Prawn Saganaki

Ah!  Spring is upon us (sort of).  As such, I’ll be scaling the posts back to once a week.  The yard calls to me, and I find myself spending an absurd amount of time “tweaking” the plants, mosses and anthills (where the hell do these guys come from?!) into a suitable and eye-pleasing formation.  My time to make meals has been scaled back, let alone the time to document and take photos of them. 

This time of year always messes with my head.  On the one hand, we start seeing more fresh local ingredients available.  On the other, we’re still stocked up with 10 trillion root veggies and squash (can you say “winter hoarding?”) which need to be used up.  The following recipe barely addresses either.

However, it comes from a my friend Liz in Australia.  Since it’s technically autumn in Oz, yet spring here, I thought this recipe was a great way to celebrate the no-man’s land of seasonal transition, and the “What the hell do I make in unsettled weather like this?” question.

Prawn Saganaki (recipe and instructions cut and pasted with a few annotations and conversions from Liz’s blog.  I also quite admire her technique for getting the recipe.  Technology and good manners concisely wrapped up in one gesture)   

In our house this served two.  Adjust accordingly.

2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
400 g vine-ripened tomatoes, coarsely chopped (I think that’s about 3-4 tomatoes)
1 red banana chili, seeds removed, coarsely chopped (or chili to taste)
1/2 c dry white wine
1/2 tbsp dried thyme or 2tbsp of fresh.
1 fresh bay leaf
100g feta (I used Macedonian feta.  Creamier, less salty, and doesn’t have the same “pong” as Greek feta.  Not saying anything against pongy feta…)
12 large prawns, peeled, cleaned

1. Preheat oven to 220C (about 400F).
2. Heat oil in a large casserole over medium-high heat, add onion and garlic and sauté until starting to soften (2-3 minutes), add tomato and chili and sauté until starting to soften (2-3 minutes).
3. Add wine and herbs and reduce until slightly thickened (1-2 minutes).
4. Crumble feta over top, transfer casserole to oven and roast until sauce thickens and feta begins to melt (15 minutes). 

5. Remove from oven, gently push prawns into sauce, return to oven and roast until prawns are heated through (3-5 minutes).

Serve hot with crusty white bread and green salad.

I didn’t expect to enjoy this as much as I did.  As Liz mentions in her blog, I agree that prawns are generally best left unadulterated.  This is a screaming exception to that notion. 

I can already picture serving this outside as a summer dinner (ANOTHER season this bad-boy invokes).  Friends tottering on wine-softened legs, a playlist featuring Journey’s “Don’t Stop” battling with the neighbour’s fumbling attempts to pick out Paul Simon songs on the guitar, and a big oozing mound of prawns and feta-laden, tomatoey goodness plonked down on the table to the slurred exclamations of “Awwwwwnnngg… thad smellsh amAYshing…”

Prawn purist though I be, I’m glad I allowed myself to delve into this little ditty.  To quote the wise words of drug pushers from the 60’s onward:  “Try it.  You’ll like it.”

Rice, twice. This time nice.

In this house the words “Spanish Rice” tend to elicit an outburst of laughter.  This reaction is based on the fact that the one time previous I had made said dish it was spicy to the point of inedibility.  Like, 5-alarm, mouth-searing, tear-inducing pain.  I won't even get into what it did at the other end.  Who would’ve thought that a ¼ cup cayenne pepper may be too much?  Okay, it wasn’t THAT much, and to be fair I’d thought it was paprika.  I was mistaken.

It took me a while to work up the courage to attempt it again.  Napoleon didn’t exactly rush back to Waterloo.  No, my tail was between my legs and I just pretended it didn’t happen. I even considered exile on Corsica.

Recently, I was at my favourite meat shop (JN&Z Deli), and I noticed they made a chorizo.  Since I’d worked my way through a large portion of the rest of their menu of smoked and stuffed delights I figured it was high time to give the Spanish another try.

Upon returning home, though, intimidation set in.  Not only because of my previous experience with making Spanish rice, but also because I was then faced with the potential going the extra step and making paella.  I quickly dismissed the paella idea (although, since I don’t have a proper paella pan I could’ve blamed any failure on that fact).  Either way the task felt daunting and, like 97.3% of the rest of my life, it got procrastinated upon.

