I haven't been great about updating lately. Part of that has to do with spending the holiday season working in retail hell. A lesser part is inexcusable.
I did manage to do some cooking, and take some pictures. I'm not going to do detailed posts for everything, but I may be persuaded to revisit some of them later.
Homemade Almond Paste and Pumpkin Macaroon Experiment
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| Slivered almonds. Ready for execution. |
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| Almond execution. |
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| Sugar, egg white, and almond extract. |
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| BLEND! |
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| And, into the jar it goes. |
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| Glorious. |
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| Starting the pumpkin macaroon experiment. My failure was kind of depressing, so I'm going to go ahead and skip commenting on most of these. I'll definitely revisit this later. |
Black Bean Burgers
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| I recall these came out way too moist, so I floured the crap out of them. |
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| It's not super easy to tell when these things are fully cooked. I may restrict my burger endeavors to things that involve beef in the future. |
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| With fixings. Ready to eat. I recall these tasting less impressive than they look. Also, needs bacon. |
Macaroni and Cheese with a Roux
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| Beginning as all great things do. With butter. |
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| Behold: CHEESE! |
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| Cheeeeeeese. |
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| Starting to mix the cheese into the noodle. Didn't have any elbow macaroni, so this will have to do. |
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| Did I mention cheese? |
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| Look at it. Look at this monster I have created! |
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| In conclusion, I actually prefer my mac and cheese without a roux. |
Gluten Free Dinner Rolls
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| We had a guest over for Thanksgiving who prefers not to eat glutenous foods, so I made these. |
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| They turned out pretty good. |
Gluten Free Pumpkin-Oatmeal-Peanut-Butter-Chocolate-Chip Cookies
It is important to note that this is neither from a cook book or my own recipe. It is, rather, the creation of a friend of mine.
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| My folks felt that these taste too much like 'health food.' Personally, I think they taste fantastic. |
Gluten Free Pumpkin Pie
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| Another dish I made for Thanksgiving. The basic formula for the crust came from my friend responsible for the above cookies. The filling is fairly typical, but typical pumpkin pie filling doesn't have any gluten. |
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| We had some extra pie filling. It was fantastic by itself. |
Lox-Avocado Baked Eggs with Cream Cheese and Lox Grits
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| The necessary first layer of (almost) any baked egg dish. |
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| And then the avocado. |
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| And then the delicious, delicious smoked salmon. |
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| Egg and cheese and ground black pepper. |
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| And into the oven it goes. |
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| Grits. |
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| Plus cream cheese. |
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| Plus lox, because what the hell. |
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| Righty. |
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| Lefty. |
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| The ensemble. |
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| The first bite. |
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| I still think the first baked eggs dish I made was the best. In retrospect, the others lack bacon. |
Pumpkin Lasagna
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| Murder most delicious. |
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| Baking the pumpkin in its own oil. This and various other gormet cooking oils, vinegars, spirits, and wine can be found at Vom Fass. |
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| CHEESE! |
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| Layered with zucchini. |
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| More layers. |
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| I said. . . |
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| MORE LAYERS! |
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| Cheeeeeese. |
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| Something about burnt mozarella cheese reminds me of childhood. |
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| Sadly, it didn't stay together very well out of the pan. |
Shrimp Creole
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| SHRIMPS! |
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| Onions and green bell pepper. |
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| Sizzle sazzle. |
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| With seafood stock and tomato paste. |
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| Bibble bubble. |
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| Om nom nom. |
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| Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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Shrimp Etouffee
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| Did someone say shrimp? |
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| Butter! |
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| Making the roux. So. Funny story. . . |
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| I used two recipes for reference. One called for a roux and featured the entire Creole trinity (onion, celery, and green bell pepper). |
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| The other did not call for a roux and did not feature the entire trinity. |
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| I, being a culinary genius, made a roux and didn't include the entire trinity. |
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| Well, frell. |
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| It turned out okay. . . but a bit too thick/doughy. |
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