Chapter 1: Off to a Bumpy Start

Note to self: Never, ever, ever again travel through a small island on a small airline the day after said island has been hit by a hurricane. Chaos will ensue. Travel plans will be scrambled.

On Tuesday I began the trek to the other side of the world to visit my parents in Papua New Guinea. I started the trip with a simple itinerary: fly to Dallas, then to LA, meet up with oldest brother, then fly together to Fiji, Brisbane, Port Moresby, and finally Madang. Simple enough, right? Only 36-ish hours in transit. Piece of cake!

That's what I thought until I went to get my boarding pass at LAX. While in line--a really loooonng line--a kind but frazzled-looking airline employee was making her way through the line to update people on the flight status. Apparently there had been a flight to Fiji scheduled for Monday night but, due to the hurricane hitting, it was delayed . . . until Tuesday night. So anyone who was supposed to be on Monday night's flight would get dibs on Tuesday's plane, and anyone who didn't make it onto Tuesday's plane (most likely us!) would get overnight accommodations and fly out of LA the following morning.

As my middle brother would say . . . loud noises!

I went through the line first, with Matthew about 30 minutes behind me in line. When I got to the front, there was no reasoning with the airline employee:

"That way to the hotel vouchers line."
"But we have four connecting flights, two of which are on an airline that won't let you connect it to another itinerary, so we'll probably lose those tickets entirely if we don't make tonight's flight."
"That way to the hotel vouchers." 

So I hopped back in line with Matthew.

Side note: When your parents live in another country and you don't have international service on your phone, it's really hard to talk to them when things happen like an airline telling you you'll be delayed 12 hours and miss your next four flights. There was a lot of frantic emailing from LAX.

When we got to the front of the line, we actually got ushered to a counter with a computered employee (I had just gotten the pre-sorting traffic director before) and handed her our passports. She looked at her screen and then, in a hushed voice said, "Okay, don't tell anyone, but I can get you on tonight's flight. You may not be seated together, but you can fly to Fiji tonight." We'll take it!!

With boarding passes in hand and our blood pressure down considerably, we proceeded through security and to our gate. When you pack 200 upset people into a tiny gate with very little seating, it gets a little chaotic. Then the plane was delayed. Then they moved us to a different gate, and the flight was delayed some more. Then they put us onto buses to take us to another building where the plane had pulled up. Then we finally boarded. Then we sat for  bit. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 9:30 p.m., and we started taxiing  a little after midnight. Which ordinarily would be frustrating anyway, but we were scheduled to have only a three-hour layover in Fiji before catching our flight to Brisbane. Good bye, comfortable layover!

By this point, I was pretty ticked, so everything about the plane annoyed me: the headrests didn't have the adjustable "wings" to keep your head in place, there was only one choice for dinner, the blankets were really thin, the movie selections were meager. First world problems. One nice thing was that I was by the window so could lean against it to sleep a bit. And there was a lovely couple from Alaska beside me. And since I was by the window, I got to see some stunning cloudscapes and watch the sunrise over the Pacific on Wednesday-turned-Thursday morning (we crossed the International Date Line). It began as a thin, vibrant ribbon of red stretched across the vast, dark horizon. Gradually the colors turned more golden and spread higher into the lightening sky.

Thursday, December 20:
 
Roughly 10 hours later, we touched down at Nadi International Airport in Fiji, at 7:20 Thursday morning. Our flight to Brisbane was scheduled to leave at 8:15, so there was still a slim chance we could make it. Except that we had to stay in our seats while officials sprayed bug spray throughout the cabin. And it takes a long time to get off a plane when seated in row 51. And once we did get off the plane, we deplaned directly into another massive line of our fellow passengers. Fortunately Matthew had been seated near the front of the plane, so he was able to get to the post-deplaning counter pretty quickly . . . only to find out that our plane to Brisbane had already left.

More loud noises!

So we collected our luggage (slightly miraculous that both our bags made it to the same country on the same flight), went through immigration, and into yet another line to see what kind of magic Air Pacific could work for us and our flight itineraries.

Remember what I said earlier about mass chaos ensuing when traveling through a small country on a small airline a day or two after a hurricane has hit? Yeah, that's no exaggeration. It seemed like Air Pacific just couldn't catch up to the delays. They'd delay a flight, put the original passengers on the next flight, which would bump the people scheduled for that flight, setting off this huge, awful domino effect. And since Nadi is a relatively small airport, they simply didn't have enough aircraft present to catch up. Plus, it was hot and muggy. There was little to no air conditioning in that part of the airport. Add to that equation several hundred increasingly frustrated, tired, hungry, and dehydrated passengers who are all frantically trying get to or from a whole slew of countries.  So . . . mass chaos.

