Cheap Ass Monday: Hot as Hell Cucumber Salad 09 Jun 08

Pretty.

Apparently, I don’t spend ENOUGH time on the internet, because I’m adding a new feature to TNS: Cheap Ass Monday. My grocery bills have, uh, been nudging ever so slightly upward for the past few months; I have no idea why that might be. No matter the reason, I need to figure out a way to offset some of the more obscene Smackdown costs, and I know lots of us are looking for quick, less expensive meals so we can save our money for blowout trips to the French Laundry. Or, you know, to pay the mortgage or utility bill (thanks a lot, heat wave).

So Monday will no longer merely be “Monday” but “Cheap Ass Monday,” where we endeavor to make a tasty dinner for two gluttonous adults for $5 or less. Play along at home! The rules are:

• You (me) have to actually MAKE dinner out of actual whole, fresh ingredients. The Wendy’s 99-cent menu does not a Cheap Ass Monday make. I mean, technically it does, but that’s not gonna fly around here.

• Normal pantry items that right-thinking people should have in their homes (salt, sugar, olive oil, etc) do not count toward the $5 limit.

• I am the arbiter of what constitutes a “normal pantry item” and reserve the right to stretch the definition thereof in order to meet my self-imposed dollar limit.

• Some Mondays may be skipped without prior notice if I am feeling lazy.

Cheap Ass Monday kicks off with a refreshing, raw cucumber and peanut salad. Not only is it too hot in New York to even think about entertaining the idea of considering turning on the oven, it is also too hot for humans to effectively digest complex foods. Also, the knobs on the stove may well be too hot from the ambient temperature to touch; I can’t say for sure because I didn’t want to chance it.

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This post is either about blondies or bipolar disorder. 13 May 08

I took this bandanna off my head because I needed something for the picture and have no cute dishtowels. I’m not sorry if that squicks you out.

Modern science can be a wonderful thing: penicillin, the polio vaccine, tiny cameras that can be inserted into your veins all Innerspace-style, the iPhone. (Of course, I’m still waiting for a cure for AIDS and a rocket car, but I’m sure that modern science is working hard on them.) So I have to give modern science a hand for inventing depakote, a wonderful drug that helps keep me from being crazy. Because the food in psych wards really isn’t up to snuff, so I can’t really see myself going back there. That, and I like my shoelaces.*

An unfortunate side effect of being sane is that I can sometimes be a little tired and don’t always feel like jumping up to make a 7-layer cake for a party I’d promised to bring dessert to, especially when it’s a bucolic spring day and the empty hammock is swinging invitingly in the breeze under the ginkgo trees.** Luckily, that’s what one-bowl blondies are for. They’re dense and chewy and stuffed to the gills with chocolate-y, pecan-y, coconutty goodness, and they pull together in about 3 minutes.***

*I know people have different opinions and different experiences with drugs of the mental health variety, and I deny none of those. Depakote works for me in that it helps keep me from offing myself, which I take to be a plus. As always, if you want to start some kind of Tom Cruise-style argument in the comments? You know what I’m going to tell you: Just say no.

**I acknowledge that this might have less to do with depakote than it does with my excessive love of napping in hammocks.

***Sorry about all the asides lately.

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Buttercream Quickie 20 Feb 08

I did not leave my cake out in the rain.

Last night I baked a dark chocolate-espresso layer cake for a co-worker’s 80th (!) birthday party today.  She’s a completely amazing - she still rides her bike around New York City, and is constantly flying around the world speaking at fancy-pants conferences - so she gets a completely amazing cake.   We tried to surreptitiously find out what her favorite flavors are, but she immediately saw through our pathetic ruse (did I mention she’s a genius?) and cornered me in the office kitchenette to announce that her favorite flavors are coffee, chocolate and lemon, and that she would be bringing something lemon-flavored herself.  I like her non-nonsense demeanor and the fact that she looks adorable in a bike helmet, so I made her a dark chocolate-espresso cake with vanilla buttercream and raspberry preserves.

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It’s Pudding Time, Children 17 Feb 08

Saturday night’s all right for pudding.

Keeping this site going has really been a culinary boon for me - I’m cooking more than ever, am constantly inspired by the amazing creations of fellow bloggers, and can more easily justify astronomical grocery bills. One downside, though, is that I rarely make anything sweet anymore. After all, there are only two of us and we’ve been pretty full of filet mignon stuffed with cheese or lard-fried chicken. (We eat vegetables too. Sometimes.) (No, really, we do. After we deep-fry them.) (And wrap them in bacon.)

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Buon’giorno di Nutella! 03 Feb 08

I’m not drunk, I just can’t feel my nose.

Saturday night. What’s a fun-loving 30-year-old, city-dwelling gal to do while her partner is out with his friends? Stay home, put on some pajama pants, and bake chocolate cookies while getting a little tipsy on a single bottle of 10% alcohol Belgian trippel beer and watching the AKC/Eukanuba dog championships on Animal Planet.

Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

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