Salmon

20101013:
This was my first time making salmon as well as the first time I finished a bottle of olive oil.

Piece 1 (top), Piece 2 (bottom, left), Piece 3 (right)

Steps I took:
Salmon: Defrosted salmon (.58 lbs at $11/lb). Turned the meaty side upright. Shook on some Jane's Salt mix. Poured on some soy sauce. Striped on some General Tsao's sauce. Shook on some dried parsley. Shook on some paprika. Poured on some more soy sauce. Had a napkin to soak up the run off.

Mushroom with Prosciutto Panino

20100930:
Short on time, this course was quick and easy but delicious. Though it could have been made more from scratch if I had had the time.

Steps I Took:
Mushrooms: I cut up an entire tray (8 oz) worth of mushrooms, which - after cutting four or five mushrooms - I decided I should do as follows: place the mushroom on it's top, make a cut to the left of the stem, turn it around 180 degrees, make a cut to the left of the stem, and then cut down the center. This way I had about four equal pieces.

Prosciutto Panino: I cut up a prosciutto panino which I bought from Charles Street Market into several slices. A prosciutto panino is basically just prosciutto hand-rolled in mozzarella.

Onion: With practically half an onion remaining after making scrambled eggs, I cut it up and added it to the pan.

Then I added the mushroom. And then I added the prosciutto panino.

Result:
Oh wow! The texture and oils from the cheese gave the mushrooms a rich taste. Meanwhile, the prosciutto held the chunks of cheese together. Finally, the onion added a nice flavor that balanced out the flavor of the cheese.

[20101009]

Scrambled Eggs

20100927:
There's not really anything special about scrambled eggs, but I wanted to blog about it anyways. If anything, using Spam instead of the typical breakfast ham is something I've never tried before.* Actually, another difference was that I used more egg white than egg yolk, because I had a lot of egg whites leftover after I made egg Benedict.

In fact, the eggs Benedict also left me with over half an onion to use.

*[20161022] It's possible I never had Spam prior to this day; I almost certainly never cooked it prior to this day.

Ingredients: Half an Onion // Spam (two slices) // 6 Egg Whites and an Egg Yolk // Green Bell Pepper

Steps I Took:
I cut up a green bell pepper. Then I put olive oil in pan and let the onion simmer. I cut up some Spam and threw into pan.

Next I added the egg whites and egg yolk. Finally I added the green bell pepper.

Result:
Wow, the egg was delicious. I didn't realize you don't need that much egg yolk to have good scrambled eggs.

The Spam added a perfect amount of saltiness to the dish.

When I bit into the bell pepper there was a small hint of spiciness that gave the meal a subtle bite.

After eating a good portion of the dish, I tried four changes: General Tsao's sauce, Crazy Jane's Salt Mix, honey, and Kikkoman soy sauce.

Best by far was the General Tsao's sauce, both in texture and flavor.

Crazy Jane's Salt Mix was good, but it was more or less - in this dish - just salt.

As for the honey, I could only subtly taste it on the egg, and it didn't taste that good with the Spam.

Finally, the Kikkoman soy sauce was watery and either detracted from the green bell pepper and Spam or added no flavor to the dish.

Oh, I forgot about the onion. Not counting the slight amount (2 tsp) used in the eggs Benedict, this was the first time I used onion when cooking. Equivalently, this is the first time I heavily used onion in a dish.

[20161021 Edit]

Eggs Benedict

20100925:
I stopped by Charles Street Market on my way from the office and remembered that I needed English Muffins to make eggs Benedict.

There weren't any fresh English muffins available, and I didn't see any in the frozen area either. But when I asked the cashier, she asked another cashier, and he said there were some in the frozen section. So I went to look again, and had to look at the labels, because I couldn't recognize anything as looking like English muffins. However, I finally - from the labels - found frozen English muffins! When I found them, I realized I had boxed myself into looking for the type of English muffin that comes in a carton that you break open and pop the slices into the oven (e.g. Pillsbury).

On a separate note, it didn't occur to me that I could have made some English muffins from scratch.

