Stupid freaking mayonnaise... and how I cheered myself up.

So several buttheads called me a weenie for not posting the pics of my mayonnaise-making-hell. Fine, buttheads, I'll post the pics. I'm sitting on my lanai in Hawaii drinking a cup of coffee as I write this. Here's my view. That's what you get for calling me a weenie.

So here's a repost of the basic description of the whole freaking mess, with a pics, and a little more bonus honesty (in other words how I cheered myself up). Thanks to Michelle's 30th birthday. Yes, that involved alcohol.

So as you know, I decided to make the mayo a few days ahead of time. So I had time to muck it up. We begin with my mise en place - so far so good...

I got out my cheapo food processor, turned it on and put four egg yolks in. And there they sat - at the bottom of the food processor with the metal blades whirring away happily above them. Uh, this isn't going to work. But hey! I have a mini-food chopper that will do the same thing! The day is saved!

Alas, not so much. I got it out and put the yolks in and they were happily mixing away when I realized that you can't add a slow stream of oil to a food chopper - there's no way to add anything because it has to have the lid on for the mechanism to be engaged and whir away. That's okay, I grew up on a farm - I'm used to improvising!

So I took the locking lid mechanism off, jammed a knife into the mechanism to make it think the lid was locked on, pushed the button and voila - it was working. But wait - I need to pour in a slow stream of oil now... but I have one hand holding the power button and one hand holding the knife into the mechanism... no more hands left. Okay, I can be MacGuyer/MacGrubber - I can do this. So now I'm holding the knife against the mechanism by leaning against it with my stomach, holding the power button with my left hand and pouring an excruciatingly slow stream of oil into the yolks... and... it's working! Yes, yes, yes! Sorry - no pictures of this because I was already using both hands and my stomach and since both feet were on the ground, there were no appendages left for taking pictures...

The oil is emulsifying with the yolks, it's turning into a thick and creamy substance. I'm so proud of myself. I rock. I knew I could do this. I paused to take a pic because clearly I rock:

It's been about an hour now because you wouldn't BELIEVE how long it takes to pour 2 cups of canola oil out in a thin thread. Both arms are cramping, my neck hurts and I'm starting to feel like the knife is turned backwards and is stabbing me in the stomach. But I'm so close, it's almost done - just 1/4 cup of oil to go and I will be the queen of the... what's that? What just happened? What the f*#$&( did the ^%@ just do??? Why is it suddenly all soupy now? IT BROKE? IT FREAKING BROKE? After over an hour and a half of mayonnaise making hell, it broke. It suddenly turned into this totally gross oily mess. I hate mayonnaise.

I was really pissed off, in case you couldn't tell. But licking this bowl and beater clean of the devil's food cake batter made me feel much better. This is why nobody was harmed in the making of the mayo.

Was it worth it? Well yeah it was worth it. What part of devil's food cake batter confused you people? Do you even know me at all?!?

Clearly this means I need a new food processor. A pretty stainless steel Cuisinart model, right? Right. And Santa Claus won't be here for a while, so I hit Kohl's on my lunch break the next day and spent WAY too much on a new mayonnaise-making-machine. Homemade mayonnaise, take two. Starting all over. This time it will work perfectly - there's even a tiny hole in the bottom of the plunger SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED FOR STREAMING OIL IN TO MAKE MAYONNAISE... how could I fail?

Well, I'll tell you how - I don't freaking know how! I just did, okay - I did. I failed again. In the machine that was SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED FOR STREAMING OIL IN TO MAKE MAYONNAISE. Gross, huh?

Seriously, why would you make your own mayonnaise when you have a perfectly good jar of Hellman's in the fridge? As I was lifting my brand new, way too expensive mayonnaise-making-machine over my head to hurl it out the window over the sink a thought popped into my head... oh yeah! I saw someone say you can save broken mayonnaise on Top Chef once. I'm back in business. I googled it, and it worked - I DID IT!

I made homemade mayonnaise!

I added the lemon juice and salt and tasted... and it tasted just like Hellman's to be honest. I didn't see a real big difference.

Gee, that was worth it. So I used it for the coleslaw - didn't much like the coleslaw, so I was pretty irritated by the whole thing. But the same day I made the glazed and rubbed spare porkribs, coleslaw and smashed marble potatoes, Jeremy caught several catfish. So we had catfish the next night and I used the mayo to make homemade tartar sauce - and it was DELICIOUS. So... I guess that makes it a little better.

