h o m e * e c o n o m i c s

on my list

I'm really not into the word "veggie." It's right up there with "foodie" and describing desserts as "sinful" on my list of irritating things. Maybe I feel that calling vegetables "veggies" assumes that we're all stubborn children
who must be coaxed into eating them, and I think that's a bad assumption to start from.

Have you noticed that French people speaking English use the word "veggie" almost to the exclusion of "vegetable"? I would really like to know if the standard English textbook for French schoolchildren makes a big deal about this little word.

That is all.

an obama supporter bakes hillary clinton's cat cora's snickerdoodles

Politics has been big in this apartment for the last two months. Maybe I should say instead “bigger than ever,” since it isn’t as if Andrew stopped paying attention between 2004 and now. He reads newspapers and political blogs as hungrily as I read food blogs, craft blogs, cookbooks, and Vogue*, which is good news for me because I effortlessly end up with something in my head other than food blogs, craft blogs, cookbooks, and Vogue: since last summer, he has routinely turned to me with excitement to share the latest national poll results or a graph about the shifting borders of congressional districts in Texas. Besides offering these statistical treasures, he’s also like my personal news digest. 

It’s a good thing we both support Barack Obama, because I have a feeling there would be trouble in the nest if we disagreed. (As the situation stands, the only domestic trouble I predict for us with regard to this election is that we are expecting our first child in early September. I have already warned Andrew that there will be problems if he is more interested in the run-up to November than he is in our baby!) Since at least 2004 I have believed that Hillary Clinton is unelectable. It isn’t very fair, and it isn’t 100% her fault, but it is, I think, true. And it isn’t because she’s a woman; it’s because she’s the woman she is, and a Clinton to boot. As a woman who feels no burning need to see a woman in the White House—it will happen, and why not to a woman who does not count “experience as First Lady” among her top qualifications for the office?—I’ve been surprised by the number of women who do yearn for this validation. Many women my age (30) simply seem to think it would be a good idea; many women my mother’s age seem downright angry that this first serious opportunity might not pan out. It’s made me question my experience as a woman in our society, and frankly it has made me very uncomfortable. I’m still working on it. But today, thanks in large part to the work done by women Clinton’s age, I definitely can’t think of white women who went to top schools as a significantly disadvantaged cohort.

The other great divide that has caused me discomfort is between Democrats who believe Republicans must be crushed and Democrats who believe their opponents must be lured into cooperation by sensible policies. The former group scoffs at the naïve idea that Republicans will ever cooperate; I think it’s naïve to count on vanquishing the Republicans, a feat whose means of accomplishment have eluded Democrats during my entire adult life. It definitely won’t be accomplished if the next Democratic president is elected with a slim margin and without a Democratic congress, as I believe would be the case if Clinton did manage to win. What’s more, I’m not convinced that she is significantly more experienced and effective than Obama, who has not exactly been at home giving teas and baking cookies. Her vote to authorize the war in Iraq is, as far as I’m concerned, unforgivable. (Yes, I felt this way at the time, too.) It shows poor judgment and reveals her to be calculating. Like you, I realized in high school philosophy class that all politicians are self-interested and calculating; but if their calculations end up hurting not just their constituents but also themselves and their own political prospects, that’s some pretty poor reckoning. With the judgment she has shown she would make America’s muddle worse; he would help Americans see the ways that they themselves can contribute to making it better. That’s why it’s so irritating when people claim he asks nothing of his supporters and just promises them magic. I don’t know whether he can deliver (because we don’t know whether any of these people would be able to deliver on their promises once elected), but at least he is willing to try a better way.

This is all by way of saying that yesterday after seeing Hillary Clinton’s Cat Cora’s Snickerdoodles on her campaign website (via Gawker), I couldn’t resist making them. In a short clip on Thursday night’s David Letterman Clinton announced the presence of the recipe on her website; the whole thing was very weird. I’m sure it was supposed to be lighthearted and self-deprecating, but I thought it rather leaden. Why would Hillary Clinton bring up cookies again, when they’re sure to stir up many of the sentiments that make people uncomfortable with her—whether you’re a homemaker insulted by the tea-and-cookies comment or a feminist irritated by the fact that she had to provide a chocolate chip cookie recipe to prove her suitability as First Lady? And I’m dying to know how Iron Chef Cat Cora got involved—is she a big Hillary supporter? Did the campaign decide to do the Letterman bit and then assign someone, “Quick, call Cat Cora, we need a cookie recipe!”

