Wednesday, December 23, 2009

B's parents visit

yeah, i know, i'm late, the visit was a few weeks ago...

i picked them up from the airport & it really was a gorgeous day in SD. B was at the apex of finals chaos & group studies so he was a bit pre-occupied & Z had to go to school. the house was kinda quiet & finally when B & Z were both free, a storm hit & it rained the entire time. so, we didn't do much other than hang out.

B's mom made some chicken & dumplings one night. i had some chicken that needed to be cooked & for the life of me i could not figure out a dang thing to make with it. i was starting to catch a cold & of course, my period had just started too, so i was useless & lost in the kitchen. B's mom had talked about making dumplings before, something i'd never tried, but she found a recipe in one of my cookbooks & decided to give it a whirl.

let me tell you something pretty strange....she followed the recipe...to the T. weird right? i mean even when she measured out the flour, she asked for the dry measuring cups, not the liquid measuring one. this is something WAY new for my kitchen. & when she cooked the chicken she measured out the water. & when i asked if she wanted to put some onion, celery & garlic in there she said the recipe didn't call for it.

wha?
[please note that although i'm kinda making in fun of her, i just mean it's so completely different from the way i've seen my family cook, it's not a bad thing at all, just way different.]

we did end up straying from the recipe in the end [i win!] b/c there wasn't a lot of liquid & she was going to drop the dough in there & we figured we'd end up with a solid mass of chicken & dumpling rather than a soupy/gravy like thing. we added an entire can of chicken broth & it ended up perfect.

so now, i'm thinking maybe i should try & follow recipes more closely.
maybe.

5 comments:

  1. when anyone comments on me being a good cook i always say "i can follow a recipe" because i do NO improvisations....if they call for it then it goes in...if they don't then it stays way away!

    all the baking you have done and you don't use liquid AND dry measurers? lol you are so funny!

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  2. even when i try REALLY, REALLY hard to follow a recipe i end up doing something different...except kool-aid & boxed mac&cheese, those 2 items i do follow!

    yeah, my dry measurers are hidden in a drawer, i don't think i've ever used them.

    so are you telling me this could be the source of some of my cooking conundrums?

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  3. i have no idea...but i always think that if you could use just one set then why would they have 2 different ones? but i would be curious to know how much difference there really is between the 2 sets. probably not much. doesn't look like it anyway.

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  4. oh my gosh, this cracks me up. i just had this same conversation with my mom when she was here - dry measures for DRY and liquid for liquid. what about the tsp & Tbsp measures - she asks me. Ummm - mom, you can use liquid or dry in those. yeah, i didn't get my love of cooking or baking from her, that's for sure.

    mil is certainly a good cook, though, isn't she? :)

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  5. ok, mariah, i may have to conduct an experiment...

    kate - haha, love your mom's tsp & Tbsp ?
    & yes, mil is a good cook, the boys are already asking me to repeat the chicken & dumplings.

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