Cooking Adventures: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Well, for some reason I have been feeling dangerously creative in the kitchen lately. Maybe it was The Omnivore's Dilemma, or bare cupboards, or homesickness, or hormones, or something. My family is not suffering too terribly, as anything truly disastrous only happens when Matt is closing on the weekend and can't salvage or judiciously guide my attempts.
Episode one: (Bad AND Ugly)
Jaime was visiting this weekend and I was roasting a chicken with some yams and squash. We were drinking tea and chatting in the kitchen and having a grand old time with my 70's era Joy of Cooking, and The New York Times Cookbook. Jaime was comparing recipes for pheasant aperitifs in doleful anticipation of the game birds Josh was shooting in North Dakota when she happened upon a recipe for sweet potato puffs. Drunk on tea and cookery, she suggested we whip some up.
2 cups sweet potatoes, 1 large mashed banana, melted butter, egg yolk, hot cream, seasoning, and the inevitable stiff egg white. This was dropped onto a greased sheet at 500 degrees.
I'll gloss over the dreadful results and say only that they looked slightly worse than they tasted. Tragically, in the intensive puffery process, I neglected the rest of the dinner and served nothing edible whatsoever. I boiled some noodles for the boys and Jaime and I dined on burned squash.
Episode 2: (Good and Ugly)
I always seem to forget prior trauma in the soup department, even though past vats of disgusting vegetables and indeterminate starches haunt my kitchen. Tonight I used a leftover pumpkin and produced a tolerable pumpkin soup. I used matt's new food processor (from teacher Sheila) and pureed a bunch of pumpkin for pie and soup. I improvised from this recipe http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/001439spicy_pumpkin_soup.php
and it turned out delicious. It was brownish yellow and interesting looking. The only problem is that now I have approximately one gallon of extra soup in the fridge.
Episode one: (Bad AND Ugly)
Jaime was visiting this weekend and I was roasting a chicken with some yams and squash. We were drinking tea and chatting in the kitchen and having a grand old time with my 70's era Joy of Cooking, and The New York Times Cookbook. Jaime was comparing recipes for pheasant aperitifs in doleful anticipation of the game birds Josh was shooting in North Dakota when she happened upon a recipe for sweet potato puffs. Drunk on tea and cookery, she suggested we whip some up.
2 cups sweet potatoes, 1 large mashed banana, melted butter, egg yolk, hot cream, seasoning, and the inevitable stiff egg white. This was dropped onto a greased sheet at 500 degrees.
I'll gloss over the dreadful results and say only that they looked slightly worse than they tasted. Tragically, in the intensive puffery process, I neglected the rest of the dinner and served nothing edible whatsoever. I boiled some noodles for the boys and Jaime and I dined on burned squash.
Episode 2: (Good and Ugly)
I always seem to forget prior trauma in the soup department, even though past vats of disgusting vegetables and indeterminate starches haunt my kitchen. Tonight I used a leftover pumpkin and produced a tolerable pumpkin soup. I used matt's new food processor (from teacher Sheila) and pureed a bunch of pumpkin for pie and soup. I improvised from this recipe http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/001439spicy_pumpkin_soup.php
and it turned out delicious. It was brownish yellow and interesting looking. The only problem is that now I have approximately one gallon of extra soup in the fridge.
posted by gwen at 9:58 PM
4 Comments:
pumpkin soup...do you serve that with whipped cream?
I seem to remember some pretty good chicken soups, give youself more credit!
ok, chicken noodle soup can be ok if I don't get carried away.... mmm whipped cream would be delicious. I actually dropped avocado and chicken cubes from lunch into my bowl with crackers and it was excellent
The pumpkin soup sounds wonderful. mmm...we have three little pumpkins on the porch awaiting butchering. I'll try it. I remember some pretty good soups you have made, Gwen. Zuccini and soup should never be combined. Any bad soup memories you have all probably involve flaccid, floating zuccini pieces.
Mmm, they both sound good,a actually :P At least, they both sound like they could be really good. I only remember one soup disaster from you...
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