Authors Kitchen

It's Tuesday?

2012-02-21T22:18:37Z

So, Taneasha tells me that today is Tuesday and I was supposed to have some kind of post up. Um. Really? Okay.

Huh.

Um.

Well, I've had a houseguest for the last week or so, and it's "Reading Week" (aka midwinter break so university students won't kill themselves) so I've kinda lost track of a few things. Not the least of which is half my socks. Seriously, I've been wearing mismatches for the last few days because I seem to only have singles.

Fortunately, I have Recipe Guy handy. And he's good for more than just smart assed comments in the comments section.

Over the past summer Texas had one hell of a drought. Recipe Guy lost nearly his entire garden and had almost completely given up on home grown fresh veggies when he noticed something growing that he hadn't planted.

Looks kinda like a green bean, doesn't it?

Well, it kinda is.

Strophostyles helvola is a wild bean native to the southern US, and actually edible. Apparently these extremely drought tolerant plants were able to find a niche in his garden where everything else had died of sunstroke and heat exhaustion.

After a whole bunch of research and some test beans (Recipe Guy geeking out on food? who him? never. lol)

he harvested a bunch of them, parboiled and froze them.

Oops. Resized an already resized picture.

I know a few of you freaked out a bit when we harvested wild onions for our bread pudding, but really, there is food everywhere if you know where to look. We've also picked wild berries on the side of the road, culled rose hips from wild rose plants, scoped out wild grapes and chantrelle mushrooms; and when I was on the island I harvested wild chamomile almost daily.

I don't know about you, but when the zombie apocalypse happens, I'm going to be well fed, and it won't be with freeze dried army rations.

The green beans froze quite well. We tossed them into a stir fry with some pea pods and pork.

Since it was his first harvest, a few of them had made it past their prime and were a bit stringy, but overall, they were just like the green beans you get at the grocery.

What have you eaten wild?

Hollandaise Isn't Hard

2012-02-17T09:00:23Z

I told you I was going to show you a fabulous way to use those leftover egg yolks. So, I don’t know how many horror stories I’ve heard about hollandaise disaster. The truth is it’s pretty easy to make, as long as you follow a few simple rules, which I am going to teach you.

What you’ll need:

4 egg yolks
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 Tablespoons water
½ cup (1 stick) butter
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper

Place your egg yolks, lemon juice, and water in a bowl.

Whisk it until it gets foamy and light in color.

Next, you need to melt your butter. I like to do it in a measuring cup for easy pouring.

Just microwave it until it’s just melted. It’s ok if there are still some unmelted bits. Set it aside and let’s go back to the eggs.

Rule #1: Make sure the mixture never gets too hot. Place the mixing bowl over some barely simmering water, making sure the bottom of the bowl is not touching the water. Keep a towel handy so that you can move the bowl off of the heat if it starts to get too warm.

Rule #2: Don’t stop whisking. You want the mixture to become very light yellow and fall in ribbons. It will probably take about 3 - 5 minutes of fast whisking to get to that point. When you do, begin drizzling in the melted butter.

Rule #3: Add the butter very, very slowly. Then continue with rule #2. Whisk, whisk, whisk. When you’ve reached hollandaise-ville, it will be silky and thick.

Now is a good time to add your salt and pepper. I also like herbs in mine. Fresh parsley, dill, or chives would be fabulous. I didn’t happen to have anything fresh, so I sprinkled in a little pinch of dried dill.

If at any point your mixture starts to look slightly curdled or the butter starts to separate, that means your sauce has gotten too hot and is breaking. Don’t panic. Immediately remove the bowl from the pan, throw in a couple of ice cubes, and whisk like crazy. Hollandaise sauce is a fabulous addition to vegetables or fish, but my favorite use is for breakfast. It’s fabulous on any omelet, but I think the ultimate, all time best dish ever created for breakfast, is eggs benedict. Granted, I don’t make it the way tradition dictates. I use ham rather than Canadian bacon, and I scramble the eggs because I’m not big on poached. However you make it, you’ll be glad you did.

Seriously, is there anything better? I could eat that for any meal of the day.

What’s your favorite thing to eat for a special breakfast?

VD

2012-02-14T09:00:14Z

Extreme close up food porn.

So, I totally don't do the VD thing, and I have a wicked cake-fail that I thought would have made a fabulous post for today, but it's probably going to end up nearly as long as Taneasha's fucking awesome birthday cake post, and I've got a house guest and a mid-term tomorrow.

I've also got amaretti cookies that are amazing on their own, but a fabulous ingredient to use in other things. If you don't have time to make a batch of your own, check in your grocery store for them. Most of the larger chains will have them (probably either on the top or bottom shelf), but if not, an Italian deli or grocery will definitely have them.

