Not-So-Experimental-Cooking!

In my neverending quest to find meals that are home-cooked and delicious, I stumbled across this site and fell in love. Voila! Budget Bytes!

I'm pleased to say that I've made a few things from this site so far, but I am feeling most accomplished after making the ricotta gnocchi. Yes, for real, I made this recipe! I was concerned, because this is basically handmade PASTA!

There was a large mess involved (flour ALL OVER my clothes), and I've decided I need an apron now, but it turned out really good! I almost stopped eating to take a picture so I could post that, but it was too good to stop eating!

I put a little olive oil, garlic paste, and pancetta (one of my new favorite things) in the hot pan and swished around the gnocchi a little bit, but that's it. And there's a TON of leftovers (frozen)!

So yeah, it's not-so-experimental because I'm following other people's recipes, but it's still cooking, and that's awesome. :)

Now with 100% more substance!

I realized that pretty much all I've been posting here is End of the Work Week Wisdom, and while that is entertaining (at least to me), I should really post something of substance.

Crocheting has been a little bit on the slow side, as I haven't had a lot that I really NEED to be working on right now. My shop is more than well stocked, and we're entering into the time of year when sales are slow for me. When it starts to get warmer, people look at yarn and just sort of shudder. (Not all yarn is ridiculously warm! Really!) I started working on a couple of new things, but decided that the legwarmer idea was right out, and the patterns are taking me longer to deal with than I had hoped as well. I'm beginning to think about working on some new amigurumi stuff to pass the time, though today I was having fun trying out a couple of different star ideas on the bus. There's a plan for those, but I haven't quite gotten the star how I want it yet.

I've been trying out a lot of new recipes, though they've mostly been recipes that come from the internet. Last night, we had homemade mac and cheese that ended up a bit soupier than anticipated. I've got leftovers in my lunch today, so I'm going to see how those turned out before I start tweaking that recipe. I'm planning on jambalaya for dinner tomorrow night, which seriously already has my mouth watering. :)

Been doing a bit of writing and editing, which you can read more about at my writing blog. The short version, however, is that right now Jeremy is reviewing my novella. When he's done, I'll make some revisions based on his suggestions, and then it will be going out to some beta readers. Then it'll undergo another round of revisions, and then I get to start shopping it around. This is going to be all new to me, because I've only shopped short stories previously, and that's a very different sort of process. So fingers crossed that it works out!

Roller derby is still going strong, though we have a couple of weekends with none. This is planned, however, since we'll soon have three weekends in a row with bouts, followed by a week off, followed by four weekends in a row with bouts. Whee!

Experimental Cooking: Easy Rice Noodles

Seattle is in the throes of another Snowpocalypse (the third one since I've lived here, and I've only been here five years!), so we're doing a lot of cooking with what we have on hand. I've pretty much determined that getting my car out of the subterranean garage it's currently parked in isn't going to happen until the snow on the parking lot thaws at least a little bit. I don't look forward to driving up the hill that leads out of the garage until my car can have some traction!

Last night, looking for a starch to add to our meal, I grabbed a bag of gluten-free brown rice pasta that I had bought for a writer's retreat. We don't usually eat that sort of pasta, and I wasn't entirely sure how it would cook up in small quantities (I made a whole bag the first time I made it and it was a sticky mess!). And thus, Easy Rice Noodles were born. My hubbie liked them so much that I made them again tonight!

Easy Rice Noodles (serves 2)
2 servings of brown rice pasta
about 3 tablespoons of Trader Joe's Soyaki Sauce

I started out by breaking the noodles into thirds. This is partially because I was brought up always breaking spaghetti noodles in half before you cook them. But especially with brown rice pasta, you want to make sure the whole noodle is underwater all the time. So unless you have a monster pasta pot, break the noodles.

Then you just cook them up according to the directions on the package. My experience thus far has been: longer is better. 7 minutes left us with noodles that were still a little solid in the center, and 9 minutes was much better.

Drain the water off the noodles, and then pour about 3 tablespoons (give or take, I didn't measure it) over them. Stir it all up, and serve.

