Angry Cooking

December 16, 2011 By in Cooking Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Angry Chicken

I decided to shelve a 986-word rant regarding my threshold for inconsideration and incompetence across all age groups having possibly been crossed. It turned out that being stood-up for a blind play date with all three kids at Funworld, and my resulting expulsion from a playgroup I’d never been to, did not, in fact, kill me. Nor did the overly audible comment from a woman behind me in line at the Hallmark store as I waited to have an ornament boxed so I could quickly remove my whiny children from the public sphere. Please don’t bother getting irked on my behalf at her declaration of “I don’t understand people who have more kids than they can handle.” In exchange for her helpful insight, I provided her with something to work on with her therapist for the next several years. And Sally the Entitled’s incessant reproachment of my parenting still hasn’t plateaued, but fortunately, I have an abundance of faith in myself, and rubes, barbs, and gripes haven’t debilitated me. On the contrary, my fury-induced blood pressure spikes result in waves of some of my best cooking.

It was a rare occasion yesterday afternoon when, although I had adequate hustle and elan to cook something delicious, I considered the prospect of a trip to the market as appealing as participating in organized running. I may send Simply Recipes a Christmas gift; I had chicken, mushrooms, and tomatoes, and not much else, but the resulting Chicken, Mushrooms, and Tomatoes with Port Wine caused an elated Mr. P to unconsciously hum quietly until he admirably gave up just before the bite that would have killed the evening.

I’m sure you’re aware of my penchant for a well-executed cream sauce, but this is a refreshingly dairy-free combination of shallot and mushroom, and the tomato manages to restrain itself to a supporting role. The final reduction is spectacular, and even better when drizzled over whatever accompanies your chicken; in retrospect I would have gone with rice, as my choice of egg noodles proved to be a slippery one.

So even though the end of my tether is in clear sight, the pairing of productive, passionate ire with a reliable site for new recipes culminates in several days of Michelin-worthy dinners at Chez Peña, before my wrath cools back down to mild irritability and Mr. P resigns himself with grace and dignity to another long stretch of family-restaurant-tier cooking. But not tonight. Tonight, I summon my last sputters of anger for Sherry-Dijon London Broil with caramelized shallots and rice pilaf.

Tidings of Spendy Cheer!

November 23, 2011 By in Cooking Tags: , , 5 Comments

Once again, it’s time to stifle our own material desires for a month and go shopping solely for others. If you’re lucky (I most certainly am), the ultimate recipients of your selections are individuals you at least like and preferably adore, and gifting any of the following items will leave you nestled in good graces for another 365 days. If there are any special people in your life for whom Christmas is your opportunity to passive-aggressively send a snarky message, the suggestions below would be completely inappropriate, and you’d be better off bestowing a certificate for laser hair removal, a Proactive regimen, or a basket brimming with Dr. Scholl’s products. But for the good boys and girls on your list, especially those with any culinary flair, here are a few items certain to delight and enchant.

Chef’n Strawberry Huller $7.95, Williams-Sonoma
I usually avoid single-purpose kitchen tools, having a small kitchen and CCD (Compulsive Chucking Disorder), but if you know someone who loves serving food in other food, this is a must. I’m not sure with what you’d stuff the strawberries, or how you’d get them to stand upright for serving, but the recipient won’t even think of these quandaries until well after you’ve received a glowing thank you note.

Rösle Garlic Press $39.00, Williams-Sonoma
Is forty dollars too much to spend on a garlic press? Not if it’s the Carl Lewis of garlic presses. The perforated bin flips out for easy cleaning, and you don’t have to peel your cloves before pressing. I do anyway, having received my press from gift-giver extraordinaire, Mr. S, but knowing that it’s unnecessary gives me a tingle of smugness.

Stainless Steel Breading Pans, Set of 3 $34.95, Williams-Sonoma
If I have to use two dinner plates and a shallow bowl to flour, egg, and bread my schnitzel once more, I may wash my hands of the whole thing. This would be a hint to anyone who’d like to get something for their humble content provider. A little costly to buy for oneself, these are priced to be gifts, so let’s remind ourselves why we came to the mall in the first place.

Kaiser Stainless Steel Cookie Press Set $49.95, Chef Tools
Best to keep this one in the immediate family, so that you can enjoy the fruits of the giftee’s labor, again and again.

Small Treat Boxes $3.29/3, Wilton
Anyone who goes the homemade route at Christmas with coworkers, friends and family would be beside themselves to receive a few dozen of these bad larries. Never again will they have to shop at dollar stores for the least atrociously decorated tins, and now they can throw away that intimidating Incoming/Outgoing Tupperware log.

AK Bullet Ice Tray $6.99, Amazon
I don’t often go in for novelty cookware, even though the Tardis Cookie Jar would work so well with my kitchen’s blue and yellow color scheme, but ten dollars is absolutely worth being able to ask your companion if they’d be so kind as to pop a couple of caps in your Diet Coke.

Sorry, Chef Ramsey, they can’t all be “the most magnificent.”

November 21, 2011 By in Cooking Tags: , , , , 2 Comments

TMI Chicken Soup

The first day of Mr. P’s long awaited nine-day Thanksgiving break found all five Peñas sick as dogs. We, the house-bound four, had been chewing on this particular bug for twenty-four hours, initially tipped off by Billy the Kid’s impressive reverse-vacuum all over my bedspread, while Mr. P efficiently wrapped up all loose ends at work on Friday before succumbing to the inevitable, compounded by the standard general start-of-vacation collapse. By the time I dragged the king comforter out of the dryer two hours after its ordeal, I was in full denial of my own doom. I was not ill. By Saturday afternoon, I was still the most functional, but only because I refuse to negotiate with disease, my ability to ignore discomfort having increased tenfold after carrying twins with a perforated appendix.

Note to potential and current gestators: if you point to the side of your enormous pregnant belly and tell your doctor, “this hurts and I can’t eat,” don’t downplay the pain and nausea, or you’ll receive the standard “why don’t we take a look after the baby comes.” I’m betting that liability near-miss still keeps a certain OB/GYN up at night. I’d heard of women being sick while in labor, but getting off an operating table seconds after receiving an epidural and seconds before a c-section, throwing up, and remounting just as all feeling drained from my legs reassured me that I possess excellent time management and multi-tasking skills. Unfortunately, it also detracted from focusing on the miracle of life and whatnot. Had my concerns been addressed, however, I might not have come out the other end fifty pounds lighter and then I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy creeping out Mr. P with my ultra-slender “tween starlet calves” for a month before returning to my preferred state of sturdiness.

Back to the present, with a mere low-grade fever and repulsiveness confined mostly to my head, the task of making chicken soup with rice fell to me. When visiting Epicurious, I prefer to to limit my options to recipes that boast four entire forks, but three and a half are apparently the mediocre standard in this case, so I settled on one that conformed to Mr.P’s request for “not weird.”  I found the absence of onion unsettling, so I threw in half a chopped yellow, and combined a tablespoon each of fresh thyme and parsley, scoffing at the direction to limit myself to one or the other. Then I salted and peppered the dickens out of it.

I regard chicken soup as a food of necessity, and since one can’t taste much of it when one needs it the most, and wouldn’t make it if one didn’t need it, it doesn’t really matter that this one is exceptional to a fully functioning palate. The rice leaves relatively little broth, but just enough to avoid the dreaded bisque effect. The carrots and celery remain brisk and cheerful, having just cooked through upon serving, and lend an appealing primavera quality that’s often appetizing to an invalid. I suppose Epicurious’ three-and-a-half-forks rating is, indeed, appropriate; even at it’s best, chicken soup is still just chicken soup.

Isn’t there room for one more at the table?

