That's what I get for posting so many recipes.
I've had a pretty good run in the kitchen these days. But pretty soon, it was due to happen.
Today was a total kitchen disaster. I had peeled, diced, stirred, seasoned, combined, tasted, heated, simmered...everything I usually do to stuff in a Crockpot. But this time, the ingredients were just not going to have it...they were done with me. They rebelled. I had overstepped my culinary grace period, and they were unforgiving. The squash disintegrated, the beans retreated, the spices were discordant, and the more I tried to save it, the darker and stranger the color and texture became. Before it all burned. The fabulous slow-cook things melded into an unspeakable substance, inedibility being its highest virtue. I think I may have to patent it and sell it to a bio-lab for testing...
I moved onto other foods, because if at first you don't succeed, try try again, and all that...
I didn't burn water, but I did manage to waste veggies, pasta, and meat in what can only be called a Flameless Charred Carnage, involving multiple pots and pans and the entire countertop surface now cluttered with rescue receptacles (to no avail..there is no rescue for what's already perished). The stench has permeated the farthrest reaches of my house. I had to have a stiff Root Beer to deal with the situation. Or three.
My husband was reduced to eating dried figs at about 6 p.m. after scanning the pantry, declaring we had a few cans of tuna, and staring bemusedly at the "Pasta Something" that remained slightly edible. He finally took me out to eat, more from an attempt at self-preservation than to have a date out. I felt us slide twelve dollars backwards from our goal of paying debt off faster. I think he considered twelve dollars a small price for his survival. Good thing we're not pioneers on the prairie a hundred years ago, or he'd be gnawing for sustenance on the nearest prairie dog.
Not my best moment, hour, day...
I'm typing this lest anyone think I have anything together in the cooking department. The recipes I post usually SURVIVE my attempts to ruin them, which attests to their genius...NOT mine :)
I'm off to my last remaining root beer. No, not something healthy like kombucha. I have to make another batch of refresher tea for the kombucha, and do NOT trust myself to make it tonight...ha!
Showing posts with label Serious Big Fat Ooops. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Serious Big Fat Ooops. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
Help! What Do We Do About This??
Termites ...were discovered living in the flowerpots and some of the buckets our plants are growing in...there are termites, yet we don't have termites infesting our house, according to the monthly pest inspectors. And we surely DON'T want to be raising our own homegrown ones!
We're planning on using raised beds extensively, too, when we move...to raise many of our main crops. They'll be amended regularly with compost and lots of organic material, similar to what's in our current garden-'o-buckets.
Has anyone ever had any problems with termites in your pots, compost, or raised beds? Or your garden at all, for that matter?
We're not sure quite what to do at this point, and using pesticides is not an alternative we want to consider at this point...
Help!!! :)
We're planning on using raised beds extensively, too, when we move...to raise many of our main crops. They'll be amended regularly with compost and lots of organic material, similar to what's in our current garden-'o-buckets.
Has anyone ever had any problems with termites in your pots, compost, or raised beds? Or your garden at all, for that matter?
We're not sure quite what to do at this point, and using pesticides is not an alternative we want to consider at this point...
Help!!! :)
Thursday, March 22, 2007
A Little Progress
A little progress was made today:
1. Feeling Better, Or LESS BAD :)
I'm now back among the living. Many thanks for the well-wishes :) I don't know if it was the flu or just a week-long Yuck that got progressively worse till I was knocked off my feet, but I'm fighting back now. Still have deep ear pain and throat infection, but it's SO much better than yesterday...hooray!
2. Got Rest Without Too Much Guilt
Morning was a Nap of Death after the early taking-of-daughter to school in the wee hours. I kept dreaming the phone was ringing but I couldn't get it. The phone HAD been ringing, but I was so gone all I could do was dream (ahhh :)).
3. Bumped Off Yesterday's To-Dos
Yesterday's big news was that I bleached down everything in the kitchen and got things under control. Including the tile floor. Myself.
This, after having gone with my husband to the attorney's office to AT LAST finalize a will. We've been trying to do that for months now. I just didn't want to postpone again, no matter how rotten I felt. So hubby, my virus, and I went to the office an hour away. Mr. Legal Man regaled us pleasantly with tales of his recent vacation to Iceland while we signed documents. I'd normally have had a lot of questions and curiosity about that, but I was a dullard. Or maybe at $150 an hour I was just wondering about how many miles he could log on his next vacation with what he was making off us. (I'm cranky and jaded when I'm sick...or when I'm well?? lol) I was counting the minutes till I could be back in the truck nursing a Big-Gulp-sized fizzy drink long enough for my stomach and me to be driven BACK HOME.
The sight that greeted me in my kitchen was enough to make me want to go to bed and not get back out. I've been out for the count for a while, and in cleaning denial. To halt the further petrification and putrification, the bleach came out, everything got fume-blasted and scrubbed, and then I medicated and went to bed. I was in an ill humor about it -- I was having nothing of Mrs. Cleaver and The Beave -- and there was a lot of therapeutic clash and clatter as I whittled down the pots-n-pan tower in the sink.
You know you're not a kid anymore when you're actually looking forward to bedtime.
4. Comfort food, on minimal scale, was consumed. By Me.
I was in serious need of some chicken soup and blanket. With their hours, my daughter and husband have hardly been home, and I just couldn't bring myself to do the whole Chicken-Carcass-and-Homemade-Everything-Chicken Soup...just too long, and I don't have any reserves frozen. So I made the only thing that is warm, comfy, and takes less than 2 minutes. Grilled cheese sandwich. Yes, it was the plastic cheese on potato bread sort. My cholesterol might have gone up, but the sandwich went down nicely in the absence of any warm soup. That and many hot mugs of Sleepytime Tea kept me feeling nurtured, even if this time it was self-nurture.
