Wednesday Movie Night!

Tonight's choice was made by Jess!! It's a hilarious comedy called 'Stiff Upper Lips' and it spawned the dinner theme of "English tea party."

Or something of the sort. There's a TON of food coming our way tonight, and we're contributing several items ourselves! Bread Pudding compliments of my little brother G, curry, lavender sugar cookies and cucumber sandwiches.

Here's a blurb about the movie:

"Emily is now 22 and ripe for marriage. Her idiotic brother Edward decides, in cahoots with Aunt Agnes, to pair her off with his upper-class twit friend Cedric Trilling. Emily has already had and refused a proposal of marriage from the local vicar Mr. Tweeb on the eminently sensible grounds that his eyebrows were too bushy! An accident at the family lake brings Emily very closely into contact with the naked, handsome, muscular, lower-class peasant George and she is instantly attracted to his ripping unmentionables! Seeing the undesirability of the match Aunt Agnes takes the family first to Italy and then to India to try to separate the lusty, ill-matched couple but George accompanies them as a servant. Will lust prevail or will Emily be forced into a loveless marriage with the extremely dull and boring Cedric?"

It's been a busy day already in the Kitchen of Despair!!

Lavender Sugar Cookies - Easy

What We Used:

• 2 3/4 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• lavender sugar* for garnish

I sifted together the flour and baking powder in a separate bowl and set it aside. Then I creamed the butter together with the sugar, added the egg and vanilla and beat it till it was all incorporated.

I gradually added the dry ingredients with a wooden spoon instead of using the mixer, and eventually I just mixed it by hand since the dough is heavy and a little dry. I then shaped the dough into balls using one teaspoon of dough for each. I dipped the top of each ball into the lavender sugar before putting them onto the cookie sheet. We baked them at 375 for 8-10 minutes, or until they turned golden brown, then let them sit for a bit on the pan before moving them to the cooling rack!

Verdict?

Gaaaaah, it smells so good in here. These cookies are DELICIOUS!! Even the ones I overcooked. I'd definitely use this recipe again! Not too sweet and deliciously buttery.


*Lavender sugar is really very easy to make. You take blossoms from a lavender plant and put them into a sealed container with 1 cup of sugar. Keep it in a cool, dark place and use whenever you feel the need for something sweet and fragrant in your cooking!


Meanwhile, I trimmed the crusts off of slices of homemade bread to get the right shape for the cucumber sandwiches, and my brother used the scraps to make bread pudding!


G's Bread Pudding

What We Used:

• 4 eggs
• 2 cups sugar
• cinnamon
• nutmeg
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 cups milk
• 1 1/2 loaf of bread

G mulched the bread in the food processor, whipped the eggs with the sugar and added the spices and vanilla. He then added the milk into the eggs and mixed everything together, adding the bread in and beginning to soak it. He moved the mix into a Pyrex loaf pan, letting it sit for half an hour. Then we heated the oven to 375 and popped the bread pudding in. It was cooked until a knife stuck into the center came out clean.

Verdict?

Sweet and spicy and very tasty! Too bad I was too full to eat more than a few bites.


The chicken curry was lifted from this recipe here, so no reprinting. The bread is the same recipe posted in an earlier post here on the blog.

-Sam and Jess

Doctor Who Monday: More of the Shortcakes, Sorbet, and the Great Phyllo Experiment

Should we just rename Doctor Who Monday to Shortcake Monday? We liked them so much last week that we wanted to do them again (except... smaller. With enough whipping cream for everyone.)

Doctor Who night tends to involve a bunch of people and snack food. As such, we've taken to mostly making finger foods, ergo the phyllo pastry.

Broccoli, Mushroom and Cheese in Phyllo

What We Used:

• Phyllo pastry
• 2 cups mushrooms (button works best, but we also had some leftover Portobello)
• 1 and 1/2 cups grated marble cheese
• 1 head broccoli, cut small
• 2 shallots
• melted butter
• marjoram to taste
  

Mince the shallots, slice the mushrooms, grate the cheese and cut the broccoli! Heat some oil in a pan and add the shallots and marjoram. Add the mushrooms once the shallots are cooked for awhile, and when the mushrooms cook down a bit, add the broccoli. Cook until the broccoli is tender but not too soft.

