#290
Many recipes, unemployment follies
Every day that I’ve been home frittering around the house with No Job, I’ve ended the day with a little to-do list for the next day, which now includes a long list of phone calls that need to be made, baking a loaf of bread just because and also so we have bread, posting some stuff on the neighborhood buy-nothing page, and on and on. Until the latter half of this week, exactly none of these things had been done (although I scheduled a haircut because priorities).
I did manage the bread, which was good, though Paul Hollywood would have correctly told me it was ovahprooooved:
Normally I am rubbish at bread but stay tuned for the food chat to get recipe deets!
I do spend a fair bit of time applying for jobs and also working on my clothing resale empire, which I’ve recently expanded to Depop, a move that has already resulted in me getting a mountain of spam emails. I know Depop is the Dooneese Maharelle of resale sites, but, nothing ventured nothing gained in these uncertain times! Once we are a little deeper into February I will list some warmer-weather items and then I will realistically have reached the end of what I want to part with (for a while, anyway).
The food chat part!
This list is very NYT-heavy (all gift links) and I have several back issues of Milk Street that need to be addressed, but NYT Cooking is hard to beat if you want to search by type of dish, nutritional specifics, cuisine type, or ingredient. I’m really getting my subscription’s worth and now, if you click through to any of these, so are you!
This ras el hanout chickpea and spinach stew, which I served with the suggested Greek yogurt and harissa oil, was a very big hit. I did double the amounts of ras el hanout and broth as recommended by many commenters (you can’t usually trust NYT recipe commenters but I do tend to listen when a critical mass of people suggest doubling the seasonings). I also cooked a couple of chicken breasts and added those – when I cook chicken separately to add to soups, wraps, or anything else, I use the Kitchn’s dry-poaching method. I’ve used this for years, for both chicken breasts and thighs, and it is really reliable.
(Related, does anyone else remember the absolute chokehold ras el hanout had on everyone circa 2008ish? I blame Top Chef.)
I forgot I’d made smashed beef kebab with cucumber yogurt once before, but I’m glad I found it again because it’s good and very easy. I used Craisins and pistachios instead of raisins and walnuts. I’d make this again with ground lamb just for funsies, but the beef is good and also (slightly) cheaper.
A giant Costco-sized package of ground turkey meant I got 30 meatballs rather than 28 from this recipe for turkey meatballs in tomato sauce. We ate some for dinner with pasta and leftovers for lunch the next day; I froze the remaining meatballs for a Dinner Of The Future. Please note that I strenuously ignore any meatball recipe that instructs me to pan-fry them. Nobody has time for all of that. Just brush them with some olive oil and bake them on a sheet pan at 350º for about 20 minutes (you can broil them for a few minutes if you want them more deeply browned). Also, I used a jar of Rao’s for the sauce. This is a very good can’t-be-arsed dinner, to borrow a phrase from my friend Christine.
Melissa Clark’s one-pan orzo with spinach and feta was quite good, and if I recall correctly I added some spinach and feta chicken sausage to this.
I don’t know if you’re a warm salad type of person but I did make this one-pot salmon, spinach, and lentil salad and…it was good, but I’m not sure it’s at the top of my list to make again. However, this recipe is how I learned you can buy canned lentils, which is information I will certainly use in the future.
Right now the NYT cooking site has a lot of what I assume are Super Bowl-appropriate recipes. The big game is over but if you are interested, here are some gift links to jalapeño corn dip, beeritas (!!?!), and buffalo cauliflower dip. Dips are evergreen, not seasonal!
Finally, here’s the bread recipe. Not nutritionally dense, not special, just vibes. And a straightforward, well-written recipe, which I value because I suck at bread.
Some stuff I have seen on the internet this week-ish:
I will not recount here the blow-by-blow struggle that was filing for and receiving unemployment benefits, but woof. It all worked out eventually (after more than one month!!!) but I have done this particular song and dance a few times now and on god it has never been this bad, due mostly to “improvements” across multiple systems that, of course, do not speak to one another. You actually have to click “log in” six separate times before you can file a claim or view any communications. (As someone who does UX writing I find it very ironic to be out of work at the moment, as there is obviously a GREAT DEAL OF VERY BAD UX out in the world).
Anyway, I was one chatbot conversation away from having my Falling Down moment.
In any situation where I need to interact with a person in a call center, that person is my ally. We are both nobodies, subject to the same market forces. Also, if the person in the call center is a lady (it’s always a lady), the Karen in me recognizes and cancels out the Karen in her. Our job is to be a team and figure out a way to get what we want (a resolution) while, ideally, circumventing the patriarchal capitalistic system that has trapped us both. It took one month, six or seven phone calls, and four online chats to achieve this goal but we did it, fam.
I can’t imagine the UX has changed much from when I filed for unemployment in 2009, and I also can’t imagine the recording that says welcome to ODJFS your wait time is six hours is different either.
Regarding your clothing empire, I’ve sussed out from lurking on young people Reddit that “vintage” ie mid-2010s ModCloth is gaining in popularity which is great because I’ve got a whole lot of that which I’ve outfattened