A Failure to Communicate

Monday was a frustrating day.  Well, it started out just fine.  We awoke to about 6 inches of snow.  Everything was cold and white and lovely outside.  We opted out of our friends' annual MLK Jr. Day walk on Fiddler's Ridge and stayed home to dig our way out of the driveway and our foggy brains.  Besides we had company coming for dinner.  

We had planned a nice dinner of polenta with white Oregon truffles and, for dessert, a cherry pie.  After all, I had put up all those cherries in the freezer last summer.  It was high time to use some.  So I made a nice looking cherry pie with a lattice top and stuck it in the oven and set the timer.  I was busy doing this and that around the house when I noticed a burnt smell coming from the kitchen.  I tried to open the oven door to check on the pie and it was locked!  I suffered a small bout of panic as I looked for and then paged through the owner's manual to see what to do.  I turned off the oven and pressed the cancel button.  I also learned, from the manual, that one feature of this oven is to automatically lock its door if the oven gets too hot.  Now, when I put that pie in, the temperature registered 400º and the knob was set on bake so all should have been well.  But, obviously, it was not.

To complicate the situation, I was just getting ready to leave for an appointment in town so I had to hurriedly fill Paul in on things and run out the door.  When I got home again a few hours later, there sat my pie.  As you can see, it did not look like a dessert to serve to guests.  

I called the repair shop and the person I talked to thinks its either a sensor or the control board not talking to the oven thus the oven kept heating up and up instead of staying at the desired temperature.  We're waiting for the part to come in and the oven to be fixed.  In the meantime, we're living without it, which is trickier than it might sound.  Especially to one who loves to bake.  No biscuits for breakfast for a while.  Sigh.

By the way, we did salvage some of the pie.  After removing the burned lattice and crust edge, the filling and bottom crust were in fine condition.  We ate it spooned over vanilla ice cream...and laughed.

Earth Mother

I really didn't set out to be Suzy Homemaker, honestly.  In fact, when I was in my twenties, I was what I called an "Earth Mother" type.  I baked my own bread, used honey and not sugar when baking, canned and froze food, and had a big vegetable garden.  Shoot, I even tried making my own ketchup!  Then I decided I was working way too hard!  I should add that I was also working a full-time job at the time.

And so life went on.  I never lost my love for playing around in the kitchen but did so on a smaller scale most of the time.  However, now that I am "retired,"  I have more time and have found myself going back to my Earth Mother self.  I'm making a lot more things from scratch than I ever did when I was young.   I am baking bread again, both sourdough and whole wheat.  I make raspberry vinegar and homemade vanilla extract (delicious!).  I even make bagels.  I still put a lot of food in the freezer but don't can anymore.  

One thing I tried a couple years ago was making cheese.   The first cheese I tried was ricotta.  It's very simple and tastes creamy and smooth, unlike the sort of gritty feel of the store bought kind.  Then I tried making mozzarella.  It turned out that mozzarella cheese was really difficult.  After a couple of failed attempts, I gave up but, in the process,  I accidentally made cream cheese.  It was really yummy.  

It is more rustic than the smoothed out blocks one buys.  It tends to keep draining whey in the container but that is easily drained off.  It is quite spreadable but not too soft.  And it freezes really well.  It's incredibly easy, too, although it does take a couple of days.  Most of that time it's just sitting and doing it's cheesy thing.  This is a finished batch fresh from hanging overnight in the refrigerator.  It is the perfect topping on one of those homemade bagels!

PS  If you're interested in the recipe for the cream cheese or the ricotta, leave a comment or email me.  I'd be glad to share but it's a little long to post here.