Wine and a Movie

Today I set off to experience the new Galaxy Theatres, Green Valley.  I had high expectations because I want the theater to help revitalize our community. The strip mall the theater occupies used to be a wonderfully active area with several  good places to eat and shop. Then came the recession and, one by one, places closed.  Now I'm hopeful again.

First, the theater. It was almost everything I could hope for:

1. I love, love, love the seating.  Wide aisles with recliners that you can adjust from sitting straight up to lying almost flat and anywhere in between.  I had my feet almost straight out and people could still easily go by me.

2. I love the big screen.  I know, no big deal BUT, I'd pretty much given up going to the movies for several reasons and I've missed the big screen. So now I can go back.

3. I loved having a glass of wine at the movies. Not great, great wine, but nice enough and I liked it. Beer drinkers have more variety. And bigger glasses.

4. I loved being able to pick my seat before going into the theater.

5. I do wish there were more food options. I broke down and had a chili cheese dog. Not just any chili cheese dog- a jalapeño cheese brat chili cheese dog. It was delicious but I am not a big meat eater. So I  hope they come up with some other ideas.

Next, the movie. Oz The Great and Powerful. It was almost everything I could hope for.

1. I loved the big screen. See above.

2. I loved the spectacle.

3. I loved the animation.

4. I love the many nods to the original, especially the switch from black and white to color when Oz reached Oz.

5. I loved team Oz. Everybody.  Little extra for the monkey.

6.  Loved the witches.

7. I loved the con man wizard. 

8. I am torn about wanting a sequel. Would love to see what they come up with but don't know that they should mess with the original.

9. Yes, I loved the con man Oz but couldn't help wishing it had been played by Johnny Depp.

The Alphas and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Night

Long story, not short.  We arrived at our beach rental in Mission Beach on Tuesday.  The condo wasn't exactly what we had imagined. The pictures made it look bigger and "sleeps 6" translates  to sleeps 3 comfortably but person number 4 is stuck with the small not so comfortable futon.  If 6 people stay there 4 of them better really, really like each other.  The "bay view" requires looking out the bathroom window and the "ocean view" requires leaning out the back bedroom window.

Admittedly, the beach was close and the weather was nice.  And the company was AMAZING.

First problem was that the broadband wasn't working. We put in a call to property management and they dithered.  Finally gave us the account info and we worked with the provider and determined a tech visit was required.   Tech came out the next morning and checked stuff out.  Said it wasn't inside it was outside.  We called the property management and told them to come baby sit while we went to the beach.  Got a text that internet was up.  Only 24 hours after it  was supposed to be available to our people that really needed to check in with work (not me - I'm retired).

The next day we explored San  Diego and then went out to  a nice dinner.  Returned home at 9:30 to discover the keyless entry was broken.  We could not get in.  We saw a patch where a  dog door used to be  and figured the smallest of us (not me) would crawl in.  But removing the patch, we discovered it was not a dog door it was a cat door.   None of us fit.  And sticking an arm in to try and reach the deadbolt did not work.  Sticking an broom stick in to push the  the dead bolt did not work.  Sticking other tools we located or borrowed from the neighbor didn't work. There were realty type key boxes on the stairs that we didn't know  the code to but tried the door code.   No luck.

We had called the property management and texted the property management repeatedly to no avail.  We were working on finding a place to spend the night sans jammies, toothbrushes or the ice cream brownies we'd been planning on.   Eventually a downstairs neighbor peeked out to see why were were fooling around with her lock box.  Luckily, it turned out she knows the owner of our unit.  After several calls the owner says we can break out the panel of the door  to get in. But we are a little  doubtful about that and double check and finally the owner decides to come  let us in.  But she has no  key either.  I suppose because she thinks  the property manager will ride to the rescue in an emergency like this.   So she and her boyfriend come  over, try some old key and then run off to get a ladder.  The boyfriend  climbs the ladder and can't get the screen off one  window.  Tries another window and SUCCESS.  We are in.  Only one and a half hours after we had retuned, hoping to spend an  evening  relaxing, playing cards, drinking  wine and eating brownies in our beach condo.  BLEH!!

Turns out keyless entry systems run on batteries and when batteries die you can't get in unless you've stored a backup key somewhere.  Or have a property management team on call.

The real topper was when the property management texted me at 6:00 AM to check if we'd gotten in.  HELLO!  Can you figure that either we are at another location or we got in but in either case we are on vacation and are probably asleep?

Up side is they refunded us about one night's rate.   Not sure yet if I think that is enough.

Scalloped Potatoes

Here's another recipe for a dish I love but have never tried making for myself. Unlike the Eggplant Parmesan recipe that kind of scared me because of the frying and the veggie I don't know much about, this is just a simple recipe I'd never taken on.

