me make food

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.

Made chicken noodle stew a few times recently from roasted chicken leavings. Home made egg noodles in there.

Some pork and skillet fries. Pork had some Penzey Trinidad Style Lemon-Garlic Marinade, which was decent. The potatoes has Penzey Greek Seasoning, which is really good.
I will make a vid of my skillet fries here soon.

This roast fed us all weekend.

This weekend was the first time I have ever made pancakes from scratch. I don’t think I have even made pancakes in the 10 years I have been in my house. Used this recipe

Ingredients

* 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1 tablespoon white sugar
* 1 1/4 cups milk
* 1 egg
* 3 tablespoons butter, melted

I had no clue that there is butter in the mix. Saw that on many recipes. Going to try the Alton Brown ones next. These were pretty darn decent though.

Was wondering through the newly expanded and remodeled Open Harvest and saw that LeQuartier had three variations of frozen pizza on their crusts. There was a meat one, a veggi, and this pizza lyonnaise one I picked up.

Creamy leek sauce (cream, leek, feta, garlic, salt), artichoke hearts, mushrooms (portobella, button), bacon, onion, salt.

Seems they forgot to list cheese as an ingredient, but I am pretty sure it was mozzarella. I am a huge fan of their pizza crusts and enjoy them for lunch with light toppings. This frozen pizza was loaded with toppings. It was a hearty meal and could easily be split between two people with a side salad and some bread. At just under $7 it was a bit pricey, but local and made with great ingredients.

The Leek sauce scared me before I tried it, but it was delicious. Not greasy and the big chunks of toppings made each bite unique. I would eat it again for sure.

Put some diced green chilies on my mini lunch pizza today and it was absolutely amazing. It would slay with the spiciness of pepperoni too. Saw a diners drive ins and dives where a place used diced green chilies in their awesome pizzas and have be intrigued ever since. It is really good because they are such a cool flavor that goes with pizza well. A great addition to round out the flavor without being hot.

I was worried that some of them got pretty brown. Wondered if I shouls of added them later, but the juices spread over the pieces and the browned chilies added another layer of flavor. Nom

Tasting really good right now. 2F Dave hooked me up with some stuff from his garden and Heather gave me an orange tomato she was not going to get too. Picked up some roma tomatoes, cilantro, garlic, and went to town. Used one whole jalapeño, 1/2 a habanero, and 1/4 a Thai chili pepper from Dave. Lime, blended some, onion, salt, pepper, and oh man. I am scared of what it will become, but really like it. Gona freeze a bit I think, jar some, and nom the rest.

Chef Todd’s DVD page

97 minutes of new material in 35 chapters, lots of knife skills (my fave), and 55 minutes of his cooking coarse videos.

I am pretty excited to check it out. I have learned a bunch from Chef Todd’s videos and am glad to give a bit back by getting this DVD which I know I will learn from.

So this is the 3rd time I have made cheese straws, and the 3rd time I have over salted them

I did use a pasta roller which made it darn easy though.

The store had cheap shredded cheese so I went with it. Next time I will use a quality cheese. This will once again become topping for mac and cheese. Bread crumbs cannot even come close to browned cheese straws.

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
2 cups shredded sharp Cheddar, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.

In a food processor, add the butter, cheese, flour, salt and cayenne and process until a smooth dough is formed. Scoop it into a cookie press, fitted with a flat ridged tip. Pipe the dough in 2-inch strips onto a lightly greased cookie sheet. (Alternatively, refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes and roll on a lightly floured surface into a 1/4-inch thick rectangle. Cut into smaller rectangles, about 2 by 3-inches, with a pizza wheel or sharp knife.) Bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove to racks to cool.

So we picked up a few dressings a shopping trip back. I wanted some ideas on how to make my own salad dressing since we are rocking them for sides more often now.

I headed to Alton Brown for suggestions of course.

- I went with 1/4 cup of mostly red wine vinegar. I mixed a slight pour of some really cool balsamic vinegar my in-laws got for me into that 1/4th cup. A few shakes of rice wine vinegar as well.
- 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil, some light olive oil and 10 drops of sesame oil to make up the last 1/4 cup of oil. Some garlic, salt, pepper, and sun dried tomato

Everything besides the oil was blended to mix. Blended the oil for a few secs in there and it was ready.

.

It is amazing and just like store bought stuff, but more flavorful. I only needed a very tiny amount.

So on the suggestion of Chef Todd and his knife sharpening video I picked up a $13 eight inch dual sided sharpening stone from the hardware store. I headed home and checked out some other youtube vids on how to use a sharpening stone.

I used water to lube it up and it sucked up a bunch of water into the stone. Started with the dull steak knives in my Kitchenaid set which is pretty decent. I got those very sharp and kept working on my technique up to my precious chefs knife. I even used the brown side of my reversible belt to strop the sharpened and honed knives. The difference is amazing. I cut up some chicken today and it was spooky how sharp my knife was. I will keep working on getting the angle and technique down and can skip the places I have taken my knives to get sharpened which have had mixed results. Still pretty bummed that my santoku knife was hacked to loose its curve and render it pretty much useless. I doubt my stone can shape it enough since they are high carbon stainless.

Very pleased with my first attempts results.

We have 5 dinners planned. Tomato chicken cream pasta, blackened chicken salad, mac and cheese (not the kraft), hamburgers, And spaghetti in a meat sauce.
The rest is munchies, fruit, sweet makings, and stuff to make doggie and kitty soup (a month or more worth).

There are not too many manufactured foods. Carmel rolls (I might eat one, but she loves them), Bologna, Doritos, salad dressings we want to try to get ideas from to make our own, tortillas, hamburger buns, Kraft mac and cheese (her lunch), and a rice pilaf box to give us ideas for our own pilaf. All the rest is raw ingredients and we try to make every thing from scratch. I did not tell Theresa about our plan to photo it till the ride home. She thought it was a cool idea.

Total was $135

multiple good dressings, chocolate, coffee, fancy cheeses, beer, and there is a pile of meat there which goes to us and leavings to pet food. We usually use bulk meat from sams for pet food (have not been there for a while). Those items were the bulk of the price. We had not been shopping for a long time and lots of it will last for well beyong the upcoming week.a weeks worth of food