Well, I'm supposed to be writing a paper, which means of course that I'll do anything to not write it - even if that means blogging, right? haha
I did do some cooking lately that was rather good, though, so I figured I could share that.
This morning I made pasta with creamy Parmesan sauce, and oatmeal cookies. Both were quite good. In fact, I am now wanting to go back to my room and have the rest of the noodles. However, the library doesn't close until 22:00, so I should at least pretend to work for a little longer ...
I am making plans with my friends to go on a picnic this week. It should be lots of fun (once we figure out when we're going/what the weather will be doing) - one of the guys has a little grill and he'll make the meat, then I'm making macaroni and potato salads and cookies, and someone will end up buying chips and rolls. It should be fairly simple, and I am really looking forward to it. Of course, it will be somewhere in the middle of finals week, so anything to take a little pressure off is welcomed, right? I'm working extra this weekend so I can take time off later. [And despite what I said at the beginning of this post, my paper is actually going quite well and I don't feel bad at all for pausing a moment to post!]
Let's see ... I actually had a rather sad cooking experience lately; I wanted to make meat and eggs for breakfast, but the meat had somehow thawed and was green, so I couldn't eat it, and I put waaaay too much water in the eggs, so they were nasty. That was a disappointing start to my morning. But other than that, it has been a fantastic year of cooking, despite the fantastically bad cooking space I have available in my dorm. I must say, though, that I am very much looking forward to having an apartment off campus next year with a *real* kitchen!!! :-)
I am getting this urge to cook a real meal again. This happens occasionally, and when it does, usually it works out fine because my friends are all getting together for a meal and I can cook. However, since the end of the semester is so crazy, we haven't done that in a few weeks. Hopefully later this week that will all work out!
Okay, off to my paper again. I made a deal with myself - for every 100 words I write, I can eat a Skittle. It's a little stupid, but it makes the hours pass faster! Now ending this ridiculous, random, rambling post ... :D
Cheers, friends!
Saturday 28 April 2012
Monday 9 April 2012
Scones!
Dilemma: I'm back at Houghton after 'break', and hungry. I have no food made.
Abstract: I look through what I have, and decide to make blueberry scones (which will help out for the next few mornings, as well).
Battle plan: I put the ingredients in a bowl with water, mix well, and spread the olive oil on the cooking sheet. Then I drop 12 blobs of dough on the sheet, slide it into the oven, and leave to keep on unpacking.
Result: Not only did the whole floor smell good, I have 12 delicious scones.
Reflections: Coming back and making food was a wonderful idea. And my sinkmate appreciated it greatly, and told me things like 'you're wonderful' and 'that is one of the best things I have ever eaten', which are always nice to hear :p
Drawbacks: Dishes; 1 spatula, 1 mixing bowl, 1 measuring cup, 1 baking sheet, 1 spoon.
Positives: Food for the next few days, dorm now smells good, happy sinkmate.
Net Disaster = Zero
Abstract: I look through what I have, and decide to make blueberry scones (which will help out for the next few mornings, as well).
Battle plan: I put the ingredients in a bowl with water, mix well, and spread the olive oil on the cooking sheet. Then I drop 12 blobs of dough on the sheet, slide it into the oven, and leave to keep on unpacking.
Result: Not only did the whole floor smell good, I have 12 delicious scones.
Reflections: Coming back and making food was a wonderful idea. And my sinkmate appreciated it greatly, and told me things like 'you're wonderful' and 'that is one of the best things I have ever eaten', which are always nice to hear :p
Drawbacks: Dishes; 1 spatula, 1 mixing bowl, 1 measuring cup, 1 baking sheet, 1 spoon.
Positives: Food for the next few days, dorm now smells good, happy sinkmate.
Net Disaster = Zero
 |
| Note that we have already eaten some of them ;) |
Sunday 22 January 2012
Soup (also other delicacies, and a good weekend in general)
Hello, friends (if we're still friends after such a scandalous absence ... sorry ...)
