Spring and Ressurection

So, it has come to this.

No, really though, it's been almost a year since my last post.

I've been wanting to get back on this horse for a while, but depression is a funny thing. It doesn't like letting you do things that might make you happy.

A lot has happened, or if you look at it from another direction, not much has happened. Or, a lot happened very quickly over a short amount of time, and then not much happened over the longer amount of time that followed...

I know what will help, BULLET POINTS!

• Jay breaks up with me
• I have to drop out of culinary school after only 6 weeks
• My brother in law flies to Chicago and helps drive me back to California (we left July 4th, and arrived July 5th. Take that people who can't drive across country in under 48 hours!)
• I move into my sisters house
• I am jobless once again for about 3 months
• I get a new job
• ....

And that's about it.

Other stuff has happened of course; I kinda tried dating someone for a couple months around November/December, it didn't stick. My laptop broke in March and my new one wont arrive until next week.

Basically, my life has backtracked to about how it was when I first moved to California five years ago and it's depressing as hell.

I am so thankful for my sister and brother in law opening their home to me again and being so wonderful about having me around, but not having my own space is driving me slightly insane.

It's like I haven't been able to take a complete breath for the last year, I have this constant level of anxiety that wont go away, and even though I'm a positive happy person, there will be these nights where I just can't stop crying.

My sister brought up the idea that I might be able to buy a condo or single family home, and I'm very excited by the possibility. I'm trying to stay grounded about it all, and who knows whats going to happen when I talk to the financing person next week, but having a place of my own again... Words can not describe how relieving that would be. I know it would be financially difficult on me, and If it happened I would need to cut back on frivolous things like food and entertainment, but not being able to go to the movies would be totally okay if I had my own kitchen, or a coat closet. I would happily stay home missing out on things, to be in my own place that I could clean on my own schedule and arrange things how I want and.... Okay. I need to calm down.

Again, who knows what will happen, but I can tell you that I want it to happen very badly.

There's a big birthday party this weekend. It's my 24th birthday and my friends are also growing older. I'm kind of iffy on the whole thing at this point, but I think that's more form the crushing depression then actually thinking it won't be fun...

I started writing today because I had the sudden urge to talk about ruffled potato chips and cottage cheese, but that ain't happening now. Hopefully I'll write more later...

xo

Random Food Porn

Potato Leek Soup pt 1

Potato Leek Soup pt 2

Potato Leek Soup pt 3

Potato Leek Soup fin

Boil and Bubble!

Roasting a Red Pepper

Stuffed Chicken

Tuna Steaks!

Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies

Corn Muffins

Mmmmm

Puppy wans some pasta...

Chocolate Mousse Cake with Fresh Whipped Cream and Rasberries

 Chocolate Mousse Cake

We were invited to a dinner party by a colleague of Jay's brother. I was volunteered to make dessert so I wanted to make something different that would be universally delicious. Seriously, who doesn't like chocolate? 

No one. Thats who. 

I used a recipe from the Pampered Chef recipe card collection I've had forever. I enjoyed the cake, but I'm not a fan of nuts so I think next time I would want to do a graham cracker crust, or something similar. 

For the whipped cream I used Splenda as my sweetener and added a teaspoon of Cream of Tarter to ensure it stayed stiff for the trip to the house and through dinner. And it did, it even stayed stiff on the leftovers for the next couple of days. 

Click for full size

Nut chopping...

Pressed into a springform pan

Mmmm. Chocolate and cream...

Eggs and vanilla

Froth froth froth

Gentle folding...

Pour and smooth out the top

Baked perfectly and resting

Out of the springform

Fresh whipped cream and juicy raspberries

"Jewish" Onion Rolls

 Jewish Onion Rolls

These were a lot of fun to make. Seriously messy though. I'll tell you now, this dough is way sticky. I just used plenty of flour while rolling out and it was all good. The recipe I used called for poppy seeds, which I didn't have and I'm fine with because these were delicious anyway. I also ran out of onions for my last half dozen and just sprinkled some garlic powder instead. What I learned is that this dough is pretty versatile and you could make just about any kind of rolls you wanted. 

DOUGH

- 2 packages Active Dry Yeast (or 2 1/2 T)

- 1t Sugar

- 1/2C Warm-Hot Water

- 1/2C solid Vegetable Shortening

- 2t Salt

- 3/4C Sugar

- 1/2 C Margarine or Butter

- 1C Boiling Water

- 3 Large Eggs (Beaten)

- 7 1/2C All-Purpose Flour

- 1C Cold Water

AFTER RISING

- 1 Medium Onion (Diced)

- Kosher Salt (for sprinkling)

- Poppyseeds (for sprinkling)

- 2-3T Margarine or Butter (Melted)

1. Combine yeast, sugar and warm water in a small bowl and let rest for about 5 minutes until it foams. (Trust me, you'll know when)

2. In a large mixing bowl or you can use a stand mixer, blend shortening, margarine, salt, and sugar. Pour in the boiling water and mix until combined and cooled significantly. If you're like me and didn't use boiling water because you thought hot water out of the tap would be good enough, let me welcome you to the "You Were Wrong" Club. I just threw my mixing bowl onto a double broiler until the ingredients came together.

3. In a separate bowl beat the eggs well and combine cold water and fold in the yeast mixture. Alternately add this egg mixture and your flour (I suggest in 1 cup increments) to the now cooled shortening mixture. This will turn into a very sticky dough. Leave the dough in that mixing bowl, cover with plastic wrap (I suggest lightly greased) and leave in your fridge for at least 5 hours. 

4. Once your dough has risen and is out of your fridge. Chop your onions and zap them in the microwave for a couple minutes until they are limp. Drain and cool while you prepare your dough. 

