The Mediocre Cook

136. Quick Tomato Sauce for Pizza

2010-11-09T11:06:00.000-05:00

Date Cooked: June 13, 2010
Page: 669
Rating: B+

I cooked this almost 5 months ago and I am going to admit my memory is pretty awful about my experience cooking this… but fortunately this wasn’t an awful recipe. As I had said in previous posts I really wanted to bake some homemade pizzas. I figured that if I was going to make dough from scratch I should also make the pizza sauce from scratch. So while the dough was relaxing I set about making the sauce.

Are you ready for a long post delving into the adventure that is quick tomato sauce for pizza? Well too bad… this was simple. I sauteed a little bit of garlic, added a can of crushed tomatoes and seasoned with salt and pepper. I simmered it until it thickened. That really could not have been easier. It barely qualifies as a recipe.

Rating: B+ The end result though was a simple sauce for the pizza which tasted good. The kids ate it on their pizza without complaint.

135. Pizza Dough

2010-08-24T13:25:00.000-04:00

Date Cooked: June 12, 2010
Page: 662
Rating: A-

So I had bought the new Cuisinart 14-Cup Food Processor and I wanted to really try it out. I figured I had been putting off Pizza Dough for awhile because I didn’t want to make it by hand and my old food processor would have seized and died painfully at the thought of trying to mix pizza dough. So this was a perfect opportunity.

I’m not going to lie. I am still intimidated by a lot of tasks in the kitchen, mostly those that I have never attempted before and pizza dough is one of them. I started by soaking some yeast in warm water while I got the rest of the ingredients in order. Flour and salt were sifted together and then oil and water were added to the yeast mixture.

I pulsed the wet and dry ingredients together in the food processor until it came together into a ball. Even though this processor is rather heavy duty it was bouncing all over the counter as it tried to spin the ball around. I could only imagine what would have happened if my old food processor tried to handle this… bouncing around the counter… motor screaming in agony… smoke pouring forth… and then a final squeal of despair before silence.

I removed the ball of dough and kneaded it quickly before forming it into a nice round ball. The dough was left to rise in a lightly oiled bowl, covered. When the dough had doubled in size I removed it from the bowl and divided it into three pieces. This is where the story of pizza dough ends… I then turned two of these pieces into pizzas and put the other in the freezer… which is still there to this day.

Rating: A- Rating pizza dough by itself is tough. The dough came together very easy and wasn’t that much work. I obviously didn’t taste the dough uncooked but I will say it was a decent tasting dough from the pizzas that were made. How many variations of plain pizza dough are there… water, salt, flour, oil and yeast.

134. Crispy Fried Chicken

2010-08-11T16:00:00.000-04:00

Date Cooked: April 18, 2010
Page: 330
Rating: B

I was watching the Next Food Network Star last night, a show my wife and I love, and some of the contestants had to make fried chicken. It made me think back to the fried chicken I cooked back in April… yes April, I am that negligent with my blog these days. Too many things on the go I guess. Well the chicken I made didn’t turn out as nice as that the Next Food Network Stars made but it was still a great learning experience in the kitchen.

The first thing that I needed to do was brine the chicken in buttermilk, seven cups of it. I think the only reason I even decided to cook this recipe was that fact that I had a carton of buttermilk that was approaching it’s expiration date. I had defrosted a whole chicken and then cut it up into 8 parts… it was supposed to be ten parts… I’ll get to that in a moment when it becomes somewhat humorous. The buttermilk brine contained salt, sugar, paprika, garlic and bay leaves all smashed together before being mixed with the buttermilk. The chicken pieces were then submerged and the bowl set in the fridge.

The chicken breast pieces were really large compared to the rest of the chicken and I was wondering why so I re-read the book. The breasts were supposed to be cut in half which would have provided two similar sized pieces to the rest of the batch. Now what should I do, since the chicken was brining in the fridge. I thought about it carefully and then realized the larger breasts probably wouldn’t deep fry well so I took out the bowl, reached into the brine and pulled out the dripping chicken pieces and sliced through them. Buttermilk brine was dripping everywhere, even though I tried my best to contain the mess. In my mind I was imagining little Salmonella bacterium colonizing every corner of my kitchen, ready to declare war on my family. So I put the four chicken breast pieces back in the brine and then scrubbed my kitchen counters.

Once the chicken had soaked in buttermilk long enough I removed it and prepared for the next phase of the operation. A dish of flour was prepared along with a mixture of baking powder, baking soda, egg and buttermilk for battering. I used my deep fryer instead of oil in a pan because it was cleaner and less risk to me. The chicken was deep fried until golden brown and then left drain on a paper towel lined plate before drying on a wire rack.

Rating: B. The skin was nice and crispy but the chicken as a whole was just a little too greasy. That said the kids loved it but they do tend to eat anything deep-fried. I don’t know if I would go through this whole mess again but I might adapt this to home-made chicken strips. I still have to try oven-fried chicken which might be better… I hope.

133. Mustard Sauce with Vermouth and Thyme

2010-06-12T13:26:00.000-04:00

Date Cooked: April 4, 2010
Page: 479
Rating: B+

Wow, I made this sauce with the ham back at the beginning of April. Time is flying by and I am not giving this blog the attention I once used to. Lives change and the logistics of having a third child do make time more precious. But before I can embark on newer recipes I guess I should finish up the posts on these older ones.

When I had made the decision to have Ham for Easter I needed an accompanying sauce to go with it. We had a traditional brown sugar and maple glaze (that came with it) but I wanted something less processed. I personally like mustard based sauces so I was all over this one.

Shallots were softened in butter before vermouth and sugar were added. This was reduced slightly to allow the alcohol to cook off before a mixture of cornstarch and chicken stock were added. The sauce was simmered in order to thicken it, and once done, some Dijon and grainy mustard and thyme were introduced.

I served this alongside the ham.

Rating: B+. I liked this sauce a lot more that the sugar syrup that came with the ham. The flavor helped offset the saltiness of the ham and added real dimension to the meat. My oldest son liked it as well which was a nice surprise.

132. Spiral-Sliced Ham

2010-05-31T13:28:00.002-04:00

Date Cooked: April 4, 2010
Page: 478
Rating: B-

I cooked this recipe almost 2 months ago. Time is flying by with another little one in the house. Definitely takes another chunk of time out of my already precious little time. In addition a few other changes have altered our dietary eating habits so the truth is trying to cook through this book has gotten a little more difficult. But I forge on anyway.

Nothing screams Easter like a 10lb. ham for two. Well actually it wasn’t really two, I have two little eaters as well so I guess it was more like two and a half. This year was a quiet Easter for us but we still wanted a nice family dinner and there is one thing we don’t eat a lot of in our house. Ham. We don’t dislike it but never really seem to want to cook one. Easter is a good excuse to cook one. The book is full of little articles on the best kitchen equipment or brands of product that taster’s recommend. Often this is useless to me because many brands aren’t sold in Canada or they are but are sold under different names. In this case the book recommended Cook’s Spiral-Sliced Smoked Ham. Just so happens that my preferred supermarket had them on sale. 10lbs. of ham is relatively inexpensive ($17) … compared to the 4 lbs of lamb shoulder chops I am looking for ($80).

Easter Sunday was time to get this big guy in the oven. I made some drastic miscalculations with regards to the timing of my meal. Between cooking time and resting time I underestimated by almost 2 hours. This probably would have been okay if it wasn’t for the fact that I was planning on dinner being at 6pm. By time 8pm rolled around we were famished.

Cooking a spiral sliced ham is not exactly rocket science, although I still struggled. In essence you are merely reheating a previously cooked product. The real learning for me was carving the ham. If done right you get a lot of meat with very few cuts. The book nicely outlined how to do this. I will say that I have become rather good at carving turkey, chicken and ham.

Rating: B-. I still can’t say I get overly excited about ham. It is a fine product but I would rather eat a good pork roast over a ham. This was served with a sauce which was rather tasty. Both of my eating children enjoyed the ham which always makes it a winner.

131. Key Lime Pie

2010-04-28T15:25:00.000-04:00

Date Cooked: March 25, 2010
Page: 909
Rating: B+

There is one Whole Foods Market in Toronto and it happens to be close to my sister-in-law’s place. During a quick delivery trip to drop some stuff off for her we decided to peek our heads in and see what the fuss was all about. It was quite an interesting place. I wasn’t entirely blown away by most of the store, but I was enthralled by the produce section. It wasn’t just the variety that was there but the quality of the produce was amazing! As we wandered around I picked up some spices that I couldn’t find in the regular chain and I also grabbed a small bag of Key Limes, I had a plan for these.

A few weeks back I baked a key lime pie (from a box mix) and the kids liked it. But I wanted to know what real key lime pie was like. That is the new curse I live with. I am always trying to figure out a way to make everything from scratch… I have even started looking into the possibility of cheese making! But that will be another time. This time I was simply tackling a pie and since I found key limes I figured this was perfect.

So as I started to flip through the recipe in the book, I’m reading the blurb about the limes and it turns out the book actually recommends regular limes, both because they are easier to find and juice easier, and there is little difference between the flavor of key limes and regular. I was a little disappointed, because I could have done this pie sooner and I could have spent less for the limes. But I soldiered on anyway.

First I need three tablespoons of zest from the key limes. Well, score one for the book. Zesting tiny key limes sucks. Thank god I purchased a microplane zester awhile back, it made a tedious job slightly quicker, although that sharp zester can wreck havoc on your fingers if you slip. Once I had acquired the requisite amount of zest I then needed to juice this little orb. It took nine key limes to extract enough juice. I will say these particular limes really gave up a good amount of juice each. So with the lime processing complete it was time to get busy.

The zest was beaten in with some eggs yolks and then condensed milk and lime juice was added and the mixture was set aside to thicken. I’m not sure what size condensed milk cans are supposed to come in but the size they use in the book (14oz) was not the size they sell at the grocery store (10oz). I was lucky I purchased 2 cans because I didn’t realize this until I was at home. So I ended up using almost a can and a half. Any suggestions on what I can use 5ozs of sweetened condensed milk for? With the filling thickening I moved onto the graham cracker crust.

Graham crackers were processed with some sugar and melted butter and then spread out onto a pie plate. This was baked for about ten minutes and then allowed to cool. Once cooled the filling was added and the pie was baked for an additional 15 minutes. This entire pie then needed to cool for 3 hours… Since it was already 10pm I figured we would have this for dessert the next night.

When it was finally time to enjoy this pie I whipped up some cream and confectioner’s sugar with the KitchenAid. I probably should have sifted the confectioner’s sugar. When tasting the whipped cream for “quality” I found a small lump of sugar. I won’t lie…. I actually liked that. The pie was garnished with some thinly sliced limes (I need a good quality mandoline) and sliced to be served.

Rating: B+. I liked the pie and it definitely tasted more real than the pie mix I had used previously. It was definitely tart but not overpowering. I only had one real complaint. The three tablespoons of zest needed to be very finely chopped to ensure it better blended into the pie. I also wouldn’t even bother with the lime garnish… not unless I get more creative with them. My oldest son liked the pie (which is no surprise since he likes anything sweet), his brother wasn’t as big a fan.

130. Gas-Grilled Bone-In Chicken Breasts

2010-03-27T11:26:00.001-04:00

Date Cooked: March 16, 2010
Page: 609
Rating: B

Ever since we won our grill last summer I have been a lot more enthused about grilling, and now that winter was beginning to close I figured I should fire it up and make sure it was ready for a new season. Grilled chicken sounded like a reasonably simple meal and I figured a rub or paste would spice things up.

Preparation for this meal was not exactly tough. I didn’t brine the chicken due to time constraints and the paste was pretty quick to throw together, so this recipe was all about the grill. I will confess. I am not a griller. While I have made big strides in the kitchen I still struggle on the grill, constantly double guessing myself and prone to burn food. I wouldn’t call what I do grilling… I’d probably call it arson. Isn’t grilling supposed to be buried deep in the male DNA? Or is it buried so deep in mine it got lost? Anyway let’s see how this first foray into grilling for the season turned out.

I spread the Asian spice paste on the skin side of the chicken breasts before placing them on the hot grill skin side down. While the skin side seared I spread the paste on the chicken’s other side. Once the skin side had sufficiently burned, I flipped it to burn the other side. I suppose referring to it as burning isn’t to promising is it. After searing both sides I moved the chicken to the cooler side of the grill to finish cooking. After several minutes I returned to a hot smoking grill to remove the charred poultry remains.

Rating: B-. I didn’t hate this recipe but I need to figure out how to better understand my grill temperature. The chicken wasn’t overcooked except for the outside of it which was well beyond overcooked. I wish I could really comment on the taste of the Asian spice paste but I have no idea what it really tasted like since it was pretty much burned off. I really must not skip brining, but it is so hard to find that hour to brine when I get home from work.

129. Asian Spice Paste for Chicken

2010-03-24T16:12:00.002-04:00

Date Cooked: March 16, 2010
Page: 610
Rating: B

First off I didn’t snap a picture of this paste. It was a component and I didn’t even think about getting out the camera until the dinner was ready. I’ll try to describe it for you. Imagine pesto. Okay done. Making this paste was simple. Let’s see, I had extra virgin olive oil, cilantro, soy sauce, minced jalapeño, minced ginger, minced garlic and probably some other stuff. I threw everything together and then used my immersion blender to help the ingredients form a harmonious society. The cilantro was definitely the king of this society, both in color and smell.

Rating: B. As with most marinades, rubs, and pastes that are intended to be used before cooking they are hard to rate by themselves. The best I can do is say that it was not offensive in smell and was easy to prepare. How it benefited the chicken I will describe in my next post.

128. Roasted Potatoes with Garlic and Rosemary

2010-03-19T13:04:00.000-04:00

Date Cooked: March 16, 2010
Page: 186
Rating: A

I don’t like potatoes. Well that used to be the case. Let me try and narrow down my distaste a bit. I detest potatoes boiled until the only thing holding the dried out, flavorless vegetable matter together is the flavorless starch that is a potato. I grew up with bad potatoes for too many meals and I feel that I have unjustly stereotyped all potatoes in the same manner, and as I have mentioned before, French fries aren’t potatoes. But these roasted potatoes came out PERFECT. Notice how I typed that all in capital letters. They were that perfect. The last time I cooked roasted potatoes was for Christmas dinner back in 2008. The difference between these ones and then (aside from the garlic and rosemary), was this time I didn’t have to cook for a dozen people and the potatoes had ample room on the baking sheet. Something that absolutely improved their crispiness.

I started by halving a bunch of small potatoes and tossing with extra virgin olive oil. The potatoes then spent 20 minutes roasting on a baking sheet cover with foil before being removed for their first turning. With fewer potatoes to flip I was able to give them individual attention and ensure each potato was comfortable on the baking sheet. After another 15 minutes in the oven they received their second flip before 5 more minutes in the oven.

While the potatoes were roasting I chopped some fresh rosemary and made a garlic paste of minced garlic and salt. These I placed in a bowl and when the potatoes were done in the oven I tossed everything together.

Rating: A. I liked these and they could not have been easier to prepare. My oldest ate these without issue and actually asked for a few from my plate. The crispiness of the exterior was perfect and the flesh was soft and creamy. The rosemary didn’t do much for me and there was not enough garlic but those were minor points. I will make these much more often as a dinner side. I will also find ways to spice these up.

127. Steamed Broccoli with Balsamic-Basil Vinaigrette

2010-03-17T16:19:00.000-04:00

Date Cooked: March 16, 2010
Page: 140
Rating: B-

t’s been awhile since I cooked something new from the book. I actually use many of the recipes in the book frequently, but as my repertoire increases my use of new recipes slows down. Also having a newborn baby means I am not spending so much time planning and preparing meals, in fact I am spending more time refereeing the wrestling matches between my 6 and 3 year old. Three boys is going to get interesting. But let’s get back to the purpose of this blog. Cooking… or attempting to cook.

I chose this recipe simply because we had broccoli in the fridge. It is one of the few vegetables that we frequently have fresh, asparagus is the other. Also looking through the ingredient list I had everything else (which is not as rare an occurrence as it used to be). Preparation for this was really simple. I combined extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar in a bowl to which I added minced shallots, garlic and basil. Having a basil plant in my kitchen window is definitely a great thing. I hope this summer to plant a nice little herb garden, once I find an area of my yard to grow them in.

I cut up some broccoli and steamed it. The steamed broccoli was tossed in the bowl with the vinaigrette and then plated with the rest of the meal. I would like to write a fantastic tale of culinary magic but the reality is that I steamed some broccoli and then tossed it with a handful of other ingredients. Not hard.

Rating: B-. I’m not rating it very high for two reasons. It really wasn’t very magical. Definitely not bad and is a perfectly fine manner in which to dress up broccoli. But still I wasn’t impressed. Now I will concede that the quality of ingredients is very important since they aren’t hidden. This leads to the second reason I scored it low, the shallots I used overpowered it. Overall it is a preparation I will tweak for the future.

126. Blueberry Pancakes

2010-02-25T15:45:00.000-05:00

Date Cooked: February 21, 2010
Page: 649
Rating: A

For those of you that follow my blog you may notice that I don’t often talk about my life beyond the meals that I cook. But today as I post this recipe I would also like to say that while I know how infrequent my posting has been it has been for good reason. On February 15th, my third child was born. I am no longer a father of two boys, now I am a father of three boys! I had better start learning to cook faster because in a few years I’ll be feeding a hungry little army.

Blueberry Pancakes is actually a variation of the Light and Fluffy Pancakes recipe in the book. Considering that the only difference between the two recipes is the addition of blueberries I figured this would be a great opportunity to cross both off the list.

The recipe is a rather basic pancake recipe. It calls for combining an egg with melted butter and milk thickened with lemon juice. Since I had buttermilk in the fridge and the recipe mentioned I could use it if it was available I went ahead and used buttermilk instead of the thickened milk. The dry ingredients were flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt. I folded the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until mixed and still lumpy (the key to fluffy pancakes).

I heated a pan until hot and then added my first quarter cup of batter. Let’s just say the batter was thick. The batter did not flow out of the measuring cup and looked more like muffin batter in the pan. I was smart though and only cooked one pancake. Once that had ‘cooked’ I devoured it to ensure quality and then thinned the batter out with another quarter cup of buttermilk. This was a lot more fluid and I began to produce pancakes like I was a factory worker. As the batter is poured into the pan blueberries are then sprinkled into the batter as it cooks. The finished products were stored in the oven, set at a low temperature, to keep warm.

Rating: A. These were tasty pancakes and they were definitely light and fluffy. This will be my go to recipe for pancakes, especially since both boys loved them. The only thing I need to do is find the right pan to cook them in. Since cooking these the first time I have already made them again. The second time I used my griddle and I am not exactly happy with it’s results. The griddle heats unevenly and the pancakes were spotty brown.

125. Beef Chili with Kidney Beans

2010-02-10T15:54:00.000-05:00

Date Cooked: February 7, 2010
Page: 443
Rating: B+

I’m going to start this post with a disclaimer. I am not a sports fan, a fact which has earned me a fair share of jokes from my family. That being said I don’t dislike sports, I just don’t have any real interest in watching them on TV. The Super Bowl and Stanley Cup finals are the exception of course. I can’t think of a single Super Bowl I have not watched since I was a child. So this year would be no different. I would sit down and watch the game whether anyone else cared to join me or not. And to enjoy the game I needed some good food. I figured chili was a good traditional Super Bowl choice.

If I had known how easy it would be to make this chili I would have done it much sooner. I made a quick trip to the overcrowded grocery store to pick up the fresh produce and meat needed. Apparently food and the Super Bowl go well together. The canned beans were completely gone (I’m guessing chili is a really common Super Bowl dish) so it was fortunate I didn’t need those. The chili powder was sold out, once again I already had that, and the ground meat was left to slim pickings. I was lucky there. With the ingredients I needed (plus some extra snacks), I headed home.

I figured it would probably be a wise idea to gather all the ingredients first and then prep them before cooking. I don’t do this often enough but I am glad I did because it really does speed up the cooking process. So with a pile of chopped onions and red pepper, a bowl of various spices (chili powder, cayenne, cumin, salt, oregano, coriander) and some garlic ready for the press I heated some oil in my dutch oven. With the oil nice and hot I threw in the vegetables, garlic and spices. I love the smell of cumin! I realize that it is the scent in southwest cuisine that make my mouth water! Anyway the mixture was nice and fragrant. Once the onions and peppers had softened I added the ground beef and cooked until the pink was gone (a tough task because the spices immediately make everything look brown).

When the beef was no longer pink I added the beans, diced tomatoes and crushed tomatoes. This simmered covered for an hour and then a further hour uncovered. That was it. Ready to serve with a little shredded cheese.

Rating: B+. It was easy and both my children ate some of it which was a real bonus. I found that the flavor profile was good but it did need more salt to round it out. It wasn’t overly spicy either which was great for the kids. My youngest mentioned that his mouth was sore but he kept eating anyway. Getting him used to spicy! My brother-in-law and his girlfriend came by to watch the game and they both enjoyed it. The recipe made quite a lot but by the end of the night there wasn’t even any left for me to take for lunch the next day. Guess I need to make more soon!

124. Boiled Potatoes with Butter and Chives

2010-01-15T08:00:00.000-05:00

Date Cooked: January 10, 2010
Page: 190
Rating: B

While I enjoy roasted potatoes or a fully loaded baked potato, I don’t share the same enthusiasm for boiled potatoes. In fact I will blame plain boiled potatoes for my rice preference. As a child, potatoes were not on my list of approved foods, and to be honest this was a short list. I felt they were plain and boring and unless they were scalloped I dreaded eating them. In case you were wondering about French fries, as a child they don’t count as potatoes, just ask my son. Anyway I have never cooked boiled potatoes before. Never. Well except every time I make mashed potatoes I guess.

The new potatoes were put in a big pot with salt and enough cold water to cover by an inch. The water was brought to a boil and then covered and simmered for about 15 minutes. During this time I had to move the pot from one burner to another to make room on my congested stovetop and this interrupted the simmering but I don’t really think it mattered too much. Once done I drained them and then cut each HOT potato in half. It really was amazing how fast I could slice each potato in half without suffering any cuts and only minimal heat damage to my fingertips. I definitely don’t have cook hands. These potatoes were then tossed with butter and chives.

Rating: B. Not bad for basic boiled potatoes. The chives were a required addition. I won’t say I am a convert to boiled potatoes, but they are a dinner option again. The kids ate them with the same enthusiasm I used to have though. Which is to say there were more left on their plate than in their belly.

123. Glazed Carrots

2010-01-14T11:35:00.000-05:00

Date Cooked: January 10, 2010
Page: 149
Rating: B-

I don’t think I have ever really been a fan of carrots. I don’t hate them, but they would not be a first choice for a vegetable side dish. I also detest raw carrots. I find them so fibrous that I tend to chew them forever. So let’s just say I wasn’t selecting this recipe because I craved carrots. But I figured the glazed part might entice my children to at least try them.

I started by slicing some carrots on the bias. These carrots were younger carrots and a little smaller than I would have liked so the pieces were pretty small. If I was a wise cook I would have thought to use this information further in the process, but I’ve never claimed to be wise. The carrots were cooked in a skillet with some chicken broth, salt and sugar. Once the carrots were slightly tender, the liquid was reduced and then butter and some more sugar were added. Once fully cooked, the carrots were tossed with some lemon juice and served.

