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.

Gravy School Dropout

So I get back on the phone with Deedar because I had it in my head to make country fried steak with white gravy last night. However, I ended up staying late at work, had a small lunch, and was famished by the time I got back, so that idea flew out the window. I thought I'd save it for another day. But I was going to go ahead and practice with the gravy since my previous gravy didn't turn out so great.

Deedar starts telling me to leave some oil in the pan from the steak, but like I said I didn't do that, so I just got out the ol' grease tin and spooned out some bacon grease. I think it was about two tablespoons worth. Then she says to add the milk. No quantity, just "the milk." I really truly admire those that can just whip something up with no recipe and it come out tasting fantastic, but I'm not one of those people yet. Anyway, I just throw some milk in there and start stirring. I'm always afraid of scalding milk, so as soon as I see a tiny bubble, I throw "some flour" in the mix and keep stirring. She tells me to try it, and try it I did. It tasted like paste. So I add some more milk and keep stirring. Now, it tastes like oil. Milk equals oil now? Geez.

I ended up throwing the "gravy" away because it was just awful! I didn't have the heart to call Deedar back up and say I failed the gravy lesson since she's already sounded exasperated that I had to call a second time. She's also threatening to school me in the ways of southern cooking. Although, let's face it. I could use it right about now. I can't even make a simple gravy. *shame*

My Sister, the Original

I visited my sister, Deedar, over the past weekend and reconnected with family I haven't seen in several years, which was nice. This family included my youngest brother Rock, my dad's sister, my niece (older sister's kid), and her two kids which are my great niece and nephew. That's fun to point out since I'm only in my 20s. That's what happens when your oldest sister is approximately 23 years older than you and her eldest daughter is 2-3 years older than you as well. Anyway, on this trip, stories were shared, recipes swapped, and the baby sister was made fun of immensely. That'd be me.

Rock and Deedar

Let me start by saying that my sister Deedar is the original tomboy housewife. I was completely unaware of this until last weekend. She's twenty years older than me and I've spent a collective 5 years around her since I was born, but we're pretty much identical. She would rather mess with cars than paint her nails, she used to get kicked out of school for fighting (never got kicked out of school and only got in one fight that ended after one punch), and she hates, above all else, shopping (don't mind it as long as I have a list and/or the time). Especially for groceries, which was why when I first arrived, I didn't eat until about 11 the following morning when her husband took pity on us and bought us Subway. Thanks, Croc. I owe you one. Well, two. He took me for a ride in his newly purchased 1968, in perfect condition, Camaro. I think there's still a pile of drool in their garage from when I first saw it.

Croc and his 1968 Camaro

When I had to leave on Sunday, the original intent was to grill, and Croc wanted steak. However, this meant that one of them was going to have to go the store again since I had already been out once and was still trying to enjoy my sister's company before I had to leave. So grilling was out. But after inventorying the previous night's purchases from Kroger, Deedar settled on pork chops.

Her secret is to completely cover the flour mixture with Tony Chacere's and garlic powder. In the egg mixture, she puts Paula Deen seasoning and hot sauce. Dip the chops in both of those and you're ready to throw them in the oil for frying.

My oldest niece and me

I decided I'd try this last night since I had seen it done and they were amazing. Sidenote: I actually don't like pork all that much, but a general rule of thumb with me is I'll eat anything fried. Anyway, everything's going great until I decide to slice into one and instead of staring into the other white meat, I'm looking at a basically raw pink pork chop center. So they had to go in the oven and lose all their crispy goodness.

The next plan was to make gravy like Deedar had taught me (with water of all things. This was a totally foreign concept.) since I had decided I was going to try my hand at my momma's biscuit recipe. Now, those turned out find except I rolled the dough out a little too thin and they were a little dense. Still ate them though. Anyway, back to the gravy. I'm stirring and I'm throwing stuff in the pan and everything's going smoothly because the roux is now the perfect gravy color. So I start adding water. The only lesson I got out of this gravy experience is water equals sludge. The gravy ended up looking like pudding. I added more oil and then more water, but never did get it to a pourable consistency. I'm going to try to pass it off on Giraffe and hope he likes chunky gravy. Blech.