Anyway, the cookies were good. I don't think it would be very sporting of me to repost the recipe here after trying to make the case against her, but you can find it on HRC's campaign website.

*Disclaimer: I read some other stuff, too, just less devotedly than Andrew.

something new for midwinter: lemony mustard greens

Not mustard greens. The title of this picture is, "The summer I effortlessly lost 5 or more pounds because my CSA's flooded-out farmer could grow nothing but lettuce and greens."

A couple of weeks ago, I found a new way to cook greens, thank goodness. Somewhere along the line I learned to wilt anything semi-sturdy and green and sauté it in olive oil with garlic and red pepper flakes. It’s a delicious method, of course, but I think it’s safe to say that I have been in a rut with it since mid-2004.

Mustard greens, in my experience, don’t take as well to my standard treatment, inspiring me to unearth some alternative recipes for them over the years. Unfortunately, given my lack of discipline in keeping a kitchen notebook (or notebook of any kind), I have no idea what they were. (Seriously, this kills me. Do you at least scribble in your cookbooks? I always resolve to do it and then get lazy, with irritating consequences. For instance, recently I saw a recipe for white beans with gorgonzola in the Dean & Deluca Cookbook. The authors make big claims for it, and I know that at some point in the last few years it was on my list. But did I ever make it? Who knows? I either made it and was not impressed or got distracted and forgot all about it, since my “to-cook” list is also a pretty casual affair.) Earlier this month when I tried something new and wonderful with mustard greens, I promised myself not to fail to write it down. This is in keeping with my usual experience of the first three months of the year: January is for relaxing and nesting, February is for getting your act together and keeping resolutions, and March is for starting to exercise again, not so much because spring’s bare arms are approaching but because by March you need those endorphins.

Anyway: mustard greens with rice, adapted from the recipe for spinach with rice in Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian, the cookbook that (almost) never lets me down. I love the bright lemony flavor of this dish, especially with a spoonful of yogurt stirred in at the end: it’s quite different from my spicy-garlicky-oily greens. As the author points out, this is mostly greens; the rice is only there to thicken and bind the cooking liquid, so don’t expect a big bowl of greens and rice. This served 2 as a side dish.

If your bunch of mustard greens (about 3/4 pounds, at least at Whole Foods) is attached at the base, separate the leaves and wash well. Bring 6 cups water to a rolling boil and drop in the greens. Cook until just wilted, 2-5 minutes (check at 2 minutes). Drain and rinse with cold water; leave in a colander to drain as much as possible.

Put 2 cups water in a wide pot and bring to a boil. Add 6 scallions, cut crosswise into fine rings all the way up to the green section, 2 or 3 tablespoons olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 3 tablespoons Arborio (or other medium-grain) rice. Cook over medium-high, stirring now and then, for 10-12 minutes, until the rice is just done and the liquid in the pot has become a thick little sauce. Add the drained greens and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Stir and cook 2-3 minutes. Stir in 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice and serve hot, adding more lemon juice as desired. I like almost anything better with a spoonful of plain yogurt stirred in, and this is no exception.

bittersweet chocolate truffles

I feel weird about Valentine’s Day. Most people seem to hate it when they’re single and love it when they’re in a relationship, but I’m the opposite. When I was a little girl, I really loved making Valentines, and my mother always gave us sweet presents in the morning before school. When I was a bigger girl and single, it seemed like a fine occasion to wear red or pink and drink margaritas with my friends. But when I’ve been in relationships (and now that I’m married) it just feels weirdly forced and inevitably disappointing. I don’t really want to celebrate it (and goodness knows Andrew doesn’t want to celebrate it), but I end up feeling cheated when we don’t. For some reason I can’t just pretend it isn’t going on. My most passive aggressive self emerges, and everyone has an unpleasant evening. I’m not proud of it, but there it is.

I decided to try to avoid the ordeal this year by making chocolate truffles. I’d get to make something I’d never made before, Andrew would get the chocolate dessert he claims I never make him, and it would feel celebratory in a low-key, at-home way. My reserves of bitterness prevented events from unfolding quite so smoothly (sorry, patient husband!), but—the truffles were very good, and I look forward to making them again. When I do, I will make them much smaller—I think I’d prefer them the size of two small bites—and might experiment with different flavors. They are much easier than pie and one of the nicest textures you could hope to sink your teeth into, a more voluptuous shot of pure chocolate than you get from a shattery bar.

