Happy one month quarantini-versary, everyone! One of our team members celebrated that milestone in style this weekend by getting engaged! We want to say a wholehearted congratulations to both Jacob and Kristy for their huge news. Though the engagement did not take place at Disney World as Jacob had initially planned, they could not wait a second longer and made do with a dance in their living room and a Disney movie instead. We hope you’ll join us in wishing Jacob and Kristy a happily ever after.
This week, we are bringing you a three-course quarantine meal (Spoiler Alert: two of the courses are dessert!) as well as our recommendations for some podcasts to enjoy.
Before we entertain you with our regularly scheduled programming of fun videos and delicious recipes, we would like to take a second to highlight some important upcoming dates. We have four clients that have primaries in the coming months:
Kurt Schrader (OR-5) - May 19
Xochitl Torres Small (NM-2) - June 2 (Frontline Member)
Sanford Bishop (GA-2) - June 9 (rescheduled from May 19)
Anthony Brindisi (NY-22) - June 23 (Frontline Member)
We hope you can take a minute and click here to fill out this survey to give us your feedback about how you are handling PAC giving in these WFH days and consider whether you can help these Members.
To thank you for helping our amazing clients, here is ADORABLE live camera footage of the new cheetah cubs at the Smithsonian Zoo: https://nationalzoo.si.edu/webcams/cheetah-cub-cam
NOW, BACK TO OUR FUN-FILLED NEWSLETTER!!
Podcast Recommendations -
Podcasts are a great way to stay up to date on the news of the day but they are also the perfect escape. Unfortunately, it is very easy to get overwhelmed by the options as there seems to be a never-ending amount of podcasts about, well, everything, including even a podcast about podcasts (this does exist… I am as surprised as you are!!) To help you navigate this world, the MAA team has put together a list our recommendations -
Revisionist History from Malcolm Gladwell
Hidden Brain from NPR (Hosted by Shankar Vedantam)
It’s Been a Minute from NPR (Hosted by Sam Sanders)
Who Run the World Playlist on Spotify - stories of inspiring women during Women’s History Month
Work in Progress w/ Sophia Bush
Still Processing from NYT (Most recent episode examines Tiger King. Please check out if you, like the team at MAA, have been fascinated by that docuseries!)
Quarantine Cuisine -
It has been one whole month since we have all been able to eat out and enjoy the fine cuisine at some of our favorite restaurants in DC. We at MAA don’t want to leave you without delicious eats during this time so we have pulled together a few recipes to ensure that you have colorful, captivating quarantine cuisine. Please enjoy!
Meatloaf by Madison -
I made a delicious meatloaf loosely based on this recipe for italian meatballs. Here’s how absurd it looked like before I glazed and baked it....just a meat potato. I did not take an after pic, unfortunately. Serves 2-3.
Ingredients:
1lb ground beef
1 small onion, minced
1 large egg
4 tbsp breadcrumbs
2 tsp Italian seasoning? (I did not measure)
1/4 tsp garlic powder? (Again, I did not measure)
Dash of chili flakes
Salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
Preheat oven to 450
Combine all the ingredients in a medium bowl. Gently mix by hand until thoroughly combined. Shape into a loaf and place on a greased baking sheet.
With a spoon or a basting brush, glaze the loaf with ketchup or your favorite sauce (I used a mixture of ketchup, tomato paste, and chili flakes for spice)
Bake for 18-20 minutes.
Let the meatloaf rest for 5 minutes before serving. Serve with more ketchup or shredded parmesan cheese.
Tiramisu -
Ingredients:
For the cream filling -
4 large egg yolks
¾ cup of heavy cream
1 cup of mascarpone
½ cup of granulated sugar
2 cups of espresso or strong coffee
1 tablespoon of rum
2 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder
24 ladyfingers
Directions:
Whisk together (using an electric mixer if you own one) the egg yolks and ¼ cup of sugar in a medium bowl. Do this until the liquid is very pale yellow and tripled in volume. Put this aside.
Whisk together cream and remaining sugar in a separate bowl until it creates soft-medium peaks. Then add mascarpone and continue to whisk until it is soft. The liquid may be slightly lumpy if you do not own an electric mixer, but don’t worry too much about that. It still ends up delicious. Then gently fold the mixture into the sweetened egg yolks until combined.
Using a sifter (if you do not have a sifter, you can use a cheese grater), dust the bottom of a baking dish (use a dish that is fairly deep to fit the tiramisu) with 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder.
Combine coffee and rum in a shallow bowl. Then one at a time, quickly dip both sides of each ladyfinger into the coffee and place them at the bottom of the baking dish. They will fall apart if you keep them in the coffee for more than a second so dip very quickly then remove. Do this with half of your ladyfingers, putting them onto your baking dish to create the bottom layer.
Spread half the mascarpone mixture onto the ladyfingers in one even layer. Then add the other half of the coffee-dipped ladyfingers on top and then finally another layer of mascarpone mixture.
Dust the top of this with the remaining tablespoon of cocoa powder. Cover with plastic wrap and then let this chill in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours. You can also leave it overnight. Then enjoy!
5 Ingredient Banana Bread Muffins -
Ingredients:
2 cups of oats
3 bananas
2 eggs
¾ cup dates or figs
1 teaspoon baking soda
Not necessary but i usually toss in a pinch of salt & cinnamon
Directions:
preheat oven to 350
grease muffin tin
mix all ingredients in a blender or food processor until smooth
pour batter into muffin tin
top with whatever you want! My suggestions: chocolate chips, blueberries, strawberries, cacao nibs, walnuts, or pecans
Bake 15-20 min
We hope that this cooking explosion helps to brighten your kitchen during these times!
Finally, if you are missing our members as much as we are please check out this tweet to find out which Senator is your quarantine partner!
In case you were wondering, here are our partners:
Molly - Tammy Duckworth
Hannah - Ted Cruz
Jacob - Deb Fisher
Madison - Catherine Cortez Masto
Haley - Rob Portman
Lexi - Jeanne Shaheen
Isaac - Gary Peters
Rebecca - Michael Bennet
Have an amazing week!
Isaac