Lagniappe: 18 Thanksgiving Cooking Fails

Just in time for Thanksgiving!

I'm writing this kind of rambling non-post today because I've eaten way too much sugar and can't focus on ANYTHING, so here's a randomly compiled list of all the cooking type moments that will make you want to *headdesk* this Thanksgiving, except we're in a kitchen and not the office so it's more like a *headcounter* but that just doesn't sound as nice...as nice as banging your head into an inanimate object is, anyway.

Commence!

1. When required to sift flour or confectioner's sugar. YEY! It's snowing on my counter! Let's make sure this goes EVERYWHERE EXCEPT IN THE BOWL!

2. When required to "soften butter" but you were too busy to plan ahead and now you have two cold hard sticks of butter and no time. You consider just sticking them down your top because you are drunk, but then decide against it when faced with howls of judgement from your friends. Who are not helping. Commence second-by-second battle with the microwave to get butter softened to the "right" kind of soft.

3. When you place a spoon or ladle into the sink and then turn the tap on. SPOON BETRAYAL! Dirty dish water everywhere, including in your eyes! WHY SPOON WHY!

4. When you have to truss the turkey. Trussing? What is trussing? Sounds like an extremely fussy form of torture. It involves string and seventeen types of sailor's knots? Ugh. No. (No, but really.)

5. When you have to season the inside cavity of the turkey with salt and pepper. Someone please explain to me how I'm supposed to do this with only two hands. One hand to hold the turkey up so I can peer down its butt, the other hand to shake the seasonings into the cavity (LOL IF YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING TO USE A PEPPER GRINDER) and the...extra...hand to rub them in/make sure they're evenly distributed inside that skin-cave. Seriously, PLEASE someone explain to me how I'm expected to do this without getting raw chicken grease all over the seasoning containers!

6. When you're instructed to brine the turkey. Brining, are you kidding me? I have to go to Home Depot and buy a 5 gallon bucket specifically for the purpose of giving this turkey a salt/spice bath the day before? Get out.

7. When you have to diced up vegetables of all shapes into symmetrical, even, square pieces for roasting. I failed geometry in high school so it's no wonder I have no idea how to make a wobbly-oval sweet potato into perfect squares. Oval > square.

8. When you have to peel the skin off onions. OH MY GOD WHY WON'T THIS INTERMINABLE TASK END??? Because of course you need only about 9 onions, for everything.

9. When your gravy won't thicken properly, and so you keep adding more and more flour/water mixture to it, and nothing and nothing and nothing and then BAM! Suddenly, sludge. Dammit, gravy, get it together.

10. When someone asks you if what you're preparing for them to stuff their faces with for free is gluten-free/vegetarian/GMO-free/vegan/paleo/dairy-free. (Without advanced notice or bringing their own food.) The only freedom we have here is for me to drink as much as I like and for you to shush.

 
11. Injuries. Oh, the injuries. If there is ever a year I don't peel off my top layer of hand skin with a vegetable peeler, nick a fingernail with a knife, burn my wrists on the top rack of the oven or scorch some part of my body with steam...then I guess that's a year I'm not cooking.

12. When you have to spoon cupcake batter into tins evenly. It only requires one ice cream scoop (fail), two large spoons (I will never get that time of my life back) or a large ziploc bag with a hole cut in the corner (get out). Ugh. Cake. You're all getting cake. One large cake.

13. Forgetting to set the timer. Don't think you can just "keep track" in your head, either, because as we all know, 5 minutes when you're sober and 5 minutes when you're...um...LESS THAN...is definitely not the same amount of *actual* time. (Sidebar: I once got really drunk at a bar with some friends and said I was just going to lay my head down on the table for five minutes. I woke up in a very different place five minutes later, extremely confused, to my friend saying "Yeah that was two hours ago. And in a different state.") Protip: Use your iPhone, just don't drop it in the mashed potatoes.

14. When you put butter into mashed potatoes but then can't taste it in the final product. What HAPPENED to that entire stick (or two, no shame here) I put in there?! Where did it GO? Too many questions.

15. When you run out of wine, attempting to put an end to the aforementioned questions.

16. When you have to clean up. Except there's no way in hell I'm doing that--that's what YOU are here for. Yes, you. "Guests." Chop chop.

