Well, suffice to the say the semester got ahead of me and blogging had to take a backseat to academics. But that's not to say that I stopped cooking! On the contrary, I covered a lot of culinary ground as my desire for fall flavors hit full force when the leaves fell. And when I wasn't cooking, I was out enjoying the Journey.
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| Cheese tasting plate from Thirsty Bear. |
So I threw out some of the things I covered between Halloween and the New Year. I'll put up pics and the scoop on my trips to Boston and Orange County, in addition to my new approach to eating for 2012 and the lowdown on where the Journey takes me as I move to San Francisco until July!
Desserts
You know, when I watch cooking shows I realize that I have two major, gaping holes in my cooking game: fresh fish and pastry, or desserts. When it comes to dessert, I just have never previously had a great desire to play in the pastry world. But on the Journey, you can't avoid every obstacle; sometimes you've got to go through your obstacle. So I confronted some desserts:
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Red velvet cake. It frickin' took me
three times to get this right! |
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Just a little bacon covered with chocolate on one side
and toasted-walnut caramel on the other, all finished
with Maldon sea salt. |
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While Trey's girlfriend, Katrina, made a cheesecake I
made a bitchin' cognac-raspberry sauce. Boom. |
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This apple galette recipe that I got from school
is the best pastry dough I've EVER tasted! |
In addition to the above, I also tried my hand (and succeeded) at creme brulee (for which I acquired a torch), a variety of fruit tarts with my beloved pastry dough recipe, chocolate mousse from real chocolate, and berry pie (with seasonal berries).
Classic Sonoma County Produce
With the summer weather running late I had access to some incredible produce until well into the fall months. I got to bake my tail off and cook Italian food like it was going out of style.
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| Tomatoes from the backyard. |
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| Tomatoes from the Tomato Festival. |
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| Berry picking at Ragle Ranch Park. |
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| A killer shot of some provisions from Sonoma. |
Savory Scrum-diddly-umptiousness!
Of course I didn't just work on desserts! My love for savory dishes will always win out over any other type of cooking, and I in fact made some excellent dishes over the last several weeks.
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| Venezuela's national dish, Pabellon Criollo. |
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Meat empanadas (ground beef with pork chorizo) next to
vegetarian empanadas (sweet potato, carrot, onion, garlic). |
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| Making a pizza in class! |
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| A nice, light meal to start Thanksgiving Day. |
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Pesto chicken roulade with
fettucine peppers over rice. |
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Mine and Kristi's first turkey. I traveled to Boston to see
her for Thanksgiving, and we made the full spread. |
Honorable Mention
These are all the dishes that don't fit into their own little descriptive box, so they all get an honorable mention.
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| Chili cheese omelet from the Apple Tree in Sebastopol, CA. |
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| Grill night with chicken and some late baby summer squash. |
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Sampler of pumpkin beers--2 lagers, an ale,
and a porter. |
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| Croquetas of Serrano Ham from Thirst Bear. |
Haha well I've reached the data limit for one post here, so to be continued...