However - and here's your bonus - here at the six dozen mini cupcake truffles I made for Michelle's surprise 30th birthday party. Aren't they cute? This is where the devil's food cake batter that cheered me up went into...

And here's Miss Michelle at her surprise party!

Happy Birthday, Michelle!

glazed and rubbed pork spareribs, coleslaw and smashed marble potatoes

This is a picture of my Grandpa Guyott, probably taken in the early seventies shortly after I was born. It's one of the very very few pictures I have of him, and I love it. He was very Catholic, very St. Louis and very much a local tavern proprietor, and he loved a lot of things - God, beer, braunschweiger, family, baseball and ribs... and not always in that order. I was only eleven when he died - I wish I'd known him better, I wish I'd appreciated him more. I wish I could taste his barbecue again!

So when I saw the recipe in Ad Hoc for Rubbed and Glazed Pork Spareribs, I was excited to tackle it immediately. But you can't just have ribs by themselves, can you? So I also made Smashed Marble Potatoes and Coleslaw. But that's an awful lot of food for just two people - so we invited a couple of friends over to taste test with us. Suckers.

These ribs are made using a dry rub - there's no sauce in sight here. With a Southern heritage (and a serious love of the barbecue I can get in Memphis and Kentucky) I greatly prefer dry rub barbecue - but I live in a city that loves its meat swimming in sauce. I made all of my taste-testers promise to try the ribs before they covered them in sauce (I put a bottle of Pappy's Smokehouse Sweet Baby Jane on the table).

The ribs were simple and not all that time consuming. Like most rib recipes (or at least the ones I prefer), you mix together a dry rub, put it on the ribs, and let it sit in the fridge for a few hours. Then you cook them on a grill for two hours over indirect heat (after first letting them spend a few minutes on the hot side to get a nice crosshatch grill pattern on them). The rubs ingredients are more or less the usual suspects: brown sugar, salt, sweet pimenton (smoked sweet spice similar to paprika), cayenne, garlic powder, allspice and red pepper flakes. It's a simple recipe and an easy preparation - and it was freaking delicious. Wait, wait, wait - I'm not supposed to tell you that already. On to the rest of the meal.

Next up - Coleslaw. First I had to make my own mayonnaise from the recipe out of the book, no problem. I'd never made my own mayonnaise before, but how hard could it be? Chef Keller said they do it in a food processor and it's really easy. Of course, "easy" for a French trained, consecutive James Beard (the Oscars of the food world) Best Chef Award winning, Culinary Institute of America Chef of the Year Award winning, God of All Things Culinary Chef... probably means something a little different than it does to me. Clearly.

Luckily I decided to make the mayo a few days ahead of time. So I had time to muck it up. I got out my cheapo food processor, turned it on and put four egg yolks in. And there they sat - at the bottom of the food processor with the metal blades whirring away happily above them. Uh, this isn't going to work. But hey! I have a mini-food chopper that will do the same thing! The day is saved!

Alas, not so much. I got it out and put the yolks in and they were happily mixing away when I realized that you can't add a slow stream of oil to a food chopper - there's no way to add anything because it has to have the lid on for the mechanism to be engaged and whir away. That's okay, I grew up on a farm - I'm used to improvising!

So I took the locking lid mechanism off, jammed a knife into the mechanism to make it think the lid was locked on, pushed the button and voila - it was working. But wait - I need to pour in a slow stream of oil now... but I have one hand holding the power button and one hand holding the knife into the mechanism... no more hands left. Okay, I can be MacGuyer/MacGrubber - I can do this. So now I'm holding the knife against the mechanism by leaning against it with my stomach, holding the power button with my left hand and pouring an excruciatingly slow stream of oil into the yolks... and... it's working! Yes, yes, yes! The oil is emulsifying with the yolks, it's turning into a thick and creamy substance. I'm so proud of myself. I rock. I knew I could do this.

It's been about an hour now because you wouldn't BELIEVE how long it takes to pour 2 cups of canola oil out in a thin thread. Both arms are cramping, my neck hurts and I'm starting to feel like the knife is turned backwards and is stabbing me in the stomach. But I'm so close, it's almost done - just 1/4 cup of oil to go and I will be the queen of the... what's that? What just happened? What the f*#$&( did the ^%@ just do??? Why is it suddenly all soupy now? IT BROKE? IT FREAKING BROKE? After over an hour and a half of mayonnaise making hell, it broke. It suddenly turned into this totally gross oily mess. I hate mayonnaise.

