5/15/16

Southern Fried Chicken, Take 2. My first attempt at this was sort of a disaster. In case you haven’t read it, here’s a summary: the entire entry was a complaint about too much salt. In fact, even 1/4 cup of salt, which was the new number I set after that debacle (which contained 1 cup), was too high. My mom advised “a pinch”, but ended up adding more to it. I’m not sure how much it was exactly, but my guess is maybe 1/8 cup?

So how’s it looking today? Okay, again it looks good. I’d apparently added too much hot sauce this time, which is weird because I thought I added a buttload of it last time. In fact, I was positive that the amount I used this time was half of how much I used last time. Although maybe you couldn’t taste it last time because the salt completely overshadowed it.

The mashed potatoes weren’t mashed very well this time, because I took them out too early. I should’ve taken that recipe’s tip seriously: it’s better to overcook than under. It really is. I mean, I suppose it’s still possible to completely mash it when it’s undercooked…it’s just time-consuming and a lot harder. Literally.

I added garlic salt to the potatoes after I mashed them (close enough). Or was it just garlic powder? I think I used garlic powder, but meant to use garlic salt. I learned that those two go well together on a camping trip. We used instant mashed potatoes–the ones that spread out when you just add water. I forgot where the garlic powder came from in the camping world, but it was magnificent.

Anyways, at least the chicken skin was edible this time, and I survived further in the chicken-cutting process than I did last time. Mom still had to finish it off though.

How do you fry chicken without burning it though? The recipe says to wait until it is golden brown, if you don’t have a meat thermometer. If you do, you’re supposed to wait till it gets to 165°F. I just feel like most of the time, I’m just waiting on the thermometer though. Then, I end up slightly burning the other pieces because I’m waiting on the one piece that’s so close to 165°. Advice? Anyone?

Again, Mom made the green beans. I was too focused on the chicken and potatoes.

I got burned this time while frying. It was while I was clearing up the oil for the final batch of chicken (I couldn’t fit all the pieces into one pot). I didn’t see how close my finger got to the rim of the pan and…presto. As if lightning had touched the bone, I let out a silent “ow” and threw my hand back, away from the stove. It wasn’t serious. Like, at all. I just put some aloe on it. The only mark it made was this pink line. My first cooking injury, I suppose? Although it’s not really an injury, is it?

Oh, and apparently, you shouldn’t add water to the oil that you’re boiling while frying. Since water and oil don’t mix well (literally, at all), it’s the water that keeps popping and attacking your skin. I don’t know exactly, but that’s what my mom said. It sort of makes sense. Last time, I didn’t have a big issue with that, but today, I accidentally dropped the tongs so I just rinsed them off with water and then returned to the pot, but she stopped me and said I had to dry it off first. As annoyed as I was, she was right. (Aren’t they always?)

The chicken skin wasn’t quite what you’d see at a restaurant. You can’t peel it off easily, but now that I think about it, I took off the raw fat as I was separating all the pieces. Is that what makes the skin slide off after you cook it? If so, I’ll keep it on next time and maybe I’ll get it right. Third time’s a charm. Hopefully.

But now that I have an idea of how to make fried chicken, I think I can focus now on trying to turn it into the Fried Chicken Dinner from Sweet T’s. It might take a while. Or I may just have to get a job there and simply ask for the recipe. But I’ll get there. It’s on my bucket list.

5/14/16

I should create a culinary bucket list. They’ll probably start out with simple tasks such as “I want to make the perfect pancakes” or “I would like to successfully crack an egg one-handed”. As I start checking them off, I could always create more challenges for myself and they could get more difficult as I go along.

Seriously though. I was watching the episode of Grey’s Anatomy where Teddy Altman (Kim Raver) advises her cardiothoracic surgical resident Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh) to create a bucket list of cardio surgeries she’d like to do. Then, Altman could try her best to find those patients and give them to her.

You probably realize by now that this could also apply to any other career path, not just medicine and cooking. That’s why, if you’re able to, I’d suggest you do the same with whatever you do in life. If we don’t have those goals to push for, we don’t have the motivation to get us there. We’re just…doing work. There’s nothing to build up towards.

Anyways, I actually did cook something today: breakfast. I wanted to make scrambled eggs. Looking at the photo, you can tell I still need help with it, but the recipe I found was called, “Perfect Scrambled Eggs“. Well, I followed the recipe exactly and it still needed more, which got me thinking, How differently are our standards of perfection?

