Black Bean Casserole

So tonight I decided to go through my mom's recipe box and pick out something to make and decided upon Black Bean Casserole. It's actually extremely easy to make and I added ground beef to it instead of just leaving it vegetarian; my brother's would stage a revolt if a dish did not have meat. I informed them of my decision and regarding a dish without meat my brother, Scott said, "What's the point!?" So I'll keep my love for veggie dishes to myself. Anyway, I'm reading the recipe and after a long day and not a lot of sleep the night before(I always have an excuse!) I now have to read my mom's handwriting. This is not usually a difficult task except when it says "2 cloves minced garlic." The ingredient before that was cumin so I am still in spice mode. I'm thinking "Cloves!? What in the world would I put cloves in a dish like this for!? That's weird! I think I'll leave it out." Then I notice there is no measurement listing, just 2 cloves (apparently I can't read MINCED GARLIC, although being that it didn't say OF MINCED GARLIC I am at a loss) so I think that maybe it means fresh cloves and she just forgot to write how much garlic. "What!? Do we even have fresh cloves?" I determine that we don't and then I realize we are out of garlic which is no big deal. Hmmm...why are these ingredients written on the same line? The genius that I am never cluing in to the fact that what the dish is calling for is 2 cloves of garlic. DUH!!!! Fortunately, I decided to not put in cloves and when I realized how weirdly I had interpreted what 2 cloves minced garlic meant...well, what could I do? I literally smacked myself in the head. I will never ever forget that cloves are the parts of the garlic bulb. I did actually know this before this episode of kitchen mania, but my synapses were not firing well today. C'est la vie. Another story for the blogs.
Until next time, The Unexpected Cook

The Right Rice

Tonight was Taco Thursdays. Tacos are quick, delicious and easy for meeting nights. I got a little creative and threw in some black beans and green chilis into the ground beef, along with seasonings, of course. Everything was smelling good and simmering just spectacularly. Then there is the rice. You see the problem with rice is that for amateur cooks it can be difficult to distinguish one type from another. So I decided to try my hand at making my own version of Spanish Rice to go with my kicked up tacos. (The tacos themselves turned out great. Phew.) I threw in some seasoning, tomatoes, and pepper in the rice and put the lid on and let it go to town absorbing all the yumminess. Cooking rice is tricky because you can't take the lid off during cooking or that defeats the purpose. So you wait until the time is up to take a look at what it is you've created.
Back to distinguishing types of rice...there are many kinds...of which we have at least four varieties in our home. There is regular white rice that we use for most things...like Spanish Rice. Then there is my favorite, sticky rice. There is a term for it, of which fails me now and I am not running downstairs to get the name and make this technically accurate. Sticky rice is used in most asian dishes. We make a lot of beef broccoli stir fry and such in our home. It goes well and is easy to pick up with chopsticks, hence it being sticky rice. Well, it all looks the same to me. As I took off the lid to inhale the delicious smells and bask in the glory of my creation, I stirred once and saw the sticky consistency. Slop, squish, sqalsh. Immediately I knew I had done something very wrong! Long story short....tonight I made a giant batch of Spanish style sticky rice that wasn't seasoned nearly enough and tasted more like rice with tomatoes. Uh..I was going for healthy/interesting...yes Thoroughly Modern Jen's Asian-Spanish sticky rice and Kicked Up Tacos...heh heh. It's good, right?

Almost Wasn't Sausage and Rice

I think that I subconsciously mess things up or have near misses so that I have something to write about. Tonight, for example, I was making Sausage and Rice. It is a good, hearty meal to have during fall/winter weather. It is also extremely easy. Well, easy unless you are me and working to get everything done before everyone gets home. I will make an excuse for doing what I am about to relate. I got little sleep last night, so I was tired oh that and other things. It's those other things that really got me. So yes, back to being tired. Yes, that's it...I was extremely tired!

