Pinterest is a liar!

The Goddess is a Pinterest addict. She spends way too much time there. Follow her at Pinterest.com/ILoveKilts.

Shameless promotion over with, back to the topic.

Recently The Goddess has been trying her hand at some cooking. What better place to be inspired and to find new and exciting recipes than pinterest?! Take for instance the following pin that she stumbled upon recently. Pinned here.

The link sent The Goddess over to a recipe on how to make lovely banana chips!  She loves banana chips!  Can't get enough of them.  Well why not give this a try?  The Goddess has plenty of browning bananas.  She decided it was worth the minimal effort to transform them into delectable works of edible art.

And while she was at it, might as well make some gorgeous dried strawberries as well!  The cook time was slightly longer, but since the oven is gonna be on anyways, what's another hour?

And they look so scrumptious!  Pinned here.

Both recipes were fairly simple, essentially just cut and bake at a low temperature for a gazillion hours.  Well, it felt like a gazillion hours.  The Goddess is not known for her patience.  Especially when Pinterest had shown her such beautiful, colorful photos of the end result, just waiting by the oven door was excruciating enough!

The disappointment afterwards was even more excruciating.

Banana Chips Recipe via Pinterest
2-3 browning bananas
Lemon juice
Parchment Paper

Preheat oven to about 175-200f/80-100c
Slice bananas width-wise no thicker than 1/4 inch.
Spritz with lemon juice.
Place on parchment paper as close as possible without letting the banana slices touch.
Pop in the oven for 1-2 hours.  Touch or sample at 30 minute intervals to check if they are as 'done' as you would like.
Pop out of the oven and onto a cooling rack (move the parchment off the pan, don't worry about separating the chips from the paper just yet)
As they cool they will harden some more, so if they are a little bit gooey still, they will solidify.
Eat.

That was the recipe.  Here's what actually happened:

Find two slightly brown bananas and some parchment paper. Take a photo.

Don't like the first photo you took and take another from a more 'artsy' angle.

Needlessly take a photo of the bananas peeled.

Slice the bananas and spritz with lemon juice.  

Look in the fridge for a lemon.  

Skip the spritzing part as you can't find a lemon.

Take another artsy photo of the sliced bananas.

Underestimate the size of your pan and the size of the giant bananas.

After slicing two, you will be out of room.

In hindsight, only use 2 large bananas.

Eat the third one since you've peeled it already.

Put in the oven and bake at 100c for 2 hours.

Open the oven door ever 20 minutes to poke bananas.

After 2 hours pull out bananas and cringe at the not so pretty coloring.

Let cool.

Eat one before it's done cooling.

Not enjoy the taste....

Take photo.

All in all it went as planned.  The Goddess turned 2 bananas into banana chips.  The consistency and texture is perfect, but the taste is not how she recalls banana chips tasting.  It's missing... well, the banana flavor. And what's with the color?  The Pinterest photo is much more reminiscent of banana chips over the end result The Goddess was able to achieve.  Further research is necessary.

The real muck-up and why The Goddess is calling Pinterest a liar stems from the strawberries.

Dried Strawberries
Strawberries
Salt
Pepper

Preheat oven to 100c.
Cut off tops of strawberries.
Halve or quarter strawberries depending on the size
Place on cooking sheet
Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Bake for 3 hours.
Cool on cooling rack.
Eat.

Easy enough right? HA!

Cut off the heads (laugh evilly) of the strawberries.

Except for one with a stem on it.  

Pose stemmed strawberry on the pile of other headless strawberry corpses.

Take Photo.

Lay stemmed strawberry on it's side.

Take another artsy photo.

Take a photo of the strawberries next to their heads.

None of this is actually necessary, but quite fun playing at being an artist.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.... Can't find another cookie sheet, so a pizza pan will suffice.

No where on the recipe's page did it say use parchment paper.  The Goddess is SOOOOO glad she did. 

Find out why at the end.

Take an artsy, close-up photo of the strawberries.

Imagine yourself Queen of the Pinterest Folk with your beautiful photography skills!

Take photo of the strawberries in the oven with the bananas. 

