My First Souffle

After I moved here and unpacked my belongings, I needed to test my kitchen out. See if the oven worked, figure out where would be best to do my cooking prep, and get used to the new locations of the fridge, knife drawer, and pantry. What better way to do this than to try and make a type of food never before attempted by me - souffle!

Watching people on TV make souffle, I thought it was going to be a disaster. Egg whites, an oven I am not accustomed to, all those stories of souffles falling. I chose to make Gritty Souffle (found in Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for More Food: food x mixing + heat = baking) because I like Alton and his recipes, I got the cookbook for Christmas, and I had all the ingredients. The last reason is usually is the deciding factor. Some days, I will go to allrecipes.com and use their ingredient search in hopes of finding something I can make using, say, garlic, eggs, dried fruit, spinach, and bittersweet chocolate. Some days it is success, some days I go without. Hopefully the list I made would have resulted in a "without" day - garlic and chocolate? Not so much.

Back to the souffle. It is grits, but in a souffle. Or, if you want to make it sound a little more "high class" polenta souffle. It's French, it's Italian - it's Fritalian! The preparation of the souffle is close to Alton's recipe for Cheesy Souffle, but not quite. After making the grits, I was faced with a recipe step I was unfamiliar with - making egg foam (meringue, more or less). And, even though I added the cream of tartar with the egg whites at the beginning, and not after they got a little foamy, everything worked out just fine and fluffy egg whites were achieved.

Next most difficult task - folding the egg whites into the grits. It is important here to not stir, but fold, so that the egg foam does not deflate. I am not sure there is any way of knowing if I did this well or not until the souffle comes out of the oven and it is either a fluffy poof or a pancake. Waiting 45 minutes to find out was nerve-wracking. And, even after 45 minutes, the souffle could have fallen.

Thankfully, it did not and it turned out spectacular. Something it looks like was super hard. But it wasn't, it was rather simple.

It tasted pretty good, too. The garlic flavor really came out, and the garlic I used was not the best I have gotten and I used too much. I also did not have cheddar cheese (I cannot recall what cheese I used), so that would have better balanced the flavors. The best part of the whole thing is getting an "edge" piece because it has Parmesan cheese baked onto it (that is what Alton coated the sides with). Salty, crunchy, buttery, with airy souffle.

Enchilada de Pollo

Eating at Mexican restaurants growing up, I recall having an extremely limited list of options of what I wanted to eat on the menu. At first, it was only nachos, especially those from El Matador. Then, I began to branch out into quesadillas and cheese enchiladas. I know, I am such a thrill seeker. My ability to try different Tex Mex foods has grown since then, but my ability to make Mexican is relegated to making nachos, tacos, and Mexican salad. Until last weekend when my first attempt at enchiladas was tried.


Overall, it was a good meal (one I am still eating leftovers from). But, I do not think I will use the exact same recipe again. I had hopes, but Rachael Ray and her recipe went awry somewhere. Cooking the chicken in the broth with oregano and onions was great. I had never really known how to cook chicken other than cut it up in chunks and cook it in a skillet. I know, I know, shocking. But true. It used to be cooking it on the George Foreman, which resulted in dry, weirdly crusted chicken. So, stovetop chicken chunks is a step up.

Back to the meal. Where the recipe is off is in the sauce. It was too sweet. It had decent back of the throat heat, but the front flavor was like eating sugary tomato sauce. And the chicken stuffing needed some more juice or sauce or some cheese in it. It came out a little dry. But the clear main detractor was the sauce.


There were some adjustments I had to make to the recipe because I could not find hot cayenne pepper sauce. Maybe it does not exist at the grocery store here; maybe I was looking in the wrong place; maybe it goes by some brand name I am unaware of. And, yes, if one of you comments that hot cayenne pepper sauce is more commonly known as Tabasco or something, I will feel foolish. But it would not be first or the last time for that to occur.

The best part of the enchiladas was the cheese. While Aaron was getting his sandwich meats and cheeses at the grocery store, I investigated the cheese display for some Monterey jack cheese. I narrowed it down to four options. We decided that since I am still a little leery of really spicy things, to go with a mild-looking Monterey jack and a salsa jack cheese. The Monterey was so-so, but the Salsa Jack was great. Aaron and I ate dinner talking about where else we could use the cheese - queso, tacos, fried cheese sticks, eggs. And, since I want all of you to run out and buy a round, here is all the info you need about this cheese. It is the Salsa Jack Cheese, produced by Great Midwest. They have other variations on the same theme - habanero jack (I was to chicken for that one), smokey jack, etc.

And for dessert...s'mores. It has nothing to do with Tex Mex or enchiladas, but I wanted s'mores, so I got 'em. And so did Aaron, who contemplated their strata before eating.

Friday Night Pie

Aaron wanted pie. Not just any pie, apple pie. And so began each of our first endeavors into making a pie. What fun it was!

First, and most importantly - making the ice cream to go with the pie. What self-respecting apple pie does not demand homemade vanilla ice cream? This was a simple process because ice cream making is simple and I had made this recipe before. However, I have never properly made this recipe, ingredient for ingredient. The first time I made it, I could only find apricot preserves. And this time, I already had some orange marmalade, so I used that. I think it is used for for a natural sweetness than anything else, but I could be wrong. I did not notice a huge change in the flavor, just little bits of orange zest here and there. Made the ice cream, let it freeze overnight. Hands smelled like vanilla, which is infinitely more welcomed than when they smell like minced garlic.

Oh! If you have a KitchenAid mixer, buy their ice cream maker attachment. It works incredibly well and will tempt you to make ice creams, sorbets, gelatos, frozen yogurts, and sherbets throughout the year.

Pie day! First was to the grocery store to pick up apples and other needed supplies. The recipe did not say what kind of apple to use, so we opted for Fuji. I am not an apple eater, so I was lost when it came to this. I like Granny Smith for my Apple Dumplings, but someone *cough Aaron cough* does not like them.

Upon reaching my place, the first order of business was to make the pie dough. I have heard horror stories about pie dough, so I was nervous going into it. Pie dough is so easy! The main thing is to make sure everything is cold - shortening, butter, water. Into the fridge the two balls of dough went to chill, and onto apple cutting we went. Coring, peeling, and slicing.

The most difficult part was rolling the dough out. I am not the best roller, so things got a little uneven. But they worked and the pie tin was covered and in went the apple mixture. We got too many apples, so our pie was well filled. Now came the lattice. Have I mentioned that I am also not a great precision cutter? Yeah, Aaron should have done that part. I may have tried to claim the uneven cutting made it look for rustic, but I think that was like calling a scorched steak "blackened." But I rocked the latticing!

The edges were trimmed and into the oven it went along with those tasty pie dough scraps. Which is where the trouble started. Being new to my oven, we had not worked out all the kinks of our relationship, gotten to know each other well. So, I think when I tried to set the timer, I set the oven timer, which apparently lets you set how long to keep your oven on. And, since I had set it for 10 minutes in order to get the dough scraps out, the pie warmed, but did not bake, for 35 of its 45 minutes in the oven. Oops.

At 45 minutes, seeing that the pie and the dough were still rather raw, I saw the error of my ways and turned the oven back on and baked the pie a little longer. However, the dough was still not done and the apples were still very firm, so it baked some more. Meanwhile, Aaron and I were watching a movie. And, at some point, an odor arose - a burnt odor. Quickly moving to the kitchen this is the sight that we were met with...

uh oh... I checked the pie, and it was fine, but the dough scraps, oh the dough scraps. Burnt. Not singed, not well-toasted. Charred black burnt. Crumble to soot in your hands burnt. And my apartment was filling with smoke. Having had a smoke-filled apartment before (my blog is not called "Where there's smoke" after all) windows and doors were opened, fans were turned on, and a waving of dish towels commenced. Thankfully, the fire alarm did not go off, just a few neighbors wondering why the new girl was burning down their building. The smoke dissipated, the smell still lingers today.

But what about the pie? Did it suffer and adverse effects? Judge for yourself...

I think that is the most beautiful apple pie I have ever seen. But, pies are not enjoyed based on their beauty. It is all about the taste. Well, I think we should have gone with a different apple. The Fujis let out a lot of juice, which made the bottom of the pie a little mushy. We also should have cut them thinner and smaller since sometimes a forkful yielded a chunk of apple that would be inappropriate to shove in your mouth among others. I also think the apples were too sweet - it lacked a slight tartness that maybe a Granny Smith or two would bring. The top of the pie crust was phenomenal, and the slight taste of lemon juice cutting through the sweet was excellent. And with some homemade ice cream, it was a Friday night to enjoy.