Goddess of Cooking (in Training)

Tarragon-Citrus Mahi Mahi

2010-11-18T23:17:00.000-07:00

Once again, it's been way too long since I've posted (or made a new recipe, for that matter). I have a couple reasons. One being I'm poor and can't cook good stuff very often. Another is that I was doing a specific fitness program and following a diet that didn't include anything from Katie's book. And the last is that I just haven't had people to cook for until recently and don't like having tons of leftovers. But all of this has changed. I now have two roommates living with me that I love cooking for, and I'm not following a strict diet at the moment so it's given me a chance to start making some recipes again. The one I made most recently though was actually quite healthy.

When I saw this mahi mahi recipe in the book I knew I wanted to make it because mahi mahi is one of my most favorite types of fish, and I love citrus. Sounds like a perfect match! Well, it was. The fish was light and delicious and super duper easy to make. Here's what I did...

The citrus in this is one tangerine, a pink grapefruit, and an orange (use a blood orange if you can find one). I sectioned it all out, over a bowl, so that the juices from the citrus stay, too. Sectioning citrus for recipes is such a great technique because you get all the tastiness of the fruit without having to deal with any of the pith, etc. Once the fruit was sectioned, I roughly chopped it, added a little chopped tarragon (which is a very complimentary flavor) and stuck that into the fridge until the fish was ready. Then to cook the fish I put some olive oil in a skillet and cooked the mahi mahi until it was opaque all the way through. This was a little tricky because the fish I bought was not all the same size, so I had to cook the fillets for different times. Oh, and the olive oil started splattering up on to me like crazy. But it all worked out in the end. Once the fish was cooked I just put the citrus mixture on top and bam! Tasty, healthy goodness. All the people I served it to really enjoyed it. I will definitely make it again.

Tonight I'm also making pumpkin muffins from the book, so look out for another post coming soon. I <3 pumpkin!

Meat Loaf, Creamy Mashed Potatoes & Broccoli and Cheese Sauce

2010-06-12T18:12:00.001-06:00

So yeah, it's been a long time since my last posting. It's because we've been tight on money in this household and therefore I've been cooking, but it's been stuff like Kraft macaroni and cheese. Sad days. But last Friday our roommate wanted me to cook some real food so he bought ingredients for this meal. Yay! You might be wondering why I'm cooking such heavy comfort food when summer's just starting. The answer is I've just wanted to cook these recipes for a while now and it's not even close to summer weather here. Oh, and please ignore the horrible photo...I have no idea how to make meat loaf look pretty.

The first thing I did for making this meal was to start the meat loaf. I've heard very good reviews about Katie's meat loaf recipe so I was excited to try it out; the last time I made meat loaf was as a child, helping my mom. What I really liked about this recipe compared to what I remember as a child is that it had all fresh ingredients (well, except for the ketchup and bread crumbs). I remember my mom using those dehydrated onions and soup mix packets to give flavor to the meat loaf...which was fine, but I prefer to know exactly what's going into the food I cook. So the first thing I did was saute half an onion, a garlic clove, and a bay leaf in some olive oil until tender, then I added some chopped up red peppers (this really helped add flavor to the meat loaf, and I love anything with red peppers), and finally some fresh chopped parsley and thyme.

That mixture had to cool for a minute while I got on to the messy/fun part: combining the lean ground beef, two eggs, bread crumbs, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, and finally the (cooled) vegetable mixture. I'd forgotten how much fun it is to mix meat loaf up with your hands. After it was well mixed I simply plopped the mixture on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet and formed it into a loaf shape. Then went more ketchup on top, and I put it in the oven for about an hour and five minutes. By the way, I've read plenty of meat loaf recipes that say the best meat loaf needs to be made with the "meat loaf mix" which I know is beef, veal, and something else I can't remember...but this stuff was freaking delicious with just ground beef, so I don't think that's always necessary.

