Baking Stuff Is Hard

Baking is a science and according to those tests you take in middle school I was supposed to be good at science and math. And while I did excel in Calculus, I made a 45 on my first College Chemistry test. That's an F, guys. I managed to pull it up to a C by then end of the semester but science has never been my best friend. Maybe that's why I have a hard time with baking. I mean, when I cook something for dinner, I hardly ever follow a recipe. When I do use a recipe, I just kind of use it as guide and add, subtract or estimate stuff as I go. You can't do that in baking. If say you forget an egg, your food is probably not going to turn out right. You have to measure things. You have to be precise. So normally I do not bake and usually when I do I go the semi-homemade route that usually involves a box of cake mix and a pre-made can of icing. But this weekend I decided to go all and bake from scratch. It took me most of the day on Saturday but you will see my amazing final product later on in the week. (I know you are on pins and needles now.)


So anyways, baking is hard and I applaud those of you who do it.


I also just wanted to give a shout-out to this pretty cool device I bought this weekend, (along with a sifter, which is apparently important in baking). I'm not sure what it's called but it's great for icing and filling a cupcake. Beezus5 and I once took cake decorating at Michael's and I was not so good with filling all those pastry bags, and cleaning them and figuring out which tips work for stuff. B5 was pretty good at it. I never quite mastered the rose. I found this thing to be a little easier. You just fill up the bottom and screw on the top. And it's relatively easy to clean. I just bought the one but apparently you can buy a whole kit.
It was also really good for filling this cupcake with jam.

Hobie really enjoyed it, as well.


Are you more into baking, cooking, or eating out?
Does your dog enjoy baking with you?
Do you like my cool apron?

Galentine's Day Cards

Hello!
If you read my blog last week , I mentioned a wonderful thing that I discovered from an Episode of Parks and Recreation; Galentine's Day. It's a day, usually near Valentine's Day, where Leslie Knope and all her gal friends head out to brunch to eat frittatas and then exchange gifts. She gave out the most awesome mosaics. I'm not that good. But I did decide to make a lovely Galentine's day card for my gal, Beezus5.

How to Make a Galentine's Day Card....
1-Cut up photos from magazines or the Internet of famous dudes that your gal friend is obsessed with.
2-Paste photos onto some construction paper or card stock or better yet a pre-made blank card made of card stock.
3-Write something semi-witty or inspirational on the card.
4-Hand deliver.


B5 also gave me a Galentine's Day card which I thought was pretty awesome. Although she didn't make it herself, this girl on etsy did. I'm loving it. I think the Golden Girls would love a good Galentine's Day celebration.

Also Special Shout out to Mrs. Mo Jung, who from what I can discern sent Beezus5 a lovely Galentine's Day Care package (maybe she didn't know that was what it was when she was sending it but still) straight from Las Vegas featuring such wonderful commodities as Red Bull, Airplane Sized Vodka, a Bayside High T-shirt and Twilight Candies.

So seriously who wants to celebrate Galentine's Day with me next year.... or maybe like this summer?

Valentine's Day Dinner Part 2....Where's the Beef? and of course Dessert

When I initially told my husband that I was going to attempt a gourmet Valentine's Dinner I asked him for some suggestions. He basically just responded by saying, "Steak." I guess that's what all the fellows like. But there are lots of steak options out there so my search began. My Dad (who is also a fellow) claims that Costco has the best NY strips steaks out there. So I requested that he pick up some for me on his next trip (as I do not have a Costco membership). So he did. And these steaks were huge. And quite nice looking. I have learned that my husband likes a pretty simple steak. Something where the flavor of the steak shines through. Not too much marinating or sauces or what not. So I decided to grill them and then make a compound butter to top them with. I found this awesome butter recipe by Emeril.

How I Grilled My Gigantor Valentine's Steaks
1-I sat the steaks out to get to room temperature. The cooking shows always say to do that.
2-I put a bunch of sea salt and fresh ground pepper and a little bit of olive oil on each side and pressed the salt and pepper into the meat.

3-I preheated my grill pan to the highest heat.
4-Then I grilled them. For about 9 minutes. I seared both sides for a few seconds and then kept cooking it on one side at high heat for about 4 minutes. Then I flipped it and lowered the heat to about medium for the rest of the time. They actually turned out pretty well. I usually over or under cook steaks but these were medium to medium rare. Pink in the middle. Crispy on the outside. (They may look a little black but I think that's just the crust b/c they tasted good and not burned) Add some compound butter to the top and you are good to go.

These were the best steaks I have ever made. Normally I leave steak grilling to someone else. But I really pulled through this time.

I always like to have something green on my plate to make it look pretty so I stole 8 asparaguses (probably not how you pluralize that) from my mom and roasted them with a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar. And then my mom told me that a lovely roasted tomato always makes a nice looking plate. So I stole two of those and put some Italian Seasoning and Parmesan cheese on them and roasted them for like 10 minutes. All in all a lovely looking plate.

Now on to Dessert......

My husband is not super interested in chocolate. I mean he likes it and all but it's not his fave. But you know what is one of his favorite foods? Bread. All kinds. Any kinds. So then all the sudden it hit me. I have to make him BREAD PUDDING for dessert. It's perfect. It's not chocolate and it's made of his favorite food and it's a dessert. I found a million recipes and wanted to do something crazy and complex with a nice sauce but instead I went for the easiest, yet highest rated one I could find on All Recipes.com. I added a mix of dried berries instead of just raisons but I followed the rest of the recipe. My Husband ate 4 of the six servings. So I guess he liked that too. So, Overall.....Worth it.

And seriously, I'm still pretty tired from making all this. Last night for dinner we had frozen pizza.

Valentine's Day Dinner-Part One....Potatoes and Tarts

Since this was my first Valentine's Day ever as a Wife I decided to up my housewifeyness and try to make a gourmet meal for my husband. I spent like 2 weeks looking up recipes for this and I have to say in the end, it really paid off. This might be one of the best meals I have ever made.

Since this meal was super extensive I'm just going to discuss the appetizer and first side dish today. I sort of made up the appetizer. It was based on something that I saw on http://www.foodgawker.com/ (an awesome website if you like looking at delicious foods). I call it mushroom tarts.

Mushroom Tarts (makes 6 tarts)
6-7 cremini mushrooms
1 tablespoon chopped shallots or onions
1 tablespoon butter
garlic salt
2 tablespoons blue cheese
1 sheet of puff pastry

Basically I just thawed the puff pastry and then used the top of a wine glass to cut it into 6 circles. Then I cooked the mushrooms and shallots in butter and added some garlic salt and then melted the blue cheese in at the end. I put a spoonful of this mixture on top of each puff pastry ring and baked it for 15 minutes at 400 degrees. I thought these were a little bit rich but my husband ate 4 of them. So you can maybe cut the cheese or butter down a little bit.


It took me forever to decide on a side dish. I went back and forth several times but ultimately decided it should be potato related since I was making a beef main course. I found this Rachael Ray recipe but decided to alter it a bit because I didn't want to have to buy all these fresh herbs.
So instead of calling them Rachael Ray's Autumn Potato Gratin , I will call them J-M's Winter Love Potatoes.

J-M's Winter Love Potatoes (makes about 4 servings)
2 pounds of baby white potatoes and a couple small red potatoes (or probably any potatoes)
1 cup of heavy cream plus another 1/2 cup of cream
1/4 stick of butter
1 clove of garlic minced
A few shakes of Italian Seasoning (the kind that has like oregano, thyme, sage, rosemary, etc in it)
Salt and Pepper
Grated Parmesan Cheese (about a 1/2 cup)

1-Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Wash and cut the potatoes. Make them into bite sized to a couple bite sized pieces (see pics). Boil some water and partially cook the potatoes for about 5 minutes.
2-Heat 1 cup of cream and the butter in a pan. Add a couple of sprinkles of Italian Seasoning and the garlic and a little salt and pepper. I then added a palm full of grated Parmesan cheese to this. Heat this for about 5 minutes.
3-Place potatoes in the bottom of a small baking pan and put a little salt and pepper on them.
4-Pour cream mixture over potatoes. If the cream mixture doesn't cover about up to 75% of the potatoes then add a little more cream until it reaches up higher. Then sprinkle the top with more Parmesan cheese.
5-Bake in preheated oven for about 35 minutes or until potatoes start to brown and bubble. This is going to be super hott, so let it rest a little before eating. Also as it rests the cream sauce gets thicker.

Warning-This dish is not healthy. Hello. You are cooking butter in to cream. But it tastes very delicious.

I loved how the potatoes turned out. They were bubbly and brown and awesome looking. There were only a few minor mishaps during this part of cooking like when the strings on my apron fell in the toilet and when I accidentally left the stove on after cooking the mushroom mixture and only realized it after I picked up a dish that was sitting on the stove and realized it was super hot. Major burn crisis averted though.

Did anyone else make Valentine's Dinner or do something super awesome?

"Hey, You Got Yourself a Fish Biscuit."

OK. I'm just going to say it. I thought the Season Premiere of Lost was awesome. MAYBE DON'T READ THIS IF YOU DIDN'T WATCH LAST NIGHTS EPISODE. I'm not going to be super spoilery but I am gonna list my favorite parts....after the picture of the fish bizkit. (from Lostpedia)

They include, first seeing Cindy show up to give Jack his extra liquor (and realizing where he was), the whole underwater statue toe scene (I felt like I was plunging into the water), Charlie!!!, Boone!!!, uh Desmond sitting beside Jack (awesome, I love you Des but where's Penny and why are you on this plane), the whole "I'm sorry you had to see me like that" scene, Jacob paying Hurley a visit, Claire in the cab, ahhh ok most of the stuff in the episode. Cept when my girl Juliette died. I always super liked her even when I wasn't quite sure if she was evil or good.

OK so anyways. B5 had the brilliant idea to make fish biscuits. They didn't turn out perfect but we tried our hardest and it started getting a little too close to 9 pm so we had to rush them at the end. Basically just make a fish biskit on paper. Cut it out. Cover it in foil. Make cookie dough (we used a bag of sugar cookie mix). Add food coloring. Roll Dough. Trace fish. Cut. Write 'Dharma' on your fish and bake. I think the pictures tell it best. .....

We made three Dharma fish bizkits and one with a K and S for when Sawyer and Kate were stuck in those cages with nothing to eat but fish biscuits. (FYI I'm not a Skater, I was in the past at some points but I'm totally pro Sulliette, even though Juliette appears to be dead. I may be a Jater but I'm not positive. I change my mind a lot))

And the amazing final product. Ok it got a little warped. We didn't cook it long enough and it puffed up a bit and we also may have put the fish bizkits a little too close to each other on the cookie sheet. Also a little too pink. Oh well. Still awesome. And tasty.

OH and if you are like, 'What the heck is a fish biscuit?" You can learn more here . But you should probably just go ahead and watch all of Lost.