Now it's the hard part.

Layer three sheets of phyllo pastry together and brush them down with butter. Cut into squarish shapes (they don't have to be perfect) and put some of the veggie mix into the middle. Top with cheese and fold them however you'd like. We wanted to do triangles, but we ended up going with a much different shape in the end.

Brush the tops with more butter to keep them from drying out and bake in the oven until they're golden and crispy!

Verdict?

Perfect. The buttery Phyllo added just enough salt to the mushroom/broccoli/shallot mix to make lovely bite sized yummy things.

Lemon Pomegranate Sorbet

What We Used:

• 1 large pomegranate
• 5 lemons
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 2 cups water
• a pinch of salt
• a splash of 7-up

I was official in charge of lemons again, since Sam's allergic. I beat up, halved, and squeezed five lemons into a measuring cup. The goal was 1 cup of lemon juice, but I was slightly short so after I strained out the seeds and pulp with cheesecloth, I topped it off with 7-up.

Sam, meanwhile, was removing the seeds from the pomegranate and setting them aside.

In a pot on the stove, we dissolved the sugar in the water and brought the entire mix to a boil on a medium heat (make sure to stir constantly). After boiling it for a few minutes, we removed it from the heat and added the lemon juice, pomegranate seeds, and a pinch of salt. It was brought back to a boil until the pomegranate seeds released their color.

The entire thing was strained again into a pre-chilled metal bowl and then shoved into the freezer. Every once in a while, it was removed and stirred to put air in the mix and get the right texture.

Verdict?

The flavor is fabulous. But sorbet is the perfect place to experiment with mixing fruit flavors. The pomegranate added a beautiful color and sweetness to the sourness of the lemon.

-Sam and Jess

Experimental Pork fricassee, spaetzel, and brownies with caramel sauce

Sam and I are always impressed with how we haven't been repeating recipes. B is probably starting to go 'but what about my favorite??'...

We did pork again, since all of a sudden we have an over abundance of the stuff hiding in the freezer (expect to see 'pork tenderloin' on a lot of our 'what we used' lists for a bit...)



Experimental Pork Fricassee

What We Used:

• 1 1/2 lbs pork tenderloin
• 1 leek
• 1/2 clove elephant garlic OR 3 cloves regular garlic
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 portabello mushroom, sliced thin
• 3 cups chicken stock
• 1 cup heavy cream
• butter (for the pan)
  

We prepped everything before even starting to cook. The pork was cut into thin medalions, the garlic was minced, the celery was chopped, and the mushroom sliced. The round part of the leek was seperated from the top and chopped into thin rounds. The leaf part of the leek was julienned for our purposes... but I'm pretty sure it could be cut however you want (Sam insists that all parts of the leek can be used.)

The pork was cooked in the mock-wok with butter until it was almost done, then the celery, garlic and the round part of the leek were added. When the celery was soft the mushrooms were added. It was all cooked for about two minutes, and then the julienned leek and the stock were thrown into the mix.

We didn't actually time how long the thing simmered, since we were busy with the caramel for desert... but after a long while we tempered one cup of heavy cream and stirred it into the rest of the mix to thicken it. If you need it, you can add a corn starch slurry... which means you remove some of the liquid from the pan, add corn starch and mix until it's kind of like a runny mud, then add it back to thicken further.

After a couple taste tests, we ended up also adding a dash of the asian hot chili sauce sitting in the fridge.

The question 'what are we serving this with?' always seems to come up with us. Rice or potatoes are the default... but since we have a project in mind, we ended up going with spaetzel... which is like a german dumpling noodle thing. We also didn't go traditional with it (nutmeg) instead opting for saffron and white pepper.

