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!

Day Twenty-Three: Deconstruct THIS

While I am aware that stews and soups are not really, technically possible in the Easy Bake, no one says I can't use the ingredients in them for dinner.

So the plan tonight is to roast some stew meat, potatoes, onions, and carrots.

I guess it sounds a little more like pot roast. We'll see, exactly how it comes out. I'm still trying to decide if I want to do a little of everything in one pan, or commit to doing everything separately.

Of course, all of this is contingent on me not having plans tonight. Which, at the moment, I don't, but I never know these days.

But I'll try not to do what I did last weekend and just completely ignore the Easy Bake for three days.

Anyhoots, have a good day kids!

Day Twenty-Two: My Just Desserts

When I was a kid, just learning to experiment on my own in the kitchen, I discovered a shortcake recipe on the back of a Bisquick box. I made shortcake at least twice a week for a month... until I moved on to an obsession with pan frying the perfect hamburger.

I remember that shortcake fondly. While yes, I WAS using a boxed baking mix to do most of the heavy lifting for me, I spent hours playing around with add-in's like extra butter, a little vanilla, orange juice, and once, even a splash of grenadine syrup. (This resulted in a shockingly PINK shortcake, worthy of Strawberry Shortcake herself.)

I can tell you right now that if I had been in possession of an Easy Bake Oven back then, Death by Shortcake would not have been outside of the realm of possibility.

Tonight, I THINK I made a shortcake worthy of my childhood memories.

The Recipe, inspired by this recipe from Food for a Hungry Soul.
1/2 C of heavy cream, whipped (reserve a tablespoon or so for garnish)
3/4 C of all purpose flour
1 T Sugar
3 Small - Medium Strawberries
1 big pinch of Baking Powder
1/4 cap full of vanilla
2 fresh orange mint leaves

I whipped the cream, and folded the flour into it a little at a time. I started with 1/2 cup of flour, then added the other ingredients, then slowly worked in more flour to make the dough form together into a sort of biscuit like shape. Then, I brushed the top with the dribbles of cream left in the container, and sprinkled a little sugar on top.



The biscuit cooked for 55 minutes. You'll notice that it looks like the top was scraped off. That's, um, because it was. I honestly didn't expect it to rise as much as it did.



But you know what? Flip it over and it's all pretty again!



The strawberries were just sliced and thrown into the pan. I didn't add any sugar or anything to them.



NOTE: Roasted Strawberries are the bomb!

They roasted for about 55 minutes, as well. They held their shape well, and gave off just enough juice to soak into the shortcake.



I mixed just a little bit of Splenda, maybe half a packet at most, into the tablespoon or so of whipped cream I had left, and, after dumping the strawberries on top, plopped a dollop of cream on top. The mint leaves were kind of an afterthought, but lookit how pretty!



This really did turn out to be a pretty classic strawberry shortcake. The cake itself was sweet, kind of crumbly on the outside, and just a little denser in the middle. It soaked up the strawberry juices well, too.

This is the first time I've seen a cake that I made in the EBO actually brown on the bottom. I'm thinking a longer cooking time on future cakes is the key.

Okee doke, I'mma go finish my dessert. G'night everyone!

Day Twenty-Two: Who you callin short, cake?!

I'm sorry about that lame title. I think having to wake up earlier than normal today has depleted my clever reserves.

I have, in my refrigerator right now, two pints of strawberries. I also have, in my email right now, the link to a roasted strawberry shortcake recipe.

So guess what I'll be making tonight?

The "shortcake" bit of the recipe seems to be a lot like my grandma's "easy way" biscuits, just with a little more sugar, the addition of vanilla, and a couple of important differences. The shortcake recipe tells me to whip the heavy cream before mixing it into the flour, and to just use the all purpose flour/baking powder combo vs. the self-rising flour. I'm interested to see if there is a difference in the final product in terms of texture.

All that, and not a shred of cheese in sight!

See you tonight!

Day Twenty-One: In which I've officially OD'd on cheese

So, I'm a space cadet. I forgot two things tonight. Not absolutely critical things, but things nonetheless.

I forgot tomato paste, and I forgot to take a before picture. I was distracted by the Netflix movie that has been sitting in its envelope for two months. I finally watched it. "The Sinking of the Santa Isabel," I think. It was about a guy who spends a whole summer living in a tree house.

I'm a little jealous. But then I remind myself that he's an actor, and he didn't REALLY spend his summer in a tree house.

But I digress. (See what I mean?)

Tonight I made a veggie lasagne of sorts.

The recipe:
2 slices of eggplant, sliced to fit the pan
4 spinach leaves
4 or 5 slices of mushroom
1 smallish tomato, sliced
2 tsp olive oil
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
(1 T tomato paste, which I forgot, but you will remember, riiiiiiiight?)
3 T of shredded cheese

I roasted the tomato slices in two pans for 30 minutes, then pulled them out of the EBO and whirred them up in the blender with the olive oil, balsamic, salt and pepper. If you weren't a dingbat like me, you'd also add the tomato paste at this stage.

