Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Week 4: Dijon Grilled Pork Chops

Searching for a good "D" was a little difficult (I kept getting people's names instead of dishes), but once I spotted this awesome sounding Dijon dish, I knew it yelled "AWESOME COLLEGE EXPERIMENT TIME!"

I guess I didn't really think of the country aspect of my experiment when I chose this, so I'm gonna have to be careful and not do too many repeats. Looking at the ingredients, I'm 99.9% sure this is an American dish. USA! USA! (GO GIANTS!!) I don't know if I can argue it's a French dish... xD I highly doubt the French would make a recipe like this lol

Anyway, here's the recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Dijon-Grilled-Pork-Chops/Detail.aspx

And the low-down:

Rating: 4/5
Cost: less than $15!!
Difficulty: TOTALLY EASY PEASY
Eat it again?: FO' SHO.
Allergies: nuffing
Religious folks: It's a pork chop, so Jewish people and Muslims, be wary!

So a quick note to anyone who wants to make this dish: please be careful when cooking pork! Its not like beef where you can leave it red inside and still eat it- you've gotta cook pork all the way through!! I was being like, super paranoid the entire time about cooking my meat. If you're ever unsure about how cooked-through the meat is, just cut it down the middle or in the thickest part of the meat and check for redness. If its red, leave it on the grill for a bit longer :P

Okay, so changes to the recipe. Instead of using apple juice, I used orange juice (this seemed like a strange subsitute, but one of the other people on allrecipes did it and they said it turned out fine), I used boneless pork chops, and instead of grilling this and covering it, I used my handy dandy George Foreman grill!! This stupid thing finally came in handy :P I was given a GF grill during my freshman year of college, but we weren't allowed to use any sort of hot or heating things in my dorm room, so I never got a chance to whip it out... UNTIL NOW. :D

This recipe was totally easy, and went by with basically no flaws. The marinade was simple. The ingredients were not confusing. It was so easy. The only flaw i'd say are the RIDICULOUS grill marks that the GF grill leaves on your meat. Seriously, I get that its a grill. You don't need to leave half-inch thick grill marks all over my dinner. Come on now, George Foreman. Stop trying to overcompensate.

I was surprised at how well this recipe turned out! It was really good, albeit the dish was a little bit dry from the GF grill and my paranoia about overcooking. Marinating overnight REALLY showed, and the meat was really flavorful and enjoyable!! I was a little bit hesitant about this recipe because the marinade was very acidic and quite bitter (I tasted it before I poured it all over my meat to marinade overnight), but the bite of the bitterness didn't completely go over to the meat. The simple pork chop dish went perfectly with a side of rice and corn :)

Overall, I would HIGHLY recommend this recipe to any college student, and here's why:


1. Pork chops/pork loin is CHEAP. I was AMAZED at how much cheaper than chicken it is!! I had no idea!! Geez why haven't I been cooking pork all my life lol
2. All the ingredients for the marinade can be used in a regular kitchen (and they're fairly cheap)
Unlike the African stew recipe with its all natural unsalted peanut butter, all the marinade ingredients can be used for a million and one other things. This makes repeating the recipe easy, and cooking other things easy, too!
3. It is SO EASY to cook. Seriously. Even if you don't have a GF grill, just pan fry it!
4. No obscure spices you have to spend a lot of money on, then never use again. YAY FOR USING RANDOM SAUCES AND INGREDIENTS TO MAKE A WINNING MARINADE!!

I'd highly recommend this dish :) I even made myself a bento for tomorrow- look, I made a meat flower! See it? The flower with a stem and a flowerbed? :D :D :D :D :D mmmmmm flowers are so much better when they're made of meat...

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Week 3: Cabbage Rolls

Okay, THIS post will have plenty of pictures of the food :)

(this picture is of the cabbage rolls before being covered and put in the oven)

Also, I realize that I'm posting three weeks in three consecutive days- sorry if its a post overload! I won't usually post this much, but I kind of fell behind, so now I'm trying to catch up on all my blogging :D


Cabbage rolls are pretty legit. They're basically this meat and rice mixture wrapped in cabbage. It's like the European version of egg rolls haha. This dish is a Polish dish, but there are other European countries that like to make variations of it (I think the Ukraine and Switzerland has their own version of it, too). So far, I've hit up North America, Europe, and Africa. :)

Once again, this recipe was found on allrecipes.com (I really like that website! I'll probably be using it for basically every recipe I try):

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Cabbage-Rolls/Detail.aspx

Okay, here's the breakdown:

Rating: 4/5
Cost: less than $25
Difficulty: fairly difficult...
Eat it again?: most definitely!!
Allergies: gluten
Religious folks: It's got pork!! Beware!

