Very Berry Pie

Very Berry Pie

Triple Berry, Quadruple Berry, Blackberry, Blueberry--it doesn't matter, Very Berry Pie is delicious.   I see no reason to make a fuss over the sort of berries used (although I'm very picky about what sort of apples I use in that kind of pie so perhaps I ought to be more discriminating).  Pie is something I am pretty good at.  Well, maybe that's an overstatement.  I make a mean crust and the best apple pie you will ever taste.  But that's as far as my pie-making goes.  I've made Very Berry Pies before, but it was a long time ago and I don't remember what recipe I used.  Maybe it was magic, but if it was, it went undocumented and I could never make it again.

Defrosting berries--blackberries, raspberries, blueberries,
strawberries, and cherries. 

So basically, I'm starting this Berry Pie process from scratch.  I'm hampered by the seven-months-till our wedding mark, as well as I-wanna-be-healthy-thing.  Which is not to say I can't make pie; it just means I can't make eight of them, testing different recipes to find the perfect one.  I just need to do my research and really know what I want.

1) I want to use frozen berries.  I'm not using top-notch fresh berries in a pie when I could just eat them with a little cream or straight off the bush.  Yes, I know it's a noble cause, but fresh is fresh and summer only comes once a year.  And I'd rather use frozen berries picked at their peak (hopefully) than travel-weary strawberries from California in February any day.

2) I was a recipe light on the sugar.  This is not purely for my health's sake, but simply because vast quantities of sugar is not delicious by itself.  There's a reason nobody just takes a spoon and eats pure sugar (nobody I know, anyway).  You can't make something delicious by pumping it full of sugar, and in a situation like this where the flavors are tart and complex, sugar is only going to mask those flavors without really adding much.

Egg wash and sugar sprinkle. 

3) I want a non-soupy pie.  There's nothing worse (and it's happened to me more times than not) than a pie that runs around the dish and ruins a beautiful crust and slides and slops off your server.  It looks bad, it feels bad.  Many a pie is pulled from the oven, bubbling gently, and set aside to cool in an agony of suspense--will it set? Is it thick enough? Is it too thick? Too thick is a possibility, after all.  We don't want a rubbery pie, either.  And finally...


4) I want a kick of something extra.  This is where my research really comes in.  I'm not sure what the extra thing should be.  Some people add cinnamon.  Some add lemon juice.  Some add lemon juice and lemon zest.  What if I added vanilla?  Or some other extract?  Almond extract?

I scoured the internet for recipes.  Each one claimed to be more delicious than the last--but that that "something extra" is what I was really looking for--I wanted to set my pie apart from just sugar and berries (don't get me wrong, berries and sugar are
delicious, but not very memorable).  I finally settled on this recipe from Saveur.  I've cooked from Saveur's recipes quite a bit, and they tend to be fairly solid, if not always quite my palate.  It promised to have character.

Perfection.

Isn't she a beauty?  I'm taking her to a party, so it's important to have presentation.  I'm very pleased with the result, although I will do a couple of things differently next time.  I'll try slashing the sugar a 1/4 cup more.  This was just a touch too sweet.  And I will stay my hand where the nutmeg is concerned.  I didn't have fresh nutmeg to grate so I just used a dash... and then, without any wisdom whatsoever, added a second dash.  It's a bit nutmeggy.  Good, but nutmeggy.  Which isn't really what I wanted.  I wanted a slight earthiness, and a wistful wondering of what that "something extra" might be... not flavor that clubbed you over the head with NUTMEGNESS!!

It was a good night in the kitchen.  Whilst I created pie, my fiance created tacos, and I made my pico de gallo.  I've had a love-hate relationship with this dish.  It's one (the only one?) I don't use a recipe for, and it hasn't turned out too brilliantly the last few times, mostly because the jalapenos I have bought were not spicy enough.  I took matters into my own hands this time.  I bought four, sliced them all open, and sampled each.  Two could have been bell peppers they were so mild.  A third was pleasantly spicy and I ended up using that.  The fourth pepper was really spicy.

Mikey took this picture.  He wanted to help for my blog. 

Also this picture.  It's called "Spatula in Motion." 

Spring! and rhubarb compote

testing out the fancy camera on Aussie.

