Bling Bling's Cooking Experiences

Salads / challah

2011-03-26T17:48:00.000-07:00

Oh hay y'all. I'm in Florida at my dad's house and my sisters and I cooked dinner on Friday. The following are a few items that I made.

Roasted red beet salad. The beets were cut up, tossed with olive oil and lemon juice, salt, pepper. Then roasted for perhaps an hour at 375 or 400. This was really yummy. Especially since this dish costed $2 to make. Hurray for cheap beets!

Fennel and citrus salad. I sliced the fennel thin and cut segments of oranges and grapefruit. The dressing was olive oil and lemon juice. I enjoyed this but the citrus segments got a little broken up. Still yummy!

Endive, celery, apple golden raisin, and walnut salad. Dressing consisted of white wine, lemon juice, olive oil. This salad was ok. The chunks of apple were too big I thought. Also the endive pretty much got lost behind the celery and other ingredients.

Challah! I am never good at making a uniform challah - as in the same size the whole way through. This challah was a lot fatter on one end. It was delicious nonetheless!

That ees all for now!

Sourdough

2010-04-03T16:15:00.000-07:00

Howdy y'all. I made sourdough, actually a few months ago now. Again from peter reinhart's book. It was sooooooo good. It totally had the sourdough taste and was very moist. I tried to make sure that I added as little extra flour as possible so that the dough was still pretty sticky the whole time. It wasn't hard to deal with though, since I have a kitchenaid. Mmmm so good. People at work liked it too. Unfortunately my starter is in the trash because it was totally unsustainable. So I need to find a new method of maintaining a starter.

Another picture of one of the loaves:

I think next up is bagels, because I'm skipping the pizza doughs.

Pain au Levain

2010-02-27T17:33:00.000-08:00

Hi! I made pain au levain from peter reinhart's book. This was the first time I used a starter in my bread. I made a starter from scratch. This involved me going through all of the phases laid out in the book. The bread came out good! I don't know if it was worth 2 weeks of trouble to get the starter ready. Not to mention having the starter die twice (and having to restart the starter) before getting it right. Also the starter doesn't seem sustainable. Having to add over 2 cups of flower every 5 days and throwing out the majority of it sounds unrealistic. The bread was good though!

I think the bread did have more flavor than usual. I cut up the bread into pieces and brought it to work:

I split the dough into 2 batches. I probably overcooked the second batch but I kind of like it when it's almost burnt:

And here the second batch is sliced:

Next up, sourdough!

Focaccia

2010-01-31T17:24:00.000-08:00

Hi! I made focaccia last week. Again, it was from this book. The dough is very similar to the dough used to make the ciabatta that I made a few weeks prior. The dough comes out so smooth and feels so good when I have to mess with it.

The process involves putting together the initial dough, stretching it out a bit, and putting it in a ball shape. Then I left it in the refrigerator, covered, for 2 to 3 days. At that point I spread the dough out into a big cookie sheet, and dotted it with my fingers.

The topping I used was a sort of herb oil. All it was was olive oil, red pepper flakes, minced garlic. chili powder, kosher salt and black pepper.

The focaccia was amazing right out of the oven. It was so crispy on top and soft underneath. I brought it into work the next day and it was still good but the top was no longer crispy. People seemed to like it, though.

Next up, pain au levain. My starter is well on its way already! (Sort of.)

Apple chips

2009-12-27T21:24:00.001-08:00

Hokay, so. At pike place market there are these people that sell apple chips. They claim that they are 100% apple with nothing added. They're supposedly just baked. Those things are amazing. I love them so much I want to cry. Sooo I decided to try it out for myself. I used my mandolin to cut some gala apples and bake them at about 275 for around 2 hours I think. The outcome was terrific!! I loved it!! It tasted like the pike place market people!! Sooooo good. I am in love. Such an awesome snack. The chips are completely crisp, and they produce such a satisfying crunch when you bite into them. The only problem with these guys is they take a long time to bake (about 2 hours) and you can't make a lot at a time, since they probably can't be layered on top of each other on the baking sheet.

Here's the before pic:

And another after shot:

Check out this cool chip with the star:

Ciabatta

2009-12-27T21:07:00.000-08:00

Happy holidays! Last week my older sister and I made ciabatta, again from this book. It was amaaaaazing. Definitely my favorite bread from the book so far. The bubbles in the bread were so big and awesome looking. The bread was amazing as toast. One recipe made 3 ciabattas. Mmm. Definitely will make again.

And now, some more pictures for your viewing pleasure.

BUBBLES!!!

TOAST!!

TOAST WITH GOAT CHEESE!!! This seems like it'd be good with some sun dried tomatoes on top iykwis. Riyeeeet.

...next up, focaccia!

Classic french bread

2009-12-23T22:52:00.000-08:00

Oh hi. I made the second recipe in this book. It came out delicious. Tasted like real bread. One thing I did wrong was make the cuts in the dough too deep, as you can see in the pictures. Also, apparently the baguettes were supposed to be half the size. I was supposed to make 4 instead of 2. Whoops! Anyway, here are a few pictures from along the way:

And then here they are:

I also brought them to work:

Some people at work seemed indifferent about the bread and some said it was good. No one had the guts to say it was bad. Next up, ciabatta!

"Lean Bread" from Peter Reinhart

2009-12-08T17:23:00.000-08:00

Oh hello there. I made the first recipe from Peter Reinhart's new book.

It is called "Lean Bread". I don't know why though. It probably explains in the description. The bread came out awesome.

Here's a picture of the final product:

The recipe made enough to produce two of them:

I made the dough, which was pretty painless, and then let it sit in my refrigerator for 2 to 3 days (but you don't have to leave it in there that long). Then, day of, you have to shape the dough and then let it rise for 1 hour, covered:

Then, let the dough rise for another hour, uncovered:

Then, I managed to blow all the fuses in my house other than the oven, before actually putting the bread in the oven. I still baked the bread, using candle light to see:

I still got a shot of the babies in the oven:

Since my refrigerator wasn't working (as there was no power in my place), I decided to put my refrigerated goods in bags and hang them outside my window:

And 2 more windows:

Hopefully there is power when I get home but I'm not getting my hopes up. Didn't hear back from my landlord yet.

Tomato and onion tart

2009-09-01T23:01:00.000-07:00

Hey hey. I made a tomato and onion tart today. I am staying at my mom's house right now and she has mad tomato plants in full bloom around the house, so I used those cherry tomatoes in this tart. The bottom layer is 1 large onion that I caramelized, 1 package of feta cheese, a bunch of basil leaves (also from my mom's garden) and 2 eggs. I mixed all of those together and put that on the bottom of the tart. On top of that I put a bunch of cherry tomatoes that I had roasted in the oven before hand for about an hour. The crust is a whole wheat and olive oil crust. I thought that the tart was very delicious. In the future I will work on the crust, because it was a little tough. The cherry tomatoes were really good though, since they were roasted before hand. The feta cheese was also delicious.

And here it is after my sister and I got our hands on it:

I totally took what felt like all day to make this tart. Ok, not all day, but a good 3 or 4 hours. It's nice having nothing to do, and just taking my time and being inefficient. I can only do that for another week and a half!

Matbucha

2009-04-19T20:39:00.000-07:00

Hi there. I made matbucha, pronounced mott-boo-cha, where the 'ch' is the sound of clearing your throat. Matbucha is a Moroccan tomato dish that primarily consists of tomatoes, spicy peppers and garlic. I guess red peppers are often also put in there but I'm not sure. Technically you're supposed to make it with really ripe tomatoes but I had to make it with normal tomatoes. This is how it went down.

