Chicken Milanese Beyond My Kitchen

Right now I'm on the couch at my bro's house out of state. I've been spending time hanging out with his wife and two little girls. Today we spent time watching different Monk episodes and some other shows. My sister in law had a nice relaxing day.

Well this morning my sis-in-law, niece #2, and I went to the grocery store. At home stayed my sis, T, and niece #1. We made this trip out for some staples of the household and I told my sis in law that I would cook, so I needed the ingredients for it. "It" was Chicken Milanese, something I've cook a couple times at home and it was a big hit, so I decided I'd treat my extended family to it...

Right now I'm in bed at home... (next day)

A few months back I was at home watching the Food Network and the show "Secrets of a Restaurant Chef" was on. Anne Burrell was whipping it up among other things and, as I often do while watching Food Network, I got inspired to try it out myself. I ran out to the store immediately, bought all the ingredients, and returned home to give it a shot myself. The fam and friends who also tried it said it was the best fried chicken they had ever had. I thought so, too!

Back to the out-o-towners... We were watching Monk when I quick checked the clock and decided it was about time that I should be getting the ingredients together. I read the recipe and it called for an hour of fridge time after breading the chicken. I rushed into the kitchen and pretty much made a mess of the place while in a frenzy to finish before the family would be starving. The bowls filled - flour, eggs and water, and Panko bread crumbs mixed with grated Parmesan cheese. They overflowed while I sloshed and patted them down from bowl to bowl. After piling the breaded butterflied chicken on a plate and sticking it in the fridge, I cleaned up trying to leave not a trace of my mess. I fried it up after the cooling period and served it with what my sis in law put out - cheese, rice, and broccoli. Nieces loved it - 3 y/o and 1 y/o. The 3 y/o had three helpings of it. : ) That makes me feel great! Kids are the toughest critics. Sis in law enjoyed it as well and she ate some more today for lunch.

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Now to design. I'm taking two courses this semester, Psychology and Typography. The latter I've taken before and received and A, but the school has a different teacher this year and I decided to audit it. A project I worked on first was a potato stamp project. You may have done something similar in kindiegarten. The assignment was to pick a term from Typographic Anatomy, spell it out in the Phoenician alphabet, carve each symbol into individual potatoes, stamp them with black ink on a piece of paper, scan it into the computer, colorize it in photoshop, and then come up with an interesting dynamic composition in InDesign. Pictured here are the three I did. Enjoy!

New Kitchen! Hurray!

Old Kitchen

New Stove

New Sink

New Cabinets!

We have an almost fully newly finished kitchen. It isn't quite done, but it is fully functional in the sense that I can cook in it! It's been a while since I've been able to brew a stew or bake a cake. : ) Not quite as long as the time between posts... I've been slacking.

I'm not going to go over all the cooking I have done since the last post. However, I will up to date you on last nights meal. It was an easy recipe, which was raved about by the people who actually ate it... silly children. My parents loved it. The recipe is one I've cooked up on my own - pretty simple. I call it "Kris' Tuna Casserole." All it has is elbow macaroni, canned tuna, cheddar cheese soup, melted sharp cheddar with milk, and frozen green peas. Like I said quite easy. Doesn't mean it lacks in taste though. YUM YUM! We all had it for lunch today as well.

How Design Magazines have been on my coffee table, so I've been skimming for ideas. My ole teacher from school gave them to me for taking a practice test for his class he would be teaching next year. I made myself a website in about two - three days. It's simple, but serves it's purpose, showing the height of my abilities. destination - www.kristenvonclef.com

Just Start Typing

I am sitting at my desk, staring at a Samsung 22" flat screen monitor, which I have hooked up to my laptop, and am procrastinating working on my website for my portfolio. This isn't an assignment - I am doing it now to have something besides my behance.net/fotozabet one to display my work.

I finished up my last week of school for this semester. My final project in flash was to create an interface (I did a very simple one), have three projects made available by three buttons, and have them all linked as external files.

Dreamweaver - a finished project of a Emmaus Moments Ministry's emmausmoments.com


Now for food -

I planned a weeks worth of food for myself, which includes breakfast lunch and snacks, and for the family dinners, when I can.

So what are they you ask... well.

Sunday was spaghetti and meatballs.

Tonight - Hearty Bean Stew in the Crock pot (or Charlie Bean Stew as one of my sis' friends thought I called it) It's easy: Hamburger, Beans, Tomato Soup, Cheddar Chz Soup. Never had it before, but I hope it'll be a hit! (5:08pm I tried it. It's not to die for, but it is good.)

Tue - My Soup/Chicken and Veggies. Moderate: pretty time consuming. Chicken Breasts, Carrots, Potatoes, Peas, Ckn Broth, Basil, Tomato paste, Diced tomatoes, salt to taste, NO CELERY (Sorry, but it's no good by me! =|:cP), and more... gotta keep it somewhat a secret! It's good!

Wed - Shepherd's Pie. Easy: Mash Taters, Italian Green Beans, Hamburger, Tomato Soup, and Cheese on top! Yummilicious!

Thur - Stir Fry. Never made it ... just going to whip some stuff together and see how it turns out. Woo hoo!

Fri - Beer Stew... no wait. Beef Stew minus the beer (a typo I thought I'd leave in for humor). I haven't cooked it before just figuring on getting a my ingredients I like in a stew and follow a Crock pot time for stews.

