Slacking Off: Day 4: Blue Chicken and Sketchy Root

DAY 4: BREAKFAST
Again, I was not awake.

DAY 4: LUNCH
Thai food: Hawaiian (pineapple) fried rice. Note to self: Make it. Ingredients: Rice, pineapple, green onions, cashews, shrimp, chicken, soy sauce(?).

DAY 4: DINNER
Dad just sort of took over dinner. Since I didn't do any of the shopping or cooking, I don't know how much anything cost, and I have to just relate what I think happened.

Soup
Mom wanted to use a chicken for a soup. Guess what color the chicken was? Indigo-colored. It was really really small, small as in slightly larger than a large mango. And the chicken that we used wasn't just a thigh or a leg or a breast. It was the entire chicken: body, wings, head, feet, talons.  The only thing that was missing was the guts. Dad took a big pot full of water, put the entire chicken in (after partially defrosting, washing the chicken to fully defrost it), put the lid on, and started heating it. He said: "With soups, you first put the water and the meat in first, wait for the water to boil and the meat to cook, and then you add vegetables and other things in and cook it again, because vegetables cook really quickly."

The 'vegetable' was white and tuber-like, cylindrical, about a foot in length and two inches in diameter. I'm not sure how long it had been living in our refrigerator. My dad didn't know what it was either, though mom possibly did, because she told Dad to treat it like a potato. He used a peeler and peeled it, then cut it into little wheels about an inch thick, and discarded the ends. I watched him chop it. It sounded crispy, like cutting an apple (or uncooked potato) and it also had this weird starchy liquid that would follow the knife. I don't know.

Leftover Pineapple Fried Rice
Microwaved on a microwave-safe plate.


Peas and Eggs
I didn't actually watch him make this, but it's related to one of the few things I knew how to make before all this started (fried rice), so this is how I would make it:
Buy package of frozen peas.
Put a little oil on pan. (Or, use non-stick pan?)
Turn on fire.
Crack eggs into the pan.
Stir eggs around until half cooked.
Pour peas into eggs.
Stir until eggs fully cooked. (Peas should be unfrozen by now.)
Serve.


Shrimp and Cucumbers
These were cocktail-size shrimp, and they were probably made about the same way as the peas and eggs, except you had to un-shell the shrimp first, and wash and cut the cucumbers into wedge-shapes.

This all seems really simple, but it's a really satisfying dinner, and simple is ideal for the academic year. You can skip the soup and the leftovers, and unless seafood makes you swoon, even the shrimp and the cucumbers. I highly highly recommend that you try peas and eggs, if you can.

Under Adult Supervision: Day 3: Avocado Fritters, Guacamole, and Leftover Pasta

DAY 3: BREAKFAST
I did not wake up before noon, so I assume everyone had leftovers or bread or coffee.

DAY 3: LUNCH
I drove my brother to In n Out. I don't know what Mom had.

DAY 3 (today/last night): DINNER



Avocado Fritters
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/corn-fritters/

Ingredients

• 3 cups oil for frying (I used 3 tablespoons. Misread. That actually explains a lot of what happened subsequently)
• 1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon white sugar
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 tablespoon shortening, melted (Not sure what shortening is, didn't want to go shopping.)
• 1 (12 ounce) can whole kernel corn, drained 1 avocado, smashed

Directions

1. Heat oil in a heavy pot or deep fryer to 365 degrees F (185 degrees C).  Heat oil in little pan that you have just washed. Become frightened at the tiny explosions that are taking place on the pan. Dad: That's what happens when you heat water and oil. Wait for the water to evaporate. 
2. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Beat together egg, milk, and melted shortening; stir into flour mixture. Mix in the corn kernels avocado.
3. Drop fritter batter by spoonfuls into the hot oil fry batter like pancakes, and fry until golden. Drain on paper towels.

Cauliflower
http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/simple-cauliflower-recipe.html


Ingredients
2 - 3 heads of small cauliflower (or 1/2 head large) (I have no idea how much I used)
2 tablespoons of olive oil
a couple pinches of sea salt
1 clove garlic, minced
1 small bunch of chives, chopped
zest of one lemon clementine
freshly grated Parmesan
a bit of flaky sea salt


Procedure: What really happened. 
1. Chop off a bit of cauliflower from the gigantic head from the refrigerator. Begin to chop up cauliflower. Realize you have chopped way too much cauliflower. Wash cauliflower. Put in a bowl. Look at the tiny pan. Set aside half of the cauliflower.
2. Heat remaining oil from avocado fritters on small pan. Sprinkle in a little salt as per recipe. 
3. Pour bowl of cauliflower into pan. Jerk back as terrifying crackling noises and a three foot cone of flame shoots up from small pan. 
4. Yell: DADDY!!!!!!!!
5. Daddy, who luckily for you is watching t.v. about ten feet away, tells you the pan is too small, that the water and cauliflower had forced the oil over the edges of the pan and into the fire, causing the terrifying cone of flame, takes over the cooking of the cauliflower in a bigger, oil-less pot.