I cut up about 6 medium sized tomatoes into big chunks. I seeded and cut up 6 jalapenos, and chopped about 8 cloves of garlic, as shown below.

I then put all of these ingredients, as well as 1/4 cup of olive oil, and salt and cracked black pepper in my soup pot:

Next I opened up a big can of whole peeled tomatoes:

And poured them into the soup pot (aw yeah, action shot):

And then it looked like this:

I had these roasted red bell peppers hanging out in my fridge and decided that I wasn't going to use them for anything else

So I threw them in the pot:

And then it looked like this:

I then let these ingredients simmer, covered, for about an hour and a half, stirring every once in a while

Eventually the whole thing becomes pretty watery and at that point you want to let it cook half covered, to let the juices evaporate

...And finally, you end up with something like this:

All that fit in this little container:

I made a wheat challah to enjoy this with, but you do your thing

Baba Ganoush

2009-04-09T19:53:00.000-07:00

I love food blogs that have lots of pictures, so from now on I will attempt to have more pictures of the steps of the recipe. For pesach I made baba ganoush for the first time. Here is how it went down.

Ingredients:
3 eggplants
5 tbsp mayo
juice of 1 lemon
4 cloves garlic
cumin
salt
pepper

I tryed charring the first eggplant over a burner but it just wasn't working out for me. My mom then told me that I could put all 3 eggplants on a baking sheet and broil them... so that's what I did. I turned on the broiler and let the tops of the eggplants get nice and black. I then flipped them over. I did this so that all sides got charred, about 20-30 minutes. They then looked like this:

As you can see, the eggplant is deflated and soft. The next step is to peel off the skin, making sure to leave all of the flesh.

Next, chop up all of the flesh and put it in a bowl:

I then blended this together:

... and then it looked like this:

Then I added the rest of the ingredients.

... and then it looked like this:

Tada! It was good but not the best. If I make this again, I don't think I'll blend it. I like seeing seeds in baba ganoush and the blending did away with those. Instead, I think I'll cook it longer and then mash it up with a fork or something. I think it had a really nice flavor though, and it wasn't too mayo-y which was nice.

Chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips

2009-04-02T19:28:00.001-07:00

These are delicious. Probably my favorite cookie that I've made. I've made these before but this time I subbed peanut butter chips for chocolate chips. I love these cookies because they're so rich and are also really soft. They remain soft for days. Crispy cookies are not my thing. This is the recipe I used (but replaced the chocolate chips with peanut butter chips). It also makes me feel better because only 2 tbsp of butter are called for to make 12 cookies... but I'm sure the quarter pound of bittersweet chocolate more than makes up for it ;^)

Cinnamon Rolls (part 2)

2009-03-22T14:42:00.000-07:00

I had been craving cinnamon rolls for a while, and I finally made them. Oh my goodness, these are amazing. I didn't want to make a big batch because baked items like these, muffins and scones are only good the day of, and maybe a few days afterward. I followed thi s recipe except I quartered the recipe, which yielded the perfect amount. Since the recipe calls for 2 eggs and I quartered it, I took a chance and used 1 egg. This caused the dough to be more sticky, so I added extra flour as I saw fit. Also, I used 1 packet of active dry yeast, when I think I was only supposed to use about 1/4 of it. This resulted in the cinnamon rolls being incredibly fluffy and delicious. I let the dough rise for about an hour, but the recipe says to let it rise for only about 10 minutes. I made the glaze out of powdered sugar, milk, salt and vanilla. Sooooo goooooood.

Here they are after they were baked, pre icing:

Finally, here they are after being iced:

Ready to be eaten:

Leek and Random Vegetable Quiche

2009-01-25T21:08:00.000-08:00

Ohai there. I made a quiche. The crust I made using this recipe (just the crust), and then I just went with the flow for the rest. The innards of the quiche consist of leek, broccoli, green beans, tomato, egg and cheddar cheese. I also topped the whole thing off with some mozzarella, just cuz. It came out pretty good. I really like the crust, it was perfect, and there was no butter involved! The innards were kind of plain, but still pretty good. Next time I'll prepare more of the filling because there was room for more. Also, maybe next time I'll put some ricotta or something in the filling. I'd still call this a success.

Chocolate Chip Scones

2008-12-08T19:25:00.000-08:00

Hi there. I made scones tonight using this recipe. They came out great! I used chocolate chips instead of cranberries because that's what I have. I also used whole wheat pastry flour, and fat free milk instead of whole milk because that's what I have. I've only had them right out of the oven and they were wonderful. Nice and crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. I wonder how they will taste the next day... probably not nearly as good. Oh well! I really like the chocolate chips in them. I think scones are the new muffins for me.

Raspberry Muffin Tops

2008-10-11T19:05:00.000-07:00

I bought a muffin top pan! I used it tonight for the second time. The first time I made muffin tops they didn't come out quite right but these ones are better. I love the crunchy aspect of muffin tops so that's what I am looking for in them, and last time they just didn't have that. These ones do, and they are delicious! I used this recipe substituting nonfat strawberry yogurt for the plain yogurt because that is what I had, and I used a pint of raspberries instead of the blueberries. Needless to say, I used whole wheat pastry flour instead of all purpose. I also made raspberry muffin tops for my first attempt. I'm starting to think that I shouldn't be making raspberry mufins because raspberries are too soggy after I wash them. I won't make them anymore. Next time perhaps I will make chocolate chips ones.... ooooh lala!! My favorite.

Latte!

2008-10-11T14:25:00.001-07:00

After spending the summer in Seattle, I started to drink more and more lattes. I love foam. The foam is the best part of the latte. I always get disappointed when the barista neglects to give me enough foam. I won't have that problem anymore because now I can make my own foam! It's a dream come true! I bought an aerolatte and a Bialetti. So now I can make my own lattes. The foam came out amazing... all velvety the way I like it. The espresso came out fine too... but I'm not that picky about that. The only problem is that when I'm done with the foam, I don't have much of a desire to finish the coffee! I'll have to adjust the ratio of foam to coffee :)

Strawberry Frozen Yogurt

2008-10-05T19:38:00.000-07:00

After being away from my ice cream maker for the entire summer, I kicked things off with strawberry frozen yogurt. The ingredients are 1 cup 2% plain greek yogurt (Trader Joe's brand), 1 pound of frozen strawberries, 1/2 cup sugar. I blended all of the ingredients and then threw them in the ice cream maker. The churning process made it fluffier. Then I put the mixture into the freezer. This is absolutely delicious. It's not too sweet - it's just right. And it's very strawberry-y. The frozen yogurt gets pretty hard in the freezer, making it difficult to scoop. I am told that this is because there is not that much fat in it. However, if I just let it sit out for 5 minutes or so, and then scooping it isn't a big deal. This is pretty wonderful because it satisfies my ice cream cravings but it's much better for you than ice cream! :D

Veggie Burrito

2008-10-05T19:21:00.000-07:00

I'm back, after a 5 month sabbatical :) I made veggie burritos tonight. All I did was roast red peppers and onion, warm up some canned beans (I'm busy these days), cut up some avocado, and put it all together in a warmed up whole wheat tortilla. The result was pretty good but not amazing. Next time I'll throw some more ingredients in there. This wasn't really thought out completely. Very filling though!

