Noodle Salad Toss

Today was not a big cooking day.  After my accomplishment yesterday, I figured I could slack a little.  Also yesterday I decided to go crazy with my blog post and write a novel, so tonight I will keep it short and sweet.  Tonight we were having pasta for dinner so I figured a salad would be a great addition to our meal.  Most salad recipes were:  cut up romaine lettuce, toss in dressing, serve.  That was a little too easy so I found a recipe that required some form of actual cooking.  I found noodle salad toss which was great because I only had to buy chow mein noodles.  Thank god I did not have to spend a lot of time in the grocery store because everyone knows how much I love the grocery store.

To make the noodle part of the salad I had to melt 2 tablespoons of butter, then mix in 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder.  I then added the noodles to the buttery garlic mixture and topped it off with parmesan cheese.  Next, I baked the noodles for 20 minutes.  The noodles smelled so delicious after they were done baking.  I added the noodles to lettuce and made a homemade vinaigrette dressing.  The salad was light and fresh, which was good after a week of heavy baked foods.

Tonight's dish was really refreshing.  I am glad I mixed it up a little, even though a salad was pretty easy to make.  Hopefully tomorrow I am able to make something for the Halloween weekend, like maybe a ghoulish drink (yes the cookbook has a tab just for drinks).

Sweet, Sugary Goodness

So much for a new direction, after one day of cooking vegetables I went back to my old ways...baking.   This, however, was not an ordinary baking day.  So I made muffins, big deal, although it was my first time making them from scratch, I have made some form of muffin before.  Then I baked coffee cake, which again I did make the batter from scratch, but I have baked cakes so I guess it really was not a stretch.  Today I was going to take on something that I would have never attempted if I had not started this cooking project.  I did something so epic that it made my day and changed my whole outlook on the possibility that I could open a bakery.  Today...I...baked...sweet dough bread.  Okay maybe its not that epic of a feat, but for someone who doesn't really bake or cook this was huge.

I had to start early today because guess what, I had to go into WORK!! Wohoo I am finally a contributing member of society.  I got up this morning without a clue as to what I was going to make.  I had decided that I must have all of the ingredients in the house for whatever dish I picked.  I am extremely lazy and I did not want to have to make a trip to Walmart only to be annoyed that they don't have anything in their store.  I also didn't want to have to go to Giant Eagle because I swear only old people are there in the morning and dear god I cannot stand them.  They push their carts around so slow and it takes them 1000 years to check out.  For some reason even though I probably do not have anywhere urgent to be on the days I go to the grocery store, I cannot stand being stuck behind old people that take forever.  In addition to cooking maybe I will work on patience.

Anyways back to baking, going through the cookbook I realized we do not have an entire chicken hanging out in my freezer nor do we have zucchini and radishes; again I was left with the bread/pasta/rice section.  Everyday I have had it in my mind that I was going to bake bread.  Each day I would go over bread recipes and then chicken out because I thought I knead incorrectly or maybe I would add too much yeast and the bread would rise and take over my kitchen.  Today came, I saw the bread recipe, and thought today is the day I end all nightmares; I will make bread and it will taste awesome.  The bread I chose to make was sweet dough bread.  With this dough I could choose to make a loaf of bread or I could make a myriad of other desserts.  Getting started I needed yeast, warm water, sugar, flour, salt and milk.  I dissolved the yeast in warm water and then added the rest of the ingredients, not too hard.   After this came the part that scared me the most, putting flour on the counter and kneading the dough.  After kneading for a while the dough didn't really feel "elastic" like it was supposed to so I figured I should look in the cookbook to learn how to knead dough.  Kneading ending up being pretty easy; I put the dough in a greased bowl and stored it in a warm place for about an hour and a half.

After waiting forever, I was actually pretty nervous to check on the dough.  I figured it either didn't rise or that it rose so big that it would be spilling over the side of the bowl into the oven.  Good news it was perfect.  I then had to punch the dough down and figure out what I was going to do with  it.  I had decided to make cinnamon rolls.   Really simple; roll out the dough. spread butter, cover with cinnamon and sugar.  Then roll the dough and cut into 9 pieces which turned into 12 for me because apparently I don't know how to count.  I then had to wait another 40 minutes for the rolls to settle/rise I'm not sure, but after that they only baked for 25 minutes.  They were perfect golden brown when I took them out of the oven.  To top it off I made a homemade glaze out of powdered sugar, milk and vanilla extract.

