pressing pause

Well obviously I've had to press 'pause' on the cooking stuff... school has just taken over, along with a small thing called the 2010 Olympic Games, and having had a nasty cold back at the start of February...

I still intend to continue this epic journey of learning to cook, but it's on hold until my exams are over.

So check back in... June???

Cake.. well not really...

So my Aunt turned an important age this week (see how nice I am, not saying the age??). For the momentous occasion my Uncle stealthily planned to steal her away to Las Vegas (and area) for a week. This involved a night at our place in Vancouver, so I saw it as an opportunity for my blog...

That being said, I've got a sniffle and am behind with school, so wasn't able to actually find a 'scratch' cake recipe, so madam crocker assisted with the cake itself.  However instead of the 'water' I usually add to the mix, I added milk, and it was an interesting, and tasty, outcome. The cake was more dense and creamy, not as 'sticky' as water based cake is. Anyway.

I did make the frosting from scratch. I used a different recipe than last time at Mum's request. I followed all the instructions to the T, but something was wrong - it was too watery. I added more icing sugar, and then it was suddenly far too 'sugary'. So I added more butter.  In the end It tasted fine, but I know it wasn't quite right. Who knows.


Butter Frosting
Ingredients:
(From Five Roses)
1/4 cup butter
pinch of salt
3 tablespoons milk
2 1/2 cups icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Method:
Cream butter with pinch of salt. Gradually add milk and icing sugar, alternating. Then add vanilla.

As I say, I added more icing sugar, and then more butter, to try get the right consistency. Mum thinks that she usually adds all the icing sugar, and then later puts in the right amount of milk, watching the consistency as it goes. Who knows, I'll just have to experiment later.

mmm Frosting

So I found a frozen cake in the freezer (half a cake, leftover shrapnel from Mum's trifle over Christmas). Since the weekend prior to this I'd eaten some lovely wedding cake, I was inpsired to eat it (that's my story and I'm sticking to it... nothing to do with stress and developments with school, nothing at all...).  All the cake needed with icing.

So I looked in my Five Roses cook book and found an easy butter icing recipe.

Rich Butter Frosting
Ingredients:
1/3 cup butter
1 egg
2 cups icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla


Method:
Cream the butter then add the egg. Slowly add in the icing sugar, and finally the vanilla.  This icing is delicious!

success!!

I have finally successfully made a mac and cheese sauce!!! wooo!!!!

So I followed the same recipe as below, but halfed it, and went super super slow. I made the roux properly and added the milk and cheese super slowly and it worked like a charm!   This time I used regular cheddar and spicy jalapeno cheddar and I'd definitely reccomend it.

So the only problem? I forgot to take a photo as I ate it too quickly!

WOOO! Finally, success!

Revisiting Mac & Cheese...

No helpers this time (and no cans of soup).

I looked up a 'roux' recipe after some comments on the last time I tried to make it from scratch. I turned to my new Julia Child cookbook. It sounded easy. Just add 3 tablespoons of flour to 2 tablespoons of butter, mix until nicely blended and 'frothy'. Then add 2 cups of milk and later 1.5 cups of a cheddar/parmesan mix of cheese. Add cayenne pepper if desired.

Sigh.

Well, no, not sigh, lesson learned. You can't just plunk all the flour in with the butter (unless you want your flour mixture to look like breadcrumbs), and the pan can't be too warm, and the milk must be warm and added SLOWLY.  Otherwise you get a hissing lumpy mess.

With a lot of patience (more than I have), I squished out most of the lumps and added the cheese and ate it on top of some fusilli pasta.  It tasted quite flour-y, but cheesie enough, so I'm going to have to play with it all at a later stage.

I'm not giving up!!

Opa! A Greek Feast

The Cooking with Friends continues! This time it was with Colleen and Wilf, with Wilfy giving me more training. As you can see by the photo, I now have some appropraite cooking wear... (thanks to Reesa and C&W!)

This was quite the feast - it took 3 hours to cook! And while I can't promise no one was hurt during the making of this feast (how's that burn doing Wilfy?) I can say that we made a delicious meal, and would recommend greek-lovers to try some of these recipes.

Now, I think I have to caution my readers that these recipes aren't necessarily what we made or consumed, as, honestly, I was cooking with Wilfy, and Wilfy and recipes don't seem to get along......... =P  But I think they are pretty darn close! I'll point it out where I have no idea if it matches up.


Pita Bread
(taken from Joy of Cooking)
Ingredients:
3 cups bread flour
1.5 tablespoons sugar
1.5 teaspoons salt
4 teaspoons active dry yeast (this is really cool to watch happening)
2 tablespoons melted butter
1.25 cups water

Method:
Mix everything together and knead for 10 min or so until dough is smooth, soft and elastic (gooey).  Transfer to oiled bowl and turn over once, then let rise (covered by plastic) for about an hour, or until doubled in volume.  Then divide into roughly 8 pieces and roll out with some flour into flat rounds. Let rise again if you want.  Place rounds onto pizza stone (or other baking surface) and wait until puffy areas form. Flip and then remove. The cooking is about 1 min per side. Beware, oven is hot (see above re Wilfy's burn).

Hummus
(also from Joy of Cooking)
Ingredients:
3/4 cup of chickpeas
3 tablespoons of tahini
2 cloves of garlic
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
Some olive oil.
1/2 teaspoon cumin

Method:
Pure in blender, adding oil to smoothen.

Tatsiki (no idea how to spell it).
Ingredients:
Balkan plain yoghurt
cucumber
others???

Method:
Wilfy did this one, so I don't know. I believe it was to add the shredded cucumber to the yoghurt and stir. I'll check and change the post once I find out more details.

Greek Chicken
Ingredients
Chicken
Lemon Juice
Garlic
Oregano

Method:
This was all by Wilfy guess, so I can't say how much other than 3 lemons and probably 3 cloves of garlic. The Oregano was just shaken in.  Add the chopped up chicken and let marinade for a few hours, preferably overnight. It's cool, the acid cooks the chicken in the fridge.
Then put the chicken onto skewers and broil (or cook on BBQ) until the chicken is done.

Greek Potatoes
Ingredients
Chicken Stock
Lemon juice
Oregano
oil
other?

Method:
Admittedly I can't remember all this. I believe we mixed all the liquid ingredients together, then poured over the potatoes and baked in a 400F oven for about an hour.  It was good, and surprisingly had no garlic.

Greek Salad
Ingredients
Tomato
Cucumber
Feta Cheese
Red Onion
Green Peppers
optional: olives

Method: Chop into chunks, mix and serve. Could sprinkle some olive oil to moisten, but not needed.


Results: Well, it was a very tasty meal. I would probably take the garlic up a notch in the humus, and the lemon down a notch in both the chicken and potatoes, but this was an excellent start!!

Baked Brie x 2

So I've made two different baked brie's and I'm excited to tell you about both of them!

Sweet Chili Baked Brie
Ingredients:
Puff Pastry, thawed
Sweet Chili jelly
Pecans
A pack of Brie
1 egg. 

Method:
Preheat oven to 400F. Place some flour loosely on your working surface to prevent pastry stick. Use half a package of the puff pastry, rolling into a thin layer approx twice the diameter of the brie. Spread evenly the chili jelly in the center of the pastry. I used about a cup of jelly, but do it to taste.  Then sprinkled some crushed pecans on top of the jelly. Place the brie on top of the mixture.  At this point you could cut the edges of the pastry so it is all circular, but I just folded all the excess over the brie.  Brush the egg over the edges of the pastry and then flip it into a baking container. Brush the rest of the egg on the top. I then chose to top the dish with more pecans.  Bake for 25 minutes or until pastry is golden brown.

I took this to a wine & cheese party and it was the 'hit' cheese of the night, despite not remember a) what temperature to bake it at and b) having it cut into after removing it from the oven, rather than letting it sit.  Super big tip - bake this and let it sit at least 45 minutes. Also, bake it in a dish roughly the same size and shape as the brie to prevent excess overflow (as the cheese will be melted).



Cranberry Brie
Ingredients:
Puff Pastry
Cranberry Jam
Almonds & Pecans
Brie
Egg

Method:
Same as above except substituting the cranberry jam for the chili jelly and adding some almonds in.


Tips: Make sure the brie you use is fresh and the flavour you like. The brie for the second one (cranberry) was past it's prime and a little sour. It was also probably a bit too big for the recipe - the pastry ended up being rather thin when stretched out over it all.


I personally preferred the first one, but will happily make both again in the future. Thanks to Campbells Kitchens for the idea, and my Aunt ('Mumtina Child') for some inspiration...