You know these Rubbermaid/Gladware kitchen storage containers? I recently, as in just a few minutes ago, discovered they were microwave safe. For at least two years now I've been using these to save all sorts of leftovers and every time I would empty the food onto a plate before I reheated it in the microwave.

Some years ago there was a disaster at my parents house with a bowl from the old, expensive kind of tupperware. It melted, the whole house stunk and the microwave was nearly ruined. I think ever since then I've assume that plastic + microwave = bad.

However today I had some leftover Shepherd's Pie that Lauren and I made last night. This morning I put some into a Rubbermaid container and (as I tend to do with food items in the winter) rather than take it home and stick it in the refrigerator I figured I'd just throw it in my car, leave it there (since its 10 degrees outside) and eat it when I drove home for lunch. By the time noon rolled around the thought of braving the cold walk to the car and cold drive home (its barely far enough for my car to warm up completely) just wasn't doing anything for me. So it finally dawned on me that the Rubbermaid container I had packed my food in might be microwave safe. I looked it up online and then checked the container, both of which said "microwave reheatable".

And thats the story of how I ate a warm lunch in my warm office today.

The more I think about it I am pretty sure I've seen Lauren put those things in the microwave, but I always assumed she was just extremely foolish and willing to risk a plastic in the microwave meltdown for the sake of convenience.

Back in November I posted about some beer that I had brewed as Christmas gifts. Each batch got its own custom label, personalized for its recipient. However I got a late start on two of the beers because it takes about 6 weeks to really get from start to "this would pass as a beer you could buy in a store". Well, its been at least 8 weeks since then, so this weekend I'll be giving them a taste test.

The first beer was an American Amber Ale that went to Debbie's in-laws. I don't have a picture of the label we created, so I am instead going to use the Red Dragon Ale bottle from the beer that Peter & Rachel gave to Peter's dad for Christmas. Both beers used the same ingredients so the end result should be the same, though I must admit I'd be a lot more comfortable if I had a bottle of Debbie's beer so I could be sure nothing went wrong.

Peter and Rachel gave me the idea for what they wanted on the label, that being the Welsh lion and the traditional Sheldon family crest. It was a good idea. So good in fact, that I kind of ripped it off for a Christmas beer I was giving.

American Amber Ale (Brewed Saturday Nov. 22)
6.3 lbs - Liquid Amber Malt Extract
1 lb - Crystal 10L
1oz - Amarillo Hops (60 min to boil)
1oz - Cascade Hops (15 mins to boil)
White Labs California Ale Yeast (WLP001)

The second beer I brewed was called Murphy's Irish Ale and was given to Lauren (Murphy)'s dad. This time I used the Murphy crest, with some slight alterations. Being that they're from South Carolina I used a Palmetto moon for the I in Irish. I also cut out the apples on the apple tree and replaced them with Clemson Tiger paws, since Lauren's dad is a proud graduate of Clemson University.

The beer is an Irish Red and used the following ingredients:

Irish Red Ale (Brewed Nov. 21)
6 lbs - Liquid Pale Malt Extract
1 lb - Raw Honey
0.5 - Cara-pils
3 oz - Roasted Barley 300L
1oz - Amarillo Hops (60 min to boil)
1oz - Amarillo Hops (15 min to boil)
White Labs Irish Ale Yeast (WLP004)

The entire process was really fun, and if the other beer recipients appreciated it as much as Lauren's dad did, it was well worth the time and effort. Ideally it would be cool to start a business with this sort of thing, in the mold of Vermont Teddy Bear setup. But up to this point it appears as though I'd need a $100,000 commercial brewer's license to make it happen.

Later tonight or tomorrow morning I'll attach an update at the bottom of this post and provide a comparison for what each beer tasted like.

Last night I took the fresh pasta that we didn't give away and made some chicken fettuccine alfredo. Unfortunately we had some issues with the sun dried tomato fettuccine. It refused to unravel from the coils we rolled for freezer storage. I think it was because ours were at the bottom of a bag full of noodles, and they simply got packed a little more tightly than we intended. I hope the bags we gave away didn't have the same problems. If they did, I apologize.

