Santa, cleverly disguised as mom and dad, brought two Nigella Lawson books this year. I’ve been slowly working my way through “Nigella Express” and am itching to start “Nigella Kitchen.” I’d read both at once, but I like to really read through recipes. Plus I spend most of my time trying to figure out how to make the dishes with what I have available at my local supermarket and my stash of cookware.

“Lamb, Olive and Caramelized Onion Tagine” – the name alone has me drooling. Very ladylike, I know.

I’m on the go again this weekend, and the next for that matter, so I’m still struggling to actually cook a full proper meal. But when you’re living on your own, no one can tell you that mustard roasted veggies, a celery stalk with peanut butter and two squares of dark chocolate aren’t a complete meal.

Grainy Mustard Roasted Potatoes and Onions, serves 1 as main course or 2 or 3 as a side

1 medium baking potato, leave skin on or take it off your preference, cut into half-moons

1 medium yellow onion, peel and slice into half-moons

1 or 2 Tbs. whole grain mustard, I like mustard so I tend to be a little heavy-handed here

2 Tbs. olive oil

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

1/2 tsp. ground turmeric

Method

1. Preheat oven to 400* F

2. Combine potato, onion, mustard, oil, salt, pepper and turmeric in a bowl. Best to do this with your hands (wear a latex glove or a plastic sandwich baggie over your hand if you don’t want turmeric stains in your nail beds).

3. Dump the mess onto a sheet pan lined with parchment paper or foil for easy clean up. Roast for 25 minutes, or until they reach the desired level of doneness. I like my potatoes nicely burnished and the onions with a slight char to the edges. I really can tell they’re done when I start to smell the mustard grains slightly burning in the oven.

I think Nigella would approve.

I mean, the goodies are lovely and delicious, but my sugar intake has skyrocketed and I find myself wandering to the cookie plate more than I should. It doesn’t help that the “feeding station” is on top of the short filing cabinet right next to my desk. I’m moving that tomorrow to the perfectly adequate, and in fact much more suitable, location of the wooden conference table in the back of the newsroom.

It is a really good thing I don’t own a scale.

I got to spend Christmas with the family, which was fantastic as per usual. The night before Christmas Eve was spent with friends, many of whom I had not seen in months if not years.

But the week between Christmas and New Years is like culinary limbo, at least for me. With just a four-day workweek, and then heading back to my parents’ house on Friday, I don’t have much time to cook.

To supplement my current diet mainstay of slowly staling (is that a word? Check yes) Christmas cookies, I’ve gone to the tried and true quick meals that are not prepared in a microwave.

Lizzie’s Tuna Salad

1 can tuna packed in water (make sure it has the dolphin safe seal – SAVE FLIPPER!)

2 or 3 stalks fresh celery, diced

2 Tbs. dill relish

1/4 cup plain greek yogurt

black pepper to taste

1 1/2 tsp. whole grain mustard (optional)

sriracha for serving (optional)

pocket pita bread

Method

1. Rinse and drain tuna. Combine tuna, celery, relish, yogurt and mustard. Season with black pepper (and salt if you need it) to taste.

2. Serve stuffed into pocket pitas and drizzle with sriracha for an extra bite. This is also good served over a bed of lettuce or on a toasted sesame bagel.

This is really as close as I get to cooking during weird vacation/holiday weeks. Since I don’t care for mayonnaise, I usually substitute greek yogurt in any recipe that calls for mayo. It has less fat, more protein and is overall better for a person. Plus yogurt has all those probiotics … or whatever good thing Jamie Lee Curtis is hawking these days on TV.

In true fashion I didn’t have enough chocolate chips or chopped walnuts to make the full recipe. I also didn’t relish using up all of my butter for cookies, so I cut the recipe in half. Yes, I’m dangerous and monkey about with established baking rules of precision and order.

After beautifully creaming the butter and sugar, I went to add the flour. Quickly found out that I only had a meager cup in my flour canister. Whoops. Into the bowl went all the flour I could scrape out. Into the 375 F oven went the cookies, which I promptly forgot about.

