Italian Lessons

Someone told me that I should blog more. Considering that I posted only 23 times last year (which is the lowest since the first year I had my blog, which was started in August), that's not such a tall order. In lieu of the traditional new year self-flagellation, I want to achieve these two goals, listed in order of importance:

1. Spend quality time with Ramona and Colby
2. Finish my thesis

I don't know how this blog will fit into these goals, but I hope that it will provide an outlet for me and to help make 2014 a lot less horrible than 2013.

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.

Thanksgiving Recapped

I celebrated my first Thanksgiving away from home and it made me realize two things: a) my friends are wonderful and b) I really want a *real* dining room table instead of the card table that we inherited from Kyle. I sent an open invitation to the department and had about 12 people show up. It was the perfect size for the party and now I'm looking forward to planning a miniature white-elephant exchange Christmas party.

I took a lot of recipes from all over and modified them to fit my tastes/pantry. I made the homemade rolls from the pioneer woman cooks, which were tasty if not a bit heavy. Turkey, of course, with stuffing a la Chris complete with breakfast sausage and sour dough bread from the farmers market. We also had the Alton Brown version turkey and green bean casserole (although, I didn't have the patience or time to make my own french fried onions). Both came out wonderfully, and the turkey was made even better with cranberry apple chutney. There were also mashed potatoes with roasted garlic (along with plenty of cream and butter) and we mashed sweet potatoes from the farmer's market with cream, butter, smoked sweet paprika, and just a hint of cayenne. We also had apple and pumpkin pies which were made courtesy of my new pink KitchenAid stand mixer. Way tasty and easy too! :) In all, it was very successful and I'm looking forward to winding down the rest of the semester and going home.

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! :)

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.

Una tasa de cafe

Coffee from Sparty's is an abomination to taste buds everywhere.

Also, is it wrong to want to seduce people with food? I guess at this point, I mostly appease Colby with chocolate when he's grumpy, but I want to be good enough to seduce. I feel like if I had worked more at baking well, this skill might have come to me by now. Instead, I wanted to focus on cooking and for the most part, it's edible and fit for consumption. le sigh. I suppose I could try serving foods that have been traditionally known as aphrodisiacs, but I don't like oysters. This could be because my dad has always called them "snots on the half shell." This also may explain why I hate pimento stuffed green olives (which were deemed as "monkey eyes"... ass.) I am very highly caffeinated at this point, because, even as disgusting as Sparty's can be, it's not nearly disgusting enough for me to believe that I can actually stay awake and write a paper on rotationally induced slow mixing in F and G disk stars. Or at least, part of a paper.

In sad news, I will just miss the Okemos farmers' market. I'm kind of way sad about that because I <3 farmers' markets because you seriously can't beat the produce. Oh well. Also, I'm totally looking forward to having (I hope) year-round farmers' markets in Austin. Also, there are apparently TWO Whole Foods in Austin! Yay organic! In other someone related news, I was called a yuppie today.

and finally, story of my life, minus the Poe.

::addendum::

I just ate blue box. I'm kind of ashamed, but in my defense, I did mix in chipotle salsa. Also, in my defense, I'm now experiencing extreme acid reflux, so maybe I've learned my lesson.

This has no recipe, but thought I should share

I made the "alfredo" sauce, which turned out really well. Added some broccoli as well. Yummy! Also it definitely was a one bowl meal which is for sure my favorite kind. :) I hope that we're not one of those couples that make people sick to watch. Anywho:

(01:10:40 AM) Julie: I am the master of cooking things I can't eat.
(01:10:47 AM) Chris: :)
(01:10:50 AM) Julie: oh my god
(01:10:51 AM) Chris: what did you make?
(01:10:52 AM) Julie: so much pain.
(01:10:58 AM) Julie: like an alfredo sauce
(01:11:10 AM) Chris: yeah, that is like the very definition of "Not for you"
(01:11:42 AM) Julie: which was 1 c cream, 1/2 c whole milk, camembert, mozzarella, a bit of parm, some s+p and garlic
(01:12:26 AM) Chris: wow...so the s+p+garlic then?
(01:12:29 AM) Chris: parm is probably ok
(01:12:39 AM) Chris: but milk/cream/soft cheese/soft cheese?
(01:12:43 AM) Julie: lol
(01:12:43 AM) Julie: yes
(01:13:05 AM) Chris: it's like you're new at this
(01:13:20 AM) Julie: but it was *so tasty*

