Baked egg with tomato.

Adapted from Mark Bittman's NYTimes recipe.

Baked Egg with Tomato

1 egg

tops of 1 pint of cherry tomatoes

dash olive oil, salt, pepper

1. Oil the dish. Preheat the oven to 375.

2. Line the dish with the cherry tomato tops.

3. Salt and pepper the tomatoes.

4. Crack the egg over the tomatoes.

5. Bake, uncovered, for at least 12 minutes. The egg doesn't look done, but believe me, it is. It gets a rubbery layer over the top if you let it go too long. The good news is despite the layer, the yolk turns out almost perfect, which is tough to do in a frying pan. At least it's tough for me.

Note: make sure you use an adorable dish that looks like a tomato. It will take your mind off the fact that you're eating a gazillion cherry tomato tops instead of a proper slice of tomato.

Question of the day.

Have you tried WD-40?

Gingerbread Cookies

Adapted from the recipe on the back of my molasses bottle. This recipe results in cookies that are fairly toothsome. They're not crisp, nor are they soft. If you roll them out fairly thin they start to resemble soft ginger snaps. If you roll them out on the thicker side, they can be a little bit difficult to bite into. However, the result is still not sturdy enough for gingerbread houses.

Well, I like them anyway. They have a black licorice flavor that is not too sweet. If you like sweet, they will take well to icing without becoming overly sweet.

0.75 c each dark molasses, light brown sugar (packed), and butter (1.5 sticks)
1 egg
3 2/3 c flour
1 tbl ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp each allspice and baking soda

1. Boil the molasses, sugar, and butter on medium heat. While the mixture cools, measure and blend the dry ingredients.
2. Add the beaten egg to the molasses mixture. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry until well combined.
3. Wrap and chill the dough at least 1 hour.
4. My dough needed additional massaging to become pliable and cohesive enough to roll. Roll it out 1/8" to 1/4" thick and go nuts with the cookie cutter.
5. Bake at 350F for 12-14 minutes, until the edges start to brown. That is, they turn browner than the dough already is.

Makes 32 large bears, 12 large stars, 15 small stars, and one round splodge.

Mmm...

Cheese lasagna freezes beautifully. Sliced portions reheat to an unattractive puddle of sauce, noodles, and cheese, but then, all lasagna does that, except for the comercially made ones. It tastes just fine. If you're hungry enough, it really doesn't matter what it looks like, now, does it?

Here's my recipe. It comes courtesy of Cook's Illustrated. Note the emphasis on where I shop.

Cheese Lasagna (billed as Simple Cheese Lasagna, but I never ever go for complicated recipes)

15 oz ricotta cheese = 1 tub from Trader Joe's.
1.25 c grated parmesan cheese. I use preshredded.
0.5 c basil, minced
1 egg, beaten
0.5 tsp each salt, pepper
2 jars marinara sauce. I use the no-salt added kind from TJ.
12 no-boil lasagna noodles. Thank goodness TJ started carrying these.
1 lb shredded mozzarella = 1 bag preshredded.

1. Set oven to 375F with rack in the middle.
2. Mix ricotta, 1 c parmesan, basil, egg, salt, and pepper until it forms a squidgy mass.
3. First layer: 0.25 c sauce in your 9x13 baking dish, then 3 noodles, then 1 spoon of ricotta onto each noodle. Smoosh out the cheese over the noodle. Scatter 1/4 of the mozzarella over everything.
4. Second and third layers: 1.5 c sauce, 3 noodles, 1 spoon ricotta smooshed on each noodle, 1/4 of the mozzarella. This uses up all the ricotta.
5. Fourth layer: noodles first, then rest of the sauce, then last of the mozzarella, then last of the parmesan.
6. Oil a sheet of foil and use to cover the pan tightly. Bake, covered, 15 minutes.
7. Uncover and bake 25 minutes more.
8. Let sit a few minutes then eat.

Weekend recap.

The long-rise, no-knead bread has a nice crust but a dense interior which is not to my liking. After reading Cook's Illustrated revision of the NY Times no-knead recipe, I think the dense interior could be rectified with a little kneading, a hotter baking method, more yeast, and a warmer rise cycle. I won't be revisiting this, because I abhor kneading (why else would I go for a no-knead recipe), don't have a Dutch oven suitable for the hotter baking method, and am unwilling to crank up the heat anywhere in my kitchen for a warmer rise.

I did not bake the gingerbread after all. Instead, I went for a modification of the gingerbread cookie recipe printed on the back of the molasses bottle. Instead of 1/4 tsp nutmeg, I used 1/2 tsp allspice, because I refuse to buy yet another bottle of rarely-used spice. Also, I used butter instead of margarine, because margarine is evil. I like the cookies and hope the stars stay fresh until C's birthday on Sunday. I don't know if other people will like the cookies. I used the dark molasses, which gives the cookies a Black Vine licorice flavor. I like Black Vines, but not everybody does. Also, the cookies must remain uniced. After spending the time to massage the dough into something more pliable, I didn't feel like making and applying a glaze.

