Mmmm... Food!
Recipes, Recipe Carnival, and other food stuff
Now relegated to Blogblivion...Friday, January 14, 2005
Carnival of the Recipes Is Up, Plus Food Talk
The latest Carnival of the Recipes is up. Looks like an extra large turnout this week. Check it out if you’re looking for something new.
Speaking of recipes, we tried the fiesta chicken recipe on the back of the Bisquick box recently. Then we tried it again a few days later! Deb is not a salsa person. Witness that when I make nachos,* I make hers with cheese only, and mine with salsa or picante and cheese. Yet she loved it! It was her brilliant idea to try it in the first place. She always has brilliant ideas.
I just happened to have a jar of mild of the exact brand called for in the recipe, which is funny as I usually buy medium. It worked great and I stocked more so we could try it again.
I messed it up the first time by putting too much cheese in the cheese layer, and not preheating the oven, but obviously it was fantastic. The second time I used more like the cheese called for by the recipe, but only two chicken breasts, not three. Unless they’re small, that’s enough, especially if you only use an 8x8 pan. I used a slightly larger one, which worked well.
* Nachos are one of my favorite reasons to own a toaster oven. I put foil on the tray, spread nachos all over it (not a single layer; a jumble but not so much that cheese and sauce can’t drip to the ones not fully on top), spoon on some sauce (or not), put on ample cheese - grated or sliced depending on equipment and expedience - and cook for one top brown cycle, with another part of a cycle if the cheese needs more melting and bubbling or you like the cheese to start to brown. Top brown is your friend. Not only for nachos, but also for faux pizzas made with lightly toasted bread, spaghetti or pizza sauce and cheese, and for tuna melts. Finally, for me only Santitas will do. I buy that brand of tortilla chips regardless of sale prices on others. Impressively, that’s also Deb’s mom’s brand! Besides nachos, they are excellent crumbled in chicken noodle soup instead of crackers, unheated with cheese, or with peanut butter. Even with nothing, as a potato chip surrogate.
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Mmmm… Brownies
Well, I would guess that Paul won’t be doing recipe blogging any time soon. Or teaching math.
Monday, January 10, 2005
Ah, Monday.
Busy this morning as we’re expecting company...which means that the toilet had to go on strike, naturally enough. Heh. Monday for sure. Anyway, I’ve got some plunging to do and a baby to wash and dress, so I won’t be around for a good chunk of the day. As for my husband...well, he’s having Monday too and will no doubt have a story to tell when it’s all said and done.
And by the way, this is really good substituting a medium apple for the 2nd cup of cranberries. I cut the 1/2 cup of sugar that goes over them to 1/4 cup and mixed in 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon, and the thing came out rather nicely. We also have a report that blueberries work well, since the cranberries are gone for the time being. Ack! I wish I’d bought some for the freezer, but it never occurred to me that the things would be off the shelves come the first of January.
Live and learn, Deb, live and learn.
Friday, January 07, 2005
It must be Friday…
Because the Carnival of the Recipes is up!
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Crepes and Meat Filling
For supper I made approximately this recipe, which is not a very specific recipe, but close enough to get there. Basically it’s crepes, and it’s flavored ground beef filling for them.
For the crepes I used 1.5 cups of flour and some, over 2 cups of whole milk, not fat free as it says, an egg, closer to 2 tablespoons melted butter, and a pinch of salt. Close enough.
The hard part is the cooking. The first one I didn’t swoosh out to be as thin as intended, and it came out tremendously like Ethiopian flat bread. Even the thinner ones had a little of the same texture and flavor. Which means that except the filling isn’t saucy, the whole thing reminded me of Ethiopian.
The crepes also reminded Deb of something she has talked about making, called Swedish pancakes. Basically a sweeter crepe.
In any event, they were excellent, and would be great in exactly that recipe with jam, fruit filling, powdered sugar, whipped cream, or other kinds of meat toppings or fillings. I will definitely make them again, even if it is a pain to flip them. They’re fast and easy enough.
