Recipe 6 - Shrimp Pad Thai

Tonight I made Thai for dinner. I found a recipe in Everyday Food that I adapted to make a) spicy and b) shrimpy!

Shrimp Pad Thai

8 oz. flat rice noodles

2 Tbsp. brown sugar

2 Tbsp. lime juice

3 Tbsp. soy sauce

4 Tbsp. chili oil

4 Tbsp. peanut oil

6 stems scallions

3 cloves garlic

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup cilantro

1/2 cup unsalted roasted peanuts, chopped

1 cup shrimp

2 Tbsp. red pepper flakes

1. Marinate shrimp in 2 Tbsp. chili oil, 2 Tbsp. peanut oil and 2 Tbsp. red pepper flakes.

2. Soak noodles according to directions on package

3. In a bowl, whisk together brown sugar, lime juice, remaining chili oil and soy sauce.

4. In a large nonstick skillet, cook shrimp over medium high heat. Remove once cooked/warm.

5. Add peanut oil to skillet and heat. Add scallions and garlic, cook, stirring constantly for 30 sec. Add eggs and cook until eggs are almost set. Remove egg mixture to bowl.

6. Add noodles, soy sauce mixture and shrimp to skillet tossing constantly until noodles are coated with sauce. Add egg mixture and toss to coat.

7. Top with peanuts and cilantro and serve.

I was super psyched about this recipe solely because it meant that I could use our new giant stockpot with pasta drainer. I got the water boiling and added the drainer, only to discover that I hadn't added enough water to get the drainer even remotely wet. So then I left the drainer in the pot and filled the water up. Problem solved. Granted it took FOREVER to get the water to boil, but good things come to those who wait! And it was well worth the wait. This was super simple and AMAZING! Two thumbs up!!!

Recipes 3, 4 & 5 - Biscuits and Jams!

Finally a recipe I can master! I spent today making jam. Today I made both raspberry and strawberry jams. Yum!

Strawberry Jam (adapted from Everyday Food Magazine)

1/2 lb. strawberries

1/2 cup sugar

1 Tbsp. lemon juice

Cook all ingredients over high heat stirring until sugar dissolves and mixture boils. Reduce to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally until mixture is thick.

Raspberry Jam (adapted from Everyday Food Magazine)

1/2 lb. raspberries

1/2 cup sugar

1 Tbsp. lemon juice

Cook all ingredients over high heat stirring until sugar dissolves and mixture boils. Reduce to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally until mixture is thick.

Overall, this was a successful endeavor! Raspberry jam was a snap, everything happened as instructed. The strawberry, however, created more an issue. I had the foresight to slice the strawberries before adding them to the skillet, however that still wasn't enough to get them to dissolve fully into the jam. So, after about 30 minutes on the stovetop, I fished out the strawberry junks and pureed them. I then added the puree into the skillet on the stove and everything gelled together! We had both of these over homemade biscuits this morning for breakfast. Yum - a success!

Biscuits - http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/biscuits-recipe/index.html

I decided after the success of the jam, that we needed biscuits so that we could have something upon which to put the jam. We didn't have buttermilk at home, so I had to find a recipe that didn't call for buttermilk. Surprisingly, it was really quite challenging to find such a recipe! I followed Paula's recipe to a "t", however, I rolled them far to thin and cut them with a white wine glass (it was the only thing we had that was small and round). Since I rolled them so thin, I rubbed butter on the tops and stuck two together. This made them thick enough to bake, but also created a natural break upon which we could put jam. The recipe didn't really properly explain how to cook them, so I decided to bake them in the oven at 350. I cooked them for about 10 minutes and flipped them over, cooking for another 10 minutes until they were golden brown on each side. They looked great (the wine glass did the trick), prompting my husband to ask what brand they were. Granted he wasn't caffeinated yet, but still I took that as a positive sign! They were a wee bit floury tasting ...

Recipe 2 - Chipotle Mango Salsa

As a wedding gift, we received a chips and dip bowl from Crate and Barrel that had some AMAZING Crate and Barrel Chipotle Mango Salsa with it. I'm not normally one for mixing fruit with my food (nor vegetables with my desserts), but I have slowly but surely become obsessed with this stuff. Since I've turned over a new leaf as a pseudo-chef, what better way to test my newly developed skills than to make something as yummy as my latest obsession! I googled for recipes and came up with a few, but none seemed to really emulate the CB salsa, so I combined parts of each one to create my own knock-off salsa!

Chipotle Mango Salsa

Mix together the following then refrigerate for at least one hour before serving.

1 mango diced

2 tomatoes diced

3 cloves garlic minced or crushed

1/2 red onion finely diced

Juice of one lime

1 avocado diced

2 chipotle chilies minced (from a can of chipotle chilies in adobo sauce)

2 Tbsp. adobo sauce (from a can of chipotle chilies in adobo sauce)

1/2 bunch of cilantro roughly chopped

I'll admit I was feeling pretty ambitious what with creating my own recipe and all, but it's not like I have a successful track record of following recipes, so I figured what the hell, I can't make anything that's any worse than I would following a recipe. PLUS this featured no ingredients that could theoretically lead to food poisoning!

Overall, the attempt at cooking was successful. The only issue was the mango. How the hell do you tell if a mango is fresh at the grocery store? I bought the reddest squishiest mangoes at the store and still was able to dice up about a 1/4 of a mango's worth of edible fruit. Granted this was more successful than my last encounter with mango where I served completely unripened mango in my fruit salad (coupled with the fact I didn't realize mango skin isn't edible like apple skin). Yuck! I still gag just thinking about it.

For dinner the plan was to add some of the salsa to the top of a piece of grilled chicken. Little did I know that using the Weber grill would be so damn challenging! I googled how to use a chimney since my dear husband wasn't home to assist. It seemed simple enough ... I made the newspaper donut as suggested and lit the tower. The smoke that ensued was like what you'd create with dry ice for a second grade Halloween party. I smoked out the neighborhood. Eventually the charcoal began to glow and I prepared to dump it into the pit. I assumed that I could dump the chimney straight onto the grill that you put the meat on and that it would fall through. I assumed wrong. I then had to pick up the grill to dump the hot charcoals into the base, burning my wrist in the process. Disgusted I threw the chicken onto the grill and closed the lid. Twenty minutes later the coals were no longer hot and the chicken was still wrong. Weber grill - 1, Kate and the chicken - 0. For Round 2, I altered my approach, determined to win this battle. Rather than screw with putting the chimney on the grill, I removed the grill altogether and just plopped the chimney on the base of the Weber. That's where the coals are ultimately going to end up, so let's just eliminate the middle man all together! Then I dumped the remainder of the charcoal in the manageable and light bag that we had into the chimney. Unfortunately all that remained was charcoal-flavored dust which ended up in my eyes, mouth and all over my clothes upon dumping it onto the chimney. Weber grill - 2, Kate and the chicken - 0. Out of sheer necessity, I then lugged the 20 lb. bag of charcoal up from the basement, ripped it open and dumped it into the chimney. So far so good. Twenty minutes later I am still waiting for the flames to shoot out the top as the Google link suggested they would before the coals are ready to dump. Thus far, this has been an hour long endeavor. I now understand why beer is a necessity for barbecuing. I could have easily have thrown the damn chicken on the sidewalk in this 90 degree heat and it would be cooked and ready to eat. But alas that is neither here nor there. While waiting for the flames to shoot out I considered adding the following to the chimney - matches and rubbing alcohol. According to my calculations, both should add flames to the chimney, allowing me to begin actually cooking my food sometime this century. Given the fact that no one is home to put out the gigantic inferno that would no doubt ensue from these additions, I decide to keep waiting (and begin drinking). After a cumulative total of two hours spent trying to get the coals hot enough to actually cook my chicken, I gave up and brought the sad dry chicken breasts into the house and threw them on the skillet to cook. It wasn't raw, but it wasn't anything I'd want to chance, especially given a recent bout of food poisoning I had. Weber grill - 3, Kate and chicken - 0. In sum, grilling was an epic failure.

After a quick romp in the skillet, I added some chipotle mango salsa and queso fresca to the chicken. Yum! Two thumbs up!

Recipe 1 - Cake Balls

Well, here we go. Some friends gave me this recipe because it is "idiot proof" and "if you can make grilled cheese, you can make cake balls." So, here goes nothing!

Cake Balls

1 box cake mix (red velvet is recommended)

1 can frosting

1 1/2 lbs. almond bark

decorative sprinkles

Mix the cake mix as directed on the package and bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes in a well greased 9 x 13 pan. Cool completely. After it has cooled break the cake up into crumbs and small pieces in a large bowl. Then add the can of ready made frosting and mix very well with the cake. All the cake pieces should be moist with the frosting. Then roll into small balls about 1 inch in diameter and place on a wax paper lined cookie sheet and put in the refrigerator until well chilled. Melt the almond bark as directed on the package and dip each cake ball into the melted chocolate and coat completely and place on waxed paper to dry, apply the sprinkles while the chocolate is still wet. This makes between 50-60 cake balls.

I'm making these for my little brother's birthday (I mean what teenage boy wouldn't find the prospect of cake "balls" funny? Shoot, it makes me giggle and I am way out of my teens). I bought carrot cake and red velvet cake mixes at his request and cream cheese icing. My initial attempt at teaching myself to cook has already gone array. Not realizing that you need vegetable oil to make cake out of cake mix, I am already on trip two to the grocery store.

No problems with making the boxed cake mixes, nor with mixing in the pre-made icing. The problems came when I started trying to form the balls.

The carrot cake balls worked perfectly, the red velvet not so much.

The red velvet cake kept sticking to my hands and it was damn near impossible to make balls. Ultimately I lost patience and just plopped piles of red velvet stuff onto the cake pan with the hope that once they were chilled it would be easier to create ball shapes (I was right). So far so good.

And then came the melting of the chocolate. I bought white chocolate rather than almond bark because I couldn't figure out where almond bark was in the store. That was evidently my first mistake. Three pounds of scalded chocolate later, I finally figured out how to melt the chocolate. I added two tablespoons of crisco to two cups of chocolate and it finally got liquidy enough to dip the balls. Idiot proof my ass!

Still, they didn't look anything like I thought they would. They did taste good though, which I guess is all that matters.