Success!

I am happy to report pie-making success.

Though a few expletives may have leapt from my tongue, I had a brief oven fire, and I had a few panic-filled moments spent convincing the pastry that its mission was not to stay glued to my countertop, overall I am proud of my achievement. The pie turned out to be a delicious flaky-crusted delicacy and worth all of the effort.

I thought it best to share with you a few lessons I learned last night:

1. Don’t forget steps when making pie. Especially the step that says ‘dot filling with butter.’ If you do, you will have to open a very hot oven, try not to get third degree burns, shove said butter in between your beautiful lattice work, drop a bit of butter on the floor of the oven, close the oven and then watch the oven catch on fire, curse loudly, pat out the fire (all the while trying to avoid the whole third degree burn thing again), close the oven up—just to remember you forgot the egg wash. Repeat all steps with egg wash.

2. Don’t fix a yummy and readily accessible meal while pie making. If you do, you will just stress eat after battling uncooperative raw pastry and your kitchen fire. This will blow your diet and make you too full to get hungry again for your pie.

3. Do enjoy your pie in the evening with ice cream and in the morning with coffee.

4. Do bake for someone you love. It makes all of the cursing, panic attacks, anger-filled slamming of oven doors, stress eating, and fire-fighting totally worth while.

An Ap'pie'tizing Evening

I am anxiously awaiting my evening after work. Why, you ask? Because I will spend it elbow deep in homemade pie crust, peaches, Mexican rice, and cheese. That’s right, I’m a-cookin’ up a storm tonight and I could not be more thrilled.

My need for pie baking started last week. I started watching Pushing Daisies on Netflix and I was instantly enthralled, both with the show and with the gorgeous pies that are featured in every episode. If you have never seen the show, I heartily encourage you to do so. It’s sweet, mysterious, fanciful, and visually beguiling. I feel as if it was written, produced, filmed, and aired just for little ‘ol me. I hate that it was cancelled, but that’s the way of the entertainment world…good shows like Arrested Development and Party Down are cancelled to make way for another season of King of Queens or some b.s. show like it.

Anyway, back to pies. I have baked pies before, but only with store bought crust. I decided to bake from scratch, but geez, who knew pie baking was such a science? Well, it is. I acquired a recipe on epicurious for a basic pie crust and got an education on pastry making 101. Apparently, temperature of the ingredients is key (which should be expected when something is 80% butter, duh), and you have to be patient because this recipe is not for the instant gratification junkie.

So I made the dough last night and it is sitting in two perfect discs in my refrigerator as I type this…just waiting to be extracted, warmed up, rolled out and baked to ideal gastronomic perfection. I decided on a peach pie. In the market, the peaches are practically begging to be gobbled, sending wafts of ripe peach perfume as quasi-smoke signals to my nose. Though the construction of the dough was challenging, tonight’s activity of rolling out the dough is what will separate the men from the boys. I’ll let you know how it goes…

To accompany the peach pie (and provide a filling element in case the pie goes awry) will be my Mexican casserole. An evening of cooking, baking, and filling the house with all sorts of yummy aromas is like a day at the spa to me. I can’t wait.

Results of my evening posted tomorrow. Or the day after that if I get too busy.

Cheers!

Honey Moon

Did you know that honeymoons were first referred to in the bible? Apparently, in Deuteronomy, it states that a newly married man is to be exempt from military duty for A WHOLE YEAR so he can bring joy to his wife. Nice.

In many parts of Europe, couples take a month off to celebrate their nuptials. In France, they say 'lune de miel,' which translates to 'month of honey.' They take a month to ensure happiness and fertility.

Back in the 'ol U S of A, honeymoons are very unfortunately (but greatly more affordably) compressed into a week (if you're lucky). Though I would love to be excused from real life for a year or a month to enjoy my newly matrimonial status, I feel fortunate to have a week off.

Mr. L & I toyed around with all sorts of honeymoon ideas before making our final destination selection. My desires were pretty straight forward; I wanted a place where we could:

1. Speak the language*

2. Drink the water*

3. Get a massage

4. Completely relax*

*I am all for adventurous travel, but after a wedding, I opt for less adventure and more of a chance not to contract food-born illnesses, language-barrier spurred cultural altercations, and/or jet lag.