Saturday - leftovers.

Sunday - well we'll get to that then.

I'll keep the blog up to date with cooking stories.

God Bless!

Pizza Plus a Movie

Tonight was Pizza night at my house, well at least for me and my friend. The rest had Stouffer's that my mom cooked since I didn't get home until late from school.

Papa John's - oh how I love it - original crust, pepperoni, and cheese (of course). I asked for the garlic sauce... I guess I'll be gargling Listerine tonight!

The movie was "Breach" with Ryan Phillipe and Chris Cooper. It's a good movie - a nice drama. It's a true story about the greatest spy case in American history. Took place in 2001. My friend had not seen it and she enjoyed it!

Design wise today...

I worked on putting together an Annual Report for fun. My classmates think I'm sick. I'm designing the report from Castle Brands, a wine company. Here are some screen shots of it.

Subway - Eat Fre... Yuck

Ok. The Mama and The Papa and the two lil bears ate Subway. I detest it. So, no big cooking plans for me. Maybe a simple cereal. I dunno. I'll whip something up.

A funny story :

I was sitting at my computer station at school when this guy leaned over and told me I was being blamed for taking a Subway sandwich into the computer lab. (You heard me, right? I detest Subway). So I was like, "What? I hate subway. If you ask my family, 'What is a restaurant she's least likely to go to?' They'd say, 'Subway.'" He went on to say that he didn't think it was like me to do it, because in addition to bringing the food in, I had an attitude with the monitor who came in. It took me no time at all to remember what had happen.

When I went into the lab, I signed in then went to a computer. Another girl came in, who I'd seen before, holding a SUBWAY sandwich. I didn't see her sign and shortly after the monitor came in and told her to go out side. She put up a fuss and I don't remember the end result. Putting pieces together, I'd think the monitor read the sign in sheet got my name and accused me. I'm down with that I guess, but I went to him to clear my name because it went all over the faculty for the Art and Media Depts. FOR eating a SUBWAY sandwich. I found it quite ironic.

So, there you go. Even though I didn't make dinner I was able to share a story mixed with food and design!

God Bless

Breakfast for Dinner

So, tonight I couldn't think of what to make. I looked for the main dish ingredients in the freezers (we have two fridges) and found pork ribs, chicken breasts, chicken thighs, and bacon. You guessed it! I chose bacon (and the eggs from the fridge).

In addition to that, I thought of pancakes so as to do an all out yummilicious breakfast. I recruited my lovely sister to help with the cooking. She chose the pancakes, so that left the bacon and eggs to me.

The bacon was hard as a rock - frozen. So, I had to defrost it. While that was going on, I cracked about eight or nine eggs into a large salad bowl. Once I finished with the eggs, I poured an unknown amount of milk into the bowl. My sis was working on the pancakes, therefore she had the whisk. I broke out the silverware drawer and got a fork. I headed back to the bowl of eggs and started to "whisk them up." I soon found that the bowl was far too small, because all the fluids were getting all over the stove. Upon hearing the news that my father was around the corner, I decided to just pour them into a empty clean pot that was sitting there just for me.

Ok, back to the bacon. The microwave beeped. They were still in the plastic, so I took the cooking scissors and cut them in half. Yeah, well, that didn't turn out all that good. Bacon grease ran down the front of one of my favorite shirts - "I 'heart' 'Command' Z" (In the style like "I 'heart' NY") (It's a graphic designer's thing). Anyways, I hope the Dawn I put on it cleans it up - yes Dawn the dish cleaner. Takes the grease right out - no joke. I cooked some bacon burnt and some not - purposely for those who liked it their way. Bacon's down. On to the next.

I poured the eggs into the skillet (a big one). It took a while for them to start cooking and solidifying. I started to think maybe that unknown amount of milk was a too much amount of milk. Well, they cooked fine. I went to put them in a bowl and found soon after that you can't hold the skillet with one hand. So, the dogs got some "breakfast" as well - only a lil bit. : )

My sista did her thing with the pancakes and they were nice and fluffy. She thought they were burnt, but I thought they were fantastic! Even if they were burnt, I told her that that's how we learn to cook. We won't do whatever we did the next time.

Mom and Dad loved it. "That was SO good." It makes it all worth while.

God Bless!

Something Simple to Start Savoring

Well... I only cooked some burgers in the electric frying pan. My mom said they were really good and yes, she is honest when it comes to my cooking. She knows I like being critiqued so as to make me a better cook. I thought I might go all out on my first go round on the cooking side of things, but I didn't have much time. Also, the house isn't stocked yet for the food that I need. Plus, I haven't meal planned. So, I guess there's a bunch of stuff for me to do to start out this work week.

Design-wise I learned how to create an functioning slide show in Adobe Flash today - all with working buttons. The slide show had three categories in it: trees, bushes, and flowers. That's all I could think of in the seconds I had to get nine pictures, edit them in Photoshop, then import them into Flash. It took the entire class period to go through all the steps, but it was fairly simple at that. I'm glad I was paying attention, because I can use the one I made in class to turn in. Hoorah! I will hopefully be able to retain this knowledge and use when creating another website.

This is it for now. Hopefully something more interesting for dinner... or else left-overs.

God Bless!