I'm going to change my life

On my drive home from work today, I decided I needed to change my life. I'm really bored. Like back-in-high-school bored. And so I fill up my time with a lot of things, like going to the gym (which is actually good, because it's healthy and because it exhausts me so that I don't remember that I'm so bored). And then I started thinking about how much fun I had last year with NaNoWriMo, and how much I'm looking forward to it this year, too. And I thought, maybe if I spent more time writing, I'd be less bored. Which got me thinking that I need to change my life.

As maybe weird (or maybe not) as this sounds, I think the first place to start is with my diet. I love to exercise, but I wouldn't have to do quite so much of it if I ate just a little better. Which, of course, to me, means I should first focus on eating up all of the stuff I shouldn't be eating that's sitting around the house. Or I should just be eating up all of the random stuff in general so that I can start this program with a clean slate. Which is how I ended up eating mystery soup for dinner.

A few months ago, when I was feeling totally overwhelmed by the amount of random food being provided by my CSA, I chopped it up, mixed it with some olive oil, salt, pepper, and herbs, and roasted it. Then I froze it, figuring at some point in the future I'd want soup (by my calculation vegetables in liquid equals soup). I did date the bag (from May). So tonight, I dumped that bag of roasted veggies into a pot with some frozen broth (I'm not sure you can freeze broth, but I did, and we'll see if I'm still alive tomorrow), tracked down my immersion blender, blended the shit out of it, and called it dinner. (This sort of activity might be why my husband hesitates to leave me home by myself).

So then, here are some other random things going on. So my company is giving away a free super bowl commercial, and all the employees get to vote on the top 20 finalists. I realize I just did a very bad job of describing the contest, but whatever, you'll have to deal. The point is, I'm super excited about the finalist I voted for, Goldie Blox, because they make engineering toys for girls, and I really think I should have been an engineer if anybody had ever told me that there was some other math-based career path than teaching. But I'm old, and I have two non-math related degrees, and a bunch of student loans, and going back to school sounds like the worst thing possible to me right now, so I'm just going to bitch about missing out in some other alternative universe future. But I don't want that to happen to your girls so check this out. (By "this" I mean the link I posted above.)

So then, my coworker shared with me this thing she bought to sit on that makes her chair so much more comfortable, so I have to have one. And while I was Amazoning (yes, that's a verb), I figured I should do some white elephant shopping. Last year I totally scored big time and received a Black Santa Pornament. It is awesome. So I thought I'd regift it and get him a girl. You know, so he wouldn't be lonely. But the only one I could find on Amazon looked like this, and I didn't want to spend $20 on her. Because I have standards, people. So then I did some more internet searching and discovered that there's an insane amount of this sort of stuff that you can't order directly from the manufacturer. Instead, like the perv I've apparently become, I have to go to some other third party to buy my girly pornament.

So then I thought, what else would make an awesome white elephant gift? Tactical Bacon, that's what! But I didn't want to spend more than $20 on that, so I started looking at some cheaper options. And I found Zombie Apocalypse Survival Kit in a Sardine Can, Canned Unicorn Meat (that you apparently can't actually eat, although based on the Harry Potter premise that unicorns are more or less sacred, you probably shouldn't even think of owning their meat), and Zombie Jerky, that you can apparently eat, but maybe wouldn't want to.

So now I have too many white elephant options. And I haven't technically been invited to a white elephant party. Oh boy. This might be why I need to change my life.

Word vomit, or why I drink

So, for fun last night, I was in charge of making dinner. This doesn't actually happen a lot in my house because Captain America works the night shift, and as far as I'm concerned, raisin bran is THE ultimate dinner. (We had a house guest one time who observed me having Baileys on the rocks (why is there no apostrophe in that?), cereal, and chips for dinner...while watching 8 Mile. He was duly impressed. Captain America was decidedly unimpressed when he learned of it.)

Anyway, our CSA sent us beets in our box last week. As you may or may not know, beets taste like dirt, and that's where they should stay. They are only marginally above peas in edibility tests, and peas, as far as I'm concerned are NOT food. I cannot conceive of a situation in which I'd be hungry enough to put a pea in my mouth. There is no scenario in which I'm that hungry AND that's the last thing left on the planet to eat.

So somehow I magically turned beets into food, and even incorporated the celery we got in the box. And, to top things off, I quoted Ogden Nash at dinner (fun trivia fact: when the post office made Ogden Nash stamps, it was the first time the word "sex" appeared on a postage stamp). The poem I quoted had nothing to do with sex, though. It was "celery raw is hard on the jaw, but celery stewed is more easily chewed." I mean, really, when was the last time someone quoted poetry to you at dinner?

And after all of this fine dining (did I mention there was wine? and cloth napkins?...of course, there are always cloth napkins in my house), Captain America's take away was that somehow, in the midst of all of this excitement, I got salad on my eyelid.

See if I ever turn beets into food for him again!

And then, because we don't see each other all week to catch up and tell random stories, the weekends end up being a lot of thought vomit. At least on my end. Which is preferable to regular vomit.

So I asked Captain America if he had noticed that our meth addict neighbors had not only built a fake brick well structure, but had adorned said structure with the most phallic-looking mushrooms I have ever seen.

Somehow this had escaped his observation (and yet he notices when I floss in the "wrong" bathroom). Our crazy neighbors have built a brick circle. It looks like either a tree or something should be growing out of it, or it's a very decrepit well that lost it's roof thing with the winch and pulley. Except it's just a circle of bricks, about 10 bricks high. And it's displaying four very phallic mushrooms.

These are the sorts of things that if you were at a street fair, and you had a friend who had just bought a new house, and you saw these, you'd think, you know what would be totally hysterical? If I bought my friend this collection of pseudo-pornographic lawn art. Wouldn't that be funny? And you'd wrap them up and take them to the housewarming party, and you'd be all, look what I got you! Penises disguised as fungi! We should give them names. Like Peter and Harry! And then you'd giggle a lot, like I did when I was trying to explain all of this to Captain America.

And finally, for extra fun, Captain America declared himself the luckiest man alive. I thought this statement was going to be followed up with how his amazing wife turned beets into food and came up with a fun housewarming gift for some unsuspecting friends, but no. He's lucky because HIS COWORKER DROVE OVER HIS FOOT IN A TAHOE AND IT DIDN'T BREAK. As far as he knows. Because he didn't actually bother to get it x-rayed.

