recipes

FNCCC 9 – Drinks & Chops

Welcome all to this weeks edition of FNCCC.  We are at week 9 now, just past the 2 month mark… I know… I’m excited to.  This week was the wonderful Sunny Anderson and to my surprise she had A LOT of decent recipes.

I just wanted to tangent here real fast and point out that I try to adhere to a strict policy of not changing the original recipe.  If I don’t like a flavor or the texture of something I just try to avoid it in a recipe.  In the rare case I change something (ie. dropping the nutmeg) I’ll make sure and note it.  It’s important to me to keep the recipe as true to the original as possible.  That way I don’t bitch about a dish that I mutilated due to changes.  That said… let’s get on with the recipes!

I started off with a cocktail… because what kind of fun is cooking if you aren’t drunk?!  Actually I didn’t get liquored up.  The only time I’ve gotten drunk while cooking was when I made the risotto and played pick out the burnt rice.  I chose her Sans Souci Punch recipe and mixed that shit up.

It was meh at best.  Everyone drank some of it just to taste it but after their first glass they were done with it.  I drank about half of mine and poured it out (very sad day to waste alcohol).  The rum REALLY overpowered the drink and the flavor of the orange-pineapple juice clashed rather than reinforced the drink.  I definitely won’t be making this again.

Next up we have the pork chops.  I made Grilled Smoked Pork Chops with Sweet and Sour Glaze.  I only let them marinate for about an hour or two so I can only imagine how much better they’ll get if you leave ’em overnight or maybe during the day while you’re at work.

Betsy pointed out that it is more like a rub then a marinade since there is hardly any liquid for it to sit in.  It was a bit difficult to push the stuff all around in the bag to make sure all of it was coated but I got ‘er done.

First of all let me say that if you don’t have an OUTSIDE grill you should NOT make these.  You would have thought my house was on fire the way smoke was coming out of my kitchen.  Come to think of it I don’t remember tasting the lime flavor at all… anyway.

I put the first two down on my grill plate (I’ll have to take a picture of it sometime).  It’s heavy, cast iron density and covered in a non-stick coating.  It sits on top of two burners and you just turn on the burners and heat it up.  On one side are the grill lines and you can flip it over for a griddle side.  It’s great.  I loves it.

I put the first two po’ chops down and instantly there was smoke billowing up.  I was a bit worried since I had 8 of the lil’ boogers to cook but I went along with it.  Luckily the first two stuck to the non-stick (I know right?!) and I got to send up even more smoke as those pieces of the pork burned to a crisp.  They were also the only ones that got decent grill marks.

That could be because I cooked them like it said.  Two mins on that side then turn 90 degrees, cook 2 mins, flip, cook 2 mins.  I took those off and tried them.  They were definitely a bit overcooked.  Not a lot, but enough to make me reduce the cooking time.  They were already smoked so it wasn’t like I could undercook ’em.

The iphone sucks balls for pictures with its 1/4th of a megapixel camera.  Can’t wait ’til the white iphone 4 is out so I can get it.  I digress.

Everyone who ate them (but me) loved them.  They aren’t bad, they were definitely good but maybe a bit too sweet for me?  I’m not sure.  Maybe the smoke inhalation turned me off or the fact that Dutch was trying to chew off my legs so I’d be short enough for him to have one.

They were good… just not good enough.

 1 entries so far… you're next!

  1. Mexican Street Corn & Eggs in Basket

    You are next…
    Click here to enter

FNCCC 7 – Bavarian Cream

Prologue:  Because I chose to skip this week I’ll be giving you our regular, Shiningstar, as the main recipe for the week with my whine /rant added down below her recipe.

This is the first food cooking challenge that I have not personally eaten.  I picked it because it was 1) the only recipe of Michael Symon’s that I thought I could get my family to eat, 2) it seemed easy, and 3) strawberries are in season.  It seems terribly unhealthy and I’m trying to eat better, so I took it to my parents’ house and made them my guinea pigs.

Bavarian Cream

I should first point out that this recipe states that the cook time is 35 minutes and that it’s “intermediate.”  That doesn’t account for time running all over creation (in vain) to find a vanilla bean.  Apparently they aren’t native to West Virginia, or anywhere near it.  Sulking, I googled and discovered that 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract will be a decent substitute.  So if you decide to try this recipe, save yourself some time looking for exotic ingredients and just use the extract.  The 35 minutes also doesn’t count the hour you have to let the stuff sit on the stove, or the 4-5 hours you have to refrigerate it to set.  So pretty much, with travel time you are looking at close to a week to prepare this.  I may have exaggerated that a little bit, but it felt like it.

Since I didn’t have a vanilla bean, I brought the heavy cream to a boil, turned it off and then added the extract.  I didn’t want the extract boiling off or anything.  That’s when I noticed that I had to wait an hour before doing the next step.  I must admit I was a little nervous letting cream sit on the stove for an hour.  Probably remembering all those times I’ve had the kids (when younger) leave milk in sippy cups around the house and I find them later, solidified into some yucky, curdled mess.  It just seems wrong to let a dairy product go unrefrigerated.

While I was waiting the hour, I read ahead on the recipe and realized that I was going to need five egg yolks.  What about the whites?  What a waste.  I decided at this point to make a lemon meringue pie, using the whites for the meringue.  No waste, woohoo.  Very pleased with myself, I sat down to chat on Facebook with Xeo.  My computer is just a few steps away from the counter, so I was multitasking, carefully cracking my eggs and dividing them into 2 bowls (one for whites and one for yolks).  Going back and forth to the computer got me a little mixed up and *gasp!* I accidentally dumped an egg white into the yolk bowl!  There was no getting that sucker out, either.  It had bonded with the yolks and was clinging for dear life.  It could have been worse, because if I’d tainted my egg whites with a yolk, I wouldn’t have had a decent meringue.  At any rate, I blame Xeo for distracting me.

I sprinkled the gelatin into the milk and went on with the egg yolks.  I mixed them up just fine, and by the time I went to add the milk/gelatin mix… it was set up and had the consistency of Moon Sand.  It was NOT appealing looking.  I scraped it in anyway.  Now the recipe tells you to put it in an ice bath, but one of the people who tried this recipe commented that it sets up quickly and an ice bath isn’t needed.  I took this to heart.  It’s obvious anyway that Michael Symon doesn’t test out his recipes, based on the poor ratings so many of them have gotten.

I poured the mix into 4 little bowls and prepared to put it in the fridge to set up.  As I started to cover them with plastic wrap, a little voice in my head reminded me that the recipe called for whipped cream.  I glanced back at the recipe and realized that it was supposed to mixed in with the other stuff.  I remembered about the person saying it sets up quickly and I called in reinforcements.  I yelled for both kids to quickly help me scrape the mix out of the little bowls and back into the big one.  One kid was assigned to washing out the bowls.  I stirred that whipped cream in with reckless abandon, fearful that the mess would harden like cement before I had a chance to fully mix it.  By the time it was mixed in, I managed to pour it back into the little bowls and sit down to relax.

When the recipe said “intermediate,”  I would agree.

This looks and smells like vanilla pudding.  I don’t like pudding or really anything with that consistency.  Grabbed my little bowls and some strawberries and headed over to my parents’ house.   The recipe tells you to dump them out of the little bowls and top them with strawberries.  I thought the stuff would stick to the bowls and look bad if I dumped them out, so we just topped them with strawberries and they ate them like that.

I was told that this has more of the consistency and taste of cheesecake.  Mom and Dad both ate all of theirs and said it was very good.  Jordan ate all of his and asked me to make it again.  I said no, that recipe is a pain.  I ate my lemon meringue pie and I’m happy. 🙂  I left one little bowl of bavarian cream at my parents’ house.  They can fight it out to see who gets to eat it.

Xeo’s whine / rant about Michael Symon from earlier this week.

soooo…. this week we had Michael Symon.  Even if you aren’t cooking have you looked at his recipes?  Most of his recipes have gotten a 3 rating at best… and that’s if someone even made it.  In fact, most of his stuff is scary nasty.  Smoked salmon and horse radish cheesecake… not a fucking chance.  I struggled to find a recipe I could make and have decided on chicken pinwheels.

I’m also going to violate my cardinal rule… don’t go changing recipes all willy nilly!  This recipe has tarragon on it (at the end) and I know I hate tarragon.  Second it has dill pickles in it… that you then bake.  Has anyone ever had baked pickles before?  Should those words even go together in one sentence let alone in a recipe?!  So yea… I’m nixing that to.  Then you have scrambled eggs wrapped in bacon wrapped in ham wrapped in chicken.  I call it chickpiggen (like turdurkin, only not).

I’m not to keen on the scrambled eggs but I’ll make one with… and one without them.  One of the comments suggested using smoked mozzarella in place of the dill pickles.  We don’t have smoked mozzarella around here so I got smoked provolone.  I don’t really know the difference in flavors but hey… their both smoked, their both cheese, it has to work out alright… right?

I just started a second job this week so I’ve been super busy, I’m gonna try to make the recipe Saturday evening when I actually get some time.  I didn’t want y’all to have to wait though (and I have a guest post or two that needs to go up).  I’ll add the linky to this and when I write it I’ll just update the publish date on this (so it’ll move back to the front).

Hope everything is turning out great for y’all… I’m mostly blarg thinking of Michael Symon and his plethora of /shudder-tastic recipes.

 1 entries so far… you're next!

  1. Mushroom Casserole by Brigantia

    You are next…
    Click here to enter

Guest Post – FNCCC 4 – 2 Recipes

My apologies for not getting this out on Saturday.  My desktop just got up and running Sunday night so I’m bringing it to you a bit late.  Shiningstar brings you her food stuffz from Alton Brown’s FNCCC last week.

I got a late start this week due to being out of town, but I did manage to get in two recipes.  Tonight I made Peanut Butter Fudge and Turkey Piccata.

I didn’t have high hopes for the turkey, since everyone else’s recipes this week have been pretty much failures.  I was very pleased to discover that our grocery store sells turkey scallopini, which is basically turkey breast that’s sliced thin.  This saved me from having to slice my own turkey breast and pounding it to the specified thickness.  Yay!  I substituted my gluten-free flour mixture instead of the regular flour that the recipe called for.  I also used sticks of margarine instead of butter for the recipe.  Who uses butter anymore??  I put the turkey in the oven while I made the “sauce”, which took longer to make than the few minutes the recipe stated.  It was fine, since I was making rice and green beans to go with this meal and they took a little longer too.

When I put the sauce on the turkey breasts and served it to the kids, Jordan ate all of his.  He made it to the clean plate club, although he didn’t ask for more.  Cady picked at her turkey and said the sauce was “too lemon-y.”  I offered her a turkey piece with no sauce, but she declined and ate half of hers to appease me.  I ate two whole pieces and I could have licked the sauce out of the pan.  I really like lemon, and the shallots/white wine/lemon mix was really, really good.  I would think this recipe could be done just as easily with sliced chicken breasts or even chicken tenders.  If I made this recipe again, I would allow the meat to get more crispy.  I liked the texture of the more browned pieces better than the less browned ones.

After cleaning up the dinner mess, I decided that since tomorrow is Father’s Day I would make Addy some peanut butter fudge.  He loves the kind my aunt makes and I think her recipe is similar to Alton Brown’s.  It was INCREDIBLY easy to make.  I also substituted margarine for the butter in this recipe.  After putting in the whole box of powdered sugar, it was a little hard to stir, but I managed.  As I stirred, I pondered why the recipe said to use a wooden spoon to stir.  Everything up to that point had gone really well, so I just used a wooden spoon and didn’t try another kind.

Addy is still at work and hasn’t tried the fudge, but it tastes just like my aunt’s.  Jordan held a few pieces so I could get a picture for you.  It was set up in the fridge after about an hour.  Very yummy!

Still Alive!

Looks like its been… OMFG… 12 days since I posted anything.  Can you believe that?  That’s srsly bad yo.

I’ve been off work for 5 days and this is the first time I’ve been in front of a computer since then.  IRL has been great.  I just recently got a PS3 and I’ve been playing a variety of games.

God of War 3 – Absolutely amazing.  All the graphics on the PS3 are really hot, the power behind this little thing is just amazing.  It makes me amazed of what can come out of the ps3 box that costs a fraction of my F’ing computer.  You think it’s a cut-scene until you realize you’re dying and you have to fight back.  Great game.

Final Fantasy XIII – I’ve only had a tiny chance to play it but its been mostly good so far.  You switch between stances a lot (think the stances that warriors use).  That is neat and all except you switch stances A LOT.  It turns into a big time consumption because it takes 2 or 3 seconds to go through the animation.  Other then that its beautiful and the story is great.  Graphics are fan-fucking-tastic.

Disgaea 3 – The video link is in a foreign language but it lets you take a look at it.  I’ve only played about the first 5 mins of it but it looks true to the series.  I played both 1 and 2 and while they aren’t graphically superior to anything they do sport a level of micromanagement that gets the raid leader in me all giddy.

Also, if you didn’t know, you can stream netflix through your ps3 AND the ps3 has wireless built in (the xbox you have to get an attachment for).  It has a blu-ray built in as well… ps3’s are fucking amazing.  I’ve been really surprised by it.

Buncha updates on random things so this post is gonna be a bit long…

Cooking… I looked at several of those Tyler Florence recipes and decided I just wasn’t up to snuff for that yet.  I’m still learning the proper way to cook chicken w/o it being done on the outside and salmonella’ee in the center.

My best friend Betsy (Delinia / Linaa) popped out her 3rd kid on the 5th.  She says they aren’t going for a 4th but I’m keeping my fingers crossed for irish triplets.

Let’s see, what else has been going on…

GARAGE SALE SEASONS HAS STARTED AGAIN!  It’s been cold around here and its been in swing since about the beginning of the month.  I’ve had several great finds I’ll have to post some pics of.  I got a new coffee table for $10 that just needs some sanding and a bit of paint.  I got an amazing throw blanket that I would have $20 for but they only wanted $3!  Delinia got some weird pillow that’s shaped like a U and wraps around your waste for when you are sitting down feeding the baby.  That way you don’t have to stuff something behind your arm or prop it up some weird way… she says, “BEST. BUY. EVA!”

Blizzcon Tickets are on sale June 2nd at 7am PST and June 5th at 10 am PST.  I’m still gonna try to get some even if Blizzcon is big for WoW info.  I still luvs me some Diablo and Starcraft!

Starcraft is a cult in Korea.  They have a huge e-sports league over there and its on TV and all sorts of crazy shit.  I’ve been following this story and awhile ago an investigation was launched to check on players throwing games for gambling (read: scandal!).  Welp, 11 people were just arrested… how crazy is that shit yo.

Sorry for disappearing!  That’s very disrespectful to y’all and I’ll try to be betta.