Then I built the lasagne in layers in this order:

A little sauce
A slice of eggplant
2 spinach leaves
2 mushrooms
Cheese (as much or as little as you want)

I repeated that one more time, and then smooshed the whole shebang down into the pan a little with the bottom of another tart pan and a little pressure. Then I covered the pan with aluminum foil and put it in the Easy Bake for 30 minutes.

When it came out, it looked like this:



It was good. I would make it again, for sure, in a larger form. Oh! And I just realized I forgot another thing. I forgot to season each layer. You should do that. Salt and pepper between each layer of veggies. Not a lot, but trust me, it will make a difference.

The eggplant gave off a lot more liquid than I thought it would, and it made for a kind of soupy sauce. Well, that and the lack of tomato paste. But I'm not dwelling.
The eggplant also shrunk a little bit, so I bet I could have cut the slices a little bit bigger.

I love cheese. I love how it melts, and how it's all cheesy and scrumptious. But, after two days of cheese heavy entrees, I'm thinking that tomorrow I'll make a dessert. NOT cheesecake. ha.

What else did we learn tonight?

Hit pause on the movie while you're cooking. True Story.

G'night ya'll.

Day Twenty-One: Veggie Madness

Sup kids? How's your day? Mine's pretty good so far.

I have a problem, though. I bought a bunch of vegetables that are now quietly and very patiently hanging out in my fridge for me to use, and I haven't done much to acknowledge most of them except to push them out of the way so I can get to other things.

I don't hate them. In fact, quite the opposite. I just haven't seemed to be able to think of anything to do with them.

"That's ridiculous, Jordan!" you say. "The interwebs are full of recipes for vegetables!."

Oh. I know. But I'm a procrastinator, and easily distractable. That's a lethal combination, dontchaknow.

"Ohhh... I'll use that eggplant tomo-- OOOH! shiny thing!"

You know.

So tonight I'm going to use that eggplant. AND the mushrooms. AND the tomatoes. AND the spinach.

It will be sort of a veggie lasagne, with the eggplant slices playing the role of pasta.

I shredded way too much cheese last night, so I'll use the leftover shreds for tonight's entree.

I'm sure it will be fantastic. That's how I roll.

See you tonight!

Day Twenty: One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato, Yum!

So, I really didn't use three potatoes. I was just trying to be clever.

But I will tell you right now that these Au Gratin Potatoes are the best thing I've made in the Easy Bake so far. Seriously. Effing. Delicious.

The recipe was based on this recipe from The Pioneer Woman. Well, I say "recipe", but she believes in measurements about as much as I do, which is to say, not very much. Here's what I came up with, based mostly on her ingredients list:

1 baby red potato, sliced pretty thinly
1/4 C of heavy cream
1 1/2 T flour
Pinch of salt
3 or 4 grinds of pepper
1 tsp chopped garlic
1/4 C finely grated cheese (I used a mixture of Manchego and Irish Cheddar)

I followed the "directions" in the recipe, except she uses potato chunks and I used slices for height reasons. Whisk the flour into the cream, then add the garlic, salt, and pepper. Lay down a layer of potatoes and then put about two tablespoons of the cream mixture over them, and keep doing that until you run out of potatoes and cream. I actually had some of the cream mixture left over, but that's no shocker. I have yet to figure out how to make EXACTLY just enough of anything for one tart pan.
Cover the pan with foil and into the Easy Bake for 30 minutes.
Pull the pan out of the EBO and remove the foil. At this point, the cream had thickened and the potatoes were already cooked through.



Sprinkle a couple tablespoons of cheese over the top, and put it back into the oven for 10 more minutes, until the cheese melts.



So, I know at least one of my readers doesn't like cheese, so all that ooey gooey-ness might not seem so appealing, for a person who LOVES CHEESE, especially the particular cheeses I was using, this turned out just about as close to perfect as a potato dish can.



The potatoes were cooked through and tender, but were NOT AT ALL MUSHY. They held their shape, despite having soaked up all that delicious creamy sauce. I will absolutely, definitely make a full sized version of this recipe, calories and fat grams be damned because seriously... THIS potato whore was sat-is-fied.

I only wish I had made more.

G'night kids!

Day Twenty: One of those days

Work has been super busy today, so I haven't really had a chance to check in until now.

But I'm here now! Wheee!!

Tonight I'm going to attempt au gratin potatoes. I have a few little red potatoes, a few different kinds of cheese (I DID find some manchego in the "odds and ends" basket, and I DID do a little happy dance in the middle of the store over it) to work with, and I think just enough heavy cream to do an EBO sized portion.

I'm a big ole potato whore, so I'm pretty stoked about this one. Yes, I said potato whore. Yes, that does mean I will pretty much do anything for deliciously prepared potatoes. Fortunately, since I know how to cook, I really only have to do it to myself.

Wait. Ermm.

AWK-warrrrrrrrrd.

Moving along...

So tonight we'll au gratin the heck outta some taters, ya'll!

See you tonight!

Day Nineteen: Just a little more

And now... Sweet Potato Chicken... Shtuff.

