I discovered that tomorrow is the Michigan vs. Ohio State game. Oops. That means all Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti residents who aren't football freaks will be hostages in our own homes. You can't go anywhere on MvOS day. The highways, streets, stores, and restaurants are clogged all day long. It's good for the local service economy, I suppose, but it's a pain in the neck for the rest of us.

For instance, it meant that I had to go do some grocery shopping tonight. Now. Because it would be impossible on Saturday.

Thanksgiving this year is at my brother's house, and I'm bringing the pies and the piragis (Latvian stuffed rolls). I'm doing all the baking this weekend so it'll be ready to go on Thursday. Headed out to the store to pick up various ingredients and get weekend stuff before the football freaks took over the town.

It turned out a good thing. First, unsalted butter was on huge sale, so I stocked up on that for the holidays. And then I discovered the canned pumpkin shelf was bare.

Uh oh. I remember reading that this year was a bad one for the pumpkin harvest--too much rain--and that pumpkin was in short supply. I asked a clerk, who said an endcap still might have some. I made a beeline for it and found a few cans left, but not many. I snagged what I needed. Whew! If I'd come on Sunday, there'd've been none, I'm sure.

Close call, that.

Today is technically the last day of summer break.  I have two days of meetings at school on Wednesday and Thursday (no students).  Then I have a four-day weekend.  Friday we're off because in Michigan it's illegal for schools to be open the Friday before Labor Day.  This is to promote tourism in a state where it's a multi-billion dollar industry.  And Monday is Labor Day.  Tuesday we have students.  So technically I start school tomorrow, but . . .

Sasha had a dentist appointment early.  One cavity.  Sigh.  He also has a tooth which is showing up late.  Sasha is missing a couple of teeth congenitally, but one is just now coming in.  It's weird.  The dentist is hoping there'll be room for it.

Then I had a doctor's appointment to talk about medications I'm on.  And then I found myself in the kitchen for several hours.

We were out of cookies, the bananas were getting too ripe to eat, and I was cooking supper.  I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies and followed it with banana bread.  Then it was time to make dinner.

I was making quiche for the first time.  We were casting about for meals this week, and it occurred to me that quiche would be something for everyone.  Mackie doesn't like meat.  Aran and Sasha don't like vegetables.  Everyone likes cheese and eggs.  I could make two quiches--one with ham and one with veggies.  I'd never made it before, and discovered that the prep--chopping everything up--took a lot longer than I thought it would.  The boys were all three curious about this weird new dish I was making.  I avoided telling Aran that it was basically egg pie because I didn't think he'd react well.

They came out perfectly fine--it's hard to mess up quiche, really--and all three boys ate it enthusiastically.  Sasha wanted the vegetable one.  (!)  Half an hour after supper, Mackie asked for another piece.  So we'll do this one again.

Oddly tired now.

Today I saw we had some chicken breasts in the fridge, so I decided to try a new recipe.  Here it is:

Southern Fried Chicken
 
Ingredients:

Your favorite dry chicken rub or seasoning
4 pieces boneless chicken breast
1 1/2 cup self-rising flour
3/4 cup hot red pepper sauce
2   eggs

Directions

Heat the oil to 350 degrees F in a deep pot. Do not fill the pot more than 1/2 full with oil.

In a medium size bowl, beat the eggs. Add enough hot sauce so the egg mixture is bright orange (about 3/4 cup). Season the chicken with the rub or seasoning.  Dip the seasoned chicken in the egg, and then coat well in the flour. Place the chicken in the preheated oil and fry the chicken in the oil until brown and crisp.  Approximate cooking time is 10 to 12 minutes.

##

We accompanied it with corn on the cob and apple sauce.  It was so very, very good.  Mackie, who doesn't like meat much, ate every bite, and Aran, who has to be coaxed to eat, cleaned his plate and asked for more.  This one's a keeper, though we almost never deep fry, so we won't make it too often.

An entire turkey breast sat in the fridge, awaiting a meal.  Kala was going to make it yesterday, but I had her hold off because I wanted to try an experiment--brining.  I'd heard of brining turkeys but never done it.

First thing in the morning, I thoroughly washed out a cooler and poured in a gallon and a half of water, a cup of salt, some rosemary, and some oregano.  I washed the turkey breast, submerged it in the brine, and set the whole thing outside, where it would stay cool all day.  After the spring cleaning was done for the day, I patted the turkey dry with paper towels and put it, covered, in the oven for three hours.

It came out enormously tender and juicy.  Extremely good.  We'll do this again.

This morning Aran asked if I would make pancakes.  I asked if he wanted regular or chocolate pancakes.  Silly question.

