RecipeMuncher

The past two days have been blazing hot.  80s and 90s.  Humid.  Hot.  Ugh.

I'm not a heat-loving chick, in case you didn't know.  I can deal with it, mostly, but too much and I wilt.

I was okay these past two days because of several things.  For one thing, according to the weather forecasts, there was an end in sight.  So I just had to hold on.  I figured I could get a LOT of laundry done in such hot weather, and you know, cranking out laundry (and drying it outside on the line) is my raison d'etre.  Of course it is.

So there was that.

Another reason?  Quite simply, the sunny, non-rainy last several days allowed the gorgeous peonies to continue blooming without being smashed and crushed by the heavy rain that's destroyed them all too soon over the past couple of years.  It's just been that way, it seems - they start blooming up a storm and then, when they're at their height of glory, a downpour pelts the fluffy, fragile blossoms and leaves droopy, damaged petals all over the driveway.  One year I knew a storm was coming and that they'd all be ruined, so I just cut them all and brought them inside.  Somewhere in this blog is a picture I took of Julia on our front steps, her arms overflowing with huge peony blossoms.  Do I get this nutty over any other flowers?  Um, no, though the irises are pretty close. 

What else.

Well, another reason I was able to survive these two days has been because I finally, FINALLY, went out and bought some new footwear.  Really.  I needed new sneakers.  Not just because my old ones, two pair of them, were falling apart.  Also because those old ones, well, they were too small.  Had probably been too small when I bought them, but I have my weird little stubborn quirks, and footwear seems to be one of them. 

For years, I had the smallest feet among the women in my family.  (Which makes it sound like there's a whopping big clan of big-footed women stomping around my family tree, but no, I'm just comparing my feet to my mother's and my sister's.  And their feet aren't gunboats, either.  But I'm the shortest, and I have the smallest feet. 

Now, when my sister had her two kids, her feet went up in size a bit with each pregnancy.  My mother said hers did, too.  So, naturally it should follow that I finally got around to having my kids, my feet would get bigger, too.  And I'm not just talking about the Fred Flinstone swollen feet I had toward the ends of each pregnancy.  I'm talking permanent enlargement due to a big giant heavy pregnant belly. 

And guess what.  After I had my kids?  I could still fit in my old shoes JUST FINE, thank you.  I could!  Yay!  My feet broke the pattern!  They went back to their pre-pregnancy size!

Well, I'm just a modern medical miracle, you might think.  And you'd be wrong.  I'm just a person who doesn't buy a lot of shoes…and so the shoes I'd had, I'd had for a while and they were, well, comfortable.  As in, stretched out.  How do I know this?  Because I ordered another pair of my absolute FAVORITE shoes, only in a different color…and they didn't fit.  Too tight.  Hmm.  Maybe the other ones had been too tight, too, and I just didn't remember it.

(Actually, when I first got those other shoes, they fit perfectly.  Like gloves.  I loved them.)

So…that was a bit of a clue, wasn't it?  A clue I chose to ignore completely.  Because, well, I didn't like what that clue was trying to tell me.

I have a history of ignoring these clues.  When I was little, don't remember how old, my mother took me to get new shoes, probably at the beginning of the school year.  And I tried on these red shoes.  I really, really liked these red shoes.  But they were a bit tight.  And I don't know what I was thinking at the time (probably "I want these shoes"), but instead of saying they were tight and, perhaps, getting the next size up, I said they fit great.  "Are you sure?"  Oh yes, I was sure.  I probably thought that if they didn't fit, then I just couldn't get them at all.  And I wanted those shoes.  Very much.  So my mom bought them.  And I didn't wear them.  Not more than once, maybe.  Because, you know, THEY WERE TOO TIGHT.

So see? 

But, delving backward a bit more (isn't this so fascinating?  "Jayne, when are you making cheese again, because we'd really rather you talk about that than about your stupid feet.") in my podiatric (is that a word?) history…when I was a kid, my feet didn't fit in regular girls' sneakers.  Now, back then there weren't 8 billion sneakers to choose from, either.  Basically, there were boys' sneakers and girls' sneakers.  I had to wear boys' sneakers.  Which was actually pretty cool.  They were Keds.  Canvas sneakers with that wide chunk of white rubber that covered the toe.  I think back then Keds were supposed to make you run faster and jump higher.  I know mine did. 