The recipe

Crust
2 T finely crushed vegetable chips (the kind I have consist of beet, carrot, sweet potato, and taro chips with dried green beans, which is weird, but oddly tasty)
1 tsp olive oil

I just mixed the crushed chips and the oil together and pressed the mixture into the bottom of the pan.



It baked for 10 minutes.



I think the picture makes the crust look a little burned, but I didn't think it was. 8 minutes probably would have done it, though.

The filling was inspired by this recipe. I used:
1/8 of a peeled sweet potato, sliced
1 1/2 T heavy cream
1/2 an egg yolk
1 T plain yogurt
1 pinch sea salt
3 or 4 grinds pepper
1 big pinch Chinese 5 Spice
Shredded, pre-cooked chicken

I put the sweet potato slices in the pan and poured the cream on top, then put it into the EBO for about 15 minutes until the potatoes were softened.
Then, I mushed the sweet potatoes up, and added the rest of the ingredients except the chicken, and spread the filling on top of the crust. The chicken was shredded into pieces by hand and sort of smooshed down into the sweet potato mixture.



It cooked for about 35 minutes.



The sweet potato bit was tasty, for sure. I think the filling could have used just a touch more salt, but I was pleased with the end result. The Chinese 5 Spice gave the sweet potatoes just a little more personality, but this was definitely NOT a sweet filling. The chicken was dark meat, and stayed pretty moist. The crust, by the time it came out, WAS probably a little overcooked. It wasn't all that crispy, either, but it wasn't inedible. I was trying to avoid using the butter that is traditional in these kinds of crusts, but I think it probably would have made a difference in helping the crust to get crispy and stay that way.

I would like to make this as a full sized pie or tart. I think the recipe could have been adapted much more easily to a savory dish if I had been able to make it with the full measurements of ingredients.

Annnd... I think I'm going to lie in front of the fan and cool off, now. Good night, kiddos.

Day Sixteen Part Deux: Vous les vous... um... something

So I'm a bazillion years late with the results and recipes and whatnots. Let's not dwell, yeah?

So, I was attempting to make a dessert that echoes the flavours of coffee and beignets. I sort of succeeded.

Since beignets are fried, I wasn't going to get the crispy outside without using something OTHER than the EBO. Traditional beignets are basically square, fried donut type things, and you can't really fry in the Easy Bake. But, I tried to get a sweet dough that would turn into a sweet, bready "crust" type thing with maybe a little bit of crunch by loosely following this recipe, which is basically a yeastless version of the dough, or a petit choux dough, minus the cooking it on the stove. Confused yet?

What I ended up with was:
1/3 C of all purpose flour
2 1/2 T Sugar
1 egg
1 T softened butter

I mixed the flour and sugar together, then made a little well in the middle, cracked the egg into it, and incorporated it until the dough just came together. Then, I mixed in the softened butter. I smooshed about half the dough into the bottom of the buttered tart pan...


...and baked it for about 10 minutes.


The meringue was pretty easy to put together, using this recipe as inspiration. I couldn't find a recipe that used brewed coffee, but just as if the food sample gods realized I would need a little help, I received a sample of Starbucks Via in the mail today.

The recipe I used was:
1 egg white
1 pinch of cream of tartar
2 T sugar
1 tsp Starbucks Via instant coffee

I basically just followed the directions in the recipe to make the meringue, and then piped it onto the "beignet" crust and put it back into the EBO.



It was in there for about 10 minutes when I started to wonder exactly how hot it's supposed to get inside an EBO. I looked it up and discovered that the temperature when the oven is fully pre-heated can be between 325 and 375. So, at 15 minutes I pulled the dessert out of the main oven and put it into the warming chamber. My digital meat thermometer told me the temp inside the warming chamber was about 170-ish, which is much closer to the 200 - 250 degrees I saw in pretty much every meringue recipe I read. So, I left the dessert in there for about another 15 minutes.



Forgive the fingerprints on top. That's from me sticking my fingers on top to check for doneness.

The crust turned out kind of like a cookie. It wasn't as sweet as I thought, which is a good thing. In terms of tasting like a beignet... eh. Maybe a little. Enough for the purposes of this experiment, but I'd definitely like to try this recipe again to make the real deal.

The meringue was kind of soft, but still... umm... meringue-y? It tasted really good, and the coffee flavour definitely came through, but because the EBO doesn't really allow for tall desserts it really was a pretty thin layer. Maybe one day when I have a couple hours to kill, I'll make more meringue and let it sit in the warming chamber until it dries out and does what it's spozed to in a much larger dollop.

I will definitely use this recipe to make meringue cookies, though.

And that, folks, is the slightly anti-climactic Day Sixteen dessert recipe. Worth the trouble, but worth the wait? You be the judge.

Day 19: In Which I Have Overwhelming Guilt

I'm sorry. I keep... not being able to post.

I don't feel bad about the actual social life I seem to be having every weekend, but I do feel bad that I'm not keeping up here.

Tonight I'll present you with the Day 16 recipe I promised three days ago, as well as a new recipe for today.

