Yup. That's how we're doing it these days. Two at a time. Now that there are veggies available other than potatoes and cabbage, I'm attempting to cook 2 vegetables for every meal. Yes, that is difficult. And no, they are not always good. Tonight's were 50/50. See, that's the good thing about doing 2 different veggies, you have a 50/50 shot at getting one right. Either that, or you bomb both and feel like a complete failure, crawling into a bottle of cheap merlot washed down with take-out chinese. Nothing complements the bitter taste of failure like cheap liquor and take-out.
But back to tonight. Tonight was not a complete failure. It was a learning experience. Really. I'm serious. Ok, so kind of was a failure. Damn, that merlot is looking pretty good right now. The attempt was bacon sauteed brussels sprouts and oven sweet potato fries. The sweet potatoes actually came out with a nice flavor since I broiled them with olive oil, a little bacon grease, salt, pepper, and cajun spices. The texture was a little bit more like mashed potatoes than crispy fries, but overall the taste was excellent.
The brussel sprouts were also a learning experience. Don't order me the take-out yet! This one wasn't a failure. The texture was nice, the color was nice, and after boiling them I sauteed them with bacon. If one were to like brussels sprouts, I think this would be wonderful dish. I nearly lost everything in my stomach trying to choke down my 4th bite. Ok, so I don't like brussels sprouts. What the hell do I do with the rest of the bag? I'm thinking a sling-shot is in order here.
And I'm sure you are now going to astutely point out that bacon on top of veggies is not the most healthy way to cook them. Well hey, at least I didn't wrap the bacon around a block of cheddar cheese and deep fry it like I wanted to. Every little bit counts!
I was about to write about last night's dinner, but I don't want to spoil the "I'm a failure" mood. I'm half way through the merlot. An "I'm a success" might require more moderation, or acting like an adult, or something. So let me wallow, enjoy my cheap merlot, and I'll add last night success story in a different post.
Cheers!
Showing posts with label Failures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Failures. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Thursday, March 31, 2011
It Felt French....
So there we were, deciding what to do on a Saturday night. Perhaps a calm night in? Sounds good. And we should cook. Yeah! Cooking together as a big groups will be fun. We'll help each other, and each do a dish or two. It will be easy and simple......
Of course, I don't do anything simple. And neither do my friends. So for a simple meal in together we made the following:
Caramelized Onion tart with anchovies and olives
Pork Wellington with apples and proscuitto
Tenderloin in a red wine reduction
Potatoes au Gratin
Bête Noire with Grand Marnier whipped cream
Oh, and did I mention there were only 5 of us eating? That's right, a full French meal with two meat dishes for 5 people. Now I know where the idea for fois gras came from. All dishes were very very good. Decadent and complicated good. So much for the simple night in.
And of course we helped each other. I helped Ivan wrap the tenderloin in puff pastry. Migle watched the au gratin in the oven. Jim managed the oven space. Trey poured wine. It all went well. Until Ivan decided to help with the Bête Noire. Now this is a very simple cake. In fact, it requires eggs, sugar, chocolate, and butter. Seriously. That's it. But it has about 48 steps that have to be exactly right. One of them is whipping egg whites then gently incorporating them into the rest of the mixture. Well, Ivan misunderstood my direction and poured the hot chocolate directly onto the whipped egg white deflating and partially cooking them. Of course at that point there is nothing you can do but laugh and either bake it, start over, or skip desert. We, being the experimental sort (no not that way......at least not until after desert), threw the whole thing together and baked it. Texture was a little off, but really not bad. The whipped cream with Grand Marnier helped.
I'll give the cake recipe here. The tart recipe came from the Beautiful French cookbook, and was very tasty. Sounds strange to have caramelized onions, anchovies, and olives, but the anchovies and olives with their salty taste cut the richness of the pastry and sweetness of the onions beautifully. I guess that's why they call it the Beautiful cookbook.
Well, here is the One, the Only, the Richest Chocolate Cake ever: bête noire! Literally translated: The Black Beast. I used the recipe from the Beautiful cookbook (the more I write that, the more I can feel the book jumping up and down in front of me shouting "look at me I'm so beautiful", which in fact it is, it is also the size of an atlas and nearly broke Charlotte's toe when she dropped it. Good cookbook, but a little pretentious....). Anyway, below is the one from Epicurious which is exactly the same except for the addition of vanilla. Oh, and I used half and half 60% and 70% belgian chocolate. Oh, and make sure you put the chocolate into the yolks not the whites.
For cake
Of course, I don't do anything simple. And neither do my friends. So for a simple meal in together we made the following:
Caramelized Onion tart with anchovies and olives
Pork Wellington with apples and proscuitto
Tenderloin in a red wine reduction
Potatoes au Gratin
Bête Noire with Grand Marnier whipped cream
Oh, and did I mention there were only 5 of us eating? That's right, a full French meal with two meat dishes for 5 people. Now I know where the idea for fois gras came from. All dishes were very very good. Decadent and complicated good. So much for the simple night in.