In summary: Big pan, no oil + wet cauliflower = fine.
Big pan, oil + cauliflower(drained) = fine.
Small pan, oil + wet cauliflower = mountain of flame


(Okay, Maya. Now if you say that I nearly burnt down my house, I won't argue. But in my defense, I cooked two whole dinners before this happened, and my house is still standing. No scorch marks.)

Guacamole
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/easy-guacamole/

• 2 1 avocado
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 ripe tomato, chopped
• 1 lime, juiced 2 clementines, juiced
• salt and pepper to taste

Put in a bowl together and mash with spoon.


Toasted Bread
Take the last slices of bread that have been sitting for weeks in the refrigerator. Put in the toaster-oven until deep brown.

Reheated Pasta
I reproduced the sauce, with a little more chicken broth, a little less whipping cream (I was running out) and some milk. It seemed fine. If anything, the sauce was a little lighter, though it possibly congealed after a little while.

If you're wondering why I substituted clementine peels and juices instead of those of lemons (I substituted clementine juice for the lemon juice that was substituting dry white wine in the pasta recipe), it's not anything against lemons. I'd already used up all three that I bought on Day 2. I figured that lemons and clementines were close enough.

Reception:
Brother: Went out for dinner with a friend.
Dad: "I like it. It's simple."
Mom: I think she really liked the guacamole, because she ate the remainder of it with a spoon.

Also, the past two days Mom has been joking/kind of serious about how the money I didn't spend in my $40 a day budget became my "wages." Here is our conversation after today's dinner:

Mom: You didn't buy anything for dinner today?

Me: Nope. (not entirely true. I did use part of the food money to get the In n Out)

Mom: So...basically you made $40 today?

Me: Uh...

And now my budget is $10 a day.

Approval: Day 2: Chicken Pasta

DAY 2: BREAKFAST
My family and I aren't very big on breakfast foods really, so we mostly just had some pineapple buns that my mom had already bought.

DAY 2: LUNCH
I was making tater tots (from a frozen bag) and fried rice (pan, oil, eggs, rice, tomatoes) when my mom and brother returned to the house - I never noticed that they left - with burritos.

DAY 2: DINNER


Thyme Mint Chicken Pasta
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/thyme-mint-chicken-pasta/

After Day 1's dinner, I knew I had to step it up, or my road toward culinary achievement might be forever blocked, and my brother would never stop proclaiming that I was trying to poison him with my cooking.

Why I chose this: My brother likes pasta, and I found two packages of Foster Farm-skinless-boneless chicken thigh in the freezer, so it seemed like an awesome opportunity to try to cook chicken without really dealing with cooking chicken.

Ingredients

• 1 (16 ounce) package thin whole-wheat spaghetti (The pantry conveniently had at least a dozen packages of spaghetti noodles, four of which were whole wheat.)
• 
  
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
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• 2 tablespoons olive oil
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• 1 1/4 pounds skinless, boneless chicken thighs, cut into strips
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• 1 pinch salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
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• 1/2 cup dry white wine lemon juice (Substitutes:  http://homecooking.about.com/library/archive/blalcohol6.htm Other sites also said, apple juice, apple cider, milk, and lemon juice, which I used.)
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• 1/2 cup chicken stock [$3.99] (I looked all over the store for this, and the only thing that I knew about it was that it came in a carton. I don't remember whether it was under the 'canned foods' or the 'vegetables' section. Or maybe it was 'canned vegetables.' It was where a bunch of cooking mixes were. And apparently there is a difference between 'chicken broth' and 'chicken stock.' I don't know - wait. I'm on the internet:  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes-and-cooking/chicken-stock-vs-chicken-broth/index.html stock is from bone and richer, broth is from meat and...less rich?)
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• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream [$2.59] (All I could find was 'heavy whipping cream.' I'm just assuming it's the same, because the sauce turned out fine.)
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• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint (I found fresh mint and you had to buy it in bunches that were way more than I'd ever use)
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• 1 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme [$6.09] (I bought a little jar that looked like the things that cupcake sprinkles come in, except 1/4 of the size.)
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• 2 teaspoons honey
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• 1 teaspoon lemon zest (apparently 'lemon zest' is the same as 'lemon peel,' so I just chopped up a bit of peel from the lemons I bought.)
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• 1 teaspoon sherry vinegar balsamic vinegar (Guide to vinegars:  http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/how-vinegar-works1.htm)
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• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Cook spaghetti in the boiling water, stirring occasionally, until cooked through but firm to the bite, about 12 minutes; drain. Toss spaghetti with 1 tablespoon olive oil to keep from sticking together.
2. Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Season chicken generously with salt and pepper. Cook the chicken in hot oil until lightly browned and just cooked through, 3 to 5 minutes per side. Drain on a paper towel-lined plate.
3. Pour white wine into the skillet; bring to a boil while scraping the browned bits off of the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Add chicken stock; continue cooking until the volume of liquid reduces by about half. Stir cream, mint, thyme, honey, lemon zest, sherry vinegar, and 1/2 teaspoon salt into the liquid; cook until the volume of the liquid reduces again by about half. Stir cooked pasta into the sauce to coat. Return chicken to the skillet and cook until hot, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to serve.

