Showing posts with label Top Secret. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Top Secret. Show all posts

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Scrambled Cornbread



So I was on the phone with a friend and started getting hungry. I'm not talking Bluetooth, I was on an old fashioned handheld flip cell phone. I was carrying my baby on my other arm. A plan had just conjured up in my mind of a delicious lunch. Still on the phone I went into the kitchen and started pulling ingredients from the fridge and cupboards: can of corn, half a leftover onion, milk, egg, cornmeal. I pulled a cutting board, a skillet, and a couple containers.

At this point I set the baby down so I could spring into action. I put half the can of corn in a little container for later, and dumped the other half in a larger container which I designated for today's lunch prep. Then I chopped the onion and added it to the Cool Whip container/ mixing bowl. I was planning to make some cornbread cakes an American southern cousin of the pancake. I had seen my Gramma from Alabama prepare them many times for my Grandad.

Then, baby Shastya needed attention. I scooped up my dear baby and after a short time asked my friend if I could let her go because I was getting a crick in my neck from holding my phone with my right shoulder, while cooking with my right hand, while cradling my darling baby with my left arm. My friend and I had been talking about blogging. She's looking to start a blog! About this time I looked at my mixing bowl. What was in it was definitely not batter. "Hmm . . ." I thought, "from the looks of it I could add some more milk, eggs, and cornmeal, and I could still turn out corncakes." "Nah, we'll just go with it. It will be fried corn and onions, similar to fried okra!"

I put it in the pan on high heat, but then I needed to change the baby's diaper. I turned the stove off. When I returned and cooked my food a little more, I noticed that my mixture of wet and dry ingredients was not sticking to the corn kernels and onion pieces. The skillet however was still full of delicious food which I dubbed scrambled cornbread.

Wanting to season my dish, I thought I would try a healthy substitute for salt, and doused my lunch with balsamic vinegar. Um, the dish totally called for Cajun seasoning. So I added that too. Much better. But you guessed it, my Cajun seasoning had salt in it. Salt was listed as it's first ingredient no less.

I must say that lunch was delightful. The Cajun seasoning even seemed to add a hint of celery to my plate. Yum!

Scrambled Cornbread:

1/2 Can of Sweet Corn
1/2 Onion
Egg
1/2 Cup Milk
1/2 Cup Cornmeal










Gelato Disaster


Somehow I came up with the idea of sensuous papaya date pecan gelato. Bottom line is, it didn't turn out. I even forgot to take pictures of the late stages of my gelato disaster. My apologies. I have some theories as to what could have gone wrong with my creation: 1) my "gelato" mixture came to a boil when it was not supposed to, 2) I used all milk, no cream, 3) I had a bunch of curious add-ins, 4) all of the above. I am inclined to go with the fourth theory. My gelato disaster did taste good, but it looked atrocious, and most certainly was not going to solidify in any creamy fashion in the the freezer. A perfect, horrendous looking kaleidoscope of milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, pureed papaya, dates, and pecans that just did not turn out.







Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Two Chefs In The Kitchen


Let me preface this mess with, think about MythBusters. This particular blog post will be a kitchen version. I decided to post this story with pics after facebooking with a friend the other day and finding out from her that she liked reading my blog to see what I had tried in my kitchen and liked. That being said, there are also things that I try in the kitchen that I do not like. Maybe I can save you the trouble of trying some things that I have tried that maybe didn't turn out so beautiful.

This snack gone awry started with Anthony and I being hungry at the same time late at night. . . We decided to make a midnight snack. We sought to raid our cupboards. My idea: pudding and jello together. Anthony was like,"No." He pulled a couple different flavors of jello from a bag in the cabinet and started cooking first lemon jello and then raspberry. While he did that we decided that I would whisk some vanilla pudding up and that we would enjoy the pudding and jello, but separately, not in one dish. I quickly googled "pudding and jello together." Easter Creamy JELL-O Jigglers on the Kraft website was the first recipe I clicked on. Amazing, I liked what I saw. I excitedly began telling Anthony of my findings but to no avail. He was unimpressed and would not hear of it.

Anthony was thinking he was going to layer the jellos. I told him that they needed to set, and that he would need time between the layers. He said he was going to try to make a thick layer on the bottom and pour the second layer on top, and that he was going to omit a time lapse in between layers. He began trying to think of thickeners. He said, "flour." I said "No, maybe yogurt." "But yogurt will make it taste sour, what you want is pudding." And yes, I laughed as I said that. Finally(smile), he was like, "okay, I guess we can put some pudding in the lemon jello." "Yes!" I thought. The combination of the two was very good, and we stuck it in the freezer.

Next, "operation second layer." It started with raspberry jello. Ick. The stuff is a sickly sweet fake version of what raspberry should taste like. We again needed a thickener. This time we used cocoa. Yum. Chocolate raspberry. Now that was good.

The lemon jello and vanilla pudding combo had quickly set in the freezer. We did not want our bubbling chocolate raspberry combo to melt it. "How to cool our second mixture quickly" we thought . . . Anthony had the idea of spreading it out on a dinner plate. We did just that. I had to feed the baby so Anthony and I agreed that we would check on the jello later.

When we returned to the kitchen to complete "operation second layer" we were aghast. The raspberry chocolate plate looked like blood. Not only that, it was stuck. The chocolate raspberry jello had hardened fast and we were unable to pour it atop the lemon jello vanilla pudding layer. I should have just spooned the lemon mixture onto a plate and spooned some chocolate raspberry topping over it, but that is not what I did. Instead I attempted to mix the topping into the jello and pudding. Fail. Terrible fail. We both refused to eat what we had made. 










Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Shari's Dark Super Secret Citrus Chocolate Sauce



Just another epic day in the kitchen. Every time I opened the fridge today I saw a glass with mysterious contents that were rather murky almost fermented looking. Finally, this evening I decided to do something with the nasty glass of liquid before it officially went bad. Slowly, a plan formed in my mind. My plan involved chocolate and pancakes . . .

Shari's Dark Super Secret Citrus Chocolate Sauce:

Contents of the nasty glass (day old blended fresh grapefruit & green apple plus ice cubes)
Cocoa
Non-fat yogurt