No Holds Barred, Cooking with Dad

Last night I was put in charge of cooking these little round steaks for Dad and I. I really had no idea how to go about it, but I decided to go the easy and healthy route. I put some margarine on the steaks, smothered them with a very aromatic rub, and broiled them.

They were awful.

My sides were alright, so I ate a couple bites and had seconds on sides. Dad, who will eat anything, ate one steak and said I should've fried them instead. I told him I had attempted country fried steak and gravy before and it turned out about as bad as these steaks were. I told him I would keep adding oil and flour, back and forth, and end up with a lot of questionable mushy paste. So Dad decides he's going to set me straight on making gravy.

He tells me to get the skillet hot with some oil and get out the rest of the steaks in the fridge. I grab the steaks, flour, and oil while he gets out the cutting board. Now, I'm wondering about this because he goes for the bamboo cutting board that I know he uses for other chopping and is not the dedicated meat board like I have. Oh no, there was no time to worry about cross contamination when Dad is cooking. He grew up in rural Georgia in the '40s, so cross contamination was to only make you stronger. Anyway, Dad then pulls out the biggest knife we have and says, "This is the way your grandmama cooked," then starts pounding the steaks with the knife making the kitchen shake and meat juice flying.

I cringed on the inside, and I am not a germophobe by any stretch of the imagination.

He then tells me to put the steaks in a bag full of flour and seasonings that he has picked out, which I think ended up being garlic salt and pepper but I can't be too sure. I think I was washing the meat juice off my hands and arms. I shake up the steaks and put them in the hot oil, filling up the pan with steaks. Then comes his most important instructions: "Now, don't touch them." So I stare at the pan and he goes to sit at the kitchen table. I start to wonder, "When are we going to flip them?" and I voice this concern. He replies, "I'll tell you when they're ready." But I really want to move them around the pan.

Oh how I wanted to move them around.

This made me realize one of my biggest problems with cooking. If I'm not working on things simultaneously, I get to a state of, I guess, boredom and start messing with the food I'm cooking right then. With these steaks, it would have been detrimental because what would become the crispy batter would slide off into the oil. So I decide to stop watching the steaks bubble and go sit down with Dad. I asked him about what sorts of things he enjoyed eating growing up and all about his childhood, which is still a partial mystery to me. He does not talk about it too much, so I always enjoy when he finally does start talking. I never met his parents so it's always nice to learn more and more about them. His mom seemed to be a typical Southern, self-sufficient woman living in a time where things were tight and could turn something into nothing. I aspire to be that type of cook where you only have a few things and can make a feast and can operate outside the confines of a recipe. I mentioned this to Dad and he said, "That's your momma." All I could say was, "Well, she taught me, so I come by it honest."

Eventually Dad says the steaks are ready to flip and I do so. The cooked side was perfect. He says that since the steaks are so tough they will need gravy in order to be edible after frying. After the steaks come out, he pours some of the oil out and tells me to get the leftover flour from the batter and pour a couple tablespoons into the oil. I stir that in making sure to get all the lumps out and he hands me the milk. I start pouring and he tells me he'll tell me when it's time to stop. My mind goes into overdrive because I'm trying to estimate quantities here and he's just telling me to pour till he says stop.

Man, I have got to learn to do this without flipping out.

After I stir all this up to make it smooth, Dad puts all the steaks back in the skillet with the gravy, pulls a plate out of the cabinet, and puts it in the skillet. I say in the skillet because it did not fit on top like a lid like I thought it was supposed to. Then he heads toward the door and says, "That's got to steam and thicken. I'm going to feed my chickens and will be back." I stand in the kitchen staring at the plate in the skillet and decide I have to leave the room because I will drive myself crazy when I start to reach out to touch something and draw my arm back in quickly after realizing I should leave things alone. So I leave the room and wait for Dad to come back inside so we can try these steaks out.

He finally comes back in around 20 minutes later and says to get the steaks out. The gravy had thickened and everything smelled wonderful. We sit down to try things out and they were incredibly good. I thanked Dad and he says, "You did it." I was in disbelief, but I guess I actually did do it, but with a little guidance. I will hopefully be able to recreate this later and show Giraffe that I can actually make gravy that does not double as an adhesive.