It is Sunday night, and I have had a wonderful weekend. Friday night I played games with friends, (learned how to play Settlers of Caton) then went for a long walk, tested the theory that my shirt glows in the dark (it kind of does), then went to the campus snack shop and helped do a Sudoku puzzle while eating snacks.
Saturday, I went to work, heated up some lunch, went shopping with two friends, did homework (reading "Confessions"), took a nap, packed up a ridiculously long list of stuff into my backpack and a bag, and headed down to a townhouse. For a few days a group of us had been passing around a reply-all email planning a dinner of home-cooked food, and Saturday was the night.
We arrived around 4:30, and started with wrapping potatoes in foil to bake, peeling a squash, shredding cheese, and mixing bread dough. Then we wrapped chicken in bacon, poured sour cream and cream of mushroom soup over it, and put it in to bake. While the dough rose, we fried bacon and chopped onions, mixing crumbled fried bacon and onions to make filling for the turnovers. When the dough was ready, we divided it into 30 pieces and made a 5-person assembly line to roll the dough into little circles, put some filling in, crimp the edges, etc. Those rose again while we took the potatoes out of the oven and peeled the aluminum foil off. The squash meanwhile had been boiling quite nicely, and the chicken was browning. Another friend, who had opted to cook in the dorm (conservation of oven space and all that) arrived with a pan of brownies, and we chopped up a pineapple while waiting for the chicken to finish and the turnovers to bake.
Dinner was served around 6:30, with around 10 of us partaking. The whole pineapple was consumed (not surprising, I suppose), the squash was also all gone (slightly more surprising; I had assumed I would be making something out of leftovers from that), and out of 8 lbs. of chicken, only three pieces were left with some soup. The potatoes were a somewhat different story - I had overestimated how many would be eaten, and there were a good dozen baked potatoes still left when we were all finished eating, along with some diced onion and shredded cheese that had been intended to be toppings. Since we had started with chicken breasts still on the bone and I had cut them off for the dish we made, we also had a platter of chicken bones that still had a good amount of meat on them (the knife was very, very, ad infinitum very dull ... and did not cut closely to the bone well at all ...). We cleaned up, packed everything, and brought it back to my dorm. We then settled in next door (more room, since she doesn't have a roommate) to play Fishbowl (the game with three rounds - clues, charades, one word). With our group, we had obscure history/music/computer science/television show/scientific clues, and it made the game ridiculously hard - and insanely fun! We laughed through 2 sets - (6 rounds). After everyone left, I went down the hall and talked music for a very long time, then got some wonderful sleep.
Today after church and lunch I still had the leftovers to deal with - so I went up to a friend's house to cook the bones down. The rule in the dorm is that if something is on the stove, you have to be in the kitchen - and I had no intention of standing in a kitchen (that has roughly 6 square feet of floor space) for a couple hours! I put the pot of chicken bones on the stove with some water and settled in to read some more of the Confessions. I finished that assignment and started one on the philosophy of Loyalty. At around 4:00, the meat was falling off the bones. I strained the broth out and put it on to cook down a little while I picked the bones apart from the meat - not a quick job, but one I have done many times and that doesn't take all that much thought to do.
After turning the broth off to cool, I chopped the potatoes up into chunks, poured in a can of corn, and added about 2/3 of the chicken (the rest came home with me for sandwiches this week!). By this time the broth had cooled until it had separated, and I skimmed the scum part off the top because I think I heard somewhere that you should do that. Then I poured the broth into the pot, turned it on to heat, and added salt, pepper, and some general seasoning powder that I found in the cupboard up there that smelled like it would go well with chicken soup.
While that pot was heating up, I mixed up some dumplings (adding in the rest of the cheese from last night) and then glopped (blobbed?) the mixture onto the soup, put the lid on, and went back to do some more work. Around 5:30 it was all done; I set the table and we ate delicious thick soup and dumplings. There was also a lot left over, so I put it in a pie plate and left it in the refrigerator as some kind of payment-in-kind for usage of the kitchen. (Perhaps more to the point, I had not remembered to bring anything bring soup back in ... grr, it was delicious soup!)
