Cookstory: January 5, 2013. Encroaching on the Mom-In-Law's Territory

Morning 

Cream of Wheat.
I can make one serving of this perfectly. If I'm lucky, I can pull off two bowls and it will still be passable. But when everyone in the family wants cream of wheat, I have to roll the dice and hope I can make four servings in one pot. This sounds like it's a question of simple math, but I always screw up the proportions. Part of the issue is that the Bob's Red Mill "Creamy Wheat" cereal label doesn't give clear instructions for four servings, and it's not as simple as quadrupling the ingredients for one serving. As you increase the milk, the amount of wheat you use lessens. And cream of wheat is one of those things that really needs the right proportions or it goes to hell.

Today, I over-salted. Laura was kind enough to eat it anyway; my kids have no need for such propriety. Overdoing the brown sugar in it helped offset a little. But really, it was not, as dear Alton would say, "good eats."


Afternoon

Sandwiches all around.
For Laura and me, the classic grilled turkey with cheese.

For Zuzu, a simple ham sandwich: bread, mayo, ham, no grilling.

For Piper, her new favorite: a grilled ham and cheese. Her kiddie taste buds, lacking the proper sophistication, prefer American cheese over cheddar. She'll come 'round.

Patent pending, so don't even think about
laying claim to my genius.

I've always been bugged by the fact that sandwiches with meat and cheese have all the meat on one level and all the cheese on the other. It's a strange thing to care about, because once you've taken a bite and begin to chew, everything is mashed together in your mouth anyway. Maybe it's the "Virgo" in me to obsess about such things. So I put together Piper's sandwich a specific way: on one slice of bread, I lay one slice of cheese, off to one side. Next, the deli-style slice of ham, folded in half so that it fits perfectly across the entire surface of the bread; last, more cheese, on the opposite side of the bread surface from the first cheese slice. The second slice of bread tops it. This allows the cheese to be spread across the entire sandwich, ensuring cheesification in every bite, while the ham is, in some way, in the true center of the sandwich. I'm oddly proud of this.


Evening 

Hearty Chicken Soup.
Let me make this perfectly clear: my mother-in-law makes the best chicken soup in this family. No one touches it. It's the best. So why would I chance my standing in Sowatsky-Bailey-World by trying my own version? At first, the decision made sense: it was planned as the first dish for Laura after her shoulder surgery in December, before Grace had returned with the girls from St. Louis. Laura needed comfort food ... chicken soup is the ultimate comfort food ... ergo, I would conquer it. But Laura opted instead for white bean and tiny pasta soup, and this recipe was postponed. Which meant that now I had to cook this with Grace a mere seven blocks away! Did she sense it? Even smell it? Did she somehow feel virtue flow out of her at the moment Laura took her first bite of a chicken soup not made by her own mother's hands?

I'll let you know when I have the guts to tell her what I did.

The recipe came from America's Test Kitchen, and had a couple of twists: the stock was made with ground chicken, the theory being that all that extra surface area allows for additional chickeny goodness in a much more efficient manner than the more traditional boiling of a whole bird. Then, to add to the heartiness, several leaves of Swiss chard are added at the end of cooking.

Mum(-in-law)'s the word.

This one was a complete success. The soup had a great deal of flavor, and the chard really knocked it out of the park. Piper and Zuzu liked it, though of course any "green stuff" in their bowls was deftly side-stepped. We'll definitely be doing this again, but not before enjoying the leftover soup over the next few days.

Now to the true challenge: do I offer Laura's mom a bowl next time she visits? At least I can tell her—in all honesty—that as yummy as this soup was, it still doesn't match the taste of her superior soup.