Party Animals

The Mister and I threw a party yesterday, and the both of us are really feeling it today. Not because either one of us is hung-over or anything, but because we don't entertain very often, and we aren't very good at it. I hear people all the time saying "we love to entertain", and I'm delighted, because that means I can be a guest at their house. (I am an excellent guest, just to tell you. I bring a small but tasteful gift, I am a charming conversationalist, I eat whatever is put in front of me, and if you keep pouring the wine, I will probably drink it and go home before I throw up.)

I will take a  moment to comment on the phrase "throwing a party", because that's exactly as violent and as haphazard as that when I do it. Like "throwing up" and "throwing under a bus".

Maybe it's because we both work on Saturdays, and everyone else's weekend is half-way done when ours is getting started, but giving dinner parties and bar-b-ques and the like just isn't something we do very often. And because we don't do it often, it's never a slam-dunk. I always feel like I'm just getting away with it.

I'm in a frenzy of activity before a party, trying to figure out where the food will go and how I will serve it and how many plates do I need and what kind of platter will that go on and I know I bought napkins and the towels in the bathroom need to be changed and I'm going to need a corkscrew out there and someone has to go buy ice because I forgot and now the fridge is full and I can't put any more in there and by the time my guests come, I have a strong urge to tell them where the booze is and I'll see them later as I now need a nap. It never seems to be as effortless as Martha Stewart seems to keep telling me it should be.

I love my friends and family, and none of them would ever give a rat's ass about how clean my house is, or how we get everything together, and if they did, they're not my real friends anyway. But, you can live with all sorts of ridiculous things until you invite people over and then start looking around as if you were a guest. That dusty old lampshade? Hideous. The overflowing bookshelf? In need of a good cull. The clumps of cat hair on the carpet? Yuck. The bathrooom you've been meaning to paint for months? DO IT BY SATURDAY!
The Mister and I agree that we really should entertain about every 4 months or so, because we get so much done around the house that we'd never do otherwise. The prospect of visitors galvanizes us like nothing else.
I make up for the surroundings by feeding people really good food until they burst. And I ply them with liquor until they don't notice the dust bunnies under the dining room table.

I have my Book Club Ladies over a few times a year, and they are completely amicable and gracious, and are far too well brought up to bat an eyelash at the unmatched tea cups and squeaky dining room chairs. They appear, at least, to be far too enamoured of my bread pudding with whiskey sauce to notice. I would be lying if I didn't say that I am deeply jealous of the rest of them; they seem to entertain with aplomb, with centerpieces that co-ordinate with the theme of the book and napkins that match the tablecloths, and furniture they did not get at a garage sale. AND they make desserts that would make you swoon. Clearly, I am just not as adept as they are at this.

Yesterday's party was for our staff, and again, they all know me, are well acquainted with my slovenly habits, and seem to be eager to come here anyway. Again, I think its the food that's the draw. I had several requests for my foccacia (always a fave.) and for the Mister's freshly made samosas and onion bhaji. I made creme brulee cheesecake and the Mister cooked chicken wings over a firepit, and then everyone else brought salads and devilled eggs and a cheesy crab and lobster dip that was insanely delicious. Just after we started to eat, the heavens opened and we got a serious amount of rain for the next few hours, but we all crammed into the breezeway and nobody seemed to  mind that we had 12 people packed into a space meant for 6.
I think the fact that everyone was woozy from the food comas helped.

After a lovely few hours of eating and drinking and talking, eventually our guests drifted away, all seeming to have had a good time. The Mister took care of cleaning up outside, and I poured myself a glass of wine and put on some music and found myself enjoying the best part of the day for me; the cleaning up. Not because I like cleaning, far from it, but there's something very satisfying about creating order out of chaos, and humming along to the music and just enjoying the solitude and quiet after a few hours of talking and cooking and being in charge. Then, my very favorite part of the day, when the Mister and I sit down with a drink and chat. (Every couple knows that the best part of any party is the post-party note-comparing.) Not only do I love sitting down after a busy day, and talking to the Mister, but I know the house is clean, there's plenty of leftovers in the fridge and best of all? It will be another few months until we do it all again.

