My first slow cooker dish

Sausages with Apple and red onion

So I'll give you the recipe, then discuss it.

Ingredients (Serves 4):
1 tbsp oil
8 Sausages
3 tart apples
3 red onions cut into wedges
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tbsp all purpose plain flour
1 glass red wine
2 tbsp whole grain mustard
2 tsp tomato puree
1 1/3 cups hot vege broth

Method:
Prep and cook time: 7 hours

1. Preheat slow cooker if necessary

2. Heat the oil in a skillet and brown the sausages but don't cook. Transfer to the slow cooker.

3. Add onions to the skillet and fry for about 5 minutes or until soft. Add garlic for another minute.

4. Sprinkle flour over the onion mixture and stir. Add wine, mustard, and tomato puree. Stir in stock.

5. pour the mixture over the sausages.

6. Core the apples and cut into wedges. place in the slow cooker, making sure that they are covered by the liquid.

7. Cover and cook on low for 6-7 hours until the sausages are cooked and the apples are soft but not mushy

8. Garnish with fresh rosemary before serving.


ALRIGHT

First off. The recipe doesn't say what kind of sausage to use. I chose Chorizo pretty much cause I like it. No real thought process there. I only got 2 red onions. They were large and three seemed excessive.

I don't usually cry when cutting onions, but they were so incredibly potent I was crying and burning for ever. It was by far the most terrible experience with onions I've ever had. So I did everything that the recipe said pretty standard. Here's where the problem came in.

The apples were not covered by the stock provided. It clearly states that the apples have to be covered by the liquid. My apples were not. I ended up DOUBLING the liquid (another cup of vege stock and another glass of red wine) to just get it all covered. I was pretty curios about that when it all happened. Here's what it looked like before being cooked.

It looked pretty good, I thought. I also wonder why the recipe is 6-7 hours. Isn't the reason of having a slow cooker so you don't have to check on it? I set it for 7 hours and went about my business. My slow cooker (I found out, cause this is the first time using it) turns off after the time is finished which is good cause I didn't get to it until about an hour after it was done.

I'm actually a little disappointed with this recipe. It's not bad, but it doesn't really have any flavor. It even lost it's color. Here's what my plate ended up looking like...

Maybe I put too much liquid in? I don't know. It isn't a bad dish but it's definitely not the best I've made.

Corn cream soup with diced polenta

There's no other way to say this... I love soup. Warm soup in the winter is one of the finest things in life. And home made soup, oh boy.

Back in Melbourne before I left the book store I was working at was going out of business and I ended up buying an awesome soup book for dirt cheap. Ironically enough, it's an American book so the measurements are in cups and tablespoons instead of grams. So here it is.

Ingredients:
For the polenta cubes
1/2-2/3 cup or 100 gram cornmeal or instant polenta
2 cups water
1/2 tbsp salt
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp parme cheese
oil to fry

For the soup:
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
3 tbsp butter
20 oz/260 g canned corn kernels
2 cups low fat milk
salt and pepper
7 oz American cheese
scant 1/2 cup light cream
2 beefsteak tomatoes
1/2 bunch parsley, finely chopped
4 oz smoked salmon, to garnish

1. bring water to a boil and add half teaspoon of salt. Sprinkle the corn meal slowly into the water stirring consistently to prevent clumping. Lower heat, cover with lid and cook for about 40-45 minutes, stirring occasionally. add butter and parme cheese and stir. Pour polenta onto a cookie sheet to form a layer about 1/3 inch think. Smooth evenly and let cool until firm.

2. For the soup, peel the onion and garlic and finely chop. Fry the onion and garlic in butter. Drain the corn kernels and saute 2/3 of them with the onions and garlic. Pour in the milk and bring to a boil, then puree and strain through a fine mesh sieve. Season the soup with salt and pepper. Add the processed cheese and cream and simmer for about 10 minutes stirring occasionally.

3. Place the tomatoes in hot water for a few seconds then into cold water and peel. Cut the tomatoes into quarters, deseed and chop. Wash the parsley, shake dry, and finely chop. Cut the polenta into cubes and toast in a skillet until lightly browned.

4. Fry the chopped tomatoes with the remaining corn kernels in butter until warm. Stir in the chopped parsley.

5. Break apart the salmon into pieces and season with pepper.

6. Pour soup into 4 bowls. Add a few spoonfuls of the tomato-corn garnish followed by some diced polenta. Garnish with a few pieces of smoked salmon and serve hot with remaining polenta cubes on the side.


ALRIGHT:

I did things just a little different and have a few suggestions for this recipe. I'll start out by saying this dish turned out incredibly. I really like the taste of this soup and everything about it. Here's how I changed it or would change it up.

