And THIS Is Why I Don't Bake

Sunday we had friends over for dinner, so I decided to make a one-layer cake using a heart cake pan we'd been given but had never used, and when it fell in the oven,

 I remembered why I don't usually bake.  And when I do decide to bake,

it would be best to stick with my usual one-layer stays-in-the-pan sort of cake.  Frosting covers most of my blunders,

but this time even frosting failed to cover my errors. Thankfully, there was wine with dinner, so maybe no one noticed........

Today's Lesson Learned.......

Just because tripling a recipe by tripling the amounts of all ingredients works mathematically, that doesn't mean it's actually going to work in the kitchen...............

Was It Worth It?

Good question.

Yesterday at lunch was the REAL test of the boeuf bourguignon as the flavors had more time to mellow & blend & whatever else they do, AND I decided to serve it as Julia said to--the part about being over potatoes, not the part about serving it with buttered peas (what is the deal with all the butter??????).  I cooked a potato in its skin rather than boiling it--I mean, let's try to have SOME nutritional value here--and I have to say, it was wonderful.  The potatoes soaked up and maybe mellowed much of the liquid, and together it was something that had to be eaten slowly to savor the amazing complexity of flavors.  I can't think of anything I've ever had like it, but then again, American food is more about cheap, easy, fast, and able to be produced in a chain restaurant by teenagers.

HOWEVER, you might have noticed that--aside from Sunday--when I talk about food it's generally a little more on the "low-fat" variety.  Just so we're clear about how much fat was involved in making this

yeah, that would not be dust.  Now, however much of the fat was airborne, imagine the amount of fat that stayed IN the stew.  Now imagine that fat hitting a stomach that has eaten unprocessed, low fat, mostly vegetable-type things for, say the last 15 months.....not pretty.  For dinner we had antacid and salad--in that order.  By 2:00 AM, I loathed Julia Child.

So, was it worth it?  I think so.  I did learn a lot, and I think it might be able to be done without the bacon & with a LOT less butter, and I am glad that I did it.  And the stew is pretty amazing, though today I packed up the leftovers to throw them in the freezer

as neither of us are willing to go near the stuff again in the near future.  I think our future will be more along the lines of

Boeuf Bourguignon

Or as one of my friends so aptly renamed it after my adventures yesterday, beef burnignon.

I had originally thought it would be fun to make this while our friends were visiting last month as we all rather enjoy cooking adventures.  However, as I'm sure none of us particularly enjoy repeated burns and being covered in grease, I think we made the right choice in making pizza instead.  BUT I still wanted to try the recipe, so yesterday morning I dived in.

Having previously thawed out the three pounds of stew meat (for a recipe to feed SIX people, mind you), I also scrounged out the bacon I'd purchased

but had not bothered to open before freezing it.  Julia calls for a 6-ounce chunk of bacon, so I figured something less than half of a 16-ounce package would work.  If I had any doubts about my general refusal to eat bacon

opening the package did nothing to convince me otherwise.  The ONLY meat on any of the bacon was on one edge--the visible one obviously.  Everything you can't see is 100% pure fat.

YUMMY!  And if you think it can't get more revolting......

step two was to cut the bacon in smallish sticks and to simmer for 10 minutes--presumably to remove all the artificial flavor because no American bacon I could find wasn't flavored with something.

The bacon seems to serve two functions in the recipe--one was to provide the fat to fry the beef in (not that the little fried fat blobs aren't added in to the final stew, of course.  They are.) and the other was to cook in the stew itself without being fried first.  Since I had 90% fat, I divided the now-clean bacon into piles of "fat" and "actual meat"

 such as it is, then tossed the fat blobs into a casserole pan TO BE SAUTEED IN OIL!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, because lack of fat was one serious problem here.

Meticulously following the instructions, I removed the lightly browned bacon fat with a slotted spoon ('cause, you know, you don't want any of the grease to escape), then heated the remaining fat until it was almost smoking before adding the beef which had been thoroughly patted dry with paper towels.....

.....and which still repeatedly gave me grease burns & the first big burn of the day--on my right forearm, which is sort of convenient because now I can ice it at the same time as I'm icing my elbow.  By this point, the only thing keeping me going was the knowledge that the whiny Julie Powell person (the Julie & Julia project/book/movie) had managed to do this, and I am NOT going to be one-upped by a person who has "meltdowns" over a chicken dish. 

NOTE:  This is not a recipe to attempt while wearing glasses.  I hadn't put my contacts in yet, and by the time the 3 pounds of beef were sauteed (because it must be done in small batches), I had to get a de-greaser to even be able to SEE out of my glasses, and fled to put my contacts in at the first break I had.  My skin, however, is REALLY soft today.....except, of course, where it is burned

I finally got everything--meat, sliced onions, and carrots--cooked in fat, the stock & wine were added (and it is SUCH a shame that it uses the entire bottle because I REALLY could have used a glass of wine by this point), and the stew was in the oven for 3 hours.  I settled for

which is against our normal rules, but having 2-3 burns, being covered in bacon fat, and having to change shoes because the hardwood floor had become so insanely slippery with the layer of grease that is now coating EVERY surface downstairs......rules become a lot less important than one's sanity.  It was this or a shot (or bottle) of scotch, and I thought this might be safer.

The 3 hours, incidentally, is NOT rest time.  That is the time you prepare the TWO accompanying recipes that go WITH this one.  Time to get out the butter....

which you knew was coming in a Julia Child recipe.  I think she might have single-handedly supported about 4 dairies during her lifetime.  So, the FIRST round of butter is for the pearl onions

 which--aside from being a heart attack waiting to happen--are SERIOUSLY fabulous.  You saute them in olive oil & butter (of course), then add beef stock & herbs and let them cook for 50 minutes.  While those are cooking,

you brown mushrooms in........olive oil & butter!  Seriously, this is like a death wish for anyone with heart disease.

Finally, finally, FINALLY....5 hours & three burns later:

Hot, frustrated, greasy, and cranky, I put it in the fridge until I was feeling charitable enough to try it, and went out into the sunshine for a little R & R

A rather frightened Theo joined me--or maybe he was hiding from the grease vapors......

We did finally try the stew several hours later, and the flavors are complex and interesting, and I'm glad I did it...............but I don't think it will ever happen again.  We served VERY small portions because even the idea of 1/2 pound of meat and all that fat as an actual serving makes my little arteries just quiver in fear.

This morning, just out of morbid curiosity, I typed the recipe into a Mastercook program that I have, which computes calorie count & nutrition.  Are you ready?

IF you were to really make this into 6 servings, per serving it would have:

1029 calories

95% of the daily allowance for fat

116% of the daily allowance for saturated fat

which is easy to be horrified at--except that it's probably about even with an average order at a restaurant here in America (or even lighter than MANY).  Still, that's an insane amount for the diet here at Chateau Sutton-Goar.  I'm thinking we'll be making this into about 18 servings...........

Today I Am Making Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon......

......and by tomorrow I might be willing to discuss it.

....and take back everything I have said today about Julia Child.............

Blueberry Time!

Meaning this

not these

Not that my blueberry bushes are doing badly--though to call them "bushes" is perhaps a bit of an overstatement right now--but we'll be thrilled if we can double our blueberry crop to 24 berries this year.  I have been giving them regular pep talks....and perhaps mentioned the fate of the scraggly, useless bushes that used to be in the front yard...........

Yesterday I made a double batch of blueberry-nutmeg jam using some fabulous frozen blueberries I found at Costco last week.  We ran out of blueberry jam a while ago--having given most of it away--and I had forgotten how good it really is.  And it's actually pretty simple to make--being one of the jams you add pectin to, rather than relying on my nonexistent skill to cook the jam until it will "set" but not long enough to become some sort of bizarre jam-gumdrops (which is what the carrot-bourbon jam turned out to be). Boil 2 minutes, stir in pectin, then can--THAT I can do. Especially with properly motivated by blueberries......

The Pumpkin Chronicles

The story you are about to hear is true.  Only the names have been changed to protect the cranky.

It was a cold weekend in January--the kind that makes you want to curl up inside and turn the oven on.  Some people even put things IN the oven.  Our heroine, let's call her T---, decided this would be the perfect weekend to bake the rest of the pumpkins in storage.

Having learned the hard (an REALLY time-consuming) way that when a recipe says to cut & peel a fresh pumpkin that the author is completely delusional, T---- decided to employ the time-tested secret method revealed to her in hushed tones by one older and wiser....take one pumpkin

one plastic bag

combine,

then smack the daylights out of them on some firm surface

like the back patio.  This is also an amazing method for spraying pumpkin bits all over the patio if one uses a weaker plastic bag or repeats the process with the same bag once too often.

An hour later, after scraping all the strings and seeds out of all the pumpkin pieces and placed them in the oven to roast, our heroine thought this might be a good time to move the smaller hubbard squashes off the floor and into the shelving.....until she dropped one.  Then she decided that she might as well bake one or two of the "small" ones.  After all, as long as one is going to freeze a few bags of pumpkin puree, one might as well freeze a few more......

Problems might have been averted if our heroine had stopped at ONE small hubbard squash.  But compared to the two 35-pound monsters still in the garage, the 10-pound ones looked so small and harmless......

In another two hours, the freezers at....oh, let's call it "Chateau S-G".......were bursting with bags of pumpkin & squash puree.  One large loaf and 4 small loaves of pumpkin bread were baking.  Our intrepid heroine was inventing a creamy pumpkin pasta sauce (which was excellent, by the way).  And there was still a mixing bowl full of squash pulp to contend with. 

The only excuse T---- can offer for the next step was that she was really, really, REALLY tired and that perhaps 5 hours in the kitchen wrestling with squash had finally made her brain snap.  She found a recipe for.......pumpkin walnut fudge. 

The recipe called for corn syrup, but after an experiment dealing with the elimination of ANY corn syrup from her diet, T--- decided that she would substitute honey instead, having read in a book somewhere that this would work and having, like many avid readers, a foolish tendency to believe things she read in books. 

Now the wonderful thing about recipes on the internet is that other people who have attempted the recipes can write reviews--suggesting changes, telling whether or not the recipe actually worked, and other useful information.  Which of course only helps if one bothers to check the reviews before plunging straight in. 

One scorched pan & one destroyed candy thermometer later....

and our heroine had a pan of nutty pumpkin-caramel goo, which is NEVER going to solidify into anything that could remotely resemble fudge, and is so flamingly sugary that more than a small taste would probably send one straight into a diabetic coma. Just like most of the 28 reiews said it would.  

Once our heroine has spent some time in the hot tub while chanting "those who publish recipes online are not all sadists,"  she will be calm enough to deal with the remaining bowl of pumpkin puree without killing someone......

Fall

So, in spite of the fact that it was hovering around 90 over the last week, temperatures tonight & tomorrow night are predicted to be hovering right around freezing, so the garden's days are numbered. We'll be covering everything, but I'm not sure the peppers will survive even with a covering, soThat would be a lot of peppers. Sorting them into hot & not hotit's still a lot of peppers. The bells & bananas are fairly easy to deal with, so I placed the nice big ones in the refrigerator, and chopped up the rest to dehydrate--which filled the dehydrator completely. I have dried some of the Anaheim peppers, but as I'm not exactly sure we'll use them, I didn't want to dry more only to find out that we hate them so tomorrow we will be attempting some jalapeno roasting. And serving Mexican-ish food for the next 4 weeks.

Since I am refusing to turn on the heat until we're positive there won't be more hot weather, it was pretty chilly around here today which normally is sort of a good thing in my book as I am a knitter and this makes sweaters really practical. Of course, this doesn't work at all when the sweaters are all still packed away in a box in the garage and you and your spouse are shivering pathetically while trying to work. A normal person would, of course, turn the heat on. I baked zucchini bread. It takes all kinds.

Thanks to "G," and her wonderful suggestion to line the breadpans with tin foil (I used parchment paper but same idea) since no amount of oils smeared on the things was keeping the zucchini bread from sticking, the zucchini bread actually came out reasonably well, although both loaves are slightly concave. Still, at least it can actually be served as actual bread slices instead of a big plate of mangled crumbs, so I'm actually pretty thrilled. And the house warmed up rather nicely, so it all worked out well. It's rather exciting to have maybe gotten a handle on zucchini bread--there are about 20 bags of shredded zucchini stashed away in the freezer and I'm not sure 20 chocolate cakes in the near future would be all that good for us......

Pumpkin, Pumpkin Everywhere

Yesterday I made spaghetti with Italian sausage, green peppers, onions, tomatoes, and baked pumpkin. Tonight I sauteed baked pumpkin puree with some fresh sage, garlic, salt, and a little butter. Andy would tell you that I'm a little obsessed with pumpkin right now, but he's downstairs eating the hot pumpkin bread that just came out of the oven.

You might be asking, "What is up with this woman and the pumpkins?" Well, I'll tell you. I've become fascinated with them because I've neither raised them or cooked with them before. For me, that's really all it takes.

Ever since I started planting a garden (4 years? 5 years?), I've planted something I haven't really cooked with and then I have a ready supply to play around with. Every day Andy thanks his lucky stars that he hadn't yet met me during the Summer of Eggplant. To be fair, I've had eggplant at restaurants when I've thought it was quite good. All I learned from growing eggplant was 1) If you don't like the food, you won't like it as a soup; 2) gray is a particularly unappealing color for soup; 3) If you put enough marinara sauce on it, anything is edible, and 4) It helps to know alternate names for some things. Your friends may readily agree to accept your extra aubergines, and if you're quick, you can be out the door before they open the sack....

So, this is the summer of pumpkin. The results so far:

* pumpkin butter - highly traumatic to make, but incredibly fabulous
* baked pumpkin with curry powder sprinkled on it - good, but a little stringy
* pickled pumpkin - no idea, haven't tried it yet, but 50/50 odds on that one
* the spaghetti with pumpkin - totally fabulous! The recipe was in a new pumpkin cookbook we ordered after the spending ban. This was the first recipe I tried in it and the book was worth the pasta recipe alone
* sauteed pumpkin with sage - I was just messing around tonight, but it turned out really well
* pumpkin bread - really, was there any doubt?

Of course, the October Soup Night will be featuring either a pumpkin soup or a butternut squash soup, and there is a recipe for pumpkin ice cream......

Leaving us with the question: when is it creativity and when is it just sheer squash-induced madness.........?

I blame it on this

A second cup of coffee. Me hyped up on caffeine rarely has good consequences. Today's was pickling garlic.

A few weeks ago, in anticipation of a tremendous garden this year, I ordered two books on preserving foods, believing that one book would just not provide enough options for the produce avalanche we will experience (when I'm being delusional, I like to be thorough). One had a recipe for pickled garlic, which sounded like a wonderful appetizer--or a good test of a marriage, whichever way you'd like to look at it.

I picked up 9 heads of garlic at the store--leaving a checker quite positive that I had a vampire infestation--then had to have Andy pick up 3 more as the recipe quite firmly stated that it would take 12 heads of garlic to fill 5 8-ounce jars.
Not if the heads are this size.

After blanching the garlic, Andy was drafted into peeling the skins off the cloves,

and might cease to smell of garlic by our third wedding anniversary.

Peeling wet garlic cloves is an entertaining endeavor. Andy swears it was not a personal issue when he squeezed a clove too tightly and it barely missed my head. In some homes, cooking is a contact sport.

Half an hour later,
7 8-ounce jars of garlic, the leftovers are in the refrigerator marinating, my hands may permanently smell like brine, the kitchen looks like it was struck by canning terrorists,

and one jar has sealed so far.

Ah, the adventures of newlyweds......

The "Recipe of the Week" Weekend

When you have resolved to make one new recipe each week and have putzed around the entire week, you're going to be cooking on Saturday. Period. So, last night we enjoyed "Braised Chicken in White Sauce With Garam Masala," and since I'll be gone next weekend, I made "Sauteed Salmon with Five Spice Lime Butter" this evening. OK, to be honest, mine was little more flambeed than sauteed, but the flames were quite brief and I still have my eyebrows. We had been doing much better in the kitchen--it has been over a year since Andy's flaming robe incident, but we keep several fire extinguishers around "just in case." Someday we're even going to try a recipe that is SUPPOSED to have flames. The fire department will be notified ahead of time.

Toni's Almost Fool-Proof Dessert

Yesterday's post did bring up a good question--my friend is neither incredibly brave on the culinary front nor overly optimistic. I make exactly 2 desserts without difficulty, and one I can't share because it would violate copyright laws, but the other is my own creation and can be freely shared to help the rest of the pastry-challenged world. I thought this up while working for the American Diabetes Association, so there was a stronger emphasis on nonfat/low sugar and less emphasis on "compounds that exist in nature."

Early in the day, take the following:

*1 angel food cake, sliced (if you choose to make one from scratch you are clearly not on my playing level and you do not need any help from me)

* fruit, either fresh or frozen. If it is frozen, thaw and pour off the extra liquid

* 1 large box (or two small boxes) of instant, sugar free pudding in your choice of flavors. I've used white chocolate, banana, vanilla, and cheesecake with success. If you want to branch out to chocolate or butterscotch, you are braver than me and I wish you luck.

* 1 carton nonfat non-dairy topping.

In a trifle bowl--or anything else you might choose--arrange a layer of cake, add a layer of fruit, followed by a pudding layer. Repeat until you run out of ingredients. Top with nondairy topping. For a serious "gourmet" touch, toast sliced almonds or coconut to sprinkle on top.

See? No baking powder or ovens involved!