Shake It Like a Salt Shaker

I had always wanted one of those thin stereos that attach to the bottom of one of your kitchen cabinets so I could sashay in the kitchen to my favorite tunes when cooking. Then I got one of those stereos that you set your iPod in and quickly disowned the cabinet stereo idea. With the iPod blaster, you can play specific playlists, even one you have set up just for cooking quiche or pies. Or in my case, you just play feel good music to let your happiness spill over into whatever you are preparing, like accidentally spilling too much thyme in your salmon patties when there isn't even thyme in the recipe! You'd be amazed how it clumps together in egg yolk, which makes it easier to fish out. Moving on.

I have determined the best music to cook to is what iTunes deems as the "vocal" genre. Call me crazy, but isn't it all considered vocal unless it's clearly instrumental? Anyway, vocal consists of greats such as Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. Not only is it happy music, but you can get lost in a daydream of fedoras and dames while listening to auditory velvet. (Doesn't Ol' Blue Eyes just sound like velvet feels?) I keep listening to "You Make Me Feel So Young," which was used recently in the movie Elf when Buddy and Jovie are on their date. Elf is one of my favorite movies, so in addition to it being a good song, I smile imagining Buddy skipping around Manhattan.

Other good music and food pairings include Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Black Sabbath. Just kidding. Unless you were ripping apart a roast chicken. Then it only seems fitting to pair a bird with Ozzy.

Funky Chicken, Revisited

I decided after yesterday's rant, I would give the chicken another try. Start off slow by cooking the chicken in something per Victoria's suggestion to ease myself back into the poultry world. So I went to Campbell's website and poked around because I had heard they had easy, quick recipes involving, big surprise, their soups. I stumbled upon this one and thought it'd be the perfect stepping stone. I mean, it's pasta! It's kinda hard to screw up pasta. Oh wait.

The ingredients were simple: Cream of Mushroom soup, pasta, parmesan, milk, pepper, butter, and chicken. I substituted margarine because it was what I had out in the butter dish all cut up, but it didn't make a difference. The only glitch was I used the whole box of pasta thinking it'd be plenty for leftovers, but it only made the sauce not go as far. So next time, I'll either cut back on the pasta or increase the sauce. Crazy how those directions work.

I was concerned about how the Cream of Mushroom soup would taste as alfredo sauce, but it was actually great. I think I'll add more cheese and maybe more milk to the mixture as well as maybe some Italian spices. Overall, the dinner was a success. Not to mention, I have enough leftovers for 2 meals. Hooray!

However, there was one thing about the meal that made me sad. I guess I should have taken a picture of it, but I couldn't bring myself to. My grandparents, to whom my lovely cast iron skillet belonged, are spinning round and round in their graves. I let pasta touch the pan. And alfredo sauce. What kind of Southern girl am I? But! On the bright side, the pasta was probably given a hint of bacon flavor due to the seasoning of the skillet. As long as bacon's involved, I'm saved, right?

Funky Chicken

I've come to realize something the more I've experimenting with cooking more: I can't stand the taste of chicken.

In restaurants, it'll be marinated with some goodness and/or deep fried and/or smothered with some cheese, onions, or sauce. There's just something that I can't do to the chicken to make it taste good. And forget reheating it. That makes the natural chicken taste extremely potent. I swear I'm not crazy.

Surely there's someone else that understands me. No? Yeah I'm not surprised.

I'll just stick with cooking fish and steak. At least those I know I can do with little to no failure. Unless it's in gumbo or under the broiler. Then funky chicken might be sounding better.

