The Crabby Cook - by Jessica Harper

You know those evenings when you come home from work and the husband is out for dinner so its jut you and the dogs and you want to just chill and watch “Vinyl” but you have to eat and you’re certainly not about to make meat loaf but you don’t want to just eat Cheerios either?

That’s where the grain bowl comes in. Kind of perfect—grains, vegetables, protein—and it can be as simple or as complex as you have the energy for. (I’m a lazy ass so I go with simple.)

Here’s what I made the other night and here are more grain bowl recipes than anyone actually needs.

Jessica’s Grain Bowl

3 teaspoon olive oil, divided

2 scallions, sliced (the white and the green)

½ tsp. fresh thyme leaves

1 cup cooked brown rice

Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

1 cup roughly chopped baby spinach

1 tsp. fresh lemon juice

¼ avocado, sliced

1 egg

Heat 2 teaspoons of the oil in a small saucepan over medium low heat.

Add the scallions and cook, stirring, until softened, about two minutes.

Add the thyme leaves, then the brown rice. Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper and stir to combine ingredients. Cook for a minute or two till the rice is hot, then stir in the spinach. Cover the pan and let the hot rice steam the spinach until it’s wilted, about 3-4 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small non-stick frying pan, heat the remaining oil over medium heat and fry the egg until it is as firm as you desire, over easy or sunny side up, whatever works for you. Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper.

Add the lemon juice to the rice mixture, stir it and place it in a bowl. Place the avocado slices on top, then the fried egg on top of that.

Eat!

Note: There are infinite variations. Use black rice or quinoa or faro. You can add leftover cooked butternut squash or any other vegetable, chicken, shrimp or beef, cheese—whatever.

Going green today with salad and soup…the theory being extra protection against assault by a leprechaun because you are green internally… in the past I have found that pesto sauce is also effective, polish it all off with a little key lime pie and those nasty buggers won’t come near you…Erin Go Bragh!

I’m kind of obsessed with this cookbook my sister-in-law gave me, which is all about baking with less sugar.

I thought I’d try the White chocolate-Cherry-Almond Cookies because, like, why wouldn’t you, plus It’s nice to have a cookie in the house in case someone drops by unexpectedly. Although I’m not sure who actually does that, except that dude who rang my doorbell the other day, wanting to sell me some steaks. Or that lady who said she was a makeup artist and she was at my house for the porn shoot. (She was confused on so many levels.) Read More

I’m told there’s a Super Bowl on Sunday, so it’s time to haul out the chili recipe. Don’t ask me to tell you who’s playing—well, actually I’m aware that Dnver is involved—but one thing I know is that chili will be expected. Read More

I know there is a school of cooking these days that’s all about hiding vegetables in things so you can sneak up on your kids, nutritionally speaking. But I feel the way my mother does: children should get to know and befriend their vegetables. Read More

I’m cooking on Thanksgiving, and my mom says she is bored with turkey as it is too often served in the dining room of the senior community where she lives. For her, it’s all about the sides. So I’m beside myself researching side dishes.

For starters, here are a couple of Crabby go-to cranberry sauces. These are especially good if you are going to a pot luck and are a lazy-ass cook looking for the easiest way to acquit yourself of your cooking responsibility.

These Brussels sprouts are so good, everyone will think you are Ina Garten. Or at least they will if they have had a Holiday Crantini or two before dinner.

Ok,  I’ll be back with more from my T-G menu when I figure out what the hell it’s gonna be.

If you should find yourself visiting a much-more-hip-than-you relative in the much-more-hip-than-where-you-live section of L.A. called Silver Lake, stop in at a wee restaurant called Sqirl. It’s worth the humiliation of being the least hip person in the neighborhood on a Friday afternoon.

Sqirl is famous for their jams (like Santa Rosa Plum and Flowering Thyme, or Shady Lady Tomato) but the menu rocks with lots of other treats, some vegan, some decidedly not, like the Famed Ricotta Toast, which was my pick. (I loaded it with Snow Queen Nectarine jam.)

I told my daughter I could eat it every day for breakfast. She pointed out that if I did so I would end up the size of a house.

So, no, I won’t be having this every day for breakfast. But I will have it again next time I cross the hipness border into Silver Lake.

P.S. You can also by Sqirl jams at The Cheese Store in Beverly Hills.

P.S.S. If you are more ambitious than I you can make this at home. After you have made your own brioche and made your own ricotta, toast a massive slice of the brioche, schemer it with your lovely homemade cheese and then with jam. Invite me over to share it with you or you will end up the size of a you-know-what.

My younger daughter recently outed herself as the culprit in the zucchini mystery of 2007.

One evening while poking around the linen closet I found a mummified slice of zucchini under a stack of beach towels. I believe the unusual disposal of an unwanted vegetable was originally blamed on my older daughter Elizabeth But last week, her younger sister owned up as the perpetrator. Apparently she found the poor zucchini unpalatable and was too young to have developed the more sophisticated system of flushing it down the toilet, so she hid it.

No disciplinary measures will be taken as I believe there is a statute of limitations on these things.

Now they are grown and live in apartments with lots of closet space in which to deposit unsatisfactory vegetables. But if they do drop by for dinner, I like to dress up the zucchini just a little to preempt further misdemeanors. This recipe is very easy and adds instant appeal to what some consider an otherwise boring vegetable.

If I ever find this amongst my linens I will be very surprised.

2 medium zucchini

¼ cup freshly grated Parmigian0-Reggiano, divided

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons finely chopped walnuts

½ teaspoon fresh thyme leaves

½ cup panko bread crumbs

2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil

Preheat the oven to 425º F.

Trim the ends off the zucchini. Cut each in half lengthwise. Score the center pulp of the zucchini and then scoop it out with a teaspoon, leaving a shell about ¼ inch thick. Place the pulp in a bowl. Add half the cheese, a pinch of salt and a pinch of black pepper, the walnuts and thyme leaves and mix well.

Fill the cavities of the zucchini with the filling. Sprinkle each with an equal amount of read crumbs. Sprinkle again with a little salt and pepper and drizzle a half teaspoon of oil over each. Sprinkle each piece with some of the remaining cheese.

Place the zucchini pieces on a baking sheet and bake for twenty minutes, until the zucchini is tender and the topping is crispy.

Let cool briefly and serve.

After the flood of 2015, I had some serious kleening up to do. Unwilling to spend a week inhaling Lysol fumes, I knew I would have to consult with  the Great Counselor Of All Things for advice on a kleening product that would not kill me due to overdose of some noxious chemical.

The G. C. O. A. T. (okay, Google) pointed me in the direction of a recipe from Real Simple magazine for an all-purpose spray cleaner that you could almost drink (if you happened to have a taste for rubbing alcohol and vinegar.) It left my surfaces smelling like something much lovelier than backed up plumbing and clean as a whistle. (I have never understood that expression. Since when is a whistle clean? All those people blowing on it all the time? Please. P.S. Am I turning into Howard Hughes?)

Anyway, try this in your flooded or not-so-flooded living quarters and I guarantee you will be pleased with the result and will not keel over from chemical fumes. I actually would not drink it unless you are on a desert island and choices are limited.

Kleen Queen (Green) All-Purpose Cleaner

4 cups water

1/4 cup white vinegar

1/4 cup rubbing alcohol

10 drops peppermint essential oil

Combine the ingredients and pour into a spray bottle. Kleen everything, then drink a martini and take a load off.

A few weeks ago I got an email from my bother-in-law Scott who was in a highly agitated state. He told me he had been the victim of fraud perpetrated by the Bird’s Eye Company. Read More