs. Spiffy!

Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait until Halloween to use them. I will confess that I didn’t oil the heart mold before pouring in the Jello and ended up completely ripping the first heart in half trying to get it out of the mold. The second one turned out just fine. Definitely go for the jiggler version of Jello instead of the straight up Jello – your body part will hold its shape much better.

The super cheesy part of making a heart and brain Jello mold for Wayne’s birthday was that I got to tell him I love him with all my heart and mind. Awwwww….

4. Mac-n-Cheese Cupcakes

When I went through a big cupcake phase last year, I spotted this this recipe for Mac-N-Cheese cupcakes on Bake and Destroy and filed it away for a rainy birthday. Or a sunny birthday, as it turned out to be. I cheesed out* and went the Jiffy corn muffin mix route due to my demanding pre-birthday preparation schedule but given the feedback, I’d definitely be up for trying them again with a nicer corn muffin base.

Disclaimer: Being allergic to milk, I didn’t have one of these myself. I will say, however, that they didn’t last very long.

*Yes, that was a deliberately bad pun.

It’s a pretty versatile recipe – two years ago, Wayne used it to build a scale model of his parents’ farmhouse in Michigan. Last year, we got ambitious and designed modern art interlocking sculpture cookies. In the middle of July this year, I was struck with a vision of Tetris-shaped gingerbread cookies.

Side Note: I was lucky to have this idea in the middle of July because it gave me exactly 5 months to procrastinate, pretending to look for Tetris cookie cutters online and then 1 week to infect my crack cookiecutter engineering and production team with a nasty stomach bug. Fortunately, it was easy enough to lure unsuspecting cookie production staff to the house with promises of homemade chicken stew, apple cider, sugar cookies, SomaFM’s Xmas in Frisko, and Apples to Apples.

Ingredients

• Dough
• 2 1/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
• 1/4 cup mild-flavored (light) molasses
• Glaze
• 3/4 cup half and half
• 1/3 cup (1 ounce) juniper berries, lightly crushed
• 1 pound powdered sugar
• Assorted decorations (colored sugars, nonpareils, and dragées)

Preparation

1. Whisk first 6 ingredients in medium bowl. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl until fluffy. Beat in molasses. Beat in dry ingredients. Gather dough; divide into 4 pieces. Shape into disks. Wrap; chill at least 2 hours and up to 2 days.
2. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment. Roll out 1 dough disk to 1/8-inch thickness. Using 3 1/2-inch cutter, cut out cookies. Transfer to sheet. Gather scraps; chill.
3. Bake cookies until almost firm in center, 12 minutes. Cool on sheets 2 minutes, then cool on racks. Repeat, using all dough. Store airtight at room temperature up to 3 days or freeze up to 2 weeks.
4. Bring first 2 ingredients to simmer. Cover; chill 5 hours. Strain. Place powdered sugar in bowl. Whisk in half and half by spoonfuls until glaze is spreadable. Frost cookies; decorate. Let stand until glaze sets. Store between sheets of waxed paper in airtight container at room temperature up to 3 days.

Note to self: If you’re going to invite people to a potluck involving chili, be sure to delegate the bringing of chips to one person and one person alone. Otherwise, be prepared to horribly torn between the fatty salty goodness of Fritos and the light crispy goodness of Xochitl.

This meeting was extra fun for 2 reasons: 1. It was at my house. 2. We made playdough.

Or, to be accurate, our fearless leader Kelli Shewmaker made playdough. She had the sneaky idea that playing with playdough would free our subconscious creativity during our planning discussion. And boy was she right! While we made bees, flowers, tiny vegetables, sheep, and things disturbingly shaped like human organs, we had really productive conversations about event scheduling, venue, attendees, website, eventbrite, ticketing, meals, etc. I think we even impressed our newest member who was attending her very first meeting and decided to come again (although it could have just been the excellent food).

Ingredients

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup salt
• 1 cup water
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 2 tablespoons cream of tartar
• food coloring

Preparation

Mix flour, salt and oil in a saucepan on the stove, and slowly add the water. Cook over low heat, stirring until dough becomes stiff. Remove to a plate or wax paper and let cool to a temperature where you can handle it easily. Knead the playdough to desired consistency. Use as is, or divide into balls and add food coloring. Playdough remains pliable for about a day in open air. After a day, it begins to harden and will be completely hardened in 2-3 days.

