Jay’s Realm

I decided I was going to try cooking with peanut sauce. Which apparently according to everything on the internet is made with peanut butter. Odd. Whatever. My first experiment isn’t going up here because I was starving and ate it as soon as it was done. I followed(ish) some instructions I found online that was a little bit of water, a big glop of peanut butter, and some side spices like garlic and lemon. I cooked up some chicken and snow peas in it and had it over pasta and it was ok. The chicken really took up the taste but the peas might as well have been microwaved separately because they stood so very alone. Overall it was far too… peanuty.

This time I decided I’d try something a bit different. So again, chicken in peanut sauce over pasta. This time I added much less peanut butter, more water, and some cream to calm the torrent of peanuty goodness.

Ingredients:
Chicken – Two boneless thighs (I’m unemployed and cheap)
Mushrooms – Handful
Creamy Peanut Butter – Spoonful (normal spoon)
Whipping Cream – 100ml
Garlic – Clove
Nutmeg – Pinch
Oregano – Pinch

Pre Sauce:
1) lightly oil pan
2) Strip chicken and fry on medium heat
3) Dice garlic and toss in with spices
4) Slice up mushrooms and toss in as well
5) Cook until meat is void of all possibility of salmonella

Sauce:
1) In same pan pour in a half cup each of water and cream
2) Add glop of peanut butter and stir well
3) Crank heat up until just the right thickness

I’m a big believer that food is made better only in small part by its flavor. The other senses must be engaged and delighted for a meal to truly transcend food and become an orgasmic explosion of delight. When all was said and done this dish was nummy. It was very soft in flavor, never anything overwhelming, yet rich enough make me feel like I was eating something. It was good, but it was so… monotone. I had tan noodles underneath tan sauce filled with tan-grey mushrooms, tan chicken, and flecks of tan-brown. Visually it was watching paint dry. No color. No life. It was boring.

Next time I’ll have to try it with something colorful like diced peppers or blue food coloring. I also have pictures, but it’s 3am so I’ll put them up later.

I was out shopping with Erik and Kate and got it into my head I would try cooking *something* with coconut milk. At seventy cents and over two hundred percent my daily recommended intake of saturated fats per can, I couldn’t go wrong. So I bought two. Then today Erik mentioned he was going to throw out some strawberries. Can’t have waste so my mind started spinning and came up with a plan to make something of these two things.

Ingredients:
Coconut Milk – Half can (200 ml)
Strawberries – Four good sized ones
Mozzarella Cheese – Chunk
Nutmeg – Pinch
Salt – Pinch

Sauce:

1) Pour milk into pan and bring to boil
2) Dice cheese and toss in pan
3) Slice strawberries and toss in pan
4) Pinch nutmeg and salt into pan
5) Cook on medium heat until thick

I added the cheese mostly to make the sauce not so liquid and thicken it up a bit. I’m not sure what else I could have used as a thickening agent with coconut milk. I’ll have to look into it.

I put this on fettucini noodles and it looked… well… limp. Smelled very interesting, strawberries yet somehow more subtle and masked. The actual flavor was deeply progressive. By that I mean the flavor progressed through stages.

First bite was a very mellow strawberry flavor with very soft undertones. It stayed like that for a while until I noticed a gradient. The softness was actually a fatty taste not unlike licking a block of margarine. As time progressed the strawberry flavor seemed to fade away and the fat became stronger and stronger. I couldn’t finish it the sensation was so strong.

It was an experience and I feel more enlightened because of it. I’m not going to try it again.

We had a ghostbusters themed party at our place yesterday which went off fairly well. Lots was drunk and much green food coloring was used. We watched both ghostbusters movies, saw Ron Jeremy , and ate too much sugar. Annnyways, I made a cake!

Ok, so it’s not exotic. This is more a post so my mom doesn’t worry that I’m eating like a bachelor. Ramen noodles, greasy pizza, twinkies and ice cream.

Ingredients:
Hunk of meat – one
Weatherford Spice – several dashes (basically seasoning salt + garlic)
Mushrooms – two handfuls
Carrots – two
Onion – half a handful
Garlic – two cloves
Butter – sliver
Salt – dash

Meat:

1) Cook on BBQ until cooked.
2) Spice with spice.

Healthy Junk:

1) Wash all veggies to remove most dirt
2) Dice carrots and onion
3) Dice and smoosh garlic
4) Toss mushrooms, carrots, onion, garlic, butter, and salt into a small pan over medium heat
5) Stir to prevent burning and cook until onions turn clear

I should’ve started the veggies before the meat. I used a fairly thin steak so it cooked faster that the veggies. I started off just wanting mushrooms sauteed in garlic butter to go with my steak but decided a wider range of non meat like substances would probably be better for me.

Steak is hard to screw up, and it came out decent. I take great pride in finding the best, cheapest, steaks I can when I go shopping. Sadly this package of steaks was not so strong on the best side. It was too thin and didn’t have enough marbling for my taste. I like my fat. It tastes good.

The veggie bit came out better than I expected. The carrots were perfectly cooked so they were soft without falling apart. There was a nice soft underflavor from the butter, but not enough to make it greasy and gross. All the flavors melded together nicely and nothing was too sharp. The color was a little bland and could have been brought out more with something vibrant like podded peas or red pepper.

So I’ve been watching Andromeda and Trance is hot. Adorably cute. And purple. So I have purple being equated to good in my brain. Couple this with shopping with Gimpy, who is a horrible influence when it comes to doing strange things.

Anyways, I found a purple cauliflower during this trip and that demanded action. I decided to make pasta with purple sauce because I like pasta and it seemed the easiest way to leach the purple out of the cauliflower and spread it about. I wanted to try for a mellow light sauce and spicy noodles. Last time I went for that it just didn’t end well and Erik nearly died from the aura of pepper oil that filled the apartment.

Ingredients:
Purple Cauliflower – 1 head
Chicken – 1 package
Rotini – half a pot (2 cups maybe)
Whipping Cream – Half little carton (1 cup)
Sour Cream – three large glops (half a cupish)
Parmesan Cheese – end of package (2 tablespoons?)
Mozzarella Cheese – small chunk (10 cm^3)
Pepper – light dusting
Franks Red Hot – 8 shots
Oregano – three pinches
Nutmeg – light dusting

Noodles:

1) Bring water to a boil
2) Add a dash of salt (I added too much salt)
3) Add three dashes of Red Hot
4) Cook the damn noodles until they’re done
5) Strain water off
6) Throw into a pan with a little bit of oil on medium heat
7) Dust noodles with pepper and 5 more shots of Red Hot
8) Stir noodles to mix the heat and avoid burning

Sauce:

1) Chunk chicken and boil until no longer ebola ridden
2) Drain water
3) Add whipping and sour cream and bring to boil
4) Chop the heads off the cauliflower and dice well, add to pot
5) When almost done, add the cheese and mix in the meltage

Combination:

1) Dump the sauce into the noodles
2) Mix it up
3) Eat

This turned out rather well. The sauce came out a nice light purple which was the entire goal. Kate said it was lavender, but I still think it’s light purple. The noodles were slightly salty but that faded away when the sauce was added. The overall flavor was very light but rich with a warm aftertaste. Biggest problem was, as always with me, I made too much. Visually I was happy but it would have looked amazing if the serving was set on a bed of romaine.