Easy as Pie

This past weekend, a friend of mine asked me to bring dessert to a dinner party. To put this in perspective, I am generally BANNED from bringing desserts anywhere, which possibly stems from a very unfortunate sugar-free cheesecake I once made, which has become legendary for all the wrong reasons, the three years I worked for the American Diabetes Association, or my generally acknowledged ineptitude concerning desserts--once having to pass off cake as "brownies" because it refused to rise and at various times inadvertently leaving the salt, baking soda, and sugar out of desserts. At any rate, that anyone would request a dessert from me for ANY reason made my entire month.

In college, in an effort to impress a guy I was thoroughly smitten with, I attempted to make a banana cream pie from scratch (i.e. no Jello pudding involved). Let's just say that the pie & the relationship ended up in about the same state. On the positive side, my experiences with dessert catastrophes has left me with the following knowledge:

* While it is pathetic to mess up an angel food cake made from a mix, you can make pretty decent cookies from a botched angel food cake mix.

* If it's made with applesauce, the fact that you forgot to add sugar to a coffee cake will be less noticeable.

* If you use enough frosting, no one will notice that a chocolate cake didn't rise--just call it "brownies"

* Baking powder really is necessary in a cake.

* If it's an old refrigerator, the freezer may not get cold enough to freeze ice cream or sherbet

* Chocolate yogurt from the store must contain a LOT of sugar, or be a different recipe than the one I have

* Once you scorch food, throw it away--there is no way to redeem it

* Chocolates freeze fairly well, and serving cold chocolates with coffee can be passed of as a "gourmet" thing instead of an "I-just-botched-the-dessert-thing."

*"Easy as pie" is a very stupid saying

New Year Resolutions

Dear publisher of Museum Cafes & Arts Cookbook:

Your cookbook is so lovely with all the pictures of famous paintings that I decided to start the 2008 New Recipe Each Week Experiment off with your Pork Loin Chops with Apple-Tarragon Chutney recipe. The fact that I don't like cooked apples in any way, shape, or form might have been a tip-off for a more realistic person, so I accept full responsibility for starting the year with something that I didn't have a chance of liking. That was definitely my fault--I guess some part of me keeps thinking that, as an American, I must have some sort of genetic disposition to like apple pie. The CD of soothing music to cook to is a very nice touch, but I may point out that if you had included some very pertinent information, such as cooking times or the word "meanwhile," I might not have needed quite as much "soothing." Not that I'm criticizing--only one of us has published a cookbook and we both know which one of us that is--but a slight hint as to how long it might take to cook the pork chops, or a time frame for cooking 4 cups of liquid down to 1 cup, well, that might have been helpful, though I think I'm as up for surprises as the next person. To show that we bear no grudge, my husband will be fixing your Sauteed Duck Breasts with Swiss Chard and Ginger-Braised Celery later this week. I will have the soothing music CD queued up for him.

Sincerely,

Toni

PS. Even though I didn't actually like your recipe, it did smell fabulous and if you ever decide to market that scent as a candle, I think you might really have something.

Crock Pot 37, Toni 0

I love the idea of slow cookers: an appliance making dinner while I am at work. Walking in the door to the wonderful aroma of a home-cooked meal. Knowing that when I get home from work, all I have to do is set the table.

This is the fantasy.

The reality:

Toni puts a frozen roast in the slow cooker on low for 8 hours and leaves for work. Andy gets home to find a large dog's chew toy in the slow cooker with 2 hours left to cook. While Andy is willing to attempt to consume anything Toni fixes, Toni is not willing to shoe leather and orders pizza for them.

Toni tries her favorite soup recipe in the slow cooker. Four hours later, the mulligatawny is lukewarm and the vegetable are only starting to soften. It's crunchy soup for lunch--and not in a good way.

A slow cooker recipe book suggests a chicken and rice dish, and following the directions exactly, Toni puts the rice and chicken in and leaves for work. She is greeted by chicken breasts in rice pudding. She calls it "British Cuisine" and serves it anyway. Desperation is, if not the mother, at least the great-aunt of fiction.

Thinking she has this figured out now, she puts the chicken in the slow cooker but asks Andy to add the rice when he gets home, leaving it two hours to cook before dinner. In a splendid show of nonconformity, this time the rice stays crunchy until 9:00 PM. Toni apologizes for the disparaging remarks she made about the inventor of the crockpot--she realizes he probably does not do things simply to "mess with people's heads."

Toni starts to develop a tick above her left eye every time she sees the works "easy" or "convenient" in reference to the slow cooker. While not ready to admit that she's getting her tail kicked by a kitchen appliance, she is willing to admit that they may need some time apart, and perhaps a little precooking counseling. In the meantime, she intends to see more of the cute little ice cream maker she found in the back cupboard.....