So whats we gonna be eatin' tonight?

Well, Kit of Mango & Ginger tapped me to tell you all about my top 10 favorite foods. The problem has been not what foods to include but what foods to eliminate from the list. Of course, I had to retest some of them to make sure I really like them enough to make the cut.

1. Bacon- The though of eating wonderful smoky, salty fat makes me feel a ‘lil faint. I love thick cut slab bacon fried up crisp. I love the though of bacon rind cooked up with greens. I love how the salt cuts through the overpowering sweetness of syrup or pumps up the ripeness of summer tomatoes. Tony claims that he has heard me murmuring sweet nothings to bacon in my sleep. Bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon - now I know how that dog feels!


2. Salt – There are days when I could eat a big old spoonful without blinking. Those are the days when men should stay out of range. Hell - women, children and small household pets too!


3. Cheese – Yes. All of it. From Cheese in a Spray Can to runny ripe Brie, cheese has won my heart. It was a favorite after school snack when I was a kid, cheese sandwiches saved my life in college and now that I am a woman of wealth (comparatively speaking) I love buying new and exciting cheese to try. Curds and Whey in the North Market and Whole Foods have a siren call that I cannot resist. Cheese, cheese, cheese - put some bacon with it and you can have your whey with me.


4. Pasta Puttanesca – Let me start off by saying that I hate all jarred pasta sauces. Sure, sure, sure…I know you will tell me that such and such a brand is very good and I will have to spit in your eye. When compared to a real sauce made at home, they all pale. So about 14 years ago, I picked up a book on pasta at the library and saw a recipe for pasta puttanesca. I never turned back. In our house, the dish is known as “Good Woman Pasta”, as the word puttanesca was too hard for our daughter to say and “Whore’s pasta” just sounds wrong coming out of the mouth of a six year old.


5. French Toast – My love affair with “Pain Perdu” began when I was a kid, like so many others of my favorites. My mom would make French toast for me and my brother on snow days. I remember the Blizzard of ’78 especially well – we ate a lot of French toast that winter. The big difference between my French toast and my mom’s is that I use denser bread and soak it for a little bit. Mom used stale Wonderbread. It was a way of transforming the mundane into something special. Anytime you can perform culinary magic like that – you know you have a winner.


6. Biscuits – I owe my biscuit making savvy to my ex-mother-in-law. (Yes I was married before – but that is a story that needs to be told over lots and lots of alcohol.) Glenna was a nice Southern lady who had grown up making biscuits and cornbread every day of her life. She used a coffee cup to measure out the self rising flour and always had buttermilk in her refrigerator. I make decent biscuits. They are acceptable, but they cannot even hold a candle to Glenna’s. I do not miss my ex, but I sure miss his mom’s cooking.


7. Chicken Livers – Ok, I know I heard several of you make retching noises. Shame, shame. You just never had liver prepared correctly. My favorite way is lightly dusted with seasoned flour and fried in bacon grease. (Hmmmm – back to bacon, are we?) They come out crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside. With some cornbread and greens -damn fine eatin’!


8. Mashed Potatoes – Mashed potatoes are essentially four ingredients: Taters, milk, butter and salt. Who would have thought those four basic items could create the food of the gods? I’ve been known just to make mashed potatoes as a snack - but I love them best with number 9 on my list.


9. REALLY GOOD Gravy!- I think it’s a shame that its been such a long time since I’ve eaten gravy (other than my own) that had been made from scratch. Sorry folks, really good gravy can’t be had from a bottle, can or powder. You have to brown meat, you have to roast meat, use the fond and the juices from the meat. So simple, yet done wrong too often! It’s time for a gravy revolution brothers and sisters! More meat! More good gravy!


10. PIE! All things PIE! – Some people love ice cream, some love cake, but I love pie. Pie in the sky and pie in your eye! The dessert of comedy! No one ever got hit in the face with Crème Brule! Fruit pies, cream pies, custard pies – put that filling in a flakey crust and you have my love forever. As a child, the yearly church picnic would send my heart into palpitations as I surveyed the dessert table with its spread of tarts and meringues. My contribution? Need you ask? Banana cream pie, of course.

So there they are my favorite foods laid out for your perusal. Surprised that chocolate wasn’t on the list? Well, to make it up to myself, I am gonna make a chocolate cream pie this weekend. Who says I can’t have my chocolate pie and eat it too?

Since we are playing tag, I am tagging Sher of What Did You Eat? for the Ten Favorite Foods meme. And to prove the old adage that no good deed goes unpunished, Kit of Mango and Ginger gets tagged for the Ten Random Facts meme. Good luck ladies! I look forward to reading your entries.

I writ at random, very doubtfully.

Wow – Ten Random Facts about Myself. Hmmmmmm what deep dark secrets should I reveal? Sarah of Dining with the Headhunter tagged me - so if you can’t sleep tonight, blame it all on her!

So here we go:

1. I am an illustrator and graphic designer for magic instructional textbooks. Not that kinda magic - the sleight of hand, pick a card any card kind. Don’t believe me? Check out Lee Asher’s website. I did Three Stylin’ for him! Honest! He’ll vouch for me!
2. I am collecting as many versions of the song “Junko Partner” as I can locate. The fascination all started with a recording my hubby made in New Orleans of James Booker, a jazz pianist. I have since located three other recordings of the same song by Booker - each one is totally different being dependent on what kind of mood he was in that night (or more likely, what kind of drugs he was on). I have about six other versions from various artists.
3. I have a mutant stomach. It is shaped like a “J” instead of the normal “kidney bean”. I found this out a while back when I was having digestive problems and they looked down into the maw of hell during an esophagogastroduodenoscopy. The best thing about the whole procedure - they give you great drugs. As I was coming out of the twilight sleep, the doctor told me about my malformed stomach. I looked at my hubby and said “You always suspected you married a mutant – now you know for sure!”
4. I threw myself into Buckeye Lake when I was five years old. I was tossing bread into the water for the ducks and tossed one piece just a lil too hard - in I went! My dad jumped in and pulled me out, soaking wet and scared but unharmed. My uncle, who had the cabin on the lake, would tease me about “feeding yourself to the ducks” for years afterwards.
5. I play board games every other Friday night. Not Monopoly, Sorry or any of those plebian games, but hard core Euro games, like Puerto Rico, Carcassonne and Tigris and Euphrates. We meet in the back room of the local gaming shop and battle it out all night. It’s a great excuse to eat crappy junk food, stay up until 3am in the morning and gloat when your friends lose to you. It is a toss up as to whether I spent more money on cooking equipment or board games last year. And before you say it - Yes, I am a geek.
6. My favorite snack when I was a kid was Cheese Wiz on toasted cracked wheat bread.
7. I love Terry Pratchett’s books. I think he is the best humor fantasy writer ever. Yeah, that’s what I said. You wanna fight about it? Put 'em up, put 'em up! I can fight you with one paw tied behind my back. I can fight you standing on one foot. I can fight you with my eyes closed. Sneakin’ up on me huh?!
8. I would rather watch an old movie like The Gay Falcon or a movie serial like Daredevils of the Red Circle than most of the drivel that passes for entertainment on cable tv. I really love going to movie conventions like Cinevent, sitting in the dark on uncomfortable chairs for 4 days and watching movies I can’t see anywhere else. Now that’s entertainment!
9. I buy really ugly Pyrex to use in my kitchen. The best deal so far: two large bowls in avocado green and harvest gold both for .$25. Yup, two bits. For two really ugly bowls. They hold a boatload of potato salad though.
10. I like to collect Godzilla toys. My daughter used to get mad when she was little because I wouldn’t let her play with them. She once said, “You have more toys than me! That’s not fair!” It’s not, but now she has her own collection of Neopets that I’m not allowed to touch. So there!

