Chronicles of a CrazyCook
Feb. 18, 2012 10:28 am
Updated: Feb. 19, 2012 3:07 pm
Yesterday, CrazyCook cranked out a pretty decent meal, all round! I had l/o stroganoff in the frige that I was not too thrilled with first time around, but was confidant that all it needed was extra sour cream... As it happened, the video on the home
page here was about stroganoff and homemade pasta... I've made my own before, so I knew what type of effort would be involved, but the young man made wide ribbons of yummy looking pasta - that was all it took!
I made the dough per directions I'd used before, simply flour, egg and milk. As usual, I felt the dough was too dry (often happens, guess as it's so DRY here in AZ all the time, the flour loses much of it's moisture...) Once the dough was made, I wrapped
it tightly in plastic wrap and tossed it into the frige till near dinner time. I did remove it in time to come to room temp before handling it, rolled it as thin as I could by hand - each time I thought "there, that's good," I rolled it some more! Mistake
I made was rolling the dough up and cutting into half inch widths... tossing the rolled pieces into the pot... some of them didn't "un-roll" themselves and thus didn't cook properly. Next time, I will physically unroll the ribbons myself. In the past, when
it came time to cut the pasta, I left the dough flat, and used a pizza cutter, but I was never happy with the results... this "new" technique seemed much friendlier! Lesson learned...
Thus, the warmed up stroganoff was served on freshly made pasta, and trust me.... it was SO MUCH BETTER than boiling up store bought, dried out ages old pasta!
Along side, I had stolen some ingredients from an English cookbook. I had decided upon cauliflower with cheese sauce. The Brit recipe added chopped onion and bacon to the mix, poured over the pre-cooked broccoli, which was then topped with grated cheddar
and melted under the broiler - OMG! Delish!
As if this wasn't enough, I had pulled a fresh loaf of white bread out of the bread machine about an hour before dinner... it is still intact, as we pigged out on the meal "proper!" As yet, I've not been happy with the bread machine, but then, I've only been
using it for a month, and I'm still getting a handle on it, as it were. The loaves are heavy and very dense... not quite what I'm used to, or wanting. However, I will continue to play with the darn thing until I perfect the process, to my liking!
So, that was Friday's meal... Today, I'm going to toss a piece of rump roast into the slow cooker for the entire afternoon, and will make fresh pasta, gravy, and green beans or carrots... Fresh bread, anyone?
Tomorrow, I can cookcrazy again! Be happy, be healthy, be crazy!