The next dish I had to start on was the mashed potatoes. It's a very simple, but tasty recipe. Peel 2 1/2 pounds of Yukon Gold potatoes. I really need to get a better peeler to make that part less of a pain. Put them in a pot of water with a little salt and wait until it boils, the cook for 20 more minutes. Drain the potatoes, add a block of cream cheese, milk, butter, salt and pepper and whip it all up with an electric mixer until they're smooth and creamy. I love that I don't have to sit there for ten minutes trying to mash them by hand.

All that was left to do was prepare the broccoli with cheese sauce. Before I tell you what I did, I'm going to say that I have never had broccoli with cheese sauce that I enjoyed. Whenever it was presented to me at school, at dinners, at family functions, wherever, I always just opted for the plain broccoli because that cheese sauce was just plain nasty. It always tasted like that nacho cheese crap that tastes like plastic and oil with cheese flavoring. Ugh. So yeah, I've always been a plain broccoli kind of girl, but I decided to make this because I wanted a vegetable with the meal, I knew Josh and Pat would enjoy it, and I wanted to see if just maybe Katie's recipe was any better. So I put the broccoli in our steamer for 10 minutes and set about to making the cheese sauce. First I melted the butter in the saucepan and added flour, stirring for a minute until it was all golden brown. Then I added a little paprika for flavor and stirred it for a minute more. I reduced the heat and slowly added a cup of milk. At this point it said I was supposed to bring it to a low boil. Now, I didn't know if this meant I was supposed to increase the heat from low to do this. I tried it on low, it didn't boil, so I increased it a little, it still wasn't really boiling, so after about four minutes I said, "Eff it, it looks thick enough," and stirred in two whopping cups of cheddar cheese. Mmmm. It was at this point that I knew this cheese sauce was going to be delicious. Why? Because it actually looked like cheese! But in sauce form. Not nastiness with the vague flavor of cheese. It also said that I could add a little more milk at this point if I wanted a thinner consistency, but I didn't because it looked good to me.

So how was the meal? It was great. All three of us really enjoyed it. The meat loaf was flavorful and moist, if not pretty, the mashed potatoes were great with a wonderful consistency, and the broccoli WITH cheese sauce was definitely edible. If only all those people who tried to serve that to me as a child had just made good cheese sauce I would have enjoyed it very much. I'm not sure when I'll be able to cook another recipe from this book...we'll see. The next one I want to try is the Tarragon-Citrus Mahi-Mahi as that's one of my favorite types of fish. It is hard to find in Wyoming though, so we'll see.

Hoppin' John Salad, Sausage with Onions and Grapes & Braised Kale

2010-01-02T23:59:00.001-07:00

Continuing with my "lucky foods" theme, dinner was Hoppin' John Salad (which is a traditional New Year's Day food in the South) for the first course, and then Sausage with Onions and Grapes and Braised Kale for the main. Here we're getting more pork, cooked greens, grapes, and black eyed peas.

If you've ever had Hoppin' John, pretty much the only difference with this recipe is that you toss the whole mixture with a vinaigrette, and then you put it on some lettuce leaves (but even that is optional). If you've never had it before, here's how you make it. The first step is to cook a cup of white rice in two cups of low sodium chicken broth. Oh, and a bay leaf is thrown in there for flavor. Now rice is hit or miss with me. Depending on the recipe sometimes in turns out perfect, sometimes it doesn't. It may have something to do with our high elevation. I was pleased to see that this recipe for the rice turned out perfectly. :)

Other than making the rice, all you have to do is chop up a bunch of vegetables, drain some black eyed peas, grate a little cheese, and make a vinaigrette. I used the food processor to dice up half an onion because by this time I was sick of dicing onions. Then I diced up half a red pepper, sliced some scallions, minced parsley, and used the food processor again to shred a cup of delicious white cheddar cheese. Ah, technology. Toss all this together (don't forget the two cans of black eyed peas) with the rice, along with some salt and pepper, and then toss it with the vinaigrette. You make that by combining 1/2 cup of olive oil and red wine vinegar with some chopped fresh thyme and a minced garlic clove. The vinaigrette added a really nice, subtle layer of flavor to the Hoppin' John. Oh yeah, then I put it on a bed of lettuce and attempted to take a nice picture but by this time my lovely natural light was gone so sorry for the crappiness.

This salad was good. Josh really liked it, and I discovered that I think black eyed peas are very tasty. The only part of it I didn't care for was the onions. I used to hate onions. Couldn't stand them. If I could recognize them in a dish I wouldn't eat it. Once I started cooking I realized this needed to stop, and so I've forced myself to eat them, and now I really don't mind them that much. They're actually pretty good in a lot of recipes. But I still am not a big fan of them when raw. So if I was to make this salad again, I think I'd leave out the onions and enjoy it a whole lot more that way.

What I made for the main course was the easiest out of the four recipes I made yesterday. It did not involve much chopping or dicing of vegetables at all, and it was a lot of waiting around for stuff to cook. My kind of recipe. ;) The Braised Kale said it would take a little longer to cook, so I started with that. I tore up one bunch of kale and set it aside. Then I sliced one medium yellow onion and set that in skillet with a little olive oil until they became translucent. Once they did, it was time to add the kale, salt and pepper, and a little chicken broth. This got covered, and then I just had to wait for it to cook for about 20 minutes total, checking every five minutes to see if the chicken broth had evaporated and adding more if it did. Once it's done cooking you add a bit of apple cider vinegar and that's that. Supah easy.

While the kale was getting lovely and tender, I had started the Sausage and Onions and Grapes, by first boiling some water and then simmering the sweet Italian sausages in it for 8 minutes. You could use hot Italian sausages with this recipe, but I figured that would kind of clash with the grapes, and you know, I'm a wimp. After they cooked in the water I had to brown them in a skillet with some olive oil for about five minutes. They were then removed to a plate and kept warm until the rest of the dish was ready. I sliced up TWO large yellow onions for this recipe (you know, I should have just named this day Onion-Palooza), and added those to the biggest skillet I could find to saute until tender. Then I added five cloves worth of thinly sliced garlic. It was time to add the grapes after cooking that for a couple minutes. It said to cook these until their skins started to pop, which took about five minutes. I'd never cooked grapes before, and Josh was skeptical when I told him I'd be doing this, but it is really awesome, people. Cook some grapes today. Once the grape skins started a-poppin' I added half a cup of white wine and let most of it evaporate. Well, okay, I probably could have let it evaporate a bit more, but I was getting hungry, so after about five minutes I said "good enough." After that, all that was left to do was toss the mixture with salt, pepper, parsley, and balsamic vinegar. I was a little nervous about that because I'm not a huge fan of balsamic vinegar but it blended with the flavors really nicely.

So how was everything? The Braised Kale was really good. I've had kale a couple of times in restaurants, so I knew I'd like it. The onions it was cooked with got really tender and the whole side dish had a really nice flavor overall. The Sausage with Onions and Grapes was okay. It sounds like a really odd combination but it does work well together. Those grapes--oh boy! Cooking them intensifies their flavor and they taste wonderful. The onions were cooked long enough that they did not clash at all with the grapes. But the thing is, like I said before, I just really do not like sausage very much. So for me, that was my least favorite part. All in all, I'd make the Braised Kale again, but not the Sausage dish. It was nice for trying something new, but it just wasn't something I loved.

So that was all my lucky foods covered. I've never made it a point to eat any of those on New Year's Day before, so I'll see if it helps at all this year.

Sausage and Lentil Stew

2010-01-02T23:21:00.001-07:00

About a week ago, I ran across this blog talking about traditionally "lucky" foods for the New Year. I'm one of those people that loves cooking specific foods on holidays. It's just fun to me, and it makes it so I don't have to put a lot of thought into that day's particular menu. When I read the blog post, I knew about a couple of the foods, but not all of them. So I decided to find recipes from "The Comfort Table" that would cover all of the lucky foods mentioned: pork, legumes, cooked greens, and grapes. It was actually rather easy to find a few recipes that included all of these ingredients. Yesterday I cooked all of them, and in this post I'll talk about what was made for lunch--Sausage and Lentil Stew. I'd never actually cooked with lentils before so I was interested in making this dish. I did have to substitute a few ingredients in this dish because I could not find them in my lame small town supermarkets. The lentils Katie calls for are French lentils, but after looking all over, regular ol' lentils it was. I did a search on the internet to find out what the difference was, and it turns out it's just a subtle difference in flavor; but I also found something saying they pretty much don't sell French lentils at any normal supermarkets, you have to go to a specialty or health food store to find them. Thanks, Katie! The other substitution was the type of sausage: it called for andouille, but she said you could substitute other sausages if you don't want the spicy flavor. I wouldn't have minded the spiciness, but alas could not find this type of sausage anywhere. In the end I settled on mild Italian sausage.

