Vicky Learns to Cook

Hey there, fellow foodies! I think we all have some recipes that we love, and some that could use some fixing up. (Or is it just me? ☺) One recipe that keeps coming out dry is my brownie. This is not a good thing, a dry brownie! I mean, brownies are supposed to be soft and fudgy, and "gooey in all the right places". So I now need to make a confession to you; I use some Martha Stewart recipes. I know. Scandalous! Sure she's famous for her "better than you, queen of homemaking" attitude and then later lying about a stock sale, landing her in jail then house arrest ...  But the woman knows how to cook. So today's blog is about trying out her brownies. What could go wrong? It's pretty simple, really, but it may require some ingredients you'd have to get on your next shopping trip. Namely, semi sweet bakers chocolate. Now, don't be afraid of it, it's really a good thing... oops sorry Martha I stole your line! You just melt 2 boxes,

Cooking at home for practice.... October 5 633PM Well, that didn't turn out EXACTly like I planned.  I tried to make crepes mornay with chicken and mushrooms. However, crepes eluded me until the 8th try. I made 10. So then Andrew ate the two nice looking ones. I had to poach chicken and julienne it... not sure I even did that right.  The mornay sauce was for a huge pot so I had to quickly convert it .. and it needed a bechamel sauce.. more converting. Then the Mushrooms needed clarified butter and chopped herbs.  It was all  very complicated with many steps. And those crepes. So I lined a bread pan with broken crepes, placed chicken mushroom combo on top, layered more broken crepes, put on mornay sauce, paprika, and baked for 20 mins. Then topped with herbs and served. Man was that good. Broken or not. October 9 1000PM  Today in Cookery class: We made Clam Chowder, which turns out I actually love. And also Consomme which I could take or leave. We made a clearmeat to clarif

Hi, checking in again with my latest news from culinary classes. :) Here are the posts so far, enjoy! October 2 1103PM Culinary update: I got my Basic Skills class grade, an A- !! Not only that, my former teacher introduced me to my new teacher as her "star student"! Whaaaat?! I was so happy! Now I'm in Cookery, and today we learned to make stock in 50 gallon stockpots... I could climb inside they are so big.  We made a chicken stock and a brown stock (with tomato and caramelized the veggies). Smelled like heaven in there when we left. It has to simmer over night.  Tomorrow we make soup. Tur ns out the bouquet garni and sachets we made last week were used in the stock tonight. So far, this is a much less pressured class. And we have a planned meal every night that we have class (except tonight was just homemade jam and bread (and peanut butter, yuck), and pretzels with cheese sauce.) Not really a meal but they fed us, who am I to complain? October 4 900AM Yesterda

Not everyone has Facebook, so I am repeating my ruminations from Basic Skills (in the kitchen) class. Enjoy! September 4 at 10:50 PM  ·  Today in culinary class: Learned the names of equipment, cut up rutabaga, turnip, potato, onion, garlic into garlic paste. Made clarified butter aka liquid gold aka ghee. Sliced cheese on this massive cheese slicer ("has everyone cut the cheese yet?). Made waffle fries but they were very thin and called gaufrettes. Put together and took apart the food processor. Ate grilled cheese with dill havarti and cheddar and tomato and of course gaufrettes. I'm not getting dinner any more on tuesdays and wednesdays. They actually feed us in culinary class at the end of the day. And you dont know what you're getting so its a surprise.  :) September 5 at 10:44 PM  ·  Today in culinary class: Correctly minced parsley, even got a compliment from the chef! Made yogurt (which we pic

When I think about having my own brick n mortar bakery some day, I think about what I might offer to eat. I have a ton of recipes but haven't really tried most of them. ( I know, I'm ashamed to even say it. )  I tend to stick to the same things over and over. But in my fantasies I am trying new things every week. So I thought to myself, why don't I just try something I haven't tried before every week, now? Why not pick a day, say Thursday, and make an effort to try out a new recipe. I'm trying out an Almond Pound Cake as you may have guessed by the title. One of my favorite flavors is almond. To get technical for a moment, an almond isn't actually a nut but the part we eat is a seed. The genus, or plant category, is called "prunus" which includes nectarines, peaches , apricots, cherries and plums. And this is why I love it, because to me, the flavor of an almond has a distinct cherry like flavor. How cool is that? (I wonder if it's prunus beca

One of the things that makes it possible to make half a dozen types of cookies every week is to have kits built ahead of time. It saves you time because if you make each cookie as you go, you have to pull out all the ingredients, find the measuring spoons and cups, open all the ingredients, scoop them into the bowl, and then put it all back. If you only do those things one time, while you're building kits, you save actual hours as you go! How I built the kits: First pick a recipe that you want to make all the time and want kits built. This is a recipe kit that you'll probably use within a week or two. It could be pancakes, it can be adjusted for anything. Next separate wet ingredients from dry on the recipe: Dry ingredients are typically: Flour White sugar Baking powder Baking soda Corn starch Salt Cocoa powder Raisins Coconut Nuts Wet ingredients are typically: Butter Brown sugar Eggs Vanilla Milk And then there are the add ins. If you add

June 7, 2018  6:04 PM "Follow your dreams", they say. So what is my dream then, I ask? What is the one thing that if I could never do again would send me into a spiral of sadness and depression? What is the one thing that I hope, pray, wish, practice, work at, think about constantly, and never get tired of? That would be the dream. What it is for me, is baking. More accurately, baking, candy making, decorating, fondant, cookies, cakes, pies and drooling over cookbooks. I have an entire library of them. But the next question is, can I , a 47 year old woman who has a full time job NOT in the culinary arts, has only home experience, and is a Mom and a Wife, truly ever own my own bakery? Certainly it's a pipe dream. But dream, I do. Whenever the lottery comes around, I put my four bucks in and hope and wonder, if I did win today, I would certainly quit my job and go build a bakery, right? Or would I? I mean, I want it to be a successful bakery, don't I? That

So the hubby came home yesterday with a box of Hello Fresh meals. Seems if you are a subscriber you get some free meals to give away for your friends to try. And he has this friend, you see. Far be it for me to pass on three free meals, right? Here's what my honest opinion is: Mixed Review. Why? Disadvantages? 3 meals would be about 160 dollars. I can get 5 to 7 for that price if I buy it myself, chop and sort it myself. I would say if you are a beginner, this does not give enough information. For example, they say to put the sour cream on the fish. What they didn't point out is that if you don't pat the fish dry first, the sour cream will not stick. Fortunately I already knew this, but if you never made fish before you would not. I would add more pictures of making the different parts because I got confused and missed a step. I read the directions 4 times, honest. But when I got done I had leftover parts. And finally, you have to provide your own oil. The amou

What do you do when Hubby comes home with green beans? Make Sweet Fire Shrimp and tempura green beans! But you dont know how to do that? Oh it's easy, I'll show you. First you need some tempura batter. This is simply 1 cup flour, 1 cup cold water, and 1 egg, mixed together. Next you dredge the green beans in the tempura batter and fry it in vegetable oil. Make sure its hot oil or it takes forever.  Flip them once when they start to brown. Give them a sprinkle of salt once you pull them out and lay them on paper towels.  Next we batter the fish the same way.  Start the sprouted short brown rice (or whatever rice you like) Cut up 1 red pepper, and 1 1/2 cup pineapple. Cook these in a second frying pan with a little bit of oil for 3-4 mins, turning every now and then.  Once they are done, add sweet chili sauce: (Pictured here is Panda Express brand, got it at Kroger). Doesn't that look yummy? To plate, put the ric