Don’t Add the Broccoli Too Early

Last updated on: February 19, 2016 at 9:09 am by Anne Kennedy

Don’t Add the Broccoli Too Early 2016-02-19T09:09:21-04:00 Anne Kennedy

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Before I really get going, here is the audio of my talk, which, I found, is actually sort of very different feeling than what is on the page. You can hear my arms flailing and some strange misspeaking, like when I called myself a minority. GAK. Now, on to more important matters.

A life saving luncheon often requires, in the order of a week, that I concoct more than one dish at a time. And by that I mean that I make two lunches at once–one for the day I’m in and one for the day that hasn’t happened to me yet. And this being so, it behoves me to have some kind of plan, lest I devolve into a frantic, hunger driven daily French Fry and Sausage Bake. It doesn’t always result in a glorious dream, but, in the game of life, it’s really only my intentions that matter, not the results. As I like to say, plunking dishes around and throwing vegetables hither and yon, “It’s the thought that counts.”

So Wednesday, while the children dinged their toilsome way through all their piano lessons, I assembled a reddish Thai-like curry thing and a Spaghetti Sauce au meme temps, as they say on that other continent. I feel sure you would benefit from a description of both these hunger slaking dreams, and their potential pitfalls.

First of all, in a most felicitous way, I just put all the same vegetables in both, with the exception of the broccoli which I did not put in the spaghetti sauce, and mushrooms that I didn’t put in the curry thing, because I don’t hate everybody that much. The whole enterprise began with the fine dicing of two onions and the throwing of, although you could, I suppose, lovingly place, one in each pot. I should have mentioned that I had two pots, one sort of more ordinary, for the spaghetti sauce, one more sort of wok like, for the other thing. After the onion, two garlic cloves, laboriously minced, one per pot. Then I turned them both on with a bit of oil and a sprinkling of salt and let them begin to mellow while I had a go at three green peppers–one minced very fine for the spaghetti, two chopped into larger sort of one inch cubes for the other thing.

Now, here was my first mistake. I should have not added any vegetables to the Thai thing from hence forth, but should have reserved them all in a capacious bowl or something. But I was going along wildly, and I didn’t stop to consider, which is the downfall of so much of humanity. As Uncle Precious so aptly would say, “With a little care, that wouldn’t have happened.”

Then carrots. Again, for the spaghetti minced very fine, for the other things, larger rounds. Then zucchini, again along the same principle. Now, I know, you will probably crinkle your nose, at the mention of zucchini in a spaghetti sauce. And I will say to you, why not. Really. Is there some kind of law? Because basically this is a dumbed down ratatouille without the ghastly eggplant. So….What’s Stopping You? Also, I love Zucchini. If you don’t love it, I suppose you could leave it out. But why would you, I ask. Really. Why Would You.

Then I did broccoli for the Thai thing and mushrooms, chopped into thin slivers, for the other. Then I liberally poured half a bottle of wine into my Italian thingy, and a larger can of diced tomato, and left it for a later point when I would have time to brown a lot of ground beef (which I did around noon–let it simmer another two hours, and then plunked it into the fridge for the next day. All it needed, and this was really just pure decadence, was a swirl of cream as it came up to the boil. Most troublingly, there wasn’t any left after luncheon on Thursday.)

Ok, that leaves us with the Thai Curry Dream Destiny Thingy, which didn’t turn out to be a dream destiny, even though I imagined it ought to have been. I browned a lot of chicken bits, in batches, and then I put everything together back in the wok like pan with two cans of coconut milk and a half a jar of Thai red curry paste. But when I do it again, I will use One Whole Jar, and I will only let the chicken simmer in the coconut and curry for a while, and then about twenty minutes before luncheon will I add all the vegetables. Because, to my immense chagrin, broccoli, when allowed to boil a long while, becomes, well, you know, I probably don’t need to really describe it. The flavor of the sauce was lovely and mellow, but, well, so much broccoli.

So there you are. Rice with one. Pasta with the other. And never mind about anything else like salad or anything. The vegetables are all there. And it only took me about an hour, chopping wildly and browning chicken, so that on Thursday, getting luncheon together took literally 75 seconds–as long as it takes to take the sauce out of the fridge and turn on the stove, and fill a large caldron of water for pasta to cook. And, when it’s taking you a long time to think of something that rhymes with ‘sinning’ (is there anything besides winning? Sob) or ‘death’–our poetry of late has been taking on a more sepulcher feel–the extra moments of not trying to wrap things up because everyone is starving, are a relief, or even a blessing.

So, I hope you will have a lovely weekend. Check back here in the morning for links, which I have not neglected to accumulate for you this week. Pip Pip.

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