Barbarella Psychadella | Becoming a Great Woman of Letters, one jello mold at a time.

Detritus and dessert

May 25, 2011 by ms. xandra

1. If you see a lot of me in real life, then you have probably heard me rail about the Mysterious Objects that are constantly appearing in front of my apartment building. If you do not see me regularly, then allow me to ‘splain. Mysterious Objects! Mysterious Objects large and small! They are constantly appearing in front of my apartment building. This has been going on since we moved in.

The items usually stick around for a few days, sometimes up to a week or two. At first, if an item was particularly large, I would let it sit there and annoy me for a few days, and then I would file a large item garbage pickup request with the city. However, I quickly learned that this was an exercise in futility because no sooner would the item be picked up when something else would appear. To wit: the first large Mysterious Object to appear was a bedframe. It sat there innocuously for a few days, and then soon the neighbours started dumping other crap on it: bags of garbage, a broken mirror, even some literal crap! Yes, friends, honest to god crap, in the form of a bag of used cat litter, upended on the bedframe. And so I reported it for pickup, and it was taken away, only to be promptly replaced with a crappy particle board desk, which, eventually, was replaced by a crappy particle board desk that looked like someone had backed a car into it.

So I have stopped attempting to solve the problem of the Mysterious Objects, which, since the bedframe, have included such treasures as an extremely large cat tree, a pair of sparkly pink hi-tops, a Barbie dreamhouse, a dresser, a dead tree in a pot, and, weirdly, a dozen croissants and a loaf of garlic bread. But I have decided that this phenomenon needs documentation, and so, voila, I have created The Detritus of Postmodernity (because who do we want to invoke at a time like this? Frederic Jameson, that’s who), a twitter account through which I will be documenting each item as it appears. I tried my best to reconstruct the chronology of things that have appeared over the past few months, and, starting with today’s item, a weird, outdoor fireplace/cheminea type thingy made out of paving stones (which is now the official mascot of the Detritus of Postmodernity) I will be photographing all items for posterity.

Et voila! Finally a productive use for the information superhighway!

2. Here is a mathematical equation I can really get behind:

ONE package of coconut luau dessert mix

PLUS:

SIX tiny baking pans shaped like roasted chickens

EQUALS:

SIX tiny, gelatinous, coconut chickens.

Category Apartment, Awesome, Food, SCIENCE! | Tags: | No Comments
A SONG FOR XANDRA!

May 12, 2011 by ms. xandra

I appreciate the Eurovision Song Contest so much this year. I mean, I appreciate it EVERY year, and I am obviously going to have a Sandie Shaw/Lulu/Eurovision dissertation chapter, but this year, it has taken on new meaning in my heart. After the disappointing and yet also somewhat exciting Canadian election, and after the disastrous and soul crushing union election that made me lose my faith in human decency, Eurovision is a blessed change, because it is a voting-related event in which, no matter what the outcome is, it can only end well. It can only ever end with singing and dancing! This is an election I can COMPLETELY get behind. I can also get behind Serbia’s entry, because look at these go-go dresses. This is probably my favorite of this year’s crop:

And I can get behind Ireland’s entry, because look at that hair on those two fabulous young lads who are inexplicably called Jedward:

ETA: BREAKING NEWS. Do you know what we are missing by not living in the United Kingdom? We are missing the fact that last year, THIS was Jedward’s debut single.

Macedonia, I can sort of get behind, because there is kind of a profound and belligerent idiocy to this song that is nonetheless somehow endearing:

The only way I can explain Belgium’s entry is that Belgian used car salesment are, like, really into Glee, or something?

And Portugal, well, sadly Portugal did not make it past the semi-final. Possibly this is because their act basically already looks like what a Saturday Night Live parody of a Eurovision act might look like. Possibly it is because these people cannot actually sing. But, my heavens, they do have the one essential quality of a Eurovision performance down pat: EARNESTNESS.

