Fortune cookies (p. 780)

Sometimes I open my big mouth too early. And by "sometimes" I mean "often". I don't like when recipes fail. I know that nobody likes a recipe to fail but failure for some people gives them the kick in the rear they need to accomplish bigger and better things. Not me. If a recipe totally is a loss, I move on to making something else most of the time.

"So what?" you are thinking. "Interesting (sort of) but what does it have to do with TJOC?"

Well, still on my high of winning my category in the chili cook-off (sure, I was the only entry in "vegetarian chili" but I refuse to let that diminish my win!) I came up with the bright idea of making Fortune cookies (p. 780) for the one-year anniversary of my awesome coworking space, Cohere. I told everyone about how I was going to do this, with custom "truth or dare" style "fortunes" inside. And then I tried making the cookies.

I stirred together egg whites, sugar, and salt.



I added melted butter, flour, and vanilla (one ingredient at a time):



Eventually, the dough looked like this:



I dropped them on parchment paper and cooked them:



They were failures. Big failures. They were way, way too cookie-like to work as a fortune cookie. A fortune cookie needs to crisp up a lot so that after you fold it, it holds it's shape. That didn't happen with the TJOC version. At this point I wanted to consider the recipe a loss and move on with my life. They were never going to work, frankly, I don't believe the recipe works as a fortune cookie at all.

Unfortunately, remember the beginning of this post? Yeah, I still had people happily tweeting me about their excitement to eat homemade fortune cookies and sending me Facebook messages with their ideas for the truths or dares (which was awesome, I'm not creative enough to come up with all those on my own). So I sighed, went looking throughout the internet, and found another recipe.

Which worked.

I made mountains of fortune cookies:




They were beautiful, surprisingly tasty, went over extremely well, and almost won a cupcake competition that they weren't even entered in (obviously, as they are not cupcakes)--they almost won through write-in votes). They were obnoxiously time-consuming but very rewarding if you like accolades as much as I do. And they were far, far more delicious than your average restaurant fortune cookie!

Becker five-minute polenta rustica (p. 349) and Becker rice and noodle pilaf (p. 355)

I've grown up eating polenta. It's a really good go-to food that is both cheap and filling (not surprisingly for a food item that has it's roots in gruel and was traditionally considered peasant food [Wikipedia]). So I was intrigued by Becker five-minute polenta rustica (p. 349). Would it really only take 5 minutes? Would it be good?

I melted butter in a saucepan, adding onion and cooking until translucent. I added chicken broth, which I brought to a boil:



I added cornmeal slowly, whisking constantly so that lumps didn't form:



I whisked for five minutes, eventually stirring in Parmesan cheese and salt:



It was surprisingly good! I love polenta and this was a much faster recipe than most. I would much rather stir for 5 minutes than an hour or more. That being said, I didn't think it was quite as good as long simmered polenta but the difference isn't one most people would notice (especially if you haven't eaten your weight in polenta over the years). I will absolutely make this again.

I also made Becker rice and noodle pilaf (p. 355).

I mixed butter, vegetable oil, shallots, fine egg noodles (if you can't find these, look in the Kosher section, that's where they were in our grocery store), and white rice in a skillet and stirred until the noodles were toasted:



I added chicken broth:



I reduced the heat to low, covered, and simmered gently for much more than the recommended 20 minutes:



Like most grain dishes at high altitude, all the water never did get soaked into the rice. And it wasn't until I was finished that I noticed that this recipe makes 10-12 servings. That is a LOT of pilaf for two people. It made a huge amount of pilaf. I'm not a big pilaf fan, I would have been just as happy with a box of Rice-a-Roni. That being said, this was another super easy and cheap recipe.

Both recipes could easily be converted to vegetarian dishes if you used veggie stock rather than chicken stock.

Sweet-and-sour brisket (p. 481)

I actually had heard from multiple people that the Sweet-and-sour brisket (p. 481) was one of the best recipes in TJOC. And, yet, I wasn't excited at all to try it because it didn't sound very good to me. I stumbled upon a really cheap brisket at the grocery store and thought it would be the perfect time to try out the recipe I had heard so much about.

I browned the brisket (which had been spread with minced garlic and black pepper). While that was happening, I scattered sliced onions around the meat. I cooked the dish until the onions were very brown and then added red wine and beef stock. After a minute I scraped up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan and stirred in chili sauce, cider vinegar, brown sugar, and a bay leaf:



The whole thing went in the oven for almost 3 hours.



The brisket was allowed to cool in the pan and then popped in the refrigerator overnight. The next day I removed the bay leaf, sliced the meat, returned the meat to the sauce, and reheated in the oven (believe it or not, that's in the recipe):



Sorry for the hideous picture (yes. even I know this picture is awful).

The brisket was delicious. Tender, flavorful, and amazing. The recipe makes quite a bit and heats up easily, making it a great option for a dinner in which you aren't completely sure when the guests are arriving (like when people are traveling in). I made it again for a graduation supper after this original time and it was a hit with everyone. I think the "sweet and sour" title is a bit of a misnomer. The sweetness comes from the sugar and the sour from the vinegar but it's really not that sweet or that sour. Plus it's not Asian-inspired at all, which I always expect from something called "sweet and sour". This is one of those rare dishes that even though most picky would like--the sauce is simple yet full of nuanced flavors. Make it the next time you have a brisket!

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High-altitude angel cake (p. 748), Fresh strawberry sauce (Strawberry coulis) (p. 853), and Custard sauce (Creme anglaise) (p. 846)

As much as I complain about living in the hell that is high-altitude, I have this terrible suspicion that I'm going to end up moving without completing all of the high-altitude recipes, which would be terrible. Frankly, I'm not sure what you would do in regards to the high-altitude recipes if you were trying to cook-through TJOC and lived around sea level. Would you go to a friend's house in the mountains and make 14 cakes? Would you adjust them so they weren't high altitude (which seems bizarre)?

With this in mind (and the fact I've only made 5/14 of the high-altitude section so far) I decided to make High-altitude angel cake (p. 748). I'd never tried my hand at angel cake and it has a reputation for being challenging, so I was nervous.

I measured out 1.5 cups of egg whites. It took about a dozen eggs:



That's a lot of egg white! I added the egg whites, a bit of salt, and some cream of tarter together and beat it until slightly droopy peaks formed. It went from this:



To this:



That's one of my favorite parts of baking. I love seeing huge changes like egg whites changing color. I added in sugar and then folded in vanilla extract, almond extract, and water:



In another bowl I sifted together sifted cake flour and sifted confectioners sugar (that is two sifts, each) and returned it to the sifter:



I sifted the dry ingredients one quarter at a time in to the egg white mixture and folded:



It took quite a bit of folding. Eventually, I (messily) poured the batter in to my cake pan and ran a knife around the middle to burst any bubbles:



Popped it in the oven:



When the cake was finished, I inverted it on top of a funnel until it was completely cooled:



Delicious! The almond extract really helped the flavor of the angel cake "pop". The cake was moist and light, not as tall as I would have liked (although taller than I would expect in Colorado). It was also pretty easy.

I thought that angel food cake is really a great canvas for sweet sauces, so I decided I would make two. The first sauce was Fresh strawberry sauce (Strawberry coulis) (p. 853). Super, super easy.

I took a pint of strawberries, some sugar, and a little lemon juice and popped them in the blender:



And got this:



Finished! I didn't even have to strain it. It was really good, reminiscent of a strawberry Julius at Orange Julius. And certainly easy (much easier than the raspberry coulis, which took forever to strain).

I thought that Custard sauce (Creme anglaise) (p. 846) would be a good use of some of the leftover egg yolks.

I lightly beat egg yolks:




I whisked in sugar and salt. I heated two cups of milk until bubbles started to form around the edges and then slowly whisked the hot milk in to my eggs (always mix hot in to cold, not cold in to hot--you will get scrambled eggs):



And the whole mixture went back on the stovetop. I needed it to heat to 175 degrees. Just like heating anything in Colorado, this step took FOREVER. Honestly, it should have taken about five minutes but instead took around an hour.



(Ignore the messy stovetop! It was a big day of cooking) I was so thankful when it was finally done (well, done after stirring in a little vanilla).



This custard sauce was so delicious that I could (and did) just eat it with a spoon. It was creamy and rich and absolute perfection. I can't wait to make it again at sea level when it should only take a few minutes. Plus it's a great use of egg yolks.

My angel food cake with both sauces:



Delicious! The two sauces together were particularly good.

Do any of you make awesome angel food cakes?

Random facts:

• If you go to too high of a temperature with creme anglaise, just 5-10 degrees over, the custard will collapse and you will get grainy curds (On Food and Cooking, p. 93), giving you low quality scrambled eggs (Wikipedia). So make sure you are using a candy thermometer.
• Creme anglaise is French for "English cream" (Wikipedia). For some reason, I think it's hilarious that English uses the French version of an English phrase.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

If you only read for the food, skip this post! If you hate (or don't care about) Harry Potter, skip this post!

My grandparents have lived in Florida for most of my life. I go there with my mom every year for Christmas. This year, my good friend and college roommate Laura started a post-doc in Florida and I was extremely excited to see her--we hadn't seen each other in years. I threw out the idea to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure. I knew Laura and I are both Harry Potter fans, the WWoHP just opened (and it's cool to see things before everyone else has), and, as someone who has been to the FL theme parks a zillion times, Islands of Adventure is the only one I've ever truly liked.

So we set off!

If you decide to go to the WWoHP, expect huge crowds. Honestly, we were there when the park opened, went straight to get our ticket to WWoHP, and still didn't get a time to enter until four hours later or so.

This December was surprisingly cold in FL. The day we went to WWoHP was around 30. Were the two of us wearing coats? No. A fleece for Laura and a sweatshirt for me. What do we decide to do while we wait?

Ride water rides. That's right, we rode the first water ride while it was around freezing. Not surprisingly, there were no lines. Honest to god, not a single person in line.



We figured we were already wet, so we might as well go on a second water ride. I men, we couldn't get wetter, right?



Wrong. Very, very wrong. We were so soaking wet that people were pointing at us and laughing.

We were absolutely freezing so we went in to one of the cafes to warm up. They had reasonably priced and warming beer:



Finally it was Harry Potter time! I don't have any great pictures of the terrific moving pictures on the walls of Hogwarts, the terrific sorting hat, all of that. If you are a Harry Potter fan, this is a must-go.

There was just something awesome about seeing the Hogsmeade sign:



Hogwarts in the background!



How perfect were the Beauxbaton girls? I can totally see Fleur.



And Durmstrang, of course. I don't know where they found these guys but they were perfect!



When I went to Islands of Adventure a dozen years ago, when it first opened, there was a dueling dragon ride. That ride has now been rebranded as the Triwizard Tournament ride and it was full of these great signs:



Gorgeous view, right? I felt like I was walking to Hogsmeade. And my butterbeer!



What about the butterbeer?



Both Laura and I were excited about the butterbeer. And this must have shown through because we were asked so many questions about it by random tourists it was amazing. Honestly, I bet we answered a hundred questions. We were like the Butterbeer representatives. Is it hot? (No, you can get it cold or frozen. We stated that we were already frozen so we picked cold). Is it alcoholic? (Sadly, no, it's "beer" like "root beer"). Where can we get it? (Right by the entrances). What does it taste like? (A lot like cream soda and butterscotch). Is it good? (Surprisingly, yes!). For some reason I thought it would be hot but no.

While we were walking around we saw a big sign that proclaimed the Mythos Resturant to have been voted "Best theme park restaraunt" by some theme park magazine. That was good enough for us! Note to future visiters--if you want to go, make sure to make a reservation. We didn't and we waited FOREVER.

Our meals:




These were actually really, really good. And that's a statement I've never been able to make about a theme park meal before. Plus it was relatively cheap. I figure that if I manage not to sign away my first born at a theme park, the day was a win. I've never seen risotto on a theme park menu before so I was impressed.

Super, super fun day. If you love Harry Potter and ever are in Florida, go to Islands of Adventure. It was expensive but totally worth it.

Eggs in a nest (p. 199)

Eggs in a nest (p. 199) is a truly strange recipe. I stumbled upon a similar recipe in "Silver Spoon" which is usually described to me as being Italy's version of TJOC. I thought--eggs in mashed potatoes? Bizarre. And I still think that. Deliciously bizarre.

I mixed my mashed potatoes, milk, bacon, parsley, and paprika and smeared it in to a greased baking dish:



I made four hollows and broke eggs in to them:



I covered the whole thing with au gratin:



And baked!



I actually ate one egg out of it at this point, thought the eggs might be a little underdone, and popped the rest back in for a few more minutes. I actually recommend taking the eggs out when they are still runny. There is something delicious about the runny egg yolk mixed with the potatoes. If you are of the mentality that slapping an egg on food makes it better (as people from a number of different cultures are), this is going to be an amazing recipe for you. And the bacon-y mashed potatoes were like ambrosia.