I Cannot Believe I'm Blogging!

Look at me, ma, I'm blogging!


Honestly, unless it's a how-to blog, a travel/photography blog or it's a blog written by Ryan Gosling, I'm generally not interested in personal blogs. Not all opinions are made equal. If this was even 10 years ago, we wouldn't be subject to the constant firing of peoples' thoughts, the happenings in their lives, their shock at how horrendously their neighbours park (uhhhhh Guilty!), etc. I don't consider myself anything to close to a journalist or even someone whose thoughts are so remarkable that they just have to be posted on a weekly basis for the entire world to read. And I think this about a lot of people who share their lives on the internet. Seriously. Save it for your diary; at least you can use the lie "I was only 15 when I wrote that"  when someone comes across words and thoughts that you really don't associate yourself with anymore.


Regardless, here I am. The purpose of my blog is to chronicle what I call my "domestic experiments." Let me make myself clear--this is not my forte. I travel, on average, 10-12 days out of the month to parts of BC & Alberta for my job and I consider using a waiter's corkscrew to open my bottle of wine (instead of buying a twist-off) as a valiant effort. But I need a hobby.


And a possible back-up career, you know, after my impending nervous breakdown...


So in providing my how-to's on my little projects, I hope to accomplish the following:


1) To show everyone that you don't have to be a crafty person to create things/meals that your family and friends feel bad about throwing out.
2) To bust the myth that traveling for work is fun!
3) To share some business and business-travel tips that I've gathered.
4) To get all of you so hooked onto reading my blog so that one day I can blog, in painful detail, about the ham and cheese sandwich I had for lunch and you will have no choice but to read every single word of my entry.


Happy reading and hope no one gets sick off of the recipes I post!

Negotiating with Gnocchi

This week at work, the sales reps across Canada were advised to read the Harvard Business Essentials Guide to Negotiation.  I usually read these books and try to place the lessons in a work-related context; but this one was a little more relevant to outside of the classroom, if you know what I mean.


One of the topics of this book is the "best alternative to a negotiated agreement" (or BATNA), which is defined as "the course of action that will be taken by a party engaged in negotiations if the talks fail and no agreement can be reached." Essentially, a good plan B. As described by Roger Fisher and William Ury, here are the 3 steps in creating a BATNA;


1. Develop a list of actions you might conceivably take if no agreement is reached.
2. Improve some of the more promising ideas and convert them into practical options.
3. Select, tentatively, the one option that seems best.


Apparently, having a good BATNA increases your negotiating power. So I was positive that I had a great BATNA in soliciting help from my lovely partner for my project this week: Chocolate Ricotta Gnocchi in Cream & Gorgonzola Sauce.


His BATNA was pretty weak: don't take on the sous-chef role and spend Saturday night either starving or eating crackers, while getting to watch the UFC fight. My BATNA? Take an extra half hour to work on dinner solo, while having to watch the UFC fight.


Needless to say, Jason and I both enjoyed a wonderful meal tonight. With no crackers.




Chocolate Gnocchi
 Ingredients:


4½ cups of all purpose flour 
475 grams of ricotta cheese
½ a cup of melted bitter sweet chocolate
1 egg
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of nutmeg


Steps:


1. Melt the chocolate. Actually, step 1b) is "melt the chocolate." Step 1a) is "ask someone how to melt chocolate." 

This is what step 1 looks like without step 1a. Yup, I burnt it.

So I decided to start all over again. Rather than jacking up the heat to high, I melted it slowly over a low heat and whisked the chocolate. I'd recommend using a rubber spatula to stir instead. I say this because I just googled "melting chocolate" and this is what the experts say.

2. Combine all ingredients in a food processor and pulse...this is what the original recipe said. It told me to "pulse until forms a ball."  I didn't really understand the concept; nor did I understand the difference between a food processor and a KitchenAid Mixer...so I just combined all of the ingredients and tried to get the mixer going.  This resulted in the mixer making a really sick noise by the time the mixture got hard. 

Seconds before the mixer stopped working. 

My ultimate solution? I got my sous-chef to knead the dough with his hands. 


3. Take a piece of dough and roll it out on a floured surface until it is approximately 3/4 of an inch in diameter.  My sous-chef and I decided to off-road on the original recipe and just roll the dough in our hands.  Other recipes will recommended rolling the dough on the floured surface, using an "outward" (as opposed to "downward") motion. 

3. Cut the roll into 1-inch pieces.

At this point, we decided it would have been more appetizing to use white chocolate.

4. Holding the gnocchi paddle at a 45 degree angle, use your thumb to flick the 1-inch section downwards on the paddle. You will want the long side of the piece to be parallel with the top/bottom axis of the paddle.

5. Place the gnocchi on a well-floured cookie sheet. 

We're still learning how to make them look all cute and curly.

6. In a pot of boiling salted water, add the gnocchi. This really didn't take really long. They were finished once they rose to the surface.

7. Strain and add to the sauce.

Cream and Gorgonzola Sauce


Ingredients:


1½ cups of cream 
1 tablespoon of unsalted butter
1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
2 green onions, chopped
1 tablespoon of parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon of parsley
1/4 cup of gorgonzola cheese, cubed
salt and pepper to taste


Steps:


1. Add butter and oil to a heated pan, followed by the green onions and garlic. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes.


2. Add the cream, bring to a boil, and reduce to a simmer.  Cook for 2 to 3 minutes.

3. Using a whisk, add the parmesan and gorgonzola.  Cook for another 2 to 3 minutes.

I am sure the recipe called for better quality parmesan cheese, but this was all I had!

4. Season with salt and pepper. Add the parsley.

And the finished product:

3 hours later and neither of us are complaining of upset stomachs! Result! Though we both thoroughly enjoyed our dinner, I probably won't attempt a project like this again for a least a few more weeks...too many dishes.


That being said, gotta go create my BATNA for getting out of dish duty!