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Hey, it’s Katie again, cooking up the second of my recipes! It’s always a bit of a surprise what I’m going to make for dinner, since I don’t usually know until about 3pm the day of. The last time I made Chicken Pot Pie I was in college, and trying to mimic my then-boyfriend’s mother’s dish. What a dumb idea. Granted, it was good, the taste wasn’t bad, but let me tell you something, it was DRY. More so than the dough itself. The filling didn’t have the usual creamy inside with the gravy that you can dip the crust into and love right off. It was more like “chicken with veggies topped with a crust” with nothing else to it.
This time, after taking the recipe from The Duo Dishes on Cheddar Chicken Pot Pie I thought I’d give it another go, since the first time in cooking can either be A. a disaster, or B. fantastic. In which case I’m more like my Step Daddy and forget what I did the first time, and have to start all over again. So , this whole writing down the recipes thing may actually work out for me.
Cheddar Chicken Pot Pie – Serves 6 to 8
2 white potatoes, parboiled and cubed
2 red potatoes, parboiled and cubed
1/2 red onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 1/2 cup baby carrots, chopped
2 cups frozen peas
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups chicken broth, warm
2 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon thyme, minced
1 tablespoon rosemary, minced
1 tablespoon basil, minced
1 teaspoon mint, minced
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon sage
2 tablespoons parsley, minced
1/2 tablespoon dill, minced
2 bay leaves, whole
3/4 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
Zest of 1 lemon, minced
6-7 chicken breast tenderloins
2 pie crusts (frozen or prepared)
Crust (from Simply Recipes)
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
3/4 cup butter, chilled and cubed
1/2 cup Crisco, butter flavor
6-8 tablespoons ice water
1 egg
1 1/2 tablespoons milk
1. Start with crust. Combine flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Add chilled butter and combine with a pastry blender.
2. Add shortening and combine to cut into flour and butter mixture. Mixture should resemble coarse cornmeal.
3. Slowly add ice water by tablespoons. Mix well after each addition until dough begins to stick together.
4. Place dough on a flat surface and divide into 2 even pieces. Roll into balls, dust lightly with flour and wrap in plastic. Place in fridge for at least an hour.
5. As dough chills, drop chicken tenders into boiling water. Cook until no longer pink inside, approximately 2-4 minutes. Set aside in a small bowl. When cool, tear into pieces–a mixture of large and small.
6. In a deep, wide skillet, melt butter and oil. Add garlic, carrots, celery, onions, potatoes and bay leaves. Cook until carrots have softened a bit but aren’t mushy, approximately 10 minutes. Pour in chicken broth.
7. Mix cornstarch and flour into milk. Mix well. Add to cooking vegetables. Toss in peas.
8. Cook until mixture begins to thicken, approximately 8-10 minutes. Stir in remaining herbs, spices, chicken and half of the cheese.
 The filling, After I scooped out half of it into the pie crust, and realized I'd forgotten to take a phot 9. Remove bay leaves and take off heat. Allow to cool.
10. As chicken filling cools, take dough out of fridge and roll one ball for bottom half of crust. Drop in 9-inch pie dish and trim edges. Place into fridge as you roll out second piece of dough for top of crust.
11. Pull out crust and pour chicken filling into dish and sprinkle with remaining cheese. Top with top crust and trim edges a bit. Roll top crust edges over bottom crust. Press together all around with a fork. Cut slits into top crust.*
 Cheesy goodness before I closed the pie 12. Whisk egg and milk together. Brush over top crust. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes or until golden brown.
*This is totally a make in advance meal. Let the filling cool completely (pop into the fridge to speed that up and keep crust in fridge as well). Pour filling into bottom crust, top with upper crust, cut slits and keep in fridge until ready to cook. Brush with egg wash and bake.
Alright. So I changed a bunch of things…per usual.
-I added broccoli that we had in the fridge that HAD to get used up, and only one potato. I mean, this was one HUGE potato. After I diced it, this is the amount it yielded:
 One really huge potato Well, okay, looking at the photo it doesn’t look like much. But I swear, it was about the amount of three regular potatoes.