Cleanup was not difficult, and I made it back to Lambein in time to pass a textbook off to a classmate and help my future roommate practice her singing. I suppose it was all 'last night' now, since we are just past midnight, but that was my weekend - full of good food, amazing friends, and much-needed rest and change of pace from the week. Now it's back to work for the week, after getting some sleep tonight!
I know this post broke precedent in format, but I just wanted to write about the weekend and I hope no one cared. It was a lot of cooking time, but it was done with fabulous people and lots of fun, so there is no reckoning how priceless the memories are. It was certainly my favorite weekend in a very, very long time!
Net blessings = immeasurable; God is so good :-)
It is Sunday night, and I have had a wonderful weekend. Friday night I played games with friends, (learned how to play Settlers of Caton) then went for a long walk, tested the theory that my shirt glows in the dark (it kind of does), then went to the campus snack shop and helped do a Sudoku puzzle while eating snacks.
Saturday, I went to work, heated up some lunch, went shopping with two friends, did homework (reading "Confessions"), took a nap, packed up a ridiculously long list of stuff into my backpack and a bag, and headed down to a townhouse. For a few days a group of us had been passing around a reply-all email planning a dinner of home-cooked food, and Saturday was the night.
We arrived around 4:30, and started with wrapping potatoes in foil to bake, peeling a squash, shredding cheese, and mixing bread dough. Then we wrapped chicken in bacon, poured sour cream and cream of mushroom soup over it, and put it in to bake. While the dough rose, we fried bacon and chopped onions, mixing crumbled fried bacon and onions to make filling for the turnovers. When the dough was ready, we divided it into 30 pieces and made a 5-person assembly line to roll the dough into little circles, put some filling in, crimp the edges, etc. Those rose again while we took the potatoes out of the oven and peeled the aluminum foil off. The squash meanwhile had been boiling quite nicely, and the chicken was browning. Another friend, who had opted to cook in the dorm (conservation of oven space and all that) arrived with a pan of brownies, and we chopped up a pineapple while waiting for the chicken to finish and the turnovers to bake.
Dinner was served around 6:30, with around 10 of us partaking. The whole pineapple was consumed (not surprising, I suppose), the squash was also all gone (slightly more surprising; I had assumed I would be making something out of leftovers from that), and out of 8 lbs. of chicken, only three pieces were left with some soup. The potatoes were a somewhat different story - I had overestimated how many would be eaten, and there were a good dozen baked potatoes still left when we were all finished eating, along with some diced onion and shredded cheese that had been intended to be toppings. Since we had started with chicken breasts still on the bone and I had cut them off for the dish we made, we also had a platter of chicken bones that still had a good amount of meat on them (the knife was very, very, ad infinitum very dull ... and did not cut closely to the bone well at all ...). We cleaned up, packed everything, and brought it back to my dorm. We then settled in next door (more room, since she doesn't have a roommate) to play Fishbowl (the game with three rounds - clues, charades, one word). With our group, we had obscure history/music/computer science/television show/scientific clues, and it made the game ridiculously hard - and insanely fun! We laughed through 2 sets - (6 rounds). After everyone left, I went down the hall and talked music for a very long time, then got some wonderful sleep.
Today after church and lunch I still had the leftovers to deal with - so I went up to a friend's house to cook the bones down. The rule in the dorm is that if something is on the stove, you have to be in the kitchen - and I had no intention of standing in a kitchen (that has roughly 6 square feet of floor space) for a couple hours! I put the pot of chicken bones on the stove with some water and settled in to read some more of the Confessions. I finished that assignment and started one on the philosophy of Loyalty. At around 4:00, the meat was falling off the bones. I strained the broth out and put it on to cook down a little while I picked the bones apart from the meat - not a quick job, but one I have done many times and that doesn't take all that much thought to do.
After turning the broth off to cool, I chopped the potatoes up into chunks, poured in a can of corn, and added about 2/3 of the chicken (the rest came home with me for sandwiches this week!). By this time the broth had cooled until it had separated, and I skimmed the scum part off the top because I think I heard somewhere that you should do that. Then I poured the broth into the pot, turned it on to heat, and added salt, pepper, and some general seasoning powder that I found in the cupboard up there that smelled like it would go well with chicken soup.
