whipped. and fried.

It’s the final week. I had to go out with a bang. Or at least a deep fry. And why not make one more Chinese food recipe while I’m on a roll? Adrienne had been telling me for some time now that she had the perfect Sesame Chicken recipe, but each time she mentioned it I think I responded with, “That sounds GREAT! When are you making it so that I can come over for dinner?” I’m a good friend that way.

But, there I was, on the last week of the Whip It Up challenge, and in need of a good Homemade Take-Out recipe. Sesame Chicken? Why, yes, I think I shall.
Chinese Sesame Chicken

Ingredients:
Approx. 2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Marinade:
2 T. soy sauce
2 T. flour
2 T. cornstarch
3 T. water
¼ t. baking powder
¼ t. baking soda
1 t. vegetable oil

Sauce for chicken:
½ C. water
1 C. chicken broth
1/8 C. vinegar
¼ C. cornstarch
1 C. sugar
2 T. soy sauce
1 t. vegetable oil
½ t. chili powder (or more, if you like it hot)
1 clove garlic minced or equiv. garlic powder

Other:
2 T. toasted sesame seeds
Oil for frying

Directions:
1. Cut the chicken into cubes. Mix the marinade ingredients and marinade the chicken for 20 minutes.
2. To prepare the sauce, mix together all the sauce ingredients. Pour them into a small pot and bring to a boil, stirring continuously. Turn the heat down to low and keep warm while you fry the chicken.
3. Heat oil in saucepan, generous enough to cover chicken completely for frying. Add marinated chicken a few pieces at a time and deep fry until golden brown; drain on paper towels. Repeat for all the chicken. 4. Just before you’re done frying, bring the sauce back up to a boil. Place chicken in a serving dish and pour sauce over. Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Serve with rice.
I learned a couple of things while making this. First, if you are only serving two people you probably only need one pound of chicken. I used only one pound of chicken and still made the full marinade and sauce recipes. Yum. I like lots of sauce. Second, I hate deep frying. ‘Tis messy and can be painful when the oil spatters out and burns your hand. Multiple times during the painfully slow frying process (I was totally following the “add marinated chicken a few pieces at a time” direction and it took me almost half an hour to fry up my one pound of chicken.) I mumbled in frustration, “This is so lame. I hate this recipe. I would never make this again.” And third, I would totally make this again. Yum! It only took one bite before I was eating my words right along with this delicious chicken.

This recipe was very easy to follow and the finished product was scrumptious. I would definitely make this again. And by “I would make this”, I mean “I would ask Somebody to make this.” Obviously.

less baking. more baby.

Because I promised Janssen (who I KNOW isn't hitting refresh every ten seconds) and because it has been on my list of things to do for, oh, four months now, I'm going to be putting up some photos and stories of Gulliver. The photos come first. You might have to check back later for stories. And I put them up on the dates when they SHOULD have been originally posted, so you might need to go back three months in the posts to find them. Unless, of course, you are like Janssen and read me in Reader. Lucky people like her live in Boston AND get all the pictures back to back without any work at all.

Also, as I was posting these (because I only picked one picture per week to start with--I'm trying to not overwhelm myself) Somebody told me I had picked ugly pictures. Perhaps we should consider that Gulliver was ugly that week. Or that I only took a couple of pictures of him that week and didn't have much to choose from. In any case you should notice that he is cute now, even if he was "ugly" for a few weeks there. You did notice that, right? That he is turning out to be just the cutest little thing EVER? I'm not biased at all.

rocking the chinese wife thing

I don’t have a favorite chef. Is that strange? Do most people? So, for this challenge I used Somebody’s favorite Taiwanese chef (Pei Mei, as I mentioned before) and attempted another Chinese dinner. Behold, the Quick Stir-fried Beef with Green Onion.

Let me just begin my saying that you really need super-de-duper, paper-thin sliced beef for this. We did not have paper-thin beef. It was more like cardboard thin. It worked, but I think thinner would have been better. We attempted to get ours paper-thin. Honestly, we did.

Before you begin here, Somebody read through this post and determined that it was kind of boring. Feel free to skip right to the recipe at the end if you find yourself falling asleep.

Scene One: Saturday night at the meat counter in the grocery store.
Me (to the butcher): If we buy a piece of meat here, can you put it in your freezer until it is more solid and then slice it paper-thin for us?
Butcher #1 (played by a teenager): I have no idea. Let me go ask. (He goes into the back and reappears with an older and apparently much wise butcher.)
Butcher #2: What do you want?
Me: If we buy a piece of meat here, can you put it in your freezer until it is more solid and then slice it paper-thin for us?
Butcher #2: Sure. You just purchase it and then bring it back here with the receipt. We’ll put it in the freezer, then slice it for you, then have it ready for you on Monday.
Me: Wonderful. I love you. I will always shop here for, lo, your customer service, it is awesome.

Scene Two: Monday afternoon at the meat counter in the grocery store.
Me (to the butcher): Hi, do you remember me? I left the meat here on Saturday and you were going to slice it paper-thin for me.
Butcher #1 (played by a teenager): Uh…sure. Hold on. (He goes into the back and reappears with our meat, most certainly frozen to a solid block and NOT already sliced. He begins to unwrap the meat to get going on the slicing. Enter Butcher #3.)
Butcher #3: What are you doing?
Butcher #1: Just slicing this up for her.
Butcher #3. You can’t do that. Our meat slicer won’t slice meat that is frozen.
Me: Actually, it has to be mostly frozen in order to get it as thin as we want it.
Butcher #3: We can’t do that here.
Me: On Saturday, someone here told me you could.
Butcher #3: Well, not this frozen. You’ll have to take it home and thaw it out and then bring it back.
Me: Can you just do that here? Keep it in your refrigerator and then when it reaches the correct thaw/frozen ratio just slice it up paper-thin for me?
Butcher #3: No. There’s, uh, some liability or something, blah blah, and we can’t keep your meat in our freezer. What if we lost it?
Me:
Butcher #3: So, you just take it home and bring it back later when it is more thawed and we’ll slice it up for you.
Me: I hate you. You think I’m going to come back here with my meat? You, mister, have another think coming.

