Just For Laughs
.....don't try this at home!
.....don't try this at home!
I have mentioned that I love to create recipes and re-purpose things. I was thinking about the "Bird Poo" cake I mentioned earlier when my mind wandered to the familial failures from decades ago that still bring a laugh.
Bird Poo Cake: This I made in celebration of our son's birth, a couple days after he was born, when we were having our two best friends over for dinner. I made, from scratch, a 2-layer chocolate cake. I did not have quite enough cocoa powder and so it was lighter in color than it should have been. It looked like dirt. At that time I only had one cake pan. But I had a similarly-sized casserole dish that was round on the bottom. I baked the two layers which turned out fine. Well, except for the fact that the top was rounded, so it ended up looking like a big dirt mound when I put the two together. I put jam between the layers when I discovered I had neither canned, boxed, nor the ingredients to make homemade frosting. I did find some icing tubes I had used on previous birthdays. So, I decided I would use what was left in the tubes as a kind of drizzle. Well, the white, pink, green and yellow icings did not drizzle but came out in little squiggles and drops. I kept at it trying to make it look presentable until the icing ran out. Company arrived and after dinner when I brought out the cake one of our friends (the wife) laughed uncontrollably saying it looked like bird droppings on a rock and so named it! We ate it laughing the whole time. Somewhere we have a picture of our newborn son next to the cake!
Angel Food Wafer: Angel food cake is my favorite cake. Not store-bought, but homemade with fresh berries on top. On my birthday, when our oldest daughter was about 12, she decided to make this for me. She and her dad and maybe the two younger kids made a nice dinner. Then, out came the cake. It was about 1" high if that, in the shape of an angel food cake pan, candles ablaze, on a nice serving plate. After they finished singing, "Happy Birthday," our perplexed daughter explained that she had no idea what happened. She said she followed directions exactly but it never rose. It tasted like an angel food-flavored wafer, kinda' crunchy and sorta' brown---because she baked at the temperature and for the length of time it called for in the cook book. Later, after we ate the um, "wafer" she turned to me and asked, "We only had three eggs (recipe calls for 12 egg whites), do you think that had anything to do with it?" Then she added that because we only had 1/4 of the eggs she went ahead and added the yolks too. We laugh and tease her about it now and she laughs as heartily as we do. Her kids love the story, but back then we were far more gentle on her and didn't laugh.
Licorice Manicotti: Whereas my mom always followed recipes exactly she loved to try new ones. She was a great cook! This magazine-recipe caught her eye so she decided to try it out on my dad, brother and I before serving it for company the next week. Good thing for the company that she did.
She did follow the recipe exactly and it smelled and looked absolutely marvelous when served. The manicotti was stuffed with a combo of different cheeses and ground beef and was covered with a sauce that called for anise seed. We were lined up at our breakfast bar for dinner that night and I still remember as each of us took a bite and sat back glancing around at each other, not wanting to say anything. It tasted like baked licorice sticks with cheese, meat and sauce! It was inedible! We all agreed! I forget what Mom whipped up for dinner but the garbage disposal ate the Licorice Manicotti, snarling the whole time!
Mashed Potato-Stuffed Hamburgers: This too was a recipe that my mother found in a magazine. It was simple. Make mashed potatoes ---- the recipe probably called for Potato Buds---the only brand of instant mashed potatoes back in the early 1960's. Form ground beef into balls and shape into thin patties. Then put the potatoes between two patties, pinching the edges to seal them. Then cook in a frying pan. Serve as you would any hamburger. I'll admit, even if this had worked it sounded kinda' gross to me. Mom served the hamburgers, sat down and this time as each of us took our first bite we didn't just sit back and glance at each other, we leaned over to spit out the pink mushy potatoes and the under-cooked patties onto our plates. A general chorus of , "eeeuuuww, gross..." and other descriptive words of the sixties went up. The mashed potatoes had turned really mushy and had prevented the inside edges of each patty to fully cook. The juices from the raw ground beef had turned the potatoes a bright pink. Again, I don't remember what we did eat that night, but it was a far cry from pink potato hamburgers!
Avalanche Cake: It was the last day before Christmas vacation. It was Mom's turn to bring refreshments for our class party. She made a delicious batch of chocolate cupcakes. The recipe she used called for stacking the cupcakes in a circle on a platter layer after layer in the shape of a Christmas Tree. The finished tree was covered with her best-frosting-you've-ever-tasted white frosting and then left to set-up overnight.Christmas candies were to be added in the morning. But, in the morning, much to Mom's and my dismay, we found that the cupcakes had slid off the layers, off the base, some off the platter---what a mess! We rushed to a local bakery before school and bought something, I don't remember what, to replace the avalanche cake. All I remember after that is our family getting to eat it for dessert for a few nights! Yum!