Ramen, Broccoli, and Sun-Dried Tomatoes

20100923:
It was late at night and I hadn't eaten for a while. I also hadn't used the broccoli I bought yet, so it was important I should use it to cook a meal. Then, without hesitation, I quickly decided that I should use ramen. It took me a bit longer to decide if I also wanted to use meat, but eventually decided I wouldn't. Finally, I eyed my options of flavor to add to which I just give the sun-dried tomatoes a try.

Ramen, broccoli, and sun-dried tomatoes. Plus an egg. (20100923)

Steps I Took:
Step 1: Boiled water. Added a pinch of salt. Added ramen. 5 minutes. Step 2: Cut up broccoli. Threw the broccoli into water with ramen. 4 minutes. Step 3: Oiled the pan. Added some ready-to-use chopped garlic. Cracked an egg into the pan. Step 4: Added four sun-dried tomatoes. Step 5: Then I added the ramen and broccoli. Step 6: After I turned off the heat, I removed the ramen from the pan and tried to stir in the the ramen (shrimp) flavoring.

Comments:
The egg was sort of sticking to the pan, but not much.

When I added the ramen and broccoli to the pan, the water in them quickly heated and turned to steam.

Result:
Unfortunately, the broccoli turned out soft. Fortunately, the sun-dried tomatoes seemed to have soaked up the ramen shrimp flavoring. Unfortunately, there was still uneven concentrations of sun-dried tomato flavor.

Salt, empty Top Ramen package, the amount of broccoli cooked, olive oil, ready-to-use chopped garlic, the dish (empty slot is the order the egg was added), sun-dried tomatoes. (20100923)

Possible Changes:
Cut down on the boil time to 1 min.
Cook the ramen and broccoli together (or just stir-fry the broccoli).
Cut the sun-dried tomatoes into smaller pieces; four sun-dried tomatoes was a good amount, but the flavor was still concentrated.
The tomato while it didn't spread it's flavor, spread its color. Just dab or stir it around the ramen.
The broccoli needs to be crunchy to add it's standard texture.

Question:
When should I add the (ramen) shrimp flavoring?

The egg was colorful, but lacked flavor, and so would have benefited from a sauce. However, this dish did not naturally produce any sauce. What sort of sauce could I add to the egg and/or dish?

[20100924][20161020 Edit][Take 1: Ramen, Broccoli, Sun-Dried Tomatoes, Egg]

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Ramen, broccoli, and sun-dried tomatoes. Plus two eggs. Now with chicken and yellow bell peppers. (20100924)

20100924:
I felt I needed to redo yesterday's ramen and broccoli dish. With a little bit more time on my hands, I was able to add some other ingredients and play around with the dish.

Chicken and Plum

20100910
This course was experimental in three ways. The first for the effect of pieces of chicken with fat, the second for the effect of plum, and third for the effect of adding mint sauce.

Steps I Took:
I peeled the skin and cut the plum into slices.
I oiled the pan with olive oil, and, being lazy, I used ready-to-use chopped garlic.
I had cut the chicken into pieces, but kept the pieces of chicken with fat separated from the nicer cubes of chicken. I threw in the cubes first, as I figured they would take longer to cook.
I poured on some mint sauce, and feeling the pan lacked oil, I opened my saved oil (which is a random mix of olive oil, fat, soy sauce, and other juices) and spooned several spoonfuls out.
Finally, I added the plum. Unfortunately, the chicken wasn't ready as soon as I expected so the plum was overcooked and turned excessively soft.

Result:
I ate the fatty pieces first; they were unhealthy and delicious.

Next I ate the regular chunks, they were delicious, too.

Some of the plum had lined the bottom of the pan and was picked up by several pieces of chicken. That tasted good. I liked the hint of plum within the dish.

At some point, I decided to mash the plum. Unfortunately, when I smothered a piece of chicken into the mashed plum and took a bite, the mushiness was gross, and the taste of plum was overcome by the texture.

Summary:
In conclusion, I learned that I can add plum for flavor, but I should remove any mushy and overcooked plum before eating. Furthermore, I have the option to add either slightly cooked or raw plum to the dish when I'm done.

