There is one thing that I consistently feel bad about in my cooking life. Wasted food. It is such a disgusting habit. So, I am actively trying to work on it. These are the conditions under which tonight’s dinner was born.

I opened the fridge to find a flaccid bunch of swiss chard that was still this side of edible. So I pulled it out, determined to not let it have the less than valiant exit that more vegetables that I care to admit have had. I have a bag of potatoes that I bought because a bajillion pounds cost less than the quantity of potatoes that I needed when I bought them. And I had a half bunch of green onions left over from an earlier cooking project.

So I made potato pancakes. Easy and flling. And the chard got put in tummies not the trash.

Potato pancakes:
4 potatoes, shredded
1 bunch of flaccid swiss chard, thinly sliced
1 half bunch of green onions, thinly sliced
3 eggs, beaten

Olive oil for the pan

Mix all of the above, salting for taste.
Oil a skillet. Cook over medium heat until browned on both sides.

Eat with hot sauce.

Feel better about not wasting so much food.

It seems like everywhere I go, I encounter some sort of recipe about greens. I love greens all sorts of green. I actually love most vegetables, but greens, mmm. The November issue of Saveur did an article about greens that made me want to try all 6 of the recipes associated with it. The January Bon Appetit did a spread called “The Greens Party.” That hardly qualifies as everywhere but it was enough to make me take notice and to make me want greens. I am inspired to try all of these recipes, actually. Well with a couple of modifications because some of the recipes (two) call for mayonnaise, and I just can’t bring myself to that.

So, again, I find myself turning to Bon Appetit. I made their Mixed-Greens and Sausage Soup with Cornmeal Dumplings. I had to make a couple of substitutions. I used a chicken sausage instead of the andoullie that the recipe asked for. I also used dried thyme.  I was a bit slapdash with the hot sauce, but all-in-all it turned out well. If I were the sort to do this kind of thing, this soup could inspire me to eat some of it directly over the pot with the very spoon I used to make the soup. But that would be uncivilized.  This soup tastes like hearty comfort. Who can’t use a little hearty comfort?

I usually go through bananas like water. (Hey, sometimes writers are prone to hyperbole). However, last week I wasn’t feeling well and my normal morning habits were thrown off a bit. And I forgot about a bunch of bananas that I had bought. Not only did I forget about them, but they were hanging out in the plastic bag I brought them home in. Needless to say, they were not the firm specimens that I prefer.

So, I decided to make banana bread. I also had some buttermilk in the fridge so my original plan involved using it as well. But did I remember that when it was time to stand before the mixer? Noooo. So I used the recipe from one of the first cookbooks I owned. I used walnuts in the bread but also cranberries. And I had about two tablespoons of mini chocolate chip hanging around so I threw them in there too.

The bananas were turned into something edible. Yay!

Oh looky here. I have some vacation time on my hands and here I come crawling back to the oft-neglected blog. But, hey, I have time to cook!

Alex loves meatballs. I don’t know that he has met a meatball that he won’t eat. Considering that cooking is one of the primary ways that I show my love, and I am off work for a bit, I decided to make some meatballs. Oh no, son, when mama has the time, you don’t have to sit around wishing that we could go to Ikea so that you can have meatballs.

Now on the other side of things, I love to try new recipes. So, I set out to find a meatball recipe that I haven’t made yet. I remember seeing one not too long ago in Bon Appetit so I ventured on down to Epicurious (as if I jauntily strolled down the street) to look. That’s when I found the recipe.

Yes, when I can, I will procure three different types of ground meat to make meatballs for the Young Mister. I try not to wonder whether this is sick.

I though these were the best meatballs I ever tasted. Young Mister, however, didn’t appear to be convinced. He ate one of them.  Then again, he can be a light eater. I’ll know the true verdict when the topic of leftovers come up. I guess that if the next time he has a hankering for meatballs he just says, “Mama, can we go to Ikea?” that would suffice as a verdict. If he doesn’t eat them, I think I know a person or two who will.

A few months ago, I ventured into a thrift shop and bought a shirt because I loved the sheer wackiness of it. This used to be a man’s shirt. This man was not a small man.  I imagine this man is named Mortimer. Mortimer I hope found good things after this shirt.

The skirt wasn’t too hard to make. I got my basic guidance here.

Though, due to those lumpy bits that seem like they should have their own specific name, I had to make adjustments.

The above is what this skirt would look like in real outfit form.

I love the holiday season. And even though it is totally weird to go into the store and find both Halloween costumes and Christmas lights on display withing aisles of each other, I don’t mind seeing it. I love walking through aisles of peppermint candy, snowman shaped baking pans and nutcrackers. I love that there is glitter everywhere during this time of the season.

I am ready to put my Harry Conick Jr. Christmas CD on repeat.

Yes, I have in my possession this season’s wrapping paper. I also know what i’m doing about gift tags. There are bows in the closet waiting to be adhered to packages. I just think this stuff is so pretty!

But what, I asked myself, could I do today? Then it came to me: make a garland!! Text cannot properly convey the excitement that feels like delicate bubbles raising through my torso in a frenzy. Yes, I’m going to make a garland! I saw the idea years ago here and have meant to do it ever since. I did one thing differently. Instead of gluing this, I fastened it with eyelets.

Carpe diem, yo.

I collect things. I don’t mean to do it, but I have all of these ideas and grand intentions. Those intentions need supplies, right?

I reorganized some things around the apartment and came across some fabric that I have owned for years. How many years? I have no idea. I know that I have moved the fabric more than once and that I always had such great intentions for it.

I also had on hand the Simplicity 3858 pattern. After looking at a bunch of people’s versions of this, (among other things) I decided that I was going to make my own. I had the time, the fabric, the pattern, the thread and (so I thought) the notions. I made a muslin yesterday, knowing that I always need to make adjustments. (I added to the bust, and hip and took it in at the waist.)

So, this morning I cut out 2 shirts and made them assembly line style. And now there are two new shirts in my closet! Gotta love a long weekend!

I read Design Sponge, and had been seeing the ad for months, when extreme thirst and a (correct) hunch that I had failed to lock my door woke me up in the middle of the night. I started poking around online and saw the ad. Again. And that the deadline had been extended. And signed up.

This makes me one  of the 28727 folks from 94 countries doing this.

A few days ago, I got the sketchbook in the mail and have been thinking ever since of different ways to fill it. Each participant chooses a theme for his/her contribution. The theme I chose was “And then there were none.” My brain has been crackling with ideas ever since, which was sort of the point. I feel all askance and ungrounded when I’m not generating a bunch of  ideas. Lately, I have been spending a lot of time learning to dance a bunch of dances which has taken a fair amount of the time I would have otherwise been exploring behind the craters and crannies in my brain.

I have had an on again, off again relationship with creating art. I always like it when I’m doing it, and miss it when I’m not. I have wanted to make this relationship more constant, but this can be a challenge to do and also have a sense of balance, which is very important to me. But maybe this project will jump start something. I hope it will.

About 2 weeks ago I completed one of my more ambitious birthday goals: try 100 new recipes!!

I learned a lot about the things that I like and the things that I don’t like. I also learned a lot about foisting things upon other people!

This is a Cardamom Crumb Cake from the latest Everyday Food. It seems right that I finished this project off with an ingredient that I explicitly bought for another recipe in the project.

The other thing I learned this year is that I love the idea of cake, but don’t really love cake so much. I like to bake them and make them pretty and take pictures of them and smell their wonderful cakey smells, but then I think, “Crap, what am I going to do with all of this cake.” The grapevine said that folks at the workplace were glad to get it.

Raghavan, I think I love you.