Note: I wrote this almost two months ago… with the plan of quickly publishing it. Well, life happened and in the spirit of still making things happen I’ve just decided to send this out to the world. I’ll be writing more, imperfectly sharing this beautiful experiment of cooking and building a village. Join me!
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It’s fair to say I’ll do almost anything for butter. We got home late Sunday night after 10 days in Maine and about 12 hours of travel - car, then bus ride to Boston, then plane flight back to Seattle - it was a successful bout of travel because my low bar of “no bodily fluids” was met by all members of our family. We have had a good number of flights where MANY bodily fluids were present (pee, poo, breast milk, blood, vomit)… it is fair to say that I am still traumatized by these experiences and either my back or knees have given out the last few times, in anticipation of the impending stress. In addition to being tired from travel, first thing Monday I had committed to hang with my kids and Katya’s kids so she could squeeze some important meetings into her day. When our house woke at 5am Seattle time to no groceries - and most importantly for me, no butter - something had to be done.
My love of butter needs some elaboration - perhaps it is enough to say that when I did a 12 day hike across the Arctic Circle with 4 other travelers, we carried a liter of olive oil and a pound of butter for the trip, we put butter in oatmeal, in hot chocolate, with noodles and melted over re-hydrated meals. I was dreaming of fat on day 3 and am still shocked that no one else wanted to lick the butter wrapper clean when we had eaten our last bit of butter. I love butter. So at 5:30am, back in Seattle, I made an emergency trip to the grocery story for butter, bread, milk, eggs, fruit and sliced turkey. My priorities were very clear: make it through breakfast and lunch. It’s a sign of how much our meal co-op has affected me because I don’t always think about what’s for dinner… it’s usually covered by meal co-op. And in this case, Katya had my dinner ready - she had texted our meal co-op thread Sunday night as we were waiting for the plane to take off - and so I was set for dinner on Monday.
The only other thing to think about for food was what would I make this week - my initial plan had been to pick all the ripe tomatoes and basil from our garden and buy some mozzarella, and a pack of salami for each family. But then I remembered that Katya’s kids don’t eat tomatoes, and her meal was actually a more impressive version of this kind of caprese salad spread… so it seemed silly to double up. And then I realized I could just make my favourite easy meal: bolognese. My trick is to buy two kinds of sauce at Trader Jo’s -“ their Just Sauce” which is a premade turkey bolognese in their freezer aisle, and then combine and simmer it with their Arrabiata sauce to make a pretty delicious and convincing bolognese.
I put the finished sauce in mason jars and then throw in a bag of uncooked noodles and a bag of raw green beans for a green vegetable, and I’m done!
Cooking this meal for 4 or 5 families can seem like I’m not trying hard enough. But I think there’s some genius here. To know that I can pull off a meal that makes all of us happy without breaking a sweat is a relief. Everyone needs this relief. My only extra effort is letting the two sauces simmer for as long as I can - I dump the jars of sauce and the frozen pucks of turkey bolognese into my big dutch oven, turn it on high and then walk away...and then return when it’s bubbling over and turn it down to low for an hour or two. I have a habit of cooking everything on high. My grandmother - we called her carbon-hand Edie - was a huge proponent of this approach. She was known for letting pressure cookers (WAY before any instant-pot safety entered the fray) explode on her stove, or having no time to grab a pot holder when things needed to come out of the oven. She would thrust her bare hand into the oven, grab the tray and then throw it onto the stove top. This was not always successful. She had 5 children, a sick husband and was working 3 jobs most of the time. She had no time for potholders.
I have clearly inherited a desire to get things done quickly. If you don’t live near a Trader Jo’s there are many ways to make affordable, easy meals quickly. One basic trick I’ve learned is to make a pot of beans or legumes - chickpeas are my favourite. You don’t even have to soak the beans, just cover them with more liquid and let them simmer (or even bake) longer in the oven. Smitten Kitchen has a great recipe for how to bake them in the oven (https://smittenkitchen.com/2015/03/baked-chickpeas-with-pita-chips-and-yogurt/ ) or just buy some canned beans, sautee some onions and dump in the cans of beans, add water and salt and pepper. Then I’d just put the finished chickpeas in a mason jar, and send people home with a bag of greens and half a dozen eggs. To serve: add some greens to a bowl, warm the chick peas and put on top of each bowl, and fry the eggs. Fried eggs on top of warmed beans and greens will amaze you. Top with hot sauce (a vinegary one like Crystal will be fabulous), a squeeze of lemon or if you’re feeling fancy you could quickly pickle onions (ha!). Seriously, I love you if you do this.