THIS is why I drink!

The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight, and Saving the Planet by Alicia Silverstone
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I think that Alicia Silverstone is incredibly sincere, and really, really believes in her diet in The Kind Diet. Nearly everything I read about vegan diets make sense, but I guess when it comes down to it, I don't want to do the work.

I don't want to not be allowed to eat something, and I really don't want to give up milk. There are lots of things that I'm totally fine with giving up (I know it's a culinary sin to say so, but I could live the rest of my life without bacon. I really could).

As it stands, we really don't eat a lot of meat in my house. Captain America is on a wonky schedule and isn't home at dinner time, and I don't care enough, nor am I interested in cooking something with meat for one person. My dinners are bizarre at best (tonight: six Twizzlers, a serving of wheat thins, and a cup of hot chocolate), and nearly always meat-free.

I also think that it doesn't make a lot of sense to give up meat only to eat a lot of processed soy meat-substitutions (in all fairness, this approach to vegetarianism/veganism is NOT advocated by this book)

I think this is a great book for someone who wants to go vegetarian or vegan, and needs pointers and recipes and steps to make it happen. And if anyone happens to follow this program and turns into Alicia's doppelganger  please let me know!

View all my reviews

The sad tale of cleaning out my email

Periodically, the threat level from an overflowing email inbox reaches impending doom level and I have to force myself to go through and clean it out. This, for me, is anytime there's more than, say, 78 emails in my inbox. I'm pretty sure I have a low threshold for impending doom, but I also try really hard to practice the "touch it once" rule with my emails. Anyway, inevitably, there's a whole bunch of stuff that can be deleted because I've already done it (like library reminders), a whole bunch of stuff than can be filed (like stuff I bought at Amazon that's arrived and so everything's fine), and a whole bunch of other stuff that I should either delete or file away for when I have copious amounts of free time (does that every happen to anyone? because if so, c'mon over to my house--I've got a whole bunch of blogs to read, cats-doing-strange-things videos to watch, and double-chocolate-brownie recipes to try).

So here's something I'm trying to come to terms with: I had a ton of fun with NaNoWriMo and I'd really like to write on a regular basis. But I have bills to pay, so I go to work. (And I have a pretty awesome job...too awesome to give up and embark on being-a-writer-for-a-year type projects.) I also exercise a lot because it keeps me from going postal on the freeways in Southern California, helps me sleep through the night (you're welcome, Captain America), and because I really want to fit back into my old pants. Finally, I read a ton. And, push come to shove, I like reading more than I like writing (full disclosure: I like reading more than I like doing ANYTHING else).

I read a parenting article a while ago that said that kids can basically handle three things, and you have to count school as a thing. So if your kid is enrolled in scouts and little league, that's a manageable amount of stuff in their life, but if you throw in choir  they've now got four things (because, remember, you have to count school), you can expect a lot of meltdowns. I don't think adults are so different. If I go to work, and then make exercising and reading my two other things, pretty much everything is fine. But when I add in writing, like I did last November, it was at the expense of the other two (remember, you have to count going to work as a thing, and since it's what pays the bills, I didn't think it was prudent to allow that to be the thing that suffered).

So what does this have to do with cleaning out my email? As sad as it is, currently, the prudent thing for me to do is to sort of put writing aspirations on hold, which means that all of the emails that are links to tips or agents or whatever that would be helpful need to get filed away. This isn't a crisis, but it's still sad to acknowledge that I really don't have the time to try out this particular hobby right now.

But don't despair! I fully intend to participate in Script Frenzy in April and NaNoWriMo again in November!

What do Homer Simpson and hobbits have in common?

Donuts! At least in my imagination, they do!

I learned about Hobbit Second Breakfast Day from my friend, Tracy, over at Tracyfood. And I really wanted to celebrate. But I had to go to work. And then I forgot. I even meant to get a donut (to eat at promptly 11am) when I was getting coffee (sshhh! Don't tell Captain America I was getting coffee!), but I forgot to do that, too. I have no idea where my mind has been. I mean, who forgets about donuts? That's a new one for me. I LOVE donuts. And Blogger apparently also loves donuts because it's very confused about the singular donut. It thinks it's not a word. Like, why would you stop at one? If I were a hobbit, I certainly wouldn't. Because there really aren't any fat hobbits. There aren't any skinny ones, either, and I'm pretty sure girl hobbits don't have to wear bikinis 10 months a year like you do here in SoCal. Because it's mandatory.

And then Tracy did a rockstar job of celebrating with scones and Gaffer's eggs, the recipe for which she found on the...wait for it...official hobbit recipes website. On the one hand, I'm not sure the world could get any better (unless of course there was an official Harry Potter recipes website and it taught me how to make butterbeer and treacle tart), and on the other hand I'm very sad that I somehow missed everything completely. I'm sure this is a sign of the coming Armageddon. And on top of all that, I have to eat vicariously through Tracy, which is decidedly un-hobbit like (I meant eating vicariously is un-hobbit like. However, Tracy is also not a hobbit. In case there was any confusion there. I'm sure I just cleared everything up.).

Culinary Success: Vegan Curried Pumpkin Soup!

This soup is a little sweet, due to the apples and sugar (no, Ma, I didn't add any--I just followed the directions), and a little spicy, due to the curry powder.  It's medium-thick, and contains almond milk, so it's more filling than you'd think.  I got the recipe out of the Skinny Bitch Ultimate Everyday Cookbook.

Ingredients:
3 T Earth Balance
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and roughly chopped
1 onion, roughly chopped
2 c (500 g) pumpkin puree (NOT pie filling) I just used one can, which was 425 g. 

1 T curry powder
1/4 c evaporated cane sugar
1 T dark brown sugar I used light brown since that's what we had in the house.
3 c vegetable stock I used 4 c because that's what came in the boxed veggie stock I use.
1/2 c dry white wine
1 1/2 c almond milk
Salt and pepper, to taste I hate "to taste" directions, so I just omitted this entirely.
2 T chopped toasted pumpkin seeds This is just garnish; I don't garnish dishes.
 
