Comfort Foods and Indulgences

I am damned if I do and I am damned if I don’t!  The husband does complain at times about the “fresh baked” treats that adorn our kitchen counter(no one else seems to complain…).  And when I do take a break from endless hours in the kitchen, and there is nothing under the glass dome, he sighs, makes a comment, and pouts.

This past Friday night was one of those occassions.  We had just finished a lovely Friday night dinner of roasted salmon with homemade teriyaki sauce, baked brown rice, and sauteed zucchini.  No dessert.  I did, however, have frozen cookie doughs in the freezer, but that wouldn’t do.  Although it wasn’t what he wanted, the kids talked him in to a Pinkberry run.  I was perfectly happy with my mini yogurt with fresh berries, but I knew that baking was going to be part of the weekend agenda.

Am I the only weirdo who wakes up and immediately starts thinking of granola? I mean there are so many drool worthy foods out there to wrap my brain around but I rise from slumber contemplating granola. Lame I know.

However, here's the thing, I do not like granola in a bowl with milk. After two or three spoonfuls I am so done with the all the chewing. My gosh, it's so much chewing. I don't have that kind of time in the morning. It's like twenty chews a bite right?

I need something I can eat while I'm waking up kids, making their breakfast and lunches for school, searching for lost shoes, homework papers and jackets. You know, all the things my kids should probably be doing for themselves, but hey I'm a masochist.

A couple years back i reported about a prize-winning, record-setting burger that weighed in at over 210 pounds. Well, apparently that record has been obliterated, shattered, knuckle-dropped, air-popped, heel-stomped and other synonyms for royally busted. A burger in Minnesota weighed in at just north of one ton. (It’s 2014 pounds.) Not just your basic lazy cook’s plain burger, this one featured 60 pounds of bacon, 40 pounds each of pickles and cheese and 50 pounds of lettuce.

I, or one, would never make such a burger. First of all, they needed a crane to flip it, and my kitchen will not accommodate a vehicle larger than a bicycle. Also, I would be much to irritable to fry all that bacon. And as much as I would love to eat this monster, I’m not sure there is enough Pepto-Bismol in the world to calm the post-prandial abdominal pushback. I will therefore stick to cooking that burger’s diminutive cousin, the slider.

This little guy weighs in at only a few ounces, but I’m guessing that, flavor-wise, it is David to the Ton One’s Goliath. Only a couple of inches in diameter (vs. gonzo-burger’s ten feet), it packs a killer punch with it’s dab of chipotle mayonnaise.

I was a lucky little girl. My neighborhood friends were envious when my mom invited me to be in the kitchen with her. It was during our kitchen sessions together that she taught me the tricks of the home-cook's trade. By the time I was 12 years old, I knew how to make macaroni and cheese from scratch. I realized later in life that not only was I creating one of my favorite meals, I was practicing the art of French cooking.

The base of the creamy cheese sauce loaded with cooked elbow macaroni was béchamel sauce. Béchamel (bay-shah-mell), one of the mother sauces of French cooking and probably the easiest to make, starts with melted butter and flour and ends with milk and cheese.

The other day I made croque monsieur, French-style ham and cheese sandwiches topped with thick, cheesy bechamel. I made more of the gruyere and parmesan-spiked sauce than I would need for the sandwiches just so I could make baked penne.