Smithy

I was just posting about soups and stews when this popped up! We're on the same page. When it's cold, and the weather as dreary as my mood, I also find soups or stews to be easy comforts as these things go...and as BeeZee points out, easy on the stomach. Easy to eat just a few spoonsful and then save the rest for later. And easy for family to bring, even if they can't duplicate Mom's homemade chicken noodle soup.

I totally lost my appetite also, beginning with when my husband was ailing and then continuing after he died. I found that convenience was the key. I ate a lot of hummus and tabbouli, which were easy to make and lasted well. I usually ate them scooped into tortilla chips. I also bought a rotisserie chicken from time to time and feasted on that. I was lucky in that I had concerned friends but only one came by with food -- a quiche. It was delicious. She was funny and rather apologetic about it: "Now I understand why people bring food," she said. "You want to do something to help but you don't know what, so you bring food!" Still, it took me about a week to eat it. Getting back to the original question: I think the real problem is that they don't. At most they can serve as a distraction. My wonderul favorite aunt might have disagreed with me. She gained a lot of weight with her favorite comfort food -- a whole pint of her favorite ice cream, while watching TV! -- after her husband, one of my favorite uncles, died. But that came back to bite her, because of course she never lost that weight again. And as astute as she was about many things, I suspect she was distracting rather than comforting herself. If I'm going for the distraction I'll do wine, but I know that's no better for me than ice cream! So, knowing that your family wants to do something for you and won't take "no" for an answer, I suggest you ask for things that will keep well in the refrigerator (or freezer) and reheat easily. Think of the grocery money you'll save later! My own personal favorites are chicken and pasta with something salty or savory. If I'm in a mood to mess around in the kitchen and be distracted that way, I'll do something with those that takes time. If I'm not, or if I have friends helping, I'll ask for something easy. I personally would not be above asking someone to drive to the nearest KFC and bring a bucket of mashed potatoes and gravy, but it might depend on how far they had to drive. 🙂 Edited to add: toast with melted cheese, or else a grilled cheese sandwich with some meat along with the cheese, is another easy dish that goes well for me. I've found that one grilled sandwich can provide 2 meals. And yes, to me it's comforting despite what I've just written above.

Thanks, @FrogPrincesse. I've passed your information along. So the lemon bars were more of a success than I'd expected, but I learned a number of lessons on what not to do next time. First, the summary: the flavor of both the crust and the lemon filling / topping were good. I took the extra step of straining the custard before setting it in to bake, so I didn't have the lemon zest interfering with the smooth custard texture. The custard was a bit bubbly, and not the bright yellow I'd have expected: it was more of a dirty daffodil color. I don't know why, but those bubbles probably had something to do with it. Did I overwhisk the filling? I dunno. So between that color and the extra-thick crust, which incidentally was a bit too brown around the edge, the entire assembly didn't look very promising when it came out of the oven. This morning when I pulled it from the refrigerator the custard had cracked! I pressed down on it with a spatula to try to mend those cracks, and saw that the yellow became more intense. That's why I suspect I'd simply aerated the thing too much in the first place. With that very firm and very thick crust, I worried that I really would need the parchment sling that I overlooked, in order to get the stuff out of the pan in one piece. I worked all around the edge with a knife, and then started cutting portions in order to get it out of the pan in serving-sized pieces. This is where the Quality Control taste tests began, of course. The lemon layer didn't adhere very well to the pecan crust layer, as you can see in the lower right of the photo above. Still. That lemon filling is quite lemony and delicious. The pecan crust is pretty good too. This was one of several desserts at a potluck party I attended today. I came back with only a few pieces left. I'll keep some, but as with my previous desserts try to foist most of it off on my landlords and neighbors. And in case you need a refresher, this was a NYTimes recipe for Lemon Bars with Pecan Crust, by Lisa Donovan.

I'm going back a bit here. My best friend, who lives in San Diego, just got back from a trip so I told her about the bread I'd bought and your comments about that bakery. She's delighted that their stuff is in a nearby grocery store, but wonders if you have recommendations on the "more bakery options these days".

