gone fishing

When I was a much younger gal, my uncle taught me how to fish. He would place a juicy worm on a hook and I would hang over the edge of the boat waiting for a fish to take a nibble. When I caught a fish big enough to be eaten, my uncle decided to show me how to clean my fish and cook it up for a meal. Unfortunately, I was scarred by the cleaning process that my tiny, harmless fish endured and was then unable to eat my fish. Or any fish after that for quite some time.

Years later, I am a fan of most fish, including salmon. But until Saturday, I had never seen a fish this large be butchered before my very eyes. Say hello to my little friend.

Ladies and gentleman, I hope you're prepared for graphic fish slicing images. While I cringed and backed away during the demonstration, I'll admit that it was actually pretty cool to watch. Chef cut one up first for us to see and then a few of my fellow chef-mates were allowed to pick up the knives and butcher away. I picked up my camera and snapped away instead.

Yes, his head is about to be chopped off with a chef''s knife and soon he'll look like his friend in the pan. The most tedious part of slicing up a fish is deboning it. Exhibit A...

And now I must ask - who's excited that I have started bringing my camera to class with me?? Hey, it may look gross, but this was one good hunk of fish meat. After the fish were sliced up, we all practiced sautéing and grilling slabs of them. Delicious. I guess I've grown up a bit since my fishing days. But I still won't put my own worm on a hook.

We also made lasagna with our homemade pasta from last weekend. We rolled our pasta dough out through a pasta roller -fun! - and then added meat and onions to our tomato sauce that we also made last week. Then we began layering sauce, noodles and ricotta cheese over and over. Fresh mozzarella went on the top layer.

  
We all devoured the lasagna for lunch and were able to take leftovers home. In case you're still trying to get images of raw fish out of your head, here's another shot of the fresh lasagna.

Chef also showed us how to make fresh sausage and breaded veal cutlets. Tasty fact: sausage should be made with at least 30% fat (such as pork butt) or it won't be any good. Since I'd like my personal body weight to contain less fat than that, I'm currently reconsidering my next pizza topping order. Although you really can't beat a slice of fennel sausage pizza right out of a brick oven from one of my fave local pizza places...mmm. I'll take that over fish guts any day.

key lime me

What tastes almost as good as key lime pie, but is an excellent choice for comfort food and not nearly as fancy?

Key lime pound cake.

It's deliciously moist, heavy and not too sweet or too tart. And it's just the thing to help you pack on the pounds and provide comfort to your soul during this cold weather. I literally ate half of the thing today at work, so my pants will get the message soon.  

Scratch and sniff...

I promise it won't hurt your waistline. 

starch me up

Once you starch me up, I need a nap. Hence my excuse for being tardy on my blog post this week. We cooked up a variety of heavy, delicious starches on Saturday that were enjoyed by Greg and I all weekend long. 

My Saturday morning began by with making pasta dough for the dishes we'll be whipping up next weekend. We also made a tomato sauce and a Bolognese sauce to go along with our dough. Then it was time for our version of the San Francisco treat. We made rice pilaf, risotto, sushi and pad Thai. I also made some green lentils, which were not to my taste buds' liking, but Chef assured us they could be delicious if seasoned correctly. All starch dishes definitely need some sort of seasoning, but the flavor possibilities are endless.

Rice pilaf is fairly simple - the trick is all in keeping the lid on without peeking for 20 minutes. We all know how great I am at not opening the oven while baking, however, I managed to keep my hands of the rice lid and the result was fluffy rice pilaf. I enjoyed making the risotto more because you can continuously see how the rice is cooking up. You also have to stand there stirring in ladlefuls of chicken stock every few minutes, but it's a good arm work out. We added herbs and fresh parmesan cheese to our risotto. If you've never had risotto, it's like a creamy rice pudding and is known in the food world as "porridge of the gods." Here's a close up for all of you Goldilocks out there.

A sushi demo was up next. I can't take full credit for making the sushi since a giant rice cooker made the rice and Chef made the spicy tuna mixture, however, I did assemble the roll by myself.

  
And I brought it home to share. Greg managed to get a few pictures before we inhaled the whole thing. Here's a cool close up courtesy of my new blog photographer.

Last but not least was pad Thai. Greg and I took my parents to one of our favorite Thai restaurants the last time they were in Indy and I ordered the pad Thai. Pad Thai is a pretty Americanized dish, but it still has a lot of the Thai elements like fish oil and some weird fish paste that smells disgusting and made me question eating this dish ever again. Thankfully I forgot all about the fish guts a few minutes later when the wok worked its magic.

I mean really, how could you turn this down?

 Once you starch me up, I'll never stop.

will you be my valentine?

In honor of Valentine's Day yesterday, I'd like to share with you a little something that my Valentine whipped up in his kitchen last week. Check out these carrot raisin muffins.

What's that? You'd like to see a closer view? Wish granted...

They look delicious, right? Well folks, I'm not muffin expert by any means, but let me just tell you that looks can be deceiving. These "healthy muffins" had literally no butter, milk or white sugar involved. There was, however, old brown sugar involved that managed to stay in chunks after the mixing process. And every chunk was like a little ball of joy to my taste buds.

While these were not the best muffins I've ever tasted, no one can deny that the photos are quite good. Say hello to my new photographer. You've gotta love a guy for trying. And for bringing me these beautiful Valentine's Day flowers. Zeee!

how do you like your eggs?

You name it, I'll make it. After yesterday's class, I'm pretty much an egg expert. Or an "eggspert" if you will. Last week was hard boiled; this week was over easy, poached and omelettes. Oh, and we still did not have our knife skills practical, however, our egg practical was moved up a week. So we not only had to learn these egg styles in one day, we also had to produce said styles in the same afternoon. I almost had an eggs-istential crisis, but I survived. Unfortunately, several large boxes of eggs did not.

