Recently in cooking Category

1. I forgot about the house party after Eric's show at Drew's place. There was a house party after Eric's show at Drew's place. Tabitha and Chelsa and I went. Oh and we got burritos first. Here is a pic I stole from Fawna:

2. It all started when I looked up Cornie in my work's database to see when he had tickets to Elixir of Love. Is that illegal? Should I admit that? Whatever.
So I told him we should go on the same night and so me and him and Joe and Alina and Anna met up beforehand at Trattoria No 10, because they were doing restaurant week special. We shared some wine and I got grilled calamari and waygu steak and chocolate cake. Yum.
And ELixir was fun too. It had a horsey. ANd was a good opera.

3. Chelsa and I went to Detroit's Famous Leo's Coney Island. That name is confusing. She had a hot dog, I had chicken fingers.

4. A few weeks ago I hosted our weekly 24 night for the first time. So everyone came over and I made pulled chicken and coleslaw and potato salad. The episode was really boring. Really boring. Except for the most epic five minute stabbing scene ever in the middle.

Cook a tilapia filet, about 4 minutes per side. Shred.

Chop up some red onion.

Buy some fresh mango salsa.

Top some corn tortillas with everything.

Yummy. And less than 10 minutes. And healthy, I think.

I am starting to think I should start my own cooking blog of what not to do in the kitchen. Don't get me wrong. I love to cook. But sometimes I think cooking doesn't love me. And really I have none of the qualities that it takes to do either. Let us examine three of the meals I cooked this week for what NOT to do...

1. Potatoes a la Val
I could write a cookbook on how to make meals out of new potatoes. I always keep a bag on hand because if nothing else they make an easy meal that usually goes well tossed with whatever else you have leftover in your fridge. This week I sliced them thin and baked them with leftover garlic, parmesan cheese, and rosemary...
Of course I didn't cut the garlic small enough to do anything.
And I totally forgot to add any salt and pepper.
And then I totally got really hungry and, therefore, impatient, and, therefore, took them out of the oven way earlier than I should have so they were still slightly raw.

2. Chicken with tarragon cream sauce.
I seasoned this up just right. The chicken turned a perfect brown, crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside. I took it out of the oven after 40 minutes on 350 and 5 on 400...and then I turned the handle to not stick out...and burned the hell out of my hand.
I spent the entire night in horrific pain. We didn't have ice at all so I kept getting Cokes from the fridge and held them until they went warm because it was the only thing that could stop the pain and if I wasn't holding something cold it only took moments for my body to start shaking and for it to feel as if I would pass out completely. Heather gave me some Tylenol PM which did nothing for the pain but did help me fall asleep before 9pm so I could at least ignore the pain a bit...My hand is fine today, just very blitery.
The chicken did turn out lovely though. And yes, yes even in writhing pain I still take a moment to take a photo of my food.

3. Chicken and dumplings.
I had some chicken left so I decided to make soup...Because soup does not go in the oven and therefore I figured my hands would be safe. What I was not prepared for was, when cutting into the chicken after it had boiled for a bit, to hear a pop and have a ton of blood splatter up. WTF? Undeterred, I cut around the bloody parts.
I also think I forgot to salt the dumplings. But whatever. It tasted yummy. And I have enough to feel about a million people.

And that was my week in cooking. In conclusion, I am still alive and Heather is still alive. So I guess I am doing something right.

Our American Heirloom Collection Turkey came with a couple of feathers in it. Those had to be plucked. Don't buy a turkey with feathers in it. Oh, and t's an 18-pound bird...for four people.

Tonight we made the buttermilk brine and set the turkey to soak overnight...

And I baked pumpkin spice cookies...but my family has already eaten almost all of them :-(

Turkey: Brining

Homemade Apple Tart: Baked

Update - 12:30pm, Thanksgiving Day
Turkey: unbrined, stuffed, coated in herbed butter

Update - 5:00pm, Thanksgiving Day
Turkey: Beautiful

So, remember last week when I said that everyone I know named Jen was has either gotten engaged or has/is getting married this year? Well, yeah, I forgot one...so, of course...

