Berry Sangria = FAIL

I had high hopes for this Berry Sangria. But it was a miserable FAIL!

While up in Pymatuning, Whitney and I snuck off to Wilhelm Winery for a little wine tasting. Whitney had some of their Edelweiss at The Naked Grape and really wanted to pick up some more. She also grabbed a bottle of their Fredonia. I tried a Riesling that was ok and also their Blueberry and Blackberry wines.

I decided that Blackberry would make a great Berry Sangria. The fruit wines only come in the small bottles, so I bought two.

Some gorgeous berries...


Some Brandy & Blackberry Wine




I didn't have any clear soda... but I did have some cold Prosecco...


Bubbly and delicious... should be great right?


O.M.G. YUCK!!!!

I really don't know what went wrong with it. The ingredients were all tasty on their own, but combined... total YUCK.

We couldn't even choke it down... it got poured into the sink... all the beautiful fruit wasted.

Oh well... can't win 'em all!

Check HERE for some awesome Sangria Recipes!

Fried Potatoes ~ Why do you mock me?

Ok... so I can't seem to make fried potatoes to save my life.

My mom makes awesome fried potatoes.

She cubes raw potatoes. Shakes them in flour. Fries them up.

They end up being golden brown crispy cubes of deliciousness.

My friend Whitney (who you've met at my Wine Tasting Parties) also makes awesome fried potatoes.

She boils the potatoes, then slices them, then fries them up with butter or bacon fat.

Again, golden brown crispy deliciousness.

On very rare occasions, I have slight success with Whitney's version.

So tonight I wanted to make them. I was making one of my mom's standard dinners. Her friend used to joke with her that you could tell the day of the week by what my mom was cooking for dinner.

Ok... not a lot of variety growing up. But it never occurred to me to care. (although if I did complain about it and I probably did, I just don't remember... but I'm sure my mom will let me know when she reads this)

So, tonight's dinner, one of Mum's standards.

Ham Steak, Fried Potatoes and Peas.

I loved that!

And it was peas from a CAN. Yup. I love canned peas.

I never make them, because Jon says they're gross.

He said they aren't even green. But they are green. They're pea green. At least that's the color I think of when I think of pea green. Canned Peas.

Anyway!

I decided to make Ham, Fried Potatoes, Peas and Balsamic Bacon Brussel Sprouts. (I added brussel sprouts because really no one else likes canned peas)



I boiled the potatoes last night and just popped them into the fridge.

Tonight, I just had to slice them and fry them.

Boiled baby potatoes.


Cut into slices and sliced an onion too.

(Obviously working in a different part of the kitchen as you can tell by the big shadow!)

Whitney often has some bacon fat left over from breakfast that she uses to fry her potatoes. So I fried up some bacon. I figure bacon would good in there in addition to cooking them in bacon fat. Sounds good right?



Fried up some bacon and set aside.

Put the potatoes & onions into the bacon fat... just like Whitney does.


Now I want golden brown crispiness. So I try really really hard not to touch them.

They cooked for a little while.

Then I shook them.


Like my new oven mitt?


I picked that up at Sur La Table on my last trip there with Ericka (you've also met her at Wine Tasting!)

I LOVE it!!

But the potatoes... they mock me.

Look at them... starting to stick in my well seasoned cast iron skillet.


Oh well... just add bacon... that should help right?


Mmmmm.... bacon...


Not crispy... not golden brown...


Ya know why?

The golden brown crispies are here...


Yup... on the bottom of my pan.

They tasted fine... but not crispy.

mock mock mock... damn you non-crispy fried potatoes!!!

Sigh... at least the leftovers are PERFECT for breakfast burritos!!

What's the secret?!!!

Spicy Fish Cakes = FAIL ~ but new KA Food Processor = YAY!!

My KitchenAid 12 Cup Food Processor arrived a couple days ago. YAY!!!

I won it from BakeSpace back in February.

I knew it had been shipped and found the perfect recipe to break it in!

... or so I thought...

In my quest for lighter recipes, I stumbled across this Cooking Light recipe for Spicy Fish Cakes.

Now, Jon and Tawny really like fish and request it often.

I try really hard to like fish, but just can't really work up that much enthusiasm for it. I LOVE shellfish... but fish fish mostly = yuck for me.

When I found this recipe, I was really excited about it.

It had scallops in it... YUM

Ginger... YUM

Garlic... YUM

Green onions... YUM

Chili paste... YUM

It also had haddock... my sister Jeannie really likes haddock... so I figured this would probably be ok.

Anyway... I made it...

And it smelled really good...



Beautiful isn't it?

OMG!! It was so gross!!!

Jon said the flavor was pretty good (although Tawny and I didn't like it)

But the scallops were gritty... YUCK

The texture was disgusting. It was very squishy.

