Tonight, I made breaded chicken with red onions and sun-dried tomatoes. Seems pretty straightforward. That’s where I went wrong. For breading, you can make a light breading just by dipping the chicken into flour. This makes a very light breading—barely noticeable. I took some of the oil from the sun-dried tomatoes and used it to make some of the flour stick. When the chicken came out of the oven, it was coated in what looked like greasy pancake batter. It tasted exactly like the last sentence made it sound. I think Janelle gave up and started eating some tortilla chips left over from lunch.

So, lest you think I’m an awesome cook, I sometimes make things like that.

And now, my top five cooking disasters:

The Stuffed Shells

My sister and I were cooking for a party my dad was throwing. We decided to make stuffed shells, because, really, who doesn’t love stuffed shells? We didn’t have all of the ingredients, but cooking at my dad’s house without all of the ingredients is like basic training for Gregorys. We are Macgyvers in the kitchen. We know no fear. We will look an empty pantry in the eye and tell it where it can shove it.

We got most of the stuffing done before we realized we didn’t have enough ground beef for the dish. No problem. Like I said, we do this all the time. What’s in the fridge? Hot dogs? No problem. Let’s cut those little guys up and drop them in the mix.

The stuffed shells tasted like hot dogs. I don’t mean they tasted like stuffed shells with hot dogs in them. They tasted like hot dogs with the texture of stuffed shells. You could barely taste the tomato sauce. Apparently, the hot dog is one of the most potent flavors on the planet. Who knew?

The guests ate the shells politely and in complete, dead silence.

The Salmon Patties

I decided to make salmon patties while staying with my dad. Salmon patties were something I had a lot growing up, and I absolutely loved them. So I got the canned salmon from the store and prayed that we had suitable ingredients at home to finish the recipe.

Salmon patties aren’t a difficult recipe. Bread crumbs, check. Diced onion, check. Oil, check. Eggs… eggs? Not so lucky there. Well, what’s the worst that could happen?

I wish I could say that the salmon patties caught fire or exploded or catalyzed into coal, but it’s not quite that exciting. Really, they were just disgusting. It turns out eggs are the most important part of that dish. Without eggs, it fell apart and basically dehydrated. I wound up with a sickly, burnt, ground-up salmon jerky without any seasoning. I coaxed my sister into taking a bite. I don’t think she’s ever forgiven me for this. We wound up putting the “salmon patties” in the cat’s feeding dish. The cat took one whiff, turned up her nose, and walked away. We had to toss not only the salmon patties but also the cat food they were sitting on top of.

The King Cake

Even though I already documented this one here, it’s worth another mention. I can’t really say anything that’s funnier than the pictures in that post, so go ahead and look at those.

The Cookies

For those who don’t know, I moved up to Kansas from sunny central Florida in the Spring of 2005. I was originally working for a new church. It all started with a trip up here to meet the people who would be starting the church. At the time, I had just started dating Janelle, so I was staying with her for the week I was up here. She had, of course, heard of my legendary cooking skills, so I decided to put them to work to bake some white chocolate cranberry cookies for her. Just as I started mixing the dough, she got a phone call from her best friend who lives down in Phoenix. She went outside to get better phone reception.

Those who know me know that, in addition to being rather adventurous in the kitchen, I am also exceptionally clumsy and uncoordinated. (This is evidenced by the large volume of salsa I am covered with after eating at any Mexican dining establishment.) As I was putting the cookies in the oven, one of them slipped off of the baking sheet. No problem, just scoop it up, right? Well, her oven had some kind of small vent on the bottom. And, of course, the cookie fell right in there.

Within minutes, black smoke started pouring out of the oven. (You didn’t seriously think I’d turn off the oven and deal with it, did you?) I opened a window in the kitchen, but the slight draft couldn’t keep up with the billows of smoke filling the house. Before long, the fire alarm went off. I tried fanning the smoke away from the fire alarm, but that didn’t work. I wound up removing the fire alarm from the ceiling (which didn’t stop it, as it was battery operated) and carrying it outside for a breather. As Janelle saw me walk outside with a ringing fire alarm and smoke pouring out of the front door, she told her friend, “I’d better look into this, I’m going to have to call you back.”

So the first baked good I served Janelle was smoked white chocolate cranberry cookies.

The Garlic Bread

This one’s kind of unique in that I still don’t know what I did wrong. Janelle was throwing a pitch party (a card game tournament) at the duplex she lived in and I was cooking for the event. I had popped some garlic bread in the oven for our guests. After enough time had gone by, I went to check on it. The garlic bread was on fire. I don’t mean smoldering or burnt around the edges—half the loaf was on fire. I had a classic Brandon reaction: I closed the oven, put my chin on my hand, and thought about it for a few moments (as any great man of action wouldn’t have done) before Janelle’s roommate Liz got the baking soda and put the fire out.

Now, I know it looks bad, with me setting Janelle’s kitchen on fire twice. I’m happy to say our kitchen has been fire-free for five years, now. The grill, not so much. Flaming cheeseburgers are kind of my specialty.

Dolmades are stuffed grape leaves, and are Greek in origin. Traditionally, they’re made with rice and lemon juice, and they’re not actually all that good. This recipe is pretty non-traditional in that it has meat and other stuff in it. After growing up with these, I’ve been let down by every other dolma that I’ve tried.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 2½ pounds ground beef (can use ½-1 lb. ground lamb, if you want it a little gamier)
• ½ cup rice, dry
• 3-4 cloves garlic, minced or diced finely
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 large bell pepper (preferably red, but can use yellow), diced
• 2/3 bunch parsley, chopped
• 2 8 oz. cans tomato sauce
• 2 bottles grape leaves in brine (these are usually next to the pickles)
• Salt and pepper to taste (it’ll probably take more than you think)

Mix all ingredients except the grape leaves in a large mixing bowl. Make sure to mix well. Remove the grape leaves from the jars and trim the stems off of them. Now, you’re ready to roll.

Rolling dolma is an art. Rather than go into extreme detail, I’m going to link to this video. The segment is short. Just make sure you wrap them kind of tightly, otherwise they’ll fall apart when you’re eating them.

Once the dolma are rolled, arrange them in concentric circles in a pot. Fill the pot with enough water to cover all of the dolma and put on high heat until the water begins to simmer. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for one hour.

I just bought an ice cream maker, and got a little ambitious with our first project: sweet basil lime frozen yogurt. It’s not great, but it’s actually pretty good. Janelle’s not a fan, though, so we’ll probably be moving on to other flavors rather than perfecting this one. Ideas include:

• Sweet corn
• Cayenne chocolate
• Coconut hazelnut
• Raspberry Cabernet
• Pumpkin pie?

Or maybe I should stick to vanilla until I get the hang of it.

Well, I’ll keep you posted on what I make.

• One cup rice
• Two cans black beans, undrained
• Three or four cloves of garlic, chopped finely
• Two jalapeños, seeds and veins removed, chopped finely
• Three or four green onions, chopped
• One to one and a half pounds lean ham, cubed (optional)
• Some olive oil, for sauteeing (vegetable or canola oils will work, but olive is a bit healthier)
• One small can tomato paste
• One teaspoon cumin
• One tablespoon chili powder
• One bay leaf

Despite having two jalapeños, this is not a spicy dish. The seeds and veins contain most of the heat of the jalapeños, so leave some of that in if you want a spicy dish.

Prepare the rice according to the instructions. (For white rice, it’s usually two parts water, one part rice, on medium low for 30 minutes, but check on this.) While that’s cooking, put some oil in a large skillet (just enough to cover the bottom) and throw the garlic in there. Sautee for a few minutes, until it just starts to brown. Then, throw everything else but the beans and tomato paste in and sautee for five to ten minutes. Then, add the tomato paste, black beans with liquid, and an additional cup of water. It will look pretty soupy, but the rice will soak most of that up. Mix well and sautee for another few minutes, then mix in the rice and serve.

What you’ll need:

• One or two bunches of kale
• 100% extra virgin olive oil
• A sea salt grinder (we actually got a sea salt/dried garlic grinder)

That’s it. Since there are so few ingredients, each one really stands out, which means the quality of the ingredients is very noticeable. So use sea salt instead of regular salt and make sure the olive oil says 100% pure (otherwise it’s probably a blend).

You’ll need to separate the leaves from the stem running up the middle. The stem is edible, but it’s very, very tough—too tough for this method of cooking to soften. Put the leaves in a large bowl and toss lightly with some olive oil. Not a ton—just enough to lightly coat each piece. Place on a baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees. If the baking sheet is large enough for all the pieces to lay flat without touching, bake for six minutes, flip all pieces, and bake for another six minutes. If the pieces are all jammed together, just bake for thirteen to fifteen minutes. They won’t be cooked as evenly, but it works. Salt them when you take them out.

This actually went really well with a vegan dish I found online. Here’s the recipe for that:

What you’ll need:

• Two medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
• One red bell pepper, diced
• One medium yellow or white onion, diced
• One can dark red kidney beans, drained
• One can small red beans, drained
• Three or four cloves of garlic, minced or diced finely
• Rosemary (1 teaspoon dried)
• Thyme (1 teaspoon dried)
• Paprika (1 teaspoon)
• One tablespoon butter
• Some olive oil

Put the butter and a touch of olive oil in a large skillet. (Use enough oil to coat however much of the pan that the butter doesn’t.) Sautee the garlic for a minute or two, but don’t brown it. Drop in all ingredients but the beans and sautee over medium heat until cooked (maybe ten minutes). Once cooked, drop in the beans and cook until warm.

This breaks the vegan rule, but a fried egg on top is really good.

We loaded all the ingredients up and realized that we had forgotten to sweeten the cream cheese. That’s when we realized that this is probably something we should document, so we took some pictures then:

Key lime
Raspberry

We rolled them the best we could and baked them as directed to. Baking certainly didn’t help.

Key lime
Raspberry

I didn’t mention that this was for a party tonight. Luckily, HyVee saved the day. We might bring our abominations to the party anyway, but we needed to give guests the option of a decent king cake.

The moral of the story: making king cake is harder than it looks.

1 set of calves brains
1 qt. water
1 tbsp. vinegar
1 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
2 egg yolks
1 tbsp. melted butter
1 tsp. lemon rind
1/2 c. milk
2 stiffly beaten egg whites
Lard for deep frying

Soak in cold acidulated water (1 quart water and 1 tablespoon vinegar) for about 3 hours. Skin them and soak in lukewarm water to free them from all traces of blood.

Then as they are rather mushy in texture, firm them by again blanching in acidulated water to cover for about 20 minutes. (Do not boil.)

Dry them and pull into small pieces.

Sift flour, baking powder and salt. Beat egg yolks and blend dry ingredients into them. Beat in 1 tablespoon melted butter and 1 teaspoon lemon rind (optional) and 1/2 cup milk. Beat until stiff but not dry, 2 egg whites. Fold them into the batter. Add the brains. Drop into hot fat (lard) and fry until golden on both sides. Drain on paper towel.

Serve on bun with pickle and onion and mustard.