Ahh, the common excuse returns again! Yup, time, or the lack of it, is the reason there has not been a post in a long while. I have been cooking, it's just getting myself to the computer that is a chore. Yesterday i made the now infamous brown sugar cookies! My sister, my dad, and me are the only fans of these delectable, buttery, chewy cookies! my mom and brother would rather have chocolate chip cookies i suppose. Anyway, i have started to work on my powerpoint for this project, so far i'm on the history part of cooking. I hope to soon bring myself to doing the modern day cooking aspect, but it's vacation, and i'm not really into working!! Lazy, lazy, i know...but it's nice to have a break once in a while, after all, college stuff seems to be bogging me down! it's like it all hits you at once, and it's hard to plow through it all.... anyway, i'll stop complaining...hopefully i'll update sooner than later and keep on going with this project!

I'm Back!!!

It seems like years since I last entered anything on this blog....well, I'm not too far off since my last entry was last year!! Anyway, with 2010 came more free time to cook, as an injury has made it impossible for me to continue track... why is it that i always get hurt? Anyway, so yesterday i got back into the swing of things and actually cooked dinner! the meal consisted of Kibbeh, mashed potatoes, and sauteed spinach. Kibbeh is the official dish of Lebanon and consists of a mixture of ground lamb, sautéed onions,cinnamon and allspice. this mixture is layered between a mixture of lamb, cinnamon, allspice, onion and bulgur, which is finely blended in a food processor. Now, normally there is ground lamb readily available at Stop and Shop or Walmart. But, PETA must have rescued all the lambs because I could not find ground lamb anywhere!!! So, as i stood in the meat section of stop and shop, pondering over what course of action i should take, a group of packaged ground meat caught my eye. Could it be!? Nope, just ground buffalo... Wait, ground buffalo!? It looked eerily similar in texture, so on a whim, i thought, hey, why not? So, instead of lamb kibbeh as is traditional, my family was introduced to buffalo meat in a buffalo kibbeh! It was quite delicious, cooked fast, and on further research, is very low in fat. Not bad for a whim! the rest of the meal turned out quite well also, and i was very happy. It was a great re-ignition of my project!

RECAP

Wow! the holidays have kept me busy! I haven't written anything since the tenth.... yikes! Well, most of the cooking that has been done is desserts, desserts, and more desserts! I baked a pleather of cookies for my friends for their Christmas gifts (Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread cookies, coconut cream cheese pinwheels, all DELICIOUS), and made a scrumptious banana cream cheesecake for Christmas eve. It was all soooooo good! My mom was also able to make some yummy cookies and treats before the break, and believe me when I say they did not last long! I'm hoping to do some more full out meals when things go back to normal, but with my Birthday ( January 8th, save the date!), track, and upcoming exams, I'm not sure what's going to happen! But, in spite of all the setbacks, I was able to start doing some research into the history of cooking and have just started my powerpoint for the project. I also read an interesting book called, "The Sweet Life in Paris" by David Lebovitz. I didn't realize all the specific nuances of living in Paris until I read this book! Apparently, the French like to cut each other in line, and carrying around a dirty rag is the thing to do! If you want an Americans point of view on the city of Paris, this is an amusing and informative read. Wow, that sounded like a sales pitch : ).... anyway... To go along with the sales- pitch theme, GO SEE THE MOVIE THE YOUNG VICTORIA!!!!!! It was AMAZING!! Emily Blunt and Rupert Friend did an amazing job as Queen Victoria and Prince Albert! it was a great romance and is up there with one of my favorite movies of all time, Pride and Prejudice ( with Keira Knightley). Well, it's New Years Eve, and the clan is all coming over for dinner ( buffalo chicken wings!!!) so I'd better help clean up and cook up before my mom blows a fuse.... i can already here her sighing.... better get moving!!! TTYL

Grace

Switcharoo ( No more martha)

I have a declaration to make: I will now be using other cookbooks in my cooking project! This comes after a rather dissappointing Martha Stewart Recipe book which had some flaws ( sorry martha!). For one thing, some of the recipes were kind of, well, blah. Nothing special. Another problem was with the measurements in the recipes. In the Hollandaise, she called for waaaaaay to much butter! It started to turn into gorilla glue, so I had to water it down....watery hollandaise....blah! So, for last weeks entry ( sorry! schoolwork and track have diminished my ability to update immediately) I used a book that my mom ordered from the library called Mad Hungry. I can't remember the name of the recipe off the top of my head, but I made a delicious spatchcocked, lemon chicken. Spatchcocking, for those of you who don't know, is basically taking a whole chicken and flattening it out. This involves cutting the backbone out of the chicken with chicken shears.... that was quite an ordeal! Just the idea of scissors scraping and crunching bone was desturbing to me! So, when I started to cut, i got soooooo squeamish that i couldn't continue! lucky for me, mom rolled up her sleeves and wasn't afraid to complete the dirty deed. The rest of the process was easy and bone-crunching free. The chicken was divine, yes divine, and i made a heavenly arborio rice to go with it. I love arborio rice..... : ) Anyway,aside from the butchering, this dinner was a good one, and i am excited to pick out this weekends dinner!

