Catching Up

Hello! How are you today? I realized that I've been terribly neglectful of my little blog for a good long while now, and no, I don't really have an excuse for it. What, you want to know what I've been doing that was so important it took me away from my musings? Well, I guess if you insist...

You see, we have Netflix instant streaming service to our Blu-Ray player, and we found a show we liked (but never knew when it was on) had become available recently...all 100 episodes. Yep. I've been putting off doing something I really enjoy - writing - to watch Numb3rs. I'm not proud of it, but there it is! I also haven't been feeling well, and as a result, I haven't been much in the mood to cook. Since the whole purpose of this thing is to share my adventures in the kitchen, well, it seemed a little disingenuous to write when I'm not cooking. See the logic? No? Look closer - it's totally there. 

In any event, I have done some cooking...I mean, we have to eat once in a while, right? I've made a lot of simple stuff, and a few that were a little more involved. Since no one really cares about the simple ones (I'm talking grilled cheeses, hot dogs, and other unhealthy but delicious nibbles), I'll just write about a couple of the good ones. 

For starters, I have to give Costco a shout-out for the first one. We went in looking for steaks, and in a first for our family, that's exactly what we left with - one package of beef and nothing more. Trust me, this is no small feat. Anyway, we bought a four-pack of rib-eyes with the intent of making a couple that night, and a couple later. However, we are little (not like "little person" little, but just...little) and we don't need that much beef in one sitting; our solution is to just make one and chop it in half after it cooks. By doing that, we got a $25 pack of steak to last through four meals...since we'd spend that much on one meal at a steakhouse, I'm pretty happy with the savings. I'm cheap, ya see? Geez, why am I blathering about the cost? Okay...back on topic. 

So that night when we got home I got out my trusty mortar and pestle to smoosh together some herby seasonings: fresh rosemary, garlic, lemon pepper and a little kosher salt. I rubbed it all up on both sides of the steak and let it sit for a bit while I got the broiler going. Fifteen minutes later (5 minutes per side, with 5 minutes resting time), we were ready to eat. We had simple sides of cottage cheese and homemade bread, and enjoyed a very tasty meal. The meat was awesome - it was perfectly marbled to make it tender, but without much connective tissue. Yum. I love me a good cut of beef cooked to medium rare. :)

Okay...what next? Let's see - I also made a (winner winner) chicken dinner that turned out pretty well. I fried up some thighs in my cast iron skillet, but I tried to jazz it up a little more than just your traditional fried chicken. I tossed a bunch of seasonings in with the flour (I can't remember exactly what I used, but I know there was salt, lemon pepper, maybe some chipotle powder...and other stuff), and finely chopped some garlic to add to the oil for frying. I think my thought process was that the garlic would add another dimension of flavor to the breading, but it doesn't seem like the best idea in retrospect. What I didn't consider when I had that brilliant thought is that the bits of garlic BURN. Duh. 

Anyway, I fried them for a short time to get a good crisp on the breading, then I threw the pan into the oven to finish cooking. After the thighs hit the right temp, I drained them on paper towels while I made a sauce from the bits stuck to the pan by adding a couple glugs of red wine and simmering over medium heat. I'll admit that I wasn't terribly impressed with the dish, but Ben said it was really good (bless his heart). At least now I know what not to do next time, right?

Just one more, I promise! I want to get it all out there now - who knows when I'll get on here again, right?? :)

Finally, my mom was going to be staying with us after my nephew's birthday party, and I wanted to make a nice little breakfast the next morning. Of course, it had to be something pretty easy - she wakes up a little earlier than we do, and I wanted something fast but different than the usual bacon and eggs. So, I went to my new breakfast stand-by: French toast bread pudding with spiced pears. Oh my, it's so tasty and so easy! I like it because you prepare the bulk of it the night before so you can just roll out of bed and throw it in the oven - I'm a little fuzzy in the morning, so the less I have to do the better. 

The first step is to rip up a loaf of challah bread and toss the pieces into a casserole dish. Then you whip together eggs, sugar, milk and vanilla extract and pour it over the bread, making sure it's all saturated and lovely.

When it's combined perfectly, you just press some tin foil down over the top of it (with the foil pressed onto the top of the pudding) and throw it in the fridge. The next morning, just pop it in a cold oven, set the temp and pull off the foil halfway through. How easy is that?!? The spiced pears present a little more of a challenge, but only because wielding a knife within a half hour of waking is dangerous for someone like me. Basically, it's just chopped pears sauteed in butter with nutmeg, cinnamon and a pinch of sugar til they're soft, then simmered in maple syrup. Ooohhh, if you like French toast, you'll love this. :) Of course, I never manage to take a picture of the final product given my, oh, let's call it "special" state in the morning, but luckily my good friend Sarah posted a pic in her blog here. Y-U-M. You should try it. Really. 

So I think that's about all I have for now...I have many more recipes I want to try, and hope to spend more quality time in the kitchen soon. Of course, we still have 40 episodes of Numb3rs left, so... :)

Take care!

When Failure is Success in Disguise

Hello! How are you today? I hope it’s spring where ever you are – our local weather teased us with some warmth, then threw a curveball in the form of a little snow storm last week. At least it’s starting to melt, and we can see the grass again!

So, let’s get right to it! One of the things I love about trying new recipes is the fact that sometimes, nothing goes quite right; it’s those times where I get creative and come up with something even better than planned. This past weekend, I tried to make coney sauce for the 5,000 hot dogs I bought at Costco (yes, I went when I was hungry, and no, that’s not a good idea). I thought I would play around with the recipe a little by using half ground beef and half ground bison…no special reason, really, except that the two packages were on display next to each other at the store and it seemed like a good idea. Of course, when we got home I realized I didn’t have all the spices I needed, but figured it was no big deal since I have a pantry full of options.