Chocolate Truffles
Makes 20 truffles (or 36 small truffles, the size I would prefer)

This is Ina Garten’s recipe from Barefoot in Paris. I made a few adaptations: she uses half bittersweet chocolate and half semisweet, but I used all Valrhona 70% Guanaja. And she includes Grand Marnier and coffee, but I skipped them because I wanted very straightforward chocolate flavor (I increased the amount of cream, in case more liquid was necessary, which seemed to work out fine).

Chop finely and put in a bowl 7 ounces good bittersweet chocolate.

Heat 1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons cream in a small saucepan until it boils. Immediately pour the hot cream through a fine strainer into the bowl of chocolate. Use a wire whisk to stir the cream and chocolate until the chocolate is completely melted. (If the chocolate doesn’t melt completely—mine did—put the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and stir just until it melts.) Whisk in 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract. Cover and chill 45 minutes to an hour, until pliable but firm enough to scoop.

With 2 teaspoons or a 1 1/4 inch ice cream scoop, make dollops of the chocolate mixture on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. (When I do this again, I’d like to use a 3/4 inch ice cream scoop or melon baller.) Refrigerate for about 15 minutes, until firm enough to roll into rough spheres (I waited 30 minutes, which was a mistake—the dollops were too hard to roll; it wasn’t a disaster, but I would have preferred spheres to lumps). Roll the spheres in cocoa powder and chill.

Ina says truffles are best when they’re allowed to set overnight in the refrigerator, but they are also pretty good right away. If you like, roll in powdered sugar before serving. Serve chilled or at room temperature. I think they’re best about 15 minutes out of the refrigerator, still cool but a little softened.

whole-wheat oatmeal pancakes

I didn't realize today was Pancake Day until too late! And somehow I missed Popcorn Day last month. This sucks. What next, I miss Pound Cake Day and Chile con Queso Day?

I guess I still have time to tell you that a couple of weeks ago I tried the whole-wheat oatmeal pancakes in the February Gourmet, and I loved them. Usually novelty pancakes end up disappointing me (I'm a plain buttermilk pancake girl, no syrup, just butter), but I thought these were like the pancake version of an oatmeal cookie. I made one tiny change to the recipe--since I planned to eat them on a weekday morning, I mixed the batter the night before and refrigerated overnight. So I didn't bother to soak the oats in buttermilk (in fact, I use powdered buttermilk), and I used regular old old-fashioned rolled oats instead of quick-cooking. If I didn't already have a dinner planned, this is what we would be eating as we watch the primary returns roll in.

pork enchiladas

I’ve been so quiet here not because I intend to disappear from the internet for two years again but because I’ve started posting at Serious Eats, which is fun but is taking up the lion’s share of my blogging energy. I had, for instance, long been meaning to write here about The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook and how much I love it, and more specifically about the Oven BBQed Pork Picnic Shoulder. But I ended up posting it on Serious Eats first, as a recipe for pork tacos, which are so very good. I hinted there that the pulled pork makes excellent enchiladas, too, and I made them again this weekend to remind myself.

The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook has a recipe for easy chicken enchiladas that lends itself to endless modification. So far almost every variation I’ve tried has been really delicious, though most of them won’t win any prizes for authenticity. Here I’ve substituted pulled pork for cooked, shredded chicken and tomatillo salsa for enchilada sauce. Sometimes I only use two cups of meat, or one cup of meat and one of beans, or two cups of roasted vegetables and no meat at all. Frequently I use a lot less cheese, but since I made this for Saturday night dinner this week I decided to go for it. Boy—I had forgotten how good it is with all the meat and all the cheese. I could eat this for dinner three nights a week and not complain.

Pork Enchiladas
serves 4-6

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and make sure a rack is in the middle position. In a bowl combine 3 cups shredded cooked pork, 2 cups of grated Monterey jack cheese, 1/2 cup tomatillo salsa (I use store-bought from Whole Foods unless tomatillos are in season), one 4-ounce can chopped green chiles, and 1/2 cup chopped cilantro. Season with salt and pepper and stir well to combine evenly.

Stack twelve 6-inch corn tortillas (again, I just use Whole Foods brand…nothing special) on a plate, cover with plastic wrap, and microwave until warm and soft, 40-60 seconds.

Lightly spray a 9x13 inch baking dish with vegetable oil. Fill each warm tortilla with 1/3 cup of the meat mixture; roll tightly and place in the baking dish, seam side down. When the dish is full of enchiladas, spray them lightly with the vegetable oil spray. Pour 1 cup tomatillo salsa all over them, making sure it is evenly spread. Sprinkle with 1 more cup Monterey jack. Cover with aluminum foil and bake until heated through, 20-25 minutes.

Remove the foil and bake about 5 minutes more, until the cheese browns.

chocolate pound cake

This is a little picture I like to call “Pound cake don’t last long ‘round here.” 

In the first few days of the year I took my good intentions to Fairway and bought millet, quinoa, kasha, and wheatberries. Forsaking easy and delicious white rice and white bread, I was finally going to start eating more whole grains. Quinoa and wheatberries I love; kasha I like when it’s properly cooked, which is not always in my kitchen; and millet—well, I’ve only tried it once so far, and it wasn’t love at first bite. But I had decided to do this thing, and I moved the new sides into the rotation, where they were greeted as a sneaky punishment.

Two Fridays ago, Andrew came home from work and asked, “What’s for dinner?” “Sweet potatoes, broccoli, and millet, or we can go out.” We went out for hamburgers.

Last Friday, Andrew came home from work and asked, “What’s for dinner?” “Chard and kasha with mushrooms, or we can go out.” Convinced now that whole grains were just my way of forcing him to take me out to dinner, Andrew braved the kasha and chard but demanded a treat in return. How could I say no?

Chocolate Bread (Chocolate Pound Cake)

I don’t make pound cake very often because I love it not wisely but too well. I feel as if I am increasing the sum total of delight in the universe every time I enjoy a slice, and how can I resist that? This is Rose Levy Beranbaum’s recipe from The Cake Bible, which I have had since I was a little girl. Then I preferred Sara Lee pound cake to homemade, but I’ve come a long way in the last decade or two! Though I had to make a few adjustments according to what I had on hand, this turned out to be a lovely cake, incredibly tender, light but also good and chocolatey; Andrew said it was like a grown-up chocolate cake. We took it down in 48 hours.

Preheat oven to 350. In a medium bowl, whisk together until smooth 3 tablespoons boiling water and 3 tablespoons plus 1.5 teaspoons (.75 ounces) unsweetened cocoa. (She calls for Dutch-processed, but I had on hand only non-Dutched, and it was fine.) Allow to cool to room temp and then whisk in 1.5 teaspoons vanilla and 3 large eggs.

Combine in a large mixing bowl 1.25 cups (4.5 ounces) cake flour, .75 cup plus 2 tablespoons (6 ounces) sugar, .75 teaspoon baking powder, and .25 teaspoon salt. (If you don’t have cake flour, measure the same amount of all purpose flour but replace 2 tablespoons of it with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch.) Mix on low speed for 30 seconds to blend everything evenly. Add half of the chocolate mixture and 13 tablespoons of softened butter and mix on low speed until the dry ingredients are moistened. (I only had 10 tbs butter, so I added all of that plus 3 tbs vegetable oil, and the cake was still delightful.) Then beat on medium (in a stand mixer) or high (with a handheld mixer) for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides and add the rest of the chocolate-egg mixture in 2 batches, beating for 20 seconds after each addition.

Grease and flour a loaf pan; line the bottom with parchment paper and grease and flour that, too, for best results. You’re supposed to use an 8x4 inch loaf pan and bake for 50-60 minutes, but my loaf pan is 10x5. I just began checking for doneness at 30 minutes, and I think I took it out at about 40. (Every time I think I have mastered the skill of just figuring out when a cake is done, I have some mishap—overdone or raw in the middle—but this time I lucked out, and it was perfect. I took the cake out when a piece of spaghetti plunged into its heart came out looking wet but not chocolatey.) Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 10 minutes.

blackeyed peas and greens

(This is like one of those medieval pictures in which subjects are sized not according to the laws of perspective but instead according to their importance in the world; blackeyed peas and greens have been dominating my diet for the last few days.)

Here we are, January 5th--I tend to get a slow start on the New Year. I think a lot about resolutions but rarely make them in any formal way, and in New York they leave many of the Christmas decorations up well into the second week of December, making it easy to pretend that the holiday hasn’t yet tiptoed away. By the time you look up and realize that everything is dark and cold instead of twinkly and hectic, it’s practically February, at which point you can either start looking forward to spring or cozy up under your comforter to hibernate.