Congratulations Josh and Jennifer!

Now, officially, all FIVE of the Jens I know either have gotten engaged or married in the past year. Maybe I should change my name...

* * *

I am a horrible person because...
today at Cosi I ordered a $9 lobster salad sandwich and then told the counter lady it was a $6 tuna salad sandwich.

I am a crazy person because...
I am holding out on renewing my cell phone contract because I am waiting for this

Pink Krzr, currently available in the UK, to come to America. I very well might switch phone companies if another company has it and Verizon does not.

I am an awesome person because...
I went to SummerDance tonight and learned Brazillian Dance. Did you know Brazillian dance is the most boring easiest dance in the world? I'll show it to you some time. I'm still awesome though.

I am a tired person because...
It's one in the morning and I am baking lemon bars. I already had to go to Jewel an hour ago because I was out of flour. I also made some carrot soup, but I will finish that in the morning. I am so proud of myself, I sliced up a whole onion for the soup and didn't cry. Then I ruined the proud of me moment by packing a food processor so tight with flour, powdered sugar, and butter, that the blade did nothing. I think we can officially take "Baker" out of the running.

1. New life plan: join the CIA. No, not that CIA, this CIA.

2. The movie Perfect Stranger is not about balki

3. I love tax refunds

4. With all the tainted dog food, I guess it's good that my dog has never touched the stuff and has lived on an entirely table food diet for as long as we've had him

5. 24 just keeps getting worse and worse...it makes me so nervous it makes me sick.

Things I did this weekend to accomplish my 100 in 2007 goals:

1. Tried out my million dollar Pillsbury Bake-Off entry:

Pineapple Chicken Pockets. You don't want to know where the "pineapple" comes from :)

2. Watched Hellraiser
Apparently Blockbuster no longer carries movies. Seriously they had only parts 3 and 5. Hollywood wasn't much better but they did have part one (and a worker who insisted that it was the best movie ever made). Who am I kidding though, I should just go buy the entire series :) It was however, a very very good movie. Some of the special effects were so terribly 80s, but much more convincing than that CGI crap.

3. Watched 12 episodes of Fraggle Rock
Seriously, I shouldn't be allowed to watch such things. All I did was analyze their relationships and try to figure out which Fraggles are secretly lusting after one another. I swear there was one point where if Boober and Red had been in a teen sitcom they would have totally had sex. Yeah, I shouldn't be allowed around children's shows. There was one episode too where Uncle Matt wrote back about how humans smoke. My how television has changed.

4. Scanned recipes.
Yeah, that's kind of very boring.

5. Dyed my hair blonde.

Yes, again. There is much much less red in it now, but in the pic it looks rather red still.

6. Went shopping.
Well, it's not really one of my goals, but at least I have cute stuff to wear to everything. :) I got shoes for Nadia's wedding and ordered what I think will be my bridesmaids dress for Jen's (plus a dress for her rehearsal dinner or something). I also got free underwear at Victoria's Secret, although it's less underwear and more elastic:

And a really cute skirt that was marked down to $20 from $180:

And I bought wedding presents...Now, you'd think the person at the store who's only job is to wrap wedding presents would actually be able to do it without bumps in the tape, bubbles, uneven edges, and scratched up paper... Eh, I was going to rewrap them anyways, I just needed the boxes.
I also discovered my new guilty pleasure store, Ruehl, which is Abercrombie but for people my age and with much much less sluttiness. I always refused to go in because they seriously hire people to stand outside and ignore people...But I finally went in today and am in love with the clothing. I bought a couple of shirts (one of which I am wearing in my hair pic, not that you can really see it). I need to stop spending money.

I have 2 months to come up with a million dollar recipe for the Pillsbury Bake-Off...

This entry for the "pizza creations" devision...

...was not it. I don't think at least.

It was feta/cream cheese/onion soup mix in between pizza crust and garlic breadsticks topped with mozzarella and parmesan. :)

Stay tuned for many combinations of ingredients stuffed into crescent rolls :)