MFA Mama

I'm right, you're wrong!

   Enough about how we're all going to die if I don't find a job. Let's talk about something REALLY important. Marinka of Motherhood in NYC has a regular feature on her blog called "I'm right, you're wrong" that I'm totally hijacking borrowing today.

   My recent unemployment has allowed for Hotter and me to spend lots and lots of time together. It's great when we're doing things like sleeping in with the dog and all four of her stiff, stabby-clawed legs between us and having sex, but not so much when we're talking about what to make for dinner, because one of us is fundamentally wrong here. You be the judge!

The Dilemma: What do you call those bread-things you put your hotdog inside?

The disagreers: MFA Mama, a.k.a. The Voice of Reason, and Hotter, a.k.a. Mr. I Went To Culinary School But Still Don't Know What Those Bread-things Are Called.

The positions:

1. We are out of hot dog rolls, so we can't have hot dogs for dinner because the kids hate it when we use slices of bread.

2. We are out of hot dog buns, so we can't have hot dogs for dinner because the kids hate it when we use slices of bread.

   What say you?

bet

   So a friend of mine on the Twitter started tweeting about this thing she's doing, and I looked into it and decided to give it a try. 

   Since going off gluten I've been losing weight at the rate I'd need to to "win" anyway, and I figure my natural competitive nature and desire to NOT LOSE MONEY will keep me from getting lazy and/or eating my feelings. Motivation = good, especially for someone who a) works in a place with a four-star restaurant on premises, b) lives with a CIA-trained chef, and c) has a spouse who prefers her on the larger side but ALSO has a connective-tissue disease and needs to lose weight for the sake of her joints. 

   Plus MONEY; I like money, a few people are bound to "lose," and that = MONEY FOR ME. "Worst"-case scenario? Everyone in the game "wins," and I just get my $25 back but have lost some more weight in the process (well, the WORST-case scenario would be that I go crazy, eat a TON of feelings, and lose my $25, but that's not gonna happen).

   You can link your facespace and Twitter accounts to the game, and I linked my blog's FB and the Twitter (and will keep my DietBet talk confined to those spaces in the future except to gloat/mourn at the end--don't worry, this isn't going to turn into a diet blog). If you want to play along feel free to join us! The game starts 2/11 and as of this posting the pot is up to $500.

   GAME ON!

gluten-free, dairy-free banana muffins that do not suck

• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon lemon zest
• 1 cup brown rice flour
• 1/2 cup potato flour
• 1/4 cup tapioca flour
• 1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) coconut oil (I started using coconut oil because Little Child was allergic to the dairy protein molecule as a grub and still use it in a lot of baked goods because of the excellent flavor and texture it gives them)
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons agave nectar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cup very mashed ripe bananas (about 2 medium bananas)
• up to 1/2 cup nuts, if you want (I skipped it, because times is tight)
  
  Blend all dry ingredients except sugar.
  
  Cream coconut oil, sugar, and agave nectar together with lemon zest, then add the dry mix, then the eggs, mixing as you go.
  
  
  Figure One: I finally cracked (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?) and bought eggs, since my hens are really milking this molt for all it's worth. Guess which egg came from the store? And that's an Eggland's Best cage-free one on the right, not even store-brand or anything. Slack-arse chickens!
  
  Put liners in a cupcake tin, and spray each one with nonstick spray for easy removal. Glop full of mixture; it will make an even dozen (don't be scared to make the liners pretty full--this doesn't puff up QUITE as much as wheat muffins).
  
  I baked these at 375 for 23 minutes, and it was a hair too much, so I'd say 20 minutes give or take, and since Hotter can eat anydamnthing he wants (not that I'm bitter) and was bartering sex acts for muffins, I'd say they were pretty good :)

what my littles didn't eat tonight

Meatballs

1 lb lean ground beef
1/2 cup chopped rolled oats
2 tbsp potato starch
1 tsp finely chopped parsley
2 tbsp minced onion
1 large clove minced garlic
1 large egg
salt and pepper or Adobo to taste

Mix ingredients thoroughly in a large bowl, form into tbsp-sized balls, lay out on greased sheetpan or Pyrex dish, bake at 400 degrees for fifteen minutes before putting the potatoes in.

