Risotto Part II

There might not have been a post about part one. This isn't actually part two; I think there may have been about five attempts, mostly with different recipes, but "part II" sounds better than "Part VII, I think," therefore this is entitled "Part II."

I haven't been keeping up with blogs, let alone writing one. This is mainly due to the fact that the only place that I have internet access is where I'm supposed to be continuing on in the extraction of my echelle spectra in IRAF, which is a horribly painful procedure that, surprisingly, a large percentage of people that read this know what I'm talking about. Yay for astronomy friends! Colby and I have mostly settled in, what with the furniture. The office is yet unfurnished, with the exception of a hutch that's supposed to be resting on a desk; however, the desk is currently in use as our dining room table. Who else has a dining room table with a special drawer for a keyboard? Oh, that's right... no one! That's because we're super cool (and by "cool", I mean "poor"...)!

Anywho, my new favorite method of making risotto:

2 c arborio rice
28 oz (2 cans) chicken stock
1/3 c white wine
2 tbs butter
2 cloves of garlic crushed (ooh, guess what, Kyle? You can't actually use your abomination here)
s+p to taste

heat the chicken stock in a pot with the crushed garlic cloves. different pan: melt butter, add in rice... let it cook until it looks toasted. Add in wine; stir til absorbed. add in the chicken stock like a half cup or so at a time, stirring until absorbed. Keep doing this forever, but don't put the garlic in. After it's all creamy and stuff take out the garlic (which should be super soft by now) and then mash it and mix it into the risotto. And then add lots of vegetables which neither Colby nor Kyle will eat. And by "lots of vegetables", i mean summer squash that's been boiled, tomatoes and spinach which is wilted in. Also, I added like two handfuls of parm. cheese at the end, along with some dried parsley and fresh basil. s+p. w00t.

See? It's a real recipe. Go me!

Hudson's on the Bend

Last night Colby and I made use of our Hudson's on the Bend Groupon deal. The coupon cost $50 for two three course tastings, which would normally be $100. Not a bad deal for one of Austin's most expensive restaurants. We made a reservation for 7:30 and were a bit late because we couldn't find the entrance to the parking lot. Oops. It didn't matter though, because they couldn't seat us right away anyway. They offered complimentary cocktails as we waited, but we declined. Actually, Colby declined and then the hostess ignored me.

When we were seated, the waiter asked if we were here for the Groupon deal. I thought it was pretty tacky. No, we're not 1000 years old and millionaires so, yes, it's likely that we're here for the Groupon, but let *us* tell you, don't assume. I suppose it didn't help that the biggest hipster douche evAr was sitting behind us with his scantily-clad girlfriend. Guilt by age-association, perhaps?

Anywho, first came the complimentary parmesan garlic bread in a tiny cast iron skillet.
The bread was surprisingly sweet. It was served with two flavored butters, one of which was some herb that I can't recall and the other was a chipotle tomato butter. The second one was really good and if you used enough you could ignore the faults of the bread, but the first one wasn't so memorable because it was overwhelmed by the sweetness.

We ordered the lemon saffron lobster risotto with asparagus tips in addition to the tasting menu and that came out next.
This was arguably the best part of the meal. The risotto was cooked perfectly, and the sweetness of the butter poached asparagus and the lobster balanced the lemon with the saffron tying everything together.

The first course came out. Colby got the salad, excuse me tossed garden greens, with a poblano-lime dressing. It was probably overdressed, but the bite I had was good. I got the chipotle lobster bisque, which came to the table disassembled. The waiter poured the bisque into the dish which contained a teeny tiny parmesan puff pastry "crouton" and a pitiful amount of lobster. It was a little awkward and unnecessary for a unremarkable soup.
My lasting impression of this soup was that it was terribly sweet, but still enjoyable.

The main course then came out: espresso rubbed smoked elk with green chile mashed potatoes and a pecan-encrusted ruby trout with like a corn-bread pudding.

The elk was served with a beurre blanc that the waiter brought to the table in a little pitcher which he then poured for us. Again, odd. The elk was, well, smokey. It was good and it wasn't at all what I was expecting. There are few meats I hate more than venison and I was expecting something like that. Instead it was beef-like in texture, but just tasted smokey. The beurre blanc was tasty and paired well with the elk. The green chile mashed potatoes were excellent. There isn't anything about that combination that's not absolutely delicious though, so... :)

The trout was served atop a mango jalapeno aioli and covered with an ancho sauce. The aioli was basically glorified tartar sauce and it was, out of all the out of place sweet aspects of the meal, the most oppressively sweet item. The ancho sauce, however, was very tasty and paired really well with the pecan crust. It's actually a shame that the trout was plated *on* the aioli because the skin+crust was actually really good. The trout was Colby's favorite part of the meal. The corn bread pudding was also sweet, but I guess that's not all that surprising.

