Spangler in the kitchen

I could never be a chef.  Heck, I can barely cook.  Our Mother used to teach me how to cook because she always wanted me to be able to fend for myself, and I enjoyed it.  Of course, I enjoyed licking the spoon, or the beaters, or whatever else was tasty, and that helped.  But I actually enjoyed cooking and especially baking.

When I was in school, I would make up dishes that suited my palate.  I'd take mashed potatoes, grill some onions, some green peppers and whatever vegetables I had, then some ground turkey or pulled chicken, spice it to taste and have a meal fit for an impoverished grad student.  If I didn't have potatoes I'd do the same thing with rice.  At holiday time, I'd cook two big turkeys for Thanksgiving and Christmas, eat my meals and freeze the rest of the meat to use in these concoctions.  I always enjoyed the meals.

Baking was always enjoyable.  I'd make applesauce loaf, cookies, pies from scratch.  Of course, I ate too much, but it was as much the baking as the eating that I enjoyed.

Nowadays, I don't get to cook as much simply because Karen's palate is far softer than mine.  I can eat spicy with little difficulty, although this is not to suggest I'd be a phenom on the Scoville scale. Karen has very valid reasons for not eating spicy foods, and I adjust.  But when I get a free weekend alone, I enjoy amping up the spice.

One of my favorite meals is Dirty Rice.  I take the Zatarain's brand Dirty Rice mix, cook up some ground turkey, julienne some green or red pepper, then slice and brown some andouille sausage and mix it together.  The andouille gives the added spice so I don't need to add anything.  Karen tells me it smells like ass, but I love it.

I've learned to eat hot dogs with something sold locally called mouffelatta, otherwise known as olive salad and not to be confused with the New Orleans bread by the same name.  I put that in my hot dog bun and lay the hot dog on top of it.  It gives the hot dog a nice heat that needs no other garnishment.
Not surprisingly, Karen's chili and taco mixes are pretty bland for my taste.  It's not that they're bad, they're just not spicy.  One thing I learned to do as a student was to use the packaged taco mix but instead of putting in the water as called for, I used salsa, usually thick and chunky.  This thickens the taco mix so that in the shell, it stays more compact with whatever else is put in with the meat.

I love to experiment when I cook, but I don't get to do it much anymore.

One memory of our Mother in the kitchen that I cherish is when she tried to figure out the ingredients for the Big Mac, Kentucky Fried chicken and a local favorite known as a Colonial burger.  She came pretty close, all things considered, but it was watching her focus on her tests and then serving them to us that makes me smile the broadest.

She gave me a great gift when she taught me not only how to cook but how not to fear the kitchen. As I've said countless times, there is so much I don't know, and that's reinforced every time I watch Top Chef.  There are things I would still like to experience, like a clambake, cooking a fresh catch out of the river, making a reasonably good paella.  But until I experience those things, I'm just grateful Mom took the time to teach me what she knew.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles