Random Food Thoughts

It has been a while.  Things have not been going great and I just haven't felt inspired, though most of the problem has been actually getting out here and posting.  So, I thought that to get things back in gear I would start with a few random thoughts in the general area of food.

I've posted before about making deviled eggs, and there was a potluck at work, so I tried it again.  A while back I read a suggestion to use a large ziplock bag for mixing up the filling, and then cut off a corner and pipe it right into the egg halves.  Well, it worked okay, with a short list of caveats.

First, it is hard to see if the yolks are getting properly and evenly mooshed in the ziplock bag.  Of course, you can open it and look in, but it is not as easy as turning everything over a couple of times in a bowl.  Now, this feeds into the second problem, which occurs if you do not get the yolks mushed into a consistent mixture.

Second, bits of egg yolk get stuck in the opening.  When this happens and the mixture stops flowing, the instinctive reactive is to squeeze harder and....blap....egg yolk mixture all over the place.  Kind of a mess, as you might guess.

Third, my piping skills suck.  The cookie press gave me a lot more control, and made the result very pretty.  I did not take pictures, but the result this time was not pretty.  Of course, a bit more practice with a piping bag might solve this problem.

However, the deviled eggs were still a bit hit and I got several compliments, again.

The Hairy Bikers Minced Beef Pinwheels

I saw these on one of the their shows and wanted to try them.  The first try was pretty good.  I tried it with a rather cheap cut of hamburger, so I cooked it first so that I could drain off some of the fat.  As should be obvious, I do not do onions, but I did use a healthy dose of onion powder.  Also, I used Pepperidge Farms Puff Pastry, and then also tried it using Pillsbury Thin Crust Pizza Dough.  It was basically a success, though mine did not look as nice as theirs.

But, I had an idea for a variation, and another thing at work gave me a chance to test it. 

Sausage and Cheese Pinwheels

I used Light Breakfast Sausage, Colby Cheese, and Pillsbury Thin Crust Pizza Dough.  I spread the sausage, uncooked, across the dough (it is a very messy job, use gloves if you have them) and then grated cheese on top of that.  Roll up the crust, cut into slices, top with egg wash and then bake for 15 minutes.  Nothing fancy about it, but those too were a big hit.

So, there are a few random thoughts and hopefully this will be the start of getting back into things and enjoying food again.