8/18/16

I attempted a double today. Since it was just me, I woke up with lunch as my first meal (I wake up late), which was leftover chicken. I made fresh rice to complement it, but that’s nothing new. Growing up in a completely Asian family, you learn how to do it when you’re young.

Okay, so I didn’t technically wake up at noon; I just got out of bed then. I suppose I woke up at around 9AM? 10AM? Off to a good start, for someone who’s about to start school at 7:30 in the morning, eh?

What I tend to do is flip through my phone, first thing in the morning. Today, I was going through the short cooking videos on Facebook. I went to my usual pages: Tasty, Proper Tasty, Nourish by Tastemade, Food Envy, etc. I even went to the Tasty iPhone app, which isn’t as good, but they have…a lot of recipes, and I only say “a lot” because you can tell that there’s more. I know that I had just visited their Facebook page, but I only went because I figured there was probably an old recipe in my Favorites column in case I felt like trying it out now.

Since it was just going to be me and I have no job and school starts on Monday (I’ll tell you about that next time!), I spent my entire Thursday looking for recipes for dinner and dessert. For dinner, I wanted to go with Proper Tasty’s “Pull-Apart Cheesy Pesto Bread“. I know it’s probably an appetizer or a side, but it was just me and I wanted to try it! Plus, I LOVE PESTO!!!

Then for dessert, I finally wanted to try that Oreo cream puff that I’d seen once before, but forgot if I ever shared the link, so I shared it on Facebook again just in case I missed it or was just too lazy to scroll down. I found it on the Tasty app though: Cookies & Cream Puffs. Oh, and when they list Oreos in the ingredients, they just call it “Chocolate Sandwich Cookies”. When I wrote down the recipe so I could do my usual highlighting of ingredients I can combine during prep, I literally said, “chocolate sandwich cookies (Oreos…they’re called Oreos).” I know they probably couldn’t say it for legal purposes, but just thought a little sass would get you laughing!

I wanted to focus on the dessert first, so I could chill it and it’d be ready by the time I finished dinner. That was a pretty good plan, I think. I went to the grocery store and got everything I needed for both recipes. Well, almost. We ran out of cornstarch, so I knew I had to get it today. Except right when I got to the car, I realized I’d forgotten it. Now, I definitely could have waltzed right back into the store to grab it, but it was sort of too much trouble.

You see, at the entrance, there are always people asking for money for certain things, like charity, a children’s sports team, raising awareness for something. Not the beggars though; they camp out at the perpendicular entrance of the entire shopping complex. Today, it was a couple of young men from the halfway house near my neighborhood. They needed money for…something about kids having a music program.

Usually, I never want to donate money because I don’t have an allowance anymore since my parents are pushing me to get a job. And, plus, I grew up practically in love with music. In high school, I wanted to be a singer. In college, the dream was to be on Broadway. I’m all for their cause. I just wanted to get my things, so I said I didn’t have cash on me and he said that was all right, but I should think about it. So I did my thing inside the store and I was hesitant on leaving the same way since I knew they would still be there. Again, I apologized, but then changed my mind last-minute, remembering I actually did have some cash. While I was digging out my wallet, he said he liked my purse and that his sister had a very similar one. He’d said that just one dollar would have been enough support, but I gave him all the cash I had, which was just $4. I mean, it wasn’t much of a loss for me since I was never going to use that cash anyway, but it still feels good providing those people a second chance at sharpening their artistic tools.

But anyways, back to the current dream: I ended up just going straight home because I saw that you could just substitute cornstarch with flour. Apparently, you just need 3x more flour or 3 extra cups or something like that. I figured, maybe I’ll combine it with corn meal and everything will be okay…

I didn’t use the corn meal. In fact, let’s list everything that went horribly wrong for the dessert portion only:

