The SSB Late Night Pizza

I'll admit it - I have a "Secret Single Behavior," or SSB.

The concept of the SSB originated from an episode of Sex and the City. It's a behavior or habit you have as a single person that you don't want your partner know about because it's potentially embarrassing. For Carrie, it was eating a stack of saltines with grape jelly over the sink while reading fashion magazines. For me, it's cooking and eating late at night.

Call me crazy, but I do sometimes turn into a version of Martha Stewart at midnight. When the late night munchies hit, simple snacks aren't going to cut it. Late night cravings for me center around foods that are hot and soothing - like scrambled eggs on toast, or a cheese Quesadilla, or pizza. All foods that require cooking.

I also have a ritual around my late night munchies. I'm on my feet the entire time. I stand while I prep. I do the dishes while the food cooks. When the food is ready I eat it standing over the sink, or pacing the kitchen. It's as if I think staying on my feet will somehow burn more calories, making eating right before bed time just a little less horrendous for my body.

I'm not sure how my late night munchies habit is going to work when I am no longer a single person living by myself. The first time the Dude awakes to see me in the kitchen making pizza, he's going to wonder why I'm cooking at midnight. And then he's going to realize that I eat, sometimes what might be equivalent to a meal, right before bed time, over the sink.

I'm going to hazard a guess that he's going to think this is highly bizarre. And then he's going to wonder how I'm not 300 pounds.

But since I am still happily unmarried and living in my own apartment where there is no Dude that will wake up and catch me in my SSB, I'm going to enjoy my late night munchies habit worry-free. Tonight, the craving was for sausage pizza. And, at 11.40PM at night, I made some.

The SSB Late Night Pizza
Most of my late night munchies favorite foods are easy to prepare and use ingredients that I have on hand in the fridge or pantry. This late night pizza utilizes Trader Joe's Whole Wheat Lavash Bread for the crust. The result is a thin crust pizza not unlike the type you'll find as a Happy Hour appetizer.

Ingredients
Trader Joe's Whole Wheat Lavash Bread
Pasta sauce
Fully Cooked Jimmy Dean's Turkey Sausage Crumbles - found in the refrigerated aisle near the ham and breakfast sausage
Mozzarella Cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Spray a cookie sheet with non-stick spray.
2. Lay a slice of the lavash bread onto the cookie sheet. Spread pasta sauce onto the lavash bread. The amount of sauce you use is really up to you and what you like. For 1 piece of the bread,  I usually use about 1/4 cup of sauce.
3. Sprinkle the sausage over the sauce.
4. Top with mozzarella cheese.
5. Bake in the oven for approximately 10-12 minutes. Cheese should be melted and slightly browned on the top.
6. Cool for about 10 minutes, and then slice into squares.

Tips
You can basically top this quick pizza with anything you have on hand. I've made these with just cheese, or with thinly sliced tomatoes and basil.

This pizza is best eaten within 30 minutes to an hour after it's come out of the oven. I've found that reheating the pizza in the microwave doesn't restore the crust's crispness. If you need to reheat leftovers, it's best to wrap the leftovers in foil and then re-heat in the oven at a low temperature (200 - 250 degrees).

You're-So-The-One-But-I'm-Not-Ready-To-Be-A-Married-Person Roast Chicken

Glamour Magazine has a legendary roast chicken recipe called Engagement Chicken. The story goes that then-editor Kim Bonnell gave the recipe to her assistant who made it for her boyfriend. A month later, said boyfriend proposed. According to Glamour, then-boyfriend-now-husband said, "It's a meal your wife would make. It got me thinking." The recipe has been handed down from assistant to assistant, and apparently, inspired at least three weddings, leading Bonnell to dub the recipe Engagement Chicken.

Do a search of "Engagement Chicken" on the Internet, and you'll find endless stories of women excitedly telling the World Wide Web, "I made this for him and HE PROPOSED."

I've known of this recipe for years - even back when there wasn't A-Dude-That-I've Been Dating. I've always been both horrified and fascinated by the concept of some magical recipe that can somehow hook a reluctant man to ask for your hand in marriage.

