RSincere

We're back! Boy, did those dogs stink. Jason's going to love getting his minivan back smelling like that. And does anyone want to take a turn explaining to Daniel that I can't contact germs over the Internet, and there's no such thing as a germ country with germ language? Because I gave up around mile 100. The shelters reimburse my gas, and this time they threw in a little extra for lunch so Daniel and I went to Burger King (or Booger Fling as we call it--because we're classy like that). Daniel had a child meal with a hamburger, ketchup only, and small fry and cherry icee. It's his treat for being in the car for about 5 hours. He didn't eat all his hamburger--he doesn't eat much. I had an angus burger, fries, and a diet Coke. The sauce and vegetables on the burger tasted really weird to me. Kind of too sweet, and with some flavor that reminded me of clove or nutmeg or cardamom. I know that those are three different flavors, but I couldn't place it. I think I would have preferred mayonnaise instead of that sauce--the burger needed something creamy with the tomato and lettuce and onion. I've been thinking about why I have been struggling between trusting my instincts and following a recipe exactly. For so long, I wouldn't use any recipe that called for lemon--too sour. Capers--they look like gallstones. Jalapeno or cayenne--too hot. Vinegar--too sour. Fruit in a savory dish--too weird. Chipotle--way too hot. Then, when I finally got brave enough to start trying this stuff, I realized that it wasn't true. I actually like heat in my food now, and I like food with lemon or vinegar. Even capers are good. The first time I made a pan sauce, I tasted it and it seemed way too strong, and I thought I'd ruined it. But when I decided to try it on the chicken anyway, it tasted great on the chicken. I would have never made a fruit salsa with chipotle peppers in it. Even when I tasted it alone, I didn't think I liked it very much. But it was wonderful with the quesadillas. So I'm trying to find a balance between dismissing things out of hand without even trying them, and following my gut as to what we would or wouldn't like. Now that I think about it, I probably would have used those crushed peppercorns in the Southwestern sauce, even though I know Jason doesn't like food too peppery, because I would have wanted to give the recipe a chance. I would have thought that it may be good just like the chipotle turned out to be good, etc. Maybe that explains it a little better.

Breakfast--see the previous picture with the homemade bread, down to the lopsided piece, and the diet Coke! I try to have homemade bread always available for sandwiches--but we also have to make sure it gets eaten before it gets moldy. Got a request to help out last-minute with a dog transport, so Daniel and I will be on the road at lunchtime. We're helping get shelter dogs slated for euthanasia to private rescues up north--we're meeting the driver of the previous leg in Madison, and driving the dogs to Tomah where we pass them off to the next driver. When Daniel comes with me on these (he has no choice, Jason works today) I let him pick where to have lunch. He usually picks Subway, a round sandwich with white American cheese, iceburg lettuce, and mayo. I'm going to cook the evening meal today when I get home, it's a soup so it will hold well for leftovers. It was supposed to be a chorizo soup, but as I mentioned in a previous post, I couldn't find the Spanish kind, so I bought Usinger's andouille at the grocery store. We've never had andouille either, but I'm hoping it's somewhat similar to chorizo.

I did it a little weird. The pan was all crusty from the way I did the pork--the chunks were really thick and I thought if I pan-fried them the whole way, they'd get dry. So I seared them and put them on a cookie sheet in a 400 degree oven to finish it. Then I had the pan with all the pork stuff on it. I put the vegetables in, and after they cooked a while, the recipe said to deglaze with some of the Southwestern sauce, which has vinegar and tomato paste in it. I was using a cast iron pan, and I have been having seasoning "issues" with this pan--it keeps losing its seasoning in spots. So I didn't want to deglaze with the vinegary sauce, so when the vegetables made the pan all watery, I scraped up the pork stuff then. That probably wasn't deglazing, then. Maybe I made up something new! Daniel wants everyone to know he had a vegetarian corn dog and a banana. He's enthralled by this whole food blog idea. He can't believe that people want to see what we're eating.

