Showing posts with label Kyle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kyle. Show all posts
28 December 2010
home is where the mortgage is.
We're back in Austin. I just stood barefoot on my front porch and I'm not contemplating which hospital has the best ER to treat frostbite. This makes me very sad, but it's okay because my best friends in the world are about to descend upon my house and we're going to celebrate Christmas and New Years like it's no one's business.
27 November 2008
Happy Thanksgiving!
The preparations for Thanksgiving are very much under way. In the past couple of weeks, I've done some test run on side dishes, and I've definitely come across some really awesome recipes. :) Currently, the test pumpkin pie is half eaten, and sitting in the refrigerator and the apple pie is in the oven. I think that later today will be a well orchestrated dance between oven and stove top, made more complicated by a relatively small kitchen and four people who want to be in it.
Here's the menu at current:
Turkey a la Alton Brown
Sour Dough + Challah bread dressing
green bean casserole a la Alton Brown
roasted garlic mashed potatoes
roasted sweet potatoes with smoked sweet paprika
home made dinner rolls
apple cranberry chutney
apple pie
pumpkin pie
Sooooooooo excited! :)
Here's the menu at current:
Turkey a la Alton Brown
Sour Dough + Challah bread dressing
green bean casserole a la Alton Brown
roasted garlic mashed potatoes
roasted sweet potatoes with smoked sweet paprika
home made dinner rolls
apple cranberry chutney
apple pie
pumpkin pie
Sooooooooo excited! :)
10 August 2008
Lego my dinner party!
Okay folks, here's the lego party post. Unfortunately, there weren't really any pictures, but I'll do my best to describe.
So the whole thing that started this party was this post that I found on Slashfood and then later on Tastespotting. It was apparently taken from the Betty Crocker website, but it seemed like a fun idea. Shortly thereafter, I was alerted to the existence of Lego gummy candy from Kellog's. Seeing that I'm not actually three, I procured a box. Also, at some random trip to the mall (the one where Colby and Kyle went on a mandate to see the batman movie) I found these hard tablet powder candy legos that you can actually build with! Super cute.
We (Colby, Kyle, and I) used box mixes to make the cake (chocolate, yellow, and marbled) and then used white frosting + food coloring from Hill Country Fare. The interesting thing about Hill Country Fare is that it's one of a few different house brands for HEB, a largely Texan grocery store; given that Texas is beef country, I shouldn't have been surprised when I found out that the main fat ingredient was lard. Oh well. I didn't have any vegetarians at the party. We made the cakes the night before and they came out okay. It doesn't help that I suck at frosting cakes.
To continue on with the lego theme, I made lasagna (which is sort of brick-shaped!) which was topped with homemade croutons that were cylindrical. The lasagna is actually super simple and mostly stolen from the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook (of which I have mixed feelings):
15 oz ricotta
1.25 c grated parm
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 cup fresh basil, minced
1 egg, lightly beaten
12 no boil lasagna noodles (I used HEB brand)
16 oz shredded mozzarella cheese
3ish c sauce
I made the sauce first which consisted of:
1 lb ground beef
s+p
1/4 c minced onions
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbs olive oil
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes (I used Contandina crushed tomatoes with herbs by accident)
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
1/2 tsp dried oregano, parsley, basil
Brown/season meat w/s+p, break up into little bits. In a sauce pan add in olive oil and onions and let them soften for like five minutes (or more if you realize that you've forgotten to mince the garlic), add in the garlic and let cook for 30 seconds and then add in both cans of processed tomatoes and whatever herbs you decide. Let that simmer for 15ish minutes or so and that could be a sauce in and of itself. Add the meat (try to drain off the fat) and then let that sit with the sauce for as long as possible.
To construct the lasagna:
preheat the oven to 375. combine ricotta+s+p+egg+1 c parm+basil mix thoroughly until combined. add in like 1/4-1/2 a cup of sauce to the bottom of whatever you're using to cook in. It should be rectangular and deepish. layer on three lasagna noodles side-by-side and spread some amount of the ricotta mixture on it. Add about 1/2 c of sauce over top. cover in mozzarella and do this layering bit twice more. take the remaining three noodles and layer over top the rest of the pasta, cover with the remaining sauce and then cover in the rest of the mozzarella and 1/4 c of parm. cover with foil and bake for 15 minutes. Take it out and then uncover it and bake for an addition 25ish minutes until everything is soft and the cheese is all melty.
