There are political figures trying to tell me what I can and can’t do with my body, there are people trying to sell me my own intellectual property, and there are princes getting naked all over Vegas but really, no one’s blaming Harry on that last one because who doesn’t want to get naked all over Vegas?
~*crickets*~
I think there’s just such an overload of fodder out there right now — and such a lack of focus on my part — that I tend to get overwhelmed and rather than talk to anyone ever, I instead opt to curl up on my sofa with a couple of mangy mutts, a glass of Zinfandel, and a streamed movie on Netflix that I didn’t realize was subtitled until 10 minutes in.
In other words, I have a lot of time to think.
There comes a time in most unpaid, extreme ADD blog writers’ “careers,” when the writer must evaluate the situation and make a choice. MY situation is that I’ve been doing this for almost 2 1/2 years, and barely anyone reads Domestiphobia.
Like at all.
And I love those of you who do — you’re like the validation I never got in high school. The prom date, the braces removal, and the boob development all in one, confidence-boosting package. (I actually did end up getting those last two — just not until it was too late to be enjoyed in high school.) It makes me feel like maybe I do have a niche. Like maybe there are some people in this world who get me, and even if you don’t, you still like watching me through that thick zoo glass from the relative safety and comfort of your swivel office chair.
And that’s okay, too.
So that’s my situation.
Therefore my choices, as I see them, are to:
a) Keep doing what I’m doing
b) Stop
c) Pick a focus and work to improve
or
d) Eat a sandwich.
I’m pretty sure, if you know me at all, (and if you’ve been reading for any length of time, rest assured that you DO know me), then you know which one I choose.
But the baby — and the having of it — wasn’t actually the main focus of the dream.
The main focus of the dream was how I kept forgetting that I had a baby.
Like… I would go to the grocery store to buy milk and bacon, apparently, and suddenly I would remember that I left the baby at home. And did my dream self freak out about the fact that I’d forgotten my helpless baby and left it to fend for itself at home in the bassinet or whatever they call those frilly rocking things where babies sleep?
No.
My dream self just said, damn… I forgot my baby and then continued comparing one brand of ultra thick-cut hickory smoked bacon to another brand of reduced-fat maple flavored. And if you even have to guess which one my dream self picked, then you really don’t know me as well as I thought you did.
And then I dreamt about blogging. I had all of these fantastic post ideas that of course my dream self neglected to write down for my awake self to remember because it’s apparently as equally negligent of its writing needs as I am. Anyway. As my dream self was typing out one such brilliant post, it dawned on me that I completely forgot to tell the readers that I’d had a baby.
It was such an insignificant part of my existence that it wasn’t even blog worthy.
So, somewhere in the middle of my post about people pods or my crappy taste in music or vaginas on my kindle or any other such nonsense, I typed something to the effect of, “Oh, yeah! And I had a baby. I can’t believe I forgot to tell you. Oops. So about this road trip…”
Tell me.
What does this mean?
Was it simply because my new co-worker brought her doe-eyed pudgesicle of a pants-pooper into the office and I went grocery shopping the other day?
Or could it be more?
Could my dream self actually be mocking me?
Does it know what a crappy parent I’d be and is attempting to prove it to me via segmented black and white subconscious thought streams?
I mean, really. I know I would be a terrible parent. I don’t need my self to tell me that. Mockery from my own Id?
Kind of effed up.
It’s like my subconscious thinks I carelessly flit from one thing to the next with little regard for whatever I just left behind, no matter how profound it may be.
So about this bacon.
I did buy some, and so far I’ve put it to good use. I would go so far as to say that bacon is probably a staple when cooking for one — it can be added to almost anything (salads, meats, fish, pastas, etc.) for an instant slap of delicious flavor. Just don’t go overboard with it.
For my first meal as a pseudo-single person, table for one, I knew exactly what I wanted to make for dinner.
Pasta alla Carbonara.
Sounds fancy, right?
