Yesterday, I got a wild hair and decided to make my own mayonnaise. I had everything to make it too. You see, I had went to the local market earlier in the day and bought some produce. I love some fresh, local produce and I came home with these purple potatoes. I had envisioned turning them into a purple potato salad to go with the pork spareribs I had cooking in the crock-pot. I decided to make JC's mayo before I started on the potatoes, which in turn was a very wise decision. I began with with the food processor recipe in the book. It didn't work. I tried to save my turned mayo with a teaspoon of dry mustard as Julia describes in her book. I pulled out half of my kitchen gadgets to help the save this unappealing liquid. I used my immersion blender, used a Pampered Chef hand crank food processor and regular blender. And just my luck, nothing worked. Defeat! I was ready to raise the white flag and accept the fact that I COULD NOT make homemade mayo.
I don't give up very easily, so I began again. This time I pulled out a metal bowl and wire whisk. In hindsight, this is a heck of a lot easier to wash versus all the gadgets thrown in the sink. I'm forewarning you that you will get an arm workout, but it's worth it. So, here I am whisking the heck out of this egg yolk and oil concoction and it thickens. It's turning into mayo! AND then, just as I am almost finished with the entire process, the power goes off.
REALLY? Here I have a crockpot of ribs, that I still need to brush with BBQ sauce and put under the broiler, but I have no potatoes cooked for the potato salad or any other sides ready. I also have room temp mayo that needs to go in the fridge and a pile of mayonnaise failed equipment in the sink. ARGH. Did I mention that it's 104* outside? But I have a nice jar of mayo that I made myself.
Apparently the almost the entire military installation I live on, is without power. 6 out of 7 neighborhoods are without power, barracks are out, it's dinner time and all the soldiers are returning home from work. Great. I shove the mayo in the fridge and pray the power comes back on soon. An hour later, we're still without power and we take the dog to stay downstairs in the cooler part of the house with 2 large bowls of water. My husband & I load up the kids and off the local pizzeria we go. The hubby & I enjoy a couple of cold beers and some delicious NY inspired pizza with our boys while hoping the power has been restored.
We arrive back home and we're 3 hours in with no power. It's still 90-some degrees outside and public works is trying to fix the problem. Let me say, I am so glad we have a sprinkler, because that's where the kids played until around 9:30 when the street lights came on. I was one happy lady. I go downstairs to wash the dishes and accidentally knock my food processor bowl onto the floor and it cracks straight up the side. Sigh. Out to the garbage it goes with all of it's accessories and I go to bed, leaving a sink full of dirty dishes.
I awoke early this morning to wash dishes and taste test my mayo. It really made me wish that I had made it earlier in my culinary adventures. It is awesome.
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