Taste testing obviously came next.  The dough was perfect.  I had made bread all by myself.  It was definitely my biggest victory yet in the kitchen.  The cinnamon rolls tasted great, they had the perfect amount of sweetness.  I am so happy with the outcome and now I cannot wait to make an actual loaf of bread.  I will no longer have the fear of dough seeping out of the oven coming to overtake me in its fluffy awfulness.  I really do not know how to top this tomorrow.  I might have to suck it up and go to the nursing home that is the grocery store to get more ingredients.

Picture of sweet, sugary goodness....

A New Direction...Vegetables

Okay so I had to go in a new direction today because I was doing too much baking and there was no possible way for me to finish all the baked goods in one day.  Today I made something that I have never had before, squash.  I made Maple Baked Acorn Squash, which was not as disgusting as I thought it would be.  Actually the squash did not have much taste to it; I am glad I put a lot of cream and maple syrup on it.  If I ever decide to dabble in squash again, I would use less cream and possibly add some brown sugar to it.  I wish that the center mixture had turned out to be more of a glaze as opposed to a milky soupy substance.  But even though my squash looked like halved coconuts when it came out the oven I was still pleasantly surprised with the outcome.  Also if there is anyone in the Cleveland area that loves squash, I mean like can't live without some good acorn squash, please come over to my house and finish the 3 halves that I have left because yes my family and I split one half.  I suppose I should not have made so much, but I was following the recipe exactly so thank god acorn squash is cheap.  

So someone suggested I post the recipes for the dishes I make so I will start today.  This recipe was really difficult, I mean if you are not a veteran cook I would not even attempt this vegetable dish.
Maple Baked Acorn Squash
-Two acorn squash cut in half, make sure to remove all seeds
-One tablespoon of cream and one tablespoon of  maple syrup poured into each half
-Place in an ungreased baking pan
-Bake for one hour at 350 degrees.  
Okay so there was not much to this recipe, but I said I would make everything in the cookbook even if that means pouring two ingredients into a vegetable and baking.  Tomorrow maybe I will attempt something even more difficult like a cobb salad.

First Picture of My Cooking Creations

My friend Matt wanted me to send him pictures of the things that I was making so I figured I could upload them to the blog so everyone could get a peek.   This is the Streusel Coffee Cake that I made today...looks and tastes good.

Streusel Coffee Cake

So I am back cooking after being sick for the past three days.  Today I decided to make coffee cake; it is gloomy and rainy here so I wanted something to warm me up.  For the first time I had to go buy ingredients, which was the hardest part of my day.  Walmart in Strongsville has absolutely nothing and also they mislabel their aisles.  All I needed was some baking powder and the place that was marked "baking powder" had none.  Eventually I resorted to walking up and down the baking aisle until I found what I needed, but seriously how hard is to to mark the correct area?  So I had to make two different parts to the cake.  First I made the brown sugar pecan topping, second I made the actual cake mixture.  The topping was brown sugar, pecans, and cinnamon and the cake part was pretty typical flour, eggs, milk, sugar, etc.  To put the coffee cake together I had to put half of the cake mixture in a pan cover that with the brown sugar/pecan topping, then put the other half of the cake mixture on top and cover the entire thing with pecans and brown sugar.  It looked great going into the oven, I have to say I was extremely proud of myself for getting right back into action.  I put the cake in the oven and almost immediately the kitchen smelled so good.  For the first time the dish I decided to make smelled like it was going to come out tastey.  The coffee cake continued to bake for 30 minutes and I was getting anxious to try it.  After letting the cake cool I finally got a small taste.  IT TASTED AMAZING!!!!!!!!!  I made something substantial that tasted awesome.  I would not change anything about the coffee cake; it is moist and full of flavor.  I know I made waffles that tasted great, but waffles are pretty hard to screw up.  I had plenty of opportunity to screw up a cake and toppings.  I have a feeling this week will be filled with many other tastey projects, maybe I just needed to get into a groove or clear my mind for a few days.  I am just really happy this turned out well, I can't wait for people to try it!

Now, what to make tomorrow that can top today...

Waffles, There Was Only One Way To Go...Up

So I am a little late blogging about my cooking adventure from Thursday, but late is better than never.  So Thursday I thought I would stick to something easy to make, like something I knew I couldn't possibly screw up.  Seriously after I made those muffins I was reconsidering this whole cooking adventure.  So I was looking through the bread/pasta/rice section of the cookbook and found waffles.  First I love waffles and second the recipe was really easy to follow.  I just made plain waffles, but it was the first time I made waffle completely from scratch, no just add water mix.  I am proud to say I'm back making good food.  The waffles were so fluffy on the inside and crispy on the outside.  I don't really have much more to report because they were waffles, pretty basic.  However, I am really happy with the outcome; it was nice to make something that tasted exactly like it should.

FYI
So I did not make anything for Friday...I know I am such a slacker, but I have been so sick that I wasn't going to make something that could have been infected with my germs.  Hopefully Sunday I will be feeling better and back in the cooking action.

Honey Muffins Taste Ass-tastic

I knew that my cooking adventure today was not going to go well when I started off by dropping a huge bottle of soy sauce on the tile floor.  Of course the bottle broke and got sauce all over, I mean all over.  I should have stopped there, but I couldn't give up on my dream after one day; so I proceeded to make honey muffins.  The consistency of the muffins was great.  I even made a cinnamon sugar coating for the top of the muffins.  I was so excited to taste my latest creation, one big bite later my attitude changed.  The muffins tasted awful, absolutely awful.  I honestly do not know what could have made them better, except not use the main ingredient for the muffins, honey.  I was going to be overambitious and make deep dish pizza tonight in addition to the ass muffins, but  after that failed attempt I decided to quit while I was ahead (for today).  I am going to stay away from baking for a couple days because those muffins have ruined my day and probably my whole week.  I don't know what I am going to do now with 11 muffins, what a waste.

Cheese Spaghetti Toss

Cheese Spaghetti Toss was the first meal that I made from the Betty Crocker Cookbook.  I have decided  that Betty Crocker is really horrible at naming dishes...Cheese Spaghetti Toss...really?  Cheese was an ingredient, but bacon was the ingredient that gave the dish its "wow factor."  I would have named it something really special like Bacon Cheese Pasta Explosion.  But maybe the dish got its boring name because it suited how bland the dish tasted.  It was actually not too hard to make, bacon mixed with a wine and eggs poured over pasta.  Boil water, fry bacon not too hard to complete.  My parents ate the dinner which was good sign, they also had seconds which was an even bigger boost to my ego.  Overall the dish was a little boring, but it had potential.  A little garlic, a little more pepper and maybe a tiny bit of salt would have worked wonders on the pasta.  Also as my father put it, "A cookbook will never say this, but you can never have too much bacon," therefore next time I will use a lot more bacon.  The good news is that since my first attempt at cooking like Betty Crocker was not a complete and total disaster, I will continue with my goal of cooking every dish from the cookbook.  I don't really feel like Betty Crocker yet, maybe next time I should wear an apron.  

The cooking begins

So since I only recently got a part time job and have all of this time on my hands, I thought to myself I should do something more with my time then watch lifetime movies and Law and Order SVU marathons all day.  This past weekend I joked with my family members that I was going to cook my way through Betty Crocker's Cookbook (which obviously I got the idea from Julie & Julia).  Then last night as I was getting ready to embark on yet another tv watching marathon, I thought cooking is actually a really great idea.  I spent the rest of the night going through the cookbook trying to figure out where to start.  It would seem obvious to start from the beginning but if anyone has ever seen the Better Crocker orange cookbook I am talking about, they would know that there are different tabs for meats, appetizers, breads, pastas, drinks, etc.  So I might have to jump around a little just to make sure I make a complete meal.  However, I will not skip anything even if that means I have to make something that absolutely disgusts me.  So my journey through cooking starts tonight...I hope my first meal isn't a total disaster.