the girl on black cat hill’s Neighborhood

Bake-A-Thon Update

Alright, I am calling it a day.

I've written a list of what needs to be done before I leave in the morning, and what I need to bring.

I sure hope I thought of everything.

And I hope I don't have anymore pretend nightmares tonight.

;-)

Nighty-night.

This recipe is made up four parts, but I will cheat on the pasta—instead of home made pasta use whatever  dry long form pasta that’s in your cupboard; it will save you so much time.

1. Teriyaki Chicken

1 whole chicken cut into 8ths

4 oz soy sauce

4 oz rice wine

2 oz sugar

grated ginger

Directions:

1. Marinate the chicken in soy sauce, rice wine, sugar and grated ginger for 15 minutes in the refrigerator.
2. Heat some vegetable oil in a frying pan. First, fry the skin side of the chicken on medium heat until the skin is browned.
3. Turn the chicken over to fry the other side on low heat.
4. Pour sauce used to marinate chicken in the pan.
5. Cover the pan and roast the chicken on 325F until done (165F internal temperature) or leave it on the stove top on medium heat.
6. Remove the chicken from sauce and simmer until sauce becomes thick.

2. Vegetable Tempura 

8 egg whites

8 cup Pastry flour

1 cup ice water

2 cans club soda

Directions: 

1. Beat 2 eggs in a bowl
2. Add ice water in the bowl. Be sure to use very cold water.
3. Add 6 cups of sifted flour in the bowl and mix quickly.
4. Be careful not to over mix the batter.
5. Wash, dry, peel and dip vegetables (carrots and zucchini) into tempura batter.
6. Set the deep fryer to 375F.
7. Fry the vegetables until crisp.

3. Spicy quick pickles

4oz cup rice vinegar

3 oz sugar

1 oz soy sauce

1 oz fish sauce

½ teaspoon dried crushed red pepper

2 large English hothouse cucumbers

Directions:

1. Whisk rice vinegar, sugar, soy sauce, fish sauce, and crushed red pepper in large bowl. This can be made one day ahead covered and chilled.
2. Slice cucumbers crosswise into ¼ inch thick round or thinner.
3. Add cucumbers slices to vinegar mixture.
4. Toss together and make sure cucumbers are very well coated.
5. Cover and chill ten minutes to 1 hour, tossing occasionally.

On top of  the pasta, place the chicken, and behind the chicken add three vegetable tempura sticks. Garnish with the pickled cucumbers and chopped green onions or parsley. Beautiful--the mix of green and oranges set against the browns and white, and so delicious.

Teriyaki Chicken

Bake-A-Thon Update

Yo.

So here is the deal. I am cranky and tired of this silly idea of me keeping everyone posted on what's up with my baking. Who's cotton pickin' idea was this anyways??

So I found this stupid box that's like the official bakery boxes that would be so cool if I cared right now. Wait, I got a slight twitter in the heart feeling. I reckon that means I still care some.  

And I have a feeling that after a good nights rest I will care even more.

I took a picture of the cookies in the stupid bakery box but screwed up putting it on the computer.

Oh well.

Bake-A-Thon Update

I have 99 cookies. I was asked to prepare for 100. Gosh- dare I chance it and go with just 100?

I want to go to bed soooo bad.

I'm thinking of a bubble bath.

All but 18 cookies are frosted.

Must get back to work. Push through it. I'm too tired to put on my game face.

I still need to do some organizing in my head about how things will go down tomorrow.

I remember hearing before that one has to be superduper careful when baking and doubling a recipe. And I even had a feeling I should not double and make my sugar cookie recipe batch by batch. But then I started thinking it was SO dumb that I had to so I wasn't going to anymore and I doubled.

And now my Temple cookies are starting to look like dinosaur tracks.

Wah! WHY?!?!

Here are the pictures of the moment....

2-templecookies

I thought of a way to make these cute a little too late. They are cuter in person, there is a very sweet shiny sugar on top that the camera isn't showing.

And they are pre-doubling of the recipe.

The dining room is looking more messy than full now that the cookie decorating tools are out-

A-blahblahblahdiningroom

And I do mean messy-

A-blahberdeedaberdeedooh

I must be getting snippy. Gary just entered the kitchen for a snack very cautiously.

Think about it--with all the crap he blows up and destroys? Who's gonna pay for all that damage?

Bake-A-Thon Update

I'm on a roll..... I have my game face on. You know, the one with the wrinkled chin that I inherited from my Ma.

I am so desperate to have the little one's occupied that I let Zoe make watermelon soup.

Rae took the pictures.

1zoew-soup

I would have swept the hair from her face but my hands were covered in dough.

Asoew-soup

That's better.

The latest dining room picture

A-dingingroomtable

I'm considering offering my kids payment to not help.

By the way, can you tell I also use the dining room as an art studio? The black paint has been on there for years....

The sit down break has been nice.... but I gotta get back at it.   

Bake-A-Thon Update

Okay- I gotta make this one quick.

My table looked like this after loading the car for the stuff to drop off

Adr-1

Then on the way home I picked up some produce from a little side of the road farmers thing-a-ma-bob.

Adr-2

And if you didn't notice, the watermelon farthest from you has a large crack in it. That's because Zoe "had to help" and dropped it.

The good news is that we discovered that the watermelons pretty much are gross. Well, this one is, so it's making me wonder.

The bad news is, now what???

But we staked out the Stake Center's kitchen and saw this-

It's good to go.

But it was funny, we stopped at Sam's Club before the Stake Center and Liz said, "Haven't we done this before?"

I think this is time #3 for us working on food in bulk together.

 Fun stuff, fun stuff.

Last time I asked her to help she asked me why I keep asking her. I said, "Because we work so well together."

silence....

"Right???" She agreed. After hesitating.

We did a lot of this-

111-d

And laughing with Liz is always great because she laughs like a baby seals bark.

I swear it. It's hilarious.

But then when we struggled finding a Japanese joint for linner (that's a lunch and dinner combo) and couldn't find one open, we looked like this-

111-e

HAHA!! That face is making me laugh like a baby seal barks!!!

Gotta get crack-a-lackin'. I am WAY behind schedule. There is no schedule, but either way, I'm behind it.