17. When the smoke detector goes off, even though nothing is even REMOTELY smoking, except me, because I am smoking hot. Ba-dum-bump!

Fan me, peasant, I am hot.

18. When you're expected to cook breakfast the next day. WHAT EVEN.

But at the end of the day...cooking is fun! Wherever it happens to land in your list of priorities...

I'm headed off for holidays for about 10 days here and likely will not be blogging much unless my company is extremely, extremely boring--or I am left to my own devices without supervision for too long. Most people learn not to allow this, though.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Lekker: Brunch-y Sweet Potato Hash

After my wild bumper crop of gigantic sweet potatoes from our back garden, combined with a spur-of-the-moment visit into town by one of my cousins this past weekend, I knew it was the perfect occasion for my favourite fall brunch dish: Sweet Potato Hash. This is perfect for the morning after Thanksgiving and makes such lovely use of seasonal produce. It can even be made up to two days in advance of when you plan to serve it, hence being perfect for Thanksgiving-morning-after: just reheat it in the oven at 400 for about 15 minutes until warm. With a fried egg on top it's a complete meal, filling and delicious.

Give it a whirl this Sunday, and gents--this is a surefire way to absolutely, unequivocally impress your lady friend the morning after. Don't say I never did anything for you.

My egg is not pretty here. I was being time-constructive and cooking several in a pan at once, hence the unattractive cut lines. But, an egg is still an egg and when you burst the yolk of this over-easy beauty it creates a lovely sauce to meld with the hash underneath.

Brunch-y Sweet Potato Hash
serves 4

What You Need
2 tablespoons butter
1 large or two medium onions, peeled and sliced into half-moons
about 1/2 pound (or 4 links) Italian sausage; I like to use HOT but you could use mild too
2 large or 3 small sweet potatoes, peeled and diced into bite-sized pieces
3 large garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
Olive oil, about 2-3 tablespoons
salt & pepper, to taste

Large eggs, to serve--and some fresh grated Parmesan cheese, if you really wanna go all out (And come on, you're making all this effort, right? May as well.)

What You Do
1. Preheat the oven to 450. In a large saucepan or skillet, heat the butter until it melts and add your chopped onions. Cook over medium-low heat for about 20 minutes until they're well browned and nicely caramelised. It'll probably take about that long for your oven to heat up, plus you can be peeling and dicing the sweet potato and garlic at this time too.

2. Squeeze the sausage out of its natural casings onto a separate plate and break it up a bit with your fingers. Toss that into the skillet with the onions and cook over medium heat until it's well browned and cooked through, breaking up with a wooden spoon until it's all nicely crumbled.

3. In a large bowl, toss your diced sweet potato, dried rosemary, and fresh minced garlic with the olive oil until well coated and seasoned to your liking. Line a large baking sheet with foil.

4. So, your onions are now caramelised and brown and delicious smelling and the sausage has cooked through. Excellent. Toss that goodness into the bowl with the sweet potatoes and stir up nicely with a big wooden spoon. Spread out onto the baking sheet in one even layer, and pop into the oven.

5. Pour yourself a mimosa and enjoy your lovely brunch company for the next 20-30 minutes or until the sweet potatoes have roasted through. You'll know when you stick a piece with your fork and it goes through tenderly. I like to dice my sweet potatoes pretty small because they'll roast faster.

Just before the hash is finished roasting, you have the option to cook up some eggs to serve on top. Everyone in my little group wanted something different, so I told them all to shut up and they all got over easy. Everyone can make their peace with over easy! :)

Cheers to enjoying a beautiful weekend morning with beloved friends.

Original recipe found here, but I find the instructions a bit time-consuming for my impatient self (and really hate fresh rosemary) so this is my version.

Lagniappe: A Note on Healthy Cooking

I'm a stubborn person.

For those who know me, this is not a shocking revelation. Stubbornness and tenacity are two very similar qualities, though tenacity, I think, can be meant as more of a compliment--until in my worse moments I take it too far and become stubborn, often to my own detriment.

However, I do not feel AT ALL badly about my stubbornness when it comes to healthy cooking.

Case in point: pie crusts.

