Life and learning under the walnut trees
Answer: The number of minutes Walnut Shade Mom had to vigorously plunge her dispose-all, after forgetfully sending two servings’ worth of old salad down the drain.
Note to Self (for the umpteenth time): Our dispose-all emphatically does not like lettuce or egg shells.
I surveyed myself and came to the conclusion that I spend way too many brain cycles on food, particularly on food for other people. There! I got that one off my chest.
I have a family and I love my family and I know they need to eat three times a day and I know it’s my responsibility to provide meals for them (or stuff for them to make their own meals). I am the mom and that’s part of what moms do. However, if I lived alone – and I’m very glad I don’t – I could spend a total of about 30 minutes a day preparing and eating my own food.
Instead, I need to:
~ think about who wants or needs what to eat when through out the week
~ plan suppers (including one or two crockpot meals) each week
~ inventory what’s on hand and make grocery lists
~ buy the stuff – from one, two, or very rarely three stores
~ help Andrew put the stuff away
~ pre-prep whatever it takes to have crockpot meals ready
~ cook meals in quantity and freeze them
~ (on days when I don’t want to be doing major cooking in the late afternoon) thaw and prep whatever needs to be ready for that night
~ keep three kinds of bread on hand, including making homemade bread once or twice a week
~ keep all the stuff available that everyone wants for breakfasts and lunches (none of which is the same for any two family members)
~ do breakfast (a meal which I don’t eat) clean up five days a week
~ do supper clean up two or three days a week
For a person who is quite content to eat a banana and a sausage biscuit standing at the kitchen counter for brunch, and some chips and salsa and fruit with a half sandwich for lunch, and isn’t really hungry at supper (and could be thrilled with a bag of popcorn and some lemonade at 8 PM), it just seems like a heck of a lot of thought and work.
I will keep doing it, and most days I will smile while I do it because I am so glad I have a family that needs to eat, but I am quite sure that food prep is vastly overrated.
P.S. In my section of heaven, there will be no cooking!
I’m making bread again, now that Jessica and Josiah are home. I initially made it a time or two when it was just the four of us, but since only 1.5 of us ate it, it kept drying out, going bad, and ending up in the trash. Discouraging, and I really prefer not to waste food.
Since I’m back at it, I’m wondering if anyone out there happens to have a bread machine recipe that s/he really likes a lot. If so, please let me know!
You might ask why a cookie sheet has been carefully balanced in my washing machine all day.
I did something silly last night, but I did it knowingly, because, to her great credit, Jessica had warned me. It’s like this. Our whole family attends our church’s Sunday night home group. Then Scott and Josiah also attend the Monday night home group. At the home groups, we always have snacks. In fact, we wonder if the food is the main reason some people attend. . . hmmm. . . I digress.
Generally speaking, we have a sweet treat and a salty snack and some drinks at each group. I prefer to sign up for sweet treats, because they are the easiest for me. I don’t care for drinks, because the cheap kind (Kool-Aid) is difficult to transport without spilling a sugary mess. This means one must buy a variety of 2-liter sodas and/or juice jugs. Salty snacks are even worse because I have this conviction about bringing homemade things and I simply don’t have a good repertoire of salty snacks to make. If I just buy some chips and a couple jars of cheese dip, I feel kind of guilty. I figure since *I* prefer homemade, everyone else does, too, but on my salty nights I never know what to make.
As you can see, since our Team has attendees at groups two nights a week, it means that I am making or preparing treats of some kind two nights in a row most weeks.
Well, a few months back, Andrew (at least I think it was Andrew, but maybe it was I) found in one of our cookbooks this “easy” recipe for Pepperoni Bites. The recipe actually had the word “EASY” in big letters next to it, so it was clearly my kind of recipe! Jessica offered to make them up for me, and I did not complain. (I am no fool.) However, she told me afterward that they were a royal pain to make. Hmmm. . .
So, when this week’s Sunday group drawing of lots had once again landed me responsible for salty treats, I thought to myself, thought I, “Everyone loved those Pepperoni Bites. I have a stash of pepperoni and mozzarella cheese. All I have to do is grab a four-pack of biscuits and a jar of pizza sauce and this is made in the shade.”
I was wrong.
I spent 45 minutes Sunday afternoon smushing the filling into those forty biscuits and Jessica was right; it was a royal pain. But I decided to be cheerful because I knew they’d be yummy, AND I got to listen to “A Prairie Home Companion” while I smushed them; so I figured it was all for a good cause and I had a great attitude toward those beastly little Pepperoni Bites. I baked them on two cookie sheets, and whipped them out of the oven 47 seconds before we headed out the door. They’re supposed to be served warm, ya’ know.