Refrigerator Pie: Part Doo

I'm pretty sure that quiche is a very amazing breakfast food, even if it is 2:40 PM. I set out last night to do laundry and make a spinach-artichoke quiche, but it turns out that artichokes are a) hard to deal with and b) fucking spiny, screw that. It became a spinach+mushroom+garlic quiche. It should be noted that Julie + wilted spinach == bff returns true.

two large handfuls of flat leaf spinach destemmed and washed
2 tsp? of olive oil
2 tbs butter
1/2 thing of roughly chopped mushrooms
mozzarella
colby jack
3 big CLOVES of garlic
s/p/garlic salt

put a little bit of olive oil (like 1 tsp?) into a pan and make sure that you coat the entire bottom. put in spinach... turn turn wilt wilt. season with salt. Try not to eat all of that spinach whilst you're cooking because seriously... you <3 spinach. Add in the 2 tbs butter (this may be excessive and it was kind of like I was boiling the mushrooms in butter) and when it melts, add in the mushrooms and season with garlic salt + a bit of kosher s/p at the end. More on that later. Anywho, take out the mushrooms when they're done. Add in a bit more olive oil, put in the minced garlic and fry until they start to look light brown. add the spin+mush+garlic to a pie crust making sure it's well-mixed and there is space for cheese+royale mixture. Add in handfuls of cheese at your own discretion. Pour in the royale (2 eggs + 1 c heavy cream beaten together) making sure the mixture sinks to the bottom. Sprinkle some kosher salt over top of the pie. Into the oven at 350 for ~45 minutes.

So the quiche came out pretty okay. The garlic didn't come out exactly as I had hoped because apparently Chris' stove runs at 5778 K. Still... if you heat up the garlic slower, it should be better, not bitter. Also, this is the thing about garlic salt. I like using it with mushrooms because I feel like mushrooms pick up the flavor better with garlic salt because it's super concentrated granular garlic. Also salty. Anywho, tonight looks like a good night to try to make the poor man's alfredo sauce, since i have lots of leftover cream and Colby's back in town. Yay heart disease!

Also, the next time, I'm going to look for either a better pie crust or a crust recipe because the crust, I feel, is too sweet. Puff pastry would make this kind of excellent, but again with the heart disease.

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.

Mushroom Stuffing+Mushroom Pasta

Hokay. So what I'm supposed to be doing right now is a literature search on the observed radii of white dwarfs, but it turns out that that's boring and even though they were stars, they're dead and therefore dead to me. Anywho, Easter was an interesting weekend beginning with horribleness, but ending with a lovely pot-luck dinner party which required some sort of dish. Yay for mushrooms.

I made a mushroom stuffing that turned out *okay*. I think there were too many bread crumbs. Also, I would have liked stronger notes of garlic, shallots and something to "freshen" the taste. Anywho recipe:

portabello mushrooms, roughly chopped
shiitake mushrooms, de-stemmed, roughly chopped
1c bread crumbs (next time, I'd probably use like.. 2/3 c, maybe even less)
6 cloves garlic
1/2 shallot
lemon
butter
olive oil
oregano
Parmesan
fresh basil
salt, pepper

mince 3 of the cloves of garlic, all of the shallots and sautee them in oil. Add in the mushrooms, about 2 tbs butter, and some salt. cook cook cook. when it's almost done, add in the ripped up basil to wilt+flavor and some oregano. Add in a bit of lemon as well also, pepper and more salt. Remove from heat

put in 3 tbs butter + bread crumbs + remaining garlic in the pan + olive oil (because fat is tasty). This is to "toast" the bread crumbs, and is probably ill-advised. Maybe you don't want to do this step and maybe you want to put in all the garlic and butter at once and double the amount of shallots. So combine all this in a bowl, as well as a good dusting of grated parm cheez and mix. yay? Squeeze on some more lemon to make it a brighter flavor. I know that this could be really tasty, but I don't know how. I actually think that this would actually be pretty awesome with couscous instead. Maybe I have my answer.