The saying "April showers bring May flowers" never made much sense to me.  There are flowers in Texas in glorious abundance--they carpet the sides of the roads in red and blue--but they bloom in March and in April, not in May.  Here in Indiana actually many flowers--daffodils and tulips, mostly--are blooming, amongst torrential rains.  All I can say is, May flowers better come.  There better be a flipping conservatory.  I biked home in the rain today to find my taxes returned for insufficient postage (WHAT?!).  It was most distressing having to go to the post office with little rivers running down my face.

Spring means that all sorts of wonderful things are available locally--such as rhubarb.  Rhubarb is a bit like a red large stalk of celery--except that instead of spicy, it is sour.  Very sour, in fact, but a good kind of sour, like candies that are sour.  It makes excellent pies and crumbles and things of that sort and is usually mixed with blueberries or strawberries.

I was not, however, in a tolerant mood for strawberries.  I wanted rhubarb and only rhubarb, pure, unadulterated.  My first plan was to make a rhubarb pie, with no fussiness or add-ons.  I ran into a snag when I realized that rhubarb-only pies are very high in sugar. Like 2 cups of sugar plus more for the top kind of high.  I'm not totally against using that much sugar in a recipe, but I like to save those kinds of diabetic-bombs for special occasions like birthdays and graduations and there's NO WAY I'm making rhubarb pie for someone's birthday.  So that idea went the way of all flesh.




Rhubarb compote, however, was an intriguing idea, and it only called for half a cup of sugar for four cups of rhubarb.  It's wonderfully easy, and the result is delicious.

First you prepare your rhubarb; chop off the yucky bottom and pull away the outer layer of long fibers, almost like peeling.  Then roughly chop the rhubarb and put in a saucepan.  Mix in half a cup of sugar and let it sit for fifteen minutes or so, until the moisture is seeping from the rhubarb.  Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat (more juice will collect as you heat the rhubarb).  Reduce to low, cover, and simmer for another fifteen minutes, stirring occasionally.  It will thicken slightly.  Chill for at least 2 hours.






Great.  Delicious.  Now what?  Well, I imagine you can put it on toast--this morning I put it in my yogurt, along with raw oatmeal, a little honey, and flax seed.  Yum!

I also made some progress on my 150 Saveur recipe challenge, if you will.  Truth be told, I wasn't too excited about Spaghetti Alla Primavera.  I've changed my mind.  My friends, this recipe is so provocative.  It's as if the vegetables lie on a soft white bed of cream and pasta and say, "Come! Eat me up."

Okay, so maybe I'm getting carried away.


The only issue is that you must actually like vegetables.  The great thing is that even though I made this somewhat distractedly and in a great hurry, all the vegetables were cooked perfectly.  And by perfectly I mean just enough to release their juices and flavor and turn gorgeous colors without leeching out texture and vitamins.  I skipped the spaghetti and went for penne instead because as my fiancé says, spaghetti is a pain.  It's slippery, floppy stuff that slides off your fork and down into your lap.  As a child I loved it, but now I put aside childish things: it's all about the penne, man.  Besides, it's easier and more satisfying to cook penne al dente.  Also, I left out the peas.  I don't really like peas, for starters, and also I thought I had peas in the freezer but it turns out that was a bag of corn.  I think I'll leave them out again next time too.  Also, I didn't use asparagus tips.  I used five whole spears instead.  Why waste the rest of the asparagus?  It doesn't make sense.






The only advice I have is to mind the cheese.  I was in a hurry, and dumped it all in at once before adding the cream, and instead of nicely coating everything in the pan it ended up in straggly, melted clumps throughout.  It was still delicious, of course, but not exactly what I wanted.  Next time I will either add the cream and let it get warm before sprinkling the cheese gradually over the whole dish, or warm the cream in a separate pan and make an honest-to-goodness white sauce to go over everything.

I hereby proclaim this my vegetarian company dish of choice.

vegetable seduction...

Airport Happenings

1. Clothing envy... Also trying not to stare at epically misguided outfits. For example the bright blue onesie paired with orange felted fringe heels...
2. On a table in the food court: "This table has been sanitized." A staff member removes the sign seconds after I take my seat.
3. Playing chicken in airport "hallways"... Especially when your opponent looks homeless--but apparently can afford a plane ticket?
4. Family traveling to tropical location--in matching neon green t-shirts.
5. Coffee after catching an early flight... Mmmm...
6. Pointless novel that somehow managed to inspire Downton Abbey to pass the time.

Why Sew?

Sometimes people will say things like,  "It's so great that you know how to make your own clothes!  You can save so much money!"

