Thursday, November 14, 2013

A cooking misadventure

I was all prepared tonight to write a jolly blog in the nature of "Heigh Ho! The Holidays are coming. Time to cook." Went to the grocery and loaded up on ingredients for things to stock the freezer for family and friends. Tonight I decided to make what would be easy--sausage balls. Everyone know that recipe, right? Ground sausage, grated cheese, Bisquick (hate to use it, but....) and a bit of pepper. Recipe warns the mixture will be crumbly. Wow! Was that an understatement. Shape into a ball in your hand--okay I could do that. Then roll into a bill--not a hope. I finally put the individuals balls onto the pan, where they recrumbled. I re-shaped them. Recipe said to move with spatula halfway through cooking to avoid sticking--you got it! They crumbled. And it took them three times as long to brown as it should have. I thought the few cohesive balls were a bit burnt and tasteless. They'll probably go in the garbage. The best part was where the cheese had oozed out and fried on the pan--like the little bits that do that on a grilled cheese sandwich.
I will admit to one error on my part--I bought a small box of Bisquck because I didn't want any left over--turns out it only had 2.5 cups while I needed three. I added a half cup flour. Now, really, what could that hurt?
I have a theory, however, that a little white wine makes everything better, so I put in just enough wine to bind the dough and made two more pans. They were so much easier to do and look so much better out of the oven. They're cooling, so I haven't tasted one yet--and since there are now so few, I'm reluctant to do that. Of course, the wine probably improved them.
But if Christian, my son-in-law, wants to know why he doesn't get sausage balls anymore, he better read this blog.
Next I think I'll tackle the big project--chocolate chip bars, a recipe that makes two 9x13 pans--but not until morning when I'm fresh. And tomorrow night, Jacob and I will make some chocolate mini-muffins that have only three ingredients and are like zero points on Weight Watchers. If all those fail, my Christmas entertaining will be catered.

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