No-Pants Cake Icing

Sorry, no recipes to be found here.

Housekeeping instead.

THANK YOU!  I forgot to mention it a few weeks ago when this blog officially hit 1000 views.  It's now about 1300.  Despite being a creative person (or perhaps because of it), I really like concrete results.  1300+ page views says I must be doing something right.  I appreciate every single one of them.  (Page views, readers, every time I check out a set of search terms for myself and realize this blog is fourth from the top on the first page of a search result.)

Based on the last few posts, it may appear that I have suddenly become bitter about a certain distressing interval in my life.  Not really.  It's just that I suddenly feel okay talking about it.  I know that might seem a little extreme, since it's been over a year, but there are probably still people who met me after my break-up who do not yet know that I was ever engaged at all.  Some things are just too painful.  Also, I admit that I sometimes feel a little guilty about posting all these stories about Grandmom, since she hasn't signed an official release or anything, so I try and cast around for stories that exclusively involve me (I officially give myself permission to write about me).  I didn't start this blog with the idea of making it a digital scrapbook, but that is what it turned into. 

And that brings me to my third point: writing is a process.  I know, that sounds like a big steaming pile, as one of my uncles would say.  It's so indirect and non-specific that it suggests that I, or any writer who utters it (all of them) is a jealous miser crouching over his or her hoard of writing knowledge and beating back potential knowledge thiefs with the phrase "it's a process."  I mean, it terms of a concrete answer to how writing is done, you might as well have this conversation:

Curious Person: So, how do you write?
Writer: Magic.  (Just for the record, I'm making ghost hands, aka Jazz Hands up by my face, and followed that up with saying "oooooh!")

But it is.  Witness this blog.  Did not mean for it to be a scrapbook.  It is now a scrapbook.  I like it that way.  While Grandmom does not have any dire health concerns right at the moment, she is my Grandmother, which pretty much states that she is old.  This way, I'll have compiled all my happy memories of her in one place, so that hopefully there will never come a day when all I'll remember is that I've forgotten an awful lot.

To conclude: ADD is not a disease.  Institutionalized childhood immobilization is.  Aka "School".  And we wonder why a third of all American children are obese.  Obese.  That's not counting the ones that are merely overweight.  I don't even know the numbers for the ones that are depressed and anxious.  Yet here I sit.  Well-educated despite it all, unmedicated, happy, totally scatty, and not obese. 

Oh yeah!  I forgot about the No-Pants Cake Icing.  It's a better title than it is a story, but it pretty much sums up Grandmom and me.  There's a picture of me about five years old (and I remember the day) wearing a complete 80's style leotard-and-tights combo icing a cake from my EZ Bake oven.  Taken by Grandmom, of course.  I loved Grandmom and Grandmom loved to cook, so I wanted to learn to cook like Grandmom.  I happened to have my leotard on that day and why change?  And Grandmom took a picture.

Mozzarella Cheese "Burgers"

Yes.  I am writing a blog post about the Holy Grail of vegetarian eating: the ground beef substitute that is satisfactory enough to be called a "burger" and not "flavorless stick patty" or "interesting and tasty concept but wildly divergent from any experience I have ever had of beef".  Of the two, I clearly prefer the latter, and have had some good vegetarian patties, both from small independent restaurants and from chains.  Black beans appear to make a pretty dang good pattie for a burger, especially if they are seasoned well.  However, in this case the alternative I am about to present to you will probably disappoint.  I have not concocted any new spin on the bean pattie.  I have not discovered some exotic plant compound that is exactly like ground beef yet contains no meat.  What I actually discovered: mozzarella cheese makes a darn good burger.  Call it a "burger" if it offends you to refer to what is basically a cheese sandwich as a true burger. 

How did this happen?

I had the fixings for a burger, having had a serious meat craving after a particularly strenuous exercise class and subsequently went on a spontaneous grocery store run still in sweaty work-out clothes to purchase the necessaries for satisfying this craving.  (FYI if you haven't eaten more than one or two helpings of meat a week for over six months, it's not a good idea to buy a pound package of ground turkey with the intention of destroying it in hamburger form.  It will not go well for you!  But I was way less sore than I have been after similar classes, so I may continue the tradition of protein-loading after the fact.)  Returning to the subject, all the aforementioned meat was gone, while I still had a ton of hamburger buns and toppings.  Enter the mozzarella cheese.  It was tasty!  And, more to the point, it tasted a lot like a real, actual burger.  Maybe because of the secret fact that we all take for granted if we grow up eating meat: meat, in itself, does not have a lot of flavor.  Don't get me wrong: it does have a flavor.  It's just not usually a strong flavor (unless we're talking about goat or lamb).  Mozzarella is a mild but toothsome cheese, especially when it is partially melted.  It does not overwhelm the burger fixings, while still contributing something to the whole.  And texture-wise, it does not lay down and become flaccid like most cheeses will when melted.  It fights back.  It has a bite!  Yes.  Like carrots in Bolognese sauce, it's actually a true and, if I may say so myself, a pretty good meat substitute.  With that, I give you:

Mozzarella Cheese "Burgers"
Per burger:
1 bun
a couple of slices of tomato
1-2 lettuce leaves
some onion (if that's your thing)
and...about 4 ounces of mozzarella cheese, cut into long strips.
(All of the things you love on your favorite burger would also be fine: portabella mushrooms, onion rings, BBQ sauce, avocado, whatever it is you like.  I just had the first four things.)

I don't know about the mechanics of grilling one of these.  Here are the stove-top directions: get all your fixings ready (ie tomato, lettuce, etc.).  Heat a small skillet over medium heat with just a dab of oil-- enough to brown the bun halves in.  Once the oil is hot enough, put the bun halves in face down.  While they're doing that, put your cheese slices on a plate and put them in the microwave.  (This is crucial.)  Microwave them for 10-15 seconds, or until they are just turning soft.  That way, when you put them on the bun in the pan, they will finish getting melty but will not turn into actual gooiness.  (Or, like mine did, get gooey in the microwave and require me to actually scrape my cheese off the plate and sculpt it onto the bun, with serious hang-over all around.)  Flip your bun halves over to face up.  Put the mozzarella slices on one half.  Put the fixings on top.  Put the top half of the bun on.  Grill the whole thing in the pan for another minute or so, until the cheese gets melty.  Enjoy.

How to Keep Salad Fresh / Once Upon a Time

Ok, this isn't really a recipe, but it is one of my favorite discoveries of recent times.  And it has to do with me not liking salad all that much.  Salad is, as we all probably know, a "healthy" food.  Unless you live somewhere with less-than-sanitary growing conditions.  Then it is a green, leafy deathtrap.  However, I like my food cooked.  Well cooked.  Not to say overcooked.  Just not raw.  Or even close to raw.  This also applies to the meat products that I ever more-infrequently eat.  Beef Tartar: three words: musky slimy sickly-sweet.  FYI I also don't care for sushi.  Maybe I would like it in Japan.  I've been told western sushi is like the pale, facebooking half-cousin of the footballer real sushi.  With that in mind, I also freely admit to a passion for deep-fried sushi.  Yum.  Throw in some cream cheese and spicy mayo sauce and I am in xenophobic sushi heaven.  Anyway, despite the fact that I do not, on the balance, prefer salad, I occasionally have some in the house because I know it's a filling and nutritious way to get some vitamins and fiber in my diet and, honestly, the grocery store sells salad greens in pesky whole heads.  However, remember that I was brought up in part by Grandmom.  So I can't abide eating one or two bowls of it over the course of almost a month and watching the rest of it turn into mush in my refrigerator.  What, oh what, is a girl to do?  Nothing, at least, nothing intentionally.  (Intentionally, I have been known to neglect things I don't want to eat in the refrigerator until they spoil because then I have to throw them away.)  I will now pass on to you my accidentally-discovered miracle way of keeping salad fresh in the refrigerator for almost a month.

Forever Fresh Salad Greens
You will need:
1 glass bowl (I don't know if this is a factor, but it's what I always use so I'm just throwing it out there in case it's actually a critical element)
1 large square of cheesecloth.

