No Bake Peanut Butter Cookie

I'm going to a friend's holiday party and it is a cookie exchange party. So I have to make some cookies. I haven't done any desserts before, it's time I try.

I google and looked at recipes and decided that baking and dough handling is not what I want to do right now. I found a no bake cookie and it looks good. Here goes.

3 cups sugar
3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups peanut butter
4 1/2 cups quick-cooking oats



First, I boil the sugar, butter, and milk in a sauce pan. When I first put everything in the sauce pan, it didn't make sense to boil this solid mass of sugar, but it worked. Crazy. Boil it for a minute then take it off of the heat.

Mix in everything else and stir it until it become a uniform blob of brown.



Spoon little patches onto a big piece of wax paper to cool and set.



Once set, eat!



This turned out a lot better than expected considering how easy this is. It's a little too sweet for me, but I wouldn't know how to make just as much with less sugar. Would I use more milk? Either way, I'm happy.

-a

Chili with Poblanos and Pozole

This is my favorite chili from the Chopping Block class I took a couple weeks ago. This is a thicker chili that can be served in a tortilla or in a bowl.

2 Onions
3 garlic cloves
1 and a quarter pounds of tomatillos
2 and a half pounds of cubed pork shoulder
cumin
cilantro
3 poblano peppers
2 jalapeno peppers
a can of hominy
salt and pepper



First I put the quartered onions, the tomatillos (removed husks and rinsed), the jalapenos, and the poblanos in th broiler to char the outside a bit on all sides. I added the garlic cloves near the end because they burn easy.

I browned the pork in a big pot in two batches because there are so much. Then I set the pork aside.



I take the vegetables out of the broiler and put the onions, jalapenos, tomatillos, and garlic in a blender. Save the poblanos for later. Blend the vegetables into a puree.



In the big pot add cumin and the vegetable puree in the pot and add the meat back in.
I add just enough water so all the meat are touching the liquid. Add salt and pepper to season. Bring it to a boil and simmer for two hours.



While the chili is simmering, I peel the charred skin off of the poblanos and cut them into strips. Rough chop the cilantro and set everything aside.

After 2 hours of simmering, I added the poblano strips, cilantro, and hominy in the chili and turn the heat off. Stir everything up and let it sit for a few minutes.





I served it with tortillas and made tacos. It was delicious. My favorite chili from the class. Favorite chili I ever made.

-a

Chili Class

A couple weeks ago I took another class at the Chopping Block. We learned to make 3 different chilies and corn bread. Fun class. I got lazy about writing but I will be making my favorite of the three chilies today. Will post about this.

Recent failed experiment = Ginger candied carrots. Don't ask.

-a

Update

I haven't posted in a long time. This have just been a crazy-busy-fun-at-times-painful-at-times summer for me and I just haven't had the chance to really make anything new and interesting or have the motivation to write much. Cooking haven't been a high priority lately. Summer is almost over and I will cook more stuff for the blog in coming weeks and months.

I did make a few new things I didn't write about. I don't even remember how they were made, I just have some pictures. I'll post them here.

I made pork ribs one time. It was good.



I made some beef short rib. Marinaded it too long and it was too salty.




Split pea soup was a sucess. I will redo that one sometime.



Then, I went off the deep end with the bacon wrapped salmon (terrible).




I am looking to go a different direction with the cooking blog and have a more specific theme. I might concentrate on "cooking on a budget" recipes, maybe more seasonal recipes, more technique based blog entries instead of recipes, mix in some restaurants and product reviews, maybe more vegetarian dishes, or I might go nuts and turn this into a kitchen laboratory and make up crazy stuff like bacon wrapped salmon. You got to play to win right? Cooking is my toy anyway why not really have fun with it? Right now I don't know. I am planning on taking more classes to get more ideas.

-a

Shrimp Boil

It's been a while, I know.
Yesterday I made shrimp boil. I used a store bought premade spice pack to make this.

1 box of seafood boil spice pack
2 lbs of shrimps shell on
some salt
3 corn cobs
4 smoked sausages, I wanted to use andouille sausages, but I can't find them at the store
2 lemons



I fill my big dutch oven with water to about 2/3 full. Add the spices and some salt to taste. Bring the water to a boil.

Chop up the potatoes and corn. I cut them into big chunks. Add them to the boil. Return to a boil and let it sit for about 15 minutes.

Chop up the sausage into big chunks as well and add to the boil. Let that sit for about 10 minutes.

Add the shrimps and bury the shrimps to the bottom of the pot. Turn the heat off and let it sit for 5-7 minutes.



Then it is ready to be serve. I took all the food out of the water and into a big bowl and squeeze the juice of 2 lemons on everything.



This was pretty good. Lots of work to eat. I think if I had shrimps with head on it would be better. Next time I think I will try crawfish and or crabs.

-a

Saffron Rice with Shrimp

It's been a while since the last entry. I've been busy with work and other stresses. Been cooking old stuff and haven't done any new recipes in a while.

This new one I found in a free little recipe book in a rice cooker that my mom gave me. The dish sounds very easy to make, so I changed the vegetables up a bit and added shrimp because I like shrimps. The shrimps and rice are made separately.

First for the shrimps.

1 lb of shrimps shell on
garlic powder
red curry powder
olive oil
red pepper powder
salt and pepper

I throw everything listed above in a ziplock bag and let in marinade for about an hour.

Next is the rice.

2 cups of white rice
a box of chicken broth, about 30 oz.
5 stems of asparagus
2 stems of green onion
2 cloves of garlic, minced
3 serrano peppers
a tiny tiny bit of saffron maybe a tenth of an oz.
salt and pepper to season.
some cilantro for later.


The ziplock bag in the picture is the shrimp marinading.

The saffron is expensive. I bought a half oz package of it for 27 bucks. Whatever it is, it better good.

I chop up all the vegetables small and all the rice ingredients except for the cilantro into the rice cooker and cook.

I pan fried the shrimps and it smelled delicious.



The rice was not ready but I cannot wait so I ate a couple of the shrimps.

Once the rice cooker is done, let it rest for about 15 minutes. This is suppose to let the moisture get absorb back into the rice.

Now it is ready to plate.



This is very good. The shrimp was perfect. The rice taste great, maybe a bit too wet, but not bad. I still can't identify the taste of the saffron, but if it is the general goodness of the rice, then it was worth it. At 27 bucks a half oz, this is like the most expensive spice in my cabinet.

The rice cooker is great. At first I thought I used too much broth, but the rice cooker just cook the broth away without burning the rice. What's left is a very flavorful rice.

-a

Pizza Potpie

I saw this one on the food network. Some restaurant around here does this. It looked fun to make. It is a pizza that is cooked upside down in a bowl.

Pizza dough
slices of mozzarella cheese
pasta sauce (I choose one that has sausage in it)
mushrooms
pepperoni
Basil leafs



First I prepare the bowl by spraying some cooking spray on the inside.

Then I stack the cheese on the bottom of the bowl. On the cheese I added a layer of pepperoni, then 4 or 5 whole mushrooms, more pepperoni then I pour on the sauce. I sprinkled some Parmesan cheese.



This next part, I have no idea what I am doing. I have to make a pizza crust with this pre-made pizza dough. I rip a small chunk of dough and started making a ball. Then I flatten it and try to stretch out the dough as evenly as I can. I used some flour to make it more workable. The crusts I made was very ugly, but it's ok. I am only using them as lids to the bowls.



Bake the bowl at 435 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Pull the bowls out and let it cool for about 10 minutes.



Serve it by putting the bowl upside down on a plate and dump the pizza on the plate.
Easier said then done. I either didn't use enough flour or I didn't grease the edge of the bowls. One of the two crust got stuck. I had to cut it out of the bowl and it didn't look any good. Luckily the other bowl came off easy.



The pizza tasted like a pizza, nothing impressive. I didn't cook this for taste but just thought it would be fun to make pizza this way. In Chicago here I can order a pizza a hundred times better for less than I spend on making this.

There is one big problem with this, the sauce inside got watery and it was more like a tomato soup on a thin crust than anything. So it got messy.

I have to make the sauce thicker. Since it is cooked covered, the sauce didn't have a chance to dry. I would have to use tomato paste instead maybe? Maybe add corn starch? This just didn't turn out that good. Not worth the effort. Maybe I should go to this restaurant to try it.

-a