I love potatoes in most forms and I've always wanted to make scalloped potatoes, just haven't taken that step.  But I was reading a book by Diane Mott Davidson and decided the time was now.  For those of you who haven't read this series, the protagonist is a caterer and so all books involve food and there are always recipes included in the book.

The most recent book I was reading included the recipe for these scalloped potatoes.  The caterer in the book, Goldie, confessed that her secret ingredient is the caramelized onions.  She had me at caramelized.  I LOVE caramelized onions.  So I decided to cook these potatoes just for me.  And that was a great decision.  Because I have eaten most of them all by myself.

Ingredients

• ½ tbsp Unsalted Butter
• 1 tbsp Olive Oil
• 1 large Yellow Onion, sliced
• 4 lbs Russet Potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
• ½ lb Gruyere, grated
• ½ lb Comte or Fontina cheese, grated
• ½ c Parmeasan cheese, freshly grated
• 1 tbsp fresh Sage, chopped
• 1 tsp Kosher Salt
• ½ tsp Pepper
• 2 c Heavy Cream

Instructions

1. Melt butter & oil over med heat. Add the onions. Cook until limp and caramelized, 15-20 min. Cool slightly.
2. Preheat 375.
3. In a large bowl, toss grated cheeses.
4. Layer potatoes in a 9 x 13 glass pan. Add a layer of onions. Then add a layer of cheese. Top with sage. Repeat this process until the pan is completely full, ending with cheese
5. Stir salt & pepper into heavy cream, then pour over the potatoes. Don’t disturb the cheese
6. Bake 1 to 1 1/2 hours  until the potatoes are tender and the top is golden brown

8-12 servings

I didn't have sage and so I didn't add that.  I'm not sure I want to try it with the sage.  I used more onions than called for and a little less cream.  The result was wonderful deliciousness.   I will make these again.  I will probably add the cream at every layer or at least season at every level, because I think my potatoes could have used the salt, and I may cut back just a little on the cheese. But overall, this recipe makes amazing potatoes that you will love.

My First Eggplant Parmesan

Last month I read a fun story titled "Last Bite" about a TV show executive chef.  There was a lot about cooking in the book, especially about Italian cooking.  Recipes were included and I decided to finally give Eggplant Parmesan a try.  I've eaten it before, of course, but I've never tried cooking it.

The author Nancy Verde Barr, also a chef, wrote that the secret to good Eggplant Parmesan is cutting the eggplant paper thin and using only Parmesan cheese.  I followed the recipe she provided.
Ingredients:
1 medium eggplant (about 1 1/2 lbs)
4 large eggs
Olive oil for frying
1 1/2 C marinara sauce (I used Trader Joe's)
1/4 C freshly grated Parmesan

Instructions: Peel the eggplant and cut into paper thin slices.  Layer the slices in a colander, lightly salting each layer. Place a plate on top of the eggplant and use something heavy to weight it - I used a large can of tomatoes.  Leave the eggplant to drain for about an hour and then rinse it and pat it dry. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Beat the eggs lightly and add salt and pepper. Pour about 1/4 inch  of olive oil in a pan and heat it over a medium heat. Coat a few slices of eggplant in the egg, let the excess egg drip off and then fry them. Don't do too many at one time.  Cook until golden brown on both sides and then drain them on a paper towel.  Repeat until you've cooked all the slices.  I changed the oil about 1/2 way through because it was getting very dark.

Layer the eggplant and marinara sauce in a shallow dish.  Start and end with sauce.  The recipe calls for adding the cheese on the top but I also put a little on each layer.  Bake in an oven for about 10 minutes or until the cheese is brown. 

My eggplant sauce was still a little cool after 10 minutes in the oven even though the cheese was brown.  I think it is because I used cold sauce from the jar.  So if you are not using warm sauce I'd suggest cooking the eggplant with sauce for 10 minutes and then adding the cheese on top and cooking it for another 10.

The final product was delicious though not beautiful.  I've added a picture below to try and show the layers. Very, very thin and I have to agree with the author that the thin slices made the dish delicious.  I ate several of the fried pieces plain too and they were yummy.  This will become a regular now I'm sure.

Soup's On

I'm so happy it is cooling down so I can make some yummy soups.  I do have a couple cold soups in my repetroire  but they just don't satisfy the way hot soup does.

Today I started with a recipe for Sweet Potato Cauliflower Soup.  I'll give you one guess where I found this recipe.  Yep, Pinterest.com. I had to make a few adjustments.  First, I only had one sweet potato on hand.  But since I'm eating for one, that isn't such a big deal.  I did have a whole head of cauliflower and I used it so this should probably be called Cauliflower Sweet Potato soup.  Or maybe Roasted Cauliflower Sweet Potato Soup. 

