My husband and I just returned home after a 10-day visit to Southern California, in case you’ve been wondering why I’ve been so quiet online. I packed my laptop for the journey— foolishly imagining that I’d carve out time to blog— but our planned (and unplanned) adventures took over every waking moment. This long trip was arranged months ago, timed around Les’s great-niece’s Bat Mitzvah in Los Angeles. But it also included a lunch meeting with one of my new managers at my day job, an impromptu drive-by to the beach in Malibu, a side trip to visit a cousin in San Diego and a three-day stay at my in-laws’ second home in the Coachella Valley. Whew!
We had some crazy fun times, ate incredible food, enjoyed sampling the goods at a winery and stood witness to some truly breathtaking scenery. We also got to celebrate with Les’s sister and her husband at her birthday dinner. For the occasion, Andrea chose a lovely, upscale restaurant that used to be Cary Grant’s home! It was great fun, but after all the excitement, the various family gatherings, five plane rides and spanning three time zones, I need a vacation from our vacation! I’m sure you can relate.
Though most of our trip was mapped out in advance, we did have a pleasant surprise on our drive to Palm Desert last Tuesday; we got a phone call from Jess, the girlfriend of Les’s nephew, Ethan. It turns out that Jess’s uncle schedules the acts at a new venue in the Coachella Valley, and when he caught wind that we’d be in town, he generously offered up tickets to a concert with fantastic seats that we couldn’t refuse! Press play on the video below— I’m pretty sure you’ll know very quickly who we were lucky to see.
She’s still got it!
As exciting as the Stevie Nicks show was (she flawlessly performed every song you’d expect, plus a few surprises), I was even more thrilled about an event the next day, when I finally got to meet in person one of my favorite online buddies, Michelle from Art of the Beat. Michelle and I started following each other on WordPress a few years ago— my recipes caught her eye, and I found myself drawn to her music-oriented photography and artwork— and our banter in the comments led to email chats and texts, which led to calls and FaceTime. Now I consider her my West Coast bestie!
I ditched the family for a few hours to spend a fun afternoon with Michelle at Shields Date Garden in Indio, which included lunch (check out the jalapeño-stuffed, bacon-wrapped dates, yum) and a leisurely stroll through the gardens where we received an education on various citrus trees and (gasp!) the sex life of date palm trees. Scandalous!
The other interesting thing about the garden walk was that it featured various statues and stories about the life of Jesus— something I would not have expected at a date farm, but OK. If you’re familiar with the concept of “stations of the cross,” this is essentially what we encountered, and it gave us more fodder for conversation. Sadly, negative past experiences with religion are yet another thing Michelle and I have in common. Most of our discussion took place on a bench in the shade, directly in front of a statue of Jesus. It was very affirming, and we left the place as soulmate-level friends.
I’m pretty sure we were separated at birth.
I also bought some mouthwatering soft Medjool dates to smuggle into my carry-on for the trip home. If I can resist eating every last one of them like candy, I will try to recreate those tasty jalapeño-stuffed bites!
It’s great to be home after our travel adventures, and the excitement continues at our house this week with the arrival of Nadia’s first Christmas tree. Our 7-month-old kitten has been batting at the lower branches, and I think we will wait a few days before stringing lights and ornaments— just in case!
A new recipe is coming your way this weekend, so stay tuned and come back hungry. 😉
Just for fun…
As my hubby noted in the comments, there were some cute moments with wild critters, as we visited The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens on our final day in Palm Desert. The park provides great information about the animals, their habits and endangered status, and I highly recommend a visit if you’re in the area. There was a whole section of the park dedicated to animals from Down Under. We never saw a kangaroo, but in “Africa,” it was feeding time for the giraffes! The park was selling romaine lettuce leaves at a concession stand, and some children near us got to feed the gentle giants. This one wanted to be my buddy. 🙂
My husband and I have decided to spice things up a bit. You know how it goes after almost seven years of marriage, where every day feels the same? As empty nesters and second-time-arounders, Les and I are each pretty open about what we want and need in our relationship. So, after several months of back-and-forth on how to make things more exciting, we finally took a big, adventurous step.
We adopted a kitten! And boy is she sweet. Meet Nadia!
So spunky!
This was not a light decision. A 4-month-old kitty needs constant monitoring, extra playtime and frequent feedings. And then there are the midnight zoomies, constant crashes, jingly toys everywhere and the never-ending untangling of the window blind cords. Nadia has given us a physical and emotional workout, but she is undeniably adorable.
And then there’s Taz, our 12-year old fur baby— about equal to my husband’s age of 64— for whom this has been no cakewalk.
One of the few pictures that captured how small Nadia really was. 🙂
When our beloved dog, Nilla, went to the Rainbow Bridge back in March, Taz found herself the only pet in the house for the first time in her life. She has appreciated being the sole recipient of our attention when we are home, but anytime we take a trip longer than a couple of days, it’s clear to us that she is lonely. This sweet little fluff ball, we hoped, would change that.
If you don’t think this is precious, I’m not sure we can be friends.
A couple of weeks into the introduction process (slow and steady, in compliance with all the YouTube videos offered by “the Cat Daddy,” Jackson Galaxy), something seemed very “off” for Miss Taz, and this nervous mama booked a vet appointment. Taz got a full exam, a couple of chest X-rays and a round of blood work, but nobody could offer a solid reason for her coughing and gulping, or explain why she literally lost her meow and spent two days hiding under the bed. We came home with a bunch of papers and some pain meds (for what, I’m not sure) but by the next day, her symptoms had expanded to include a wet, rattly cough that might have been nothing or could have been devastating. Ugh.
Did we make a mistake getting a kitten? I was terrified that something serious was wrong with Taz and now— with the demands of a sass-butt little whippersnapper in the house— we would not be able to focus on taking care of our senior cat, whom I had promised would always be my baby. By that time, of course, it was the weekend. The blood work results from our Friday vet visit wouldn’t be in until Monday and I was a total wreck.
