Croque-Monsieur and Lemon Posset

It has been quite a while since last I wrote. Never fear, I have been cooking even in my long absence. My first new adventure was to make Croque-Monsieur. Essentially it is a hot, ham and cheese sandwich, though since it utilizes Gruyere cheese it tastes immeasurably better. This recipe uses the broiler part of your oven, to toast the bread. I found though that if I left the sandwich under the broiler only long enough to toast the bread then the sandwich wasn't warm and melty. So after initially toasting the bread I turned off the broiler and just let the sandwich sit in the oven to warm, before toasting the last slice. This made the sandwich nice and warm. Which is the way that all hot, ham and cheese sandwiches should be.

The next thing I experimented with was a Japanese recipe--chicken teriyaki. The sugar mixed with the soy sauce made for a delicious glaze on chicken, and served over Jasmine rice it was quite delicious. This recipe has you simply marinate your whole chicken in the teriyaki sauce, and I think that next time I will go ahead and cut my chicken up into smaller pieces before marinating so that I get more surface area, and also so that it doesn't take as long to cook.

I completed off my day with a new dessert recipe. Lemon Posset. A posset is a 16th and 17th century drink. A sort of drink that consists mainly of curdled milk and ale. Fortunately my posset really had neither, and due to the wonderful invention of the refrigerator my posset also had a consistency more like a custard than like a drink. This lemon posset is more than merely a pudding, it has a bit of grated lemon rind in it and so that makes it have a sort of satisfying crunch. The posset definitely fulfills the requirements of being cool and creamy, but it is also quite rich so you can't have more than a few spoonfuls at a time. Which I suppose isn't really a problem.

A few days after I made all of these wonderful dishes I made pretzels for one of my meetings at work. Pretzels are both surprisingly easy to make and extremely time consuming. I most certainly under estimated the time that I would need to prepare them, but they really were quite delicious, and use just regular ingredients that I had around. The pretzels went stale surprisingly fast but I suppose that if I had eaten them faster that wouldn't have been such a problem.

It has been a busy couple of weeks cooking-wise, but I am excited that all the things I made turned out so well, hopefully the luck will hold.

Cake #3

Well this week was the last week of my first cake decorating class. This week we finished learning the "wilton rose." Mine certainly leave room for lots of improvement. I think my icing was a little too stiff and so the leaves cracked a little bit. Luckily they still look tolerable, but with practice I think they will get better. I used a cherry chip cake mix and filled it with cherry pie filling. I was quite impressed that the cherries didn't all squish out. I wasn't really sure what to expect since I'd never filled a cake with something with substance before. I am glad that my cake decorating turned out so well. Hopefully the class in July will be as good. We're going to learn to use Royal Icing, which gets hard. I'm excited.

Also this week, well on Sunday, I made soup. A type of beef stew really, though I used left over black bean water from when I made black beans last week. I've never cooked with bean water before so I wasn't really sure how it would turn out, but surprisingly it went well. I put some stew meat, some potatoes and part of an onion in. Then added a chopped up tomato, a couple black beans and some seasonings. I was pleased that it turned out so well. I was quite pleasantly surprised.

Cake(s) Number 2

This week, my cake decorating teacher said that we could make cupcakes, and so I did. Thus this week I have many pictures, of various designs. As it turns out I'm not any good at decorating cupcakes. Maybe next week's cake will turn out better.

The First Cake

Well last night was the first of the cake decorating classes. Since today is my father's birthday I decorated a cake for him, and then sent him a picture and said how good it tasted. I made a white cake with a strawberry coulis and whipped cream filling. Hopefully my handwriting will become a little steadier as I practice making cakes. I think that the cake turned out pretty swell, but we'll see how much better I get.

Egg Yolks and Egg Whites

This weekend was another exciting one. Once again I made three different dishes. The first dessert that I made was Crème brûlée. It turned out surprisingly well. On first taste I'm not sure that I liked it as much as I liked the Panna Cotta of a few weeks ago, but that may have had something to do with the size. I think next time I'll make my brûlée smaller. It is quite a delicious rich dessert. I found the recipe on Allrecipes.com and followed the suggestions that the people made at the bottom, it turned out delicious.

The second dish that I made was semi related. I made Meringues. I did this because the Crème brûlée took half a dozen egg yolks, which leaves a lot of egg whites left. meringues on the other hand take a lot of egg whites. So, you see, this way I could use whole eggs. The meringues didn't turn out as well as I would have liked but with some chocolate pudding they are quite delectable, much like eating air.

The third dish that I made wasn't a dessert at all, but was my dinner. I made Broccoli and Chile Spaghetti; only, I used a red bell pepper instead of a red chile. Surprisingly fresh red chiles are nearly impossible to find, and so i figured that a red bell pepper was the next best thing. Certainly they aren't the same at all, but they do have one thing in common-their color. The broccoli and red bell pepper spaghetti turned out quite well, especially with a little salt and pepper. Overall I think that it was a fairly sucessful weekend. Hopefully this next week will prove as exciting.

Pizza Margherita

Delicioso! A nice pizza with basil and mozarella, baked to a light toasted state, quite delicious. Today's adventure was a pizza one. I tried to flip the pizza crust above my head; I haven't quite got the hang of it yet though. It sort of works but gets too thin in the middle and not thin enough near the edges. I made it work though. The sliced mozarella was really nice, and the fresh basil gave the perfect flavour. It was a good meal. I look forward to making it again, thoughI think next time I would cook it a little less and maybe use a tad more cheese. You can never have enough cheese.

Fruit and Gruyere

Tonight I tried my hand a a couple of new recipes. First I made Cantaloupe Melon with Grilled Strawberries. They turned out quite well. The warmth of the broiled strawberries was a nice contrast with the coolness of the cantaloupe.
You just broil some sliced strawberries with a little powdered sugar sprinkled on top for a few minutes and then serve them with sliced cantaloupe. It's quite delicious.

Next I made Golden Gruyere and Basil Tortillas. The Gruyere cheese has such a deliciously strong flavour and when it melts it mellows it out just perfectly. The fresh basil adds the perfect touch. Both of these recipes are ones that I look forward to making again.

Unfortunately the last recipe that I tried tonight didn't turn out nearly so well. I made a loaf of Chocolate Banana Bread. I managed to forget to put in the baking soda and so it didn't rise at all. my "bread" turned out about half an inch thick, and then it didn't even manage to cook all the way and so it doesn't look like bread in any way shape of form. It does taste pretty good but it looks pretty awful. Next time I imagine that I'll remember to include baking soda, and maybe even cook it all the way...