Cook, Eat, Repeat.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Does making it at home mean its healthier? Or am I fooling myself?


Back to the scones! I've decided thats my default thing to bake... why? Because I can make them. It seems that other things that I bake seem to... well fail. Its not like I'm clueless, i KNOW why it happens I just continue to do the same thing over and over again. I'm not a baker. Not yet anyways. I'll just keep trying, but I'm telling you, scones... I can do scones. This time I decided to do a glaze, mmm confectioners sugar. So I proceeded on my merry way to make raspberry scones with lemon glaze. Delicious. Oh! I forgot to say that I used a new recipe then normal and this one had no eggs in it. I was hesitant to follow the directions, because baking without eggs seemed... wrong in some way. But I resisted the urge to not follow the directions per usual, because when I deter from the normal directions thats when my baking goes.... wrong.

Raspberry Scones with Lemon Glaze


For scones:
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, cut in chunks
  • 1 cup heavy cream, plus more for brushing the scones
  • 1 cup fresh raspberries
For lemon glaze:
  • 1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
  • 1 lemon, zest finely grated
  • 1 tablespoon unsalted butter


My girlfriend loves fried chicken... and man So do I. But I've been trying to move away from fried things (at least until I get back into my gym routine). So I decided we would try and bake the chicken with some delicious panko crumbs on it. Lets just say it didnt taste as good as when its friend.. but we still ate it all. What does that tell you?

Baked Panko Chicken


Finally I've documented a burger creation that I've been making for awhile and it always is a winner in my book. I love hamburgers, cheeseburgers, bacon cheeseburgers all of the above so I decided to make delightful twist on a cheese burger.

Gorganzola Cheeseburger with Caramelized Onions


I forgot how long it takes to caramelize onions. But it was totally worth it.

So I decided to make some brownies from scratch something I've never done before, and since my best friend Deirdre who is a baker didnt answer her phone... I had to find a recipe on my own and of course they turned out dry and gross. Thanks for not picking up the phone Deirdre, the cost was the lives of innocent brownies. ANYWAYS, to try and save the brownies I decided to make a caramel sauce from scratch... but since the brownies were such a fail I was only left with caramel sauce so.... I made caramel apples.

Homemade Caramel Sauce on Apples


Homework? Who has time for that.





Thursday, June 3, 2010

Comfort Food Has a Life of its Own


So graduation rolled around and as predicted... I'm still in school. Summer school to be exact, which is not the most fun way to learn, but each of us has to do what we have to. My girlfriend recently returned from Italy which has encouraged me to get back on my blogging high horse and start cooking more frequently again. What better to cook then comfort food? Oh yeaaaa

So I tried my hand at lasagna for the first time, seemed easy when I read the recipe but I didn't realize what I had in store for myself. I had to half cook the noodles and then dip them in ice water to stop the cooking? Well... as you all know I've got fairly good coordination but zero focus so... It went a little hay wire, burned some of my fingers but I got the job done. I decided to use a cream sauce instead of a heavy bolognese and I used turkey meat instead of beef.

Turkey Lasagna

The process..

Ready to bake!

Crispy!

Dig in!

The recipe I used is from the book that I forgot I had bought "Live, Love, Eat" by Wolfgang Puck, I altered his recipe only slightly.

Recipe:
6 Cups Hearty Beef Bolognese
2 Cups ricotta cheese
3/2 Cups fresh grated Parmesan
1/4 Cup Marscapone cheese
1 large egg beaten
1lb dried lasagne noodles
1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (I used 2 cups)
Chopped fresh Italian parsley
Fresh ground pepper

I went back up to my grandma's the other day and went back into the shop that sold all those amazing cook books, ya know the one where I was going to buy the salad dressing book but opted for the home cooking? Well I bought a new one! Yes thats right... more cook books. This one is called "Sunday Soup" a number of soups, sorted by season with easy and delicious recipes to maintain my apparent need for soup in my life. I decided to try out a recipe called "Spring New Potato and Garlic Soup". It sounded promising for sure, so I began my journey down potato soup lane. Easy and successful. Not gonna lie though, make sure your ready for dairy, dairy and more dairy.

Spring New Potato and Garlic Soup

Creamy...

Recipe:
12 oz new red-skin potatoes (I used yellow)
2 tsp salt
2 Cups half and half (I'd advise for you just to use 2% milk)
One 5 oz package 5 oz Boursin cheese with garlic and herbs
Ground which pepper to taste
4 tsp Parsley
4 tsp fresh chopped chives

First cup up the potatoes and boil them until soft. Then add the rest of the ingredients and keep burner on low, make sure the soup doesn't boil. Make sure all the cheese is melted and add the potatoes and warm through. Then eat!

Alright so lets see a show of hands, who loves meatloaf??
Thats what I thought everyone... and if you dont, have you even tried it? Or does your mom make really bad meat loaf? Well my pseudo Greek mom made amazing meatloaf and I recently asked her for the recipe.

Oh Meatloaf..


Mix mix mix! Its the most fun with your hands..

Forming the loaf is an art form.

Load that baby up with ketchup

Eat with delicious green beans.

It was really hard for us to stop eating it... Its all gone now. It left quick.

So recently it was a friends birthday and we went to Napa and went wine tasting and by the time lunch rolled around we were all... drunk. Well at least I was, and we ate this delicious curry chicken that my friend Lianna made. I couldnt stop eating this delicious little concoction so I asked her for the recipe. It was a Giada recipe. Knew there were no faults. Now I dont really like cabbage too much, not that I've had very much of it... I made the chicken salad the night before and ate it the next day for lunch, another thing we couldnt put down.

Chicken Curry Salad with Cabbage



Recipe:
8 ounces thinly sliced pancetta, about 8 slices (I didnt use this)
1/2 cup, plus 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 tablespoon curry powder
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
2 teaspoons honey
1 1/2 teaspoons minced peeled fresh ginger
3 1/2 to 4 cups diced/shredded roasted chicken
1 1/2 cups shredded radicchio (or red cabbage)
4 ciabatta rolls

I could eat it all day...