Thankfully, the emergency vet is only five minutes from our house, but that was the only easy part of this adventure. Six hours, two more X-rays, an unpleasant confrontation with the reception team, another round of blood work and— wait for it— a thousand dollars later, Taz was diagnosed with what amounts to a kitty cold. Respiratory infection of some sort, and the vet said it is common for a shelter kitten to bring this kind of thing into the home. Not that anyone is blaming the kitten; she did nothing wrong, and showed no symptoms herself.
No wonder Taz was mad; she was surrounded by dog pictures!
Now, there’s a fair argument here that when Taz started sounding worse, she was actually feeling a little better. By the time the vet techs called for Taz, she was pissed. She hates the carrier crate, doesn’t like to be touched (or even spoken to) by strangers and didn’t appreciate the wait. They sedated her for the X-rays, for what little good it did because she still fought them like hell, as she did me and Les when we tried to coax her into the crate at home. She was described by both the tech and the doctor as “a very spicy kitty,” a big departure from the limp, near-lifeless cats they are used to seeing in their facility. All I could say was, “That’s my girl!” I was so grateful that her problem wasn’t more serious. An antibiotic injection and liquid steroid regimen was all she needed. It has been almost four weeks, and Taz is doing great.
With the crisis averted, we didn’t even mention this emergency visit to most of our friends here, because at that point, it had been handled and our fur baby was on the mend. Lo and behold, getting Taz feeling better has also led to more positive interactions between her and the new kitten— that is, except for the ongoing battle over who gets the top spot in the cat tree, which Taz had ignored until Nadia showed up. It’s all quite entertaining!
Nadia is the sweetest, most affectionate and loving kitten I’ve ever raised. A perfect complement to the spicy diva who sets the tone here.
Taz remains queen of the perch!
All’s well that ends well, and this story is far from over. 🥰
Did you hear a distant wailing last weekend? It may have been the sound of hearts breaking at our house as my husband, Les, and I whispered our final words to the sweetest dog God ever made.
And how does one say those words, exactly? It’s so hard to narrow down all the emotions, all the support, all the love, into words that a dog will understand. Or maybe it’s all easier for the dog than it is for us, I just don’t know.
When Nilla was adopted into this family nearly 15 years ago, at the urging of Les’s then-adolescent daughter, she was meant to be “Sydney’s dog.” But this one had the sweetest heart and most engaging personality, and so she became everyone’s dog. And when I say everyone, I mean all the people in this family, plus all the neighbors and all our friends. Her trainer loved her, and so did the pet sitter, the vet and the groomer. Other guests (and dogs) at the downtown brewpub where she was a “regular,” perfect strangers who asked to speak to her when she led the parade of dogs at the ballpark on “Bark in the Park” nights or the streetside crowd at the Pride Parade— they loved her too. All of her daddy’s Facebook friends, even electricians and plumbers who came to the house.
Everyone loved Nilla.
For the past couple of years, Les and I have dreaded and delayed the pain that enveloped our home last Friday, and we had done all in our power to protect our sweet girl and make her as comfortable as possible through her unfortunate diagnosis of Cushing’s disease. On Friday, however, Nilla made it clear that she was ready to make her journey to the Rainbow Bridge, and she was not afraid.
We had been talking with her recently about the Rainbow Bridge, and she knew that her best furry friend, Zoe, was already waiting for her there. She knew there are no thunderstorms at the Rainbow Bridge, and no fireworks, but plenty of snowy days and lots of sunshine, free belly rubs and treats. Oh, and all the dogs get to run off-leash. All the time!
She was good with all of that. Just 12 days before she left us, she had a joyful reunion with Les’s kids— Sydney came from Asheville, N.C. and Alex was here from Budapest. It was the most wonderful day, and she was surrounded by her entire pack (well, except for Zoe, who I’m certain was here in spirit).
It’s crazy quiet here today. We are adjusting and learning to move forward in this space without our girl’s enormous personality. I have not had it in me to be creative in the kitchen, but have focused my energy instead on this video tribute to Nilla. She had but one consolation in times of trouble, stress and thunderstorms, and that was the music of Melody Gardot. There could have been no other song than this one to honor the memory of our beautiful dog.
This video is best viewed on a smartphone or tablet in portrait mode. Press play. 💕
One of the most important dishes I made on Thanksgiving Day had nothing to do with the people at our table, and everything to do with one of the furry members of our family. Our senior husky mix, Nilla, has begun playing a new mealtime game with us, called “maybe I’ll eat and maybe I won’t.” We have been trying since September to figure out the rules of this new game, and for the most part, I believe we are winning. But she changes the rules just often enough to keep us humble.
Amid the excitement for our traditional turkey-and-sides meal, my husband and I were also celebrating Nilla’s 14th birthday, and this very good dog deserved a special treat of her very own, complete with ground turkey, sweet potatoes, green beans, carrots and peas. So yes, right in the middle of Thanksgiving day, I stopped everything else I was doing and made this for her. She is not spoiled, mind you, just really loved.
I even mixed in some chopped dried cranberries. 🙂
Nilla entered Les’s life with a heartbreaking and all-too-common backstory. When he and his then-teenage daughter fell in love with this little fluff ball at the county shelter, the workers explained that the blonde pup and her 11 littermates had been abandoned in a box beside the road. I hope to never encounter a person who is so heartless to do such a thing, but in Nilla’s case, there is obviously a happy ending (for her siblings, too, as Nilla was one of the last pups adopted).
Look at those HUGE puppy paws! ❤
I first met this girl in 2015, when my friendship with Les had developed to the point of me visiting him in his home, and it didn’t take long for Nilla to capture my heart, too. Her daddy would casually mention that “Terrie’s going to be coming over,” and Nilla would stand watch at the front door. It was obvious that she was as happy to see me as her daddy was.
Nilla, teaching me how to give “high paw.”
Nilla is the perfect dog. She doesn’t jump or chew or dig or bark incessantly as some dogs do. She doesn’t roll around in stinky things and she hardly ever needs to be brushed. She is gentle, sweet and playful. I inform Les regularly that he will never again have a dog with so many desirable traits. Some of that can be credited to her training— Les started Nilla with a pro trainer when she was still a pup— but the rest is just her. She has an underlying personality that can best be described as “chill,” and we bonded even more when my cats and I moved in at Thanksgiving 2016. Nilla has been a fixture in the kitchen, always waiting, hoping, expecting a bite of whatever vegetable her mommy has on the cutting board.
She still loves her zucchini!
When Nilla was diagnosed with Cushing’s disease in the summer of 2020, we were told that the average survival time is two years, which we figured would have been great for a large-breed dog that was already approaching 12.
Cushing’s is an adrenal dysfunction, caused by a tumor on the pituitary gland, and though Nilla did not exhibit any of the typical early clinical signs— excessive thirst and appetite, pot belly or panting— she did show signs of heavy anxiety that resulted from overproduction of cortisol. That anxiety, combined with some funky blood work, led to her diagnosis. Cushing’s can’t be cured, and treatment doesn’t slow down or stop its progression, but it does help relieve some of the symptoms. It has been tough for us to see our happy-go-lucky girl in various states of restlessness. She has always been afraid of thunder and fireworks but now, even an innocent sneeze by one of us will send her scrambling in sheer panic. We adjust.
Two and a half years later, she’s slowing down but still with us, and we know that love has a whole lot to do with that.
Our St. Patty’s Day family outing to her favorite dog-friendly brewpub.
I’ve shared here many times the wide array of vegetables Nilla has enjoyed, and I have always been thrilled to watch her catch bites of them in mid-air. Until recently, that is. Her eyesight doesn’t seem to be what it once was, and her timing and depth perception are not as sharp, either. At her last dental cleaning, she lost a couple of teeth and doesn’t enjoy the hard, crunchy vegetables that were once her favorites, but she sure does love them cooked up in a mix with fresh meat and grains, and I am more than happy to oblige.
What can you do for the very best dog, but your very best in return? As Nilla’s appetite has become less predictable, I’ve been working to develop some new culinary creations just for her. Whatever it takes to entice her, make her hungry for more, give her energy to carry on, that’s what I’ll do. The most important meal is the one she will eat. And so far, so good!
Turkey with cabbage, yellow bell pepper and carrots. She was mesmerized.
Fresh apples? Yes, please!
Ground beef with potatoes, peas and canned pumpkin. Winner!
Turkey with carrots, peas and cabbage.
Bless her sweet dog bones. ❤
This one was not her favorite. I’m still learning the rules.
All of the blends I’ve made for Nilla have started with lean ground turkey, chicken or (occasionally) beef. I gently brown the meat with a little bit of olive oil— skip the seasoning— and then I toss in a variety of chopped or shredded vegetables, plus a little bit of water to simmer and steam it until the veggies are nice and soft. She loves it.
Those eyelashes!
If you’re going to cook for your dog, here are a few recommendations:
Check with your vet
This is the most important thing, even if you think you know what foods are OK for your dog. Some conditions or medications may not play nice with certain foods and you need that insight from your dog’s veterinarian. Also, note that a cup of fresh, homemade food may not have the same caloric and nutrition value as a cup of dry dog food. Generally, we mix the two to ensure she is getting enough of everything her body needs to be strong. Nilla’s vet, known at our house simply as Dr. Eric, is all in favor of the special effort we are making for her, and he sees the benefit at each follow-up visit.
Make balanced foods
A good diet for a dog consists of more than just protein, so aim to include fresh vegetables and fruits, but steer clear of the things that are universally bad for dogs, such as onions, chocolate, grapes and anything with a lot of seeds. This has been a little bit tricky for me, because Nilla has begun to turn her nose up at some of the vegetables she used to love. She’s all done with raw broccoli and cabbage, but cooked is acceptable, and mild-flavored potatoes and green beans are still favorites. She also enjoys apples, as long as they aren’t tart and the pieces are small. Grains help provide a balance as well, and Nilla has especially been enjoying cooked oats and rice mixed in with her food.
Keep it easy on the belly
Dogs are lactose-sensitive, so steer clear of dairy ingredients as much as possible. A bite of cheese here and there is probably OK, but keep it few and far between. And table scraps that include a lot of fat or bones should be completely off limits. Many years ago, I had a dog who developed pancreatitis after finding fat scraps in the kitchen trash, and he wound up in the doggy hospital for several days. Trust me, you don’t want to go there. Oh, and skip the salt because it’s murder on their kidneys.
Scrambled egg for the win!
When all else fails at mealtime, we have found that a warm, a scrambled egg does wonders to spur our girl on to eat. It’s also quick to prepare and easy to blend with the other things in her bowl. Eggs are easy to digest and metabolize, and I believe Nilla’s favorite thing about them is that we serve them to her warm.
Cook small batches or freeze the extra
Depending on how much homemade food your dog is eating, you may want to keep your batches small so the food stays fresh and nutritious. If you need to make a larger batch to save time later, divide it into bags or containers for the freezer and thaw when you’re ready for it.
Make a healthy broth for your pets
If you plan to cook rice or potatoes in broth, do not use store-bought varieties because every one of them contains onions! Make your own simple broth by simmering chicken or beef bones, and let them reduce to the concentration you need. It’s OK to add carrots to the pot, but skip onions, garlic, salt and spices. Skim off excess fats and strain out the solids before using it in your pet’s food.
Miss Nilla is a grateful dog, and we feel so lucky to be her pet parents. If all of this seems like a lot of effort for a dog, I’ll leave you with this thought:
One day, far sooner than we’d choose, this beautiful girl will go to the Rainbow Bridge. And on that day, I will not regret the effort. ❤
Cooking Fresh Food for Dogs
Consult with your pet's veterinarian before making any homemade food recipe.
Ingredients
2 tsp. extra virgin olive oil (optional)
1 pound lean ground meat, such as turkey, chicken, beef or lamb
2 cups fresh chopped vegetables, including any combination of carrots, green beans, sweet potatoes, broccoli, Yukon potatoes, cabbage or green peas
Up to 1 cup fresh chopped apples (excluding seeds)
1 Tbsp. milled flax seeds, optional but so good for them (you can buy pre-milled or use a grinder or mortar and pestle)
Water or SAFE broth for simmering (make your own or use one formulated for pets; NO ONIONS)
Directions
Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium-low heat. Add ground meat, using a utensil to break it up into very fine bits as it cooks.
When meat loses its pink color, add vegetables, beginning with firm ones that need more time to soften. Reduce heat and cover the pan, allowing the steam to soften the veggies.
Add softer veggies and apples. Add water or onion-free broth as needed to keep the steam going. Cover and steam until ingredients are softened to your best friend’s liking.
Remove from heat and sprinkle flax meal all over the mixture. Let it cool before serving to your pet, either alone or combined with their other dog food. Promptly refrigerate extra food or divide and freeze it for later.
You know the feeling, I suspect. For months, you plan and look forward to a vacation—whether it’s a full-blown trip or a quick driveaway—and you can’t wait for the rest and relaxation that comes with it. And then you get home exhausted. You need a vacation after the vacation.
That’s how it has been for my husband, Les, and me in the aftermath of an almost-weeklong getaway to celebrate our 5th anniversary. Our fun getaway started with the Jimmy Buffett concert that we bought tickets for way back in 2019, before the entire world stalled to a halt because of COVID. It was the first time Les had seen a Buffett show, and we had a fun time, even imagining how we might plan next time to do some hardcore tailgating on par with some of the other “Parrotheads” we encountered in the parking lot. The tropical vibe of the evening seemed like the perfect introduction to a few days of relaxing at the beach, and we couldn’t wait!
The countdown to our getaway was expected to coincide with completion of our master bath remodel project, which started in mid-March, and we looked forward to coming home for a nice, hot shower in our beautiful new space. But, well, that didn’t happen. Getting a straight answer about the timeline of the project hasn’t been difficult, but getting a true answer has, and we ordered the work suspended during our vacation because the ruckus is very stressful for our pets. But at least we would have a break from the noise and commotion that has consumed our home for the past six weeks.
We kept our eye on the prize—a peaceful escape to a rental home we’ve enjoyed before, and we yearned for the calm, quiet rest that awaited us. We’d sip wine or bourbon every evening and enjoy unadulterated views of the beach from our oceanfront deck, and we’d slumber with the sliding glass door cracked a few inches, allowing the calming sound of waves crashing ashore to invade our dreams, with no alarm clock set and no pets clamoring for 3 a.m. potty breaks.
Only it didn’t quite happen that way.
Nobody mentioned to us—and when I say nobody, I mean the rental company that happily took our money for the condo stay—that the federal government had funded a significant renourishment project along the coastline we were visiting, or that the work would occur all day and all through the night, with the incessant beep-beep-beep that signals the backup of heavy equipment, and a constant clanging of enormous, rust- and barnacle-covered pipes that spanned the beach directly in front of our rental and down the beach as far as the eye could see.
This was some serious ocean commotion!
This is important work. The renourishment is necessary for preservation of the beachfront, not just for the enjoyment of tourists, but for the conservation of the coast and the ecosystem around it. We could deal with this for a day or two. At least we would enjoy dinner in nearby Wilmington and walking the boardwalk and grabbing a Britt’s donut—a must-have when you are in Carolina Beach (except, they were closed). And we could still enjoy our planned beach day. Thank goodness we had arranged for an umbrella rental, which they promised to place in a safe spot. Well, kind of.
OK, this is cozy.
I’m not complaining; I’m just pointing out the irony of our “getting away” to a new place with equal-or-greater commotion than what we left at home. Yep, it was still full-on ruckus, only with a change of venue. We did enjoy some incredible food (and drinks), and I look forward to recreating some of that—and sharing it with you in the months ahead.
The whole “vacation” experience reminds me of our wedding day, which was the basis for our celebration now, five years later. Les and I were supposed to be married outside, beneath a sweet little white pergola at the entrance of our neighborhood. The homeowner’s association even moved up the date for painting the thing so it would be fresh and perfect for our big day and our very small wedding party of five (plus us and the rabbi). But you know what they say about the best-laid plans, right?
Wedding day monsoon.
On that day, we threw together a last-minute plan to exchange vows in the loft of our home, a decision that led to some precious and humorous moments with our pets, who decided they should be in on the action. At the end of that day, we were married, so we accomplished the main thing. Everyone assured us that rain on your wedding day is “good luck,” which is some brand of Southern nonsense that falls easily out of the mouths of people whose weddings were not rained out. Les said the wedding day weather was apropos, because life ahead would bring plenty of storms, so this was just good practice. We had a lovely time with friends and family despite it all, and we still think of our special day when we climb the stairs up to the seldom-used room.
I’m convinced that amid the curveballs that come at us all the way through life, we either get better or worse at rolling with the punches, and we get to decide which it will be. I’m grateful to be married to a man who has perfected the art of “let it go,” thankful for the experiences we share—rain and ruckus and all—and if a vacation turns out to be simply a change of venue in which to experience the chaos of life, well, I guess that’s a blessing, too.
As parents everywhere are putting the finishing touches on Christmas gifts and treats for their children, we have a similar situation at our house, but with a slight difference. Our children have paws and whiskers.
Nilla, guarding the stockings in 2019.
This will be the sixth year that my husband, Les, and I will stuff stockings for our pets. On Christmas morning, there will be plenty of joyful ruckus in our living room, as they will enjoy new toys, a few packaged treats and some extra special surprises.
For our spoiled cat, Taz, the big surprise will be a new, tall cat tree. Her old one, which Les bought to help her feel at home when the cats and I were preparing to move into his (now our) house, had seen better days, and we moved it to the garage toward the end of summer. Like any cat, Taz likes to be on top of things, and I predict that she will quickly claim the tree’s top perch as her new favorite spot, just as she did with the last tree.
Little Miss Spoiled. ❤
And sweet Nilla, our 13-year-old husky mix, has already been looking forward to opening her stocking—so much so, that she has excitedly brought the stocking to us a few times since we unpacked the Christmas decorations. It’s empty, but she remembers Christmas mornings past, and no wonder, with these tasty, chewy, totally healthy treats tucked inside.
It’s Nilla’s Christmas dreams come true. 🙂
Nilla’s love for vegetables is not limited to sweet potatoes. She gives equal time to green beans, red bell peppers, butternut squash, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, raw asparagus, peas, carrots and (her all-time favorite) spaghetti squash. But these sweet potato chews have become a bit of a tradition for us at Christmas, and I cannot refuse this sweet girl!
If you also have a very good dog at home, here is a treat that is easy to make and delightful to share with your furry loved one. All you need is a couple of good-sized sweet potatoes, a sheet pan and an oven. Cut the sweet potatoes into thin slices—lengthwise if you have a large dog and crosswise into chips for a small dog—and roast them at a low temperature until they are somewhat dehydrated and chewy. So easy! Dogs love the flavor and texture of these one-ingredient treats, and the vitamins and fiber are good for their bellies.
Please consult your veterinarian if your dog has dietary issues and remember that although your dog will want to eat the whole batch in one sitting, it’s best to share these sweet potato chews as treats rather than a replacement for their regular feedings.
Ingredients
Fresh sweet potatoes—that’s it!
Olive oil spray and ground cinnamon (optional)
Instructions
I used almost exactly two pounds of sweet potato, enough to fill two cookie sheets.
Try to slice the sweet potatoes evenly, approximately 1/4″ thick.
“Um, is that what I think it is?”
For this batch, I dusted a very light amount of cinnamon onto one tray of the sweet potatoes. Remember, no salt or sugar for pets!
Put both pans in the oven at 300 F, and roast the sweet potatoes for 2 hours.
After the first hour, turn the slices over and rotate the pans.
The thinner slices will roast quicker, and if they start to curl a lot, remove them early. I pulled about half a dozen slices early so they didn’t dry too hard.
As you can see, they shrink quite a bit as the moisture cooks out of them.
Time for a taste test! Who’s your MOMMY???
Preheat oven to 300° F, with two oven racks in the near-center positions. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Scrub the sweet potatoes (peeling is not necessary) and slice them into ¼” thick pieces. Arrange the slices in a single layer on the parchment-lined sheets. If you wish, spray the slices very lightly with olive oil spray and sprinkle a touch of ground cinnamon onto one side of the slices. Do not use salt or sugar, as both are not great for dogs.
Roast for about two hours, turning the sweet potato slices over halfway through roasting time. When the potatoes reach a chewy, firm texture, remove them from the oven and allow them to cool completely.
Note that the sweet potatoes will continue to dry and harden a bit after removal from the oven, so you don’t want to roast them until they are fully dry.
Keep the cooled sweet potatoes in an airtight container in the fridge. For Nilla’s stocking, I like to wrap up a handful in a piece of plain parchment paper. Here’s a sneak peak at what Christmas will be at our house.
No matter your religious leaning or background, this time of year is meant to inspire joy and wonder. It is inevitable as the new year approaches that we take stock of the year that is almost done, and we will begin to make plans (if we haven’t already) for the next one. As if our best-laid plans really set the course for anything these days. I can barely get things off the ground for a weekend, so I dare not even look ahead to the coming year just yet.
As the year closes, I find myself as frazzled and worn out as I always seem to be this time of year, and though some of my exhaustion is my own doing, the rest is the culmination of a busy season at my job, preparations for the holidays and confusion in the wake of our kitchen remodel (I still can’t find everything). I am convinced that peace does not come from getting everything done, but from letting things go.
Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control.
Jack Kornfield, American author and Buddhist teacher
We put up our tree last Friday night, an endeavor that always seems to provoke passionate differences of opinion. My Jewish husband (who only began erecting Christmas trees a few slight years ago when he hooked up with me) had some unconventional ideas about how to stabilize the wobbly tree in our cheapo plastic Christmas tree stand. And I (of course, being me) provided a fair amount of pushback on his helpful suggestions. To some degree, I admit my resistance to Les’s ideas was result of my perfectionism, but mostly, I was having flashbacks of Christmas trees past, toppled over in the middle of the night, with microscopic shards of glass splayed in every direction. This is no fun, especially with pets in the house, and given that our tree is adorned with special, impossible-to-replace ornaments, some of which I have had since I was a child.
After several rounds of shouting over the problem of stabilizing the tree (obviously, that didn’t help anything), I did what any reasonable (and utterly exasperated) person would do. I asked the internet if anyone, after all these centuries of decorating indoor trees, had yet discovered a better way to prop the damn thing up. Lo and behold, a German-based company has cracked the code on Christmas tree stands with a carefully engineered cable-and-lever system. So we shoved the half-steady, strung-with-lights tree into the corner and made a run to Ace Hardware the next morning to get this stand, which has an ingenious method for securing the tree, and even alerts me to the water level. Best $79 I’ve spent so far this Christmas. To be fair, since I haven’t yet begun my shopping, it is the only $79 I have spent. But this tree stand is not playing.
It’s a brilliant design, with a lever-controlled cable system that tightens up evenly against the tree trunk and locks it into place.It even has a water indicator to help me keep the tree hydrated. Nice!
As we began digging through our box of whimsical ornaments, including the one we picked up in Asbury Park at the end of our summer vacation, we realized that it had been exactly two years to the day since we lost our sweet cat, Zoe. This little girl looooved Christmas, especially lying beneath the tree, and she even knew which stocking was hers. I still miss her so much. When she left for the Rainbow Bridge, I had printed her sweet face onto a sheet of vellum paper and inserted it into a glass ornament tied up with ribbon.
Placing her precious kitty face in the best, most prominent spot on the tree was a reset button on our moods, and we spent the rest of the day reminiscing over the stories behind our eclectic ornament collection and eventually lighting the menorah on that seventh night of Hanukkah. And a short-lived peace fell upon us.
With the tree secured and decorated, it was officially “Christmukkah” at our house!
I have been reflecting on a message that our rabbi shared in his Hanukkah message, pondering the miracle of the oil. It is easy enough to understand what made the overall event of Hanukkah miraculous—the oil being enough to keep the eternal lamps going for eight nights, despite the fact there was only one night’s worth of oil in the jar—but what was the big deal about the first night, for which the oil was already sufficient? As Rabbi Mark put it, the miracle of the first night was that the people had faith to go ahead and light the lamp. They had no idea what would happen on the other nights, but they trusted that things would work out, and that it wouldn’t be by their own figuring or planning or careful conservation of oil. Without their faith on that first night, the miracle would not have been realized.
This is a good message for me. During the holiday season (and any other time I feel overwhelmed), my default mode is to freeze up and fret about whatever it is I’m running short of, and it’s always something: time, resources, strength, faith, help, extension cords. This year feels particularly rough—we had no sooner returned from our fabulous, much-needed vacation, and it was time to dismantle the kitchen for six weeks of remodeling, which wrapped up (mostly) at the start of what was literally the busiest, most hectic two weeks of the year for my day job. Amid the chaos of long workdays, Les and I had to move everything back into the kitchen, then it was time for aesthetic adjustments to the new cabinets just two days before Thanksgiving. Whew. Not 72 hours later came Hanukkah, and now here we are staring down the Advent season and barreling toward Christmas. Yep, I’m pretty well frozen in terms of getting things done, including sharing any of it here on Comfort du Jour. But another thing happened last weekend to give me pause and put my priorities under a microscope.
On Sunday, Les suggested that we take our dog, Nilla, to her favorite downtown brew pub for a relaxing afternoon. Nilla knows everyone at Fiddlin’ Fish, it seems, and we love watching her soak up the attention of the staff, fellow patrons and other dogs. It was a beautiful day and we should have gone. But we stayed home because I felt strangely obligated to follow through on making more latkes (using parsnips, carrots and purple sweet potatoes). I wanted to get that done and posted on the blog while it was still Hanukkah, as if it made any difference. My day in the kitchen did not end well, and if I could go back to that afternoon, I’d make a different decision. Our Nilla turned 13 at Thanksgiving and one (hopefully far away) day, we will have to memorialize her sweet face on the Christmas tree. Doing something together that is fun for Nilla brings joy, and I hate that we gave it up for lousy latkes. This weekend, we will be there.
She even gets a sip of beer when we chill at the brew pub!
It is not only the Hanukkah miracle that has been on my mind. There is a well-known story in the Bible’s New Testament about two sisters entertaining Jesus in their home. One of the sisters, Mary, sat at Jesus’s feet, enthralled at every word He spoke. And the other sister, Martha, was busy as a beaver in the kitchen and she complained that Mary was not helping and that she had to prepare the meal by herself. Jesus gently informed her that Mary had the right idea. Martha was missing out on the wonder.
When I’m doing Martha’s kind of “busy,” I can be robbing myself of peace, and when I am caught up in all the self-imposed trappings of the season, I do miss the joy and wonder. What I want most of all is to be fully present for the holiday season, and I will be thankful to see people face-to-face rather than on Zoom calls. I want to experience the pleasure of simple things like sipping hot cocoa by our chiminea on a cold December night. I want to make Christmas cookies—not for the blog, but just because I love making them and never seem to make the time. And this year, for the first time by myself, I’m going to make “crub,” a traditional Norwegian dish that was always on the table at my great-grandparents’ tiny little house on Christmas Eve. It is not a photogenic dish and I may or may not post it later, but it is special to me and tastes like home. Great-Gram, whose crub recipe is scattered across the country with her descendants, had words of wisdom for times like these. She’d say, regarding things that went wrong or didn’t get done, “a hundred years from now, nobody will ever know the difference.” It’s funny how that comes back to me now, and I’m grateful that I knew her.
Les asked me the other night if I was ever going to post the story from our vacation about the fantastic VIP tour I experienced at one of the nation’s top-ranked pizzerias. I’ve been sitting on it for three months now, and yes, eventually I will share it. Others (maybe even you, dear reader) have wondered, “Are you ever going to show us your kitchen?” Yes, and I’ll be excited to do it. But I am busy actually using the kitchen for Christmas and I don’t want to stop to tidy it up for pictures just now. But I promise, soon.
We will always fall short of something at the holiday season. This year, I want to fall short of stress, and I want to open the door for joy and wonder to enter. I hope the same for you! ❤
Sumptuous layers of Mediterranean flavor—béchamel-topped eggplant, potatoes and ground meat seasoned with a delightfully different tomato-y sauce. Moussaka is one of my favorite Greek-themed foods. It’s not quite lasagna, not quite eggplant parmesan, but 100% the comfort food value of both, and while the one pictured is a vegetarian version, there is also a simple switch to make it vegan.
You read correctly. Vegan moussaka. All the flavor, all the richness, all the comfort, but none of the meat. And it’s way easier to make than you might imagine. I’ve learned that when it comes to “converting” a meat-centric recipe into a vegan delight, if you keep your focus on the spices and flavors, you’ll have a winner. It’s not the meat that makes moussaka special, but the other layers of flavor around it, and especially the tomato sauce. Unlike an Italian red sauce, this one gets its distinct flavor from warm spices, such as cinnamon and coriander. And if we can nail those flavors, it really doesn’t matter what goes in place of the meat—but of course, I’ll offer some suggestions to get you started.
This is my approach to making a vegan version of a classic dish. I want protein, texture and flavor—the three things the meat would otherwise contribute to the moussaka, and the rest of the recipe will remain traditional. Lentils will bring the protein, and they’re one of the earliest crops domesticated in ancient Greece, so they’re already speaking the same language as the spices and eggplant. And I love lentils! One cup of cooked lentils packs a hefty 16 grams of protein, about the same as a 3-ounce serving of cooked ground beef. They add more than 15 grams of dietary fiber, too. Nutrition-wise, this is a very smart substitute. If I didn’t have them, I’d probably be looking at garbanzo beans.
Plenty of vegetables provide the other qualities my recipe needs, but I want to avoid the ones that might compete with the eggplant and especially that scrumptious sauce. Bell peppers are great with eggplant (I can’t wait to make ratatouille this summer), but the flavor feels a little off for moussaka. Broccoli is too bitter. Green beans are too specific in shape. Zucchini is a little high on water content. I need something I can chop or pulse into smaller pieces in the food processor. That leaves me with cauliflower, washed kale leaves, onions and carrots. There’s good body in all of them, and they’ll hold their shape after a quick sauté.
There are a few other tricks I’ll employ to make this dish hearty and satisfying. I’ll salt and sweat the eggplant slices to make them more “meat-like,” and nutritional yeast will help bring an umami experience to the vegan bechamel topping, which would otherwise be bland and uninteresting. My husband’s adult daughter has embraced the vegan lifestyle, and she comes to town every so often for special dinners. As a result, all these ideas have become very common to me, but I don’t want to assume all of this makes sense to you, dear friends, so let me back up a little bit.
What does it mean to “salt and sweat” the eggplant?
Layering the sliced eggplant on salted paper towels will draw out the moisture from the eggplant, which improves the texture a great deal, especially when I want to grill or roast the eggplant as a replacement for meat. If you’ve ever had slimy, bitter or soggy eggplant, somebody skipped this step. Please give eggplant another chance. Properly “sweated,” eggplant will be remarkably meaty and substantial—exactly what we want in this moussaka. Take care of this step a couple hours before you’re ready to make the full recipe.
Sprinkle the salt on the paper towel AND on the eggplant slices. The moisture will draw from both sides, resulting in better texture.
Adding a little weight will speed up the process, but you should still plan on at least an hour. Two is even better.
Both the top and bottom paper towels pulled so much moisture from the eggplant, I could literally squeeze it out!
Yes, there will be “shrinkage” in the oven. But these slices are nice and sturdy after roasting, exactly what we need for moussaka.
What is nutritional yeast?
Nutritional yeast is a common substitute for cheesy flavor in vegan cuisine. It’s the same species, but not the same form as the yeast you’d use to bake bread. Nutritional yeast is a yellowish flaky substance, widely available at any natural foods store or online from Bob’s Red Mill. It provides some of the salty, savory quality you would expect in a hard cheese such as parmesan. It’s tasty just sprinkled on hot popcorn. And for the vegan moussaka, it will lend a familiar “cheesiness” to the béchamel alternative.
What does “umami” mean?
When I was a kid, we learned in science class that the human taste buds recognized four main things—sweet, sour, salty and bitter. But within the past decade or so, a fifth taste, “umami” was officially invited to join the party. It’s a savory flavor that is most easily described by example. Think of what you taste when you bite into a piece of steak, or a sautéed mushroom, or a piece of sharp cheese. This savory sensation is distinctly different from the other four tastes and is often the missing link in meatless dishes. If you can successfully supply this “umami” taste, you’ll be victorious in every vegan dish.
A.K.A. “The Bomb.”
This new seasoning from Trader Joe’s is one of the best ingredients ever for meeting this goal (no, they’re not paying me to say so). It is made from ground dried porcini and other mushrooms, plus garlic, onion, thyme, salt and some red pepper spice. I fell completely in love with this stuff last year at Thanksgiving, and I sometimes use it even in non-vegan dishes.
Ready? Let’s get cooking!
Ingredients
1 medium eggplant, sliced, salted and sweated
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 medium Yukon gold potatoes, with peels
1 medium sweet onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, rough chopped
1/4 head fresh cauliflower florets, rough chopped
1 large carrot, peeled and rough chopped
Several handfuls of washed kale leaves
Spice blend (listed below)
2 cups cooked lentils (I used a blend of red, brown and green)
1/4 cup dried potato flakes* (if needed for thickening)
*Notes
Some vegan butter brands will work better than others in this recipe. For the roux that will be the base of a cream sauce, choose an oil-based option. Earth Balance brand used to be my go-to, but my new favorite is the Country Crock line of plant-based butters (they’re not paying me, either). In this recipe, I used the avocado oil version. It melts perfectly and has a pleasant, neutral flavor.
When purchasing potato flakes (or any other processed ingredient) for vegan recipes, take notice of the label to be sure they don’t have some hidden dairy ingredient. I’m partial to the “instant mashed potatoes” available at Whole Foods. There’s only one ingredient—dehydrated potatoes. I love when something is simple.
Instructions
Wash the eggplant and trim the stem end, but do not peel it. Place a double layer of paper towels on a rimmed cookie sheet and sprinkle it liberally with kosher salt. Slice the eggplant into 1/2″ thick rounds and arrange them in a single layer on the salted towel. Sprinkle salt over the tops of the slices. Place another double layer of paper towels over the top of the eggplant slices, then place another cookie sheet, weighted by a cast iron pan, over the top. Allow this to rest on the counter a couple of hours.
When you are ready to proceed, pre-heat the oven to 350° F. Wipe the excess salt from the eggplant slices. You might be shocked at the amount of moisture the salting step has removed. Brush (or spray) both sides of the slices with extra virgin olive oil and arrange them on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Grind some black pepper over them, and roast for about 30 minutes, turning once about halfway through. They will shrink considerably but that’s OK.
Scrub the potatoes clean and poke them all over with a fork. Microwave them for about 4 minutes, or until they are just tender enough to slice (not as tender as you’d serve). Cool, then slice them into rounds about 1/2” thick. This is a little thicker than I would slice them for a traditional meat-centric moussaka, but in this vegan version, I want them to provide a little extra body for the foundation of the casserole.
In a food processor with the chopping blade, add the rough chopped cauliflower and carrots. Pulse about 5 times, until vegetables have a coarse, uniform texture.
Place a large non-stick skillet over medium heat and add about 2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil. When the oil begins to shimmer, add the chopped onions and the processed carrot-cauliflower pieces. Stir and sauté while you process the kale.
Fill the food processor bowl with kale leaves, and pulse about 5 times until the kale is reduced to about half the original volume. The appearance of chopped parsley is just about right.
Add the chopped kale to the skillet and sauté the whole mixture about 3 minutes. Add the garlic, season with kosher salt, then add the spice mixture and cook another 2 minutes. Add the cooked lentils and the entire can of crushed tomatoes. Get every bit of flavor by “rinsing” the can with the red wine. Simmer on medium low heat about 10 minutes until liquid is reduced.
I save tons of prep time by purchasing the “pillow” bags of pre-washed kale. I filled my processor to the top and pulsed to this texture.
Give the vegetables a little head start, so they will be slightly tender when the lentils are added.
Don’t cook this mixture too long, or the delicate lentils will lose some of their shape. Just a light saute is good.
On a whim, I sprinkled some milled flax seed over the lentil mixture. Flax has more health benefits than I can list here, but our bodies use it best in milled form.
Notice that the sauce quickly seeps back to the center of the pan when I move my utensil through it. This is how I know it’s not quite ready.
That’s better. Like the parting of the Red Sea! When your sauce reaches this thickness, it’s done.
Assembling the Moussaka
Spray an oblong (9 x 13) glass baking dish with olive oil spray. Arrange the cooked potato slices in a single layer, placing them as close to each other as possible to provide a good base for the casserole. Add about half of the sauce mixture and spread it evenly over the potatoes. Arrange the eggplant slices in a single layer, then top with the remaining sauce mixture. If you’re working ahead, you can pop this in the fridge for a day or two until you’re ready to add the vegan béchamel and bake the casserole. If you prefer a classic dairy béchamel, follow this recipe but with dairy butter and milk, and skip the nutritional yeast and umami seasoning. We usually toss on a handful of fresh parm-romano blend also. After baking, it should come out pretty much like this one:
Lentil moussaka with dairy bechamel
To make a vegan béchamel, begin by melting the vegan butter and cooking the flour in it until it becomes lightly golden and bubbly. Add the almond milk, then cook and whisk over medium heat several minutes until mixture begins to thicken. Add salt, fresh nutmeg, white pepper, nutritional yeast and umami seasoning. Spread over the layered casserole and bake at 350° F for about 40 minutes, or until you can see the inside sauce bubbling around the edges of the béchamel. Give it a couple minutes to cool and firm up, then dive right in.
My brand of almond milk was on the thin side and didn’t thicken as well as I’d expected. I resolved the viscosity issue by whisking in about 1/4 cup of dehydrated potato flakes. I’m a bread-making nerd, so I have such things on hand. Without it, I probably would have made flour or corn starch slurry to whisk into the sauce instead. But the potato trick worked like a charm, and it made kind of an “echo” of potato-ness from the bottom of the casserole. If your béchamel seems to be the correct consistency, this step would not be necessary, but still delicious.
This dish has become a “go-to” recipe for our Meatless Monday rotation, and my husband, Les, and I generally don’t mind having some dairy ingredients in the béchamel topping. Frankly, we prefer it because we love his DIY parm-romano cheese blend lavishly sprinkled on top. But we were delightfully surprised on Memorial Day weekend to hear from his adult daughter—Syd was planning to drive two hours into town for a visit and wondered if she could bring her boyfriend to meet us around midday the next day. Of course! Let’s plan on lunch while we’re at it. Normally, a bit more notice gives me greater confidence in preparing a completely plant-based meal, but as fate would have it, this lentil moussaka was already in my plan for the weekend. Coincidence? We don’t believe in coincidences in our house.
By the time Syd phoned us, I had already prepped the moussaka up to the point of adding the béchamel, so we made a last-minute decision to divide the 9 x 13 casserole into two smaller 8 x 8 casseroles—one with dairy béchamel and the other with a vegan alternative.
Dairy on the left, vegan on the right.
Side by side, you can see the slight difference between our two versions. Underneath the topping, they were exactly the same. The spices offered a nice complexity, and the texture of the lentils, cauliflower and kale made it feel substantial—all the things I described when we first talked about Meatless Monday.
Les is a great dad (and husband), and he gets pretty excited any time either of his kids pay a visit, and we were extra lucky that day because his adult son also happened to join us for our moussaka dinner. Alex came home unexpectedly from Hungary during the early weeks of the pandemic and having both of his kids with us at once was a real treat. Honestly, it was the first sit-down meal we’ve hosted for guests since New Year’s Eve—five whole months ago. For a couple of hours, life felt almost normal.
So excuse me forgetting, but I got a little sidetracked and missed taking pictures of the casserole just out of the oven or even at the table. One of the new things I’m learning during this pandemic is to pay closer attention to the people you love while they’re in front of you. If that means I miss a photo of the plated food—well, no big deal. I’ll update this post when I make it again one day. 😊
Comfort du Jour 