Category: food & drink

Cake!

January 15, 2022

a day in this life, family, food & drink

We had a party, ages ago, and I wanted to make carrot cake. But, I decided that slices of cake was awkward because it can be hard to slice that very thin. With everything else on the table, I didn’t expect people to want large pieces.

So, I decided on miniature cupcakes. They would be a couple of bites and folks could have as little or as much suited them. In addition, rather than frost all of them, I put the frosting in a bowl so that people could have as little or as much as they preferred. (My child doesn’t care for frosting and would always pick it off. That made me think there might be other people in the world who felt the same way.).

At the end of the night, most of the cupcakes were gone and the bowl of frosting was almost untouched. My family didn’t bother finishing what was left either.

I have quit bothering to make layered cakes. Instead I make cupcakes and freeze most of them. This allows us to have more manageable portion control. A cupcake thaws pretty quickly and we don’t feel that we have to eat a whole cake in a week.

Also, I’ve quit frosting the carrot cupcakes and finally realized that, without the frosting, they are, indeed, muffins.

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Happy Independence Day!

July 5, 2021

a day in this life, food & drink, home, Southern culture

Because my regular shift is the weekend, I don’t usually get to celebrate a holiday when it happens on a weekend. I can live with that because I only have a 3 day work week. It’s pretty physical work. But, tolerable all things considered.

Because I worked yesterday, we are celebrating Independence Day, today. There’s also a nod to it being my mother’s birthday, even though she’s in Asheville, not Mebane. Supper tonight will be Impossible burgers with a slice of Cherokee Green tomato (We just learned about this variety. It is lovely.), potato salad made with taters I grew and sweet pickles I made last year, green beans Chuck grew and blueberry pie made with berries from our bushes.

Our aperitif will be locally produced cheese, green beans I pickled using my cousin’s recipe and G&Ts.

Here’s to America living up to her promise.

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It doesn’t taste the same

February 16, 2021

a day in this life, food & drink, Southern culture

Ages ago, I was at a covered dish dinner at some friends’ house. One of the contributions was a pasta casserole with tuna and peas in a white sauce. Our hostess chuckled when she saw it and asked the woman who brought it if her husband had gotten any of it yet. The answer was “Yes. You see that big scoop already out of that side of the dish.” and they both laughed.

I asked what was funny about the casserole.

The cook said, “Ken loves this casserole and always asks me to bring it if we’re doing a covered dish. A couple of years ago, I gave him the recipe so he could make it himself between parties. He called me 2 days later and asked if I’d left something out because his didn’t taste right. So, I told him to walk me through what he did step by step to try to figure out what was wrong. He said ‘Well, I didn’t have any tuna. But, I had some canned chicken and I used that. And I didn’t have any peas. So, I used corn. But, I made it exactly like you told me to and it just didn’t taste right.’”

And, then, all three of us were laughing at him.

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Esme is a little weirdo

August 7, 2020

a day in this life, food & drink, pets

A while ago, I realized that if I buy plain yogurt and add my own jam, I always get to have the flavors I want. And it wastes fewer containers. Also, I use plain yogurt in place of sour cream when I’m cooking. It’s a habit I developed ages ago after ready that 0% fat yogurt tastes and cooks the same but doesn’t have the crap in it that low fat sour cream does.

I tend to use a particular bowl when I stir up my yogurt and jam.

Esmerelda loves yogurt and she loses her mind waiting for me to put my empty bowl down so she can have her turn. Sometimes I give her a little dab of plain in her wet dish just to shut her up until I can finish my concoction.

Last week, our tomatoes started coming in. We have 3 plants in our garden (red, purple and yellow cherries) and we have been getting a farm box. And they have been including tomatoes. That’s been lovely. I’ve been eating tomato sandwiches with mayo and with pesto. We’ve cut them up in our salads. Fresh, flavorful tomatoes make enduring the heat of summer worthwhile.

