Chicken with 32 Garlic Cloves

Tonight, Josh and I made Ina Garten's Chicken with 40 Garlic Cloves. Whenever I choose a Food Network recipe, I read the ratings (done by other home chefs) for that recipe before proceeding. It seemed almost everyone was pleased with the results. I disregarded the one negative opinion, where one person complained, saying it was bitter, but I think this person either used bad garlic or burned the garlic.

Anyways, Josh didn't have work today since school hasn't started yet, and he did the grocery shopping and prep work. This recipe has almost no prep work if you buy the chicken in pieces rather than disassembling two chickens yourself. The only prep to be done is peeling the 2 heads of garlic, which is facilitated by leaving them in boiling water for one minute. After that, all you have to do is brown the chicken in batches. We cut the recipe from 7 lbs. of chicken to about 4 lbs since it was just two of us and I don't have a dutch oven. However, I left the sauce proportions the same because having extra sauce and garlic is never a bad thing! After the chicken is done browning, all that's left is making the sauce and then braising the chicken in it. The garlic was all mushy and had this sweet mellow flavor.

I served it with a mesclun salad and my homemade balsamic vinaigrette., so the plate looked like something I'd get at a French bistro. All it needed was a heap of steak frites and it would've been perfect.

Move along now, nothing to see

It's been depressingly overcast the past few days here. Although I don't have a window office, I can see through office doors and see the grayish light outside. For most of the day, I've been feeling sluggish, wishing to be tucked in bed with a book and a kitty, but I just realized that the light looks an awful lot like the late afternoon light we see starting in late autumn. Unlike some people, I hate the summer. Give me spring, autumn, or winter any other day. The summer season has nothing to recommend itself to me.

Nothing beats a crisp fall morning. I don't get the same feeling I used to when I was leaving my apartment in NJ for work at the golf club, but somewhere in the city's dirty air, there's a bite that wakes you up. Eventually the bite will turn into a constant gnawing that makes you run for the nearest subway station, but until then, I'm content to enjoy my morning walk.

I can't wait for autumn!

Free laundry

Josh and I went back to NJ on Friday night. He had relatives visiting (the Nocheeses, to those of you who read my cruise recaps) his parents' house and I begged off, saying that I had to do the laundry (I decided to take it back to NJ instead of paying to do it) and spend time with my family.

So on Saturday, I cooked for my family. I made Ina Garten's strawberry tart, but altered the recipe a little. Instead of making a pastry crust, I made a graham cracker crust and I topped it with strawberries and raspberries (Pics will follow next week. My brother has to send them to me). The pastry cream was surprisingly light, but didn't have a lot of body to it. I'm thinking that next time, I'll add some more cornstarch. At first I thought I'd use gelatin, but then I realized that while the pastry cream cools in the fridge, the gelatin would make it set within the bowl (I pour the cream into the crust after it's cooled).

I also made a turkey lasagna (yet another Ina Garten recipe) because my parents like it so much. Last time I made it, they said it wasn't as good as the first time because I made the mistake of thinking that the generic brand of turkey sausage would be as good as the brand name kind. This time, I didn't make that mistake, and the lasagna was enjoyed by all, and accompanied by a loaf of garlic Tuscan bread from Wegman's.

Lovely pics

I finally got all of Jasmine and Paul's pictures uploaded to Shutterfly. It took forever, but I'm glad I could give them some pictures to view while waiting for the professional ones. I caught some really great moments and I keep thinking that it'd be really cool for someone to pay me to walk around their wedding and take candid shots of the non-professional variety. I could deliver them within 24 hours!

Speaking of earning extra money, I turned in my proofreading assignment. Yay, I'm smut-free until the next smutty proofreading job, if I even get another job offer from this editor. I don't really care; money's money.

Wedding Extravaganza!

Jasmine and Paul got married today and it was a lovely wedding. There were a lot of laughs, fun, and mischief.

Congratulations to you two!

A request

Jennifer recently commented that I haven't posted recipes for my posts, so here are some I've used and liked in the past several months. Because of copyright issues, I can't post the recipes, but I've linked to the Food Network recipes. Some of the recipes, especially Ina Garten's, will be taken off from the database because they're from her cookbooks.

Tuesday, August 8th: Ina Garten's Sour Cream Coffee Cake
Sunday, July 30th: Alton Brown's Overnight Cinnamon Rolls
Sunday, July 2nd: Giada De Laurentiis' Almond Blueberry Cookies
Saturday, June 3rd: Ina Garten's Flower Cupcakes with Magnolia's Chocolate Buttercream
Saturday, May 27th: Ina Garten's Shrimp Scampi, Alton Brown's Baby-back Ribs, and Alton Brown's Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Piece of cake!

I made a sour cream coffee cake on Sunday. It had streusel inside and on the top, as well as a maple syrup flavored glaze drizzle. I gave Josh one piece since he's my guinea pig (it was a new recipe) and he gave it an enthusiastic double thumbs-up.

At work the next day, the cake was devoured in about an hour, probably the fastest any of my baked goods has disappeared. Today, one of the managers was saying that he felt bad I spent money on ingredients and the department enjoyed the results. I kept trying to refuse the money, but I caved so he'd stop and said he could give me $5. Another manager proposed a baking fund jar, but someone smartly pointed out that I'd wind up feeling obligated to deliver baked goods regularly.

It's just a hobby!

Learning while proofreading

Yesterday morning, I received my first proofreading assignment. I'm doing a cold read on an erotica title. [Insert immature giggling here]

I got home this afternoon to find out that Josh was going out (yet again) to imbibe in some spirits with his classmates from NYC Teaching Fellows.

So what did I do? I ordered a pizza and read erotica.

Interesting tidbit: There is a species of trees called shittah trees and the wood from these trees is called shittimwood. You learn all sorts of things when you're reaching for the dictionary every few minutes to verify spelling.