Cooking in Chaos: Squash Tempura
Matt’s client is in town. Tonight we’re taking her to Sea Change for dinner. That makes me one happy mamma: I don’t have to cook; I don’t have to clean; and somebody else is putting our children to bed.
Now that our 10 m.o. is mobile, life is insane. She shoves handfuls of dog food in her mouth, and overturns its water bowl. She stands in her high chair and throws her food over the back of it. She licks the detergent tray while I try to load the dishes (hey, I get it. I used to eat glue.) She’s lucky she’s so darn cute.
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But tonight, Matt and I will live in the moment; we’ll breathe between bites. Nobody will fall off their chair, or bump their head on the table scrambling after a fork. We won’t need to negotiate under fire: you give baths, while I clean, while a baby clings to us.
Tonight we’ll remember that unstoppable chemistry we have between us. Because that’s what’s hardest when you have kids: you scramble to find time to talk to one another, but you also scramble to find things to talk about.
Remember this amazing night?
Lauch4
What do you do to stay connected to your spouse?
Before I sign off for a shower and some lipstick, here’s a recipe for squash tempura, which we made for lunch:
Squash Tempura, adapted from The Food Network:
- vegetable oil, for frying
- 12 pieces squash (or pumpkin or zucchini) about two inches long, one inch thick
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup unbleached flour
- 1/2 cup cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 large egg, beaten
- 1 cup ice-cold tonic water
First, we baked our acorn squash in the oven. Then, we mixed together the flour, sugar, cornstarch, egg, tonic water and salt.
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Then we dipped our baked and sliced acorn squash in our batter.
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Next, we heated a frying pan and filled it with vegetable oil. When the oil started to smoke, we dropped our battered acorn squash in.
When it browned two minutes later, we turned it over.
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And then we removed it from the heat, placing the tempura on a paper towel to drain.
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When it cooled, I chopped it up for our kids. It was wonderfully doughy on the outside, and soft on the inside. Kind of like me.
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Have a great date night! Your little girl is adorable. The tempura recipe looks great! Whenever I go out for Japanese, I always eat the squash tempura first. It has never occurred to me to make a batch of just them, doh.
Wow what an inspired lunch! I don’t think I’m ever that together for lunch gah or maybe even dinner for that matter. I love DATE NIGHT!!!! Best day of the month/week/year ever.
You are so funny! I hope you had a great night out!
My sister used to eat dog food too. She turned out ok. So don’t worry!
Squash Tempura? Excellent idea. Sounds great!
I used to cook that for Matt, but yours looks better….
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Hehe…your little boy has funny expression. So cute!
Would your kids have eaten the baked squash on its own?
I’m thinking of making homemade turkey tenders tonight based on a Nigella recipe and I think it would be nice to add some tempura squash with it.
Hi Linda,
It was really good! (Dough… fried… of course it was good!) Did you make any?
My boys will eat squash if I cut it up like fries and bake it, but they don’t like it mashed.
Jennifer
Hi Jennifer,
Well as you know, I’m not married (yet). But we are um. practicing to be married? (read: living in sin.) So, that said, here is what we have been doing – we make a point to spend a few hours on the couch together at least one night a week. It might be a show, but sometimes we turn it off and just talk. We also try to go see one movie a week. Which I know wouldn’t be reasonable with kids. We really like movies and enjoy talking about them after. Also, he goes to bed later than me, but he always “tucks me in” and cuddles for a while before I drift off.