The third week of my improvement sprint. To date I am lagging behind by several dishes and I am not finding the time to create deserts as much as I would like.

Week #3

Thursday 16^th of April

Pasta bake Recipe #4 (original)

It was cold and overcast today, it honestly felt like a Winter’s day so my mind turned to comfort food. I have created many baked pasta dishes over the years but I wanted to change up the recipe I normally use to make for a more interesting flavour but still keep it simple with a minimum amount of preparation work.

Penne pasta, ground beef partially cooked as though making a Bolognese sauce, sautéed onions and caramelized onions, sautéed garlic and chopped mushrooms mixed together with rosemary, basil, salt and pepper.

This dish came out really well and the flavour was definitely something interesting, the two types of onions complementing each perfectly, the final baking making some of the onions extra crunchy.

Friday17th of April

Cottage Pie Recipe #6 (original)

Another overcast day, did Winter suddenly show up? Another comfort food dish. I created a cottage pie from one of my regular recipes but reduced the number of ingredients, for the mashed potatoes on top I mixed in a little Brie and in the final few minutes of cooking sprinkled on some grated Gruyere to give the potatoes some kick.

The pie was a little wetter than I would have liked but there were no leftovers at the end of the meal and nobody complained or went hungry.

Monday 20^th of April

“Mac and Cheese” (original)

I was severely traumatised during childhood by a bastardised version of “Macaroni and Cheese” and have hated it ever since. This childhood episode also persuaded me for too many years never to eat any kind of pasta. And was I missing out!

My roommate loves macaroni and cheese, it is one of her comfort foods. As I have this severe aversion to the dish, I had to concoct something original and palatable to me. I was preparing Farfalle (bow-tie) pasta for a salad for dinner that evening so I took aside some of the pasta, mixed in some lightly browned garlic and extra virgin olive oil in the sauté pan with grated Gruyere cheese over the top. This was good enough that between the two of us we consumed close to a pound of pasta.

Bow-tie pasta salad with herb roasted chicken (original)

The weather turned over the weekend in to a beautiful hot week of sun so salads and grilling are on the menu. I created a simple bow-tie pasta salad tossed with herb-roasted chicken breasts that came out exceptionally well.

So much for salads being healthy.

My girlfriend wants the recipe for the herb-roasted chicken so I will be cooking the same dish again in a few days to see if I can improve on it.

Tuesday 21^st of April

Grilling (again!)

Tonight I am grilling again. You can tell the summer months are nearly here can’t you? I am currently using a grill I am not fully comfortable with which has a tendency to gutter and extinguish with the slightest wind so I have to run the grill marginally hotter than I should be.

Grilled Corn (not original)

The grilled corn is becoming the preferred method of preparing the corn when we are having it these days. I like how the corn, once it is prepared, is a fire and forget (pun) type of cooking where I just throw it on the grill and then take it off some time later when we are ready to eat.

Grilled Onions (not original)

I wish I had my BBQ grilling baskets and pan available so I could prepare these on the BBQ grill at the same time but right now I am doing them on the stove.

Hamburgers (original)

Homemade hamburgers again with a slightly different recipe, I used ground beef, sautéed garlic and onions, rosemary and some Hoisin sauce. Unfortunately, I did not quite have the consistency of ground beef and breadcrumbs correct so the burgers insisted on falling apart as I grilled them. They tasted great but next time I make this particular recipe I will increase the amount of breadcrumbs to improve the density of the burger.

Grilled Mushrooms (not original)

The regular grilled mushrooms I have prepared before but the garlic was not sautéed this time which made the flavour a little sterner than I would have liked, the flavour masking the subtlety of the mushrooms.

Grilled Stuffed Bell Peppers (original)

I want to cook grilled stuffed peppers from a new recipe for my final week but I want to try out an experimental recipe too. If the stuffing does not come out right and the dish is not the main part of the meal I will not be too miffed.

The stuffing was sautéed ground beef, sautéed garlic, rosemary, chopped bow-tie pasta. Stuff the half-peppers with the ground beef mixture, sprinkle with grated Gruyere cheese and grill along with the rest of the food. I have to say the grilled peppers came out amazingly well so I am hopeful for the ones I prepare next week.

