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December 5, 2012: Culinary creations! Bubba hanging out!

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The other day, I received THIS in the mail –

1No, not the pug.  Or the Japanese girlfriend.  Or the Japanese girlfriend’s Dalmatian slippers [note: no actual dalmatians were hurt in the manufacturing of said slippers].  I refer, of course, to the cookbook – a cookbook chock full o’ classic German recipes like gulasch, jagerschnitzel, apfelstrudel.  It comes compliments of our friends, Alexander and Sarah, who, clearly, feel I’m not cooking enough Bavarian fare.

And so, today, I tried by hand at rosti.  Well, let’s just say everything didn’t go according to my plan:

What it looked like.
What it looked like.
What it should have looked like.
What it should have looked like.

A few minor tweaks: less potato, more onions, more oil in the pan, longer boiling time for the potatoes, longer frying time for the rosti.

Meanwhile, Akemi attempted a new recipe of her own – with far better results:

1Peanut butter dog cookies.  Jelly was positively crazy about them – and I DO mean crazy: barking, pacing, hopping up and down on her front paws, gazing longingly up at the plate.  Bubba and Lulu liked them just fine as well.

I’ll spare you all the non-football related rant I was considering for today’s entry.  Instead, here’s  video of Bubba hanging around the house:

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21 responses

  1. Deborah Rose Avatar
    Deborah Rose

    That is a seriously relaxed dog. And it is slightly comforting to see you are not an iron chef, always turning out works of art as culinary masterpieces. As for the non football rant, feel free to share. We are always enter tai…um sympathetic to whatever bothers you. Thanks for the daily post, and enjoy the cookbook.

    Reply
  2. sg1efc Avatar
    sg1efc

    “here’s video of Bubba hanging around the house:”

    Shame on you for not recognizing Bubba’s famous “I’m Superman!” imitation. 🙁 Especially after all of Cookie Monster’s reviews. 🙂

    Reply
  3. Randomness Avatar
    Randomness

    Saw this earlier, quite a few sites are reporting about it, but there’s a Galaxy out there, 220 million light years away, that’s a quarter of the size of our own Milky Way Galaxy but has a black hole at its center thats 17 billion solar masses in size, the largest ever recorded on record too. Makes up 14 percent of that galaxys mass, compared to 0.1 in other galaxys.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2239886/Black-hole-sun-It-looks-like-exploding-star–picture-fact-shows-galaxy-black-hole-size-17BILLION-suns.html

    This story is pretty incredible in so many ways, imagine the kind of effect the black holes gravity/radiation would have on surrounding solars systems? I bet that thing would be felt from quite a distance if you lived in said galaxy.

    Pity that Stargate Universe isn’t on the air, would be a great idea for an episode Joe, Destiny travels through a galaxy with an overly huge black hole considering its size, you could pull science from absolutely nowhere as no one knows the effect it would have on said Galaxy.

    Reply
  4. gforce Avatar
    gforce

    That is one seriously chilled out Bubba in that video. I don’t suppose I could get the recipe for the PB dog cookies? I want to make some treats for my friends’ dog Toby to take over for Christmas. I may even consider taking them something too! 🙂 I mean, other than dog cookies.

    So, rosti is fried potatoes and onions? Sounds simple enough, but if you can’t do it, it would give me pause.

    I’m actually kind of curious now what the rant was about.

    Reply
  5. Ponytail Avatar
    Ponytail

    Just another dog day afternoon. Cutie-pie! The potatoes and onions look gooood. Would also love the doggie cookie recipe. No rant today? That’s disappointing. I could go off about work, but if I started, I’d never stop. Come on retirement!

    Reply
  6. DP Avatar
    DP

    That respite after your obsession gets murdered is supposed to be a honeymoon with zen and drama’s banging at your door? Bubba’s got the right idea.

    Reply
  7. Wendy Avatar
    Wendy

    Hey Joe,

    I’m Swiss (Rösti is Swiss not German btw) and there is an easy fix for your mush. Boil the potatoes the day before and store them in the fridge overnight. Less moisture, less mush. Also use at least a table spoon of butter instead of a ton of oil. Butter will brown it nicely and again, less mushy.

    Reply
  8. dasndanger Avatar
    dasndanger

    1. Chillin’ pup!! 😀

    2. Joe: Akemi cooks, you critique. How hard is that to remember? 🙄

    3. Akemi – if that cookbook has a rouladen recipe – make it! Rouladen is delicious!! But whatever you do, do NOT let Joey near the pots and pans! 😉

    4. Just finished watching the last Batman movie. Wow…I think Bale finally managed to warm my heart a little. He’s still a bit too wooden for me, but after three movies he’s finally managed to make me like Bruce a little.

