....and so it is

The friggin' interview went well, very well - I now have a job.

Actually, it wasn't that bad. I was there for aboot (Canadian for about) 45 minutes. I was hired in the first five minutes. Bonus: supervisory position! I start, in charge of other people. Holy Friggin' Poop!!!!

I hung out with my immediate supervisor, and the district manager. Both were great. We sat there for the other 40 minutes just shooting the shit. I start next Monday, and it looks like they may have some things to reorganize before then, but that's on them.

(Time out here: someone just went from zero to bitchy out of nowhere - and I even told her I have a fucking job!)

Overall, it's the dream job. I have kids, they're in school. I now have job in the school system. They have the day off - I have the day off. Summer - oh yeah, I have that off too.

Problem: I have a job.

Later on,
Scott

P.S. I start next Monday, work the whole week, THEN..... I have the whole next week off! Spring Break FTW!!!!!!!!

Sad, sad day.......

Ok.... I'm throwing it out there.... it's not going to be a great monday. I have an interview. Yes, I may be in the position to get (please don't say it aloud) ..... a job.

I have made a career out of the last 6+ years of not having to work, like a real job. Now I have the chance to get a real job. I will say, as far as the stay-at-home parent thing goes, I may have hit the goldmine in job possibilities; but it's still me having to get a job.

I might be the new lunch lady.

I haven't had the interview yet, but I think I may have to trim up the facial hair into a Fu-Man-Chu with a side of Side-Burns and keep my head shaved - and still wear a hairnet! If I can find a fake cigarette with a 3" ash, I might be golden!

Anyhoo;........ happy day!!!!!!
Scott

Computers and Tomato Sauce

My friend Melissa has a computer problem. Her laptop running Vista is all infected with nasty little things, and after a combined 12+ hours on the phone with Jab in India trying to sort it - she called me. I'm local, speak understandable English, and work for beer (for a select few!). On the plus side, Jab works the night shift and has been dating the same girl for three months now. Way to go Jab, way to go!!!! :D

We talked during the week, set a day/time, and planned on catching up and watching the kids play together. Saturday came, The Meal Ticket and I hit the local (walking distance) wine tasting up, and got back in time to make some bread and tomato sauce for a nice pasta dinner. Missy and family is I-TAL-IAN. Pasta, sauce, and bread reminds every I-TAL-IAN I know of, of their Nana. I figured it was a good move. And easy dinner party fare.

Long story short, they showed up brought their computers, showed me what was wrong and what they wanted to save. Drank some wine and beers, watched the kids (who met for the first time) play together wonderfully, and just generally had a great time with some great people we don't get to see often enough. Eventually, as is always the case, the kids wanted to eat. We set them up on the coffee table watching some DVD, each with a bowl of pasta and bread. Grownups at the big table - a recurring theme I've noticed.

Now, my sauce is something I found in a book that the author robbed from Mario Batali and modified. I've since then modified it myself. It's a generic sauce recipe that's open to a lot of modifying. It was huge hit, to the point Missy's son wanted more and most of the Grownups had seconds.

Fast forward 24 hours, Missy wants the recipe. Now, here's the hard part. There are recipe people and then there are people who just throw stuff together. Missy is a recipe person. I tend to wear a lot of tie-dye, I can't be restrained by a simple recipe - I'm too free for something like that (except for baking, then I'm very restrainable). So, I'll try to use my best recipe speak.

Basic Tomato Sauce

• 2 - 28oz cans of crushed tomatoes
• 1 - 8 oz can of tomato sauce
• 1 - medium onion - finely minced
• 1 - small-medium carrot - shredded
• minced garlic - I like a lot of garlic, therefore I use a lot; you may like to use less - use YOUR discretion
  
• salt and pepper, basil, red pepper flakes
• olive oil
• red wine - aboot a 1/4 cup or so - don't measure just pour some in!
  