Pastry and I do not get along well. YEAST, my mortal enemy. Any bread recipes you see here will not involve yeast, because I simply can't do it and haven't gathered up the patience to keep trying yet. Pie crusts drive me insane because I've never been able to master that perfectly flaky, golden, buttery halo atop my Shepherd's Pie to my contentment. Why is that? Because I refuse to use shortening. Yes, that's the forking secret! CRISCO! I discovered this dirty, dirty secret a couple of weekends ago when I tried my hand at some Meat and Potato pies, and caved to the recipe that called for shortening. So far, I have refused to touch the stuff. It's bad for you. Like, really, really, terrible for you. I will use butter all day every day because, while it's not "healthy" in that it is a fat and is therefore not good for you in major amounts--I KNOW WHAT BUTTER IS. And so do you! It's one of the simplest things you can make yourself; two ingredients: heavy cream and salt. In fact, I posted a recipe on how to make your own just yesterday.

Shortening? What the hay is vegetable shortening? Read the ingredients; do YOU know what the hell that stuff is? Didn't think so. Me neither. IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS, YOU PROBABLY SHOULDN'T PUT IT IN YOUR MOUTH. You are not a 2-year-old.

Much to my chagrin...my pie crusts turned out effortlessly fabulous. They were delicious, and buttery, and flaky in all of their golden perfection--and, undoubtedly, toxic and cancerous. Sigh.

That's why I'm not posting the recipe here. It's why I won't be making it again.

Look, I believe in living life to the fullest. Ricky Gervais said it better than I ever could; the ultimate aim is to "stay alive and eat more cheese and drink more wine." I just wanna do what I can, stack the deck in my favour as much as I can, so I can stick around on this planet long enough to know what caviar tastes like and to maybe score the man of my dreams and change something in the world. I will ALWAYS continue to indulge in the good things in life and that occasionally means things that might not be "healthy": butter and cheese and wine and bacon.

That doesn't mean vegetable shortening.

That doesn't mean canola oil. (We'll get to that soon.)

That doesn't mean cream-of-god-knows-what tinned soups, or endless sodas, or margarine, or iridescent maraschino cherries.

Hey y'all, I'm not complicated when it comes to food. I want to cook, eat, and share good, tasty, non-pretentious food that won't kill me. Or you. 

(Yes, even you there. You know who you are.)

Happy (healthy) cooking, my friends.

Lekker: Ho(me) Made Butter

Yup, this past weekend I attempted making homemade butter for the first time, because as my best friend Ghost points out, I HAVE WAY TOO MUCH TIME. It's true. But, it keeps me "off the streets and off drugs" or twerking or whatever it is that normal people do at 11 AM on a Saturday morning. I have no idea, because I am busy making butter at that time.

I feel like every kid basically made butter in a jar at some point during their "colonial America" studies or whatever; I just have no memory of doing it. I prefer to ignore the things I may or may not have blocked out of my memory.

Anyways, I love trying new things and thought I'd give it a spin. It was fun, and you get to have that moment of pride right at the end, like "Holy crap! I just made my own butter! Someone hand me a goddamn floral bonnet." And, you know...you get butter at the end of it. Who doesn't love butter? I suppose this would be a fun activity if you had some of those tiny humans you created around that needed to be entertained--but those frighteningly honest little people scare me--so I do not have any.

Now, some people get all excited about making their own butter because you know where it comes from, and it's free of artificial preservatives, etc etc etc but I hate to burst your bubble--that's not entirely true. If you do like I did and just use store bought heavy cream, you STILL don't know where it's coming from. It's still coming from the store and a bunch of anonymous cows, you're just adding an extra step in there. If you REALLY want to have complete control over your butter like that, check out a farmer's market for some heavy cream. In that I do not even have control over my own hair, I am not too concerned about my butter...but you do you.

All you need for this little project is a stand mixer or an electric hand mixer (my preference, because I like things to be more hands-on when I cook), a large stainless steel bowl, a strainer, and about 20 minutes. Oh, and ingredients, I guess.