About 15 minutes later I remembered I was making cookies. Despite the edges and bottoms of the cookies being a bit charred extra crispy, they were still edible. I’d show you photos, but with the cookies being edible and all … well, they are no more.

Sometimes I feel a tad inadequate in the world of food blogging. This is a simple, casual food blog. I enjoy reading the well-established bloggers. I’ve read some blogs for years, sticking around because of the quality of writing, outrageously lovely photos and delicious recipes.

But sometimes, in my opinion, I can’t find the mistakes. I’m a very type A person in most respects (not with baking, obviously). I like to be right, and I really dislike admitting I’m wrong. As my harshest critic, I have always been hard on myself after making a mistake. This is especially true at work. I’ve lost countless hours of sleep over grammatical errors, not double checking facts or sloppy proof reading. And rightly so in some ways. I detest unprofessionalism and those careless mistakes weigh on my mind weeks after they occur.

I’m trying to break out of that shell when it comes to my personal life, in and out of the kitchen. I am done stressing over small missteps. The missed workout, bad hair days, that strip of leg hair you missed while shaving even after going over each leg TWICE and, of course, burned cookies. From here on out I promise to share those recipes gone awry. Sometimes food blogs only show the perfectly burnished meringue or golden roasted chicken. The aftermath of when the dog made off with the Christmas ham and necessitated some Chinese takeout isn’t often seen.

Mistakes in the kitchen often yield the best stories. For example, my friend Beth once tried to make her own brown sugar by mixing white sugar and maple syrup (she wasn’t far off though; you use molasses). Then there was the time in eighth grade I made blueberry muffins with my friend Robyn. We were so messy, it’s amazing any batter got into the muffin cups. We didn’t wipe off the excess on the sides of the muffins, and so our muffins ended up being fringed with charred bits. We laughed and called them tutus.

In an open plea to the food blogosphere, I’d like to hear about your mistakes. Share those times when nothing is going right in the kitchen until you pour a glass of wine, and say “To hell with it.” I’ll pop a cork with you. To life’s crusty bits, cheers!

Moving on. It is November, which means I’m already in holiday mode. I’ve made my list of people I plan to buy gifts for – and by “buy gifts” I mean “give cash/gift card.” If you like getting gifts, provide people with a list. Lists are lovely. They make the world a better place. The holidays are one time of year where I really wish I had psychic abilities. Choosing gifts for others is very hit-or-miss, at least for me. I know my friends and family, but I don’t see them on a daily, or even weekly, basis. So when I buy, say a salad spinner, I’m thinking, “Oh, they’ll have cleaner lettuce and it’ll be easier to wash.” I’m not thinking, “Do they have the cupboard space for this contraption? And will they be willing to wash a thing that’s meant to wash something else?” Answer to both questions: no. Salad spinners now, and probably will be forever, are a silly concept to me.

But for you, dear readers, I’m not giving you a salad spinner or cash. Sorry. Instead, I’m sharing an infinitely more valuable commodity, Aunt Mary’s Potica Recipe. I know it is a bit early for Christmas, but as I said I was listening to Christmas music, and you’ll want this potica at your next holiday gathering.

Potica (po-teet-sa) is a traditional Slovenian sweet nut roll. Now it may have other origins, but I’m sticking with Slovenian because well Aunt Mary was Slovenian, so deal with it. Either way, no holiday table or family gathering in my youth was complete without potica.

Aunt Mary is technically my Great-Aunt Mary. She married my grandmother’s brother, Joseph. The recipe was actually my great-grandmother Rose’s recipe. Great-grandma Rose brought the recipe over from Slovenia and eventually ended up teaching it to Aunt Mary. After the recipe was passed on, great-grandma Rose evidently stopped making potica, so it became Aunt Mary’s Potica. Which is just how recipes seem to travel in my family. You pass it on and then you don’t have to make it anymore. My grandmother pulled that one on me with the Thanksgiving gravy. I’m there whisking away and she’s over in the living room chatting and sipping wine. Very sly woman my grandmother.