Chocolate Terrine

What you need:

1 tin sweetened condensed milk
1/2 c butter
6 oz semisweet or bittersweet chocolate (chips work)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3/4 c dried cherries
3/4 chopped dried apricots
1-1/2 c chopped or crumbled amaretti cookies

What you gotta do:

Half fill a medium pot of water and put it on the stove to boil. Once it's boiled, turn the heat down to medium low, and cover the pot with a large heatproof bowl. Double boilers used to be quite common and every cookware set came with one, but they seem to have fallen out of fashion. Meh, the bowl on the pot works just fine. Just make sure it's glass or metal, and that you have a heating pad and / or oven mitt handy.

In the large bowl, combine the sweetened condensed milk, butter, chocolate, and cinnamon.

Stir gently as it all melts together.

Once it's nice and smooth, you can take it off the heat.

Stir in the fruit and cookies.

You can also add chopped almonds here if you want. They'd be tasty. So would hazelnuts, I think. Walnuts are not acceptable. Absolutely not. They don't have the smooth interior that almonds and hazelnuts do, and they don't have the same sweetness either. Walnuts are a savoury nut in my kitchen and go in things like salads and sauces.

The description "terrine" is not usually applied to dessert type foods, but really there's no other way to describe this dish based on what we're about to do next.

Line a loaf pan with foil, and then with plastic wrap. Yes, you need both. Yes, I have tried with only one and it doesn't work. While I will admit to pantsing in the kitchen on a regular basis and then subjecting you to the outcome, this isn't one of those times, I've made this dish on many occasions and believe it or not I actually know what I'm doing.

For a change.

Pour the chocolate-cookie-fruit(-nut) mixture into your double lined pan. Looks lovely doesn't it. Perfect for VD.

Tap the pan on the counter a few times to get any air bubbles out then smooth the top with a spatula.

Fold over the plastic wrap so that the chocolatey goodness is sealed in, then cover the top of the pan with foil.

Let this chill in the fridge for a few hours. I'm sure you can find something to do while it sets; I mean, this is the socially constructed day where once a year we have no choice but to show our romantic partners some kind of attention that should include large expenditures of money, right?

Or you could just get naked and fuck. Like every other day. Whatever.

After a few hours you can unmold the tasty loaf. It should be good to go after about 3, but 6 is ideal.

If you didn't make reservations 3 months ago for dinner at some expensive restaurant that serves food you could probably just make yourself anyway, and are now panicking to make some food, this dessert is something you should make in the morning. Or yesterday. I'm so helpful, I know.

As you try to unwrap it, if the chocolate is sticking to the plastic and you're pulling the chocolate pate out of it's lovely prismic shape, it's too soon. Re-wrap and give it another hour.

There will be a bit of sticking, but you shouldn't be pulling off chunks of chocolate with the plastic.

Since this is a lovely loaf shape, cut it with a sharp knife into slices.

Perfect dessert. Rich, smooth chocolate with chewey friut and crispy cookies. It is rich though, and a small slice is all you need. But you'll probably want more. It's okay, you can burn off the calories by fucking.

What's your favourite way to burn calories?

It's My Birthday!!

2012-02-10T09:00:39Z

Ok, so technically my birthday isn’t until the 12th, but hubby was out of town this week, so I decided to make my cake a little early. Besides, who wants to spend their birthday in the kitchen? Now, ordinarily I leave birthday cakes to the professionals, but this year I decided, not only to bake myself a cake, but to go the whole nine yards. I made real Italian buttercream, and even bought pastry bags and piping supplies to do a few decorations. Next time you have a birthday or special event, give making your own cake a try.

Here’s what you’ll need for the cake:

¾ cup butter (1 ½ sticks)
1 ½ cups sugar
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
2 ½ cups flour
1 cup buttermilk
1 Tablespoon vanilla
½ teaspoon almond extract (optional)

All of your ingredients must be at room temperature before you start. Sorry, I didn’t manage to get an ingredients picture for the cake. I will tell you to preheat your oven to 350°, though. Also, you need to line 2, 8 inch round pans with parchment and butter the sides of the pans. To see how to cut parchment to the proper size, I showed how in my chocolate cake post.

Throw your softened butter into a mixing bowl.

Beat it for a good minute or two so it becomes nice and soft and fluffy, then pour in the sugar and beat for another 3 or 4 minutes.

Add the eggs and vanilla.

Be sure to save the extra egg white so you can use it in the buttercream later.

I know, eggs are supposed to be added one at a time… yeah, I didn’t. Just make sure you mix until they’re completely incorporated.

Next, sift your dry ingredients into a separate bowl and whisk them together.

Add ⅓ of the dry ingredients.

Mix until incorporated, making sure to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl. Pour in half of the room temperature buttermilk.

Repeat. You may notice that the mixture looks a little lumpy or curdled after the liquid additions.

Don’t worry about that. As long as you end with dry ingredients, it will smooth out beautifully, which you can see here. This picture also shows why you have to scrape down the bowl frequently.