Clearly this means I need a new food processor. A pretty stainless steel Cuisinart model, right? Right. And Santa Claus won't be here for a while, so I hit Kohl's on my lunch break the next day and spent WAY too much on a new mayonnaise-making-machine. Homemade mayonnaise, take two. Starting all over. This time it will work perfectly - there's even a tiny hole in the bottom of the plunger SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED FOR STREAMING OIL IN TO MAKE MAYONNAISE... how could I fail. Well, I'll tell you how - I don't freaking know how! I just did, okay - I did. I failed again. In the machine that was SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED FOR STREAMING OIL IN TO MAKE MAYONNAISE. Seriously, why would you make your own mayonnaise when you have a perfectly good jar of Hellman's in the fridge? As I was lifting my brand new, way too expensive mayonnaise-making-machine over my head to hurl it out the window over the sink a thought popped into my head... oh yeah! I saw someone say you can save broken mayonnaise on Top Chef once. I'm back in business. I googled it, and it worked - I DID IT! I made homemade mayonnaise! I added the lemon juice and salt and tasted... and it tasted just like Hellman's to be honest. I didn't see a real big difference. Gee, that was worth it. There are a ton of pics of this mess, but I can't relive it. No pics for public.

Anyway, back to the coleslaw. After all that work I only needed a quarter of a cup of the homemade mayo... sigh. You make the dressing ahead of time and refrigerate it until just before serving, when you pour it over red cabbage, green cabbage and carrot. The dressing was simple - mayo, sour cream, champagne vinegar, celery seed, toasted sesame seeds, salt, lemon juice. Mix it up and stick it in the fridge and pour it over the cabbage mix just before serving (so that the purple cabbage doesn't tint the dressing).

And finally the Smashed Marble Potatoes. This one also required a little bit of prep ahead of time because it called for Garlic Confit, another recipe in the book. But this was five bajillion times easier than the mayonnaise-from-hell.

Put a cup of garlic cloves in a small sauce pan, drown in canola oil and cook at LOW temp for forty minutes. Easy Schmeasy.

For the potatoes themselves, I tossed them in salt and canola oil (I used the now garlic infused oil from the Garlic Confit) and a few sprigs of thyme - and put them in my large cast iron skilled with a few tablespoons of melted butter. Stuck it all in the oven for about half an hour until the potatoes were fork-tender. Remove from the oven, smash them with a fork and add more butter and the Garlic Confit. Add a few sprigs of thyme for garnish.

And then it was time to eat! It all looked very good. See?

The ribs were moist and the dry rub created a delicious glaze on them. We all loved the ribs, not one person even reached for the sauce and I can't wait to have them for lunch again today! I'm drooling just a little bit right now just thinking about them. Mmmm, ribsssss. I will make these again. And again and again and I'll impress my guests and they'll all love them. And I'll lie and say it's just a little something I came up with and threw together. Okay, no I won't. Sorry.

The coleslaw... well, I dunno. What up with the coleslaw, Chef Keller? I have a recipe I've used for years to make coleslaw and Jeremy and I love it. I'm asked for it on a regular basis whenever I make it for other people - it's a sweet creamy coleslaw recipe and I think it tastes even better than KFC's. But that's not the one I'm here to talk about. I've had the Ad Hoc Coleslaw Salad Dressing sold at Williams Sonoma - this ain't it. It wasn't as yummy. At all. The overwhelming taste was of toasted sesame seeds - which isn't a bad taste, it's just not what I want to taste when I eat coleslaw. It wasn't gross; it just wasn't what I wanted. We all felt the same way about it - not gross, but not great either.

But the Smashed Marble Potatoes? They were good and moist and garlicky. The Garlic Confit is a really subtle garlic flavor. It wasn't like the garlic mashed potatoes I'm sure we've all tasted. And it wasn't really like roasted garlic either. It was there and it was delicious, but it was subtle and light - and as much as I love garlic, and very heavily flavored with garlic foods - I really liked it this way. I'll be using the left over garlic confit as a spread on a toasted baguette. So good.

So there you have it - five more recipes checked off the list. And now... I'm off to Hawaii!

Grapefruit Cake

I'll start by saying that I love grapefruit. When I was a little girl and we'd go visit my grandparents all the grownups would have half a grapefruit with breakfast. It was such a grown up thing and I was so desperate to be like the grownups - so I'd pour on the sugar and dig right in. Eventually I enjoyed the grapefruit more and the sugar less. Now I enjoy grapefruit in an even more adult fashion - a gin and tonic with a splash of grapefruit is one of my go-to drinks! But I say this knowing that grapefruit isn't something that everyone enjoys. Honestly, though - even those that don't care for grapefruit really liked this cake. But Keller says you can substitute other citrus fruits in this recipe, so it could be lemon or orange, etc.

