technical difficulties

so. very shortly after my last post, my computer died. i was trying to figure out how to afford to buy or rent another one, but i don't think it's in the budget.

i futzed around with the laptop for awhile, and discovered that pulling the battery out and then putting it back in makes it work for... who knows how long? so i'll be limping along that way for awhile.

i HAVE been cooking, and taking pictures, and writing entries on paper, so i will backpost everything, including my "last day Easy Bake extravaganza" as soon as I have time, i promise.

but today, the parentals are in town and i have to gear up for an afternoon of who knows what.

Bear with me kids!

Day Twenty-Eight

Can you believe it's almost over? (or is it?)

I was trying to plan some kinda amazing thing for the last day, an Easy Bake-o-Rama, if you will, but just as I was doing that, I got an email from the parentals telling me they were going to be in town from Texas that day and so I'm not sure how all of that is going to monkey with my schedule yet. I WILL be cooking that day, it just might be later in the day.

Tonight, I have a work happy hour thing that I may or may not be attending. I'm still deciding. But I have this giant umm.. bunch? head? something... of bok choy in my fridge that really needs to be used, so I'm thinking I'll go Asian for today's entree. A little chicken/carrot/bok choy/onion something or other. something healthy-ish.

But for now, back to the salt mines I go.

Later taters!

Day Twenty-Seven: Dippity Do

I'm trying not to fall asleep as I write this. It's been a lonnnnnnnnnnng Tuesday.

But I'm glad I stuck it out, because this recipe was definitely worth checking out.

I made baked ricotta, inspired by this recipe from 5 Ingredient Fix.

I did tweak the recipe. I think the Food Network one was a little more umm... Mediterranean. I used what I had on hand, so it turned out a little more Latin inspired.

The Recipe
1/4 C Part Skim Ricotta
1/2 tsp Ancho chili powder
1/2 tsp lime zest
1 tsp lime juice
1/2 an egg (which basically turned out to be most of the white and half the yolk)
Salt and pepper to taste

The recipe calls for you to strain the liquid out of the ricotta for about 10 minutes. Well, I left my strainer at Coree's house like, forever ago (I'm ALWAYS leaving things behind) and so I just used a wet paper towel, and let it "strain" for about 20 minutes. It gave off zero liquid, and was already pretty creamy and unliquidy so I guess just use your best judgement as to whether you think you really need to take that extra step.

I mixed the rest of the ingredients into the ricotta, and poured the mixture into the pan.



Into the Easy Bake for 35 minutes, as directed by the recipe.



The recipe says it should get puffy in the middle and brown on top. Mine didn't. I'm guessing that's because the EBO temperature is a little less than 375 and it probably needs a longer cooking time. Or maybe the lime juice did something. I really don't know. What I DO know is that the end result I got was still pretty good. The ricotta was creamy, not heavy or too dense, and had absorbed all the flavours really well. I bought a little bag of corn chips just for this experiment, and the baked ricotta really was a great dip. I can totally see serving this at parties.

I would like to try it Claire's way, with the orange zest and the warmed olives on top, but I gotta tell ya, the chili powder and lime made a pretty good combo, as well.

I love recipes that you can tweak to make your own, and this is absolutely one of those. You can make it Mediterranean, or Latin, or maybe add some Greek spices, or sundried tomatoes, or whatever fresh herbs you can think of and as long as you follow the basic recipe you've got a winner. You could also make this a sweet dip by adding a little confectioners sugar (dissolves faster) and chopped fruit with mint and get a whole new flavour profile.

Plus, it's really pretty inexpensive.

And that, my friends, is our show. I'm off to go sleep this Tuesday out of my system. G'night!

Day Twenty-Seven: In which i have NOT had my coffee

Today has been nuts at work, and I really only have maybe three minutes before I have to get back to it.

But I deserve a break today.

I believe tonight I AM going to try the baked ricotta recipe from 5 Ingredient Fix. It seems like a pretty simple recipe, and maybe I will even manage not to fall asleep and burn it. It's pretty iffy, today. I haven't had any coffee, and now it's too late to have it because I would pretty much have a caffiene crash in the middle of driving home. NO. BUENO.

Anyhoots, the ricotta thing sounds easy. And relatively fast to put together. And like maybe it could even taste good if Claire doesn't turn out to have the only oven in the world that can bake ricotta.

:D

Later people.

Day Twenty-Six: Claire Robinson has a Magical Oven

I, however, do not.

So these "crunchy" spiced garbanzo beans were inspired by this recipe from 5 Ingredient Fix on Food Network.

