A Taste of Greek

Budgeting time is not easy, especially when you have a lot to do and time is limited. If you're planning on going into a education program and you have a full-time job (which you intend to keep during the duration of your program), you may find yourself in some difficulty if you normally have problems with budgeting your time. You can still have problems even if you're good at budgeting your time.

I currently find myself in a Catch-22 that's rather unfortunate. Student loans are paying for my program, which is good because I can't afford it out-of-pocket on my own. However, in order to qualify for student loans, all students must be "half-time" students. For a graduate, that translates to taking no less than 4 units at a time. Sadly, all of my graduate course are 3 units each, meaning that I have no choice but to take two courses if I want financial aid. The problem? It's becoming increasingly more difficult to budget my time in a way that allows me to dedicate enough time to the full-time job I have, plus give enough attention to the two courses I'm taking. Work in both arenas seems to be building towards a future peak, and I'm left feeling like I'm barely able to stay afloat. I offer this story as a cautionary tale to those interested in pursuing degrees while staying in the workforce. Make sure you understand ALL costs that your program may have--it's important to identify any monetary costs of course, but also figure out possible time, stress, and work output costs. Ironically enough, these types of costs are all subjects I've been learning about and discussing in the management class I'm taking--I'll have to let my professor know that his teaching has already found some real-world application in my life.

What this also means is that I've had to sacrifice some things for the sake of work and school--one of which is this blog. I'm not getting rid of it, I simply mean that my ability to make regular posts has become severely limited--at least for the present. I do have a few recipes to share (one is below) that I've tried in the past couple of weeks. Since this week is lighter on school work, my goal is to post and share these recipes one by one before the weekend. Keep your fingers crossed.

My older brother also likes to cook (mostly French-style cuisine) and he has found a few cooking shows on the public broadcasting station on TV that are more "down to earth" and less gimmicky than those on the Food Network tend to be. One of them is "Cook's Country," a program put out by America's Test Kitchen. I find their recipes interesting and unique, and lucky for me they publish a bi-monthly magazine (which I now subscribe to) called Cook's Country, named after their television show. The best part about the magazine aside from the recipes? No advertisements. The magazine is literally all recipes, articles taking about the "science" of cooking and how the best version of a recipe is reached, reviews of equipment and ingredients, and tips and questions that people write in. It is the true cooking magazine--and their most recent issue contained today's recipe: pastitsio.

Before this recipe, I had never heard the term before so I'll briefly explain it. It is a Greek adaption of lasagna. There is a red sauce and a white sauce and pasta, but the flavor is different from an Italian lasagna. It is a bit labor-intensive, but the result is well worth it. So here we go.

What you'll need:
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped*
3 Tbs. tomato paste
9 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tsp. dried oregano
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 1/2 lbs. ground lamb
1/2 c. red wine
1 can (15-oz.) tomato sauce
2 c. grated Romano cheese
8 oz. elbow macaroni
5 Tbs. unsalted butter
1/2 c. flour
5 c. whole milk
3 eggs
1/3 c. Greek yogurt
salt and pepper

What you'll need to do:
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and cook about 5 minutes until they are softened.
2. Stir in the tomato paste, 6 cloves of the garlic, dried oregano, and cinnamon. Cook until the paste begins to darken--about 1-2 minutes--then add the lamb and salt to taste. Cook the mixture until the lamb is no longer pink, about 5-7 minutes.
3. Stir in the wine and cook to reduce the wine to about 1 Tbs. Add the tomato sauce. Bring to just bubbling and simmer until the mixture is a little thickened. Take the skillet off the heat and stir in 1/2 a cup of the Romano cheese. Season with salt and pepper (if desired) and set aside.
4. In a large saucepan, bring 4 cups of water to a boil (add about 1 Tbs. of salt to the water to make it boil faster). Add the macaroni and cook for 3 to 4 minutes until nearly al dente. It will not need to cook completely--it will finish cooking in the oven. Drain the macaroni into a colander and rinse it with cold water until it is cool to the touch. Drain any excess water and put macaroni into a bowl. Set aside.
5. Melt the butter in the macaroni saucepan over medium heat. Add flour and the remaining 3 cloves of garlic. Cook and stir constantly. (As an aside, this mixture of butter and flour is called a roux and is often used to make gravy.) Once it is golden--which takes about a minute--whisk in the milk and bring the mixture to a low boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until thickened, about 12-15 minutes.
6. Remove the saucepan from heat and whisk in 1 c. of the remaining Romano cheese. Add salt and pepper as desired.
7. Stir 2 c. of the white sauce into the cooked macaroni until thoroughly combined. Transfer the pasta to a 13x9-in baking dish.
8. Beat the eggs in the empty bowl used by the macaroni. Slowly beat 1 c. of the white sauce to the eggs. Don't add it all at once or the egg whites will cook and solidify. Slowly whisk the combined eggs and white sauce back into the remaining cup of white sauce. Add the yogurt and mix thoroughly.
9. Spread the meat sauce over the macaroni in the baking dish. Pour the white sauce mixture on top and sprinkle with the last of the grated Romano.
10. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 30-40 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the sides are bubbling.

*You can use a food processor to get the right consistency.

It is a complicated recipe, but the flavor is so unique and wonderful that the work going into this dish is well-rewarded. This goes really well with a Greek salad recipe I'll be posting tomorrow. This recipe has made me want to try cooking more Greek food. Discoveries like that are definitely fun for me!

Enjoy!

Blog name change #2

As you can see, I have changed the name of my blog. Cooking & Class was a good name, but the change to The Cooking Librarian feels right. Cooking has certainly become a big part of my self-identity, one that I continue to explore each week by putting together meals and experimenting in the kitchen. Also, while I am a student, I am also a librarian--even if I'm still in the process of training for my position. I am an information professional, and I provide many services to my campus community that reflects that. So as I feel more confident and self-assured with my developing identity, that change is reflected by the new name for this digital place that I can call my own.

I still have to post my recipe for the week. Due to work and school restraints, it may be delayed until next week.

My Destiny?

More and more I find myself thinking about life after school. Lately the thoughts have been mostly of how much I'll be able to enjoy my spare time again; school has certainly strained my abilities to multitask, and free time seems to have become a thing of the past unless I schedule it in. Despite this, I welcome the knowledge and training that my classes and my program are giving me. Both of my current classes have taught me so much. My information seeking class has really illustrated not only the technical aspects of searching, but truly knowing, understanding, and incorporating the needs of the users into all manner of searching tools. We have applied this to database creation, but really the theory applies to all means of seeking information. My management class has filled a lot of big gaps in my background when it comes to the topic of management; I wouldn't consider myself a competent supervisor at this point (although I know that I am an effective employee to my organization), but this class has taught me what skills to nurture and different ways to motivate, communicate, lead (and effectively follow), delegate, and generally manage those I supervise.

Other than thinking about the here and now, I've also put thought into where I would like to go with my career once I graduate from my program. My class last semester has stuck with me in that it highlighted a distinct need for outreach efforts and resources for all libraries, especially with so many people who have lost jobs and homes and need information and assistance to relocate, re-educate, and reapply themselves to new areas. The news is starting to report a changing trend and upswing in the economy, but so many people are not feeling the positive effects yet. Many children are also effected in a large number of ways too, and as more families fall below the poverty line, the result is that more children have too.

So my current dream job? To become an Outreach Librarian in a public library. I don't know if the job currently exists. I've looked at various job descriptions for librarians, including one with "outreach" mentioned in the title, but none of them quite describe what I'm aiming for. Oh well--I'll make my own position, if a public library will have me. This type of person on staff is a need that's not very well discussed from what I've found, which is odd since having such a person on staff would make so much logical sense. Librarians have often take on the roles of  teachers and social workers to fill a patron's specific need. Why not have librarians on staff that can perform those services for patrons all the time, ones that perfect their skills to assist patrons more effectively?

I anticipate my program will take another three years; then after that, who knows?

As a final note, I'm considering another name change for my blog: The Cooking Librarian. Anyone have input on whether or not to make the name change?