Anyhow, fettuccine alfredo isn't exactly the type of thing you post a recipe for (all we did was add sauteed mushrooms, onion and broccoli to the jar of sauce) but it looked to good to just ignore, so instead I'll tell you what I did with the chicken:

• two fresh/thawed boneless skinless chicken breasts
• rub with salt & pepper
• roll in flour (shaking off any excess)
• dip them in egg wash
• roll in 1/4 cup bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 350. Then heat 3-4 tbsp olive oil in a skillet until it just barely starts smoking (not burning). Saute (pan fry is probably more accurate) the chicken breasts for 4 minutes per side in the skillet. This will give the chicken a nice crispy breaded crust. When finished, place the chicken breasts in a glass baking dish, cover with tin foil and bake for 20 minutes.

Also, I don't know if I've mentioned this before but if you're wondering why my pictures are often up close and crooked its because that is how I turn things from a simple picture into art. Zoom in real tight, and tilt the camera towards 45 degrees.

Yeah, I'm on to you professional photographers. Your secret is now on the internet for everyone to see.

Sunday has become pasta day over at Lauren's house. After brunch we usually get out the eggs and flour and make a pound of pasta for quick dinners later in the week. Yesterday I made some to give to a friend for letting me commandeer his computer Saturday afternoon. The use of semolina flour made things go so quick and smooth that we finished up without any bickering and decided we wanted to make more. So I went to the grocery store and got more flour and eggs so we could make tri-color fettucine gift bags for our friends with children. I hope nobody takes it the wrong way, we were just thinking it might be nice to give some friends an easy dinner starter for some night when things get a little hectic.

The green pasta is spinach fettucine. The red is sun-dried tomato fettucine and the light-colored pasta is basil & oregano herb fettucine. The pasta will keep for about a month in the freezer. When you're ready to cook it just boil some water, add salt and cook the noodles for about 4 minutes. I think its just under a pound of fettucine, so it should be good for 2-3 servings, but to be honest I haven't quite figured out how to do the conversions between the weight of the pasta dough (1.5-2 lbs), the weight of the rolled and cut noodles (presumably 1.5-2lbs), the lighter weight of the dried/frozen coils and the number of cups of pasta when its cooked.

I'll be making deliveries tonight after work.

Here is a recipe for some awesome French Toast. It freezes extremely well, so you can make it on Sunday, freeze it and then pop it in the toaster in the morning before work. I do this about once a month but the French Toast only lasts about 3 days. I didn't think to take a picture of the fresh product, so this is a picture of the freezer bag. It looks like it has freezer burn, but thats just some moisture from the French Toast. I put it in while it was still warm.







6 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons orange juice
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
Cinnamon, optional
1 loaf Texas Toast sliced white bread

Mix together all ingredients except bread slices. Dip bread in the egg mixture,
coating both sides. Place on heated griddle and cook until golden. Turn and
cook opposite side until golden. Serve immediately with your favorite topping.

In between our second and third dates, Lauren invited me over for dinner. It was the middle of the week and was a bit of a return favor for a time when I made her sweet tea and dropped it off in the middle of some remodeling she was doing on the house she lives in now. Her words specifically were "do you want to come over for dinner tomorrow night? We're having enchiladas." So I thought "cool, I love cheesy Mexican food."

Anyways I'm sitting there in the kitchen volunteering to help assemble the food and I'm taking inventory of everything (internally):

"Black beans, refried beans. Alright."

"Corn is good."

"Salsa, cheese, onions, cool. Mushrooms? Um..."

"Bell peppers. Cool, I probably won't taste them but filler is always good."

"Squash!? Zucchini!? WTF? I hate squash and zucchini."

"So, I noticed there isn't any chicken in sight."

"This is going badly. I am pretty sure this is more fiber than I've had in a month."

So we assemble everything without chicken or any meat whatsoever and while its baking I am sitting at the counter thinking "alright, here is how I'll get through this: one enchilada to be polite, with lots of sour cream, large bites and quick swallows, because if I bite into a chunk of cooked squash or zucchini I'm going to feel like vomiting".