I didn't see the thread on the cooking notebook. I will look for that. It's funny. Several months ago, the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation had a voc eval guy come in and spend a morning with me doing all these tests. When he wrote his report, one of his recommendations was that the DVR send me to culinary school, because I told him I had a lot of cookbooks. On the one hand, I'd love to go, and for free! to learn all these things I'm trying to teach myself. But it wouldn't be fair, because the point is for employment, and I would not be right for that kind of job. I don't take criticism well--if a chef type yelled at me, I'd probably burst into tears--and I can NOT be rushed. I'd sit and peel potatoes all day no problem, but try to hurry me along, or give me multiple tasks at once? Not going to happen. Also, it would be a waste if I can only work about 10 hours a week. So I'm happy to stay home chained to my cookbooks, taking all the time I please. And no one to yell at me but myself.

I forgot to mention that I had a small handful of puppy chow (see yesterday) while cooking the pork, because after fasting all morning I was about to die, I'm sure. And I didn't eat all my lunch because it was overseasoned, so just now (3:30) I had two slices of homemade bread with whipped cream cheese flavored with cinnamon and brown sugar. Still have a caffeine headache from this morning, so I added a diet Coke as well. You think that's going to work? Don't you see what's behind Bailey? A huge screen door, which faces some woods and three large birdfeeders! I think part of the problem is what someone else mentioned above, that the cookbook author expects you to do some prep in the middle of cooking--"chop and drop" into the pan, as Rachael Ray puts it. I do not do that. The only time I would do that is if I had 30-40 minutes of simmering time to get something else chopped up. Otherwise, everything gets done in advance. I'm just too slow for that. If the onion/garlic is sweating for five minutes, that's not enough time for me to cut two bell peppers, a zucchini, and a summer squash into strips. I'd end up having to turn the pan off, and this has happened to me before. For instance, in this recipe, I could have started the sauce before trimming and cutting the pork loins, but I knew that the sauce would have been done before I even started cooking the pork. Also, I tend to get flustered very easily. I also, like you, need to read the instructions over and over. And even then, even though I keep the cookbook open right on the counter, I always forget something. Count on it. I'm really not sure. All it said was, Preparation: 35 minutes. Maybe Susan could look at her book and chime in. The pork medallions were only supposed to cook about 8 minutes, and then are held in the oven while you saute the vegetables another 3-4 minutes. When I add the recipes up myself, they seem to account for the actual cooking time plus about 5 minutes. I don't know if that's the time alloted for finding all the ingredients and doing the chopping and measuring, etc. I just used salt and pepper on the pork itself. After I seared the pork and threw it in the oven on a cookie sheet to finish off, I threw all the vegetables (2 red peppers, a zucchini, a yellow squash) into the pan and when they gave up their juice, that's what I used to deglaze. I cooked them a bit farther than crisp-tender because I find bell peppers to be much easier to digest that way. The southwestern sauce included chicken broth, "Creole mustard" (which I can't find and I used spicy brown mustard), cider vinegar, maple syrup, and if you follow the recipe, way too freakin' much salt and pepper. 1-1/2 tsp of crushed black peppercorns plus 1 tsp ground black pepper plus nearly 3 teaspoons of salt. This for something that reduces down to about a cup. I'm not trying to make excuses, Jason put the sauce together for me ahead of time (so that's not even counted in my prep time, BTW) and he followed the recipe exactly--and we both thought the sauce was way too salty and peppery. I don't think I would have followed the recipe for the sauce as written. Oh, forgot to add the chopped cilantro. I had it sitting in a ramekin but I never added it to the sauce. I found it later and used it as garnish. I like the recipes in this cookbook--but in the last three I've tried, there's been something that is a little off. For instance, the 2 cups of water to stew two huge 4-quart pots full of hard vegetables in the tagine; the 3/4 cups sliced scallions per quesadilla; and now, all that salt and pepper in a sauce that is then reduced by half. I am definitely looking more carefully at the recipes, and I'm going to follow my instincts on the rest of them. Because the ideas are good, and the food is good if you tweak it!

My token OT pic. This is to demonstrate why we rarely eat at the table. I have five cats, all in various levels of decrepitude, and it's hard enough keeping them off of the counters. They view the table as their personal show platform. Never mind the two huge expensive cat trees in the living room. Here's lunch! Pork medallions with southwestern-style sauce. I'm disappointed in the picture. It doesn't show how purty this food is. And I didn't even know I had a serving platter! Fancy that! I just did it this way because my kitchen looks like a cyclone hit it. For those keeping track, pre-cooking prep was an hour and twenty minutes. Cooking time for the sauce, rice, and pork/vegetables was 40 minutes. The CIA cookbook lists the time for this recipe at 35 minutes. And I'm enjoying this with a nice diet Coke.