Method:
1.  In a large pot, add the Earth Balance and melt over medium heat.  Add the apples and onion.  Cook until the onion is soft, about 8 minutes.
2.  Add the pumpkin puree, curry, and both sugars, and cook 2 minutes.
3.  Add the stock and wine.  Increase the heat to medium-high and bring to a boil.  Then reduce the heat to low, partially cover, and cook about 20 minutes.
4.  Here's where I diverged.  The recipe says to let the soup cool and then blend in a blender, but I own an immersion blender, so I didn't cool the soup at all; I just removed it from the heat and used my immersion blender.
5.  Pour in the milk and stir until hot.
6.  Add the salt and pepper.  Garnish with the pumpkin seeds.
 
To be fair, Captain America hasn't tried this yet, so it's possible that he'll hate it.  But I loved it, so I'm definitely going to make it again!

Vermouth tastes like ass

I just spent the better part of the afternoon trying to figure out a drink with vermouth in it that I like.

Somehow Captain America and I have a bottle of the stuff in the house.  And it's open, otherwise I'd re-gift it.  And no, I'm not drunk blogging.  I didn't actually drink that much vermouth, because as I've already noted, it tastes like ass.

First, I looked up a number of vermouth recipes online.  There are tons of recipes that call for vermouth.  I selected a handful that either didn't require any ingredients we didn't already own, or called for ingredients that we would use anyway.

Then, on my walking tour of chores...I had to mail a letter, go to the bank, and return a DVD to the library, I went to the grocery store to buy said ingredients.  I was walking because I wasn't feeling motivated to either go to the gym or to go for a run, and figured this would at least get me out of the house.  Also, it was a nice day out, and I was able to try out some new sunscreen my mom gave me that's supposed to be matte.  How's that for multitasking?

So I returned from the store and set about making a Cosmo.  I like martinis, and although the Cosmo isn't my fave (that would be a lemon drop), I figured this would be a good place to start.  I didn't know that cosmos called for vermouth, but I had never tried to make one before, so what did I know?

I just did a quick google search of Cosmo recipes, and what do you know?  Not a single one called for vermouth.  And there's a good reason for that...cosmos with vermouth taste like cranberry ass.

Next, I tried something called Country Club Cooler #1.  This called for vermouth, grenadine, and carbonated water.  This sounded fun.  Sparkling pink drinks always win points with me.  The first go-around of this one, I added too much grenadine.  It didn't taste quite right to me, so I carefully measured the grenadine for take two.  As it turns out, the grenadine was not to blame.  Country Club Cooler #1 tastes like carbonated pink ass.

Finally, I made something called the Christmas Tini, which contained vodka, vermouth, and peppermint schnapps.  I am not a huge peppermint schnapps fan, so this recipe was a little iffy to begin with.  And the result?  Minty ass.  Seriously, it's as if Orbit made crappy alcohol.

It's not gross; it's science!

The other day, some friends brought over half a loaf of Amish Friendship Bread and a bag of starter.  The starter takes 10 days to ferment and then I make my own loaves, and give my extra starter to my friends.  It's like those chain letters from the 80s, except it's not annoying and you end up with tasty bread.

There are a couple of rules, though.  You can't refrigerate the starter, and you can't use any metal bowls or utensils.  I'm not a scientist, but I'm pretty sure both of those things kill the fermentation.  This is sort of like sourdough.  Good sourdough starter is actually really old.  I asked my friend, who is a scientist about this.  Okay, not actually about this.  I asked her about making yogurt.  But you do the same thing.  You use some of your last batch of yogurt to make your next batch.  I asked why it doesn't go bad, and she said that basically it becomes more yogurty, and then you dilute it when you make your next batch.

(On a similar note, my freshman year of college I conducted a very non-scientific experiment.  My roommate and I were up late studying for finals, and I was starving.  Somehow, the only thing we had to eat in the dorm room was a container of yogurt, but it had expired.  We theorized that unless there was visible mold growing on it, it was safe for me to eat.  Our thesis: yogurt just gets more yogurty.  Obviously I survived, and I have no fear of eating expired foods.)

Captain America was a bit appalled that we were to leave this bag of mushy dough on the counter for 10 days at room temperature (it IS July in San Diego, but don't worry, it's not in direct sunlight), and then cook it and eat it.  But I informed him, it's not gross; it's science!

He's still not so sure, but that means more bread for me!  Yum!

Yogurt Making

I started making my own yogurt. It's really easy, and way cheaper than buying the stuff in the store. You have to make "plain" yogurt. But homemade plain yogurt isn't nearly as gross as the store bought kind.

My first batch tasted kinda pickle-y. Mostly that's because I used a pickle jar to make the yogurt. I washed it first, but somehow it still made the yogurt pickle-y. The second batch turned out much better.

I still haven't totally figured out what to put in my yogurt. My friend, who gave me the recipe, suggested vanilla and honey. I think somehow vanilla gets stronger the longer it sits in the yogurt, because I put about a teaspoon in my bowl last night, stirred it around, and tasted it. It still tasted pretty plain to me. But when I tried it at work today, boy was it vanilla-y! I also make my own fruit sauce by blending frozen fruit with jelly in my magic bullet. Mmm! There's nothing like extra-sweet fruit to balance out the otherwise nutritious yogurt. I wouldn't want to get too carried away with the healthy food!

If you think store bought yogurt is too expensive, or if you're annoyed that you can't actually recycle those stupid #5 yogurt tubs, or both, I think you should try making your own!

Cooking Class, Part V

I had my last cooking class on February 23, and we learned the mother sauces. This alone was confusing to me because we then took the mother sauces and made small sauces. Mother sauces are also called grand sauces, and are used to make the small sauces. Or, in other words, small sauces are derivatives of the mother sauces. According to my notes (which were confusing enough in the hand out, and somehow not improved by my additions), the mother sauces consist of Bechamel, Veloute, and Espagnole. We also learned a Ragu, Hollandaise, and a caramel sauce (which is decidedly not a mother sauce, but was wonderful). We ate sauteed chicken breast with Robert sauce (which, as far as I can tell is a Veloute), salmon with sauce supreme (which I originally thought was a mother sauce...I mean, it's called "supreme," but it's actually a Veloute), steamed seasonal vegetables with Mornay sauce and Hollandaise sauce (Mornay sauce is a Bechamel with cheese added), and linguine with a Ragu sauce.

I was not moved by the Ragu sauce. Like I said in Cooking Class, Part I, I already have a pasta sauce that we all really like. However, the Ragu was served on fresh pasta, which was very good. Additionally, with the exception of the Ragu and caramel sauces, you can't save these sauces--they don't reheat well. So you have to use all of them, or toss them. This, I consider to be an annoying state of affairs.