I found that the easiest way to spread on the ricotta mixture to the noodles was to take the dry noodle in hand and then spread the cheese on it before putting it in the pan. It caused way too much grief to try to do it the other way.
As a side, I made garlic bread the Heidi Swanson way and at the very end, put 2 little half slices of fresh mozzarella on each piece so that they would look like lego things.
Everyone loved the lasagna and people that that the cakes were clever. I'm not so sure that they tasted all that good, but that wasn't really the point with these cakes. I made a flourless chocolate cake the other night which turned out "better", but that's for a later post.
So the whole thing that started this party was this post that I found on Slashfood and then later on Tastespotting. It was apparently taken from the Betty Crocker website, but it seemed like a fun idea. Shortly thereafter, I was alerted to the existence of Lego gummy candy from Kellog's. Seeing that I'm not actually three, I procured a box. Also, at some random trip to the mall (the one where Colby and Kyle went on a mandate to see the batman movie) I found these hard tablet powder candy legos that you can actually build with! Super cute.
We (Colby, Kyle, and I) used box mixes to make the cake (chocolate, yellow, and marbled) and then used white frosting + food coloring from Hill Country Fare. The interesting thing about Hill Country Fare is that it's one of a few different house brands for HEB, a largely Texan grocery store; given that Texas is beef country, I shouldn't have been surprised when I found out that the main fat ingredient was lard. Oh well. I didn't have any vegetarians at the party. We made the cakes the night before and they came out okay. It doesn't help that I suck at frosting cakes.
To continue on with the lego theme, I made lasagna (which is sort of brick-shaped!) which was topped with homemade croutons that were cylindrical. The lasagna is actually super simple and mostly stolen from the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook (of which I have mixed feelings):
15 oz ricotta
1.25 c grated parm
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 cup fresh basil, minced
1 egg, lightly beaten
12 no boil lasagna noodles (I used HEB brand)
16 oz shredded mozzarella cheese
3ish c sauce
I made the sauce first which consisted of:
1 lb ground beef
s+p
1/4 c minced onions
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbs olive oil
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes (I used Contandina crushed tomatoes with herbs by accident)
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
1/2 tsp dried oregano, parsley, basil
Brown/season meat w/s+p, break up into little bits. In a sauce pan add in olive oil and onions and let them soften for like five minutes (or more if you realize that you've forgotten to mince the garlic), add in the garlic and let cook for 30 seconds and then add in both cans of processed tomatoes and whatever herbs you decide. Let that simmer for 15ish minutes or so and that could be a sauce in and of itself. Add the meat (try to drain off the fat) and then let that sit with the sauce for as long as possible.
To construct the lasagna:
preheat the oven to 375. combine ricotta+s+p+egg+1 c parm+basil mix thoroughly until combined. add in like 1/4-1/2 a cup of sauce to the bottom of whatever you're using to cook in. It should be rectangular and deepish. layer on three lasagna noodles side-by-side and spread some amount of the ricotta mixture on it. Add about 1/2 c of sauce over top. cover in mozzarella and do this layering bit twice more. take the remaining three noodles and layer over top the rest of the pasta, cover with the remaining sauce and then cover in the rest of the mozzarella and 1/4 c of parm. cover with foil and bake for 15 minutes. Take it out and then uncover it and bake for an addition 25ish minutes until everything is soft and the cheese is all melty.
I found that the easiest way to spread on the ricotta mixture to the noodles was to take the dry noodle in hand and then spread the cheese on it before putting it in the pan. It caused way too much grief to try to do it the other way.
As a side, I made garlic bread the Heidi Swanson way and at the very end, put 2 little half slices of fresh mozzarella on each piece so that they would look like lego things.
Everyone loved the lasagna and people that that the cakes were clever. I'm not so sure that they tasted all that good, but that wasn't really the point with these cakes. I made a flourless chocolate cake the other night which turned out "better", but that's for a later post.
18 July 2008
Mishmashes
I caught Colby looking through pages and pages of Tastespotting. Way cute.
I tried my hand at chili last night. That wasn't the greatest batch that's ever been made, but it was a lot better than Colby's for the very fact that I believe that ground beef should never be boiled.