[20100921][20161019 Edit]

Watermelon

20100908:
While I've had watermelon many times in my life before, this was the first time that I cut one up all by myself!

It was also fun picking it out. Grace considers two factors: one, the sound the watermelon makes when picking it up and tapping it (should sound crisp, not dull), and two, the color of the watermelon (darker is better).


At home, I washed the dirt off the watermelon and wiped it dry. Then I took my chef's knife and ran it down the middle, but I also had to rotate the watermelon, because the knife was too short to cover the entire length.

After setting one half aside, I began to cut the other half into six pieces by laying the exposed flesh flat against the cutting board.


Comment:
When I cut the half into six pieces I made five parallel cuts. However, I later thought about a modification and an alternative:
1) Make a single perpendicular cut (resulting in 12 smaller pieces instead of 6 large pieces).
2) Cut the half into eight wedges from the edge to the center, like a cake

Result:
I ate about a fourth of the watermelon. I had a couple bites with lemon juice, and had about a fourth of the fourth with salt. Delicious, delicious, delicious!

Picking a Good Watermelon:
Elaborating on the methods mentioned above, a hollow resonating sound indicates the watermelon is filled with more water, which is good. The weight-to-size ratio of a watermelon is also an indicator of a good watermelon - again related to the amount of water in the watermelon.

Darker watermelons tend to be sweeter.

Finally, as with most fruits and vegetables, check for symmetry and surface blemishes which are indicators of health and proper (or improper) storage.

How do you pick a good watermelon? What about fruits and vegetables in general?

[20100909][20161018 Edit]

Family Barbecue

Chicken and pico de gallo on a tortilla

Beef short ribs; Salad with pineapple; Mozzarella cheese on top of a tomato slice topped with fresh chopped parsley

20100906:
Barbecue time!

Brown Sugar Pound Cake

20100829:
In addition to the pineapple on a stick, I decided to make a recipe for pound cake which I saw on the back of the box of light brown sugar. Unfortunately, I was short heavy cream by half a cup, so I only made half as much sweetened whip cream as I could have made.

[20100830][20161018 Edit]

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I remember growing up eating Sara Lee pound cake, and would have never imagined one day making pound cake instead of just buying it! Well, apparently making pound cake from scratch is simple!


It was also a great learning experience. In particular, I learned why pound cake tastes so delicious: sugar and butter! I'll definitely make some sort of pound cake again soon.

[20100917]

---

Ingredients for Brown Sugar Pound Cake:

Step 1a: 1 cup packed light brown sugar
Step 1a: 1 cup butter
Step 1b: 4 eggs
Step 1c: 1 tsp vanilla extract

Step 2a: 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
Step 2a: 1/2 tsp baking powder
Step 2a: 1/4 tsp salt

Ingredients for Sweetened Whipped Cream:*

1 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

*I cut all the ingredients here in half to make half as much

Steps I Took:
Preheated the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Sprayed cooking spray into a 9x5x3-inch loaf pan.
In a large (stainless steel) bowl, I put in the sugar and butter (Step 1a ingredients). After the butter became malleable, I used the electric hand mixer to mix the sugar and butter until fluffy. Then I beat in the eggs one at a time (Step 1b ingredient). And then the vanilla extract (Step 1c ingredient).


In a separate bowl I mixed the Step 2 ingredients: flour, baking powder, and salt. I wasn't asked to, but I sifted these into the sugar mixture (Step 1 mixture). Then I began mixing the batter, and when it became smooth, I poured it into the greased pan.

At this point I started making the sweetened whipped cream. I put all the ingredients into a chilled medium (glass) mixing bowl and beat the cream on medium-high speed until soft peaks formed. I put it in the refrigerator.

The instructions were to bake one hour, but I only had to bake what I made for forty minutes; perhaps it could have even stopped baking it at thirty or thirty-five minutes. Besides having the right color, I poked the cake with a toothpick and the pick came out clean. Then I easily removed the cake from the pan and let it cool.


