I asked C to make dinner tomorrow for herself and her brother, since we won’t be home. Stipulated that she indulge her brother and not make chicken. She’s making salmon rice, surprised?

I was planning a morning grocery run anyway, so picking up salmon not a big deal, but I’d been heading toward Costco, where the smallest package of salmon is 2 pounds, which is way more than I want her to use for Salmon Rice. She also asked for a baguette. Again, Costco, so minimum two baguettes. Which, as these things happen, got me fixated on salmon mousse for lunch. with that cold cider that I’ve been craving for weeks. so here we go…

This isn’t really salmon mousse. Salmon rillette doesn’t quite fit either. Salmon spread sounds much too junior league cookbook for it not have mayo or cream cheese. or both. hitting the usual references, most were totally unhelpful. Julia was too involved for lunch in a reasonable time. David Lebovitz wanted fresh and smoked fish, which I didn’t have. Texas Lone Star Junior League did, indeed, call for mayo.

so we’re winging it, riffing on David Lebovitz’s Salmon Rillettes https://www.davidlebovitz.com/recipe/salmon-rillette

It has been suggested that my pantry and freezer are overkill. And I’ll grant that my stores are beyond necessary considering how many stores and farmers markets are within walking distance of me.

But they enable me, when I realize at 2:55 that today is Pi Day, and my mathy kids will be home at 4:00, to find a round of dough in the freezer, a half a jar of incredibly rich chocolate sauce in the fridge and a jar of apple sauce (homemade from Healdsberg apples, obs) in the pantry, and whip up a batch of mini pies.

Chocolate Apple Pi Day Pies

Pastry dough – pie dough, biscuit dough, pillsbury rolls, whatever you have handy. Thawed

Apple sauce or pie filling, about ½ to 3/4 cup

Chocolate: thick sauce, choc chips, broken choc bars, again, use what you’ve got. About half cup

Flour for rolling out dough

Non-stick pan spray (like Pam)

Mini muffin tin, rolling pin

1 Heat oven to 450. Spray each cup of the muffin pan with Pam.

2 Divide dough into 24 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, then use rolling pin to flatten to about 2.5-3″ across. Fit the dough into a muffin cup, pushing the dough gently to the bottom to avoid air pockets, pleating the edges to make it fit and the folding the top edges under to form a rim. Repeat with all the dough.

When all the muffin cups are lined, bake for 6-7 minutes, until top edges just start to brown and crusts are partly baked through. Set aside to cool for 10 minutes.

3 Use 2 small spoons to drop some chocolate into each cup, maybe ½ to 1 teaspoon each. Smear it around the bottom.

Drop in about a teaspoon of apple sauce and smooth top.

4 Bake for another 6-7 minutes, until crust is nicely browned. Remove pan to a wire rack. Let pies cool for 5 minutes, then lift out of muffin tin and let them finish cooking on wire rack.

Best eaten today. If the kids don’t eat them all as soon as they come home, the muni pies will keep for a couple of days in an air tight container.

Happy pi day

ps. Last year, I made quiche for dinner on 3/14. The ingrates insisted quiche does not count as pi, I believe they claimed because it’s not sweet. Though Chicken Pot Pie would have pasted muster. I countered that quiche has a crust, filled with tastiness, so qualified. Discuss.

specifically, fresh, dry farmed, local, I-could-just-stand-here-and-eat-this-tomato-like-a-plum sort of tomatoes.  plus bread from the bakery down the street (no, not THAT bakery, the bakery in the other direction). and line-caught-yesterday rock fish from my fish guy, Capt Kirk .

all those tomatoes I canned and roasted and otherwise preserved last month are for the winter.  when the supermarket is offering red orbs with no fragrance or taste. today we gush about tomatoes that are good enough to upstage the fresher fish you can buy without hitting the dock yourself.

“Rock Fish Bruschetta for lunch” I said.

“oh, wow” he said when he wandered into the kitchen 5 minutes later, thinking lunch would be ready. “I thought you were just going to pan fry it and put it on bread.”

as if.

Warmed tomatoes — roughly chop 3 or 4 perfect plum tomatoes, douse with a glug of olive oil, big pinches of sea salt, herbs of choice (basil, oregano & thyme are good place to start).  stir together, spread in an oven-safe dish big enough to hold the tomatoes in one layer (or so), broil about 5 inches below heat for 3-4 minutes.  drizzle with a tablespoon or so of balsamic.

Parsley garnish — mince half a bundle of parsley. stir in a couple tablespoons of olive oil, 2 teaspoons minced shallot, 1 clove minced garlic and a couple good pinches of sea salt.  set aside to meld.

Rock Fish (yes, pan fried.  dusted with herbed panko and dropped into a sizzling cast iron skillet with bacon drippings) — prep your fillets:  remove bones, clean off any stray scales, slice into pieces about the size of your bread slices.  heat cast iron skillet until almost smoking, add enough bacon drippings (or butter) to slick the bottom.  lightly dredge the fillets in herbed panko then lay in skillet.  cook until just cooked through, about 3 minutes per side. work in batches to avoid crowding the fish.