That's it.  Wash your greens really well in the sink.  By "really well," I mean tear all the leaves off the core of your lettuce, then putting them in the sink and filling it up partway with water, then dabbling them around like you're washing lacy fragile underwear.  For the men out there, wash it like you're washing your balls.  There.  I said it.  Basically what this means is swooshing the water around in the sink but not really handling the lettuce much, per se, although you do want to turn each leaf fully over at least once.  If necessary (if there's a some stubborn earth, for example), you may need to pick up an individual leaf partly out of the water, sort of rub the dirt off, and then splash the leaf around until the remainder of the dirt comes off.

Once your greens are all washed, chop or tear the leaves into bite-sized pieces.  Why all the fuss about swooshing the lettuce when you're only going to tear it?  Because each tear is inevitable, but also relatively clean and neat.  If you create bruising in the body of the leaves, it will allow slime-making bacteria points of entrance, thus making your lettuce go bad faster.  Line your glass bowl with the cheesecloth, making sure there is ample cheesecloth hanging over the sides (there's a purpose for this).  Put your pieces of lettuce in the bowl.  (I usually tear them right out of the sink and put them directly in the bowl.)  The cheesecloth will absorb any excess water.  And here is where I think the magic happens.  Once you put all of your lettuce in the bowl, fold the excess cheesecloth over the top, covering all of the lettuce.  And put your bowl in the fridge.  It's my impression that the cheesecloth continuously wicks away moisture from your greens, thus preventing a large amount of bacterial growth and spoilage.  Whatever it is, your lettuce will remain crisp, unbrowned, unslimed, and tasty for far longer than you would have thought possible.  I haven't timed it, but I know regularly prepared lettuce lasts tastily about a week, maybe a week and a half for me, but if I do it this way it's about twice as long.
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I am about to share one of my favorite family stories.  However, it does not involve Grandmom.  (Sorry Grandmom!)  It's from the other side of the family, and does not even concern family members, but close friends of the family.

Once upon a time, there was World War Two.  There was also a young couple in love.  The man enlisted as an officer, and went off to training before being deployed.  On one of his leaves, the young couple married.  Then, the officer was deployed.  The wife was destraught.  She missed her beloved husband, and she knew that wherever he was, he was getting shot at and maybe even killed.  She couldn't stand it.  She couldn't stand the tension between getting to see him on leaves and not knowing if it was the last time she ever did.

So she enlisted in the Women's Air Service Program.  Yes, she became a WASP.  Her reasoning was that she couldn't keep her husband getting killed, but she could fight Hitler too, and if her husband did get killed, she could take it out of Hitler one pound of flesh at a time.  So she learned to fly a plane, and became one of the many women pilots who shipped supplies and equipment from factories to the places where they would be picked up and transported to the point of battle.

So now it was the two of them who had to coordinate leave schedules to meet.  The Missus, being a pilot, had the luxury of being able to occasionally borrow planes and fly home.  And here comes my favorite part:

On one such meeting, her husband arrived earlier than she did in their hometown.  (By automobile.)  He waited for her in the field that that she was supposed to land in.  He saw her plane approaching, and then, the unthinkable happened: something went wrong with the plane.  It began a long and desperate descent, ending in a spectacular crash in the middle of the field.  He was horrified.  It was any devoted husband's worst nightmare.  He ran over to the plane.  The Missus emerged, mostly unscathed.  Of course, he asked the question most people would ask first: "Are you alright?"  And she answered: "Yes, but that sonofabitch isn't ever going to fly again."

Why is that my favorite part?  It exemplifies, I think, one of the most useful skills anyone can learn in life: how to go down in flames.  (I don't know if there were literal flames in this case.)  Did she panic?  Did she freeze?  Did she go into some form of suicidal denial?  No.  She crashed that sonofabitch in the middle of the field, climbed out of the wreckage, and went on a date with her husband.  Going down in flames is something that few of us, if anyone, can prevent occuring in our lives.  But being able to handle it not gracefully (explain to me how grace is going to assist in landing a damaged aircraft) but effectively is what makes the difference between being a statistic and being a survivor, and the difference between being a survivor and being someone who had something bad happen to them one time, but went on to experience things that defined them far more.
 

