Rum Crispie Squares?

Um...

So I tried to make rum balls. I say 'try' because the end result was most certainly NOT anything remotely resembling a ball of truffly, chocolaty, rummy deliciousness. Instead, well...

You know what? Let me go back to the beginning.

Fresh off the high of making gorgeous bread in my previous post (and yes, despite the wait time, the puffing and the sticky dough, I fully intend to experiment with bread again) I thought: Wow, I should make rum balls! Okay, truth be told I've wanted to make rum balls since my last day of classes when a classmate brought in homemade rum balls and handed out the ridiculously easy looking recipe (<--baking gods - they're just waiting for me to say it!). I all but ran to the nearest grocery store and bought:

Ingredients!
one can condensed evaporated milk  (I'll explain that in a minute)
one bag of chocolate chips
rum
vanilla
Tada!

You mix'em all together. That's it! You chill them and then you roll them into rum ball loveliness complete with powdered sugar or sprinkles! It just sounds perfect, doesn't it? Who could possibly mess this up? 

Well, I think it goes back to that condensed VS evaporated milk thing. You see, I've always thought that they were the same thing (And you know what? I can hear all you kitchen-savy folk shaking your head and face-palming at me). Well, I quickly learned that - guess what - they're not the same thing. Condensed milk is more like sugary milk syrup that can thicken and bind to other ingredients like chocolate chips, vanilla and rum.

Evaporated milk on the other hand... isn't... and doesn't.

Thus after putting all my ingredients in the bowl I found myself staring at, what can only be described as, chocolate-rum milk - a very expensive drink to enjoy with your pb&j.

I swore.

I've been told by a baker that you're never supposed to swear or get angry around chocolate but I did it anyway and I think the chocolate heard me, because it was resolute about not thickening. So I grabbed my laptop and fought through the jungle of recipe websites out there to find hints on how to thicken up my rum ball hopefuls. I wasn't giving up without a fight.

I won't bore you with the details, sufficed to say that over the next hour I added: powdered sugar, flour, crumbled up crackers and (oh get ready for it - this was an act of desperation) Rice Crispies. Even as I was tossing them into the bowl voices in my head were shouting out:

What are you doing? 
NO!
Egads girl, you've ruined it! 
This will never work....

And the voices were right.

I swore again and decided that these were not going to turn into rum balls without help, so I shoved them into the fridge behind the cucumber (yes THAT cucumber) and hoped my bowl of chocolate soup would magically transform. Then I went and read a book.

No, I'm not kidding. I hid my problem and ran away from it. What? You've never acted like a five year old?
Okay, in all fairness I knew I was going to have to deal with my chocolate soup eventually, but that eventually would include a man-friend with new ideas on how to fix the problem and perhaps even a: "Oh that's happened to me before! Here's what we have to do!"

Man-friend came home. You know what the man-friend did when I showed him the chocolate soup/rum-balls-that-weren't? He rolled up his sleeves, assessed the situation from all angles, took a sip of beer and the took the bowl out of the fridge. Then he PUT IT IN THE FREEZER! He was as clueless as I was!

Well at that point I was done with the idea of rum balls, cracked an egg into that soup and tossed it in the oven. That's right folks, when in doubt set it on fire. Foolproof.

And you know what happened? Man-friend and I actually stared in shock at what we'd created, because it made absolutely no sense. Souffle. My rum balls turned into a souffle! The whole mix puffed up and the Rice Crispies crackled and stiffened into a hard shell on the top, and underneath that hard shell was warm smooth souffle. It was delicious!

Somehow my oven opened a portal into a 5-star restaurant's kitchen (I'm guessing somewhere in Monte Carlo) and pulled the old switch-a-roo. While my man-friend and I were able to enjoy a delicious $90.00 souffle baked in Monaco, some poor man fresh from his win at the blackjack table was given a bowl of rum-crispie-soup.

1. I'm sorry man in Monte Carlo. I hope we can still be friends.

Baking Bread

Bread is delicious.

You disagree? Try some baguette. You will see.


However, bread is also expensive. And the more delicious the bread, like pumpernickel or (as I've already mentioned) baguette, the more expensive the bread. And to be quite honest the store-brand, white-bread (no matter how cheap) just makes me cringe at its lack of flavour... and how unnatural it looks. I mean, white-bread BP&J? Just try and think of something more fake-wholesome looking. I can't. No really, I can't.

So, to save money AND avoid creepy bread, my man-friend and I thought that it might be fun to try baking bread from scratch. Now, despite past disasters with brownies and biscuits, I am actually a decent baker and have been known to make up my own cookie recipes from time to time... and then forget what the hell I did and never be able to make them again. So, it seemed fitting that I would be the one to try my hand at bread.

Four ingredients? (that's it?)
4 cups of flour
1/2 tsp of salt
2 tsps of yeast (which makes the whole house smell like baking - yum!)
1 tsp of sugar

How hard can this be!? Dude, bread is going to be easy!

