E is for Eggs and Leftovers [A-Z Blog Challenge 2015]

Experiments From Auntie's Test Kitchen

Intro  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Conclusion



                                                                                                                    

E is for Eggs and Leftovers 

The "incredible, edible egg."  From my mom's scrambled eggs to the Denver Omelet to which I was introduced upon moving to Colorado, eggs have been an integral part of my diet for as long as I can remember.

Something weird has happened lately.  I have lost my taste for eggs.  One of my favorite meals is my Hot Mess Omelet.  For several weeks now, eating this dish or any cooked eggs that aren't boiled was making me absolutely sick.  I couldn't figure out what the problem was.  Then it hit me.  Like my mom, I always cooked my eggs in a cast iron skillet.  I was given a nice set of nonstick cookware as a housewarming gift and don't yet own a cast iron skillet.  That's a problem.  For some reason, eggs and Teflon do NOT get along.  The nonstick coating gives the eggs a gag-inducing aftertaste. 

To test my hypothesis, I decided to take some leftover items from the fridge and bake them with eggs.  I mixed together:

• Six eggs.
• 1/2 of a large onion, chopped.
• About one cup of chopped red and yellow bell pepper.
• Some shredded cheddar cheese.
• Some shredded mozzarella cheese left over from this mess.
• A little butter.
• A little milk.
• About a teaspoon of corn starch.
• Salt to taste.

I preheated the oven to 350 degrees (the standard temperature for when you don't know how to cook anything).  I coated my small baking dish with some of the butter, mixed together the other ingredients, poured it into the dish, topped it with more shredded cheese and a little more butter, and baked it for about 30 minutes.

Not only did it look pretty good, it tasted great.  Now understand, what I used in this bake are the same items I use in my omelets. The only real difference was the pan.  However, the difference to my tummy was night and day.  Until I can budget for a small cast iron skillet, this will suffice.  The only changes I would make would be that I would precook the veggies (they were a bit al dente), add more eggs and not use any milk, and add some bacon or turkey sausage to the mix.

My enjoyment of eggs has been restored.

UPDATE:  Finally, I had the budget for a good Lodge-brand cast iron skillet.  Now, I can enjoy eggs even more.

Five Minute Friday: "Loved"

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"I want to live a life and love in such a way that if circumstances dictate that I know when I'm passing away, [...] that there are people that love me so much that they drop whatever they're doing to fly from across the world or across a nation to see me one last time." - Charles "Link" Neal, Ear Biscuits. July 2, 2018.

This beautiful quote, spoken at a time of intense grief (his grandfather was dying), has been churning in my heart since it was spoken over the airwaves.

Since moving to Colorado last year, establishing friendships and building a support system has been extremely difficult.  Going nearly 6 months with no vehicle didn't help much either.  However, the question of loving and being loved pained my heart a long time before coming West.

Seeing others find love gives me joy, not bitterness.  As for me, I'm perfectly fine with never experiencing the love of a husband or a child of my own; it's just not in God's plan for me.  What I'm not good with is the perpetual isolation and absence of face-to-face loving interaction with friends.  Maybe I'm not doing it right.  Maybe I'm not loving well.  Maybe I'm not living a life worthy of the kind of love I need.  Maybe I don't deserve it.

How does one cope with the total absence of love?

I'll have to figure it out and move on.

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D is for Disaster of Chicken Proportions [A-Z Challenge 2015]

Experiments From Auntie's Test Kitchen

Intro  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Conclusion



                                                                                                                    

D is for Disaster of Chicken Proportions

I appreciate the fact that food companies often print recipes on the labels of their products.  However, I think these should be thoroughly tested, not just slapped on a label for us poor saps who don't cook well.

Ragu, the name conjures images of plates of pasta piled high, covered with meat and a yummy sauce you didn't have to make from scratch.  Never overly expensive, I've eaten Ragu pasta sauce since I was a kid.  As I was reading the label (yes, I actually do that sometimes) on a jar of Alfredo Sauce, I saw this:

Doesn't this sound like crispy, cheesy, tomato-y goodness?

Well...

The first order of business was to get a pan big enough for this recipe.  As you will recall from this recipe, my 9 x 9 glass baking pan is too small for most recipes that feed more than one person.  So, off to the Wal-Mart I go for a standard size glass baking dish.

The next order of business was to follow this recipe to the letter, except despite cutting the chicken breasts in half butterfly style, it took longer than the last 10 minutes for the chicken to be thoroughly cooked, plus it takes more than a quarter cup of sauce to coat that much chicken.

The smell coming from the oven was yummy.  The finished product looked as good as it smelled.

However...

Every bite was worse than the last one:  Instead of a crispy filet blanketed by tomato cheesiness, it was flavorless, textureless, and nausea producing.  Being quite hungry, I ate most of what was on my plate.  My thinking was that maybe it would taste better the next day--what we southerners call lettin' it set.  It did not help; this mess tasted just as bad as the day before.  I hated to do it, but I threw the majority of it in the trash.

Might as well cut out the middle man.

Hold up!  How the Sam Hill can a southern woman mess up chicken?  By following this recipe, apparently.  To be fair, I've gotten some really good recipes from food labels.  This just wasn't one of them.  The difficulty is that I can't figure what went wrong.  My only correction is to toss the recipe permanently.

Well, on to trying something else.