A Day in the Kitchen

At times it is difficult to focus on the positive. I want to be positive, but I have all these rants burning inside me. I want to rant.

I will refrain. Instead of venting my frustrations with yardwork I will write about my day. Today was spent cooking. So here is a journal of my day by food.

1. The morning meal was breakfast burritoes. My family doesn't usually do big breakfasts, but we made an exception on Sunday's this year because our church schedule interferes with lunch. A big breakfast helps to compensate for that and carry the children through.

Breakfast burritoes consisted of eggs, bacon, cheese, Cholula hot sauce, and tortillas. When I was a child (and into college) I would cook with pre-cooked flour tortillas. However, several years ago my wife discovered raw flour tortillas. You just peel them apart and throw them on to a hot pan. They are fantastic. Usually our burritoes would include fried potatoes, but our spuds were not in good shape. Also, I always forget the potatoes.

2. Ale rolls. This is one of the many recipes from my new baking book. I have been meaning to make this recipe for a while, but I don't drink and the recipe calls for a good ale. I asked some friends in the past and finally got around to purchasing a bottle. I went with Newcastle.

My daughter watched Kid's Baking Championship last night. Now she wants to be a baker. I had her help me with this, talking her through my limited baking knowledge as we worked. She helped gather the ingredients and put them in the bowl. However, she didn't like how it felt on her hands and went to eat instead of kneading.

I have to say that the ale stinks. There's definitely a reason I don't drink. When the bread rolls were baking my wife said it made the house smell like a brewery. I don't know if that is true; I've never been to a brewery. However, the entire house did smell like the ale for the first few minutes of cooking.

My daughter did come back for punching the dough down (she was looking forward to it) and my wife helped teach her to shape them. The end product was a roll with a crusty outside and a soft inside. The rolls were good, but the ale didn't add any noticeable taste. For me that's a bad thing. A special ingredient should have had a more noticeable impact. I won't be making them again. I have better options available.

3. Oatmeal cookies. On a shopping trip recently I bought some Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies. Disappointing. I guess your taste buds can't go back to childhood. That experience lead me to make my own oatmeal cookies.

Again, I enlisted my daughter's aid. I had intended to have her make them herself, while I watched. I have trouble letting go off control in he kitchen. However, she did make a good portion of them so that is a victory for both of us.

Since I hadn't planned on making these today I wasn't ready with ingredients. I found a recipe promising me the chewy cookies I desired and started making them. However, I soon found that we didn't have enough brown sugar. And I learned that I can adapt. I've been making cookies and other things enough that I changed sugar types and amounts without blinking.

Then as my daughter was adding the vanilla we discovered we had a fraction of the of the vanilla needed. I almost decided to just forgo the vanilla, but double-checked the pantry in case we had more. We didn't. However, we did have Almond Extract. I grabbed it and after both my daughter and I gave it a sniff we approved it for the dough. A taste a moment later indicated I made the correct choice. It blended perfectly.

We finished the dough and then I talked to my daughter about mix-ins, trying to teach her that this is where you make recipes your own. My wife and I were trying to steer her toward cranberry walnut, but she chose raisin walnut. Also, the other half batch was chocolate chip because apparently today is chocolate chip cookie day.

My wife agreed. The Almond Extract was the right choice and the sugar changes worked out well. The cookies were fantastic and I think I have the first recipe that is mine. True, it is an adaptation of someone's recipe, but it is so similar to so many cookie recipes out there I don't mind.

4. Pork tenderloin. Ending my day grilling makes me happy. The biggest problem was the length of the tenderloins. It made it hard to get the ends cooked evenly with the middle. I was satisfied with the end result and now there is extra tenderloin for lunches.

I think the two main takeaways to today are this:

A. I am becoming a capable, adaptable cook. I can adapt recipes and cook without them if I need to. My understanding of food has increased dramatically over the last decade.

B. I have control issues in the kitchen. Serious control issues. I would rather be alone in the kitchen than working with others. That is something for me to work on, because if my daughter's reaction is anything to go on I'll be working with people in the kitchen for a long time to come.