Smokin' Bagels

I burned a bagel while trying to figure out how my coffemaker works. I think I may have bit off more than I can chew. Which is pathetic, since I have worked in a cafe for two years that specializes specifically in bagels and coffee.


FAIL.

The Training Wheels are Off, Everyone!

Well, the moment we've all been waiting for is here. I have officially moved into my apartment and from now on, all meals are 100 percent up to me to figure out. Mommy isn't going to hold my hand or cook me a grilled cheese, nor am I going to wimp out and crawl over to the dining hall to have some high-fat food cooked for me. No sir. I am ready to rock, and after my first grocery trip I am just itchin to get in the kitchen.

Tonight, I didn't even use a recipe. I cooked up some ziti, then sauteed some mushrooms, green peppers, tomatoes, and spinach in olive oil. I put some tomato basil sauce in the microwave, tossed it all together in a bowl, and voila! Bri cooks her first successful meal without a recipe book.

I also went through my cookbook tonight armed with some stickie notes and marked off recipes that I want to try in the future. The hard thing is that this cookbook has a lot of really unique recipes, but sometimes the ingredients are so unique that there is no possible way I would use them in anything but that recipe. For a poor college student, money is everything, and I'm not about to spend unnecessary money on pine nuts, just so I can make one risotto dinner.

Time to go to bed before the first day of classes, but I'm sure there will be plenty of other adventures in the future!

MUFFIN FAIL

This is the reason why timers are very important. This was my attempt at Dulce de Leche muffins, which I tried to make at work, when I got distracted. The recipe would have probably turned out great if it weren't for my neglect. I work at a cafe so we have a ton of Torani flavor shots. I used caramel, vanilla, french vanilla, english toffee, and some cane sugar for these. Maybe I'll try them again soon. For now, I have a great picture to demonstrate my abilities as a cook :P

Bon appetite! (or not. Those look pretty awful)

Orange Ginger Stir fry

This is a great vegetarian meal! Even though I am not a vegetarian, and never could be, I do like to make explicitly veggie meals some nights, and this was definitely one of them. Even though the recipe was pretty specific about ingredients, I decided to get a little creative and do my own version. I don't know why I'm so bummed to say this, but the dish went really well. I was hoping for some funny story about how I added a wrong ingredient or spilled molten hot ginger sauce on my leg (not that funny, actually) but this really went off without a hitch.


Another great thing? It took about twenty minutes to make, tops, and for someone who usually needs to eat on the run or just very quickly, it's nice to be able to toss some stuff into a pan and let everything else just happen.

Here's the recipe. I'm sure it's absolutely delicious but I'll let you know what I put in mine :)




Pretty much, mine had the mushrooms, broccoli, and the snap peas. I had no clue what snap peas were before this recipe, but now I'm glad I do because they're really delicious!

I added spinach, tomato, and basil into mine, all straight from my mom's garden. The mushrooms definitely tasted the best though, and I'm glad I've started to incorporate them more into my cooking. I think that I had a bias against mushrooms since I was a child and read that book Babar the Elephant and the king elephant died after eating a poisonous mushroom.



If I were to make this again (and let's be honest, I probably will) I would add some kind of rice or pasta to the mix and probably not make as much sauce. It was a little drowned. Other than that, great recipe, and a great, easy meal!

RISOTTO (finally!)

Hey all,
Sorry it's taken me a little time to put my results up. It's been a crazy week, and after the epic adventure that was my sun-dried tomato risotto, I needed some rest. Just kidding. But no, really, it was an exhausting process. I want to say that I might have shot a little high for my first attempt, but I guess now there's really nowhere to go but up.

I wouldn't exactly call the risotto a success, but I also would not stoop to say it was a failure, either. After almost forty-five minutes of standing over the stove murmuring creative swear words and occasionally stirring the rice, my friend and I grew frustrated and declared that we didn't think the rice was ever going to cook all the way so everyone was just going to have to be content with hardish rice. Well, let me just say that no one was exactly pleased with this decision. I sulked for a little bit, feeling like I should have produced something perfect and amazing, especially after the buildup of promising to make dinner for everyone. Finally, we put everything together on the table, and I have to say, even though the rice was hard, everything looked absolutely delicious.

Despite the hardness, everything tasted great. There was a nice mix of flavor in the risotto, with no one flavor absolutely overpowering the other. Things I would recommend for myself for next time would be to buy the right kind of rice, although my friend tried the recipe with the correct rice and didn't enjoy it at all, but she also thinks that she didn't get strong enough vegetable broth. So as for now, I will consider this a success, and until next time, I will think of ways to get better.

Bon appetite! :)

Risotto = Frustration

The title really drew me in, and now, thirty minutes later, I am sweating in the kitchen intensely trying to get this dish right. I have two hungry guys sitting on the couch who are assuring me that they will eat anything that I produce, and a best friend in the kitchen who is stressing about our rice. Me? I'm just not feeling this. I'm getting frustrated easily, and part of it might just be the mood I am in today, but the other part of me just wants to give up and make some more grilled cheese.