Quotes that swiftly followed this deceleration:

... when is yeast frothy? How do you know when its frothy?...

... OMG get it off me!...

... wait, I was supposed to add water?...

... OMG get it off me!!...

Oh... I should never be allowed to speak. The baking gods just lie in wait, I swear. They're hiding behind the stove, or under a mixing bowl just waiting for over-confident bakers to say over-confident things. Then they make your furnace room cold so that the warm place you were going to let your dough rise looks like the north pole!

And on that note, some thoughts about baking bread.
It's sticky and it takes a lot more time than you think it will. This is why jobless, medieval housewives baked bread. They were in their houses all day. And I'll bet they invited bread-buddies over, because they needed conversation to occupy the many hours of waiting for the dough to rise.

I know I wish I had a bread-buddy right now... instead I just have Cambridge (yes, I named my laptop). I have been in the kitchen for hours! No really, hours. As I type, I am sitting (wearing my sparkly apron) on my kitchen floor and waiting. Yep, just waiting for my dough to become puffier dough; because apparently under that tea-towel, my dough is rising and breadifying... and then I will have to knead it down and let it rise again... like I'm some sort of bread bully. Then I will put it in a pan and wait for it rise again before I shove the whole thing in an oven and set it on fire!

Hours.

So, as you can imagine,  as I sit, I am reflecting on my experiences with all this bread business and I have come to some conclusions, which I hope others will find helpful.

1) If you start baking by cleaning your kitchen, you'll want to keep that kitchen clean throughout the entire baking process.... this is silly. Don't think this way. I never will again! I say this because as soon as you even look at the flour it puffs onto everything. EVERYTHING. The bowl - puff! Your hair - puff! The floor - PUFF!

It will puff down your shirt and you won't even notice until you are sitting with your laptop, and flour is somehow puffing onto your keyboard. .... I am not speaking from experience or anything.

Damn you flour... why must you go in everything tasty.

2) Keep your cell phone out of the kitchen. When you are making ratatouille, people will laugh your mistakes (again I do not speak from experience, or anything) and, most recently, I've learned that when you are elbow deep in kneading bread and puffed in flour, people will text you. And I don't mean one text, I mean some trilly text-tone will flitter all around you for ten minutes announcing the joyous arrival of your many text messages, until you are ready to either crush that cheerful little bastard of text-tone with your makeshift bread bowl (in my case, a casserole dish) or try to respond to these texts with your nose (again... I do not speak from experience).

3) Never laugh in the face of the baking gods.

Ratatouille

I love ratatouille.

I first made it in London with my sister-in-law. And the whole time we were cooking, other hostel-mates kept asking us "why are you making ratatouille", as though using the hostel's kitchen was a strange occurrence. By the way, that question should always be answered with: Why aren't you making ratatouille?
I mean, ratatouille is delicious! It's like making a vegetable pasta sauce/stew that you're going to eat all on its own. It's colourful. It's healthy. It's - well if you haven't tried ratatouille then you just don't know what you're missing.

And there are so many ways to make ratatouille. You can bake it. You can cook the whole thing in a frying pan. You can just order it in a restaurant. The possibilities are endless!

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

A few days ago I was shopping at the absurdly overpriced St John's Sobeys that people flock to for its free plastic bags... and overpriced everything else (really makes you question people's priorities). However, in the midst of the $7 per lb apples I found on-sale-peppers! Now, like any normal person, my immediate thought was: I could SO make ratatouille with these!

But I didn't. Nothing else required for making ratatouille was on sale... because its Sobeys. Instead, THAT night, I made chicken soup from scratch (without the noodles). The next day though, I went to the Dominion, which is just Loblaws with an identity crisis, and I bougth:

Ingredients
eggplant
zucchini
onions
garlic
peppers (already purchased)

And home I went to make my ratatouille... except that took a while because I FaceTimed my family and we talked ALL afternoon. I didn't get anything done.

oops.

Well, that's not completely true. I finally realized that I was on a camera phone and propped up my phone in the cupboard while I put on a cooking show... and sadly, this is not the first time I've done this. I think the apron gives me an alter-ego or something.

Anyway, so there I am, showing off spices and ingredients and talking about what I'm doing, until I get to my zucchini. I quickly learned that it wasn't a zucchini at all.

It was a cucumber.

Now, before you think that I can't tell my vegetables apart, let me just say that even the receipt rang this baby in as a zucchini. This was one convincing cucumber. It was a cucumber on a mission. Well too bad for the cucumber, I had no use for it in my ratatouille - or any other dish. Instead I chopped up the rogue vegetable and stuck it my fridge to await its fate.

I still had all my other ingredients, plus a squash, so I made some sort of curried eggplant/pepper/squash soup. It was lumpy and delicious... but it was not ratatouille :(

The Voices in My Head

So, I think its safe to say that thoughts are made up of various theories and ideas. Not all of them are original and not all of them are even ours. A professor once told me: We're all speaking someone else's theory, the trick is to figure out whose.