I'm going to do something with sweet potatoes. I have this idea... I bought these veggie chips at Sunflower Market last week, and I have just enough of them left to crunch up and make a sort of crust out of. I also have a sweet potato, which I will dice up and attempt to "saute" in the EBO until the pieces are soft enough to mash, and then do something with the smooshed sweet potato, chicken, and maybe a few other ingredients thrown into the mix.

So it will be a sort of, savory sweet potato and chicken dinner pie. I'm a little unsure about this one, but I can kind of taste the flavours in my head and if I can pull it off, it will be delicious.

So. I will see you tonight, for dinner and dessert.

Later taters! Have a great day!

Day Sixteen: Gimme Coffee!

Today is going to be interesting. I have a plan for what I want to make, but I'm actually going out tonight and I don't know when I'll be home to make it. So, I am promising you right now that there WILL be a Day Sixteen recipe, but it might not be posted until sometime tomorrow, depending on when I get home tonight. Or tomorrow morning.

So what's the plan, Stan?

I'm going to attempt meringue. Coffee meringue, specifically. Due to the height constrictions on the EBO, I'm going to have to be a little creative with how it looks. I have this lovely, brand new can of chicory coffee from Cafe du Monde in New Orleans, brought back to me by my boss from a recent business trip, and I'm determined to do more than just make a cup of coffee with it. I'm almost wondering if I could do a "beignet" type crust with the chicory meringue on top.

hmmm... I think you just witnessed inspiration striking right before your very eyes!

So that's what I'll attempt, either later tonight or early in the morning, and I will post the results as Day Sixteen.

Later taters!

Day Fifteen: Here's what

Well hello there!

So my company is still here, so I'm trying not to be rude by being on the computer for too long, but I wanted to share the most delicious dessert I just made.

It's not really anything complicated, but hellz yeah!

Sorry. I was apparently just channeling a teenager circa 1996.

So, I'm not sure what you'd call it. I'd ALMOST call it a crumble type thing, but I didn't really use enough crunchies to call it that.

Here's the Recipe:
1 Apricot, cut into sections
a handful (i have small hands) of blueberries
3/4 of a tablespoon of sugar
1 healthy drizzle of balsamic vinegar
1 pat of butter, broken into pieces
1 T any kind of granola (i used blueberry flax)

I buttered the pan a little, and then lay the apricot sections in the pan, arranged the blueberries around them, drizzled the balsamic on top, and then sprinkled the sugar all over it. Then I sprinkled the granola on top and put it in the Easy Bake.



I left it in there for 30 minutes without checking it once. Good call, me! When I pulled it out, the fruit had broken down and the butter and sugar had melted together and mixed with the balsamic and omg yummmmm. The granola was still crunchy, too!



I still have no idea what to call this, but I loved it. I think I would love it better over ice cream, but I'm telling you-- dee-lish-uzz.

And that's that, folks. i'm off to... do something sociable. With the actual person in my apartment.

Day Fifteen: Holy Crap

You guyyyyyyyyyyyys. Work has been ridiculous. I've finally whittled down my pile to a manageable amount for what's left in my day, so I'm taking a few minutes. Just a few. TYPE FASTER JORDAN!!!

Truth be told, I have no idea what I'm making tonight. I'm having company for dinner and I'm not going to force them into an Easy Bake dinner because, well, it takes a long time and I'm pretty sure they'd like to eat at a reasonable hour.

So I'll make some sort of something, and I'll let you know how it goes.

How's that for vague?

I just didn't want you to think I had forgotten about you. I don't want any of my readers to have abandonment issues.

So. I'll see you later tonight. With something, of some sort, that has been prepared in some way, and baked to delicious perfection, I'm sure.

Peace!

Day Fourteen: Quiche? Nooottt Quite

So, I was so excited to go grocery shopping I forgot to add pie crust to the list. Do you know what that means?

It means Plan B. Improvisation. Flying by the seat of our proverbial britches.

In other words, I faked it.

I whipped up a little bit of biscuit dough. Sort of. My grandma's "easy way" biscuits are made with nothing more than self rising flour and heavy cream. Well, I don't have heavy cream, just almond milk, so I used that instead.

You'll have to forgive me. I did not get measurements. Basically, I mixed flour and almond milk together until I had something that looked like biscuit dough. I would guess It was something like 1/3 cup of flour and 3 or 4 tablespoons of milk. It, as usual when I'm baking in the EBO, made twice as much as I needed.

I pressed the dough into the pan and baked it for 10 minutes. It wasn't brown, just "blind baked" enough to keep it from getting soggy when I put the filling in.

Of course, as you might guess, the self rising flour, um, rose, so when the crust came out of the oven, I sort of smooshed down the middle to make space for the filling.



Then, I laid in 3 or 4 nickel sized pieces of smoked mozarella (on sale! yay!), broke apart a couple slices of mushroom on top of the cheese, and shredded up a couple of fresh spinach leaves and threw those on there, as well. Then, I beat together 1 egg and about a tablespoon of almond milk, and poured about 3/4 of that mixture on top of the filling.



It baked for 35 minutes. When it came out, the edges were browned, the cheese was melty, and the egg was cooked through and fluffy. The spinach and mushrooms were present, but I think the flavour of the cheese was pretty assertive, so they really didn't do much more than sit there and look pretty. And made sure I got some vegetables. They did seem to pretty much cook through all the way, though.




