Pumpkin Fudge

For Thanksgiving this year, I tried out a pumpkin fudge recipe from Southern Living. After reading the recipe reviews, however, I made quite a few changes to the recipe -- doubled the amount of pumpkin, doubled the amount of spices (and used my own spice mix, rather than 'pumpkin pie spice'), lessened the amount of white chocolate, and used my own homemade marshmallow creme rather than store bought fluff from a jar (which came out quite fantastic, and has the added benefit of containing no preservatives or random chemicals). Now, the one problem with this recipe is the fact that I do not own a candy thermometer, so I had no way of knowing when the mixture reached 234F. I guessed using the 'soft-ball' stage (add a few drops of the mixture to cold water and if it immediately forms soft balls in the cold water, it is appropriately at the correct stage). Mine wound up not quite hot enough and was a bit messy to cut as a result, but from a taste standpoint, received rave reviews and many requests for the recipe.


Pumpkin Fudge
adapted from Southern Living

Ingredients:

• 3 egg whites
• 2 cups light corn syrup
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 cups confectioner's sugar
• 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
• 3 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 2/3 cup evaporated milk
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 2 Tbsp corn syrup
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp ground cloves
• 9 oz white chocolate, chopped
• 1 cup walnuts, chopped
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Prepare marshmallow creme. In a large bowl, combine egg whites, 2 cups of corn syrup, and salt; beat with mixer in high speed for 10 minutes or until thick. Add in confectioner's sugar and beat on low speed until blended. Beat in 1 Tbsp vanilla extract until blended. This makes way more vanilla extract than needed for this recipe -- so my advice is to either make a double batch of fudge, or store the excess marshmallow fluff in the freezer (not in the refrigerator -- it will not last like normal jarred marshmallow creme since there are no preservatives).
2. Stir together the first 6 ingredients in a large saucepan over medium-high heat and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture comes to a boil. Cook, stirring constantly, until a candy thermometer registers 234F or the above described soft-ball stage technique.
3. Remove pan from heat and cool to lukewarm (not in original recipe instructions, but important to prevent chocolate from seizing). Stir in white chocolate, 1 1/2 cups of previously made marshmallow creme, walnuts, and 1 tsp vanilla extract until well blended.
4. Pour into an aluminum foil-lined 8-inch square pan. Let stand 2 hours or until completely cool; cut fudge into small squares.

6 Months Ago...

I cannot possibly believe that it has only been 6 months, and not 6 years, since our wedding. I don't know if this is a good thing (we're comfortably settled in and have a happy little routine down pat) or a bad thing (we're getting sick of each other already?). Or, perhaps, come to think of it, the feeling like we have been together for so long may have something to do that next week would mark our six year dating anniversary, if we were to still be celebrating it.

Either way, now that six months have come and gone, and my pictures are (mostly) organized and the requests keep rolling in, I vow to start actually offering up some pictures of my wedding, for those of you who have been patiently waiting for half a year.

Oh, the Irony

Knowing my tendencies for extreme over-organization, it probably doesn't surprise you that I manage our finances down to the penny. MS Money is my best friend (okay, fine, after you two, Mark and Shannon), which is why I have found it extraordinary frustrating that since October XX, strangely the EXACT day that I got a letter in the mail as a [Bank] shareholder regarding its merger with craptastic [Other Bank] , I have been unable to access the "Account Download" feature of my [Bank] account to import the information into Money -- instead, I just receive an error message.

Yes, of course, I can do it by hand (and have done so accordingly). But this takes extra time, leaves me more prone to be off by a penny here or there requiring even more time to go back and check every entry, and my entries lack the "E" mark, stating that they have been electronically cleared (and yes, this bothers me).

As such, yesterday I finally bit the bullet and called [Bank] to find out what's going on. Has the account download service been discontinued at the hand of [Other Bank], or is there just some sort of error that they have been too lazy to repair in a timely fashion? Of course, nobody could answer this over the phone, and I was told to submit a message electronically. Fine, done and done.

