The Chin luck

I have it! This weekend at the RPI vs. Brown hockey game I won the "Guess the attendance" contest. I won a two night stay and four lift tickets to Mount Snow (which I believe was or is where the Olympics will be, but I'm not sure) up in Lake Placid. It was pretty cool. The girl approached us and Ed said that I should do it since he had already won a Browns Brewing Co. gift certificate for the puck shoot (he was like three inches away from winning a car!). Nadeem didn't want to go so I did. My guess was 2757 and I think the turn out was around 2500, which is what I was thinking of saying in the beginning. Lucky for me the other two guys went much higher than my guess. Anyway, I don't know when we'll be going since they are midweek tickets. The hotel hasn't even contacted me yet. We still have the 2 night stay in Boston that Ed won last semester. We have little time for these excursions, but we should go before our Doozer gets back.


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Other than that, I've christen my new Emeril deep fryer that the Levie's got me for Christmas with mozzarella sticks. The sticks themselves were very salty, but the fryer did beautifully. I then ventured into the realm of Lumpia. I don't know what the difference between Lumpia and eggrolls are, but mine sure looked like egg rolls. They weren't cute and neatly made like my Auntie Marvel's. Auntie Marvel, I'm just going to have to keep requesting that you make them at Thanksgiving! I think I may have put too much stuffing in mine, as they were almost bursting at the seams. I also don't know if I had enough oil in the fryer. I had it to the mark that the saftey instructions indicated, but my rolls were too big and not completely submerged so I had to keep turning them. I also had the temperature on the highest setting, but they came out really greasy. They were very tastey, but too greasy for my liking. Ed, Nadeem, and Rolando thought that they were really good and polished them off, but man, I could only eat a couple. It could be my new "diet". My body has adjusted to eating less and lighter food. I guess that's a good thing. I also made wonton skin desserts with the extra wrappers. I cut them in smaller squares, fried them, and the dusted them with powdered sugar. They also finished those off.

After I was done with my Lumpia, I drained the oil into the little filtration system and container. It worked great! The oil is quiet dark now so I think I'll have to replace it. I was hoping to get one more use out of it, but I don't want to risk it. I was supposed to make fried chicken last night, but we went on a date instead (it was great by the way). I don't think that I have enough oil in there for a whole batch of chicken anyway. I think I'll make Edward sweet potato fries instead.

As always, we didn't do much for Valentine's day. There was a big hockey game, which we lost, and then I made a nice dinner for my guys (Ed, Rolando, and Nadeem). I roasted a chicken, made garlic and rosemary red potatoes and Guiness mushrooms. The mushrooms were awesome. They made my throat a little itchy and my face very hot, but they were so worth it. This will be a "signature" mushroom dish for me, as I made it up on the spot. I love when experiments turn out well. The chicken was also a made up dish that turned out well, but the mushrooms make me proud.

Valentine's Roaster chicken

1 roasting chicken
1tbls cayenne pepper
1 tbsp black pepper
1 tbsp kosher salt
1 tbsp red pepper flakes
4 tbsp butter, cut into chunks
1 bottle beer
1/2 c water

Preheat oven or roaster to 350 degrees. Mix spices in a small bowl. Take out the bag of chicken innards and rinse chicken. Take chicken and place butter under the skin. Rub spice mixture outside of chicken and inside the cavity. Place chicken on a rack in the roaster. Pour in water and beer. If using an oven place chicken on a rack and then into the pan so that the bottom does not touch the liquid. Cover with aluminum foil. Roast/bake the chicken for 1.5 hours or until nearly falling apart.

Reserve drippings for gravy.

Guiness mushrooms

2 packs mushrooms, stemmed
1/4 c (1/2 bottle) Guiness beer
1 tbls cayenne pepper
1.5 tbls cumin
salt and pepper to taste

Saute mushrooms in beer, adding beer as needed so they don't burn. Add cayenne and cumin. Toss until mushrooms are dark brown but not shapless. Salt and pepper to taste.

Garlic Rosemary Potatoes
(Mommy' recipe)

5 red potatoes
1 head garlic, seperated
2 tbsp fresh rosemary, minced
6 tbsp evoo

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Dice potatoes and mix with whole garlic cloves, rosemary, and evoo. Spread on a baking sheet lined with foil. Bake for 20 minute intervals. After the first 20 minutes take the potatoes out and stir them, make sure the are all flat. Bake for another 20 minutes. Cool before serving.

Here are a couple of pictures from our ski trip where I jiggled my brain.



This is an egg that I made a few weeks ago that I thought looked nearly perfect and had to document.