Second Brush with Cream Sauce

2nd go - clearly more effort involved, questioning the choice to use bacon in a cheese cream sauce

This go, I decided to go to the other extreme end of sauces and I added everything that seemed like a good idea.

Second Brush with Cream Sauce

Inventory:
Bacon
Half & Half
Parmesan cheese
Shallots
Cooking Sherry
Chicken broth
Mushrooms
Flour
prepackaged Sweet Potato Gnocci

run through:
Boil water for gnocci. Chop bacon and saute until light brown, add more oil as needed. Add shallots & saute until golden. Add sherry and toss. Drizzle flour over the pan and mix well then add chicken stock. Stir and allow to thicken. Add half & half, stir, then add Parmesan according to taste. Drain gnocci and add to the sauce.

Result:
There was too much going on in this sauce. The cheese ended up overpowering everything so it was like a lot of the preliminary work wasn't for much. The gnocci was also unfortunately pre-seasoned (did not know) and that did not go too well with the sauce either.

Conclusions:
This sauce would probably need a milder cheese or the cheese should be added sparingly. I think part of the problem is the fact that there is a lot of flavor elements going on: bacon, mushrooms, cheese, shallots --and they all become drowned out with cheese.

First Brush with Cream Sauce

Lately, I've been stepping into the realm of cream sauces for pasta after an episode of being desperate for food and wanting to limit my grocery store trips.

First Brush with Cream Sauce

1st attempt inventory:
Frozen peas
2 small Laughing Cow Gouda rounds
cake flour
cremini mushrooms
spinach tagliatelle
chicken broth
milk

1st attempt run through:
Water is heating on the stove. Mushrooms are added to heated oil. Chicken broth is added. I recall the need for flour and add haphazard chunks of cake flour trying to blend it with a whisk. Yes, there are minor balls of flour. Crud. I add more broth and the frozen peas. Once it reduces and thickens a little, I add 2% milk and the chopped pieces of gouda.

Result: 
Gouda is too tart of a cheese for a cream sauce. The flour balls were not too bad. Prior to the adding of the cheese the mix tasted like cream of mushroom soup. The peas were an attempt to add some fiber. When combined with the pasta and a sprinkling of garlic salt - it wasn't bad. The sauce itself is mild so the garlic salt sticks out.

Conclusion:
Given the mildness of the sauce itself, this recipe needed a saltier cheese like Parmesan

Cheese Diary: Robiola Crosta

I was at the cheese shop today and this wash rind was purported to be good with Bartlett pears. I happened to have some Bartletts sitting around at home. This seemed like a run of the mill wash rind, more nutty than buttery, strong salty flavor, smells like feet when left out at room temp for a while. Excellent when paired with Bartletts as the flavor of both seem to be enhanced. This is a great way to enjoy seasonal pears. I suppose the earthy flavor can be compared to mushrooms after they've been sitting in the fridge a while, and they're slimy but extremely strong smelling - that's the good stuff.

The morning after: Post Thanksgiving Breakfast

I call this my Thanksgiving Benedict.

Two herb potato rolls cut in half with a piece of turkey meat, a poached egg laid on top with giblet gravy poured over and served with a side of butternut squash. I learned how to poach eggs from Jamie Oliver's site tutorial.

The variety we had for Thanksgiving didn't really lend itself to us getting bored of the food. I was looking forward to breakfast. Mushroom stuffing with a fried egg and gravy was a nice breakfast too.

Thanksgiving Review: The Great Dictator

This was my first year as Thanksgiving dictator.

- Turkey
- Giblet Gravy*
- Apple Stuffing*
- Wild Mushroom Stuffing*
- Deep fried Cornish Hens*
- Sweet Potato Triple Medley*
- Roasted Vegetable Quartet*
- Roasted Cauliflower*
- Glazed Butternut Squash*
- Butternut Squash Soup
- Green Bean Casserole
- Deviled Eggs
- Brocolli & Cheese Casserole
- Herb Potato Rolls*
- Pumpkin Pie*
- Sampler Pie

Needless to say, I'm assuming a life long term.

Kitchen-Sinking: Sardine Chowder

"Kitchen Sinking" is taken from the phrase "everything but the kitchen sink" it's the general phrase I use when I have vegetables that I NEED to use.

The hoard:
a single potato
and a giant leek

solution: Sardine chowder!

Obsessive Egg Foo Young

I do exercise videos off of youtube and one day, a suggested video was this:



How to make egg  foo young. I figured, why not watch it? I know how to make Korean steamed eggs, omelets, I thought the process would be somewhere in between.

It turns out, egg foo young is an easy way to use up left overs. I had some left over Beijing duck from my birthday and what manifested was a duck-shitake,-mushroom-green onion egg foo young. Save a few chewy parts, it was really good. The biggest revelation from this was what mystery Chinese-American "brown sauce" was. It's so simple: chicken stock, soy sauce, and corn starch?

What I have learned recently is that kimchi is not a good mix in ingredient for egg foo young, but mushrooms and any protein are pretty dynamite! I'm a little ambivalent on the seafood as I don't think it would go with brown sauce, but I do remember shrimp egg foo young being a favorite back in the day. I suppose nothing too strong, so maybe no salmon egg foo young.

Mushrooms, always