Anyway, maybe it was because I knew I had "boy feet" and couldn't fit in "girl" sneakers that I assumed those red shoes were going to be a tight fit, and if I didn't just DEAL with the pain, I'd never have pretty shoes.  I'd be wearing boy sneakers the rest of my life.

So there's that.

Oh, and actually, I had high arches, not wide feet.  Same effect - they needed a lot more space to fit in the shoes.  High arches sounds so much better, though, doesn't it?

So, here we are again today.  Or, rather, a couple of days ago.  I was going shoe shopping.  Now, I haven't bought anything new for me for a long time.  But I'm trying to get back into some sort of exercise regimen (I know, I've said THAT before, but really, this time, I mean it.  No, really, I do.), and I needed - not just wanted, but needed - new sneakers.  Sneakers (or "running shoes," as all the cool people say), that actually fit me comfortably.  Sneakers, or running shoes, that I'd wear.  And walk in, and maybe even run in. 

And in order to get the required footwear, I'd need to make a rather big mental adjustment. 

I needed to admit that I was powerless over the size of my feet.

Hi.  My name is Jayne, and…my feet are a size 8. 

There, I said it. 

Do you know how painful that was?  I used to be a size 7!  7 1/2 at the most.  Even a 6 1/2, depending on the shoe!  And now?  Now all that was but a memory.

I had some practice in this over the winter.  I needed new boots.  And I had to get over the size issue in order to get them.  And I did.  But somehow it didn't matter so much with the boots.  Well, it did, but I got over it fast.  Winter boots are big anyway, so it didn't matter that they were a size 8 instead of a 7 or 7 1/2.  Winter boots, like winter coats, are supposed to look big, because they're supposed to keep you warm, and big and bulky = warmth.

Sneakers, or running shoes, however, were a different story.

But on Tuesday I squared my shoulders, put on my less smelly pair of falling-apart sneakers, and headed to the store.

Once I'd resigned myself to my shoe size, it got easier.  I just had to pick out the boxes that had that new magic number on them and TOTALLY IGNORE my former size. 

Julia was with me, and that helped.  Really.  No matter what I tried on, she was enthusiastic. 

"Mom!  Those ones are BEAUTIFUL!  Are you going to get them?"  Over and over.  She was my little cheerleader.

I tried on a pair of Nike Free running shoes, and I really wanted them to fit because I'd heard (mainly from my sister) a lot of good things about them.  And they're so lightweight!  But no.  They were too tight at an 8 and when I went up a half size, they were too long.  Not my shoe.

I tried on several other pairs…different brands…I had one set aside that felt…well…fine, and I was kind of leaning toward them, but I kept looking…and just for kickes I tried on this pair of Asics that looked pretty cool and were on sale, so why not…

And I actually said "Aaaah!" when I put the first one on my foot. 

It was my Cinderella moment.  My glass slipper.  Really.  It felt like someone had made a mold of my foot, and then built a sneaker (running shoe) around it.

I wiped the grateful tear from my eye and laced up the other one.  More "Aaaah!"  I think I heard angels singing, somewhere up above the shelves.

I walked - no, I floated - back and forth a bit, flexing my feet, bending my knees and rolling forward on my toes (which sounds silly, but in these shoes?  Ballet!), just making sure they felt good completely.

"Mom!  Those are beautiful!  Are you gonna get them?"

Why, yes, Julia, yes I am!

And I skipped all the way to the register, my Asics glass slippers in a box under my arm.

Okay, no, I didn't skip.

But I was very, very light of heart.

And later that morning, after we got home, I was rather annoyed with the pair of shorts I was wearing.  I'm really set in my ways (not you, Jayne!) and it's taking me a while to get used to the whole "below the waist" fit of a lot of the styles of pants and jeans and shorts.  But I'm trying.  I don't want to be accused of wearing "mom-jeans" - even if I AM a mom and have every right to dress the part.

