The Thing I Hate Most About Cooking: Dishes.

Yo. So my kitchen has really been a wreck recently. I try pretty hard (well.... I try at least) to wash dishes after I cook, but if I cook in a rush and then sit down for a meal, the last thing I want to do afterward is dishes. This is pretty much the situation every week night, by the way. And then there was still some left overs from the 6 hrs of baking cupcakes and homemade icing. Going out of town for 8 days didn't help at all. So I got back and all the surfaces in my kitchen were covered with very sketchy dishes. However! On thursday, my extremely strapped for cash friend came by and I asked her exactly how broke she was. 3.5 hrs later, my dish problem was solved! My kitchen was still a wreck but it was a totally manageable. It is now still totally clean, almost a week later!!


So, I didn't make too much that was interesting this last week. My boyfriend's been really busy with work and not around, and I really hate cooking just for myself. (I like to be appreciated!) I made quesadillas on Monday, but it was just that simple (messy!) recipe I've discussed before. Thursday, though, I made firecracker shrimp (link) and spur of the moment added crab rangoon to it. I also sauteed some kale, which was okay as leafy green things go! But in any case, despite the original focus on the shrimp, I actually loved the crab rangoon! I kind of ad libed it from a couple places. But this is what I did:

Baked Crab Rangoon
1/2 pack of imitation crab
6oz cream cheese
Pack of green onion, chopped (just the white parts)
A little Worcestershire Sauce
Pepper + Salt
1.5 teaspoons granulated sugar
Garlic powder (to taste?)
Spring roll wrappers
(corn starch)

Pretty much, mix everything and cut pieces of of the spring roll wrappers into halves. Mix water and cornstarch together. Before you put a tablespoon of filling in the middle of the wrapper, rub the wrapper with the water constarch mixture. Fold the wrapper over the mixture and place on a baking sheet. Put in the oven at 350 F for 10-15 min, until the wrapper is crispy. (Makes about 8-10)

What do I have to say about this. Well, I was aiming at a lower fat, non fried version, which I think I did, but also, I didnt use wonton wrappers, and that was a big mistake. One I blame mostly on the local grocery stores, which don't carry them? (Damn middle of nowhere, I needed to go to a specialty store probably.) They were so amazingly perfect with this sauce, which is basically link. I mixed chilli powder, sugar, water, cornstarch, garlic and salt. Note that I forgot the vinegar. I also added more sugar later, because I thought it was a little spicy. It turned out really sweet! It was supposed to be paired with the shrimp, but it was amazing with the crab rangoon! The contrast was really great. That dish was very very delicious, and everyone involved thought so :) (My dishes cleaning friend got some too!)

The wine we drank with it was a 2008 Helfrich Gewurztraminer from Alsace. Something like $13 from Kroger. Went pretty well, although I wouldn't say that it totally excited the flavors. A good pairing, but I'm still open to other wines if I make this dish again. If the food were spicier (like if I'd pushed the chilli forward in the sauce etc.) it would have paired slightly better. The flavors were a somewhat pear-y front taste with more of a developed floral back taste. I have a big problem with a lot of whites that taste like spoiled pear juice, but this was a lot more developed and the floral really helped it out. I liked it.

My next post will probably be on the homemade pulled pork that is currently past due in the oven, yet still stuck at 170! I'm also doing a homemade bbq sauce, and I'm sure to deviate excessively from the recipe I'm (sort of) following, so good times!

Colorado Cuisine

This past week, I've been out of town. I was sharing an extended stay hotel room with 3-4 other people, and there were not enough dishes for that in the meager kitchen. So, even though we'd intended on cooking food, we mostly just ate out. If one of the guys had had any say about it, I think we would have eaten at Chick Fillet every night. The first Saturday we arrived at 10:10pm, all of 10 minutes after it closed, and then on Sundays it is closed! So. We went there two other times.

We also went to two italian places. Biaggio's was really good! I ate a great cheese ravioli with a cream, tomato and pesto sauce. Yummy. The bread was served with a oil/cheese mixture the waiter touted as "Biaggio butter", which was just olive oil, basil, pepper, parmesean cheese. However, when one of my friends remade it (because there was a lot of bread!) he called it "Biaggio butter alla Phil" or "Biaggio butter alla Awesome" because he added salt. I did it better though because I swirled the olive oil, which TOTALLY makes a difference :P The food was pretty great overall, although a little expensive. The other place wasn't very great, Zio's Italian kitchen. We went for lunch and I got a standard manicotti. They used a weird combination of cheeses (maybe some romano or something that was a lot sharper, which isn't great for Italian food?). I never ate the left overs, although I wanted to just on principle.

There was also a restaurant called SmashBurger. It wasn't as great as everyone was saying. I had a burger with bluecheese, and the standard toppings. I didn't really like the smash sauce and the rosemary fries were so so. The other middle class food (not FAST food but not a sit down restaurant) I ate was Noodles and Company. I eat that all the time at home, even just the simple buttered noodles. It was definately not as good as the stuff on the east coast. It probably has to do with the altitude though, athough I don't have much experience with cooking at different altidudes.

The only real thing that I cooked all week was a roasted red pepper and garlic chicken sliced over and garlic, cheese, olive oil pasta. The picture of it is near the top. It wasn't really all that great but for the place we had it was the best we could do. It was so strange not even having the basic spices around. I didn't even marinade the chicken myself; it was the Sassy Chicken from Whole Foods. I found it very interesting that half the pasta tasted extremely bland, and some of it was only so so. My friend had made half the pasta previously and so I could tell how amazing salt is for pasta since mine tasted quite nice. Everyone liked the dish though, so that was pretty great!

Anyway, I'm back now, will try to post more!