I was practically drawn to this dish- I think it was calling out to me. For serious. I usually take about an hour to find a dish I actually want to make, but as soon as I saw the cabbage rolls, I knew it had to happen. I frickin LOVE cabbage (not sure why, it must be my Irish side kicking in), and my boyfriend loves meat and rice. This is like the love child of some of our favorite foods :D

I made a couple changes to this recipe. I didn't use savoy cabbage simply because I couldn't find it at my supermarket (wtf is savoy cabbage??), so I used regular cabbage instead. Also, i didn't want to spend the money on the bay leafs (I expected they might be a little bit costly), so I didn't buy them or use them at all. I used wet toothpicks to keep my rolls together (Katamari did not give me enough confidence in my rolling skills). Note that they were WET, so when I stuck them in the oven they wouldn't frickin burn and stuff. Soak them before you use them :)When I cooked the dish, I definitely had some variation in how I rolled them xD Also, I didn't put the cabbage in the microwave (that seemed strange to me), so I boiled them instead. Now that I look back, putting them in the microwave probably would have been a good idea lol.



Anyway, this recipe was really REALLY good. Like AW SHIT I didn't know I could cook something that tasted good! It was a step above the other two recipes I made, I think. I could be biased because of my unhealthy obsession over cabbage, but whatever this dish ROCKED. The flavors were totally there, the meat was really yummy, and it was just delicious :D If I were to change one thing, I would have probably used the spicy pork sausage instead of regular sausage,
but I'm one for spice. :)

Rolling them up was the real challenge, thus the difficulty of the recipe. I tried doing it the Chinese way first- eggroll style. As you can see on the picture on the left, it didn't look that pretty or that cabbage roll-ey XD I think every Polish person in the world is rolling their eyes at me right now. I can't help it- this is how I was brought up to roll things! So yeah my first couple attempts at rolling up the cabbage rolls were basically giant failures. Derppp.


So then I tried rolling them by placing the meat in the middle, and rolling over three sides, then the last one side over all the three sides and placing a toothpick in the middle. This worked a little bit better and created far prettier results. This is what it looked like before I wrapped them up :)

Basically, the difficulty lied in the wrapping. Also, cooking the cabbage was a little difficult for me- I was really worried I was going to overcook it and make it nasty, but I knew the cabbage had to be soft enough to use as a roll.

I'd say that this recipe was well worth it, though :D It cooked beautifully! I covered it and placed it in the oven, just like the recipe suggested, and cooked it for two hours. It seemed like a long time, but whatever, it turned out :D

If you've got extra time in college to make this recipe, seriously, give it a shot. Make all the stuff, then put it in the oven for two hours and study for your midterms. Also, this recipe makes a TON of servings, so its well worth your money! I'm planning on eating these things for several days... probably weeks lol It's great for a family meal with your housemates :D

Below is a picture of the cabbage rolls- I forgot to take a picture of them fresh out of the oven- I was too excited to eat XD

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Week 2: Barengate Bay Chicken

(NOTE: This post has no pictures :( Sorry!! I completely forgot to take pictures of this one! Week 3 has several pictures though :D)

Yeah so I actually did week 1 and week 2 a while ago, so I'm finally posting the,m :P I finished week 3 this week, so I'll probably post it some time this weekend.

SO BARENGATE BAY CHICKEN!! wewt :D This is a recipe that is central to Barengate Bay, a body of water near New Jersey (so I'm told). I guess this dish will be my U S of A food :) Note how I didn't make a "burger" for the letter B. :D I'm sticking to my rules so far, bwahaha

Anyway, here's the recipe link:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Barengate-Bay-Chicken/Detail.aspx

Rating: 3/5
Cost: less than $15
Difficulty: pretty easy
Eat it again?: mebbe...
Allergies: none

I was pretty excited about this dish in the beginning- it looked super easy, and it got pretty rave reviews. Yay for putting in little effort and getting out lots of goodness and yumminess! Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed with the end result :(

This dish's flavor is actually really good. I went ahead and took some of the suggestions that other people suggested, such as replacing the cream of broccoli soup with cream of chicken soup, and simply putting fresh broccoli in instead. Instead of breading the chicken with regular bread crumbs, I used a Japanese bread crumb called "panko," usually sold at American supermarkets and definitely at Asian ones. I also couldn't find "button mushrooms," so I just used the generic cut-up mushrooms they sell at your local safeway. Nothing too extravagant.

The reason I give this dish a low grade is because of the breading. I breaded my chicken like it told me to, made the sauce, then poured the sauce over the chicken before I put it in the oven. I thought that was kind of weird of the recipe to tell me to put the sauce over breaded chicken, then stick it in the oven- isn't it gonna get all goopy and weird then?? Well, it did- the chicken turned out tasting amazing, but the goopiness wasn't for me. Yuckk.

For anyone who tries this recipe, I'd recommend two different options:

1. Bake the chicken on like, a flat surface or a cookie sheet or something so that it gets nice and crispy in the oven, then pour the sauce over it after the chicken is done (cook the mushrooms and broccoli with the sauce). Or even put the sauce on the side and dip it in lol. I like my crispiness, especially if I go through the trouble of breading something.