The filling was especially tough, given the complete lack of measurements except the ground beef. I had 1 1/3 pounds and figured any of it I left uncooked might be thrown away, so I used it all. I used a generous several squirts of Worcestershire, a large amount - probably a teaspoon - of black pepper, a less generous amount of garlic powder, less still of red pepper, and sprinkles of onion powder and garam masala. Then I used perhaps 1/4 cup of Italian bread crumbs. Worcestershire was the overwhelming flavor, but the beef flavor fought to be heard, and there was the background of… something else behind it from all the other spices. It was interesting, quite tasty.
The recipe lists “fines herbes,” which I had to Google to identify as a mix of equal parts of a few different fresh herbs. I ignored that and took the recipe to mean “add some spices to the beef.”
We didn’t use sour cream, but it would have been excellent. I don’t think the flavor lent itself to the other serving suggestion of salsa.
All in all, another successful experiment. One of these days I’ll have to look the recipe for Ethiopian flatbread up again and compare it to the one for the crepes.
Right this minute…
My husband is in the kitchen cooking supper.
Did I marry well or what? 
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Cranberry Pie Redux
I decided to make one of these cranberry pie dealies last night, but with some small modifications, since the last one was pretty overbaked and I’d had a request for more cranberries. So I used an entire 12 oz bag of cranberries (approximately 3 cups vice the 2 the recipe calls for) and adjusted the baking time down to where Jay and I thought the thing looked done (about 45 minutes or so). It could have used about 5 more minutes in the oven to make the center just a bit more firm, but it certainly turned out well:
Tastes as good as it looks, too. The extra cranberries were a definite plus, though I suspect a similar effect can be had by cutting back the amount of sugar that goes over the smaller amount if you aren’t so much a cranberry fan.
Not a New Englander my ass.
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
Reading Recommendation
Aubrey Turner is back and also blogging up a storm.
Speaking of which, isn’t that kind of a strange expression? ”Blanking up a storm.” Should that kind of behavior be the reserve of cloud seeders and weather control dreamers?
I, too, am pretty compulsive about hand washing while preparing food. I can keep the most disastrously messy and even dirty house, but that counter will damn well be clean for food prep. I am sometimes compulsive in other little ways, just not enough for OCD. Deb can tell you how pleased with myself I was when I alphabetized the spices in my new spice rack. I gave up on doing that to my books. For now.
Which brings us to the urge to get organized. I have it in spades, seemingly in conjunction with the temporal change of venue. It’s annoying to have it frustrated by being sick. Which seems to have improved dramatically today, at least until I ate. What’s up with that? Eating leads to congestion and a scratchier throat and uncontrollable coughing? Sheesh.
Anyway, Aubrey, always a good read, is on a roll.
Friday, December 31, 2004
Carnival of the Recipes Is Up
This week’s Carnival of the Recipes is up. Sadly, we are not in it. I’ll have to stop slacking in my cookery and associated food porn photography.
Amy had fun with some serious wordplay, which is something I can always appreciate.
Sunday, December 26, 2004
Don’t Look Now…
But I am about to attempt my first turkey cooking. Well, in the sense that a “hotel style turkey breast” weighing almost 10 pounds counts as “a turkey.” It’s enough to give us plenty of sandwich leftovers. I’m probably going to do something approximating my friend Tom’s method. Seems like everyone is different! My uncle’s method is to put pats of butter or margerine under the skin liberally, tightly cover the whole thing with foil, put in the oven all night at 250, then cook the last while at 325 or so without the foil to crisp the skin. Tom’s method is to preheat to 500 and cook the first half hour uncovered at 400 or higher to crisp the skin and make it hold in the moisture. He says:
It crisps the outside of the bird and keeps the interior moist and yummy. When I do the bird project, I also baste at least once an hour. My basting mixture is about 1/4 cup soy sauce with some sesame oil, water, vinegar and seasoned with garlic, pepper, whatever you like best. As the bird juices flow, use that too. What is left in the pan when the bird is done will make a base for an unbeatable gravy.
He also generally uses strips of bacon on top for flavor and some self-basting. One of the best turkeys I ever had was done that way by him, so I thought I would try the bacon trick.
Sadie’s cold seems to have improved, and she doesn’t seem to mind it much as long as it doesn’t keep her from breathing. She slept quite well after all. She’s also becoming quite talented with her baby gym, hitting the dangly things hard enough to make the musical play regularly. It’s like night and day over about a week ago.
