Dear Adoring Public,
We here at The Bud do hereby sincerely apologize with the utmost sincerity of the sincerest of natures. We do realize that we have been gone from public view for quite a while now, and cannot expect you to forgive us or dash the desire to throw rotten tomatoes our way. We do, however, hope to offer you some comfort in saying that most of our adventures in the culinary aspect have completely BLOWN disastrously and think that maybe with the help of some pictured proof, you can have a laugh or three at our expense.
Sincerely,
TasteBud.blogspot.com
Go ahead, have a gander, CHEERS!
Sometime after our last entry we here at The Bud felt enormously adventurous and decided to take a stab at making a French Strawberry Tart. We should point out that when we say “French” we have in fact learned that this simply just means “REALLY HARD” and realized we had to break it down into many scary steps but decided to remain positive … and….. we remained positive until….. it was no longer possible. Which was very quick.
The first part of this was preparing the pastry shell. You wouldn’t think this would be too bad having played with flour in some varying fashions but lets just say that baking is kept a secret for a reason. Those who learn it properly and master it usually have worked so hard that they simply reserve the right to refuse to teach you simply because they feel all the spoils should go to them for having put themselves through hell…. And I quite frankly think I agree. This particular crust has lots of sugar in it, which means that you can’t really touch it. You can’t really touch it because it gets soft REALLY FREAKING FAST, and yet you are supposed to find a way to roll it out and mold it to it’s tart pan, while still looking pretty. Looks normal doesn't it? Yeah, I could stand it on it's side....
Too much flour from the get-go. Hard as a rock. Start over.
Then there was the correction in measurements (did you know that “sifted” means “less than” ? Yeah. Me either.) And the realization that “knead your dough” meant “Touch it barely once, don’t even wink at it, and then cross your fingers and hope for the best. You won’t find out until hours later whether you’ve made it right or not.”
That's waaaaay too much touching right there. Waaay.
Another day later Success, I pulled the dough out of the fridge and to my delight, it was not quite a rock, Sweet!
But of course after touching it for more than 1 minute it was too soft to roll out and I started to have hate in my heart….
Feeling anxious and adamant about the whole stupid thing I took my dumb soft dough, shoved it in the freezer for another hour. Fearing the repetition of aggravation I hastily rolled this fickle little princess of a dough like a mad woman not caring if it was the ugliest little baby in the orphanage and shoved it as quickly as possible into the tart pan. SUCCESS!!?!
On to another whole slew of problematic situations!
Despite poking holes with a fork into the tart before shoving it in the oven and weighing it down with rice, there were bubbles.
It was brittle after removing it from the oven so one of the sides had a blemish.
I was supposed to make a sort of jam glaze by cooking down some red currant jam using a candy thermometer to gauge the temperature in search for it’s end point, which never came before burning because my candy thermometer upon FIRST USE appeared to be broken…
(I couldn’t even find red currant jam, so apricot was the substitute, which I had; however, this one in particular had fruit bits that burned on the bottom of the pan… it was fun scrubbing that out.)
Then there was the custard, which only after the fact mentioned that this part should have been done the day before so that it could cool completely over night in the fridge before assembling and baking. Sooo that sequence occurred incorrectly.
And in the wee hours of the morning waiting on custard to form is fun but seems to take forever as your arm feels like it’s about to fall off from all of the tough stirring… “stick it out! keep going!” I chanted.
And in a desperate attempt to be free of this whole fiasco I simply filled it with the warm custard, cut up my strawberries and placed them on top throwing presentation out the window in hopes that at least it would taste good.
….. Sorta pretty, but not particularly so tasty…. Oh well.
About a week later, maybe first week of October, we tried making a most delicious 4 hour (minimum) Pork Rib Gauzetto sauce that abruptly ended half way through when an act of the devil befell us.
This started out with a loverly large batch of homemade Vegetable broth…
Tedious Mushroom Soaking …
Followed by LOTS of chopping….
Deeelicious Country Rib Browning…. YAY PORK!!
Veggie Sautee-ing ….
Wine adding…
And juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust right before the lid was supposed to go on for the long haul final simmer… there was this:
Sheer terror. Yes, folks a large light bulb cover/ orb--- whatever the crap you call it (at least a foot in diameter just above, and to the left of where the pots simmer) decided to commit suicide from the ceiling to the floor and glass shattered for miles. There was glass in the form of tiny little shards as far as the other end of the kitchen floor. It was on the window sill right above the pot, it was on top of the microwave, it was even in our hair…..
Awe, Shock, Terror, and Tears ensued quickly.
Next there was this crap…. Which tasted really yummy but looked terrible! In attempt to use what we had lying around in our kitchen we here at the bud used some most loverly Cavatelli and found some cauliflower, mushrooms, and clams… sounds good right!?! Well it was…… it just wasn’t very pretty. For a prettier finish I probably should have seared and then roasted the cauliflower and mushrooms but who the crap has time for that when you’re STARVING? I didn’t. This is the delicious-ugliness I got in the end.
Then we trudged back into the depths of that Pork Rib Gauzetto taking caution to avoid the devil and his minions … it was a success and we simply tossed it with pasta.
But then we tried to make a side which is normally very simple, and of course the devil managed to weasel is way back in via lemon rind pith! What a jerk that guy is. Simple pan fried brussels sprouts are delicious with a little sautéed garlic and red pepper flake, about 12 minutes in the pan and they are done. But this fine recipe called for what appeared to be a most deeelicious lemon sauce. And having avoided this lengthy extra step in the past I decided what the heck, lets give it a whirl.
You know, you learn through these processes that sometimes an explanation in a book or over the phone simply isn’t enough. I, like some of us, often need to be shown to avoid those pesky pit falls and this was one of those times I fell right into the crevasse.
Looks delicious doesn’t it. Too bad what tiny little bit of lemon pith that was left on the simmering rinds provided for a MOST bitter experience, ruining what would have been some quick and simple but truly yum-tastic brussels sprouts. What a shame.
Finally our luck here at TB started to flop and twitch back to life a little…. There was funtimes at Oktoberfest in the mountains of Helen, GA. We’ll just put a picture or two of these little guys to symbolize what deliciousness I was too greedy to wait and take a picture of before eating.
Then there was Halloween spent with two loverly little ones and a couple of witch/bumblebee/Chowder (he lives on!) costumes….
And finally a means of possible celebration which I will not mention in fear of jinxing what has been a very lengthy, drawn out, anxiety ridden month from a hell of mixed feelings, hence the entirety of November.
Keeping it cheap and Nasty yesssssss! (more fun that way, builds character, right?)
Anyway--- in closing, we here at TB hope that all of these random explanations, excuses, and screw ups, make up for the fact that we abandoned you for so long, please forgive us!!!
Up next is a Thanksgiving Pictorial of some of the delights we made and ate so stay tuned!
We're Back Fools !!
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