First night of recipes

Well, day one was 1/10/2010. I made Linguine with Shrimp Scampi, Parmesan Chicken and Angel Food Cake. I've never made an angel food cake from scratch before... it called for a cup and a half of egg whites. GASP! I have to say though I'm not a fan of the kitchen aide stand mixers. I've never felt it thoroughly mixes through things. As I was mixing the whites it said to make it so they were soft peaks or about 1 minute. Well I mixed them for one minute but I failed to make sure they were soft peaks. As I was mixing everything else though it seemed ok, the batter was getting thick and looked like the consistency I'm use to seeing with the boxed Angel Food cake. It was delicious, however it was very dense. But that must be the difference between scratch Angel Food cake and the boxed mix. I have to say that it was way too much to make all of those. Actually, I had already pounded out the chicken a couple of days ago because it was meant to be for the night before. It was pretty therapeutic I must say to pound out the chicken hahaha but it's so true. Hammering away at it just felt good. I was using our almost antique meat tenderizer and I'd have to screw the top on every so often. :) But it still works fine.

Than for the Shrimp Scampi I had used frozen shrimp and the recipe called for fresh shrimp cleaned and debained. Ho hum so that took more work to peel the shrimp and boil them a little first to make it easier to peel. I didn't fully realize how tired I was til we were all in the kitchen and it got a little crazy. It's usually my dad in the kitchen cooking and I'm only in there to bake. It'll be some getting use to. I have to say major kuddos to Julie Powell... I was looking at that cookbook today at work and it is AMBITIOUS. That's putting it lightly. Doing Ina's books will be a little more my style. I never felt a connection with Julia Child's. Probably because when her show was on I was quite young. But she most certainly is a beloved legend, that's for sure.

It was pretty funny/disrespectful (unintentional) because as we were finally sitting down to eat and my mom started her prayer I burst hysterically into laughter/tears. It was completely unintentional and I couldn't stop. I had invited my uncle over for dinner because I felt like we had all this food it would be nice to share it with someone else. I'm so thankful he was my first guest for this project. Luckily he didn't take offense at the fact that I bust into laughter during my mother's prayer. hahaha After laughing I just started tearing up and from now on it's one recipe a night like Julie did. Otherwise I just know I'm going to get burnt out. I took some pictures and going to post them now for you to see. Everything was extremely tasty. Cooking the chicken in the pan with butter is seriously the easiest way to make Chicken. It was funny also because we were having a five minute debate on the difference between Parmesan Chicken and Chicken Parm. Chicken Parm is usually classified with marinara sauce and melted cheese on top where as what I made was just doing the egg wash with Parmesan cheese added to the bread crumbs. It made the most tender chicken I'd ever eaten. I've been asked by my Uncle Richard to say how well it was pair with his homemade Dandelion Wine. :) He has become an expert at wine making I must say. He also mentioned it was the best shrimp scampi he had in while (I was pleasantly shocked). He said that unfortunately the restaurants now are making the scampi with a red sauce which he feels kind of ruins it for him at least. I personally enjoy the original style of scampi the way we had it last night. :)

Day 2 1/11/2010. I'm simply going to make granola bars. Something healthy and not so heavy like last night. I love that it calls for a 1/2 a cup of honey though. Those reading this who know me, knows how much a sweet tooth I have. But for these they have dried cranberries, slivered almonds and apricots. I've actually never eaten an apricot before. Hmm, eventually I also want to try a mango, I've never had one of those either. I also love that you can store granola bars for a while. I'm bringing a few of them to some friends of mine for them to enjoy as well :)

So that was the first night. Whenever I write a new blog post it reminds me how much I enjoy writing. Anyone out there reading me? I hope you enjoy the pictures :) You can view pictures from my Flickr account I just created. It seemed better than the way the pics looked on my profile. Here is the site address http://www.flickr.com/photos/inspiredbyina/

Til next time, good night friends :)