Miserable Monday

I woke up with the alarm's help on Monday. It had been a generally frustrating weekend (with the drain and all) and I did not feel refreshed or relaxed. In fact, that general grumpiness carried through the whole day (the gray skies and occasional rain didn't help much, either).

When I got home at lunchtime, I found Scruffy had thrown up a hairball on the bedspread (Great! Thanks a lot!). I cleaned that up, sprayed the spot with "Shout" and threw it in the washer. I stayed home long enough to pop it in the dryer.

So, when I got after work, I fired the dryer back up for a few minutes (just to warm it) and then made my bed. Then I got to work on cleaning out the fridge (in anticipation of tomorrow's garbage day). As always, I am dismayed at throwing away produce that's gone brown, sour cream or heavy cream that's now past the expiration date, and so on.

It totally turned me off about dinner. So, instead, I proceeded to roast my beets. Let's recap: I had three small ones from the bunch I bought at Kroger's and three big ones that Jake and Carla bought at Whole Foods (organic beauties). I cut the greens off the Jake and Carla bunch (leaving one-inch of stems remaining) and soaked them in a big bowl of water (that way the sand supposedly falls to the bottom of the bowl).

Next I took a vegetable brush and washed all six beets. I put the beets in a large bowl and added two large shallots (peeled and large-diced - the dicing was my idea), two sprigs of fresh rosemary and two teaspoons of olive oil. I tossed that all together and then washed my hands.

I got a large piece of tinfoil and, folding it in half, made a pouch. Into that, I poured the contents of the bowl. I sealed the edges and then roasted it in the toaster oven at 400 degrees F. for 40 minutes.

While that was roasting, I put a small sauce pan on the heat and added one cup of tarragon white wine vinegar, 1 1/2 teaspoons Kosher salt, 1/2 cup of sugar and one cup of plain water. I brought that to a boil and whisked it to incorporate all the ingredients. When it was clear, I shut it off.

About that time, I took a phone call from an old friend. By the time we'd caught each other up, making pickled beets seemed like a lot of work. But, since I have tomorrow off, I can finish up then. If you are interested in this recipe, you can wait until tomorrow or go to Food Network, Alton Brown, and search on "pickled beets."

Now, I'm hungry. So, I carefully lifted the beet greens out of the water, ran them through the salad spinner, rinsed them off again and cut them into one-inch lengths. One more ride in the salad spinner and I put them into boiling, salted water for five minutes. I topped them with a good glug of white vinegar and wandered in to watch some taped TV.

Okay, that was good, but not enough. So, skipping the leftovers, I made on of my mother's favorites (for some reason, I've been thinking about my mother all weekend - I almost called her...) tuna and peas.

Now, I know there are cooks out there who pooh-pooh (that was fun to say) the old recipes, like green bean casserole, that appear every Holiday season and involve cans of green beans, mushroom soup, French's French-Fried Onions, etc. But, I was there man! There was no "movement" to local, sustainable ingredients. There was not "trend" towards "free-range chickens," for example. We all ate free-range chickens when we could catch and decapitate them. The issue was only taste and this stuff tasted GOOD!

So, I put on a pot of water to boil and mixed up one can of mushroom soup, one can of drained tuna (now in water rather than oil, to satisfy health concerns - but the oil stuff tasted better) and a cup of frozen peas (my only concession to "now." Sorry Mom, but frozen peas just taste better!)

While that warmed up, I boiled 1/2 pound of wide egg noodles (here's where it gets a bit fuzzy... I think my mom served this on something else... Toast, maybe? Maybe one of my other brothers could help me out with this...)

Anyway, I drained and buttered the noodles, plated half of them and poured half of the tuna and peas sauce on top. I wandered back to the bedroom, ate and watched TV until I fell asleep.