Tournament Weekend with Gertrude

For this three day weekend during which I fairly minimal necessary school work, I decided to experiment quite a bit in the kitchen.  My efforts yielded a wide variety of results. I had a loss, a draw, a win and one that is still TBA. In order to end this post on a positive note,  I will start with my loss: cookies.  

I must admit, I have never actually made cookies in Gertrude before. I have observed during my roommates' cookie-making experiences that cookies bring out the worst side of Gertrude.  She feels the need to cook the heck out of the bottom of the cookies and just channels so much of her energy there, that she forgets about the other 2/3 of the cookie (ie, the inside that needs to be baked).  Nevertheless, I though Gertrude would behave for me, since we have such a special bond.  

I excitedly whipped up http://allrecipes.com/recipe/oatmeal-butterscotch-cookies/ with some added walnuts that I decided would make a nice touch.  I didn't grease the pan, just like the instructions said, and I put them in the oven.  The recipe said it would take 8-10 minutes to cook.  However, just THREE minutes in, I sensed an unpleasant smell coming from Gertrude.  The bottoms were completely brown and the tops were still mush! Not cool Gertrude.  YOU HAVE ONE JOB!!!  

Anyways, in case you were wondering, the dough tasted wonderful.  So this is definitely a recipe I

need to try again..... perhaps in a different oven.  

On the same topic of second tries, I decided to retry the whole cauliflower pizza thing (remember http://cookingwithgertrude.blogspot.com/2013/01/cauliflower-cooking-catastrophe.html) .  I used the same recipe http://www.theluckypennyblog.com/2013/02/the-best-cauliflower-crust-pizza.html.  Sparknotes of my "Cauliflower Cooking Catastrophe Post": I accidentally mixed the cheese and egg with the cauliflower before microwaving the cauliflower for 4 minutes.  Whoops.  This time around, I did everything exactly as the recipe said.... except I baked the crust on tin foil instead of parchment paper. No big deal, right? I didn't think so. Well, I excitedly loaded up the pizza with sauce, mozzarella, chicken, broccoli, garlic, spinach.... basically the whole nine yards.  I baked it as the instructions said and took it out of the oven. Looks sort of like a pizza: 

  Then I tried to cut it....... The tin foil was a bad choice.  Gertrude thought it would be nice to fuse together the crust and the foil.  So basically, cutting this pizza made it so it was not a pizza anymore.  I am going to call this "cauliflower casserole" instead of cauliflower pizza.... it's a unique "cooking with Gertrude" creation: 

It actually tasted delicious too.  Nevertheless, I decided this was my tie with Gertrude. She didn't quite cooperate but I have able to salvage a delicious product. 

Onto the win: whenever I am on pinterest, I spend the majority of my time on one of three boards: "humor"(who doesn't like Internet memes), "food and drink" (duh) and "health and fitness" (I guess, duh).  The "food and drink" recipes are usually pretty outrageously delicious, but not the most healthy.... okay let's be honest... most of the time they are outrageously unhealthy.  Therefore, I try to spend some time on the "health and fitness" board because it usually has some more healthy recipes .  One of pins I would commonly see was that for spaghetti squash recipes. I love squash, and I love spaghetti, so I was fairly intrigued by the idea that this squash could closely mimic pasta and decided to give it a shot. 

 First, I had to roast the spaghetti squash.  This means I basically stabbed the squash like crazy with a knife and put it in the oven for 80 minuetes at 375 degrees.   I was a bit worried after four minutes when I heard weird noises coming from the oven, but the squash ended up turning out perfectly and it was fairly easy to scoop the "spaghetti" out of it once I let it cool .  I used the following recipe: http://www.marthastewart.com/873339/roasted-squash-parmesan-and-herbs.  Did it taste like spaghetti? Not at all.  However, it was still delicious because it tasted like thanksgiving stuffing, which is always a win.  I also whipped up some roasted green beans/sweet potatoes/asparagus medley, which complemented it quite well. 

