Experimental Gastronomy

Trials and Tribulations of Isolation Cooking: 

Let's be honest, I'm an adequate cook. I'm no Julia Child but you can eat most of my dishes without diarrhea or projectile vomiting. Other than writing this blog, binging TV shows, doing jigsaw puzzles, I've been experimenting in the kitchen. 

Years ago I read an article about how bad microwave popcorn is for your health. I think it causes cancer, hair loss, frigidity in women, 4 hour erections in men, itchiness, measles, mumps, chicken pox and internal bleeding. Therefore, I pop my corn the old fashioned way with a skillet and a matching lid (very important that the lid fits). I've been popping corn often and experimenting with flavors. Listed below are my experiences of adding flavoring before popping and the results.

1. Sweet and Sour Sauce - Don't try this at home ladies and gentlemen. The sauce burns before the kernels pop. You get about half of the corn popped and the rest a black burned mess. Also, the kitchen will smell like a forest fire for days.  

2. Minced Garlic - Re-read number 1, only this time you have an odor of garlic infused forest fire.

3. Curry Powder - This was my second most successful popcorn, it doesn't burn and it turns the corn a lovely shade of yellow. You'll get a pleasant odor of walking into "The Taste of India" which is a plus to me.

4. Bacon Grease - This is the best! In the morning I fried bacon for breakfast, and I allowed the grease to solidify so it's easier to throw away. The grease had harden and I was about to scrape it in the trash and then I had an idea 💭 what if I used this grease instead of oil to pop corn? Bacon flavored popcorn is better than "better than sex" cake. Now your house smells like bacon for the rest of the day, it's a win, win.

Had I just Googled flavored popcorn recipes, I would have known to season the popcorn after popping. Then I could have made pepperoni pizza or peanut butter and banana flavored popcorn.

On to my experimental dinners. First up, Coq Au Vin! What could go wrong? I gathered all the ingredients and reread the recipe, it calls for 1/4 cup of Cognac and 3 cups of red wine. Cooking removes all the alcohol from the dish. I wasn't willing to waste my wine on Coq Au Vin, I don't care if it was one of Julia Child's famous dishes. Anyway, I ended up with a chicken, onion and mushroom dish. In order to make it somewhat authentic, I'd take a bite while swirling the wine in my mouth. Delicious.

My son and daughter-in-law rave about Pho, pronounced "pha." The recipe called for anywhere from 35 to 52 ingredients. I didn't want to interrupt my allotted time for jigsaw puzzling or Gilmore Girls watching so I dumbed down the recipe. I made a package of ramen noodles, added chicken chunks, ginger, green onions and cilantro. Delicious and only 1/20th the time of the authentic recipe. 

My recent comfort food craving was fried chicken, macaroni and cheese and collard greens. I may have been born in the north but living here for 60 years has made me a southern girl. Frying chicken is a gigantic mess and they sell such good chicken at Publix. If you buy the Kraft mac and cheese you don't have to grate the cheese, make the sauce or bake it for hours. You can find greens already washed and cut, what a country!

I did create one original breakfast recipe that worked well. Pancakes with mango, maple syrup and jalapenos. Sweet and spicy just the way all food should taste, except leave out the sweet and double the spicy.

In my last blog entry I made fun of my mom's cooking, it appears the apple didn't fall far from the tree. My motto is, "If I have to stir it, it's homemade."