The evening was very heartwarming on several levels, but I will always remember the night that Dad taught me how to make country fried steaks and gravy and shared childhood stories.

One Picture Sum Up

iWeb and I have gotten through the honeymoon phase and now want to stay in separate rooms.

Gumbo Attempt No. 2

As you may remember, I had some issues making gumbo from a recipe my mom gave me. I have since built my confidence back up and am not deterred when trying out a new recipe and it doesn't taste good or doesn't go as planned. I realize now that it's all okay and just part of the process. At the end of last week, my mom asks if I'd rather have jambalaya or gumbo on Sunday night. I figure this is the perfect time to revisit the gumbo by being able to watch Mom make it and figure out what went so wrong when I did it.

Her first stray from the recipe was she cooks with less than the suggested 2 gallons of water/broth and then adds to it as she sees fit. I just went whole hog and dumped in the 2 gallons, like the recipe said. When making the roux, the recipe says to cook it until it becomes "the color of an old penny." I cook it until I think it's pretty dark and ask if it looks right to her. She goes and gets a penny to place on the counter next to me as a reference. Cute.

So I keep stirring and it's starting to smell like it's burnt and ask again if it's done. It gets to the point of looking like tar before she says it's perfect. So we forge ahead with the recipe and I'm waiting to see when she adds more liquid since we've only done a scant gallon and it's calling for 2.

We go through the entire recipe, which filled up her stock pot, and we never added anymore liquid. It was a quart shy of a full gallon. So I had 1 1/4 gallons more than she did. No wonder my gumbo was all wrong! I get hysterical about the recipe and how no wonder my gumbo was awful and all she has to say is, "[Who she got the recipe from] isn't precise on measurements." No kidding.

The gumbo turned out marvelous and even my dad, who is hard to please when it comes to true Louisiana cooking and finds something to complain at every Louisiana restaurant, said the gumbo was really good. Success!

So I'm basking the afterglow of righting my wrong and realizing that if the recipe is all wrong, it's not your fault and shouldn't feel inept all through dinner and continues on until we have to put all this gumbo up. We were worried we were going to run out of plastic containers it was so much leftover food. I fill up 3 of our biggest containers and still have a little leftover for us to freeze for later. I get out a quart sized hard plastic container for freezing and fill up as much as I can with the measuring cup. Then I ask Mom if she'd help me by either holding the pot over the container while I scrap the bottom out with a spoon or vice versa. She decides to hold the pot while I scrape. I finish getting all of the gumbo and it fits in the container just perfectly. Mom says, "Hang on, I need to set this pot down because it's heavy and hot," and tries to place it on the counter. The problem was she tried to set the big pot on the counter where the quart container was and managed to tip the container forward so it flies off the counter. Somehow the pot managed to stay on the counter, but the entire contents of the quart container splattered all over the floor.

I jump back into the wall to try to save myself from the splatter and only manage to get some on one of my toes. I look at the mess all on the floor and there is steam rising from pile because it had been on the stove on warm all through dinner for us to keep coming back for more and we cleaned up right after we were done eating so it hadn't had much time to cool off. I look over at Mom and she's got it all on the front of her shirt and her feet are just covered in it. She tried to fling some of it off but it was sticking pretty good. Let me also point out that we were both barefoot when this happened. No wonder they want you to wear close toed shoes in cooking classes.

Mom just looks back and forth between me and the mess while my mouth just hangs open in shock. It looked like she couldn't tell if she wanted to laugh or cry, but thankfully laughing type noises were coming from her. This is when I decide to move and try to wipe off the bottoms of our feet so she can go rinse them off in the tub. All my mom managed to say throughout this whole moment of shock and terror was, "It's burning my feet." So I got cold water running and ushered her towards the bathroom while I cleaned up the mess.

Apparently I'm cursed when it comes to gumbo. Gumbo voodoo.

Etsy Finds

I follow Super Kawaii Mama on Twitter and yesterday she posted a link to a really nice seller on Etsy called glamtownvintage. SKM was admiring a vintage dress they were selling, which led me to browse their shop. I ended up with two super cute things and I can't decide which one I like more!

Then today I was browsing Etsy again today and used the "pounce" function, which randomizes sellers for you to check out by either shops who have just made a sale or shops who have yet to make a sale. I took pity on the latter because I hope to open my own Etsy shop someday and will be anxious waiting for my first sale. So I "pounced" a few times and was finally led to srzimmartist. She had three paintings for sale and when I saw her "Tree of Dreams," I was hooked.

One Picture Sum Up

My weekend: 

Thanks to all who donated their time and backs to the project!

Moving and Reconnection

As promised, I'm going to get back to updating my blog since I have now moved away from my friends that I have enjoyed getting to know for the past two years. I have moved back to my hometown, which is still surreal after being here almost a month, but I still feel like a part of me is still in Nashville. Although part of me is still there because I still have to move the rest of my things this weekend!

Since my things are mostly packed up and not at my parents' house, I've been having a hard time getting past the feeling of being home for the holidays. The kitchen is the same as it always was, but the things that I know are going to be in my kitchen are not there. I didn't do a whole lot of cooking on my own growing up aside from baking, so I'm having to learn my childhood kitchen. Isn't that weird? Now, I always hung out in the kitchen with Mom, but I would mostly talk or she'd hand me something to stir while we were chatting. I did know where a few staples were without question, like the lemon pepper, bouillon cubes, pots, measuring cups, and other things I used on a regular basis. Mom told me last week she bought some canned salmon and I should make salmon cakes. I got all excited for a moment before I started wondering, "Where are the breadcrumbs?" That was when I realized I'm out of touch.

Last night I decided to do a test run because I was missing the simple domesticity of my life, so I was going to cook some soup. I had recently had some delicious She Crab Soup and I wanted to try my hand at it. I went to Old Bay's website and in their recipe archive, I found a recipe for Cream of Crab soup. Close enough. Plus it's Old Bay, so how can I go wrong?

CREAM OF CRAB SOUP

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter

1 medium onion, coarsely chopped (1 cup)

1/3 cup flour

4 cup milk or half-and-half

1 tablespoon OLD BAY® Seasoning

1/2 teaspoon McCormick® Parsley Flakes

1 pound lump crabmeat

3 tablespoons dry sherry or cooking sherry (optional)

DIRECTIONS

Melt butter in 3-quart saucepan on medium heat. Add onion; cook and stir 5 minutes or until softened. Add flour and Old Bay; whisk until well blended. Whisking constantly, gradually add milk.

Stir in crabmeat. Reduce heat to low; simmer 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Stir in sherry, if desired. Heat 1 to 2 minutes. Sprinkle with additional Old Bay, if desired.

I didn't measure the sherry, but only added a little for fear of it overpowering the soup. I also didn't add any parsley flakes because I was in a hurry and kept reading the instructions over and over again without looking back up at the ingredients at the top. Additionally, I used a scant pound of crabmeat because I used two little cans of lump crabmeat rather than buying it fresh. The soup turned out delicious and made quite a bit. I used a quart of half and half to make it rich, so I recommend if you do the same, you only have a cup or so of soup with something else. I had a bowl of it and a garlic breadstick and was ready for a nap afterwards. I brought it for lunch today and we'll see how that goes in the afternoon slump.

With all the hoopla of moving and all, I hadn't been able to cook in a long time so it was nice to be able to come home, truly home, and have a recipe success.

Experiment Progress

Well, it's Day 5 of my experiment and so far haven't had a problem with not eating out.  Until yesterday.  Yesterday, I was downright twitchy needing a fix.  Yes, I know I'm sad.

Mondays are mine and Giraffe's usual going out to eat night because it's one of the few he has off from school and work.  Plus I'd had a blah day and enjoy going out to be in a cheerful environment.  To me, endless refills make for a cheerful environment.

Like I had said previously, the only stipulation to my experiment was I could eat out if someone invited me.  Coincidentally, one of our friends had a gift card to Applebee's.  Of course, Applebee's had a special where you could get an appetizer and two entrees for $20.  So we went whole hog: appetizer, entree, and then to the mall for ice cream at Marble Slab.  Dang you and your amaretto ice cream with strawberries!  I did have the smallest cup possible, which equated to about a cup.  Not so bad, I hope?

