I made peanut butter cookies today. Why? I had all the ingredients, Rob said he liked them, and there’s D&D tonight. I would have made oatmeal raisin cookies, but was rather lacking in the oatmeal area. I’ve got steel-cut, but that wouldn’t really have worked (although it’s kind of amusing to think about).

They tasted okay to me. If they go over well with the lads, I’ll post the recipe.

Well, that was disappointing.

Last night I made Steamed Wonton Bundles, using a recipe from a Thai cookbook I got for the holidays last year. And they were incredibly uninteresting. Very bland and the texture was all off. I will not be posting the recipe.

I guess I’m going to do some experimenting of my own to make these things real. Good thing the ingredients aren’t expensive.

Sorry, all. More “talking about food” rather than recipes. I haven’t made anything new lately. I’ve got one recipe almost ready to go, and I’ve gotten some recipes from readers that I may make this next weekend. Or whenever my fridge runs out of leftovers.

So, I went to see Alton’s show on Saturday. The event ran from 11am to 4:30pm. I think I stayed until about three or so. Alton’s segments didn’t start until after noon- I think he got there a little late. I was watching from near the back so I wouldn’t be crushed by people. I could still see over their heads pretty well. Unfortunately, AB was not wearing his Utilikilt, as he did when he performed at the Orange County Fair (read Cynthia’s account here). I think he said it was getting cleaned. Drat, I say.

Alton’s first segment was on beef jerky. He used the same idea as when he dried herbs, with a box fan, air conditioner filters, and bungee cords. Unfortunately, the Simon Super Chef Tour did not get caterers’ insurance, so none of us could actually taste anything he made. (It’s not required everywhere, but it is necessary in California.) You have the jerky dry out for… twelve hours? Seven days? Somewhere in between there. Anyway, apparently every dog in your neighborhood will be drooling at your doors by the end of it. (You have to make sure you point the box fan away from your house or else it’ll end up smelling like a smokehouse or a butcher shop or something.)

His second segment was about pâte à choux. I was really quite amazed by how quickly the dough/batter came together. I mean, I’d seen the episode (“Choux Shine“), but still, it was very impressive in person. Ryan said (when I told her about it later) that she’d be interested in trying it. Using the dough/batter (I forget which one it is, or if there’s a word that means “kind of both”), he made cream puffs (well, empty ones), a funnel cake, and a doughnut. The doughnut was interesting because he’d just done a show on the more cake-like doughnuts, and these were, I guess, more like the puffy glazed ones you’d get elsewhere. He piped a circle on a little square of parchment paper and then turned the whole thing into the frying oil. When the doughnut fell away, he fished the paper out with the tongs. Messy, but easier than trying to pipe a circle into the oil itself.

I have to say, the Simon Super Chef Tour stage wasn’t great. I wish they had installed a mirror over the cooking surface so you could see what was going on. They did have a couple of monitors set up that had video of what was happening, but it was very hard to see. Sun and glare and whatnot. It also would have helped if they had more chairs.

I was so glad that I’d gotten my cookbook signed by him last year (he did a signing at the Draeger’s in San Mateo). Wow, was that line long. Lydia met me after the second segment and we hung around for about fifteen minutes, taking pictures of AB. We could actually get pretty close to the signing area.

I didn’t stay for the third segment because I had a lot of shopping to do for Sunday. I think I heard it was going to be on turkey.

Oh, yeah, and I got a free loaf of bread at Boudin. The Simon people were giving out some rather excellent coupons at the event.

Finally, a yay to AB and Good Eats for getting recognized as darn good television by Heather Havrilesky in her column, “I Like to Watch,” over at Salon.com.

I spent yesterday hanging out with my family. Yay! Jon and Dad played golf, Ryan and Mom completed their lamps from last weekend’s craft party, and I made appetizers. Nothing very new and exciting. I was going to make the Steamed Wonton Bundles from my Thai cookbook (so I can post a real recipe and stop feeling horrible about the Sandra Lee monstrosity that I somehow like), but we all decided that we would be too full for dinner. As it was, we had salsa, hummus, bean dip, and chicken liver mousse. It was a very dip-intensive round of hors d’oeuvres. And then I made twice-baked potatoes to go with the lamb we ate for dinner.

I got a chance to try out a new drink with my mom and Ryan. We had tamarind margaritas. These were a lot of work and far too strong for my taste. It took me about three hours to get to the point where I said, “Here, Dad, you finish this.” (Because, you see, I nursed it for so long that they returned from their golfing.) Also, not terribly attractive drinks, kind of a tan color.

I’ll post the recipe anyway. I need to write to Ryan and ask her for the recipe to my dad’s margaritas (which I also think are too strong [although everyone else seems to love them], but they’re easier than the tamarind ones). She wrote it down last night, but I was too lazy to grab a pen and paper.

Argh! Well, I was going to post the tamarind margarita recipe, but I can’t find it. I was sure I stuck it in Here in America’s Test Kitchen before I left last night, but apparently not. That’s really annoying.

Does anyone have any suggestions on where to find dried shrimp? My plan of buying some ramen cup-o-soups and fishing them out hit a snag. I guess they don’t put as many in as they used to.

Asian market? Mexican market?

I’ve got a meatloaf currently cooking. It’s the first time I’ve made one. I asked my mom for the recipe yesterday. Let’s hope it turns out okay. I thought I had an onion, but I didn’t, so I used some green onion.

I don’t know- I just really felt like a meatloaf sandwich. Which I’ll eat tomorrow, once the loaf is chilled.

Tomorrow for dinner. Lunch tomorrow is Thai food with my mom and some family friends.

I am very uninteresting today. It’s a blah day.

Meatloaf

1 pound ground beef

1 egg

1/2 onion minced

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup bread crumbs (about)

Pinch of garlic powder

Salt

NOTE: add the bread crumbs slowly until you have the right consistency. You may need more or less.

Preheat oven to 350. Mix ingredients together with hands. Form into loaf. Place on a rack over a sheet pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour.