Buckwheat Pancakes a la Hodgeson Mill

I'm not sure why, but everyone is afraid of wheat these days. Or, more specifically, the glutens found in it. I don't know what that's all about, but the result of it is more focus on wheat alternatives, like nut meals, quinoa, and buckwheat. I was surprised to find out that buckwheat is not a grain, even though it can be prepared in a similar fashion: boiled and served as a side dish like rice, cooked in milk and eaten with sugar and butter like oatmeal, and made into noodles, pancakes and crepes. The buckwheat bits are actually the seeds of a plant related to rhubarb. And don't quote me on this, but everything I'm reading says that unlike wheat, buckwheat does not cause a spike in blood sugar, and actually helps keep it stable (this is good for diabetics, but also good for non-diabetics who are prone to feeling that sugar crash and reacting by throwing things and/or eating any random junk within reach (I do this. It can't be helped.) It also is said to help lower cholesterol. Here's a link to some nutrition information, too.
I'm not personally afraid of wheat, but when I saw buckwheat flour on sale at my supermarket, with a recipe for pancakes conveniently on the package, I thought I'd try it.
This is what I found:

1. It tastes... like buckwheat. I mean, okay, not a surprise, considering I bought 100% stone ground buckwheat flour, but seriously, it is super buckwheat-y, and the best way I can describe  that is to tell you to imagine slightly-burnt nuts. If you're not used to the taste (do you like soba noodles?) you might want to look into cutting it with some regular flour to get accustomed to it. The nuttiness is delightful, but more might be less if that's what you're into.
2. Happily, being gluten free, it doesn't become tough from too much mixing. For regular pancakes, you're always warned to be careful not to over-mix, because too much working of the batter activates the gluten proteins and this will make your pancakes into hockey pucks, but buckwheat flour doesn't care. The buckwheat flour doesn't even produce a proper runny pancake batter... more of a sticky blob thing, like the beginnings of a pizza dough, only grey. Worry not. You're doing it right.
3. The pancake texture is airy, if a little drier than you're used to with wheat-flour pancakes. My mother suggested making them without sugar and using them like biscuits or English muffins, but we drizzled them with honey (buckwheat honey!) and dolloped them with vanilla yogurt.  

To make about 9 medium pancakes (3 servings) you will need:

1 cup buckwheat flour

1 tsp baking powder

2 Tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg, beaten

1 cup milk (can use 1 cup buttermilk, with 1 tsp baking soda in place of the baking powder)

2 tbsp melted butter.

Mix the dry ingredients together, then mix in the wet ingredients. It will look pretty thick and sticky, but that's fine. Scoop out the batter (the recipe says "pour" but don't kid yourself) with a 1/4 cup scoop onto a greased pan over medium heat. The pancakes will form into their familiar pancake shape after a minute or so, and will cook up the way pancakes do. Flip them once they look right, and let them cook for another minute or two.

I like them with honey and yogurt, but these would be delicious with maple syrup or jam or whatever you like on your pancakes. Maybe peanut butter? Is that weird?

Notes: I used coconut oil instead of melted butter. Not the best idea, since it is solid below 76 degrees F, and on a cold morning, I got big, solid fat lumps in my batter. I'd only do this again on a warm day, when the oil is runny. Just stick with butter.

Also, I had some old yogurt to use up, so I emptied a 5oz container of strawberry yogurt into my cup-measure and topped off with milk to make a full cup. I used baking soda as a leavener, since yogurt works like buttermilk to activate it.

I do want to try my mother's idea and make them without sugar and a bit more leavener, for a biscuit-like griddle cake that can be cut in half and buttered or used to make a sandwich. I'll report back.

salmon and salmon skin chips?

Two words your probably do not want to hear together are "cheap" and "sushi." Yet, one of the few bragging rights of my neighborhood is that cheap sushi is abundant. So much so that a bar on the sushi-restaurant strip has a huge white sign in the window to let obnoxious patrons know that they don't have any. It's so ubiquitous, I guess, that people think they can order a tuna roll with their pint of Bud.
I have a couple of favorite restaurants in the area, and really, I don't want to think about the health implications of eating what is probably sub-par raw fish. The brain parasites have been blissfully dormant so far, and until they stir, I'll be ordering chirashi.

