Movie Wednesday: Push

Megan's turn again for movie night, and she chose 'Push'...

"The film centers on a group of people born with various superhuman abilities who band together in order to take down a government agency that is using a dangerous drug to enhance their powers in hopes of creating an army of super soldiers."

Yup. That's about it...

It takes place in Hong Kong, which meant chinese food again, which meant that this time Sam and I were going to attempt a couple recipes out of a really really old cookbook that belonged to my grandpa.

Handle with Care

Signed by the Author

No recipes, since it was all out of a book... but here's some lovely pictures!

Almond Guy Ding. A chicken chop suey with fried almonds.

Chicken chow mein

-Jess

Wednesday Movie Night and secret recipes!

No recipes tonight unfortunately, though I thought I would come and mention the interesting food we're going to be having tonight. Since we're watching Repo the Genetic Opera, we opted to do 'body part' food.

A blurb about the movie:

"The movie is set in the year 2056; 26 years after an epidemic of organ failures devastated the planet. Out of the tragedy, the biotech company GeneCo, run by Rotti Largo, emerged to provide organ transplants to the needy populace on a financial plan, making it affordable to anyone who needed one. Through his efforts, Rotti also got approval to create the Repo Men, assassins dispatched to deal with customers who default on their payments and made his company become a megacorporation, having influence from politics to fashion."

We're having ribs, a secret recipe from Jess' family that cannot be posted up here, but rest assured they tie for the best damn ribs I've ever had!!

There'll be spinach dip dyed red to mimic brains served in a loaf with a face, 'stomachs' which are actually just more of the infamous pizza bites and possibly other goodies to be had!

See you soon with more recipes and adventures from the Kitchen of Despair.

-Sam

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

Wednesday Movie Night: Dark Prince

Brandon's night. He chose Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula...

"Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula tells the story of Vlad Dracula, the historical figure who gave Bram Stoker's Dracula his name. Vlad is a dispossessed noble, and a patriot who fights the occupation forces of the Turks hoping to avenge the murder of his father by Romanian nobles and the capture of his brother by the Ottoman sultan."

...So we got to make Romanian food. Big shout out to Emily that remembered the name of the 'meatcicles' we loved so much at a party hosted by a romanian friend: Mititei, or Mici (prounounced like 'meetch'). They're a popular grilled Romanian sausage, often served with mustard and beer.

Mititei (very much not for beginners)

What We Used:

• 1 lb. pork tenderloin
• 1 lb. beef
• 1/2 cup of beef stock
• 2 slices of bread
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/8 tsp ground cumin
• 1/8 tsp thyme
• 1 clove of elephant garlic
• salt and pepper to taste
• The Food Processor: This thing got a workout, so I thought it might be good to list.

Note that this really isn't the traditional method of creating them... We did the best we could...

Sam started by cutting up the tenderloin and we loaded it into the bowl of the processor where it was mulched down and set aside. The same thing was done with the beef (we had a couple nice steaks that went in.) then in batches, we put the ground pork in with the beef and a bit of bread. until the pork, bread and beef were kind of a paste.

Again in batches we added pieces of the garlic and mulched again. By this point the processor was complaining loudly. I mixed it a bit with my hands and set it aside.

Sam, meanwhile, was dissolving the baking soda in the beef stock and mixing in the herbs, pepper and salt. We added the liquid to the meat and kneaded until all it was doing was sticking to Sam's hands.

The entire thing was covered with a towel and put in the fridge. It's recommended that you keep it there overnight, but we had about seven hours.

Since there was a lack of sweet things, while I was out Sam decided to make Paximade, which is a greek sweet bread/cake thing.

Paximade (beginner)

What We Used:

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon anise seed
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 white sugar
• 1/2 cup milk

I sifted together the flour, baking powder and salt, then stirred in the anise seed. In a separate large bowl, I creamed the sugar and the butter, then added the eggs in one at a time. After that, I added the flour mix and milk alternately into the large bowl with the butter mixture and beat everything together till it was incorporated.

Since I have no loaf pan, I opted to use mini-loafs!! I greased the pan and spooned the batter in, then baked it at 350 for about 35-40 minutes. If in doubt, poke the bread with a toothpick to see if it's done. Let it cool in the pan for about ten minutes, then put it on a cooling rack. It's best warm with butter and is great for breakfast!

anyway... this post is ridiculously late (due to me having pictures, then not uploading them, then discovering that the sd card had been in the computer the entire time and I didn't actually have pictures in the first place...) so here you go... we'll get back to a more regular schedule pretty quick here.

-Jess and Sam

Wednesday Movie Night: One Week

I love movie nights! Megan's turn this week, with an indie offering titled 'One Week'.

"Ben Tyler has been diagnosed with cancer. With a grim chance of survival in the best case scenario even if he immediately begins treatment, he instead decides to take a motorcycle trip from Toronto through the Canadian prairies to British Columbia."

