Making foody things

Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I made chicken stock. From the few tastes I took, it came out rather good, but we'll see when I eventually use it in something. I followed Michael Ruhlman's Ratio for everyday stock. I love this book. It's got seriously interesting things in it - like how to make sausages from scratch and chicken stock and the best pancakes I've made (Alton Brown's pancake recipe is still one of my favourites, but this one is slightly easier for a Saturday morning).
So, a bit of a background on me and chicken stock. Every time we make roast chicken (which is about 4 times ever) I say to myself: I really should have a go at making stock from the bones rather than just throwing them out. So I'd shove the remains of the bird in the fridge, and look at it every time I'd open the fridge over the next few days, and say to myself, "Really should make stock." But it never happened, because I was never really motivated. And I'd end up throwing it out after a while. So yesterday, I finally psyched myself up for a whole day of keeping an eye on a pot of bones and water, and it turned out great. I did it in the slow cooker, because I know for a fact that I can't keep any of my pots on the hob at below a simmer.

And I'm making two breads today. A naan for Liam and a carrot / butternut squash / pecan loaf for me for later if I get peckish or tomorrow's lunch. And hopefully it'll still be good when Mammy and Daddy come to visit on Friday (I'm doubtful about that). As I write this, I have corn starch all over my right side. It fell out of the press and spilled all over me :/ And it doesn't clean up easily.

Ooh, and I made a salad dressing the other day. It involved carrots and ginger and vinegar and oil in the blender and turned out lovely.

So that's that. A quick round-up of other news: I am slowly finding homes for all our stuff in this house. I want to relearn to drive here in Ireland, but when it comes to actually going out driving I don't want to. I only have my learner permit for a year, so I can't really dawdle with it. I'm running the intro 5e D&D game. And I'm really enjoying trouncing Uruks in Shadow of Mordor.

Christmas and New Year

Despite not having any interesting plans, Christmas turned out really well. We bought turkey legs on the spur of the moment while shopping for Christmas dinner on Monday, and got some spuds and vegs to go with them. I brined them and dried them Christmas morning and put them on that afternoon. Boiled the spuds for mash and did the vegs in salt water (yummy). I made some stuffing for Liam. But the part of the meal I was most proud of was the gravy. Somehow, onions fried then dusted with potato starch and stirred up with chicken stock and herbs with a touch of pan scrapings from the turkey turned into an amazing just-thick-enough brown gravy with a perfect gravy shine. And I made it from scratch with no recipe and just a little research.

Liam got me an ant farm. They're all beside me now, wandering around their tunnels, hanging out. It's a cool present - one of those things you always want, but would never buy for yourself. I got him Back to the Future Lego, which gave us the idea to watch the movies. One and two, anyway. We didn't make it to three. Along with them them, we got through How to Train your Dragon and The World's End. I enjoyed all of them. Yea. It was a very relaxing day. Quiet, but nice.

New Years wasn't quite as good. We watched Aliens, and paused it in the middle for the countdown. And while I enjoyed the movie, I'd had this sense of apathy the whole rest of the day that pulled the whole thing down. So while the last day of 2013 wasn't great, the first day (evening) of 2014 more than made up for it. Again, it was nothing special, but we got some mulled wine and played games, and I got past the bit that was annoying me in Terraria and am mad back into the game again.

I feel I should mention something about Terraria. In the first two weeks I had it, I played about 100 hours. I have no idea how this happened. Well, actually - I know exactly how it happened. It's because it's less a game and more a building program, only fun and pretty with game elements thrown in. I built a tree-house and a dragonfly airship and an apartment complex for the characters who joined me. And then I decided to build a beach house, and the commute between the tree-house and beach-house was about 5 minutes (real time) and I had to keep going back and forth to re-supply. So yea. I can see where the time went. And all this back-and-forth made me want a teleporter, but the get the teleporter I needed a certain character which would only arrive in my apartment-village if I defeated a certain bad guy, which could only be defeated in a certain game-mode (Hardmode - which could mean the destruction of everything I'd built so far) so I created a new world and made it Hardmode and had to get stuff to survive and then other stuff to fight the bad guy.... and yea. I just took a very, very long and windey time and I got annoyed at all the hoops I had to jump through just to get a teleporter. BUT. Last night I did it. I defeated The Destroyer (quite easily once I had the right gear), and the Steampunker moved in and I bought teleporters off her. And I'm a happy bunny once again. Except I think I left the lid off my lava generator, and I'm afraid I'll come back to overflowing lava (not good).

