Mid-year. Thankfully it’s looking more summer-like
June is always rainy in Vancouver. Well, not always but often enough so I can say it always rains in June. It isn’t currently raining, but it will, soon.
The weather for the rest of the week is looking pretty good, thankfully.
It’s about this time of year (and again in Mid-December) when things kinda fall off the rails, food-wise. We were going to go to Italy this summer, but that is off the table, obviously. So we’ll go to the lake, instead. We leave early July and in the next two weeks it’s going to be a major challenge to get through the days, as everyone is looking for a few days off.
I’m not sure how it is that everyone can just go and go and go and then barely deal, but that’s how it works in our household.
Of course, it is an excellent opportunity to eat up all the frozen things we have, as well as revisit some family favourites. Meals for the next two weeks aren’t about ‘interesting’, they’re about ‘easy’ and ‘surviving’.
Come mid-July we’ll be (hopefully) energized again.
Man, I need a vacation, somehow more this year than most.
Here is how this worked – I pulled out a pan to fry up some spuds that I had cooked the night before. I figured I could give them a bit of heat in some butter, crisp them up. You know, like dinner hashbrowns or something like that.
Dinnertime was looming and I had leftovers to heat up.
Right, the pan was hot, and full of butter or oil or both… And when I dropped in the potatoes, they totally filled the pan. Crowded it, I daresay.
As a consequence the potatoes heated up but I didn’t get nearly the browning on them that I wanted. It was an epic failure of not very much at all, because no one sent the dish back, and there were no complaints among the distinguished diners that evening.
https://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.png00Alastairhttps://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.pngAlastair2020-06-12 13:20:112020-06-12 13:20:55Did it again
Not going to dignify my pizza dough failure with a photo. Actually, it isn’t a failure… yet. But still no photo.
I thought it had this figured out. Appropriate amounts of water, flour yeast, sugar, oil, elbow grease…
Still flummoxed about yeast, though. This time I used instant yeast as opposed to traditional yeast, and I used about twice as much as was called for in the recipe.
I put it into the fridge overnight… And I took a look just before lunch. The dough has risen. A bit, but it still resembles a large mass of wet flour. I put it on the counter for a few hours to see if we can get some levity. Uh, rise…
Same thing, really.
I have made this dough at least a dozen times. Probably 20, really. And I think I have been really happy with the results once. Maybe twice. The other times haven’t been terrible (with the notable exception of that one time when it tasted like rock-hard pita bread. Yeah, that wasn’t good) The other times haven’t been terrible but damn, it’s hard to get right.
Shouldn’t say that. Throwing together some ingredients and having them rise isn’t too hard. It’s the rise-in-the-fridge-overnight trick that I seem to be struggling with.
But the problem is that the dough tastes WAY better if it has had a few hours to think.
Speaking of which, I better get cracking on my tomato sauce.
**edit** Couple of hours later and the dough is still not resembling what I was hoping but a couple of things have come up:
My daughter, who has a birthday today, told me that my worst pizza is miles better than everyone else’s (Her words. Her birthday. Who am I to argue)
I’m not entirely sure what pizza dough is supposed to look like. I know, like dough. But all light and fluffy? Sort of wet? Lots of bubbles in there? Not very many? Thankfully, there are as many people to make pizza and pontificate on it as there are pizzas, so I’m pretty sure I can find someone who will agree that this is the proper way to make dough.
So the dough stays. I expect it’ll be a challenge to roll out, but who knows? I did give it a good knead, so hopefully that helped. How it might help, I’m not exactly sure, but I expect it’ll help.
Talk about the blind leading the blind.
But I have buffalo mozzarella, regular mozza, and some killer tomato sauce that I make myself, I do. So all is not lost.
Just add some milk and hey-presto, just like mom used to make.
My wife has a blue recipe book. In it are all her family recipes – well, not all of them, but a bunch of them, including several of her mom’s family recipes.
Many are written out by hand. Some in my wife’s hand; some in my sister-in-law’s hand; some in my mother-in-law’s lovely writing. The binding is shot. There is a large oil stain that starts at Whiskey Chicken and goes clear through to Pumpkin Chiffon Pie. Just in case you’re wondering, the recipes aren’t in alphabetical order.
I see a sticker from an Australian Navel orange; a little illustration on the Ginger Cake recipe… Some of my mom’s recipes… Heck, my Cranberry Sauce is in there. Hadn’t seen that before.
And then there is the Tea Biscuits recipe. Right above Plain or Fruit Muffins and right across the page from a piece of paper with a fresh pasta recipe on it a note about Cornmeal Muffins and 9 Grain Bread.
The tea biscuits are epic. Super easy to make – without question the most used recipe in this book.
There is more to the book, though. The recipes in here represent a big part of my wife’s childhood… And now that I think about it, a bunch of me growing up, too – with her and enjoying a bunch of these meals together.
Funny how meals can imprint themselves like that on us. I remember some fantastic meals I have had like they were yesterday. But I also remember meals that were as pedestrian as they come. Usually the memory is because of something other than the meal, but that cornmeal muffin recipe I referenced above is from my mom. I haven’t thought about it for probably 30 or more years. But I remember how they taste like it was yesterday. Sometimes the mind is a strange place.