I’m still keeping an eye on the news from South Asia. Glenn has some good links to bloggers in the region, some of which I’d read earlier but not followed up with a mention. I immediately thought to check the Asia resources listed in Blogs Around the World. Mostly I have continued to check back at Command Post periodically.
Okay, Turkey now, perhaps some pictures will be posted later. Ooooh… pictures.
Saturday, December 25, 2004
Christmas Update
I had my third shocker present of the day from my brother, who gave me the two-pack set of Spiderman and Spiderman 2 on DVD. Woohoo! Good thing I didn’t buy either of them myself in the past week or so. The temptation was strong in this one. We just watched the first one, which I went to see twice in the theater, and Deb thought it was fantastic. I find myself astounded in advance by the universal praise of the second as better than the first.
Sadie got lots of nice stuff. Now for toy storage…
We did too! I really wasn’t expecting anything besides a few gifts for Sadie from people.
I stuffed myself outrageously at my sister’s, the downfall being that there was both ham and turkey, that there were so many food items, and that there were too many desserts. Well, if there’s such a thing as too many. There was mashed potato, butternut, turnip, creamed cabbage, broccoli casserole, stuffing, sweet potato with raisins and nuts, various rolls, gravy, plus the meat. Oh, cranberry sauce too. Then there was our cranberry pie that’s more like a cobbler, which came out good except for slightly overdone, and the recipe could stand a few more cranberries. Plus a small pecan pie my nephew singlehandedly ate about half of and that was popular enough not to be leftover as I’d expected when I brought it. Then there was mince, lemon meringue, and pumpkin pie, date bars, brownies, some cookies, and probably something I’m forgetting. Before dinner was even served, there was shrimp my uncle had brought, which I had to restrain myself from devouring.
Sadie is celebrating the anniversary of her parents meeting in person by having her first cold. On top of the teething, which seems to have reduced in trauma now that one tooth is through. Naturally not in the normal location for first teeth. Guess she wants to be a vampire baby. I think I’ll take the teething. She’s outrageously congested, to the point where I can use the aspirator three times on each nostril and not clear it all. We’re thinking saline drops and maybe humidity. Poor kid. We may not get much sleep tonight.
What’s impressive is the way we sleep with such awareness of her. Last night she congested up, started choking and wheezing, and the two of us woke with a start and sat up in unison to help her out.
There was another funny incident with my family treating California as if it were a foreign land today. She eats cranberry sauce, but chose not to have any today. “You can tell she’s not a New Englandah! What do they eat for Christmas dinner in California?” Those furriners and their exotic foods and customs are always interesting, after all. “Pretty much the same, except turnip.” Deb had never had, and rather likes, good yellow turnip.
I’m not sure what the imagined California feast might be like. Roast yak, guacamole, prickly pear salad, and garlic mashed tofu perhaps? Heh.
Hard to believe that one year ago I was recently arrived at Deb’s apartment in Fresno, getting acquainted and confirming the expected viability of our relationship. Time flies. This means eight more days to our wedding anniversary. By the time I posted this, Sadie was already in progress. A little more so when I posted this. Hard to believe her hair was so short.
Best Christmas Ever
I need to make this fast, as we have to get our butts to my sister’s house within an hour or so.
So far I got two presents, one from Deb and one from her parents. They are two of the best gifts ever!
Once upon a time, I absolutely loved the Bee Gees. This goes back to before their Saturday Night Fever days. Eventually I owned seventeen different albums and eight tracks by the Bee Gees. This included obscure, early stuff. Did you know they did a passable cover of The Vogues Turn Around, Look At Me? I always liked the mellow stuff like
The big collection suffered from the Great Vinyl Drowning of 1994, and by my lack of something to play them on. Ironically, my old stereo that I inexplicably kept in storage rather than tossing will still play eight tracks, but won’t do anything else, and only puts sound out of one speaker (probably the speaker, not the stereo). I have never gotten around to getting any CDs by them. Partly just coincidence, partly being less crazy about them after a while, and partly my general reluctance to buy CDs over the years because they have always been overpriced. I have a couple of their songs in MP3 courtesy of my brief usage of Napster, which I used primarily to get things I had on vinyl and missed.
