I am SOOOOO drunk.
May. 26th, 2004 06:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rikibethI came home and told ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shadowflyer, "Zaphod Beeblebrox, this is a very large drink. Hi."
Let me rephrase that.
I came home after TEN AND A HALF HOURS and toldshadowflyer, "Zaphod Beeblebrox, this is a very large drink. Hi."
Carlos, our dishwasher and sometime prep cook, was out sick today.
shadowflyer looked at the options, and informed me that the only soda we had in the house was Diet Cherry Coke.
BLECH.
He then offered to mix a Minute Maid frozen lemonade pop with rum. I thought of the "lemon meringue martini" thatkay_taylor had mentioned, and said "use the vanilla vodka." See, we THOUGHT the Stoli Vanil would mix well with Vanilla Coke, but it doesn't. It does mix well with frozen pina colada concentrate, I've discovered.
It also mixes very nicely with frozen lemonade. Write this down. I'm sure it'll be useful.
I got SO much done today. And mostly we kept the boss out of the kitchen.
Tomao basil soup, four Big Ass Cans of tomatoes worth. Cook's Illustrated taught me the trick of roasting the canned peeled tomatoes in the oven to concentrate the tomato flavor, so I did that. Otherwise, it could hardly be simpler -- sweat onions and garlic with bay leaves, add the tomatoes and their liquid, simmer, add basil, purée. Yay immersion blenders.
Broccoli salad. Still no red wine vinegar (tomorrow), but a mix of cider vinegar and rice wine vinegar was adequate.
Pesto for the fresh mozzarella sandwiches, yay.
Roasted off the last of the chicken breasts. Roasted off more bacon.
New egg salad, of course.
Bar cookes -- lemon squares and macaroon bars.
Portioned just TONS of turkey. A whole roasted turkey breast.
Boss bought a whole brisket for the store today, too, with the intent of making barbecued brisket sandwiches. I said "I know how to do an amazing brisket. Do we have a net connection here?" Yes we do. Cook's Illustrated to the rescue again -- I used my site membership to call up their recipe, and the brisket is coated with their spice rub and wrapped in plastic in the fridge waiting for me to cook it off tomorrow. I may yet convince boss that the store should ante up the $25 for a year's site membership, it's so very useful to have access to their archives. I am SO not giving her my own paid-for password.
You have to understand, just about every recipe I've brought into the store that hasn't been pure improvisation has been a Cook's Illustrated one. The sour cream corn muffins that the carb-avoiding boss can't resist, The cranberry orange nut bread that used up our excess buttermilk. Okay, the spicy apple cheddar nut bread came from Family Circle -- somehow or other I got a free subscription to that and it started turning up in my mailbox, and that one was in the Christmas issue, and it sounded worth a try since we had WAY too many cases of apples left after Thanksgiving, and actually it was pretty good. But mostly I swipe my good recipes from Cook's Illustrated or the Moosewood cookbooks. Never ever fails.
Also helped Jen haul out the trash and did two huge sinkfuls of dishes.
TEN AND A HALF HOURS.
I am NOT cooking dinner tonight. I did tellshadowflyer what to make: Schezuan green beans, and heat up the frozen potstickers and red bean bao.
And I brought home a pecan pie from the store. I deserve a serious dessert.
I am SOOOO drunk.
And how are you?
shadowflyer, "Zaphod Beeblebrox, this is a very large drink. Hi."Let me rephrase that.
I came home after TEN AND A HALF HOURS and told
shadowflyer, "Zaphod Beeblebrox, this is a very large drink. Hi."Carlos, our dishwasher and sometime prep cook, was out sick today.
shadowflyer looked at the options, and informed me that the only soda we had in the house was Diet Cherry Coke.BLECH.
He then offered to mix a Minute Maid frozen lemonade pop with rum. I thought of the "lemon meringue martini" that
kay_taylor had mentioned, and said "use the vanilla vodka." See, we THOUGHT the Stoli Vanil would mix well with Vanilla Coke, but it doesn't. It does mix well with frozen pina colada concentrate, I've discovered.It also mixes very nicely with frozen lemonade. Write this down. I'm sure it'll be useful.
I got SO much done today. And mostly we kept the boss out of the kitchen.
Tomao basil soup, four Big Ass Cans of tomatoes worth. Cook's Illustrated taught me the trick of roasting the canned peeled tomatoes in the oven to concentrate the tomato flavor, so I did that. Otherwise, it could hardly be simpler -- sweat onions and garlic with bay leaves, add the tomatoes and their liquid, simmer, add basil, purée. Yay immersion blenders.
Broccoli salad. Still no red wine vinegar (tomorrow), but a mix of cider vinegar and rice wine vinegar was adequate.
Pesto for the fresh mozzarella sandwiches, yay.
Roasted off the last of the chicken breasts. Roasted off more bacon.
New egg salad, of course.
Bar cookes -- lemon squares and macaroon bars.
Portioned just TONS of turkey. A whole roasted turkey breast.
Boss bought a whole brisket for the store today, too, with the intent of making barbecued brisket sandwiches. I said "I know how to do an amazing brisket. Do we have a net connection here?" Yes we do. Cook's Illustrated to the rescue again -- I used my site membership to call up their recipe, and the brisket is coated with their spice rub and wrapped in plastic in the fridge waiting for me to cook it off tomorrow. I may yet convince boss that the store should ante up the $25 for a year's site membership, it's so very useful to have access to their archives. I am SO not giving her my own paid-for password.
You have to understand, just about every recipe I've brought into the store that hasn't been pure improvisation has been a Cook's Illustrated one. The sour cream corn muffins that the carb-avoiding boss can't resist, The cranberry orange nut bread that used up our excess buttermilk. Okay, the spicy apple cheddar nut bread came from Family Circle -- somehow or other I got a free subscription to that and it started turning up in my mailbox, and that one was in the Christmas issue, and it sounded worth a try since we had WAY too many cases of apples left after Thanksgiving, and actually it was pretty good. But mostly I swipe my good recipes from Cook's Illustrated or the Moosewood cookbooks. Never ever fails.
Also helped Jen haul out the trash and did two huge sinkfuls of dishes.
TEN AND A HALF HOURS.
I am NOT cooking dinner tonight. I did tell
shadowflyer what to make: Schezuan green beans, and heat up the frozen potstickers and red bean bao.And I brought home a pecan pie from the store. I deserve a serious dessert.
I am SOOOO drunk.
And how are you?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-05-26 03:35 pm (UTC)Cook's Illustrated is God's Own Cooking Magazine. I grab it off the newsstand on such a regular basis that Bruce has very sensibly suggested that I should just go ahead and subscribe to the damn thing already.
A pity he doesn't like mac and cheese, because the recipe in the June issue is calling my name. Then again, I suppose I should just go ahead and make it, and all the more for me.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-26 04:09 pm (UTC)Before that, I was getting the return-unsold copies from Wild Oats because I was working there. Handy.
I have every copy that's ever come into the house in a big binder, and bought the ten-year index to help me find recipes, as well as hot pink Post-it tape flags on my favorites.
I also have the website subscription, which is useful for all the stuff from the years before 1998 or 1999 when I started acquiring copies. Slightly more cost effective than the hardbound annuals, although I covet them.
I used several Cook's recipes when I was at school, for exams, too. More reliable than my textbook, actually. Their raspberry coulis? Unbeatable.
When I worked at Wild Oats, I had access to almost ALL the major cooking magazines. I read them all, enjoyed them, and marked recipes from all of them -- but when it came down to actually MAKING the recipes? And, even more important, making them TWICE? It wasn't Gourmet or Bon Appetit or Cooking Light I turned to. it was always Cook's.
I probably would not have had the courage to go to culinary school if it wasn't for that magazine.
I very nearly applied for an internship there, despite the fact that I would have had to find someone to stay with and only see my family on weekends if they took me.
You could say I'm a fan.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-26 09:07 pm (UTC)So glad there is a fellow fan!
no subject
Date: 2004-05-27 02:57 pm (UTC)Gourmet and Bon Appetit do push a lifestyle, and it's not mine. Cook's is realistic -- "Our goal was to make a Chicken Parmesan that could be on the table in 45 minutes so it'd be possible to cook it on a weeknight, and still have it taste the was it should." And it did, and the eight-year-old eats it. :)
Cook's is also not afraid of my Favorite Ingredient Ever: butter. I endure some teasing about this, but butter is one of the things that makes food worth eating, and I am not about to stop using it. yay butter!
no subject
Date: 2004-05-27 08:51 pm (UTC)On the love of Fat:
Butter is lovely, and so is Olive oil. Yummy. I don't use lard anymore, which is a shame, because it makes wonderful pie pastry ( so does rendered goosefat and chickenfat- called schmaltz, if you believe it!)
I do like the taste of a good butter on bread, or cooking a dish with it. Then I eat small amounts, to better preserve the waistline.I buy butter from a farmer friend from Sherwood here- she has a self sufficent farm, always thinks I am starving, so I get 2lbs of fresh cream butter at a time. Yum!
I will eat Olive oil in copious amounts on vegs and even as a substitue for bitter on toast. No, I do not get the expensive sinle estate stuff from France or Italy (although it is tasty!) I like the oil from Greece, Spain and Northern Africa- stronger, fruity and deeper colored, at 1/3-1.4 the price. I have also order Palestinian Olive oil, and it is wonderful. Wonderful.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-26 03:37 pm (UTC)~Anthony
no subject
Date: 2004-05-26 03:43 pm (UTC)(Me, I'm decidedly not drunk. For one thing, I'll be in the office at least another four hours tonight. For another... well, er, I don't actually drink. So I hope you enjoy your buzz enough for both of us! :) )
no subject
Date: 2004-05-26 04:50 pm (UTC)The frozen lemonade's the creamy kind that comes in skinny tubes pinched at one end to make cones, not Italian ice consistency at all. They're 4 oz. tubes; it was probably a bit more than prudent to fill it 3/4 of the way when measuring out the vodka.
The beef and green beans r0xx0rz, and it was breathtakingly simple - ground beef, trimmed fresh green beans, healthy ol' dollop of hoisin, couple ounces of soy sauce - stir those together before using. (It wasn't even real soy sauce! It was lite soy sauce!< /scully>) Lightly brown the meat, dump in the beans and sauce, let simmer. Simple. Lovely complement to chicken gyoza but probably better with pork.