Short, Sweet, and To The Point.

*READ WITH CAUTION: I did not proofread this blog.*

So here's the duck deal. I have been suuuuuuuuuuuuper lazy lately and I just haven't felt like writing. I don't know why but the duck I made just kind of ruined my motivation for a while. This blog that will be short and sad (just like myself). 

JUST KIDDING!

Let me just say this:

The Duck Sucked. 

Basically, I had very high hopes for the duck even though I had never roasted anything (turkey, duck, any kind of meat) by myself. Meaning-- without the help of a parent who happens to know what they are doing. i.e. my dad. I wanted to make it by myself and so I did. I couldn't find a set recipe for a duck online because there were so many variations and it was just all confusing me. They would say, "Do this OR do this OR combine it all!" After seeing that a few times I gathered the info I wanted to use and just WENT FOR IT!  

I woke up that day and I ran to the store to get some pineapple juice, an onion, and whatever else I got that I can't remember. I set the oven at somewhere in the low 300's. (Degrees, Fahrenheit)

I washed the duck with salt and took the liver and kidneys and heart and neck out of the bird and I had to stop for a second because touching that stuff grossed me out. Made light slits in the bird so the fat would render (more fat would come off the bird = not so greasy bird like everyone was telling me). After it was all dry from being patted with paper towels (drying the ducks skin after washing makes for a crispier skin, or so the online people said). I stuffed the duck with a few sprigs of fresh (expensive) rosemary or Rose Marie, as I like to call her. I quartered an onion and an orange and put 3 of the 4 pieces of each into the duck, along with a few smashed cloves of garlic, and a few cinnamon sticks. I did this so the beautiful flavors would be held inside the duck and move throughout. 

I also made a glaze/juice to keep putting over the duck as it cooked. In my head I added everything up and it seemed legit.

Pineapple juice

soy sauce

brown sugar

a little bit of regular sugar

salt

pepper

and other stuff I can't remember. 

*Whisked all of that together*

Drizzled it on the duck. 

Shoved it in the oven for an hour.

Turned it and added more sauce stuff.

Cooked and Waited 30 minutes.

Turned it again and drizzled more sauce.

Cooked and Waited another 30 minutes.

Turned it for the last time and added more sauce.

Cooked and Waited for 15 more minutes.

Then took it out to sit for 30 minutes.

Tried pulling off a duck leg (because Paula Deen made it look easy) and found that I was having a wrestling match with the duck.

Carved in to one breast and it was cooked but tasted (insert *nasty* face here). Well, it just wasn't tasty.

It tasted game-y and tough. I don't know about you but I don't like tough meat.

My mom didn't like it either. That wasn't a big surprise. She's picky.

Gina my seeester, kinda liked it. Then bit into a pink part and spit it in the garabage. Good girl.

Then...

Carved in to the other breast

IT WAS STILL BLOODY! 

After seeing this, I got nauseous and upset, then I said, "That's depressing."

Kept the good meat and threw the whole effing duck in the garabage.

Brought some of the good meat to my dad and he said it was good. He had never had duck before. 

He isn't picky. 

I talked to him about it and he encouraged me to try again and next time USE A MEAT THERMOMETER AND COOK IT SLOW! 

YES! A MEAT THERMOMETER! HOW COULD I HAVE FORGOTTEN????!!! 

and

COOK IT SLOW?! THAT SHOULD BE COMMON SENSE!

But either way, I didn't have a meat thermometer at my moms house. Next time I will

DONE!

I also made Paula Deen's Sweet Potato Pie with the help of Alton Brown. 

I watched Alton's video:

Click Here to watch Alton's video!

and looked at Paula's recipe because who better than the down-home country gal, Paula Deen for a sweet potato pie recipe?? Um No One!!

Click Here for Paula's Old Fashioned Sweet Potato Pie Recipe!

I watched Alton's video because Paula didn't explain how to cook the fresh sweet potatoes. So it was very easy. I chopped up the sweet potatoes and steamed them for 20 min. Perfect Potatoes every time!

I followed Paula's recipe, minus the meringue. Baked it and it was absolutely delicious and flavorful and fresh! It tastes like pumpkin pie but fresh and like sweet potato. Fresh pumpkin pie is also great but who has the time to mess with a whole fresh pumpkin? Not me. 

(Well, sometimes. Around the holidays at my dads.) 

But anyways, The duck sucked and the pie rocked! I definitely encourage you to try Paula's Old- Fashioned Sweet Potato Pie recipe. It's awesome. 

Also:

Never give up especially on yourself. And if you mess up a few times, don't let that get you down. Keep going. No matter what it is.

WWDD?

(What Would Dory Do?) 

"Just Keep Swimming."

or...

"Don't let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game." 

-Cinderella Story

or...

Whatever your motivational quote is, JUST DO IT. 

Cottage Cheese Pananacakes!!

Cottage Cheese Pananacakes = Pancakes with Cottage Cheese and Bananas

Sounds disgusting right? Right.

Different than your average pancake? Most definitely.

You're probably wondering why cottage cheese pancakes. Well I can give you a hint: Matt Kittoe. Who is Matt Kittoe? Well, I work with him and he is Michaels' bffeaeaeaeaeaeaeaeaeaeaeae! He eats healthy and is getting in shape (as we speak). He is always talking about cottage cheese pancakes. They are healthy for you. I don't know how really but they are. They consist of cottage cheese, eggs, a little flour, a little baking powder, and your choice of salt or sugar. My lovely assistant Michael and I decided on a pinch of salt and a teaspoon of sugar and also added a whole banana. << Yum Yum Potassi-YUM!!!  

Click Here for the recipe!

We told my mom we were going to be making pancakes and she decided out of the kindness of her heart that she would supply the funds for this tasty adventure. She also supplied the funds for the Flan. Thanks Mom! 

Here is a tip from her to the world that she tells me every time I go out at night:

"Be Aware of Your Surroundings."

Well first the recipe said to mix the 2 eggs and 1 1/2 cups of cottage cheese together. I did the cottage cheese and Michael used his one-handed cracking skills (sexy!) with the eggs that were put into one mixing bowl. Whisked it up a little, then added 1 teaspoon of baking POWDER. (This is very important because if you use baking SODA when it calls for POWDER, you will mess the whole recipe up. No matter what you are baking. That's real talk!) Once that was all mixed up, I quartered a whole banana and chopped the banana into small pieces, whisked it up a little more, then it was time to start cookin'.

I don't have a griddle so we used a large non-stick frying pan. Works just as well, just less space. A few more ingredients we used were leftovers: coconut from our Flan, sliced almonds my mom had left over from making cookies, and Fruit Loops. Yep. You heard me. Fruit Loops.

I wasn't yankin' your chain :)

Well, we got the pan nice and hot and added a little canola oil. It called for vegetable oil but I didn't have that so canola was our only option. My dad is an awesome pancake maker and so he's always taught me that when making pancakes, drop only a dime-sized bit of batter onto the pan. That way, you can tell if the pan and oil is hot enough and ready to go. You will know it's hot enough because the sides of the dime-sized drop will start cooking and turning light brown. Once that little bit did exactly what we were looking for, the fun began. At first we did 2 pancakes at a time then moved up to four pancakes at a time. You will know the pancakes are ready to flip when you see bubbles appear through the batter and end up on top. So I tried the first flip and I messed it up. From there I let Michael watch the pancakes because he's a pretty good pancaker himself. So I grabbed the coconut, almonds, and fruit loops. We had a few pancakes with just coconut, a few with just almond, and a few with almond and coconut. The last of the batter made one more pancake and that was the one with the fruit loops. 

When all of the pancakes were done cooking, we divided the pancakes up between us. I had heard that honey was good on pancakes along with being a healthy alternative to syrup. I tried it on one and it wasn't my thing. So I stuck to Mrs. Butterworths syrup and so did Michael. On the side we had some chopped strawberries and kiwi.

After we both tried all of our choices of pancakes, we agreed that surprisingly, the fruit loop pancake was our favorite. It gave the pancake sweetness, color, and an all-around great taste. It was one of those things, don't judge it 'til you try it. My second favorite was the almond pancake. 

Going into this, I didn't know what to expect because I thought, "Cottage cheese? In pancakes? This should be interesting." My mouth just didn't know what to expect. But the fact is, if you came to eat these pancakes, and we didn't tell you that there was cottage cheese in the pancakes we made you, you would never know there was cottage cheese in the pancakes you had just devoured. I could taste the banana but not the cottage cheese. 

Sometimes you have to just jump and try something new without thinking yourself out of it. Now if only I could apply that to life and not just food. I think that should be my new motto. Because when you eat, you do so much more than chew, digest, and be happy. You have to taste. You have to think. Sometimes fall in love. So this week, try something new. Anything. Don't think, just Do. 

(: See ya next blog :)

*Pictures coming soon*

The Triple Threat: Spicy Tomato and Lentil Soup

*Everything in this blog that is red, is something new that I have never used or have done before.*

It all started with the thought of... The Tomato.

My best buddy, Andrew, had a hankerin' for some sort of tomato soup. For Christmas, I had recently bought him a cookbook with a multitude of low-fat and/or fat-free recipes. He has worked very hard to get his body in great shape and has lost quite a bit of weight over a period of months, so therefore, I bought him a healthy cookbook.

 Ladies, he's 20 years old, single, a scorpio, loves being active, and an all-around great guy who will treat you right and make you a great sandwich. You want a shot with him,

shoot me a comment, message, or Facebook me:
Jennifer Tillou (I'm the only Jennifer Tillou).

 ;)

Anyways...

Andrew had a hankerin' for some sort of tomato soup. He had a few recipes picked out and so after work I went down to his house, a few houses down from mine, and we decided to make "Spicy Tomato and Lentil Soup." The picture for this soup looked the best out of the 3 I had to choose from.

The first thing Andrew wanted to do was make a list he would need at the store. We went to Woodman's, "the grocery store of grocery stores", and we got everything we needed;
such as:
Fresh Ginger Root,
A pound of fresh Tomatoes,
A yellow Onion,
Sunflower oil,
Crushed Cumin seeds,
(We bought those whole because our only options were whole or ground)
Red Split Lentils,
(Lentils are a type of bean that you do not need to soak or cook all day)
Tomato Paste,
and lastly...
Vegetable Stock.

Before we started, I ran up to my house to grab fresh garlic, my food processor, and my special chopping knife. Once we got back to his house after the store, THE PREP BEGAN! I was in charge of chopping the onions, chopping the ginger root, and seeding the tomatoes. The recipe called for a pound of fresh tomatoes that were skinned and seeded. This was something I had never done before personally, but I had seen the technique on t.v. many times before. It also helped that the cookbook told us how to do this properly, as well. We had to bring a pot of water to a boil to submerge the tomatoes in for 30 seconds. We counted to 30 in tandem. Then we took each tomato out of the boiling water and shocked it in a pot of very cold water. After that was done, we dug our finger nails into the tomatoes to peel the very thin layer of skin off of them. (Don't worry, we washed our hands many times during the making of this soup.) I was having trouble peeling the skin because I really don't have nails to dig in with, so Andrew peeled the tomatoes and I started the seeding process by using a spoon to scrape the seeds out, ever-so-lightly. Then I chopped the remaining tomatoes up and put them in a bowl.

In the meantime, Andrew started to try to crush the whole cumin seeds. The recipe called for crushed cumin. Our only options were ground or whole. So we went with whole. Little did we know that it would be so difficult to find a way to crush the whole cumin seeds. I made suggestions that he tried, like the butt of a wooden spoon and his mom, Mary Jo, suggested to use a wooden meat mallet. Then, Andrew came up with an idea that was molded by a stroke of genius. After trying numerous kitchen utensils, he went for,

wait for it...
wait for it..
wait.

HIS COFFEE GRINDER!
(Which I bought him for his birthday this year!)

It worked perfectly and would give the soup that spicy little kick. The cumin smelled like it belonged in chili. Which it usually is used in chili. I never really knew that and neither did he because we both decided that it belonged in chili.

Another new ingredient I had never cooked with fresh was the ginger root. We only needed an inch of it. Literally, an inch. It smelled amazing. Like lemon. The freshest of lemon. It was such a happy smell. It was kind of tough to chop but I am...

The Chopper!
>>Insert Evil Laugh Here<<

Once everything was done being prepped, the adventure began. Andrew fired up the stove and added the sunflower oil (a healthy alternative to olive oil or canola oil) to the hot, deep soup pan. Once the oil was nice and hot, I added my finely chopped onion. He cooked the onion until it became soft and slightly translucent. From there we added the chopped garlic, ginger, and cumin.

Once that had all cooked together for a few minutes, Andrew added the red split lentils and I added the chopped tomatoes simultaneously.

Beautiful colors!

He let that cook for a few more minutes then he added about two Tablespoons of tomato paste. (The recipe only called for one Tablespoon but we put just about two. Because we can.) I added the (unsalted- Andrews decision) vegetable stock. The recipe called for five cups of chicken or vegetable stock, but it wasn't until we got home that the vegetable stock we had bought, only contained four cups and not five.

Oh well. No bigs.
:)

Once the soup came to a boil, Andrew turned the flame down on the stove and we let the soup simmer for a half an hour. To pass the time, we admired just about every recipe in the cookbook I had bought him that he seemed to have fallen in love with. From pastas to salads and to desserts and breads.

Now for the fun part.
:D

We turned the flame off on the stove and poured our simmered soup into the food processor. Suddenly, the liquid of the soup started leaking out of the food processor from every which-way. The blade seemed to be too shallow and therefore, the liquid of the soup came out from under the blade and leaked out onto the kitchen counter. It looked like puke. Yes puke. And honestly, it kind of made me nauseous. So as Andrew's and my eyes grew bigger because of the mess we had begun to make, we each took ten seconds (felt like a minute) to figure out what to do next.

Do we just go for it as fast as we can and make an even BIGGER mess or do we use paper towels to sop up the dripping mess and then go for it? 


DUN! DUN! DUN!

Andrew grabbed a few paper towels and wrapped it around the food processor with his hands holding them in place. I secured the food processor lid and pressed "On" while he proceeded to hold the towels in place. We stopped, he changed the paper towels, and I pressed "On" one more time. We agreed that that was enough. When we were done processing the soup, I tried to unlock the part of the processor which held our processed soup. When I got close to having it unlocked, more soup mess came out. So Andrew pretty much said, "Watch out!" and picked up the whole processor and poured it back into the pan. We turned the flame back on to bring it to a simmer to heat the soup back up. While the soup heated back up, we cleaned up our soupy/pukey-looking mess. And cleaned up the food processor and it's parts.
 (For those of you that care about the food processors' well-being, it was cleaned up and is looking good as new.)

Then the soup came to a slight boil and we turned off the flame and We. Were. Done!

Andrew took down two very pretty, clean, white glass bowls and he poured our soup into the bowls.
I snapped a few pictures and Voila!

End Result: Spicy Tomato and Lentil Soup.

When the soup was all done, we were ready to eat.

Without even mentioning anything, Andrew pulled down some crushed red pepper flakes from the cupboard and added a sprinkle of black pepper. That thought never even crossed my mind. It was that extra "beauty" and extra "taste" component. Or better yet, the cherry on top of a perfect sundae. (Even though I don't like cherries but bear with me. You know what I mean.) We each salted our bowl of soup to each of our own likings and it was nothing short of awesome.

 It was a perfect dish for the winter time.

The memory it brought to my mind was something like we had just got home from sledding and it was very cold outside. This soup would be ready on the stove and ready to be eaten to warm each of us up. My only warning to you people who do not like spicy foods, this dish may not be for you. I thought that it was perfectly spicy, but that's my own personal opinion. Andrew likes crazy amounts of spicy.

Also, usually I am that person that needs something to drink while I am eating; no matter what food it is. But I didn't want a drink with this soup. It was perfect.

But like I said, the spice was not over-bearing whatsoever, and it will definitely clear up your sinuses. Andrew can agree with this statement because after he was done eating, he had to blow his nose.

This was a great soup and a great time.

I conquered 4 new foods and 1 new technique with 1 new recipe. I have Andrew to thank along with his mom for letting us cook at their house.

Remember:
Chew. Digest. Be :).