By the time I summoned up the muses to bite the bullet and give it a try days later, the chorizo in the fridge had desiccated to a leathery, wizened phallus.  Far be it from me to allow anything to go to waste.  Some of my greater successes have been the results of using up the questionable items in the crisper drawers.  A soup out of yellowing broccoli, and wilted-on-the-outside leeks?  Garbage soup.  A salad from the greens that may be a day or two past their optimum freshness, topped with cheese which you’ve excavated from within a moldy parka?  Garbage salad.

Since the recipe calls for a fair amount of liquid, I decided to reconstitute the chorizo beforehand, reserving the water to be added to the pan.  Trust me, when it comes to JN&Z’s creations I’m not about to pour ANYTHING down the sink.

 

Spanish Rice - the edible way

·      Chicken  - I used 2 breasts, but thighs would be yummers, too

·      Olive oil1 tbsp olive oil Olive O

·      Chorizo – 1 or 2 sliced into rounds8 oz chorizo sausages , cut in 1-inch (2.5 cm) piecesCoriz

·      1 onion , chopped1 1oniononions - chopped

·      Garlic – 1 or 2 cloves… I most likely used more3 cloves of garlic , mincedGGG

·      Turmeric – Just less than 1 tsp

·      Diced tomatoes – Ideally canned, but I used 2 fresh

·      3/4 tsp pepper 3/4 tsp turmeric Just less than 3/4T1 can (28oz) diced tomatoes , drainedTomato3 cups chicken stock 2 cups long grain rice 2 2cups rice – long grain

·      3cups3 cups stock (chicken or veg)– or whatever quantity stock plus the water used to rehydrate the jerky-fied chorizo

·      111 sweet pepper – chopped 1 sweet yellow pepper , chopped

·      11 cup frozen peas 1 1cup cuppeas – frozen is fine

·      chopped parsley

·      salt & pepper

·      Optional: additional paprika (hot or smoked) about 1-2tsp (less if using smoked)

Heat oil in a large skillet (I used the cast iron base of my tagine), and brown the chicken.  Remove and set aside.

Add veggies (except garlic and sweet pepper) chorizo and turmeric to pan.  Sprinkle with a pinch of salt, and cook over medium heat until onion is softened.  Add garlic, stir in and cook for about 1 minute more. Paprika may be added at this point, too.

Add tomatoes and stir.  If using fresh, cook slightly until the moisture starts to come out of the tomatoes and they soften slightly. 

Add stock and chicken.  Bring to just below a boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Next, add rice, stir in and cover.  Cook for 20 minutes.

Finally, add peas, sweet pepper, parsley and cook (covered) until the rice is tender.

Adjust salt & pepper and serve.

This was a pretty brilliant one-pot meal.  The chorizo was gorgeous!  This made enough to feed a small army (or normal sized family).  I found myself returning to the pan, and later to the reserved leftovers in the fridge, to fish out the chorizo.  Along with it’s own spicy brilliance, it absorbs the garlic and onion flavours gorgeously.

As for the turmeric, well, I’m still not entirely what it does other than add some great colour.  Since I’m a bit superficial when it comes to the appearance of food, though, I admit I’m a fan.

“Pity party for one? Your table is waiting…”

Against all better judgment, yesterday evening I had fast food (note the word “indulge” was not applied).  And no, I couldn’t be contented to leave it at the base “meal”, I had dessert, too.  And no², it was NOT the particular fast-food chain whose name sounds like a Scottish version of a famous duck.

It was a COLOSSAL moment of weakness, brought on by a day of being down in the dumps.  I didn’t want to make dinner, and some part of me probably wanted to wallow in my maudlin demeanor by punishing myself.  “WOE IS MEEEEEEE…..”

Oh Lord, how I’ve paid for my transgressions.  Wide awake all night, watching the cast of the moon* through the skylight saunter across the floor, as I ran back and forth between bed and sink to refill my water.  I think I’m the envy of most dromedaries at this point.

This is not something I allow myself to do, generally, and now I know why.

Gut-wrenching (literally), brain-slowing, pain and discomfort.

Ow. 

*bloat*

Hindsight truly is 20/20.  The battery of questions and wisdom-laden insights that follow moments of weakness are a paltry spoonful of consolation in the face of a festering, industrial-sized, boiling vat of guilt (and pain.  Did I mention the pain?)

