Hey guys, I'm back again.
I had all these awesome plans for posts to write these past couple weeks. Unfortunately, I had basically the equivalent of an entire Degrassi season's drama dumped in my lap out of nowhere and things got a little tough. (Lots of lying around in bed and listlessly watching anime instead of doing...like...anything else.)
But I'm here now, and that's what matters. Or rather, that's not what matters, what matters it that this is probably what'll stand as my Valentine's Day 2013 post - belated, which is funny, because I celebrated Valentine's Day early to begin with. So this post is twice as late than it would be if I ever actually did anything ON TIME.
I have a long history of devoting myself to that stupid holiday, from elaborate handmade gifts to studying my little box of valentines to find the most "romantic" one to give the boy I had a crush on in 3rd grade in the hopes that it would let him know I liked him (because I suppose I've always been a little passive aggressive). I love getting tiny things for people, love rummaging through Target's Valentine's Day stock (though this year was somewhat disappointing. Last year was better. Nothing can top Valentine's whales) and pretty much just love the entire ambiance of the holiday. Pink and red and hearts and cuddling and candy and I'm not really sure what there is to NOT like about February 14th.
So this year I wanted to go all out. I bought a dress (that I ended up not wearing) and I bought fancy alcohol and I spent more time than I'd care to admit searching for the absolute perfect multi-course meal to make for Dan and I (though for the record, he was not my Valentine, he's just the one who eats everything I cook like a goat.) And that's harder than it seems because:
- While Dan will eat everything and anything (just ask him about his latest foray into the wide world of 皮蛋) while I, very much, will not. I am not as picky as I used to be but good god are there limits to what I will even so much as touch.
- I am not the world's greatest chef yet. I am trying, but I am nowhere near brave enough to get ambitious on this holiest of holy holidays for Sam. Anything that contained an ingredient I didn't recognize, or a meat I hadn't cooked, was not allowed on the short list for "things to make."
- I was using a ghetto dorm kitchen. I'm used to having to take the odd thing from my own kitchen at home to help us out while I'm there, but I wasn't prepared to have to bring anything that required its own box for transport.
It turns out none of this mattered, because...
Everything came out wrong.
Well, that's not exactly fair. Let me back up.
These seemed easy enough. In fact, I was fairly confident about these until I started to make them and made my first fatal mistake - I didn't cut any off the bottom of the potato, so trying to slice them was an arduous and often infuriating procedure. So don't do what I did. Read the directions right before you make them, no matter how many times you'd already read it over that day trying to familiarize yourself with them like a crazy person because how could ANYONE mess up potatoes?
However, that aside, it was very lemony. I feel like it could have been cooked longer, not because the recipe itself is wrong, but because I hate everything stove on Purchase's campus and have never had a good experience with one. Including that one time when I tried to make...
Here's the deal with this one. I'd never had goat cheese before, but I knew Dan liked it, and in the spirit of Valentine's Day I kind of wanted to cater all of this to him and not to me. So I found chicken, which I supposedly knew how to cook, with relatively easy to acquire ingredients and an easy enough step-by-step.
But the kiss of death happened before I even started. I tried keeping this entire menu a secret from Dan, and he still went out and bought almost all of the ingredients for this stuff, no questions asked.
He also peeled the potatoes. And took over about halfway through the chicken process because I got frustrated
. He basically made the meal and I'm lying to you guys.
But I didn't think about it at the time. And because I was trying to be as secretive as possible, I didn't go into specifics about some fairly key things - like what kind of chicken I needed for this. Turns out, it mattered.
The goat cheese and apple topping was delicious. I sat there while the chicken was cooking and watched Dan basically lick the bowl clean that had been holding it. Whatever, boys are weird. And while goat cheese might not be my favorite food, the goat cheese and the apples mixed with the saltine crust on the chicken was delicious. The only problem, was that the chicken was too thick. So when we put it in for the recommended time on the recipe...it didn't cook all the way.
He's a trooper, but even Dan had to stop eating it. It was just too undercooked and neither of us wanted Salmonella for the dessert course. So let this be a lesson to you: this is a tasty, tasty recipe but for the love of god, pound your chicken. (Take that as you will.)
Things started looking up around the dessert course. I had made this the day before in anticipation of it being a long and drawn out process, and was actually very surprised with not only how easy this was to make but how little time it took to do so.
I'd never had rosewater before, but Dan had gotten super into it over the summer and keeps raving about it, and Starbucks came out with their Berry Hibiscus drink and then Ikea had elderflower juice...and suffice it to say I fell pretty hard into the "I love things that taste like flowers" club just in time to stumble across this recipe.
The catch: Rosewater is not easy to find. I had to buy mine off the internet and hope it got here in time, and it still ended up costing me 10$ for this tiny bottle. But when I made the panna cotta, it was so, so worth it.
I loved it, Dan loved it. It was the creamiest, lightest thing I'd ever had, like a lighter pudding without all the super sweet sugary taste behind it. The recipe calls to strain it when you pour it into the ramekins but I didn't. I was worried at first, but Dan seemed to think the texture added a little bit to it. It doesn't affect the taste, you just get the gelatin granules in there I think and it's just not perfectly silky smooth in every bite.
I can't decide if this was my favorite thing that I made that night, or if it was this:
Before you even read further, just get in your car, go to your liquor store, and buy the chocolate chili liquor. Just go. Nothing I can say will convince you about how awesome this tasted, and I just used cheap Svedka for the vodka part of it. We made these the night of the dinner, then again the night after, and if I hadn't left the bottle in his apartment I likely would have just continued to make them. I'm a big proponent of chocolate alcohol (10$ chocolate wine is like, my go-to "let's party" beverage) but this was just on another level. The first sip is sweet, and then the burn sets in from the chili. It wasn't too much, and it wasn't just sweet heat in a bottle. It was good.
So maybe everything wasn't all bad.
But it could've been better. I'm really upset about the chicken, but I do think I'd be willing to give the recipe another shot if goat cheese wasn't so pricey. And the potatoes were really the fault of the apartment oven, and the taste was fantastic. The panna cotta is definitely something I would make again and again, so long as my stock of rosewater lasts. And the martinis...let's just say I'm waiting for my next paycheck to go hunting for another bottle of that stuff.
But I came home, and everything pretty much went to hell in a gingham covered picnic basket for two weeks. Things still suck. But life goes on, and I'm here now, and after finally getting a visit from Ed and Dan yesterday I feel like a bit more of a whole person. So much so, that I even wrote 2000 words today. And a blog post. Maybe I'll write more of them this week. I have a lot to talk about. New books, self-publishing, that time that I met the Weasley Twins...
So, boys and girls, it's a start. Again.
Just gotta keep on, keepin' on.
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