The dessert course was next and Colby ordered the Chambord chocolate mousse with legs of fudge. I opted for the warm berry flambe atop homemade vanilla bean ice cream.
The mousse was served in a wine glass and the "legs of fudge" were just hot fudge smeared down the sides of the glass. It tasted like chocolate and that's all I can really say about it.

The ice cream was brought to the table in a martini glass with the berries in a little ramekin that the waiter then poured atop the ice cream. Pour count is up to 3... out of four courses. I guess five if you count the bread. Even still, if you were to hit .600 in a season, you'd be the MVP of the league. Except that pouring soups and sauces isn't the same thing as getting hits in baseball and it doesn't actually make things taste better. Pouring the berries certainly didn't help the fact that the ice cream was... icy. Ice cream should never have ice crystals in it. Either the ice cream wasn't properly chilled when it was made or, more likely, it was allowed to be melted and then re-frozen. Tsk, tsk.

Overall, it was a good dining experience; however, I don't think we'll be returning. Before the Groupon discount, it was a $180 meal for two people. I am totally willing to spend that much on a really special meal, but that meal better have some come-to-Jesus moments instead of instances that just make you go "oh, god".

Graduate applications are a pain

So in the past month, I've made risotto, chicken, some sort of dip, cheese straws, holiday cookies, milk chocolate (by accident), more bread, cream biscuits with cheese, roast lemon chicken, green beans, and mashed potatoes. Also a couple drop biscuits here and there. I've also been working on my application to grad school and that's kind of awful... so more updates once those are done.

Also

http://loltonbrown.blogspot.com

Arrivals

It's extremely possible to drive from Michigan to Texas in one day; however, it's extremely unpleasant to do so. Colby and I left Stockbridge, MI at 5:00 AM on Friday morning and arrived in New Boston, TX at 10:00 PM, a mere eighteen hours on the road later. (No, that's not a miscalculation: Texas is on central time.) We got up bright and early the next day to finish the trip. I got to drive from Dallas to Austin, which was only slightly terrifying. I only thought we were going to die about 10% of the time, though, so that's a plus.

Since then, we've acquired an apartment (okay, we sort of had that one in the bag), a couch, television (like the last CRT TV available in all of Texas), washer/dryer set, a rice cooker, and a new-found independence that's really frickin' weird. I'd describe it if I could, but it's almost straight from that pool scene in Garden State (when your home is not really your home), but different. I guess this is the beginning of the terrible ordeal known as "growing up".

The kitchen in my new apartment isn't by any means spectacular, but it's a major upgrade from my old apartment. I've finally got counter space. It's amazing how much simpler everything becomes when there is room to work. The inaugural meal was stir-fry with rice noodles and after that we've been good about trying to cook every day and whatnot.

The other night, Kyle came over and we had mustard chicken with pasta dish, which went as such:

marinate chicken (aka let it thaw in the fridge) in spicy brown mustard+olive oil+honey+lemon juice mixture with some salt and pepper. It should probably be 2:1:1:1, but that's mostly a guess on my part. Pan fry. Eat. The pasta sauce was just a roux with cheese+sauteed mushrooms, garlic, s+p which was poured over 1/2 lb of penne with some steamed broccoli. Yay for fake attempts at being healthy!

Today, we're going to the farmer's market in Triangle Park and later on, I'm making dinner. I'm thinking risotto with tomatoes, spinach, and yellow squash, with fresh corn. Yay summer!

Growing closer to growing up...(but not quite yet!)

I have a blog that I actually wrote out on paper with marker because I was stuck in the upper peninsula of Michigan for four days with my dad and there were no writing utensils suitable to the task except for that one marker. It's currently crumpled in a bag somewhere in my bedroom. That's Way. Too. Far.

I should be packing... or rather, I should have packed up already, but I'm lazy. Almost nothing trumps my summer laziness. It's a little scary. Tomorrow I drive to the Lansing area to wrap up some loose ends and say good-bye to Chris and then I'm off to Stockbridge for a day to pack up Colby's stuff (along with Colby!) and then we're off to Texas. The plan is to leave bright and early on Friday morning and drive from Michigan to Little Rock, AR and then drive from Little Rock to Austin. I guess I'll officially be a Texan on Saturday. Crazy.

More recipe entries to come in the future when I've settled into my new life as an almost married Texan, including fried risotto balls, corn bread revisited, chicken Kiev, and sweet potato fries.