I've recently begun experimenting with meatballs. The first batch came out pretty awful. No one has touched the leftovers and i was only able to manage one bowl before declaring that battle over. I've also started to experiment with limeade mixes because, well, I had limes and lime-juice-from-concentrate (yes, yes, I know... I inherited it from Kyle). The first batch turned out too sweet, or so complained Colby (last night). This morning it was mostly gone.
The one thing that I did intend to experiment with that needed no iteration was the guacamole, which consisted of 3 avocados because the ones at HEB were *tiny*, 1 jalepeno seeded and diced, 1 tsp cumin, 1.5ish tsp salt, some amount of black pepper, 1/2 larger-ish tomato seeded and diced, 1 clove minced garlic, 2 tbs minced onion, juice of 1 small lime. Mash mash mix mix nom nom
I tried my hand at chili last night. That wasn't the greatest batch that's ever been made, but it was a lot better than Colby's for the very fact that I believe that ground beef should never be boiled.
I've recently begun experimenting with meatballs. The first batch came out pretty awful. No one has touched the leftovers and i was only able to manage one bowl before declaring that battle over. I've also started to experiment with limeade mixes because, well, I had limes and lime-juice-from-concentrate (yes, yes, I know... I inherited it from Kyle). The first batch turned out too sweet, or so complained Colby (last night). This morning it was mostly gone.
The one thing that I did intend to experiment with that needed no iteration was the guacamole, which consisted of 3 avocados because the ones at HEB were *tiny*, 1 jalepeno seeded and diced, 1 tsp cumin, 1.5ish tsp salt, some amount of black pepper, 1/2 larger-ish tomato seeded and diced, 1 clove minced garlic, 2 tbs minced onion, juice of 1 small lime. Mash mash mix mix nom nom
07 July 2008
Patriotic Dinner Parties
Or not.
I love dinner parties. I decided, at mostly the last minute, to throw a dinner party for the 4th of July. It's not normally one of those holidays that I celebrate, but I mostly didn't have anything better to do and I hadn't had a dinner party at the apartment yet, so I was itching to host one again. My friend Chris is in from EL to visit us and so between the two of us, we put together quite a feast. Yay food.
It began with the impulse buying of a baguette to match with the tiniest bit of brie I had left from a previous impulse shopping trip. I kind of forgot about it, so it was good and crusty and so I cut it up into cubes and made croutons.
The Impetus:
most of a baguette, cubed
1/2 c EVOO
1/3 c grated parm cheese
2 tbs dried parsley flakes
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
mix the EVOO, cheese, parsley, garlic. toss the bread cubes in EVOO mixture. bake in an oven at 350 for awhile and turn half way. (I'd check after 5 minutes)
Austin is home to the world's largest urban population of bats. They mostly reside under the Congress St. bridge, so we went to watch one night. It was okay, but the real highlight was a trip to Six Flags over Whole Foods (which is apparently the flagship Whole Foods store for the brand.) which was just down the road. I sort of impulse shopped my way through, getting amazing tomatoes and some mozzarella. This led directly to bruschetta.
The Impulse
1 large salmonella-free tomato, seeded and diced
1/3 c finely chopped basil
3-4 tbs olive oil
1/4 tsp salt
1 clove garlic, pan-toasted, minced
1/3 c fresh mozzarella diced
toast the garlic with the skin on in a pan until it softens and the flavor mellows. mince. combine everything and toss it. let it sit for awhile so the flavors all combine.
The initial dinner party was at Kyle's and was mostly devoted to deep fried foods. Whilst completely delicious, it was, alas, quickly approaching one of the Seven Deadly Sins. To repent, we planned a "healthy" party themed "Atonement"; I suppose this was it:
The Penance
2 chicken breasts
some amount of italian-like dressing
marinate the chicken for like a day. pan sear.
lemon-shallot vinaigrette
(combine everything below, shake){
3/4 c extra virgin olive oil
3 tbs lemon juice
1 shallot, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp dried thyme
2 tbs Dijon mustard
}
some amount of spring greens
impetus croutons
Parmesan cheese
toss everything. eat.