Anyway, so these annoying shorts, they just seemed to be riding TOO low.  It was really bugging me.

And then I suddenly saw this annoyance through a different prism.

Maybe they weren't fitting right…because (dare I say it?) they were too big.

Too big?  How can that be?  I need to lose weight! 

But…what if???

I pulled open a drawer in my bureau.  In it, under all the stretchy exercise stuff, were a couple of pairs of shorts that I bought last summer without trying them on.  And guess what.  They were too small for me last summer.  And I was too mad at myself and embarrassed to bring them back.  So I kept them.  You know, hoping that I'd fit in them.

And so I grabbed the first pair.  And I put them on.  And…I zipped them up.  And I buttoned the button. 

And.

They.

Fit.

I think it's because of the new sneakers.

I made bread today.  It just came out of the oven about twenty minutes ago.  Made one large braided loaf and two smaller roundish loaves.  Nothing fancy, just…bread. 

Alex smelled it baking and came upstairs, nose first, wondering when he could have a slice - "still warm, so the butter melts."  I promised him a slice soon and went back to leaning on my kitchen work table and staring at the blogs on my Google reader, sort of catching up.

My day started out fine, but then, somewhere in the middle of the morning, I started getting stuffed up and sneezy.  I thought it was dust and dry air, but it stayed with me through the afternoon and just wouldn't go away.  I started prepping for dinner, picked up the kids at school, made some coffee because I was feeling tired, and so on…and by the time dinner was served a little after five I knew I was coming down with something.  My throat is scratchy, on the way to sore.  My head has that foggy, murky, stuffed-with-cement feeling, and my temper was WAY shorter than usual.  Yuck. 

But, I took some Tylenol, made some tea, and I'll go to bed at a reasonable hour and see how I feel tomorrow.  Fortunately for me, I made chicken pot pie for dinner, which is SORT OF like chicken soup, only better, in my opinion.  It was yummy, although Alex didn't like all that puff pastry crust - the part that sunk into the liquid - or the bits of onion.  Oh well, can't please everyone all the time. 