I've decided that orange zest on the beets would be overkill. It just reminds me a little too much of that cranberry dish with the orange rind in it, I have never liked that. I'm drinking a bunch of water in ms. foodie's honor and counting the hours until my blood tests. The appointment is at 11:00 and is in the next town over, so I won't get back until almost 12:00. I'm going to cut vegetables, etc. now. I'm making pork medallions with a southwestern sauce and zucchini and stuff.

Okay, so I had the leftover chicken QUESADILLAS, and they were very good. I also had the aforementioned Star Bar and a glass of Sprite. Soon it's time for bed. I have to remember not to eat breakfast tomorrow. Daniel had Spaghetti-os and a banana. Told you it wasn't pretty.

Would a little orange zest be overkill? I'm now going to heat up my leftovers--you know it's good if I'm willing to eat the leftovers, I'm allergic to leftovers. And then I'm going to have a Star Bar and watch some reality TV--I mean, I'm going to go for a 5-mile run and then eat some fiber and save some orphan puppies on the way.

Too many ideas...I want to make them all. Definitely, the roasted beets win for me, because the last time I encountered beets I was a kid, the beets were the canned/sliced variety, and I had to eat four bites if I wanted to be a member of the "clean plate club." I have never worked with or eaten fresh beets, and they might be good! That's what happened this summer when I tried fresh asparagus for the first time--I was so traumatized by the slimy canned kind we had as kids, that I would never try a recipe containing asparagus, until I saw some at the farmer's market and thought, what the heck, it's only a buck. I roasted it and it was so good. Then I like the rice idea for another side, because I'll want somewhere for the sauce to go, and I'm very comfortable making rice so I won't get too freaked out about making three different dishes at once. The toasted walnuts might be cool...as a matter of fact, maybe if the beets were roasted with butter, toasted walnuts might be good on those too? I'm seriously annoyed with myself for my gaffe--who goes on a cooking website and confuses a quesadilla with an enchilada? Behemoth, I just noticed that at our Walmart, they have that Mexican table cream and queso fresco, etc. I never realized how inexpensive jalapenos and serranos turn out to be when priced by the pound. I get a huge handful for about 50 cents. The only thing I can't find, either here or in Madison, is the chorizo that's hard like salami, that you can slice. The only kind I ever find is the kind that you take out of the casing and crumble.

No joke...I was just taking a nap, and I bolted upright, wide awake. "I was calling them enchiladas, wasn't I?" I do that all the time. Quesadillas, right? Don't laugh. I'll respond to the awesome suggestions later...back to my nap...

Forgot to mention what Daniel had last night--a personal size Red Baron cheese pizza and a banana. Finally! Lunch! This meal is more in my comfort zone when it comes to preparation, but the ingredients had several curve balls for me. Here's the mango salsa. Cuisina was right, it did need salt, and the salt really improved it. I forgot to add the lime zest, though. That's okay, there's leftovers! This shows you the innards of the enchilada. Bottom layer is a whole wheat tortilla, then chicken breast, then pepperjack cheese, then scallions, then peanuts! I never would have thought to add peanuts, but they are so good in this! The recipe said to put 3/4 cup scallions per enchilada, but I thought that was wayyyyy too much. I like scallions, but not that much. I've made my own tortillas for other dishes, but I wanted these to be uniform, and to be a circle. I have yet to produce an actual circle from my many, many tries. I can make the state of Florida, and I can make a cloven hoof, but I can't make a damn circle. I'm not so good with the flipping, but I managed to keep them together well enough, and here's my oh-so-artfully arranged plate! Thought you might be sick of the same corner of my kitchen counter, so I changed the view. This is a lot of food. Even Jason couldn't finish his plate. We're saving half of it in the fridge to reheat for dinner. This is why I cut the recipe in half in the first place, all the recipes in the CIA cookbook serve 8. This is also why I don't tend to make too many dishes in one meal--we'd be eating leftovers forever. Reactions--Jason loved it. He said, "I can't believe there was a time when you didn't even know how to cook meat." My reaction is that I would be happy to be served this meal in a restaurant. It would probably look better than my version, but I don't care about that. I wasn't sure about the mango salsa when I just tasted it by itself, but it is so good with the enchilada. The peanuts were an awesome idea. And I'm glad I didn't overdo the scallions. I would love it if people would give me suggestions on what would go with the different meals I make. For instance, looking at the chickpea tagine, to tell me "I would have served it with ___" or "Those enchiladas would have been really good with ____." I just tend to find recipes that have a protein, fruit or vegetable, and starch, all in one dish, or at the most put plain rice or mashed potatoes on the side, and I tend to get stumped when trying to think of a side dish. I noticed the CIA cookbook recommended black bean salad with cilantro-lime vinaigrette with this meal, and I can see how that would have been good. More specifically, in the next couple of days I'm going to make chicken breasts with an apple-cream sauce. What on earth would go with that?

Today's breakfast looks the same as yesterday's. I have to go to Madison this morning and won't get back until close to lunchtime. Usually, when I have to drive to Madison, I grab a junior bacon cheeseburger at Wendy's, but today I'm making chicken enchiladas with pepperjack cheese and mango papaya salsa. (SusaninFL, it's from the CIA cookbook again, but I'm cutting the recipe in half.)

What's even worse is that I forgot to add the whole stick of butter that the recipe calls for.

I made the salsa tonight. It's 2 mangoes, about the same amount of papaya, the juice of 1/2 orange, the juice of a lime, and a chipotle in adobo. I tasted it and thought it was interesting, but I was so enamored by the adobo I added an extra spoonful to the salsa. This was my first time using chipotle in adobo. I still feel it's a little sweet--I do think I'll add some salt. To me, adobo is like barbecue sauce, but a little evil. Taking apart a mango is not as easy as it looks in pictures. I was going to grate the cheese tonight--then I looked at the cheese I bought. I meant to buy pepperjack, but when I read the label it said "Processed cheese food with jalapeno peppers." I tasted it and it's gross, so I'm going to get some real pepperjack tomorrow. If I slice the gross cheese and put it on Ritz crackers during a Packer game, Jason will eat it. Cuisina, I have been to the Farmer's Market. I was asked to give a speech on the Capitol steps last summer, and it was during the Farmer's Market. It was so great looking at all the different things--but they are very overpriced. I forgot to eat supper until just now, so I had a yogurt and some diet Sprite. I'm debating eating a Star Bar too. I shouldn't, because I've had a lot of sugary foods today, but I might anyway.

That would have helped, I think. What does "chunked" mean, anyway?! That probably would have helped. The recipe only has you sweating the onions and garlic; the rest of the vegetables get added all at once with the two cups of water. I think I would have had to have a huge pot to sweat all those vegetables! Yes. They were only supposed to be partially covered, but I covered them all the way because I didn't want to lose any more moisture. One of the pans doesn't have a lid, and I used an upside-down cookie sheet for a lid, so that might have not been tight enough. Also, I had the flame as low as it would go, but it was bubbling pretty hard for a simmer! Thanks, Laurie. I will make that salsa tonight. I'm not sure how many papaya slices would equal half a papaya. It's supposed to be two mangoes and 1/2 papaya. I'm guessing that would probably be equal parts, don't you think?

A couple more questions... I can make mango salsa a day ahead, right? Ingredients are cut up mangoes, papaya, orange juice and lime juice. I would have needed a half of a papaya for the recipe, but when I saw how big papayas were, I said forget it and bought papaya slices in light syrup in a jar. Would rinsing those slices work to get all the sugar off, do you think? If this would be bad in the salsa, I'll leave the papaya out entirely. This is my first homemade salsa and also my first time eating non-tomato salsa. I need to cook ahead because I have to go to my doc in Madison tomorrow morning and won't be back until 11:30 or so.

reesek, I do think there is a keema recipe in that cookbook, unless I'm thinking of Monica's book. The word "keema" rings a bell, anyway. soba addict, I am sure you are right about the water. All those chunked-up vegetables, and the recipe only called for two cups of water, plus the juice from a can of diced tomatoes. The whole time, I wanted to add more water, but I thought that maybe the vegetables were going to let out all this liquid and if I added water, it would be too soupy. I should trust my instincts a little more. These things happen to me a lot!

