Meal # 34 Homemade Pizza

I don't really make pizza a lot but decided that I should embrace my inner Italian. Well, eh, there really isn't any in there so my pizza tasted good but felt weak in my hands. Not really soggy but limp. We had some friends for dinner and they ate it but that doesn't say much. I had sausage on one side and God knows what else on the other. I have totally forgotten. Which brings me to my next complaint. I am so far behind on my blog that I am not even remembering the meal! How pointless.

Tiffany, you need to be blogging once a week at least! You shame this challenge by not even applying yourself. You will loose your 12 followers. Is that what you want? No! No I don't (I whimper)

Hope to shape up soon.

Tiffany

Meal # 33 Not Yo' Mama's Banana Pudding

Paula Deen cracks me up. She is so southern but almost ghetto. Talking bout, "Butta this and put some mor' butta in da pan...da more butta da betta." I just crack up. In Savannah, they worship her and she even has her own restaurant where the line curls around the block to eat some of her cheese with some macaroni. Alas, I am bunny trailing. Banana pudding. Okay. I had bananas and a bunch of people coming over so I googled Banana Pudding and this title came up, Not Yo' Mama's Banana Pudding, it did it's job and I clicked, only to find Paula's smiling face telling me that this pudding is not the same old thing. I whipped up 4 different batches of pudding. One was regular, one was peanut butter and one was chocolate and one was peanut butter and chocolate. I basically started adding my own ingredients, so maybe I should call this, Not Paula Deen's Banana Pudding. Any who, the peanut butter one was the best! I love the combination of flavors from vanilla pudding, bananas, peanut butter and nilla wafers. Oh! So good. I really thought Amanda would let me cross bananas off 4 times since each one was different but she squashed that idea when Keith backed her up. I think banana pudding is such a treat but do think it should be made more often. Maybe around your mama. Or not.

The Next Paula Deen (hehe)

Meal # 32 Peking Duck with Plum Sauce

I can't say I boned a duck like Julia and Julia but I did some other awful things to a duck. Like cut off it's head and pulled out it's innards. I went to the oriental market to get my frozen duck. I stored it for a while, putting off the day of cooking because it was all freeze wrapped in a ball with it's beak and eyes mashed up against the plastic staring at me. I saw it's nostrils on it's beak and thought about the breath that might have once entered them. It was quite sad. So the day came when courage reached it's potential. I carefully had a recipe laid out and all my supplies. First it said to steam it with a bunch of herbs inside of it but a precursor to that was to get rid of the head and feet. My dad, a superb cook happened to be by this day. I wanted to be hard core and do all the major cutting and trimming of the duck but it's claws snagged my apron and I lost all courage. So my dad may helped out in this area. :) Thanks Dad! Then I stemmed Donald Duck for a long time then I basted him with some honey mixed with soy sauce and baked him for a while. After he was all cooked and aromatic, Brit and I deboned the duck from the bones. It was fall apart meat. We had a bunch of duck pieces on a plate and 3 different sauces. Plum sauce, hoisin sauce and orange marmalade. I had also made chinese pancakes to wrap up the duck in. So you have like a duck quesadilla without cheese anyway. I was really good at making these thin pancakes. It was just flour and water rolled into a log. Then you make little balls about the same size and dip half into sesame seed oil and press with into another ball. Then you roll the two balls together into a pancake. Then you dry fry them and when they are nice and browned you pull them apart and you have 2 super thin pancakes! It was amazing! So we rolled up the duck with the sauces into the pancakes and ate! I truly like duck.

Daisy Duck

Meal # 31 Wine Soaked Ribs with Veggies

I have found that if you go to Albertsons and get their weekly add and coupons and then take them to Publix, (who has better prices) will accepts these so called coupons and you can get Buy One Get Two Free Meat. A couple of weeks ago I got my coupons and saw that Ribs was the meat of choice. I was excited because I have never cooked ribs and soon I would have 3 racks of ribs in my possession. So I went and chatted with the butcher guy at publix and loaded my ribs into my cart. Then later that week I was invited over to a dear friend's house who had made BBQ ribs for us! She is the one who told me about these coupons! I asked her how she cooked her ribs and so on and ate in the most messy way each of my BBQ ribs at her house. I took some mental notes and was getting nervous about all the roasting/marinating/grilling in no particular order. Then that Saturday, the husband and I went for dinner at my parents house, where guess what we ate? BBQ Ribs. Soaked for 24 hours or something in Lime Juice. Mom said that the juices cook the meat so we just have to grill for a few minutes and baste with BBQ sauce. First of all my mother is a exceptional cook, I have called her many of times for help and advice but I thought my mom had really lost it this time. Lime juice? Really? Well we ate them and they were fabulous. We accumulated left overs in each place so we had two different kinds of ribs to finish off the following week. I was over BBQ ribs big time. But I need to use my meat. However, I heard that you are suppose to pull the silvery skin of the back of the ribs before you cook them. This proved to be tricky and confusing. I am not sure I pulled off all of this thin layer of, I don't know, FAT? I watch a couple of YOUTUBE videos to help me. Finally, using the crock pot, a rack of ribs and a bottle of red wine, I began the cooking process. I figured that these were solid ingredients and I just let them cook until they had fallen off the bone then threw some carrots in for good measure. It was are veggies for the meal. So here is what I am learning. Ribs are really just meat still stuck to the bone. I mean obviously. I shan't be scared anymore of the awkward things. Next time, perhaps I will cook them in a soup. Who says I can't? Nobody. That's who.

Tiff