Take a medium to large stock pot, and heat it to med-high and add the oil - maybe a heavy tablespoon. I use a cast iron Dutch oven, it works great. I think a lot of I-TAL-IAN Nanas used them too. Add the onion and spices - easy on the spices at this point. You can always add more later but it's a bitch trying to take some away if you over do it. As soon as the onion gets a little translucent, add the carrot and garlic. Once the garlic begins to stick, add the wine and scrape the bottom. Add the crushed tomatoes and tomato sauce, rinsing the remainder of tomato product out of the cans with some water; add the water/tomato product mixture to your stock pot of love. Stir together and bring to a slight boil, reduce to a simmer. Come back after you finish a glass of wine and check the seasonings. Add more if necessary, simmer some more. This is one of those cases where the longer it simmers - the better! Add some more water if it gets too thick.

Now, this is a great base for adding whatever you have in the fridge to. You've got some mushrooms and peppers - add them in with the onions. You feel like some sausage or ground beef - brown it up and remove it before add the onions and add them back in with the tomatoes. You've got a bunch of spinach, or escarole, or kale, or some other green - add it with the tomatoes or saute it up with some olive oil, garlic and white wine AND then add it to the sauce. Lots of room to move here. You want some Fra Diavolo - go heavy on the pepper flakes in the beginning, and add some shrimp 5 minutes before serving. Before the onions, saute up some bacon and remove, then add some celery with the onions, and add some diced potatoes with the tomatoes, and some clam juice; then two cans of chopped clams 15 minutes before serving - Manhattan Clam Chowder.

Go crazy!!! but don't measure! Use your tongue to measure. If it tastes good you did it right. If not, you'll know for next time, but I'll bet you could still suffer through eating it! ;)

On a side note: Missy's laptop is now humming along quite nicely with Windows 7 Ultimate, and all of her pictures are safe and secure! :D

Side note #2: Missy is wonderful and utterly amazing at what she does. And she brought some stuff from her work for dessert. It was wonderfully awesome!!!! Missy's work: Make Me A Cake. If you're even near there, stop in and get some of their goodness - you will not regret it!

Winter Vacation - Day 1

Well...... I figured I'd try to start the vacation week off proper before I resorted to Nyquil (for them and me), especially since I had the she-child out of the house. She was painting Hello Kitty banks with her friend Paris and the neighbor's daughter Jimbo (don't ask) as the ring leader.

The Meal Ticket was home due to it being President's Day. She had decided it would be an excellent day to build up some ammunition against me by cleaning (read: perfectizing) the upstairs - which she proceeded to tell everyone she wouldn't have to do if I cleaned like I was suppose to. We all have our faults. I understand this. Some just prefer to drink life through a half empty cup. I mean come on, I do the laundry, I cook really yummy, healthy food, I kill the bad bugs and bring the good bugs outside, I reach the stuff on the top shelf so there's no need to bring in a chair, her lunch and coffee is ready before work, and most importantly - nothing I've been responsible for (except for some fish from both fish tanks, and anything that was alive before it was suppose to be cooked) has DIED!

Anyhoo...... I digress..... this..... is about......... the Dude!

I decided that the best way to both enjoy the she-childs' absence AND avoid the maniacal, perfectizing Meal Ticket of Doom, was to hide in the kitchen. And so we did!

Now, the boy is already a seasoned grilled cheese flipper, and general all-purpose stirrer, but today was all about hiding and looking busy. I had a full agenda and the Dude was game - we were going to make dinner from scratch!

Seeing how he's only four and I planned on having beer for lunch, I decided to keep things simple - pasta, sauce, and bread. We made the bread from the recipe in my previous post, but the pasta and sauce recipe were ad lib. We started with the sauce. The longer it cooks, the better it gets.

Sauce:
-start by sauteing some onion and about half of a shredded carrot, with some salt, pepper, one herb (I used basil, but thyme or rosemary, etc would be good also), some red pepper flake (optional, but I like stuff spicy), and some garlic (fresh or ground - your choice but add it after the onions sweat).