Anywho, what was kind of interesting about this is that I made something super similar on Thursday night. Chris suggested the mushroom dish. I decided that it was going to be a stuffing. Sometimes I'm afraid that all my food tastes the same. Woo hoo insecurities creeping into my cooking. So yeah, on Thursday:

2/3 box pasta (not long noodles, I used rotelle)
1/2 tray pre-washed, cut white mushrooms roughly chopped (yes, I'm lazy)
3 cloves garlic
1/2 poblano pepper, roasted, skinned, chopped
1/2 shallot
some amount of lemon
parm cheese
mozzarella cheese
butter, oil
fresh basil, torn
salt/pepper/garlic salt

boil boil boil pasta. sautee garlic, shallots in oil. Add in butter, mushrooms. Add in pepper, lemon, salt+pepper, garlic salt. stir stir stir. Add in mixture to hot, drained pasta. Add in cheese... mix mix mix. I think that one turned out better. Also, it turned into a one bowl dinner which is pretty much amazing and my favorite thing ever

So I guess I was inspired by the pasta dish and is probably the reason why it'd work better with couscous. Also, the reason why i used 1/2 a shallot for the second dish is because I used the other half earlier. Heh. I usually have them on hand because i hate hate hate onions, so they're nicer (for me) to have to eat around.

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.

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

Pumpkin Pie (revised)

So in the holiday spirit, Chris hosted pie-stravaganza and it was amazing. I made a pumpkin pie and he made the apple pie and there was much happiness and rejoicing. A bunch of the grad students + Katie went bowling, but whilst they were chucking 12 lb gutter balls, we were hard at work in the kitchen.

This pie was particularly rewarding because I made the crust my own damn self. Also, the exact amounts could be off, so I'm going to have to check with Chris to see if it's right.

Crust:

1 1/2c flour
9 tbs cold butter
1/2 tsp salt
3-4+ tbs cold water

Cut the butter into the flour until it appears to be a crumb-like texture. Begin to form it into a ball and add water in order to make it stick together. The amount of water varies as the humidity varies, so good luck. Wrap wad of dough into a ball and put in the fridge for 20 minutes.

Take the dough out and roll it until it's ~1/4 in thick/large enough to suffice as a pie crust. Place the dough into the container and press it into the corners making sure that there's enough dough around the edges where the wall of the pie tin meets the bottom. Prick the bottom with a fork. Cut off the excess dough and then you can make "pie leaves", which essentially boil down to creating an edge crust for the pie. I cut out stars and moons because I'm sweet like that, but it's kind of unnecessary if you just leave enough edge on the pie. Put back into the fridge for 20 minutes.

Take it out and place pie weights in the center of the pie and pre-bake for 12 minutes at 400 F. Take it out again and then take off the pie weights and put back into the oven for 6-8 minutes or until the pie looks goldenish. If you do it right, the crust should lie flat against the bottom. If not, no worries, the weight of the filling should be enough to compensate and if not, then who cares? It's pie. Everyone loves pie.

Filling (do whilst things are in the oven or something)

2 c pumpkin filling
1 c heavy whipping cream
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
4 tbs corn syrup
1/2 c brown sugar, packed
2 eggs, beaten (and take out the albumen!)

I think this is all there is to it. Essentially all you do is mix thoroughly and hard. Apparently there is an advantage to incorporating air into the mix.

Pour the filling into the crust and bake at 375 for ~40 minutes or until the crust had browned and the filling appears to be set. Pumpkin pie is best served the next day after it's had time to set.

So this was from a recipe from a cookbook that I don't own. I think in the future, I'm going to be more careful/anal about how I handle the dough and I'm going to play around with the pumpkin pie spice. It was good, though and pie-stravaganza was a success.

Mac'n'Cheese remix

So in the past month, I've made mac'n'cheese twice. I still have one lonely blue box sitting in my apartment, but I have a feeling that that's going to be sitting there for quite some time. Go me!

The roux that I had made in my previous attempts had never been that great until I was prompted (thank you Joe) to add salt. This made things *way* better. Also, the inclusion of non-skim milk probably helped. So my final mac'n'cheese sauce base looks like this:

2 tbs butter
2 tbs flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 c milk
1/3 bag of cheese

And basically the only instructions are to add those things in the aforementioned order and keep stirring. The first time I made the mac'n'cheese, the cheese mix that I got turned out to be reduced fat and I didn't realize this until I tasted it and was so so sad. Salt is amazing and I used that to cover it all up. The second time I did this, it was with the intention of feeding it to someone else without poisoning them, so I made extra super sure that it wasn't low fat. I also added in almost an entire block of edam. It was really good, but it's mostly going to waste now because I can't eat it without getting pretty sick. Yay lactose intolerance. I learned my lesson from the first time and I now have a can of plain bread crumbs too. So it's add, stir, put cheese sauce over pasta, add more cheese to pasta, sprinkle LIGHTLY (I had issues with this once) with bread crumbs, and place into a 500 degree oven for 7-8 minutes.

