Authors Kitchen

DIY, the not so extreme version

2012-05-29T09:00:04Z

Indoor gardening is still gardening.

At the grocery store last week, I mentioned to the cashier that I wanted to plant the "live" basil I was buying. I mean, it came with roots, and in a cute little bag full of nutrient water, and looked perfectly plantable. At first she looked at me like I was nuts, and then like I was some kind of freaky genius. Because if I plant it, it will keep growing and I can keep harvesting it.

Freaking genius!

You could do the same with those "live" lettuce heads you see sometimes.

I've heard of people sprouting avocado pits and planting them too.

And if you get herbs that were cut right, you can sprout them too.

Yes, I know, I could just go to the garden store and buy seedlings, but it's more fun this way. There's a certain amount of challenge, a bit of suspense, that point of frustration where you're sure it won't work and so you stop checking it and stop adding fresh water...

And then you realize there are roots on your lemongrass stumps.

And in a couple days there are lots of them.

Lemongrass is extremely easy to root, and fairly fast growing. If you're going to put it in planters outside, make sure you are able to move them. This is a tropical grass and it doesn't like any kind of cold at all. You'll have to bring it inside in the winter.

Or just harvest it all and start again in the spring.

It's not like this is difficult.

If you're going to keep it indoors year round, choose a bright and sunny spot, as full sun as you can get.

I used a regular organic houseplant medium. i.e. Potting soil.

And potted it like a typical houseplant.

In a nice pot, it would make a lovely hostess gift or housewarming present. Include a recipe for Beef Chow Fun, or Thai Green Curry.

And you can always start another batch for yourself.

Have you ever sprouted something weird? (Your kids don't count)

Waffling About Strawberries

2012-05-25T15:01:02Z

While walking through Costco the other day, I was suddenly engulfed by the aroma of ripe strawberries. I probably looked a bit like a scent hound hunting them down by smell, but they were like 20 feet away. When strawberries, or fruits of almost any kind, are that fragrant, you simply have to buy them. I did mention I was in Costco, right? Assuming you’ve been in a warehouse store like that, you’ll know that they don’t sell anything in normal quantities. Well, strawberries are no exception. But like I said, I had to buy them… even if Otto and I are the only ones who will eat them. The problem is, even a strawberry nut like me can only eat so many fresh strawberries. So what’s a girl to do with 4 pounds of strawberries? I went with a childhood favorite. Strawberry waffles! In my house, that wasn’t waffles with strawberries in them, but waffles with strawberries on them, along with whipped cream of course.

Ordinarily, there’d be an ingredients picture here, but the strawberries have to get started the night before because they have to be macerated. No, I said macerated. Fine, chuckle all you want. It really isn’t as dirty as it sounds, though. Just slice about a pound of strawberries, and sprinkle them with 1 Tablespoon of sugar. Then stir so they’re evenly coated, cover them, and pop them into the fridge overnight.

In the morning, here’s what you’ll need:

2 eggs
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
3 tablespoons oil
1 cup flour
1 tablespoon semolina or fine cornmeal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon sugar
Macerated strawberries
Whipped cream

The first thing you need to do is separate your eggs. Go ahead and drop the yolks into the buttermilk.

Next, whip the egg whites until you get stiff peaks.

Put all your dry ingredients into a mixing bowl. Obviously they can’t be used like this, so whisk them together and set them aside.

Add the vanilla and oil to the buttermilk and whisk thoroughly.

Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture and stir just until combined.

Now back to the egg whites. Add half of them to the batter and fold them in.

Then add the other half.

Now, at this point, I have to be a bit vague. Basically you just have to cook the waffles however it works for your particular waffle iron. If you’re making waffles for a group, you can place them between towels in a 200° oven so everyone can eat at the same time. If you have leftover batter, you can make extra waffles and freeze them. Then just reheat them in the toaster or oven, or even pop them back into a hot waffle iron. Anyway, so you have your waffle. Look at the poor naked thing.

Well, we can fix that. First, butter it liberally. Butter is a requirement for waffles, regardless of what else might be going on top. Then, remember those strawberries you put in the fridge? Look how juicy they’ve become.

Drizzle some of that juice on the waffle, then top with strawberries and a dollop of whipped cream. I’ll be honest, after I snapped this picture, I added even more strawberries and whipped cream because, well… in this case, more is better.

So, what’s your favorite thing to do with strawberries?

Extreme DIY

2012-05-22T05:39:38Z

I'm not cooking.

Well, I am. Last night we grilled crooknecks, reduced some wine, added butter, and tossed it all with pasta, chicken breast, basil, and cheese. Tonight, pork filling for tacos. I do like pork in tacos.

I also made date muffins again (turns out the recipe actually works and wasn't a total fluke), and sauteed chard to go into biscuit pastry for lunchy spanikopita-type things.

But I didn't take a single picture.

But I did take pics of food. It's just that it's food in a somewhat less familiar format.

The garden.

Yes, food comes from dirt.

And while Taneasha and I are fans of DIY cooking, Recipe Guy has gone one step further and is DIYing his own food.

I've had gardens in the past, but right now I'm trapped in my student apartment without even a balcony on which to grill things. Man, I love food cooked on fire.

So, as I said, we grilled crooknecks last night. But first we had to harvest them. Squashes are fuzzy, and the fuzz is sharp and sticks in your fingers like fibreglass.