-once the onions begin to sweat and the carrot begins to break down, add some garlic until it just sticks to the bottom, then add some from that big tempting bottle of white cooking wine! (not too bad with an ice cube)

-once you've scrapped everything from the bottom, add a 28 (-ish) oz can of crushed tomatoes and a 14 oz can of tomato sauce, stir well, bring to a slight boil - reduce and stir often.



Pasta:
I wasn't exactly happy with the way it turned out, but I'll throw the recipe out there to show why I thought this.
-2 cups flour - 1 semolina, 1 all-purpose
-salt
-olive oil
-4 eggs

we mixed it all by hand, and in the end it should have been drier - one less egg maybe. Anyhoo..... I've got another recipe to try and we'll see how that goes, but here's the after mixing shot:



Let that bad boy rest in the fridge for aboot half an hour, then back on the counter.

Bread:
We used the Kitchen-Aid. Dude was an active participant here.



I think the Dude and I are on the same page when we watch the sheer power of the Kitchen-Aid, and stay awake at night dreaming that it went to 11!



Follow the process from the previous post for the bread recipe.

Now..... having a Kitchen-Aid is wonderful. Having a neighbor who has EVERY FRIGGIN KITCHEN-AID ATTACHMENT is a level of ecstasy few can reach dressed!

So, when the Dude and I brought the she-child to her Hello Kitty play date of "OMG!!!11!!! IT'S HELLO KITTY AND WE CAN PAINT HER!!!11!!!", we liberated the Kitchen-Aid pasta attachment. Not the old simple one that does linguine and spaghetti and fettuccine, the NEW one that does fusilli and bucatini and macaroni (large AND small) and rigatoni <- we choose that!

Alrighty then! Armed with a Kitchen-Aid, the super, duper pasta attachment, some pasta dough, beer, and a four year old - I decided it's time to make some pasta!







That's almost where it ends. The sauce was great, the bread was great, the pasta was ... meh.. The flavor was really good, but overall it was very doughy, a little thicker than I'm use to (boxed version). Sorry there's no wunder shot of the plate, but I think I broke the Dude. It may have just been a little too much for him, so he was a slightly unable to snap the pic!




Please don't tell anyone that Spider-Dude needs a snuggle buddy.

P.S. I realize that this is day 4/5 of vacation and I would have liked to post this sooner, but I've been attempting to maintain order without the use of a cattle-prod or the good booze - so bear with me on this one!

Later on,
Scott

Recipe Chains

Ya know..... there's a lot of these floating around lately:

(email hell begins now)
Hello all - hope you don't mind me mailing you, it only takes 2 mins I promise!

I am participating in a collective, constructive, and hopefully TASTY experiment. As such: You have been invited to be part of a recipe exchange concept. I hope you will participate. I've picked those who I think would make this fun.

Please send a recipe to the person whose name is in position 1 (even if you don't know him / her) and it should be something quick, easy and without rare ingredients. Actually, the best one is the one you know in your head and can type right now. Don't agonize over it, it is one you make when you are short of time.

After you've sent the recipe to the person in position 1 below and only to that person, copy this letter into a new email, move my name to position 1 and put your name in position 2.

Only mine and your name should show when you send your email. Send to 20 friends BCC (blind copy).

If you cannot do this within 5 days, let me know so it will be fair to those participating.

It's fun to see where the recipes come from! Seldom does anyone drop out because we all need new ideas. The turnaround is fast as there are only 2 names on the list and you only have to do it once.

Position 1

myfriend's-wife's-cousin@nycap.rr.com

Position 2

myfriend's-wife@nycap.rr.com
(end of email hell)

This kinda bothers me. I'm turning into my mom. In her day, it was all hors d'oeurves and index cards. Now, being the local DILF - AND - (and it's a big AND) I can cook well, I've received a few of these. Email chains are the new index cards for "hey people like this when I bring it to their functions, and they ask me for the recipe, and then they look like zombies when I tell them the ingredients".

