Because I impressed the hell out of myself by making asparagus soup from stratch last Saturday. Yes, from stratch - including the chicken stock. That’s right, I boiled a chicken carcass for 3 hours, skimming and stirring like a thing posessed, all in aid of the perfect soup. And it was worth it, for it was delicious.
I also made some fantastic low-fat individual blueberry cheesecakes. which had the added advantage of being incredibly easy to make but which, when turned out onto to a plate and arranged prettily with a blob of ice cream and a sprinkling of fresh blueberries, looked really rather fancy.
What have you done lately that made you feel like a domestic god/goddess?
I made a dark chocolate cake with raspberry liquer about a month ago – it was goooood. You should know.
Also, my recent attempts at making white chocolate brownies, aka blondies has turned out very very nicely.
I made a hot whisky cream on Saturday night, which was heavenly with some fresh berries, mango, and fresh berry puree (which I also made from scratch). The left over cream made an amazing creme brulee on Sunday.
My best culinary delight is a smoked salmon pasta in a mustard/dill sauce. It’s absolutely to die for and healthy too…If anyone wants the recipe, I can give it to you
Last December my SO’s parents were visiting for about a week before Christmas. On their last night here, I made maple salmon. It was my first time making that dish. I usually practice a dish at least once rather than “experimenting” on company, but it was a simple recipe, so I figured what the heck.
Anyway, they absolutely loved it. My MIL confessed afterwards that she had never had salmon before in her entire life, and she had been a nervous wreck all day because she was afraid she wouldn’t like it and my feelings would be hurt. She turned out to be crazy about it, and proceeded to rave to her extended family and everone she knew about this wonderful dish I had made - so I had to give her the recipe to pass along. I hope my mystique wasn’t ruined by how easy it was: just cover some salmon filets in maple syrup, bake (IIRC it’s 400 degrees for about 20 minutes), then spoon melted butter and filberts on them, and serve.
I had posted it online, but have lost the link. I will try and give it to you off the top of my head. My cooking is always very much by the seat of my pants so you have to keep tasting :).
For the sauce you will need:
8oz of smoked salmon cut into strips
1 tbl butter/margarine
1 tbl of flour
1 cup skim or fat free milk
1 tbl of mustard (preferably dijon or other brown spicy mustard)
a handful of fresh dill
2 tbls of fat free sour cream
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Piping hot fettucine or tagliatelle (I prefer tagliatelle).
To make the sauce, melt the butter in a heavy saucepan and add the flour. Cook for a couple of minutes and then take off the heat and add the milk stirring constantly (try to avoid lumps) put back on a moderate heat and keep stirring until the sauce thickens and bubbles - if you want to omit the butter entirely, then just mix the flour with the cold milk and heat til thickened and bubbling. Add the mustard and the dill and take off the heat. Add the sour cream and only then add the smoked salmon as you don’t want the smoked salmon to cook. The residual heat from the sauce will warm it up. This must be served immediately for the best flavour. I usually do the sauce beforehand and then just rewarm it and throw in the sour cream and salmon when mixing with the pasta just before bringing it to the table. Add salt and pepper to taste - the salmon is salty, so you won’t need much salt. Keep some fresh dill to garnish with.
This is a very simple dish with few ingredients but very very tasty and quite easy to make.
Uhm… I made Ramen! I dropped the noodle-brick in the boiling water… stirred it for 3 minutes… drained it, and added flavor!
Few months back, my roommate and I did accidentally make Tacos. Started off by cooking some hamburger meat that’d been in our freezer for months, then just started adding stuff that we thought would taste good. Onions, peppers, garlic, put it on tortillas, then added cheddar cheeze before we realized what we had done.
Farther back, I made marinara sauce, but it came out too thick. Also took several hours to prepare and make, so I haven’t worked up the nerve to do it again (especially after going on a diet)
Everything I make is a culinary triumph. At least that’s what Mr. Athena tells me, but I think he’s just happy to have food appear in front of him.
Let’s see, what have I made lately?
Last night’s dinner was bay scallops in light cream sauce with Romano cheese, served over spaghetti. Would have been linguine, but forgot to buy it at the store. Also did a salad of field greens, a basil vinegarette, cucumbers, red onions and a couple kalamata olives.
I’ve been doing a lot of breakfasty stuff lately, since the herbs are flowing in the garden. Nothing like softly scrambled eggs with fresh herbs and parmesan. On the more fancy side, I did omelets with vodka cheese, ham (from a ham steak, not lunch meat), and onions the other day, with fresh mangos, cherries, and pineapple on the side. Simple, but quite tasty.
What else? I’m sure there’s more, but I can’t remember at the moment.
Guinness Chocolate Cake with cream cheese topping (w/shamrock, no less)
Killer Chocolate Tort
and Hazelnut Praline Semi-Fredo
are my current dessert triumphs
My other skills include ravioli-from-scratch, especially smoked-chicken, pesto & sundried tomato. In a scratch-built tomato sauce.
Lemon-ham chicken where the lemmon-ham-butter is stuffed under the breast skin…got that one from Jamie Oliver, but have made it my own with a mix of citrus for mort zing.
My culinary obsession of the moment is chocolate truffles. The last three batches were almond (not so good), ginger (heavenly), and chipotle (completely out of this world). I even managed to wangle compliments out of a professional chef who tried them! I was so proud.
My favorite culinary triumph was making mozarella and ricotta cheese from scratch. I’d like to devote a little more time to cheesemaking, but I don’t have a good climate-controlled area for the harder cheeses that need aging.
My most original (and tasty) culinary success was chicken paprikash tortellini. Basically, I started with a typical Hungarian chicken paprikash recipe. I shredded the chicken and mixed it in with a little bit of the paprikash gravy (made with Hungarian paprika, onions, heavy cream and sour cream) until it reached a “stuffable” consistancy. I put this filling into tortellini pasta, boiled it, and served it when some strained leftover paprikash gravy. It’s actually quite elegant and tasty.
And almost every other day in the summer (seriously. I’m like addicted to this stuff) I make my most favoritest dish in the world: gai pad gaprao (Thai chicken with holy basil.) It’s just chicken breast, some hot chiles, fish sauce, shallots, and fresh holy basil from the garden, served over jasime rice. I love it! For a bit of variety, I might try some gai pad khing (Thai ginger chicken.) Similar recipe as above, but no basil, plus you add some soy, oyster sauce, and lots(!) of freshly grated ginger.
I used to manage a little restaurant/coffee shop down by the University of New Mexico. One weekend during the summer UNM had a conference. During the summer we were usually pretty slow so there was only me and one other person on most of the time. During the conference we got slammed. Insanely busy. So I was jamming out food when the girl I was working with said one of the customers said she wanted to speak with me. I finished the order I was making and went up front.
The woman standing there said “Did you make the Caesar salad?”. I said yes, I made it, and we made everyone from scratch. She said "That’s the best Caesar I’ve ever had, and I’ve had a lot of them’. I told her that I was glad she liked it. She handed me her card, I thanked her and went back to work.
When we slowed down I looked at the card. Turns out she was a food critic for the New York Times. A couple weeks later we recieved a letter from the lady. Inside was a clip of one of her columns. In it she talked about the conference she went to at UNM (which was for food critics) and meantioned that she had the best Caesar ever at our little coffee shop.
The funny thing is, I hate Caesar salads. I hate fish. I can eat a fishless Caesar, they are ok but kinda bland for my tastes.
Now, my Green Chile Enchaladas are pure heaven. But they haven’t been written up in the Times.
I finally made good homemade ravioli. The secret? Don’t make your own pasta dough. Every time I attempted it homemade, no matter how thin I rolled the dough, it still felt as thick as a blanket when cooked. I used store-bought wanton skins, and I stuffed them with a mixture of half good ground sirloin and half spicy Italian sausage, with a little breadcrumb and egg added for texture. I served them with a simple tomato-basil sauce with plenty of fresh grated parmesan. Heavenly, I tells ya.