Well, the problem was that they kind of exploded in the oven, leaving a a significant baked-on mess all over my two “air-bake” cookie sheets. Since we were literally flying out the door (had to be on time ’cause I was leading the discussion!), I had no time to clean the cookie sheets while the mess was fresh, and when we got home three hours later, they were really crusty and nasty.
I have breakfast clean-up on the weekdays, and I knew I’d have to tackle those two sheets before I could hit the breakfast dishes, so, late that very night (at something like 9:30 or 10:00 PM), being the Suzy Homemaker type that I am (yeah, right!), I am proud to announce that I had the extreme presence of mind to soak those puppies overnight for easier cleaning in the morning.
Now, air bake cookie sheets are deep and wide, and they certainly won’t fit flat in my sink. Not to worry. I slid them in at an angle, filled the sink with hot soapy water, and laid a hot soapy cloth over the worst still-exposed baked-on-edness of each sheet. I went to bed. Oh, by the way, ALL the Pepperoni Bites were scarfed down in nothing flat and many compliments were issued to the chef. = )
This morning, I lifted the yuckky sheets out of the cold greasy water and set them on the counter while I cleaned out the sink and prepared to strip the sheets of their nastiness. But while I was cleaning the sink, and while the still-cruddy sheets were stacked on the counter, I heard a dripping sound. Water was dripping from the counter onto the floor. Detective that I am, I quickly discerned that the sheets were sitting in a huge and rapidly spreading pool of water! On the counter!
To further complicate matters, our silverware drawer, which is right beside the sink, doesn’t fit right. It’s kind of hard to explain, but in the nearly fifteen years we’ve lived here, that drawer has never closed properly. We’ve even had carpenter-type people work on it, replace the gizmo thing that it slides on, re-align it, etc., but the drawer won’t close all the way.
We’re nothing if not resourceful, so when we’re doing something really messy on the counter, we open that drawer, drape a dish towel over, and shove the drawer as far closed as it will go to keep water and goo from flowing into it. When we fail to do that, the drawer has been known to develop a puddle (deeper on the left, because that drawer, like everything else in our 97-year-old house, is not level), which leaves the silverware in its mesh divider tray sitting in the watery goo.
In that case the silverware tray must be pulled out, all the silverware washed, the tray washed, and the watery good sopped up out of the drawer and the drawer scrubbed and dried. Don’t ask why I can describe that process in such minute detail.
So, when I heard and then saw the water dripping, I feared the worst for Our Silverware Drawer. I leaped gracefully (NOT!) across the kitchen, grabbed a towel off the stove and slung it mightily onto the fast-encroaching puddle, mere seconds before it all cascaded into the silverware drawer. WHEW! Catastrophe narrowly averted.
I finished cleaning the sink, added Palmolive and hot water and plunged the first cookie sheet back in to begin scrubbing. Even after its all-night soak with the washcloth, it required a scratch pad and some elbow grease. Somebody remind me never again to make Pepperoni Bites!
Drip. . . drip. . . drip. . .
There it was AGAIN! What on earth was going on? The second cookie sheet sat in a rapidly-growing puddle, water was dripping onto the floor, and the towel I had so recently slung onto the counter looked and felt like a baby’s full diaper. A second towel helped, but WHERE was all that water COMING from?!?!?
I picked up the second cookie sheet and prepared to baptize it, but it was HEAVY. Very heavy. And it. . . sloshed.
Aha! Mystery solved. By sitting (or actually, standing) in the sink of water all night it had somehow filled with water, which was now destined to flood my silverware drawer. I lifted Mr. Hefty Cookie Sheet out of the water and held him over the (empty) rinse sink. He dripped for a few moments and then stopped. So what did that mean? The water had somehow gotten in, but now it couldn’t get out? Where’s the logic in that?
I bestirred my gray matter and cogitated the situation and eventually came to the following conclusions. My cookie sheet weighed three pounds because it was full of water. It sported no visible holes or cracks, but the water wouldn’t drain out. What would happen, I wondered, if I tried to bake something on it? In a 350 degree oven, the water inside it would boil and turn to steam, and wouldn’t that make the silly thing explode? It’s an experiment I’m sure the Llama would love to try (remind me to write someday about his quarter in the bathroom), but I really didn’t want to risk it, especially in my nifty new oven. Perhaps the thing to do would be to simply throw out the cookie sheet. After all, I did have three of them and Mr. Waterlogged was the oldest of the three. Man, those Pepperoni Bites were costly!
On the other hand, if the water had gotten in somehow, it would have to come out somehow, wouldn’t it? I did a little experimenting and found that it would drip V-E-R-Y slowly from one corner, if and only if that corner were suspended at an angle of a very specific trigonometric ratio, but at that rate, it would take all day for the silly thing to drain, and I honestly couldn’t tie up my kitchen sink all day. Besides, the sink is wide open and there was no way to prop it at the necessary angle.
