Bruschetta Chicken, Asparagus, and French Bread (Recipes 4 and 5)

Can I just say that God is an incredible Creator? Have you ever thought about how beautiful the world is that He created? He created so many good and beautiful things for us to enjoy. He didn't make food bland and colourless, but rather He made food aesthetically beautiful and wonderful to eat. Sometimes when I'm cooking I just have to stop and marvel at God's glorious creation. What a great God we serve!

The recipe I wanted to try was a bruschetta chicken recipe. Bruschetta is basically tomatoes, spices, and oils mixed together. I didn't have all that the original recipe called for, so I adapted and came up with this instead:

• 1 pint of Cherry Tomatoes
• 2 Tomatoes diced
• 3 tablespoons Vinegar
• 3 teaspoons White Sugar
• 1 tablespoon Olive Oil
• 5 cloves of Garlic minced
• 1 tablespoon dried Basil Leaves
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• A few drops of Lemon Juice
• Some cut up fresh Spinach 

Mix it all together in a bowl and let it sit in the fridge for a while to soak up all the delicious juices. 

While that was sitting in the fridge ready for dinner I got to work on the bread. I love baking bread. I love how simple it is, with just a few ingredients, but how it becomes a fluffy loaf of deliciousness after a few hours. 

This recipe for French Bread probably just became my favourite bread recipe. Not only did it taste good (which is always a nice surprise!) but it was fun to make. It is a very involved bread recipe. Most bread requires an hour or more of rest. This recipe called for punching it down every 10 minutes while it rested. Fun? Yes!

The recipe:

• 2 tablespoons Yeast
• 2 cups Warm Water
• 2 tablespoons Honey
• 2 tablespoons Oil
• 1 tablespoon Salt
• 6 cups Flour

Mix together the honey, yeast, and water in a separate bowl. 

Mix together the flour, salt, and oil in another bowl. When the yeast mixture has proofed (i.e. started to poof up a bit) pour it into the flour, salt, and oil mixture. Knead it together into a ball of dough. 

Set it in a greased bowl to rise for one hour, punching it down every ten minutes. 

While waiting every ten minutes to punch down the bread I sat and read some new books that I got. 

 When the dough has been risen and punched 6 times, form it into loaves and let it rise for 30 minutes. 

Preheat the oven to 400ºF and bake for about 15 minutes. 

 While the bread was baking away in the oven, I set to work on the chicken. The recipe for the chicken called for salt and pepper... that's it. Well, I don't know about you, but to me that sounded awfully bland and didn't I just write about how wonderful God is to create food that isn't bland? So why wouldn't I try and make the chicken as good as it could be. I wanted a flavour that would compliment the spices of the bruschetta, so I opened up the fridge and took out ingredients that looked good. 

First I defrosted chicken breasts and sliced them in half lengthwise. I then put them in a large bowl with a little bit of oil, parmesan, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder. After getting them nicely coated I stuck them in a tupperware container and smothered them in sour cream and a little bit of mustard to give it a kick. 

The picture looks terrible! I am so sorry. I should have taken a picture of it cooking because it looked a bit more appetizing. However, this is what the chicken looked like before I stuck it in the fridge to marinate for a few hours.  

After letting the chicken marinate for a few hours, I grilled each side for about 30 seconds in a skillet, then stuck it in the oven to bake for about 15 minutes. 

I also cooked up some asparagus for the meal. I recently discovered the wonders of asparagus a few weeks ago. Asparagus is easy to fix, but it looks classy and sophisticated. 

First I boil a pot of water. While the water is coming to a boil, I break of the ends of the asparagus. They will break at the point where they are good, so it's simple. 

When the water has come to a boil, simply throw in the asparagus for 2-3 minutes (depending on the thickness of the asparagus). As soon as the time is up, quickly take them out and put them in a bowl of ice water. 

This is called blanching and is one of my top ten favourite cooking vocabulary words. 

Blanching stops the vegetable from cooking any more and gives it a vibrant colour as well as a soft inside with a crunchy outside. Mmm. 

When the asparagus has sat in the ice water for a bit take it out and roast it in a skillet with some Olive Oil, Garlic Powder, Parmesan, and Salt. And there you have it, a beautiful vegetable that takes about 5 minutes to cook. Yum! 

The final bruschetta chicken. I put the bruschetta on the chicken and sprinkled it with a little bit of cheese.

The verdict: Faith, Megan, Jimmy, Damarise, and Davey were my fantastic eaters for this meal. This meal started out looking much better than cow tongue, and I think they all agreed that it tasted better too. The bread was a huge success and both loaves were demolished by the end of the meal. I'd call this meal a success! We didn't revert back to a bowl of cereal; great day! 

End note: I love these people! They bring so much joy to my life. I'm thankful for their willingness to try new foods and brave my cooking. I'm thankful for the time we have to fellowship together during and after the meal. God is a glorious creator in the foods that He created, but He is an incredible creator in creating each of these lovely people! Cooking and baking and having them enjoy it is the best!

Best Brownies (Recipe 3)

The name of the recipe really is "Best Brownies". Making brownies from scratch is fun, but I gotta admit, there is nothing like the taste of boxed brownies. I don't know how they do it so well, but I still have not found a recipe that can match the gooeyness of boxed brownies. Mmm. Regardless, I decided to try the recipe for "Best Brownies" and tweak it a little bit to add some more pizzaz.

Before getting ready to bake I put on some music. (Side note: right now, I love this song. I want to learn it on guitar. It is beautiful!)

