Sick birds don't cook

A lot has been happening, but not in my kitchen. I've been sick and incredibly grumpy because of it. Grumpy birds are dangerous. I've been downing cough drops, tea, and every cold medication I can find, but nothing seems to be helping. I just hope I'm not contagious, or my office is going to be very angry at me.

The week hasn't been a total loss: I beat Portal 2. Yes, this is a cooking blog, and I probably shouldn't dedicate an entire post to video games. But I don't think you really want me to detail how I ate nothing rice and beans this week, either.

Ye gods, that game was absolutely everything I could have hoped it would be. GLaDOS was perfect and witty all over again, it was a full-length game, there were more than two characters, and my Cube, my beautiful angel returned, and... oh, too many amazing things. It's inspired me to go play through the Half-Life series. I've started Half-Life: Source twice now, but never gotten past the 'Blast Pit' chapter. Hopefully this time I'll pull through. I'm also probably going to do something crafty in honor of the Companion Cube, but don't expect that for a few months. I'm rather slow.

I'm also extremely tempted to make Portal cupcakes, but my ideas aren't terribly creative right now. I'm also only 12 pounds away from my weight-loss goal, so cupcakes aren't exactly the best idea right now. Maybe if I made whole-wheat cupcakes. Although I think muffins are much better suited to being whole wheat, don't you?

I think that whole-wheat bread tastes much better than white. Many of my friends agree with me, but I know at least one who thinks whole-wheat is disgusting. For a while I thought he was absolutely insane, but then I remembered bananas nauseate me, and I can't stand the taste of egg. We've all got our food quirks, and I didn't really think the 'whole-wheat versus white' would ever be a problem. And it hasn't been. Until I decided to make calzones for our weekly get together, and I showed up with four pounds of whole-wheat dough.

I mentioned a few posts ago that I had bought a copy of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, and I bet you thought I hadn't used it yet. I've only used it once so far since our house is usually swimming in carbs, but I can't wait until I have an opportunity to make it again.

I am curious/nervous about using generic flour instead of King Arthur for making dough, though. I'll have to experiment on it and see how much of a difference in taste it makes.



This time I used 90% King Arthur flour. I had to top off the last cup of unbleached flour with some generic stuff, and this turned out fine.

I've read on a few blogs now that measuring out and preparing all of your ingredients before starting to actually cook is a big time-saver, and a much better way to cook. I'm trying to get in that habit, so we'll see if it really helps me. We'll see if I remember to do it more than once.



I hadn't really messed with yeast before arbitrarily deciding to make four pounds of dough. Except that time I made naan. I'm still trying to gain confidence in working with yeast, so... I took a picture at what the yeast mixture looked like at this point so I would know what to look for in the future. I swear I'm not crazy, just planning for the future.

Do crazy people say that? I hope not.



One thing I've learned in my short bread-making experience is that dough is always stickier than I expect it to be. Without fail, it will stick to my hands in new and creative ways, and I will be stuck with half of the dough on my fingers. I keep saying I've learned my lesson and that I'll use more flour in the future, but... it hasn't happened yet.

I made this dough on a Sunday night, for dinner on Tuesday. I kept it covered in the fridge, and it was very hard for me to not check on it every hour on Monday, but I managed somehow. Not that peeling the top back would have hurt it, probably. Bread is still a mystery.



For some reason, I've been on a vegetarian streak this week. I haven't had any meat since Sunday, when we had Easter ham. The truth is that I haven't wanted to cook because I don't want to spread my plague, and since I dislike cooking for just myself I've been eating incredibly simple dishes, à la rice and beans. But I promised to not bore you with those details.

In all seriousness, I've been eating more meatless meals because I know how many calories meat can bring to the table, and I've realized it doesn't have to be the focus of every meal. There was plenty of chicken available for the calzones, and I opted to not use any. Just sriracha, spinach, onions, and cheese. And I didn't miss the meat at all.

Mind you, I still could happily eat nothing but meat for an entire day. I've just learned that meat isn't the end-all be-all of culinary experiences.



Remember to poke holes in your calzones if you don't want them to explode. Because they can, and they will. These were incredibly simple to make, and were pretty fun to do with a group of friends. I'm curious if they'd freeze well. I really hope so, because I've been crazing a buffalo chicken calzone and if that turns out well, I see many in my future...

Today's lessons learned:

• Dough is sticky. Use a lot of flour on your hands.
  

CthulhuTech Punch

In case you have someone avoided noticing this, I spend a lot of time looking at pictures of food online. Sometimes I branch out and look at pictures of drinks online.



