Happy Accident - Cleaning Without Cleaning...

I wrote a while back (well, tangentially, that is) about how you can't clean without cleaning. But actually, as I was making some strawberry jam yesterday, I remembered that I do have a way of cleaning, while cooking, without really cleaning. But by cleaning, I mean literally cleaning, not tidying. Sadly, you still have to put crap away in order to have your crap put away.

I don't remember when I discovered that cooking acidic foods polishes the insides of my stainless steel pots and pans, but I'm pretty sure it was a long time ago (long before these incorrigible and recently very aggressive grays started creeping up on my head) and had something to do with a doctored bottle of Prego (or was it Ragu...???). 

I've long since graduated from syrupy sweet pasta sauce from a jar, but the lesson has remained, and whenever I want to renew that pristine finish to the insides of my stainless, I cook some fruit jam or tomato based sauce, and the surface comes beautifully clean with no effort (but the cooking of course).

what to do with a basket of
so-so strawberries...

Just strawberries, sugar, a squeeze of
lemon juice and a pinch of salt.
So much better than Smuckers
and wayyyy less sugar, too!

so very clean and shiny
(I try to ignore the scratches I made
while stirring my jam with a
stainless steel spoon.
They make me hate myself a little.)

Tomorrow's the 4th, and I have no idea what we're eating, but I can assure you it won't be burgers. I am burgered out.

shinae

Happy Accident - Buttering Toast...

I like real butter on my toast.  Not that I haven't used margarine or I Can't Believe It's Not Butter before in a pinch - I can certainly appreciate the spreadability factor, and once in a blue moon, oddly enough, I even find myself liking that fake movie popcorn butter flavor the same way I like a McDonald's hamburger...

But most days, real butter is where it's at.  

Salted butter.  We don't like that stuff up in this house,
but shopping accidents happen.  :/

Now if I'm having a fresh baguette, I don't mind a little pat of cold, unsweetened butter, one per bite. But I like to butter my toast whole and used to find it somewhat vexing to shave the ends of butter to proper thickness for toast.  So one day, I unwittingly plopped a freshly toasted slice of sourdough onto a brand new stick of butter, walked away for about a minute to grab some sugar and half and half for my coffee and !Voila! - spreadable butter.

Oh so spreadable...

Just enough for one slice of toast, actually...

I think it's somewhere between 2/3 - 3/4 of a tablespoon's worth.

You can also cut a couple or three slabs off the end of a cold stick and then let the heat from the toast do its magic, but we're talking entertainment for the easily pleased.

Groovy, right?

Word to the wise: Too much longer than a minute and you get *melt*.

Lazy weekend morning breakfast.

I get my thrills cheap.

shinae