Okay, I may have lied. This image is from the second attempt this morning: the first one really did follow the recipe. This second batch was for my mom and I decided to add the ham later. For this, I figured one slice of the leftover Oscar Mayer ham was enough. It was tough to determine when it was time to scramble though. You can sort of see it’s slightly burnt.

In my personal opinion, these scrambled eggs were bland. I felt like it needed more than just salt. Ketchup? Hot sauce? I don’t know. Just something to give it more flavor.

5/13/16

In celebration of my brother getting into medical school, I made a cheesecake–or rather, my mother suggested it and got the ingredients for me. For the record, he has made it before and it actually did look and taste like an actual cheesecake, which is why I think my mom wanted me to make that specifically. What that also means is that he’d naturally compare mine to his, so there’s that pressure point.

Looking at the recipe, I’m proud to say that I have finally completed a dish that The Food Network itself has claimed “Intermediate”. I’m not quite sure what determines difficulty level. I mean, it’s The Food Network, so obviously they have high standards, which means they know what they’re talking about. Picturing myself going through each step and then actually doing it, I found it to be easier than most of the recipes I’ve done in the past.

Obviously, cheesecake was for dessert. Dinner was nothing special. Just the usual chicken salad. Only this time, instead of strawberries, I added an orange. It wasn’t really by choice though; mostly because we don’t really eat oranges, but the recipe for the cheesecake included orange zest. That’s why my mom told me to buy just one single orange from the store.

So I assume we all know what a classic cheesecake looks like, but here’s an image anyway:  Why? I noticed that this particular recipe includes a topping, which I thought was weird because usually, the cheesecake is just the cake part and the crust. In this case, I actually noticed there’s a whiter layer on top, which I thought was part of a typical cheesecake. Why shouldn’t I? It’s literally called “Classic Cheesecake“.

Here’s mine: 

1. Trying to mix the solids with the butter, I expected it to be more…moist. That’s why I used a mini whisk. Didn’t really work. I ended up just mixing it up with a spoon like I would Korean bowl dishes with rice (i.e. sashimi bowl, a.k.a. my personal favorite).
2. This is the second time I’ve used the 9-inch springform pan. The first was my mother’s red velvet birthday cake.
3. Spreading out the graham cracker crust was actually pretty fun. I have no clue why. Just was. I used the same spoon I used to mix, to flatten the crumbly layer.
4. I baked for 15 minutes and just assumed it was a good shade of golden brown.
5. You know, when my brother first told me how making the cheesecake was, he mentioned that there was so much cream cheese involved. I’d forgotten, but went ahead with it anyway. Two pounds equals 32 oz. That means four 8-oz. sticks.
6. I didn’t do as much ingredient prep as I’ve advised to, but it didn’t really matter. The recipe wasn’t time sensitive, so I took my time measuring and adding ingredients.
7. Still on the mixer step, one thing I forgot to use the scraper to make sure I got all the cream cheese stuck on the sides that the beaters couldn’t reach. I don’t think it was that big a deal though. I realized it sooner than later, so I managed to mix it with the rest of the cheesy “batter”. Looking at it though, I think it was still in clumps, which isn’t very cheesecake-like.
8. When we first read the step about the boiling water, my mom had never heard of that when making a cheesecake. The recipe she uses didn’t mention it yet she always found that the ones she makes always break apart. We agreed that the boiling water was probably a key factor in keeping it together, but later, it says, “[The topping, I assume] minimizes the risk of the dreaded crack in your cheesecake.” I don’t know, maybe that’s just the outside of the cake instead of the entirety.
9. That being said, I don’t think the topping was absolutely necessary. Before that, it at least looked perfectly fine. Next time, I’ll skip that step. And besides, the cake had way too much sugar and I think the topping was a factor in that.
10. Speaking of an excess amount of sugar, according to my mom, you don’t have to substitute sugar if you plan on using less of it. If you want to reduce the amount of sugar, just do it. That being said, I think I’ll cut it down to 75% and see where that goes. Looking at the recipe, I might have to figure out 3/4 of 1 1/4 cups… I don’t math very well, but I think I get fractions: 3/4 times 5/4? Right, since “of” means to multiply? 15/16, which reduces to… Nope, I don’t want to do that. Never mind. I can’t math.
11. Because I started this entire process at 2PM and my brother arrived at around 8PM, I knew that I wasn’t going to refrigerate it for “at least 8 hours” as the recipe wanted. As expected, when we ate it, it was lukewarm.

Next time, I want to add fruit. My mom went to the store and bought strawberries, blueberries, grapes, different fruits that could work with a cheesecake (I’m questioning the grapes though). I think I’ll go with strawberries next time, just because it’s already a common addition to the dessert. I might need strawberry syrup to go along with it though.

This experience wasn’t too bad. I’d recommend this to a friend (therefore I recommend it to you). As usual, my biggest piece of advice is to always plan ahead. I didn’t get enough of a heads up in order to do this perfectly, but that doesn’t matter. There’s half of that cheesecake left in the fridge and tomorrow, I’m finishing my slice for breakfast. Because I am turning 23 in three days. So I can do whatever I want. Don’t judge. I’m adult.

5/11/16

Our family’s favorite meal is from a place called Sweet T’s. Every time we order takeout, we eat the same thing: Fried Chicken Dinner with mashed potatoes and fried vegetables on the side. Today, I wanted to make exactly that, in case I didn’t have to drive all the way there. (They don’t even get cell reception. I mean, what kind of savages live that way? I’m kidding. Sometimes, it’s good to unplug for a couple hours.)

This is the Fried Chicken Dinner, which is what I tried to replicate. I used Paula Deen’s recipe for Southern Fried Chicken, which was easy to follow. Just not easy to eat, which is sort of the most important step of the meal.

Paula Deen, who- or whatever told you that one cup of salt was good enough for the very first layer of this chicken was DEAD WRONG. That is too much salt, even for all those pieces of chicken, and the smallest chicken I could find weighed double what you said to get. Not only that, but when I added the salt, I didn’t even use an entire cup. I used what was left of the kosher salt we had, which took up about 75% of the measuring cup. As a matter of fact, my parents and I opted to take off the crust and just eat the chicken.

One of the biggest reasons why I even chose this particular recipe was because, not only was it simple to make, but it got five stars with 881 reviews. (Well, by the time I’m through with her, 882 reviews.) I didn’t read through all of them, but almost every single review on the first page had five stars. Every one except the one star that complained about the salt. I suppose I should’ve taken that as a hint, so that’s the biggest lesson I learned tonight: if there are reviews available for the recipe you are using, do your research and READ. THEM. ALL. While you are one person, and your taste buds and opinions differ from everyone else’s, chances are you’ll still find someone who has similar tastes. Find them and then cry together about the horrors of the salty fried chicken. (Just not over the chicken. There’s enough salt as it is.)

As far as those five-star reviewers go, my mom says that they probably knew just by looking at the ingredients that one cup didn’t seem right, so they made the appropriate reductions for a more successful outcome. That’s probably what I should’ve done: once I saw how much salt was in the bowl, I thought, Is she sure this is right? It does seem extreme. Oh well. It’s only one layer of salt. Plus, it’s Paula Deen. She’s famous. Yeah, fame doesn’t matter. I’m never trusting you again, Paula Deen. You use your abundance of salt to shield you from the demons who told you that one cup was a safe amount to coat the first layer of your chicken with. (I’ve been binge-watching Supernatural so when I think of salt, I think “demons”.)

Except that’s all part of cooking, isn’t it? Experimentation? See what works and what doesn’t? As I said in this post, it’s hardly ever going to be perfect the first time you try a recipe. For example, I learned that what doesn’t work is putting that much salt (or faith, apparently) into Paula Deen’s Southern Fried Chicken.

I think I can see where she thought we needed that much salt though: because it’s used to coat the chicken. Except salt isn’t the only part of that mixture. There’s also pepper and garlic powder, so why not just have more of one of those ingredients? I’m going to try adding more garlic powder next time because I didn’t taste any of it, and I’m pretty sure I would’ve rather tasted a little more garlic if it meant having a little less salt.

I suppose now is the time for the usual List of Thoughts during this painfully…briny process:

1. Mashed potatoes were first because they were easiest, I’d already made them once before, and I could keep them stored in a warm place. I mean…I didn’t…but I could have.
2. Holy crap, I have to take apart the entire chicken myself? Here’s the guide I used that wasn’t completely helpful to me: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Cut-a-Chicken/
3. Never mind, got Mommy to help. And she taught me how to use a meat cleaver! Sort of. She took over after I couldn’t quite get it. Guess she was too afraid I’d accidentally chop off a finger. I wanted to use it like a hatchet though, you know? Swinging it from above my head, but then I was too afraid that I’d miss. How do people line that up so perfectly? Just by practicing? Ain’t nobody got time for that. Actually, unless you’re heading into a career of culinary arts…I think practice is all you’ve got time for.
4. I felt as if setting aside the mixtures of ingredients in separate bowls was easier for some reason. I think it was because it was nice not having to worry about using the entire thing to cook with. Instead, they were set out the way a factory would organize each station: “Quick. 1, 2, 3. Done. 1, 2, 3. Done. Easy.”
5. “Add enough hot sauce so the egg mixture is bright orange.” I sort of had a problem with this step. Your bright orange is different from my bright orange, Paula. Plus, there are still many different shades of bright orange. Should it be more yellow or orangy? What if I add too much red? Just add another egg? Am I overthinking this? Perhaps. But am I wrong? I hope not.
6. I initially thought I had a good system going when I was dunking the chicken into each bowl: drop, drown, flip, drown. Then, it became: drop, flip, flip. After that, I just said, “Screw it. Drown the entire piece.”
7. Stupid question: what is dark meat?
8. I also looked up tips on how to fry chicken and I found it pretty resourceful: http://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/common-mistakes/article/fried-chicken-common-mistakes
9. Actually frying the stuff, I was surprised didn’t burn me as much as it typically takes me to fry vegetables. Although in the middle of it, there was this huge bomb that detonated at the center of the pan and honestly, I had to pause for a minute because I was in shock.
10. I was also a little concerned with the skin during the frying process. I know that whenever they are professionally made, they rarely have skin peeling off, and I was wondering how they do that. If they screw it up, do they somehow fix it? You see the one at the top left corner? The skin peeled off just a little a bit from the tongs. Yeah, how would I fix that? Just leave it as is? Use a bandaid? What?
11. Toward the last half hour of my cooking time, I ended up handing the green bean duties to my mom since I was still dunking the raw meat at that point. It wasn’t a huge deal since she already has her own recipe for making them anyway. I literally just told her to make it her way, which isn’t that far from the one I use (which is technically Rachael Ray’s recipe).

So what have we learned today, class? Don’t trust the chef as much as you think; if you can, rely on the reviewers, because there’s bound to be someone online who shares similar feelings with you. I read the one-star review, which was the only complaint I read, about the salt and I couldn’t help but think, “Dude, I’m with you 100%. I totally get how you feel. How we’re the only ones on the first page of the review results who feel this way, I don’t know, but good for you!”

In case you wanted to see how everything turned out: Of course, it looks better than it tastes. Trust me. But that was dinner. Although he hated how salty it was, I think my dad ate the most chicken. Then again, it probably seemed that way because he fed it to the dogs too. His, anyway. (That’s why that Chihuahua so fat, but I have more self-control. And like Joey Tribbiani says, “Joey doesn’t share food!” Except it’s my name obviously, not “Joey”.)

I’m going to try this again, but with 1/4 cup of salt. Instead, I’ll use more garlic powder in the house seasoning. See where that gets me.

And as I was making the mashed potatoes, I couldn’t help but think of the “Mother’s Day” episode of Blue Bloods. Obviously, that’s one of my biggest TV obsessions–and you, Jamie Reagan (Will Estes), are not helping–as of October 21st. (Yes, I memorized the date because what attracted me first was Will’s birthday shared with my Broadway husband, Aaron Tveit.)

Anyways, I think of that one dinner scene because the niece, Nicky, got to make “the world-famous Frank Reagan Mother’s Day Mash. I don’t know, I just liked that she got to help out with Mother’s Day dinner, I guess. Oh, how do I remember this episode? I may have bought it on iTunes because of the fight that Jamie gets into with his older brother…

5/9/16

Writing this amateur chef’s blog, you can probably tell it’s similar to the film based on a true story, “Julie & Julia”. Although it has been out for seven years now, I can tell you the premise to save you from researching yourself: a woman who makes a living off of talking to survivors or family members of those lost on 9/11 in her cubicle leans toward cooking for the sake of her blog, which she started to maintain her sanity. Her goal is to go through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 365 days, just so she can finish something important in her life. If you’ve seen this film, you probably understand the similarities between this woman and myself, only I’m not setting any limits to myself. I’m just making what I want, when I want.

Well today, I finally made something by Julia Child. Sort of. I still think I did it wrong. See for yourself: 

It’s just the sauce, but how does it look? I used a fruit blender instead of a food processor and, somehow I think that’s why it looked like a smoothie…or is it supposed to look like that? The texture didn’t worry me so much as the color. It was so…pink…like watermelon smoothie. Well, because of this, I was especially irritated yesterday while making dinner. I just felt like nothing was going right, so while the sauce simmered for an hour, I went to the grocery store to buy backup sauce, but I obviously didn’t end up using it.

The spaghetti is a separate recipe and that didn’t go so perfectly either. I think it was stress, which is weird because I’ve made spaghetti before. Not these exact recipes, but they’re not too different from what I’ve worked with. There’s not much that you can do to spaghetti to ruin it. Except leave it undercooked. The recipe said to stop boiling when the noodles are almost ready, but not quite (still chalky in the middle). I figured, we’ll just go along with that since it’ll still cook with the oil. I tried. I really did. In fact, the highlight of this whole experience was using a pair of tongs to mix the noodles. I think of it as flipping them so the oil and vegetables could imbed themselves into the spaghetti.

This dish was supposed to go with artichokes, which my parents really want me to make because they want to learn how to eat it? I was too frustrated just by the pasta, so I’m like, “No. Artichokes aren’t happening tonight. Deal with it.”

The sauce was also the first time I’d used a “bouquet” of greens. It was supposed to stay in the pot with the sauce so I guess it was supposed to be a like filter or a teabag. Just add all the vegetables into the filter and tie up both ends and just…throw it in?

Instead of orange peel, I went with lemon zest.

By the end, it just wasn’t right. I don’t know what it was, but there were a lot of things off with it. Maybe I’ll try again when I gain more experience. I guess I just wasn’t ready for you, Julia.

5/7/16

PANCAAAAAAAKES!!!!!

I’d already made them before in home ec, back in middle school, but I didn’t think it’d be that…oh, what’s a better word for “intermediate”? HARD! I mean, they’re easy, but once you start cooking, that’s when crap goes down. I remembered that when the bubbles form on top of the batter while the first side is cooking, it means it’s ready to flip, but instead, the outside bubbled and by the time that happened, the edges were already slightly burned. I had to go against everything I had previously learned and make do with what I had to do.

As far as substitutions go, I didn’t do much except use cinnamon instead of nutmeg. I don’t know why, but when I see the word “nutmeg”, I see “cinnamon”. I figured, Hey, why not substitute it then? I still don’t know what nutmeg is for sure, but if it’s anything like cinnamon, yum… Cinnamon pancakes? Heavenly.

Also, the ingredients specifically say that the eggs and milk have to be “at room temperature”. Why does that matter? Is it bad if it’s cold? Is it some chemical thing?

 

5/6/16

So there’s a culinary institute here and, based on what the students and alumni say, it’s a decent school and the job prospects afterwards are really good. That’s why I’m going to try to get into that school (although it’s a community college so there’s not really much to be unqualified for–I graduated from a university). While doing some more background research on this school, I saw that they had posted several recipes. I don’t know if they are originals or variations, but they say that those dishes are the ones that show up during class from time to time.

Naturally, I decided to try one, because might as well see what I’m up against, and get a head start on some of the lessons. I went through all of the recipes and decided that the Cheese-Stuffed Chicken Breasts were the easiest to start with. By “easiest”, I mean with the simplest ingredients to access and manageable instructions to work with.

I learned something valuable that probably ruined my risotto, since it was so full of greens: fresh parsley is NOT the same as dried parsley. The mistake wasn’t even thinking that I could substitute it because cooking it would somehow make it fresher because that’s totally the opposite of dried, as we’ve all learned in kindergarten; my thought process included the fact that it was still parsley. That’s it.

Okay, time to list my thoughts while making this actually-pretty-decent dish:

1. Why are there so many greens involved in cooking? What’s “marjoram”? Does anyone else think of Harry Potter’s Aunt Marge when they read that?
2. I don’t know what they mean by “flatten chicken breasts”. I mean, I do, but with what? A meat hammer? I just used my fingers to spread it out.
3. It doesn’t say to do this, but I had to slice down the long side of each breast in order to fit the butter mixture and cheese. Just hoped that I wouldn’t actually cut through the poor thing. (I felt like a surgeon, being a Grey’s Anatomy fan and whatnot.) But no: the other side was still very much intact.
4. Also, I wasn’t completely sure what they meant by “cut cheese into 1/2 oz. strips”. I mean, how do you weigh a slice of cheese? So instead, I cut the square slices in half and rolled those up.
5. I thought it was going to be a struggle to keep the cheese inside the folds, especially with the butter, but it was actually sort of fun. I just made sure to keep the stuffed side down when I was done with them, hoping that gravity wouldn’t go against me and let the butter bleed through. I actually considered using pins, but I didn’t think I had something small enough to use on them. We have long wooden pins, but those are for measuring bread to see if they’ve been baked through.
6. How do you administer bread crumbs evenly around a piece of raw meat? The beginning was fine. But as I kept going, it got harder to avoid clumps, even as I washed my hands between each piece.
7. Okay, so the recipe specifically says to bake for 30 minutes, basting occasionally. What I did was bake for ten minutes, three times, so I could baste in-between. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s why this took so damn long to make. My parents got a bit impatient so they wanted a salad appetizer first, which I made during these ten-minute increments. Fortunately, I’m getting much better at salads, so staring at the recipe didn’t hold me back; it’s just picking ingredients and chopping.
8. And, uh…I don’t know–is this normal? Comment if you see it. Just for fun.
9. I had to cut all the ingredients in half, but ended up having to create another batch of the butter mixture. It didn’t take much to make it. I mean, it was just butter and wine (I didn’t add the extra greens). I didn’t use a measuring cup this time, because it was the rest of the wine, so I figured, whatever. It’s just for basting.

Ladies and gents, the final product:

I thought the chicken was lonely so decided to add white rice. It’s weird, right? But I’m still trying to learn the ropes in this adventure, so bear with me here.

Before I officially sign off, something hilarious happened at dinner: my dad thought his chicken was defective and that I’d forgotten that cheese center. He was more than halfway through the chicken breast and he still didn’t cross paths with the cheese. I absolutely knew that I put cheese in all three pieces, so it was there. Then, he gave me one last chance: “Okay, I’m about to cut off another piece. If this one doesn’t have any cheese, I’m done eating it. Got it?”

I said go ahead and as soon as he cuts it off, guess what we find at the center of that piece. It was like a Cinnabon that aliens had abducted and conducted shrinking experiments on! So adorable! 

I mean, look at it! Okay, it doesn’t look like a Cinnabon, but his did.

Anyways, give this recipe a shot, but make sure you find some sides that go along with it. Salads, fried vegetables, mashed potatoes, whatever you want.

 

5/5/16

Happy Cinco de Mayo! For this holiday, I…didn’t cook anything Mexican. Sorry, mijos. Instead, I wanted cook something with ingredients we already had at home, which was why, for this dish, I had to substitute chicken for Italian sausage. (Because of the salads, we already had lots of chicken in the freezer.)

This dish is called “Sausage, Peppers, and Onions” and it’s from The Blue Bloods Cookbook, written by Blue Bloods actress Bridget Moynahan and the wife of their executive producer, Wendy Howard Goldberg. I’m not sure of I can call it that though since I used a lot of substitutions. If I had used sausage, it would’ve looked a bit like this: 

…Supposedly. Instead, I ended up with this:

“Why so dark”, you ask? Because I hesitated. And, since I divided all the ingredients by half, I didn’t think to set the heat to low either. I mean, is that something you have to do, when you’re reducing the amount of food? You’d think I’d figure this out by now, having cut almost everything I make down to half.

WHAT AM I DOING WRONG, @bridgetmoynahan (I’m seeing if that works when I publish this on Twitter)?! Besides using chicken instead of sausage. And red onion instead of yellow. And super sweet mini peppers instead of actual bell peppers. And white wine instead of red (although I wasn’t sure if it absolutely had to be dry). And, if it had to be that specific, avocado oil instead of extra-virgin olive oil.

So here were my thoughts as I was cooking (and I wrote them all down as I went along this time!):

1. Do I flip the meat as it’s cooking in the oven?
2. How do I cook frozen chicken if I’m substituting that for sausage links? I think I answered my question though. I took a photo of the chicken after it was all cooked and sliced: Pretty decent? I followed the amount of time it would’ve taken to properly cook the sausage. I know the recipe specifically said that it had to brown, but I was going to cook it in the pan anyway. Why not ketchup then? (Lol get it? “Catch up”? I know: “Focus on the cooking, Ginny. Leave the puns to the professional comedy writers.)
3. Thoughts while cutting onions: WHY ISN’T THERE AN OFFICIAL PART OF CHEF’S GEAR THAT PROTECTS THE EYES?! Also, do people waste time dividing each layer of the slice, or do they just throw it all in? I also answered this question during the cooking process: no, they don’t. It is a huge waste of time trying to separate each piece of onion, since they’ll come apart while you’re mixing anyway.
4. MAJOR IMPORTANT TIP that my mom told me about, since I was looking for the meat thermometer the other day: you can actually check the temperature of the meat while it’s cooking in the oven. The thermometer is attached to something you can hook into your oven (like a jack on your earbuds). Then, the temperature shows up on your oven screen. I didn’t get to use it today since the cookbook didn’t give me a specific number, but next time I use the oven to cook meat. For sure. #TheMoreYouKnow
5. Is there supposed to be a greater vegetable-to-meat ratio? My mom didn’t like that there was more chicken–which were two breasts that I cooked, but ended up using just one, so we’re giving the rest to our dogs–than veggies.
6. I also laid out all my ingredients again! Look how pretty! (I think I said that last time too.) Organized in the order I needed them.
7. The only reason why the vegetables are so dark is because I hesitated. Don’t get me wrong: it would’ve been worse if I hadn’t set up all the ingredients beforehand, but because I cut everything down to half, I had to constantly stare at my computer screen, wondering how much “a half” was for each ingredient. Sometimes, I would’ve used one measuring spoon multiple times for a single ingredient and then used the exact same one just once for the next. I wanted to get that right, with hopes that I wasn’t using too much heat.
8. I mean, is that a factor though? When you’re reducing all your ingredients, what else matters? Time? Temperature? WHAT DO I NEED TO DO?! HOW CAN I FIX THIS?!

Well, I think that’s about it for today! Again, I would like to thank Bridget Moynahan and Wendy Howard Goldberg for this recipe in their book, The Blue Bloods Cookbook. If you’re interested, I made some other dishes based on their recipes so please read about The Pitch-Perfect Pizza and the table of temperatures I used for my personalized steak recipe.

I lied. There’s one other thing: because the chicken was frozen, I initially tried microwaving it on “defrost”. Twice, because to them, it takes 1:30 minutes for that. Instead, I boiled water and set the breasts in there. Not boiling, but letting them sit there. It turns out that even doing that can cause the chicken to cook a little bit. The outside was white, but the inside still very raw, and a little piece had broken off, so I gave it to my dog. It was that well done. So instead, I reset the water and let the meat sit there till I was finished prepping the vegetables. Once they were ready (I actually felt up those breasts this time 😏), I started the cooking process with the oven. 

There. NOW I’m done.

5/3/16

No cooking plans for today, but I made a big decision that is still related to cooking: I decided to go to culinary school! I’m still working out the kinks, but there’s an amazing local program here and, from what I’ve read, it takes two years. I know that defeats the purpose of having this amateur chef’s blog, but until I actually graduate and get a job as a professional chef (which might happen even further into the future), I’m still just a wannabe.

I wasn’t going to officially cook today, but I did get a new idea just now (and since I technically did make it myself, I suppose that counts as cooking). I’m drinking hot cocoa and I added a candy cane just for kicks. I have a huge “Frozen” 20-oz. mug, so I have to add, like, four spoonfuls of cocoa powder. (These spoonfuls are mountains–since I got the Swiss Miss in a jar, although it’s more of a tiny bucket–which I’m telling myself equal 1/2 a regular packet, but who am I kidding? I’m piling it up.) Then, I keep the candy cane hooked onto the rim so the bottom half can melt into the hot cocoa.

It’s really delicious when you do it this way. I mean, I know that hot cocoa is already sensational as it is, but add some mint to that? It’s just heavenly. Some of you may already do this, so in that case, keep whatever it is you do. However, if there are people out there who haven’t experienced this delightful taste, I suggest this way to them. Now, you may have to stir it once in a while, but let’s face it: for hot cocoa, it’s part of the fun.

And the mint sort of hits you more toward the end, but it should be fine as long as you just keep stirring. That way, the remnants of the cane can spread out evenly. Calorific? Perhaps. But ABSOLUTELY GLORIOUS? Definitely.

As you can see, I placed the candy cane on the other side of the handle so when I drink the cocoa, it won’t get in my way. Just make sure to pick it up once in a while to mix it around.

Or else something like this happens lol…

Another thought just occurred to me: we have hot coffee and during summertime, we get iced coffee. What about cocoa? Do we sometimes order iced cocoa or is that too gross? I mean, we get chocolate milk, so I suppose that’s the total opposite. But has anyone considered the iced cocoa thing?

If you think you can’t tolerate that much sugar, definitely cut it down to your liking. If it’s too sweet, that could ruin the entire drink for you, and a lot of times, the first impression is the one that sticks. If it’s too sweet the first taste, add more hot water to dull down the sugar.

5/2/16

I wanted to replicate one of my favorite side dishes from Olive Garden: the Chicken Gnocchi Veronese. For those of you who’ve never seen it, it looks like this: Looks good, right?

Here’s mine: I mean, it’s sort of close, right? I don’t know why it’s brown, but I think it’s from the fact that I overcooked the vegetables a little bit.

The thing is, I didn’t plan ahead on the timing (a very common mistake I make, you’ve probably learned). We had dinner at 7:30, but I got a little nervous when I saw I had to marinade the chicken for two hours and just added an extra two hours in to my prep, so I started at 2:00, just to be safe. So it ended up looking all dry and lumpy. It was okay though. I think I instinctively knew that more milk would fix the issue. That, or when I added the milk to begin with, I was guessing because I was using it as a substitution for heavy cream.

It still definitely would have been fresher if I had waited till approximately an hour before dinner was officially served. We waited till my sister and father came home, and they arrived within minutes of each other. The meal was delicious, but there was still at least an hour where the food that was freshly prepared just stood there. In hindsight, since the directions say to marinade the chicken for “at least two hours”, I think I should’ve extended the wait period to one hour before dinner.

The final product was bearable though. It tasted the same as the soup you would find in the restaurant, just don’t ask me to work there quite yet. As you can see, my culinary prowess is not ready for their standards, no matter how illegitimately Italian they are. When I tasted it though, it felt…lumpy…but I think that was from the ricotta cheese. Although that’s from the original recipe, so I don’t understand that.

Although, as I mentioned before, I substituted the heavy cream with milk and butter, which is what I read on a cooking site. I was too lazy to measure how much I might need in order to get the full effect of the heavy cream, hence my guess that I would need more milk in order to make the soup more…soupy. The website specifically said that the butter would not mix well with the milk. Maybe the butter was the issue.

Since we still had those colorful mini peppers, I used four of those to make up one red bell pepper. I didn’t cut them the long way to at least make it seem like I used bell peppers, but I doubt it really mattered.

I had no idea what rosemary branches were before today, but they had them at Safeway. I thought I would have to chop them up or just mix them in the soup. They were only used in the marinading process. That’s it.

Speaking of marinading the chicken, because I also typically add the chicken to the salad, I opted to use it for the soup instead. I mean, I already bought the rosemary branches and I didn’t want to not take advantage of them or else it defeats the purpose of purchasing them. So for the sake of making use of them, I chose the soup.

I also substituted half a red onion for the Vidalia onion and I think I only used two chicken breasts instead of four. Two just seemed like plenty. I did slice them in half the long way so there: four breasts. Or was that correct? Did that just backfire on me?

Olive Garden (which I was surprised they posted all their recipes, because don’t they just want customers to go to their place of business when they’re craving something?) added directions on how to make gnocchi too. All that is in the link that I just posted on this entry, as a side note.

When I added the marinated chicken slices, I was wondering what I should’ve done with the lemon juice. I ended up not using it, only placing the chicken pieces inside the pot.

As for the gnocchi, once they were ready (it’s always fun how they just float to the top once they’re done–like “Peekaboo! I’m ready for you!”), I was worried about placing them inside the boiling water because of the splash. I’d had that experience before while making the tomato bisque and pasta. What I ended up doing was very brilliant that I wish I’d thought of it before: use a draining spoon. That way, I could add a handful onto the spoon and then gently place it into the water. Then, once it’s done, use the same spoon to pick up the pieces and drain at the exact same time and then just place them into the pot with the soup!

Oh, and also: Four servings, my ass. These are leftovers after four mouths were fed. I don’t mean to be cynical here, but is this why America has an obesity problem? Our portions are too big? Please tell me it’s just my almost one-year-old cooking brain misreading something here.

Maybe I just thought that one serving was always so little (because when I actually cared about my calories, I found that was my biggest problem), and ended up giving everyone less than one serving. After all, this is supposed to be a meal. Wait, no, this is a side. Although I suppose it could still be the entire meal. The actual meal here was the usual salad, which admittedly there was less of, because of the soup, but I still used just one head of lettuce for the four of us.

Here is everything I had for dinner tonight: To quote my sister as soon as she saw this spread, “Ooh…fancy.”

Oh, damn it, I forgot the egg again! Tomorrow. Somebody remind me tomorrow…

P.S. The funny thing about the gnocchi is that it’s the only reason why I wanted to make that soup in the first place–because I wanted to make the gnocchi–and yet I still bought it from the grocery store!