Confessions of a Gearhead’s wife

Last night I tried to burn my house down.  I mean I unintentionally tried to burn my house down because I imagine if I really tried I might have succeeded.  Luckily I did not. 

Let’s start by saying I am busy.  No really, I am.  I work 40+ hours, take care of the home stuff, groceries, cooking laundry, teenager, dog, husband etc.  So I’m probably not any more busy than the average but I don’t rely on take out or convenience foods and I don’t have a house-cleaner, so there it is.  Anyway, I tend to try to a lot done all at once.  So I come home last night and I make dinner, which was fabulous by the way, and clean up after.  I set the dishwasher on delay so it doesn’t make a lot of noise and I realize that I don’t have any lunch meat.  So I think to myself, I will cook up a bunch of eggs while I’m on-line Xmas shopping and they can cool over night and in the morning I will make egg salad.  I’m clever like that.  So I put the eggs on the stove and turn it to medium because I just want to simmer the eggs and go to the office and get on the computer.  This is about 7:45.  Well the next thing I know it is now 9:00 and I get up very early so I head up to bed to watch some TV and go to sleep.  I stop in the kitchen and think, “what’s that noise?” but by now the dishwasher is running and I figure that’s it so I go on up to bed.  About 10:45 (3 hours later) I wake up and think, “What is that smell?”  I get up, grab my robe and go down stairs with P right behind me.  Well there is a haze through the kitchen and smoke emanating from the bottom of the pan which is burnt black.  The eggs have gone from hard boiled to exploded and there are pieces of egg all over the stove and on the floor.  P. (bless his heart) is trying very hard to stay calm and doing a good job I might add and we open windows and turn on fans and generally try to clear the house of the smoke and the stench of burnt eggs for a good hour.  Duncan is unfazed by any of this and after about half an hour goes back upstairs, under the bed and back to sleep.  M doesn’t wake up at all. We close up the house again and then we go back to bed. 

The next morning we get up and P says to me “We have to talk about this because I’m worried about you.”  I explain that it was just an accident, a brain fart.  Now to back track just a little, with the unseasonably warm weather that we’ve been having, we have had fruit flies, constantly.  This morning however they’re number was noticeably reduced.  So I look at P and tell him that what he witnessed last night was a homemade bug bomb and smile.  He starts laughing, gives me a hug and all is good.

Well Thanksgiving is one week away.  We are hosting the feast/celebration at our new home.  Now I’m starting to panic.  When I agreed to do this, I thought “This will be fun”.  I actually brought it up, no one asked me to volunteer, I’m the one who suggested it.  It has been a long time since I cooked a turkey.  I really wish that I had the day before off for some preparation.  So I will be doing a lot of cooking and prep this weekend. 

Usually my sister hosts Thanksgiving, but this year she and her husband are going to Israel for a wedding.  Then, my other sister’s youngest daughter is in her first year of college in Oregon so, they are going to spend Thanksgiving with her and one of my brothers in Idaho.  So that means we will be short at least 5 people for the traditional party.  But my Mom will come and another brother and his wife and I don’t know if my cranky eldest brother will show, and we will have all the nieces and nephews as well as my kids so it will be fun.  Kind of a changing of the guard.  The “kids” who are all in their twenties except for M (17) will out number the adults.  It feels different.  I guess I’m getting old.  Ah well, it happens to the best of us.

 I still have not put together a menu and I don’t know how many people are showing up.  Need to work on a few details.  M has invited all her cousins over to help on Saturday.  Making place cards and helping me cook (I hope).  The house will probably feel a bit like a circus, but hey circuses are fun.

Let’s see, a Thanksgiving menu…..

Turkey, stuffing (vegetarian), cranberry sauce, bourbon sweet potatoes, green beans almondine, brussel spouts, pumpkin muffins(vegan), a vegan main dish (my niece will make), mashed potatoes (vegan), pumpkin pie, pecan pie, apple pie, pumpkin brownies (vegan). 

I think that should do it along with some nibblys before hand and plenty of wine, beer and apple cider.

I think everyone who blogs and is celebrating Thanksgiving should post a photo of their Thanksgiving dinner.  Look for my photo the weekend after.

