About a C+ of a Cooking Sunday
It was a good two weeks after The Germ entered the home and felled all denizens of the human variety. Sundays in these days of my mid-life years are spent cooking in the kitchen. Yes I do.
I have a list of what is to be prepared, what meals will be served when, and in what I order I will do the Sunday cooking activities. On this cooking Sunday I will also make homemade iced tea beloved by husband, fix the dogs their meal for the week (yes I do, I prepare the dogs' meals) and do my normal weekly kitchen clean-up. All of this while I watch the Sunday political talk shows which do not require my obsessive concentration. For when you've listened to one politician,you've pretty much heard them all.
It's a most pleasant day, my cooking Sunday. Husband generally fools around on the computer in the family room, directly adjacent to my kitchen. Or watches a football game. My little kitchen TV can drown out the game for my own viewing sensibilities. I will prepare all meals to be served the following week. And if the meal cannot be outright prepared, such as the "breakfast" dinner we have once a week, then I get all pantry items and froufrou together that the day the stove must be used again it's a much simpler task.
Well it's my system and I'm sticking to it.
Though it occurs to me that my cooking Sundays are interesting affairs. Also very much the learning occasions thus I think a Blog entry once in a while of a particularly unusual cooking Sunday would be prudent. Including recipes, natch, and narratives of all cooking mishaps, of which there was one this past week. Perhaps some hints I've learned along the way.
Many readers leave cooking comments or recipes in the comment section of this Blog. So I know there's an audience out there.
This past Cooking Sunday started out fine. It ended up fine, do not despair, although along the way some really weird things happened. I think it was the result of The Germ's damage to my mind.
The plan was to cook as follows:
Beanless Chili
Vegetable-less Chicken Pot Pie
Mushroom-onion soup
Buttermilk Pie
Black Bottom Biscuits
A pan of bacon
Home-made herb rolls
Cucumber Salad
Fresh home-made iced tea
A container of home-made dog food
Mashed potatoes
Prep for a "breakfast" dinner of French toast and bacon
Now this menu did come upon willy-nilly. Yon reader knows this?
For husband does not like anything but meat, gravy, rolls or biscuits, perhaps a tad of mashed potatoes.
He does love spicy food and that breakfast for dinner thing. This plus that Indiana meal described above is how I feed him.
Myself likes none of the above.
I am not afraid of an oyster, think tomatoes were God's gift to me personally, adore Chinese food for the vegetables alone and never met a recipe I wouldn't try at least once, depending upon the ingredients..
On Cooking Sunday I must prepare a "Sunday" meal. If I'm hefting out the deep dryer our Sunday meal will usually consist of something deep fried. Fried foods do not re-heat very well so Sunday is the day we have fried chicken strips or chicken wings are a specialty I make in the deep fryer.
Then I must prepare four other meals. Husband eats home four nights out of five. One night he goes to his favorite pizza parlor and eats out. He also eats out on Saturday.
Also I must be mindful of portions. Myself coming from a rather large and big-boned boisterous family, I do tend to make waaaaay more than husband, a more moderate eater, can eat in an entire week.
But that's why we have dogs way I figure.
Same with me, a bit more robust of an eater than husband but even at that, my middle years common sense has told me I don't eat as much as I think I do.
Thus recipes must be effectively halved or planned for freezer storage. Or dogs.
My rule of thumb is one additional Sunday meal to husband during week. Then two of another meal I've prepared on cooking Sunday. Then perhaps a breakfast dinner.
Of course, there's me, who likes different things. Especially soups and pasta, not eaten by husband save for spaghetti and then it better be spaghetti-not rigatoni or macaroni or other nefariously shaped stuff.
I also prepare two desserts as husband, something about his teeth, can't eat anything with nuts. Myself would put nuts in everything and indeed does often eat nuts right out of the little cellophane baking bags.
Husband loves pie, God Bless Him, and I've as fine a pie recipe collection as ever compiled. There's been plenty of pie disasters through the year but still I keep going.
