Now we're cooking!

I made a few different things today, but I started with Colonnade Corn Muffins

1.5 cups cornmeal
0.5 cups all-purpose flour
4 tsps granulated sugar
2.25 tsps. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
0.75 cup cold water
0.5 cup vegetable oil
0.5 cup buttermilk
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 450. Grease muffin cups. Combine dry ingredients. Add in all the remaining ingredients. Mix until all ingredients are thoroughly combined. Pour into muffin cups and bake 15 to 20 minutes or until muffins are golden.
Be careful, they are addictive!
I got the recipe from the AJC and they sounded so good and easy, so I decided to make them. I made mini corn muffins and regular sized ones. I liked the taste of the minis better, but the picture of the normal ones looked nicer.

Next I made rhubarb compote from Everyday Food magazine. It was also very easy and quite good. I'd never made anything with rhubarb before, so this seemed like a good place to start. I ended up halving the recipe because I didn't want to have too much, and I was trying to save some rhubarb for dinner. Also, the recipe said I should "finely grate" this piece of fresh ginger that it called for and then put it in a sieve and press out the juices. I thought that sounded like too much trouble and rather ineffective, so I just chopped my ginger into a few reasonable sized pieces and put them in an old garlic press that we decided was defective. Although the press does fail with garlic, it worked perfectly for juicing my ginger without me having to grate anything or use a sieve (thank god). Anyway, I used the results to go with a mini cheesecake I got at the store. But, I have plenty of leftovers to have with yogurt, ice cream, pound-cake, or parfaits (all the things suggested by the magazine). It worked perfectly for my dessert...

Now, for dinner. I made pork chops with rhubarb-cherry sauce (also from Everyday Food). There were a few substitutions made in this recipe too...for example, I couldn't find any dried cherries at the store, but I knew I had dried cranberries at home instead. So, I used the dried cranberries with some golden raisins, and it was great. Also, I bought an onion since the recipe called for half of one, but when it came to that step I was getting things out of the fridge and noticed a leftover half of a red onion and decided to use that instead of cutting into the new onion. That worked out fine too. I liked it how this sauce tasted very different from the compote. I did expect them to be different, but it's just interesting to see how the things you add to a main ingredient can completely change how the taste comes out in the end. So, I had my rhubarb sauce with pork chops, and with Max gone there was no one around to have them with me because Dad went out and he ordered Jon a pizza (oh well). Maybe someday someone other that myself will appreciate/enjoy my cooking. Here is my dinner:

Yum! Stay tuned for more exciting new things tomorrow night!