Commentary: So the very act of pouring the Soyaki on the noodles renders them not gluten-free (wheat is involved in most soy sauces). If you're wanting to make this a gluten-free dish, I recommend replacing the Soyaki with some sort of gluten-free teriyaki sauce.

So far, this has gone great with coconut shrimp and gyoza (hey, we can't go grocery shopping in the Snowpocalypse!). It would probably also make a nice addition to a sweet stir fry.

Experimental Cooking: Black Beans and Veggies

Finally, a cooking post with a picture! This is a pot full of the start of black beans and veggies, which is a great meal that cooks up a large amount, and works perfectly as leftovers. This is what I make for lunch pretty much every week for the hubbie and I, cooking it in a large batch on Sunday afternoon (sometimes for Sunday dinner too), and then portioning it out for our lunches to take with us to work.

Black Beans and Veggies (8-10 servings)

• 3 cans black beans, rinsed thoroughly
  
• 2 Roma tomatoes, cut into bite sized chunks or smaller
  
• 3-5 mini bell peppers OR 1-2 regular sized bell peppers, cut into bite sized chunks or smaller
  
• 1 cup frozen corn
  
• 1/4 onion, diced (usually a Vidalia onion)
  
• 2 cups water
  
• 2 tbsp Taco Seasoning

Mix all of the ingredients into a large pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Simmer for at least 30 minutes.

Serve with rice. Add salsa and shredded "Mexican" cheese if you like.

Commentary: This stuff smells AMAZING while it cooks, and it tastes great too. Rinsing the black beans helps cut down the sodium content that canned beans tend to have.

Variations: I have a lot of suggestions for this one:

• If you aren't opposed to raw veggies, just put the onion and corn in while the beans are cooking, and save the tomatoes and peppers to be tossed on the top. My hubbie doesn't like raw tomatoes or peppers, so I cook them with the rest.
  
• If you're a meat eater, you could add some taco meat or spicy sausage to this. Cook the meat separately, and then add it when you serve up the finished meal. We found a nice spicy chicken sausage at Trader Joe's that is delicious with this recipe.
  
• The recipe itself is vegan and super low fat, but then we toss cheese on it, which changes both of those factors. I suspect it would taste just fine without the cheese, or with a vegan or low-fat cheese.
  
• If you don't have my version of Taco Seasoning on hand, you can definitely substitute store-bought taco seasoning. You'll have to experiment with how much to add, but I'd guess about half a packet would do.
  

Experimental Cooking: Taco Seasoning

Taco seasoning is great for dishes other than tacos. It's an essential part of the lunches that I make for us just about every week. But I don't like buying pre-packaged taco seasoning, because it's filled with sodium and preservatives. Instead, I've started making my own taco seasoning. I mix up a decently large batch of it and store it in a plastic container in the cupboard, so it's always easy to scoop out a couple of tablespoons when I need it. I even have measurements for this one (though they are approximate).

Taco Seasoning

• 1 Tbsp chili powder
  
• 1 Tbsp ground cumin
  
• 1/2 Tbsp dried onion
  
• 1/4 Tbsp cilantro (optional)
  
• sprinkle of garlic powder
  
• sprinkle of cayenne pepper
  
• sprinkle of ground sea salt

Mix all ingredients in a plastic container with a snugly fitting lid. Keep in a dry cupboard. Use a couple of tablespoons to season main dishes.

Commentary: Yup, it really is that easy. It doesn't taste quite the same as packaged taco seasoning, but all of the essential elements are there. You can, of course, increase the quantity that you're making (I normally do). Just use the recipe to get the proportions: 4 parts chili powder and cumin, to 2 parts dried onion, to 1 part cilantro.

Variations: The cilantro is optional because I know a number of people who think cilantro tastes like soap. The hubbie and I do not, so we use it. :) I have also been known to put a dash of cinnamon in the mix, because we regularly use this with black beans (recipe coming soon), and black beans with cinnamon is surprisingly good!