Teeny-Tiny Potatoes

1 bag Teeny-Tiny Potatoes, rinsed and patted dry
1 pat butter (about 2 tsp)
1 clove minced garlic
the leaves from about a 2-inch sprig of fresh rosemary, stripped off and minced finely
salt and fresh-ground rainbow peppercorns to taste

Mince the garlic and rosemary together, then cut them both into the butter and rub the bottom of a glass baking dish with the mixture. Rub the rest over the outsides of the potatoes and put them in the oven with the meatballs. Bake both for thirty minutes (the meatballs for a total of forty-five minutes) at 400 degrees.

   When they're done, the outsides of the meatballs will be sizzly and crisp, and when you take the teeny-tiny potatoes out they'll squeak and their skins will wrinkle up. We had both with steamed broccoli.

   Or at least Hotter, Big Child and I did. I don't know why I don't just serve the Littles yogurt, toast, and apple slices to begin with.

it's not WHY I married him, but it's part of why I stay

    So whenever I haven't been at one of the three jobs, for the past week I've been cleaning. My back may be permanently effed. We're all shopped for the holidays, but haven't had time to celebrate any. And then in the middle of everything, as I'm butchering a rabbit in the kitchen sink in between dumping Andes crumbles (for baking, but HAHAHA right, I'm totally doing that this year!) down my carb-hole, Hotter will go "hey--" And I'll turn around and--

   *maniacal laughter*

   "You've kinda gotta take a sec and ADMIRE the bat-wing. It's so VEINY!" 

   He got me with "the brain" yesterday, too. I'm just calling it a win if we get through this real-estate emergency without "the goat" making an appearance, because if I go back to work limping nobody will ever believe me when I tell them the REAL reason my ass is bruised.

   Also, you kind of have to admire the balls of any man who'd do that to a frantically stressed-out woman wearing a rabbit as a puppet and brandishing a boning knife.

roadside attraction pie

Thank you COOL WHIP for sponsoring this post. Join us on Facebook for inspiration and recipes for everyday treats. What you add makes it. #coolwhipmoms

 

   First, you need to find some blackberries. Don't go to the store, where you'll pay five bucks a pint for organic blackberries (if you're lucky enough to find them), find yourself a field by some woods by a country road with brambles all around the edge. Take the kids. Take the dog. Pick wild Queen Anne's Lace to put on your table. Get dirty. Pick berries until you've got four cups of berries (not counting the ones you've eaten).

   Go home. Check yourself for ticks. Wash the dog because she ran through a mud puddle eleventy-five times and she was having so much fun you didn't have the heart to stop her. Rinse your berries and pick through them for leaves and stray grass seeds.

Figure One: See that half-ripe one? Get that out of there! Who let that one in, anyway? Eat it even though you know it's going to be sour. 

   If you're me, you'll have a good-sized stalk of rhubarb kicking around from the farmer's market that's maybe gotten a little bendy, and you'll decide to throw that in there, too, so it doesn't go to waste.

Figure Two: When the youngest asks to taste the rhubarb, tell him it's too sour by itself and he won't like it. If he takes that as a challenge, go ahead and let him taste it anyway. Laugh. A LOT.

   Whip up a batch of pie crust. Nothing too fancy, just two cups of unbleached all-purpose flour sifted with a teaspoon of salt, two-thirds of a cup of the butter of your choice (I'm a grassfed cultured kind of girl, but whatever cranks your tractor), and five tablespoons of water. Cut the butter into the flour/salt mixture until the largest chunks are the size of baby peas, sprinkle the water over that, knead briskly, just until you've got a cohesive ball of dough, and divide into two parts. Roll one out for the bottom of your pie, fold in half, then in half again, and position the corner at the center of your pie pan/dish/Pyrex thingy. Unfold--voila!

   Put a cup and a half of the sugar of your choice (we're an organic evaporated cane juice household) mixed with a quarter cup of flour within reach, and decide at the last minute to pave the bottom of your bottom crust with thin slices of unpeeled apple in the hope that the pectin will keep the berries from getting too runny. By now you'll be running behind, covered in flour, peevish, and too sticky to take a picture. That's okay. We've all see apples before.

   Layer half the berries and rhubarb over the apple slices, sprinkling with the sugar/flour mixture as you go. Add another layer of apple slices, more berries and rhubarb, more sugar/flour mixture, until you run out. Sprinkle with about a teaspoon of fresh lemon juice, and dot with a tablespoon or two of butter. Roll out your second ball of pie crust dough, cover the fruit, and pinch the edges of the two crusts together. If you didn't end up with a perfect circle, patch it with a piece of extra dough. Nobody's perfect.