SUNDAY CHOCOLATE PANCAKES

2 eggs
1 3/4 cups milk
2 cups flour
1 t salt
2 T baking powder
1/4 cup sugar
1 t vanilla
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup cocoa (Dutch process is best)

Beat eggs until fluffy.  Add milk and flour and mix well with a whisk or beater.  Add remaining ingredients and mix well.  Pour onto hot, greased griddle (though the non-stick coating on my electric griddle lets me do this without greasing).  Brown, then flip once.  Best if served with strawberry syrup, but are still really good with regular pancake syrup.  Makes about 14 pancakes.

We have some avocados left over from the last batch of sushi, and I was wondering what to do with them.  I decided to throw everything together and see what happened.  This was the result:

WEIRD STIR FRY
1 lb chicken meat, cubed
1 pepper
1 medium onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
pea pods
and any other stir-fry vegetables you might want
1 ripe avocado
1 T lime juice
A bunch of hoisin sauce

Peel avocado.  Cut in half, remove pit.  Mash.  Mix in lime juice.  Set aside.  Cut up vegetables.  Set aside.  Stir-fry the chicken and garlic together in your favorite cooking oil.  (I used sesame.)  Add enough hoisin sauce to cover meat and the upcoming vegetables.  Add vegetables and stir fry for 30 seconds.  Add avocado mixture.  Stir fry until vegetables are hot through but still crisp.  Serve over rice.

It was really, really good.

After I got back from the radio interview, I put bean soup in the crock pot.  It simmered up deliciously and filled the house with smells of broth and ham.  Later in the day, I made cornbread muffins and Jello with bananas.  While the muffins were baking, I put together a batch of brownies.  Slid the muffins out and the brownies in just as we sat down for dinner.

Everything was so delicious.  The bean soup came out thick and rich.  The cornbread muffins were hot and tender and perfect with honey.  And afterward, we had hot brownies topped with a scoop of ice cream.  Here are the recipes:
( Read more... )

Some distance up the road from us is a park with an apple tree in it.  Every year, it bears an enormous load of red fruit, and no one seems to touch it.  A great shame, really.  Today I took Sasha down there and in about ten minutes we filled two big bags with free apples.  Still left hundreds on the tree, but there are only so many you can handle at once.

Back home, I spent a large part of the morning and afternoon coring and peeling one bagful.  Not with a knife, thanks.  I have a crank-driven apple corer.  You skewer the apple on a spike, turn the handle, and the blades peel, core, and slice the apple in a spiral cut.  Cut them down the center, and you have a set of apple slices.  Takes about ten seconds per apple.

I filled the crock pot with them, added some sugar and cinnamon, and turned it on.  Then I dumped the rest (in batches) into my biggest mixing bowl with other ingredients to make pie filling, mixed it all together, and assembled pies.  (I have to admit that I cheated by using store-bought crust--I would never have finished in one day otherwise.)  I got four pies out the bag and had a bunch of filling left over.

I slid one pie into the oven and put the other three, unbaked, into the freezer, possibly for Thanksgiving.  While the one was baking, I melted some butter in my cast-iron skillet and dropped the rest of the apple mixture into it.  It stewed very nicely--a really good side dish or dessert.

The pie came out perfectly an hour later.  I stirred the applesauce in the crock pot--the apples fell apart nicely--and let them finish cooking before spooning the mass into two large bowl to cool on the counter.  From there, it went into quart-sized freezer bags and the freezer.

And I still have an entire bag left!  I'll probably make it all into applesauce over the next few days.  We eat a lot of it around here.

Today Maksim wanted to help make supper, and I brought him in.  We had a chunk of pork in the crock pot, and it was for pulled pork sandwiches.

Maksim helped me remove the bone (Sam was pleased and spent considerable time with it in the back yard).  Then we pulled the meat apart and put into another pot.  Next, we peeled and chopped onions.  I showed him how to saute them, which he thought was pretty cool.  He tasted a bit of raw onion and didn't like it, then was quite surprised at how the taste changed after sauteeing.  We added them to the pork, then stirred in the barbecue sauce for simmering.

Next we put together a salad.  It was all greens, so I had Maksim get out some carrots and we grated them over the top.  "The carrots taste good," I said, "and see how the orange looks nice on the green?"

"Yes," he said.  "It's pretty."

"Yep.  Food should both taste good and look good.  The carrots make the salad look nicer, so we add them."

We also cut up some musk melon, another light side dish to complement the heavy pork sandwiches.

Aran set the table, and we sat down to eat.  Mackie ate enormous portions of everything!

I'm in charge of cooking dinner now.   This is for the simple reason that Kala doesn't get out of work until 5:30 and is lucky to get home by 6:00.  If she cooks, we won't eat until 6:30 at the earliest.

It makes for a long day for me, as well.  After teaching all day, I have two choices: 1) bolt straight out of there after the final bell, which gives me about twenty minutes of down time at home, and then drive over to AALC to pick up the boys; or 2) finish after-school stuff and drive straight to AALC to pick up the boys.

Once the kids are home, we have a fair amount of supervisory time.  They want varying degrees of attention.  Mackie is picking up Sasha's chatty tendency, and both of them want to talk at me.  Aran waits until they're talked out, and then he starts in.  Aran also needs to be reminded to practice piano.