Thanksgiving break!!!!!! Haven't been able to update in soooooooo long!! And because of Thanksgiving, I didn't use any recipes from the Martha Stewart book....oops.... But I did make some delicious sweet potato gnocchi with fried chesnuts and fried sage AND Pumpkin cheesecake. Ok, so here's the scoop....

Sweet Potato Gnocchi:
I was sooo excited about the chesnuts for this recipe! Roasting and frying chesnuts made them like potato chips! It was delish... the same with the fried sage...soo good. And with the actual gnocchi, well, i didn't have a ricer, so i had to use a cheese grater... it worked pretty darn well! Improvisitation is a great thing.... Anyway, the result was delicious and it was gone in a jiffy.
Pumpkin Cheesecake: This was soooo good! It was like pumpkin pie, but better! The tangy cheesecake part of it made it soo good. It was really easy to make too. it was like regular pumpkin pie but you just added cream cheese and sour cream. The only mishap was cooking the crust for too long, but it still turned out really well. Well, I'm writing this at school... soooo... they are probably going to kick me out soon so i'll have to write more later.....much later.... : ) ttyl

3 in a row!

Ok, so I have to update soooooooooo much! I have done, let's see.... 3 meals since my last entry! oops.....

Sunday, Nov. 8, 2009:
Dinner: Pan-Seared Scallops with Fennel Puree (p.260)
Ok, so that weekend was CRAZY!!! It was my cousin's birthday and I helped my Aunt with the meal for that night, so I still had to do a ton of homework on Sunday. One part of that homework comprised of running around my "town" taking pictures of structures for my art class. Thus, I got home late and had to start dinner. So, while the pan-seared scallops took no time at all to cook, the fennel puree was not possible for me to do as it had to strain for 1 1/2 hours... yea not happening at 6:30 at night. So, I simply roasted the fennel, and made some potato fries to go with it. The meal turned out quite good, but I would have liked to try the fennel puree....maybe I'll issue a redo on this one.....

Wednesday Nov. 11, 2009: NO SCHOOL
Dinner: Perfect Roast Chicken (p.127-129 with Sicilian- Style Sauteed Greens ( p.321)
So, I've seen my mom make roast chicken plenty of times, and was king of afraid mine wouldn't stand up to her perfection of it. I admit, I did not like handling that uncooked, whole chicken. Taking the bag of giblets out of the cavity was really gross for me! The heart and liver were falling out of the bag, so I was trying not to look at them while I threw the darn thing away. Yuck! And when I had to clean the chicken, I did not like the feeling of holding it. I don't know, it just felt weird to have all the joints moving and it felt like I was holding a live-chicken minus the feathers....weird.
Anyway, I stuffed the bird with lemon and thyme and rosemary and put butter under the skin... It turned out to be VERY good! moist and delish.

The Sicilian Greens were Swiss chard, which I have never had before. So, I was walking in Stop n' Shop and saw these beautiful multi-colored leaves. It was the Swiss Chard. They all had different color stems: pink, yellow, orange and white. I thought they were just soo pretty! Anyway, that made me reallly excited to make this dish, especially since it had nuts and raisins ( sounds weird, tastes amazing) which I love in savory dishes. This dish was pretty easy to make and was absolutely amazing! If you don't like greens, this dish will convert you... it was that good.The Swiss Chard tasted as good as it looked! It surprisingly had the flavor of beets and was not bitter at all. It worked really great with the pine nuts ( substituted for almonds)and raisins. I was really surprised with the complex flavors and how they all melded together to form a warm, delicate flavor. TRY THIS DISH!

Saturday Nov. 14, 2009:
Bolognese Sauce with Fettuccine (p.383-385)
So, as many of you know (ahem, Katie, Kelsey, Mari) I made dinner to share on this night! I invited a couple of friends over( as aforementioned) to gape in awe at my culinary skills..... Okay, so it was more like they came over to eat good food...same thing... : )
So before my guests arrived, I was supposed to be ingredient shopping, but wound up at the shoe store...don't ask....
Thus, when we finally were able to get the grocery store and get home, it was 2:30. I had told my friends to come over anytime after 3:00. Uh Oh. Rush time!
I did manage to somehow get everything cooking, but my friends did have to wait a while ( the bolognese takes 3 hours to stew). But no matter. We chatted it up pretty well, so time flew!My mom helped me out a lot by making the dessert: a luscious lemon mousse. Thanks Mom! : )
When dinner was finally served we sat down and said grace ( the prayer, not my name). All I could see were the puzzled faces of Kelsey and Katie. Apparently, they don't say grace before meals. Shame on them!! ( I'm just kidding guys). Then we all dug in. If I do say so myself, it was delicious. My friends seemed to think so too...... at least,I think they did...
-Oh, I have to interject here on behalf of Mari. Those saltine, sugar-butter, chocolate cookies things were amazing!--
Anyway, we chatted away after we finished (actually, while we waited for Mari to finish...slowpoke! : )) and then got to eat a yummy dessert. Then, to work off all those calories we had just inhaled, we decided to each try and row on my erg. I don't think that machine has ever or will ever get so much attention and excitement as it did. Katie even managed to do the full 2K! Go Katie! : ) BTW,Katie, you totally have to join crew in the fall!....and Mari, don't judge me! haha

So, after we worked out, we all formed a circle and proceeded to share the latest gossip to hit the school and try and get each other to tell what guy we have a crush on.... it was all very amusing. And very fun.
So, guys, if you're reading this, we have to do this again! The question is, whose house and who's cookin'? Let me know....

Anyway, great food and great laughs!

Until next weekend,

Grace

Meal #3

Okay, so I broke my promise that I would update right after I made my next meal...Bad Grace! *slaps hand*

Meal #3:Dinner
"Pork Shoulder Braised in Hard Cider" (p. 183)
"Potato and Turnip Grain" (p. 320)

This was a HUGE Success! All I can say is it was supremely delicious. Anyway, the pork recipe calls for a 3 lb. shoulder of pork. I forgot to write down this information on my mom's grocery list, and thus we picked out a 5lb. ( no lie) shoulder of pork. This made searing the pork a little difficult.... To turn the darn thing over required the assistance of my mom, a pair of tongs, and a large sauce spoon... Let's just say we shed a lot of sweat to turn the hunk of meat over in the pot! And, though the recipe calls for "hard cider" we took the cheaper root of plain cider. I was just about to pour all 4 cups of cider that the recipe calls for into the pot with the pork, when my mom read a small note on the side of the recipe. It says that if using regular cider, to reduce the amount by half and replace the other half with chicken stock. It's a good thing she saw that because we might have ended up with uber sveet (super sweet) pork if she hadn't!
So, since we had a 5 lb pork shoulder, it had to cook for a looooooong time.... 6 hours!! All the while the kitchen filled with the tantalizing smell of roasting pork and aromatics. I felt like it was Christmas.. you know, the kitchen filled with beautiful smells... ahh...anyway...
After the pork was cooked, I use the au jux to make the sauce in the recipe. The only problem was that in the book, Martha says I should have 2 cups of pork juice, and to boil it down to one cup. Well, I had about 5 cups of au jux ( again, no lie) ! So, instead of standing near the stove for 2 hours and boiling down 5 cups of au jux, I took the short cut and took out 3 cups of the stuff. I figured I could boil down the remaining 2 cups, but even that took too long and I wound up taking out a cup of it secretly...shh!... But, even though I omitted the reducing part, the sauce still wound up delish.
....Whew! I don't think I've ever written so much about pork in my life....

Well,t he potato and turnip gratin deserves its fair share of words too.
Turnip Observations: Turnips were a relatively new vegetable to me. I had never had one before and thus was a little nervous. I mean, I didn't want to ruin a bunch of perfectly good potatoes with the unknown turnip! The only things I had heard about turnips were negative. For example, in the movie "Howl's Moving Castle" ( I admit it, this is the one anime movie I actually like) Sophie, the main character, meets a moving scarecrow with the head of a turnip. She is kind of freaked out ( as any sensible person would be if they saw a moving scarecrow) and mentions the she never did like turnips, and continues to call him "turnip-head" Thus, the negative appeal.
--- just a side note: I must sound like a total weirdo...anime, moving scarecrows, turnip-head...*sigh*... and how does this correlate to cooking a gratin?

Anyway, back to "Turnip Observations"... So when I peeled the turnip, It looked just like a peeled McIntosh apple! I was tempted to tell my brother I peeled him an apple and watch as he happily bit into the turnip...hah!... that would have been funny...but my integrity won out....not to mention the fact that I needed the turnip for the dish... Anyway, second observation: turnips smell like horseradish. At least, to me it did...

Well, as I am probably boring you to tears as I poetically describe the lovely turnip, I will move on and tell you how the dish turned out.... It was surprisingly very good! The turnips tasted just like potatoes, and even though I boiled the cream and forgot about it and it boiled over...long story.... the dish turned out to be delicioso!

Well, I'm guessing that is probably enough about pork and turnips, so I'll stop here and fill you in on the latest happenings in the Kelly kitchens next week!

Grace