Also, I've no aversion to convenience foods. It turns out husband thinks Mrs. Smiths pumpkin pie to be the epitome of fine pie cuisine. As such I'll bake one up in a minute if it's an especially busy cooking Sunday. This includes frozen pizza, that I like and don't mind re-heating later in the week. Fishsticks. I love to bake up a pan of crispy Fishsticks, Gortons or Mrs. Pauls will do, and store them to re-heat later, either as part of a meal or on a rolls with a slice of cheese on top.
I will make these convenience foods as well on my cooking Sunday as the idea is to get it all done with only one dishwasher load of pots and pans and one day of turmoil for the prep, time and difficulty.
I'd argue I do a much better job of cooking in that my mind is engaged and my heart in the right place.
So in the menu above, the beanless chili (you didn't think the man would ever have beans in his chili do you?) was for two nights' dinner later in the week. The herb rolls would be for every meal and this is generally my bread plan. Biscuits, cornbread, home-made bread, there's a loaf or a dozen on the menu every week.
The vegetable-less chicken pot pie was an experiment, a recipe I chanced across and one I thought husband would like. I didn't know how it would keep, however, as it was also to be another husband meal that week. After years of experiment I have learned which foods keep well for microwaving and which do not. Or how to store items in a better fashion that they can re-heat as if cooked anew. Such as gravy and bread, combined, do not do all that well when served a few days later.
The mushroom and onion soup was a new recipe and a result of my new awareness of the soups I enjoy. Which would NOT be elaborate creamy concoctions as I've often made in the past (also do NOT heat re-well) but rather full-bodied affairs with more broth than anything and mostly, no meat.
Hey, if husband can have his weird eating sensibilities, why can't I have mine?
To the end of a full-bodied stock, I've taken to making a home made chicken stock whenever there's a chicken or turkey carcass about. Add some onion, celery, spices, that sort of thing, and simmer it all day, man, result is a broth that could be an excellent base for a soup or addition to vegetables and mashed potatoes.
So I had a jar of thawed home made chicken broth at the ready for my soup.
I can fry the bacon ahead of time for a breakfast dinner, sausages as well. Except bacon should not be fried to a complete crispness if being stored. Fry until thirty seconds before a perfect crispness, than remove and drain on towels. The extra thirty seconds added during the re-heat brings the bacon up to a fresh crispness.
The home made iced tea is made, yes in a two and half gallon container that I store in the refrigerator. The dispenser juts out from the fridge's bowels making filling up an empty glass a simple affair.
As for the dogs, well it's a misnomer to say I make them "home made" dog food. What I do, essentially, is prepare about three packages of oodles of noodles. I then amend this with regular canned dog food or other leftovers I know will not be consumed by the humans. This system stretches the dog food and hey, oodles of noodles is not that fattening. They like it pretty much.
Menus are planned and built before the grocery trip right before a cooking Sunday. I try to take advantage of sales and use of seasonal items as much as possible. Oyster stew in February, fresh tomato and cucumber salads in July is what I'm saying here. All required specialty ingredients for recipes to be prepared on cooking Sundays are purchased as well.
That's when I had the problem with the buttermilk. For husband's buttermilk pie requires buttermilk, duh. Only when I searched the dairy shelves, I could find no small pints of the buttermilk as required. I queried the dairy guy who immediately pointed to a QUART of reduced fat buttermilk.
"Sure we have buttermilk," he exclaimed proudly, pulling that thing down from the shelf.
"No," I complained. "You used to have regular buttermilk in a pint container. I can't use reduced fat in the recipe."
The dairy guy shrugged his shoulders. I did buy a quart of the reduced fat stuff but here's where the cooking as planned for cooking Sundays must be culled and pruned. Came cooking day and I considered the buttermilk pie. I regarded that quart of reduced fat stuff. I noted that the frozen pie shell was cracked and broken when I pulled it from the freezer. Boom, buttermilk pie was out.