After it cooled, I spread the whip cream over it and then cut the pound cake into sixteen pieces (into eighths along the width and a long horizontal cut across the length).

Prepping the pound cake for transport, I transferred the pieces into a large glass bowl and threw some (washed) blackberries and blueberries on top. And then last, but not least, I sifted confectioner's sugar onto the mix.

Comments:
Unfortunately, I didn't melt the butter prior to adding it to the sugar, so I had to spend the first couple of minutes mashing the butter until it became malleable. I should have melted it a little beforehand.


The recipe instructions indicated the Step 2 Mixture (flour, baking powder, salt) was to be gradually added to the Step 1 Mixture (butter, eggs, vanilla extract) but had overlooked the instructions. With that being said, the mixing of Step 2 into Step 1 happened to be gradual anyways.

Semi-Result:
I brought the entire thing home at about nine in the evening and put it into the freezer. Then, around midnight, I was hungry and decided to try a piece (1 of the 16 pieces). It was pretty good. I also ate some of frozen blackberries and blueberries. They were pretty good, too.

[20100830][20161018 Edit]

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20110409:
It's been a while since I've cooked, baked, etc. The last time I baked was in December: I made a batch of cookies for a little get together in Maryland and helped make cookies in California. I also cooked something in February or March. In any case, I feel like making this pound cake will get me cooking again.

I followed the same recipe as before, only with the full amount of ingredients.

First I melted the butter.

The Brown Sugar Dilemma:
Then I got out the light brown sugar only to find that it had hardened. I read the side of the box for softening instructions, but I was unable to adhere to either set of instructions so I improvised. I took a pot, put some water in it, and then added the sugar, letting it soak up the water while placing the pot over some heat.

Unfortunately, the pot was the same pot that had butter in it, so some of the sugar might have been on the brink of caramelizing.

While I managed to get the sugar broken up, it was more wet than it was when I first bought it. I pressed on.

The Coagulated Eggs:
I mixed the butter and sugar. Next, without thinking it through, I began adding the eggs one at a time. While the first two eggs turned out okay, when I added the third egg I saw the mixture began looking coagulated. That made me wonder if I had just cooked the eggs, because the butter and sugar mixture was still warm. I was a little worried, but I added the last egg and moved on to the salt, baking soda, and flour mixture.

The Silly Sea Salt:
I mixed the salt, baking soda, and flour together, and then sifted it. However, instead of salt, I was using sea salt, and after the first couple of sifts, I threw away any big chunks (of what I had assumed was just flour) that were in the mesh filter. But then I had realized I would have sifted out some of the sea salt, which was relatively large, especially compared to standard table salt. As such, I compensated by adding an amount of salt comparable to how much salt I accidentally removed.

After mixing all the ingredients together, things looked better. But while I didn't see any egg coagulation, I still wondered if any properties of the egg critical to the baking of the pound cake had been compromised. As such, I decided to add an extra egg.

I placed it in the oven for about 45 to 50 minutes. Afterwards, I took it out to let it cool. I also put a napkin over it, because it made me think that it'd keep the cake moist.

[20110409][20170521 Edit]

Pineapple on a Stick

20100829:
We had a capoeira fundraiser and people were asked to bring items to sell. I was originally planning to make brownies, but someone else decided to make brownies.


Consequently, I was passed on the idea to make pineapple on a stick!

I actually would have made pineapple s'mores, but I wouldn't have been able to keep them warm. Note that while I thought pineapple s'mores was a unique and crazy idea, apparently it's been tried before.


In any case, I went ahead and made pineapple on a stick.

Frozen Chocolate-Covered Bananas

20100828:
Today I watched my friend Grace make frozen chocolate-covered bananas and helped make two of them!

Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo

20100828:
Today I made chicken fettuccine alfredo but also added plum and tomatoes.


Process:
I cut the tomato. Then I cut up a black plum (having removed the skin to keep and eat myself). Finally I diced two cloves of garlic and cut up the chicken.

Chicken and Artichoke Hearts

20100825:
Hilariously, instead of eating at a given time or for a given reason today, I was just eating whenever I felt like cooking and washing dishes - but at least I was eating and washing dishes!