Toasted country bread — slice fresh bread thinly. arrange on oven rack and toast both sides, about one and a half minutes per side.  (or use your toaster.  but the broiler’s already on.)

Serve with a cold beer.  listen to your lunch mate rave in awe and be thankful for working from home.

The only problem with the first lunch in the garden of spring is that every time I look up from my tamale I notice another dandelion poking through the grass and have to get up to pull it. Despite having spent this morning (and a morning last week) weeding this part of the yard.

Truthfully, have to admit that’s a problem with lunch in the yard anytime.

Walking home from lunch out in the hood, making Bob walk in the sunny side until he starts to crisp, taking logistics

Me: oh, I still haven’t booked our New York flights

Bob: New York?

Me: in August. To see your parents

Bob : oh, right. Why would you book those now?

Me: because they’ll sell out. It’s prime family travel week. 

(That’s data point #1)

Bob: oh. Okay. So you’ll do your usual thing where you book you and the kids in a cheap flight and I’ll find a frequent flier flight later?

(Data point #2)

Me: to see your parents?

Bob: that’s your reality. I have to work. 

(Data point 3)

More accurately, Resolutions for 2017. I don’t usually make New Years Resolutions. On the London- San Sebastián- Barcelona trip we took for our first anniversary, decided to make Anniversary Resolutions instead.  And then just made the same one for the next 10 years. 

Might have to redeclare it though. Have not been drinking enough champagne of late. 
But feeling like a resolution or two might help me waste less time. 

This morning, instead of naturally awakening to sunlight light gently brightening my room (as the fancy alarm B got me for Christmas because he hates the beep on my old one promises), I was awoken by C announcing  “You clock is lame. It’s 7:24.”

And since my car is at the shop (f’ing tree rats), that didn’t leave much time to get the kids on the MUNI. WEnt downstairs to find proof that HBG can in fact transfer leftovers to a lunch size container on his own. And can get C to cut up his apple for him. 

Have him a dollar and sent them out the door. Am now back in bed w a cup of coffee (after sloshing some into the shoes I left in the pantry) and tracking them on Find My Friends. They appear to have arrived at school and its 8:04 so this MUNI in the morning thing is kinda awesome. 

I stay home and bake cookies. And I vote for nasty women. 

So far today

Lasagne (oh shut up. that counts as baking, it goes in the oven)

Millionaires (short bread plus dulce de leche and chocolate layers)

Granola bars with choc, cherries and coconut 

Yesterday 

Pretzel bites with cheddar and country ham

Day before 

Cornbread (and then croutons)

Day before

pretzels

Day before

Cookies. Can’t even remember what kind now. 

this weekend, I have:

fixed the handle on the closet under the stairs so that it locks

removed the old coat pegs (with a crowbar and hammer), patched and painted the wall, painted and hung new backing board for new hooks.  except I forgot to bring the hooks, so right now, you can’t hang anything in the entry hall.

cleaned out the fridge and cupboards, including tossing the half bottle of cheap bloody mary mix and the margarita mix.

unpacked the ski clothes and gear and figured out what’s missing.  because something is always missing

hung the ski racks that I bought last March and sat next to the crashing pile of skis for the ret of the year.

finished installing the dishwasher, which really you would think, would have been done years ago.  it’s not a new appliance.  but whoever installed it just wedged the brackets under the front lip of the countertop.  so this summer, it chipped away the particle board under the lino and everytime you pulled out one of the racks, the entire dishwasher lurched forward and clunked against the counter.

made two trips to Ace Mt Hardware- extra keys, vent covers for basement, spackle for entryway obtained.  new chuck key for drill not obtained.  who knew they come in 6 sizes and I should have taken the drill with me?

discovered that if you drive out of Northstar at 2:45pm during the shoulder season, you find yourself in a parade of contractor and gardener trucks.  and every road in truckee is being worked on.

did not manage to convince apple tv and qumi projector to talk to each other (I think it’s actually just that the remotes need new batteries) so watched several hours of football on my computer.

found a plumber who didn’t think it was too small a job to be worth his time, and was not on vacation, to come fix the downstairs tub filler so that it no longer drips a gallon an hour. and impressed him by knowing where to find the main water shutoff.

and, perhaps most importantly, met the handyman who is fixing up the house next door who is going to bid refurbishing our decks and replacing the damaged siding outside the kitchen.

which is not such an impressive list, but took care of several small things that bugged me last season, so feels good to cross them off the list.

and it was so remarkably quiet here.

On the hill by the fire pit (Max is bored and fiddling w a deck of cards):

Me: Max, do you know how to play gin rummy?

Max: I don’t think so. I don’t really know how to play any musical instruments.

Olivia (w full teen age older sister sarcasm): you are so adorable