-Next, seasoning: I added Italian to the mixture, instead of all of the spices listed. I did that because the kicthen isn’t fully stocked, so I use what I have on-hand instead of going out and spending $30 on spices in one afternoon. I also added some generic “Chicken Spice” mix to it. Proof that, even 11 hours away, I still cook like my Step Dad who just adds things in hopes that it will be good.
-I threw in frozen corn, because I thought it needed more color. And, I added A LOT of cheese. We really like cheese in the house.
-I defiled their recipe. If you go to the website, it’s all about how important it is to use a homemade crust, and yadda yadda. I’m sorry, Duo, but I just don’t have the motivation for that. I bought a store-brand crust out of the cooler (not freezer) section and used that. The kind that unroll into a perfectly flat circle. Ryan was so pleased with it, he said “I believe I could eat just the crust by itself!”
-I did add more gravy stuff, out of fear that it was going to be dry. I added a half a cup of chicken stock, and then a quarter cup of milk. Turns out, I actually had too much. So that was “nice” in a way.
-Secondly, I had enough to make two pot pies, but only had expected to make one. I guess that’s what happens when you tend to not actually measure things. instead, I had to frantically call my poor just-out-of-work sister and ask her how to substitute something for shortening…so I could make and freeze a second pie with a biscuit topping.
Anyway, I found this dish to be just about right. I think a spice was missing, perhaps pepper, because I didn’t put a lot of that into it, but other than that, I really enjoyed it. Oh, and for the record, this drink goes well with a glass of milk.
My name is Katie, and I’m 23 with a passion for quick, healthy, and light cooking. Some of you may, or may not know that Tatiana is my most favorite and beautiful older sister. In being my big sister, she is allowing me to write in on her blog “It Was A Very Good Meal”. It’s sort of a neat sister-collaboration thing. Anyway, I currently reside in West Virginia, in one of the Southern most counties, so everything edible here is either A. Fried or B. Cooked with some sort of fat product in it. I mean it, too. Their green beans, though fresh off the trellis, aren’t lightly steamed to a bright green with a slightly firm crunch and served along side a piece of haddock on a plate like we do on the coast. They are cooked to a mushy, baby-food green in a pot of boiling water with hunks of pork “fatback” thrown into the mix, served up with a side of Fried Chicken and mashed potatoes with gravy. If you are lucky enough to not know what fatback is, imagine a chunk of fatty un-cut bacon. That’s basically the idea. Not something you’d want to take place in your veggies; if you’re anything like me.
So, having lived with a girl from West Virginia for my time here thus far, and quickly growing tired of the style of cooking down here (don’t get me wrong, Soul Food is rather good, every once in a while) I started to pick up a few recipes of lighter fare. I always, always, start a meal with a salad. Much to the dismay of the people I’m cooking for, who would rather not have to choke down greens before the main dish, but, secretly, I’m making them eat healthier. Now, when we go out, I notice fewer “Loaded Cheese Fries” coming to the table, and more “Salad…with lettuce, crutons, and cheese” which isn’t the healthiest, but hey, it’s a step in the right direction.
Anyway, that’s my “Welcome” portion. Now, to get to the actual “Review” section.
The first thing I’m going to write about is actually an oddity for me to make, since I don’t much care for pork products. I like ham, and I like bacon, but I don’t like pork chops, or pork loin. But, in the book “The Man Who Ate Everything” Jeffery Steingarten wrote “No smells or tastes are innately repulsive, I assured myself, and what’s learned can be forgot” and I decided I should at least try to make something with pork in it, as I’m sure Ryan (my main guinea-pig in the world of the kitchen) would more or less be growing tired of chicken or beef soon.
Sweet and sour pork that I found on about.com which I hardly ever use for recipes, but after reviewing some from Alton Brown, and cooks.com, this is the one I settled on.
