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Posts Tagged ‘cats’

Foolproof (so far) pecan pie

Posted in Eats, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 15, 2011| 1 Comment »

So I’m told by people who know such things that I’m actually getting the most difficult part of pecan pie right. Apparently it can be quite a feat to get the filling to set up correctly.

Who knew?

I got my recipe for the filling from Baking Illustrated, a book published by the editors of Cook’s Illustrated. I don’t know what part of the recipe holds the mojo, but it’s been foolproof so far.

Here’s the recipe, complete with my notes. I would have posted it last night, but my 14-year-old, somewhat standoffish cat decided to dole out some affection, and you just don’t turn that kind of thing down.

Toast the pecans while you’re waiting for the oven to reach the baking temperature to partially bake the pie crust. This should take about seven to 10 minutes; watch the pecans carefully and stir a couple of times to prevent burning. Wait until they cool off before you chop them up or they’ll crumble. (Toasting nuts is nerve-wracking; I’ve found it’s best to undertoast rather than risk overtoasting.

You’ll want to have the pie filling mixture ready to go the minute the partially baked shell comes out of the oven. (This bit of timing might be the secret to the recipe.)

Pecan Pie

1 unbaked pie shell
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
3/4 cup light corn syrup
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups pecans, toasted and chopped into small pieces

Follow the directions for partially baking the pie crust until it’s light golden brown.

In the meantime, melt the butter in a double boiler or in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. Remove the bowl from the heat and stir in the sugar and salt with a wooden spoon. Beat in the eggs, then the corn syrup and vanilla. Return the bowl to the heat. Stir and cook until the mixture is shiny and registers about 130 degrees on an instant-read thermometer. Remove from heat and stir in the pecans.

Remove the prebaked pie shell from the oven and immediately turn the temperature down to 275 degrees. Pour the pie mixture into the hot pie shell.

Bake on the middle rack for 50 to 60 minutes, or until the pie looks set but still soft, like gelatin, when gently pressed with the back of a spoon. Place the pie on a rack and let it cool completely, for about four hours.

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Do One Thing: Pipes, piano benches and art

Posted in Do One Thing, Home, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 24, 2011| 1 Comment »

The “Do One Thing” series chronicles my yearlong effort to tackle one project every day to organize my life and home.

Day 51: Still recovering, but I did manage to help the husband a little as he hooked up the drain pipe in the downstairs bathroom.

Day 52: The problem with hidden, built-in storage is that you store stuff in it and then forget all about it. Sometime before Christmas, I had stashed some paperwork in the piano bench while doing a quick pre-guest pickup in the living room. I remembered the paperwork only last week, when I went crazy trying to find a form that, oddly, I hadn’t seen since before Christmas. Today, I got most of the stash out of the bench and filed it away upstairs.

Day 53: I have a unique wall hanging that I’ll write more about later, but today I did an epic amount of research on the best way to hang it, since right now it’s just a folded piece of fabric in the closet. I’ve come to a final decision, and it doesn’t involve going back to the seamstress that made me feel bad for not knowing what kind of seam allowance I wanted.

Day 54: Admittedly, I spent what little organizational time I had today coloring paper balloon cutouts for a failed cat photo shoot.

Day 55: I finally redeemed a Groupon I purchased in December for a 16-by-20-inch gallery wrap from Canvas on Demand. I had narrowed my choices down to two photographs when I discovered that the site offered personalized customer service interaction that helped me choose the winner. Now I’ve got two weeks to decide where to hang it.

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The best laid plans, foiled by feline instinct

Posted in Cats, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , on February 23, 2011| 3 Comments »

When Photojojo suggested this awesome photo project yesterday, I knew I had to try it. What’s more awesome than a cat dreamscape? Yang even looks an awful lot like the cat in the photos. And he sleeps, like, ALL THE TIME.

I chose the cat-gets-carried-away-by-balloons DIY backdrop. I dutifully printed out a few balloons from a coloring pages site and went to work with my colored pencils. I carefully cut out the balloons and taped a piece of string to the back of each one.

I quietly approached Yang, who was sleeping next to the dresser, on which I planned to stand to get the extreme vertical angle needed for this shot. I spread out the balloons in what I thought might be a float-away formation and gently tucked the ends of the strings under a paw.

Things immediately went awry. Never underestimate the instinct or muscle memory of a 14-year-old cat.

Yang woke up with a start, stood up and pounced on the middle of the strings, biting and batting the whole way.

I had no choice but to play chase-the-string with him for the next 10 minutes.

The balloons and their strings are now safely ensconced in an office drawer.

I face a creative dilemma: scuba-diving cat or cat holding an umbrella and being swept away in a rainstorm? I wonder which is less swat-worthy.