Homemade Butter
makes about 1 cup of prepared butter

What You Need
1 quart heavy whipping cream, as fresh as possible, organic is always best
1/4 teaspoon fine salt

Now, let's talk for a minute. All of the tutorials I found online said the cream should be as cold as possible, so I stuck it in the freezer for a few minutes before I started. They all said it should take about 9 minutes of beating for the cream to "break", but after 15 minutes and no dice I was getting frustrated and didn't know what was going on. So I left it sitting on the counter for about 20 minutes and did other things, came back to beating and voila! Instant success. I believe it needed to warm up a little, so consider that a head's up in case you run into the same problem.

What You Do
1. In a large stainless steel bowl, pour in your heavy cream. Using an electric hand mixer (or a stand mixer if you have one) beat on high for 9-15 minutes until it "breaks." Since it's cream, here are the stages you will go through: first, you will be beating a heavy liquid on medium-high speed. It will splash everywhere and be a sloppy mess. Oh well. Then you'll start getting more of a whipped cream consistency. Nice! But don't stop. Keep going and it'll get thicker, and thicker, and bigger, and bigger (giggity) until it starts to collapse and get gritty and curdle-y. That's when it start's to "break", and it'll look like this:

Super gross right? It'll start splashing even more at this stage, but at that point you're basically done.

2. Place the strainer over a second bowl and strain out all of the buttermilk. Knead the butter with your hands well to get as much moisture out as you can. I would suggest that you strain it again through a fine mesh cheesecloth, because every time I thought I was done I turned around and more buttermilk had appeared.

3. Place in a bowl and stir in your salt with a fork. Tadah! Buttah!

I'm not going to tell you how to enjoy your butter because if you don't know how to do that at this point in your life you need help. BUT, this particular batch I divided up and whipped in some chopped fresh parsley and lemon zest to make a compound butter that I plan to use on top of sizzling steaks or grilled chicken breast. This stuff keeps beautifully in the freezer for up to two months (well wrapped in cling wrap and then alu foil) or in the fridge for a few weeks. IF you can keep it around long enough--AND THAT IS WHY I WON'T BE MAKING BUTTER AGAIN FOR A VERY VERY LONG TIME. Because I have no self control. Neither with butter, nor with boys.

Sigh.

Lekker: Sweet Potato Chippies

In my pursuit for ANY excuse to use my lovely new mandolin (I do so love new kitchen toys...oh, classic orange Le Creuset, how I lust after you...) and after a bumper crop of massive sweet potatoes in the back garden over the weekend, sweet potato chips seemed like the logical answer. I was pleased at the fact that there's no oil or fat of any kind involved, so these ACTUALLY ARE healthy and delicious. How's about them apples?

Or, you know, sweet potatoes. Whatever.

You don't need a mandolin to make these of course, you can just focus on slicing them as thinly and evenly as possible. If you do use a mandolin, I used mine on the thinnest setting at 1.5 mm. 

Sweet Potato Chippies
makes enough for 1 person to snack on; scale up as desired

What You Need:
 2 medium sweet potatoes--that's it!

Optional, to make Salt & Vinegar Sweet Potato Chips:
Rice vinegar
Sea salt

Yes, I made these into salt-and-vinegar sweet potato chips. You could just salt them if you like, or do salt and dried rosemary, or play around with cinnamon instead. Feel free to experiment!

What You Do
1. Preheat your oven to 425. Peel and slice up your sweet potatoes. Lay out on a baking sheet lined with foil with no overlap but squeeze as many as you can on there. They'll shrink down in cooking.

2. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until crisp. I had them go to I think 18 minutes, and that was a little long because a few of them turned purple in spots, which later became black--and as I discovered to my misfortune, those spots are really bitter and gross. So! Probably stick closer to 15-16 minutes and check every minute.

3. Remove from the oven, and don't touch them! Let them cool for a few minutes so they can unstick themselves from the foil. If you try to pick them up right away they won't release properly and you'll be sad.

4. Optional step: If you want to flavour them, once they're cool throw them in a paper bag and shake 'em up with whatever seasonings you're interested in. I sprinkled rice vinegar over them and salted to taste, then shook them up until lightly coated and then laid them back on the baking sheets to dry out.

I threw these into a bowl and sat down to watch the Lightning-Devils hockey game (*sob* my Lightning lost, though) whilst snacking...and then suddenly, two giant sweet potatoes had disappeared into my belly. Nom nom those complex carbs, bitches!