Scene Three: Tuesday evening at the meat counter in the grocery store.
Somebody (who had been given this chore because I refused to return to the meat counter as my loathing and frustration were still running deep. I had, however, taken the meat out of our freezer at precisely 3pm so that it could reach the perfect thaw/frozen ratio by the time Somebody got home and could go to the grocery store.): Hi, I brought this meat back for you to slice up paper-thin for us.
Butcher #3: What? Why? We can’t do that here. This here meat slicer is only for already cooked meat. We can’t put raw meat on there.
Somebody (eyeing the meat counter with NOT ONE piece of already cooked meat in the display case. All the cooked meat was over on the other side of the store in the deli section. The meat section had ONLY raw meat.): Uh, what? This is the third time we’ve been here.
Butcher #3: (Big sigh.) I GUESS I can use the saw in the back. Hold on. (Goes into the back. Returns a few minutes later with CARDBOARD-THICK slices of meat.) Here you go. Have a great day. Come back and see us again!
Somebody: My wife was right. You guys pretty much suck.

Curtain closes.

Pei Mei’s Chinese Cook Book Volume 2
My notes and observations are in parenthesis. We doubled this recipe because we were feeding more than two people.

Quick Stir-fried Beef with Green Onion
Ingredients:
250 g. sliced beef (Do you love having your meat portioned by grams? We do NOT.)
2 cups shredded green onion (Shredded? We just cut it into 2-inch pieces, then sliced then in half length-wise.)
3 Tbsp sliced garlic (We used minced garlic because that was all we had.)
4 Tbsp oil
To marinate beef:
¼ tsp salt
½ Tbsp wine
1 Tbsp oil
1/6 tsp black pepper
1 Tbsp cold water
½ Tbsp cornstarch

Seasonings:
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil

Directions:
1. Prepare the beef marinade in a bowl. Then add the sliced beef (The beef slices should be paper-thin. Good luck with that.) Mix thoroughly with your fingers. Set aside and marinate for at least 10 minutes.
2. Heat oil in a pan. Turn the pan around so that the oil covers the base of the pan.
3. When the oil is smoking hot, put the sliced garlic in. Then add the sliced beef. Stir over high heat for about 10 seconds (10 seconds? Only super paper-thin beef would be cooked in 10 seconds. Just cook it until just barely done.) Splash soy sauce around the sides of the pan. Mix and remove to a bowl. Reserve juice in pan. (We poured out most of the juice because it was WAY too much.) 4. Reheat the juice, then add green onion. Stir fry only for 5 seconds. Turn off the heat. Pour the beef back into the pan. Combine with green onion and add sesame oil. Transfer to a serving plate.

We served this over white rice (of course). This recipe was easy to follow (I felt more confident stir-frying this time) and the meal was delicious. We will make this again. We also had some squid (left over from our calamari adventure last week) that Somebody prepared and served with shrimp in a yummy sauce.
Oh, and because you were all curious, we got our squid at the grocery store at the military post. You could probably find it already cut up, but we were going for squid we could also use in other Chinese recipes. Hence the whole squid. Again, SO not worth making the calamari at home. Make this Beef with Green Onion instead. You won’t be sorry.

week fifteen

fried is the only way to eat them

Let me just begin by saying that we won’t make this appetizer again. The recipe was easy to follow, and it tasted fine, but it was SO not worth it to make calamari at home.
Somebody and I both enjoy calamari as an appetizer at restaurants and have ordered it many times. Our favorites are California Pizza Kitchen (Well, this is one of my favorite places to have it—mostly due to their dipping sauce. But when I went to look for recipes to make at home I tried to find calamari on their online menu and it wasn’t listed anymore. Anyone know anything about that?) and that one restaurant in Boston that we went to with Melissa and James. That was amazing. And yet it is always one of those things where we would say, “I can’t believe we are paying $7.95 for this. We could totally make this at home.” And so we did.

We started with the breading recipe that The Pioneer Woman uses for her Onion Strings (which, by the way, we have made more than once and are just divine). And then I found a for real calamari recipe that was basically the same but had oregano instead of cayenne pepper. We stuck with the cayenne pepper.

Reason number one why we won’t make this again: You start with this:
Reason number two why we won’t make this again: The breading needed more kick to it. Using just a half teaspoon of cayenne worked with the Onion Strings, but the calamari definitely needed more.
Reason number three why we won’t make this again: In the end, our stovetop looked like this:
That’s enough reasons, right? They were fine. We ate some. And then we threw the rest away. It is absolutely worth paying $7.95 to have someone else prep and clean up after this appetizer.

week fourteen

back to my, er, his roots

Somebody was VERY excited when he heard that the challenge category for this week was “spicy.” He loves the spicy. I don’t love it the way he does, and, in fact, before we got married considered mild salsa to be spicy. I have come a long way in my spice tolerance in the past three years, but still am no where near his level. Of course we went with Chinese food, because for him there is no better place to have spice than in Chinese food. Lucky for me, we already own three great Chinese cookbooks. Somebody ordered these a little while ago because he knows that the author is a great chef. Apparently she is the Taiwanese equivalent of Julia Child, or Emeril Lagasse, or Bobby Flay. You know—a cooking superstar.