A note to the pans used for the potica. I have a set of four pans that were custom-made for either great-grandma Rose or great-aunt Mary just for potica. They are about 16x4x4. This recipe makes four 16-inch long rolls, but it halves easily. If you’re making the full recipe or cutting it in half, you can probably get away with making the rolls smaller and use standard size loaf pans. So if you’re making the full recipe that equates to 8 loaf pans, and a half recipe would use 4 loaf pans.

Legend has it that great-aunt Mary would put in all the leaves in her large dining room table. Then she’d take the whole batch of dough and roll it out along the length of the table and make all four rolls at once. I like to say “legend” because, well, that’s a pretty amazing feat in my book. Plus I routinely inflate my family’s awesomeness. Again, deal with it.

Aunt Mary’s Potica, recipe from Mary Russ, makes 4 16-inch rolls

Dough Ingredients:

7 or 8 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 pound unsalted butter

3 whole eggs, beaten

3/4 cup white sugar

2 cups milk

2 cakes yeast

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1 Tbs. white sugar

Filling Ingredients:

2 cups milk

2 cups white sugar

2 pounds nuts ground for filling, walnuts or pecans (my family is strictly a walnut family)

1/2 pound nuts ground for sprinkling

1/2 pound unsalted butter

white or golden raisins for sprinkling

8 oz jar of honey

3 eggs, separated

zest of one lemon

2 tsp. vanilla

Making the Dough:

1. Put 4 cups flour into a large bowl and add salt. Put milk in a saucepan and scald. Let the milk stand until it is lukewarm. Add the 1 tablespoon sugar and 2 cakes of yeast into the milk. Set milk/yeast mixture aside for about 10 minutes, until the yeast is awake and foamy.

2. In another saucepan, melt butter. Add 3/4 cup sugar and well beaten eggs. Beat this together well. Add butter mixture and milk mixtures to the flour. Beat about 10 minutes. Add more flour until the dough can be handled with your hands, probably the remaining 3 or 4 cups (I always end up using all 8 cups). Knead on well floured counter until dough does not stick to your hands.

3. Do not make the dough too hard, it should be pillowy. Grease a large bowl before placing the dough in it. Lightly flour the top. Cover and let rise until it doubles in size, about 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

Making the Filling:

1. In a pan boil milk and sugar. When it comes to a full boil take off the heat and pour into butter so it melts. Add the 2 pounds of ground nuts, honey, zest, 3 egg yolks (well beaten) and vanilla. Beat the egg whites separately until stiff peaks form. Fold the whites into the filling.

2. Keep filling in a warm place so that it is easy to spread.

Putting it all together:

1. Divide dough into 4 pieces, making them into balls – cover. Roll dough one at a time until very thin, between 1/8 inch to 1/4 inch, or a nice pie crust.

2. Spread with filling, leaving about half-an-inch to an inch around the edge. Sprinkle with raisins and dry ground nuts. Roll like a jelly roll and fold the ends under.

3. Grease pans and line with parchment paper (I usually skip the greasing and just line with parchment). Place the roll in the pan seam side down. This is the tricky part. I usually start swearing now. When rolls are in the pans, cover and let rise for an 1 hour and 15 minutes.

4. Brush top of each roll with egg wash. Bake at 350 F for 1 hour and 10 minutes. I usually pull the rolls out after an hour.

Notes on the recipe:

Yes, potica uses a full pound of butter, 6 eggs, 4 cups of milk, nearly 3 cups of sugar and 8 cups of flour. Yes, you will probably use every single pan in your kitchen. Yes, the 2 1/2 pounds of nuts are expensive, but trust me, totally worth it. I’ve always skimped on the nuts, just buying as close as I could. Little did I know that by skimping on the nuts, I made my filling more watery and thus opened the door for leakage. I’ve had messes. I’ve sworn like a sailor. But the end result has always been potica. It can’t be that bad.

Life’s about the journey right?

He passed away Tuesday, Oct. 4. As sad as I and my family have been at his passing, we know we were lucky to have had him with us this long. Three years ago his doctors said he had maybe six months. Clearly they had not had many hardy Scandinavian patients. We come from strong stock.