HA!  Not true.  Okay, so it could be true--you can buy cheap fabrics and cheap patterns and make cheap clothes, but like everything else in life, they would be, well, what you paid for--fabrics that don't hold up, patterns that don't fit right or wash well, and they would, above all, look terribly, horribly homemade.  And that's not "homemade" in a good way, like "you-can't-believe-I-MADE-this" or "handcrafted" homemade, but that homemade that looks like you scooped up whatever out of the remnants bin and ran over it with your sewing machine a few times--it can be spotted miles away--"You made this, didn't you?"  Besides, Target really does sell very inexpensive clothes.  It's hard to beat the sale racks.

Mmm... just looking at this makes me sleepy.

So why sew?  Sometimes, you just can't get what you want anywhere for any price.  A case in point: I love bedclothes.  Nice bedclothes.  Currently I drift off to sleep every night blissfully beneath one of Anthropologie's duvet covers, which is made of cotton, but no less luxurious for all that.  I believe in luxurious bedcovers--you will "wear" your bedclothes more than any other thing you own--granted you're unconscious for a lot of that, but still.  Also, your bedclothes will determine the decor of your entire bedroom.

So my fiance and I have been working very, very hard on our registry.  My mom called and asked me what I wanted on it the most, and I was a bit baffled to reply.  "Well--all of it."  We've visited stores, looked online, read reviews, hunted and hunted for the perfect everything.  I stressed about it becuase I wanted to register as if I was spending my own hard-earned money.  I wanted only to register for things we would love and get really excited about recieving.  And if you think about the amount of time and effort that goes into purchasing one ktichen implement, well, it might not be much, but it is something.  (Silicone pastry brush or bristles?!)  Now mulitply that by about two hundred--there are a lot of decisions to be made.  I wanted to be 100% satisfied with ALL of them.

He's so cute I can hardly STAND it. 

Let's just say that the fiance is a saint.  He puts up with me.

And I drew the line on the bedclothes issue.  We hunted and hunted, and at every turn I wanted to know, "What's that made out of!?"

I demand natural fibers.  It could be linen, cotton, or silk, didn't matter to me--but there was one thing I could not permit: polyester.  And every. bedclothes. set. from. Ralph. Lauren. to. Martha. Stewart. is. made. with. 100%. polyester!!! Auuughhh!  I refused to give in.  I refuse to sleep with my new husband for the first time under thermoplastics!  "I'll just make one!"   I rashly declared, well aware that if I bought silk and linen, we were unlikely to save any money.

So back to the saving money issue.  He liked a pattern, I liked plain silk, and the colors complimented each other, so we decided to make the duvet reversible--have your cake and eat it too!  The silk I picked out, miraculously, was only 16.99 a yard.  At sixty inches wide (a queen duvet is 88 x 86) I would need five yards--so 85.95 for one side.  Mike picked out a beautiful linen pattern that was 26.99 a yard (ouch!).  That totaled up to 134.95 for a grand total of 220.90 . . .  Plus I wanted extra fabric for a bedskirt, pillows...



The trick with stores like Hobby Lobby and Jo-Ann (we bought our fabric at the latter) is never pay full price.  Jo-Ann home dec fabric was 40% off this week and I get their text coupons, so with an additional 15% from that, plus a pattern from McCalls for 10.99, the whole purchase rang up to just over 160$.  Score!



Perhaps I could have saved more and not bought a pattern.  After all, everything I wanted to make is basically giant squares.  But when you're cutting into 150 dollars worth of fabric, well, it's just nice to have someone or something to tell you that you're doing it right and not about to ruin your project.  I will update in forthcoming days to report on the progress of the Epic Duvet Cover.



One last thing: this apparently queen-sized down duvet is such a headache.  My wikipedia research tells me that it is actually NOT the proper size for a queen-size duvet.  It's actually the size of a full flat sheet--which is larger than a queen size duvet--considerably longer, presumably to tuck under the mattress.  I decided I would just make a normal-sized duvet and just make it fit.  It'll be extra-fluffy.

In other news, we celebrated a birthday with a made-from-scratch cake: devil's food with a raspberry filling.  I'm not much of a cake-baker; this was my first ever from scratch.  I give it about a B, I suppose.  I didn't care for the texture--it was very dense, not light and spongy and moist like I wanted.  BUT I'm already planning a graduation masterpiece, so stay tuned!

