What's for dinner (6/28)?

My sister and I have been going back and forth about Ferran Adria lately...I'm still mesmerized by his creations (not to mention the works of others such as Grant Achatz), and find myself more and more tempted by a career change.  I often think that there are a number of "great engineering challenges" that I'd like to solve first, but that's a finite set that slowly grows with time as I become more invested in my career.  Conceivably, if I made a conscious decision to change, I could happily toil away on those problems and no others as I transition to a life of culinary magic.  I suspect, though, that the glamorous life of a chef, complete with smoke breaks, late hours, and rushing around madly in order to fulfill orders promptly, would never agree with me.  I'd have to take the slow food movement to a different level entirely, or else learn to work differently.  So, to make a long musing short, don't expect to see me switching careers any time soon.  However, do expect to see me start to have some fun in the kitchen now that I'm happy with the repertoire of recipes at my disposal (which includes Thursday night's dinner)...

Thursday night I had Mark over to watch the US Track and Field Olympic qualifying championships.  Given the short notice and late departure from work, I fell back on one of the old standards that I developed in grad school.  General Tso's chicken (or as Mark called it, General Matt's chicken since I pretty much just made up the recipe to be what I wanted it to be), is one of those dishes that can be a lot of fun with two people...one getting their hands caked with so much egg and flour batter that they look like bad props from a 60s era movie, and the other person whisking and stirring the sauce before it decides to burn or settle out of suspension.  In all, it's a relatively quick meal to do...about an hour...and usually has great results:

General Tso's (Matt's) Chicken

Chicken, sauce, broccoli, and whole grain rice.  Yum.  I generally judge the success of a dish by how quickly it gets eaten or by how many bowls full my dinner guests take.  And while dinner was successful in that regard, dessert was even more so.  I finally got around to using the last of my home made green tea ice cream to make green tea almond milk shakes.  After I gave Mark his, I turned around to frame and take this next photo, then turned back around and sat down, at which point I noticed that Mark's milk shake was empty.  So, by definition, that is a resounding success.  Sorry everybody, there's no more green tea ice cream left in my freezer, and I'm going with a very different flavor for the next venture into ice cream  making land...

Green Tea Almond Milk Shake