snowangel

Diana loves to bake. Peter loves to help and learn. And, both of them came home with straight A report cards today (A honor roll in HS for Diana ), so when at 9:00, they mentioned making brownies, I figured they deserved it. First off, I must say that I am a huge Maida Heatter fan. Her two cookie books are my go to books. Second, a few months ago, my supermarket reorganized the store, so there was tons of stuff on sale. I bought about 2 dozen SKOR bars. Stuck them in the freezer (I am starting to sound like a pat rack, which I am NOT!). So, Heath Bar brownies it was to bed. I'm sure Maida would forgive us for using SKOR instead of Heath. This recipe is from Maida Heatter's Brand-New Book of Cookies. This book is every bit as wonderful as her first book, which I think is out of print. Most of the SKOR bars are chopped extremely coarsely, with a few saved to sprinkle on the top before baking. 24 minues later we have They are way too hot to eat tonight, so the bite shot will have to wait for tomorrow. edited to add: The pan, which ugly and well used, was my grandmother's.

I've been warned by many not to try and jazz up the braise. I'll handcuff myself! The quitting. Well, that's interesting. I had one today, and very early, which is unusual. A couple of things. My kids are really coming through. They aren't bugging me, but have given me "permission" to quit beating myself up, which is really helping. Two things happened. Peter woke just after I'd gone to bed last night (Paul had fallen asleep on the couch) to get a drink of water, and he crawled in with me for a couple of minutes and told me that I shouldn't be mad at me when I fall down (his words). Second moment. Diana is now 15, and pretty independent. She's the last one to admit that she needs her mom. But, she has yet another case of swimmer's ear, and was in pretty serious pain. So, in she came, crying at 3:00 am and woke me up. For the first time in about 4 years, she crawled in bed with me and snuggled. As I did yoga again this morning, I realized that the beating myself up was allowing the smoking to control me all the more. So, I have the patch. If I need it, I will use it. If not, I won't.

Linda, assuming that my family likes this, you will hear about it with venison. The chuck steak needs to be used, and it just about broke my toe or gave my toenail a big purple mark. Makes me think I should probably clean out this freezer -- the one upstairs. We have a side-by-side.

Now, to dinner. I'm all set to do battle with the bread. Everything is laid out. The white bowl is full of cold water, which is essential for handling this dough. The blob o dough I suppose that someone who bakes more often would have degassed (degased ?) it more, but I don't bake bread all that often. It became apparent that this was way more dough than I wanted to bake today, and I was only willing to fight with two of these things. My idea was to cut the dough into four pieces, not the six that Reinhart recommentds. You'll note that one is pretty flat and the other is sort of "S" shaped. I slid them into the oven (preheated to 550 degrees F). It became clear as the oven heated that it really needed to be cleaned, so I'll set it to clean when I go to bed. I don't remove the racks. The finished loaves are not light as air, but they are not heavy as lead. This is my umpteenth try of this recipe, and I think I'll give up and move onto something else. It's just to "wet" a bread, when baked, for my liking. The crust is good, but the interior is just too damp, and I think I prefer a more flavorful bread. Perhaps I would have more luck with it if I baked bread more than every six weeks or so. So, I will try the seminola bread recipe in this book mentioned upthread. Assume it's the Pain Siciliano? On to soup. I decided to make a favorite -- the Creamy Garlic Soup in Paula Wolfert's Cooking of the Southwest France. This is a really easy, fast soup, with only egg, stock, garlic and onions -- staples that I always have on hand. It perfumes the house with this wonderful aroma. Someone should make a scented candle that smells like this soup. I love this knife. It has been missing since Xmas. We took a trip and took the knife with us, and my sister and I opted for a last swim before we left, leaving the men to pack up. When I couldn't find the knife when we returned, I assumed it had been left behind. No, it was in the side pocket of Paul's duffle, and I found it last night! Onions and garlic are almost golden, and almost ready for a little bit of flour, then stock. The final touches are whisking egg whites with cold stock and drizzling it in to form very thin strands. Then, egg yolkes are mixed with some vinegar and tempered with hot soup. The whole thing comes together in silky goodness (Peter's words). I had also fried up some lardons -- bacon ends from my very favorite bacon place in the Twin Cities, and one of the very few local butchers/smokehouses that sells bacon ends. I wonder what the other smokehouses do with their bacon ends? Dinner! I wish I'd tried my lime green placemats for this one. Dinner was wonderful, and I have noted in the book that I should have made more -- like 1-1/2 recipe.

Yes, Marlene and I will do Chufi's butter braised beef. There was a nice thick chuck steak that just about fell out of the upstairs freezer on my foot. Paul mentioned venison, and I mentioned that this was older. This is another dish for which I have everything on hand! Yes, Marlene, it is just about time you got that thing out of dry dock, as I have been mentioning to you for months! I dare say but Dave owes each of us a set of these glasses. I'm thinking sets of 8 -- each!