We’d gotten a glut, though, and I couldn’t eat them as fast as they were ready. So, I had Chuck pick up some feta when he went to the grocery and I made a tomato salad. It was 8 oz of feta, 2 pints of cherry tomatoes cut in quarters, a small bell pepper, a handful of fresh basil rolled together and cut very fine, equal part olive oil and apple cider vinegar and a little salt and pepper. When I fix a serving, I add some Kalamata olives to the bowl. (Do you notice that there is nothing resembling cat food in that recipe?)

When I made a tomato sandwich yesterday, I cut the bits that didn’t fit well on the bread into bites and added it to the tomato salad. When Chuck cut up a tomato for our green salads at dinner, instead of overwhelming the lettuce with tomato, he did the same with the surplus.

So, I have been eating tomato salad like a fiend for days and the container is still full.

This morning I decided to have a little dish of it for my breakfast. And I used the yogurt bowl.

When I finished and headed for the sink, she lost her mind. She knew she needed what was in that bowl. I told her that I don’t think cats like tomatoes and set it down to prove it to her.

She licked every last scrap/drop/morsel out of that bowl. I couldn’t have looked cleaner if it had just come out of the dishwasher.

I don’t know that I’m ready to start sharing my salad with my cat.

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Apero!

August 4, 2020

food & drink

I have been exploring the joys of aperitifs. I read an article about the European habit of a little snack with a cocktail before the dive into preparing dinner and it really appealed to me. I’ve been having fun creating the little snacks.

One day, I boiled 3 eggs and deviled them. Another day, I used a spoonful of Chuck’s home-fermented sauerkraut with about an ounce of Cambozola cheese and 5 Kalamata olives for each of us. Yesterday, it was 5 cherry tomatoes and a Babybel cheese each. I cut the tomatoes in half and the cheese into 5 pieces and drizzled the plate with balsamic vinegar and Tuscan herb flavored olive oil. A baguette that Chuck picked up for part of my birthday celebration has been cut into pieces and frozen. So, I can pull out 4 pieces to thaw, along with a portion of smoked salmon. Cream cheese and capers live in my fridge. So, that’s an easy one. Or just pickled cauliflower in a dish with a couple of cherry tomatoes alongside it. Or hummus and crudites. I think Chuck’s been getting a kick out of seeing what’s going to come out of the kitchen when I start stirring around at 4:00.

My grandmother set 4:30 as the cocktail hour and that has been my “it’s not too early” time forever. She did, once, say “It’s 4:30 somewhere in the world” when she wanted bourbon and Coke at 3:30. But, I generally reserve that attitude for vacations. And, for the record, in order for it to be 4:30, we would have been at sea.

Our summer cocktails are usually wine, gin and tonic, a gin rickey (if I’m feeling lazy), a lemon drop martini or a non-alcoholic shrub. And I only make my own drink. Chuck gets to decide what he prefers in that instance for himself.

We discovered shrubs last year. Chuck decided to give his liver a break about the time there was a little explosion of bartenders in better places creating interesting concoctions for designated drivers, (or anyone else who didn’t want to imbibe). It’s usually a flavored syrup, vinegar and soda water. We already had a SodaStream for the fizzy water and we have been keeping a small bottle of apple cider vinegar and a collection of flavored simple syrups in the fridge. The syrups we keep around are homemade vanilla, lavender, ginger, mint and a couple of berry flavored syrups I found at IKEA. A shot of syrup, a shot of vinegar, top it with fizzy water and we’re set. More fun than just a glass of water with a twist of citrus.

I’ve been trying to decide on the word that describes how it feels for me to make a little taste of something lovely as a mark of the shift from day to evening. I think “gracious.”
gra·cious /ˈɡrāSHəs/ adjective:
1. courteous, kind, and pleasant.
Similar: courteous, polite, civil, civilized, indulgent, magnanimous, beneficent, benign, friendly, pleasant, amiable, affable, cordial, hospitable

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Category: food & drink

Cake!

Happy Independence Day!

It doesn’t taste the same

Esme is a little weirdo

Apero!