After an hour or so in line, we had new itineraries in hand, the promise of hotel and meal vouchers soon, and instructions on when to check in for the Brisbane flight the following morning. We were anxious to find some water (see dehydrated comments above) and internet so we could email our parents with our updates and to tell them not to pick us up that afternoon in Madang. But we were afraid to split up, and we were afraid to go far lest we miss the announcement to pick up our vouchers, and we didn't have any Fijian dollars. So we sat around for a couple more hours, trying to stay awake and alert enough to understand the quiet, unintelligible announcements issuing from the ceiling. A couple hours later we inserted ourselves back into the same line, asked again for hotel and meal vouchers vouchers, and this time received a green slip of paper--which might as well have been pure gold--in our grubby little hands, along with the promise that the taxi was on its way to take us to the hotel.

The hotel was actually a pretty fancy resort, complete with light fluttery curtains, a balcony off our room, a nice restaurant, swimming pools, and other amenities like a spa if we'd been willing and able to pay for it. The airline had included lunch and dinner in our voucher, so we headed down to the resort restaurant for lunch shortly after arriving. I had some chicken and prawn stir-fry with vegetables, a red curry sauce, and jasmine rice. It was outstanding! I was eyeing their fish and chips for dinner, but ended up skipping dinner because I was so tired. You know I'm tired when I turn down free fancy food!

Cooking Tip: Non-Stick Spray

When spraying a pan with non-stick cooking spray, open your dishwasher and spray the pan over the open dishwasher door. That way, cooking spray residue will end up inside your dishwasher with your dirty dishes, rather than on your kitchen floor. Obviously don't do this if the dishes in your dishwasher are clean!

Roasted Cauliflower Risotto

Risotto has always intimidated me. Perhaps it's because people talk it up about it being hard to get just the right consistency. Perhaps it's because it requires a lot of hands-on time. Perhaps it's because it's one of the dishes that trips up the chefs on Hell's Kitchen and earns (well, maybe not earns, but prompts) screaming episodes from Gordon Ramsay.

But I've gotta tell you . . . it's really not that hard. True, it requires a lot of focused attention with a lot of constant stirring. But constant stirring isn't actually hard, is it? And as far as consistency goes, that's not that challenging either. Because, since you're adding the broth bit by bit anyway, you can just start sampling it when you think you're getting close to being done. Still a little crunchy? Okay, add another scoop of broth and try again when that's almost absorbed.

I made this recipe for Roasted Cauliflower Risotto during my many days off during Thanksgiving, since I was looking for more time-consuming recipes to make then. I started off really excited about the recipe, but then I started to second-guess whether cauliflower and chickpeas were worth the honor of being the stars in my first-even risotto attempt. They were. Cauliflower tastes much better roasted than raw or steamed, and the chickpeas provided the perfect . . . I don't know . . . chickpeaness? And, for how rich and creamy this tasted, the nutrition stats are really not bad!

Now that I've conquered this recipe and have a nearly-full bin of arborio rice, I think I'll be making risotto quite a bit. Little-known-fact: in my head, I usually pronounce risotto like Gordon Ramsay--ris-AH-tto rather than ris-OH-tto. It sounds more fancy that way.

I followed the recipe exactly from A Couple Cooks. I think they do a great job of describing the process in a thorough but not overwhelming way, and I don't think I can improve on their ingredients or instructions at all, so I'll just encourage you to hop over to their site for the recipe.

Pumpkin Monkey Bread

Most of the time, I try to cook fairly healthy food. But friends, there is nothing healthy about this recipe. Nothing. I didn’t look up the nutrition stats, because why would we want to know? If we’re going to indulge, let’s do it right—and part of doing it right means living in ignorant, syrupy bliss about the calories, sat fat, and sugar. Right? Right.

This monkey bread adventure began with my friend Lauren sharing with me a recipe she found for Pull-Apart Cinnamon Sugar Pumpkin Bread. I drooled, thanked her profusely, and immediately put it on my “must make” list. Now, recipes sometimes sit on said list for quite some time, because I read way too many food blogs and food magazines, and add recipes to this list much more quickly than I can actually make them. Several weeks later my friend Jordan showed up to work one day with leftovers from her weekend of baking, and one of them was this same recipe! Then I posted on my blog that I might make this bread during Thanksgiving week. My friend Megan saw my link on Facebook, commented that she thought she’d make it, then several hours later followed up with, “Make it. MAKE IT! You will not regret it!” She was right.