November 19, 2011 By in Cooking Tags: , 2 Comments

This year, the Peña Five will be the happy guests of the gracious Carroll family, whose Thanksgiving dinners embody Norman Rockwell paintings, only with better lighting, more attractive guests, and less inebriation. Aunt N always prepares an impeccable traditional Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, pork stuffing, whipped potatoes, and so on, but done so perfectly and consistently that I can hardly bear the excruciating anticipation in the weeks leading up to the most delicious of Thursdays.

The single issue I have with my favorite meal-based holiday involves the majority of tables across the US, and in no way directs any criticism toward two of my favorite hosts. Many dinner guests enjoy a beer or a glass of wine during the hour before the meal, but not much of a drinker, I turn to another nerve softener: cheese. I can almost always rely on my old friend to ease me into a mingle, and start feeling at home as soon as I spot a cheddar and pepperoni combo plate with a fan of Ritz, a nut-encrusted ball surrounded by water crackers, a yule log, a pub cheese, a baked brie and baguette toasts, or the Excalibur, generally reserved for wedding receptions: the fruit and cheese cube fountain.

How many Thanksgiving dinners can you recall that incorporated any sort of cheese showcase? My best guess is that most diners on this particular occasion are concerned that they will exceed capacity before they’d like to stop eating, and can’t allow distractions like pepperjack to poach on precious abdominal real estate. I, however, do not overeat at Thanksgiving. I’m not above the occasional overindulgence, but I dread experiencing the inevitable system shutdown anywhere but at home. If I can’t get into my bed, I stop at one plate.

There must be others like me, who yearn to stick their head right into the bowl of whipped potatoes, while instead they slowly cut their one slice of breast meat, and savor their single scoop of pork stuffing, when they just want to grab the serving dish and lock themselves in the nearest closet with it. A good bracing of cheese beforehand would spare us from these horrible fantasies.

Since I’ve managed to establish a solid run for my coveted monopoly on the Christmas feast (a childhood dream), I don’t see myself hosting many Thanksgiving dinners in the coming years. So I entreat you, gentle reader, to leave a little space on the coffee tables between the nuts and olives this Thursday, and let’s see what happens when we get some Camembert involved.

Cow and Chicken

November 14, 2011 By in Cooking Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Chicken Chicharrones

I resent Chick-fil-A for three reasons. Long before I’d been unlucky enough to live within a drivable distance to the fast food establishment that considers itself above operating on Sundays (I am a staunch advocate of separation of church and chicken, so that’s reason number one), I worked in the screen-printing sector for a spell, where I came across the ambiguous logo for the first time. I assumed the pronunciation was “chick fillah,” and figured the company had been founded by a surly aviculteur with a strong Boston accent, who supplied chicken filling for nuggets, patties, and the like. Obviously, reason number two addresses the all too common liberties taken with the alphabet.

Reason number three arose the first time I acquiesced to BK’s pleas for a Chick-fil-A kid’s meal from our mall’s food court, a routine I was unaware Mr. P had allowed to develop. I’ll note that our mall, though relatively close by, is actually in another state, one that boasts a long line of historically bad ideas. To my delight, I saw that the nuggets looked homemade, identifiably chicken, and lightly breaded. But then I tasted one, and a specific rage rose up out of my chest, one reserved for the slap in the face that is misleadingly appealing fare. I don’t know if the trademark “flavor” originates intentionally from a specific “seasoning,” or if I’m just experiencing the complex flavor profiles of grease, but those obsequious cow mascots need to offer at least bearable fare if they don’t want to end up in my sandwich.