The meal gets served, I take two enchiladas and execute my plan with very little spilled filling. Some weeks or months later I finally decided to tell Lauren how devastated I was at the surprise chickenless enchiladas.

Today they are one of my favorite dishes. The squash and zucchini are still bites I try to avoid, but these enchiladas are dynamite.

The Recipe:
1 can enchilada sauce
1 medium squash
1 medium zucchini
4 bell peppers (green, yellow, orange and red)
1/2 pkg sliced mushrooms
1 medium onion
1 can corn
1 can black beans
2 cups shredded cheese
15 - flour tortillas
1 jar salsa
sour cream

Heat the oven to 350. Dice and saute all the fresh vegetables until tender, drain the canned vegetables and add to skillet. Slather a spoonful of refried beans into the tortillas, 2-3 spoons full of filling and a spoonful of salsa. Roll tight and set in a 13 x 9 inch baking dish. The filling and refried beans should fill about 13 tortillas. Pour the enchilada sauce on top of the filled baking dish and spread, covering any exposed tortilla (to prevent drying). Bake for 15 minutes, then top with 2 cups shredded cheese and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Remove and serve with sour cream.

This was a combination recipe, using Emeril Lagasse's dough and Robert Irvine's filling preparation, minus his seasonings. No real story behind this, we usually get them if we go to Graydon's Crossing and decided we'd figure out if we could make them at home. If you have some rather basic grocery staples like potatoes, onions, eggs and flour, they're really quit simple and inexpensive. We substituted ground turkey for the ground beef. The only issue we had was the crust. The recipe had them coming out somewhere between hot pocket and individual pot pie size. Ours were quite a bit bigger because the dough was not as smooth and stretchy as expected.

Short-crust Pastry:
* 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 2 teaspoons confectioners' sugar
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 3 ounces cold, unsalted butter, cut into pieces
* 4 ounces lard or vegetable shortening, cut into pieces
* 1 egg yolk
* 6 tablespoons cold water

Sift the flour, confectioners' sugar, and salt into a mixing bowl and add the butter and lard. Using your fingers, 2 knives, or a pastry blender, cut the butter and lard into the dry ingredients until mixture resembles fine crumbs. In a small bowl, whisk the egg yolk and water together and add to the flour mixture. Mix quickly, but thoroughly, until mixture just comes together to form a dough. Knead briefly until pastry is smooth with no cracks; the trick to making this delicate pastry easy to work with is kneading it just enough so that it can be rolled out and manipulated without breaking but yet retains its lovely crumbly texture. Press into a flattened disk shape and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes and up to overnight before proceeding.

Remove the pastry from the refrigerator and unwrap. Allow to soften slightly, then place on a lightly floured work surface and roll the pastry to a thickness of 1/4-inch. Using a small plate or saucer as a guide, cut out 6 (6-inch) rounds. (Scraps may be combined and reformed if you cannot get 6 rounds out of the first batch.) Stack the pastry rounds onto pieces of plastic wrap or parchment paper (with pieces between each round to keep them from sticking together) and refrigerate while you prepare the filling.

Filling:
* 1 lb ground turkey
* 1 small onion, very finely chopped
* 1 medium carrot, cut into 1/4-inch dice
* 1 small Idaho potato, cut into 1/4-inch dice
* 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
* 3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
* 1 egg, lightly beaten

Heat oil in a skillet and saute the carrots, onion and potatoes until al dente. Add ground turkey and brown.

Place the pastry circles on a clean work surface and place about 1/2 cup of the filling in the center of 1 side of the pastry. Using the beaten egg, brush the edges of the pastry and then bring the unfilled side over the filled side so that edges meet. Press edges together to seal and then crimp using your fingers or a fork. Repeat with the remaining turnovers and then transfer to a baking sheet. Brush the tops of the turnovers with the remaining egg and then cut several slits into the top of each pastry. Bake for 20 minutes, or until pastry is golden brown around the edges. Reduce the heat to 350 degrees F and continue to bake until the pasties are golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 10 to 15 minutes before serving.

They were good. A little dry in the middle, but now that we have a baseline method established its easy to see ways to incorporate creams, cheeses or rouxs into the filling to fix that.