So there it is! Ten Random things you would have been better off not knowing!

I am still thinking about who to torture - I mean tag for this meme - stay tuned for updates!

BBM4

YEAH! My box of goodies is here! My secret food buddy was Tami from Running with Tweezers and she sent me up a box of southern goodies.


First off is some green tomato relish from South Carolina – I served this with some smothered pork chops tonight. It was damned tasty! Another recipe for me to figure out, darn it.

Next creamed honey from Georgia- it was very tasty in my morning tea.

A Sangria scented castle – the only way to get lit without drinking the real thing! One of Tami’s friends makes these candles. Go check out her website: www.plain-n-simple.com. Personally, I think that stress relief candle would be a good thing too - after I am done with my Sangria that is.


A Lavender Chocolate bar – ok, I can’t decide if I like this or not. It’s chocolate, but it’s got flowers in it. I kept eating it to see if I could make up my mind. Now, I need to buy some more to finish the decision making process.

Some homemade five-spice, cinnamon ginger shortbread cookies – these were great. I snacked on them with my after dinner coffee. Very subtle. Definitely a keeper Tami!


Flavors magazine-an Atlanta based magazine about food and restaurants. This could come in handy, as we have a friend who is trying to convince us to go with him to Dragoncon down in Atlanta on Labor Day weekend.

And lastly, an awesome CD of music that Tami calls “The Bake Mix”.

Thanks a ton Tami! You were a great food buddy!

HERE's your 30 minute meal! Now bugger off!

Wow - what a crazy two weeks! Things have been going haywire, and I hope it settles down so I can get some serious eating done!

I have been remiss in my blogging duties. I have missed Is My Blog Burning 22, Weekend Cookbook Challenge #2, and SHF #16. However, I did get to participate in Blog By Mail 4. My secret food buddy was Maya of The Town Tart who lives in Venice, CA. Head on over to her blog and check out the trials and tribulations of her kitchen remodel. I have serious oven envy now. Six ovens. Some people have all the luck!! I am still waiting on my package from my secret food buddy, but I still have high hopes that it will be here soon!

I have been tagged for two meme also. One from my buddy Sarah at Cooking with the Headhunter (10 Random Facts About Yourself) and one from Kit at Mango and Ginger (Top 10 Favorite Foods). The Random Fact meme is giving me fits, mostly because my whole life is random and the ten favorite food meme - don’t even get me started! How the heck can I narrow it down to ten?! Maybe ten categories? You know - like Sweet, Salty etc…that might give me a fighting chance.

So foodwise – our household has been put on quick meal notice because of my crazy work schedule. When I get home from work, the food has to be on the table in 45 minutes or less. On the way home Wednesday night, I stopped and performed my mid-week perusal of the local produce section. This week’s foray yielded a head of bok-choy for $1.00. With my well stocked pantry, I came up with Mom’s Lo Mein. The hubby said it was more like Chinese Spaghetti, since I used dried linguini for the pasta.

Chinese Spaghetti (as this dish will now be known) is one of those dishes you can create as long as you understand the basic principles of the type of food you are attempting to make. Of course, I am not lucky enough to have a high BTU burner in my kitchen, so this isn’t really like Lo Mein but considering that I ended up with six servings for about $1.50 each, my checking account and my tummy were happy!

I always carry the following in my kitchen:

• Dried Pasta of various types
• Soy sauce
• Black Bean and Garlic Sauce
• Vietnamese Chili Sauce
• Broth
• Carrots
• Ginger (frozen)
• Garlic
• Onions
• Mushrooms
• Fake Crab (frozen)

Here is the procedure in a loosely described fashion.

Get your mise en place together first. Chop the onion, garlic and ginger and place together. Cut the carrots into matchsticks if you have time, if not, just cut into uniform pieces so it all cooks evenly. Same with the mushrooms. Bok-choy - well there is a special case. I usually cut off the green parts and slice them into shreds, then dice the lower white portion. Keep the two parts separate, you’ll see why later. If your bok-choy is a little limp - and we all have known how terrible it is to have a limp bok-choy in our life at one time or another – you can soak it in some nice ice water to perk it up. Have nappa cabbage? Use that. I once even used romaine lettuce in a stir fry. It wasn’t bad - but I don’t know if I would do it again. If I could have found it on sale, I would have grabbed a bag of the broccoli slaw stuff. That would have been perfect noodle fodder! I ended up with about 8 cups of veggies all told, including the bok-choy, which is going to shrink down a lot. The more veggies the better!

Do the same with your meats. If you are using raw meats, slice them as you would for stir fry. I also had a little bit of shrimp left over from a party I had thrown the previous weekend (that’s the topic of another post, once I reconstruct my memory). You could also throw in leftover chicken or pork. Just add the already cooked meats last in the process so they are just warmed through. I had about a pound of shrimp and fake crab.

Once all your veggies and meats are prepped, now you get to make “the sauce”. For one pound of pasta, I did one cup of sauce. It kinda went like this: 1/2 cup of broth, ¼ - 1/3 cup of soy sauce, and black bean sauce and chili sauce so that everything equals one cup. You may be saying to yourself: Isn’t this going to be too salty? The answer is no. The noodles are bland, the veggies are bland, and they need all the salt they can get to taste good. Especially the noodles - they are a neutral starch. Don’t have black bean and garlic sauce? Use hoisin or oyster. Don’t have any of the above? Just use soy sauce. Trust me, it’s gonna be ok.

Put your water on to boil for the pasta. I did not salt the water. Actually, you can do that before you start your slicin’ and dicein’. (I told you, this is a freeform recipe thingy.) Any pasta will do as long as it has some heft to it. Spaghetti, fettuccini, linguini - if you have wide rice noodles you probably could use those. Cook them until done, drain, set aside.