2 cups flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 cup shortening or butter
2/3 cup grated cheese.
1 cup milk
Oven to 450 degrees. Mix everything together. Add the milk until it makes a sticky dough – don’t over-mix. Dump on to a floured countertop, roll to about 3/4 inch thick. Cut out rounds with a drinking glass. Assemble on a greased baking sheet. 12-15 minutes.
I’ll be brief. Eggs. Toast. Salt. Pepper. Breakfast.
And a little background… Empires have been torn apart over the appropriate way to boil an egg. Do you put the egg in cold water and bring it to the boil? Or drop it into boiling water? 3 minutes? 7 minutes? Both techniques have pros and cons (cold water won’t break open a cold egg and have it spill everywhere; water that is already boiling doesn’t have to be watched so carefully to see when it’s actually boiling before you start the clock.
Wait. Maybe I’m not making sense.
Two egg cooking techniques exist:
One is where you put an egg into a pot of cold or lukewarm water. You turn on the heat and once the water starts boiling, you set your timer for 3 minutes. This is how my father and my sister boil an egg.
The other is where you boil the water and then drop in the egg for 7 minutes, while the pot simmers away. This is my wife’s technique.
I use my wife’s technique, because I see her in the morning more often than I see my dad or my sister.
But the rest of the recipe is easy. Good piece of toast – hot out of the toaster (unless you’re my dad who likes his toast cold) bit of butter… Peel the egg, chop it roughly, sea salt and pepper. Enjoy.
Breakfast of champions because it’s almost as quick as a bowl of cereal and it’s different than cereal. Variety being the spice of life and all that…
https://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.png00Alastairhttps://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.pngAlastair2020-06-09 16:16:372020-06-09 16:16:38Eggs on Toast I
It was suggested that we have pizza last night. Quick recap:
proofing the yeast seemed to work well, even though I wasn’t sure anything was happening. Why don’t I just use instant yeast? Is there a reason to use traditional yeast? Googling will follow
Pizza bianco was delightful. Boiled potatoes, taleggio cheese, bit of this, some of that. Tasty
Followed up by a margherita with some leftover salami. Not bad.
Kids ate it all, which is the acid test for any made-at-home meal.
We have had a few choice items hoisted at us over the last little while. It was great to get a decent meal on the table without too much trouble.
https://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.png00Alastairhttps://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.pngAlastair2020-06-08 13:51:242020-06-08 13:51:25Pizza. More pizza
This is a theme that I’ll return to again and again, I fear. Namely, how important is the equipment you use in the kitchen? Hang on, that’s not quite right. The equipment is super-important – try cooking without even the most rudimentary gear. What I mean by that is when one asks the age-old question:
“If I buy this piece of gear, will it make me a better cook, or should I stay with what I have?
The answer, of course, is ‘yes’. Because shiny new things are great. We all know, however, that being a better cook is more about cooking than what you use to cook with.
In my other life I work as a photographer. And the siren song of new cameras, compelling me to buy new gear is incessant and almost impossible to ignore.
But struggle against it I must – for any number of reasons:
It’s expensive.
It makes you a better cook right up until it doesn’t, which for me happens nearly immediately.
It is prettier, but popularity contests don’t do much to get dinner on the table.
It sometimes doesn’t work as well as the original piece of equipment.
I had a 9-inch French knife that my mom bought me when I was married. For 20 years I used it practically every day – didn’t give it any thought… Until it got to the point that it had been sharpened so many times the blade no longer reliably chopped. The hilt of the blade was proud of the edge of the knife and it made for some awful chopping.
So I bought a new knife, a cool one. Different shape.
I hate it. Well, I don’t hate it – it’s a great knife, but I don’t love it like the old one. I mean, my mom didn’t give me the new one, but I don’t think that’s why. I thought I would like the new technology and I found I didn’t really care for the upgrade. I’m searching for a new knife, or maybe I’ll just grind the old one down and see how that goes.
As for these beaters, the ones in the photo. As far as I know, they’re still going strong at my mother-in-law’s house… And they’re a far sight better than the new set she has. They have better speed control, they’re better balanced and you can’t beat that retro styling.
They do make a ton of noise and I fear they might not last forever, but I’ll use them until they die.
They certainly don’t make them like they used to. In some cases that’s a good thing, like in the case of automobiles. But when it comes to kitchen implements, I’m more of a traditionalist, even if ‘tradition’ is a set of beaters or a knife from a few decades ago.
https://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.png00Alastairhttps://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.pngAlastair2020-06-05 09:37:012020-06-05 09:37:03They Don’t Make Them Like They Used To.
Coffee at the lake. First thing in the morning. Best part of a great day.
Coffee at the Lake is really rather strange. My mother used to talk about how, when we were kids, the tea at the lake (different lake, but same idea) always tasted better than it did at home. My mom was not a huge fan of the lake, (especially when it poured with rain for the two weeks we spent there one summer) but she does know a good cup of tea.
Right. Coffee. Lake. One year (last year or the one before) I took a notion to upgrade the coffee at the lake by buying, in order, a Moka coffee pot and then an Aeropress coffee maker. My mother-in-law generally just makes it in a perk pot. You know, half a cup of ground coffee in the filter part… let it come to the boil and then perk for 7 minutes – as if, somehow, 8 minutes of boiling coffee would make it terrible and 6 minutes wouldn’t be enough. Reminds me of the scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail when they are reading instructions about the Holy hand Grenade of Anioch from the Book of Armaments (4:16-20)
“Then did he raise on high the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, saying, “Bless this, O Lord, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.” And the people did rejoice and did feast upon the lambs and toads and tree-sloths and fruit-bats and orangutans and breakfast cereals … Now did the Lord say, “First thou pullest the Holy Pin. Then thou must count to three. Three shall be the number of the counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then proceedeth to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the number of the counting, be reached, then lobbest thou the Holy Hand Grenade in the direction of thine foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.”
Now I’m REALLY getting off topic. Perk coffee sucks at the best of times.
But at the lake not only is it palatable, it’s really rather good. In fact, my sister-in-law, who is nearly as much of a coffee snob as I am (OK, probably not possible, but…) prefers the perk coffee to my Aeropress coffee or the Moka.
I was out at the lake this weekend opening up the cabin. Setting up the water; pulling out solar cells; general spring cleaning… That sort of thing. Betty made some coffee from last year’s coffee – it had sat in the cabin over the winter. Since August at least – or 9 months.
Wasn’t that good. What they say about fresh coffee is absolutely true. But here’s the kicker. It was perfectly drinkable, even black, and I was yet again amazed at how good a cup of coffee can be at the lake.
Not so much the phone (which is great) but what it’s sitting on.
I’m on a vintage kick. I have been on one for the last three decades, so I’m rather used to it, but…
The ringer on this phone could wake the dead. It was epic. You can see how the new phone number was added when the phone was moved from one house to the next – who takes a phone with them when they move? Well, if you’re my grandmother-in-law, you do. The new number was added in her careful script in 1979. She passed away in 2010 and I have no idea where the phone is now. Hopefully still causing regular heart-attacks when it rings – and confounding young and old with how to actually use it.
For the purposes of this blog, though, I want to talk about what the phone is sitting on. It’s a TV tray. I’m not entirely sure what the actual origins of a TV tray are, but it’s my understanding that people would eat their pre-made TV dinners in front of the television and they needed something they could easily pull up so they could dine in comfort, and have somewhere to put their drink – if it was my grandmother-in-law it was a rye and fizzy grapefruit soda. Poured liberally. Bit of ice. Don’t knock it, she lived to 94.
But I digress. The TV table was a flimsy, lightweight ‘solution’ to the boon that was TV dinners. I wasn’t around in the 1950s when they were invented, but I have it on good authority that they were pretty awful and haven’t improved much in the ensuing years. Regardless, there is an entire aisle in the frozen food section of my grocery store devoted to pre-made meals, so even if they are awful, they’re still popular.
I do think it’s interesting that furniture was created so we could eat dinner in front of the TV, rather than at the dining room table or kitchen. And I also think it’s interesting that the technology to eat in front of the TV has gone from this to just holding it on our laps. We have regressed, furniture-wise but the pre-made meals are better. Who would have seen that coming?
Don’t forget to collect the shells and put them where they belong. No, not there. Yes, there.
Here in Betty’s kitchen there is always something to snack on. It’s pretty dangerous, but when we come to visit, we are allowed to not eat all the pistachios, apparently. I struggle to keep my hands out of the bowl, though.
If I were a younger man, I would be reaching for the muffins in another bowl, but I can resist those these days.
It’s hard being in someone else’s kitchen, especially if you want to cook. I have known my mother-in-law for 25 years and she has always had this kitchen. It underwent a fairly big renovation a few years back but the mixing bowls are still in the same place they have been for ever. And yet, I struggle to remember where they are.
I’m out of place here. The coffee is different, the ingredients are different and in different spots (see above). The Drawer of Requirement is still the same, though. Every kitchen has one of those.
But we have created epic meals here over the years, she and I (and my wife, other family members). I have had a lot of fun and there is a ton of history here, at least for me and I’m sure everyone else in the family.
So I can tolerate (barely, but that’s my inner-snob talking) my mother-in-law’s choice of coffee, and the fact that when she renovated her kitchen she didn’t put in a heated floor so the tile in the wintertime feels like you’re wandering around on 18-inch square blocks of ice. I can also overlook the fact that she has never had a toaster and she uses a toaster-oven to toast bread, which takes forever and regularly sets off the smoke alarms. Don’t get me started on her dull knives or the fact that her non-stick pans are ‘still good’ more than a decade after they stopped being non-stick.
I can tolerate all that (not that it’s much, really – and let’s be honest here – she is perfectly happy with the kitchen the way it is)
It’s easy to tolerate because of that bowl of pistachios. The one that is always on the counter, saying, “welcome”, and “dig in” and “lower right corner, next to the baking pans. How long have I known you? How many hours have you spent in this place?”