Since I was changing the amounts of the main ingredients, I just guessed at the rest.  I used 1/2 an onion and 2 cloves of garlic.  Oh yeah, I didn't have garam masala either so I used some Spices of India from Tastefully Simple.  Sadly, it seems that might be seasonal or discontinued so you'll have to figure that out.  My seasoning was more curry-ish, I believe.

I cut up the cauliflower and tossed it in olive oil and spices.  Then I roasted it for about 40 minutes. I cooked it longer than the recipe called for because I think the more roasted the better.  My cauliflower was not crunchy but it wasn't mushy either. 

While the cauliflower was roasting I sauteed the onion in some olive oil and then added the minced garlic once the onion was soft and translucent.  I cooked that for a bit and then tossed in the chopped up sweet potato.  I added about 3 cups of water and 1/2 cup of the Chardonnay I was planning to have with the soup.    I added some salt and pepper and some red pepper flakes.  I brought it to a boil then reduced the heat and let it cook until the sweet potato was soft - probably 30 minutes.  

When the sweet potato was done, I scooped out about a cup of veggies and then tossed a little more than half of my roasted cauliflower into the pot.  I used the immersion blender to puree that.  It came out thick and creamy.  I tasted it and decided it needed a splash of sherry.  Then I tossed the reserved veggies and remaining cauliflower back in.  I served it with crackers and Chardonnay.

Verdict: Delicious! Especially with a dollop of yogurt on the top.

Changes:  Next time I might add more liquid, both water and wine.  And I'll chop the reserved veggies to be smaller bites.  Other than that, I wouldn't change a thing.

Teaching Is Hard Work

This blog has become mostly recipes but today I'm inserting a long note about teaching because I think it needs to be said.

Teaching is hard work. You may think you already know that.  I thought I already knew that.  But you just need to go teach for one day to understand that you probably have no clue just how really hard it is.  And I'm not even a teacher.  I'm a sub, or as they call us these days, a guest teacher.  I don't have to make lesson plans or grade work or talk to parents.  I don't have to create special plans for students with learning disabilities or deal with the really bad discipline problems.  I just go in for the day and do what ever the teacher asks me to do.  Most teachers understand that I haven't got a clue where they are in the schedule and so they give me the "easy stuff."  I've given spelling tests and I've helped with reading, writing and social studies work sheets.  I lead singing or read to the class.  I  make sure the students line up and get to recess, lunch or special classes.

And with only that, I recognize that every single teacher, even the 'poor performing' ones are WAY underpaid.  I am retired now but I was very good at my job.  I was a computer programmer and then an instructor and also a customer services specialist.  I'm really, really good at customer service and I earned a very decent salary.  And I deserved every dollar.  But I made more money than most teachers do and I wouldn't do their job full time  for twice as much as I made.

Imagine having 25, 30 or even 40 students in your class.  You give them a math worksheet.  The worksheet has 30 addition or subtraction problems.  In your class there are probably 5 students who will finish that in 10 minutes.  There are 5 who wouldn't finish it if they had all day.  The rest try.  You walk around or pull together the students who need some help.  While you're doing that, the 5 who are done want to do something else.  Maybe they can help other students, maybe not.  You also have at least one discipline problem who not only isn't doing the work but is bothering the other students.  You have to watch that some students don't 'help' their neighbor too much and you have to watch that all the students stay on task.  Sometimes you yell.

That was just math.  Move on to reading.  Again, 5 are reading 3 grades ahead of the class and a couple don't even know the alphabet yet.  Oh, and you just might have one (or five) who don't speak English as their primary language.  In one of the classes I subbed in one student spoke only Chinese.  Lucky for me there were 4 other students who spoke Chinese and English.  They helped him  But meanwhile they didn't work on their own reading.

Having a grasp of the subject isn't the only issue.  Children pick on one another, don't pay attention, have to go to the bathroom, need a drink.  Sometimes they just use the eraser on their desk making little eraser bits that fall on the floor until you notice and make them stop.

How do you keep your eye on 25 or 30 or 40 children at a time?  Very carefully.  You try to be fair.  You can't see everything so what do you do when Mary tells you that Joey was saying bad words to her?  What do you do when Kimberly cries for no apparent reason and doesn't tell you what is the matter.  And speaking of names, let's just say the first part of my day is learning how to pronounce interesting spellings of names I thought I knew how to spell.  Or names that seem to have only consonants in them.

Having spent less than a year subbing I'm am amazed that teachers manage to keep going year after year.  I do get why.  The children are mostly amazing and wonderful.  Even when they are troublesome, they are just children.  They test their boundaries and they get distracted.  I haven't met more than one or two really malicious children and I'm sure there's a back story for them. Most of them want to please. And most of them really do enjoy learning.  When they 'get it' and their eyes light up, it is totally worth the time and trouble. So I do understand the reward that teachers can feel.