In the non-baking department, I also made braised Chinese mustard greens. Mostly because I needed a vegetable and those were on sale.

My fridge is wonky and I don't know how to fix it. The main cabin is the correct temperature. However, all of the drawers are at or below freezing temperature. Cranking up the temperature using the little buttons causes everything to get warmer, so much so that the main cabin approaches an unsafe temperature. In the meantime, the drawers stay a good five degrees colder. Sigh.

But will it insure accurate service?

I started a subscription to the Wall Street Journal a couple weeks ago because it's required reading for my next class. Normally I prefer to read my news online and I strongly prefer not to have to pay for access, which is why I didn't have a subscription earlier.

In Saturday's paper my delivery man included a card asking for his annual tip. I've never known anybody who tips their delivery man, partly because I know very few people who actually get a newspaper delivered.

I don't know what the protocol is. A couple bucks? What if you've only been getting the paper a couple weeks, and only intend to for another quarter?

And what if during those couple of weeks, I haven't actually received my own newspaper? On the days when I received the WSJ, I received my neighbors'. Or rather, somebody in my neighborhood. I didn't actually go to their houses to try to swap the papers, because the odds were good that 1) they weren't home and 2) they hadn't received my paper. It's not like I can call the WSJ to complain, as they have no control over the delivery man.

Over the weekend, I received both the WSJ and the Mercury News. This is baffling because I never ordered the Mercury News. The MN doesn't have address labels so I don't know if I'm getting a neighbor's paper or a surplus. It's not like I can call the MN to complain, because they probably don't know I'm receiving their paper in the first place.

Today, I got the MN only. This is a pity, because I really only want the WSJ.

I could send in the card with a note, but then, I might as well ask the delivery man to put more dents in my garage door while he's at it.

Question of the day.

Dear Guy In the Next Cube,

Would you like a lozenge? You've been clearing your throat and sniffling for the last hour.

Weekend Recap

* Tried two new-to-me Korean places, both fabulous. One makes its own tofu, the other has fantastic fried chicken. No more Popeye's for me. The combination of fried chicken and pickled daikon is fantastic--the vinegar cuts through the oil nicely.

* Nice surprise with the buttermilk pancakes. Turns out I really did have two cups of buttermilk left over from the Thanksgiving mashed potatoes. I prefer a runnier batter, though. The pancakes are wonderfully thick, but I prefer a thinner pancake, and one that cooks a little faster so as to make heat management a little easier.

* The cheese lasagna was blissfully easy and tasty. The most difficult part was mincing the entire pack of basil, 2/3 of which went into an ice cube tray into the freezer. The resulting lasagna was full of hot molten cheese and bubbly rich tomato sauce punctuated by fragrant basil bits.

* No bread this weekend. There wasn't enough time given the long rise required and the fact that I had a week's worth of pancakes made up already.

* No gingerbread mix, boo-hoo. Everyone else loves this mix as much as I do.

* Chinese broccoli for the first time in a quarter. It looks tough but is an exciting prospect nevertheless.

Next weekend: gingerbread and bread (hopefully). If eggplants are cheap, eggplant pasta. If not, will consider Pasta Puttanesca, assuming I locate the recipe and have the energy to mince an entire pack of parsley.

Post Office 5, Me 1

I don't understand how I'm supposed to buy stamps. Obviously I'm missing something.

They took out the vending machine in this building, instructing us to purchase stamps at the ATM. Like hell I'm paying the ATM stamp service fee.

To purchase online, you need a printer. Presumably you'd need special paper. I'd imagine you can have the stamps shipped to you too. Like hell I'm buying a printer, toner, and special paper, or waiting for my stamps.

The post office with the special package machine that takes credit cards normally dispenses stamps, except for when I actually want to buy stamps. In the same post office, there were two cash machines. One was out of order, the other was not accepting bills of any sort. Like hell I have $8.20 in loose change on me.

The other post office closer to my house has two cash machines and no package machine. One refused to take any bills. The other would take only my crispest bills. Or rather, bill. The first $5 went in all right, but it refused to acknowledge any subsequent bills. And it would not dispense more than $5 in change, so a $20 was out of the question. Like hell I'm buying two books of stamps, even if the machine let me (which it didn't).

I suppose I could return during operating hours. But they open after I get to work and close before they leave. The only branch that's open on Saturday is about 5 miles out of the way. Like hell I'm dashing out of work just to buy stamps.

So there you have it. The solution was to have enough cash on hand to pay for my groceries, thereby breaking the $20s into $10 or smaller, and using a $10 in the machine that only accepts one bill at a time. Because like hell it's going to accept *two* crisp $5s.