Feb. 6 - Lisa's Musings From (the kitchen) and Every Day Life

I'm not sure if it was operator error or what, but the two dishes we made today in the third and fourth of the Lisa and Betty project were kinda disappointing.

The main dish was a cheesy barbecue beef casserole (page 147) using local beef and cheese.

It looked gorgeous when it came out of the oven and it smelled just as good.

I guess looks (and smells)can be deceiving.

I thought the combo of all the ingredients would be tasty. Ground beef, ziti, onion, BBQ sauce, mozzarella and cheddar cheeses along with local milk and fresh parsley ... how bad could it be?

It was kinda bland, so perhaps I should blame the BBQ sauce.

Or the cooks. But we sure had a lot of fun concocting it.

And while it cooked, we moved to dessert ... my first attempt at making butterscotch pudding. (page 210)

Or pudding of any kind.

I stirred and I stirred and Nancy stirred and she stirred.

We used local egg yolks and butter and milk. It bubbled and we transferred half of the hot mixture into the slightly beaten egg yolks and we timed the boiling and it got thick.

Into the little cups it went and into the frig covered as directed.

I tasted the mixture in the pot before I washed it and thought it was pretty good.

But after it was cooled and we tried it for real, the consistency was slightly off.

It was kinda grainy.

Pudding is supposed to be smooth -- at least pudding other than the rice variety.

This wasn't, which kinda ruined the taste for me.

So today's dishes were, well, not so good, but I don't blame the recipes -- I blame the cooks, who have lots to learn and many dishes to go in this Lisa and Betty (Crocker) project.

Next Saturday's menu is still up in the air, but I can promise it will be something new to me, made with as many local ingredients as possible.