With the holidays approaching, I am reminded of my early days of cooking. When I first married I did not own a cookbook and I really had NO desire to cook. Now, I like to eat and always have, so this presented a slight problem. Luckily for me, my husband was a bachelor for quite some time and knew how to cook.
As he slowly introduced me to the wondrous world of cooking, I had a few ambitious moments that I will now confess.
1. I did not touch raw meat. Yuck! I used lots of utensils to lift meat out of the packaging and into a pot, pan, or whatever device I was using for cooking. Pathetic, I realize.
2. Overzealous as usual, I invited my family over to my shoebox size apartment for Thanksgiving dinner. I cooked! My aunt reminded me to make pumpkin pie no less than 492 times in the week prior to Thanksgiving.
Upon entering my shoebox, she immediately went in search of the pie. “Where’s the pumpkin pie you promised?” She questioned.
Insulted I redirected her attention to the pies lining the windowsill about 5 inches from her bottom.
“No, where’s the PUMPKIN PIE?” She repeated.
Annoyed now, I grabbed it and placed the pie in her hand. She laughed and laughed in astonishment. I was so upset. My pie looked picture perfect; the crust slightly browned. Between gasps for air, she managed to spit out, “I’ve never seen a pumpkin pie with a lid on it!”
Yes, I used a pie crust top on my first pumpkin pie. I’ve learned my lesson.
3. My mother-in-law is known for her pumpkin bread. It’s wonderful and a little cream cheese makes it a fall masterpiece. I’m not an artist, so I shouldn’t have tried to reproduce greatness, but I did. I made 12 individual sized loaves of pumpkin bread, handing them out to friends and family. Feeling quite proud of myself, I gloated over my domestic progress. All gloating ended when my pastor’s wife complimented me on my tasty bread. “Don’t worry about the cloves,” she said, “we just spit them out.”
“Oh, No! They didn’t melt?”
Why I thought whole, rock-hard cloves would melt inside batter is beyond me. Now I only stock my pantry with ground cloves.
Am I alone, or do you ladies and gentlemen (perhaps) have a few cooking confessions of your own?
Tags: baking, confession, cooking, recipes, Thanksgiving
LOL about the pumpkin pies
I have many confessions, the best one being cooking the husbands first dinner after we married, everything was ready just as he got home from work. I proudly took out his current favourite dish Toad In The Hole, only for it to slip out of the baking tin and land on the floor at his feet!
Keep up the great blog.
Crafty Cookie
from Crafty Cookies Kitchen
You are a brave lady! Thanksgiving dinner in a tiny apartment, oy! I’m not big on cooking either, and it took me many years to summon the nerve to have Thanksgiving dinner. I still struggle with the stuffing! Any tips?
My future husband was away at college. I consulted his mam ato learn to make his favorite dish. A Hungarian dish passed down from several generations. I was cooking away when I came to the part that said ‘plain flour’. I though plain meant just plain flour with nothing added to it, so I used some biscuit mix. It ended up blowing up into this huge gooey mess. It was then that my mother-in-law patiently told me there was a difference in plain flour, self-rising flour and bisquick. —She knew her son was about to marry me..and she still didn’t stand up and protest at our wedding. She makes Martha Stewart look like….well…..me!! And she still let her baby marry a retard like me! She’s an awesome lady!
When I was a young just-married, I made french fries, but I didn’t have a scoop to retrieve them from the hot oil. So I used the plastic salad fork. It melted to a nub right before my eyes.
Oh, well. Live and learn.
The Texas Woman
Oh my goodness, Tricia, you are cracking me up! That clove story is hilarious! I don’t even want to confess mine, but it might give you a clue when I say that I don’t think I’ve ever made a pumpkin pie!
My family growing up never made meatloaf….My husbands family had it often. The first year we were married, I got the recipe from his mom…went and bought the ingredients…and then went home to prepare the meat loaf. I also had (and still have to a certain extent) a great aversion to touching raw meat…..so I tried mixing it with a huge spoon…but it did not blend well…so I called my mother in law…she suggested that I use my hands to blend it…YUK! But being a newlywed….I really wanted to impress and suprise my hubby with his favorite dish…..so I washed my hands SEVERAL times….and went about kneading the meatloaf mixture by hand….Placed the mixture into the dish…and baked it….it came out scrumptious looking! However, my hubby had quite a suprise at dinner…on his first bite of the beautiful meatloaf…he crunched down on my wedding band…..It had come off in the meat…been baked…and unfortunately almost eaten…..
We now only eat meatloaf at his Moms….