Horrified, because beneath the Engagement Chicken lies a very archaic cultural assumption - that women need to hint, charm and manipulate to get what they want. God forbid a woman talk to her boyfriend about her desire for an engagement and desire for marriage. Instead, she dons an apron, sticks a lemon up a chicken's behind, and crosses her fingers that somehow he'll be so taken by her cooking skills he'll want to be with her forever.

Fascinated, because somewhere in me, there's a twelve year old girl who dreams that one day, a man will want to spend the rest of his life with her. A twelve year old girl who hasn't quite figured out what makes a lovely young man ask a lovely young woman to spend forever with him. A twelve year old girl who still wants to believe in a little bit of magic.

A few weeks ago, when I suggested roasting a chicken for an early dinner with the Dude-That-I've-Been-Dating, I wasn't thinking about charming him with my excellent culinary skills in hopes that he would ask me to marry him.

We've talked about engagement pretty openly in this past year that we've been dating. We both love each other. We both agree we want to marry each other. Neither of us feel like it's time yet, though. We couldn't tell you what exactly we're waiting for. The closest explanation I can come to for myself is this - I'm just not ready to be a married person yet. 

And yet, when I scoured the internet for roast chicken recipes, Engagement Chicken came strangely to mind.    At first, I thought it'd be hilarious to make the recipe, just as a joke. I wish I could tell you I was that cool and the Dude and I laughed about it later while enjoying succulent chicken thighs, but what followed is what I'd like to call A Ride On the Crazy Train.

The more I read those comments written by women who'd tried the recipe and succeeded in getting a proposal, the more an engagement seemed amazing.  I imagined the Dude getting on one knee, pulling out a ring, asking me to spend forever with him. Forget not being ready to be a married person. Of course I wanted to be engaged now. I've found the one - why wouldn't I want to start forever RIGHT NOW?

Then I was plagued with doubts. What if the recipe didn't work? Would I be able to laugh it off? Or would I become sullen and unhappy, thinking that the Dude somehow loved me less because he wasn't driven to propose by this delicious chicken, made lovingly by me?

And then this thought - what if the recipe DID work and he did propose? You know what happens after the bended knee, the ring, and the yes? What happens after all of that is marriage. Marriage as in living together. Forever. Marriage as in socks on the floor. Forever. Marriage as in having to work through your conflict because there's no more escaping back to your own apartment because there is no more "your own apartment." Forever. Marriage is the kind of forever that can only end when one of you dies. Or kills the other.

I am so not ready to be a married person yet. 

In the end, I would find a different chicken recipe. One less fraught with the potential for forever, but instead infused with lemon, onions and spices. It's a good thing I did too because when I asked how the Dude how he liked the chicken, he shrugged and said, "Chicken's just chicken. It's not the most flavorful of meats." He said his palate wasn't sophisticated enough to tell what spices had been used. Oh well.

But hey, I love this recipe I'm about to share with you that's inspired by Martha Stewart's Herb Roasted Chicken and Vegetables. It's extremely easy to prepare, and you can cut down prep time if you find pre-cut vegetables.

And, if you get proposed to after making this chicken recipe - I don't want to know.

Roast Chicken with Vegetables - The Non-Engagement Kind

Ingredients
1 whole chicken (about 4 pounds); rinsed and patted dry
Salt
Pepper
1 medium to large lemon, quartered
1 medium onion, quartered
1/2 bunch of parsley
1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon of dried thyme
2 tablespoons of butter, slightly softened
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 cup of dry white wine
Root vegetables, cut into bite-sized pieces - Any kind of root vegetables will do, in the picture I used beets, turnips and onions, but I've also used potatoes and baby carrots.

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2. Generously season the chicken inside and out with salt and pepper. Don't forget to rub salt and pepper under the skin of the chicken, starting from the neck and working your way back. Rub thyme into the cavity of the chicken.
3. Stuff the cavity of the chicken with the lemon, onion and parsley.
4. Mix the remaining 1 teaspoon of thyme with the butter. Insert small pats of the thyme-butter between the skin and the breast meat.
5. In a bowl mix vegetables with the olive oil, and season with salt and pepper to taste.
5. Place chicken in the roasting pan and scatter the vegetables around the chicken.
6. Pour the white wine over the vegetables.
7. Roast chicken until the juices run clear when pierced between the breast and leg, about 1 hour. An instant read thermometer inserted in the thickest part of the thigh, avoiding bone, should read 165 degrees.

