Chocolate Soufflés and More Sushi

Hello everyone, I know I said that I would be making the Grilled Scallops from the recipe book next, but I had some egg whites left over from making egg nogg, so I decided to make some Hot Mocha Rum Soufflés, recipe 330 from the 400 Appetizers book.

I think they turned out much better than my last soufflé attempt.

These didn't taste eggy at all.  If anything, they were a little too bitter, but I'll still give them a pass. They're quick and easy, and only call for stuff you already have around the house (assuming, of course, that you have eggs, butter, cocoa powder, coffee, rum, and sugar).  It's a tasty dessert.

We wanted to try our hands at another American sushi roll.  In case you've never seen one before, this is what's called a Philadelphia roll:

It's another inside-out roll, but it wasn't so bad this time, so maybe we're getting used to it.  Inside is imitation crab, avocado, cucumber, and cream cheese (hence the Philadelphia in the name).  There's smoked salmon on the top, along with a light sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds.  These rolls are delicious; I heartily endorse them.

Okay, the grilled scallops are still coming up, and so are the lemon dreams, or whatever they're called.

Big Catch-up Week

Okay, I've recently been reminded that I have a blog, and that I should update it at some point.  Luckily, this friendly reminder just prompted me to use my camera on some of my many culinary forays.  So here you go: Cranberry-apple pie, California roll, and Thanksgiving dinner. 

Cranberry-apple Pie

This little beauty was made following the basic apple pie recipe in "The Joy of Cooking".  The crust was just a basic flaky pastry made with shortening because they were out of lard at Sainsbury's.  Honestly, I think it turned out better; I was never a fan of the meaty flavor lard adds to pastry.  I of course altered the filling recipe by adding 250g of cranberries, and a teaspoon of almond extract.  The next time you make an apple pie, add some almond extract: it changes everything. 

Unfortunately, the apples I used (I've forgotten what kind) were a bit crappy, and they got too soggy during baking, so my filling didn't firm up the way it was supposed to.  The crust was still divine.  I gave it that nice sheen on top by brushing with pure egg yolk and sprinkling the top with sugar and cinnamon.  Here's one more shot:

California Roll

I'm going to start out by saying this: I think California rolls would be way better if they weren't inside-out.  Now, I don't know much about rolled sushi, I've only made it a couple times, but I do enjoy making it; I just think that inside-out rolls, the ones with the rice on the outside, are a bitch to make.  I like it a lot better when the nori's on the outside.  It makes everything much easier to handle.

The above picture pretty much shows all the ingredients.  You need to make some Japanese rice, or some short-grained rice if you're in a pinch.  I got mine from SeeWoo here in Glasgow.   Interestingly, the rice actually comes from the US, which I read is the third largest trader of rice in the world.   Anyway, you have to mix some vinegar, sugar, and stuff into the rice.  We just used some sushi-rice mix, which is just powdered vinegar, etc.  Finally, you spread the rice on the nori (seaweed), flip it over, then place the fillings (avocado, cucumber, and imitation crab meat) on the other side of the nori, and roll it all up.  Doesn't sound so hard, and really, it's not, but turning the rice-side down is a pain, and you have to use plastic wrap on your rolling mat to keep the rice in line, so I don't like it.

Another useful trick is to cut it with a bread knife.  We tried with a regular knife a couple times, and it just crushed the roll.  I think I figured this out once before, but I didn't remember this time around.  Anyway, it was good.

Thanksgiving Dinner

So today's Thanksgiving, so we decided to make a big dinner to celebrate.

What you see in that picture is: beer, candied sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, white gravy, home-made cranberry sauce, corn on the cob, and green beans.  Oh, and turkey, of course.  The corn and green beans are just boiled.  Everybody knows how to make mashed potatoes and gravy, and the turkey breast was actually just store-bought: we just put it in the oven for an hour. 

The cranberry sauce was made following the recipe for cranberry relish in "The Joy of Cooking", and I have to say it ended up tasting more like oranges than cranberries.  We halved the recipe, so we had 1/2 pound of cranberries, 2/3 cup of sugar, 1/4 cup water, 1/4 cup of orange juice (fresh squeezed in this case), and 1 tsp of orange zest.  You just boil all of it together until you think it's done. 

