French Toast

Posted from 08/16

It's a day off for Tony which means I'm spending it with him. I kept it easy but new. A new recipe and something everyone should know? I went with french toast. I didn't use a recipe, I used an even better source; my mother.
This is the exact “recipe” I used.

Use thick cut bread. If the store doesn't have Texas Toast, go to the deli and buy an uncut loaf of farmer's bread.

Whisk up “like 3 eggs” with a little milk, throw in some cinnamon and some sugar. How much? Uh... like “some cinnamon and maybe a tablespoon of sugar”. Soak the bread both sides and fry them. Repeat the egg mixture until you're done.

So basically, I winged it. The summary of my mother's recipe is to wing it. And you know what? It worked really well. So well in fact, I forgot to take a nice picture and snapped this doozey as soon as I remembered.

It went down easily as far as cooking goes. I fried up some thick cut bacon and did the “holy crap hot bacon grease” dance that normal people do when they're getting fragged by it. Tony's laughter from a safe distance during that time kept the beat I suppose.

I can tell you now why I never see my mother sit down and eat. I know why she eats in the kitchen. If you want hot food, you can't sit down and eat. You eat while you cook because if you don't, you either won't get any of the food, or the food you set aside for yourself is stone cold by the time you get to it.

Kitchen warriors, I salute you. I would raise my spatula in salute, but I need to go wash it.

Purple Potatoes!

Posted from 08/14

Let's talk more about appreciation for growing your own food. Why? Because I want to and you're my blog hostage. Blogstage?.. Ignore that.
Really though, today I went straight for using food from my garden. Those awesomesauce purple potatoes. If you'd like to learn a little more about purple potatoes you can Here.

The basics of purple potatoes for those of us who don't click links, is that they aren't really any different than any other potato. They can be used like a red or a white, best for roasting and frying but can be used for mashing. Then there's some stuff about color and antioxidants, but let's be real, I grew them because they're pretty.

I mean really, look at these beasts. Glorious! I did have a little trouble peeling these due to their size. They're similar in size to a red potato, so I used my handy dandy thumb claw and stabbed in to the potato to keep a grip and not peel my fingers. I came across this little cutie while peeling.

Looks like a little animal face!

So this is the bunch all peeled. When they're sliced, they're absolutely beautiful, I mean as far as produce goes. I suggest using them in a better way than me. Today I'm mashing, but these would be stunning sliced in scalloped potatoes or frying into chips.

Now I've made mashed potatoes from scratch before so I think I've got this covered. However, if you live in Basictown like me, there are a few things to note.

• Peel and wash your potatoes (peeling optional). Cut them to be all about the same size
• Start your potatoes in COLD water. This will prevent the outside from quickly cooking and turning to mush while the inside is still uncooked
• SALT your water. Just do it. I promise. I'll skip the science of starches, just know your potatoes will soak up the salt and you really really want that
• Bring them to a boil and then drop down to a simmer. Cook until you can stab them with a fork and they fall apart
• If possible use room temperature butter and milk. Again, the starch thing.

Fun fact! While peeling the potatoes won't stain your fingers, it will change the color of the water you're boiling. That's a pretty blue but I have yellow lights on my stove so it looks Rio Olympic pool green, but still awesome.

I've cheated and thrown in some frozen chicken breasts into the stove while I'm doing this. Can we all stop and not beat ourselves up for this, though? Most people don't raise their own chickens. If you do, wonderful! That's great! Maybe one day I can too if I have the desire to. We're about honesty here, so I have no problem admitting I'd rather watch Master Chef and Hotel Hell than go feed or wrangle chickens. Sorry, Gordon! The chicken I should note, I threw in a small roaster while frozen, covered them liberally with chicken seasoning and cooked for an hour. Tasty and simple like I like it. Not a ticket to win competitions, but super satisfying. I asked if Tony wanted a side like corn or green beans and he opted for no, so we had chicken and home grown, homemade mashed purple potatoes for dinner.

Today's enterprises succeeded.

