Oh Goodness, I disappeared!!!

So sorry I fell of the face of the earth. Tons of exciting stuff is happening in my life right now. Part of which: My first niece should be born just any old time now. For that reason, and a couple of other ones, I'm going to see my family. Now, my bro's girl, I'm pretty sure the reason why she likes us is because of my Dad's Thai Fried Noodles. It's way different from traditional Pad Thai. In fact, they aren't even really the same dish, but I thought I'd include this recipe for your viewing enjoyment. You can add whatever meat you want. I usually add shrimp. Also, the amounts are strictly up to the cook's discretion.

First, throw some rice noodles in some really super hot water, and some bean sprouts in some ice water. Next mix up a big fat spoonful of red curry paste (or Massaman if you prefer), a spoonful of all natural peanut butter, an egg, and a bit of sugar. Next heat up your wok, and toss the sauce in with your soft noodles. Put a bit of fish sauce on it, toss in your drained and crunchy bean sprouts, and top with some chopped peanuts, chopped green onion, and chopped cilantro. We add precooked shrimp while it's in the wok and add some chopped dried shrimp to the topping. To salt it at the table, we put a bit of soy sauce in, or a bit more fish sauce. It's quick, easy, and completely delish. To make a sweeter, softer dish, make more sauce, and add more sugar, and less curry paste. To make a spicier dish, add more curry paste and less peanut butter. For more peanutty sauce... well, you get the idea.

Yum. I think I"ll make this for my little baby mama when I go and see her. Never hurts to accrue those brownie points. :-)

E-Z Green Beans

My sis made these for me last night, and I was reminded by how much I LOVED them when I was a little kid. It should tell you what kind of a weird kid I was by the fact that I used to BEG my mom for these... and for brussel sprouts. I have a not so secret love affair with brussel sprouts. Picture this convo:

Me: (adorable, intelligent little child that I was) Mom. MoOm. MoOom!! They have brussel sprouts. MOM. They have BRUSSEL SPROUTS! Can you GET SOME, MOM???
Mom: No. Those things are nasty.
Me: No they aren't. Belinda makes them for us. They're SO good. Can YOU make them?
Mom: No! And DON'T. ASK. AGAIN.
Random Shopper: *gawking* How did you get your kids to do that?

Anyhow...

Green beans with Hoisin Sauce

Level: Easy Peasy

• Snow Peas (or regular green beans) Make sure they are fresh and lovely!
• Green Onions
• Canola Oil
• Hoisin Sauce

Clean your beans. Cut off any weird threadies. If you used regular green beans, break them into big bite size pieces. Clean your onions and cut them into the same sized pieces as your beans. (NOTE: I usually do about 2 parts green beans to 1 part onion) Heat up some canola oil in a wok or frying pan. Throw the beans and onions in there just long enough for them to cook through WITHOUT losing crispness. Slop some Hoisin sauce on them, and toss. It's doesn't take too terribly much of the hoisin sauce.

What do you have?

Monster Deliciousness.

She also made the most amazing lo mein that I've ever had, but I'll have to find out precisely what she put on it to make it so WONDERFUL. I should have taken a picture. It was beautiful as well as wonderful. So good, my hunny couldn't answer whether or not he liked it, because he was too busy polishing his plate with his tongue and getting up to get another serving!

And one more thing. A hint on the cupcakes? Chocolate Genache will be involved because I have cream I have to use. So stay tuned. I have found an amazing recipe. They will be ridiculous.

I just found the most AMAZING new blog

More coming soon.
Wait for it.

Later for now Gaterroos.

Heh heh heh

My coworker gave me the most terrific idea for cupcakes. I'm very excited, and think I will make them with my little sister on Saturday.

Also, I think I will make an expiremental jumbalaya tonight. Usually, my hunny bunny makes that, and he uses real pork sausage, but I'm going to try it with turkey sausage. We'll see. We'll see.

Let me eat cake!

This is my grandmother's recipe.

Italian Cream Cake

Cream together

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 stick butter
• 1/2 cup oil (I used canola, because I'm health conscious. *smirk*)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla (I never measure vanilla, but I probably doubled that.)
• 5 egg yolks, one at a time

Then beat the 5 egg whites until they form stiff white peaks, and cream them in too.l

Add

• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 can angel coconut

Bake in 3 (9 inch) cake pans or a tube pan for 25 minutes or until done, longer for a bundt pan.

I used a 9x13 sheet pan for once in my life, and it took FOREVER. It's done with the edges pull away from the side of the pan a little, so make sure you grease well. I am a huge fan of the baking Pam, though I just used regular butter flavor Pam this time.

Some other changes I made:

Can angel coconut? What on earth is that? I'm not from Georgia or Tennessee or someplace CRAZY where you have coconut in a CAN! So, I took 1 cup of sweetened flaked coconut, soaked it in the some milk for an hour or two in the fridge, then squeezed most the milk out to add it. This does make a VERY moist cake, almost wet, that is actually better on the second day. IF and only IF it lasts that long.

The icing:

Whip together

• 1 stick butter (REAL BUTTER)
• 1 8 ounce package of cream cheese
• 1 teaspoon vanilla (again, I bet I doubled this)
• 1 box powdered sugar
• 1 cup chopped pecans

NOW, let's talk a bit about buttercream. This is a cream cheese buttercream. Everything you use it in should be room temperature. Cream together the butter, cream cheese and vanilla. Then add the powdered sugar. Very. Slowly. Then add your pecans. Make sure these are a pretty fine chop. If, when you are done, you find your icing very thick, you can add a bit of hot water. When I say a bit, I mean a teaspoon at a time, until the consistency is right. This particular icing is not one you can use to decorate with, the but nuts make it pretty attractive. For an extra attractive option, you could make it a layer cake, leave the nuts out of the frosting, then press them against the icing on the side of the cake, and drizzle a few across the top. I, however, was lazy this time, and so made a sheetcake. And I certainly did take a lot of crap for that, but you know what? I can't be Superwoman ALL the time.

