Flambe!

Dessert Dad made last night:

And the adventure continues...

Sunday night, I made a side dish that became Mom and mine's dinner on Tuesday night (a fresh batch) with leftover chicken added to it to make a fusion stir-fry like thing... only it was cauliflower, olives, and capers with chicken, so I wouldn't call that too Asian. More like a Mediterranean dish. Mom made chicken and a salad... both with recipes from an Everyday Food magazine I picked up as we were checking out at the grocery store... we just happened to have what we needed for both the dishes (whole chicken and celery salad.

Monday night was Dad's night to cook. It of course resulted in delicious food, improvised from what we had. Much different from me.

Last night was a pasta dish. Broccoli and Mushrooms. It had a cream, so I guess you could say it sort of had a cream sauce.. I'm not sure. But that made it different from stuff I usually make, too.

And tonight it Spicy Tofu Burritos. I haven't eaten one yet, because I made chips out of the tortillas on accident, but I know they're spicy.
I burnt my nose in the shower from the jalepeno residue on my hands.
And I can smell it.

Banana Nut Muffins

I just made banana nut muffins out of two ripe bananas we had. I used a recipe I modified from Bon Appetit.
It took me a while, and I toasted the nuts and forgot to put them into the batter until I'd scooped three muffins, and I saved too much nuts for the tops, so they're very nutty on top.

Makes 12 muffins.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

two ripe bananas, or around 1 cup mashed

1/2 cup 1% milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 stick unsalted butter

1/2 cup normal sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 cup pecan or walnut chips toasted

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin cups with papers. Toast nuts in oven for 2-5 minutes, or until toasted.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.
In a small bowl, mix mashed bananas, milk, and vanilla.

Beat butter in a large bowl until creamy. Gradually beat in sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat banana mizture and flour mixture alternately into butter mixture in a couple of separate additions. Stir in most of toasted nuts and with a scoop, scoop into muffin pan. Top with remaining nuts.

Bake muffins until tester inserted into a muffin comes out clean, about 30 minutes.

Happy Thanksgiving

The table right before dinner. There was fennel-cranberry-raisin cornbread, lmg's green bean casserole, Dad's gravy, Uncle Larry's asparagus that Mom steamed, cranberry orange relish, Mom's turkey stuffed with onions and oranges, portabella and escarole dressing, and my mashed maple sweet potatoes.

It was all very yummy. Though dessert wasn't nearly as yummy since it was store bought, but Uncle Larry was up to making it, so that's okay because I wouldn't have wanted him to stress himself off or hurt himself trying to.

Ooh look. It's a recipe!

I'm currently making Cranberry-Walnut Pumpkin Bread and the house smells delicious.
It's a recipe from Bon Appetit that I modified. It makes two loaves. I don't know if its any good or not since I won't try it until tomorrow morning.

Ingredients

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce

1/4 cup vegetable oil

3 large eggs

1 16-ounce can pumpkin

3 cups flour (1 1/2 cups whole wheat, 1 1/2 white)

1 teaspoon allspice

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup Craisins (or just dried cranberries)

1/2 cup crushed walnuts

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9x5x3-inch loaf pans.
Sift flour, allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, baking soda, and baking powder into a large bowl.
Beat the sugar, oil, and applesauce in another large bowl to blend. Mix in the eggs, pumpkin, and vanilla. Add flour mix in 2 additions. Mix in cranberries and a small portion of the walnuts.

Divide batter equally between the two pans. Sprinkle remaining walnuts on top. Bake until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, about 40-45 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes and then remove from loaf pans and let cool completely.

Frittata Fun

I made breakfast this morning. I wanted to make something, but I only wanted to buy eggs, since I need them to make pumpkin bread anyways.
Ingredients

eggs

milk

fresh garlic

onion

sun-dried tomatoes

kalamata olives

sun-dried tomato sausage

parmesan cheese

paprika

The oil the sun-dried tomatoes were in had gotten hard, which was annoying because I didn't have the patience to wait for it to liquidify again. And I forgot to cut the olives up since I'd pitted them last night. Mom ended up helping me.

After cooking the onions, garlic, and combining the rest of the stuff in the skillet, I added the eggs and sprinkled paprika on top and put it in the oven at 350 for about 7 minutes. When I took it out, I sprinkles Parmesan on top and waited for everyone to come down for breakfast. It was a while. It was a bit dry and bland because I didn't add enough milk, but I was the only one who thought it was bland, so maybe its just me. I should've probably mixed the paprika or something else into the eggs when I used Dad's hand held thing that makes them fluffy.

Thanksgiving Menu

I think I've come up with a Thanksgiving Menu, mom still needs to approve it, choose what kind of turkey she wants to make, and the wines. It isn't a meal in courses, because I couldn't find the celery root stew recipe I thought looked good, but if I do find it, I might add a first course, but it might be too heavy. Or I could just make a salad as a first course... I saw an interesting one I liked.

Whatever turkey mom decides on, but possibly Roast Turkey With Oranges, Bay Leaves, Red Onions, and Pan Gravy

• Escarole and Mushroom Dressing
• Cranberry Orange Relish
• Corn Bread with Fennel Seeds, Dried Cranberries, and Golden Raisins
• Roasted Cauliflower with Garlic

I think Mom's made all that before at some point, but at least I know its yummy unless I badly mess it up.

Impromptu Vegetable Pasta

I actually made dinner without a recipe... and it was pretty good. I'm the only one who's eaten it so far though. Possibly because I ate right after I made it, and I'm still waiting for Mom to call me back about dinner.

• carmelized onions w/garlic
• zucchini
• tomatoes
• water
• Last Minute Gourmet Just Wave It Macaroni & Cheese

First I [attempted to] carmelize some onions and added some garlic in a skillet with a little bit of olive oil. I removed the onions and added the tomato, which was very watery, so I used its juice to cook it in. And then added the zucchini. To keep it from drying out, I added water from time to time, covered it, and stirred occasionally.
I microwaved the macaroni, and when it was ready, and the zucchini seemed done, I added the onion/garlic to the vegetables so it would heat up. I then put the vegetables in the bowl, added the macaroni, tossed it like a salad.
And then enjoyed it!

Pumpkin Bread Time

I made pumpkin bread on Saturday.

I started with these materials, mixed them together (though the vegetable oil ended up being weird, and said use by sometime in 04, so I threw it out and used olive oil instead.)

I put it in a loaf pan and in the oven at 350 for 50 minutes.
And then out of the oven it came and sat. And after it cooled, it slid so nicely out of the pan, though the sides were a bit white from the flour.

And after giving it to Azin:

Risotto Fun Time

Dad just got back from Milan today, so I picked the wrong time to make something new. It had to be just right. Which of course it wasn't, and he became a backseat chef, but that's okay. I'm sure the texture was better because of that.
But I used a cookbook again, this time to make Sun-Dried Tomato Risotto. Though by the time we ate it, most of the tomatoes didn't seem sun-dried to me, they just seemed like tomatoes. I was going to try to make it without any help, but that idea didn't really go through successfully. Once again, Mom did a lot of the work. I was trying to use a pot that was way too small.

It was risotto with sun-dried tomatoes, parsley, and zucchini, and made with vegetable broth and tomato juice. Dad said the recipe didn't have enough water, so I had to add more, so I'm not sure how much I ended up adding. Dad also suggested some saffron, so after adding the extra water I added some extra marjoram and saffron. Right before serving we added parmesan. I didn't know Dad was in Parma a couple of days ago, or I would've made something else tonight.

I Cooked Dinner!

So I made dinner. I used a cookbook of course. I made Orange Crusted Chicken. It was basically chicken in wheat cracker pieces, dijon, and orange juice, and soy sauce.

Then I also made snow peas/snap peas/something like that, and mom helped me by making "sticky" rice which I then put orange zest on and scooped onto the plates. It was my first attempt at dinner, and Mom helped a lot, but I'm trying to do this more often.

After Dinner Verdict

Dad plating dinner.

Dinner on the plate. Pork chop crusted in dijon, bread crumbs, and pine nuts. And the side is Granny Smith apples, plums, and pomegranate paste. Or something like that... I should get Dad to post this stuff, but I doubt he would.

Chef Alert

Dad/Farzad being creative with leftover pork chops, bread crumbs, pine nuts, dijon, and some sort of apple medley separate.