Deb got me the box set. Woohoo! It’s been a great mystery what she’d ordered for me that wasn’t Spiderman and/or Spiderman 2. Now I know, and it’s amazing.
But wait! There was still a box from her parents with my name on it, mysteriously weighty.
It’s something I’d put on my annual Christmas list for years and never gotten: A spice rack! A totally cool, rotating metal rack that comes with twenty bottles, only two of which duplicate things we already have on hand, and some of which were things I was working up to buying soon. Yay!
Deb got the perfect view. I opened the wrap at one end, saw what the end of the box said, and gasped! Then said “Oh. My. God.” in perfect Rachel Lucas period after every word for emphasis fashion. I was completely floored and overwhelmed. Deb was thrilled to see it too.
That on top of the fun of having the baby presents and taking pics of her sleeping surrounded by her stuff made it like the best ever, without even having gone and seen other relatives yet. Um… pics will follow eventually. Really.
Okay, gotta go. Yay for perfect presents!
Friday, December 24, 2004
Not-The-Baby Pictures
This will mostly be pictures from Edaville Sunday night, and most of those I am putting “below the fold” so those who have modems can choose to load them or not. I decided I needed a post with various pictures that are not Sadie, as I have accumulated some and been meaning to post them.
First up, food porn. As opposed to foot porn. Deb made her Best Meatloaf Yet the other night, and memorialized it with a picture. Perhaps next time she’ll make a quantified recipe of it based on what she did this time, and that’ll get into the recipe carnival. As usual, click each picture if you’d like to see a larger version…
Next up, the older two of my three grandnieces. I’ll probably put the youngest in with some more Sadie pics soon. The first one is Katherine, attempting to escape the camera for a cool result. The second one is Emily, the oldest, who was absolutely crazy about Sadie and vice-versa. These are Sadie’s first cousins once removed, to be exact. As opposed to my cousin Joyce, who is my second cousin once removed. That is, my great-grandmother, Sadie, was her grandmother Bertha’s sister. But I digress…
Sadie does make a cameo in this one, which is in a caboose on display at Edaville. That’s my brother Gary behind Deb and Sadie. He turned fifty on Tuesday, which I believe makes me officially “old.” Okay, not really. It makes me feel old though. There are five of us, born 1954, 1957, 1961, 1967 and 1971. I’m in the middle, and maybe it makes me feel old, but no reason it should make my two younger brothers feel especially old.
I wonder… does it make my mother feel old?
This is a big bear or whatever it’s supposed to be, at Edaville, which just begs for posed pictures.
This is our minimalist tree. We have ornaments I still haven’t gotten hangers for yet. Sadie’s stocking says Sadie Rose on it. It came with a glitter pen, which took about two days to dry for some reason. The present in the front is for me. Deb is the master of curly ribbon and went all out on that, and I have some pictures on the camera of Sadie latched onto the ribbon playing with it. It’s the most she has ever latched onto something like that. She also managed to knock it over last night, laying in front of the pile of gifts.
Indeed, she’s being frustrating because of the teeth coming in, but she’s also exhibiting new things all the time. She figured out she can propel herself along the floor on her back using her feet. She pushed off the blanket, onto the rug, and against the recliner in the living room, and in the computer room she came to a halt head-butting the spare car seat. She also specifically asked to play with her baby gym last night. She’s never done that. The closest thing is when she makes it fairly clear she’d like the Pooh mobile to be wound up. She seems to love the giraffe that’s posed on the gift pile, and she will now hold things like dolls in both hands. She did that for the first time when one of the previously pictured cousins handed her one at their house. Yesterday she held her fancy rattle for an extended time and shook it in what might have been an intentional manner. She certainly let go of it intentionally.
But I digress. The tree, stocking and presents…
The rest of this is pictures from Edaville, like this one:
Okay, strike the “below the fold” part. I have never used that in Expression Engine, so I just tested it. I found that there was no way to view the “extended entry” portion, and it didn’t even show using the permalink or comments link to the post. That is just wrong. So here are the rest of the pictures, right in plain sight. We’ll figure out what the extended entry problem is later.
