I’ve had a week to reflect on this race now, and it seems that life keeps trying to teach me that just because I plan and prepare for something doesn’t mean I can control the outcome.  I’d trained hard for this race, my training culminated in a 23 mile training run at marathon pace + 30 seconds.  I’d felt confident going in that a PR (better than 4:52) was definitely attainable, and optimistic that a sub 4:30 finish was possible if I ran a good race.  Instead I finished in five hours plus a handful of seconds, and I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t upset about that.

There were miles in the marathon where I was selfishly disappointed, sad that my legs had slowed past goal pace, annoyed that my shoes were heavy and soggy, and frustrated that my wet clothes were rubbing painfully against my skin.  For so many more moments and miles though, I was grateful. 

I was grateful for the army of volunteers who turned out.  The only thing worse than running in the pouring rain has got to be standing in the pouring rain, but every volunteer I saw was smiling, cheering us on, offering water or Powerade and directing us around the worst of the puddles.  One girl stood in a puddle that came nearly to her knees, waving to runners so we’d avoid the worst of the flooded streets.  The police were out in their rain gear, blocking cars for us, while cheering and slapping high fives with the runners. 

I was grateful for the spectators and totally astonished by how many of them lined the streets from Folsom to Sacramento.  The volunteers at least had committed to being out in the rain, but the spectators could have easily stayed home in warm houses.  Yet they were out with rainboots, umbrellas and signs protected with plastic wrap.  Some of my favorite signs were “The rain won’t last, but your bragging rights will.” and “Longest Wet T-Shirt Contest Ever!”  I also loved one that a little boy was carrying that read “Rain, rain, go away.  Mommy has to run today!”

I am so grateful for my friends.  Thanks to them I had a ride up to Sacramento and a room to crash in the night before.  I had dinner the night before the race with a table full of 20+ enthusiastic runners.  People just kept arriving and we added more tables and chairs until we took up a good chunk of the restaurant.  Early race day morning, a friend’s sister drove us to the start, and we huddled together in the van wearing trash bags and throwaway ponchos wondering if we were all truly crazy.  Somehow even in the rain and the crowds of runners I managed to run into a handful of friends during the early miles of the marathon.  Seeing each one of them was a boost that distracted me from the soggy shoes and deep puddles.

I am so grateful for J and my family.  The last six miles I just kept thinking that I’d see J at the finish line, and when I finally did see him right at turn for the finish line I suddenly had the energy to smile, wave and sprint for the finish.

When I caught up with him again in the finisher’s area he was already on the phone with my mom telling her that I’d finished, and everything was all right.

Despite the rain and wind, my race was textbook perfect for the first sixteen miles.  I ran between a 9:50-10:10 pace for each of those miles, and I felt great.  Of course looking back, I can tell you that this was a big problem.  I was running as though I had perfect conditions when I actually had a Pineapple Express trinity of wind, rain and flooding.  I completely underestimated how much energy I was using to fight the wind.  Looking back, I think I’d have been better off running more conservatively in the beginning.  At mile 16, everything ground to a halt.  My back started aching, and I became acutely aware that my wet shirt was rubbing a hole on the inside of my arm.   I’m always determined not to walk in a race, but even though I was running I saw my pace slow to a 13:00 minute mile, and I couldn’t seem to make my legs turn over any faster.  Mile 16 is painfully early in a marathon to have the wheels come off the wagon.

I tried all my tricks: I took a gu, grabbed some powerade, promised myself a stretch break at the next mile marker.  Eventually the last ten miles became a game of “just get to the next mile marker.”  I never worried that I wouldn’t finish, I knew by mile 16 that I could walk in the last ten miles and finish even if it wouldn’t be comfortable.  Every mile had a new mental trick.  Mile 17 meant that I only had single digit miles left to go.  Mile 18 meant just 8 more miles to go, and that’s just the length of my usual route to Cesar Chavez Park and back.  Mile 19 meant we were nearly at 20, and Mile 20 meant just a 10k to go.  For each mile past 20, I just thought of a route of similar distance that my run club had done together.  The tricks distracted me a little, but this is an incredibly long way to finish a marathon, and it’s both mentally and physically exhausting.  I don’t recommend it.