Veggies pre-roasting:

Spanakopita

2008-05-24T17:15:00.000-07:00

Well hello. I made this spanakopita with the help of my roommate. I bought some whole wheat phyllo dough because the store had both white and whole wheat and I couldn't resist. In a bowl I mixed some frozen spinach that was defrosted and drained with some feta and caramelized onions. Then we rolled them up into triangles. There was also some melted butter than was spread on the phyllo. I really liked the spanakopita, especially the next day. The complaint that I heard was that it wasn't oily enough but I don't mind that. The phyllo was still really crispy and delicious.

Feta, Tomato, Chickpea and Edamame Salad

2008-05-24T17:08:00.000-07:00

Oh hi there. I made this random salad because it seemed good at the time. It was alright, but I think it needed something extra. The ingredients are all in the title in addition to some onion, a little olive oil and vinegar. If I make this again I will change it up a bit and maybe through some lettuce up in therr. Also the onion was too much for me.

Potatoes + egg + avocado

2008-05-04T12:19:00.000-07:00

This morning I ate like a king. I made a variation of home fries and scrambled eggs, and cut up an avocado. The home fries are a variation of this recipe, except that I didn't use bacon fat. I boiled some potatoes whole, until they were tender, cut them up into cubes and then fried them with some onions. I think I should have boiled the potatoes for a shorter amount of time because they easily lost their shape in the frying process. Also I didn't brown them as much as I should have. They were still tasty imho. The eggs I just scrambled and put cheese on top. The avocado was the perfect ripeness, and was delicious. By the way, avocados are 3 for $1 at Henry's! Hurray for cinco de mayo.

Burritos

2008-05-04T12:10:00.000-07:00

Oh hai. I made burritos because my roommate bought tortillas and I got jealous. I bought some chicken legs and cooked them and scraped off the meat, because that's cheaper than buying chicken breasts and I'm poor. I also caramelized some onions, made some brown rice, cup up a tomato, opened up a can of veggie refried beans from TJ's, opened up a jar of salsa from TJ's, and grated some cheddar cheese for those who wanted it. The first night that I had the burrito I didn't really like it because it felt like each ingredient was separate, they didn't really combine to make one solid burrito. However, I made two burritos to take to school and by the time I ate them there, everything combined and they were delicious. The above picture is what my roommate calls "the beaver shot" of the burrito.

Here are some of the ingredients available:

Spaghetti and Turkey Meatballs

2008-04-17T21:42:00.000-07:00

This is the first time I've made this dish. I looked at a bunch of different recipes and ended up not following any one in particular. The meatballs are made out of white meat ground turkey from Trader Joe's. I didn't have time to put anything fancy in them such as parsley or onion or garlic since I was trying to make this as fast as possible. The red sauce is made from whole canned tomatoes, tomato paste, eggplant and onion. I actually really liked the meatballs but I think the sauce could use some work. Also the pasta was really bland, I probably didn't season it enough with salt.

Mint chocolate chip ice cream

2008-04-16T20:32:00.000-07:00

Hi! I made mint chocolate chip ice cream using this recipe. The complaint I got was that it is too minty. It doesn't taste like the mint chocolate chip ice cream from the store, it tastes more like spearmint since that's the type of mint I used. This is the first ice cream I made from a custard. I think it went quite well! My only complaint is that it was sort of flaky - it wouldn't really stick together. Other than that I liked the flavor and texture.

Blackberry Popsicle

2008-04-14T22:24:00.000-07:00

Oh hello! I made blackberry popsicles using the popsicle holders I bought from Ikea. All I did was puree a box of blackberries and added a little sugar as well as some juice I had lying around. I didn't want to overpower the flavor of the blackberries with the juice so I only put a little juice - probably a few tablespoons. Then I loaded the popsicle holders up and put them in the freezer and that it's. It's so easy and a nice little snack especially when it's very hot in San Diego.

Eggplant Lasagna

2008-04-14T22:16:00.000-07:00

To be honest I was trying to make this, but mine doesn't look like the picture. I didn't include the sausage and I just used eggplant instead of a combination of eggplant and zuccini. The lasagna was good but the eggplant was a little weird in it. I think I probably should have cooked it longer even though it was in the oven for about an hour. The eggplant seemed a little underdone. I liked the cheese combination though. Also the lasagna was falling apart when I was cutting it, which wasn't very nice.

Chocolate Ice Cream

2008-04-02T20:01:00.000-07:00

Now now, this is Philadelphia style chocolate ice cream. What that means, ladies and gentlemen, is that there is no custard going on in there. Custard ice creams scare me so I haven't tried them out yet. The ingredients of the ice cream are heavy cream, milk, cocoa powder, chocolate, sugar and vanilla. There is only one cup of milk that is required and the recipe said whole milk, but I was sneaky and used fat free milk. And guess what, the ice cream was still good! The next trick will be to substitute fat free milk for the heavy cream. Yeah, that won't work, but I would still like to come up with ways to make ice cream less bad for you! The night the ice cream was made, it was pretty soft, but after it had been in the freezer a while it got pretty hard. Some might say it was too hard. But it was still good. Overall great success in my mind!

Double Chocolate Crackle Cookies

2008-03-20T10:21:00.000-07:00

Wow, this recipe is amazing. This is the kind of cookie recipe I've been looking for for a long time. The cookies are delicious, and they're SOFT THE NEXT DAY!!! Even the edges are soft. And it's not cakey soft, it's just good. They're very chocolately, and you can tell that I used dark chocolate to make them, which is delicious. These are my favorite cookies out of all of the cookies that I've made. And they only require 2 tablespoons of butter! Of course all of the chocolate in the recipe makes up for that. The recipe is here. The chocolate bar that I used had almonds in it, so I chopped that up and there were little almond pieces in the cookies. I didn't know how that would turn out but I ended up liking them in there. As Borat would say, GREAT SUCCESS!

Vanilla Frozen Yogurt

2008-03-13T22:15:00.000-07:00

The recipe for this came from my ice cream cookbook. The ingredients are 3 cups of yogurt, 1 cup of sugar and 1 teaspoon of vailla extract. I used Fage Greek yogurt, because they said that Greek yogurt is the best for this. I noticed that one serving of that Fage yogurt, 1 cup, contains 90% of the daily value of saturated fat. That is kind of disgusting. The frozen yogurt doesn't taste like soft serve vanilla ice cream, unfortunately, because that would be awesome, but it has a sour flavor, that just tastes like the yogurt. I don't really like it that much and don't think I'll make it again.

Vegetarian "Pad Thai"

2008-03-13T22:08:00.000-07:00

I got this recipe from here. It definitely does not taste like pad thai but I enjoyed it. It was much better the second day, after it sat around a while. I think there was too much tofu and not enough delicious filling such as spinach, scallions, bamboo shoots, peanuts and bean sprouts. I think that next time I attempt to make pad thai I will look for a different recipe.

Red Lentil and Cauliflower Curry

2008-03-13T21:35:00.000-07:00

My roommate made this curry and it smelled really good so I decided to make it. It is from Veganomnicon (and it is vegan!). I really liked it, especially how the whole curry turned all mushy. It had parsnip in it, which I don't think I've ever had before. I do think it is missing some spices since I didn't have any tumeric or curry powder. I also think I cooked it too long since it was a little too mushy but it was still delicious.

Wheat bread with seeds

2008-03-09T13:30:00.001-07:00

I made my second loaf of bread from this book. It involved me making two separate doughs one day in advance, then mixing them together as well as adding additional ingredients, and then letting the resulting dough sit for some time. After that I had to knead the dough some more and let it rise in the loaf pan before I could finally bake it. This bread has sunflower, pumpkin and sesame seeds in it. It also happens to be vegan. I like the texture of the bread even though it is a little dense, and I think it tastes especially good after it is toasted. I used the Kitchenaid for all of the kneading and mixing, which was nice. I didn't get sticky dough fingers or anything.