This recipe was rather simple to make; the hardest part was simply prepping all the vegetables. First I diced up a few slices of bacon and then cooked them until crispy in the soup pot. That got set aside to drain on paper towels and to be used later as garnish for the stew. Mmmm. Then it was time for me to chop vegetables. A lot of vegetables. At least for me. Sadly, I am not becoming any more adept at this. I've decided that's another thing I'd like to accomplish by the end of this project--not only to become a better cook, but become a faster cook. It really bugs me when it says that it should take 1 hour 40 minutes to make the recipe, and it takes me two. I'm sure in time the speed will come... So yeah, the chopping of the vegetables included a large yellow onion, a few carrots, and celery stalks. Those went into the pot with a couple of bay leaves to get all tender for about 15 minutes. As this was doing, I chopped some kale (bonus lucky food!), and sliced the sausage up. While slicing the Italian sausage, I thought that maybe it was not the best choice for the soup, since it has a very different consistency than andouille sausage. But in the end it was all good. After the vegetables were softened I incorporated the sausage, lentils and kale into the mixture.

Then came the fun part. Adding a big can of whole tomatoes. I didn't realize this would be as much fun as it was because Katie didn't warn me. She instructs you to "add the tomatoes, crushing [them] with your fingers as you add them to the pot." Yeah... I've never really worked with whole canned tomatoes before and didn't realize that you have to do this very gently lest tomato juice squirt everywhere. So that's what happened with the first one. Splat! all over the stove and me. The second I was a bit more gentle with. Splat! all over everything again. Even more gentle with the rest. I managed to not splatter juice all over with about four of them, but suffice it to say the area was quite a mess afterward. -_- Live and learn, right? As a result of me getting very annoyed with the tomatoes, I didn't break them up as much as I should have, so there were some large chunks in the stew. I didn't mind this, as I love tomatoes, but it probably would have made for a better overall consistency if they were broken up more.

After adding the uber-juicy tomatoes it was time to add the chicken broth, salt, and pepper, bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat and let it simmer for an hour. Looking at the mixture, before I set it to simmer, I was doubtful that it would turn into anything stew-like. And I was right. After an hour it was done, and it tasted delicious, but it was just a soup. A very chunky soup, but soup nonetheless. Stew has a saucey consistency, and this was straight-up broth. But like I said, it was very good. The lentils and sausage are a delicious combination, and I don't even really care for sausage. And you know, it's probably good that I didn't go with the andouille sausage anyway because I'm kind of a wimp when it comes to heat. Oh yeah, and the final step was to garnish it with those tasty bacon bits and some fresh grated parmesan cheese. You can't go wrong with that. So if you've never made sausage and lentil stew (soup) before, give it a go. Find a recipe, or buy the book and try this one; it's definitely worth making.

Happy New Year! I say we all resolve to make delicious dishes and to not get in a rut with our cooking.

Berry Milk with Cereal

2009-12-31T13:44:00.000-07:00

Wow, I haven't posted in a while. It hasn't been because I've been too busy, or just haven't wanted to, or anything like that. We just haven't been able to buy very many groceries, so that means no cooking. Sad days. :( But, I was able to buy a few for this week, so today I'm posting this simple breakfast recipe, and tomorrow I'll share with you all the dishes I'm making using the traditional "lucky" foods for the New Year.

