This mother truckin’ Inuit knife and breadboard bowl set drops it like it’s hot and then crushes it! Did you club a seal today and need to skin it? Did your redneck neighbor pass out on your front porch again and it’s time to cut off his mullet? Or hey, maybe you just got some fresh strawberries from Trader Joe’s and you’re looking to make some shortcake, yum! Brother this is THE knife and breadboard set for you, because it’s been doing all that and more for a couple millenia. That knife warns you too, DON’T MESS WITH ME, I’LL CUT YOU. Look at those eyes. Those are not teddy bears, friend. Those bears mean business. Now it’s about time to chop those carrots and olives into oblivion, but don’t worry, they’re gonna keep safe in this bowl. No rolling around gonna happen. All in all these tools will make your chopping a breeze, and they might even protect you from a home invasion.

Cooking for myself is usually an excuse to do something really weird.  I like strange combinations of stuff, like tangy, spicy and savory, and I’ve been really into curry lately.   I mean, like, making it every night kind of stuff.   So tonight I kinda threw everything I felt might fall under that category into the pot and went with it.  Check it out:

Curry 2.0

That’s carrots, sweet potato, onions, garam masala, garlic and egg, with my old friend Sriracha Sauce on the top.    Accompanying it are two crescent rolls filled with fresh basil and neufchatel, to cool things down.

OK now the verdict - was it delicious?  YES.  Would I serve it to company?  Probably only the people who actually read this post.

New invention - I think I’ll call it the MOTHERLOAD.  Please feast your eyes:

You can also tell I’ve been drawing way too many details at work lately.

(my future book cover)

My aunt asked me to make a dish of Beef Wellington for my Grandmother’s birthday.  So because I’ve never even seen it before, I said “hell yes” plus I’ll even take some pictures as I go (for the insurance company, when I set the oven on fire again).  So here’s how it went:

Start off with a 3 pound beef tenderloin, lots of mushrooms (I had baby portabellas and a dried northwoods blend) some red wine, about 12 slices of prosciutto,  and two sheets of puff pastry.  Spices to follow along later.  SO PAY ATTENTION!

Grab your loin and rub it down with some oil.  Yep.  Ok, enough!  Just a little bit!  Now salt and pepper it, put it in the pan, (you should have preheated your oven to 400 by now) and stick it in the oven for approximately 35 minutes.  When it’s done cooking, stick it in the fridge.  Chop up the mushrooms into tiny bits.  You can use the food processor, but just make sure to pulse them so that you don’t end up with a mess.  Side note here, those dried mushrooms, you can put them in a warm pot with about half cup of  wine and half cup of water till they soak up everything, only then chop them up.  Now put all the mushrooms in a hot pan with some butter, a generous amount of thyme and a little garlic, cook for about 10 minutes.  Pour some wine in there and cook it down for another 10 minutes.  When you’re done they look like braaaaaaains…

Now you need to lay out a sheet of plastic wrap on the counter, then lay the prosciutto down on it, then the mushrooms, then the beef, then cover the loin with the rest of the mushrooms, and roll the whole log of it up in the plastic wrap again.  Kinda like this, but with more mushrooms on top of it.

After that chilled for a while, you can flatten out the puff pastry sheets, and roll out the log onto them.  Wrap it all up so that it’s like a burrito, and then put it in the pan and back in the oven for another 30-35 minutes.  Whenever that pastry looks good.  OK PARTY PEOPLE, LET’S EAT THIS MEAT CAKE!

Well, new house, so I’m planting a new garden.  Since it’s late summer already, my options are slim.  So far, I’ve got lettuce, spinach, basil and peppers.  I’m planning for cabbage, but I still have to find the seeds or seedlings for those.  Anyway, here are some early pictures of Garden 2.0:

That’s not a dirt pie you see, readers.  (Although it was in the oven earlier - for sterilization.)  It’s potential.

Seedling bed

I guess you can tell I’m definitely back in Manhattan when even the basil plants are purple.

And here, something a little further along:

Poblanos - to ensure my food will have a nice kick.