Experimental Cooking: Peachy Pork (and general caveats about my cooking)

I've been trying to expand my cooking repertoire and steering away from pre-packaged meals. I won't say everything has been an unqualified success, but I'm discovering that a little bit of experimental cooking can turn out pretty well. So I thought I'd try sharing a couple of recipes that have worked well for me.

A couple of caveats:
1) I don't really measure ingredients, especially spices. So if you're looking for precision, this is not the place to find it.
2) Even though I'm working towards less prepared foods, I use some because they're easier. So most of my spices come from jars, and I often use bottled marinades or whatever alcohol is on hand. It's the combination of ingredients, I hope, that will be of interest.
3) Our meals usually involve meat. If they don't involve meat, they involve cheese. I don't think I could get away with a vegan meal. :) But there may be some meals where you can make substitutions to fit your dietary preferences.
4) I can't always promise pictures. But I'm going to try to start taking some! :)

So, first up on the menu is:

Peachy Pork (serves 2-3)

• 1 lb. pork tenderloin (or another boneless cut)
  
• 1 Fuzzy Navel wine cooler
  
• ground ginger (or fresh)
  
• garlic powder (or fresh)
  
• 2 peaches, sliced thinly
  
• brown sugar

Start by trimming the fat off the pork, if desired. Put it into a container that can be closed with a lid. Pour the wine cooler over the pork, and then sprinkle generously with ginger and lightly with garlic powder. The goal is to have ginger be the predominant flavor, with garlic just barely there. Marinate in the fridge for at least a few hours, preferably more like 12.

Heat up a large frying pan over medium-high heat. You shouldn't need any cooking oil. Just toss the pieces of pork into the frying pan and let them start cooking. I usually let the pork cook for a couple of minutes on the first side, flip it to the second side for a couple more minutes, flip it back to the first side for a couple more, and finally the second side for a couple more. Each side gets about 4-5 minutes of cooking, which makes it done, but not overly dry.

After each side has cooked for a couple of minutes, add the sliced peaches and a sprinkling of brown sugar (maybe around 1/8 cup). Let the brown sugar get on both the peaches and the pork. It will start caramelizing a little bit in the pan, so you may want to move things around to minimize that.

Serve with brown rice or another grain of choice, and some sort of green vegetable--we like steamed french cut green beans lately.

Commentary: My hubbie laughed at me when he found out that I used a wine cooler to marinate the meat. I marinate most of the meat we buy in some sort of alcohol, and at the time, the wine cooler was the only thing on hand that made sense. Fortuitously, the day I made this also happened to be the first day that peaches were available at the farmer's market near his office, so I sent him down to buy some. Worked out perfectly!

Variations: I'm planning on trying this again using a hard cider for the marinade and with apples or pears as the fruit. I will likely skip the garlic for that variation. I also think sprinkling some raisins across the top when it's done would be delicious for either version.

It's fall, for sure!

The weather has turned directly into fall, and just about right on schedule, too. Seattle has a good tendency to turn warmer around Memorial Day, turn hot around the 4th of July, and turn cooler around Labor Day. It's a good system, if you ask me, because I'm perfectly happy with about 3 months of summer-ish weather (with only a week or two of summer heat).

Of course, this seems to mean that I need to stop thinking that I can get away with more summer-y clothing options. Apparently a knee length skirt with footless tights and ballet flats just doesn't work for going out to the bus stop in the morning. I'll probably be fine on the way home, of course. :) Jeremy said we need to get me more winter-y clothes, and I responded that I just need to learn how to dress for the weather better. I've got a whole drawer full of corduroy pants and sweaters. :)

I can sort of tell that the seasons are turning by what Jeremy reports to me as available at the farmer's market near his work. On Tuesdays when he's coming straight home from work, he heads over there on his lunch break, and we frantically text back and forth so I can help him choose some fresh produce for our meals. This week, it was less fruit than previous weeks, and a bag of purple potatoes. This is mostly for my love of all things purple, but also for my love of strange potato dishes (like the blue mashed potatoes that we had for Thanksgiving in Carbondale one year). I had purple potato salad at the Can't Stop the Serenity event in Seattle, and decided that I needed to make purple potatoes at home, too. :)

I think the plan for these is just to boil them and eat them relatively unadorned, so we can see what they taste like before I start doing more odd things to them. But really, how often do you get to eat purple food that isn't grapes?!

