Enchiladas!!

Brooke and I had a dinner party. Actually, it started out as a "show Brooke Despicable Me" party, but we also wanted enchiladas, and then Chris, her co-worker, came along, and Mike, her other co-worker, met up with us for the movie, after dinner. But, we made enchiladas out of my new cookbook!! And they worked and, best of all, tasted good!!

We followed the recipe, so maybe this will teach me to follow recipes more....or maybe not. Actually, as we ate it, I thought "it's missing something, what could be put in it"...I think the answer now is the chiles. Brooke and I don't care for spice, so we left the chiles out. I think I'll try putting in a few next time =) and some salt and pepper...

Search for Sardines

So for a Halloween party I threw a few years ago, we played a game. Maybe you've played it...you roll a dice. Depending on the number you get, you have to eat something, even is good, odd is bad. Your time is added to your team's time and the point is to have the lowest time after the food has run out.

Anyway, one of the things we had were sardines. Now, you're probably thinking "Nasty! Sardines are gross!" Well, they aren't actually. They just smell nasty, and they're really salty, other than that, they're just little fish. So I told Morgan about this game, and she and I have decided to go on a quest. She has never had a sardine, so we decided to get some and try it. Brooke was not happy when we started it, so we're going to do it when she's not around now =).

Anyway, so we got these sardines, and we tried them...and they weren't sardines. Sardines have apparently gone "gourmet" or something, because these ones definitely were actual fish fillets. They fell apart when we tried eating them: we had to eat them with a fork. They tasted like salty tuna fish. So it has become our quest to find "actual" sardines.

Down the street, there is a little convenience store that has "Kipper Fillets" or something like that. So we got those and tried them next...no cigar. They still tasted like salty tuna...and I've decided that sardines in oil are not very good...

So that's where we are in our quest. I'll keep you posted on how it goes from here!

Pomogranates!!

Have you ever eaten pomegranate juice? It's great! But if you've ever had to open one....don't. Or use water. My roommate is from Las Vegas, and they have a pomegranate tree, so she brought 30 of the things home a month ago. Morgan and I have had fun with them.

One tip to open pomegranates: open them underwater. They squirt, but the seeds sink in water, so it's really easy to separate them from the pith.

So one night at like 10, I decided I wanted to juice several of them for use in a smoothie...bad idea. I spent two hours juicing three of them, and we still didn't have anything to strain them with, so...you can imagine what may or may not have happened. We ended up getting most of the juice out, but it took a long time. And then, when we were making the smoothie, I hit the bowl and it splattered all over the kitchen! We were cleaning up pomegranate juice from the blinds across the kitchen! Luckily, only Morgan's shoes and pants got his, and the Oxi-clean took it out. After that, we just blended a few more pomegranates up in the smoothie and called it good. It was tasty.

So lessons learned: get a juicer for pomegranate juice, or better yet, go out and buy a bottle of pomegranate juice! Don't put the juice in a bowl that tips over easily. Keep a bottle of Oxi-clean close at hand when using it. And think before you do anything in the kitchen (I still don't really do that...)

Join me next time for more adventures in the kitchen!

Gluten-Free Mayhem

Until this year, I did not realize that gluten was in so many things! It's in wheat, barley, rie, malt, and even some oats! On top of that, processed spices sometimes even have gluten in them! It's been interesting to work around such things.

One thing we tried was to make a homemade pumpkin pie...and I do mean HOMEMADE. I got a pumpkin at FHE. We were going to carve it, but didn't, so I decided to make it into a pie...if you've used actual pumpkins, you know how much pumpkin a pumpkin has in it...Morgan and I didn't. We ended up with over a gallon of pumpkin pie. Guess how much pumpkin a pie uses? Two cups!! So I took it to Kim's for Thanksgiving...but I still have a ton left. We used some in a smoothie, and that turned out pretty good....anyway...

So Morgan brought a gluten-free pie crust and we made a pie. Now, if you've cooked with pumpkin, you're probably thinking we're nuts...and we are. For those who haven't, carving pumpkins are alot wetter than pie pumpkins. So, we tried getting the juice out....but we gave up. We made the pie, and it turned out great...except that the water from the pumpkin seeped into the corn starch crust, so it was pretty much uncooked, but that's ok. It was yummy!

Other than that, we've just cooked with a lot of rice and vegetables (not a bad thing, we've gotten quite creative with flavors). I'll keep posting more gluten-free mayhem!

One-Pan Cooking

Morgan has gotten me into one-pan cooking. Basically, you throw stuff in a pan and cook it until it's done and then eat it. As long as your flavors mesh, it turns out great! Here's some of the things Morgan and I have done:

-Chicken, green beans, peppers, chicken broth, mushrooms, sesame oil, mustard seasoning
-Rice (fully cooked), chicken, peas, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, black beans, garlic seasoning

Introduction to College Cooking

Most college students live off Ramen and cereal. I have several traits that interfere with this:

1. I can't eat the same thing for more than three days in a row.
2. I have a hard time finishing a whole sandwich before my gag reflex kicks in.
3. I like cooking.

So, what did I do? I started experimenting. It helps that I found two friends who are ok being guinea pigs for my expiriments. Morgan also presents me with a new challenge: she has a gluten sensitivity. This is basically like celiac disease, only it affects her brain instead of her stomach. It has been fun changing recipes so she can eat them, and learning the ins and outs of gluten free foods!

On this blog, I'll post some of my experiments, and how they turned out...