This next one is an attempt to capture the train going by across the water from where we were in the main part of Edaville. The string of small lights marks the top of the train, and along the lower sides there are floodlights that show the passengers the unlit scenes along the 5 1/2 mile route. None of the pics here are from the train itself, which is quite amazing. The part of the park shown has a mass of lights and displays, obviously, and a bunch of rides oriented mainly toward kids. There’s a store, a gift shop, pictures with Santa, and a museum/exhibit on cranberries and cranberry picking and cultivation techniques and equipment. My mother got to point out to Deb the dry pick machine she used to run; the one that used cranberry boxes. Later they started using burlap bags and that culled out any harvest work by people who couldn’t lift them. Eventually most bogs went to wet picking, which gives you juice and sauce quality berries. Dry picked berries are the ones you buy for cooking. But I digress.
Encyclopedia of Spices
Before I misplace the link and forget to mention it, this is an interesting site I ran across on spices. It has a good bit of history and info on each one. Apparently it deals only with things classified as “spices,” and herbs are covered elsewhere not in the same way.
Did you know nutmeg is poisonous? Or that saffron makes up for being the most expensive spice by being so strong it only takes a pinch to flavour a pound of rice? Saffron has quite a history, which I remember reading a book about when I was a kid.
What inspired this find was I found garam masala in the super Wal-Mart, which gives me the key holdup to my trying to make Indian cashew chicken. Cheap, too, at only $3.44. I’ll undoubtedly experiment with it, never mind any specific recipe.
Thursday, December 23, 2004
Christmas Plans and Traditions Poll/Discussion
Ith has a Christmas poll for you. Whether you go out for Chinese and a movie on Christmas, or traverse lots of rivers and woods to get to Grandma’s house, she’s looking for your answers in her comments or in a post of your own.
This is one such post.
I traditionally spend the day somewhere else. This year will be a mix of here, obviously, where we have actual presents and an actual family to open them here, and the usual going elsewhere. Lately that has been my sister’s most years. In the past it had been my grandmother’s. It has changed over the years. For my sister it has gotten hard, with the MS (for which the drugs are $1500 a month, so the new insurance company has started jerking her around), so a lot of the cooking will be done by my mother and grandmother. But she has more room for a bunch of us. As in at least twelve.
When we have more kids and they are enough older to make it matter, we may stay home, have dinner at home, or someday actually host dinner for the multitudes that are my family.
I am not sure what’s on the menu. Probably turkey and something, which will most likely be ham. Sometimes there’s roast beef or pork as one of two meats. If there’s one, it’s usually turkey and sometimes ham. One of the most wonderful things ever is ham with my late grandfather’s raisin sauce.
For dessert, which is the main thing my sister is making, there will probably be pumpkin pie, another kind or two, including likely lemon meringue that one of her kids is crazy about, and date nut bars for me because I mentioned how much I liked them last Sunday. My mother always made them and I haven’t had them for years. Want the recipe. We will probably bring the cobbler-like cranberry pie, which will be something different.
We will probably eat about 1:00, which means probably by 2:00. Which means “early,” to folks who have evening dinners.
Favorite gift when I was a child? I can’t remember offhand. Is that sad or what? Not sure I remember or if one stands out as an adult either. There are gifts I could expound upon as memorable, or praise in some way or another, but favorite… well, as an adult perhaps the pocket computer I got in 1983 would count. As opposed to the winter coat I got in 1982 and am still wearing 22 years later, which was an excellent gift, but notable more for its longevity and extended usefulness.
I have nothing intensely specific on my wish list. I wouldn’t mind Spiderman, Spiderman 2, and some other videos, but I hadn’t given it much thought, and gifts from relatives this year will be for the baby, now that I have one. And that is gift enough for me.
Unique tradition? Not really. Until my uncle moved to Maine, it was traditional to go to his place on Christmas eve. We tend to be into stockings even for adults. It hasn’t been that long since my mother last did one for me, and around the time I was in my teens we started doing a stocking for her, which lasted many years.
Deb and I are at the start of making new traditions and Sadie’s memories. We’ve declared Christmas eve to be “ours” to balance the running off elsewhere on Christmas itself.
We recently talked about when to open presents, and a tradition her family had of opening a single present the night before, which for the kids took the edge off waiting. Maybe I’ll let Deb open one of hers tomorrow night. In a sense we got that by going to my uncle’s and getting a present from him, and some years we’d get to open something else too. I always thought it was weird to open everything before morning. Unless maybe there’s a practical reason, like traveling on Christmas itself.
