Food/Crafts/Books Girl

Tri-FAIL!!!

Last month my friend had what we'll just call a Politically Correct kitchen goods party. I had had my eye on a certain piece of bakeware for a while and we needed to replace something else we owned so we went to said party, had a good time and that was that. When the stuff came in I thought ooh! I can make the recipes from the party for dinner now! Yay veggie pizza and cookie pizza! We're going to have Politically Correct dinner this week!!!

Last night was Politically Correct dinner night. Normally if things happen in the kitchen I get annoyed but roll with it. However, yesterday afternoon at work was made of fail so I was in no mood to put up with it at home. Also keep in mind that I don't read all the way through directions ahead of time so yeah, it's pretty much always a recipe for disaster. With that in mind I got out my new large piece of bakeware and started to press the croissant dough into it to make the veggie pizza. That's when I realized that oops! The croissant dough was too small for the new large piece of bakeware and I'd need to use my medium piece of bakeware. Keep in mind, I need to feed three adults and a crazy toddler from this pizza which suddenly is the size of what, a sheet of legal paper? Craaaaaaaap. I put it together anyway, put it in the oven and pouted to the Husband. He, being the usual voice of reason, calmly stated that we had to run errands anyway so if dinner didn't feed us well enough that we could pick something up while we're out. Still pouty, I went back into the kitchen to prepare the crust for the cookie pizza. The dough log was a little too firm to spread into the bar pan. Sigh. I chopped leftover veggies from the night before's grilled kebobs (a much better dinner endeavor, we'll be doing those again sometime soon!) and took the pizza crust out when it was done. While I waited for it to cool I put the large piece of bakeware on top of the stove to warm the dough and make it more spreadable. Then I made the cream cheese/mayo/seasoning goo to go on top of the pizza, assembled everything and we were good for dinner. By this time the dough was soft so I pressed it into the large piece of bakeware and that's when I hit the next snag.

Upon thinking about it, I think I remember the person demonstrating left about an inch worth of border around the cookie crust so she could get it out of the pan. Hmmm. I, however, got frustrated because it didn't fill the pan, swore a couple times, and put it in the over to cook while we had dinner. I consoled myself with the thought that at least I could try the cool trick the demonstrator lady had done- after you take the cookie out, let it cool ten minutes then run a piece of floss underneath it to loosen it from the pan. Magic!!! Ha. Dinner went longer than fifteen minutes so when the cookie came out it was brown. Brown as in a little burned. Gah!!! Then remember those errands we had to run? Yeah, it was after eight and everything closes at nine so we piled into the car and away we went. The cookie stayed in the pan. So we get home almost two hours later and I start putting toppings together for the cookie pizza. That's when I remembered- I need to get the cookie off the pan. Okay, I went to the bathroom, got the floss and... crap. Stuck to the pan. I get out what we call the trowel spatula- the one on the left. That didn't do it either. Gah. I grabbed the wide spatula thing we use for cooking meat- it's about six inches across and not made of metal so I know it won't scratch- and managed to chisel off some of the cookie. At this point I almost lost my shizzle but thought hmmm, maybe piling goo on top will moisten it somewhat. Also, the Toddler was all DESSERT!!! DESSERT MOMMY DESSERT!!! so I looked at the Husband and asked if he'd like some cookie trifle. I think he was relieved he wouldn't have to pet my hair and call me pretty. He went off and fed the Toddler, who ate it and proclaimed there was a party in her tummy.

So there you go. Not exactly what we were going for but now I know and the best part? The Husband cleaned up while I started bedtime. Can't ask for better than that.

The meal so nice we made it twice

Last Thursday we made pretzel crusted chicken with cheddar mustard sauce. It was really good and it made a ton of sauce. What can we do with all this sauce, we asked? Well, we had leftover pretzels, so we used it as dip. I got a loaf of french bread at the farmers market on Saturday, so we sliced that up and spread it on there. We still had a ton of it left, though. When Monday rolled around we still had a bunch of the sauce left. What to do, what to do? Of course, make it again.

Really, this is an easy meal to do. Pound the crap out of the chicken- a fun activity when you have frustrations to work out, which I did. Oh, I did. Send the pretzel crumbs for a spin in the food processor with some thyme, then toss them in a pie tin with some pepper. Then it's a few quick dips- pretzels, egg, pretzel again and into the hot oil. The first time I did this I ran out of pretzels, mainly because the recipe called for 5 ounces of pretzels and I got a big bag, poured some out and said yeah, that looks like 5 ounces, we're good. I don't think anyone noticed I breaded that last one in panko. At least, no one complained... When I fried them I did it in two bunches and really, that didn't add too much time on to the final total.

I don't know if I've learned or what, but this task was really good for the multitasking. While the chicken fried I made the sauce. It's a standard melt the butter, add the flour, then dump in the cheese kind of thing. I should have realized when I saw it required three cups of cheese just how much sauce it was going to make, but you know me. The recipe called for two cups of sharp cheddar and one of the white extra sharp cheddar. I had forgotten to get that extra brick of the extra sharp white so three cups of the sharp yellow it is! Okay! It also called for spicy brown mustard. Luckily for us I'd just gotten some at Trader Joe's- usually I buy the dijon but lately it's been tasting... burny. Ick. Anyway, the sauce came together quickly and by the time the chicken was done we had ourselves a meal. I think she suggested serving it with pickles and a slaw but we had a salad and that went over just fine.

We really liked this. The added benefit of having enough sauce to make it again the next week was a good deal- it made Monday's dinner quick and easy and we had the whole weekend between servings so it didn't feel like we were eating it all the time. Monday's dinner went together quickly and easily. I think we all agreed, the only thing we'd change was we'd add another tablespoon of mustard to the sauce because the mustard wasn't really a prevalent flavor. All in all, though, a keeper.

Kick out the jams, mother f$*&er!!!

On my list of fun things to do this year, make jam. I remember my mother when I was a kid, turning tons and tons of strawberries into jars and jars of jam she stored in the freezer and just how good it tasted the whole year. I ate toast and jam with breakfast every morning, I had peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwiches, I loved loved loved strawberry freezer jam. I did a little looking not too long ago and read that freezer jam is super freaking easy. Of course, that means there's ample opportunity for me to screw this up, right?

It turns out that making freezer jam is like making margaritas. You get the supplies and figure everyone's going to basically tell you the same thing, right? Then the tequila says two parts tequila, one part mix and the mix says one part tequila, two parts mix and after three or four you just start mixing them even and suddenly you're throwing up in your best friend's backyard. Whoops, maybe that's just me...Anyway, I started with the Kraft foods recipe. That called for 2 cups of crushed strawberries, a box of pectin, four cups of sugar and some water. Of course the pectin box agreed with that, because I got the brand they asked for. The containers I got to put the jam in, however, said four cups of crushed fruit, a box of pectin, a cup and a half of sugar and you're good to go. Since that was the easier of the recipes, I thought what the hey and away I went.

I put water on to boil to sterilize the jars and started prepping the strawberries. That went easily enough, as did the boiling the containers. The strawberries got mashed and I mixed the sugar and pectin, then mixed the strawberries with them for the full three minutes. The husband helped as I filled the jars and put the lids on, then we waited the half hour until they could be put into the freezer. We filled all five jars, as well as a small four ounce container we pulled from the cupboard and hurriedly boiled. The regular containers went into the freezer. The small container went into the fridge for "quality control" reasons.

This morning I woke up all excited. I went downstairs, got out the jam, made some toast and opened the container. Insert the wah waaaaaaah noise, because the jam hadn't set up yet. I swapped out the knife for a spoon and spooned it over the toast. Not too bad. A little tart. Still enjoyable, though.

I looked at the Kraft recipe again and noticed it said let sit at room temperature for a full day before putting in the fridge, so maybe that's part of it and by tomorrow it'll be more set? We shall see. I think today we'll try the Kraft recipe and see how that comes out. The container recipe says you can use it with all kinds of fruit, so maybe I'll give it another shot with some peaches or raspberries. Hmmm.

It worked well enough, so we're trying it again

Two weeks ago we did Rachael Ray week, where we cooked our dinners out of her 365 dinner cookbook. That didn't go too badly. We enjoyed the tex-mex meatloaf patties and in the long run they weren't too hard. The Husband really loved the over roasted chicken and salad so we'll do that again too. I never reported on the ginger lime chicken but smell? Great. Effort? More than I'm down with for the taste, which was just okay. Good things about that week were that it wasn't that hard to do, it led to the Husband saying he'd be down with eating more vegetables, which floored me because he is so not a veg man, and I discovered a couple other recipes that looked interesting. When the Husband said he'd be willing to continue on this culinary journey I had him pick four numbers from 1-12 and we had our dinners for the week.

I will say this about doing meals like this. One of the good things is that RR uses the same ingredients over and over again, so I can buy a huge bunch of green onions or a big bag of potatoes and know that I'll be using them during the week, so, you know, stocking the pantry. Unfortunately, she also uses a lot of the same ingredients over and over so yeah. I don't think I've ever eaten so many green onions in my life as I did last week. Wow. It did mean we went through a bag and a half of frozen chicken breasts during that week. You know, that's a good thing in that we still have some in the freezer for this week, but I spent $20 on meat this week, between the two pounds of flank steak and the two pounds of pork tenderloin. Really, the grocery bill has been about the same as it was before, so I can't complain too much.

Tonight's dinner was #234, big beef and garlic Italian stir fry. I actually read the recipe through this week (sort of, more on that later) so in theory I was prepared. I put the broccoli to steam in the microwave- we used frozen instead of the broccoli rabe, trying to break the Husband in slowly- then started slicing the steak. I was worried about cooking flank steak because I'd heard it was easy for it to cook up tough and yeah, it did turn out that way a little. Basically what you're supposed to do is heat the oil on high, then put the meat down in a single layer and don't touch it for a couple minutes while it caramelizes. La la la large pan what?! The pan I used wasn't large enough? Crap! Ah well, it all cooked up in about the time she said it would, it just took some extra pushing around in the pan after I flipped it. Because I am a slacker I also didn't follow the "slice up some garlic and brown it" direction, I just browned some minced garlic out of a jar. After the meat was done the veg went in and I had thought that just salt, pepper and crushed red pepper was not super much in the seasoning department so I added a tablespoon of Italian seasoning. The meat was supposed to go back in but ha! Noooooo room! I got out the small dutch oven and scraped everything in and kept cooking. At that point everything got a splash of balsamic vinegar and we were done. I looked at the book and the final instruction was "Serve with crusty white bread." Um, what? Whoops! Looks like we're serving this one with rice!

Final cooking time for this came in at about 50 minutes. I can't exactly say why, either. I mean, while the broccoli cooked I sliced the steak and that took maybe five minutes, then the steak was three minutes on a side so while that sat I sliced the red pepper so it was ready to go in when called for. I honestly don't know what took this so long. Huh.

Reactions for dinner were mixed. I thought it was okay. You could really taste the balsamic vinegar in the veg. The steak was a bit chewy. The crushed red pepper was a VERY present flavor. The sister in law was pretty quiet about it and I'm pretty sure she didn't like it. The Husband was enthusiastic. He loved the broccoli. He was all "I don't know what you did, but it didn't taste like broccoli usually does!" Yeah, that would be the vinegar taste. The Toddler loved the red pepper and for once I didn't have to hide the broccoli behind something, she ate it willingly. It took her forever to chew the beef and that made me feel guilty. All in all, I'd put this at a low maybe for "Would you make this again?"

One closing thought. One of the recipes this week calls for orzo. Our localish grocery chain didn't have orzo, but I wasn't super surprised. I forgot to check at the other local chain store, but tonight when I look I'm willing to bet they'll have it because htey have a lot of different pastas. The Husband was running errands tonight and I had him look at Trader Joe's, because I knew I'd seen it there before and come on, they're Trader freaking Joe's! Of course they're going to have orzo, right? Hah. The guy told the Husband they'd just stopped carrying it. Argh. Let's hope the grocery has it when I go in tonight.

RR week, day three- insert buzzer sound here

The Husband tore a muscle in his leg, as I believe I mentioned previously, so that leaves me to pick up the slack at our house. Part of that slack picking up is mowing. The way our schedules go the best time for me to do it during the day is during dinner break. Last week our dinner was something that went together quickly and went in the oven to bake while I mowed. With all the RR recipes this week, that didn't quite work. So tonight's dinner was pizza from our favorite place. Since I didn't make dinner, I'm going to try and stay in the swing of things and tell you about Saturday night's dinner. Hot diggety damn.

We occasionally do date night and for my birthday the Husband had gotten me a gift certificate for a local tapas place. One of the tv stations does dining out deals where you pay, say, $25 and get a $50 gift certificate for a local restaurant. We had planned on going there but we couldn't find the gift certificate. Our backup plan was mini golf, but with the Husband's torn muscle? Cue the sad trombone. We were driving towards an area with a bunch of restaurants and he asked what food I really really wanted. Out of my mouth popped "Salmon!" We discussed hitting somewhere generic like Red Lobster but somehow we ended up at Mitchell's Fish Market.

This was a big deal for me, because I love seafood. Not so much for the Husband, since he hates it. In fact, if you look at the menu and see the lack of non-fish choices, you'll see just how much he loves me. I was so freaking excited to be there. I was going to get a big girl cocktail but the server, who was lovely, talked me into the wine special, which was Sokol Blosser Evolution White Blend. Very nice. Then, because I am a whore, I got the lobster bisque as a starter. I love lobster bisque if it's done well and this? Oh my goodness. It was rich, buttery, creamy, velvety, with nice shreddy chunks of lobster. Oh. I almost licked the bowl. The Husband went for the "Titanic" wedge of iceberg, because he was being a dork :^)  Dinner for him was their parmesan crusted chicken. Imagine our surprise when what he got was four chicken breast halves served with a big mound of pasta. My dinner? Let me take a moment.