I think I'm finally learning how to cook...

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

So I haven't updated in awhile because I've been battling a bout of bronchitis for a week and finally got the gumption to go to the doctor. That was a lot of alliteration; I'm immensely proud. (And awesome assonance!) Anywho, I haven't really cooked anything new or different as a result. Also, no one cares whether or not I update because no one reads this.

So the only really "new" thing that I've attempted of late was a chocolate chip cookie recipe that I stole from Chris which was modified with complaints. I baked them three times over the summer, with varying results. I guess I bake best unwatched. Or something.

2c + 2 tbs. flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
12 tbs. butter, softened
1 c packed brown sugar
1/2 c granulated sugar
1 large egg + 1 yolk
2 tsp. vanilla extract
lots of chocolate chips

Set oven to 325 F, grease baking pans (or be lazy and use parchment paper)

Whisk together flour, salt, and baking soda. In a separate bowl, combine brown sugar, granulated sugar, and butter until creamy. Beat eggs and add vanilla. Add mixture to the sugarbutter and then add in dry ingredients in parts. Add in chocolate chips.

Take 1/4c of the dough and roll into a ball. Rip the ball in half and smash the two smooth ends together. It should look like the world's saddest snowman.

Bake for 15-18 minutes, until the bottom is golden brown and the tops still look like they need a little more time. You can rotate in the middle of the bake time, but this is for people who aren't lazy.

So I was studying for the GRE with Colby and mostly felt completely inept, so we decided that it was cookie time. We made a half batch (which was hard with the eggs...), but they turned out to be pretty decent and I foisted them upon my physics friends.

Corn Bread

This one was stolen from Chris. Again. Also, I made it a couple days ago, but I've been busy... not that anyone reads this. Mostly, I wanted to log it for posterity... or something.

And I also managed to take a picture here because I had my camera out and I was uploading all of the pictures from Hawaii onto my computer. There are some pretty awesome pictures from Keck and Mauna Kea and Volcanoes National Park.


1 c flour
1/3 c sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tbs baking powder
1 1/2 c corn meal
1 1/2 c milk
2 eggs
14 tbs butter, melted


Sift together flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder. Add the cornmeal and make a well in the center. Whisk together eggs, milk, and butter. Try not to freak out when the butter gets solid in the milk... just keep whisking. Pour into a WELL GREASED bread pan and throw into an oven for 45ish minutes at 400 F and try not to get butter all over the bottom of your oven. It's kind of a pain to clean up.

It actually turned out a lot more savory than I had anticipated, but in a good butter-soaked sort of way. I also didn't grease the pan well enough. Oops. It's okay, though. The bottom was all crispy and delicious anyway.

Balsamic Chicken Stir Fry

This one didn't work at all. It sounded good in theory... chicken+balsamic vinegar+garlic+fresh basil, but most unfortunately it never came together.

chicken
glug of olive oil
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup chicken stock
2 tablespoons sugar
1 clove garlic, crushed
several basil leaves
mushrooms
broccoli
zucchini

Create a marinade with the vinegar, chicken stock, sugar, garlic, and basil. Let the chicken sit for 20 minutes. Pour the marinade into a small saucepan and let it reduce and then cook the chicken in a separate pan with the olive oil. Add the reduced sauce and veggies+fungi. Cook until you will no longer die of food poisoning. Serve over rice

So I suspect that what didn't work was a combination of me being a subpar cook and the fact that my ingredients weren't the *best*. I didn't have chicken stock, so I ended up using soup mix instead. Oops. I should get on getting a box of actual chicken stock. I also think that my love of balsamic vinegar extends only to the salad world. I foisted the meal upon one of my friends who thought it was fine and, "tasted like stir-fry."

I was all excited about getting the basil and zucchini. The MSU Organic Farm club was having a sale outside of the Aud today and I picked up a nice zucchini and some nice basil for two dollars. I was all happy about it. The basil will probably become part of something pasta like tomorrow, as I have it and I have no more meat. Sadness. I'm trying the curry again soon. I have Thai basil, garlic, and I'm going to get actual chicken stock next time, damnit.