Comfort Food

I hit the wall last Saturday, the wall that is winter. It was cold and snowy and damp and utterly miserable here, and although it has not been a terribly bad winter, I had had enough of it. I’m tired of bundling up to get out the door, I’m tired of my nose being cold, I’m tired of cleaning off the car, I’m tired of watching every single step to see if I'm about to slip and fall like a cartoon character. If I could, I would get into bed with a cup of tea and a book for the next month or so and only get out when it’s spring.

Last Saturday, as I came in the door from work, I was cold and starving and defeated, and I had nothing ready for dinner. And then I realized I had all the ingredients for Breakfast Potatoes, and the world seemed a little brighter.

Breakfast Potatoes got their name, not because I’ve ever had them for breakfast, although you totally could, but because they have breakfasty ingredients. I served these with a fruit salad, and things looked a whole lot better.

Breakfast Potatoes serves 2

1 baking potato

3 eggs

3 strips bacon

¼ cup shredded cheese

Poke the potato a few times and bake it in the microwave on HIGH for 10 to 12 minutes. (If I am very organized, I do this the night before or in the morning before I go to work.)

When the potato is cooked through, cut it into bite-sized pieces. Melt some butter and oil in a frying pan and add the potato and let cook without stirring until nice and brown and crusty. Flip the potatoes over, and let cook until all the sides are browned, about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, microwave the bacon and shred the cheese.

Crack the eggs in a bowl and beat them until combined. When the potatoes are all browned, push them over to one side of the pan to get them out of the way, and add the eggs and scramble them. When the eggs are starting to firm up, stir the eggs and potatoes together.

Sprinkle the cheese and bacon over the eggs and potatoes, and either run the pan under the broiler to melt the cheese, or do it the lazy way, and lower the heat to quite low (so the eggs don’t over cook) and cover the pan with some foil or a plate for a few minutes.

Season with salt and pepper and serve immediately. (Or eat right out of the pan if you have no shame.)

Okay, These Again

One of my friends requested that I put my banana muffin recipe on my blog, because, in her words, "it's the best thing you make". Which makes me want to weep, really, because I know no cook in all the land who wants to be famous for muffins.
Judging from how many people ask me for this recipe, these must be pretty good...I'm not that crazy about bananas, so they are only "not too bad" in my book, but everyone else seems to get all woozy with delight over them. I bake muffins or some other breakfast-type thing for the staff every Saturday morning, and these are, hands-down, their favorite. I guess sometimes fancy isn't what you are after. I have no idea where I got this recipe, so if it's your creation, let me know and I'll happily give you credit.

Banana Crumb Muffins
Makes 12 muffins or 24 mini-muffins

These are not very big muffins, so you could make 10 instead of 12 if you want them a bit bigger. Whatever you do, don’t skip the topping; it’s what sets these muffins apart.

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 bananas, mashed
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup butter, melted

1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Lightly grease 12 muffin cups or line with muffin papers.
2. In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups of flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg, and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into muffin cups.
3. In a small bowl, mix together the brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.
4. Bake for 18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean

Because my family will only accept "perfect" bananas (i.e. those without spots or blemishes of any kind, and just the merest hint of green shading the top inch or so), which are "perfect" for a full 20 minutes of their existence, I end up with a continuous supply of "displeasing" bananas, which I let ripen to their proper state (i.e. to the full blush of yellow, and with the occasional black freckle.) and then freeze them for this express purpose. I let them thaw out overnight, and then use them, but I will warn you, bananas in this state are not for the faint of heart, they look unbelievably disgusting; they practically slither out of their peels, and they require no mashing because they have almost disintegrated in the freezing/thawing process. Don't say I didn't warn you. But they are excellent for making muffins with.

Homemade Yogurt

I said to someone at work today that I made my own yogurt. (And yes, it was in response to a question, it wasn't like I was just throwing that out there, looking for accolades.) She responded "good God, that's like making your own lettuce, do you know that?"

It's not quite that bad, I mean, I have been known to make my own pasta and bread and marshmallows, and yogurt is way easier than all of those. (And they are all pretty easy. One of my friends once accused me of being an 'overacheiver', and I've barely forgiven her for it. I'm one of the laziest people God ever made, and things have to to be either criminally easy or have an enormous payoff for me to make them. Yogurt is both.)

