Lady Cooks-a-Lot Strikes Again!

One might surmise that things have been a bit hectic. And, yes, that would be a good guess. The short version is that my new boss is now our new head honcho; the old head honcho is out. I don't really know details, and I sure as fuck wouldn't put them here if I did. The upshot, though, includes a promotion and another raise for me, which, yay, and a very cool new job that actually maximizes the use of many of my best skills (or it will eventually; for the time being, I have to learn a whole bunch of stuff and teach a whole bunch of stuff to other people), while working for one of the best bosses I've ever had and working with a team of people I like and respect. So, yay.

Today's cooking has included, so far: more whole wheat soft pretzels and pretzel rolls (the latter will be used for tonight's venison sandwiches, more on which in a moment), lemon bars (more meyer lemons, and a recipe cobbled together from multiple sources), and wild turkey and white bean cassoulet, which is simmering on the stove at the moment. The soft pretzel/pretzel roll recipe is cobbled together from the KAF whole grain book and from the bakery formula for soft pretzels (and, needless to say, I use baking soda rather than lye in the water bath), and the whole grains in it reallty give the bread a wonderful chewy flavor. The preferment definitely helps, I suspect; I use whole wheat flour for that, which probably helps mellow it out some.

The lemon bars include a crust from the KAF book, sort of--I used a mix of chopped oats, whole wheat flour, and unbleached flour--and the filling was sort of from a David Lebovitz recipe, except I had to double it because the crust formula was for a bigger pan. I also cut back on the sugar--actually I used honey--because I was using Meyer lemons. They're quite tasty, too--lemony without being either too sweet or too sour. I'll probably cut back the sugar in the crust next time I make it, but in general I thought they were a success.

The cassoulet recipe is from "A New Way to Cook," and instead of cooking the meat that she suggests, I rendered some pancetta and then threw in some already-cooked wild turkey meat from Friend. I also used wild turkey broth. It's simmering still, and I have to add the chopped carrots and onions to it in awhile, but I suspect it's going to be pretty fabulous.

I have not exercised in weeks, though. I've either been out carousing (week before last) or coming home and staring at the wall with the Loaner Cat in my lap, stirring only to put on a hockey game or Top Chef. This is not a desireable development, however, not least because it has reversed all the progress I'd made in fitting into my clothes again. And then Friday I managed to finally catch a cold--I say finally because it seems as though everyone around me is sick more often, and more seriously, than I am. I actually had managed to completely avoid all illness this winter, and this cold is pretty mild. (I started sucking on zinc lozenges and drinking extra liquid before I was even sure that it was, indeed, a cold, and that seems to have reduced my "suffering" to "blowing my nose and sneezing a lot.")

One of the things that has occurred to me in the past month or so has to do with change. As you can imagine, there have been a whole boatload of changes in the past six or seven months--bosses and head honchos and organizational structure and even some organizational direction have been changing steadily, with some big dramatic bits every now and then for punctuation. While it is a little unsettling, in many ways, I've realized that it's not really bothering me as much as it's bothering some of my coworkers, and I was wondering why.

Was I hiding from my own stress or something? And then I realized that, for me, the stressful changes in my life have included big questions like "how the fuck do I pay the rent?" and "what about food?" and "oh, fuck, now what am I going to do with my life?" and "how am I going to pay off those loans?" Generally, several of those are in play, and, more often than not, there are multiple explosions in my personal life as well. So, compared to those kinds of stressors, the past six or seven months hasn't felt so bad. Not necessarily all puppies and unicorns and flowers, of course, but compared to being unemployed, it pretty much rocks.

Okay, so the cassoulet is pretty much done; the venison is sliced thin and marinating with garlic and a little wine; in a minute I'll get up and slice an onion, maybe actually caramelize it and take it out of the pan. The shrimp can be cooked quickly, and then the venison can be flash cooked, basically, the the cheese gets melted on top and the whole thing gets scooped up onto a pretzel roll (in Friend's case, one that has been smeared with mustard).

Friend has gotten addicted to these steak sandwiches. I did it on a whim months ago, then we didn't do it for awhile, but we've started again, and added the homemade pretzel bread, and it's just amazingly flavorful. We'll probably switch to the grill when it warms up a little (and the Loaner Cat is back at either Friend's house or his mom's; she doesn't like being abandoned). But in the meanwhile, this rather rocks.