Un-know your limits...

So, whether or not you are aware, I enjoy cooking...a LOT. I've been doing it regularly for about 8 years now. Big deal, I know, but I cook every saturday and/or sunday for the upcoming week. My refrigerator looks like the R&D department of Ziploc testing out their newest serving sized food storage contraptions. Typically, I like to pick 2-3 recipes for Amy & I to share, and, they typically last us the whole week. We'll venture out to dinner or lunch maybe once or twice in the week, but, that's if we run out of 1 of the dishes and are sick of the other one...unless it's good. Where the HELL am I going with this? Well, most of the cooking has been soups and vegetarian delights, with=intermediate to advanced dishes frequently. I've never really gone expert though, simply because I didn't think I had the skills, and, quite frankly, I never really get into that fancy shmancy cooking. It simply takes too much time, and, I don't really have the space for it here.

Today though, I definitely pushed it. Our friends Matthew & Erika got usThe Millennium Cookbook, and, while the recipes look delicious, they also look very intimidating. I wanted to try them though because they just look so tasty, and, I honestly have been really slacking in the cooking dept lately. This week's menu consisted of my first foray into Filo/Phyllo/Phillo dough. The official recipe title was Wild Mushroom, Wild Rice, and Root Vegetable Roulade. Yeah sounds fancy I know! It was pretty tough. Until this moment, I'd never cooked with Filo, and, not, realize why. It's quite challenging, and also, very messy (if it tears/etc.). So the filling of the roulade was a mix of mushies, some wild rice pilaf, turnips, parsnips, b-nut squash, onion, leek, garlic, and some spices. You cook the filling up and then stuff it in the prepped filo. The hardest part of the whole thing is separating/tearing the individual sheets from one another. Sheesh! They are SO delicate. I'm not sure if my dough was completely thawed, but, I followed the thawing instructions to a T nonetheless. As I stuffed it, I realized I was going to have a bunch of extra filling leftover, as well as Filo. So, I made a 2nd. The istructions weren't clear about which side of the dough to have a the bottom, so, I made 1 with the roll at the 13" side & one at the 18" side. The longer one looked better, but the shorter one had more filling. I cooked it longer than suggested to get it golden, but, it didn't get as golden as it should/could have. Maybe more oil on the outside next time? Either way, here are some pics. It was served with some Lentil-Mustard sauce. A perfect fall dish for the crap weather we were having! Delish!