A new outlook

Okay, so this blog has been stagnating and I've been in a cooking "blah" for a while.
So, I decided to kick my behind in gear and set myself some goals, since it seems that's the only thing that works.

Inspired by, but way less ambitious/impressive then the Julie/Julia project, I will be going through the heftiest cookbook I have, from cover to cover.
I will not be holding to as rigorous a regiment as doing the entire thing in a set time, but have decided that for now, I would be doing a minimum of three recipes a week, until done.

The book is actually two, an contains a variety of admittedly easy level recipies for the most part. But they give the basic of cooking techniques, and are delicious foods. :)

So the book is Betty Crocker Basics: How to Cook and Entertain With Confidence.

I won't hold to the recipes as law, being that I consider recipes guidelines more then rigorous instructions. I'll try to be as faithful as possible, but still substituting ingredients when appropriate or when unavailable.


Right now, I'm waiting for the first result to come out of the oven!

Peach crumble

A thing of beauty!
A twist on the classic apple crumble, but with peaches!!

Chicken breasts in sauce.

Chicken breasts were on special, so I got a whole bunch and looked for something to do with them.

Simply cooked in white sauce in the oven, topped with broiled bread crumbs. Delicious!

Pepperoni pizza

I got a new pizza pan because my old one was just not cutting it anymore. Really old and ... yuck! ... rusty.

So I test-drove my spanking new one with a pizza made form scratch!

The only thing from a package was the crust mix.

Lobsters!

My friend Darryl and I got together for a night of pigging out on lobsters.

Spaghetti and meatballs.

I had some extra ground meat, so I though I'd try and make some meatballs!!

I used some bottled spaghetti sauce, added some vegetables and made the meatballs.
And it was delicious!

Meatballs cooking


Into the sauce

Final result, with a bit of parmesan cheese sprinkled on. Yum!

Epic Bread Fail

When I moved from Halifax to Charlottetown, my good friend Hilary made me some challah bread as a parting gift.

It's a traditional jewish braided bread. Very yeasty and tastes sweet. I love all breads and was glad to accept it.

The dough gets frozen and you take it out for five hours. It rises and you just stick it in the oven to get some fresh bread! Simple, yes?

Well, a dumbass would put the unfrozen bread on a plate, as opposed to the sheet on which it would expand.

So when I came home, the bread had wonderfully bloated to a nice and plump unbaked bread. And also stuck firmly to the plate. So, I had to pull and fight to get it off the plate. Then, I had to fight to get it off my hands and unto the darn sheet. It got all stretched out and lumpy.

Well, I wasn't gonna throw it away, so I still stuck it into the oven to bake.

Here's the result in ALL IT'S GLORY!!!!


It still tastes awesome, even though it looks like something that died. :)