Weekend Update June 23, 2013

“Logic will get you from A to Z;

 imagination will get you everywhere.” 

Albert Einstein

Here's a question whose answer will tell you more than you probably wanted to know about how plans around here actually materialize.
Ready?
What do a walk around the mall, Abraham Lincoln, a broken air conditioner and a trip to DC have in common? Hands up when you have the answer.

         

I see that hand, creepy John Brown guy- you are correct!
the answer is dinner!

Sigh. There are times when my trains of thought wind up in very unexpected stations. Times when my thoughts are more like an interior dinner conversation than an interior monologue- I could lie and tell you that it's an urbane, witty, sophisticated and well-educated inner dinner conversation, but it's really a lot more like this:

Hmm. Last week's menu lineup for example. I wonder if I could illustrate the planning process with  a sort of thought diagram....Hmm.
well, it started last Tuesday, when Josie the wonder dog hopped up, gave me a kiss on the nose and an important bit of calendrical information:

Lady Person!  It's Juneteenth!!
Does this mean I get a treat?

From there, it went here.And there, and here:

And so we started at Juneteenth, and traveled through a week of beat the heat meals, and some of them were worth writing from home about.
Starting with the Salmon in parchment, (which I still cannot call by it's French name without laughing at how  pretentious it sounds.)
This method continues to wow with it's ease and versatility- here are 7 variations on the Williams-Sonoma site alone! My daughter has been taking these little paper parcels to work, filled with vegetables and chicken, and the two of us together are brainstorming ways to wrap them around kidlicious combos- mac&cheese and chicken parcels maybe? Here's how they worked on the grill:

Note that I did not even thaw the fish.       On the grill, away from direct flamage             Viola! dinner is unwrapped!

They were seasoned with a little of the Outback Steakhouse seasoned butter and on the grill for about 12 minutes. My mother asked me after the first time we tried these if the twee little heart shape to the parchment was really necessary, and mom, the answer is no.  Fun and sweet, but not necessary. We assembled these on paper rectangles torn directly from the parchment roll and it was just as fun, and faster.
Friday's gazpacho recipe was one of the nicest I've tried- two minor changes were prompted by pantry necessity: I used V-8 juice instead of tomato juice, and added a can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes when I realized that I didn't have enough fresh tomatoes. Healthy, cool, and tasty.
You may remember that I was looking forward to turning some leftover steak into steak gyros and turning the no-knead bread into the gyros wraps, and while grocerying on Wednesday, in  the baking aisle of my local Kroger I noticed a new addition- a box of "gluten free baking mix" that implied it could be used as a straight substitute for all purpose flour.
And if you think I could let an implication like that go untested, you are so wrong.  You are wronger than a very wrong thing.

You are almost this wrong.

It's kitchen experiment time!

Here they are, and you can see that
 Houston, we already have a problem

While the regular flour batch stirred up like a nice bowl of bread dough, the gluten free batch laid there doing a pretty good imitation of runny mashed potatoes. Apparently, trouble lay ahead.

Both batches rose for about 20 hours, then I smooshed them into round shapes. The texture of the gluten free batch filled me with foreboding, so I decided to bake some of it in the oven as directed in the recipe, and cook the rest on the grill with the regular batch.

 Bubblicious regular discs of chewy goodness                                                    meh 

Here they are after grill-baking:

And the bit that oven baked:

Pretty bad.
And by pretty bad I mean
Epic Fail.

There are those who think that nothing is wasted as long as knowledge is gained- I was trying to remember that instead of thinking that I'd spent a day making 5 dollars worth of gluten free baking mix even less tasty than it would have been had I served it straight from the box.

It turns out that the no knead recipe is a white wheat flour recipe that just can't turn into gluten free bread, and it doesn't do a good job of turning into whole wheat bread either. Yet it remains the easiest, most delicious, most versatile yeast bread recipe I've found- just as long as it can be itself.

and it makes stellar gyros wraps.

Being what you are.

That's another rabbit trail my thoughts have wandered down, as they've pondered what it means to get from here to there.

Because despite the ease with which people on television throw around the word journey,

Sometimes getting there is a really confusing ride.

And I want you to know that it's okay.

Okay to not quite understand the place from which you started.

And okay to not quite know where you want to end up.

And okay when what's hidden beyond the next bend

veers from exciting to scary to sad and back again.

It's okay that you don't control the road or the way it unwinds.

Because you control something more important than all of that.

