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 :-)
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