Now divide the batter evenly between the two pans.

Into the 350° oven for 35-40 minutes.

So, apparently, my oven cooks a little on the hot side. That is what causes cakes to crack on top. Oh well, that’s what icing is for, right? Now, cool the cakes for 30 minutes in the pans, then remove them and allow them to cool completely. Once they’ve cooled, drop them back into their pans, cover them, and refrigerate for at least a few hours. I left them overnight.

Now to start on the frosting. I knew I wanted some of my buttercream to be pink, but as usual, I would not be using artificial colors. Instead, I used pomegranate juice.

Unfortunately, you can’t just add it as it comes. Adding too much liquid to your frosting will make it break. We have to cook it down. Easy enough. Just pour it into a pan and boil it for a while, stirring occasionally. As it cooks down, you’ll start to see larger bubbles forming and stacking on top of each other. That’s a good sign that much of the water has cooked off.

It will be very hot, so pour it into something very heat safe, and make sure it’s resting on top of a towel or hot pad. As you can see, from the 2 cups of juice, I ended up with about ¼ cup of colored syrup.

Set that aside and we’ll start on the buttercream. Now, since I had never made Italian buttercream before, I used a recipe I found on the interwebs. That being said, next time I make it, I will change it up just a bit. To me, it was a bit too rich and buttery, so I will try cutting the butter down to 2 cups instead of the 3 that are called for. Since I’ve never made it that way and can’t guarantee it would turn out beautifully, I’ll give you the recipe I did make. If you feel like experimenting, try it with 2 cups and let me know how it turns out.

Here’s what you’ll need:

1 ¼ cups sugar
½ cup water
8 egg whites
⅓ cup sugar
3 cups butter (6 sticks… what? It’s my birthday.)

Again, it is important that everything is room temperature.

For separating all the eggs, I used Seeley’s tip and pulled out a third bowl. Don’t forget the egg white you save from making the cake.

See? Perfectly separated.

Save those yolks, 4 of them at least, and next week I’ll show you a great way to use them! Now, onto the syrup. Before you start, grab a little dish of ice cold water. In a pan over medium low heat, stir together 1 ¼ cups sugar and ½ cup water. When the sugar has mostly dissolved, increase the temperature to medium, continuing to stir constantly. When it reaches a boil, put on a lid and set a timer for 3 minutes.

Now back to the mixer. The recipe I used called for 1 teaspoon of cream of tartar, but I didn’t have that, so I just added a little squeeze of lemon juice to the egg whites. Feel free to do either, or neither. Now, turn the mixer on high-ish. When the egg whites become foamy and opaque, sprinkle the over the sugar while the mixer continues to run.

Soon, the mixture will become very opaque. You want to be able to do this.

Hopefully, like me, you’re able to accomplish that in the 3 minutes you have while the lid is on the syrup. When the timer goes off, remove the lid. It should look about like this.

With a clean spoon, drop a little of the syrup into the cold water.

You should be able to gather it together into a ball, but it should flatten easily between your finger and thumb.

When you get to that point, turn off the heat and carry the pan over to the mixer. When the syrup has stopped boiling, with the mixer running on medium high, begin to pour the syrup very slowly into the egg whites.

Try to get the stream to fall between the side of the bowl and the whisk. If the syrup gets on the cold metal, it will harden rather than mixing in. Naturally a little of it will be thrown around by the whisk no matter what you do.

When all the syrup is into the mix, it will be quite hot. If you have a flexible ice pack on hand, go ahead and wrap it around the bowl. I always keep a bag of cheap frozen peas on hand for just such an occasion. They make the best ice packs, and you can get them really cheap.

You want the mixture to be just a little over room temperature, around 80°, then it’s time to start adding the butter. Cut the butter into about 1 Tablespoon size pieces and add them one at a time while the mixer continues to run.

Yes, it is going to take a while. And when you finally get close to the end of your butter, this will happen and you’ll think you’ve killed the whole thing.

Don’t panic, just keep going. It’s going to turn into buttercream, and soon. See?

Now, I wanted a layer of pink in the middle of my cake as well as pink borders and a few little flowers, so I took about a third of the icing out and added some of the pomegranate syrup. See how thick it is?

Whisk it in to get the color you’re looking for. I added about 1 ½ teaspoons to get a nice pastel pink.

Ok, let’s put this cake together. Cut the bottom cake in half.

Top the bottom half with raspberry jam, leaving a small border around the edge. Use something really good. I used homemade.

Put the top back on and plop on some of the pink buttercream.

Spread, again leaving a border.

Now for the second cake. Since this one is going to be on top, I decided to level it out a bit so I’d have a flatter surface on the top of the cake.

Cut that cake in half. I missed the middle, so I put the thinner piece onto the cake next. Top that one with raspberry jam like you did the first.

Last, you want whatever is flattest facing up.

Now for the white buttercream. You want to do very thin layer on the whole cake. This is called a crumb coat, and that’s exactly what it’s for. It traps the crumbs. Pop the whole cake into the fridge for 30 minutes, and give your feet and back a break. Don’t refrigerate the rest of the buttercream, though. It needs to remain spreadable.

Now, I’m not going to teach you how to decorate a cake. As I’ve already said, I’m no cake decorator. You can find great videos on youtube, though. Here’s what I did. I coated the whole cake in an even-ish layer of buttercream. Looks good enough to me.

Then I just did a border around the top and bottom of the cake in pink, and a handful of easy flowers.

Not perfection, but I don’t think it’s half bad for my first attempt. Especially considering how artistically inept I am.

It was a bit time consuming, but I really enjoyed doing it. And really, what’s better than sitting down with a delicious, and mostly pretty, slice of cake and being able to say, “I made that!”

What food do you usually leave to the professionals?

Amaretti

2012-02-07T09:00:15Z

Not to be confused with amore.

Amaro means bitter. So unless you're planning on some kind of bittersweet romance (bitter almonds contain hydrogen cyanide) I recommend not confusing love and poison.

Amaretti cookies are named for the almond flavouring in them. Amaretto liqueur works well for this, but if you don't have any around you can easily replace it with a bit of almond extract. Amaretto is made from almonds and the pits of apricots (if you've never tasted them, I recommend it, the flavour is very reminiscent of an almond but has a very bitter note to it) and has a slight amount of bitterness under all that sugar, hence the name. But for the most part, it's a sticky sweet liqueur that works very well as a cough supressant.

Pardon me while I deal with the lingering cough I've had for the last few weeks:

It even tastes like most cherry flavoured cough syrups because "cherry" seems to have been conflated with "maraschino" which is a liqueur made from cherry pits and has same bitter sweet flavour that the apricot pits and almonds do.

I will now stop geeking on food research and start telling you how to make cookies.

Amaretti Cookies

What you need:

1 c almond butter
1 c sugar
1 tsp amaretto liqueur or almond extract
another 1 c sugar
2 egg whites

What you gotta do:

Most amaretti recipes call for something called "almond paste". It's basically ground almonds with sugar added to it. Yes, they're usually blanched almonds and so the colour is quite pale, but if you don't have almond paste, and couldn't be bothered to blanch almonds, a good quality almond butter works just fine.

You will have to stir it though.

The first thing we're going to do is make our version of an almond paste. Put the almond butter and 1 cup of sugar into the food processor.

I can't really think of any other way to do this than in a food processor. Besides, everything else just gets added to it. This is all the dishes you'll have to wash.

You will end up with something crumbly and pasty and lush with beautiful almond oil. I love almond oil and use it on my skin and hair in the shower when I need extra moisturizing.

You should end up with just over a cup of almond paste.

Back into the food processor it goes, along with the amaretto, the rest of the sugar and the egg whites.

If you've never separated eggs before, you can check out my three-way method to separate eggs. It's pretty foolproof. Even I can manage it.

And the food processor goes back on high until you have a lovely smooth goo. Give it at least 3 minutes, but as many as 5.

Now, those of you who are familiar with beating egg whites are thinking I'm insane. Yes, oil of any kind will kill the beating of egg whites and they won't get all nice and fluffy.

Nice and fluffy is not what we're going for here. This is a bittersweet romance, remember?

And so when you spoon your cookie batter (about a teaspoon at a time) onto a parchment lined cookie sheet...

Fuck. Preheat the oven. 375 degrees. (one of these days I'll learn)

...The blobs will spread quite a bit, but they will reach their maximum and you'll have a sheet full of flat, glossy puddles.

But after about 15 minutes in the oven....

poof!

The puddles rise and crack and lose their glossy sheen.

Give them some time to rest on the cookie sheet before you try removing them, or you'll lose the bottoms. I'm impatient; cookies laff at me.

These have a lovely bit of crunch on the outside and a gooey, chewy, marshmallowy inside. They're a nice light snacky cookie, but they also lend themselves well to being served on the side of other desserts (like grilled or roasted fruits) or as ingredients in other things (cheesecake crust, or a chocolate terrine).

What's your favourite bittersweet romance story?

Can't Buy Me Luuu~huv.

2012-02-03T16:38:24Z

The Beatles were right. Ok, those words can’t have been uttered often, but it’s true. Money can’t buy you love. Part of me despises Valentine’s Day, and that’s exactly why. I hate that love has become so equated with commercialism. Don’t go out and buy overpriced chocolates for your sweetie. Instead, make your own. I promise they’ll cost less, they’ll taste better, and they’ll mean a heck of a lot more. If you want it to be really special, why not make the candy together so you have an experience, a memory, and some fun time together? Besides, who knows what chocolate dipping could lead to. *wink, wink*

So here’s what you’ll need:

2 cups sugar
½ cup half & half
1 cup strawberries
4 Tablespoons butter
2 Tablespoons syrup
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla

The first thing you need to do is butter a 9x13 glass pan and set it atop pot holders.