And THAT, my friends, is why a cookie sheet has been carefully balanced in my washing machine all day.
As I worked to adjust and balance it in its one and only drain-favorable position, I ended up turning it around, and through the heavy stains on the underside – how DO cookie sheets get so nasty on the back when no food ever touches that side? – I was able to barely able read these faint words: DO NOT IMMERSE.
Moral of the story: Heed all warnings and never under any circumstances make Pepperoni Bites.
It was after Jessica and I cleaned out one third of the top shelf of the china cabinet. We tackled our fine china, the lovely stuff that may have been used once twenty-three years ago. One of the many reasons it just sits in there and collects dust – by the way, the top plate on each stack was so dusty that it was a different color from the next one down – is that we have such a strange number of pieces. In addition to a bunch of cups, saucers, dessert, and salad plates, we do have seven dinner plates, so maybe. . .
Anyway, we did what we set out to do on that cabinet, including unearthing ONE place setting of our silver-plate. It was BLACK! What a chemistry experiment! Josiah said it looked like someone had taken a torch to it. = ) He also wanted to see if hydrochloric acid would dissolve the tarnish, but I successfully suppressed my innate homeschool-mom-love-to-learn tendencies and forbade that.
So it was about bedtime and I ate an orange but wanted something else. I didn’t want to eat anything more till I figured out what it was. I stood in the kitchen for a moment, pondering my craving, and I finally figured out what I wanted: a big hot pretzel from Mr. Dunderbak’s in McCain mall, slathered with port wine cheese spread. Ahhhhh!
We didn’t have any of those in the house, so I dipped a pretzel rod and cheese dip and called it good enough, but it was very satisfying to put my finger precisely on my yen.
We’re expecting up to 12 inches of snow in the next 15 hours!!! Rejoice with us!!!
6. At that point I was instructed to turn the lump out onto a lightly floured surface and “knead ten minutes or until smooth and elastic.” Hmmm. . . I dumped it on the counter, set the timer for ten minutes and went to work. It was a pretty sticky mess and it kept sticking to the counter, so at about seven-and-a-half minutes remaining, I began to wonder about this whole “soft dough” vs. “stiff batter” concept. I had to keep sprinkling flour on the counter and over the dough, and even at the two minute warning I wasn’t at all sure I was achieving anything smooth and elastic – except maybe my forearm muscles.
7. When the timer FINALLY dinged, I formed the mass into a ball (but what about all those loose flaps and things?), put it in a greased bowl, sprayed non-stick all over it, and covered it with a towel as instructed. Amazingly, in about 45 minutes it really did double in size. Wow.
8. Next, I punched it down, pulled the edges in, and flipped it out onto a lightly floured cutting board. I had already cleaned the counter once (and washed a zillion dishes), so I decided to try to contain the mess this time. With a sharp knife, I sliced the puppy in half.
9. Now came the challenge of cutting each of those halves into 36 pieces. With scissors. This took some eye-balling, and it’s a sure thing that all 36 (or actually, 72) pieces were not exactly the same size. However, I proceeded to roll them into 72 balls and drop three into each of 24 greased muffin cups. Melted butter was then brushed over each.
10. Covering each pan with a towel, I placed them into the oven, which I had preheated a little bit and then turned off. It’s hard to find a place in This Old House that would qualify as “warm and draft-free” in January, but I thought the new oven would be a safe bet.
11. In another 45 minutes, the little cloverleafs had doubled again, so I pulled them out of the oven, warmed it to 400, and baked them for 10 minutes.
They smelled wonderful and tasted pretty good. At least no one complained, and it was a totally homemade meal.
I made a new meal tonight, and although it took a lot of time and used so many dishes that, once washed and stacked in the dish drainer, they created a modern art sculpture of monolithic proportions, I think the end result was positive.
We had a chef’s salad, and then I made Spinach Chicken Noodle Soup. Now, that sounds pretty bad, but both boys liked it enough to have seconds. It made a nearly full crockpot’s worth, and I need to note on the recipe to reduce or eliminate the salt. Pretty tasty stuff.
Then My Susie Homemaker genes took over and I decided to try the Holiday Cloverleaf Rolls from scratch. I’m not sure what I was thinking. It takes quite a bit of effort and time to make 24 rolls, but I did it. Now, granted, they were not quite as flaky as I would have liked, but for a first attempt they were not at all bad. They were three hours from start to finish, but for a lot of that time, I was not intimately involved. However, if anyone had been video taping me, I think I would’ve ended up on YouTube.
Here are the steps:
1. Combine the flour, sugar, salt and yeast. First I had to figure out how many teaspoons of bulk yeast would equal two envelopes. Any guesses?
2. Heat the milk, water, and butter till they are “very warm.” This was admittedly an old-fashioned recipe, but what kind of direction is THAT? I chose to use the microwave rather than the stovetop for this step, and I clearly went several notches past “very warm.” So I had to let the stuff sit out till it cooled down to that temp. Which took too long. So I stuck it in the fridge for a while.
3. With the mixer on low, gradually add the liquid to the dry ingredient. Then set the mixer to medium and beat for two minutes. This was not hard to do.
4. Add flour until a firm batter is formed and beat two more minutes. Again, we could ask how firm firm is, but I dumped in a lot of flour and beat like crazy. This was problematic, because no matter what I did, the batter climbed steadily up the beaters and into the beater housings! And the stuff in the bowl wasn’t all that deep. ACK! Due to that mess, I only managed to beat it for about 26 seconds.
5. Add enough flour to make a soft dough and beat two more minutes. Sheesh. So I guess a soft dough is stiffer than a firm batter. Well, having already plugged the beater holes with soft dough, I beat it like crazy with a wooden spoon.
to be continued. . .
Bob and Jodi just came to the door with a slab of cedar smoked venison on a small plate. Bob said he had asked the boys to bring it over (our kids and their kids are all out in the yards together), but that they had said if they were assigned to deliver it to me, it would never arrive uneaten. Evidently they had already had a sample and found it delicious.
I was skeptical but tried not to look that way. I had only had venison one other time many years ago, and I had not liked it AT ALL. But this piece was still warm, looked good, and smelled great. I followed instructions to shred off a bit (like beef pot roast) and try it. WOW! It was truly scrumptious! Not at all gamey – thanks, I suppose, to that week in he cooler. Best meat I’ve tasted in ages, and Bob promises that there will be more. . .
BTW, this smoked section was part of one of the back straps.
Our next door neighbors are big hunters. Bob and his son, Cody, live to hunt, and the Bob’s wife, Jodi, and at least one of her daughters (age 10) are also avid hunters. Bob would much prefer to hunt elk and caribou in Alaska, but right now he is settling for hunting deer in Missouri. Economic times being what they are, and having a family of six to feed, his goal is to put five or six deer in the freezer for the gang to live on during the coming months.
Cody and Bob began many weeks ago, practicing with nifty and complicated bows. They prefer archery hunting, but will resort to guns when necessary. Last weekend, guns were necessary. Their family went east to the Gainesville area and had a successful hunt at a place called Caney Mountain. At least I think that’s what they said it was called. Cody shot and killed an eight-point buck, and he’s been grinning from ear to ear ever since.
Now comes the not so fun part – dressing the deer and cutting it up for freezing. The head’s been hanging in a tree in their yard, and the buck’s been on ice in a cooler for about a week. Evidently this “cures” the venison and removes some of the gamey taste. Once Mr. Buck has chilled out for the right amount of time, the hour-long process of sharpening knives begins.
Next, you stand around and talk about cutting up the deer. This can take quite a while, as well, because you are basically killing time, trying to put off the distasteful task as long as possible. When no one can think of anything else to say (and in deer season, there’s ALWAYS something else about hunting to say) you start cutting up the deer meat. Ideally, this is done on discarded piece of countertop – like the section that a factory cuts out a hunk of formica in order to create a hole where the kitchen sink will go. You put the meat in metal bowls as you go and then vacuum seal it for freezing.
Cutting up a decent-sized deer is expected to take three to four hours, and it’s emphatically not a fun job. However, once you have the tenderloin cut, you can begin the process of smoking it (cedar will work if hickory is not available) and/or drying it as jerky. This allows you to feel as though you are finally making progress toward the end goal of edible meat – even though you still have the most difficult parts of the deer to cut. Since you’ll be smoking for 12 hours and jerking for 18, you’ll have plenty of time to tackle the rest of the carcass while the first batches process.
All this I have learned without ever personally having to shoot an arrow, hold a gun, saw off legs, dangle a head in a tree, or wield a bloody knife. Kept at arms’ length, maybe I can even grow to enjoy deer season.
Answer: Scott’s grilled ham and swiss cheese sandwich on homemade honey oatmeal bread with mayonnaise, mustard, slices of the fourth and final red pepper and the very last vine-ripened tomato of the season.
Question: What was the first item cooked on Walnut Shade Mom’s new flat glass stovetop?
(Note that Scott drove nine miles home to eat this sandwich on his lunch break from jury duty. When he returned at 1:00 PM, he was excused, but it took 36 miles and five and a half hours of time to receive that information.)
Answer: Impossible Chicken and Broccoli Pie.
Question: What was the first meal Walnut Shade Mom prepared in her new fancy-schmancy-I’m-not-even-sure-how-to-turn-this-thing-on oven?
The new oven is definitely a very nifty toy. It is also quite clean. Ask me about that in a year. Or fourteen.
