Egg and Cheese Casserole with Chiles
Last night I prepared this egg, cheese and green chile casserole for dinner. I found the recipe in the Sunday paper a few weeks ago. It’s Nick Jonas’ favorite comfort food since it reminds him of home. I figured if it was good enough for Nick Jonas, it should be good enough for us. I decided to make it last night, anticipating it would be a good meal to prepare prior to Louisa’s basketball game, that we could eat upon returning home. That part of the plan was right. But was it my favorite comfort food? Not really. I’ll take mac ‘n cheese any day. This recipe probably had even more fat and calories than mac ‘n cheese since it included 1o whole eggs, 1 pound of grated Monterey Jack cheese, 4 cups of cottage cheese, 1/2 cup of mascarpone cheese and a stick of butter. Kind of makes your hair stand on end, doesn’t it? And yet it still doesn’t deliver the warm, gooey comfort of mac ‘n cheese. My feeling is that if you’re going to load up on fat and calories, it had better be worth it. This recipe won’t be happening here again.
Baking Beats Studying for Midterms
Poor Annie. While Joe, Louisa and I attended a friend’s bat mitzvah over the weekend, she was stuck at home studying for midterms. Ugh. The pressure. The cramming. The pressure. The cramming. I feel stressed out just thinking about what she’s going through this week.
We left her early in the morning and she had a full day of work mapped out. Geometry, chemistry, English, Latin, history, she knew just what to do. At lunchtime, when I checked in, she reported that she had done a few other useful things like clean her room (!) and hung up her clothes. Well, now we know where those tasks rank among the possible torturous things I could ask her to do. Studying drops way to the bottom. But she was ready to tackle the work all afternoon.
So, a few hours of raucous partying passed and though I checked my phone for any emergency calls from Annie, I didn’t call to check in with her because she had a plan. A solid study plan for midterms. Finally, after a long afternoon of dancing and partying, we staggered outside into the daylight like a group of groggy mole rats, and I called Annie from the car. Guess what? She announced that she had a surprise for us. I couldn’t imagine exactly what that would be, but I suspected it had to do with cooking something.
We arrived home to a very busy kitchen with cookbooks, pots, pans, and mixers everywhere. Things were whirring, good smells were happening and Annie announced that she had decided to make a cake without any help from me. And she did. And it was delicious. And studying happened later. And I really can’t blame her for the procrastination. In fact, I can’t think of a better (or tastier) way she could have procrastinated.
Italian Wedding Soup aka the Battle for the Meatballs
Sometimes you might think I deprived my family of food for days if you watched the race to the stove for seconds after dinner. Oh, my poor starving babies, mama has been so mean, you need to fight for every scrap, every morsel of meat to make up for weeks of famine. NOT!
Last night’s dinner was Italian Wedding Soup from the current “Food Network Magazine”. The broth, pasta, and vegetables didn’t excite anyone enough to fight for seconds. But, as you probably guessed, the meatballs didn’t pass unnoticed. In fact, as soon as Louisa finished her pork meatballs, she was on her way to the stove for more. As was Joe who followed right on her heels. Who will get more meatballs? Luckily there was enough to satisfy them both without soup bowls sloshing all over the kitchen. But for me, today, leftovers? Only broth, vegetables and pasta were left for me. Cue the violins.