The Birds

Guess what!  I got a new cookbook for Christmas!  (Thanks Tracy!)  It's The Science of Good Cooking by The Editors of America's Test Kitchen and Guy Crosby, PhD.  (I heart America's Test Kitchen)

When I get a new cookbook, I look through it from cover to cover.  I'm not really reading it, but I do look at every recipe, however briefly, before I cook anything from it.  As the title suggests, it's not just a book of recipes, but also has a lot of info on cooking concepts and cooking techniques.  It's got a lot about meat, which vegetarians will not appreciate, but I do, since most of my meat cooking experience growing up involved frozen ground turkey.

This book is pretty great.  

For the maiden voyage of this book, I decided to try something new: breading meat. I made Crisp Breaded Chicken Cutlets.  It was pretty involved and required many extra dishes to clean up, but the results were fantastic.  Crispy on the outside, tender and juicy on the inside.  Hmm...sort of like a tardis?  Juicier on the inside?

If you have ever eaten a schnitzel, this was very much like or as a schnitzel.  Actually, according to wikipedia, it was exactly a schnitzel.  Next stop, cream mushroom sauce! That would make it Jägerschnitzel!  I suppose topping it with tomato sauce and cheese would make a chicken parmesan.  Aren't I fancy?

No pictures, my camera is still packed.  Don't judge me!  My suitcase and clothes are unpacked (and washed!), it's just the things in my carry-on.

Now for the other bird in the post: turkey.  Or rather, left over turkey bones from Thanksgiving.  I was making turkey stock!  At home!  How homesteadish!  How self-reliant!  How resourceful!  How stinky!

Yes, it was very stinky.  It's baked turkey, it should smell like baked turkey, right?  Well, it doesn't.  The turkey smell is there, but there is another, less pleasant, gloopy smell.  The results are in the freezer, and considering that it takes at least 10 minutes to thaw a thingy of frozen solid liquid, and that I can't even think about the turkey stock without recalling the unique odor, I don't see myself using it anytime soon.  Do yourselves a favor and stick with boxed or canned broth.  I might make vegetable broth, but I don't think I'll try any more homemade meat broths.

Anyway, don't end this post thinking about gloopy turkey broth.  Recall the wonderful and tasty success of breaded chicken cutlets and of all the wonderful breaded things to come!

Red Beans and Rice Stew

And we're back!

Hello, 2013.  I am newly graduated and under-employed, so I have plenty of time for cooking and games.  Hooray!  I was looking through my slow cooker cookbook when Red Beans and Rice Stew caught my eye, probably because one of my stops in my 3-in-1 winter extravaganza world tour was New Orleans.

Just so you know, this post will have no pictures because my camera is still packed away somewhere.

Red beans and rice is traditionally cooked on Monday, because that's when people did laundry.  If that made sense to you, then yay, you have a lot of knowledge about stuff.  If that didn't make sense, google "red beans and rice laundry" and more coherent websites will explain it.  Today is Tuesday, and I really meant to do laundry, so it counts.

This recipe was very tasty, but I ran into two problems.  One was entirely my fault but the other is completely not my fault and I'm not really sure what to do about it.

The first problem was that my 4.5 quart slow cooker was too full.  Phase I (which consisted of soaked beans, liquid, onions, and sausages) filled it up to the brim.  I didn't take a picture (cause my camera is still packed) but I did find a picture on the internets that shows how full it was:

See how full that is?  I don't think food is actually supposed to go all the way to the top...

So what's the problem?  It all fit, didn't it?  Turns out the problem was Phase II, in which our hero adds two bell peppers and half a cup of rice.  It turns out that dinner was not made out of bosons, and so all the things could not occupy the same space at once.  I had to remove a significant amount of cooking liquid to fit in the new things.  This probably contributed to my next problem ---->

Amazing Never Cook Rice!

You know how white rice generally cooks in 20 minutes more or less?  No?  Well, that's usually what it does.  But not today.  Rice was in there for an hour before it was mostly done, and even then there were random crunchy bits.  My theory is that I didn't leave enough cooking liquid in to let the rice do its thing, and also that futzing with the liquid cause the temperature to drop more than expected so things took longer to cook.  

The kicker is that someone recently gave me a 7 quart slow cooker.  If only I had used the bigger pot from the beginning, I could (probably) have avoided all the problems.  Oh well.  Next time, Gadget, next time.  

America's Test Kitchen Slow Cooker Revolution

Red Beans and Rice Stew

Comments: Use the bigger crock pot!

Before I forget, here are some of the games I played over the break:

Kingdom Builder

Flash Point

Medici

Dominion Dark Ages

Dominion Hinterlands

Arkham Horror

Castle Panic

7 Wonders

Elder Sign

Dixit

Tri-bond

Pandemic Mutation 

Pandemic Virulent Strain

Power Grid

Agricola

Yeah, I had fun.  :-)