The Damsel in Dis Dress
Posted in cooking on Monday, September 7th, 2009 11:09 am GMT -6
There are a few ways to make gravy. This method is just one, and it works best for Old School pot roast because of the amount of water you have to work with. Now that the meat and vegetables have cooked for several hours in the liquid, you’ve got a nice beef broth. All you [...]
Posted in cooking on Friday, September 4th, 2009 05:20 pm GMT -6
The Damsel grew up on this–the family’s favorite special-occasion/Sunday-after-church meal. She can never get tired of the yummy stuff. To make pot roast, you need time. Lots of time. Pot roast needs moist heat over a long period to get tender. Some people use a crockpot, some people the oven…this particular method is done on [...]
Posted in cooking on Thursday, August 6th, 2009 10:51 pm GMT -6
The Damsel looked through some recipes and saw one for chicken rice soup that looked delicious. Then she looked at the directions. You were supposed to cook it in the crockpot for an hour on high, then eight to nine hours on low, then another hour on high. Ha! ha! That means the Damsel would [...]
Posted in cooking on Monday, July 27th, 2009 05:47 pm GMT -6
The Damsel has heard DisDress calls from a few people who have had trouble making mayonnaise, as taught in this lesson. Failed mayo is a disappointingly runny mess, so the Damsel decided to apply the scientific method to the problem. Please understand that in real life the Damsel is a piano teacher, so her “scientific” [...]
Posted in cooking, preserving on Friday, July 10th, 2009 03:53 pm GMT -6
The raspberries in the Damsel’s garden are going gangbusters, and she’s in heaven. Her arms are scratched but it’s oh so worth it. Raspberries—yum. Freezer jam is nice because it preserves more of the natural, fresh flavor of the fruit you’re using. Plus, it’s great that you don’t have to cook it, and when it’s [...]
Posted in cooking, thrifty on Sunday, July 5th, 2009 07:47 pm GMT -6
Some things are better the newfangled way. For example, flush toilets. But some things are better the old-fashioned way. The Damsel is here to tell you that after using up many a Costco bag of Krusteaz pancake mix, she has seen the light. Don’t misunderstand. The pancake mix-type pancake is not “awful.” Those pancakes are [...]
Posted in cooking, gardening on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 04:32 pm GMT -6
The Damsel was making a dish that called for fresh basil, and although she’s loaded with mint, cilantro and sage, that didn’t help her situation. She went to the market and despaired. You know how much they charge for these eeny teeny packages of fresh herbs? $2.99. She went to the local nursery and bought [...]
Posted in cooking, thrifty on Monday, June 22nd, 2009 10:32 am GMT -6
The Damsel hopes you will forgive her if she confesses she has tried to make yogurt many times. It worked occasionally, but most of the time, it turned out pretty runny. She tried to convince the husband it was “drinking yogurt” like he had when he lived in Denmark but he had a crush on [...]
Posted in cooking, term research project, thrifty on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 12:49 pm GMT -6
When the Damsel ponders things Grandma used to make from scratch, a few dairy items come to mind. The sour cream we made, for example. There’s yogurt. There are also a few soft/farmer style cheeses we could learn. But in order to do that, there’s a couple of things to be clear on. Some of [...]
Posted in cooking on Friday, June 12th, 2009 09:25 am GMT -6
When the Damsel said she had a post that needed to ripen, maybe you thought she was being metaphorical. Nope. For real. She was making sour cream, and she is totally excited about how easy it is. This is all you need. Heavy cream and cultured buttermilk. The Damsel looked for brands that didn’t have [...]
