Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving…If my family was a little more “togetherly” (for lack of a better word…that’s what they have that new My Word Coach DS game for [read more about this in my other blog]) then Thanksgiving might mean more than food. But my families’ problems are not your problems; they’re mine, so I’m not going to blab about that. Besides you’re here to read about food, not the common American families troubles…if anyone is here to read at all (wow, I AM cynical today!).



So! My family and I went to my Aunts for Thanksgiving, as is tradition, while the rest of my distant relatives were in Maine. I had a good time and I left the table not feeling like my stomach was going to implode (thats a first). I was really disappointed that I didn’t get to cook Thanksgiving dinner this year…I’m stuck on Christmas dinner duty which is a whole lot harder to plan (and more expensive, $40 for a leg of lamb). But nun the less, on to Christmas!

The Bagel is Holy

Bagels are Jewish, yep, and they have got me thoroughly interested in Kosher food (but thats another blog). I resently tryed my hand at bagel making. Whats that you say? "A Seattle bagel??? Blasphemy!" Well your right, it wasn't great, or good, but it was okay for a first go. There are always things to improve on! Anyway it was a fairly invogorating project...I always make it my duty to do research on whatever I'm making.



And of course the art of bagel making is disputed. The way to shape your bagel, what to boil the bagel in, and the temperature and time of cooking the bagel are different depending the recipe you look at. I used the recipe from my bread maker. The dough was great (thanks bread maker makers!) but the cooking instruction left the bagels too pale (it was ugly in general but that was mostly my fault). I think I should try boiling my bagels in caramel water or barley malt syrup as the bagel was lacking a little in sweetness.

There are also Montreal bagels (tambien). "In contrast with the New York-style bagel, the Montreal bagel is smaller, sweeter and denser, with a larger hole, and is always baked in a wood-fired oven. It contains malt, egg, and no salt, and is boiled in honey-sweetened water before being baked in a wood-fired oven, whose irregular flames give it a random dappled light-and-dark surface colour. There are two predominant varieties: black-seed (poppyseed), or white-seed (sesame seed). Some purists object to any variation on this theme, though most bagel bakeries now offer many additional varieties (including Matzah-like flat breads)." I got all this information from wikipedia! (I couldn't source that tidbit gracefully forgive me)

As I well know by now I love variety and can’t wait to try new combinations, toppings, and spreads, but at the same time I should be able to enjoy a good bagel plain (but still with butter because butter makes everything better!).

As stated by Jim Berman on cheftalk.com (note the graceful citation)“Variety matters, as my students are quick to point out, "hey chef, there are more flavors than vanilla," when I go on a tirade about how overlooked vanilla is equated with plain. Oscar Wilde gave us wisdom in "the world would be a boring a place if we all shared the same sense of humor." I agree. Variety is, after all, proverbially speaking the spice of life. Except with bagels. The best bagel is the plain bagel. In all seriousness, when trying a new pizza joint, you do yourself a disservice by sampling the first slice garbed in mushrooms, onions, pepperoni and sweet peppers. The real experience comes from taking in the flavor of the sauce, cheese and crust. The same goes for bagels. Sure, there are countless shmears, smears and spreads. And a little cream cheese does well to accent the flavor of a good bagel. But, why mask the real flavor of a bagel with some horrific concoction? Fear the sundried tomato and pesto bagel. Run the opposite direction of the rosemary and olive roll with the hole.”

Adventures of Couscous Girl and Feta Cheese Man

Okay so there's no Feta Cheese Man but there is a Couscous Girl and she is loving her couscous. I recently tried couscous again for the sake of a mediteranian style recipe. While I managed to slaughter the recipe with chicken granules and precooked flashfrozen fish as well as some wonderfully bitter green olives the couscous was great. I had a previous adversion to the stuff but now its just like little pasta (which is what it is) and maybe even better. Its cooking method is unusual as Couscous is steamed not boiled. It keeps it's texture really well and can be used in place of pasta or rice and is very common in Medditeranean cuisines such as Greek or in Morocco.

Currently I have only tried two recipes one of my "inventions";Couscous with bell papper pesto and feta cheese



AHH MY EYES! TOO BRIGHT!


I also made a Couscous cherry yougurt pudding (recipe courtesy Alton Brown)...I ate it before I took the picture.

News for yous

Do I even need to tell you I haven't posted in forever (its obvious by looking at the dates)? So Junior year is really hectic but vollyball season is offically over today (26th of october, it countinues for varsity) so I hopefully can relax (only a teeny bit) about school work. The thing is I should be doing my homework insted of blogging. I have a ton to do over the weekend. I don't like lugging around huge books but I really like writing big papers. Its fun because were given a lot of room to decide what we want to do. For my Spanish class Quarter project I am writting about my trip to Costa Rica and the amazing food I had there. I got a little sick of rice and black beans but over all the food was great. I'll post the essay later. I'm also doing a report for Western Civilization class. I'm calling it "Olive Oil: A History of Greek Foods". I will make a dish for both classes as well. Like I said in the 3rd essay thats due this week (like I said lots of homework);

"I really love it when I can fully express my niches, hobbies, passions, joys, interests, or whatever in a school project. It’s like getting rewarded for liking something and being yourself. Loving what you’re working on seems to make the process go much faster (even though in reality you take twice as long on the project because you actually care about it) and the end result seem much more satisfying."

I also said (for the intrest af telling you a little about me)"My interests really haven’t changed that much, I have changed back and forth on what I want my future career choice to be and maybe added a couple hobbies to my arsenal but more or less I’m still crazy about anything art/music related; manga, anime, drawing, videogames, broadway, singing, and acting, as well as cooking, and volleyball (probably the only sport I really like). You will probably also notice I like to list things (I get that from my OCD) and put a lot of parenthese in my writing."

So look forward to these essays! I'll probably post some old ones too! (On second thought maybe I shouldent...but I will anyway! Who wants to plagerise my middle school paper anyway?)

Update on Fish and Chips...not really

So I haven't posted in a while, (you are going to get used to hearing this just like I got used to seeing it writen in my journal) but I have exciting news (like anyone would care since I doubt anyone actually reads my blog)! I went thriftstore shopping with my friend and I found a cute Breadmaker which I purchased for....da da da dum...$5! Yay! So, it is a really nice one too! It can make not only basic breads, but has a whole wheat setting, a setting to make dough for pastries that can't be cooked in the bread maker (ex, bagels, doughnuts, croissants), a jam, and cake setting! It has a timer so I can exspect bread in the morning if I throw in the ingredients the night before. Very nifty. It comes with a plethora of recipes and saves me a load of time. Its not even bad at the actual cooking of the bread like many machines that people only use for kneading and proofing.

But enough ranting over my wonderfull machine. I also must tell you I have been indulging in my love of fish. Yep. My father is A-Lerg-ic so I don't get to eat it much but If I have the time I grab a single serving at the store. I must tell you I have found nice Bobby flay recipe and I improvised one of my own!

White Fish w/ Coconut Cilantro Lime Sauce

Sauce:
1/2 can unsweetened coconut milk
2 tablespoons sweetened cream of coconut (recommended: Coco Lopez)
1/4 cup fresh or bottled key lime juice
1 serrano chile, coarsely chopped
1-inch piece ginger, peeled and chopped
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh lime zest
1 cup canola oil
1/4 cup unsweetened dried coconut
1/4 cup chopped cilantro leaves
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

I left out the rest of the recipe which was originally swordfish skewers because I used a whole fillet of Ling cod insted. I just cooked the fish and put all of the sauce ingredients in the blender (except the cilantro which I added after blending) then plated and poured the sauce on top of the fish. (don't forget garnish!)

If you want the real recipe go here
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_35104,00.html?rsrc=search

Heres my improve fish