First I began the herbed rolls, recipe below:
Bread Machine Herbed Dinner Rolls
1 cup water (70 to 80 deg)
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1 egg
cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
" teaspoon EACH: dried basil, oregano, thyme and dried rosemary, crushed
3-1/4 cups bread flour
2-1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
additional butter, melted
coarse salt, optional
In bread machine pan, place the water, softened butter, egg, sugar, salt, seasonings, flour and yeast in order suggested by manufacturer. Select dough setting (check dough after 5 minutes of mixing; add 1 to 2 tablespoons of water or flour if needed).
When cycle is completed, turn dough onto a lightly floured surface. Divide dough into 16 portions; shape each into a ball. Place 2 in. apart on greased baking sheets. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 30 minutes.
Bake at 375 deg. For 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. If desired, brush with butter and sprinkle with coarse salt. Remove from pans to wire racks.
~~~~~~
Now the problem with my bread machine is there is no such thing as a "dough setting". Which means, I suppose, to just knead and mix the dough, then stop already. With my bread machine you have to pounce on the thing right before it begins the "rising" cycle and pull the dough out of the pan. Whatever and however, my system worked. These rolls turned out to be the most heavenly part of the meal. You can forget that part about SIXTEEN dough balls, though. I made EIGHT dough balls and got handsome rolls that could easily hold a hamburger.
I then began the beanless chili dish, recipe below:
No-Bean Chilli
a.. 2 pounds ground beef, or cubed lean stew beef
b.. 1 (8 oz) can Tomato sauce
c.. 1 (6 oz) can Tomato paste
d.. 1 (16 oz) can Stewed tomatoes , optional
e.. 2 tablespoons Chilli powder
f.. 1 1/2 teaspoons Salt
g.. 1 teaspoon Hot pepper sauce, or more
Combine all ingredients in slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours. Serves 4 to 6.
~~~~~
Note that this recipe consists of, look again, a small can of tomato paste and a small can of tomato sauce. That extra bit with the stewed tomatoes is optional and for husband, no, absolutely not, no stewed tomatoes. Then there's the stew beef, which I used instead of ground beef, a few tablespoons chili powder. Since husband likes his food spicy, I added some hot sauce from his fine collection of hot sauces from all over the world.
This dish turned out to be simply awful looking. However, husband LOVED it! Served with one of those heated softball herbed rolls, well he thought it was a bit of okay. Myself would never have touched the gloopy looking stuff.
You just never know until you try and this was the simplest dish of all to prepare.
As for the chicken pot pie, recipe is below:
Chicken Pie
a.. prepared pastry for two-crust pie, homemade or package
b.. 6 tablespoons butter
c.. 6 tablespoons flour
d.. 1/2 teaspoon salt
e.. 1/8 teaspoon pepper
f.. 1 3/4 cups chicken broth
g.. 2/3 cup half-and-half
h.. 3 cups chopped, cooked chicken
Prepare pastry; divide in two portions, about two-thirds in one portion and one-third in other. Roll out the larger portion and line a shallow 1 1/2-quart baking dish (about 10x6). Melt butter in a medium saucepan; add flour and seasonings and stir until smooth and bubbly. Add liquids and cook slowly until thickened; add chicken. Pour into pastry-lined pan. Roll out remaining pastry; cover chicken mixture; pinch edges together. Bake at 425 for 35 minutes, or until pastry isnicely browned.
Chicken pie serves 6.
~~~~~~
I liked that bit about the prepared pasty. Indeed I used Pilsbury dough already rolled and round, found near butter in the dairy section. I didn't bother with that bit about 2/3's and 1/3. I already had nice round smooth pie covers straight out of Pilsbury. What I did was find me a nice square dish into which both sides of the prepared dough fit perfectly.
That nice chicken stock of mine is used in this recipe and I must say the result was very nice.
Almost.
For this was the dish where the weird thing happened. Kind of messed things up a bit too.
What I did, when the dish was done I pulled it out of the oven and placed on the top of my flat cook top stove. This is a nice place to rest dishes out of the oven. It is a burn top after all. If I've recently used one of the four spots for cooking then I steer my oven dish away from it. The cook top has a red light which remains on so long as a particular burner is hot. Even if the burner is turned off, that red light will stay on until the burner area cools.
I can, if space required, put a dish from the oven on a burner that is still warm. The oven dish is already hot and the fading heat from the recently used burner won't hurt it. So I plopped the completed chicken pot pie, baked in a pyrex dish, on a burner top that still had that red light
warning. I figured the burner area would cool down soon enough and for now that pyrex dish was way hotter than the cooling burner area.
On I went with the iced tea, dog food prep and frying of the bacon. The chicken pot pie cooled on the back burner of the flat topped stove. I pulled four eggs out of the carton, wrapped six slices of bread in aluminum foil and put enough bacon into a baggie for both husband and I. I put all of this into a large zip and seal bag. This would become our breakfast dinner later in the week and with the ingredients thus collected and compiled it would be a simpler matter to pull out the ziplock bag and begin the prep. I do add a small amount of milk as required for french toast in that package yes I do. This past cooking Sunday I had no small container to hold it. I would have to remember the milk when I pulled the packet out for the breakfast dinner. Ha, ha, I figured I could handle it.
I noticed that the chicken pot pie continued to bubble as it sat upon the stove and thought this was odd. It should have been cooling down yet it still bubbled as if in the oven.
Moving onward I prepared the cucumber salad and the reason I was even making such a thing in February was because of a major mistake I made in my recipe plan. I had a recipe for some sort of pasta salad and indeed had even purchased tricolor pasta for that very recipe. AS I put cucumbers in the vegetable bags at the produce section of the grocery I wondered why on earth I was buying cucumbers this time of year. Not recalling, you understand, the recipe I planned to use it in which is why cucumbers were even on my list.
On cooking Sunday I looked at that planned recipe a bit closer and decided I wouldn't much care for cucumber in a pasta salad and I pondered why on earth I'd considered it to begin with. But those cucumbers had to be used and even the dogs won't eat a raw cucumber no matter how cleverly I stick it in their food bowl.
So I made my favorite cucumber salad, very dubious about the taste of cucumbers in February. Normally I make this beloved side dish in July and August and with cucumbers I've either grown myself or purchased at a local farmer's mart. The waxy things I used this past cooking Sunday concerned me.
It's a simple affair, mayo, some vinegar, a dash of sugar, thinly sliced cucumbers and onions. Mix it all together and hey, it tastes even better the second day.
I've since tasted this dish made with the winter cucumbers and it wasn't bad. The cucumbers didn't have that nice crunchiness of the summer fare but hey, it was okay. I'll not make it again in February but really, it was okay.
After all this cooking flurry, again I note the chicken pot pie is still bubbling. Also I note that red light is still ON. A quick glance at the knob, oh no. It had been ON as well. With this pyrex dish sitting atop that burner for then almost an hour. I pulled the dish off the burner and regarded the damage. Half of the chicken pot pie had burned crust on the bottom, the half that had been sitting on the burner. I was able to get a Sunday meal and another meal for husband out of
the half of the pie unburnt. The dogs didn't mind chicken pot pie with burned crust at all.
The mushroom onion soup recipe is below. This turned out just fine and today I had a nice hot bowl along with a sandwich of bacon, cheese and mayo on a nice plump herbed roll. The soup was full-bodied and very brothy. The mushrooms added a wonderful flavor and hey, I've always liked onions. My chicken stock was a large part of the soup's success, let's not be unduly modest here.
Mushroom Onion Soup
2 C. (8 ounces) fresh mushrooms
3 T. margarine
2 medium onions, chopped
2 T. all-purpose flour
5 C. low-sodium chicken broth
Dash pepper
1/3 C. uncooked long grain rice
1 bay leaf
2 T. chopped fresh parsley
Trim mushroom stems level with the caps; finely chop stems and thinly
slice caps. In a large saucepan, melt margarine; add mushrooms and
onions. Cook and stir over low heat for 5 minutes. Blend in flour;
add broth and pepper. Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture boils.
Reduce heat. Add rice and bay leaf; cover and simmer for 15-20
minutes or until the rice is tender. Discard bay leaf. Sprinkle with
parsley.
Serves 4
~~~~~
I made the black-bottom cupcakes last and dear Lord, well, hey, I'M eating them. But they didn'tcome out of the oven looking at all like the black-bottom cupcakes of my memories.
Black Bottom cupcakes
Recipe is supposed to make 30,
Cheese Topping
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 egg, unbeaten
1/3 cup sugar
8 ounces chocolate bits
Optional: 1/2 cup chopped pecans
Chocolate Cake
2 1/4 cups flour
1 2/3 cups sugar
1/3 cup cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups cold water
1/2 cup oil
1 1/2 teaspoons vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract.
Preheat oven to 350. For Cheese Topping: Blend first four ingredients.
Add chocolate bits and nuts (if desired). Set aside.
For Cakes: Sift flour, sugar, cocoa, soda, and salt into a bowl. Make
a hole in the centre of sifted ingredients and put in water, oil, vinegar, and vanilla. Mix well
Fill paper muffin liners to 2/3 full with cake batter. Top, in centre, with 1 Tablespoon cheese mixture. Bake for about 30 minutes. Before the filling sets, garnish the tops with a sliver of pecan to let people know there are nuts inside, in case all the filling sinks inside and you can't tell!
~~~~
I followed this recipe's directions exactly, including that strange bit about holes in the cener for water, oil and vinegar (vinegar?).
The result was, so okay I filled the cupcake liners too high and the cupcake tops spilled over onto the top of the muffin pan. But even after scraping this off the cupcakes weren't so good. The filling was grainy and so okay, maybe I used too many nuts. The cupcakes did not get done either. When I realized the first batch was still very wet inside I cooked the second batch a little longer. No go. You couldn't even take these cupcakes out of the liner without it falling apartinto a little muddy brown pile.
So I'm eating them out of the liner with a spoon and hey, there's lots of nuts inside so it's not a complete waste. Would I make these again? No.
Thus the cooking Sunday is concluded. Husband had mashed potatoes, chicken pot pie with unburnt crust, a big herbed roll, fresh iced tea and black-bottomed cupcake tops, the leavings scraped off of the top of the muffin pan, for dessert. There's no nuts in this part.
The week's meals are properly refrigerated and we shall eat for the week with little additional fuss.
Next Sunday, undaunted, I shall cook again.
Your Union Dues At Work
WEARING THE UNION LABEL
“The latest from the wonderful world of unions? Menstrual leave. That's right, time off for your period. The Manufacturing Workers Union is asking for menstrual leave -- 12 extra days off a year with pay -- for menstrual pain. The union says that women shouldn't be disadvantaged against men that don't have periods.
“OK, so this is happening in Australia. How long before this nifty idea gets here? Oh, and don't forget. Once women get their menstrual leave in the U.S. it will still be illegal to discriminate against them in hiring. You'll just have to hire them knowing that you'll have to pay them for 12 extra days a year that they're not working.”
Talk show host Neal Boortz, 2/11/05
~~~~~~
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about
things that matter."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
~~~~~
Truth is Truth
LAYING BLAME WHERE IT BELONGS
“One hundred percent of the blame for the (Prof. Ward) Churchill debacle rests with the University of Colorado’s board of regents that hired, granted tenure to, and promoted an individual whose scholarship and personal qualifications are now, and must always have been, in serious question.”
- Columnist Dahlia Lithwick
Just a Snort or Two
Two Brooms
Two brooms were hanging in the closet and after a while they got to know
each other so well, they decided to get married.
One broom was, of course, the bride broom and the other the groom broom.
The bride broom looked very beautiful in her white dress. The groom
broom was handsome and suave in his tuxedo. The wedding was lovely.
After the wedding at the wedding dinner, the bride broom leaned over and
said to the groom broom "I think I am going to have a little whisk broom!!!"
"IMPOSSIBLE!!" said the groom broom. "We haven't even swept together!"
~~~~~~
A Florida court ruled that exotic dancers must cover one-third of
their buttocks.
Now, if only they could pass the same law for the plumbers, we'd be
in neat shape.
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