I really liked the Mornay sauce. It's a cheese sauce, so what's not to like? But it somehow managed to not be heavy. As in, I didn't feel my arteries clogging. Although, I'm pretty sure if I made it on a regular basis, they would.

This morning I tried to make Hollandaise sauce. It was sort of a lot of work, because you steam the eggs, so you have to keep whisking ALL THE TIME because otherwise, it starts to cook like scrambled eggs. Also, we didn't have cayenne pepper, so I used ground pepper. Cayenne would have been better, but Captain America didn't hesitate to eat it all, so it must have been fine. And this is the first recipe I've ever made where, when I got to the part that says "salt and pepper to taste" I actually thought it needed salt and pepper. Maybe I'm becoming the world's slowest foodie!

I put my Hollandaise sauce on poached eggs and toast, which Captain America helped to make. I have an electric stove, and our burners turn themselves on and off. I learned in class that this is because an electric stove is trying to think, and it thinks it's maintaining the temperature you want, whereas on a gas stove, you can actually dictate what you want. (It was nice to learn this, because I had been thinking that there was just something wrong with my stove.) I have always preferred cooking with gas, and my house has a gas hot water heater and a gas dryer, so why it has an electric stove, I have no idea. At any rate, my egg poaching style is never going to make it to the cooking channel, as I spent a few minutes yelling at my boiling water. Poached eggs are supposed to be cooked in a slow boil. But when your burner thinks it can think, this is really hard to manage.

Okay, for Hollandaise sauce, you need:
3 large egg yolks
2 tablespoons heavy cream
2 sticks butter, melted
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, or to taste (or vinegar)
salt and cayenne pepper to taste

Here's what you'll do:
Combine the eggs and cream in a heatproof glass bowl or the top of a double boiler. Stir with a wire whisk until well blended. Then you can put this pot over the double boiler. The water in the double boiler should not touch the bottom of the pot containing your egg yolks.

Stirring eggs constantly, bring the water slowly to a simmer; do not let it boil. This is the part that is a lot of work: if the water is too hot, your eggs will cook too quickly and will start to look like scrambled eggs. This is bad! So, if, like me, your water gets to hot because your burner thinks it has a brain, immediately pull the egg pot from the double boiler and whisk like crazy (so yes, now you'll be standing in the middle of your kitchen whisking eggs, while swearing at the pot of still boiling water on your stove for not doing what you told it to do. It's a good thing that the only people ever in my kitchen this early in the day already think I'm a little nuts!).

Continue to stir and warm the eggs until they are thickened and the consistency of very heavy cream. The eggs should lighten in color, and should taste like a cooked egg yolk.

Now, add the butter, a little at at time while stirring constantly. I added my butter in 1/4 cup increments, and this seemed to work fairly well.

When all of the butter has been added, add the lemon juice (or vinegar) a drop at a time and immediately remove from heat. This seemed like a very silly step to me. You're adding butter to make the sauce thicker, and lemon juice to make it thinner. It seems to me that you could just stop adding butter when the sauce was as thick as you wanted it to be, but I'm not sure if the acid in the lemon juice is also doing something useful. So I added a little lemon juice, and removed the pot from the heat. Then season with salt and cayenne pepper to taste.

You can let this pot sit in a hot/warm water bath, which is good to know, because it is very hard to make poached eggs (or anything else for that matter) while you are constantly whisking something.

The sauce turned out just fine, but like I said, it was a lot of work. And it called for two sticks of butter, so I'm not sure how often I'll repeat it. Oh, and if you're interested, it's supposed to serve six. Captain America and I put it over four poached eggs and toast, and still had some left over.

One other thing we learned in class pertains to that gross skin that cream sauces sometimes form. You can put a piece of saran wrap on top of the sauce (as in literally touching the sauce, not on top of the pot) and this will act as a false skin, and prevent the gross one from forming. I think in class, they even had the pots over low heat like that, but I would worry about melting the plastic. I'll let that be your call.

Cooking Class, Part IV

On Tuesday, February 16, I took the fourth cooking class in the series "Getting Started in the Kitchen." This time, we learned roasting, broiling, and grilling, and were taught how to cook citrus herb roasted chicken, roasted rosemary potatoes, grilled steak and vegetables, and basic creme brulee. I came home smelling like a campfire.

I have not actually tried any of these recipes yet, but I was very excited to learn how to make a roasted chicken. I've never made a roasted whole bird, but now I feel confident that I'll be able to! Everyone always says, oh, it's so easy, and while I would agree that the demonstration didn't seem hard, it was definitely more involved than just taking the bird out of the plastic and sticking it in the oven. An "easy" recipe to me involves a) stuff I've already got, and b) fewer than 5 steps. This recipe has eight steps based on how it's written out, and calls for 10 ingredients. This does not exactly equal "easy" in my world.

The Oven Roasted Lemon Herb Chicken serves four, and you get to use your convection oven, if you own one! Preheat it to 350.

For the herbed butter, you'll need :
6 tablespoons softened, unsalted butter
1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary
1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Combine all of these ingredients in a bowl.

For the aromatics for the chicken, you'll need:
2 springs fresh thyme
1 sprig fresh rosemary
1 bay leaf
1 lemon, quartered
5 garlic cloves, crushed

For the chicken, you'll need:
1 4-5 lb whole chicken (big surprise!), which has been rinsed, cleaned, patted dry, and had the giblets removed (here's the other reason I've never attempted to make a whole bird: giblets)
salt and pepper to taste

Here's what you're going to do:

Wash the chicken under cold running water, drain and pat dry with paper towels. Season the inside cavity of the chicken with salt and pepper.

Gently loosen the skin of the chicken by sliding your fingers between the skin and the flesh. Don't get too close to the neck, though, or else all of your herbed butter will melt out. Now, rub two-thirds of the herb butter under the skin of the chicken.

Stuff the cavity with the aromatics. Rub the outside of the chicken with the remaining herb butter. Truss the chicken with kitchen twine. This is the part that will really make it look like you know what you're doing! Cut off a really big piece of twine, like a yard or so. Our chef, Katherine, said that she likes to just tuck the wings under the body, like the chicken is relaxing back in a chaise lounge. So do that, and then you're going to start with the middle of the twine at the neck (does this make sense?). You're going to wrap the twine down along the each side of the chicken, and then cross it under the legs, then wrap it around the legs, and tie it in a bow. If that's not clear, c'mon over to my house and we'll try it together!

Now, place your trussed chicken on a roasting rack, over a parchment or silpat lined sheet tray (I have yet to purchase parchment paper or a silpat--I'm pretty sure these are just convenience items and aren't actually necessary).

Roast the chicken for 50 to 60 minutes, uncovered.

The chicken is done when the bird is pierced in the thickest part of the thigh (not touching the bone), the juices run clear, and the internal temperature is a minimum of 165. The maximum internal temperature for a moist bird is 175.

Remove the chicken from the oven and loosely tent with foil. Let stand for 10 minutes before carving.

Cooking Class, Part III

On February 9, I took my third cooking class in the series "Getting Started in the Kitchen." This time, we covered saute, fry, and stir-fry. We learned to cook Peppercorn steak, Shrimp and Vegetable Stir-Fry, Pan Fried Chicken, and Deep Fried Cherry Fritters. I came home smelling like McDonald's.

The Shrimp and Vegetable Stir-Fry was my favorite dish of the lesson, but I thought Captain America would enjoy the Peppercorn Steak, so that's the one I made first. We don't eat a lot of fried food, so I'm not likely to try the Pan Fried Chicken. The Deep Fried Cherry Fritters were good, but I don't own a deep fryer (okay, why does fry and fryer have a y, but fried does not?). Also, I'm not convinced they were actually better than desserts that I'm good at making that don't involve 375-degree oil sitting inches from my skin. And in case you don't already think I'm weird enough, my sister and I were the two kids at parties who picked the skin off of their KFC, insisting that it was like eating a sunburn. If that thought doesn't make you want to try some of my cooking, I don't know what will!

Oh, and one other thing! I asked why you put salt in baked goods, and I got a less than satisfying answer. Apparently salt helps bring out the flavor of other ingredients, adds a savory "hit," and is sort of a preservative (as in salted butter). The last bit I already knew. In the fourth class, we had a salt tasting and further established that I am not a foodie, but I'll blog about that later. Nonetheless, I'm still not convinced of the salt thing. Especially since I read that if every American reduced their salt intake by one teaspoon a day we would no longer have a high blood pressure problem. I love things like that. Also, if every American took the stairs instead of the elevator/escalator we wouldn't have an obesity problem. First, I don't go to work to sweat, and second, I'm pretty sure I'm not contributing to the obesity problem. Or the blood pressure problem, for that matter. At any rate, I'm still dissatisfied with the salt situation, so I think next time I'll ask what happens to the recipe if I omit salt.

Alright, sub-rant finished! On to what I actually cooked. Tonight I made my husband and sister Sauteed Pepper Steaks with Brandy Cream Sauce. Except celiac-sister can't have brandy, so we used white wine. Apparently red wine would have worked, but it would have turned the sauce pink (I am always asking the celiac questions in class...there is no point in my learning to cook something if I can't feed my sister, because sooner or later she's going to want to know what I've learned, and if family is visiting, she'll be over for dinner, too.)

I have got to learn to tell a story in a straight line! During dinner, sis and I were joking around, and I commented that it wasn't so much that I hadn't considered dropping a bit of flour into a recipe, it was that I was afraid of our mother! And then I added, I know that thought's crossed your mind once or twice, too, and she said yes, but that there was no killer ingredient to do me in. Somehow that's funnier when I'm telling my sister all of the things she can't have.

Alright, now I'm really going to move on to the recipe. It serves four.

What you need:
4 New York Strip Steaks, about 8 oz. each
1/4 c black peppercorns, coarsely cracked
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons minced shallots
1/3 c brandy
1 1/2 c demi glace (concentrated veal stock)
1 c heavy cream
salt to taste

What you do (and what I did):
Pat the steaks dry with paper towels.

Place the cracked peppercorns in a dish. Press the steaks into the peppercorns to give a light coating on both side. Or, if you're like me and not a huge fan of peppercorns, and are not entirely convinced that you actually need 1/4 c, I had Captain America grind a bunch of pepper onto a plate. It kept him busy for a few minutes, and our steaks weren't overly peppery.

Heat a large saute pan over medium heat, then add the oil.

Arrange the steaks in the pan and saute them until they feel slightly resistant when you press on them, about 3-5 minutes per side for medium rare. Remove the steaks to a serving plate and cover with a foil tent to retain the heat.

In class we learned this little trick for determining doneness. Shake out your non-dominant hand. Touch that meaty spot at the base of your thumb. That's rare. Touch your pinky to your thumb. That's medium-rare. Touch your ring-finger to your thumb. That's medium. Touch your middle finger to your thumb. That's medium well. And if you touch your pointer finger to your thumb, that's well done. Except this doesn't work if you lift weights because your hands are too strong. So no one in my household can help me test doneness. I thought about asking one of my coworkers if I could touch her hands today, just to get an idea, but I thought somehow that was a bad idea, even if I explained why I wanted to.

I think my steaks were fatter than the ones we used in class, because we did the tented thing, but I still had to put them in the oven for about 10 minutes, at which point the potatoes got cold, so it wasn't the biggest success of my culinary career, but the steaks were good.

And now let me tell you what you're going to do with all of the other ingredients.

In the same pan used for the steaks, over low heat, saute the shallots for 1 minute.

To keep the alcohol from flaming (which is a very bad idea unless you have a very good hood system), remove the pan from the heat and add the brandy. Or in our case, wine.

Return the pan to the heat and bring to a boil, scraping up all of the browned bits stuck to the bottom of the pan. Reduce the brandy by one-third.

Add the demi glace and the heavy cream. Simmer for another 2-3 minutes or until the sauce has thickened slightly. Next time, I think I'm going to add the cream and then the demi glace, because the demi glace does this somewhat frightening melting thing, and I was worried it was going to burn and turn awful before I could dump in the cream and stir it. Adjust the seasoning and remove the pan from the heat. I didn't add any salt. I think the demi glace was salty enough. And if you don't keep stirring, the sauce will get a thin film on top--this is a cream sauce we're making.

Serve the steaks topped with the sauce.