2. Don't bread the chicken at all, and just throw the sauce on top and stick it in the oven. It would probably have tasted just fine without the breading tbh

I would recommend this recipe to anyone if they make the suggesting that I suggested, or else it'll just come out all goopy! I like my CRISP, dammit!! Oh well- my boyfriend said it was pretty good, so I'll believe him.

Hope this post wasn't too boring without pictures- I'll use lots of pictures in the next post!!

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Week 1: African Chicken Stew

(QUICK NOTE: The first two posts on this blog will not be very picture heavy- I kind of forgot to take pictures throughout the process, and I left my camera charger at my mom's house, so I have very minimal photography. I promise it gets more interesting, though!!)

Week 1 is the letter A: African Chicken Stew. It sounded kind of interesting, and I've always had a fascination with anything African, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to make something TOTALLY AWESOME :D Like I said earlier, this dish is based on African cooking, but more specifically Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone is a really poor country in Africa, so it'll be really interesting to taste some awesome African peasant food :D

Firstly, here's the link to the recipe:
http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/african-chicken-stew/Detail.aspx

Rating: 3.5/5
Cost: less than $20
Difficulty: easy
Would I eat it again: Heck to the yes!
Allergies: peanut

I made this recipe with my boyfriend, so the time it was supposed to take to get all the preparations ready was multiplied by about 6 xD It definitely took us an hour to finish everything, but that was because I was also teaching him how to cook :P

When you look at the recipe, you might be as confused as I was- peanut butter? In a stew? LOLWHUT. Well, never fear, this actually works! It added a really nice flavor to the stew, and made it very unique :) Make sure to get the right kind of peanut butter, though! You need the unsalted, natural peanut butter. Unfortunately, this can be a little bit more expensive than your typical Jif or Skippy :( And I'm not sure when else you're going to use unsalted, natural peanut butter :( It's kind of just sitting in my pantry rotting atm lol

The only thing I changed with this recipe was I replaced 1 cup of water with 1 cup of chicken broth, and I did not remove the chicken when the recipe told me to. I just added the other ingredients to the already cooked chicken. I made sure to only cook the chicken so that it LOOKED cooked out the outside, so not to dry it out from cooking it longer with the rest of the ingredients. I did this because I'm lazy XD and because I'm a Chinese cook at heart- I just throw everything in a pot and cook it till it's done. :D But I kept everything else consistent with the instructions.

The thing to worry about with this recipe is the consistency- when I made it, I added the suggested amount of peanut butter and every other ingredient. I don't think I'll add quite as much peanut butter next time. It was definitely a little bit gloopier than I wanted it to be, and surprisingly thick for a stew. I'll add a little less peanut butter (maybe 1/2 a cup as opposed to a 3/4 a cup?) and maybe a tad more chicken broth, if needed.

The flavor of this was really interesting!! It was peanut-ey and creamy, but you could feel the zing from the spices. The spices felt very pepper-ey and strong, and I really liked it :D I ate it on top of rice, like the recipe suggests. It filled me up a lot faster than i imagined, though. By the time I finished one serving of it, I was suuuuper full. I had a ton of leftovers, which is a good thing! College students live off of leftovers!!

Overall, I'd make it again because it tastes good, and because I've still got the peanut butter sitting in my pantry XD Dang those Sierra Leonese people know how to make a good stew out of peanut butter :P

Sunday, October 10, 2010

A Tasty College Experiment :D

Hello,

I'm Jade Roland, currently a sophomore undergrad college student at UC Davis. My major is economics with a minor in art history. I play the clarinet and am a member of the Cal Aggie Marching Band-uh! and damn proud of it :D I'm located in West Davis (the best Davis!), and I really enjoy cooking :)

Cooking is just a part of the sophomore part of life- once freshman year is over, its time to start cooking for yourself. No more being babied by the shitty food in the dining commons. Being a sophomore is the first step to becoming a independent adult (with my mom paying for my bills and stuff). So why not make the chores, aka cooking experience fun?

I've come up with a simple cooking experiment, and I wanted to start a blog on it :)

Here are the rules of my experiment:
1. I have to cook one dish a week corresponding to the next letter in the alphabet. For example, week 1 I'll do something that starts with A, week 2 I'll make a dish that starts with B, etc.
2. I can't repeat any of the dishes by jumbling up the names (ie chicken with vegetables becomes vegetable chicken)
3. I have to hit all the continents (thats right, I'm gonna attempt to make some Antarctica-ese food), and at least 20 specific countries.
4. I can't quit!!!
5. Try to stay in my ridiculous food budget xD (seriously my budget for food is 10 bucks a day, I finally know the feeling of being a starving college kid)
6. No doing recipes that I've done in the past! They all have to be brand new things I've never made before :)

I'll take pictures of all my dishes, give a brief explanation of all of them when I post. :)

Mmm my stomach is growling already :D