I think I've gone one step further. I think I've started labeling the different, swirling theories and fears in my head. This may or may not make crazy.

I want a cookie! - that's probably my hunger talking... unless its my inner child. You're never going to be a writer, or an 'A' student, or a good person; and people SUCK!  Is my inner cynic... he sounds a little like Darth Vader and I think he's friends with Doubt (such a bastard!).

Granted, these voices don't all shout out at once, and they certainly don't tell me to burn things (thank goodness). That would make me schizophrenic or a sufferer of Multiple Personality Disorder... which I am not.

However, I did have a... let's call it an incident. I think it was my inner grownup warring with my inner child. And I don't mean the sweet, happy inner child. I mean the upset, sacred of the world, let's hide until it all goes away child... you know? The one that most of us never really grow out of.

It went a little something like this.

Inner grown-up (who sounds oddly like Sam the American Eagle from the Muppets): Huzzah, I have finished a solid portion of my big essay due next week. Time to walk into the other room and grab the necessary primary source to continue this essay.

[I stood up and walked towards me stack of books... and then I walked right by them, into my bedroom, got under the covers and didn't move]

Inner grown-up: Jenny? What are you doing? You have a paper to finish.

Me (or possibly that inner child I was talking about): No.

Inner grown-up: Jenny, big girls don't hide from their homework. You are graduate student now. Graduate students don't hide under the covers.

Me: shhhhh! The laptop might hear you.


And that's the gist of it. I, a rational, functioning wannabe adult, hid like a small child from my homework. I hid, like it was going to eat me, or make scary faces at me... or something.

This is just further proof that our societal opinions about adulthood, grownups and the joys of independence may, in reality be a big pile of crap. We don't grow up, we just wear bigger shoes and more expensive coats.

And if we're lucky, no one will notice.

The light at the end of the tunnel

The end of November is nigh.

I have a cooked. I have worn my apron, although I have not always written about it. I have written many a paper. More of a paper than I thought I would have to in the merry months of autumn. December looms with its holiday cheer and snow storms; and at this moment in time, I am content.

Today did not start out well, oh no. Today, like so many other weekend mornings, I waited for a bus that did not come and eventually I had to walk ten minutes down the road to wait for a bus that eventually did come. The wind was beastly, a howling rogue wailing and flailing until my ears were numb and I couldn't feel my feet.

Work was bustling and busy with boardgames flying, children running and customers making great pains to let the store know that they were terribly busy and important. The poor dears had to wait in line just like all the rest. The day was rewarding though, with customers full of thank yous and special stories about long lost childhood books and the perfect toy for little Timmy. A good shift. A fine shift.

Then, good student that I am trying to be, I went to the library. I skipped my perfect bus that stops at the foot my street, in favour of a bus that drops me off in front of the library of my university. My plan was simple, get the books that I'd spent my lunch break hunting down shelf codes for. Fortified with personal strength and the sense that I was where I ought to be, I pushed at the doors of the house of knowledge... and they resisted me.

But wait. A man. A man with spectacles and keys was coming towards the door. An oversight. Surely I had not ventured out after my long day of work and my hour long wait in the cold that morning only to find that a university library would inconsiderately close its doors at 5:45. That would be ridiculous.

The gentleman pushed open the doors with a smile and said: "Library's closed" in the most cheerful voice he could muster. I'm pretty sure I started at him like he was an idiot... which in turn meant that he stared at me like I was an idiot. Good times.

However, I did not bus all the way to school to simply turn around. I'm much more stubborn than that; and I have keys to my department. ha ha. Alone on the fourth floor of the Education Building (which has a proper name that I never seem to be able to remember), I clack clacked away at the website of knowledge (often linked to the house of knowledge, though wirelessly). Much of my search lead me to writing down more shelf numbers that I will have investigate on a day that the library is open (perhaps sometime in December, when classes aren't in session, and no on needs to use the place). But some of my research brought me to the site of jstore and the like, so all was not lost... much thanks and homage to the great glory of scholar.google.ca (amen).

I arrived home tired, but accomplished and excited - because all day, this is what I had been looking forward to. My man and I had made plans, you see we'd decided that tonight was going to be homemade fish&chips night to go with our English ale that was splurged on! Perhaps a game of Scrabble. Perhaps an episode of Doctor Who? Who knows? The point is that my day, no matter the ridiculousness, was not going to get me down, because I had something to look forward to.

And this is what I learned. When you have a light at the the end the tunnel, you can put up with a lot of dark.

That, and St. John's has some truly messed up ideas about when people should be allowed in a university library.

Cheers!

P.S. It snowed last night.

Chicken noodles

*sigh*

...

*sigh*

Okay. My man and I have this freezer bag that we dutifully throw our potato/carrot/onion peels and chicken bones into. We do this so that one day, when there are enough scraps, I can boil them all and make real chicken broth from scratch.

Today was that day.

... and yet, the sighs. (I'll get there).

