Apologies!
Posted by Sarah in Uncategorized on May 3, 2012
I just wanted to post very quickly and say I’m sorry I haven’t been updating the blog. Basically I’ve just been playing tons of Mass Effect and ignoring everything else, but I promise I haven’t forgotten about the site. I have a backlog of recipes to post, as well as some craft updates and book reviews (remember when I used to post more than just food?).
Thanks for your patience while I rot my brain with video games 
Melting Bunnies
While I was working on my poutine, I had a little side project going – a time-lapse video of melting chocolate Easter bunnies.
Easter candy was 75% off and my lovely assistant wanted to use it to make candy in our Han Solo in Carbonite ice cube molds.
High-quality silicone ice molds can be used for hot things as well – they’re the same material as silicone baking molds, just marketed for a different purpose. Don’t grab just any soft floppy ice mold, though. I learned this the hard way when one turned to goo after a few minutes in a 300° oven. This is really high-grade silicone, though. The temperature of chocolate melted on the stove is nowhere near the max temperature for the mold.
I also tried to make Space Invaders candies, but the fine details on the molds are so small that it’s difficult to pour something as thick as melted chocolate into them. I succeeded with some of my other wacky ice molds, though. Easter Island heads and flying saucers
Cheap Easter candy is great for this because it’s, well, cheap. It melts easily and at a low temperature (heck, it melts in your hands) and has a lot of smoothing ingredients added.
The photos were taken at ten second intervals. I didn’t get any pictures of the finished candies before they disappeared into my friends’ mouths at craft night, though.
Poutine
The first time I ever had poutine, it was from a food truck in DC called Eat Wonky, which I hear is sadly defunct. Poutine is a popular snack food in some part of Canada (okay, it’s hangover food basically) and it’s a big ole pile of salt and grease and awesome.
There are three basic ingredients to poutine:
- French fries
- Brown gravy
- Cheese curds
That’s it. Combine and devour.
Of course, it’s a little more complicated than that.
I didn’t go so far as to make my own french fries, because that’s a fair amount of effort – cutting, drying, frying, refrying, seasoning – but instead used the frozen kind. If you go that route, prepare the fries according to the instructions on the bag and then set them aside while you prepare the other components.
If you don’t feel up to the task of making homemade gravy, the stuff in the jar will do just fine.
Here’s my recipe for brown gravy, though.
- 3 tbsp butter
- 3 tbsp flour
- 4 cups beef stock
I made the stock over the weekend from a pile of bones I had been collecting in the freezer. It was actually a mixture of beef and pork bones, if you want to get specific.
Melt the butter in a deep-sided pan and whisk in the flour. Cook gently until the foaming stops. Turn up the heat to medium and gradually add the stock, whisking until smooth before each addition. Increase the heat to medium-high until it thickens.
Heat your oven to 350° (in my case I just had to let the oven cool down to this temp, since the fries cooked at a higher temperature).
Scatter your cheese curds over your fries and bake until melted. (If you can’t find cheese curds, mozzarella will work in a pinch, although it has a different texture entirely. Cheese curds are “squeaky” when melted.) Drizzle hot gravy over the top and serve.
Baked Salmon w/Honey-Lemon Dill Sauce
I really can’t wait until my lovely assistant comes home from his business trip and my photo quality improves.
However! One thing about my husband that makes me despair a bit is that he hates salmon. The kid and I love it, so I serve it whenever it’s just us.
Preheat your oven to 450°. In a bowl, combine:
- 2 tbsp melted butter
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 tsp dill
Place two salmon fillets skin-side down in a lightly oiled baking dish. Brush all surfaces of the flesh with your sauce and bake for 15 minutes. This will leave your salmon fillets soft and very slightly rare. You can cook it for a few minutes longer if you prefer your fish a little more well done.
That’s it! Salmon is a fish that I don’t like to do too much to. The sauce is sweet and tangy, but not overwhelming at all.
Sorry for the crappy photo 
Wonton Soup
I have a real love of cheap, fast, inauthentic Chinese food. Even after having lots of really excellent and authentic Chinese cuisine, I still get pangs of longing for the Americanized stuff that comes in the little white cartons.
One of my favorite classic Chinese takeout dishes is wonton soup. It’s simple stuff, although it does take a little bit of prep work.
This meal ended up being overwhelmingly brown. I served the wonton soup with crispy fried wonton strips, egg rolls (from a box, I didn’t make them), and green tea. Not a lot of color there, but tons of flavor!
The first thing you want to get out of the way is the crispy wonton strips. These are very similar to the fried tortilla strips I made to go with my tortilla soup, but they’re best fried a little darker. I used soybean oil with a dollop of sesame oil to fry them.
Now that these are done, you can set them aside and work on your soup.
These are the ingredients I used to make my wonton filling:
- 1/2 lb pork, minced or ground
- 2 tsp soy sauce
- 2 tsp fish sauce
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp ground white pepper
- 2 tsp garlic powder
- 1 egg
Mix all ingredients until thoroughly combined.
Start your broth simmering while you build your wontons, so it will be ready to go. My broth was three ingredients:
- 6 cups chicken broth or stock
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
I used homemade chicken stock, so it’s a bit cloudier than what you’ve probably seen in your local eatery.
Take your wonton wrappers out one at a time, so they don’t dry out. Dampen one entire side of the wrapper with a little bit of water, then drop a spoonful of filling in the center. My wontons aren’t pretty, but they’re functional – I folded the corners up to get a little square pouch and then crimped the corners of that.
Gently drop the wontons into the broth and simmer on medium heat for 20-25 minutes, until the wontons float to the surface and the wrapper turns opaque. Pull out a wonton and cut into it to check the pork for doneness.
This served two pretty abundantly. You can eat the crispy wontons on their own or drop them into the soup.
Also, a word of warning: when you pull a batch of egg rolls out of the oven, they’re hot in the middle. I burned the crap out of my tongue tonight, and I don’t recommend it!