Peter solved the problem of the stuck stock. A blow dryer has many purposes. Never thought one would be cooking related, though.

Beautiful, Marlene! Dinner preparations are underway here. We've overcome the first obstacle, thanks to a blow dryer. Off to fight with dough.

At least it won't require a lot of last minute preparations! Bread question. The dough has been in the fridge since last night. I'm doing the pain a l'acienne from Bread Baker's Apprentice and am trying to decide when to take it out of the fridge and what time to bake it. I'm going to have to run out in a bit because I am out of garlic and olive oil (the every day kind). I don't know how that happened. Edited to add: don't sand drywall mud while wearing black polar fleece pants

I should have noted the source of my grapefruit. My neighbors were recently in Arizona (Phoenix area) cleaning out her dad's house now that he has moved to a care facility. The grapefruit were picked off of the two trees in his yard. One tree provided white grapefruit, the other pink. They are absolutely wonderful, and seem to have thinner skins than what we've gotten at the grocery and are also smaller. They are absolutely wonderful, and I do think I prefer the white ones.

Good morning. The late dawn has revealed a very sunny day. I'm hopeful that it will warm up enough that I don't have to take a blow dryer to that pot ot stock on the deck... Peter and I have done yoga, and I have decided to try and eat an earlier breakfast than normal. Peter joined me in grapefruit, but he prefers his halved and eaten with one of those serated grapefruit spoons. I prefer to peel mine, remove the membrane (one side) and eat them that way. Hints for what is for dinner are in the cookbooks on the counter. And, yes, coffee is also on the breakfast menu. The morning program here includes some drywalling.

Best check out, too, what's slipped under that drawer. Eewww! I never knew that green onions could morph, but they can. Anyone pulled their fridge out lately and looked underneath it? We did. You don't want to, but should. Especially if you have boys who love science experiments.

Peter and I spent a bit of time getting ready to make bread tomorrow. Just call him The Bread Baker's Apprentice. My mixer is an old (we'll have been married 25 years in June and I think this was a 2nd or 3rd anniv. present 250 watt KA made by Hobart (as was the dishwasher in my former house), back when this was the only model available for consumers, and only available in white. It has never let me down. Peter finally found a use for that silly plastic shield thing that I never use. Lest you think that Peter was up this late, he wasn't. I had a long nap, he's long been to bed, and my camera's new battery is slow to charge. Off now. Perchance to sleep, perchance to dream. But, yoga in the morning and resolve in the heart. Tomorrow, I have to think, will dawn late and sunny. I think it would really help if I got up after the sun rises, but that's yet another excuse. Peter reminded me tonight not to beat myself up to much because I am a fun mom and I do lots of things for other people. I think I've spent way too much time beating myself up this week.

Over here, you'll see that I had success with buffalo wings that do have holding power and stay nice for a while. In fact, those in attendance we happier with these than the fried and tossed variety. Maybe not the real thing, but plenty good.

Note above that there was cold turkey; cold smoked turkey right out of my fridge. I tried Zyban once. It made me jittery, I couldn't sleep, and for the only time in my life, I was constipated (that includes being pregnant and after having kids three times). That was awful. I didn't want cigarettes any less, and what was worse was that my body was no longer my own!

Can attest to AlexP's White Gazpacho. You don't really need to peel the grapes, but if you want to do so, it's much easier if you dunk them in boiling water first.

Marlene hit some of my nails right on the head. Today was a bad day for me. Especially bad. First off, Paul will do this with me. He just wants to finish the cigarettes in the house, so they have been available. And, I haven't had the fortitude that Maggie has had. But, I hit rock bottom today. This will absolutely disgust all of the people who have never smoked, but those who have smoked and quite with difficulty can relate. At 3:00 this afternoon, I went out on the deck to see if I could pry my stock loose (that's another story). Wait, another backtrack. We don't smoke in the house, but on the deck. The ash catcher for the Weber Kettle serves as the ash tray. There it was. A barely smoken cigarette. Yes, I did. And, I've had three more this evening. Tomorrow morning I go and get the patch; the script is ready. But the moment came about 2 hours ago. Peter and I had to run to the bookstore to get a book for Diana. When we got home, he asked me to come into his room and sit on his bed. He crawled into my lap, and looked at me. "Mommy, if you love us, why do you smoke?" So tomorrow, I pick myself up, dust myself off and get going. What amazes me is that I am a strong and resilient person. I am the one who left the hospital shortly after giving birth. I take having a seriously mentall retarded daughter in stride. I'm even calm about Diana and her learner's permit and driving. I've got to let go of thos noose. I'm a stay at home mom, and in the past few days have gotten precious little done that needs to get done. Maggie, my yoga mat is laid out for tomorrow morning. I've got my list of tasks to be done, and by god, I'm going to do them. No platitudes, please. The encouragement I've received from the multitude of PM's that have stacked up and what has been expressed here has been remarkable. Have faith in me. I'm going to do it.