And I was going to end with some profoud remarks on the gloriousness that occurs when artifice and earnestness spectacularly collide, but I am tired, and thus I will leave you with my personal Eurovision muse, Lulu, singing the greatest song of all time:

Category Awesome, Music, Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments
And and and.

May 10, 2011 by ms. xandra

Lots going on! I ran for office in the TA union, it became a disaster, there was a farce of an election, and now I’ve been elected and I feel kind of like Jack Layton must feel right now, because while my slate didn’t exactly win, we didn’t exactly lose either. Also, this experience has helped me hone my ability to emotionally disconnect myself from bullshit. So that’s good, right? Right. Right? Bottom line: Next time I am going to listen when wise spinsters tell me to not get involved in things and just write my dissertation instead.

And last week I was part of a panel discussion at Cal State LA that was entirely about Lady Gaga. It was really excellent – the room was packed and the audience were mostly undergraduates who were so involved and engaged and interested that it has somewhat renewed my faith in the fact that Children Are Our Future. Also, I am getting paid for having done this? For speaking on a panel about Lady Gaga and having a lovely time? Which I think means I just won at musicology?

And this weekend is the Echo conference, which my friend Jill and I are running! And it will be excellent. There is a paper about GWAR. That is reason enough to go to a conference, frankly. And then once the conference is over on Saturday night, all of the Major Stressful Events of the quarter will be over and done with, and therefore I am spending Sunday at an amusement park.

And my efforts of the past few months, which involved applying to every single travel fellowship for which I am eligible, have finally begun to pay off! I have accumulated several nice little pockets of money that will hopefully pay for another research trip to England.

And right now I am watching a documentary about Phyllis Diller. She is quite an inspiring lady. Did you know that she is a keyboard virtuoso? Did you know that she is a painter? Did you know that she has all of her gags and one-liners written on index cards, cross-referenced and filed in a giant card catalog? I aspire to such heights of organizational skill. Also, she invented hat boxes that are see-through so you can see what hats are in them.

Anyhow: Lest anyone fear that I have abandoned my forays into mid-century cuisine, never fear! Indeed, I have a backlog of tasty treats (and also one very unfortunate treat) to tell you all about! These include:

Lemon Fluff! (Delightful!)

Avocado Mousse! (Slimy and slightly abject!)

Burnt Sugar Cake! (Wonderful!)

Chili Sauce Meringue Meatloaf! (Someone wrote a recipe using madlibs!)

Category Adventure, Angst, Awesome | Tags: | 2 Comments
Honest to Goodness

April 10, 2011 by ms. xandra

Today at the flea market I bought a copy of “The New Art of Simplified Cooking, From the Kitchens of the General Electric Institute,” published 1940. I have filed it in my personal library under the category of “Book that is Most Relevant To My Interests Out of All of the Books in the World.” In addition to various stunning illustrations, the usual salads (“Vegetable Corsages,” “Lobster and Pineapple Salad”), and some particularly perplexing ideas about casserole (“Chartreuse of Meat and Rice,” the inexplicable “Veal Birds,” and the particularly terrifying “Economy Dish”), it contains the following recipe:

Strawberry-like Appetizers

1. For realistic strawberries, mash liver sausage (without garlic) then shape into the shape of a strawberry, roll in finely ground almonds, which have been tinted red.

2. Use a tiny bit of mint or watercress for stem and leaf.

Aaron was like, “well, I guess we just need to keep in mind that back then, strawberries really were a really seasonal fruit that you couldn’t just get any time,” which is a valid point, however, it does not explain why one would choose to make substitute strawberries out of liver. Perhaps General Electric had ties to Big Liver? WHO CAN SAY?

Anyhow, I won’t be making this recipe any time soon, but I just really, really wanted you to know about it. I want everyone to know about it. Consider it a dire warning to NEVER EVER eat anything that looks strawberry-like.