By mile 21 I let go thoughts of a PR and just became determined to finish.  I was a curious mix of determined and disappointed these last few miles.  I was determined not to walk and just to get the finish line as fast as possible, but I was disappointed and frustrated that the race had gotten so out of my hands.  I wasn’t running my race anymore; I was just surviving on the way to the finish line.

It’s going to take me a while to stop being conflicted about my performance in this race.  I wish I’d adjusted earlier so I wouldn’t have lost half an hour in the last ten miles.  That said, I wouldn’t trade this race experience.  How often do you get to say that you ran a marathon through pouring rain with a head wind and where the race course was occasionally diverted due to flooding? 

Fall produce can be just as pretty as it’s spring and summer brethren (I love the colors of this salad!), but it’s so much hardier.  At the summer market, I always overbuy strawberries, pulled in by the promise of strawberries in salads and yogurt and smoothies and straight from the bowl with juice-stained fingers.  Then I get home to discover I’ve bought eight quarts and I pound strawberries day after day trying to consume them all before they rot in my fridge. 

Squash don’t create the same problem.  I’m just as excited to see them in the market, but I’m not compelled to bring home eight butternut squash.  (Delicata now, those are a different story)  Even when I do overbuy squash or pomegranates or apples, they are far more willing to sit on my counter and wait.  I’ve been meaning to make butternut squash enchiladas for two weeks now, and my trusty squash has been perched on my kitchen counter for two weeks, and I think it would be perfectly happy to sit there for at least two more if I can’t get my act together.

It’s good that fall and winter produce is so patient, since it comes to the market during the holidays when I’m running around like a crazy person.  Which reminds me, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and I can’t celebrate it without Vegetarian Stovetop Stuffing and Mushroom Gravy with mashed potatoes.  I wanted to share those recipes with you if you’re searching for Vegetarian thanksgiving options.

But back to this salad.  I have a disappearing problem with roasted delicata squash much like I have with kale chips.  I’ll pull the pan out of the oven to check if they’re done, and before I know it I’ve eaten half the pan leaning over the stove.  So I’d suggest roasting twice as much squash as you actually need.  We rolled extra roasted squash up in burritos with rice, black beans, avocado and goat cheese, which I suggest you try if you aren’t afflicted with a disappearing squash problem.

Roasted Delicata Squash with Pomegranate Seeds and Spicy Maple Dressing

• 2 delicata squash
• olive oil for drizzling
• 1 pomegranate
• 2 oz goat cheese, crumbled
• 1/4 cup slivered almonds
• lettuce mix of your choice (I used half baby spinach and half arugula)

for the dressing:

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 tbsp maple syrup
• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• pinch of crushed red pepper
• pinch of cayenne pepper

1. Heat your oven to 400 degrees.
2. Cut the ends off your delicata squash.  Cut each squash in half width wise and then cut each piece in half lengthwise, so you have 8 half moon shaped lengths of squash total.  Scoop out the seeds and cut the squash into 1/2” thick half moons.  (You can eat the skin of delicata squash so don’t worry about removing it)
3. Lay the squash half moons on a foil lined baking sheet and drizzle them lightly with olive oil.  Season with salt and pepper and roast them for 30-45 minutes or until they’re starting to brown.
4. Meanwhile, fill a large bowl with water.  Cut the top off your pomegranate, and cut it into quarters.  Immerse each quarter in the water, one at a time, and remove the seeds from the membrane under water.  The seeds should sink while the white membrane will float, and nothing should be stained with pomegranate juice.  Repeat with each quarter and then dispose of the membrane and the water and set the pomegranate seeds aside.
5. Prepare the dressing by whisking together the olive oil, maple syrup and apple cider vinegar.  Season with a pinch of crushed red pepper and cayenne pepper to taste.  Start conservatively here, I always find it’s easy for me to overspice things with cayenne.
6. When the delicata squash is done, pull it out of the oven and try to avoid eating it all off the cookie sheet.  Fill a large bowl with your lettuce and top it with the roasted squash, pomegranate seeds, goat cheese and almonds.  Drizzle on the dressing and serve.