Grapefruit Cake sounds like a nice spring dessert - perfect for Mother's Day! Mother's Day also happened to be Mary Beth's birthday this year. So I invited Mary Beth over to taste test cocktails (I was picking out a drink to serve at a party the next weekend), and figured Grapefruit Cake would make a great birthday cake as well. (Plus, it was an easy one to start with!) I probably shouldn't have decided to make my first Ad Hoc recipe while also test tasting cocktails...

The thing that makes this cake a bit unique is that once you bake the cake, you poke small holes in it with a skewer, patiently brush on a grapefruit glaze - allowing it to soak into the cake slowly, and then top with grapefruit icing. Note the words "patiently" and "slowly". Then remember the word "cocktails" from the paragraph above.

I prepared my mis en place (I am now a fancy-pants food blogger, so I use phrases like "mis en place" and "prepare" - you can't touch this). And then I spent about twenty minutes cleaning up my kitchen because I realized when I started taking pictures that everything needed to look perfect. So I'm behind schedule already...

The cake recipe itself is your basic cake recipe. Sift together the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and salt) into a large bowl. Then in your mixer's bowl, combine the wet ingredients (grapefruit zest, grapefruit juice, sugar, milk, eggs, oil and vanilla).

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, slowly, and mix until the dry ingredients have been incorporated into the wet. So far, so good. Please do note the spotless countertops...

Pour the cake batter into a lightly oiled loaf pan and pop it into the oven. Here's where I learned that it's more difficult than you would think it is to pour cake batter into a loaf pan with one hand while taking a picture of pouring said cake batter into said loaf pan with the other hand. (Sidenote: some of the pics on this post aren't so hot... I promise I'll get better with practice. Or I'll talk Jeremy into being my food photographer.)

While the cake was in the oven, I made the grapefruit glaze - which was just fresh squeezed grapefruit juice and sugar warmed over medium heat in a saucepan until the sugar dissolves. More or less it's a grapefruit simple syrup. I made the grapefruit icing as well - which was just powdered sugar with a couple of tablespoons of grapefruit juice. Paste and syrup - easy schmeasy, right? Eh. Well at least making the glaze and icing was easy.

So while the cake was baking and I'd already finished the glaze and icing, it was time to work on my cocktails. I wanted to serve a cucumber cocktail, but I'd never made one so I had several recipes I wanted to test. I was in fancy-pants food blogger mode, so I put together my mis en place for cucumber cocktails! Hey, why not? This, by the way, is where we start to go downhill...

Mike, Mary Beth and Ryan arrived and I had just taken the cake out of the oven. Perfect timing! Now all I had to do with riddle the cake with holes, brush on the glaze, top it with icing and serve! Then we could dive right into the cocktail testing. Easy-schmeasy, right?

I was warned that I may have to give the glaze a moment to soak in a few times, so the glaze may take a while to get it all into the cake - but to just be patient. Well, yeah. There was a lot of glaze. A lot of glaze. And I poked and poked and poked holes. And I brushed and brushed and brushed glaze. And I waited. And I looked longingly at my cocktail mis en place. And then I brushed some more and I waited. Then I poked some more holes, and then some holes in angles. And I brushed and brushed. Then I poured the freaking glaze over the cake and brushed some more. Are you tired of reading about my brushing and poking? Yeah well, me too! I was tired to death of brushing and poking and waiting. It was taking forever.

So I went ahead and made cocktail number one, which was originally enough called "Cucumber Cocktail". And it was delicious. Mint, cucumber, limes, sugar, run and champagne - delicious. And I wanted to serve a lovely refreshing slice of Grapefruit Cake along with my delicious Cucumber Cocktail to the birthday girl - but it still wasn't ready. So back to the cake... I'm brushing and waiting and poking... Finally I figured it'd been enough already - there was a ton of glaze in the cake by now and it was already a nice moist cake and darnit I want more cocktails!

But I told myself I'd have to be patient... so I brushed some more and I poked some more. Blah, blah, blah - you know the drill. But I just couldn't do it - I just couldn't be patient enough. I wanted to sit and visit with MB and have a drink and enjoy a piece of cake. And besides, there must be some mistake because there's no way there's supposed to be THAT MUCH glaze in the cake - it'll get all soggy and gross. So it was really in best interest of the cake's own integrity that I nip this soggy-glaze-disaster in the bud.

