Week 32: Your Favorites - Thanksgiving Leftover Sandwiches [Cooking]

Intro from Cooking Challenge: This week’s theme is: your favorites! This is like the free space on a bingo card, so you can cook pretty much anything – your mom’s famous meatloaf, Buffalo wings, banana cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, char siu bao, whatever floats your boat. Hopefully this is enough to inspire you!

My favorite meal, by far, is Thanksgiving dinner. I could probably eat an entire turkey myself, along with all the stuffing, mashed potatoes, yams, corn, and cranberry sauce. However, all the prep involved with Thanksgiving is a bit more than I can manage on a weeknight while balancing school and work, so I opted to make leftover sandwiches. Plus, we all know turkey tastes better the day after anyway!

I picked up a turkey breast and covered it in a marinade of minced garlic, dry mustard, thyme, rosemary, basil, salt, pepper, olive oil, and lemon juice. I roasted it in an oven preheated to 325F for about two hours with a cup of red wine. Once the turkey had rested, I put it in the fridge. A few days later, I baked puff pastries and made sandwiches with sliced turkey, mashed sweet potatoes, and a sliver of cranberry sauce!

Week 31: Breading/Dredging - Panko-Sesame Crusted Cod [Cooking]

Intro from Cooking Challenge: Plainly and simply, breading is the process of coating a food with a dry, grain-based coating to achieve a crispy exterior when cooked. This contrasts with battering, which involves a liquid coating. Coatings could include anything from bread crumbs or cornmeal, to even crazier things Cap'n Crunch or Cheetos. You could go a classic route and try some Classic Fried Chicken, or maybe make your own Mozzarella Sticks. There are countless things you can bread, those to come to mind pretty quickly though.

Breading definitely takes some practice to get the dry hand/wet hand method down, but becomes very easy once you get a rhythm going.
After patting the cod down with a paper towel, I dredged them through:

1. Flour
2. Two eggs whisked
3. A mixture of panko breadcrumbs, roasted sesame seeds, garlic salt, and pepper

After they were coated, I left them in the fridge for about an hour. This is definitely not necessary (I only did it because I wasn't quite ready to eat), but I found the breading stayed on better after firming up in the fridge. I pan fried the fillets in some coconut oil on the stove for about three minutes, browning both sides, and then moved the whole pan to the oven and baked for ten minutes at 425F, flipping once halfway through.

They're served with jasmine rice and a drizzle of balsamic glaze.

Week 32: Donuts - Cinnamon Baked Donuts [Baking]

Intro from Baking Challenge: Hello bakers. I can't believe it is already August! Time flies..like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. Heyooooo. Anyway, this week's challenge is...donuts! Or, doughnuts, depending on your spelling preference. There are so many kinds. There are yeast or cake varieties of batter. There are tons of recipes for baked or fried donuts. If you're not feeling the traditional ring-shaped or filled donuts, how about some donut holes or some zeppole? (fill these with Nutella and eat them while they're still warm, you won't be disappointed!) Be as simple or creative as you feel. Nobody can deny the awesomeness of a simple powdered or glazed donut, but if you're feeling a bit saucy you could try something a little different - like these droolworthy maple bourbon glazed donuts topped with bacon or these french toast cake donuts. Happy baking (and frying)!

After a pretty terrible attempt at frying donuts earlier this year, I decided to make use of my mom's donut pan and bake them this time.  I found this recipe and followed it pretty much to the letter; I came out with about 18 delicious donuts.  And since they're baked, we can pretend they're healthier!

Week 31: Tanabata Festival - Shrimp Okonomiyaki [Baking]

Intro from Baking Challenge: The Tanabata Festival is on Saturday so it's time to expand your baking skills into Japan! Tanabata Festival is the wishing star festival so maybe try making some SPACE JELLY . Or if you want something savoury takoyaki and okonomiyaka are very common festival foods. As for general Japanese desserts, try things such as mochi, cotton soft cheesecake, or melon pans (a bun wrapped in cookie dough!). There's also about a million recipes using green tea, black sesame, or red bean paste. Get out there and make something awesome!

I somewhat followed the recipe here, although I had to make a lot of substitutions based on availability: regular flour and water instead of the Okonomiyaki flour; chopped cabbage, broccoli, and carrots for the veggies; and I added shrimp. I used coconut oil to fry the pancake and had a lot of issues with the batter sticking to the pan. Not sure if that was the fault of the coconut oil, but I might try something different in the future. Also, I wasn't able to find Okonomiyaki sauce, so I followed this recipe to make my own with ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and soy sauce.

