Pasta with Tuna and White Beans

When we go grocery shopping, we mostly shop the perimeter of the store. We stick to fresh produce (or frozen in the winter months), dairy, and the occasional meat. But there are some pantry staples we keep in the house for last-minute dinners and weeks when money is tight.

And that's how this meal was born. I shopped our pantry shelves, added a few fresh ingredients from the fridge, things we had bought for other meals but didn't finish, and voila. A meal that EJ and I loved and Ethan, well, he picked out the parts he liked and saved the rest of his room for chocolate cake. (We also gave him some peas so it wasn't a total bust.)

This recipe is for inspiration only. Experiment with the ingredients in your cupboard and let me know how it comes up!


Pasta with Tuna and White Beans
olive oil
1 shallot, finely chopped,
1 can tuna fish, drained and flaked with a fork
1 lemon
1-2 tbsp capers
1 can cannellini beans
1/4 cup kalamata olives, pitted and chopped
1/4 feta (more if you've got it)
1 box pasta (we used penne)

Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain, reserving a little pasta water.

While pasta cooks, heat olive oil in saute pan over medium heat. Saute shallot until tender. Add tuna fish to pan. Zest lemon over pan, adding 1-2 tbsp juice (about half of the lemon). Add capers and cannellini beans to pan and mix well. Cook 3-4 minutes, just to heat through. Add pasta, olives, and feta to pan. Toss to combine.

Taste pasta and adjust seasonings accordingly. (Feta, olives, and capers are salty so it's best to add salt at the end.) Add reserved pasta water if it seems dry. I like to drizzle a little extra olive oil on top, as well.

Super moist and rich chocolate cake

Friday we dropped a normal little boy off at school, and when I picked him up, he was possessed by Satan. I don't know what they did with Ethan but he was cranky, irritable, and just in a foul mood for most of the weekend. Saturday EJ wasn't feeling well and took a five hour nap. Ethan and I built a Radiator Springs, complete with Flo's cafe, Doc's garage, Ramon's body shop, Luigi's tire shop, Filmore's tent, and Mator's house. (I guess that's what it is. It was where Mator lives.) Then we built a race track. Then we set up his train set and brought water to the gardens, the pool, and OMG! The poor animals were thirsty so we had to build them a zoo and bring them some water too. We were lions and roared and wrestled.


Sunday, EJ was better (and in his defense, it's not like he ignored Ethan the whole weekend. I went out Saturday evening with some friends and they played then, plus he's home with him three days during the week) but even though he was feeling better, he was distracted because some grown men on the TV were tackling each other over a pointed ball. Ethan is not so into football. He is into baking so I thought what can I do to keep from building Radiator Springs and racing cars for another 3 hours? Bake a cake.


I reviewed the contents of our pantry and flipped through a few cookbooks trying to find a recipe that didn't require a trip to the store. Ethan used this as an opportunity to climb on my back, lift up my shirt, blow raspberries on my belly, push the books on the floor to make room on my lap. You know, the usual. In the end we made Deep Dark Chocolate Cake iced with One-Bowl Buttercream Frosting. It was the perfect ending to our dinner, which I'll tell you about later this week, and was enough cake to last us most of the week. (and I ate two pieces most nights.) See recipe below.



Deep Dark Chocolate Cake
from Hershey's Make It Chocolate! cookbook
2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water
One-Bowl Buttercream Frosting (recipe follows)

Heat oven to 350˚. Grease and flour 2 9-inch-round pans or 13x9x2 rectangular pan. In a large mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients. Add eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes.* Remove from mixer; stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour into prepared pan(s). Bake 30-35 minutes for round pans, 35-40 minutes for rectangular, or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool cake in rounds for 10 minutes; remove from pans. Cool completely. Do not remove cake from rectangular pans. Frost with One-Bowl Buttercream Frosting.

One-Bowl Buttercream Frosting
6 tbsp butter, softened
Cocoa powder
1/3 cup for light flavor
1/2 cup for medium flavor**
3/4 cup for dark flavor
2 2/3 cups confectioners' sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

In a small mixer bowl, cream butter. Add cocoa and confectioners' sugar alternatively with milk. Beat to spreading consistency. Additional milk may be needed. Blend in vanilla.

*The best time to lick the cake batter off the spatula (my and Ethan's favorite part) is before you add in the hot water. Batter becomes thin and tastes almost watery after it is added.
**We used the medium flavor and it was the perfect level of chocolateness to go with the rich cake.

Radio Silence

I started this blog eager to share our life, our food, our stories. And I have lots of pictures and recipes and anecdotes sitting on my desktop (or at least in my head), ready to go. But to share them now was a show, like super creamy icing on a dry, foul-tasting cake. So I disappeared. It's easy to hide when you're halfway across the country.

People constantly ask how we like it here and I focus on the good parts. We love it on a personal level. We like the area, our neighbors, our life. We really do. But it's still hard in other areas, and that's what I have trouble talking about.

It's frustrating to know that you are a good worker, that you could make a difference somewhere, and yet you are paid about what you were making out of college to do work a monkey could do. Really. There is a monkey in the cube next to me. It's tedious, it's boring, it's perfectly fine, but it's not my dream job and it's definitely not my dream salary. It pays some of our bills but we are still taking way too much out of savings and believe me, we are not splurging. I bring my lunch every day. We cook dinner or eat leftovers every night. No trips to the ice cream parlor. No random splurges at the store. I don't care about the extras. I do care that at some point our savings will run out and I don't know what we will do then. And it's frustrating to know that some people out there think we deserve this for daring to take a risk, to live our dream, to get the life we wanted.