I’m sure you aren’t surprised that Somebody is in charge of all the Chinese cooking that goes on in our house. While I consider myself fairly skilled in the kitchen, the cooking methods used in Chinese cooking are still pretty foreign (ha ha) to me, and I’m not confident following his directions. Especially because so much of his cooking is based on the look of the food, or the smell, or feel, or whatever—it takes some practice and up until now I haven’t had any practice. I think that Somebody had probably given up hope that he would ever come home from work and find I had made a Chinese meal, but after tonight he has started saying things like, “Just a few more of these recipes and you’ll be able to prepare the full three dishes.” And, “You make a wonderful Chinese wife.” Both of those statements made me laugh. The full three dishes? What the? One is not enough? Apparently, no. And, yes, with practice and direction I’m turning out to be a lovely Chinese wife. Whatever. I’m pretty much the opposite of a lovely Chinese wife, but that’s why he loves me so much.

Anyway, on to the recipe. The beauty of Pei Mei’s books is that recipe has a photo so you know what the end result should look like, and, more importantly, each recipe is given in English and traditional Chinese characters. While you don’t need to be able to read any Chinese to follow the recipes, more than once Somebody read through the Chinese recipe to get a better understanding of what the English was trying to say. You should totally hire a translator when you make this. I know a good one. I am going to give it to you exactly as it is written, and then my notes and changes are at the end.

Chicken with Gongbao Sauce (you might know it as Kung Pow Sauce)
Ingredients:
2 chicken legs or 300 g. chicken breast
10 pieces dried red chili
½ cup peanuts
1 tsp chopped ginger

Seasonings (1):
1 Tbsp soy sauce
2-3 Tbsp cornstarch
1 Tbsp water

Seasonings (2):
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp wine
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp cornstarch
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp sesame oil

Directions:
1. Remove all bones from chicken, cut into 2.5cm cubes, marinate in Seasonings (1) for 30 minutes.
2. Wipe dried chili, cut into 3 cm long pieces.
3. Fry chicken in heated oil for 40-50 seconds. Remove chicken. 4. Heat 1 Tbsp oil to fry dried chilies until it turns dark red, add ginger and chicken, stir fry quickly, add Seasonings (2), stir until evenly mixed, turn off the heat. Add the peanuts, mix well and serve. We served this over white rice, garnished with cilantro, and ate with chopsticks. Please don’t make this unless you have chopsticks. It’s, like, a crime to cook this authentically and then use a fork.
My notes and tips:

• We used two chicken thighs with the skin and bones removed. This made just enough for the two of us for dinner. Somebody said that we could have doubled the amount of chicken and still used the same amount of sauce, but I kind of liked having a little extra sauce to flavor the rice.
• I did not wipe off or cut the red chili peppers. I didn’t wipe them because Somebody said I didn’t have to. I have no idea why not. But he’s the expert here so I just went along with it. I didn’t chop them because I didn’t want this to be too spicy to eat. I just chose small peppers. Also, and this I didn’t know beforehand, but when the dish is finished you don’t eat the red chili peppers. You just pick them out, sort of like you would a bay leaf. They are just there to add some flavor to the oil and to give a little heat. All the spice/heat in this dish comes from the red chili peppers. Because I didn’t cut them, and so didn’t release any of the seeds, this ended up being not spicy AT ALL. Not at all. I was shocked. Somebody was completely disappointed with how non spicy it was. It was absolutely delicious, but not spicy. If you want heat, just cut open your chili peppers. Oh, and you can find dried red chili peppers in the fresh fruit/veggie section of most grocery stores—they will be in the little section that has ethnic foods.

• All cooking (frying and stir frying) is done on high heat.
• I used ¾ cup oil to fry the chicken because I was using a flat, non-stick pan. If I had been using a wok I would have only needed about 1/3 cup oil.
• The directions say to fry the chicken for 40-50 seconds. I cooked it a little longer—not more than two minutes—just until the chicken was no longer pink and looked completely cooked.
• If using a non-stick pan, which we did, you don’t need to add the extra 1 Tbsp of oil to cook the chilies. I just dumped out the oil that had cooked the chicken, didn’t wipe out the pan completely, and just used the light coating that remained in the pan to cook the chilies. If you are going to use a wok, you would need to add in the extra oil.
• I fried the red chili peppers for about 30 seconds (they didn’t seem to change color, so I just went with when Somebody told me they were done) before adding the ginger and chicken. Also, and consider this your warning, although leaving the peppers whole made it so that EATING this was not spicy, I absolutely felt the heat of the peppers while I was frying them. Seriously. There was much coughing and gagging and not breathing for the 30 seconds the peppers were frying. The fumes killed me. I’m just a ghost writing these great tips for you. The ghost of a good Chinese wife.
• Just in case you don’t have white wine, or cooking wine, or Chinese rice cooking wine like we have… …you can just use a tablespoon of water. Or just take it out of the recipe. Somebody says that the wine is just there to remove the chicken-y smell from the cooking. What huh? Whatever. So, don’t feel the need to put on sunglasses and a baseball cap and go to the grocery story across town just to purchase the wine for this recipe.
• Once the Seasonings (2) was added, I cooked it for about one minute before removing it from the heat and serving it. Chinese food is always served hot, hot, hot, so be ready with your rice so that you can eat as soon as this is done.
• When I make this again we will reduce the amount of soy sauce in Seasonings (2) to 1 ½ Tbsp, and would increase the ginger slightly.

Make this tonight. This recipe is so easy and comes together very quickly. From start to finish I think it only took about 45 minutes, and that included the time it took to de-bone the chicken and marinate it. I am not sure if I would have been as successful making this as it was printed without Somebody watching over my shoulder and giving me tips. Now that I’ve done it once I’m confident that I could do it again without assistance. If you need me to come and watch over your shoulder, just let me know.

week thirteen

since when was pasta healthy?