Bird Poo Cake: This I made in celebration of our son's birth, a couple days after he was born, when we were having our two best friends over for dinner. I made, from scratch, a 2-layer chocolate cake. I did not have quite enough cocoa powder and so it was lighter in color than it should have been. It looked like dirt. At that time I only had one cake pan. But I had a similarly-sized casserole dish that was round on the bottom. I baked the two layers which turned out fine. Well, except for the fact that the top was rounded, so it ended up looking like a big dirt mound when I put the two together. I put jam between the layers when I discovered I had neither canned, boxed, nor the ingredients to make homemade frosting. I did find some icing tubes I had used on previous birthdays. So, I decided I would use what was left in the tubes as a kind of drizzle. Well, the white, pink, green and yellow icings did not drizzle but came out in little squiggles and drops. I kept at it trying to make it look presentable until the icing ran out. Company arrived and after dinner when I brought out the cake one of our friends (the wife) laughed uncontrollably saying it looked like bird droppings on a rock and so named it! We ate it laughing the whole time. Somewhere we have a picture of our newborn son next to the cake!
Angel Food Wafer: Angel food cake is my favorite cake. Not store-bought, but homemade with fresh berries on top. On my birthday, when our oldest daughter was about 12, she decided to make this for me. She and her dad and maybe the two younger kids made a nice dinner. Then, out came the cake. It was about 1" high if that, in the shape of an angel food cake pan, candles ablaze, on a nice serving plate. After they finished singing, "Happy Birthday," our perplexed daughter explained that she had no idea what happened. She said she followed directions exactly but it never rose. It tasted like an angel food-flavored wafer, kinda' crunchy and sorta' brown---because she baked at the temperature and for the length of time it called for in the cook book. Later, after we ate the um, "wafer" she turned to me and asked, "We only had three eggs (recipe calls for 12 egg whites), do you think that had anything to do with it?" Then she added that because we only had 1/4 of the eggs she went ahead and added the yolks too. We laugh and tease her about it now and she laughs as heartily as we do. Her kids love the story, but back then we were far more gentle on her and didn't laugh.
Licorice Manicotti: Whereas my mom always followed recipes exactly she loved to try new ones. She was a great cook! This magazine-recipe caught her eye so she decided to try it out on my dad, brother and I before serving it for company the next week. Good thing for the company that she did.
She did follow the recipe exactly and it smelled and looked absolutely marvelous when served. The manicotti was stuffed with a combo of different cheeses and ground beef and was covered with a sauce that called for anise seed. We were lined up at our breakfast bar for dinner that night and I still remember as each of us took a bite and sat back glancing around at each other, not wanting to say anything. It tasted like baked licorice sticks with cheese, meat and sauce! It was inedible! We all agreed! I forget what Mom whipped up for dinner but the garbage disposal ate the Licorice Manicotti, snarling the whole time!
Mashed Potato-Stuffed Hamburgers: This too was a recipe that my mother found in a magazine. It was simple. Make mashed potatoes ---- the recipe probably called for Potato Buds---the only brand of instant mashed potatoes back in the early 1960's. Form ground beef into balls and shape into thin patties. Then put the potatoes between two patties, pinching the edges to seal them. Then cook in a frying pan. Serve as you would any hamburger. I'll admit, even if this had worked it sounded kinda' gross to me. Mom served the hamburgers, sat down and this time as each of us took our first bite we didn't just sit back and glance at each other, we leaned over to spit out the pink mushy potatoes and the under-cooked patties onto our plates. A general chorus of , "eeeuuuww, gross..." and other descriptive words of the sixties went up. The mashed potatoes had turned really mushy and had prevented the inside edges of each patty to fully cook. The juices from the raw ground beef had turned the potatoes a bright pink. Again, I don't remember what we did eat that night, but it was a far cry from pink potato hamburgers!
