Something New

I created my own recipe!

First let me explain by saying that Pat's office is having a party on Thursday. Each of the management staff, except the two vice Presidents, was asked to sign up to cook a dish for the party. The two Vice Presidents, both men, were exempted by themselves because they did not cook and, according to the memo, did not think it appropriate to put their wives out by having them cook. Pat came home and asked if I would mind cooking her assignment.

Of course, being a dutiful house husband and afraid that she would turn off my allowance, I agreed. The assignment is for two dozen brownies and two dozen cookies. How pedestrian!

After some probing it turns out that there is a "Harvest" theme to the party. Not a Halloween theme, even though the party is on the 28th of October, but a harvest theme. Seems that religious sensibilities are to be avoided (but not sexist thoughts).

So, I decided to make Pumpkin Cheesecake Brownies. The problem is that I didn't have a recipe. The recipes on the Internet all lacked for one reason or another. Either there wasn't enough pumpkin or they wasn't enough Cheesecake. They all managed the brownie bits.

So, off I went finding an appropriate Pumpkin Cheesecake recipe that I could use to modify a cheesecake brownie recipe. After some work I found one that I could cut down to size to match the brownie proportions and stiffen up to work in the shortened cooking time. I rewrote the recipe and then brought it into the test kitchen for a tryout.

While cooking I did find that the cream cheese was too liquid to set properly so I modified the recipe again and added more flour to stiffen the cheesecake (I managed to do this within the first batch before combining with the brownie mix).

The result was imperfect. The cheesecake is more liquid than the brownies and swirling the two together makes the brownies soft. But the correction is simple - do not swirl and cook at a slightly lower temperature for a slightly longer time.

But, no one complains. The brownies are pretty (a nice orange topping) and delicious. Add one of those sugared fall pumpkins as a decoration and they will be perfect.

And, the recipe is mine.

Bon Appetit!

Happy Birthday to Me

Seems I was a bit premature about announcing the end of the year of Anti-Bob.

As expected Pat made an Apple Pie for my birthday. Pat makes the best apple pies (the secrets are good apples cut thin and a flaky homemade crust). Pat claims that she learned how to make pie crusts from her mother. I claim that I taught her how to make pie crusts. It does not matter, the crust was excellent as was the pie.

Stu went out after dinner so the dessert and gift portion of the evening was going to be delayed. Pat, catering to my inner child, made tarlettes out of the leftover crust and raspberry jam. They tasted wonderful; flaky but with that chewy, sticky candy like raspberry. They were so wonderful, in fact, that I did not notice that I had swallowed the one gold crown I own.

I did not tell Pat about my dental failings until after the pie was consumed. After all, they deserve to celebrate my Bobinicity as well as I do and we all put a lot of effort in our mini-celebrations. They put up with me for the year so they deserve pie.

There are few things I like less than dentistry. One item that is below the dentistry bar is having 1/2 a tooth. So, I spent my first day as a 51 year old arranging for and going to the dentist.

I figure that the lost crown was a fitting end of the year of the anti-Bob. Job had it worst. Lots of folks had it worst. All I could do is laugh and move on (and I did laugh).

Come On Over for Dinner

Tonight's dinner is

• Turkey Breast with Spinach-Feta Stuffing
• Wild Rice Salad with Pecans and Strawberries
• Italian Bread baked yesterday (by a local bakery)

For Dessert:

• Steamed Butternut Squash Pudding
• With Vanilla Jack Sabayon

For breakfast pat had a spinach = feta omelet and toast. Stu had bacon and eggs and toast and I had toast. We all had Cinnamon Coffee Cake still warm from the oven.

For lunch Pat had an early sampling of the Rice Salad while I had leftover Spicy Malaysian Style Stir Fry Noodles (Leftover from Saturday night). Come to think of it, on Saturday, Stu also had a leftover Moroccan Flat Bread (R'gayef) that I had made on Friday. This was before Stu went out to a birthday party and then, at 10:30, went to Outback for burgers.

Why do I bring this up? I am having a good time going out on a culinary limb. I am relearning techniques and trying new ingredients. The Malaysian Stir Fry required Tofu (a first for me). The flatbreads were a homemade yeast product. I haven't done that in 25 years.

Even tonight's turkey roll required butchery and other skills. I bought an entire hotel style turkey breast and then trimmed the two breast halves and wings (the other breast and wings are frozen). I had to roll a spinach feta mix into the Turkey, tie it up, brown and then cook it in a dutch oven (no - there are no hot coals involved - but there could be).

The pudding was cooked from scratch and the sabayon required an extensive effort on the double boiler. The jack refers to bourbon, by the way.

So, come by some time, and I'll cook up something bizarre.

It's Been A Month

OK, this has been a tough year. It's funny but I looked forward to turning 50. I was nearly fifty for so long that I did not care that this was a milestone. I was happy at work, Pat was happy, Stu was Stu. What more could a guy want. I wanted to celebrate a half century of not being a putz. Fifty was going to be a great year.

Well, Pat has been having minor health issues all year. Nothing big, nothing lasting, just enough to make her miserable at times (which makes me miserable). The problems have been enough for her to consider her mortality and read the AARP magazines from cover to cover. Age creaps up on all of us.

The work thing has been a real pain. I was really hitting my stride - getting projects funded and completed, making clients happy, forcing IT to relook at how they fund and staff projects and small work so that they reviewed and created a more sustainable process. I was smokin' - until the axe fell. I must admit that it was tough to go from 75 to zero all at once.

Plus I have discovered that no one really wants a fifty year old guy to work in their department. If I get close to getting a job the job is eliinated or withdrawn. It chips away at you.

As this birthday has crept up I have not been happy.

Then Pat let me know that she had plans for my birthday. So, I have that going for me (that and the secret of life from the Dali Lama).

And I am a damn good cook.

Plus I have been a terror at the library getting DVDs, CDs and the occaisional book to make Pat happy and relaxed at home. I now know all sorts of tricks to get what you want from other town's libraries even if they normally don't transfer media to your town. Pat wanted new exercise playlists on her Ipod (by the way - we still call them 'Exercise tapes") and I learned alot about creation of playlists, multiple IPods on the same PC, etc.

Oh, Mindy, you had a book waiting for you at the Newington Library - I was there picking up Nirvana's "Unplugged" album and they tried to give me your Sales Success book. Good luck with that.

The job hunt still stinks. We are looking way out of the box now.

And, Stu is still Stu - so I have that going for me.