I put our membership in Home Chef on hold
when this "whatever it is" started making dinners frustrating.
Mis en place
exhausted me. Tom says he loves it, getting all the ingredients
chopped, measured and in their own bowls ready to put together with the
final product. Ned also likes the precision of getting his ingredients in
order before he starts to cook. Thank goodness I didn't work in a
professional kitchen.
By the time I had completed the few
admittedly simple steps of our Blue Apron or Home Chef meal, I was dripping with sweat
and near tears. Not a good way to sit down at dinner each night.
Surprisingly, I also missed planning meals,
the thing that I hated so much that it drove me to trying Blue Apron and
Home Chef in the first place. So I'm back to preparing my specialty,
"something with chicken in it" alternating with "Joe
Special," "something Mexican," and the occasional pork chop.
I like being in control again, though I am
hampered by not going to the store myself. I suppose I could probably
go, but my legs feel so weak when I walk any distance that I'm not sure I
could easily make it through the entire store, so I send Walt with a list,
which eliminates those impulse buys I used to make based on what looks good
and sparks my brain to think of something new to prepare.
But the problem I'm having in my dotage is
that I can't make anything any more without screwing it up.
It was always the case with the Blue Apron and Home Chef meals. I'd
get everything on the plate and then realize that I'd left out a key
ingredient, or we'd finish dinner and I'd discover the package of whatever
was supposed to be sprinkled over the top to enhance the flavor.
The other night I decided to try InstantPot
lasagna (I won't do that again). It had the advantage of Walt being at
his friend Malcolm's house, so I had 2 hours to prepare it and could
definitely do it at my leisure. Only the pot malfunctioned somehow.
It would not build up pressure and ultimately it cooked the lasagna,
but left a black mess on the bottom of the pot, where the water had all
burned away. And, truth to tell, I wasn't all that enamored with
the result. I thought it would be good to have a smaller lasagna
rather than a huge one that would take 3 meals to finish but, really,
how difficult is it to prepare lasagna anyway? And it has the advantage of
not having to cook for the next two nights.
Last night I made a quiche. I haven't
made quiche in forever. I baked the bacon in the morning (I've decided
baked bacon is the way to go!) and had it all cut up by the time I was ready
to assemble the pie. I made the crust during Rachel Maddow, so it had
time to chill before I rolled it out.
Pie crust is one of my favoritest things in
the world. The very best pie crust I ever had was when Walt and
I were engaged and had dinner at the home of a friend of his mother's.
The crust was so flaky and tender I had to ask her how she made it. I
don't think I ever duplicated it, but throughout my cooking life I have made
lots and lots of pies and then a few years back all of a sudden I could not
roll pie dough to save my soul. Absolutely NOTHING had changed in how
I made it, but the dough just would not roll out wide enough and I ended up
having to patch it together. I tried all sorts of things including the
most successful, rolling it in a special bag (thanks, Mary Williams).
But it still wasn't perfect.
My recipe came from Julia Child, so it was
impeccable. In fact, Jeri asked for it and makes it all the time, but
it just never works for me any more.
But last night for some reason it all went
perfectly. I did minimum handling of the dough, I chilled it for 30
minutes, and even without the pie bag, it rolled well....not as well as I
would have liked but it came close to what I used to make.
I filled the crust with my pre-baked bacon
and all the cheese, eggs, and 1/2 & 1/2 and stuck it in the oven. When
I took it out, it looked perfect. I was BACK, baby!
I eagerly broke off a piece of the crust to
taste and it had the consistency of a cracker. Hard and crunchy
without a flake to be had. I went over and over in my head how I had
made it and what could I possibly have done wrong and then, when
going to sleep, still stewing over why my crust had not turned out the way
it should have, I realized that the recipe calls for adding 3 Tbsp of
oil...and I had forgotten that. Sigh. I mean it was an OK
quiche, but just not what I was hoping for and once again I had made a
simple recipe and screwed it up.
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