This morning, I received an email notification that I had a reply, and I needed to sign into my [Bank] account to read the reply. I signed in, clicked on the "Messages" section... and received the following statement:

The service you are trying to access is temporarily unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Please try again later or call 800-XXX-XXXXX, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for further assistance."

An error message that I cannot access the message regarding the error message I receive in lieu of downloading my account statement. Oh, [Bank], what are you doing to me?

Gameday Food

Kelly caught mention of my buffalo chicken dip, and requested the recipe. As such, I thought I would dedicate a post to our gameday foods -- that which we make on the rare occasion when we actually have people over to watch football. You see, as you all know, I bleed black and gold for the Pittsburgh Steelers. My husband, on the other hand, is a Philadelphia Eagles fan. Unfortunately, we reside in Redskins Nation. Easy solution, you say -- get the Dish Network and the NFL Sunday Ticket! Ah yes, my dream come true. Every single NFL game brought directly into my living room every Sunday.... what more could a football-loving girl possibly want?

But, you see, my condo made a deal with the devil (aka Comcast), and we automatically get Comcast cable and pay for it through our Condo Association fees. As my husband is over $250,000 in debt from medical school, no matter how much we really really wanted it, we just could not justify paying for BOTH Comcast AND the Dish Network, and alas, no NFL Sunday Ticket for us. As such, we are at the mercy of the local networks to decide which games we see each week.

Last Sunday, however, all the planets and stars must have been properly aligned, because at 1:00, we were able to watch the Eagles tie (TIE?!? TIE!?! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THIS DID TO MY SUICIDE POOL?!?!?!?) the Bengals, and at 4:15, we saw the Steelers beat the Chargers. Since the opportunity to watch both games, back-to-back, is so rare indeed, we held a football open house and invited over all our football watching friends for a whole day of football and food. And this is a sampling of what I served.

Buffalo Chicken Dip

Ingredients:

• 4 chicken breasts
• 2 bricks of cream cheese
• 1 large bag of shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 large bottle of hot sauce (Crystal or Frank's Red Hot)

Directions:

1. Boil chicken breasts in a large pot of water. The water used for boiling makes excellent chicken stock for soup, FYI, should you be of the chicken-soup consuming variety.
2. Shred boiled chicken breasts, easily done by hand, but I toss mine in the food processor to speed up the process.
3. Combine chicken, cream cheese, cheddar cheese, and hot sauce in a large bowl and mix as well as possible.
4. Cover with plastic wrap and microwave for 5 minutes. Stir well and return to microwave until completely melted
5. Serve with sliced baguette or crackers.

Layered Taco Salad

Ingredients:

• 2 cans of refried beans (plain, onion, garlic... any flavor of choice)
• 3 cans of chili (I make my own vegetarian chili instead using soy crumbles and homemade seasoning)
• large bag shredded mexican blend cheese
• large container sour cream
• package of taco seasoning
• lettuce, shredded
• toppings of choice -- onions, tomatoes, salsa, jalapenos, olives, guacamole, etc.

Directions:

1. Build layers in a deep baking dish designed for roasts or casseroles.
2. Spread cans of refried beans across bottom of dish.
3. Next, spread chili across bottom (chili can be heated first to make it easier to spread).
4. Sprinkle half a bag of cheese on top of chili.
5. Add the taco seasoning to the container of sour cream, and spread the mixture across the layer of cheese. Keep the layer as thick as possible to avoid dragging the layer of cheese.
6. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top of the sour cream.
7. Add the shredded lettuce.
8. Any toppings of choice.
9. Serve with Tostitos Scoops.