For my healthy cooking I chose a recipe from my Cooking Light SuperFast Suppers cookbook that I had been wanting to make for awhile but it had never been at the very top of our list of meals to try. It had, in fact, been on the meal list the last two weeks, but was bumped both times for leftovers or eating out. This seemed like the perfect week to actually keep it on the meal plan.

The recipe comes from the “have it your way” section of the book. The idea is that you start with a “Basic Pasta" recipe and then customize your own sauce. The Basic Pasta makes enough for five servings and then each sauce recipe makes enough for one serving. You can try different sauces, or each person eating can choose their own sauce. I decided to try the Roasted Red Pepper Pasta (because, hello, roasted red peppers and balsamic vinegar in the same recipe? Sign me up) and the Asian-Style Pasta.
I had high hopes to love this meal, but my overall reaction to both sauces was, “Meh.” It was fine. I wanted to love it and it was just fine. (For some reason that sentence makes me think of “I gave her my heart and she gave me a pen.” Go figure.) I enjoyed dipping my breadsticks in the Roasted Red Pepper Sauce, if that counts for anything. The Asian-Style Pasta was slightly spicy for my taste, but that could be adjusted by cutting down on the crushed red pepper. Somebody’s response was, “You sure used a lot of dishes to make this.” Which is, I think, code for, “This was SO not worth my having to wash all those dishes.”

The recipe was easy to follow but I don’t think we would make either sauce again. There are too many other delicious pasta sauces out there to waste time and energy (and dirty dishes) on these.

But because I don’t want to leave you without something delicious to eat, here is the recipe for the best breadsticks in the world. I might be slightly biased because this is my mom’s recipe and these are the breadsticks I grew up eating, but I think they are great. My sister does something magic to them when she makes them and they get all toasted buttery on the bottom. I haven’t figured out how she does that…

Bread Sticks

Ingredients:
1 Tbsp. yeast

2 Tbsp. sugar

1 1/2 cups warm water

1 1/2 tsp. salt

3 cups flour (or more if necessary. *You want to add just enough flour that the dough can be handled without sticking to the counter. After your first 3 cups of flour add just a little at a time until you can poke your finger in the dough (about 1/2") and pull it out without any dough sticking to it.)

Directions:

• Place yeast, sugar, and water in your mixing bowl and let set for 5 minutes.
• Add the flour and salt to your mixing bowl with the yeast mixture and knead for 3 minutes. (Don't use your regular kitchen beaters. Use a mixer that can handle bread dough or mix with a wooden spoon and then move the dough to the counter to knead by hand when it becomes too hard to stir.)
• Let the dough rest for 10 minutes. (Covered with the lid of your mixer or a hand towel if already on the counter.)
• Sprinkle out some flour on your counter. Plop the dough down and then flip it over so that both sides have a coating of flour.
• Roll out the dough to about 1/2" thick and then cut into strips with a pizza cutter.
• Melt 6 Tbsp. margarine or butter onto a cookie sheet (12" X 17") and place bread sticks in pan. Flip the bread sticks over to coat both sides with margarine.
• Sprinkle bread sticks with Parmesan cheese, garlic salt and sesame seeds. Another spice I sometimes sprinkle on is Italian Seasoning.
• Let rise 30 minutes to an hour (covered with a hand towel or plastic wrap that has been sprayed with non-stick spray) until the bread sticks have almost doubled in size.
• Bake at 375 for 13 to 18 minutes (middle rack in oven) until lightly browned on top.

week twelve

kansas city style

Seriously? A Regional Favorite? It’s kind of unfair to ask that of a poor Kansas girl. What do we have here? Wheat? So, I could make bread? Corn? Okay. Oh? The BBQ? That’s right. We’ve got the BBQ. Sadly, I have already perfected the at home BBQ ribs, so I couldn’t use that for this challenge. I opted for a slow-cooker word-of-mouth recipe for country-style pork ribs and then tried a new recipe for baked corn. Yes, I tried two new things. Please send my award as soon as possible.

Slow Cooker County-Style Pork Ribs
Ingredients:
Some county-style pork ribs
Water
BBQ sauce
Let me just save you a little trouble and tell you to get this sauce. ‘Tis awesome.

Directions:
Place all ingredients in slow cooker and cook. Enjoy.

This was pretty much how I got the recipe, and considering it was a word-of-mouth pass along, I guess I should be happy I remembered that much. I shall fill in the details for you now. I used a 2-quart slow cooker, which was the perfect size for the 2 pounds of county-style ribs we used. I put them in the slow cooker thawed, then added about a cup of BBQ sauce and about ¼ cup of water. I brushed the sauce around to coat the ribs, but I don’t think that is absolutely necessary. The ribs should be cooked on high for four hours. If you haven’t really cooked this kind of meat in a slow cooker before, and are used to cooking things on low, and remember that the person who gave you the recipe said it was done in about four hours, and so you cook your ribs for four hours on low, they will not be done in time for dinner. Well, they’ll be cooked enough to be edible, but they won’t be really fall-off-the bone delicious until bedtime. I’m just saying.