1. I think I was supposed to combine the egg yolks, half & half, sugar, and cornstarch (aka flour, apparently) WHILE heating it at low. I made a note to highlight them separately, but I completely forgot, so I combined them all beforehand.
2. I knew I was supposed to whisk constantly, but stopped to read the directions so there were lumps EVERYWHERE.
3. The mixture had already mostly thickened by the time I added the cookie cream, so add that to the lumps and you got a hot mess.
4. And speaking of “hot mess”, the pot turned brown at the bottom. I don’t know if it was because of the heat or the fact that it’s a very old pot, but I just thought I’d make a note of that.
5. The cream mixture didn’t look anything like the video. It didn’t look like pudding. It looked and tasted more like grits. I tasted it a few times, but thought it was really weird that it didn’t taste sweet even though I specifically ordered “Double Stuf Oreos”.
6. I forgot to “remove from heat” and thought that came AFTER the four eggs, so basically I ended up with a poop-colored piece of clay with white and yellow specks all over.
7. I have no idea how to make a piping bag, so I tried making a small hole in the corner of a Ziploc bag. We have the tip, but it didn’t really work. Sticking with the poop analogy, it was like trying to push out a–okay, you probably get the picture already. So instead, I just tried rolling it up myself. It was…hot.

Here it was pre-baking.

Post-ba–OH GOD, I MESSED UP BAD, YOU GUYS! I MESSED UP REAL BAD!!

So take a look at the list of what went wrong there and can you tell me what could have made these puffs…puff? I regretfully threw out the entire thing. I’m definitely not happy about that, but garbage day is tomorrow morning and I didn’t want my parents to come home knowing I’d wasted so much time, money, and ingredients on a failed experiment.

The good one was dinner, so I at least had that to eat tonight. There’s no official recipe written down online except the Proper Tasty comment on the video, which I screenshot: 

There’s something therapeutic about kneading. I don’t know if it’s because it’s fun or you’re just mentally massaging yourself or something, but you can knead all day long and it’s like all your problems are gone. I don’t know, maybe that’s just me and I’m crazy, in which case I would need actual therapy.

The first time I was waiting for it to rise, it didn’t really expand as much as I’d hoped, but the second time was more obvious. I think that was because the rolls were smaller, so the changes looked more drastic.

Fortunately, I have half a bottle of pesto left, which is how much was required for one attempt at this. I can make it again tomorrow truly as a side dish this time, and maybe I can make a classic spaghetti and meat sauce or something. Italian cuisine level: Olive Garden.

Also, I looked up the difference between all-purpose flour and bread flour and my source says that they are very similar, but bread flour has a “greater content” than all-purpose…? I mean…does it matter though? We needed flour so I got our usual all-purpose, so why is the bread flour important? I mean, I get that it’s in order to make bread, but is that really necessary? I always use all-purpose flour for bread anyway, so… I digress.

Does anyone know what “cling film” is? I just used regular plastic film, but I suppose it was clingy. I mean, it stuck onto everything pretty well, like the unwanted ex-girlfriend who’s grown too attached. (Hehe, get it? Because it’s “clingy”?)

The only real issue I had was with the cheese. I don’t think I’ve ever had a dish where the cheese bubbled like it was supposed to. I mean, I could have, but it’s obviously not important enough for me to remember. Last time we had a cheese issue that seemed to jump straight to burning (not that it burned this time), it was the pizza I tried to make from The Blue Bloods Cookbook. It turned out that the pie was just too close to the top of the oven, so we had to set it on the bottom rack.

Or perhaps I just missed the bubbling. I set the timer to the minimum, so I doubt I skipped it, but maybe the bubbling was just for a couple minutes. I think I added a little too much mozzarella cheese though, but I wanted to finish off the bag we had which was a little more than half a cup, I believe.

My parents arrived about an hour after I finished dinner, so I cleaned up the kitchen and washed the dishes (which didn’t seem like a lot, to be honest, even though I tackled two meals in one day). Mom tried one, but Dad took like seven or eight. When he was tasting the first one, he told me it was “meh”, but when I offered him some more on a plate, he immediately said yes. Then, he grabbed a few more pieces to eat upstairs in his office and said, “What? It’s a waste.” That’s sort of an inside joke now, since my mom has (or at least had) a habit of finishing off someone else’s plate, so she’d say, “What? It’s such a waste!”

