A Southwest War on Oil

So my sister, Patti’s, southwest-themed bridal shower was successful.

It was a day of menu planning and grocery shopping. Which straight up brought me back to ISU’s FCS 113: Food Preparation.

Then it was another day of catching up on some seriously good music while ruining my roommate’s (parent’s) kitchen.

Taco bar. Quinoa salad. Egg soufflé.

An entire tin foil pan of black beans, in all their rigged up glory, gave options to vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike.  And possibly some heat later on. The kind that makes your significant other irritated. When you share the couch. And the air.

But at the end, my FCS 113 failed me. I overestimated the bean consumption of Midwesterners. And gave way to leftovers. For some later heat-ing up.

My sister’s bridal shower was followed by my cousins wedding in Ole Milwaukee. Before the big event, my wedding date and I had brunch at a sweet little spot called Beans & Barley.

The menu was danger and so was my date. We couldn’t decide.

All the Beans and all the Barleys looked too good.

We got quiche. We got almond French toast. We got biscuits and gravy. We got fruit cups. We got coffee. We got carried away.

We overestimated our stomachs.

The menu had a walnut burger. I almost got so carried away that I thought about getting both breakfast and lunch at the same meal. Isn’t that what brunch really should be? C’mon.

But I didn’t. 

But it did give me an idea..!

Back at the roommate’s, I opened the fridge and thought to myself… “Self, you must use the beans up. You spent all day listening to Neko Case and cooking them!” And then I said to myself “black bean walnut burger bingo!”

So I gathered up my vegetarian cookbook. I gathered up my beans. Walnuts. Texturized vegetable protein-planned on barley but didn’t have any in stock. Bread crumbs. And trusted the vegetarian cookbook-and did not gather up an egg.

I should have gathered some trust in my instinct. Because these black bean “Pattis” just did not stay together well without that egg emulsifier. So the goal was to emulsi-fry them together. 

Let’s back up a second.

I don’t fry. Because I never did. Because it would bring some serious heat to the kitchen-and not the stovetop kind.

But rather in the form of anger.

From mama murph.  

And thus born (into my Murphy family) my inability to judge when oil is hot.

Sooo I quickly grabbed my apron. Because things were really heating up in my roommates kitchen. 

And by up…I mean in the air…

It was dangerous. Literally. I felt like I was in war with oil. Not to be confused with war over oil. Although, I guess I was standing over it before war began. And let me tell you, oil won.

As I recounted my black bean burger mishap with Danger (the date), he brought up grape seed oil. Apparently it's a magical oil that allows even non-fryers to fry! With a high smoke point and an ability to sear the outside without seeping into foods, it may just be a non-fryer and dietitian’s dream alike!  

But until I buy grape seed oil I’m going to leave the heat in the kitchen to the ingredients in southwest cooking. And their byproducts-the kind that make roommates irritated but not mama murph's angry. 

...Or I may have to reinstate the FCS 113 syllabus prolicy that required a signed clean up sheet at the end of each lab.