I'm so ashamed. Jinmyo, you might want to look away. I was still bummed about lunch so Daniel and I made a quick trip to pick up a few things after school. Do you know what I'm making? The diet Coke is there for full disclosure. The rest of the ingredients are for puppy chow! I melted the bag of chocolate chips plus one cup peanut butter in the microwave, stirred it into the Crispix, and shook it all in a grocery bag with about 3 cups of powdered sugar. Sugary, fatty, crunchy, hydrogenated goodness. I think this might be a regional thing. Puppy chow is a perfectly acceptable "dish" to take to a Wisconsin potluck. And kids like making it. I just had a big handful of puppy chow and my diet Coke, and I feel better. I'm such a food harlot.

To start with, I did all this prep work and put 4 cups of onions into my pan only to realize that the rest of the ingredients were NOT going to fit. I had all the rest of the ingredients in layers in a huge mixing bowl. So, do I mix everything in the bowl all up and divide the contents between two pots? No. I attempt to divide the ingredients up, layer by layer: I dig in the bowl with my hands and attempt to move half the chickpeas to one pot, half in the other. Half of the canned tomatoes in one pot, half in the other. By the time I got to the bottom, I realized I should have just mixed it all up, but it was too late. Here's what I ended up with: An hour and 50 minutes later: Even on low, the simmering was more like boiling, so I had to add a little liquid along the way, and I added another 1/2 can of tomatoes per pot. The parsnips are al dente, the rest of the vegetables range from mush to somewhat recognizable to almost al dente. That little pot in the back? That's the couscous. Which I overcooked. To the point of smoking. I thought I was turning the flame off, but I turned it to high. We will not be eating the couscous. I realize that you can't polish a turd, but in the spirit of eternal optimism, I garnished with parsley anyway: The flavor is very good. I neglected to mention that I am enjoying this with a large glass of diet Coke with ice.

I've been simmering this mess for an hour and ten minutes and the parsnips are still hard as a rock.

Lunch prep is not going well. We shall see how it turns out.

I'm a dolt. I was supposed to fast this morning. As you can see above, I didn't! I had to reschedule, so that freed up about an hour more for me at home. I took 45 minutes to prepare some of the ingredients for the tagine. I chunked up two sweet potatoes (or yams, I can't tell the difference), a butternut squash, four parsnips, 23 baby carrots, and got out the canned tomatoes, the chickpeas I cooked last night, and a bay leaf. I could chop the four cups of onions and the 3 garlic cloves I also need, but I don't want to go to my next appointment smelling like an onion, so that's going to have to wait. The thing that really gets me is that the CIA cookbook ("Gourmet Meals in Minutes") puts the whole preparation time for this recipe at 45 minutes. That includes sweating the onions and garlic, bringing the whole thing to a boil, and simmering 30 minutes. What does that leave, 5 minutes to cut up all those vegetables? As you can see, I took 45 minutes and I still have some prep work to do yet. I know I'm slow with a knife, but come on! I'm also concerned that the vegetables won't be soft after 30 minutes of simmering. I made a stew once that I simmered for 2-1/2 hours--no joke--it took that long for the carrot slices to get soft. I have no idea what happened there.

A quick breakfast. I have about 30 minutes to eat this and to change my clothes before dropping Daniel off at school and going straight to the clinic. I really hate being rushed when eating; I'm a slooooowwww eater. I think it's backlash from my teenage years working at McDonald's where we learned to suck down a whole value meal in a 10-minute break. That had to be healthy. Duh, forgot to say what it was. Homemade bread with whipped cinnamon/brown sugar cream cheese, plus diet Coke, of course. The bread on the right side is cut lopsided because I always get my loaf all skewed up when I slice it. So that slice was cut that way to even out the loaf. I was going to ditch that piece and cut another full piece so that it would look better, but then decided to stay authentic to how my bread slices usually look!

Had another glass of diet Sprite, and a Blue Bunny Star Bar. That's reduced fat vanilla ice cream on a stick with chocolate flavored coating. It's 9:40, time for meds and bed. I have lab and doc appointments tomorrow morning until 11:00, and lunch needs a lot of prep work, so I'm really hoping I get it done before too late. Jason leaves for work at 2:00, and I want to give him plenty of time to eat and digest before running off. I am making a chickpea and vegetable tagine with couscous. I had hoped to get a lot of the vegetables chopped tonight but I managed to run out of time. Daniel needed help with his art assignment. I did get the chickpeas cooked, though. Good night!