Dinner Party Menu

I can't focus to save my butt right now, but that's probably because I have so much to do that I'm trying to do everything at once. It turns out that this doesn't work so well, so instead of making progress on any of my work-related things, I'm going to share the menu from the fantastic dinner party that we threw last Friday.


first course
apple - cheese pairing:
granny smith - blue cheese
Cox's orange pippin - moses sleeper
pink pearl - tomme crayuese
sweeTango - dante

One of the biggest reasons why I wanted to have this menu was to convince everyone to eat sweeTango apples. They're a cross between the Zestar and everyone's favorite, the honeycrisp. We got the cheeses from Antonelli's Cheese Shop in Hyde Park. That store is dangerous for waistlines and wallets. They were super awesome and helpful when we came in there with newbie cheese questions.

second course
chipotle sweet potato soup
fig, prosciutto, Lincoln Log goat cheese pizza
butternut squash gnocchi with a sage brown butter sauce

We also go the goat cheese for the pizza from Antonelli's. Lincoln Log is a bucheron-style cheese that's made at Zingerman's Creamery in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Ew. I mentioned Ann Arbor on my blog. My inner Spartan feels icky.

third course
roasted chicken with sage butter
mashed potatoes
risotto
green beans with shallots and lemon (recipe below)

I wanted to get fancy with the second course, but it's usually the simple foods that are the most delicious if they're well prepared hence the main course is pretty much a really nice home-cooked meal.

fourth course
pumpkin pie with sweet cream ice cream
maple cupcakes with a maple cream cheese frosting

This is the pumpkin pie that I've made a zillion times before and it never disappoints. I wanted to do something different than the standard whipped cream for the pumpkin pie, so we made sweet cream ice cream that was tasty, but didn't have competing flavors with the pie. The maple cupcakes were made from a recipe from the new book Baked Explorations by the same guys who wrote the Baked: New Frontiers in Baking book.

I'll be posting the recipes for most of the rest of the stuff later, but here's a really nice, simple way of making green beans less boring.

Green Beans with Shallots and Lemon (serves a lot... like 20 if you're doing a 4 course meal... so you might want to quarter this)

2 lbs green beans, trimmed, cut in half and blanched
1 large shallot (or two medium ones), chopped
3 cloves garlic, pressed
3-4 T olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
s+p

Heat up oil in a large frying pan. Add in shallots and cook until translucent and softened, about 5 minutes. Add in green beans and cook until warmed through. Make a small well in the center and add in garlic and stir until fragrant (~1 minute or less). Remove from heat and add lemon juice. Toss. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

I made a discovery!!

Chicken stock is my new favorite cooking device. My second new favorite cooking device is the wok that I stole from my dad. Chicken stock + wok == best stir-fry evAr. Well, maybe not ever, but you get the drift.

I made quinoa again, but this time I used chicken stock instead of water and oh boy, it was 8000 times better. I used the quinoa instead of rice again and it was an excellent addition to my stir-fry, which consisted of a bunch of vegetables that I was going to use then or throw out. Veggie stir-fry is becoming my new default because chicken takes too long and I'm lazy. I maintain that it's healthier than fast food.

So at the grocery store, I bought a couple cans of chicken stock. My new game is going to be to see what all I can incorporate it into. I also got asparagus. Stoked about that! I'm thinking of trying risotto soon, but I couldn't find arborio rice. Sadness. Maybe later this week, I'll find it.

Other new discovery... the cookie recipe I was using is better if you forget the recipe and run out of vanilla. I think the new best way of dealing with it is to use two eggs (instead of 1 egg + 1 yolk) and to half the amount of vanilla. I made them again by actually following the recipe and was a bit disappointed; however, my friend Dave decided that he likes the actual recipe better. So I guess experimentation (i.e. forgetting the recipe) is the best.

more menu madness and tortilla soup redux

So last week I went to this fabulous dinner, but I never ended up posting pictures or a review because life got busy. Not soul-crushingly busy, but "why isn't my science making sense" busy. I'll post about it this week, though. As for now, I just wanted to post another set of menus. We've been eating in a whole lot lately, so I'm trying my hardest to keep it interesting.

For lunch this week, I made tortilla soup. I've made it before, but in the most horrible cheater-y way possible.

