Eggplant Parmesan

This time I tried something that I thought I would be able to pull off! I LOVE Italian food.  I would eat pasta, pizza, antipasto everyday if possible.  I had a rather large eggplant sitting in the fridge and I didn't know what to do with it. I started looking up recipes for eggplants online and stumbled across a recipe for Eggplant Parmesan, so I thought, why not!?! I really roughly based my recipe off of this one by Martha Stewart: Martha Stewart's Baked Parmesan .  I will warn you all now, I did NOT measure any of the ingredients, so I will just be putting estimations here.  I just sort of threw them into the bowls.

Ingredients and Materials:

-  cookie sheet
-  cooking rack
-  knife
-  paper towel
-  3 containers
-  1 eggplant
-  salt
-  bread crumbs
-  Parmesan cheese (already grated, or powdered)
-  garlic powder
-  dried parsley
-  2 eggs
-  flour
-  tomato sauce
-  Mozzarella cheese
-  fresh basil
-  cooking spray
-  time

Directions;

1.  Slice your eggplant into 1/4 inch rounds.  Place your cooling rack on your cookie sheet.  Salt both sides of all of your eggplant rounds and put them on the cooling rack.  Let them sit for 1 1/2 - 2 hours.  This will pull a lot of the moisture out of the eggplant.

2.  After some time, take the eggplant off of the rack and give them a quick rinse to get the salt off.  Then pat them dry and leave on a paper towel.  Give your cooling rack and cookie sheet a quick wash and dry.

3.  Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. This is the point where I just sort of disregarded most of the recipe.  I set up 3 containers.  The first with about 1/4 cups of flour, 2 eggs (beaten) in the second, and the breading in the third.  For the breading, I used approximately 1/2 cup of bread crumbs, 1/4 cup of Parmesan, 1/4 tsp of garlic powder and dried parsley.

4.  At this point, I just followed a basic breading process.  Take a round of eggplant, dip it in the flour, on both sides.  Then cover the round in egg.  Finally, coat it in the breading and set aside.  Do this for all of your eggplant rounds.

5.  Give your cooling rack a quick spray with the cooking spray and spread out your breaded rounds.  Bake for 20 minutes, flip them and bake for another 20 minutes

6. At this point, I put all of the rounds on the cookie sheet.  Each round then got a tablespoon of tomato sauce, a slice of mozzarella, and a fresh basil leaf.  I let this bake for another 15 minutes, to warm the sauce and melt the cheese.

7.  I let them cool for a little bit, then served them with some noodles in a rose sauce with mushrooms and zucchini on top.

The verdict?  This was delicious.  I will make this many more times in the foreseeable future.  This cat was very, very much alive.

Béchamel Sauce

I decided to start off with something that is a culinary basic.  Basic that is, for those who have made it before.  As I have previously stated, I am very lazy and impatient. So something that involves low heats and constant stirring, I usually steer clear of.  I decided however to brave it in an attempt to make this basic sauce.

Béchamel Sauce, or white sauce is the base for a lot of French and Italian classics.  It is usually the starting point for things like cheese sauces, creme sauce and mustard sauce. Many delicious dishes such as; Lasagne, Moussaka and Croque Monsieur incorporate the sauce.

I used this Mario Batali recipe for my jumping off point: Mario Batali's Bechamel Sauce

There were only two of us who would be consuming this concoction, so I decided to half the recipe. That way if I REALLY messed it up, I wouldn't be wasting too much. I also didn't have any nutmeg at home, so I substituted the nutmeg for paprika and mustard powder.

Ingredients and Materials:

- 2 Saucepans (1 medium and 1 small)

- Whisk

- 2.5 Tbsp of butter (I chose unsalted because you will be adding more salt)

- 2 Tbsp of flour

- 1 Tsp of salt (I substituted for No Salt)

- 2 cups of milk (I used 2%)

- 1/8 Tsp of paprika

- 1/8 Tsp of mustard powder

Directions:

1. In the medium sauce pan, heat the butter over medium- low until it is completely melted (This is where you need to know your stove.  Mine is much hotter than the number dials indicate.  Where medium low on most people's stoves would register as like 3-4.  I had to put mine at 2...). Add the flour and keep whisking it until it is smooth. 

2. Continue cooking the mixture for 6 or 7 minutes until the mixture starts to turn a golden sandy colour. This step is making a roux, or the thing that will thicken your sauce!

3. While you are letting the roux do it's thing, take your milk and put it in the smaller saucepan.  Turn it up to medium-low and let it warm up.  You don't want it to boil, just be warm.

4. Once you have that nice sandy colour, add your warm milk one cup at a time. Whisk constantly to incorporate the milk and the roux between each addition of milk.

5. Continue whisking until smooth.

6. Bring the sauce to a boil and continue cooking for 10 minutes.  Stir constantly until your sauce thickens.

7. After 10 minutes, remove your sauce from the heat.  At that this point, add your salt and other spices.

8. Incorporate your spices and then use your sauce! (Or add more things to make a completely different sauce!)

One thing I will say, is that I do believe my pot was too hot.  I barely had the sauce cooking for 5 minutes before I had to pull it off.  It was getting thick really fast. Other than that, I somehow managed to pull it off!

So what did I use my béchamel sauce for?  I put it on top of these lovely ham and gouda croissant sandwiches.

In that picture you can really see how thick the sauce got.  I will say that I kept the remaining sauce in the fridge.  The next day, I put it back in a pot, with milk and some cheddar cheese.  I whisked it all together and added it to some pasta.  The consistency was much better and not near as thick.

Going back to the title of the blog, and after careful observation, I would say that in this case the cat was alive.  I will definitely try this again.

What Does Your Blog Even Mean?

Hi Everybody!

If you have not taken a philosophy class, or watched The Big Bang Theory, the name Schrodinger may not ring a bell.  For those who have, you know he was a physicist who had a philosophical theory about a cat in a box.  He also put poison in the box with the cat (morbid way to start this...). The theory basically said that if you have the cat in the box with the poison, before you open the box, the cat is both alive and dead. The cat exists in both states (living and non-living).  In a weird way, the cat both exists and doesn't exist at the same time.  It is both a success and a failure, while the box is closed.

I like to look at my crafting, cooking and baking endeavors in the same way.  While I am doing them, they are both successes and failures.  Not because I am putting poison in them, but because sometimes I am lazy.  Sometimes I get frustrated, and just lack the confidence.  Sometimes crafts and recipes that I try to do, or improve upon turn out amazing!  Others are horrible, horrible experiences (like Chocolate Flax Seed Cakes...bleh).  So this blog will follow me as I put many recipes, crafts and cooking concoctions into the box (oven), and after opening (finishing) we will see if they are indeed dead or alive.

First full post coming soon!