The Nightmare before Bakemas

  

Hello there my non-cooker groupies! It’s almost my absolute favorite time of the year!

Halloween!

And for this special time of the year I’ve decided to bake something truly ghoulish and ghastly:

SUGAR COOKIES!

It's okay children. Miley Cyrus is just afraid of you
as you are of it. 

You see, growing up with two sisters and a whole plethora of female cousins you would think I would have gotten around to baking some sort of pastry or cookie.

Well you are wrong in that thought. And I blame my sisters for that.

They're just sad because they never let me bake with them.

I would have added so much comic relief they
wouldn't have handled it.  

Well all that changed very recently as I managed to bake cookies for the first time ever!

That’s right! And I will show you how I did it!

Step 1: Put a ½ cup of sugar and 6 tablespoons of soft unsalted butter into a bowl.

 Mesh it all together until it forms as one.

Pour in ½ teaspoon of vanilla.

Put the egg into bowl. 

And then beat it. 

I hope you are proud of yourself.
You egg-beater. 

Step 2: In a separate bowl, put 1 ½ cups of flour, ½ teaspoon of baking powder, and ½ teaspoon of salt.

 

Whiter than a Mumford and Sons concert

Add all of these ingredients into the first bowl then mix. 

The end result should be a doughy mixture of dough. For me it was still pretty sticky, so I added in more flour and the problem went away. Just go ahead and get your hands in there and mush it around. It's great. Trust me. 

At this point in the process I thought I was done. 

But I wasn't. 

So uhm... nice cookies?

Step 3: Put that dough in the refrigerator for at least 45 minutes- an hour. 

Just think of it as time-out for the dough. 

It's getting kind of kranky. 

Step 4: Now while the dough is chilling in the fridge, pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.

I'm a pretty big Kelvin fan myself but today we will be going with farhernheit.

Also to note: This is an oven.

Step 5: Clear a nice space out on your counter. Lay down plastic wrap so you can give the dough red carpet/flour treatment once it's done having its alone time. 

Roll out your dough with a rolling pin. If you do not have a rolling pin you can find any suitable substitute for it.

Such as this wine bottle.

But don't worry; the contents of the bottle were consumed
 before the rolling process started.
  

Roll out the dough to a ¼ inch thick.

From here use any cookie cutters you want. 

I’ll be using the Halloween cookie cutters to give it a holiday vibe.

When placing your cutters, be sure to place them next to one another for maximum cookie usage.

Place them on the baking sheet.

And pop them into the oven!

It should take between 8-12 minutes to fully bake.

Ideal look should be gold around the edges.

Step 6: The Icing.  

Put 1 cup of powdered sugar into a bowl.

Put a couple tablespoons of some not quite-boiling water into the bowl to party with the powdered sugar.

 After mixing the ingredients together, it should form sort of a thick paste. At this point you can add any food coloring you desire, but in this particular case I used sprinkles instead.

Mother. Fucking. Sprinkles.

Spread the paste onto each cookie individually and pour the sprinkle goodness upon it.

And there you have yourself some goddamn Halloween Cookies.

(Please note that in the heat of the moment, the cookies, and the mother-effing sprinkles, I forgot to snap a few pics of the end result. However I am planning on remaking this recipe this weekend, and will update once more with pics)

It's done! Good job!

You did it!

I did it!

I did it.

I did it….

I finally made cookies for the first time in my life. That’s that…  

Well that was sure anti-climatic. I was worried that once I was done baking I would have some sort of existential breakdown on how expectations never live up to their hype and that recipes are kin to goals and objectives in your life that you need to follow in order to be a good person.

But a las. I am the same. Except that I now know how to bake sugar cookies in the shapes of ghosts and pumpkins.

Guest Eater of the Week: Caraline aka dancer who has the grace of a cat

“Mmmmmm?”

“Somewhat crunchy.”

Happy Halloween everybody!

The difference between sisters. 

The loving one

Although granted, I do annoy her more.

But she loves me.

I mean who doesn't?! 

Falafelaplooza

Hello everyone! The government is back up and so am I! For it’s Green Week! And no I don’t mean eco-friendly or Irish Heritage Week, I mean this weeks recipe was made for vegetarians in mind! For the recipe is

FALAFEL!

And what’s more patriotic than a good ol’ falafel on the stove?

Chef Barack says the status on Congress is not Well Done. 

Here are all the ingredients you need to make a run of the mill falafel:

Pita bread

Chickpeas

Cilantro

Cumin

Garlic

Onion

Cucumber

Flour

And any other ingredient you would want to add to your falafel.

Step 1: Boil a pot of water. Drain the chickpea juice from the can out and pour the chickpeas into a pot once the water starts to boil. Keep the chickpeas in the boiling water for roughly five minutes then turn the heat down to a low simmer.

