Butternut Squash Soup

This weekend I decided to try out my new immersion blender, and what better to try it on than Butternut Squash Soup now that the temperatures are dropping and all the fall and winter foods are starting to appear in the grocery stores. we used this recipe, which in my opinion is miss titled. Its called Butternut squash shallot soup, but you could barely tell there were shallots in there, and really taste the ginger. Peter suggested putting a few crumbles of goat cheese on top next time which maybe we will try. It was very delicious.

Fried Rice

Well, we are back from our honeymoon and ready to eat in for a while. This first meal is hawaii-inspired. The best dish I had while we were there was actually at breakfast. Our hotel had an amazing breakfast buffet, and since most of the hotel guests were Japanese, they catered to their guests. One morning for breakfast (along with my amazing fresh pineapples and mangoes) I had a delicious pineapple fried rice that we decided to try and make on our own last night. I found this recipe. It couldnt have been easier to make. We of course omitted the egg, and added corn (peter loves to add corn to everything). The only step we didnt really follow was using old rice or letting it sit for an hour. We let it sit for like 10 minutes, and I didnt think it hurt the meal any. Maybe next time I'll prepare a few days in advance and whip up some rice. Sorry for the bad photo, I really need to start taking these pictures with my nice camera instead of my iphone.



As a side note does anyone have a rice cooker? I'm considering getting one, and peter thinks its a dumb idea. Thoughts?

Crafts in the shower?

Well sorta, more like science projects. One of the awesome things about my mom is that she encouraged my science side and allowed me to take part in many science projects as a kid. Anything I was curious about we investigated. One of which was using an egg for shampoo. I gave it a try except i didnt take into consideration the temperature of the water and made a scrambled egg in my hair. Well now that I'm older and more mature I thought i'd give alternate shampoos and conditioners a try. I get so much build up on my hair from normal shampoos and conditioners that I figured this couldnt be any worse. So i looked up a few different methods and settled on beer rinse to make my hair shiny. My hair is moderately shiny today, but nothing out of the ordinary. What is out of the ordinary however is how dry my scalp is today. I read more and I guess its the alcohol in the beer. An alternate method boils down the beer first which I guess I should try next time. This would have been nice to know before :( Lessons learned.

Amigurumi

Again, in preparation for the hurricane we got old school activities that don't require electricity. I bought a kit from barnes and nobles on how to make Amigurumi (crocheted animals), and re-taught myself how to crochet. I tried to use the instructions in the 1st chapter of the book but some didnt make any sense at all or left out steps, so i went to youtube for that portion. Once I figured out all the stitches I started with the kissing fish pattern.

It turns out that I was reading the instructions wrong and was more than half way through before i realized. For example the instructions would say *1sc, 2sc in next stitch* (12). I read this to mean 1 single chain then 2 single chains in the next stitch and repeat this entire cycle 12 times. Instead what it actually meant was that in the end you should have 12 stitches (not the 36 I was doing). I started to notice the fish wasn't very 3d (minus the lips i did perfectly), I thought maybe at a later step it would pull the stitches in and it would become spherical.

I finally re-read the how to section and realized I had been reading the instructions wrong. Luckily its easy to undo this and I started over from scratch.
I didnt quite get some of the steps on the fins but i think i improvised well.

Hurricane Chili

This weekend in preparation for Hurricane Irene to blow through town (probably an over statement since there was barely even wind) we stocked up with water, batteries, flashlights, and non perishable food. Peter had the great idea to make a big pot of chili and just eat that all weekend. My favorite vegetarian chili is hard times cafe at the ball park. Infact last time we went i got stopped by FOUR seperate guys who wanted to know where I had gotten the delicious looking chili (at first I thought they were just trying to make an excuse to talk to me, but by the 3rd i realized it was the chili not me). We started with a base recipe and added corn and peanuts.

The chili looked great even before the beans and tomatoes were added


The part you could really taste the most were the spices

The recipe calls for Chili Powder ( we added a bit more than it called for), Cumin, Coriander, and a tiny dash of Cinnamon...even though the smallest amt of spice in there was the cinnamon it was the most easily distinguishable with both the final taste and final smell of the chili.

I made nachos with my portion :)

Pea Pesto

Last night I followed Smitten Kitchen's recipe for Pea Pesto. Smitten Kitchen has never let me down so I love trying recipes from this site (see corn pie). English peas aren't quite in season so I had to make do with frozen peas. I also left out the pine nuts since I don't like them at all (although if i were to try it again maybe I'd give toasted pine nuts a chance). Peter also wanted me to add basil, but I left it out this time in curiosity for what a non basil pesto may taste like. In the end it was very nice looking, and pretty delicious, but definitely lacking something. Maybe that Basil and Pine nuts are what I needed. I do love this color though!


All in all I'd file this under a recipe to try again with modifications

Candied Pecans

One night last week I caught a bit of an old Julia Child episode while at the gym. She had a guest on showing how to make some lemon chiffon cake with candied pecans on top. The cake itself didn't look good, but the pecans sure did. I decided to play around with ingredients and make my own. First I tried just plain sugar (1/4 cup pecans, 2 tbsp water, 2 tbsp white sugar). This one was pretty good, but a little too sweet. Next I tried a batch the same but added a few grounds of sea salt. This one was definitely on the right track, but not quite there yet. Then I tried one last one with the sugar, salt, and then added a few shakes of ground cloves, and a few shakes of cinnamon. This one was the clear winner. For all these recipes all you have to do is throw all the ingredients in the sauce pan at once and stir till sugar dissolves and begins boiling, then reduce the heat and let cook for about 7 to 10 minutes stirring occasionally. If you take it out too soon the sugar coating remains sticky. You'll know when you are done when there is almost no sauce left in the pan.



I topped my salad with the cinnamon pecans and it was delicious!



The two things i'd try next time, is first maybe i'll try a batch using brown sugar instead of white, and second maybe i'd try toasting the pecans first.