“Why did I even DO that?”

“It wasn’t even satisfying”

“Should I go to emergency?” 

“Is it too late to induce vomiting?”

and, of course:

“I will NEVER do that again!”

The sanctimonious convictions of a food hangover.

If nothing else, this was an interesting experiment, and spoke as a testament to my general food ideals.  If it (eating fast food) hit me this hard, then it must mean that I’m doing okay as far as my general dietary consumption goes.  You may now feel free to flip through my posts and call me a lying bastard: “Chocolate ganache?  Deep-fried shrimp balls?  Enough carbs to constipate the Republic of Belarus?”  Well, yes.

Difference being, they are prepared with the most unprocessed ingredients possible.  Usually organic, or sustainable, or at least the providers KNOW where the food comes from.

I’d like to say I have a smug feeling of satisfaction, but at the moment it could just be a stomach cramp.

*not exclusively true.  I also watched reruns of “Diff’rent Strokes” online.  As it turns out, the show really wasn’t very good.  Sorry, Gary Coleman.  I know it’s all you had.

Glamming-up a sugar fix

Well, until this point I’ve presented a pretty solid façade of somewhat consistent food prep for main courses and nibbles.  Sometimes healthy even (RAH)!  Although building these tasty foundations is vital, I feel one thing has been conspicuous by its absence: dessert.

I go through waves of sweet-toothdom.  Often after a meal I can be found nibbling my way through a bowl of grapes, ripping chunks of grapefruit from it’s rind, or even contenting myself with a cup of tea.  Then, other times, the need for sugar becomes so primal, violent and borderline Satanic, that only the most depraved, fat and sugar-laden concoction will do.  I mean this quite literally.  I’ve been known to cream together butter and sugar, as one does for making cookies, but instead of adding flour and all the other bits to take it down the path to becoming cookies, I’ll just lift the beaters from the bowl, grab a spoon and chow down.  Disgusting?  Yes.  You cannot stop me.*

Of course, there’re better (and ever so slightly more acceptable) ways to give in to the saccharine demons.  Appease them, and still manage to maintain a sense of decorum, and you’ll come out the other side of the experience a STAR!

This recipe appeals to the aesthetics of decadence, as well as the evil gremlin within who wants to maximize on the indulgence factor.  A definite leap forward from butter and sugar.

Chocolate ganache torte

Kinda just wanna plunge your face into that, hm?

Part 1 - Pecan Crust:

·      1 cup pecan pieces

·      2 Tbsp melted butter

·      2 Tbsp sugar

I started out by whirring the pecans in the Magic Bullet (any food processor would be fine) until they were roughly chopped.  I also happened to have a bunch of buttercrunch toffee in the freezer from a failed homemade batch.  It hadn’t set up properly and was kinda powdery.  In any case it made a great addition to the crust.  And no, I don’t expect you to be saying “So THAT’S what I can do with that bag of failed buttercrunch toffee in the freezer!”

Next, the sugar gets tossed in (I omitted this as there was already enough sugar present from the handful of added toffee), a quick blitz, and then the melted butter gets poured over and blitzed again until mixed well.

Dump the pecan mixture into a shallow 9 inch pie plate and press evenly to the bottom and sides of the pan.  If it’s not holding together you can add a bit more melted butter, mix together right in the pie plate, and reform the crust.  Set aside or refrigerate until ready for the filling.

This is also a great pie crust option for any of those irritating and tedious low-carb diets.  If needed, substitute the sugar for the equivalent in one of those questionable sugar alternatives.

Part 2 - Chocolate ganache (Oooooooooooh):

·      400g dark chocolate, or 500g milk chocolate – chopped or broken into small pieces

·      1 cup whipping cream

·      Optional - 1 Tbsp liqueur (Kahlua, Grand Marnier, etc)

Place chocolate in a large bowl over simmering (NOT boiling) water, stirring until completely melted.

When melted, add the cream and any liqueur, and stir with a wire whisk until completely incorporated.  It often looks like hell when you first add the liquids, but just keep whisking the bastards in and they’ll incorporate nicely.

Remove bowl from heat, and pour the chocolate mixture into the pie crust.  Spread evenly to sides,  working from the center out, being cautious not to break the crust.  You can scrape the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula, or get your hands in there and just chow down on the remnants yourself.  Your call.

