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Pain de Nutella

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I really, really need to be divorced. Like, now.

The Departed moved out in October, and I’ve been here in the marital house since then, managing the massive piles of debt he left behind, paying for the giant car I don’t need, the giant house I don’t need, and so on. I get by but I’m spending an awful lot of money on things I don’t need that are painful reminders of a past I am not being allowed to move away from.

Because moving forward is something The Departed won’t do.

Moving at all is a challenge for him, in any direction, for any reason. When I married him, I was looking for stable, but I mistakenly selected immobile instead.

You know how sometimes you’re at a store or restaurant and you order something – say, it looks like strawberry jam, but you get cherry jam instead, but you don’t mind because it’s really good?

This mistake was nothing like that.

So this week, I decided I wanted to move, found a house that I liked that would save me $500 a month on my bills, but I was unable to sign a lease because I could not reach my attorney. Found another house, but the attorney reminded me that even if I sign a lease and move I’m still liable for this mortgage and if The Departed refuses to pay or take action, they’re still coming after me. So he is “working on it” and I remain in limbo.

The house decided it didn’t want me to move, too – the spring the holds up the garage door snapped, and the door came crashing down with my car trapped inside.

For three days.

I’ll spare you the story about how the repair guy lost my appointment and said he couldn’t fit me in for another two weeks.

I spent some quality time this week crying on the phone to my attorney, and not caring that he was billing me $250 an hour for the privilege.

So this week from hell is finally almost over, and I needed a treat, and had very little bandwidth to create one. But, as we know, Nutella makes everything better, so I improvised a quick little treat with just two ingredients.

I’m kind of ashamed of myself pretending this is a recipe, but I will anyway:

Pain de Nutella

Pain de Nutella

Ingredients:

Nutella

a tube of refrigerated Crescent dough

Break apart dough into triangles. Put a teaspoon-sized dollop of nutella at the base of each triangle, and roll up as usual. Bake as directed on package.

They’re best enjoyed straight out of the oven, with your eyes closed so you can pretend you’re in a Paris cafe.

This is my contribution to Weekend Cooking, hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Why not swing by and see what other culinary and literary delights await?

Chickpeas With Chard

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There are seasons to cooking, or so I’ve always thought: Grill in summer. Slow cooker in winter. Roast in fall. Brunch in Spring.

Yes, I know “brunch” is not a cooking method.

But today it’s spring with a vengeance in Seattle, and I think I’ve got everything mixed up. I should be out enjoying the sunshine, before it disappears behind another Seattle cliche cloud.

I recently picked up a copy of Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Cookbook (NYM Series), mostly because it is full of vegetarian recipes, and I am desperate for ideas for The Child that don’t involve pasta or fish sticks. The first recipe I tried, Chickpeas with Chard, was worth the price of the book: Tasty, fresh, and light.

Like spring – in a slow cooker.

The Child refused to eat it, which was disappointing, but then again, she’s also sleeping through the first sunny day we’ve had here in over a week. She doesn’t know what she’s missing, which is okay – this recipe, I’ll make again, so she can try it then.  Can’t guarantee any more sunny days though.

Chickpeas with Chard from Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Cookbook (NYM Series)

1/2 cup dried chickpeas

1 bunch swiss chard (I used rainbow chard because it’s so dang pretty)

2 cups water

1/4 cup olive oil

2 small white onions

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1/2 teaspoon salt

pinch cayenne pepper

pinch black pepper

Rinse chickpeas; soak overnight in three inches of water. Drain, put in slow cooker, add the two cups of water, and cook on high setting until tender, about three hours. Make sure chickpeas are covered with water at all times.

Chop the chard, blanch in boiling water for three minutes.

Chop the onions, and cook with the olive oil in a small skillet until almost golden and browned around the edges, about eight minutes.

Add chard, onions and oil, and remaining ingredients to chickpeas and water in slow cooker. Cook on high setting another 1 1/2 hours.

This is my contribution to Weekend Cooking, hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Why not swing by and see what other simple pleasures await?

Fannie Farmer’s Banana Bread

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One of the things I want to do this year is move. When The Departed left, initially I spent a lot of time on spreadsheets, working out the economics of staying in my house. Why should I be forced to move? I thought.

But the longer The Child and I rattled around the house by ourselves, the more we realized – we didn’t really like it. It’s too big for two people, but more than that: it’s too generic for these two people.

I poked around online at ads for house rentals, apartments, townhouses, and ran across an ad for an older house, described as “cozy,” which is of course code for “small.” It hadn’t been updated in some time, and what updates there were seemed to be in keeping with the 1940’s character of the place.

I want that house, I thought. That’s my house. In my mind, it is already full of my grandma’s kitchen gear, and I’m crocheting something in a cozy corner.

Home: Something this large, generic house I live in has, oddly and in spite of my best efforts, never managed to be.

I’m stuck in this house for now, until The Departed and I can come to some sort of agreement – or the courts sort it out for us, one way or the other. In the meantime, I console myself with daydreams of a future that is firmly rooted in my past: A simpler world, with less fuss and much less stuff.

So the other morning as I found myself up much too early, rattling around my much too large kitchen, I reached back into the past for some comfort food. While my morning coffee brewed, I pulled out my 1940s-era copy of The Boston Cooking School Cookbook, by Fannie Merritt Farmer, and made myself a loaf from the simplest and best banana bread recipe I’ve ever found.

Best eaten warm, with butter.


Fannie Farmer's Banana Bread
 
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Ingredients
  • 3 ripe bananas
  • ¾ cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • ½ cup chopped nuts (I use walnuts)
Instructions
  1. Crush bananas with silver fork. Add eggs, beaten light, sugar, flour sifted with salt and soda, and nut meats. Bake one hour in moderately slow oven (325 degrees F).
Notes
You can use a regular fork, they work just fine. Silver is prettier, though.
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This is my contribution to Weekend Cooking, hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Why not swing by and see what other simple pleasures await?

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