I bought this mug for 49 cents at Goodwill. I chose this
particular one because it's the color of pumpkins.

Based on feedback from both Megan and Jordan that the rolling-out-slicing-stacking-slicing-more-and-arranging-in-the-pan method in the original recipe was really complicated and made for a big cinnamon-and-sugar mess all over the kitchen, I decided to make mine more like a monkey bread. Also, the shape of the bread pieces in the original recipe kinda weirds me out a little. I’m not sure why. Don’t judge me.

I used my bread machine to make the dough; but if you don’t have a bread machine, you can follow the dough-making steps on the original recipe. I also wanted a more syrupy, less glazey sauce to pour on top, so I made it more like the buttered rum sauce from my Pumpkin French Toast Casserole. Oh, and since my house was cold because I’m too cheap to turn on the furnace, I used this tip when it was time for the dough to rise a second time:

“Searching for a warm draft-free place to allow yeasted bread to rise? Preheat oven to 350° for about 2 minutes. Turn off and place covered bowl in warm oven.”

Now, there are a lot of steps here, but none of them are hard. This bread will take a lot of time from start to finish, but a lot of that time is spent waiting. So this is a great recipe to make when you have a long, leisurely morning (or afternoon), with plenty of time between each step to clean the kitchen, do laundry, watch TV, listen to the movie your neighbors are watching next-door, write, process food photos, or do whatever else strikes your fancy.

Pumpkin Monkey Bread

Adapted from Willow Bird Baking, as seen on Sunny Side Up
Yield: 1 loaf pan
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Bread Ingredients
2 Tbsp. browned butter
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp. salt
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
2-1/2 to 3 cups flour
2-1/4 tsp. (1 envelope) active dry yeast – or 1 generous tsp. rapid rise/bread machine yeast

Coating Ingredients
2 Tbsp. browned butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg

Sauce Ingredients
3 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp. brown sugar
1 Tbsp. maple syrup
1 Tbsp. rum (or appropriate amount of rum extract or vanilla extract)

Directions
To brown the butter: Heat butter in a small skillet over medium heat. Cook until the butter turns medium-dark golden brown and smells irresistible. Remove from heat and allow to cool for a few minutes in the pan. The butter will continue to cook a bit in the pan, so take that into account when you decide how dark to let the butter get before removing it from the heat.

To make the dough: In a bread machine pan, combine the bread ingredients in the order recommended by your bread machine manufacturer. Select the dough cycle and let it do its thing. For the flour measurement, start with 2-1/2 cups, and when you machine gives you the, “Hey! Check on the dough and see how it’s doing!” beep, add more flour if needed. Mine definitely needed it. My machine’s dough cycle includes an hour for the first rise. If yours doesn’t, be sure to let your dough rise in a warm place for about an hour before continuing.

To prepare the coating: Brown some more butter; set aside. In a large, wide bowl, combine the sugars and spices for the coating. Grease a loaf pan.

To assemble the monkey bread: When dough has risen, punch it down and turn out onto a clean, floured surface. Knead a few times with your hands. You can work in a bit of flour here, but not too much, because you’ll want the dough to be sticky. Pinch (or cut) off small amounts of dough and roll into balls about an inch in diameter. Roll in the sugar mixture and arrange in the prepared loaf pan. Be sure to get them good and heavily coated with the sugar mixture. About halfway through, drizzle a bit less than half of the browned butter over the sugared dough balls. When all the dough balls are in the pan, drizzle the rest of the browned butter over the top. Cover pan with a clean, damp towel and allow dough to rise for 30-45 minutes.

Note: You should have quite a bit of sugar mixture left over at the end of my assembly process, and it may be tempting to sprinkle it into the pan. Don’t. I was tempted, too, and I’m really glad I didn't  This bread is going to be insanely sweet and rich as-is, and I think that if ALL that sugary goodness was mixed in, it’d be too much. So, either discard the excess sugar mixture, or save it for some future use. You could even use some of it for the sauce.

To bake the deliciousness: Preheat oven to 350. Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until top is deep, golden brown. It helps to tent the pan with foil for the first 20 minutes of baking time, and remove the foil for the remaining 10-20 minutes. Allow to cool in the pan on a wire cooling rack for 20 minutes. Go a little crazy with anticipation.