Tips
If you have kitchen string, you can tie the legs of the chicken together. It makes the chicken look pretty, but the chicken will cook fine without it.

The fine folks at MarthaStewart.com say that to ensure even cooking, you should let your chicken stand for 30 minutes at room temperature before roasting. In fact, Martha has a whole bunch of great tips for the perfect roast chicken.

If your chicken isn't browning too well, you can mix a little bit of melted butter with  little bit of chicken stock and baste the chicken. If you're OCD like me, you can baste every 15-20 minutes.

You can substitute the parsley for dill, and use fresh thyme in the cavity and the butter.

If you have a boyfriend and engagement is on your mind, it's ok to bring it up with him. No chicken recipe's going to bring it up for you.

Lemon Rice

Sometimes, I just get the urge to cook. In times like these, it isn't really about wanting to make a particular dish. It's all about the cooking - the chopping, the sauteing, the simmering, the aromas wafting from the kitchen into the rest of the house.

Problem is, my urge to cook doesn't always jive with my schedule. My work days are long. And between trying to fit a gym session in after work, potentially running errands or doing laundry, finding the time to on a weeknight is a challenge.

That's why something like rice is such a perfect food to make when I have the urge to cook. but not a whole lot of time to stand over a stove. Rice is something that has a short prep time, you can leave to cook without the need for too much watching (especially if you are owner of a rice cooker), and the end result is warm, aromatic and comforting.

 A few years ago, I went on the South Beach diet, which meant I had to greatly reduce my intake of carbohydrates - and kiss white rice goodbye. After an appropriate period of mourning the loss of soft, fluffy steamed white rice, I started to explore the world of brown rice. Because quite frankly, while I can easily eat less rice, I'm not sure if I could give up rice altogether.

Turns out, if you look hard enough, you can find a brown rice equivalent for any grain type of white rice. Thanks to Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, I've found medium grain brown rice for risottos, brown jasmine rice to go with my Thai food, and, my new favorite, brown Basmati rice.

Rice is one of those foods that's easy to dress - you can put gravy on it, put it in soup, serve it on the side with fish, chicken, pile tonnes of stir fry on it. It absorbs flavors well, so if you're feeling adventurous, you can swap water for liquids such as chicken broth, milk or wine.

The evening I got the urge to cook, it was all about filling the house with aromas - onions sauteed in butter, white wine simmering, that starchy rice smell mingled with something light and fresh like lemon. I remember that my mother sometimes would saute the raw rice before cooking and I wanted to give it a try for this recipe. I'm not sure what sauteing does to the rice, but the nice folks at American Rice Inc. tell me that "If more separate grains are desirable, saute rice in a small amount of butter before cooking, then add liquid and cook as directed."

It only took about 10 minutes to chop up onions, saute the onions and raw rice in butter, and then add a little white wine into the pan to simmer. Chicken broth would replace water. Lemons would be juiced and added into the cooking liquid. While the rice cooked, I put on a Jillian Michaels DVD and proceeded to let her tough talk me through a workout that was way too difficult for me, but I was determined to finish.

While I tried to firm my abs and tone my arms, the smell of cooking rice, wine, lemon and onions filled the air. By the time I was done with the DVD, the rice had absorbed the cooking liquid and a pan full of shiny, slightly separated grains of rice greeted me.

Verdict on the impromptu rice recipe? Yum.

Lemon Rice 
Yields about 3 cups of rice

Ingredients
2 tablespoons of butter
1 medium onion, chopped
1 cup of uncooked brown Basmati rice
1/4 cup of wine
2 cups chicken broth
Juice of 1 small lemon (approximately 2-3 tablespoons)

*Optional: More lemon juice if you like your rice really lemony

1. Melt butter in pan, add onions and saute until onions are translucent, and turning brown.
2. Add rice to the pan and saute for an additional 4-5 minutes.
3. Add white wine, allow to simmer.
4. Add chicken broth and lemon juice.
5. Bring to a boil then reduce heat so that the mixture is simmering. Cover the pan.
6. Cook for about 30- 40 minutes.(Check on rice at 30 minutes.)
7. Rice should be done when all the liquid has been absorbed.

Tips
Brown rice tends to need more liquid and more cooking time. If you prefer a "wetter" rice, add more liquid and cook longer. I sometimes use 3 cups of liquid to 1 cup of brown rice.

With this recipe, I hesitated adding more lemon juice as I wasn't sure how sour the rice would turn out. If you're feeling more adventurous, you can increase the lemon juice to 1/4 cup. A happy medium would be to squeeze some fresh lemon juice to taste over the cooked rice.

Experiment with different varieties of brown rice - Whole Foods has a brown sweet rice, which is supposed to have a stickier texture (think sticky sushi rice). That could a fun variation of the recipe.

So You Want A Food Blog

I'll be honest here - this isn't the first time this blog has launched.

Thing is, I've had this blog since 2009. I've been surreptitiously writing posts, trying new recipes, and taking pictures of the food I've cooked. I've put up these posts, taken them down, put them back up again. In my drafts folder, I have the beginnings of so many posts that I've never gotten around to finishing.

Why? Because I wasn't sure what kind of a blog I wanted to have. Back in 2009, I envisioned a blog filled with writing about food, lifestyle posts, and relationship advice. Something that would eventually propel me into a career in writing.

But as I soon realized - while I could write about food and cooking, I knew squat about cute skirts, home decor, or home spa treatments. My wardrobe is filled with sun dresses - and that's it. I don't know anything about the latest fashions or trends. Besides, my nails are always chipped.

And if I knew nothing about life and style, I knew even less about relationships. Good luck giving anyone anything that even remotely resembled advice.

What I do know is food. I love food. I love making food, I love eating food. I love making food for others and watching them eat. In fact, I spend much of my day thinking about food, planning what to cook, how to cook, and who to cook for.

So I perused the web to see what other food blogs existed out there. That's when I found out that having a food blog is apparently the next "it" thing. Turns out everyone who can cook has some kind of a food blog. They take pictures. They share recipes. They tell you what they ate that day. With the sheer amount of blogging about food, I wondered - did the universe need another hungry writer and chef wanna be?

Years passed. I cooked, I ate, I lived life in Los Angeles and kept up my first blog about being a single woman of faith. Yet, the idea of a blog devoted to cooking wouldn't release me. Each time I cooked, I was overwhelmed by emotion, by memory, by thoughts. I longed to tell someone, just anyone, the sheer volume of feeling that flooded me while making food. I had so many stories to tell about the food I cooked. Overtime, my blog posts about being single in LA morphed into posts about cooking and being single in LA.

Still, I was doubtful. Every article I could find about what the world wanted from a food blog stated ever so clearly - your readers want recipes and pictures that inspire them to cook more. Sure I cook, and I try new recipes, but I don't necessarily create them. My photography skills are somewhat mediocre. To inspire myself, I bought an entry-level SLR. It sat on my shelf unused.

Meanwhile, I continued to prowl recipe books and food magazines. I studied the food photographs that appeared in the bloggersphere. I found some blogs I absolutely loved. These blogs were clean, elegant, and thoughtful. They taught me about food and gave me a glimpse into the blogger's life. Posts from these bloggers sent me running into the kitchen and turning on the stove.

But for the most part, I couldn't find a blog that was the blog I had in my head. The blog I had in my head would be about cooking and food, it too would have photos and recipes, but more importantly, it would be about how food could invoke story, memory, and feeling. It would invite you to journey along, to remember your own stories, to feel as you cooked. It would, hopefully, make you want to invite others into your journey through food and storytelling.

This is why, now, a little more than half way through 2012, I find myself helpless against the pull that is food blogging. I'm relaunching this food blog because I can't help but cook, write, and share. And as much fear and trembling as I have over whether I'll have enough recipes or delectable photographs, I'm going to endure that fear and not let it disable me. Because finally know what this blog is going to be about.

It's going to be about food and story-telling.

So with one click on "publish" - ladies and gentlemen, I have myself a food blog.