Month: April 2005

Mm. There’s few things nicer than a slice of toasted homemade bread with some special Hawaii honey. Thank, Lydia! See pictures from her awesome vacation on her blog here.

I can make Alton’s bread in a day if I mix the yeast/honey/flour/water starter before work and stick it in the fridge. The loaf ends up finished at around 10 or 11pm.

So, one of the perks with my new job is that I can ride the train for free. Woohoo! It’s a seven-minute train ride followed by a 20-minute walk, or a less time-consuming free shuttle. But it’s a nice walk. And yay, exercise/fresh air/blah. If I had a bike, I’d be unstoppable. I could take the train up to Redwood City and tear up the two miles to my brother’s house.

I need to finish typing up the damn chicken parmesan recipe. If anything, it’ll mean I can stop lugging around this big heavy cookbook. “Sarah, why don’t you just photocopy the pages?” Well then, where would my impetus go? If I would just do it… argh. Today at lunch. (Okay, it’s up.)

D&D tonight.

Chicken Parmesan
Adapted from The Best Recipe (I prefer to brine rather than pound the chicken)

1/2 cup table salt
1/2 gallon water
4 trimmed chicken breasts (4 to 5 oz. each)
1 large egg
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 – 1 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3/4 cup grated part-skim mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese, plus extra for serving
Simple Tomato Sauce
Some sort of strand pasta

Combine the table salt and water in a large bowl and stir to combine. Add the chicken to the brine and move the container to the refrigerator. Brine for a half hour. (During this time, make the sauce and pasta- or at least get the water ready for the pasta.) Remove chicken from the brine and pat dry.

Beat egg and a heaping 1/4 teaspoon salt in a shallow dish until completely broken up. Mix bread crumbs, another heaping 1/4 teaspoon salt, and a few grinds of black pepper in another shallow dish. Dip the chicken breasts into the egg and coat both sides, then move to the bread crumbs, coating both sides. Set the chicken on a large wire rack set over a jelly-roll pan.

Move oven rack to second position from the top and turn on the broiler.

In a 12-inch skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. When the oil starts to shimmer, add the chicken. Cook on each side about 3 minutes, or until golden brown. Clean the wire rack and place it back over the jelly-roll pan. Place the chicken on the wire rack and top with the mozzarella and parmesan cheeses. Broil until cheese melts and is spotty brown, about three minutes.

To serve, toss the pasta with a little bit of the sauce. Make a base of the pasta, place the chicken on top with extra sauce and parmesan cheese. Serve.

Simple Tomato Sauce
Adapted from The Best Recipe

2-4 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 – 1 cup chopped onion
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1 28-oz. can crushed tomatoes
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/4 tsp dried oregano
Dash of red wine
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Small dash of balsamic vinegar or sugar (optional, use if you want a sweeter sauce)
Wee pinch of instant coffee (optional, use if your sauce is too sweet)

Add the olive oil to a saucepan and place over medium head. Add the onion and cook, stirring, until soft, about 2 to 3 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the tomatoes, basil, oregano, wine, and red pepper flakes (optional). Cook for about 10 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. Add the sweetening or bittering ingredients if you want. Simmer longer if it’s too watery. Keep warm while making whatever you’re making.

In case you’re wondering what they’re referring to in the first panel of today’s Penny Arcade, check it out here.

As for the next two panels, they reminded me of how a month or so ago, Jeremy and I were at a used bookstore. We were looking at their comics and D&D books, which were in the same general section.

Me: Wow, they’ve got a lot of Gravitation. Such a pity I find that series totally annoying.
Jer: (picks up a random volume and starts flipping through)
Me: Uh, I don’t think you’re going to like that.
Jer: (finishes flipping, puts it back on the shelf)
Me: Well?
Jer: Yeah, you’re right.

Gabe and Tycho just had that exchange in a more violent manner. Made me smile.

I made chicken parmesan on Thursday night. It was really, really good. I’ll post the recipe later. I’m currently making bread- Alton Brown’s bread from Good Eats. I’ll let you know how it turns out. I may make lemon curd as well, while the dough is rising.

I did make lemon curd, using lemons from Grant and Val’s trees. Thank you! Tasty stuff. I left out the lemon zest for a smoother texture. And let me tell you, a good way to deter door-to-door religious folk is to answer the door while whisking a steaming bowl of yellow. “Oh, I don’t have time for this now. If I stop stirring, this’ll turn into scrambled eggs. Sorry!” Curiously enough, they only come when I’m cooking. Last time, I was elbow-deep in dough.