So Polenta. If anyone has ever worked with it I would say it's pretty inconsistent. I know it takes up more time to constantly be adding water and checking on it, but that's what I did instead of a set amount of water and just letting it go. I feel like you could compare it to rice. It could be perfectly fine without checking on it, or it could be a mess. I have an electric tea kettle, so I heat that guy up and add water as necessary. It took about 25 minutes to get the polenta soft. I don't usually add the butter when I cook polenta (it's really good just with eggs) but I do usually add the parme cheese, salt and pepper. But I added the butter this time, and spread out this is what it looked like.

Next, I recommend if you love to make soup like I do that you purchase a hand blender. I accidentally purchased one that doesn't have sharp blades, but for soups at this point it does the job since soup is all soft and mushy anyway. I don't have a fine mesh sieve so therefore I blended the soup and let it go. I know it's supposed to be without any lumps what so ever but I don't think it was that bad and didn't take away from the dish. Here's what it looked like right before I blended it...

So next. The tomatoes. A lot of people (I know it's a new thing for me) haven't ever skinned tomatoes. So here's the easiest way I've found. Make sure you have boiling water. Cut an X in the top of the tomato. Put it in boiling water for a minute then immediately into cold. The skin should be peeling back on its own and you shouldn't have to do much work to get the skin off (unless you have a difficult tomato). Also, make sure the water is boiling. That is key.

Also, I think next time I wouldn't add the butter to the polenta. When I tried to fry it, the polenta melted back into it's original form, not keeping it's shape as cubes. I'm not sure how they did that, but kudos to them. I'm gonna try it next time without the butter and see how it does.

I also didn't garnish with salmon. The dish came out pretty well, here is the final result.

My kitchen rules

While washing the dishes in my sink, I realized that I have rules of my kitchen. It seems pretty silly, but there are things that make me and my life more comfortable, especially when cooking with/for others.

I also reserve the right to add to this list at any time (or when I'm cooking and think of another one I may have forgotten).

1. The cook may not clean.

This is big for me. The biggest thing I miss about having a boyfriend to cook for is that I had a dishwasher always, and now I don't have anyone to wash my dishes. I hate doing dishes, so it seems pretty appropriate that I cook. But a delicious meal made with a lot of effort is always dampened when realizing that cooking for myself I have to also clean up.

2. There must always be music playing that I can jam to.

Whether this is just good music that I enjoy, or music that I feel like I can dance to, it must be on. It relaxes the mood a lot in the kitchen (especially when cooking for/with others) and breaks up the silence. If the TV is on, which some people like to do, I feel the need to watch it and then potentially burn or ruin my dish somehow. Music is engrained so much in my life to begin with it only makes sense that I get to listen to music while I cook. I usually dance too.

3. Wine is a necessity.

One of the best parts of cooking is drinking wine. Over Christmas I baked a lot of cookies for my friends and family. The long nights of baking went by much faster with some wine. I love seeing what wines go with what sort of foods, and I think it is another mood calmer. It makes me relax just enough to not feel "on the spot" when I'm cooking in front of others. Since this is new for me, it's a little nerve wracking, especially cause I'm cooking a lot of new recipes and I don't know if they'll turn out or not.

4. I must always wear my apron.

Best decision ever to buy myself an apron. I love this thing. I wear it when I cook so I don't get food on my clothes and, let's be honest, I look super cute in it. I feel better about my cooking wearing the apron. Although it is a mental thing, whatever helps. I also wear my apron to do dishes. I have an incredibly small sink and before the apron I was always getting dish soap all over myself.

5. The packing away food and clean up process happens either during cooking or after the food is enjoyed.

I have met people who let food sit and get cold while the clean the pan, pot, etc. Absolutely a no no in my book. I refuse to let my food do anything other than be delicious in my mouth and belly. I will not let it get cold to wash a dish. Pfft. That waits until later.


These are my kitchen rules as of now, off the top of my head. I hope I have enlightened you to different and fun ways to cook, but also, I'd love to hear your kitchen rules! Anything you think I should implement in my kitchen?

Lancaster Brewing Company

I was out in Lancaster and ended up finding myself at the Lancaster Brewing Company for dinner. This was the second place we had been to (Checkers didn't have seating for an hour) and my patience was wearing thin when Ben and I had stood there for probably 3 minutes with no one acknowledging our presence. Eventually, someone noticed us and told us they would be with us. About another 4 minutes later someone finally helped us, even though there were like people all at the hostess station.

This wasn't starting out good.