@cdh, I was looking for kickstarter campaign discussions and stumbled over this. Your link has disappeared, so I've no idea what the product was called but your description still looks interesting. Did yours ever arrive? What did you think of it?

Well, it looks okay -- paler than I'd expected. When I make lemon curd or a lemon meringue pie the filling is brighter yellow. The proof will be in the pudding, though! Most of the little divots are from my poking to see if it was firm enough to remove from the oven. The one in the upper right is self-made. I'll be curious to see what happened there.

It's now in the oven. I see, now that it's too late, that I was supposed to not only grease the pan (which I did) but also put down a piece of parchment to use as a sling to lift it later! Ah well, it'll be an adventure. One instruction the recipe doesn't include but I did anyway was to strain the custard as I poured it atop the crust. In general, I don't like the texture of lemon zest. Maybe if I used a finer grater I wouldn't mind, but my microplane leaves detectable strips. The batter tastes good, though. On to my next batch of cleanup! Look at the garbage bag! (Okay, the watermelon rinds are from lunch, and the water bottles are to keep from dehydrating.)

I fear this particular recipe will be more trouble than it's worth, given the equipment (and room) I have. So far, here's the cleanup debris from making the crust. The recipe is for a 9x13 pan, and the 9x9 Corningware baking dish I bought last week is the biggest thing I have. I probably should have scaled it down, or found a second pan for a smaller batch. An additional issue is that my handheld wand blender isn't really good for creaming butter and sugar. It ground my toasted pecans nicely, and it's about to whisk the eggs for my lemon curd. I have no doubts about its ability to handle that job. However, it's woefully inadequate for mixing the dough. I tried the chopper blade and the whisk. Below, you see what I had to work with for patting into the pan, and you see the baked crust. That crust was pretty puffy. I used a flat spatula to compress it a bit, based on comments that the crust as written tended to develop holes and leak the filling down to the bottom. Assuming I keep traveling like this, I'll make a point of packing my handheld mixer. Sure, I could buy another -- but there's one sitting at home. I'll just avoid recipes that need it for the remainder of the trip. More updates later!

Only one small jar's worth, no doubt set aside in case I get tea-drinking company. I did check! 🤣

I also thank you for the reminder. That cookbook is one of a half-dozen that I have with me right now. I should check out LGD again and see whether it's a better use than what I'd intended for the herbs in my refrigerator.

The best has been when we had a house-sitter who paid enough attention to the mail to suspect when something important had come in. These days, it's a neighbor who kindly collects the mail and boxes it all securely. When there's a full box, or when I ask because I'm expecting something important, she sends it along. Most postal areas offer General Delivery, in which mail can be sent to them and they'll hold it for pickup. You have to go online to look at services offered for a particular Post Office, or else do a search on General Delivery to see who offers it in your area. That only officially works for 30 days out of any given year, though. Once we began staying in one spot longer, we rented a Post Office box. It's an excellent service, and IMO a bargain. Over the years we've also had the box of mail, or packages, sent to friends or family where we planned to visit. There have been occasions when that meant staying longer than anyone had intended until said package arrived, but I don't think we've ever worn out our welcome. 🙂 The Aji Amarilla paste that just arrived would have been problematic if I'd camping someplace with a 7-day limit!

It's also a Southern US relish. My father used to reminisce about his mother making chow chow with their end-of-season green tomatoes. That was in California, but she had grown up in Oklahoma and Tennessee. I never found her recipe, though; and Dad could never remember much detail except that he'd liked it.