All you have to do to make yogurt is A) have a yogurt maker (an essential part of the process), B) heat some milk C) pour it into the yogurt maker and ignore it for 6 hours or so. That's about it. But the yogurt is fabulous (which is a hard adjective to apply to yogurt, but truly, it is.) It is thick and rich and nowhere near as startlingly tangy as the commercial stuff. Here is my yogurt maker, which cost all of 20 bucks, and does the job admirably. I usually make plain yogurt and doctor it up as necessary, but occasionally I lob in some jam or fruit or syrup at the bottom, before it goes into the maker. (Successes: maple syrup, berries, apricot jam. Disasters: lemon curd (mind-numbingly sour), chocolate syrup (a memory I don't want to revisit) and bananas (brown, slimy lumps of goo.)

Here is my finished product, jazzed up with some strawberries and blueberries, a little clover honey and some granola on the top. It was much better than homemade lettuce could ever be.

Roasted Potatoes

Lest you think the only thing I cook is potatoes, I can assure you, I do cook other things. But I got such an enthusiastic response to my mashed potato entry, that I thought I would perform a public service and tell you all about roasted potatoes.

Not to toot my own horn, but I do make kick-ass roasted potatoes, and in fact, I'm pretty sure that the Mister has changed his mind about leaving me on more than one occasion because of them. The go well with almost any roasted meat or fish, but they make an excellent dinner all by themselves, too.

First, peel up a couple of Yukon Gold potatoes. (In my house, I count on about two good sized potatoes per person, but your mileage may vary.) Cut them up into cubes, and put them in a saucepan and just cover them with water.
Now, heat your oven to 400°F.
Put a lid on the pot and bring it to a boil and cook the potatoes for about 10 minutes or so. Poke a chunk of potato and bring it out of the water. Now get a knife and run it over one of the edges of the potato; you want it to be soft on the edges, but not all the way through. When the potatoes are starting to soften up, take them off the heat and drain the pot. Now drain it again. Now one more time. Put the pot on the hot element (with the heat off) and let any water evaporate for a minute or two.
While that is happening, take the pan you are going to roast the potatoes in and put in about equal amounts of oil and butter so that when it melts it will cover the bottom of the pan. Now put the pan in the oven until the fat gets good and hot.
Are the potatoes good and dry? Good, now you are going to put the lid on the pot and shake the daylights out of the potatoes. Rattle them around in the pot to really rough up the edges.(This is the secret to good roasted potatoes.)
Now take the spitting hot pan out of the oven and dump the potatoes in it. Flip the potatoes around until they are good and coated with the fat and add some seasonings. I usually just use salt and pepper (because I live with people who take their roast potatoes very seriously), but you can add thyme or rosemary or Italian seasoning or seasoned salt or anything else you desire. (I don't recommend fresh minced garlic, however, because it will burn before the potatoes are done. If you want them garlicky, you could roast whole cloves of garlic with the potatoes, or toss them with garlic salt at the end.)
Fling the whole mess in the 400° oven and let it sit for about a half an hour or so. Then you can stir them, but not before, you want to get a good, brown crust on the bottom. Cook them for about an hour to an hour and a half, depending on how crunchy you want them, and remember, don't burn your mouth.

Fried Corn

Canned vegetables are about as far down on the "Oh, I Guess We Could Eat That" Meter as one can get. Not 'white trash' enough to qualify as food so bad for you you would actually boast about eating it, like it was a badge of honour, and not good enough to actually consider eating unless there is some sort of nuclear winter on the threshold, most of us ignore canned vegetables in favor of fresh or frozen.
And although canned vegetables have mostly deserved their bad rap (canned peas, in particular, smell like death.) there are some which transcend their miserable reputation, and are actually on my "Hmmm-That's-Not-A-Bad-Idea" list. (Not to be confused with my "I'd-Give-My-Left-Kidney-To-Get-Me-Some-Of-That-List", which contains no vegetables on it whatsoever, and pizza is vastly overrepresented.)

This recipe (if you can call it that) is one I make mostly in the winter. I can always keep a can of corn on hand, and it is quick and tasty. Much, much better than plain, frozen corn. (Plain, frozen corn is, as my brother would say, only slightly better than a kick in the head.) And it has the advantage of being ridiculously easy and fast, and kids will eat a metric tonne of this stuff in one sitting.

