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I started getting into cooking at home this summer and after some toil I think I managed to graduate from basics enough to feel I am capable of writing a blog. I am at the very least capable of following enough written instructions in these cookbooks to make be believe so!. I got started in this because I wanted to save some money, do something interesting with food, and try to be a bit healthier or at least know whats going into the food I eat. There is a local farmer's market on Sundays but I generally shop at my local grocery store for all my non fruits and vegetables.
To start us off I found some old post in my personal blog about my cooking foray's:
Saturday, July 20th, I started off by making a from scratch vegetable stock and a beef stock. The beef took like 4 hours and I think it will make a decent french onion soup eventually (it really really turned out well ) and I have some ideas about how make it a bit richer next time. The vegetable stock came out really well. I think adding the mushrooms and tomatoes in addition to all the normal stuff made it just tasty. I used it to make a generic Ratatouille like stew and a south beach diet recipe zucchini soup. I think both came out really well. I was surprised at how easy it was really. You only have to roughly chop up the vegetables so it took less time to prepare than normal food makings and it just simmered for like 2 hours while I watched French Kiss (love that movie ! While cooking I also had Sound of Music and The Saint on at some point). Next time im going to make an absolute ton of the stock and freeze it. I also made zucchini bread from a reciepe of Charles' grandma. I think I might reduce the amount of oil for next time as aparently his nana made lots of oily food/baked goods and I dont think there should be a layer of oil sitting on top of the bread when I go to put it in the oven, even if eventually it all soaks in. Still very tasty !
Sunday I got up early and put together this quick easy baked pears thing. The sauce had grated ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, cream and of course sugar. I just baked it in the oven for a bit and it was done. I think it came out really well.
Later in the day I decided to tackle a goat cheese souflee. I ve wanted to see how hard it might be to do the souflee bit because beating egg whites into foamy stuff is called for in a lot neat tasty reciepes but Id never done it. It turned out well but I forgot to sprinkle in the parmesan so I think it was lacking that bit of salt that parmesan would have give it. Otherwise not too bad and not too hard to make.
I also prepared a pear and sage stuffing for dinner. It uses sweet italien sausage as the bit of meat portion. I dont usually care for stuffing but this came out pretty well. I think there might have been too much parsley and not enough sage. Im also thinking more other kinds of spices (perhaps adding dried sage would work or maybe some thyme as well) to richen the flavor. Also maybe switch out half the chicken broth for white wine!
Next I think Id really like to do the bacon wraped pheasent in a port reduction but id have to get port, red current jelly and find somewhere that actually sells pheasent. I could use cornish game hens but Ive only ever found them frozen and they have so little meat on them. I really need to get away from my french cookbook and get back to the south beach diet ones as my waistline will not forgive me! Id like to do more from my new Kitchen Express by Mark Bittman that im still reading through. I will have to try the korean bbq pork sometime soon!
Saturday, July 20th, I started off by making a from scratch vegetable stock and a beef stock. The beef took like 4 hours and I think it will make a decent french onion soup eventually (it really really turned out well ) and I have some ideas about how make it a bit richer next time. The vegetable stock came out really well. I think adding the mushrooms and tomatoes in addition to all the normal stuff made it just tasty. I used it to make a generic Ratatouille like stew and a south beach diet recipe zucchini soup. I think both came out really well. I was surprised at how easy it was really. You only have to roughly chop up the vegetables so it took less time to prepare than normal food makings and it just simmered for like 2 hours while I watched French Kiss (love that movie ! While cooking I also had Sound of Music and The Saint on at some point). Next time im going to make an absolute ton of the stock and freeze it. I also made zucchini bread from a reciepe of Charles' grandma. I think I might reduce the amount of oil for next time as aparently his nana made lots of oily food/baked goods and I dont think there should be a layer of oil sitting on top of the bread when I go to put it in the oven, even if eventually it all soaks in. Still very tasty !
Sunday I got up early and put together this quick easy baked pears thing. The sauce had grated ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, cream and of course sugar. I just baked it in the oven for a bit and it was done. I think it came out really well.
Later in the day I decided to tackle a goat cheese souflee. I ve wanted to see how hard it might be to do the souflee bit because beating egg whites into foamy stuff is called for in a lot neat tasty reciepes but Id never done it. It turned out well but I forgot to sprinkle in the parmesan so I think it was lacking that bit of salt that parmesan would have give it. Otherwise not too bad and not too hard to make.
I also prepared a pear and sage stuffing for dinner. It uses sweet italien sausage as the bit of meat portion. I dont usually care for stuffing but this came out pretty well. I think there might have been too much parsley and not enough sage. Im also thinking more other kinds of spices (perhaps adding dried sage would work or maybe some thyme as well) to richen the flavor. Also maybe switch out half the chicken broth for white wine!
Next I think Id really like to do the bacon wraped pheasent in a port reduction but id have to get port, red current jelly and find somewhere that actually sells pheasent. I could use cornish game hens but Ive only ever found them frozen and they have so little meat on them. I really need to get away from my french cookbook and get back to the south beach diet ones as my waistline will not forgive me! Id like to do more from my new Kitchen Express by Mark Bittman that im still reading through. I will have to try the korean bbq pork sometime soon!
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