Oof...

Jeremy occasionally says that he thinks his cats beat him with mallets while he sleeps. I think he may not be too far off, and they seem to be turning their attention in my direction as well.

I somehow missed posting for most of last week. I'm not entirely sure why, aside from the couple of days when I was only barely in the office, if at all. And then Jeremy's cold caught up with me, and knocked me out of commission on and off from Friday to yesterday. *sigh*

Cooking experiments last week were curtailed because of my cold (and not feeling like cooking while I had it). I did try to make a Thai beef salad, but discovered that a) the beef should have been marinated in the sauce, and b) we would like it better if it had been beef and rice, maybe with a salad on the side. I've also been threatening a panang-style curry, but that still hasn't happened. Instead, I cooked up the green beans with some small pieces of bacon, which made them delicious, but produced far more than I was interested in eating. I left them out for folks to nibble on while they gamed, and came home to a barely touched bowl... I think the bacon may have made them a little slimy after they cooled off, and who wants slimy green beans?

I have a great photo of the Thai beef salad, but it's on the Frankenstein computer. On Sunday, Andrew cobbled together a computer out of parts from mine and Jeremy's desktops. We have two hard drives and my motherboard, with my external hard drive and keyboard, and Jeremy's mega big monitor and wireless mouse. All in all, it's a lovely machine, and will be even better when Andrew can bring us his device to get the data off of Jeremy's second hard drive, which wouldn't fit into my tower because of the way the fan was mounted.

I spent the majority of my Sunday at the studio, photographing a bunch of stuff that has been sitting in bins awaiting photos for ages. I mistakenly thought that I had already measured everything and had that saved on the external hard drive, but discovered when I got home that I was wrong. Project for next weekend: measuring. :) I am happy to say, though, that the natural light that my studio gets is exceptionally indirect, and spectacular for photography. Much better than it would have been in the studio with a view... a view of someone's backyard... :)

More food adventures!

A few miscellaneous comments about food and related excitement. :)

Saturday night was my first night at the D&D game, and the hosts celebrated by making all kinds of yummy food. My favorite was the panang style green beans, which were absolutely nummy. I decided I need to learn how to make those ASAP. There was also bok choy salad and grilled chicken and pork. I kept dipping bits of meat into the sauce from my green beans. :) (And I did track down a recipe for panang style sauce, which I will be making soonishly, I hope.)

Wednesday night's dinner was a bit of a disaster, unfortunately. My plan was for lemon pepper and balsamic vinegar salmon (from a recipe found in a magazine), along with green beans and fingerling potatoes. The first flaw was the salmon. Salmon has BONES in it! This was the first time I had ever tried to cook salmon (actually, probably the first time I have ever cooked fish in general), and I was traumatized to discover that the salmon had bones in it and skin on one side. Jeremy suggested cooking it anyway, as he had seen salmon prepared with the skin on and had to pick out bones before.

Cooking it was the next adventure. I suspect I had the heat up too high, and it didn't really "brown" like I was anticipating. Then again, I'm not sure that salmon should brown like ground beef does, so maybe I did get that part right. The balsamic reduction didn't work as nicely as planned, instead turning all bubbly right away and not smelling all that grand. It looked all black and unpleasant, like a tar pit, and I don't think much of it managed to stick to the salmon itself. The pan, however, seemed to be the perfect substance for it to stick to.

In the end, the salmon was mostly cooked. But between dealing with the bones and not liking the taste of it as much as I normally do (it tasted peculiarly fishy to me), I didn't eat much of mine. Jeremy soldiered through a bit more of his. The cats were highly interested in the salmon we didn't eat, but we decided with the tiny little bones, it wasn't a good plan to give them the leftovers. We also weren't sure how cats would deal with lemon pepper and balsamic vinegar.