So we opted for a magical destination with warm weather, great food, entertainment, and child-like glee. We are going to Disney World! I could not be happier with this selection. Trite, predictable, and mainstream? Absolutely. Enchanting, amusing, and relaxing? Absolutely!

Even writing about this trip gives me shivers of happiness and anticipation. I can think of no better place to set sail on our lune de miel...watching fire works, under the moon with my honey, on our honeymoon.

God Bless America

Hope everyone has a safe and happy July 4th weekend!

Engage-ulations!

This blog post is dedicated to the sole purpose of congratulating my friends David & Allison that got engaged yesterday! You may remember Allison from this post. She and Dave are 100% made for one another and I am so very happy for them.

Since we (Mr. L & I and Dave & Al) are both enganged couples that have cats, I thought it would be a great idea to form a club. We can name it Engaged Cat Owning Couples club (or ECOC for short, except that sounds rather pornographic in cyber kind of way). I guess we'll have to work on the name before our first meeting...

Here's to you, Dave and Al for a life together full of happiness, love, and laughter. We love you both!

My Goose Is (Almost) Cooked

Day 7 of cohabitation and all is well.

I know I spoke of food in my last post, but I gotta tell you, I am so glad to have someone besides myself to cook for. As you may gather if you have ever read this blog over a period of time, my interests are cyclical. One month I’m way into stitching, then sewing, then baking, etc., etc. Well, the cooking cycle is in full swing and I’m ready to feed the masses.

In the interest of full domestic disclosure, I love to cook, but my repertoire is a bit limited. The things I cook, I know well, but I am ready to branch out a bit. I am not great with meats (I was a vegetarian during my formative learning-how-to-cook years), so I would love to get more comfortable with preparing meats. Thankfully, Mr. L is not a picky eater…

These are my summer food goals:

1) Make and can some jam
2) Learn how to properly make a loaf of bread (I’ve done it before, but I am always kind of guessing, so practice will make perfect) and bake at least 10 loaves over the summer
3) Learn how to cook a pork loin
4) Develop a collection of easy, healthy recipes that make Mr. L’s mouth water
5) Roast at least 5 chickens
6) Make homemade guacamole and salsa
7) Cook for a proper dinner party—appetizers, salads, main course, sides, desserts-- the works

8) Learn how to properly flip a pancake and omelet without ending up with a pile of mush in the skillet

So, wish me luck. I will keep posting about my progress.

XO,

The Future Gourmet

Home Is Where The Casserole Is

Mr. L & I are on day 6 of cohabitation. I will have to say, being a newbie to cohabitation; it is good and weird at the same time. Change in general causes me major inner turmoil, so considering the magnitude of this life change, I have a hard time feeling total peace. Mr. L has compared my attitude to that of my cat when faced with change; we both want to hide under the bed for a few days.

I felt particularly peculiar on Sunday night. Mr. L & I had worked our fingers to the bone all weekend long, and as the sun set on our little home, the weird feelings of ‘what do I do now,’ started to wash over me. Though all of my stuff was in the house, the house had yet to feel like home. I tried to relax, alone, in my room. I tried to watch tv and pretend it was just another Sunday night. I tried to do laundry. But, everything I tried to do felt insanely strange, after all, there was no going home because I was already there. I started to panic.

Many times when I am in panic mode, I feel the need to cook. Something about the process of preparing food is like taking a big dose of valium to me. Mr. L’s sister had given us a box of veggies earlier in the weekend, so I grabbed my ipod, took my place in the kitchen, and decided to whip up some squash casserole.

As I sliced the squash and onions and listened to one of my favorite albums, a familiar feeling poured over me. The action of cooking made me feel at home. After all, a woman’s home is where she cooks. As I sautéed, greased, pre-heated, and baked, my body familiarized itself with this new space. A woman who cooks moves in the kitchen as if it is her dance partner, and on Sunday night we performed a tentative, but tender routine.

Feeling uplifted after putting the squash in the oven, I jumped on the couch next to Mr. L and told him I was sorry for my strange mood earlier in the evening. He asked me if I was feeling better, to which I replied, “Yes. I just had to cook it out.”

And then a familiar smell drifted from the kitchen as the casserole began to bake. It smelled like home.