This Week's Cookery

Brace yourself, I am about to hit you with ever single thing I cooked or baked this week.

On Monday I cooked a Beef Stronganoff based off of this one. (Long live AllRecipes!) Naturally I made some modifications on the recipe. My recipe looked something like this:
The last of the ground beef, about two pounds
One small onion and the leftovers of one gigantic onion
The last scraps of minced garlic in the jar, about one tablespoon
Two cans (4.5oz.) of chopped mushrooms, drained
Salt and pepper, I would say "eyeballed" but I dunno if anyone would find me using the word "eyeball" in a recipe gross?
Two cups of water
One medium-sized can of tomato sauce

Basic procedure: Brown the meat, no need to add any sort of oil to the pan. Beef has enough of its own juices. Add onions, garlic, mushrooms, salt, and pepper near the end of the browning. Saute the vegetables and brown the last of the meat. Add the other ingredients. Simmer for one hour. Do not cover.

I admit that this is not an attractive dish but the people who get past that fact and actually taste it leave behind empty dishes and positive comments. I made some rice to go with this. Mainly: white rice. White rice is very strange, in my opinion. Still, I managed to cook it good and whatnot.

For breakfast on Tuesday I baked a coffee cake. It is my go-to breakfast dish if I am feeling lazy. It takes about ten minutes to prepare and I can do something else for the half-hour it takes to cook it. :) It isn't exactly a gourmet dish but I only make it when I am not feeling industrious which is only occasionally. [/bigfatlie]

I baked Rotisserie chicken for dinner, made just about exactly as stated in the recipe. Technically, I started making this on Monday. On Monday I rubbed the chicken with the spices and stuffed a whole, peeled, small onion into the chicken's cavity. I wrapped it in a double layer of plastic wrap and put it in the fridge until just before noon on Tuesday. I unwrapped it, put it in a pan, and stuffed it in the oven. The recipe doesn't say anything about basting but I did baste fairly regularly after juices started appearing in the bottom of the pan.

To go with the chicken, I made mashed potatoes. I have no recipe to link to because I, in my genius, can make mash potatoes just fine without one. I used about 9-10 medium sized potatoes, peeled and chopped. I boiled the potatoes until they were nice and soft. I drained them and then put them in a dish with one stick of butter. There was no potato masher available to me at this time so I used a metal spoons with holes in it to mash the potatoes. I mashed them as gently as I could while mixing the butter in. I added 1/2-3/4 cup of milk to the potatoes as well, I do not know exactly how much. You know, the old eyeball thing.
I think that these are the best mashed potatoes I've ever made! I think it had something to do with the fact that I made such a small quantity. It was easy to gently mash them, it is impossible to mash ten pounds of potatoes with any sort of gentleness! Also, because it was a small amount I could put in as much butter and milk as needed without feeling guilty about it.

I cannot say how good the chicken was because I didn't eat any of it. I am afraid it was a little overcooked though! :( I did taste test the potatoes though, they were delish! I probably should have made a bigger batch. ;)

On Wednesday I made calzones. I vary my calzone every time I make it. Sometimes I make individual portions and other times I make braided calzone loaves. This particular time I made a bread dough enough for three loaves of bread and, once done, divided it into twenty-four even portions. I rolled each portion of dough out, placed about a third cup of filling into the center, wrapped the dough around the filling, and baked. The filling was pretty...unimpressive. I've done better filling before! It was ground beef, onion, green bell pepper, and barbecue sauce. I did not expect it to be great but it was actually fantastic! These were really good, warm from the oven and with some butter. MM-MM.

Friday I was going to make lasagna, garlic bread, and some sort of vegetable. I was thinking of cooking some of the frozen summer squash in the freezer but I didn't get a chance. I did "assist" in the making of a lasagna. Did I never feel worse than after I compared myself with the girl I was cooking with. I felt like, my cooking was like buying fruit in a local grocery store and hers was like eating fruit straight off the branch. How could anyone manage to stomach me after tasting her? I...ye gads. I dunno how I will ever manage to establish myself when she is around.

That is everything I cooked this week! Wasn't it fascinating?

Now, this week. Hmmm. I'm going to need to do my homework.