You'll never see me making this

Kitchen disasters

At least the pot roast was good.

We had friends over for dinner tonight.  I made pot roast and mashed potatoes, with a quick chocolate cake for dessert.  The pot roast was really delicious - the recipe is, of course, from my cooking Bible - but my mashed potatoes were the pits.  Or, rather, the lumps.  I've never made such horribly lumpy potatoes.  If I knew what I'd done, I wouldn't be so frustrated by it, but I have no idea what caused them to be so lumpy.

"Oh well," I consoled myself.  "The cake will make up for it."

Ha bloody ha.

I took the cake out to cool while we ate dinner, and it looked awfully anemic, and it hadn't risen as much as it usually does.  I served it anyways, and it just tasted...off.  Not bad, but not right.  I couldn't quite figure it out, until Chuck and I started talking about it after our guests had gone home.

I used baking powder instead of baking soda.  *dope slap*

When life hands you lemons...

...make some Lemon Garlic Chicken!

This one is subject to further tweaking; it came straight out of my head last night, based on the ingredients I had on hand. It got two thumbs up from my resident Taste Tester, though. I served it with some homemade cream biscuits and some peas.

I used to hate it when I asked someone for a recipe, and they'd say, "Oh, I just threw this together." Welllll...yeah. Here's my best approximation of the recipe. I don't recommend serving the sauce gravy-style, as it is quite tart.

Lemon Garlic Chicken

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1 tablespoon olive oil

two lemons, juiced

3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed

1 cup chicken broth/stock

1/2 to 1 cup water

freshly ground black pepper

Remove excess fat from chicken breasts, and pat dry. Heat oil in nonstick skillet over medium high heat, and add chicken. Lightly brown on both sides. When chicken is lightly browned, add lemon juice, chicken broth, and garlic; bring to simmer, cover, and lower heat. Cook for 15-25 minutes, depending on size and thickness of chicken. Remove chicken from pan, add water to pan, and bring to a boil. While sauce is reducing, slice chicken thinly. Return to pan briefly, to coat with thickened sauce, and serve.

Breakfast for dinner

I love breakfast food. I don't really care what time of day it is, I'll happily eat pancakes or waffles (or oatmeal, of course), and if there's bacon or sausage involved, so much the better.

My friend Laura K. gave me her recipe for the World's Best Pancakes about five years ago, but I'd never tried the recipe until about two weeks ago. It was much easier (I thought) to just use boxed pancake mix. However, I decided to give it a go, and I'm a convert. Please, PLEASE don't wait five years to try this one! I think you'll find them to be a little sweeter than your average pancake; they'd probably be fantastic with some blueberries or sliced strawberries.

World's Best Pancakes

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 1/4 cups milk
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Sift dry ingredients together.
Combine egg, milk and oil; add to dry mixture, and mix gently. If batter seems too thick, thin it out with a bit of additional milk.
Cook on a hot griddle.


While you're cooking the pancakes, you can cook your bacon in the oven!  You might never go back to a frying pan. Make sure you use a shallow rimmed baking sheet like a jelly roll pan; it should be shallow enough to promote browning, but deep enough to contain the bacon fat as it cooks off.

Oven-Fried Bacon (courtesy The New Best Recipe)

12 slices thin- or thick-cut bacon

Adjust the oven rack to the middle position. Preheat oven to 400˚F.

Arrange the bacon on the baking sheet. Roast until the fat begins to render, about five to six minutes. Rotate the pan front to back. Continue roasting until bacon is crisp and browned, five to six minutes longer for thin-cut bacon, eight to ten minutes for thick-cut bacon. Transfer with tongs to paper-towel lined plate. Drain and serve.

Recipes are coming, I promise

I have received a request for Irish Soda Bread from a frequent visitor and longtime friend. I've never made one, but - joy of joys - my favorite cookbook has a recipe. I'll be trying it out in short order.  (I'll warn you up front that it's devoid of caraway and raisins.)

I'm on my way to bed, as it's a school night, but please enjoy this link. It's a recipe for boiling water, in the style of Cook's Illustrated and my favorite cookbook. It's spot on.

In honor of the upcoming holiday...

...and to further delay posting, due to continued cruddiness, I hereby present "Danny Boy."

In mock Swedish. And...Animalish. And Meepish.

A migraine and jury duty...

...are not a great combination.  No post today, as I'm still kinda woozy.

Coming soon to a kitchen near you...