Week #4

The fourth week and one extra day to take me to the end of the month, an opportunity to create a couple of extra dishes to bring me to the final twenty, hopefully.

Wednesday 22^nd of April

Grilled Stuffed Bell Peppers (original)

Getting more comfortable with the grill (I hope), I am doing grilled stuffed bell peppers. I am filling the peppers with a Bolognese sauce and adding garlic rice and sautéed onions with a Gruyere cheese topping.

I got distracted towards the end when my roommate was watching the history channel and slightly burnt the peppers but they still came off the grill perfect with the slightly burnt skin of the peppers being super sweet. A fortuitous lesson in how to over-cook peppers, no longer will I serve them unblemished but always with a slightly blackened outer skin.

Week #4

It is the last week, will I make it to twenty original meals? Will I have enough deserts? Yes. And no. I have all but given up on making a concentration on deserts this month, just not enough time between wrangling all of the projects and Electronic Entertainment Expo is coming up so I am busy preparing for that too. Oh what fun. I will focus on deserts throughout the month of June and hand off the cooking of the actual meals to a far more capable pair of chefs than I.

Friday 24^rd of April

Beef Shish Kabobs (original)

Grilling up beef shish kabobs in a spicy steak sauce marinade tonight. Unfortunately, the wind was howling around the area where I was grilling today and I just could not get the BBQ to behave itself, it was either running too hot or blowing out and cooling off. I had to watch those flames like a hawk, unfortunately because the temperature was yo-yoing around the meat was beginning to char on the outside but came off the grill undercooked. Thirty seconds in the microwave fixed the problem with the meat but I was disappointed to say the least.

Perhaps this is a case of a bad workman blaming their tools? Normally I have no problem with grilling anything but the BBQ grill I am using right now at a friend’s house was not constructed very well and allows the wind to blow in under the grill and blow out the flames. Biggest design flaw in such a simple device I have ever seen. Important tip for the future, when considering the purchase of a BBQ grill ensure the flame box and grill area is properly shrouded from gusts of wind.

The kabobs still tasted great though, a good cut of meat, I used a roast cut in to cubes that worked out well, rather than the usual tri-tip I employ for beef shish kabobs. The marinade was perfect too, just enough spice, just enough sweetness. Add on some orange and green peppers, large chunks of sweet red onion and an entire pound of whole mushrooms and you have some tasty, tasty kabobs.

Cinnamon Rolls with sweetened fresh cut strawberries (not original)

For desert I cooked some regular cinnamon rolls with an iced fondant topping and then served them with sweetened, fresh-cut strawberries. For some reason I had been craving cinnamon rolls for the past week or so and I do not even like the things normally.

Saturday 25^th of April

I was meant to be baking cookies today but instead got dragged off to the grilled cheese invitational in Los Angeles instead. Whoever thought it would be a smart idea to have an outdoor event in Chinatown on a day when the temperature broke the low 90s and make people stand in line to enter the event for 3 hours is absolutely insane. Suffice it to say I never got inside and just turned around and went home.

Sunday 26th of April

Rosemary and garlic roast chicken (not original)

I reused the recipe from earlier in the week, tweaked it a little, and roasted an entire chicken for Sunday dinner. The old oven in the kitchen here is temperamental so it had to be double-cooked to ensure it was done. When it came out it was perfect. And then cat got on the counter and helped himself to the leftovers. Bad cat. First meal in a while that there were any leftovers, I guess he was hungry.

Carrots in red wine sauce (original)

Needed something a little special to go with the roast chicken so concocted a new red wine sauce using some beef stock, grilled onions, garlic and red wine plus a few other ingredients. Carrots came out perfect enough that there were no leftovers.

Monday 27^th of April

Asian Fusion Experiment #4 (original)

I had well over a pound of left-over ground beef from all of the hamburgers I have been cooking up and I wanted to experiment with some Asian Fusion stylings. I created a very simple ground beef and vegetable stir-fry, combining the flavours of Japan and Canton, throwing together two different sauces that complemented each other very well. Having a lot of veggies in the wok helped to bring colour to what would otherwise be a drab coloured meal.

