culinary experiments and explorations

Over the past week or so, after finally having an epiphany on how to make yeasty breads rise properly in my rather cool kitchen (namely, let the dough rise in a covered glass bowl near the oven vent with an extended preheating), I've been having quite a bit of fun experimenting with a small handful of recipes.

First off was my test case -- the Mall Pretzels recipe off of AllRecipes.com. Overall, it's really straightforward -- the only part I found, and continue to find, challenging was the shaping of the dough into the "pretzel" shapes after the rise. It just felt like there wasn't quite enough actual dough there to do it properly, particularly with the way the elastic risen dough didn't seem to want to roll out into meter-long pencil-thin ropes for proper twisting.

So I thought, why not play around with the division of the dough? Instead of dicing it into twelve pieces, why not try it with six pieces and a concurrently longer baking time? What about four pieces? I did still try to roll it out into pretzel shapes, but in the end it felt like too much trouble for just having fun experimenting and I chose to put it in loaves instead.

As it turned out, that made for some incredibly tasty bread, particularly once I added to the recipe with minced garlic, various herbs, and a little cheese to top it off.

Here's my ( Final Adapted Recipe for Italian Herb & Garlic Pretzel Bread )

I've totally fallen in love with this bread, and its salty goodness seems to be a big hit with everyone I've given it away to as well. Fresh bread -- it's great! (Unless you have a gluten allergy, in which case it's not, and I'm really sorry for your unfortunate dietary limitations. *wry grin*)

I've got a couple of acquaintances who are pescaterians -- that is, vegetarians who will also eat fish -- and as it turns out, my culinary experiments to date have sadly neglected fish. So this evening, I cracked open one of my favorite Thai cookbooks and decided to adapt a recipe.

The basis for tonight's experiment was plah toht kamin -- fried fish with turmeric. I wanted to go a little bit further than the recipe did, though, and so I stole some spicing ideas for the breading from a completely different source of southern style. The American South!

The result was surprisingly delicious (although, being unable to find catfish, I went with tilapia instead).

( Tilapia Fillets Fried With Turmeric, Southern Style )

I made this with a pound of frozen tilapia fillets, suitably defrosted in my fridge during the day, and it turned out amazing. The fish was tender enough that it nearly fell apart on my fork, and the combination of the marinade and the spiced breading was multilayered and memorable. I would serve this dish with or without any dip -- it's just that tasty, for my palate.

I'll definitely be making it again!

Wow, more than a year since I last posted -- a lot's been going on! I bought a house, for one thing, and I've been going back to college. In the meanwhile, though, I'm still cooking. I came across this recipe a few weeks back, and it produces without doubt some of the most delicious meatballs I've ever had. Enjoy!

( Tasty Meatballs )

This recipe goes particularly well with my Meaty Red Sauce, less the meat in that recipe. Simply cook this separately while simmering the sauce, and combine with pasta afterwards for a fantastic meal.

I'm aiming for a lower-carb diet as part of the exercise regimen I'm on. A diabetic co-worker of mine recommended a particular brand of pasta (Dreamfields) as much lower carb than the usual stuff, but still better tasting than the generally bland whole-wheat pasta which is more widely out there.

I checked out the brand the next time I was in the market, and there was quite an interesting recipe on the box. I adapted it and changed a few things (not a big fan of the recipe-recommended shrimp), and the result turned out to be extremely tasty.

( Angel Hair Pasta with Chicken, Tomatoes, and Basil )

Sweet, spicy, and delicious sauce over angel hair pasta -- fantastic! A little tricky to make, at some part (multiple pans going at one time), but all in all a very tasty dish. I'd definitely make it again.

Following my decision to make at least one new recipe every week, I looked over this week's recipe email from Good Morning America and settled on a variation of their healthy, relatively ( Low-Cal Chicken Linguine Alfredo. )

This turned out extremely tasty, though as the original recipe called for 3/4 cup of yogurt (and I could taste that in the sauce) I decided to tone it down to 1/2 cup. A quick, relatively easy meal for a few people, but I suspect the leftover sauce won't refrigerate tremendously well.

A while back, hankering for pizza, I'd looked up some various recipes for pizza sauces online and blended a bunch together to make this one -- my nigh-ideal sauce, with tons of flavor, a little heat and some zing.

( Spicy Red Pizza Sauce )

This works great on pizza, in calzones (and I'll be posting recipes for those once I perfect a few), or as a dipping sauce for Three Cheese Garlic Bread with Herbs.