illdothedisheslater

Yesterday my husband bought me four pounds of butter.  At my request, because I said I needed butter, and we were at Sam’s Club.  What he doesn’t know is that I needed butter because I was down to only one pound back at the house, and was getting some kind of butter junkie anxiety about the possibility of running out some time in the next month.  Such is the life of Mr. Dishes, husband of a food blogger.

I imagine he has conversations all the time that are like, “So your wife is a food blogger.  You must get all sorts of great food.  That sounds awesome.”  And then he has to fake a heart attack, leg cramp, or crippling bout of diarrhea to escape the conversation, lest he reveals the truth.  It ain’t all fun and games and deep dish pizza. Don’t get me wrong – I think I’m a pretty decent wife.  He can watch as many/much sports as he wants, I get along great with his family, and I’m super about picking up beer if I notice he’s running low.  But I can’t imagine what it’s like actually being married to me.

Because things like this happen:  Once we went to Costco to look at TV stands, and on the way I found a ham I wanted to buy.  Yes, a whole ham (damn those sample-jockeys).  Then we found a TV stand and had to go get one of those wheelie flatbed things to take it up to the register.  Of course I put my ham right in the middle of the empty flatbed and made him wheel my ham around the store as we headed back to the TV stand department, giggling all the while.

And this is a conversation that actually happened:

Mr. Dishes:  You have something in your hair.
Me:  I think it’s beef.

Three days a week, he ends up eating a sandwich for dinner, due to my lack of planning, laziness, and/or some disaster.  I mostly write about the successes, folks.  Unless it’s bad enough to be hilarious (see failed goat cheese experiment).   The good part of marriage to a food blogger are things like when I completely nailed Chicago Deep Dish, or made seven batches of rice one day to get just the right texture of sticky rice that he likes.  The bad part is grocery bills, butter-hoarding, and the occasional tantrum when, like, I can’t find a lid for a pot.  He may come home from a movie to find himself staring up a turkey’s hind end as it’s splayed out suggestively and I’m in den watching Netflix.  (“It needs to thaw.  Don’t touch it.”)  Every cabinet in our kitchen is stocked, stacked, and full to the point of Home Alone booby traps.  And there was that time I was using an electric knife for the first time – he asked me to please, please be very careful, and went upstairs to avoid my amateur butchery show.  Then mid-carve I sneezed (loudly) and he almost broke his neck getting down the stairs to see if I’d cut a finger off.  Our last trip to Penzey’s cost something around $65.

So today I’m making gumbo for Mr. Dishes.  He’s started a new job and is working remotely from home.  I’m afraid that instead of three peanut butter sandwiches a week, he will now be eating eight or nine, and will eventually develop scurvy, rickets, or similar.  This is something he can heat up and eat without actually having to cook (which to be honest he’s not great at.  Sorry, hon.)

(For the record, I’m not going to get into the last time he tried to make me dinner, which has happened probably four times ever.  I will not make fun of him for using an entire 30-lb. bag of charcoal at once to grill two burgers.  And I will definitely not post a picture of the conflagration.)

I lied.  We could have lost the deck!

Recipe inspired by, but not entirely copied from Serious Eats.

Since I’ve rambled on for several paragraphs, I’ll try to keep this short-ish. Well, short for me.  I made a turkey breast in the crock pot yesterday, then pumped up the stock with smoked wings, onions, and celery until it was thick and golden.  Then I tried to make a roux, which is just equal parts fat and flour (in this case butter, obvs), cooked until the desired level of darkness.  It involves standing at the stove for around fifteen minutes, stirring constantly.  I think I did pretty well – here it is at the start:

And here it is done:

It goes through all sorts of fascinating variations as I stir.  It’s lumpy, then smooth, then liquidy, then oddly foamy, but I think it turns out pretty well.  Once it cools (a step I was unaware of), gradually whisk in the turkey stock.  Adding turkey stock before it cools causes a hissing, spitting, boiling-over mess, which I manage to contain.

Here is the Holy Trinity of Cajun cooking:  Celery, onion, and bell pepper:

Dice them all and saute in a couple tablespoons of oil.  I add a tablespoon of Penzey’s Cajun Seasoning and two tablespoons of tomato paste.

Add the roux-ed up turkey stock, and three to four cups of shredded turkey.

Now – Andouille sausage!  Yum!  I’m not 100% sure how to cook it though, so I try just pan frying it.  This is what it looks like at the start:

And after 8 minutes:

Hmm.  Google suggests a half inch of water, which works better.  Here it is cooked:

I know!  I know what it looks like.  I’m going to be mature and just move on.

Add the sausage, another tablespoon of Cajun Seasoning, two teaspoons of cayenne pepper, and a healthy glug of Louisiana Hot Sauce (or your favorite hot sauce).  Then let it simmer, for a long long time.

Now here comes some more crazy.  After all this, I made him take me to a Cajun restaurant for dinner last night.  Because I haven’t had a lot of gumbo, and wanted to see what it was supposed to taste like.  Then I ordered the wrong thing and made him switch plates with me because I didn’t like my dish. Then I tipped a full cup of ice water into my lap and we had to leave, because I felt like (and was walking like) a baby with a full diaper.  For the record, the gumbo was bland and awful and the water thing could have happened to anyone.

Much, much digressing later, here’s my gumbo!

It’s not quite as thick as it should be, but okra’s not in season and I completely forgot I bought gumbo file yesterday, so it’s a little soupy, but it tastes good.  Maybe it needed more roux.  He can eat it for the next several meals, as it will only get better with time.  I’m no Shakespeare – that’s pretty  obvious – so he’s not getting a sonnet or anything out of me.  But I made him gumbo, with love.

And just have to hope he doesn’t burn the goddamn house down heating it up.