Turns out it is a big deal! I used the chipotle chile powder instead of regular chili powder (apparently there’s a difference, according to Alton Brown), and fudged some other spices to make up for what I was missing, and it was SPICY! I like a little heat in my food, but only to a certain point; I like to enjoy a meal, not suffer through it. Anyway, I tried to adjust the heat level by taking out a lot of the … I don’t know … broth, I guess, and adding in more water to make up the difference, but it was still crazy hot. So what’s a girl to do? Well, my solution was to add another teaspoon of cinnamon and a few hearty pinches of – wait for iiiit – sugar (I like to use Sugar in the Raw…it reminds me of Europe). That definitely helped the heat factor, and so did the can of tomatoes Ben suggested I throw in to dilute the spice.

The end product was this big simmering pot of meat and juice and onions and canned tomatoes. Sure doesn’t sound like the coney sauce I know and love! However, it was still delicious, so we threw it on some dogs and went to town. It didn’t end up being the meal I expected, but it was still good (and taught me what to do next time!). So where’s the happy ending? Well it’s right here: it didn’t make a very good coney sauce, but it was an AMAZING chili. As it sat in the refrigerator overnight, everything came together and had a little flavor party that wrapped up just in time for dinner. We added some shredded cheddar, a little salsa and sour cream, and enjoyed it a heck of a lot more than we had when it adorned a hot dog. Yum.

But back to the night I was making what I thought was coney sauce…I was being adventurous, so I tried another new recipe (this came out of my cast iron cookbook) for dessert. It’s called Sauteed Bananas in Rum, and involved butter, rum, brown sugar, bananas and ice cream. It’s really easy to burn make – you basically make a rum-caramel sauce in the skillet, add the bananas and cook quickly, then serve it over ice cream. It didn’t take very long, and even though the house smelled like burnt sugar all night, Ben said he loved it. :) I keep him around for a reason.

That’s about it for now – I’ll keep trying to find new things to make (and the time to make them!), but might take a couple days’ break right about now. I was lopping off a hunk of bread dough with a serrated knife so we could have crusty bread with dinner tonight, and cut through the tip of a nail into the nail bed. This is after I nicked myself twice while chopping onions for that ridiculous chili…

Take care, and be safe (especially when using sharp kitchen utensils)!

Adventures in Boule

Hello! How are you today? It was an overcast, rainy day here, but let me tell you a little secret - I loved it! I love this time of year; the snow is starting to melt, the rain starts to fall, and it really starts to smell like spring. Love love love it. Don't you? I did have a nasty migraine today, but I'm lucky enough to have Ben for my wonderful husband. He takes care of me when the headaches hit, and has patience with me when they force me onto the couch, whimpering and whining. If that's not love, I don't know what is!

The reason I'm writing today is to brag a little bit; I like to do that once in a while when I'm really proud of something I've done, and this seems like the right venue. :) As I mentioned in my last post, I picked up seven books for a pretty decent price from Borders during their going-out-of-business sale. Three of those were cookbooks, and I couldn't be happier with my choices, considering I didn't so much as flip through them in-store. They sounded good from the titles, so I took a chance. If nothing else, I liked the covers enough to at least have them on display even if the recipes were terrible.

One of these books was about bread making; it's called Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg MD and Zoe Francois (see their website here). I thought it would be great because not only do I want to learn to make great bread at home, but I also liked that it's local, with both authors living in the Minneapolis area. And so begins my first foray into bread making...

I started the process yesterday, as the book recommends (to give the dough time to chill thoroughly in the fridge, making it easier to handle), and it took maybe 10 minutes, start to finish. I added the four ingredients to my stand mixer, let it combine, and left it on the counter for a couple hours. The result was a very sticky mass of dough; it was enough to make about 4 loaves, depending on the size you choose.

When it had risen enough, I threw it in the fridge with some plastic wrap over the top. After I started to feel a little better after popping some of my migraine pills this afternoon, I decided it was a good time to make some dang bread (munchies and all that). It couldn't have been easier; I lopped a chunk off the big mass, sprinkled it with some flour, and pulled the sides down to make a ball. That only took about two minutes. After that, it was just a matter of letting it rest on a pizza peel with some corn meal (to prevent sticking) for about 40 minutes.

I preheated the oven, made some slashes through the top of the dough, and baked for a half hour. At the end of the 30 minutes, we had a wonderfully scented kitchen and this:

Right? Get. In. My. Belly. I made some honey butter while we waited for it to cool (with Ben hovering with the bread knife all the while), and then we went to town on the little loaf. I would have included pictures of the cut bread to show how beautiful and dense it was on the inside, but it just didn't last long enough. We gobbled it down in an hour (well, I like to think of bread as a nutritious dinner...). Luckily, the way this ... I don't know ... program works is that you make this big batch of really wet dough and leave it in the fridge. Over the course of two weeks you have this great dough at your disposal, and it gets more sourdough-y as the time wears on. So the way I see it, we'll get at least 3 more loaves out of that one batch, and Ben couldn't be happier. :) The best part? The money I spent on the yeast and the flour (it calls for all-purpose non-bleached) was less than I'd spend on one loaf of crusty bread at the store. Sold.

I can't wait to try some of the other recipes included in that book - and when I do I'll definitely share them with you.

Thank you for reading and take care!