Experimental Spaetzel

What We Used:

• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• pinch saffron
  
• pinch white pepper
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Sam mixed together the flour, salt, white pepper, and saffron. The eggs were lightly beaten, and added alternately with the milk to the dry ingredients. Mix until smooth. (Since you don't really need to worry about it rising, beat the crap out of it.)

After it was all mixed, we put a pot of water on to boil with plenty of salt added to it. When it reached a full rolling boil, we got to the fun part. Using a slotted spoon, we scooped up some of the batter and pushed it through the holes and into the boiling water. The spaetzel cooked for about four minutes, until everything was floating, and the end result looked a little bit like scrambled eggs.

Dump the contents of the pot into a strainer, then transfer the drained spaetzel back into the pot and keep it warm till you're ready to serve!

I'm not going to get into the brownies, since the recipe used was out of a cookbook... but (as inspired by Sam's sister) we made a Grand Marnier caramel sauce to drizzle over top.

I had a lot of fun with this, since one of my loves is fudge making and I do enjoy candy.

Verdicts?

The spaetzel had kind of a scrambled egg texture... which is how it's supposed to be (I guess). If we were to do it again, Sam and I agreed that we'd try finishing it off by frying or something.

The Fricassee had fantastic flavor, on the other hand, and is a definate 'must try again'



Grand Marnier Caramel Sauce

What We Used:

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/2 cup whipping cream
• 2 tbsp grand marnier

Like in any candymaking endevor, I made sure everything was ready to go beside the stove before I even turned on the heat.

Once everything was set up, I set the stovetop to medium heat and put the cup of sugar in. It was stirred vigorously... When you're doing this, you want the sugar to melt, not burn... and it all happens very suddenly. In fact, I was apparently standing there for a while stirring dry white sugar in a pot.

When the sugar had melted and had turned into a glorious amber color, the butter was added. Once the butter was melted, I removed the pot from heat and slowly added the cream and then the liquor. All this was stirred vigorously for a while... the liquids caused the caramel to bubble... but as soon as it was smooth, it was done. I transferred the mess over to a glass measuring cup to cool (do NOT use plastic. Boiling sugar + plastic = melted sugar flavored plastic all over the floor.)

Finally, after it was cool I transferred it again to a drizzling bottle and proceeded to douse my brownies. Which is delicious.

Verdict?

I was worried about the grand marnier flavor when I first tried it, trying to figure if it was orang-y enough... but it turned out fantastic. What we may do in the future, however, is add a touch of salt.

Anyway... dinner was interesting and will definately be something to work on. Until next time, Ciao!

-Jess

Asparagus Off!!

Tonight, it was Doctor Who Monday!! And we had an asparagus off. Our friend Carmen told us that she would like to see us make a delicious proscuitto wrapped asparagus recipe thing she had done before, so we decided to take her up on her challenge!

Then...

Well. Lets be frank. I like bacon. In my opinion, it is greater than everything and anything ever made. Bacon > Sliced bread... The moon landing... and definitely Proscuitto. So I said to Sam...

...It's a battle!

We decided to have a mini Iron Chef type thing tonight. I purchased the asparagus, we had a few other things on hand that we could use for the battle left over from previous adventures.

Proscuitto Wrapped Asparagus

What We Used:

• Asparagus
• Proscuitto
• Cream cheese
• Fresh basil
• Fresh chives
• 3 cloves garlic (what I used, you can use less or more! )

First of all, I trimmed the bottoms off the asparagus and washed them so that there was no clinging dirt.

I then put the cream cheese and the herbs and garlic into my handy dandy food processor and blended them together till they made a brilliant greenish herby cream cheese mix. That was spread onto the strips of proscuitto and wrapped around the asparagus spears. Easy!!

Bake the spears in either a Pyrex dish or a baking pan lined with tin foil, since it's a little messy. I had the oven pretty high since all we were doing was cooking the asparagus and crisping up the proscuitto a bit. Proscuitto is already cooked, after all.

