Vyxxan's Virtual Venture

Archive for the ‘Cooking’ Category

I actually took a photo this time of the finished rolls! I’m funny, tho… I had to come to my own website to read my recipe, lol! I tossed the paper where I’d written my adjustments after I typed it in here.

Need to revise the recipe, bit less milk I think. I kept adding flour, adding flour. Dough wasn’t all that sticky when I turned it back into the bowl to rise, but after rising it was VERY sticky. Might be the humidity level in the house… we’ve got the humidifiers going full blast.

These rolls didn’t turn out as nice as the previous ones… the dough got to rise for a lot longer and it was so sticky that I didn’t form the rolls… just plopped chunks of dough into the pan. I think they could have stood another 3 to 5 min. in the oven, too! That’s another thing I need to revise in the recipe, the cooking time. If you make big rolls like these, they need more time in the oven… 20 to 25 min.

But they still taste great, and I got the other pork roast out of the freezer and thawed/warmed it. We STILL have red cabbage slaw left over… that “4 servings” on the original recipe was a typo, for sure. What we don’t eat tonight, well, I’m gonna have to toss it. Getting too soggy, plus I have a thing about leftovers in the fridge too long… not allowed!

While I was out at the grocery store this morning buying yeast, I also got some cube steak to make MM’s favorite sandwiches… well, my version of em. I’ll do that tomorrow some time… it was going to be our dinner tonight, but Ron reminded me of the pork roast. I was going to make the potato rolls, and thought the cube steak would be great on them. I was craving bread today. Probably need those carbs to help keep me warm when I have to be outside!

And speaking of outside… I walked the dogs in the 8 degrees or whatever it got to today. Bundled up in the quilted overalls, underneath that: jeans, 2 shirts, quilted vest. Over the overalls: hooded sweat jacket and another jacket over that. Hat, gloves and a fleece scarf. Hiking boots instead of my normal athletic shoes. Hey, they do say to do layers… I had a lot on. Go out to get the dogs and the pups head for the house! No, c’mon kids… we are doing walkies. OH! Pups came running back to join Sadie and I. We did our normal walk down around the pond (frozen so well I bet I could ice skate on it) and came back up to the house. I wasn’t intending on bringing the dogs in at that point… Ron was sleeping. But BuddyMack went to the door and refused to come down to his part of the yard, so we all came inside for a while.

Just in case you are worried about my dogs being out in this frigid weather: they have heated houses. Heat lamps that are on constantly in this kind of weather and I check the temps in their houses. BuddyMack’s house is warm, about 55. The girls house is a bit cooler at 53, but they have each other to keep warm. The worst thing is keeping BuddyMack in water he can drink. That heated water bowl is looking better every day… we were worried about him eating the cord, but I don’t think that would be a problem the way they have a metal spring over the cord now. Going out to knock the ice out of his water bowl the past few days is a constant thing… and I never see the punk drink any water! Girls don’t have a problem… I keep their water inside their house since it’s so large. We’ll probably be doing that for BuddyMack, too… Ron is going to build him a better house, one like the girls and the cats have.

I was worried about the cats last night. They also have a heated house (up on the porch), but it didn’t seem to be getting very warm. Their water dishes are inside that house, and the water was frozen! I gave them some old clothing to lay on, replaced the broken water bottle that was pouring water all over the floor of the house…. and stuffed the ventilation holes in that house with cut up rags. Still wasn’t warming. The poor cats all pile up on each other on one shelf… but a couple of them moved to the other shelf when I put the clothing down. Still, it’s out of the wind, and they do have fur coats. Ron fixed the problem today: he put in a bigger wattage heat lamp. For some reason we only had a 125 watt lamp in there, and that wasn’t enough. Now it has a 250, and the temp is more like what the dogs have. Silly cats, tho… they thought rags in vent holes were toys… those are gone. Sigh.

Lastly… for Christmas my sister Val sent me a set of flashlights with a couple headlamps. I’d mentioned walking the dogs in the dark here on the blog. So, I had Ron take a photo of me wearing one. I look very tired, and I’m wearing my dog walking jackets, but I didn’t just come in from walking them. I look work week tired.

