me make food

So we trying to make some new meals. Have had some failures, but nailed it Friday night. Some folks suggested some good sites to find recipes. Epicurious seems like a favorite, but after scanning a bunch of recipes I was getting frustrated and decided to try an recreate dishes we would get if we went out. It has worked for us before and usually comes out pretty good. Theresa likes the voodoo chicken from Lazlo’s and I decided to try something like that.

Voodoo Chicken
Boneless breast blackened with Cajun spices, topped with a three-cheese sauce.

When it comes to blackening chicken I usually stick to just cayenne, salt, black pepper, and maybe some garlic salt. I checked out Alton Brown’s blackening for salmon and added some celery seed, onion powder, sage, paprika, and mistys seasoning. Spread lightly over the flattened breasts and sauted in olive oil and clarified butter.

I did not get good pics of this meal cuz I was a bit flustered.

I use a lot of cheese cloth. Clarifying butter, draining yogurt, filtering out stocks before separating out the fat, and other things. The $3 little packs from the grocery store are so lame because you get so little of it. I usually have 2 packs on hand. I figured I could find a big roll online and checked amazon. $18 plus shipping for 10 yards. Checked ebay and found the same person selling it for $3 more with no shipping. I have a ton of it now.

I wonder if joanne fabrics sells it?

Left is dinner rolls without any steam in the oven (forgot to put a cup of hot water in the preheated
broiler pan)
Right with steam, but still undercooked.

Been making bread and pizza shells every day for a week and took a couple days off. This dough recipe makes a dense crumb. I have tried diff amounts of letting it rise, but it is usually the same. It is really close to sourdough in so many ways, but not sour. When I get a good crust on it it is really good.

We got more books and I have gotten a bit of read on. Theresa got Alton’s one about baking. Gave up soda, but eat a lot of bread and butter now. I call it a draw.

Took some of the refrigerated dough yesterday and made a few pizza crusts. Roll out and place on hot stone for about 3 minutes to set the dough and kill the yeast. Today I made a pizza and put it on a hot stone just so I could know what that was like. My goal is to do these for lunch and I will not be able to get the stone hot for that, but they should do fine in the toaster oven.

We roast chickens often and normally make chicken noodle soup, but I thought a soup with rice in it might be good. Used the pressure cooker to make a stock from the chicken leavings with onion, carrots, celery, garlic, peppercorns, bay leafs, and water. An hour cooking made it very flavorful. Made the rice with canned chicken broth and it turned out pretty decent. The rice just sinks to the bottom though.

^ Before pressure cooking ^ Did not get an after, but it pretty much obliterates everything. Strain, rince to get all the god stuff, and remove the fat with a separator.

I have picked up a baking stone and made my third batch of dough. For tonight I made some dinner rolls and they were really good, but a bit small. I did some other cool stuff with the dough and will let you know after lunch Monday if it all works out.

Same dough, 2nd day of baking. Got a few more tips. Letting the oven go about 20 minutes after preheating will ensure the whole oven is at the temp you want and hold it better. This time I let the dough rise a bit more before I baked it. It came out better and still tastes really good, but it is still a bit dense. I want those huge holes like swiss cheese. In the pic below you can see how it looked from being sliced.

I am guessing not getting the first initial rise has hurt this first dough I made. So I have made another batch and will wait till it starts to fall before I put it in the fridge. Will post how that goes and then work on perfecting it.

Was planning on making Chicken Scallopine from Pioneer woman with zucchini instead of mushrooms. Theresa took one bite and almost spit it out. It was not overly lemony, but just tasted strange. I forgot the wine too.

Picked up artisan bread in 5 min a day. Quick read on how it works and then lots of recipes on tweaking the dough to make about anything. It starts you off with a baguette. and that is what I really wanted to learn anyways. I love no knead bread and have made it a bunch of times. Bummer part of making that was how it took two days and that required planning. The results were amazing though.

The secret is using the no knead recipe, making a big batch, and storing it in the fridge for up to two weeks. Then when you want bread you pull off a hunk, let rise for 15 minutes, shape it how you want, and bake. The results should be the same as the no knead from what I have read elsewhere. You do not need the book to make this stuff though. Jeff Hertzberg, who wrote the book, tells you how on the King Arthur’s Flour website.
More detailed process on same site

5 minutes a day is the actual time you spend per day actually working with the bread. Baking and rising make it a good hour + per day you bake.

Boule is the basic no knead recipe and can make all sorts of stuff. Roll out a couple baguettes, one big loaf, dinner rolls, or a big crusty round mound with a brown crunchy crust. Then there is a egg dough, and a sweet one for other stuff. Going to try the horn rolls with the egg one. I have not read up on the last two, but the main one seems pretty cool.

Gonna ramble on more and talk about my results so far below with pics
(click below. does not load new page)

Theresa picked me up some books.

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day
Made up my first batch of dough last night and will let you know how it goes.

Alton Brown I’m Just Here for the Food: Version 2.0
I can’t ever get enough Alton. A friend hooked me up with his kitchen gadget book and this one should be mostly review of stuff I have learned, but I will read it bunches of times.

So normally I read on the toilet, butt since I am not a raging drunk anymore and eat tons of fiber rich apples I do not spend much time on the throne. So last night I actually read a book on the couch. Was really really strange.

We are looking for some fresh meal ideas. Got some good tips over on the forum. Cuz we are so stuck in a rut that it usually is gravy on something.

Theresa has been wanting this again for a while. Nice to use some fresh basil from the aerogarden again. Onion, garlic, basil, parsley, tomato sauce, and some cream. Nom