I did it again, y’all!

Broiled ham steaks with mustard and chutney glaze; broccoli puree with brown butter; and barley (which Logan turned into an ersatz risotto using milk and a little yogurt). Seriously, Jacques Pepin’s Fast Food My Way is wonderful. Full of 20-30 minute recipes that turn out actual FOOD that tastes good! As much as I love my Mark Bittman cooking bible, How To Cook Everything, it feels like the recipes I’ve made out of it have always taken way longer than advertised, involved a lot of finicky prep work (especially for a girl with the knife skills of a 5-year-old), and end up being kind of flavorless and needing a lot of tweaking.

Not so with Jaques Pepin.

And I only almost destroyed one of Logan’s beloved kitchen tools to make this! Turns out Silpat mats aren’t really supposed to go under the broiler. Luckily, I only caused a little damage, when the boiling sugar ran off the top of the ham and oozed its way to the edge of the mat, which had a rubberized coating on it. Didn’t smell terrific as a bit of the rubber melted, but at least it was only a spot the size of a dime or so.

Today I’m going Hanukkah shopping! Partly online, and partly at a couple of the stores I’ve found in this article: http://www.businessinsider.com/coolest-small-businesses-in-austin-2013-11

First stop is the Burlap Bag.