D'Oh! Cooking

Mushrooms were recently on sale at some market or other, so I bought two large packages (can't possibly be a pound, could they? Whatever the big ones are, anyway) and made some fresh-mushroom stuff with one. The remainder I made into duxelles, which I froze to add to stews and sauces and stuff.

So, I made a chicken-pot-pie the other night, threw some Duxelles into the veloute I was using to sauce it, and realized, Homer Simpson-style, D'Oh! Duxelles + thin veloute = Cream of Mushroom Soup. I had never thought of it as a pantry-staple sort of a thing, even though I often have duxelles in the freezer! This afternoon, armed with this new knowledge, I made a quick cream-of-mushroom-and-leek soup in about 5 minutes, if that. I felt like that woman on the rice krispie treats commercial who dusts herself with flour and sprinkles her brow with tap water to make her family believe she slaved over them. (Truthfully, hubby recently found the first D'Oh! - Cream of Tomato soup (home-canned tomato puree + milk, heated gently.)

This is, of course, the result of years and years of marketing: it's "too much trouble" to toss duxelles into a veloute, so why not offer it in a can, even if the flavor and nutritional value suffer tremendously. I wonder what other things that we've been conditioned to think are an afternoon's work could be made in seconds with a small amount of prep or a well-stocked pantry. To a degree, this is what Rachel Ray and folks of her ilk do - except they take a lot of unneccesary shortcuts (I made the stock for the veloute, just not the day I was using it. No cans were harmed in the making of my mushroom soup.)

Kraft Foods - I'm looking at YOU!

I had a similar revelation this morning when I made tortillas from scratch. It took about 5 minutes to make the dough, 30 minutes to let the dough rest, and another 10 minutes to fry them. Why have I been buying them at the grocery store all these years?

Tortillas
Adapted from Flatbreads & Flavors: A Baker’s Atlas by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid

2 cups unbleached bread flour
½ tsp. salt
2 tbsp. Oil (I used olive oil - recipe calls for 3 tbsp corn oil, next time I would only use 2)
about ½ - 3/4 cups warm water

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. Drizzle oil over dry ingredients and mix well with a fork. Next, add warm water a little at a time until your dough is soft and not sticky. Knead the dough for a few minutes in the bowl until it forms a ball.

Divide dough into 8 pieces and with floured hands form small dough balls. Flatten with your fingers into 3 inch disks and let them rest for at least 30 minutes, cover them with a cloth or plastic wrap. Or seal in a plastic bag and refrigerate up to one week.

Heat a dry cast iron skillet to medium heat Working on a lightly floured surface, pat each dough disk into a bigger flatter circle. Finish by rolling out the dough with a rolling pin, to about a 7 or 8 inch circle.

Cook each tortilla individually in the hot pan. It should take 45 - 60 seconds for the first side to begin to brown. Flip to the other side. When they are done it should have lots of nice brown spots. Wrap the tortillas in a towel to keep them warm.