Well, this is about the time that I stopped posting in this blog, our housewarming party from October a year and a half ago. The Hubz's birthday is in October, so I went a little overboard for the party making foods out of The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook that I bought for myself for early-Christmas.
It's pretty fun because it references the exact page from each of the Harry Potter books that each food is mentioned on. It even takes the nerdy leap to make inferences about what particularly was served when the book is a little vague. So that time when Sirius sent Harry a birthday cake that was delivered by a toucan? Well, we can assume it was something tropical, right? So Dinah gives us a recipe for pineapple-upside-down cake. It just tickles all my nerd bones.
And what the heck IS treacle tart? I mean, I know it's Harry's favorite dessert. And I know it's Cockney rhyming slang for "sweetheart." But the word "treacle" misleadingly gross-sounding for a pie made of syrup and lemon. Yum!
So for our big party I made PUMPKIN PASTIES, little hotpockets of pumpkin and sugar:
I also made sugar mice with my first ever fondant. (I'm really sad that I can't find a picture because I spent a couple of hours molding this little mice with my bare hands, but this was a year ago.) We also had pumpkin juice -- which got spiked into RUMpkin juice. Can't go wrong there.
Hey, I remember this blog! I've got a LOT of pictures of food that I can post. So I think I'll try and do that, and maybe someone will think it's cool.
I got a new phone with a crappy camera, so the photos will suck more. I'm working on getting a new digital camera.
I also have a new blog: All Things Wordy. Check it out if you like words.
This is a chipotle pork taco with pickled red onions, cabbage and sour cream.
The pork was a leftover crockpot tenderloin, shredded and sauteed with chipotle peppers in adobo sauce.
Pickled red onions are really easy and delicious. Just slice some onions, put them in the fridge with some red wine vinegar and water. They only need to "pickle" for ten minutes before they taste delicious.
Buying a house is stressful. Finally on the other side of it, I cooked a big ol' pot of my Momma's and my Maw-Maw's Cajun gumbo. And a big heaping pile of "the best potato salad you'll ever taste" (Mom). Here's the prep:
I had to stop stopmotioning because I needed to videochat with my Mom while I was making the roux because it's scary and hard. I didn't take any pictures of the finished product because I had some girlfriends over, but believe you me it was delicious.
Hey, food eaters. I know it's been awhile, but here I am. Even though I haven't been in the foodblog circuit lately, I've still been eating on a regular basis -- and that means cooking! I've got lots of photos and videos that need to be posted, so forgive me that we'll be mucking around in the past for a little while. To start, here's something actually pretty recent!!
A couple of weeks ago, I made a mushy dip from some delicious stuff: yam, yellow onion, yellow curry, cumin seed, black beans, lemon juice and waterchestnuts. Once it was all cooked through, I whipped it all up in my trusty Magic Bullet to make a paste. I ate it with tortilla chips, but I'd imagine it would be awesome on pita or fancy crackers. It was SO GOOD -- a dip you don't have to feel bad about pigging out on because it's all vegetables!
This is a video of me talking about how much I love my citrus juicer, with the crazy yam dip featured in it.
The point of all this bad video blogging -- (How awkward can I be?! Yeah, let's record it on video and post it on the internet so the whole world can see. Great idea!) -- is that I love kitchen gadgets! Since I've started cooking and started blogging about it, my parents have really gone out of their way to make sure I get the top of the line in kitchen gadgets every Christmas. This year I got a ball whisk!! You know how when you're whisking in a bowl and only the very top of the whisk touches the bottom? This whisk stills whisks but actually touches the bottom of the bowl. Mixes much better.
Now why would I waste my time with an inferior whisk when I have this bad boy? My other favorite specialty gadget is the Microplane -- the KATANA OF THE KITCHEN. I use it for nutmeg, cinnamon, chunks of parmesan cheese. I also sleep with it under my pillow.
Gadgets R Great. I'm not talking LETTUCE KNIVES or anything ridiculous like that. I'm with Rachael Ray on that one -- just use a freaking real knife, weirdo. But there are some gadgets that are just exactly perfect for the task you need to do. It's in any good cook's best interest to have a small arsenal of tools so that you can conquer any food that may be on sale when you go to the grocery store and have the afternoon to experiment.
In a related thought, I have a pretty decent apron collection that I'll have to share sometime in the future. I wear aprons purely for practical reasons, but I do color coordinate them to what I'm wearing. Maybe it's the narcissistic cooking blog, maybe it's that I'm just naturally really domestic and like looking like a 50s housewife -- but it's probably that I'm really messy.
... I also kept this video of Nate's mouth burning from eating a whole garlic clove. Enjoy!
In Chicago with Busty. Needed to make some pasta salad -- Mommy Lester's signature stuff: tri-color rotini, broccoli, balck olives, cucumbers and Italian dressing -- 'cause we're going to a little get-together BBQ thing. I tried to convince Amanda to put in some garbanzo beans and bell peppers, but she wouldn't budge on the recipe. Not experimental at all! We played some pop culture / anything goes Take Two Scrabble. And we had some beer. Good times. I love life.