The recipe turned out to be a challenge for me because it lacked information vital to my success (cooking temperature and time) but now that I’m armed with that information I will certainly make this again. It is super simple and delicious.
Baked Corn I wanted to do something with corn because we have lots of fresh corn coming out of the garden and Kansas is kind of a corn state. This time of year the corn fields line every highway and everything looks green and lovely. I love the corn fields. Recipes that use fresh corn? Not so easy to come by. I ended up going with this recipe for Baked Corn because the reviews said things like, “This is requested at every holiday meal.” And, “OMG my family LOVES this.” Rave. Rave. Sadly, we must disagree. It’s kind of like a cornbread with whole corn kernels. And, as the recipes states but I didn’t really notice until it was too late, it makes a 9x13 pan, which is way too much for the two of us. We did eat it for dinner, and then a little more at bedtime when the meat was finally yummy, and then for leftovers the next day, and it did not get any better. It probably would have been better if I had eaten it as if it WERE just cornbread—with butter and honey. We try hard not to waste food around here, but we ended up throwing out about half the pan when we both decided we just couldn’t eat anymore. I totally should have just served fresh corn on the cob. The recipe was easy to follow and the result was edible, but we won’t be making this again.

Just in case you want to try some AWESOME BBQ ribs, here you go:

BBQ Ribs (original recipe yields 4 servings)
Ingredients:
2 1/2 pounds country style pork ribs
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 tablespoons salt
1 cup barbeque sauce (but seriously, you'll need more)

Directions:

• Place ribs in a large pot with enough water to cover. Season with garlic powder, black pepper and salt.
• Bring water to a boil, and boil ribs until tender. 45 min-1 hr
• Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
• Remove ribs from pot, and place them in a 9x13 inch baking dish.
• Pour barbeque sauce over ribs.
• Cover dish with aluminum foil, and bake in the preheated oven for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until internal temperature of pork has reached 160 degrees F (70 degrees C).
• Add more sauce to the top about 20 minutes before finished cooking.
• Devour

week eleven

caught being guilty

After spending hours and hours trying to decide what on earth would qualify as a "guilty pleasure" food (to the point where Somebody reminded me that the baking challenge shouldn't take over my life) I finally decided that chocolate ice cream, GOOD chocolate ice cream, would fit the bill for me. It is something that I rarely buy, but love to eat. And when I DO buy it, generally I consume the entire package in one sitting. Was that too much information? My chocolate ice cream of choice is Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream, so I went looking for a recipe that duplicated that as much as possible.

Surprisingly, even though Ben and Jerry have a cookbook published with their ice cream recipes, I could not find a copy in any of my local libraries. Libraries? Hello? Surely I'm not the only person who wants to duplicate the yummy ice cream. Dear my Librarian Friends: You should totally get on that.

Without the official recipe to follow, I turned to the Internet world of copy cat recipes. Low and behold, there IS no copy cat recipe for the Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream. What the? Shame on you, Internet. I had to settle for the Chocolate Fudge copy cat recipe and then I just added in some of my own brownies. Well, technically they were Betty Crocker's brownies, but whatever.

Ben and Jerry's Fudge Ice Cream
Ingredients
4 oz unsweetened chocolate
1 cup milk
2 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup heavy cream, or whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla
1 pinch salt

Directions: (my notes and observations are in italics)
1. Melt chocolate in double boiler over hot (not boiling) water. (I don't have a double boiler. I improvised with a glass bowl over a pot and it worked just fine.) 2. Gradually whisk in milk, stir until smooth. Remove from heat; let cool. (When I added the first little bit of milk the chocolate started seizing up and I completely freaked out and wondered if I had ruined the recipe on Step 2. Luckily, I kept stirring and adding more milk and eventually the whole mess smoothed out and came together. So just keep stirring.)3. Whisk eggs in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy, 1-2 minutes. (For all these whisking directions I used a hand mixer. Because I have delicate wrists.)
4. Gradually whisk in sugar, then continue whisking 1 minute longer until completely blended.
5. Add cream, vanilla, and salt; whisk. (Again with the whisking. Aren't you glad you used the hand mixer? I thought so.)
6. Add the chocolate mixture; blend well. (Blend. Whisk. Same thing.)
7. Cover, chill, and freeze according to ice cream maker's directions. (I chilled mine overnight in the refrigerator and put it in the ice cream maker the next morning after I made brownies. Note: brownies for breakfast = yum. Also healthy.)Yield: makes 1 quart.
I reserved some of the ice cream before I added the brownies so that I could review the recipe as it was written. The rest of the ice cream I broke off little bits of the brownie (the gooey middle part, not the top crust or edge part) and dropped it into the ice cream maker. I noticed this made the brownie pieces break up even more, so I also added some larger pieces when I had removed the ice cream from the machine. I just stirred these larger pieces in by hand so there would be obvious brownie. When I make this again, and I WILL make this again, I would do more of the "stir in by hand" pieces because I thought they worked better.

Directly out of the ice cream machine the ice cream was very, very soft. After four hours in the refrigerator it was firmer, but still creamy and easy to scoop. After sitting all day and overnight in the freezer it was much firmer. I liked that it never got so solid that it was difficult to snitch some out with a dinner spoon. There was much snitching.
This recipe was super basic, but the steps are clear and easy to follow. I liked that it didn't require any fancy or expensive ingredients--almost all the ingredients are things I always have in the pantry. Somebody and I LOVED this ice cream. It is not very sweet and very chocolatey. If you eat a cinnamon roll and then eat this ice cream it will taste bitter. Trust me on that one. But in general, assuming you don't regularly eat a cinnamon roll and decadent chocolate ice cream in one night, it is just sweet enough. I think it tastes almost exactly like Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream. I might have polished off most of it in one sitting. Maybe. You'll never know.

week ten

whipping it up 2009

I decided to participate in the Whip It Up 2009 challenge, and here it is the first week and I already feel behind. I'm blaming most of this on the fact that I spent the first half of this week in Utah and so only had a few days to come up with a recipe, make it, and then post. Lucky for you I saved all of those tasks until this morning. As the theme for this week is holiday food, and as today is a holiday, I figured that anything I made today would qualify as holiday food. And because I was making dessert for a holiday BBQ this evening, I figured adding one more thing was going to be a breeze. I could not have been more incorrect.