I was pretty stoked about this recipe. I was thinking, "this would be a fantastic snack to package up and take camping, and wrap in pretty packages and give people as part of gift baskets, and to serve at parties... and and and..."

I messed around with the spices a little, but I stuck with the measurements from the recipe for what I added. I am a chili powder freak, so I have at least four or five different kinds in my cupboard. So, along with the Spanish paprika and cumin (and salt), I added both ancho and chipotle chili powder.

I read the reviews of this recipe on the Food Network website, and almost all of them said that the chickpeas did NOT get crunchy at 35 minutes. When I checked them at 40 minutes, they were still not crunchy.



I left them in for another 15 minutes... still not crunchy, but they tasted so good, and they were LESS mushy than they were when I started so I went ahead and pulled them.



And then, just because I was curious, I went ahead and made a larger batch for the oven.

35 minutes... no crunch.

45 minutes... no crunch.

55 minutes... burn. *sigh*



the ones in the middle that didn't turn black ARE crunch, and don't taste bad at all, but I wouldn't share them with friends. Maybe my neighbors. I like them much less.

I thought maybe the ones that turned black did so because of all the chili powders. Nope. They really were burnt.

You know that scene in "Dumb and Dumber" when Jim Carrey spits out the h'ordeurve?

I did that. A lot. And then I rinsed my mouth out with water. And then I had a minor moment of panic when I imagined that mouthful of burned chickpeas being tiny little nuggets of carcinogens.

But I got over it.

I'll also mention a strange phenomenon that occurs when you bake chickpeas. They pop. Sometimes, they pop out of the pan. I'm pretty sure that before I use the big oven again, I'll have to climb in there and clean up the rogue chickpeas.

I'm very disappointed this didn't work out like Claire promised. However, the version I made in the Easy Bake, crunchy or not, are quite delicious. I think if I can settle for less than crunchy chickpeas, I may actually make this as a snack again. To bring to work. Maybe not to share. It just loses something when you have to tell people you're giving them "Supposed to be Crunchy baked chickpeas," I think.

I'm not giving up on good ole Claire, though. On the same show, she made a baked ricotta recipe that I want to monkey around with. I bought some ricotta tonight, so perhaps tomorrow we'll give her a chance to redeem herself.

But for tonight, I think it's time to unplug the EBO and imagine a world where chickpeas really DO get crunchy in 35 minutes.

But I'm not bitter.

Day Twenty-Six: Get Yo Snack Awn

Hi folks! I hope you all had a good weekend. I had a pretty good one, full of lots of much needed naps.

You know, I've done desserts, main courses, and side dishes, but I realized that I hadn't done any snack stuff yet. This weekend, I saw a Claire Robinson on 5 Ingredient Fix (Food Network) make these spicy baked chickpeas and I thought, "That might be perfect for the Easy Bake!"

So tonight, we snack.

See you later!

Day Twenty-Three: Roasted

*So, I saved this entry on time, but apparently failed to hit "publish" before i collapsed in a fit of sleep. Whoops!

Tonight I made oven roast. Sort of. It was super easy, and this is the first time in awhile that I've made something where fresh herbs made ALL the difference.

The Recipe:
2 good sized chunks of beef for pot roast, chopped into smallish but not tiny pieces (i'm sure you could use chunks of chuck, or top round, or whatever is handy.)
1 small red potato *medium dice
1 small carrot *medium dice
1 clove of garlic *fine dice
About 1 1/2 tablespoons of red onion *medium dice
3 or 4 slices of mushroom *medium dice
1 tsp fresh thyme
1 tsp fresh sage *fine dice
2 tsp olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

Basically, you just dice everything up, toss it with the olive oil, salt, pepper, and herbs, and pour it into the pan. Cover it with foil, and cook it in the Easy Bake for 45 minutes.



Really good. I think the meat was like... a SKOSH overcooked. Certainly not inedible, and for most people it probably would be fine. I just like my beef closer to rare than well. I could have pulled it out at 35 minutes and it would have been fine, I think, but I wanted to make sure the veggies were cooked through.



As I said, the fresh thyme and sage made ALL the difference in this dish. I think they imparted just that right flavour to make this really taste "pot roasty" even though everything was cut into pretty small pieces. If I made this again, the only thing I'd MAYBE change is that I would cook the meat and veggies separately, so I could pull the meat out a little earlier. Otherwise, good stuff, yo.

I'll probably take the rest of the weekend off, but I might surprise you with an appearance Sunday night.

Have a good weekend, peoples!