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Pretzels + chocolate coating + kosher salt = effortless goodies

Posted in Cats, Eats, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 2, 2011| 2 Comments »

I spent several hours last Friday making a sweet potato pie, only to discover that my husband really doesn’t like sweet potato anything. I found the pie cloyingly sweet, and certainly wasn’t going to finish it by myself anyway. The only household member who liked it was Yang, who snagged a morsel that I dropped on the floor. He looked up at me like I had dropped the rarest, most delicious piece of fish he had ever eaten. Alas, aged cats do not have sweet potato pie on their list of dietary allowances.

Monday, I spend 30 minutes halfheartedly dipping some unsalted pretzels that were nearing their expiration date into leftover chocolate coating from the grand cake pop experiment. I sprinkled each one with the tiniest bit of kosher salt and laid them out on waxed paper to dry.

Little did I know they were to become the snack of the week. The husband and I both love them, particularly with a little peanut butter smeared on top.

Yang has shown no interest in them.

So, hours of effort yield a pie that no one likes, while a last-minute attempt to clean out the cabinet without trashing food yields delicious goodness. You never know.

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As Pictured Below: Curiosity irritated the cat

Posted in As Pictured Below, Cats, Photographs, tagged , , , , , on January 29, 2011| Leave a Comment »

The construction guys next door were making plenty of noise this week, and Yang’s inquiring mind wanted to know what was going on. Note that in his quest to see down into the yard, he has pressed his head against the glass so hard that his ears are flattened.

I live with the reincarnation of Gladys Kravitz.

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Secret to steel-cut oats: soaking

Posted in Eats, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 15, 2011| 4 Comments »

Today, we talk about oatmeal.

I know. Oatmeal. It’s either bland and mushy, or oversweetened, artificially flavored and mushy.

This, however, is not the oatmeal I intend to talk about. Reserve your rolled oats for oatmeal and raisin cookies, and make steel-cut oats for breakfast.

Steel-cut oats (also known as Irish oats) undergo much less processing than rolled oats, and thus offer diners a completely different flavor and texture. Properly prepared steel-cut oats are nutty and chewy (no mush here), and I find them much more satisfying than rolled oats.

The bad news: Steel-cut oats can take 30 minutes or longer to cook if you haven’t soaked them.

The good news: Duh. Soak them and they’ll be ready in as little as 10 minutes.

The prepackaged brands of steel-cut oats always seem to carry a hefty price tag. You’ll be much better off purchasing them in bulk. I buy my supply at Earth Fare for $1.19 a pound.

They’re a cinch to make, but you have to plan ahead. Use a ratio of one part oats to two parts water; for two people I usually use 3/4 cup oats and 1.5 cups water. Soak the oats in the water overnight in the pot that you’re going to cook them in.

You can get the same results with only three hours of soaking, but not everyone has my luxurious Saturday schedule, which has me getting up at 5 a.m. to feed a geriatric cat and then heading back to bed until 8 a.m. or so.

If you’re feeling spiffy, substitute orange juice or cranberry juice for about a quarter cup of the water. The orange juice will add a real citrus bite to the finished oatmeal, and the cranberry juice will complement the dried cranberries that I’m going to talk about in a minute.

Put the pot of soaked oats on the stove after you roll out of bed. Turn the burner up to medium-high and let the oats come to a boil, then turn the burner down low enough to keep a slow boil without the oats boiling over. And they WILL boil over if the heat’s too high. Keep the lid on the pot, but lift it every couple of minutes to check your boil and give the oatmeal a quick stir.

After about 10 minutes, the oatmeal should be almost thick enough to serve. Lagniappe time. Stir in a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar, and add raisins and/or dried cranberries. Let everything meld together for a couple more minutes and then ladle the oatmeal into your serving bowls. Drop a few crumbled walnuts or pecans on top if you like.

Enjoy. And say goodbye to instant mediocrity.

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The George Foreman panini maker

Posted in Eats, Family, Home, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 3, 2011| 2 Comments »

In cooking, imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery. I love it when someone else tries to replicate one of my dishes. I love it even more when that someone is my mother.

The husband and I have owned a George Foreman Grill for the better part of our marriage. (Actually, we’re on our second grill. The cats broke the first one about 10 years ago.) We used to cook burgers on it; its sole use lately has been to sear the occasional hot dog.

Last year, I saw a couple of comments on food blogs recommending the Foreman Grill as a fast, cheap panini maker. It makes sense: The device is, after all, simply two heavy sheets of metal that press together.

I made grilled cheese sandwiches with it. Blah. The only bread I tend to keep around is some brand or another of wheat bread, the kind that doesn’t go bad in four days since I don’t actually EAT bread every day, and the husband tends to like a PB&J on the weekends. It didn’t grill very well, Foreman Grill or not, partially because it didn’t really fit on the grill (it’s a smaller model).

Enter Earth Fare. Heading to the checkout one day, I saw a display of bread that stopped me in my tracks, bread that looked like it had been freshly made just to fit on the Foreman Grill.

I made an experimental sandwich when I got home, smearing honey mustard on two slices and bundling a small bundle of ham and cheese in between. Best panini ever.

When Mom was here for Christmas, the only kind of bread Earth Fare had left was two loaves speckled with pieces of olives. Best panini ever. (And I realize I have to stop saying that or my credibility is going to be shot.)

For lunch today, I grilled the last two pieces with a couple of slices of Havarti from Costco. Perfection.

More perfection: Mom texted me yesterday to let me know she had switched the plates out on her waffle maker to make sandwiches like mine. Ingenious.

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As Pictured Below: Rare find

Posted in As Pictured Below, Christmas, Home, Huntsville, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 23, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I have a ramshackle collection of holiday decorating accessories — when you don’t put up a tree due to extraordinarily inquisitive cats, you make do with whatever fits on the fireplace mantel. You also don’t buy many new items, since that mantel’s not getting any bigger.

I couldn’t let this golden burst of sparkle sit on the shelf, however, when I found it at the New Leash on Life Marketplace today. Only 25 cents, too, since all Christmas items were half off.

I’m not entirely sure it’s going back in the Christmas box after the holidays are over.

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Yang lands on his feet

Posted in Cats, Photographs, tagged , , , , on September 14, 2010| 1 Comment »

A lot of people have asked me how Yang, Yin’s brother, is doing now that he’s by himself. I have to admit that he’s been practicing being a solo cat for a couple of years, hanging out with his brother only for meals and the occasional fight or stair chase.

My mom says that animals know what’s going on in the household probably more than we do. I suspect that he knew his brother was very sick; a couple of times in the week before Yin died, I saw Yang sniff his brother and give him a quizzical look. I think he was also giving food to Yin. For the past few weeks he had been leaving food on his plate that Yin quickly scarfed up; once Yin was gone, he began eating every bite.

He’s been a little snugglier, and he’s slowly learning to ask for meals and snacks (Yin was always the town crier when it was food time). He hasn’t gone around the house looking for his brother; I think he knows Yin is gone for good. So, in a word, Yang is OK. And the rest of the household is well on the way to OK, too.

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The last days of Yin: snacks, adventure and love. Also, more snacks.

Posted in Cats, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 6, 2010| 9 Comments »

I received tons of kind, helpful advice from a lot of people recently regarding some difficult decisions my husband and I had to make about our cat, Yin. The statement that stayed with me day and night, though, was one that a fellow Alabama blogger, Bo, shared. Bo’s 15-year-old dog had died in her sleep not even a week before my original post, and his comment struck home: “I really wish I would have controlled her last moment with us.”

Thursday, September 2, was Yin’s final day with us. I gave him a tour of the garage, a spot off-limits to cats for a number of reasons, and spent literally hours rubbing his belly and his soft, silky ears whenever he would put up with it. I baked a piece of chicken so he could enjoy the smell and the anticipation of one of his favorite treats.

As I was putting a few pieces of soft, too-sweet cantaloupe down the garbage disposal, I heard the distinct ka-chunk of Yin jumping down from the refrigerator; he had always loved melon and was sniffing the air, wondering where his share was. I panicked, realizing I had just thrown away the last bit of melon in the house on the last day the biggest melon lover in the family was going to be around. I quickly grabbed a container of homemade coconut-cantaloupe ice cream out of the freezer and patiently sucked the ice cream off of a few cat-sized pieces of melon. Yin enjoyed every mushy bite.

My husband seared a piece of ahi tuna for dinner so that Yin and his brother, Yang, could enjoy their fair share of what has turned out to be their favorite food ever.

It was an epic last day.

I spent the night on the couch downstairs because I didn’t want Yin to wake up alone during his final few hours. I fed him chicken at 1:30 a.m. when he got up to find the litter box, and rubbed his ears until he decided to go back to sleep on the fridge at 3.

Yin died at around 8:30 a.m. on Friday, September 3, as my husband stroked his side and I rubbed his head and left ear.

Not wanting to leave his body to the care of strangers, we drove him to the crematorium ourselves. We wrapped him in a pillowcase that my grandmother had embroidered before she died in June, and outfitted him with two toys, five Greenies and a tablespoon of catnip for the cremation.

A little over an hour later, we left with a small metal tin containing his ashes.

Thus ends the saga of Yin, who we cared for from the time he and his brother showed up on the carport of our rental house in Mobile, Ala., to the moment we left his tiny body in the cremation room.

It was a fun 13 years. I miss him like crazy, but I also feel honored that we were able to help him have a dignified end to a wonderful life.

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