I took on a couple of new recipes this weekend. It's bedtime, so I won't post yet, but keep your eyes open this week for:

• World's Best Pancakes, courtesy of my friend Laura K.; they're great served with:
  
• Oven Bacon - you'll never fry it again!
  
• Pot Roast - this was my first attempt at it, and it was met with rave reviews.

The latter two of the three are from my cooking Bible, which I've not raved about in a while, so I'm going to give it a shout-out here. I'm a worshipper at the altar of America's Test Kitchen (check your local listings), and my (autographed, thankyouverymuch) cooking Bible is their cookbook, The New Best Recipe. I have two words for you: BUY IT. I've heard rumors of people seeing good deals on it at Costco or BJ's, but the online price is pretty decent (it's slightly less through Amazon). They test and retest their recipes, and explain why certain things do or don't work. Because I'm admittedly a geek, I find this stuff fascinating reading. Plus, their recipes are just darn good.

ATK's magazines, Cook's Illustrated and Cook's Country, are also excellent. There's no advertising in them, and they're chock full of great recipes, ingredient and cookware reviews, and helpful hints. And no, I'm not on the ATK payroll (though if anyone from ATK is reading this, give me a call!), just a true believer.

Happy Hour at Throwing Spoons

Two things I need to make clear right at the beginning of this post. Number one, I love my job. Number two, I am not much of a drinker.

Both of those things said, it was a really draining week for me at school, so I'm sitting here enjoying my Friday evening, in my slippers, a pot roast in the oven, with a Love Martini on the table next to the couch.

Go ahead, ask.

Why, I'd be DELIGHTED to tell you what a Love Martini is! I first had one at the fondue restaurant The Melting Pot. It's not at all a proper martini. No sirree. It's one of those sweet girly drinks of the sort I tend to order if I'm having something other than my standard club soda with lime. 

I knew what the ingredients were, and have been meaning to purchase them and figure out the proper proportions; tonight seemed the ideal night. Forthwith, here's what I came up with.   (Edited to add: if you'd like the actual recipe from the bartender at The Melting Pot, Megan was kind enough to post it in the comments.)

Love Martini

I have a light hand with the alcohol, so this may not be strong enough for you; adjust as needed for your purposes. It's much weaker than the one served to me at The Melting Pot.  

It looks lovely with some sliced strawberries floating on the top, but they're not necessary.

Shake or stir together:
1 ounce Malibu rum
1 ounce Peachtree schnapps
8 ounces cranberry juice, chilled

Semi-food-related meme

My pal Erika over at Bean's Bistro tagged me for this meme, so here it is.

What was I doing 10 years ago?
In early 1998, I was in the early throes of a separation and divorce.  Though it was incredibly painful, and not something I'd wish on anyone, it was totally the right decision.

What was I doing 1 year ago?
I was on the infertility roller coaster.

Five snacks I enjoy
- Oreos.  I can't keep the darned things in the house, or I inhale them.
- A toasted bagel with cream cheese
- An apple and peanut butter
- Popcorn, popped on the stove in my WhirleyPop, and lightly salted
- Chocolate in almost any form

5 things I would do if I was a millionaire
I'm not clear whether this means I won a million in the lottery, or more than that.  So:

- Make sure enough was invested that I wouldn't ever have to worry about finances
- Fill up my house with kids
- Redo my kitchen
- Hire a cleaning lady
- If I have untold millions, I'm going to make an offer they can't refuse on the summer place we used to go to when I was growing up, in North Waterboro, ME, on Little Ossipee Lake

5 bad habits

- Procrastinating
- Not finishing projects I've started, particularly craft projects
- Not keeping my car neat
- Slobbiness in the sense that I don't mind piles of stuff, as long as it's clean, if that makes sense.  I invite people over as an incentive to clean up the house.
- Not exercising

5 things I would never wear again

This is almost too easy, seeing as I lived through the '80s.

- Silver 3.5" stiletto heels
- Jelly shoes
- Glasses with really big frames
- A pink ruffly dress like the one below (though I loved it at the time)
- What we used to call "Revere Hair," pronounced "Reh-VEE-ah Hay-uh," which was characterized by a high wall of hair in the front, with bangs.  We used to rate people's hair by numbers of cans of Aqua Net.  Also known as "big hair."  I can't believe I'm including this, but here's an excellent example, from early 1988 (on my way to my senior Winter Ball):


5 favorite kitchen tools/toys
- Santoku knife
- Non-skid cutting board
- Pampered Chef stoneware
- Temperature-gauge fork
- Easy-read measuring cups - no more squatting down to counter level to make sure I have the right amount in a measuring cup!