Now you get to stir fry your fixins’. If you are using raw meat, do that first. Add a tablespoon of oil to the wok, a little of your onion, garlic and ginger to the oil. Stir fry the meat until done. Remove and set aside. Next, the veggies. They need to be added so that the ones that require more cooking go in first. Add a little more oil to the wok, then the rest of the onion, garlic and ginger. Then the carrots, cook a couple of minutes, then the bok-choy stems, cook a couple of minutes, then the mushrooms, repeat the cooking procedure. You should have a big mélange of veggies all cooked about the same amount now. Add the bok-choy leaves. Toss until the leaves are wilted.

Add the noodles. They may have congealed into a big mass of starch, but it’s ok. They will separate. Dump your sauce over top of the noodles and toss. The noodles should come apart. Well, they did when I did it. (If it bothers you, you could always rinse them in cold water when you drain them to prevent sticking.) Toss the noodles and veggies around until the noodles have absorbed a good amount of the sauce. Now add in the meat, either left over or freshly cooked. Toss. I added a little black pepper at this point and the last of a bottle of Chinese sesame oil. Pour your crazy noodle dish into a large bowl and serve. I pulled out some chopstick and some fun bowls to put everything in.

Like everything of this nature, it’s even better the next day. Annie even took some in her lunch, the true hallmark of a well cooked dish.

Half the fun of cooking is the challenge of making something tasty on short notice. You can’t be afraid to try something off the wall. Trust me - my family will let me know when I make something inedible. Think of this as jazz cooking - taking what is available and creating some new harmonies with a little syncopated rhythm. Jazz not to your liking? Try a little Salsa. Got some canned sardines around? They work great in noodle dishes. Despite what your mom said, play with your food. You’ll enjoy it more!

Hmmm hmmm good....hmmm hmmm good...

Adam, The Amateur Gourmet, make me laugh. Today, I read and loved his poem about his misadventures with peanut brittle. He ended up with a batch of peanut brittle soup. Now, 500 miles away, I was in my kitchen making brittle as well. Ironically, I was using the very same recipe and it turned out brilliantly. Take a gander at my food porn, baby!



The recipe in question came from Craft of Cooking by Tom Collichio. Adam found it vague and confusing, hence his pan of soup. I had no problems understanding exactly how the recipe should turn out in the end, hence my tasty, hip hugging treat. Was it the recipe or was it the cooks?
Let’s take a look at the recipe:

Peanut Brittle

2 c sugar
¼ pound unsalted butter
6 T corn syrup
¾ pound dry-roasted, salted peanuts
1 ½ t salt

Line a rimmed baking sheet with a non-stick baking pad (or lightly but completely oil the sheet.) Combine sugar, butter, corn syrup and 1 1/3 cups of water in a large pot. Heat over high until the sugar melts and the caramel turns amber. Stir in the baking soda, then remove the pot from the heat and add the peanuts and salt. Mix well, then, using a metal spatula, quickly and evenly spread out the mixture out on the baking sheet. Allow the brittle to cool and harden. Break the brittle into pieces and serve, or store in a covered container.

I think the answer is: a little bit of both.

Unless you have made candy every year since you were a kid, you probably would never understand “Heat over high until the sugar melts and the caramel turns amber.” Most candy recipes give you temperatures and stages, maybe even nice photo illustrations showing what color “amber” is. Shame on the author for assuming that everyone reading the recipe would be clairvoyant.

Now that we’ve taken the recipe to task, let’s look at why an old fat chick got the recipe to work and sexy, young Adam did not.

I shall start with my candy making background. I was a source of slave labor every Christmas when my mother would make candy to give away to the multitudes that descended upon our household during the holidays. Guess whose job it was to watch the caramel while my mother was off punishing my wayward brother? You got it! Somehow, I have a feeling that Adam’s mom never forced him to watch boiling pots of sugar, instead allowing him to run free… to express those creative urges that allow him to amuse us even to this day. Which, of course, explains his remarkable kitchen chops. At least when it comes to peanut brittle.

So some tips to remember when you are looking for recipes that venture into uncharted territory. Read the recipe through twice, maybe even three times. If there are ANY doubts about how the recipe should proceed, look up similar recipes from reliable sources and compare. When tackling something like candy, find a good reference that will give you the basic science behind the process. By educating yourself on how the chemistry works, you increase your chances of success. This doesn’t mean you will not end up with a bowl of peanut brittle soup, but hey – you did your best!

PS. Adam, if you REALLY need that peanut brittle fix, I will be more than glad to send you some of mine!

Where the hell did THAT come from?

I like to get up in the morning and read the news feeds. It puts perspective into my world view: the frailties of man, the oddities of everyday life and so on. Possibly, it is the only thing that keeps me from killing strangers on the way to work in the morning. I thought I would share with you a couple of articles from today’s news since I find it so enlightening...

Yum! Yum! Personally, I am partial to the Louisiana Back-Bay Bayou Bunny Bordelaise. Da-roool, da-rooool.


I just want you to know - the next time you hit a deer and total your car – you are supporting our boys in Iraq.


My daughter recently introduced me to Google Video. In case you don’t know what that is just head on over to http://video.google.com/ . It is pretty self-explainatory. In compliance with Sturgeon’s Law, 90% of it is crap but the bit that is good is a blast to watch. These were two things I found while wandering aimlessly this morning.

Critics annoying you while you are cooking?


Kid tested – mother approved!


Alright – I PROMISE I will have more interesting food items soon. Really. Honest. I'll have BBM 4, some adventures in bread baking, pies, more meat and a product review. In the meantime, amuse yourselves. Eat some pudding or something....

Meat meat meat for me to eat!

If you haven’t guessed by now – I love meat: the flesh of formerly living animals, the muscle tissue of those creatures slower and dumber than I. Do I feel any remorse? Ummmmmm..hell no. Yes I have killed critters with my own hands and prepared them for dinner. I will tell you right now - a fish just taken out of a body of water, gutted, scaled and fried up in a skillet is the best damn food on the face of the earth.

My second favorite meal is a nice beef roast. True, a cow can’t be lured into my oven by a worm on a hook, which means I have to resort to letting others do my butchery for me. I try to buy all my meat from Schuman’s or Thurn’s as I know I will be getting a quality product. However, there are times when I am walking through Meijers and see a deal I can’t resist. Meijers has a policy of selling vacuum packaged primals to the public from time to time at really great prices. I’ve bought whole pork loins (with ribs), and most recently, a sirloin “roast”. If this meat had been sliced, it would have become sirloin steaks. However, because I was brave and bought it without any further processing, I got a great deal.

