Cooking thread

I made enchiladas, with moritas and chipotles. But I had to resort to <sigh> canned tomatoes, because I couldn't find enough edible tomatoes at the stores this week. So I won't post it, even though it came out rather deliciously good.

Also, one of the classic movie channels on cable had "Cleopatra" playing. Normally I wouldn't have given it a second thought, but I caught the beginning and it struck me that it was rather accurate historically speaking. So while I cooked, I kept taking breaks to get glimpses of the movie (yeah, I know).

Among the details I caught that are right:

Julius Caesar learns Pompeii Magnus has escaped to Egypt and decides to follow
King Ptolemy is reigning Egypt alone and claims his sister, Cleopatra, who should be the co-ruler, is dead
Caesar is presented with the head of Pompeii upon arrival, and he's not pleased
Cleopatra (who is not at all dead) smuggles herself hiding inside a rug, with the help of a slave, into the palace to meet with Caesar
Caesar has a bastard child with Cleopatra (named Caesarion, or Little Caesar)
Caesar adopts his grand-nephew Octavian posthumously
Octavian spends an important fight lying ill in his tent, and Mark Antony mocks him for it
Octavian absconds with Antony's will from the temple of the Vestals and uses it to denounce him in the Senate
At the battle of Actium, Cleopatra manages to escape Octavian's ships and reaches Egypt safely (for all the good it did her).
Octavian marches overland to Egypt.

One major inaccuracy, though, has Cleopatra in Rome at the time Caesar is assassinated. And I'm sure there were others, but nothing that jumped at me in the parts I saw.

But that's not all. At the end Cleopatra kills herself. Can you imagine such an ending in today's Hollywood? Hell, no! If this movie were made today, the ending would have Antony and Octavian in a climactic sword battle, with Octavian being killed by Cleopatra with a dagger, from behind, as he's about to strike Antony dead with his gladius. The the two lovers would reinstate the Roman Republic (which hadn't formally fallen by then), and make Egypt independent again (which it was right up to Cleopatra's death).

Compared to that, I won't raise a fuss that Elizabeth Taylor, uh, Cleopatra, was in Rome when her lover got himself killed, or that Octavian did not read the full extent of the Donations of Alexandria.

I've been cooking all weekend, but I didn't cook anything new.

Today, though, I'm trying out two new recipes. A new potato recipe of my own, and a yogurt and berry baked dessert I found online. We'll see how they turn out.

Does Mexico have any of these 'Bake it and Take it' places wherein a woman will cook a months supply of meals and have them all frozen with the prep work and clean up work paid for?

Mixed results.

The dessert was a big hit with my mother. She took half of it. Me, I thought it wasn't sweet enough, and I definitely needed to use more berries. I should retry next week.

The potatoes were so-so. The creamy dressing I had in mind is relly good, but I made it way too thick. It's more a spread, really. For now I'm thinking of adding more milk.

I made flattened chicken breasts (boneless and skinless, of course) in morita and chipotle sauce. The sauce is delicious, and all made from scratch. The only, tiny, little problem is that once again I overused chiles and it came out too hot <shrug>. I'll post the recipe as time permits. Between work, insomnia on the weekend and cooking I'm all worn out.

I've no clue what I'll make next week. I'm dying to find out.

Finally:

http://kathyscookingcorner.blogspot.mx/2013/02/chicken-cutlets-with-chipotle-and.html

Chicken in creamy Chipotle and Morita sauce.

This one is really good. I've been using the left-over sauce for omelets with great results.

I've improved on the desert recipe. Once again my mom loved it. I should post it on the blog, but here are the basics:

2 whole eggs
about 3 or 4 egg whites (it's hard to say coming as they do from a jar of egg white)
1 tsp. vanilla extract (if you use artificial vanilla flavoring, you'll need more)
3-4 Tbsp. granualted Splenda, for cooking
320 gr. fat-free yogurt
2 tsp. corn starch dissolved in 1/4 cup of water
1/4 cup brandy

Whisk everything together.
In a baking dish place any mix of berries you like. I used mostly raspberries and a handful of blackberries. I dind't weight them, but there must ahve been 300-350 grams all told, maybe a bit more. Pour the mix on top of the berries, place in the oven at 185 C for 30-40 minutes. begin to see if it's done after 20 minutes. If the berries produced any juice, pour it on top of the mix.

Pretty good.

Baking time aside, it takes under 30 minutes to make. That's about as easy as I go with recipes ;)

I also made morita and chipotle enchiladas, and bell pepper pasta. Old recipes, really. I want to do something with beef next week. Not orange beef, which I made badly once before, not meatloaf. I'm thinking a slow-cooking meat stew. Any ideas?

I've been too tired to update the blog...

I also made beef stew yesterday. It was quite good, but I amde a rookie mistake. What was it? I failed to tenderize the meat first! I didn't even think about it until after I ate some of it and amde a note that the meat was a little bit too chewy (well, duh!)

Oh, well. I'll post it, eventually, on the blog, with appropriate reminders. It's really rather good anyway, expecially mixed with a little rice.

Speaking of rice, I got a tip to make better, ie less sticky, rice:

1) Rinse the rice in a colander with running warm water, then rinse with running cold water. This rather than merely soaking the rice in water as I sued to do.
2) Low-fat or not, add a few drops of oil in the water to keep it from boiling over.
3) regardless of the snitructions in the package, the right ratio for boiled rice is 2-2 1/4 cups of water per cup of rice, rather than 2 1/2

I did all that, and it was by far the best rice I've ever made.

Man, my local grocery has been getting some AMAZING cheeses.

I recently picked up a cheese called Scharfe Maxx. Scharfe Maxx smells awful (the description, for those who didn't follow the link, is "sweet barnyard air"; read between the lines) but the flavor is incredible, with just waves and waves of gentle sharpness and umami.

So tomorrow, an omelet. I searched for some combination of ingredients, and it looks like:

tomato
red onion
fines herbes
Sharfe Maxx

From The Cognac Bistro, in Boston.

I'm going to use dried fines herbes. I couldn't get fresh chervil, and I wasn't going to get $10 worth of tarragon, parsley, chives, and marjoram and then use dried chervil. All or nothing.

I've pretty much solved omelets. I love country omelets, but there is something about a perfect classic omelet that I find irresistable.

The difference: Jacques Pepin on omelets

Quote: Mosca

The difference: Jacques Pepin on omelets

That video is fairly ridiculous. How are you supposed to get in your shredded Kraft cheese, diced ham, onions, and green peppers? Uppity French nonsense . . . :-)