If I did the math correctly, I had about nine: five during dinner and four leftovers; Mom had one; and there was a total of 18 pieces. That means that Dad shared the other eight rolls with the dogs. Hehe, he liked my cooking this time.

Right before the second rise: 
After it rose, I was like, “OMG, it worked!”

When I might have overdone it with the cheese:

All done!

The “Omnomnom” stage:

So obviously, there were some good moments, and a lot of horrible mistakes I made… I guess that about evens it up and since the good part came last, I’m satisfied with the results. We can just forget the Oreo debacle never happened and start anew tomorrow! Just like the Grilled Cheese thing: I’m not going to stop until I get it right.

Break six eggs! But when you add in the four, take the chocolate mixture off the heat first and then apply them one by one!

7/6/16

Besides irreparable damage, I’d say a chef’s worst enemy that would completely get in the way of how they do their jobs is sour candies. I’m a sweet tooth and I don’t normally eat sour things specifically because they basically paralyze your taste buds for the next day or two. Still, there is sometimes a craving for them with me, so I get Sour Patch Kids. I get punished for having them by getting pain on my tongue, which motivates me to finish them off within the next couple days, causing even MORE hardly-bearable pain on my tongue.

Since that completely jeopardizes my sense of taste for the next few days, I had to rely solely on guesswork while making the chicken fried rice recipe I got from BuzzFeed. Actually, it was “Bacon, Egg, and Rice Dish“, thanks to their new Tasty website. (Which I recently learned because I have been obsessed with those short DIY videos, specifically the recipe ones. And, if you have time, check out Tastemade’s “Tiny Kitchen”: it’s not just tiny foods, but the entire kitchen is also tiny, which means so are the tools.)

We don’t have bacon, so I substituted chicken (as usual). I also didn’t use the measuring cups because I figured I could’ve predicted how much of something I needed. That might have been a mistake, however other factors still could have been at play to this so-so meal.

I had to make it twice because there was dinner for my mother, brother and myself, and then there was one for my dad, who got home later because he was working. In my opinion, the second attempt was better because I knew what to expect. The first was sort of a disaster, but not inedible.

When I made the first batch, the rice was freshly cooked because it took me the entire rice cooking period to prepare the rest of the recipe. I set all the ingredients out separately to make it easier to put into the pan while cooking: eggs, onions, meat, etc. Unfortunately, I thought that meant I could immediately use the rice once it was finished. I think I used a little too much water for the rice cooker because it was slightly too moist. I mean, I generally like it that way, but I guess specific dish didn’t.

My timing was almost perfect though. As soon as the rice was done, the timing of the recipe was just right, for it to be added into the pan. Word of advice though: just because it seems like perfect timing does not mean you should get a jump start on the next step. Just thought I’d clarify that for you guys out there who read this for educational purposes, not entertainment.

Because of this, I added the onions after the rice, but I don’t think that order makes too big a difference? I don’t know specifically because a) my taste buds have been compromised thanks to the Sour Patch Kids, and b) even if they were lucid enough for me to taste, I couldn’t tell what was good or bad about it. They just aren’t trained enough for that yet. I mean, I’m sure I’d have a better idea than the beginner I was just months ago, but I’m still not at professional level quite yet, obviously.

The second time, I let my mom taste it and she said it was fine, so I trusted her judgment, seeing as how she is the typical American housewife. She knew that the second try was going to be better just by looking at it.

Also, the green onions, while we do have them, are pretty old. They were brown at the tips and wilting, so I figured, yeah, I can skip the garnish.

My second attempt was easier, also because the rice was drier. Pulling apart the “clumps” of rice in the pan got me confused the first time because it seemed like they were more focused on becoming some kind of risotto. With the drier rice, I got a much better sense of what they meant by “breaking up the clumps”.

After all this hard work, it turned out my dad didn’t like it. He took one bite and…yeah. He says it’s because he doesn’t like his rice mixed with anything else, but I’m getting the feeling that he thinks this dish (for now) was one bad apple in a healthy bushel. Honestly, I don’t blame him. I’m mostly pointing my fingers at those dumb Sour Patch Kids. (Seriously, a chef loses her mojo when she’s on those things! Whenever you cook something, avoid them at all costs!)

As far as the guesswork goes, I’d say I was pretty accurate. I mean, then again, I wouldn’t really know since I never tasted it with my normal tastebuds, but my mom says it’s good and she doesn’t even know about my candy stash. While predicting how much of one ingredient goes into the pot, all I kept thinking about was, I can’t rely on recipes forever. One of these days, I have to memorize them and try to stick to them as closely as possible, so when I do manage to make it all on my own, I have my own variations of these dishes. I’ll eventually get a feel of how much a tsp. is as opposed to a tbsp. I’m sure. Like I said: cooking is a science experiment.

Oh, before I forget, Mom also said to cut the chicken chunks into smaller pieces after the first try.

AND…the first time, I used half a yellow onion while the second photo shows that I used red onion. A whole one, in fact.

Attempt #1:

Attempt #2: 

4/12/16

Today, I decided to make dinner for once, so last night I compiled a few recipes and finally picked each dish: entrée with two sides. The Bucatini Puttanesca on the March 2016 cover of Cooking Light magazine looked delicious. There was also the Strawberry-Chicken Salad with Pecans on the cover of the May 2016 issue that looked easy to make. As for the other side dish, I opted to make a simple “Classic Mashed Potatoes”.

This was the third time I ever completely made dinner solo (with some help from my mom for the search of ingredients and how to correctly handle an ingredient). From what I remember the first time, it was spaghetti, chicken parmesan, and green beans. The second time was rice, steak, and green beans. Or vice versa. Either way, both times included way too much meal, so I learned the valuable lesson of portions and being conservative with how much to make.

For those of you who don’t know, the Bucatini Puttanesca looks like this: 

I didn’t get to snap a pic as soon as it was done, but here’s a shot of the leftovers: 

Overall, my dinner was actually really good, but if I had to choose the experiment that failed most of all, it would be the pasta. I know exactly what went wrong too. The biggest culprit was timing. I wasn’t very prepared with this (which was the same issue with the pasta last time): so the garlic and spices were burnt because I hadn’t added the pasta or the chicken broth in time. I was going literally step by step rather than planning ahead and opening the pasta and chicken broth beforehand (and the chicken broth comes from cans!).

I also substituted penne for the spaghetti because my mom told me to use the pasta we already had, which I guess worked. I mean, it doesn’t really matter since it’s still a pasta type, right? (Right about now, I’m guessing that any hardcore chefs who are serious about Italian cuisine are flipping me off the European way, to which I say in my best Brooklyn accent, “Hey, I’m tryin’ here!”)

For dinner, it was just three of us–my parents and me–so there were some leftovers (which I later ate half of). I’d still say that was a good amount of food that I made. After all, leftovers are good, right? It means you can save some of that goodness for later. Won’t be as fresh, but…taste will still be there.

The puttanesca was tonight’s biggest challenge, but I learned that cooking, when you’re following the instructions, is like a test: you should study for it the night before to get an idea of what you have to do, and then once you start the physical process from the very first step, it’s game on. Often times, cooking is time-sensitive, so you’ll rarely have time to either fix your mistake or redo a part of your dish. That’s why you should certainly plan ahead so your time isn’t wasted, hesitating with confusion.

This here is the Strawberry-Chicken Salad w/ Pecans:

And here are the leftovers: 

Making this dish taught me how to use my time productively. While I was busy waiting on something for the mashed potatoes (I opted to work on that first since they gave me directions on how to keep them warm until everything was ready), I decided to cut the strawberries first. I cut up the amount I needed and then gave the rest to my mom to snack on. 🙂

I was a little nervous about the chicken because last time, I messed it up. What happened last time? Exactly what happened this time, only the screwup didn’t taste so badly. I mean, it was fine the last time too, but I feel like the chicken was better this time. The mistake I made today was just because I got confused by a word: in one of the first directions, it said to heat a medium skillet and then move the chicken to a pan. I didn’t realize that “skillet” actually meant “pan” too. I mean, I knew it, but it just didn’t register with me at the time since I was still new at the culinary arts. So, instead of prepping the chicken and pan separately, I sort of put the chicken on the heated pan first and then embellished the chicken…hehe. Hehehe…

My mom and I really liked the salad dressing though. I made everything from scratch, so it was interesting to figure out what was actually in it. The dressing was actually the reason why I wanted to make dinner tonight. Yesterday, I saw one of those brief cooking clips on Facebook (I’ve become obsessed with those now and I’m still on the hunt for them, so if you’ve got ’em, please feel free to comment me suggestions!) and it was actually very similar to the dressing on this recipe. The clip was to make “Strawberry and Spinach Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing”, courtesy of Nourish by Tastemade. Okay, so just the salad was similar, but I wanted to make my own salad dressing, man.

Anyway, my mother liked it so much that she wants me to make it again tomorrow. We have leftover cooked chicken so I should be able to skip that step and just cut them julienne. I sort of can’t wait to make it again actually!

My dad liked today’s dinner too. In fact, the only thing he said was, “You should quit American Sign Language and go to culinary school instead.” And I think I’m honestly going to consider it. Except I love ASL and only like cooking, and to be frank, I’m only good at it because I follow directions. Almost. I still slip up because I misread a step or take too long.

During dinner, my mom and I were the ones who were really discussing the dishes and ingredients. She gave me tips on what to do next time and complimented me, especially on the salad dressing. I think she said it was perfect, so she told me to keep the recipe. Way ahead of you, Ma. 😉

As for the Classic Mashed Potatoes (which I’m sure you know how they look, so I don’t need to find a picture of it), I got the recipe from The New York Times Cooking app, which is one of my personal favorites…as far as cooking apps go anyway. I just wanted to make mashed potatoes because I knew how easy they were to make. That’s because I’d seen a short clip of how to make those smiley-face French fries that they made for lunch back in school. Its simplicity is what got me interested in making it tonight.

Looking at the recipe, my mom thought it was way too much for three people. Since the recipe said it served 4 to 6 people, I felt we’d have a comfortable amount of leftovers. She convinced me to go for half, meaning cut all the ingredients down to half as well. I wasn’t sure if you had to cut down the time in half as well and my mom wasn’t sure either. She just told me “watch it carefully”. Fortunately, the only time-sensitive step was boiling the potatoes and I felt safer about over-boiling because even the recipe stated that it was better to over-boil than under.

So I suppose that’s it. I have some advice for you though:

1. The puttanesca involves a lot of oil. Like, a LOOOOOOT (that’s supposed to be “lot”, but “loot” works too). Not just the actual ingredient, but apparently, the anchovies are already bathing in oil because of the container it comes in. That and the capers. And the kalamata olives.
2. Put together your very own cookbook with Microsoft OneNote. You can have a single notebook and there are tabs on top for different types of pages (i.e. meals). Then, within those tabs, you can create multiple pages (i.e. dishes). I added a photo of each dish first so I know what to aim for, then however long it should take based on my recipe source, ingredients, instructions, and then nutrition facts (including the serving size). When they list the pages at the side, if there’s an image that goes with the page, it also shows up next to the title, so that really helps too, if you’re searching for a specific recipe. Oh, and it’s free for your devices. Apple, anyway, which is especially helpful because I have a MacBook, iPhone, and an iPad, all of which I use for cooking: iPad to find recipes, iPhone to find ingredients, and laptop when I actually cook (since I also watch TV at the same time).

I guess that concludes my very first entry of my cooking blog. As I said, tomorrow I’m going to make the Strawberry-Chicken Salad again. I also want to make crab cakes because I know they’re delicious–we had them last Thanksgiving, but it was from a frozen package. Pre-made, so it doesn’t really count as making it.

Here’s a screenshot of what my OneNote cookbook looks like, in case you’re interested.