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[Moonfire]

Now i feel like making Yakitori!
The only dish i  perfected i think XD
 *can only do chicken dish?*

[KayentaMoenkopi]

Frikken Genius!

So insomnia right? Freezing in bed at 4 am...stupid window was open and it woke me up. Must kill the sister...

So, I'm up now. Make coffee...go outside, picked a sprig of spearmint, dropped it in the cup, added a shot of chocolate syrup...poured the hot coffee in the cup and inhaled.

Just glorious wash of mint bathed my face...ah, and the taste was just all i had hoped it would be.
So this is a winner, Throstulgrael thinks so too!

[Moonfire]

I tried this cooking thing guys ,loook!

That is simply duck breast. rubbed a bit salt and pepper on it , then fried it on the fatty side for about 6 minutes in soy oil. The other side around half of the time? I let the oil heat up first~

Afterwards the duckling went into the oven for 20ish minutes. I added a sauce when it went into the oven. I suggest to do that when it is almost done. Sauce was a blend of soya sauce , mirin, sugar , salt, pepper and a spoonfull of honey. the mix  has to be heated up else the  sugar and honey won't mix properly with the rest.

[KayentaMoenkopi]

Simply duck you say???

drools uncontrollably.

[Moonfire]

That was just me throwing stuff together and fried and baked it? And stuff XD

[KayentaMoenkopi]

Celebrated the sister's birthday a day early. Why? Cause we could! Tomorrow is gonna be hectic.

Anyway, she baked herself a white cake with whipped cream icing and strawberries on top. Was heavenly.

Ingredients:

Box mix of what cake + all the stuff it says to mix in...usually oil, egg whites, and water.
2 cups of heavy whipping cream
6 tablespoons of granulated sugar
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
Strawberries, washed and cut into slices.
Mint leaves
a bag of that strawberry gel crap for shortcake. >.>

Mix the cake, pour into two round layer cake pans in equal amounts. Pans should be greased and floured before hand. Bake as per directions on box mix.

Pour the heavy whipping cream, sugar, and vanilla into a large mixing bowl and whisk by hand...we don't have an electric mixer but I guess you can cheat and go all modern on us if you have to...until the whipped cream forms stiff peaks when you pull the whisk away.

Cool cake halves in the baking pans, turn out one onto a large serving plate. top with strawberry gel, top with whipped cream. Carefully overlay second cake layer on top. Ice top and sides. Decorate with strawberry slices and mint. Chill and serve.

Before the feed!



Devoured

[KayentaMoenkopi]

Ham Pastry.  Very laborious but so worth it. This took us, emphasis on the us part, 13 hours. I would hate to say how long if I was working alone. SO with kitchen slaves, yeah. Quite the chore. Not even touching the dishes till tomorrow.

Ingredients:

bread dough...yeah? well look up a recipe and multiple it by however many loaves you want to make. I never measure, I just throw stuff together, so I couldn't even begin to tell you how I make bread. I will try to quantify this someday.

Colorful peppers, i used bell but you can go hot and spicy with other sorts.
Onion
Mushrooms
2 pounds of butter softened...margarine? Just...just don't. Go to bed or something and come back when you are serious.
Flour for dusting.
Ham slices
Provolone cheese slices
2 eggs beaten for egg wash
Parmesan cheese, dried and grated like for spaghetti
Rosemary

So I mixed up the bread dough and I punch it down a couple times between letting it raise so it is nice and airy. Then I rolled it out on a floured surface. Smear the butter over the entire surface. You are trying to create a flaky pastry dough and the butter will help the bread to separate into the croissant like texture.



Then you fold the sides into the center and smear with butter again. Don't obsess about getting your edges straight. It will all come together nicely during the successive rounds of rolling and such. You can see my butter wasn't quite softened enough by the little lumps of butter here and there. No biggie. I sort of had to warm the butter in my hand to get it to smear around. So you can make do if you have to. It's better to let it set out and get really soft though. Use your hands!



Then I folded it into thirds. You want to smear the top of that first fold with more butter. Don't forget that, every layer has to have butter in between them.



Next you cover it with some sort of plastic wrap, cellophane...and chill in the fridge for one hour. I use a cookie sheet to bake these on, and it's nice to have it there for size when you are folding the dough...you want it to fit!

[KayentaMoenkopi]

So a friend trying to modernize me beyond the iron age bought me one of those porcelain coated skillets. And...you know how I love my caste iron, this was really great. Clean up is a true breeze, no sticking at all... don't use metal utensils in it though. I like this better than Teflon cause. C8 in the Ohio river still pisses me off Dupont! Seriously, if you have one of those toxic cooking items, throw it away. ESPECIALLY if the coating is flaking off. OMG!!!

So I had some pepper halves left over from the night before when we made fajitas and black bean burritos. I guess in a couple of months when I make them again I will share. Saw Rachel Ray scorch the flour tortillas on the burners of her gas stove the other day and I did this. Man, I will never steam or microwave the tortillas again! Anyway, I used the other halves tonight sliced super thin, and two big sweet onions. Cook these in some oil until translucent but not limp. It's gonna bake in the oven anyway so a little crunchy will not hurt a thing; it's actually preferable.



Add the mushrooms and only cook through till warm. Rubbery mushrooms are nasty.



So, after three sessions of working the dough, rolling it out, smearing with butter, folding, and chilling...roll out the dough and I cut mine into thirds cause that is how much dough I mixed up. I make them to fit that cookie sheet. All three would not fit into the picture, but check it how nice and even the ends turned out?



I then layed out the ham slices in the center and made straight cuts perpendicular to the ham on either side. These will be folded over the top when all the stuffings are inside to create a nice braided crust.



Top with the veggies.



Top with the cheese.



Long angle view of all three and the lovely Mariko.

[KayentaMoenkopi]

Here is an alternate cut on the diagonal that I tried out. I prefer the straight cut for how pretty it turned out. But then this was only my first try at a braided pastry, made by this technique, so maybe I will get better at the diagonal braid.



Next you start alternating the cuts to fold them across the filling. tuck the sides in and pull them gently but firmly...kind of snug...downward and to the center as you go. Don't worry about that open pocket at the top because you will pull it up and tuck it under your first braid at the end. Same with the bottom.



You can see here as you continue to fold how that nice braid is turning out. Continue all the way to the bottom and then tuck your ends. I liked the straight cut better because as I folded, it did not leave as many gaps between the braid for cheese to ooze out. But that may have just been a lack of skill upon my part.



Brush with egg wash.



Back at 350 'F and I am sorry. I have two very crappy electric turkey roasters, that sit on the top of the counter, I have to bake in because the oven in my stove doesn't work. The orifice on the gas is clogged. Can't afford a new one, yet another great Christmas gift idea! So this took me about 1.5 hours for each loaf. I would not think that more than an hour in a real stove would be required. But I check every 20-30 minutes cause after all this work someone is gonna die if I burned the damned thing! Cap any areas with foil that are browning faster than the rest to keep it from burning. I used some mini aluminum pie tins I had lying around cause I was out of foil and those worked great.

This is one with no seasonings for topping. You can see how the egg wash gives it a golden shimmering look.



One with rosemary sprinkled onto the egg wash, then baked.



And the third with the sprinkled Parmesan Cheese. Looks yummy but I am still not happy about that diagonal braid. *shrugs*

[KayentaMoenkopi]

And 13.6 hours later, it was all over but the eating!

Look at that stringy cheese! Ignore the paper plates, I get lazy now and then.



I am really happy with how this turned out. As we sat around and nommed our hearts out, we talked about all the different fillings you could do. Sweet fruity/nutty things, different lunch meats, pizza type variations. So play around and have fun with that. It was supposed to be a chicken Kiev type thing originally. But all I had was leg thigh quarters and seriously? For the amount of work involved that was just going to be gross when what you really need was nice breast meat.



And just check it, how flaky that crust turned out!



Meanwhile, we have this storm system rolling through. I think today is the 3rd thunder storm we have had this week and some more to follow clear through the weekend. So we scramble all over and gather the candles, just praying that the electric don't go off. Miraculously the power held out. Yes, that is indeed a Jesus candle there, 50 cents at the dollar store. I guess that is a Catholic thing. too funny. But hey! I got my baking done, so who knows?



As you can see I do have some matching dinner ware, but as you can see I also put the saucers to practical use as wax catches in time of need!

[KayentaMoenkopi]

Is that too hard?

buy some pop and fresh croissant dough in the can. Then fill it up and...I guess you would have to make individual serving size ones cause they are perforated for each roll and will tear apart. But hey, that works too!

[KayentaMoenkopi]

Pinwheel fruits filled pastry things.

Yes...it is time to say good bye to one of my best friends n the world. he up and joined the peace corps and is off to Tanzania for 2 years. So...party all weekend at my house. Kitchen slavery getting ready until about 7:30 this morning. Up again by 6:00 to go at it again. Yes, that is what it felt like too! It was actually 9:00am. But coffee is a thing you know!

So you do that pastry dough thing with the mega ton of butter that takes 13 hours...

Then you cut the dough into long strips.


cut those into squares.


put those onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Put a dollup pf pie filling in the center and cut diagonally from center to each corner.


Egg wash around the edges so they stick to each other when you begin to fold each corner of the triangles in to the center.


Fold in the same corner on each triangle.


Make sure to press the center down a bit to keep those corners from flipping up when you bake them.


Doing this on the sheet you will bake them is required so that they don't get mangles transferring them from the work surface to the baking surface.


Bake till done then sprinkle with powdered sugar. These are blackberry, cherry, and apple. Not quite red, white, and blue but close enough!

[JayJay]

*drools all over the place*

[Becquerel]

Pastry Style: Sugary Shurikens!

lol

[KayentaMoenkopi]

Oooh. I like that name!