Progress

So! Where were we? Alright, alright, I’ve been a bit of a dead-beat dad to this site, but I’m going to blame technology for this one. I still don’t have a camera which is annoying me to no end, and taking pictures with my phone just isn’t cutting it for me. BUT! I made a cake! Stupidly, I only remembered to take a picture of it once i had put it in the box, but it’s coming soon I promise. Also, I have finally written down the recipes for a few other things that I made before my gadgets crapped out on me which I will be posting soon as well. So all is not lost after all. Hopefully I’ll be getting around to all of this this week, but for now I suggest you go and download some Yeah Yeah Yeahs and have a mini rock-out with me.

Updates and Excuses

Ok, so where did we leave off? Oh yeah, that pesky little virus. Well you’ll all be pleased to know that I’ve purged my system of that foul little beast but true to my life’s destiny, when one thing goes right something else goes wrong and that of course means that my camera stopped working. *Sigh*. Anyways, I’m here to tell you that once I’ve managed to resolve my technical difficulties it will be back to business as usual. Look forward to my constant apologies, music suggestions, out of focus cell phone photography and the occasional recipe in the new year. For the time being, I’m going to focus on sorting through all the recipes I wrote and tried out over the holidays and possibly manage to work out something spectacular to start out Twenty-Ought-Nine with.

***Fireworks***

Currently listening to: Kevin Quain.

Patience, pretties.

I have a virus. Sad but true. Until I can purge my system of this horrid little beast, I will not be posting. This is sad because I’ve actually made several new things and photographed them, even written a little haiku about one of them, but none of you will see this until I fix my poor little lappy. Send a little prayer to the patron saint of cyborgs for me as I’m sure I will need it.

Pulse Stable, Patient Is Breathing

Tis the season to be busy, it seems. With a million things to do just to make sure that one stays alive and kicking with zero down time, what is a gal to do? In case you’re wondering, this is a short list of things that have happened since I last posted:

-Took my sick cat to the vet. Pancreatitis. $400.
-Cleaned apartment(and washed my sheets about 5 times) this week because Princess Shittybottoms and her disease have taken over my home.
-Handed out about 15 resumes around town and swallowed my very salty pride as I also applied at *chain* restaurants. I feel unclean.
-Finished my Christmas shopping and about half of my Christmas creating(ie: for those of you not on my expensive list)
-Wrote four new recipes that I’m DYING to try out. Oh the foot-tapping going on right now in anticipation of Christmas feasting, I tells ya!
-Finally, finally wrapped up my last lab before exam week starts. I can not WAIT until next semester. Chocolate shall bow to me, oh yes.

So I can’t possibly be held responsible for the lack of posting and picture-taking, can I? Really now. In addition to the list, here are a few things I’ve done in class that I’m only just now pulling off of my phone, and a few from some outings dating back as far as August, I believe.

Let it be known that I have an active hatred for the above mocha cake. Nothing to do with it’s difficulty but rather it’s ease and plainness.

Lemon meringue pie, circa September 2008. *yawn*

Ugly Yule log. May I just state, for the record, that I was FORCED into using those hideous meringue mushrooms, FORCED into making it shaped as such, and DENIED a cute little enchanted forest fairy and was instead pacified with the option of a butterfly. Which I mangled. Not my best work by any stretch. Que sera, sera.

We were asked to make a large occasion cake for the school’s athletic association and so our chef told us to each make a piece of sporting equipment. My sense of humor being what it is, I made a jock strap. It was immediately repurposed into a football helmet after I got The Look. Some folks are just so uptight, amirite?

This is the famous finger injury I incurred while making that wedding cake a few months ago. Le ouch!

From one of my patio adventures with the wonderful Mister Josh, in a place where cheese sticks are called Cheese Rockets and onion rings are called Glory Hoops. *Ahem*

And yesterday’s chocolate-on-chocolate busy work. I actually love doing this because she allows us complete decorative control.

Theory class has never looked so dapper! Mmmyes, quite.