Refrigerate until the chocolate ganache sets up (About 2 hours)

Slice into wedges.  You may want to start out with smaller pieces.  Who would’ve thought that chocolate and cream might be a bit rich?  Serve as is, garnish with fruit or whipped cream, or even sprinkle a few pieces of flaked salt over the top.

As far as nutrition goes, this is no better than a bowl of creamed butter and sugar.  It is, however, SO much more presentable!

*as I sat down to type this, I started watching Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution and I’m now feeling increasingly guilty.  I may need something chocolatey to perk me up.

Noodle-icious! Part 2: Sauce

The sauce of 1001 nights

If you’re just tuning in now, I recommend you check out the previous post about homemade pasta.  In part because I think it’s something everyone should try, and also because I’m a bit shameless and am seeking validation.

So, you have a small mountain of fresh pasta on hand.  Now what?  As I mentioned in the pasta post, you could content yourself with a slathering of butter over the steaming, eggy noodles and just devour them in front of the tv (recommended show pairings include Coronation Street, Knight Rider or Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns.  Jersey Shore is NOT an option.  You want to enjoy your meal, not die of indigestion)

A key sauce everyone should have in their repertoire, I believe, is a basic béchamel, as it can be the jump-off point into so many other variants that it would be near impossible to tire of it.  And remember: this is coming from me, who has the attention span of a gnat crossbred with a Jack Russell terrier.  Oh look, a butterfly!

Sauce Béchamel

·      2 Tbsp butter

·      3 Tbsp flour

·      2 cups milk

·      ¼ tsp salt

·      additional salt and pepper to season

In a small saucepan heat the milk and salt until boiling.  While waiting for this to come to the boil move on to the next step.

Put the butter in a large saucepan and place over low heat.  When the butter has melted, add the flour.  There isn’t much “WOW” factor to this stage of the game, as you want it to cook slowly, while stirring gently.  The butter and flour will start to foam.  Keep it at this stage for about two minutes (still stirring.  No one told you to stop)

Have a whisk on hand.  Remove the flour & butter (roux) mixture from the heat, and when it has stopped frothing, pour in the milk and whisk to blend thoroughly.

Place back on the heat and bring to a boil while stirring.  After about a minute at the boil you can again remove from the heat and add salt and pepper to taste.

So that’s your base.  The very foundation, upon which, you shall build your shrine to saucy deliciousness.  From this you can add pretty much anything you like. 

For example:

·      Cheese (up to ½ cup grated), such as a sharp cheddar, Swiss, parmesan, or any combination thereof

·      Chopped herbs.  One of my favourites includes a couple cloves of minced garlic and a handful of chopped parsley.  Paired with prawns and scallops… *drooooool*

·      Green onion

·      Dry white wine

·      Stock

·      Additional butter or cream

·      Pinch nutmeg

Seriously, play with it.  It’s completely flexible.  If you’re adding more liquid, such as wine or stock, you may need to simmer it over a medium-low heat to thicken it.  No intergalactic rules will be broken.  Although, I would generally advise you start out with adding about ½ cup liquid, and possibly building up to a full cup.  Don’t turn it into soup.  Unless you want soup.  In which case, why the hell are you following a sauce recipe?

Noodle-icious! Part 1

Just because something might be simple comfort food doesn’t mean you can’t gourmet it up.  Nay, gourmet your ass off!

Half of the time I ask the hubster what he’d like for dinner the answer I get is “Something pasta-ey”.  I enjoy pasta, but like most things in my life I burn out on it quickly and need variety.  I know for many people a pasta dish would involve some sort of tomato based sauce and a dried store bought noodle.  Fine and dandy in a pinch, I suppose.

I don’t roll that way.

Can’t say I ever really have. 

One of the best birthday presents I ever got as a teen was a hand-crank pasta machine.  What teenage boy DOESN’T get giddy at the idea of making a fresh fettuccine, am I right?  As you can tell I was often alone in my youth.  There’s another related story to my childhood loneliness which involves digging up bones to use for scrimshaw, but that’s another thing altogether.