(In case the mountain of dice in the background of this picture didn't alert you, my friends and I are sort of nerdy.)

We've been playing a game called CthulhuTech for a while now. Not quite a year, but more than nine months. It's nice to know that we'll all get to see each other twice a month, and since someone is always driving at least an hour, we normally make everyone dinner, too. Darth Bird made us 100% homemade lasagna the first time, which may or may not have ruined me for the lasagna of mere mortals. And... a bird I have not yet named made delicious German Beef Rouladen and spätzle. I have made boring safe things, like Sriracha Joes and meatball sandwiches. But so far, everything has been completely amazing.

But apparently just cooking for friends wasn't enough for me, because I branched out into looking at drinks. And I came across Kaiser Penguin's website, and a drink he called Cthulhu Punch. And I automatically knew that there was no way our group could get away with not drinking that immediately. It became affectionately known as 'our rum dream.'

CthulhuTech Punch adapted from Kaiser Penguin

1 ounce Appleton V/X

1 ounce El Dorado 15-year

1 ounce Kraken rum

1 ounce Aalborg Akvavit

1 ounce blood orange juice

1/2 ounce lime juice

1 ounce creme de almond

2 dashes Angostura bitters

1. Shake with ice, and pour.
   

So boozey. The original called for Kummel, but we could not find that. It also used orgeat syrup, and I could not find any and just substituted something with an almond flavor because I didn't want to try to make it, despite the instructions on the site. The nice thing about making this with a group of friends was that everyone bought just one bottle of rum (except Darth Bird, who was thoroughly committed to the dream), so it wasn't terribly expensive. I was a bit afraid of first, thinking that was that so rum in it the drink would be amazingly overpowering. But with all those different boozes mixed in the bite of the alcohol was nearly gone, leaving just the flavor. The blood orange and lime gave it a great citrus kick too. We are definitely going to make more of these next time we're nerding out.

Today's lessons learned:

• Some states have strange liquor laws.
  

Spinach Stuffed Chicken

Last week, I went above and beyond the call of duty and planned a whole week of menus for my family, which was mostly just Mama Bird and I. I also went above and beyond the Call of Duty to fight Nazi Zombies, but that's hardly related. (We only survived to round twelve. I am not very good at fighting Nazi Zombies, apparently.)

One of the things I had planned on making last week was Broccoli Stuffed Chicken, not that I had any particular recipe picked out for it. It just sounded cool, and I wanted to try it. But Mama Bird pointed out we didn't have broccoli, just spinach, and both of us were too lazy to go to Giant to buy any. So we decided to make spinach stuffed chicken. It's got more alliteration to it, anyhow. And because I am brave and bold, I opted to not use a recipe. (Mama Bird advised me a lot. A lot.)

And it turned out pretty good! You can't tell from these pictures, as I'm a terrible photographer, but... use your imagination. They honestly weren't complicated: pound some chicken breasts so they're sort of flat, put cheese on them, and then put spinach on the cheese. Fold it, toothpick it, put bread crumbs on them if you do desire, and put em in the oven until they're done! Then eat. I'd advise you let them cool, but hey, what do I know.

I put pepper jack in mine, and Mama Bird got swiss, since she tells me I make things too spicy sometimes. I thought it was awesome with pepper jack, it gave it a little kick that it totally needed.

A not so artsy picture of them coming out of the oven. Notice the pool of melted cheese, breadcrumbs, and chicken juice in the middle. Poor planning on my part.

And this highlights the other problem I had with it: the folded end was just entirely chicken, no spinach. So I think next time I might mess around with cutting the chicken and trying to make a chicken sandwich. Yes, I know, not quite the idea, but it'd be interesting, wouldn't it? We'll see what happens.

Spinach Stuffed Chicken from the Bird
(Serves 2, approximately $4.93 per serving)
Ingredients

2 chicken breasts

3 ounces baby spinach

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

1 teaspoon onion flakes

2 slices Pepperjack, or desired cheese

1/2 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs

Directions

1. Boil or steam spinach.
   
2. While spinach is cooking, flatten chicken breasts as much as possible.
   
3. Place a piece of cheese on each breast.
   
4. Remove spinach from pot or steamer, and mix with Italian seasoning and onion flakes.
   
5. Spoon spinach onto cheese, and fold chicken breast over.
   
6. Secure with toothpick.
   
7. Sprinkle breadcrumbs over top.
   
8. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes, or until done.
   

Today's lessons learned:

• 'Flatten chicken' does not mean do it until you're bored, it means flatten the chicken.