Have you noticed how food in Chinese restaurants in America comes in four different colours? You have the exceptionally rare yellow sauce, which is curries mostly. Then the slightly less rare white sauce, usually for pork with water chestnuts. The more common red sauce that covers General Chicken, Sweet and Sour, Orange chicken, and so on. And then finally the ever ubiquitous brown sauce which is pretty much any other dish you care to mention with only the hue of the sauce changing which lets you to figure out whether you have chicken, beef or seafood. Damn, just give me the authentic, weird Asian foods any day[1].

Coffee Art (original)

My first piece of coffee art. It was a disaster. I drank it to ensure nobody could see it. Next month is when I start on this improvement sprint. I will post pictures then. I am putting "coffee art” under the desert part of the meals.

Wednesday 29^th of April

Roommate has been sick with the flu the past two days and I have been busy with a new project so there is not much point in cooking anything that fancy for just myself when I am also pressed for time. *sigh* Living on frozen entrees from Fresh and Easy.

Thursday 30^th of April

Bacon-Wrapped, Beef Shish Kabobs in a Ginger and Teriyaki Marinade

Grilling again tonight, bacon wrapped, beef shish kabobs with a ginger and teriyaki marinade. I am hoping that the new marinade works out well and the recipe is worth using again.

And a little later… Yeah, okay, not so great. I charcoaled the entire batch of shish kabobs by running the grill a little too high in temperature and allowing myself to become distracted by the conversation. I had a lucky save with a roasted chicken and some fresh bread rolls but I am not happy I managed to do this. Not an auspicious end to my culinary excursion. You win some… You lose some…

Wrap up comments

It is the last day of the month and whilst I feel I did really well with regard to the amount that I cooked, I feel I let myself down by not cooking more deserts, and deserts were the true aim of this improvement sprint. I intend to repeat the sprint again, in June, concentrating solely on deserts and leaving the actual meals to other people. The month of May I am going to up my time on my walk station to lose the pounds I gained consuming such good food.

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[1] Except for chicken’s foot. I stop at anything below the kneecap when it comes to eating.

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I am off to a very slow start with my Cook Something Original And Fantastic 30-Day Goal, the first week I was focusing on minor side dishes or so busy with life that preparing anything more than a basic meal was not within the time available to me. The past few days however have been very good with some new dishes and creations that I am very proud of. No wonderful deserts yet that are worth mentioning but I still have some time to create those.

Week #1 – Indian curries

I wanted to concentrate on preparing Indian curries this week; I had not had the opportunity to cook a decent curry for at least six months. For me, curry is one of my staple dishes and I often try out different variations of the same dish to see what they are like.

Wednesday 1^st of April

Chicken Korma Experiment #6 (original)

The chicken korma turned out fabulous. I was very proud of this particular dish, I varied my basic curry sauce recipe significantly and then prepared the korma sauce from that. How I cooked the chicken was what made the dish special though, allowing the chicken to cook at a much lower temperature than I normally would which allowed the flavour from the sauce to infuse deeper in to the meat.

Friday 3^rd of April

Chicken Curry Experiment #12 (original)

Another chicken curry dish. I used my basic chicken curry recipe I normally employ but seasoned and baked the chicken first at a low temperature and once that had cooked, cut it up and added it to the curry sauce. I served up the curry with simple basmati rice prepared in the microwave. I also experimented with a new Naan bread recipe but had to toss out the bread as it was a failure.

Monday 7^th of April

Shish Kabobs (original)

Enough curry for now, I wanted something different so I created beef Shish Kabobs. Unfortunately my steel kabob skewers are in storage right now so I used bamboo ones. Without thinking I forgot to soak them, and so did my roommate, and so the bamboo skewers caught fire about half way through cooking which was rather funny. First time I’ve ever considered using a fire extinguisher whilst grilling. I added green peppers, onions and large mushrooms. The trick with good kabobs is the marinade, so for that I created a new sesame seed, teriyaki and golden syrup marinade that I continuously brushed across the kabobs as they were cooking. The golden syrup causes flames to leap about two feet in the air as the sugar burns off so it is quite impressive to watch someone cook these.

