The Pink Elephant

If you've visited my site before or if you've heard me complaining in the last couple of weeks, then you know that I recently burned the holy living daylights out of myself. I find this somewhat amusing since the burns coincided with the first of my cooking challenges.

For the purposes of maybe putting the whole thing behind me (or at least trying to do so), I thought I would share with you the status update on the burns.

For one thing, I'm bandage free. A good thing since I had been losing more layers of skin than I actually have each time I ripped the bandages off to put more medicine on the burns.

Of the four burn marks, only two of them look like they'll be leaving noticeable marks. As for the other two, I'm very glad they're fading to barely discernible patches since they look like cigarette burns. Not a cute look.

On the other hand, if you play the cloud game with the worst of the burns (upper right corner), you can just make out a pink elephant if that pink elephant had been carved from wood by a crunchy, granola sort who thinks kids shouldn't have normal toys from PlaySkool.

So while these scars will likely prompt future questions along the lines of, "Honey child! WHAT did you DO to yourself?!" I can now say I'm seeing a pink elephant and folks will hopefully think I'm only a just little bit crazy rather than thinking that I might be just a little bit tipsy at an inappropriate hour of the day.

Somehow, I'm thinking that that might bit just a little bit of wishful thinking on my part. But, then again, maybe I'm just plain ol' crazy. We shall just have to wait and see, won't we?

Waste Not...

I have a new rule for this cooking challenge.

Do NOT waste food.

And by that I do not mean, "Eat everything in sight." I do not mean, "Eat it all, even if it tastes gross." And I do not mean, "Well, it only smells a little funny. I'm sure it'll be fine after I cook it."

Tonight's dinner is an example of this rule.

After making the Natchitoches Meat Pies on Sunday, I had browned, seasoned ground beef and pork leftover as well as some sun-dried tomatoes that were used in Chiqui's Creole Dip.

To make sure I didn't let them become disgusting petri dishes, I sought out a recipe amongst the 45 cookbooks that have not yet been used. Easy enough, right? Mostly, except that I kept finding recipes for things like Tamale pie, which I've made before (breaking the "it's gotta be new to me" rule) or Shepherd's Pie, which I couldn't really imagine with a spicy meat base.

Well... You know... Maybe if I had used some sweet potatoes instead of potatoes...

Wait. Nevermind. That would not have adhered to the waste not rule per se since I would have had to buy more ingredients. Anyhow...

I went for the meat spaghetti sauce from the 12th edition of the "Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book." Having no tomato paste, I figured that sauteeing the sun-dried tomatoes in their own oil would serve as a nice substitute. I tossed in the previously browned meat, a couple of cans Hunt's Fire-Roasted Tomatoes, some oregano and a pinch of thyme; let it simmer; and then poured it over spaghetti. Add a little grated parmesan, and dinner was done!

All-in-all, this was a way super easy dinner. But if I had had to chop up all the veggies and brown the meat tonight, I might have skipped it because of the mess and time required.

Lesson learned? If you're going to brown a bunch of meat like I did on Sunday, then brown extra for a future meal and save yourself some time.

Oh... And on a closing note. I didn't hurt myself this time. Phew! Still all bandaged up though.

And check out all the bandages! Four in all... Woo. Hoo. Or not. Bleh.

P.S. No. I have not made spaghetti sauce before. That's the sort of thing that comes in jars and is for lazy dinners.

One Down, 45 to Go

Let me start this post by first saying: I will not forget this cooking adventure anytime soon. In fact, I will, quite literally, bear the scars of this adventure for years. Serious cooking burns are funny like that... Details below...

More to the point of this blog, I officially embarked on my cooking challenge today. On the menu were two items from a recent acquisition that I'm slowly, but surely falling in love with. Namely, "Cooking Up A Storm: Recipes Lost and Found from The Times-Picayune of New Orleans." I first heard about this book in a New York Times article by Kim Severson and immediately ordered it.

Per the title and the article, these are recipes that Louisiana residents lost during Hurricane Katrina and that are much loved by so many people. Given the importance of recipes in my family, the story of this book's creation absolutely resonated with me.

Now, as part of the cooking challenge, I set a rule for myself. In picking a recipe, it has to be new to me in some way. Cooking Natchitoches Meat Pies definitely counts as new. 1) I've never made them before. 2) They involve deep-fat frying, which I've not done before - at least not without parental supervision, which maybe I still need - all things considered.

The original recipe makes a HUGE batch of Natchitoches Meat Pies. So I cut the recipe by a third, but pretty much followed the directions for making the meat mixture of ground beef and pork along with the assorted spices and whatnot.

I will admit to getting lazy though.

I did not make the dough from scratch. I figured deep-fat frying was going to enough of a challenge for one day. Instead, I used pre-made pizza dough. Maybe not an exact substitute, but - in the end - it worked out alright.

Also on the menu from "Cooking Up A Storm" was Chiqui's Creole Cream Cheese Dip. According the recipe, which includes cream cheese, creme fraiche, ricotta, sun-dried tomatoes, assorted herbs and spices, and Worcestshire sauce, this is for crackers, but it was just right as a dip to complement the Natchitoches Meat Pies. This counts as new-to-me because I've never made it, never heard of it, and typically use little, convenient, pre-made packets of seasonings when making dips.

Lastly, I have a bunch of avocados. I put one of them to work with some creme fraiche, lemon juice, fresh ground pepper and Zatarain's Creole Seasoning. This dip was good, but would have been better with sour cream instead of creme fraiche. I made do with what I had though. This is a recipe I made up, so it does not count against my cooking challenge.

Now... To the part of this story where I tell you about burning the holy living daylights out of my wrist.

Going into this, I knew that deep-fat frying might not be the safest thing for me to do. However, I was determined to try. Frying the Natchitoches Meat Pies (I like saying Natchitoches. Have you noticed?) went just fine. In fact, it was way easier than I expected. While they might not be the prettiest things around (see above...), they tasted great.

However, when I went to move the pot of hot oil off the burner, I knocked the pot on the back burner just hard enough to slosh flipping-hotter-than-all-get-out oil out of the pot and all over the stove and my wrist.

To make matters worse, I couldn't tend to my burns immediately because I had to put out a very small grease fire. Seriously, this was a tiny, miniscule fire. Small enough that I was able to blow it out like candles while simultaneously reaching for the flour jar so that I could smother it. No damages to anything in my kitchen - not counting my wrist.

Unfortunately, I now have a rather serious burn on my wrist (see the odd blister, upper left corner) along with three or four other smaller, not so bad burns. I've had similar burns before (a story for another day); and, 15 years or so later, I can still see the scars ever so faintly. So I'm pretty sure that I'll have a nice little scar to commemorate the first time I ever made Natchitoches Meat Pies.

Now, last but not least, I'd like to give a shout out to the hero of today's debacle. My aloe vera plant.

Thank you Mr. Aloe Vera Plant for your leafy sacrifices today as well as in the coming days. Your aid in helping ease my pain is very much appreciated.