5. Slowly Shuffled Around and Made Good Food for the Fam
Did another of the apple cakes, only I substituted canned and drained blackberries. Good, but not as good as the apple.
Did a saucepan of seared chicken breasts rumbling with some pesto, canned chopped tomatoes, Italian herbs, white wine and broken spaghetti pieces, dusted with grated parmesan. This turned out great.
Homemade pizza dough with individual's choice of thinly sliced cooked (leftover from above) chicken, marinara sauce, garlic, mixed shredded cheeses, basil pesto, thinly sliced raw red onion, torn fresh spinach leaves, grated parmesan.
DELICIOUS and EASY chickpea recipe from Molly at Orangette. Her entry promised that this Chickpea with Lemon and Parmesan meal would take 5 ingredients and 5 minutes to make, and it delivered! (It takes even less time to scarf down before making another batch...) http://orangette.blogspot.com/2007/01/brown-bag-it.html Her recent post, where I found the mention, made me crave Lebanese food, which I've never had before. What an excellent site to visit (have fun, you'll get lost!)
But I digress...
6. Killed Most of the Week's Appointments Even Though I Didn't FEEL Like It
(Whine, whinge, mutter, shuffle...;-))
So much is happening, this week has been fraught with nothing but appointments. Those have been fulfilled now and crossed off, and though I don't have a lot to point to in practical terms having been accomplished, I DON'T have to worry about rescheduling a dozen things that got postponed. I just got them out of the way no matter what. DONE! :) I have one more scholarship to help my daughter pull things together for by the end of tomorrow, and a couple of letters to write for J in his attempts to do a property-trade. Yes, that is also happening. We've never heard back from the guy about the land and house, and have kept looking for other opportunities if that one falls through. J has also been job-hunting since his jobs are by assigment, and he has only been given 25 or fewer hours a week right now. That does not pay the bills. I have two interviews next week, an appointment with the nutritionist tomorrow about blood sugar related stuff, blah blah blah. And we're supposed to be getting ready for Passover....EEK!!! The time always creeps up on me this time of year! :)
7. Planted tomatoes and lettuces!!!!
This is one thing I feel realllyyy good about. I determined that in addition to my afternoon grocery trip, for which I was making an effort though I could have easily have gone right back to bed (just me and my buddy Nyquil), I thought I should stir myself, stock the fridge again, throw together some simple things for our next few meals, and call it a day. But visions of plum tomatoes were dancing in my head, and the empty large clay pots out back along with the beautiful weather were taunting me everytime I looked out the window.
I'll boil it down. I reasoned I could pull it all off in an hour, the trip to the garden center and then to the market, and home. I could do that and if I felt bad, call it a day. Or if it rejuvenated me, I'd throw some food together and then pot up all those bad boy wannabe planters. I kept this vision in my mind.
The suckage of buying plants at a garden center is probably the reality of having to stay on a budget and passing up thousands of little green and flowered things that are calling to you as you walk the aisles. I WILL be going to far away places to garner treasures of compost, wood chips, old leaves, throwaway cardboard boxes, etc, to construct my wee trial garden, but in the meantime, the empty pots I DO have already need some basic good potting soil and some plants to put in them. I've not ordered seed. I've never grown anything FROM seed (yet). I shall. But in the meantime I feel the NEED to be DOING SOMETHING rather than waiting for all those "somedays."
I bought 8 little tomato starts whose labels promised they were heirlooms. HD only had two types of heirlooms, neither of which would have been my first choice if picking from a seed catalogue. But there they were, amidst the hybrids, looking like they needed a home. Welcome, heirloom Beefsteak and Mr. Stripey!
I'm probably going to regret this, but since my pots are so large, I've planted two tomato plants per pot on either side of a stake. I want to construct support towers that stand on the ground outside of the pots as they get larger, or at least that's my present idea. If I try to anchor any sort of support within the pot, it may get topheavy and keel in a good wind. The amateur still fiddles :)
THESE are the visions that are dancing in my head at the moment... (I know, it's nowhere near the list of dozens I have going that I still plan on starting from seed..someday. But these are the first little guys who'll be kicking the bigger things off)
Heirloom Beefsteak vision...I'm thinking full-bodied flavor and heavy vines that need a nice tower and the benefit of daily private tomato-and-moi conversations.
Mr. Stripey vision. Hmmm. Beautiful streaks of red and yellow, like...Tigerella. Tigerella was on my Streaky wish list of tomato seeds. (I have lists for red, yellow, streaky, black...don't prefer pink). The picture looked similar. I was excited! The name Mr. Stripey conjures images (to me) of the loud trousers-pattern of a circus stilt-walker, while Tigerella sounds spunky, with a Grrrr. I looked up Mr. Stripey on the internet when I got home. Some folks interchange the term for Tigerella. I was elated...the same tomato? Other folks swear that Mr. Stripey is a bland beefsteak-sized version that underperforms and tastes like wall paste. Well, the suspense will last about 80 days if it's the larger, or less if it's truly the Tigerella. I'll report back when I know for sure.
I will talk to you, too, Mr. Stripey. If you are good to eat, I will save your seeds. If you are not good to eat, I will not save your seeds, but shall console you with some spectacular moments of airborne freedom as you're organically lobbed at my rascally and prolific raccoon midnight raiders. Or I'll just eat you unripe, because I was raised in the South, and Southern women WILL have their fried green tomatoes. (And you thought the green in that julep was mint??) lol
My 2 Romas that bit the dust in The Two Nights of Barely Freezing are back! And they set a LOT of blooms and came back much thicker. HOO plus RAY! I don't have TV reception where we live. I'm watching my veggie version of Survivor with rapt attention.
8. In doing the planting, experimented with the Milk Crate Planter Idea.
This sounds so lame, but I've been dying to try that experiment! (See some of my past posts, early on). I took an intact (what else?) paper grocery bag that was folded flat, laid it on the bottom and up one side of the mild crate. Perfect fit, the grocery bag top edge came just to the top edge of the crate side and was flat against the bottom. Next grocery bag was laid on the bottom of the crate facing the next side, and folded to be flat against that side, and so on till all sides were covered. This made a four layer bottom and single layer sides. In went the potting soil and amendments. I sowed lettuce for starts in this. If it holds up, I'll be using this for tomatoes or other veggies or herbs. I watered the soil and bags very well, and it contains it perfectly.
I'll be watching to compare how it weathers during the heat compared to the pots and the in-ground plants. I'll also be checking for affordable ways of picking up more of them, since they can easily be grouped together Square-foot-Garden fashion, each crate being its own square...and portable. I'm thinking of doing a bunch of strawberries in 4 or 5 since I could pierce small holes in the sides a' la strawberry pot style and double my harvest.
Maybe :)
It all took only an hour...I was jazzed! Now I have a total of 10 tomato starters, two flats and one milk crate of mesclun mix and frilly mesclun mix lettuces.
FINALLY...something got done!
Now...if I can do this, despite the work schedule, etc, each time I do my weekly grocery shopping, we can actually have a real garden this year! Yippeee!!!
9. Initial Layout of Supplies (sigh) :)
I paid for the soil amendments and already-started plants. I hate to say how much, but I have to have a figure to work with so I can bring it down from there in the future. It wasn't cheap.
It was about $60 all told. That also counts about $20 in seeds that were not planted today.
But that's not the worst part.
I'm ashamed to fess up.
There is the matter of today's "hidden expense" that can only fall under the category Tragedy of Idiocy. I paid a lot more for that NyQuil haze than expected. After loading bags of potting soil as big as a pony into the trunk of the little car, I went "Whew!!" and then slammed the trunk closed. And experienced the sick realization that I'd just locked my purse and keys right in there with them. Daughter could not be reached by cell phone and husband was at work far away...for hours to come. No one local to call. This was not part of my quickie trip to the store and back plan.
I was SO NOT a happy camper. If I ever go to another garden center, I swear I'm going to wear my car keys from a chain around my neck.
Yep. The Pop-A-Lock guy was very friendly, and is a huge fan of tomatoes. The $45 dollars I paid him should get his garden off to a good start.
To view tomato photos, please visit their home sites www.jasonandyvette.com/.../tomato_mrstripey.jpg (Mr. Stripey tomato pic)
and
www.bonnieplants.com (where you can find Heirloom Beefsteak pic)
1. Feeling Better, Or LESS BAD :)
I'm now back among the living. Many thanks for the well-wishes :) I don't know if it was the flu or just a week-long Yuck that got progressively worse till I was knocked off my feet, but I'm fighting back now. Still have deep ear pain and throat infection, but it's SO much better than yesterday...hooray!
2. Got Rest Without Too Much Guilt
Morning was a Nap of Death after the early taking-of-daughter to school in the wee hours. I kept dreaming the phone was ringing but I couldn't get it. The phone HAD been ringing, but I was so gone all I could do was dream (ahhh :)).
3. Bumped Off Yesterday's To-Dos
Yesterday's big news was that I bleached down everything in the kitchen and got things under control. Including the tile floor. Myself.
This, after having gone with my husband to the attorney's office to AT LAST finalize a will. We've been trying to do that for months now. I just didn't want to postpone again, no matter how rotten I felt. So hubby, my virus, and I went to the office an hour away. Mr. Legal Man regaled us pleasantly with tales of his recent vacation to Iceland while we signed documents. I'd normally have had a lot of questions and curiosity about that, but I was a dullard. Or maybe at $150 an hour I was just wondering about how many miles he could log on his next vacation with what he was making off us. (I'm cranky and jaded when I'm sick...or when I'm well?? lol) I was counting the minutes till I could be back in the truck nursing a Big-Gulp-sized fizzy drink long enough for my stomach and me to be driven BACK HOME.
The sight that greeted me in my kitchen was enough to make me want to go to bed and not get back out. I've been out for the count for a while, and in cleaning denial. To halt the further petrification and putrification, the bleach came out, everything got fume-blasted and scrubbed, and then I medicated and went to bed. I was in an ill humor about it -- I was having nothing of Mrs. Cleaver and The Beave -- and there was a lot of therapeutic clash and clatter as I whittled down the pots-n-pan tower in the sink.
You know you're not a kid anymore when you're actually looking forward to bedtime.
4. Comfort food, on minimal scale, was consumed. By Me.
I was in serious need of some chicken soup and blanket. With their hours, my daughter and husband have hardly been home, and I just couldn't bring myself to do the whole Chicken-Carcass-and-Homemade-Everything-Chicken Soup...just too long, and I don't have any reserves frozen. So I made the only thing that is warm, comfy, and takes less than 2 minutes. Grilled cheese sandwich. Yes, it was the plastic cheese on potato bread sort. My cholesterol might have gone up, but the sandwich went down nicely in the absence of any warm soup. That and many hot mugs of Sleepytime Tea kept me feeling nurtured, even if this time it was self-nurture.
5. Slowly Shuffled Around and Made Good Food for the Fam
Did another of the apple cakes, only I substituted canned and drained blackberries. Good, but not as good as the apple.
Did a saucepan of seared chicken breasts rumbling with some pesto, canned chopped tomatoes, Italian herbs, white wine and broken spaghetti pieces, dusted with grated parmesan. This turned out great.
Homemade pizza dough with individual's choice of thinly sliced cooked (leftover from above) chicken, marinara sauce, garlic, mixed shredded cheeses, basil pesto, thinly sliced raw red onion, torn fresh spinach leaves, grated parmesan.
DELICIOUS and EASY chickpea recipe from Molly at Orangette. Her entry promised that this Chickpea with Lemon and Parmesan meal would take 5 ingredients and 5 minutes to make, and it delivered! (It takes even less time to scarf down before making another batch...) http://orangette.blogspot.com/2007/01/brown-bag-it.html Her recent post, where I found the mention, made me crave Lebanese food, which I've never had before. What an excellent site to visit (have fun, you'll get lost!)
But I digress...
6. Killed Most of the Week's Appointments Even Though I Didn't FEEL Like It
(Whine, whinge, mutter, shuffle...;-))
So much is happening, this week has been fraught with nothing but appointments. Those have been fulfilled now and crossed off, and though I don't have a lot to point to in practical terms having been accomplished, I DON'T have to worry about rescheduling a dozen things that got postponed. I just got them out of the way no matter what. DONE! :) I have one more scholarship to help my daughter pull things together for by the end of tomorrow, and a couple of letters to write for J in his attempts to do a property-trade. Yes, that is also happening. We've never heard back from the guy about the land and house, and have kept looking for other opportunities if that one falls through. J has also been job-hunting since his jobs are by assigment, and he has only been given 25 or fewer hours a week right now. That does not pay the bills. I have two interviews next week, an appointment with the nutritionist tomorrow about blood sugar related stuff, blah blah blah. And we're supposed to be getting ready for Passover....EEK!!! The time always creeps up on me this time of year! :)
7. Planted tomatoes and lettuces!!!!
This is one thing I feel realllyyy good about. I determined that in addition to my afternoon grocery trip, for which I was making an effort though I could have easily have gone right back to bed (just me and my buddy Nyquil), I thought I should stir myself, stock the fridge again, throw together some simple things for our next few meals, and call it a day. But visions of plum tomatoes were dancing in my head, and the empty large clay pots out back along with the beautiful weather were taunting me everytime I looked out the window.
I'll boil it down. I reasoned I could pull it all off in an hour, the trip to the garden center and then to the market, and home. I could do that and if I felt bad, call it a day. Or if it rejuvenated me, I'd throw some food together and then pot up all those bad boy wannabe planters. I kept this vision in my mind.
The suckage of buying plants at a garden center is probably the reality of having to stay on a budget and passing up thousands of little green and flowered things that are calling to you as you walk the aisles. I WILL be going to far away places to garner treasures of compost, wood chips, old leaves, throwaway cardboard boxes, etc, to construct my wee trial garden, but in the meantime, the empty pots I DO have already need some basic good potting soil and some plants to put in them. I've not ordered seed. I've never grown anything FROM seed (yet). I shall. But in the meantime I feel the NEED to be DOING SOMETHING rather than waiting for all those "somedays."
I bought 8 little tomato starts whose labels promised they were heirlooms. HD only had two types of heirlooms, neither of which would have been my first choice if picking from a seed catalogue. But there they were, amidst the hybrids, looking like they needed a home. Welcome, heirloom Beefsteak and Mr. Stripey!
I'm probably going to regret this, but since my pots are so large, I've planted two tomato plants per pot on either side of a stake. I want to construct support towers that stand on the ground outside of the pots as they get larger, or at least that's my present idea. If I try to anchor any sort of support within the pot, it may get topheavy and keel in a good wind. The amateur still fiddles :)
THESE are the visions that are dancing in my head at the moment... (I know, it's nowhere near the list of dozens I have going that I still plan on starting from seed..someday. But these are the first little guys who'll be kicking the bigger things off)
Heirloom Beefsteak vision...I'm thinking full-bodied flavor and heavy vines that need a nice tower and the benefit of daily private tomato-and-moi conversations.
Mr. Stripey vision. Hmmm. Beautiful streaks of red and yellow, like...Tigerella. Tigerella was on my Streaky wish list of tomato seeds. (I have lists for red, yellow, streaky, black...don't prefer pink). The picture looked similar. I was excited! The name Mr. Stripey conjures images (to me) of the loud trousers-pattern of a circus stilt-walker, while Tigerella sounds spunky, with a Grrrr. I looked up Mr. Stripey on the internet when I got home. Some folks interchange the term for Tigerella. I was elated...the same tomato? Other folks swear that Mr. Stripey is a bland beefsteak-sized version that underperforms and tastes like wall paste. Well, the suspense will last about 80 days if it's the larger, or less if it's truly the Tigerella. I'll report back when I know for sure.
I will talk to you, too, Mr. Stripey. If you are good to eat, I will save your seeds. If you are not good to eat, I will not save your seeds, but shall console you with some spectacular moments of airborne freedom as you're organically lobbed at my rascally and prolific raccoon midnight raiders. Or I'll just eat you unripe, because I was raised in the South, and Southern women WILL have their fried green tomatoes. (And you thought the green in that julep was mint??) lol
My 2 Romas that bit the dust in The Two Nights of Barely Freezing are back! And they set a LOT of blooms and came back much thicker. HOO plus RAY! I don't have TV reception where we live. I'm watching my veggie version of Survivor with rapt attention.
8. In doing the planting, experimented with the Milk Crate Planter Idea.
This sounds so lame, but I've been dying to try that experiment! (See some of my past posts, early on). I took an intact (what else?) paper grocery bag that was folded flat, laid it on the bottom and up one side of the mild crate. Perfect fit, the grocery bag top edge came just to the top edge of the crate side and was flat against the bottom. Next grocery bag was laid on the bottom of the crate facing the next side, and folded to be flat against that side, and so on till all sides were covered. This made a four layer bottom and single layer sides. In went the potting soil and amendments. I sowed lettuce for starts in this. If it holds up, I'll be using this for tomatoes or other veggies or herbs. I watered the soil and bags very well, and it contains it perfectly.
I'll be watching to compare how it weathers during the heat compared to the pots and the in-ground plants. I'll also be checking for affordable ways of picking up more of them, since they can easily be grouped together Square-foot-Garden fashion, each crate being its own square...and portable. I'm thinking of doing a bunch of strawberries in 4 or 5 since I could pierce small holes in the sides a' la strawberry pot style and double my harvest.
Maybe :)
It all took only an hour...I was jazzed! Now I have a total of 10 tomato starters, two flats and one milk crate of mesclun mix and frilly mesclun mix lettuces.
FINALLY...something got done!
Now...if I can do this, despite the work schedule, etc, each time I do my weekly grocery shopping, we can actually have a real garden this year! Yippeee!!!
9. Initial Layout of Supplies (sigh) :)
I paid for the soil amendments and already-started plants. I hate to say how much, but I have to have a figure to work with so I can bring it down from there in the future. It wasn't cheap.
It was about $60 all told. That also counts about $20 in seeds that were not planted today.
But that's not the worst part.
I'm ashamed to fess up.
There is the matter of today's "hidden expense" that can only fall under the category Tragedy of Idiocy. I paid a lot more for that NyQuil haze than expected. After loading bags of potting soil as big as a pony into the trunk of the little car, I went "Whew!!" and then slammed the trunk closed. And experienced the sick realization that I'd just locked my purse and keys right in there with them. Daughter could not be reached by cell phone and husband was at work far away...for hours to come. No one local to call. This was not part of my quickie trip to the store and back plan.
I was SO NOT a happy camper. If I ever go to another garden center, I swear I'm going to wear my car keys from a chain around my neck.
Yep. The Pop-A-Lock guy was very friendly, and is a huge fan of tomatoes. The $45 dollars I paid him should get his garden off to a good start.
To view tomato photos, please visit their home sites www.jasonandyvette.com/.../tomato_mrstripey.jpg (Mr. Stripey tomato pic)
and
www.bonnieplants.com (where you can find Heirloom Beefsteak pic)
Friday, March 16, 2007
How to Botch a Never-Fail Recipe
This all started when my daughter, seeing me perusing several dozen saved recipes for meal ideas, suggested we have something "different." She has predictable eating patterns, but it looked like a rare moment of exploration. I wanted to assist. She asked for something sweet, and proceeded to mention pre-packaged or storebought items we usually don't get, since I'm trying to do things from scratch more now, with better ingredients. We discussed, and she outlined some hankerings she'd been having in the snack department. Since she's been really aboard the fresh fruit and veggies I've been offering lately, I was happy to look into some kind of baked treat. R has an affinity for certain textures. Her comfort foods tend toward creamy, cakey, smooth, and sweet, with no raisins, nuts, or predominent crusts.
We scoured the recipe list together, and arrived at a couple she thought sounded good. I offered to fix them and if they were keepers, we'd both make them together at a later date. I made a special trip for the ingredients that day.
The recipes are simple and straightforward, and looked delicious!
They tempted with assurances that they could not fail.
Sure, I'd heard it before. Those recipes, the ones that just about convince you to forget your last kitchen disaster and launch into the choppy waters of experimentation once again.
Or you find a mixed crowd of guests at some event over at the food table all but licking a particular dish clean but trying to be all smooth about it. The cry goes forth,"this is delicious!" and the reply from the flattered dish owner asserting before witnesses "oh, it's just the easiest thing to make...my kids can even make this!"
Maybe.
They're always the same phrases - "Never-fail," "Anyone can do it," "Tried 'n true," "Anyone can make it."
But the one that always gets me is "a recipe that always delivers, that's been in our family for generations." For me, that's the hook. Norman Rockwell painted this. Someone's bubbe in Minsk always made it for the family. Thomas Jefferson brought it over from the continent and grew its ingredients in his garden. A distant cousin wrote it down on a napkin after trying to pin down her mother about proportions and measurements.
They all have one thing in common: Supposedly you can't mess them up.
And, remarkably, I nearly didn't.
Here's how I achieved the nearly-impossible, though. One has to work hard at it, but it CAN be done...
Long story short, I chose three trial recipes to coincide with our family of three's 3 different preferences. I can always freeze the surplus.
The first, for my husband, a thick, dense one layer Cranberry Cake. Oh, I could have messed it up, though the recipe is so easy. After all, somebody put whole wheat flour in with the all purpose flour in my flour bin, and this mix was what I scooped out for the flour called for. The cranberries were supposed to be fresh, but all I had were dried cranberries and blueberries. But I baked it up and it came out wonderfully...I have no idea if it was supposed to taste the way it did, but with nothing as a comparison, I was delighted with the outcome! Score One!
The second, for me...a Polish Apple Cake. The author had typed enthusiastic remarks about it being a staple of her family's fare, and it looked like a straightforward cottagey bread dessert. I could have messed this one up, too. It called for 3 large apples, but I had tiny ones, so used 5. I was interrupted multiple times during the measuring and slicing of things. I made it in a cake pan that has sometimes been prone to sticking. And I'm not even sure I like apple cake. But in it went, and out it came, and it was a vision of loveliness, truly golden, with the crisp top giving way to a perfect soft density inside and not too sweet but not bland. It even turned out of the pan just right. Score Two!!!
The third recipe, for my daughter. It was a recipe for a single layer strawberry cake. The cake mixed up fine, I had plenty of fresh strawberries sliced and arranged beautifully on top of the poured batter, and I'd made a double batch (one for freezing or giving away). I tucked them into their perfect oven, and even remembered to do as the directions called for and turn the temp down 25 degrees after the first ten minutes. Halfway through their bake, they were still doing fine, so I set the timer for a few more minutes, did my third sinkful of dishes, and sat down in the other room to rest and check emails. It was then I began smelling something amiss.
I trotted into the kitchen to see what was up, and both cakes had begun burbling their contents over the edges of the pans. Not just a sputter here or there. We had a middle-school volcano science project on our hands. What to do? They werent set yet, but only lacked about 15 minutes to go. I comforted myself with the thought that I have a self-cleaning oven. I bravely decided that whatever was left of the cakes would remain to finish cooking, and then I would engage the oven to clean itself.
Smoke was happening by now. Oh brother. On went the exhaust fan. I finally retrieved them, and despite the eruption of much of their contents, there were two beautiful cakes all browned up and looking only slighty overblown in their beauty. They went to cool on the flat oven cook surface. I surveyed the oven. Two crop circles of charred batter spill lay on the bottom of the stove interior. Stalactites of burnt dough spill hung from the grid of oven racks. It was all smelling really burnt. I surveyed the easy push-button panel and chose the Self Clean button. It instructed me to Lock Oven. I looked for a lock. Ah, yes, that black bar. Lock it I did.
Like I said, the strawberry cakes remained on the stovetop, which was cool and not hot. The cakes were beautiful.
I left the oven to its own cleaning devices and went back to sit down and relax. About ten minutes later, R ran in with her eyes watering, coughing. "Open the windows, Mom! This smoke is really dangerous." I entered the kitchen and now I understand how people can be asphyxiated. The fumes from the stove were acrid and black and so stingingly chemical we couldnt stay in there. I took R outside and then ran through the house opening all the windows and turning on all the fans. And then the doors. After 15 minutes of this, I'd had enough. Clean or not clean, the fumes were so bad my whole house was going to be stinking and toxic. I turned off the self-clean and we stayed outside till the air cleared somewhat.
Still, I thought everything was alright foodwise.
The cranberry cake fared ok...it was under glass on a cake stand.
The apple cake fared ok...it was wrapped in foil.
The strawberry cakes still looked lovely. Looks can be deceiving.
I'll just state for the record that there was black on the outside of my oven from the smoke that had roiled out during the cleaning, and that was only inches away from the cooling cakes. It wiped away like soot, and smelled horrid.
It had also flavored both strawberry cakes, but we didn't discover that until our first bites. R hates crusts anyway, so she was digging the soft moist parts out of her piece. She was spared. But truly, the cakes were ruined, and 2 lbs of fresh strawberries. They were asphyxiated. But beautiful in their awfulness.
Somewhere, in a volunteer fire department far far away, there is probably a group of men who would love this recipe. You'll find it in their annual department cookbook under Never Fail Recipes, category "Smoker Cooking."
It will be in Savory, not Dessert.
We scoured the recipe list together, and arrived at a couple she thought sounded good. I offered to fix them and if they were keepers, we'd both make them together at a later date. I made a special trip for the ingredients that day.
The recipes are simple and straightforward, and looked delicious!
They tempted with assurances that they could not fail.
Sure, I'd heard it before. Those recipes, the ones that just about convince you to forget your last kitchen disaster and launch into the choppy waters of experimentation once again.
Or you find a mixed crowd of guests at some event over at the food table all but licking a particular dish clean but trying to be all smooth about it. The cry goes forth,"this is delicious!" and the reply from the flattered dish owner asserting before witnesses "oh, it's just the easiest thing to make...my kids can even make this!"
Maybe.
They're always the same phrases - "Never-fail," "Anyone can do it," "Tried 'n true," "Anyone can make it."
But the one that always gets me is "a recipe that always delivers, that's been in our family for generations." For me, that's the hook. Norman Rockwell painted this. Someone's bubbe in Minsk always made it for the family. Thomas Jefferson brought it over from the continent and grew its ingredients in his garden. A distant cousin wrote it down on a napkin after trying to pin down her mother about proportions and measurements.
They all have one thing in common: Supposedly you can't mess them up.
And, remarkably, I nearly didn't.
Here's how I achieved the nearly-impossible, though. One has to work hard at it, but it CAN be done...
Long story short, I chose three trial recipes to coincide with our family of three's 3 different preferences. I can always freeze the surplus.
The first, for my husband, a thick, dense one layer Cranberry Cake. Oh, I could have messed it up, though the recipe is so easy. After all, somebody put whole wheat flour in with the all purpose flour in my flour bin, and this mix was what I scooped out for the flour called for. The cranberries were supposed to be fresh, but all I had were dried cranberries and blueberries. But I baked it up and it came out wonderfully...I have no idea if it was supposed to taste the way it did, but with nothing as a comparison, I was delighted with the outcome! Score One!
