Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Julie & Julia... & Sheryl?

I enjoy to cook. I do fairly well at it, cooking, baking, I really enjoy being creative with food and like to experiment with new recipes and combinations of foods and really like adding various spices to my creations.

I got interested in cake decorating after watching the TV show Ace of Cakes on the Food Network (http://www.charmcitycakes.com/) and discovered that that was a fun way to combine my art degree with my love of food, I would do more of it except that having that much cake around is not a good idea, I prefer not to eat my weight in cake. I have made an Easter Bunny cake (it actually looked like an rabbit) I like using fondant and can make pretty good white chocolate and marshmallow fondants and like to use chocolate clay to do the detail work. They usually turn out really well.

When it comes to cooking I can usually get decent results with most things and really like to start with something basic and elaborate on it. There is however one basic food item that eludes me. Rice. I cannot for the life of me make rice. It either ends up burnt or crunchy and I have no idea how to fix this. Rice in a box is fine but to actually make white rice, yeah, that is quite a gamble. Even today, I came home measured 3/4 cup of rice, 2 cups of water and covered it on med to boil for 20 minutes later. Fifteen minutes later I started to smell something, sure enough it was burnt. I have no idea how I managed to do this. somehow I only burnt half the pan! (to answer the obvious question- yes it was over the heat evenly) on one half of the pan it was black on the bottom and the top layer of rice was very brown around the edge and the other half of the pan looked very wet still. How is this possible? As we speak I'm working on my second attempt. so far so god but I'm only 10 minutes in. The problem with my inability to make rice is that it is a staple in quite a few food items so I really need to overcome this.

Perhaps I should be watching this more closely, they say a watched pot never boils, does that mean it also never burns?

Any tricks to making rice?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Haha! Try this. My mom raves about my rice when I cook it.

2 cups of rice / 1 cup of water

This is how I generally make my rice

4 cups of rice
2 cups of water
2 tlbs of butter
a pinch, dash of salt

wait for it to boil, then turn down the heat to about 2 or 3 and cover with a lid for 15 minutes.

DO NOT LIFT THE LID! This is what makes rice not turn out yummy. After 15 minutes, lift the lid and stir the rice to ensure the water is cooked out. If not, let it cook uncovered for a few minutes, constantly keeping an eye on it in your case ;)

Good Luck!

Kaylee Baldwin said...

I bought a rice cooker. They are really cheap. I usually do a one-to-one ratio or rice to water (1c. rice to 1c. water) and I've never had a problem because it automatically shuts off when the rice is done...and it keeps it warm. So I can cook rice and come back a half an hour later when I remember I'm cooking, and its all good!

Juli and Brett said...

I agree with Kaylee. I received a rice cooker as a wedding present and absolutely LOVE it!! It is the only way to go, especially if you have some problems making it...=)