Chicken Noodle Soup

Ingredients
scraps (i.e. potato, carrots, celery, bones etc.)
Chicken (you can use a whole chicken, thighs, breasts, whatever)
real stuff (properly diced potatoes, carrots, celery, garlic, etc.)
noodles
I'm not kidding, the recipe is that simple.

You add water to your scraps and chicken and, as my good Australian mate would say: You boil the bjeezus out of it.
Then you let it all simmer for about an hour... or as I like to call it: the last chapter of my current book and two episodes of QI (oh Stephen Fry, you make life a happier existence).
Next, strain out all the scraps, set aside the chicken to cool and add the proper veggies to the simmering pot to cook.
Cut up your chicken meat and add that too.
Last but not least, add the noodles. (Yum). Let everything simmer until the noodles are soft, but not too soft and voila!

I was so happy with how my soup turned out. I honestly couldn't believe it. I felt worthy of my sparkly apron (which I was wearing over my bathrobe since it was 9 in the morning). I felt suitably domestic. I felt like had a delicious dinner to come home to.

Do you see where I'm going with any of this?

Flash forward to an hour ago when I walked in from one of the longest and most demoralizing shifts of my customer-service existence. Yes, today had sucked, but it was all going to be okay. My man had a 'pick-me-up' latte with my name on it and we were going to have homemade soup, right?
Wrong.

While I'd been out all day the noodles had come alive. Those twisty, twirly little slugs had gorged themselves on my broth! There they were, the guilty bastards, curled and tangled in the pot like satiated snakes, fat and lazy on their kill.

Where is the justice? How is someone supposed to plan meals ahead of time when the meals are literally working against us? Do we need to start planning an offensive? Do we need to keep certain foods away from one another lest we walk into a kitchen full of carnage and cookie crumbs?
What is this world coming to?

Outsmarted by noodles. This is a low point for me.

mud masks, fried chicken and few facts about fairies

So, right now I am sitting at my kitchen table in pjs and a mud mask reflecting on the past week. Two things spring to mind.

The first is an adventure into fried chicken. You see my man and I saw The Help a little while ago - amazing film, I highly recommend it - and there was one dish that kept rearing it's head again and again. Fried Chicken. Would you believe me if I said that I have no memory of eating fried chicken in my life? Oh and I McNuggets when I was a kid... but let's be honest here. That's not chicken. That was probably squirrel and possum or something. But don't remember having fried chicken, not even KFC.

According to my paramour, everyone must try fried chicken at least once in their lives. So we went to work.

Typically for Fried Chicken you need:
chicken
egg and milk
bread crumbs/spices/flour
oil

However we barely have bread as it is and we were not about to use up said bread in crumb form. Trust my man to come up with a solution through.
Cornflakes.

That's right, Cornflakes.

So you have two bowls. One has the mix of egg and milk, the other has the mix of dry ingredients... whatever they may be. You dunk the chicken in the wet bowl the dry bowl then the plop it an oily pan to sizzle and crack. Mmmmm, best sound ever!

They actually turned out wonderfully... although a little crunchier than I think they're supposed to be. I blame the cereal. However, easy to do. Give it a try.

But just make sure that you don't piss off the fairies while you're at it.
Fairies?
I'm sure you're thinking it.

Yes, Fairies. My latest paper is all about the sub genre of Fairylore, looking at samples from the UK and Newfoundland (you know, that place that assaults you with its weather) and I have learned some valuable information.
1. Fairies (aka the good folk, aka the fair ones, aka the fée, aka the little people etc.) will try to steal your baby and leave you with one of their own in its place. If this happens you have a few options. a)You can place the changeling on an a shovel you've heated up in the fire and leave them both outside, or b)you can hand the baby a set of wood pipes and wait for it to cave to its desperate love of music and leave your home.
2. If you don't want your baby stolen then leave some fresh baked bead in your baby's crib.
3. If you are passing a fairy tree (the great big tree all alone in the middle of a field) leave a shiny and the fairies will leave you (unharmed).
4. If you break a mirror, bring the broken pieces to the fairy tree and you won't get bad luck.
5. On the 11th of May one should seek our sprig of mountain ash with red berries and make a cross to hang over the door. This will keep the fairies from entering you house and keep away a bad luck.


Since October and May are the fairy months (the fairies are transitioning from one home to another) it's wise to have some fairylore in your back pocket. :)

Mass Culture Hysteria

Oh October, you are my happy month of the fall harvest, full of reds and oranges, pumpkins and the crisp crunch of apples. How did you get here so quickly?

No, really? Last I checked it was September. You're early. October is the time that I turn to my recipes of pumpkin/squash soup and I try to add parsnips to just about everything. Sadly, that cannot be at the moment. I'm so tangled up in papers and readings that I don't have time to cook just yet. I've been relying on mushroom soup and omlettes for the most part these days. That and oatmeal. Pumpkin soup/pumpkin pie will just have to wait.