I stood pawing over the pile of meat, wondering if I should buy one or two when a lady came up and asked me how I planned to cook such a big roast. I spent a few minutes telling her how to cook the roast, how to remove the silver skin on the outside, how to tell if the meat was medium or medium rare (temperature not time!). Bless her heart she jumped in and bought one. She said, “Thanks! They should hire you to teach people how to cook this stuff!”

This isn’t the first time it’s happened either. Consumers have become accustomed to having meat sold in small ready to cook portions. When confronted with a huge chunk of flesh, we are at a loss as how to deal with it. Fortunately, I was prepared, being raised by a stay-at-home mom who knew how to process her meats (Mom even had a bone saw!) and a couple books on meat preparation.

Don’t be scared of roasts. They are easier than you think. The first thing you are gonna need is a working knowledge of the cow. So get out there - the information is at your fingertips. Find out what parts are best for a nice dry heat spa treatment and which ones have to be braised. Next, get a really good instant read thermometer. I just picked up one of the “leave it in while the beast cooks” kind. Third, get a good roasting pan that is shallow and has a rack. I bought mine for $20 on clearance after the holidays – just keep an eye out. Lastly, get out a nice sharp slicing knife. A chef’s knife will do ok in a pinch, but I actually have a slicer so I use it.

You are now ready to process your chuck o’ beef.

Remove the meat from its plastic prison and rinse it in cold water in the sink. Exam it closely, note how it’s put together. This is a biology lesson of sorts - take advantage of it.

If the roast is covered with a whitish-silver membrane – it needs to come off. I usually get a good sharp paring knife and peel it off. (If you haven’t seen it yet - the latest Good Eats about beef tenderloin has a really good tutorial on how to peel off the membrane. Check it out.) Trim off any huge chunks of fat or connective tissue. Be brave - usually you would be paying extra because the butcher would be doing this for you! I saved any meaty bits and threw them in the freezer for the stock pot.

Fire up you oven to 450 degrees while you are doing this - we want a really hot oven!

Now that you have a trimmed roast, you are ready to season the meat. I use the slivers of garlic method: slice up some cloves of garlic, cut ‘lil holes in the roast with my paring knife and stuff in the garlic. It helps - really. The garlic will come out during slicing and it adds a great flavor to the roast. I used 5 cloves of garlic for this roast. Next, I make a rub out of kosher salt, cracked pepper and cumin – ummmmm I did not measure the amounts, but I would say 2 parts salt, 1.5 of pepper and .5 of cumin. The roast then gets a massage with the rub. Insert the “stay in the meat” thermometer probe (if you are using it) into the thickest part of the meat. I set mine for 122 for medium rare.

Place the meat into your roasting pan and then into the blazing hot oven. Cook for 30 to 45 minutes at 450 until it has a nice crust, then reduce heat to 350 and cook until done to the desired temperature. Remember about carryover cooking and take your roast out a little before your desired temperature is reached. The temperature will increase several degrees while it’s enjoying the sauna.

Once your roast has rested, about 15 – 20 minutes, then you are ready to slice.

Deglaze your pan - make a nice au jus or gravy. Live it up!

I love roast beast sandwiches, where the meat is sliced super thin. I eat it up with a nice horseradish mayo sauce.

Not too hard huh? The worst that would happen is that you would overcook the meat. Then you get to make hash from it! And that is a dish to be proud of in its own right.

What's on your TV?

Once people find out that you have a passion, they always want to bring you little bits to show that they share your interests. In cooking, it usually means they hope you will make samples and ask them to taste test.

Recently, my hubby brought home a set of DVDs for me to watch. The gal in this show was definitely not ready for prime time. She was in her fifties and wore horrible uniform-like outfits. She was a sloppy cook. Stuff was slopped everywhere, sometimes she would just toss equipment into a trash can when she was done with it. The production values of the show were awful as well. It looked like it was all done in one cut and a bad one at that. However, the food she prepared was really great. She was an advocate of actually making items from scratch, using fresh ingredients. She obviously loved what she was doing.

So who was this cook- this woman who put substance over style? Julia Child, of course. If Julia auditioned for a television show today, Food Network would have tossed out her tape with the rest of the slush pile. I can see the producers’ comment cards now. "Needs to loose some weight. Audiences don’t like fat chicks. And that hair! She looks like Wilma Flintstone, for God’s sake! What about that voice – maybe she should quit impersonating Katherine Hepburn." I wonder what the producers would have made of James Beard. He was definitely another person who would not fit into the sanitized vision of the American cooking scene. Hell, they wouldn’t even have let him in the studio.

When Food Network cut Sara Moulton out of the scene, they were sending a pretty clear message to me: Style over Substance. Got a fad? We’ll bite! A festival? We’ll be there! Got a nice smile and a good stage presence? Have we got a job for you! Can’t cook? That’s ok - we got a kitchen full of faceless pros to back you up. They will never be famous and all they can do is cook.

So now the airwaves are filling up with hip styles and pretty faces. Let’s take a look at one of the hot ones. Everyone’s favorite, Rachel Ray.

So what does Rachel Ray, the new darling of Food TV, owe her fame to? While her family has a background in restaurants, Rachel’s resume is mostly about her career as a manager and a food buyer. 30 Minute Meals was created to sell more products, not to share her love of food. Think I am bashing your darling Ray-ray? Check out the bio on the Food Network website. It’s all right there on public display. Rachel is a business person first, and a food person second…or third.

I am sorry to be bashing Rachel. I am sure she is a wonderful person. She may even have saved a drowning puppy at one time. But to her, food is not a matter of love, but a vehicle to success. If Rachel’s parents had run a beauty parlor, she would have probably been selling her own line of cosmetics on QVC instead, and quite successful at it.

Personally, I would rather read a hundred blog entries with all their typing errors, and unlovely food photos, because they are written by people who really truly love food and all that pertains to it. They do it for love, not for a dollar. It’s great that some of them will eventually make money doing something they love. I wish we all could. But you don’t sell your love for money. There is a word for that.

My Contribution to Global Warming

In winter, I love cooking up bean soup. Something about creamy beans, salty smoked ham shanks and onions cooked together that transcends their humble demeanor. It also means that I have to stock up on air freshener and Beano. Like anything else in life, there is always a trade off, isn’t there?

Personally, I use a crock pot for my white bean soup. A lot of books I have read say they don’t like the texture of the beans cooked this way, but my family has never complained. True, they are not as creamy as stovetop beans, but I also can throw the mess in the crock and then schlep myself to work. To me, that convenience offsets any real sacrifice in texture.

