Back in the Kitchen

Holy schmoly, it's been way too long since I've posted.  Sadly, I've thought about getting back into the swing of things, but kept procrastinating.  Thanks for the kick in the butt, Mrs. S!

In the past year and a half, I have been doing a remarkable amount of cooking.  Most of it has been repeats of banana bread (busted out Grandma's recipe, which has been a huge hit with the neighbors and friends), M&M cookies, and random dinners on the grill.  Back in June, I tried a chocolate cake recipe that failed epically. Thankfully, the Halloween version was much more successful.

The holidays this year have brought on a surge of baking, from testing a dressing for Thanksgiving (thanks Bobby Flay, that was some good mushroomy awesomeness), and Thanskgiving itself, I'm on a roll.  I made a batch of banana bread the other day, and followed it up with another four loaves tonight.  In addition to the banana bread , I busted out another Grandma recipe - applesauce cake.

It's been rather therapeutic to bake while rocking out to my Manheim Steamroller Christmas music channel on Pandora. Winston even helped lick some spatulas for me.  In drought-stricken Texas, us water conscious folks call that the pre-rinse cycle.

So, minus the gaps due to the crazy work travel schedule, I'm getting back in the kitchen, and online with more of Grandma's recipes. Some past adventures I'll catch up with include my pickling adventure and the applesauce cake.

Something Divine

I've been in the mood to cook/bake lately, but I keep talking myself out of it - kind of like exercising!  I've been on the road so much lately, that I've fallen into the old trap of not shopping.  Why buy something for two nights when I know I'm going to be gone for the next three?  Really, I just need to shop for a couple of days at most.  With the grocery store being on the other side of town (okay, so it's only a three minute drive, but STILL...), it's pretty easy to say, "But just one more episode of News Radio, then I'll go."

So, with a strong urge to make something, and pretty bare cupboards, I started to browse a couple of recipes. Then, inspiration struck, like something from the divine heavens above.  I'll make Divinity!

With a minimal ingredient list (yes, I did happen to have a bottle of Caro syrup on hand), I gathered the saints on my side and started boiling sugar, syrup and water.  While waiting for the mixture to boil, I made a quick call home to Mom.  Now Mom isn't a culinary genius, but she does have some good knowledge about "old" cooking basics.  So, rather than Googling, I "mom'ed" what exactly "cracking" meant.  Turns out my educated guess was right.

 

So, with eggs whites whipped, a boiling sugar mass added to it, I ended up with Divinity.  Yeah....it kind of turned out how I expected.  A white block of sugar.  I have NO idea why this was such a popular recipe, or why people even made it.  I'll take my milk chocolate fudge thank you very much.

So, now I have a block of pure sugar madness in my fridge.  I'll be honest, I'm a bit afraid to try it.  And, I don't have an office to pawn it off on.  And, I'm not about to subject myself to dog-on-crack, so nothing for Winston.  So, not sure what do with it...

The Best Cookies in the World

Okay, really, the best cookies in the world were made by Grandma.  A close second were the ones made by Joan, one of her caretakers.  But, considering that this is the first time I've ever made them, I did pretty okay!

Mr. Red (that's the new name for the KitchenAid) was a breeze at mixing all the good stuff together.  It's almost as if he's done this before (which I'm pretty sure there's been a batch or two made in him).

It all starts with creaming the butter, sugar (granulated and brown) and the teaspoon of vanilla.

Sugary goodness!

Then you start adding the flour, salt and baking soda a bit at a time.  While it's tempting to just dump it in all at once, you really need to take the time to do a bit at a time (plus, you get to do sampling to make sure you get the right consistency!).  Once the batter is just right, you add the chopped walnuts.

Now, I'm not a fan of nuts in my baked goods as a general rule.  But, Grandma was a sneaky one, a wily woman who knew how to get us grandkids to eat what she wanted us to eat.  After the walnuts, you add the special ingredient.  Now, anyone can just make chocolate chip cookies, but only Grandma made cookies with M&Ms!  And, you can't use any generic "chocolate bits"; it most definitely has to be M&Ms.

Sugary goodness with M&Ms.

Then using a handy tablespoon, you dollop the dough (after eating the dough off the beater) onto the cookie sheets and away you go.

Once you get the cookies in the oven, one of the most crucial steps the baking time.  The timing has to be just perfect.  You can't under cook them (because that's just gross) but you also can't overcook them.  Thirty seconds too long in the over will simply turn the cookies a shade too brown, and make them crispy.  The goal is to get that perfect level of "just cooked enough" similar to Chewy Chips Ahoy (but OOOOHHHH so much better).  Normally, you would know when they're done because you'd just start to smell baked cookies.  However, my oven is apparently a nice quality one that doesn't leak...which means it's harder to smell the deliciousness of baked cookie at the right moment.

And, once you have the cookies all baked (recipe makes about 3 dozen, depending on cookie size), you get to enjoy what's left in the bowl before clean-up.  And to truly finish the best cookies in the world, you bag 'em up and stick 'em in the freezer!

Awesomeness in a bag!

Frenchie Chicken

Okay, so I deviated from Grandma's recipes again, and opted for some chicken cordon bleu from Epicurious.com.  Seeing as I didn't have a deep fryer, I did the variation mentioned in the review.

Chicken cordon bleu was my favorite post-school snack when I was a kid.  If my mom was a baker, she could have saved hundreds of dollars by making these suckers at home.  Then again, maybe it was all the preservatives in those frozen versions that I was so hooked on?  And while I religiously ate those pre-packaged chicken delights, they eventually changed the recipe on them.  While I'm sure it was "for the better" I just never did have the same devotion to them after that change.  Photo

So, while pottering around over the weekend and contemplating my shopping list, I thought, "Well, just maybe H-E-B has a different brand that'll be like those old-time chicken cordon bleus I loved so much!"  And then it stuck me!  I have a whole package of chicken in the freezer.  Not only that, but gosh darnit, I'm a cook and baker now.  I can make chicken cordon bleu!  While I'm pretty sure I'm not going to find that recipe in Grandma's boxes, I figured it wouldn't hurt to see what I could find online.  Photo


So, after a quick run to the store to get ham and cheese (among other food for the week), I delved into making chicken cordon bleu.  Some things I learned:

Substituting thigh meat for breast meat shouldn't be done.  Sure, it's chicken, and it turned out just fine.  However, it made it a lot harder to make the "envelopes" that were needed.  Plus, thigh meat does taste differently than breast meat.

Make sure you pound it, and pound it good.  While trying to fold the chicken, I realized that, yeah, I should have spent more time pounding the chicken.  A) it makes the cooking time change; and B) it'll make it easier to fold the chicken when it's thinner and more evenly cut.

Get the right kind of ham.  H-E-B didn't have any uncooked ham in the deli section, and I didn't want to head to the meat section at that point.  So, I opted for some low sodium (go me on the health front!) deli ham.  It works, but it just reminds me that I don't like semi-slimy ham.  If I do get pre-cooked ham again, I'll try for something with a bit more flavor.

Don't be afraid of the bread crumbs.  I think this was my first time really breading anything.  It's a bit different than preparing monkey bread.  Next time, more egg coating and more crumbs!  Also, there may be something to that half hour of letting the crumbs set that I didn't do this time around.

The reviewer is a genius.  That whole bit about browning the pieces before baking...GENIUS!  A) it really gets the house smelling delicious; and B) I think it helped the bread crumbs crisp up nicely.

I ended up baking the dish for 30 minutes instead of the suggested 15 minutes.  I'm guessing that since I had a couple extra pieces (7 instead of the 4) it was needed.   The good news...I can definitely make this dish again, and it'll only improve each time!

Cooking for the Church

During the first weekend I was in Boerne, I wandered around Berges Fest (German-inspired festival) and introduced myself to the local chapter of the Knights of Columbus.  I also met a couple of the wives, one of whom invited me out to her family's celebration of an uncle's birthday the next day.

The gal and her husband are pretty involved with the Church, and during the course of conversation I mentioned that I have just gotten into cooking and baking.  Heidi mentioned that the Church hosts a coffee break between the morning Masses, and they're always looking for help.  I promptly signed up to do some baking for later in the month.

I started out thinking I was going to be super ambitious and try some home-made blueberry muffins.  By the time my scheduled Sunday rolled around, I toned things down and went with the first round of honey cookies.  

I tried a little experiment with the shapes of the cookies, and discovered that just putting dollops of cookie dough on the sheet do not make for good cookies (at least not with this recipe).  I did discover that everyone really loved the star shaped cookies.  The good news is, there were only about a dozen of the dollops left over (considering I made about 4 dozen cookies plus they had donuts, breads and cake to choose from, I'd say the cookies were successful)!

I'm thinking the next time I'm in town, I'll make those blueberry muffins, just to change things up!

An Old Tradition for a New House

There's an old tradition amongst housewives that the first thing one should bake in a new house is a loaf bread.  The saying goes that if you bake bread first your cupboards will never be empty.  (Credit goes to Jac Scrivner for teaching me this tradition.)

So, for the first time, I used my shiny red KitchenAid counter mixer.  While Grandma never actually used this herself (she was long past the cooking days when Susan bought it for her), it evokes memories of the old counter top mixer Grandma used to have.  M&M cookies were made using the mixer, and while I wasn't into cooking at all back then, Grandma did try her best to include me on the process.

I hadn't unpacked the recipe boxes yet, but I did have my trusty Mennonite cookbook unpacked.  After a thorough check of the ingredients, I headed to H-E-B (Texas supermarket chain) and did some hardcore grocery shopping.  Getting back, I busted into making my first yeast-based bread (I feel like banana bread is cheating now!).

 When starting the process at 7:30 p.m., this thing is amazing!  I'll be hard pressed to use my hand-held mixer anytime soon.  I am definitely in love with the speed and power of this thing!

I forgot to get pictures in between the mixing and the dough rising.  It was really fun punching the dough down.  I had to leave during the process, and may have let it rise a bit too long the first time around, but all in all, it did come out pretty okay.

I'm not sure if I needed a bigger bread pan, or really just needed to learn how to divide more evenly, but the bread came a bit misshapen.  I added a light coating of olive oil on top (because it sounded fun) and voila!

Note to self:  Learn how to shape the bread.

The bread actually was pretty tasty.  It was a bit on the salty side (made note next to recipe to cut the salt in half for next time).  Winston managed to get himself up high enough to eat the majority of the loaf in the white dish.   I still have the two loaves in the tin pans left (mainly because I had bought some sourdough bread and a loaf of really yummy bread with seeds and other stuff from the store).

While I did actually make this bread the week after I got to Boerne, I've just now gotten around to posting this up.  The good news:  my cupboards have yet to be bear!

The Non-Cooking Adventures

Yes, I realize it's July 5.  Yes, I realize I haven't posted anything since the chicken casserole dinner in March.  Yes, I've failed miserably of cooking something from the recipe boxes every week.  But, I have had some great adventures in between!

March was spent with some travels to Texas.  I had the opportunity to check out the southwest part of the state.  Highlight of the trip:  seeing my first armadillo roadkill!

Actually, this was from a second trip
out, since I missed the first guy.

I brought in April by heading to the Maxium Yield show in Denver, CO with Emily Walter.  While not as insane as the San Francisco show last year, there was still a good turnout.  Shout out to Humboldt Wholesale for an awesome industry party!

Can you tell it's a hydro show?

I flew straight to Boston for some sales training, and learned how to get from Point A to Point B.  And then I took the train to NYC to spend a few days with my sister.  If you make it out there any time soon, I HIGHLY recommend seeing "Avenue Q" off Broadway.  Wow!  I hadn't laughed so hard in ages!!

Some other highlights of the NYC trip included seeing the Statue of Liberty (from Liberty Park, tickets were pretty much sold out).  But, I did make it up to the top of the Empire State Building.

From NYC I head to Kansas City, MO for the annual NAMA convention.  While we didn't win any national awards this year, it was still a great trip.  I even managed to snag a free ride in a Hummer limo and had it all to myself!  That's good stuff right there.

After a brief visit home, I headed back to Texas for a couple more client visits and a little bit of house scouting.  I had a pretty good time, and really, one can't argue with field fresh watermelon:

Desperately trying not
to drip down my shirt!

Dennis W. enjoying a fresh slice.

May brought another trip out to Texas.  I snagged my great new house in Boerne, TX and I started wrapping things up at home.  

June brought about my going away shin-dig, in which I cleared out the freezer.  I cooked up my ducks,  pheasants and chukars, and served them up to everyone.  Despite the torrential downpour (WTH Mother Nature?!), I had a great time, and loved seeing everyone before the move.