Dwayne

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Ingredient Challenge #5: 3-Layer Parfait

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Monday, November 16, 2015 – Something a little different this time. My friend Spiro picked rose water, honey, nuts, cinnamon, and chocolate. Now, the rose water, honey, and nuts immediately screams baklava. Which was too obvious, so I didn’t want to do that. In fact, I figured I’d avoid the whole pastry thing altogether. So my next thought was pudding.

The next problem, of course, is that rose water, cinnamon, and chocolate don’t really blend as flavors. So instead of making one pudding, I’d make three. And I’d layer the honey and nuts in between them. And call it a parfait.

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Ingredient Challenge #4: Roasted Veggies with Veloute Sauce

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Saturday, October 24, 2015 – Another ingredient challenge. My friend Crystal picked beets, parsnips, fennel, chicken stock, and onion. The chicken stock was an interesting one. Now, I could make soup, but that would be too obvious. So instead, I made a sauce, roasted the veggies, and topped them with the sauce.

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An Alternative to Minimum Wage

Just to be perfectly clear, I believe everyone deserves to have the means to live a comfortable life. I just don’t believe minimum wage accomplishes that goal. I’ve argued that minimum wage is somewhere between ineffective and counter-productive at solving wealth inequality. But instead of focusing on the problems, I want to focus on the solutions.

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Ingredient Challenge #3: Duck with Orange Ginger Sauce

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Saturday, October 17, 2015 – Another week, another ingredient challenge. This time, it’s neither all meat nor all veggie.

My friend Alice picked walnuts, duck, cabbage, ginger, and blood orange. Sadly, it seems blood oranges aren’t in season right now, so I had to make do with regular oranges. The orange and the ginger make a pretty good sauce. The rest? Well, I’m getting ahead of myself.

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Beyond Pro-Choice: Why I’m Pro-Abortion

I know this post will be controversial for a few of my friends. But I figure it’s time to reveal why I’m so staunchly pro-abortion.

I’m a strong believer in a woman’s right to abortion. That’s no secret. But I’ll confess, it wasn’t always this way. When I was young, I believed in the whole “every life is precious” thing. Then, one day, everything changed.

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Ingredient Challenge #2: Roasted Pumpkin

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Sunday, October 11, 2015 – Last week, the challenge was full of meat. It’s only fitting that this week’s challenge is entirely vegetarian.

My friend Fenella chose chard, pumpkin, green beans, parsley,and tomato. And she’s a vegetarian, so the subtext was the dish had to be vegetarian. And a salad was too obvious, so not a salad.

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Ingredient Challenge #1: BBQ Rouladen

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Saturday, October 3, 2015 – So a little bit of backstory: As far as cooking practice goes, I’ve invented my own recipes, cooked random episodes from Good Eats, cooked a chapter from Chef Watson, and practiced my knife skills. But what do these all have in common? I decided all those things. So I decided it was time to push myself out of my comfort zone and do things that I wouldn’t otherwise do.

I took some inspiration Chopped and pantry challenges. The game was my friends would pick 5 ingredients, and then I would pick 5 ingredients, and then I’d see what I can make with all of those ingredients and only those ingredients.

JJ got first pick (by being the first person to respond), and he picked bacon, sausage, beef, cheese, and BBQ sauce. My first thought was one of the “crustless pizzas” he’d been making, but I didn’t want to copy him. My second thought was to choose bread as one of my ingredients and make a sandwich, but that was too obvious. So I took a page from bacon mania and decided to make something crazy, but prolly wasn’t all that crazy.

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Taiwanese-Style Beef Noodle Soup

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Mid-Autumn Festival 2015

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The Mid-Autumn Festival happened again, as it does every year. And every year, it’s an excuse for me to cook dinner for my friends. This year, I decided to tackle Beef Noodle Soup. It’s my mom’s quintessential dish, and even my brother has learned how to make it. So of course I too have to learn how to make it.

Not only that, but I decided to combine French cooking techniques to it. Taiwanese flavors, Taiwanese ingredients, made in the style of beef bourguignon (namely simmering on low heat for a few hours).

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