Check on strawberries needless every 20 minutes.

Feel part of your soul die every time you open the oven door.

Slowly your strawberries are withering before your very eyes.

After 3 hours, remove strawberries from the oven.

Take a photo of the carnage.

Had The Goddess not put down parchment paper, the pizza pan would have been stained, of that she is sure.

Take photographic evidence of the battlefield once strawberries have been removed. 

 Pose the strawberries in a custard cup.

Give up on the pretense of creating an artsy photo of these withered nasty things.

Take photo.. dejectedly.

The Goddess has NO idea what happened to make these poor strawberries wither and become shells of their once lustrous selves.  They taste bitter and sharp, but very much like strawberries.  If only they looked as delectable as Pinterest told me they would.

Oh well.

The main purpose for giving these two recipes a shot was to have some hand snacks available for our walk of the Isle of Arran tomorrow.  All in all, these will be eaten... just no photographic evidence for pinterest. 

Creamy Chicken Enchiladas

The Goddess enjoys a great many things in life. None more so than mexican food. Who would have thought that a bit of cheese, a tortilla, and the following chicken recipe would change her way of life? 

Not this girl. Well what kind of a goddess would she be if she didn't at least share it with you?

Creamy Chicken Enchiladas

1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 c onion, chopped
1-2 fresh green chiles, chopped
8 oz cream cheese, cut up and softened*
3-1/2 c cooked, chopped chicken
8-10 flour tortillas, warmed
1 1/2 c green chile enchilada sauce
1-2 c Cheddar & Monterrey Jack cheese, grated (as desired)

Preheat oven to 250f.


For starters The Goddess always boils her chicken in either a mixture of chicken broth and water or just in the water itself.  She also chucks in some chopped onions or green onions while the chicken is boiling.  This is of course option, however if you want to have a uniformity to the chicken in your enchiladas, The Goddess recommends shredding by hand or with forks over chopped chicken.

Mix the onion and oil in a pan and saute until soft, usually about 5 minutes.  Add the cream cheese and green chiles.  This is ridiculously hard to find over here in Scotland so The Goddess tries and make do with green onions and jalapenos for a bit of a kick.  Mix until gooey and melted and then add the shredded/chopped chicken.

Stir until chicken is coated.

Take a warmed tortilla and spoon a glob of the chicken goop onto the tortilla close to one edge.  If you do not know how to roll a tortilla for enchiladas, please see video below:

Enchiladas are not burritos and should not be rolled the same way. When you have your pan full of enchiladas, cover each tortilla with sauce until sauce is gone.  Add about 20 pounds of shredded cheese to the top and place in the oven until sauce is bubbly and cheese is melted.

Serve hot and with a side of beans, rice, sour cream, and The Goddess's guacamole.

Breaking Bread

The Goddess used to think she couldn't cook.  Then she realized, she'd never even tried.  For goodness sake, she'd been eating out of cans and boxes and cartons and all sorts of nasty processed sources her entire adult life.

Well this all changed yesterday. The Goddess MADE bread.  Albeit a bit doughy, it was bread nonetheless.

 Two loaves of bread!  One white, the other Cinnamon Swirl.

The recipe was ridiculously easy to follow and used ingredients already in the cupboards, so no additional shopping was needed.  Although the only drawback with using an American recipe here in the land of The Kilted One was the measurements.  There are no measuring cups, spoons, or other devices with units of measurement The Goddess is familiar with in The Kilted One's kitchen.  It is all in liters, mL, etc.  So after many conversions the dough took shape and after it was baked it looked delicious.  Then the first slice was made and to The Goddess's horror was not thoroughly cooked throughout.  A bit more recipe tweaking may be in order, but for a first try... well, The Goddess is pretty pleased with herself.

As The Kilted One would say, she's rather 'chuffed'.

Here's the recipe I followed

Amish White Bread

• 2 cups warm water
• 2/3 cup white sugar
• 1 1/2 Tbsp active dry yeast
• 6 cups bread flour
• Vegetable Oil

Optional

• Butter
• Cinnamon
• Sugar
• Brown Sugar

Dissolve sugar into warm water and add yeast.  Allow yeast to 'proof' til the water becomes frothy.  The Goddess's water/sugar/yeast mix started rolling around like an alien lifeform and she had to kill it with flour.  She slowly added the cups of flour.  The Goddess decided mixing with spoons was over-rated so she mixed the flour in by hand... in hindsight, she might have stuck to spoons as her hands were quickly covered in goo that made adding additional cups of flour a messy undertaking.  Eventually the dough took shape and The Goddess removed the dough to a lightly floured surface to knead it into submission.  

Now this part is her favorite.  The twisting, pounding, rolling act of kneading is all a girl needs to relax and vent her frustrations of life.  Yes.  Even The Goddess feels the frustrations of life.  After the moment of venting has passed the dough should be kneaded thoroughly and placed in a well oiled bowl.  Plop the dough in and swirl it in the oil and then flip it over and swirl again so the entire mass is coated.  Place in a warm place, covered in a damp cloth.  The Goddess just put it in the oven on the top rack and placed a shallow dish of HOT water beneath it.  Something about atmospheric conditions allowing the yeast to rise.  Blah Blah Blah... The Goddess hated chemistry.

Now this part is important.  Forget you're making bread for an hour.  Just go do something else and become completely immersed and when you get around to having the thought "What was I doing earlier that I should be doing now?" the dough should have doubled in size.  The Goddess strongly advises reading a book (currently reading "The Long Walk" by Stephen King) as the time will pass quickly.  

Return to the doubled dough and while it is still in the bowl, punch the tar out of it.  Don't hold back (well... do hold back if you are using a bowl you'd rather not destroy) and just punch the dough down.  Knead it into submission once more on a lightly floured surface.  When it is completely kneaded, break it into two loaves. The Goddess does not have fancy loaf pans or even two loaf pans that are the same size so just approximate what the size of a loaf should be.  Roll out one loaf into a rectangle.  The Goddess doesn't cook with exact measurements of anything, so just eyeball it.  Starting at the shorter end, roll the dough from one end to the other like a cinnabun.  The Goddess smooshed the ends closed and when it came time to move it to the loaf pan (well oiled on all sides) realized it was too long.  So she just smooshed it some more until it fit.

As The Goddess has two size pans, she split her dough into one big blob and one little blob.  With the big blob rolled and in its loaf pan, she tackled the smaller loaf.  This one should be flattened out like the other and smothered in butter.  (The Goddess didn't have butter, so she used margarine... also in hindsight NOT a good idea as margarine has a higher water density and most likely is what made the insides even more doughy... still delicious)  Once the rectangle is covered in butter sprinkle on some cinnamon, sugar, brown sugar.  Again, don't measure, just sprinkle until you're satisfied.  Roll up as was done similarly above and get butter/cinnamon/sugar goop all over your hands.  Smoosh the ends and place in a well oiled loaf pan.

Throw this concoction back in its warm place and wait for the yeast to rise again. Back into the oven she put it to rise and then The Goddess continued reading for another 45 minutes or so.  When she remembered she was making bread, she ventured into the kitchen, saw the dough was about an inch out of the pans and turned on the oven to 300f (175c) and baked for 30-40 minutes.  

At this point the smell of baked bread will seep throughout the house making it impossible for you to forget the fact you're baking bread, but resist the urge to open the oven until the time is drawing near.  The Goddess waited and only peaked once (Ok.. twice) and when she pulled the loaves from the oven they were picture perfect!

Wait a minute or two to allow the bread to cool to the room before dumping them on a bread rack.  Resist the urge (a lot of this urge resisting going on) to cut the bread until it has completely cooled.  

Now, if you followed the directions correctly, you should end up with pretty bread that smells delicious, but is a bit doughy on the inside.  Why you would follow these instructions, The Goddess doesn't know, but in the end the imperfection of the bread just added to it's charm and for a first time, well, was not too bad at all.

Recipe butchered from: http://www.mommyskitchen.net/2009/01/amish-white-bread.html with the left out salt and oil part.. Because The Goddess doesn't read directions very well and somehow skipped that step.