The candied sweet potatoes come from this recipe, and honestly, they're pretty great.  Well, we quartered the recipe, and the actual amounts of sugar and butter are not quite right as they have written.  First, I followed the recipe, but the sauce was too thick and didn't coat the potatoes at all, so I tried again with a lot more butter, a little more sugar, and about the same amount of other spices.  I also made sure not to let it boil before pouring over the potatoes, because that makes it too thick.  After all that, I followed the recipe to the letter, and it turned out great.

Okay, that's all the cooking for now.  I'll try to be more diligent about in the future, but I'm also trying to write a thesis, so don't be surprised if I don't post again for a while.  Feel free to remind me though.  I'll do my best to oblige.

Pineapple Upside-Down Banana Bread

So, what do you do when you have a lazy Sunday, a pineapple, some pine nuts, and three bananas that you want to put to good use?  I have no idea, so instead, I made pineapple upside-down banana bread.

Basically, I was thinking I should make banana bread to get rid of the bananas, but I saw the pineapple and thought maybe I should make pineapple upside-down cake instead.  Then I though "Put those hands together, my friend."  Well, I didn't bother looking to see if anybody had ever done this before; instead, I just turned to my trusty copy of "The Joy of Cooking".  The recipe for banana bread is quick and easy, and I fully endorse it.  The recipe for pineapple upside-down cake is pretty good, if I remember my past exploits correctly; although, I've definitely found better recipes online (sorry, I can't remember where, it was years ago).

I was only using the top of the pineapple upside-down cake recipe, which is basically: melt butter in pan, add brown sugar, arrange pineapple and cherries, pour batter on top--very simple, only the recipe wants to use a cast-iron pan, and mine doesn't fit inside my tiny oven.  I chose to use my large (1 Liter?) souffle dish that I used bought for the Amaretto Souffle.  I figured this would be better for the banana bread too, since it's usually cooked in a loaf pan with steep sides.

In the end, it all tasted pretty good.  It's not pretty though.  I used entirely too much butter and sugar for the top; although, some may argue I used just the right amount, since the caramel topping ended up coating the sides as well.  Instead of canned pineapple rings, I used chunks I cut from the fresh pineapple, so that didn't look so pretty, and they didn't stick to the top very well, probably because of the too much caramel topping.  The banana bread also ended up being much more moist and cakey.  I don't know if that's just from the recipe, or if the extra moisture and oil from the topping had something to do with it.  I also had to cook it extra long to firm up the center of the bread.  It was only about 15 minutes extra.

Cookies! (meh)

Okay, so I made these peanut butter chocolate chip cookies today.  The recipe's pretty simple, and we all know how to make cookies, so I won't spend much time on them.  Basically, it's a simple chocolate chip cookie recipe with some extra peanut butter. 

My only change from the recipe is that I didn't have any chocolate chips, so I chopped up some Green & Black's Dark Cooks' Chocolate and used that instead.  The chocolate itself is pretty good, probably too good for these cookies, in fact.  I'm going to have to buy some more for hot chocolate some day.

In the end, the cookies look like normal cookies, but in my opinion, they're not as good.  Maybe it was my peanut butter or something, but these were just a bit too dry.  Also, the chocolate was just a bit too dark for this recipe, maybe it'd be better with some milk chocolate or semi-sweet.  Oh well, next internet recipe is for Lemon Melting Moments--some kind of lemon-frosting cookies.

A Failed Attmept

Well, I finally got around to making the Roasted Garlic and Aubergine Custards with Red Pepper Dressing from the cookbook. This was a long and challenging recipe. I don't know why they'd put it in a book of appetizers and party recipes, because it's too complicate for a party. Basically, you have to roast the garlic, grill the peppers, fry the aubergine (eggplant), and finally mix it all together to make the custard. Then, to top it all off, you have to make the dressing, which isn't that hard, but it's still another thing to have to do. Frankly, I think it takes too long to make, and there are too many things that could go wrong. I don't mind making it for myself, or with a bit of help, but if I were having a party, this is not something I'd make for my guests. Also, it's got loads of garlic in it, so even though it tastes good, it'll make your breath reek for the rest of the night and into the morning.

First, here's a picture of the dish from the book:

Now, here's a picture of my completed dish:

Notice a difference?

There are two things that went wrong here. 