Not much going on today.  Really don’t feel like being at work today but the day is almost over.  I didn’t really accomplish much and am feeling slightly guilty.  The weekend was o.k.  Went to a holiday mart with the purses.  Sold two.  A lot of work for not much profit.  Helped P. pull wire to the barn on Sunday, lots of laundry, grocery shopping, etc.  Mom came over for dinner and J.D.  That was nice.  I think she enjoyed herself.  Also went to Ft. Logan cemetary (it was veteran’s day) and talked to Dad.  At first I couldn’t find the grave site and was starting to freak out and get weepy but I asked a ground’s keeper and he was so nice and found out for me almost instantly on his radio.  It was a beautiful day.  I miss Dad so much.  I asked him to send me a sign that all is o.k. but I didn’t get anything that I recognize as a sign.  I can imagine him telling me that I have to have faith and he’s not going to send a sign just to make things easier for me.  Build’s character and all that.

Last night the Eldest Sister called and asked us to come for dinner tonight.  So we are headed there on a Wednesday (I love being back in civilization) for a warm and cozy evening with family that I can also call friends.  I love to cook, I enjoy creating a good meal and sharing it with friends and family but I will readily admit that it is nice to have a night off from the grind.  It’s the every night dinner that gets to me makes me come home and fall on the couch and tell my family that it’s “fend for yourself ” night.  It’s the pressure to come up with something interesting and fabulous night after night.  I think of myself as a pretty good cook.  Not over the top gourmet but definitely above average and I think that might be the problem.  I think I might have turned my family into food snobs.  If, on an off evening I turn out something that is just average my family is not pleased.  I would say mutiny, but that would entail someone else taking over the cooking duties.  Whenever I suggest that someone else might take a turn at the nightly ritual they pour on the flattery.  “But you’re so good at it” and “I could never do it as well as you” and “it’s so easy for you, it would take me hours”. 

So I will take advantage of the invitation and show up on their door step with a kiss and a hug and a bottle of wine.

Not a very inventive title I will admit, but here’s what’s happening in my kitchen.  P and I had a conversation regarding a house warming party now that we are all moved in.  We have also volunteered to host the family Thanksgiving dinner.  So I suggested to darling P that maybe we should have a holiday/come see our new house party after Thanksgiving.  With the prospect of a houseful of guests not once, but twice in the next few weeks I have been trying out some recipes to make sure that things will taste as good as they sound. 

 So I found a blog called stephencooks.com and he has some wonderful recipes there for everything but I am always looking for snacks and/or appetizers.  Anyway found a recipe for spicy sweet almonds.  Basically, sugar, oil, almonds in a pan, cook until sugar caramelizes, toss with spices and let cool.  These were really yummy and easy.  I started out looking for a recipe for an apple gorgonzola pizza and I think that’s how I ended up on Stephencooks.  He has a recipe for a pear, bacon, Gorgonzola.  So I adapted it for my own purpose.  His pizza dough recipe is fabulous and easy.  He says that using all purpose flour it yields 2 slightly thicker chewy crusts or if you use bread flour, 4 very thin crispy crusts.  Now I like my pizza on the crispy side but not having bread flour in the house I of course improvised.  I used the all purpose flour, made 3 crusts and baked my pizza in a stoneware baking pan from a well known, home party, kitchen gadget business.  I got the pan for free from someone who was going to throw it away.  So, back to the pizza,  I used Gala apples, a regular yellow onion cooked down until almost caramelized, bacon, Parmesan, mozzarella and of course the Gorgonzola.  It turned out really well although the apple was a little subtle.  I think next time I will use a Granny Smith apple to get a bit more intense apple flavor.  My daughter M. really liked it but said, ” I think you need to use a more appley apple.” 

 Well, that experiment turned out so well that I went looking for a recipe for a chicken liver pate.  The ones in the stores all seem to have pork as an ingredient.  So I found one that looked simple enough and could be frozen.  Now I know why pate tastes sooooo good.  3/4 of a pound of butter.  Almost as much butter as liver.  I started the process and actually cut down the butter to 1/2 a pound of butter to a pound of liver.  It turned out really well and I think that the extra butter would have ruined it.  Duncan, my little dog was happy to help me clean up the liver bits that did not make it into the pate. 

Our new favorite for the grill is a flat iron steak.  Similar to flank but much more tender and very flavorful.  I am a big believer in semi-homemade.  I usually have a package of powdered marinade around and I add things to doctor it up…red wine, soy sauce, orange juice, whatever, instead of water to intensify the flavors.  So marinate a flat iron steak, bake a winter squash, a green salad and a nice bread and you have the makings of a really fabulous dinner without a lot of work.