OH ALSO, The New Art of Simplified Cooking has a recipe for something called “Mousse of Fish.” I enjoy repeating this phrase. ”Mousse of Fish.” It sounds more and more like nonsense each time you say it. ”Mousse of Fish.” I particularly enjoy repeating it in a Boris Badenov accent.

Category Food | Tags: | 2 Comments
Dear Dream Diary:

April 6, 2011 by ms. xandra

1. All through spring break I was having these weird anxiety dreams. I think it was because I didn’t actually have anything to be stressed out about, so my brain was, like, compensating by inventing imaginary sources of stress. Several times I had versions of this dream I often have, which I call my “And this is why I am not an actor!” dream. What happens in this dream is that I am cast in the lead role of the play but either I am not informed of this fact or I simply forget, until suddenly opening night is half an hour away and I need to learn my entire part. Last week’s variant on this theme saw me cast as a grandmother character, and not only did I have to learn my lines in half an hour, I also had to make a costume, so for most of the dream I was standing in front of the mirror in my bedroom trying on all of my cardigans, one on top of the other, to see which one looked the most grandmothery.

2. This week I am back to my normal stress level (which is probably higher than most other people’s normal, simply because I like to find every available pie to stick my fingers in, and then when they are full, I start finding pies for my toes, and pretty soon, things are messy and gross and there is pastry under my toenails, and ewwww), and the anxiety dreams have gone away, thank goodness. But last night I had an amazingly productive dream. I don’t know what the dream was about, but I do remember that, in the dream, I designed a t-shirt that was meant to communicate the universal appeal and awesomeness of SANDWICHES!!!! (Sandwich Time is second only to X-Files Time and possibly Legend of Zelda Time on the list of Best Times of Day.) Here it is, crudely rendered in Paint!

Ok, so it is probably hard to tell, but that thing on the bottom is a sandwich. But it is not just any sandwich: it is a sandwich that looks like the ocean, or like a vast prairie: It is a SANDWICH HORIZON! And the heart is like a sun, rising above the sandwich horizon, radiating LOVE OF SANDWICH down like UV rays, only obviously good for you. SANDWICH HORIZON! LOVE OF SANDWICH! Thank you, unconscious mind, for the best t-shirt design concept on the Earth!

Category Awesome | Tags: | 1 Comment
Men Seldom Make Passes at Girls Who Wear Glasses

April 5, 2011 by ms. xandra

Last Friday, the UCLA library hosted the Edible Book Festival, wherein one creates an edible representation of a book of one’s choice. Here! You can read all about it! My lovely and talented friend Jill and I entered, with our rendition, in cake, of my (BFF 4-eva!) Dorothy Parker’s first collection of poems, Enough Rope, a compendium of wit, cynicism, lonely hearts, and booze.

That, my friends, is a whiskey, coffee, and chocolate cake (recipe snatched from Epicurious) with a cigarette smoke flavored glaze of our own creation – we made it by melting some butter and powdered sugar, and stirring in some bourbon and liquid smoke. We were trying to represent, in taste, what this book is about. The cake is decorated with pills, rope, and wilted flowers that we made out of gumpaste during a meeting of the Fashionable Ladies’ Gumpaste Sculpture Society, which is an exclusive club, comprised of Jill and myself, that I made up just now. The board that it’s on is not edible – it’s parchment that I painted with ink and mounted on foamcore – but everybody kept asking if it was. I should probably have told them it was a giant cookie, then maybe we would have won.

We did not win, sadly, as it seems that cute carries the day at the Edible Book Festival, and it turns out that not everyone thinks booze and cigarette and pills and rope are cute. (Not even when they’re made out of gumpaste!) I also question the gastronomical credibility of the judges, because I overheard one of them ask the girl beside me (who made a lovely If You Give a Mouse a Cookie Cake) if fondant is made out of cheese. HOWEVER, our cake was pretty amazing, if under appreciated. As a non-smoker, I wouldn’t know, but I was told that it tasted just like smoking a cigarette, in a good way. The epicurious cake recipe is good – really good – you should try it.