Easy Day, Small Wins

Posted from 8/13
It's been 3 days and we have subsisted on leftovers and a day where we went out. I got caught up in the nothing zone for Tony's day off and the next day I got caught in it again. We discussed what exactly we're doing. I have been feeling like I can't really set that kind of working schedule in the house if this isn't permanent or at least extended. We decided this is extended so now I'm able to get into the swing of it. Part of our conversation included such lovely phrases as
“That's a really open ended question.” “LIFE is an open ended question, motherf****!!”
“I love our life. It's a great life if not slightly weird”

So far today has been a short but good day. I have drive because we know what I'm doing. I got up, made Tony some hot spaghetti and used my passata and mixed in some herbs and spices to make a homemade sauce. I enjoyed it, Tony seemed to enjoy it and then in our special way we buried it under parmesan cheese.

Now it seems like something so small but let's cover the fact that after dinner I washed the dishes we used immediately. It's a small victory, but a victory nonetheless. It didn't decrease the amount of other dishes I still have to wash, but it made sure the pile didn't get bigger, they were super fast to clean and it made me feel better about myself. As far as improving our lives goes, this tiny step is an undeniable win.

After the dishes, I headed out to the garden. I was a weeding machine. Why? Because my potatoes finally wilted down and it was time to harvest! Not only did I get a little pile of potatoes, I harvested a nice slicing cucumber, a new pile of romas, and my first little eggplant. My eggplant is a Fairytale dwarf variety, so it's a little one.

I cannot explain the amount of effort that can get put in to working in a garden. It is rewarding, it is back breaking, it is dirty, fun, sometimes a huge pain in the ass and then at the end of it all, you get a meal. Sometimes the meal you prepare can be underwhelming because of your (or my) personal culinary shortcomings and even when that happens, it's still a good meal because you know the work that went into your food. There's a whole new appreciation if you grow your own food.

Kitchen Battle Draw

Posted from 08/08

Welcome to a new work week. Not mine. Tony's. As far as ideas go for what to make for dinner, he only really suggests something when he's craving it. I didn't particularly feel like being an adventurous cook today so I went with something easy for me from (partial) scratch. Baked mac and cheese. Indeed, that gooey delicious with a crunchy top meal that generally appeases everyone. I've made it before, no big deal, right? Apparently I was over confident. In fact, I'm still totally not sure what went wrong.
See here's the deal, the kind I've made before I keep a simple recipe for – but now it's on an old phone instead of in a recipe box like a normal human would have. So I decided to look up one on the internet. I picked one that seemed fairly familiar from a reputable food site I've used in the past.
This one starts with a rue. Butter, flour, whisking, warm milk. Add shredded cheese (I buy block and just shred it myself) whisk until smooth. Except it never got smooth. It's... odd. Kinda chunky. I mean it TASTES fine, but where is my smooth creamy cheesey goodness? This is WISCONSIN. How did I mess up mac and cheese? I just have no idea.
I suppose that's that point of an adventure. It isn't always going to go right.
I also added a little extra seasoning it didn't call for in the recipe. A little onion salt mostly and then Italian bread crumbs. The result? 

The crumbs didn't really brown the way I liked but thank GOD for them! Bland bland bland. My goodness it wasn't this bland before. If not for the bread crumbs, it would mostly just taste like noodles. While the cheese didn't get creamy the way I wanted, the mouth feel was not a problem. The cheese I added on top was great. Really between the bread crumbs and the cheese on top, they were the only positives. It was filling at least and Tony's verdict was “more of the top stuff, please” which to be fair, is what people say when it comes out right, right?

So what I thought was easy was an adventure, so now we'll see how my adventurous project turns out. I received my grandmother's food mill, and I have a stash of romas ready to go so I'm currently cooking the ever living hell out of them. I'm going with the long and low method. I enjoy rich tomato flavors much more than the fresh off the vine flavor. I know I already oopsied, because I started with enough water for 10 pounds and I realized after they'd already started to break down into it so I'm adding more time on to evaporate the water.

Furthermore, everyone should know I have a very bad time of not touching things. I can't help it. It says to just let them cook, so of course I keep poking at the tomatoes. There's about half an hour left on the timer so you know I'm antsy. I'm twitchy and antsy and “sweet mother of monkey milk” I need to learn to walk away from food! I'm quite certain it comes from my insecurity in cooking, and who the heck knows if that'll ever go away?

So it looks like I was pretty successful! With that small amount of tomatoes I used, I managed to mill out 8 oz of passata! Now I've got myself one small can's worth of tomato sauce that I can flavor how I will.

It's funny how today turned out like that. The “easy” mac and cheese went boringly south while my attempt at something way out of my comfort zone went so well even after making a mistake at the beginning.