Day 8

Chocolate Rum Torte

Hey everyone, so I was racking my brain all night trying to figure out what to cook, first plan was guacamole but my avocados are not ripe yet, next i was going to make one of my great grandmother's recipes, but lo and behold no nutmeg! So finally I was flipping through my betty crocker cookbook and my mom and I came across a recipe for a chocolate torte, but we decided to change it up...... I gathered all my recipes heavy whipping cream, brownie mix, instant hot cocoa mix, brown sugar, 2 eggs, some mini chocolate bars, chopped pecans, and placed a bowl in the freezer to chill. After everything was gathered I put water, brownie mix 2 eggs and chopped pecans in a bowl, then i chopped up a couple of mini hersheys bars and tossed them in as well

Once everything was in the bowl I stirred it all up til it was a nice and smooth creamy chocolatey mix, then I poured the mixture in a cake pan and placed in the oven for 20 mins to cook

While I waited for it to bake I went around and cleaned up my area, which is such a smart thing to do cause if you clean as you go then by the time you are done cooking you only have a little bit of cleaning left. so note: if you ever have done time be sure to clean up! Well once my area was clean I poured brown sugar into a measuring cup, now this brown sugar apparently had forgotten it was sugar and was in clumps, so to soften it a little I placed it in the microwave for about 40 secs, I then pounded it down so it was packed nice and tight. I then added the instant hot cocoa mix and a splash of water and stirred it up

Once that was ready I pulled the chilled bowl from the freezer and poured in my whipping cream, and began to whip it with a beater, now I dont know what I was thinking because the cream would not whip, so i pulled out my mixer and within seconds it was whipped (gotta love technology) once the cream was whip cream, I added the mixture and just for an added flavor a splash of vanilla rum, now why would I do that you ask? Well we all know that alcohol makes everything better hahahaha! once everything was all whipped up my "frosting" was a very pretty creamy brown color

I pulled my torte out of the oven and let it cool for a bit so the frosting would not melt the second I placed it on the torte, after it had cooled I spread the frosting all over the torte and then as my mom told me I swirled the frosting so as to give a pretty swirl design

After that was done I learned about one of my new favorite kitchen utensils a zester! If you do not have one of these you need to go buy one now! They are amazing I took one of my mini chocolate bars and put shavings on the cake and it looked great but then I learned that it keeps some of the shavings in it so you can sprinkle it where you want to! I know I am such a kitchen nerd so dont mind me drooling over kitchen appliances, but as you can see it made the chocolate shavings look great!

So the torte came out great, and tasted delicious first you would get a taste of the butter rum frosting, but then the pecans, then the chocolate it was just fantastic, here is the final display picture, unfortunately I realized I should have put chocolate swirl on the plate underneath too late. Well thats all I got for you today, hope you enjoyed it remember to Follow, comment, leave your advice, send your love etc.....

Day 7

Potato Pancakes (round 1)

Ok so to start I must say that making potato pancakes is not easy AT ALL!!! I dont know what the heck I was thinking making something that was completely past my skill level, I call this entry round 1 because even though I fell I failed, I will try again after I have gotten more cooking experience under my belt! It took me four hours to make these, though that was probably due to all my misfortunes. I started out by gathering all my ingredients

Once I had everything gathered I washed and peeled my potatoes, now I don't know about yall, but I always have this horrible fear while peeling vegetables, that I am going peel off a part of my finger or something so I always try to be as careful as possible when peeling once I peeled, my potatoes I placed them in a bowl of water, it was explained to me to do this so the potatoes don't "rust", so I then placed my potatoes in the processor and let it spit the potatoes into the bowl

or so I thought it would shoot some in the bowl and some would just drip out, but no big got a couple paper towels underneath and I was back in business! Once all my potatoes were in a bowl and to my horror turning a pinkish rusty color, I next needed to squeeze the water out of them, well I am thinking to myself this is potatoes strips now how much water could there possibly be, well see for yourself! Apparently potatoes are like freaking camels! Who knew!?

Yes that cloudy concoction to the right came out of my potatoes, that were squeezed by hand by me. Next it was time to cut up the onion, now I failed to mention this yesterday but onions can be very painful, remember when you watched the cartoons as a child and a character would be cutting an onion and crying? Well it doesnt work like that at all, dont get me wrong you cry, but its because your eyes are stinging and in horrible agonizing pain!!! The stronger the onion the worse! So just a note be very careful with onions! After a few needed tissues I placed the chopped onion in the food processor and put the cut onion in the bowl with the potatoes

once that was done I took one egg light beaten and added it to the mix

I then added my seasonings salt, pepper, flour, baking soda once i mixed it all together I placed everything in the blender to mix it up nice and smooth

ok so up until now I was doing pretty good, only one minor problem but I fixed that so I felt great, I thought to myself I got this! Little did I know it was all about to go down hill! So I pulled out my electric skillet and put some oil in and let it heat up and I was ready to start I laddled a scoop of batter into the skillet, the skillet with no non stick bottom, and everything started out great

how quikly I learned when making potato pancakes YOU MUST HAVE A NO STICK PAN, as soon as I tried to flip it the stupid thing fell apart!!! Are you kidding me!!!??? So I tried a new approach a no stick pot, I placed in the oil let it heat up, and placed the batter in within minutes it started cooking like it was supposed to, but then it was cooking to fast!!! I tried to flip it with my spatula but the walls were too high on the pot to get any leverage, so my poor pancake fried up and shriveled to a black burned crisp!

I had had it! I looked at my batter and it had actually turned a grayish black color, YUCK! I was just about to give up when I decided to try one more time this time with a pan, I placed the oil in the pan let it heat up and ladled some of my now "blackened" batter in the pan, it began to sizzle and cook after a few minutes I flipped it and it flipped with ease and to my surprise it had turned a beautiful golden brown color! I continued to ladle in batter and make 2 pancakes at a time

After four hours I was finally done cooking my potato pancakes, now as I said before I feel I could have done these much better and to let you know the final picture is very misleading, my pancakes are a completely different color but when I took the picture they look perfectly golden brown! As far as taste they were good, I just know I could do better and I will next time! well thats all for now, catch yall tomorrow same bat time same bat pl.... wait thats not my catch phrase! Oh ya I don't have a cute line to end my entries with, so until I get one thank you for reading and please be sure to follow me! and leave lots of comments so I know there are people actually reading this!

Day 6

Pepper steak and fried rice

so today's entry is extra special because in todays post I have taken photos to show you the progress of what I feel is my best meal yet! note I will probably say that a lot as I progress, thats kinda of the point of the blog, but

anyways on to the cooking! So tonight I decided to go a little asian with my cooking I started with making pepper steak and in a last minute twist turned my ordinary white rice, into homemade fried rice! ok so to start I chopped up my onions and bell peppers i then pulled out a electric skillet and placed my steak cubes on the skillet to let it brown

once the bottom of the meat browned i flipped it and lightly salted it and let the other side brown once the meat was fully brown i pushed it to the sid

e and poured in the bell peppers and the

onions, after stirring everything together I added a cup of beef broth, and then let everything simmer for 10 mins

after simmering for 1

0 mins I stirred in tomatoes and a mixture of water, beef broth and flower to give the broth in the pan already a gravy like consistency. It was great to see a whole dish made by me coming together. I felt so proud well after I added the tomatoes and the flour I let it simmer for 5 more mins while prepped the rice

once the rice was prepared I decided to continue my good cooking luck and looked through my cookbook for a recipe for fried ric

e....3 eggs, scallions, bell pepper, soy sauce, I had everything needed to make fried rice. So I poured a little oil in the frying pan then added the bell peppers, and scallions. Which immediately began to sizzle and oil was popping like crazy, after a couple of sharp pops from the oil I added the rice into the pan and added soy sauce an

d stirred it all up. It looked pretty good but I thought of all times I have been to any Japanese steakhouse and they always put some kind of seasoning so I added a little bit of onion powder and garlic powder and tasted it, the rice tasted amazing. I could not believe everything was coming out so well!!! Finally I added my whipped up egg to the rice and stirred it all together, I thought this was an odd way to do it, I always thought you scramble the eggs then chop it up and mix it all in together, but I followed the book and mixed it all together

to finish my dish I placed the rice in a bowl as a bed, and then topped with the pepper steak, and so after a long night of cooking my meal was complete! I thought it tu

rned out great and my dad said it was the best thing I have made so far! I cant wait to bring some to work so sarah can try it and tell me what she thinks! Well I leave you all now with the finished product, thanks for reading and always feel free to comment or leave any feedback!

Day 5

Turkey Salad

ok so here we are day 5, I went to my recipe book and using some left over turkey i mixed with chopped celery and put this in a bowl, next I pulled out some mayo, , salt, pepper, and the recipe called for onion salt and poultry seasoning. I went to my pantry and OH CRAP no onion salt, and no poultry seasoning......okay dont panic, time to improvise! I took onion powder and celery salt and mixed them together to make my onion salt, and it tasted pretty good. Now comes the fun part, I went online and found the instructions for poultry seasoning, which called for Sage, Thyme, Pepper, Marjoram, and a "dash" of cloves. For those of you out there like me who have no idea what the hell a dash is in cooking, according to the internet is a 1/2 teaspoon. So I mixed everything together and grinded it up, but I added just a little too much clove. After making my poultry seasoning and onion salt i mixed it into the mayo with some salt and pepper then poured it on top of the turkey and the celery. Now according to the recipe I was done,wiith the exception of chilling it for 4 hours, but I just looked at my odd concoction and just thought there is no way that is done so i tasted it. It tasted good but like it was missing something, so I chopped up apples and sprinkled in some cinammon which helped but it was still too bulky. So after a quck toss in the food processor my turkey salad finally looked like a turkey salad! After adding just a touch of honey and my turkey salad was ready for the fridge. Now tasting my creation before I refrigerated it tasted pretty good, but after being in the fridge for 4 hours it tasted amazing!

well that is all for this entry as usual if you have any comments, suggestions I appreciate them all!!

Day 4

Ham, Green Beans, Broccoli- 1/4/2010

okay so I swear this is the last thing I will make with ham for a while i am getting sick of it as well hahahaha. This ham however I fried in a frying pan, and I basted in a sauce that sounds odd, but I decided to make a special sauce. I combined horse-radish cream and honey, which made a really sweet sauce with just a slight kick of spicy. I painted on the sauce and then fried the ham in the pain, and it came out delicious! next I got fresh broccoli and green beans i then took some butter put it in a ramekin and sprinkled on garlic salt, garlic pepper and melted the butter in the microwave for about 1 min. I then painted the season butter onto my broccoli and green beans and then i steam cooked them. so overall I think this was my first fully successful meal! As usual any and all comments are welcome!

Day 3

Ham Soup 1/3/2010

so for day 3 I decided to take a slight detour from recipes and whip up something of my own, I took some of the ham I had cooked on day 1 and put it in a pot of boiling hot water, next I added some ramen noodles, celery, onions, and cilantro. Once everything had boiled together, then I decided to take my plunge into the new and exciting world of spices! I pulled rosemary, sage, thyme, cumin, garlic powder, paprika, and onion powder, I smelled and tasted each spice to see what flavors i liked and did not like. I figured the only way to really know was to add a bit of it to the soup then taste, as ridiculous as it sounds i started with a little sage, rosemary and thyme, mixed a bit in and decided it was pretty good, so then next i tried a little bit of paprika to give it a little spice which definitely did the trick. I then added a little bit of garlic powder, because i love the taste of garlic.... when the water started to go down, I mixed all my spices in a cup of water and then poured the water into the pot once everything had simmered and I stirred up all the ingredients, I had a pretty delicious soup. This lesson taught me to always take risks in the kitchen cause you never know how it will come out! well thats all for now as usual comments are always appreciated !