And special thanks, as always, to Aaron, my Man Friday and official photographer!

Category Food, Uncategorized | Tags: | 2 Comments
Diet for an Atomic Planet: Of kittens and jellies

March 29, 2011 by ms. xandra

This week we visited several exciting points on the jello spectrum!

The other night, the last night of spring break, I was looking for something to do with myself, and so I decided to spend some quality time with Meta Given. I’ve decided that, from now on, whenever I’m looking for something to do with myself (admittedly, this does not happen often) I’m going to whip something up from the Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking, using whatever is on hand. Last weekend, we’d had a tasty brunch of buttermilk pancakes and mimosas, which meant that what was on hand was leftover buttermilk and orange juice.

Meta Given to the rescue!

Orange Buttermilk Jelly

1/2 cup strained orange juice

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 1/2 cups fresh buttermilk

Pinch of salt

About 1/3 cup sugar (ed’s note: I used closer to 1/4 cup and it was fine!)

1 tbsp plain gelatin

3 tbsp cold water

2 seedless oranges, peeled and sectioned

Whipping cream

Combine orange and lemon juice with buttermilk and salt and sweeten to suit the taste, depending on sweetness of orange juice. Soften gelatin in cold water; then heat over hot water until dissolved. Stir into buttermilk mixture. Pour into a mold or bowl and chill until firm. Unmold and garnish with orange sections, and serve with whipped cream if desired.

So, “soften gelatin in cold water; then heat over hot water until dissolved,” is a somewhat cryptic instruction, unusually cryptic for Meta, who is often painfully clear about things, but this is a very necessary step: when you soften gelatin powder in a few tablespoons of water, it firms up almost immediately and has the consistency of paste. I then set the little bowl of jello paste that I’d made into a bowl of hot water, which melted it back down into a thick liquid that was easily blendable with the rest of the ingredients.

So. I am sure that you are skeptical about how this particular dish turned out. Buttermilk is kind of a weird thing, and it is kind of a gross thing on its own, but it does miraculous things in cooking and baking, but this particular application of buttermilk involved neither cooking nor baking it. But it was so delicious. Amazingly so and surprisingly so. The buttermilk made the jelly tart and zesty, and combined with the orange and lemon juice, it tasted like key lime pie. I actually speculate that this dish could easily double as a pie filling – it would be super nice with a graham cracker crust. So the verdict with this one is YOU SHOULD MAKE IT EVEN THOUGH IT SOUNDS GROSS AND CRAZY. Because it is kind of a transcendent dessert experience.

Presentation-wise, though, I kinda flubbed this one. There wasn’t really enough of the mixture for my bundt pan, so it wasn’t stable enough to actually stand up in a ring, so it kind of flopped out onto the plate. I also didn’t have orange sections or whipped cream to make it look nice, so instead I fixed this unappealing presentation with the swift application of an entire flower arrangement.

And here is a guest appearance from Franklin R. Kitten, food critic, who officially endorses this gelatin-based dessert:

So we ate it all, and then I decided that a house is not a home unless it has a weird, molded dessert and/or salad in it, so last night I made Meta’s Mocha Whip.

Mocha Whip

1 tbsp plain gelatin

2 tbsp cold water

1/2 cup very strong coffee

3 eggs, separated

1/2 cup sugar

Pinch of salt

2 teaspoons vanilla

Cream

(Meta offers some strangely involved instructions on how to make strong coffee, but I am not including them because you know how to make coffee.) Soften gelatin in the cold water for 5 minutes, then set in hot water to dissolve. Beat the egg yolks in the top of a double boiler (ed.’s note for those with ill-equipped kitchens: I have no double boiler, so I just used a little pot inside a big pot!), then beat in the sugar and salt. Add the 1/2 cup coffee and cook over hot water until the mixture coats a spoon (ed.’s note: there is an illustration in the book to show what “coating a spoon” should look like, but it is largely indecipherable and useless. I ended up cooking this until it had thickened somewhat and started to become opaque, at which point it was pretty much coating the spoon. I also ended up cooking the mixture for far longer than you’d think you would, but it seemed necessary). Add the vanilla and gelatin; blend well. Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites. (ed.’s note: I was [possibly needlessly] worried that the heat from the gelatin/egg yolk mixture would cook the egg whites, so I actually put it in the fridge for just a few minutes so it could cool a wee bit. Not sure if this was actually necessary, but it didn’t hurt anything. But be careful not to cool it for too long, or your gelatin will set!)

Pour into a 4-cup glass mold or into smaller individual glass ones. Chill until firm. When ready to serve, unmold and serve with cream.

Ok, so, look at this gorgeous thing. It looks like a cartoon dessert from, like, Super Marioland or something. I was admittedly somewhat gratuitous in my use of whipped cream.

And YUM YUM YUM. The egg white/gelatin mixture sets to a really interesting texture. It’s very light and a bit spongy, but also kind of cake-like. And it tasted almost EXACTLY like my grandmother’s homemade tiramisu. It was really remarkable. And really delicious. It might be my favorite gelatin adventure so far!

And here is Franklin R. Kitten with whipped cream all over his eyebrow whiskers because I left the mixer unattended on the counter for all of five seconds:

Jonathan Gold, watch out. Franklin R. Kitten is coming for your Pulitzer.

Category Food, Meta Given | Tags: | 2 Comments
F@#$ yeah, internet.

March 23, 2011 by ms. xandra

During the past ten minutes, I have been having a really good time with Fuck Yeah, Nouns. Are you familliar with this exciting new Internet Activity? Ok, go familiarize yourself.

And…we’re back. So, in an attempt to test how cultured the Fuck Yeah, Nouns engine is, I have attempted to search for each of the Ninja Turtles, to see whether inputting their names as my nouns would result in pictures of Ninja Turtles or pictures of artwork.

Fuck yeah, Donatello gives us a picture of Donatello’s David.

Fuck yeah, Raphael gives us a picture of Raphael’s School of Athens.

Fuck yeah, Michaelangelo gives us some Sistine Chapel detail.

Fuck yeah, Leonardo gives us a really unflattering picture of Leonardo DiCaprio.

WELL DONE INTERNET, YOU NEVER LET ME DOWN.

Category Uncategorized | Tags: | 4 Comments
Diet for an Atomic Planet, Episode 3: If I had a theme song, it would be a song about jello molds, written to the tune of the Runaways’ “Cherry Bomb.”

March 14, 2011 by ms. xandra

I have been learning so much about gelatin. For instance, I went for Chinese food the other night, and we had those amazing dumplings that magically have soup inside them. Do you know how this magic is achieved? It is achieved through the magic of GELATIN! They basically make a batch of soup-flavored jello, and put a piece inside each dumpling, and when they are steamed, it melts and becomes soup. MAGIC!

Also, did you know that gelatin is a reversible colloid? Nor did I! I do not even really know what that means, in scientific terms! But I do know that, in practical terms it means this: once gelatin has gellified, you can melt it down, and then when it cools it will re-gellify again. This is an important thing to be aware of if you need to let your jello set partially before stirring something into the mold, and you decide to speed the setting of your jello mold by putting it in the freezer for a few minutes, but then forget about it because you are on a conference call and suddenly it is an hour later and your jello has completely set. Not that this has ever happened in Alexandra’s 1947 Test Kitchen.