I'll lighten the mood a bit while I talk about dinner. I'll talk about the heavy stuff later. So, my deep freeze is jammed. My pantry is full of stuff I don't know where came from. My current mission is to use up some of the stuff that's just laying around, which is what I did tonight. I discovered that no, my Super Bowl party guests did not eat all of the smoked turkey. Someone had kindly wrapped it up and put it at the back of the fridge. So, I needed to do something with it. A quick perusal of the pantry revealed a bottle of something. A can of this. Plus the 24 cans of diced tomatoes (yes, I will use those; Costco purchase). I had flour tortillas. I had shredded cheese (yeah, I know, but it's much easier for the kids). I also have block cheese, but I wanted to make this quick. And, I intended to use as few a number of cooking vessels as possible. To start A can of diced tomatoes, whizzed (but not to a puree) with my handy-dandy immersion blender. You'll note that my stove is on a peninsula which opens to the dining room, table which is full of stuff the kids dropped after school. Then, I decided I really wished I'd sauted some onions and garlic for this. So, I diced an onion and smashed some garlic with my ultra cool mushroom. The onions went into the pan while I gave the garlic a rough chop. I've already dirtied a second cooking vessel unnecessarily. Oh, well. But, as a side note, I really like that spatula thing. I got it at Crate and Barrell years ago, and I haven't seen one there since. Meanwhile... Turkey shredded by hand. Then there was this bottle of stuff rattling around. Lord knows why I ever bought it. Perhaps someone left it here after a party. I don't have a clue. I mixed a mess of that with the smoked turkey and added a can of those diced chilis. Assembly line I really should have shown one of the "enchiladas" in process. A big of the tomato stuff on each side (not very much), some of the turkey stuff and some of Costco's very finest shredded cheese, rolled and into the pan. Since there wasn't a lot of liquid in this, I tented it with foil for the first 15 minutes in the 350 degree oven, removed the foil and added cheese to the top. Garnished with those three sorry looking scallions languishing in the veg drawer and cilantro (fridge staple in our house). The two at the back of the pan are cheese-less, per Diana's request. Dinner! Since this was a way tamed down dish, I added salsa to mine. Specifically, Salsa Lisa (very hot), a local company. This is good stuff. Sorry, no bite shot. That's really hard at a family table with three kids. But, this was yummy. Perfect treatment for the smoked turkey. And, the larder is just that much emptier.

Ummm, do we want to know what that is, or is a little too personal... ← Two fingers of Jim Beam (oh, maybe three fingers) over a couple of cubes of ice. I rarely drink brown liquor, prefering the clear varieties.

That's like asking which of my three kids is my favorite! But, current faves are the Chick Do-Piaza, the Beef Rendang (equally as good with pork), the Bisteces Rancheros (sans potatoes and upping the quantity of poblanos) and the Pork with Mango, Lime and Coconut (althought that pork with chipotle and roasted tomatoes is also calling...) I've braised everything, except the seafood and veg dishes in my oval 6-3/4 quart LeCreuset. Lessons? Actually, I think her braising temps are too high, but she has introduced me to new flavor ideas in braises.

Repeat after me. Bone in. Bone in. Bone in. I don't think it makes it cook any faster. One thing about the boneless ones, at least if you purchase it already boned, there is rarely any skin and they've usually trimmed some of the fat. Besides, if you don't have the bone and that skin, how are you going to make smoked pork stock?

Welcome to the "party," Toasted. Join us please. And, thanks for saying it isn't easy. Marlene and I are have a really rough time. The stories of "I just put them down one day and never looked" back are not helping me, at all. So, feel free to bitch and moan with me.

I'm not going to be doing anything with my chicken stock any time soon. I asked Paul to put it out on the deck. He sat it in some snow, and it is frozen to the deck.

I had really wanted not to have to go out today and get some stuff done, but Heidi had a routine dr. appt. I returned home, so hungry I was almost shakey. One grapefruit does not hold me all day! Fast lunch; it was ready in 4 minutes. MAMA noodles with all of the packets, some bean sprouts, char sui. I added my favorite condiment for these noodles -- it is one that you see on every noodle wagon and at every table in every noodle stall in Thailand. Sliced bird chilies in vinegar. I keep a jar of that stuff in the pantry at all times. I had lots of bird chilis and my nose is running now. And, yes, Marlene is right. It's not getting better. More on that later.

not really but what the F are you doing still up and cursing the tabaco magnet?? go to bed! ← I had been to bed. Was almost asleep, and then Heidi had a nightmare, so up I got. But, I resisted. Had a quick bump, brushed my teeth and drank two glasses of water and went back to bed.

I hate Phillip Morris.