Since I've been here, I've realized just how easy we had it in NY. Sure, we didn't have friends, at least not ones we saw on a regular basis and we couldn't eat dinner together most nights and we'd probably never buy a house or have another baby, but we were comfortable. I've also realized just how much we lacked in NY, and I don't want to go back. I don't want my old life. I want this one. Just with jobs and the ability to get ice cream. (yes, I really miss my weekend stops for cones with Ethan.)

So instead of talking and sharing, I've been avoiding everyone, waiting for life to sort itself out, for our transition to be complete and for our entire life, not just part of it, to start.

Friday things took a turn for the better. A job offer that I've been waiting for come through. I'm feeling better about things. And so now I'm able to be optimistic and share.

Pretty School

This weekend, we went to a big playground about 20 minutes from us. There are three separate play sets, each huge, and a large spider web for the kids to climb. It's a little advanced for Ethan, but he was determined to climb it, so we helped him maneuver toward the center.

There was this little girl perched in the center of the web. "Do you need help?" she yelled to Ethan. "Let me show you how to climb." She hopped down and demonstrated how to walk along the ropes, all while narrating what she was doing for Ethan. Once she was back in her original spot, she told us she was able to climb like that because she's in 1st grade. Clearly, she thought we would be impressed.

"Six," I said. "Ethan is a lot younger than you. Ethan, how old are you?"

"I'm three." Ethan said, looking at the 3 fingers he was holding up.

"Wow! He is young. But I used to be his age. He must still be in pretty school."

EJ and I shared a smile and said he was in preschool. (I totally plan to call it pretty school from now on because that's cooler.) Then her mom came over and told her it was time for dinner, but really, I think she thought we were trying to steal her kid. No, thanks. Our hands are full with Ethan.

Berry Picking

When I was a kid, one of our neighbors had a raspberry bush. I loved raspberries and she was always telling me to come over and pick them, but I was an awkward preteen uncomfortable around random adults so I avoided her, and her raspberries, like the plague. I was stupid.

Spencer's is a pick-your-own farm about 15 minutes from us. Last week we took Ethan to pick strawberries. Guess what? Strawberry season is in June! So we picked raspberries instead.

Towards the end of our adventure, Ethan sneaked a just-picked raspberry into his mouth and promptly spit it out in disgust. "Mommy," he said. "That one was tastes funny." And that was when we learned Ethan hates raspberries. He still had a blast.



After our day (or half hour) of raspberry picking, I made homemade raspberry syrup, which we liberally poured over vanilla ice cream. It was divine and the perfect end of summer treat.


I like how the syrup makes pink swirls in the ice cream. I didn't follow an actual recipe, instead I let the creative muses flow, tasting as I went. Here's the jist of what I did.

Raspberry Sauce
Puree raspberries in blender with a couple of spoonfuls of water. Strain raspberry puree through a fine-mesh sieve. Mix with a few spoonfuls of sugar and a squeeze of lemon. Heat over low heat until slightly thickened. Let it cool until warm, not hot, and serve over ice cream with extra raspberries.

The Happy List

I read this article in the September issue of Self on creating your happy list. Your list of things that would make your life happy—duh—or complete. Here's mine.

Every day, I would like to...
1) laugh with EJ and Ethan
2) spend time outside
3) read something fun and engaging, be it a book, a magazine, or a blog
4) eat something delicious

Every week, I would like to...
1) go for a walk while I listening to my ipod (I'd love to do this every day but baby steps)
2) write something creative and personal
3) daydream

And before I die, I would like to...
1) Go to Europe
2) Be published again
3) Feel overwhelmingly proud of my (our) accomplishments

There were other categories (3 months, next year, and 3-5 years), but those are still works in progress for me.

What is on your list?

The Infamous Chick Hicks Cake

"I want a Chick Hicks cake!" That was Ethan's number one request before his birthday.

Using this race track cake as my guide, I set to work. I coped out on the actual cake and used boxed yellow cake and put my energy into the decorations and the icing and filling. Ethan wanted chocolate (my favorite too) so I made chocolate fudge icing from my old school Hershey's cookbook for the filling and the top of the cake that would be the pavement.

Green-tinted buttercream covered the sides and grassy knoll in the center of the cake. I used crushed chocolate teddy grahams for the track and green sprinkles for the grass in the center. And for final touches, I put two checkered flags on top and, of course, the one, the only Chick Hicks. The cake was a big hit with Ethan, his friends, and the parents. My favorite part was definitely the filling, which is both rich and creamy. See the recipe below.


Chocolate Fudge Frosting
from Hershey's Make It Chocolate! cookbook
3/4 cup butter
1 cup Hershey's cocoa
4 cups confectioner's sugar
1/2 cup hot milk
2 tsp vanilla extract

In a small saucepan over low heat melt butter; add cocoa, stirring constantly until smooth and slightly thickened. Remove from heat; set aside to cool slightly. In large mixer bowl combine confectioner's sugar and milk; beat until smooth and slightly thickened, about 5 to 10 minutes. Cool at room temperature to spreading consistency about 1/2 hour. About 3 cups frosting, enough to frost and fill a 2-layer 9-inch cake.