Husband's Favorite Cream Cheese Bean Dip

Ingredients:

• 1.5 - 2 bricks cream cheese
• 2 cans chili beans
• several square Velveeta slices
• sliced jalapenos

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Spread room-temperature cream cheese in the bottom of a 9" baking dish.
3. Spread chili beans on top of cream cheese.
4. Cover mixture with one layer of Velveeta slices.
5. Top with scattered jalapeno slices.
6. Bake in 350 degree oven for 15 minutes, or until cheese melts and just starts to bubble.

Serve with crackers or tortilla chips.

Spinach Artichoke Dip

Ingredients:

• 1 (14 oz) can artichoke hearts, drained
• 1/3 cup grated Romano cheese
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 tsp minced garlic
• 1 (10 oz) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
• 1/3 cup nonfat half and half
• 1/2 cup sour cream (I use nonfat)
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9x13" baking dish.
2. In a blender or food processor, pulse artichoke hearts, Romano cheese, Parmesan cheese, and garlic until chopped, but not ground. Set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, mix together spinach, heavy cream, sour cream, and mozzarella cheese. Stir in artichoke mixture. Spoon into prepared baking dish.
4. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until cheese is melted and bubbly.

Serious Science vs. Baked Goods

One of the many reasons why my experiences in the lab are rather unique has to do with the gender makeup of my coworkers. Unlike the majority of labs around here, we are almost all female. While the PIs are male, all the post-docs, all the grad students, and all the technicians, save one who will be leaving at the end of the month, are female. This is extraordinarily rare, and I am quite positive that I will never again encounter this situation in the rest of my biochemistry career. There are many labs in the biochemistry department here that are all female, most have a one or two women… but as far as the people in the lab, doing the actual research… to be all female? It’s unheard of in science.

A very common topic of discussion among women scientists is, of course, gender discrimination in the workplace. Working in a female-driven laboratory, this is, of course, something that I do not experience. There is no “old boy’s club”, the male post-docs are not favored over the females, and obviously, our PIs believe that female scientists are every bit as competent in the laboratory as males, or they would not have hired them (clearly, it is not a charity case of “I better hire a female to round out the laboratory). While this obviously is a great thing for the time being, sometimes I wonder if it is going to wind up being an ugly slap in the face when I leave my cozy little gender-neutral laboratory and enter the big male-dominated world of biochemistry.

Case in point, last week Candid Engineer posted an amazing cake she baked. Amongst all the praise and drool, Arlenna left a comment that caught my attention:

“I wish I could bring things like that to work, but as the youngest of only three female faculty members in my department, I don't know how constant offerings of baked goods might affect their pre-tenure unconscious impressions? Maybe good overall but possibly bad 'good woman in an apron'-type feelings...”

I was blown away. As I’ve stated before, I bake for the lab all the time… it’s like my own personal taste group. This is what we, as a lab full of women, do. One of the other post-docs also bakes on a regular basis – between the two of us, there is almost always some sort of baked good for our morning lab meetings. Another post-doc contributes brownies when she is feeling particularly stressed. And it’s not just a female thing – one of the male PIs also brings in homemade baked goods and leaves them sitting in the lab for anyone to munch on. To me, this was just… normal. Not having to contend with thoughts of gender discrimination in my own lab, it never ever crossed my mind that perhaps, outside of my own lab, bringing in baked goods on a regular basis would lower one’s opinion of me as a scientist, because in science, one must be All Science, All the Time, and Susie Homemaker and Susie Scientist cannot coexist.

This week, I have a thesis committee meeting. Back when I was scheduling my first committee meeting, my PI informed me that serving on committees is something that one does not because they have to, but generally because they want to help a student and provide educational insight. It can take up a significant amount of time to serve on multiple committees, and he always appreciates it when food is involved with the meetings. This makes sense – after all, just like graduate students, I’ve seen faculty members elbow their way to the front of the line for free food at seminars. So, for previous committee meetings, I’ve come armed with homemade baked goods. But now this has me wondering… am I giving off the woman-in-apron vibes that Arlenna described? If my presentation sucks, are my committee members going to be thinking that I should have spent more time preparing, and less time baking? Or worse yet, if my presentation is fine, but my science sucks and my homemade baked goods are tasty, will they be thinking that I should get the hell out of the lab, and back into the kitchen where I belong?? Is the best way to a Committee Member’s Good Side through his stomach, as suggested by my PI, and they’ll be too busy noshing to even think about any of this? Should I forgo the homemade baked goods, and pick something up premade, as to appear like I didn’t put too much effort into it? Or would that seem absurd, as both of the PIs from my lab are on my committee and they both know that I bake already?