First, the mini pies with star tops that I was planning for dessert tonight didn't turn out at all. It could have been because I ignored the advice to use store-bought pie crust and pie filling (hello! My recipe for both pie crust and cherry filling are awesome, so why would I compromise and use something from the store?) and then didn't have the correct size cookie cutter for the cute star pie top. Tragedy. After the first batch went woefully awry, I knew I had to come up with a back-up dessert. One batch of lemon blueberry cheesecake and one batch of cherry cupcakes later, I was all baked out. Actually, somewhere in the middle of these two things I became baked out. And I still didn't have a new-to-me recipe for the challenge!

It was right about lunch time when I decided that I would have to make something that would qualify for the challenge AND lunch, and the Internet didn't disappoint with Brown Sugar Bacon Waffles from Joy the Baker. Why, hello there, holiday brunch!

And here, friends, is where I become one of those annoying Allrecipes.com reviewers who are all, "I substituted orange juice for the milk, cinnamon for the nutmeg, and doubled the eggs, and this recipe was horrible!" My whole goal was to avoid using the oven as it was already busy cooking the cheesecake and cupcakes. So I improvised. I pulled out my Makin Bacon and attempted to get the caramelized brown sugar bacon (clearly the star of this recipe and clearly only attained by baking the bacon in the oven) in the microwave. Fail. Does not work. Evidence below.
I went ahead and put that bacon in the waffle batter anyway, because, well, I had to do SOMETHING. And they turned out okay. For some reason my waffles are much thinner than Joy's, and the bacon really has more of a charred flavor than a caramel flavor, but they were good.Seriously, though. Waffles? With brown sugar? And bacon inside? Served with strawberries? These couldn't go too far wrong. The recipe was very easy to follow (and this would have turned out much more scrumptious if I had followed it exactly), it was pretty quick to make this (which is ALWAYS a good thing, especially for a holiday brunch), and the resulting waffles were yummy to eat. I would make this again.

week nine

week eight

week seven

week six

week five

week four

week three

week two

i think that possibly (maybe) i'm falling for you

Gulliver

Born Sunday, April 26, 2009

3:44 a.m.

7 lbs 10 oz

20.5 inches long

week one

just hours old

idle hands

So, the baby has not been born yet and we were feeling a little bored just waiting around for him, so we went ahead and bought a house. No biggie. It's almost like we have lost the ability to do one major, life-changing event at a time. Last August it was all Get A Job! Buy A Car! Get Pregnant! in the same week. And this month we are trying to out-do ourselves with Quit A Job! Buy A House! Have A Baby! in the same weekend. On one hand we are thrilled to have finally earned our official Grown Up merit badge. On the other hand we are completely freaking out. Which, you know, is great because the baby isn't even here yet. Imagine the freaking out that shall happen then, my friends.

cookies and milk and yellow balloons

My mother says her memories of me as a young girl are that I would follow her around the house and want to participate in whatever she was doing. My favorite song, and I sang it all the time, was When I Grow Up I Want To Be A Mother.

When I grow up I want to be a mother and have a family.
One little, two little, three little babies of my own.
Of all the jobs, for me I'll choose no other. I'll have a family.
Four little, five little, six little babies in my home.
And I will love them all day long.
And give them cookies and milk and yellow balloons.
And cuddle them when things go wrong.
And read them stories and sing them pretty tunes.
When I grow up if I can be a mother, how happy I will be.
One little, two little, three little babies I can love.
And you will say each sister and each brother all look a lot like me.
Four little, five little, six little blessing from above.

It was all I wanted. Being a stay-at-home mom was something I always wanted for myself. When Somebody and I got married, he was not as enthusiastic about that plan as I was, but I am grateful that he has really left that decision up to me to make. I'm also grateful that we found out I was pregnant just a week after he was offered his full-time job last year. Without his job I would have needed to stay working so that we could pay our bills and have insurance. With his job, and with a lot of careful planning and budgeting, we have been able to readjust our lives to make my staying at home work for us. I realize that this is not the same choice that many other mothers can and do make, but this has never been about what other people are choosing. This is about what I'm choosing and about what Somebody and our years of careful planning together have allowed me to choose.

I'm ready. I'm terrified. I'm excited. I'm nervous. I'm thrilled. I'm not sure I know how to do anything other than what I've been doing—working full-time and in general enjoying it quite a bit. I'm not sure I'm ready to bend my schedule to the needs of someone else. I'm not sure there won't be a lot of days when I question my choice and wonder if I would be happier if I had chosen to return to work. I'm not sure that I'm able to put into practice the restrictive budget that I have designed that makes this choice possible. I'm not sure I completely understand what I'm getting in to. What I am sure of, though, is that no matter how hard this might be for me to adjust to, this is a choice that I am happy to make. Even with the very clear picture in my mind of a screaming baby who will not be consoled and me sitting nearby in tears of frustration at not knowing how to make things better, I am happy to make this choice. I want to be a mother and have a family. And I want to stay at home with my family.

And so today, in about 20 minutes, I'm going to walk out of a door that I have walked into every weekday for the past 21 months, get in my car, drive my 45 minutes of country roads, and try to not look back. My baby will spend the drive kicking me, as he always does, and I'll sing him Indigo Girls all the way (because lately I've been missing Heidi and missing singing and missing song lyrics that speak to me). Tonight Somebody will make me pancakes for dinner (because what begins with pancakes should end with pancakes) and then, after a quiet evening at home, I will go to bed knowing that tomorrow I will begin a completely different kind of job. But of all the jobs, for me I'll choose no other.

because random is a good as it gets these days

* I want to send baby announcements out because I want them to be put up on refrigerators around the country for strangers to see and comment on the inevitable cuteness of our baby. Somebody says that I can only print out and mail announcements if 20 people promise to put the announcement on their refrigerator, take a picture, and send it back to me as proof. My life is hard. This requirement did not stop me from soliciting my exceptionally talented graphic designer friend (and BFF of Lauren Graham) from working on the design of the announcements. Prepare to be dazzled. Well, you know, prepare to be dazzled if 20 people (that I am not related to) promise to do the picture taking thing.