A steamed green vegetable like asparagus or green beans makes a nice accompaniment. Like I said, we did potatoes. I thought Captain America would like that. And sis made a salad. All in all, it was a good meal, but my timing was a bit off, and I think I'll try to find thinner steaks next time. Also, between the demi glace and the steaks, it was a little expensive. But I did buy my demi glace in a gourmet store. I was there; it didn't contain gluten. 'Nuff said.

Cooking Class, Part II

My second cooking class occurred on February 2, and was called "Getting Started in the Kitchen II--A Basic Pantry Plus Moist Heat Cooking". We learned how to make poached salmon with basil sauce, beef stew with vegetables, braised pork, and port poached pears. I did not find the poached salmon to be an improvement in any way over the steamed salmon, and it seemed slightly more complicated, if only for the fact that I don't have the right equipment at home. I actually already had a beef stew recipe that I was comfortable making, and that Captain America enjoyed eating.

I did try the Mediterranean Style Braised Pork, and Captain America declared it the best meal I've made yet. Unfortunately, it is not a gluten-free recipe, as you bread the pork. I asked, and Katherine Emmenegger, the chef, said that if I was going to use gluten-free flour, to use brown rice flour. I don't own that, and I'm not sure if my sister does either, so if I make it for her, we might just be using Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Flour and hope for the best.

I made the whole recipe because I figured Captain America would like it, and while it serves 6, we're big eaters in my house. So here's what you need:
3 1/2 lbs pork shoulder roast, rinsed and pat dry (if you've seen Julie & Julia, you'll know that this helps the meat brown)
1 c all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons grapeseed oil (apparently grapeseed oil has a high smoke point, and is therefore less likely to burn. Katherine only recommends using olive oil for dipping, as it has a low smoke point, although she did say that one could mix it with another oil--such as grapeseed--and raise the smoke point)
4 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
3 lbs large yellow onions, peeled and sliced 1/4-inch thick
3 lbs medium-sized Roma tomatoes, washed, cored, and quartered (Captain America does not like tomatoes, but he ate these anyway...they must be okay when served more or less stewed with pork and onions)
1 c vegetable stock
2 sprigs rosemary, washed (I couldn't find fresh rosemary, so I used dried...it seemed to work out just fine).

Season the pork with salt and pepper. Dredge in the flour to coat. Katherine says it flavors the meat better to salt and pepper the meat, although some recipes say to mix the salt and pepper in the flour. I guess, do what you want!

In a large roasting pot (they used a Dutch oven in class, which I HAVE to get because it can go from the stove-top to the oven!!), over medium high heat, heat the oil. Sear the pork on all sides to a golden brown, and transfer to a platter.

Add a bit more oil to the pot if needed (we were taught to drizzle it down the sides so it warms up slightly before reaching the bottom). Saute the garlic and onions until lightly softened, about 5 minutes. As an aside, my pot wasn't big enough to cook all of the meat at one time...I should have also cooked the onions in parts. Oh well!

Return the pork to the pot, and scoop some of the onions on top (see, if I had cooked my onions in parts, I could just say, dump the other onions on top). Add tomatoes, vegetable broth, and rosemary.

Cover the roasting pot and place in the oven (did I even bother to tell you to preheat it to 350? No, of course not, since I didn't cook mine in the oven. If you're cool enough to own a Dutch oven, preheat your oven to 350). OR, you can leave on the stove on low heat. OR, you can make it in the slow cooker, but you'll still need to sear everything on the stove first, and I don't know how long it will need to be in the slow cooker.

After your 2 hours or so is up, remove the meat from the pot and let stand for 15 minutes. This is supposed to make it easier to slice, but I thought it just made our meat less hot. So next time I might skip this. At any rate, serve with the tomatoes and onions. It helps to scoop the tomatoes and onions out with a slotted spoon. Otherwise you'll get a lot of broth.

I did not make the Port Poached Pears with the pork recipe, but you could. This will give you something to do for two hours. Okay, it won't take the full two hours, but either way, here's what you need:

This recipe originally served 8, with each person getting a full pear, but Katherine suggested serving everyone half a pear, and slicing it almost to the end of the skinny part, and fanning it out, so it displays nicely. I'll give you the recipe for 8, but when I did it the first time, I quartered the recipe, and the second time I did some guesstimating. Don't tell Captain America. He doesn't like it when I make stuff up in the kitchen. But there's no raw eggs or meat involved, so it's not like something might end up undercooked. So how badly could this really turn out anyway? And you serve it with ice cream, so if you really mess up the pear bit, you'll still have ice cream! Yay!

Okay, on to the recipe, serving 8, as it was written (well, of course I'm going to editorialize this. This is Virginia's Rants, after all).

You'll need 8 pears, washed, peeled, and cored from the bottom, and a quart (or any amount you want) of vanilla ice cream.

For the poaching fluid, you'll need:

6 c of port. In class we used Quarles Harris, but I couldn't find it so I just used the least expensive port I could find. I figured we we cooking with it, not drinking it. Although Captain America thought he'd try it, and he declared it terrible. I think he may have spit it out. It was that bad. But the dessert was good.
1 c sugar, or to taste (that's all me. I added sugar after the pears are done...in the part below when we're making syrup. Maybe if I had used better port, I wouldn't have needed to add sugar, but I have quite a sweet tooth, so who knows.)
1 c water
1 cinnamon stick (apparently you can't use ground cinnamon, as it will make a slimy mess. I have not tried this out. I don't want a slimy mess for dessert. If you happen to live near a Henry's, in their bulk spices section, you can buy just one cinnamon stick, and it will cost you about $0.15.
1 vanilla bean, split in half lengthwise
4 black peppercorns

In a deep pot, bring all of the poaching fluid ingredients to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes, making sure all of the sugar is dissolved.

Bring the poaching fluid to barely a simmer (yes, this is repetitive). Add the pears and cover with an inverted plate to keep them submerged below the surface of the poaching liquid.

Poach for about 15 minutes, or until tender.

Transfer the pears to a platter and cool to room temperature.

Remove spices from the poaching liquid (I can never find my peppercorns, so they just stay in there. It's like a little adventure for whoever gets a bite of one!). Increase the heat of the poaching fluid and boil it until it is reduced to a light syrup consistency. This is actually what the directions say, including parentheses: (This takes approximately 30 minutes, and it is totally worth it!)

Cool syrup to room temperature.

Cut the pears in half and fan them on dessert plates. Serve with a scoop of ice cream, and drizzle some of the port sauce. Try not to lick the pot in front of any guests!