Preparation Note: Do NOT make playdough shortly before a job interview, fancy dinner party, or anywhere else you might be embarrassed by technicolor rainbow hands. The more deeply you work the dye into the dough, the more deeply it gets worked into your skin.

Wayne: So, if you had to pick just one thing to eat for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Me: Is that like one really specific thing or a genre?
Wayne: Like what?
Me: Meat.
Wayne: What kind of meat?
Me: Yummy meat?
Wayne: You have to pick one thing.
Me: Ok, curry.
Wayne: What kind of curry?
Me: I can’t answer this question. What would you pick?
Wayne: Probably stew because it has vegetables and stuff in it.
Me: What kind of stew?
Wayne:: Beef. With bread.
Me: There’s no bread in stew.
Wayne: And a glass of milk.
Me: Ok, now you’re cheating.
Wayne: Well, you didn’t even answer the question.
Me: As any teacher will tell you, there is definitely a difference between cheating and not answering the question.

I couldn’t pick a fruit I’d want to eat exclusively either – I like too many! The first strawberries of spring, ripe peaches and berries in summer, and bodywarming mikans (aka satsumas, clementines, and tangerines) and pears in winter. Apples would probably be the strongest contender; Honeykrisp, Jonagold, Granny Smith, Fuji – I’ll snarf down pretty much any apple as long it’s not a mealy Macintosh from school lunches of yore.

This is dessert does a good job of accommodating people with food allergies/sensitivities – by default, it is low-sugar as well as egg, wheat and gluten free. You can leave out the sugar entirely or substitute honey for it. You could also also omit the butter and use apple sauce and a bit of vegetable oil instead as well for milk allergic folks.

The quantities in this recipe will fit neatly into 2 IKEA Smarta dishes. Double it for a 9×9 baking dish or triple it for a 13×9 baking dish.

Ingredients

• 2 medium hard apples
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger (or 1 teaspoon dried)
• 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 tablespoon packed dark brown sugar
• water
• 1/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
• pinch of salt
• 2 teaspoons cold unsalted butter, cut into bits

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Peel and core apples. Cut into thin slices and place in a bowl. Grate ginger and add to apples, along with ginger, half the cinnamon, nutmeg and lemon juice. Lay in dishes – the arrangement is up to you. Go for the fancy spiral pattern or try the “leave ‘em where they fall” Jackson Pollock method. Sprinkle with about a teaspoon of water. Place dishes on a baking sheet, place that baking sheet on the center rack of the oven and bake for about 20 minutes, until apples are crisp-tender.
2. Toss oats, remaining half of cinnamon, salt, and sugar in a bowl until combined. Cut the butter into little pieces and mix in – the goal here is to create spice encrusted butter blobs. Sprinkle topping evenly over apples and bake again until a nice golden brown, about 25-30 minutes.
3. Let cool slightly before serving. Keeps well in the fridge for a few days (I can honestly vouch for it keeping well for 2 days after baking. I imagine 3-4 days would also be okay but I can’t keep the researchers out of it long enough to test the data.)

So I decided to make chili. Now, before I get started on a rant about chili and especially the horrendous state of chili in DC, let me just state that 8 years of living in Texas have quite heavily influenced what I expect chili to taste like: rich, dense, layered and spicy. In fact, the spicier, the better.

Obligatory Chili Rant: Apologies to the President but what they serve at Ben’s Chili Bowl is not chili. It’s so far from what chili should be that, if chili got together and had a family reunion, BCB chili would not be allowed in the family picture.