Boiled Corn (not original)

Not much to say about this, it is corn on the cob boiled in a large saucepan of lightly salted water. Add a little butter as you pull them out and place them on the plate to give the butter chance to infuse in to the corn.

Week #2 – Italian Pasta

Growing up I absolutely detested pasta and anything to do with tomatoes but since broadening my culinary horizon and increasing the diversity of foods I am prepared to try I have found that I truly adore pasta in all of its varieties.

Tuesday 8^th of April

French Onion Soup (not original, modified recipe)

With the best of intentions are the plans of mice and men thwarted. I was feeling lazy after wrangling a bunch of source code in my current game and wound up just making a simple French Onion Soup. The modification of the recipe was to use an entire, large red onion mixed in with the standard yellow onions. One day I need to make this using a Gruyere cheese and onion mixture for the topping instead of just plain cheese.

Friday 10^th of April

Rigatoni Bolognese (original)

This turned out so amazingly well. I cooked enough sauce for six people and then tossed it with a pound of rigatoni pasta. The Bolognese sauce I created took about six hours to cook and was entirely different to how I normally prepare it. This was probably the best Bolognese sauce I have ever created. It was just my roommate and I eating and by the end of the meal, there was only enough leftovers remaining for a very small snack the next day. Next time I cook this particular dish I am going to cut it with some ground pork to see if I can make it a little sweeter.

Bruschetta (not original, modified recipe)

What can you say about Bruschetta that has not already been said? *sigh* Oh love of my life! And to think I hate tomatoes with a vengeance. During my childhood I was mentally scarred by tomatoes and am only now, decades later, recovering from the incident enough to enjoy them. Each time I make this I am still experimenting with the recipe a little to get just the right mix of ingredients.

Saturday 11^th of April

Beef Roast with Mushrooms in Red Wine Sauce (original)

Not exactly Italian but I did not want my waistline increasing any more this week. The roast beef came out perfect. I brush the beef using a garlic, rosemary and olive oil mixture. After cooking the beef until it was rare I used the leftover juices and fat to create a red wine sauce in which I placed fried onions and whole mushrooms. The sauce came out so well I will definitely be using it again in the future.

Sunday 12^th of April

Grilling

I do not want to burn out on pasta this week, and my waistline is beginning to feel the effects of too much good food so tonight I am grilling, specifically corn on the cob and hamburgers. Unfortunately there is not much innovation I can do with either of those two dishes so most of originality will have to be in any side dishes I prepare.

Hand-made burgers on the grill (not original)

I had to create the burgers in a hurry so I just used my stock recipe that I have employed dozens of times in the past. Ground beef, partially fried onions, handmade breadcrumbs and a few other spices to bring out the flavour. The trick to making a perfect burger is to let the burger patty sit for an hour or two so that the flavours from the spices and salt soak in to the meat.

Grilled corn (not original)

A simple recipe to create grilled corn, butter, fresh ground black pepper, salt and the corn on the cob itself.

Grilled onions (not original)

I love properly grilled onions that have been on the grill for the better part of an hour. The caramelisation they undergo and tiny amount of butter used brings out their sweetness so perfectly.

Grilled garlic mushrooms (original)

I have prepared a lot of grilled mushrooms but these I wanted to experiment with. They were going to be such a small part of the meal that I was not too afraid of getting them wrong. I used large mushrooms

Monday 13^th of April

Asian Stir-Fry

Tonight I wanted to cook a Thai or Asian-fusion vegetarian stir fry but unfortunately my plans went awry when they met the people eating. Instead of a vegetarian dish I was persuaded into using up the leftover roast beef, which I had only cooked to a rare, from Saturday’s meal. I was intending to use it in a stir-fry, just not tonight.

I added the leftover beef to soba noodles, green onions, sweet green bell peppers, bamboo shoots and water chestnuts. For the sauce, I prepared sweet Hoisin mixture that was added just at the end of the cooking process. I also cooked up a side dish of Chinese snow peas with a simple soy sauce recipe.

Maybe I will get to do my Asian-fusion cooking next week.

Tuesday 14^th of April

Rigatoni Bolognese (from the recipe the previous week, so no longer original)

I made another rigatoni Bolognese dish, this time cutting the amount of ground beef by a third and replacing it with pork. The pork increased the saltiness of the dish, which is unusual because pork normally requires a little more salt. I think that if I cut the ground beef with a little ground pork again I will reduce the amount of salt added by a smidgeon to see how it turns out. Ihave made a note of the result and this possible modification on my recipe.

Bruschetta (leftovers)

The Bruschetta I made earlier in the week I just served up after letting it return to room temperature. I obviously prepared the toasted bread fresh for this, leftover toasted bread is not so good a few days later.

Killer Garlic Rolls Experiment #6 (original)

I love good garlic rolls. I make mine out of pizza dough rolled and twisted in to little balls. Baked in olive oil, garlic and rosemary these came out nicely done. I am still experimenting to see if I can make my own garlic rolls better than those that are served at C & O Trattoria on Washington Blvd in Marina Del Rey, California.

Sugared Cream Horns with Fresh Berries and Glazed Strawberries (original)

I love making pastries and deserts so to be able to spend time in the kitchen creating one of my and my roommate’s favourite desert pastries was a rare treat for me. I was not entirely satisfied with the way that the pastries came out as they were a little undercooked on one side. Unfortunately the pastry horn molds and my piping bags are boxed up in storage at the moment so I had to improvise. They were edible but not perfect and the fresh berries I added gave the desert just the right sweetness.

Wednesday 15^th of April

Grilling

Tonight I had two additional guests for dinner that I was not planning on. As I was only grilling, it was not much more trouble to throw in a few extra burger patties and pieces of corn.

Hand-made hamburgers (original)

I completely switched up the recipe for this from the one that I normally use. With handmade breadcrumbs and some special seasoning I was quite proud of the way they turned out. I was able to experiment with the seasoning in a small piece of ground beef before making the burger patties out of them just to be sure I had something worthwhile.

Grilled corn (not original)

Corn on the cob prepared on the grill has a unique flavour you just cannot get when preparing it any other way. Grilling brings out the sweetness that normally stays locked up. Wrapping the corn in tin foil with a little butter, fresh ground black pepper and a pinch of salt is as simple as it gets.

Grilled garlic mushrooms (from the recipe the previous week, so not original)

They were enjoyed the first time so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to cook them again, modifying the recipe slightly. This time I sautéed the garlic a little first before adding it to the mushrooms.

Steamed Asparagus (not original)

Personally, I cannot stand asparagus and I had nothing to do with this dish. My roommate cooked this dish up and it was probably the healthiest of all the dishes out of the ones prepared for dinner.

Cheese and Bacon Fries (not original)

My roommate loves the Aussie Cheese Fries served at Outback Steakhouse so I figured out the very simple recipe they use and now cook these about twice a year for her. They are incredibly unhealthy but so mouth-wateringly good. I was pressed for time during this meal so instead of blanching and then deep-frying the French Fries as I normally do, I just baked them in the oven. Once they were fully cooked, I browned them under the grill for about three minutes then covered them with the other ingredients. I sprinkle a few undercooked grilled onions in the centre that adds sweetness to the dish that you do not get from Outback Steakhouse.

Grilled Onions

Same old grilled onions as last time. I let my roommate cook these for me as I was busy creating burger patties and preparing the corn and mushrooms for the grill.

If you are particularly interested in the recipes for any of these dishes, drop me an e-mail and I will send them on to you personally. These recipes I have personally created and tested in my own kitchen and I am very particular about the foods that I cook. My Mother and Father were both chefs and lifelong cooks in their own right, one of my brothers taught restaurant studies, and both my roommate and her Mother, whom I regularly cook for, are avid chefs who have very discerning tastes.

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