Now I've gotten one of these from a wonderful woman who is the Meal Ticket's cousin. Another from the nice lady at the wine shop, and this crazy little red-headed Irish chic who married my best friend (dago...... :P).

I think my biggest problem is trying to find the 20 people in my address book. Recipes are NOT the problem - it's the people. I like my food. I don't think I want your food, but if I did I'd probably ask you for it. Then again, we're going full circle here - I'm being asked for my food. Six in one, half a dozen in the other. C'est la vie.

So, here is my out: this is my response to the poor, poor red-headed Irish girl who married my dago friend. There are two recipes (both are really good), but there's a lot of reading and no pictures.


Ok........ I'm not getting involved in this otherwise I'll be hearing from people in my address book that I don't really care about. So, I'm sending it back to you and myfriend's-wife's-cousin@nycap.rr.com - who I think is that hot and sexy, funky chic [friend's-wife's-cousin]. If it's not that hot and sexy, funky chic [friend's-wife's-cousin] - I'm sorry, but I bet your a nice person even though you're in [friend's-wife]'s address book.

Feel free to email this to all those other wonderful victims in your BCC - I tried, it wouldn't let me "reply - all". Due to my utter and almost complete lack of motivation in this, I'll be sending two recipes - one relatively easy, and more more in depth but worth it. Here goes, and hold on to your knickers!

Soup

Tortellini and White Bean with Spinach and Garlic

Stuff you'll need:

* one family size (50 oz I think) of tomato soup
* one package of frozen tortellini
* one package of frozen spinach
* great northern beans (see note below)
* garlic
* half pint of heavy cream - room temp.
* stuff from your spice rack
* olive oil
* probably some other stuff that will get mentioned in the making of this

Let's start with the garlic (can't go wrong there, can we?)! I like garlic. Therefore I use a lot, and don't care if I smell like I just ate a whole bulb of it. You may feel differently. It's ok. You've probably got other things wrong with you too. I use about 4-5 freshly minced/pressed garlic cloves. I put it right in the big soup pot I plan on using with some olive oil, some salt and pepper, and some red pepper flakes. Slap it on the stove over some med/med-high heat, and cook it until it just starts to brown (a real little bit here, don't over do it). I go by the guide of when it starts to stick to the bottom, it's time to add some booze! I usually use white cooking wine. Whatever is $5.99/1.5L of chardonnay at the Price Chopper in Bennington. It's not stellar to drink, but if you must it will do the job. ;) If you want more of a vodka cream sauce approach - USE VODKA! DUH! Half cup of either will do the trick nicely. Scrape up all the yummy bits of garlic that should now be stuck on the bottom of that wonderful soup pot on the stove. Dump in the tomato soup. Fill up the empty soup can with water, and you guessed it - dump that in too. Throw in the beans and their liquid. Spinach too - it'll get lonely otherwise. We'll save the tortellini for later. Bring it to a slight boil (only a few bubbles here people, we don't want it to get scorched on the bottom). Reduce heat to a simmer - occasional bubble. Now, let's give this frigger a taste! Add some S&P, maybe some basil, maybe a little (or a whole crapload) of garlic powder. However you think it tastes good is the key here. Now, hold on folks, we're getting into real cooking!!! Not just opening shit up anymore! Well kinda........ grab that half pint of heavy cream - open it right up. Pour it into a (at least) two cup measuring cup. We're going to temper it. ALERT!! ALERT!! COOKING TERMINOLOGY!!!! Take the ladle you plan on using to dish out this wonder-meal, and fill it up a little less than half way with just liquid - none of the beans, etc. (Note: some spinach and garlic will get in there - it's OK!) Now, slowly pour that into our measuring cup of cream, while slowly stirring. If it comes too close to the top, you've used too much of the soup. It should be very warm now, so let's pour it into the soup, stirring as we go. The key here is to NOT curdle the cream as it enters the hot soup, therefore we tempered it. Temper=good, curdle=bad. If you have white flecks floating around in your pot of tomato goodness, you curdled it and should have added a little more soup when tempering; if so, all is not lost - it will still be edible just not pretty and you learned a lesson for next time. Anyhoo..... now's a good time to add those little bundles of pasta heaven to the soup. Mix 'em in well, and come back in 20. (20 minutes later......) Soup is done!!!!!! Serve it with the next recipe, and some wine!