In the day leading up to the party, I was browsing the good old inter-mo-tron and The Minimalist put out a list of 101 quick'n'inspired picnic dishes. This, of course, meant that there was more food blog reading to transpire, so after salivating over tastespotting for awhile, I found a pasta-salad recipe that included items that my guests wouldn't eat (broccoli) and I couldn't afford (pine nuts)... so that sort of morphed into a cous-cous dish with items that my guests would eat (asparagus) and I could purchase without signing away the rights to my first born child (pumpkin seed). This mostly involved some amount of asparagus being pan fried with garlic, shallots, and olive oil until it was just barely tender, toasting the pumpkin seeds and then adding all of that to plain cous cous (that I must admit was made from one of those instant box things.) We also oven roasted corn from Whole Foods because I have yet to see it in any capacity at the farmer's market.
The event concluded with dessert, which chris made, which was mostly the following:
1 bag frozen berry fruits
1/2 c water
2 tbs sugar, more to taste
splash lime juice
boil h2o, berries, sugar in a pot and let it thicken. taste. when it's like oh-holy-crap too sweet, add in a bit of lime juice and then when you add too much, add in a bit of sugar and let it thicken still. Serve over some cake like thing (I used my corn bread recipe) with home made whipped cream.
1 c heavy cream
2 tbs sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
mix until soft peaks form.
nom. nom. nom.
I love dinner parties. I decided, at mostly the last minute, to throw a dinner party for the 4th of July. It's not normally one of those holidays that I celebrate, but I mostly didn't have anything better to do and I hadn't had a dinner party at the apartment yet, so I was itching to host one again. My friend Chris is in from EL to visit us and so between the two of us, we put together quite a feast. Yay food.
It began with the impulse buying of a baguette to match with the tiniest bit of brie I had left from a previous impulse shopping trip. I kind of forgot about it, so it was good and crusty and so I cut it up into cubes and made croutons.
The Impetus:
most of a baguette, cubed
1/2 c EVOO
1/3 c grated parm cheese
2 tbs dried parsley flakes
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
mix the EVOO, cheese, parsley, garlic. toss the bread cubes in EVOO mixture. bake in an oven at 350 for awhile and turn half way. (I'd check after 5 minutes)
Austin is home to the world's largest urban population of bats. They mostly reside under the Congress St. bridge, so we went to watch one night. It was okay, but the real highlight was a trip to Six Flags over Whole Foods (which is apparently the flagship Whole Foods store for the brand.) which was just down the road. I sort of impulse shopped my way through, getting amazing tomatoes and some mozzarella. This led directly to bruschetta.
The Impulse
1 large salmonella-free tomato, seeded and diced
1/3 c finely chopped basil
3-4 tbs olive oil
1/4 tsp salt
1 clove garlic, pan-toasted, minced
1/3 c fresh mozzarella diced
toast the garlic with the skin on in a pan until it softens and the flavor mellows. mince. combine everything and toss it. let it sit for awhile so the flavors all combine.
The initial dinner party was at Kyle's and was mostly devoted to deep fried foods. Whilst completely delicious, it was, alas, quickly approaching one of the Seven Deadly Sins. To repent, we planned a "healthy" party themed "Atonement"; I suppose this was it:
The Penance
2 chicken breasts
some amount of italian-like dressing
marinate the chicken for like a day. pan sear.
lemon-shallot vinaigrette
(combine everything below, shake){
3/4 c extra virgin olive oil
3 tbs lemon juice
1 shallot, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp dried thyme
2 tbs Dijon mustard
}
some amount of spring greens
impetus croutons
Parmesan cheese
toss everything. eat.
In the day leading up to the party, I was browsing the good old inter-mo-tron and The Minimalist put out a list of 101 quick'n'inspired picnic dishes. This, of course, meant that there was more food blog reading to transpire, so after salivating over tastespotting for awhile, I found a pasta-salad recipe that included items that my guests wouldn't eat (broccoli) and I couldn't afford (pine nuts)... so that sort of morphed into a cous-cous dish with items that my guests would eat (asparagus) and I could purchase without signing away the rights to my first born child (pumpkin seed). This mostly involved some amount of asparagus being pan fried with garlic, shallots, and olive oil until it was just barely tender, toasting the pumpkin seeds and then adding all of that to plain cous cous (that I must admit was made from one of those instant box things.) We also oven roasted corn from Whole Foods because I have yet to see it in any capacity at the farmer's market.
The event concluded with dessert, which chris made, which was mostly the following:
1 bag frozen berry fruits
1/2 c water
2 tbs sugar, more to taste
splash lime juice
boil h2o, berries, sugar in a pot and let it thicken. taste. when it's like oh-holy-crap too sweet, add in a bit of lime juice and then when you add too much, add in a bit of sugar and let it thicken still. Serve over some cake like thing (I used my corn bread recipe) with home made whipped cream.
1 c heavy cream
2 tbs sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
mix until soft peaks form.
nom. nom. nom.
26 March 2008
Burgerama
So my new "experiment" is with ground beef, which I can't touch without gloves because obsessive compulsive disorder is an interesting phenomenon when it meets raw meat. Anywho. So I've been making various cheeseburgers with varying degrees of success. My latest is mixing in minced shallots, garlic, cheese, and bbq sauce. I used colby-jack the last time because *someone* doesn't like cheddar. Also, I find it ironic that Colby doesn't like Colby cheese. Just a thought. Anywho, Chris is donating some Gorgonzola to me, so maybe that will become a beef-y burgery meal. Or maybe it'll make Colby sick. We shall see.
Burgers! (this is mostly for you, Kyle. Also, I'd rather be writing this than doing homework, or other homework or wedding planning or other homework. Gah.)
makes 2 burgers.. but kind of small burgers because I don't have a black hole for a tummy.
1/2 lb ground beef (I use chuck)
2-3 cloves minced garlic (also, for the love of jebus, kyle, buy actual garlic and mince it yourself)
1/2 shallot minced
olive oil
salt, pepper
bbq sauce (sweet baby ray's was totally on sale at meijer)
heat oil in pan, add in garlic+shallots. when the garlic is starting to brown and the shallots are translucent-y take these out and put them in the GB... which is defrosted and stuff. Also, add in a squirt or two of bbq sauce and some cheese and mix thoroughly and put back in pan and make sure you watch to not start a grease fire. w00t. I should really get ketchup.
I'm thinking about making this a for-realsies blog as opposed to just a place for me to dump recipes to kyle.
Burgers! (this is mostly for you, Kyle. Also, I'd rather be writing this than doing homework, or other homework or wedding planning or other homework. Gah.)
makes 2 burgers.. but kind of small burgers because I don't have a black hole for a tummy.
1/2 lb ground beef (I use chuck)
2-3 cloves minced garlic (also, for the love of jebus, kyle, buy actual garlic and mince it yourself)
1/2 shallot minced
olive oil
salt, pepper
bbq sauce (sweet baby ray's was totally on sale at meijer)
heat oil in pan, add in garlic+shallots. when the garlic is starting to brown and the shallots are translucent-y take these out and put them in the GB... which is defrosted and stuff. Also, add in a squirt or two of bbq sauce and some cheese and mix thoroughly and put back in pan and make sure you watch to not start a grease fire. w00t. I should really get ketchup.
I'm thinking about making this a for-realsies blog as opposed to just a place for me to dump recipes to kyle.
05 March 2008
Flying Spaghetti Monsters sans the flying and monster-y bits
So I haven't written in this in forever. There's a good reason. Actually, no there's not; however, there are always a lot of excuses, including: I was sick for a month.
Things I've cooked since last time... pan fried chicken (not actually a departure from too much, but I learned the lovely process of dredging). Beef bolognese (lots of time, minimal effort, pleaser of crowds). Um... a lot of corn bread, almost weekly. Cupcakes (not from scratch). Stir-fry. Packaged hot dogs. I eat pork again.
So let's go with the bolognese and I'll update the Christmas stuff at some point so I can remember how to do things in the future.