However again, I called David since he lives in Lancaster and recommended the lamb burger here so we decided to stay and sit. Eventually, I decided on the Lamb burger and Ben got some sort of pizza. He was sick and his taste buds were off so he didn't get anything fancy but just a regular old pizza.

Here is our meals. My lamb burger with feta cheese. It was pretty good, and for only $9 it's a great price. The atmosphere was good and if I hadn't been driving I would have had a beer which would have been awesome since it is a brewing company.

After that I hit up the Lancaster Dispensing company to see my friend, Bill play a show with his band, Toy Soldiers. It was crazy busy and awesome. I always like the atmosphere there, they have good beers on tap, and in a great location right by the Lancaster Central Market. All in all, it was a pretty good night.

Best BBQ in York, PA

I am incredibly lucky that my friend David is also a foodie. A few months ago now he sent me a photo of some delicious looking BBQ, telling me it was right in York city. I came to find out that Big Lou's BBQ is literally a block and a half from my apartment. It's on West Princess right by Duke St.

If you didn't know this place existed, you'd probably miss it. But that would be a complete waste. I'd been there once before and had the Ribs. This time I took my friend, Christina. This BBQ is down home southern food in good old York, PA. It's also got the down home feel. The first time I went it was just me and my friend Ben in the restaurant, and three people came up asking how it was. At the third time I said to the girl, "this is terrible, I need another whole plate to make up for it." We all had a good laugh, and 30 seconds later they brought me out the green beans that we hadn't ordered. These green beans melted in my mouth, so delicious. This time there was a big group of people there filming something, and when I asked the wife of one of them explained it was something called BreathTV.com. I haven't gotten a chance to check it out but it sounds cool.

At any rate, the food. DELICIOUS. It is by far the best BBQ in York. This time I had the BBQ chicken wings, green beans and mac and cheese. I was full and still eating because it was so good I didn't want to waste it. I can't believe this little gem is found in York, PA. It's also a great price. My plate was only $8.99.

I love and recommend this place to everyone I know. The staff is friendly and really nice, the food is incredible, and you can't beat the price.

Ending a grudge

Oddly enough, most people who know me know that I've held a grudge a long time against Sonic.

One day last week my coworker, Justin, said at one point, "I love Sonic." As to where I replied, "I hate Sonic." He agreed to listen to my rant about the first and last time I was at Sonic including the fact that I only got 7 fries (literally, 7 in the pack) and they told me they had chocolate ice cream and what I got what vanilla with two pumps of chocolate syrup. Justin patiently waited, and then asked me some sort of question like, 'are you ready for shit to get real?' He went on his rant saying that I should have never gotten fries, I should have gotten tots, I have to get some sort of burger, and get the pineapple and strawberry shake, but I have to suck really hard to get it to come out.. of the straw.

Since I was going to be in Lancaster Saturday anyway, I told Justin I'd try it out again. He was so serious about loving that place that I couldn't not go. Here we go Sonic in Lancaster.

I guess my grudge is over. The burger wasn't anything special, but it wasn't bad. I guess it was good but I've definitely had better burgers. The tots were good too, but they didn't have any special seasoning on them or anything. The winner of the whole meal was the shake. I really loved the pineapple and strawberry shake. I can't say I'd go back again specifically for the food (other than it was two burgers, two tots and two shakes for $14) but the shake was pretty awesome. I'd recommend going there if no other reason than the shake.

Not just another truck stop

If you've ever driven route thirty by the Rockvale outlets in Lancaster, you've probably seen this diner. If you didn't know this information, you've probably always looked this by without even a thought.

I had heard from a friend that Jennies serves gigantic pancakes. Now imagine the biggest pancake you can think of. Maybe as big as your hand all spread out? So looking at the menu, I didn't see anything on the menu that said about a big pancake special so I decided to ask. ALL of their pancakes are that big. I decided to get the typical "Jennies Breakfast Special" at two eggs, a pancake, two pieces of toast, and a choice of sausage or bacon for $6.25. My friend ordered the 3 blueberry pancakes for $6.95. Here's what we got...

My friends hand is touching his pancakes. They are by far the biggest pancakes I've ever had in my life. The pancake was absolutely delicious. The best part about Jennies isn't the food though. Breakfast is breakfast a lot of places. The atmosphere of the truck stop along with the service from truck stop waitresses is really what makes this place. Here's my pancake half eaten.

I would most definitely go back to this place, and I would definitely recommend others to go to this place because of not only it's humongous pancakes as well as the pretty awesome atmosphere that goes with it. Plus, you can't beat two breakfasts plus a tip for $20.