The last time I used artichoke was in Chicken with Artichoke Penne. In fact, that was my first cooking post of something that I cooked myself! Furthermore, it might have been the second or third time I've cooked a meat (as opposed to reheating it).


Steps I Took:

Defrosted the chicken.*
Added soy sauce to the bag.
Added Jane's Krazy Mixed-Up Seasonings to the bag.
Added "Caribbean Traditions" Chicken Seasoning to the bag.
Mixed the bag up.
Set the bag aside.
Cut up a tomato.
Cut up the chicken.
Opened the jar of marinated artichoke hearts and poured the oil (vegetable oil and vinegar) into a pan.
Since the chicken and tomatoes were occupying the cutting board, I decided to use "Ready to Use" chopped garlic.
Added the chicken to the pan.
I tried a little bit of flipping chicken using the pan. While it was fun to imitate the motion, I didn't get to toss the chicken very high, so most of the pieces didn't flip over. I flipped what remained by hand (with chopsticks).

Added about a tablespoon of reconstituted lemon juice.
Removed the chicken into a bowl.
Added the tomatoes to the pan.
Added the artichoke hearts to the pan.
Returned the chicken to the pan.
Done.**

*This was the third piece out of a five-piece tray; I separated each piece in a bag and put them into the freezer
**I had remembered to use my meat thermometer when I removed the chicken from the pan, but ended up forgetting after I returned it to the pan. As such, I didn't use a thermometer today.

Afterwards:
I ate about half of what I cooked. After doing so, I poured the remaining oil from the pan into the artichoke heart jar. Then I added some soy sauce to what I cooked. Then I poured the sauce from what I cooked into the jar. And finally I put the jar in the fridge.


But then I decided I wanted more chicken, except with spaghetti. So I took yesterday's asparagus broth, brought it to a boil, added some salt, and threw in the last of the spaghetti (as usual, broken in half). I boiled the spaghetti for 9 minutes as instructed on the box and then ate some spaghetti by itself. I threw what remained into the pan where I cooked the chicken and swished it around to gather some flavor. Then I put some of it into a small plate and threw what remained of the chicken and artichoke hearts onto it.

Result:
The artichoke hearts and lemon were the dominating flavors.

One of the reasons I love using jarred artichoke hearts is the convenience of using the oil from the jar.

Only one piece of chicken had the problem of being salty.

While the tomato was doing its job of soaking up sauce (in particular soy sauce), it seemed the artichoke also soaked a fair amount of sauce. Unlike the tomato, the artichoke comes with its own strong flavor. With that being said, the tomato contributes some moisture and color to the dish. Actually, now that I think about it, some pieces of tomato did contribute their own flavor - provided they weren't overcooked.

The dish was delicious with and without the spaghetti. But the spaghetti helped in filling my stomach.

[20161018 Edit]

Chicken and Asparagus

20100824:
I put this batch of chicken into the freezer with soy sauce and "Caribbean Tradition" Chicken Seasoning. I had massaged the mixture around a bit. When I was at the market and contemplating the meal, I decided I wanted to use asparagus.


Steps I Took:

Washed the asparagus.
Boiled water, added salt.
Cut the ends off the asparagus; I didn't see any blemishes.
Threw the asparagus into the boiling water.
Cut the chicken.
Oiled the pan.
I was short on time, so I just took a spoonful of the "Ready to Use" chopped garlic.
Added the chicken to the pan.
Poured on some soy sauce.
Drained the asparagus, keeping the broth in a bowl.
Put the broth back into a pan.
Added spaghetti (as usual, I broke the strands in half before throwing them in)
Remembered to put the asparagus in an ice-water bath.
Drained the spaghetti, keeping the broth in a bowl.

Put the chicken onto a plate.
Threw the asparagus into the pan.
Added some soy sauce.
Added some pepper.
Used kitchen shears to randomly cut the asparagus in half. Some strands were missed, some strands were cut into smaller pieces.
Returned the chicken to the pan together with the asparagus.
Got the chicken to 180 degrees.
Threw the spaghetti into the pan together with the chicken and asparagus.
Threw some canned crushed tomatoes into the pan together with the spaghetti, chicken, and asparagus.
Test tasted the combination, I felt the tomato added too much of the wrong flavor.
Shook in some dried oregano leaves.
In a rush, I decided this was better, though not as great as it could be.
Turned off the heat.
Transferred the contents to the Pyrex container.
Added grated Parmesan.

Immediate Comments:
Upon putting the asparagus in the ice-water bath, I could tell I over cooked the asparagus, so they were soft instead of their usual expected slightly crunchy.

I overcooked the spaghetti. Not a big mistake, but I do enjoy my pasta al dente.

Upon adding the pepper, I mused that perhaps I added too much, because I opened the wrong flap and a bunch came out! Fortunately, as I distributed the pepper around, it seemed like my mistake was not grievous. I picked up a strand of asparagus and it didn't taste too peppery. I figured that when I later added the chicken and other ingredients, the pepper would spread itself out even more and I would be good to go.

Unfortunately, I didn't have any fresh grated Parmesan (or any fresh Parmesan to grate), but the cheese helped balance out the flavor of the dish.

Result:
Overall, the chicken was good, tough some bites were salty.

While I had overcooked the asparagus, soft asparagus was not a terrible eating experience.


If I had time, I would have cooked some more pasta and mixed it in - in hopes that the salt would then spread itself out.

[20100825][20161018 Edit]

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Chicken and Bell Peppers

20100823:
I'm back to cooking a main course dish. And, in fact, I'm doing it freestyle! The last dish I made freestyle was Chicken and Broccoli.

Frozen Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

20100821:
This is one of the first recipes I found when I started trying to cook. At the time, I didn't have a springform pan (nor did I know what one was). I also didn't know what heavy cream was, but that was easy enough to find.

The cream of tartar eluded me the first time I went to the store, but I discovered it was together with all the spices; I found it between coriander and cumin. Remark: cream of tartar is not tartaric acid.

When I first started, I also didn't have an electric mixer or blender! In particular, the mixer was the final piece of the puzzle to make this dessert. The blender, however, was already purchased in order for me to make sweet corn pudding.

I bought the springform pan a day before the blender (July 19 / July 20).

I followed the original Frozen Pineapple Upside-Down Cake recipe closely, minus proper amounts of whisking.


Problems:
Starting too late and therefore at some point changed over from using an electric mixer to a balloon whisk to avoid noise.
Even if I wanted to use the hand electric mixer, I didn't have a tall and narrow mixing bowl for mixing the mixture which had too much liquid. If I had realized this, I would have used less of the pineapple juice from the can. Well there were different factors. But in the end, I think the result was at least satisfactory. I won't know for sure until the cake is ready to share and taste. Unlike other things I've cooked, I can't taste it after it's done. Imagine, "Why is there a part of the cake missing?" Actually... I take that back, from a spare piece of angel food cake that had soaked up some pineapple batter, tasted pretty delicious. Though I could have been tired been in an anything-would-have-tasted-good situation.

Some of the mess

Used:

1 20-ounce can pineapple rings in juice
Raspberries (washed)
3 egg yolks
2 egg whites
6 tablespoons packed light brown ugar
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 cup heavy cream
Angel food cake

Process:
Soooo many steps. Soooo much time. Lol, actually, I took an excess number of breaks which prolonged the time it took to finish.

Placed the angel food cake in the freezer.
Coated my 9-inch springform pan with Pam (Original).
Set it on a large plate.


Blot 5 pineapple rings dry with 2 paper towels.
Arranged them in a circle in the bottom of the pan.
Placed a raspberry in the center of each and several raspberries elsewhere around the bottom. (Lol, but when it came time to pour the batter, I poured the batter too quickly and a lot of the raspberries shifted. D'oh!)