My mom’s rolls are a perfect example of this unfortunate phenomenon.  She swears her rolls never taste the same as her mother’s even though they use the same recipe.  I’ve only attempted to make my mom’s rolls once in my own kitchen, and they were far from the ideal of soft cloud-like rolls that emerge from my mom’s oven.  I’m not quite sure it will feel like Thanksgiving without her rolls this year.

So I needed a new chocolate chip cookie recipe to join the old favorite, preferably one that didn’t have that note of “not quite as good as if Mom had made them” crowding out the warm chocolate.  Besides that, J likes some spice to his chocolate, and I grew up in a mild salsa household.  This recipe makes two dozen cookies and also freezes beautifully.  I’ll usually roll out all 2 dozen cookies, bake six at a time, and freeze the others for us to bake up later. 

Spicy Chocolate Chip Cookies  (Adapted just slightly from All Recipes)

This recipe makes about two dozen small cookies.  If you don’t love spice mucking up your chocolate chip cookie, you can always leave out the crushed red pepper and still have a perfectly serviceable cookie.  Sometimes I leave out the pepper on purpose, but then sprinkle some kosher salt on the cookies just before baking them.  J might like his chocolate with spice, but I prefer mine with a dash of salt. 

Ingredients

• 1 stick of unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon hot water
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• 1 cup dark chocolate chunks
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cream together the butter with the white and brown sugar until the mixture is smooth.
3. Beat the egg into the batter along with the vanilla.
4. Dissolve the baking soda in the hot water and add the mixture to the batter along with the salt and crushed red pepper
5. Spread the chocolate chunks out on a cutting board and roughly chop them so you have some thin chocolate shavings mixed in with the chunks.
6. Stir the flour and the chocolate into the batter until everything is well distributed.
7. Roll the batter into 1” balls and bake on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet for about 10 minutes or until golden.

My first try with dumplings, I followed this recipe for golden potstickers from 101 Cookbooks.  I always trust Heidi to carry me safely through any new recipe or technique with carefully crafted instructions.  I bought gyoza wrappers at Berkeley Bowl (same aisle as the tofu).  Heidi’s recipe calls for yellow split peas and shallots as the filler.  I followed her recipe for the filling, deviating just slightly by adding a diced serrano pepper to the filling. 

As has been true with any filled cookies I’ve made and with my few attempts at ravioli, my first few dumplings were seriously over-filled with split peas literally splitting the seams of the dumplings.  After a few failures I got into a groove, and found that a scant tablespoon was the appropriate amount of filling for these wrappers (which were 3.5” diameter).  I carefully placed a small spoonful of filling in the center of a wrapper, dipped my index finger in a bowl of water, and then ran my finger around the edge of the wrapper.  I then pulled all the edges of the circle up into the center around the filling and crimped them together. 

I loved her combination pan-fry/flash steam method.  First you cook the dumplings in a slick of oil until the bottoms are golden.  Then you add 1/3 cup of water to what is now a very hot pan and cover the pan.  Cook until the water is nearly all evaporated, and the dumplings are ready for your favorite dipping sauce.  I like the spicy peanut sauce from this recipe for dipping or just a simple mix of soy sauce, sesame oil and sriracha.

I laid all the extra dumplings out on a baking sheet and popped it in the freezer for a few hours.  The dumplings froze beautifully, and then I filled several Ziploc bags with 12 dumplings each for us to have later.  The yellow split pea filling was hearty and dense, basically a full meal in itself.  I wanted a dumpling recipe that would be more of an appetizer and less of a meal.  These requirements led me to Deb’s recipe for vegetable dumplings on Smitten Kitchen.

I left out the bell pepper and cilantro and subbed in red cabbage for the Napa cabbage.  Otherwise I followed Deb’s instructions for preparing the vegetable and tofu filling.  This filling was lighter than the split pea filling, though I used the same pan-fry/flash steam method of cooking them instead of just steaming the dumplings as Deb recommends. 