More of the new garden to follow.  Don’t miss out!  Yes, it is that thrilling!!!

I was going to give up on the whole bread making idea, but this video has inspired me to give it another go:

You know you love it.

Whew!  I just finished making some samosas.  Well, my take on samosas.  The pictures are crappy, but that’s just because I have a crappy camera and I just want to get going… sorry…

Take about 4 medium red potatoes, and boil ‘em down.  It should take you about 25 minutes.  Put the potatoes in a big bowl, and mash ‘em up with a fork.  Meanwhile, get an onion diced, and sautee it in a saucepan, and while you’re doing that, go ahead and throw maybe a cup of some frozen peas in there.  And throw some chopped jalapenos in there too.  Add in some garam masala, some cumin, a little coriander, a little turmeric, and (my own thing here) a little bit of yogurt - just to make it blend a little better, all to taste, and mix it up.

Here’s where I get a little off the traditional path.  Usually people would make their own dough to wrap the filling, but my difficulties with dough have been a little ridiculous lately.  I went ahead and bought wonton wraps, and all you have to do is put a little ball of the filling into them, slap some egg wash on the insides, and pinch them up into delicious little triangles.

Now I’m always weary of frying stuff.  It’s not that I’m bad at the execution, it’s just the idea of all that oil, when I could bake it instead… sorta gross… although it does taste good, I’ll definitely grant you that.  But because I’m cooking it for a big group, I went ahead and did both.  I baked about 20 of them, just pinched up the wontons, sprayed them with a little Pam, sprinkle a little sea salt on top, and pop them in the toaster oven.  With the rest of them, I did a little trick.  I put some vegetable oil in the pan, along with some red pepper flakes, and a little garlic powder.  Now I can’t say I’m an expert on the issue of frying stuff, but this all seemed like a good idea when I started out, and hell’s bells, it actually tasted damn good too - the flavors meld onto the wontons!  So there you have it.

The traditional dip for this is a cilantro and mint chutney.  And because I’m not really crazy about cilantro, (in fact, I hate it) I did a little “research” for good dipping sauces.  It really just involved mixing up different stuff I have in my fridge.  The best I came up with is Sriracha and yogurt.  I know, you’re thinking I’m nuts.  But it’s actually not to bad.  It’s spicy as hell, but it’s also cooling.  My taste buds didn’t know what to do.  Part of them felt like I did earlier when I was chopping the jalapenos and I rubbed my eye (AVOID THIS ACTION AT ALL COSTS), but the rest of my taste buds were nice and cool, like they were listening to Michael McDonald while skiing down a slope of fresh powder.  Anyway, cooking is just an experiment, so do what you want, whatever tastes good.

Unbelievable.  This is my fourth try at making the same stupid loaf of baguette.  And I’m 0 for 4 for actually having something that people would consistently be able to eat without fear of breaking a tooth off with a mouthful of stone/bread.  So far it seems I have a better chance of discovering the philosopher’s stone and turning lead to gold than of being able to make something edible.  I present the following video:

Well today was round 3 of my baking bread adventure. And it did not go well!!!
3A was aborted on the way to the oven:

3B was carried out, and showed some promise up till it was delivered from the oven. It looked like it could possibly be something worth eating, but upon further investigation was clearly meant for being the deadly weapon in some sort of assault. Here are some photos from the crime scene:

The Deadly Weapon

The Smash and Grab

The only way to eat any of the bread was by smashing open the loaf and pillaging what could be digested from the inside.  I was more concerned with making sure my teeth didn’t break on it, rather than the way it tasted.  Another FAIL!!!

Riley County 4-H Grand Champion Baker Tina came over yesterday, and we baked some bread!  And it was real bread, unlike my previous attempts.

We tried to figure out what I was doing so wrong before, and it seems like I was burning the yeast.  So, now I know what to do, eh, sort of.  “The water should be the temperature of a baby’s bottle,” Tina says.  Because I know what that is…  Anyway, hopefully this means that I’ll be able to get some other loaves going, instead of baking concrete.

Tina would like to say some words: