Jam!

Maybe that's not quite the expletive replacement I'm looking for... But just noticed one of my favorite food bloggers put her blog on hiatus. Baked was the only foodie blog I kept hotlinked on my browser. It was high quality without being so... overwhelming. Felt like following a friend instead of idolizing a celebrity...

I really ought to put a bit more work here. I've been cooking up a mess in the kitchen, so its not like I've slowed down the cooking. Heck, its the one thing I never really put off longer than a couple weeks. A girl has to eat!

Thats whats so beautifully easy about learning to cook. You get the chance practically three times a day to try your hand at it! It even has a built in punishment reward system. Get good at it, and practice, BAM! You get to eat something tasty. You don't practice? Then you're paying someone else to do it, or eating medocre food. Unless you have a sweet deal with another chef friend who's cooking for you... Lucky dog! Feel the wrath of my envy!

I made the croissants. Twice. In massive culinary text book size batches. Which was a bit of a mistake, as I knew from the get go the recipe was faulty. The Pastry Chef, the CIA pastry text book, has a terrible editor, horrible consistency, and I wonder if any of the recipes were tested... but its beautiful and I knew that before I bought it at half price.

The recipe measures milk in lbs. The danish recipe on the next page, in fl oz. RED FLAG. The 2lb 8 oz of flour is listed as 1.31 grams, in their metric measurement. Should be KGs I realized. RED FLAG. Use butter, it says. Unsalted and add salt to dough? Salted butter? RED FLAG! And finally, it was a sugar enriched dough which I think is sort of a technique avoiding short cut. What about proper fermentation to create sugars? RED FLAG, but one I truly didn't mind because it gave me an excuse to buy some malt syrup.

It was the sugar that did me in on batch one though. Fine, the combination of sugar and my own slothfulness. I took almost 24 hours to make the dough start to finish, retarding the dough overnight in the fridge (because I made it at 2AM). This is a big NO when you have sugar in your dough! It makes the yeast frenzy and produce way too much alcohol bitter nasty spent yeast flavor... and bam. Thats what the croissants tasted like. Also, I used unsalted butter, because the recipe didn't specify. I did add salt, but not enough.

Bland, excessively fatty pastry dough.

Waste. Of. Butter. JAM IT!

I quartered it, baked one, and saved the rest for caramel or cinamon buns. Going to be FANTASTIC! Even with the poorly made dough.

The other batch? Great! Salted butter, what I had on hand, and an expedited process, (I started at noon instead of 2, and didnt even go to a movie or a walk mid process). And bingo. I need to let them rise longer though!!!

Pictures? I have one! On... my phone... which I apparently deleted after sending it to Jordan. Now, to see if he REALLY appreciates my mad kitchen skills, and kept it, so that he may send it back, that I might post it for you allz!

Doing Something

I'm going to make some croissants. I'm gunna make a big sum. I decided to use the CIA's pastry texts recipe, for 5lbs of dough. Figure I'll freeze the extra. Real exciting stuff. If I feel like it, I might even post a picture. Heh. Bake on.

Computador

I’m testing out my mothers knew computer. It has windows 7 and this is from the windows live writer.. set it up to configure to see how it would work. I’ve been wishing I could come down in the morning and just open up logged in blog all set up and pretty, ready to be written and posted, and this could be it. Course… all of my millions of pictures are on my other computer so that wont help me much. Troublesome indeed. I’ve been cooking and not picturing and you know how no one reads when theres no pictures. And its even worse when someone almost never writes AND has no pictures. What can ya do. Maybe I’ll write more with better tools eh? We can hope.

First One Down!

Alight. First of the fourty... twenty, out of the way. Sort of. You see, they're baked and tasted and shipped and all gone, but I haven't uploaded the pics. And dont want to make this the post about it... soo... I did it!

The Fourty

I'm attempting something to kick up my awesome. I don't have a lot of awesome going on... but there will be some awesome if it kills me. I'm grabbing 40 recipes just a whim short of 'at random' and cooking them. I feel a bit cheap, because I'm just stealing them off food porn sites that a hundred other people have tried... I should be making up my own, but right now I don't have the wherewithal to handle it.

To be noted I will be making something similar or inspired by or exactly the recipes listed.

1. Lavender Brigadeiro from Patricia Scarpin at Technicolor Kitchen
2. Soy-glazed Flank Steak by The Bitten Word
3. Red Bean Spinach Soup by Jessie at EatStudy
4. Pasta with Summer Squash, Sausage, and Goat Cheese over at Use Real Butter (A name I highly support)
5. Homemade Pita Bread and Hummus at Savouring Time in the Kitchen
6. Taste the Sun... Then Play In It Fruit Salad at Healthy. Happy. Life.
7. A perfected BLT inspired by Lick My Balsamic
8. Spring Yogurt as made by One Particular Kitchen
9. Mozzarella scratch made inspired by Kristen
10. Hard cheese inspired by the rennet instructions I bought for the cheese that Kristen inspired
11. Fried Cheese Curds inspired by squeaky cheese
    
12. Roasted Red Peppers Stuffed with Quinoa and Feta with Balsamic reductions ~ Kristen
13. Cheesy Grilled Pepper Poppers by a blog I've since forgotten :/
14. Cream of Leek and Parsnip Soup posted on Ceramic Canvas
15. Indian Cardamon Mava Cakes from my nemesis Tartlette
16. Frothy Mint Lemonade over at Eat Make Read
17. Quinoa with Summer Vegetables on Karina's Kitchen
18. Pasta with Bacon Peas and Ricotta posted by Junglefrog Cooking
19. Chocolate Ginger Cookie a Martha Stewart recipe baked at Food Gal by Carolyn
20. Butter Mints inspired by a woman at a catering gig

There. The first 20. These are link intensive, more so than I should make them probably, but I'll post the next soon.

Dry Like My Bread

Man... I've left all my foodies high and dry lately. I'll see what I can do. Maybe blog my catering gigs.

I Got A Puppy! I Got A Puppy! I Got A Puppy! Hey Hey Hey Hey!

This morning dawned sadly, tossing and turning in my sleep with a tear evoking dream about my Carson. I woke breifly with tears in my eyes. I had been petting her. Spending time with her... and then it struck me that it was past. Too late to pet her silky neck flaps and tousle her ears. I miss her so much. She was a beautiful sweet kind mischievous friend and nothing can ever replace her.

I miss too though, having a dog at all. I'm not one to be stingy with doggy love, or to clam up with heartache forever. I'm prepared to give some love, maybe a puppy and maybe too a adopt-a-dog. I've been asking for weeks...

An hour or so later Mum woke me again, this time with a call. A call for puppies. Free labs had been advertized on the radio that morning. We drove out a little before noon. Three were already gone... and there was a really really handsome boy, but meet our girl.... (no name).