* The dead bird in my nose has finally gone away. A month later. At one point the strange illness turned into strep throat (I know, right? Like I don't have enough going on.) and the antibiotics that I took seems to have cleared all the animals right out of my nose.

* I had three wonderful baby showers in anticipation of the arrival of the baby shoe, and I loved every minute of each and am so thankful to kind friends and coworkers that want to share this fun time with me. Sadly, although I have some pictures, I am extra lazy these days and not only have I not posted the pictures here, but I also have not sent thank you notes for most of the gifts. I am one of those people that expect (demand!) to receive a thank you note for any gift I give, so I feel especially guilty and pathetic that I am so slow to write them for the things I receive. Much like after our wedding, I keep hoping that if I procrastinate this long enough that Somebody will step in and start writing. (He has assured me that he won’t, but a girl can dream, right?)

* I woke up on Sunday morning with the freakish appearance of a five o'clock shadow on my chin. I did what I could to cover up the odd coloring (do not fear. there were no unruly man-hairs. this was strictly the appearance of dark stubble because of skin discoloration) with makeup and didn't really think anything of it until I was looking in the mirror later that day and realized that my neck was also oddly colored. With patches of red dots. The same red dots that were giving me a skeevy drunk/dark look on my chin. What the? What on earth is that from? And then I realized that my champion pregnancy vomiting from the night before had actually broken the blood vessels in my chin and neck. Many times I've broken the blood vessels around my eyes (and even in my eye), but the chin and neck? That is a first. The ability of my body to completely freak out never ceases to amaze me.

imagining you care

* I heard on an NPR report that thieves are not stealing car stereos anymore (opting instead for GPS units). It reminded me of the one time my car was broken into and the thieves took off with my discman. Obviously my car at the time did not have a cd player and I used the discman in the car with the adapter tape. I spent at least a year purchasing and returning different discmen trying to find one I liked as much as the one that was stolen. Man, I loved that discman.

* We went to our first "you're having a baby! here are your pain management options!" class a couple of weeks ago and of all the women there I had the second soonest due date and the second smallest baby bump. I have to admit that seeing my belly get bigger and bigger just delights me to no end and I'm thrilled to finally be obviously pregnant. Just in time, too, because we are getting to the home stretch here.

* Somebody and I were actually in tears we were laughing so hard reading Miss Nemesis last week. Don't skip the first few comments, because that is where our giggles turned to full-on laughter.

* The tragedy of my head/hair finally cleared up (I know you are just as happy about that as I am), but because pregnancy wanted to make sure I knew who was boss, that unpleasant symptom was replaced with elephant-like swelling in my ankles, calves, wrists, and hands. I have had to completely give up on wearing a watch and rings, and generally by the time I get home from work my ankles are swollen enough that my socks are almost cutting off circulation to my feet. Somebody has, up to this point, been very sympathetic to my obvious pain and spends time almost every night massaging down the swollen parts until they return to normal size. I don't think I even have to say how much I love this. He likes to keep things real by occasionally mentioning just how large my ankles and calves are ("wow. they are big today"). I usually respond by fake crying and moaning about how growing another human being is such hard work.

* After an initial rejection, Somebody received his letter this past week letting him know that he is now considered a Lawful Permanent Resident of the United States. Our application process this time around did not go smoothly (hence the initial rejection) and I have spent many hours over the past two months drowning in worry over the possibility that the government would continue to see our marriage as a sham and deport him. I have been continually surprised at the breadth and depth of proof that we must provide to show that we got married because we fell in love, and have often felt like we were being punished and disbelieved because of choices we made looking for what would be best for our future instead of making them based on what would best show that we share property and finances. We certainly have felt the support and love of many family and friends who we have called upon to write affidavits swearing our marriage was entered into in good faith, that we live together, and that my tattoo that one time was just henna. For now, though, we are just breathing a big sign of relief that this major stumbling block has been overcome.

* I saw a commercial on tv earlier this evening that kind of made me want to vomit. It was for a law firm and their basic message was along the lines of, “is your tax return money not enough to pay off your bills and get out of debt? If not, put that money to good use by filing for bankruptcy. When you file for bankruptcy all your debt goes away—payday loans, credit cards, you name it! Start the year off right. Start the year off debt free by using your tax return money to file for bankruptcy. And we are just the law firm to help you.” Doesn’t that kind of make you sick? That there are people out there who might actually think that this is good advice? And that there are educated professionals encouraging them towards this course of action?

another gem of love

Last night during dinner my dad suddenly stopped the conversation by saying, "hey, what's that sound?" We all became quiet and listened intently. I heard nothing. "It's almost like a bird screeching and maybe dying." Still, nothing. I helpfully pointed to Somebody and said, "It's probably his chewing." You know, because I like to make fun of his chewing. He pointed right back at me and said, "It's probably Jennifer's breathing." My dad looked at me and said, "Stop breathing." I held my breath as long as I could, so, for all of 10 seconds. And then my dad nodded. He had found the source of the dying bird sounds. They were coming from my nose.

if it isn't love

I spent the entirety of this weekend either in bed or on the couch. I hate being sick. I also hate being sick when I'm not allowed to take any medicine that could possibly make me feel better or allow me to breath easier.