Bread Bricks

This past weekend, I got the urge to make some bread for the office since I usually try to make something new to bring in every couple weeks or so. The recipes I had in my newly assembled cookbook (pictures to come) weren't speaking to me. Instead, I decided to make yeast rolls to go along with the already planned recreation of one of my favorite meals at Texas Roadhouse, Roadkill. Roadkill is chopped steak with onions and mushrooms smothered in either gravy or Monterey Jack cheese. I opt for cheese and no mushrooms. Usually, Giraffe gets a sweet potato, so I did sweet potato fries since I do not like sweet potatoes any other way. Now, the arguably best part of Texas Roadhouse is the butter that goes with the rolls. Cinnamon butter. *faint*

So I get to searching on my favorite recipe spots and find this one on All Recipes:

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups hot water
• 1/2 cup margarine
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 cup cold water
• 2 (.25 ounce) packages active dry yeast
• 5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 eggs

DIRECTIONS

1. Melt margarine in hot water. Add sugar and salt and stir. Add cold water and yeast. Stir to dissolve yeast.
2. Add 3 cups flour and mix. Add eggs and 2 1/2 - 3 cups more flour. Mix, cover and let rise until dough doubles in size.
3. Punch down and let rise 30 more minutes or until doubles.
4. Make walnut size balls of dough. Place about 2 inches apart in well-buttered 9 x 13 inch pan. Bake in a preheated 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) oven for 30-45 minutes. Brush top of rolls with margarine while hot.
   

One of the cool things about this site is its ability to modify the recipes by changing the quantity and it adjust accordingly. I halfed it and was in for a surprise as I was adding the flour. Notice the second step where it says "add 3 cups of flour...and 2 1/2-3 cups more flour." This did not change when I modified the recipe to half. So right before I blindly did as the recipe asked, I did the oh-so-difficult math in my head.

"It asks for a total of 2 and 3/4 cups of flour...but it says to add 3 then 2 1/2-3 cups more...but...I only needed 2 and 3/4 cups flour...this can't be right."

So I changed the recipe back to its original form and found that it didn't change the directions to what I wanted. Not to bad-mouth All Recipes, because I really do like them, but just make sure you read your recipes thoroughly (preferably before you start cooking anything. I'm still learning that one.) so you don't ruin something that could have been avoided. And no, to answer your question, the gumbo couldn't have been avoided. I don't care what you say. Stop judging me!

After this hurdle, I managed to get the dough to seemingly the right texture before I set it out for the yeast to do its thing. Since I was confined to a time frame, I don't think I let the bread rise as much as it needed to. It rose some, but not quite enough in the end. I thought I was going to be real cute and roll up balls of dough and place them in my new muffin tins to make cloverleaf rolls. They turned out to be little misshapen bricks of destruction. They tasted okay to me. Just a very dense bread flavor. However, I made cinnamon butter! I smeared enough on each roll I ate, which made the rolls not so bad.

Cinnamon Butter

Ingredients:

butter, whipped (won't work well if not whipped...kinda like a man. I crack me up.)
honey
cinnamon

Mix ingredients together until it tastes good. Seriously.

I made two pans worth of rolls, so if nothing else, I can feed them to the geese. Provided I want them to sink all the way down to the bottom of the pond. Or I could use them in place of a softball. Softball season is coming up, after all.

To anyone who visits this site regularly (yeah, all of two of you), I'm trying out a new feature on the main page. Every week I do a Top 5 List a la High Fidelity. In case you don't know where it is, let me show you:


As you can see, it's right above the Flickr thingy on the left side of the page. I just throw something up there depending on what kind of mood I'm in. I'm always welcome to suggestion!

Vegetarians and Mountain Dew

I was given a recipe from a friend weeks ago and every time I vowed I was going to do it, something happened that prevented me from doing so. Some friends from home have been getting together to cook/learn to cook and the vegetarian of the group brought this nice entree. Not only is it vegetarian, it's pretty healthy, too. It contains a lot of cottage cheese, which I am not a fan of, but you whip it around in a food processor for a while making the texture more like ricotta cheese, which I do like. I did not capture any pictures of the making process, but I did get the end result.

Now, I know it's not that pretty, but I promise you it's really good. Not to mention, they're stuffed shells and are prone to run all over the place in the casserole dish.

The recipe is displayed below and is dictated by my friend Undy since she was at the cooking lesson.

