Cooking Baking Eating

There are many things that I don’t ever really remember eating until I met my husband. It’s not because he had pushed them on me, more along the lines that I had never eaten them growing up. Like mac and cheese, chicken and sour cream enchiladas, banana pancakes… I had never eaten or even thought of trying these things until he was around. Now I make them and LOVE them.

Another thing I never had very often while growing up was meatballs. The only time I ever got them was when we would go to a restaurant in Southern California and they had appetizers in their waiting area of meatballs and hand made potato chips. I also decided to change up the normal recipe and go for something slightly healthier: ground turkey. The one problem with the turkey is that it can get dried out easily, so you have to make sure there is enough moisture in the meatballs to keep a good texture.

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Sometimes there are things that you do on a day to day basis that seem so natural, so obvious, that sometimes it escapes you that others might not know something that you think is… Well obvious.

One of them was brought to my attention some time ago when I went to a new-ish friend’s house for dinner. We had made them tacos one night and they were returning the favor, having a nice spread of fixin’s for making our own tacos. You really can’t go wrong with having a Make-It-Your-Self taco bar. But there was one problem. They were trying to use corn tortillas, but they didn’t cook them first.

Yeah, you actually have to cook the tortillas to get them to be that soft and pliable texture so you can fold them around your favorite food. They kept going on about how messy and unreliable they were so they just switched back to their flour tortillas (cold out the package also). I didn’t have the courage to bring up the fact that you actually had to warm or cook them before they were usable, the fear of sounding like I was preaching or being snide wouldn’t let me do it. I liked them, I didn’t want them to start hating me so soon in our new friendship.

It didn’t strike me until much later that maybe they just didn’t know. Not everyone is an obsessive-must-know-everything person and researches until they find the answer. Plus I just grew up with having a taco night with my parents, using corn tortillas never flour. Maybe they just didn’t know you had to cook them.

So maybe others don’t know either? That’s pretty much what’s prompting me in this one. Maybe they just didn’t know. So here we go.

Its easy!
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My husband is convinced that I’m really not half Scot and half Mutt. He’s convinced that I’m actually half Mexican and Italian, mostly because those are two of my favorite types of cuisine to cook. I think he would have added some sort of reference to baking, but there isn’t a cultural cuisine that is only baking (not that I know of at least).

I love making Mexican food, but its mostly the Americanized Mexican Bastardization that I’m good at. Burritos, tacos, quesadillas, nachos, enchiladas with red sauce… Anything with chips or in a tortilla is fine with me. But there was one thing I hadn’t made yet for my husband…
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I’m spoiled. I admit that. And unfortunately its painfully obvious to me.

Not long ago I decided to try my hand at baking yeast breads. It was definitely a learning experience. In the end I came across The Fresh Loaf and found this delicious thing.

Forgive the weird neon picture, it was taken with an old camera.

Berry Cream Cheese Braid. Holy Mother is it wonderful! I made this for Christmas presents for people, and actually had reports back that when it was shared with their family they didn’t believe someone made this and didn’t buy it from a store. Craziness I tell you. It tastes great with either raspberries or blue berries, but husband and I prefer the raspberries.

So I really am spoiled, because I got used to the wonderful, fresh, not too sweet flavor of this treat.

Well I haven’t made it in a little while and I was hankering for some sweet bread at the store the other day. We picked up this raspberry danish.

It looks tasty and smells good. I can’t eat it. It’s too sweet, the raspberry is like a raspberry gel thing that I really don’t think actually came from a fruit. The bread is dry and lacks flavor other than chemical.

I am so sad because I spoiled myself. Mass processed things just don’t appeal to me anymore! This is good and bad since now I wont be tempted to eat processed sweets nearly as much. But bad because when I get a hankering for something sweet it just wont appeal to me.

Berry Cream Cheese Braid recipe to come later.

Damn you, home baked tastiness!

I have a confession. It’s rather sad but true. I’m really not that big of a chocolate person.

Does that make me less of a woman?

When looking at a dessert or something sweet, I never really went for the chocolate. Sure there was the required Snickers bar in the morning during high school for about a month, or the Peanut Butter Cup that has been warmed in the window on a hot summer day and melted to the point where you have to lick it out of the cup. But beyond that not really a chocolate person.

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I made some brownies a little bit ago and I had some difficulty finding a recipe for it! It’s not the fact that there wasn’t ONE recipe for them, there were about 50 (I have lots of cook books).

After going through so many of my books, I took the recipe from Better Homes and Gardens new Cook Book circa 1953. And now just reading the fine print I realize that the book is a fifth printing, first edition. Huh, cool. I guess that is rather fitting since this is the book that Grandma has used for years and now has given me. I don’t think I could get rid of this book really.

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This really has to be one of my husbands favorite dishes. He LOVES mac and cheese when we get it at restaurants or fast food.

Honestly? I don’t think I had ever eaten mac and cheese growing up.

Yes, I was a weird one.
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Something terrible has been happening to me lately. I’ve noticed differences in my mind, taste, and body that are impossible to ignore.

It’s changing.

In general, I HATE CHANGE with a vengeance. But this change seems to be something my body wants to do, and therefore is enforcing on me without my real knowing.
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I love our dog. One of the greatest things about cooking and baking is doing it for someone you love. Even if that someone is covered in fur.

I wanted to start making my own dog treats for her when she went though some really icky dental problems. She lost quite a few teeth and so we had to be a bit more careful with what food we gave her, especially treats since the ones in the store can be either foul smelling or really hard.

So I decided she would have the tastiest ones I could make. It really is quite interesting when you start looking for recipes for animals. Many of them call for liver puree, bacon, or some other type of meat. I really didn’t want to make a special trip to the store for this, and I really didn’t want to have to make liver puree… ew.

After some research I decided on peanut butter. Its a very simple recipe and none of the ingredients seem as though they would be problematic for animals. Chocolate, grapes, raisins, and garlic are a few things that I’ve found out are bad for dogs. Also be careful when making this recipe that you don’t put too much sugar, if any, in the cookies. Because really, we don’t really need a sugar-wired animal running through the house. Read more »

Work has really been evil for me lately. My schedule got knocked around majorly, I now have to be at work at 5:00am. Because of my commute I have to leave at 4:20am. I have to wake up by 3:10am to go shower.

Yeah, its early and yeah it sucks. Hopefully it’ll only be temporary.

It feels as though my soul has taken a little beating lately with the stress of a new work schedule and the stress of getting up so flipping early. It almost feels as though my soul needs a hug. Or maybe a band-aid and a bubble bath. Either way I know there is one thing to feed my soul.

Baking.
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