Leave this here for roughly 45 minutes – an hour with the top on. 

Step 2: Dice up your garlic, onion, cilantro and anything else you desire to put into your meal.

Garlic

Onion

Cilantro

Step 3: Once the chickpeas are done with their sauna, you need to mash them. You could use a blender, like so.

Once in the blender, toss in all of your diced ingredients for a party of fresh flavors.

But this party, like most middle school parties is awkward and not that exciting so we need something to spice it up. To remedy that go ahead and drop in a teaspoon of cumin and 2 tablespoons of flour. 

Cause flour is the party animal of this recipe as it brings everything together!

This flour is ratchet.

 For as everyone knows if flour was in middle school it’d be your crush that you desperately want to impress but you’re so sweaty and nervous that they pass you up for your best friend.

Screw you Cindy.

Step 4: Blend/mash all of your ingredients together!

Since the blender wasn’t particularly working on this night so we’d have to resort to mashing instead. You want to mash all of the ingredients together until it forms sort of a paste like substance.

Step 5: Once done mashing, form balls of the material. The ideal ball should be firm and compacted together so it won’t fall apart when frying it.

Step 6: Get another pot and fill it roughly with two inches of olive oil. Turn the heat up high so that it will boil.

Once you have all of your balls in a row start popping them into the pot so you can deep fry those suckers.

This is what happens when you don't
pay your taxes. 

Do this until the balls start to get crispy and brown on the outside.

Step 7: Cut your pita bread in half and make a little pocket out of one of the sides.
Stuff the balls into the pocket along with anything else your heart desires.

And there you have yourself a lil’ falafel!

That's nice. 

I've never really experimented much with multiple ingredients before so it was a nice experience to observe how the fala works with the fel. 

Guest Eater of the Week: Lazarus – aka vegetarian #2 aka guy who provided this weeks killer recipe

“I can get behind this.”

“Solid.”

Until next time kitchen hustlers! And be on the look out for a Halloween themed post next week!

She gets me.

Salmon Cooking in the Kitchen

Hold onto your asparaguses guys, because we’re back for another round in the kitchen!

For this week we will be dining on 

SALMON!

I’ve been pushing myself to cook some type of fish for a while. For it just seems that the only reason I eat meat now is so that I can eat it in front of my vegetarian roommates to assert dominance. But at last I have found a purpose!

 

Not a porpoise.
They're not fish. 

Things we’ll be needing:

Salmon

A Lemon

Olive Oil

Various Seasonings (Fall and Winter don’t count)

Butter

Note: I’ll be cooking the fish via pan, although I may try the oven for a future recipe.

Step 1: Place the pan on the stove and turn the heat above a mild simmer. Put a dab of olive oil onto the pan and spread it around with the spatula. Put a dab of butter onto the pan’s surface as well and spread.

Step 2: Dice your lemon into thin strips. The purpose of the lemon is to give your fish some additional flavor.

Now your fish may tell you he doesn't like lemons. Don't listen to him.
After all he is a fish.
Plus he's dead. 

Also look at this knife! 

Isn't it simply adorable?!

I mean if I ever wanted to get stabbed it would be by this knife.

Totally worth it.

And definitely not an accident...

Seriously guys watch what you're doing... 

Step 3: Clean your fish in hot water. This will also help it to thaw out.

I swam upstream to several places to buy fish over the counter but sadly one of the negatives of being in a landlocked city means no fresh supply of seafood.

On the plus side no nosey seagulls! 

Sup? 

Step 4: Once you have cleaned your meat, apply the various seasonings and salts to your fish. You can use simple salt and pepper, which I did, but I also applied Adams Reserve All Purpose Rub.

At this point you can also put the lemon slices on top of the salmon. 

You can even pretend they're like little edible hats for the fish. 

Step 5: Place the salmon onto the pan and turn the heat up just below the highest setting. You should let it cook for about four minutes before flipping it over onto the other side.

Step 6: After 8-10 minutes of letting your fish cook, take it off the stove and get ready to feast!

They’re just so happy that you’re getting the chance to eat them. 

Seriously.
They're almost smiling. 

Also I would just like to say that out of all of my previous food adventure-experimentations this was by far my favorite to make and eat. Like I don’t want to brag but DAMN. 

So go ahead and make this so you too can do a good job and eat glorious fish!

Also shout-out to the GEW (Guest Eater of the Week) Alison for allowing me to use her kitchen. 

Guest Eater of the Week: Alison aka dancer whose apartment i'm in

"Presentation is nice."

"I approve. Wait, is that my quote?" 

We’re going to wrap things up a little differently with a text from my other sister.

Until next time my little foodies!