Anyway, help Ith out; go comment, or write a post on the topic and link her Christmas post.
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
If The Food Doesn’t Kill You, The Dying Will (Audience Participation Post)
How many of these things have you eaten? I think I count about 27 for me, out of the 50, depending how you interpret some of them.
I have not had Thai, but we have a Thai restaurant right down the street, half a mile or so, where one of my favorite Chinese places used to be. It’s only a matter of time.
Some of them are too weird for me, and they aren’t entirely the ones you might expect. The whole idea of caviar has always weirded me out. I’d be happy to try alligator or kangaroo. Is it strange that I’ve had squid (calamari), but the idea of octopus seems… unappealing to me?
Venison is good. I’ve had it as burgers and in chili. Possibly otherwise that I don’t remember. The burgers were at my uncle’s house way up in Maine when I was a kid, served without telling us what it really was, so we’d eat it without complaint.
I thought the whole list would be “extreme” foods, or else foods widely considered so tasty they aren’t to be missed. I’m surprised it’s more of a mix, and that it’s partly broad categories and partly specific dishes. Odd.
What items would you put on a “try before you die” list of foods?
Friday, December 17, 2004
Gratuitous Pictures
First, I added pictures to the apricot chicken experiment post. Some will be amused to know that as I grabbed the camera I said, in my fake serious voice, ”step one: remove lens cap.”
Next, a Sadie picture! This is from a few days ago, in the bath:
Now that is pretty. Possibly even cute.
Carnival of the Recipes Is Up
Keeping up the spate of food-related posts, this week’s Carnival of the Recipes is up and looks quite extensive, including other cranberry-based recipes besides the one I entered. There’s even a snickerdoodle recipe.
Ethiopian Food and Alien Spices
I was reminded over at Jen’s how much I loved Ethiopian food the couple times I had it, both at restaurants in Montreal. I’d go regularly if we had one around here, especially good and reasonably priced.
In the past I toyed with the idea of making it myself, even to the point of looking up recipes such as these.
I don’t even remember what dishes I had and which I preferred. They were all good, and there were several, shared among a bunch of us who banded together to go. I rather liked the serving method. 4 - 5 people sat around a large round tray, covered with a giant flatbread, called injera. You spooned food from a serving dish onto the bread in front of you, ate it using other, smaller pieces of the bread, and finished up eating the last of it with the bread on the tray. We had, as I recall, chicken, beef, lamb and vegetarian dishes.
Anyhow, looking at the recipes, one thing is common; the berbere sauce. It’s an ingredient, which in turn you make.
It reminds me of an ingredient for an Indian cashew chicken recipe I saved from the recipe carnival a few weeks ago. It’s garam masala, which can be bought at Indian markets, or made with a mix of cinnamon sticks, cloves, black peppercorns, black cardamon pods, and black cumin. Er… okay then. It’ll be like a treasure hunt to find all that.
In this case, exact details depending which recipe you read, it takes something along the lines of cumin seed, whole cloves, cardamon seeds (whats?), black peppercorns, allspice, fenugreek seeds (what??), onion flakes, various chiles, ginger, nutmeg, turmeric, garlic, salt, oil, red wine, cayenne, coriander, paprika, cinnamon, and shallots. Exact ones included or not depending on the recipe.
Fenugreek seeds? I suppose I should Google it.
This, and not merely being single, may have been what put me off of trying the Ethiopian recipes previously. But hey, while we’re exploring the joy of cooking and stuff here, maybe it’s time to seek out new spices, and new recipes to use them in, to boldly cook like I have not cooked before.
And no, not sticks and rocks people.
I am used to mentioned having had Ethiopian food and being asked in a lame attempt at comedy, “Ethiopian? What do they eat, sticks and rocks?” Sheesh.
Thursday, December 16, 2004
Not a Recipe
An experiment for supper.
The recipe for a variant of apricot chicken in the last Carnival of the Recipes got the gears turning. I bought some apricot preserves, if only because I love it in PBJ sandwiches. Thought I’d try it, but I was weirded out a bit by the inclusion of Russian, French or Catilina dressing in the recipe, and we didn’t have any. Not that wasn’t past its throw away date. I also had to make it for only two chicken breasts; a smaller recipe.
I poked around and saw some other apricot and chicken ideas online, and ended up, unmeasured this time, using three big spoonfuls of apricot preserves, some vinegar, a dash of Worcestershire sauce, a couple dashes of dry mustard, just about half a packet of Shaw’s store brand onion soup mix, and what probably amounted to around three tablespoons of brown sugar.
I stirred it all up vigorously, into a lumpy sauce, and spooned it onto the chicken breasts in a baking pan.
It came out a little too liquid, so I’d probably go lighter on the vinegar, if nothing else next time. About halfway through close to 40 minutes of baking at 400, I took it out and spooned the now thickened sauce from around the chicken onto it to add to what was actually sticking.
The brand of onion soup mix is particularly strong, and I should have remembered that and gone lighter.
The sauce itself tasted excellent and promised a good result. And it was, but not quite where it needs to be for an excellent dish. The onion soup was too strong a taste. I could see doing something like it, almost the same, but with a pinch to a dash or two each of onion powder and garlic powder, or just the onion powder.
We devoured and enjoyed it. It’s worthy of another test or two and then maybe I can make it a recipe with more detailed measurements. There are pictures, which I may yet take off the camera to post. Got a nice breast shot in the pan, as well as one of the rice, chicken, carrots and green beans with almonds arranged on my plate.
Update:
Here are pictures! First, the apricot chicken experiment in the pan:
Yeah, the pan is still soaking. Oh well.
Here’s the chicken in context on the plate:
Pretty, huh?
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Checking It Twice
Ha! Here’s an amusing, comment-provoking artifact. I was searching on my computer at the office to see if I had a handy mailing list for holiday Christmas cards for clients and vendors. I came across my Christmas list for the year 2000.
My family demands one of these most years, else they have no clue what to get me. However, nobody mentioned it this year because I am no longer single and childless. The emphasis is always on the kids in the families that have them. I do now, so Sadie will get the presents.
Some years even I had no idea what to list, but apparently in 2000 I went all out to come up with a variety of items. That people could afford. Sometimes as a joke I would put something expensive nobody could possibly buy for me. But hey, they asked what I wanted…
So let your mind go back four years, long before Deb, less than two years after I left my full time job to be self-employed, a year after I became the only one of several partners working full time for the business, a year after I got my previous apartment, in Quincy, after sharing a house with my stepsister for several years, two years after my peak “watching movies in theaters as they were released” year, and less than a year after I got my first ever VCR. Here, verbatim, is the list, in approximately the same format as in Word, with everything I have since gotten or that Deb has, as best I can remember, in italics:
Jay’s Famous Annual Christmas List
For the year 2000
For the Apartment· Grater, one of those big metal ones that does something different on each of the 4 sides is what I am picturing
· Can never have too many paring knives
· Or anyway, something specifically designed for slicing cheese might be cool
· A couple more spatulas wouldn’t hurt, for non-stick pans specifically
· Tightly sealable containers made for storing cereal
· And other such storage containers for things like pancake mix, flour, etc.
· Only kind of pans I could possibly use would be a couple small to medium sized saucepans
· A container appropriate for maple syrup
· Wouldn’t mind some kind of blender/food processor thingie, the easier designed for cleanup the better
· I wouldn’t mind a couple wooden spoons
· Decent wooden cutting board (scientifically proven more sanitary than plastic)
· Spoon holder thingie for top of stove
· I am most in need of large plates and cereal bowls when it comes to dishes, but not direly so
· Set of measuring cups
· Some new mid-sized towels, by which I mean ones that many would call “bath size” but to me are just comfortably oversized hand sized. About the size some of you have seen me put under dishes on the counter.
· I wouldn’t object to a dish strainer thingie in a color that goes with the kitchen (unfortunately that means shades of beige, white, yellow, peach, orange rather than colors I personally prefer like blue, purple or maybe green… though green would kind of fit and blue wouldn’t clash)More General
· Any Beatles CD, though especially interested in White Album
· Videos of
Star Wars 4: A New Hope
Star Wars 5: The Empire Strikes Back
ET
The two Toy Story films
Beauty and the Beast!