    5. I hope you’ll treat us to your aborted rant someday…unless it involves me. Then we can just skip it, k?

    Okay, that’s all I have energy for. Nites! And Joe, remember – stick with the taste-testing!

    das

    Reply
  9. Wendy Avatar
    Wendy

    Oh and make sure you leave the skin on when you boil the potatoes. They should be just a tad undercooked, not longer.

    Reply
  10. Line Noise Avatar
    Line Noise

    As Wendy said, moisture is the killer for rosti. When I’ve made it in the past I put the grated potato into a tea-towel and twisted the bajeezus out of it until I couldn’t get wring any more moisture out of it. A heavy based pan is also important. I’m talking 1/2 inch copper heavy!

    Reply
  11. JimFromJersey Avatar
    JimFromJersey

    Nice work on the dog treats, Akemi! We’ve been making our own for about a year now. Our Brandi loves them.

    Reply
  12. Line Noise Avatar
    Line Noise

    And I just remembered one other tip for rosti. If you have a potato ricer (you know, kinda like a big garlic press thing) you can use that to squeeze out the water from the grated potatoes (just make sure the potatoes aren’t too soft otherwise you’ll end up mashing them!). It’s also great for shaping the rosti if you want to make individual ones.

    Crikey! I didn’t realise I knew so much about rosti!

    Reply
  13. DP Avatar
    DP

    @das – Bale’s acting was perfect in Equilibrium. 😉

    Reply
  14. Maggiemayday Avatar
    Maggiemayday

    I love Bubba’s casual tag wail. Chill.

    Reply
  15. DP Avatar
    DP

    I’m not sure what rosti is supposed to be like, but for my other fried potato dishes, it’s usually a game to brown them before they overcook because so many things cause them to cook at lower temperatures.

    Moisture causes them to keep cooking at a lower temperature until the moisture is gone (something similar happens with browning ground beef), then they can brown better. I dry them in a tea towel, but that only removes a little moisture from raw potatoes. Older potatoes have less moisture. Onions would add to the moisture problem so, if your religion allows, perhaps you could try dehydrated onions and kill two birds with one stone.

    Smaller amounts of potato and more oil helps because the oil gets cooler when the potato goes in the oil, then it has to heat back up to browning temperature. I’m always tempted to cheat on this because I have a lot of potatoes to cook, but I pay for it in quality.

    Pre-boiling potatoes would seem like that would add to the moisture problem, but if blanching the surface by boiling would allow me to dry peeled potatoes in the refrigerator overnight without the surface browning, I’m totally going to try that.

    Reply
  16. Tam Dixon Avatar
    Tam Dixon

    The rosti may not look the same but how did it taste? It reminds me of that Japanese dish Akemi makes. Okonomiyaki. I had to look back in your photos for that word. Japanese is not my strong suit. I’m trying to learn more Karate terms…very difficult for me.

    Bubba is cute but I would have liked to have seen a video of Jelly with the dog treats. You described it well though. Great job on those treats Akemi! Plus, you don’t have to worry about the ingredients.

    My 27lb cat is no more! He lost a pound but he’s not happy about the diet. It IS difficult having one cat on a diet and different cat trying to gain weight. Here are “the boys”: http://twitpic.com/bjn2kv

    Reply
  17. Ponytail Avatar
    Ponytail

    @ Tam Dixon – Over on Akemi’s blog she has a video of the excited puppies begging for cookies.
    http://peasnatch.wordpress.com/

    Reply
  18. 2cats Avatar
    2cats

    @ Tam Dixon, my goodness, that photo shows some serious crowding happening on that cat perch. I have a similar perch for my 2 kitties, but only one, my male Stash, seems to use it or like it.

    2cats

    Reply
  19. 2cats Avatar
    2cats

    http://twitpic.com/bjowsr, see here.

    Reply
  20. for the love of Beckett Avatar
    for the love of Beckett

    Another rant? About something beside football? Yes, we love it when the proverbial blood boils, but not to the point of making Akemi worried. Um, have you checked your blood pressure lately?

    Yes, a video of Jelly prancing for puppy treats, please! 🙂

    Can’t wait to see the other recipes you make from the German cookbook. Practice makes perfect. Congratulations to Alexander and Sarah! Wishing you health, happiness, and a wonderful life together. Cheers! 😀

    Reply
  21. PBMom Avatar
    PBMom

    Somewhere along the line I missed the fact that Akemi has her own blog. Now following. Care to share the recipe for said awesome PB doggie cookies? Love Bubba! So chill.

    Reply

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