Bonus action shot of my pancake falling apart while cooking

For as sloppy as it looks, it actually came out really tasty! It made for a very filling lunch to share.

Week 30: Clean Eating - Pan-Roasted Swordfish with Arugula, Cucumber, Sweet Corn Salad [Cooking]

Intro from Cooking Challenge: It's week 30 and this week we're eating clean! Many of us have heard of it by now, and while it may be considered a fad, it's one of the more interesting fads to come along. Although the term "clean" seems like a silly way to label this type of eating, it is what it is. And here we are. Basically, clean eating is cooking without any highly processed foods. Lots of fruits and vegetables, more whole grains. You know the drill. Try to stay away from things with artificial colors, flavors, and sweeteners this week, along with anything that is pre-packaged and processed. Of course, not all pre-packaged foods are highly processed, but in general, they most likely are. When in doubt, look at the ingredient list! There is a lot of leeway this week in terms of fitting it into the challenge. If it's not highly processed, it's game. So that means you get to be extra creative this week. So go for it!

As soon as I saw this week's challenge, I knew I wanted to get a bunch of delicious things from my local farmers' market. There's a fantastic fish vendor that I always forget about, so I was psyched to grab an amazing piece of swordfish that had been caught that day. I prepared the fish very simply - salt & pepper on either side, and seared for about 4 minutes in an oven-proof pan of heated oil. After searing one side, I flipped it and put it in the oven at 400F for about 11 minutes (it was a thick cut). After removing the fish from the pan, I melted a half stick of butter with some thyme, minced garlic, grated peel of half a lemon, and peppercorns in the still hot pan, and spooned that over the fish.

For the salad, I just grabbed whatever looked delicious at the farmers market. It ended up being some fresh arugula, one whole cucumber, and raw sweet corn sliced off the cob. I mixed it up with a light homemade lemon vinaigrette.

Week 30: Fruit - Mini Fruit Cobblers [Baking Challenge]

Intro from Baking Challenge: Fruit! A perfect choice for summer baking! There are the main staples of fruit baking such as pies, tarts, and upside down cakes but fruit can also be working into doughnuts, sweet rolls, cupcakes and cookies. Easy peasy! Grab your favourite fruit and make something awesome!

I really needed to get a better grip on my portion sizes with this baking challenge (my coworkers and friends can only put up with so many baked goods being forced on them week after week!), so I decided to whip up some quick mini cobblers for this week's challenge. My recipe was adapted from here. I halved the recipe, which made just enough to fill two of my little ramekins. I filled one with diced fresh peaches and the other with blackberries. They were perfect to bring along to work for a little midweek treat, and kept well when wrapped in plastic wrap.

Week 29: Macarons/Meringue - After Dinner Mint Macarons [Baking]

Intro from Baking Challenge: Alright bakers! Time to step it up! Macarons are one of the more challenging things to bake but don't be afraid! A little bit of practice and patience and soon you will be a macaron master! To start, here is a basic step by step recipe and trouble shooting guide. Moving on from there, you can make pretty much any flavor combination you can imagine. S'more, neopolitan, lemon and more! If you've already perfected macarons try to up your game by turning them into adorable characters or shapes! If macarons seem too advanced right now you can try their simpler cousins, meringues. They can be simple little dollops, pretty rose sandwiches, fun looking swirls, or little nests that you can fill with fruit, custard or ganache! Good luck!

I got the original idea for these macarons from here, but ended up following the main recipe from the step-by-step guide originally posted in this week's intro. Although I still used the Taste of Koko recipe for the mint chocolate ganache.

If I had to sum up this entire experience in one sentence, it would be the step-by-step guide's pronouncement that: "If they were so easy to do, wouldn’t everyone make them?" Holy hell these things take effort and time! I probably spent about a half hour just sifting the almond meal and sugar to make sure it was super fine. That said, the patience definitely paid off and I was incredibly happy with my first attempt at macarons!
My major flaws (and what I'll be working on the next time):

• Heat - I put my oven on too high. I started at 275F, but they quickly started browning on the bottom (this may have also been due to my using wax paper instead of parchment paper - I know, I'm an idiot) and most of my tops were cracked.
• Piping - Getting uniform caps is HARD! I used a Wilton 230 tip, which seemed to work really well, but I just need practice in sizing and spacing (had a few too close together and they ended up merging).

Overall though, I'm super pleased with these, and I'll definitely be trying again!