Here is my thought process as I begin to make this casserole. "Self," I say. "You need to take the sausage out of the refrigerator so it can finish defrosting." (Takes sausage out of the fridge.) "Self, this sausage doesn't look like it has any casing on it." (Little voice telling me that just can't be the case.) "Go away little voice! I know what I'm doing." (I poke the sausage as if that's the determining factor of whether or not it has a casing.) So I take the sausages out of their packaging and place them ever so nicely in a hot pan waiting to brown them up. I let them sit for a minute because they are still a bit frozen, but then I notice the outside is starting to burn, but they aren't cooked. "Self, what is happening?" (Tries to cut them with the spoon to no avail. "Uh oh." Light bulb goes off. I am so out of it and unresponsive that I am totally not surprised to realize I had not peeled the casings off!) "Ha." I think. I quickly turn the pan off, burn my hands a bit quickly peeling the casings off and all is saved. Yea!

"You idiot." I say with laughter and continue preparing the meal. Oh the joys of cooking and talking to yourself in your mind and having no one hear your plight. Lesson learned once again.

The interesting part of all of this is that I have made this before...same exact ingredients and everything. Yes, sausages are almost always put into a casing...I've even seen them made on TV. So, you'd think I would know to automatically pull it off. Oh well. OBVIOUSLY I'm not the brightest cook in the kitchen. Cooks need a lot of sleep before preparing gourmet creations!.....heh heh....You don't believe me?

Sausage and Rice

Rice...Sausage(sans casings)...Mushrooms, Marinara sauce(homemade or preferred jar brand)...Mozzarella Cheese.

Layer in a casserole dish. Rice, Sauce(has been mixed with sausage/mushrooms), and slices of Mozzarella cheese. REPEAT. Bake for 30 min at 350F

Flops Turned Foodlicious!

I recently had some mishaps in the kitchen arena. Now being a bit of a perfectionist, little things can seem like MAJOR things. The other night I decided to make dinner for my family. We have this recipe for Spinach Pizza. It is delicious. Granted I was out in service all day and forgot to take the dough out to thaw until after 4pm that day. Bread normally takes hour to thaw(if frozen) and rise. So the back of the package suggests a quick defrost method using the microwave. Now microwaves are good for many things, however do not defrost dough in it no matter what the package says! It starts to cook the ends of the dough and will not let it rise. I take it out and of course do the finger poke test. Yikes! The edges were tough and cracked. Oh well I thought. I will let it sit until 5pm and let it rise. Well, rise it did not...boo hoo! So I start cooking the sausage, spinach, and grating cheese. I roll out this interesting half cooked dough as much as it will go. It is ripping and breaking because it's already partially cooked. However, I became creative and used a little camouflaging. The parts of the raw dough I wrapped around the yucky parts. The oven worked it's magic! It was delicious and I even had time to make a healthy and colorful salad. I told my family what had happened and they would have been none the wiser had I withheld that information about my microwaved and mutilated dough.



Then last night I come home from work and begin preparing my Cafe au Lait Cheesecake that I bragged about (and posted pictures about) until I was asked to make it for our congregation lunch(today). Unbeknownst to me, we have about 3 different sizes of spring form pans. So I pull out the first one I see, thinking I am so cool because this time it took me lickety split time to prepare this cheesecake. I pour the first layer(the thought crosses my mind that it is too thin) but I bake it anyway. The second layer goes on and I bake it despite my strange feeling about the way it looks. It has to cool for about 30 minutes and when I pull the outside part of the pan off, no joke it's about 1.5 inches thick!!! WHAT!? I look at my mom and say OH NO! What happened!? My mom informed me that we have many sizes and I obviously used the wrong one. It's a good thing I've had years to calm down my crazy and not throw it out and start over. Granted, I was still worried about it, but I drizzled some chocolate over the top and lo and behold...it was a hit. The friends enjoyed it and although it wasn't what I had expected, it filled bellies and gave smiles and that is all I can ask for.

So...I have learned 2 things: 1. Perfection holds no ground in the kitchen because the unexpected often makes the best meals (like last night's creation of everything but the kitchen sink grilled chicken salad). 2. Don't tell everyone that you messed up and used the wrong pan because 9/10 times they have no idea what it was supposed to be like, don't care that it isn't perfect and are just happy to have something yummy to satisfy their sweet tooth/insatiable hunger. I'm really enjoying cooking because even when you mess up the bread, the cake isn't exactly right, the rice is undercooked...etc., etc., there is usually something salvageable about it and lesson learned for next time! :D

Oh and just a little side note...cutting veggies, fruits, or whatever strikes your fancy is a great way to get rid of stress. I recently discovered that being a sous chef would not be so bad. It is a creative way to try new ways of preparing ingredients for main dishes, how you can slice, dice, chop, cut, chiffonade items, get lost in your own little world and just think about the thoughts of the day. I can even pray or just plain ignore people with the excuse that "I'll cut myself if I lose my concentration, this is a very sharp knife." Some may say that is the sign I am not a good cook because I can't multi-task. Whatever! Think that as they may, I like my own little kitchen world of thought processing and food making magic. :P

The Best Lunch is a Home-Made Lunch

I decided to start my new job off right by eating healthy. Being that the majority of my time would be spent in an office sitting on my behind, I figured it'd be best for me not to get that lovely physique so common in the office place. So of course I was searching through Real Simple magazine and found an awesome lunch. It's a pasta salad. Here are the ingredients: gemelli pasta, grape tomatoes(halved), fresh cubed mozzarella, spinach and salami. Then you make a simple dressing with olive oil, white wine vinegar, salt and pepper. Let's just say that I was sitting here on my break and decided to blog about it. Another lesson I learned in my quest for starting my new job off right: simple is better! This applies to food and life (duh!). That pasta salad was D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S! If you want the recipe let me know!
Question for those who actually read this: Any suggestions for lunch time meals? What have you learned about food?

Cafe Au Lait Chessecake

This just proves that involved desserts are possible! It was delicous(and deemed so by my family and friends). I now have now agreed to make one for the service group on Friday...what have I gotten myself into!? This was a day when I was stressed about a job and really needed an involved dessert to keep me busy. This defnitely helped! Who needs the Cheesecake Factory!?

Unemployment breeds a cooking machine!

I grew up spoiled in the arena of cooking. I learned different things and helped out here and there(mostly by stealing cheese and eating it off the cutting board), but I had never developed the desire to cook. I attribute this to many things, one being that my mother is an amazing cook and always was cooking for our family. So I never had to cook, and being spoiled like that usually does not create a desire to cook anyway, when you have someone doing it for you. As I grew older, I suddenly realized that I had no store of knowledge when it came to cooking, granted I could whip up a recipe if I felt like it, but I had nothing memorized. Major faux pas in my family! And then came...dun dun dun(insert scary music)...unemployment! Suddenly I had much more time on my hands and it was not about to get better for many months. So my schedule consisted of service, cleaning, looking for jobs, and my old fall-back, baking! I love baking so much so that I can feel happiness well up in my heart when I smell cinnamon, nutmeg and the sound of a hand-mixer. Baking is one thing I have always been able to do. I began with creating giant cookies with a hodge-podge of ingredients. They garnered much praise from my family whom I often use as taste-testers. I soon became hooked...or obsessed as my mother noted a few weeks into unemployment. I pulled out old Better Homes and Gardens cookbooks that were dusty in the back of our cabinet and discovered Banana Drop Cookies with Banana Frosting. Before I even had the batch frosted my brother came home and devoured 6 of them! I now have requests for more. Then it was a Cafe au Lait cheesecake. Decadent and rich, I even went so far as to garnish it with coffee cups and sauces made out of chocolate.
Then....came the cooking part. Being that I would be home before everyone else, I suddenly developed the desire to cook for them all. I must say this was shocking to much of my family. Soon though they were not shocked as they tried and actually enjoyed my creations. I have even been honored with our family recipe for Spaghetti and Meatballs. As I was making this dish I suddenly realized that I was a goner. As I heard the crackle and pop of sauteeing onions and garlic, inhaled the glorious scent I became addicted to cooking. "Finally!" My mother would say as I began exhibiting that I was part of our family gene pool. So this blog is really a take it or leave it. It is more for myself, things I have learned about cooking and what it really does do for my soul...yes my soul. It is cheesy to say that, but when I am stressed out, happy, depressed or just plain ol' bored(which is not often) I can always find a stick of butter, flour, eggs and sugar and make something wonderful. Or start sauteeing garlic, cutting pears and apples for a dessert and immediately all care and worry melts away. I am literally transported, at one with my thoughts and the task at hand. It's amazing what I can work out in my mind while I am preparing something. So I hope you enjoy reading this and if not, I really don't care. I say that with love. Next I'll post some more insights and recent explorations into food, cooking and my favorite...baking. :D Bye for now!