jarandhel

I love cooking, but my actual repertoire of meals that I know how to cook off the top of my head is actually fairly small.  To get around this, I have a bunch of cook books, and some favorite sites to search when I'm looking for particular recipes.  But sometimes I just need to know something very basic and I don't want to pour through them to find it.  Today's question was how to bake a potato in the oven.  I used to do this all the time as a kid.  I know I wrapped the potato in tin foil, stabbed it a bunch, and put it in the oven.  Don't remember at what temperature or for how long, though.  We switched to microwaves so long ago, it feels like.  But honestly I find microwaved baked potatoes much too bland.  So I found this site that covers it:

http://startcooking.com/blog/56/Oven-Baked-Potatoes

It also (interestingly) recommends not using the foil method that I grew up with.  Apparently you steam the potatoes that way, rather than actually baking them.  Who knew?

The lunch I made for myself today = WIN.  Warning: if, unlike me, you do not have a cast iron stomach you may want to use less spices than I did, because this stuff is thermonuclear hot.

Ingredients:
1 Large Potato
1 Small Onion
1 Large Chicken Breast (bonless, skinless) or 3 Small Chicken Breast Tenderloins (same)
Vegetable Oil (not olive oil, I think that'd ruin the taste) Enough to coat bottom of skillet in thick layer, though could use less if desired.
Water - Enough to completely cover everything in skillet.
2 heaping tablespoons finely ground korean red pepper from H-Mart
2 heaping tablespoons coarsely ground korean red pepper from H-Mart
1 tablespoon finely ground ginger
1 tablespoon garlic salt or garlic powder
(Tablespoon measurements on all spices other than the red pepper are approximate, as I didn't use a spoon to measure them.  Feel free to adjust proportions to taste.) 

Directions:
1. Chop up the potato, the onions, and the chicken breasts into pieces, each no bigger than the smallest joint of your pinky. 
2. Coat the bottom of the skillet with a thick layer of vegetable oil.  At the very least enough to coat all of the ingredients if you toss them in it.
3. Add the spices and toss the ingredients till they are thoroughly mixed.
4. Pour enough water into the skillet to completely cover all ingredients.  Toss again to mix the spices & oil with the water.
5. Cook uncovered on burner on high till 1/2 to 3/4 of the liquid has boiled off.  Stir frequently.
6. Serve.  Salt to taste.

It's kinda awesome... it's a little like Thai yellow curry, but way hotter.  Plus, no milk or coconut required.  Frozen vegetables, including soup vegetable mixes or stir fry mixes, can also be added to the recipe if you like.  Ultimate result is really tasty and quite cheap to make.

Btw, seriously, I'm not kidding about how spicy this is.  I REALLY don't recommend trying to make it spicier than I did.  And for gods sake, be careful about getting any near your eyes.

So, not long ago I posted about a new recipe of mine... steak and pinto bean masala casserole.

Last night, I tried a modification of this recipe.  Steak and black bean buffalo sauce casserole.  Pretty much exactly the same recipe except black beans instead of pinto and buffalo sauce instead of masala sauce.  Hooters wing sauce, to be specific.

It was, without a doubt, the absolute worst thing I have ever cooked that was still edible.

About halfway through cooking it I was already realizing it was failing badly, but it was too late to turn back... so I added cheese to the recipe to try to cut the buffalo sauce flavor.  This did not work.

Finally, today, while eating the leftovers (there was way too much food to waste, and it was still edible) I found a way to modify it to make it somewhat less tremendously disgusting.  I added garlic powder, cilantro, dill, and oregano along with some butter and lots of salt.  This is enough to make it somewhat palatable.  It is still not good, but it no longer is a struggle just to finish a bowl of it.  Or else possibly I'm just getting used to it, dunno.

But yeah... that is a massive experimental recipe fail.  Do not try this one for yourselves, folks.  Seriously.

Tonight I discovered the joy of steak & pinto bean tikka masala rice casserole.

It was unbelievably delicious.

Later tonight, I'm probably going to discover the karmic consequences, however. ;-)

( Click here for recipe )

Ahhh, so *that's* why more food this time. Gotcha. :)

Always listen to the universe. Except when it starts giggling, then run.

This only rated a chuckle. ;-)

There's something almost sacriligious about the idea of improving on certain recipes. Particularly old family recipes that have been handed down the generations. You know the ones, old favorites from when you were a child. Maybe things you only got to have once a year, around the holidays. For me, that was always my grandmother's Peanut Butter Christmas Cookies. They weren't anything special, really. Turns out she got the recipe off the back of a thing of Hershey's Kisses. It's the recipe for "Peanut Blossoms" on the back of every bag. I never knew that till I was an adult, or I would have been baking my little ass off let me tell you. I was addicted to those things. Still am.

So it is with great pride, and some sadness, that I must announce I have surpassed my grandmother's recipe. And this year my experimentation isn't just a minor cosmetic change like using rollos or white chocolate hershey's kisses as the topping. It's not even a small innovation like using a bit of honey as an added sweetener, or switching to organic ingredients where possible. I have fundamentally changed the nature of my grandmother's cookies: I made a batch using Whole Grain Oat Flour.

I gotta tell you, in my book the taste is out of this world. It's a richer flavor than the regular flour gives it, and it really compliments the peanut butter and chocolate nicely. Plus, certain people with Glutin Allergies *coughaekiycough* should hopefully be able to eat my cookies and not die. Sadly, I have not yet been able to locate shortening without soy lecithin, and I used a bit of soy milk in the recipe instead of regular milk, so they will still kill rialian. Sorry about that, Ri. Working on it. :) Does anyone know if lard is an acceptable substitute for shortening in baking recipes, and if so what proportions of it? Or otherwise know of a non-soy variant of shortening and where I would be able to get my hot little hands on some?

Next experiment: Corn Flour. I'm kinda afraid that batch is going to turn out disgusting, but my curiousity has gotten the best of me. 'sides, you never know unless you try. :) This is particularly true in cooking. :)

Spent last night at lyssabard and tlttlotd's halloween party. Much fun. :) Sadly, my preferred costume was far too hot to wear so I abandoned it and went as myself, as did the majority of attendees. Still, it was very fun, and an evening of pleasant conversation was had by all. We didn't even get around to breaking out the horror movies, but nobody really seemed to mind. :)

As the party was pot-luck, and I didn't remember that till the last minute, I whipped together one of the easiest dishes I know how to make that I had the ingredients for. It's kind of a casserole. The recipe was taught to me by an ex-girlfriend whom I no longer have any contact with, and I consider it to be one of the few positive things I got out of that relationship. All you need to make it is some rice, a can or two of creamed soup, some meat, and some cheese. Spices help make it edible, but are not strictly necessary. There are no real restrictions on what flavors of creamed soup, meat, or cheese you use. Tomato soup can also be substituted in certain variants of this recipe, but it tends to come out more like spanish rice than casserole if you do that. The variation I chose to make for the party was truly unique, and got this reaction from kyrin7: "Oooh, dead thing I haven't tried yet!" You see, I used ostrich as the meat.

Here's the full recipe, for anyone who wanted it:

Ingredients:
2 Cups Jasmine Rice, uncooked
Four cups water
One heaping tablespoon butter
1 small can (10 3/4 ounces) campbells condensed cream of broccoli soup
1 small can (10 3/4 ounces) campbells condensed cream of potato soup
8 ounces ground ostrich meat (available at Wholefoods)
Shredded Mozerella cheese (amount will vary to taste)

Spices that I used last night:
Salt
Pepper
Sumac
McCormick Hot Mexican Style Chili Powder (chili pepper, red pepper, oregano, cumin, salt, silicon dioxide, and garlic)
Best Chef Specialty Cajun Seasoning (salt, pepper, garlic, tri calcium phosphate)
Simply Organic Grilling Seasons Chicken Seasoning (organic garlic, sea salt, organic sage, organic onin, organic rosemary, organic thyme, organic oregano, organic marjoram, organic black pepper, organic fennel, organic coriander, organic peppermint, organic bayleaf)

1. Place water in large saucepan or pot. Place on high heat and bring to a boil.
2. Add rice and butter. Simmer for 20 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent rice from sticking, till rice is fluffy and water has been absorbed.
3. While rice is cooking, prepare the meat to taste. I chose to go the easy route and defrost it by microwave, slice it into bite-sized chunks, and then cook it the rest of the way by microwave. Cooking it in a skillet or by other means is also perfectly acceptable, but the meat must be fully cooked in this step.
4. Place rice in a large microwave-safe container. Stir meat and condensed soups into rice. Add spices to taste and stir till the mixture appears uniform. Microwave for between two and four minutes, to help heat the soup and make sure that the rice has remained warm while the meat is being prepared. Slight cooking at this stage also seems to help disperse the taste of the spices throughout the dish.
5. Take the cheese and stir it into the rice. The heat from the rice will melt the cheese, no further microwving is necessary for this stage. You may also optionally further top the dish with large slices of cheese and allow them to melt somewhat before serving... microwaving for a minute or so may be necessary for this. I did not choose to do this with the batch I made last night, as I know not everyone shares my love of cheese.

