Oh faithful FoodSAZm followers, despite not having posted 2 months to the day, you have kept reading, and my following has kept growing.... and with that, I am inspired. I have been cooking up a storm the past 2 months....new foods, new techniques, new gadgets and I have truly missed regularly blogging about my culinary endeavors........so after my brief hiatus, I am officially back and will be blogging like old times.....I know I know, this is super emotional and exciting but contain yourselves.
Now where do I begin.......my last post left off explaining my plans to host Thanksgiving. Well I hosted my second annual Thanksgiving and it was a total success! The first course was a Lobster Bisque (I will post the recipe and pictures tomorrow - trust me, it's worth the wait...). Next came our delicious 20 lb Turkey (see below) stuffed with my mom's AMAZING stuffing (you can get the stuffing recipe here!) We had sides of Roasted Brussel Sprouts, Baked Mac n' Cheese, and Corn Fritters (another recipe I will post later on!) ANNNDD for dessert I made my famously delicious Apple Pie (see recipe here!)
Golden Turkey!
My pretty table!
In addition to my contributions to Thanksgiving, Justin made his second annual Amuse Bouche: A Butternut Squash Puree, topped with a Slow Cooked Pork Belly and Parmesan Foam (yes, I love him even more after that dish):
After Thanksgiving, we had a period of experimentation. The most namely one being my experiment with Kimbop....and no, that's not a new character on the Barney show.... It is a Korean snack typically filled with either Kimchi (pickled Cabbage) or Cooked Tuna (not sushi grade but canned tuna) sandwiched between rice. So in order to elevate this dish in both taste and ingredients I filled mine with Sushi grade, raw Ahi Tuna, Avocado and homemade Spicy Mayo. You will need to go to an Asian Supermarket to get the Nori as well as the triangular mold used to form the Kimbop. I will post this recipe in full step by step details because it is extremely hands on and confusing without pictures!
Once you unwrap your finished Kimbop of the plastic, you get this great little triangular sandwich which is low-cal and delicious!
The next thing that happened was Christmas....the best day of the year. For Christmas, my husband bought me the AWESOME Collection of Modernist Cuisine:
This is an intensive encyclopedia and a guide to the science of contemporary cooking. The 6 volumes cover history and fundamentals, techniques and equipment,
animals and plants, ingredients and preparation, plated dish recipes
and one last volume, the kitchen manual. One of the major techniques and implements used throughout this book is the use of the Pressure Cooker. For anyone who's as avid a Top Chef and Iron Chef watcher as I am, you've seen this baby used A LOT! Pressure cookers are used for cooking food quicker than conventional cooking methods....for example, last night I cooked a 4lb. whole chicken in 25 minutes.....that's some serious stuff. So with that being said...I bought myself a Pressure Cooker...his name is Barry, everyone say hi to Barry:
With Barry, I intend to test out every form of meat to learn how to cook everything in a pressurized environment. As I stated, last night I cooked a whole Chicken, and I literally have never eaten a chicken that was so moist in my life....not to mention, the ability to cook a 4lb chicken in 25 minutes made me feel like UberChef (my superhero alternative personality....well not really, but go with it for the joke's sake).
After Christmas came New Years, in which I went to Chelsea Market in the Meatpacking District to my favorite place to buy LIVE Lobsters, The Lobster Place (real clever name).
They sell pre-cooked lobsters, but in my family that is like the ultimate chef faux pas.
I bought us two beautiful female lobsters (my family has always gotten female lobsters - their meat tends to be more tender). Cooking lobsters is probably the easiest thing in the world (so long as you can take maiming a live critter...but that's what husbands are for.) You bring a LARGE LARGE pot filled with water to a boil, put the little guys in head first, cover the pot and time exactly 24 minutes from the time you put them in. Take them out, let them cool and serve with melted butter!
Hi little Pinchies!
So now that we've caught up on the kitchen highlights from the past 2 months, I will begin tomorrow with the regular FoodSAZm postings! You can look forward to my newest recipes that have been perfected in the past few months, along with awesome photos of them! :) So good to be back in the blogosphere!
Happy Cooking!
xoxo
Saz
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