I made another big batch of the tofu and vegetable-filled dumplings and froze several more bags of 12 each.  I’ve pulled a frozen batch out of the freezer an hour or so in advance and then cooked them normally, and they tasted the same as the fresh batch.  Hopefully now we can just turn to the freezer instead of Chinese takeout when a dumpling craving hits!

I’d heard some horror stories about this race being incredibly crowded, and the expo did nothing to allay those fears.  It took 45 minutes just to get inside the tent to collect my number and the lines for everything else on Saturday were incredibly long.  Luckily I ran into a friend and we collected our numbers, took a quick photo, and escaped back to the East Bay.  I’d have liked to have visited some of the booths or tried to see Shalene Flanagan, Kara Gaucher or Allyson Felix, but the crowd was just too overwhelming.

We got to the start nearly an hour before the race actually began, again fueled by stories of crazy crowds from the year before.  I met up with some other friends and found two girls planning to run between 2:10-2:15.  We inched our way up towards the start line.  Luckily there were so many people all crammed into our corral that I was plenty warm.  When we finally started the three of us were able to get off without too much weaving around people.

The course was beautiful.  As one piece of my total lack of preparation, I hadn’t even looked at the course map.  I’d checked the elevation profile, so I knew to expect some serious hills in the middle of the course, but I wasn’t prepared for how pretty the run was going to be.  We went down the Embarcadero, through Fisherman’s Wharf and Ghiradelli Square.  We hit a hill right at Fort Mason that I was glad I’d run before before winding our way along the Marina and into the Presidio. 

Normally I love hills, and while I wasn’t properly trained for them, I didn’t mind them at all.  For a while we went through a pattern where I’d lose my running buddies briefly on the up hill and then they’d catch me on the down hill.  I’ve never successfully stayed with anyone during a race; in my only other attempt my sister and I managed to stay together for the first seven miles of our first half marathon before we lost each other.  It was wonderful to have people to chat with, and  I had my run club buddies with me right until mile 9.5 where I lost them in the combination of a crazy aid station and a hill.  I spent the next few miles checking in front and behind me hoping I’d find them.

Right after I lost my buddies there was a beautiful long down hill that took us past Cliff House and out onto the Great Highway.  The view was incredible; waves rolling in covered by a soft blanket of fog and uninterrupted sandy beach stretching out before you.  The down hill was just steep enough that I felt like I was flying, but also just slightly out of control.  Kind of like, I’m going really fast and this is cool, but if I slip things could get ugly, fast.  Luckily I didn’t slip, and speeding down that hill while watching the waves was one of my favorite parts of the race.

As I turned into Golden Gate Park, I saw the second Safeway Cheer Station.  The first had been just after Fort Mason, and I was truly blown away by the support at each of these stations.  There were tons of spectators, all dressed in purple and cheering along with multiple cheerleading squads from local high schools.  The second cheer station even had a drum corps.  I so appreciated their energy and shouted my thanks as I went by.  The spectators at this race were fantastic, and I saw many signs that made me laugh along the route.  Some favorites included “Yes, you can… run faster than Paul Ryan!” and “Your training lasted longer than Kim Kardashian’s marriage!”

There were a lot of spectators, so running through the park was great fun.  As I hit the 12 mile mark, I even had enough energy in the tank to pick it up to the finish.  Right around here I saw Jojo out cheering, and I was thrilled to see a familiar face.  That powered me through the last mile, which luckily had some slight downhill portions as well, and I clocked mile 13 in a speedy (for me!) 8:42.  I loved that you could see the finish line from a reasonable distance in this race, and I managed to put in a good sprint to the line.  As you turn towards the finish line, you can see where the full marathoners have to turn away from the finish line and put in many more miles.  I thought of my friend who was running the full marathon (her first!) and hoped she’d passed the split already.  I always hate when you have to run past the finish line during a race before you actually get to finish.

