Speculoos are a biscuit style cookie better known by the name Biscoff- the brand that is served on Delta Airlines flights all over the world. It is also probably my favorite cookie. That's saying something because I don't do favorites :)
The recipe I shared a link to in my last post turned out pretty decent. Something is just off, and I don't know quite what it is. Perhaps some other time I will try other recipes and play around more. The cookies are good, don't get me wrong. I would probably eat the whole pan if my parents weren't also enjoying them. Just goes to show how good they are, even when they're off they still rock! Plus they're probably the easiest cookies I've ever made, which is always a plus.
As far as the instructions to roll out the dough, it doesn't work. You have to chill the dough first because it is entirely the wrong consistency to roll out. Because of my wonderful patience, I chose to spread it around on a cookie sheet with a rubber spatula. It worked, but in the future it is worthwhile to chill the dough, roll it out and cut it before you bake it. That is the only way you will really get the cookies to bake evenly. Other than that maybe more brown sugar. Give it a try! They're great!
Saturday, February 26, 2011
I'm a little behind so...
...this blog will have 2 weekends' worth of cooking.
Last weekend my brother brought his fiance home to meet the family. As I was debating what to try cooking it was brought to my attention that I would not be cooking for myself as usual, but rather for the family. Because of this I decided to do something I knew would work out and leave the experimentation for the appetizer. We had Orange Chicken and Lettuce Wraps like those found at PF Chang's.
Since I only mentioned the orange chicken and never really discussed it, the recipe can be found here. It is a lot of work, but very much worth it. I did not have the red pepper flakes and my mother (who was helping me because these are both rather involved recipes) suggested adding cayenne pepper to spice it up. I gave the go ahead and she put some into the sauce. It really made everything else pop, but there was no spice. I told her to put more in, and there was still not the spicy element I was going for. Unfortunately it did bring the flavors out even more and in the end the orange chicken was too strong. A minor mistake. It still tasted great, the orange was just a touch too strong. Moral of the story: adding a bit of cayenne can really bring out the flavors, but be careful not to add too much.
The lettuce wraps were a narrowly averted disaster. Knowing that making these two complicated recipes at the same time would be a stretch for me, I mixed the cooking sauce before starting the real cooking. I put it in the fridge and forgot about it. I got everything cooked up and thought "this is not working, the flavor is not there." Frantically, I had my mother stir as I scrambled and threw a little of this and a little of that into the pan. Just as we were about to serve the meal, my mom opened the fridge, pulled out the sauce and asked what it was. I just about died from the embarrassment. We put some in and let it simmer a little and served dinner. Afterword while thinking about what I had added to the pan, I realized that we had ultimately re-created the cooking sauce plus some chili paste. The appetizer was amazing, very much like PF Chang's. The chili paste gave it a little bit of flare- almost enough to make you breathe fire if you got a chunk of chili. It would have been better with some cashews added. Also, shiitake mushrooms are hard to come by in Delta, so I used portobello mushrooms instead.
So far this weekend I have made Orchiette Pasta with Wild Mushroom Cream Sauce. There are biscoff cookies in the near future (the ones served by Delta Airlines), but I'm still in debate on that. The pasta worked out okay. Rather than a pound of wild mushrooms, I used the rest of the portobella mushrooms from last week. Everything but the cream was eyeballed and I intentionally added extra cheese. Ultimately I think it was good, but missing something. After some discussion with my parents I decided a little bit of sweet Italian sausage would be perfect. For those (like me before making this) who do not know what orchiette pasta is, it is the little shells.
If I make the biscoff, or more properly speculoos, I will write about it later. The recipe I am looking at is here. These are probably my favorite cookies, so finding a recipe has made my day! I no longer have to wait until I have an excuse to fly in order to enjoy them! Assuming of course I can bake, we'll see about that...
Last weekend my brother brought his fiance home to meet the family. As I was debating what to try cooking it was brought to my attention that I would not be cooking for myself as usual, but rather for the family. Because of this I decided to do something I knew would work out and leave the experimentation for the appetizer. We had Orange Chicken and Lettuce Wraps like those found at PF Chang's.