Chocolate chip muffins

2008-03-09T13:21:00.000-07:00

I made muffins again, mostly following this recipe, except using chocolate chips instead of blueberries. I used 1 cup of whole wheat pastry flour and 1/2 cup white flour instead of the 1.5 cups white flour. I think it made a difference - it's better than having all of the flour be whole wheat. Also I'm not sure if the fact that it was whole wheat pastry flour made a difference, as opposed to regular whole wheat flour. I again used cracked wheat instead of wheat germ, which adds a crunchy texture. I'm not sure if I like that or not, but regardless I will continue looking around at random healthy ingredients I can throw in muffins. Overall I liked these muffins.

Pizza with Caramelized Onions and Basil

2008-03-03T20:30:00.000-08:00

I made pizza and put caramelized onions on top because I saw it in a food blog and it looked delicious. I used Trader Joe's wheat pizza dough and instead of making 1 big pizza out of it, I made 2 medium pizzas in an attempt both to make thin crust pizza and prevent pizza stone catastrophe. I cooked the onions before hand in a frying pan with some butter, olive oil and brown sugar. I really liked the onions on the pizza. I need to find a new tomato sauce though because I think that the one I use is too salty.

Brown rice noodles with peanut sauce

2008-03-03T20:24:00.000-08:00

I made this recipe from this cookbook that I got a while ago. I didn't follow the recipe exactly because I didn't have all of the ingredients, and I didn't have the patience to go to the store. So the sauce was missing fresh ginger, among other items. The sauce was good but it was obvious that it was missing something. I will probably try to make a better version of this in the future because I love peanut sauce and this recipe has potential.

Brownie Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

2008-03-03T20:18:00.000-08:00

This were pretty good. This is the recipe that I followed. I put these Trader Joe's mini peanut butter cups in the cookies. I think the cookies would have actually been better if I used peanut butter chips because there was too much chocolate surrounding the peanut butter in the mini peanut butter cups, and peanut butter is delicious. The cookies were still nice and soft which is how I like my cookies.

Crustless Spinach Quiche

2008-03-03T20:11:00.000-08:00

I made this around 2:00am one morning when I was working on a branch predictor. This is the recipe that I used. The quiche tasted good but I think it would have been better had I left it in the oven longer, even though I did leave it in there a whole 30 minutes. I also didn't use the proportions listed in the recipe and the whole thing just made me feel a little gross. I don't think I'll make this again - at least this variation of it.

Blueberry Muffins

2008-02-17T23:18:00.000-08:00

These were quite delicious imho. I made blueberry muffins using regular white flour and they were so much better than when I use white whole wheat flour. They did have quick oats in them and I snuck in some cracked wheat. The cracked wheat was in exchange for wheat germ, which I'm told is not a valid substitute. I don't even know what wheat germ is and they didn't have it at Henry's, so cracked wheat seemed like the next best thing. The cracked wheat added a crunchy texture to the muffins which I enjoyed. There were about 2 cups of fresh blueberries in them, when the recipe called for 1. I liked the fact that they were overly stuffed with blueberries. This is the recipe that I used.

Here's just one more picture, just for kicks:

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

2008-02-17T23:07:00.000-08:00

I made some oatmeal raisin cookies after I tried some at Trader Joe's the other day. The Trader Joe's ones were firm and crisp, which I liked. That is what I was going for with these but these are softer and thinner. I don't know how I would even make them thicker because they spread out in the oven and I don't have any control over their thickness. I think these would be better thicker because they fall apart easily. I do like the taste of them though. I used 1 stick of butter and 1/4 cup of canola oil instead of 1.5 sticks of butter (because I ran out of butter). I hope I find a recipe that yields thicker and firmer cookies! This is the recipe that I used.

Orange Cranberry Muffins

2008-02-13T21:04:00.000-08:00

I decided to make muffins again because I didn't feel like doing any work. This is a different recipe than usual, from my humungous baking cookbook that I haven't looked at too much yet. So this is the first thing I've made from that cookbook. The recipe required buttermilk but I didn't have any (because who has buttermilk on hand or is willing to go to the store?) so I substituted it with milk and a little (balsamic) vinegar. Balsamic vinegar because I didn't have any regular vinegar. The recipe called for orange zest, orange juice, typical baking ingredients and blueberries. I used dried cranberries instead of the blueberries, and they plumped up in the baking process. I don't like the muffins that much. I think that they are dry and I just don't really like the orange with the cranberry. I don't typically like orange flavored things much in general (although I do like oranges on their own). Plus I used whole wheat white flour and that taste is just not good. These at least weren't very cake-like, which is good. I shall continue my quest to seek a delicious muffin recipe.

Here's another picture of the suckers:

Pizza. You're doing it wrong.

2008-02-10T22:39:00.000-08:00

I messed up when I was making pizza. I was using the pizza stone and in the process of transferring the pizza to the pizza stone using the paddle, I messed up and got a lot of pizza sauce on the pizza stone and part of the pizza was falling off of the pizza stone. I still let it cook though, and it turned out alright. Part of the dough was very soft due to the excess pizza sauce. The pizza didn't get nice and bubbly like it did last time. It was still tasty. I put some feta cheese on top and that was delicious, I think it needed more though.

Here are the toppings: garlic, tomatoes and spinach.

Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

2008-02-07T22:04:00.000-08:00

I made whole wheat sandwich bread from Peter Reinhart's "Whole Grain Breads". The process took two days. The first day I made two separate doughs, each with its own unique ingredients. The next day I combined the two doughs, added some extra ingredients and let it sit for about an hour. I then put the dough into the loaf pan and let it sit again for an hour before I put it in the oven. It is a fairly complicated procedure but the result was pretty good. It did taste like bread, and it didn't taste as doughy as my bread has tasted in the past. The downside to baking your own bread is that you have to slice it yourself. I wanted to use this bread in my sandwiches that I take to school but it was hard to cut a perfectly thick slice. I usually cut slices that were too thick and my sandwiches ended up very bready. I would still prefer store-bought whole wheat sandwich bread to this bread, but it's a step in the right direction. I hope to try a more exciting recipe from that book next.

Cinnamon Rolls

2008-01-25T23:53:00.001-08:00

I had been craving cinnamon rolls lately so I finally decided to make them. I followed this recipe: http://www.whatgeekseat.com/wordpress/2008/01/01/rollin-and-tumblin/
I made the mistake of using powdered sugar in the filling instead of regular sugar (I read the recipe wrong). I'm not sure how big of a difference it made. I also feel like there isn't enough filling. I used whole wheat white flour, so the cinnamon rolls do have a bit of an earthy taste, but I don't mind it too much. They definitely would have been better with bread flour. I tried one of these right when they came out of the oven and it was very good - the center was all soft and warm and the frosting was also good. The frosting is just powdered sugar, vanilla extract and milk. I'm not sure how these will taste the next day. I put them in the refrigerator because they have milk in them and it just seems wrong to leave something with milk in it out. Overall I'm happy with how they came out.

I also got to use my kitchenaid to make the dough! It was my first time using both the paddle and dough hook attachments. It was very exciting.

Kitchenaid doin' it's thang:

A cinnamon roll before it was put in the oven. Not very flattering due to the powdered sugar - it would have been cuter if I used regular sugar.

