However, life happened, my set has ALREADY exploded in my face and we haven't even started load-in yet, and thus I present for your pleasure, another pointless picture post of what has happened to me over Thanksgiving break. I call it:
The Domestication of Colleen
I have never been one for cooking. I haven't been particularly opposed to it, I make a mean vegetable soup, but it's never really been my thing. (Unless I'm dorkily trying to replicate recipes from fantasy novels.) I've worn that as a bit of a badge of non-feminine pride, my way of refusing to be just an ordinary housewife and mother. (Just like all you housewives and mothers out there.) Luckily for me, cooking IS my roommate's thing and I am often treated to shepherd's pie, chicken parmigiana, and the best spaghetti ever. (I do realize I'm the luckiest roommate in the world.) Gillian is leaving me next semester to go to London, and when people have asked what I'm going to do without her, I very sincerely reply, "Starve." And she has been worried about my ability to feed myself. I took this Thanksgiving break as a bit of a trial run on that. Could I actually survive, or would I just eat a lot of ramen and tuna?
First of all, I started my break right with cinnamon rolls. Nothing spe
cial, except that I'd never actually popped one of those tube-thingies before. It was thrilling. Second, I brewed up a batch of Ritchie mulled cider. Fabulous. Now, determined to keep that smell around, I got crafty and made an orange-and-clove pomander to help spread the smell.
I dismissed this as simply a sensory exercise of trying to catch the tides of Advent in my lowly dorm room. But the truth is: when you start making pomanders, it's all domestically downhill from there.
At this point in the break, I became completely obsessed with cinnamon. The scent of it, the taste of it. So I did the natural thing: I made snickerdoodles. I searched long and hard to find a recipe that doesn't use cream of tartar, because who has that? (I found out later when Gillian came home that we actually have some. Right.) Now I consider myself rather proficient in cookie-making, but these snickerdoodles turned out much better than I even expected. They're pretty much the perfect cookie. Chewy, cinnamony, sugary... wonderful texture... they're God. In cookie form. As luck would have it, my cast stopped by my dorm that night to pick up the rehearsal props so they could meet and rehearse before our rehearsal the next day (have I said lately that I love them? BECAUSE I DO.) My Percussionist came up while my Speaker waited downstairs, and I gave him a couple cookies along with the props. "ARE THOSE SNICKERDOODLES?!" he exclaimed. Apparently, they're his favorite cookie and he ate the bigger one before getting downstairs and sharing the other cookie. The first thing my Speaker said to me upon arriving at rehearsal today was, "Your cookie was so good!"
Success.
Also that night I made myself a full meal. This involved baking my first potato. I had no idea baking a potato was such an inexact science, but thanks to www.howtobakeapotato.com, I managed a nice, tender, baked potato. I cooked up some chicken breast in oil and garlic, which I've done before. To be honest, this is the only way I know how to cook chicken. Or any kind of meat, for that matter. I made a meatloaf once, but I think I was scared away from meatloafs upon discovering it had oatmeal in it. Anyway. Chicken, potato, and green beans with ham seasoning and you've got a meal that even my mother would approve of nutritionally. I think. I sent this picture to Gillian to let her know I wouldn't die next semester.
This morning, Gillian arrived back from Thanksgiving as I was cooking up breakfast potatoes in a skillet. Not what she expected, I'm sure. I didn't know what I was doing, but I had sliced potatoes, a diced onion, minced garlic, Italian Seasoning, and Bacon Salt. (Yes. Bacon Salt. RAWR.) It worked pretty well.
Then, my set exploded in my face and I knew that desperate measures were called for. Thus I decided to go for the home run:
Muffins.
I, Colleen, just spent multiple hours making muffins.
Not only did I make muffins, but I made muffins with the "Pop" genre of my iPod on shuffle. This includes the complete discography of the Jonas Brothers.
Oh! Wait! What was that I saw? ...oh never mind, just my reputation and integrity flying out the window.
I had a lot of questions about muffins (are muffin cups really necessary if you have muffin tins? are paper or tinfoil better? how high do you fill them with batter?), so I did the natural thing and called my mother. It sounded something like this, "Hi, I'm really stressed, I've spent most of the day crying, most of my set is somewhere between New Jersey and here and I don't know how we're going to focus lights tomorrow, so let's talk about muffins." I went to rehearsal where my cast made me feel better by having gotten 10 times better over Thanksgiving break (and they were already fabulous), then came home, turned on the pop, and went at it.
I made two different kinds of muffins. Yes, that's how desperate I was.
The first batch is my favorite and turned out the best. They're cinnamon muffins, nothing too special in the dough but a little nutmeg. The secret is the cinnamon sugar topping, made by dipping the muffin tops in butter and rolling it in cinnamon sugar. DIVINE.