Cook Time: 1 hour, 20 minutes
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 pounds boneless pork loin, sliced 1/2-inch thick
- 1 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 can (20 ounces) pineapple chunks in juice
- 3/4 cup water
- 1/4 cup vinegar
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons water
- 1/2 cup thinly sliced onion
- 1 green pepper, cut in thin strips
- 2 cups hot cooked rice
-
 All the good stuff to make the Sauce
Preparation:
Directions for sweet and sour pork
Cut pork slices into strips about 3 inches long and 1/2 to 1 inch wide. Sauté pork strips in hot oil over medium heat until lightly browned; drain. Drain pineapple; reserve juice. Combine pineapple juice, 3/4 cup water, vinegar, soy sauce, brown sugar, and salt; pour over pork in skillet. Cover and simmer 1 hour, or until meat is tender. In a cup, combine cornstarch and 2 tablespoons water; stir until smooth. Add cornstarch mixture to pork mixture. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is thickened and bubbly. Add pineapple chunks, onion and green pepper.
 Just after throwing in the veggies
Cover and simmer sweet and sour pork for 10 minutes longer, or until vegetables are tender. Serve sweet and sour pork over rice.
Sweet and sour pork recipe serves 4 to 6.
 Slanted photo, but I was really hungry by this point. Thoughts, changes, and other random things that happened:
-On a regular day, I feed only two people; myself, and Ryan. So I should have paid attention to the amount of pork I was using. We still had enough to feed another person or two small people after we’d finished eating. I only used 1lb of pork, and even then, I cut up Center-Cut pork chops, since a whole loin would have run up some money I didn’t want to spend on it.
-I don’t really think that you need to simmer the pork for an hour, since it’s mostly cooked from the browning; but it worked, and kept the pork moist.
-Next, I don’t ever use the “Holy Trinity” of veggies (onion, green peppers, and celery) without one of the ingredients, and since this didn’t call for celery, I sliced up two stalks and tossed that in.
-If I were to make this again, I’d use half the amount of pineapple in the can, but all of the juice from the 20 oz. There was more pineapple than pork. The pineapple’s sweetness when warm and covered in the sauce was a strange sweet almost smokey flavor, but the texture alone is what got me. I didn’t care for it very much.
-I ended up being almost short on sauce (I did see that coming, and splashed in a bit more water, corn starch, and vinegar before it was all done) so adjustment will be needed if you like a lot of it on the rice. I also juiced two clementines into the simmering pan.
Overall, I enjoyed this dish very much. I served it over white rice (you’ll need to make about 1 1/2 cups of DRY rice to match the amount of S&S pork), and we had 2% (gag, I’m a skim milk person) milk (Ryan learned that Organic tastes just the same) with it…which I probably would say isn’t a great choice. The tanginess of the sauce and the milk just didn’t match up. Maybe a wine would have gone better. Something dry and fruity like Reisling. The pork was nice a juicey from simmering in the pan, the green peppers added just the right amount of crunch without being fresh from the plant solid. I used vedalia onions, which was a really great choice. I’m going to warn you this, though: don’t over do it on the soy sauce. This isn’t a dish that should be salty, the pork does a nice job with that already.
I love lentils, and I love spicy soup, so choosing this recipe for Spicy Red Lentil Soup from nami-nami was a no-brainer for me. I’d never worked with red lentils before, but got them at the Bulk Barn (yay for BB!) and was really excited to make this soup.
Spicy Red Lentil Soup
from nami-nami
(Vürtsikas läätsesupp)
Serves 4-6
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tsp cumin seeds, slightly crushed
1.5-2 tsp coriander seeds, slighly crushed
1 tsp red chilli flakes
400 g chopped tomatoes or passata
400 g red lentils, rinsed
2 medium carrots, coarsely grated
2 litres chicken stock
salt
freshly ground black pepper
juice of half a lemon
To serve:
fresh coriander/cilantro leaves, finely chopped
plain yogurt/sour cream
Heat the oil in a large saucepan, add onion and fry gently for 7-8 minutes, until onion softens.
Add the garlic, crushed cumin and coriander seeds (I use my pestle & mortar), chilli flakes. Give it a stir and fry for another minute.