Fried Corn~ serves 2 or 3
Open a can of Peaches and Cream Corn. (Forget the generic, no-name brand! Splash out on the Green Giant $1.09 stuff! Live a little!!) You may need two cans.
Drain in a sieve for a while, at least 10 to 15 minutes. The longer the better; you want the corn to be not dripping.
Put a frying pan over medium heat and melt a couple of tablespoons of butter, about 2 for an average sized can of corn. Now dump the corn into the pan, and let it sizzle for a minute or two. Start scraping up the corn off the bottom of the pan, and turn it over, letting the browned, caramelized bits come to the top. You can turn the corn down to low if it's cooking too fast, but otherwise just let it do it's thing, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan every now and again. This should take a minumum of about 10 minutes, but if you want to let it sit, turn down the heat to low and let it take a little longer to cook.
The corn should get very sweet and nutty. Sprinkle with a little bit of salt and serve. That's it.

Mashed Potatoes

I always thought everyone knew how to make proper mashed potatoes until I ate at a couple of places where the people in charge of mashed potatoes were clearly not up to the task. (And one place was a very fancy-shmancy restaurant in town, where I was tempted to march into the kitchen and make my own mashed potatoes.) Who knew it was so easy to screw something so simple, so elementary, up beyond belief? Now it is my mission to educate the world on the making of the humble mashed potato. It's not rocket science.

First, start with the right potatoes. For the love of all that is holy, never, ever buy something called “white” or “table” or “all-purpose” potatoes. They might technically be potatoes, but they’re useless. Buy “russet” or “Yukon Gold”.

Now, for two reasonably hungry people, peel 3 or 4 medium sized spuds and cut them into halves; cut each half into 8. Put them in a medium sized pot and put in enough water to just come to the top of the potatoes. A couple of bits sticking out of the water is okay. Now put the pot onto, medium heat and get it to the boil. When it’s boiling, turn the heat down until it’s bubbling but not furiously. Put the lid on the pot so that it’s slightly off-kilter (so it won’t boil over.) and let the potatoes cook until you can put a knife easily through one. (About 20 minutes.)

Now, drain the water off. Now drain them again. Give them a shake and drain one more time. You want as much water as possible out of that pot. Put the pot with the potatoes on low heat with the lid off, and let the heat dry out the spuds for a minute or two. (Careful not to burn.)

When the potatoes are really dry, get out the masher and go to them. Mash until you’ve gotten most of the lumps out, but don’t worry if you have a few.
At this point, you’re going to start using a wooden spoon, but if you want really smooth potatoes, use a mixer now.
Add about one or two tablespoons of butter and stir until melted. Now add a little bit of milk, cream or chicken stock (no more than a couple of tablespoons at a time.)and stir. Keep adding liquid until you’ve reached the consistency you want. Season with plenty of salt and pepper. (Always add the fat before the liquid, otherwise you will get grainy potatoes.)

Serve these right away.
I usually do the mashed potatoes right before sitting down to eat…they don’t keep for long. (You can put the lid on them on the turned-off-but-warm-burner for about 15 or 20 minutes) I tend to cook the spuds and either leave them in the hot water for a little bit, until I’m ready, or I drain them and leave the lid on and keep them on the turned-off-but-still-warm-burner, and that usually buys me 10 to 15 minutes or so.

There. That is my deed to benefit all mankind. I feel like Bono.

There's Always Room For Jell-o

Thing 2 was at a bit of a loose end this afternoon. Thing 1 had gone off with Grandma to scout out dresses for her upcoming Grade 8 graduation. (And I cannot thank my mother enough for taking on that job. Thing 1 and I get along pretty well, but for some reason a shopping trip puts us both on the business end of a hissy-fit in no time flat. The delicate diplomacy required for such an important outfit is quite beyond my abilities. I'm doubly impressed because my mother had to deal with a 13-year-old me, and totally knows what she's getting herself into.) And, in case you hadn't heard, the Loudshoes are the only family in the entirety of our neighbourhood that has not gone away this March Break, and Thing 2's social opportunities are nil until they all come back.


Thing 2 has always loved to mess about in the kitchen, and I figured it was a good way to while away the afternoon.



She has wanted to make layered jello since we saw it at our friends, the McDonald's, house a few months ago. Layered jello involves making many separate colours of jello and waiting until the last layer is firm before adding the next. It takes hours, requires unwavering patience and a steady hand. Plus, you are going to have an ungodly amount of jello in your fridge when you are done. But Thing 2 was thrilled with the results:
The glass on the right was a result of our wild experiment of tilting the container while the jello cooled. Thing 2 looked at me like I had just invented teleportation or something when I suggested it. I think she thought I was the coolest I was ever going to ever get at that very moment.

We also experimented with our very successful homemade marshmallows of a few weeks ago. We tried making chocolate marshmallows, which didn't set up quite as well as the regular marshmallows, and although they taste very nice, they are deeply unattractive. There are no pictures of them because they look a bit, well, fecal. Can't win 'em all.

"Hey, You Know What We Should Make....?"

One of the things I love about cooking is the fact that there are few things you can buy at a store that you cannot make yourself, and better, too. The adventurous cook has little to lose by experimenting, and plenty to gain.

I've made lots of things that were infinitely better than what I could buy at a store, and also buckets of things that I would have been way better off paying someone else to make.

Bread: making bread is incredibly easy, not to mention cheap. Cheap enough to experiment a bit with the recipe, too. ("What if I put in olives!") The worst that will happen is that you will have a blobby loaf that weighs a ton. (Warning: Using all whole-wheat flour, instead of the recommended ration of all-purpose, is not recommended, unless, of course, you want give your digestive system a major workout.) The smell of baking bread in the house is worth the effort alone.

Cakes, cookies, pastries: Much better ingredients make for much better sweets. Besides, the entertainment factor for a bunch of cranky kids is unbeatable.

Pasta: I've made my own pasta a few times, and I honestly can't say that I see much of a difference between it and the stuff at the store. Now, perhaps if I was making ravioli stuffed with lobster and truffles, it might be worth it, but I'm not dipping into the mortgage payment to find out.

Taco Shells: I buy the soft flour tortillas, and fry them up into the requisite, crunchy receptacles myself. Totally worth it. It makes the Old El Paso ones taste like drywall. Once, when I couldn't get the corn tortillas, I over reached myself a bit and made them out of masa harina myself. I couldn't get them quite as thin as they were supposed to be and they fried up a bit thicker and chewier than they should have been. The Mister claimed it was like eating a wallet. So, I buy the tortillas, but make the taco shells.

Crackers: As I read in a book once, for maximum guest intimidation, you can't beat home made crackers. ("Would you like some crackers? I made them myself! Hah!") I'm not sure why they got the reputation of being something you just don't make at home. But, they are pretty easy to buy, too.

Sloppy Joes: For some reason, the Mister had been asking for Sloppy Joes for years, and I had refused to make them. One too many bad cafeteria experiences, maybe. Anyway, I relented, finally, and made them from scratch. My (then) neighbour, Wendy, and Himself, nearly hurt themselves laughing, as they incredulously asked "why didn't you just get the canned stuff?". I was gobsmacked....why didn't I just get the canned stuff? The next time I opened the can, slopped the stuff into the frying pan with the meat and whallopped the whole mess onto hamburger buns. Damned if I could tell the difference.

Salad Dressing. I almost always make salad dressing. I've taught Thing 2 how to make it, too, and she usually performs that task if she's nearby at suppertime. It is so much better than the bottled stuff, it's really not fair to compare them.

Spaghetti Sauce: Tomato sauce is probably the thing I've made the most attempts at with the least success. Yes, making your own sauce is pretty easy and cheap, but opening a jar is pretty easy and cheap, too. I've come to a compromise, of sorts: I doctor up the jarred stuff, making it better than it was. A glug of balsamic vinegar, (and red wine, if there's any open) a smidge of sugar, a bit of tomato paste and a bay leaf, and it's as good as anything I've made from scratch.

Pickles. My mother's friend, Mrs. Park, made the best sweet pickles, and I would happily sit down and eat an entire jar when she brought them over. I tried making them a couple of times, and although they totally worked, I'm not sure they were worth the mammoth effort. It took a whole day to make them, it was always stinking hot at that time of year, and I was the only one who appreciated them. Now I buy them or ask Mrs. Park if she has any hanging around.

Pizza Making your own pizza is, hands down, the best reason to own an oven.