For the meat in this dish, I usually use ham hocks or shanks. The ham hocks you get at your regular grocery store tend to suck. That was not always the case, but in the past ten years or so, I have been very disappointed with the size and quality of most commercial products. Schuman’s to the rescue again!! I picked up one of their smoked ham shanks last time I dropped the national debt there, and it was wonderful. Meaty with a good smoky taste. I also had the shank split in two so that the marrow would cook out into the beans.

Carrying on the tradition of my mother, I use Great Northern beans. How do these differ from Navy beans? I have no freaking idea. But Mom used them and that’s good enough for me. My dad loved her bean soup and my hubby loves mine. Nuff’ said.

So here ya go - my bean soup is not a science - it’s a zen kinda thing. Once you get it, you’ll know.

Rosie’s Bean Soup

2 pounds dried Great Northern beans, picked over and rinsed
2 medium onions, peeled and cut in half
1 to 2 pounds of ham shanks or hocks
3 bay leaves
salt, pepper, garlic powder
water

Equipment: 6 qt crock pot

Throw onions, beans and ham shanks into the crock. Add the bay leaves, salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste. (Be careful with the salt, as the ham will have varying degrees of saltiness. I usually check the crock when I get home and taste the stock that forms. If it isn’t very salty, I add more.)

Fill the crock up with water to the top, turn on low and cover. If you are home, stir occasionally and check seasoning. If not, don’t sweat it. It will still be good.

Cooking time will range from eight to twelve hours depending on your crock pot, the amount of moisture in the beans, the phase of the moon, etc.

When the beans are done, they will be soft all the way through and have a good flavor. Pull out the shanks/hocks and let cool some. Be careful removing them, as there may be small bones that will escape into your pot. Make sure you remove any escaped bones unless you really want to take a trip to the dentist. Strip the meat off the bone and return to the pot.

Serve soup with fresh chopped onion and some hot sauce. Corn bread is nice on the side along with some greens if you have them. Sautéed spinach is a winner too. Failing that, make a nice bread and butter sandwich and dip it in the soup. Taste-tee!

Yield: about 4 qts of soup and several millimeters off the ozone layer

Just a few quickies

I have a confession to make – Debbie is my evil twin or rather, I am her evil twin. Customers at work get confused and think we are the same person. This includes customers that have been coming in for years! Excited by her web debut, Debbie has been spreading the gospel! She sent her sister a link to this blog to show off the pictures we took during our holiday bake-fests. Upon viewing the entries, Sis asked Deb if that was her hitting the bottle! Her own sister can’t tell us apart! I think this will lead to greater opportunities for mischief.

***********

I caught the premier episode of “Ham on the Street” last night on the Food Network. It’s pretty damn funny. I learned a lot of cool stuff, like you can’t cook an ostrich egg sunny side up. George Duran is manic, amusing and just plain fun to watch. He connects with the poor folks he drags in off the street, and draws his audience in.
Here is a quote from a Food Network website interview:
FN.com: What makes you different from other Food Network hosts?
GD: You may not be able to tell on TV, but I don’t like wearing underwear when I cook.
You got to love it.
Right now there are only three episodes listed on the website. The next airing is on Jan. 14th at 2:00pm.
I wonder if I could bribe him into kicking Rachel Ray in the ass for me? Hmmmmm…

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In case you live under a rock, I thought I would post this link about Julia Child’s kitchen at the Smithsonian. I think it’s time to make a pilgrimage. Her PBS program was the reason my hubby and I wanted to learn to cook - and the great thing about her programs is that they are still an educational, and fun, watch today. The second set of DVDs just came out and they are already on the way to our house.

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A conversation with Frank

Me: "So did you put on any weight over the holidays?"
Frank: "Yup! 10 pounds!"
Me: "So where did you store it?" I poked his tummy.
Frank: Points to his man boobs
Me: "Went up a whole cup size huh?"
Frank: "DD, baby!"

Food Porn Reviled!

When you get a new cookbook, what is the first thing you do? You turn to the food porn! Duh! However, we all know those pictures lie to us. “Pssstttt – hey you - c'mere! Wanna impress your friends? Put this lovely lil dish on the table and they will never forget ya!”

A prime example of how the books lie to you was made painfully evident to me this baking season when I made the Cranberry Cherry Stripes from All American Cookie Book. Tender pale cookies with lovely ruby red stripes of preserves running between them. Yummmmmmmmmm. I followed the instructions to the letter. I waited impatiently to get the dough out of the freezer so I could start baking. I took my sharpest knife to the block of dough – wham! WTF? Nice straight lines, my butt! You got to be kidding! These look like crap!

Reviewing the instructions with the gang, it was decided the only way to make those lovely even stripes was to roll the dough out before placing it in the pan instead of patting it into the pan as directed. For fairness’ sake, I present to you my results - and the food porn that convinced me to try this recipe.
I then started looking at my other pictures. Hmmmm - I see an alarming trend. Am I that bad a baker? All my food tastes great, even the cranberry cherry bars tasted wonderful. I guess I am just going to have to work on my porn skills. (Funny, that is a phrase I NEVER thought would come outta my lips.)

So for your viewing enjoyment, I have contrasted my pictures with those of the true food pornographers. Enjoy!

Makin' excuses and cabbage rolls

Sorry about the hiatus – I ended up with a nine day vacation and while I didn’t do one lick of blogging, I did 1) throw out my back, 2) take a lot of painkillers and muscle relaxers, 3) watching a bunch of Falcon movies starring George Sanders, 3) get my kitchen cleaned and reorganized, and 4) make a boatload of cabbage rolls. The thing with cabbage rolls is you can only make boatloads. No one ever says “I’ll think I am going to whip up a cabbage roll or two!”

Cabbage rolls are a tradition on my mother’s side of the family. My mother was half-Polish and my aunt by marriage was either Hungarian or Slavic (I can’t remember now!). A birthday party? Cabbage Rolls! A funeral dinner? Cabbage Rolls! Family reunion? Ten types of cabbage rolls!

Once I moved away from home, I did not eat another cabbage roll for 20 years. No kidding. I disliked them that much. I hated my mom’s cabbage rolls. I am not sure what she did, but the meat mixture was always dense and rocklike. Her meatloaf was the same way. (A side note on the meatloaf: when cold, you could slice my mom’s meatloaf into 1/16^th of an inch slices. That is how dense it was. *shudder*)

My aunt’s rolls, on the other hand, were always light in texture and the cabbage was always perfectly tender. When we would go to a family reunion, I would eat my aunt’s cabbage rolls, but not mom’s. And then I would be stupid enough to praise my aunt loudly in front of my mother. Doh! My dad finally had a talk with me and took care of that issue.