Hee! Oh, my bread has just come out of the oven. Three-quarters of it is pretty, but it looks like it has a tumor or something in the remaining quarter. I think I need to work on my loaf-slashing technique.

Another week, another batch of Katamari Damacy cosplay pictures.

Ichigo. Nice head, but I’m kind of meh on the rest of it.

Katamari Cake! As soon as I saw this, I had to show Ryan and ask her if she had anything that might help me do this (but better). Lo, she has a spherical cake mold. We’ll see if I ever make it. Lydia and I still want to have a Katamari Party with bizarre KD-inspired drinks.

Finally, it’s over. Jer’s campaign ended last night at about 12:30am. It took us, I think, six months to get through it all. And I’m still puzzled about a lot of it. Merreck died again, Mynnyd was unable to get to the battle again, (damn you, Bigby’s Interposing Hand!) Cooper almost died three times, and Sagittarius… well, I guess he didn’t do anything “again,” but he was very impressive using jillions and jillions of arrows. Oh, maybe he almost killed himself disabling a trap again. Anyway, we’re done. We saved Manifest. Woo, us. And we all lived happily ever after. (Apparently. Although according to Jer’s epilogue, Mynnyd and Merreck take off together to find dragons and explore the land where Mynnyd’s clan lived. I just can’t see a barbarian and a wizard getting along all that well. Mynnyd would have to take a level of ranger, or something, because Merreck often needs healing. [A barbarian can’t wield a wand, but a ranger can.])

Next week, we’re going to roll up our Arcana Unearthed characters for Scott’s campaign. I’m interested in being a Verrik witch, but we’ll see.

Ee, they’re adding a new show to TWoP, and the forums are down. Please let it be House. Or Farscape, even though it’s been dead a while. I hope it’s House. That’d be keen.

No, it was Revelations, the heaven vs. hell show coming soon on NBC. Damn.

I made a couple curries Friday night. Aloo Matar and a variation on the Massaledarh Sambhar. I poached chicken in its more soupy form while it reduced. It never got quite as thick as I wanted, though. I’m not eating it today, though, because I forgot to make rice. Tonight, then. I also made sourdough bread over Friday night and Saturday morning. It turned out… weirdly pale again. So I turned the broiler on and nearly burnt the top. The bottom crust is still as white as I am. I don’t get it. It’s getting placed on a rocket-hot pizza stone! Why doesn’t it brown?

Went over to visit Lydia (and by extension, Zack) on Saturday. I brought the less burnt loaf of bread as well as my reserved pale loaf from the first time I made it. They thought it was decent, I thought they were being kind. I finally got caught up with them in watching Yakitate!! (And sweet Jesus, in my thread over at TWoP, someone said, “Someone should really change the title of this thread to Yakitate!! Japan.” JEEZ. SORRY. I really don’t think we’re going to get someone saying something completely off topic and then going, “Oh, dear. I’m sorry. I thought this was the Yakitate!! Australia thread.” [Sorry, bitter. I’m probably going to get the same sort of flack for my Tsubasa thread.]) It’s such a cute show. And I love the new ending, with the manager Ken disco dancing to some surprisingly funky music.

Lydia and I went out for lunch to a soda fountain, which had rather disappointing food and drinks that were slightly too sweet (well, my orange Julius was, I don’t know about Lydia’s purple cow), but which was amusing all the same. Then we went to Jeremy’s, which is… I don’t know, like a consigment store? There were used and new designer clothes there. I bought two dresses, a hat, and a pair of boots. All J. Crew, I believe, and it cost me forty-seven dollars total. Lydia bought a shirt and a sterling and rose quartz ring. The dresses were eight dollars apiece. Lydia talked me into the hat, because it matched well to one of them. Actually, my scarf will also match, if I ever finish it. I know, me in dresses, sign of the apocolypse.

Walked around Mountain View yesterday, judging books by their covers. I was looking at the outside of apartment buildings. There weren’t any that looked particularly nice. The area is lovely, but the individual complexes generally looked crappy. Oh, well. I’ll look again at some point with fresh eyes. I got tired, went over to Rob and Jer’s to sit, and then it started raining. Jon and Ryan called and asked if I wanted to come over and eat and see their pretty new car. We watched some Cheap Seats. I think the Sklar brothers are cute.