Why You No Post, O'Malley? Also, Latkes

It's smiling in the desperate hope that it might offset the righteous wrath of you, my faithful readers, who have been waiting anxiously for a new post. School's been eating up all my time, and I can't be cooking every night, much less blogging about it. However, I finally did get around to making some latkes out of the book, so here we go.

First off, these are really easy to make and anyone who has about an hour on their hands can make a whole bunch of them. Latkes are one of my favorite dishes, and for good reason. They're tasty and they go with everything, for example. I personally like to have them with sour cream and applesauce, but your mileage may vary.

I got the idea for latkes on Tuesday while in a fit of craving for something fried and potatoe-y. This had to wait , unfortunately, until Wednesday to be fulfilled, but it was totally worth it. I had Li over that day because we had the day off for Veterans' day, and It was a lot of fun cooking with her.

I'm not sure that I really need to post precisely what I did, seeing as how easy latkes are to make. It'd be kind of like blogging about how to make a PBJ, knowwhatimean? All that I did differently was that I shredded all the ingredients in a food processor before frying the little cakes.

The mixture looked like this when I was done with it.

Well, Li and I made about 40 of these for ourselves and my mother and stepfather. We brought out the sour cream and apple butter and conducted ourselves in the manner of sharks at a feeding frenzy. Seriously, they were good.

Brimming with anticipation.

I really recommend these to anyone who likes food. They're fun and delicious.

I'll try to update more frequently from now on , but school might get in the way. Oh well. Che sera, sera.

-O'Malley

Cheddar and Parsnip Soup

Pic related. I made it.

And so, after a long hiatus (the author forgot his password) the great saga of the SaM cookthrough blog begins again.

Okay, really, I did forget it. Sorry. Also, busy with school and all that jazz. But! 'Tis sunday, and I'm feeling like blogging. So we go.

Two weeks ago I made cheddar and parsnip soup for my Dad and my stepmother Nikki, and it was a HUGE hit. Well, maybe not that huge. Anna (stepsister) hated it. Verbatim, "Eww! What the hell!"

It went down the drain almost immediately. Gotta make a mental note to not serve her parsnips and to apologize to my poor mother for putting her through years of the exact same thing with squash, stew, carrots, and various gourds. Sorry, mom.

It was pretty easy to make, as soups go. No big hassle with double-boilers or constant whisking or anything like that. All one needs is the patience to grate the 34,689 pounds of cheddar cheese that the recipie calls for. Ugh. The cookbook lists 8 potatoes to be chopped along with the parsnips but I had to forgo those due to the setback of not having any potatoes. Minor problem. I managed fine without 'em.

Everything went pretty well during the cooking process, except for one thing...

After the soup has been heated, the cheese has been melted, and the vegetables chopped, it's supposed to be run through a food processor at high speed to blend everything together. I put serving into the food processor, turned it on high speed, and realized that I had forgotten to put the safety lid on to the food chute.

I put another serving in and tried again with the safety lid on. Much better.

The soup turned out great, and I'd gladly make it again for a party. I'd recommend grating some extra cheese and sprinkling it on the top of the soup for a good melted flavor. Also goes well with yoghurt or sour cream.

I can't find the recipie on the internet, but I will post in in my next installment. Until next time,

O'Malley

Introduction

I know what you're thinking:

"Ahhh, just another schmucky cook-through blog. So what? There are a ton of them out there."

I understand the feeling, but please, there 's a difference between all of those other ones and this one. The difference: None of them are written by 16-year-olds, and not a whole lot of them are vegetarian. This one will be great, I promise you.

Well, thank you for reading this far. Throughout my life, I've always been curious about the process of cooking food. The scientist in me is always wondering how one takes relatively inedible ingredients and transforms them into something worth eating, obsessing over, and blogging about. My interest really started to take off when my mother, Melissa Palladino, got something called The Gourmet Cookbook and started a cook-through blog of it. Since then, I've sat back and watched her blog and blog and blog about cooking and food. In time, my own cooking skills grew by watching and imitating. I've even done some guest posts on there.

Well, we happen to have a cookbook around the house that I adore, called Sundays at Moosewood. I'd tried out a few recipes from it before this, and I've really liked them. The book is entirely vegetarian, so it's good for anyone who might want to try it. I really can't wait to get started on this. It'll be a roller coaster ride.