Bacon Wrapped Asparagus

What We Used:

• Asparagus
• Bacon (I used thick sliced, but in retrospect thin might have been better)
• Mayonnaise
• Chipotle pepper spice
• Wierd squeeze tube of habanero and cayenne chilis
• Worchestershire sauce
  

In hindsight, I should have kept more accurate measurements since the Spicy Mayo also made a perfect chip dip.

Sam already prepped the Asparagus, so I didn't have to worry about those. I was too busy dumping the chipotle, squeeze tube chilis and Worchestershire sauce into mayo until it tasted right. And really, that's the key right there. Add as much or as little as you want until it tastes the way you want it to.

The bacon was just simply wrapped around the asparagus then put on a foil lined baking sheet and baked at 375. It needed to be turned a lot... more than the proscuitto did... and I was baking for longer at a lower temperature. At the end, when the bacon was starting to crisp and the asparagus was at my desired level of done-ness, I turned on the broiler to finish it off. Served with the mayo it was fantastic.

Verdict?

It was pretty much a tie. Both Sam and I liked the Bacon better, but some of the people there liked the Proscuitto since it's less fatty, and the herbaceous cheese was fantastic (if a bit salty). Both are fantastic appetizers, though.

Finally, no pictures tonight. I'll try to have them up tomorrow when I can grab Luke's camera. Until then, cheers!

-Sam and Jess

Stuff in the Fridge Sunday: Chicken A La Brandon

Good news back on some of our experiments! Again Sam's landlady told us how much the lemon cake was appreciated, Clara enjoyed the coffee cake, and despite our reservations Kate's Birthday Cake was awesome. (I couldn't even dream of finishing my piece. It was enormous!)

It's that weekly stuff out of the freezer night! This time it's Chicken that Sam wants to use up, along with the last of the chianti we used earlier in the week for the Cormarye and mayhaps this random can of beans we discovered in the cupboard.

B, normally not the most adventurous of individuals in the kitchen (except with pie) surprised Sam a couple weeks ago with this red-wine chicken breast that (apparently) was absolutely amazing. Since B is at work, Sam is endevouring to recreate the dish tonight.

The beans are for something else.

Chicken A La Brandon

What We Used:

• 2 chicken breasts
• 1 cup red wine (we have chianti, which is a dry, fruity red. We think B used a merlot.)
• 1 yellow pepper
• 1 orange pepper
• 6 cloves garlic
• 1/4 onion
• garlic powder
  
• seasoning salt
• white sugar
• 1/4 cup Oil (back to the grapeseed again)
• Olive oil (for frying the chicken)
  

The oven was preheated to 375... Sam mentions that if your oven has a roast setting it would probably work best, but since the Kitchen of Despair is also known as Hobo Kitchen... well...

B originally used a pre-mixed club house roasted garlic and peppers spice thing, but being wierd and liking to do things the hard way Sam decided that we were going to do this ourselves, gosh darnit, and we sure do have peppers in the fridge that need to be used.

Sam cut the peppers into good sized chunks and put them in a small roasting pan lined with tin-foil. The peppers were joined by six cloves of garlic, peeled but whole, and some leftover red onion that needed to be used also chopped into large pieces.

The peppers, garlic and onion were covered in oil, then a little bit of salt and sugar were sprinkled over. The pan was put into the oven uncovered and then watched like a hawk (garlic apparently is notorious for burning) and stirred occasionally until the vegetables were soft.

Meanwhile, while the veggies were roasting, Sam was butterflying the chicken breasts and setting them aside.

Since the wine is dark, we opted not to roast the veggies for too long to add a bit of color to the dish, and proceeded to chop them into even smaller pieces. The other option was to mulch them, but I liked how they looked.

Once the veggies were finished cooking and set aside, Sam put the chicken into the Mok Wok to fry with the garlic powder. Once both sides had a bit of color, she added the red wine and braised the chicken breasts till they were cooked through. We removed the chicken from the red wine and sliced it into pieces. The wine was emptied from the pan and the chicken was placed back in with the veggies, then when everything was good and hot, the dish was done!


Verdict?

I liked the peppers! I actually did! This is a bit wierd for me, but the roasted pepper flavor all over the chicken was fantastic. Though if I had my way, there would be six more cloves of roasted garlic in.

