Slowly making my way towards the middle...

Joe Average tries to score with Jane Hipster, but she can't hear him with her iPod turned up full volume 

I have now made an excellent batch of gingerbread cookies, the best I've ever managed in fact. I think I would put it all down to finally having a convection oven and silpat matts to put on the cookie sheets, plus a great deal of luck. I invited a few friends over to help make cookies - such the delegator - and Josh was amazingly good at rolling the dough out to a perfect thickness. We didn't get around to making the butter cookies so I guess I'll have to bang those out sometime tomorrow. In the meantime I managed to decorate the gingerbread peeps pretty well, if I do say so myself. I'll get some pictures up tomorrow maybe. I was almost disappointed that I didn't have any amputees to ice. I should make gingerbread crutches to accompany the ones missing a leg. Considering I managed to fall ass over tea-kettle down some stairs on Thursday and am now limping on a gammy ankle maybe I should try and make a full-size gingerbread crutch. Hah, hah. Maybe I could make a bunch of cookie crutches and wheelchairs to sell at the next MS walk-a-thon. Maybe throw in a few Copaxone syringes? Any left-over random splotches of dough I could bake and call lesions. Wonder how that all would be received though as it seems to me that there are usually two kinds of people with MS - those with a sense of humor about it all and those looking for drama. (!!) Or is that just how different people handle life?

I also tried to make a decent coq au vin casserole but I must admit it was pretty much a total disaster. Came out miserably soupy and yet somehow the chicken was overcooked. I'm not exactly sure where I went wrong, but it pissed me off since I have memories of banging them out one-two-three in my kitchen in London with no problems. I think I put those casseroles in the oven instead of simmering on the stove though. Maybe I'll try and make small versions until I can get it exactly right. I hate to admit it, but this is one of those things that you just know America's Test Kitchen would have the perfect recipe for. ATK is the tangible expression of every perfectionist cook's dreams. Most of the time I don't have the patience or the persistance to follow all of their iterations but damn, it would be great to have a perfect coq au vin recipe.


Spanish lady out for a walk with her oversized Welsh Corgi 

The Eggnog Challenge

Ok, so last night's activity was limited to a trial run at making eggnog from scratch, more because I cleverly managed to fall down some stairs and twisted my ankle. Once I got started, it became clear that this was going to be another Fettucine Al Fredo all over again. Back in high school, I loved FAF. Loved it so much, in fact, that I learned how to make it quickly and quite proficiently. After making it a handful of times though, I completely lost my appetite for it. I mean, who in their right mind, except for a very active 15yr old perhaps, can eat that much cream, butter, egg yolks and cheese in one sitting? To this day, I can't order it. Now that I have demystified egg-nog, I doubt I'll be tempted into having another cup of it ever again. Ingredients, interestingly enough, do not differ all that much from FAF. Take one egg yolk, blend with 1TB sugar, 1/4cup cream and 1/4cup rum or brandy & a few grains salt. Beat the egg white separately until stiff, then fold into egg yolk mixture. Sprinkle nutmeg on top. Granted, it tasted good, if not as sweet as the commercial stuff I remember, but when it hits you that you are in fact drinking a cup of cream plus raw eggs, well, oddly enough, it doesn't appeal as much. I imagine that the Starbucks eggnog chai latte, awesome as that one I tried in the mall was, is not a whole lot better on the calorie scale.

The only thing worse than drinking an entire carton of eggnog would have to be drinking eggnog "lite". I don't even want to know what sort of molecules come together to create fake cream.

I'm sticking to straight rum.

Almond Chai Cookies

So I ended up making these Almond Chai cookies from the new issue of Bon Appetit. It was a strange range of thumbs-up / thumbs-down making these things. At first, definitely T-U in that the batter came together perfectly and was easy to shape. Then a taste of the batter produced more of a ?? than anything else - not much flavor. The dog seemed to enjoy it though. Then, while baking, they produced the most heavenly aroma yet. I think the scent alone would be worth making them for. Especially if you were planning on selling your house. It probably didn't hurt that I used this vanilla extract I picked up in the airport in Cancun, Mexico. I can't remember how much I paid for it, but it must have been something like $10 for a 1 liter bottle. It's perfume, aromatherapy and a cooking ingredient all in one. After baking, you roll the cookies in powdered sugar, wait for them to cool and then roll again. Naturally, John and I didn't wait for them all to cool before trying one, and I have to say the result was sort of... eh. T-D. Next day, however, something about the flavors all came together and they were a definite T-U. I do wish there had been more of a butter flavor to them though, and I think if I were to make it again I'd try to up the butter content. Maybe instead of using wheat flour, grind the almonds and make nut flour? Not sure. Anyway, here's a picture of the last one left for a visual.


Almond Chai Cookies 

Start on the left...

As I am new to this whole concept of blogging, and as it has been years since I did any HTML programming, I have put off actually getting started on the whole project for oh, about three years now. But wait no longer; things are really going to cook now! There will be technical difficulties aplenty; hopefully no-one but me will be aware of them. I do find it pathetic and sad that I am using a program that automatically formats everything for me. The 23yr old version of me would be derisive and condescending, especially when she found out that earlier today I ruled out purchasing a projector t.v. not because of price but because I really can't be arsed to figure out how to run which wires up to get the picture done well.

To make up for it, I'm going to spend the rest of the afternoon making Christmas cookies. I've earned it. The tree is up, lit and decorated, the packages are all wrapped and purchased and the cards are mostly finished. Awesome. Let's just all agree not to mention the vacuuming that remains to be done. I'm choosing cookies over cleanliness; what a surprise.

This is a picture of me, contented as all hell after eating the best breakfast in all of Ireland.