Beef Bolognese
6 Tbs butter
6 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
3 c mire poix:
3/4 c celery, chopped fine
3/4 c carrots, chopped fine
1 1/2 c onion, chopped fine
3 cloves garlic chopped fine
salt + pepper
1 lb beef
1/3 lb pancetta cubed
1 1/3 c tomato paste
1 1/2 c whole milk
2 c red wine
2 2/3 c whole canned tomatoes, torn and seeded
4 c stock
handful of spices
mushrooms
So... melt the butter+oil and, when hot, add in the mire poix mixture and season with salt and pepper. I stole this from a NYT Magazine article on ragus. Simmer in the butter until the colors "brighten" (~20 minutes). Add in garlic and let it cook and get fragrant. Add in the beef+pancetta and let it brown (~25 minutes, longer if frozen). Add in the tomato paste, mix, and let it cook for 5 minutes. Add in the whole milk until the mixture really "takes it" in (10-15 minutes). Do the same with the red wine. This bit takes awhile. The key point is getting it all to reduce well. After that, add in the canned tomatoes, the stock, the mushrooms, and the spices. Mm mm spices. I used basil, thyme, oregano, and sage in dried form. Let it simmer for 3 hours. Stir it once in awhile. Perhaps at the end, you should skim the fat and stick blender it. This is if you're too impatient to let the tomatoes break down and such (I was). Eat-y eat-y yum yum.
Serve with garlic bread... which is made by chopping up garlic, melting butter+garlic in the microwave, letting it get hard-ish in the fridge, and then smearing on a loaf and baking it at 300 in the oven til when you feel like it.
Enjoy.
Things I've cooked since last time... pan fried chicken (not actually a departure from too much, but I learned the lovely process of dredging). Beef bolognese (lots of time, minimal effort, pleaser of crowds). Um... a lot of corn bread, almost weekly. Cupcakes (not from scratch). Stir-fry. Packaged hot dogs. I eat pork again.
So let's go with the bolognese and I'll update the Christmas stuff at some point so I can remember how to do things in the future.
Beef Bolognese
6 Tbs butter
6 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
3 c mire poix:
3/4 c celery, chopped fine
3/4 c carrots, chopped fine
1 1/2 c onion, chopped fine
3 cloves garlic chopped fine
salt + pepper
1 lb beef
1/3 lb pancetta cubed
1 1/3 c tomato paste
1 1/2 c whole milk
2 c red wine
2 2/3 c whole canned tomatoes, torn and seeded
4 c stock
handful of spices
mushrooms
So... melt the butter+oil and, when hot, add in the mire poix mixture and season with salt and pepper. I stole this from a NYT Magazine article on ragus. Simmer in the butter until the colors "brighten" (~20 minutes). Add in garlic and let it cook and get fragrant. Add in the beef+pancetta and let it brown (~25 minutes, longer if frozen). Add in the tomato paste, mix, and let it cook for 5 minutes. Add in the whole milk until the mixture really "takes it" in (10-15 minutes). Do the same with the red wine. This bit takes awhile. The key point is getting it all to reduce well. After that, add in the canned tomatoes, the stock, the mushrooms, and the spices. Mm mm spices. I used basil, thyme, oregano, and sage in dried form. Let it simmer for 3 hours. Stir it once in awhile. Perhaps at the end, you should skim the fat and stick blender it. This is if you're too impatient to let the tomatoes break down and such (I was). Eat-y eat-y yum yum.
Serve with garlic bread... which is made by chopping up garlic, melting butter+garlic in the microwave, letting it get hard-ish in the fridge, and then smearing on a loaf and baking it at 300 in the oven til when you feel like it.
Enjoy.
18 October 2007
Home cooked goodness
So if Kyle and I end up at the same grad school, we're going to room together and it's going to be amazing because we're going to come up with incredible culinary creations. We made a home-cooked meal the other day and it was amazing. I discovered how easy it is to fake like an adult and Kyle discovered that chicken doesn't have to be completely bland. Yay for instant mashed potatoes and meat rubs!
chicken
random meat rub
olive oil
2 tbs flour
2 tbs butter
2 c milk
broccoli
mushrooms
more butter
garlic salt
cheese (in this case, we used mild cheddar... shredded sharp cheddar seems better)
water
mashed potato mix
We made the chicken by covering it in some voodoo rub and then just putting it in the pan with a tiny bit of olive oil (just enough so that it wouldn't burn) and then cooking it until we didn't die. The broccoli with mushroom-cheese sauce bit was slightly harder, but still a learning experience. Boil the broccoli until it turns bright green, sautee mushrooms in butter and garlic salt (since they seemed so sad and plain) until they darken a bit, and then make the cheese sauce, but probably not in that order. I'm the queen of run-on sentences. Melt 2tbs of butter and then add flour whilst mixing vigorously. Add in warm milk and keep stirring until it thickens. Add in cheese. Preferably enough. Also, you probably want to halve the amount of sauce that we made because it was too much and the sauce ends up being too bland because there's just too much roux-like substance. Pour this over drained broccoli and tasty mushrooms. Finally, the hardest bit (at least for Kyle) the instant mashed potatoes: boil water, ADD TO DRY POTATO MIX, stir.