Right so. I think that's everything. We'll be home in three weeks. Can't wait.

Gravy makes such a difference

Dinner last night was amazing. I made bangers and mash and it was better than any I've had in a restaurant. They always try too hard, and add extra things into the mash or make their gravy overpowering. Mine was a perfect blend of buttery mash, salty-spicy sausages and sweet onion gravy. Delicious. I did do the restaurant thing of making a little mound of spuds and standing the sausages around it and pouring the gravy over the top. Nom nom nom.

I also made pumpkin pie yesterday. I was totally excited putting it into the oven, because the raw filling and raw base tasted amazing. What I didn't realise is that pie is not a straightforward thing to bake. So the edge of the crust got burned (badly enough to mean that it doesn't taste nice, but not so bad that you can't eat around it) and the filling didn't cook up properly. It was still quite liquid-y coming out. That didn't stop me nibbling at it while it was still warm, and I was less than enthusiastic about the taste. Somewhere along the way the sweet, rich flavours of the raw things had gone missing. So I put it in the fridge, but didn't forget about it. I had a small slice for breakfast (because even flavourless pie is better than dull cereal) and was pleasantly surprised. I think the flavours must have come back as it all rested together. And possibly pumpkin pie is better cold. So yea. I'm looking forward to eating the rest of it for breakfast over the weekend and next week, and desert and probably lunch, too. A whole pie is a lot to get through by yourself. I would invite friends over to help, but I don't think it's good enough. I don't want people thinking I'm a bad cook (because I'm not).

Did I mention we're off to see deftones in November? I'm so excited. I can't wait to go. I've wanted to see them since 1st year of college. And now it's happening.

I don't think I have any other news.

Digestive Biscuit Experiment I

Aside: I found a cicada outside the apartment and I brought him in and put him in a ventilated jar with the stem of a hunk of broccoli. I think he's half dead, but he moves every so often. I hope he finds the broccoli and gets strong again. Either that or he's moulting and I'm about to have something massive on my hands. He already has wings, though, so I don't think he's moulting.

We went to a baseball game on Sunday (Arizona Diamondbacks vs LA Dodgers). It was really fun. It went on for about 3 hours but the time flew. I now understand a lot more about baseball and the lady beside me commented about how I was getting better at cheering at the right times - rather than just because everyone else was cheering.

Anyway. I got it in my head last week that I wanted digestives (McVities ones). But instead of just going two miles to the shop (Tesco have a food shop here - Fresh and Easy - which sells English stuff), I decided I wanted to bake my own. So I looked up the ingredients on a pack of digestives and off I went. Of course, in my case this means making out spreadsheets and looking up ratios and doing random calculations. Then I had to figure out how to bake them. Anyway. The first experiment was a failure. The only resemblance to digestives is that they are sweet and wheaty. I mean, they taste nice - I've been munching away on them all morning - but they are not what I wanted. So, for posterity, here's the recipe, and what I would do differently.



134g ap flour
44g wheat flour
39g sugar
scant 1/8 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
3/8 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp dry buttermilk

40g canola oil
1/2 tbsp water
10g (scant 1/2 tbsp) golden syrup

First off, not nearly enough liquid. I had to add 3 or 4 tablespoons of water extra to the mix. The texture is too soild and the taste is not wheaty enough. So different flour - possibly cake flour, and definitely a coarse ground whole wheat (which I couldn't find in the shop). The sweetness seems about right. I think the next experiment needs more oil, possibly, and a marginally hotter oven (though the bottoms of the biscuits will get burned). Also people say to use white sugar for more crunch. Possibly more salt? You can sometimes taste the salt in digestives. Melted butter instead of oil, but the ingredients definitely list vegetable oil and not butter, so that's out. It's also possible I put in too much leavening.



Anyway. I'll get to that another day. I want to make dog biscuits for River too. so I'll do them on the same day.

I don't think I have any other news.

beee-na-na

I think I just found the secret to good banana bread (possibly - it's not out of the oven yet, but the batter tastes yummy out). People say to use ripe bananas, but they never quite describe just how ripe they should be.
I've discovered that the best kind of ripe* is when the outside of the banana feels squishy, and the inside has sort of melted a little bit, and there may possibly be the start of some fermentation going on (bananas never tasted of rum before). You don't even need to mash them before throwing them into the batter, they sort of fall apart all by themselves.
I shall update again in an hour when this is cooked.

*I have a suspicion that this kind of ripe only happens at about 30°C (the ambient temperature of our apartment).

I may have thrown some chocolate chips in there too :)