I would like to try this again with actual pie crust, but yanno what? I was soooo freakin' hungry that the more substantial biscuit crust was actually just perfect for tonight.

And now, I'm going to finish watching The Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood and ponder the meaning of life.

Ok. Maybe just the first part. ;)

G'night ya'll.

Day Fourteen: Oui!

Bonjour!

I'm running a little late this morning. Can you believe work has interrupted my blogging like this? How dare they!

A bunch of people have gone to lunch or meetings or whatever, so I'll make this quick for now, and talk your eyes off tonight after dinner.

I believe tonight I'll attempt quiche. I don't think it'll be too tricky, because I've basically done the baked egg thing before. It's just the crust bit that might be interesting. I'm NOT going to roll out my own pie crust for one or two little pans. I'll be using the pre-made crust from the refrigerator section. I don't really have the counterspace for rolling out pie dough, and also, I'd like to eat before midnight.

As for the quiche filling, I think I'll try to find an interesting cheese to use in it. I would LOVE to find some manchego because that's my favourite cheese ever, but I'll submit to the whims of the "bits and pieces" basket at Sunflower for inspiration. I'll probably use spinach and mushrooms for my veggies, and skip the meat.

So, that's the plan. I'm so excited to get to grocery shop tonight! Hopefully the rest of the month will be a little more exciting.

Au revoir!

Day Thirteen: She's So Saucy

Well hello there! It's hot here in Denver again, after a wonderful week last week of cool temps. I'm pretty thankful for not having to turn on the big oven, or even the stove today. My poor little air conditioning unit is trying its hardest, but unless i find a way to levitate right in front of it, I'm pretty sure the words "cooling off" are going to disappear from my vocabulary.

But I didn't come here to talk about the weather, oh no. I came here to discuss my dinner. Mmmm. Spaghetti.

I've been trying to cut down on the carbs over the past few months, so it's been quite awhile since I've had anything even resembling Italian food. Of course, I'm not claiming that spaghetti made with Asian rice noodles is really Italian food, but I'm pretty happy to have eaten it anyway.

So... the recipe
1/2 C Maifun noodles
8 cherry tomatoes
1 pinch of salt
1 healthy pinch of red pepper flakes
2 med sized fresh basil leaves
1 T tomato paste
2 tsp olive oil
Approx 1 T of shredded cheese (any kind that melts well is fine)

I roasted the tomatoes with just a little salt and pepper in the EBO for about 35 minutes until they were JUST starting to give off some juice. I didn't take a picture because you've all seen what Easy Bake roasted tomatoes look like. While the tomatoes did their thing, I put the dry noodles in a bowl of hot tap water and just let them hang out. Yes, for the whole 35 minutes. Remember what I said about Maifun noodles never getting soggy? I wasn't lying.

So after the tomatoes came out, I dumped them, their juice, the tomato paste, and the basil into a blender and whirred everything up until it looked kinda like sauce. Then, I turned the blender back on for about 15 seconds while i drizzled in the olive oil, and added a pinch each of salt and red pepper flakes.

Then, I arranged the noodles in the pan, spread the sauce over them in a layer, and sprinkled the cheese on top.



It stayed in the EBO for about 25 minutes. I decided to just use the alarm clock on my phone rather than the timer on the EBO for the longer cooking times. After 25 minutes, the cheese was melted and the noodles were just a little crispy on the edges.



The noodles were al dente, and the sauce was delicious and spicy. And yes, I really did eat it with my chopsticks.

I will probably make this again. It's not really that much effort, and in fact, the sauce turned out so good I might make a larger batch of it to freeze when I can use the big oven again.

And now... I'm going to lie very still on the couch and will the air conditioner to focus all it's effort on saving me from the 5th Circle of Hell.

Ciao!

Day Thirteen: Using My Noodle

Hey, remember those Maifun noodles I used for the Tuna Noodle thingy last week? Get ready, because they're about to make a repeat appearance.

I'm going to make baked "spaghetti." It's said that Marco Polo brought pasta to Italy from China. I'm pretty sure Alton Brown has disproved that multiple times, but I kind of like the idea of making a meal that honours, if not actual food history, at least the culinary legend of the noodle. Legends are often way more interesting than facts anyhoots, right?

And just to confuse things even further, I'm going to eat my spaghetti with chopsticks. Mwahahahaha!

See you tonight!

Day Twelve: Let Them Eat MORE Cake!

Hiya folks!

I'm extremely over-caffienated, so it seems like a perfect time to write a blog post, yeah? yeaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

So. Pineapple Upside Down Cake. Let's get ready to rumble!

The recipe
The cake bit is very loosely based on this recipe for yellow cake.
1/2 C All Purpose Flour
1/4 C + 1T Sugar
1/2 T Butter
1/8 C Oil
1/8 C Almond Milk
1 Egg
1 1/2 pinches Baking Powder
1 Small pinch salt
1 cap full vanilla
1 Pineapple ring

Put the butter in the bottom of the pan and put the pan into the warming chamber of the EBO to soften while you mix the cake batter.

Mix the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt) in a medium sized mixing bowl and whisk together to combine.

In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the sugar and egg, then add the oil, almond milk, and vanilla and whisk to combine.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and whisk (or use an electric beater) until the batter is smooth and lump free.

Note: this will make enough batter for two, maybe three EBO sized cakes, depending on how full you fill the pans. That's about as small as I could make the recipe without a scale to weigh ingredients and trying to divide the egg.

Pull the pan out of the warming chamber and smoosh (Very Technical Culinary Term) the softened butter around the bottom and sides of the pan. Sprinkle the remaining 1 Tablespoon of sugar evenly over the bottom and sides, and slide the pan into the oven. Set the timer for 10 minutes. When you pull the pan out, the butter will have melted and the sugar will have started to caramelize around the edges, but will still be relatively grainy.



Then, place the pineapple ring on top of the sugar/butter...



And then pour the batter on top of the pineapple. I learned from the pancakes, and didn't fill the pan all the way to the top.



I discovered something tonight... My oven timer will only go to 19 minutes. When I tried to set it to 20 minutes, it just went back to zero. Weird. So, I set it for 15 minutes, checked it, and then put it back in for another 10 because it was still kind of wet on top in the middle.

When it came out, it looked like this:





Not bad, yeah?

The cake was still a LITTLE gooey in the middle. It wasn't bad, but I think I could probably let it cook another 5 minutes and it would have been just a little better. I was really happy with how the sugar melted into the pineapple and the cake.

Was this the Pineapple Upside Down Cake of my childhood? No. But I am pretty flipping pleased with the results regardless, and I think with the slightly longer cooking time this will be as close to perfect as you can get from an EBO dessert.

I think you could probably easily adapt this recipe to use Splenda for the sugar used IN the cake, but you will still need to use real sugar for the bottom. Or top, depending on how you look at it. I was also glad that the almond milk worked well, because I'm kind of thinking that you could use a vegan egg substitute for the one egg and make this whole recipe entirely vegan.

I split the cake with a friend, and we enjoyed our dessert with some iced coffee. It was the perfect serving, I think, and a great little late night snack.

OOh! Four minutes to midnight. I need to hit publish NOW.

Tomorrow is another adventure, folks. Gird your loins!

Day Twelve: I'm back!

I'm terribly sorry that the delay was longer than expected. I was house/dog/cat/plant sitting for a friend this weekend and on top of that I was actually having a social life so it was just a little more of an ordeal to use the Easy Bake than I thought. Also, I did NOT plan my groceries for the first half of the month very well and I'm sort of almost out of Easy Bake-able things.

But, we're going to soldier on until Thursday, when I can astound you once again with feats of culinary acrobatics with new ingredients that don't bore me to tears.

Tonight for dinner i'm probably just going to have a tuna sammich, BUT... I do have a can of pineapple and a recipe for pineapple upside down cake that I'm going to attempt in the EBO. Are you excited? I sure am! Pineapple upside down cake is definitely a "food memory" dessert for me. I remember going to covered dish receptions and baby showers and get togethers as a kid and someone almost always brought one. I would gobble down my dinner so I could get a piece of it before it would all disappear.

Of course, mine won't be quite the maraschino studded confection that those were, but I'm going to give it my best effort to make something pretty and delicious.

I'm so glad to be back. I'll see you all tonight, hopefully with news of a successful dessert.

Day Seven: In Which I ask for your patience

I need to take tonight and tomorrow off. I'm sorry. I'm disappointed, too, but I have to work out some stuff that takes priority for 48 hours or so.

I will be back this weekend. That is a promise.

Thanks for being great.

Day Seven: Remember that one time when I was hungry?

You know, it's summer. In the summer, I don't eat nearly as much as when it's cold. I thought (and still think, don't get me wrong) that it would be an ideal time to do this project because the portion sizes are inherently smaller, and I won't have to turn on the big oven at all and therefore not turn my apartment into the 7th circle of hell.

But I didn't anticipate not being hungry at all. The best I've been able to manage so far today is a handful of pretzels and a big glass of water.

However, I've made a committment to this blog, and to my readers, that I will cook and eat from the EBO at least once a day, and I'm going to keep that committment. It looks like today's experiment will be confined to dinner only, though.

Tonight's dinner will be some sort of Mexican Chicken dish, with a cornbread crust on the bottom. I have some delicious dehydrated corn i may add for extra crunch on the top, and a whole jar of super chunky salsa to work with. I'm thinking I might have to do this one in a few stages to make sure everything is cooked to safe temperatures and is cooked all the way through, but that's ok. What else do I have to do with my evening, hmmm?

Bear with me kids. I have spent the past couple of days looking up recipes on the interwebs that I can play with, and this weekend will be an excellent time to play mad scientist, so things will probably liven up around here.

Back tonight with Results and the Recipe. Have a good afternoon!

Day Six: Results - aka We knew it was bound to happen

*sigh* I'm not hungry.

But I did cook! And I tasted, at least. Because I like to keep my promises.

So, let's get to it.

