Cheers! I'm in England!

So, I'm sorry for never posting about the lemon pie. Long story short it was good, but no one ate it so I had to throw it out eventually. My bad!

I'm in England! A semester abroad and loving it, I cooked something for dinner tonight in an experimental state of mind and then suddenly thought, "Shit, I should blog this. I haven't done that in forever." I think I'm calling it Balsamic Honey Chicken, but I still need to tweak it a bit. There was something missing, and I don't know if it was a potato or red onion instead of white.

What you'll need:
1 Chicken breast, cut into bite-sized chunks.
3ish tsp of honey
3-4 tbsp of balsamic vinegar? I'm not sure, I just added what I thought looked good.
2 tbsp of butter (mine was salted. Sorry, don't kill me, I stole it from a flatmate)
1 small white onion diced into tiny bits.

Start by melting the butter, then add the onion. Let it sautee and get kind of translucent, and when it starts to brown move on to the next step. Add the vinegar, just enough to surround the onion I guess, then add in the honey. Let that reduce some and thicken a bit, and taste it to make sure you have it right. It should be kinda sweet, but not overpoweringly so. Add more vinegar if you want to take the sweet out, add honey to amp it up. When that's reduced some and is starting to thicken, add your chicken! Cook the chicken all the way through, and then put it all on a plate to eat.

I was going to make some rice to go with this, but I got lazy. I think that might have helped, or at least filled me up more. I've been really hungry lately. Feel free to try this out and if you go red onion and it's better, then I get a point! If you add a potato to the mix, also cut up and you cook it with the chicken, then I get a point also. If you do rice, I get 3 points, because I felt like making rice more valuable. If you do something else entirely then let me know so I can try it again!

ENJOY, and CHEERS!

PS: No pics, sorry, I decided to blog this after I started eating and I didn't want to get my camera from my room.

Perfect Pie Crust!

Dear sweet Jesus I have been so busy and/or too lazy to cook at all lately! I feel as if I've let myself, and you, down. SO! Today I bring you the recipe for perfect homemade pie crust, because TOMORROW I will be showing you how to make a lemon lavender pie!

This pie was a several month long wait for me and my fellow Baking Queen Nicki, but last time it proved to be difficult and turned out disappointing. This time I changed a few things, and I'm flying solo - though not by choice. Nicki, if you're reading this, we need to bake IMMEDIATELY! That being said -

Things you'll need:
3 sticks of butter, diced (unsalted only! duh)
3 1/2 c of flour
1/4 c sugar
1 t salt
1 T white or cider vinegar (I used cider both times, and it was perfect)
1/3 c ice water

Put the flour, salt, sugar, and 1 stick of butter into a food processor and process that shit until it looks like it's mixed. Then add the other 2 sticks of butter, and mix some more. Just guess as to when it's all mixed because with all of the flour mixture you won't really be able to tell. Then add the vinegar, mix, and add the water while everything is still spinning around. Dump it out onto the counter, mush and mash it all into a solid piece of dough (but not too roughly, there should still be butter chunks) and wrap in plastic wrap (I used foil. It works...). Pop that sucker into the fridge for AT LEAST an hour before using. Mine's going to wait overnight because I'm not baking the pie until tomorrow!

I am SO sorry.

So I have been a terrible blogger/chef. I have not been cooking a lot lately, and when I did - I forgot to photograph it. I know, that's a dumb excuse, but I need to show pictures. Just to let you know what I've been doing, I made Pavlova twice (once good, once bad), and salmon (for the first time ever). I will definitely be doing these things again, and VERY soon. Hopefully I can start being a good person and remember to take pictures.

Coming soon: Pigs in a Blanket!

Scones... a month later...

I made these forever ago, but I haven't had a chance to be around an internet source and have my camera at the same time. It's unbelievable, I know, but I'm just bad at that kind of thing. It usually takes me a year and a half to charge my dead iPod, so you're lucky.

So, today I present SCONES! Orange blackberry to be exact! It was a rainy spring day, and nothing goes better with rain than a freshly baked scone and coffee or tea. However I didn't get around to the beverage portion, and I ended up cracking my phone screen in the process... C'est la vie.

What you'll need:

• 2 cups flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons shortening
• 3/4 cup cream
• 1 egg
• The zest of 1 orange
• some blackberries!

Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a large mixing bowl and mix to your heart's content. If your heart does not wish to mix, then put it in time out because you've got to get this done. Now cut in the butter and shortening using a baker's cutting in tool thing. The weird knife-like brass-knuckle thing. you know what I'm talking about! In another bowl, a fairly small one will suffice, beat your egg and cream together, then add to the dry ingredients. Throw in the zest, then give it one good last mix around the bowl. Toss that sucker onto a well floured surface (Really well floured, it's super sticky) and roll it out to about 1/2-1/4 inch thick. Cut it into either biscuit sized rounds or the more traditional triangle shape. Before putting them in the oven, add a blackberry or two to the top of each scone. Then pop those delicious babies into a 375 oven for 15 minutes.

Belated Pi(e) Day celebration!

To celebrate pi(e) day, March 14th for anyone not into math holidays, I was told to make a pie. It had to be pretty, and someone wanted pumpkin. I instead made a Tart Berry pie! I had the assistance of my good friend Kelsey, as well as her kitchen. Yay not shitty ovens! It's tart because I used more lemon and lime than was suggested in the recipe I found, but who cares? Lemons are perfect.

What you'll need:

2 pie crusts (one frozen pack from the store has 2 inside! Convenience, man)

2 plastic containers of blackberries

1 container of raspberries

1 lemon

1 lime

1 cup of sugar

3 tablespoons of cornstarch

1 egg for an egg wash

Zest your lemon and your lime, then juice half of each. Put that with the sugar, cornstarch, and berries in a bowl, stir, and let it sit for 20-ish minutes. Stir it every once in a while, mash the berries a bit, but mostly just let it chillax. In the mean time, put one disc of crust in your pie pan/tin and trim the edges. Cut the other disc into strips about 1.5 inches wide. Also, preheat your oven to 400 and put a baking sheet in there to heat up. When your filling is all relaxed and well rested, tell it it has to get baked, then pour it into the prepared crust. Top it with the strips formed into a lattice pattern, and then rub some beaten egg across the dough. Wrap the edges with foil to prevent burning, and pop that sucker in the oven on the baking sheet and let it cook for about 45 minutes.

*If you want to make this go over the top, as about 1 teaspoon of nutmeg. It gives it a small kick that makes this better than your average pie

Frozen is your Friend

Erika in my awesome chef coat.

So I just want to make this clear: I buy frozen and prepared foods. Half the time they're cheaper and they often give you more time with people when you'r cooking for other than yourself. Trust me. Last night I hung out with Erika at midnight and we made scones that were from a freezer. They are the best scones I've had in months. Literally.

What you'll need:
Scone dough from the store fridge

Preheat over to 350. Bake the scones for 20 minutes. If your package says otherwise, then follow the package.

Spring has Sprung, and so has Sickness

So Boyfriend started getting sick last night, and he still is today. Because I'm me, I keep asking him if I can do anything, bring him anything, if wants anything, etc. I offer to make him chicken noodle soup, and he consents. The only drawback? Today is the first absolutely perfect day of spring! And here I am inside making a hot chicken noodle soup instead of some deliciously cool salad or pasta dish. But it's for Boyfriend, so I don't mind. And it's tastes delicious, so it's not so bad.

What you'll need:
2 quarts chicken broth
2 chicken breasts, cooked and cubed
6 oz of wide/extra wide egg noodles
1/2 cup diced carrots
1/2 cup diced onion (I used red, because it's pretty)
1/2 cup diced celery
1 tsp rosemary
1 pinch of thyme
salt/pepper to taste

Simmer your broth and throw in the onions, celery, and carrots, rosemary and thyme, and let it cook around for a little bit, maybe 10 minutes? I don't know, i just had hot broth and threw stuff in as I finished chopping it up, then it all sat and waited for the chicken to cook. Once you think it has been doing its thing long enough, bring it to a boil and add your noodles and cook for 5 minutes. After that add your chicken, stir it around so it looks like you're working, and then it's ready to eat. You can let the chicken chill out for a few minutes in the soup if you want, it's up to you.

The thing to remember is that this is a soup. That means you can add ANYTHING YOU WANT. Yes, that's right, anything. Soup is the perfect dish to get crazy with, because it can almost never turn out bad, so throw in some parsnips, potatoes, radishes, peas, whatever food is in your fridge/freezer or that your stomach is absolutely begging for!