I’m Taking a Cooking Class

I did it. I signed up for a formal cooking class. I have never taken a formal cooking class before. Well, you know, a cooking class at a cooking school for people who aren’t getting a cooking degree. Mostly since I moved out of my parents house I have learned from the food network and by trial and error. The class I am taking is called Julie & Julia “Desserts” recipes inspired by the novel.

The description is the following.

You’ve read the book and watched the movie now its time to try your hands at the recipes! Julie Powell needs something to break the monotony of her life so she take’s her mother’s copy of Julia Child’s 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and she will cook all 524 recipes in the span of one year. Inspired by the novel we will prepare 6 recipes in the span of Four hours! Petits Pots de Creme (Caramel Custard Cups) La Tarte Des Demoiselles Tatin (Upside-down Apple Tart) Clafouti (Cherry Flan) Jalousie (Jam Tart of French Pastry) Mille-Feuilles (Layered Puff Pastry Interspersed with Cream and Confectioner’s Sugar) Le Quatre Quarts (Pound Cake)

This could be bad. I don’t eat a lot of desserts now during my healthy eating kick. Oh why did I sign up for such temping class.

Roasted Almonds

I did something that I have never done before. I roasted some nuts. In this case almonds. The only nut on the Mayo Clinics list of Super Foods! I figured it couldn’t be too hard. Just take some almonds, season them with something and put them in the oven. Well, I made it harder. I took some almonds, sauteed them, then seasoned them, and then put them in the oven.

I used olive oil and sesame seed oil. After that was heated, I added an Arbol pepper, and then the almonds. Then I added the Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce. Heated that for a bit. Then I put them in a bowl.

This bowl contains a ginger salt concoction.

I was scared because I’m not really a big fan of ginger. Not of ginger bread cookies, or the ginger candy my mom gave me once. Oddly enough, ginger ale is my favorite pop though.

Anyway, I mixed the almonds in the ginger-salt concoction, and layed them on in a single layer on a baking sheet. Then I put them in the oven for a bit, and greatness emerged.

Now, I didn’t think they were too great when I first ate some, but after a few days I started to love them. They are by far the best roasted nuts I have ever had. I will be making them again when these are done.

New York Salt Ban Proposed

This isn’t really a political blog, but this has to do with food. Apparently some idiotic politicians (kind of redundant isn’t it) want to ban any added salt in restaurant food. I don’t know about you, but I can’t actually think of any savory food in which I don’t add salt. Also, does that mean you can’t bake, since just about every thing you bake requires salt. I was completely speechless when I first heard about this on the radio. I can tell you one thing, if this ever goes through, New York’s status as a world class food hub will be a thing of the past.

Stupid Computers

Well, it’s been awhile. Let me explain the problem. My computer is stupid and one day it decided that it wouldn’t turn on. I tried many things to fix it, including ordering new parts, but I failed. So, despite my stubbornness, I finally took it to a computer repair store. In the meantime I have been stuck with borrowing my girlfriend’s computer when I can. Hopefully the repair place can figure out what is wrong and I will have my computer back again, and I will be back to posting. Look forward to roasted almonds and tasty salmon when I am back up and running.

My First Successful Omelet

I have tried on several occasions in the past to make an omelet, failing every time. It would always either burn or turn into scrambled eggs. My mom was baffled at me being able to screw it up even once. Recently, I replaced my (not so non-stick) non-stick pan with a new one. I bought it with the idea of being able to make a successful omelet in it.

As you can see, it has more rounded sides than a lot of other pans. It is also made of aluminum as apposed to my old steal pan for a more even heating.

I decided that I would follow Alton Brown’s steps, and see if he would lead me on the right path of omelethood. The first step in this successful omelet is to warm the eggs in warm water.

You’ll need three eggs for each omelet that you make.

Then you need to scramble your eggs and and mix in a pinch of salt. This should be a fine grain salt, because a coarser grain like kosher or sea salt will not dissolve quickly enough. I think I remember Alton Brown saying that you should use a fork to mix the eggs because something about bubbles. I don’t remember, but I’m sure if you really wanted to know you could find the episode on youtube or something like that.

Oh, did I mention that the pan should have been heated for a few minutes already while you are mixing you eggs. You want all of those tiny crevices in the Teflon to fill up.

From my multiple failures, experience shows that you’ll need to experiment in order to find a good temperature. Alton brown suggests that it should be somewhere around medium high, but for my stove it is more like medium to medium low.