So yes, I admit it. I cheated on my very first Ad Hoc at Home recipe. I didn't let all of the glaze soak into the cake. I got impatient. I'm not perfect. I'm sorry - I'm just so so sorry everyone. Whatever. I put the icing on the cake and sliced right in. And immediately I regretted my impatience. I could see where the glaze had soaked in and where it hadn't (if you click on the pics they'll enlarge and you can see where the glaze had soaked in). It wasn't at all soggy - the cake stood up to the glaze and had I been patient enough to get all the glaze into the cake it would have been so beautifully dense and soaked through with the glaze. 

But I sliced and took pics and served the cake. And it was good. It was really good. Mike and MB both said they liked it - but kids are honest. So what did Ryan think?  She cautiously took her first taste...

I waited patiently (yes, patiently) while she mulled it over and absorbed the flavor. She enjoyed the bouquet of the glaze... she had me hanging on tenderhooks while I awaited her verdict.

"It's surprising fresh and delicious, with just a hint of tart. But not too much, if you know what I mean. It really appeals to my palate in a way that's unpretentious and joyful. Perfect spring dessert and as fresh and beautiful as my mother. Yay! I love it, Aunt Heather! Good job!" She can't talk yet - I read all of that in her expression. If you click on the picture you'll see it there too.

In all honestly though, it was light and refreshing, just a tiny bit tart. As a matter of fact, I took it in to work and several people that don't like grapefruit at all really enjoyed the cake. But it didn't have the bite I expected from a cake with so much grapefruit juice and zest - and to be honest that disappointed me a bit. I do think I'll make this again - on a lazy Sunday when I have no plans all freaking day and I'll take the time to let the glaze soak in next time.

In the meantime, here are some pictures of the most beautiful redhead I know. Isn't she gorgeous? I love that kid. Ryan has her own blog - go check it out: The Tardy Princess. 

So there you go - my first Ad Hoc recipe. I wanted to take this seriously and make them to Chef Keller's standards and I'm not off to such a great start. Next time no cocktails. I promise.

On a related note, in order to avoid gaining a ton of weight while cooking my way through the blog, I've decided to start the Couch to 5K challenge. Bought my running shoes and jog bras today and tomorrow I start. Wish me luck! Cheers!

An Introduction to Ad Hoc at Heather's Home

Welcome to my new endeavor! For a while now, I've been casting about for a new way to stretch myself creatively. For a while I thought what I really needed was a goal to work toward - so I started working on my MBA. I'm still plugging along, working on that MBA - but I quickly learned that while I enjoy the sense of accomplishment I get from working my way through another graduate program, that's not what I really wanted. I wanted/needed to be creative again. I used to write quite a bit (got my undergrad in English Lit and went to UMSL for my master's in the same field) - and I don't think I realized how valuable that was to me. Until I got too busy. Thanks for that, life.

But I've always loved to cook, I read food blogs voraciously and I'm always excited to try something new in the kitchen. I discovered Carol Blymire's French Laundry at Home just a few weeks after she started it. Reading her blog while she cooked her way throughThe French Laundry Cookbook inspired me to take a few cooking classes to bring my skills up a notch, to buy the cookbook myself and try a few of the recipes. Now I'm following her through Alinea in her new blog, Alinea at Home. Carol has learned a lot through her "cook through blogging" and I decided I wanted that for myself - I want to push myself and learn a greater appreciation for what I eat and how it gets there.

So I posted on my blog, The View from a Broad, asking for some input from my friends and family. And Ad Hoc at Home was the popular choice (I think it was the drawing of a pig on the cover). The book was already on order anyway... so... why not?!?

And then the book arrived! I got home from work today and there was a box from Amazon sitting on the front porch. Isn't it pretty? And luscious? And soooo exciting? Okay - maybe not to any of you - but I was excited. 

Here's the plan - and it's not at all original if you've read other cook through blogs. I promise to attempt each and every recipe. I will do my very best to be faithful to Chef Keller's instructions and ingredients. And I will post the results - good and bad, delicious and blech - for your amusement. I won't be sharing the recipes with you (go buy the book - Ad Hoc at Home) in detail, because that would just be wrong - they're not mine to share.

I honestly hope you all enjoy this as much as I think I'm going to enjoy it myself. And please feel free to leave comments, forward this to anyone else you think might enjoy it.

Here we go... first up, Grapefruit Cake...