It's kind of a love letter to Canada, which naturally means Canadian food. Which naturally means someone brought poutine, and we're all getting Tim Hortons... but besides that, Sam and I decided to take another shot at Flapper Pie... which was a dismal soggy mess last time I made it.

Flapper Pie is like a vanilla custard merangue pie of fantastic on a graeme cracker crust and one of my favorites, despite my inability to make one.

Sam, however, is a ninja.

Flapper Pie

What We Used:
Crust

• 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup butter, softened

Filling

• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups milk
• 2 egg yolks, beaten
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Meringue

• 3 egg whites
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

There was a lot of me dictating to Sam today, as my foot is still resembling a softball and standing is a bit annoying.

The oven was preheated to 375 as Sam prepared the crust. All three of the crust ingredients were mixed well in a bowl. We reserved a couple tablespoons of the mix for the topping then pressed the rest into the bottom of a 9 inch pie plate, which was baked for about 8-10 minutes (depends on the heat of your oven really... )

The next bit is easy to burn, so we made sure all of our ingrediants were ready to go before we began (ie: make sure you seperate your eggs right now.)

The sugar, cornstarch, flour and salt were measured into a saucepan, then the milk was added gradually. Once the milk was in, the mixture was cooked over medium heat until thickened, stirring very frequently. It was cooked for about two minutes after coming to a boil, then some of the hot mixture was used to temper the egg yolk. The yolks were stirred into the mix and then cooked for another minute or so.

Everything was removed from heat, then the butter and vanilla was stirred in. The entire thing was cooled for about fifteen minutes before being poured into the crust. Then it was left to cool completely.

Once the thing was cool (and after a few rounds of certain video games) we made the meringue by beating the egg whites, vanilla, and 1/4 cup white sugar until they could hold a hard peak.
The meringue was spread over the cooled pie, then the reserved graeme crumbs were sprinkled over top. Then the pie was baked again at about 425 until the meringue was golden brown.

Verdict?

It was tasty! Not worthy of pictures being a messy custardy pie, but it was still very tasty!!

-Sam and Jesso

Wednesday Movie Night: Big Trouble

Sam's turn for the movie of the week, and her choice was 'Big Trouble', a comedy that quietly snuck in and out of theatres in the aftermath of September 11th (September 21st 2001 was the original release date, but it was pushed back to 02 because of a scene involving smuggling a bomb onto an airplane... so no one has really heard of it.)

"A chain of events starts with the arrival of a mysterious suitcase in Miami. Arthur Herk, a corrupt business owner, wants to get his hands on the case. At the same time, two hit men want him whacked. Tired of his constant fixation on drinking and television, Herk's wife Anna and daughter Jenny decide to find new love interests in divorced dad Eliot Arnold and his son Matt. To add more complication, two thieves decide to steal the case and lead a Miami police team and two FBI agents on a wild goose chase."

So the food of the week was miami cuisine... Which for us meant Key Lime Pie, cuban sandwiches, and Arugula pesto.

Unfortunately, Key Limes aren't in season up here... So lame lame Jess made Lime Out of a Box.

Sam, on the other hand, was still delicious.

Pasta with Arugula Pesto

What We Used:

• Fresh baby Arugula ( not sure about how much, I used about half a 142g package )
  
• 1 cup pecans
• 1 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
• 1/2 clove elephant garlic
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup fresh parsley
  
• 2 cups macaroni

Okay, well, this was supposed to be an easy thing to make, but it took a little bit more effort than I remember. First things first! Prep your ingredients, make sure you have them all on hand and get your food processor ready.

Start with some of the arugula, put the pecans on top to weight the leaves down (I found it a little hard to get the right consistancy at first) and start grinding them up. Add the garlic, the parsley and the olive oil, and more arugula if you need it. After that, add the grated parmesan!

After everything is ground up nicely, taste it. Add salt and pepper if you need/want to.

Cook your pasta, and toss it with some of the pesto, using however much you like! Add more parmesan as a finisher and voila!

Cuban Sandwich

What We Used:

• 1 loaf french bread
• Grainy deli mustard
• pickles (bicks garlic baby dills)
• roast pork deli meat
• old fashioned ham deli meat
• swiss cheese

It's fairly quick and easy. Slice the french bread open like it was one enormous kaiser roll. Slather some mustard on the bottom layer, then a layer of sliced pickles, a layer of roast pork, a layer of ham, then finish off with swiss cheese. We put the top back on, sliced it up into portions, then due to our lack of panini press we just put portions into a hot frying pan and pressed on it with a second pan until the cheese was melted.

Anyway... time to get back to work. I have a key lime pie in a box that needs making.

-Jess and Sam

Wednesday Movie Night: Ka

Tonight for movie night, my sister Kit is going to be treating us to one of Cirque du Soleil's finest... KA!