But I'm not letting myself get off that easily.

The point of this whole thing is to learn, and what I think I have to accept is that making mistakes and having some goofs is just a part of learning. No one likes messing up, but I think that I was expecting to be perfect my first time cooking, and obviously, that was not going to happen.

Right now our rice is simmering and taking a very long time to cook. We have cranked the heat and added more vegetable broth but it is a very slow process. Fortunately, no one is exactly starving, so we have time before my boyfriend and his roommate start desperately chewing couch cushions.

I got the recipe for this in a college cookbook that I bought about a week ago that consists of easy, healthy meals directed at people my age. Still, I feel a little bit over my head.


So right now I'm just waiting for the rice to cook and be something other than rock hard. I don't mind eating it hard honestly, but I'm pretty positive that it's not supposed to be that way. Even if the consistency isn't fantastic, I'm pretty sure that we can't go wrong with the taste. I love love love basil and spinach, so regardless, I will enjoy it. And if it turns out to be horrible, and a total fail, then we still have a salad in the fridge and some kraft macaroni and cheese that I'm about 99% sure I can't screw up.

I will post the result later tonight. Until then, wish me luck!

Bon appetite!

I love blogging about salads!

The salad was a hit! No, it's not Tuesday yet, so my boyfriend has yet to try it, but my friends tested it out last night and everyone seemed to like it. It seems a little weird right now that I am dedicating an entire post about salad, especially since salad doesn't really require any cooking. It does require cutting though, which is just as difficult. I took a nice slice out of my finger the other day at work cutting up lemons. Go me!

But really, I want to make this clear because to understand this is to understand my relationship with cooking/baking/preparing any kind of food. It doesn't take a lot for me to feel proud of myself. I think this is a great thing because I won't be spending this blog whining about how awful I am at cooking. Of course, I can poke fun at myself once in a while, but I do feel a great sense of gratification when I make something that people enjoy.

So, now that I've tested it out, here is the new improved recipe for Bri's Poppyseed Salad :)

Bri's Poppyseed Salad
- Strawberries, chopped into fours
- Small chunks of pineapples
- A few handfuls of blueberries
- Ten or so slices of mandarin oranges
- Lettuce
- Almonds and pecans
- Poppyseed Dressing
- Chicken (optional)

Make sure not to totally drown the salad in dressing. It takes away from the flavors of all the delicious fruits, making it difficult to appreciate them. Obviously, the salad is great without the chicken too if you are looking for a vegetarian option. Really, there's no right or wrong with this. I put a ton of fruit in it and it was great, but I'm sure more lettuce would be just as great. Also, try adding spinach into the salad, or replace the lettuce altogether. As I think I mentioned before I have a very loving relationship with spinach, so any excuse I get to eat it, I will.

So this is my kinda boring, kinda exciting for me post. Trust me, I never thought I'd be blogging about salad recipes, but I'm actually really enjoying this. I figure that if at least one person comes here and tries out the recipe I (sort of) created, then it was totally worth it to take the time to sit down and write this.

Bon Appetite!

Cooking for Others

This little rant is brought to you from the foundation of "Bri Promised Her Boyfriend She'd Make Him and His Roommate Dinner on Tuesday". Donations and cooking tips will be accepted.

This was a stupid idea.

I'm fine when I'm cooking for myself. If it sucks, it sucks, and I will say, "Hey Bri, that dish you made completely sucks. Why don't you throw it out and eat another one?" But other people, they're not so blunt. They will gnaw their way through your terrible meal, with masked smiles attempting to hide their grimace, all the while telling you how delicious it is and how much they like it.

It's a terrible, terrible thing.

First off, I'm not saying I want anyone to up front tell me that my meal is bad. That would be a huge blow to my already very small ego, and I would probably spend the rest of the night curled up in a corner with a bowl of raw cookie dough (from the store, since they apparently can get it right) crying over how I will never be a success.

This fear all goes back to me not liking to cook for other people because then they will judge me about what I cooked and not be honest with me whether they like it or not. I always watch out for just the littlest sign of dislike before checking with the victim, er, guest, to see if they really are enjoying it.

I haven't quite decided what I am making for the two of them yet, but I know it can't involve any meat since my boyfriend's roomie is a vegetarian. I will be preparing a salad though, that I am very excited about. I've never made it before but I had a version of it at Panera Bread the other day and it was absolutely delicious.

Recipe:
* Lettuce
* Strawberries
* Blueberries
* Pecans
* Pineapple
* Mandarins
* Poppy Seed Dressing

I'm pretty pumped. It's a great salad because I don't feel like I'm eating salad at all. It's healthy, while being totally delicious too. I'm thinking about adding some spinach too because I will eat anything, and I mean absolutely anything with spinach on it, and we have some fresh leaves from our garden that need using up. Hopefully I can get my version up to the standards of the one I ate the other day, because if I screw this up, then the rest of the meal is definitely not going to work out.