Since I only mentioned the orange chicken and never really discussed it, the recipe can be found here. It is a lot of work, but very much worth it. I did not have the red pepper flakes and my mother (who was helping me because these are both rather involved recipes) suggested adding cayenne pepper to spice it up. I gave the go ahead and she put some into the sauce. It really made everything else pop, but there was no spice. I told her to put more in, and there was still not the spicy element I was going for. Unfortunately it did bring the flavors out even more and in the end the orange chicken was too strong. A minor mistake. It still tasted great, the orange was just a touch too strong. Moral of the story: adding a bit of cayenne can really bring out the flavors, but be careful not to add too much.
The lettuce wraps were a narrowly averted disaster. Knowing that making these two complicated recipes at the same time would be a stretch for me, I mixed the cooking sauce before starting the real cooking. I put it in the fridge and forgot about it. I got everything cooked up and thought "this is not working, the flavor is not there." Frantically, I had my mother stir as I scrambled and threw a little of this and a little of that into the pan. Just as we were about to serve the meal, my mom opened the fridge, pulled out the sauce and asked what it was. I just about died from the embarrassment. We put some in and let it simmer a little and served dinner. Afterword while thinking about what I had added to the pan, I realized that we had ultimately re-created the cooking sauce plus some chili paste. The appetizer was amazing, very much like PF Chang's. The chili paste gave it a little bit of flare- almost enough to make you breathe fire if you got a chunk of chili. It would have been better with some cashews added. Also, shiitake mushrooms are hard to come by in Delta, so I used portobello mushrooms instead.
So far this weekend I have made Orchiette Pasta with Wild Mushroom Cream Sauce. There are biscoff cookies in the near future (the ones served by Delta Airlines), but I'm still in debate on that. The pasta worked out okay. Rather than a pound of wild mushrooms, I used the rest of the portobella mushrooms from last week. Everything but the cream was eyeballed and I intentionally added extra cheese. Ultimately I think it was good, but missing something. After some discussion with my parents I decided a little bit of sweet Italian sausage would be perfect. For those (like me before making this) who do not know what orchiette pasta is, it is the little shells.
If I make the biscoff, or more properly speculoos, I will write about it later. The recipe I am looking at is here. These are probably my favorite cookies, so finding a recipe has made my day! I no longer have to wait until I have an excuse to fly in order to enjoy them! Assuming of course I can bake, we'll see about that...
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Word of Wisdom
There are a couple of things I would like to say before I write actually write this post.
1) Comments are welcome and very much appreciated. This includes those who do not have an account for blogger. I know there are several out there. If you have any questions, concerns or other comments about what I am about to write, please share- even if they are critical. I will do my best to respond to any questions that people may have through future posts. Just be aware, if you are rude, use inappropriate language or write your comment in a language other than English (because I won't understand it) I will remove your comment. Yes, those of you who read this from Russia, France, Korea, etc. I know you are reading it. Stats are amazing. Feel free to join in, but please stick to English so that I know what you're saying. Although, given the results of my last plea for feedback, I probably don't really need to worry about any of those issues.
2) This is MY blog. I am not writing this to force my religion on anyone or offend anyone. I am writing this because it is important to me. If you don't like it, don't read it- that simple.
3) A note on sources. Many people may try to argue that I only listened to my church's side of the story. In fact, I did not use any church resources or even any that were approved, endorsed and/or supported by the church. Many of the things contained in the sources I used to learn about this issue spoke very unkindly about my religion. That being said, you must go out and find your own resources about the topic in question. I have put off writing this for quite some time and cannot find my sources. I'm sure if I tried hard enough I could, but I see little point. No, there will be no plagiarism in this entry, I do not intend to refer to any of my sources specifically but rather stick to things that are, in my best judgment, common knowledge. Again, any concerns just leave a comment. If there is something you feel needs a source, comment about it and I'll go out and find you one- although you could just find it yourself a lot faster.
Okay, now for some background information. For those who don't know, I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or in terms more easily understood by most of the world, I'm a Mormon. The biggest belief that separates us from the rest of Christianity- and the world- is that we believe in modern revelation and that our church is led today by a prophet of God. We believe that our church is literally led by Jesus Christ through revelation given to His prophet.
One of the other beliefs that sets us apart from the rest of the world is the Word of Wisdom. This is a code of health given to the prophet Joseph Smith (who we do not worship, incidentally) cautioning the saints to avoid several things that were at that time generally accepted to be either healthy or of minimal concern, but have since been revealed to be the cause of many of the health problems in our world. Two of the more well known examples are smoking and drinking alcohol. It was originally given as strictly a word of wisdom, a caution, but has since come to be regarded as a commandment by our church.
