350 Degrees Challenged

Its been about 10 months now living in the "indoor campsite" and I'm getting starved for the use of an oven. I have to make do with store bought baked goods. Like Costco's chicken, which is delicious to me since they brine it before roasting it, but its huge. I think it's almost bigger than my campsite refrigeratorette. I have to eat a lot of chicken before I can get it in that little thing. I'm not talking so much about eating roasted foods but actually cooking them.

I miss my roasted garlic chicken, roasted potatoes and vegetables and baked chicken thighs with feta, butter and rosemary stuffing. I can't do that here in my little slice of Oasis. I can't pop anything in the oven and walk away and come back in 45 minutes to a golden piece of baked or roasted joy.

One day, when I get somewhere kitchen blessed, I'll roast and bake the day away for a good 6 months. Appreciate your oven for me. When you pull something yummy out of your oven, think of me. When you bite into a luscious bit of crispy golden roasted chicken skin, send a thought my way. You really don't know how precious your oven is to me.

I browse online to look at ovens. Aww, sad isn't it.

Rusted Caste Iron Chef

Somehow teh last too days of Asian cookin wur a stunnin, horibl, mess for me. Me needs to tink on it a lot. I hurt my head just tinking on it real gud.

Chef din like anyting I did xcept my plate wuz hot when I had to present my fud. I felled purty yucky.

On the other hand however, I thought it was a good plate and I think "someone" had a grudge against a strong-minded determined lady (who shall remain nameless) wink, wink...

Anyway, I'll never again make Burmese Fusion food. We all had to pick a sheet of paper that had the country on it and the protein we needed to cook with. A fun idea that crashed and burned all the way. What was that? You want to know what Burmese Fusion food is? SO DO I!

It was a futility in cooking Beef Hindu style (a country that don't eat beef). I think the chef picked a name from a pile of us students to pummel and I got the draw. Any normal student would have broke down and melted into the cement floor - but not hardheaded opinionated me. No sirree. I had to rebut his comments and actually explain why I did things my way. He din like dat. Sometimes I wish I could just zip my lip but the darn thing keeps flappin away when it gets all irritated.

So 20 minutes later I threw a twin set of 3 oz of filet mignons topped with a tarragon cayenne herbed butter in the garbage along with the side of mushrooms and onions sauted with a dash of oyster sauce, butter and wine, in addition to layers of sliced red potatoes sauted to a golden brown topped with a dash of sea salt and then a butter lettuce cup with frisee lettuce, blood orange, blanched asparagus and minced shallots covered with a sweet chili sauce mellowed with orange and lime juice. Directly in the Trash, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. The Chef had a monopoly on me. He won all the apartments and houses and my icon was the shoe that got booted. Waa. Whine. I think I'll buy him a little Chef Hat statue with "E Tu Brutal" engraved on it.

But, it is all now over. Next class is only two weeks long and is another computer/math thing called Culinary Management. Math is not my favorite subject so I expect I'll look for Motrin on sale somewhere. After that we have one week of Wine II. I think we learn how to pair wine with cheeses and such. No cooking for another 3 weeks. That means I can grow fingernails again. With so much to look forward to.... kidding.

Easy Summer Dish

Its been too hot to cook until today. I wanted something quick, easy and tasty. By definition that always has something to do with garlic for me.

I bought a couple of Pork Medallions at the market and a quick bag of microwave veggies. No fuss here. I seasoned the pork with oregano, basil, sea salt, garlic powder and fresh cracked pepper. I put it in a small pan with Pam spray and covered it on a bit lower than medium. The cover helps make some juice from the pork. I cooked them about 10 min. per side and checked the pork for doneness after to make sure when pricked that the juices ran clear.

I sprayed a glass pie dish with Pam and added the veggies, cut the bigger pieces so all were even shaped to cook evenly. The potatoes should have been cut smaller since they cook longer but I cooked them about 10 minutes more than the veggies in the end. Since it's so warm it was fine, not too hot. I added coarse cut garlic to the veggies and about 2 tblspns of melted butter, salt and pepper. I cook the veggies at 400 degrees for 10 minutes then toss them and cook for another 10 min.

Basically, there is little preparation time and in 20 minutes you're sitting down to eat. I like the pan juices when the pork is done so I added a splash of water (or red wine) to deglaze it and pour the juice over the medallions to keep them moist. Nothing I hate more than dry pork.

Easy, simple, yummy. Enjoy.