The Wizard of Oz
Dogma
Princess Mononoke
The Die Hard films
The Truman Show
Fantasia
Fantasia 2000
High Fidelity
The Sure Thing
Life of Brian
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
The Lion King
Aladdin
Sleeping Beauty
Lady and the Tramp
Jungle Book
Bambi
The Little Mermaid
Cinderella
Pocahontas
Clueless
The Breakfast Club
Top Gun
When Harry Met Sally
The Love Letter (big screen version with Tom Selleck, Ellen Degeneres, etc., not the Hallmark one with Jennifer Jason Leigh)
The Green Mile
Titan A.E.
The Batman films
The Superman films
Simply Irresistible
Every James Bond film
Armageddon
Deep Impact
· Gift certificates for any major book store or cinema chain in the general area, Filenes, South Shore Plaza in general, any place videos are sold at a reasonable price, Best Buy, Comp USA, Bed and Bath or similar stores, etc.
· Snow broom (Dad knows what I mean)
· Shirts of the long sleeved button down Oxford variety, size 18, 34/35 sleeves, basically any color but white and any pattern that doesn’t accentuate my need to lose 50 pounds. I tend to prefer ones that have a certain… weight and texture to them, which I know doesn’t convey what I mean, but most shirts labeled Oxford seem to have it to some degree. I have had good luck with Stafford brand Oxfords, and just bought the same thing in Van Heusen which seem to be thinner material and are a higher percentage cotton, but have traditionally been a brand I’ve had luck with. I’ve had mixed results with L.L. Bean shirts.
· Pants of the “Dockers” genre, which can be Dockers, The Original Khaki Company, Hagar and others. Not the waistbands that have stretchy sections in them. Waist 40, Leg 30.
· Socks, as long as they aren’t short ones, and have a reasonable degree of thickness to the material. I prefer colors other than white, but do like multiple socks of the same color/pattern making them fairly generic to match up.
There you have it, a blast from the past. Some things not in italics need comment.
I did get more knives, but not the good paring knives I wanted, and I have lost my favorite one since then.
My grandmother has a hand me down blender waiting for us at her house, which we didn’t take last time because the car was too full or something. But that’s not what I really wanted for a “food processor.”
Now we’d like some pans that aren’t non-stick, of various sizes. And need a medium saucepan or two, non-stick or otherwise, since I boiled my good non-stick one dry and ruined the coating with excess heat. I’m very fussy about treating them just so, and overheating with nothing in them is one of the best ways to harm them. Now things stick instead of not. I like non-stick cookware but would like some of the other kind too. Deb prefers the other kind.
I forgot how much I like the word thingie. I haven’t used it nearly enough lately.
Deb has a number of Beatles CDs, including the White Album and the red and blue compilations. I subsequently bought One after it came out.
I may have some of the movies wrong, since Deb has an extensive collection of mostly non-overlapping movies, and I can’t even remember everything I bought. The most amusing thing is between us we have three copies of The Cutting Edge.
I think it’s funny I had to start making my family a list as an adult. I never did that when I was a kid. Not as far as I can remember anyway.
Update, as I review the post:
I have the first and best Die Hard film, but didn’t mark that because I stated it there as plural. It’s about the time of year to watch it again, being one of the best Christmas movies.
I think Deb may have at least the first Toy Story, but again, plural and wasn’t certain.
I eventually got the first two Batman films. I think it’s two, not three.
This reminds me I need to watch While You Were Sleeping, another great Christmas movie, with Deb, who has never seen it.
Cranberry Pie
This is a recipe someone gave my stepmother, origins unknown. It was astonishingly good! We had it there at Thanksgiving. Here it is, verbatim (some ingredients are listed “in-line” rather than at the top):
325 Oven
10” Pie plate
2 Cups cranberries
1/2 Cup sugar
Place cranberries in pie plate. Sprinkle 1/2 cup sugar over berries.
Mix together.
2 Eggs beaten, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup flour.
Melt 3/4 cup butter and slowly mix into above egg mixture until well incorporated. Spread over the berries.
Bake 1 hour.
I can’t recommend it enough. We’ll probably make it in the next week or so.