I’ve already wasted my morning putting enough thought into the Serious Science versus Baked Goods Debate of 2008, so now I turn it over to you while I finish my presentation. Discuss.

Pumpkin Swirl Brownies

Much more than cooking, I really enjoy baking. However, I don't really have much of a sweet tooth -- I'm more than content with one of something. Husband can easily eat his way through an entire batch of cookies in one day, as he lacks self control, but knowing that fact, he never wants to keep baked goods (or any junk food) in the house. And frankly, even though one cookie is more than satisfying, if they're there... then I'll find myself munching, too. This is why my lab is wonderful. It's like an automatic built-in group of consumers and taste-testers. Not only are they happy to eat whatever I bring them, but they also give me their honest opinions on what I make, because they know that even if they don't like something, I won't be insulted (it's not like I'll stop baking).

This was a new recipe that I tried out and I wasn't quite sure how it would go over. I don't really like chocolate, but I loved the pumpkin flavor (and wished there was less chocolate). Husband loves chocolate and not so much pumpkin, so he wished I had made just straight up chocolate brownies. But the neutral lab test group that likes both chocolate and pumpkin? They deemed the pumpkin swirl brownies a success.

A note on the recipe -- the densities of the chocolate batter and the pumpkin batter are completely different, which makes it difficult to swirl. If I were making these again, I would probably stop and swirl a bit between the first layers and chocolate and pumpkin batter (the recipe calls for layering chocolate/pumpkin/chocolate/pumpkin), and I think I would divide the oil, and add 1/8 cup oil to the chocolate mixture and 1/8 cup oil to the pumpkin mixture, rather than adding it all to the pumpkin. However, I haven't tested this out myself, so try at your own risk. Either way, the taste was fine, and it would really just be to get a bit more 'swirl', which isn't a necessity (and, a scientist, I'm used to repeating this dozens and dozens of times until they work perfectly, so I do the same thing in the kitchen).

Pumpkin Swirl Brownies
adapted from Martha Stewart

Ingredients:

• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups pumpkin (I used my own fresh, canned is fine)
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-inch square baking dish. Line bottom of pan with parchment paper; grease lining.
2. Melt chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, stirring occasionally until smooth.
3. Whisk together flour, baking powder, cayenne, and salt in a large bowl; set aside. Put sugar, eggs, and vanilla in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat until fluffy and well combined, 3 to 5 minutes. Beat in flour mixture until just combined (do not over mix).
4. Divide batter between two medium bowls (about 2 cups per bowl). Stir chocolate mixture into one bowl. In other bowl, stir in pumpkin, oil, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
5. Transfer half of chocolate batter to prepared pan smoothing top with a rubber spatula. Top with half of pumpkin batter. Repeat to make one more chocolate layer and one more pumpkin layer. Work quickly so batters don't set.
6. With a knife, gently swirl the two batters to create a marbled effect.
7. Bake until set, 40 to 45 minutes. Let cool in pan on a wire rack. Cut into 20 squares.

Adaptability

I have a secret confession to make. One of my biggest concerns of my upcoming long-distance marriage is not that I will pine away in misery without my husband... but that I will become so used to life without him that I will find him annoying and a general pain in the tush when forced to live with him again.

You see, I assimilate myself to my current living conditions absurdly well. I'm like a regular chameleon. Homesick? Not in my dictionary. The first time I was shipped off to overnight camp at the ripe old age of 8, everyone around me was homesick and cried, so I cried, because I thought that was what you were supposed to do at overnight camp. Once the counselors explained that you didn't have to miss home, if you didn't actually miss your home, and you were allowed to have fun... well then heck, I was sold. Home is where I hang my hat, whether I'm there for a week or a year.

Tonight is Husband's last night on Night Float service, which means that he'll be back to a normal schedule of working during daylight hours. But between you and me... well, I've adapted. And frankly, it's been kind of nice to be the Queen of the Castle. When I want peace and quiet, it's blissfully quiet, which is something I never, ever get when Husband is around -- he has to have the TV and radio on at all times, and I hate it. When I do want to turn on the TV, I get to control the remote and watch what I want, which I never get to do when Husband is around. I haven't had to listen to Philadelphia sports radio once since he's been on Night Float! And to get to spread out at night and actually sleep without someone pushing me out of bed... it's been quite delightful.

Now, this isn't to say that I don't love my husband or want to spend time with him, and all of these problems could easily be solved by expanding from our little one bedroom condo to something with a bit more space. And of course, going a few weeks is quite different than going a few years living without someone.

But for me, these past few weeks have confirmed my suspicions that moving back in together are probably going to be far harder than moving apart.

Doodle Calender

I've been getting a lot of traffic to my blog recently from individuals googling for how to ask individuals to serve on their thesis committees. While I don't have genius advice for this, more so than I found it was helpful to attach a brief one page background of the research on which I was currently working and an outline of my current thesis aims so that they had an idea of what I was doing, and why they would be relevant to sit on my thesis committee, I do have a nifty little tidbit for organizing committee meetings. Meet... Doodle Calender, the perfect tool for organizing any sort of group meeting.

I'm not sure how committee meetings are organized elsewhere, but around here, my PI would give me a list of dates that worked for him, and I would email the rest of my committee members the list of dates, and then spend the next several weeks emailing back and forth to try and finagle down one single timepoint that worked. Then, one day, my PI discovered Doodle Calender.That is a screenshot from my Doodle Calender. The blurred-out area is the names of my committee members, which they each entered. Across the top are dates which my PI had told me he would be available, so I selected them as options for the meeting. I then emailed out the link for the calender to my committee members, and they were able to sign in to the calender and mark off what times they could make the meeting. If the times they are available change, they can go in at a later date and change it on their own. When I need to pinpoint a time for my meeting, all I need to do is look at what column has the most green "OK" marks, and I have my date and time selected for me. And I don't have 40 e-mails through which to search.

Brilliant.

Mexican Lasagna

This is one of Husband's favorite dinners... and I'm happy to go along with it, because it's quick, easy, and since I use the Morningstar Farms burger soy crumbles faux ground beef, it's meat free, so I don't have to cook any meat on the side (who would have thought that "favorite' and "meat free" would go together coming from Husband?). The original recipe, from Rachael Ray, calls for ground chicken breast, and states that it is available in the "packaged meats case". I, personally, have never heard of ground chicken breast (aside from when I boil chicken breast and grind them up myself in my food processor when I make Husband buffalo chicken dip when we have people over for football watching), but then again, I am kind of out of the meat-purchasing loop, so perhaps it is more common than I think. If you can't find it, you could easily substitute in ground beef, since that's what the soy crumbles are generally used as a substitute for, or ground turkey... basically, any ground meat or meat substitute works for this recipe. You could also add in any other vegetables lying around -- I've thrown in a pepper, some mushrooms (not that this crowd seems to like them), etc.

Mexican Lasagna
Recipe altered from Rachael Ray

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1lb ground beef/chicken/turkey or meat substitute
• 2 tbsp chili powder
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 red onion, chopped
• 1 15-ounce can black beans, drained
• 1 14-ounce can stewed tomatoes, drained
• 1 15-ounce can corn, drained
• 4 (12 inch) tortilla wraps
• 2 cups shredded Cheddar or pepper jack cheese (or combination)
• toppings of choice (scallions, salsa, sour cream, hot peppers, guacamole, etc)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 425F.
   
2. Preheat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add 2 tbsp of olive oil and add meat or meat substitute and season with chili powder, cumin, and red onion. Brown the meat, about 5 minutes. Add the stewed tomatoes, black beans, and corn. Stir to combine, and heat for 2-3 minutes.
   
3. If you have a round, 10-12" baking dish, coat the bottom with a little olive oil or cooking spray. Otherwise, use a shallow rectangular dish (like for a regular lasagna). I happen to have a perfect round dish that fits the tortillas perfectly, so I'm going to show you that method. If you don't have a round dish, cut the tortillas into quarters and overlap them to layer, like lasagna noodles. Otherwise, proceed as follows.
   Add just a small amount of the meat/bean mixture, and add a tortilla on top. Then pile on roughly 1/3 of the meat/bean mixture, top this with 1/3 of the cheese, and then place a tortilla on top. Repeat with more of the beans, more cheese, and another tortilla, and repeat again. End with a tortilla, and a light sprinkling of cheese on top.
   
4. Bake lasagna for 12 minutes.

Six Random Things... Bonus Edition!

Arlenna at ChemicalBiLOLogy tagged me for the "6 Random Things" Meme. Now, you may remember that I already did this same meme back in September, so we struck up a deal -- I would post six more random things about me, as long as I didn't have to tag anyone else and perpetuate the meme cycle.

So, here goes... more random trivia about your favorite disgruntled Ph.D. student!

1. I am extremely left-handed. I use my left hand for everything except holding my toothbrush. One of my biggest fears is that I am going to severely injure myself someday at the fault of non-left handed kitchen utensils... mainly my evil vegetable peeler.
   
   
2. Since I don't really drive, I don't get road-rage... but I do get sidewalk-rage. I really, really, really hate people who do not give pedestrians the right of way when pedestrians have the little walking-man flashing indicating that the pedestrian can go, particularly when it is raining/snowing/hailing/some form of foul weather and the pedestrian is stuck outside, and the person in the car is not. I also really hate it when drivers are lazy shits and leave their car blocking the sidewalk in an ally because they can't pull up an extra 4 feet and walk the extra 5 steps, causing the pedestrian to have to squeeze between the tightly parked cars on the street, just because you had to block the sidewalk with your car. One of my other biggest fears is that I am going to severely injure myself by getting run over by a car walking to or from the lab one day, since there seems to be a near miss on a very regular basis.
   
   
3. When I was 5 years old, I started taking piano lessons and continued through graduating high school. At the end of third grade, I started playing flute, and gradually added on oboe, clarinet, mellophone, and french horn. At the end of high school, I swore I was going to be done with music, but at "freshman orientation" for my college (which was done in the middle of the summer, and included parents) my parents spotted the table for the music department, with a giant sign overhead advertising scholarship, and immediately simultaneously elbowed me to the table. Thus, I played french horn and mellophone for four years of college in university band, wind ensemble, basketball band, and a year of orchestra... and earned quite a bit of scholarship money (more than enough to make up for all those years of music lessons). Despite owning a piano in my little condo and still having a french horn, I have not touched either since graduating, however. I think I have been music-ed out, though someday it would be nice to pick it up again.
   
   
4. I really enjoy being crafty (of the arts-and-crafts variety, not being sly and cunning). I silkscreened my own wedding invitations, I've been knitting and crocheting since I was 5, I always handmake my own holiday cards, etc. My family and family-in-law is convinced that I should drop out of graduate school and just do crafty things full time. Lately, I've started to think that maybe they are right... at least, I'd be a whole lot happier!
   
   
5. I have disproportionally small feet in comparison to my height. I'm 5'7, and wear size 5.5 to 6 shoes. Though, since shoes are often picked over in smaller sizes because they carry fewer of them, I have a lot of 6.5 to 7's in my closet, and I just stuff them full of extra padding to make them fit on my foot and not slip as best as possible.
   
   
6. I am really, truly disappointed that Proposition 8 passed in California. So, so unbelievably upset. While I believe in respecting others, and their opinions, first and foremost, and I will not put down anyone for supporting the ban for their own personal reasons, it just makes me so very sad that this kind of discrimination exists. I am disappointed at the kind of world in which we live. At my own wedding, a few of our friends came up to me and said that they hoped that someday they would have the right to have a wedding of their own, and that my husband and I would be able to attend, but this was a big step backwards towards this happening. It makes me so sad that some of the kindest people that I know may always be treated as second class citizens.
   

Ziti with Caramelized Onions & Portobello Mushrooms

Before I dive right in with the recipes, I thought I'd start with a little background regarding the type of eating in the Disgruntled Household. For starters, regardless of how many hours I spend in the lab, I am a regular slave to the stove. Despite growing up with a mother who refused to cook and only ordered take-out, Husband somehow finagled me into cooking for him a mere year into dating, and I have been doing so every night for the past 5 years. Weekends when we are around and not running off to the hospital/lab I cook breakfasts, I always pack our lunches, and I cook dinner every night -- I cannot remember the last time we ordered in (it has been years), and we eat out maybe once a month at most (and always with friends as a social activity, never alone as an avoidance of cooking).

That said, cooking for us is a bit of a... challenge. You see, I don't eat meat. Husband does, and prefers it with as many meals as possible. I obviously don't have time to cook two totally separate dinners, nor am I interested in roasting a chicken and winding up with just a plate of broccoli for myself, so I'm continually looking for things which can be altered easily to add or subtract meat from parts of the meal. Husband and I do eat fish, but within the past year, I've discovered that the scent of raw fish is likely one of my migraine triggers, so I can no longer bring fish into my kitchen and cook it myself. Neither of us keep Kosher so shellfish would be an option, but Husband is allergic to shrimp (and is quite sad about it), and is not particularly fond of scallops, so both of those easy options go out the window. So, as you can see, we're a complicated pair.

Since he's currently on Night Float, for the time being, we're all about Super Quick Dinners. He has to be out the door by 6:30pm, so I have to make whatever is super fast. I thought I'd start out with one of my all-time favorite recipes, which I don't make often, since we rarely eat pasta (and when we do, it's usually in the form of homemade spinach lasagna). It's also super easy, and fast, so as long as you like onions, mushrooms, and goat cheese, you have no reason not to try this out as a quick weeknight dinner.

Ziti with Caramelized Onions and Portobello Mushrooms

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoons butter/margarine/spread substitute of choice
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 onions, sliced
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1 pound portobello mushroom caps, halved and sliced into 1/4 inch slices
• 3 tbsp parsley
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 1 lb ziti (we use whole wheat)
• 3-4 oz soft goat cheese (I use Montrachet), crumbled
  

Directions:

1. In a large frying pan, melt butter and 1 tbsp olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onions, 1/2 tsp of the salt, and the sugar and cook, stirring frequently, until the onions are well browned, 20-30 minutes. Remove from the pan.
2. In the same pan, add the mushrooms and 1/4 tsp of the salt and cook, stirring occasionally, 8-10 minutes, until tender. Return the onions to the pan, add the parsley, the remaining 1/4 tsp salt, and the pepper.
3. In a large pot of boiling water, cook the ziti until just done, about 12 minutes. Reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta water and drain. Toss the ziti and the pasta water with the mushroom mixture, the remaining 1 tbsp oil, and the crumbled goat cheese.

Serves: 4-6 (For the 2 of us, we get 2 dinners served with a vegetable or salad, plus 4 lunch containers, out of this recipe).