Amy3's Stuffed Shells

Ingredients:

Box of Jumbo Pasta Shells
Large container of Fat-free Cottage Cheese
Jar of Spaghetti Sauce
Can of Diced tomatoes with garlic and basil (or some kinds of italian flavorings)
Assortment of vegetables. We used carrots and yellow squash, but you could also use zucchini or some other kind of veggie like that
Italian seasoning
Garlic powder
Spinach, optional


Preheat the oven to 375.

Put pasta on to boil. You'll want it not completely done because it will still bake in the oven.

I would see if you could drain some of the liquid off of the cottage cheese then put it in a food processor or blender until smooth. It will look kind of like sour cream. Grate vegetables and add italian spices and garlic powder. You'll pretty much just have to keep tasting it until it tastes good.

Put spaghetti sauce and diced tomatoes in a pan and let warm on low. The diced tomatoes are just to give the sauce a chunky consitency and to make the sauce stretch farther, so you don't have to use them, you just may need more than one jar of sauce. If you want the spinach, wait until the sauce is warm and then put the spinach in to let it wilt.

When the shells are done, drain them and let them cool until you can easily handle them. Spoon in the cheese mixture and try to close the shells and place in a casserole dish. Spoon in some sauce to cover the casserole dish and place shells in dish. Cover with rest of sauce. Cover the dish with a lid or tin foil and put in the oven for 45 to an hour. 45 minutes worked just fine for us.

I had plenty of cheese mixture and a few shells leftover and still made about 5 servings.

For dessert, I had seen a recipe for Apple Dumplings on the Pioneer Woman's cooking site. The ingredients grabbed my attention and the picture definitely held it.

Mmm. It's like mini apple pies sitting in a sea of butter and Mountain Dew. I know, crazy, right? I don't like Mountain Dew at all, but you don't taste it. It just adds a hint of bubbly citrus. One of those ingredients that when you're eating the finished product make you go, "Oooh...what is that bit of oomph?"

Also perfect with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Dumplings a la mode. Yum.

Valentine's Day Dinner

Okay. This is it. The big time. I was cooking a gourmet meal for my sweetie on Valentine's Day. Never mind the gumbo disaster or the burned patty melts, this was a new meal, a new dawn. Deep breaths...and here we go.

I started off with the pasta portion of the meal which included roasting grape tomatoes and garlic then mashing it in a bowl with a little of the starchy water from the pasta pot. Next, you dump in the pasta (I chose bowtie because it's my favorite!) and wilt in some basil and arugula. You can also dump in a handful of parmesanno-reggiano, but I only had regular parmesan. In theory, this sounded like a fantabulous pasta dish. However, something bad happened. The pasta is supposed to be just shy of al dente so when placed in the tomato/garlic liquid, it'll soak it all up leaving no liquid at all. This didn't happen. Either I spooned too much starchy water or the pasta was overcooked or the bowties held too many water droplets, but it turned out as soup. We had to use a slotted spoon to serve it, which made my left eye switch slightly.


The main dish was gorgonzola steaks with a sage, parsley, and scallion rub. You sear the meat to get it nice and caramelized then add the toppings before placing it in the oven to bake until everything gets nice and melty. I love cheese so this sounded phenomenal to me. I pull it out and looks all perfect and I serve it up next to our pasta soup. Giraffe takes a bite and said it was pretty good. I breathe a sigh of relief then cut my own piece. One teensy weensy problem: turns out, I don't like gorgonzola. It tastes too much like bleu cheese, which I don't like. My Giraffe reassured me that he liked it because he really likes bleu cheese.


It broke my heart and went against all my cheese-loving principles, but I scraped all the cheese off the steak and ate it with the few herbs that remained. That ended up being pretty good. Next time I'll try a different cheese that I know I like ahead of time.

Now it was time for dessert. I tried a new recipe, but I had no worries. Dessert is what I can do. I did a no-fried ice cream that tasted just as good as you can get at a Mexican restaurant. I rolled ice cream balls in cornflakes before I started cooking dinner then put them back in the freezer to harden. Once we had eaten, I pulled them out and melted some honey and cinnamon to drizzle over the cornflaked ice cream, which totally made up for the mediocre dinner. At least he liked it.

