It's 2017!!!

IT'S THE NEW YEAR?!?!?!
GOODBYE 2016!...
And good riddance... :P

So like Sampson here, I spent most of my winter break doing just the same. SLEEP! We had a three week vacation from just before the holidays until this week. It was incredible. I knew that as it was getting closer that I couldn't wait for it, but I didn't know just how much I needed it. It was the best. I'm not sure how it would have been possible to go into this next block without it.

WINTER HAS ARRIVED!!!

We finally got a good amount of snow! I'm super jealous of the mountains right now, they continue to get dumped on and I can't go enjoy it! :'(

So much happened over the break! I definitely should have posted at least an update a week but I was so happy doing nothing, nothing at all. The Holidays came and went, I spent them very happily with family and friends, it was a great time. I worked a bit here and there at Eureka! Boulder, but honestly I spent almost every day sleeping and playing Skyrim: Remastered. Oh well! Here are some tasty bits:

The Holidays!

 So way late happy Hannukah (or Chanukkah if you want that spelling)! Crazy that it started on Christmas Eve, two holidays at once!

Some info for the next set of photos. Shelby and I spent Christmas Eve at her grandparents house, it was so nice seeing the family, and we had apparently eaten her brother's cheesecake, (it's his birthday on Christmas). Naturally, now that everyone know's I am a "chef" I was tasked with making the replacement.

I'm not sure if you know this, literally everything is closed on this one night, save for Walgreens. So at 9pm on December 24th we went to Walgreens to buy ingredients to make a cheesecake from scratch: cream cheese, sour cream, butter, graham crackers. We were already on the way to my best friend Nick Beckett's house to hang out and call in the holiday, so we didn't get home until around 2am to START the prep for this.

Shelby preps the crust, we had to buy the whole cracker and smash it to bits for the crust. 

So... I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to get the mixer to work. I cleaned it and everything! This is a photo of the filling, mixed by hand 2lbs of cream cheese, impossible! 

The crust was incredible! 

So at just before 4am on Christmas Day, the cakes were done. They were sooooo good! I didn't have a very deep pan so that was a bit sad but by the 26th, all three of them were gone. I don't regret it at all!!!!!! 

Even Sammy helped, mostly by being a pain and ensuring we were awake.

Cheesecake:

     Filling:

• 2lbs Cream Cheese - softened
• 1lbs Sugar
• 1lbs Eggs (Large AA Eggs weigh approximately 2oz each)
• 1lbs Sour Cream

        Crust:

• 3c Graham Cracker Crumbs (about 3 sleeves)
• 1/2c Sugar
• 7oz Butter - melted

1. On the low speed of a mixer with the paddle attachment, mix cream cheese and sugar (or do it by hand! I used a spoon to get it going and then eventually switched to a whisk).
2. Add eggs one at a time, scraping the sides of the bowl (I think we only used 5 eggs, the Pastry Gods are fickle and you never know how much you need!).
3. Add sour cream and continue to mix, it should be smooth without lumps.
4. Separately combine graham crumbs, sugar, butter for the crust. Press into the bottom of a pie pan, ensuring an even coating without any holes. Fill 3/4 of the way full with the filling.
5. Bake on low heat, 250F until done, it took these ones about 40 minutes to cook. (It depends on how thick the cake is, you can also use a water bath if you'd like, ensuring it can't burn)
6. Cheesecake is done when the filling is just set, it is like a hard Jell-o, without any browning.
7. Cool overnight, make sure there isn't any condensation that can ruin it. You never eat a cheesecake the same day!
8. Remove from pans and serve.

CHRISTMAS DAY!!!!

So making the cheesecake wasn't a planned thing, but I did plan on making a dumpling for the holiday dinner. I made a pear, bacon, potato dumpling with a red wine and raspberry sauce.

Sautéing the filling

Everyone pitched in at some point. Larry asked if this photo was going up, indeed it is! 

As per usual, my wonderful sous chef helps with the prep. The dough was definitely her creation, without it we would have just had hash. 

 Top: the raspberry sauce. Bottom: the oil fryer for the dumplings.

Mealtime!!!

This is the wine I used, I reduced it by 2/3rds, a trick I learned from the great Anthony Bourdain.

So many things, so little time. This post doesn't even come close to all of the things I did. I still have to tell you about how awesome my final was for Regional Cuisines, write about all of the class stuff I never mentioned, and many more things. I am going to be buying a Chromebook soon, I need something more portable than this ancient '08 Macbook to write with. Until tomorrow!

It's sleepy time... Sammy knows how to do it