And finally, my baking project that is still up in the air.  Apparently, this breadmaking method yields some amazing bread with various complex flavors.  I honestly don't know how complex of a flavor bread can possibly have, so I was very intrigued.  I will talk more about this in future blog posts, but here is the recipe I am following http://www.marthastewart.com/907240/chad-robertsons-tartine-country-bread.  It requires a starter that takes about three weeks to make, so the making of this bread is a fairly large commitment.  The ending bread just looks so good though, so I am hoping it is worth the effort and that Gertrude does not mess everything up.  Anyways,  the first step is to mix flour and water and wait two days for bubbles to form. YUMMMMMMM.... If you don't believe me that this bread is going to be delicious, watch this video: http://vimeo.com/14354661

Not-so-special (albeit delicious) brownies

This past Saturday, my household posted a BBQ.  Every time there is even a semblance of an excuse for me to make something delicious, I will.  I originally had settled on making ice cream with the ice cream machine  I remembered I had....yes, another unnecessary kitchen appliance.  Unfortunately, I forgot to put the ice cream canister thing in the freezer until the day I needed it.  The instructions said freezing the canister could take anywhere from 6-24 hours so needless to say, I was hoping for six.  I soon found out though that my  freezer is Gertrude's cold0blooded brother.... we will call him Brutus.  Basically Brutus is just as unreliable and angsty as Gertrude is, and because I have not yet fostered a  close, understanding relationship with Brutus as I have with Getrude, he was not playing nice.  Long story short, my ice cream was more like a milk shake.... if that.  It was very disappointing. I even tried it again the next day after the can had frozen for a good 20 hours, and that still did not work! I guess the instructions manual was not kidding when it says it can take up to 24 hours to freeze.

Luckily, I had decided on saturday before the ice cream fail that I would make some small treat to accompany the ice cream.  Well, that obviously turned out to be the main treat, but luckily these brownies were pretty darn good.  I cut straight to the chase when finding a recipe by googling "best brownies" and I came up with this recipe:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/best-brownies/

I rarely make JUST brownies (usually they are accompanied by some cookie dough and/or caramel and/or peanutbutter magical goodness), but since I was supposed to have ice cream with them, I decided to go with old fashioned brownies.  I should have doubled the batch, because they turned out wonderful; fudgy and chewy... just as brownies should be!

When life hands you lemons....

 If someone were to just peruse my blog for even one minute, one thing that would be fairly obvious is my stance on chocolate.... I love chocolate.  Therefore, the bulk of my recipes revolve around chocolate.  However, in order to expand my baking abilities and possibly gain some followers who *gasp* don't like chocolate, I decided to branch out a bit and try making a fruit dessert.  In the spirit of mother's day, I decided to make some lemon cupcakes for my wonderful mother who may be one of those people who isn't as obsessed with chocolate as I am.  I have to admit, I was a bit nervous.  I rarely make fruit-based desserts, let alone make fruit-based in Gertrude, so I was really hoping that the stars would align to allow me to perfect a slightly ambitious recipe of lemon-curd- filled lemon cupcakes with lemon buttercream.... wow, that is a lot of lemon!!

Usually when I bake super ambitious desserts, I use my parents' kitchen due to the presence of a reliable oven and more importantly, a kitchen-aid.  I have already decided that the first kitchen item I will buy when I am no longer a starving student (well, not exactly starving) is a kitchen-aid.  Those things are amazing for ambitious, yet slightly lazy bakers like myself.  Anyways, because I was going to surprise my mom, I decided I should just do this whole production in my little kitchen with Gertrude and my $20 hand mixer that doesn't even have all the right metal attachments.

I used this recipe:

http://oishiitreats.blogspot.com/2013/04/so-me-your-pucker-face-lemon-curd_16.html

I didn't feel like having three windows open and this recipe covered everything (cupcakes, lemon curd filling and frosting.)

step 1: cake.  Mixing it up was simple enough.  I highly recommend that anytime a recipe calls for cake flour, use it! It makes a world of a difference in cakes/cupcakes... it is called CAKE flour after all.  Likewise, I have mentioned this before, but always use unsalted butter in recipes.  The amount of salt in different butters is variable, so don't just take the salt out of the recipe and use salted butter.  Anyways, Gertrude was on pretty good behavior.  The edges were slightly brown, but not too bad.  I figured the slightly browned edges were just an excuse to put more frosting the cupcakes.

step 2: Lemon curd.  This was the step that would make or break me.  You can look at the posted recipe for more specifics, but in short, the idea with lemon curd is to heat up butter, eggs, lemon juice and sugar.  I have a bit of lets call it eggsxiety... meaning I get a bit anxious when heating up eggs in any custard/curd-like product since I always seem to get the eggs too hot..... which means they scramble.... which means I usually have to filter out scrambled eggs out of my product.... not cool. The recipe was very specific about not letting the mixture boil, so I literally sat there for about 10 minutes stirring this mixture as fast as I possibly good to prevent any boiling.  When it started to boil even with my stirring, I decided to take it off the heat, even though it wasn't exactly that thick yet.  Regardless, I followed the instructions and put it in the fridge.  Usually, I would be very impatient and try to prematurely fill the cupcakes, but I decided to be a mature adult and let the lemon curd sit in the fridge for a while.  When I came back, the slightly grossish looking curd had turned into a magical bowl of lemony goodness... patience is a virtue.   I proceeded to use a teaspoon to make little holes in the tops of my cupcakes and fill them up.

step 3: frosting.  This is the part I was least worried about, yet it caused me the most problems.  I followed the recipe exactly, but after two batches of cupcakes in gertrude on a 90 degrees day, my kitchen was slightly on the warmer side.  Therefore, my frosting was not quite the consistency I was hoping for... a little soupy.  I still decided to load up my dessert decorator pro (aka the best 10 dollars I have even spent in my life) with this liquidy frosting.  The frosting sort of lost its form after I put in on each cupcake... not exactly what I was going for... But no one has to know that! They ended up looking decent after they firmed up in the fridge for a bit.

Most importantly, the cupcakes were absolutely delicious.  Fruity dessert win.  My mom loved them, which was obviously my ultimate goal.  Anyways, here were the final products!! So in conclusion... when life hands you lemons, make lemon cupcakes!

Balanced Meals FTW

It's pretty sad that I have almost updated this blog more times in the last 3 days than I have in the last 3 months.  To make up for that, I decided to show TWO of the wonderful creations I whipped together in my kitchen tonight.  I'll start with dinner.  This was actually a pretty typical dinner for me , but I really am just having too much fun with the retina display on my new iphone camera so I decided to take one of those "oh look at me I eat super healthy" pictures.

In this lovely salad, we have:
1)organic baby spinach (which is delicious.. after I wash the lady bugs out!)
2) green beans and asparagus that I tossed in olive oil, salt, pepper and minced garlic and baked for 15 min at 425 degrees
3) battered wild alaskan salmon (I admit, all I had to do was take this out of the box and bake it)
4) a crumble of feta cheese
5) dried cranberries
6) corn that I heated up in the microwave and tossed with salt and pepper
7) My "lite cranberry walnut vinaigrette" that I would love to say I made, but actually just got from a bottle.

So that was dinner... full of healthy omega three fatty acids and leafy greens.  But it looks like I am lacking some carbs, right? I thought so.  The solution???? THIS:

I followed the recipe pretty much word for word, except the store did not have any big peanut butter cups so I just used mini dark chocolate ones.   The bars are sitting nicely in my fridge right now and it's basically taking every bit of self-control I have to not go and eat every single one..... Hence I am writing about them.    Think delicious combination of peanut butter cookie and fudge.  And they are practically healthy.... they have two cups of oatmeal!! Nothing like Peanut Butter Dream Bars to round off a healthy meal.