Avalanche Cake: It was the last day before Christmas vacation. It was Mom's turn to bring refreshments for our class party. She made a delicious batch of chocolate cupcakes. The recipe she used called for stacking the cupcakes in a circle on a platter layer after layer in the shape of a Christmas Tree. The finished tree was covered with her best-frosting-you've-ever-tasted white frosting and then left to set-up overnight.Christmas candies were to be added in the morning. But, in the morning, much to Mom's and my dismay, we found that the cupcakes had slid off the layers, off the base, some off the platter---what a mess! We rushed to a local bakery before school and bought something, I don't remember what, to replace the avalanche cake. All I remember after that is our family getting to eat it for dessert for a few nights! Yum!
Would you like a little potatoes with your gravy? This unfortunate but comically memorable disaster happened when I was a young teenager helping Mom, my grandmas and aunts in the kitchen on one of the occasions we had a turkey dinner at our house. Everything was about ready and on the table. I was mashing the potatoes (my first attempt) and Mom was thickening the gravy. The potatoes turned out thin and watery and the gravy needed to be scooped out with a heavy spoon. Mom and I laughed as we tried unsuccessfully to fix the potatoes. She was able to fix the gravy a little bit. We laughed as we joked about whether we should put the potatoes in the gravy boat and serve the less-stiff, but now-lumpy gravy in a serving dish!
"I have broken teeth on your pie crusts!" This was said by the same friend who named our son's cake. Back when butter had a bad reputation and we were just starting our journey into whole-food eating I decided to make my pie crusts using whole wheat flour and oil instead of the usual ingredients. Try as I might I could never make a pie crust that was not crispy instead of flaky or that didn't stick to the pie plate or need a steak knife to cut! My dear friend once commented teasingly that she had broken teeth on my pie crusts. Rude, yes, but true? I hope not, but........!
Oregano Tea: I had made split pea soup, a big raw veggie salad and some homemade whole wheat bread as lunch for company ages ago. My husband asked what he could do to help. I suggested he make a pot of peppermint tea. I was busy with other things and as we sat down I felt sick to my stomach and something smelled odd. After we sat down I took a sip of the tea knowing that peppermint eases an upset stomach. What greeted my palate was not soothing mint but oregano. I do not like oregano---it makes me sick to my stomach and at that time I was phasing it out to be replaced with basil which I have no problem with. My husband had looked in the spice drawer instead of the tea drawer and pulled out a bag of what he thought was peppermint inadvertently filling the tea ball with oregano. We all had a good laugh and started another pot of tea with peppermint in it this time. And I felt better.....
Scary Gingerbread: My father-in-law loved my cakes, used to rave to others about them, was always happy when I served them. The first year we moved out of state he and my mother-in-law came for a visit. It was going to be the week that his birthday fell within. Remembering how he loved my cakes, I decided to bake him a healthful one. I chose to make gingerbread. We were just starting to get into whole foods at that time and I had gotten rid of the regular sulphured molasses and replaced it with blackstrap. I had never substituted blackstrap molasses for the more common sulphured molasses in a recipe before..... or since, though I do use it. I did not adjust the amount--just used what the recipe called for, but that wasn't enough. Since we had given up sugar I used blackstrap to substitute for the amount of sugar it called for also. I can almost hear the laughter of those of you who are familiar with blackstrap molasses and its strong flavor! When I served the dessert on his birthday, he, seeing it coming, delightedly exclaimed, "Chocolate cake!" I told him that it was gingerbread even though it was darker than chocolate. He smiled---who doesn't like gingerbread? I served it with whipped real cream, but that didn't help much. He was appalled but polite having a hard time hiding his reaction, much like that of a baby tasting a disliked first-food---close one eye, cringe and kind of quiver and out it comes. Now my father-in-law was a gentleman to a fault and did not spit it out or say a word, but he never took another bite either. As soon as I took a bite I realized how awful it tasted. I hope the chickens liked it----I think the yolks were pretty dark for a few days! This story never became a humorous family story. After that incident he sampled my cakes suspiciously for awhile. I think fear may have been a factor in his never mentioning it---fear that I'd try to redeem myself by making another one!
I must end with one of my favorite "food" stories. It is not one of culinary failure....
"It's LIVER!!!": Popa loved beef liver. I loved beef liver. Mom made beef liver and onions for me and Popa though she was not fond of it. My little brother HATED liver!
One summer evening we were eating dinner outside by the pool. Popa had grilled our dinner which was beef liver wrapped on skewers with bacon. My dad and I, and even Mom loved it. My brother couldn't get enough of it! It tasted like steak and was very moist because of the bacon. He did not know it was liver and I was pre-warned not to tell him what it really was. I obeyed....at first. But, something came over me the last time he asked for more. I could not control myself any longer and blurted out, "It's LIVER!" The horrified look on his 7-year old face which preceded his spitting it out, followed by sounds of disgust made me laugh uproariously! I soon realized I was the only one laughing. Oops.... Still today I am not sure if the punishment I received was worth the hilarity of the moment. Would I do it again---oh, yeah! I still remember the raw egg trick, little brother! Miss you...........
