Mushrooms on Biscuit Toast

Eh? What's a biscuit toast? Well, I had some sour cream leftover (still) but not enough to make another chocolate loaf yet too much to just eat with say...jacket potatoes. White mushrooms were on sale too so heck, let's try "Mushrooms on Toast" also from Nigella Lawson. Ok, got that down. What about the toast? Oh...I'll just make some bread. Ok, plans are set.

Unfortunately, plans went out the window. Completely preoccupied by packing and repacking for my upcoming trip (darned restrictive weight limits!!!), I completely forgot to start the yeast bread. Ahhh! The mushrooms are screaming to be cooked up at this point (nearly a week after I purchased them!) to save them from their own gooey ooze. The only bread on hand was wheat bread but Nigella specifically calls for a good white bread. And of course things always taste better on unhealthy white than wheat! ;) So....I whipped up a batch of baking powder biscuits!

This was an extremely fast and tasty treat! I found the biscuits paired well with the very flavourful mushrooms (though a bit too salty for my taste). I'm not a huge white mushroom fan so I think that says a lot about this recipe. You don't really need a recipe though as a first time try, it's a good place to start. I just dumped whatever was left in the container of sour cream; definitely more than the 1/4 cup called for, but how can you go wrong with something as tasty as sour cream? I used to eat spoonfuls of the stuff! Next time I have this predicament again, I know what I'm cooking up!

Quadruple (Divided by 2) Chocolate Loaf Cake

Another round of Nigella! I decided to make her Quadruple Chocolate Loaf cake, however I didn't bother with the chocolate syrup nor the shaved chocolate on top. Hence, it's really just double. ;P You might ask why all this chocolate cake in such a short time span?!? No, I'm not a chocolate fiend, but more a pragmatist. I'm just trying to use up the container of sour cream sitting in the fridge. This cake is pretty easy to make as it uses the food processor. Just dump the ingredients in, whizz them around and dump it back out. Theoretically it's that easy. Unfortunately, when we replaced our old food processor, we bought a smaller one. I'm not sure why this was so since I always need big capacity everything!! The messy consequence of this poor decision is that I often overflow the food processor. =( I've found that when Nigella's recipes include the option to use the food processor, the ingredients go all the way to the brim of the processor's bowl, and if I'm not careful, it'll spill. I need to be super careful but even then, there's spillage. =( Another consequence of using the smaller food processor is the small motor. I'm going to kill that motor one of these days by overtaxing it. Ah but then I'll have an excuse to get myself a bigger one once more. =D

So what's the verdict on this cake? Everyone who had a piece loved it. I found that it to be a thick, rich and wonderfully chocolately. The ease of putting it together is a great bonus. Mind you, this is the "double" not "quadruple" chocolate version. I can only guess that if I had added the chocolate syrup, I would find this loaf too sweet for my sensitive taste buds. Shaving some chocolate on top would be a nice touch, but ultimately unnecessary. I'm more than pleased that the cake stands on its own without such superfluous flourishes. Now behold the delicious goods:

Menu Mistranslations or Misprints?

Regardless of why menus can turn into a comedy act, it certainly makes for a fun way to start the meal. ;) At our often visited Chinese restaurant, we discovered they'd printed up some new menus that were a step up from the old ones with colorful pictures and a hard cover. Not that their old menu was crap...

My hypothesis is that the menu was not proofread. Ok. I admit my real hypothesis is that some items were poorly translated and misspelled. For entertainment, though, I took the menu seriously, as is, and feared that dinner could be potential disaster for my stomach. Such as Gasseroles? Could the dishes be chock full of flatulence inducing ingredients? =O For my sake (and any living organism within a 1-mile radius), I should hope not, and that it merely means the dishes arrive bubbling hot!

Exotic species as ingredients? Did this restaurant misunderstand what "poaching" means?? ;P

Update: They corrected the misspellings with white-out and such. Haha!

Medley of Madness

I was quite prolific in the kitchen today! Let me count the delicious and not so delicious ways...

First off, I'd made yogurt in a little machine gifted to me previously. This was my second time around using a different brand of yogurt (for the starter microbes) as well as the amount of time it incubates. With this batch, I upped the time to a whopping 16 hours using Brown Cow's whole milk yogurt. Last time, I'd used Stonyfield's skim milk yogurt. My theory was that the microbes in the whole milk yogurt would be more accustomed to processing whole milk. Well, whether it was the longer incubation time of the starter culture I used, or a combination of both, I got great results. The yogurt wasn't runny at all like last time, though the previous batch was less tart and quite creamy.

Now that's pretty firm, eh? =D So what else was brewing in the kitchen? Well, yet another item that took quite a few hours. Overnight to be exact.

I took a stab at making Ken Hom's Hoisin Marinated Spare Ribs which had to be marinated overnight and then baked on low heat for a lovely 2 hours to produce wonderfully tender and juicy ribs yet with a nice browned outside (from last minute high temps). Overall, it received good reviews from the diners, though it seemed that almost everyone preferred my mom's ribs (including my friends) as it was missing the charred bits to crunch on. The consensus was that they're just completely different ribs as these were very flavorful while my mom's ribs are simply delicious. Regardless, it was an enjoyable way to consume spare ribs which otherwise aren't a favorite in my household. We much prefer baby back ribs. =9~

As I did not indulge in the ribs, I concentrated on the last dish of the line-up: Sake no Saikyo Misozuke which is some salmon marinated with a sweet white miso paste mixture. I was very excited at trying my hand at this as I'd had very delicious versions in a Japanese restaurant. Well, I must be missing out on either technique or the marinade part because the fish turned out quite dry and too salty. To torture myself further, the dish required quite a bit of work in order to create the marinade. I was utterly disappointed. Clearly something went wrong but I'm not going to revisit this for a while. I need to recover and then be reinspired. I should go visit that Japanese restaurant...;D

Behold the foul fish beast I created:

As a side note (too lazy for a better write-up), I made Nigella Lawson's Old Fashion Chocolate Cake about two days ago. Alas, I failed to photograph the resulting cake. Not being a frosting person, I can't comment on how delicious or disgusting it is, but I certainly enjoyed the cake. Though a bit on the dry side for my taste, I found the cake has a nice chocolately flavor that wasn't too sweet (maybe that's where the frosting comes in) which was fine for me. An extra positive is that it's quite easy to make using the food processor. Unfortunately for me, I made a bit of a mess as my food processor didn't quite have the cup capacity to take this puppy on. It overflowed a bit. =( I love our old food processor which was much larger. Let me reminisce for a moment...Sigh....=P