Teacher gone wild: Summer cooking frenzy


Maybe it was the movie “Julie and Julia”, where a young wife cooks daily from a Julia Child cookbook. And watching  too many TV episodes of  Top Chef, Barefoot Contessa, Rachel Ray,  and Next Food Network Star (“I’m plating now,” I would shout to my husband from the kitchen).  Or simply  a desire to meet the special dietary needs of my family. The result was  a summer kitchen filled with the aroma of Three Pepper Quiche, Fruit and Oat Pancakes, Chili Con Carne, Scampi Linguini, Zucchini Bread, Pasta Salad Nicoise, Meat Loaf, Broccoli- Cauliflower-Carrot Bake, Salt-Free Pizza, Sweet and Sour Chicken, Egg Fried Rice, Chinese Almond Cookies, Lemon Curry Chicken Salad, Pineapple Fruit Whip, Cajun Pork Chop, Hot Fruit Compote, Barley-Rice Pilaf, Raspberry Streusel Muffins,  Sunshine Carrots, Herb Topped Fish, Moroccan Couscous, Country Biscuits and Gravy, Grilled Chicken Sesame, Cottage Cheese Salad, Strawberry Ice Cream , Chicken Veronique. All these I cooked or baked this summer.
Some of the dishes were disasters, some were forgettables,  and  a few were actually edible. For a brave new cook like me, this was, as Martha Stewart would say, a good thing.
The Zucchini Bread and the Meat Loaf were not well done in the middle. The broccoli, cauliflower and carrots were cut too big. The Scampi Linguini was inedible because the shrimps I bought were smelly. (My husband John hugged and assured  me tenderly that no, it was not my cooking that made them smelly.)  I must have measured wrong because my pizza dough was soggy. I had to add almost a cup of flour to make the dough manageable enough for me to lay them on the pan. The pizza that came out of the oven was puny and dark. It had the consistency of hard tack, the crackers that were part of the diet  of Civil War soldiers. (Among the memorable lines written about hard tack was “Many days I have chewed on you and uttered no complaint; hard crackers, hard crackers, come again no more!”)
Speaking of hard tack,   another dish that came out like one was my Cajun Pork Chop. The recipe said put in microwave set to low. I set my microwave to 50 percent power and voila! –  echoes of Civil War soldiers sighing “hard crackers come again some more.”
I was not willing to buy a whole box of corn flakes to sprinkle just two cups of it over the Hot Fruit Compote.  Instead I crushed two cups of shredded wheat I had on hand and sprinkled  them on the fruit, baked them at 350 degrees for 30 minutes and ta-da! A dessert that looked good but did not taste good - the saltiness of the shredded wheat  did not go well as topping for fruit compote.
Some of the edible, not quite disastrous dishes that belong to the forgettable hall of fame were Chili Con Carne (did not taste like chili at all) and Lemon Curry Chicken Salad (not lemony enough). The Rice Barley Pilaf  was not. (I did not have barley or rice, so I used couscous. Big mistake.)
My husband said the Country Biscuit and Gravy had an “interesting” new flavor he never tried before. I did not tell him that in place of ground beef I used some of the leftover meatloaf in the gravy. The Raspberry Streusel Muffins had no raspberry taste because I used the blueberries I had in the freezer. Also, the muffins had a sandy texture.  We still had some left over a week after I baked them so I shared two muffins with a pest control man who came to check our house. He ate one quietly, drinking lots of water with it. Then he wrapped the other one and said he will save it to eat later.  Uh, huh, I nodded.
I am happy to report, though, that the Cottage Cheese Salad was not too bad. It was a little too sweet because I mistakenly put twice the amount of one ingredient. We are still eating it but only  three tablespoons per serving because we can stand only so much sweetness at a time. Come to my house and try it. You will probably drink lots of water and then ask to save the other two tablespoons to eat later at home. Uh, huh. I heard that one before.
But by late July we were actually enjoying Grilled Chicken Sesame, Moroccan Couscous, Chicken Veronique and Herb Topped Fish.
I am a teacher so I am constantly asking myself, what lessons  did  we learn here? I like to call myself the Queen of Multitasking. But the first lesson I learned this summer is that it is not a good idea to multitask while you are  trying out new recipes. Under no circumstances should I cook, clean and read a book at the same time. That is a big no-no. Creating dishes is much like creating lesson plans – they have to be done with great care, tenderness, attention and expertise. But the most important lesson  I learned is that encouragement from loved ones give us – teachers and students alike - courage to take risks, learn from our mistakes  and embrace new experiences.  So next school break, having learned many lessons this summer, and with the encouragement of my family,  I will try my hand at carpentry.

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