He is, however, happy about this bread.  In fact, just before I started typing, he told me that it was the best bread EVER.  Not just the best bread I'd ever baked, but in the whole entire history of the bread-baking world, it's the best.  Ever.  And then Julia made a trophy out of Legos and gave it to me.  They're pretty damn sweet kids when they want to be.

~~~

Speaking of not pleaseing everyone all the time, last night was one of my biggest failures as a cook.  I'll blame it on day-before-coming-down-with-a-cold interference, or something.  Or temporary insanity.  Or laziness.  Or stupidity.  In fact, I named the whole mess "Idiot Pie."  I know, I should have taken pictures.  Sorry, you'll just have to use your imagination.

Let me set the stage first.  For some reason, I always have thought that Bill didn't like Shepherd's Pie.  So I never made it.  Simple as that.  It wasn't anything we had on any regular basis when I was a kid (at least not that I remember), and we cook plenty of other good things around here, so I didn't miss it or long for it all these years.

Anyway, somehow, at some point over the past several days, the subject of Shepherd's Pie came up and I learned that Bill did not, in fact, dislike Shepherd's Pie at all.  And that, if I made it, he would be very happy to eat it.

Well, then!

But you know what?  I don't think I've ever made it.  Weird, huh?

Anyway, I thought it would be a good way to use up some of the leftover vegetables from my Dad's birthday dinner.  (I don't know if I'd mentioned this at all, but my mom had offered to bring something since I was making the main dish and the dessert, so we agreed that she'd bring a vegetable, probably a green one.  She ended up bringing pretty much every vegetable in the grocery store, all cooked and still warm in a large cooler (or, in this case, warmer).  Needless to say, we still have 25 tons of vegetables still in the fridge.  She just laughed when I suggested she take some home along with the few remaining pasties and a bit of dessert.  She laughed.  Cackled, really.  And snickered.  And pointed.

So we've got all these vegetables to use up.

I figured some of them would go nicely in the Shepherd's Pie.  So now, about the meat.  Well, here's where tradition and I tragically parted ways.  Again, I don't know what I was thinking.  But here goes.  I had a few packages of stew beef in the freezer.  I'd used one for the Cornish pasties, and froze the others for some other day.  I'd taken one out to thaw…and I decided to use it for the Shepherd's Pie. 

I don't know why.

Anyway, I figured I should at least LOOK at a recipe.  I knew it would involve mashed potatoes, and that was no problem.  I had potatoes, I could make mashed potatoes easily.  All set.

I found a nice little recipe and basically proceeded to ruin it.  I think I sauteed some onions…browned my stew beef (which I'd cut into smaller pieces…which…in case you're wondering, are NOT the same as ground meat.  And, also, lamb is the traditional meat in Shepherd's pie - yeah, Shepherd…watching the Sheep…who give birth to Lambs…who get attacked by wolves…who then put the lamb meat through a meat grinder, dig up some potatoes, and make themselves a lovely pie, laughing at the Shepherd who was looking the other way when the hit went down.)  What was I talking about?  Oh, yes, chopped up stew beef.

Now, I keep saying "stew beef" instead of just plain ol' "beef" because stew beef is the sort of beef that does best in low temperature, slow cooking methods.  Like…well…stew.  It is not meant to be cooked quickly like a steak.  If you cook it fast, it gets tough.  If you cook it slowly, it relaxes and falls apart.  Turns out it's not really meant to be used as a substitute for ground lamb in a Shepherd's Pie, SURPRISE, SURPRISE!

So anyway, I softened my onions, quickly browned the beef, poured in some lovely beef stock we'd made a couple of weeks ago (okay, Bill made it, and he said, after this meal, that I now have to ask permission before I use any more of it.), and noticed that it really wasn't a whole LOT of food in that large Le Creuset dutch oven I'd been planning to make this whole thing in.

Hm.

Okay, I've got a smaller vessel…I have a souffle pan thingy that would work.  All set. 

I made the mashed potatoes while my meat and onions were hanging out in the larger pot, and damn it all to hell, I put too much milk in.  So I had slightly wet mashed potatoes.  Okay, not slightly.  Just plain wet.  I kept the flame going under them in a feeble attempt to cook off some of the moisture.  It wasn't working.

So I added some ricotta cheese.  Because that's the logical thing to do, isn't it?  Yeah, that's what I thought.

Anyway, I ladled my beef mixture into the souffle pan.  It came to within 3/8 of an inch or so of the rim.  Yikes.  Next, I carefully spooned my mashed potato slush on top.  There was just enough to sort of cover the whole mess, not counting all the little places where it leaked through.  I put the souffle pan on a baking sheet and was JUST about to put it in the oven when Bill came into the room and asked "Did you put the vegetables in?"

THE VEGETABLES!  OH NO!  I RUINED IT!

And meanwhile, Julia was running around wanting attention about something, and Bill had some sort of look on his face that I interpreted as "I can't believe I married this loser chick who doesn't know that Shepherd's Pie is made with ground lamb" but which was probably just simple horror.  Naturally I snapped and, waving my arms wildly and babbling incoherently, I evicted them from the kitchen.  "Me, too?"  Bill asked.  "YES!"  I shrieked.  "I KEEP GETTING DISTRACTED!" So Bill and Julia went downstairs where Alex was watching something about dinosaurs and I angrily scooped potato slush off the top of the toughened-meat casserole.  I yanked a bowl out of the fridge, and was about to dump the vegetables in with the meat, but realized it would probably overflow.  So I dumped all that back into the dutch oven.  But.  The surface area was now TOO BIG.  So I hastily cooked up more potatoes (good god, will this never end?  NO!)  and sort of…incorporated them into the mashed potatoes (they weren't soft enough to mash, not quite, but I figured they could finish cooking in the oven), and spread that mess on top of the beef and vegetables.  Then, in a last, pathetic attempt to make it all TASTY, I grated some parmesan cheese on top.  Sad, isn't it?

I baked it in the oven for who knows how long, took it out, dished it up, and waited for the complements to start pouring in.  Bill said "…………….I like the mashed potatoes and the broth part………."  Alex asked "Did you follow a recipe?"  and I said "Sort of,"  and Julia thought about that a moment and said " 'Sort of' means no."

And that was that, really. 

But.

It is not over.

I will make Shepherd's Pie.  And I will make a damn good one.  Just wait and see.

And when I do, both my kids AND Bill will FALL OVER THEMSELVES to build Lego trophies in my honor.

So there.

I made bread today.  It just came out of the oven about twenty minutes ago.  Made one large braided loaf and two smaller roundish loaves.  Nothing fancy, just…bread. 

Alex smelled it baking and came upstairs, nose first, wondering when he could have a slice - "still warm, so the butter melts."  I promised him a slice soon and went back to leaning on my kitchen work table and staring at the blogs on my Google reader, sort of catching up.

My day started out fine, but then, somewhere in the middle of the morning, I started getting stuffed up and sneezy.  I thought it was dust and dry air, but it stayed with me through the afternoon and just wouldn't go away.  I started prepping for dinner, picked up the kids at school, made some coffee because I was feeling tired, and so on…and by the time dinner was served a little after five I knew I was coming down with something.  My throat is scratchy, on the way to sore.  My head has that foggy, murky, stuffed-with-cement feeling, and my temper was WAY shorter than usual.  Yuck. 

But, I took some Tylenol, made some tea, and I'll go to bed at a reasonable hour and see how I feel tomorrow.  Fortunately for me, I made chicken pot pie for dinner, which is SORT OF like chicken soup, only better, in my opinion.  It was yummy, although Alex didn't like all that puff pastry crust - the part that sunk into the liquid - or the bits of onion.  Oh well, can't please everyone all the time. 

He is, however, happy about this bread.  In fact, just before I started typing, he told me that it was the best bread EVER.  Not just the best bread I'd ever baked, but in the whole entire history of the bread-baking world, it's the best.  Ever.  And then Julia made a trophy out of Legos and gave it to me.  They're pretty damn sweet kids when they want to be.