What the Noob Learned:

• Braising
• Butterflying a chicken, ie: more wiki for you, gives you more meat for your buck.
  

So... then there are those beans I mentioned earlier...

Sam's Experimental Veggie Casserole

What We Used:

• 1 can beans (we have fava beans.... and a nice chianti now that I think about it. Heh.)
• 2 cups short grain white rice
• 1 stalk celery
• 3 tomatoes
• 1/4 onion
• 1 1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese
  
• 3 cups of stock or water
• onion powder
• oregano
• black pepper

Sam started by cutting up all the veggies going into the casserole into bite sized pieces and setting them aside in a bowl, then grating the cheese. Normally I would be doing those honors, but I hate Sam's cheese grater with the flaming passion of a thousand suns. Instead I opened up the beans, drained them, and washed the can-goo off. Can-goo is a technical term.

The rice was pre-cooked on the stovetop in the broth, then placed into a large Pyrex baking dish. The beans, veggies and cheese were all stirred in and it was placed in the oven at 375 (same temperature used to roast the veggies) until everything was a hot gooey mess.



Verdict:

Even before the thing came out of the oven we had to appreciate the smell. Admittedly, I was apprehensive about the casserole since I am the sworn enemy of rice (especially white rice) but it was good! A little less spicy than I like, but that can be tailored to whomever is making the thing.

What the N00b Learned:

• Rice + Beans = complete protien!! Which makes this recipe good for vegetarians!

-Jess

Wednesday Movie: Time Bandits

Every Wednesday, a group of us get together to eat food and be ridiculous. Usually this means some sort of movie and a potluck themed around the flick, with interesting results.

We've had 'space food', italian, fried chicken, and chili. But tonight is going to be different. Ryan chose the theme and we ended up with something by the name of 'Time Bandits'.

From wikipedia, describing the beginning of the film:

"Kevin is an 11-year-old boy whose parents ignore him in favour of keeping up with the neighbours by purchasing all the latest gadgets. Without their attention, Kevin has become a history buff, particularly of the Ancient Greek period. One night, Kevin is awakened from his sleep by a knight on horseback bursting through his wardrobe and riding off into a forest that has appeared in place of his bedroom wall. When Kevin investigates, he finds nothing amiss in his room. The next night, he is again woken by sounds from the wardrobe, but this time six dwarves stumble out. The dwarves discover that the bedroom wall moves, and as they push it along down a long hallway, the Supreme Being shows up and chases them. Kevin escapes with the dwarves, and as the hallway ends, they fall into the blackness of space..."

And then they proceed to wander around in time and space, meeting Napoleon (Ian Holme), Robin Hood (John Cleese), and Agamemnon (Sean Connery). It's a little bit mad, and not really all that easy to figure out what we're cooking.

Eventually we decided to put French, Greek, and Medieval into a hat and have everyone draw for what they were going to make. I drew Medieval, B drew greek, and Sam picked up some of the slack and decided to go with French... So we have a couple interesting things for you tonight.



Cormarye

The recipe can be found at Medieval Cookery, but I thought I'd repost the original transcription here:

"Cormarye. XX.II. XIII. Take Colyandre, Caraway smale grounden, Powdour of Peper and garlec ygrounde in rede wyne, medle alle þise togyder and salt it, take loynes of Pork rawe and fle of the skyn, and pryk it wel with a knyf and lay it in the sawse, roost þerof what þou wilt, & kepe þat þat fallith þerfro in the rosting and seeþ it in a possynet with faire broth, & serue it forth witþ þe roost anoon."

So, basically, a pork tenderloin roast. Cool... I can deal with that.

The Kitchen of Despair was a wierd mix of smells during this. In one corner we had B making pita, Sam was getting her lemony Hummus on, and there was an overwhelming smell of Chianti, garlic, and Coriander coming from the bowl I was working over.

Also, the pork turned a brilliant purple color and looked like some sort of alien when I opened the thing up to baste. Totally awesome. We also added some raspberries (leftover from yesterday's cake) to sweeten up the sauce, which was super salty.

Verdict?

The pork was amazing. Juicy with a slight red wine/garlic flavor. The sauce was really salty, so just a tiny bit of it was perfect.

Hummus

What We Used:

• 1 can chick peas
• A lemon
• 3 cloves garlic

Juice the lemon (remember to beat your citrus) then toss everything into a food processor and mulch away. Tasty with pita.

Sam was determined to teach me how to make Choux Pastry, so her contribution (the hummus was in conjunction with B's stuff) was going to be homemade Cream Puffs.

Sam's Cream Puffs

What We Used:

• 1 cup All Purpose Flour
• 1 tsp white sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup water
• 4 large eggs
• A Large Piping Bag
• A large Piping Tip (we used a cupcake flower tip)

Filling

• 2 cup whipping cream
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 tbsp white sugar
• A smaller piping tip for getting the cream into the pastry later.

Sam started by mixing the flour, sugar and salt together, then setting aside. We would've pre-heated the oven to 400, but there was currently a pork tenderloin doing it's thing.

On the stovetop in a saucepan, sam mixed the butter and water and brought it to a boil. After that, she removed the pot from the heat and stirred in the dry ingredients vigorously. After returning it to the heat and stirring until it pulled away from the sides, she put it in a bowl and beat the steam out of it with her electric beaters. Once it was just warm and not terribly hot, she added four lightly beaten eggs and beat with the beaters until it formed a smooth paste.

After that, the dough was shoved into a piping bag (you can do this with or without a tip. I personally used the large flower tip because it makes the puffs into a pretty shape.) Sam piped it onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, each glob of dough a few inches apart, then popped it into the oven.

Bake the puffs at 400 degrees for fifteen minutes, then turn the heat down to 350 and bake an additional 30-40 minutes, or until the puffs are a golden color all over and hollow inside.

After they cooled, sam whipped the cream and loaded it into the other piping bag with a smaller star tip attatched. She inserted the tip into the bottom of the cream puffs and filled them with cream. Fun times.

Verdict:

Cream puffs. They are cream puffs. I love cream puffs.



There wasn't much noobly stuff that I learned tonight...except for perhaps pitas needing to be cooked in an outrageously hot oven. Now... I need to run and watch a movie. Cheers!

-Jesso

Soup and Sandwich Combo

Post dropping off resumes and doing some email work, we decided that today's big project was going to be a highly experimental Orange Raspberry Coffee Cake for Clara. The decision was also in part because we left all our tips and icing bags in the Other- Other Kitchen (ie: My house.) and we were looking for something that didn't involve frosting.

ORANGE RASPBERRY COFFEE CAKE

What We Used

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup instant coffee powder (in this case, we used Maxwell House orange cappuccino.)
• 1/4 cupbutter
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup milk (as needed)
  
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup fresh raspberries (or frozen if fresh are unavailable)
  

Topping:

• 1/4 cup All Purpose Flour
  
• 2/3 cup brown sugar (we used demerara... which is what B has on hand for when he randomly makes pies)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 cup butter

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 C). This recipe can make a 9x13, but we opted for two 91/2 round pans so we could split the cake... half going to Clara and the other half to be devoured by our DnD group.

Anyway... grease and flour your pans. Make the topping first. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl then cut in the butter until it makes coarse crumbs. Set it aside.

Mix the dry ingredients for the main part of a cake in a bowl (Flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, instant coffee). Cut in the butter until (again) mix is coarse crumbs*. In a measuring cup, crack the egg then add milk until it makes 1 cup. Stir the vanilla into the eggy milk thing.

*Both Sam and I were getting tired, so we handed off the fork to B the Pie Man and he took over for a while.

Add the milk, egg and vanilla to the dry mix until it's moistened and fold in the raspberries. Note that you don't want the batter to be completely smooth. Spread the mix in the bottom of the pan(s), apply the topping in whatever quantity looks good, and bake for about 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick slides out of it clean.

What The N00b Learned:

• Don't cut the butter with the broccoli knife.

Verdict?

Fantastic. It's not overwhelmingly sweet, which would make it perfect with coffee. There's a hint of orange, but just enough to compliment the raspberry. Finally, because of the topping, you're hit with the faintest hint of apple crisp nostalgia.

Dinner tonight consisted of Sam announcing that she had a fair bit of broccoli in the fridge she 'really really needed to use'. We scoured our minds for Broccoli recpies that our very picky eaters (ie: The Guys) might enjoy.

I figured broccoli soup might be good, even though I have a natural adversion to liquid food... But Sam was apparently a genius with soups in school and relished the opportunity to do this. Also, to go with the soup (remember, adversion to liquid food. I generally need something solid to eat with my taste of soup) I figured bistro style club sandwiches would be fun. So without much ado, Sam's recipe for homemade cream of broccoli soup!

What We Used

• 2 stalks celery
• 1/2 large onion
• 2 heads of broccoli (florettes AND stems. Sam was adamant) chopped
• Olive Oil
• stock or water
• Onion powder, black pepper, and garlic powder to taste
• 2 cups Cream
  
• Cheese

Sam started by chopping the celery and onion and set them aside in a bowl. She says you need to have everything prepped before you start adding stuff. Peel some of the skin off the broccoli stems (because it's a little tough) then chop the broccoli. Set a small portion of the broccoli aside for adding later (for texture).

Heat the oil in a soup pot. Oil measurements (according to Sam) vary according to the pot... and when I peeked into the vessel in question I noted that there was just a splash.

Sam Says: 'heat it enough so it coats the bottom of the pot. You can add more if needed'.

Add the onions, celery and the spices, then cook over low heat until onions are transparent. Try not to caramelize the onions because you don't want too much color.

Sam added a bit more oil and the broccoli (note: not the stuff you set aside. Hold that for later). Put in enough water or stock to cover the broccoli. We didn't have broth, though Sam mentioned it would be the best, and filtered water it was. Then the soup was set to simmer until everything in it was soft.

Sam did the honors of mulching the soup. Normally, you'd transfer it to a blender or food processor, but Sam has this handy dandy pot safe hand blender that she just stuck in the pot.

The next step was tempering the cream, which I'm going to hand over to Sam:

"Here is Sam's lesson on tempering cream! Tempering is necessary to prevent cream in soups and other hot dishes from curdling. What you need to do is put the cream in a bowl or some sort of dish that doesn't mind getting warm. Add the soup or whatever hot liquid it is you're using to the cream in small amounts while constantly stirring, until the cream itself is warm. Once all of it is warm, you can add it slowly to the pot!"

Needless to say, we added the cream gradually. Make sure you reduce heat first! After the cream is in, add the broccoli you set aside, taste and add salt or whatever spice you feel the soup needs. Then on low heat and stirring occasionally, wait for the broccoli to become tender.

Cheese can be served on top, or stirred into the soup at this point.

What the N00b Learned:

• For cream based soups it's better to use white pepper(because of the color), though slightly less since it has a stronger flavor. We used black since it's what we had on hand.
• I wish I had the POWER OF SCIENCE. My eyes are burning like hell.
• Never boil soup. Simmer soup. Boil bad. Simmer good. Yay!
• Don't cook your spoon.

Extra Extra:

Club Sandwiches are easy mode, but we can still give the construction order:

(starting at the bottom and going up)

• Toast. We used whole wheat, thick sliced.
• Mayo
• Chicken. ( We butterflied and pan fried fresh chicken breasts, but I've seen places just use sliced chicken lunch meat.)
• Lettuce
• Toast.
• Mayo
• Bacon
• Cheese
• Tomato
• Mayo
  
• Toast.

We like mayo. Apparently


Verdicts?

The sandwich was perfect. Sam opted to pan fry with just salt, pepper, and grapeseed oil which gave the chicken a fabulous, subtle flavor. The soup was fantastic. We didn't need any salt, just a bit of cheese to top it.

