Weekend update, October 14, 2013

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.

Lao Tzu

It was a week of simple pleasures - time, in person and by phone, with the beloveds, friendly weather,  a perfect burger at one of our local houses of awesome Bin 303 , and simple dinners that while maybe not crazy easy, were (almost all)

crazy satisfying.

Almost all.

Let's get the report on the simple-though-tricky, not-so-tasty out of the way, shall we?

Here is, the salmon that was supposed to be tuna that was baked when it should have been seared and the roasted broccoli with almonds that were supposed to be pine nuts.

The winner here was the broccoli, or rather, the lemon/basil/olive oil/toasted nut dressing on the broccoli. This mix is as yummy and versatile as pesto or the summer's fantastic discovery, rodrigo sauce.  We were counting up it's possible uses: as a dressing for greens, brussel sprouts, salads, fish....

The salmon? 
Well, it's just that I couldn't find affordable tuna steaks, and there were a few cheap salmon fillets left in the freezer, and the dishwasher was broken, and the idea of scrubbing seared salmon skin out of the frying pan was more than I could face. 
So, notch up another user error in the quest to perfectly not deep fry a simple piece of pescado. 
Ah well.

While it's true that the source of sophistication is simplicity,

the source of comedy is chaos.
And ours is sometimes a very funny kitchen.

Next up, scrambled eggs and pot roast, both recipes that are totally worthy of a full on kitchen crush. A few things they have in common: 
They both reward you for caring about perfection.
They both forgive you if you don't. 
They both have many, many versions of the best, most perfect, simplest way to get it right.
For instance, this is the Gordon Ramsay technique that enthralled me last week, here's Alton Brown's method, the method that Julia Child learned in France, scrambled eggs a la the kitchn, and from About.com's culinary art's page. All of them an improvement over the eggs I've been scrambling for the last few decades. I know because I tried them, and learned at least two things:
1.

The only wrong way is the way that leaves you
wishing you'd skipped the cholesterol and
gone for the muesli with skim milk.

2.

We are getting a non-stickier non-stick pan.
By the time I'd pried this clean, I'd forgotten
how good the eggs were.

3. Gordon's method with a little cream cheese is my personal favorite, though two of my taste testers would've preferred the curds a little larger and drier.
Here's this morning's batch of the About.com version. This is a recipe that requires lots of whisking and/or a go round with an electric mixer before cooking, and they were (to me) noticeably less tender than the eggs produced by the other methods.

That's them with pan roasted tomatoes, bacon and a loaf of
lazier than no knead bread.

Like the eggs, the Pioneer woman pot roast recipe linked to last Tuesday was only one of a dozen "perfect pot roast" recipes available. I could've chosen this mushroom soup spin from Paula Deen,  this crock pot version, or this one that calls itself a classic.

I've cooked some pretty dismal pot roasts in the past- slabs of lovingly prepared beef that were so tough and stringy that you could eat dinner and floss your teeth at the same time. 

Not so great for dinner, but maybe they prevented
a trip or two to the dentist.

But the Pioneer woman recipe was amazing! Limiting the vegetables to deliciously browned onions and carrots, the slow oven roasting, the deglazing with red wine....wow. The real wonder of this gem though is it's flexibility- at the last minute, I realized that I'd forgotten to get beef broth! I hunted through the fridge and pantry, chanting "I need an interesting liquid, I need an interesting liquid..." and eventually decided to take a chance with  beer. And it was really good:

The super tender leftover beef and amazing gravy turned into this the very next day.

Chicken broth from the freezer, mushrooms, more carrots,
celery and a can of diced tomatoes.
It felt like I was committing magic.

And there were even enough mashed potatoes and chicken broth to do this:

leftover mashed potatoes, chicken broth, the last of the crema mexicana,
broccoli, carrots and the last of a bag of shredded sharp cheddar.
Hah! take that, other simple things. I'll conquer you yet!

Even if they weren't exactly effortless- even if browning onions and stirring eggs is a little more effort- in the end, the simple goodness of scrambled eggs on a weekend morning and pot roast on a rainy night was reward enough for the effort. 

And I hope that very thing for you this week.

I hope for simplicity.

And patience when simplicity gives way to chaos.

And compassion in the face of failure.

(your own and everyone else's)

Because what you 

(and most of the rest of us)

are doing is simply trying

(and maybe not always trying our best, but trying)

to do our work,

and bring the people we love the things that they need.

and that 

is simply beautiful.