a repetitive meal for a manic monday

when you’re in school, it’s easy to feel like mondays are the worst thing invented, period. worse than tests and homework; worse than rainy days, bad cartoons, long car rides, furniture shopping, or waiting in the car while mom runs her errands. and yet nothing quite dwarfs that nascent sense of hatred like the dawning of a monday when it means getting up and going to work.

ugh, work.
give me a 7.26 first period bell any day.

it is at this point that a small voice inside my head thinks that life shouldn’t be this way; one should never, it insists, actually dread having to get out of bed in the morning. unfortunately, that little voice isn’t responsible for paying the rent, buying groceries or saving up for that really awesome jacket i saw in an east hampton shop last weekend. and so, every monday, we wake up, we shower, we get dressed, we close the door behind us, we realize we forgot our keys and open the door again--slowly, but slowly, we begin the trek for our daily bread.

about the only thing that gets me through these toils is thinking, in fact, about my daily bread. i eagerly anticipate lunch. i spend my long walk home contemplating dinner and, with a burst of workaday-repressed energy, gleefully list all of the tasks i will accomplish when i finally cross my own threshold. tonight was one of those nights, the list long. two stops on the way home. bags to unload. process film. clean out fridge. drool over the new nigel slater cookbook i special-ordered from england. salvage the leftover croissants and use up the extra heavy cream in a pain au chocolat pudding. use the blueberries before they ferment--blueberry-thyme cakes. and then dinner.

it’s one of those nights where i push the greasy french fries and sinfully, deceptively “healty” wrap i consumed at lunch, the polenta i had over the weekend, and the polenta i baked last wednesday to heat up a nearly identical meal: baked polenta, spinach, fresh mozzarella, proscuitto. it’s nearly identical to the concoction i pulled out of my oven last wednesday, only last wednesday i ate a salad and this monday i drizzle fresh pasta sauce and two fried eggs on top of the polenta before pushing the tines of my fork through the parmesan-sprinkled crust. there are days when you need to have a meal that can sit on its own in the oven for a few minutes while you rinse the fixer out of your bathtub, a meal that you know will deliver satisfaction, not epiphany. usually, we call these days “mondays.”

pain-au-chocolat pudding

4 stale chocolate croissants
3 eggs
2 cups milk
2 cups cream
3 tablespoons sugar
slug of vanilla
drizzle of leftover raspberry extract

tear the croissants and lay them in a baking pan (i used a 9x9x2 square). whisk the eggs and sugar in a bowl while the milk/cream mixture heats up on the stove. temper the egg mixture with some of the hot cream and mix it all together. add the extracts. bake 45 minutes at 350. faint from the unbelievable aromas wafting out of the oven as you pull out the pudding.

dessert for breakfast

i'm pretty well-known, at least amongst my friends, for my whimsical take on things. this can best be summed up by what i like to think of as my motto:

life is uncertain.
eat dessert first.

today, though, i am pretty sure i brought it to an entirely new level of decadence.
i ate dessert for breakfast.

it really started last night. the workday, as they are wont to do, was dragging on forever, and i was restless. the weather here in our nation's captiol was just barely warm enough to justify the three-mile walk home (plus a detour to whole foods). as i started my walk, i had all of these virtuous plans to make a quick, wholesome dinner--a miso soup, with some soba noodles and chargrilled chicken, and maybe a handful of mushrooms and a few bird chiles for spice. the farther i walked, however, the less enamored of this idea i became, and even though i picked up a chicken breast at the store i found myself unable to summon the will to cook it by the time i arrived home. the chicken went back into the fridge, to be replaced on the counter by milk, cream and a pile of chocolate croissants.

have i mentioned that i am completely smitten with nigella lawson? because i am. i love the way she writes, and i love the way she cooks, and most of all, i love her attitude toward eating, which is that eating is a pleasure. so last night, in desperate need of comfort after a useless day at the office (plus day 5 of my spring sanity restoration project, plus packing to head north yet again for the weekend), i took a page out of her book and whipped up a pain-au-chocolat pudding. i have to admit, i seriously considered eating this for dinner all by itself but i managed to exercise some restraint at the last minute and reheat some leftover polenta and chicken.

oh. my. goodness. my first bite of the cream-soaked baked croissant practically made the ickiness of my day banish all on its own (although it helped that i had put my SSRP on hold for the evening and cuddled up in bed), even if i had poured too much of the cream mixture into the pan.

after sleeping the sleep of the chocolately sated for an incredible 8 hours, and finding myself completely unable to get out of bed until 45 minutes after my alarm went off (making me, yet again, late for work) i decided that the croissant pudding deserved an encore performance. what better way to feel good about your day than to start it off with a bit of chocolate, i say.

pain-au-chocolat pudding
(adapted from nigella lawson, how to be a domestic goddess)

6 mini chocolate croissants, sliced into chunks
1 cup skim milk
1 cup heavy cream
2 eggs
1 very large schlug of vanilla (nigella suggests 1/2 teaspoon)
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar

preheat the oven to 350.
place the croissant chunks in a heatproof bowl (i used a disposable loaf pan). meanwhile, simmer the milk and cream together in a pan on the stove. whisk the two eggs, adding the sugar. slowly pour the simmering milk mixture into the egg and sugar mixture, whisking constantly so the eggs don't scramble. add the vanilla, and pour the liquid over the croissant chunks. give it a few minutes to absorb the liquid before placing the pan in the oven.

oven times might vary--i halved nigella's orginal recipe, so i started checking the pan after about 20 minutes. i decided it was finished after about half an hour.

enjoy with a cup of chocolate milk or hot chocolate.

becoming a domestic goddess

piles of cupcakes!!



used up the seriously overripe bananas in this cupcake recipe pulled from nigella’s “how to be a domestic goddess.” since i don’t have a proper muffin pan, and i like them on the tiny side anyway, i made mini-cupcakes (although they really have the consistency of a muffin, especially with the bananas). but they were very tasty and made a great dessert after my tragically overcooked pizza.



tonight was a great night for cooking with what was on hand. made the mini-muffins, then i made the pizza, which took care of the tomato sauce left from the ragu, the mozzarella ball i got at whole foods, and some of the sliced portobello mushrooms i had in there.

i’m having a serious cupcake fetish these days. spent the entire afternoon--again--browsing cupcake blogs and pulling recipes. i figure i’ll try to halve most of them and make mini-muffins like these little goddess-worthy ones. they’ll make excellent breakfast treats with a bowl of special K and some milk!

as for the pizza...it was looking so beautiful and perfect, and i didn’t want it to burn, so i pulled it out early. not 100% sure if i just got overeager or if it really wasn’t cooked through, but it started falling apart so i put it back in the oven. and then didn’t hear the timer.

fortunately the result was still completely edible...just not as pretty and all over with the cheese as the original.