Today felt like a molasses day, and not in a good way. I can't blame the weather. It was pleasant: not too cool, not too warm; I left the windows open all day and was rewarded with nice breezes. I can't blame the conveniences of being here: water, sewer hookup, electricity. I'm using them all in abundance, in ways that I wouldn't if I were boondocking. Why, with all these greens I'm washing, you'd think I was living somewhere with plenty of water! Grump factor 1: I can partly blame wading through the latest batch of mail, and starting to sort through my tax records. I had plenty of time to work on them today, and plenty of pleasant news in the mail. The taxes aren't likely to be terrible, but they're about my least favorite thing in the world to work on. I am prone to throwing "tax related" things loosely into a folder, willy-nilly. Eventually it all has to be sorted. Do I change my ways and impose some sort of order as I go? Well, I haven't yet. Grump factor 2: the night before last I realized I'd run myself out of coffee, and had only half a cup yesterday morning. So yesterday after doing laundry, I made a trip to the grocery store for coffee; the salad greens you see above; the ingredients I'll need for the Aji de Gallina, now that the Aji Amarilla paste has finally arrived; and pet supplies that ran the ticket up past reasonable. Then, today, I realized that I'd need to go to the grocery store AGAIN in order to make those lemon bars. It doesn't matter which recipe I choose; I'll need sugar and butter. So, another trip to the grocery store. I wanted a small bag of sugar, and was rewarded with the "easy pour" boxes that they're discontinuing. Okay, 4 lbs is more than I'd wanted to buy, but I shouldn't need to get any more this trip. I hadn't been pleased with my attempt at pulverizing sugar enough to powder it, so I gave in and bought powdered sugar. I had these choices: and then spotted this smaller bag of powdered sugar that doesn't contain cornstarch. It, er, has tapioca starch instead. I'll be interested to see how it behaves. Gratitude check: I should not allow those grump factors above get me down. I'm grateful for leisure and health to do this sort of things, and money enough to do them although I'm hardly rich. But I've really had to struggle to feel gratitude today. Gratuitous desert tracks, that I enjoyed spotting. Wouldn't this make a nice embroidery pattern? And finally, I'm grateful for leftovers...or planned-overs, as Anna N would have called them. I got home from the grocery store with too little time or energy to cook. I still have a bit of this panade left over after tonight, and I have the ingredients already prepped for another entire batch. When exactly I'll get around to making the enchiladas, or aji de gallina, or bacon-wrapped asparagus before the asparagus goes off, is anyone's guess. But tomorrow, by golly, I'll be making those lemon bars!

Chow chow?

Breakfast, part the first: Plain keffir, mixed with the best juice I could find here... The last juice I had was either apricot or mango, no added sugar, quite delicious. I haven't been able to find it here. Last night I received an invitation to a pot luck and music jam session on Monday afternoon. I thought hard about what to bring -- salads are obvious and easy, but maybe I should bring a dessert? I've discovered that my landlords have sweet tooths -- he especially -- and that she hasn't been up for much baking or cooking lately. If I bake something sweet I can save some for them. Besides, I scored a bunch of lemons a couple of weekends ago at the music festival. I really ought to do something with them. Back in the Good Old Days, by now we'd have had coolers full of citrus from my original home, and I'd have been making gelatins and soups and fruits salads and heaven knows what else...as well as simply drinking their juice or eating them out of hand. Now, I don't have that ready access and that may be the reason I've been hoarding them. It could also have been apathy on my part. At any rate, I opened the bag and discovered... ...already, the dreaded citrus mold has set in. How could I not have smelled it? Age? Apathy? Doing my best to ignore my surroundings? I dunno. But I didn't smell it until I opened the bag. Fortunately it was just the one lemon. Here's what's left, having been thoroughly washed, rinsed, and allowed to dry. Plenty for what I intend: lemon bars. I have two three candidates, both all from the New York Times. I've loaded up the unlocked articles. Which do you think looks better? Lemon Bars with Pecan Crust, by Lisa Donovan Lemon Bars with Olive Oil and Sea Salt, by Melissa Clark Lemon Bars, by Genevieve Ko I'm leaning toward the Pecan Crust version but haven't decided yet. Comments, please! I said I've been doing my best to ignore my surroundings. It's been hot here -- too darned hot for my comfort -- but today it's started to cool off to something civilized, and that makes it easier for me to appreciate the possibilities of the area. At the moment it's 67F and it's only supposed to go up to 81F today. Maybe I can keep the windows open and air conditioner off. The nearby undeveloped area of desert sand and dunes is always good for exploring on foot. Today I was treated to this display of what loose brush and wind can do to fine sand: