Saturday, January 27, 2007

Birn School of Culinary Arts Now In Session

Agnus badly wants to learn how to cook properly so we have invited her over for a series of cooking lessons. She will learn from the best and then mangle the dishes over at Wendler. We hope that she learns the very basics of what we teach her. Learning the basics will allow her to explore all sorts of different flavors down the road.
Lesson #1 is chicken. Last night we made pan seared chicken with a garlic-apple cider sauce. The sauce is tangy, the chicken is juicy and seared to perfection. The first lesson is that heat is our friend.
In addition to our wonderful chicken, we made smashed red skin potatoes with herbs de provence. They're very rustic and earthy, what with the skins left on and all. Even I liked them and I generally hate mashed potatoes. I think that I generally hate them because most folks whip them to death and turn them into creamy disgustingness. Last night's smashed red skin potatoes with herbs de provence retained their potatoness and were therefore good.
For desert Janna made mini chocolate souffles with vanilla bean ice cream. The souffle was light and fluffy and had the perfect amount of rich chocolate. I could have done without the vanilla bean ice cream though, perhaps next time we'll serve the souffles with powder sugar and a mint leaf.
Janna diligently works on her desert. If there's one thing we can count on in the Birn household it's that Janna will put her full love and effort into her deserts.
While Janna is diligently working on her desert, Agnus child Buster has come into our home like a hurricane and made a mess of the place. What an outrage.
Seamus is appalled at the mess and wants that Daddy remove the intruders from the compound.
It wouldn't be a Life on Union Ave 2 post without the obligatory bad picture of Janna. And here it is, Janna trying to block her face from the camera. Nice try dear.

3 comments:

Mrs. P said...

Thanks for the instruction. I am dutifully repeating "Heat is my friend" ten times before going to sleep each night.

It was a great meal, which will only get worse when I try to mangle it over here. We'll see.

Mark said...

I love how Janna's baking right in front of the laptop. 'Tis awesome, that.

Janna said...

Well, yes, but... Janna was using a recipe off the internet and therefore baking in front of the ol' lappie was most convenient. So there. :-P