"Kà is a story about "conflict and love", of "imperial twins who are separated at the prime of their youth and must undergo a rite of passage of self-discovery. It is about their encounters with Kà, the fire that has the dual power to destroy or illuminate."

Since we're doing a circus show, the theme tonight is Circus food!!

Our menu choices consisted of such things as caramel apples, popcorn and pretzels, but Jess and I decided to put the Kitchen of Despair to use by making homemade french fries and chili dogs!!

Chili Dogs

What We Used:

• 1lb ground beef
• 1/3 red pepper, chopped
• 1/4 onion, chopped
• 1 clove elephant garlic (or about 6 regular sized cloves)
  
• 2 tbsp each of basil, oregano, chili powder, onion powder
• 2 tsp each of coriandar and cumin
• dash of white pepper or cayenne pepper (for spice)
• 1 can red kidney beans (or other types if you'd like to use them)
• 3 good sized tomatoes, chopped

This is a cheap, quick, dirty, easy recipe!! You can either slow cook it all day or you can do it fast in a pot on the stove, and you can change up the spices as much s you'd like. Sometimes, I add curry to it to give it a bit of a flair, and I've had it with cinnamon before. If you add more beans, you can take out the ground beef for a wonderful vegetarian variation.

Chop the onion and garlic and add it to a pot with a bit of oil at the bottom on medium heat. Add the ground beef and all the spices, cooking till the ground beef is no longer pink. Add the tomatoes and the can of beans, then simmer over low heat for however long or little you'd like. The best way to get the best flavor is to slow cook it as long as you can. I usually do it in a slow cooker, but I was lazy this morning and ended up doing it in a pot. You can also add mushrooms or more peppers or whatever... it's very versatile!

Cook up some hot dogs or smokies or whatever and put the chili in the bun on top or beneath them! A little cheese is also awesome.

Anyway, guests are arriving... time to go and watch some movie!

-Sam

ETA: imaaaage

Wednesday Movie Night: ???

Wednesday movie night again, with Mina at the helm and showing us...well... actually we have no clue what we're watching, really. All she sent us was a violence disclaimer and the following:

"It's about this guy with superhuman powers, and he's kind of mysterious and his story is told over the course of the movie. He seems to be a very dangerous guy, but as the movie goes on, you realize he's on the side of good. Once that is established, the fights are hilarious. The gore is met with "who the hell is actually THAT tough?""

So...hilarious fights, lots of violence. Apparently it's dubbed, which only adds to the awesome. Either way, I'm looking forward to a gloriously bad movie (I like them. It's a personal love of mine, bad movies)

Besides all that, we were told that it was set in Hong Kong. Lazy as we are, we decided that chinese food was the way to go and sent out a general plea to movie night participants for donations. Meanwhile, the Kitchen of Despair decided to make a favorite of Sam's: Hot and Sour Soup.

What We Used:

• 4 1/2 cups Chicken Broth (Yes! We actually had some on hand this time! I had bought a couple cartons of Campbells anticipating a recreation project i'm interested in, but we're using it prematurely.)
• 2 Boneless skinless chicken breasts (apparently you can also use shrimp and tofu and whatever else, but we're being friendly to me (I'm allergic to most seafood) and Luke (who has a wierd thing with Tofu))
• 1 cup Julienned Carrot
• 1 cup Thinly Sliced Shittake Mushroom
• 1/2 cup Bamboo Shoots cut like matchsticks
  
• 2 tbsp Rice Vinegar
• 1/2 tsp White Pepper
• 1/4 tsp Hot Pepper Sauce
• 2 tbsp Corn Starch
• 2 tbsp Soy Sauce
• 2 Green Onions, thinly sliced
  
• 1 Egg

After all the veggies and such are prepared, throw the chicken broth, chicken, carrots, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, vinegar, pepper and hot sauce in a medium sauce pan, though I used my biggest pot because I like it. Bring everything to a boil over medium/high heat, then turn it down to low and cover it. Cook for about five minutes, or until the chicken's not pink anymore.

While this is going on, stir together cornstarch and soy sauce in a bowl until smooth. Once the chicken broth is done cooking the chicken, stir the cornstarch mixture into the pot. Cook and stir until the mixture comes to a boil. ( Yes, I was vehement about not boiling your soup, but this is a little bit different. You HAVE to boil this type of soup. )

In a separate bowl, beat the egg. Add the green onions to the soup, and while it is boiling, slowly stream the egg into the soup while stirring or whisking in one direction. This should make the egg cook in the high heat of the liquid, forming long threads. Continue stirring it in one direction for about one minute, or until the egg is fully cooked.



Verdict?

"Oh my god, yum yum yum yum." -Sam

What the N00b Learned:

• Don't boil soup. Except this one, apparently.
  
• Julienning carrots makes my brain hurt

-Sam and 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