on the subject of another dinner

juice made of apples, carrots, cucumber, ginger.
blue brie
baguette.

not shown: cherries. lime flavored olive oil.

Don't Hate

Vealburger cooking


Vealburger on toast with coarse mustard, jarlsburg, spinach, tomato, onion

Baked Udon

In my old house we had 4 gas burners to 3 people and it was never enough. Imagine a house with 4 people and 2 electric burners. Needless to say, sometimes you just cant cook when you want to. The other night Kyle and I ran into this predicament before work. Our idea, make Oyako Don/Udon in the oven. My mother gave me two cast iron cobbler pots that were still unseasoned and I figured it was time to break them in.

Below: First we preheated the oven, added some sesame oil, and dropped in the cut chicken and onions.


Below: We added udon noodles over the chicken and dropped some broth over it.


Below: Everything cooking up nice? Time to add some mushrooms.


Below: We dropped in some beaten egg and scallions and let everything cook in and set. The final product. Delish. Needed just a little bit of soy sauce but everything was cooked to perfection.


Conclusion? Fuck electric burners.

Lets make some BREAD PUDDING

 

I'm not much of a recipe writer-downer. i like to take little notes about whatever i'm currently going to cook or bake and write them down on scraps of paper. if the food turns out good, it means i put the scrap of paper somewhere in the kitchen, usually on the fridge - YAY! it also means that i have about 45 scraps of paper which all have some sort of variation on X cups of sugar, X tbsp butter, X cups of milk, splash vanilla, bake at 350 for 35 min. So I rarely know if my recipe is for cookies or cupcakes or whatever. Which is why, in order to keep this recipe special and out of the "scrap o paper pile" - i wrote it on a netflix return envelope. I love this recipe. It was handed down from my great grandmother and has been a favorite of mine for my whoooole life! But apparently my great grandmother was like me, and didnt put any sort of descriptions on her recipes because here is the entirety of her notes:

4 cups milk

2 cups old bread

1/4 tsp salt

3 eggs

3 tbsp melted butter

1/2 tsp vanilla

2 sq unsweetened chocolate

1/2 cup sugar

Make custard. Pour over bread.

I mean, did everyone in the 30's just KNOW how to make custard? cause i have no idea. all the joy of cooking says is "it is imperative to not overcook the custard or you will obtain an undesirable texture". good grief, way to be super unspecific. so i did some research on the intertubes and sort of wung it (past tense of wing it, winged it? i like wung it) and the rest is history. i tend to make this about once a month, or whenever matt and i have enough leftover crusts of french bread to make this delightful and delicious dessert.

 

so you make the custard. this involves pouring milk (although i like to use light or heavy cream. it's more tasty. and keeps the fat on that keeps me warm during these cold NJ-stormed nights!) into a sauce pan on med-low or low heat, add the butter and the sugar and the eggs. whisk so that the eggs are incorporated into the milk, and keep whisking as the butter melts, about once a minute or so. in the mean time, chop up the chocolate.

I like to use Bakers chocolate because it's the perfect size squares and is pretty cheap and pretty good quality. also, because it harkens back to my g-gramma's time so you know that it's time-tested YUM

So while your chopping in between your whisking, the butter will melt all up into that deliciousness and then you're ready to throw in the chocolate. the point is to keep whisking as the chocolate melts and as the milk and eggs slightly cook so that it gets thick. so you can either start with warm milk and eggs and butter, or all of them cold and heat them up at the same time (the lazy way). once you've chopped the chocolate, its time to start chopping bread!

chop chop chop

fill up a casserole dish with chop chop. throw in all the crumbs!

 

the custard should look like this and be kind of thick. if it's not thickened, dont worry, keep going. just make sure that all of the chocolate is incorporated into the mixture (not stuck to the bottom of the pan or unmelted or whatever) 

pour pour pour

 

see how it didnt get on all the breads? get to smushing the bread into the custard. smush smush smush

 

bake bake bake. about 350 for something like 45 minutes or so. put on a lower rack or else the top breadies will get a bit toasted and you'll have to pick them off later (unless someone in the house likes burned chocolatey bread! it's pretty tasty, acutally. leave em on. dont pick em off)

 

All done. Pay no attention to the dirty oven.

 

Eat with a ton of whipped cream. fucking YUM.

yum yum yum

Work Potluck 1

At work there are 3 of us every Thursday. We decided it would be nice for us to all bring in a dish from now on if we're all here. We invited the CSO's to join us as well, but theyre all lazy assholes.

Originally I was going to do fried stuffed risotto balls but there was no way I was waking up early enough to do that in one day so I made chipotle, cheddar and chive mashed sweet potatoes. I tried to make them a little less spicy than normal but who am I kidding. Those bitches gotta be hot. This pushed Jess out of potato territory and into salad and cookie land. Loretta made a Hungarian chicken dish I cannot for the life of me spell or pronounce.
Below: plated up!

Below: the containers


All in all successful. We are doing another this week where I WILL wake up in time for risotto.

Challenge Entry: The Cucone

Meet the cucone.

Based on the bacone.


Here's me holding it.

Here's that guy with his.


The bacone is a cone make of cooked bacon filled with scrambled eggs, cheese, country gravy, and topped with a biscuit. The cucone is a cone made of peeled cucumber, filled with poached egg whites, goat cheese, and topped with a piece of smoked salmon.

I'd say this guy speaks entirely for himself, but... Boo-Yah!!!

I'm going to hell

for eating female crabs. but by god were they tasty!


(sexing crabs)

FISH > YUENGLING

Look at that fish. look at his beady little eyes. i ate him. yes i did! i ate him right up.
him and his brothers. the red snappa' brothers. i ate all of them. like the gangsta i am, i first laid them on a bed of salt (that i added some whipped egg whites too). also i stuffed those mothah fuckahs with some lemon and onion and garlic, because THAT IS HOW I ROLL.
look at them all snug in their beds made of salt! so cute. that's like 5 pounds of salt there. and like 6 whipped egg whites. that's a lot of salt.
here they go -- into the oven at 425 for 30 minutes. there's no real way to tell when they're done, so just know that a 1.5 lb fish wrapped in about an inch or more of salt will take 25 minutes to cook. TRUST THE TIMING. i added a few more minutes because i cooked two fish to the pan. i mean bed. bed of salt.
then... then i cracked that salt right off. and threw it in the GARBAGE. fucking salt. it also got everywhere. but not inside my fishies! awesome. they have dead eyes now. right when they came out of the oven, the eyes were all swelled up because the liquid inside boiled, but then after a few minutes they caved in. animal eyes are cool.
yeah, this is me de-skinning those delicious fishys. you take that skin right off and the meat inside is delicous and moist. and surprisingly not salty at all! omg. i'm going to have to tell you guys about going to the fish market in trenton. oh man. matt just threw me off track for a second. where was i?
oh fuck yeah. that's such a good combination. dale's pale ale (the best beer in existence in a can) (also Matt says it's damned delicious and he's got a pretty good repoire when it comes to beer tasting) (also it's just a fact) and some red snapper. oh yeah, i was going to tell you guys about this place - ok, so. FISH AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE. seriously. like 30 varieties of fish, all ready to be de-scaled and de boned and gutted and everythign by my helpful mexican de-fisherizer. he was amazing. there were also tanks of live fish in case i wanted to take home my own tilapia for a pet. also, there was a WALL of SHRIMP. i almost lost my boyfriend to grocery section! and whole rock crabs and blue crabs (but only the females which is just tragic because they take em out of the waters and then who will be there to make the next generation of little crabbies for me to eat?)lauren got really grossed out by the eyeballs. and the spine. personally, i like looking at all the parts of something i'm eating... i mean, hell. it's going inside you, you might as well get a good look, eh? am i right?

oh the remains. the best parts were the fishmeats on teh bottom of the fishies because the juices soaked through all the lemons and garlics and got just a touch salty and it was amazing. that's my fork right there, i was picking the remains. YUM.
greg says "THIS FISH IS BETTER THAN YUENGLING" and then got in a philosophical discussion with matt about how yuengling is just adequate and then john terry piped in with how yuengling is to beer what dante's peak is to movies. but everyone agreed that the fish was better than both of those things.
and that's what's left. not too shabby for less than 10 bucks a head! (including salad and greenbeans as a side dish) (also there was a tart that i made from almost overripe fruit that was pretty bangin but is an entry all its own) (BEN WHAT? TOP THAT WITH YOUR MINI EGGS. I DARE YA, and matt just fucked your milkshake)

