Our Life

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The Briney Waves

Just how long can you brine Cornish game hens before they shrivel up like prunes? On Monday I set out to cook two of them for our supper and started brining them, as the recipe I was attempting suggested.

Then Fred pipes up: “Can we eat now?”

“No problem,” I think. “We’ll have them tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow” we went back to Ikea for more furniture and ate pizza at a place where we had a coupon.

So our hens still sit in the refrigerator in their salt water bath, 48 hours later.

Results later today!

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Lardy Yellow Yard Sale

According to one news report, the pollen count reached 5,937 particles per cubic meter of air yesterday–apparently the second-highest on record. (Apparently 120 is an “extremely high” count.) Even I have begun to feel it.

So has my dad’s 1979 Chevy Big 10 Bonanza, which I am now driving after my stuff was evicted from my mother’s office in Tennessee a couple of weeks ago. Its color has migrated from dark green to a kind of baby-puke yellow (Fred’s description)–a baby-puke yellow that now blankets nearly everything in sight.

The only good thing about all this is that no rain is forecast for tomorrow’s massive yard sale of the evicted stuff.

As for the lard–a friend’s son-in-law comes from a family that still butchers their own hogs. (See my comments to Paul in yesterday’s post.) We will be making biscuits soon and will be reporting results!

Sniffle. Sniffle.

And to top it all off: Louise and Cleo are scheduled for THEIR vet trip today. Catalina is the pee culprit, with a bladder infection (we think). I get to pill a cat every day for the next two weeks.

Sniffle.

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We’re Back . . . .

. . . but Satan is down, its electronic innards seized up during one of its many evil fits–no doubt it passed out just from the sheer joy of making my online life as miserable as possible.

But it WILL submit, after I join forces with the Dell technician who sounds like Gandhi on speed to defeat it.

How have I managed to post this post, you ask? Well, it certainly wasn’t at work! And that’s all I have to say.

In the meantime, one of the four cats has blood in her urine–which one, we have no idea, as they don’t do us the courtesy of peeing in front of us. So while I’m on the phone with Dell, Fred will be trying to convince the cats to get into the carriers. He thinks he just needs to put some food in the back and they’ll walk right in “out of curiosity.” Sweet, isn’t it?

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Fred Takes the Camera

Fred decided to chronicle my cake-baking efforts last night. I don’t think the pictures were quite as abstract as he would like, but here are the results.

The middle photo includes an Okratini–the East Tennessee version of the dirty martini. Just substitute pickled okra juice and a piece of pickled okra for your olives. Tast-ee!

Sadly, however, the cake was a disaster. The recipe was Cook’s Illustrated’s Classic Devil’s Food Cake, on page 476 of The Best Recipe. What were these people THINKING?

The beigish things you see in the photo are not nuts or Rice Krispies or anything edible, but LUMPS of congealed flour. And I actually followed the recipe this time (except for substituting finely ground coffee for instant, but having done that before, I don’t think that was the problem.) The problem, I think, was that the batter was the consistency of CHOCOLATE MILK.

Still, I ate about a quarter of one layer before throwing it out. Testing, you know.

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Pizza Art

The reception for Fred’s art show was last night at his studio/gallery. He gave a talk and reminded me again why I married him (because he’s sweet, smart, sensitive, and a wonderful painter).

Still, none of this helped the pizza I made on Friday.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!!

I didn’t realize how scary that was until I posted it. Perhaps I should send it to the Saatchi Gallery to put next to the pig in formaldehyde.

Now that no one has any interest in eating this pizza, I’ll tell you what’s on it because despite its dreadful appearance it was QUITE TASTY.

Chicken
Blue Cheese
Spinach
Thyme
Cherry Peppers
Onions

And be careful when you slide the pizza into the oven.

Can anyone tell me how to remove burned blue cheese from a pizza stone?

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The Cornbread Redemption

Finally: Blue cornbread that WORKED!!


The recipe came to me from Southern Living via Fred’s Uncle Earl, who took us out to dinner Saturday at the Victoria House in Conyers. All I did was swap blue cornmeal for the yellow.

Preheat oven to 425.

Whisk together:
2 c self-rising cornmeal, or 2 c. cornmeal plus 1 1/2 tbsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. salt, and 1/2 tsp. baking soda
2 tbsp. sugar (I did not believe Earl when he said this did not make the cornbread too sweet, but I was wrong. You can add less or more to taste.)

When oven is preheated, melt in cast iron skillet for 5 minutes or until melted:
1 stick butter

Add one egg to cornmeal mix and stir until just blended.

Add to cornmeal mix and stir until moistened:
2 c. buttermilk

Remove skillet from oven and pour melted butter into batter. Pour batter back into skillet. Bake 25 minutes or until brown.

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A Sign?

As I was making some salad dresssing recently, this appeared:


Comforting? Terrifying? You decide.

And now, to answer Hulga’s question about when egg whites are “stiff but not dry”: First, how you find time to make buttermilk pancakes for breakfast on a weekday morning is beyond me, but who am I to judge?

But getting to the point: The egg white should form a peak and hold it, without falling over, when you lift the beater out of it. I advise you to turn the beater to the “off” position before trying that.

Hope that helps!

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Singin’ the Blues

My loss yesterday in the Blue Food Contest was difficult, but I have to give it to the winner: A person who can turn garlic blue with no food coloring is no slouch.

Hulga, I’ll have to get back to you on the “stiff but not dry” egg whites later today–at a point where I might be able to extend my remarks into the areas of martinis as well.