This is the first birthday at which I've felt O-L-D. Then I got flowers and ice cream and a new hairdo and my favorite dinner and a bottle of champagne and a TV. Yes, a TV. Moving along.That made me feel a lot better. So back with the alpha meme thing.
bitten.blogs.nytimes.com: In love with this Bittman man on account of his baking powder biscuit recipe, the only one I have ever been able to follow without sliding crackers from my oven at the end of it all. Crackers with strawberries and whipping cream is a little more avant garde than I like my brunches to be. But here's the truth: all meals prepared by me come with a certain element of danger. I forget things, I make sinister substitutions, I measure with a nonchalance that might seem to be French on the surface but is the worst kind of Mixo-Lydian culinary slovenliness imaginable. I regularly confuse cinnamon with ancho powder, a situation not helped in the slightest by the fact that all my spice jars are unlabeled or misleadingly labeled (e.g., the cinnamon is in a jar labelled "CURRY: HOT" and the ancho is in a jar with some green ink smeared around to look a bit like "cardamom").
The gravity of the situation was brought home to me the other day when I greeted Kid at the door after school, wearing an apron and with flour smudged on my cheek.
"Darling, mommy's made muffins!" I piped brightly.
"Uh-oh," says Kid, and tries to get back out the door.
So don't ever accept a recipe from me that you haven't already double-checked with a trusted source.
This one comes from the New York Times. You decide for yourself whether that's a credible place to find a recipe for chicken pot pie without the fuss of the pie part.
(Perfect! A recipe that comes with an ingredient left out on purpose!)
Tomorrow: why Canadian winter was made for people like me.
Here is a foolproof french dip recipe for the meat-eaters you cook for. There are so few ingredients it is hard to forget any.
ReplyDeleteIt works best in a slow cooker, but can be done in a dutch oven at 250 for 4-5 hours or so. Best to start it at lunch time to be done for dinner.
2 pound chuck roast
1 can condensed french onion soup
1 can beef broth
1 bottle of beer (yep.)
Put them together and cook all day until the meat pulls apart easily with a fork. Shred the meat while it is hot or pull it out and let it rest. Then you can slice it when cooled a bit if they prefer sliced.
If you are feeling so inclined, you can saute an onion to add to the sandwiches. Also good are a nice cheese and horseradish spread.
next time: sausage and peppers
Happy belated birthday!
ReplyDeleteI can't bake. I once tried a recipe that missed a vital ingredient of pumpkin for a pumpkin pie until I added everything in the bowl. "Where is the pumpkin? How come it didn't tell you how much pumpkin?" Wasn't even smart enough to notice that before I started.