1) Too much cream and not enough egg.  I didn't want to make six custards, so I cut the recipe in half.  I made sure to cut everything in half, except maybe the amount of aubergine, but in the end, I don't think that mattered.  The recipe calls for 1/2 pint of cream and 2 large eggs.  I used 1/4 pint cream, and 1 medium egg.  Okay, so I used an egg that may be a couple ounces lighter, but I don't think that made a lot of difference.  I think I should have used two eggs, and probably a little less cream.  I mean, I cooked these things for 10 minutes longer than the recipe calls for, and they still didn't firm up.  I finally gave up because the top was looking all right:

but when I flipped it over, the bottom still needed cooking:

More egg and less cream would have fixed this problem.

2) Look at that picture at the top again.  See how it's all browned and crispy?  Do you know how you make custards?  Do you know what the recipe says?  The way you make custards, and the way the recipe says, is by baking them in a water bath.  This is to ensure that the custard doesn't dry out, and that the custard is cooked at a constant, low temperature.  Do you know what doesn't happen in a water bath?  Crispy, brown edges, that's what.  I don't know how they made what's in the picture, but it wasn't the way they said in the recipe. 

Anyway, I still ate it, and you can't go wrong with cream and garlic, so it was pretty tasty.  Actually, I quite liked the dressing.  It's just roasted pepper, tomato, red onion, roasted ground cumin, olive oil and vinegar.  So it's nothing surprising, but it's still pretty tasty.  I might make that again.

Next recipes: Number 189 from the book: Grilled Scallops with Brown Butter (Where am I going to get unshelled scallops?), and The Yummiest Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies.

French Bread Pizza

So, I've finally gotten a chance to cook again.  The computers are shut off at work for half the week, so I've got time at home.  Technically, I'm working on my thesis, but I can't spend all day doing that.  No, no, I need to do some cooking between pages or writing.

Anyway, I finally got to make some Chicken, Bacon, and Ranch French Bread Pizza.  That link has two recipes in it, actually, and I made both of them.  First, there's a recipe for French bread.  I made that on Sunday, and it looked like this:

Not terrible.  I think it could have used a little more sugar for the yeast and a little less kneading from me because it's pretty dense in there.  I followed the recipe to the letter, but in the end, it's not much like French bread at all.  Still, it's passable bread for general consumption.

Next, the pizza part.  I waited until Monday to make the pizza, but I marinated the chicken over night.  Toppings-wise, I went to three stores, and couldn't find any ranch dressing (What's your deal, Glasgow?), so I had to use some "garlic sauce".  It tastes like ranch dressing without any extra spices.  The rest of the ingredients were basically what it says on the recipe, except I through some mushrooms on that baby too.  Before cooking, it looked like this:

Baked, it looked like this:

Looks tasty.

But really, it only tastes kind of 'blah'.  I think all the flavors here are just kind of plain, and there are no sharp, interesting notes here to really enjoy.  It tastes like garlic, oil, and salt on a whole lot of bread.  Well, I guess that's what pizza generally tastes like, but I'm not into that.  My chicken was marinated with salt, pepper, cumin, cayenne, and hot sauce.  Maybe it should have been barbecue. I think instead of ranch, or 'garlic sauce', I should have used something like the white sauce at Pizza Hut.  Sure, it's more fat, but that stuff has flavor.  In the end, I'd say this pizza's a lot more work than it's worth.

Tasty Salad

Feeling in the mood for something healthy today and inspired by my recent stay in Italy, I thought I'd make some kind of refreshing salad today.  I went through my cupboards and found some black-eyed beans and decided I needed a bean salad.  I didn't have much else, so I had to go shopping for some of the other ingredients, but I present you to the recipe I invented:

Tasty Salad:
1 red bell pepper
1 can black-eyed beans (mine were in salt water, but I drained them, so maybe it doesn't matter)
4 spring onions
2 tsp baby capers
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp coarsely ground cumin seeds
1/4 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
1/2 tsp coarse sea salt

Chop the bell pepper and spring onions and mix with the beans and capers in a bowl.  In a separate small bowl, mix the lemon juice, olive oil, cumin, pepper, and salt until they are well combined.  Pour the olive oil mixture over the bean mixture and stir with a wooden spoon.  Enjoy immediately or let sit for a more mixed flavor.

I ate about half of it right away, and it is delicious.  I like the taste of cumin in a salad.  Until recently, I only had cumin in cooked dishes, but a nearby restaurant, The Two Figs, puts it in everything, and while their food isn't that good, the cumin is.  I'm letting the rest set until after dinner, or perhaps I'll have it for lunch tomorrow.  I can't wait!