Marshmallows: Today, with the help of my new toy, I was able to make my own marshmallows. Thing 1 and I have been scarfing them down ever since. They certainly delivered the maximum satisfaction with a minimum amount of effort. We spent a good 10 minutes fantasizing about the flavours we could use for the subsequent batches....chocolate! strawberry! maple! caramel! We can put marshmallows in the "Worth It" category.

I think part of being a good cook is knowing when to roll up one's sleeves, and when to hop in the car and drive to the grocery store.

Revolting Recipes for Vengeful Cooks.

I'm probably the only person I know who reads cookbooks much like novels, i.e. back to front, but there are times when A)I'm too distracted or busy to follow a story, or B) in search of something new to eat. Or C) Both. And as I am not reticent about experimenting in the kitchen, I am eager to get some new ideas. Now, not all my experiments work out well, but the ones that do keep me trying. I do think, though, that even though I've had some notable disasters, I really should get credit for the things I don't try. Like human cloning, just because a recipe is possible doesn't mean it should happen. But if I am ever out to get my family, or have a guest whom I never, ever want to see again, I shall prepare one of the following:

Sure, something by the name of "Party Chicken Livers" sounds festive enough, but really, is any party improved by the appearance of chicken livers? And a dish called "Liver Fritada" just has "sad attempt at jocularity" written all over it. (Anyone who writes recipes for a living and cannot spell "frittata"is not someone I am going to trust anyway.)Besides, I cannot envision any occasion in which I would be happy to see liver, no matter what animal it comes from.

I saw a recipe in a cookbook once for "Ham Loaf Swirl", that I read out to the Mister with barely contained horror in my voice. I wish I could scrounge up the picture for you, because it was astonishingly obnoxious. The recipe instructed for the cook to make a 8x10" rectangle of minced ham and raw egg and mayonnaise (wait, it gets worse!) and then cover that with canned green beans, and roll it all up like a jelly roll. Then the hapless cook was to place it on a foil lined cookie sheet (all the easier to dump the mess out in one easy step!) and cook it in the oven "until it had firmed up". Yum! Nothing gets my appetite going like the prospect of "firm ham"! And mayonnaise!

Recently, I saw a recipe for "Chicken Taco Wedges", which was an attempt by the Pillsbury company to get you to use frozen pastry crust instead of taco shells or flour tortillas. Because.....why, exactly? Oh, that's right, Pillsbury doesn't sell taco shells or flour tortillas. The idea of tacos made out of pastry puts my gag reflex on high alert.

I despise canned tuna, always have, and only tolerate it in the house because the cat likes it. (Himself eats it now and again, which disgusts our children no end. To them, it's like he's eating cat food right out of the can. You should see their faces.) So imagine my gleeful awe when I found a recipe for "Sweet and Sour Tuna Casserole". Damn, that sounds so nasty, I don't even know where to begin. The idea of sweet and sour tuna is bad enough, but to add noodles and bake it just seems to be adding insult to injury, if you ask me. (Casseroles can go either way, in my opinion; they often seem to hover delicately over that line between "delicious" and "abominable", and tumble over into the latter with very little provocation. I don't know if it's the idea of all sorts of cooked stuff being jammed in a dish and cooked again that does it, or the prevalence of cheap, goopy, starchy ingredients that make up so many casserole concoctions. Either way, I know casseroles are sadly over-represented in my "Eater Beware" file.)

There were two recipes I found that only made this list because of typos in the cookbook, rather than any deficiencies in the recipes themselves. In fact, both recipes were somewhat inoccuous, but the critical lack of proofreading rendered them unmakeable: one was for a seafood soup, which instructed one to "add a half a pound of crap to the mixture", and the other was for a Sloppy Joe recipe, which, horribly, said to "add meat to bum, top with cheese and enjoy!". Um, no, thanks just the same.

Finally, we still talk about this recipe, which I found in a recipe book that one of my friends parents bought in a trailer park in Texas. (There's all kinds of jokes about that, too, but I digress.) There were so many atrocious attributes to this recipe, we wondered if someone submitted it as a joke. It was for, get this, "Curried Wieners on Toast". Do you believe it? Where do you start? The idea of sliced up hot dogs swimming in a flabby curry sauce is bad enough, but it was the serving it on toast which put it over the edge for me. What, were they trying to gentrify it and elevate it's delicacy by putting it on toast? Somehow making it more appealing to the likes of Jackie Kennedy with that little finishing touch? Or did it somehow make it less exotic, less daring, the addition of humble, everyday toast? We will never know, because I will never, in a million years make it, no matter who I am trying to piss off.

As I've said, not all my experiments have worked out, but if my family only knew the bullets they have been dodging all these years, they'd be much happier with what they've been getting to eat. And they'd be very, very afraid.

Things I've Learned About Cooking

My mother has been raving about a free cooking class they hold upstairs at the grocery store every Thursday called "What's For Dinner". The idea is that the chef prepares a recipe which is relatively easy and quick and you will be so gobsmacked with inspiration that you will hurl yourself downstairs to buy the ingredients immediately and do all your grocery shopping at Loblaws for all time because you are so indebted to them. Plus, you get to eat the results of the class, thereby resulting in the proverbial free lunch. (Which does exist, by the way.)
We had a very nice turkey and mixed bean chili, with corn chips, by the way, and it was a very nice way to spend an hour on a winter's afternoon.

Luckily, I like to cook. I say luckily, because I realize that for plenty of people, cooking is a boring, wearying chore that is endless and unsatisfying. As one young woman I work with remarked wistfully, "it must be nice to be able to just go into the kitchen and make stuff and just have it turn out". Actually, yes, it is. (Lest you think I am re-writing history, I have had plenty of stuff not turn out, and in the most repellent fashion possible.) So, from my mistakes I have learned the following about cooking:

Cooking is an art, but baking is a science. You can mess around with proportions and seasonings and substitutions all you like when you are making a stew or a soup or a pasta sauce, but when a cake recipe says "3/4 cup of packed brown sugar", they mean it. Not half a cup, not icing sugar and don't think you can get away with having it all loosey-goosey, either. Baking is a harsh mistress.

Complicated is not always better. There are plenty of chefs and cookbook authors who seem to think that everyone who is cooking has a fully stocked, professional kitchen with wine fridge and an 8-top gas stove, a fishmonger on speed-dial and a sous-chef to do all the prep work. This means that I frequently see recipes for something simple, like an apple crisp, that begins "On the first day, go out into your orchard.....". This recipe is more for the writer than for the cook. Give it a pass.

There is no substitution for butter. In an effort to cook a little healthier, I once bought some "low fat butter", (which is sort of like buying "low-carb bread") and when I went to melt it for sauteeing, I noticed that it.....didn't. Melt, I mean. It sort of got softer, and gooeyer, like a marshmallow, but it didn't resemble butter in the least. I decided that marshmallowy shrimp was an experience I would be better off not having, and bought real butter from thereon in. Don't even get me started on margarine.

Make sure you have everything before you start cooking. The French have a fancy name for this "mise-en-place", but really, it means,make sure you have everything before you start cooking. Wrestling with an 18 pound turkey whiich is the temperature of the surface of the sun is not the time to realize that you have no platter on which to put it. Or stuff to make gravy. Or anything to go with the turkey.

A good knife is really worth it. I've tried to cook in other people's kitchens where they don't have decent knives and it is torturous. A wonky, dull, flimsly knife is really hard to work with, and makes the job a million times less pleasant, not to mention unsafe, as you will be tempted to use it on your own wrists by the end of the prep.

The trickiest thing about cooking is getting all the food on the table at the same time. I once went to a dinner party where we ate the appetizers, and then the vegetables, and then the potatoes and a few more appetizers and then the dessert and a couple of hours later, the lamb. (It took a lot longer to roast than the cook thought.) It wasn't so bad, though, as the hostess served copious amounts of wine and everything was delicious, even if we did eat the entire meal in stages over an entire evening. Which brings me to my last rule:

It is not always going to go your way. Even an experienced cook can have a stringy roast or gummy rice or a black bean soup that looks like vomit. Chalk it up to experience and move on.

I can see that if you put a lot of effort into cooking and it turns out badly time and time again, it's discouraging. But every now and again, when it turns out really, really well? It's all worth it.

If You Can't Stand the Heat

The Mister isn't home until late on Friday nights, and that means that we don't tend to sit down to dinner until around 8 or so. My stomach is decidedly against this schedule, and protests in the loudest, most raucous fashion imaginable. (It's sort of like having a bunch of Argentinian soccer fans in my abdomen. Who's team has lost. To England.) So I have had to placate it with a snack consisting of 2 O'Henry bars, one tiny box of Smarties, a weeny little Crispy Crunch and a cup of coffee. Surprisingly, that seems to have settled the clamor.

I do most of the cooking around here, and like to do it. (She who plans the meal gets to eat what she wants.) The Mister can knock out a mean chicken tikka, and he's a barbecuing savant, but he finds no satisfaction in the doing, only the eating, and he's happy to let me cook. And, bless him, he will eat pretty much what's put on the table in front of him. He's been known to occasionally murmur "don't make this again, okay?", as he methodically shovels down one of my less successful experiments.
And experiment I do. One of the things I love about cooking is that the possibilities are endless.
Unfortunately, the possibilities for disaster are just as numerous as for success. Some of my more regrettable efforts are as follows:

Not too long after we were married, and I was fairly new to cooking, I decided to make fried chicken from scratch. (Why I don't know...I must have been reading "To Kill A Mocking Bird" or something. Neither of us is particularly fond of fried chicken anyway.) I should have known better than attempt any dish which starts out with one melting and entire pound of lard for frying. As my husband's best friend said as he saw the lump of white goo in the frying pan: "Ah,...a British meal, I see." It took a lot longer to fry the chicken than I thought it would, and in the meantime, the mashed potatoes turned to spackle, and the peas into little green pellets, both more suitable as weaponry than dinner. I made gravy, as the recipe directed, from some of the fat the chicken was fried in. The purpose of that escapes me, as the gravy tasted exactly as you would expect hot lard and flour cooked together would taste....no discernable chicken flavour whatsoever. The chicken itself I managed to get both greasy and overcooked at the same time. It was somewhat like chewing on greasy dishcloths. But with gravy.
Any time since, when I have been looking for fried chicken, both of those times, I have gone to KFC and been done with it.

I once made a rhubarb pie and forgot to put in the sugar. One bite of that and all the moisture left your head. It was excruciating.

Another time, I made a black bean soup that looked so loathsome that the only way we could bring ourselves to eat it was to close our eyes. (It looked a bit like someone had already eaten it.) It tasted okay, but was extremely off-putting.

Once I made a scallop dish that turned out so odd my husband took a picture of it.

I am forbidden to ever contemplate, let alone make, any dish with the words "bean" and "pie" in them ever again. (Himself absolutley put his foot down on that one. Literally.)

I made a most disgusting banana bread once. I mistakenly put in a cup of salt instead of a cup of sugar. (The two containers are now labelled.) It was vile. Even the racoons, who dragged it out of the composter, wouldn't eat it.

I've learned that, although cinnamon and curry powder may look a lot alike, they are not, in fact, interchangable. (Curried Apple Pie is what they serve in hell.) Ditto for BBQ sauce and ketchup.

There have been many dishes which we have re-named, in an attempt to more accurately indicate their appearance: The Lawn Boy Special (creamed spinach), Shredded Monkey Hearts (sundried tomatoes over pasta) and Yuck on a Stick (some horrible Weight Watcher's recipe involving ground turkey, skewers and brown rice.) They didn't all taste bad, mind you, but the look of them would put you right off.

I've made my own pasta (verdict: for that kind of effort, just go out and buy it. It tastes pretty much the same, unless you're filling it with diamonds and Google shares.), my own bread (totally worth it....big bang for your buck.), my own crackers (for maximum guest intimidation, you can't beat making your own crackers.) and yogurt (easy and vastly superiour to storebought.)

And before you ask, no, my kids don't eat any of it. They are perfectly content with Hamburger Helper, chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese for dinner. (Considering the above litany, maybe they're on to something.)

For all the culinary disasters, there have also been some spectacular successes, and I suppose that's what keeps me trying. It's often the things that look the least promising that turn out to be major winners, and enter the regular dinner rotation for years. (For example, Greek Chicken is very barfy looking, but tastes terrific and is fast and low in fat and did I mention delicious?)
I'm very lucky that Himself will put up with sitting down to "Mock Duck" and "Clam Fiesta". Just as long as I don't make anything called "Bean Pie".