Off-Roading a Recipe

Some cooks follow recipes scrupulously.  Measuring exactly, even weighing ingredients.  Testing temperatures and checking ingredients before embarking on a recipe.  These type of cooks probably subscribe to Cooks Illustrated and hold membership in Alton Brown's fan club.

I don't fall in this school of cooks - to many who know me this will not come as a surprise.  I substitute ingredients based on convenience, follow recipes loosely and have the philosophy that good ingredients combined together will likely have a good result.  This does not mean I mix genres of food and I do in fact like Cooks Illustrated, but I often take liberties in modifying recipes - twas the case when it came to trying my hand at homemade hot fudge.  I consulted several recipes - some on Pinterest and some off.  Some called for evaporated milk and others called for cream.  Some for unsweetened chocolate and others for cocoa powder.

I am sure there's some cooking science I am missing, but I promise when you are tasting gooey hot chocolate, you are not going to wish you had gone for the cream instead of the evaporated milk.  It's just good.  I couldn't even repeat what I made in my variation of hot fudge - it was a mix of what I had on hand - unsweetened chocolate with some cocoa powder, a little fat free half and half and some regular milk.  Stirring and cooking until the consistency looked hot fudge-familiar.

The point is - sometimes what we cook doesn't need an exact science.  Pinterest recipes and recipes in general are good in their own right.  But perhaps too they can point us to new combinations that we hadn't thought of or introduce us to new substitutions.  Take my friend, Brooke who discovered lime worked as good as lemon in concocting this yummy looking main dish.  Now my mother would warn that you don't want to vary too much but even so....sometimes cooking just needs a little flexibility in knowing that whatever you end up with will be satisfyingly good if you can trust the ingredients and the process.  That's good enough for me.

Any off-roading suggestions you have tried with a recipe worthy of sharing?

Upcycling

 

Pinterest is full of upcycling ideas...transforming the old into new, reclaiming what was once discarded.  You can transform light bulbs into flower vases, wine corks into a bath mat or a cheese grater into a pencil holder??!

While I appreciate the environmental conscientiousness that upcycling encourages, some of the ideas seem a little extreme and even like a potential for a mess (thinking moldy wine corks - yuck.)  Yet some of the ideas seem charming - a little bit of paint can transform some picture frames or an ikea dresser.  With a little help from my old favorite, mod podge, I got inspired to take on two projects - albeit revised from the original plan on Pinterest.  

Project 1 - Fabric mosaic.  With lots of fabric remnants leftover from various sewing projects, I had more than enough to tackle this fabric mosaic project.  I took a different spin though and made a stencil of the "letter" m and filled in the simple design using fabrics from various projects I used for my niece and nephew.  A couple of layers of mod podge later, it looks good enough to hang on their wall and remind them of their last name or their Mimi!

Project 2 -Rehabbed tray:  Cheap trays + craft paper + mod podge = an upcycled tray worthy of entertaining.  I had picked up a tray at a thrift store that is about the size of a large pizza and some craft paper showing the hot spots of Italy - the result a decent combo for rooftop entertaining.  

Pinterest Trial:  Fabric Mosaic

Review:  Make use of a fabric scraps with a cute result

Pinterest Trial:  Decoupage Tray

Review:  Cute but not perfect

My results: 

Project #1

Project #2

Taste of Home

This post is not for my vegetarian friends but if you are a vegetarian from the south, perhaps you will understand.  

As anyone who no longer lives in the south will tell you, there are things that just taste better in the south - grown in the south, made by people from the south, consumed in the south.  Sweet tea.  Peaches.  Barbeque. Cobblers.  Barbeque.  And yes, that's an intentional repeat and my list could go on....


My sister and I have long complained that what DC is missing is a decent lunch place.  A place like we knew growing up in the south - rotates the meat and veggies each day to give you a meat and 2 or 3.  A place that counts mac and cheese or cobbler as a veggie.  Plus a chicken salad plate.  


I am adding chicken salad to the list of foods that taste better in the south.  I'm not talking about the tuna fish salad variety of chicken salad that the lunch places in DC serve up.  I'm talking about the kind I grew up eating with grapes and pecans mixed in to the usual combo of chicken and mayo.  It was the only kind my mother made.  It was the only kind served by the lunch places in my hometown. 