~~~

Speaking of not pleaseing everyone all the time, last night was one of my biggest failures as a cook.  I'll blame it on day-before-coming-down-with-a-cold interference, or something.  Or temporary insanity.  Or laziness.  Or stupidity.  In fact, I named the whole mess "Idiot Pie."  I know, I should have taken pictures.  Sorry, you'll just have to use your imagination.

Let me set the stage first.  For some reason, I always have thought that Bill didn't like Shepherd's Pie.  So I never made it.  Simple as that.  It wasn't anything we had on any regular basis when I was a kid (at least not that I remember), and we cook plenty of other good things around here, so I didn't miss it or long for it all these years.

Anyway, somehow, at some point over the past several days, the subject of Shepherd's Pie came up and I learned that Bill did not, in fact, dislike Shepherd's Pie at all.  And that, if I made it, he would be very happy to eat it.

Well, then!

But you know what?  I don't think I've ever made it.  Weird, huh?

Anyway, I thought it would be a good way to use up some of the leftover vegetables from my Dad's birthday dinner.  (I don't know if I'd mentioned this at all, but my mom had offered to bring something since I was making the main dish and the dessert, so we agreed that she'd bring a vegetable, probably a green one.  She ended up bringing pretty much every vegetable in the grocery store, all cooked and still warm in a large cooler (or, in this case, warmer).  Needless to say, we still have 25 tons of vegetables still in the fridge.  She just laughed when I suggested she take some home along with the few remaining pasties and a bit of dessert.  She laughed.  Cackled, really.  And snickered.  And pointed.

So we've got all these vegetables to use up.

I figured some of them would go nicely in the Shepherd's Pie.  So now, about the meat.  Well, here's where tradition and I tragically parted ways.  Again, I don't know what I was thinking.  But here goes.  I had a few packages of stew beef in the freezer.  I'd used one for the Cornish pasties, and froze the others for some other day.  I'd taken one out to thaw…and I decided to use it for the Shepherd's Pie. 

I don't know why.

Anyway, I figured I should at least LOOK at a recipe.  I knew it would involve mashed potatoes, and that was no problem.  I had potatoes, I could make mashed potatoes easily.  All set.