Rating: B-. I made three mistakes with this recipe. The first was trying three stovetop recipes from the book at the same time. The second was using small carrots. The last mistake was not reducing the broth enough. All of these produced flavorful, but mushy carrots. The smaller pieces cooked too quick and the extra liquid didn’t help achieve a nice glaze. I found the lemon juice did help curb the sweetness but the mushy texture detracted from the dish. On the plus side though, my kids did try them with little fuss.

122. Classic Red Wine Pan Sauce

2010-01-12T15:41:00.000-05:00

Date Cooked: January 10, 2010
Page: 390
Rating: C

After making so bold a statement that I was going to cook more, over a week had elapsed before I got myself back into the kitchen with the book. As is usual in our house the question of what’s for dinner is always being asked. Since it was Sunday though, I had ample time to figure out what we should have and then make sure I had the ingredients. As is pretty typical around my house, we had very little fresh produce but lots of frozen meat.

We decided that some steaks with a pan sauce would be nice. This Classic Red Wine Pan Sauce fit the bill. I had already cooked the Pan-Seared Strip Steaks from the book and mangled my attempt at the Shallot-Butter Pan Sauce then, so I figured I would try my luck at a different pan sauce. The first step in this pan sauce is actually a red wine reduction. In a skillet I simmered red wine with minced shallots, carrots and mushrooms along with some parsley and a bay leaf. After 15 minutes the liquid was strained and then greatly reduced. While the sauce was reducing I cooked the steaks.

Once the steaks were done the fun began. I would like to qualify the following story with the fact I was also trying to balance the completion of two other recipes from the book. All fighting for a spot on the stovetop and cooking relatively quickly. I added some shallots to the pan and quickly realized that the pan was still very hot. I scrambled to deglaze the pan with equal parts chicken broth and beef broth before the shallots burnt to a crisp. In my mind I was envisioning the Shallot-Butter Pan Sauce all over again. Of course the pan was so hot the broth immediately sizzled and evaporated in a cloud of steam. Within minutes though all seemed to calm down. I allowed this to simmer for a bit before adding in the red wine reduction, the juices from the resting steaks and some fresh chopped thyme. This sauce was very dark and only a portion of this coloring was due to the reduced red wine. This was then served over the steaks.

Rating: C. I definitely need to work on pan temperature and I definitely need a larger stainless steel or cast iron skillet, instead of the non-stick one I am using. The steaks cooked too quickly and the pan was so hot that the fond was not composed of flavorful browned bits but blackened charcoal. This gave the sauce a burnt flavor. You could taste the fact that the sauce wanted to be good but it was still “burnt”. The subtle flavor of the wine and thyme were fighting for recognition while any other flavor was buried under the charcoal. I have one pan sauce left in the book so we will see what I can do but I am feeling that pan-seared food and sauces are beating me.

121. Classic Apple Pie

2010-01-05T13:49:00.000-05:00

Date Cooked: January 1, 2010
Page: 887
Rating: A+

My last recipe from the book that advanced my project was cooked at the end of November which means I didn’t work toward my project at all in December! I won’t lie, I was a bit disappointed with myself but December is a very busy month for my family so I didn’t beat myself up over it. But come January 1st I was itching to get back into it and I have been obsessing over baking a pie. It is a chapter that I have not tried anything from since I started this project and this was my first attempt at baking a pie from scratch… ever. You can look at the photo to see how it turned out.

Now executing this recipe was not easy and since I had never baked a pie before I was treading on some uncertain territory. Until the beginning of December I didn’t even own pie plates. So I now had the basic equipment required and the ingredients assembled… well not quite. The primary ingredient was a bit of a scavenger hunt. Trying to find apples New Year’s Day is not exactly simple. You see I had bought a bunch of apples for this recipe a few days earlier and my kids like apples. So when it was time to bake I realized that I was short 3 of 8 apples. I was determined to start the new year with this apple pie! So out into the snowy streets I go trying to find a convenience store that sells produce. It is interesting that produce is so hard to find in our society of simple and convenient. I ended up at a gas station across town with three apples in my hands, expensive ones I might add. I know people buy weird things all the time but who buys three apples from a gas station on New Year’s Day. Anyway back home I drove with my prize.

Now let me step back in time for a moment and talk about making the Basic Pie Dough. I made this in the morning in anticipation of baking the pie. I mixed flour, salt and sugar in my food processor and then cut in chilled shortening. I then cut in chilled butter and mixed everything with ice water until a nice dough was formed. I separated into two balls, wrapped and refrigerated. This was surprisingly easy but I was uncertain about the dough consistency. I added water until the dough came together but it took a little additional water to get to that point and even then I was not certain I had achieved my goals. I was concerned that the dough was going to break apart when I tried to roll it later. Anyway since I didn’t really know what I was doing I followed the recipe and moved on.

Let’s jump forward again to the point after my apple hunting excursion. I rolled out the first ball of dough with a little difficulty (I need a proper rolling pin). At this point I noticed that the shortening and butter had not been sufficiently cut into the dry ingredients because I had large pieces of fat scattered throughout my nicely rolled pie dough. I transferred this to the pie plate and placed it in the fridge to chill. Now I started the tedious task of peeling and coring apples. The apple pieces were then tossed with lemon zest and juice, a generous amount of sugar, some flour and cinnamon. This was transferred to the pie plate and then I rolled out the second piece to cover.

My wife and I were laughing at the volume of apples in the pie. I didn’t even think the pie dough would cover the apples but it did. After pinching the two pieces of dough together around the edge and sealing it with a fork I brushed the pie with an egg white and sprinkled with sugar. I was impressed with the way it looked and I hadn’t even added it to the oven. The cooking temperature interested me as the oven starts out at 500 and once the pie goes in gets turned down to 425. Halfway through baking it gets turned down again to 375. The house smelled great while it was cooking and the finished result looked beautiful! But I had to wait overnight for the pie to cool to room temperature! Actually only four hours but I didn’t want to stay up to eat pie, my son played hockey at 6:30am the next morning.

Rating: A+. Wow! I like to think I am a modest person but I absolutely delivered on this one. The pie looked amazing with it’s huge pie dome and nicely browned crust. I carefully cut into it to find that the apples were soft but not mushy. The smell was amazing and the taste was everything I love about a good apple pie. It tasted like apples and cinnamon, not apple flavored sugar syrup. My only complaints were that there was a little too much liquid in the pie and the large pieces of shortening and butter in the crust left small holes in a few places once the fat melted. All in all a great success to start off 2010!

The holidays are finally over!

2010-01-04T13:19:00.001-05:00

December is finally over and while the holidays can be a great time of year, they tend to be so busy that getting regular things done gets difficult. While I did a fair bit of cooking, no progress was made in the book. I did cook several recipes from the book though, those that have become favorites.

To make up for the fact that I let an entire month of opportunity to cook from the book go by I spent New Year's day preparing a recipe from one of the three chapters that I had not cooked anything from. I'll post soon but I was very pleased with the results.

Anyway, I hope for these next few months to be packed full of cooking goodness because something tells me I will be very busy starting at the end of February.

Happy New Year!

120. Braised Cauliflower with Garlic and Tomatoes

2009-12-09T13:21:00.000-05:00

Date Cooked: November 30, 2009
Page: 154
Rating: B+

I was hesitant about this recipe. For starters it contains tomatoes. And secondly it didn’t involve a cheese sauce which is almost always how we eat cauliflower… I guess that is a bit shameful. Well that is why I selected this recipe to try. A little outside the regular range of cooking without being too over the top (the other version involves anchovies, I’m not there yet in my culinary adventures).

I started by butchering a head of cauliflower into many smaller pieces. These got sauteed in oil until lightly browned and then I added some red pepper flakes, garlic and a bit more oil. When these ingredients hit the sauce pan my eyes started to water something fierce. I think the red pepper flakes were vaporizing into the air as they made contact with the hot pan. When I added the diced tomatoes the results were not much better as bits of red sauce splattered everywhere. I very quickly stirred the cauliflower and then covered it. The cauliflower cooked for another 5 minutes before I removed it from the heat and stirred in some fresh basil.

That was all it took to prepare this dish.

Rating: B+. This was a really easy way to prepare cauliflower. I actually enjoyed this dish and my wife didn’t complain at all which means I think she liked it, but won’t admit that she is getting used to tomatoes… The kids on the other hand didn’t touch it.

119. Broiled Chicken Breasts

2009-12-04T07:00:00.000-05:00

Date Cooked: November 30, 2009
Page: 327
Rating: B+

I had already done broiled chicken thighs and those turned out nice. This wasn’t much different except I decided to use a rub. As mentioned in the previous post, a rub was added between the skin and meat and then a mixture of oil and lemon juice was added just before finishing.

For those that care. The chicken was broiled on the bottom oven rack for about 7 minutes a side, starting skin side down, then a minute on the top rack to crisp the skin. My top rack left very little clearance between the chicken and the element and I had to watch it like a hawk lest my chicken go up in flames.

Rating: B+. The chicken turned out nicely done, maybe a little overcooked but brining allows for a little more leniency with cooking time. The chicken maintained its flavor and juiciness. The rub was a little too heavy on the rosemary and detracted a bit from the garlic and lemon flavors which were much more subtle.

118. Garlic, Lemon, and Rosemary Rub

2009-12-03T15:13:00.000-05:00

Date Cooked: November 30, 2009
Page: 327
Rating: B-

This was a component for some simple broiled chicken that we decided to have. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture prior to using this rub on the chicken so the picture is of the chicken. As with most rubs this one was rather simple to put together. I started with some cloves of garlic mauled by a garlic press. Into this I added some lemon zest and some freshly minced rosemary from my rosemary plant which is still growing strong on my front porch, even though we don’t water it and the temperatures have started dropping below freezing at night. I might need to bring it in next to my basil plant soon. Lastly some ground black pepper was added. This rub was spread under the skin of the chicken breasts before cooking. When the chicken was almost done cooking a mixture of oil and lemon juice was added.

Rating: B-. It’s hard to rate something like this since it is not meant to be eaten on its own. But I was not a fan of the taste it imparted to the chicken. The rosemary was definitely dominant. I would imagine this could be better with less rosemary and more garlic.

117. Melon and Prosciutto

2009-11-27T08:00:00.003-05:00

Date Cooked: November 10, 2009
Page: 18
Rating: B-

This barely qualifies as a recipe so don’t expect a long drawn out explanation. I had picked up a honeydew melon at the grocery store specifically because I had it in my mind to make this appetizer. I had some prosciutto in the fridge so I figured let’s chop up the melon into slices and wrap some prosciutto around it.

Rating: B-. You know what… as simple as it sounds the flavors work so well together. The salty prosciutto paired against the light sweetness of the melon was refreshing and satisfying. I enjoyed it.

116. Classic Deviled Eggs

2009-11-25T08:00:00.001-05:00

Date Cooked: November 1, 2009
Page: 22
Rating: A+

This is one of those recipes that I feel I am supposed to hate because they come straight out of the 70’s and 80’s. But I don’t hate them. In fact I am the one that will eat a platter of them, sneaking them when no one is looking until they are all gone. So I was looking forward to this.

I was supposed to use the recipe for foolproof Hard-boiled Eggs but I won’t ever try that again. At least not while I continue to get fresh eggs delivered. So I boiled seven eggs, peeled them, sliced them carefully in half and popped out the yolks.

In a mixing bowl I mashed the yolks with mayonnaise, whole grain mustard, cider vinegar, and Worcestershire sauce. I transferred the mixture to a ziploc bag and piped the mixture back into the egg white halves. Let’s just say that piping is not really my strong point. A little cayenne was sprinkled on top.

Rating: A+. These were tasty! I will absolutely make these things again. That’s all I have to say about them. I think I should make more tonight.

115. Squash Soup with Cinnamon-Sugar Croutons

2009-11-23T08:00:00.001-05:00

Date Cooked: October 29, 2009
Page: 51
Rating: B-

I know I have complained about this before but soups just aren’t that magical to me. I never crave soup. Ever. That does not mean that I don’t enjoy a fine bowl of hearty soup every now and then, but given a choice of soup or salad, it’s almost always salad… except at Swiss Chalet or if it is French Onion soup.

This fine weekday evening I had a butternut squash that didn’t get used at Thanksgiving and I wasn’t really sure what the longevity of squash was, so I figured after three weeks it probably needed to get used. I wanted to try something different with it and I figured a butternut squash soup would be interesting. I always enjoy it when served at weddings, and I believe those are the only occasions I have ever eaten it.

This particular recipe also includes some cinnamon-sugar croutons. So I will start with this process. Some plain ole whole wheat bread slices were cubed and then tossed with cinnamon, sugar and melted butter. I spread them out on a parchment lined baking sheet and baked in the oven for… a lot longer than the recipe suggests. In order for my croutons to become sufficiently dry and crispy I had them in the oven for three times longer than recommended, 8-10 minutes became 30 minutes. That’s fine though because in this soup making process that was the least of my concerns. Every step was an arduous task that pressed my limits of patience and sanity. Let’s start at the beginning.

The first step in this recipe is to cut the squash in half and then scoop out the seeds and pulp. I have never found cutting a butternut squash in half difficult. I have never needed a mallet or hammer. I have always used a large heavy knife though. So I split the squash and scooped out the innards and set everything aside. I was going to need the innards… innards, what a great word. I sautéed a minced shallot in butter and then added the seeds and pulp until it was fragrant. I then filled my pot with 6 cups of water, brought it to a boil and steamed the squash halves. That sounds fantastically easy. It wasn’t.

My little steamer insert was entirely too small to hold even one half of my medium sized squash. My steam cooker was not much larger. So I peeled and cubed the squash and then separated the squash into two batches. One went into the steam cooker, the other in the steamer basket over the boiling innards water. I reduced the steaming time since I figured the cubed squash would cook quicker. I was right. Now begins the fun part…

I strained the steaming liquid through a mesh strainer and then tossed the solids. I was then supposed to begin blending the squash in batches in a blender using the reserved liquid to make it nice and smooth. What a piece of crap my blender is. Mmmm let’s see. Put squash in blender, add some liquid, press on, watch blades spin uselessly while pureeing about a tablespoon of squash at the bottom of the blender. My blender would not circulate the squash. I spent several minutes scraping the side, adding more liquid, nothing would get it to move. Finally I dumped everything into a large pot and pulled out my immersion blender, stuck it in the squash, hit the on button, and watched squash sail across the kitchen. I wanted to laugh except I had to clean it up (except for the floor, that’s the dog’s job). I was pretty frustrated at this point. Needless to say it didn’t get much better but I did manage to get the pot of squash pureed.

I heated the pureed squash on the stove and stirred in some heavy cream and brown sugar. When the soup was hot I served it with some of the croutons on top.

Rating: B-. If I was to solely base this on the process of making this soup with the tools I have on hand I would fail it. But this is not about my personal animosity to making butternut squash soup. It’s about the flavor of the soup. It was good. The croutons add a nice textural contrast to the creamy soup, as long as you eat quickly. Once the croutons got soggy it wasn’t quite as appealing. In fact I had to concentrate in order to swallow each mouthful. It tasted great but my body was trying to rebel against the creamy savory soup with soggy wet sweet lumps in it. After the first bowl I ended up adding more of the steaming liquid to make it even smoother. This improved things… for other people. I only ate one bowl of it. The funny thing about this recipe is that I didn’t hate it… it just wasn’t really that enjoyable for me. Everyone else really liked it though.

114. Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic

2009-11-20T10:37:00.000-05:00

Date Cooked: October 28, 2009
Page: 315
Rating: A-

Whenever I imagined this recipe I always thought it was a whole roasted chicken. If I had known it was a chicken broken down into parts I may have actually cooked this one sooner. There was a time that the mere name of this dish would have turned my stomach. Garlic was not something I loved, but I honestly cannot remember when that changed. Today I put garlic in a lot of my cooking and I am liberal with it. In fact most of the recipes that call for a clove of garlic get two or three.

This recipe starts with the roasting of 3 heads of garlic, broken out into their cloves, and some chopped shallots. Actually the recipe starts with brining chicken but that is becoming routine so we’ll move onto the more exciting aspects of this dish. The garlic and shallots were tossed with oil, salt and pepper and then roasted for almost 40 minutes. At the end of the 40 minutes the garlic was starting to smell nice.

The chicken pieces were removed from the brine, rinsed, dried and then seasoned with pepper. In an ovenproof skillet they were browned in oil until both sides had crisped nicely. The chicken was set aside and the pan was deglazed with chicken broth and dry vermouth before some rosemary, thyme and a bay leaf were added. I was supposed to tie the sprigs of rosemary, thyme and the bay leaf together but I don’t have any kitchen twine. So I prepared myself for the inevitable fishing expedition required to get them out later. I added the garlic and shallots before reintroducing the chicken. The skillet went into the oven to roast for about 15 minutes.

Once done in the oven, the chicken was plated and most of the garlic and shallots were plated with it. The herbs were fished out and discarded, then some of the garlic was squeezed through a sieve and whisked into the pan sauce with some butter. The sauce was served over the chicken.

Rating: A-. This turned out really nice. The chicken was full of flavor and felt very comforting and satisfying. I think I ate 75% of the chicken myself. I will be making this again.

113. Grilled Flank Steak Rubbed with Latin Spices

2009-11-14T14:00:00.001-05:00

Date Cooked: October 25, 2009
Page: 574
Rating: A-

Flank steak is an easy meal. We decided to have some fajitas at home and this time I figured I would use one of the variations for the flank steak since I had already prepared Classic Fajitas before. This was a very simple recipe to throw together. A mixture of cumin, chili powder, ground coriander, salt, black pepper, cinnamon and red pepper flakes was rubbed on the flank steak before grilling.

The flank steak was grilled for about 5 minutes a side. The steak was then tented with foil and allowed to rest for 10 minutes.

Rating: A-. The spice rub really added some nice flavor to the meat. And this meal was on the table in under 30 minutes! I wish I had more to say about this but it was so easy. I just need to make sure I always have these spices on hand.

112. Classic Roast Turkey

2009-11-13T11:30:00.003-05:00

Date Cooked: October 12, 2009
Page: 360
Rating: A-

For those that have been following long enough you may recall my turkey from last year. The photo was a disaster. I had already begun disassembling it when I realized it was time for a photo. This year I did not make the same mistake. The turkey looked great but I still don’t think I have a photo that does it justice. Anyway this was my second year being responsible for the turkey portion of our Thanksgiving dinner.

I must start reading recipes better prior to starting them. It was 9 o’clock the night before Thanksgiving dinner and I had just finished putting the turkey into a container to brine overnight. I read through the recipe to see what I would need to do the next morning when I came across this fantastic bit of information. Brine for 4 hours, air dry in the fridge for at least eight hours. Ummm…. I’m not supposed to brine this over night? I check the clock and consider my options… I could throw caution to the wind and let the bird sit in its salty bath all night, risking an overly salty turkey. Or I could stay up late and remove the turkey from the brine before going to bed.

At 1 o’clock in the morning I’m in my kitchen rinsing a turkey in the sink and patting the turkey dry when my son comes downstairs. I can tell he is confused and then he informs me that he would like some toast for breakfast. I finish up with the turkey, place it in the fridge and guide my son back to bed. I think he may have fallen asleep en route to bed. I wasn’t awake much longer.

The next day about three hours before dinner I got the turkey ready for the oven. I put coarsely chopped onions, carrots, celery and thyme in the pan and mixed a third of it with some melted butter and put it inside the turkey. I rub melted butter over the whole turkey and then placed it in the oven to roast. The turkey was roast breast side down for about 30 minutes before it was turned onto one side for 15 minutes and then the other side for an additional 15 minutes before finishing out its roasting breast side up. During each turn the turkey was basted. During the first turn I was lucky enough to suffer a burn to my hand. I grabbed the handle of my pan and when I shifted to get a better grip when lifting, an exposed part of my hand came into contact with the rather hot handle. The only saving grace was I was able to suffer through the burn and not drop the turkey. I was much more careful after that.

When the turkey was complete I removed it from the oven and let it rest on my cutting board for almost 30 minutes before carving it. I don’t want to brag but I am definitely getting better at carving.

Rating: A- The turkey turned out well. I am usually a dark meat eater but I am finding that I avoided white meat simply because it was always so dry. Not so with this turkey! Although I still drowned most of the meal in gravy.

111. Giblet Pan Gravy

2009-11-06T08:00:00.000-05:00

Date Cooked: October 12, 2009
Page: 364
Rating: B-

When I was but a wee lad growing up I detested gravy. You couldn’t put it anywhere near my plate. Then I of course grew up and after realizing how many dry mashed potatoes and dried white turkey could have been saved with gravy I accepted it. And then I turned acceptance into a full out love of gravy. It would not be uncommon for me to add more gravy than food it was to cover. A Thanksgiving dinner would be turned into a quasi stew as I ladled on the gravy.

Speaking of gravy I remember the first time I had gravy at my in-laws. They commonly use vinegar gravy, something I had up until that point never had before. I, in my usual excess gravy fashion ladled this all over my dinner. Had my first bite and it immediately became clear to everyone that something was amiss. I tried to hide my surprise at the unexpected flavor but they noticed and they laughed. Every time I eat dinner there I am always sure to check the gravy before pouring it over my food.

I’ve never made gravy before. That’s right, for all of my love of gravy I have never made it myself, so I had high hopes for this gravy, simply because it was gravy. Making gravy requires three stages. At least this recipe did but I imagine most authenticate gravies are made in a similar fashion.

Stage one starts out with the giblets and turkey neck being sauteed. After a few minutes I threw in some onions and once nicely browned I covered everything and let it cook on low for about 20 minutes. After that I added some stock, water and herbs (thyme and parsley) and brought it to a boil before simmering uncovered for 30 minutes. It is a good thing that I did this stage in the morning. Once cooked, I strained everything through a fine mesh strainer and set the gravy stock aside. The giblets and turkey neck were to be reserved for later use but I did not like the idea of re-adding the meat to the gravy (and neither did my wife), so in a rare moment of deviation, I omitted it. That being said my dog feasted on the gizzards (minus the heart which I ate… not very good after being cooked for 50 minutes) and shredded turkey meat.

Stage two thickens the gravy and gets completed close to the end of the turkey’s roasting time. In this stage a roux of butter and flour is made and then most of the gravy stock is whisked into it and then simmered until it thickens.

Stage three is the final stage and uses the drippings from the turkey pan to complete. The roasting pan is set over two burners and then using white wine and some reserved gravy stock the whole thing is simmered until the liquid is reduced by half. The liquid is strained and then defatted. Once done it gets whisked into the thickened gravy from stage two. Gravy complete.

Rating: B-. It was good gravy. I loved it as much as I like all gravy. But it did not blow me away. I expected something almost magical but it tasted almost the same as packaged gravy, but most likely much better for me. I guess I am trying to say the work was not really worth the result. I spent a lot of time making the gravy which could have been used doing something else. If it was something that could be made in less than 30 minutes with minimal effort I would absolutely make this more often. But until then it will be a special occasion recipe.

110. Bread Stuffing with Bacon, Apples, Sage, and Caramelized Onions

2009-11-05T12:43:00.000-05:00

Date Cooked: October 12, 2009
Page: 369
Rating: B+

I had pretty high hopes for this dish. I learned last year that I don’t like stuffing a turkey and I dislike the cooked stuffing that comes out afterwards. So this year I opted to cook all of the stuffing in a baking dish, which they recommend for any stuffing that doesn’t fit in the turkey, so I’ll pretend none fit in the turkey.