Add the tomatoes, red lentils, grated carrot and hot chicken stock. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer, half-covered, for 30-45 minutes, until lentils begin to break up.
Season with lemon juice, salt and pepper. Dilute with hot water, if necessary.
Serve with a dollop of coriander cream (mix coriander and cream/yogurt).
My thoughts:
- This soup reminded me of a watery chili. And if I want chili, I’ll make chili. I like my lentil soups & stews more rustic and earthy flavoured, so while I might use this combination of ingredients to make a soup in the future, I’d probably play with the spices some more.
- Speaking of watery, I was surprised to see that the recipe says you might need to dilute it with hot water. I must have done something wrong since, as you can see in my picture, my soup is not creamy and thick. It was the next day, but that happens with most soup/stews.
- I used sour cream and lemon to garnish and did not bother mixing coriander with the cream.
- Freshly made with sour cream and lemon on it, this was NOT a spicy soup. The next day, after sitting in the fridge overnight, without sour cream because I’d used it all, it was.
- The lemon is an awesome touch. Don’t miss it. Use a nice squeeze from a fresh lemon wedge.
- Grating carrots is awesome. It’s now how I feed raw carrots to our daughter, since I worry about them as a choking hazard otherwise while raw.
Overall, this was a tasty soup and I’m sure I’ll make iterations on it in the future if I’m stuck on ideas for dinner, or want to make a vegan meal (substituting vegetable broth for the chicken) for some reason.
 I, like so many cooks, do not enjoy baking. It is too damned fussy and precise and requires too much attention. Who wants to spend time measuring out ingredients? I just want to throw stuff into a pot, dump it on a plate, and eat it.
But then, when I have something as tasty as these cookies, I get it. I understand why people love to bake. When I saw this NYT chocolate chip cookie recipe posted on Ezra Pound Cake, I knew I needed to try it. My husband is a huge sweet freak and every time I’ve tried to make cookies for him in the past, it hasn’t really worked out too well. (See this pan of cookies? that’s what happened when I didn’t measure ingredients and just threw a bunch of stuff that sounded good together into the oven, the way I like to cook but the way you CANNOT bake).
These were awesome, and I did not even follow the recipe exactly. The sea salt sprinkled on top of them was a revelation; I know some of you out there are shaking your head and thinking I’m crazy for desecrating a perfectly good chocolate chip cookie with salt, but believe me, you want to do this. If you don’t think you do, then just put salt on one of the first batch.
Chocolate Chip Cookies
from Ezra Pound Cake
Adapted from The New York Times, David Leite and Jacques Torres
Yield: 1 1/2 dozen 5-inch cookies.
- 2 cups minus 2 tablespoons (8 1/2 ounces) cake flour
- 1 2/3 cups (8 1/2 ounces) bread flour
- 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
- 2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter
- 1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) light brown sugar
- 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (8 ounces) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract
- 1 1/4 pounds bittersweet chocolate disks or fèves, at least 60 percent cacao content (see note)
- Sea salt
1. Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.
2. Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Drop chocolate pieces in and incorporate them without breaking them. Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.
3. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Set aside.
4. Scoop 6 3 1/2-ounce mounds of dough (about 1/3 cup) onto baking sheet, making sure to turn horizontally any chocolate pieces that are poking up; it will make for a more attractive cookie. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and bake until golden brown but still soft, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another rack to cool a bit more. Repeat with remaining dough, or reserve dough, refrigerated, for baking remaining batches the next day.
My thoughts:
- Two different types of flour, and neither of them all-purpose? DAMMIT. Fortunately, we needed to go to the Bulk Barn, so I picked up cake flour & bread flour there. Unfortunately, I picked up juuuuust less than I needed, and ended up having to add 1/3c of all-purpose flour. C’est la vie.
- I also did not have as much white sugar as I thought I did, which ended up meaning I didn’t have enough white sugar for this recipe. I had, however, bought more than enough brown sugar, so ended up using 1.75c of that and .5c + 2tbsp white sugar.
