Every now and then a memory surfaces. Growing up, Mom would let us loose in the kitchen from time to time.
We used to make Chef Boy-Ar-Dee pizza kits, usually on Friday nights. These kits came in a box containing a bag of crust mix, a small can of sauce, and an even smaller can of grated Parmesan cheese.
To make the crust, you mixed warm water into the crust mix and let it sit in the bowl several minutes. There was yeast in the mix and so it needed to sit and rise. I loved the smell of the dough rising! When the time was up, we'd grease up our hands with Crisco shortening and stretch the dough over the pizza pan, then pour on the sauce and sprinkle the cheese. Bake it in the oven, cut it up, and EAT! Those were the simplest, least complicated pizzas ever, and were they ever CHEAP!
We used a Pyrex mixing bowl (the smallest one) to mix the dough for the crust.
Another favorite kitchen creation was chocolate chip cookies. Good old Nestle Toll House cookies (but no nuts - yuck!). Out came another Pyrex bowl - the largest one. Mixing the cookie dough took real effort - we should have had one arm more developed than the other just from mixing. I'm lazy now - thank heaven for my stand mixer!
I loved those Pyrex mixing bowls. We used them for everything. If it needed mixing, out came the Pyrex bowls. Over the years, they disappeared one at a time - breakage took its toll.
I've had different mixing bowls over the years, and never found ones I really liked. About a year and a half ago, one of my friends and I were heading home from southern Indiana and decided to stop at a huge flea market. Let's go browse! In one of the first few booths, there they were - vintage Pyrex mixing bowls!
Oh, how I coveted those bowls! But they were expensive - $75 for a complete set. Oh my. I showed great restraint, however, and deferred the decision. Since then, I picked up a couple of the largest bowls and one of the second-largest. The two smaller sizes are difficult to find because they were generally used the most, so suffered more breakage.
I looked online; I looked in antique stores. What I found were bowls that had been well used - they weren't glossy anymore, and even worse, places where the color had worn off. I despaired of completing my set. Finally, I walked into my favorite LOCAL antique mall, and there they were - pristine! Amazing.
I gave the extra of the largest bowls to That Girl so she can make "puppy chow" (A.K.A. Chex Muddy Buddies) and I have the rest. I LOVE using those bowls. They make me happy.
I guess I'm trying to relive my childhood.
Not a bad thing.
