Jaden’s Steamy Kitchen has provided me, yet again, with another simple, delicious and crowd-pleasing recipe to add to my arsenal: Asian Lettuce Cups with Ground Turkey and Green Apple.

It’s Asian week at our place, meaning I’ve cooked some sort of Asian-inspired dish each night this week. Wednesday was a bit of a stretch; we did South Asian, i.e. Indian food from a box (which are really pretty delicious, and I say this as someone who can’t stand instant anything!). I prepared the lettuce cups post a 4-mile run and a particularly difficult day of studying and writing (I’ve developed an inability to contribute cohesive responses to online class discussions this past week, resulting in sobs yesterday afternoon and utterances (between sobs) of how I was going to quit school.  A good, fast run fixed all that).

I didn’t have time to slice up the carrot peels thin, so I left them as is, and put Andrew on mung bean frying duty, which he loved.  I’m planning on making this dish again soon, especially since I was able to come home from a run, shower and prepare dinner in under an hour.

Question: What is the antidote to the blues? Especially when the blues are induced by such activities as nannying for rich kids, paper-writing, creative dry spells, and a general inability to focus?

Answer: Fried disks of dough dusted, drizzled, and/or drenched in sugar.

I was experiencing all of these contributors to general blues-iness, hence an impromptu decision to balance out an Indian dinner brought to us by Trader Joe’s with homemade sopapillas.

Honestly though, it’s more the preparing than the ingesting that makes me feel better, and as with most things I make, the decision to do so was based on the fact that it I actually had the ingredients around.

Click here for the recipe.

Ordinarily, Andrew and I go to brunch on Sundays, but this morning I suggested we make a run to our favorite grocery store (Harvest Time, a Mexican/Eastern European/Greek market) and make our own brunch at home. It saved us a little money, and if Andrew promised to do the clean up, it would mean I could get right to studying afterward.

These corn cakes are a modification of the Johnnycakes recipe in Joy of Cooking. I added a couple of tablespoons of diced red pepper, green onion and grated cheddar cheese to the batter.

I think that this is a fantastic alternative to eggs and all their variations when you’re in the mood for a savory breakfast/brunch. It’s also a great thing to serve vegetarian friends. To “veganize” the corn cakes, just omit the cheese and use margarine for cooking.

Click here for the recipe!

What did I do differently, you may ask. Well, nothing, really. I started it yesterday afternoon and finished up this morning. It still didn’t rise as much as I thought it would, but I also didn’t let it rise in a bowl like Jaden’s Steamy Kitchen suggests. I did do that last time, so I figured I’d try things as basic as possible this morning and just let it rise on the counter top this morning. I feel as if I could have let it stay in the oven a little longer, too. But, I’m just nit-picking as we home chefs are prone to do. The bread was delicious, and the spouse was quite pleased with his bread and butter. We even took pictures this time.

I am considering entering Tillamook’s Mac & Cheese contest, although the fact that I’m not a mac & cheese fan could pose a problem. Andrew loves it.  I mean really really loves it.  So, of course, I feel as if the challenge here is not to win $5,000, but to a make a mac & cheese that will make my spouse’s heart leap for joy (if not for carb-y, fatty overload).

Looking at the previous winners, I feel as if I could hold my own.  There’s only one that combines the flavors of apples and cheddar but he just uses apple cider.  I love apples and cheddar together, so that’s the road I’ll likely go down (if I go down it at all).  I’m definitely going to go vegetarian, too.  No meat.  Mac & cheese really ought to be a dish my non-meat-eating friends can enjoy.

I’m off to ponder the potential and possibility of “stuffed” mac & cheese.  And also the omission of the ampersand for the word “and.”

I tried Smitten Kitchen’s tarte au citron last night. It was both a success and a failure. Pâte sucre? Awesome. I can’t believe that I made such a successful crust! I even altered the recipe (slightly) by using hazlenuts instead of almonds and only making a third of the recipe (it yields three 9-inch tart crusts, thus calls for a lot of butter, which I didn’t have). The filling, however, wasn’t as wonderful. It tasted good, just not great. We were all glad I had prepared some fresh whipped cream to help with some of the filling’s intensity. I don’t think I allowed the sugar and the lemon to blend for long enough, because there were more bits of zest and peel than I would have liked. I have also decided that my oven gets too hot. Andrew actually posited this theory when I showed him pictures of Smitten’s tart, so gorgeously yellow. Mine, though also yellow in color, didn’t sing with that fresh color of lemons. It more so hummed along, resembling the spotty golden color of a quiche. I love a beautiful quiche, mind you, just not when it’s actually a lemon tart.

When I started whining about how my past few baking attempts have been near or complete debacles, my friend Angela’s suggestion was to just start making a lot of Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies. Or lemon bars instead of lemon tart. I think it was a request, actually, because I explained earlier, as we waited around for the tart to cool, how I hardly ever eat what I bake. And if that’s true, Angela will suddenly have a lot more cookies and bars in her life.

Supposedly, the No Knead Bread recipe written about in the NY Times last year is so easy, a child can make it. I am convinced that I am cursed to only bake bread that tastes pretty good but will not rise, because I seriously botched this one. Food bloggers everywhere have had great success, but me? Nope. I failed so miserably with this one that I refused to take a picture of the finished product.

Why is baking so hard for me? I just want to be a brilliant baker, but every time I try, it is a debacle. Will someone please come to my house and help me bake a moist cake, a fluffy loaf of bread, crispy or chewy cookies, something?

Here’s a list of a few of the successful bread-makers and their posts about it:

Smitten Kitchen
Mother Chef
Not Martha
Wandering Chopsticks
(Actually, the bottom of Jaden’s Steamy Kitchen’s post has a neat feature in which all the people who have tried the recipe can post their blog. Just go there if you want to see how much better other people are at baking bread!)

I happen to have an advanced copy (well, an uncorrected proof) of Alice Waters’s forthcoming cook book, “The Art of Simple Food.” I tried out one of the recipes (for Tortilla Soup) the other night, and by golly, it was a keeper! First, the picture:

Now, the recipe (with my notes in italics):

Tortilla Soup
(Makes 2 quarts; 4-6 servings)

Heat to a simmer:
1 1/2 quarts chicken broth

Add:
1 chicken breast half (w/skin and bones for best flavor) - I just used a boneless, skinless breast, and it was still delicious.

Cook at a bare simmer until the chicken is done, about 20 minutes. Turn off the heat, transfer the breast to a plate, and let cool. Remove and discard the skin and bones and shred the meat. To shred, use a fork and ‘rake’ the chicken.

Into an 8-inch heavy-bottomed skillet over medium-high heat, pour:
1/2 cup peanut or vegetable oil

Then add:
4 corn tortillas, cut into 1//2-inch strips

Fry in small batches until golden brown and crispy. Drain on paper towels and season with salt.

In a large, heavy pot heat:
2 T olive oil

Add:
1 Anaheim green pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
1/2 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
Salt

Cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Pour in the hot broth, then add:
2 tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and diced; or 3 small canned whole tomatoes, diced (juice included)
1 dried chipotle chile, seeds removed
Salt
I used 2 1/2 large tomatoes, and kept the peel and seeds. I think that’s where the best flavor comes from. I also didn’t have any dried chipotle chiles on hand, but I did have a dried Guajillo chile that I added, seeds and all. The soup wasn’t spicy.

Bring to a boil and then turn down to a simmer and cook for 30 minutes. This is when I’d do the tortilla strip frying. You have 30 minutes to kill, and frying the tortillas will take about 10-15. Then, prepare the garnishes. Chop some cilantro, grate some Jack cheese, slice a lime into wedges, and cube an avocado. Once that is done, you might even have time to clean up the extra dishes before the soup is ready.

Add the shredded chicken meat and heat through, but do not boil. Taste for salt and adjust as needed.

Serve hot.

So, the sandwich part of this post…
I just wanted to say how much I hate the word “sammies” or “sammiches” when talking about sandwiches. It sounds stupid.

Also, I ate a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich for lunch today. I was going to take a picture. But then I ate and ate and ate until. . .

I recently attempted to make a hazelnut torte with coffee-flavored Swiss meringue buttercream frosting. I failed so miserably, and I am still coming up with reasons why. According the Joy of Cooking (from where I got the recipe): “Many people think of baking nut tortes as unattainably difficult, not realizing that a nut torte is just a sponge cake in which the flour is replaced with dry bread or cake crumbs and nuts ground to a fine meal.”

I think my first mistake was that I have never made a sponge cake. Or a classic cake (from scratch) with any success, so I’m not sure why I attempted this particular feat. Oh, I remember now. I was going to bring it to a party and was hoping for oohing and ahhing and praising of my genius and incredible ability. I guess I got what I deserved.

Here are some pictures the spouse took of me in the process. Can you see how hard I was concentrating on being awesome?

This tip of the day is brought to you by my sister-in-law, Reda.  She’s a mother of twins who also works from home.  When the spouse and I were visiting Reda and Daniel in LA, she passed this little tidbit onto me.  She sets her timer every day for 15 minutes and does a quick clean up of the house.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “How can I possibly get anything clean in 15 minutes?”  You’d be surprised.  As soon as I got back to Chicago, I applied an about-to-expire gift certificate toward a timer that sticks to the fridge.  I’ve yet to feel as overwhelmed by clutter, dust, etc. than I did pre-timer.  I also set my timer for 20 minutes, because I don’t have twin girls and actually have an extra 5 minutes.