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This is another one of the recipes from my grandmother. For the record, I don’t generally eat pork, but I thought that y’all might be interested in seeing it anyway. (As you may imagine, I have no memory of this dish, what with the not eating of pork thing.) What do you think about this one?

This recipe was found in a book called Galley Finale: A Collection of Mariner Soups, Sloops, and Other Incredible Edibles it was put out by The Presbyterian Church of Fair Oaks, Ca in 1978.

Tangy Pork Chops by Mrs. Leon Catlin

4 pork chops
4 onion slices
1 can tomato soup
4 green pepper rings
Dash of pepper

Brown chops in skillet on both sides. Place a slice of onion and green pepper on each and pour soup over. Cover and cook over low heat about 45 minutes. Stir or baste now and then.

Ah, coffee, that wonderful warm start-of-the-day beverage. I have such a love/hate relationship with it. It has so may pros and cons.

Pros:
1. I can help wake you up.
2. It can help with a sore throat.
3. The heat can help with a stuffed up head.
4. It helps with asthma problems.
5. It’s a tasty beverage, that goes particularly well with sweets.
6. It can help with mental focus.
7. A hot cup of coffee in a mug is two weapons in one. (I’ve mentioned my favorite weapon here before, yes?)

Cons:
1. It can keep you awake when you would rather sleep.
2. It can make your hands very unsteady.
3. It can give you an acid belly/disagree with your system.
4. It can take a normal stress reaction and make it go through the roof. Hello panic attack.
5. It can help you focus *way too much*. Must…Finish…Project!

and the one I’d totally forgotten about until Saturday:
6. It makes me paranoid.

Yep. Did you know that everyone was ignoring me on Saturday? No? How about the fact that my co-workers are all going to be angry with me for calling in sick on Saturday and I’ll ‘get in trouble’ for doing so? Sigh. I called in sick because of the whole coughing/sneezing/runny nose/having trouble breathing problem that I drank the coffee for in the first place.

Note to self: One cup is okay. Two cups is pushing it these days. Three cups is right out. You haven’t worked graveyard shift in thirteen years, and you are getting more sensitive as you get older. Don’t be a paranoid dork. Yes. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you, but seriously…

So drink tea instead!

I’m pretty sure that I’ve had this motto before…about ten years ago or so, but I thought that would be particularly helpful to me this year. I’ve noticed that I have a huge tendency to stick with the comfortable and the familiar in life. This guides things like where I eat, driving patterns, game playing, book reading, movie watching, parking preferences, etc. And I am led to wonder how I will find anything new and cool if I stay with the same things all of the time. Admittedly, I will also encounter things that are…less salubrious, if you will, along the way. Hey, but in that case I’ll have things to warn you all about here on the blog, right?

In this spirit, here are some things I’ve tried this year so far:

* Apples to Apples – An incredibly silly and fun game to play in a group.

* Blockus – Sort of like tetris on a playing board for up to four people. Quite cerebral and also fun. (I bought a copy of this one.)

* San Mateo Prime – A very tasty (and expensive) steak place in San Mateo. I really enjoyed it. A nice place for a date involving meat-eaters. Their Chocolate Mousse is divine.

* Mad Fish in Fremont – This Japanese restaurant just opened in Fremont down the street from my work. I went there for dinner the other night…and wasn’t overly impressed, actually. The food was okay, but will be expensive once the grand opening coupon thingy goes away. The service needs more training time. My tea cup was frequently empty and I had to go up to the register to get my bill printed as I had to leave and could no longer wait for the darn thing to show up at my table. I figure I’ll try back in six months one time when Koshvader comes to join me for dinner.

* The Sonoma Panini from Raley’s – Normally I get the Yosemite (not as nice and spicy as it used to be) or the Sierra (which has started to be too dry lately). I thought I’d try a non-beef-based sandwich this time. Not such a good idea as it turned out. The best word I can come up with to describe this sandwich is: squidgy. True, it wasn’t too dry, but it was a bit…strangely leaky. Also? I get the weird feeling that the turkey they used had something in it that I can’t eat. It certainly made my stomach mrgly enough.

And there you are. A few new things I’ve tried already. Let’s see if I can keep this up.

I’m been meaning to review random things (in an admittedly random nature) on this blog for sometime. So I have chosen to begin with a ginger beer that my sister got for me when she was visiting this weekend.

Random Review: Ginger Beer as made by the ginger people.