Anyway! Let me know what you think a good meal would be for these two lucky guys. I want it to be a nice balance of it being easy for me to make, but look impressive too, because my boyfriend is definitely one of the wonderful people in my life who like to poke fun at me for my lack of culinary education or skill.

Bon Appetite!

B2B- Born to Bake

There are people out there that are just born to bake things. It's like they wake up or are born with this gene that allows them to stick things in the oven for just the right amount of time, or to add a pinch of something that will completely make the dish.

Unfortunately, if that gene was in my family, it was completely lost on me.

I watch water boil like a hawk, even though you're really not supposed to. There's that phrase, "a watched pot never boils", which I am pretty positive is a metaphor for something, but I take it pretty literally as I stand next to the stove and freak out if something distracts me for even a second. It's as if I'm expecting the pot to spontaneously burst into flame and burn my house down. Yes, it's that bad. I analyze every bubble, and lord knows I do not get close to the pot. I have a thing about boiling stuff touching me (as I'm sure most people do) but mine stems from accidentally burning my neck on a piece of hot stuffing when I was very young. Would I say that I am disturbed by this experience? No, I still think I managed to survive. Do I bring my finger back at the smallest hint of a burn? Yes, I do.

Anyway. Born to Bake. B2B, if you like catchy little abbreviations like me, although I'm sure by now, someone else has already claimed B2B means something else. Back to back, business to business, yeah...I'm not the first one to think this up. One of my friends has this incredible ability to bake anything she wants, whenever she wants. Her mom is like that too, so obviously she got the B2B gene, but it always amazes me when I show up at a party with a store bought bag of chips and she comes with a cake that looks like it's right out of Cake Boss.

Same goes for a girl I work with. She comes into work and spouts of all the different combinations of muffins and brownies that have been mulling in her head for a few hours, and makes these concoctions that I wouldn't even be able to think up, let alone produce. Apple Cinnamon muffins, hazelnut brownies, maple walnut muffins, cinnamon caramel tiramisu cheesecake...the list goes on and on. I wish I had a talent like that, or even an imagination like that. I made some peppermint oreo brownies this morning and I was pretty damn proud of myself. I wonder what she must feel like.

Anyway, I'm out to see if the B2B gene is something that needs to be directly inherited or if it is a gene that's just been hanging out on the sidelines and just needs a little encouragement to get into the game. I'm hoping it's the latter.

Starting Out

Picture this: I am thirteen years old, a brace-faced, dorky little thing, with straight across bangs (not the chic kind) and I decide that I want to make myself some macaroni and cheese. My mom is out for the night, so I give her a call asking her to kindly explain how to boil water. She gives me the lowdown, and I am confident, that yes, I will cook this boxed Annie’s Macaroni and Cheese and it will be the best in the world, and I will discover that I had hidden culinary talent all these years. I put the water in the pot, the pot on the stove, and call my friend Maggie. We chat it up about the restaurant that we will open since I am now a chef deserving of a prime time spot on the Food Network. Everything is blissful, and my hungry stomach anticipates being filled with delicious noodles and processed cheese.

Then, the unthinkable happens. In the thirty seconds that I turned my back, large clouds of some kind of smoke or vapor start evaporating from the pan. I panic, talking rapidly in the phone to Maggie about how I burned my water, and had to get the smoke to subside before the smoke detector goes off. I couldn’t believe this, that I had screwed up this bad. But wait…it didn’t smell smokey. Maggie put her mom on the phone since she was better equipped to handle an emergency such as this, and as I described the situation, her mom began to laugh. Hard. Turns out, that’s supposed to happen.

And that’s where my journey with cooking started.

I am happy to say that I have moved on from this point, but not that much. See, I grew up in a house where family dinners were an absolute priority, and often our house would be a common scene from a family sitcom. My mom would serve us an amazing dinner she had cooked, while my dad and my little brother joked around and set and cleared the table. I rarely ventured into the kitchen, mostly out of laziness and lack of interest. My food got made, I got to eat it…I was happy, right? Now, at least I have skills enough to make the most basic of meals. For example, if I were to open a restaurant featuring said meals, the menu would include:

~ Chocolate chip pancakes
~ Grilled cheese sandwiches
~ Quesadillas
~Omelets, maybe, if the chef is on her A-game and doesn’t burn them
~ Macaroni and Cheese
~ Egg sandwiches
~Toast

Not a whole lot of variety there. Some breakfast, a little bit of lunch, mostly all items involving a griddle. But if this were my staple diet, I would be packing on the pounds pretty quickly.

The reason I am starting this blog is because I believe that there are many people out there like me who are absolutely clueless about cooking, and want to get better at it. I am moving into my own apartment in the fall, and will have to cook for myself. My mother’s biggest concern about moving into an apartment was that I would not be able to cook healthily for myself, and I am motivated to prove her wrong. So here I will most likely be sharing some goofs, some disasters, some spilling, and maybe, just maybe, some success.

Bon Appetite!