Timetable: Up to the tortellini part, it should only take about 10-15 minutes. Have everything open in advance, and ready to go.

*Note on beans - I usually use dry beans. I have a 3qt crockpot that I use. Half a pound (-ish) of beans to 4 cups of water. Bring to a boil on the stove, add to crockpot, and cook on high for 1 1/2 hours - give or take. Regardless of what I'm cooking, when I do beans like this, I add fresh garlic and/or onions, and olive oil. If you are going to use canned beans in this recipe, you'll need two cans (buy organic) and use their liquid - it won't kill you.

Disclaimer: I barely measure anything (except baking). I go by taste. If you are the type of person to need measurements - you're screwed! Err on the side of caution, and if you can taste the salt you over did it.


Bread:

Basic French Bread

Stuff:

* 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour, plus more for dusting
* one cup water
* 2 1/4 teaspoons yeast (or half of a packet)
* 1 1/2 salt
* 1 1/2 sugar
* 1 tablespoon olive oil, plus more for the bowl
* extras......

First off, if you are using a KitchenAid mixer you're in a wonderful place. If you have to mix by hand, think on the plus side - you're toning up. Let's throw all of our flour into our mixing apparatus. At this point, I add any addition flavors I want. If you don't know Tom LaChapelle, you need to. He makes spice mixtures. I use this in a lot of stuff - like a tablespoon of it here! Mix it into the flour now. Mix the yeast, salt, and sugar in a bowl and set aside. Run your kitchen faucet on hot for a little bit until it get as hot as it will go. Now fill up the measuring cup to 1 cup. Add in the olive oil, then the yeast mixture. Mix well, and set for about 5 minutes. Pour into mixing apparatus. Now comes the fun part. You can either 1) turn your KitchenAid on - slowly at first but working your way up to the 3rd or 4th speed; or 2) start doing your upper body stretching - you'll need it. Lot's of stirring is coming your way. Once the dough is smooth, and everything is incorporated - we're good to go. Now, here's where we back peddle a bit. While your mixer was making the dough, you should have taken a big bowl (the one you plan on letting the dough rise in) and put it in your sink, and filled it with hot water. If you're building upper body strength, do this before the workout. Also, pre-heat your oven to 200 degrees (you do not want it to go that high though), with a PYREX* loaf pan in the oven on the bottom rack. Fill a tea-pot or 3 qt pot with cold water and bring to a boil. Trust me, in a few minutes this will make a little more sense. ;) When your dough is done, (if you're mixing by muscle, you'll probably need to do some kneading afterwards), dump the water out of your rising bowl and dry it out. Pour in some olive oil ( 1 tablespoon) and swirl the dough around to cover it in oil. Cover the bowl in plastic wrap. Turn off the oven at 120 degrees. Pour the boiling water from the tea-pot into the PYREX* loaf pan. Place your rising bowl on the upper rack. Let it stay in there until it rises/doubles - aboot* (*=Canadian for about) 1 hour. Once the dough has risen, punch it down and turn it onto a floured surface. You're going to want to shape it into something that looks like French bread. Now, I could spend another three pages talking about how to shape french bread, but a picture is worth a thousand words and youtube is priceless. Don't listen too much to the chic's towel spiel, just watch how she shape's them - and remember that you'll be dealing with a lot more dough. You won't have to roll/pinch as much - other wise you'll end up with a 6 foot bread stick! When it gets to the length you want - stop. My goal is to make it look like a forearm - elbow to wrist. Once it's done, place it seam side down on a cookie sheet that has a piece of parchment paper on it, and cover it with the same piece of plastic wrap from the rising bowl - 30-45 minutes - place it somewhere safe like on top of the toaster or anywhere else dogs can't get to it. Up the heat on the oven to 400 degrees. Leave the water in the PYREX pan.

(IMPORTANT!!!! As the Meal Ticket was reading this, she made a wonderful observation, so I have added this in. There are a lot of really good, nice, decent people in this world in which we all live. You may know some, you may even be one of them. But you may need Velcro shoes and a safety helmet just to go through life. So....... before we move onto the next step, I need to say this: TAKE OFF THE PLASTIC WRAP NOW!)

After it has risen a bit, bust out your bread knife. WE GONNA SLICE THE BITCH UP!!!!! Actually, we are. Start about 1 1/2" from the left end and make a diagonal slice 1/2" deep - move up an inch, repeat - move up an inch, repeat - etc. - until you're 1 1/2" from the right end. Total of 6-7 slices. When the oven hits 350 degrees, throw the future yumminess into the hot box - cookie sheet, parchment paper, everything! Go to your microwave. There is a button on it called Kitchen Timer, press it and set it for 35 minutes. After it goes off, turn the loaf of happy so the front is now in back - 5 to 10 more minutes. Now, tap on the middle of it like you're poking someone - it should sound hollow. If you don't think it sounds the right way - it's done. 45 minutes in a 375 degree oven makes ANYTHING done! Let it sit for another 10-15 minutes. Slice and serve with the recipe above.

*anything other than PYREX will probably shatter when you pour in the boiling water.

Plan of action:

1. dump flour (and extras) into mixing bowl
2. mix together yeast and stuff
3. turn on oven to 200 degrees with PYREX pan in it
4. fill teapot/3 qt pot with H2O - boil
5. fill measuring cup with hot H2O
6. fill rising bowl with hot H2O
7. add yeast mixture & oil to measuring cup
8. pour yeast mixture into flour
9. turn on mixer/begin workout
10. dump rising bowl, and dry - add oil
11. turn off oven at 125 degrees
12. add dough to rising bowl, cover in oil, cover bowl in plastic wrap
13. pour H2O from teapot into PYREX pan in oven
14. place rising bowl in oven
15. have a few drinks - aboot* 45 minutes worth of drinks
16. turn out on a floured surface
17. watch youtube video a few times so you have half an idea
18. roll up into french bread
19. watch youtube video a few more times
20. deem it good enough for a first time
21. place on cookie sheet w/parchment paper
22. cover with plastic from rising bowl
23. turn up oven to 400 degrees
24. remove plastic wrap when oven hits 375
25. throw cookie sheet into oven
26. visit our good friend Kitchen Timer - 35 friggin minutes
27. the rest is easy.......


Note: take a few slices (4-5) after a day or two, and cut them into 1" pieces. Throw them into a food processor with some of Tom LaChapelle's garlic goodness. Spread it out onto the same parchment paper from making the bread and put into a 350 degree oven for 10-15 minute or until golden. You now have seasoned bread crumbs. Store in a Tupperware(tm) container.

Disclaimer: If I'm all over the place and don't make much sense, then you need to read the directions like I'm talking to you. If I seem to be repeating things - it's 10:30 at night and I'm drunk. :D Also, it would take me about half an hour to show you how to make this bread (really, it's really easy although it's a 2 1/2 hour process), but it would require a lot of booze and do you want me in your house that long with that much booze running through me?

I think my biggest concern here, is not getting a flooded inbox with Aunt Gertie's Fruit Cake or The Best Picnic Ambrosia Ever, it's finding out what will happen if I don't respond within the 5 day limit.