Friday, March 9, 2007

Iowa, You make me smile!

i am currently in iowa. it is quite wonderful it has been wonderful catching up with friends and not having to worry about school. though come monday night it will be a completely different matter. I will have french and linguistics homework that i will have to study my butt off for, but it will end alright. but i am now starting to get kind of rambly and so i am going to be ending my post now, but i am alive and i am enjoying myself.

Friday, March 2, 2007

fabulous culinary week!

So this week has been as far as expanding my cooking horizons go because I have become a little more adventurous and i haven't almost killed myself. My mum says that I can cook and I am good at cooking but she worries about the mechanical aspect of cooking. Such as the cutting etc.

But this week I didn't burn myself, I didn't almost cut off a finger, I didn't almost fall in my kitchen, the fire alarm didn't go off, no cooking utensils broke or melted so that was excellent....

As far as branching out goes I learned how to cook chicken... I have made chicken before but never by cooking it in a pan on the stove top. So if you have boneless skinless chicken breasts defrost them and in the pan put a little bit of extra virgin olive oil in the pan with whatever seasonings yo want... I like a little minced onion, a little garlic, a little oregano, salt & pepper, and a little bit of seasoning salt. and then heat up the the oil enough so it slides around the pan nice and easy.... put the chicken in and cook until the chicken is no longer pink... KEEP THE BURNER ON LOW because otherwise it will start to smoke a little bit... (I've had that experience before).

My other branching out experience was chili today... my mom gave me her recipe but i tried things a little bit differently this time. I accidentally got tomatoes with green chilies mixed in.
1. brown the hamburger with minced onion and chili powder
2. tomato puree, diced tomatoes with green chilies, and red kidney beans go in next. stir in hamburger.
3. keep on medium low otherwise there is lots of bubbles...
4. season with chili powder, garlic, oregano, salt, pepper, sugar (preferably brown sugar)
5. add forgotten onion (for this recipe i used red onion)
6. after simmering for awhile check taste again and season to taste...

It creates a powerful kick of spicy and then it kind of chills out and has a little bit of sweetness in the after taste.


So Bethany and Renee you should be so proud of me with my green chili and chili powder cooking experience.