attempt one.

i had trouble blogging the other night, and it put me in a non-blogging mood. i guess it's time to get over that and finish my post!

i attempted my first recipe from the pioneer woman on monday.

i stopped at whole foods to pick up a few more honeycrisp apples. [yum!] the little red potatoes caught my eye after i filled up a bag with the best apples in the world. so i picked up a few potatoes and decided that maybe it would be nice to cook dinner that night. i was planning to just slice them and toss them with some olive oil and herbs them bake them like i normally do. when i was looking up the baking time online [because i never remember] i vaguely remembered that the pioneer woman had a potato recipe that i'd wanted to try. so i went and checked... and sure enough... crash hot potatoes.

so i decided to chronicle my attempt, pioneer woman style. :]
my photos aren't nearly as good as hers, but there wasn't sufficient natural light left by the time i started... you'll get the idea.

here's my line up:
notice that i substituted dried tarragon and oregano for her fresh rosemary. maybe one day i'll plan ahead enough to use fresh herbs. not today. also, i used five potatoes for james and me. that was a good amount.

oh. and one more thing in my line up...
yeah. the computer. :]

because of my mere five potatoes, i was able to get away with a pretty small pot to boil the potatoes.

my only problem was that i had no idea how long it would take for them to get fork tender, and i took them out too soon. yes. i checked them with a fork, but apparently i'm not very good at judging that sort of thing... or maybe...
ok.
i guess that wasn't my only problem. but i'll get there soon enough.

i'm not much of an oil drizzler, so i just spread some on the tray with a pastry brush.
and i do believe that my pastry brush is looking as bad as ree's. :]
[you'll have to read her recipe for more on that.]

now came the real problem... i don't have a potato masher thing. i realize that she suggested using the bottom of a glass, but i couldn't handle the thought of just smashing them and not having any of the lovely texture.
surely, an old beater from a hand mixer would suffice, right?
wrong.
well. maybe the potatoes just aren't quite done enough... maybe that's what caused me to push so hard with the beater that the potato flew off the tray.
so. i put the potatoes back in the water to boil a bit longer.
in the mean time i searched for some other tool available in my kitchen that would allow for the lovely texture i so desired.
maybe a giant fork meant to be a serving fork will help provide some texture while smashing the potatoes.
wrong.
those potatoes were sliding all over the place. including one poor tot lost to the floor. and i was most likely looking like a complete fool battling it out with those potatoes. obviously, the olive oil did not help my cause, but i think not having the proper tool was the main problem.
needless to say, my next attempt will require the purchase of a potato masher.

anyhow. after my tenacious battle with the potatoes, i ended up with this lovely tray:
so maybe i had to get out a knife, but either way they were finally ready for the oven.

i added a little parmesan cheese at the last minute per james' request. good call, james. the cheese was an excellent addition. i also had to broil them for a few minute because we were getting too hungry to wait for them to brown up adequately.

next time, aside from acquiring the proper tool beforehand, i will also season them up a bit more heavily. i erred on the side of caution here, which turned out to be a mistake. if it weren't for the cheese, i may have had to get out the ketchup. ha.

oh. and next time, i will be sure to get a photo of the final product before we dig in. we were so hungry at that point that i completely forgot to get a final photo.

i also tried a modified version of this recipe for the chicken, and we totally loved it! i was going to make my favorite lemon chicken, but the lemon juice was old, so i had to improvise. since i was cooking with my computer already, i used the neat little quick meals window on the left side of this website. i was only making two pieces of chicken, and i didn't have any orange zest... but i figured i could make the recipe work, and i did! james actually really liked it, and so did i. i was so happy. it's a rare occasion when experiments in the kitchen go well for me. :]

i just added 1/2 cup orange juice, 1/4 cup soy sauce, and 1/4 cup sugar to a small saucepan and reduced it over medium heat. we spooned a little bit of this reduction over the chicken breasts while they were cooking on the little foreman grill. [love that thing.] then we added a bit more of the reduction once the chicken breasts were done cooking and on our plates... you know just like they do it on the food network. ha. :]

in other news... i have so much laundry to do in order to pack for the family vacation! i'm sooo excited for sunday. seriously, there's just something about walking around disneyland that's unlike anything else. and i'm so happy that i'll get to see my sister and my brother and amanda and victoria. eeek!

still searching for costumes. james and i can't seem to agree on anything. he's just not into my idea that it needs to be at least a little bit disney. but i think we are back to pirates at this point. so tomorrow, i'm going to try to put something together and just be done with it.

i think that's about it for me lately. costume searching and cooking. yep.

oh. my studio calico kit arrived today. actually, it arrived six minutes after i left for work according to the tracking info. i would have been late, had i only known. :] i asked james when he was home from work if a package came for me. he said it did, and he threw it away because i already have too much scrapbooking stuff. ha.
he does have a point. but. if he wants to start throwing my stuff away, he should start with the old stuff so that i don't notice...