this cohabitating life

i have had lots of culinary experiences but i have not found the time to blog about any of them. quick update: he met my fam, i met his fam, he moved in. food was involved in all of these milestones and i have tried to be mavericky in the kitchen...watching entirely too much food network, i think i can do what they do. ok, i am not crazy, i can recognize that chefs do a lot of cooking before they are chefs and worthy of food network programming. but after watching all of these food programs and salivating, i think "i want to try that" and therein lies my last two kulinary kreations (er, attempts)

last saturday, i wanted to try to fry my own chicken. author's note: i have never fried an tire chicken before. so i bought a full fryer, that's right a full chicken, complete with the neck and livers and other gross parts inside. i rinsed it (much like i do the turkey at thanksgiving) and started the hacking. i got two full breasts, two wings, one leg, and one leg-thigh. that's right, i couldn't find where the leg and the thigh did their thing and ruined half. however, i learned and figured out the other half. all in all, i think i did an ok job of playing butcher. then i soaked it in buttermilk for about an hour (learnt me that from paula). i made the kfc extra crispy batter recipe (minus the msg) and double-battered them chickies, i heated the oil and i was ready to fry, and i was feeling pretty good. then came the frying. i gently placed the chicken into the oil and it appeared to be doing it's thing. but it did it's thing very quickly. the cookbook said 12-15 minutes turning half way through. in 3 minutes they already started browning, so i flipped them. in 3 more minutes they looked done. but i thought they couldn't possibly be done according to the cookbook so i left them in a little longer. the first two pieces looked a little dark (even for dark meat). i fried all of the chicken and let them drain, but i was super paranoid that they were burnt on the outside and raw on the inside. fortunately, that was not the case, but i will not be frying anything for a while. another author's note: a renewed appreciation of chefs who fry chicken.
(no pictures of this one)

tonight, i made pizza. homemade pizza crusts. i have done breads before but this was my first foray into pizza crusts. the mixing of the dough and the rising of the dough and the punching of the dough and the rising of the dough again...all felt familiar from making bread. the rolling/pulling of the pizza dough...holy moly. that was difficult. it went super thin in some parts and thicker in other parts. when all was said and done, i made a pretty good margherita pizza with homegrown basil, a pepperoni and cheese (for the roommie) and a combination. i have always appreciated pizza chefs but i have a renewed appreciation of store-bought crusts and delivery :)

until my next new adventure...