That being said, I think my grandpa would have liked Shakshuka, a common Mediterranean breakfast dish of eggs poached in a spicy tomato sauce. I use the term “Mediterranean” because several countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea fiercely claim the dish as their own. I first stumbled on the recipe from Smitten Kitchen and was intrigued. A little web surfing and dozens of recipes later, the answer to who owns the “truest” Shakshuka formula is still a mystery to me.

Regardless of its ancestry, Shakshuka is universally loved for a simple reason: it is flipping amazing. And this is coming from a girl who, up until recently, refused to eat eggs that were not scrambled or hard-boiled. Those were my options. Now, to be frank, runny yolks still kind of scare me a little bit, but with enough Shakshuka I think I could broaden my horizons.

In my search for a sturdy, simple recipe, each one was made to serve four to six people and needed fresh hot chiles, which, sadly, are not in my kitchen at the moment. With some heavy improvisation, tweaks and flashes of genius I have made my own variation on Shakshuka that serves one to two people, depending on appetite. In nearly all the blog posts I read about Shakshuka, everyone seemed to agree that despite being a popular breakfast/brunch dish, Shakshuka is enjoyed at any hour of the day.

Shakshuka, by EMLundblad. If you want more options or bigger recipes check out Smitten Kitchen and Avocado & Bravado.

Ingredients:

2 Tbs. olive oil

1/2 yellow onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1, 14.5 or 15 oz., can diced tomatoes (I used a 14.5 oz can of Hunt’s diced tomatoes with no added salt)

1/2 tsp. ground cumin

1/2 tsp. ground coriander

2 green cardamom pods, cracked with the side of a knife (optional)

2 eggs

1 Tbs. sriracha or “rooster” sauce, more if you like it spicier

1 tsp. dried parsley

salt to taste

toasted rye bread or pita to serve

Method:

1. Heat oil over medium heat in 10 inch skillet or frying pan. Soften onions in the oil until translucent, about six to eight minutes. Add the cumin, coriander, a pinch of salt and sriracha. Cook for a minute and then add the garlic. Cook for another two to three minutes and then add the can of diced tomatoes with the juice. Add the cardamom if using.

2. Simmer the tomato broth for 10 to 15 minutes. Sauce will thicken. Taste to see if you want to add more salt or sriracha. Before you add the eggs, remove the cardamom pods and discard if you used them. Crack the eggs into the tomato sauce. Simmer until eggs are done to your satisfaction. Serve warm on toasted rye bread or pita. I served mine with sharp cheddar cheese on the side and some greek yogurt with raspberries and honey.

After making this I understand why most recipes call for four or more servings, because people will want seconds. I ate both eggs, and still have some of the spicy tomato sauce/chutney left over. I am very full. Shakshuka may sound like a sneeze (hence the post title), but it deserves a place in your breakfast/brunch repertoire.

So now I’m waiting until a respectable hour before I hop in my car and go to the grocery store. Realize, however, that my grocery store is 24 hours, but I can’t rationalize going now … at 4:18 a.m.

I’ve been away for a bit, which isn’t unusual, but I fully intend on posting later. My vacation was, well – I extended it for a few days, which was nice but tragically so.

I plan on posting about it later. But only after I’ve reached a proper level of caffeination, which is always high. Always.

I was going to insert a cute clip from Gilmore Girls about coffee, but then I was side tracked and that’s an involved process for 4:33 a.m. – posting the video, not searching for the clip.

Alright enough of this pre-dawn typing. No good can come from this. I need a nap, or what normal people call sleep at this time of darkness. Then I can go get the coffee. Say around noon? Plan made. Done. Oh hell, 4:35 a.m.

I’d love to sleep until noon everyday and be the lazy slug that usually comes out every weekend, but I am trying to fit visiting favorite restaurants, friends, family and a little shopping all in one neat little week – might need a vacation from my vacation.

I plan on doing some cooking and baking things this week too, and I will try to post them as they pop up, but I’m not promising anything.

This week I plan on trying Ina Garten’s Chicken Piccata, a batch of Swedish Coloring Book Pepparkakor and Aunt Mary’s Potica (sweet nut bread/pastry).

Until the next time.