- Annnnnd following the trend of the first two steps, I ALSO did not have 1.25c of butter. Did you know that one of those massive blocks of butter that you buy at the grocery store is only 1c? I sure as hell didn’t realize it, until I stood there in my kitchen with half a block of it. I used 3/4c of margarine to make up the difference. I know, I know. Somewhere, a baker just shot themselves. I think that using the margarine, since it has more water than fat (whereas butter has more fat than water) contributed to making my cookies way flatter than EZP’s.
- I bought generic brand chocolate chips. I don’t like big chocolate chunks. And did you realize HOW MUCH chocolate 1.25 lbs is? Good grief. It’s a ton.
 - That picture was taken after making one dozen cookies. This recipe ended up yielding FIVE AND A HALF DOZEN cookies for me, each of them approximately 1.5 tbsp of dough, six per baking sheet. I had to give some away.
- I do not have parchment paper, nor do I have a non-stick baking mat. My “cookie sheet” is my all-purpose cooking tray; it’s had everything from cookies to meatloaf to potatoes on it. It’s dark; ideally, baking sheets are light. I asked on Twitter what I should do to cope with this, and people suggested that I turn the oven down 25 degrees, and that I’d possibly need to shorten the cooking time. This worked really well and my cookies did not stick.
- Regarding the cooking time, I did not keep track but I think it was around 10 minutes a batch. Cookies are done when they’re golden around the edges, NOT golden on the top. Mine looked gooey on the top when I took them out, but this meant they had a beautifully soft but set centre. The batch that I let cook longer ended up getting very crispy. If crispy cookies are your thing, then ignore the above advice.
- I do not have a cooling rack. I KNOW, but I told myself I’m not buying any more kitchen gadgets and dishes until we get a house, because we barely have room for what we own now nor do we have a dishwasher. So, these were left on the sheet tray until it was cool enough to handle. I read that it’s actually better to put cookies on a cool sheet tray anyhow when you’re cooking; putting them on a hot surface can scald the bottom.
- DO NOT SKIP the salt. Seriously. It’s the perfect accent to finish your cookies off.
All in all, these will be made in these parts again. They were delicious, even with my seventeen thousand deviations from the recipe as written. And hey, at least you know that you can make all these mistakes and end up with yummy cookies too!
 Oh, Alton Brown. How many times have I geeked out watching “Good Eats” and thought about how much I’d love to sit and have a conversation with you over something awesome like homemade pretzels or parsnip chips? The answer to that, my friend, is MANY. My husband and I adore you. Your lemon meringue pie is my main excuse to buy huge bags of lemons. When I saw this recipe for Eggplant Pasta posted on Ezra Pound Cake’s Meatless Mondays with your name right there, I immediately stopped to read it.
And eggplant! My darling, underrated, and misunderstood vegetable. Ever since I was introduced to Eggplant Parmesan at the Midway during my vegetarian days, I have loved you. I have snacked on paper-thin, fried, salty slices of you. I want to learn new ways to enjoy your meaty flesh and yummy seeds. Eggplant instead of pasta? I thought, that’s brilliant!
You can tell, then, that I had high expectations for this recipe. Perhaps I expected too much, but this fell miserably short of the transcendent flavour experience I anticipated.
Eggplant Pasta
from Ezra Pound Cake
Adapted from Alton Brown’s “Good Eats: The Early Years”
Servings: 4
- 2 medium-large eggplants
- Kosher salt, for purging
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon garlic, minced
- 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 4 small tomatoes, seeded and chopped
- 1/2 cup cream
- 4 tablespoons basil chiffonade
- 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan
- Freshly ground pepper
1. Peel each eggplant leaving 1-inch of skin at the top and bottom unpeeled. Slice the eggplant lengthwise, about 1/4-inch thick. Evenly coat each slice with salt, and let them rest on a wire rack for 30 minutes. Rinse with cold water and roll in paper towels to dry. Slice the pieces into thin strips to resemble pasta.
2. In a large saute pan, heat the oil. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes, and toast.
3. Add the eggplant “pasta,” and toss to coat.
4. Add the tomatoes, and cook for 3 minutes.
5. Add the cream, and increase heat to thicken sauce.
6. Add the basil and Parmesan, and toss to combine. Season with pepper. Serve immediately.
 My thoughts:
- First off, holy labour intensive meal. Peeling eggplant without a vegetable peeler SUCKS. Also, I don’t understand why I left 1 inch of skin at the top and the bottom. For a splash of colour, I assume? If I made this again, I’d cut the skin off.
- I should really get a baking rack someday. It would make my life easier. Since I didn’t have one, I had to run paper towels all over my countertop and lay the eggplant on them, salt them, flip them, salt them again, let them drain a bit, transport them to another surface, lay down more paper towel, lay them down on the other side, and let them drain.
- I thought my strips were a pretty nice, small, even size… until I re-read this recipe later on and see that she mentions “fettucine” width. Err. These were not fettucine. These were a little chunkier, which might explain my next problem:
- The recipe says to add the eggplant, toss to coat, add tomatoes, cook for three minutes, add sauce, thicken. In as little time as this took, however, my eggplant was NOT cooked through. I had to boil my eggplant in the sauce for five more minutes or so for it to lose the weird, raw, styrofoam-esque texture.
- On a positive note, after all the work, this did taste pretty good. I enjoyed it, my husband hated it (he doesn’t like eggplant) but loved the sauce, and our nine month old daughter thought it was the yummiest thing in the entire world. But, I mean, LOOK AT IT. Then go look at Ezra Pound Cake’s shot of this dish. Go ahead. They look like completely different meals. And by that I mean mine looks kinda like dog food.
I think that if I chopped the eggplant smaller (perhaps pulsed in a food processor to leave it chunky and rustic), this would make a really tasty dip. However, I doubt I will be making this again. For the amount of time and effort this meal takes, it needs to blow me and my husband out of the water. This did not.
Alton Brown? You’re on notice.
 Who doesn’t love mojitos? Whoever they are, they don’t live in my household. Chris and I are huge mojito fans and so when I saw a recipe for “Italian Mojitos” from The Leftover Queen, I knew I had to make it. This is a fun twist on the classic mojito and I think that, when I have all the ingredients in my house (as in all summer, when mint and basil are growing like weeds and selling for super cheap!), I’ll definitely make it again. I’ll probably also make it when entertaining friends and family, because while it looks complicated and fancy, it’s a breeze to make, and it’s really refreshing.
Italian Mojitos
from The Leftover Queen
several lemon wedges
generous pinch/ small palm full of fresh basil
generous pinch/ small palm full of fresh mint
simple syrup (I used homemade mint simple syrup), to taste (I used about 2 TBS for each drink)
Muddle these ingredients together in a tall glass, then add 2 oz./one shot of dark rum.
Fill to top of glass with ice and club soda or seltzer water!
My thoughts:
- Simple syrup: 1 part white sugar to 1 part water (I used a cup of each). For mint simple syrup, toss in a handful of roughly torn mint leaves as well; I used approximately ten.
- I used club soda, and lots of ice.
- In my first drink, I used one lemon wedge, two basil leaves and two mint leaves along with four teaspoons of the mint simple syrup. The drink was a bit too bitter for me, so I doubled the simple syrup and this fixed that problem. However, the mint flavour was very powerful and the basil flavour unnoticeable. Chris complained about a lack of rum flavour so I also added another .5oz to his drink, to total 2oz.
- Second drink, I used five basil leaves, two mint leaves, eight tsp of the simple syrup, and two lemon wedges (I kept on with the 1.5oz of rum, though). The drink’s flavour was amazing, intense, and perfect. Don’t be a weenie when it comes to the flavour here — really bump it up and enjoy the experience!
 When I saw Purple Foodie’s recipe for Garlicky Baked Fries linked from somewhere (a friend on Twitter, maybe?) I knew that I would have to make them. I love potatoes, love roasting them, and have been experimenting with making fries lately. I have to say, next time that I want to make fries, this is the methodology I’ll use. The olive oil and cornstarch together contributed to make beautifully crispy wedges with a soft, pillowy inside. They were delicious! I’m already imagining how I could change up the other flavours — cinnamon and cayenne with sweet potatoes, for instance.