Tortilla Soup Part Dos:
4 chicken thighs
15+32 oz chicken stock
1 Tbs olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 large celery stalk, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, crushed
4 jalapenos, seeded and chopped
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
1 can chipotle peppers in adobo, chopped
2+ T adobo sauce
1 ear of corn, kernels stripped and "milked"
1 zucchini, chopped
0.5 c tortilla chips (or you could use corn tortillas.)
juice of 1 lime
oregano, cumin, s+p

In a large sauce pan, place chicken thighs, 15 oz of chicken stock, and water to cover. Bring to a simmer until the chicken is cooked through. Shred said chicken meat and reserve. Put the bones, skin, bits of chicken still stuck to the bone back in the pot and continue to simmer. In a dutch oven or stock pot, saute onion, carrots, and celery and about a tsp of salt in olive oil until the veggies are softened. Add in jalapenos, garlic, and whatever amount of cumin that you're using and stir until fragrant (like 30 seconds). Add in canned tomatoes, adobo sauce (which is hot! so adjust accordingly) and oregano and let that cook for ~10 minutes or so to let the flavors meld. At this point, turn your attention back to the stock and skim the fat off the top. Add the skimmed, strained stock to the soup, as well as the additional chicken stock, and crushed tortilla chips and bring back to a simmer. Add in the corn and zucchini and cook until soft. Add in lime juice. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with cheese, sour cream, avocado, more lime.

Monday
lunch: chicken tortilla soup
dinner: old bay shrimp, mushroom* risotto, green beans

Tuesday
lunch: chicken tortilla soup
dinner: mustard dill salmon, wilted spinach+roasted garlic, quinoa

Wednesday
lunch: quinoa+veggies
dinner: Slow-cooker Texas chili

Thursday
lunch: chili
dinner: habanero chicken, jalapeno mac'n'cheese, carnival squash

Friday
lunch: chili
dinner: homemade gravlax, prosciutto, goat cheese, capers, olives, crostini

*The mushroom part will be sauteeing a bunch of wild mushrooms that need to get eaten and then the addition of truffle oil at the end that I really need to use up.

Oops

Okay, so I haven't updated in forever, but I have intentions of updating again soon. Tomorrow looks like "experiment with polenta" day and also, I have a new cornbread recipe that I'd like to test out. I suppose I just got super busy, but the problem is that I'll make something and it'll last me a week because I'm one person and my stomach is not a bottomless pit. I made curry again, this time with non-light coconut milk and saw almost no difference. I did, however, impress one person enough. I also made mashed potatoes for the family thanksgiving with brie, garlic, and fresh basil. Those came out nicely too and this time I roasted the garlic which was different and made my aunt's house smell yummy. I'm currently campaigning to get Christmas Eve dinner and cook it with my brother. I'm thinking roasted chicken with risotto. Any thoughts?

Hackbright Day 16: Sessions + More Flask

When I transferred high schools way back in 2001, I joined all the extra curricular activities that I could in order to meet people and make friends. Some of them turned out to be life-changing (Hi, Ms. Maciolek!) and some of them turned out to be a huge waste of time (that would be you, softball). One of the things that sort of fell in between those extremes was the literary journal *thing* that I did one year. One of the first orders of business was to pick a name for it. My suggestion was "Sessions". They ended up going with "Harbinger". Speaking to the incredible content of my character, I basically lost interest once my name wasn't chosen.

Fast forward 13 years, and now I finally get to talk about sessions.

Sessions, in this context, are about storing information on the server side of a web app. In Flask, the session is a dictionary that you fill with information like, for instance, the user name. For websites where you might buy something, everything you'd add to a shopping cart would be in the session dictionary.

Our assignment today was to make a webapp. The skeleton for the app was already in place, but we needed to add things to it to make it functional. We ended up using Flask, the python framework for web apps, SQL, html + css, and jinja (which is a way to inject a little bit of python into the html). It was a lot of fun, actually, and we were able to make a functional app with a log in page and an account page.

I had a meeting with my advisor today and at his suggestion, I'm going to try to work on a project on my own to create an app, mostly to practice all these new skills that we've been talking about in class.

apt-get install ROBOJULIACHILD 

So my intent is to create a recipe-generating bot that is based on a few different recipe "structures" and will then randomly select things that would go with it. I've sort of sketched out an idea of how to implement it. The working name is cook roulette, but robojuliachild is my favorite. My biggest thought is to make the recipe structure a class and then have the different kinds of recipes (e.g., quiche, risotto, etc.). This works because I'm probably not going to make anything that's too fancy, but doing this with classes makes it modular so I could come back to this easily. What's also nice about this is that I can get more experience with classes without having to go back to that horrible game exercise. (I should definitely probably revisit that at some point.) I'm thinking that it would be interesting to add baking recipes to this because you could calculate the required ingredient amounts based on the ph of different ingredients.

We also talked about how the internet works and now I think I want to run my own server to deploy my own apps. And then I brought up cookie clicker because I'm totally a winner like that.