Every now and then I come across some great recipes that I just have to try from afternoon forays in watching this adventurous chef. It helps that he is easy on the eyes, but he does something of just about everything and doesn't do fancy schmancy stuff that a normal person can't at least attempt. I don't always go out of my "cooking comfort zone", so I find that watching this helps me push my own boundaries here and there, and try out some new dishes. Well, one of the more recent shows had what looked like a super easy-peasy dessert. I love pineapple and I just happened to have one kicking around.
The grilling, easy. No shit eh? The toasting of the coconut.. well, I decided to skip that step because our broiler doesn't always work so good. The caramel sauce. Son of a bitch.
It is an easy recipe. I don't know what I was doing wrong, or what I wasn't reading in those directions, but it wasn't happening. The sugar did melt in the water, and the first time was a dismal failure. After more than a 1/2 hour, nothing, and I mean nothing was happening. Tried again. Still, no joy except succeeding in covering my sauce pan with solidified sugar. Found a different caramel recipe and substituted the heavy cream for coconut milk, finally, a measure of success. Actually, the third try was the charm with that slight variation of coconut milk.
There was a lot of caramel left over, so I speared a few apples, stood them on wax paper, and made my own caramel apples. Can't go wrong with that?! So much for my 10 minute dessert. I started making this about 7:30 and finished up close to 9. Brutal. Not to mention having to clean up my mess close to 11. I guess it didn't help I also decided to try my hand at doing ribs for the first time today as well. I would say that they were a success. It was fun making my own rum marinade after boiling the ribs in water and beer. Ah, an alcoholic theme emerges, my slightly drunken ribs.
Aside from this culinary foray, I also decided that today was the day that I would clean out our 90 gallon fish tank. Didn't quite remember how to hook the filter back up, and ended up with a few gallons of water on the carpet after I connected the damn thing wrong. Nothing like experiential learning, next time I won't make that mistake again.
We are heading out on holidays next week so I have this mental list of tiny projects that I feel should be attended to before we leave. The bigger projects end up as tasks on my email calendar (sadly, it helps, then I remember to do the things that nag at the edge of my consciousness)! I've learned from experience that if the tank isn't clean when I leave, something strange happens and there is a general decay in my fish population. I also like to leave the house in good shape, I hate coming home to chaos, especially when you unpack you just end up adding to the chaos so it takes the next week to put things somewhat to right again. I can't wait to get out of town again. This time will involve a little visiting , and a lot of time out in the back 40 getting back to nature.
1 comment:
Isn't it amazing that one dish can completely throw a cook for a loop.
I'm actually a very good cook, but there are some things I don't do. Like gravy. I require a recipe and the hand of God on my whisk. Otherwise it is inedible.
I also prefer to let someone else bake. I CAN bake, I just don't enjoy measuring stuff.
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