Learn to laugh lovingly, kindly at culinary disasters. We all make mistakes, have failures.
They make great family stories of happy ---- if not always delectable ----- times!
Kathi~
"I have broken teeth on your pie crusts!" This was said by the same friend who named our son's cake. Back when butter had a bad reputation and we were just starting our journey into whole-food eating I decided to make my pie crusts using whole wheat flour and oil instead of the usual ingredients. Try as I might I could never make a pie crust that was not crispy instead of flaky or that didn't stick to the pie plate or need a steak knife to cut! My dear friend once commented teasingly that she had broken teeth on my pie crusts. Rude, yes, but true? I hope not, but........!
Oregano Tea: I had made split pea soup, a big raw veggie salad and some homemade whole wheat bread as lunch for company ages ago. My husband asked what he could do to help. I suggested he make a pot of peppermint tea. I was busy with other things and as we sat down I felt sick to my stomach and something smelled odd. After we sat down I took a sip of the tea knowing that peppermint eases an upset stomach. What greeted my palate was not soothing mint but oregano. I do not like oregano---it makes me sick to my stomach and at that time I was phasing it out to be replaced with basil which I have no problem with. My husband had looked in the spice drawer instead of the tea drawer and pulled out a bag of what he thought was peppermint inadvertently filling the tea ball with oregano. We all had a good laugh and started another pot of tea with peppermint in it this time. And I felt better.....
Scary Gingerbread: My father-in-law loved my cakes, used to rave to others about them, was always happy when I served them. The first year we moved out of state he and my mother-in-law came for a visit. It was going to be the week that his birthday fell within. Remembering how he loved my cakes, I decided to bake him a healthful one. I chose to make gingerbread. We were just starting to get into whole foods at that time and I had gotten rid of the regular sulphured molasses and replaced it with blackstrap. I had never substituted blackstrap molasses for the more common sulphured molasses in a recipe before..... or since, though I do use it. I did not adjust the amount--just used what the recipe called for, but that wasn't enough. Since we had given up sugar I used blackstrap to substitute for the amount of sugar it called for also. I can almost hear the laughter of those of you who are familiar with blackstrap molasses and its strong flavor! When I served the dessert on his birthday, he, seeing it coming, delightedly exclaimed, "Chocolate cake!" I told him that it was gingerbread even though it was darker than chocolate. He smiled---who doesn't like gingerbread? I served it with whipped real cream, but that didn't help much. He was appalled but polite having a hard time hiding his reaction, much like that of a baby tasting a disliked first-food---close one eye, cringe and kind of quiver and out it comes. Now my father-in-law was a gentleman to a fault and did not spit it out or say a word, but he never took another bite either. As soon as I took a bite I realized how awful it tasted. I hope the chickens liked it----I think the yolks were pretty dark for a few days! This story never became a humorous family story. After that incident he sampled my cakes suspiciously for awhile. I think fear may have been a factor in his never mentioning it---fear that I'd try to redeem myself by making another one!
I must end with one of my favorite "food" stories. It is not one of culinary failure....
"It's LIVER!!!": Popa loved beef liver. I loved beef liver. Mom made beef liver and onions for me and Popa though she was not fond of it. My little brother HATED liver!
One summer evening we were eating dinner outside by the pool. Popa had grilled our dinner which was beef liver wrapped on skewers with bacon. My dad and I, and even Mom loved it. My brother couldn't get enough of it! It tasted like steak and was very moist because of the bacon. He did not know it was liver and I was pre-warned not to tell him what it really was. I obeyed....at first. But, something came over me the last time he asked for more. I could not control myself any longer and blurted out, "It's LIVER!" The horrified look on his 7-year old face which preceded his spitting it out, followed by sounds of disgust made me laugh uproariously! I soon realized I was the only one laughing. Oops.... Still today I am not sure if the punishment I received was worth the hilarity of the moment. Would I do it again---oh, yeah! I still remember the raw egg trick, little brother! Miss you...........
Learn to laugh lovingly, kindly at culinary disasters. We all make mistakes, have failures.
They make great family stories of happy ---- if not always delectable ----- times!
Kathi~