This morning I made myself a simple, tasty breakfast of Berry Milk with Cereal. This is probably the easiest recipe in the cookbook and can hardly be called a recipe. You take a cup of blueberries, a cup of raspberries, and one cup of skim milk, put them all in the blender, and blend until smooth. I find this takes about 20 seconds. Then you pour it over some bran cereal; the recipe calls for one cup but with this ratio it makes quite a bit of milk to cereal, so feel free to use more. One thing I really like about this recipe is I'm not a huge fan of bran cereal just by itself (is anyone?), but what you get when you mix the fruit and milk together is this delicious, frothy, berry-flavored milk that completely masks the boring flavor of the bran. This is a very healthy recipe, too, which is always a plus for me. And if you don't think that cereal and milk is enough for breakfast, you've got to try this. It's so filling because you're getting the fiber from the bran cereal, and you're getting two full cups of berries. I usually have trouble finishing off the whole bowl. One last thing: I know these berries aren't in season right now, so if you can't stand paying the crazy high prices for fresh ones, you can use frozen but just make sure you thaw them first so that you don't end up with a smoothie instead of milk.

Everyone have a Happy New Year's Eve, and be safe!

Turkey Shephard's Pie

2009-12-02T01:15:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally got a day off since Thanksgiving, and I chose to make one of the recipes using the leftover turkey. This one is a twist on the classic shephard's pie. I'd only ever had normal shephard's pie with ground beef, so I was eager to see how this one turned out.

To start, I had to make mashed potatoes because there weren't many left over from Thanksgiving. I chose to use the recipe in the book because it made the perfect amount, but I won't talk much about that because I'm going to make them again later, and then I'll share the method. The mashed potatoes tasted great though and they were very easy to make. Then I had to start on the prep work for the shephard's pie. I diced some carrots and celery, minced an onion, sliced up a few mushrooms, and sauteed that in a pan with some butter for about ten minutes until everything started to soften up. By the way, it took me freaking forever to do all that. It's not even that there was a ton to chop, it's just that I am no good with a knife. Maybe I need to take a food-chopping class or something... Then I threw in my shredded turkey, peas (frozen, and they still tasted great), a little thyme, sage, salt and pepper, and mixed that all together. Don't you just love the smell of sage? I do, and I get all happy when I find out that a dish has sage in it 'cause that means I'll get to smell that wonderful sage-y goodness. That whole mixture sat for a few minutes while I made the sauce. This involved melting some butter, mixing a few tablespoons of flour into it, stirring that for a couple of minutes, then slowly adding chicken broth. At this point I was supposed to wait for it to come to a low boil and then turn the heat down and wait for approximately three minutes for it to thicken. I wasn't sure if it was supposed to come to a low boil at the medium heat it was on, but it wasn't doing much of anything, so I cranked the heat up to high. A minute later it started boiling good, so I quickly turned the heat down, and waited for it to thicken. Rather impatiently, because I was running out of time to stick this in the oven because the Victoria's Secret fashion show was on tonight. So I watch it for three minutes. It thickened a little, I guess. One couldn't call it thick by any means, but it's thicker than when it started. Thicker than plain chicken broth... That'll work, right? Well, it had to. Into the skillet to mix with the turkey/vegetable mixture, and then into the baking pan it went.

All that was left to do was spread the mashed potatoes on top and then sprinkle a little parmesan on those. It was a little harder to spread the mashed potatoes than I thought it would be, but I got it. I sprinkled it with parmesan and stuck it in the oven for just under an hour. The kitchen smelled awesome when it was cooking, by the way. When I took it out I had about four minutes to eat before I had to leave to go watch the show, so I cut into it while it was still piping hot. Ideally it should have rested for about five minutes, but it was still very tasty, just a little runny at first. I had a couple bites knowing I could have a full portion when I got back. Once the show was over I almost couldn't wait to get home to have some more. This dish was freaking delicious. Just yum. I'm sorry for the less-than-great picture, but with something like shephard's pie it's hard for amateur photographers like me to make it pretty. Just trust me that it rocked. I liked this a lot better than traditional shephard's pie. The sauce thickened up just fine, everything was flavorful, the turkey was wonderfully soft, and the mashed potatoes were creamy with a nice parmesan crust. I'm happy knowing that I have more in my fridge for lunch tomorrow. I'd recommend buying this book just based off the three recipes I've made so far. They're all so easy, yet have come out great.

Sometime later this week I'll be making Meat Loaf with Creamy Mashed Potatoes. It's the same mashed potato recipe I used tonight, but I wanted to use them in a meal where they could really shine. And I'm excited for the meat loaf because I love it but can't remember the last time I was able to eat some. I've also never cooked it before. So fun times!

Pat's Refrigerator Rolls and Green Bean Casserole

2009-11-28T00:57:00.000-07:00

So my Thanksgiving was lovely. How was everyone else's? We had perfect travel weather, I enjoyed seeing my parents (and it was even kind of nice to not have my brother there because he's just always such a downer at family get-togethers), and we had tasty food. But I did NOT stuff myself like a turkey because that's just unpleasant almost immediately afterward. I made about half of the meal, actually, and everything turned out well. Two of the things I made were from "The Comfort Table": Pat's Refrigerator Rolls and Green Bean Casserole. I'll talk about making each of them.

I decided to make the rolls because I'd gotten sick of the Hawaiian sweet rolls my parents would buy every year for Thanksgiving, and I wanted to try my hand at making some from scratch. Now, keep in mind, I'd never made any kind of bread before. So I was a little worried they might not come out great, but the recipe seemed easy enough, so I decided to give it a shot. I prepared the dough the day before Thanksgiving so that I'd have less to do on the actual day. The first thing I did was put a little bit of water, sugar, and a yeast packet in a bowl and wait about five minutes for it to bubble. Luckily, it did bubble and this made me happy because I'm always afraid the food is going to rebel against me and not do what it's supposed to (I'm looking at you, rice). While waiting for the yeast mixture to do it's thang I mixed together the sugar, eggs, oil and salt. Add some water and the bubbly yeast mixture, stir together, then slowly stir in the flour. Piece o' cake. After everything's mixed all well, you turn it out onto a floured surface and proceed to knead the dough for about nine minutes. That's right, people. No dough hook in the mixer stuff going on here. This dough called for good ol' fashioned kneading, like how grandma did. Truth be told, I don't know if the mixer would have been appropriate for this dough. But I was happy to knead by hand anyway. It was kind of relaxing and I felt I was a part of something people have done for centuries. Making dough. Yeah. Oh! I almost forgot to mention that I'm a super perfectionist when it comes to following recipes and I was really irritated with myself because the recipe called for kosher salt (which I bought) but I accidentally used table salt. I was worried this was going to make them too salty, but they were fine.

Once it got to the right consistency (kind of elastic-y), I put it in the fridge for three hours, punched it down once those three hours were up, and then left it there until the next day. To get it ready to be actual rolls the next day, I cut the dough into 12 pieces (I halved the recipe 'cause 24 rolls would not work for the two people eating, and amazingly enough I did not screw up any of the measurements), then separated each of the pieces into three little balls and stuck them into muffin tin cups. Easy! This then had to sit at room temparature (or car temperature, if you're traveling to your Thanksgiving dinner) for three hours. Fifteen minutes before the turkey was done I popped them into the oven to bake. When I took them out they weren't very golden, so I tried one and they were just slightly underdone. Back into the oven for about six more minutes and they were perfectly done. These rolls were good. Katie says they're best when they're still warm right out of the oven, so I tried one then and it was quite tasty. A little bit sweet, not too salty, just a good roll overall. However, the book describes them as "fluffy" in texture. Mine were not the least bit fluffy. In fact, these rolls were very dense. I had half of one before dinner, and then another one with my dinner and that was all I could have because they were so filling. So maybe I did something wrong that made the texture different than it was supposed to be. I don't know. Regardless, they were good, and I'd probably make them again. I had one with my dinner and by that time they'd cooled down a little but they were still really good. Today they'd gotten kind of hard, but I just popped them in the microwave for 20 seconds and they got soft and yummy again. Therefore, I consider my first bread-making experience a success. Woot!

Now for the Green Bean Casserole. As I mentioned in my previous post, I do not do green bean casserole. I tried my grandma's once when I was a child and thought it was disgusting. Canned green beans (who wants to cook with something that has no flavor?), nasty cream of mushroom soup, and canned fried onions (really, vegetables should not be pantry staples)--who wants to eat that?! Well, apparently a lot of people, but not me. Katie basically said the same thing in her book: that she never liked the way people normally prepare it, so she decided to try making a homemade version and now enjoys it like that. So I was really hoping this recipe would turn me around. Did it? You'll see...

This recipe definitely involves a lot more work than your traditional green bean casserole, but man, it is SO worth it. First I trimmed the 1 1/2 pounds of green beans at my house to get some of the prep work out of the way. An aside: I really need some new, good quality knives. You know your knives suck when you're having to exert some effort cutting freaking green beans. Maybe I'll get some come tax time. Anywho, when I got to my parents house the first thing I did for this recipe was to slice up the fresh mushrooms. A pound of mushrooms. You know, I always thought those egg slicers that they sell at Pampered Chef shows and whatnot are really stupid, I mean, hello, I have a knife, but man, it would have been handy for slicing all those mushrooms. Next time. And by the way, cooking in my parents house is kind of hard. Their kitchen is about half the size of mine, they have no counter space with which to prepare food, and their cutting board is very small. But they do have big pots which I do not have, so it wasn't ALL bad.

I digress. So I put the green beans in some salted water in the aforementioned big pot and let those boil for a few, then drained and set them aside. I chopped the onion, cursing the small cutting board, and then started the actual cooking. First step was to saute the onion (in half a stick of butter!) until translucent in a large skillet. Biggest one you can find. Then add the pound of mushrooms to the skillet. It's getting a little tight, but it's all good. I did that until "most of the liquid has evaporated from the mushrooms." Truth be told I didn't really get this because there was a lot of liquid left in the pan, probably from the onion and butter. I don't know, I guess I'm just such a novice when it comes to cooking. So I just did it for the eight minutes she suggested and called it good. Then I added a little flour to start making the roux. Once it thickened a little I added, slowly now, two cups of milk. I mentioned it was getting crowded in that skillet, right? Well I was fearful that this was not all going to fit but luckily it did. I let this kind of thicken for a few minutes although it didn't really thicken all that much but I've never made a roux before and wasn't quite sure exactly how it should look so I just added some salt, pepper, and hot sauce and called it good. I doused the green beans with this mixture in a bowl and added a cup of parmesan and mixed that all in. Mmmm...parmesan. This is what really helped to thicken up the sauce, I think. It was looking pretty much just like milk before but once I added the cheese it had a much nicer consistency to it. I sprinkled some bread crumbs on top and popped it into the oven for ten minutes.

Now that I was waiting for that to bake, it was time to fry the shallots. That's right, people, we're frying shallots. Can I get a yum?! I love shallots. Really do. I'm pretty "meh" about onions but for some reason shallots taste that slight little bit different that is what an onion should've been, but sadly is not. As you can tell, I was happy that shallots were going to be going on top. Now, it just told me to slice the shallots and dredge them in a couple tablespoons of flour, and then fry 'em up. I'd never fried anything before either so I was a little nervous, but how hard can it be? Well... I waited until the oil got hot enough (I think), and then just threw them in. About 90% of the flour came off of them as soon as they hit the oil. I don't know what I did wrong. Maybe the oil wasn't hot enough... I just fried them until the shallots were kind of golden brown (you can see in the picture not all of them got there; we were about 40 minutes behind schedule for eating at this point and I just wanted to be done), drained them on a paper towl, sprinkled with a little (kosher) salt, and topped the casserole off with them.

This was really good. My mom loved it, she said it's probably the best she'd ever eaten because she'd never had it made with fresh ingredients before. Who'da thunk? I liked it. Didn't love it because I'm still not crazy about mushrooms, but it was good enough that I ate all of my helping and enjoyed it. The green beans had great flavor, still had some bite to them, the shallots on top very tasty, and the sauce was awesome. Really, even if you don't make green bean casserole from scratch, you've gotta try putting some parmesan in it. It is boss. I found myself dragging my turkey around in the sauce left on the plate 'cause it was so tasty. Mmm.

Wow, I just realized what a long post that was. If you made it all the way through, kudos. I hope it wasn't too snooze-inducing. I'll try to be more brief in the future. So, my first two recipes were a success. Yay! Sometime this week I'll be making Turkey Shephard's Pie with my turkey leftovers. I love shephard's pie but have never had it with turkey, so I'm excited to see how it is.

Introduction and "The Comfort Table"

2009-11-25T12:16:00.000-07:00

Hello all. This is my blog about me cooking through my various cookbooks in an effort to eventually become a great cook. If you found me from my other blog, Change is a Process, or from anywhere else, thanks for visiting. :) I'd like to make it so eventually I'm not totally dependant upon a recipe to cook everything I make. I'd like to be one of those people who can just "throw something together" and have it be delicious. I'd also like to be able to make a lot of the more complex recipes out there.

But I've got to start somewhere. And that somewhere is "The Comfort Table" by Katie Lee Joel. This is a rather new cookbook, definitely not a classic or anything like that. I heard about this author from her food column in Cosmo each month. I'd cooked several recipes from that column and they all turned out really well, so I decided to give her cookbook a chance. I really like it, at least from looking through it. Like most of my cookbooks I've only cooked maybe a few recipes from each (in the case of this book, I've cooked two). The food from this cookbook is mostly Southern (Katie grew up in the South), with a few other types of dishes thrown in. There are 129 recipes in the book, and they cover all parts of the meal, from breads, to drinks, to soups, entrees, salads, etc. I plan to get through this in about six months. And I'm sorry, but I won't be posting the recipes on my blog. I'm choosing not to do this because of that whole copyright thang and because I respect the author and wouldn't want anyone to not buy the book because they can just get the recipes here.

I'm excited to cook from this book because I've never really done much Southern-style cooking. I usually try to keep about 90% of the food I cook healthy, which excludes a lot of those traditional Southern dishes. But it will be a nice change to branch out and make some new kinds of food. Plus, my boyfriend, Josh, will be happy that he's no longer being fed healthy stuff all the time. The difficulty level of this book seems to be easy overall. Rest assured, most of the dishes are homemade, not using much in the way of processed foods, but Katie makes them all simple for the home cook to prepare which is what I need right now.

Speaking of ease, allow me to share with you my opinion on cooking. I am NOT a food snob. Not in the slightest. I hate the word foodie; to me it's always implied someone who thinks they eat at a level higher than everyone else or some crap like that. I do not think that we should have to cook everything from scratch. I do not think you only have to buy fruits and vegetables and their very peak point of being in season and then at no other time of year. And I don't think you should slave all day in the kitchen just for meals that are going to take no more than a half hour to consume. Sure, it would be grand if we had all the time and money and will power to do all of that, and maybe some people do, but I don't. And I certainly don't like the people who look down on others for not doing that. I just want my food to taste good. Preferably, it would be healthy as well, but as long as we don't overindulge it's really alright if it's not. I don't mind using some processed foods as long as they are a decent substitute for the homemade thing, i.e. chicken stock. Now, I've never tasted homemade chicken stock, so I suppose the stuff you make yourself could be leaps and bounds better, but I've never had a dish come out tasting bad when I used the store-bought stuff. So, unless the cookbook explicitly tells me to make my own, use the store-bought stuff I will. I love food, and I really do enjoy cooking, but I do not have unlimited time and/or funds, so I do what I can, and it works for me.

I almost forgot to mention that I really love great food photography. Along with becoming a great cook, I'd really like to become a better food photographer, so that maybe I'll eventually take photos like this guy. Let's hope, because I know you don't want to see a bunch of ugly pictures of food.

To start, I'm going to be cooking two recipes from this book to bring to Thanksgiving dinner at my parents' house: Pat's Refrigerator Rolls and Green Bean Casserole. I've never liked that nasty ass green bean casserole with the canned green beans that taste like nothing, and the gross cream of mushroom soup and those canned fried onions. Blech! (I'm not a food snob, but I'll repeat, it has to taste good.) But Katie's version is homemade, so we'll see if that makes me a convert. I've never made any kind of bread before either, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the rolls turn out well. I'll try to post tomorrow night or Friday to tell you how they turn out.