The inspiration for this chili came from this recipe I found on Epicurious – I modified it quite a bit, upping the amount of seasoning, reducing the amount of meat, changing the type of beans and adding mushrooms and soy sauce. (For slightly more hoity-toity variation, you could also use red wine in place of soy sauce or, if you’re feeling particularly boozy, you can omit both the soy sauce and the broth and just use beer.) And, of course, substituting fresh yellow tomatoes for boring ol’ canned red ones.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon cooking oil
• 3 large onions chopped
• 2-3 jalapeños, seeded and chopped
• 1 head of garlic (about 8 small cloves), chopped fine
• 2 pounds ground beef
• 1/2 cup chili powder
• 4 tablespoons ground cumin
• 2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 10-12 baseball-sized yellow tomatoes
• 1/2 pound of brown mushrooms
• 1/2 cup dried pinto beans (or 1 can prepared beans)
• 1/2 cup dried black beans (or 1 can prepared beans)
• 3 cups of beef or chicken broth
• 1 tbsp of soy sauce
• salt and pepper
• favorite toppings: sour cream, grated cheddar cheese, saltines, bread, tortilla chips, chopped cilantro, etc.

Preparation

1. If using dried beans, place beans in a pot and cover with double the amount of water. Bring to a boil and let boil for 5 minutes. Cover, turn down heat to low and simmer until beans are cooked for two hours, checking periodically to check water levels. Add water as needed. Set aside.
2. Chop onions, tomatoes, and mushrooms coarsely. Remove seeds and ribs from jalapeños and chop finely. Peel garlic and chop finely. Heat oil in a sautepan and saute onions until semi-translucent. Add garlic and jalapeños and saute for 2 minutes. Add beef and brown well, breaking up any stubborn clumps with a fork.
3. Throw in tomatoes, mushrooms, beans, spices and broth. Mix thoroughly and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for around an hour, until chili starts to thicken. Ideally, let the chili set for a day before serving to let the flavors chill out and mingle.
4. Serve topped with your favorite stuff.

Postprandial Notes: I actually made both a vegetarian and a meat version of the chili for a Social Justice Camp planning meeting. This round, I merely omitted the meat but in the future, I will increase the amount of mushrooms and probably include kidney beans for greater bean variety.

1. The main ingredient had to be chocolate.
2. It had to be baked in Smarta dishes.

Brownies seemed obvious from the start. I imagined them as little chocolate wheels cut into adorable wedges, served on tiny dishes and possibly sprinkled with powdered sugar or drizzled with caramel. Or perhaps an artful sprinkling of nuts on top.

Side note: Like nuts but live with someone who doesn’t? Put the nuts on top of your baked goods so that, when your nut-hating friend/partner/spouse starts whining about how much they don’t like nuts, you can just scrape them off and add them to your own nut pile. Be sure to follow up with a genuine gesture of gratitude for harmonious brownie ingestion.

I have to say, until embarking on this epic journey, I had NEVER messed up a batch of brownies. But I completely destroyed two batches in figuring out this recipe. The first time, a horribly undercooked gooey mass lurked underneath a gorgeous smooth crust. The second time, after knocking a proffered piece on his desk first, my boyfriend refused to even try to bite into them.

The third time, however, was the charm. When I pulled them from the oven, they had actually puffed up and over the edge of the Smarta but they deflated thereafter into lovely, dense, rich things that I honestly didn’t want to give away. I HOPE YOU APPRECIATE MY SACRIFICE, KELLI SHEWMAKER ;)

I adapted this recipe on Epicurious, mainly modifying amounts specifically for Smarta dishes. Lastly, I decided to call them “wedgies” because of their shape.

Ingredients

• 1 stick unsalted butter
• 3 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup coarsely nuts (walnuts, pecans, etc.)

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease 2 Smarta dishes* with Crisco, butter, etc. and set aside. Place butter and chocolate in a bowl nesting in a saucepan with water. Bring water to a boil and melt slowly, stirring until chocolate & butter mixture is smooth. Set aside to cool.
2. Beat eggs and sugar in large bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in chocolate mixture, vanilla and salt. Add flour and mix until just blended.
3. Notes for nut fans: If you want nuts in your brownies, fold them in and pour batter into greased pans. Alternatively, you can sprinkle the nuts artfully across the surface of the brownies. This greatly diminishes the amount of heretical nut-hating during brownie consumption as nut-haters can easily pick the nuts off the top.

Bake for about 30 minutes, or until knife comes out mostly clean. Let dishes cool down completely before brownie removal. To remove, cut into brownies into 6 tiny adorable wedges and remove gently from the dish. Serve only to the deserving.