While that pot was heating up, I mixed up some dumplings (adding in the rest of the cheese from last night) and then glopped (blobbed?) the mixture onto the soup, put the lid on, and went back to do some more work. Around 5:30 it was all done; I set the table and we ate delicious thick soup and dumplings. There was also a lot left over, so I put it in a pie plate and left it in the refrigerator as some kind of payment-in-kind for usage of the kitchen. (Perhaps more to the point, I had not remembered to bring anything bring soup back in ... grr, it was delicious soup!)
Cleanup was not difficult, and I made it back to Lambein in time to pass a textbook off to a classmate and help my future roommate practice her singing. I suppose it was all 'last night' now, since we are just past midnight, but that was my weekend - full of good food, amazing friends, and much-needed rest and change of pace from the week. Now it's back to work for the week, after getting some sleep tonight!
I know this post broke precedent in format, but I just wanted to write about the weekend and I hope no one cared. It was a lot of cooking time, but it was done with fabulous people and lots of fun, so there is no reckoning how priceless the memories are. It was certainly my favorite weekend in a very, very long time!
Net blessings = immeasurable; God is so good :-)
Monday 28 November 2011
A Pancake
Yes, just one of them.
Dilemma:
The usual, I am starving. No, I'm just hungry. But I spent the afternoon doing homework and spending inordinate amounts of money on next semester's books, so now I need dinner.
Abstract:
I decide on noodles, and cook up a potful. While cooking, I decide that I need to have food for the upcoming week, and decide that I will make three dishes of noodles to save, then eat the rest for dinner. The noodles finish, I ladle them into dishes, and there are no leftovers. This situation leaves me with the distinct positive that I have food for the next few days and the distinct negative that I still have no dinner for tonight - and since now is the pressing time of hunger, it didn't really even out very well. I return to my room to look for more food, and spot a dish on the top of my closet. At first glance, it appears to be an ordinary Tupperware dish with a cup and a half or so of flour in it. However, I know better - it was a gift of pancake mix, thoughtfully given to me. My neglect was that I put it in a dish to avoid spilling and consequently managed to throw out the box, which had the recipe for mixing up the mix into some kind of edible form. My legendary incompetence with mixes cautioned me against just adding water and seeing what happened, so I took the only natural route: went to google and typed in 'what do you mix with pancake mix to make pancakes', then hit enter. Results varied, but standard ingredients seemed to include eggs and milk.
Battle Plan:
I put in one small egg, a dash of vanilla (it sounded good?), and enough milk so it would stir and look like pancake batter. Then, I carried my plate, frying pan, and spatula down to the kitchen after putting some olive oil in the pan so that I could use it. The pan heated, and I carefully poured the batter in. After some thought, I put it all in at once. After all, I was only cooking for myself, so why make multiple little pancakes? The reason quickly became obvious as my pancake began to cook and rose to proportions similar to those of my Irish Soda Bread, previously described (there is a picture now, and yes that is a chair behind it) ;) I hovered over it, watching for bubbles and waiting for the inevitable one that wouldn't pop, which would signal that I would have to turn it over. By this time, the label 'pan cake' was totally appropriate; the batter had covered the entire bottom of the frying pan and rose about halfway up the sides ... I've seen smaller shortbreads! Apparently, there can be some justification for making more than one pancake, even if for only one person! At last, a bubble popped and failed to cave in on itself. It sat there, staring at me out of its empty eye, and I stared right back, wishing it away. It persisted stubbornly, and I thought of it about as highly as Pliny thought of the Christians, as he wrote to the Roman Emperor Trajan that even if there was nothing wrong with the Christian faith, certainly there was something the matter with people who were that persistent in their beliefs. (Sorry, let me get back on track ... I've been doing a lot of Roman history reading lately ...) However, I eventually came to the rather inevitable conclusion (helped by the smell of cooked pancake) that I would, actually, have to turn that monster over. I grabbed another spatula for support, and carefully eased underneath the monstrous gooey mass. Martha Stewart would have been proud of me (maybe?), for the bulk of the pancake actually flipped back into the pan, onto the uncooked side, and without turning in half - major accomplishments, I suppose. After a brief cerebration on the merits of becoming a chef and deciding that turning one pancake was hardly sufficient credentials and immediately dropping the idea, I realised that my hand was uncomfortably warm and looked down to see that some batter had slopped onto my hand. The fact that I was congratulating myself on turning a pancake over while my hand burned should have made me drop out of college and enroll in one of those places with the white walls and nice people, but instead I just turned on the tap and washed my hand off. I suppose extremes are not always desirable, as the Latin proverb says ne quid nimis, advising nothing too much and moderation in all things, so I shall neither be a chef nor burn myself to ashes. Back to food - it cooked (that's not so exciting) and I took it out of the pan - by then quite firm, so it was uneventful as well. Carried things back to my room.
Result:
One very large pancake, over which I spread cream cheese and drizzled a little honey. The warmth of the pancake melted the toppings, and I ate it with great enjoyment while typing up an inordinately long blog post about strange things and deleting half of it because my mind would start wandering in the middle of a sentence and I would say strange things about people, places, and events that most folks have never heard of before and that didn't exactly have anything to do with the topic at hand. (The references I have caved on and left in I hope I have tied in well enough to at least be entertaining.)
Reflections:
Make more than one pancake, prat.
Drawbacks:
I think I should have maybe added some more to the batter:egg ratio. I doubt I've ever had a more protein-filled pancake before, although it wasn't bad ...
Positives:
I love pancakes, and it was actually pretty good. It wasn't even gooey in the middle.
Net Disaster = Zero
Dilemma:
The usual, I am starving. No, I'm just hungry. But I spent the afternoon doing homework and spending inordinate amounts of money on next semester's books, so now I need dinner.
Abstract:
I decide on noodles, and cook up a potful. While cooking, I decide that I need to have food for the upcoming week, and decide that I will make three dishes of noodles to save, then eat the rest for dinner. The noodles finish, I ladle them into dishes, and there are no leftovers. This situation leaves me with the distinct positive that I have food for the next few days and the distinct negative that I still have no dinner for tonight - and since now is the pressing time of hunger, it didn't really even out very well. I return to my room to look for more food, and spot a dish on the top of my closet. At first glance, it appears to be an ordinary Tupperware dish with a cup and a half or so of flour in it. However, I know better - it was a gift of pancake mix, thoughtfully given to me. My neglect was that I put it in a dish to avoid spilling and consequently managed to throw out the box, which had the recipe for mixing up the mix into some kind of edible form. My legendary incompetence with mixes cautioned me against just adding water and seeing what happened, so I took the only natural route: went to google and typed in 'what do you mix with pancake mix to make pancakes', then hit enter. Results varied, but standard ingredients seemed to include eggs and milk.
Battle Plan:
I put in one small egg, a dash of vanilla (it sounded good?), and enough milk so it would stir and look like pancake batter. Then, I carried my plate, frying pan, and spatula down to the kitchen after putting some olive oil in the pan so that I could use it. The pan heated, and I carefully poured the batter in. After some thought, I put it all in at once. After all, I was only cooking for myself, so why make multiple little pancakes? The reason quickly became obvious as my pancake began to cook and rose to proportions similar to those of my Irish Soda Bread, previously described (there is a picture now, and yes that is a chair behind it) ;) I hovered over it, watching for bubbles and waiting for the inevitable one that wouldn't pop, which would signal that I would have to turn it over. By this time, the label 'pan cake' was totally appropriate; the batter had covered the entire bottom of the frying pan and rose about halfway up the sides ... I've seen smaller shortbreads! Apparently, there can be some justification for making more than one pancake, even if for only one person! At last, a bubble popped and failed to cave in on itself. It sat there, staring at me out of its empty eye, and I stared right back, wishing it away. It persisted stubbornly, and I thought of it about as highly as Pliny thought of the Christians, as he wrote to the Roman Emperor Trajan that even if there was nothing wrong with the Christian faith, certainly there was something the matter with people who were that persistent in their beliefs. (Sorry, let me get back on track ... I've been doing a lot of Roman history reading lately ...) However, I eventually came to the rather inevitable conclusion (helped by the smell of cooked pancake) that I would, actually, have to turn that monster over. I grabbed another spatula for support, and carefully eased underneath the monstrous gooey mass. Martha Stewart would have been proud of me (maybe?), for the bulk of the pancake actually flipped back into the pan, onto the uncooked side, and without turning in half - major accomplishments, I suppose. After a brief cerebration on the merits of becoming a chef and deciding that turning one pancake was hardly sufficient credentials and immediately dropping the idea, I realised that my hand was uncomfortably warm and looked down to see that some batter had slopped onto my hand. The fact that I was congratulating myself on turning a pancake over while my hand burned should have made me drop out of college and enroll in one of those places with the white walls and nice people, but instead I just turned on the tap and washed my hand off. I suppose extremes are not always desirable, as the Latin proverb says ne quid nimis, advising nothing too much and moderation in all things, so I shall neither be a chef nor burn myself to ashes. Back to food - it cooked (that's not so exciting) and I took it out of the pan - by then quite firm, so it was uneventful as well. Carried things back to my room.
Result:
One very large pancake, over which I spread cream cheese and drizzled a little honey. The warmth of the pancake melted the toppings, and I ate it with great enjoyment while typing up an inordinately long blog post about strange things and deleting half of it because my mind would start wandering in the middle of a sentence and I would say strange things about people, places, and events that most folks have never heard of before and that didn't exactly have anything to do with the topic at hand. (The references I have caved on and left in I hope I have tied in well enough to at least be entertaining.)
Reflections:
Make more than one pancake, prat.
Drawbacks:
I think I should have maybe added some more to the batter:egg ratio. I doubt I've ever had a more protein-filled pancake before, although it wasn't bad ...
Positives:
I love pancakes, and it was actually pretty good. It wasn't even gooey in the middle.
Net Disaster = Zero
Saturday 12 November 2011
Mac & Cheese
Last night: hungry, wanted dinner, didn't have time to go get it from the cafeteria, must less cook.
Cocoa-Nut: "Oh, I'll make dinner for you"
Later ... eating warm macaroni and cheese
I cannot even begin to describe how much of a win that was!
---
Also, I have not been blogging here since I have not been cooking! The last few weeks have been utterly crazy and I also discovered that I am 'behind' on how many meals I have been eating in the cafeteria, and since I really don't feel like paying for all that and not using it, I've been eating up there more often. I have not forgotten I have this blog; it's just that part of the semester where life goes through the ceiling (or the floor, as the case may be)!
Cocoa-Nut: "Oh, I'll make dinner for you"
Later ... eating warm macaroni and cheese
I cannot even begin to describe how much of a win that was!
---
Also, I have not been blogging here since I have not been cooking! The last few weeks have been utterly crazy and I also discovered that I am 'behind' on how many meals I have been eating in the cafeteria, and since I really don't feel like paying for all that and not using it, I've been eating up there more often. I have not forgotten I have this blog; it's just that part of the semester where life goes through the ceiling (or the floor, as the case may be)!
Sunday 23 October 2011
Irish Soda Bread
Well, friends, I know that this post is breaking with tradition, but I simply had to share something rather exciting. This evening, I made Irish Soda Bread, which was rather a new experiment for me. I have made various kinds of bread before, but this was a new recipe and I was eager to see how it would turn out.
I took a picture of it. I really and truly did, knowing how much you, my loyal readers *coughcough* would enjoy such a sight. However, my camera card and my computer are still giving each other the silent treatment, and refuse to communicate even long enough for me to frenetically drag a picture from the camera card onto my desktop. Alas, we are thus left picture-less.
Edit: here is a picture!!! :)
Nonetheless, I will endeavor to describe the bread to you. It was a soft dough, raisined with raisins, (I was going to say 'peppered with raisins', but that somehow doesn't work ...), and sitting in a bowl. Then, it was a gooey lump encased in a shell of flour, being twisted and mangled into something stretchy and pliable. Later on, it was growing, looking like a bucket does when snow keeps on falling, making it into a soft, white mountain muffin hat. Eventually I gave it a good punching, then cut an 'x' across the top with a very sharp knife, being careful not to slice myself as well. Then I let it rise some more.
During this stage in the process, the bread proceeded to expand until it filled up an astonishing amount of the large baking sheet I had placed it on. I had expected a normal-sized loaf of bread; this was quickly becoming a very no-nonsense looking bread mountain. I wondered if I had accidentally genetically modified it somehow, or maybe given it steroids. (My friends, when I came out of the kitchen and told them this, laughed it off, by the way.) After it had scared me long enough, I put it in the oven to kill the rebel yeast-soldiers who were evidently bent on taking over the kitchen, if not the world, and left.
Ostensibly, I now had free time. That is a rare occurrence in my world, but seeing the opportunity, I took it. A good book on the history of England's Sea Empire in the Tudor world took care of the next 40 or so minutes somewhere in there ...
Warm bread. There is nothing else quite like it in the world. I was shocked by how well it turned out :) After letting it cool for a few minutes, I cut it and put it in a ziploc bag ... then walked back down to the Campus Center to pass around delicious, soft, warm raisin bread to my friends as we played games on our Sunday night fun night. Win!!! :-)
p.s. word of the day is window. that's all.
I took a picture of it. I really and truly did, knowing how much you, my loyal readers *coughcough* would enjoy such a sight. However, my camera card and my computer are still giving each other the silent treatment, and refuse to communicate even long enough for me to frenetically drag a picture from the camera card onto my desktop. Alas, we are thus left picture-less.
Nonetheless, I will endeavor to describe the bread to you. It was a soft dough, raisined with raisins, (I was going to say 'peppered with raisins', but that somehow doesn't work ...), and sitting in a bowl. Then, it was a gooey lump encased in a shell of flour, being twisted and mangled into something stretchy and pliable. Later on, it was growing, looking like a bucket does when snow keeps on falling, making it into a soft, white mountain muffin hat. Eventually I gave it a good punching, then cut an 'x' across the top with a very sharp knife, being careful not to slice myself as well. Then I let it rise some more.
During this stage in the process, the bread proceeded to expand until it filled up an astonishing amount of the large baking sheet I had placed it on. I had expected a normal-sized loaf of bread; this was quickly becoming a very no-nonsense looking bread mountain. I wondered if I had accidentally genetically modified it somehow, or maybe given it steroids. (My friends, when I came out of the kitchen and told them this, laughed it off, by the way.) After it had scared me long enough, I put it in the oven to kill the rebel yeast-soldiers who were evidently bent on taking over the kitchen, if not the world, and left.
Ostensibly, I now had free time. That is a rare occurrence in my world, but seeing the opportunity, I took it. A good book on the history of England's Sea Empire in the Tudor world took care of the next 40 or so minutes somewhere in there ...
Warm bread. There is nothing else quite like it in the world. I was shocked by how well it turned out :) After letting it cool for a few minutes, I cut it and put it in a ziploc bag ... then walked back down to the Campus Center to pass around delicious, soft, warm raisin bread to my friends as we played games on our Sunday night fun night. Win!!! :-)
p.s. word of the day is window. that's all.
Wednesday 28 September 2011
The Return of the - Bean?
Dilemma:
The time is now 18:30, and I return to Lambein from my job, quite ready for dinner.
Abstract: Looking through my refrigerator, I find the only real leftover ... one that has been around for some time now. Yes, it is that dish of green beans, the one I wanted to do something about in the first post. My creative juices have subconsciously been stewing and simmering, and at last I am ready for action. The first step towards this wonderful dinner was taken last Saturday, when I was at the store with my Aunt and spotted a can of French onions. (Needless to say, they immediately went into my shopping basket.) Having cans of cream of mushroom soup in my closet, beans and milk in my refrigerator, pepper on my desk and onions in hand, I was ready.