Now, throw your strawberries into the blender.

I’ve heard a lot of people ask if a Vita Mix is really worth the money. I have to say, if you regularly use a blender, and if it’s within your budget, it’s worth every penny. So, puree your strawberries until they’re mostly smooth, but I like there to still be seeds. Measure out ½ cup of the puree. ¾ - 1 cup of whole strawberries should get you pretty close to that.

Throw everything into a 2 ½ quart or larger saucepan.

Heat over medium low heat and stir everything together. At this point, I decided a little squeeze of lemon juice would be a good addition.

And squirted the camera lens.

My poor camera. It’s had all manner of food on it, not to mention steam, water, and it’s been dropped on the kitchen floor a few times. Ok, so keep stirring until your sugar is completely dissolved. You want this to happen before the mixture reaches a boil. If it’s getting too hot and it’s still grainy, turn the heat down. Once it’s all dissolved, you can increase the temperature to medium or so, but continue to stir constantly until it reaches a boil. Once it’s boiling, pop the lid on and set a timer for 3 minutes. This is a good time to get a little dish of ice cold water. You also need to wash all the crystals off of your spoon or get a clean one out. After 3 minutes, remove the lid. It should look something like this:

Time to start testing for temperature. Get a little bit on your clean spoon, and drop it into the cold water.

When it reaches the right temperature, you’ll just barely be able to gather it into a ball and pick it up. It won’t hold its shape.

While you’ve got it, rub it between your fingers to make sure it’s completely smooth. If it’s not, you need to add ½ cup of water to your mixture and start the cooking process over again. Pour the very hot mixture into your waiting pan.

This is why it needs to be on hot pads, or a folded towel. It’s extremely hot. There will be lots of little bits on the bottom of your pan, but resist the urge to scrape it.

Now just walk away. It needs some time to cool. You could wash up or put in some laundry. Me? I went to hang out with my little buddy. But I had to annoy him first by taking his picture. How could I resist? Look at him all cozy in his new bed with his blanket and his dog.

Ok, so it’s possible I could be slightly biased. Anyway, after 15 or 20 minutes, you’ll want to start checking the temperature. You want the bottom of the pan to still be warm, but not so hot that you can’t hold your hand there comfortably. Now, prepare for an arm workout. With a sturdy spatula, start pushing it into the middle of the pan.

It will be really sticky and stretchy at this point.

Just keep moving it around. Stir, scrape, drizzle… whatever you feel like. Just keep it moving. It will slowly start to turn a little opaque. There will be big bubbles appearing as you stir… don’t worry about it.

Still very stretchy, and it just kind of runs and doesn’t hold any kind of shape. Keep stirring. In this picture, you can see it’s becoming even more opaque, but it’s still stretching and running. Not there yet.

This is what we’re looking for. Still soft and pliable, but no longer runs or stretches. See how it’s holding its shape on the spatula?

It could take a long time to get to this point. Don’t get discouraged. When my feet and back got tired, I went and sat down with it and just kept moving it around. It doesn’t have to be quick stirring. Just scrape it around slowly and lift it up and allow it to run back onto itself. It will get there eventually. It probably took 30 – 45 minutes for mine to finally fudgify. Yes, fudgify. That’s basically what we have here, after all. Strawberry fudge. Now, spread it into a parchment lined pan.

At this point, it needs at least a few hours to finish the reaction that’s happening inside. Just cover it, and after 2 or 3 hours pop it into the fridge. You can leave it over night, or start dipping, once it’s nice and cold. When you’re ready to dip, pull the whole thing out of the pan, and place it onto a cutting board. I like to use a pizza cutter for this, but you can use a big knife if you prefer.

Cut it into small squares. They should be small, maybe 1 inch squares. They’re going to get bigger when you coat them in chocolate, and you want each chocolate to be about two bites.

Place one piece into the palm of your hand.

Roll it into a ball and place it on another piece of parchment. You want to do it quickly because the longer it’s in your warm hands, the stickier it will become. (That’s what she said!) (Sorry about that. I know it was crude, and this isn't one of Seeley's posts, but I just couldn’t resist)

Ok, onto the chocolate. I like to chop up good chocolate bars. (Thank you Trader Joes for your fabulous pound plus bars) Chocolate chips will work fine, though. Just microwave whichever you choose in a small glass bowl for 30 seconds at a time, stirring well between each. It should only get just barely warm enough to melt. Throw in one strawberry ball at a time. Roll it around and allow the excess to drain. A fork works well for this.

Carefully drop it onto another piece of parchment.

Oops. I obviously didn’t let that one drain long enough. See the little puddle around the bottom? Now, to make them pretty, I decided to place a little piece of freeze dried strawberry on each one.

See how cute they are?

I decided to do some milk chocolate and some dark. One more advantage to making your own, you can do it however suits your mood. You could even dip some of them in white chocolate.

I used imported, high quality chocolate, organic strawberries, organic sugar, and organic brown rice syrup, and this whole pan of chocolates still only cost me about $5 to make. You won’t find quality ingredients like that in even the priciest candy shop, and for $5, you’d be hard pressed to even get a half dozen pieces. So don't buy love this year. Make it!

What are you going to do with your valentine this year?

Where's my cake?

2012-01-31T00:13:46Z

I want to smash my face in it, cry, then have a nice long nap.

Why?

We're 1 today!!And that's what 1 year olds do on their birthday.

Well, technically tomorrow, but the party's today. One year olds have no clue that it's their birthday so it doesn't really matter when it happens. All they see is cake, lots of weird people, and shiney wrapping paper.

There are lots of weird people around here (we love our commenters, tell your friends) and are much too distracted by shiney things. My last attempt at cake was an epic fucking fail (don't worry, I'll post it soon so you can laugh and cringe too) so we're going to have to wait a couple weeks for Taneasha to make one.

When Taneasha told me we'd made it a whole year (see, totally oblivious, may as well be a toddler) and warned me it was closer to my post day than hers, my first thought was to do a "clip show" post, but she'd already done that to cover my ass over the holidays. Crap. Okay, fine. The first year is always full of firsts, new things learned, and first attempts at things that really need practice.

Here's what I've learned:

1) Preheat the fucking oven. This is where the shiney paper effect comes in. We get all excited about the prospect of making cookies; we sift, we cream, we add moar choklits! and then when we go to bake them, we have to sit for 15 minutes staring at a wall while the oven warms up. It's like a time out for naughty bakers.

2) Kitchen timers are your friend. When the recipe says bake the cookies for 13 minutes, they're not kidding. Granted there's a bit of leeway, but really, they don't need 17. Four minutes is a long time for cookies to be at 350 degrees. Plus, when you're trying to prove that it really is possible to make dinner in 20 minutes, it's nice to watch those last few seconds count down as you take your first bite.

3) Beginners luck is a fickle bitch. The first time I made hollandaise sauce (years ago) it came out awesome. I've never been able to make it quite the same since. But this is not always how things go. Sometimes it takes a couple tries to get a recipe right. Sometimes no matter how many times you try the recipe just won't come out right. Yes, there have been times when we've posted first attempts, but we've done it for a reason. We're here every week writing up recipes, acting like we know what we're doing, but really, we're just trying to feed ourselves and our families something other than cereal for dinner. Shit happens, some recipes suck (I fully expect that sometimes the stuff that works in our kitchens won't work in yours and that's okay). Sometimes you get it right on the first try, sometims you don't. Sometimes you never will. And if you don't, there's always cereal for dinner.

4) Tinfoil is the only thing that will stop guacamole from turning brown.

Taneasha here. This looked like so much fun, I decided to jump in too. Here are some things I've learned in our first year.

1) Putting together a post will always take 3 times longer than you think it will. I don't know how many times I've gone into the kitchen thinking, "Oh, this will only take me 30 minutes or so." 2 hours later, flour in my shirt and hair and butter all over the camera, I finally have the food cooked and the pictures taken... but haven't even started on picture editing and actual post writing.

2) Don't make something for the first time for a post. Ok, obviously I haven't really learned this because I still do it, but it's really not a good idea. It has a habit of turning into chaos.

3) Cooking is going to be messy. There's just no way around it. Almost without fail I'll need something from across the room while whisking batter. Also without fail, I'll let the whisk rest against the side of the bowl, checking to make sure it's stable, but as soon as I turn my back, the thing falls out of the bowl, flinging batter much further than physics should allow. Things are going to spill, drip, and boil over. It just happens, and it's ok.

Ok, back to Seeley.

There are also a couple things I'd like to post about again.

Chicken Picatta. This was a first attempt. I was totally winging it to the point that I didn't even know how much of each ingredient I used. I've made this a few times since and really want to post an actual recipe for it. Plus, it's way (like way) way better with basil than parsley.

Smoothies. While this wasn't a first attempt, it was a bit of a half-assed one. I want to do a bit more with them and show some of the actual fruit combinations that are tasty, rather than just telling you to dump a bunch of fruit in the blender for a while. But hey, at least it wasn't just cereal for dinner.

Pizza. I've shown you the quick and easy pita version, now I want to try the real thing. On real dough. With yeast. One of these days I'm going to make dough that actually rises. I swear I can feel the poor little yeasties dying. I kill them with my bare hands.

Well, I guess this did turn out to be kind of a clip show. But at least I can prove that I learned something in the last year. I sure didn't learn much calculus. No, seriously, someone show me how to take the partial deriviative of a multivariable function. Anyone? Bueller?

So tell us... what would you like to see us make in our second year?

Punt the Velveeta for a Super Bowl of Queso!

2012-01-27T09:00:43Z

That’s right. It’s Super Bowl time again. Even though Hubby’s two least favorite teams will be playing, I have a feeling we’ll still be watching it, regardless of how much he rants about the Patriots. Yes, we live in Massachusetts, and my husband hates the Patriots. And although he also hates the New York Giants, his favorite team is the Jets, who are also from New York. I don’t really get it. I have a feeling it has a lot more to do with uniform colors than anything else. Anyway, enough about the sport, let’s talk food. More specifically, let’s talk Chili con Queso… or more commonly known as just Queso. I have to admit that I love the stuff. Warm, creamy, spicy, cheesy, what’s not to love, right? I’ll answer that for you. Velveeta. Velveeta is a creepy, ‘cheese food’, product that requires no refrigeration and never goes bad. Honestly, I’m surprised it even works as fish bait. Unfortunately, probably every queso you’ve ever eaten was made from it, or something very similar. Well, no more. I wasn’t sure I could actually make a dip that would have the same creamy consistency using real cheese, but I did, and it is amazing.

Here’s what you’ll need:

18 oz. grated cheese (about 5-ish cups)
1 ½ cups whole milk
2 – 3 jalapenos, diced
½ onion, diced
2 – 3 tomatoes, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced (about 1 Tablespoon)
2 Tablespoons butter
2 Tablespoons flour
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoons chili powder
½ cup cilantro, chopped
¼ cup sour cream

The first thing you’ll want to do is dice everything up. Then, in a sauce pan over medium low heat, melt 2 Tablespoons of butter and throw in your jalapeno and onion.

Sprinkle over the salt, pepper, and chili powder.

Stir the mixture and allow it to begin to sweat off some of its liquid. After about 5 minutes, stir in the garlic.

Continue to cook the mixture for another 5 minutes or so, stirring frequently. While it’s cooking you can go ahead and grate the cheese. It’ll be much easier to do if you put it in the freezer for 15 minute or so first. It’s very important to grate your own cheese for this. The pregrated stuff doesn’t melt as well. It’s also important to use cheeses that melt very easily. I used about equal parts of Monterey jack and mild cheddar.

Once the vegetable mixture has cooked down and everything is mostly soft, add the diced tomatoes.

Stir them around just long enough to cook off some of the moisture. About 2 minutes. Sprinkle the flour over the top of the mixture.

Stir it in until it is completely incorporated and you no longer see any dry flour. The mixture will be thick and pasty.

Cook it for about a minute, stirring constantly, and then pour in the milk.

Stir until the mixture become thick and creamy and comes to a boil. You might need to increase the heat a little for that. Once it’s come to a full boil, turn off the heat and throw in the cilantro.

Stir that in and allow the mixture to cool slightly before beginning to add the cheese. There are two very important rules you need to follow in order to ensure you’ll end up with a nice creamy dip and not an oil clumpy mess. First, it CANNOT be boiling when the cheese goes in. Second, the cheese has to go in very, VERY slowly. You want to add maybe ¼ cup at a time.

Then stir it in and allow it to fully incorporate before sprinkling in the next addition. If you have strings like this,

It’s not ready for another addition yet. It should be smooth and creamy, with no stretchy, stingy, anything. If the mixture cools too much, you might want to turn the burner back on to a very low heat, but be careful. If it gets too hot, it will turn grainy and will eventually break. If at any time, you start to see it becoming a grainy texture, remove it from the heat immediately and stir in a couple of ice cubes and a tablespoon of milk. If you’re lucky, that will save it for you, but no guarantee. Remember, low and slow is your friend here. Continue to stir in the cheese until it’s all incorporated completely, then add the sour cream.

Stir that in. The heat will slowly allow it to melt and disperse into the mixture. There you have it. Creamy, delicious queso made without using any processed, cheese food product. If you have a way to keep it warm at a very low temperature, that will keep the consistency the best. If not, just cover it and serve it in small portions that can be eaten before it cools completely. Serve with your favorite tortilla chips.

Creamy, slightly spicy, and delicious. The perfect accompaniment for the Super Bowl.

So, Pats or Giants? Who are you rooting for?

Carroty Carrot Muffins

2012-01-24T09:00:38Z

One of these days I'll figure out wake up early enough in the morning that I can actually sit down and eat a piece of toast for breakfast. I've never been much of a breakfast person though. This is not to say tht I don't like breakfast foods, or don't eat breakfast. It's just that I need to be up and about for a while before I eat something.

Sleep is a precious commodity in my world. I will take sleep over most other early morning activities. That's why I've got my morning routine down to a 17 minute science. Really sucks on days when the the overnight low was below -20 (i.e. every night from now until April) because I have to get up four minutes earlier to run out in my pajamas to start the car before I start getting ready. And there are still mornings when I'm ready to go before the car is. 2 more years of school. 2 more years. 2 more. 2 ...

Carroty Carrot Muffins

What You Need:

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup ground flax seed

OR 2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp allspice
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1/2 c carrot juice (or orange juice or milk)
1/2 c vegetable oil (I used peanut)
1/2 c unsweetened applesauce
1/2 c honey
1 1/2 c grated carrots (at least)

Nope, no sugar at all. And no dairy. These will never be entirley vegan though (even if you did use some kind of egg substitute) because of the honey. Poor little worker bees, working so hard.

What You Gotta Do:

Preheat the oven to 350. (and yes, I really did remember)

In a small bowl, combine the flour, flax seed, baking soda, baking powder, and the salt.

A whisk works well for this.

In a large bowl, dump in everything else except the carrots.

Whisk this all together. The spices really contribute to the colour.

Tip the floury stuff from the small bowl into the wet eggy stuff in the large bowl. Mix this with a whisk. Yes, I know I'm making muffins which only need to be just-mixed. It is possible to merely stir things with a whisk.

What you can't do with a whisk really, though I suppose if you really wanted to you could probably pull it off, is fold. Fold the grated carrots into your just-mixed batter.

The balance of my bag of baby carrots only made for about 2 cups of grated carrots. This recipe can definitely take more than that.

You should end up with enough batter to generously fill 12 muffin cups. (I think I may try this as a snack cake next time. The texture is soft and cake like.)

Bake them for about 20 minutes at 350. Then let them cool a bit before you try taking them out of the pan. If you use the paper cups, you can get them out right away, but I prefer my muffins without cups.

These are fabulous with a bit of cream cheese on them.

This recipe is decidedly not sweet, but it's also not savoury. You could add chocolate chips, dried fruit (I'm thinking chopped apricots would be very tasty in them), or even nuts (weirdo).

You could probably even top them with cream cheese icing and pass them off as a carrot cake. Sneaky.

How do you hide vgetables?

Pudding Made From Chinese Leftovers?

2012-01-20T09:00:44Z

Ever wonder what to do with that extra carton of rice you always get from the Chinese takeout place? You hate just throwing in the trash, so you decide you’ll use it for dinner sometime this week. Ten days later you realize it’s still in the fridge and end up throwing it in the garbage anyway. Well, no more. This rice pudding is so easy and so delicious, you’ll be thrilled to have leftover rice anytime.

Here’s what you’ll need:

2 cups cooked rice
2 ½ cups vanilla coconut milk
¼ cup sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch of nutmeg
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 Tablespoon cornstarch
1 egg
2 Tablespoons butter

Ok, so mostly just ignore my ingredients picture. I missed a few things… egg, cinnamon, etc. I’m sure you know what those look like, though. Recently, I discovered So Delicious coconut milk. Well, coconut milk beverage it says on the carton. I don’t know what the difference is from the stuff in the can, exactly, but I like the So Delicious vanilla flavor to put on my oatmeal in the mornings. It’s seriously yum, so I thought, why not use it for my pudding. Now, if you don’t want to go out and buy some, go ahead and substitute regular milk and add an extra 2 Tablespoons of sugar. And speaking of sugar… you can see that I am also using coconut palm sugar. Don’t worry about that. I just bought it recently and wanted to try it out, regular granulated sugar or even brown sugar will be totally fine.

So now that that’s out of the way, let’s get started. In a medium saucepan, pour 2 cups of the milk and stir in the cooked rice, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

In a separate dish, whisk together 1 Tablespoon of cornstarch and ¼ cup of the remaining cold milk.

Bring the rice mixture to a low boil and cook, stirring constantly for 5 – 7 minutes. Much of the liquid will have cooked off and the mixture will look something like this.

Stir in the cornstarch slurry.

Once the pudding reaches a boil again, it will be nice and thick and creamy.

Go ahead and turn the heat to low. In another dish whisk together 1 egg, the remaining ¼ cup milk, and 2 teaspoons vanilla.

When adding eggs to something hot, you need to bring them up to temperature slowly. This process is called tempering. To do that, simply add a bit of the hot pudding to the egg mixture and whisk it in. I added a total of about a cup of the pudding, in three additions.

Pour the now hot egg mixture into the pudding and stir everything together. The residual heat from your pudding will cook the egg, so go ahead and turn off the heat.

Now for the final touch. Stir in 2 Tablespoons of butter.

You have just reached rice pudding heaven. If you like your rice pudding cold, like I do, make sure you press a piece of plastic wrap directly on top of it so that it doesn’t form a skin, and then go ahead and refrigerate it.

I think most people tend to like rice pudding warm, though, so just garnish it with a few nuts and/or raisins. Personally I think raisins are the devil.

What’s your favorite kind of pudding?