   Pierce your crust to vent, brush with milk to make it shiny, and sprinkle some vanilla sugar on top. Bake in an oven preheated to 450 for ten minutes, then turn the heat down to 350 and bake until the crust is golden-brown (about another forty minutes).

Figure Three: Yeah, the pie is a little cosmetically-challenged. But hey, it's homemade and delicious!

   Let your pie cool while you make dinner and a tub of COOL WHIP Whipped Topping thaws. Eat dinner. Bargain with your kids over bites of chicken. Tell them to sit up. Tell them to sit down. Tell them to put their legs down and use their fork and OH MY GOD CAN'T YOU JUST SIT LIKE A NORMAL HUMAN BEING? Avoid eye contact with your spouse lest one of you laugh and ruin the ferocity of your disapproval.

  Get everyone another fork and plate and cut the pie. If it's runny, shrug and switch to bowls and spoons, then cover the unsightly mess with COOL WHIP and dig in. It'll be delicious either way.

   I make everyday desserts like "Roadside Attraction Pie" up on the fly on my days off to give my family a tangible reminder that I love them even when they're acting like total savages (and to use up bendy rhubarb). Plus fruit pie is ALMOST a balanced breakfast.

   Almost.

 

Sponsored posts are purely editorial content that we are pleased to have presented by a participating sponsor. Advertisers do not produce the content. I was compensated for this post as a member of Clever Girls Collective, but the content is all my own.

bad day

   Yesterday wasn't done hurting me after I published my last post, because one of my bedtime pills stuck in my hiatal hernia on the way down.

   I spent the night mostly awake in searing agony. I got up several times, to take TUMS, to take naproxen (yes, I know, horrid for the stomach actually but it was 2:30 a.m. and I was desperate), to eat yogurt...nothing helped. It's not quite as bad as the last time this happened, I think because it wasn't motherfucking Clindamycin in the capsule in question, but it's close. Hopefully the GI bleeding won't be as bad this time, because last time I did have a few dizzy spells.

   I almost didn't go to work this morning. Hotter literally nudged me, moaning, off the bed with his foot, and before you hate all over him (keep reading, he gets his later I promise) it was a good thing I went in because I managed to finagle another temp job out of PseudoCorp that'll keep things afloat for another two months.

   Then comes the part that pushed me over the edge, and I wish I could tell y'all about it, especially since nobody at work was being an asshole (quite the contrary, actually), but I am too paranoid about what Eyeballs Who Dislike Me would try to make of it and who they would try to make it to so I can't. So instead I'll just say that everyone involved in my new position seems positively lovely and I really look forward to showing them my gratitude for the job by rocking it.

   I went home, and Hotter made a fabulous Bambi Stroganoff for dinner, and then the children were acting out because they need more attention, but I was tired and bitter and in an unbelievable amount of pain, and we proceeded to have a horrible evening. EVERYBODY demonstrated the absolute worst facets of their personalities. EVERYONE. And then I sent the grounded children to bed crying with admonitions that I just couldn't. Take. One. More. Thing. and then Hotter accidentally wiped a hunk of raw chicken ALL OVER THE KITCHEN in the process of preparing the dogs' food and I LOST IT. I have issues with raw chicken. It is gross. He knows this, and chose to berate me for using hot soapy water to clean it up when there was hand sanitizer closer to the scene of the crime against my sensibilities, and that, gentle readers, is when I as a grown-ass woman of nearly thirty-three years old beaned my husband with a large, wilted carrot.

   Do I really have to say anything more about my mental state than that? I assaulted the person who loves me most with a wilted root vegetable. Shiiiiit.

   In the midst of my subsequent bawling, Middle Child got out of bed and apologized for his role in the evening and told me not to cry, that he knew I was doing my best, and oh, y'all. My kids deserve a better mother.

   Tomorrow is my birthday. I can't afford to take the day off, even if it's just to go to the doctor, because I don't have the co-pay. Honestly I kinda hope I get lucky and bleed out in my sleep, because it's the happiest ending I can think of right now, but chances are I'll wake up feeling like death itself and a torrent of shit will rain down on me from the sky the moment I walk out the front door.