So from then on, I never ate another cabbage roll (or at least tried not too unless forced with threats of physical punishment) - until I went to the local U.N. Festival. If you do not have one in your town, I feel bad for you. The festival is a celebration of all the different cultures that make up Columbus, Ohio. And believe me, there are a lot of them. You can buy tons of crafts and other junk to take home, see examples of folk dancing, and best of all - you can eat! You name it – you can probably find it here.

My daughter and I had picked up some black beans and rice, curry, egg rolls, and a variety of pastries and were on our way to the seating area to eat and watch the belly dancing demonstration (*shudder*), when we passed a Hungarian food booth. The smell was heaven. I had to know what it was!

As it turns out, it was a booth for a local church and there were five tiny, ancient ladies making goulash and cabbage rolls. The line was pretty long, so by the time I got up to the order counter, the goulash was sold out and all they had left was cabbage rolls. Ok – I ordered them to be polite. How could I insult these wonderful ladies who worked so hard? I figured I survived my mom’s rolls; surely these couldn’t be worse than hers.

It was an eye opener. They were delicious! Better than my aunt’s! I went back and bought two more. When I went home, I decided that I wanted to be able to make cabbage rolls for myself.

My family was skeptical. My daughter had refused to try any at the festival. (While cabbage rolls taste great - they look less than appetizing.) My hubby had heard horror stories of my mom’s rolls, but in the end, they agreed to try them out just one time.

Cabbage rolls are not for the weak. It takes stamina to prep everything needed. The blanched cabbage, the rice, the tomato sauce – lots and lots of prep. It was a labor of Herculean proportions the first time. I would have rather cleaned The Augean Stables than sweat over the blanching pot one more minute.

In the end, it was well worth it though. My rolls were not as good as the lil old ladies’ rolls at the festival. I bet if I were 85 and had been making rolls for 70 plus years, then mine would have tasted that good. They weren’t even like my aunt’s. But they definitely weren’t like my mother’s and I was thankful for that!

So here ya go! Cabbage Rolls - share them with your family, friends, co-workers, people you met at the bus stop - trust me you’ll have that many!

Cabbage Rolls

I usually get between 25- 30 rolls

2 pounds hot sausage
2 pounds ground beef
3 cups cooked rice
2 medium onions, chopped
3 gloves garlic, smashed
1/2 cup dried mushrooms, soaked then chopped (reserve soaking water) (I used shitake as that is what I had lurking in the house)
8 slices bacon, diced
3 T Worcestershire sauce
¼ cup tomato sauce

2 eggs
seasoned salt and pepper
onion powder, garlic powder, paprika
2 large heads or 3 small heads cabbage, cored and blanched

Sauce
2 15 oz cans of tomato sauce
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
2 15 oz cans of small diced tomatoes
1 cup mushroom soaking water

1 medium onion, diced
3 T sugar
1/4 cup cider vinegar
salt, pepper, onion powder, paprika

To make the sauce:
Saute the onions in a small amount of bacon fat or oil until soft. Add all of the tomato products and mushroom water and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes. Add the vinegar and sugar; simmer, until the sauce thickens, about 5 minutes. Season with salt, pepper and paprika. Remove from the heat.

Place a skillet over medium heat and cook the diced bacon until fat is
rendered. Sauté the onion and garlic for about 5 minutes, until soft.
Put bacon, onions and garlic in a bowl and let cool. Combine with the
ground meat in a large mixing bowl. Add the eggs, Worcestershire
sauce, the cooked rice and mushrooms. Toss the filling together with
your hands to combine, season with a generous amount of salt and
pepper and paprika.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Remove the large, damaged
outer leaves from the cabbages and set aside. Cut out the cores of the
cabbages with a sharp knife and place the whole head into boiling
water. Carefully pull off all the large leaves with tongs, keeping
them whole and as undamaged as possible. Run the leaves under cool
water then lay them out so you can assess just how many blankets you have to wrap up the filling. Roughly chop the remaining part of the heads.

Next, carefully cut out the center vein from the leaves so they will be easier to roll up. Take the reserved big outer leaves and lay them on the bottom of a large roaster, let part of the leaves hang out the sides of the pan. This insulation will prevent the cabbage rolls from burning on the bottom when baked. Put in part of the chopped “core” cabbage as well. Use all the good looking leaves to make the cabbage rolls. Put about ½ cup of the meat filling in the center of the cabbage and starting at what was the stem-end, fold the sides in and roll up the cabbage to enclose the filling. Place the cabbage rolls side by side in rows, seam-side down, in the roaster.

Top with tomato sauce, then any extra leaves and chopped cabbage left over.

Place in oven pre-heated to 350 degrees.

Cook covered for about 2 hours until cabbage is soft and the meat is done. Refrigerate overnight to let flavors meld. Reheat for 30 mins at 350 degrees until heated through.

Serve with boiled potatoes topped with butter and sour cream. Bread and butter is good too!!

Here is your belated Christmas Present

Well - I had promised to share with you our holiday cookie recipes. A few of them (like Debbie's Neon Fruitcake cookies) I do not have in hand but this covers a good portion of the cookies we did make.

Do not miss Gail's Pecan Sandies! They are the best cookies of this type I have ever eaten. The short recipe (the last page in the pdf) seems misleading, but yes, they do rock.

Get my cookies here!! Yeah baby! You know you can't resist!

2005 Cookie Bake-fest part 2

There is nothing like getting up at 7 am on a Sunday morning, driving 60 miles only to discover that you are lost, backtracking 30 miles, getting on the right road and still beating everyone else there. It was all Rick’s fault, by the way. Don’t take the bypass he said…well, look were I ended up. Poor Debbie really got lost - it took us 45 minutes to guide her in by phone. Rick met her at the end of the drive way with a mimosa - she announced that she hoped there was lots of champagne - it had been a four mimosa drive.

The reason for the trek into the wilderness? To break in Rick and Greg’s new kitchen - a whole week old!! I have serious kitchen envy. Granite countertops, state of the art appliances including a convention oven, lots of room and an open floor plan. The only drawback? They live almost 45 minutes from Columbus and have turkeys in their back yard.

This was the final round of baking prior to Christmas – so everyone was eager to finish up the baking. Greg stayed out of our way - he is one smart cookie! Also in attendance were Rick and Greg’s three babies beagles. Ummmmm, I forgot their names. Hey, I am just lucky the people at work wear nametags! I would hate to see how things would run if they didn’t. I would just call everyone Jim and Mary. "Hey, Jim, can you make me ten copies of this page?" "My name is not Jim - it's Bob." "That's nice Jim. Please make those copies will ya?"

Gail and I both brought our Kitchenaid mixers. Her mixer is a lowly 5qt while mine is a rocking 6 qt. I bought the Professional model so that I could quadruple batches of cheesecake filling, which this machine whips up with ease. However, Gail has the grinder attachment - which means I might borrow it to make up my own sausages. Gail uses her grinder to make nut meal for her Pecan Sandies. It is a great recipe. The texture is perfect.