I crossed the line in 2:12:11, which my Garmin had as a 9:58 average pace for 13.28 miles.  I felt fairly comfortable at the finish, and I was happy that I’d met my goal of running marathon pace for the whole race and not wanting to die.  Normally there’s a period in the half marathon where I feel really tired, run out of energy, and have to hope for a surge to carry me through the rest of the race.  In this race I felt strong the whole time.

Immediately at the finish I was handed my Tiffany’s box.  While the expo had left me nervous about how well the race would be organized, I was actually blown away by the volunteers on race day.  The aid stations were all incredibly well planned and staffed, and I never had trouble getting water or fuel when I wanted it.  I grabbed three shot blocks (the normal packs of six were cleverly cut in half so you didn’t have to open anything) at mile 5, and only wanted water after that.  Once I crossed the finish line, I was quickly handed my necklace, someone offered to take my picture, and then I was given a water bottle.  Immediately after that we were presented with reusable Safeway bags, and then we walked down a line where bagels, bananas, fruit cups, Luna bars, coconut water and Ghiradelli chocolate (Dark & Sea Salt Caramel squares!) were all placed in our bags.  I kept walking, this time through a tent to receive my finisher’s shirt, and then a volunteer wrapped me in a heat sheet and congratulated me.  It was by far the smoothest finish line of any race I’ve attended.

At the finish line I found some friends, and we took some pictures before picking up our gear from the buses (retrieving our bags was also incredibly simple) and heading home.

I jokingly said to a friend today that we should run this race every weekend.  While the expo had disappointed me, the actual race was a wonderful experience.  The course was beautiful and challenging, I got to run with friends for most of the race, the spectators and volunteers along the course were amazing, and the finish line ran so smoothly I nearly forgot my legs were tired and my feet were sore.

I’m still feeling a little nervous about CIM being just 7 weeks away, but this race gave me a little more confidence.  So far my longest run has been 18 miles, and that went well.  I have 20 miles planned for next weekend, so fingers crossed, that run will be successful and I can keep gathering little bits of confidence as my second date with 26.2 approaches.

Our little seedling has given us nearly 12 small eggplants so far this season.  I’ve made eggplant parmesan and eggplant sauce with sweet corn polenta.  When I wanted to try a new eggplant dish, I turned to Herbivoracious to check out Michael’s archives.  A quick search turned up this recipe for eggplant ragu with fresh ricotta.

This recipe was simple to put together, and the eggplant melted into a delicious sauce over the pasta.  I left out the bell pepper and subbed in jalapenos for the Fresno chilis.  I also used lemon zest instead of orange zest, but otherwise followed the recipe exactly.  The extra touches of ricotta, parsley and lemon zest made this dinner feel just a bit more special than a typical weeknight thrown together pasta.

I’d definitely make this recipe again, but I think our last garden eggplant is going to find a home in a stir-fry with ginger scallion sauce this week.

At this point I have years of kitchen disasters to look back on.  We’ve never starved, and I’ve never poisoned anyone.  My kitchen disasters range from insignificant to hilarious now that I have the buffer of years between me and the events.  At the time though, there were a few kitchen disasters that left me furious, frustrated or nearly in tears.  Usually this was because I was cooking for someone other than myself, and the audience added extra pressure and (mostly self-imposed) expectations to the situation.

Early on in our relationship, I refused to cook for J.  Partially this was because my cooking skills were built on a firm foundation of scrambled eggs and boxed macaroni and cheese.  A second critical factor in my refusal to feed the boy out of my own kitchen was that he liked to talk about what a wonderful cook his mom was.  About how they ate something different for dinner every night that he was growing up, and it was always delicious and gourmet.  How he never bothered to order macaroni and cheese or spaghetti carbonara when we went out to a restaurant because they couldn’t possibly be as good as his mom’s.  Talk about pressure. 

At this point I was still teaching myself to cook.  I’d had some honest successes with frittatas and risotto, and I could easily follow any recipe involving pasta.  I’d even made some pretty delicious seared scallops.  So while I could follow a recipe, I lacked the kitchen confidence you build up over time, sort of like the callouses you get from grabbing hot cookie sheets that eventually make you impervious to pain. (or are these just a myth?)

