Recent cooking projects

Sushi……ahhhh sushi,

It is the food that makes me the happiest. I love it because it is so utterly different than anything that I grew up eating and there are so many different flavors happening all at once. I sound like a huge foodie nerd when I talk about it like this, but it’s true. I am utterly in love when I eat sushi. There is only one sushi restaurant near where I live and we’ve kind of decided that we can’t go out to eat there anymore. The food is good, or as good as sushi can be in the Midwest, but the waitstaff is horrible. And I don’t mean that they are mean or rude or anything. They’re just totally incompetent when it comes to serving. It is literally painful for me to sit there and watch it. And it’s not even their fault. I know it’s because no one trains them and they don’t know anything about the cuisine. I could go on about it, but it’s nothing special, just run-of-the-mill average complaints. So sushi is just going to have to be a treat that happens for me during travel…or when Tristan makes it for me!

Now we don’t do the really fun stuff like spicy tuna or anything like that but he makes some mean California rolls. And this sushitime was especially exciting because I finally found actual sushi rice and didn’t have to use jasmine. I still suck at making rice and dream of having a rice cooker (and a waffle-maker and a gas range and a kitchen big enough for an island and a dining table…) but I thought it turned out relatively well considering that I realized that I did everything wrong once I got to the end of the directions.

In other cooking project news, I made a slew of Peanut Butter Blossom Hershey’s Kiss cookies for an event at my job and I finally realized why i never bake cookies. I hate it! It takes forever! I made a double batch of these bitches and it took me 3 fucking hours! And it’s not like when you make a roast of beouf bourgignon and you just let it sit in the oven, it’s constant taking the cookies out and putting them on the rack and making new little cookie balls and rolling them in the sugar and blah blah blah. Ugh, I’ll stick to pies for sure.

Thanksgiving pies…and some cookies

So obviously I made some pies for Thanksgiving. We went to Tristan’s parents and this year I was asked to make the pies, which to me seems like a no-brainer, although last year I was inexplicably asked to make a vegetable side. WTF? Since I got what I wanted, I really wanted to make some impressive pies, so I chose to make a Maple Pumpkin Pie and a Pumpkin Chocolate Triple Layer Pie. I also made a plain ol’ Libby’s pumpkin pie because Tristan thought I should have a plain one in case someone wasn’t feeling adventurous. I was a little disappointed in the maple one because I couldn’t really tell that it was different from the plain one. I ate some the next day though and I noticed that the maple taste was more pronounced, so maybe that one is like soup and it just tastes better the next day after the flavors have time to marry for awhile.

The triple layer one really was showstopper though when I cut it open. I was so proud of how pretty it looked. See for yourself!
I mean, come on!! It was beautiful! And it tasted fantastic. I cannot believe how good sour cream and sugar taste together! First you make the pumpkin filling. Then you take half that filling and mix it with melted butter and chocolate to make the chocolate portion. You layer first the chocolate, then the pumpkin and bake it until it’s done. Meanwhile you just melt some sour cream mixed with sugar on the stovetop and then spread it over the pie when it’s done. It was definitely my favorite pie of the day. It was a little labor intensive, but definitely worth it in the end. Right now I am making the famous Hershey’s Kiss Peanut Butter Blossom cookies because we are having an event at the store on Saturday and they are my contribution. I kind of hate making cookies, so this is a big deal for me. They just take so much time. I can only bake one sheet at a time so this will literally take me all night. Blah!