I know, I know, I'm the worst. It's been way too long since I've posted but I've been waiting for the perfect recipe to stage my triumphant return to the blogosphere, and this...well this'll blow you out of the water. Quick recap, I finished my last exam on Thursday and stayed out at school for another couple of days to play with my senior friends who would be graduating, do some hiking with my big sister, and pack (I have way too much stuff).
My mom flew out Sunday morning to help me finish packing the car and with the 14 hour drive back. We initially thought we would split it up over two days but given the awful storms to the west (so dreadful) we decided to try and push through. Given our paleolithic ability to skip meals we were able to have a big breakfast in the morning (using up the last of the food in my apartment) and snack along the way. I think I had two apples with almond butter, some cashews, and a piece or two of turkey jerky. My mother had her leftover steak from dinner (it had blue cheese so I couldn't), a couple bites of one of my apples, trail mix, and macadamias. Our longest stop was so my mom could grab a coffee, we were impressive.
Anyway, all a very long winded way of saying we got back in Monday night so Tuesday was my first dinner home. During our drive my mom had mentioned that in the past week they had had soft-shell crabs and artichokes, I thought it sounded like a fabulous dinner. So Tuesday after an egg and bacon breakfast (yup I reintroduced eggs!) we went shopping and the coop had rhubarb so I decided to finish off our dinner with a raspberry rhubarb crumble I'd made earlier in the week for myself. Sounds like a great, if not rich, dinner right?
We hit a couple road bumps along the way, my mom still isn't used to the fact that I'm not eating dairy. Our first hurdle was what we should dip the artichokes in. We usually do melted butter with lemon...but butter is dairy. My dad likes to mix mayo and butter (I know rich right?) so I decided we should make mayo. So while my mom was steaming the artichokes I pulled up my Well Fed ebook and found this mayo recipe. It's fabulous and super easy...and did I mention fabulous? I never liked mayo until I had this. We also tried making a curry mayo to go with the artichokes, but you don't need flavor to fight with the artichokes, they're fab on their own.
The next road block came with the softies. My dad has accepted that we won't be dredging the softies in flour (we tried it once with coconut flour last summer but coconut flour is so dry) but he was a bit flummoxed with what to cook them in. He can never keep track of what oil is used for what. I started mixing a combination of coconut oil and ghee in the fry pan and before long I was making the softies too. I've earned the position of family softie chef.
The next bump was not having an oven safe fry pan big enough for all of the rhubarb and berries. I was in the middle of carefully sauteing my rhubarb and berries in an oven safe fry pan that was probably a smidgen too small for the job (the next size up had a wooden handle), when my mom walks in wondering why I'm not using her Calphalon fry pan. I looked at her, I looked at the fry pan, I looked at the cabinet that holds our pots and pans, utterly bewildered until she realized that her Calphalon would be vacationing upstate, where we left it, for the summer. Next I made the crumble top in the Cuisinart (full size not mini...I'm moving up in the world) and spread it over the sauteed fruits.
This is all sounding pretty good isn't it? You're probably wondering why, after making such a gourmet dinner for my parents I could possibly think I'd lost my kitchen privileges. Well, with our dessert we didn't just hit a road block we hit a full-on wall...and not just any wall...we hit the freaking Great Wall of China. I put the crumble in the broiler, looked at my watch and figured I have time to wash out the Cuisinart. When I had made it a couple days earlier at school I had put it in the broiler for about 5 minutes.
Two minutes later I finished washing the Cuisinart and figure I'd check on the crumble not expecting it to be done. It was done. It was very done. I open the oven door and flames leap from the inferno barely missing my face! (OK I might be a smidgen melodramatic) I shut the oven door and turned off the heat expecting it to suffocate itself any second now. It didn't. Finally my dad decides we need to get it out of the house so he pulls it from the oven and carries it out to the middle of the driveway where it finally extinguished. A little while later I was sent to the driveway to complete my shame and retrieve my very crispy crisp. My mom looks at it and decides we can totally salvage it if we just scrape off the top. It tasted like taking a piece of rhubarb skewering it on the end of a stick and roasting it over a fire like a marshmallow. It was bad, really bad. If your dinner makes its way to the driveway (under it's own power or yours), you probably don't want to eat it.
I have no clue how to scale my broiling times down! If I normally broil shrimp for a minute and change should I even bother closing the oven door at home? Or cheese (which I know I'm not eating!) which usually melts in 30 seconds, how the hell am I supposed to do that?
I'm terrified of our broiler. Maybe I'll just become a vegan raw-foodist over the summer. Wouldn't that be a good one?
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