5. Punch down the dough and divide into 6 equal parts. You will want to oil your hands for this. Keep your dough pieces on a floured surface and covered with plastic wrap and a towel. 

6. On another floured surface roll out your dough to a 15" x 7" rectangular like shape. Exact dimensions are not important, but your dough should be pretty thin. 

7. Brush your dough with melted margarine, sprinkle with 1/6th of your onions, about 1/2t of salt and maybe 1/4 t of poppyseeds. Whatever you feel comfortable with. I used lots of salt. :)

8. Lengthwise, roll your dough up until you have a snake-like shape. Cut that snake into roughly 1 1/2" - 2" segments. Place those pieces seam side down on either a baking tray lined with parchment paper, or into greased muffin tins. Cover with greased plastic wrap and let them rise until doubled. I kept mine in the oven with the oven light on. Repeat with the remaining dough. 

9. Once your dough has risen, heat oven to 350 degrees. Brush rolls with 1 egg beaten with 1T of water and then sprinkle with a little salt and poppyseed. Bake for about 15 minutes or until nice and golden on top. 

Be sure to cool completely before freezing. 

My yeast and warm water. It got very foamy.

Margarine+Shortening+Salt+Sugar+Boiling Water

Eggs and cold water with yeast mixture folded in.

7 1/2 cups of flour. I ran out of All Purpose so I used Bread Flour for my last 2 1/2 cups.

Mix the flour and egg-yeast liquids alternately into the shortening mixture. 

Store dough in fridge covered with plastic wrap for 5 hours or overnight. (I stored mine overnight)

Look how pretty is puffed up!

Zap Onions in microwave for a minute or two until they're soft and slightly translucent .

Drain and pat dry. I just spread mine out onto a few layers of paper towel and then returned them to the bowl until they were needed. 

Punch down your dough and divide into 6 equal pieces and store them under a sheet of plastic wrap (on top of a floured surface). I put a towel on top of mine as well.

Take of of your lumps and put it on top of another (heavily) floured surface and sprinkle more flour on top.  

Roll out your dough, sprinkling with flour as needed, until it's roughly 12" by 7" ish. 

Brush the surface area with melted margarine, sprinkle with 1/6th of your onions, kosher salt, and poppy seeds if you have them.

Roll up your dough lengthwise and then cut the roll into sections about 1 1/2" to 2" long. 

Do that to each of your lumps and then place the sections either on a wax papered  baking tray 2" apart, or into greased muffin tins. I did both... For science. (really only because I only had two muffin tins) Truth be told I liked the ones on the trays better.  Cover them with greased plastic wrap and let rest until doubled in size. 

Some of mine puffed really well and some of them didn't. Remove plastic wrap and  brush with your egg-water mixture and sprinkle with more salt (and poppyseeds) and place in a 350 degree oven for 12-15 minutes.

Out of the oven, out of their trays and resting on racks! These were the ones from the muffin tins, I didn't like how the cooked unevenly on the outside and looks like vanilla cupcakes. 

I had to break one open right away. It was so so delicious. Flaky, warm, salty. Everything a roll should be. 

These were some that I baked on the tray. More nature shape, and they had this delightful golden color all over. 

I would (will) definitely make these again. They freeze great as well so don't panic that this recipe makes about 40! I just placed them in freezer ziplock baggies, sucked the air out and threw 'em in the freezer. We ate so many right away that I had to pull a bag out already and they thawed wonderfully!

Szechwan Shrimp & Vegetable Stir Fry

I'm loving the time I've been spending in the kitchen lately. If I had one complaint it would be that we don't have a dish washer... And I use a lot of dishes. *sigh* Oh well. Wont stop me from making magic. Tonight I started a Jewish Onion Roll dough which is resting in the fridge and I'll finish up tomorrow and I also made a Szechwan Shrimp Fry with Steamed White Rice for dinner. I have to tell you. This was so so so so good. I will totally be making this again. I kept the heat level pretty low (since I'm such a wimp) but it had small zing still, you could totally turn it up a notch with out much difficulty. 

I made the sauce first and let it sit the fridge for a few hours while I waited for Jay to get home. It's super simple and you could make a larger portion and keep it in a container in your fridge for spontaneous stir fry. 

Combine:

4T Water

2T Ketchup

1 1/2T Soy Sauce (you can add more to taste if you like)

2t Cornstarch

1t Honey

1/2t Crushed Red Pepper

1/4t Ground Ginger

Whisk until the cornstarch is completely incorporated and set aside until you're ready to add to your fry.

You can add any vegetable you like but I did about half a cup of snap peas, half a cup of sliced carrots and celery and about half a cup of thinly sliced halved onions. For me this combination of veggies was perfect. 

 Of course, I there's also got to be garlic! I minced 4 fat cloves.

 I took de-veined frozen shrimp and thawed them under some running water and took off the tails and the shells.

 Once I had everything prepared I heated about 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil in a large non-stick pan (feel free to wok it though) and added my carrot/celery mix first so they could have a little more time to cook. On top of that I added the garlic.

 After a few minutes I added the onion then a minute later I added the snap peas and then a minute later I added the shrimp. I tossed it all around a bit and let the shrimp get coated in the oil and just a tiny bit pink before added the sauce. I kept tossing gently every minute or so until the sauce had thickened and the shrimp were done.

 I spooned some hot white rice into my bowl and added my mix on top of that.

Again, I can not tell you enough how delicious I thought this was. I hoovered it as soon as I could, and I was disappointed there weren't seconds. If I were going to change one thing the next time I make this dish it would be I would make more!

Okay, time to go wash more dishes... See you tomorrow with Onion Rolls and Chocolate Mousse Cake. :)