Fish N' Chips

Kyle and I were hungry the other night but didn't know what to make. We did know that we needed to go grocery shopping. We ran out to the store and realized we wanted fish. To our delight there was some delicious cod on sale and we knew we had a shitload of potatoes back home about to go bad. We took that cod home and got it ready. Above is some potatoes and a tool. Yes. Tools. We have evolved. This one is for fries. Below you can see what we did to those potatoes with that tool. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. That's a lot of fuckin' potatoes.
As you can see below its a good thing we had so many. Those bastards turned out golden awesome. Just look at those chips. Golden fuckin' goodness. Makes you jealous, don't it? Sea salt on those bitches too.
Here's the fish all prepped. We let it slip into something a bit more comfortable. Flour, then egg, then flour, then egg, then bread crumbs. The egg, as per house rule, was mixed with paprika.
And here they are golden delicious. Much like the chips, a source of envy. Perfectly juicy and flaky on the inside.
We finished cooking with just enough time for me to pack a lunchbox for work. I squeezed out some tartar sauce and ketchup in there cuz I wasn't sure what we had at work. Wonderful. Excellent lunchbox dinner. You should be so lucky.

Giant Enchilada Fiesta

Omg, Enchilada Night at the Maxwell. We threw together the leftover steak from the other night and some veggies. Jenn cooked it up with like a whole fucking bottle of enchilada sauce. Amazing. Then we dumped an entire bag of cheese. Kraft may want us to use half a bag, but fuck them. I've never heard anyone say anything was too cheesy (except for maybe my karaoke but I still think I'm solid gold on the mic). Amazing dinner. I can't wait to do this again.
Here's an overhead view. These things were fuckin' huge! I don't know why we made so many and I know even less of why I ended up with two of them on my plate. I topped them with refried beans to start. The rice wasn't my best. I have to relearn my rice timing and ratios for this goddamn electric stove. I cooked it up with a bullion cube, peppers, onion, and some other shit I can't remember. Just the usual.
Here's a picture of the dinner table set for us to start. We put out chips with guacamole and lots of rice and refried beans.
The last bites with some guacamole. Excellent choice. I couldn't believe I made it through two of these bad boys. Kyle finished just after me. It was intense. Jenn wussed out and only had one. The second didn't last long in the fridge before someone snagged that bitch. The consensus at the Maxwell is that this was the largest and best dinner we've collectively made. They were so amazing. Gotta love enchilada night.

America's Test Kitchen FTW

America's Test Kitchen, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. You help me make the winningest risotto cakes on Earth. We at the Maxwell (my new apartment) have been struck with a terrible conundrum. We all love to cook as much as possible. Almost as much as we love interesting beers. Why do these two facts cause a problem? Because we can't fit shit in our fridge. The fridge is constantly overflowing with exotic beers, fresh ingredients, and tupperwares stuffed to the brim with wonderful leftover goodies. Luckily for me, while flipping through my favorite cookbook (supplied by Diane and Larry), I discovered a wonderful recipe for risotto cakes. Just my luck, Jenn had just made a killer risotto earlier that week. I took the opportunity to pounce on that tupperware like a crackhead on a dollar. Using my recently honed onigiri (japanese rice balls) making skills, I molded the risotto and stuffed them with provolone cheese. I then dipped them in beaten egg (which I had intended but forgotten to lace with paprika as per Kyle) and then rolled them in bread crumbs which I had mixed up with cracked pepper. I tossed them in some heated oil to deep fry untill golden and then baked them a little after draining excess oil.Here's a picture of all the happy little bastards sitting on the plate together before the first cut. I was thinking about squirting some lemon juice on them but maybe next time. This time I was too damn hungry. Jenn and I cut right in and enjoyed ourselves a wonderful snack. As the cookbook said, after making these badboys, you will forever be making extra risotto just in hopes of leftovers. We at the Maxwell wholeheartedly agree.