Archive for category Food
Birmingham todo list
- Hill Sprints: I already know the two hills at mom’s and dad’s that I will be using to run sprints for my main workout. Welcome back to freshman year soccer conditioning.
- Family Reunion: Aside from the explicit reunion happening July 4th weekend, I want to visit as many relatives as possible. I am becoming an uncle, which is both unbelievable and exciting. Being in school will be rough on the family life, so now is my best opportunity to reforge some bonds.
- Lean Meat: 40/40/20 Protein/Fat/Carb. Need to learn some recipes to carry into law school.
- Vacation: Birmingham itself will be a vacation, but trips are planned to Tybee Island to tan and Nashville to grovel.
- Long Lost Friends: I miss my beloved Birmingham friends, some whom I haven’t met with since around high school. If all goes well the schedule will be rife with reunions and reminiscence.
- Regimen Prep: Falling asleep two hours after going to bed at 2am on days I’ve made irresponsible sleep choices is becoming more and more intolerable. Circadian realignment is at the top of the agenda starting around the middle of July. Reading for more than 30 minutes to an hour per day is a must as well. And don’t even think about catching up on games, me.
Mens sea in corpore sano
Running, Mojitos, Moving, then Traveling
10K destroyed, but at 10′
I’ve done this run twice in the past two weeks and have been absolutely amazed with it. As the gym membership comes to a close running is becoming more attractive as the anchor activity in my routine. I’m really interested in continuing to make these long 8 or 9 milers but mainly want to focus on hill runs in hilly Birmingham and fartleks to improve my 5k pace to something like 8′ over the next few months.
Cooking less..
but these are incredible. Here’s the recipe – I highly recommend you try it! Repeatable, impressive, cheap, and delicious. They taste almost exactly like a mojito.
Moving is making me insane
I have a few great friends to thank for babysitting my valuables and storing stuff while I’m transient for the next two months. But packing all this stuff and getting it where it needs to go is a painful chore. Throw in a sublessor who doesn’t reply to emails and a lot of stuff left in here ’til the last minute from my roommate and I’ve really been stressing!
Where to this summer
On Friday I hit the tarmac to go to Vancouver for Esvan and Richard’s wedding. Then I’m back to Chicago where the finishing touches go on the move and I hopefully get to enjoy the Taste of Chicago. Two days later it’s off to Birmingham where I’ll linger for two weeks, spending almost all of them catching up with family and relaxing with old friends. Chicago for three weeks, then Boston.
YEP! Boston. According to some guys on TLS Cornell has grossly over enrolled. I haven’t gotten any response other than “pending,” basically, from them, but that is info enough to stop the breath holding.
Mango and Coconut Rice Pudding: Done
You guessed it. Ramsay again. I’m obsessed! This recipe comes from his Thai restaurant episode in season five of The F-word. The video on that page, by the way, can probably help you reach the same bliss I felt when seeing it, a bliss which inspired me to make it within two days.
I decided to do everything exactly as the recipe called for. Shopping at Whole Foods seemed to really help here as they have the kind of variety required and allow you to get lots of odd ingredients in bulk quantities as you please. Bona fide vanilla elevated the flavor of the rice like you wouldn’t believe – just sniff a bean and then some extract once and you will see why – and organic mango etc hopefully added some quality too.
Challenges
After skimming the recipe I was most concerned with properly cooking the rice. Unfortunately, being nervous about the only real cooking step involved was not too promising. But toasting the coconut and the form on everything else, including using a very helpful mise en place with liquids and solids, went well.
The Simmer
I can’t ever simmer anything correctly. I either heat it up way too quickly or leave it too cool for too long. Rice, sauces, oatmeal, it all ends up having burnt liquid or not coming out tender enough or some stupid problem! Well, this time was no exception as the rice came out noticeably (but only by a little bit!!) tough on the inside. Still, being simmered in coconut milk, vanilla bean, sugar, and then having a bunch of heavy cream and other tasty ingredients added was all that the pudding needed to be as close to perfect as any dessert has come for me. I had no negative reviews except two people at work silently not finishing theirs, but most people noticed the rice was a wee bit tough. They all liked it despite it though, so 7/9 liked it 
I neglected to snap a picture of the dish beautifully arranged in one of my bowls at home, but I think these servings that I made at work were pretty cool too.
I’ve got my eye on some strawberry tiramisu next, but I think I should probably work a more savory, less carbolicious dish or three first.
Beef Wellington: Done
Three years ago when I discovered The F Word and watched plenty of episodes, my cousin Chris and I sat literally speechless after Gordon Ramsay demonstrated his Filet of Beef Wellington recipe.
It had been the haute cooking objective of my life for all those years, unattained as of last week. Then a nice opportunity to give it a shot arose: dinner party for one of the last times in Chicago with Chicago friends.
Most worrying by far was the puff pastry, with which I’d had absolutely no experience. So I tried my hand at a Baked Brie and made one Wellington the night before to make acquaintance with this devilishly complicated baking item. It turned out not to puff, probably because I put way too much water in the eggwash. Oh well.
I was also a little anxious about the beef: what was right? How can I make sure not to screw up such high quality, important meat? Am I rich enough to afford grass-fed organic triple-priced filet? What the heck do the British mean exactly by fillet of beef? Three Costco filets mignon and two Jewel ones (once I realized there wouldn’t be enough) made the cut. All were USDA Choice as opposed to Prime. I preferred Jewel’s but that may have just been due to my request for them to be butchered whereas Costco’s were prepacked.
Rehearsal
The night before went amazingly. Properly making the eggwash with yolks only made all the difference from the Brie. Rolling the cling wrap into a barrel and folding the puff pastry, the two hardest and most technical parts of the recipe, went surprisingly well. The only big problems were trying to use a blender to finely chop portabellos for the duxelles – my fault – and prematurely cutting the baked Wellington when it was still bleeding because the pastry was super puffed and super golden.
My guests absolutely loved it!
The real deal (x4!!!)
So a whole new set of problems arose when making four instead of one. The mushrooms took horribly long to prep and have motivated me to make a food processor my next big kitchen purchase for sure. Additionally sweating them all at once in a pan was a horrible idea and added some unwanted moisture to the final product. Time and space management was pretty hectic too, as it took me over twice as long to make the four.
Yet it went off pretty much without a hitch. Having Andrew’s meat thermometer for the oven phase was invaluable and facilitated a beautiful pink in two of the four rolls. Here’s how they looked:
And plated (kudos to Jenn for the sides):
Everyone, including six dinner guests and about six people at work, loved it. Vindication and victory for the lifelong dream! It’ll be a little while before I try to solo something else as ambitious