Adventures with Pinterest

I know I'm addicted to Pinterest because I spend hours on there pinning things I'm unlikely to ever make, do or cook. Before Pinterest I used to store "Things I was never going to get back to " under the heading "Things Im probably never going to look at or find again" in my bookmarks on my computer. But with Pinterest I fool myself into thinking if I pin it I've almost made it ...so I don't need to go to the trouble of actually doing the work. 

Aside from the fact I've invested a huge chunk of my life in my co-dependant relationship with Pinterest when I could have been using my time for productive pursuits like brokering world peace or discovering a preventative cure for ingrown toenails I've come to realise that Pinterest makes me really angry.  If I have to look at one more salted caramel dip, cake, cookie, cupcake, icing, frosting, donut or sauce  I may just go postal. I'm so over salty caramel ANYTHING. Let it go. It's the Tiramisu of 2013. Let's all just move on shall we? And peanut butter - every second thing I look at has PB in it. That's right up there with Salty Caramel too. 

And all those talented people out there pinning DIY home gorgeousness - don't they realise that just makes the rest of us feel inadequate? Stop showing off ! Why cant they just live in chaos and disorder like the rest of us? 

Anyway this post does have a point. I've decided to beat Pinterest at it's own game and start making at least some of the stuff I pin. And blogging about it - or submitting my attempts to Pinstrosity because I'm pretty sure there will be stuff ups galore along the way. And being the worlds most prolific Pinterest stuffer upper might be my ticket to fame. 

At some point in the last few weeks apparently I'd taken the adage "an apple a day keeps the doctor away " a little too seriously and I had about 6 kilos of apples slowly desiccating in the bottom of the fridge. I like to tell myself that those kind of things are science experiments so I can leave them there with no feelings of guilt when we all know I'm just waiting for them to go so bad I can legitimately throw them out.

But yesterday I was on a "waste not want not" kick and so I turned to Pinterest for inspiration with apples. 

And came across a lot of recipes for apple butter (and salty caramel apple butter too) It seemed straight forward enough and I thought of all the cool places I could use apple butter- like on toast or pancakes or on ice cream and in cakes and on cakes and as a dip. So I set about peeling and coring umpteen million kilos of apples (OK about 3 kilos worth) and dumping them in the crock pot with Cinnamon, all spice , a ton of sugar , some extra liquid and a teeny weeny bit of ground cloves. And then I checked it every few hours for about 10 hours and occasionally gave it a loving stir.

Before bed I turned the crock pot down to warm for overnight ...because I wanted to gently coddle my apple butter into submission. And I went to bed and dreamed of apple butter pancakes for breakfast. 

And when I woke up this morning I checked out my apple butter goodness and realised that we had obviously had intruders overnight who broke in to turn the crock pot up to high.

All my apples had gone from filling the pot to barely covering the bottom and you could literally stand a spoon up in what was left. 

Not to be deterred I was still confident I could save it. I added some water, mixed it up, turned the crock pot off and waited for it too cool so I could put it in the food processor. I'm an optimist and it's never over till the fat lady sings. 

I processed the apples to within an inch of their lives while the fat lady did her thing and then Mr. P and I bickered over who was going to be the taste tester (and who was going to be the person who ultimately lived) I won and Mr. P drew the short straw because I didn't want to eat something that looked like it belonged in a toilet.  And I kept mentioning that too as he was trying to eat it. 

Its quite funny to see man who will eat almost anything bar beetroot and brussel sprouts struggling to swallow a mouth full of apple whatever the hell that was  because his wife was deliberately blocking the sink so he couldn't spit it out. 

When Mr. P had finally recovered the ability to speak he squeaked out "Ugh - it tastes like medicine-it's horrible ". I thought he was over exaggerating until I put a tiny bit on my tongue. The consistency was like eating a mouthful of wet sand. While I lamented the waste of apples and time Mr. P muttered "Some one at work might like it" and pointedly followed up with "YOUR work"...Enough said. 

I think I'm calling this a fail. 

The Great Fire of 18:55 (Post title ripped off from SAJ)

“Cooking round the world with SAJ and Shay “has resumed after summer hiatus. Yes, for those of you that didn’t know my first name is not “Quilting”, it is actually Shay. Shay Pyjamas....(you have to say that like “Bond, James Bond” for it to be funny.)

Cooking this fortnight started innocently enough. Dinner was being brought to us by the letter “C”. We decided to cook Caribbean Lamb Shanks and Caribbean Lime Pie. I want to point out for reasons that will become obvious shortly , I was in charge of prepping dessert.

SAJ doesn’t like lamb (which is pretty un-Australian if you ask me. This country was founded on sheep and convicts. You have to like eating one of those choices and it’s not polite to eat people ) so she decided to make two dishes , one with lamb and one with beef. Same recipe, same flavours , just different meat. After a long day at work, I arrived, was plied with wine, and SAJ announced she had a gift for me. I LOVE gifts. 

Check out these aprons. That was my gift. A special apron for our cooking adventures! (I wanted to photoshop my head out because I look so tired and I also have crazy hair so if you could focus only on the apron I would appreciate it) SAJ looks gorgeous as usual. I seriously hate her guts sometimes.

So ...with cream whipped, limes squeezed, and pies made and chillin’ in the fridge we turned our attention to the lamb shanks.

The lamb shanks never did make it into the pan on SAJ’s stove. I’m not quite sure what happened really, but just as she was about to drop something in the pan a fireball erupted. A certain amount of flame is fairly typical when she cooks. All the best chefs have a little flame going on apparently. I just assumed SAJ was doing her usual visually dramatic cooking, trying to impress me.

But the flame didn’t go out...it just kept getting bigger and it didn’t take long for us to realise we were in deep deep trouble. There was nary a fire extinguisher or fire blanket in sight. By this time the rangehood was completely alight and dripping melting plastic all over the stove top and I was yelling for SAJ’s husband and wondering whether we should call the fire service. Mr. SAJ arrived and the fire was put out. It's pretty dramatic when the guts of the rangehood melts out onto your stove.

SAJ’s Spandau Ballet ticket is looking a little worse for wear as is pretty much everything else that was on the shelf three feet from the stove. The rangehood is dead.

Afterwards I joked it was too bad we weren’t cooking at my house tonight since we are replacing our kitchen in about 4 months. If my kitchen burned down at least we could claim it on insurance.

I’m sure we’ll be cooking Caribbean Lamb Shanks right after SAJ’s third degree burns heal. For now the lamb is in the freezer....We're considering entering the next series of My Kitchen Rules.

When SAJ’s husband muttered something about getting a fire blanket and extinguisher today, I jumped in with “Make that a double and I’ll fix you up later”

I swear by all that is holy we weren’t sloshed when we started cooking tonight. Not until after the unfortunate incident that rendered part of SAJ’s kitchen toast. A girl has to come down from a fire high somehow.