The green beans turned out fine (thank goodness for microwave steamers!), but the potatoes weren't exactly ideal either. I bought a different type this time, which may not have been real fingerling potatoes. I also got impatient with them when the salmon and green beans were ready to eat, and the potatoes were not, so I may have rushed them a bit too much. Either way, they weren't nearly as tender and yummy as last week's potatoes.

I'm sure there will be more cooking adventures in the future. When I'm in town at least, Wednesday night is our "date night" where we stay home and have dinner and watch a movie. Thus far, dinner on Wednesdays has been a bit more elaborate than what we'd normally make. I've also informed Jeremy that he gets cooking responsibilities one of these Wednesdays. :)

Om nom nom

(a.k.a. I hope my potatoes don't explode! :) ) A variety of circumstances have been conspiring to make me start cooking again. A boyfriend who works the same hours as me, the weather in Seattle cooling off, finally going to Trader Joe's in Seattle, and looking at how much money I spent on restaurants last month (YOUCH!). It also helps that Jeremy seems to like my cooking, no matter how unusual or haphazard it tends to be. :)

Last night was Corona garlic lime steak and fingerling potatoes. The idea for the steak was a combination of Jerome's explanation to me that beer or soda is an integral part of any marinade and me seeing a recipe for garlic lime chicken on the back of the garlic powder container. Since we had Corona and lime juice on hand, I was game. :) It turned out great, though I need to remember to go for thinner cuts of meat when shopping. As it was, I took everything out of the pan and sliced it up when I discovered I was about to have black outsides and red insides on the steak. No good!

The potatoes, I think, are my new favorites. They seemed to cook up a lot faster than normal potatoes (probably because they're bite sized!), and they were perfectly yummy with just some melted whipped butter. Plus, we could eat the skins (something I won't do with russet potatoes)! Steak and potatoes are not what we eat regularly, but I think I'm going to get a request for that meal again very soon. :)

I've also noticed that I'm getting better about using leftovers and things we have around the apartment. I scavenged leftover kalamata olives for our tacos on Monday night and leftover Havarti cheese for garlic bread on Tuesday night. Not remotely traditional, but delicious nonetheless. I think I got a bit aggravated when I realized how much stuff in my fridge and how much stuff in Jeremy's fridge needed to be tossed because it was expired. I'm even planning to figure out what to do with the random cans of beans (and dried... lentils, we think?) that are the remnants of Jeremy's ex's stocking of the pantry. It's sort of a new realm for me, because I don't even know what some of this stuff is, let alone how to cook it. Hurrah for the intertubez! :)

Next step after I figure out cooking from relative scratch? Baking. We have a plethora of frozen bananas and a banana bread recipe, but I am terrified of trying to bake from scratch. That's why the good people at Betty Crocker et al. made mixes!

(Oh, the alternate title is what I thought right as I put my container of leftover potatoes into the microwave at lunch. The potatoes did not explode!)

I CAN cook! :)

So one of my goals for the new year (I don't do resolutions) is to try to do more cooking, particularly more cooking that does not just involve throwing something into the microwave for 2 minutes or less. This is mainly just me finally getting tired of eating like a college student, I think, and getting tired of eating the same meals every week.

Last night, I made steak and potatoes. The steak was just pan-fried, with some Asian sea salt mix and extra garlic rubbed into it, and turned out FAR tastier than I expected. Right before it was done, I realized I had no steak sauce, which would have been a tragedy if the steak had not turned out as well as it did. The potatoes were a variation on the recipe on the back of the Lipton's onion dip mix box. I'm not moving entirely away from cooking with SOME prepared items, and the potatoes with dry onion dip on them are like the best way to eat potatoes anyway. :)

And the best part of this meal is that after eating it last night, I had leftovers for my lunch today. The potatoes are even tastier today, I think, and the steak is still pretty good. I've got another bunch of potatoes at home, too. :)

If I had thought about it last night, there could have been pictures. But I didn't. So there aren't. :) Instead, you'll just have to imagine the yumminess. :)

w00t!

So as some of you may know, I'm not the greatest cook in the world. I can make a few things, but I went for quite a while not really having to cook for myself. I knew how to cook, I just didn't have to because I had someone else to cook for me. In 2004, when I went for about 8 or 9 months with no roommate, I actually had to start cooking for myself again.

One of the things I've been wanting to learn how to cook for myself is omelets. Sure, I can always ask Jerome to make me an omelet, but he works late on Tuesday nights, and sometimes you just want an omelet for dinner. So last night, I FINALLY managed to make an omelet, which is the lovely photo above. No, it's not the world's prettiest omelet, but dangit, it tasted GOOD. :)

Argh!

So even though I'm not the most domestic person in the world, I do try. Every once in a while, I'll go all out with cooking dinner. (Okay, every once in a RARE while.) Mostly, this does involve a lot of prepared things that just need to be thrown together, but occasionally it's more elaborate.

Last night, it was supposed to be pot roast and potatoes, in the crock pot. I put it all together before I left for work, and set my little handy-dandy plug in timer, that tells the crock pot when it should turn on and off. Only somehow, it didn't communicate with the crock pot. The timer ran, and it clicked the little switches back to the off position, but the crock pot never turned on. So I came home to a cold hunk of raw meat, which had been sitting out for 10 hours.

Suffice it to say, no pot roast for us. :( But now I don't know if it's the timer, the crock pot, or the outlet that failed me, which puts a crimp in any crock pot related plans that I might have had--at least until I have time to do a test run when I'm home... but who uses their crock pot when they're actually at home?! :)

"Cooking" with Dawn

So last night, for some reason, I had this crazy craving for Big Mac sauce, a.k.a. Thousand Island dressing. However, as we don't eat a lot of salad, and Jerome hates Thousand Island, I had to improvise. I mixed together approximately equal parts of ketchup and mayonnaise, and then tossed in a bit of pickle relish. Voila, nearly perfect on my first try! And surprisingly good on hot dogs. :)

Now the next one I have to try is the dressing that they put on the salad at the cafe downstairs. I have no idea what it is, but it's a sort of thin, watery, coleslaw-like dressing on regular lettuce, rather than minced up cabbage. Oh, and I think it's sweeter than coleslaw dressing... but I haven't eaten coleslaw in years. I wonder if it's some sort of Asian slaw, as it comes with all of the Asian dishes... however, it also comes with the lasagna...

Sadly, I don't even know where to start on trying to make it. It would probably help if I could identify it better. :)

In other news, the injured fingers from last night now have pirate bandaids, and that makes them feel 10 times better. :)

No new movies this past week, though I did watch "Velvet Goldmine," half-heartedly watched "Shaun of the Dead" (I was cooking while it was on), and watched "Amelie." The latter proved, yet again, that it is damn near impossible to watch a movie in a foreign language while doing something else. But I looked up in time to see her turn into water and splash on the floor, and I love that scene, so that was kewl. :)

I still haven't gone out to buy new movies. That was actually on the agenda for yesterday, but then it started snowing really hard, and I decided to stay inside and cook lunch and dinner, so that I have so much in the way of leftovers that I really don't need to cook again all week. But I'm cooking dinner for J and I tomorrow night anyway. Cuz I haven't cooked for him in ages, for assorted reasons.

It is nice being able to cook a few things, and especially to cook things that make really good leftovers. I have pizza and shepherd's pie in the fridge, and taco soup and spaghetti sauce (homemade) in the freezer. When you more or less live alone, even regular meals make too much food for one person, and you end up thinking "oh, maybe I'll get to those leftovers," and then you never do. Yet another reason why I'm really looking forward to Jesi moving in, because we can both cook, and make meals that will feed the two of us, with maybe a bit of leftovers. What will be totally and completely the bomb is if J and Lord Pleasure get an apartment in our complex, because then we will have AWESOME dinners for the four of us, at least on occasion. And Lyle can come over sometimes too. :)

Grumpiness of last week = all gone. I've been in a good mood pretty much all weekend, and it even carried into today. Really looking forward to tomorrow, even if I will be sitting at the craft fair all day, mostly alone. Hopefully I'll sell enough stuff to make it worth my while. :)
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