I have been thinking, though. Much as I want to post about my baking/cooking exploits I have nothing to say so far, so I will instead wax philosophically about my studies and my opinions (isn't that what the great void of the blog-o-sphere is for?). On my mind at the moment is a swirl of thoughts about mass/commercial/popular culture. That which is made up of rom-coms, top 40s charts and marketing.

I have been doing many readings about mass culture, if only to be able to understand how folklore is different from mas culture - and what I have learned is this: academics can be dicks. Don't believe me? Look up the various essays on popular/mass culture from the past hundred years. They mostly seem to have this one thing in common, which is that the writer assumes that those who indulge in mass culture are slipping into hell fire. Perhaps not literally (although a few really do), but the sentiment is there. There's this notion that enjoying one blockbuster movie too many will lead to brain-numbing-escapist-societal-suicide! 

And I'm sorry, but after reading pages and pages of all this moaning I have ask: wtf?

I genuinely cannot see the link between mass-societal-passivity and 'the romance novel'. Is that we're allegedly so wrapped up in enjoying the creations of others (specifically designed to suit the majority of pallets) that we'll somehow cease any personal efforts of creativity? Are 'bad pop songs' going to brainwash us into following a totalitarian regime? There seems to be this never-ending association between mass/commercial culture and stupidity.

Well thank you wise armchair academics for you lofty opinions, but I highly doubt that my indulgence in the occasional Britney Spears song will transform me into some sort.... I'm sorry but WHAT is that you theorist think is coming? You've all speculated that an un-named evil will arise from this passivity and these indulgences, but you don't go beyond that basic fear.

In my humble opinion, you theorist, you scoffers at mass culture are passing the same judgment as the xenophobic. "Oh no, it is new and different. I don't immediately connect or relate to it, therefore it must be EVIL."

Congratulations. You'll forgive me if I don't applaud.

Ala-Khazam Brownies

I have not been cooking long and have been blogging for even less time. However, there is someone out there who thinks that I CAN cook/bake and has sent me a delightful recipe to tryout.

And I have done so!

So, as the faithful folklorist that I hope to become, I will transcribe this recipe exactly as it was given to me by the talented and wonderful Ms. Khazzam.

Fudgie Brownies
1 ⅓ cups all purpose white flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup butter or canola oil
1 cup cocoa
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
1 cup chopped nuts, (optional)


Preheat oven to 350 O F
1) Stir: flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl
2) Melt butter
3) Stir in the cocoa
4) Add sugar, eggs and vanilla
5) Mix in dry ingredients
6) For Cookies: scoop about 50 cookies of one tablespoon of batter each on cookie sheet. Bake for about 10 min.
For Brownies: pour batter in 13x9x2 inch baking pan. Bake in oven for 30 to 35 min.


Now, here's what I managed to do with this fabulous recipe:


To start, in general, I don't believe in two-bowl cooking. I feel that any recipe you plan on doing in your home kitchen should be simple enough that it can done in one bowl and cooked in one pan/cooking tray/skull of you enemy/etc. Also, I only own one mixing bowl at the moment... but this recipe was a gift and I was bound and determined to make these brownies.


Ms. Khazzam, for you, I broke out my giant measuring cup and made it double as a bowl. Simple really. I heated up the butter in the measuring cup (I love having a microwave! My man and I found it in the crawl space, left here by some previous owner, and it actually works!) and added the cocoa, eggs, vanilla and sugar. It was a thick, chocolaty, sticky mess that ended up all over my face and apron, but it worked.


Now, for the second problem. I don't own a brownie pan. Also, I didn't know this until I was ready to pour my brownie batter into said, fictitious brownie pan...


Did I:
a) eat the batter raw, Salmonella risk and all?
b) make cookies out of the batter?
c) improvise?

If you picked a or c, then you know me quite well. I did indeed help myself to a thoughtful spoonful of batter as I contemplated my next step. Then I broke out a round, ceramic cooking dish. I think it's actually meant for large soufflés or casseroles.

I gave it a new identity. Welcome to the world, round brownie pan!

Now, there was just one more problem... how long should I bake the 3 1/3 inch deep brownie for? The outside (edges) cooked in the allotted amount of time, but the middle stubbornly remained in pudding form for as long as it could. When the whole thing finally reached a place of 'cooked'-ness, I ran into another problem.

This one is new, even for a kitchen catastrophe like me. Since my dish was ceramic, the brownies kept baking even when they were out of the oven!! I had no clue this was going to happen until I tried to cut up my brownies and found that they were... shall we say, dry?

Milk made them go down just fine, but still... damn you round brownie pan!

Anyway, the recipe is amazing. It's really simple, even with the two bowls and chocolaty like you wouldn't believe!

Cheers!

Eggs Floren-tata

This one was a collaborative effort.

Classes are getting better. I actually feel like I know what the hell my degree is about (informal modes of communication between peoples that inform and mold their communities) and I'm getting through my readings and homework. The skies have been pretty sunny (shocking I know) and the other the day, when it WAS raining, I danced around. I listened to my iPod at the bus stop and danced around in the rain. That is the sign of happier Jenny.

