2013 - Week 4

Well, hello, and welcome to Week 4 :) How has your year been going so far? Here is how my week went:

To start out with, my dream journal has not been going so well this week, not because I've forgotten to write things down, but because I haven't had any long, fun dreams. Most of them have just been short snippets or a theme of the dream, and usually they just relate to the movie or TV show that we happened to watch that night. Nothing too fun or exciting.

My daily journal and nightly Bible reading has been going very well though. I can't wait to have multiple years written in the journal and be able to look back on what I did each year on that date . . . I think that will be fun. I bought a little 200 page (400 side) notebook and at the top of each page I've written the date and then along the left column, I'm writing the year and then just a short blurb about something that happened that day, usually whatever was most notable  or my favorite thing. (I was going to use a page-a-day calendar, but the notebook was cheaper). Then next year, I'll go through the same notebook again and continue for how ever many years my little pages last :) Fun huh?

As for my five hours of task, I went rock climbing two days and made up the rest of my time organizing my recipes. I am slowly but surely making my way through the giant pile of cooking/recipe magazines that I have accumulated on my side table. I think I'm going to need some more page protectors though, my binder is getting rather full. At least I won't be at a loss for recipes any time in the near future :) The rock climbing is going pretty well too. I have conquered all of the V0 routes, and almost all of the V1s. The biggest accomplishment though was completing a V2 on the free-standing boulder on the first try. I think those routes tend to be a little harder, so I was very proud of myself :) My one-month climbing pass will be over before I know it unfortunately, but it has been nice to get back in the gym again.

Since I've been going through so many recipes lately, my new thing for the week was a new casserole, well two new casseroles actually, because I was afraid one might not be good and as I was taking them to a friends house, I wanted to make sure we had something to eat for dinner :) I tried to pick recipes that I already had the ingredients for, so all I needed to buy were some frozen veggies and a can of cream of chicken soup. The two recipes I picked were: Updated Shepherd's Pie and Cranberry-Orange Chicken Bake (thank goodness for online recipes . . . I was not looking forward to typing those all out :)). The Cranberry-Orange chicken was my first pick, but that's the one I was worried about being weird, so I made the Shepherd's Pie as well. Since I was testing out the recipes, I tried to stick as close to them as possible which was really difficult when there were no onions or spices in either recipe (gasp), and who measures cheese? ;) I did have to add a little bit of salt and pepper to the mashed potatoes on top of the Shepherd's Pie . . . I just couldn't bring myself to make mashed potatoes without salt and pepper.

While I'm learning new things this year, I thought I would take this opportunity to try and teach you something new as well. Okay, so maybe it's not really new, it's basically just common sense, but did you know the term for it . . . mise en place? Mise en place is a French phrase that refers to having everything in place before you start, especially concerning cooking and baking. I find it much more useful in baking and felt it actually kind of got in the way of my cooking, but it's a good habit to get into for a couple of reasons. 1) It ensures that you have all the ingredients and utensils you need before you get halfway through the recipe and realize you are missing a key ingredient and the pan you need is holding leftovers in the fridge, and 2) Once you get cooking/baking, it's amazing how quickly it goes when you have everything prepared like this . . . it makes me feel like I'm on a cooking show :)

All of my ingredients out and ready . . . mise en place? I don't think so.

That is my general set up for cooking . . . I get all of my ingredients out, but they are definitely not ready to go into the dish.

Now that's mise en place, or at least very close to it

A better mise en place set up . . . almost everything is thawed, rinsed, chopped, measured and I have my utensils ready over near the stove. I find that I can never trust the time on a recipe because they tend to ignore the time it takes to get from picture one to picture two, and that's where most of my time goes it seems. However, once I got this all ready, I think the recipe making was pretty true to how long it said it would take. Try this method next time you cook or bake (like I said, it is especially helpful in baking where exact measurement are more important than in cooking where sometimes it's easier to just eyeball the measurements and save yourself the pain of washing the measuring spoons and cups).

Almost done (just needed the oven baking)

I baked these at my friend's house, and we were so hungry that I forgot to take a picture of them after they were baked, but they didn't look too different, and looked very close to the pictures in the recipes. I was pleasantly surprised that they were both edible and pretty tasty although the Shepherd's Pie could definitely have used the onions and extra seasonings. The stuffing mix in the Cranberry-Orange recipe had enough seasonings to make it pretty tasty. Once the mise en place was done too, these recipes came together so quickly and easily I felt kind of down-hearted about how much time I sometimes spend making fancy meals . . . oh well :) One more week of 2013 has flown by . . . talk to you all again next week :)