Christina's Adventures In Cooking.
It was a culmination of my inability to make instant oatmeal at the office lunch room, a flopped pumpkin soufle attempt last Friday by myself Teresa, and my mom and a sucessfull practice of creating a vegetarian thanksgiving meal for Teresa and Scoutt.
In the show NCIS, Gibbs has several unwritten rules which he follows. For example Gibbs Rule # 13 always carry a knife.
In my case I too now how set of unwritten rules to follow Christina's Rule #1 Do not deviate from Deb's Recipe. Because for anyone whose eaten her food, I will ask, Have you ever had anything Deb Pool made that wasn't good?
Thanks to Deb Pools generosity of sharing her time in consulting with me yesterday, her cannelloni recipe which she makes as her tradition for christmas, and her highly saught after red sauce; following Christina's rule #1 made my cooking adventure yesterday an epic success.
So lets start from the begining with Oatmeal at the office. It has long been known that I love to cook and bake. I have spoiled my team during unit meetings with pear cake with home made run carmel and candied ginger sprinckled on top all from the comforts of my studio apartment kitchen consisting of 2 hot plates and a oven that does not hold a 9x13 pan. It has become a game for me to see what I can produce from my little kitchen. So my co workers have tasted what I can cook. Last week they also whitnessed my inability to make instant oatmeal. It was so bad that it exploded all over the microwave infront of not only my supervisor, but the director of the Concord office. ( and Yes to all the mom's out there who know me, I did take out the plate immediately and clean it all up). I tried again after cleaning up the mess... Two Words. Epic Failure. My instant oatmeal was so horrible tasting, I made a face like one does after taking a shot of cheap alcohol. My co-worker felt so bad she left half her borrito at my desk for me to eat.
I needed to redeem myself.
Friday night seemed like a great time to do so. We were going to try out a good option for Scoutt and Teresa's thanksgiving vegetarian meal. It has been a tradition and my treat to them the past few years to find new, and great tasting and great presentation meals for them on thanksgiving. Just because they don't eat turkey doesn't mean they deserve second class food. Its been a pleasure to treat them to different meals over the years. Pumkpin souffles sounded like a winner to us.
This is where the cooking wisdom of Deb Pool starts to creep in.
Now the pumpkin sufly is not a Deb Pool recipe , BUT I happen to see her recently at a get together and I mentioned the idea to her. When discussing spices, she mentioned Fresh sage and types of cheese. This will be key later. And remember what my rule #1 is. So Friday comes along, Teresa, Scoutt, Mom , Dad, Neon and I are all very happy cooking and laughing. So as it turns out, there are a few things that we ended up sustituting like fresh pumkpin for canned, fresh sage with dried and parmesian cheese instead of the type that it called for. So with a nice robust salad, we sit down to beautiful looking sufes. Ugh. whats the opposite of Woot? It was the right tecture, no flavor. It was a monday meal, NOT a thanksgiving meal. Honesty, I think we could have taken a chance and tried again following the recipe to the letter, but we couldn't find the type of pumpkins ect etc. So.
Like a souffle we were deflated.....
Granted I have less than two weeks to find a great recipe to have to privilege to make for my sister and Scoutt.
I emailed Deb telling her my delema and requested any recipies she might have to fit my tall order. During my consultation yesterday she was able to help me not only choose a dish but cut it down to smallers serving sizings, choose ingreedients that would work for peoples tastes and diatary needs and helped me with presentation.
What I love about looking at people's favorite recipies is that you can tell they are well loved and used when there are markings in different color pens and pencills with changes from year to year. My recipie cards all say things like Margie Fosters English Toffee, Deb Pool's Curry Brocoli Soup, Sandi's Ginger Bread, Dad's Chart House Cheese Cake, Mom's home made pesto, It is like walking down memory lane with the people I love and have shared so many good meals with.
By the end of the food consultation, I was equipt with an action plan in hand, a recipe, bay leaves and just as I was about to leave Deb Pool went into her "vault" of preserves as though it was the queens jewels and pulled out a most prized possesion. Her mothers recipe " Red Sauce". I knew that Teresa and Scoutt dinner could not go wrong.
But because of my recent inability to make oatmeal, I needed to test it out. Just incase.
Thanks to the generosity and courisity of my co-worker Carolyn, I went to her house last night
Dad had to remind me of Rule #1 as I was purchasing the noodles for the canaloni. But I was quickly redirected and off I went to Carolyns house where together we meticulously followed every direction given to us to make the canaloni.Taking only a quick break for salad, it took 3 hours to prepare the white sause, the cheese filling portion, roasting the veggetables and cooking the noodles. We stuffed the Aldente noodles and then placed them on their cooking dishes which had been layered in white sauce, At exactly 9:29 they came out of the oven onto our dinner plates
Perfect.
I have done a lot of cooking and baking. I also claim to be a meat and potatoes girl. But this recipie was by far the best food I had ever eaten and NOT ONCE did I think it needed meat. It was the best food becuase it was made with love from start to finish, from the recipe from Deb, to having Christina Rule #1 and knowing that this thanksgiving I will be honored to place this dish infront of Scoutt and Teresa.
On a side note. Carolyn says I can come over any time to test out recipies, but claims the right to ask what I plan on making .... incase it's instant oatmeal.