If you like the taste of ginger, this is the ginger beer for you. Not too sweet and with that ginger spiciness I like. Yep. Nice and refreshing. I would definitely drink this again, even given that I don’t drink soda pop these days. (By the way, it’s carbonated enough to foam over in the bottle if you’re not careful, so watch out for that. Not that that happened to me or anything.)

Question: Am I the only one who wonders if “the ginger people” are all redheads? Just me then? That’s about par for the course.

more animals
(For you, Sister Mine.)

Happiness for 27 February:

Two words. Clay Oven.
The guys at the yummy Indian food place called [tag]Clay Oven[/tag] in [tag]San Mateo[/tag] always take such good care of me. When I come in to get a to go order, as I did this evening for poor Koshvader who has some upper respiratory thingy, they have me sit down and bring me chai and papadum while I wait for my order. When I’m there and I intend to share Chicken Tikka Masala with Koshvader Firemouth (he adores very spicy food) they bring me my own (less spicy) sauce without even asking. Today they even packed my own sauce for me in my to go order, as I discovered when I arrived home.

Dhanyavaad, gentlemen. You made my day.

Question: When you think of Thanksgiving what foods do you think of?

Before I got married, it never occurred to me that I would someday be trying to meld the vastly different food traditions of two different families. Much less for such an important cooking day as Thanksgiving. As you grow up you get used to the foods that your family serves, and perhaps those of some close friends that have you over for dinner. You have a very specific idea as to what one serves for particular events. Encountering marked differences tends to shock your psychic map. Or at least, it does if you’re me.

My family (like most families I imagine) has some particular ideas about food in general and what one eats for Thanksgiving in the specific. I like eggs. My Mum used to make me fried egg sandwiches and my Nana is to blame for my love of poached egg on toast. Major comfort food, you know? (Koshvader hates eggs…and toast.) Grandpa Dan used to make the most divine of meatballs for the majority of family gatherings. (I really wish that I had the recipe. Mum? Any ideas? Koshvader would sure like them.) Squash of all sorts is very popular in my family. We have is as part of casserole, as pancakes, in soup, etc. Koshvader hates squash. You get the idea.

Thanksgiving used to involve everyone coming together with all sorts of tasty-yums. We had the adult table and the overflow/kids’ table, as many families do, I’m told. (Ever get the feeling that someone has to die for you to rotate up to the adult table? Would the eldest then move up, or would it be the luck of the draw?) Once, when I was quite young we put a bunch of tables together and all ate together in contiguous rooms. My father was in charge of setting the table with all of its finery. They have china from my great-great grandmother and all the folks who came after to choose from. The family rule, handed down from my great-grandmother Hazel, is that you may not have the original containers on the table, so Dad produces all sorts of specialized bowls for the occasion from the china cabinet.

On the table you will find:
Turkey
Candied Yams
Aunt Fanny’s Squash
Stuffing
Mashed Potatoes
Gravy
Cranberry sauce (still in the shape of a can, and available in slices.)
Watermelon Pickle Rind
Dinner rolls of some variety that we generally forget about until after we have sat down.
Some random veggie.
Pie – Pumpkin, Pecan, Pumpkin-Pecan, Apple…(May I please have a small piece of each?)
Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider.

Sounds good, right?

Today we had:
A beef roast (Koshvader’s family is more beef than turkey. Good thing he can cook..)
Garlic mashed potatoes (I made it, therefore garlic is involved.)
Crescent rolls (I’ve never made them before. It was in the manner of a compromise as we couldn’t find rolls we could agree on.)
Gravy (Did I mention he can cook?)
Creamy corn (Microwaved at the last minute as we sort of forgot about it.)
Fruit salad (The jello fruit salad that my MIL makes all of the time wasn’t ready in time. Still…it looks okay now. Not too bad for a first attempt.)
Watermelon Pickle Rind (I insisted. He didn’t have to eat any.)
One piece of Apple pie and one piece of Chocolate cream pie from Heidi’s Pies. (We could not agree on pie, so my MIL suggested that we just get a piece of pie each to go from our fave local greasy spoon. Brilliant woman. Why didn’t I think of that?)
Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider (Something we both can agree on.)

Not too bad for a compromise dinner, eh? Definitely something to be thankful for. Please bear in mind that Kodshvader and I have a very small overlap in our food Venn Diagram. He doesn’t eat many things that I like, and I’m allergic to a few of his favorites. I refuse to make two meals, as Koshvader’s Mum used to, though.