You have so much power over the very most beautiful part-

So much power to choose

the sort of wonderful you you'll be

when you get there.

weekend update, June 9,

 If you ignore the rules people will, half the time, quietly rewrite them so that they don't apply to you." 
— Terry Pratchett 

I didn't ignore the rules. Not exactly. 

I just realized, with the help of a friend or two, that a few of the laws that govern this kitchen were only ever of my own making, and  I was absolutely free to ignore them, rewrite them, or break them. 

They were broken the way some rules ought to be broken- good and hard. 

And while my hands were busy stirring up a few rebellious dinners, my mind was busy remembering a few real rabble rousers and rule breakers- scientists, suffragettes, artists, a woman who sat down in a bus, writers,  students who sat down at lunch counters, astronauts, chefs, and poets. 

Including the poet  Jenny Joseph, who wrote "Warning" just to let every one know that someday, she was going to break a few rules. It starts "when I am old I shall wear purple, with a red hat which doesn't go..." and it gave birth to a cultural phenomenon- the red hat society.

Which I considered joining. Then I found out that because I wasn't yet 50, I'd have to wear a pink hat (it's sort of a rule) and that after that I'd need a red hat and that I'd at least sometimes have to wear purple. But I don't especially like wearing purple. Or red.

So, I investigated the cat hat league

but it made me sneeze.

So I tried the crustacean hat coalition

But after a three day convention,
they started to smell funny.

I thought with the bird hat society that I'd finally found the devil-may-care group for me.

Such style! Such Joie de vivre! Such remarkably steady heads!

Here I am on initiation day, so happy:

You start by wearing as many birds as you can to every meeting.
After a year, you can just wear them as hats.
It's a sort of rule. 

But alas!  I found out that the cat hatters were calling us the bird brainers. 

And that made me so crabby....

that I joined the full lobster ladies, whose motto is
"We can get along with anyone- in a pinch."

And while all that silliness was going on, I learned a few exciting new things in the kitchen!

First-Gluten avoiders, rejoice! All those wonderful summer pasta and couscous salads? They are just as tasty with rice! 

That epiphany struck as we dished up  Greek rice and chickpea salad, and I thought, "Gee, this is so familiar, but I absolutely have not ever....wait! I HAVE made this before! Lots of times! But with couscous instead of rice, in pre-gluten awareness days!" 

 And it looks and tastes even nicer with rice:

As an added bonus, the nutty flavor of brown rice would've
actually made this tastier! 

I am SO happy about this! And I feel like a dope for never having considered it! Fave pasta salads? Get ready for the rice redo! 

Second- the slow cooker? My new summer love.

 It did a great job on the ribs and kept the kitchen cool. True, they did not taste like ribs slow roasted on a grill. On the other hand, no one had to stand roasting slowly over a grill.

We'd been going to turn the leftover pork into tacos, but I just have not been able to get the glories of this no knead bread dough out of my mind. Gluten or no gluten, I simply had to have more. So I squished up a batch and shaped it into sandwich rolls, made some coleslaw and turned the pork into sandwiches. Phenomenally easy.

 A real "Oh my gosh, did that really come out out of this kitchen" moment.
In a good way.

Third-the coolest result of this week's exercise in personal rule kicking?  The fish in parchment parcels. 

Ok. Ok. So. (This is so exciting that my fingers are stammering.)  Early on Friday, I sliced up some bell peppers and zucchini, and set out the little packets of cheap frozen tilapia. Later, we assembled our packets and popped them in the oven. Entertaining and easy!

                        ready                                                                          set                                                          go

And somewhere in the middle of this, I realized what a great thing this would be for a summer party! All the veg can be prepped hours or even the day before, and everyone eating can make their own parcel at cooking time! What fun! I'm pretty sure that these would work brilliantly on a grill, as long as direct flame stayed off of the paper. (Though that'd be entertaining too.)

And the best part? Relatively zero clean up. No pots, no pans, only a cutting board to rinse and paper to toss. And the flavor! Wow! I nearly jumped up and down squealing as I described these to my daughter, Liz the Baking Wonder, and she tried it using chicken breast, carrots, celery and grape tomatoes. The Liz concurs. This is spectacular. 

The things I learned this week! Crock pots never were just for winter! Rice can go more places than under beans and curries!

 There are more stupid rules that deserve breaking than even I ever imagined! 

And I hope you had the fun (or terror) of smashing a few of your own unexamined rules.

And I want you to know that it matters. 

It matters every time that you grow and work and love in a way you once thought you wouldn't.

Or feared you couldn't.

It matters every time that you turn tedium to play, and routine into a wild rumpus.

And it matters every little time that you wrest 

from the jaws of what you were told was inevitable defeat

some unconventional sort of victory.

weekend update June 2, 2013

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal"

Winston Churchill

There are about 250,000 words in American English, about 50,000 of them in common use, and there are an average of 800 new words added to the language every year.

I present for your consideration new word 801: a word stitched together when no single word would do.

A word to describe most of what went on in and made it's way out of this unassuming kitchen this week.

 Satisfaction (fullfillment) + Gratification (enjoyment)  =

GRATISFACTION

It all started when something went right.

Something sort of like the best mashed potatoes I ever made.

The chicken decided strike a gruesomely underdone pose for this photo
but I assure you, not a single unpleasant surprise on the plate.

The next night brought another hit. A wild, unbelievable hit. 

This absolutely fun and amazing bread recipe that became the crust for our homemade pizza. 

 Know that I am not a novice at the bread baking game- I know all about the floury, rigourously kneaded, goo crusted, multiple bowl mess that it takes to produce most loaves of homemade bread. 

I've done the hair-dough hair-do too

So when I tell you that this wonderfully written, easy to follow, terrifically illustrated, brilliantly simple recipe is a bread winner, you can trust me. If you've never made bread before, this is where to start. If you've made bread and love the result but hate the work, try this method and prepare to have your mind blown.
 The recipe is intended to be made into a round loaf, but I smashed the dough into a sort of pizza shape before the second rising, then sauced it and topped it, and here it is-

A side view is the only way to truly appreciate the bubbly layers
of yeasty chewy goodness created by this recipe.

Two up at bats, two solid hits. And on the third night....

The end of the search for a great homemade salsa

Tilt your noses back earthward, salsa snobs- I too know the labor intensive pleasures of a farmer's market fresh bowl of pico. But jarred or fresh, I've not tasted the equal of  this easy-peasy cheap and breezy salsa recipe.  I reduced the quantities to one can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes and  one can of tomatoes and chilies, simply because I didn't want a huge mixing bowlful of the unknown and untested. The only other change I made was the substitution of a spoonful of chipotle for the jalapeno. Because it was just easier than prepping the jalapeno.
Oh, that's not true.
I confess,I just can't take the heat.   I may have grown up in the south, but  I am a bit of a wuss when it comes to spicy heat.
I'm a great big spice baby. Hmm...perhaps I should clarify that.

NOT a great big baby spice               a great big whimpers-at-a-jalapeno spice baby.

Whether you go for the bright fire of a jalapeno or the deeper, milder burn of chipotle, think about trying this out. We were so smitten with it that we only stopped scooping it up when we ran out of chips. And then we put it on burgers, and then we put it on eggs for breakfast. 

So it was with a confident swagger that I approached the plate with an idea for a substitution. An idea to use a self-concocted mix of gluten free flours for half of the wheat flour in the no-knead bread recipe.

She swings.....she strikes.

As it turns out, expecting gluten free flour to do what wheat flour does in a yeast bread is a little like, well,

"Yes you DO smell nail polish remover.
 Yes I DID use it to top up the tank.
What? Well, it OUGHT to work! 
It's just as clear and smelly and
 flammable as gasoline!"

The result was....edible when warm and buttered.

And the next day, there was the bacon for the wedge salad, sizzling happily toward golden crispiness when the dryer buzzed. So, of course, I emptied the dryer, and then loaded the washer, and folded a few towels before I remembered.... the bacon! A little too late. Perhaps you're one of those who know that cookie batches stopped burning themselves around here the day that I learned to use a (very loud)  kitchen timer.
 Now, if only someone would invent a timer that would alert me before the bacon burns...

Oh wait.
They have. It's called
STAYING IN THE KITCHEN
WHEN SOMETHING'S COOKING ON THE STOVE!

The home audience was kind enough to declare it the sort of extra crispy bacon he especially liked.
 (The home audience is justly famous for the speed with which he can come up with these gracious little falsehoods.)

A couple of instructive, non-fatal failures aside, it was a week of gratifying effort that yielded way more than satisfying results. 

And that's what I hope for your week too.

I hope that the pieces of this week fit together on the first try.

I hope that when you try something new this week, it exceeds your expectations.

And I hope that this week, whether you find yourself creating

a spread or a spreadsheet, 

you can take a step back, admire the work of your hands

and tell yourself, with deep gratisfaction,

" Yeah, I made that."