Anyhow, I have been kind of mad at the world lately, partly because of the union stuff in Wisconsin, which riles me even more now than ever before, because I have suddenly become increasingly involved in union/labor-related organizing (more on that some other time). But I have discovered that making gelatin-based desserts is an excellent way to de-stress after a long day of feeling impotently rageful, because it is like weird exciting science, but science you get to eat. So the other night I tried my hand at Meta Given’s Caramel Sponge

Caramel Sponge

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup boiling water

1 tablespoon gelatin

1/4 cup cold water

2 eggs, separated

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

whipped cream

Put 1/2 cup of the sugar into a heavy metal saucepan or skillet, and stir constantly over direct heat until melted to an amber-colored liquid. Slowly add the boiling water and simmer until caramel is entirely dissolved, stirring occasionally. Cool for about 10 minutes. Soften gelatin in cold water for 5 minutes. Beat egg yolks, add salt and milk, and slowly stir in the caramel syrup. Return to saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly until mixture just coats the spoon. Remove from heat and stir in the gelatin; add vanilla and chill. When mixture has become thick and syrupy beat the egg whites until stiff, add the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar, and beat until thick and smooth; then whip the gelatin mixture until fluffy and add to the egg whites, folding lightly but thoroughly until well mixed. Pour into mold, bowl, or sherbet glasses, and chill until firm. Serve with whipped or plain cream.

So, one unfortunate aspect of the gelatin-based dessert, is that I have a tendency to Want Dessert Right Now, Thanks, which makes the “chill until firm” part of the process a bit of a challenge for me. So, true to form, I unmolded this too soon, and it kind of blobbed out onto the plate, so, sadly, I have no photograph for you of a perfect caramel sponge. But, I figure this blog is a place to both celebrate my victories and almost victories, so here is an almost molded caramel sponge:

I promise it was more tasty than it looks. It was really good. It was fluffy and kind of mousse-like. If anything, it might have been a bit too sweet – I probably could have lived without the second sugar addition. But this was a really interesting dessert to make – a strange hybrid of custard and meringue and jello mold – and I think I might try it again, and use it as a base recipe for other flavors. Meta has a recipe for something similar that is lemon-flavored that sounds pretty amazing, so that one might be next on the list.

Category Food, Meta Given | Tags: | 2 Comments
Diet for an Atomic Planet, Episode Two: Just when you thought it was safe to order salad

March 11, 2011 by ms. xandra

Salads. Ah yes, salads. Delightful bowls of leafy greens with tasty vinaigrettes, perhaps a carrot or a tomato or a mandarin slice or two, and, if you’re feeling particularly indulgent, some cheese. Yes, I thought I knew what salads were. But then one day, I made Meta Given’s banana salad, and it looked like this:

We are learning some things about the 1950s as we do this project, yes, we most certainly are. One of the main things I have learned is that a salad is something that has a fruit or vegetable in it somewhere, is usually served on a bed of lettuce, and usually has mayonnaise. This salad is Banana Salad, which consists primarily of a fruit (banana), is served on a bed of lettuce (historically inaccurate arugula: you can bet your 1950s housewife would have used iceberg), and has that lovely dollop of mayonnaise smack in the middle, which I further beautified using a sprig of sad, wilty dill that I found in the bottom of the vegetable crisper. The use of exotic peanuts are really what sets this salad apart from the crowd, I’d say. Would you like a banana salad of your very own? Of course you would! Here’s how you make one:

Banana Salad

3 bananas, well-ripened

1/4 cup orange juice

Chopped peanuts – or other nuts

Lettuce

Fruit salad dressing or Mayonnaise

Peel bananas, cut lengthwise in half and then crosswise in half. To prevent them from discoloring, prepare salads just before serving and coat bananas at once with orange juice. Roll in chopped nuts, pressing slightly to partially imbed them. Arrange on lettuce and serve with preferred dressing.

One of my new favorite pastimes is to say to people “Hey, ever heard of banana salad?” and then read this recipe aloud to them and watch them try to put together, in their minds, an image of what it looks like. It is sort of performance art that way.

Anyhow, shockingly, this salad was kind of delicious and we at all of it. The orange juice made the bananas kind of tangy, and the mayonnaise paired very nicely with the peanuts. Which is the strangest sentence I have ever written. But as strange as it sounds, it worked. I would actually consider making this again. Actually. Really.

Next up, Cream of Almond Soup. Because that’s what one always serves after banana salad.

