Monday: manic, meatless, monsoon'y, muscular

This morning I chaperoned Ol's class field trip to a local recycling center. One of his very best buddies rode with us, and darn are those little boys precious. I find the recycling center totally cool, so you can imagine how most of the kiddos felt. A front loader here, a giant conveyor belt there. Rain be damned, the field trip was awesome. Hours later I hurried home to cook dinner for my sweet nonagenarians, then delivered it, picked Jack up, made 2+ dozen miniature collard green hand-pies and later scurried to the gym for a session with my trainer. It was awesome but for a full 45 minutes afterwards, I was on the verge of puke. Back home to prep and construct a magnificent MM (meatless Monday) dinner salad: dandelion greens slicked with an orange-pomegranate molasses-sherry vinegar dressing (because T thinks the dandelions are too bitter so to offset that, I made this sweet'ish dressing; dandelion greens are so good and so good for you; it worked); roast carrots; fresh chevre; candied walnuts; the fresh peas that I shelled yesterday; tomatoes; challah croutons; and some endive and chives. Bellissima! Perfetto!

There was a slight mishap while candying the walnuts. It seems I didn't beat the egg white until quite foamy enough and, as such, some of the nuts looked both candied and scrambled. Revolting. Those went into the trash; the fittest made it into the salad. Kitchen oops! No worries.

The greens of spring

I am beat. And also a touch hungover from having a bit too much fun at J's school auction last night. Oops. So, I'm off to bed but would just like to sing the praises of spring produce one last time. Freshly shelled peas -I love to shell peas; it makes me think of generations of a family's women sitting round a table shelling together, the ping of the legumes dropped in one bowl, the shuk of denuded pods tossed in another, the happy chatter of the ladies- and baby zucchini and pea vines and blossoms everywhere. It's easy to eat simply and well this time of year, and for that, I am grateful (I am not grateful that it remains so chilly here but that's a different story).

Taking a load off

What a nice evening! Tom and Jack played some chess while I got Ol into bed, and afterwards, while the focaccia dough rose, T did some trim painting in the guest room (I love to paint walls but am more than happy to let him go to town on irritating trim work!). I've actually managed to read a magazine, work more on my crossword AND enjoy this fresh and light spring onion and ricotta bread (the focaccia dough recipe is from Melissa Clark). 

Now, the unfortunate likeness to uterine folds in that first pic is not lost on me, but I still think it's a nice shot of my bread dough. I really enjoy kneading a good and pliable dough. There is such pleasure in watching simple ingredients come together in magical ways. The smell of yeast soothes, the scatter-shot flour is the best sort of confetti. As I work and manipulate a warm ball of to-be bread, I am comforted and calm (except for the time I was 8 months pregnant and had (chose) to knead a thick dough for 10 minutes and seriously thought I was sending myself into labor with the effort). And then the result sends a wave of coziness through my home, and I love that.