Monday Roast

Apple Galette

You'll remember that last week I went apple picking in Damascus. So this week I cooked with apples (imagine that.) On Sunday my roommate cooked dinner for us and I contributed an Apple Galette. In essence a galette is an open-faced pie, that's flat. Therefore it is easier to make than pie and tastes the same. And it looks pretty cool too. It turned out quite nicely. The apples I had picked were a sweeter variety so I only lightly sprinkled cinnamon sugar on top (and mostly just because I wanted the cinnamon). I ate leftovers for a couple days. I will say though that this is definitely better warm. Even reheated.

Roast, Yorkshire Pudding, Sweet Potato Fries

Before my roommate offered to share her dinner with me on Sunday I had planned to make a roast. So instead I had that on Monday. Nothing like a good Monday roast. And I had a sweet potato so I sliced it up real nice and baked it into fries (nothing like the fries at Guru's  but then what is?) and really they turned out ok. I managed to eat almost all of them before my roast was even done cooking. Actually timing wise the whole meal struggled. Everything had to cook for about half an hour, mostly on the same temperature but the fires had to be turned half way through and you can't open the door to the oven while cooking Yorkshire Pudding or it will fall. So all three parts ended up being cooked separately and I don't think all the waiting would have flown if I had been cooking for someone else. But I will say that waiting was worth it. The pudding didn't stick to the pan at all! and it was nice and thick. It was fantastic. 

International Potluck

Last night, my ward (church group) had a International Potluck dinner for FHE (Family Home Evening--a Monday night tradition we use to strengthen our families). I was impressed with the variety of foods that we had. If you think about it, gathering a bunch of single twenty-somethings together and telling them to make/bring an "international" dish for a potluck dinner sounds like a recipe for 17 different kinds of salsa and maybe some fancy casserole. This was not the case. We managed to represent all 7 continents (ice water is from Antarctica right??) and there was so much variety that I couldn't even try it all. Needless to say, I ate way too much.

I made Yorkshire pudding for my food. Unfortunately it didn't occur to me to take a picture of it, so instead I'm going to make you really hungry, and maybe even drool a little, and post this picture I found online.

When it occurred to me to make Yorkshire pudding for this potluck late on Sunday afternoon I was surprised by this simple solution to the problem I'd been wrestling with for a couple weeks. I wanted to make an easy and delicious English food that was savoury. I'm sure many of you are thinking that my problem was with the "easy and delicious" part, but really my problem was that I couldn't think of anything savoury that I could easily (and cheaply) make. So when I attended a similar potluck last Saturday (strange to have to International potlucks in less than 72 hours, I know--I didn't plan them...) I ended up making Portuguese Custard Tarts because they are simple and delicious, although not savoury. (and once again, enjoy a photo I found online. I'm just not very good at this whole remembering to take pictures of my food business.)

A Victorian Christmas Feast

Well, I tried to update my blog a few weeks ago, even in a reasonable amount of time since my feast, but I ran into a number of technical difficulties. But then we both know how quick I am to update.

For my Victorian Literature class this semester, my professor and I decided that instead of having me write a second paper for the class, that I would plan and execute a Victorian Christmas Feast. We decided this sometime in mid-October, and I spent much of the next nearly two months planning this meal (and for all that planning my logistics were awful). I did a lot of research, consulted a number of period cookbooks, and even attempted some of the recipes. In order to convert from mid-eighteen hundreds cooking style to present day can be a challenge. Many recipes I looked at instructed you to boil the food over a “clear fire” for 8 hours. How hot exactly does a “clear fire” burn anyways? All I really know about clear fires is that it must be a fire that isn’t smoky. But that doesn’t help me much since I cook on an electric range. And 8 hours? Really? Or how about the recipes that say “add the weight of two and one half eggs of flour”? How much does an egg weigh? How much is half an egg? And why not give me a measure of flour in cups and tablespoons? After some trial and error, and some decisions to go with my perhaps more modern recipes, but nonetheless tasty and authentic ones, I formulated a menu.

Now, Victorians like to eat a lot of meat, and so a traditional meal for them would often feature six or more different kinds of meat, however mine only included three (which was still costly enough). I started us off with a nice carrot soup. Of course a more traditional Christmas soup would have been a clear gravy soup featuring veal, but I neither know how to prepare veal nor know really where to buy it; so I went with the less traditional Christmas soup in favor of one that is perfectly acceptable in December. After the soup we settled in for our meat. A nice sirloin roast complete with horseradish sauce and Yorkshire pudding (one of which even came out of the pan perfectly), some cold boiled ham, and turkey with sausage stuffing. The turkey was quite an experience. I bought a turkey breast thinking that it would be something along the lines of a chicken breast (and therefore easier to deal with than a whole turkey), little did I know that while a chicken breast is about the size of your fist a turkey breast is about the size of your head (and definitely complete with bones). The turkey and I had a bit of a contest, but I won hands down—though I certainly wouldn’t say that I’m ready to carve the next thanksgiving bird.

Dessert is one of the most important parts of a meal, and not only would there be the big, large desserts served, but there would be a number of smaller dishes like nuts and fruit to sort of fill in the gaps and make everything look absolutely heavenly. Naturally I chose to make a classic, Christmas pudding in addition to the mince meat pies, orange jelly, Charlotte Russe, and gateaux de pomme. The Christmas pudding ought to have been doused in brandy and then set aflame as it was being brought in; however, as I told my class, the university frowns on open flames in the buildings—though the class reminded me that they also frown on food in classrooms. Puddings take forever to make. The recipe said that it should boil for about six hours. I didn’t really believe them, but it does in fact boil for about five. The pudding mold that I used wasn’t particularly large, and so I ended up having to boil two of them. Ten hours later when I was done with the puddings, my apartment was not only quite warm but also very humid and a little foggy. The desserts turned out very well, and were even well received. I was glad that my class took the time to set aside their prejudices and give the mince meat pies and Christmas pudding a chance.

For reasons I don’t understand the English have a reputation for rather awful food. I am here to dispel this rumor. Nearly all of your favorite Christmas and Thanksgiving foods are English. And besides, mince meat has no meat in it, it hasn’t for hundreds of years. Its really just apples, raisins, and spices—in a pie crust. How is that not delicious?

Well, this meal was certainly an adventure, I learned a ton, and enjoyed every minute of it. But then I always have enjoyed moldy, dusty books, sometimes even more than their non-moldy counterparts—so the research was a blast. The cooking took quite a long time. One thing I can say for the Victorian cook is that she had help. I had only myself, and consequently I would have been terminated as an employee of anyone since about half the food I served, I served quite cold. But I think that we spent probably comparable amounts of time in the kitchen, nearly 15 hours (not including the foods I prepared a day or two in advance). Since you likely didn’t get to enjoy the food, enjoy the pictures, though I warn you that some of them are a little blurry.

Catching Up

Well, it has been a very long time since I have posted, so I will try to get myself caught up on all the cooking adventures that I have had in the last 3 months or so. First off, in October I tried my hand at making fortune cookies. They are surprisingly easy, and quite tasty. When I read the recipe it seemed weird that you can only cook 2 cookies at a time, but when I tried it myself, it is indeed a true statement. If you cook anymore than that there is no way that you'll get the cookies folded before they harden. It is so cool, when you first take the cookies out of the oven, they are soft and quite malleable, but they start to harden almost instantly; nevertheless, it is quite possible to fold them to actually look like fortune cookies.

Then, a little late in the month, I tried my hand at Portuguese Custard Tarts. They utilize two of my favorite ingredients: custard and puff pastry. And they cook in a muffin pan, so they are perfectly bite-sized. Finding the custard to fill the tarts with took a little doing, but eventually Macey's pulled through and helped me out. The tarts turned out so well, that I've made them once since my original attempt and took them to a party, where everyone loved them.

Then November came, This month I tried my hand at my first mousse, a White Chocolate Strawberry Mousse. It turned out quite nice. This time, I decided that instead of putting my dessert in the same old boring ramekins, that I would try putting it in a champagne flute so that you could get the nice effect of eating the mousse out of a nice dessert glass. Really, I suppose that I was envious of the pretty picture in the cookbook.

Finally, after thanksgiving, I decided to try my hand at cooking a pot roast. As you can probably tell, I mostly cook desserts, but man must not live by dessert alone, so I made my first pot roast. All my life my mother has made roasts sometimes for Sunday dinner, but she has always prepared hers in the crockpot while we were at church. I decided that I wanted to cook it in the oven, in preparation for a school project I was preparing for. The recipe that I was following didn't have much instruction regarding seasonings, so I just sort of made it up as I went. But if I do say so it turned out quite tasty. I also made some roasted potatoes, and Yorkshire pudding. My Yorkshire pudding even came out of the pan perfectly--nearly unheard of! My mother always served the juice that was left after the roast cooked as that--juice. But I decided that I would try and make a more proper gravy out of it, and it was to die for, I am so glad that I did. The gravy really made the roast, and with it poured over the potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, it was absolutely delightful! It is always fun to find out that you can cook regular food too, and not just desserts.