More Food-

My sweet aunt and uncle from American Fork stopped by for an afternoon visit- and I wanted to make a tasty lunch. Not sure why I always risk new recipes on guests.....:S
Thankfully- these were a success. :)



Emeril's Cream of Tomato Soup
Pretty darn easy. and quite delicious. :) I thought there would be loads- and enough for tasty leftovers. Alas. :)

Definitely a keeper.


Pressed Turkey, provolone and Pesto sandwich.

Sighhhh. My grocery store still doesn't carry pesto. :( Ready for the summer when I can grow some basil and make my own. I ended up with a dry packet version to mix with mayo. Blah. Totally not pesto-y at all. Regardless of the pesto fail, the sandwiches were still tasty.
Need to remember this dish after thanksgiving. With some nice juicy slabs of turkey- instead of deli slices. :)

Cooking

First off- this is so. fun!

I am really, really enjoying making new recipes, improving my all over in-the-kitchen mojo, and becoming more of a wanna-be foodie. Especially when the recipe turns out. :) Patrick says he's really enjoying it, too. :D

Last night I made up Rachel Ray's Buffalo Popcorn Chicken Bites.
There wasn't a picture (nuts. I love pictures. In my amateur state, I need to know if my end product is remotely what it's supposed to be... :) ) - so the end result was not what I was expecting. I was expecting the sticky, gooey, saucy chicken bites. Granted, has I thoroughly read through the recipe (something you're supposed to do...) I would have noticed the major lack of anything saucy. Oh well. :)

Point is- they turned out wonderfully. The spice was sometimes hardly noticeable, but that may be a good thing seeing as how our kids gobbled them up.


So- in form with past recipe posts:
FN:Buffalo Popcorn Chicken Bites
Rating: execution of recipe 8/10, recipe itself 9/10.
Notes: not very spicy. May want to kick it up a notch with the hot sauce next time. Do smaller 'batches' of the chicken in the batter- eliminating big batter clumps that were sometimes a little doughy.

Definitely a repeater. Yay!
One more pic b/c they turned out so pretty :

Fondant #2

Fondant try #2.

This Cutie Q had a birthday. An Owl birthday. And mama made her a stinkin' cute party outfit (if I may say so myself :P ) - and decided to make the cake to match.

By the time I got around to taking pictures, the cake had been frozen and defrosted one too many times. The fondant started sagging and drooping along the sides. And- it was sweating like crazy.
Lesson learned. :)

Note to Self: Use 1/2 butter 1/2 shortening with the buttercream frosting. And don't add white chocolate chips! The frosting hardened right after I spread it on the frozen cake- and I couldn't get a perfectly smooth base. Hence, the lumpiness under the fondant.


I thoroughly enjoy doing this and I have a feeling we'll be eating a LOT of cake around here.
Anybody need a cute cake?

Next up- Star Wars Cake? (P's request...)

Fondant

I have wanted to get into cake decorating for some time now, esp. after witnessing (and helping with the first cake ever) my dear friend start up a successful cake business. I really enjoy decorating cakes for my kids' birthdays and thought Christian's Buzz Birthday would be as good a time as any to try my hand at fondant.

I made Marshmallow Fondant- And coated the cake with it in plain white. It looked practically perfect. Yay!
But...then I remembered I was going to color the fondant (since buzz is white...)
Boo.

So- I took it all off, worked in food coloring and put it back on. Eh. Not so good. There were cracks and bumps that I could not get rid of. blah.
Oh well.

For the flesh of Buzz's face, I used a mixture of green-tinted molasses (the molasses jar leaked all over the bin that had the food coloring..), yellow, and red food coloring. I was pretty dang happy with how perfectly fleshy it turned out.

Christian was very excited about his buzz cake. And with all that boy has been through- and how highly anticipated this birthday was- the 3 decorating attempts and staying up till 2am were totally worth it. :)

1 down, 9 to go. :)

Cooking Cont.

E: Chicken and Mushroom Risotto
Rating: 6/10
Notes: First time making a risotto! There's a special rice used specifically for risottos...and of course it was like the most expensive one at the store. Oh well. :)
-Used waaaay too much thyme. Esp. since my family is not really used to the taste of it.
-took looooots longer than expected. Probably my fault since I added extra rice.
-made a MOTHER load. seriously. Tons.
-used shallots for the first time- decided I definitely like them.
-Future: make less. Don't add extra rice. go eeeasy on the thyme.



FN:Pork Chops alla Pizzaiola
Rating:
Notes:

E: Hot and Sour Soup
Rating: 7/10 (could definitely be a 10/10)
Notes: Go easy on the red pepper flakes- taste intensifies while cooking! It was quite hot.
-Too lime-y. Again, I imagine this is my fault, seeing as how I didn't accurately measure the fresh lime juice. Measure next time. :)
-Ended up being out of soy sauce, so I made my own from scratch. Pretty good!
-made a ton!
**After sitting in the fridge several days, I added more soy sauce, and ate it. I thought it was much better. this is definitely going to be a repeat dish.




E:Chicken Cordon Bleu
Rating: 8/10
Notes: I've been craving Chicken Cordon Bleu for years. Seriously. It was my favorite Sunday meal at the Canon Center at BYU. It was also on the menu for at the Hospital, but alas, I couldn't ever convince Christian to have that instead of a more delectable dish like..corndogs.
Anyways. Totally stoked to see this recipe.
-Needs thicker, more flavorful slices of ham (i used deli sliced Honey Roasted)
-Needs MORE SWISS. Big time. i was concerned about the cheese oozing out all over, but it didn't ooze at all. Definitely needs more cheese.
-reeallly, reeeeally good. In fact, I plan on making this again next week.
-turned out really 'pretty'. :)
-Colored toothpicks tend to 'bleed' their color. Stick with plain. ;)

Goal #

I'm super excited about all my goals (obviously), but one that I'm really having fun with and am reeeally excited about is cooking my way through Emeril's 20-40-60 and Food Network Favorites cookbooks. Patrick is pretty excited as well. :)


I believe there are 253 total recipes. Yes, I plan to cook every. last. one. And yes. There are some weird/exotic things in there. :)

I'm going to try to take a picture of every recipe and review each one for personal future reference.

Before I thought of actually taking pictures....
E: Gaaahlicky Sizzling Shrimp.
Rating: 8/9
Notes: I served it over spaghetti- would like to try it over white rice. Also, definitely needed some good hard-crusted bread to 'sop' up the juices. P's only complaint was that he couldn't really get to the juices.

E: Broiled Zucchini
Rating: 4/5
Notes: Too oily. I didn't use the fresh thyme, and I'll try it again with it. Also, I served with the Sizzling Shrimp. Not a good combo.




E: Kicked Up Tuna Melts
Rating: 9
Notes: Deeeelicious. Christian Loved it! Patrick thought the tuna mixture was too 'wet' for his tastes, but still said they were awesome. Personally, I'd say it wasn't 'wet' at all. :P


FN: Butternut Squash, Apple & Onion Galette with Stilton
Rating: 5
Notes: Needed more of the mustard (my fault on misreading the recipe). Interesting flavor combo. Good crust. Not bad at all, kinda good really, but P & I agreed this one isn't likely to get a repeat performance any time soon.

annnd, yes- the blue cheese melted looked repulsive. :)

Intro

For my 25th birthday, I wanted to give myself a special gift.
A gift of the future and a gift of the present.
A gift of Carpe Diem.

I made a list of 24 things to accomplish while I was 24, but I didn't make said list until about half-way through the year and on top of that, I didn't actually decide on a full 24 things. So. It wasn't terribly 'official'.

But. The Times- they are a-changin'. I started up a list of 25 things, but I was also really intrigued by the idea of doing 101 goals in 1001 days. This way, I can set longer term goals that still have a time limit on them, rather than wallowing about "someday I want to..."

I thought it would be fun to have a blog about my 101 goals, and my progress/accomplishment of each of them. Fun for me, at least. :) Plus, it helps keep things 'official'.