Feeds a lot of people apparently, since a lot of folks tried it last night and I've still got leftovers. Or it feeds two people if it's their sole meal for the day and they both have a heaping plate of it. Eating nothing but one heaping plate of this every day for two months will in fact keep you alive, but it will not be enough nourishment to necessarily keep you thinking straight. Trust me, I know this from experience.

YOU DIDN"T TELL ME THAT WHOLEFOODS SELLS *VENISON*! :) :) :)

I found something else neat I inherited from my grandmother while packing. Corningware... I guess they can be called pots and pans... they all have glass lids and are made out of some sort of ceramic, but on the bottom they say they can be used in both the microwave and on the range. I've never seen that combination before, usually it's microwave and oven. I've also never seen ceramic stuff for the range before. I kinda like that... might have to try them out sometime. I don't believe I've ever used them before. They're kinda small, though. The largest pot is one and a half pints, the smaller pot is one pint, and the pan is six and a half inches. Might be useful for some things, though. Little worried about how hot the handles might get, since they're all one piece, but I use pot holders anyway usually.

... there's no kind of health concerns related to ceramic cookware like with the teflon and aluminum stuff, are there?

Oooh, and I just found some sort of glass, Corning deep-dish thingy with glass lid that I THOUGHT was a cake-holder but whose bottom says it can be used in the microwave, in the oven, on a rangetop, and in a freezer! That doesn't sound like just a cake-tray to me! Even if I'm pretty sure that's all my grandmother ever used it for....

The little coincidences in life are quite amusing. In line with my current thoughts on diet, I was looking for an alternative to refined sugar in my diet. Honey is quite good, but is not suitable for every recipe IMO. I think I found a replacement, though, and in the process got something of a tacit endorsement for this line of thinking.

"Sugar in the Raw: Natural Cane Turbinado Sugar from Hawaii". Apparently our local Walmart sells it. (I learned this while doing an inventory there. We get an hour for lunch there, double what we get anywhere else, so I spent some time exploring what they sell in their grocery section after I finished eating.) The box also listed a website, http://www.sugarintheraw.com

Now, I know it's not too surprising that a sugarcane product would come from Hawaii, but the coincidence of it actually being on the label that way, given both my Huna studies and which individuals I tend to most associate with the idea of changing/improving my diet, gives it a rather interesting significance for me.

I'm also doing more reading on the subject of diet. Archiving links here, for those who are interested:

1. http://www.chekinstitute.com/articles.cfm?select=42
2. http://www.mercola.com/2005/feb/16/organic_food.htm
3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2814253.stm
4. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/568386.stm
5. http://www.newstarget.com/005547.html
6. http://www.annecollins.com/lactose-in-processed-foods.htm <- Lactose being in products specifically marketed as nondairy is of especial interest.
7. http://www.kidsregen.org/families/family.php?section=famFeature&status=1
8. http://www.newint.org/issue135/keynote.htm
9. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4185366
10. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/archives/vol21/vol21_iss17/record2117.22.html
11. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_7-3-2003_pg7_14

It also occurs to me that a move towards non-processed food (also commonly known as slow foods, or whole foods, and closely connected with the organic food movement) might be nicely complimented by the practice of growing one's food when possible. For this, I am reminded of some old research I did on the subject of sustainable development which led me to the practice of Square Foot Gardening. Reference links below:

1. http://www.squarefootgardening.com/
2. http://www.hdra.org.uk/organicgardening/gh_sqft.htm
3. http://www.squarefootgardening.org.uk/
4. http://www.annwn.com/garden/squarefoot.shtml
5. http://www.farmerbrown.org/sqft.html
6. http://www.mnsi.net/~jhlavac/gardening/squarefoot.htm

I may at some point adapt the concept of square foot gardening for a windowsill garden or something similar for a future apartment. It would have the benefits of providing food (I would grow fruits and vegetables primarily) at little cost, reducing our grocery bill, and also be rather enjoyable and attractive... plants of any sort tend to enliven a living area with their presence, energies, and aromas.