I forget what it's called, Murphy's Law or
Ockeghem's Razor: it says that cake batter
is always more delicious than
the finished product.
I'm afraid this was true. 

Slathered in devil's food icing
and topped with fresh raspberries. 

I saw this driving home the other day:  FUCHSIA LIMO!!!

It takes a Village

Oh man, I can't even stand to look at them...

I'm completely obsessed with this enchilada recipe.  I can't stop thinking of all the people for whom I can potentially make it, and all the occasions on which I could make it.  It is, in fact, the kind of caliber of recipe that one hides away and keeps secret and convientinetly forgets to copy for a friend or relation.  Why am I sharing it, then?  Firstly, because it's not my own invention, so I hardly have a patent.  Secondly, because it's so good I'm hoping you'll make them too so I can eat them MORE.

Also I have to admit: I'm a lifelong Texan (if you don't count the last three years), and I have eaten copious amounts of Mexican food in my life--Tex-mex, authentic, and New Mexico Mexican.  And I had no idea, until today, what was in Enchilada sauce.  *gasp*  I guess the canned stuff has always served us well enough...

I've been on the hunt for a good enchilada recipe for some time.  I had tried several, but they always left me feeling flat--like enchiladas were nothing special, or at least, that my homemade ones were not as good as the stuff from the frozen section (an all-time low in cooking!) Surely, I thought, the flavors ought to be more intense than this!  I didn't have much faith that the enchiladas I dreamed about would ever actually materialize, so when I saw Tex-Mex Cheese Enchiladas on the infamous (now not too trusted) list of Saveur 150 Classic Recipes, I wasn't banging down the doors to make them.

That was a mistake.  This recipe is gold, I tell you, gold.  I can now say that I make the best cheese enchiladas you will ever taste.  It took all my strength of will not to have the leftovers for midnight snack last night and breakfast the next morning.  I rashly promised my friends to bring them leftovers for lunch, a decision I regretted almost immediately: "but I want to eat the deliciousness!!!!"

What has become of me? I'm hoarding enchiladas!!!

I made them again a week later for a sick friend, and had to carry them around in my car most of the day.  The intoxicating smell hit me every time I opened the door--I might have swiped a taste or two on the drive.  But... but... I want to eat them!

Step one: boil chilies in stock until soft.

I have chili fear, just so you know.  I know what a jalapeno is, but that's about it, and anytime chilies pop up on recipes, I have anxiety.  What is that? What if I can't find it? What if it burns my mouth out!??!  Ancho chilies are dried anaheims--and I found them in the first supermarket I tried, so do not despair.

Oregano and cumin with a flour paste to thicken the sauce.

Enchiladas are labor-intensive.  The sauce itself takes about twenty minutes to make, and then you have the whole process of frying the tortillas, basting the tortillas, rolling the tortillas...  I found dealing with the corn tortillas the trickiest thing, as they have a nasty habit of shredding while you are trying to work with them.  Originally I turned and transfered them from one station to the next with a fork, but the pointy-ness of the instrument contributed to the torn tortillas.  So then I started working with a spoon instead--slightly more cumbersome, because the very edges that tear the tortillas are the edges that would also keep them in place, but I found this worked.  I also fried the tortillas for slightly longer than the directed five seconds, as the extra frying also made them less likely to tear. I'm interested to know if scilicone-tipped tongs would work better, although I sort of suspect not.  Even the spoon would tear a tortilla occasionally, unless it was held upside down (and then, of course, the tortilla would just slide off).

Okay, okay, so you're all waiting for it: here is the link.

Battle stations!!!

Fork and a torn tortilla.

Spoon and an in-tact tortilla.

Dipped in sauce. 

Filled with cheese!

Also, I love my job.  No, I don't really have a steady job.  But when I do get to work, I love it.  These are the girls I coached all year for a Pueri Cantores Festival that took place on Friday.  Their

enthusiasm is so energizing. 

The Love Feast

And the kitchen was filled with smoke. --Revelation 15:8

We DESTROYED the chicken pot pie.
So good.

Okay, so that's not an exact quotation from the Holy Writ, but when "my cup runneth over" in the form of delicious, decadent, chicken pot pie bubbling over in the oven, the result a few days later is a Very Smoky Oven.  My scraping the charred bits off of the bottom of the oven onto the floor helped a little, but not much.

Also, I seriously need a new baking sheet. This one (extremely cheap) has the nasty habit of warping an entire INCH suddenly and alarmingly in the oven with a loud BANG.  I've never had anything fly off the sheet, thankfully, but I shouldn't have to put up with the stress.

So you wouldn't thinking dating a man who can cook would be a problem, but honey, it can cause issues.  We discovered over a pot of soup--mostly to our amusement--that we can't really cook together, or if we do, one or the other must relinquish the role "top chef" and go meekly chop onions and do dishes and other menial tasks while their partner reigns supreme over the spices.  And then on Valentine's Day when we both want to cook...

I can't complain.  *lies on the couch and awaits gourmet Penne a la Vodka*

We decided that, with such an abundance of riches, we would take turns preparing the Valentine's Day feast.  I gave the man the day of (after all, he did buy me chocolates and roses and shaved right before coming over *sigh*), but a week later, it was MY turn.

I was short on ideas.  I cook all the time, so to make cooking romantic, it seemed, required a little extra effort.  A simple google search for "Romantic Dinner Ideas" and "Valentine's Day Dinners" turned up an endless parade of lobster tails, clams, oysters, lamb, and truffles.

I don't know what's up with the preference for seafood.  Maybe someday whilst living in the middle of a Very Large Land Mass and surrounded by PASTURES on every side, I'll learn how to cook lobster and oysters.  Maybe someday I'll be able to afford truffles, and maybe someday my Valentine will like lamb.  But come on people.  We can do better than this.  Thoroughly unsatisfied, I decided I must devise my own menu, and this is what I came up with:

Baked Cheese Dip with French Bread

Meatloaf

Rosemary Carrots and Potatoes

Strawberries and Whipped Cream

We'll be eating this bad boy for a few days.

I put it in italics to make it more romantic.  Because it's lent there's no real decked-out, chocolated-up, drenched-in-liquor dessert.  If you're not impressed by that menu, then you just have never had exemplary meatloaf.  Okay, so the potatoes are a bit of a filler.  But meatloaf is Serious Business.  It's also great because you probably have almost all the ingredients in your kitchen--last week's garlic focaccia (now rather dry and inedible) makes excellent breadcrumbs;  parsley left over from numerous recipes (still flourishing in a cup of water in the fridge from two weeks ago!)... seriously, all I had to buy for this was a pound of beef and a pound of pork--even the sausage I had already in the freezer.



You should never buy breadcrumbs, because they are the perfect way to use up old bits of bread.  A few pulses in the blender or food processor grinds them up nicely.  You should be warned, however, that bread will still go moldy unless all the moisture is dried out--like, all of it. Toast your bread on low in the oven to avoid The Moldy Breadcrumbs.

Perhaps I shouldn't mention the part where I set the meatloaf on fire.  No, I don't have a picture--when something in your house is on fire, do you stop and take a picture!? I thought it would be a brilliant idea to crisp the top of the meatloaf by broiling it.  HA!  So grease from the sausage (yummy, yummy sausage) had rendered from the meatloaf and CAUGHT ON FIRE when I broiled it.  Again, the kitchen was filled with smoke.  It sort of killed the romance, at least for a while, but The Wooed was a good sport about it.

Candles were on sale at Hobby Lobby.

This is my computer desk

converted into a banquet table. 

Romantic Meatloaf
1 lb ground beef (for this sort of thing I like the fattier stuff)
1 lb ground pork
1/4 lb country-style sausage, removed from casing
1 onion, diced
6 cloves garlic, diced or pressed through a garlic press
2 TBSP olive oil
2-3 slices bread, processed into crumbs
milk to soak the bread in, about 1/2 c
2 eggs
1 TBSP Worchestershire Sauce
1 TBSP apple cider vinegar
1 TBSP Dijon mustard
1/2 c brown sugar
1 bunch parsley
Salt and Pepper
Dash of hot sauce
1/2 c Ketchup

Cook the onions in the oil on low until clear and soft.  Add garlic and cook for a minute or two to take the raw edge off.  Meanwhile, soak the bread in the milk.  Stir together all ingredients except meats; add meat and work with your hands until just combined.  Cover a baking sheet with edges (the fat will run off in your oven otherwise) with foil and spray with cooking spray. Arrange the meat in a loaf shape on the pan and bake for 45-1 hour, or until a cooking thermometer inserted in the middle reads 160 degrees. 10 before you take the meatloaf out, drizzle ketchup over the top.