And of course we helped each other. I helped Ivan wrap the tenderloin in puff pastry. Migle watched the au gratin in the oven. Jim managed the oven space. Trey poured wine. It all went well. Until Ivan decided to help with the Bête Noire. Now this is a very simple cake. In fact, it requires eggs, sugar, chocolate, and butter. Seriously. That's it. But it has about 48 steps that have to be exactly right. One of them is whipping egg whites then gently incorporating them into the rest of the mixture. Well, Ivan misunderstood my direction and poured the hot chocolate directly onto the whipped egg white deflating and partially cooking them. Of course at that point there is nothing you can do but laugh and either bake it, start over, or skip desert. We, being the experimental sort (no not that way......at least not until after desert), threw the whole thing together and baked it. Texture was a little off, but really not bad. The whipped cream with Grand Marnier helped.
I'll give the cake recipe here. The tart recipe came from the Beautiful French cookbook, and was very tasty. Sounds strange to have caramelized onions, anchovies, and olives, but the anchovies and olives with their salty taste cut the richness of the pastry and sweetness of the onions beautifully. I guess that's why they call it the Beautiful cookbook.
Well, here is the One, the Only, the Richest Chocolate Cake ever: bête noire! Literally translated: The Black Beast. I used the recipe from the Beautiful cookbook (the more I write that, the more I can feel the book jumping up and down in front of me shouting "look at me I'm so beautiful", which in fact it is, it is also the size of an atlas and nearly broke Charlotte's toe when she dropped it. Good cookbook, but a little pretentious....). Anyway, below is the one from Epicurious which is exactly the same except for the addition of vanilla. Oh, and I used half and half 60% and 70% belgian chocolate. Oh, and make sure you put the chocolate into the yolks not the whites.
For cake
- 12 ounces bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate, chopped
- 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
- 6 large eggs, separated
- 12 tablespoons sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
3 Wins, 1 Tie, and a Cheeseblobsoup
I keep whining about wanting to cook more, and I realized I've actually done a fair bit lately. Although not all of it was really intended as cooking, it was more preparation for Class 1 Upload, and my infantry friend used to say. However I did make a few things definitely worth keeping, with a few ideas of how to gussy them up a little. Then there was the mediocre coffee cake, which was passable and enough to get my colleagues to see I tried but not really my best work. And finally was the complete disaster of a cake. I'll save that one for last, it merits some rumination on where my extensive thermodynamics and fluid dynamics education went while I was thinking through this concept.
Starting with the Out of the Park hit: Goat cheese stuffed portobellos
4 Large Portobello Caps, cleaned with stems removed
4 oz Goat Cheese
3 oz Cream Cheese
1T Pesto
4 Slices Emmantaller Cheese (or swiss of that's easier)
8t White Balsamic Vinegar
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper to taste
Turn on broiler. Drizzle olive oil on cooking sheet and rub to coat. Put mushroom caps top down on baking sheet. Drizzle a small amount of olive oil across each. Grind salt and pepper onto each cap. Drizzle 2t balsamic vinegar in each cap. Mix goat cheese, cream cheese, and pesto in a bowl. Divide cheese mixture between all 4 mushroom caps. Lay a piece of cheese across each mushroom. Broil until cheese is starting to brown and crisp, about 5 min. Serve immediately.
I like things a little sour. Sourdough bread, sour cream, and buttermilk top my list. I came across the recipe for Cucumber Buttermilk Soup from a Martha Stewart magazine (link not online yet, will add when it becomes available). I followed the recipe almost exactly, so I won't bother to reprint. It was great. I left it warm and added some additional potato flakes to make it more of a puree for Charlotte to eat. But she liked it as a soup, its just hard to feed soup to a 15month old who hasn't figured out the correct orientation of a spoon and yet wants to do everything herself. The cucumber and potato base was great warm and cold. And the buttermilk was exactly my style.
This evening I made Corn and Onion Cakes. They were supposed to be more like fritters, or something, but the first batch soaked up too much oil and were a strange consistency so I added flour and made them more like pancakes, which turned out great. So to the Corn Cakes recipe I just added about 1/2 C flour. And instead of goat cheese I used cheddar and I omitted the bacon part. Charlotte was a fan, so I feel this was a success. Again, it was a little sour, but I like things sour. Others may not, but hey, its my blog so deal with the sour. At least I'm not bitter today.....
The tie was the Apricot Coffee Cake that I made following the recipe from Epicurious. I think had I served it warm out of the oven it might have been good. But having to keep it in the fridge overnight and then take it to work in the morning turned it a little hard. I know, I should have just baked it at work or something like that, but frankly I'm not that committed. I guess it will show on my performance evaluation, but perhaps that day I'll bake brownies or just bring in whiskey.