But still we need to pay them more.

Crispy Rice Spicy Tuna Yum Yum

One of my current favorite sushi items is spicy tuna served on crispy rice.  I first had it at Koi in Las Vegas a few years back.  It isn't served at my regular sushi bar and I haven't seen it too many other places.  It appears it might be an L.A. trend - and Las Vegas lucks out because Koi has a restaurant here.

While we were in L.A. this past weekend we went to The Little Izaka-ya in Sherman Oaks and had several orders of the yumminess.  I decided it was time to make it for myself and I started with this recipe.  I stayed pretty close to the tuna component but left out the green onions.  I cooked the rice the day before, not following the sushi rice instructions but just making it 2C rice with 3C water that had some salt, a little soy sauce and red pepper flakes in it..  After it cooled, I patted it into a rectangle about not quite 1/2" thick and refrigerated it over night. Thanks to BFD for that great idea. Today I mixed the tuna and then cut out small bites of rice which I browned in butter, sesame oil and a little soy sauce.  I topped the rice patties with tuna and then put a couple of slices of shishito pepper on each one.

The presentation isn't as nice as it might be and I hope I'll improve with practice.  The patties were also a little bit greasy so I either need to make the oil hotter or use less.  And next time I'll make the rice bites a little thinner.  Overall they were delicious and I'll be making them often.

Marmalade Cranberry Walnut Muffins

The base for these muffins came from the Marmalade Mogul Muffins recipe that is in the book Tough Cookie by Diane Mott Davidson.  The protagonist in Davidson's books is a caterer who solves mysteries; the books all have recipes included.

The recipe in the book claims to make 28 muffins.  They must be some pretty big muffins because I halved the recipe and still got 20 muffins.  I also added some ingredients but that couldn't have increased the volume too much.

I've been using Greek yogurt in the place of milk and buttermilk lately and I made that same substitution here.  I read somewhere on the Internet that you can substitute yogurt for milk when baking but should add 1/2 baking soda for every cup of yogurt.  You should stir the yogurt to thin it and I sometimes add a bit of water or juice to make it even thinner depending on what I'm making.  In this recipe I used 3/4 C of yogurt and 1/4 C of tangerine juice to replace the buttermilk.


My adapted recipe:

1 Stick butter (1/4 lb)
3/4 C Sugar
2 eggs
3/4 C Greek yogurt (I used 2%)
1/4 C Tangerine Juice
1 3/4 C unbleached white flour
1/4 C whole wheat flour
1 1/2 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1 T orange zest
1/2 C marmalade
1/3 to 1/2 C chopped walnuts (to your taste)
1/3 to 1/2 C 1/2 C dried cranberries (to your taste) 

I tossed the cranberries with a bit of flour and chopped them up
Mix the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl.
Cream the butter and sugar and then add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.  I mixed the tangerine juice into the yogurt before pouring that into the butter, sugar, egg mixture.  Add the dry ingredients.  The batter will be thick.  Stir in the marmalade, zest, walnuts and cranberries. Fill your muffin cups 3/4 full. I did use silicon liners but you can also use paper liners. The original recipe calls from sprinkling additional sugar on the tops before baking but I didn't do that.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

I love the orange flavor in these muffins along with the cranberries and nuts.  I do think they were just a little bit dry and that might be from adding the wheat flour but they were still delicious.  I might put some applesauce in next time for some extra moisture.

Parmesan Thyme Crackers

I decided I needed some flavorful crackers to go with my Cucumber Avocado Soup and went to this recipe for Parmesan Thyme Crackers.  I was pretty true to the recipe except I didn't have fresh thyme so I used dried - a little less than 1/2 teaspoon.  I also cut the crackers a little thinner - probably about 1/4 inch instead of 3/8.

These crackers are dangerously good. My batch made 36 and I could have eaten most of them in one sitting.  I refrained though because I did the math and they are about 35 calories each, making the batch over 1250 calories.  With all the butter and cheese they are really just Parmesan shortbread.  They went well with my soup but they are perfectly fine just by themselves.  I can see them with a little goat cheese, or maybe some guacamole.  Along with a nice glass of Sauvignon Blanc. YUM.

UPDATE:  On second tasting, I think the crackers might be just a tad too salty. I may leave out the salt next time and rely on the natural saltiness of Parmesan.

UPDATE 2:  I just realized there it a typo in the recipe I linked to.  It says 1/2 lb (1 stick) of butter.  1/2 lb of butter is 2 sticks in a 4 stick package.  I used 1 stick which is 1/4lb butter and it was plenty of butter.