The First Greens of the Season

The lettuce is up! Woohoo! After being a little tardy in my planting and after a very cold spring, we finally have lettuce to fill our salad bowls. Last night we had a delicious and simple salad of greens, green onions (also from the garden) and shredded carrots (from Trader Joe's).

Aside from the fresh from the garden greens, the two things that make this salad are the shredded carrots and the vinaigrette.

You can buy shredded carrots in a bag at the store and they are perfectly good. But you can also buy a Julienne peeler. I happen to have two, oddly. One my mom gave me after I had been coveting hers and one Dave bought me because I had been coveting my mom's. These little tools are great. Instant fancy salad without the fuss on getting out your mandoline.

As for the vinaigrette, the basic formula is 3 parts oil to 1 part acid, usually vinegar, but citrus juice and soy sauce count too. I usually  make vinaigrette in a small mason or jelly jar. Start by adding 2 inches of oil, 1 inch of vinegar and then add any of the following to suit your tastes: mustard, brown sugar, maple syrup, soy, lemon/lime/orange juice. For an Asian variation use rice vinegar and add any or all of the following: soy, hoisin, sriracha, mirin, fish sauce, ginger.

Next time you are contributing a salad to a potluck dinner, make your own dressing too. Homemade dressing is like homemade whipped cream; it invariably impresses folks and has the power to mask a less than impressive salad or dessert. Trust me.

Bad Mommy

Remember what I wrote about being supermom? Well, in an effort to keep it real, let me explain what I did yesterday...

Monday is laundry day in our house, so before I even had breakfast, I decided to get a load of laundry going. But first, I had to empty the dryer of the laudry that I had been so proud of myself for starting on Sunday night. Imagine my complete horror when I realized that I had put a small box of crayons that were in my pocket through the washer and dryer. This particular batch of now spotted laundry included: Kara's t-ball uniform, my favorite jeans, Dave's favorite shorts and a brand new pair of khakis my mom had just bought for me.

Let me just say from the outset that this "laundry error" could not be blamed on anyone else but me. I alone was dumb enough to put crayons in my pocket, and I alone did the laundry. Also, I should be clear that I understand that spotted clothes are not the end of the world. They are, after all, just clothes. Finally, I also realize that when you are a parent and wife it is important to moderate and control your behavior so as to prevent you from alienating your spouse and terrifying your children.

I did not, however, let any of these facts stand in the way of throwing a huge tantrum. That's right, I had a complete meltdown filled with cursing, slamming of doors, throwing of objects and screaming at the world. It was epic. And when Dave tried to offer some comfort by way of putting the stained clothes into some perspective, I essentially told him to shut up and leave me alone. Nice. It was at that point that Kara started to cry. So on top of my rage at having made such a stupid mistake, I poured on a heaping pile of shame at how I was acting in front of my husband and family.

After Dave left for work, I did manage to pull myself together to comfort Kara and get her off to school. I then spent the rest of the morning wallowing in self-recrimination, trolling the internet for stain removal advice and attempting get the crayon tie-dye off of our clothes. In the light of the day after, though, I can appreciate the "silver lining" to what will be forever known as "Mommy's crayon episode."

-First, I had a wonderful friend, Valerie, to call. She offered comfort and support without judgement. Not only that, she called back to check in later in the day with more wise words that assured me that I had not scarred my kids or my marriage irreparably. (She also offered the very insightful observation that when your husband tries to offer you perspective when you clearly have lost all of yours, it is just the nudge you need to push you over the cliff into a sea of irrationality.)
-Second, I was able to apologize to Kara and Dave and they were gracious enough to accept my apology with their typical kindness and generosity.
-Third, I got the damn stains out of almost everything! I am a laundry goddess! (Except when I am a laundry doofus.) The magic formula? Soak in hot water, Borax and Clorox 2 for at least an hour. Wash with 1 cup detergent, 1 cup Borax and 1 cup Clorox 2.

Here are the variety of cleaning products I used on Monday. A little out of control.

Cilantro Saver

A very good friend of the family gave me the amazing Christmas present of a gift card to Sur la Table. If you have never been in one of their stores, let me just say that it is a cook's heaven. So many cool gadgets. A new SLT store opened not too far from us, and I have been considering how to use my gift for months. One of the first things that came to mind was an herb saver much like this one that was Oprah's favorite. Say what you will about Oprah, she has good taste. But before I used up a chunk of my precious gift card, I decided to do a little research.

Turns out that lots of foodie folks on the internet have an opinion about how best to save fresh herbs. Shocking, I know. What I decided to test was the jar of water method. It's complex: Take a jar. Fill it with about 2 inches of water. Take your cilantro, parsley etc. and trim a little off the stems. Put bunch of herbs in jar and store in refrigerator. Enjoy for 1 to 2 weeks.

Here is my cilantro 10 days into my experiment. Pretty good, right? While O's favorite is probably lovely, I pronounce the mason jar of water method a resounding success.

A Favorite: Gourmet Magazine's Test Kitchen

Last year my good friend Valerie hooked me up with some locally raised chickens from a farmer in Lancaster County. Sadly, these birds languished in my freezer for quite a while since I had just had baby #2 and was not big into cooking. This summer, I came across one of these chickens in the big freezer and a dinner idea was hatched. We would have bbq chicken on the grill. The only problem - these chickens were not cut up. But I am resourceful girl, I thought. I was sure that with the help of the internet, I could carve up a whole chicken into grilling appropriate pieces.

So I typed "How to cut up a whole chicken" into the Google search box and found several helpful sites. (In retrospect, I am glad that I didn't stumble upon anything too graphic.) The most helpful hits were actually YouTube videos of people demonstrating this culinary skill. This chicken experiment really redeemed YouTube in my view.  Up to this point, my primary experience with YouTube was showing Kara random Disney or Sesame Street songs. Aside from entertaining my kids, I suspected that YouTube was of questionable utility to a stay at home mom.

The best site, by far, was from the now defunct (so sad) Gourmet Magazine website. On the video section of the site they have a sub-section called "The Test Kitchen". Embedded here are quick instructional videos on a wide range of kitchen topics: from how to cut up a whole chicken, to how to warm tortillas, to how to crack a coconut, to how to sharpen a knife. I am telling you this has some great stuff.  I have never even heard of corn silk tea, but after seeing the video, I kind of want to give it a try.

So this week, as you are considering making gravy, pie crust or carving up a turkey, check out Gourmet's very informative site.

Here is a link to "How to Get a Moist Turkey."

Kitchen Tip - Saving Scraps

I recently came across an old Cooks Illustrated magazine and saw this tip: If you are dealing with a large amount of produce and want to save your scraps for the compost pile, line your sink with a section from the newspaper and use the whole sink as your compost bowl. When you are done, just wrap it all up in a ball and take it out to your heap. Toss the paper and scraps in together. Easy peasy lemon squeezy, as my daughter would say.

I actually put this tip to the test  when I was peeling another bushel of apples. (More on that another time.) This technique worked well - the only caveat I would offer is to use a thick stack of paper if you think you will get it wet. I was a little stingy the first time and the paper pretty much disintegrated in the transfer. Once I learned this lesson, it was a handy way to get the kitchen scraps out of the kitchen.