What’s Cooking…

I love Saturday mornings…especially when I have no specific plans…at least not early…and…I can snuggle into the covers…until my heart wants to get up…not my sense of responsibility…

Today…was one of those mornings…ahhh…

So…I’m sitting here thinking…what will I write about…when I notice a package I haven’t opened…a new cookbook that arrived yesterday…Back to the Table with My Country Kitchen…by Betty Lynch…

I know…I need another cookbook like I need another hole in my head…but as you may recall…I got one of those last year as well…so…I deserve the cookbook…

And…besides…this one is different…the first recipe I saw when I opened it was…Chocolate Gravy…do you know…in all my 57 southern drawling years…I’ve never had Chocolate Gravy…yes…I’m deprived…I’ll be remedying that in just a bit…so…feel free to send biscuits…if you feel so led…

Anyway...it only went uphill…from Chocolate Gravy…I’m loving all the recipes…there seems to be something for everybody…from…fresh is best…to…I’ve got a soccer team to feed in twenty minutes—help…from…meat and potato appetites…to…hold the meat—hold the potatoes—what’s left…

Then…there’s the story behind the recipes…when author Betty is teaching editor Kim how to cook in order to test the recipes…I really liked that part…like when Kim asks…how do you fold raw eggs…hopefully better than I fold bottom sheets…just saying…

Well…I’m getting really hungry…so…I’m off to try Chocolate Gravy…

Jane

Soup’s On…

After a busy day…I wanted potato soup…I peeled…I chopped…I cooked…I have to say…it was the best I’ve ever made…too bad…to quote MacArthur Park…I’ll never have that recipe again…good…bad…or…indifferent…I never do…

I have umpteen cookbooks…I just never use them…at least not more than once or twice…they’re more like…inspiration books…

My neighbor once called me an intuitive cook…AKA…I put whatever I had in the pot…and hoped it tasted good…mostly…it did…

It’s just the way I learned to cook…a pinch of this…a dab of that…don’t have this…no problem…substitute that…that’s how the women in my family cooked…things were rarely measured…too much milk in the cornbread…add more cornmeal…too dry…add more milk…of course…you could end up with a huge pan of cornbread…if you weren’t careful…but…somehow…we never did…

I have to say…it’s still my favorite way to cook…whatever suits me today…going into the pot…never measuring…just pinching and dabbing…

I rarely make finicky things…like cakes…that will only rise if you do the precise amounts of the right things…sifting…leveling…don’t peek too soon…way too frustrating for me…give me a casserole…or better yet…give me soup…

Bertha says my cooking’s a lot like my life…a pinch of this…a dab of that…don’t like to follow rules…don’t have that…make do with this…stir it all up…and it turns out pretty good…mostly…

Jane

Herbs…Dinner’s Ready…

Oooh…Bertha got excited by the title…she…mistakenly…I might add…thought I was referring to sharing the kitchen with a couple of guys named Herb…

And while I admit that scenario could have been…spicy…it just isn’t the spicy I’m talking about…and identically named men brings up thoughts of Larry’s brothers…Darrell and Darrell…definitely not spicy…and I’m not sure what they would have added to the pot…but…I digress…

Growing up…we always had a large garden with fresh veggies…but…I’m almost embarrassed to say that my first remembrance of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme…was in a 60’s song…I loved the song…didn’t have a clue about the herbs…and now…I wonder if that was even what they were singing about…hmmm…

Okay…getting back on track…

Learning to cook…I remember the basics…besides salt and pepper…sage went in dressing…basil, oregano, and parsley in spaghetti sauce…and bay leaf in stew…all were purchased dried in a little yellow can…and kept for years…I may still have a few of them…okay…not really…it was a joke…geez…

I have no idea what precipitated the consciousness change leading to cooking with fresh…or good quality dried herbs…although it was probably from watching cooking shows…it happened slowly…one recipe at a time…Mama planted some oregano…I tasted it…started clipping it…dug up a piece to plant…

And before I could figure out how to spell bouillabaisse…and don’t laugh…it took me a while…even with spell check…my spelling attempt was so bad that all I got was ‘no suggestions’…I finally gave up and Googled…I love Google…but I digress…

I had an herb garden…with basil, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, lavender, oregano…and a few other friends thrown in…then I moved…

I dug up the tiny rosemary plant and two small lavenders…they moved with me…they are now huge…and are totally taking over my shrub bed…

Beyond that…I mostly have herb pots…lots of basil in the summer…cilantro is not my friend…can’t get it to grow…this year I had…dill…culantro…a little friendlier…with a similar flavor…thyme…mint…lemon balm…bee balm…catnip…oregano…some things I thought were edible…that turned out not to be…and yes…I found out before I ate them…

I’ll be the first to admit…I don’t know nearly enough about herbs…how to grow them…how to use them…but…I’m learning…I’ve bought books…but mostly…I rely on advice from my friend Bea…who has an organic herb farm…she always seems to know what to add to what…to make it a bit more special…and she saved me from the inedible sage…

Case in point…I made my first attempt at French Onion Soup this week…yup…I haven’t been to the store in a while…starting to get creative…anyway…it was bland…she mentioned adding thyme and bay…now it is special…

Bertha seems to have lost interest in my writing…and is heading to the kitchen for a bowl of that soup…she may not understand about herbs…but she does know what tastes good…

Jane