Savory Gravy for Cornbread / Family Photos

I created this recipe as a way to use up a can of diced stewed tomatoes, and because I've been wanting to try both of the things this sauce evokes: Red-Eye Gravy and Tomato Gravy.  For those who don't know, Tomato Gravy is a rich sauce that traditionally has fresh tomatoes and cream in it, as well as various seasonings, onions, and occasionally bell peppers, that's meant to be served on top of grits, rice, biscuits, or cornbread.  (Sometimes it comes with shrimp in it too.  Delicious.)  Red-Eye Gravy is a thinner, meat fat-based sauce that is served atop biscuits or cornbread, more as a condiment, shall we say.  It's called "Red-Eye" Gravy because the roux is thinned with coffee instead of milk or broth.  So which is my recipe?  Both, neither, and definitely its own thing.  I don't thing either Red-Eye or Tomato Gravy has ham in it.  But I had ham, and ham imparts a tasty flavor, so ham went in it!

Savory Gravy for Cornbread

1 can diced tomatoes
1-2 TB flour
less than 1/4 C. chopped ham-- say 1-2 TB?
cooking oil
1/2 to 1 whole onion, chopped (this depends on your appreciation of onions)
1/4 tsp or so instant coffee granules (or 1-2 TB. of strong brewed coffee would probably work, too)
1 TB. Korean BBQ sauce.  (In my opinion store-bought Korean BBQ sauce cannot be beat for imbibing a certain meaty je ne sais quoi.)

Heat the oil in the bottom of a small saucepan.  When it's hot enough, add in the onions and saute them until they're reasonably soft.  (They'll have more time in the pan, so it's not essential that they're limp.)  Add in the ham and let it sizzle around for a hot minute, then add in the canned tomatoes, juice and all.  Let that simmer at medium to medium-high (depending on your stove-- in other words, super-bubbly but not erupting tomato juice all over your stove top-- which mine totally did) for about 5-8 minutes.  Add in the Korean BBQ sauce and the coffee granules/brewed coffee, stirring so that they're well mixed.  Add in the flour, stirring rapidly to avoid lumps, 2 tsp. at a time until the sauce is the thickness you like it.  Turn the stove down to the low setting and let it simmer and bubble for another 5-10 minutes or so.  Serve in generous helpings over some fresh cornbread.
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I thought I'd pull out the photo album Grandmom put together for me to see if I could find some inspiration there.  I did!  Sort of. 

The first few pages are pictures from my parents' (failed) wedding.  By that I mean that the wedding was successful but the marriage was not.  Interestingly enough, Grandpop looks like he doesn't know what the hell is going on.  Also I note that Grandmom has, with the delicacy of a true archivist, hole-punched straight through the 8x11 deluxe photos to put them in the album.  Go Grandmom.  She has always liked my mom, and I'm sure she likes my dad, (her son), but it gives me a sort of glee to see hole punches through pictures of them looking...well, not to put too fine a point on it...smug.  Or, in my dad's case, like he doesn't know what the hell is going on.  Maybe it's genetic? 

Heading forward a couple of years or so, there's pictures of "(me) 5 days old".  Grandpop definitely looks like he knows what the hell is going on.  He is holding a tiny baby.  He appears to like it.  I appear to like it too, even when the picture shows only a large masculine finger pointing directly at the side of my face (I'm smiling). 

2 months later, my new talent appears to be looking accusingly into the camera. 

A couple of months later and Grandpop has beaten "Meet the Parents" by decades, trying to give a very confused-looking me a bottle while nestling me close to his hairy chest.

Through it all, Grandmom and Grandpop keep appearing, having taken expensive trips several hundred miles away from where they live, all to come see me.  (I was the only grandchild for a long time.  I had some serious cousin envy when my Uncle Ron finally settled down!) 

My cousins and I all learned to like each other eventually, and somewhere there are pictures of us all playing dress-up together.  And, in one memorable instance, me manhandling one of them because of a theatre-related mishap.  What can I say?  I SPENT ALL AFTERNOON WRITING THAT PLAY ABOUT PRINCESSES.  THEY COULD AT LEAST BOTHER TO LEARN THE LINES.  Personally, I would be happy if that picture were never seen by human eyes again.  I wouldn't even mention the incident except that it was so memorable that my cousins also remember the actual event, and continue to tease me about it.  They definitely come from the more laid-back side of the family.  Other, fonder, memories also came from that family trip, just to set the record straight.