With my living room newly restyled, I flipped through my TV channels twice before going to the kitchen, opening all the cupboards and thinking of what to make. By 4 a.m. I put on the kettle and had decided to make proper breakfast food. Enter scones.

I’ve blogged about scones before. I had half a bag of frozen cranberries in the freezer, and was contemplating a repeat batch when I spied the remnant bag of crystallized ginger in the back of my spice cupboard. Seven, pathetic shards of ginger stared at me, pleading, “Use us up.” Well, who am I to refuse?

I swapped the cranberries for about two tablespoons of ginger and then about 1/8 of a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips for good measure. Ok, so maybe I was cleaning the pantry and not being talked to by shelf goods, but it worked.

Second confession, I fooled around with the butter and upped it by two tablespoons. I understand baking is a science and precision is the law, but sometimes life just needs more butter. Hear me out, I needed to add the extra butter because I only had skim milk on hand. Since the recipe calls for fatty milk, I figured the extra butter would even everything out.

Coco-Ginger Scones, adapted from Molly Wizenberg’s Scottish Scones

Ingredients:

1/2 cup skim milk

1 egg

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

6 Tbs. unsalted butter, cubed and chilled (dice and put in the freezer until ready to use)

3 Tbs. sugar

2 or 3 Tbs. crystallized ginger, finely diced

large handful or 1/8 bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 425 F. Beat together milk and egg. In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking powder and salt.

2. Now comes the fun part. Rub the butter into the flour mixture until there are no lumps larger than a pea. This is why you need cold butter. If you didn’t have thoroughly chilled butter, the heat from your hands would melt it and then you wouldn’t get flaky scones. Also, this is my favorite part of the scone making process. At first, nothing seems to be happening, but then this plume of buttery-floury smell hits your nose and it’s like you’re in a bakery. It is delicious.

3. When the butter is broken down into proper lumps, add the sugar, ginger and chocolate chips. Stir to mix. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, but reserve a little bit of the milk-egg mixture to use as a glaze. Bring the dough together gently with a wooden spoon.

4. Place dough on a lightly floured counter and knead it no more than 12 times. Pat the dough into a 1/2 inch thick round and cut into 8 wedges. Place on an ungreased baking sheet, or one lined with tin foil or parchment paper for easy cleanup. Glaze the scones with the remaining milky-egg; a final sprinkle of sugar over the top wouldn’t be bad here either.

5. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until golden. Cool on a wire rack (or eat immediately, burned mouth be damned).

Since they married in 1973 – although it predates that by about 20 years – my parents have owned a Better Homes and Garden cookbook. Bound like a three-ring binder, the book was meant for readers of the magazine to cut out recipes they like and attach a new page. Well, growing up none of us was ever patient enough to actually do that, and so there’s about 30 to 50 recipes just stuffed willy nilly into pages. Thus the book must be handled with care. Pick it up too quickly and everything flies out. Trust me, I speak from experience.

Undoubtedly I will inherit this book. That’s one benefit of being an only child, you get all the good loot eventually. When that day comes – in the very very very distant future – I will not change this system. It works, albeit in a completely chaotic way. The book, which sports a red and white checked cover, features most of my favorite recipes. The “Everyday Waffles” are the only ones I make and they always turn out perfectly. I had, and still am having, an affair with the “Chocolate Chipper” cookie. The recipe says it’s a drop cookie, but I prefer to make them bigger and hand-roll them. It makes a terrific homemade ice cream sandwich cookie.

For the fall, the book’s “Old Time Beef Stew” recipe is a classic. It’s a simple mix of beef, potatoes and carrots in a savory gravy made in the pot. Well, as we were a busy family, we never really followed the directions for the gravy part. Instead we did what all busy families do, opened a jar. Purists may scoff, but I like jarred gravy.

As they were raising a child in the 1990s, my parents thought it best that I consume green foods. So in addition to the potatoes and carrots, my mom added a can of green beans, drained and rinsed. Then, probably because my dad loves onions (a trait I share), we tossed in a bag of frozen pearl onions. Total rebels. June Cleaver just rolled in her grave.