Cream of Almond Soup

(A Delicious Soup for Unusual Occasions)

1/4 cup of butter

1/2 cup of almonds, blanched

3 tbsps flur

2 cups milk

2 cups richly flavored chicken broth

4 thin slices lemon

Watercress

Heat butter in saucepan. Add almonds, toss to coat. Let almonds toast over very low heat, frequently tossing and stirring to brown evenly. When lightly browned remove from butter, let cool, then put through a food chopper. Blend flour with butter left in pan. Gradually add the milk and chicken broth. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. if broth is unsalted, add salt to taste. Add the ground almonds. Serve piping hot with a thin slice of lemon and a spring of watercress floating on top.

(note – I used vegetable stock instead of chicken to make this vegetarian friendly)

So, while this recipe begs many questions (namely “Nut soup?”), the most interesting one might be “what is the nature of the unusual occasion at which one might serve almond soup?” and I can only conclude that the occasion must be that rare time when people show up, expect dinner, and all you have on hand is a bag of nuts and a quart of milk and some stock. BUT ANYHOW, I know the question on your minds is clearly, what does nut soup taste like? Well, it tastes quite nice, if completely bland (am I sensing a theme, Meta?) and once we added some black pepper, it was pretty delicious. And yes, nutty.

So the real challenge this week was to come up with a three course meal from 1947 that was vegetarian friendly, because of visiting vegetarians. This was a challenge because I’m fairly certain Meta Given had never heard of vegetarians before. So, for the main course, we went with beans. You will note that the recipe for Bean and Apple casserole does, in fact, call for salt pork. Because I am not Laura Ingalls Wilder, I do not have a ready supply of salt pork, and since we were going veg anyhow, I topped the casserole with a vegetarian salt pork flavor equivalent that I invented, and that may or may not taste anything like actual salt pork, consisting of several knobs of butter, some smoked salt, and a few liberal dashes of Maggi (Improves the Taste!) (It is also worth noting that when I looked Maggi up in Amazon just now, the “customers who bought this item also bought” list consisted of three different-sized bottles of Maggi, a box of potato dumpling mix, and I Spit On Your Grave. I offer this fact without commentary, for your consideration).

Navy Bean and Apple Casserole

1lb. dried navy beans (2 cups)

6 cups cold water

1 tsp salt

3 large tart apples, peeled and sliced

1/3 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

1/4 lb. salt pork, sliced

Wash beans and turn into a 3-quart saucepan. Add the water and salt, heat to boiling, and simmer, gently, covered, about 2 hours. Drain, saving cooking water. Arrange beans and apple slices in alternate layers in a greased casserole, sprinkling sugar over each layer. Pour in 2 cups of the cooking liquid and top with slices of salt pork. Bake, covered, in a very slow oven (250 degrees) for about 2 1/2 hours, or until beans are light brown and thoroughly cooked. If they become dry in cooking, add more cooking liquid or hot water. There should be enough liquid on the beans to make a gravy-like sauce over them.

So, this was baked beans and apples, and it was very nice, if you like that sort of thing. Sweet, but not too sweet, considering all the brown sugar. If I were to make this according to my own specs, instead of Meta’s, I would probably liberally douse this in chili powder and go for some kind of spicy sweet thing, but, as we have learned, such taste sensations had not been invented in the America of 1947. And weirdly, even though I actually pre-soaked the beans (which Meta does not call for), and boiled them forever, and baked them forever, they were still kind of underdone by the time we ate. I actually imagine this might have worked really well if left in a crock pot all day.

And then, because one cannot live on beans from 1947 alone, we had vegan black and white cookies that the fabulous Ms. Jill brought for dessert!

Special thanks to Sam, Jill, Nikki, and Aaron, who gamely ate bananas with peanuts and mayonnaise on them and at least pretended to like it.

Sorry pictures are crap this time out – I was stuck using the ol’ telephonecamera. Will do better next time!

Category Food, Meta Given, SCIENCE! | Tags: | 3 Comments

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