Once the pan is pre-heated, you should pour the eggs into the center of the pan.

Then immediately start stirring with your spatula. You should not be so much moving the spatula as you should be moving the pan around.

After 5 seconds of stirring, and after some solids start forming, lift the pan and turn it so the liquid gets spread evenly around. Then take the spatula and move it around the edge of the eggs in order to form it into a circle.

Then do nothing for 10 seconds. If you have some fixin’s that you want to add to the omelet, this is their time to shine. Only put them on 1 third of the omelet. For me, this took more than 10 seconds because at this time time I discovered that my girlfriend had decided that my pan was too hot, and had put the burner on low without telling me. Grrrr.

Anyway, I put in some mozzarella cheese and waited for awhile until I decided it was good enough.

Then I folded a third of it over, and slid it on the plate. I finished it off with a little oregano, and bon appetite.

My first successful omelet.

Pizza Mondays

In ancient times, my girlfriend and I instituted the tradition of Pizza Mondays. It was a celebration of getting through the hardest day of work.  Because if you can get through Monday, the rest of the week doesn’t look so bad. The tradition simply consisted of having a frozen pizza for dinner on every Monday. Oh, you might not think that is so great, and wouldn’t you get sick of it? But we looked forward to this so much that even if one of us couldn’t be there for dinner on Monday, the other one would still keep the tradition alive. It was easy and it was tasty. Two things that you need after completing that sad day.

The one day I decided to change my diaiti. Diati is a way of life, which the word diet is derived from. I’m not dieting, I have changed my “way of life.” You can tell because I refuse to eat anything labeled “diet” . My new “way of life” has no room for frozen dinners. Would Pizza Monday go the way of pogs? Never! The answer is to make my own pizza from scratch.

Last week the dough was made. Half the dough was used for last Monday’s pizza and half was used for today’s.

You might be able to see that some parts are a little hard. The plastic it was wrapped in came off a little bit in the fridge.

I rolled it out and made some edges.

Some of you out there might not know what kind of pan I have it in. It is in fact a deep dish pizza pan. It came in my “Kitchen in a Box” that I got when I moved into my first apartment in college. Everything in that box was a piece of crap except this, hence why it is the only thing from the box that didn’t die and that I still have. Although it is a deep dish pizza pan it works great for the thin crust pizza that I am making. If you don’t have one of these – which you probably don’t – then simply use a cookie sheet.

For the homemade thin crust pizza, the first step is to bake the crust by itself for about 7 or 8 minutes at 425 degrees.

Now for the ingredients!

Pepperoni, broccoli (the super food itself), green pepper, olive oil and mozzarella!

During the latest trip to my local grocer I forgot to procure any type of ingredients that could be put together into a pizza sauce. Nevertheless, Pizza Monday must go on! That means a Margherita pizza.

Ten minutes later, at 425 degrees, we have perfection.

Well almost. The crust is the best of any of the pizzas I have made so far. I finally got it crispy. It usually is floppy and I’m not a New Yorker. I’m from Chicago, and when we do eat thin crust we want it crispy. I also think that I put a little bit too much olive oil on the dough. While it was baking, the oil kept dripping onto the bottom of the oven and was creating a whole lof of smoke.

And that is the ancient tradition of Pizza Monday.

Spicy Apple Chips Take 2: Success

After the latest Apple Chip failure, I have devised a new flavor. I am still convinced that a savory/spicy Apple Chip could work. This time I decided on a kosher salt and a cayenne pepper flake flavor profile. The last chips with the chili powder didn’t have any bite at all. Pepper flakes tend to have a pretty good bite, so I figured they might work better.

I cut them thin with the mandolin.

I think I wasn’t paying attention because some of the later slices turned out a little too thick.  I’m not sure if you can really tell from this picture,  but you might be able to notice it in the one in the right most row,  second from the top. I tend to like to error on the side of thin.

I put the salt and the pepper flakes on the apples slices and put them in the 200 degree oven for about two hours.

The result…

Success! I thought I might have burned the pepper flakes (yes you can actually burn something with the oven at 200 degrees) since I noticed a faint burning smell when I took them out, but they have a nice bite to them and you can’t taste any burnt flavor. Just the right combination of the sweet from the apple and the kick from the pepper flakes. These aren’t for the faint of heart. I have one complaint that I really noticed when they cooled completely. It is that they are a tad on the salty side. Next time I will put much less salt on them if any.