Anyways, here’s another two part post.  The first being for the homemade pasta, and since I’m so nice, I won’t begrudge those who only have time for dried pasta.  In which case, just tune in again Sunday for the second recipe (and know that your store bought noodles are inferior).  This one will be for a basic sauce, which will be the basis for a schwack of different saucy options.

Basic pasta (requires a pasta machine, or a rolling pin and a level of patience I don’t suspect many people have)

Okay, so this is a pretty bare-bones version of homemade pasta.  It makes enough for 1-2 people so double, triple, quadruple, etc as necessary

Cat in background optional, but recommended

·      1 cup flour

·      1 egg

·      ½ tsp salt

·      water.  Generally up to about 2 Tbsp, but flour is a finicky little thing and may require more or less depending on the current humidity in your kitchen, or even the idiosyncrasies of the particular batch of flour you’re using.

Mound the flour on a large cutting board, or clean countertop, and stir in the salt (you could use a bowl, but it’s not half as much fun, and you’ll have to transfer it to a flat surface eventually, anyway).  Make a well in the center and crack your egg into the well.  

With a fork, gently beat the egg, pulling in a little bit of the flour as you do so.  You can also pre-beat the egg in a bowl and just pour it into the well, but again, where’s the fun in that?  Live dangerously.  …yes, I’m still often alone.

You can continue using the fork to pull in the remaining flour, but getting in there with your hands is preferable.  Work in the remaining flour until you have a stiff dough, adding water if required.  Continue to knead the dough until it is smooth.

Generally, I let the dough rest at this point, wrapped and popped into the fridge for about an hour.  I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to believing that the gluten needs to rest in order for it to be easier to work with.  Although, time limitations often trump my puritan pasta paranoia, and in that case I skip the resting time.

 Use a sharp knife to slice about a fingers-width of pasta off the ball.  Have extra flour on hand to lightly dust the sheets of pasta as you roll it out. Start at the largest setting and roll the slice through.  Adjust the rollers to the next smallest setting and pass through again.  Continue this process until you end up with your desired thickness of pasta.  I usually stop one setting before the thinnest setting.  Partially because I like the little bit of thickness to the noodle, and also in part due to the fact that the whole task starts to seem daunting to me at this point (particularly if I’m doing a large batch of pasta) and I’m looking to cut out any unnecessary steps.

When you have a sheet of pasta all you need to do is give it a good dusting of flour, roll it up and slice into whatever width of noodle you want.  Yeah, this is a bit more rustic, but it’s YOUR rustic.  Or if you have the fettuccine or spaghetti attachments you can roll it through there and let it cut the noodles for you.

Needless to say you would repeat this process, slicing off a slab of dough and rolling them out, and cutting as you want.

If you plan to use them immediately, just make sure there’s ample flour dusted on the noodles to keep them from sticking together.  If not, you’ll want to hang them to dry.  Trust me, this can be an exercise in ingenuity.  You’d be amazed at how many surfaces in the house can be ideal pasta drying racks.  Shower curtains, chair backs, clothes hangers, etc.  Hygenic?  No.  Effective?  Hell yes!

These noodles only take a couple minutes to cook, so don’t throw them in a pot of boiling water and assume the same 8-12 minutes of down time which store bought pasta affords.

I could eat these by the bowl with little other sauce than a pat of butter melted onto them.  Mind you I could also just eat a bowl of melted butter and be satisfied, so you I’ll let you be the judge.  See you Sunday!

C’est la quiche

I’ve generally avoided making quiche.  Not because I've suspected it to be particularly difficult, but because the kitchen gods have decided to curse me with an inability to make a half-decent piecrust of any incarnation.  I recently decided to flip the proverbial bird to said deities and give it another go.

I wouldn’t say it’s persistence, more so spite, which is a faaaar stronger motivation than anything The Secret could hope to inspire.

Once again I turned to Madame Child to resolve my stand off with all things pastry.  Aaaand once again my refusal to follow a recipe to the ‘T’ lead me to combine a couple different ones for the filling.  The one I wanted to try didn’t include bacon, and, well… I wanted bacon!  Seriously, when given the choice of “to bacon or not to bacon” always choose to bacon.

I wasn’t stupid enough to try and deviate from the basic crust recipe, though.  If it were to fail it was going to fail under Julia Child’s instruction and therefore it would be HER fault (in absentia, of course).

