* This post is very exciting and a sort of milestone for me. I guess for two reasons. I realized that this is my 100th post!! I can’t believe we have all lasted this long… And I guess we had better keep going because I have so much more in store! My other reasons for being excited about this post is because I am writing it on my surface in the truck on the way to the Ag expo and I FINALLY have figured how to connect it to the hot spot on my phone. Woot Woot! Hooray for technology!
Ok, now the real post may begin…
I love cooking, of all kinds. New recipes are such an adventure for me and there is such satisfaction from those tried and true favorites. I find it the highest compliment when The Rancher tells me that we should do “that one” again.
He puts up with my new adventures, but really he has those few favorites that are all I really need to make. Like chocolate chip cookies- they are the only kind of cookie I will ever need to make. And I have learned to only make banana cream pie at Thanksgiving. Every year I make the same chocolate delight dessert for his birthday.
I’m afraid that my creative cooking skills are being wasted away!
Until my sister comes to visit! She is even more adventurous and creative and daring with foods than I am. During her little Christmas visit we decided to make a few restaurant favorites- risotto and crème brûlée. The risotto was good, but a little too sagey… is that word? Ya know, too much sage…
But the crème brûlée was delicious! We had a bit of trial and error with that last step when the sugar is set a blaze. Of course the recipe calls for a hand torch to do the job and since I’m not a torch-in-the-kitchen chef we had to get creative. I did offer the ranch’s torch but that might have been overkill, let alone not so sanitary! After trying a few insufficient efforts I found the winner: the warbex ladle! If you hold it over the flame long enough it will get hot enough to turn the sugar into a crunchy caramel. Yum!
Are you familiar with the warbax ladle? In case your answer is no, a warbex ladle used to come with a de-wormer (warbex) and was used to measure and pour the de-wormer dose on the cows. Now that warbex is banned (it was dangerous for other critters that would come in contact with it) we need to find a way to put the ladles to good use. We’ve found that they are darn good soup ladles and apparently good for crème brûlée! Don’t worry, the ones in my kitchen have NOT been used outside…
I guess you never know what you will get whether it is a torch from the shop or an old de-womer ladle when you cook with The Rancher’s Wife.
