Cultural revolution

As I sat at my desk today eating my lunch I read this article about junk food vs. real food and the cultural revolution that needs to take place in order for eating real food to become the "cool" thing to do. I enjoyed the article. It was one of those times that made me proud of myself that I'm attempting to cook more, and that I haven't eaten out in over a week (sadly, a record for me--this traveling business has taken its toll on my eating habits). What made it even better was that for lunch today I had a salad I brought from home (though I will admit that it came from one of those Caesar kits you can get at the grocery store--but still). 

Soy Sauce and Star Anise Chicken

So my favorite cookbook in the world is called The Three Ingredient Cookbook by Jenny White. The recipes are super simple and the full-color, full page photos are amazing. One thing that I love about this book (besides the photography) is that every time I flip through it I find new recipes I swear I've never seen before. (of course it's unlikely that it's a magic cookbook, but it sure seems that way.) So I was looking through the cookbook looking for an English dessert I can make for a potluck this weekend when I stumbled across this recipe using star anise. (It was pure luck that I actually own star anise and so had all the ingredient for this--it's quite unusual.) I wish I could share with you the picture that was in the cookbook rather than the picture I took, because mine doesn't look nearly as delicious.

Soy Sauce and Star Anise Chicken

So the chicken was pretty good, though next time I make it I will use a higher proportion of star anise to soy sauce. I couldn't really taste the star anise at all. I'd also marinade it longer. And I think I'd actually try to grill it. The recipe said to, but with no grill that can be a bit tricky. But their was just so much prettier with the grill lines on it.

Chicken Curry

In theory, when I said that I wanted to try new recipes and cook I suppose you imagined that I'd be cooking from scratch and things like that. I think that's what I'd imagined too. I do like cooking from scratch, but I also enjoy prepared things. Like curry sauces. I was at the grocery store yesterday getting ingredients for the dessert I made last night and I happened upon a display of Patak's curry sauces. After reading all the labels I settled on the Butter Chicken sauce. I've used the Tikka Masala before and I really like it. So I thought I'd try something new. And it was easy. Cook up some chicken. Add some sauce. Simmer. Eat. Delicious. I definitely don't find any problem with making cooking easy with prepared foods.

After eating my curry, I tried the S'mores Cookie Bars that I made. I found the recipe on one of my favorite food blogs. Mel's Kitchen Cafe has lots of delicious looking recipes. I am excited to try more of them. I haven't quite decided how I liked them. For sure I didn't put enough chocolate chips in, and I think I should have used more marshmallow too, but really they were just very, very sweet and I'm not sure how I felt about that. I brought some of them to work and my coworkers seemed to like them. I think I will have to make them again one day so that I can form a better opinion of them.

Autumn Goal

A few summers ago I made a goal for myself to try a new recipe (ideally for a dinner entree) every week that summer. I remember doing alright, though I definitely made more desserts than entrees. (but really, isn't dessert better anyways?) Then life happened and I haven't cooked nearly as regularly. Now though, I've found that my work schedule allows me to be in the states for most of the rest of the year and I think it's time that I start cooking again. So, my new goal for Autumn is two fold:

1. To try and cook one new recipe every week that I'm in town for the remainder of the year.
2. To actually cook dinner once (at least) every week (that I'm in town) for the remainder of the year.

I guess if I wanted to make my goal three fold my third goal would be to blog about it, but I don't want to get overly ambitious...

Stoves

About a month ago I moved to a new apartment. The lease on the house I was living in was up and it was time for something new. So I moved. And then went out of town for two weeks. Last week I was home and one day lunchtime came around and I decided that it was time to cook something. This was big. I think it was the first time I'd prepared my own food in about 6 weeks. So I made pasta. Yeah, nice spiral pasta with a little broccoli for the sake of eating a vegetable. I think it is a little sad that I've lived in this apartment for a whole month and that was the first time I've ever used the stove. What's worse is that I haven't used it since then either. I look forward to being home again one day and cooking meals for myself.

Food with a Face

Much has changed in my life since I last posted--many, many moons ago. I have relocated across the country, travel 2 weeks a month for my job and don't cook nearly often enough. But I did take a picture of some bird that I consumed in Singapore a few weeks ago. It was delicious. Enjoy.

Zupfa

I has been months since I have posted anything, and it has been a while since I have cooked anything particularly exciting too, but I have cooked a few good things in the last while. Last year sometime I made a Lemon Posset, I think I posted about it. This time I used cream that had been frozen and then thawed. That doesn't work. It changes consistency and just doesn't set up in custards. So the lemon posset never really set and it had a weird consistency. So I now know that cream doesn't freeze. But at the same time I made Scottish Shortbread cookies. Those did turn out pretty well. They didn't taste exactly like Walkers, but pretty close.

I also made Zupfa, which is a sort of Swiss bread. It is delicious. I have a friend who has a good recipe and I used hers and it was delicious. I've decided that it is much cheaper to make your own bread than to buy it at the store and so that is what I've been doing. I made this recipe for between $5 and 6 dollars. And it made approximately 9 loaves. So it was 60 or 70 cents a loaf. So much cheaper than store bought bread, and it has no preservatives! The recipe was huge--I think the hardest part was finding a bowl bigg enough to mix it in, and then enough pans to bake it in. I had regular loaves, and more french bread shaped loaves, and round loaves, the works. I also tried to make cinnamon rolls out of some of it, but that didn't work too well. It's definitely not good for sweet breads.

Sometime after my Zupfa adventure I tried my hand at a chocolate rice pudding. I had all sorts of leftover rice one and I thought that that would be a good way to use it up. Yeah, no. I've never really had good rice pudding, but this definitely wasn't it. It tasted a lot like warm, mushy, cocoa krispies. Definitely not exciting. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Maybe other kinds of rice pudding are good, but this one wasn't.

Let's see, after my not so delicious rice pudding I made a dessert that I was a little more comfortable with. I needed a pie for something so I whipped up a cherry pie using cherries I bottled myself last summer. It turned out pretty well. I'm always glad when my pies turn out.

And the last dessert that I've made was a mango shortbread bar. It was pretty good. It had a shortbread base, and then mango slices on top of that and then more shortbread crumbled on top. it was a bit like a cobbler. Everyone seemed to like it well.