It was supposed to be flaky... but really never got there and I cooked them twice as long as the recipe said.

I'm not posting the recipe, because even if you can offer insight as to where I may have gone wrong, it's extremely unlikely I'll attempt to make these again.

One thing I did learn... how to skin a fish fillet.

Jeannie said I should have asked the fish guy to skin them for me. But since I buy very little fish, I had no idea to do that. I did ask him if it was easy to skin and he didn't seem too sure... he also didn't offer to do it, so I just took them as they were.

I don't think I ever really got the hang of it. I ended up having to kinda man-handle some of it off of the skin... but manhandle it with crushing it... no easy task.

I was getting pretty frustrated.

So these are my fillets.

They leave the skin on, so it can be identified as haddock.


You're supposed to be able to slide the knife between the skin and the flesh... angling the blade toward the skin. The skin is very tough and won't rip. This is not as easy as it sounds.






It got harder to angle the blade at all.


Then Fig got interested in what I was doing






That's fish skin.


It's creepy & gross.


Trying not to man-handle the fish.


Let's just look at Fig again.


She's super cute and super soft... but she's actually the mean kitty.

So anyway... it LOOKED beautiful.


But it was extremely distasteful.

It's SO disappointing to have a recipe you're so excited about fail so miserably!

Especially when it contains $16 worth of fresh seafood!

Anyway... At least it was pretty... I guess....

So here's some pictures of my gorgeous new Kitchenaid Food Processor!

It's huge!


Not so big you say??

How about with a little perspective?


Pretty big, huh?

Cool box to hold accessories.


Filled with Spicy Fish Cake fixin's.


Live action footage from my kitchen! (I'm easily entertained)


Anyway... dinner was gross... so I had Dilled Chicken Salad on a Bagel instead!


Thanks for tolerating my foolishness!

Have a great weekend!

Flan = FAIL... well... kinda...

Ok... so when I was putting together my Cinco de Mayo menu, I wanted to try dishes I hadn't made before. I thought flan would be nice. Who doesn't love caramel & custard right?

So after perusing the internet for a while, this is what I came up with.



Spryte's Flan ~ Take One
1 1/2 C white sugar
5 eggs
1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
1 12oz can evaporated milk
1 TBLS vanilla
a little lemon zest (possibly where I went wrong?)

Preheat oven to 350F
Start by making caramel.
Pour the sugar into a saucepan over medium low heat and stir until liquid and golden.
Pour caramel into a 9 inch glass baking dish. (I used a deep dish pie plate)
Beat eggs; then beat in sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, vanilla and lemon zest.
Pour into baking dish.
Bake in a water bath. Carefully put baking dish into a roasting pan, fill roasting pan with hot water until it's about halfway up the baking dish. Carefully move to oven and bake for 60 minutes or until center is set.
Cool on rack to room temp, then refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.
To serve, gently loosen edges with a knife and invert onto a rimmed platter.
Slice & serve.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This was also my first time making caramel. I was a little nervous. I stirred it continuously and kept the temperature pretty low.

Also... I started out using a whisk. Don't do that. As the sugar starts to melt, it accumulates inside the whisk. I had to change to a spoon pretty early on.



Nice and melty.


When it's copper colored, pour it into the baking dish.


Now to make the custard.

First... I didn't beat the eggs alone. This could be mistake number 1.

I poured the milks and the eggs together and beat them at the same time.

Does that matter? I have no idea!

The only custard I've ever made was creme brulee, one time and honestly, that didn't set up very well. But it was so long ago, I have no idea how I made it.

Anyway... I threw the milks & eggs together and beat them.


Beat in vanilla and lemon zest


Now pour the egg mixture into the baking dish with the caramel.


Next it needs to go into a water bath for baking.

I don't have a roasting pan and my widest shallow baking dish wasn't wide enough to fit this pie plate.

So I had to put in into my GIGANTIC cast iron skillet. That weighs a million pounds on it's own, let alone with a full pie plate and filled with water!!

So put the baking dish into whatever pan is big enough to accommodate it.

Then put in enough hot water to go half way up the baking dish.


Now into the preheated oven for 60 minutes or until it's set in the middle.


Cool on rack to room temp, then into the fridge until thoroughly chilled.

To plate, run knife along the edge to loosen and invert into a serving plate with edges.

You want to use one with edges incase the caramel is runny (which is what you want)




The flavor of this flan was delicious. However the texture was weird. It wasn't grainy; it was almost like tapioca or something. A little chunky?

I dunno. Was it that I didn't beat the eggs first by themselves? Did the lemon zest do something funky?

It definitely needs work.

So... do you know how to make my flan creamy?