Blended the remaining pineapple and juice in a blender. (I would consider using less juice next time, and pour in juice as necessary. Also chopping up the pineapple before adding it to the blender may make for a smoother blending experience)
Beat the egg yolks and brown sugar in a stainless-steel bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed. I think I got it to be thick and pale brown, but not fluffy as instructed. Then when I added the puree, the mixer was like, "I'm gonna splatter this everywhere, muahahaha." And I said, "WTF!" So I took out my balloon whisked and did the best I could. But what I could do didn't seem too great.


Brought 1 inch of water to a slow simmer in a large saucepan.
Put the bowl of pineapple mixture on the water and beat, again by hand. There was a lot of foam/air bubbles, and so I wasn't sure if I was getting the right consistency. For sure the mixture gained volume and got to a temperature of 160 degreees F, but I'm not sure if it became thick. In any case, when I removed it from the heat, I continued beating for a while, but inconsistently.
I poured the mixture into the blender pitcher, washed the bowl, and beat the egg whites, sugar, and cream of tartar. I think I was able to get it to foamy.

I put the bowl on the simmering water and beat some more. I probably didn't get it to as stiff as it should have gotten, and if I remember correctly, the thermometer only gave a reading of 120 degrees F, but there wasn't much depth in the bowl and I'm not sure if there was, whether or not I would have gotten a higher temperature reading.


I certainly mixed it on the simmering water for longer than the approximate time frames. [UPDATE 20100823: My suspicions are slightly confirmed as follows. When taking temperature of the chicken I was cooking today, if I only stuck the thermometer in one piece of chicken from the side, then the temperature only went up to about 120 degree F. But if I stuck it into that same piece lengthwise then it went up to about 140 degrees F, and then with several pieces of chicken covering most of the length of the thermometer, it went up to about 160. I cooked the chicken for an extra minute. Checked lengthwise, 170.]

Eventually, when I did remove the mixture from the heat, I continued beating as fast as I could. Then I whisked this together with the pineapple mixture. (I had no idea what "until smooth" implied, and didn't bother to look it up)

Then I beat the heavy cream in the stainless steel bowl and it started to curdle, or something. So I sort of gave up, and added it to the pineapple and meringue mix. Beating by hand for a while, at which point i decided to pour all this into the blender pitcher and use that as a bowl for the electric hand mixer. I couldn't really reach down far, and not that I wanted to cause the blender blades would be down there, but I thought this was better than nothing.


I poured the batter over the pineapple slices in the pan.
Then I got the angel food cake from the freezer, and cut off the harder pieces and burnt pieces (though as I mentioned in the angel food cake post, the harder pieces were actually pretty tasty). I laid the big slices over the batter and then started cutting smaller pieces to fill in the spaces.
I let the cake soak up the batter a bit before covering the top with plastic wrap and putting everything into the freezer.

The recipe said to freeze for at least 8 hours. I put the cake into the freezer at about 1:44 AM. It's now 12:44 PM. The cake is ready!

[20100822]

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[20100824]
I realized today that I used a skillet/frying pan instead of a saucepan. Oh well.

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20100825:
Result:
The time has come to unveil the beast. I take it out of the freezer and leave it out for about ten or fifteen minutes. I run a blunt knife around the edges. I can see I might have left it out for too long... the puree has melted quite a bit. I invert the pan onto a plate. Then I open the side. Plop! I pry the bottom of the pan off the top of the cake.

Time to cut and hopefully enjoy. There's not so much cake, so it feels more like you're eating pineapple, which is good. The angel food cake has partially soaked up the pineapple puree, which in the end is good, since in hindsight, it would have been terrible if it soaked up too much, because at room temperature the puree would melt and make the cake too soggy.

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Relevant Links:
My Drink Pineapple Upside-Down Cake Shot post

Angel Food Cake

20100821:
My goal in making Angel Food cake from scratch was to use the unused egg whites from the Coconut Creme Brulee. However, the angel food cake is really just part of the Frozen Pineapple Upside-Down Cake. I read two recipes from AllRecipes.com, Angel Food Cake III and Heavenly Angel Food Cake. They're pretty much the same in terms of ingredients and instructions, so I mainly followed the second recipe. Because the creme brulee only used 8 egg yolks, I scaled the recipe down to 8 eggs by multiplying the serving size by 2/3 and rounding down.