Finally, the story. During a discussion with a friend of mine who is unsure of various points of church doctrine, this friend told me that "The Word of Wisdom was made a commandment by a vote! That is not revelation!" This shocked me as I had never before been told that. Honestly, it didn't make me question enough to be concerned about my faith, but I had to find out what happened for myself. I knew that at some point the change had been made and some of the possible reasons, but had never given any thought as to how. So I did some digging.
What I found blew me away. There was actually quite a controversy over this in some circles!! Mostly it seems the claim has been used by the authors of anti-LDS materials. The "vote" in question occurred in the 1851 general conference when Brigham Young, the second prophet of this dispensation, asked the saints to make a covenant with their Heavenly Father to adhere to the Word of Wisdom. I cannot remember an exact quote, but the phrasing was something to the effect of "by the show of hands, who would be willing to observe the Word of Wisdom if it were a commandment?" After this "vote" he encouraged the saints to observe it even though it was not a commandment and promised that there would be many blessings if they did. It is interesting to note that Brigham Young himself did not observe the Word of Wisdom for a number of years after this event. Clearly, they had not voted to make the Word of Wisdom a commandment.
After the General Conference, there are many anecdotes and events which seem to point in both directions. I will discuss two.
After the saints were driven from their homes in Nauvoo, Illinois and had settled in what is now Utah, they began building a temple. In order to work on the construction of the temple people had to be interviewed by their bishop and deemed worthy by way of upholding all of the commandments of the church- just like the interview to go into a temple today. During the construction of the temple, a letter was sent out to the bishops of the church telling them that they could no longer send men with the intention that the church would provide chewing tobacco for them when they arrived. It specified that if the men must chew tobacco, they must chew their own. This means that you could chew tobacco- which is against the Word of Wisdom- and still be counted worthy.
Some time after the saints had come to Utah, a man was ex-communicated from the church for drunkenness. Many people claim that this shows that the Word of Wisdom was enforced as a commandment, a claim which is further supported by Pres. Young's statement along the lines of "if we as a church do not begin to observe the Word of Wisdom, many more will follow this man's path."
The Word of Wisdom came to be viewed as a commandment by the church more than 50 years later when Pres. Joseph F. Smith, then prophet of the church, issued a letter to bishops and stake presidents urging them to consider adherence to the Word of Wisdom when conducting an interview for worthiness to attend the temple. It had been an issue of debate amongst the Twelve Apostles and First Presidency of the church for a while before the letter was issued. Many of the 12 did not want to see the change in church policy because it would mean they would have to give up some of the things they loved- yet another witness that the "vote" changed nothing. Shortly before he died, Pres. Lorenzo Snow made it clear that he would not be making such a change. The succeeding prophet, Joseph F. Smith, issued the letter shortly after being ordained. I do not believe that it is coincidence that things worked out that way. God will not allow His prophet to lead His church astray through either action or inaction.
I am a firm believer that those who are called of God to lead His church are each called to a specific task. Please do not take my statements above to mean that I believe Lorenzo Snow was an evil man or trying to lead the church astray. Rather, I believe that the changing of the Word of Wisdom was a task given to Joseph F. Smith. However, it still serves as a witness to me that if at any time a prophet of the Lord will either take the church in a wrong direction or stop the church from progressing in a correct direction- regardless of how trivial the point may seem- Heavenly Father will remove him from his position and put another in his stead who is ready and willing to do the will of the Lord.
I testify that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the restored church of Christ on the earth today and that it is the only true and living church. Many other churches have a large measure of truth, but this is the only one that has it all. I am a witness that the reason we have the truth is because of living prophets of God who truly commune directly with Him on a daily basis to lead His church. I also gladly add my voice to those of many others who sustain the prophets and apostles of the church today for I know that they are truly called of God. I testify that Jesus Christ stands at the head of this church and guides those who have been placed in positions of authority in it. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ- our Lord and Savior who gave His life and so much more as an atonement that we may be able to return to live with our Father again. Amen.
1) Comments are welcome and very much appreciated. This includes those who do not have an account for blogger. I know there are several out there. If you have any questions, concerns or other comments about what I am about to write, please share- even if they are critical. I will do my best to respond to any questions that people may have through future posts. Just be aware, if you are rude, use inappropriate language or write your comment in a language other than English (because I won't understand it) I will remove your comment. Yes, those of you who read this from Russia, France, Korea, etc. I know you are reading it. Stats are amazing. Feel free to join in, but please stick to English so that I know what you're saying. Although, given the results of my last plea for feedback, I probably don't really need to worry about any of those issues.
2) This is MY blog. I am not writing this to force my religion on anyone or offend anyone. I am writing this because it is important to me. If you don't like it, don't read it- that simple.
3) A note on sources. Many people may try to argue that I only listened to my church's side of the story. In fact, I did not use any church resources or even any that were approved, endorsed and/or supported by the church. Many of the things contained in the sources I used to learn about this issue spoke very unkindly about my religion. That being said, you must go out and find your own resources about the topic in question. I have put off writing this for quite some time and cannot find my sources. I'm sure if I tried hard enough I could, but I see little point. No, there will be no plagiarism in this entry, I do not intend to refer to any of my sources specifically but rather stick to things that are, in my best judgment, common knowledge. Again, any concerns just leave a comment. If there is something you feel needs a source, comment about it and I'll go out and find you one- although you could just find it yourself a lot faster.
Okay, now for some background information. For those who don't know, I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or in terms more easily understood by most of the world, I'm a Mormon. The biggest belief that separates us from the rest of Christianity- and the world- is that we believe in modern revelation and that our church is led today by a prophet of God. We believe that our church is literally led by Jesus Christ through revelation given to His prophet.
One of the other beliefs that sets us apart from the rest of the world is the Word of Wisdom. This is a code of health given to the prophet Joseph Smith (who we do not worship, incidentally) cautioning the saints to avoid several things that were at that time generally accepted to be either healthy or of minimal concern, but have since been revealed to be the cause of many of the health problems in our world. Two of the more well known examples are smoking and drinking alcohol. It was originally given as strictly a word of wisdom, a caution, but has since come to be regarded as a commandment by our church.
Finally, the story. During a discussion with a friend of mine who is unsure of various points of church doctrine, this friend told me that "The Word of Wisdom was made a commandment by a vote! That is not revelation!" This shocked me as I had never before been told that. Honestly, it didn't make me question enough to be concerned about my faith, but I had to find out what happened for myself. I knew that at some point the change had been made and some of the possible reasons, but had never given any thought as to how. So I did some digging.
What I found blew me away. There was actually quite a controversy over this in some circles!! Mostly it seems the claim has been used by the authors of anti-LDS materials. The "vote" in question occurred in the 1851 general conference when Brigham Young, the second prophet of this dispensation, asked the saints to make a covenant with their Heavenly Father to adhere to the Word of Wisdom. I cannot remember an exact quote, but the phrasing was something to the effect of "by the show of hands, who would be willing to observe the Word of Wisdom if it were a commandment?" After this "vote" he encouraged the saints to observe it even though it was not a commandment and promised that there would be many blessings if they did. It is interesting to note that Brigham Young himself did not observe the Word of Wisdom for a number of years after this event. Clearly, they had not voted to make the Word of Wisdom a commandment.
After the General Conference, there are many anecdotes and events which seem to point in both directions. I will discuss two.
After the saints were driven from their homes in Nauvoo, Illinois and had settled in what is now Utah, they began building a temple. In order to work on the construction of the temple people had to be interviewed by their bishop and deemed worthy by way of upholding all of the commandments of the church- just like the interview to go into a temple today. During the construction of the temple, a letter was sent out to the bishops of the church telling them that they could no longer send men with the intention that the church would provide chewing tobacco for them when they arrived. It specified that if the men must chew tobacco, they must chew their own. This means that you could chew tobacco- which is against the Word of Wisdom- and still be counted worthy.
Some time after the saints had come to Utah, a man was ex-communicated from the church for drunkenness. Many people claim that this shows that the Word of Wisdom was enforced as a commandment, a claim which is further supported by Pres. Young's statement along the lines of "if we as a church do not begin to observe the Word of Wisdom, many more will follow this man's path."
