Cooking terms

Okay, as you know I got a little obsessive about the terminology of cubing, dicing, whatever in the last post. So I discover in the front of my cookbook there is a beginning section called "Cooking Terms". (Just in case I didn't mention it before, this cookbook has 1262 pages.) Great I think. A glossary of terms will certainly help. Here we go.

Dice= To cut vegetables, meat, or other ingredients into small, even cubes.

How am I supposed to know what small is? Grrrrrr. What is it with cooks and cubes? Okay back to the broth. So, my idea for the broth was I was going to cook the dried Borlotti beans I brought from Umbria with the broth. I walk into the kitchen and the Stoic One has pulled out the 3 hour quick- cooking soup, thinking we might have it for lunch, and he used all of my broth to heat up the soup because the soup had no soup. Arghhh! Now I have to develop a system for sharing things, and what is off limits!. One of my favorite pastimes let me assure you.

Okay so now I have these dried Borlotti beans, or cranberry beans to some of you. They are very cute and colorful, and I like them very much. I did learn my lesson from the first misadventure, so I put the beans in a bowl with water to soak overnight. I forget about them and we have a lovely tuna salad lunch that the Stoic One fixes. Go for a walk, play with Luca...OMG those stupid beans what am I to do with them? They have now been soaking for a day and a half.

Okay so perusing my cookbook, it's not helpful. Nothing really about dried Borlotti beans that have soaked for 36 hours. I find a recipe on BBC, this should have been my first clue, that says, put 3/4 c. of olive oil, 10 cloves of garlic and water to cover the beans and boil for an hour and a half.  Really? Okay have I mentioned there are no measuring things in the house? How could this be? No measuring cups, no measuring spoons...I have a horrible feeling there may be a scale here, which would mean I have to learn to convert grams to ounces...oh no. I'm not looking for the scale. I grab a coffee cup, not an espresso one, and measure out the olive oil, put the beans in and cover them with water. That wasn't so hard.

 Now the recipe calls for 10 cloves of garlic. This was a problem. I did have a head of garlic and I knew from watching Werewolves what a clove was but here was the problem. What exactly constitutes a clove? So I peel off a clump of garlic off the head of garlic and whack it with my knife. Have I mentioned I LOVE watching cooking shows? They always smack the clove of garlic in order to peel it, and do so I might add, without incident. I try this so of course the garlic flies through the kitchen, Luca things we are playing, he grabs the garlic, I run after him, he runs into the living room, and the Stoic One says, "Something amiss?" No dear. I figure a little garlic won't do Luca in, so there's not need to mention it, but I am on the watch for Luca so don't worry. Okay through all of this, I realize that these "clumps" that I thought were cloves, contain cloves...I mean, you probably know this, but 10 cloves or garlic is not nearly as much as I thought, as I had put in the entire head of garlic in the water. I now have to dip back into the beans to start examining each clump to see how many cloves they contain.  Good thing I did, let me tell you.

Okay, I inadvertently cook the beans to death, southerners would love it, and then I think what now?

So I find a recipe that you use shrimp and Borlotti beans, except I don't have shrimp I have "cubed" boiled meat from the broth, remember? I hope you're keeping track. What do you think? Can I substitute the meat for shrimp?

I don't really like the color combination, so I decide I should ask the Stoic One when he comes up for air and does his next kitchen check.