Here’s how the quiche went down:

Crust:

·      2 cups flour

·      1 tsp salt

·      ¼ tsp sugar

·      1 ½ sticks (3/4 c) cold butter, cut into small pieces

·      4 tbsp cold vegetable shortening, cut into
small pieces

·      ½ cup iced water (I needed a bit more)

The first 5 ingredients get tossed into a bowl.  With your hands, rub the butter and shortening in the flour until or roughly resembles oats.  You could use a pastry blender rather than your hands, but you won’t get the same emulsification of the fats.  Happily emulsified fat = flakier crust.  Don’t overwork this step.

Add the water and (still with your hand) blend rapidly until all flour is able to be gathered in to a ball, adding more water drop by drop if necessary).  Pliable, but not sticky.  You want dough, not Britney Spears.

Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface, and with the heel of your hand press small amounts of the dough away from you, in what is known as fraisage (They're speaking French, so you KNOW they're doing it right).  This will blend the remaining fat and flour.

Collect the dough into a ball, giving it a quick knead to smooth it out, wrap it, and pop into the fridge for at least an hour, preferably 2 hours or overnight.

La la la, roll roll roll, place in pie plate or flan ring, crimp edges, prick the pastry, and pre-bake at 400° for 10 to 12 minutes.   

The oven took a while to preheat, so I got fancy.

You’ll probably want to line the inside of the crust with foil and weigh it down with dried beans (at last, an use for the 1 kilo of black beans I’ve neglected to the point of mummification in the back of the cupboard).  After 8 or 9 minutes of the cooking time, remove the foil and beans and return the crust to the oven until it just starts to colour.

Filling:

·      3 eggs

·      1 ½ cups heavy cream

·      pinch nutmeg

·      ground black pepper (I like a lot, but adjust to taste)

·      ¼ cup grated Swiss cheese (I actually thought I had some sharp white cheddar on hand which I was going to use, but realized I was mistaken when it was far too late to do sod-all about it.  I omitted the cheese and it was still tasty)

·      1 finely minced shallot (about 2-3 Tbsp worth)

·      1 ¼ c frozen spinach

·      additional salt and pepper to taste

·      about 8-10 slices thick cut, good bacon cut into smallish pieces (the guy at the deli got distracted when he was slicing my order and only gave me 5 slices, which I didn’t notice until I got home and unwrapped the package.  Never EVER be chintzy with my bacon, you hear?!!)

·      butter

I assure you this was not the plethora of bacon I'd hoped for

Preheat oven to 375°

Beat the eggs, cream, nutmeg and pepper in a bowl and set aside.

Meanwhile, fry the bacon pieces until just cooked (or partially incinerated.  Your choice.  I won’t tell you how you like your bacon).  Remove bacon, drain on towels, and scatter across the bottom of partially cooked pie-shell.

Drain bacon fat from pan, and add shallots, giving them a quick stir, then add the spinach.  Cook this over medium heat to evaporate the water from the spinach, and as you stir make sure you’re getting all the bacon shrapnel off the pan, too.

When no more liquid remains in the pan, adjust seasonings.

Add the cooked spinach to the egg mixture.  Slowly.  You don’t want the heat of the spinach to pre-cook the eggs.

Pour into pie-shell.  This would be the point where you would chuck whatever cheese you were using over the top, but since we’re already aware of my lack of cheesy goodness at the time, we’ll just pretend I did.

Ooooooooo...

You can also dot the top of the quiche with pea-sized nubs of butter (about 1-2 Tbsp worth).

Pop into the preheated oven and let bake for 25-30 minutes.  Now, I had to let it be in there for about 35-40 minutes because I lost patience with evaporating the water from the spinach, and there was too much moisture still trapped in there.  In any case, the top should be puffed up and golden when done.

I managed to be able to slide the quiche out of the pie plate onto a serving platter.  Okay, it was just another dinner plate, but the fact that I managed to extract this sucker from one vessel onto another struck me as nothing short of a miracle akin to the healing of a leper.  

Look, Ma!  No pans!

As with all things, there’s always room to trash it up a bit.  My particular sacrilege took the form of a liberal hosing of ketchup alongside the quiche.  When in Rome do as the Romans do.  When in your home, in your jammies, eating quiche in front of the tv, do whatever you damn well want.