I found a nice little recipe and basically proceeded to ruin it.  I think I sauteed some onions…browned my stew beef (which I'd cut into smaller pieces…which…in case you're wondering, are NOT the same as ground meat.  And, also, lamb is the traditional meat in Shepherd's pie - yeah, Shepherd…watching the Sheep…who give birth to Lambs…who get attacked by wolves…who then put the lamb meat through a meat grinder, dig up some potatoes, and make themselves a lovely pie, laughing at the Shepherd who was looking the other way when the hit went down.)  What was I talking about?  Oh, yes, chopped up stew beef.

Now, I keep saying "stew beef" instead of just plain ol' "beef" because stew beef is the sort of beef that does best in low temperature, slow cooking methods.  Like…well…stew.  It is not meant to be cooked quickly like a steak.  If you cook it fast, it gets tough.  If you cook it slowly, it relaxes and falls apart.  Turns out it's not really meant to be used as a substitute for ground lamb in a Shepherd's Pie, SURPRISE, SURPRISE!

So anyway, I softened my onions, quickly browned the beef, poured in some lovely beef stock we'd made a couple of weeks ago (okay, Bill made it, and he said, after this meal, that I now have to ask permission before I use any more of it.), and noticed that it really wasn't a whole LOT of food in that large Le Creuset dutch oven I'd been planning to make this whole thing in.

Hm.

Okay, I've got a smaller vessel…I have a souffle pan thingy that would work.  All set. 

I made the mashed potatoes while my meat and onions were hanging out in the larger pot, and damn it all to hell, I put too much milk in.  So I had slightly wet mashed potatoes.  Okay, not slightly.  Just plain wet.  I kept the flame going under them in a feeble attempt to cook off some of the moisture.  It wasn't working.

So I added some ricotta cheese.  Because that's the logical thing to do, isn't it?  Yeah, that's what I thought.

Anyway, I ladled my beef mixture into the souffle pan.  It came to within 3/8 of an inch or so of the rim.  Yikes.  Next, I carefully spooned my mashed potato slush on top.  There was just enough to sort of cover the whole mess, not counting all the little places where it leaked through.  I put the souffle pan on a baking sheet and was JUST about to put it in the oven when Bill came into the room and asked "Did you put the vegetables in?"

THE VEGETABLES!  OH NO!  I RUINED IT!

And meanwhile, Julia was running around wanting attention about something, and Bill had some sort of look on his face that I interpreted as "I can't believe I married this loser chick who doesn't know that Shepherd's Pie is made with ground lamb" but which was probably just simple horror.  Naturally I snapped and, waving my arms wildly and babbling incoherently, I evicted them from the kitchen.  "Me, too?"  Bill asked.  "YES!"  I shrieked.  "I KEEP GETTING DISTRACTED!" So Bill and Julia went downstairs where Alex was watching something about dinosaurs and I angrily scooped potato slush off the top of the toughened-meat casserole.  I yanked a bowl out of the fridge, and was about to dump the vegetables in with the meat, but realized it would probably overflow.  So I dumped all that back into the dutch oven.  But.  The surface area was now TOO BIG.  So I hastily cooked up more potatoes (good god, will this never end?  NO!)  and sort of…incorporated them into the mashed potatoes (they weren't soft enough to mash, not quite, but I figured they could finish cooking in the oven), and spread that mess on top of the beef and vegetables.  Then, in a last, pathetic attempt to make it all TASTY, I grated some parmesan cheese on top.  Sad, isn't it?

I baked it in the oven for who knows how long, took it out, dished it up, and waited for the complements to start pouring in.  Bill said "…………….I like the mashed potatoes and the broth part………."  Alex asked "Did you follow a recipe?"  and I said "Sort of,"  and Julia thought about that a moment and said " 'Sort of' means no."

And that was that, really. 

But.

It is not over.

I will make Shepherd's Pie.  And I will make a damn good one.  Just wait and see.

And when I do, both my kids AND Bill will FALL OVER THEMSELVES to build Lego trophies in my honor.

So there.