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Chef Lane

Pizza Chef Lane

the outside lane

My site stats are pretty funny. Nearly 400 one day, then 32 the next. No consistency whatsoever. Hm. Must be my blog. Ha! See what I did there?

No pictures this time, but I made a very successful meal last night. I got this Calzone Mold from Williams-Sonoma (gift card!) and had to put it to use immediately. I used Pillsbury pizza dough for the pockets, and stuffed them with ricotta, mozzarella, mushrooms, onions, peppers and pepperoni. Baked them for 20 minutes in a 410 degree oven. B actually exclaimed over his. Filling recipe follows:

1/2 cup chopped onions
1/2 cup chopped peppers (red, green, and yellow)
1 small can of sliced mushrooms
3 tbs ricotta
1 cup shredded mozzarella

Sautee onions and peppers (I just sprayed my pan with cooking spray) until tender. Add mushrooms until heated through. Pour into a bowl. Mix in both cheeses. Use to fill calzone pocket, then add sauce and pepperoni to your heart’s content.

Chef Lane

Pastry Chef Lane

the outside lane

I used to be able to make really good biscuits. My grandmother loved them. I haven’t made them in a decade though, and I never really counted that as making bread. No yeast.

I finished reading Mennonite in a Little Black Dress and was inspired to try my hand at baking actual bread. I started with double buns called Zwieback, using a recipe I found on Google. It turned out beautifully and is quite good!

I had dough left over, after making 18 double buns, and I also had some bacon I had intended for meatballs, but I thought, “What could make zwieback even better?” And I got right to it. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Zwiebacon:

And in case you wondered, Zwiebacon is insanely good. Delicious. Wonderful. Bacon. Mmmm.

Lancient History

On Ice

the outside lane

I am not athletically inclined in the least. My grandparents were. My parents were. My mother certainly was. She was such a great baseball player, a major league scout came to see her play. He was very disappointed to discover that Joe, was in fact, Joan. I think her having to watch me play softball was the closest she ever came to feeling disappointment in me. She always looked so sad and puzzled, watching me play.

I am such an uncoordinated lump that school teams have asked to play short a person, rather than pick me. And, a professional dance instructor asked me to stop coming to her adult beginner classes–for which I was paying–because I was holding back all the other beginners. She was sure I had other talents. She was also sure dancing was not one of them. Listen, I was so bad at kickball (kickball!) that in my 4th grade yearbook, the gym teacher inscribed, “Lane, I will never forget the day you caught that ball!” The single day, the single time I caught a ball. It surprised us both. I fell down immediately after catching it.

But, I am good at a couple of things. I am an excellent swimmer. I am powerful and fast, and I just get how that works. I understand how to make my body plow through water like a shark is after me. Maybe because I am always afraid a shark is after me. No, I’m really a good swimmer. I like to pretend I am a spy in a Bond movie, and the fate of the world rests on my being able to swim X distance in Y amount of time. James Bond is very impressed with me. Romance ensues. Hey, it keeps my mind off Jaws, okay?

I am also good at tennis. I was a demon on the tennis court when I was younger, getting in literal hours of practice in my backyard, playing against the brick wall of my parents’ bedroom (until I broke out the window–amazing that it took years for me to do it, but that speaks to my great control, I think.) That’s something else I understand, and find very satisfying, but can’t play once the temperature is above 60. I honestly can’t take the heat. That pretty much kills the sport for me. Who plays tennis in winter?

Probably my best sport has been skating, though. I forget how good I am at that. I took Thor skating today, trying to burn off the cabin fever of the last four days. It’s been a few years since I was able to skate at my own leisure because I’ve had a small person attached to my hip. But today, he was offered a 15 minute lesson, and while he was learning to wiggle backwards, I had time to give the rink a go.

I would never be a very graceful figure skater, but I am freaking fast and powerful. And, again, I just understand what I need to do to fling my body into the air and land again on these little blades. Why I can do that, but can’t manage a layup, I’ll never understand. You put me in sneakers and I am hopeless, but you put me on blades and I just get it. Still, even if I’m not doing tricks (which I love to do, and am stupidly fearless with if no one is watching) I can push and fly around the ice at (also stupidly fearless) high speeds.

I took full advantage of that today. It felt so good! I’m going to pay for it tomorrow. My knees are 40 now, and I haven’t skated full on since my early 30s. I’ve missed it. I had no idea how much.

I do own my own skates…

I do only live 15 minutes from a rink now…

I wonder if they have some advanced classes for the elderly? I’d love to be able to land jumps again.

We have good insurance.

Uncategorized

Leftover Chef Lane

the outside lane

Thor and I made it out to the grocery store today, and he only slipped once, and I only lost control of the car once in an empty parking lot, so we were successful in our quest to obtain Soy Sauce. That means I cooked Fried Rice.

To make my Leftover Fried Rice, you will need: Rice. Soy Sauce. Olive Oil. Salt. 3 large eggs. 1/2cup finely chopped carrots. 1/4 cup finely chopped onions. 1.5 cooked pork chops, cut into thin, small strips.

I hear that the drier your rice is, the better your fried rice will be, but I never think about it until I want to make it, so I just deal with the level of wetness as it comes. I did remember to make my rice early in the afternoon, so it was much drier than I am normally working with. I used Jasmine rice because that’s what I have. I’m no purist, obvs. I also hear that shorter grain rice is better.

I had half a bag of baby carrots left from last night’s dinner, so after cutting them all into rounds, I remember I have a small food processor. I used that to chop them down into wee little pieces. Harder for Thor to dodge them that way. I also chopped up the remains of my onion.