Ah, the egg. Such a little shell, so many possibilities. We'll start out on easy street. I'm sure most of you have made over easy eggs, and I'm also sure that each of you has a personal opinion on how cooked this type of egg should be. This is one of my favorite ways to eat eggs, although I like them VERY over easy and sort of ignore the over part. I like to break an egg in the pan, cover it for a few minutes so that the steam cooks the top of the egg somewhat (at least the white part) along with the bottom, and then dip slices of hot, buttered toast into the flowing yellow yolk. The runnier the better. Lucky for me, one of my Chef's cooks his over easy eggs this way too, so I was able to produce a beautiful over easy egg without having to actually flip it over. And this was an egg that could be served in a restaurant and not be sent back for more skillet time - like the ones I usually eat. 

Round two was poached eggs. My grandma makes a delicious poached egg, but I can't say that I've ever made one myself. The good news is that they are pretty darn easy to make. All you do is crack an egg into a pot of simmering water and vinegar mixture and let it poach away. The key is getting the correct ratio of water to vinegar so that the egg will hold it's shape while it's poaching. And once the egg starts rising to the top, you have to carefully remove it with a slotted spoon and not accidentally break the yolk. These are used to make the fancy breakfast half-sandwich known as eggs benedict. Well, call me Benedict Arnold because I poached the heck out of my test egg.

And the bell rings for round three. A three egg omelette is up next and I'm a little frightened. We made American omelettes, which are cooked completely on one side, flipped over when done, piled with ingredients and folded in half when slid onto the plate. Sounds easy, right? Definitely easier than the French three-fold variety, but the whole "flip the omelette in the pan without using a spatula" trick was a bit of a test in itself. I elicited a scream of joy when I managed to flip one over and keep the whole thing in the skillet. Normally I try to turn my omelette with a spatula a few times during cooking and they always end up brown or somehow turning into scrambled eggs. The keys to a good omelette are a well-sprayed pan, high heat and constantly moving the eggs around so all of the liquid gets cooked before you flip it and fill it. And they shouldn't have any brown on them. I'll be continuing to hone my omelette making skills, but the one I made in class earned me a perfect score.  

We made other breakfast items this week as well. Everyone did their part whipping up pancakes, French toast, bacon and sausage and then we had a delicious lunch-breakfast. A tasty tip for French toast: be sure to let your bread soak up the egg mixture well before frying them in the skillet. And topping them with sliced bananas cooked in maple syrup, brown sugar and rum will make your taste buds even happier.

We also made several large pots of chicken and veal stocks. After cooking the meat bones with vegetables and herbs all day, you're left with a pretty gross mixture, but it's worth it once it's drained. The fresh broth smelled way better than chicken broth from a can at the grocery store.

My heart is still in baking, but all in all, it was an egg-cellent day.

my spice girl moment

Snow, snow, go away; come back again on Christmas Day. Because of yet another blast of snow this Saturday, our lesson plan did not occur completely as scheduled. There was no knife practical on harmless spuds and no quiz over famous chefs, however, the handful of us who showed up for class and weathered the storm gained new knowledge of spices and herbs and learned several sandwich making skills.

Let's start with the smattering of spices and herbs that were placed before us for our thorough dissection. Over 30 spices and herbs were on display, both in natural form and seeped in hot water, and we were able to taste each one and write down our flavor diagnosis.

It was a bit overwhelming on my taste buds, but a very cool exercise. I came away from the science project with two favorite discoveries.

First: lemongrass

This has a very clean, fresh smell and the taste was just like a soothing tea. Citrus fruits smell delicious and I love the smell of freshly cut grass, so really what could be of more delight to my senses?

Second: pink peppercorns

Have you ever even heard of pink peppercorns? I hadn't, but it was one of four peppercorn varieties on the table and definitely a nice surprise to my eyes and taste buds. These peppercorns are a popping bright pink color and while the taste is pepper-based, there is a sweet kick to it. Chef said he has made an ice cream with pink peppercorns before and I would love to make something delish with them in the future. That was the best part about this exercise - learning that you can literally use any of these spices and herbs for savory or sweet treats. It's all about getting creative.

Our next task was making various sandwiches with all of the meat and cheese we sliced up in the morning. We also cooked a ton of bacon in the oven, which turned out crispy and delicious. And it was way easier than standing over a frying pan trying to dodge flying bacon grease before you've had your coffee in the morning. My group made the classic Reuben, complete with (almost) homemade sauce. We didn't make the mayonnaise from scratch, but the sauce turned out very good and the fresh corned beef, Swiss cheese and sauerkraut made my mouth water while we were assembling the sandwiches.

We also had club sandwiches, muffalettas and homemade egg salad. Yum, yum and yum. And the best part is that we got to eat them all for lunch. Plus we learned a cool trick for figuring out if eggs are completely hard boiled and ready to be peeled. Yes, of course I'm going to share it with you. Do you think I would keep this happy trick to myself?

How to know if your boiled eggs are fully cooked: Once you've boiled your eggs and think you're ready to remove the shells, take the eggs out one by one and spin them on the counter. If the egg stays in one place like a trained ballerina on pointe, then the yolk is set and the egg can be peeled. If the egg spins out of control all over the counter like a drunk person at a dance club, then it's not done and should be put back in the water. Remember your dancing etiquette and you'll just be fine. Also, if you roll the cooled eggs around on the counter to break up the shell, it should peel off in one fell swoop. Less white stuff under my fingernails AND on the ground outside? That's what I really, really want. Spoken like a true British spice girl.

ice ice baby

The ice storm of 2011 has resulted in two things: a new blog header and blueberry scones. :)