I really really wanted salmon. I was debating between their fresh catch salmon, broiled, and their cedar plank salmon. Did I want the mashed potatoes that came with the fresh catch or the roasted vegetables that came with the cedar plank salmon? That's when our server told us about the salmon that was on special. Wow. It was this Alaskan salmon pulled from the Sitka river and once a year for a short time only they're in season. Market price was obscene but she talked me into it with her description, that it was rich, had a deeper flavor, was more meaty and hey, it was full of more Omega 3s! Woo! Plus she told me I could get the cedar plank salmon with that substituted in and if I wanted potatoes instead of the asparagus, she would not stand in my way. Sold!!!

Was it worth it? I would have to put this meal in the top ten meals of my lifetime, quite possibly at number 5. Hot diggity damn. You know how sometimes you eat something and it's just. So. Good. you have to close your eyes so you're not distracted by anything, you just want to focus on that flavor, that wonderful wonderful taste that baby angels quite possibly just delicately placed on your tongue? That was it. It was moist, it was rich, it was wonderful, it was quite possibly the prime rib of fish. Holy schnikies. The roasted tomatoes and balsamic glaze were tangy little pops of sweet that fit in oh so nicely with the buttery rich wonderful salmon taste. At one point I offered some to the Husband. He declined, saying he didn't want me to waste it on him. Uh uh. I made him try it, telling him it was too good to not try it. Also awesome? The velvety strips of portabella that were on top. Mmmmmmmmm.

As if that weren't enough, we also got dessert. We shared a very tasty piece of key lime pie that they made with macadamia nuts, of all things. That was really good and we were so full we brought half of it home. It ended up my dessert reward tonight for mowing the lawn. I got coffee to go with it. I always forget how good the coffee is at any of the Mitchell restaurants. I don't know what they use but it's always this nice full bodied flavor that I love and have to drink at least four cups of.

So that was our lovely dinner out. I think what made the experience all the better was our server. She was very kind to us, considering I was wearing denim capris and my Friday I'm In Love shirt because we hadn't anticipated anything fancy. She was so helpful and genuinely interested in helping us figure out what we wanted and getting it to us. I think good servers make the experience just as much as good food does.

Tomorrow night? Back to the RR meals, and either chicken divan and egg noodle bake or ginger lime chicken that's supposed to be with string beans and wasabi smashed potatoes but will most likely be me heating some frozen green beans and just plain smashed potatoes because, you know, you have to leave out what people don't like.

RR Week, night 2

Tonight's dinner was #165, pan roasted garlic and herb chicken breasts with chopped salad and creamy caper dressing. I have to confess, I have two problems. One is I don't read instructions all the way through before I start something. I check the ingredient list to make sure we have everything- okay, I really eyeball the ingredient list and think yeah, we probably have that. Who DOESN'T have balsamic vinegar? and that often comes back to bite me in the butt. Anyway, I follow along in the recipe and suddenly I realize hey, this cooks for an hour. We're having people over in 20 minutes. Craaaaaaaap. Problem two is I suffer from a lack of vision. I look at the title of this recipe and think oooh, that sounds nifty. I look at the ingredients and think yeah, we have all those. Then I go to make it and realized dude, I could have saved you the half hour and just driven to the store and bought a bag of salad and a rotisserie chicken. Because that's what this was. A bag of salad and an all breast rotisserie chicken. It was tasty, oh yeah, and the Husband loved it way better than salad and chicken night, but yeah. For some reason I did not realize that's what it would turn out to be. I have to admit, I did like it better than the chicken I grilled last week that was marinated in Penzey's herbs and served with a pasta salad, but whatever.

Tonight's dinner did clock in at half an hour, which was nice because hey! I got back to work at a reasonable time! This was even with starting in the penalty box of forgetting to set the chicken out to defrost. Thankfully I found a clean pan- our hot water heater broke today so I couldn't have easily washed one to use. I made the marinade- olive oil, garlic, parsley, salt, pepper and my go to kick substitute, cayenne, because we don't have hot sauce. We don't use it- while the chicken was defrosting, then gave the bag of chicken and marinade to the Husband to fondle for the five minutes they suggest. If I'm speed marinating I tend to do that, I stab the chicken all over with a fork then let someone work the marinade into the meat. While that was going on I put together the dressing, which was mayo, dijon mustard, red wine vinegar, dill and olive oil. I left out the capers because again, no one eats them at our house. The chicken was ready and apparently was worked well enough into the chicken that there wasn't a lot of goo left to pour out with the breasts. They browned up nicely in the pan and went into the oven for 15 minutes. That gave me ample time to chop up some veg- she suggested chopping up radicchio but I wasn't sure how that would go over so I used... a bag of salad. Maybe this is where I should have seen what was coming? I only used half the veg she called for- half a pint of grape tomatoes and half a cucumber and four out of the six scallions since that's all I had. I added some cheese because at our house, everything's better with cheese, then poured the dressing on top and tossed the salad. I still had seven or eight minutes left so that gave me ample time to pour myself a nice glass of orvieto from Trader Joe's and poll my constituents about how to serve the chicken- whole or sliced and on top of the salad. Huh. You'd think maybe it would have hit me then. Nope! Consensus was sliced and on top. I have to admit I was relieved because I wasn't sure the chicken would be done all the way so this gave me a chance to peek.

This was a big hit at our house. I mentioned that huh, it's just like rotisserie chicken and bag of salad night and the Husband really disagreed with me. He thought the chicken was more flavorful and the salad was way better. He admitted that he was digging the cucumber, which I pretty much never buy when we do salads, and the chicken was more flavorful this way. The Toddler was all over me every minute or so, asking "Chicken? Chicken?" so I take that as a rousing endorsement. When all was said and done we had enough leftovers for one salad, light on the lettuce. Usually we have enough salad for the next day, as well as maybe a third of the chicken left? Huh. Maybe I should remember this, if we have the ingredients, the next time I think about chicken and salad night. It really was quick and easy. I liked the flavors.

We will do this again, thanks to the speed and ease of how it goes together, and I think I'll ask the Husband if he'd want croutons next time. The recipe called for serving it with toasted bread but I was lazy. Maybe I should have, we didn't have croutons. The Husband is a crouton whore and I think the Toddler is following suit. At our house, he's Toast Daddy. At lunch if we're having sandwiches, he needs to toast an extra piece of bread for the Toddler to eat while we feed her bits of sandwich. Anyway, definitely a hit.

I am not sure how tomorrow night will go because I need to mow the grass during my dinner hour. Last week I put dinner together, threw it into the oven and then went out to mow. The remaining recipes I picked aren't as easy as all that. Hmmm. We'll see what happens.

Our week of cooking Rachael Ray, day one.

Oh, hi! Apparently I'm down to posting once a year now? Huh. I'm going to try and change that. I've actually been baking and cooking a lot. Reading not so much and knitting, kinda eh. I'm about 25 rows away from finishing a baby blanket I've been knitting since last September. That may sound like I haven't been knitting a lot but while I was knitting that baby blanket I managed to knit myself a big old cabled sweater and an intarsia/entrelac baby blanket for a friend, so there you go. Anyway, let's skip on over to the food part.

I feel like I've been making the same things over and over again lately so I decided it was time for a change up. I went through Rachael Ray's 365 no repeats cookbook and picked out like a dozen recipes, then had the Husband pick out four. Those became this week's menu and we'll use the remaining ones in the next week or so. It's Rachael Ray week at Food/Crafts/Books Girl's place! Here we go.

Tonight's recipe was cheddar studded tex-mex meatloaf patties with scallion smashed potatoes and a gravy. We've had other meat patties with gravy by RR before and not really had a problem with them so I figured these wouldn't be too bad. Mix the meat and seasonings, make patties and fry them up while the potatoes were cooking. 30 minutes easy, right? Ha!

I will tell you that I was starting with a serious time deficit in the first place, because the Husband tore a muscle in his leg so he hasn't been able to wash dishes. Before cooking I needed to wash a pot for the potatoes and a pan for the meat. Also, I would like to point out that RR doesn't have a toddler running amok in the kitchen, pulling stuff out of the recycle bins, grabbing legs and saying UP!!! as she walks by, reaching for things on counters, demanding a bite of potato because she thinks it's mango. Uh, no, kid. So, you know, spot me 20 minutes on the clock. At least I'd thought to defrost the meat, but I hadn't thought to defrost a tomato paste cube. That was pretty easily taken care of, though.

Other than the dish washing, the biggest eater of time was recipe "assembly". Sometimes in her cookbook she puts in a recipe, like cajun style meat patties with maple pecan green beans, and then shows you to adapt it to be cheddar studded tex mex meat patties. How does she do that? By putting a list on the recipe that says "Leave out..." and "Add this". When you make the recipe you basically have to flip back and forth between the two, combining them in your head before you do it in the mixing bowl. Oh so frustrating, and it explains how I got the patties made and while the oil was heating I realized there was nothing tex mex about these patties. Argh! In go the spices (coriander and cumin) and the cheese (shredded cheddar). I'm not entirely certain what the nutmeg I put in provided but hey, I'll try anything once.

After the recipe "assembly", the next biggest time suck was vegetable prep. Again, I'm going to blame the fragmented recipe problems for this, because otherwise I would have seen right away that both the patties and the mashed potatoes required scallions and could have chopped them all at once. Minor quibble.

Other than that, dinner came together pretty nicely. For once I had lots of browned bits stuck to the bottom of the pan so I think that made the gravy extra tasty. I can't exactly say the same for the "tex mex" additions, though. The gravy itself was butter, onions, flour, cream, chicken stock, red pepper flakes- and for once I actually added them instead of saying pfft and substituting a couple shakes of cayenne. To make it tex mex I added cilantro (okay, I get that) and lime juice. Jigga whaaaaaaat? Really? Lime juice. To... gravy. Made with... cream. Again, whaaaaaaat? I think next time the lime juice will not be asked to join the party. The potatoes weren't bad either, although really? Red potatoes, sour cream and butter? Why would I complain about that? Oh, right, because adding scallions made them taste "wierd". The gravy came out a little spicier than I liked so imagine my surprise when the Husband, who is a hot food wimp, said he really liked it. Huh. He also liked the scallions in the mashed potatoes and he's not a potato eater so take that as you will.

Overall opinion, I think we might revisit this one. I'd like to try it with honest to goodness taco seasoning instead of just cumin and coriander and see what that does to the taste. I'm a thinking maybe next time scallions won't be in the potatoes. Absolutely no to the lime juice in the gravy.

Y'all, I'm going to try and post everything this week and there might be pictures, our new laptop is supposed to be here tomorrow. Fed Ex bastards tried to deliver it Saturday morning at 7:37, which I believe is against the Geneva Convention. Anyway, I've missed blogging- this year's St Pat's day dinner was off the hook with Guinness mac and cheese, Irish car bomb cupcakes and protestant orange jello that *didn't* cause my friends alcohol poisoning. Also I made my own baby food and I really wish I'd written about that because that was an experience. A good one, and I'm lucky I have an adventurous eater on my hands, but because it happened to me you can be sure there were wacky hijinx. Let's just say kid doesn't like tofu. Reeeeeeeeeally doesn't like tofu. Also, there was the horror of what goes in must come out and the fun colors and smells that went along with that. Wow. Anyway, I'd like to get back to this so this week is a little test for it. We'll see how it goes.

It's St Patrick's Day again!

So about this time last year I was first trimester pregnant. We'd just moved into a new apartment two weeks before and basically I'd spent most of the time wrapped in a comforter sitting on a chair trying not to hurl, weakly telling everyone where to put things in my kitchen. Then we went to a friend's wedding and our flight was delayed so I think our annual corned beef and cabbage dinner wasn't a big deal. I don't even remember if I made it? I know I didn't do it the day of. I didn't care. I felt like crap.

This year I have a six month old baby. You'd think that might curb any plans we'd make for a big St Patrick's Day. Ha! No one ever said I was smart! If I were, that would make these entries a lot less funny to read. Hey, remember when she made the Guinness pie and sprayed beer all over the kitchen? Ha! Awesome! Anyway, this year's preparations have been a lot less disastrous, surprisingly.

First on the menu is the usual corned beef and cabbage, using the Tyler Florence brine and a head of cabbage, a packet of baby carrots and a whole white onion. Putting that together went surprisingly well, other than I discovered someone had put my container of allspice berries away instead of recycling it so I used the ground stuff. Hopefully that won't make much difference. bringing it last night went smoothly and putting it in the crock pot also not a big deal. I had visions of losing a finger while chopping up the veg but thankfully that one didn't happen. When I was home for lunch it smelled lovely.

Next up are the roasted potatoes. This is a Rachael Ray recipe I make where basically you chunk up the potatoes, toss them with olive oil, salt and rosemary, then roast them. I'm a-thinking these won't be a problem. They usually aren't.

It isn't St Pat's if I don't make a Guinness recipe, and this year there are two. First up, Guinness chocolate cupcakes, found here. I did some searching for recipes that didn't include sour cream, because I didn't remember having any, but a quick check of the fridge proved me wrong so all systems go! Things went together without me spraying my kitchen with Guinness- of course, now that my kitchen's got dark wood cabinets, sigh- and they went into the cupcake cups. The recipe said makes two dozen. I figured that mean two dozen if you're stingy and fill the cups halfway so I set out 18 cups. Imagine my surprise when I filled those 18 cups. I mean filled, like when I'd set the cup down- I should probably mention I have silicone cupcake cups here so you're not confused- it would leak a little. Huh. I filled the other six cups and... still had enough to fill two little pot pie tins. Wow. That actually was a blessing in disguise because the recipe calls for cream cheese frosting and last night when the husband was trying to get the baby to sleep we ate one of them and tried to decide how to frost them. Cream cheese was quickly discarded. Just putting whipped cream on them became the decision, but this morning I thought hmmm, what about chocolate whipped cream? That became "How about I make whipped cream with a shot of mint Bailey's?" Ding ding ding! That, I do believe, is our winner. of course, we'll see when I get to that point how tired I am.

Recipe number two is this one for Guinness bread with molasses. It went together easily while I was home, it came out looking nice, we'll see how it tastes. After all, the Irish soda bread looked nice too... Oh well, we have two loaves of rye from a deli here in town in case of epic fail.

This year's fun story was the Protestant orange jello. Since having the baby, my work schedule has changed and the husband finds himself, more often than not, making (or, more to the point, buying) dinner. Because of that, my idea of what's in our pantry is a little fuzzy. That's why I thought we had vodka in the freezer, but when I pulled it out after pouring the hot water in the jello, I discovered we had vanilla vodka. Ah well, it looks like we'll be having Protestant dreamsicle jello.

More details later, after dinner's been eaten. 

Baking is making me feel stabby

I haven't told the stories of the carrot cake I made out of the Baking Illustrated recipe, or my disappointing Paula Deen blueberry muffins- seriously? You'd think Paula "Queen of Butter" Deen would have really tasty muffins but they were actually boring. I thought I had pregnant brain when I made them, because I was sitting there while they were in the oven and I'd think oh! I forgot to put spices in! or oh! I forgot to add the vanilla! Then I'd look at the recipe and realize no, she doesn't use any. What? Anyway, my last couple baking efforts have been passable at best.

Lately the baby's been making me want herbs and spices, like sage and cinnamon. I was looking through Baking Illustrated, thinking wouldn't it be awesome if I baked everything in there and blogged about it, when I saw the coffeecake muffin recipe. Ooh! Cinnamon!

I was not thrilled when I started the recipe and found out I was going to have to pull the food processor out of storage. Sigh. I hate cooking with the food processor. I have a Kitchenaid, that's what you're supposed to bake with. I noticed there were nuts to chop so okay, I decided to use the food processor. I started by chopping together the nuts, some cinnamon and brown sugar and managed to get everything sesame seed sized like they asked, but not in five one second pulses. I started going one, two, three, four, five and there were still a lot of large chunks of nuts. Crap. Then I tried ooooone, twooooooo, threeeeeee, and somewhere in the middle of four it was good. Okay. I separated them out into two bowls- one to mix in later, one for topping- and moved on to the batter.

Oh, the batter. Flour, sugar and salt, mixed with the food processor. Then you add the butter, which was softened and sliced, and process until it looks like oats. Okay, except zap number one? All the butter disappeared. Crap. I think they shouldn't have had you soften the butter. Don't you usually use cold butter when you make streusel? I added some of the flour mix into the streusel top, stirred it up, added the rest of the dry stuff to the food processor and went to the wet stuff. Sour cream? Check. Vanilla? Check. Egg? Frick. Somehow the eggs had been put on the top shelf of the fridge and half of them had frozen and cracked. Damn. This is why I hate top and bottom fridges. Anyway, I found one that was okay and mixed up the wet stuff, then added it to the batter. Again with the one second pulses, and that's where I hit the problem. Pulse until it's moistened? Again, one shot. Then add the streusel and pulse till the streusel's distributed and everything's crumbly? Um, one pulse and everything was mush and not at all well distributed.

I think, had I been thinking, maybe colder butter in larger pieces- half inch pieces did not do it for me here- and I would have been willing to do it in the processor because that is an efficient way to cut it in. However, then I think I should have transferred it to the Kitchenaid and mixed it up the rest of the way so it didn't get to be such a mushy mess. When it came time to add the streusel, definitely stirred it in by hand. Oh well. Moving on!

Putting them into the cups and getting the streusel on them, not a problem. Then I forgot about the last time I baked something from Baking Illustrated and took them at their word- 350 for 18 minutes, turning halfway. When I made the carrot cake the recipe said 35-40 minutes and it really took over an hour. I put the muffins in and was talking to the Husband on Google chat and another friend on Facebook and left them five minutes over how long they needed to go and ew. Gooey. I put them back in the oven and decided whenever I thought about them next I'd check. I think it ended up being about twice the time the book said, about 35 minutes before I checked them again and they were done according to my toothpick. Stupid Baking Illustrated.

After all the bitching I did about these muffins, they came out looking okay and were pretty tasty. The Husband and I each had one and really liked them. I credit the sour cream. The Husband, who is not a nut eater, didn't notice the nuts. I'm not sure why, because I did. Anyway, I think I've learned my lesson. Tomorrow I want to make their quick cinnamon roll recipe and I'm totally going to check after the amount of time they say they need to bake, but be prepared to take them out after twice that time.

I did some googling and apparently I'm the only person out there who has a problem with Baking Illustrated. Huh. It really makes me wonder what my problem is, then. You know, they go through and work and work and work and fine tune their recipes and it's not like they're in Denver- or I'm in Denver, for that matter- making these recipes and having to adjust for altitude. I follow the recipe. I don't substitute things. I seriously doubt my silicone baking cups would have made that much difference in this instance. I just don't know. We'll see tomorrow.

Can I pour you a piece of pie? or, Suck it Emeril part 2

Being pregnant and crazy means I come up with some ideas that I normally wouldn't and should be vetoed but they aren't because people fear the crazy pregnant lady. For example, the Husband's birthday was last Friday and while I was thinking about what we were going to do for it, I got an e-mail from Ikea saying that June 20th was Midsummer's Eve and the Swedish celebrate it with meatballs and potatoes and herring and strawberries and caviar. I decided to pass on the herring and caviar and just focus on the other items. That part turned out pretty well. I made use of my friend Kraft Foods and did their easy cheese swedish meatball recipe- seriously, buy meatballs from Trader Joe's, then let them thaw in your fridge overnight and stick them in the crockpot with a can of beef gravy and half a cup of sour cream. Damn tasty and stupid easy- as well as this one I discovered for potatoes. The potatoes were a big hit and also pretty easy to do. The Husband got his second banana cake of the week- check Better Homes and Gardens for that recipe, and I used store bought cream cheese frosting. Everyone raved about it. Who knew? Anyway, after the dust settled we had a lot of leftovers, particularly strawberries. I lurve strawberries and haven't had strawberry pie in forever. What better way to use the two containers of leftover strawberries than put them in a pie?

I may be lazy, because I bought frozen pie crusts, but I do have standards so I didn't want to buy a sleeve of that red goo from the store. I paged through my cookbooks to see what could be done. The Joy of Cooking was pretty minimal in their pie recipe so that got nixed. I think I found a couple recipes that called for rhubarb or making a chiffon pie or else didn't have a recipe at all, among the Gourmet cookbook, Better Homes and Gardens and my Baking Illustrated book, so I hit the web. I was thinking Paula Deen, but first I saw the Emeril recipe. It did set off warning bells in my head, because some of you might remember the great Black Forest Cake debacle of Christmas 2006- apparently it was so bad I never blogged about it, but it involved a spectacular meltdown. I used an Emeril recipe to make a very involved Black Forest Cake and there was epic fail which caused me to proclaim, loudly, that Emeril could suck it. Anyway, come on! Strawberry pie! It'll be awesome!!!

Ha ha haaaaaaa. I sliced and hulled the strawberries while the pie crust baked, then started to make the sauce that would hold the pie together. Strawberries, check. Cup of sugar, check. Vanilla, also check. I cooked that until the sugar melted and while that was going on I mixed up the cornstarch/water/brandy cocktail Emeril asked for. Okay, the sugar melted so I added the cocktail to it and then let it cook until it thickened. It thickened nicely, let me tell you. I let it cool while we ran errands then poured it into the pie crust, covered it and stuck it into the fridge. It said let sit 6 hours, so I figured waiting until the next day would be fine, right?

I had dreams about this pie, mainly because when I licked the sauce off the spoon and the sides of the pot it was really freaking tasty. Way better than the red goo you get at the store. I got all excited and said "I'm never buying red goo from the store again! Emeril, you're a geeeeeeeenius! I'm sorry I blasphemed against you after that whole Black Forest hot mess! Damn, this is tasty!!!" At work I promised my assistant she'd have a tasty piece of strawberry pie, made from scratch, no less, the next day. On the way home from work I picked up some squirty whipped cream, because I thought that would taste super good. After dinner settled I looked at the Husband, all excited, and said Pie!!! We pulled the pie out, I got a knife and some plates and forks and took the cover off. As soon as I stabbed it with a knife I knew something had gone horribly wrong. The nice thick sauce from the day before? Soup. How the hell could it have gone from nicely thickened like pudding to runny and nasty overnight in the fridge?! We still ate the pie, in bowls instead of on plates, with squirty whipped cream to kind of bring it together, and it still tasted nice but damn. We made the "Can I pour you a piece of pie?" joke too. My aunt's mother in law made the soupiest lemon meringue pie in christendom and my uncle always used to say "Can I pour you a piece of pie?" I also said some nasty things about another Emeril recipe biting me in the ass. Screw you, Emeril! I am NOT going to be fooled again!

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go cry into my pie bowl. Sniffle.