   And you?

pre-hurricane miscellaney

*   This morning I woke from a bad dream where I was trying to leave the XY all over again (Little Child was a baby on my hip again, and very sick again, and his g-tube, which in the dream was the original pull-PEG, was venting copiously, which it hasn't in ages...also the XY was telling me that I couldn't leave him because I was too stupid to get through life on my own, for example today I had traffic court but would I know that without him to tell me? Nooooo) at dawn and ran to pull up the local court's website. Sure enough, I DID have traffic court this morning and had forgotten all about it! I was awake in plenty of time to get ready though, and got the last of the tickets from the expired registration dismissed. Perhaps my ex-husband is my new spirit animal? Oy.

*   I saw my divorce attorney at court and we exchanged pleasantries. That was kind of weird.

*   My kids are so excited about the hurricane that last night I finally gave them a Mason jar full of heavy whipping cream with a couple of marbles in and set them to making butter by taking turns shaking the jar just to wear their energy out a little. They crapped out when it was still just whipped cream and I had to take over, the little slackers, but seriously this creates the best damn butter you will ever taste and I highly recommend it.

*   Last night I ate too much at dinner but it was soooo good. Hotter made his famous potroast, which is unbelievably delicious, and I made fresh bread rolls that came out of the oven right as we were sitting down, plus we had the fresh butter (which is delightfully spreadable) to put on the rolls and for dessert, homemade strawberry ice cream.

*   Temp Agency #1 called today; they gave me a job on Monday that should take one hour or less, but I get paid for four hours because the contract is a four-hour minimum, plus the job pays 40% more per hour than I usually make. I'm basically going to be someone's stand-in at an important business meeting, like when royalty used to marry from a distance and they'd send a proxy to ceremonially "consummate" the deal by touching thighs with the person they were marrying. This tickles me to no end.

*   At this point, I think the MFA Children are going to be devastated if we don't get to eat shelf-stable foods warmed over Sterno cans for at least one meal. If you're reading this from anywhere along the Eastern seaboard, are YOU prepared for the hurricane? Don't forget a manual can-opener and a lighter for the Sterno cans in your hurricane kit! Honestly I think half the reason the boys are so excited is that we don't generally eat most of the canned and processed foods I bought in order to be prepared for Irene (Chef Boyardee ravioli, Handi Snacks, boxes of shelf-stable chocolate milk, etc.) because I consider them to be junkfood. Someone who shall remain nameless spent a good portion of yesterday evening dancing around the house chanting "CHILI-MAC! CHILI-MAC!"

*   This slays me:

Figure One: Yes, I know, some folks have cracks in their foundations and are NOT AMUSED, and the Washington Monument is damaged, etc. but I don't think Japan and Christchurch feel overly sorry for us right now, is all I'm sayin'.

*   How are all of YOU?

Shebangarang! BBQ sauce

   This is a nice, mouth-warming but not-too-hot vinegar-y BBQ base that I use mostly on chicken, although I've also used it for ground-venison "Sloppy Does" and it was fantastic in those, too. It's not too spicy for MY kids, but if you have picky eaters you might want to omit the banana pepper and maybe halve the black pepper. Or just throw a PBJ at 'em, make this as follows, and possibly eat it with a spoon, because it's THAT GOOD:

MFA Mama's Shebangarang! BBQ Sauce

1 c. ketchup (I buy store-brand when it's on sale if we're poor, Heinz Organic at the local big-box store if we're less-poor, depending)
1/2 large sweet onion, diced up small
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 small banana pepper (like, thumb-sized, or you can use a jalapeno if you want to make it really hot), deseeded and also finely minced 
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp Shebangarang!
2 tsp honey 
1/4 tsp black pepper
3 drops "liquid smoke" flavoring 

Put the EVOO and onions in a small saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the onions begin to clarify. Add the garlic and banana pepper and keep stirring until the garlic begins to brown (don't overdo it or it'll be bitter). As soon as you see the first hint of brown on the garlic, add the rest of the ingredients and simmer until it coats the back of a spoon nicely. This was makes enough to coat an entire picked chicken's worth of meat (if it's a backyard-raised chicken, so probably only the breastmeat of a store-bought roaster), which is dinner and leftovers at my house.

the one where the rapist duck is delicious

   So I owe y'all recipes, but I'm busy being in-the-moment over here, loving all up on my husband and making delicious food (marinara from our garden is bubbling in The Peacemaker and we just turned one rapist duck* into this and this and OMG), and the recipes will have to wait. xox

 

*  Yeah, he was hilarious, and he was briefly a hero, but he left several other birds bleeding today and therefore had to go, and he was delicious. Sorry, Uncle Quacker, but some things just aren't tolerated here.