Cooking Project: Part 3 of 7

So today is my brother Isaiah's birthday, and so I ended up making his birthday dinner. :-) Chili! Which was fun. I've always enjoyed making chili. I also made his birthday cake! Which wasn't from scratch, (*sniffle*) lol but it was still yummy. Betty Crocker. :-D And the cake fell! *anger* cause I was rushing things and not paying attention...grr. BUT it actually turned out delicious and fudgy. Mmmm. So now I'm stuffed full of red chili, root beer, fudgy chocolate cake, and vanilla ice cream. And listening to Michael Buble station on Pandora. Cause Michael Buble makes me HAPPY. And I *love* being happy. And I keep thinking how insane it is that my brother is 17. O.o The years have really flown....I remember when we were tiny and used to argue all the time and we got spanked a lot. Hee. The good ole days. :-P Oooh. I remember the time he stepped on a yellow jacket's nest! And he got like 27 stings and he had to go to the hospital. And the time he cracked his skull on the frame of his bed and had to go to the hospital! And the time he squirted dishwasher detergent in his eye! AND the time he broke our light fixture cause he threw my teddy bear. Wow...I feel like a kid again, all these awesome memories. :-) Also can you tell I have a very accident prone brother? :-P
So. Tomorrow's food project will probably be.....ohyes! It's going to be Lavender Creme Brulee. :-) I'm making it for Thanksgiving, but I'm making it ahead of time cause our oven's acting up and we only have a dinky lil roaster oven thingey. So. I'll hopefully post tomorrow...I hope I don't forget. But things will be pretty busy preparing for Thanksgiving and also MY COUSINS ARE COMING OVER! I'm so incredibly excited! :-D I love them. To death. They're soooo sweet. So yeah. That's what's up in my life right now. Here's some pictures of the cooking and partying today. :-)

Happy Birthday Isaiah! I love you to death, dude. :-) <3
-Esther

Cooking Project: Part 2 of 7

So I tried the roll recipe again, this time with whole wheat flour, and I made sure to be extra careful with the yeast. And the dough turned out pretty good! But then I realized I'd used up all the olives in the fail batch I'd made the night before. *facepalm* So I almost had a mental breakdown, and then I pulled myself together and decided they could be just plain rolls. And so I baked 'em, and they turned out pretty decent. :-) I'm kind of sick of rolls now though. :-P Anyways. Here's a pic!

So yeah. :-)
-Esther

Cooking Project: Part 1 of 7

Sooo. Yesterday was Day 1 of my spontaneous cooking project. And, I must say, it was a complete fail. :-P But I'm going to be optimistic, and learn from this failure. Which was quite epic. (This whole optimism thing is kinda hard to learn...) So the recipe I'd picked out was Rosemary Olive Knots from Nick Malgieri's The Modern Baker. *cough* If that was modern baking, then I very much prefer the old-fashioned kind. :-P The dough didn't rise and turned out excessively gooey. Gluey, actually. A mix between gooey and gluey. It was gross, period. And it baked into a hardened gluey glob. EW. So I'm terribly confused. In the book, the rolls look amazing, which is why I tried the recipe, and then I cook it and it's unedible.

Doesn't that look delicious??? So either the recipe just stinks (which I highly doubt) or I did something wrong... Which is probably what happened. :-) I'm wondering about the yeast I used...and the flour. And my sanity. :-P This is a bit more stressful than I thought it would be. I was up till 10:30 last night making these and they turn out gluey. UGH. So. Since I don't like to fail, I'm going to cook this recipe *again* today, and probably use different flours and experiment a little bit. Hopefully it will turn out better than last night's:

Yep. There they are, the gluey rolls. :-P Gaaack. So. Wish me luck as I embark on another quest for the perfect roll. :-)

-Esther

 

Lizzy and I

*happiness* I have such awesome friends...

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. :-P I've been super busy, and I haven't actually done a lot of cooking lately. :( Oh! Actually, I made a shrimp soup thing this week. So I have done *some* cooking, but not a lot. Not enough, especially if I'm going to have a blog where I talk about food and post pictures of projects. So. To get me back "into the groove", so to speak, I've come up with an idea (with the help of my awesome friends). I'm going to cook something EVERY DAY for a week.

*long pause for effect*

Haha. This is something that will be quite challenging for me, keeping up with school and chores AND cooking every day. Especially since this next week, (the week I'm going to do this) holds Thanksgiving and Isaiah's birthday. SO. I'm going to start this Sunday. I'll post a picture of what I made every day of next week. I hope. :P So now you know. :)

-Esther

Oh, and a Bible verse I found today: "Wait for the Lord, be strong and let your heart take courage. Yes, wait for the Lord." Psalm 27:14 :)