Baking help, but not for me.

So my roommate, who is pretty much domestically retarded, (she's my best friend, I'm allowed to say this)...tried baking a pecan pie for her boyfriend for V day. I wasn't home (thank goodness) when she did this, because I would have surely been on top of her, giving her more advice than she can handle, and then ultimately taking over the job out of frustration (she was adamant about avoiding this...she wanted to do it herself).

I get the call this morning about the result. Apparently, even hours after coming out of the oven, it was still fairly mushy. This may have been because the recipe called for 3 eggs and she dropped one, so she only used 2 (they were jumbo)...but also because it was still warm? How long should a pecan pie sit before it gets to the appropriate consistency? They put it into the refrigerator and apparently it was hard this morning...I don't think they've eaten it.

Also, the bottom crust seemed to have disintegrated. She used a shortbread crust. I thought at first that maybe it couldn't handle the oven for an hour, but after looking through other recipes, I don't think this is the case.

Can anyone solve the mystery?

Pumpkin Cake Recipe

A family recipe, at least as old as I am.

Mix:
4 eggs
2 c pumpkin
2 c sugar
1 c butter

Sift:
3 c flour
2 t baking powder
2 t baking soda
3 t cinnamon
1/2 t salt
--dash of: nutmeg, ginger, cloves

*Add sifted ingredients gradually to pumpkin mix.

Fold in:
1 c diced walnuts
1/2 c sliced marachino cherries
1 c chopped dates

*Bake at 350 for about an hour.

NOTE: Sorry it's not more specific. The way things work in my family, it's amazing I could get even this much detail in a recipe from them. Because my baking supplies are limited at home, I think I usually put half this mix in a loaf pan and filled a muffin tin as much as possible with the rest. So I estimate you could get 12 large muffins or 2 loaf pans out of this recipe. If anyone makes it, let me know how it goes!

The title is one of the most difficult parts of this blog....

I think the most useful game we played over the past four week-ends was the soup game. We did not have any recipes just a flavor profile. And that was just the first step. The second step was to combine the groups flavor profile and make another soup. This is perfect way to make a ‘soup of the day’ at a restaurant, or when you are at home and do not know what to make and have no desire to leave your apartment. This game also helps you get rid of the fear factor with pairing ingredients together.

I enjoyed the wine game, but not so much as a learning experience but more as a fun game. It was interesting to see what people created not knowing what they were cooking with.

The game we played this past Saturday was the most difficult because it gave the players the least amount of control over what they could make. Even the cooking methods were dictated to the group. For a real life application, I am not sure how helpful this would be. Many of the ingredients were rather esoteric and not being able to decide your cooking method or product would not really happen unless there was a black out or you were maybe…. Camping? As far as learning creativity this game was definitely the most difficult. Knowledge of grammar was also needed for this game.

random, virtually useless information

Comparing toilet water with ice at fast food restaurants:

http://www.tampabays10.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=25442



A little tidbit on aphrodisiac's I got in an email from dailytip@idealbite.com:

"Whale vomit, which once cost twice as much as gold, was believed by Arabs to be an intense aphrodisiac. It has been scientifically proven… for male rats, that is. "

Greek Pentagon and a proverb

A friend of mine just sent me this photo. I thought it was in tune with today's "cooking something unfamiliar" class, in addition to just being cool looking.

Also, a proverb I came across recently that I thought relevant to what we do in Culinary Improvisation: “Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand.”

Butter and more....

This past Saturday class was a very stressful class for me. I hate making presentations and speaking in front of a group. I also had a lot of competition. The two other presentations were really great. Sarah! Your soup was great, the flavor was wonderful and the rib meat nice and tender. I am sorry though; I could not bring myself to eat the tripe. I have had it before and there is nothing about it that I like. And Catherine your curries were quite good; especially the chunkier one. I went through a vegetarian stage many years ago and played around with a few different types of curries and Indian style vegetable mixtures. Your presentation made me miss cooking with those flavors.

The cooking games we played in class were very thought provoking. We had to cook with a mystery beverage. My group worked with a port. As Marcus mentioned in his blog the food we made was great. The ingredients we had to work with helped. The chops were great quality meat, the herbs fresh, and the mushrooms beautiful. Since I stopped working in kitchens I almost never get to cook such incredible choices of foods. We fashioned an almost classic dish, veal chops with a port wine cream sauce and sautéed chanterelle mushrooms with tarragon and thyme. Anya sautéed the chanterelles with tarragon and thyme perfectly. She seasoned them well with butter and the herbs. I could have eaten a plate of those alone. The flavors worked well together. Jonathon did notice our perfectly cooked green beans were out of place. The more I think about it; he was right. Even the green was a bit too bright; an orange sweet vegetable might have gone better with the dish.

Our next task was to bridge the flavors between a Rosemount Shiraz and another food. We chose smoked ham with carrots that we served with dried prunes in a shiraz reduction sweetened with a bit of brown sugar. The results were very interesting. It looked very ‘70s’ American Cookbook. We could have served it with a jello mold and slaw. The flavor was not bad, the reduction worked well with the carrots, but it was a bit overpowered by the smokiness of the ham.

Besides our veal chops which was my favorite dish, I thoroughly everything that the class made, but if I had to pick a favorite it would have to be the soup with Gruyere cheese. It was a rather odd combination of flavors – but it really worked!

An interesting site....

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1077295

And maybe this will help explain? We did cover some of these subjects in class.

www.fst.vt.edu/extension/enology/foodwine.html

A few pictures

These are a few pictures I took last week. I could not figure out how to get them all on one 'comment' so I had to post them in a few comment areas.

A few pictures

Hi All!

Just came across this on Reuter's via AOL news:

http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles?id=n20060206051709990001&cid=911

"Updated:2006-02-06 07:38:07
India Scientists Develop 'Tea Biscuits' Without Tea
Reuters
MALDA, West Bengal, India (Feb. 6) - For the country's health conscious, the everyday Indian ritual of sweet, milky tea and snacks could be about to lose something -- the tea.


Scientists in the world's largest tea producer are developing "tea biscuits" containing only the life-enhancing qualities of the country's favorite brew.


The state-run Tea Research Association says the biscuits will contain polyphenols -- the chemicals which give tea its taste and act as powerful antioxidants preventing cell damage and warding off certain cancers -- but not less attractive compounds like caffeine.


"Tea lovers will be able to taste the tea in the biscuits laced with tea ingredients," Mridul Hazarika, the association's director, told Reuters on Monday from the northeastern state of Assam, India's biggest tea growing state."