Friday, February 26, 2010

Home Made Pokky -- an update

Ok...this one should have been posted ages ago but I kinda forgot about it. So here it is now.

Well...the chocolate chips melted fairly easily using a glass jar and a pot of water. Why a jar, you ask? Well...the breadsticks are longer than 6 inches and if I used a regular bowl, I'd have more difficulty in coating the upper portions of the breadsticks. So by using a relatively tall narrow jar, I would be able to coat more of the breadstick with much less effort. It also gave the added benefit that when I finished, I could cap off the remaining chocolate and store it in the fridge until the next time.
I must admit that while the chocolate firms up upon placing it in the refrigerator, it does not stay that way when it sits out. In other words..the chocolate is not tempered or not tempered properly. I can only hope that as I repeat this experiment again and again, I learn what I need to do to achieve that state. Until then...I geuss I can enjoy the fruits of my labors even if they are not perfect. After all, who can resist a sweet, salt crunchy treat. ;D

Monday, February 22, 2010

Fillers

Lately, I've been running more than a bit behind on a few things, like blogging and cooking up a variety of stuff for my lunches. It's not that I've given up on the healthier lunches but I've been cooking less Japanese foodstuffs and more from other cultures like Indian. Yeah...Curries are popular in Japan but I've been slow to try them. So that means most of my current cooking attempts have been undocumented.

I'm currently hooked on working with fresh cabbage (it's pretty cheap). I continue to make the sauteed cabbage with balsamic vinegar, garlic and cranberries on a regular basis but I tried a new recipe that said you could substitute cabbage for leeks. Well, I had bought the leeks but I forgot to read the recipe and didn't purchase enough so that's when I added the cabbage. And the rosemary (one of my favorite herbs for cooking). Big mistake. It doesn't really go together...rosemary and leek. Rosemary and cabbage might not be a good combination either. The final product wasn't completely inedible but it doesn't really work. I won't add the rosemary again when I retry this recipe.

I will admit that I made a cabbage soup this past weekend and I'm mostly happy with the result. It was very filling but slightly tasteless. I suppose I could have added a bit more salt to the pot but I hesitated to do so because the chicken base I use is salty in the high concentrations needed to really give a soup a pronounced chicken flavour. Oh well....it wasn't like I had an actual recipe for this soup. It was one of these experimental soups that shows one if one should proceed and refine the recipe. I think I will try this one again as well.