I need to get back to my roots and stick to country cooking. This was a Rachael Ray recipe and some of hers have worked nicely in the past, but next time I'm going to try a Pioneer Woman recipe. My food talks to each other likes hers does so it should be a snap!

Be My Valentine?

Tonight's the big night. I plan on cooking a gourmet-esque meal for my Giraffe and I'm praying it turns out alright. Lately I've been getting pretty cocky about my cooking abilities because I haven't screwed up in a long time. I've done chicken parmesan with pizazz, sides with flair, and nothing has managed to burn too bad. So last night, the Fates decided to let me have it and knock me down a peg or two. I knew the goodness couldn't last forever.



I've been wanting to make patty melts for a while now because the place I frequent for lunch, which is conveniently located right across the street from work, makes some really good ones. So I do the responsible thing and eat there a couple of times a week getting this patty melt. For research purposes of course. The calories don't count if it's for research. Anyway, I decide on my plan of attack and get to work. I take some ground beef, mix in some Worcestershire sauce and seasonings, and broil the meat. Then I begin browning the pieces of bread in some butter in a skillet to make them nice and crispy. Finally, I sauté some onions and cover them with aluminum foil to make them sweat and become not so crunchy. Everything's going very well at this point.



When it's time to assemble the sandwich, I wanted the cheese to be all gooey and melty, so I popped them back in the oven for a few minutes. I keep checking the sandwiches and the cheese isn't melting like I want it to. Giraffe's thin Swiss was melting fine, but my thicker American cheese wasn't. Idea! I'll turn the broiler on to get the job done. I keep an eye on the melts and check them after a minute, and still not melty enough. I open the oven door again a minute or two later, and my patty melts are on fire. The top piece of bread is completely ablaze, so I very calmly shut the oven door and turn to Giraffe. "Our sandwiches are on fire." We open the door back up and he, because I wasn't doing anything, decides to blow on the sandwiches; however, his "gust" of wind could've barely put a candle out. So I just stare at him and said, "Do you realize how ridiculous you look right now?" "Nope." So while he's laughing at himself, I grab the pot holder and pull them out. The top piece of bread is completely charred, but the rest of the melt looks fine. So we decide to just do another piece of top bread. I get the skillet and butter back out and begin again. Then, to add insult to injury, as I was pressing on the final piece of bread in the pan, hot butter came up through a hole in the bread and burnt my right index and middle finger. So then I hop around the kitchen in pain wondering, "Why I am so inept?!"


After dinner, I tried for redemption. I went back to what I know: baking. In celebration of Valentine's Day at the office, I made red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. I even made little hearts on wax paper to refrigerate and place on top of the cupcakes. I made them too thin, so I ended up just drawing them on the cupcakes when they were done.

Now, I'm spooked about tonight and am working with slightly burned index and middle fingers on my right hand. I hope those of you who are planning on cooking for your valentines tonight have great luck and don't burn anything, food or person.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Cookie Therapy

After pouring my heart over the fumbled gumbo recipe, I decided it was time to do what I know I can do well: bake. Plus I also needed to bake some cookies as a thank you to my mechanic for taking care of me and my car the week before. If snickerdoodles can't say thank you well enough, I don't know what can.


My Giraffe believes in this phenomenon called "cookie therapy." He says that no matter how bad a day you've had, all you need is a cookie and everything seems brighter because you take a bite of the cookie, think about the bite and savor it, then repeat the process. Bam! All your problems are gone. At first glance, this seems like the perfect thing for the both of us. I love to bake, he loves to eat. Match made in Heaven! Oh no, my boy doesn't do chocolate. I can hear the gasps from here.


His argument? "Chocolate is supposed to taste bitter." My rebuttal: "They add sugar for a reason!" Him: "I still don't like it." Add this to the short list of things he won't eat which include coffee and catfish, although I think he's coming around to that idea again. He had a bad experience with a Shoney's involving food poisoning that laid him out for days. We're talking near death here, the way he tells it. I promised I'd fry it up and make sure it was completely done before feeding it to him. So I guess I feel comfortable doing fish and baking. Just not together. Ew. Oh! Can you imagine Trout Tartlets? Or Catfish Crepes?!


So I've been on this mission to find a cookie that this boy will eat other than oatmeal raisin because those, to me, are boring. Kind of like bran cereal. Immediately crossing chocolate off the list, I first think sugar cookies. This is about as plain as you can get!
Me: "Hey! What about sugar cookies? You like those, right?
Him: "No. Too much sugar."

Sigh. So I start thumbing through my cookie cookbook and make some lemon cookies because those are one of my favorites and something I think he would like.

Me: "Oh sweetheart? I made some lemon cookies! What do you think?"
Him: (Takes a bite, grimaces, and mumbles through cookie crumbs) "Too much powdered sugar."

GRR. Turns out he's got this aversion to powdered sugar ever since a funnel cake disaster due to his cousin. Why must I suffer for his cousin's culinary shortcomings?! Now it's Christmastime and I make the most appropriate cookie: gingerbread. Who can resist the urge to bite off little gingerbread men's heads?

He can.

So when he put in a request for me to make cookies recently, I sat in mild shock. How can I fix you cookies when you don't eat any?! I bust out my cookbook again for inspiration and then the answer appears in front of me. I can't believe I didn't think of this before! Snickerdoodles! I love snickerdoodles! And if he hates him, I'm really going to have to evaluate our 2+ year relationship.


Well, I'm happy to say that we're still together because he popped a cookie in his mouth and said, "These cookies are really good," which coming from is a big deal since hardly anything is "really good," "great," or "awesome" when it comes to my making food. It's usually "it's alright," which really means, "please don't give me any more because I'll be forced to eat it." I do get the occasional "good" so I guess there's hope. It's a learning process, right?

Hey Love o' Mine? Be ready to eat snickerdoodles every week for the rest of your life because now that I found something you like to eat, I'm never letting go.

The Gumbo Disaster

I used to be good at a lot of things. Then I met my Giraffe and I began to doubt my abilities. All the things I was able to take pride in: science, being the best at Street Fighter II for SNES...and the one that upset me the most, cooking. I had been trying my best to overcome this and just bull my way through it, including the first time I cooked for him which turned out very badly but that's another story. Everything was going okay...until the gumbo.

It still pains me to talk about it.

My mom had been given a recipe for gumbo that was extremely good and could either feed you for days or a small army. I had tried this at my parents' house and wanted to do it myself when the weather was starting to turn colder and/or I wanted a touch of home in my own place. I looked over the recipe and it seemed easy enough, just large quantities. Mom even got me a huge stock pot for the occasion.

Gumbo
(makes 2 gallons)

Roux

1 ½ cup oil
1 ½ cup flour
Cook (until color of old penny)

Add:

2 peppers, chopped
1 onion, chopped

Stock Pot

2 gallons water or stock
6 cups chicken, cooked and diced
1 cup uncooked rice
1/3 jar chicken base

2 cans diced tomatoes
6 cups celery, sliced
3 cups frozen okra
½ T. thyme
½ T. garlic
2 T. salt
2 T. Cajun seasoning

Hot sauce
File

Combine.

I decide to do this one Saturday so I go out and buy all the ingredients I need to begin this beast and only one thing gave me trouble: filé. Filé is ground sassafras leaves that aid in thickening as well as being a key ingredient to Creole cooking. I'm originally from Louisiana so I couldn't just skip this step. This gumbo needed it! And I, of course, didn't have any. Since you add filé close to when it's going to be served, I decided to get started and as everything cooked together, I'd go in search of my ground sassafras.

I get to chopping and boiling and throwing everything into my ginormous stock pot, which takes THREE HOURS. That's right. Three hours of my life was spent chopping ingredients for only one dish. I want those three hours back. Anyway, I get everything together and it's simmering away. Now, I've already told Giraffe that I'm making him gumbo and to get ready for one of the best things he's ever eaten. I figure since this dish was tested out by my own mother and it was a Louisiana dish that he had never made, this was the perfect opportunity for me to one-up him. Bring some of my upbringing to the table.

Then begins the filé search. We search all over town for it and by the end of the night, we find it hidden away on a shelf at Publix. So I do my victory dance in the aisle, then go pay so we can get back to feast on this magnificent gumbo! At this point, it had been cooking for a few hours so I just knew it was about ready to eat. Wrong.

I stirred it up and saw that all the heavy ingredients were waaaaay down in the bottom of the pot and all the spices were at the top. We're talking at least 6 inches between the two. I had thought to myself that 2 gallons of water seemed like an awful lot, but my mom swore that's what she did it. She kept saying the water would cook out and it would thicken up to the consistency that I knew it to be. In addition, the filé would help thicken it up as well. So I thank her, hang up, and rush to the filé powder to pull this gumbo back together. No amount of filé could have saved this gumbo.

Giraffe tried to make me feel better by saying to just let it sit on the stove overnight simmering to help cook it down and see how it was later.

Three days later, this gumbo didn't look any better. Now, my hopes and dreams of being the perfect housewife are dashed. I can't even follow a simple recipe. All my efforts of trying to cook better had been for naught. However, my Giraffe knew just what to do to make me feel better about this whole culinary disaster: he held the stock pot for me so I could flip the switch to activate the garbage disposal.

If that isn't true love, I don't know what is.

Sixth Sense Cooking

I've determined that there is a sixth sense to cooking, which not everyone possesses. "I see dead produce"...yeah. That was bad. Moving on.

As you're throwing all your ingredients into the pot/dish/bucket/whatever, sometimes there is a certain time at which you add further ingredients. There's also a window of time that involves gastronomical creativity. Let's say you're making spaghetti sauce. You've sauteed the meat, added the tomatoes, and...whatever else you add to spaghetti sauce and it's time to season. For those of us who frequently eat Italian food, we instinctively reach for the oregano, basil, and pepper. But wait! What's that? Your Spidey Sense is tingling?! It's telling you to add a dash of...allspice? Some know how to harness their superpower, some do not, and some just don't have it at all. Mine likes to come and go.

I was raised in a house that usually had one big meal with maybe one side like casseroles, hamburgers with fried potatoes, pizza, etc. But boy could we bake. Oh yeah, throw in that I was a VERY picky eater growing up. Mom is a great cook, but due to scheduling conflicts weekly, the only meal we could all ever continuously sit down for was Sunday lunch after church. So when I left home to go to college, I didn't have much in my culinary repertoire that wasn't related to baked goods. I relied on boxes of chicken nuggets, the one casserole that I'll actually eat, pizza, and ready made pasta dishes that you just throw in the pan. Really I just ate out a lot. And gained 25 pounds. Let's not talk about that.

So suffice it to say, I couldn't cook much, but what I thought I could cook was good. Then I met Giraffe Boy, my love of over two years. While this boy will eat anything put in front of him short of chocolate and catfish, he wasn't all that crazy about my cooking. He's a "meat and three" kinda guy. I am a "stuff your face with one big thing" kinda gal. Match made in Heaven, right? I thought so. Till I realized this boy is a way better cook than I am. I've watched him make many dishes and while it's going, he'll start looking through the spice rack. His fingers graze over each little pot, sometimes turning to read the label, and will ultimately grab a few that he feels will enhance whatever he's cooking. I ask him, "What are you adding?" He'll reply, "[Insert spice here.]." Me: "Oh, is that in the recipe?" Him: "What recipe?" So I learned that he just adds what he feels is necessary to the dish. And the outcome? Always wonderful. The jerk.

I realized I possess the Sixth Sense when it comes to baking because that is what I've done my whole life. I can feel when something needs cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, sugar, etc. Funny thing is I don't have much of a sweet tooth, so I bake for others. Don't worry, I only use my power for good. Most of the time. Since people usually go ga-ga over something like Black Bottoms or Lemon Cheesecake, I've been able to fake knowing how to cook.

So to my friends and family who thought I could cook, I finally release the wool from your eyes. To those who realized I couldn't cook and went along with the sham, I hope you don't have any stomach disorders.