The Only Newsletter I Care About This Week
#homeecmakes
Sisu: A Word That Explains Finland
via The New York Times, 1940
This week's unexpected win came in the form of a tiny food processor attachment I never knew I owned that came along with my years old immersion blender. I've somehow carted this Tupperware sized plastic bowl along with me on 3 separate moves, and have never once thought to ask the question "what the heck is this?"
The other day, I saw it in my drawer and realized that a whole world of food processing potential (in very small quantities) has now been opened up to me and I immediately thought of this recipe that I bookmarked months ago. Up until now, I've been waiting to make anything that required food processing (?) at my parent's house or just not at all. Pestos, romescos, blitzed bread crumbs -- so many missed food processor opportunities!
Surprise food processors. Big news over here. The things that excite us in this Covid era of simple thrills. Who woulda thunk?
Easy Roasted Broccoli Steaks
Greg Vernick via Alexandra Cooks
INGREDIENTS
2 small-ish heads broccoli, 1.25-1.5 lbs total
olive oil
kosher salt
2 cups cherry tomatoes (12 ounces)
1 red onion, cut into wedges
freshly cracked black pepper
3/4 cup (1.5 ounces) fresh bread crumbs
2 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup pitted Kalamata olives
INSTRUCTIONS
Heat the oven to 475ºF.
Trim the end off each head of broccoli. Peel the stalks to remove the tough outer later. Halve each head. Transfer to a rimmed baking sheet. (I like to use these quarter sheet pans for this.) Toss with 3 tablespoons olive oil and 1 teaspoon kosher salt. Place the heads cut side down. Set aside.
In a 9-inch square baking dish (or something similar - I used a pie pan), toss the tomatoes and onion with 1 tablespoon olive oil and 1 teaspoon kosher salt. Season with pepper to taste.
Transfer both pans to the oven for 25-30 minutes. To test for doneness, lift up one of the broccoli heads — you want it to be nicely caramelized on its cut side. If it isn’t brown, continue to roast until it is brown. The tomatoes should be beginning to collapse and starting to lightly blister in spots. Remove both pans from the oven. Flip the broccoli heads and return the pan to the oven for another 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the sauce: Transfer the roasted tomatoes and onions along with 1/4 cup water to a high speed blender or food processor. If using a blender be sure to let the mixture cool briefly before puréeing, or be sure to start puréeing on low, with the small opening at the top removed and covered lightly with a tea towel to allow the hot air to escape. Purée until smooth. Add 2 tablespoons butter and purée again until smooth. Taste. Adjust with salt to taste. Add water by the tablespoon to thin. Sauce should be pourable.
In a large skillet over medium heat, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil oil until it just begins to shimmer. Add the bread crumbs and a small pinch of salt. Toast, stirring often, until the crumbs are evenly golden, about 5 minutes. Add the olives and stir for another 15 seconds or so. Remove pan from heat.
Spread a layer of sauce over a serving platter with the back of a spoon. Top with the roasted broccoli halves. Spoon as many of the olive bread crumbs over top as you wish. Serve immediately passing more sauce and olive bread crumbs on the side.
(Julia's notes: This was so delightfully simple and delicious. I went back for seconds. And then I went back for thirds. I was tempted to skip the olives, as they were the only ingredient I didn't have on hand, but ended up getting my hands on some and let me tell you, reader: DO NOT SKIP THE OLIVES. They made an already delicious preparation of broccoli a million times more interesting. Restauranty. I have tons of the sauce leftover, but that's fine with me - I spooned it onto my breakfast tacos this morning and can easily see it with pasta... or more roasted broccoli!)
This is the third week in a row that a nearly completed essay I've written has been plucked from this MailChimp newsletter template and pasted into a blank document in my Google Drive for safe keeping.
To be published. With bravery. At a later date.
I'm still figuring out how to be on the internet. And how not to be on the internet. How to be myself, but keep some for myself.
I wonder if you are here too?
Just now, when filing away those words that I've just spent the last two hours writing, I found a poem I wrote in 2015. A poem. I wrote in 2015.
What a thing. What confidence I no longer recognize.
Honestly, it's good. It's really good. And I don't know how I did it.
I'm excited to get back to that place, to share and enjoy the writer part of me, fluidly typing and confidently publishing, but you've got to bear with me. I'm getting my sea legs back and building back up my bravery. But in a new and (hopefully) more restrained way.
I can't promise it'll be good. But I know it'll be better if I take my time.
In the meantime, I did promise a bad date story in This Week's Newsletter 1.0, and I can't break a bad date story promise. I couldn't! I wouldn't!!
I won't give you the one that I was going to share in the original essay, because that one will be so much better in due time, but I will give you this one:
Once, my date ordered a second beer and fries.
We'd set up the date on the pretense of "happy hour" so the first round was beers only, halfway sitting on our barstools to decide how committedly to sit down. We were 45 minutes in (which, as we all know, is the Bermuda triangle of the date... expertly maneuvered and it's smooth sailing right on through. Poorly handled, and the date is lost forever). Much to my delight, when the bartender asked if we were going for another round, my date gave me that raised eyebrows, questioning look like "Yeah?"
"Yeah!" I said. Another round it is.
"And some fries!" he added.
Somewhere between him, negging my music taste and me, feigning interest in his dog adoption story, I reached to the middle of the table for a single fry where the pile had been sitting for a few minutes.
My hand and said fry were mere centimeters above the basket when SLAP! ON MY WRIST. Jaw to the damn ground, I look up to him, fully straight faced, looking at me dead in the eyes saying, and I quote, "Order your own fries."
The man had slapped my wrist for taking one of his fries.
Because I am a strong, independent, self-actualized woman, I dropped the fry, slapped him across the face with my greasy fingers and left, but not before grabbing the hot bartender by the beard and giving him a big fat kiss that left him weak in the knees.
No, I didn't. I forced laughter, apologized, put the fry back down in the basket and stayed until he finished his second beer. Because I didn't want to be seem too sensitive. And because realizing your worth takes about a half a dozen or 20 bad date stories.
Hang in there.
Love,
Me (also me)