To make the sauce: Heat your skillet once more over medium heat and whisk together butter, brown sugar, and maple syrup until sugar is dissolved and butter is browned. Remove from heat; whisk in the rum.

To serve: Use a plastic knife to loosen the sides of the bread from the pan, and carefully turn it out onto a plate. Place another plate on top, and flip it so it’s now right-side-up on the second plate. Pour butter rum sauce over top, and serve.

I've always kind of hated my blue counters, but they sure do provide
nice, photogenic contrast to orange, pumpkin-based dishes.  

Blue Cheese Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Cranberries and Pecans

For dinner my first night off of work, and to officially kick off my Thanksgiving Week of Deliciousness, I made these roasted Brussels sprouts. They were good--a little salty, but a small drizzle of honey helped with that.

Then I figured up the nutrition stats, and found myself liking the dish less and wishing that I'd eaten only one serving instead of two. Since when does a veggie side dish cost you more than 500 calories per serving? The pecans and olive oil were definitely the culprits (each one adding about 200 calories per serving!), but at least they bring some nice monounsaturated fats to the party.

If I make these again (which I probably will since there's still a half-pound of Brussels sprouts in my fridge), I'll make some pretty substantial adjustments for both health and flavor reasons: 1) use a bit less blue cheese; 2) halve pretty much all the remaining ingredients other than the Brussels sprouts and cranberries; 3) add a bit of orange zest to the cranberries before roasting (or maybe halfway through when I pull them out to stir them).

Blue Cheese Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Cranberries and Pecans

Pulled elements from Prevention RD and Two Peas and Their Pod
Yield: 2 servings
Printer-friendly

Ingredients
1/2 cup fresh cranberries, washed and chopped/halved *
1/2 to 1 tsp. sugar
Drizzle of olive oil

1/2 lb. Brussels sprouts, rinsed, with bad/loose leaves removed
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1/8 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper

1/2 cup chopped pecans
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
1/4 cup blue cheese
Drizzle of honey (optional)

Directions
Line two 8 x 8-inch pans with foil.** Preheat oven to 400.

Combine cranberries, sugar, and olive oil in a small bowl. Pour into one of the foil-lined pans.

Cut the base off each Brussels sprout and halve each bulb. Put the sprouts into the pan in a single layer. Using your hands, toss the sprouts with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Roast the cranberries and sprouts for 20-25 minutes, stirring the cranberries and rotating the pans halfway through. After 20 minutes my cranberries were almost as shriveled as craisins. If you want them less shriveled, take them out 5-10 minutes earlier.

Meanwhile, heat a small skillet over medium heat. Toast the pecans for about 5 minutes, until pecans just start to brown and smell toasty. Remove from heat. In a small jar, combine remaining 2 Tbsp. oil, vinegar, and mustard. Put lid on and shake vigorously.

Stir together the cranberries, Brussels sprouts, dressing, pecans, and blue cheese. Return to the oven for an additional 3-4 minutes. Toss and serve. If desired, drizzle with the slightest bit of honey.

Notes
* You could use craisins instead of roasting fresh cranberries. I simply had cranberries in my freezer that needed to be used. Just skip the whole roasting process for the cranberries, and add the craisins at the end when you stir in the pecans, blue cheese, and dressing.

** If using fresh cranberries, I'm sure it would work just fine to roast the cranberries and Brussels sprouts in the same pan. I only kept mine separate in case one roasted much more quickly than the other.

from MyFitnessPal iPhone app

Thanksgiving Week Menu

Last year I was by myself on Thanksgiving day, which sounds quite a bit more pathetic than it was. I did celebrate Thanksgiving with family and friends . . . just not until a day or two after Thanksgiving. To keep myself from feeling pathetic last year, I made myself a stuffed Cornish hen. It was like a cute little, single-serving-size turkey, and gave me something exciting and food-related to look forward to on Thanksgiving day.

This year, our Thanksgiving plans are again on Saturday instead of Thursday, so I've decided to do a whole week of fun cooking. I kind of intended to do a deconstructed Thanksgiving dinner spread out . . . but I didn't want to limit myself to traditional Thanksgiving dishes, especially since I'll be eating all of those on Saturday.

I'm going to share my menu with you--more because I'm excited about it, and less because I think you will be excited about it.

How about you? What are you eating for Thanksgiving this year?

Thanksgiving Week Menu 2012

Breakfasts:

• Brown Sugar Apple, Wheat Berry, and Yogurt Parfaits from Pinch of Yum - possibly also a remix that includes some pumpkin puree and pumpkin spice.
• Maybe some Pull-Apart Cinnamon Sugar Pumpkin Bread from Sunny Side Up - this recipe has been on my "must make" list for several weeks now.
• Or maybe some scones, most likely from Naturally Ella - she's got a lot of good-looking scones recipes.

Main Dishes and Sides:

• Thai Peanut Pumpkin Hummus from Prevention RD - a recipe I discovered last year. It's pretty quick and easy, so I threw it together Sunday night as a warm-up and to get me through two work days with less time to cook.
• Pumpkin Apple Harvest Rice from Healthy Happy Life - with the addition of turkey and cranberries, this could almost be Thanksgiving in a bowl.
• Roasted Cauliflower with Apple and Dill from A Couple Cooks - this looks like such an interesting combination of flavors! 
• Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Bleu Cheese and Cranberries - combining recipes from Prevention RD and Two Peas & Their Pod
• Stuffed Carnival Squash - inspired by at least a couple recipes. I think it will have quinoa, turkey sausage, pear, and I haven't yet decided what else.
• Roasted Cauliflower Risotto from A Couple Cooks - this will be my first attempt at risotto!

Dessert:

• Pumpkin Chocolate Cheesecake Bars from Better Homes & Gardens - are words necessary?

Butternut Squash and Apple Calzones

Last fall (or maybe even the fall before) I discovered this recipe and bookmarked it as one I wanted to try. Then I promptly forgot about it, because it wasn't on my Google Docs spreadsheet where I keep my official list of recipes to try. A couple months ago I saw it linked from one of the food blogs I read and thought, "That sounds good! I need to make that!" Only to discover a few days later that I still had it bookmarked from the previous year.

I must say, that when these babies came out of the oven, they were worth the yearlong wait. They were crispy on the outside, and steamy, herby, and just the right amount of gooey on the inside. Sadly, they didn't reheat well; so if you live alone, I'd recommend holding off on these until a day you have friends over.

For this recipe, I cheated and bought pre-cubed butternut squash in a bag in the produce section, rather than peeling, seeding, and cubing my own. I also used store-bought pizza dough, but you could certainly do homemade dough if you'd like. Fun fact: the day after I did my shopping for this recipe, I saw the very pizza dough I'd just bought featured in a Rachael Ray magazine.

I made a half batch (4 calzones) of the Happyolks recipe and wound up with far more filling than would fit in the amount of dough I had. So I've adjusted amounts below to produce what I think will be the right ratio of filling to dough. The filling is good by itself, though, so having extra of that is not necessarily a bad thing!

Butternut Squash and Apple Calzones

Yield: 8 calzones; 4-8 servings, depending on how hungry you are and what else you might be serving with these
Adapted slightly from Happyolks
Printer-friendly version

Ingredients
2 (13.8-oz.) tubes of refrigerated pizza dough (I used Pillsbury artisan pizza crust with whole grains)
1 Tbsp. butter
3-4 cups cubed butternut squash
1-1/2 small sweet onions, chopped
3 tsp. dried rosemary
1 tsp. dried sage
2 apples, cubed (I used gala)
1 clove garlic, minced
Pepper and coarse salt (such as kosher or sea salt)
Zest of one lemon
Mozzarella cheese, grated
Olive oil

Directions
Melt butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add squash, onions, rosemary, and sage; sauté until onion is soft, about 8 minutes. Add apples, garlic, and a dash of salt; sauté 2 more minutes. Remove from heat. Add lemon zest and stir to combine.

Preheat oven to 500. Prepare a 9 x 13 cookie sheet with parchment paper.

On a floured surface, roll out dough into a rectangle, about 1/4 inch thick. Cut into 4 rectangles. Scoop about 1/2 cup of butternut squash mixture onto each rectangle. Add pepper and a bit of mozzarella. Fold over the other half of the dough and pinch around the edges to seal tightly. Transfer calzones to cookie sheet. Using your hand or a pastry brush, spread olive oil on each calzone and sprinkle with salt.

Bake for 5-15 minutes, until calzone is browned and warmed through. The recipe I followed said to bake for 12-15 minutes; mine took 6.

Nutritional Information Per Calzone (compliments of My Fitness Pal)
372 calories; 11.3 g total fat; 57 g total carbs (6.1 g dietary fiber; 9.3 g sugars); 11.5 g protein