Not much else to report yet; there will be a post about chili in the near future and I bring you promises of Christmas candies aplenty. Other than that, have a happy Friday and try not to get eaten by bears.

Current earmeats: “In Da Ayer” by Flo-Rida. I have never been so ashamed of liking a song as much in my entire life but it’s so catchy, dagnabbit!

Better Late Than Never

I actually did this on Halloween and slap my wrists, I’m only telling you about it now?! It’s true. However, my camera batteries were dead so I had a friend take the picture and had to wait just this long for her to send it to me. And you know what? In my utopia, zombie cupcakes would have no season. So yes, zombie cupcakes in November are a total GO!

Current Earmeats: Moneen, in a futile attempt to drown out the ever-persistent reverberating bass from my upstairs neighbor. There was a day not too long ago that I would have though that a blue collar, middle aged straight man couldn’t have too horrible a taste in music for his demographic but I am VERY wrong. Even Europeans hate Euro-trance, sir.

Let It Snow, I Don’t Care…

Today, we had our first big snowfall of the season. It’s officially winter in the Not-So-Great-White-North, and I couldn’t care less. Now, I’m not one of those people that gripes with every changing season, constantly wishing that the weather was doing the opposite of what it is, counting down the days until the next season change because of course, then it will be better! No sir, not me. Well that’s a lie; I hate summer. But since it is anything BUT summer, I digress.

I actually like winter. Not so much being outside in the winter, but watching outside from inside in the winter with a big bowl of something warm. I like watching the snow fall, making stews and soups, and wearing woolen leg-warmers, fingerless gloves and hats inside with a mug of peppermint tea. I’ve even been, on occasion, known to actually bring myself outside and careen down a mountain strapped to a thin piece of fiberglass just to be able to warm up afterwards. It’s mostly about the cooking, though.

To celebrate the beginning of what I hope to be a white yet mild winter, I made a pot of soup. One of my classmates is partially to blame for this, actually, for if it wasn’t for her buying a bowl of potato, bacon and cheddar soup on our break today, I probably never would have gotten the idea to make my own at home. But she did, and I did, and this is me telling you about it. Onward and upward.

I don’t make soups too often. It’s not because I dont’ like to or want to, but because I tend to disregard them as actual meals. In my mind, a meal should have a meat and a vegetable, maybe a starch, and all of these things should need to be chewed. Soup just doesn’t follow those rules(let it be known that I don’t eat broth soups with chunks of such things floating within so stop thinking you’re so clever) and that’s why I don’t think about it. However, on rare occasions, I do infact crave soup, and when I do, it’s 95% of the time a cream soup. This is perfect for the little autistic kid in me that NEEDS a meal to have a meat, vegetable and maybe a starch because lo and behold, it does! And it’s all suspended in a delicious, creamy veloute. Who could ask for more?

Potato, Bacon and Cheddar Soup
Serves 4 as a starter, 2-3 as a main

5 slices of bacon, cut into strips
2/3 cup onion, fine dice
2 cloves garlic, fine dice
4 tbsp butter
3/4 cup flour(approx.)
2 cups chicken stock
2 cups 2% milk
2 cups potatoes, medium-small cubes
1 cup shredded old white cheddar
pinch each of cloves and nutmeg

Sautee bacon and onions until bacon has let off most of it’s fat into the pan and onions are translucent; add butter. Add garlic and sweat for 30 sec. Stir in flour to make a roux. Mixture should pull away from the pan. Slowly add chicken stock, stirring constantly. Once encorporated, stir in milk and add potatoes. Let simmer on medium-low for an hour, or until the potatoes are cooked through but are still pleasant to the bite. You will have to get up and stir this soup every so often as the roux DOES like to stick to the bottom of the pot, but that’s easy enough to fix by aggressive scraping with the spoon. Once the potatoes are cooked, check your seasoning and add cloves, nutmeg and pepper as needed. You probably won’t need to add any salt as the bacon will fix that for you but go nuts if you like to. I’m no one’s doctor. Add cheese and stir until melted.

Serve with crusty bread, soft snow and a warm pair of wool socks while pretending the world does not exist.

Currently listening to: City and Colour

Fun Things To Do With Leftovers and Why I Love Days Off

Breakfast. Love of my life! I haven’t had the opportunity to make an honest-to-goodness breakfast in, well, longer than since I cooked real honest-to-goodness dinner actually. Before the wedding cake, if I do recall. Well, it’s my day off and so with a clean kitchen and a fridge full of leftovers, today is brought to you by the letter “Mmmmm.”

Remember that whole pan of leftover braised vegetables you have, just lying around? Well they make for great fried pancakes, I tells ya! Just mash up a few spoonfuls until like chunky mashed potatoes, sweat off 2tbsp fine diced onions, add a pinch of salt and fry in a very buttery non-stick pan and there you have it. Vegetable hash browns. C’est magnifique! But, if you’re like me…

…you’ll go too far and make an hour long production of it, make too many, and decide that it would be best to add some thick cut bacon, eggs over hard, and a cup of strong Sumatra to the ordeal whilst offending your neighbors with your screamy music. Life is so hard, no?

I plan on spending the day lolling around sans pantalons, drinking too much coffee and creating aaahrt, daaahling. Because, hey, what are days off for if not life, liberty, and the pursuit of breakfast?

Currently listening to: August Burns Red.

Last Night’s Dinner, And Why I Hate Supermarket Butchers

Psst… Hey guess what? It’s root vegetable season! *Glee!* Fall has officially worked it’s way inside me, folks and it’s delicious! I finally got around to cleaning my kitchen and in celebration, I decided that it was befitting of me to destroy it all over again. It had been so long since I last cooked something more complicated than an egg and cheese sandwich that I almost forgot how much I simply love to cook. Really. That long. Well fret not, for I have seen the error of my ways and am now resolving to keep the battleground clean and cook at least one honest-to-goodness meal every week. For serious.

So let me tell you all about last night’s dinner. Remember how I’ve been spewing forth my love of all things autumn for the last, oh, four months? Well I finally got around to eating my season. With a cart full of turnips, butternut squash, parsnips, potatoes, pumpkin and celeriac, so began my journey. Down dried mushroom land, forward to expensive cheese land and with a quick pit stop to cut-up dead things land we were on our way to flavor country. Not before playing my favorite supermarket game though. It’s “Stump The Poor Checkout Lady” time! WEEEEEOOOO! It may make me sound like a horrible person, but one of my favorite parts of grocery shopping is getting to the checkout and enjoying the look of confusion and “what the fuck are you making, lady?” gazes that I get every time I try to buy my vegetables. Am I the only person in this town who eats this shit? Were I a more self-conscious person, I might start to develop a complex… The poor woman only got a 2/6; apparently parsnips and celery root aren’t excessively consumed in our fair city. Such is life, I suppose. So with my cart full of knobbly root vegetables and my soul satisfied with food-snobbery, I bid farewell to the supermarket and ran right home to begin The Chopping.

I’ve always really enjoyed doing vegetable cuts. It’s strange to most people and that I understand, but maybe it’s related to my love of garde-manger. Also, butchery. I hope it doesn’t sound to macabre, but I really do love butchery. I think I can chalk that one up to the little autistic kid inside of me that loves breaking things down into their proper parts and arranging them according to size and usage. Speaking of butchery, if there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s supermarket butchers. Really. If you’ve been properly trained your job really isn’t too hard. Break down the meat, follow the bones, clean the silver skin and cartilage off, package and label. Breaking down a chicken is one of the easiest things to accomplish in butchery, so why did the chicken parts I bought come with a spine? Hmmm? When I see “skin on, bone in” on a pack of chicken breasts, it damn well better come with a part of a wing bone and ZERO spine. Zero. Spine. Do your job, it’s not hard. Anyways…

So I’ve been anxious to try this for a while. Laying awake one night in the clutches of insomnia, I came up with a stuffed chicken idea. Turns out that I do all of my best thinking while I’m only half awake. Who’d have thought, huh? So was born the notion of wild mushroom stuffed chicken with bacon and gruyere. You heard me. Paired with a braise of my beloved fall underground dwellers it was the best part of a Sunday evening. Oh, you want to know how to make this do you? Well I suppose, but don’t say I didn’t warn you about the “WFT?” looks you’ll get at the grocery store and the “OMG!” feeling you’ll get in your stomach when it’s all said and done.

Wild Mushroom Chicken and Braise of Fall Vegetables

For the chicken

2 bone in, skin on breasts of chicken
1 clove garlic, fine dice
2 shallots, fine dice
2 tbsp cooked bacon, diced*
1/4 cup dried mixed wild mushrooms**
1 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup grated gruyere cheese
2 tbsp olive oil, divided
2 tbsp butter, divided
1 tbsp herbs de provence
salt and pepper to taste

*do not use pre-packaged cooked bacon please. Just cook one strip and cut it up, mkay?
**you can buy mixed dried mushrooms. If your store doesn’t carry them, an even combination of porcini, portabello, oyster and shitake mushrooms will work.

For the vegetables

2 cups each of:
celeriac
parsnips
butternut squash
pumpkin
waxy white potatoes
turnips, all cut into one inch cubes
5 cloves garlic, smashed
6 tbsp olive oil
1.5 cups chicken stock
pinch of cloves
pinch of cinnamon
pinch of nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste

Start with your vegetables. Skin and chop your ingredients for the braise. Over medium heat, sautee vegetables until they begin to color. You will have to do this in sections and remember to not overcrowd your frying pan; use 1.5 tbsp oil per each batch or thereabouts. Transfer vegetables to your roasting pan. Deglaze frying pan with the chicken stock and simmer about 5 minutes. Stir in your spices and pour brazing liquid over vegetables. Put in a 300 degree oven and cook for approximately 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Use a wooden spoon to stir, or a rubber spatula so you don’t turn your lovely cubes of vegetables into lovely baby food. Eat with your eyes.
You will know when your vegetables are done when there’s no more liquid in the pan and they are firm but tender when pierced with a knife, or pleasant to the bite.

While your vegetables cook, start the stuffing for your chicken. Over medium heat in a small saucepan, sweat shallots and garlic in 1 tbsp each butter and olive oil until soft. Deglaze with stock and bring to a slight boil. Add your mushrooms and herbs and simmer for about 20 minutes or until mushrooms have re hydrated. Strain the liquid and reserve. Mix bacon in with mushroom mixture, set aside.
To clean your chicken: hopefully your butcher isn’t an idiot, or maybe you bought a whole chicken to carve yourself, but clean the breast off of the bone, leaving the skin intact and up to the first joint of the wing bone if you were so lucky as to get one. I wasn’t and for this I am sad. Remove the tender from the back of the breast and set aside. Make a cut down the middle of the back of the breast that goes about half way in. From this cut, cut into each side to make a pocket in which to stuff your stuffing. If you’ve made chicken kiev or cordon bleu before then it’s exactly like that. Stuff the breasts with your mushroom and bacon mixture and grated cheese. Place your reserved tender over the pocket and using any loose skin or meat, close the pocket so that you can not see the filling. It’s tricky but can be done, I promise. Heat remaining oil and butter in a pan over medium high heat and brown chicken breasts, starting with the skin side. It helps to hold them closed with tongs sometimes so that you don’t lose your cheese when the meat starts to expand and shrink the skin. Once all sides are browned, place in a 350 oven and cook until done.
Deglaze your chicken fry pan with the reserved mushroom liquid and reduce until thick. Add more stock if you need to, or white wine if you have any. I didn’t have any but wish I had. No bigs.

Serve chicken on a bed of your lovely vegetable braise and a drizzling of reduction sauce. Eat this in your pajamas while watching Sunday night cartoons with a big mug of chai tea. Or whatever else makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Current earmeats: Parkway Drive, and I Killed The Prom Queen. It’s been a week of hardcore for me.

Happy Monday!

Why Yes, I Am Alive.

We appreciate your concern. I’ve pretty much been out of town for the last two weeks so it goes without saying that I’m a little lacking in the food-making department. In lieu of actually making anything at home, I’m going to throw out some pictures of what I’ve been doing in class over the last two weeks because it’s pretty much all I’ve done.

So there. I’ve baked. I came, I saw, I decorated.

I’ll be finally getting around to cleaning my kitchen this week (rejoice!) so I’ll soon have fun and exciting things to report on. I’m planning a few things that I can’t wait to try out and when I do, you will all be the firsts to hear about it. Promise.

Currently listening to: 36 Crazy Fists. Research this pronto; your hardcore soul depends upon it.

Also: planning new apartment decor but need funds for said. Going to scour antique stores in Toronto for more medical antiques and militaria. If anyone knows where I can find an early 1900s leather and metal prosthetic arm, hook a sista up. WANT.

Thanksgiving Comes Early In Canada, and Late On My Site.

Yep, there I go apologizing again. I should really just stop promising anything and then everyone would be happier, no? Well, sigh a sigh and let’s do carry on, shall we?

T.G.I.Fall, everyone. I was beginning to drown in ennui with the summer so much so that it was only a matter of time before I got so restless that spray-painting the leaves with fall colors was starting to sound like a good idea. Fall is my favorite time of year, by far. Take all of your long summer nights, your days at the beach, your ice cream and snow cones, you can have them! Give me a crisp autumn day with the crunch of dead leaves at my feet, a big scarf and some fingerless mittens, a braise of squashes and root vegetables and you’ll have one mighty happy lil’ tattooed girl.

What I love most about fall, like any true fan of food, is, well, the food. I wait impatiently for half a year every year to taste the fruits of of the fall, and as a large fan of vegetables and pastries, this is a most painful wait. So when I’m asked to create something with one of these most tasty fall fares, I am agog with excitement. This thanksgiving, I was charged with the duty of The Pie. Squee! And how I do love to make pumpkin pie, let me tell you. We had made a few in class the week before(oh, did I forget to mention that I’m now studying to become a pastry chef? We are much happier now that chef training is done, folks. Much. Happier.) but I didn’t like the recipe, and that’s fine, but I chose not to document it. I like my pies a certain way: rich and boozy, and the pies that we made at school just weren’t up to my standards. But I digress.

I think I’ve yammered on enough for now about pretty much nothing, so I’ll just get to it and give you the recipe for MY pumpkin pie, and in my very biased opinion, the better one. Ahem.

Bunny’s Boozy Pumpkin Pie
Serves 8 comfortably, 12 gingerly.

2 cups of pure pumpkin puree
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
3 eggs
3 tbsp fancy molasses
1 tbsp cinnamon, or more. It won’t kill you.*
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/3 tsp cloves
1/3 tsp ginger
3 tbsp(one airplane bottle) orange liquer
1 cup 35% cream

One pie crust shell, uncooked.

*that I’m aware of…

Whisk together pumpkin, brown sugar and molasses. Whisk in the eggs one at a time. Add spices and liquer. Whisk in cream. Pour into your pie shell and cook at 400 degrees for ten minutes, then drop down to 350 for 20-30 minutes, or until the middle of the pie just barely jiggles when you move it, and the crust is golden brown.

Serve with spiced sweet whipped cream, if you bought more than was recommended. Buy the 500 ml carton, it’s better with whipped cream. Honest. Whip one cup of cream with 1/2 cup or less confectioner’s sugar(to your taste) and spice with cinnamon to taste. Tah dah!

In other news: I have fallen ill! NOOOO! It’s true, I’m afraid, I have become victim to The Sick and am taking it like a wimp. Also: my kitchen never ceases to be dirty though I haven’t been cooking very much in my own home. Strange. Will investigate this further.

Earmeats: Rancid, and the general chatter of coffee shop patrons.