All of that went into the skillet, over a medium-low heat, with a tbs of olive oil, and the fatty remnants of the pork chops leftover from last night. I thought that would give my carrots and onions a nice flavor. It did.

When I was happy with the tenderness of the veg, I removed the fatty bits and added the pork chops, cut into thin, fine pieces. I cooked that for about another minute.

I only have the one skillet, so when I finished with the pork and veg, I moved it to a plate, then went to work on my eggs. In a bowl, I scramble up my raw egg with about a tsp of salt. I put about a half tbs of oil in the skillet (after washing and drying it), and scramble my eggs over a medium heat. I like my eggs to be dry and chopped into small pieces, so while the eggs are cooking, I use a spatula to flip them and chop them. No wet goo in my eggs. No.

When those are finished, they go into the plate with the pork and veg. You all know what scrambled eggs look like, right? Good. I forgot to take a picture of those.

I washed out my skillet again, added a tbs of oil and heated it, then scooped in about 3 cups of white rice. Use whatever color you like.

I let the heat suffuse the rice, then I pour in my soy sauce. You’ve got to do this to taste. I turn my rice from white to light brown.

Then, you fry the rice. I like to pack mine down, let it fry, listening to the sizzle. When the sizzle is slowing, I use a spatula to flip a chunk, working my way around until it is all flipped. I repeat the sizzle listen. Then, I mix it up to get the middle bits, until I am satisfied all my rice has been properly heated.

At that point, I add in the pork and veg, and eggs. Then, I stir in a little more soy sauce, cook until all the ingredients are the same temperature, and serve.

Thor ate about a full cup of it. He was not happy about the carrots, but he couldn’t avoid them, so he ate them. Judging from the way he tucked in, he really liked the dish.

Howling Sea Lane, Religion

Hey Jealousy

the outside lane

There is nothing in the world wrong with observing what someone else has and thinking to yourself, “Man, I sure wish I had some of that.” If necessity is the mother of invention, then observational jealousy is it’s step-mother. “Ug have fire outside cave. I want! I find way to make fire inside cave! I make chimney!” Or something. (Now I want to draw cartoons to go along with this blog. I’m iced in. I’ve got the time.)

There is everything wrong with observing what someone has and thinking, “I should have that instead of him!” Then you end up with something like, “Abel gets attention that I should be getting! I know, if I kill him, then they will HAVE to give me all the attention. Hey, Abel, come help me with this thing over here…”

The book of Proverbs is filled with warnings against envy. The two that have always stuck out to me are 14:30, A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones, and 24:1, Do not envy the wicked, do not desire their company.

Most of the time, I can head envy off at the pass. Most of the time I can honestly look at what people have and say, “I’m very happy for you.” I was raised to strive for my own happiness, and to be glad when other achieved their own. My mother didn’t put up with petty jealousy. If SoandSo had a fantastic Somethingorother and I was whining about me deserving it more than she, my mother put a quick stop to that. If I wanted it, I should work for my own, and get off my high horse. I should pay less attention to what SoandSo had and more attention to what it would take for me to achieve the same, and I should also keep in mind, that maybe SoandSo needed that Somethingorother to make up for another emptiness. And, by the way, she would remind me, there are people who would give a right arm to have what I did. I should think of them, too.

I heard Joyce Meyer speak on envy a few times–and I interrupt myself to tell you that, from experience, while I have very, very little good to say about the major television ministries, I have a great respect for Joyce and her teaching, if only because she was the single ministry to fully cooperate when the Senate Finance Committee came calling–and she makes a cutesy, but convincing analogy. She talks about how silly it would be for your eye to be jealous of your hand because your hand gets to wear a beautiful ring. If you put a ring in your eye, you couldn’t see. She says that you might be an “eye” in the grand scheme of things, and envying what a “hand” has will only hamper your ability to live a productive life.

I have posted before about how I mean-girled a classmate into a corner out of jealousy. I wanted the attention of a boy she had managed to snag, fresh from a breakup with another girl I’d been sneering at, and I thought if she was out of the way, I’d have my shot. Of course you know I just ended up looking like a complete horse’s behind, and I carry what is a healthy scar of guilt over my actions to this day.

It is a healthy scar because it keeps me from repeating my past behaviors. When I feel that tightening of envy in my gut, I also feel that scar tightening right along with it. If it had been left on me by an evil wizard, it would have been shaped like a lightening bolt, and you would have seen me rubbing at it and grimacing yesterday, while looking through Facebook.

“Of course she shops at Posh Tots,” I growled, feeling a little sick to my stomach. She didn’t deserve that! I couldn’t shop there! I knew where that money had come from, and that was dirty, dirty money. I was clean as far as all that went, and it wasn’t fair!

I kept flipping through pages, jealous of this or that. Angry that no one had noted my righteousness and… Ugh. It’s just embarrassing what went through my head.

Here’s the thing: If you’re righteous and you know it, clap your hands. See what it gets you? You can’t really feel proud of your righteousness without spoiling it. It’s like adding lemon juice to your milk. Same thing with jealousy. When you focus yourself on envying what someone else has, you can’t enjoy what you’ve got.

No, I can’t afford to shop at Posh Tots, and I am not part of that clique, but you know what I do have? I have an amazing son, who is loved and well dressed, and a group of friends who love me no matter what kind of foolishness I’m up to. It is honestly none of my business what someone else has. My business is about taking care of what I have, and (because I am the ambitious sort) getting to the next level, and working out how to use what I do have for the benefit of people who are less fortunate.

Tell you one thing: It’s a lot easier to just scowl at Paris Hilton, than to acknowledge I’m being a jerk.