Then I start supper.  I like cooking, to tell the truth.  I can make what I want, and I can make it the way I want it.  I like being creative in the kitchen.  But it's time consuming, even when you're making something simple.  We'll have to rely more and more on the crock pot on school days and experiment with making meals in advance and freezing them.  It'll make a lot of things easier.

Two evenings a week, karate class is in here, too.  We're still trying to work that out.  Class is 45 minutes long, but between driving there and back and getting ready, it takes about 90 minutes, all told.

I'm glad Kala's working.  It's requiring some adjustment, though.

TUESDAY: We actually had a no behavior problems day from all three boys, the first in weeks.  (!)

Got home to an e-mail from a friend in the RWA.  The local chapter meeting was having a guest speaker in, the publisher of a newish e-publishing company that I've been trying to break into.  If I wanted to go, she could get me in as a guest.  Suddenly my evening was looking extremely busy.

Kala was feeling sick, however, and went to bed when she got home from subbing.  I decided to make potato soup for supper.  We weren't planning to have it until later in the week, but it would be something Kala might be able to eat later.  Did that and supervised the household in general.  Kala was feeling marginally better after supper and I was able to go to the meeting.  The weather was intensely foggy, however, and the drive to Royal Oak was a little nervous.  It took longer, too, and I got there just in time for everything to start up.

Heard the speaker, got some information, but it lasted quite late (for me) and I didn't leave the meeting until 9:45.  I got home an hour later and didn't get to bed until 11:00.  Again, I was too wound up from rushing around all day and evening to sleep.

The life of a full-time teacher, full-time writer, and full-time parent.

Yesterday Sasha announced that he wanted to make something in the kitchen. By this he meant, "create a recipe out of thin air."  Unlike Maksim, he doesn't like cooking with me and he won't follow a recipe in a book.  I was a little uneasy about this idea, but didn't say so in the spirit of encouragement and nurturing.

He wrote down a list of ingredients he wanted to use, at least.  They were:

1 cup flour
1 cup milk
2 spoons butter
3/4 cup corn syrup
1 cup sugar

I looked at the list and suggested that he add half a tablespoon of baking powder.  "Otherwise it'll be all flat," I said.

He mixed all the ingredients in the pitcher I use for pancake batter, then poured it into an oiled cake pan.  He asked what temperature he should bake it at and I suggested 350 degrees.  "Check it at 25 minutes," I said.  "But it has a lot of moisture, and I suspect it'll have to bake for 45 minutes or so."

"I want to put frosting on it," he said.  "And chocolate chips."

We had some leftover frosting in the refrigerator.  I had him get it out to soften and showed him where the chocolate chips are kept.  Then I left for karate practice.

When I got back, the cake was sitting on the counter in the pan.  Sasha had spread frosting on it before it had cooled entirely, so the frosting had melted a bit, and chocolate chips were encased in the mass.  Some was already missing.

"You have to try it, Dad," Sasha said.

So I did.  It was actually quite good.  The texture and taste were both fine.  A successful first outing for Sasha.  :)

A couple days ago, I decided, just for the hell of it, to make The World's Most Complicated Rice Krispie Squares.  I had the ingredients on hand already and I needed a break from writing, you see.

First I made chocolate marshmallows from scratch.  This is easier with my new mixer, but it takes quite a while.  Fun, though.  The recipe is very complicated, with several steps involving sugar that must be boiled, candy thermometers that must be monitored, gelatin that must be solidified and resoftened, cocoa that must be liquified, and more.  The resulting whipped material is supposed to be spread in a pan to dry and solidify, after which you remove it, cut it into squares, and dust it with cocoa and sugar.  I didn't do this.  Instead, I added some butter and a lot of Rice Krispies, stirred it all together, and spread =that= in the pan to dry overnight.

The next afternoon, they were done.  Aran and Sasha like them okay.  Mackie loves them.  I don't care for them at all, but the fun was in the making.

Like I said: The World's Most Complicated Rice Krispie Squares.

The powerful new mixer I got for Christmas has a really good dough hook on it, and I decided to try making bagels.  I looked up a couple of recipes on-line and picked one that seemed to be good.  As you know, Bob, bagels are boiled before they are baked, and this was a new experience for me.  I followed the recipe assiduously.  The dough hook performed beautifully! (Although I like making bread, I hate kneading it, and making large batches of bread dough isn't feasible in my bread maker.)  The bagels boiled up huge, though--deli-sized.  If I could do it again, I'd make them half-sized. They're baking in the oven now.  We'll see how they come out.

Update:

They came out pretty good.  Baking time needed to be longer than the recipe's stated time of 35-40 minutes. The undersides were clearly still damp, so I flipped them over and left them in for an extra ten minutes. Quite tasty with cream cheese bought just for the occasion!  Nom nom nom!

Supper will be late.