I'm in shock. I'm not supposed to like it. I'm not supposed to be having a good time or making friends in my program (by the way, there are some lovely people in my program). I'm supposed to be angry and miserable and frustrated to the point of throwing myself in front of bus or something. But no... strange as it may seem I was in a tired but good mood yesterday when I got home. I'd given my first in-class presentation that I'd had to make stretch for 30 min and my discussion questions went over well.

Dinner.

My man and I went grocery shopping the other day. The is important because it means that we have (drum roll) INGREDIENTS! That's right folks, I have eggs in the house and milk and spices and cooking oil and other things that normal people have. Huzzah! And do you know why I was able to get all this lovely stuff?
1. Tues are student discount day at Sobeys apparently (whoohoo!)
2. This week was buy one get one!!
I'm not kidding! We bought four cans of diced tomatoes for $2! YEAH!

All this to say, we cooked and we invented.

Originally I was going to make eggs florentine for dinner because we had spinach, but then my man collaborated.


Eggs Floren-tata

Ingredients
4 eggs
several handfuls of spinach
three diced potatoes
half a can of diced tomatoes.

First, put your iTunes on shuffle, tie on that apron and have a little dance around your kitchen. Then heat your oven to somewhere around 400 F, dice and spice those potatoes and put them in the oven (on a cooking sheet).
Dance a little more. If you're lucky, the cute boy playing video games in the other room will come and dance with you while you wait for the potatoes to finish cooking.
I was lucky :)
Next, mix those eggs! Don't put the in the pan yet, though.
Right, heat up a frying pan and wilt some spinach... and because wilting spinach makes a giant handful of spinach seem like nothing... wilt some more spinach!
Add half a can of tomatoes and let simmer to cook off that water.
Add potatoes. (You've danced. They're cooked.)
Add eggs.

Dance some more, because you're happy.

There you have it. Eggs florentine, please meet eggs fratata.

Happiness is... eggs in a shot glass.

Happiness, I've discovered, is a warm cup of tea on a gloomy day and a hot breakfast of eggs and toast.

I'll start with the tea.
Do you know what this warm cup of tea is so delightful to me? It was poured from a teapot. Oh, I can see your brows furrow. One brow may even arch skeptically. You must have an unloved teapot in a cupboard. I bet you only pull it out for show where you've got old, eccentric aunt over. Maybe you pull out this sad little pot for dinner parties just to offer someone tea instead of coffee so that you can seem hospitable.

You do not know the happiness of tea; and I'm sorry for you.

I love coffee. I love the rich earthy flavours and the way cream both contrasts and compliments them. I love hot chocolate with its richness and nostalgia-factor. But more than these I crave tea. I love that it comes in varieties of herbal (which I mostly find disgusting unless drunken clear), black, green, white and red (which I have no love for at all). I love finding a new tea and making a whole pot of it.

Today I have made English Breakfast tea. Black as black tea can get.

Cup 1 - the wake up. This cup is a burst of flavour, savory or sweet on the tongue. It pulls me out of the gloom of the day and into a warm and happy place.
Cup 2 - the experiment. Having drunk my tea clear (that is with no milk or sugar) my second cup is a chance to add little something. Maybe a spot of brandy? Maybe a swirl of honey? Who knows? And most importantly, if you have one around, a biscuit. A very good mate of mine in England taught me the value of dunking a biscuit in tea and I will never forget. :)
Cup 3 - the decision maker. Did I like the tea better clear or with 'stuff' in it? Seeing as we're getting to the bottom of my little orange pot from Winners (thanks wonderful man-friend!) it's time to decide what is the lasting taste I want? Sweet? pure? hot? cold?

So many decisions and choices because of a pot of tea.

Today I have no milk or honey in my home (the promised land eludes me until I do a shop), so clear it is!

Eggs!

They're one of the most perfect forms of protein out there in my opinion. I love them in omelets, I love them scrambled and love they fried. Today I thought I'd be a little more healthy though and go for boiled eggs.
Ingredients
Eggs (2)
Water.

Put water in a pot and bring that water to a boil.
Add eggs and let them boil for... I'm sure there's measured minutes for this. If you want hard boiled eggs I'm pretty sure you leave the eggs for 5 minutes. I have no clue. I just boil mine until I think they've suffered enough.

Then, you put your eggs in a little egg-cup and eat with a spoon... unless you are a broke student. In that case, may I recommend a shot glass? The guy who lived here before us left pretty much all his dishes and selection of shot glasses.

Toast!
I love toast, and frankly, can you blame me? Toast is breakfast. You can add peanut-butter or jam. You can dunk it in your egg yolk. And, best of all, it is the most idiot proof food imaginable... with a toaster.

Right now, I have no toaster, so my wonderful man and I have been developing a method of making toast with a cooking sheet and an oven.... and today I didn't burn anything! Last time I tried this, my toast caught fire and I had to beat the flame with a pot holder.... no more toast :(.

So, there we have it. Aristotle had to write a whole book on the pursuit of happiness. I have given it to you in three words: tea, toast, eggs.