Day 2

Day 2 1/2/2010

Waffles:

ok so for my second day of cooking, decided to make Pecan Waffles, after searching my kitchen profusely for a waffle iron, I realized I did not have one, so I went out and got a waffle iron and all the ingredients to make waffles, I made my waffles with bisquick rather then making batter from scratch which I will attempt to do this weekend, So I brought home my new waffle iron and I read the instructions on how to set it up. It was all pretty straightforward but one point caught my eye, there was a line that said " your waffle iron may smoke or give a smoke smell the first couple of uses, also the first batch of waffles you will make will come ut burnt so you may want to throw them away. Really!? I cant believe they would actually put something like that in an instruction booklet! So I plugged in my waffle iron and heated it up and then went to prepare my waffle batter.I took my milk, bisquick mix, egg, and corn oil, and placed all my ingredients in the bowl. I then whipped them up. Once the iron was hot I sprinkled pecans all around the iron and closed the lid so that could heat up and turn a nice golden brown, once the pecans were ready I ladled on my waffle mix and put what I thought was the right amount. hahahaha little did I know it was not even close, so I closed the lid and turned the iron and let the waffles heat at 6 mins. When I opened the iron there was half a waffle on each side of the iron, apparently I was supposed to completely cover the grids which i did not do, so instead of ending up with 2 whole waffles I had 2 halves. I had just enough batter to make one more waffle, so i poured the remaining batter and this time I spread it evenly over the iron. Well the waffle came out perfect except for one strip! Are you kidding me!!!??? I could not believe my luck. After the cooking it was time for the tasting, overall the waffle was good especially when I added hot syrup, but they were missing flavor but what!? I could not decide at the time. Little did I know I would come up with what was missing the next day, when I attempted to make waffles again for breakfast I realized the perfect thing to add to the mix would be some vanilla extract! Which I will have to try this weekend, so please comment let me know what you think, and any thoughts or ideas you may have!

Day 1

Ok so since today is the 5th and I have been cooking since the 1st I will begin this as my first entry and progress through my days here is day 1.............

Day 1 1/1/2010

Ham and Macaroni

ok so to start off my new year of cooking I found a ham that we had sitting in the freezer and a fresh pineapple, I started by taking out a broiling pan and covering it in aluminum foil, which saved me a lot of cleaning time in the end! Next I preheated my oven to 325 degress then I put about 2 cups of water in the pan then took out the ham and placed it on its side in the pan, I then cored the pineapple under a container, so I could collect all the juices. After it was cored I cut the pineapple into rings and placed them all over the ham, at first I wondered how i would get them to stick but then realized just by placing them on the ham they stick on their own! After placing the pineapples on the ham I poured the pineapple juice into the bottom of the pan to mix with the water, when the oven is preheated place the pan in the oven, you will need to cook the ham for 25 mins per pound. So in my newness to the cooking world I did not baste my ham every 20 mins with the juices, I only did so a couple of times, for the 2 1/2 hours I cooked the ham. As a side dish I created Macaroni by velveeta, not hard and I had made it before but I could not serve the ham with nothing. Overall for my first try I think I did a pretty good job, only a couple spots of the ham were overcooked due to not basting enough.

....ok so there is my first entry done now just a few more to go to catch up, this one was pretty straight forward but I hope to progress my blog as I progress my cooking, soon I will start to post pictures of my dishes so you can see them for yourself! feel free to leave comments with your own recipes, or tips or even just to offer your words of encouragement, all comments are appreciated!!!