Cooking Class, Part I

There are a number of things about which I've been meaning to blog, and my cooking classes are among them.

My mother and sister bought me cooking classes for Christmas. I've spent the better part of my adult life complaining that I don't like to cook and that I don't enjoy it. I've discovered that I do, in fact, enjoy cooking. What I don't enjoy is having to do it at night, after having worked 8+ hours. While I don't have a physically strenuous job like Captain America, I do have one that is mentally taxing. Which means that when I get home from work, I really don't want to think about following a recipe.

Unfortunately, Captain America and I have to eat every day for the rest of our lives. Is that intimidating, or what? I don't get food bored; I get cooking bored. Growing up, I don't remember a huge variety in what we had for dinner from one week to the next. We probably had pasta once a week, pork chops once a week, chicken maybe twice a week, and my mother seemed okay cooking this week after week after week. I probably complained sometimes (in fact, I'm sure I did...I HATE peas, and after all, what kid doesn't complain about their parents?). But I don't remember feeling any monotony in our diet.

Then I grew up, graduated from college, and lived on my own. And I had to actually prepare what I was consuming. As far as I'm concerned, cereal=dinner. Captain America tends to disagree. Add to that the fact that we're fairly frugal people (and don’t eat out all of the time), and my repertoire of about six meals was quickly becoming pretty dull. And I was getting totally bored preparing them. I wasn't bored with eating them, but I was starting to think along lines such as, well, it's a shame I can't buy 700 lbs of broccoli and chop it all now. Poor Captain America tends to tolerate my lack of culinary originality pretty well, but I was beginning to feel like a fairly lousy wife. I was grumpy that I had to feed my husband, you know, food, every day.

(Just to set the record straight, Captain America is not a "you're the wife; you do the cooking" sort of guy...he does his share of cooking, too.)

So my mother and sister found Great News, which is located just down the street from us, in Pacific Beach. I called them up and spoke to a very friendly lady whose name I've forgotten. I told her my concerns, and what I was looking for, and she reassured me that the classes will teach not just what to do, but also why, which is the big question for me. I can follow a recipe; I just don't know why I add both salt and sugar to things. Yes, I get that it's chemistry; I just don't know what the two ingredients are contributing, and why they're important.

I signed up for a series of five classes called Getting Started in the Kitchen. I was a little concerned because they are not hands-on, but so far that hasn't been a problem. I am not necessarily a hands-on learner. If you can show me the correct way to do something and tell me why, as long as I've got it written down, I'll probably be okay. I know this doesn’t work for everyone.

The first class was nearly two weeks ago, on January 26. This was the class in the series that I most considered not taking, as it was subtitled "A Basic Pantry plus Moist Heat Cooking," and we were going to learn how to make spaghetti with basic tomato sauce, steamed fish with basmati rice, and steamed asparagus with shaved parmesan.

The chef, Katherine Emmenegger, showed us how to make all of these things, and then we got to sample them. We also got a packet with all of the recipes. I'm not sure I'm going to keep the tomato sauce recipe, since I already have a really good tomato sauce recipe that was my mother-in-law's mom's, but it was really nice to learn how to make a tasty meal with simple cooking. I really wanted to learn how to make steamed fish because about half the time I try to bake fish it comes out too dry. As it turns out, you just stick it in the steamer basket and put a lid on it. This is exactly what I would have done without the class, except I was too worried I'd be poising us. I mean, one usually bakes fish at what, 350 or so, but boiling water is only 212. Those aren't exactly close in my book. As it turns out, though, it doesn't really matter. I've made the steamed fish with asparagus twice, and everyone has survived both times.

Katherine told us to always cook with Charles Shaw wine. She said never use "cooking wine." That's good for me because we always have some Two-Buck Chuck in the house. Yup, we're classy like that.

The fish is actually served with a roasted tomato, olive, and caper sauce. It's sort of like a tapenade, if you added roasted tomatoes.

So here's how to make the Tomato, Olive, and Caper Sauce. The recipe calls for 1 1/2 lbs of Roma tomatoes, and says it serves 6, but I've found that about 1 tomato per person works out pretty well. You'll also need olive oil, salt and pepper, garlic, green olives, Kalamata olives, and capers.

Core the tomatoes (which basically means just remove that little brown spot where it was attached to the stem. I had originally feared that this would be more along the lines of coring an apple, but it's not at all.), and slice them in half. Coat them in olive oil (1/4 of a cup if you're making the full recipe) and salt and pepper to taste (that is about my least favorite direction ever). Place the tomato halves face down on a baking sheet and place in the oven, at 350, for about 25-30 minutes.

In the mean time, chop up 12 green olives, six Kalamata olives, and one tablespoon of capers, and finely slice four garlic cloves (if you're using the full recipe). Put all of this in a bowl and add the tomatoes when they're done. Mash the tomatoes and mix everything together.

Also while the tomatoes are roasting, you can start the Steamed Fish. Because we're apparently serving six, you'll need a carrot, an onion, two garlic cloves, a cup of white wine (Katherine said to use sauvignon blanc, but all we had was chardonnay. No one seemed to care), a quart of water, and six 6-oz fillets of a cold water fish (I've been using salmon. I'm pretty sure this is a cold water fish, but either way, it seems to work just fine).

Chop up the veggies (okay, as a total aside, why do we spell veggies with double-g when the word vegetable only has one?) and put them in your wok (or any other big pot into which your steamer basket will fit) with the wine and the water. Bring this to a boil, and then reduce the heat and let it simmer for 10 minutes.

Here's what I did. First, I steamed the asparagus until it was a nice shade of green. Then I put it on one of my fabulous ugly brown plates from the 1970's, topped it with another fabulous ugly brown plate, and put it in my now-off oven to keep it warm while I steamed the fish. The tomato stuff is fine at room temperature. The directions say to steam the fish for about eight minutes, citing the rule of thumb: 5-7 minutes per inch of thickness. That's it! It was really easy. The only thing that bothered me was that we used a carrot and an onion, but it was never meant to be eaten. And I didn't think I could save it for vegetable stock because my fish had been sitting in it, and I'm not sure how long fish-flavored water can be kept. Captain America suggested that it's often the case with better cooking that many ingredients are just used to flavor the food and not actually to be eaten.

The Best Salad Dressing Ever!!

My husband has an uncle who's a chef. And Uncle Chef lives nearby. I'm a lucky girl.

Uncle Chef makes a mean salad. I know, I know, how hard can a salad be? Well, he has some sort of lettuce-drying process that I can't figure out, but he insists it helps the dressing stick to the lettuce. And of course, he manages to cut things so that they display well, whereas in my world, if the salad lands on the plate, well, that's presentation. Additionally, he'll even personalize the salads, if, say, you don't like tomatoes, he'll leave them off. Yes, he actually hand-plates everyone's salad. I, on the other hand, dump all the veggies in a bowl and everyone is expected to fend for themselves.

Still, Uncle Chef seems to like me.

We hosted Christmas dinner at my house. Uncle Chef asked what he could bring. Without hesitation, I said Salad! And then I promptly reminded him that my sister has celiac disease (to which he says "I KNOW what your sister can eat!!"). He ended up bringing a Gorgonzola cheese to put on the salad, so I took him aside and asked that he make Sis's salad separately...Gorgonzola is in the bleu cheese family, and something in the process involves flour. Again, Uncle Chef says "I KNOW what your sister can eat!!" His plan, all along, was to have the cheese on the side for people to decided how much, if any, they wanted. I have to remember that a) Uncle Chef takes food allergies very seriously, and b) he also seems to like my sister.

Uncle Chef makes his own salad dressing (of course he does). And the salad dressing MAKES the salad (and anything else you want to dump it on). He showed my husband how to make it this Christmas, and hubby told me yesterday. It's so easy, even I can manage it:

Mix equal parts balsamic vinegar and olive oil.
Add minced garlic and Dijon mustard to taste.
Add salt and pepper, to taste, if you must (but I don't).
Mix really, really well.

It is sooooo good! Last night I put it on steamed broccoli, and then I inhaled the broccoli. I don't like vegetables. But the dressing is so good, it might even make peas bearable.

Blue Corn Chocolate Chip Cookies

I've apparently missed my calling. I LOVE to bake. Fortunately, I'm also pretty fond of exercise, otherwise I'd be about 700 pounds by now. Tonight I made Blue Corn Chocolate Chip Cookies. They are very easy, except for the finding the blue corn bit. I found mine at Henry's. The blue cornmeal adds this sort of gritty crunch to the cookies--the same texture you find in real cornbread. I don't taste any corn flavor in the cookies, but that's probably due to the vanilla, butter, and chocolate chips; however, my mother, who hates corn, probably would not enjoy these cookies. She prefers Oreos anyway.

Ok, so now I'm going to provide you with the recipe, which I got off a website that credited Bob's Redmill. They actually probably sell blue cornmeal, but I didn't check.

1 egg
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup blue cornmeal
1/2 cup white flour
2/3 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walnut halves

A couple of things on recipes:

• why do some recipes list the ingredients in an order other than the one in which they're used?
• why do recipes always say brown sugar, packed?...you ALWAYS pack brown sugar!
• don't bother measuring the chocolate chips--just dump a bunch in!
• if you're chopping the walnuts, whether they're halves, whole, or pieces shouldn't matter...I omitted this--I don't know why people put nuts into things

Anyway, back to the recipe...

Preheat the oven to 350

Cream the butter and sugar, then add the vanilla and egg. Next, add the blue cornmeal and flour. Mix all of this well, and fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts.

Drop cookies in round tablespoons onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes.

This recipe makes a dozen cookies, and they're a pretty good size. Start to finish, it took me about 30 minutes.

How to make a Banana Cream Pie

Last week, I made a banana cream pie for my boss's birthday. I really like to bake, but my husband and I would never fit into our pants if we were the only ones eating the goodies.

While I am not an expert, I have a few tips on how to make a good banana cream pie. First, you have to make it, as in bake the crust and make the cream--vanilla jello pudding will not suffice. And second, you have to stir. A LOT.

I use a Virginia-modified Joy of Cooking recipe. I love that cookbook. It has everything you could possibly ever need to cook in it. What it does not have are lists of ingredients at the beginning of the recipe or estimates on how long it will actually take to make the recipe. And I have no idea how long it takes me to make banana cream pie, so I can't help you out there.

When you make a banana cream pie, you bake the pie crust empty. The Joy of Cooking will tell you to prick the crust with a fork a bunch so that it doesn't puff up in the cooking. Mine usually puffs a bit anyway, but I suppose it would puff a lot more if I didn't prick, and besides, pricking is fun. That's all I'm going to say about that. Assuming you've baked your crust, here's what you need to do to make a good banana cream pie:

First, dump 2/3 a cup sugar, 1/4 a cup cornstarch, 1/4 a teaspoon salt, and 2 1/2 cups milk into a pot. You will read recipes that call for cream, or half-and-half, or whole milk. I usually buy the smallest container of cream or half-and-half that I can find and then just dump in whatever else we have in the house that's milky. The only think I wouldn't do is use 2 1/2 cups skim milk because that just doesn't have enough fat to make cream.

Heat this concoction over medium heat and whisk in 5 egg yolks. Make sure you whisk a lot--you want the egg yolks fully blended. Keep cooking this until it starts to thicken (Joy says simmer, but it's really too thick to simmer). What'll happen is, you'll stir and stir and stir and then all of a sudden it'll start to be thick and sort of lumpy, and it'll look an awful lot like vanilla pudding. At this point, take it off the heat, and stir the crap out of it.

This is the part of the recipe that gets silly, but I'd hate to ruin a cream pie by eliminating the next step, so I do it. If you're a more adventurous cook than I, feel free to skip this, because the next thing you do (after cooking it and then taking it off the heat and stirring the life out of it until it's nice and smooth) is put it back on the heat for one minute and continue to stir. Why? I don't know.

Then you take it back off the heat and dump in 2 tablespoons butter (I know this sounds gross, and like I said, I'm not adventurous, so I haven't tried eliminating this...let me know what happens if you do!) and 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla (does anyone else find it weird that you're not supposed to cook vanilla on the stove, but it's totally ok to bake it in the oven?). Stir the butter and vanilla and then cover the bottom of the pie crust with this cream (if you taste it first and then eat the entire pot, well, I don't blame you. It is sooo gooood). Layer in some sliced bananas. Cover the bananas with more cream and then wrap the whole thing tightly in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge. Ta da! You're done!