Both recipes (when scaled) called for the following:

1/2 cup and 2 tablespoons and 1 teaspoon flour
more or less 1 cup of some kind of sugar
8 egg whites
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
about a pinch of salt

I took precautions in fixing my mistakes by adding 1 egg white, 1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract, and another pinch of salt to the egg white mixture.

Coconut Creme Brulee

20100821:
My goal in making this Coconut Crème Brûlée recipe was to use the leftover coconut milk. The recipe called for 1 can (13.5 to 14 oz.) coconut milk. But I had a cup. Oh well. I was thinking about increasing the amount of heavy cream to compensate for the amount of liquid in the mixture, but then just decided to see how things turn out as it stands.

Chicken and Eggplant Parmesan

[20100816]
I gathered the ingredients about three days ago, but it seemed like such a big endeavor that I put off making the dish until today. It's a chicken and eggplant Parmesan dish I found from Cooking.com.

Tools:

Knife
Cutting board
Baking sheet
Frying pan
Can opener
8-inch square baking dish

Ingredients:

1 small eggplant, cut into 1/4-inch rounds (I did 4 slices each layer at 3 layers of eggplant = 12 slices)
Olive oil
Salt
Fresh-ground black pepper
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 cups canned crushed tomatoes in thick puree
1/2 pound fresh mozzarella cheese, cut into thin slices
Grated Parmesan cheese
Tray of fresh basil leaves

Prior to putting it in the oven

Process:
I followed the instructions pretty closely, mainly differing just in when I did the chicken and the amount of ingredients.

First I cut the eggplant.
Heat the broiler.
Arrange the eggplant (12 slices) in a single layer on a large baking sheet.
Coat both sides of the eggplant with olive oil (I used my finger to spread it around)
Sprinkle with salt and pepper. (About two pinches of salt, and just went over each slice and turned the grinder once or twice)
Broil, turning once, until browned, about 5 minutes per side.

While waiting, I cut the mozzarella into thin slices and chopped up the basil leaves.

Turn off the broiler and heat the oven to 425 degrees F.

I don't remember when, but I realized I forgot to take the chicken down from the freezer. So I got that out and defrosting.

In a large nonstick frying pan, heat olive oil over moderately high heat.
Season the chicken with salt and pepper and add to the pan.

Fresh out of the oven

Partially cook the chicken. Now for this, my two pieces were thick, and not fully defrosted, so I sliced them into thirds, which was convenient, because then I had six pieces to distribute over two layers in the next step.

Oil an 8-inch square baking dish.

Layer as follows:
1/3 eggplant (for me this was 4 slices)
1/2 chicken (for me this was 3 pieces)
1/2 (i.e. 1 cup) of tomatoes
1/2 mozzarella slices
layer of Parmesan
1/2 basil
pinch of salt

1/3 eggplant (another 4 slices)
1/2 chicken (another 3 pieces, remaining)
1/2 (i.e. 1 cup) of tomatoes and mozzarella
layer of Parmesan
1/2 basil (remaining)

1/3 eggplant (last 4 slices, remaining)
layer of Parmesan
Drizzle some olive oil on the top (I poured some olive oil into a measuring cup and drizzled it onto the top layer that way).

Bake for 20 minutes and let sit for 5 minutes before cutting.


I Learned...
...what a baking sheet is.
...what and how to use a broiler.
...how to quickly and safely defrost chicken: put the chicken in a bowl and run cold water over it.

Result:
Wow, like I told my friend, I'm either hungry or this is delicious. The chicken is juicy and soft. The eggplant taste great! The texture of the Parmesan and mozzarella blended with the tomato. I just finished my first quarter. And it's so great, I don't know if I want to eat more. Seems a little counter-intuitive. Maybe I can't eat more cause then I'd be overwhelmed with great flavor. Oh right, the basil probably added a hidden flavor to the dish. Drool...

Comment:
I suppose if I were to present it at a dinner, I'd move the entire thing to a dish. That would also make cutting it easier. I couldn't make a clean cut through the bottom layer chicken.