Cupcake suggestions?

Hey there all. I am looking for some fabulous cupcake recipes. Like I said, I've been checking out that cupcake website, and I am feeling inspired to make some adorable, delicious, little cakies. Anyone have any ideas, drop me a line at cooking.with.coconuts@gmail.com

Vielen Dank kids!

Links

As none of you know me, I would like to post a few of my favorite cooking links. Each of these delights and inspires me!

http://www.cookingcute.com/
I just love bento. I'm slowly coming up with a collection of adorable food preparation tools. I have animal shaped onigiri molds, egg molds, little sauce bottles... So far, I've just been preparing them in gladware, but I've been checking out some VERY cute boxes, and I think I'm about ready to make some purchases. I'm not very good yet, but I'd be willing to put up some of my Adventures in Bento pictures and recipes.

http://mmmbento.livejournal.com/
Another great bento blog.

http://community.livejournal.com/curiouscupcakes/profile
I just ran across this one today. Some of these cupcakes are simply ADORABLE! This is definitely going to make the daily rotation.

http://thecakeblog.livejournal.com/
This bakery makes some of the most amazing looking and delicious sounding cakes I've ever seen. When I was younger, I worked for a long time as a cake baker/decorator, and this site has really inspired me to get back into it.

http://veganlunchbox.blogspot.com/
This site is one of the ones that made me want to get into bento. Though I am not vegan, I love most of her ideas, and I certainly don't MIND not eating meat, so I will be experimenting with some of her recipes. Who knows? I may even buy the book.

http://allrecipes.com/
I freaking LURV this Website. You can find recipes for ANYTHING, and most of them have been rated and commented upon, so you kind of know what you're getting yourself into.

Adventures in Indian

As you read this, I am smiling in happy relief. I had a luncheon this weekend, and though I won't say that it went off without a hitch, I WILL say that it was rocking awesome fun. The food was (For the most part, Damn you rice) excellent, the drink flowed, but not in any sort of cumbersome manner, and the cast was perfect. For the main course I made Butter Chicken. If I do say so, it turned out very well. I'm not sure if it tasted at all like what is in the restaurants, but everyone seemed to like it. One quick note before we start: I don't measure things unless I'm baking, but these should be pretty accurate guesstimates!

Butter Chicken

• 8 chicken breasts (boneless skinless)


• 4 medium yellow onions


• 3 Tablespoons chopped garlic


• 1 inch ginger (peeled and grated)


• 1 large can chopped tomatoes (I can't remember what size I used. It costs in between $1.50 and $2.00 though.)


• 1 Tablespoon Chili Powder


• 3 Tablespoons Garam Marsala


• 1 stick butter


• 1/2 pint heavy whipping cream


• 2 teaspoons salt


• 1/3 cup canola oil

I know, I know. This is NOT one of my healthier recipes!

The key to this recipe was patience. I started out by grabbing my largest frying pan and dumping approximately 1/3 cup of canola oil into the bottom of it. I turned the fire up to a low/medium heat, and started chopping onions. You are going to puree the sauce in a food processor, so just a loose chop is fine. I threw the onions in, and because onions cook faster than garlic, I waited until they were translucent to put my garlic and grated ginger in. I let they go a little longer, and then put half a stick of the butter into the pan with me. I kept on just cooking it on a nice low heat until it was nice and caramelly looking, and then I added the spices. I opened my tomatoes, drained all the juice off, and put them in the frying pan with the onions. I cooked it for maybe ten to fifteen minutes longer, and then took the frying pan off the heat. While that was cooling, I chopped my chicken into about one inch cubes, and threw those into a crock pot. Once the onion and tomato mixture was cool enough to handle it, I put it in a food processor and whirred it until it was pureed, but not liquefied. I put the puree in the crock pot with the chicken, stirred it all up, and set it on high. I waited about half an hour, and then put the other half of the butter into the crock pot. I stirred every once and a while, and when the chicken started to look kind of done, I put on rice. (NOTE: the chicken only took about an hour and a half to cook, so keep a pretty close eye on it.) About ten minutes before I took the chicken off the heat, I added the cream, tasted the mixture, and added a bit more garam marsala and chili powder. When the rice was done, I set the rice maker and the crock pot on the table along with some Nan and let people go to town.

The Rice

Some people are rice challenged. I am definitely one of those people. I have a small rice maker with a 5 cup capacity. I had never made all 5 cups of rice, and I learned that I need to put in a bit less liquid when I do that. My rice was a bit um. Mushy. So my advice is, make sure you completely know your appliances before using them to prepare food for guests.

The Nan

Not all of you may know what this is. It is an Indian flat bread that you get in pretty much any Indian restaurant. You can buy them at most any international grocery store. However, my friend managed to find it at Trader Joe's, and I must say, it was fantastic. He got regular Nan, and then a garlic Nan. I put them in a very low oven (175 degrees F) for about fifteen minutes, and pulled them out when I was ready to serve everything else.

Dessert

I made Italian Cream Cake. It is wonderful enough to deserve its own post.

The Final Conclusion

It was basically an awesome little party. And I was gratified to see people come back for seconds, and in one case, thirds. I'm betting I could have done better, and certainly next time, I may make some changes, but I think this was pretty terrific for a first try. Not to mention, I love my friends, and everyone really had fun.

NOTE: I didn't take the pictures until the next day. The sauce had soaked into the rice, and it looked more like porridge, than beautiful chicken pieces and orange sauce over rice.