The Word of Wisdom came to be viewed as a commandment by the church more than 50 years later when Pres. Joseph F. Smith, then prophet of the church, issued a letter to bishops and stake presidents urging them to consider adherence to the Word of Wisdom when conducting an interview for worthiness to attend the temple. It had been an issue of debate amongst the Twelve Apostles and First Presidency of the church for a while before the letter was issued. Many of the 12 did not want to see the change in church policy because it would mean they would have to give up some of the things they loved- yet another witness that the "vote" changed nothing. Shortly before he died, Pres. Lorenzo Snow made it clear that he would not be making such a change. The succeeding prophet, Joseph F. Smith, issued the letter shortly after being ordained. I do not believe that it is coincidence that things worked out that way. God will not allow His prophet to lead His church astray through either action or inaction.
I am a firm believer that those who are called of God to lead His church are each called to a specific task. Please do not take my statements above to mean that I believe Lorenzo Snow was an evil man or trying to lead the church astray. Rather, I believe that the changing of the Word of Wisdom was a task given to Joseph F. Smith. However, it still serves as a witness to me that if at any time a prophet of the Lord will either take the church in a wrong direction or stop the church from progressing in a correct direction- regardless of how trivial the point may seem- Heavenly Father will remove him from his position and put another in his stead who is ready and willing to do the will of the Lord.
I testify that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the restored church of Christ on the earth today and that it is the only true and living church. Many other churches have a large measure of truth, but this is the only one that has it all. I am a witness that the reason we have the truth is because of living prophets of God who truly commune directly with Him on a daily basis to lead His church. I also gladly add my voice to those of many others who sustain the prophets and apostles of the church today for I know that they are truly called of God. I testify that Jesus Christ stands at the head of this church and guides those who have been placed in positions of authority in it. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ- our Lord and Savior who gave His life and so much more as an atonement that we may be able to return to live with our Father again. Amen.
Wanting Won Tons?
This weekend's experiment was not a main dish as it has been in the past. I didn't have work Friday and spent the day trying to decide what to make but everything I could think of was desserts! Wontons have been something of a curiosity to me for the past little while so I decided to make those. Unfortunately, nothing else oriental sounded good to me, so there was no meal to go with them. Actually, for lunch/dinner I had my semi-famous "Uncle Rick's Mac and Cheese" which is almost more like a tomato macaroni soup heavy on the macaroni.
I wasn't sure if it would be possible to find won ton wrappers in the wonderful Delta grocery stores (though I have since been informed that I could have) but the idea of making my own sounded interesting anyways so I searched for a recipe. The one I used is quite simple, but not at the same time. Making the dough itself was easy, but rolling it so thin? Not so much. More on that later.
The recipe came from About.com. Before you bother going there, I'm actually going to put that one on this blog since its so short and simple.
1 egg
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
about 1/2 cup water
extra flour to flour your rolling surface (or if you're like me to fix the dough after adding too much water)
Put the flour in one bowl and everything else (only 1/4 cup of water for now) in another. Mix the bowl with the egg and add it to the other bowl, adding water as needed. Rather than making a dough and then kneading it, I chose to just mix the two bowls by kneading them together. Doing this, I only had to knead the dough for a very short time before it was "a smooth, workable dough" as suggested by the original recipe.
Now the hard part. Dough- at least mine- doesn't like to be rolled out that thin. Maybe I'm just no good with a rolling pin. Either way, the dough would not roll. I found that if you take just a very small piece of dough it will roll thinner, but then you have to roll out each won ton wrapper individually! This worked okay for me since I was only making a couple for my own personal food, but if you were trying to make them in any large quantity you're going to have a problem. That is one problem I definitely hope to solve. After rolling it out cut the dough into squares and you have wrappers.
The rest is pretty simple though. Put some oil on the stove at a low heat- barely enough to bubble when you add something to it. Mix whatever you want to put in your won tons. Experiment! Be creative! I've had a lot of fun trying different combinations to see how they would work. Simply put a spoonful of the filling (proportional to the size of the wrapper) in the middle of the dough square. Wet your finger and run it along the edges of the wrapper to make them sticky. Try different ways of folding them. Be creative. This is a fun snack to make- maybe even good date material ;) Dump the won ton in the oil and let it sit until golden brown- flipping occasionally to ensure even cooking. I prefer for things to cook fast, so I started with really hot oil. This works for some things, but won tons do not fit that category. Turn the heat down, take it slow. Let them cool and enjoy your creation!
I wasn't sure if it would be possible to find won ton wrappers in the wonderful Delta grocery stores (though I have since been informed that I could have) but the idea of making my own sounded interesting anyways so I searched for a recipe. The one I used is quite simple, but not at the same time. Making the dough itself was easy, but rolling it so thin? Not so much. More on that later.
The recipe came from About.com. Before you bother going there, I'm actually going to put that one on this blog since its so short and simple.
1 egg
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
about 1/2 cup water
extra flour to flour your rolling surface (or if you're like me to fix the dough after adding too much water)
Put the flour in one bowl and everything else (only 1/4 cup of water for now) in another. Mix the bowl with the egg and add it to the other bowl, adding water as needed. Rather than making a dough and then kneading it, I chose to just mix the two bowls by kneading them together. Doing this, I only had to knead the dough for a very short time before it was "a smooth, workable dough" as suggested by the original recipe.
Now the hard part. Dough- at least mine- doesn't like to be rolled out that thin. Maybe I'm just no good with a rolling pin. Either way, the dough would not roll. I found that if you take just a very small piece of dough it will roll thinner, but then you have to roll out each won ton wrapper individually! This worked okay for me since I was only making a couple for my own personal food, but if you were trying to make them in any large quantity you're going to have a problem. That is one problem I definitely hope to solve. After rolling it out cut the dough into squares and you have wrappers.
The rest is pretty simple though. Put some oil on the stove at a low heat- barely enough to bubble when you add something to it. Mix whatever you want to put in your won tons. Experiment! Be creative! I've had a lot of fun trying different combinations to see how they would work. Simply put a spoonful of the filling (proportional to the size of the wrapper) in the middle of the dough square. Wet your finger and run it along the edges of the wrapper to make them sticky. Try different ways of folding them. Be creative. This is a fun snack to make- maybe even good date material ;) Dump the won ton in the oil and let it sit until golden brown- flipping occasionally to ensure even cooking. I prefer for things to cook fast, so I started with really hot oil. This works for some things, but won tons do not fit that category. Turn the heat down, take it slow. Let them cool and enjoy your creation!
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Needles
As I mentioned in my last post, I have spent much of the past two weeks in Needles California for work. Every year bees are moved, by truck, from all over the country to groves- apple groves, orange groves, etc. Our bees go to almond groves in Bakersfield Ca.
Over the last little while, all of the bees have been moved from the Utah area to Needles. Then we all loaded into the trucks and went down to them out. For about a week we hit all the yards- where we keep the bees- and checked every hive to ensure that they were healthy and had enough honey to survive. On Monday, two of us went to Bakersfield and Michael and I stayed in Needles. We had a lot of hive covers and boxes that needed to be painted- which took most of the days- and then we went out to load bees on a truck to ship to Bakersfield. Bees have to be moved at night because during the day they leave the hive. If you move the hive during the day, many of the bees will be lost.
Our trucker was a man from Spanish Fork. He was great to work with! Loading means a lot of time spent sitting and waiting, but the people you work with can make it a fun experience and my co-workers certainly did. Four nights (one load a night) and several more boxes and covers than I care to remember later, we were done. It was nice to get up Friday morning and head home. It is never fun to go to Needles and work like we do, but I returned, as always, with stories and a greater understanding of bees, beekeepers and the way things work.
Over the last little while, all of the bees have been moved from the Utah area to Needles. Then we all loaded into the trucks and went down to them out. For about a week we hit all the yards- where we keep the bees- and checked every hive to ensure that they were healthy and had enough honey to survive. On Monday, two of us went to Bakersfield and Michael and I stayed in Needles. We had a lot of hive covers and boxes that needed to be painted- which took most of the days- and then we went out to load bees on a truck to ship to Bakersfield. Bees have to be moved at night because during the day they leave the hive. If you move the hive during the day, many of the bees will be lost.
Our trucker was a man from Spanish Fork. He was great to work with! Loading means a lot of time spent sitting and waiting, but the people you work with can make it a fun experience and my co-workers certainly did. Four nights (one load a night) and several more boxes and covers than I care to remember later, we were done. It was nice to get up Friday morning and head home. It is never fun to go to Needles and work like we do, but I returned, as always, with stories and a greater understanding of bees, beekeepers and the way things work.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Been gone, but I'm back in the kitchen!
Today was another great Saturday in the kitchen. Maybe you noticed, maybe you didn't, but there was no entry about it last week. In fact, there has been nothing for a while. I have been in Needles California for work. Never heard of it? Not surprising. It is a small town in the middle of the Mohave Desert where California, Arizona and Nevada meet. There will most likely be a post about that at some later date.
Back to the kitchen! Today I made Chicken Carbonara. The recipe I used came from HERE; however, when I cook I rarely follow the recipe the whole way through. Rather than using pancetta- which is impossible to be found in Delta's woefully inadequate excuses for grocery stores- I used fresh side pork which I cooked up in advance and seasoned with salt and pepper. Then I began the recipe and used the pre-cooked side pork where it says to use the pancetta. I started the pasta, mixed the sauce ingredients together using dried herbs rather than fresh- it works but I have no idea how much I used, just eyeball it. About this time I also began browning diced chicken. Rather than adding shredded chicken to the pancetta and garlic, I added the sauce mixture and allowed it to cook into the sauce I wanted and then added it to the browned chicken. Once the pasta was cooked, I added it to everything else and it was done! Goes great with peas. All in all very small changes. My family had this for dinner and mom and dad loved it!
Note: Where the recipe says to avoid boiling the sauce as it may cause the egg yolks to turn into scrambled eggs, it will. Luckily, this doesn't mess with the flavor, but it gives your sauce a funny texture.
Before making the main course, I noticed that it calls for 8 egg yolks. That leaves you with the whites of 8 eggs! What can you do with that?! Dessert of course. The dessert was a baked meringue with roasted berries on top. It worked out amazing, in spite of some small errors. First, we didn't have any raspberries. This means I was a pint short on the berries. This means a shorter cooking time. I forgot that part. Roasting berries though...they still taste good if they're a little over-done. The pan on the other hand? That took some scrubbing. Then, as I was folding the last of the sugar into the meringue, I was a bit too rough on it and the meringue lost some of its stiffness. Neither of these mistakes seem to have changed the outcome of the recipe and it tastes great!
Today was a great success in the kitchen. If anybody is bored with eating the same old things or doesn't know what to make, give this a try. It takes some work, but I promise you'll enjoy the fruits of your labor!
Back to the kitchen! Today I made Chicken Carbonara. The recipe I used came from HERE; however, when I cook I rarely follow the recipe the whole way through. Rather than using pancetta- which is impossible to be found in Delta's woefully inadequate excuses for grocery stores- I used fresh side pork which I cooked up in advance and seasoned with salt and pepper. Then I began the recipe and used the pre-cooked side pork where it says to use the pancetta. I started the pasta, mixed the sauce ingredients together using dried herbs rather than fresh- it works but I have no idea how much I used, just eyeball it. About this time I also began browning diced chicken. Rather than adding shredded chicken to the pancetta and garlic, I added the sauce mixture and allowed it to cook into the sauce I wanted and then added it to the browned chicken. Once the pasta was cooked, I added it to everything else and it was done! Goes great with peas. All in all very small changes. My family had this for dinner and mom and dad loved it!
Note: Where the recipe says to avoid boiling the sauce as it may cause the egg yolks to turn into scrambled eggs, it will. Luckily, this doesn't mess with the flavor, but it gives your sauce a funny texture.
Before making the main course, I noticed that it calls for 8 egg yolks. That leaves you with the whites of 8 eggs! What can you do with that?! Dessert of course. The dessert was a baked meringue with roasted berries on top. It worked out amazing, in spite of some small errors. First, we didn't have any raspberries. This means I was a pint short on the berries. This means a shorter cooking time. I forgot that part. Roasting berries though...they still taste good if they're a little over-done. The pan on the other hand? That took some scrubbing. Then, as I was folding the last of the sugar into the meringue, I was a bit too rough on it and the meringue lost some of its stiffness. Neither of these mistakes seem to have changed the outcome of the recipe and it tastes great!
Today was a great success in the kitchen. If anybody is bored with eating the same old things or doesn't know what to make, give this a try. It takes some work, but I promise you'll enjoy the fruits of your labor!
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