Debbie picked up a fruitcake cookie recipe from a lady at her church. The colors looked great. It even tasted pretty good. The only thing to keep in mind is that cherries should not come in dayglow green. If you can get past the neon fruit, then this recipe is for you.

I had prepped gingersnap dough and brought it with me. I love gingersnaps - they improve with time and everyone loves dunking them in milk or coffee. I grabbed my recipe from the Penzeys’ website a couple years ago. It is the only recipe that I use that calls for shortening. I have been toying with the idea of substituting lard for the shortening. That is - if I find some gumption I plan on trying it. I am making the assumption that lard is 100% fat like shortening. Correct me if I am wrong.

I also tried one of the cookie swap winners from Meanwhile, Back in the Kitchen. They turned out very crisp, but seemed to be weak on the almond flavor. I tried adding a little more almond flavoring in the second batch, which helped quite a bit. I think that I would like trying the soft version next time - to see if they cookies have a more pronounced nut flavor.

Now the whole time we are baking, we are swilling mimosas. Then Greg, who had been struggling to install a ceiling fan all morning, brought out a bottle of rye. I have never had rye whisky before. So I took a slug. Good to the last drop!

After we finished baking all the various goodies, we divided everything between the bakers plus one batch for our place of employment. The gang was very appreciative of the bounty. See Jeremy, our courier? His favorite pastime is biting the head off of gingerbread women - as long as he doesn’t bite the heads off anything else, I’m cool.

I came back the next morning to inspect the remains of the cookie trays to see what had been left uneaten. It was mostly the cookies that had been made with the “master dough” recipe. The flavors were just not enough to make people go crazy about them. One the other hand, there was not one stick of shortbread left. Note to self: anything with chocolate is a winner!

Boy, I am glad this is over for another year! I always swear I will never do it again - ever- the week after Christmas. Know what? When the leaves start falling in the autumn, I’ll start thinking about cookies, and you know that I am a glutton for punishment. Hmmm…maybe I’ll make the Ma’amouls from Indra’s blog next year…

Slackin' again

Hey all -

Just a note to let you know I am working on the last cookie post. This week has been brutal on the retail front PLUS I picked up a flu bug. Whee!

A big post coming soon...honest.

The Third Annual Cookie Bake-fest part one

Well it has begun – Gail, Debbie and I have once again invaded some poor soul’s kitchen and baked the first part of our Christmas cookie collection. We started at about 11 am and ended about 7 pm - leaving our host’s house in somewhat good order, with only a couple boxes of cookies left in our wake to indicate we had even been there.

Well, I should say that Debbie and I started baking at about 11am - Gail was miserably late. Naughty, naughty Gail! But Gail also learned a very important lesson - bringing Champagne means never having to say you are sorry. True, it wasn’t the most expensive bottle - but the bubbly and some fresh OJ made passable mimosas to go with our brunch. As you can see, I am never one to let the last bit of any wine go to waste.

First round of cookies, we made batches of refrigerator cookies - the “one dough will rule them all” cookies to be precise. I tackled the chocolate mocha stripes and the molasses spice rounds. Gail tackled the checkerboard cookies. Debbie stayed away from the whole fiasco and brought her favorite roll-out cookie dough.

I just want to clarify: I am not a real fan of any recipe that asks me to “knead in” flavoring ingredients after the dough has been put together. For the chocolate mocha stripes, the original recipe called for me to take one plain recipe of dough and break it into thirds, flavoring each third with the various components. Instead, I made the base recipe three times, adding in the flavorings as I added the other ingredients. I know, I know – that defeats the whole purpose of a “mother” dough – but guess what? I don’t care. I will post the recipe below and show you what modifications I made so you can cheat too.

I liked the recipe actually. The stripes were pretty if somewhat brown and the flavor was pleasant. The texture was crisp. I whipped up a batch of just the chocolate dough and made cut outs of piggies and bears; their heads tasted really good when I bit them off.

The Molasses Spice rounds on the other hand? Nope! Why make something that is mediocre when you have much better options? The spice flavor was very mild - and the molasses non-existent. Oh- and the texture was just like the other cookies. And my rounds look more like eggs, but that was a production error. I never could figure out how they get those beautiful round shapes shown in the pictures.

Gail was supposed to make these tropical checker board squares, but since she didn’t have the macadamia nuts or the rum flavoring, she reinvented them as raspberry stripe cookies. Personally, I think that with a hat shaped cookie cutter, you could use the dough for Cat-in-the-Hat cookies. Texture? You guessed it! Gail also brought some gingerbread men which we decorated as well.

Debbie’s cutout cookies were tasty. However, Deb and I both hate icing on cookies and decided colored sugar was the way to go! See the pretty colors? See the unhappy bears with their red eye and frownie mouths? Tiny candies are a bitch to work with, by the way. I just wanted you to know that.

The stars of the show, though, were Barb and Nick. Gail, Debbie and I all work with their son Frank. They were kind enough to let us come into their home and trash the joint. And as our reward, they made pizzelles and cannolis. Well, kinda cannolis. Cannolis are supposed to have deep fried shells. Since we were not deep frying a damn thing – Nick rolled the pizzelles into tubes and filled them with a fantastic ricotta cream. True, the cookies got soft fast - but that was not an issue as we ate those bad boys as fast as possible.

Here is a picture of the entire family working on making us some damn tasty treats. Thank you guys for taking such good care of us and letting us use your home as HQ for this week’s cookie bake-fest! (That is Gail's head in the lower left corner. She is kinda camera shy.)

Here is the recipe I promised you - more to come!

BASIC PATTERN DOUGH

This dough will be your starting point for all of the pattern cookies.

Prep: 15 min.

3/4 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

¼ teaspoon salt

2 cups all-purpose flour

Beat butter 30 seconds. Beat in sugar, baking powder, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Beat in egg and vanilla. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with mixer. Stir in any remaining flour. Makes about 2 1/2 cups dough.

(My changes – I used the traditional creaming method. All dry ingredients shifted together. Butter whipped with sugar until combined - add egg and vanilla. Add dry ingredients.)

TO STORE: Pack dough into an airtight container. Refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 1 month.

CHOCOLATE-COFFEE RIBBONS

Prep: 50 min. Chill: 1+1 hr.

Bake: 8 min. per batch

1 recipe Basic Pattern Dough

2 tablespoons instant Swiss-style coffee powder

1 ounce unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled

1. Divide Basic Pattern Dough into thirds. Knead coffee powder into one

portion of dough. Stir chocolate into another portion of dough (knead if necessary). Divide each dough portion in half. Cover and chill at least 1 hour or until easy to handle.

