Food

Sports thought: So I'm infinitely happy that the Eagles aren't going to the Super Bowl. Apart from the fact that they're an NFC East team not playing in northern Texas, and thus a sworn enemy, this also comes from a culinary standpoint. Every year, my dad and I make a big food production for the game based on the cities the two teams are from...and I was not going to be eating cheese steak. No way. I'm a little disappointed that crab is out with Baltimore, but Arizona still leaves us a lot of southwest, Meixcan-y options. And Pittsburgh has uh...you know...steel cut oats? There's gotta be some sort of regional cuisine for them.
Weather: It was like 65 degrees today. Texas is awesome when it wants to be.

This long weekend has been filled with various cooking escapades. Starting Friday (and continuing into Saturday morning), I made some scratch cinnamon rolls. Next time you go into a bakery and buy some cinnamon rolls, make sure you thank the makers/bakers profusely. So much more work went into these things than I thought possible or expected (although part of the reason was it was an Alton Brown recipe, which have like eighty more steps than you think should be necessary). The basic steps are make dough, let dough rise, realize three hours later that dough hasn't risen at all so do it again, knead and roll out dough, fill with sugar and roll into cool nautilus shape, cut into rolls, refrigerate overnight, put in empty oven and steam for half an hour, bake for half an hour, make icing, ice rolls, consume. This was definitely one of those recipes that will be made once and only once in my life, because it was so much work for so little payoff. When you can buy a tube of Pillsbury (as much as it pains me to say this) and they taste just as good (it's the delicious preservatives), then you really don't need to be making cinnamon rolls.

The next two meals were much more successful than that breakfast. I've been reading a lot of articles recently how it's getting really trendy to put fruit in hamburgers (food trend right here: fruit hamburgers and bacon desserts. I'm calling it), so we pulled a blueberry hamburger recipe. The ratio is like 1.5 lbs of meat to 1/2 a cup of blueberries, so you don't taste them at all. They really only exist to moisten the meat, which they do magnificently. I think I could serve the beef ones (what my dad ate) in a restaurant, since the black flecks of the berry pretty much disappear, but mine (turkey), looked like a moldy patty (although not tasting as such), and I don't know if the general public could be down with eating that. But seriously try it--you don't taste the fruit, it's full of antioxidants, and you can get away with a leaner cut of beef, since the blueberries add so much juice.

Today I made two different types of molé, which we ended up using for enchiladas. For those unaware, molé is basically just a general Mexican sauce, usually full of thousands of flavors and assorted ingredients. I made two different ones today, a green and a red. The green was pretty basic (well as far as molé goes...still pretty weird on the whole)--essentially tomatillos, cilantro, jalapeno, honey, assorted spices, pumpkin and sesame seeds all in a blender. The red is a lot stranger, but usually what people think of when they think molé. It had me roasting garlic, then blending it with dried ancho peppers, raisins, almonds, cocoa powder, onions, cinnamon, turkey broth, and probably other weird things I'm forgetting. This may seem like a lot of random things, but the end result is this awesome sauce, with really (ok sorry if I sound snobby-foodie here) complex layers of flavor going on. I would definitely make the red molé again...if it didn't involve me soaking dried peppers, blending various sauces, working things through a sieve, watching/stirring a sauce for 45 minutes, etc. You get the idea. Maybe someday for a party, but it's in no way casual food. We ended up making spinach and chicken enchiladas, using both of the sauces. Turned out pretty phenomenal. And just ask if you want any of these various recipes. I stand behind all of them. Except cinnamon rolls. Just go buy a tube.