Why do I hate New Year's Eve?

and just about every other major holiday?

Because I am married to a chef.

I also intensely dislike Valentine's Day and Mother's Day.

Why?

For most people, these dates are reason for celebration ("I love you mom!"), but for me, they are a reminder that my Chef will be stressed out, busy, and will work A LOT. Of all the holidays, however, I think New Year's Eve may be the worst, mostly because of the logistics of the evening. The Chef is up and out of the house early on the 31st, making last-minute tweaks to the menu (because OF COURSE he can never have it settled and ready ahead of time) and prepping like a mad man. The stress will have occupied his head since at least December 26th. He will not fully be able to relax until the night is over.

If I went to the restaurant, I'd be doing a lot of hanging out, trying to stay out of the way of the paying customers and just doing a lot of ....waiting! The Chef will be too busy to talk to me until just before New Year's Eve when he'll come out briefly to kiss me and then go back into the kitchen to celebrate with his other family; the guys in the kitchen. Unless I have particularly stellar company, it's mostly a night of feeling lonely, because EVERYONE else is in a couple, or at least with the one that they love. Yes, the Chef is nearby, but he is busy and really doesn't have time to come out and hold my hand, if you know what I mean. Then he will sleep for half of the day on the 1st. In the meantime, I will wear myself out trying to keep the kids quiet so that the Chef can sleep until at least noon. He'll wake up for awhile, eat, read the paper and then fall back asleep around 4:00 p.m.. This routine is so ingrained, I can practically set my watch to it.

I know this post sounds really whiny. After all, I knew he was a chef when I married him and I knew what kind of life I'd be leading with him. It is no coincidence that the kids call the restaurant "Babbo's house"! However, in this economy, it really is a blessing to have work! I am thankful that we are busy and that the Chef isn't worrying about no one coming out to eat tonight. Still, New Year's Eve for me is more a signal that after a very long and busy month of December, I will finally be getting my husband back! Tonight is the last major night of the holiday (and major money-making) season, and tomorrow we will begin the process of getting our family back together. I miss my husband. The kids miss their Babbo. Everyone else can go ahead and party on New Year's Eve. As for me, I'll take a relaxing New Year's Day with the Chef awake, lucid, at home with his family any day.......

Cooking Light weeknight dinners? yes, please!

These last two weeks have been just awful in terms of getting home in time to prepare healthy foods for the family. We ate out far more often than I'd like to admit. One solution to the time crunch has been to use my slow cooker more often. Although it brings back unpleasant childhood memories for Leone, I'm going to make chili this week.

I also bought a new Cooking Light cookbook. It's called "Fresh Food Fast: weeknight meals," and although it goes against some of my food purist impulses (more about this later), so far it's looking promising. I made the first recipe tonight, Italian Beef and Polenta casserole and it was a big hit. I used 6% ground beef, although you could certainly use ground turkey. I also used two zucchini, which made me feel better about the dish. next time I could probably throw a lot more vegetables in, since Chiara pronounced the zucchini bits quite tasty.

Mind you, Chiara ate the dish after initially making gagging sounds when she first looked at it. Yeah, that's an encouraging sign! Of course my tomato wouldn't come near it, but I never expected him to. He ate an apple, two wedges of laughing cow cheese and a tortilla, so he's good. What a strange, strange child. Chiara was initially not all that crazy about the polenta in the recipe, but then she got over it when I showed her how to mix it with the beef. Then she was quite excited about it. I also pointed out to her that polenta is really the food equivalent of her heritage; i.e. indigenous corn with an Italian twist!

As I mentioned earlier, this recipe does violate some of my food purist impulses. It calls for a jar of spaghetti sauce. I used Classico garlic, because I firmly believe that you cannot have too much garlic. It also called for a sliced up tube of polenta. I know I can get it from the restaurant for free (not to mention tastier and more authentic), but in a pinch, those polenta tubes are sure convenient! I didn't chop any tomatoes or onion. It all came together surprisingly easily. The dish was pretty darn fast, certainly easy, and made six servings. Next time I'll use less beef and put i more vegetables. If I had to work tomorrow, the leftovers would probably be pretty darn tasty. Next up is spaghetti with zucchini and cannellini beans. Hopefully that will be successful too-and just as easy!

Harry Potter-you know you are over-educated when

as you re-read book four of the Harry Potter series, you can't help but marvel at the depth of the false consciousness of the house elves. They are just so darn happy slaving away and serving their masters, you're almost a little upset with Hermione for suggesting living wages and a 40-hour work week (exhibit A: Winky)! I wonder how many Marxist studies courses Jo Rowling took in college? hmmmmmm

Jessica Seinfeld's cookbook was NOT a complete waste

because although the overwhelming majority of her recipes I tried were HORRIBLE, I did come away with one good idea. I call them "sneaky baked potatoes."

This is the idea. It's so amazingly simple.
Chop up a head of cauliflower and steam it until it's soft. Puree it in a food processer, adding water as necessary, until the cauliflower has a smooth, mashed potato like consistency. Do you see where I'm going with this?

bake your potatoes, then scoop out 90% of the potato pulp. Save it for another use.
Now mix 10% of the potato into a bowl with the cauliflower, adding salt, butter etc to your taste. Then spread the mixture into the shells of the baked potato, pop it back into the oven for a few minutes and serve! We top ours with cheese and steamed broccoli.

the kids will get a good dose of vegetables, some obvious and some not-so-obvious.

so simple, right??

Unfortunately the overwhelming majority of the Seinfeld cookbook was absolutely awful (Chef points out that you should not buy a cookbook from a celebrity. point taken), but the idea of hidden cauliflower has proven surprisingly useful.

and PLEASE don't tell me that my kids should love vegetables on their own, that I shouldn't hide them, blah blah blah.
yes, some kids are surprisingly adventurous and will eat anything. and then there are others that just....won't. I've got one of each. So sometimes, yes, I sneak in veggies. I refuse to feel ashamed of this. I hope that one day, my kids will appreciate the beauty of cauliflower on its own, but in the meantime, sneaky baked potatoes make me feel better and make them happy. It's a win-win situation, don't you think?

three kitchen appliances that I love

now that I am thinking about it, it's kind of irrational that I love these three small kitchen appliances so much, but they really do make my life SO much easier. Now that I'm working full-time again, it's even more important to be organized and have my appliances do as much of the work for me as possible!

1. My yogurt maker is the BEST. Yes, I know you can make it in the crock-pot, but my crock-pot is otherwise occupied right now. We here at Casa Palagi are crazy about yogurt, and especially greek yogurt, so this was a very good investment. I'm making yogurt right now that later I'll strain into greek yogurt, but because of his handy-dandy machine, it's all MUCH less expensive and pretty darn convenient. Sadly, I have run out of Sage Mountain Farms organic locally-made strawberry jam, so I guess I'll have to flavor our yogurt with something else.....

2. My crock pot is making baked potato soup right now and my house smells wonderful! This last week was extra busy and we ate out WAY too much. It's time to bust out the crock pot and have a nice meal waiting for us when we get home from our various extra-curricular activities.

3. It is now the one-year anniversary of me buying myself my wonderful kitchen aid mixer for Christmas. Merry Christmas to me! Now that I have it, I'm not sure how I ever lived without it! Sure, it would be nice to have it in fire-engine red (from Sur la Table, I think), but it has helped me make countless muffins, cupcakes, breads etc despite the fact that it is plain white. I love it.

I must also note the presence of my slowly dying kitchen cabinet undermount iPod/radio stereo. I don't think I could cook without having access to NPR and/or good music from my iPod!