Sunday, January 15, 2012

pumpkin bread, ramekins, and a new semester


Quick breads, for whatever reason (maybe my banana bread attempt that turned up a still gummy middle but burned crust? or maybe because of Amanda's highly entertaining posts like this), tend to scare me more than yeast breads, but yesterday I stood up to that fear and made pumpkin bread using this recipe from Mel's Kitchen Cafe. It was delish! Not burned! Also, I made glazed carrots using this Martha Stewart recipe (minus the red wine vinegar because I didn't have any), and oh. my. gosh. Never have carrots tasted so good. Even Aaron liked them, and that my friends, is saying a lot. 

I think I've made some cooking progress this year trying scary things like
a lot of yeast breads (but no homemade bread actually), 
a roast (do you know how expensive roasts are, though?! I will probably not make another one for a long time), 
a roux for homemade macaroni and this amazing tomato-basil parmesan soup
caramels with the scary candy thermometer!

I think this year I want to make a cheesecake (since I own two springform pans that have never been used), pie crust, chicken en papillote, and cook salmon. Salmon scares me because it is expensive, and I will never forgive myself if I screw up $12 worth of fish. Oh, and maybe creme brulee since I also own a set of ramekins, but have been using them to serve toppings for Hawaiian haystacks and melt butter in the microwave. 

Obviously, I am a master chef.

In other news, we're back at school, and it's been surprisingly low key. Even Aaron is done with studying before 7 PM, and we've watched half of the first season of "Community" in the past two days.   I'm just biding my time until I find out what lab I'm in, actually have to start doing lab work and TAing, and my inorganic chemistry class starts kicking my butt. Until then, grad school is the best!

Do you have any recipes you're excited to try out this year? Has school been deceptively easy for you too? Are you officially done with school forever and your life is amazing?! Tell me about it. :)

8 comments:

Jen Jones said...

Not going to lie, Daniel and I were a little upset that you just stood there with your pumpkin bread under our noses today. I have one goal for february - to make LOTS of cupcakes, we should have a cupcake date then.

amanda said...

Nice job! I like this. Maybe I will have to post in foods I want to conquer this year. Go roux! That took a few times but I got it. Mmm, those carrots sound good. Aaand cheesecake and cream brûlée. Yummy. (wow the iPhone totally added those accents. Hope they are right :)). Let me k ow what you try!!

amanda said...

Sorry...so chatty but do they have small frozen fish fillets? Those arent any more expensive (at least here) than other meats. And we use tin foil in the oven and our fish are usually fine! Good luck!

Laura C said...

Congrats! That bread looks yummy. So good to see you at our little roomie reunion the other day. I'm definitely going to have to steal that tomato-basil soup recipe sometime.

School this semester has been...crazy, but still way fun. Internship recruiters come in 9 days and I know I'm more ready than I feel, but I don't feel ready at all.

Sara said...

That all looks and sounds delicious! And I should definitely try those carrots if Aaron even liked them! This year I'd really like to tackle homemade sandwich bread (for some reason that scares me) and croissants (if I ever have 14 spare hours). I'm glad school is going well!

Naomi Martineau said...

whatever you love school nd you know it ;) I can't wait until I get back into it. I have a ton of cheesecake recipes I love.I'm slightly obsessed....LOL I'm glad Aaron has branched out from his rice with soy sauce and butter

Unknown said...

You're cute.

ellen said...

I'm mailing you a recipe book I made. ALL desserts.