Babushka's Mushroom Soup

1. make chicken or beef broth in a 2 liter pot
2. add some rice (4-5 TBSP)
3. let boil so that rice and potatos cook
4. cut up some mushrooms and add them. wait until it boils
5. combine ghee, 2 grated carrots and 1 chopped onion, salt, pepper, 1/4 tsp sugar. cook in the microwave for 2-3 mins
6. when the halved potatos are cooked, take them out and mash them
7. add potatos and ghee mixture to the soup
8. take out some broth and put it in a cup, add 2 tablespoons of mushroom cheese, and mix
9. add mushroom cheese mixture into the soup
10. add bay leaf and greens

done!

For those who are wondering what mushroom cheese is. here is a link to an example of it.
I found some being sold in a Russian store. You can buy ghee at whole foods

Pear Infused Vodka Recipe

I had a really great tasting pear infused vodka over the weekend. It was full of flavor and very sippable. I got the recipe of how it was made from the dude who made it:

Ingredients:
- 2 pears
- 1 liter vodka
- 4 whole pods of cardamom
- 2 whole cloves
- 1 cinamon stick

Directions:

Take 2 pears, chop them up into chunks (discard the core/stem, but leave the skin on). Put them in a bowl or other infusing vessel. Pour about 800-850 ml vodka over the top (I add extra because some of the vodka inevitably disappears. I guess the pears drink some and some of it evaporates. Annoying.) Cover the vessel and let it sit for a week at room temp. After a week, add 4 whole pods of cardamom, 2 whole cloves, and a cinnamon stick. Then, let it sit for another week. Strain, pour in bottle, chill, enjoy.

Avocado Infused Vodka

I made some avocado infused vodka last week. It is good if you really like avocados. Like any infused vodka the taste is less vodka-y. Sipping a shot is now doable with a lesser quality vodka. I made the infusion by using 2 ripe avocado fruit over 4 days of infusion. 1 fruit was added and removed every 2 days.


The avocado taste is not very strong, neither is the smell. There is a slight creamy avocado taste to this infusion which is nice.

Eric's Roommates's Favorite Grilled Shrimp

• 2T Samba sauce (red sauce from chinese places)
• 2T Mirin (sweet wine-like stuff japanese cook with)
• 1T Sesame oil
• 1/4c Chopped fresh cilantro (dried does not suffice)
• Juice from 1 lime
• 1-2 pounds raw shrimp
  

Marinate 1hr max if at room temp, up to 3-5hrs if in fridge. Grill.

Trip's Crazy Spicy Chicken Wings

This was really good. Yummy. Here it is:

there's not really a recipe per se. but they're pretty easy as long as you don't mind getting your kitchen greasy.

basically, you just start with chicken breasts cut up in to bite size cubes. then, the breading. i'm still searching for the best way to get the breading to be 

1) crispy and more importantly 

2) stay stuck to the chicken. 

for the party, i tried marinating the chicken in buttermilk and then dredging in flour.
i have made them since, however, by dredging the chicken in flour, then in an eggwash, then in store bought dried breadcrumbs. this worked much better.

to fry them, i just melted some vegetable shortening (supposedly better than oil because it can reach a higher temperature without smoking) in a pan (about 1/4 to 1/2 deep). then fried them on side #1 until brown, then turning and frying more once or twice depending on the size/shape/etc of the chicken piece. don't put too many in the pan at once or it will drop the temperature of the shortening. add more shortening if the grease levels are too low or if it seems to have lost some of its zip.

for the sauce, i went arount 1/3 melted butter, 2/3 frank's red hot for the "mild" (to me at least) version-- i don't think frank's hot enough on its own, so i add hot sauce (from the little bottles)-- any one that's really hot will do, since 99% of the flavor will come from the frank's.

i think that's it...

Good cooking resources

http://blog.cooklikeyourgrandmother.com/

How to make a pie crust from scratch

Making a pie crust is harder than programming, i have decided. It is one of the hardest things a man can undertake. Anyway, i am a pie crust making beginner. I just made a great pie crust and i need to remember how to do it.

You will need:
a food processor with a metal blade
1 1/4 cups white flour
2 teaspoons sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) of cold butter, diced
1 egg, beaten to a pulp
1 table spoon of water

First, the butter needs to be pretty cold, think, freezer cold. The colder, the better.

• combine flour, surgar and salt in the food processor and turn it on, let it do its thing while you do the next step
• dice your stick of butter, and put it in the food processor, leave it on until the mixture looks like corn meal, make sure that all butter gets mixed in well.
• beat the egg and add that into the food processor. at this point the dough should start forming into a ball.
• add 1 table spoon of water and let it get mixed in.
• remove the dough from the food processor, and form it into a ball. refrigerate the ball for about 15 mins
• get some clear plastic wrap, lay it on your counter. put the ball on the wrap and start forming into a circle, about 1/8 inch thick. (it has to be bigger then your pie pan by about 1 inch)
• after you make the circle, cover it with some wrap, and put it on a pizza pan, and freeze it for 5 mins
• take dough out of the freezer, it should be hard, and easily broken. DO NOT BREAK IT. put it on top of your pie pan and remove the plastic wrap from under it. let it rest there for 3-4 minutes to warm up
• when dough warms up it will be more pliable. form the dough into the pie pan. if it breaks, uses peices to patch up cracks. you might have extra dough on the sides. use food scissors to cut off excess. you can make something cool with the extra on top of the pie.
• freeze the dough in the pie pan for 5 minutes, covered.
• put a piece of foil in the pie plate, and form it around the dough, add pie weights (i dont have these, so i use a pan top)
• bake at 400 deg for 20 minutes
• remove foil and bake at 350 deg for 5 minutes or until crust is golden.
  

beer mushroom chicken with potatos

another thing i made up, and it was good.

you will need:

• 2 chicken breasts
• 1/2 cup dried mushrooms
• 1/2 package of mushrooms
• 4 large potatos
• sam adams seasonal beer, 2 bottles
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 medium onion

1. slice the potatos into round thin slices, and boil them in some water until soft-ish
2. put the dried mushrooms into a food processor and chop into small peices
3. meat hammer the chicken breasts to flatten and dredge the chicken breasts in the mushroom powder
4. slice the non-dried mushrooms
5. put some olive oil into a pan with the chopped up garlic and cook until garlic gives off some flavor
6. dice the onions and add that to the pan, cook until translucent
   
7. add the mushrooms and let cook for about 3 mins
8. turn the heat to high and add the chicken letting it brown on the outside
9. add the potatos which are now softish to the pan and cook with the chicken and the mushrooms, turn the heat down to low, cover the pan while the stuff cooks.
   
10. when the stuff starts looking pretty cooked, add the beer, but not all of it right away, do it in stages. When the beer evaporates your stuff should be cooked
    
11. drink the 2nd bottle of beer while you cook.

make sure the chicken is cooked through. serve with more beer. yum.

cheese stuffed chicken

I made some food last night that was good, using a recipe which i mostly made up. I need to write this down.

feeds 4:

• 2 chicken breasts
  
• 1/2 of a brick of frozen spinach 
  
• 1 medium onion
• some phylo dough
• mozz cheese, atleast 3 cups
• some melted butter
• salt and pepper

Hammer the shit out of the chicken breasts so that they are flat. put some salt and pepper on them. Dice the onion and cook with olive oil on a pan, add the spinach. Cook until onion is cooked.

On each chicken breast, put 1/2 of the onion and spinach, and a ton of cheese, and roll the chicken up into tubes filled with cheese, onion and spinach. Get out the phylo dough, place 2 sheets on top of eachother and brush with melted butted until soaked. wrap each chicken roll in 2 peices of phylo dough.  place on baking sheet and bake for about 20-25 mins on 450.

yum

Cooking: How to make sushi rice

Making perfect sushi rice is hard, it has to be cooked though, soft and sticky. Ive always had trouble doing it because i would end up burning the rice on the bottom of the pot (i dont have a rice cooker). My rice wouldnt be sticky enough to stick to the seaweed. My friend Sam always emphasized to me how important it was to make the rice "just right" when making sushi.

Enough, babble! i found a blog entry that makes cooking sushi rice easy! it actually came out great the first time i tried the oven method.

http://beyondsalmon.blogspot.com/2006/02/technique-of-week-how-to-make-sushi.html

Sam's Spinach Salad

sfultong: spinach, a bunch
sfultong: slivered almonds
sfultong: garlic
sfultong: oil, salt, pepper
sfultong: mince about 2 cloves of garlic for a pound of spinach
sfultong: oh, and balsamic vinegar
sfultong: and then put the minced garlic in oil, heat on medium for about a minute, or whenever the garlic starts flavoring the oil
sfultong: at the same time, toast the almonds
sfultong: usually I just put them naked in another pan, and put them on low/medium heat
sfultong: make sure not to burn them
sfultong: and... then throw both the almonds and the garlic oil on top of the spinach
sfultong: add salt, pepper, and a bit of balsamic vinegar
sfultong: probably about half as much balsamic vinegar as oil you use for garlicing