It all came out lovely and homecooked-like. It was kind of exciting. Also, we made cookies and those came out slightly too well done, but still okay. Someone needs to calibrate their oven. *ahem*. I think that I want to experiment with making my own rubs because it was a little voodoo. It was also delicious, so it's some sort of balance between being in control and not. It's probably also a waste of time, especially from now til November 3rd.
dun dun dun.
chicken
random meat rub
olive oil
2 tbs flour
2 tbs butter
2 c milk
broccoli
mushrooms
more butter
garlic salt
cheese (in this case, we used mild cheddar... shredded sharp cheddar seems better)
water
mashed potato mix
We made the chicken by covering it in some voodoo rub and then just putting it in the pan with a tiny bit of olive oil (just enough so that it wouldn't burn) and then cooking it until we didn't die. The broccoli with mushroom-cheese sauce bit was slightly harder, but still a learning experience. Boil the broccoli until it turns bright green, sautee mushrooms in butter and garlic salt (since they seemed so sad and plain) until they darken a bit, and then make the cheese sauce, but probably not in that order. I'm the queen of run-on sentences. Melt 2tbs of butter and then add flour whilst mixing vigorously. Add in warm milk and keep stirring until it thickens. Add in cheese. Preferably enough. Also, you probably want to halve the amount of sauce that we made because it was too much and the sauce ends up being too bland because there's just too much roux-like substance. Pour this over drained broccoli and tasty mushrooms. Finally, the hardest bit (at least for Kyle) the instant mashed potatoes: boil water, ADD TO DRY POTATO MIX, stir.
It all came out lovely and homecooked-like. It was kind of exciting. Also, we made cookies and those came out slightly too well done, but still okay. Someone needs to calibrate their oven. *ahem*. I think that I want to experiment with making my own rubs because it was a little voodoo. It was also delicious, so it's some sort of balance between being in control and not. It's probably also a waste of time, especially from now til November 3rd.
dun dun dun.
14 October 2007
Stir-Fry, part doo
So I had a busy week such that I have frozen chicken sitting in my refrigerator and a bunch of stuff that I had to throw out. Sadness. However, I did, indeed find some time to cook in Austin. I like cooking in other people's kitchens because they're not all cramped as hell. So yeah, I got to take over Kyle's kitchen for a night and we made yummy stir fry.
a bunch of carrots
a handful of mushrooms
a lot of broccoli
half a red bell pepper
chicken
dry seasoning stuff
olive oil
random stir fry sauce
Cut things, season chicken, dump in pan with olive oil, cook for a bit, add sauce, dump in veggies, add more sauce, cook until a) the chicken won't kill you and b) the veggies are no longer raw.
It was actually really tasty and way better than the stir fry I tried to make before. I think I'm getting over my fascination with balsamic vinegar... except for the "on salads" bit. Oh, and bread. Yay bread. I think this stir-fry sauce was what made it good, but it was a store brand (HEB) to a store that is located nowhere near Michigan. But it tasted a lot like the ginger-soy vinaigrette at Omi, which is, perhaps, the best salad dressing I've ever had.
a bunch of carrots
a handful of mushrooms
a lot of broccoli
half a red bell pepper
chicken
dry seasoning stuff
olive oil
random stir fry sauce
Cut things, season chicken, dump in pan with olive oil, cook for a bit, add sauce, dump in veggies, add more sauce, cook until a) the chicken won't kill you and b) the veggies are no longer raw.
It was actually really tasty and way better than the stir fry I tried to make before. I think I'm getting over my fascination with balsamic vinegar... except for the "on salads" bit. Oh, and bread. Yay bread. I think this stir-fry sauce was what made it good, but it was a store brand (HEB) to a store that is located nowhere near Michigan. But it tasted a lot like the ginger-soy vinaigrette at Omi, which is, perhaps, the best salad dressing I've ever had.
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