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.

2 comments:

Johnny Banana said...

Have you considered something like this for the cheese sauce?

I understand it's like way fancy, but you can cut it down to the basics if you need to.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_26813,00.html

Anyway, the problem with sharp cheddar, is that it's more likely to separate when you melt it.

Unknown said...

you know what I'm going to say...

add more salt (or some at all, rather) to the roux. 2 T flour, 2T butter, 1/2t salt, cook for a few minutes over low heat, then add 1 c milk, then cheese, then just cook till thick. More roux will add more flavor, also make it thicken faster.

Also, fungus is evil...