Finally back from the move! And just in time for NaBloPoMo! Just post at least once a month for the whole month. That's all there is to it. I hope all of you join in!
And as an apology for being away for so long, I'll share some of my french toast I fixed up this morning.
Had some french bread laying around from a few nights ago, and this was a much nicer thing to do than to just throw it away. Deceptively simple too, and incredibly delicious. No real fancy ingredients involved either, a few kitchen staples combine to make a sweet, creamy custard for you to soak your bread in and fry up in a hot pan with butter. Ma' likes 'em with powdered sugar and syrup, but I do it naked.
Howdy folks. Since I'm going to be moving in a few days, I need to take a break while all this goes down. A few days of driving, a few days of packing, a few days of unloading... I'll be back in maybe a week. Sorry folks.
I'm sad that I won't be able to visit all of your awesome blogs :[
Hmm, what's in the 'fridge? Some leftover fried chicken and french fries? Sure, that's a light snack for one person, but we can turn it into lunch for two with some work.
The chicken was easy. Shred it up, add minced celery, green onions, cilantro, and bring it together with mayonnaise and a dab of sour cream. Chicken salad. The fries... well, we can cut them up, toss 'em in a hot pan with some oil so they crisp up again, add minced onions and some generous seasoning, and we've got home fries. Perfect! Let's eat.
There you go. Chicken salad sandwiches and home fries, from table scraps. Just takes a little effort, folks!
Here's something you don't see in an American kitchen too often (made fresh, anyway)
Gyoza! Or pot stickers, whatever. I love these things. I make them so often Ihardly bother measuring the ingredients anymore. You get yer' ground pork, soy sauce, garlic, scallions, salt and pepper, and an egg white (to hold it all together!) mix it all up (get your hands dirty, it's easier that way) and then you enlist your mother and sister to take a little spoonful of the filling and wrap a won-ton wrapper around it (get these guys at the store). Then you sear-steam-sear and eat up.
I like this recipe because it stretches your meat budget. With one pound of ground pork you can make roughly... 70 of these guys. Serve with some rice and veggies and you've got a nice meal.
Oh, they freeze easy too! Once frozen you don't even need to that them, just toss 'em in a pan and steam them. Better than anything you'd find in your supermarket freezer section ;]
Pretzels! I also made some bratwurst, but those weren't as attractive. I got a little tired of the usual shape, so I got a little creative on some of them. Half are with salt, and half are with salt and sesame seeds.
I got this recipe from the TV show 'Good Eats' hosted by Alton Brown. That man is brilliant, and being able to watch each process of making these pretzels really made it easier. Not much more to it than mixing the dough, shaping the pretzels, boiling 'em in water spiked with baking soda, and baking 'em. They were delicious, and I've still got some left over!
I spent most of yesterday working so I didn't have time to make anything worth mentioning for dinner. I'll make a quick post though, so I"m not letting anyone down :3
Just wanted to mention the upcoming 'Berserk' anime that people have been chatting about for a while. I started reading Berserk a month or two ago, and I love it. I haven't watched the first anime series, but I've seen bits of it. It looks... well, not nearly as good as the manga. However, with the release of the 35th manga volume, a new anime for 2010 was announced:
So far three teasers have been released. It's supposed to be in CG or something, which has a lot of people pissed off but I think it looks okay (with the exception of Zodd in the second teaser...). The teasers show scenes from the Golden Age arc, all the way up to the beginning of the Millennium Falcon arc, so I assume it's not going to be a continuation of the original anime, which left out a bunch of important characters and plot points. I always know the manga will be better in my opinion, but I'm looking forward to this anime in any case...