So tell me. What foods do you hold as sacrosanct in your [tag]Thanksgiving[/tag] meal?

Watcha Doin’ ?

This is the look that His Frizzerness gave me when he found me in the kitchen today. What the heck was I doing there? Cooking, if you can believe it.

The family casserole recipe looks like this.

Today I actually accomplished a few things. First, I popped over to the craft shop to see about getting ideas for xmas gifts. I actually found a few ideas, so look out for handmade gifts this year my friends/family. Then I drove over to the grocery store with an actual list.

You know, that thing that you have with you if you have some idea as to what you are planning to cook? I had one of those. No, don’t faint. I actually spent a couple of hours looking through cookbooks last night. It’s amazing how much cheaper you can get out of the grocery store when you have an actual shopping agenda. Who knew?

And then I came home and cooked. I made the family favorite casserole that we call Mundane (you can read about that casserole here at my friend’s Food History blog), garlic mashed potatoes (that Koshvader kindly mashed for me), and cucumber salad which should be ready tomorrow.

the cucumber salad

On top of all of that, I have a cauliflower that I plan to steam and make all cheesy and a nice cottage cheese/fruit combo. We officially have food in the house. This may be one of the signs of The Apocalypse, so consider yourselves warned.

P.S. The “Dining on a Dime Cook Book” by Tawra Kellam and Jill Cooper was recommended to me by my good twin, and I got it for my birthday. So far, I’m loving it.

Mostly Foodies can cook, right? Yes? No? ‘Cause I’m not all that good at the cooking thing. Does that make me not a foodie?

Koshvader can cook. I don’t think that he’s the only foodie in the house, though. Even if he’s the one that keeps buying things like Saffron and Celtic Grey Sea Salt. We also have such things as White Truffle oil and Parmigiano Reggiano. I cook with that oil, so I’m probably a snobby foodie. Either that or I’m a Supertaster. Possibly both.

In any case, from experience I can tell you that Evian in plastic bottles tastes different from Evian in glass bottles. As such, we have been looking for glass bottled Evian for a while now. Apparently it is difficult to locate outside of restaurants. Tonight, we finally found some…in a fancy Christian LaCroix bottle, no less.

Like the big geeks we are, we will be saving this water for our anniversary.

(You can stop giving me that look now. Koshvader doesn’t drink, and really you don’t want to see me after I’ve had Champagne. Really.)

Look! My on-sale griddle and crumpet rings in use!

My Mum has patiently reminded me that I have never posted the pictures detailing my Great [tag]Crumpet[/tag] Experiment. Obviously, I am a terrible daughter and must rectify the situation at once. (Yes…she is on vacation several states away and cannot smack me for my silliness. ha HA!)

Well, last Thursday evening the experiment began. I gathered all my ingredients and followed the directions. I even got to use my poor neglected triple-sifter. Now, I don’t have one of those huge mixer-thingies. That’s okay. My faithful bread bowl and a wooden spoon do just fine. (They are also a great workout for your arms.)

I only remembered to take a picture of the bowl after most of the batter was gone. Sorry.

So, everything seemed to be going well until I realized that the recipe was a bit vague about the amount of heat required for the exercise. As a result, the crumpets did not cook for a mere ten minutes on one side and four on the other. Oh no. It was more like double that. And the first crumpets were too thick anyway.

The first four. Not exactly the Fab Four.

Please note the crumpet at the top left in the picture above. That was when I found out about the time/heat problem. It was the first one I tried to turn over. Also, there were not enough holes forming in the tops of the crumpets. I consulted the recipe and added a wee bit more water to the remaining batter as instructed. The rest of the crumpets came out a bit better. By the time I finished it was after 3:30am. Yes, you read that correctly. The results were alright, but some turned out to be a bit doughy in the middle still. I have attacked this problem by toasting them longer than normal. It mostly works. Next time I will be trying a different recipe, I think. I wasn’t all that happy with this one. I have all kinds of books on Tea and if I don’t have a decent recipe then my Mum will. Heck, I even have a copy of Megdod’s Cookery if you fancy cooking something in a huge pot over an open flame.

Yes. My family is all about Tea. Why do you ask? I’ll probably make scones before I try crumpets again, but in the meantime I can have crumpets for breakfast that I made myself. er…So there.

The final product. Ta Da!

There you go. The suspense is over. I made crumpets!

I was just making dinner, and I remembered this from Saturday Morning TV. Remember…don’t drown your food.