I do know these will be handy… Thanks again, Val! (and happy birthday, too… hope your cookbook gets there soon)

hugs,
Vyx

I’ve never even heard of Spike Mendelsohn until yesterday. He seemed to be an interesting guy, but he’s a bit heavy handed on the cinnamon. They said something about him being on some cooking show. I don’t know, but I liked the rub ingredients for the pork roast and this slaw, even my version, goes REALLY well with the pork.

And me, well, I never make things exactly like the recipe, anyhow. I use recipes as guides, that’s all. I know what I like and also what ingredients I can find.

So, here is my version of the Red Cabbage Slaw by Spike…

Whisk together in a small bowl until sugar is dissolved:
1 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons ordinary yellow mustard
2 dashes ground cinnamon

Get out your food processor and put in the slicer blade. Or use the grater side, if you want… but I think the slicer side is fine for cabbage. It’s certainly faster than doing it by hand! Process veggies:
1 head of red cabbage, cored, wedged and sliced with food processor
1 whole onion, wedged and then sliced with food processor (peel first, etc, lol!)
2 green apples, cored and either sliced or grated with the food processor. I did both. Like the smaller bits that the grater gave me, but the slicer side was faster.

Stir all the veggies together… toss with hands if need be… until well combined in a very large bowl.

Pour the vinegar mix over the whole thing and toss again. I let it sit for a while, 30 minutes or so before I added:

1 1/2 cups mayonnaise
Salt and pepper to taste

And then we ate some immediately. It was good. After it sat in the fridge for a few hours it wasn’t quite as eye squinting tart from the vinegar as it was early on. More flavor! And a lot more juice.

If you look at the original recipe you will see I left out lots of stuff… raisins and then pickled veggies that can’t be found in local stores here. Fresh mint that would cost more than all the other ingredients at this time of year. And I cut WAY back on the cinnamon. Two teaspoons would have been overpowering in my opinion.

I’m not even curious how it tastes with pickled carrots and daikon and yuck, I don’t want raisins in my slaw! For sure more cinnamon would be too much… a couple dashes and you can still taste it over the other ingredients.

Anyhow, that’s my version. The red cabbage, green apples, and onion make a nice different sort of slaw.

Hugs,
Vyx

After making these a second time, I’ve modified the recipe some. YMMV and, like all breads made by hand, you do sometimes have to adjust the flour quantity. Look for edit: notes A photo of the second batch after baking can be found here: Potato Rolls Revisited
These are too good to not share the recipe. I’ve made bread with instant mashed potatoes in it before, but these rolls are better. And they are exactly perfect for the pork roast.

One of the reasons I don’t post cooking photos is that this house has the darkest kitchen I’ve ever tried to cook in. NO natural light at all. Who puts a window over a sink when there is another room on the other side of that window? Silly, eh? But this whole house is sort of weird that way. The Sunroom has a whole wall of windows… facing North. Plants don’t like it in this house, can’t get any light. And I have a hard time taking photos of things, the camera always wants to use the flash. Oh well!

On to the recipe. Modified from one I found on Cooks.com.

Potato Rolls (makes 12 rolls – small hamburger bun sized)

1 pkg active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
3/4 cup instant potato flakes
1/2 cup hot water
1/4 cup butter or margarine cut in pieces
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups scalded milk, still hot edit: 1 cup of milk is enough
1 egg
4 to 4 1/2 cups flour edit: may need more!

Dissolve yeast in water, set aside.

In a large bowl put the potato flakes, sugar, salt, hot water, and butter. Add the scalded milk and mix well. It should make a slurry and the butter should melt. Let cool to lukewarm.

Add yeast, egg, and 2 cups of flour. Beat well. Stir in 2 cups flour and knead until elastic, adding more flour as needed. Let rise in a greased bowl about 1 hour or until doubled in bulk. Punch down, and let it rest for 15 minutes. Punch down again and divide into equal sized pieces. Roll into balls and flatten balls on a greased cookie sheet to about 3/4 inch thickness. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise again.

Bake at 400 degrees F for about 15 minutes or until golden brown. edit: 20 to 25 minutes for larger rolls

Pretty darn good dinner/sandwich rolls! I would normally brush the tops of rolls with melted butter before baking, but I didn’t for these and they didn’t need it.

Some notes about the way I bake: I keep a measuring cup in the flour and I almost never exactly measure flour for breads. None of this “spoon into the cup, lop it off with a knife blade” thing for me. The flour quantity above is from the original recipe, and I can’t tell if I used more or less flour so… start on the low side and only add more if the dough is really sticky. I left my dough on the sticky side… it wasn’t still sticking to my hands while kneading, but it wanted to. Didn’t turn it out onto a floured surface to knead, either… I used the big bowl I’d mixed it in. The reason for that is… my pastry cloth needs to be washed. It’s got cinnamon, sugar, butter and bits of sticky cinnamon roll dough stuck to it. :) And probably pie crust, too. I know I should be able to scrape and shake all the bits off of it, but it has butter stains, too, so I’m going to wash it.

Anyhow, if you are inspired to make that pork roast from the GMA site, you need these rolls to fill with the pulled pork. Seriously good!

hugs,
Vyx

So, with no work today because they closed the plant (no pay, especially not holiday pay) I was watching daytime tv this morning.

They had some guy on Good Morning America with a pork roast. Served with red cabbage slaw on buns.

I decided that was a good thing to be making today, so I went to the grocery store and got 2 small pork roasts… I got the 2 out of 3 available, it’s a small grocery. Red cabbage… the better of 2 available, lol!

The pork roasts have been cooking since a bit after noon. The house has really started smelling nice this past hour, and I took the pan out of the oven a few minutes ago. Now, the recipe said not to cover, but I did anyhow, after the first 2 hours. I also added about a half cup of water… things were just looking too dry for me. As in totally dry until I added the water!

Of course now the meat is swimming in spicy juices. Guess I didn’t need that water… but I like meat like this to be VERY tender. Oh, and it is. Also very tasty! Couldn’t resist, cut a small bit off of one of the trimmed ends.

I did this after getting out the food processer… washing all the parts after figuring out how to take the darn thing apart. If you are ever in need of really old instruction manuals, I have to highly recommend Retrevo.com. They claim to have over 100,000 instruction manuals. I didn’t find the exact model of food processor (too lazy), but I found one close enough that I knew how to take the sucker apart to clean it. So I did.

When I went to put the food processor back together I realized something really important: The blade holder is broken. AUGH! I really don’t want to grate cabbage by hand for slaw. I can’t find the “S” blade that the machine should have… that might’ve worked. So I am going to skip the slaw tonight. WHY would someone keep an appliance with an important bit BROKEN? Ron doesn’t know… but he put it back where it was stored (and now is looking for replacement parts online). Me, I’m tossing that stupid thing in the trash and buying a new one. Actually, all I need is a salad shooter! Anyone remember those? I wish I had one now…. I used to, years ago in California. One of those fad machines, but they actually worked really well!

Earlier today, before trying to mess with the food processor, I decided that if the pork should be served on potato buns, that I should make some. Gotta love instant mashed potatoes for something like that. I’m sure at some time that someone created potato rolls to use up leftover mashed potatoes… but that’s something that never lasts long around here, lol!

Anyhow, this is gonna be an ordinary end of week night for us… except I’ve cooked us some different food. I’m sure I’ll be wishing I had that slaw, but with all this meat tomorrow is soon enough. I’ll get over to WallyWorld and see what they have that I might like in way of food processors. It’ll be helpful, because I keep seeming to find recipes online that tell you to MIX stuff with the food processor!

Again, this is not a cooking site…. so you only get my photos, not recipes this time. Usually it’s the other way around. :) GMA has the recipes for the pork roast and slaw… and I always modify recipes to suit me and my ingredients anyhow. If you NEED my versions… email me. The pork roast is extremely good!

