Tag: cooking mishaps

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo, Uncategorized

Mini Octoberfest and Buttery Turnips

heather

I recently ran across a recipe on www.marksdailyapple.com that, as a spawn of Hagemans and Zimmermans, piqued my curiosity – Sauerbraten:  A Classic German Pot Roast.  I had never heard of this, but it sounded interesting, and it provided an excellent excuse to have people over, as I am wont to do.  So I bought a huge beef roast, plunked it into a funky marinade, and sent out the invites to friends for a Mini Octoberfest/Beer Swap.

I learned a few things during the experience.  People are busy.  It’s hard to find an evening where the majority of my 20 or so acquaintances can all gather at the same time.  We ended up with a showing of about 9 folks, who contributed beer, Black Forest cake, coconut bars, potato salad, and cucumber and onion salad to the festivities.  It was a fun evening.  The sauerbraten turned out okay, I think.  Not ever having it before, I did not know how it was supposed to taste.  It was very…tangy.  The sauce when I first made it was absolutely TOO tangy, so I added a tablespoon of coconut sugar and 2 tablespoons of full-fat Greek yogurt.  That thickened and sweetened it up.  Tim was not a fan, but everyone less liked it, or at least SAID they liked it!

We ate supper, dessert, and then sat by the fire and enjoyed the late summer evening. We were in our PJs by 8:30, which is a perfect time to end a party, in my opinion.  :).

Would I make the sauerbraten again?  I don’t think so.  It was an interesting experiment for a party, but it’s too much work and expense for what it is – a sour tasting pot roast! Plus I burned my hand on the dutch oven lid, so I’m a little pissed at the roast.  Actually, overall it was a dangerous cooking weekend for me.  Saturday morning I was attempting to shake hot sauce on my awesome breakfast when my sensation-less fingertips lost their grip, sending the class bottle into a collision with the Corelle plate.  The plate ‘sploded.  All over the table, floor, and my legs.  I have Corelle shrapnel in my legs now.  It was very traumatic.

I recently read an article by Mark Sisson about the importance of socializing with people you really care about.  While hosting gatherings is a royal pain in the ass, with all the cleaning and prep and frustrations of dealing with peoples’ schedules, I’m glad we did it.  It’s good to be with people.  We all need our tribes!

I tried one other new recipe this week: Turnip and Bison Scramble.  I didn’t have any bison, but I did have pig, so we ate this with ground pork.  It smelled a little weird when it was cooking, but it tasted delicious garnished with some avocado, hot sauce, and green onions.  Of course, anything cooked in 2 T of butter would probably be delicious!

So we started off the weekend right – with a party and tasty food, and we ended it well – by taking a 20 mile bike ride, drinking delicious pale ale from Bent River, and sitting outside for 2 hours reading and soaking in the vitamin D.  We have a big event this week at work, so I’m going to be trapped inside for the next SIX days.  I had to get a lot of outside time in this weekend.

Hope you had a great weekend!

Cooking/Recipes

One Success, One Failure

heather

Last night I made a super delicious recipe: Easy Breakfast Scramble.  It’s from one of my favorite recipe/paleo blogs, Paleomg.  Get it??  Get it??  Anyway, the writer makes the most delicious foods and tons of paleo desserts.  Every one I’ve tried has been very tasty.

But back to the scramble. As you can see from the recipe, it’s very simple and basic.  The only odd ingredient (at least for my kitchen) was the Herbs De Provence.  I had never heard of it. I was wary that it was similar to the “peace and love” that I was missing for my last recipe.  Come to find out, Herbs De Provence is a mix of several different herbs native to Provence.  I found some substitution sites, however, so I ended up tossing together some marjoram, basil, rosemary, thyme, sage, etc.  It was quite the motley crew of spices, but the scramble turned out very tasty non-the-less.  I ate it with some Cholula and 1/2 an avocado.  It did make a ton, though, so my only concern at this point is eating it all before it gets old.

Tonight was another story.  I tried another primal recipe, Flank Steak Italiano.  This recipe was a huge disappointment. The meat turned out almost inedible – very tough and chewy.  I’m not sure why besides the fact that it’s a grass-fed flank steak, so it’s predisposed to be tough and chewy.  It was an expensive mistake though – what with the cost of the grass fed meat, the wine, 2 onions, garlic, lemon, etc.  Plus I had to prepare the marinade before work, stink up the kitchen with cut-up red onions, etc.  I probably did something wrong for it to end up so poorly, but I don’t know what.  At least the accompanying salad was good (spinach, radishes, carrots, celery, mushrooms, broccoli, cucumbers – tasty!).

But, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?  As I told Tim, only rib-eyes for us going forward.  I’ve been burned by flank steak one too many times.

UPDATE:  I was thinking about this more last night and realized that part of my problem with the flank steak was that the marinade had wine in it.  After the meat is done marinating, you dump the marinade in a pan and heat it up.  I HATE the smell of wine cooking.  It has this unsettling sweet smell.  Shudder.  Note to self – no more cooking with wine!

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness

Primal Day 18

heather

I tried a new recipe today, Sesame Chicken and Rice.  It is a primal recipe, so of course, it wasn’t made out of real rice.  It was made out of cauliflower rice, which is basically ground up cauliflower cooked with chicken broth, onions, and garlic.

It was a very complicated recipe – one that caused me to use the majority of dishes in our kitchen – even all of the ice cube trays.  First you have to stuff a chicken full of seasonings, then boil it for 1/2 an hour, than plunge it into a cold water bath, then rub it down with sesame oil, then let it cool, then chop it up into pieces.  I ended up pulling off the skin because it looked gross, so it seemed pointless to have rubbed it all over with expensive sesame oil.

Between these steps you have to mix up 7 or so ingredients to make a “fiery ginger sauce.” You also need to chop up ingredients for and cook the cauliflower rice.

The recipe was a lot of work, and while the chicken tasted ok, and I liked the ginger sauce, the tastiness of these items did not equal the amount of work that went into creating them.

The cauliflower rice gave me fits, too.  I couldn’t get all the liquid to cook off, so it was pretty runny.  Even being runny, at first it tasted really good, but the more I ate it, the more it grossed me out.  This is the second time I’ve cooked cauliflower in the guise of something else.  I’ve also made cauliflower “mashed potatoes.”  Those, too, at first tasted delicious, but the more I ate them, the less I liked them.  I am crossing cauliflower cooked as other foods off my list.

So, this is the second recipe I’ve tried and tossed.  But, at least we are trying new things and experimenting.  Most of the meal will be edible tomorrow too.  I can put the chicken on a salad and use the ginger sauce as salad dressing – add some avocado, and it will be delicious.  I also saved the chicken broth, so we’ll probably make a nice primal soup with it – add some carrots, celery, onions, and cabbage.