cooking – Greatwall Studios Graphic Design

Wrapping up our Fair entries for the year.

September 21, 2023greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment

This whole weekend will be spent painting, crafting, sewing, baking and running around town to get the last few fair entries finished, and in some instances started & finished ahead of next Tuesdays drop off deadline. Could get rather tense! I need to grab pumpkins with my BIL to deliver to the fair grounds too. Lots to do around here in the next four days.

We need to review our photography and get those printed off, mounted, and ready for display come Saturday. We picked up our badges, ribbons and parking tags, so that much is taken care of so far. Probably need to go shopping for rice crispies so that I can make my last project on Sunday/Monday. Don’t want to make them too far in advance as they’ll go stale when it’s time for judging on Wednesday of next week.

I love fair time. If the weather holds out we always get some terrific photos of the midway and the kids smiling & having fun. Blooming onions, funnel cakes, burgers and ice creams, the occasional candy floss, or candy apples thrown into the mix. It’s great. I hope we get to see the horse pulls, demolition derby, and the monster trucks too. I’m pretty partial to wandering around the home craft building looking at all of the complex quilts and art work. My sculpting never wins any prizes but I enter them anyway no painted ceramics this year, so I have to go in for the “Technique Not Mentioned” open category. I just like having one thing to show to people.

The food trucks and the Smashed Burger folks have really good food. I’m sad that I can’t eat more of it in a day. I’ll be searching for their blue banner again this year. As much as I usually enjoy the chicken tenders and fries from the fair, the Smashed Burger really piqued my interest last year.

You should come out to see it. Parking is free, and there are nightly fireworks shows. It’s a really fun agricultural experience. Ciao Bella!

The secret to my scrambled eggs.

July 28, 2022July 28, 2022greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment

No real set of instructions to follow, but you will need: six (6) eggs, salt & pepper, milk (poured in to suit) a whisk or fork to mix, and either a bowl or pourable container with a spout. Also important, a stove top and a shallow sauce pan, or a frying pan. One flat edges spatula or your favourite design.

Glop all of the eggs, a few shakes of salt & pepper, and somewhere in the vicinity of 3/4 of a cup of milk. Mush all that together with a whisk or fork for about a minute. At least until all the yolks have ruptured. Turn your stove top burner to a medium /medium low heat. Let it warm up as you work your ingredients together. (Might want to read through before starting, my had). Pour all contents into the now heated pan on the stove. In a constant movement, scrape off the bottom of the pan to reveal the newly congealed scrambled eggs. Keep going until all of the liquid eggs have become a solid. At this point you can start to flip the mass over in chunks. Then using your spatulas edge cut the mass into many, many smaller pieces. Turn off the heat, and it is at this point you could add a cheese to the top, or go and make some toast to go with it. Scoop up with a spatula and enjoy. The whole process can take about ten (10) minutes, if you start off with a not blazing hot pan. A slow heat will yield softer fluffier eggs, and not a rubbery overcooked mess. Slow and steady. No burned patches, no charring, and every bite is edible. Good if you’re on a budget and can’t afford to let any go due to waste/mishap.

Today is Thursday July 28th, of the year 2022.

My go to fridge clearing recipe.

March 28, 2021greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment

First I chop up left over cloves of garlic, green onion and sweet onion and pop that in a large sauce pan with a smidge of olive oil to brown up for a couple minutes. Then I chop up and add carrots, celery, bell peppers, diced potatoes and a healthy dose of unsalted beef broth/vegetable broth. Occasionally I will add in a splash of OJ or lemon juice for a bit of a zip. Boil that until it simmers and the broth begins to reduce down to a thicker (think less than watery) consistency. In a separate cast iron pan I will crisp up and brown both bacon and chicken. Once the bacon has a good crunch, and the chicken has a crispy browned crust I plop them both into the veggie pan. Add as much honey garlic sauce as you like to the total mixture, let simmer and serve. I don’t typically add any salt, as the bacon and honey garlic sauce tend to have a significant amount in them. You can add virtually anything you have in your fridge in just about any quantity. I like that it changes from meal to meal. Looks like a dogs breakfast but tastes great, and is 75% vegetable and could easily be all vegetarian if you were so inclined.

Some things you will need: At least 2 sauce pans – chopping board – knife – spatula – 2 stove top burners

Things you might use in the recipe: Aromatics; Sweet onion, garlic cloves, green onion, ginger Meats; bacon, chicken, beef, or pork sausage Vegetables; carrots, celery, sweet bell peppers, potatoes, zucchini, egg plant, and a whole slew of others. Basically whatever you have in your fridge in whatever amount you have left. Sauces & Broths; I prefer to use the salt reduced Campbell’s Vegetable broth or beef broth, but if you like Knorr or Bovril have at it. I do like to splash in some OJ or lemon juice. And to top it off I like some Kikoman soy sauce (salty af, so that’s why I don’t have salt or pepper in the ingredients list) and then some form of a Honey Garlic Sauce. Add to taste.

Mix it all together and serve. If you use potatoes in your meal cook it all until they are done ( or if you are impatient run them through the microwave for 10:00 minutes before placing in the sauce pan – but you still have to wait on those pesky carrots!).