Still, I’d been having a lot of success with a very simple bean dish.  I’d sauté onions and garlic in some olive oil, add a few cans of white beans, some water, and a pint of beer.  I’d cook the whole thing down, add some spinach at the end so it was just wilted, and happily eat it with sourdough bread.  J was newly vegetarian, and it was winter in Boston, so this seemed like it would be both hearty and satisfying.

We weren’t going to be eating in my kitchen in Boston though, we were headed to his family’s house in Rhode Island.  This piece of information is critical for a couple of reasons.  First, I’d be in a foreign kitchen, which can be nerve wracking for even experienced cooks.  I actually didn’t know enough to be freaked out by this though.  Second, and far more important, all other sources of food in town were closed by the time we made it to the house.  There was no pizza or Chinese available as the back up plan.  I was working without a net here, people!

Still, I think everything might have been just fine, if it weren’t for this criminal.  Yes, I place all blame for our dinner’s failure right here, on the slim shoulders of what seemed like a perfectly nice beer:

I’d always made my bean dish with a pint of Sam Adams Boston Lager.  It didn’t even occur to me that swapping a lager for a Belgian blonde was going to be a problem.  We’d drunk Leffe before and I’d always enjoyed it.  That night I was more concerned with locating a cutting board and the right pot in a new kitchen than with the six of beer that J had picked out.  I (messily) chopped my onion, crushed my garlic, and started sautéing.  While this was going on, we searched for a can opener to open the beans.  Everything was proceeding smoothly.  I added the beans and a bottle of Leffe and cooked everything down to a nice thick stew.  I stirred in the spinach, and just before reaching for two bowls, I took a little taste out of the pot.  And it was disgusting.

I was instantly upset.  It was neither bland nor too salty, both problems I’d have known how to fix.  No, this tasted like beans and the concentrated essence of things that should not be combined.  If you look up tasting notes for Leffe, you’ll find a horrifying combination of descriptions “warm caramel and banana” sit next to “moldy yeast” and “toasted nuts” and “candied grapefruit rind.”  I can attest to the presence of all of these flavors, and I can further attest to the fact that they should not be concentrated and served with beans. 

Another favorite quote notes that this beer “really leaves an aftertaste in your mouth that can’t be rivaled by anything else.”  True.  And not in a good way.

It was horrible.  I started to get upset and told J that I’d ruined dinner and we’d have to survive on tortilla chips until morning.  He assured me it couldn’t possibly be that bad and took a spoonful out of the pot.  He ate it and suddenly this curious expression crossed his face.  “Really, I’ll eat it,” he assured me.  “You can’t!” I shrieked tearfully, “it’s horrible!”  (Horrible and disgusting were the only two adjectives I had available to me in the midst of this culinary crisis, but later we’d come up with a whole host of other applicable descriptors).  He burst out laughing and agreed that it was, in fact, horrible.  He bravely attempted to save it by straining out all the liquid and adding a bunch of water back to the pot, as though you can dilute out disgusting.  The damage was done, though, and the beans were now delicately flavored with some inimitable combination of moldy yeast and candied grapefruit rind.    

We dumped the whole mess in the trash, though frankly if the ground hadn’t been frozen, we probably would have been better off burying that evil deep in the ground.  I don’t remember what we ate that night, but I do remember what we didn’t drink.  Since that night, neither one of us has been able to look at Leffe the same way. 

What’s your worst kitchen disaster?

What I really wanted was to find a shop or food truck that would sell me that sandwich, bag of chips, and sparkling water.  So I did a fair amount of searching and Yelp-ing, but had no luck finding a place that specialized in vegetarian sandwiches in Berkeley (if you know of one, please let me know in the comments!). 

There seem to be three kinds of vegetarian sandwiches you can expect to find at a sandwich place (if you’re lucky).  The first is plain veggies with hummus.  The second is a riff on the first, but it’s a roasted vegetable sandwich, perhaps with mozzarella, and usually consisting of roasted red peppers, portabella mushrooms and eggplant.  The third is a caprese sandwich with mozzarella, tomato and basil.  All of these can be delicious if done right, but eventually they can get boring.