This recipe actually started two days before Thanksgiving when I had to start drying out the bread. I cut an entire loaf of French bread into slices and left them out overnight to dry. The next day I cut the slices into cubes and left them to dry overnight again. Thanksgiving morning the bread rocks were sufficiently dry. The whole point of drying out the bread is so that the dried bread can rehydrate with even more flavorful liquid when the stuffing cooks.

Unlike the chaotic mess of last thanksgiving, I planned ahead this year to reduce the last minute panic of trying to get all the dishes finished. So first thing in the morning I got started on the stuffing, so all it needed was some time in the oven closer to dinner. I began this recipe by cooking the bacon in my dutch oven. Any recipe starting with bacon is great. The smell is awesome and I always cook a little extra because I am guaranteed to sample a few cooked pieces, this was no exception. Once the bacon had finished cooking I put it aside and using a small amount of the bacon fat (draining the rest), I began to caramelize the chopped onions. This is a technique I still need to work on. Maybe it is my patience that I need to work on as it always seems to take forever to get a nice golden brown color without burning them. Once the onions were almost done I threw in the chopped apples for a few minutes before removing everything from the heat.

In a large bowl I mixed the onions, apples, bacon, stale bread, sage and some stock. This was thoroughly mixed and then transferred to a 9x13 baking dish that had been buttered. On top of the mixture I placed several pats of butter and then pour some more stock. Covered in foil it sat until ready to cook before dinner. About an hour before dinner was to be served, the stuffing was baked for 25 minutes before the foil was removed and then baked for an additional 30 minutes.

Rating: B+. I enjoyed this stuffing. The flavors were great and the bread was definitely not dried out. My biggest complaint though, which is more to do with my execution of the dish than the recipe itself, is that the bread needed to be cut into smaller pieces. The bread pieces were a little too large in comparison with the rest of the ingredients. Sometimes it felt like eating a soggy (but flavorful) piece of bread, and not a mouthful of stuffing.

109. Basic Cranberry Sauce

2009-10-26T09:17:00.000-04:00

Date Cooked: October 12, 2009
Page: 373
Rating: C+

What Thanksgiving dinner would be complete without some cranberry sauce? Mine. I am not a fan of cranberry sauce, mostly because I am not a fan of cranberry jelly still perfectly molded from the can. I decided I would try some fresh from scratch cranberry sauce to see if that made a difference.

Starting with a bag of cranberries I went to work. In a saucepan I brought to a boil sugar, water and salt. Cranberry sauce contains a lot of sugar. I guess when there is more sugar than water I am in for something sweet… or at least that is what you would think. Once the solution was boiling I dumped in the cranberries and brought them back to a boil before letting them simmer. In a reasonably short period of time I could hear them bursting and it was almost done. It was fascinating to hear them pop and explode.

Once done I transferred them to a bowl and let them cool before serving.

Rating: C+. I personally found the sauce to be quite tart, even with the amount of sugar used. I didn’t mind the flavor but something just did sit well with me. A mouthful was cloyingly sweet until you bite into a cranberry and then everything becomes tart. I understand that a good cranberry sauce strikes a good balance between sweet and tart but it didn’t feel balanced. It felt like two distinct tastes, first sweet then tart, not a melding of the two. But taste aside the texture really put me off. The cranberries were either totally destroyed by the cooking process and nothing more than skin and mush or they were little tart pellets. Please bear in mind I am no connoisseur of cranberry sauce so maybe I just don’t like it… whether it’s good or not. I’m not going to miss it at dinner.

108. Glazed Cinnamon Rolls

2009-10-24T12:42:00.000-04:00

Date Cooked: October 3rd, 2009
Page: 759
Rating: B+

Where is the time going these days. I actually have several recipes from Thanksgiving to post and I am falling behind. Not that I am known for my rapid posting schedule but usually it’s because I am too busy to cook… not because I am too busy to post.

There are two recipes in the Book for cinnamon buns (or rolls in this case). One is a quick bread style cinnamon bun and the other was this yeasted version. I had the ingredients for both but decided to try the slightly more difficult version… and to try my luck with yeast.

Since this was going to involve rising dough I figured it made sense to start on it so I would not waste precious time that would most likely be consumed by disorganized kitchen panic. The first step was to melt some butter in the microwave. I then whisked in some milk and set it aside to cool. Warm water, yeast, sugar, eggs and yolks were mixed in my KitchenAid until well blended. Then I added some flour, salt and the milk-butter mixture and let this mix. At this point I switched from the paddle attachment on my mixer to the dough hook, fired it back up and added the remaining flour. The book gives a time of about 10 minutes for kneading (until the dough freely clears the sides of the bowl), but that only took about five minutes. I was uncertain at this time whether I should continue kneading or not. From everything I have learned so far, if I over knead the dough it could be too dense from gluten formation, but if I don’t knead enough, the dough will be crumbly from lack of gluten. Or something like that, I am still trying to figure it all out. I figured the bread I had made previously always seemed dense, so I was going to stop kneading at let the dough rise. I formed the dough into a ball and placed it in an oiled bowl to rise in a warm spot.

Okay, so once that was complete I figured I should prepare the filling and the icing. The filling is straightforward and hard to screw up (I’m sure I could but I didn’t). Light brown sugar, salt and cinnamon in a bowl. Easy. The icing glaze was simple also, except I had to clean my KitchenAid mixing bowl. I hate doing dishes while cooking. Softened cream cheese, corn syrup, heavy cream, icing sugar and vanilla extract where mixed until smooth and lump free. I love the taste of cream cheese frosting. I mean I love it! And this was no exception. This was transfer to a bowl and refrigerated. Now I just had to wait for the dough to finish rising.

When the dough had sufficiently doubled in volume I began to roll it out into a rectangle approximately 16x12. The filling was sprinkled over the entire surface and then I tightly rolled it up. Then I was instructed to cut it. This was a definite learning experience. There is a suggestion to use dental floss to cut the dough. I thought this was a great idea but I am not always thinking correctly and my interpretation of the method was not really working out well. I was attempting to slice the floss straight down through the dough. This was not cutting much at all but it was squishing and deforming the dough. So I just used a really sharp knife. If I had thought about it though I should have wrapped the floss around the dough and pulled it tight, cutting through and keeping the dough in a cylindrical shape. Once the dough was cut into 12 rounds It was placed in a greased baking dish and allowed to rise a second time. I will admit once this had risen the second time they were starting to look good. Once risen, I baked them for 30 minutes.

These looked great and smelled amazing. I let them cool for a short while before coating them in the glaze/frosting/icing… not really sure what it should be called. I always think of glazes as thin but this ‘glaze’ is actually rather thick. After covering them I realized that they would really look like cinnamon rolls in a picture… probably should have been a little lighter on the glaze.

Rating: B+. Fresh cinnamon buns are a great thing. These turned out well. They were a bit dry around the outer edge of the pan but other than that they were delicious. Now as good as they were the first day they were exceptional the next day after a quick spin in the microwave. I love Cinnabon cinnamon rolls reheated and these were almost identical… probably better for me though.

107. Cream Biscuits with Cheddar Cheese

2009-10-14T12:13:00.000-04:00

Date Cooked: September 30, 2009
Page: 712
Rating: B+

I’m not sure why I have been fixated on biscuits but it probably has something to do with the fact that they are not terribly hard to make, just terribly hard for me to make well. I figured after the biscuit topping for the Peach Cobbler and Chicken Pot Pie I was starting to understand how these things were supposed to be made.

This time around I was a little more prepared and had a good understanding of the steps involved. That is one thing that this project has helped me with. While many of the recipes I am tackling are not really that complex or unique they are introducing me to basic skills I didn’t have. As I learn these skills, things are getting easier and I am beginning to realize how common the process is amongst recipes.

So I started by whisking together the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, salt) and the cheese cubes. Then I slowly added heavy cream while folding the ingredients together. When the dough had roughly formed I turned it out onto my counter and then added a little more cream to the mixing bowl to get the remainder of the little dough pieces. I kneaded the dough until it formed a reasonably cohesive mass before rolling it out into a ¾ inch thick round.

I don’t have pastry cutters so I opted to cut these into wedges. This actually turned out really well as the sharp knife cut through the dough cleanly and I didn’t have and left over scraps to reform into a ball to cut further. I baked them for about 18 minutes and as soon as they were out of the oven I cut into one, loaded it with butter and devoured it.

Rating: B+. These turned out really good and I was very happy with the texture and form of the biscuit. That being said the flavor left me wanting… not sure whether sweeter or saltier though. They tasted like they didn’t want to be sweet or salty and therefore decided that the bland and boring middle would be fine. I will make these again but I will try to experiment with the flavor a little to give them something more. So I can now strike biscuits off my list of simple things I should be able to make without horrendously screwing up. It’s a long list.

106. Pasta with Quick Tomato Sauce

2009-10-07T10:26:00.001-04:00

Date Cooked: September 27, 2009
Page: 245
Rating: B

I have really begun to think more about the processed food that we buy and while I am not against pre-packaged food for convenience I do find myself frequently asking whether or not I could make it at home. The answer is usually a resounding YES followed by lots of cursing and frustration and questioning of why I didn’t just buy that damn package of frozen food.

While my attempt at hummus is what started me on this journey and actually got me thinking more about the food I buy, it was an attempt to make homemade chicken strips (which I hope to post sometime soon) that made me look at the food in stores differently.

We had some fresh pasta that needed to be used and I figured I would make a quick pasta sauce to go with it. I have learned from both the Chicken Parmesan and the Spaghetti and Meatballs that a simple pasta sauce is easy to make and as good as any store bought pasta sauce. The sauce takes about as long to cook as the pasta does. While this is a quick plain tomato sauce you can easily add to this mix to make it really delicious.

I deviated from the recipe almost immediately but I was certain that the change would not really alter the results in any significant way… I’m quite certain based on some of my exploits that I should refrain from allowing these kinds of ideas from taking hold. Since we were also going to be having some sausage I cooked them first and then used the grease from the sausage to sautee the garlic instead of starting with fresh oil. No need to dirty another pan right? I’m sure all you dish cleaning haters out there can agree. Once the garlic was fragrant, then I added a canned of diced tomatoes to begin reducing them.

In previous ‘quick’ sauce recipes I would use crushed tomatoes so when I dumped in the can of diced tomatoes I was thinking this was going to be a little chunkier than I would like… or actually my wife indicated how displeased she would be if this was chunkier than she liked. I’m married so we like the same things  As the tomatoes reduced and broke down though they became a nice paste and I figured if they didn’t it was nothing the immersion blender couldn’t solve.

As the sauce approached its final minutes of cooking I added some fresh basil, a little sugar and some salt. I drained the pasta which had been cooking during this time, being careful to reserve some pasta water. A tip I picked up somewhere suggested putting the measuring cup in the colander so you don’t forget to take some water before dumping. It has stopped me from forgetting a few times already.

I put the drained pasta back into its warm pot and introduced it to the sauce along with the reserved water and some oil. The mixture was heated through for a few minutes and then plated to serve. Actually it was then plated to take a picture and then I mixed the cooked sausage into the pasta and served that.

Rating: B. It was simple and delicious. Nothing spectacular mind you but it definitely was no more difficult than using store bought pasta sauce, well actually it was a little more difficult but I think instead of keeping pasta sauces on hand I will start keep cans of diced and crushed tomatoes on hand. I also learned that my children love cheese… except for the cheese that we grated to garnish this. My oldest decided that it smelt like vomit. I believe it was either Swiss or Asiago. Don’t know because we just grated the small amount we had left in the fridge. That should instill confidence for those that visit to eat. I’m not always sure what I am feeding you.

105. Chicken Pot Pie with Corn and Bacon

2009-10-01T11:03:00.000-04:00

Date Cooked: September 26, 2009
Page: 352
Rating: A-

So we all know how the Fluffy Buttermilk Biscuit Topping turned out but what about the rest of the dish. Well creating this pot pie was very similar to my previous attempt with only mild modifications and deviations from that event.

It really is a simple process to create a delicious chicken pot pie (which I have to admit is a dish I am really beginning to enjoy). Same as before, chicken breasts were poached in stock and both the chicken and stock were set aside. This time though both of my chicken breasts were of similar size so they both cooked nice and juicy around the same time. Next in this version, the bacon was cooked until crispy and then the rendered fat was used to sauté the vegetables (carrots, onions and celery). While the vegetables cooked I shredded the chicken (while my youngest kept trying to steal pieces of it). Once the carrots, onions and celery was done I added it to the bowl of chicken along with the bacon.

In the now empty dutch oven, I whisked together some butter and flour before adding the reserved poaching stock, milk and thyme. I simmered this until it thickened, and this time I let it really thicken, before seasoning it with salt and pepper and some sherry. This was mixed with the chicken, vegetables and bacon along with a can of corn… I really, truly thought I had frozen corn but I didn’t so I had to use canned corn. I don’t know about the rest of you but canned vegetables are low on my list of preferred food items. This mixture was transferred to a baking dish and topped with the Fluffy Buttermilk Biscuit Topping. Into the oven it went for longer than the book suggested. The book suggested 30 minutes but I needed almost 40 minutes for it to be hot and bubbly.

Rating: A-. I love a good chicken pot pie and this was no exception. This time around I felt a lot more confident putting it together, and other than the biscuit topping, it turned out great. Of course this time around my oldest didn’t like it very much, but his preference in food these days is more about mood than taste. I think I may have ended up eating half of this myself. I will absolutely cook more pot pies not simply because there are two more variations left in the book but because I want to try individual sized ones next!

104. Fluffy Buttermilk Biscuit Topping

2009-09-29T13:21:00.000-04:00

Date Cooked: September 26, 2009
Page: 352
Rating: C

I’ll preface this post by saying that this was a component to another recipe which I will post next. So while this was my second attempt at a biscuit recipe, the first was the peach cobbler, I have yet to make biscuits. For those that follow my blog and feel that I am not making enough mistakes to be humorous anymore, well then you will be very pleased with this post, much to my misfortune.

Let’s start with the briefest history of biscuits. The word itself means twice cooked in French (‘bis’ = twice, ‘cuit’ = cook), and shares commonality with biscotti (Italian for twice cooked). The original biscuits were dense and hard and well suited to storage and travel. In fact, they were a staple food for sailors as they would keep for long durations. The lighter, fluffier biscuit we are familiar with in North America originated in the south. That’s it for your history lesson, don’t worry, no quiz will be given.

Now for the failure because it starts early. I was excited to cook this fine Saturday afternoon. We had made a meal plan for the week and were pretty good about sticking to it, but due to last minute changes in plans (we finally went and saw Julie & Julia) I didn’t cook this on Thursday as planned. Since I had everything already purchased and ample time to cook I figured I would dive in. Before diving, always ensure there is water in the pool.

With all the ingredients in place I got to work. The dry ingredients were added to the food processor. This consisted of all-purpose flour, pastry flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar. Didn’t take me long to mess this up. I added twice as much salt as I should have and only half the required amount of sugar because of my undiagnosed illiteracy. I got the sugar and salt quantities mixed up. The sugar was an easy fix of course but the salt not so much. With thoughts of my blog in my mind I began to carefully scoop the salt from the flour (I hadn’t mixed everything yet so this seemed almost like something that could be done), I gave up and decided to accept the failure and continue, I mean it wasn’t that much more salt. If only the salt was the worst of my problems.

I pulsed the dry ingredients together before cutting in the cold butter. I took some advice and covered the bowl with plastic wrap and this worked great. It kept the mess in the bowl, instead of all over the counter. I moved the contents of the food processor to a mixing bowl to which I added the buttermilk. I began carefully mixing with a fork but the dough would not come together! It remained soupy and I was getting a little frustrated. I started adding flour a tablespoon at a time and kept mixing. At this point I figured the dough, if it ever formed something cohesive enough to roll out would be tough. The gluten formation must be approaching the durability of wood. Around the addition of the third tablespoon of flour it dawned on me my failure. I might have a short-term memory issue. When measuring out the flour, of which I needed 1 cup of each type, I used a ½ cup dry measuring cup because it fit my containers better. I used it knowing I needed 2 scoops of each flour type. My debilitating brain disorder caused me to immediately forget this and I used only one scoop. Wow, that definitely explains my moist dough. I added the required amount of flour (minus the 3 tablespoons I had already mixed in) and proceed to knead it into a ball of dough. I knew this was set for failure.

Well the next step was to roll out the dough. I decided to try a trick I read somewhere recently. I don’t remember where and I am racking my brains trying to think of it. Oh, I remember, Derrick at BGB Challenge, a new addition to the CTB world. Placing the dough between two sheets of wax paper I rolled it out. This was truly an easy way to do it. Once rolled out enough, I removed the top sheet of wax paper (a little bit stuck but nothing major) and flipped it onto a lightly floured baking sheet. I removed the remaining sheet of wax paper and put the dough in the fridge covered with plastic wrap.

When it was time to use the dough I removed it from the fridge and cut it into pieces with a sharp knife, since I did not have and sharp pastry cutters. The book warns against using the lip of a cup since it pinches the dough and does not allow the edges to rise nicely. A nice sharp cut is recommended. I figured at this point my overly handled dough was going to need every trick possible to turn into something decent. I laid them over the chicken pot pie and everything went into the oven.

Rating: C. This rating reflects my execution of the recipe. While the dough barely rose when cooked it did taste great. I figure I still need some work on making dough. This event reminded me of my biscotti attempt.

103. Spaghetti and Meatballs

2009-09-28T10:24:00.000-04:00

Date Cooked: September 23, 2009
Page: 253
Rating: B+

Spaghetti and Meatballs! A quintessential Italian pasta dish that I truly cannot remember the last time I had eaten it. I’ve had spaghetti and sauce before, but big delicious meatballs were never on top of the spaghetti, all covered in cheese. And I never lost my poor meatballs, when somebody sneezed. I’ll probably be humming that children’s song for the rest of the day… I wonder if I can even remember the whole thing…

Anyway, let’s talk about some massive meaty balls. That probably sounds rather bad but I mean I seriously made some meaty balls. The first step in creating what the book calls the ‘Best’ meatballs is to make a paste out of buttermilk and bread. This is called a panade for those that didn’t know, which included myself until just a few minutes ago when I looked it up. Apparently this is the secret to keeping them moist. I’ll be honest, bread soaked and mashed into buttermilk looks really gross, something like what a newborn would spit up. But I put those thoughts aside and started getting the rest of this meal together.

I started with a pound of ground meat, in this case ¾ pound of ground beef and ¼ pound of ground pork. Mixed into this I added parmesan cheese, parsley, garlic, an egg yolk and salt and pepper to season. I added the baby vomit… I mean the panade, and mixed everything until just combined to prevent the meatballs from getting too dense from over working. From this mixture I rolled out 12 large meatballs. The recipe says I should get about 14 and I don’t doubt if I had been a little more conservative I would have had that many.

I’d like to look back to when I started this blog and look at the recipe for Corn Fritters. I was terrified of cooking in oil a year ago. Since then I have gotten quite used to it and I know this sounds ridiculous but I am proud of my basic cooking techniques. I also realize I wasn’t unique and I wonder how many people today in their early thirties haven’t learned the basics for cooking.

Anyway I carefully placed the meatballs into my pan of oil. I made sure not to crowd them and as such I did them in two batches. I turned them frequently to brown them on all sides and this took some delicate work for the first few turns as my meatballs definitely were not dense. Once browned, they were set aside and the oil was removed, and then some more oil was added, this time olive oil. Some garlic was sautéed before a can of crushed tomatoes was added. This was left to simmer until it thickened up before I finally added some chopped fresh basil (from my basil plant which is still growing nicely), along with some salt and pepper to taste. I added the meatballs to the sauce to keep everything warm while the pasta finished cooking.

Simple things the book has taught me are that ample water and salt are required for cooking pasta. I’m sure lots of people have their own beliefs but I am now firmly entrenched with the books ideology. Now I must confess one teeny, tiny deviation from the book here. The recipe is for spaghetti and meatballs but I found out that I didn’t have spaghetti after coming home from shopping and I didn’t feel like running back out when I had an abundance of linguini and I figure it was close enough. Once the pasta was drained I returned it to the pot and added in several spoonfuls of the sauce, sans meatballs, and tossed to coat.

Each plate was set with pasta, topped with some meatballs and then topped with more sauce and some parmesan. Well actually my wife and sons were plated. I ended up having to cook more pasta for myself because I had once again misjudged how much pasta I needed to feed my family.

Rating: B+. This was a good and satisfying meal. The meatballs were delicious and the sauce was easy to make. Everyone enjoyed the meal including my traditionally picky eaters. In fact we had to fight over the last meatballs.

In case you were wondering what nursery rhyme was stuck in my head, it was On Top of Spaghetti.

102. Spicy Fries

2009-09-22T10:07:00.000-04:00

Date Cooked: September 21, 2009
Page: 195
Rating: B+

This week we decided to try something we keep meaning to do but always fail horribly at, a meal plan. This week we have decided to start simple and figure out just dinners. So on Monday night we decided to have homemade chicken strips and some French fries. This was the second attempt to cook French fries in our deep fryer. In case you didn’t know, I highly recommend the self cleaning deep-fryer from T-Fal, makes deep-frying easy, and clean-up manageable.

The first step is to cut the potatoes into fries and then soak them in cold water to help release some of the starch and ensure the potato cells are hydrated. The process this time around was much easier because I knew what I was doing. The fries went into the deep fryer for 9 minutes for their first round and then I let them drain on paper towel while the rest of the meal was prepared. When it was time to eat, the fries got another 5 minutes in the deep-fryer at a higher temperature to crisp them up.

Now my kids wouldn’t like the spicy seasoning so they ate their fries with some gourmet vinegar. The spicy seasoning was a simple mix of cumin, paprika, chili powder and cayenne pepper. For my fries I tossed them with the seasoning and then sprinkled a little more on top for good coverage.

Rating: B+. While the fries turned out much better this time the seasoning was nothing special. Probably because the seasoning didn’t contain salt and I didn’t salt the fries too much.

101. Fresh Peach Cobbler

2009-09-18T07:00:00.003-04:00

Date Cooked: September 13, 2009
Page: 946
Rating: B+

When I was at the store buying a basil plant I saw some delicious looking peaches on sale. I figured I could make something good out of those and so grabbed them. When I got home I figured it was going to be either a peach crisp or a peach cobbler. I went with the cobbler since I had already done an apple crisp and wanted to do something different. Now this is a bit of a deviation from the way I normally cook. My wife can attest that I need to know the plan before I commit to something. I go to the grocery store because I know what I want to cook, not to find something to cook. So buying something spur of the moment to use later is not the norm.

The first step in creating this peach cobbler was to prep the peaches. My wife very helpfully peeled all of the peaches for me while I was attending other things (probably walking our dog). I arrived back and was all happy she did the hard part… until I realized removing the peach stone was actually the hard part. Most of the peaches came out of this process resembling something like peach slices. Alas some didn’t. I would just have to make sure they got buried under the dough. With the peaches mangled I left them in a bowl covered with sugar for thirty minutes. During this time I began preheating the oven and assembling the biscuit dough for the top.

I hate my food processor. I mixed flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and sugar together. My food processor cannot handle dry ingredients. Every pulse of the button sends clouds of flour and other ingredients jetting out every seam in the lid (which is far too many). I will buy a Cuisinart Food Processor soon… well some day, they aren’t exactly cheap. Once the dust settled I added some cold butter and pulsed a few more times. Once done, I turned the mixture out into a bowl and added some plain yogurt and with a rubber spatula began to fold. When I started folding the yogurt into the ingredients I had my doubts that this could possibly form a dough, but slowly it took shape. I discarded the rubber spatula for the last few moments and brought the dough to completion with my hands and then separated it into 6 balls. I set it aside so I could tend to the peaches.

After resting, I drained the peaches and reserved ¼ cup of juice. The recipe says to discard any additional liquid but the truth is that I barely had ¼ cup. I whisked in lemon juice and cornstarch and then added this liquid along with the peaches to an 8-inch square glass baking dish. No wait. I didn’t. I don’t have one. So I used a square cake pan. Not sure what effect other than aesthetics it had on the peaches. The peaches were baked for 10 minutes before being removed from the oven so the topping could be added.

Once the topping was placed nicely on the peaches it went back into the oven for another 16 minutes. Oh I also sprinkled the biscuit topping with some sugar. When it was done it sure smelled nice!

Rating: B+. I really enjoyed this dessert. I only have two complaints with it. The topping to peach ratio seems wrong. I used seven medium sized peaches as the book recommends but when everything was cooked it felt more like the biscuit dough was the star. I guess that may be the point but I really would have liked more peaches. Second, I need to work on my biscuit making ability. I thought they turned out well but I am sure I can do better. I will need to carefully watch the way I handle the butter and make certain I don’t over handle the dough.

Calories/serving: 283

100. Pasta with Fresh Tomato Sauce with Garlic and Basil

2009-09-16T07:00:00.001-04:00

Date Cooked: September 12, 2009
Page: 243
Rating: B+

100! I made it to a hundred posts! I had really hoped to achieve this type of milestone about six months earlier but my pacing is a little slower than initially intended. Regardless though I feel pretty happy about this! So to celebrate I am posting about a simple pasta dish… I actually thought about timing the 100th post to be a post about a cake or something but that didn’t happen. This post however marks a significant step, the slow acceptance of foods that our house has traditionally stayed away from.

Our neighbor is a very kind elderly gentleman who has discovered that he grows more vegetables than him and his wife can eat. So we have been the occasional recipient of some lovely fresh produce. This time around we were greeted when coming home to a bag of tomatoes on our doorstep. Tomatoes… not exactly the produce of choice for us and I was immediately trying to determine what I should do with them. They sat in the fridge for a few days while I tried to figure it out when I realized the book had a few recipes in the pasta section that utilized fresh tomatoes. I have been a little negligent in the pasta section so I figured this would be a great use!

My wife and I have the same general complaint about tomatoes, the slimy, seedy interior. I am a little more forgiving of tomatoes included in things but this is something hard for my wife to accept. But this recipe calls for the tomatoes to be peeled and seeded. Works for both of us. Now peeling and seeding tomatoes is a process all its own and not exactly the quickest of things. I started by plunging the tomatoes into boiling water for about 20 seconds and then transferring them to an ice bath. From there I peeled the skins from the tomatoes. I was really surprised at this stage. I tend to find that every time a book says that something will be easy I run into difficulty. But not this time. Once peeled the tomatoes were cut in half, seeded and then chopped. I let them rest in a bowl until I was ready to assemble the sauce.

To start the sauce I heated some garlic in oil and then added the tomatoes. The tomatoes were reduced down until almost all of the liquid had evaporated. I added a small amount of salt and some fresh chopped basil. Let’s discuss the basil. I never have fresh basil on hand so as I typically do I went to the store to pick some up. This time however I came home not with fresh basil but an entire basil plant. For a dollar more I figured the plant was better than the packaged stuff. My kitchen gets plenty of sunlight during the day so I figured it will do fine there. We’ll see though since I am not known for my ability to grow things.

With the sauce done I waited for the pasta to finish boiling to complete the meal. I reserved ¼ cup of the pasta water and drained the rest. The sauce, reserved pasta water and some oil were mixed together and the whole thing was plated to serve.

Rating: B+. This dish was well received by the entire family. My oldest son who freaks out when vegetables are put on his plate ate two helpings of it. He didn’t even try to pick the basil out of it! My youngest ate a small amount but his lack of appetite may have to do with his constant pilfering of cheese, yogurt and any other food he can reach from the fridge. He has reached a stage where I may need to lock the fridge. There is no doubt that it was fresh tasting and simple. The only problem was I made the sauce based on 2 ½ pounds of whole tomatoes when I should have used 2 ½ pounds of peeled, chopped and seeded tomatoes. The sauce to pasta ratio was definitely off.

A quick question. The book constantly refers to a pound of pasta. How does a pound of fresh pasta translate into dried pasta?

A hundred recipes done…

99. Pantry Spice Rub for Chicken

2009-09-15T07:00:00.002-04:00

Date Cooked: September 12, 2009
Page: 610
Rating: B

I decided to do some chicken on the grill and figured I might as well try one of the rubs from the book to go with it. I’ll confess, I was a plain food eater for a long time and I was fine with it. Still am. I would eat plain pork chops, plain chicken, plain beef. The only seasoning would be salt and pepper and something at the table from a bottle. I am beginning to realize I have been missing out on an entire world of flavor!

This rub was as simple as mixing several different spices and seasonings together in a bowl. We have cumin, allspice, curry powder, cinnamon, black pepper, and chili powder. Not the most challenging recipe but only recently have I begun keeping fresh spices in the house. I used to have just the basics and some others that were probably several years old. The Bulk Barn has helped me keep smaller quantities on hand so they don’t sit around for years.

This rub was applied to brined and dried chicken before the chicken hit the grill. When I say applied, I mean I practically encrusted the chicken using all of the rub. Even though this post is about the Pantry Spice Rub, let’s discuss the grilling. Chicken drips a lot of fat and that fat likes to burn. I placed the seasoned chicken thighs on the grill and closed the lid. I was supposed to sear each side for 1-2 minutes before allowing it to cook through on the cooler side of the grill. Well when I opened the lid I had flames licking out from all over. It was a mini bonfire in my grill! I struggled to remove the chicken without burning my hands and was only marginally successful. So for the rest of the cooking time I need to constantly spray water to keep the flames down while the chicken cooked.

In the end the chicken looked like this:

Rating: B. Despite the look of the chicken the flavor of the spice rub was very dominant and did not taste really burnt. What I did notice was that the skin retained a lot of the salt from the brine. The rub was good and while I may not necessarily make this one again I will definitely look for others to use.

98. Gas-Grilled Pork Tenderloin

2009-09-14T07:00:00.000-04:00

Date Cooked: August 22, 2009
Page: 586
Rating: A

Pork tenderloin is one of those cuts of meat I was always intimidated by. I felt it was a high quality cut and therefore difficult to prepare well. I am slowly realizing how much of an idiot I am. I am spending too much time letting perceptions of food interfere with cooking and enjoying it. One thing I have absolutely learned from this project is that my perceptions are faulty and I need to discard them. Pork tenderloin on a grill could not be easier.

I started by brining the pork tenderloins in salt and sugar for an hour. During this brine process I prepared the Asian Wet Rub and then fired the grill. Once the tenderloins had been rinsed and patted dry I coated them in the rub and set them on the grill. The sizzle as they hit the hot grill was a beautiful sound.

They were grilled for 2 minutes a side at high heat and then I let them cook over low heat for a few more minutes until the internal temperature reached 145. I then removed them and let them rest. I’ve done a fair bit of reading with regards to the internal temperature of pork and have come to the conclusion that when 145-150 is reached and then left to rest I get a much nicer meal. When the temperature reaches too high I might as well cook the plastic tray the pork came in.

Rating: A. I like pork so I am a little biased. I was surprised at how easy it was to prepare and cook this meal and the pork was moist and full of flavor and the rub was delicious on it. I will definitely be cooking much more pork tenderloin in the future.

97. Asian Wet Rub

2009-09-09T09:10:00.001-04:00

Date Cooked: August 22, 2009
Page: 587
Rating: B

I made this wet rub for some pork tenderloin I was going to grill. I have been working hard through the grilling section of the book this summer and I am loving it. The new grill helps. I figured if I was going to grill some pork tenderloin I might as well utilize one of the rub recipes in the book also. Two recipes in one is an efficient way to cook through the book I believe. I am always looking for shortcuts to accomplish a task. Some will call it efficiency, others call it laziness. But enough about my personal work ethic and on to the recipe!

So some garlic, scallions and ginger were minced and then mixed with light brown sugar, hoisin sauce, toasted sesame oil, salt and some red pepper flakes. The rub was left for an hour to let the flavors do some socializing and then it was ready for use.

Rating: B. It was a pretty tasty rub for the pork. Nothing that blew my mind but it definitely beat plain pork tenderloin (which can be fantastic anyway). The rub lent a nice sweet heat to the pork.

96. Mango Salsa

2009-08-31T09:17:00.001-04:00

Date Cooked: August 22, 2009
Page: 584
Rating: B+

When I made the Peach Salsa a few weeks ago I truly loved it. I liked the fresh taste it brought to the meal and I viewed fruit at dinner time in a new way. I decided I wanted to try the other fruit salsas from the grilling chapter of the book and I figured the mango one was a simple choice.

I love mangos but I do notice I am very picky about the time to eat them. Under-ripe and they have a starchy taste to them. Overripe and they are sickeningly sweet. Unfortunately I think these might have been a little too under-ripe. The other problem I face with mangos is a good way to cut them. I normally just cut down the side of the pit and then skin the “halves” but I feel so much gets wasted. Anybody know a good way to cut mangos?

Anyway let’s stop whining about the difficulties with mangos and discuss this dish. So after processing two mangos, I finely chopped half of a red onion and half of a jalapeno. Well the recipe called for half but since I had already used these jalapenos in another dish I knew they weren’t too hot so I used the whole jalapeno. Some lime juice was added to the mix and then a little chopped cilantro. Everything was tossed together and then I put it in the fridge to rest for an hour.

I have these nested stainless steel mixing bowls (Wolfgang Puck) that I purchased awhile ago before I really started getting into cooking. They sat unused for quite awhile since the only use I had for bowls was heating things up in the microwave and I’m sure big metal bowls and microwaves aren’t supposed to play together. Anyway, these bowls have seen a lot of use since the lids they come with seal perfectly and are great for coating foods in oils or dressings. Just thought I would let you know… in case you cared or were in the market for mixing bowls.

Rating: B-. I didn’t like this one as much as the peach salsa I had made. The mangos were a little under-ripe as I had mentioned before and the overall flavors weren’t as complex as the peach salsa. It was delicious mind you, but given the choice I am going to make the peach salsa again first.

It’s My 1st Blogaversary!

2009-08-20T14:48:00.003-04:00

Wow, I have actually stuck with something for a year! I am impressed with myself and I have a renewed vigor to make more recipes this next year than I did this past year. While 365 days may seem like a lot of cooking time it only translated for me into 95 recipes from the book. But they have been an interesting bunch for me. I started this blog with hummus, white rice and peas, to my more impressive dishes of Gumbo, Pan-Roasted Halibut Steaks and Pad Thai. I still won’t classify myself as more than mediocre but I have learned a lot in the process of writing this blog. So what have I learned?

1. Where Food Comes From: I am not some kind of food snob that only eats local or shies away from unsustainable food. But I do appreciate where my food comes from, the process involved in getting it to my table and the content of the food. I try to make better selections from my supermarket and I am really trying to learn the seasons for my vegetables.

2. Nutrition: I don’t believe all fat is bad or that sugar must be avoided. But understanding its effect on my family and its role in our health has become important to me. Sometimes full fat is better than the chemical alternatives… sometimes it’s not.

3. Food Likes/Dislikes: I am absolutely appreciating trying new foods. Things I thought I disliked I find I enjoy and even those I still dislike I am beginning to tolerate.

4. Confidence: I don’t feel as inept in the kitchen as I used to. I figure I still have a long way to go before I can truly begin leaving the recipes behind and creating unique meals on the fly.

I also figured this would be a good time to recap my top five recipes of the past year. These are the recipes that I have created numerous times.

1. Pad Thai: I never liked Pad Thai from a restaurant and never thought much of the dish until my wife asked me to make this. I’m so glad she did because I do love this recipe, with a few modifications of course. In fact the best compliment I have received to date was from my wife when she told me she preferred this to what she used to order in the restaurant. A true moment of pride.

2. Hearty Meat Lasagna: Absolutely the best meat lasagna I have had to date. It is meaty and not greasy and has great structure. The recipe feeds an army so we only cook this when more than us will eat it or I feel like eating it for a week.

3. French Onion Soup: Like it in the restaurant, love it at home. The smell while it cooks, the ability to control the cheese factor and the fact that I can create about 10 bowls of this stuff for the price of a bowl in the restaurant.

4. Buffalo Chicken Wings: I am a huge fan of chicken wings and now that I know how to create them at home just the way I love them is truly astounding! I’ve made several pounds of wings, probably over 20 lbs since I first made this recipe. In fact I bought a deep-fryer just so I could make these even easier.

5. Roast Leg of Lamb: While I have not made it again I was extremely proud of myself for cooking it so well. I absolutely intend to make this again for a special occasion.

I really look forward to tackling more recipes and I hope that I can complete more than 95 during this next year. I would like to finish this project in less than 10 years.

For all those that have been following along, THANKS!

** I have created an index of my progress by chapter which can be viewed in this Index of Progress post.

95. Grilled Corn with Soy-Honey Glaze

2009-08-17T09:00:00.001-04:00

Date Cooked: August 10, 2009
Page: 158
Rating: B-

This dish was an afterthought as I was cooking up some leftovers. This recipe is basically grilled corn that gets a glaze after the initial grilling and then spends a few more minutes on the grill to caramelize it. We had some grilled corn the night before with several cobs left over. I figured this would be a good use for the corn.

An extremely simple recipe to make, I basically reduced equal parts honey and soy sauce and then generously coated the cobs of corn before putting them on the grill for a few minutes.

Rating: B-. I don’t know if it the fact that they get grilled a second time or because I used corn that had been sitting in the fridge overnight but the corn was definitely cooked a little too much. The kernels didn’t have enough crispness to them. The flavor was good but the soy sauce was definitely dominant and not sweetened enough by the honey. If doing this again I would cook the corn a little less the first time on the grill and I would probably use more honey than soy sauce.

94. Grilled Asparagus with Orange-Sesame Vinaigrette

2009-08-14T09:30:00.000-04:00

Date Cooked: August 7, 2009
Page: 135
Rating: B-

I almost didn’t realize it but this is my 100th post! While it’s not the 100th recipe posted from the book, that is still to come and a milestone I am looking forward to, it does mark a commitment to something I wasn’t really sure I was going to stick with, especially back in May and June. I’m glad I have stuck with it and I am really enjoying trying new things and learning new (and sometimes basic) techniques. Well on with the show!

You may have noticed that I cook an abundant amount of asparagus from the book. The actual number at this moment is 50 percent of the recipes in the vegetable chapter cooked so far are asparagus recipes. That’s a lot of asparagus! I used to actually hate this stuff. Well this was the last grilled asparagus option in the book so I figured why not give it a try. Sounded tasty!

The recipe is basically a grilled asparagus recipe with a vinaigrette added to it. I started by prepping the vinaigrette. And the very first step to that was to toast some sesame seeds. Toasting seeds… in fact toasting anything in this manner is something I had never done until I started this project. So as I toast each ingredient for the first time I am trying to figure out when something looks done and smells done. I think I may have done a good job with the sesame seeds. Of course I didn’t do anything else while they were toasting for fear they would quickly turn into something akin to tiny pieces of charcoal. Time really does crawl when watching something cook. I think paint drying is more exciting to watch.

Once the seeds were toasted I went to work on the rest of the vinaigrette. The recipe really should just be called, sesame vinaigrette. Along with the toasted sesame seeds, I added toasted sesame oil and tahini along with some olive oil. I also added some rice vinegar and of course some orange juice (freshly squeezed!). Once it was whisked together I took a little taste. I will withhold commenting until later. I let the vinaigrette rest while I finished grilling the asparagus.

Grilling asparagus on my new grill is much easier. They don’t seem to slip through the grate like they did on my old grill. The asparagus was tossed with some EVOO, salt and pepper before being placed on the grill. In about 7 minutes I have nice tender, tasty asparagus.

I then ruined it by pouring some vinaigrette on it.

Rating: B-. The only thing preventing this from being a C is that I like asparagus and it has a strong enough flavor to shine through the vinaigrette. The vinaigrette is strongly flavored of toasted sesame. It needs to be better balanced. I don’t know if it’s the ingredients I used but I ended up mixing in some more orange juice and that did seem to balance it out. I doubt I would make this again as written.

93. Grilled Hamburgers with Garlic, Chipotles, and Scallions

2009-08-13T09:40:00.000-04:00

Date Cooked: August 7, 2009
Page: 449
Rating: B+

I’m still on a grilling kick and I have been trying to use my grill a lot more this summer, especially since I won the new one. I figured I would try my hand at burgers again considering my previous failure with them. I am not as dense as those previous burgers were though and this time I picked up ground beef that had a higher fat content. I will spoil the ending by saying that it changed things greatly.

I might have deviated a little from this recipe. I’m supposed to start with 1 ½ pounds of ground beef but once I had measured it out I felt it looked a bit... weak? I figured I would just add the rest of the package since I wasn’t really going to freeze a ½ pound. So I am already courting failure but increasing the amount of prime ingredients. The next step was to mix in minced scallions, chipotle chile in adobo sauce and garlic… okay I need to back up a step.

Let’s talk about garlic. Ladies and Gentleman, this was my very first attempt at dry roasting garlic (not counting roasting it in the oven with other foods), and since I had never done it before I didn’t quite know what to expect. After toasting them on the stove I removed them and was marveled at how soft they become and how much more fragrant, as well as the fact that the bitterness mellows out completely. I loved it! So they were minced and thrown into the ground beef.

Some salt and pepper added to season and then I got my hands dirty. There is a relaxing aspect to working the ground beef with bare hands. The only problem is you have to be careful not to overwork it so the relaxation needs to end. Once everything was mixed I left my math and reading skills behind and began to form the patties. Somewhere in my mind I thought the book wanted six patties (from an initial 1 ½ pounds) meaning scrawny little 4oz patties. This was unacceptable so I made fewer of them but larger. I ended up with 5 of them from the two pounds I used, around 6.5 oz each. Turns out that as I review the recipe while typing this that I was illiterate. The original amounts were supposed to make 4 patties not the 6 I had assumed. If you are as confused about this paragraph as I am then don’t worry. I’ll summarize it as follows. It all worked out in the end.

Once the patties were formed with their little divot in the middle (to help them cook up a more uniform thickness), I prepped the grill which had been heating up nicely. The burgers only took a few minutes on each side to cook through nicely. They were removed and left to rest for a few minutes while I grilled up a side dish.

Rating: B+. Definitely getting better. The chile came through nicely but I felt that the garlic and scallions were lost in the burger. The burger definitely turned out moist although a little smaller than I would have liked. I can see myself practicing many burger variations in the coming weeks. I am having my doubts that these burger recipes are the “best” though.

92. Lemon, Garlic, and Parsley Butter

2009-08-11T07:00:00.003-04:00

Date Cooked: August 6, 2009
Page: 563
Rating: B

I felt like I need to have something with the steak. Ok, I really just wanted to knock off another recipe from the book and I didn’t have any fresh vegetables on hand to grill. I liked the idea of adding butter to steak and there were a couple compound butters in the book. It just so happens that I needed to use up some parsley and I had all the ingredients for this particular recipe.

I added lemon zest, garlic, minced parsley, salt and pepper to some softened butter. Whipped it with a fork until combined and then doled out a little on the steak. By the time I was sitting down to eat it had started to melt nicely.

Rating: B. It was a pretty good butter. I really don’t have much to say about it. The garlic dominated the flavor profile and while I like garlic I was hoping for something more. Didn’t ruin the steak which is good I guess!

91. Gas-Grilled Strip Steaks

2009-08-10T07:00:00.002-04:00

Date Cooked: August 6, 2009
Page: 564
Rating: A

A few weeks ago my wife and I spent some time at our bank taking advantage of the excellent mortgage rates and doing a little adjusting of our finances. In the process we put our names in for a draw for a new grill. Well it turns out we won it! I was very happy especially since we were looking to buy a new grill at the end of the summer season and now I can put that money towards something else! So of course there is only one thing to do with a new grill and that is to try it out.

To break in the grill I figured nothing was better than a good steak. So a quick trip to the store and I picked up a nice strip steak. As my wife is still away, I picked up just a small one for myself. I notice that I tend to eat a lot of strip steaks and need to start trying the different cuts to determine if I can tell and appreciate the difference.

I fired up the grill with ease. My old grilled had the electric starter break on it so I was constantly sticking matches in to light it. The problem was one side would light while the other burner would take a bit to get going. I frequently had mini explosions when lighting the grill. I would literally have to take a few steps back to avoid facial hair loss. This new one seems so much safer!

While the grill was heating up I seasoned the steak with just salt and pepper. Once the grill was hot enough I placed the steak on the grills and listened to it sizzle. 2 minutes per side and then I moved it over to the cooler side to finish cooking for another 6 minutes. I like my steaks more on the rare side.

I am pretty proud of the grill marks on the steak, something my old grill never seemed able to produce. On a side note I did singe the hairs on my arm without realizing it. The grill can throw off some serious heat!

Rating: A. The steak turned out great although it was a little more on the well-done side of medium than I would have liked. That is simply learning the new grill and I am excited to learn!

90. Peach Salsa

2009-08-07T08:00:00.002-04:00

Date Cooked: July 31, 2009
Page: 584
Rating: A-

This was an accompaniment for the pork chops I had grilled from the previous post. I have watched on numerous cooking shows (especially those covering grilling) the use of fruit salsas with grilled meat. I have never actually made one until now.

It was a fairly simple recipe to make although I almost lost a finger in the process. While I could spin this story into a near tragedy I won’t, because I simply wasn’t paying attention and caught myself before a very sharp knife slid across my pinky. Two peaches were split and then chopped into large chunks. A red pepper and red onion were chopped fine and a jalapeno was minced. It was all tossed with some chopped parsley and garlic and some lime juice and pineapple juice.

This sat for about an hour while the pork chops marinated and cooked.

Rating: A. Absolutely delicious! The flavors went so well together and added a fresh layer of flavor to the pork chops! The peaches could have been riper but this was a great dish and I will prepare this in the future for serving with more grilled meats. The next day I had some more with the leftover pork chops and it was even better once the flavors mingled overnight.

89. Gas-Grilled Pork Chops

2009-08-06T08:00:00.003-04:00

Date Cooked: July 31, 2009
Page: 583
Rating: A

I am a fan of pork. It is a meat that I thoroughly enjoy the taste and texture of. When cooked properly. Nothing can be worse than a dry pork chop. So I was happy to see that this recipe starts with brining the pork chops in a mixture of salt and sugar. The brining is meant to help keep the pork chops juicy and boost their flavor. The book recommends rib or center-cut loin chops and while at the grocery store I picked up center-cut loin chops because they were thicker. Pork chops should be about 1 ½ inches thick and maintain a uniform thickness. My chops weren’t that thick unfortunately. I am still searching for a local butcher that can provide me with my meat needs without paying a hefty premium for the service. Until I do I will be reduced to the supermarket offerings.

The chops brined for a little over an hour while I prepped the rest of the meal. Once the brining was complete I patted them dry and seasoned them liberally with the spice rub from the previous post. When I say liberally I mean they were encrusted with the rub.

I am getting better at grilling. Or more importantly I am getting more confident on the grill. I had one side of the grill set to high and the other side to medium. The pork chops were grilled about 3 minutes per side over the hot section of the grill before being cooked for another 7 minutes over the cooler section. When they were done the chops looked and smelled great.

They were served with a peach salsa (covered in the next post but you can see from the picture above).

Rating: A. The only real improvement I could have made to these chops would have been to get thicker ones. These chops were delicious with the rub really accenting the juicy and flavorful pork. I am craving these again as I type this. I might need to make some pork chops tonight!

88. Basic Spice Rub for Grilled Pork

2009-08-05T09:00:00.003-04:00

Date Cooked: July 31, 2009
Page: 582
Rating: B+

From a recipe perspective there isn’t much to say about this. I mixed cumin, curry powder, chili powder, black pepper and sugar. Simple as this is though I almost failed. Once again I need to pay closer attention to the quantities. Everything except the black pepper was measured in tablespoons. The pepper was measured in teaspoons. If it wasn’t for the fact that I ran out of black pepper, I would have added too much. Anyway the potential disaster was averted and the rub was ready for application.

Rating: B+. It was a great rub and definitely enhanced the flavor of the pork.

87. Grilled Eggplant with Cherry Tomato and Cilantro Vinaigrette

2009-08-04T13:00:00.005-04:00

Date Cooked: July 31, 2009
Page: 162
Rating: B+

I’m living the week as a pseudo-bachelor. My wife is away with my eldest on a vacation in Florida and I am at home ‘relaxing’ with my youngest. This actually translates into attempting to accomplish as many home renovation projects as time and money allows. I also figured this was a good time to cook items from the book that my wife would probably not enjoy. Anything with tomatoes is very low on her list of enjoyable menu options. I’m not the biggest fan of tomatoes either, but I have been making a conscious effort to change that. This project has been a big help in that goal. I’m still not looking forward to the recipes containing anchovies. That is going to be a challenge.

Eggplant is not the first vegetable I would go to when looking for something to pair with… well anything. I have had this aversion to it for no good reason. Maybe as a child the name turned me off and since it was never a childhood staple I have had no reason to try it. Awhile back I made a stir fry with it and I enjoyed it. But I had yet to eat it as the star of a dish. I figured now was a good time to change that, especially since this recipe was made for the grill.

Prepping the eggplant was as simple as slicing it into thick rounds and brushing them with garlic, oregano and olive oil. The vinaigrette on the other hand required a little more work. The cherry tomatoes were quartered and then I diced a shallot and minced some garlic. I roughly chopped some cilantro and everything was tossed with some olive oil and lime juice. I let the vinaigrette rest while I prepared the rest of the dinner.

Now I am getting much better on the grill but I still have a lot to learn, especially timing. I placed the eggplant on the hot grill and closed the lid. I figured that they should take about 8 minutes and I should probably flip them at the 4 minute mark. I would like to point out that my grill has hot spots and I am not talking about areas that are warmer. I have spots on my grill that that approach molten metal temperatures. After 4 four minutes several pieces were glowing red, but of course other pieces were beautifully grilled. So I flipped them all over and moved the pieces away from the molten sections of my grill. I only let them go a few more minutes before removing and plating.

I poured the vinaigrette over the eggplant and served.

Rating: B+ I really enjoyed the flavors of this dish. I didn’t even mind the tomatoes in it. This could almost of had an A- rating except that the skin of the grilled eggplant was extremely tough and detracted from the smooth texture of the eggplant. The best I could describe it would be like eating a cupcake and then biting into a hidden piece of the cupcake paper cup. Next time I’ll skin the eggplant and I am surprised it didn’t mention it in the book… then again maybe it did. I think I will double check that.

86. Thai-Style Beef Salad

2009-07-20T08:45:00.002-04:00

Date Cooked: July 17, 2009
Page: 117
Rating: B+

I had been eyeing this recipe for quite some time and finally got around to cooking it. Thanks in large part to my neighbor for delivering a rather large bunch of fresh lettuce from his garden. Salads are one of those things I keep telling myself to eat more of but I always consider them a lot of work. This one showed me that I have nothing to be afraid of, but that I need to invest in a good salad spinner.

I started off washing the lettuce. The one thing about fresh from the garden produce are little crawly things. I thoroughly, bordering on obsessively, washed the lettuce in my sink. After freeing a few mini slugs, ants and some other unidentifiable critters, the lettuce was fit for consumption. Drying the lettuce would have been easier with a salad spinner. I had several feet of my counter cover with kitchen towels and lettuce.

With the lettuce done it was time to cook the flank steak. I pan-seared it in a small amount of oil and while that was happening I prepped the cucumber and onions and the marinade/dressing. The marinade was equal parts fish sauce and lime juice with some red pepper flakes and sugar. Half of this was reserved as the dressing while the remainder was used to marinate the sliced flank steak.

When the flank steak was finished cooking it was sliced and marinated for 10 minutes. Once done marinating the steak, cucumber and onions were tossed in the dressing and then served on a bed of lettuce and finally topped with peanuts.

Rating: B+. I liked this salad but I had one complaint. Between seasoning the flank steak prior to searing in, and then marinating it in a dressing based on fish sauce, it was a bit salty. The dressing alone was fantastic but the flank steak probably could have skipped the short marinating session. Overall I was happy with this dish and I look forward to making more salads.

85. Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

2009-07-16T07:00:00.003-04:00

Date Cooked: July 13, 2009
Page: 835
Rating: A

I feel lately that my stress level has been abating and I am getting excited about cooking from the book again. I haven’t done a lot of baking from the book mostly because it intimidates me so I figured why not try to bake a cake. Carrot cake seemed as good a choice as any since I had some carrots that needed to be used. When I first started gathering the ingredients for this I was expecting it to be difficult but after reading through the recipe this seemed like it would be relatively pain free… I wasn’t really paying attention though.

Starting off I measured out most of the dry ingredients and whisked them together. I then took the bag of carrots I had and ran them through my food processor’s shredding disk. For those that have read my blog from before, I don’t care much for my food processor. It did a poor job of shredding the carrots and I ended up having to pulse them a few times extra to cut up the larger chunks. Once the carrots were processed I tossed them with the dry ingredients. This is where I began to realize what I was getting into. I needed to wash the food processor so I could combine the sugar, eggs and oil. The food processor is a pain in the ass to clean so I tend to avoid it, this was the first of several washings it would need to complete the recipe.

Once the food processor was cleaned I combined the sugar and eggs and then slowly added the oil with the processor on. A nice emulsion formed and once done I folded it into the dry ingredients. Within a few minutes I had a nice batter ready to pour into my prepped baking pan. Into the oven for 40 minutes until a toothpick came out clean. Then it had to cool for 2 hours.

While the cake cooled I set to work cleaning the food processor again to make the icing. The cream cheese icing was as simple as processing all the ingredients in the food processor for less than a minute. I transferred the icing to a bowl and let it chill a little in the fridge until the cake was cool enough for frosting. While waiting I had the opportunity to once again clean the food processor. Really is time for a newer, easier to clean model.

When the cake had finally cooled I spread the icing on (something I am not very talented at). Apparently the cake was not cool enough though and the icing began to get a touch runny so I put it all back in the fridge to chill a little longer before cutting into it to eat!

Rating: A. The cake was very moist and the carrots were very subtle but still noticeable. The cake was lightly spiced and not overly sweet which made the icing all that much better. I definitely enjoyed my piece and had to resist the temptation to help myself to a second, much larger slice.

84. Gas-Grilled Bone-In Chicken Thighs

2009-07-15T07:00:00.003-04:00

Dated Cooked: July 7, 2009
Page: 608
Rating: A-

Its summer grilling season and I intend to make good use of the grill this year. I figured chicken should be easy enough and something can only be stored in the freezer for so long. Once the chicken thighs had thawed I brined them.

** Please hold for this important culinary announcement. The night before I had cooked some chicken without brining it and I must say it just shouldn’t be done. I know, you are probably tired of me praising the virtues of brined poultry so I promise to make this my last tirade. Brine your chicken! DO IT! No excuses! Your chicken will be better for it. Okay done. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program. **

When the grill was hot enough I removed the chicken from the brine, patted it dry and then seasoned it with salt and pepper. The chicken was grilled on high heat to give a nice crust before cooking it over lower heat to cook through. I am one of those people always scared to undercook chicken but I am beginning to trust myself a little more and rely on the meat thermometer to tell me when it’s done. Although I need that less and less all the time. When the chicken was done it was plated to eat.

Rating: A-. Simple and delicious chicken that was juicy and full of flavor with a nice crispy skin. Couldn’t ask for more… well actually I could ask for more since chicken thighs aren’t that big.

83. Grilled Asparagus with Grilled Lemon Vinaigrette

2009-07-14T12:45:00.001-04:00

Date Cooked: July 7, 2009
Page: 134
Rating: B

My parents were down visiting for a week and now that we are into summer I am feeling the need to use the grill. And since I have done very few grilled recipes I figured this was a good time to start. We had several bunches of asparagus left over from a party we held on the weekend and tossing them on the grill would be a simple way to prepare them.

I started by tossing the trimmed asparagus in oil, salt and pepper. Once the grill was hot enough I placed them on to cook. I also added a halved lemon to the grill. While they were cooking I finely chopped some shallots and added them to a bowl with thyme, extra-virgin olive oil, salt and pepper and the juice from the grilled lemon. I whisked up the vinaigrette and drizzled it over the asparagus. Well drizzled is such a fine technique. I actually dropped clumps of shallots on the dish.

Rating: B. I enjoyed this preparation of asparagus but I had two complaints. The vinaigrette was very lemony, not bad just strong lemon flavor. In addition, the asparagus spears were thin and cooked rapidly on the grill. This would probably be better with thicker spears.

82. Turkey Tetrazzini

2009-07-09T09:45:00.002-04:00

Date Cooked: June 8, 2009
Page: 292
Rating: A

I didn’t plan to make this dish but the circumstances surrounding a thawed turkey left me with a whole roast turkey and no dinner for it. My mother-in-law picked up a frozen turkey because it was on sale and it was left to thaw in my fridge with the intention of having it roasted for a family dinner. Life is hectic and dinner plans were cancelled but I still had thawed 15lb turkey that needed to be cooked. So I roasted it.

Now the last time I roasted a turkey it tasted great and the picture was horrible… The picture actually scares me to look at. This time around the turkey looked golden brown and just delicious. Of course I never thought to take a picture of it because it wasn’t for the book. Anyway I carved it up, we ate some and I figured I didn’t mind having turkey sandwiches for the next week or two (I love turkey sandwiches!). The next day though I was lamenting the fact I had not really cooked anything from the book in a long time when I realized that there was a recipe that required cooked turkey meat! I couldn’t think of a better way to utilize the turkey, not to mention when else was I going to have 4 cups of cooked turkey meat available.

This recipe was a vicious reminder of all my poor cooking habits that I had been trying to change. What a month of cooking familiar recipes can do to a sense of organization. Let’s just say that prepping the onions and mushrooms and turkey was easy. Everything after that was a near disaster. Basically three things needed to be on the go at once since I was trying to get dinner ready quickly. This was the first indicator of impending disaster. I was boiling water for the pasta, cooking down onions and mushrooms and trying to prepare the sauce which starts with a roux. Since I had decided that getting everything together first was somehow a waste of time I came very close to destroying the roux (but didn’t)… Let me stop for a second. This post is becoming as chaotic as my cooking techniques.

Okay, so cooking down the onions and mushrooms in butter was easy and once they had sufficiently released themselves of moisture I set them aside. The pasta I stopped cooking at al dente but since nothing else was ready it sat in the pot with a small amount of reserved pasta water. The sauce eventually came together with the only deviation from the recipe coming at the sacrifice of dried thyme instead of fresh thyme, I thought I had some (and I did), but it was a touch… aged, and not it the fine wine sense but more the backyard compost way. This is a common trend for me and fresh herbs. I always think I have them only to realize it wasn’t last week I bought them but several weeks ago. My sense of timing these days is a touch off.

So once everything was done the pasta and reserved water was mixed with the sauce, onions and mushrooms and turkey, oh yeah and some frozen peas. This entire mixture was placed into a baking dish and baked for about 30 minutes. I also forgot that I sprinkled the top with fresh breadcrumbs and parmesan.

When this dish was done and I pulled it from the oven, the whole ordeal was worth it.

Rating: A. This dish reminded me of the chicken pot pie. It was a stick to your ribs comforting meal. My wife loved it and both the kids ate it (although one decided that since I put the peas in it that I should take them out so he could eat it!). Next time I’m faced with four cups of chopped poultry I will try this again.

81. Spicy Caribbean-Style Cocktail Sauce

2009-06-16T15:45:00.000-04:00

Date Cooked: May 10, 2009
Page: 21
Rating: A-

Okay this one should have been posted well over a month ago. We’re talking about a sauce that was made for some tough as rubber poached-shrimp I made. Well better late than never I guess.

As with most sauces they are rather simple to put together. I was a little perplexed when I started this sauce because it seemed light on wet ingredients. Basically I needed to mince scallions, peppers, ginger and garlic and mix them with some lime juice and brown sugar. After mincing for several minutes I figured why not give it a few pulses with the immersion blender. It is the one tool in my kitchen that I unfortunately under-appreciate. A quick whirl and the sauce looked great (and smelled great too!)

Rating: A-. This was one tasty sauce. When I had gone through the ingredient list I wasn’t sure what to expect but the final result was delicious! An excellent mix of sweet and heat. Although I do confess that in a grocery store mix up I grab a rather mild pepper instead of the jalapeño required. So after the initial tasting a little hot sauce was added to spice it up a little.

It’s Getting Dusty Around Here

2009-06-15T11:14:00.000-04:00

Okay I somewhat apologize for my absence but these past few months have been hectic. I work in the beleaguered auto industry for one of the recently bankrupt companies and while my job still remains and I am busy in spite of all the doom and gloom, the stress does take a toll and you end up watching the pennies a little more. On top of that, we had several large outdoor projects to accomplish around the house this year which consumed a lot of time and money… but with all these excuses I am still excited to cook and look forward to a hopefully more relaxing summer with the opportunity to get in some serious grilling (a chapter of the book I have not cooked much from yet).

So for those who still check in every once and a while. Thanks for your patience and the posts should start back up soon!

80. Classic Cocktail Sauce

2009-05-21T09:40:00.000-04:00

Date Cooked: May 10, 2009
Page: 21
Rating: B

I prepared this sauce to go with the herb-poached shrimp from the last post. The sauce was painfully simple to make. Pretty much all I had to do was mix the ingredients together. My biggest issue was that fact that I really had to struggle to get the last bit of ketchup out of the bottle to make this recipe. My son was a little upset that we were now out of ketchup. Mixed into the ketchup was horseradish, salt and pepper, lemon juice, cayenne pepper and chili powder. After tasting the sauce I deviated a little and threw in some more chili powder and a liberal splash of hot sauce.

The picture pretty much looks like a bowl of ketchup.

Rating: B. The sauce was not bad but definitely tasted like spicy ketchup. I’m not a big fan of ketchup which is why I added even more heat to it. Was a good accompaniment to the shrimp though.

79. Herb-Poached Shrimp

2009-05-12T15:30:00.000-04:00

Date Cooked: May 10, 2009
Page: 21
Rating: B+

** That is a very bad picture. I know. I failed at poaching shrimp.**

Shrimp were one of those foods that as a child I despised, but as an adult love. Although both my wife and I agree that the larger the shrimp gets the more important it is that it is cooked correctly. Although the recipe for herb-poached shrimp recommends extra large, all I had were large so they would have to do.

I started by peeling the shells off the shrimp which would be used to create a stock for poaching the shrimp in. If I had thought more about presentation, I would have left the tail piece on but I didn’t really think about it until later. Not that it would have mattered as you can tell by the picture. They looked horrible, but more on that tragedy shortly. With the shrimp de-shelled I set to making the poaching broth.

The shells were boiled in salted water for about twenty minutes. Once done the shells were discarded and into the hot liquid went, tarragon, parsley, coriander seeds, black peppercorns, lemon juice and white wine. The ingredients were boiled for a few minutes to allow their flavors to unite before the shrimp were added. Once the shrimp were in the solution the temperature was turned off and they were left to soak for 8-10 minutes. Or that’s how long they were supposed to be.

I think almost twenty-five minutes passed before I realized they were still in the stock. With great alarm I lifted the lid and was shocked by the disaster I had wrought! I could barely see the shrimp because the water had turned very milky white. I quickly removed the shrimp (and everything else in the water since I couldn’t see anything in the white liquid), and plunged them into an ice water bath to stop the cooking process, 15 minutes later than required.

I was a little heart-broken with this disaster since I knew the shrimp were very overcooked and tough. My wife’s family like shrimp and every family get together involves them. Well since this was a mother’s day meal with family I put them out anyway and they were still all eaten. The sauces I had made for them may have helped a little.

Rating: B+. I will make these again if only to validate that I screwed it up bad. You could taste the herb flavors but since they were so overcooked I’m sure a lot of the flavor that was gained was subsequently lost.

78. Chicken Piccata with Prosciutto

2009-05-11T11:45:00.000-04:00

Date Cooked: April 30, 2009
Page: 341
Rating: C+

I’ve been working hard through the poultry section of the book because it seems to have the most recipes that can be thrown together quickly. While I am approaching 10% complete the poultry section is now just over 20% done.

The recipe starts off simply by prepping the chicken breasts into cutlets and then coating them in flour. These where quickly cooked in oil and then set aside and kept warm. Then the fun part began. Shallots, garlic and the prosciutto were sautéed until the prosciutto was lightly crisped. Some lemon slices and chicken stock were added and reduced. Once reduced, some lemon juice and capers were added and reduced further. Finally some butter and parsley were added before the sauce was spooned over the chicken and served.

Rating: C+. I guess if I had very weak taste buds that were immune to lemon then this dish could have scored higher but it was intensely lemon flavored. In fact it was so over-powering that it was a little challenging to eat. This would probably be a delicious dish with a little less lemon flavor. I thought it looked really good and anything with prosciutto can’t be bad… unless it was this dish.

77. Simplest Brined Roast Chicken

2009-04-28T15:40:00.000-04:00

Date Cooked: April 19, 2009
Page: 307
Rating: B+

Well I am back in true form. The term simplest would imply to most people a simple dish to prepare but yet again I amaze myself with my complete lack of consistency when it comes to cooking. The recipe was a rather standard one. First off as the title implies the whole chicken was brined. I won’t go into detail but brining chicken has become a must for all my chicken cooking needs. Simply cannot be skipped (unless you are using a kosher chicken).

After the allotted time immersed in it’s salty bath I rinsed it off and patted it dry. I hate drying poultry. It is messy as I try to balance the chicken and dry it off and not contaminate the entire kitchen. No sooner do I touch the chicken than I inevitably forgot to grab something and must now was hands or spread possible salmonella bacteria everywhere. I must learn to be more prepared. Anyway once dry the chicken was coated liberally with butter, salt and pepper.

It roasts in a V-Rack on one side before being flipped to the other side. Once both sides have been exposed to cook the oven is supposed to be turned up in heat for the remainder of the cooking time. I forgot to turn up the heat. So when I took the chicken out the breast meat was cooked to the proper temperature but lets just say s the thighs might have been a bit pink… okay the juices were bright red. I cooked the chicken a bit longer before taking it out and checking the temperature again. Much better but the thighs still weren’t done to my liking so once I finished carving the chicken all the pieces spent a few more minutes in the oven just to be sure.

This is why I like brining. The chicken, even with the extra oven time, came out juicy.

Rating: B+ This rating is due to my misstep with the oven temperature. The skin could have been crispier and I am certain the thighs might have cooked better if I had had the chicken at a higher temperature. Still a good, simple, weekday meal.

76. Steamed Asparagus with Ginger-Hoisin Vinaigrette

2009-04-14T08:00:00.001-04:00

Date Cooked: April 8, 2009
Page: 131
Rating: B-

We were throwing together a quick meal and needed a vegetable to accompany it. We have an abundance of asparagus it the fridge for some reason so I figured some steamed asparagus would be a nice and easy recipe to cook. It definitely was easy.

Other than steaming the asparagus, I needed to whisk together several ingredients. Before I started this project I would not have been able to just throw this dish together. I would not have had most of these ingredients in my fridge. But I am slowly beginning to increase my pantry and fridge staples, which is a truly nice feeling.

I whisked together soy sauce, hoisin sauce, canola oil, toasted sesame oil, rice vinegar and some minced ginger. I realized that I love the smell of fresh ginger. I always thought I disliked it. Not sure why. I honestly couldn’t tell you why I thought I had this hate-on for ginger. I just did. Then I took a big direct sniff of it and all the past hate melted away.

Once the ingredients were mixed they were drizzled over the asparagus and served.

Rating: B-. This was a very tough rating to decide on. I was leaning towards a C but my wife liked it. I wasn’t turned off by it, but the flavor was pronounced and I didn’t feel it was accentuated by the asparagus or that it improved the asparagus. It felt like a separate flavor entity wrapped around the asparagus flavor. Will I make this again… not as a dressing for steamed vegetables but maybe as part of a stir-fry or something.

75. French Fries

2009-04-10T08:00:00.000-04:00

Date Cooked: April, 5, 2009
Page: 195
Rating: A-

Ever since I made the Buffalo Wings I was seriously in the market for a deep fryer. But I needed to have a good one that was easy to use and even easier to clean up. Well Canadian Tire had a sale on the T-Fal EZ Clean model and my wife and I broke down and bought it. So of course we had to break it in immediately and what else should you make but French fries.

Well this recipe was simple in theory but lengthy in first time execution. I started with potatoes… of which we had none, so I started with a trip to the closest grocery store. Inevitably, whenever I want to quickly grab something from the grocery store, that is when my son wants to come along. Regular trips to the grocery store are met with negotiations about the conditions under which he will come (he’s 5 and doesn’t accept that simply being his parents is reason enough.) While the run through the grocery store was quick, check out was a nightmare. We went through the self-checkout and every time I tried to pay, my son would sit on the scale, or grab a bag from the scale and the computer would freak-out that I was adding or taking away items. It literally took 7-8 attempts to get my son to remain motionless long enough for me to cash out. He was excited for French fries.

At home with potatoes in had I set to work. The potatoes got driven through the French fry cutter that came with the deep-fryer. That is the last time that gadget will ever see the light of day when it comes to making French fries. Thank god it came free. I can’t go into details about because I will end up rambling nonsensical crap as my blood pressure rises. If you took your dullest butter knife and then tried to cut potatoes with its handle, that would approximate its cutting efficiency.

Once the potatoes had been transformed into fry shapes I rinsed them in water to remove the excess starch and then let them soak in ice water for 30 minutes. Once bath time was over they were thoroughly dried. As they were being dried I was heating up the oil for round one. I had a lot of fries so I split them into two batches. This actually worked out well because I could cook the second batch while the first batch was resting between oil immersions.

The fries were cooked at 320°F for about 10 minutes. They were limp and yellow. The oil was heated to 375°F and the fries were cooked a second time for about 5 minutes until golden brown and crispy. The fries were laid out on paper towel and then liberally coated in salt and pepper and then served to a hungry family.

Rating: A- Everyone loved them. They turned out really nice for a first attempt at fries and I look forward to cooking them more often. The best recipe book is particular about resting times and such but with experience I think I could whip these out fairly quick. Especially since after round one you can actually freeze them.

** The vinegar in the background is from Mr. Vinegar. We picked up several bottles of flavored vinegars from them in the fall when we attended the One of a Kind show in Toronto. The spring show just finished up last weekend. I highly recommend them. I never knew how good vinegar could taste.

74. Classic Egg Salad

2009-04-09T11:46:00.003-04:00

Date Cooked: March 24, 2009
Page: 122
Rating: B+

I have more eggs than we can reasonably eat so I am looking for recipes in the book that use large quantities of eggs. I figured this was a good go… and it definitely used more eggs than required.

The first part of this recipe is to make hard-boiled eggs. Now most of us probably have our own timing conventions for creating the best hard-boiled egg. Well the book has its own recipe for Foolproof Hard-Boiled eggs. For the record I am now lower in status than a fool. Seems a fool could make these eggs but not I, The Mediocre Cook! You place the eggs in water and then bring to a boil. Once boiling you remove from the heat and let sit in the water for 10 minutes. After that they get 5 minutes in an ice bath before being ready to peel.

Ok, so I am supposed to peel the shells off these eggs. The book gives a nice little illustration that shows how easy it is. The shell will slip away from the egg in a nice strip attached to the thin membrane surrounding the egg. SO I gently crack the egg all over and from the air pocket in the egg I begin peeling. A huge chunk of egg breaks away still attached to the shell. Mmmm.., maybe I was too rough, let’s proceed carefully. More egg comes away with the shell before the entire thing splits with a slightly undercooked egg white spilling out from around the creamy golden yolk. I’m frustrated at this point. I have not elevated to cursing yet because my kids are within earshot but this isn’t going well. Maybe this is just one bad egg. I move on to the next one. Well before I did that I popped the yolk in my mouth. It was perfectly cooked and delicious.

Egg number two. With the care of a surgeon I gently crack the shell all over and begin to peel. The shell carefully slips away from the egg. I pause so I don’t get too excited before proceeding. A little more… then the whole egg splits and a huge chunk comes off with the shell. The same undercooked egg white interior with a creamy golden center. That yolk saw the inside of my stomach before I tossed the rest in the compost. I figured these little buggers needed some more time in the boiling water. So I placed two eggs into boiling water (to replace the two I broke). I figured that I was going to try the original method of boiling eggs. Boil them until done. As these neared completion I added the other four back into the water. Once all were done I started the process of peeling again.

The first one peeled cleaned and I was thinking happy thoughts, like I had pulled myself back from the edge of despair. The second showed similar results and I was confident that these eggs were going to work. Until I tried to peel number 3, 4, 5 and 6, These must have been the originals. They didn’t improve one bit. They were cooked on the inside better but the shell, inner membrane and egg white formed a single inseparable bond. Into the compost they went. So I have ruined 6 eggs and need to boil 4 more. This is becoming a full-time job and the only reason I was doing all this was to make sandwiches for work the next day.

Anyway the four eggs came out nicely and I was ready to move on the supposedly hard part, mixing them together. The book says to chop the eggs and then mix them with the mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, lemon juice, parsley, salt, pepper, minced celery and red onion. I chopped only the egg whites since the yolks kept sticking to the knife. I then mashed the yolks into the mixture. I liked this much better.

Rating: B+. The egg salad was good. Maybe a little runny but the flavor was really good. I remember hating egg salad sandwiches growing up as I always associated them with the food trashy people would eat. I don’t mean to offend but there was this one kid in my elementary school that brought one every day and he was filthy and always wore clothes that were dirty and absolutely didn’t match. I am not one to talk fashion but even I didn’t wear dress shirts tucked into sweat pants. Anyway, kids can be mean and I always thought of him when I saw egg salad sandwiches.

73. Pan-Roasted Halibut Steaks

2009-03-26T15:00:00.002-04:00

Date Cooked: February 14, 2009
Page: 505
Rating: A

Fish is not something that I cook often. I am intimidated by fish for some reason. I think part of it is that I am terrified that my house will reek of bad fish for days. The other part is that I am unfamiliar with the basic of fish preparation. So I figured if I was going to try cooking fish I should jump in with some expensive fish steaks. Let’s talk about the purchasing portion of this recipe.

The ingredients for this recipe are pretty straight-forward, halibut steaks, oil, salt and pepper. So, on a trip to the St. Lawrence Market in Toronto I decided to pick up some fresh halibut steaks. No wait… I was actually looking for fresh Tuna Steaks. After scouring the various fish market vendors and having them all tell me the exact same thing, that they were out of tuna for the day (which I have found to actually mean that they won’t pull anymore from the freezer), I started thinking of a plan B. I remembered the recipe for Halibut steaks and I figured that would be a good alternative to the tuna I was hoping to cook. So I once again made the rounds at the fish vendors, lots of filets but no steaks. Although one guy said they could cut me some to order.

I thought about it and said sure. I figured that the halibut filets were going for around 8-9 dollars a pound and I only needed two pounds for the recipe. So the fish monger pulled out this beautiful whole halibut from the ‘fresh’ stock (fresh equals defrosted recently) and slid it through the bandsaw. I always get queasy when I see industrial power tools used to handle food. Something just screams unsanitary. Anyway, as I always say, that is for the government to worry about, I’ll trust they are doing there job. In front of me he presented four lovely looking halibut steaks. And weighed them for just over two pounds, and then slapped a $60 price sticker on them. I was a tad shocked. I froze with panic and looked at my wife, she didn’t say anything and I knew this decision was on me. I was a little embarrassed to say the least. Here I am custom ordering this fish and gleefully doing so without even considering the price. Lesson has been learned. My biggest fear was less the money I had spent and more that I was going to try to cook fish for the first time with $15 dollar halibut steaks.

At home I began the dinner preparations. The fish was generously sprinkled with salt and pepper and left while the oil heated in the pan and the oven preheated for roasting. The steaks were seared in the pan for about 4 minutes and then carefully flipped and placed in the oven for about 9 minutes. The cooking times were straight from the book and I had no previous experience to base adjustments on. I didn’t know if I had thinner or thicker steaks.

Once out of the oven I plated the fish and pried the skin off carefully from around the edges and removed as many of the bones as I could. I dropped some of the Chipotle Butter with Lime and Cilantro on it and watched as it melted beautifully.

Rating: A. I was very surprised and proud on how the fish turned out. It was flaky and still moist and had great fish flavor. Halibut is a milder fish which I like and it was delicious. Will I make this again? Absolutely! Of course I will be careful to look for deals on the fish.

72. Chipotle Butter with Lime and Cilantro

2009-03-23T12:00:00.001-04:00

Date Cooked: February 14, 2009
Page: 506
Rating: B

This was another condiment to serve with a main dish. This time the dish was going to be a fish one. I am becoming a slow convert to flavored butters and I am realizing that a simple preparation of food can be easily enhanced with a fancy condiment.

This butter was a quick mix of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce mixed with lime zest and some minced cilantro. This was my first time ever using chipotle peppers in adobo sauce and I thought I would like them. Apparently there is something about the smell that made me a little queasy… I was really concerned at first since I didn’t want to ruin perfectly expensive fish but my wife and mother-in-law both agreed it smelled fine and was actually rather nice. Seems it isn’t for me, which is sad because it’s used in several recipes in the book.

The one thing I loved about this butter though was how it melts nicely on the fish. Something very appealing about a small dollop of butter melting on hot food.

Rating: B. The way the chipotle peppers unnerved my senses is why the rating is just a B. Could have been higher without this feeling it instilled in me.

71. Pan Seared Strip Steaks

2009-03-09T14:45:00.001-04:00

Date Cooked: February 14, 2009
Page: 388
Rating: A

Time absolutely flies by. I have been busy at work trying to accomplish everything that is required before my vacation and normally I would write up these posts during my lunch but that time has been sorely missed. Anyway I figure I should at least follow up that last post with it’s rather horrendous picture with something a little better.

Now a write up for pan-seared steaks is not really that exciting. I mean the process for cooking a steak is simple. But for all its simplicity it can lead to disastrous results. I patted the steaks dry and then seasoned them with salt and pepper. Once the pan was very hot the steak were added and allowed to cook undisturbed for a few minutes each side. Throughout the entire process though I was constantly being asked if I was over cooking them.

The steaks were set aside to rest while the pan sauce was subsequently burned and then re-done. Once the pan sauce was complete the steaks were dressed and served.

Rating: A. For some reason in my mind the only way to cook a steak was on the grill. This absolutely changed my opinion. It also made me realize that the cut of steak matters a lot towards its flavor and eating enjoyment. I will confidently prepare steaks in this manner again.

70. Shallot-Butter Pan Sauce

2009-02-27T07:00:00.000-05:00

Date Cooked: February 14, 2009
Page: 391
Rating: B

Really quick confession. The picture is not of the product served and does not reflect the rating I gave. The above picture was of attempt one. This was a pan sauce I made for pan-seared steaks and it didn’t go as expected.

Once the steaks were done I had to cook the shallots in the same pan. Well things were hectic on this day and the pan was a little hot (it was used for searing steaks) and the recipe indicated to remove it from the heat and then cook the shallots over low heat. Well let’s just say it’s possible that I may not have turned the heat to low and immediately upon removing the steaks dumped in the shallots. They crisped up in less than 30 seconds, the pan was still a little warm. I proceeded anyway and threw in the butter which browned up nice and quick followed by lemon juice and parsley. Yes, there is fresh parsley in that sauce. You don’t have to taste it to know it was garbage.

Well I had spent a fair dollar on these steaks and I was not going to ruin them with the burnt trash I had created so I quickly minced a few more shallots and proceeded to create the pan sauce again at a lower temperature. The only problem with round two is that I didn’t have any of the browned bits left in the pan from searing the steaks. But considering the alternatives of incinerator residue or no sauce I felt this second attempt wasn’t too bad at all.

Rating: Depends on if I rate round one or two. F or B. The sauce was a nice accompaniment to the steaks but since I am a person that always orders a steak with a strong sauce (peppercorn, blue-cheese peppercorn, etc.) it was a little mild for me.

** You'll see the finished sauce in the next post

69. Simple Stovetop Rice Pudding

2009-02-25T07:00:00.000-05:00

Date Cooked: February 7, 2009
Page: 956
Rating: B

I’m not a huge fan of rice pudding. It might have something to do with the association of raisins in rice pudding from my childhood. My wife however loves rice pudding (without raisins of course) and had requested I make this recipe, as long as I left out the raisins. Imagine my surprise when the recipe didn’t call for them!

This is a rather simple recipe to put together as long as you have lots of time to stand around and stir. The first step was to cook the medium grain rice. Originally I went to the grocery store and was going to purchase a bag of medium grain rice when I noticed that they had a bag of rice advertised for use in sushi. The same bag I had at home at the back of my pantry for the past 3 years (or longer). I checked the ingredient list and sure enough it was just regular medium grain rice. So I figured I would take a chance and hope that rice doesn’t go bad. The rice cooked for 15 minutes and seemed perfectly fine so onto the next step.

To the pot of cooked rice I added 2 cups of half-and-half and 3 cups of whole milk. The recipe calls for 2 ½ cups of each but I didn’t feel like buying an additional 2 cups of half-and-half when I needed only a ½ cup more. The rest would probably have spoiled in my fridge. So to avoid waste I just added more milk. This did impact the recipe’s cooking time. Along with all this liquid was added sugar. This entire mixture cooked for an additional 30 minutes until it began to thicken. Once it started to thicken the heat was turned to low and cooked for what the book called 15 more minutes, until the spoon could almost stand up. In real life this meant 30 minutes. Does 75 minutes of cooking in liquid seem long for rice? I really expected the rice to be a complete mushy mash, but it didn’t turn out that way.

Once cooked, vanilla extract was stirred in and the pudding was allowed to cool.

Rating: B. I enjoyed the pudding, but it was almost too rich? I can’t quite put my finger on it but something held it back from being a real knock out. The flavor was great, the consistency was perfect but something just didn’t make me crave going back for more. My wife loved it though and it didn’t last too long in the house.

68. Chicken Parmesan

2009-02-24T07:00:00.001-05:00

Date Cooked: February 6, 2009
Page: 337
Rating: A-

I blogged about the chicken cutlets which were the main component of this dish so today I will tell you about the dish as a whole. Besides the chicken I needed to make the sauce and cook the pasta. Let’s start with the sauce.

The book calls for a can of crushed tomatoes along with your traditional herbs and spices. I didn’t have crushed tomatoes so I used dice tomatoes… I really didn’t like the look of it so I had a bright idea! I grabbed the often forgotten immersion blender and reduced the sauce to a smoother consistency. I didn’t puree because I wanted some texture to the final product. I left the sauce to simmer while the chicken cutlets were being cooked.

Now for everything that I have learned apparently boiling pasta is not something I am learning very well. I boiled some spaghetti while the cutlets were finishing up and then drained it leaving it to sit for a minute or two while I got the plates ready. I forgot to rinse the cooked pasta. It took only a couple minutes for the entire batch of spaghetti to clump together into a stringy sticky mass. I literally had to cut the pasta with shears into serving size clumps because the starchy noodles had fused together.

On top of each clump of noodles I added a chicken cutlet and then some sauce. This is the part that got me confused, but not until later. I was browsing through some blogs and came across several chicken parmesan posts. In all of the pictures I noticed something different from mine. The cutlets had the cheese added on top of the sauce and then broiled. I felt like a fool until I re-read the recipe and it does actually say to add the sauce over the cheese. Interesting considering their picture of Chicken Parmesan on their website shows the melted cheese on top of the sauce. Regardless it all tasted great!

Rating: A-. The chicken parmesan was delicious even though the noodles had turned out clumpy. Once mixed with the sauce though, they were fine. The chicken as said in the previous post was delicious and the sauce was flavorful and mild enough not to drown out the chicken. I’m happy with the results.

67. Parmesan Breaded Chicken Cutlets

2009-02-20T07:00:00.000-05:00

Date Cooked: February 6, 2009
Page: 337
Rating: A

Considering my newfound comfort with cooking in oil, several recipes are beginning to look less intimidating. The breaded chicken cutlets was one of them. This recipe is actually a component of the Chicken Parmesan recipe in the book which I will blog about separately later.

I started out with probably the best part of the recipe, pounding chicken breasts flat. I started gently at first but eventually I was wailing away on these things until they threatened to stretch and break apart into several pieces. Once sufficiently beaten the cutlets were brined in some salted water for an hour. I highly recommend brining chicken, it makes a noticeable difference to the juiciness of the final product.

While the chicken was brining I prepared my flour, egg wash and bread crumb stations. I used panko bread crumbs for this because I had them and had recently watched a cooking show where they were used for breading chicken cutlets. I also decided to use the parmesan variation for them since it was just a simple addition of cheese to the bread crumbs.

When the chicken was done brining it was patted dry before being dusted in flour, dunked in the egg and then coated with bread crumbs. The book suggests using tongs but after the first cutlet I gave up on that and got my hands dirty. It was quicker and I got a better coating using my hands. The cutlets were placed on a rack to dry for a few minutes while I got the oil in the pan nice and hot.

The cutlets were fried in the oil two at a time for a few minutes on each side. I was concerned about undercooking the chicken because the bread coating would only allow for certain threshold of cooking before it began to burn. Once they were all done and draining on another rack I covered them with some grated cheese and placed them under the broiler until the cheese melted. I had a concern about putting the cheese on them at this time since they were going to be used in the Chicken Parmesan recipe. More on that in the next post though.

Rating: A. Once again I am surprised at my growing ability and the simple techniques I am learning. The chicken came out beautifully. It was properly cooked and still juicy which surprised me because of how thin the cutlets are. Obviously this can be attributed to the brining. I did learn one thing from this though is the importance of various oils and what they contribute to a dish. I used extra virgin olive oil for cooking these cutlets. In the book it says vegetable oil. I assumed incorrectly that it didn’t matter which was why they listed a basic oil. I was wrong and here is why. The vegetable oil would have been more neutral and not imparted a flavor to the cutlets unlike the EVOO. Did this detract from the cutlets? Not really, but I could notice the flavor and it could have been omitted and the cutlets would have been a bit better because of it.

66. Quick Cheese Bread with Bacon, Onion, and Gruyere

2009-02-19T07:00:00.000-05:00

Date Cooked: February 5, 2009
Page: 703
Rating: B+

I had picked up some Gruyere cheese while at the St. Lawrence market awhile ago and really didn’t have a plan for it other than to use it in a recipe from the book. It just so happened that I was itching to bake something and I noticed this cheese bread recipe that used Gruyere cheese… and bacon. I was hooked and decided this would be a great thing to bake.

Yeasted breads still intimidate me but quick breads I am finding a fondness for. They really are quick to put together and are pretty tasty. This one had potential to be a great bread. I mean, does a bread that contains bacon sound bad? Can you see the chunks of cheese in the bread and the lovely cheese coating on the bread?

The first step was to crisp up the bacon pieces and then soften some minced onions. I intentionally cooked more bacon than required because I knew there would be some sampling along the way. Then the dry ingredients, your typical salt, flour and baking powder, were whisked together with a touch of cayenne pepper. The Gruyere cheese was chopped into chunks and then added to the dry ingredients along with the bacon and onions. They were tossed until nicely coated. Then the milk, eggs and sour cream were folded in.

The pan was greased and a layer of grated parmesan was added to the bottom. Then the thick and heavy bread mixture was added in and topped with another layer of grated parmesan. Into the oven it went until a toothpick came out clean. It took about 45 minutes and then a few minutes to get the toothpick to come out clean. Every time I inserted the toothpick I would hit cheese and I couldn’t tell if it was done or not, after several puncture wounds to the surface of the bread I finally found a cheese free spot and out came a clean toothpick. The bread was removed from the pan and cooled for 45 minutes before slicing. I resisted the desire to cut into it early and let the cheese in it cool so it could actually be cut.

Rating: B+. This bread was delicious but heavy. Two slices of this bread are a meal. I ‘snacked’ on two slices of this bread while cooking dinner a few days later and I was full before dinner was ready. If this bread could be a bit lighter I would love it way more… and I really like the bread.

65. Buffalo Chicken Wings

2009-02-18T07:00:00.001-05:00

Date Cooked: February 1, 2009
Page: 28
Rating: A+

I love wings! I’m not the type of person that loves every type of wing or loves them suicidally hot. I just love a good crispy chicken wing, nicely spiced with a good sauce or two for dipping. I had also never thought to make my own wings. Superbowl Sunday I attempted to make some wings.

Throughout this project I have become more comfortable with certain cooking techniques. Hot oil and I used to be afraid of each other, or rather I used to be afraid of it. Oil can’t be afraid of things, it’s just oil. Anyway I have learned to wear long sleeves when using oil and the splatter screen is a valuable household utensil. Deep-frying though is something I had never considered without the purchase of a specialty appliance. Turns out I can deep fry in my dutch oven. This was an experience that ended with tasty results (and a foul smell liquid to get rid of).

I picked up 3 pounds of wings from the grocery store to give this recipe a try. The first thing to do was bring the oil up to temperature. It crept along slowly until all of a sudden the temperature was dangerously approaching 400. It was supposed to go to 360. I removed it from the heat and let the temperature get under control while I finished coating the wings with salt, cornstarch and cayenne pepper. Once nicely coated the first batch was dumped into the oil… well actually I carefully placed each wing in the oil, I’m sure a hospital visit would have been in order had I just dumped them in. The oil did not splatter as I had imagined it would. I took great care to pat dry each wing before tossing it in the coating so the lack of excess water probably helped. I set the timer for ten minutes and waited, carefully monitoring the oil temperature. Once done I pulled them from the oil with long handled tongs (the longest I could find) and placed them on a warmed, paper towel lined baking sheet in the oven. Then I loaded in the next batch in the oil.

I had to try one and I was blown away! These wings were my perfect wing! It was instantly apparent that the three pounds of wings would not be enough so we quickly called my mother-in-law to pick up more wings on her way over. Once the three pounds were and waiting in the oven I finished up the sauce.

The sauce was a simple preparation. Melted butter in a saucepan to which brown sugar, Frank’s Louisiana’s Hot Sauce and vinegar were added. This sauce can be spiced up a lot more depending on preference simply by adding different types of hot sauce. I like a tangy sauce with a bit of heat. Too much heat takes away from my enjoyment of the wings.

Rating: A+. Absolutely amazing wings! They were nicely seasoned and came out perfectly crispy. These alone will get me to invest in a good deep-fryer. I thought the sauce was good but my wife loved it! The worst part of this recipe was having to dispose of the used oil. After deep-frying 5lbs of wings the oil was rather dark and too be honest a bit foul smelling. I had to scour my garage for a container to dump it in since I had no intention of reusing it. I look forward to the next time I make my own wings.

64. Herbed Spinach Dip

2009-02-17T07:00:00.000-05:00

Date Cooked: February 1, 2009
Page: 12
Rating: C-

I like spinach dips. I really love spinach dips with pumpernickel bread. For Superbowl Sunday I decided to cook up a few appetizers and this herbed spinach dish was one of them. I had so much frozen spinach in the freezer that this was a good chance to start using it up.

Not a hard dish to put together. Spinach was thawed out and squeezed to remove excess water. Everything then gets a spin in the food processor. Your basics were all present and accounted for, mayonnaise, sour cream, scallions, garlic, salt and pepper, parsley and dill. In addition red pepper and some hot sauce were thrown in. A simple recipe to make.

Rating: C-. This dish tasted mildly of fish. I don’t know what happened but I suspect the spinach. It absolutely turned everyone off the dip. What a waste of food! I’m sure it was the quality of the spinach which concerns me because I have more of it in my freezer.

63. Chicken and Shrimp Jambalaya

2009-02-15T20:29:00.002-05:00

Date Cooked: January 28, 2009
Page: 223
Rating: B+

This is a recipe I had been eyeing since the time I made Gumbo. It was a recipe with a lot of ingredients and a few techniques for cooking that intimidated me a bit. The biggest technique was simply frying chicken until the skin is crispy (see the Chicken Cacciatore post). Since I had accomplished this and had the proper vessel for cooking this recipe (my dutch oven) I figured it was a good time to tackle Jambalya.

Over the weekend I had picked up some more Andouille sausage while at the St. Lawrence Market searching for a leg of lamb roast. So I had everything I needed to make this dish. The first step in making this dish was to finely chop the garlic, red pepper, onion and celery by whizzing them around the food processor. I don’t know if I was really happy with this result. The pieces were either mush or really large, most likely due to my food processor.

The next step was to cook the chicken in some oil until golden brown and the skin is crispy. Once that was done the sausage gets its turn to brown before being removed to make room for the vegetables. The vegetables get soften before the rest of the ingredients, rice, tomatoes, thyme, cayenne, clam juice, chicken broth, bay leaves, and the browned sausage, get added. The chicken gets skinned (and you can guess where those skins ended up) before being placed on top of the mixture and everything brought to a boil and then simmered.

Everything cooked with minimal stirring for about 25 minutes, until the chicken was done. The chicken was removed and shredded while shrimp was added to the dutch oven to cook. Let’s take a moment to discuss shrimp. I need to buy raw shrimp with shells on these days because my oldest loves to help peel them. He calls himself my sous-chef and dives right into the bowl of shrimp to peel them. He gets mad if I don’t let him peel the last shrimp.

When the shrimp have finished cooking the shredded chicken gets added and the dish is ready to serve.

Rating: B+. This was a very flavorful dish and I enjoyed it quite a lot. My only complaint is that the rice turned out a little mushy. Not really bad but there was probably a little too much liquid in the dish. Next time I prepare this (there will be a next time), I will try to reduce the amount of liquid or watch the overall cooking time better.

62. Roast Leg of Lamb

2009-02-11T07:00:00.001-05:00

Date Cooked: January 25, 2009
Page: 494
Rating: A

I’m proud of this one. A short time ago I was thinking how there are several chapters that I have not yet attempted to cook much from. Cake was one which I did a short bit ago and Lamb was another one I was eyeing. For whatever reason the roast leg of lamb caught my attention and for several weeks I had been wanting to prepare it. Most local grocery stores only sold frozen New Zealand lamb and the sizes were small. I could never find fresh lamb. Well that all changed the day before I cooked this.

My wife and I decided to head into Toronto, with the kids, to the St. Lawrence Market. There are several butchers there and I knew I would find what I wanted. I was specifically looking for a 6 lbs leg of lamb with the bone still in it. I needed the bones for the piquant caper sauce plus I want to learn a bit more about the preparation of a roast that only hands on practice can help you with. Most of the butchers sold fresh Ontario lamb that was boneless, trimmed of most fat and vacuum packed. I wanted a more rugged experience so I finally settled on a roast that was about 5 ½ pounds, encased in fat and with the bone still in it.

Once home with the roast I left it wrapped in the fridge overnight before taking it out the next morning to begin trimming. This is where my university anatomy classes kicked in. The book recommends that the butcher remove that aitch bone (hip bone). Well this were still in the roast and I would have to do the work. So out came the knife… and I had no clue where to start. I poked and prodded the roast trying to figure out the best approach. After paying the money I did for the roast I didn’t really want to mangle it so I took my time trimming carefully and trying to keep the knife close to the bone. I slowly exposed the hip joint and with a rather barbaric flourish I popped the hip bone out. Once that was completed it was much easier to trim around the irregular shaped aitchbone. The book recommends leaving the shank bone in but since my roast was not a complete leg the shank bone was cut so I removed that as well. I now had a boneless leg of lamb.

When the bones were removed I trimmed some fat and then re-wrapped it. If only that was the end of it. I was reading the book further as it discusses the lamb roasts in general and it talks about how lamb fat is not a good thing. It renders tough and can be strong and unpleasant tasting so it recommends removing as much of the fat as possible. Plus there is a lymph node in the leg roast which needs to be removed. So out came the roast again.

At this point I have probably spent 30 minutes trimming this thing down and with every cut of the knife I get fearful that the roast won’t be enough for four adults (we are hungry adults). Carefully slicing away fat I am vigilantly looking out for this lymph node. I was starting to think it wasn’t in the roast until I cut away some fat and there it was, a little grey nugget, the lymph node. Once removed and a final pass of the roast for any stray fat I was very pleased and much more relaxed about how the roast was going to turn out… well hoped it would turn out. As a point to share with everyone, at this point my hands reeked of strong smelling lamb fat. It wasn’t pleasant and no amount of scrubbing with floral smelling hand soap was getting this stink off. It wasn’t turning my off or anything. I just avoided smelling my hands.

Now that the roast was trimmed it was time to season it and tie it tight (the bone removal process left a little to be desired in the muscular integrity of the leg). Some basic rosemary, salt and pepper were rubbed all over the roast and some garlic slivers where pushed into the meat. I tied the roast tight, coated with some oil, and placed it in the roasting pan to rest for 30 minutes to allowing it to reach room temperature and letting the flavors meld with the meat.

The easiest part of the experience was to roast the lamb. The first 10 minutes in the oven were at 450 degrees before the temperature was reduced and the leg was rotated every 20 minutes until done. It took just under an hour to complete the roast. I removed the roast from the pan, tented it with foil and let it rest while I prepared the piquant caper sauce.

When I finally carved into the roast it was a beautiful shade of pink and cut with ease. Once plated it was time to eat!

Rating: A. It was outstanding. The roast turned out full of flavor and perfectly cooked. I was pretty amazed at the results. I’m going to have to stretch here for something I would improve with the final result, maybe smaller slices of garlic in the meat. You can see in the picture a few around the edges. They almost look like gristle. I think the compliment that made me most proud was that my wife felt it was better than any lamb she had eaten in a restaurant and trumped her dinner out with her mom the night before. I will definitely roast lamb again and probably continue to remove the bones myself. I honestly enjoyed prepping the roast (except for the lingering smell of lamb fat on my hands that took some time to fade). Lamb doesn’t intimidate me anymore.

61. Piquant Caper Sauce

2009-02-10T12:30:00.000-05:00

Date Cooked: January 25, 2009
Page: 496
Rating: A-

This was the second of two sauces I had prepared for a Roast Leg of Lamb. This caper sauce was pretty much gravy with a bit of bite. The sauce required some work to make and relied heavily on the Roast Lamb for preparation.

The first step in this process was to sauté the leg bones from the roast. I’ll go into agonizing detail of how I retrieved these bones in my next post but for now let’s just say that my OCD tendencies really helped out. The bones sautéed for a bit (and I should have used a larger pan) before I added in the beef stock and let the whole thing simmer for an hour.

Once the roast leg of lamb was done in the oven I was able to complete the remainder of the sauce. The roasting pan was deglazed with some white wine before the deglazed liquid and the lamb stock were strained into a measuring cup. This strained and skimmed of fat liquid was then put back into the saucepan and brought to a boil. A butter flour paste was added to thicken the sauce along with the capers, vinegar and accumulated roast juices. The flavors spent a few minutes getting to know each other until it was ready to serve with the roast.

Rating: A-. Between the Mint Sauce and this one, the lamb had some great accompaniment. I liked this sauce a lot and ate more of this one than the Mint sauce. I think since it went so well on the polenta it was a nicer overall member of the dinner. Obviously the creation of this sauce ties in heavily with the roasting of the lamb. But next time I do a lamb roast I will definitely make this sauce to go with it.

60. Mint Sauce

2009-02-09T07:00:00.001-05:00

Date Cooked: January 25, 2009
Page: 496
Rating: A

This was one of two sauces created for a roast leg of lamb that I had cooked for a Sunday dinner. This sauce was amazing! It tops any gross mint jelly or other mint concoction I’ve ever been served with lamb. To be honest I was never a fan of mint and lamb until this sauce came along.

The sauce is easy to prepare. White wine vinegar and sugar were reduced and then fresh minced mint was added. Simple and totally delicious! With so few ingredients though, the quality of the vinegar and freshness of the mint matter.

Rating: A. I might make this for all kinds of dishes! It was tangy and carried the mint flavor without being overpowering to the lamb.

59. Polenta with Parmesan and Butter

2009-02-06T07:00:00.000-05:00

Date Cooked: January 25, 2009
Page: 226
Rating: C

I was a little intimidated about this recipe. I’ve heard all the stories of polenta turning out clumpy because the corn meal was added to quick and I was concerned. Did I need to be?

Polenta is not exactly the pinnacle of complex food. Water, corn meal and some spices make up the basic dish. But it is a heavily technique based recipe. I started by bringing water to a boil in my dutch oven. Once boiling away I added some salt before slowly (very slowly) pouring in the corn meal. Once all the corn meal was added I was surprised. It went well and the result was rather uniform with no discernable lumps. Okay so I relaxed, this wasn’t too tough.

The book recommends a vigorous stir every 5 minutes for about 10 seconds. Repeat for 30 minutes. In the beginning this worked fine but as I was approaching the end of the cooking time the polenta began to firm up fast when suddenly it was sticking to the bottom. I stirred that polenta like I was mixing paint, and while a large blob splashed from the pot onto the floor, most of it quickly smoothed back out. Disaster narrowly avoided.

Once the polenta was finished (or as close to finished as I could figure out) I mixed in a good portion of grated parmesan and some generous pieces of butter. I stirred until the butter incorporated and then served.

Rating: C. I was not happy with this. It tasted too… raw? It didn’t feel smooth like I had hoped it would. I used the recommended stone ground medium cornmeal but I think a fine grind might have made it smoother. I’ll try again in the future since there are several polenta variations but I really hope they get better.

58. Sugar Snap Peas with Pine Nuts and Garlic

2009-02-04T07:00:00.001-05:00

Date Cooked: January 25, 2009
Page: 173
Rating: B+

My memories of peas for the most part include horrible nightmares of brown mushy canned peas. I don’t recall eating them at home much but my grandmother always served them and I really loathed them. Although it has been many years since I was exposed to the unpleasant smell of those little gross peas every time I think peas, I think canned. Then slowly the vibrant green of frozen peas works its way in. The only other type of pea I have in memory are snow peas. In fact I always thought that sugar snap peas and snow peas were the same. Never gave it much thought… until I decided to buy sugar snap peas. Turns out they are different. In fact sugar snap peas look like beans. So on this day I had learned that peas come in one more form for my memory to store. And after this recipe I am really hoping that when I think peas I think sugar snap.

This was a rather straight forward recipe. My wife tediously snipped the tips of the peas and then they were quickly blanched. I am not a good judge of timing (as I have bemoaned often in the past) so the peas might have been cooked a tad too long. They received a nice dunk in an ice water bath before being spread out on some paper towel to dry.

Since I was preparing a full diner that night from the book, they were able to sit for a bit until they were ready to be finished off. Into a skillet of oil with toasted pine nuts and garlic they were sautéed until warmed through and then plated to be served.

Rating: B+. These were very good and accompanied the meal well. I will make these again. I’ve also determined that I like pine nuts. Something up until this point I don’t really recall eating before.

57. Chicken Cacciatore with Portabellos and Sage

2009-02-02T07:00:00.000-05:00

Date Cooked: January 21, 2009
Page: 345
Rating: B+

This is one of those recipes that have been percolating in the back of my mind for a long time. During the initial weeks of the blog I cam e across this recipe and have been obsessed about making it but for some reason I always had an excuse (not a reason) for putting it off. Well this time I decided to bite the bullet and dive in.

The first step is one of those techniques I always shied away from, browning things in hot oil. I’ve cooked with oil lots of times but when I made my corn fritters back in the early days of this blog I only emphasized why I approach it with caution. Hot oil burns. Anyway once the oil in my dutch oven was nice and hot I put in some chicken thighs, skin side down. The oil immediately began to splatter all over the place. I slapped the splatter screen on top and stepped back. This was going to be a dangerous task. I never thought that I would be risking such bodily harm while cooking. When it was time to flip the chicken I had put on a long sleeve shirt and fetched the longest tongs I could find. I mentally prepared for a quick in and out operation and then dove in. Damn chicken gets slippery, and apparently the oil wasn’t hot enough because the chicken was sticking to the bottom which made the quick extraction more of a negotiation under fire. Once wrestled from the grips of the dutch oven and flipped I stepped back, knowing I had to cook 4 more chicken thighs. When the first batch was done the second batch was added. Now a veteran of this kitchen conflict, the operation went much smoother, and soon I had four beautifully browned chickens.

Now I have a bit of a confession to make at this point. I had to remove the chicken skins as per the recipe. The recipe says to remove and discard. These skins where so crispy and I love crispy chicken. So I discarded them into my stomach, I could bear the thought of wasting such glorious food. I know that I pushed myself several steps closer to a traffic stopping artery clog but mmmm… it was worth it.

With the danger aside I moved on to completing the recipe. The onions and mushrooms were sautéed for a few minutes before being coated in flour. Then the wine was added to help remove all the lovely brown bits at the bottom of the pan. For this recipe I used a 1993 Wolfblass Yellow Label. I like nothing more than cooking with pricey fine red wine. It had nothing to do with there being just enough left for this recipe and that it had already been opened longer than it should have been.

Next up was the broth, some tomatoes, thyme and a parmesan cheese rind. The rind was optional but I was saving one for this recipe specifically. Once the ingredients had some time to introduce their flavors to each other I added the chicken back to the dutch oven and submerged it in the liquid. Into the oven the dish went for 30 minutes. Just before serving the rind was removed and some fresh sage was added.

Rating: B+. I liked this recipe but I had too concerns with it. The wine overpowered the dish. This has nothing to do with the recipe but entirely in the wine selection. Next time I will use a younger, tamer red wine. Also I didn’t cut the chicken thighs myself and this does make a difference. When jointing a chicken myself I tend to be a little OCD with regards to trimming. The store bought thighs had bits of cartilage loose in them and it is a real annoyance to bite into a delicious mouthful of food and have your teeth ground to a halt on a piece of bone or cartilage. Those two things aside I enjoyed this dish… but I may have been mentally hyping it up to a level that I wouldn’t be able to achieve.

56. Roasted Baby Carrots with Rosemary, Thyme, and Shallots

2009-01-30T09:00:00.003-05:00

Date Cooked: January 21, 2009
Page: 151
Rating: C

I needed a side dish for some chicken cacciatore that I was preparing and carrots seemed like a nice earthy vegetable to accompany it. Roasted baby carrots seemed very easy to prepare since I would be preoccupied with the chicken dish.

Rosemary, thyme, shallots, oil and salt were tossed with the carrots and then put in a roasting pan and into the oven. Baby carrots are tough. The carrots were supposed to be roasted for 20 minutes but it took nearly 35 minutes until they were ‘done’. Even then they weren’t really tender.

Rating: C. The shallots and herbs were well done before the carrots were tender enough to eat. Not sure if the quality of the vegetables is to blame but I’m not sure how this could have been improved without partly cooking the carrots first and then reducing the roasting time. It had potential and I have three more variations to try it out on

55. Sour Cream Coffeecake

2009-01-29T19:00:00.002-05:00

Date Cooked: January 16, 2009
Page: 838
Rating: A-

I’m woefully behind on posting what I have been cooking so I had better start catching up with some blog posts. The decision for the Sour Cream Coffeecake was simple. I pretty much had all the ingredients and had yet to cook from the Cakes chapter of the Book. So this looked really simple… and I love coffeecake. I originally had intentions of making this a chocolate chip sour cream coffeecake but due to some confusion during the layering of the cake I had completely forgotten that I intended to do that. More on that ridiculous moment shortly.

Since I am not a strong baker I started by getting all of my ingredients out and measured. Then I began to put together the streusel. A base streusel gets made of sugar, flour and cinnamon and then to some of that gets added butter and chopped nuts. The streusel on the cake used the butter and nuts. Once this was done and set aside I began on the batter.

The batter was a straight-forward affair with the usual assortment of cake ingredients with the exception of using the sour cream. Mixing this went smoothly and once done it was time to layer in my greased tube pan.

First in is 2 cups of batter (this works out to about a third but I didn’t notice at first), then a layer of the base streusel, then this is where everything went down the crapper. Had I remember to use the measured out chocolate chips they should have gone just before the streusel, but I was struggling to understand the directions. For some reason I completely missed the portion that told me to put a second layer of batter topped with more streusel before using the rest of the batter. I just skipped to using the rest of the batter. You can see in the picture that there is only one sweet line of sugary goodness and it is close to the bottom. Sure would have been nice to have seen a second line of tasty sweet sugar in there. This of course left me confused as to why I had so much streusel left over until I noticed the error. I probably should not have sampled so much of the streusel while working on this cake. I was probably suffering through a sugar high.

Nevertheless I sent it to bask in the heat of the oven. It took a little longer to bake than the book suggested but my pan is dark and a little on the thick side so it probably slowed the baking process. Once removed and cooled came the most harrowing moment of the ordeal. Flipping it out of the pan. I envisioned the cake sticking while the streusel topping broke and scattered everywhere. Didn’t happen that way. The first flip out of the pan went perfect. The second flip right-side up left bits of streusel topping all over my kitchen, but the majority of the topping remained intact.

Rating: A-. Putting the layering issue aside and the topping being a bit crumblier than I would have liked the flavor and texture of the cake was amazing! It was moist and not overly sweet until you hit the streusel layer. The extra layer of streusel would have been nice but wasn’t really missed. I will be making this again… next time hopefully with chocolate chips.

54. Hearty Meat Lasagna

2009-01-26T08:00:00.002-05:00

Date Cooked: January 12, 2009
Page: 282
Rating: A-

My favorite lasagna ever is a President’s Choice Vegetable Lasagna (a national grocery store chain’s brand). I love it dearly even though it contains no meat. There meat lasagna on the other hand is pretty bland and is typical of most of the lasagna I’ve eaten. I was hoping this recipe would strive to be better and if it could topple my current favorite then all the better… because this one contains meat!

Before anything could be eaten though, I had to get this thing put together. As with the past few dinners this was a coordinated effort between my wife and I. I started things off by making the sauce for the lasagna. In a dutch oven some onion and garlic was softened before a mixture of ground meats was added (veal, pork and beef). Once the meat was cooked through, cream was added and reduced to pretty much just the fat. Then I dumped in the tomatoes. This part scared me because as mentioned before, neither my wife nor I are huge tomato fans. Well I am proud to say I am beginning to tolerate them. The sauce was simmered while I got the cheese mixture put together.

For the cheese layers of the lasagna I mixed ricotta and parmesan cheese with fresh basil, salt and pepper. This would be used with the ton of shredded cheese to create a truly cheesy lasagna. The recipe calls for no-boil pasta noodles but we opted to use fresh whole wheat lasagna noodle sheets. Well the ingredients were ready it was time to assemble. My wife did this part… I think I had to run to the store because we didn’t buy enough pasta noodles.

Sauce starts us off before the first noodles get laid down. Next went some ricotta, then meat, then shredded cheese, then noodles, then repeat, repeat, repeat until everything is used up. The whole thing was topped with lots more shredded cheese (with a little parmesan thrown in for bite.)

Covered in foil it had a chance to rest in the oven for about 40 minutes. I ended up leaving it for an additional 10 minutes because it wasn’t looking done. I’m glad I did. Once removed from the oven it sat for a few minutes to cool slightly so I could remove it from the pan. I cut a slice and held my breath as I tried to wrestle it out of the pan without turning it into a mangled pile of noodles, cheese and meat. I was surprised with the result.

Rating: A-. It was damn fine lasagna. It wasn’t full of liquid which I find common with a lot of lasagna and is a real bonus to this one. I don’t like soggy lasagna. It tasted nice and cheesy and the meat was nicely dispersed that I didn’t feel like I was eating a hamburger wrapped in saucy noodles. It didn’t topple the vegetable lasagna but I will never buy another meat lasagna again. I can make a much better one now.

53. Classic Macaroni and Cheese

2009-01-23T06:30:00.001-05:00

Date Cooked: January 11, 2009
Page: 288
Rating: B+

Nothing beats a good bowl of Macaroni and Cheese… or for those of us north of the US border, Kraft Dinner. I love boxed Macaroni and Cheese. I could eat it every day and the few times it gets made for my kids I often help myself to a few spoonfuls from their plates. I know it is probably not the best thing for people but I just love it. So when my wife decided that we should make homemade macaroni and cheese I was a just a little concerned. Was this going to upend my love of KD? Would my picky kids identify it out for the imposter it is and refuse to eat it?

The recipe starts out simple enough. Make bread crumbs. Some slices of bread and a few chunks of cold butter get a spin in my food processor (which I am truly beginning to hate more and more each time I pull it out). The final, crumbly mess gets set aside for future use. Onto the pasta!

With great skill born from months of honing my culinary abilities some water was boiled and pasta dropped in. Then came the fun part. Time to make a roux. I melted some butter in a dutch oven and once the foaming subsided I added some flour along with mustard and cayenne pepper. I’m definitely getting better at roux making and I must thank the Gumbo I made a few months ago for that. The biggest problem here was the mustard. The recipe calls for dry mustard powder and the only container I had of that I threw out when I found it a few weeks ago. I truly believe that I either inherited it from my great-grandmother or it was retrieved from deep beneath the bowels of my cupboards from the previous owner of the house. Either way it was never to be used. So as for the dilemma I figured I would add some French’s prepared mustard. I mean isn’t it just mustard powder already prepared?

Once the roux was cooked but not browned I slowly whisked in some milk. The mixture was brought to a boil and then simmered until it thickened up. Once suitably thick an enormous quantity of cheese was added (thankfully we decided that it would be wise to buy shredded cheese since I don’t have the best cheese grating equipment). Once the cheese had melted then the cooked pasta was tossed in and coated. Macaroni and cheese calls for elbow pasta but we didn’t have enough of it, so I threw in whatever other pasta we had available. This concerned some people later on.

The whole mixture was placed in a 9x13 baking dish and topped with the breadcrumbs before being put in the oven. Now this dish was almost overflowing and only half of the breadcrumbs fit on the macaroni. I figured we probably added too much pasta and that I probably shouldn’t have thrown in the last slice of bread in the package in the food processor, but it turns out that the 9x13 baking dish I have is actually 8x12. It actually explains a lot of previous difficulty with using this dish in recipes. Now that being said this recipe still makes way too many breadcrumbs.

Once removed from the oven it was left to cool for a few minutes before being served up. What did everyone think?

Rating: B+. It was good and the kids loved it. Even my picky 5 year old actually complimented it. My biggest issue with it was the breadcrumb topping. My wife didn’t mind it and the kids had no issue but I found it tasted too much like toast on my pasta. I had to mix the whole thing on my plate so I could minimize the textural taste of it. The use of multicolored pasta in it caused my son a little concern because he thought we were trying to sneak vegetables into it. He believed our excuse of using green pasta. Next time I’ll tell him it is pasta but actually use some vegetables. Did it surpass my love for KD though? No. It’s too different to replace the lovely processed cheese flavor of box macaroni and cheese. I love them both and they can each have a place on my plate.

52. Classic Fajitas

2009-01-21T06:30:00.002-05:00

Date Cooked: January 10, 2009
Page: 575
Rating: B

For those of you that like my blog more when I fail than when I succeed, you will be pleased with this one. My wife loves fajitas and this dinner was for her. There was a slight ulterior motive to preparing this dish though. I’ll explain my motive before moving on. Several recipes in the book reference other recipes as components. These fajitas for example reference a recipe for Charcoal-Grilled Flank Steak. So by cooking fajitas I am actually completing two recipes. But it doesn’t stop there. Several recipes are technique specific and I decided awhile ago that I would count all technique recipes completed when I finished one. In this particular case, as with almost all recipes in the grilling section, there is a charcoal-grilled version and a gas-grilled version. I have a gas-grill so I use that version, but I count both as complete. So for those who are counting, cooking fajitas alone completes three recipes from the book. Enough about the technical details of how I am completing this project and onto the disaster... I mean Fajitas!

Flank steak is expensive. I was always led to believe that it was an inexpensive cut but it isn’t. It tastes great, it’s easy to cook, so it costs more. They say the rise in popularity of fajitas has helped drive prices up and I can believe that. Anyway I made the trip to the grocery store in the evening hoping that they had reduced some of the meat from the meat counter display. No luck. I don’t want to sound cheap but I believe I should be able to cook a recipe for cheaper than I can go to a restaurant to eat it. Anyway I am rambling something fierce today, can’t seem to get my thoughts in order.

Once home I fired up the grill. Well actually I dug it out of the snow and moved it a little closer to the door. Not sure about the rest of you but I’m sick of snow. So I got the grill fired up and left to get everything else prepped. Basically chop some onions, and some red and green peppers into large pieces. I took the liberally seasoned flank steak out to the grill and dropped it on to hear a beautiful sizzle and then a pouff. Pouff?? Is that a really word or an attempt to spell a sound? The flame went out. I immediately panicked because I knew what it meant. I was out of propane! I belted out a few expletives into the cold snowy night and then checked the gas dials and the propane valve to make sure everything was in fact open. It was and I was out of luck. This is what really kills me. I already dropped the steak on the grill or else I would have packed it all up and cooked it the next night.

So I did what no one else should. I set a skillet on the stove and blasted it to high. I let the skillet cook itself for a few minutes before dropping the steak into it. The steak and skillet angrilly hissed at each other for a few minutes before I flipped it over to caramelize the other side. Once completed I removed it from the skillet and tented it with foil while I cooked up the vegetables (which should have been done on the grill as well). When all was done I heated some tortillas and served the meat and vegetables with the chunky guacamole and classic red tomato salsa.

Rating: B. Obviously this didn’t go as expected and much of the rating is influenced by the event. But in reality the fajitas were just ok. I will attempt this again with a full tank of propane (one day I will get a natural gas BBQ, or even a charcoal grill). Part of me likes getting a searing hot skillet spitting angry liquids set in front of me at a restaurant anyway. It adds to the excitement as only the risk of horrible burns can. I love when they tell me to “watch out for the skillet, its hot”, I mean the charred wood platter its resting in and the blast furnace mitts you are handing it to me in didn’t give that away. I would also appreciate it if maybe you didn’t set it in reach of my toddler. Just a suggestion the lawyers for the restaurant might appreciate. Sorry, my train of thought derailed somewhere back there.

51. Chunky Guacamole

2009-01-19T12:30:00.001-05:00

Dated Cooked: January 9, 2009
Page: 26
Rating: B

Guacamole, my wife loves avocados and while I don’t dislike them they have never held the same place in my heart as they do in hers. We both enjoy guacamole but my wife is a real connoisseur. So I prepared this recipe knowing I was trying to impress her taste buds. Did I succeed? Let’s find out.

The recipe is a rather straightforward concoction. Three medium ripe avocados are used. The first one gets mashed up into a paste and mixed with the rest of the ingredients which includes such delightful items such as onions, garlic, jalapeno peppers and cilantro. I have come to the conclusion that I LOVE cilantro. A few years back my wife made some appetizers that prominently feature cilantro. I was overwhelmed by the taste and immediately confused the overwhelmed feeling with a dislike of them. Now a few years later I look forward to any recipe that uses cilantro. I can’t really imagine how I ever made it that far in life without having tried cilantro.

Anyway… The recipe says chunky guacamole but I encountered a problem the second I cut into the avocado. Ripeness. These avocados were not really rock solid but I’m sure if one of these was thrown at someone’s head they would be nursing a rather large bruise after they awoke from their avocado induced slumber. Mashing was becoming an issue so I gave up and took out the food processor. I was also lazy so instead of cutting the remaining two avocados into small cubes I just tossed them in the food processor for a few pulses.

Rating: B. With the help of the food processor the final result was tasty and not to chunky. That being said the ripeness of the avocados affected the taste. The flavor just wasn’t full-bodied? Vibrant? I’m struggling to describe it… something was missing. If the flavors were painting my tongue they just kept missing a spot and no matter how much I ate that spot was not being reached. It was still good though and my wife liked it, so I will make it again, but next time I will ensure that the avocados have time to ripen.

50. Classic Red Tomato Salsa

2009-01-13T19:41:00.001-05:00

Date Cooked: January 9, 2009
Page: 24
Rating: A

This was prepared as a side dish to the main meal we were going to be eating. Since it was recommended I figured why not knock this recipe out as well. I will admit I was pretty dubious about liking this recipe since it contained tomatoes and my wife dislikes tomatoes and I am less than enthusiastic about eating them… let’s just say things didn’t turn out as expected.

The recipe is very simple. Basically a bunch of chopping and then letting the whole batch rest for the flavors to get acquainted. It’s hard to write much about the process since it didn’t really involve any difficult techniques. I halved the recipe since it was just my wife and I. But forget the preparation and let’s talk taste.

It was extremely fresh tasting salsa (as should be expected) and really surprised me how much I liked it. I was thoroughly impressed and although it didn’t beat my favorite standby salsa (Garden Fresh that we buy at Costco) it definitely beat out any other I’ve ever purchased.

I did do one thing though not mentioned in the recipe. I seeded the tomatoes… it’s the part that both my wife and I really dislike. The gross slimy interior of tomatoes really doesn’t turn me on to them. I’ve never really had a problem with the taste of the tomato but the texture of the interior is definitely not a selling point.

Rating: A. This is a really good rating due to the main component being tomatoes.

I just realized this is blog post 50 for recipes from the book! I finally feel like I am making some progress... of course I still have chapters in the book I haven't even touched! Might be time to bake a cake or cook some lamb.

49. French Onion Soup

2009-01-09T09:00:00.001-05:00

Date Cooked: January 5, 2009
Page: 44
Rating: A

I have stated before that I am not the biggest fan of soups. I don’t hate soup but it is just not something I ever really seem to crave. French onion soup is probably the only soup to come close to that though. My wife on the other hand loves French onion soup and will eat it at restaurant often. So when trying to figure out what I wanted to cook I mentioned this soup in passing and my wife emphatically agreed. So I swung by the grocery store and picked up a few items and set to work.

Not a very difficult recipe to say the least, painful, yes, but not difficult. I gathered my ingredients and began the longest and most tedious process, cutting five onions. Okay, I may have exaggerated before about the effects shallots had on me, but this time was very different. I set about cutting the red onions and after the first half onion my eyes started to water. I forgot about this lovely effect because normally I am quickly dicing an onion and am finished before the effects really get started. This time though I was carefully slicing the onions very thin and was releasing their terrible toxic chemicals into the air in vast quantities. After finishing the first onions I was practically blinded by tears. Not just tears of pain but also tears of realization, I had four more to go. The whole process was compounded by the fact that these onions needed to be thin which meant even more slicing through these little torture vegetables. Somewhere midway through the fourth onion my sight began to return and the pain subsided. I can only assume that my tears were flowing like a burst dam and the chemicals no longer had a chance to settle on my eyeballs. Goggles will be a new kitchen addition.

With the agony of onion prep complete I began the dish in earnest. Butter was melted in my dutch oven to which I added the onions. I was supposed to stir the onions frequently but it was impossible at first due to the sheer volume of onions. I did try though and ended up with little onion pieces flying all over the stovetop. I covered the dutch oven and waited. After several minutes the onions had begun to break down and I was able to stir. When I initially read the recipe I thought that the soup had to simmer for 30-35 minutes, turns out that is how long you cook the onions for. Once they were severely reduced in volume and had lost their structural integrity I added the red wine and almost 8 cups of broth (chicken and beef). In went some fresh herbs (parsley, thyme and a bay leaf) and the whole batch was left to simmer for 20 minutes.

When the soup was ready it was served into individual ramekins and topped with baguette slices and Swiss and Asiago cheese. It spent 5 minutes under the broiler before coming out ready to serve. The book called for 10 minutes under the broiler but if I had left it that long it would have been a crispy black layer of cheese.
This soup was delicious… except I once again got so caught up I forgot an ingredient. Before serving it into the individual ramekins it was supposed to have balsamic vinegar added. I added it to the remaining soup for the next servings.

Rating: A. This soup was delicious if a bit under seasoned. I am beginning to expect that from this book. I only had two ramekins so I had to wash them before serving up a second helping. It was worth it though. I will definitely make this soup again!

48. Roasted Potatoes

2009-01-07T09:32:00.002-05:00

Date Cooked: December 25, 2008
Page: 185
Rating: B

I’ve been so busy that I actually I forgot I had cooked these from the Book and only realized I had these to post when I retrieved all my holiday pictures off my camera. So I get to post about this instead of the delicious soup that I was ready to post about. Mmmm… I’m not a big soup fan but I sure ate a lot of this particular soup… but more about that soon enough. Today we are going to discuss the Roasted Potatoes.

Growing up I was not a potato fan. We ate a lot of potatoes and unfortunately they weren’t always that special. So I always assumed potatoes to be a bland stomach filler. Every once and awhile though we had these awesome roasted potatoes, and I had hope to recapture that. Let’s see if I could surpass a memory.

This dish is pretty simple. Cut up potatoes. Toss potatoes in oil, salt and peeper. Peeper? I think I meant pepper. Then spread them out in a single layer on a shallow roasting pan (or in my case a stone baking sheet). Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Then uncover and bake for 15 minutes. Then flip the potatoes and bake an additional 15 minutes. Then put them in a bowl to serve. Simple.

Of course because this was for Christmas dinner I had a ton of potatoes to cook and they were crammed in pretty tight on two baking sheets. Flipping them resulted in numerous potato casualties as they kept hitting the floor.

This particular recipe did highlight something I truly need to work on. Portion size. Christmas dinner was for 7 adults and two young children. I think I made enough potatoes for 20 people… If all they ate were potatoes. But of course who eats only potatoes for a meal besides the Irish (my wife’s family is Irish so I can get away with saying that.) We had 8lbs of prime rib roast along with vegetable dishes and some truly sickening deserts (and I mean sickening in a gloriously indulgent way.) I should not have doubled the recipe, I probably could have halved the original. None of this would have been an issue except that we left the next day for a weeks holiday. Anyway I am rambling I think.

Rating: B. These potatoes turned out nice. They were crispy on the outside and nice and tender on the inside. They probably would have been a bit crispier if they hadn’t been crowded on the baking sheet. Otherwise these are pretty standard fare and will probably be made again many times as a food staple. Oh yeah, did they remind me of the roasted potatoes from my childhood… no, I haven’t achieved that, then again everything is better in your memory than in reality.

47. Chicken Pot Pie

2009-01-05T11:16:00.003-05:00

Date Cooked: December 16, 2008
Page: 351
Rating: A-

** I have been away for the holidays and I had meant to post this back in December before leaving but time didn’t allow for it. The holidays were great and I hope yours were too. But now back to some cooking (and baking too)!

This was the main dish that the Savory Pie Dough Topping was created for. To be honest the most difficult part of this dish was the dough topping. But I won’t let that stop me from discussing some of the little steps I learned while preparing this dish.

The first step was to poach chicken in chicken stock until just cooked through. While I had heard the message before about trying to keep items of similar size to allow for even cooking times, I didn’t pay attention and had a huge chicken breast poaching alongside one half its size. This led to the small one being a little overcooked by time the large one was done. As I reflect back now I figure I might suffer from mild brain damage. Why wouldn’t I have just removed the smaller piece when it was done? Anyway once the chicken was done it was removed and cut into small pieces.

While the chicken rested I began to prepare the base filling. The basic carrots, onions and celery were sautéed until tender and then set aside with the chicken. Then butter and flour get combined before adding in milk, chicken broth and some thyme. While it simmers some salt and pepper and sherry get added.

The filling gets mixed with the chicken and vegetables and then poured into a baking dish and topped with the dough. I was really worried about the dough breaking or not being rolled out enough to cover the dish but it actually turned out pretty good. The dough held together nicely while moving it onto the pie filling. I was proud of myself.

Rating: A-. It was delicious. The drop in rating was actually due to the pie dough being a little to “floury” (I don’t believe that is actually adjective). I will definitely make this dish again but I’ll need to work on the dough. It’s been almost a month since I made this dish and I am actually craving it.

46. Savory Pie Dough Topping

2008-12-17T11:27:00.005-05:00

Date Cooked: December 16, 2008
Page: 352
Rating: B

This was made as a component to a Chicken Pot Pie I made. It was also my very first attempt at making pie dough of any kind. I’ve been intimidated by pastry for quite awhile since I always here horror stories about unworkable dough and using just the right amount of water and making sure butter is chilled, etc. But since I was behind on cooking from the book and I happened to have all the ingredients for this I figured I would dive in and see what the worst could be. If you’ve been following this blog you can imagine that the worst can be bad… this time it wasn’t too bad.

The flour and salt got a quick workout in the food processor to mix. I am beginning to hate my food processor for mixing dry ingredients. I have mentioned it before but everytime I pulsed a cloud of ingredients puffed out of it and it and covered everything. And cleaning up flour with a damp cloth really sucks and is somewhat gross. The cloth gets all covered in some sort of pseudo-dough. Nasty.

Anyway I cut in some lard (the recipe asked for vegetable shortening but I didn’t have any on hand) and then some chilled butter. I don’t think it was chilled enough because it sort of melted and would get clumpy. Anyway I dumped the mixture into a bowl and mixed in some ice water. This was where inexperience hurt me. I didn’t really know what the dough should look or feel like. I figured if I could form it into a ball and it just held together, then that was enough. I don’t know if that is right. I wrapped the ball, flattened it a bit and left it in the fridge while I prepared the main dish.

When it was time for the dough I took it out and got ready to roll. This is the rolling “pin” I have to work with.

It’s a pampered chef contraption and my wife says lots of people love this thing. I’ve used it for smaller quantities of things needing to be rolled and it works pretty good, but it definitely doesn’t work well for firmer dough or large quantities. The dough was tough to roll and would constantly split around the edges. I managed to work it out into a shape large enough to cover the pot pie (13x9). I had to keep folding the edges over in order to get them to hold shape but in the end it worked out pretty well. I will definitely be investing in a heavier rolling pin. Any suggestions? The dough was definitely strong enough to move from the work surface to place on top of the filling.

Rating: B. It gets a B rating for a few reasons. The most critical one being taste. It tasted like flour. It wasn’t really bad but definitely detracted from the taste. The dough wasn’t super flaky either but it had a great texture nonetheless. Overall I was proud of it. I’m sure I will get better as I make pie dough more often and find the right technique for me.

45. Stir-Fried Broccoli with Hot-and-Sour Sauce

2008-12-12T09:00:00.000-05:00

Date Cooked: November 30, 2008
Page: 141
Rating: D-

Not every recipe can be a winner and when I am cooking the odds are stacked even higher against them. This sounded good and lately I have been looking for simpler recipes for cooking. I thought this would be good to use up some vegetables in the fridge. I doomed this one from the start.

The recipe calls for steamed broccoli to be stir-fried. I had some leftover plain steamed broccoli from the previous night and thought this would be a good use for it. Strike one. The recipe also called for jalapeno peppers and I didn’t have fresh so I used some from a jar. Strike two. Let’s step back a bit and talk about how this monstrosity came together.

The broccoli was tossed in a pan and fried briefly until tender. In this case it was just heated through. Then some garlic, ginger and jalapeno get added and fried up until fragrant before the whole dish gets tossed with a sauce to complete. It really did sound good to me. But all of these things together added up to… strike three. The problem to me was mostly the use of jalapenos from a jar and the use of three tablespoons of vinegar. This made the whole dish rather… well, vinegary.

I served this on pasta with pan-seared shrimp. I feel sorry for the delicious shrimp that had to be paired with this.

Rating: D- This recipe blew. I was trying to rationalize it to my wife but she told me never to make it again, and not to bother trying to fix it. She had two bites and gave up. I finished half a plate before I abandoned it. I didn’t fail it because I feel I contributed greatly to the disaster but it definitely will not be attempted again, I don’t need to know the exact causes of failure.

44. Rustic Potato-Leek Soup

2008-12-10T12:21:00.001-05:00

Date Cooked: November 28, 2008
Page: 52
Rating: B+

I’m going to start by saying I am not a huge fan of soups. I don’t dislike them. I just don’t really find myself craving them or feeling satisfied after eating them. I may really love the soup but rarely will I take a second helping. So this recipe was a bit odd for me. I really wanted to try it. It mostly had to do with leeks. I have never had leeks before (this could be a lie because it is possible they were in some dish I had eaten before that I didn’t know leeks were in) and I really wanted to try them. I figured this soup was a good choice for trying leeks and I am very behind in the soup chapter of the book.

The recipe was extremely easy. Pretty much simmer leeks and potatoes in chicken stock until ready. I have made much more difficult soups before (including gumbo and corn chowder from the book) so this was really simple, even for me. To begin though I had to wash and chop leeks. Since this was my first time handling leeks I wasn’t sure exactly the best method to do this. I chopped the leeks up to the recommended size and then threw the whole batch into a large bowl… and then moved them to a larger bowl once I realized that when they begin to separate they take up even more space. I rinsed them well and then carefully removed the leeks from the top leaving the sediment on the bottom of the bowl. I performed this twice to be sure they were clean.

The leeks then get sautéed to make them nice and tender and the recipe specifically states not to brown them. As much as I am learning I still struggle at times with simple timing and gauging of food cooking times. These leeks began to brown. I threw in some flour to coat the leeks before slowly stirring in the chicken stock. The potatoes and a bay leaf were added last and the whole pot was brought to a boil before being simmered for a few minutes. Once done it was left covered to stand before being served.

It’s hard to write about such a simple dish.

Rating: B+. As far as soups go it was very good. This was simple comfort food for a cold day. The leeks were nice and I can definitely say that I will use this vegetable again in future meals.

43. Stir-Fried Asparagus with Soy Sauce, Maple Syrup, and Scallions

2008-12-03T10:18:00.001-05:00

Date Cooked: November 26, 2008
Page: 132
Rating: A-

I was looking for a quick dinner to serve and also to use up some items in the fridge that were fast approaching an expiration date. I figured this would be a quick and simple use for asparagus and the less than firm scallions wilting away in the produce drawer.

The recipe is pretty straightforward. Cut up the asparagus into small pieces and then stir-fry in oil. Add the remaining ingredients towards the end and serve hot. This recipe didn’t involve much work but I must say it was definitely a winner!

Before I started this project I only ever ate asparagus steamed and served with minimal garnish. I have certainly begun to appreciate the many different ways to simply prepare vegetables and asparagus will become a more frequent addition to the dinner table.

Rating: A-. This deserved a higher rating but I didn’t have any pure maple syrup so I ended up using… (checking over my shoulder to see who is looking)… table syrup. Please don’t tell anyone, but I think it might have been a bit better with real maple syrup, or even other flavored syrups like blueberry or raspberry.

42. Blondie

2008-12-01T14:17:00.001-05:00

Date Cooked: November 23, 2008
Page: 813
Rating: B-

I was craving sweets and figured I haven’t really made enough desserts from the book. I’m not sure why I chose blondies but I might have thought the recipe was easy, key word ‘thought’. So the recipe started out innocently enough.

I started by toasting chopped pecans in the oven for about 10 minutes. I am beginning to find that for many recipes my oven runs on the shorter end of recommended cooking times. Once the nuts were done I set them aside to cool. Then I started to get the rest of the ingredients measured and set aside.

I am embarrassed to say that the constant consumption of store-bought cookies and treats has left me blissfully unaware of the grotesque quantities of sugar and fat that actually go into them. The recipe makes 36 two inch squares which contained 1 ½ cups of sugar and 12 tablespoons of butter. That doesn’t count all the chocolate chips. I think if people made their own desserts more we would probably all be a little healthier since we would truly see what it is that we eat. But I digress and I am certainly not the person to be talking about healthy eating habits… seriously. On a side note I went to the One-of-a-Kind Craft Show this weekend and tried some ‘Better than Biscotti’ cookies that contain no butter. Ummm lack of butter doesn’t make anything better. If you like tasteless powdery treats then these are for you. For me, I’ll stick with the butter.

If you are like me then that last paragraph probably confuses you on my stance to healthy eating. But the best advice I was ever given about eating is this. Moderation, common sense and exercise.

Back to the blondies. Once the ingredients were folded together I spread the batter into a 9x9 baking pan and baked for 22 minutes. Then I baked for 5 minutes more… then a few minutes longer. Finally I took them out thinking they would be done since I had already baked several minutes longer than recommended. Does anyone remember my chocolate chip cookie experience? This felt eerily similar. The blondies turned out extremely soft and gooey. It took along time to cool them sufficiently to remove them from the pan and I ended up having to firm them up in the fridge for awhile so I could actually cut them. I reviewed the ingredient list and I didn’t make any mistakes there so I am baffled as to why these turned out so runny.

Rating: B-. These were good but they were extremely sweet. Sweet to the point of making my teeth ache. In addition the overall fluid nature of the finished product was a bit of a disappointment. But I will make these again, maybe scaling back the butter and sugar content and upping the flour.

41. Cheese Omelet

2008-11-26T13:51:00.002-05:00

Date Cooked: November 20, 2008
Page: 636
Rating: B

I have always been a anytime breakfast believer. I can eat bacon and eggs at anytime of day and it is not an uncommon occurrence at my house for dinner to be a quick meal of eggs, pancakes, sausage and/or bacon. This evening was one of those times when I was too tired to really cook but still wanted something decent. So I figured let’s try an omelet.

Now an omelet is one of those technique dishes where it is not about what goes in the omelet as much as it is about the timing while cooking the omelet. I made three cheese omelets and unfortunately the picture is that of the runner-up. I thought the third time would be the charm and that by then I would have known a bit more about the timing. It wasn’t to be. So my wife got to consume the real Miss Congeniality omelet, while the picture above is of the runner-up. My kids ate the omelet that, in the equine world, wasn’t fit for the glue factory. But since my youngest still likes to play with his food as much as he eats it, he didn’t mind.

So what did I learn? Scrambled eggs are omelets that failed. Failure is easier and just as tasty.

Rating: B. The omelets weren’t bad but unless they are going to contain fancy ingredients then they are just less scrambled, scrambled eggs.

40. Stir-Fried Beef and Broccoli with Oyster Sauce

2008-11-24T10:10:00.002-05:00

Date Cooked: November 16, 2008
Page: 436
Rating: A

I must really start writing these recipes closer to when I actually cook them. Or at least begin taking notes. I have to burn 100 of calories just trying to get my brain to remember what happened during the cooking process. Since I am getting more confident in the kitchen there are fewer “memorable” moments to really jog my memory. Thankfully my subscription to Cook’s Illustrated online helps since most of the recipes are there.

The recipe begins with slicing the flank steak and marinating it. I was always under the impression that flank steak was a cheap cut of meat that wasn’t good for many dishes. I really under-appreciated this cut. It also wasn’t that cheap. I sliced the flank steak into short strips and then marinated it in soy sauce for about an hour. The book suggests 10 minutes to an hour but I used the time to prepare the rest of the ingredients and a few other things around the kitchen so it got a full hour. I believe that the longer it soaks that more delicious flavor it traps.

While the beef was bathing I mixed the sherry, chicken broth, oyster sauce, brown sugar, sesame oil ( I confess I didn’t have any sesame oil so I added a splash of peanut oil), and cornstarch. In a separate bowl I mixed garlic, ginger and oil. One of the tips I read while drifting around the food blogosphere was to freeze the ginger and then grate the frozen ginger as needed. What an awesome tip and it works so well!

With everything in place it was time to start cooking. As with most stir-fry type dishes, prep is all the work and bringing it together is fast. The flank steak was drained of the marinating liquid and then seared for a few minutes until browned around the edges. This was set aside to rest while the broccoli was cook covered in the pan until it steamed for a few minutes. The broccoli was set aside and the red pepper was cooked until just starting to brown. In went the garlic and ginger until fragrant before everything was re-added to the pan along with the sauce. The sauce was given a short time to thicken before it was plated to serve.

Rating: A. This is a solid stir-fry dish and I have always been a fan of beef and broccoli. The idea of oyster sauce (and fish sauce for that matter), always concerned me but I am truly beginning to appreciate their flavor contribution to sauces. I also like adding sugar to the sauces as it helps bring out the often subtle flavors from other ingredients. As I had said earlier flank steak is under-appreciated but prepared properly it is a delicious cut of meat that is quick and simple to cook. I will probably be adding this recipe to a more frequent meal rotation.