I recently came across a recipe for chicken chicharrones on the always reliable simplyrecipes.com, and jumped at the chance to impress Mr. Tilde with some flavors from the mother protectorate. Upon plating the piping hot, shimmering with oil yet obviously crunchy little chunks, I noticed a hint of physical resemblance to the insipid little orts slung by CfA, but hoped that half an hour marinating in rum, lime juice, and soy sauce would yield a much more palatable product. Palatable is an understatement, and elastic waistbands are called for once again, as well as a table-side candy dish filled with Tums. A squirt each of lime juice and hot sauce are legally mandated in this case, and I find diners are especially delighted if the lime wedges are presented in a small communal bowl.  I’ve never been much of a deep-fryer, especially when peanut oil is involved, but I’m going to need to start that new gym membership, now that I’ll be eating this three nights a week. And when I finally have a few too many chicharrones sometime after Christmas, I’m coming for you, beefcakes.

Night Baking: Never a Good Idea

October 8, 2011 By in Cooking Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

Waker-Upper Animal Crackers

I usually don’t begin thinking abut Christmas until the day after Thanksgiving, but after stumbling upon the yuletidiest cookie I’ve ever tasted, I’m ready to start the season before we even hit Halloween. Billy the Kid has a knack for randomly remembering items we used once, over a year back, and last night while we had some “us time,” waiting up late for Mr. P after the ladies retired, BK declared he had a great idea. Indeed, it was the perfect time to dig out the five small animal-cracker cookie-cutters/stampers from Williams-Sonoma we bought two summers ago, our singular attempt thwarted by an inappropriate dough that melted over details and puffed out when baked, yielding cartoonishly cloud-shaped cookies. But Mrs. Peña runs a tight ship, and they were exactly where they should have been, as I had already learned when BK was one that throwing away anything he deemed “his” was a very bad idea.

In my end-of-day haze, I quickly scanned several holiday baking magazines until I saw a picture of a cinnamon cookie that looked like it could stand up to our stampers with a few slight modifications. I only noticed the call for espresso grounds once I had started assembling the mis-en-place, but it was already late, so how bad could one small coffee-infused cookie be for a toddler at 9:00 PM? Gleeful cries of “my feet  can’t stop running!” finally tapered off around 10:30 when BK fell asleep while talking, and a steady stream of the little “crackers” kept me fully alert until Mr. P’s arrival around midnight.

If you’ve ever been the lucky recipient or partaker of a Pepperidge Farms Entertaining Cookie Collection, you’ll recall the thin, unassuming, simple Bordeaux wafers, and the uncomfortably urgent desire to put all of them in your mouth at the same time. The following recipe produces the same flavor and crisp consistency, but with more heft than flake, and if you bake for just a minute less than indicated, a hint of chew. The combination of small and thin with the descriptor “cracker” will encourage gluttony, so keep a mental count as you visit the plate throughout the day in case you need to shame yourself into restraint.

1 stick butter, softened
1/4 C shortening
1 C sugar
1/2 C brown sugar, packed
1 tsp baking powder
1-1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp instant espresso grounds
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
2 C flour

Assemble the dough in the standard manner. Shape it into two discs and refrigerate them for an hour. Roll out the dough to 1/4″ thickness before cutting out shapes, and bake single sheets at 375 degrees for 6 minutes (check every minute after 4 during the first batch to determine exact baking time). Cool the cookies on the pan for 10 minutes, then transfer them to a sealable plastic container or bag before hiding them under your bathing suit in the corner of your top drawer.

I try not to judge other parents, but…

October 7, 2011 By in Someone thinks that ... Leave a comment

… then there’s this.

There are two things that flip my instant-rage switch: weakness and bullying. I don’t mean weakness in terms of physical strength, or lack thereof, but rather weakness of character, of conviction and integrity. The manager that throws his subordinates under the bus, the butcher that uses meat glue, the president that manipulates the constitution. Oh yes, it’s going to be that kind of post.

The current executive and legislative branches could be featured on the reality show Super Nanny, with the perennially disappointed and passive-aggressively “pained” Obama-Dad padding around the house in sweatpants, grumbling that “I guess we just don’t get to have nice things,” while five hundred thirty-five congressional toddlers swing from the curtains and eat whatever they can reach under the couch cushions. Other parents at the playground avert their eyes as Obama-Dad panics at tantrum wind-ups and allows departure time to become a negotiation. When Mom comes home from work to find half-empty bags of marshmallows and strewn Mountain Dew cans, Obama-Dad defensively pipes up before she can even raise an eyebrow, “we got to the market! The important thing is I got some calories in them!”

President Obama is feeling the burn of failure: failure to Ferberize. Just as I accept blame for the 4-year-old who crawls into my bed every morning at 4:00 AM to slap at me while demanding snuggles, Obama needs to own his fault in promoting an overly conversational, pass-the-talking-stick reading-circle method of “leading.” I’ll admit, I experienced only the most fleeting sense of “is this okay?” after Obama pulled the old surprise-you’re-dead on Bin Laden, but the recent assassination of American citizen (and general juice-box) Anwar al-Awlaki shows that Obama-Dad is now losing a battle with toddlers that have grown into overly indulged teenagers.

I’m reminded of the girl in my high-school who received a new convertible BMW for her birthday, and then a new Jeep for Christmas, since she needed something safer for the winter. This recent short-cut in dealing with terrorism and general skirting of the judicial system is not going to turn out to be an exception, but rather is indicative of the new leadership style we can expect to see from Obama-Dad as he tries to win back respect and love with flashy gifts, until his ungrateful kids finally stick him in a state-run nursing home, deciding their new step-dad, though Mormon, is much cooler.

(Belated) Feliz Cumpleaños, Señor P!

September 29, 2011 By in Cooking Tags: , , , Leave a comment

Steak and Hysteria

Today (when written) is the dashingly well-dressed Mr. P’s birthday, and a great man deserves a great dinner. We discovered our new favorite way of eating steak several weeks ago via Epicurious, and having served the slices over beds of spring mix or arugula several times, I’m ready to plate this bad Larry up piping hot. There’s a fifty per cent chance I’ll be laying the strips over Puerto Rican white rice, but if that fails miserably, which it does every other time I make it, I’ll pull out a box of Near East pilaf. I anticipate that the combination of glazed shallots over white rice will be silencingly delicious, and I know of three little mouths that simply must stop making noises simultaneously for a full ten minutes at some point soon, lest our family be spotlit during local news.

Logic suggests that twin one-year-olds would experience less separation anxiety than singletons, but my girls are determined to defy everything from sleep to the laws of physics, so it fits that I can’t cross a threshold without triggering a complex dual alarm system. Aside from the dimensional portal that clearly opens when I walk away from them into the kitchen, I have no idea what exactly they think I’m doing during my tiny increments out of their sight. I can run a stack of laundry up the stairs, calling to them for the entire twenty seconds, but their wails start even before I’ve opened the door to the hall. Lately the tone of their reproach has been more wrathful than fearsome, so I suspect they picture some sort of flash party takes place, with a drop-down disco ball, anonymous dancers, and my top drawer pulled out and spilling over with candy. Most baffling, they aren’t even confined most of the time they spend screaming at me to stay; all they need do to avoid theoretical abandonment is follow me. Alas, my children appear to be wealthy estate owners trapped in a middle-class household, but they refuse to accept they don’t get a paid staff.

Normally I try to tie everything up neatly in the third paragraph, but I have a cake to frost, a table to set, and Sally the Slugger’s hitting someone with her mallet while loudly working on her first phrase: “bring it me.”

Product Review! FUN da-Middles: when bad branding happens to good cake.

August 23, 2011 By in Someone thinks that ... Tags: , , 2 Comments


Grocery shopping has become something of an effort, and yet we go to the market at least three times a week; it’s just our favorite place. Our local Hannaford has a nice stockpile of buggy carts that seat two up front, making them one of our easier jaunt destinations.  Like every other constant in our lives, Billy the Kid has developed a strict grocery shopping routine with specific checkpoints which, if met, maintain his cheery disposition and obedience. Apple selection, flower sniffing, cheese slice sampling, meat patting and check-out candy display perusal seem an appropriate trade for a well-tempered public toddler.

A new item has snuck into the ritual grocery checklist over the past few months. As the girls approach the walking stage, I have less time to bake from scratch with BK, so a while back I started letting him choose a mix from the baking aisle every now and then. A few weeks ago I made a huge mistake that didn’t even register until the next time we went to the market; I had authorized mix selection on two consecutive trips, thereby silently acknowledging that this is now something we do. So I’ve spent the last month reviewing all of Betty Crocker’s, Pilsbury’s, Ghiradelli’s and Krusteaz’s confections.

I was exceptionally not excited when BK selected a product with one of the most forced and infuriating excretions of marketing drivel I’ve ever seen. First of all, what exactly is FUN da-Middles trying to do with “fundamental?” Is there anything fundamental about a chocolate cupcake housing a melted glob of marshmallow fluff? Awesome, absolutely. But really, fundamental? What troubles me more, however, is the single dash between “FUN” and “Middles.” It causes the “da” to seem more like a “the,” but then “FIND” seems more appropriate than “FUN.” I feel a little bad for FUN, all alone while the other letters are working on some sort of performance piece together. Combine that with the seizure inducing punctuation tantrum that’s going on, and I did not want to like this. Not one bit.

But I did. Even more than did Billy the Kid. I appreciate that the package omits frosting, since the middle makes up for it in sugar content, and I was surprised that the cake itself didn’t have that super-sweet, chemical undertone that even some of the chicest mixes can’t elude. And the yield was twelve cupcakes exactly. No waste, no batter dinner, no guilt.

I will continue to purchase your wares, FUN da-Middles subdivision, but I will malign you even as I follow your three easy steps, and I will mock you even as I enjoy your delicious and reasonably-sized cupcakes. I’d be tempted to take my concern all the way to Ms. Crocker herself, were she an actual person. There really is no excuse, and I’d like to see every attendee of the product naming meeting receive a good thrashing for their failed bravado and crimes against letters.

No food for anyone.

July 31, 2011 By in Cooking Leave a comment

I’ve had the urge to make something complicated and time-consuming for quite some time, but while the onset of the crawling stage usually signals an increase in the amount of time a caretaker has to accomplish complex tasks, such is not the case with multiples. Since the moment the more solid of the two put knee in front of knee on that fateful afternoon, triggering the second to immediately mimic her in an act of spite-learning, they’ve been determined to maintain continuous trajectories in opposite directions, only joining paths in a frantic, spastic race to be the first fed if they’ve spotted me with a pair of bottles. (They’re perfectly capable of holding their bottles and feeding themselves, but they prefer to have me serve them and bask in the awareness that, for a few minutes, those other two can meet their own needs.) In yet another manifestation of the what-goes-around effect, the 7-year old who tried to escape from a dentist’s office though the window now does little more than corral her own tiny travelers, a task made even more nerve-wracking after a carelessly early introduction to the Melissa & Doug Latches Board, aka Baby-Lock-Pick.

Add to that one case of heat rash, two counts of teething, and a three-year-old who pipes up hourly with gleeful declarations of “I’m a rascal!”, and I foresee myself having had it for the next few weeks. Mouths will be fed, but not particularly enthusiastically. The blender will take a vacation from making baby food. An exorbitant amount of plastic will be discarded. Cooking will be limited to boiling, toasting, and zapping, as well as limited in general. I believe child services cannot call me on this, given the confounding number of soldiers the Raw Food Front has amassed.

I’m going take a short holiday from being “the best mom I can” and concentrate instead on the only thing left to do when everything starts to fall apart: maintain a covetable outer appearance! With enough topsoil, mulch, palettes of annuals and back-breaking yard work, I can at least control my exterior dominion. Besides, babies’ wails of indignation are much less incapacitating outdoors (especially if the children are parked several yards away from adult ears) and virtually undetectable once the little mouths are packed full of grass and clover.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.