Saturday night, at the height of my whiney/neediness, Somebody came into the bedroom with me at 8pm to pray and tuck me in (because he's nice like that) because, dang, I'd been awake for almost eight hours and all that lying around had exhausted me. In my VapoRub stupor (side note: did you know that the jar says to consult my physician if I'm pregnant before I use VapoRub? Why? Do babies not like the smell?) I suggested to Somebody that what might help me fall asleep right away would be for him to sing me a lullaby. Because, you know, he's NEVER done that before. Or wanted to do that. Or wanted to be asked to do that. He, of course, declined that lovely suggestion. I figured there had to be some Chinese lullaby that he needed to practice singing, and that there was no time like the present, but he stubbornly refused to acknowledge that there ever was a lullaby sung in the Chinese language. Not even one. So I busted out the only song I can sing in Chinese, which is "We Are a Happy Family" and he patiently listened to my blatant and raspy combining of the phrases I knew in Chinese with supplemental English on the parts where I didn't know the Chinese words.

After I was done singing, we were both quiet for a moment before he said, "Okay, I have a song for you." And then he patted my head and sang, "You're beautiful, no matter what they say."

a chair in the sky

I needed a little laughter this morning, and this was the perfect solution.

my excuses

Today I took advantage of the wonderful fake spring weather and began a little spring cleaning. I took all the piles of papers and accumulated junk from the various surfaces in my bedroom and put them all on the bed for sorting and putting away. With so many now open surfaces I realized that a serious dusting was in order and so spent some time cleaning off the surfaces that haven't seen the sun since, oh, last summer sometime. I am something of a pack-rat. Once the room was dusted I turned my attention back to the pile on the bed, but was soon distracted by an invitation to help wash the cars.

To be fair, I was the one who originally extended the car washing invitation to my dad because I knew how filthy our cars were and wanted his help. I offered to help him with his cars if he would help with mine. Done. I'm not sure how long I expected it to take to wash four semi-large vehicles, but I certainly didn't expect it to take two hours. As soon as we finished I had to take a lie-down break to rest these old, aching bones, and then got busy making dinner.

When dinner was in the oven I had to rush to take a shower and get ready to pick Somebody up from the airport (he has been in San Antonio this week for a work conference) and so never did find the time to return to the pile of junk on the bed. On our way home from the airport I told Somebody that the pile was still there (I had talked to him earlier in the day and he knew I was planning to clean the room) and that we were going to have to sleep in the guest room or on the couch tonight because there was no way I was going to get it cleaned before we needed to go to bed. He said, "Oh, I never expected you to finish."

What? Am I not a finisher? Has my reputation proceeded me? Do I leave piles of things that I'm "cleaning" sitting around for weeks? Oh, yes, I do. Huh. Maybe I'll work on that. As soon as I finish the pile in the bedroom...

Saturday, February 24, 2007

doing what i can with what i've got

So, you know my little problem? The embarrassment that currently is my scalp and hair? The grossness that makes it painful for me to leave the house? The abomination of yuck that I will never get used to? Yeah. Okay, let's not really talk about it. Let's talk about what I'm trying to do to fix this problem. After scouring the stores for some clarifying/build-up reducing/miracle shampoo, this was the best I could find. Correction: the was the ONLY thing in the store that even mentioned the words cleaning or build-up. The. Only. One. Because this only happens to men? Because they use more product? Because they suffer from pregnancy hormones? Whatever. An any case, it seems to be helping. Not curing, sadly, but helping. The best feature about this shampoo? It "Has A Fresh Clean Masculine Scent." I have no where to go but up.


February 23, 2007

wasting away again

I have nothing to say today except that I hate when on tv shows the characters go to a bar or a club or a party and then for five minutes they show the band playing. I don't care about the stupid band! Advance the plot! I hate that.

February 22, 2007
My Chinese Wedding Dinner

prosperity through hard work

Our conversation on Saturday night:
Somebody: I think I am only going to go to sacrament meeting tomorrow.
Me: What? Why?
S: Well, it's a holiday.
M: Uh, only kind of. It's not really a holiday here.
S: It's a holiday for me. If it was Christmas, would you go to all three hours of church, or would you only have sacrament meeting?
M: We would only have sacrament meeting. But it's not Christmas.
S: What if it was Christmas and Thanksgiving and New Years all rolled in to one?
M: But it's not. It's just the Chinese New Year.
S: I don't even know you.
M: Whatever. If you feel good about it...
S: Oh, I feel good about it.

We celebrated the Chinese New Year with a fancy-pants Chinese dinner that Somebody spent a week preparing for and a full day cooking. It was spectacular. Besides the six dishes below, we also had dumplings, a mushroom/tofu dish, and noodles (I don't know how I missed getting pictures of those.) Oh, and below you see oranges, steamed tilapia, bok choy, squid, shrimp, and pork all cooked and sauced to perfection.Amazing. The boy knows how to cook. He said that it never felt quite like it was New Year's Eve, and that somehow something was missing (possibly his Chinese family?), but at least he could drown his sorrows in good food.

Two years ago, as part of a last honeymoon, Somebody and I, along with my parents, traveled to Taiwan during the two weeks of the Chinese New Year. The main purpose of the trip was to have a wedding dinner with Somebody's family and to give me and my parents a little exposure to a culture completely foreign to us. I have been my typical lazy self and never really finished my postings of that trip. The laziness ends now. Starting today, and for the remainder of the New Year, I'll post what we were doing on this day two years ago. Prepare to be blown away by my gripping stories and my very blond hair. You can catch the first days of the New Year by following the links below.

Chinese New Year's Eve (Saturday, February 17, 2007)
New Year's Day
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday