Cooking and all...

I've been doing a lot of cooking lately, I just haven't posted about it. We'll start somewhere...

WEll, Sophie and I have actually been doing all of our cooking together, so it's her fault she hasn't posted yet. Mom left chicken breast out thawing the other day and we thought we'd make something for dinner cuz she decided she wasn't going to do anything with it. Well,we looked through some cookbooks and finally just decided on classic Chicken Dumplings. Now, all of us girls have known how to make dumplings probably since we could breath. They're really simple, but we decided to use a recipe just to say we did. The only thing that was different was that we added carroits, onions, and celery to the chicken as it was boiling. It added more flavor, but it was subtle, cuz it was just a little bit.
That same night I also made Chocolate Lava Muffins from the Alton Brown cookbook. I started off by melting bittersweet chocolate chips and 4oz of butter in a double boiler. After that I poured it into a mixing bowl and added 3 eggs, one at a time till it was all mixed in good. Sugar, salt, cocoa poweder and flour were next, then I let it whip the batter for about 5 minutes till it was SUPER fluffy, almost like chocolate mousse. Stuck it in the fridge for 30 minutes while I coated the muffin tin's with butter and cocoa powder. Baked them straight from the fridge so they were still really cold so the tops baked firm but the center was still all gooey and hot and delicious... My grandma ate, like, 3 in one night! They were suuper rich but they were incredible. I was supposed to make a sauce to go o top our of melted vanilla ice cream and espresso powder, but I liked it just how it was.

A couple days later I made som homemade pizza with Sophie, and our two bff's Katie and Sarah. We started off making the dough. After it was all mixed together we let it knead in the mixer for 10-12 minutes. I let it rise in a warm oven for about 30 minutes and then turned it out on a floured board and began to stretch it. I even tossed it up in the air!! It was so cool! Katie made the pizza sauce, cuz I just accidentally bought tomato sauce. She added in some oregano, italian seasoning, crushed garlic, minced onions and plenty of salt and pepper and let it heat for a little bit. We topped the pizzas with cheese, peppers and onions for mom, ham for dad, and anything we felt like for us girls. I've never been a fan of homemade pizza, but this was SOO good that we made it again the next day! (this time with Bacon XD) We had a little left over dough, so we ended up making garlic knots like they have at Palace Pizza in downtown Lakeland. They were good but not incredible or anything. The crust of the pizza was awesome though!!

Finally caught up!! lol, Yesterday I made doughnuts. I've been making doughnuts for a while, so I don't think this is odd at all, but everyone that i've told seems to find it very strange. Apparently they didn't know that you could make doughnuts at home?? idk. Silly kids... Well, I used an old recipe that we've had for a while, except we didn't have the nutmeg it called for, so I left it out and honestly I think I think I like them better without the nutmeg. They have a much more versatile flavor without it. After they came out of the oil I topped them with cinnamon sugar and dipped them in chocolate syrup. They were really yummy! I think it'll be one of my favorite snacks to fix for the "guys" when they come over to visit.

My goal was to pick a cookbook and cook through it in the 6 months before teh wedding, but I'm not sure if I'm going to be doing that. I just weighed myself and I've gained 8 pounds since I've been home (1 month...) Plus, we're down to almost 5 months I think I'd have a hard time going through a cookbook in 5 months. I think instead I'm going to aim to cook/bake at least 150 recipes. I'm going to keep track of it by copying down the recipes on an index card after I've made it. This will help me build up a recipe box of recipes that I've actually MADE and know I like. So, I'm excited!! So far I'm up to 5.... lol, better get cracking! Time to go make something!