Here is a cooked cinnamon roll:

Lasagna

2008-01-25T23:48:00.001-08:00

I made lasagna again. It's just not very exciting. It's the same way I always make it, with ricotta, tomato sauce, an egg, onions, broccoli, spinach and cheese. I still think it tastes good but I'm a little sick of it. Plus I made it earlier this week with the intent of eating it every night of week but I didn't eat it for dinner once. I did have it for lunch today though.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2008-01-18T23:19:00.000-08:00

Hi! I made extra fatty chocolate chip cookies today. Typically if I make a cookie, I try to find the recipe that requires the smallest amount of butter but today I went all out. I was going for a "chewey" chocolate chip cookie, meaning it requires extra butter. The problem with these cookies is that I didn't know when to take them out of the oven - I didn't want to overcook them and I didn't want to undercook them. The first batch I pulled out too early and the centers of the cookies were completely undone. I ended up putting them back in the oven for a little. The second batch I think I overcooked, since I saw how the first batch came out and didn't want to make the same mistake. Overall, the cookies are good - you can't really go wrong with an obscene amount of butter (1.5 sticks) and sugar (1.5 cups). Quite frankly I think that there's too much butter in them - they have a faint greasy texture which I am not a fan of. I'll have to see what I do next time. This recipe made a lot of cookies, so at least the butter is fairly spread out.

Pasta with Pesto

2008-01-14T22:41:00.001-08:00

This was my first experience making pesto. The ingredients are fresh basil, olive oil, parmesan cheese, pistachios and fresh garlic. I didn't know how much of each ingredient to put in there, so I just winged it and tasted it as I went, adjusting appropriately. I think it turned out fine, I personally enjoyed it. But thas jus me!

Blueberry muffins with chocolate chips on top

2008-01-13T19:47:00.000-08:00

I decided to make blueberry muffins tonight. I actually used fresh blueberries instead of frozen but I'm still deciding whether or not they are significantly better than frozen in muffins. They were certainly plumper than the frozen. These muffins turned out pretty good, and I put a few chocolate chips on top just for kicks. I didn't put anything extra healthy in them, other than the flour being white whole wheat. I personally don't feel that chocolate goes well with blueberries but I felt that the muffins needed a little something something on top. I think it worked out fine.

Oh, and thanks to my roommate, I know how to take closeup photos now! Check out this puppy:

Chocolate Sorbet

2008-01-11T18:59:00.000-08:00

Howdy, I made chocolate sorbet! This is my first ice cream making experience with my new ice cream maker attachment. I must say that I am very pleased with how it came out. The texture is very nice and ice cream like. It is very rich and sweet, perhaps next time I will use less sugar. This ice cream is even vegan and has my vegan roommate's seal of approval. Shout out to my other roommate who helped get the ice cream maker out of the box. Thanks!

Tomato, Basil and Garlic Pizza

2008-01-10T19:36:00.000-08:00

Why hello there! I made pizza with fresh basil, tomatoes and garlic on it. I made it using our awesome pizza stone. I love how the pizza got all bubbly - I don't think it does if you don't use a pizza stone (or it hasn't done that for me before, without the pizza stone). I used Trader Joe's wheat pizza dough, since this was an impulse pizza, and regular tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, 3 cloves of garlic, fresh basil and fresh tomatoes. I copied my roommate by using the basil, garlic and tomatoes. The pizza was very garlicky, but I liked it. The bottom of the pizza was nice and crispy.

My cute little slice:

Challah Back Youngin'

2008-01-04T14:10:00.000-08:00

I made challah! This is the first time that I made traditional challah in a while. Surprisingly it came out amazing - the perfect texture and the perfect sweetness. My older sister even asked for seconds!! My 8 year old sister helped me out by mixing some of the ingredients. She even made her own mini challah. The challah I made is a 6 braid.. fancy I know! There's nothing whole wheat about this challah - it's just straight up bread flour. Maybe that's why it's so good! Perhaps next time I'll put chocolate chips in it.

Edit: I had originally written this post after trying the mini challah which was cooked completely. My big challah had some areas that weren't cooked completely (in the center of the big part). Next time I will make sure to cook it all the way though! The recipe only said to cook it for 30 minutes and I believe I may have even cooked it for 40 minutes. The recipe was probably talking about a smaller challah though. I was just looking at the color of the challah to determine whether or not to pull it out.

More Cookbooks!

2008-01-01T12:19:00.001-08:00

This is no excuse for a post but oh well, it's the new year! I bought two more cookbooks because I'm worth it. I bought an ice cream book because I haven't used my ice cream maker attachment yet, but I'm determined to do so once I get back to SD. I especially want to make a chocolate sorbet. This ice cream cookbook got pretty good reviews - I hope it lives up to them!

The second one I bought is a bread book. My dream is to be able to bake delicious and healthy bread. (Who knows if that is possible.) I just want to see how this book goes. A lot of the reviews said that the recipes are overly complicated but maybe that's how bread is!

Green Olive Pizza

2007-12-31T12:05:00.000-08:00

Howdy! I made pizza, with the help of my 8 year old sister. We first made the dough, let it rise for about 45 minutes, then rolled it out and had it bake in the oven for about 15 minutes so that the dough wouldn't be soggy. We then took it out, put the tomato sauce and cheese on it, and topped it off with some delicious green olives. Green olives are my favorite pizza topping. We also stuffed the crust with some cheese. Next time if I make stuffed crust pizza, I will add more stuffing into the crust because you almost couldn't tell that there was cheese in the crust.

The pizza came out good imho. 3 cups of flour went into the dough - I used two cups bread flour and one cup whole wheat flour. The crust was soft, but the pizza wasn't the same without a pizza stone.

Schnitzel

2007-12-30T17:51:00.000-08:00

Oh hello there. I made schnitzel!!11!!!shiftone111!!! Schnitzel is Jewish for fried boneless skinless breaded chicken breasts. To prepare this dish, cut the chicken into thin slices, as long as possible. Then, pound the chicken with a chicken hammer with a piece of plastic wrap on top of the chicken so that the chicken doesn't go flying everywhere. Then, put the chicken into a bowl with two eggs, some soy sauce and some honey. I mix everything around such that the chicken is well coated. The chicken goes into the refrigerator to rest for around 15 minutes. During that time I fill a frying pan with at most 1/4 inch of canola oil and place that on the stove to warm up. Then I just dip the chicken in some bread crumbs and fry that puppy up (yeah I'm lame).

You have to be careful not to burn the chicken. I made this chicken twice last week and the first batch was perfect but the last batches were always burnt. This time I managed not to burn any of the pieces.. for the most part.

My little sister who doesn't eat anything had seven whole pieces of this chicken! And she made sure to tell me every time she took one.

Lasagna with Spinach and Broccoli

2007-12-01T18:08:00.001-08:00

Why hello. I made lasagna and copied my mom by adding broccoli in it as well. I bought frozen broccoli florets, defrosted them, got the water out of them, and chopped them up. I personally enjoy the broccoli in there. This is probably one of my better lasagnas. It also looked pretty nice coming out of the oven because I took the aluminum foil off of the lasagna about halfway into the baking process, giving it time to turn golden. This lasagna wasn't as watery as usual, although still a little too watery.

Kitchenaid!

2007-11-29T17:39:00.000-08:00

Yaaaay I got a Kitchenaid stand mixer for my birthday. It is one sexy beast.

Hurray for New Cookbooks!

2007-11-26T21:08:00.001-08:00

Yeah no one cares but I do. I got 2 cookbooks in the mail today! I am very excited about them. Yaaaaay :D

Quinoa, Almond and Chocolate Chip Muffins

2007-11-17T18:08:00.000-08:00

I was very intrigued by this recipe because of the fact that it uses cooked quinoa in a muffin. The recipe did not call for chocolate chips but I felt that they were necessary. I got this recipe from my roommate's cookbook... so this is a vegan recipe! The only notable difference is that there is no egg. I guess vegans use ground flax seeds instead. I also got to grind some almonds for this recipe (in, of course, a food processor). To cut to the chase, these are pretty good. It seems like they fall apart easily though. I'm still trying to make a muffin that has that crisp texture on the top of it, without using a pound of butter. I will continue to search.

Apple Tart Kinda Thing...

2007-11-11T19:24:00.000-08:00

I wanted to make a pie. Actually I wanted to make a fruit tart but that started to get complicated. So I decided to go with an apple pie. Then I wanted to make it vegan. Things just got more and more complicated. Anyway, this is what happened. I made the crust out of roasted ground almonds, flour, canola oil, and a little soy milk. For the filling, it's just apples, applesauce, sugar and lemon juice. Not a lot going on here. This is a little dry and unexciting. I'll have to do better in the future. I did get to use my new shiny tart pan though.

Oatmeal Cookies 2.0

2007-11-11T19:18:00.000-08:00

I tried making a healthier version of the oatmeal cookies. I added flax seeds and bulgar wheat. I decided not to use butter as an experiment, and to use oil instead. The result is that I can't tell the difference and butter is overrated. I added dried cranberries (in addition to the raisins and chocolate chips). That turned out to be a bad idea. The dried cranberries are too tart for this cookie imho tbh. Also, I was told that the flax seeds were cooked too long and thus impenetrable OH HO HO HO. Anyhow, if I make these again, I won't add the dried cranberries, and I'll rethink this flax seed pickle.

Butternut Squash Risotto

2007-11-01T19:02:00.001-07:00

I bought a humongous butternut squash from Trader Joe's for $1 and finally today I used it. I made this butternut squash risotto and I used the remains of the squash in butternut squash soup. The risotto was alright, it has brown rice, vegetable broth, onion, garlic, butternut squash and Parmesan cheese in it. I used brown rice instead of that rice you're supposed to use for risotto because I think brown rice is better for you. The down side to that is that is doesn't get as creamy. This took forever to make. I don't see myself making it again anytime soon. Or any butternut squash dish for that matter - it just takes too long to deal with the squash! Oh yes, and I also made the soup which is quite delicious if I do say so myself.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

2007-11-01T18:57:00.000-07:00

If I had to describe these in one word I'd say "eh". They were ok, nothing special. I was looking for a cookie to make that didn't involve a pound of butter. These were the best I could find at the time. These are the ingredients: rolled oats, brown sugar, whole wheat flour, honey, salt, baking powder, butter (3 TBSP), one egg, raisins and chocolate chips.

Challah Atcha Boy

2007-10-30T14:14:00.000-07:00

Hello, I made challah dough and then stuffed it with dark chocolate chips and rolled it up and cooked it in a loaf pan. It was basically a loaf of bread with a hole of chocolate in the middle. IMHO (in my humble opinion) it was good. First I had an end piece and that wasn't that good because there wasn't as much chocolate. But then when I got a piece towards the middle, it was pretty amazing. Next time I am going to try to spread out the chocolate more because you end up dipping the non chocolately pieces into the chocolatey part. The dough was pretty good, I think next time I'll add some more sugar. It was sweet but not sweet enough iykwis (if you know what i'm saying). The flour is actually white whole wheat flour and it was good. That ees all.

Blueberry Muffins

2007-10-16T17:04:00.000-07:00

This was my first time making blueberry muffins. I'm pretty happy with how they came out. It is the same recipe as the chocolate chip muffins recipe - except using blueberries. I didn't make that butter topping for these ones though - all I did was sprinkle a little sugar and cinnamon on the top of each muffin. I used white whole wheat flour, which doesn't taste too bad! Unfortunately I forgot to put flax seeds in these muffins. I used frozen blueberries because fresh ones are too expensive right now. I think they came out great. They do have a slightly weird taste though - think I may have added too much baking powder. Overall I'm happy with these muffins.

Butternut Squash Soup

2007-10-16T17:00:00.000-07:00

I've always wanted to make this soup, but it was recently inspired by the New Moon Club at UCSD. I first baked the butternut squash whole, until it was fairly tender. I did this so that I didn't have to suffer while attempting to cut it - and it worked! I cut it into cubes and peeled off the skin. I sauteed 2 small onions and then added the cubed squash, as well as some water. I let that cook for a while, added salt and pepper and pureed it with my immersion blender. It came out very good - although it would have been better with some cream. I don't intend to put cream in it in the future though, it's good as it is.

Plants I'm Growing

2007-10-16T16:57:00.000-07:00

I am attempting to grow plants. In particular, I'm trying to grow spearmint, rosemary, basil, and 2 different types of flowers. So far it is going ok - I am trying to get down how often to water them and how much. I don't want to over water them because I hear that that's an easy way to kill your plants. So for now I just look at the spearmint and if it's looking a little dead then I water it and it looks good the next day. We'll see if these guys will survive the harsh San Diego winter...

Chocolate Chip Muffins

2007-10-16T16:52:00.000-07:00

These muffins came out very good! For once I didn't try to make them super healthy - and just tried to make them good. The recipe didn't even have that much fat - 1/3 cup oil for 8 muffins. Could be worse. Well it also had 3/4 cup of sugar. Whatever they're bad for you but they're good! I put a ton of dark chocolate chips in them which made them especially good. I also put some flax seeds in them which I thought just added to them - I enjoyed them in there. The topping didn't come out perfect - it's a mix of butter, brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon. Overall I would call the recipe a success.

Pizza

2007-08-22T14:36:00.000-07:00

Hi, I made pizza. I used Trader Joe's herb pizza dough, some nice mozzarella, Trader Joe's pizza sauce, mushrooms and green olives. The pizza didn't turn out well - first of all the dough wasn't cooked enough. I even put the dough in the oven first for about 10 or 15 minutes but I guess it wasn't enough. Secondly, it turned out a little watery. I think it was from the green olives, even though I tried to strain them. Oh well, next time I'll try to do better!

2007-07-07T20:56:00.001-07:00

I bought gooseberries!! I thought they'd be good but they are just sour and weird! I've never had them before though so I wanted to try them. Oh well, as I always say, NOW I KNOW!!!

2007-07-07T20:50:00.000-07:00

I made broccoli cheddar soup, as promised! :D I think it came out pretty good! My mom yelled at me a little for not measuring things out exactly, or following the recipe, but it still came out good! It has onions, a little flour, milk, chicken stock, broccoli and cheddar cheese. I put a lot of cheese, maybe that's why it tastes so good!

Sweet Potatoes

2007-07-05T21:40:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: I know this looks gross I don't know what I was thinking.

I rode my awesome new bike to the supermarket in search of something for dinner. I couldn't find anything that I was satisfied with, so I just got some sweet potatoes. I baked them for about an hour. They were bland and unsatisfying. I don't know why I got sweet potatoes. I should start making good food. I want to make broccoli cheddar soup because I had some today at work and it was delicious!

Fruit Plate

2007-06-03T02:37:00.000-07:00

No, I didn't grow the fruit or anything, but the picture is so cute so I decided to make a post about it. The kiwi was a little under-ripe in my opinion. The mango was delicious, and so were the blueberries. Overall this fruit was tasty!

Cabbage Salad

2007-06-03T02:32:00.000-07:00

This salad is amazing! My cousin taught me how to make it and it's sooooo good. It consists of green cabbage, toasted slivered almonds, toasted peanuts, toasted sesame seeds, and a dressing. All the dressing is is equal parts of soy sauce, vinegar (I used balsamic), olive oil, and honey. The nuts gave the salad a nice crunch, and the dressing just makes it soooo delicious. Plus cabbage was on sale at Henry's so the cabbage cost me about 30 cents. In other words this is a cheap salad. This is definitely one of my favorite salads.

Baked Breaded Chicken Breast with Lemon Sauce and Baked French Fries

2007-04-16T00:31:00.000-07:00

I first hammered the chicken and then cut it up into strips. I probably should have cut the chicken into strips and then hammered it. Anyway, then I soaked the strips in egg and coated them with whole wheat Italian style bread crumbs. Then, I baked them. In the meantime in a saucepan I cooked some fresh lemon juice, a little sugar, and some curry powder. After about 15 minutes I took the chicken out of the oven, drizzled the strips with some of the sauce, and then put them back in the oven to bake another 5 minutes. I personally don't really like the lemon. I was hoping that the chicken would be more crispy, but I probably had to have drizzled the chicken with some oil. So then I must ask the question, is the crispiness worth the extra fat?

I found this recipe online for "baked crispy fries". I used a mixture of sweet potatoes and regular russet potatoes for the fries. I coated them with a little olive oil, garlic powder, salt and pepper before I baked them. The fries came out nice and soft, and definitely not dry which is good. However, they weren't really that crispy. Maybe I should have used more oil but I even used more oil than the recipe called for. The fries were still good though.

Curry

2007-04-16T00:22:00.000-07:00

I made a curry. It is definitely in no way my favorite. The major ingredients in this dish were chicken, lemon, garlic, curry powder, onion, zucchini, tomatoes, peas, and yogurt. My main goal is to make really good curry that's creamy and low fat. I know, creamy and low fat contradict each other, but it's still my goal. The next picture is of the yogurt and peas that went into the yogurt.

Strawberry Jam

2007-04-16T00:19:00.000-07:00

I saw a simple recipe online so I decided to try to make strawberry jam. All I did was mash a large amount of strawberries and then cook them in a saucepan with some sugar and lemon juice. The jam is definitely not thick at all. I was hoping it would solidify a little more in the refrigerator but it didn't really. The taste is really great, it's just the consistency that isn't very good.

Baked Salmon and Yam Mashed Potatoes

2007-04-15T20:18:00.000-07:00

Boris actually made the salmon, but I supervised! It had some lemon, paprika, and thyme. The mashed potatoes had a combination of yams and regular russet potatoes in it. I also added some butter, salt and pepper as usual. The salmon was very good, but the mashed potatoes were alright, nothing special. I like regular mashed potatoes better, I don't think the sweetness goes well in it.

Tune casserole and salad

2007-04-15T18:41:00.000-07:00

Why hello there. I made tuna casserole and a salad! Inside the tuna casserole was whole wheat pasta, tuna, cheddar cheese, cream of chicken soup (healthy style!), and some secret spices. As for the salad, it was just spinach, tomato, and cucumber with some organic ranch-like (but not quite) dressing. It was pretty good!

Chocolate Chip Muffins

2007-03-11T00:36:00.000-08:00

I made chocolate chip muffins last week. They were ok. I tried to make them a little more healthy by using some whole wheat pastry flour but I don't think that tastes very good. You could definitely taste some earthiness in them. I need a new recipe for these things. I think I'm going to try Alton Brown's recipe next from his baking book. I added sugar on the top of the muffins but I think it just made them look weird. Here is a picture of putting chocolate chips on the tops of the muffins as an attempt for the muffins to be like the Henry's ones. (It failed.)

Chili con Turkey

2007-03-11T00:29:00.001-08:00

Hello, I made chili with turkey today with my friend who is a boy. It was good. I think it could have used better seasoning but the ingredients were really good. It had ground turkey, kidney beans, a can of diced tomatoes, tomato paste, onion, green bell pepper, and a jalapeño. The spices that were used were chili powder, cumin, a little paprika just for fun, and salt and pepper. Here is one application of the chili:

Tofu Pie...

2007-02-24T23:20:00.000-08:00

Yes, I made tofu pie. Actually this was last quarter. I saw this recipe on some food blog and it looked good. The filling consists of tofu, spinach, onion, and some other non dairy stuff. I don't know why I thought that this would be good. It wasn't. It tasted like tofu blended with spinach and stuff. It looks like it's good because it looks like it's some sort of cheese with spinach thing but it's not. I think I threw most of it out. Moral of the story: look at the ingredients of a recipe and think about whether it would be good or not, THEN make it :p Here's the before picture:

Lasagna - Part 3

2007-02-24T23:07:00.000-08:00

Hello, I made lasagna again. I don't think I'll make it for a while though, believe it or not but I'm sick of it. This time I added green olives to it. I think they were really nice in the lasagna. Again, I just used ricotta, some feta cheese, tomato sauce, spinach, fried onion, fresh basil, and cheese. I bought this weird shredded mozzarella cheese from ralph's that came with an herb seasoning pack. (It was the only shredded cheese on sale.) That's why the cheese has green specks. I think it was actually pretty good. At first I was hesitant about it.

The lasagna was good. I was a little stingy on the amount of pasta I put in. I only put two layers of pasta in it, and they weren't even completely covered because I ran out of pasta and didn't want to boil more. But I don't think that you could even tell that there wasn't that much pasta.

Next time I make lasagna, I plan on not boiling the pasta before hand. The lasagna again came out a little watery and I think that this extra moisture could be used to cook the noodles. (It wasn't that watery, again I soaked up as much as I could.) Plus my mom doesn't boil hers and it comes out fine. The following is the before picture:

Honey Soy Chicken - with Pineapple!

2007-02-24T23:02:00.000-08:00

Hi, I made honey soy chicken again. This time I actually bought the canned pineapple and made it with it. I thought it would make the dish a whole lot better but it didn't really. I don't really know what to say, the dish just wasn't really that good. It was hard to get the proportions right as I don't even know what they should be. If I ever make this again, I will try marinating the chicken for a few hours or overnight in equal parts of honey and soy. Maybe this will help. I haven't been marinating the chicken because I haven't had the chance, but maybe it will make a difference.

Good Sandwich

2007-02-07T20:04:00.000-08:00

Here are the ingredients of the sandwich:
1. Romaine lettuce
2. Tomatoes
3. Pickles
4. Olives
5. Tuna
6. Hummus

Tuna is optional, I figured I might as well get some protein. It's very delicious. The bread is also delicious. My favorite bread is Oroweat Whole Wheat bread, and that's what this is. It's just so delicious! Ok there's another brand that makes really good bread but I forgot the name. My favorite is a tie between those. I've been making this sandwich to take to school this week. Monday and Tuesday I put tuna in - half a can each day, and then I am going to stop putting tuna in the rest of the week. You know, they say too much tuna is bad, one can a week is the most you should eat. Anyhow, that is all.

Lemon and Rosemary Chicken

2007-02-07T20:01:00.000-08:00

I wanted to eat chicken and I had nothing special to make with it. So, I made lemon rosemary chicken. It was an experiment.... and I doubt I'll ever make this again. Basically I just let the chicken sit in some lemon juice and rosemary and then just fried it. It did taste lemony but still it was very bland and boring.

Brownies!

2007-02-02T21:42:00.000-08:00

Ok, I'm not going to lie, these brownies were made from a mix. But the picture that my boyfriend took came out so amazing so I had to make a post! Oh, and in case you were wondering, the brownies came out excellent :)

Stir-fry with Peanut Sauce and Chicken

2007-01-31T23:59:00.000-08:00

The peanut sauce came out kind of gross. I found some recipe online for peanut sauce because that's my favorite stir-fry sauce. So I put peanut butter (the kind that just has peanuts and salt in it), low fat coconut milk, soy sauce and I think water. I think that the coconut milk is what threw it off. It just had a weird taste that I didn't really like. Some recipes called for chicken stock instead of or in addition to the coconut milk but I didn't have any so I made it without. Next time I'll probably just use that instead of the coconut milk. The stir-fry is with frozen stir-fry vegetables from Costco and boneless and skinless chicken breasts cut up into bite size pieces. Nevertheless, the stir-fry was pretty good, but I will definitely not make the sauce again without modifying it.

Chicken Soup

2007-01-31T23:54:00.000-08:00

I made this with celery, carrots, onion, zuchinni, garlic, egg noodles, parsley and boneless and skinless chicken thighs. I though thighs would work well since they're more fatty but apparently you're not supposed to use boneless chicken in chicken soup because that's where all of the flavor comes from. I also used organic chicken stock from Trader Joe's (since it's the same price as non organic chicken stock...). It came out good, I think next time I'll use chicken with bones. This soup is not how I'd like it to be though, I'll probably have to do more research on chicken soup before I make it again.

Grapefruit!

2007-01-30T21:22:00.000-08:00

Ok, I know, I didn't cook the grapefruit, but I couldn't resist an entry! The grapefruit is so pretty, and it was surprisingly good. I usually don't like how bitter and difficult to eat grapefruit are but this time it was pretty sweet and I cut it nicely! Oh, and these babies were 6 for $1 at Henry's.. pretty good price! And they're big.

Bling Bling Does Lasagna... Again

2007-01-30T21:14:00.000-08:00

Well, I decided to make lasagna again since it came out good last time and it's convenient to have around to eat for dinner and it lasts a while (a little less than a week). This time what I did differently is I remembered to add the egg, I put 2 eggs in it, and I added my left over feta cheese. I don't know how much of a difference these items made, but the lasagna was good. It actually came out watery in the beginning and I was very worried, but then I used a paper towel and soaked up as much as I could and now it's fine. Oh, I also decided to buy a block of cheese instead of shredded cheese to save a dollar so the cheese came out a little funky on top. This is the before picture:

Barley and Lentil Soup

2007-01-25T15:30:00.000-08:00

I had a bunch of barley and a bunch of lentils so I decided to make this soup. I just fried onions, added some garlic, added a can of diced tomatoes (undrained), fresh chopped basil, rosemary, and then the barley and lentils. It came out really nice. It's just a nice hearty soup.

Artichokes!

2007-01-25T15:24:00.000-08:00

I love artichokes, and they were really cheap last week. 4 large artichokes for a dollar!! That's unheard of. Anyhow, all I do is boil them in salted water, for about 45 minutes to an hour. I like my artichokes really soft, so when you get to the heart, it just melts in your mouth. It's delicious!! I bought 7 and I only have 1 left. I don't eat the artichokes with anything like mayonnaise, I just eat them plain and they're great!

Salad!

2007-01-25T15:19:00.000-08:00

I bought salad materials and made an amazing salad. Ok, it's actually really simple, but I love it. It's just romaine lettuce, tomato, red bell pepper, and feta cheese. I bought this incredible feta cheese at Trader Joe's and it's just delicious. It's Israeli feta (and Israelis know how to make cheese) and it's a little more expensive but definitely worth it. It's called Garden of Eden feta... I think. Maybe I just made that up but I think that's what it was. As for the dressing, I just put almost equal parts of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, maybe a little more olive oil. The picture is what it looks like before the dressing or stirring it.

Soy sauce and honey chicken

2007-01-25T15:11:00.000-08:00

I got this recipe from my cousin, and I really like it. I really need to figure out the proportion of honey to soy sauce I need though, because I always just wing it. Basically I just fry onions in a little olive oil, add some garlic, add boneless and skinless chicken breasts along with honey and soy sauce and let it do it's thing. You're actually supposed to put some fruit in it too, such as canned pineapple pieces (which is amazing in this) or dried fruit like dates... I think. I didn't have any pineapple so I just made it without fruit. This is what it looks like in the beginning.

And, this is what it looks like later:

One of the mistakes I made with this plate is I added a decent amount of salt to the onions when they were frying, because I always see that on TV! I forgot that soy sauce already has a ton of salt, so it came out really salty this time :( In the past when I've made it I never added salt to the onions, I don't know why I did last time. I think more honey would have been better too. Anyway, the chicken comes out really flavorful in this dish, and I like it regardless and will definitely try again!

Barley / lentil / lima bean / black bean thing

2007-01-16T16:43:00.000-08:00

I love this combination. I haven't made it in a while, but I decided to make it last night since I knew I was going to be donating blood today. There are times that I've tried to donate but my iron was too low, and lentils have a good source of iron. And it seemed to have worked, the guy said my iron was very good!

Anyhow, dish is made in the slow cooker. The recipe takes equal parts of pearl barley and lentils (any kind really), however much lima beans you want, and however much black beans you want. For the beans, I usually use about a quarter of the amount I use for the barley and lentils. So, just get all those ingredients together, add a bunch of cumin, paprika, garlic cloves or chopped garlic, a few slices of onions, and a few tablespoons of olive oil. Chicken stock is really good in this too, but I stopped using it because I realized the chicken stock I've been using has MSG! So, the really tricky part about this recipe is figuring out how much water to put in. I usually just eyeball it, I really need to start writing down exactly how much dry ingredients I put in and how much wet ingredients I put in. So, once you put the water in, put everything in the slow cooker and let it cook overnight. My slow cooker is very cheap and only has 2 options, low and high, and I usually go with high.

The final product looks like the picture below. I understand that this probably doesn't look appealing to many people, but it's delicious.

Side note: this recipe originates from "Chamim" or "Cholent" or "Shchena"... the Jewish dish made in the slow cooker and served on Saturdays. This is a vegetarian version though. Usually chamim is more tomato-y and has beef and eggs.

First successful lasagna

2007-01-09T16:08:00.000-08:00

Finally, I made lasagna that wasn't horrible! Well, I've only tried it once and I was young and naive back then. It is a really simple vegetarian lasagna, I got the recipe from my mom. It basically just consists of ricotta cheese, canned tomato sauce, spinach, cooked onions and garlic, and cheese. You get the idea. The one thing I forgot (that I realized after putting the lasagna in the oven) was the egg. Oops! I wonder how different it would taste had I put it in.

I would definitely like to make this dish again, except include the egg next time, put the cheese that goes on top of the lasagna on later in the baking process so it doesn't get so brown, and add more of a variety of veggies.

Barefoot Contessa Truffles

2007-01-09T14:31:00.000-08:00

I saw Barefoot Contessa make white truffles with dark chocolate drizzled on top. I wanted to make the same, except the other way around, dark chocolate truffles with white chocolate drizzled on top, since white chocolate is so bad for you. I followed her recipe except replaced dark chocolate with white chocolate and white chocolate with dark chocolate. I also didn't use the nuts nor the liquor since I didn't have any. They came out alright, I'm not quite sure how they're supposed to taste. It was difficult to roll them into nice, smooth balls because the chocolate kept sticking to my hands. They did taste good, but I don't know if I'd make them again.

The picture of them was taken 2 days after I made them, after they became hard and old looking.