One wonders how far the south Brooklyn sushi purveyors have veered from the traditional Japanese offerings, though. In Tokyo, I'm sure they don't have Moscow, Bagel and Pink Lady rolls on the menus. Salmon skin rolls, too, might be an invention of thrift. They take what would be a waste product, make it tasty, and roll it up and charge you for it. And you're not mad, because it is delicious.
And you can actually enjoy the crisp, fishy flavor at home. Until I realized that, I was just throwing it away...

You start with this:

 

A baked salmon filet. 

(How? Heat oven to 375, smear a baking dish in a high smoke-point oil, like grapeseed, and definitely NOT olive. Lay salmon skin-side down, salt and pepper the salmon generously, squeeze out lemon juice over it, and cover the whole thing in dill fronds. This keeps it from burning as is cooks through and adds some vaguely Scandinavian flavor, maybe. Drizzle with more oil, and bake for 20-ish minutes. You want it to flake gently, so don't overcook. This skill might take a few years if you are me, but a perfectly prepared cut of salmon is such a beautiful thing.)

Now you have some delicious salmon. You cut into it with your spatula, and it magically separates from the squishy, slimy skin. You could eat the skin... or, you know, not, because it's kinda gross. BUT! You can make it delicious. Really, really, delicious. You can FRY it! Just like they do in those places you'd bring a date to.

What you want is a cast iron pan, some salt, and some leftover salmon skin.
If your pan is seasoned, and the salmon skin has some oil from when it was baked, you're good to go. But remember, not olive oil. It really will make a difference.  Between the fatty nature of salmon, and the fact that you oiled it already, you probably will not need additional oil. You may want some salt, though. So sprinkle the skin with salt on both sides.
Step 1: heat the pan. Get it really hot.
Step 2: add the salmon skin. It doesn't have to be one big piece, but not too tiny either, because it will burn.
Step 3: stay clear of the splatter! There will absolutely be splatter. Maybe invest in a mesh screen to cover the pan with. They're a good investment.
When the salmon skin begins to brown and crisp, it should lift easily out of the pan. Turn it over on the other side and let it get crispy, too.
Step 4: remove and lay on a paper towel.

And there you have it.

Use your chips to top a salad.
Or crush them and sprinkle over rice, like furikake (top with a fried egg. Top everything with a fried egg. I'm serious.)
Maybe you want to make a salmon skin roll? That's certainly ambitious.
Or just eat them like chips.

Is this healthy? I don't know. It's fried, you probably frazzled up all the omega-3's. But that salmon filet wasn't cheap, right? And now you've got a way to eat all of it. You have my permission to feel fancy.

 

Thoughts on a Friday (maybe not *about* Friday)

You people with the blogs-- how do you come up with the content of your entries? Do you just sort of spew a stream of consciousness out onto the page, or do you make notes during the day? Inquiring minds want to know.

Per the previous post, I've been mostly pretty good about the lunch thing. I packed lunch all five days this week, and three the week prior. Not too shabby, overall.
Unfortunately, I just finished watching all the (new) Doctor Who that my boyfriend's Netflix account had to offer (do any of you or your boyfriends have a Netflix account with secret Doctor Who episodes? Just thought I'd put it out there.) So I have no idea what to do with myself. I will fill the void with sleep, since I should probably be doing that and don't get nearly enough of it.

On Friday, I get to go home early. On Friday, things are typically low key and not demanding and this time I thought I would get myself home, and, in the spirit of not buying stuff, I thought I would make a bunch of pizza dough. Out of things I already have: Flour, oil, water and yeast. Make a ton! Freeze it! Enjoy pizza night in the near future without needing 3 hours to play with the dough. I made it only once before, my first time baking with yeast, and it turned out pretty well, if a little tough. This time, I told myself, I'd just work the dough a little less. Easy peasy, and I'd throw in a load of laundry (there is a very pretty sundress with a big grease stain on it due to a soup dumpling mis-fire and it needs needs to be saved). But then. The train. I swear, no matter how energized and ready to Do The Things I'm feeling, the train just beats it out of me. Once I get out at my stop I'm all loo-dee-doo... gotta go buy olives and sit around eating all of them and then maybe brush my teeth and go to sleep. If it's 2 in the afternoon, that's irrelevant. Olives. Sleep. Maybe toothpaste.

Can I ask the internet another question?
How do you stay energized?
Do you exercise? (I hate you) Do you drink a quart of OJ a day? (I hate OJ so much) Do you drink a quart of the blood of virgins harvested under a full moon? (Not so into blood or virgins either, but can have a go at this, maybe). Sodas of the brown variety (Pepsi, Coke) used to be amazing at this task, even better than coffee, but those are off the table, and coffee doesn't really energize me so much as keeps the caffeine deprivation headaches at bay ("Maybe you shouldn't drink so much coffee" is NEVER what you say to someone who is wincing and turning away from the morning light. The correct approach is always "You like it with milk, right? I'll be right back.")
I know that "everyone" is "always" "tired" - but is there a way around that? Or am I supposed to wear that nasty red clump of capillaries in my right eye like a badge of honor? Does it say to the world, "I'm doing so much! I can't be bothered to rest or even to purchase Visine." or "Probably, I am hung over" (I'm not, but it's hard to look bloodshot and highbrow. You try it.)

There are things I can do. For example, I can take up jogging in the evenings (Or not, because even the idea of getting up and lacing my shoes is sooo exhausting). I could try to go to sleep at a reasonable hour every night. I could drink a freaky green morning smoothie that's so potent that I'll have the energy to come home and wash the blender! Oh, one can dream. Once can imagine rinsing off kale at 5:30 in the morning. One simply prefers to hit snooze, think "Oh, shit!" and run to the train with one's sandals still undone. One does this often.

My present project is to sound like an articulate human being by not saying the word "like" so much. It's gonna be, such as, challenging.

A good weekend to you lovely lurkey people.


The picture at the top is of the only thing I accomplished today: re-heating Chinese take-out vegetable mei fun noodles, with kim chi and a fried egg on top. Top something with a fried egg in your own life some time soon. Maybe a cat. Delicious.

Due to recent budget constraints, I can't afford to be nice anymore.

I just watched a hefty chunk of the money I have been half-assedly saving all year go down the rabbit hole in the name of bettering my life through education. Before that, I took a 3 day trip to Montreal (yes, thank you, it was lovely. Yes I did see the church where Celine Dion got married. It had linoleum floors.)
Then this weekend I finally got a much needed haircut and a bunch of cute tops (OMG OMG TOPS!)*
So this week, and, actually, all the weeks that come after it, unless there is a very, very good reason, I will be bringing my lunch to work.

Monday's lunch was pierogies with potatoes and cheddar, courtesy of my freezer. You can boil them (fill a pot with water, wait for the water to boil, but them in, wait for it to boil again, uuuggghhhh) OR! You can fry them. Sweet! Just drop the frozen suckers into a hot pan with some oil and then put them in your lunch container. Then ask you mom what she's chewing on and hear her say, "I ate one, and then I realized that they are probably not leftovers. Sorry."

I have some chana masala over rice with steamed broccoli earmarked for Tuesday. Wednesday is white beans in tomato sauce over rice, also with broccol. I cooked a fuck-ton of broccoli.
I am going to win at not spending money on lunch.


Incidentally, can we just talk about how bad I've gotten at being poor? When I was, like, 10 it was super easy. Just wear what your mom tells you, eat what's put in front of you, and watch your Aladdin video again if you're bored. When I was ten I think I'd had a total of two haircuts my entire life (this doesn't seem like it can possibly be right, but I only got a little boy haircut at age 1, and then didn't touch it again except once when my aunt trimmed the ends. You'd think hair that long is all raggedy and damaged on the bottom. Not so. It was luxurious as fuck. I still have it in a box somewhere.)
Now I average a haircut every two months. It costs about $50, which is either cheap or expensive, depending on where you live and how seriously you take that stuff coming out of your head. I love my stylist, I think she does a great job. This winter, just for contrast, I got my hair cut at a random salon in my neighborhood and learned to appreciate her even more. Because she would never make me look like a 12 year old boy with split ends. Plus this Saturday we bonded over our mutual dislike of Rhianna.
So the hair, the hair will have to remain an expenditure. If only to distract people from my tendency to wear clothes from the Old Navy clearance section.
Not that I will buy any more clothes! Even if that dress goes on sale. Even if that dress is so soft and comfy but no I don't need it.

The second hand book habit, also, will be curbed. Because textbooks are expensive and because between my work and my bedroom, I have stacks of unread things that deserve my attention. Among them are myriad cookbooks, and inside those, presumably, are recipes that are delicious, healthy, and don't call for truffles and lobster. Or at least suggest adequate substitutes, like tofu or wood shavings.

Entertainment is super easy when you have no time for it, too. Not counting the odd weeknight episode of Doctor Who, I don't do anything for fun. Except read***, and then forget what I read. (Another fun activity: Trying to Remember WTF You Just Read, and the bonus round- Since You Read So Much, Why Aren't You Smart? Warning: Not actually fun.) Sometimes I scroll through Imgur on my phone and text people cute pictures of kittens and stuff. Then I regret ever spending money on a smartphone. More cute kittens. Repeat. Zzzzz...

As for the beauty regimen (everyone with ovaries and a blog is supposed to talk about theirs, right?): I don't think I have one. My boyfriend ordered some cologne and was mysteriously also sent a tube of Stila HD beauty balm and a green soccer ball (You're so silly, Macy's!). He gave me the balm, and I am in love with it. It's make up for lazy people. Pale, lazy people who can't be bothered to do their makeup, ever, or even remember their face sunscreen most days. Make up for me! I love it. It makes me look 50% less splotchy, and feels like there's nothing on my face. I love it so much that I kept trying to get my friend to wear it in Montreal. "Hey, do you want the balm?... Hey, do you want the balm? Hey, do you want the balm?" Sorry about that.
Eventually that sample will run out, and as will its placebo effect. Then I'll be sad for two days and forget it ever happened. There! I saved $38. So smart.

Actually, since I just plugged the beauty balm, can I tell you about a less sexy, but also really great product? Last Monday I had a tiny cut/tear in the corner of my mouth. This is a bad place for a cut. You'd be surprised how small your big mouth is when you're trying to keep a tear from re-opening. I spent the week rinsing aggressively with salt, but the tear got worse and worse, and it started to hurt, and it looked kinda gross. Possibly this was not a cut? Maybe it was a canker sore. I don't know. I kept ripping it open by accident, like with the jagged edge of a plastic spoon, and it got very angry at me, and got worse. Nothing makes you feel more like a rock star than an open sore in your mouth. On Saturday I had to run an errand at the pharmacy and thought, why not ask the pharmacist? I explained that I wanted something to cover it and keep it from re-opening every time I eat or yawn. She pointed me to the toothache relief section and said she had no idea what to do. But then I found this stuff, and by the next day, it hurt less, and today there's almost no trace of a cut/tear/sore that had been aggitated all week by poorly made disposable cutlery. Seriously, plastic spoon people. That wasn't nice.

So, where was I? Ah yes. I don't remember. Perfect.
But look, if I don't hit "Publish" I will never get around to it again. Do you know how many unfinished drafts I had saved for this blog? Like, several. Maybe four. I need to stop that.
I'll be like that kooky therapist**** who thought that abruptly ending the session was crucial to the patient's therapeutic process, so he would, like, sit them down, and be all, "Hm... so tell me about your childhood" and the patient would be like, "My childhood? Okay. Well, I'm the youngest of three children, and I---"
"STOP! Enough! I will stop you right here. You need to think about this. It's very important you spend some time with this thought you were developing."
"What? But I just--"
"Yes, very important. We were nearing a real, err, introspective moment."
"But doctor I only started tell-"
"Bup Bup! Let that stay with you until our next session. No time to explain now, go see Ms. Tiddlewonker to settle your balance. Thank you!"

I think some people just thougth that guy was an asshole. Ms. Tiddlewonker certainly did. She can also tell you that he was a leg man, and pretended to drop his glasses a lot to take a gander at her gams like ALL THE TIME.






*Also a ravioli press. I have gotten to that point in my life where I buy kitchen gadgets and hide them. Next to the ravioli press, in my closet, is a nonstick cookie sheet. In the basement, there's a food mill. I have Israeli za'atar** in my nightstand and a can of pickled japalenos as a bookend. Problem?
**Did you know that za'atar comes in a bunch of varieties named for different middle eastern regions? I wasn't trying to be political, it just happens that I tried za'atar in Israel and figured it was a safe bet. Turkey, Syria and Iran probably make delicious green-topped flatbread too.
***Presently reading: Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach. Also by her, and recommended, is Stiff, a book about what happens to bodies donated to science, and Bonk, a book in which Mary and her husband agree to have very slow sex in an MRI machine.
****He's an actual real person. I forget his name, though.

You can seriously make a pasta dish out of anything

This is a reassuring though that should follow you home after work and smack you in the face before you decide to melt into your couch and eat a sleeve of crackers for dinner.
I mean, with all seriousness, that you can probably put the crackers into a pasta dish and that will be just dandy.
What I am trying to say is, if you have a box of spaghetti or penne or whatever, and a thing or two in your fridge or pantry (or couch cushions, who am I to assume you follow stereotypical food storage guidelines? They are just guidelines, after all, and you're a creative spirit.)-- then you can have a proper, self-respecting dinner.

Please see Figure A:

Fig. A

The scene was as such: I was tired, I was hungry, the fridge looked sparse. But I did have a stalk of young garlic and penne from the day before. And lo:

The "recipe" is as follows:

1 young garlic shoot

1 serving of penne (or whatever other dry, starchy thing you can boil to doneness)

olive oil

salt

pinch of red pepper flakes

Trim the garlic shoot of tough leaves, then slice into thin rounds (the stalk and the bulb). Heat the olive oil in a pan that will be large enough to accomodate the penne, then throw in the garlic and let sizzle until fragrant. I let mine crisp a little. Add the red pepper flakes, cooked penne and salt to taste. Stir until penne is heated through. Put it in a bowl and dribble some additional olive oil over it.

Optional: Snap a picture and send it to your best friend because sometimes the only way you two communicate is food-related picture messages. She will reply with a shot of garlic stalks just picked from her garden, they will be green and a little bit purple, and they will be beautiful.



resolve

Everyone is getting together some New Year resolutions right about now, and that's fine and well, except it means the gym is going to be crowded because of it.
My resolution has never been to go to the gym more often, specifically because in January, when everyone is delightfully germy, I do not want to touch the treadmills. Actually, I think one of my resolutions this year is to quit the gym. I never go. If I want to be rid of $35 so badly each month, I'm sure I can find a better way. In the meantime I will follow my regular fitness routine of sometimes stretching in the bathroom at work. You laugh, but I can touch my toes. Almost.

So my resolutions for 2012 are as follows:
1. Quit the gym
2. Get more exercise (ha, see what I did there?) Maybe from a yoga DVD I got at the library. I don't care.
3. Drink more water - I hate intaking liquids, I don't know why, but I can probably go a whole day and not notice that I'm thristy and not realize why I don't feel so great. That's a rare occurence, but it needs to never happen.
4. Drink more alcohol - One thing that happens after leaving college is you leave behind your drinking buddies. This isn't a bad thing, because sometimes they were your too-much-drinking buddies, but lately I drink so rarely that my head swims after two glasses of white wine. No more!
5. Use lotion often. Lotion is like lip balm, but for your whole body: it keeps you soft and kissable. Or, more realistically, it keeps you from having annoying itching fits because the weather is drying out your skin. Tediousness is no excuse. Full-body lubings commence!
6. Wear more makeup. I have a ton of it. Let's smear that shit on.
7. Understand technology. As a kid, I was a wiz at fixing the VCR with a fork. I never really progressed beyond this, and I should.
8. Do zany things. Maybe zany isn't the right word, but I mean do stuff like stick Valentines in strangers' mailboxes. Or at least swipe strangers into the transit system with my card. It makes me happy, it saves people $2.25. It can be redeemed for a prize at the Karma Points Counter. Like being a koala in my next life. I would really like that.



There are probably more things, but since resolutions are meant to be kept the whole year, I wanted to keep it small and simple. But maybe just two more things, which I started doing pretty recently, and am resolving to continue doing for at least 12 more months:



8. focus on the positive - I'm amazingly amazing at going down black holes of Everything Is Wrong Oh My God I Hate You/Me/Society/Rocks/Sea Urchins So Much. And when the walls start to Star Wars garbage-compactor on me, I think of the things that I'm grateful for and refuse to trick myself into forgetting them. Because that's what a crap spiral is: temporary selective amnesia. And,
9. Be kind. I haven't shoved past anyone on the train station escalator in months EVEN WHEN THEY STAND RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE. You're welcome, New York City.

Secret Santa

So it looks like the sometimes on, sometimes off block on "blogs and personal sites" at work is off today. So hi :)


This is probably the first year since grade school that I'm involved in a Secret Santa thing. It's at work, the amount is $10, and the person I'm supposed to get a gift for is a complete stranger to me. We say hi to each other in the morning, we talked about what her little boy wore for Halloween, and we wish each other a good night at the end of the day. I think I once told her that the cinnamon bagel she was toasting smelled nice. That's more or less it.
When I was brainstorming gift ideas with another coworker, who grew up in another country (and didn't have Secret Santa gift exchanges, I guess) she said she thought the whole idea was stupid. Her thought is that everyone buys a present, any present, for $10, and wraps it. The presents are then numbered, and everyone picks corresponding numbers out of a hat, and whatever present is labeled with that number, they get that gift. The end.
This idea never occured to me before, but as I shopped around for something reasonably nice for around $10, I realized a few things: (1) There is pretty much NOTHING worthwhile for that price. I'm a little bit obsessive about finding presents, especially for people I am not close to. If it looks cheap, I will not buy it, and unfortunately, $10 items tend to often look like $5 items. And WTF is she going to do with a smallish bag of cashews tied with a plaid ribbon? Or a ceramic ladybug-shaped kitchen jar? One sad tube of lotion from Bath & Body works costs more than $10, and isn't much of a present either, especially if you don't know what scent to choose.
I have a certain scorn for people who smilingly present me with useless doodads (giant yellow rhinestone brooch giver, I'm lookin' at you), and I don't want to be on the receiving end of those feelings. This thing is not supposed to embarrass me. Which brings me to
(2) Knowing which stranger to blame for your shitty present is evil. She's going to open my gift in front of everyone and have to act like it's "nice." In 6th grade we had a Secret Santa thing, and a boy we will call Joey unwrapped a gift from his secret santa, who he discovered to be a girl we will call Erin. The present was terrible. Actually, it was an adjustable plastic crown that blinked and played a dying-battery kind of jingle. It looked like something pre-owned by a toddler. Within a few minutes, Joey and his friends quickly proceeded to press all the buttons, wear it like a wrestling belt, and bash it against things until it broke. Joey was actually a pretty nice kid, but he was visibly disappointed to be stuck with the worst present in the class, and had not yet learned to handle disappointment gracefully. The whole class put down their new fluffy pens and action figures to make "what the fuck?" faces at Erin, and Erin probably never forgave her mom for regifting ostensibly weird shit to the worst possible demographic. Look, if there is a lesson to be learned from all this, it's don't be that mom. And lastly
(3) Someone, right now, is wondering what the shit to buy me. This person does not know me. I can say this because I don't really know anyone here. I'm notoriously bad at telling people what I want for a gift, but I like most things. Unless they're exceptionally stupid. But this person does not know that, so they're probably racking their brains for what not-embarrassing item to get the secretary. Or they're looking around their house for some crap to get rid of.
So the more I think about it, the more I agree with my coworker: buy an item, wrap and number it, no questions asked. That way, when you're standing around the company tree with eveyone and holding up your new chipped Reindeer coffee cup filled with peppermints, you can spare the object of your rage from catching some major bitchface.

Long story short, I bought some preserves. They cost $13, are boxed with a ribbon, and they come sealed in little glasses, so when you are done with the jam you can drink out of them (there are two). I bought preserves because I like preserves, and even if she doesn't, she can regift them (to up to two people!) or dump out the contents and keep the glassware. So what I guess I'm saying is, whoever got my name will be the recipient of more than one dirty look if it is in fact a reindeer mug I end up getting.