On New Year’s Day I make a pot of blackeyed peas and greens so big that it feeds me for a few days. (Andrew doesn’t share my love of beans & greens and so eats only the spoonful I forcefeed him for good luck.) Maybe this, too, slows down my return to reality after the holidays—if I eat my January 1 food over and over, I stay in that hopeful, celebratory, fresh-start state. Until, that is, I realize that the amount of good fortune in the Tupperware is barely diminishing even though I’ve been eating it for lunch and dinner every day, and maybe sometimes for breakfast, too. And so, though I love blackeyed peas and greens very much, so much that I occasionally make them on non-new-year’s occasions, my resolution for 2008 is to make a smaller batch of blackeyed peas and greens to welcome 2009. They don’t freeze well (the texture is all off), and I hate to start the new year by tossing out food. Future Robin, take heed!

(Here are blackeyed peas and kale sitting on top of my get-organized scribbling for January 2, with one of the beautiful French napkins my mother gave me for Christmas...yes, I work at home and my sofa is my office!)

Blackeyed Peas and Kale

Usually I make this dish with lots of bacon, but this year I served it with delicious pulled pork tacos and macaroni and cheese and figured I should ease up on the pig fat. This recipe is adapted from Madhur Jaffrey's Cypriot Blackeyed Peas with Swiss Chard in World Vegetarian, an indispensable cookbook. Try it out, but for goodness sake, CUT THE RECIPE IN HALF unless you are feeding 12 enthusiastic vegetarians. It's good and a little soupy by itself but also especially satisfying with brown rice.

Put 1 bag rinsed-and-picked-over blackeyed peas (just over 2 cups) in a saucepan with water to cover. Bring to a boil, boil hard 2 minutes, remove from heat, and cover. Two hours later, drain the blackeyed peas, cover with seven cups water, and bring to a simmer. Cover partially, turn the heat to low, and cook very gently for 40 minutes, or until the peas are tender (my peas were tender after about 20 minutes, so check as you cook).

Meantime, wash 2 bunches kale. Remove the tough center stems and roughly chop the leaves however you like. When the blackeyed peas are tender, add the greens to the pot with 2 teaspoons salt. Stir the greens in completely and bring back to a boil; then turn heat to low, cover, and cook 30 minutes more (again, check after 20 minutes or so to see if the greens are tender enough to eat; you don't want the blackeyed peas to fall completely apart).

When it's time to serve the blackeyed peas and greens, make a tiganissi (fried garnish): Heat 3 tbs olive oil in a small skillet over medium high. When it is hot, add a dried chile and stir for 5 seconds. When it turns dark (much longer than 5 seconds for me--maybe 30) add 1 small onion, finely chopped, and 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped; cook, stirring, until the onion and garlic are beginning to turn brown at the edges. Immediately pour the contents of the skillet over the blackeyed peas and greens; add a big squeeze of lemon juice, stir, and serve.

cinnamon sugar palmiers: do it!

"It is hard to describe how sublime homemade palmiers are," Jane Daniels Lear writes in this month's Gourmet. Even more than the tantalizing pictures, this sentence convinced me that I had to make these palmiers, and soon; if J.D.L. wasn't even going to try to render their tastiness in words, they had to be pretty good. Besides, I had been wanting to try my hand at puff pastry (ok, modified, easier, less time consuming puff pastry) for a while.

"Do you like a recipe that you have to get out the ruler for?" Andrew teased; yes, yes I do. I had a lot of work to do on Sunday, and I found that I enjoyed the rhythm of going back and forth between the work and the pastry: work for an hour, roll out dough, chill; pay bills and deal with paperwork for an hour, roll out dough, chill; make dinner for an hour, roll out dough, chill; it went by pretty quickly. I really am a pastry chef at heart. There were a few hairy moments with folding sticky dough, but thanks to my silicone mat and my pastry scraper everything came out fine.

It's extremely gratifying to see the crumbly flour-butter-salt-water that you worried wouldn't come together turn into a smooth (and strangely elastic?) sheet of dough. It's even more gratifying to peek into the oven and see that the unpromisingly skinny little dough slivers with which you populated a cookie sheet have puffed up into hearts, just as they should.

A school of palmiers, just out of the oven. This is the first batch, which got a little burned but still tasted mighty fine. I had gotten the hang of it by the second batch but had also lost my patience with food photography!

Here is the recipe. I didn't tweak it at all, and my only complaint is that it's not fun to grate frozen butter. (I wonder if you could put the dry ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and grate the frozen butter in with the grating attachment without spoiling the texture of the dough? It would definitely be faster, so more butter would be more frozen when it hit the flour, surely a good thing.) I'm pretty sure my puff pastry wasn't perfect, but it was fantastic nonetheless. These cookies have a wonderfully pure butter-cinnamon-caramel taste that is not overwhelmingly sweet. (Wondering whether my fondness for butter and cinnamon sugar could be more easily stoked, I made cinnamon toast with some of the leftover cinnamon sugar, half expecting it to be just about as good as the palmiers. Silly girl. No comparison at all.) A good chunk of the pleasure of eating them is their texture; something about their light crunch invites compulsive eating because you (ok, I) want to experience that firm flakiness over and over again.

I know this close-up is blurry, but seriously, imagine sinking your teeth into those layers. Homemade palmiers, you and I will meet again.

Even though I made these not for Christmas but for my own greedy self, I'm sharing them virtually witih Food Blogga for her amazing Christmas cookie roundup. They'd make a terrific addition to any Christmas cookie plate or package (and for some reason I am obsessed with the idea of serving them with ice cream...maybe a good holiday dessert for those of you in warm places). Thanks, Food Blogga!

Two other things I am excited about: the Wintermarket downtown (via wonderful Manhattan User's Guide). And TasteBook (via wonderful Heidi). I have been wanting to figure out how to organize all my recipes in an internet-accessible way, and TasteBook seems perfect, though I am worried there is something I'm not getting about it (am I going to be required to order a book at some point?). I got started last night. That is all.

Bread

Last week Not Martha posted about her experiences with Cook's Illustrated's "No-Knead Bread 2.0" (the recipe is buried in the comments for a different post). I can't wait to try this. I didn't make the famous bread myself until this summer, but I've made it many times since. The dough has looked different every time, and when it's especially wet and slippy, I worry that it won't work out. One time I realized after the 18 hour rest that I had absentmindedly added about 1/2 cup too much water, and I worried that it wouldn't work out. But it has always been delicious. I know you all know, but it's like magic.

When I was in grade school my mom and I would bake soft, delicious bread in a teddy bear shape, so I'm not sure why adult-me has been spooked by yeasted breads until now. Inspired again by Not Martha, who drew her inspiration from the Amateur Gourmet, last month I finally baked Nigel Slater's Really Good and Very Easy White Loaf from Appetite, a recipe I had eyed longingly for years. It's true--it's really good and very easy. I cut the recipe in half, which makes a loaf about the size of the one yielded by the no-knead recipe. Its crumb is denser and whiter than no-knead bread; I think it would be better for sandwiches, and I can tell you that it makes amazing toast. I made it again for my family after Thanksgiving, and they seemed gratifyingly impressed.

Newly cocky, last week I tried the focaccia recipe in The Art of Simple Food. It revealed that my baking skills are, alas, not terribly advanced. I probably didn't let the yeast-water-rye flour sponge get bubbly enough. Then the dough felt all wrong from the start, tough and rubbery. I should have added some water when the flour sucked the initial allotment right up, but I wasn't confident enough to fiddle with the recipe. Once baked the focaccia was not pillowy and tender; it was, like the dough, tough and a little dry. On the third or fourth bite I realized what it reminded me of: bad pizza crust. (To make matters worse, I had tried to roast kale in the oven as the focaccia cooled; Michael Pollan mentions doing so in The Omnivore's Dilemma, and I was intrigued. It sounded easy enough, but I ended up with a steaming mass of kale that was soggy in the center and charred at the edges.) Luckily we were hanging and trimming Christmas wreaths as all this was going on, so I couldn't waste too much time on disappointment.

I haven't figured out how to take a good picture of my wreaths, but I did figure out what to do with my unappealing leftovers. The focaccia was more than edible over the next day or two when I toasted it and dipped it into minestrone soup. I chopped up the kale and cooked it with garlic and canned tomatoes, and we ate some of it on top of pasta. On the fourth day, with half the focaccia and about two cups of kale left, I was yearning to make pizza but didn't want to waste my leftovers. So I turned on the broiler. I sliced the focaccia in half through its thickness, ending up with very thin pieces, and heated the kale in the microwave. I put the halved focaccia on a baking sheet on the top rack right under the broiler for 2 minutes; then I removed the baking sheet, spread the kale over the bread, and put it back under the broiler for 2 minutes. I grated some Parmesan cheese, sprinkled it over the kale, and broiled 1 minute more. It wasn't pizza, but it was actually quite yummy and comforting.