Make-Your-Own-Take-Out

Okay, okay, so I'm stealing the term from Rachel Ray and one of her cookbooks (actually, for the purpose of citing things semi-properly, I believe it's from "365: No Repeats" (http://www.amazon.com/Rachael-Ray-365-Repeats-Deliciously/dp/1400082544/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1307149897&sr=8-1). That's the, err...New Internet MLA (NIMLA), for all your persnickety citation users...it's totally in the new edition of the manual. Totally. Anyway, back on track. My most-valuable-accessory (or most priceless) spent a week or so here and man, did I take advantage of having someone else around all day who likes to cook, really likes to eat, and really really likes to watch The Cosby Show on Netflix. The greatest accomplishments by far were the cake I threw together on a whim and the enormous chinese food feast we attempted. I say attempted, but I really mean blew out of the water, because it was SO. DARN. TASTY.

Here's the cake. I did a standard KAF white cake (see the King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion for the recipe) with a lemon swiss meringue buttercream on the outside, and pastry cream with berry preserves between the layers. It was humid and I was tired and low on the SMB, so I didn't do much to the exterior except try to make it remotely presentable (I do NOT like to make ugly things).

And here are it's lovely insides with some quickly-absorbing lemon curd sauce over the top.

Next on our agenda was dinner. Gilder announced that he wanted to make something "delicious and complicated", and after perusing a number of french cookbooks (including Mastering the Art thereof), he got into my copy of Chinese Cooking for Dummies by Martin Yan which I had cracked but never made good use of. I had to persuade him that the ten-dish feast for 6 (beef, pork, chicken, tofu, veggies, dumplings, fried rice, mango pudding, etc) was way too much food (even though there were, in fact, six of us), we settled on pork buns (bao), pork fried rice, gingered chicken, egg rolls, and mango pudding. The bao didn't get finished until the following morning because we were tired and some of the other men in the household had to be up early for crew and crew-chauffering. We had them for breakfast and they were phenomenal fresh out of the oven.

Here is Gilder hard at work on the bao. The dough is quite yummy and sweet on it's own. Into the center goes a filling made of various sauces, onion, and roasted pork (more on that below). They get glazed with some egg yolk and bake for 12 minutes or so and BAM. Heaven. I'm telling you, Martin Yan will steer you right! (http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Cooking-Dummies-Martin-Yan/dp/0764552473/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1307149855&sr=8-1). Gilder announced they tasted actually kind of sort of authentic. I'll take it!

Here's the fried rice during actual consumption. Not hard, exactly what you'd think in terms of preparation, and oh-so-worth-it. We even got to try out my family's new-ish (to me) rice cooker.

This is the pork that went into the bao and the fried rice. It was also unbelievably easy to prepare; it gets a 30-minute marinade in some sauces that you admittedly might have to go to the grocery store for, a 20-minute oven stint, some glazing with the marinade-plus-honey, and 20 more minutes. It came out perfectly and we decided that one should really make it in enormous quantities and keep it around the house!

I couldn't find any great photos of the egg rolls or gingered chicken or mango pudding, but the egg rolls were of course beautifully folded by yours truly and the chicken came out like any other boiled and sliced chicken you may have seen. (I actually didn't know you could boil chicken until a few weeks ago when my friend Sam taught me. She did chicken breasts in water that had been brought to a boil and then turned off and covered for 20 minutes and they were stunningly moist and delicious. We did the whole chicken this time (again, see Martin Yan) for about 30 minutes, and it was easy and delicious. Next time you want to do chicken, give it a try!) The mango pudding is essentially pureed mango (courtesy of your blender) with gelatin, sugar, and a splash of milk if I recall correctly, and it is so delicious that I will likely make it weekly as long as mangoes are available thankyouverymuch.

I'm home alone with my family again, but have had the chance to catch up with a few people in Hanover, which is always wonderful. I received news yesterday that I've been accepted for an internship (or rather, a volunteer position opportunity) at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, so I'm moving there on Wednesday! Everything is happening quite quickly, but I have a few very, very helpful people on the hunt for me for a place to live and I'm getting more and more excited---such a fantastic opportunity!