Can't Get It Off My Mind!!!

What you ask? Food! I have recently reawakened my passion for food and cooking. I remember being really young and always wanting to make sure the food my mom had prepared was placed on the table just right so that it would look as beautiful as possible. I remember getting in trouble for “playing” restaurant with my Great Grandmother’s fine china. I was never afraid to try new foods and that still stays with me. There are some things that are so visually appealing to me that even though I have tried them several times and not enjoyed them I will continue to do so, I guess I am hoping it is a taste that I will acquire. Sushi is one of those foods for me, it is beautiful, so meticulously made, I mean people spend years trying to perfect their sushi making skills and well, it shows. Unfortunately, for me I just can’t seem to enjoy it. I do try it every time we go to a Chinese buffet. Lately, I have been really eager to improve my cooking skills (what few I have). I find that getting recipes and cooking them aren’t usually too hard; I mean I can follow directions, but I would like to have more finesse in the kitchen. I would like to understand why things cook the way the do & if I can improve upon that. I want to be more creative in creating my own recipes. So to try and improved my creativeness I decided that I would need to learn more about other cultures and what they eat and different cooking techniques they use. So I have spent the better part of my day looking at French recipes and techniques and it looks like we will be having a French food day at home soon!!

Cooking Bug!

So lately I have really had a serious cooking bug. I mean I have always loved to cook and create new dishes, but lately I have wanted to find new recipes & buy giant recipe books with cool tips and tricks. I have also been really drawn to international cuisine lately. So I have been cruising around lots of websites such as allrecipes.com and some blogs such as hillbilly housewife. I really would like to get a bread maker and start canning stuff (such as pickles and my own red sauces). I am finding that I have a hard time branching out. I like to try lots of stuff, but so many recipes call for ingredients I don’t have on hand and can’t afford to get on hand. So what’s a girl to do?? Well,  my plan is to buy one jarred/bottled spice every week when I go grocery shopping as these are the things I always seem to need and not have especially when trying to recreate international cuisine. So what have I made lately? Well, 2 weekends ago we had a total Middle East lunch that consisted of Fried Cauliflower with Tahini Sauce; Homemade Hummus; Couscous with Baby Portabellas, Onion, Bell Pepper; & Tabia Polo. It was so good! Walt really liked the Fried Cauliflower. We had homemade Tacos Sunday & Monday, Breakfast for dinner last night which consisted of scrambled eggs; sausage, biscuits, & gravy; & hash brown casserole. It was so good. Tonight’s menu is spaghetti with lots of mushrooms because we love the little fungi, sausage instead of groud beef because it was on sale, and homemade garlic bread. Forgot to mention I also recently made vegan chocolate cupcakes with vegan peanut butter frosting. They were super yummy! Well, I am off to find some more recipes. Any ideas please share…..

DB: Swiss Swirl Ice Cream Cake

This month's Daring Bakers' challenge was the Swiss Swirl Ice Cream Cake!

The July 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home.-

Since I currently do not have internet at home I will not be able to get the pictures up until this weekend when I am at the coffee shop. This challenge made me feel really proud of myself and was also very yummy. I was really excited to be making ice cream from scratch both with out eggs or an ice cream maker. I didn't know that you could make ice cream without an ice cream maker. So not only did I make both chocolate and vanilla ice cream from scratch I also made cake, whipped cream, & fudge sauce from scratch. I am telling you this recipe was so yummy. It was a bit on the time consuming side because of having to wait for the ice cream to set. You can find the recipe for the Swiss Swirl Ice Cream Cake here! This was so yummy. I loved the ice cream and the whipped cream although I wasn't too fond of the frozen cake & I think I would have like for it to have more of a chocolate flavor. I promise I will post pictures by the end of the week, so check back for yummy photos.

Tour de Fleece & The Daring Kitchen

Let's start with the TdF. I have slowed down my spinning speed a bit so I don't run out of roving before the tour is over. I recently starting spinning lace/fingering weight yarn (trying to at least). I guess actually it is going pretty well. I am getting rather consistent singles and I am now able to draft and spin at the same time instead of having to draft in advance. So here is a quick picture of where I am at with my lace/fingering singles:

 So there you have it! Okay on to the Daring Kitchen. I will be blogging about July's Daring Bakers Challenge on Tuesday. Hopefully, I will get lots of pictures taken this weekend of the yummy challenge. This one is much more intensive than the last daring cooks challenge. I think baking is harder than cooking anyway, but that is what I love about it. Lots of people cook well, but few bake well. I also just found out what the Daring Cooks Challenge is and I must say I am so excited about it. I am doing four different variations on it & it is going to be so yummy!

DC: Nut Butters

The July 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butter from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe. Their sources include Better with Nut Butter by Cooking Light Magazine, Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds, and Food Network online.

Okay so I am a day late posting this and did not take any photos of my finished dish at the time. I will remake this weekend and update this post with pictures.So the challenge was to make you own nut butters. Think peanut butter but using other kinds of nuts (i.e. Walnuts, cashews, pecans, etc.). I chose to make Walnut White Bean Dip With Rosemary & Sage. I chose to make this for a few reasons. Number 1 being that we were on a tight budget this past month and this seemed the most economically friendly. Number 2 being that this one gave me the most use of my magic bullet. I love my magic bullet unfortunately, it just doesn't give the love it deserves sometimes.

So what were my thoughts:
1. I really need to invest in some teaspoon & tablespoon measuring devices.
2. The nut butter from the Walnuts was really yummy and had a really cool texture.
3. It was so yummy with chopped celery.
4. I guess my only complaint is that it was a bit thick for my preference. I am sure I could leave in some of the liquid from the beans next time.

You can visit the Daring Kitchen website here and read about the challenge as well as view the recipe that I used.

Underestimated!

Okay so remember how my original goal was to just get one 4oz batch of roving spun during the TdF. Well, I did that in the first 5 days and decided I better slow down or I would run out of roving before the TdF was over. I just fell in love with spinning. I get to take it everywhere and I always seem to feel comfortable doing it. My arm no longer gets tired, my back doesn't hurt, it just feels right. I spent the 4th of July downtown at Black and Brew spinning away on the Sexy Hotness which was fun because there was a lot of red, white, & blue in the fiber with bits of pink and purple. Several small children walked by and admired my "cotton candy," that's what they called it. We then watched the Fireworks over Lake Mirror. Here is a picture of the "cotton candy" off the spindle but before being plied.

It really did turn out to be absolutely beautiful. So, what have I been spinning since. Well, I had some sample braids (0.5oz) from Into The Whirled and I figured they would be a good way to practice spinning thinner yarn. I really wanted to go for a lace weight but would be totally happy with fingering. So I spun one of the Into The Whirled sample braids and was pretty happy with the thinness. Last night I decided that I would start working on some more roving dyed by the fantastic Julie and aim for a lace/fingering weight. So this is where I am at with my spinning. I will be posting about the awesome shawl pin I won from Crystal who actually hand delivered it since we both live in Florida. Much more about that in the next post when I have take a proper picture of her fantastic shawl pin.

Just a quick Tour de Fleece Update.

Here is the Sexy Hotness (80/20 Wool/Bamboo) that I have been spinning for the Tour. Dyed by the incredibly talented Julie!!