carrot pudding

The carrot pudding turned out… OK. Here’s a picture of the finished product. I apologize for the partially-eaten pic. You can see that the hard sauce has done its melty thing and all. I had taken a couple of bites when I suddenly realized… oh, $@%#, I forgot to take a picture. So I grabbed the camera and snapped a few and then went back to eating.

It really tastes pretty good.

There are no shots of it lovingly unmolded and resting on some lovely serving dish because it was never actually unmolded.

True confessions time: When it had steamed for the requisite 4 hours, I lifted the mold from the pan and popped the lid off, only to find…

carrot soup.

My old family recipe includes a cup of apple. I used an extra-large Jonagold that was just the right size to produce the right amount of apple when grated. I grated the carrot, so I grated the apple. I missed the tiny print in Mama’s handwriting that said apple, ground. But reading that after the fact sort of brought back memories of Mama sending the apple through her meat grinder — she had an old hand grinder. I have one, too. And the grinding sort of, well… smooshed all the apple juice out of the pulp.

That may have been a good thing to do. Because grating does not have the same effect.

So I stood their in my kitchen and looked at the carrot pudding soup, and wondered what the heck to do. #1 Son was due any minute. Dinner was ready. Eeek! Finally, in desperation, I drained the excess liquid from the pudding mold, added 1 cup of flour or so to soak up what was left, and popped the pudding back in the pan to steam for another couple of hours. It tasted pretty good, but unmolding would have produced a mound of… something… not a lovely pudding.

Note to self: Next year smoosh the juice out. And the carrots could have been grated much, much smaller. Much. Just saying.

#1 Son & his scarf

#1 Son loved the veggie stew and the couscous. I think he had 3 helpings. It may have been four. He liked the touch of having a little goat cheese to sprinkle over the stew. I have no goat cheese left now.

I had picked up a loaf of bring-home-and-finish-the-baking bread — an olive Pugliese. #1 Son said, This is awesome bread!. I had two slices. There was none left at the end of the meal, so I guess he did like it quite a bit.

In other words, he, being still a teenager for a few more months at least, still eats like a teenager.

So desert, even though we waited a bit after the meal, was met with some feeling of detachment. But he liked the carrot pudding.

I did not confess the carrot pudding story to #1 Son. We’ll let that be our little secret, eh?

I sent him home with 1/2 of the leftover stew and couscous and an extra loaf of bread. He wandered the house for awhile looking for anything not-nailed-down that could accompany him home.

#1 Son, wandering around kitchen and poking into cupboards:Can I have this French press?
Mom, sitting in her chair and knitting:NO
#1 Son: You never let me take anything and you’re such a packrat.
Mom: NO
#1 Son: How about this Melitta drip coffee pot?
Mom: [sigh] OK
#1 Son: What do you use this for?
Mom: Put it back where you found it.

This picture was snapped just before he escaped with the goods left for the evening. You can see he is in a rather pensive, I suppose you have to take my picture… but I’m not going to smile mood. He would not pull the scarf out of his coat so I could get a decent shot of it, because this is the way they’re worn.

So… OK!

P.S. The snow is all gone. It was sure fun while it lasted, though!