Battle plan: The major difficulty, as has been the case from the beginning, is that 45 minutes or even a skimpy half-hour is simply more time than I have available to cook something - especially a dish of beans, no matter that it is one of my favorite foods. Pondering the choices, I decide that cooking everything in my frying pan is my best option at this point; if it doesn't work out, then I will have added to my arsenal of knowledge. Piling everything into my pan, I head off to the kitchen. In my other hand I hold a little stack of dishes that have accumulated over the last few days (...where food abounded, dishes do much more abound...). I cover the bottom of the skillet with milk (I'm sure I'm not doing a full recipe, so it's pointless to measure since I don't know what proportions I would need) and turn it on to medium heat. [This electric stove stuff is going places; I haven't yet set off the fire alarm, and have thus far sounded retreat before burning anything.] Next steps are logical: open the can of cream of mushroom soup and pour it in the pan, pour the beans into the pan, stir, add some pepper, stir ... hopefully everyone can follow that. While the mixture is simmering, I wash the dishes that have had it coming to them for awhile now. They submit to the force of my will and are won over to the clean side by the time my beans have become warm and bubbly. I rinse and dry a couple of the bowls and pour the beans in, sprinkling French onions on top and letting it cool slightly while rinsing the rest of the dishes and putting them out to dry.
Result: I eat dinner while learning how to use bloggers new format
Reflections: Sometime I would like to try dicing up onions and sautéing them - I think it would add more flavor. Also, eating with crackers might be a good serving suggestion.
Drawbacks: I discovered my almost complete lack of self-control when it comes to having a can of French onions that I don't have to share with anyone else ... I think I might need to go to confession now ...
Positives: 11 minutes after beginning, I have two nice bowlfuls of one of my favorite foods ever, and my dishes are done.
Net Disaster = Zero
Abstract: Looking through my refrigerator, I find the only real leftover ... one that has been around for some time now. Yes, it is that dish of green beans, the one I wanted to do something about in the first post. My creative juices have subconsciously been stewing and simmering, and at last I am ready for action. The first step towards this wonderful dinner was taken last Saturday, when I was at the store with my Aunt and spotted a can of French onions. (Needless to say, they immediately went into my shopping basket.) Having cans of cream of mushroom soup in my closet, beans and milk in my refrigerator, pepper on my desk and onions in hand, I was ready.
Battle plan: The major difficulty, as has been the case from the beginning, is that 45 minutes or even a skimpy half-hour is simply more time than I have available to cook something - especially a dish of beans, no matter that it is one of my favorite foods. Pondering the choices, I decide that cooking everything in my frying pan is my best option at this point; if it doesn't work out, then I will have added to my arsenal of knowledge. Piling everything into my pan, I head off to the kitchen. In my other hand I hold a little stack of dishes that have accumulated over the last few days (...where food abounded, dishes do much more abound...). I cover the bottom of the skillet with milk (I'm sure I'm not doing a full recipe, so it's pointless to measure since I don't know what proportions I would need) and turn it on to medium heat. [This electric stove stuff is going places; I haven't yet set off the fire alarm, and have thus far sounded retreat before burning anything.] Next steps are logical: open the can of cream of mushroom soup and pour it in the pan, pour the beans into the pan, stir, add some pepper, stir ... hopefully everyone can follow that. While the mixture is simmering, I wash the dishes that have had it coming to them for awhile now. They submit to the force of my will and are won over to the clean side by the time my beans have become warm and bubbly. I rinse and dry a couple of the bowls and pour the beans in, sprinkling French onions on top and letting it cool slightly while rinsing the rest of the dishes and putting them out to dry.
Result: I eat dinner while learning how to use bloggers new format
Reflections: Sometime I would like to try dicing up onions and sautéing them - I think it would add more flavor. Also, eating with crackers might be a good serving suggestion.
Drawbacks: I discovered my almost complete lack of self-control when it comes to having a can of French onions that I don't have to share with anyone else ... I think I might need to go to confession now ...
Positives: 11 minutes after beginning, I have two nice bowlfuls of one of my favorite foods ever, and my dishes are done.
Net Disaster = Zero
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