Breakfast was the Herbed Oven Omelette. I used thyme and Thai magic basil from my very own pots on my very own window sill for the "herb" bit.

I'm going to digress a bit-- Chime in here folks. Is the "h" silent or not? "erb" or "herb"? I always thought Herb was a guy's name. Like Herb from WKRP. But I was recently chastised strongly for not pronouncing the H.

Anyhoots.

I whisked the egg with a little bit of water, salt, pepper, and the diced herbs.



However, something happened. I am going to show you the underside because it's prettier than what happened on the top.



I'm not hiding it from you, I just don't want to gross anyone out. It sort of... well... it just looks funny. It's like the egg separated or something, even though it was beaten up really well. The whole thing cooked through, But the top was kind of shiny in an unnatural way and the herbs all floated to the top. Weird. Didn't taste bad, but looked weird. Maybe too much water? I dunno. I'm not a measurer, generally, but perhaps when I make the eggs I should use the measuring spoons.

Dinner was salmon with onions and peppers. I just seasoned the fish with salt and pepper, nothing fancy.



It actually smells really good. The fish, as was the case with the last two times I cooked fish in the EBO, was moist and flaky all the way through, and tasted good. The frozen peppers and onions cooked through, but were a little bit mushy. I'm thinking maybe all vegetables should be cooked via the foil packet and introduced to the protein later. The only issue with that is... if you're trying to use the veggies as part of the flavouring process for the meat, well, you'd be SOL.



Both dishes cooked for 20 minutes.

It's possible I'm being hard on the food tonight because I really haven't felt like eating it all day. Or maybe I just didn't try very hard, for the same reason.

At any rate, it was all edible. I just don't feel like edibling. Eating, I mean.

I promise, I'll be much more enthusiastic tomorrow.

G'night kiddos.

Day Six: Who knows?

After a long four day weekend, I'm back at work. It's nice to have air conditioning again, but I'm fighting a strong urge to just sit here and crochet all day.

But the show must go on, yes?

So here's today's menu:

Breakfast: Herb Oven Omelette
I have some fresh thyme growing like crazy on my windowsill, and I used a little last week, but I need to use more of that and the sage and basil before they take over the living room. I wonder if I'd still get my deposit back if i let my living room become an herb jungle?

Lunch: Believe it or not, I had some leftover jerk chicken from last week. I had chopped enough chicken for two pans, so I decided to go ahead and cook them both. So for lunch, i'm having leftovers. Delicious, cheesy leftovers.

Dinner: Salmon with onions and peppers. I have a frozen onion/pepper mix in the freezer that I haven't even opened yet. I'm thinking it's time to see how frozen veggies do in the EBO.

I really want to try some vegan or vegeterian stuff later this week. If any of you have any good recipes you think would adapt well, please let me know! Or even if you don't think they'd adapt well but you're one of those sick meanies who likes to read about glorious failure, that's ok, too! It can't all be sunshine and roses, right?

Have a great day kids! See you on the flipside.

Day Five: Let them eat cake!

Ok. Not cake exactly, but dessert.

I had coffee for dinner, but I know that I promised you lovelies SOMETHING, so I decided to come home and make dessert.

I'm not sure what to call it. It's raspberries on a graham cracker crust with balsamic mixed in to the filling.

Let's call it a Balsamic Raspberry Tartlet. (look! i made a tartlet in a tartlet pan! what a novel concept!)

The Recipe

I mixed about three tablespoons of crushed graham crackers with 1 egg white, and poured that mixture into the pan to bake first as a crust. It baked in 12 minutes. Kind of looked like a cookie when i poked at it a little.



Then, I arranged fresh raspberries around the edge, and crushed up about 3 or 4 more tablespoons of raspberries with one packet of Splenda and put that mixture in the middle. Then, I drizzled some balsamic into the middle, about a teaspoon or so, and mixed it in a little to the crushed raspberries.



It baked for 18 minutes, and if I can say nothing else about this particular dessert, it LOOKS pretty, yeah?



ok, i know it looks kind of like it did before it baked, but trust me, it TASTED different.

The crust is sort of... chewy-ish. Not crispy. It held up well and didn't disintegrate under the filling, but I probably should have added some Splenda to it because it's definitely lacking in the flavour department. However... the raspberry filling is pretty effing delicious. Not too sweet, but the flavour of the fresh raspberries really comes through.

So, I think if i work on the crust a little, this could really be a killer dessert. I also think it's missing whipped cream, Or a little scoop of ice cream. Melting all over it... hot out of the oven omg mmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Ok. Sorry. *embarassed face* I went away for a minute.

Anyhoots, I will call this dessert an "almost success," and probably make it, or some form of it again so I can tweak it and get it perfect.

Before I go, some of you have mentioned that you haven't been able to leave comments. Well, I think I got that little issue corrected. I tested it out and the comment window now pops up for me, where it didn't before, so we should be good to go.

Please! Comment! Suggest! Give me ideas!

Tomorrow we go back to our regularly scheduled programming. G'night!

Day Four: The Alpha and the Omega

Get it? Because I'm only doing one post today and...
aww. Forget it.

Today for breakfast I made an egg. It was over easy, and inside a little bed of thin sliced deli turkey. I don't know what you'd call it. Kind of like toad in the hole, except no bread, and really no hole. Ok. Scratch that. Not like toad in the hole at all.

Anyhoots, I just lined a tart pan with three slices of deli turkey, cracked an egg in the middle, and sprinkled a little salt and pepper on it. It took about 22 minutes to cook.



The egg was still pretty soft, but the whites were cooked through, and the yolk was runny, which is just like i like it. I imagine if you left it in there for 30 minutes while you enjoyed your first cup of coffee or took your morning shower, the whole thing would set up a little more.

But me, I like a runny yolk.


This one was pretty easy. Took maybe three minutes of prep time, and I will probably do it again just because it's so easy. I didn't expect any sort of revelations from this recipe, but I did expect a yummy breakfast, and that's exactly what I got.

I'll be back tomorrow evening sometime with dinner.

I hope all of my American readers (all what? 2 of you? ha haha) have a safe and happy Independence Day!

Day Three: Recipes and Results

It's late. I haven't been terribly hungry today, but for you, I cook, and I eat.

I might, however, have run out of clever for today. So, we're going to get right to it.

Lunch was a mahi mahi fillet marinated in some traditional asian shtuff, and a salad.

The Recipe
2.5 ounce piece of thawed (from frozen) mahi mahi
2 T low sodium soy sauce
2 healthy pinches of Chinese 5 Spice
1/2 tsp dark sesame oil
sea salt and cracked black pepper

The fish hung out all day in a Ziploc bag, marinating away. This was really a pretty simple, straightforward thing to cook. If you've had mahi before, you know it's not an extremely fishy fish, and it's very good at maintaining its integrity while at the same time allowing other flavours in.



Twenty minutes in the EBO, and what I got was a flavourful, moist, flaky piece of fish.



I have always been a fan of baking fish, but the trick every time is making sure it's cooked through but doesn't get dry. Oddly, that seems to be a much less daunting task in the EBO. Just like the salmon, 20 minutes inside that baking chamber doesn't seem to do anything bad, and in fact, seems to intensify the flavours of both the fish and its seasoning.

*Gumpvoice* And that's all I've got to say about that.

Dinner was a tuna noodle bake and packet cooked red bell pepper (I didn't realize I had run out of broccoli. whoops!)

The Recipe
1/3 can of tuna in oil
1 packet of low sodium instant miso soup mix
Slightly more than 1/4 cup of Maifun noodles
1 healthy pinch of Spanish paprika

The peppers
1/4 of a red bell pepper, cut into chunks
sea salt and cracked black pepper

First, I know some of you made a face about the tuna packed in oil. Eventually, I'll stop explaining myself about stuff like this, but I want you to feel ok about it. I really do. Most of the oil was drained off, but I did retain a bit of it to make sure the tuna stayed moist, and the additional moisture also helped the miso soup blend into it better. There was also the question of how and if the noodles would finish cooking properly inside the EBO, and I thought the little bit of oil left in the tuna would help with that, as well.

I soaked the noodles in very hot tap water for about 10 minutes. Maifun noodles are a wheat free, gluten free noodle made from rice flour. If you buy a box of Maifun noodles, you'll see that this hot water soaking method is what you'd do to the noodles if you were planning on using them in stir fry. It takes the noodles about 3/4 of the way there, and allows them to finish cooking quickly with whatever they're going to be served with. Maifun noodles are NOT going to turn to mush. They are happiest at al dente and you'd probably have to boil the bejeezus out of them to get them to go all soft and mushy. Maifun noodles are kind of a hardass.

After the noodles had soaked, I mixed them with the tuna, the miso soup, and a little salt and pepper. After arranging the mixture in the tart pan, I noticed that it just looked... boring. I knew the flavours weren't, but we eat with our eyes, first. I kinda wish I had some green onion or something, but I don't, so I sprinkled on some Spanish paprika to give it a little colour.



The tuna bake came out.... uuuuuh. It was ok. I put it through the oven in two 10 minute bakes. The miso soup mix is a pretty assertive flavour, but not obnoxiously, although I'd say next time (if there is a next time), rather than just mixing the dry soup mix into the tuna I'll mix it with just a little hot water first to get the "powdery" taste out.

The noodles are perfectly cooked. They got crunchy on top, but stayed tender inside the dish.



This recipe definitely needs some tweaking, but it's edible and definitely has potential.

The peppers just went onto a 12 x 6 inch (ish) piece of foil, and got a sprinkle of salt and pepper. I did spray the foil VERY lightly with some non-stick spray. Then, I just folded the edges up and made the packet as flat as possible.




The peppers cooked in 10 minutes, and they are definitely steamed through, and are broken down nicely without becoming mushy. This is definitely something I'll repeat. Packet cooking (at least for peppers) in the EBO is a success!



And that, kids, is Day three.

I am off to the bustling metropolis of Brush, Colorado tomorrow to visit Coree, so I will probably just be making breakfast, and I'll be combining my menu post and results post because I won't be back at home until sometime Monday.

So, I'll meet you back here bright and early tomorrow. Gnight!