Garlicky Oven Fries
from Purple Foodie
8 garlic cloves, minced
6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 russet potatoes (about 8oz each), each cut into 12 wedges
3 tbsp cornstarch/cornflour
1 1/2 tsp coarse sea salt
1 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
½ tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
- Preheat oven to 225°C/475° F.
- Combine the garlic and oil in a large bowl, warming it until the garlic is fragrant, about 1 minute.
- Transfer 5 tablespoons of the oil (leaving the garlic in the bowl) to the baking dish, coating it well.
- Add the potatoes to the bowl with the garlic mixture and toss to coat. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and microwave on high power until the potatoes are translucent around the edges, 3 to 6 minutes, shaking the bowl to redistribute the potatoes halfway through cooking.
- Combine the cornstarch, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and cayenne in a small bowl. Sprinkle over the hot potatoes and toss well to coat.
- Arrange the potatoes in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet and bake, turning once, until deep golden brown and crisp, 30 to 40 minutes.
Now, my thoughts:
- I did not have 3 large russet potatoes, so I used 5 small ones, each cut into 8 wedges.
- My oven freaks out when it’s that hot and cooks very unreliably. So I left it at 475 for the first 5 minutes, then turned it down to 425.
- Step 2, where it says to warm the bowl & garlic until fragrant? Means to microwave it.
- I also tried to measure out 5 tablespoons of oil removed from the garlic. This was a waste of my time. Just use a fork to hold the garlic in the bowl and pour all of the olive oil out!
- I lined my baking pan with tinfoil and put it in the oven to preheat for a few minutes before I put the potatoes on it. I read this as a trick to keep your potatoes from sticking to the pan and it works like a dream.
- Next time, I would not microwave the potatoes. It just freaks me out. I’d parboil them instead.
- 1.5 tsp of store-bought powdery ground black pepper is NOT the same as 1.5 tsp of “freshly ground” black pepper. These fries were very very peppery and I can only assume this is because my pepper was ground so fine that it was far more volume than 1.5 tsp of coarsely ground fresh peppercorns would have been. In retrospect, I could have used .5 tsp of my powdery ground pepper and it would have tasted fine.
To cope with my ultra-peppery fries, I mixed sour cream, lime juice, and a pinch of chili powder together into a dipping sauce. YUM!
Here are the recipes I am going to be reviewing in the first week of December.
Nami-Nami: Spicy Red Lentil Soup
Ezra Pound Cake: Alton Brown’s Eggplant Pasta & Pan-Fried Onion Dip & NYT Chocolate Chip Cookies
The Purple Foodie: Garlicky Baked Fries
Canary Girl: The Yummiest Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies (I meant to make this, then when I wrote my shopping list, I opened the Ezra Pound Cake recipe instead… so, that’s what I made!)
The Left Over Queen: Italian Mojitos (scroll to the bottom, under the pizza recipe)
Cream Puffs in Venice: White Bean & Onion Fritters
 My name is Tatiana, and I am a serial procrastinator.
While thinking about what to make for dinner last week, I wrote down the same tired list of ideas, one of which was “cheesy beef stuff”. And as I sat watching The Office, eating my Hamburger Helper inspired, too cheesy, salty, horrible “beef stuff”, I realized that something’s gotta give.
And then I opened my Recipes bookmark folder in Firefox… where ONE HUNDRED AND TWELVE recipes sat, waiting to be tested.
37 I classified as “Mains”
14 Sides
35 Desserts (… and I hate baking, yet these are all pies and cookies and etc etc… )
4 Drinks
7 Breakfasts
3 Lunches
12 Snacks
This website is my journey through those recipes, and others that pop up in my Google Reader and get starred or bookmarked along the way. Right now, my goal is to make at least one grocery trip a week that is devoted solely to cooking YOUR recipes… my way!
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