Sorry for the months without posting.I do plan to start posting soon.. I have been cooking a lot, but haven't had time to take some pictures and put them on my laptop, but hopefully I will get on some on here soon. I will be posting as soon as I can.

Hot again

It is now very hot again in my city... meaning no cooking. I will start again when it cools down. :)

Thursday Dinner

My parents have kindly agreed to put up with my cooking once a week. This last Thursday, I made a roast chicken, acorn squash, and garlic mashed potatoes. It turned out amazingly. I made Alton Brown's recipe, 40 cloves and a chicken, but instead of cutting up and browning the chicken I just put the chicken in whole. (Recipes below) I used acorn squash and made a sweet glaze on top. For the garlic mashed potatoes I just used the cooked garlic from the chicken and mashed it into the the potatoes.

Chicken
1 whole chicken (broiler/fryer) cut into 8 pieces
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons olive oil
10 sprigs fresh thyme
40 peeled cloves garlic
salt and pepper
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Season chicken with salt and pepper. Toss with a 2 tablespoons olive oil and brown on both sides in a wide fry pan or skillet over high heat. Remove from heat, add oil, thyme, and garlic cloves. Cover and bake for 1 1/2 hours.
Remove chicken from the oven, let rest for 5 to 10 minutes, carve, and serve.

Squash

Preheat oven to 350

1 acorn squash cut into halves with seeds and middles scooped out

1 tbsp maple syrup

2 tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

4 tbsp melted butter

First take the squash and put it into the oven in a pan with about 2-3 inches of water in it (cut- up side facing down). Steam in oven until squash is very tender. Mix butter, cinnamon, sugar, and maple syrup in a bowl. Then cut the squash pieces in half and drizzle the glaze over top.

Garlic mashed potatoes

25-40 cloves of roasted garlic (I know it sounds like a lot, but roasted garlic has a much more mild flavor than raw.)

1/2 tsp of salt

1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper

1/3 cup heavy whipping cream

6 medium potatoes cubed and boiled until mashing consistency

Drain your potatoes and mash in garlic, then add pepper, salt, and cream. Mash until fluffy.

Double Chocolate Cream Pie

While staying at our house, my Aunt Anne taught me how to make a chocolate cream pie. We used Paula Deen's recipe, 'Double chocolate Cream Pie' It turned out amazing. I would definitely recommend this recipe to anyone. It is very chocolaty, but for me that makes it all the better! Here is the recipe:

You Will Need-

1 cup sugar-

1/4 cup cocoa-

1/4 cup corn starch-

Pinch of salt-

3 cups whole milk-

3 egg yolks-

1½ teaspoons vanilla extract-

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips-

One 9" deep dish piecrust, baked & cooled-

Sweetened whipped cream (optional)-

Chopped toasted pecans (optional)

In a heavy-bottomed 1-quart saucepan, combine the sugar, cocoa, cornstarch and salt. Stir with a spoon to mix. Combine the milk and egg yolks and whisk until well-blended. Slowly begin adding the milk and egg mixture to the chocolate mixture, blending well with a metal spoon. Cook the mixture over medium heat until it thickens, stirring constantly (about 5 minutes). When it is quite thick, add the vanilla and chocolate chips. Stir until completely blended. Pour into the piecrust, allow to cool, cover and refrigerate until ready to serve. Top with the whipped cream and pecans before you serve!

Cookies

Today I made chocolate crackle cookies. They turned out really good!!! Here is the recipe:

3 eggs

1 1/2 cup sugar

4oz unsweetend baking chocolate, melted

1/2 cup veggie oil

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

sifted powdered sugar for rolling out

Mix all ingrediants together except for the flour, then once that is mixed add flour. The batter will look like brownie batter, but this is okay. Then stick dough in the fridge for 2 hours. Preheat oven to 375, then roll dough into balls, then roll in powdered sugar. Bake 8-10 minutes. Enjoy!

Herb Garden!

It is growing well!

Pie

While Caitlin was here Mom, let us make dessert one night. We made the Neely's (from Food Network) frozen limeade pie. It turned out delicious and beautiful, plus it was really easy to make.
Ingredients
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup sugar
7 tablespoons butter, melted
Limeade filling:
1 (12-ounce) container whipped topping, thawed
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk, chilled
1 (6-ounce) can frozen limeade concentrate, defrosted
1 tablespoon lime zest
Candied lime peels, for garnish
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In medium bowl, combine cracker crumbs, sugar, and melted butter. Press firmly on bottom and up sides of a 9-inch pie plate. Bake for 7 minutes and let cool completely.
In a medium bowl, add whipped topping and gently fold in condensed milk. Add limeade and zest and gently fold to combine. Do not let the mixture become soupy. Pour mixture into the pie crust and freeze overnight. Garnish with candied lime peels when ready to serve.

Calorie Counter..

I just found this gadget.. I don't know how long I will have it on my blog, but it is very interesting. For instance, I looked up Mc Donalds and their whole menu came up and when you clicked on an item how much fat and calories it has popped up.. I think it is very interesting. :)

Ice Cream

Yesterday, we made ice cream with the new ice cream maker that Mom bought for the boys and I. We decided to make strawberry and it turn out amazingly! What we did was just follow a simple recipe for vanilla ice cream than ran a little over 3 cups of strawberries through my food processor (the boys don't like big chunks of fruit in their ice cream.). Next time I hope to try cookie dough. See picture!

New Herbs

A few days ago Mom and I went to the store to get some groceries. While we were there we saw that all of the herb seeds were half price. We decided to get some that I did not have to add to my herb garden. We got rosemary, mint (Ethan decided to grow this one, but he is still letting it remain in my garden), cilantro, and sage. I am very excited about having the new herbs! The picture is of all of my herbs and Ethan's mint sitting by the table getting sunlight.

Cinnamon Rolls

Today is Dad's 42 birthday. I offered to make him a cake, but he said that he would rather have cinnamon rolls. Then later last night while I was looking through my cookbooks trying to find something good and easy to make, I picked up my Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives cookbook. There was a very easy Cinnamon Roll recipe in it, I decided to make it. They had to be some of the best cinnamon rolls that I had ever had!

Growing, Growing, Growing!

My herbs are just starting to grow! On my basil and oregano plant I can see dozens of little greet leaves poking through the serface! My parsley plant I am just starting to see little green things coming through the surface, but not much so I just decided to post pictures of the basil and sage!

Herb Garden

I would like to start cooking with herbs more, so Mom let me plant a herb garden. I planted basil, parsley, and oregano. I hope to get more though. I started them inside several days ago, so they hopefully will start growning in a few days.

Valentines Day Gifts

My Dad, for Valentines Day got me some awesome cooking gifts. He got me a thing to put spices in (as a bonus, it is magnetic), a cookie/ice cream scoop, and a amazing measuring cup. Thanks Dad and boys! I love you! See the picture:

Babysitting Reward

For babysitting, Mom got me this amazing thing to keep kosher salt in. As you know I love Good Eats and the host Alton Brown uses this thing in his every show. Thanks Mom!

Random fact of the Day.

I have decided to do a random fact of the day. The fact will be about food, cooking, chefs, equipment, or anything that has to do with cooking and food.

Here is today's, it is from Cooks Magazine:

Never put eggs in the egg tray on the refrigerator door, which is too warm. Keep them in the carton which holds in moisture and protects against odor absorption.

Good Eats

Something that you must understand about me is that I love Food Network. The only problem with this love is that my parents won't get cable, making me resort to the next best thing: checking out Good Eats episodes from the library. Good Eats, in case you didn't know, is a cooking show where Alton Brown (the host) cooks food and while he is cooking incorporates science into it all. Another bonus is that my Mom counts it as educational so I can watch it on school nights. :)

Magazines

To add to all my other great cooking gifts, my friends, Elee, Annika, and Grandma Miles gave me a subscriptions to several food magazines. Elee and Annika gave a subscription Cooks Magazine and Grandma Miles gave me one to Food Network Magazine. They both have amazing recipes that I can't wait to try, including a chocolate chunk cookies recipe (from Cooks) and a soft pretzel recipe (from Food Network). I will look forward to gettting these magazines every month!

You'll cut your finger off!

For those of you that are familiar with the Christmas Story, you know that a boy, Ralphie wants a bb gun for Christmas and whenever he asks his mom, Santa, or teacher about it they reply by saying "No, you'll shoot your eye out." And even when his Dad gets him one, his mom's first words when he goes out to play with it are "Don't shoot your eye out." So you almost start to feel sorry for him by the time that the movie is over. I have never sympathized with Ralphie more than I have the past few days.

My very kind and generous Grandpa and Grandma got me a Rachel Ray knife set for Christmas, which I love. Why? Well the knives are extremely sharp, are heavy duty, and have a sharpener. When I unwrapped them, I heard various people in the room say 'Be careful. Don't cut your finger off'!" Yesterday I made veggie soup and told Mom that I was going to use my new knives to chop up the potatoes, onions, celery and such. Her first words to me were "Don't cut your finger off'." A few minutes later she gets on the phone with my Grandma Denning telling her that I was using the knife set and I hear Grandma over the phone saying tell her not to cut her finger off... The night was followed by continual reminders to not cut your finger off by Mom.

So far I still have all my fingers... but maybe I should get a first aid kit for the kitchen.

Grating cheese by hand days are over

As you know if you read my previous post, my parents got me a food processor for my birthday. It does sound weird to be 14 and getting kitchen items for your birthday and Christmas, but while all my peers are in college trying to make money for college tuition and things like that... and won't have any money for such things as knifes, cookbooks, and food processors, I'll be all taken care of. I may not be getting the newest ipod or cell phone or whatever for Christmas and I'm ok with that. I'll be taken care of food wise when I leave the house and until then. I also keep on telling Mom not to get too attached to my kitchen gear because they won't be there forever. :) Now back to my food processor.

If you have ever used a food processor you know that it takes just seconds to grate a 2lb block of cheese. Today I grated one and it took no effort at all on my part. It was even fun! Tomorrow I'll make humus and I'll let you know how that turns out. I leave you with these words... Thanks for the food processor mom and dad and be prepared to eat.