Talapia, Sauces, and the Ice Cream Adventures.

This week has been a really busy for me, I had a huge exam, a literature review due and an anti smoking campaign to work on. It was really stressful, and I cooked a lot to let myself relax as much as possible. I've had a couple recipes I've been needing to try out, and some that I found to work with what I had in the house. I recently bought some Taplapia because it was on sale for $3.99 a pound... so What to do with a pound of Talaplia? Well other then make some healthy quick meals, they are deliciously compatible with lots of things. I found this delicious recipe that works with the Panko crumbs I had left over and a sauce that seemed easy enough and worked for me, since I've been trying to cook with Tomatoes recently. So I started on the sauce and it seemed to be going better then the others I have made so far, it was a cream based sauce, delicious and easy. Just olive oil, garlic, Cherry tomatoes, cream and Parmesan. The recipe told me to wait until the sauce turned pink... it never turned pink but it did turn orange. I figured it was done at that point so I started in on the Talapia. Now I froze all the fillets together and... I couldn't just defrost one, I had to do them all, so I made more food then I needed. The talapia recipe wanted me to bread them with parmesian, but i opted out. Cooked them in olive oil!

Panko Talapia with a Parmesian Tomato Cream Sauce


Delicious Sauce

Recipe for sauce:
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
2 Cloves garlic minced
10-12 Cherry Tomatoes
1/2 Cup cream
1 Cup Spinach
1/4 Cup Parmesan Cheese

I wanted to bake something earlier on in the week, but I had no chocolate chips, so I decided I would put candy in them! What candy do you ask? Why Japanese chocolate mushroom candy (no real mushrooms involved) of course. So I made some cookie batter, didn't have enough flour for them (which didnt go well first time around so I had to add some whole wheat flour in later on) and chopped up some candies. They turned out chewy and crunchy.

Japanese Mushroom Candy Cookies

Tasty mushrooms..

I used to go to High school in Berkeley and it was right by this food place that was called the Gourmet Ghetto, and there was one pasta place called Gypsies I always used to go to. I used to eat this Gorgonzola Penne pasta all the time and I really enjoyed it, and the sauce seemed simple enough so I figured i could try it on my own. I found a simple Gorgonzola sauce recipe and tried it out, added some tomatoes, spinach and chicken to spice it up a bit. This was my first cheese sauce I made on the stove that didnt get grainy, gotta use those low burners man. The dish was easy enough to make and fed all of my roomies.

Gorgonzola Pasta with Spinach, Chicken and Tomatoes


Dreamy sauce...

Recipe:
1 Cup white wine
1 1/4 Cups Heavy Cream
5 oz Gorgonzola Cheese
Pinch of Black pepper

I stumbled recently upon a recipe for making ice cream, that explained to me how to make it without an ice cream maker. Now I'm hoping to get an ice cream maker for Christmas, and I really have wanted to make ice cream, so when I found this recipe, I was delighted. Obviously I was avoiding homework as usual, and so this seemed like a great choice. I started out making this recipe for Chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and it seemed easy enough, but of course i screwed up the first step. I burned the butter and used all my half and half on the burnt batch... what was I to do? Then i remembered I had some cream and some normal milk, so I just evaporated the milk (the trustee technique I learned when making curried salmon) and added it to the cream and restarted with some new, not burned butter. I then whisked it together with sugar and egg whites (I later reread the recipe and it required egg yolks not whites.. FAIL) till it was nice and fluffy. The heated it up till it was scolding and transferred it to the fridge to cool. After it was cook I put it in a cake pan and shoved it in the freezer. Every 20 mins I churned so the frozen sides would mix in. Eventually after a couple hours once it was a bit more solid i added in a lot of chocolate chips and let it freeze overnight. It turned out really good, not as creamy as I wanted but thats alright, it tastes just like cookie dough.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream


Freezing process...

Recipe:
1 Cup Chopped Chocolate chips

2/3 cup dark brown sugar

4 large egg yolks (I used whites)

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 cups half and half (I used evaporated milk plus some heavy cream)

2 cups whole milk (I used 2%)

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

pinch of salt

Soup, Curry, Fish and a little baking.

I have not done as much cooking as I wanted this week, I was away for the weekend and tormented myself by watching the food network while staying in a Bed and Breakfast with no kitchen for me to cook in. Eventually I made my way home and decided to make some soup since a storm was supposed to come in that week, and its been colder and colder these days. I used to work at Noah's Bagels back in high school and they always had this broccoli cheddar soup that I loved to eat and so I decided to make my own this time. I've noticed that a lot of soups start with an onion base and some delicious butter. It was fairly easy to make though pretty time consuming. It involved some half and half, chicken stock, flour, cheddar, carrots, broccoli and some salt and pepper. Turned out really delicious, a comfort food not to be missed!

Broccoli Cheddar Soup

Recipe:
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1/4 cup melted butter
1/4 cup flour
2 cups half-and-half
2 cups chicken stock or bouillon
1/2 pound fresh broccoli
1 cup carrots, julienned
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
8 ounces grated sharp cheddar

Once again I was ready to start baking and I was determined to try and make something with puff pastry dough. What shall I make? Turnovers!
So I started in on making them and I didnt want to make just one kind, so i made 3 different kinds. I made strawberry, cherry and banana chocolate caramel. Delicious? I think so. Now I did have some troubles, when I took them out the first time I bit into one and it was still doughy on the inside. Gross. So I put them back in until they were fully done, and once they were, everyone in the house ate them. Now they arnt as good as the ones my grandma used to give me, but they're a start towards it.

Cherry, Strawberry and Banana Caramel Chocolate Turnovers

They disappeared very quickly.
I have been thinking about cooking halibut for awhile now but I bought some awhile back an defrosted it and it smelled bad. I was decided to cook halibut with some spinach and I really wanted some sort of gravy on it. I was going to make a tomato gravy and I started to make it but it turned out funky, it did not taste like it would go on a halibut. So I restarted and took some chicken gravy (I know chicken gravy on fish sounds controversial!) I thinned out the gravy and added some garlic and a little butter and some water. Now I dont know how to cook halibut, I dont know when its done (I assumed when its flaky) and I dont know what to cook it with to give it flavor. My aunt was telling me about how my mom would pan sear halibut with lemon juice and butter and so I decided to make some garlic butter, and once infused added a little lemon juiced. It really gave the fish little kick, less plain then most halibut. I then cooked some spinach in the same pan and put the dish together. One of the best halibuts I've even had.

Garlic Butter Halibut with Spinach and Gravy

I hope to make it again soon.
Last night I really wanted some Japanese curry. My girlfriend always makes it for me and I pleadingly tried to convince her to come over and make it for me. No luck. I had to make it myself. I went to the store and bought some Japanese curry, not the same kind we usually eat but same brand I figured it would do.
Oh! Also I tend to fail at making rice on the stove. And I hoped this time, because I really needed it for the curry, I would make it a little more cautiously. I cooked everything up, the chicken, onions potatoes and carrots and finally made the curry from the strange curry blocks that were in the curry package. And I was trying to do 4 things at once and i forgot the rice was cooking! Damnit.
Mid email I remember that my rice was almost done last time I looked at, it which was awhile ago. So I ran to the stove and turned it off, tried the rice and it was perfect! How could this have happened?
Im not going to question it.
It wasn't as fantastic as my girlfriends curry, but it was really good none the less. AND it was spicier then her curry, and everyone knows I like spicy foods.
I waited for my roommate to get home and we feasted!

Spicy Japanese Curry

Gotta practice making my Japanese curry but so gooood.

Apple Balsamic Pork Chops, Lemon Cream Cheese Cupcakes and a Dash of Buffalo Wing Sauce

Well a day without school is a day full of cooking for me. I really like buffalo wings and I've been wondering how to make buffalo wing sauce, but I have really had no luck in finding out how to make it. Everyone always says use Franks Hot Sauce, so I went to the store and got some. I only had some chicken breasts so I decided to make some Buffalo wing chicken strips to see how it would go. I mixed up the eggs that I use when frying with the hot sauce so that it would thoroughly coat the chicken and taste like buffalo sauce, but it was a lot lighter then I would have wanted. I should have let it sit longer in the sauce so that it could really soak up the flavor. I made a good amount, and with some pieces the coating fell off while I was frying it, but some came out really well coated. We for sure dipped it in the sauce after it was done.

Buffalo Wing Sauce Chicken Strips

Who doesn't love fried chicken?!
Anyways, I grew up in a very Midwestern family. Whenever we had family affairs we always eat a good old combination of meat a potatoes. The best combination I'd say. Now I've mastered the potato section, I can make a killer scalloped potato and my girlfriend and I figured out how to make the best garlic mashed potatoes you'll ever taste, but I've never tried my hand at the meat portion. I decided that I was going to make a pork chop, two in fact. While watching top chef on the cooking channel they were cooking apples for something and I decided I really wanted to cook apples, and what goes with apples? Pork. This is what spawned the whole pork chop idea. The night before I experimented with a marinade of balsamic vinegar, brown sugar and some salt. Later I added a little red wine into the mix. I bought two pork chops, learned about brining (which is really strange) and marinaded the pork. I dried the chops after the marinade, patted it down with a flour brown sugar mixture and cooked it in some vegetable oil. I then created a sauce with some green apples and a variation of the marinade, cooked it until the apples were a bit tender and the flavor had seeped into the sauce.

Balsamic Apple Pork Chop

Not only did I feed my roommate her first pork chop, but it turned out fantastic!
Later on in the night on this cooking binge, I wanted to bake something, but with no chocolate chips and limited supplies I had to conjure something. I looked up some simple cupcake recipes and had just the right amount of cream cheese to make these cup cakes. They were a simple lemon cup cake made with flour, eggs, butter, cream cheese, sugar and lemon zest, but I jazzed it up added a little more cream cheese, threw in some lemon juice and added a little vanilla. Now i had to figure out what kind of frosting to put on the cupcakes. My grandma always makes brown sugar frosting for the cakes she makes for us, and its one of my favorite things. So I looked up a brown sugar frosting recipe and found a simple one. I started to make it, melted the brown sugar into the butter.... and then I realized, I had no milk. What am I gonna do without milk? So I hoped maybe I could just add a little water and a tiny bit more butter and it would become creamy? I started to add in the powdered sugar and a disaster started to form. My sugar was starting to clump together and it was just turned into sugar candy. I took it out of the pan and it started to harden, what was I to do?! I couldn't add eggs, they would just cook immediately because it was so hot! So I grabbed the first liquid I could spot in the fridge that wasn't salad dressing or hot sauce. Lemonade to the rescue! I figured at this point the frosting was fairly dead, and what would lemonade hurt? I pour some in and started stirring and instantly it became easier to stir, I added a bit more and then added some more powdered sugar... and Ta da! Frosting. Who? What? Where? When? How? I barely know. But I'm sure glad I didn't grab the Ranch Dressing.
Finally after stirring vigorously I put it in the fridge to cool.

Lemon Cream Cheese Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Lemonade Frosting

Lets just say you cant just eat one.

A week of Seafood and Egg Mcmuffins

What a long week! I had an exam and then Lovefest happened! There's been barely any time to post any of the cooking I did this week! But don't worry, I did many hours of it. This week I made my first soup, tried out my luck with bread crumbs and used fake crab. In fact there was a lot of seafood involved in this week. It first started off with A soup that is apparently very popular in South Africa. I really enjoy soup but its hard for me to find a lot of good places that make their own. There is a little cafe on the corner of my street and most of their soups are really good, but they make them with bell peppers usually. I know as a chef I should be open minded but bell peppers are a really hard thing for me to swallow. Something about the flavor really bothers me. Back to the South African mealie. All the ingredients seemed fairly simple, canned whole corn, creamed corn, evaporated milk, chicken stock, 2 tomato's, butter, onions, salt, pepper and the optional crab. I chose to use crab in my soup. I always have such an accomplished feeling when i clean out a crab and there is a huge pile of meat. I also decided to dice up some potato's to thicken up the soup. I started cooking the soup and added a little white wine to make it abit sweeter. Once the soup was created I tried it and it was a bit too salty, so i drained a cup or two of the broth, removed it and replaced it with water. Success. It tasted perfect. Now when first assessing the soup it seemed like it would be very light because the creamy broth was not very thick, so I served a lot of it to me and my roommate. On the contrary we could barely finish our soup! It was light but still extremely filling. It made probably about 5 or 6 servings and we ate it all week, I even brought some to my girlfriends house for her to try. I discovered that it was also really good with Sriracha hot sauce. Gives it a kick.

South African Crab and Corn Mealie

Hearty and Delicious

After creating this successfully Delicious soup me and my roommate decided we needed to have some good old fried foods. Now I've been reading a lot of recipes for fried foods and most of them are using Panko bread crumbs. I've been eyeing a fried shrimp recipe so I decided to make that, but while looking up a sweet and sour sauce recipe to accompany the shrimp I discovered one of my favorite things to eat when I used to order Chinese food a lot. They are called crab ragoons so I set out on an overly adventurous mission of frying. The ragoons took the longest. I bought some fake crab meat, cream cheese, gyoza wraps and panko crumbs! I made my own version of the crab ragoons and added rice vinegar, it took me at least an hour and a half to make them. Finally I started in with the shrimp and the Panko crumbs, easy frying method, flour, eggs and the Panko crumbs. We had a fried feast!

Fried Shrimp and Crab Ragoons

I had a lot of the ragoon filling left over so the next day I decided to make more for some of my friends that were coming over and they came out a lot prettier.


Fry fry fry...


And eat!

They were even better the second time around. Finally I really needed to start making some breakfast foods, and what better and easier then your own version off egg mcmuffins?! Simple and delicious. I used Canadian bacon and English muffins. The first time I made them i poached the eggs, now I prefer to have yolk when I'm eating eggs but apparently that was not the right choice in this situation. I made them again a few days later and scrambled the eggs. Much better!

Canadian Bacon with Eggs and Cheese on an English Muffin


breakfast time!

Overall a successful breakfast. Now Im back to a hopefully less busy school week.