I think the market has a perfect hole in it for a vegetarian sandwich shop or food truck.  This gorgonzola, caramelized onion and fig sandwich was perfect this weekend.  I also love my grilled cheese with cheddar, apples and mustard which is still my very favorite sandwich.  There’s a whole range of creative grilled cheese sandwich possibilities to be explored.

There’s also my buffalo tofu, goat cheese and asparagus sandwich, though if I were making it again, I’d pair a blue cheese spread with the buffalo tofu.  I also added this new sandwich to the mix last weekend.  It’s avocado and lemon aioli plus both slicing cucumbers and lemon cucumbers, a perfect late summer combination of tang and crunch.

Maybe I should start that vegetarian sandwich food truck myself.

Do you have a favorite vegetarian sandwich?

Turns out that if you can chop vegetables and roll a burrito, you can make spring rolls.  This is actually a “clean out the fridge” recipe in disguise.  That lonely carrot and half a head of cabbage?  They’ll go perfectly here. 

Just chop your vegetables into similar sizes (I used the length of my tofu as a marker and went ahead and matched that), and roll them into these spring rolls.  We used some leftover peanut sauce from a spicy peanut noodle recipe earlier in the week, but soy sauce mixed with Sriracha would have been great, too.

Here we have carrots, purple cabbage, zucchini, yellow pepper, crispy tofu, snap peas, jicama and some Thai basil.  I referred to this post on How to Roll Fresh Spring Rolls for the first nerve wracking attempt, but I quickly realized how easy it was.  Rice paper is sturdier than expected, and we had no problems with it tearing.  In fact, I’d argue that these are easier to wrap than a burrito because the wet rice paper actually sticks to itself.

Tofu and Vegetable Spring Rolls

• 2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
• 1 block extra firm tofu
• 8 rice paper wrappers (like these)
• warm water
• assorted raw vegetables, cut approximately 4”x1/4” (the fillings in the picture above yielded 8 spring rolls for us)
• dipping sauce of your choice

1. In a wok or large skillet, heat the sesame oil until a drop of water sizzles when added to the pan.
2. While the oil is heating, cut the tofu into slabs, approximately 1/4-1/2” thick.
3. Carefully place the tofu slabs in the pan, and cook for about 3 minutes.  Flip the slabs and cook the tofu on the other side for 2-3 minutes or until both sides are crispy.
4. Pull the tofu out of the pan and gently pat it dry with paper towels.  Cut the tofu into strips that mimic the size of your vegetables.
5. Fill a large pan with warm water and immerse one rice paper wrapper in the water for 5-10 seconds or until pliable.
6. Lay the rice paper wrapper out on a large plate, and add your vegetable and tofu fillings to the top third of the wrapper in the center.  Fold the sides in over your filling, and then roll up the spring roll, tucking in the filling for a tighter roll as you go.
7. Repeat until you have rolled all 8 spring rolls.
8. Enjoy with a dipping sauce of your choice (this Garlic Soy Dipping Sauce looks delicious).

I hope your weekend has been wonderful. Mine was a little rocky, but redeemed itself handsomely. I woke up on Sunday with a full case of the Sunday blues.  Usually they don’t set in until after lunch at the earliest, but I woke up hating Sunday simply for being the precursor to Monday.  Although I expected very little from the day, I was pleasantly surprised.

I made huevos rancheros for our breakfast.  The boy likes savory breakfasts, and I like any excuse to combine black beans and goat cheese.  (this meal remains a favorite)  So the Sunday got off to a promising start, as huevos rancheros felt appropriately brunch-y and weekend-ish.  We ventured out for coffee and checked out the donut farm which apparently has a weekend brunch.  Who knew?  We’ll have to head back as they had an entrée composed of hash browns with caramelized onions and avocado.  I’m instantly a fan of any breakfast place that allows potatoes to star all on their own. 

Coffee cups in hand, we steered towards the water and Cesar Chavez park.  The park juts out into the Bay, and on the east side the water is so calm that you’d think you’re strolling alongside a lake.  Once you turn west you start to feel the breeze and see some little white caps in the water and when you get all the way to the west side you’re rewarded with a beautiful view of San Francisco, a brisk sea breeze, and a total awareness of the ocean.  We perched on one of many benches and admired the waves and the city in the distance.  Met some prairie dogs and many pet dogs (and their people), too.  Avoided the seagulls and admired the cormorants diving a safe distance away in the waves (birds make me nervous).

We headed home and hung out in the kitchen all day.  The boy was working, and I was puttering.  Looking back, I’m impressed at what the puttering added up to.  I cooked a big batch of chickpeas, set some aside for these spicy chickpea fajitas, and froze the rest in 1/2 cup portions in little ziploc bags.  I do the same thing with black beans (which we eat weekly in this house), and whatever grain I’m feeling like that week.  This time the process made me think of my grandmother.  She had a huge freezer in her house in Vermont, and if you dug deep enough you could find little ziploc bags of garden raspberries older than me.  Much nearer the top were gallons of ice cream and boxes of donut holes, perfect treats for grandchildren.  My freezer only holds frozen beans and vegetables and quinoa.  I’m clearly lacking in donut holes.

Still thinking of Grandma, I cut up some peaches and strawberries to make another batch of this strawberry peach crumble.  Soon enough it will be apple crumble, but for now we’re still blessed with summer fruit in abundance.  I roasted some cherry tomatoes and shiitake mushrooms, meaning to use them to top another batch of this polenta.  The boy saw me pull out a bowl of kernels and said “oh, are we having corn again?”  I adore summer corn, but this polenta recipe, perfectly releasing the sugar embedded deep in the kernels, is sweeter than he likes.  Hearing a clear hint, I put the corn into bags for the freezer, too, thinking that with fresh corn in some of my ziploc bags my freezer was looking just a little more like Grandma’s.  Still a gallon or two of maple walnut ice cream away from the real thing, of course.

I packed up the roasted tomatoes and mushrooms with some spinach, the last few miniature balls of fresh mozzarella and some fried capers for Monday’s lunch.  Suddenly Monday’s presence loomed large and I was feeling seriously out of kitchen steam.  Between all the projects I’d finished Gail Simmons’ autobiography “Talking with My Mouth Full,” and I am newly a fan.  I had no idea that she had serious chops, having worked briefly at Le Cirque and Jean-George Vongerichten’s Vong and spending two years as assistant to Jeffrey Steingarten (Vogue food columnist and author of “The Man Who Ate Everything”) before landing at Food & Wine and eventually at Top Chef.  Her autobiography is a fun and refreshing read, so full of food and delicious descriptions that by the end I couldn’t decide if I was full by proxy or ravenous in jealousy.

The boy was still working at the kitchen table through all of this, so I gave him the difficult gourmet decision of choosing between Annie’s macaroni with shells and cheddar or peace symbols and parmesan.  He voted for the tie-dye box, so I set the water to boil for the macaroni and grabbed a mason jar to shake up some whipped cream for the crumble that was sitting warm on the counter.  Homemade whipped cream cancels out boxed macaroni, right? 

I poured the pint of cream into the jar, added a touch of vanilla extract and a mere two tablespoons of powdered sugar.  I screwed the lid on tight and shook and shook and shook.  One of the clearest things I remember from kindergarten was making butter.  We all sat cross legged in a circle and took turns shaking the jar of cream while our teacher read to us.  When the cream had finally turned to butter, we each got a piece of toast, spread with the butter we had made, plus little bowls of milk, dyed with food coloring and a paint brush.  We got to paint our toast, and then eat it.  That was a pretty perfect kindergarten day, and I was learning the homemade whipped cream could redeem even a Sunday that had started rather drearily.

We enjoyed the macaroni and cheese, and then shared some peach and strawberry crumble topped with whipped cream.  Monday was ever so much closer than it had been over the morning’s eggs, but somehow it seemed less menacing. 

I hope you had a lovely Sunday, too.  Did you?