2. On waxed paper, roll a portion of chocolate dough into an 8x6-inch rectangle (keep remaining dough chilled); place waxed paper with dough rectangle on a cookie sheet, dough side up. On another sheet of waxed paper, roll a portion of plain dough into an 8x6 inch rectangle. Invert plain dough onto chocolate dough; peel off waxed paper. On same piece of waxed paper, roll a portion, of coffee dough into an 8x6-inch rectangle. Invert coffee dough onto plain dough; peel off waxed paper. Repeat with remaining doughs to form a six-layer stack. Press together lightly. Wrap and chill for 1 hour.

3. Preheat oven to 375°F. Trim edges of dough stack. Cut stack in half lengthwise, forming two rectangles. Cut each rectangle crosswise into 1/4 inch-thick slices. Arrange slices, cut sides down, 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake in preheated oven about 8 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Transfer to wire rack; cool. Makes 4 dozen.

(My changes – I made three batches of the "Mother" dough and added these ingredients to one of each of the batches. No kneading - no tough cookies.

For the Chocolate dough – I pulled out ¼ cup of flour and substituted ¼ cup of cocoa powder instead. Less mess-less fuss.

For the Coffee dough - I added regular old freeze-dried coffee because that is what I had in the cupboard.)

TO STORE: Layer between waxed paper in an airtight container; cover. Store at room temperature for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 3 months.

Wow - you really do learn something new every day!

Check it out!

I love sights like this - they get the old brain cells jumpin'. Personally, I think the marshmellow cannon sounds like a great project! "Look out!!" - THUMP! There are even a few recipes - since this is supposed to be a food blog...

Anticipation - An-ti-ci-pa-tion!

I can't wait!!!! I am as giddy as a school girl! We start our cookie baking on Saturday!!! This Sunday - we are having a cookie decorating party at a friend's house and the following Sunday, we are traveling all the way to Lancaster, Ohio to break in a friend's brand new kitchen. How new? Well, let me tell you that he is moving into the house as we speak. The last coat of paint went up on the walls last week- so yeah..that new!

If you really want to see how anal we have been in planning this - I can post my Excel spreadsheet listing ingredients, equipment and duties. Otherwise, I'll just take a ton of pictures and make you all hungry instead.

Some of the supplies laid in for this event:

• 30 pounds of flour
• 30 pounds of butter
• 50 pounds of sugar (give or take 10 pounds, Tony has been drinking sweet tea a lot this past two weeks)
• 6 pounds of dark brown sugar
• 10 pounds of light brown sugar
• 8 dozen large eggs
• More nuts than I have a right to own
• Double strength vanilla from Penzeys (Their store is right across from my work. Now my stalkers will know where to find me!)
• 6 new heavy aluminum baking sheets
• An extra bowl for my 6 qt Kitchaide mixer
  
  Plus a lot of other stuff that Debbie and Gail have at their houses.

If you don't hear from me by next weekend - you will know I ate too many sweets and died happy.

Well..DUH

check this out...

Any parent knows this is true, but doesn't it occur to you that the only reason the kids love the bad stuff is because that is what they eat at home too? If you teach your kids what to eat and don't put up with "I don't wanna eat that!" then you can get them to eat what they should eat. A child is only slightly less intractable than a dog and with a little patience and training, you can get them to eat what they SHOULD eat. Unfortunately, most parents today are so worried about keeping the 'lil darlings quiet that they will compromise their child's health to keep the peace at the dinner table.

It seems to me its a case of the tail wagging the dog - as parents we are in charge and should not only lead by example, but also set dinnertime rules that encourage good eating habits. My favorite rule in our house: You have to eat one helping of everything presented for dinner. Even if it's sauted spinach and looks "gross". That means my hubby and I have to do the same. Once you've tried something once, THEN you can say you dislike it. And you better have a concrete criticism for not liking my cooking!

It doesn't mean we hate eating MickyD's or pizza - it just means we think twice before we pick up the phone and order carry out. It also means that, as head cook, I have to plan ahead so that I have healthy food that can be prepared quickly during the busy week. By and large, that requires more work than some people are willing to put into it.

So quit your bitchin'. Take some responsiblity for what your family eats. And don't blame the schools or the restaurants when they don't offer healthy choices. They are just giving your kids the foods that you have trained them to eat.

Hey Santa! Yeah! You! Get your ass over here! I’ve got my list and I’ve been good!

My hubby says he never knows what to get me for Christmas. Usually, I end up with a gift certificate - or even scarier – he goes shopping with me and proffers his credit card at check out. Subtle hints do no good, as he never seems to remember hearing me say that I wanted a new chef’s knife repeatedly in the six months preceding the holidays. I have even gone as far as leaving websites open on the computer and bookmarking reviews in his folder. There must be something in the makeup of male psyche that resists such manipulation.

Sigh - what’s a gal to do?

So now the gloves are off - and I am gonna pimpslap that man o’ mine into buying me something I want, wrapping it up and putting it under the tree!

Number one on the Rosie Wishlist

A New Kitchen Timer – my old timer used to live on the fridge. That was until someone (and he knows who he is…) slammed the door too hard while getting a beer and my beloved timer crashed to the floor and broke into a million pieces. Ok – may not a million - but it sure as hell looked like it.

Number Two

A real live digital scale – My old scale is one I inherited from my mom - it is a Braun spring driven model that is so old the white plastic has acquired a yellow tint. My hubby asks why I don’t get back into bread baking - well here it is: buy me this and there will be no more excuses!

Number Three

Replacements for my broken Pyrex Mixing Bowls – I love my old Pyrex mixing bowls. I have the remnants of two sets: my mother’s primary color nesting bowls and my pink and white Gooseberry bowls. Since my daughter has been big enough to “help” me by washing dishes, my Pyrex bowls seems to have sustained the most casualties. I do not care who you have to mug or how much you have to pay – I want my bowls back!

Number Four

Chocolate – need I say more?

Number Five

A New Car – Considering all the driving I have to do to keep us in kibbles, I think I deserve a new car. I just want something small that will carry all my groceries, respond to the gas when I go for the parking spot that just opened up and a kickin’ stereo system so I can ignore the cries and whines of the peasantry. A nice Caddy Escalade will do - nothing pretentious.

Number Six

A New House – I have decided that I really need a new house - or maybe just an old house surrounding a new kitchen - yeah…I think that would work fine too. Of course, it would have to be in a better neighborhood. I just can’t have my new Escalade hanging around with Fords and Chevys. It might develop a complex. And of course, the most important part of a new house is the vault… for the chocolate. Did I mention the chocolate?