Thoughts, and a good movie!

This is the last post today, don't worry!

It is my goal in the near future, to cook at least 1 thing per week... to do it mindfully and sincerely, and to write a thoughtful post about it.  Structure is good, and will be good for me - otherwise I'll end up writing sporadically and inconsistently.  I do need some more structure in my life, and I'm quite excited about it!  (I write this AFTER I bang out 3 late posts!)

I watched this movie today: How to Cook Your Life, about zen chef Edward Espe Brown.  It was absolutely fascinating!  He had some really great things to say and to pass on from the person he learned from.. a couple things I liked were when he had asked for some advice, his teacher told him,

"When you wash the rice, wash the rice; when you cut the carrots, cut the carrots; when you stir the soup, stir the soup."

He also talked about giving your hands something to do - when you cook with your hands, knead bread, chop vegetables, they are fulfilling a purpose...

There were a lot of things I noted that I want to work on - patience, anger, mindfulness, being sincere..  it's all a journey, a process, and it's important to delight in that process.

I also want to work on not wasting a single drop..  he said many times in the movie, to treat cooking tools, pots and pans, and the food like it was your eyesight.  I really like this thought - everything is precious, and attention must be paid.



As for my blog - I'm in the middle of figuring out what works well, what doesn't work, how many pictures to post, how much to write... this is a learning experience and I really hit the ground at a trot (I wouldn't say running because I've been quite sporadic)... 

For now, I raise my glass of iced tea (sweetened and with a spot of milk)... cheers!

Oatmeal-Raisin Cookies

I know, I know... 3 posts in one day??  Just wait, I have one more after this, where I will resolve to be more consistent! 

These Oatmeal-Raisin Cookies are the 2nd cookie in the cookie section, that's the reason I chose them (they come right after the choco chip cookies I've made twice now!).  I made these mainly to feed other people with them - I probably only had 2 of them, but I enjoyed them immensely!  They were chewy but also had a slight crunch! 

I couldn't decide which picture looked better - with or without a flash, so I'm posting both!!

Ingredients:  all-purpose flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, unsalted butter, light brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs, old-fashioned rolled oats, raisins

I was glad to use a bunch of oats I have but don't frequently use!

I did have a baking mishap - the recipe is on the same page as the choco chip cookies, so I started with the flour, then used baking soda instead of the baking powder!  Palm to forehead moment!  I scooped out the soda because I hadn't mixed it in yet thankfully!

Everyone who tried these cookies enjoyed them (so they say!).  I would definitely be open to making them again... but I tend to be a chocolate sorta girl, so I'm guessing my next cookie will be chocolatey!

Gomba Leves (Mushroom Soup) with Rustic White Bread

For my birthday I received 2 cookbooks!
One of them is a Hungarian Cookbook, and I tried out the Gomba Leves (Mushroom Soup)!

I think a good cookbook should be used a lot and "loved".. that is to say, it's cool by me to have things written in the margins, highlighted, food splatters here and there.. it's great character!
Needless to say, I took my pen to this recipe, not that it's bad, just when you have a real live Hungarian in the kitchen with you (who is an excellent cook by the way!), I tend to take his many years of advice!


For starters I forgot to pay attention to the recipe and went out and bought 2 pounds of mushrooms when the recipe called for just 1/2 a pound!  For some reason I had trouble adapting the rest of the recipe to my mushroom indulgences and probably added too much onion... too much oil to start, not enough roux, maybe too much sour cream.. but the end result was marvelous!! 

 The recipe called for beef stock or canned beef broth and water, but instead I just used water!  Perhaps the broth would give it a nice flavor but I didn't miss anything myself, by using just water.

I also had to make a roux (in Hungarian it's a rántás) - my first one ever!  Luckily Gabor was there to guide me and I did it a bit differently than the recipe said.  It turned out well, but I was a bit frantic about it, having seen enough roux's go so wrong in the past.....

While cooking the soup, I made a loaf of Rustic White Bread.
 I find it strange that I'm not a very big fan of eating bread, but I have a certain affection for baking it, I always have.  Every time I bake bread it feels like I'm doing a really special thing, and I try to pour my heart into it.

In our household, when we buy bread, we get "the good stuff".. you know, loaves that are from 2, 3, 4 bucks a loaf...  it gets pricey but it's better for you and better tasting..

In a perfect world, I can envision myself baking some bread every Sunday to eat for the week ahead.. that is, after I get lots better at baking it!  I suppose I could just start now, however, baking some bread each week.. I'm sure to get better soon enough!  And the bread that doesn't turn out well, we'll eat anyways!

I got some good kneading tips from this movie "How to Cook Your Life" (I'll write something about it today!)

I don't think I'll make this specific recipe again, it's different from the way I've done it before and turned out too sweet for our taste... I will continue my search for the best bread recipe though!  I have a few more in my pocket, but I gained some great tips as always, from baking it!


Ingredients for the soup:  mushrooms, onions, lard or cooking oil, beef stock or canned beef broth and water, salt, pepper, flour, parsley, sour cream
Ingredients for the bread: bread flour, all-purpose flour, instant or rapid-rise yeast, salt, warm water, honey or sugar

Crispy Chicken Fingers

I made these chicken strips last week.  Of course they're all gone now but seeing the pictures of them make me hungry for them again!  It's been difficult to find a good chicken strip at the store or in a restaurant.. last month I went to a place I thought should have good food and... the chicken strips were bland and boring!  And the frozen things from the supermarket have an ingredients list longer than this blog post...!
 
I've made chicken strips before, they turned out great!  I followed the ATK recipe closely and these turned out equally as great!  It went smoother than the first time I made them - this is going to be a perk of cooking more.. getting used to doing things, finding the best way to do it..

Ingredients List:  flour, eggs, breadcrumbs, boneless skinless chicken breasts, salt & pepper, vegetable oil


Whenever I fry something up, nearing the end of the cook, the oil gets really frothy... I think next time I will filter the oil halfway through.. perhaps it's food remains sitting in the oil...

Fruit Topped Rice Pudding

This is a favorite dish of Gabor's.  It is a very light snack that can be eaten before bedtime, it also makes a great dessert!

You can use any kind of fruit available, with or without whipped cream, chocolate, anything goes!

Here we used raspberries, a dollop of whipped cream and some mouse poop (okay, they're chocolate sprinkles).

You just make rice using equal parts milk and rice (say, 2 cups of each), taking care to stir so the milk doesn't burn.  Add the rice when boiling, cook it through, then add sugar to taste.  We put some vanilla sugar also. 

Spoon out and top with fresh fruit!  Voila!

Banana Bread

First time making banana bread!  I keep having all these firsts and realize how inexperienced I am!  It's great fun though, to try out all these different recipes, learning from scratch, I love it!

My folks had some bananas that were very ripe, so I took them home and made banana bread last Sunday.  The baking went without a hitch ... almost too smoothly ...

Ingredients are flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, bananas, unsalted butter, eggs, plain yogurt, and vanilla extract.


I would put the finished product picture right here, BUT... I think it is on Gabor's phone, so I will write the post and put up the picture later!


It got great reviews from all who tried it.  The recipe called for plain yogurt, but I used that plain Greek yogurt instead, it was good stuff!  Much better than the flimsy regular nonfat plain yogurt I saw at the store...



Now, the cookbook has a section about butter, how it's very important to add the butter exactly like the recipe says.  This one, for example, says "6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled".  So what I've been doing is melting the butter in the beginning, then sticking it in the freezer so it cools in time.

Yesterday, I made another batch of the choco chip cookies because I had a hankering for them.  They require the butter melted then cooled as well.  I went to stick the butter in the freezer and.. what the heck??  There's a saucer of frozen butter already in there!!  My mind immediately traced back to the last thing I baked... the banana bread!!  So it turns out, there was NO butter in the banana bread!  Nobody even noticed!  I think because the recipe had yogurt in it, it kept it moist and made it seem like normal...
I'll just use this as an excuse to make the recipe again with the butter.. yum!


**Edit August 14th - here's a picture finally!  Not the best but.. next time!

Classic Pound Cake

On July 27 I baked a Classic Pound Cake, my first ever!  A few years ago I tried some pound cake made by Starbucks...  it was delicious.  It was flavorful and moist (yes, moist).  I have longed to have that same pound cake, and have tried a few store bought ones over the years but none could even compare...

     ...until the ATK Classic Pound Cake.


It was excellent!!  I had a great time making it, it was really simple, not many ingredients...  I look forward to trying out the different variants they have listed (ginger pound cake, orange pound cake) and possibly creating one of my own!

I received great reviews from Gabor and from my workmates... all these great reviews though, I hope people are telling me the truth about the food..  I can take it, really.. if it's less than good, I want to know!  It will help me improve! (improve my cooking as well as my taking of criticism)

Ingredients are: cake flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, unsalted butter

Aye, the picture is super sloppy, BUT it was a late night and I was quite tired, so just said this'll do...
AND, I'm bummed because later someone asked me if it weighed a pound.. I didn't even think to weigh it!  Guess I'll have to bake another one!