For the past two days the weather has begun to shock itself into fall. Nighttime temps are in the mid-40s and early mornings are in the 50s. It was time to bring out that beef stew recipe. But as I was looking at it, I thought it needed more tweaking. I know, I know – hasn’t my family done enough to this poor simple stew? What’s next, leeks?!

I wanted to give the beef a little more flavor, and possibly make the final stew a bit thicker too, although it’s never lacked in that department. In the original recipe you start by patting the meat dry and browning it in oil. Well, instead of just removing all that moisture from the beef I retained it by coating the cubes in a light rub of spiced flour. This not only helps it brown, but it also further thickens the stew. And now, onto the recipe.

Lizzie’s Old Timey-Wimey Beef Stew*, a variation on a variation of Better Homes and Garden’s Old Time Beef Stew (serves 6 to 8 depending on bowl size)

Ingredients:

1 lb. stew beef, cut into 1/2 inch cubes

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. ground coriander

1/2 tsp. ground cumin

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. black pepper

2 Tbs. neutral oil, like grapeseed or canola

2 cups hot water

1 large clove garlic

1 medium onion, sliced in to half moons

2 Bay leaves

1 Tbs. salt

1 tsp. white sugar

1/4 tsp. black pepper

dash cumin

6 carrots, cut into large chunks

6 red potatoes, cut into quarters or eighths depending on size

6 celery stalks, cut into large chunks

1 bag (12 oz) of frozen pearl onions

1 bag (12 oz) of french cut green beans

1 jar (12 oz) of beef gravy

Method (I know the ingredient list seems daunting, but stay with me):

1. Although already cut in to large chunks, I like to make my stew beef into small 1/2 inch size pieces. This allows you to stretch the meat. I hate when you make a beef stew, and there only seems to be 10 chunks of beef. If you’re feeding five people, most likely they’ll want more than two nuggets of beef in a BEEF STEW. In a bowl, combine the flour, coriander, cumin (the 1/2 tsp.), pepper (the first 1/4 tsp.), salt (the 1/2 tsp.) and the beef. Toss the beef cubes in the spiced flour, lighting coating every side. There will be excess flour mixture, just discard it.

2. In a dutch oven or stock pot, heat the oil over medium-high. Brown the beef on all sides. When browned add the 2 cups of hot water, sliced onion, whole garlic clove (peeled of course), Bay leaves, salt (the 1 Tbs.), sugar, pepper (the other 1/4 tsp.) and cumin (the dash). Cover and simmer for 1.5 hours, stirring occasionally to keep from sticking.

3. Remove Bay leaves and garlic clove. Add carrots, potatoes, celery and frozen onions. Cover and cook for 30 to 45 minutes, until the vegetables are tender.

4. Add the bag of frozen green beans and the jar of gravy. Heat through. Serve in big bowls with large spoons. Although good the day you make it, the stew is even better the next day – if it lasts that long.

*Note: Since I made this on a Saturday during the new “Doctor Who” episode (series 6, episode 12), I thought it only fitting that I call it timey-wimey.

What I haven’t been doing is any real cooking. I can think of two things that actually made me use the stove: caramelizing shallots and making rice. Seriously, I’ve been such a bad cook.

But, now September is here. And the past two days have been wonderfully crisp – just perfect early fall weather. I wore my cute, heeled, black leather boots today. It was lovely.

There’s something about the colder months that just lights the cooking fires. Sorry for sounding cheesy—mmm, cheese—but fall and winter just scream, “Cook you little fool!”

In July, I took a vacation to Chautauqua, New York, to visit friends and my old stomping grounds. It was a blissful long weekend, and it ended way too soon.

During my internship with The Chautauquan Daily, the newspaper for Chautauqua Institution, I grew very fond of Afterwords Cafe. The name of the coffee shop stems from when the building used to house the newspaper, hence the cafe is “after words.” Too cute.

Anyway, they have these ridiculously good brownies. They bake two sheets of thin, fudgy brownies, and leave one whole and dice the other. Then the top the whole brownie with caramel, pecans, the diced brownie and second layers of caramel and pecans. The result is pure heaven.

Umm, seconds anyone? Yes, please.

I plan on making these in the coming weeks. Check back soon.