It is quite possible that only a music nerd would
 understand why this picture is so funny....

DIY Pencil Skirt

I love pencil skirts!  I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't find a less insistent chevron fabric, but after all I think it turned out very well.  I bought everything at Hobby Lobby.  Here's how the cost broke down:

Simplicity Pattern #2475, $16.95 on sale for .99
Chevron Fabric 8.99 x 2 yards -40% off coupon 10.79
Invisible Zipper 2.71
Thread 1.50
New Skirt:  15.99

Front

Back

So I should begin by saying this is not really a beginner's project.  The skirt is really quite easy, even back kick-tucks.  But the chevron--oh, the chevron.  I foolishly assumed that matching chevron would be as simple as matching stripes.  But I was very wrong.  It turns out one must match horizontally as well as vertically.  So where one must adjust for stripes by moving the pattern pieces up and down, with chevron you have to adjust sideways as well.  Also it's very important to open up the fabric and made sure both layers match so both pieces cut will be identical.

The easiest way to match up the chevrons is to iron under the seam allowance and match it up as the seam would come out; then pin it together in that position and stitch exactly in the crease.

Iron under the seam allowance

Lay the pieces across each other to match chevron

Pin down and stitch in crease

The good thing is that this is the perfect pattern for this sort of thing.  I've always struggled with patterns that were drafted for women with tiny waists and large chests and hips, like barbies.  I'm built rather boxily, my waist, chest and hips, are all similar in size, so I have to adjust patterns a lot after cutting them out--which would ruin the chevron matching up.  This pattern allows for all types--I cut a larger size in the slim fit.  Which allowed me to match chevron without worrying too much about fit.

I say too much because I did need to adjust some sizing. I realized it was matching chevron or sizing, and that I couldn't have both, so I compromised by matching up in the front and back and not bothering on the sides.

Chicken Livers

Remember my tirade/speech/spiel about the value of adventurous cooking?  How one must use new ingredients and not get in a rut?  How one must expand one's cuisine with new flavors and ideas?  Yeah, well, I'm dangerously close to Completely Abandoning and Never Using Questionable Ingredients for Questionable Dishes again.  The incomprehensible fact is that recipes exist that are not just bad, as in, bad proportions or bad instructions or whatever, but awful in their very conception.  These recipes may appear on reputable websites with food critics waxing eloquent.  And they will disappoint you bitterly.

Enter Chicken Liver Pate, stage right.

Okay, so I should have known: chicken livers don't exactly say "snacktime!"  It's a great delicacy in [insert remote land here...]  But I've had chicken livers before, in fact I think they are pretty good when covered in flour and deep-fried in fat.  And I believed the author of this recipe when they said this dish was delicious.  I couldn't wait to transform a lowly ingredient into a surprisingly good concoction.

Oh, the optimism before my fall!

So I've eaten chicken livers but never cooked them, so I was a bit apprehensive when I opened the package from Martins.  I should have known what to expect--livers clean the blood, so it would stand to reason that they would be full of and floating in blood.  Okay, so that was a bit gross.  I cleaned them and cooked them as instructed (only slightly nauseated and beginning to wonder).  I strained more blood (now cooked) out of the broth I cooked them in and transferred them to my blender.  (actually my food processor and I had a disagreement about where this dish was meant to end up.  I said inside the food processor.   But it had other ideas....)





First of all, I am quite sure that the consistency was off.  But before I tried to fix that, I dipped in a finger to taste the TRANSFORMATION FROM NASTY TO DELICIOUS. . .  Aaaaand almost lost my lunch.  Just the memory of that taste/smell/texture makes me feel sick.  So then I had a kitchen that smelled nasty, looked nasty, and was covered in ground-up chicken livers.  All I can say is the first cut is the deepest.

Meanwhile, on another burner, red sauce was bubbling away happily, so innocent and so vegetarian.

Thus ends my Adventures in Experimental Cooking...

Saveur 150 Recipes Part II

I've been working my way through a goodly number of Saveur's 150 recipes, but I've sort of hit a block.  A lot of the recipes that remain are either so complicated that it would be a major operation to attempt them, or just don't sound good.  Canh Chua Ca is sour fish soup.  Uh... yum?  I think?

So here's my rating system:
*  = partial or complete failure
** = decent success but not a keeper
*** = make again! Add to repertoire! Gem to be cherished!

Here are notes on a few I've tried:

#88. Shepherd's Pie ***

I was excited about this recipe because I love Shepherd's Pie and I didn't have an authentic recipe.  This was delicious, if preparing it did make a disaster out of my kitchen.  I had a difficult time finding the right cut of lamb, so I used beef instead.  For this first try I went with a chuck roast because low-quality meat can totally ruin a dish.  But I might try stewing beef next time, mainly because it would mean less prep time; cutting up the raw roast was a chore.  Also, the wine flavor was a bit overwhelming; next time I'll try white wine, and perhaps some balsamic vinegar.  Finally, it was all a bit runny on the first serving, which I have mixed feelings about.  It was good because it meant that the leftovers weren't dried out, and were actually better than the original.  Still, if you want to impress on the first serving, perhaps consider adding a little flour to the meat and sauce layer.

Speaking of low-quality meats, I have learned my lesson with chicken.  If you are too poor to buy a decent cut of chicken, then things have come to a pretty pass (hint: I'm not too poor, I was just cutting a corner where corners weren't meant to be cut).  I was anxious about how much #48. Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic (**) was going to cost with an 8-dollar bottle of vermouth, so I went for chicken thighs, forgetting, of course, that I hate fat and dark meat.  Dumb.  Ironically, I thought the flavor of this dish was remarkably light.  The garlic is quite thoroughly cooked, so it's not overwhelming, and the vermouth, when combined with the other elements is a bit tart, but mostly light.  Still, it wasn't my favorite roast chicken recipe and I probably won't make it again. 

#24. Rosti (Swiss Hash Browns) ***- 

Stuck potatoes. >_<

Okay, so it was a bit of a strugglebus with the Rosti, mainly because of potato stickage.  I know, of course, that potatoes stick to pans.  But I forgot so I wasn't appropriately prepared to do battle for several hours with my potatoes (lucky I had the night off!).  Part of my problem is that I don't actually own a non-stick pan.  The other problem is that I didn't properly pat my potatoes dry before thrusting them into the fray.  And my pan was too hot.  Cue REALLY STUCK POTATOES.  The result was much, much more greasy than it ought to have been as I lathered on copious amounts of butter and Pam in an attempt to salvage the situation.  So word to the wise: be ready, because your potatoes will be.  Still, this recipe did some good.  I'm glad, at last, to know the trick behind white hash browns of any sort--boil them first.  Of course I also have a secret fear of undercooked potatoes, so I boiled mine a bit too much and they didn't hold their shape as well as they might have in the grating process.  Next time I might even hazard taking them out before they are completely done and let them finish cooking in the frying pan (gasp!)

#38. Biscuits with Sawmill Gravy ***!

Now for a Rousing Success!  Okay, so Nearly Rousing.  I love biscuits and gravy.  They were the only dish my undergraduate dining hall made well and and I ate them.  Often.  This recipe was quite good--I loved the gravy, which was so much more than just fat and cream.  It had a touch of bite, a touch of tart--mmm, and a healthy (or unhealthy) amount of bacon and sausage.  The biscuts were promising, but I didn't quite pull them off.  The secret to really good biscuts and gravy is fluffy biscuts with a crispy, beautifully golden exterior.  This recipe directs you to brush said biscuits in butter before baking (genius!), but unfortunately they burned on the bottom.  I'm thinking it's a) my pan or b) my oven.  I tried putting a cookie sheet under the pan but it didn't improve results--my guess is that the metal still conducts heat very well, especially when in direct contact.  So next time I'll try a pan underneath on a different lower rack.  I think that might do the trick. 

#20. Kasha Varnishkes ***

Yum!  It's a bit of a carb-bomb, but it's very economical to make (grains usually are).  Certified boyfriend approved.  But I have issues with the recipe.  First of all, it was very inconvenient the order they have you do everything in.  I would much prefer to put on my onions (which have to caramelize over a period of 40 minutes) on first so they could be doing that while the kasha toasted and the pasta cooked.  Duh.  I can think of no good reason why you would do it in another order.  Then you wouldn't have to reheat everything at the end because it would be freshly made simultaneously.  The recipe doesn't actually stipulate an order, but if you're like me, you start at the beginning of the recipe and work your way through it.  Also I think the amount of oil can be reduced.  I stuck to the recipe this time to just try it, but I would venture to try even 1/2 a cup of oil next time.  That oil ruins the otherwise healthy aspects of this dish.

Onions caramelizing in 1 CUP of oil.