·:[ Sweet Pea Cooks ]:·
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When we moved, I packed up the plants I’d potted earlier in the summer into the car with me and the cat. Now my highway driving experience was, shall we say, minimal since 2001, when we moved to the city and I no longer needed to drive. Now I’d be on the highway for a good hour and a half, minimum. And the cat, well, he associates the car with the vet and hates any change to his routine. He was not a happy camper and yowled for a good hour, terrified and panting, and I was sure he was going to have a heart attack.

The tomatoes, however, were ok.

My lettuce didn’t make it, and all my beloved irises and lilies in the yard were destined to stay there. But the tomatoes, oh! They were so big, all three fruit, and I had been eagerly awaiting their ripening for a long while. They were pokey.

When we got here I put my pots on the porch. They got a little less sun than they were used to and seemed to hibernate. Then I found one on the sidewalk with a huge bite in it; evidently a raccoon or some other fiend decided to give it a taste, hated it, and left it where I could see it. I was displeased. But then what was left did, in fact, ripen, and Mr. Pea picked this little beauty yesterday afternoon. Isn’t she lovely? She’s almost too pretty to eat. There are a couple of tiny new tomatoes on the branches now but it’s kind of a race against time to see if they’ll actually grow and ripen. I’m not holding my breath, but after all the hassle of getting that plant here, I’d be more than happy if they made it.

So in the few weeks that we’ve lived in our new state, before the semester begins, I’ve gotten some crafting for Christmas done. Knowing that my good pals don’t check this out at all (ahem), I figured there was no harm in showing you guys what I’ve been up to. These are Tanglewood bags, made from a pattern Alicia over at Posie Gets Cozy made. They weren’t hard, necessarily, but were really involved. First you have to cut all the little squares; sew them into patchwork; press seams; place bag pattern and cut; then cut the rest of the bag. I used, on the pink-trimmed bag, a print that’s also on the front for the lining and then just a solid dark brown for the back. The other has a bright red lining and back. They have leather loops for the buttons. If you’re an intermediate-level sewer, I highly recommend you give these a go; if not, try out some simpler stuff first before moving on!

And it makes me a little sad. I love my cherry glasses, or what remains of them. Same way I have loved many of the other ones that are now departed.

I broke it not because it slipped in my fingers while I washed it–that’s happened before. Um, no, this one broke because I think I’m tall. Or so Mr. Pea tells me. I am not tall. For those of you who haven’t met me, which is most of you, I’m just a hair under 5′. An the cabinet I was reaching was well over 5′. I wanted the old bottle of soy sauce, see, and it was behind a bunch of stuff. So I reached over the dishrack and…….

well, I didn’t get the soy sauce, and Madam Cherry here fell into the sink and shattered. It went to the glasses graveyard with so many others we’ve had over the years.

And Mr. Pea told me I have a stool for reaching things like the old bottle of soy sauce, and should use it. I also have a stool next to our tub–it’s a clawfoot number that’s kind of hard to climb over. Now you have embarrassing details about me and my smallness.

I plan on scouring ebay regularly for a replacement, though it looks like I might have to buy several, rather than one; I guess that will provide a nice buffer for the sad results of my overreaching.

Hi! For whatever few readers may be left here (you all likely have abandonment issues, I’m very bad about leaving for long periods of time), I’m finally back and I swear I’m going to post regularly again. The move to a new state was rough, and settling in, well, goes. Sure we’re unpacked, but it just doesn’t feel like it fits so far. Hopefully it will, but after six years in our old place, well, it’s just hard.

So anyway, dear Mr. Pea and I have been balancing eating out (known as “reconnaissance missions” to get to know our new area) and eating in. Mr. Pea is a saint–he came with me, knowing he’d have to find a new job. He uses some of this downtime to write his own blog–you should check it out! It’s called Observations of a Trailing Spouse and it’s full of quirky things he’s either noticed here in town or elsewhere.At any rate, we cook together a lot more now and just the other night we made quiche. We’re not huge quiche eaters but this one totally hit the spot. It’s a spinach quiche with bacon, onions, and cheeses.I started by making the crust. It’s a butter crust, taken from the Land O’ Lakes website. But you can use any old pie crust you like.Heat the oven to 450. Cover crust with a double-layer of foil and bake 8 minutes. Remove foil, bake 4 more.

The filling begins with chopping a half cup of onion and five or six slices of bacon. Toss the bacon into a skillet over med-high heat and add the onion after a minute or so. Cook until onion is soft and bacon is a little crispy, five or six minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon to a plate.

As I did that, Mr. Pea whisked together 5 whole, large eggs and 1 cup of milk. To that he added salt, pepper, and about 1/4 t of nutmeg. I grated in about a 1″ cube of mozzarella and 1/2 c or so of grated cheddar.

We thawed out some frozen spinach (1 ten-ounce box), drained it by wringing it in a towel, and chopped it. This, along with onions and bacon, was added to the egg mixture.Pour into crust. Turn oven down to 325 and bake for 40-50 minutes. Let rest 10 minutes before serving.

Hi there! I have moved from one state to another, and am now ensconced in our new digs. This is our kitchen. It’s spacious, gets a lot of afternoon sun, and has a gas stove, but also has some sorta nutty wallpaper. I’m just not usually a wallpaper girl. It’s growing on me, though.

The cooking has only recently picked up for us; the first several days involved a lot of takeout and recipes we didn’t have to think about. But it’s getting better. The other day I made some zucchini pancakes which were actually pretty good. I didn’t photograph them, naturally, but it was already 8 pm when we ate them. The long and short of it is that things are coming together here, and I should be turning up a little more often than I have of late!

I’m not even sure where the camera is these days–we’re getting down to the nitty gritty in these parts as we start our move to the other state.  We moved a bunch of stuff this weekend; Monday is the big day to finish it up.  In the meantime we are eating out all the time in order to hit up our favorite restaurants before we go.  Yesterday, we had sandwiches at the Pour House, a cheap little place in the Back Bay.  Today it was Yucatan Tacos, our favorite Mexican joint.  We had Thai at Phuket on Sunday night.  Slowly we make the rounds! I did, however, make a really good salad last night.  This was another number out of the free Gourmet notebook that came with an old subscription.  I made somewhere between half and two-thirds of the recipe, which should serve four.  We at the whole thing.  

You’ll need:1 lb red potatoes
1/2 lb Italian sausages (I used the no-fennel sweet from the Italian butcher)
3 c lettuce (calls for arugula, we had Romaine)
1-2 T red vinegar1 t saltbit of pepper
2-3 T olive oil
1/3 c roasted red peppers, sliced  

Start by boiling your potatoes until softened.  I used smallish potatoes, so they took  about 20 minutes.  Once they got going, I started the grill and tossed my sausage on there, which take 15-20 minutes to cook.  The idea was to have the potatoes done just a little while before the sausages. In the bowl you’ll be serving the salad from, add your vinegar and salt and swoosh around until salt is about dissolved.  Once you’ve drained your potatoes allow them to cool until you can just handle them, and chop into 1″ cubes.  Toss with vinegar mix.  They’ll absorb it like a sponge.   Slice sausages into 1/2″ rounds, and add.  Add everything else.  Toss.  Serve.  Yum. 

I bet you could even do grilled potatoes with this and avoid the oven/stove altogether.  Or, alternately, you could do the sausages inside and not use the grill. My oven right now is self-cleaning.  It’s really gross, but it’ll be much better for whoever is in here next.  We’ve lived here 6 years and never cleaned it, so it was high time. 

The heat has finally broken here, so I am excited to use the oven and stove again for longerthan a few minutes at a time. Tonight I’m making a feast–what you see here are white beans, pre-soaked and then simmered. They’ll be used in Mark Bittman’s , which seems to be making the internet rounds these days. I’ve been itching to make it, and while the recipe calls for two lemons and I have but one, I think it’ll be fine. I’m making focaccia to go with it; nothing fancy, just the foccacia I’ve made here before. With both of them, I plan to make pasta with a hearty mushroom and tomato sauce that I found in a Gourmet freebie–Weeknight Meals, I think it was called–discovered during the joy that is packing.Have I mentioned how much I hate packing? Oh, the happiness.Anyway, this feast is in honor of tomorrow being Mr. Pea’s last day at his job, a job he likes ok but which frustrates him more than it satisfies him, and the departure from which signals a lot of potential new things. So hooray for that.But as I waited for my pictures to upload on Flickr (my computer is waging a mutiny by routinely slowing down these days), I started thumbing through a coupon section from an old Sunday paper that’s being used as packing cushion for fragile things like vases. And I found this. I’ll enlarge it so you can see it:This ad….I don’t know. Weirds me out. Makes me kinda cranky. For one thing, it plays upon the fear of average working and middle class Americans of a looming recession, which, in all likelihood, will impact them more than other people. Things aren’t great right now, but technically, there isn’t a recession, but thanks for using it to boost your profit margin, FR. Anyway, above the photo is a receipt that proves this is a wise meal–that you can feed 4 for less than $10–and it includes pasta for $1.25, italian bread for $1.79, salad for 2.50, dressing for 1.59, and FR for 1.99. Grand total, $9.12. Ok. Now I know not everyone can/wants to make Italian bread or quick and easy focaccia, so I’ll let that go. Even the salad. But I guess what makes me kind of sad is that you could make a whole lot more for $9.12. Making your own sauce is going to cost you, on average, a buck and a half, so you’d get your 49 cents there, plus you’d be consuming less preservatives or whatever else goes into a jar of FR. Buying lettuce and a cucumber is likely going to set you back the same amount as “salad”. And you could make your own dressing, though I’m lazy and buy Newman’s Own all the time.  But I also really like their generosity–buy three jars, get one free.  Way to make an effort!  I think it’s the pushing of the buttons that gets me. Pushing of the buttons in the name of profit, which is kind of what got us in this mess to begin with.Rant over. Sorry about that!

This is the first full pair of PJs I’ve ever made. They are a very belated birthday present for one of my very good friends; she’s moved recently, and while I really wanted to send her a snoopy snow cone maker for her birthday, simply for “we’re-30-let’s-get-nostalgic” reasons, these seemed much more practical and easy to shift from place to place. What do you think?

They weren’t terribly hard to make; the shirt’s going to be big, but that’s comfortable, I think, for pajamas. My friend lives in California, thus the shorts. Here in New England these days, even shorts are too hot to wear.

Despite the fact that I am melting away, I am going to cook dinner! I have the beans soaking, and everything else cooks in a few minutes. We’re having an old standby, curried couscous, though without the chicken.

This is likely the last craft project before we move; Mr. Pea aims to have our place cleared out of darn near everything but furniture and the cat this weekend, so that’s pretty much that. It’s ok; once we get to our new place, I’ll start assembling the quilt, which should be more than enough crafting for me.

This is my house. It’s in these boxes, and the other half-dozen or so around the floor. I don’t cook much these days, as I mostly just put things in boxes and try not to melt. It was in the low 70s all weekend but now we’re in the steamy 90s, so I’m avoiding the oven pretty much entirely. We’ve also begun our Farewell Tour of eateries and friends around town, so that’s keeping us from our kitchen, as well. Yesterday I went hiking with a friend of mine in the sun most of the day; that night I met my cousin for dinner with his friends and forgot I was both dehydrated and hadn’t eaten in a while. A little bit of wine went an awful long way. 

This is a photo of round two of one batch of jam. I love to can things, but jam and I are not friends.

I had some berries about to expire, so I cooked them down with sugar as instructed, and boiled them to a certain degree, and then jarred and put them in a water bath. Nothin’. So then after several days I opened them, poured the guts into a pan, and added pectin, a powder derived from apple juice that’s supposed to make this process easy, following instructions. This was Saturday. Today, still nothin’. I’ve put them in the pantry so I’ll stop peeking at them. This time I even did a gel test with a spoon and it passed and STILL no jelly. Jam. Preserves. Whatever. I’m giving it two weeks before I try one last time, following the pectin packages “didn’t set?” instructions and hoping for the best.

The ironic part of all this is that last time I tried to make strawberry jam, many years ago, it turned into a brick. Ha.

Do any of you have experience with this and can make some suggestions? It’s making me batty. It tastes so good, too, which almost makes it worse. Sigh.