Note: Ready in 45 minutes? This took me a good hour and a half, not counting shopping, defrosting, and planning. Also, I defrosted (Mom: raw meat should be defrosted in the sink, not on the counter where you put things you eat.) the chicken for an hour an a half beforehand, and it should have been defrosted longer - my dad actually ended up taking over its cooking. Also, I didn't really stick to the amount of chicken stock and whipping cream. When I used the correct amount, there didn't seem to be enough, so I just poured in a bunch in approximately equal ratios after it'd been simmering a while.

Other problems: If I followed the recipe correctly, there was way too much pasta and way too little sauce. I made two batches of sauce for half the pasta and that was all my family was able to finish. It is good if you want to cook a batch of spaghetti once and then microwave for the rest of the week, though.

Reception:
My brother complained about the whole wheat part, but he ended up eating a lot of the pasta. My mom and dad liked it. I liked it, but the sauce was very strongly scented, and it was hard to eat a lot of it (enhancing the problem of the excessive amount of spaghetti noodles).

Lukewarm: Day 1: Avocados and Leftovers

DAY 1: DINNER

Raspberry Avocado Salad w/ Honey Raspberry Vinaigrette
http://www.avocadocentral.com/avocado-recipes/view/21771/Raspberry-Avocado-Salad-With-Honey-Raspberry-Vinaigrette

Why did I choose this? We'd bought a bag of avocados from Costco the past weekend, and no one was eating them, so I looked for avocado recipes that weren't guacamole and looked easy to make. The prices were I had to buy and what it cost at that time at the particular location I shopped.

Salad

• 2 ripe, Fresh Hass Avocados, peeled, seeded and diced
• 1 (5 oz.) package spring mix salad [$3.49]
• 1 (11 oz.) can mandarin oranges, well drained  a few peeled clementine oranges soaked in sugar and hot water (I was trying to mimic canned oranges. It kind of worked, though mom walked into the kitchen while I was happily pouring hot water on bowls of oranges, thought that was our dinner, and was horrified.) 
• ¹/₂ cup glazed walnuts, coarsely chopped pre-packaged, made for salad, honey roasted almonds. [$3.99] (I was ready to substitute with some pistachios that I found in a jar in the pantry, but mom wanted almonds.) 
• ¹/₃ cup sliced green onions (I've never ever noticed green onions in my salads.)
• 1 cup fresh raspberries (I know it's a raspberry salad, but there were already plums in the house.)
• Pepper to taste (I have a slight aversion to pepper.)

Dressing

• ¹/₄ cup extra virgin olive oil
• ¹/₄ cup raspberry vinegar balsamic vinegar
• 1 ¹/₂ Tbsp. honey
• ¹/₂ Tbsp. Dijon mustard (I don't like mustard.)
• ¹/₄ tsp. salt

Note: I wasn't sure what 'vinaigrette' meant exactly, so I looked it up. It's a salad dressing, particularly "oil emulsion" While the recipe calls for equal parts oil and vinegar, I found a number of websites (http://culinaryarts.about.com/od/oilvinegardressings/qt/vinaigrette.htm, and Wikipedia) that claimed that the ratio should be 3:1 oil:vinegar (and apparently honey helps with the mixing, and don't put the dressing in the refrigerator). So I excitedly whisked up a batch of dressing, and then later I found a bottle of store-bought raspberry vinaigrette in the fridge.

In addition to the salad, I also microwaved a bunch of leftover Chinese food from lunch, and a little chunk of salmon from the dinner from the night before.

Reception: 
Brother: "Microwaved food and salads are not cooking. The avocados look gross. Are you trying to kill me?" He finished off the part of the Chinese food that I had not microwaved.
Mom: She ate some salad, some leftovers, and then inexplicably made herself some ramen noodles.
Dad: He ate some salad and leftovers.

A Day Filler

I was milling in front of the television one day when my mother said: You need something to do. How about you cook meals for family?

Me: Really?

Mom: Yes.

Me: YES!!!!!!

Mom: I'll give you a budget of $40 a day, and you figure out what to cook for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Me: $40? That's kind of a lot.

Mom: Well...seafood can be expensive.

Me: Okay. I GET TO CONTROL THE FOOD!!!

So this is how, a few days ago, I came to be in charge of cooking for my family. I'm not saying this pridefully, as if an eighteen year old cooking for a four person household is some kind of revolutionary genius. In fact, for a summer-after-freshman-year-in-college, friends-all-having-jobs-or-activities, jobless me, this is really the main motivating factor for doing something productive. That, and chauffeuring my brother (but classifying that as 'productive' is a bit of a stretch).

I figure that with me being marginally productive, I should try to double it and type up the scribbled/copied (from the internet) recipes, how I altered them, and any problems I came across. Just in case any of my peers (or anyone else) gets a budget and a cooking mandate from their mother.