And finally, the moment you have all been waiting for, the moment I reveal my latest departure from the reality of baking, where I attempt to throw off the chains of physics and chemical laws only to have them come back to flog me with my own failure. I had left over apricots, so I wanted to make something with them. I had no flour in the house, and still don't, but that's punishment for this flagrant disrespect for baking rules. Anyway, my logic went thus "no flour but plenty of cream cheese, I could make a cheesecake." So, away I went, pitting and preparing fresh apricots. Then melting butter and sugar in the bottom of a baking dish to make a caramel sauce such as the one I used for the upside down pineapple cake. Then I layers the apricots in the dish on top of the caramel. Next I whipped up a traditional cheesecake batter and poured it on top. Those of you who bake regularly are cringing in disbelief. Those who don't are thinking "there's something wrong with this picture, but I can't put my finger on it." Well, cheesecake has a particular liquid to fat ratio that makes it the way it is, and apricots, especially fresh ones, have lots of liquid. And since the apricots are under the cheesecake mixture there was no opportunity for the liquid to escape. Resulting in a very big, bubbling, hot, useless, exploding-and-coating-the-oven mess. Why I thought that juicy fresh fruit on the bottom of a cheesecake was going to work, I have no idea, but I think my fluid dynamics teacher should retroactively fail me.
Starting with the Out of the Park hit: Goat cheese stuffed portobellos
4 Large Portobello Caps, cleaned with stems removed
4 oz Goat Cheese
3 oz Cream Cheese
1T Pesto
4 Slices Emmantaller Cheese (or swiss of that's easier)
8t White Balsamic Vinegar
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper to taste
Turn on broiler. Drizzle olive oil on cooking sheet and rub to coat. Put mushroom caps top down on baking sheet. Drizzle a small amount of olive oil across each. Grind salt and pepper onto each cap. Drizzle 2t balsamic vinegar in each cap. Mix goat cheese, cream cheese, and pesto in a bowl. Divide cheese mixture between all 4 mushroom caps. Lay a piece of cheese across each mushroom. Broil until cheese is starting to brown and crisp, about 5 min. Serve immediately.
I like things a little sour. Sourdough bread, sour cream, and buttermilk top my list. I came across the recipe for Cucumber Buttermilk Soup from a Martha Stewart magazine (link not online yet, will add when it becomes available). I followed the recipe almost exactly, so I won't bother to reprint. It was great. I left it warm and added some additional potato flakes to make it more of a puree for Charlotte to eat. But she liked it as a soup, its just hard to feed soup to a 15month old who hasn't figured out the correct orientation of a spoon and yet wants to do everything herself. The cucumber and potato base was great warm and cold. And the buttermilk was exactly my style.
This evening I made Corn and Onion Cakes. They were supposed to be more like fritters, or something, but the first batch soaked up too much oil and were a strange consistency so I added flour and made them more like pancakes, which turned out great. So to the Corn Cakes recipe I just added about 1/2 C flour. And instead of goat cheese I used cheddar and I omitted the bacon part. Charlotte was a fan, so I feel this was a success. Again, it was a little sour, but I like things sour. Others may not, but hey, its my blog so deal with the sour. At least I'm not bitter today.....
The tie was the Apricot Coffee Cake that I made following the recipe from Epicurious. I think had I served it warm out of the oven it might have been good. But having to keep it in the fridge overnight and then take it to work in the morning turned it a little hard. I know, I should have just baked it at work or something like that, but frankly I'm not that committed. I guess it will show on my performance evaluation, but perhaps that day I'll bake brownies or just bring in whiskey.
And finally, the moment you have all been waiting for, the moment I reveal my latest departure from the reality of baking, where I attempt to throw off the chains of physics and chemical laws only to have them come back to flog me with my own failure. I had left over apricots, so I wanted to make something with them. I had no flour in the house, and still don't, but that's punishment for this flagrant disrespect for baking rules. Anyway, my logic went thus "no flour but plenty of cream cheese, I could make a cheesecake." So, away I went, pitting and preparing fresh apricots. Then melting butter and sugar in the bottom of a baking dish to make a caramel sauce such as the one I used for the upside down pineapple cake. Then I layers the apricots in the dish on top of the caramel. Next I whipped up a traditional cheesecake batter and poured it on top. Those of you who bake regularly are cringing in disbelief. Those who don't are thinking "there's something wrong with this picture, but I can't put my finger on it." Well, cheesecake has a particular liquid to fat ratio that makes it the way it is, and apricots, especially fresh ones, have lots of liquid. And since the apricots are under the cheesecake mixture there was no opportunity for the liquid to escape. Resulting in a very big, bubbling, hot, useless, exploding-and-coating-the-oven mess. Why I thought that juicy fresh fruit on the bottom of a cheesecake was going to work, I have no idea, but I think my fluid dynamics teacher should retroactively fail me.
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