The second batch was chocolate chip, and I realized while cooking that we ran out of vanilla long ago. Oops. Turned out well nonetheless, though I think the vanilla will help, as would a bit more salt.
I am now considering baking all my Christmas gifts. Perhaps if you're particularly special, you get homemade pimento cheese. These muffins are going to load-in tomorrow morning, because I can't control whether that essential part of my set arrives (::shakes her fist at UPS::), but I can at least ensure homemade muffins at load-in. If I have any left, I may take them to my front desk shift on Monday, we'll see.
First of all, I started my break right with cinnamon rolls. Nothing spe
cial, except that I'd never actually popped one of those tube-thingies before. It was thrilling. Second, I brewed up a batch of Ritchie mulled cider. Fabulous. Now, determined to keep that smell around, I got crafty and made an orange-and-clove pomander to help spread the smell.I dismissed this as simply a sensory exercise of trying to catch the tides of Advent in my lowly dorm room. But the truth is: when you start making pomanders, it's all domestically downhill from there.
At this point in the break, I became completely obsessed with cinnamon. The scent of it, the taste of it. So I did the natural thing: I made snickerdoodles. I searched long and hard to find a recipe that doesn't use cream of tartar, because who has that? (I found out later when Gillian came home that we actually have some. Right.) Now I consider myself rather proficient in cookie-making, but these snickerdoodles turned out much better than I even expected. They're pretty much the perfect cookie. Chewy, cinnamony, sugary... wonderful texture... they're God. In cookie form. As luck would have it, my cast stopped by my dorm that night to pick up the rehearsal props so they could meet and rehearse before our rehearsal the next day (have I said lately that I love them? BECAUSE I DO.) My Percussionist came up while my Speaker waited downstairs, and I gave him a couple cookies along with the props. "ARE THOSE SNICKERDOODLES?!" he exclaimed. Apparently, they're his favorite cookie and he ate the bigger one before getting downstairs and sharing the other cookie. The first thing my Speaker said to me upon arriving at rehearsal today was, "Your cookie was so good!"
Success.
Also that night I made myself a full meal. This involved baking my first potato. I had no idea baking a potato was such an inexact science, but thanks to www.howtobakeapotato.com, I managed a nice, tender, baked potato. I cooked up some chicken breast in oil and garlic, which I've done before. To be honest, this is the only way I know how to cook chicken. Or any kind of meat, for that matter. I made a meatloaf once, but I think I was scared away from meatloafs upon discovering it had oatmeal in it. Anyway. Chicken, potato, and green beans with ham seasoning and you've got a meal that even my mother would approve of nutritionally. I think. I sent this picture to Gillian to let her know I wouldn't die next semester.
This morning, Gillian arrived back from Thanksgiving as I was cooking up breakfast potatoes in a skillet. Not what she expected, I'm sure. I didn't know what I was doing, but I had sliced potatoes, a diced onion, minced garlic, Italian Seasoning, and Bacon Salt. (Yes. Bacon Salt. RAWR.) It worked pretty well.
Then, my set exploded in my face and I knew that desperate measures were called for. Thus I decided to go for the home run:
Muffins.
I, Colleen, just spent multiple hours making muffins.
Not only did I make muffins, but I made muffins with the "Pop" genre of my iPod on shuffle. This includes the complete discography of the Jonas Brothers.
Oh! Wait! What was that I saw? ...oh never mind, just my reputation and integrity flying out the window.
I had a lot of questions about muffins (are muffin cups really necessary if you have muffin tins? are paper or tinfoil better? how high do you fill them with batter?), so I did the natural thing and called my mother. It sounded something like this, "Hi, I'm really stressed, I've spent most of the day crying, most of my set is somewhere between New Jersey and here and I don't know how we're going to focus lights tomorrow, so let's talk about muffins." I went to rehearsal where my cast made me feel better by having gotten 10 times better over Thanksgiving break (and they were already fabulous), then came home, turned on the pop, and went at it.
I made two different kinds of muffins. Yes, that's how desperate I was.
The second batch was chocolate chip, and I realized while cooking that we ran out of vanilla long ago. Oops. Turned out well nonetheless, though I think the vanilla will help, as would a bit more salt.I am now considering baking all my Christmas gifts. Perhaps if you're particularly special, you get homemade pimento cheese. These muffins are going to load-in tomorrow morning, because I can't control whether that essential part of my set arrives (::shakes her fist at UPS::), but I can at least ensure homemade muffins at load-in. If I have any left, I may take them to my front desk shift on Monday, we'll see.
No comments:
Post a Comment