The second, for me...a Polish Apple Cake. The author had typed enthusiastic remarks about it being a staple of her family's fare, and it looked like a straightforward cottagey bread dessert. I could have messed this one up, too. It called for 3 large apples, but I had tiny ones, so used 5. I was interrupted multiple times during the measuring and slicing of things. I made it in a cake pan that has sometimes been prone to sticking. And I'm not even sure I like apple cake. But in it went, and out it came, and it was a vision of loveliness, truly golden, with the crisp top giving way to a perfect soft density inside and not too sweet but not bland. It even turned out of the pan just right. Score Two!!!
The third recipe, for my daughter. It was a recipe for a single layer strawberry cake. The cake mixed up fine, I had plenty of fresh strawberries sliced and arranged beautifully on top of the poured batter, and I'd made a double batch (one for freezing or giving away). I tucked them into their perfect oven, and even remembered to do as the directions called for and turn the temp down 25 degrees after the first ten minutes. Halfway through their bake, they were still doing fine, so I set the timer for a few more minutes, did my third sinkful of dishes, and sat down in the other room to rest and check emails. It was then I began smelling something amiss.
I trotted into the kitchen to see what was up, and both cakes had begun burbling their contents over the edges of the pans. Not just a sputter here or there. We had a middle-school volcano science project on our hands. What to do? They werent set yet, but only lacked about 15 minutes to go. I comforted myself with the thought that I have a self-cleaning oven. I bravely decided that whatever was left of the cakes would remain to finish cooking, and then I would engage the oven to clean itself.
Smoke was happening by now. Oh brother. On went the exhaust fan. I finally retrieved them, and despite the eruption of much of their contents, there were two beautiful cakes all browned up and looking only slighty overblown in their beauty. They went to cool on the flat oven cook surface. I surveyed the oven. Two crop circles of charred batter spill lay on the bottom of the stove interior. Stalactites of burnt dough spill hung from the grid of oven racks. It was all smelling really burnt. I surveyed the easy push-button panel and chose the Self Clean button. It instructed me to Lock Oven. I looked for a lock. Ah, yes, that black bar. Lock it I did.
Like I said, the strawberry cakes remained on the stovetop, which was cool and not hot. The cakes were beautiful.
I left the oven to its own cleaning devices and went back to sit down and relax. About ten minutes later, R ran in with her eyes watering, coughing. "Open the windows, Mom! This smoke is really dangerous." I entered the kitchen and now I understand how people can be asphyxiated. The fumes from the stove were acrid and black and so stingingly chemical we couldnt stay in there. I took R outside and then ran through the house opening all the windows and turning on all the fans. And then the doors. After 15 minutes of this, I'd had enough. Clean or not clean, the fumes were so bad my whole house was going to be stinking and toxic. I turned off the self-clean and we stayed outside till the air cleared somewhat.
Still, I thought everything was alright foodwise.
The cranberry cake fared ok...it was under glass on a cake stand.
The apple cake fared ok...it was wrapped in foil.
The strawberry cakes still looked lovely. Looks can be deceiving.
I'll just state for the record that there was black on the outside of my oven from the smoke that had roiled out during the cleaning, and that was only inches away from the cooling cakes. It wiped away like soot, and smelled horrid.
It had also flavored both strawberry cakes, but we didn't discover that until our first bites. R hates crusts anyway, so she was digging the soft moist parts out of her piece. She was spared. But truly, the cakes were ruined, and 2 lbs of fresh strawberries. They were asphyxiated. But beautiful in their awfulness.
Somewhere, in a volunteer fire department far far away, there is probably a group of men who would love this recipe. You'll find it in their annual department cookbook under Never Fail Recipes, category "Smoker Cooking."
It will be in Savory, not Dessert.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
A Cautionary Kitchen Tale
The Story of Robbyn's (not-so) Magic Mushrooms
or "Robbyn's Deep Dark Culinary Secret, brought to you through flashbacks while preparing tonight's Chicken and Mushrooms with Cream Sauce."
I made a chicken dish with mushrooms tonight (see other entry for details.) It was delicious.
I don't think I've ever achieved "prowess" status, but there are some dishes I do well. And I'm still trying and learning.
However, tonight I had a flashback, of the gastronomic Post-Traumatic Stress variety. It's not for the faint of heart, but if you want to shake your head and content yourself with the reassurance that you've never sunk quite THIS low in the kitchen, read on...it'll boost nearly anyone's confidence!
(key the wavering organ music now)
This tale (unfortunately true) is related to my ignorance of kitchen implements and food-handling practices. My mother never got me beyond the Survival Basics in the kitchen department. I had years of learning, and un-learning to do to create edible fare. Any "helps" along the way were utilized, if possible.
In those learning days, to me, the pre-washed bags of lettuce were a great invention, since I could pop open a bag and Presto! add veggies and have the salad portion of meals taken care of. I still will often get some Butter lettuce mix, hearts of romaine, or Spring mix for our salads. I hope to phase these out as I'm trying my hand at growing my own lettuces. But in those days, cooking was the survival of the fittest, and there were many good recipes that died in my amateur hands.
I served clean, edible food. Especially the pre-washed sort.
Only I'm afraid that was NOT the case when it came to my treatment of heads of iceberg lettuce and cabbage. (Though I thought it was) Somehow I had a genetic intelligence failure in respect to those veggies. I now know those should be carefully and thorougly hand-washed, inside and out. You don't just tear off the few outer soiled leaves of a cabbage and then assume the best regarding what's inside. At least MOST people don't. You wash the whole shebang, even if you have to disassemble it and blast it with running water.
You know this. Your children know this. Paramecia and amoeba and other single-celled life forms know this. The balance of the world population knows this.
Of course I did not know this...
You'd think an otherwise-intelligent woman might have figured this out earlier. After all, I DID diligently washed any berries and fruits that came my way, knowing that most of them had been sprayed at some point with insecticides before market. But the cabbage and iceberg were so tightly contained, after peeling back and discarding the first few soiled layers of leaves, I figured nothing COULD get down in there into those leaves if it wanted to. (Boy, was I ignorant!)
For years, and I do mean years, I served my family (and company) unwashed iceberg lettuce, and cabbage. That's pretty nauseating. But that's not the worst. This ignorance also extended to (ubboy, here goes...)
...MUSHROOMS.
(yeah, you heard it right)
Some of you may KNOW what those little brown flecks around the supermarket mushrooms are, the ones nestled whole or sliced in their little cartons in the produce section. My assumption was that since they were pre-packaged and pre-sliced, they were pre-washed. And that those little brown flecks were "mushroom flecks."
It was only a couple years ago when I learned what those "flecks" really were...sanitized chicken poop.
Truly.
Just to be sure, I checked the label. SURELY these things were pre-washed...after all, they were pre-sliced!! In the tiniest label print, the sort you usually see at the bottom of Same Day Car Loan contracts, it stated the mushrooms should be washed before use. You mean...I'd been serving....chicken poop mushrooms...???
Ewwwwww.............!!!!!
I'm haunted by memories of company, at dinner, exclaiming "This has to be some of the BEST beef burgundy I've ever had."
(Ermm, the secret's in the sauce?)
So THAT, my friends, is probably my darkest Kitchen Confession.
Tonight's mushrooms were scrubbed to a standard of sanitization Mr. Clean himself couldn't hope to achieve.
And, to be sure, I'm off beef burgundy for a long, longgggggg time ;-)
or "Robbyn's Deep Dark Culinary Secret, brought to you through flashbacks while preparing tonight's Chicken and Mushrooms with Cream Sauce."
I made a chicken dish with mushrooms tonight (see other entry for details.) It was delicious.
I don't think I've ever achieved "prowess" status, but there are some dishes I do well. And I'm still trying and learning.
However, tonight I had a flashback, of the gastronomic Post-Traumatic Stress variety. It's not for the faint of heart, but if you want to shake your head and content yourself with the reassurance that you've never sunk quite THIS low in the kitchen, read on...it'll boost nearly anyone's confidence!
(key the wavering organ music now)
This tale (unfortunately true) is related to my ignorance of kitchen implements and food-handling practices. My mother never got me beyond the Survival Basics in the kitchen department. I had years of learning, and un-learning to do to create edible fare. Any "helps" along the way were utilized, if possible.
In those learning days, to me, the pre-washed bags of lettuce were a great invention, since I could pop open a bag and Presto! add veggies and have the salad portion of meals taken care of. I still will often get some Butter lettuce mix, hearts of romaine, or Spring mix for our salads. I hope to phase these out as I'm trying my hand at growing my own lettuces. But in those days, cooking was the survival of the fittest, and there were many good recipes that died in my amateur hands.
I served clean, edible food. Especially the pre-washed sort.
Only I'm afraid that was NOT the case when it came to my treatment of heads of iceberg lettuce and cabbage. (Though I thought it was) Somehow I had a genetic intelligence failure in respect to those veggies. I now know those should be carefully and thorougly hand-washed, inside and out. You don't just tear off the few outer soiled leaves of a cabbage and then assume the best regarding what's inside. At least MOST people don't. You wash the whole shebang, even if you have to disassemble it and blast it with running water.
You know this. Your children know this. Paramecia and amoeba and other single-celled life forms know this. The balance of the world population knows this.
Of course I did not know this...
You'd think an otherwise-intelligent woman might have figured this out earlier. After all, I DID diligently washed any berries and fruits that came my way, knowing that most of them had been sprayed at some point with insecticides before market. But the cabbage and iceberg were so tightly contained, after peeling back and discarding the first few soiled layers of leaves, I figured nothing COULD get down in there into those leaves if it wanted to. (Boy, was I ignorant!)
For years, and I do mean years, I served my family (and company) unwashed iceberg lettuce, and cabbage. That's pretty nauseating. But that's not the worst. This ignorance also extended to (ubboy, here goes...)
...MUSHROOMS.
(yeah, you heard it right)
Some of you may KNOW what those little brown flecks around the supermarket mushrooms are, the ones nestled whole or sliced in their little cartons in the produce section. My assumption was that since they were pre-packaged and pre-sliced, they were pre-washed. And that those little brown flecks were "mushroom flecks."
It was only a couple years ago when I learned what those "flecks" really were...sanitized chicken poop.
Truly.
Just to be sure, I checked the label. SURELY these things were pre-washed...after all, they were pre-sliced!! In the tiniest label print, the sort you usually see at the bottom of Same Day Car Loan contracts, it stated the mushrooms should be washed before use. You mean...I'd been serving....chicken poop mushrooms...???
Ewwwwww.............!!!!!
I'm haunted by memories of company, at dinner, exclaiming "This has to be some of the BEST beef burgundy I've ever had."
(Ermm, the secret's in the sauce?)
So THAT, my friends, is probably my darkest Kitchen Confession.
Tonight's mushrooms were scrubbed to a standard of sanitization Mr. Clean himself couldn't hope to achieve.
And, to be sure, I'm off beef burgundy for a long, longgggggg time ;-)
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