Cheers!

Cheese Biscuits

So, I set the homework aside and I put on that apron. I pulled down my favourite book of recipes. I let the book fall open at random, just to see... and then I flipped through on my own to find a recipe with ingredients I actually had in my house.

Cheese Biscuits. 

Is there a simpler recipe out there, apart from toast? 3 ingredients people. 4 if you're getting fancy with the cheese, which I was not. You have to be a kitchen's worst nightmare to mess these babies up.

I am, apparently, I kitchen's worst nightmare. How, you ask? Well let me tell you. It's all to do with ratios.


Ingredients
3/4 cup flour
1/3 cup butter/margarine
3/4 cup cheese

(SEE? so simple!)

In theory, you use your hands or blender (I don't own a blender, so that one is never an option) to mix all three ingredients together. then you role out the dough and chill it. Then you bake it. TADA!! You have solved the universe's riddle of cheese biscuits. Congratulations! Have a biscuit.

Now, here's what I did. I but in 3/4 cup of margarine to 1/3 cup of flour. And I just couldn't figure out why the consistency was so.... gooey and why my hands were covered in margarine. I glanced at the recipe, just to make sure I had it right, because you know, who screws up cheese biscuits? Right? Then I laughed at myself for a good few minutes and added more flour until the consistency was close to bread crumbs and the cheese mixed in well(ish).

Problem solved!

Problem not solved....

So, here's a fun fact about your oven (I promise it's relevant). Your oven, everyone's oven for that matter has this button/knob/crank/retina-scan that turns up the heat and you can measure that heat in Fahrenheit or Celsius. Recipes will often give you both temperature in case you have a preference. Some books even give you multiple temperature options based on how old your oven is or what brand of baking trays you own. I mean, this is pretty idiot proof stuff. Only a complete moron would set their oven to the wrong temperature after all the hassle their cookbook has gone to of explaining the temperature to them in all its varieties and options.

I am, apparently, a complete moron. Note to self: when the temperature says 190ºC/375ºF, the lower number is the SAME as the higher number. Do not set the oven to 190ºF!!!

So, as you can imagine, I pre-heated the oven, rolled up my biscuits with that wonderful French rolling pin of mine, put my gooey biscuits into the oven and then couldn't figure out why they were taking so long to cook. The recipe said 15-20 min, so why were they still dough after 45 min?

That's when my lovely man-friend noticed my oven error and fixed it (after laughing at me for the better part of a minute).  I was kicked off the kitchen squad and banished to the couch while my man took it open himself to check for when the biscuits were done.

In conclusion, the biscuits are cheesy and herb-y and brittle as crackers. They are dry as a spoonful of cinnamon.... but apparently that is how these sorts of biscuits are SUPPOSED to taste! Yes, despite my best efforts, I did not ruin the biscuits! Although, truth be told, they taste much better with a glass of wine than they'll ever taste on their own.

Right now I should be doing homework

I have a project due on Wednesday I'm meeting my group on Monday to compare notes and make sure that everything is all set for Wednesday. We're leading a discussion on a pile of essays about the founders of the folklore branch (as an academic discipline) and it really could not be any more boring if it was trying!

Is it any wonder that I find myself here on my laptop instead of pouring over a very important and making mildly interesting notes and brain-numbing topic?

And.... I find myself staring at the innocent apron just hanging there in the kitchen.

Bake something Jenny.

No. I'm working on my homework.

But homework is boring. Baking is delicious and can be used as a treat/reward later while you are doing your homework.

Damn it, you make some good points....

Cooking from scraps

What is it about an apron? It's not like I'm putting on armor. Still, after making it through my first official week of classes I found myself putting on my sparkly apron and feeling amazing. As soon as I tied that little knot at the back I felt like I'd suddenly taken control, like I could make it through anything.

One of the first nights that my wonderful man was working late. He essentially moved all the way out the edge of nowhere with me so that I could pursue my dream. The least I could do is make him dinner! Right?

Apron? So soon? I just made cookies. Aren't my cooking talents tapped for a while?

Ah, but there is a difference between baking and cooking, I found myself thinking. What harm could a little chicken pot pie do?

No recipe. No problem.

Chicken Pot Pie (scraps around the kitchen style)

2 chicken thighs
a bowl of frozen veggies
2 thickly chopped carrots
half and onion
some garlic (there's no such thing as too much garlic)

The filling is simple enough. You throw everything in a pan and heat it up. I start by cooking the chicken. I don't even use oil. Meat has its own fats, why not use them to cook with? Next throw in veggies that take the longest time to cook. Thick carrots take a while to soften for instance.

The dough?

Preheat oven to 350ish
2 cups of flour
butter/margarine... enough that when you mix it with the flour you get the consistency of bread crumbs between your fingers

Chill for about half an hour (or as I like to think of it, about an episode of Sex and the City)

Put it all together!
Role out that dough and line a casserole dish with it. Pour in meat and veggies. If you want to add some cream sauce, pour a can of your favourite soup.

Let cook until it smells done :)

 
The timing was perfect. My sweet boyfriend arrived just as was pulling the pot pie out of the oven. Since I started cooking at about 10 at night, that was about 11:30pm. Dinner turned into more of midnight snack, but at least it was delicious.

Reasons to Wear the Apron

So, I have moved. I have moved over several provinces to the most eastern point of Canada that I could. Why? Certainly not for my sanity or some ridiculous deep-seeded passion to be rained on every five minutes. No, I moved for school. I'm currently going after an MA in a small but prestigious program. It is this, and this alone, that could have driven me to move to Newfoundland.

What's more, my angel of a boyfriend came with me.

What's more(er) this whole adventure got off to a rocky start when we got lost driving from the airport to our new home, We then discovered that our new home was way too isolated from St. John's, on top of an obscene hill that would require a ski-doo in the winter (I was contemplating a toboggan) and a 30 min walk from any public transportation.

No.

Just, no.

Now, after a hectic week that no one needs to hear about, we are settled into a sweet, basement apartment with two bedroom and tiny kitchen. We unpacked, moved furniture, plugged in electronics, bought groceries etc. etc.

And then I noticed a hook on the kitchen wall. I imagine that this hook was meant for a frying pan or some such thing, but I decided that it would be the perfect spot for my apron. Have I ever mentioned my apron before? Probably not. It's new. It's also handmade by FyreFairee designs (an amazing seamstress in Australia I had the pleasure of living with when I was at school in Eng) and covered in sparkly polkadots. I love my apron... and I have yet to love Newfoundland.

With these two elements combined I have been doing what one is never supposed to do in a foreign land - bake. What is that saying? Good for the soul and bad for the hips. Yes that's it. Not only will you feel completely out of place in your new, unsatisfying home but you will also feel out of place in your jeans. What's a girl to do?

Well, here's out it all began.
1. I arrive early at my first day of work... and realized that I forgot my mandatory work shoes.
2. I was out of bus money on my metropass, so I had to take a half hour walk home.
3. It was raining... sideways. Effing wind.
4. After work, I went to my first class.
5. My bus (I found change) was 15 min late and I was only JUST on time for my class.
6. Everyone in that program is 10x more qualified to be there than I am.

Apron.

Sugar Cookies!
2 cups of butter
2 cups of sugar
2 eggs
a splash of vanilla (I don't believe in measuring every little thing.)
a few pinches of backing powder
4 1/2 cups of flour

Cream the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla. (I was fortunate enough that my man was boiling noodles, so I used the pot and my mixing bowl like a double boiler to soften up the butter.)
Next, add the dry ingredients a bit at a time and mix thoroughly. (don't be prissy, get your hands in there for the best mixing.)
Chill the dough. (I have no trick for this. I sit and watch something until my brain goes 'dough?')

bake at 350/75 C depending on your oven. I made my cookies in the shape of moose, porcupines and other fun Canadian animals with the help of the best cookie cutters ever and a french rolling pin that I willing spent $8 on (I promise I bought pretty much everything else at the Dollarama to justify this purchase).


The apron hangs in her spot once more, waiting to comfort my next bad day. I'm thinking homemade chicken soup ;) But only time will tell.

An Eviction Notice for Doubt

I have this theory that if Death is a skeleton in a black cloak, then Doubt is his smarmy second cousin no one talks about at the family reunion.

I know this of course because Doubt has taken up residence in my house. He eats my chips, crunches on my carrots and reads over my shoulder all the time. You see I sort of picture Doubt as this husky, balding man with clammy hands that you would never want to touch.
Every time I look at a potential university website or make any concrete steps in planning my career, he's right there; and he always sounds so worried. Actually I can't tell if he's genuinely worried or just trying to make me feel nervous.

Do you really think you're qualified for that? 
Ooooh, I don't know if that's the tone you're going for? 
Black and brown in the same outfit? Really?
You don't want to travel all the way THERE do you? Think of all the bad things that could happen? 

Most the time his voice just leaves a lingering but resounding question mark in my brain until I'm so scared that I close all the windows to my internet browser and have a panic attack. I will never amount to anything significant. I will never leave my stamp on the world. I will never change someone's life and I will never perfect my chocolate cake recipe.

I'm sure you know who I'm talking about. Maybe Doubt is couch surfing and living with you as well (the mooching bastard). Maybe he ruins your perfectly lovely weekends as well? If this is the case, then I hope you will join me in this next step: The Eviction Notice.

Dear Tenant (hereafter to be referred to as Doubt), 

It has come to my attention that you have been residing in my house free of charge for the past several months, if not years. One of the following must happen: 

1. You will vacate my premises immediately. 
2. You will start paying rent (this may be done in the form of positive affirmation towards all my future. endeavors)

Failure to comply will result in death by cat/leviathan/my own self-esteem finally kicking in. 

In short, get the hell out of life, Doubt!

Sincerely, 
The Management

I'll keep you posted on the results.