What the Noob Learned:

• Getting the core out of iceberg lettuce is simple. Just turn the head core side down and whack it on the counter a few times. Then pull the core out!!
  

-Jess

Bonus Mr Science says:

"The difference between oils is the length of the carbon chains on the glycerol. The difference between animal oils and plant oils is that animal oil is saturated and plant oils are not. But to make margerine, you have to hydroginate plant oil to make it more saturated."

Thank you Mr. Science!

Experimental Frittatas and Carrot Cake for 'B

I have ridiculous amounts of random stuff in the fridge and very little funds, so the Kitchen of Dispair put together a sunday night Frittata.

A frittata is like a crustless quiche... Eggs, cheese, stuff. In this case I had three of L&D's in store made sundried tomato and turkey sausages hiding in the freezer and begging for a home that became the base of this experiment.

What We Used

• 6-8 Eggs (Depends on the size of the eggs and the size of your frying pan/skillet)
• Splash of milk (we're so scientifically accurate here.)
  
• 3 sundried tomato and turkey sausages
• 1 1/2 cups Spinach (We use fresh. That's our choice to make, though Sam is pretty adamant it would be best with fresh.)
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/2 sweet onion
• cooking oil (We used grapeseed. Olive would also work if you want a bit more flavor)
  
• 1 cup cheese (rough estimate. Though we like cheese, so it may have been more)
• pinch of salt

We started by prepping everything. The cheese was grated, the egg was whisked with the milk and salt, spinach was chopped, onion was diced, garlic was minced, and of course, the sausages were uncased.

(Sam Says: "I wouldn't wish this on anyone... Gah, the casing smells!")

We heated the oil being used in a frying pan, and once the oil was hot we browned the onion and the garlic. After the onions and garlic were caramelized, we added the sausage. Note that by this point Sam had completely forgotten the casing smell and was waxing poetic about the lovely aroma wafting from the stove top.

When the sausage was almost completely cooked, the spinach was added. This gave the whole mix in the frying pan a lovely color. Sam also turned up the heat on the stove a bit to attempt to cook off some of the excess liquid being created by the spinach.

The heat was turned down again and the egg mixture was added. Sam opted out of putting the cheese in right away ("Cheese will do nasty things to this frying pan...") and we stood staring at the mix while it cooked just enough to pull away from the sides of the pan.

(Sam Says: "Cooking a Frittata can be helped along by putting a lid on!" *Puts lid on frying pan*)

We, of course, got to do things the hard way and transfered the entire thing to a round cake pan (in fact, one of the ones we've been using pretty extensively lately), topped it with cheese and dumped it in the oven under the broiler. (This dish transferring problem, of course, could've been solved by the cast iron skillet we don't own.) Also note that the frittata doesn't need to be completely cooked when it goes into the oven.

Verdict?

Mmmmm.


The sausage already had spices in it, and Mr. Divider Pallette (Sam's Husband Thing) couldn't pick out a single overwhelming flavour. So all in all, a success! I liked the fact that unlike a lot of quiche we didn't need to add salt.

We also promised Sam's husband-thing a carrot cake, so one was made. No recipe for that (it was Betty Crocker cake-inna-box) but the cream cheese icing in the container suffered an....incident.... and we were forced to go for scratch. Which I have no problem with.

Cream Cheese Frosting!

I tried to keep better tabs on my amounts this time, for recipe sake.

What We Used

• 250 g (1 package) cream cheese
• 1 cup icing sugar unpacked
• 1 tbsp milk

Again I creamed the base, in this case the cheese, then slowly added the sugar. The milk was an afterthought for the proper consistancy. Note: If you're adding food coloring, the icing may get runnier.

I'm getting a bit better at piping too... Though other than that, nothing fancy with the decoration besides a big squiggly 'sup guys!'.



What the N00b learned:

• Don't use whipping cream in an attempt to stretch store bought icing. It curdles (?!)
• A 'Splash of Milk' is a legitimate term. (According to Sam.)
• The big button on the back of the mixer is eject, not 'go faster'.

-Jess