Happy New Year!

hugs,
Vyx

P.S. I never ever ever ever eat black eyed peas… aka Hoppin’ John… on New Years Day. Blech! I’m from a fancy food on New Years Day family. This pork roast will suit just fine!

For the sick boyfriend. Ron has not been feeling good since last Thursday.

It’s maybe a cold, maybe the flu, he felt like he was running a fever. I felt so lousy yesterday and nose stuffing up that I started right in on Zicam. I have the stuff they took off the shelves… the nasal swabs. So far, so good… my symptoms have pretty much gone away. I don’t remember why they quit selling the nasal swabs, but I decided that I’d risk it.

Sick people need chicken soup, so yesterday I went and got a chicken and some veggies and boiled it all up until the chicken started falling apart. Cooled it, fridged it, and let it sit overnight.

Today it’s spooning the fat off, deboning and removing gunky stuff from the chicken. And straining the carrots, celery, onion and garlic out. Sometimes I put more (fresh) veggies back in, not doing that this time.

The cats are having a feast… I put about 1/2 of the chicken into the freezer, but the cats got all the skin, fat, gristle, and bones. And the carrots. :)

Had to add water to the broth, it was a large chicken and a lot of veggies to boil up with it for flavor. Put in a couple boullion cubes to make up for that… and was happy I rarely use salt while food is cooking. I also put in a few drops of yellow food coloring, which I normally don’t do. I don’t care if it’s as yellow as canned soup…. and I’m not into boiling up chicken feet for the color, either. (not that I shop anywhere that they even SELL chicken feet!) Another option is tumeric, but didn’t see any in the cupboard, so I went with the food color.

Right now matzo balls are boiling in the soup… and the matzo ball mix I used made soooo many matzo balls that I’m having to boil up another pot of water to cook them all. This was a different brand of matzo meal that I usually find, normally I have to make 2 batches of matzo balls because 1 isn’t enough. Instructions were different, too… Usually I mix, form the balls, and then chill for an hour. This recipe said to mix, chill, then form the balls… and that’s what I did, as the mixture was too runny at first to do anything with!

Manhattan style matzo balls is what it says on the recipe on the box. I wouldn’t know the difference, myself… being from California and having San Francisco style matzo balls, lol! Solomons Deli, wonderful place. No idea if they are still open….

Anyhow. I don’t normally cook Matzo Ball Soup in the fall… to me it’s a Springtime food. I normally put all kinds of root veggies into the pot while boiling up the chicken, too… and this time it was slim pickings at the grocery store. No parsnips, no turnips, no rutabagas. I did see rutabagas today at WM, but turnips were only sold in a bag… and they had no parsnips either. Hmm. I don’t want those things in my finished soup… but I do like them in the cooking of the broth.

Well, the results are in. 30 min has gone by since I dropped the matzo balls into the boiling soup. It looks like someone opened the lid, but I know that no one has. AUGH! Hard lumpy matzo balls instead of light fluffy matzo balls. Another few min until the ones boiled in plain water will be done… I am going to be very unhappy if those also look like hard lumps.

Here is a picture of what I got with the ones boiled in the soup….

As you can see, my soup isn’t yellow… and I didn’t get all the fat off of it, either!

See how small those matzo balls look? They are only a bit bigger than they started out, not light and fluffy and doubled in size like normal. I don’t think I care for Manhattan style matzo balls! They are plenty cooked, but a bit dense in the middle… more like matzo balls that have had the lid opened partway thru the cooking time. It’s like dumplings. (which matzo balls are) If you open the lid during the cooking time, they collapse back on themselves and turn into hard doughy lumps. Phooey!

I’ve had this happen ONCE before… and it was because I peeked and let the steam out. The plain water boiled are the same, only with even less flavor. They are in the soup now, soaking it up. Which ain’t gonna be much when they are hard doughy lumps.

But the broth is excellent, so all is not lost… I may fish all those matzo balls out and try again with a different recipe… a recipe like I’m used to.

hugs,
Vyx

and I suddenly realize… hmm, I don’t have a cooking category. That’s okay, this isn’t a cooking blog.