The recipe for these brownies is easy: 

• 1/2 cup melted butter (or margarine)
• 1 cup white sugar 
• 2 eggs 
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour 
• 1/4 teaspoon salt 
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Mix it up in a bowl and pour it in a 9x9 pan. Bake at 350ºF for 25 minutes. 

Simple, right? Well, I wanted to spice it up a little...literally. I put in some chili pepper. I've heard of chili pepper chocolate and chili pepper hot chocolate. But I'd never heard of chili pepper brownies, so why not try it? Well, my tastebuds must not be able to taste much chili pepper because I might have put a bit too much in the brownies...

I doubled the recipe, poured it in a pan, and added some chocolate chips. 

Tada! Okay, this picture was solely for photographic purposes only (Damarise ate it afterwards for me). I didn't serve them like this, but it does look pretty and tasted good too. 

I actually stacked them on a paper plate and my wonderful friends, Jimmy and Faith, drove around with me to give them to construction workers who kindly work away every night to make our road nice and smooth. We had a blast delivering brownies as a thank you to the men. 

Cow Tongue Fail (recipes 1 and 2)

Once upon a time I lived in Durham, Ontario, Canada. Our family lived in a duplex without any running water. (It was preparation for the mission field). I'm sure it was a pain on my parents, but I loved it. It was an adventure. The adventures didn't end at no running water. Oh, no! There were always adventures. Like the first snowfall that left over two feet of snow on the ground in a little over an hour. Or trying an iced cappuccino for the first time and continuing to drink coffee in the hopes that it would stunt my growth. Or, when our duplex neighbor, Mrs. Whatley, brought over some cow tongue for us to try. Ah! Cow tongue!

Cow tongue. It sounds gross. Okay, it looks gross. Today when I picked it up from Walmart one of the employees standing nearby said, "Oh! That is a disgusting looking piece of meat!" So, I sheepishly carried it from the meat isle to the cash register trying not to be seen with it (that walk felt eternal!).

But, I brought it home ready to prepare my first recipe for the 50+ new recipes of the Summer. See, when Mrs. Whatley brought over some cow tongue for us to try eleven years ago, it was amazing! I'd never been a fan of steak. Oh, I loved the flavour, but the steak I had had was chewy. Cow tongue had the flavour of steak, but was tender and delicious. Ever since Mrs. Whatley had brought it by, I'd wanted to try making it.

And so began the adventure. I unpackaged the meat and stuck it in the crockpot with a tablespoon of salt and pepper, some garlic, onion, and water.

It was a good photo prop. And how many times in your life can you hold a cow tongue... or would want to?

While the cow tongue was being cooked in the crockpot, I began to cook some artichoke. I have never eaten artichoke, so I decided why not fix that up to? I found a delicious recipe online. And set it to cook. 

While the artichokes were in the oven, and the tongue had been cooking for a few hours, it was time to cool down the tongue and peel it. (Yes, you have to peel off the skin and tastebuds to get to the real meat, appetizing, eh?). Except peeling the skin off is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I tried and failed. Like I said, it was hard! Thankfully, Jimmy was willing to help out! He peeled the skin off and was a pro at it! It was rough and I am sure disgusting, but he didn't complain and worked at it until there was no more skin on it. Thank you, Jimmy! (It was definitely an Instagram moment). 

After slicing the tongue and putting it in the oven for 15 minutes, tearing apart the artichoke, and cooking up some wholesome mashed potatoes and gravy, dinner was served. 

The verdict: Jimmy, Damarise, Megan, Faith and Sonya were my wonderful eaters. They put aside their fears and ate the cow tongue. Did it turn out like Mrs. Whatley's? Hardly. It was a bit rough. The artichokes were not my favourite tasting vegetable ever, and the mashed potatoes were a wee bit watery. But, my friends graciously ate it. They tried it and I was happy for that. 

However, the first two new recipes of the Summer were definitely on the fail list, and after trying to eat the meal, we gave up, took down one of our many boxes of cereal and had a bowl of cereal instead. Because when all else fails just eat cereal, right? Right!

Hopefully the next new recipes will go better... It's a fun adventure!

Introduction

I'm pretty sure me (here is my actual blog just in case you are wondering who I am) and my sister, Damarise, could live on cereal if it came down to it. When we go to Aldi we look like we are stalking up on Raisin Bran for a year. In fact, the cashier at Aldi laughed at us today when he was ringing up all of our cereal. So, maybe the top of our fridge is covered in cereal, but what can I say, we love it. However, no matter how much I love cereal, I love trying new foods too.

I just graduated from Covenant College with a degree in Elementary Education. How I came to major in this is a long story, but the gist of it is that I love kids and I love learning a little bit about several things. And now I am graduated. I am searching for a job and dabbling in learning new things while I seek employment. 

This past year I have attempted to learn guitar, book writing, knitting, cooking, and baking. I have always loved baking. I started baking when I was ten years old. Every week I would make two loaves of whole wheat bread to last our family throughout the week. But baking bread was just the beginning. Moving around the world opened up my eyes to the spectrum of cooking and baking possibilities. And since moving into my own house a year ago (complete with a kitchen that I love!) I have begun to cook and bake to my heart's content. 

Cooking began as a de-stresser for me. The harder the day was, the more I wanted to cook and the better the food turned out. And as time went on the more I enjoyed cooking and baking. Thus, when Summer came around I decided that I wanted to cook at least 50+ new recipes just for the fun of it. And so begins this blog. 

This is where I will catalog the recipes that I try and the wonderful friends who eat the food no matter how weird or terrible it may be. And, if the food turns out too nasty (which I am sure will happen at least once) there is always the over abundance of cereal on top of our fridge.

If all else fails, we will just eat cereal!

Let it begin!