If you have spent any time in Birmingham, then you likely know the chicken salad plate that O'Carr's serves up.  The heaping scoop of chicken salad, the medley of exotic fruits and fancy crackers.  I was excited to try this copycat of O'Carr's chicken salad that I found on Pinterest.  The thought of food processing my chicken was not appealing and while I didn't have a sample of the real deal to do a side-by-side comparison, the result hit the spot and was a good taste of home.  Plus with low fat mayo and cream cheese, it was not that bad and even more low carb if you forego the fancy crackers for veggies.

Good stuff for lunch.  The kind of good stuff DC is missing.  We are getting closer up here....some investors recently helped franchise Zoe's and their chicken salad will do but it's not got all the good stuff in it.  I think if O'Carr's is looking for any investors in the DC area, I would be happy to help and I imagine there are lots of other transplants that would welcome them as well.

Pinterest trial:  O'Carr's Chicken Salad
Review:  Minus the fancy crackers and fruit, it's a good stand in for the real deal.

Pinning Italy

Periodically on Pinterest, you will find pictures that appear too good to be true.  Pinned with hope of going there one day.  Recently I was lucky enough to have one of those days.  Italy for 2 weeks with 3 friends, 4 cities and 1 academic conference.   (Disclaimer: this might read as a boondoggle but with all honesty it was a helpful conference convened by the International Society of Third Sector Research – i.e. international NGOs). 

Months ago on Pinterest I had found some pics – a market in Siena, the coast of Cinque Terre.  As the days rolled by in Italy, I took great delight in seeing the Italy I had pinned – the Italy of the tour books.  The canals of Venice, the blue sky of Florence, the stacked colored houses of Cinque Terre, the rolling hills of Tuscany.  It was one glorious sight after another.

Travel for me is about the food and the people.  You can’t go to Italy and not talk about the food and wine.   The pasta cooked just so, the flavors of pesto and fresh lemon, amarena/cherry gelato, panna cotta that made you want to lick the bowl.  Chianti in the Chianti region, Prosecco on a patio near the beach, homemade lemoncello, grand crema frozen coffee.  Sure it was rich, sure I don’t usually drink wine in the afternoon but it was all glorious.  And yes, I did bring back a shirt that says I heart gelato. 

And the people - talking at bus stops, lingering in the piazzas, gathering under lampposts for late night community conversations, the drama and intonations of an ordinary conversation.  In Siena the celebration of one neighborhood’s win in a horse race was continuing 2 weeks after their victory – complete with impromptu parades that attracted all generations.  In Vernazza, old men, assisted by their canes, were eager to give directions. 

I could go on about Italy but there’s also more to be said about the experience of travel.  Getting away from a routine and then deciding weeks later that a routine is good to return to.  Having 3 girlfriends that want to travel together on the first day and the last day.  Conversations that continue seamlessly, laughs and inside jokes that emerge from the experience. Seeing the art and churches of the ages. Finding your way – whether it’s navigating the train stations or the backroads of Tuscany that don’t even show up on GPS and force you to talk to locals whose words you don’t understand but hand gestures you do.  

 So my review from pinterest is to do something you have been wanting to do.  Don't take the privilege of travel for granted.  Enjoy the adventure and eat good food.   

Lessons Learned

When I worked in monitoring and evaluation, we would talk about lessons learned as a nice way to describe what good could come of a failure.  I have had plenty of lessons learned recently.  Some could be described as problems while others could be described as inconveniences.  I am hoping for more inconveniences.  

In matters of do-it-yourself, you have to be prepared for failure.  On one of my favorite blogs, Young House Love, they have gracefully shared about their recent D-I-Y deck failure.  Some things are going to go as planned while others will not - much to your chagrin.  


In the land of pinterest, there are some ideas that get re-pinned repeatedly and catch my attention. But that doesn't always lead to success.  This simple canvas project caught my attention and with its low cost threshold, I gave it a try.  Project failure.  Even application of the glue was the major issue and my own color choice for the paint caused another...I scrapped the project.  My sister has since redeemed it but it's nowhere near the intended outcome.  Some you win and some you lose.  

A few months ago, my sister recruited me to make this rain cape for my niece.  Super cute and seemingly simple pattern.  The cost of the oil cloth fabric made us nervous because with that kind of investment, I wanted to do it right.   But we were excited and even got ahead of ourselves by having visions of rain capes being my thing - my thing as in a money maker (i.e. Mandi aka mass producer of cutie rain capes).  The project went pretty well, but I quickly learned that I am no fan of sewing on oil cloth.  I couldn't figure out the trick to getting it to slide through the machine when you sewed slick side up as you had to do with this pattern.  Quickly my thing became the thing I never wanted to do again.  

Yet, the pattern cut left me with a significant portion of leftover fabric and so with this leftover expensive oil cloth I went looking on pinterest for a project and found this lunch sack.  Hoping that ol' Martha wouldn't fail me, I tried it - a simple pattern until you got to finishing the edges.  With my prior experience of sewing slick side up, no thanks.  I stopped the pattern early and while it seems to work just fine, it's not as finished as Martha would have liked.

So  I've learned my lesson - thankful I didn't invest in gobs of oil cloth to start my cape business before I learned how much I dislike sewing with oil cloth, thankful failures can be redeemed and thankful I have this little one to sew for and loves me no matter what.

Pinterest trial:  Oilcloth Lunchsack
Review:  Easy to follow but be warned about oil cloth

Taco Bell a mi Casa

When I was little, Taco Bell's beans and cheese constituted a meal for me- a little pot of gooey, cheesy perfection.  Yet as my taste buds matured, I abandoned the 59-cent menu for higher standards of culinary delights.  I occasionally found myself returning - airport terminals sometimes have limited options - but being introduced recently to my foodie friend, Liz's passion for all things Taco Bell convinced me to give it a fresh look.

Liz, me, the sauce and the wrap

With Crunch Wraps as a recent addition to the offerings of Taco Bell, they are reason alone to try the Bell again - a combination of goodness that fits in your hand.  Yet, when I saw a posting on Pinterest for a homemade  Crunch Wrap, I was delighted and a bit relieved to be able to make this savory treat at home.

On a recent summer night, I invited some friends over, including Liz, to try this fast food-inspired delight.  Taco Bell would typically not be the offering of a dinner party but for this crowd and with the addition of chips and guacamole, we had a great combination for dinner.

To satisfy my vegetarian friends, I substituted the meat in the recipe for a bean mixture of pintos, refried beans and taco seasoning.  The directions worked great to produce a copy, and all agreed that it's an easy dinner option with ingredients you can trust since you are your own Taco Bell assembly line.  Plus if you have a little baggy of leftover Taco Bell sauce packets like Liz brought to the dinner, you are set for your own south of the border experience at home.

Pinterest Trial:  Homemade Crunch Wraps
Review:  Just like the real deal, only better.

Then Comes a Baby in a Baby Carriage

It is a truth universally acknowledged that once you have successfully graduated through a series of wedding showers and weddings that baby showers will soon follow.  Nearly two year to the weekend, I found myself planning a lovely afternoon gathering for a dear friend Abbie at the same place we had 'just' hosted her bachelorette party.  We gathered to celebrate the upcoming birth of her baby Emma.  Here's some of the details I contributed that were all very a'la Pinterest.

The decorations:  Our mom-to-be friend is shying away from pink-overload and has adopted a cute whale theme for the baby girl's room so we obliged and I contributed some tissue paper pompoms.  Who doesn't like a craft that involves tissue paper that turns into fluffy balls of cuteness - these make for cheap decorations that have a wow factor.

The food:  We had a full spread for an afternoon shower.  I made some meringues that reminded me - in the best possible way - of the marshmallows from Lucky Charms cereal.  I have learned the trick to light and airy meringues is no humidity and patience.  I'm not a patient person by nature and typically not one when it comes to baking and following directions but to get the results with meringues, I found that listening to a podcast while I whip the egg whites keeps me mixing for the requisite 6-8 minutes (I skipped the chocolate dipped bottoms for my version).  I also made some of these cream cheese filled strawberries.  While the results didn't hold well together because I made it without butter (i.e. runny filling when they sat on the table for a while), what's not to like about sweetened cream cheese stuffed in a strawberry?! 

The games:  When I think of baby games, I am inclined to groan - melted chocolate in diapers is just not my style and frankly gross.  I wanted to do something sweet to welcome baby Emma so we circulated cards to record a series of wishes for the baby girl based loosely on this baby worksheet .  We kept the cards circulating while Abbie opened gifts and then read the cards aloud - the results were sweet sentiments that Abbie can tuck away to share one day with baby Emma.

I'll report later on the baby gift I made that was a true feat of "I can make that...."


Pinterest Trial:  Tissue Paper Flowers
Review: Surprisingly classy and easy to do

Pinterest Trial:  Meringues
Review:  Patience is key but worth it.

Pinterest Trial:  Strawberries with Cream Cheese
Review:  Delicious and rich filling

Pinterest Trial:  Baby Wishes
Review:  Sweet activity and better than other baby games