Anyway, I'm back on the horse today and feeling good.  I haven't trained for my race since before the weekend, so I need to get back on that horse as well.  Maybe I need a new metaphor since riding two horses would be tricky.  Today I might try running outside for the length of the race since I've only ran on a treadmill.  I like the comfort of the constant weather of indoors as well as the TV.  There are no headphones allowed in the race so I need to mentally train myself as well.  Being in a competitive environment will most likely cause me to have a better running time than usual, but I still need to be as prepared as possible.

Three Birds with One Stone

It's four months into the new year and so far I've been good about one of my resolutions.  I have managed to make something every month even though some of the things have been small.  It's still progress, right?  Anyway, my mom's work hosts a 5K run every year and in the past I have helped out with the festivities leading up to the run but never actually participated.  I never ever would have considered doing it before college.  I was content to be in marching band and eat whatever I wanted before I realized the mechanics of diet and exercise.  (See: Freshmen 20 within first month of college.)

So recently I'm looking up local races because I had decided that I was going to find a race and train for it.  Then I find the website for the one at home and it clicked.  Why haven't I thought of this before?  Not only do I know the people organizing it, but I get to have family and friends cheering me on while I run through the pretty residential area.  Giraffe is doing it too so that'll be nice even though I will totally be eating his dust as he laps me over and over again.  

I have been training for a few months now running on a treadmill regularly, but that ceased when I went to Europe for a week and came back with my knee giving me fits.  However, we did a whole lot of walking around so at least it was some sense of physical activity daily.  Unfortunately, I was in a lot of pain by the time we left and stayed away from the treadmill for over a week.

So that brings us to a couple of days ago while I was talking to Victoria about needing to find the motivation to start training again for the race, which is two weeks from this Saturday.  I started out small again by doing strength training for 10 minutes then ran for 15 minutes and walked for 20.  My quads are still sore, but I actually missed that feeling.  I plan to do some more running this weekend, possibly running outside for a change if the weather's nice.  Giraffe found a greenway that is about the length of the race so we might head out there to get some "real" training since it will be outdoors and not controlled by a treadmill belt.

In preparation for the race, I have decided on conducting an experiment alongside the race.  I plan to take on another New Year's resolution by not eating out for 2 weeks.  This has an exception, though: being invited out by a third party will not penalize me.  This has to be the everyday lunch and dinner struggle that I face.  This experiment, if all goes well, will be beneficial because:

1. I can put the right things into my body while training for the race.
2. Save some money and see what my account is like since most of my spending is eating out.
3. Learn to cook more freely and fearlessly.
4. I will lose some weight while training, potentially checking off another resolution on the list (lose 5 lbs).

There will be an ultimate reward for completely all this, even though the list above is more than enough to be rewarding.  After the race and I drive back to resume normal life again, I plan on getting a message at my favorite spa place.   Just thinking about all those Aveda products are putting me in a coma. 

Our Heroes

Oh yeah.

Pantry Organize

The clutter had taken over the pantry and it was getting out of control.  It was time.

Notice all the cereal on the top shelf.  And the chips up waaaay too high so that I could never reach them.  (To self: Must try this on things I overeat.)  The second shelf down was originally supposed to be the canned good shelf.  It's now home to instant mashed potatoes, jam, funny shaped Coke bottles...I started putting stuff up there because it had the most space, which went downhill very quickly.  (Sidenote: Can anything really go downhill slowly?)

Here's a close-up of the shelves I most wanted to tackle.  I started off meaning the "baking shelf" (3rd down), but it ended up being all three. 

This is the reason I wanted to do the baking shelf.  I had all this room in a cabinet that the baking stuff would fit perfectly in.  I have my vanilla, almond extract, cinnamon, cloves, ginger...you get the idea.  The inspiration came from when I was having to find a place for my new Dutch oven (<3!).

Here is the after of the pantry.  I'm praying people can notice a difference.  First off, the cereal is not as high.  I rediscovered my cereal bin (amazing what you can find when you clean up!) and put the two boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios (shout out to Victoria) in it.  Then I moved the chips down to normal people level so in case I do get a hankerin' for chips, I don't have to get the chair.  Or Giraffe.  Next shelf turned out very well.  I put the cans so you actually see what each thing is and grouped them accordingly.  I still have a few non-can items on the shelf, but at least they're in a neat little row out of the way.  The baking shelf doesn't look that much better in the picture, but it does in person.  I can see everything, which was not the case earlier.  I also did the last shelf, which didn't need that much rearranging, but it used a wee bit of tidying nevertheless.

The best part: it only took five minutes! That's including screwing up the pictures because I'm too short to get a good shot.  So there was lots of holding the camera above my head.  Good thing I moved the chips.

Exciting news: Astro and I are going to Europe!  We leave in 2 days and are hitting up London and Malta for 10 days.  Europe will never be the same.  I can't wait! 

Boyfriend Chronicles, Part III

After the Honorable Mentions, I went through the rest of high school with the company of my close knit girl friend group. We had so much fun, but the time came where we graduated and went on to bigger and better things. I went away to school, but not too far away, and made some new friends that went on to be another close knit group through most of college.  Anyway, the summer after my freshman year, I came home.  A couple of the girls in my group were part of a swing dancing club and invited the rest of us to join.  A few of us did and that's where I met B3.  The first time we all saw him, he was wearing a sweatband around his forehead looking incredibly geeky.  He was a very nice guy and a great dance partner, but we all giggled about the sweatband when we'd be sitting on the sides like wallflowers until someone asked us to dance.  It was a great summer filled with lots of dancing and new friends.

Somewhere in the middle was when I really started talking with B3 and got to know him better.  He was in his mid-20s when I was 19, which was so weird to me at the time because we were in two totally different stages of life at the time.  He was working on his Masters after achieving a double Bachelors degree in Music and Computer Science and I was only one year into my Bachelors degree.  Oh yeah, this guy was in Mensa, which my nerdy side thought was cool.  I found that out because one of my girl friends had found his website which had his resume, interests, etc.  I studied this thing and would occasionally drop bits and pieces of it into conversation, which seemed to dazzle this guy.  I mean, I mentioned LaTex code for crying out loud.  That's a nerd's dream to hear a girl talk about it!  Then one night at a swing dance function, he gave me his number because I mentioned I was throwing a party and he should come.  After the party, we went on a date and the rest was history.

We had a lot of fun going places and swing dancing.  It was so nice to always have a dance party at the functions and it was also nice to be able to trust your partner not to throw you around the floor.  Going over to his place was always strange because he shared a small apartment with his mom, whom he was extremely close to.  B3 and I were together for around 3 months.  We tried to do the long distance thing and he even made the 3 hour drive to come see me one night because I mentioned I was going to have dinner by myself and was lonely.  We stayed up all night wandering around campus because I couldn't bring a guy back to my dorm.  

After a month or so of trying to make a long distance relationship work, I realized something about us that I hadn't noticed while I was at home: he was kind of needy.  Also, remember that whole being in two totally different stages of life thing?  Yeah, it wasn't working out because he was ready to move forward with his life while I was experiencing my college years at 19.  I was definitely not wanting to settle down then.  So one day he called me saying that he felt like something was wrong.  I laid it out for him and said I thought we should break up.  He was pretty emotional about it and said, "Well, I need to go clean up before I go present at this meeting."  I felt like a jerk because he was about to present some research findings to his Masters committee and was all red from crying and upset that his girlfriend has just dumped him from 200 miles away.  There's never a right time to do these things, but man did I have impeccable timing...

We saw each other a few times afterward and I tried to salvage a friendship and I thought it was going to be okay, but I think he didn't want to see me anymore.  He got a girlfriend a while later that he's still with now and seems to be incredibly happy.  I said hey to him a couple of times when I'd see them and he would act cold and distant, so I just decided to quit altogether.  He's got the right to not want to be friendly.  I still feel bad about the whole situation because he was a really nice guy and a great boyfriend, but he just wasn't for me.  I knew he'd find the perfect girl for him one day and make her extraordinarily happy.

Lessons learned:

1. Be wary of guys who cut their ex-girlfriends out of pictures when you want to see old pictures of them.  It might show they have some emotional issues with getting over things.
   
2. An older guy still living with his mother is not always a bad thing.  Just double check.  (See: Norman Bates)
   
3. Don't lie about your interests.  While I never exactly said that I enjoyed some of the things he did, I didn't say I didn't.  I just alluded to knowledge I didn't have.  
   

Fashion Plates 2.0

Does anyone remember fashion plates?  They were these plastic plates that set in a holder with grooves over the outlines of the person and outfit.  Then you put a piece of paper over the holder and rub over it with a crayon.  The plates represented the three parts of the model: head, torso, and legs so you could interchange all the outfits and accessories. I had a set when I was in elementary school, but they were New Kids on the Block. There wasn't much changing them up for me because putting Joey's head on Danny's body was just too weird.  Sidenote: the outlines never looked as neat as they did on the box because you were 6 years old rubbing a crayon furiously over the paper to get the outline to show up.  

The other day I discovered the upgrade to the fashion plates: Polyvore.  This site allows you to search user-submitted outfits by keywords as well as being able to find where the items are sold.  When you select an outfit to view, you mouse over the piece of clothing/accessory you want to know more about, and it brings up a thing that shows you who made the outfit and a link to the website.  It's amazing!  You could search by person, phrase, color, season, etc.  For example, I chose winter to look up cute ideas for wearing a skirt in the wintertime and checked this one out:

Vintage:

Cows:

Marilyn Monroe:

Endless amounts of fun!

Today is also a special day because it's my Giraffe's birthday!  I'm cooking him dinner and sticking to what I know I can fix: steak and potatoes.  No creativity this time.  Just a sure thing man pleasin' type of meal.  And I get to cook it on this thing:

I won this in a drawing at Home Depot before Christmas!  It was a lucky few months because I won the drawing at the book fair at work in October and scored a free cookbook and then got a call about this beauty in early December.  I keep thinking I should go buy a lottery ticket to see if my luck continues because these things come in threes.

Tomorrow night is going to be the big party for Giraffe so pictures to follow!

Christmas Revisited

Everyone around me seems to talk about the whirlwind of getting things ready for Christmas and don't mention the aftermath of Christmas: the reorganizing.  I know my place was a total wreck when I got back from spending Christmas at home because I had left almost everything where I had left it prior to going home.  There were rolls of wrapping paper on the floor, craft items on various workspaces, my sewing machine open with the last thread I was using still wound, several bags and receipts about, etc.  Not to mention, I had a birthday dinner party to get ready for the day after I got back to town.  So yay for my Giraffe for getting things ready while I was away and he was in town again.  (*huggles*)

Now that everyone has received their handmade gifts, I can finally post the results of my hard, albeit very fun, work.  I still need to retrieve some pictures from Victoria, so those will be posted later.

We'll start with the ones that were given out at the Thanksmas celebration at Foodie's house. His present is one of those pictures to be posted later, but his fiance got some custom recipe cards.

The guys in Giraffe's family got homemade beef jerky.  Some of the guys ate their whole tin of jerky before all the presents were even unwrapped.  Success!

Undy, who loves the color red, got an apron with little aprons on it.

Astro got a hobo bag that she decided to use for her laptop and accessories.  I also have to post her expression because one day she's going to win the Nobel prize and I like having these kind of pictures handy. 

For Victoria, I had to redo her present because I had originally used fleece instead of the final crocheting, and didn't allow enough room for your hand to go into the mitten.  So she got her Christmas present for her birthday, which is New Year's Eve.  However, she really got her present a week or two later at a Chick-Fil-A.  

These are no ordinary mittens.  They're smittens!  You and your person each wear a mitten on the outer hand and then there is a big one for both your hands between you.  So you can hold hands while walking around in the cold. 

It looks like Victoria is about to deck Bo.  Well, she might have.  It was too cold that night for me to remember much in the parking lot.

All in all, Handmade Christmas 2008 was a success, and I plan on doing it again this year.  I started on the presents early, but I took too long a break between starting and leaving for Christmas and some presents I didn't even come up with the idea until the last minute.  Let's just say I was pretty sick of the single crochet come Christmas.