Well. It’s not. According to Wikipedia, it may have first been made as a “hearty meal for Italian charcoal workers.” In the States, it’s sometimes referred to as “coal miners’ spaghetti.” It’s a simple, rustic, back-to-basics pasta dish that takes all of 10-15 minutes to prepare. The basic dish requires some type of pasta (usually spaghetti or fettuccini), some type of pork (bacon, pancetta, or the traditional guanciale), a hard cheese (like Parmigiano-Reggiano), eggs, and black pepper.
That’s it!
Of course, the internet is full of variation recipes that call for different herbs, spices, and a slew of other veggies and accouterments, and of course over time I’ve developed my own bastardized version that I’m sharing here. It’s a perfect “dinner for one” because you can add anything you want, and the amounts can be easily adjusted to make as little or as much as you’d like. You really can’t mess it up. The amounts below are guesstimates, and you likely will have leftovers. If you don’t want leftovers, just cut it back!
1/2-ish pound of dried pasta (I think I used a little less)
2-3 slices of bacon
1/3-ish cup of pasta water
2 egg yolks
1/3-ish cup of frozen corn
1 large clove of garlic
1/4-ish cup of Parmesan cheese that you grate yourself, plus extra for garnish (I actually used a hard cheese called Grana Padano, which I had from another recipe, but good ol’ Parm will do the trick)
Black pepper to taste
1. Boil a pot of salted water and add your pasta. Cook until al dente. In non-fancy terms, it shouldn’t be complete mush.
2. Stick the raw bacon in a pan and turn the heat to medium-high. My grocery store was out of the bacon I looooove to buy, Carolina Pride, which always cooks up deliciously even and perfect, so I was stuck with this:
This stuff, whatever it is, didn’t understand my style of set-it-and-forget-it cooking, so it decided to burn the second I walked away.
I’m pretty sure it’s the bacon’s fault — not mine. I cooked some more and used the burnt stuff, too.
Hey. Waste not, want not.
2. While the bacon is cooking, separate your eggs. It’s not as hard as it sounds. Just crack the egg, split it in half, and let the yolk slide back and forth between the two shell halves while letting the white drip out. Soon you should be left with just yolk!
Mix the yolks with a fork.
Steal some of your pasta water (1/4-1/3 of a cup) by dipping a measuring cup directly into the pot, and slowly add that to the egg while mixing with the fork. This tempers the egg slowly so it doesn’t get all crazy cooked and coagulated. You don’t want to end up with scrambled egg in your pasta.
Then grate some cheese into it and stir until it melts into the hot water/yolk mixture.
3. Once the bacon is cooked, set it aside and add some minced garlic and corn to the hot bacon grease.
Stir around for just a couple of minutes until the corn is lightly cooked and the garlic is fragrant. (This would be wonderful with fresh corn off the cob, but I use what I have. And what I have is frozen corn.)
4. Crumble the bacon, add it to the pan, and stir it around.
5. Drain the cooked pasta and add it to the pan, stirring everything with tongs or a fork to cook and combine.
6. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the yolk sauce. It will cook slowly, without scrambling, and give your pasta a rich, slick flavor. It’s incredible.
‘Scuse the intense blur, but you get the idea.
7. Add plenty of black pepper, dish onto a plate or into a pasta bowl, and pour yourself a glass of wine.
Toast to taking the time to cook for yourself. Be happy you’re treating yourself right, even when no one else is around to see it.
Sleep well, and dream about forgetting your baby.
Hey.
We can’t all be perfect and sometimes the bacon does get burned.
As I sit here drinking a cerveza, thinking about what to write on this thing that some people are actually reading, and contemplating life in general, I’m starting to think I was too harsh in my assessment of drunk-in-public people from last night. I mean… if someone wants to hit on me regardless of whether I can understand what he’s saying between hiccups and slurs (something about my ponytail and my nice smile, but that’s all I could make out)… or if someone wants to literally attack my manager and rip her shirt because she thinks she’s hitting on her boyfriend… or if someone wants to vomit all over the floor in the ladies’ restroom… who am I to judge?
*One of those 3 things has not happened (yet) at my place of employment – anyone care to guess which one?
I mean, if you’re someone who’s never done something remotely stupid or regrettable in your life, then I probably don’t know you. Because you probably don’t exist.
And while there are surely many negative aspects of getting stupidly drunk, one of the inarguable positives is that you gain the uncanny ability to eat the crappiest of foods completely guilt-free.
Which brings me to my recipe for tonight. A recipe that, coincidentally, I’ve never made or eaten while intoxicated. Which proves I’m horrible at segues. But it is one of those things you might look at and think, Umm, no. I will not be making that for dinner. Ever. It’s juvenile and you can eat it with your fingers and for crying out loud, what IS it with you and those damn tubes of biscuits that scare the panties off me when they pop open??!!?
But the thing is, sometimes we need food like this. Sometimes we crave it. Something simple and fun and tastes really really great with a beer. Or a soda. Or a big glass of milk.
I used to make these for my favorite guy friends and they went down quicker than Courtney Love when courted with Heart Shaped Box.
I call them Chicken Salsa Biscuit Things. And the original recipe is found here. They’re basically like homemade hot pockets, but So. Much. Better. And you can customize them any way you want. Like more filling? Add some mushrooms, or shrimp, or bell peppers. Like more flavor? Add some cilantro, minced garlic, or red pepper flakes. Like more heat? Add your favorite hot sauce. The sky’s the limit!
But here’s what you need to make ’em my way, usually in their most basic form (I like to keep it simple):
3 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves (I actually usually only use 2 if they’re pretty big)
1 chopped onion (I actually skip this sometimes when I’m feeling particularly lazy… I use a chunky salsa to make up for it)
1 cup salsa (I use Pace mild thick ‘n chunky – or something along those lines)
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese (I try to freshly grate cheese to avoid all the extra additives and preservatives and gunk they put in the pre-shredded stuff in the bag, but again, this is a lazy recipe. Sometimes I do what I gotta do. And the recipe uses refrigerated biscuit dough – who are we kidding?)
1 (12 oz.) can refrigerated biscuit dough (NOT the flaky stuff – just regular, original biscuits. Or the buttermilk kind. Whatever floats your boat.)
1. Preheat your oven to 350-degrees F. Set your tube of biscuits on the counter (I find they’re a bit easier to work with if they’re less chilly).
2. Start off by boiling some chicken. Just get a pot of water boiling, add your chicken breasts, and cook them for around 15-20 minutes until they’re no longer pink and the juices run clear. When they’re done cooking, remove them to a plate and shred them with a couple of forks – or a fork and a knife, depending on how dangerous you feel.
*My little photo disclaimer still stands – I am still sans my favorite lens AND Photoshop, so I’m doing the best I can. Please don’t judge me by these images. Thank you.
3. If you’re using an onion, dice it and sauté it in a sauce pan until it’s soft. The recipe doesn’t say this, but you’ll probably want to use a little butter or oil. Like I said before, I tend to skip the onion since I use a chunky salsa. Add your cup of salsa to the pan and let it heat up for a minute or two. Then add the 2 cups of shredded cheese and let it kinda sorta melt. I usually remove the pan from the heat just before adding the cheese. It’s okay if it doesn’t melt all the way because you’ll be cooking these babies in the oven. Finally, add the shredded chicken.
Chunky salsa. Mmmm.
Stir, stir, stir.
Add shredded chicken.
4. Open that crazy tube of biscuits (why are they so scary???) and flatten them out with your fingers on an ungreased cookie sheet. Fill them with your chicken/salsa mixture and fold up the biscuits to form these nice little pockets.
Flatten dough.
Fill biscuit.
Fold dough.
5. Bake at 350 until the biscuits are golden and cooked. Pay attention because in my oven, these often take less time.
I’ll have you know that these have a tendency to pop open while they bake. And if they happen to pop open on you, it in no way means you are an inferior human being.
They are warm and cheesy and delicious.
And they happen to be excellent to grab for quick lunches or to gobble down in the back kitchen before you go wait tables at your favorite local pub.