Tag Archive for cooking

October Round-Up

November 6, 2011 anitabot No comments

I haven’t mentioned enough how much I love fall. October is a standout month due to Thanksgiving and Halloween.

This Thanksgiving I hosted at my mom’s house for my family and my in-laws. Cooking at someone else’s house is always a challenge. I don’t know where everything is kept and their tools aren’t the same as mine. One thing that made up for all of this was my mom’s AWESOME CONVECTION OVEN. Holy crap! I’ve never cooked in a convection oven before and I don’t ever want to go back. The 17.5lb turkey took 2.5hrs to cook fully, instead of the 4.5-5 hours it would normally take. Combine the ultra-quick cooking time with my brine made for the absolute juciest turkey I have ever had.

Like always, I forgot to take pics after the first hour of prep so I don’t have finished shots. Here are some pics of the prep:

Turkey ready for brine

Turkey ready for brine

Martha Stewart's Turkey Brine

Martha Stewart's Turkey Brine

I used this recipe from Martha Stewart for the brine. It’s pretty amazing, except I think the amount of water she has in there is wrong. Water can only dissolve so much salt. Nevertheless, it was easy to add a few extra cups and everything turned out fine. I used my iPad extensively. Last time I made turkey dinner I used my laptop. The good thing about the laptop was the conversion widget. However, getting gross food stuffs in the keyboard was not good. That is where the iPad excelled.

Everyone loved the dinner and I was happy with that. Though I’m definitely going to need a break from making such a huge meal.

The other highlight of course is Halloween! Admittedly, this year I wasn’t feeling it as much as previous years. I still took part. I attended a Zombie make-up work shop at Complections school of make-up artistry. It was a demonstration but I paid the extra $45 to get the make-up kit. It was totally worth it. I did the make-up for my sister-in-law, her room mate and boyfriend for the Toronto Zombie Walk! Here are pics of them:

Zombie the first

Zombie the first

Zombie the second

Zombie the second

Zombie the third

Zombie the third

I also did the make up a week later for my friend and Hubby. I myself went in the exact opposite direction and dressed up as the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. Had a good time and lots of candy!

Zombies

Zombies

White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland

White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland

 

All in All, I had a great October.  It’s just a few days into November and it’s shaping up to be a great one, too. :)

 

 

 

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Birthmeh

October 26, 2011 anitabot No comments

For most of my life I have gotten really excited about my birthday. I would sometimes have expectations that were too big to fill but for the most part I’ve always had a great time. As I got older, I started to feel that it was decidedly uncool to love your birthday like a child, so I learned to hide my excitement. I’m sure I didn’t do a very good job. My late 20′s have changed that. I’ve stopped caring about doing anything special and it felt like just another day, but at least another day with guaranteed chocolate cake.  I still don’t hate or fear my birthday. I think I’ve done a pretty good job of dealing with aging. Maybe it’s because I look a lot younger than I am – something that used to bother me when I was younger but of course now is something I treasure.  Maybe it’s also partially because of my child-like behaviour… Either way, I’m not sweating birthdays… yet.

I remember when I was a teenager I’d prepare the birthday wish list no less than 1 month in advance. Having a mid November birthday meant that all unfulfilled birthday wishlist items automatically became the Christmas wishlist. It was just efficient, I thought! Then I got to that point where I could buy myself whatever I wanted, and all the things I really wanted were way too expensive to ask of anyone.  This never stops my mom for asking me what I want.  It’s an interesting thing. As a kid I’d ask my mom what she wanted for mother’s day, birthday and Christmas and I’d rarely get a real answer. Every couple of years she would run down her old slippers or run out of perfume and those were easy… but other than that she mostly wanted nothing. How frustrating! Surely there’s something you’d want! Well, now I find myself in that position.

Last year when I turned 30 she bought me and Baron a return flight to NYC as our combined birthday gifts. It was perfect. I’d always wanted to go, flying is very convenient and this way I could force Baron to come with me. I loved it. I decided at that point that every birthday in my 30′s will yield a trip. Lavish, indulgent and maybe a bit much but that’s what is happening… Though I can save up and take these little weekend trips myself, and I could never ask someone to buy me that… so it doesn’t quite solve the problem of what my mother wants to give me.

Since I am taking myself to Chicago (my kinda town), I started to think of things I would want.

So far I have come up with this:

A chocolate covered caramel apple.

Birthday Yum

Birthday Yum

 

Failing that, I will gladly take an edible arrangement:

More Birthday Yums

More Birthday Yums

There are a few other things I want like a cusinart food processor, a better blender and perhaps slight more fun, cooking classes. Those things can still get pretty pricey.

So apparently I want either: fruit dipped in chocolate, or things that will allow me to cook. Hrm. Can we say one-track-mind?  I wouldn’t mind getting a wacom tablet, but it’s not a necessity. When I was younger it was so easy to make a list of things I wanted… now even the things I want seem slightly silly. Perhaps I’ve actually succeeded in becoming less materialistic. I’m totally fine to not buy things, to wait it out or at least save up for it.

All I really want on my birthday is this: to spend time with people I love and to have chocolate. Taking a trip to somewhere is really just the chocolate on the fruit. :)

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Cooky Wooky Club – Baked Fish & Chips

September 14, 2011 anitabot No comments

Today I was telling some co-workers about this blog. They asked if it was specifically about food. I said no, just me, things I generally like. They responded “so food…?”. They were right!

I often have chats with friends about dinner parties and recipe swaps and dinner clubs but they rarely come to pass.  I’ll start with posting more of my cooking & baking exploits here, and maybe it can grow into a real exchange.

For my inaugural Cooky Wooky Club post (yes, I just made up that name now) I present baked fish & chips from food network kitchens.

Baked Fish and Chips

Baked Panko Fish and Chips with hand-cut fries and simple veg salad

I’d rate this meal a 3.5 out of 5.

The original recipe calls for “crispy rice cereal”, but I used panko bread crumbs because I already had those. I also used halibut instead of pollock.

The french fries were easy to bake, but next time I’ll add more cayenne pepper and watch them so they don’t get stuck to the pan. Next time I’ll add some more spices, perhaps rosemary or basil to my panko mixture. The fish was good but panko with salt and pepper is just a tiny bit bland.

I made what I call simple veg salad to go with it. Important Cooky Wooky Club fact: I don’t like lettuce, not even spinach and for this reason I often make salads that don’t have any. This simple veg salad was just tomatoes, red onions and avocado sprinkled with some balsamic vinegar. It was delicious and helped add some much needed colour and nutrition to this otherwise white and starchy dish. (By the way, I love starch).

The recipe said there was a total 45 min prep/cook time and I found it took me just over an hour.

If any of you decide to try this, I’d love to hear your ideas on the dish.

PS. Cooky Wooky Club is not to be confused with Cookie Wookiee club, which could in theory be a club where you make wookiee cookies and I’m totally open to that, too.

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