suzy and the paella

wikipedia has this to say about paella:

Paella is usually garnished with vegetables and meat or seafood. The three main ingredients are rice, saffron, and olive oil.

and also this:

Paella is generally cooked in a paella pot, which is a large, shallow, flat pan. First the meat, and then the vegetables are stir fried in olive oil and the rice is added so as to be suffused in the oil. Boiling stock is then added to the paella pan, and reduced by boiling. Once the rice is nearly done, the paella is removed from the heat and left to absorb the remaining water. The paella is ready to be served after having cooled for several minutes.

all of which lead me to believe that betty crocker knows nothing about paella, since artichoke and kidney bean paella has pretty much nothing to do with anything mentioned above.

maybe someone wanted to write a recipe involving artichokes, kidney beans, and rice, and they got a little creative with the name. maybe it originally started out as a paella recipe, and through successive editing got turned into a "rice with stuff" recipe. but as far as i can tell, it fails entirely to have anything to do with paella.

it's not that the recipe is hard. in fact, it's pretty easy. the only adventure i had was that i don't have any turmeric, and didn't feel like buying any, so i ended up using celery salt to give it some kick (also, they tell you to use two drops of hot sauce. i used two tablespoons, and it's still not that hot, so i don't know what kind of hot sauce betty crocker uses but i sure ain't buying it).

but when all is said and done, and it gets transferred from the pan to the tupperware, it's just rice with stuff. rice with tasty stuff, but still.

i guess it just goes to show that betty crocker is good for the basics, but she don't know paella from a panful of rice.

suzy is ruth reichl's new best friend

the title of an email in my inbox this afternoon:

Ruth Reichl invites you to preview the new newsletter from the editors of Gourmet!

some might argue that this in no way indicates that i am her new best friend, but that's fine. they probably didn't get the email, they're just jealous.

but i feel that, for you all, i should share. you too can become her new best friend! go to this link and give them your email address. ah, the joys of gourmet newsletters... bursting with recipes too complicated for me to make, full of ingredients too obscure for me to afford, and reviewing dishes i will probably never taste in this life.

got to love vicarious living!

suzy invents an omelet

the mysteries of the omelet have always eluded me. luckily, the one area of cooking my husband excels at is breakfast. i have never met (or eaten with) anyone with more aptitude for inventing tasty breakfasts than him. so normally, it doesn't matter; he makes me breakfast, i make everything else. it's a fine arrangement, especially since early in the morning, i'm not capable of much.

however, now that his work schedule has changed, there are certain days i'm left to fend for myself. i tried forlornly wandering around the kitchen, glaring at things, but that just left me hungry and eye-sore. and there is only so much you can do with toast before getting heartily sick of it, no matter what is spread on top.

but wait! epicurious -- which i normally find a little too pretentious and the recipes too full of expensive and frightening ingredients -- has apparently wised up to the fact that their readers are not all ruth reichl and mimi sheraton. along with the redesign of their page (which came hand in hand with redesigns of bettycrocker.com and allrecipes.com; is there some sort of cooking webpage schedule? or maybe a secret network of informers? or some all-powerful web designer, who dictates these things?) they have posted how-to videos, apparently entirely for my benefit.

and so, last week in my despair, i thought, "well suzy, you watched that how-to video on making an omelet. maybe you should try it out!"

only this thought came right on the heels of a weekend vacation, leading to a week in which i had done no shopping and we had very little food in the house. so i ransacked the fridge and pantry and came up with ... parmesan and nutmeg.

parmesan and nutmeg?

yep, parmesan and nutmeg.

i figured, hey, if it turns out to be inedible, i can always make toast. bread is something we always have on hand (though, i should mention that my husband has an unfortunate taste for white breads; at least he's happy with potato bread. i, on the other hand, much prefer rye and wheat).

so there went nothing, but voila! not only was it edible, but i have made it consistently since and enjoyed it every single time. there's something about the combination of parmesan and nutmeg that is so decadent -- rich, oily, and so satisfying during the cold.

so! watch the video "how to make an omelet", throw some eggs in a pan, top with grated parmesan and ground nutmeg, and enjoy!