Tasty things always have ways of protecting themselves. Note that the broccoli has no thorns, no fuzz, no dangerous parts to navigate around. That's because it's not edible. Contrary to what his housemates seem to think.

Behind the broccoli is the remnants of the iceburg lettuces. There was romaine too. There's red leaf on the way. There's also chard.

A lot of chard. I'd already taken 2-4 leaves off each of those plants. That got me about 4 grocery store sized bundles of chard. Sautee that shit in bacon fat with a bit of browned onion... goes perfectly with fried chicken. Holy yum.

I need to make fried chicken.

Some would recommend frying these little green tomatoes,

but I think I'll wait until the sun turns them red (better them than me) and then eat them warm off the vine.

TIP: As soon as your tomato plant starts fruiting, defoliate it. Pervert, it means take the leaves off. If you remove the leaves around the fruits, the sun will ripen them faster and the plant will put more energy into fruiting since it no longer has leaves to feed.

And, if you let your cilantro go to seed, you'll attract all kinds of flying insects that will help pollinate the rest of the garden,

and those little green burrs in the bottom left are actually corriander seed, a component of garum masala. Let them dry, harvest them by putting a paper bag over the seed head, turn it upside down and shake; all the seeds fall into the bag. This works for dill seed too.

If you're lucky, you'll have a neighbour with honey bees

(can you see the bee butt in the flower?) who shares the hibiscus scented honey that results from his bees spending all their time in your bushes.

Of course, if you have a garden you need a compost heap.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04Zz-GRPAzA

(still don't know how to embed vids)

Now, you may not end up with a blues-singing, advice-giving heap, but what you might get are a few volunteers. I don't think I've ever seen a compost heap that didn't have things growing in it.

We're pretty sure this is a butternut squash.

There are onions just to the left out of the frame too. Which is good because Mowing Man keeps mowing down the wild onions in the horse pature.

Speaking of wild things, remember the wild beans that appeared last year during the drought? Well, if you let wild beans go to seed in your garden, they will happily come back and demand trellises the next year.

How does your garden grow?

6 Tips for Making Your Meat Irresistible

2012-05-18T08:00:15Z

Whew! I survived yet another big move. That being said, I just barely got my internet turned on last night (thank you Comcast for finally sending someone competent. Third time’s the charm, I guess) and I haven’t had time yet to do my big restock the pantry and fridge shopping trip. Between that and the fact that we’re long overdue for a tip, rather than doing a proper post this week, I’ll be giving advice on how best to handle your meat. I don’t know that I’m an expert on the subject, but I’ve had plenty of experience handling meats of all sizes and varieties. Today’s tips are going to apply mostly to big ones. Roasts basically.

Tip #1:

Buy good meat. As with anything else, your final result can only be as good as the product you start with. Now, when I say good, I don’t mean buy an expensive cut of meat. I mean, get meat as close to the farm as possible. I guarantee a piece of meat from some mega mart is not going to taste as good as something more natural, no matter what they say on their commercials. If you don’t have a farm or market nearby to get your meat, at the very least try to find beef that is grass fed. If you can find pastured beef, even better. The cows will thank you too.

Tip #2:

Don’t be afraid of the salt. No one will enjoy your meat if it doesn’t taste good. A big piece of meat needs plenty of salt, and since it’s basically a rock, you don’t have to worry about it burning during the cooking process like pepper and other spices can.

Tip #3:

Sear your meat. I always hear people say you need to sear meat to lock in the juices. Well, I don’t really know if that’s true or not. I’ll tell you how to keep your meat from losing its juices in tip #5. As for searing, the truth of that matter is it brings an immense amount of flavor to your meat, not to mention the flavor it gives to anything that’s cooked with it, and any gravy or pan sauce made from the drippings. High heat, a little oil, set the meat in and don’t move it around. When it’s ready, it will release itself from the pan and you can easily flip it. This piece of meat isn’t burned. It’s perfectly seared and will be absolutely delicious when it’s finished.

Tip #4:

Low and slow. I know you’ve heard that phrase a million times, but when cooking a roast it is essential. After the searing process, I add plenty of liquid and usually cook my roasts between 225° and 250° for a good three hours or so. Trust me, your patience will be rewarded.

Tip #5:

As I said before, this is where your meat's juices come into play. When your meat is done (if it’s not super tender, it’s not done) remove it from the pan, set it aside, and cover it with foil to rest. Ten minutes is the absolute minimum and 20 or 30 is even better. I like to cook my carrots and potatoes in the beef broth while the meat is resting. If you cut the meat right away, all of its juices will run out. Those are important, especially in a roast. Who knew a simple piece of meat would require so much patience, huh?

Tip #6:

For the most tender pieces of meat, always cut across the grain. With something like a chuck roast, you’ll probably end up with chunks rather than slices, and that’s totally fine. But if it’s a bottom round or a rump roast, definitely slice against the grain. Melt in your mouth tender, moist, and delicious.

So there you have it, 6 tips on how to handle your meat that will make you and anyone else eating it happy.

who's on first

2012-05-15T08:00:34Z

Me again. Taneasha has a home, and some furniture, but no intrawebs. So, I'm back in my usual Tuesday spot, but I'm taking a break from cookies.

I am a total slave to cravings. I'll spend days trying to ignore the fact that I not only want, but apparently need, a certain type of food. They don't go away. Sometimes it's something nice and healthy like bananas. And when I finanlly find a bunch that is just the right ripeness, I'll eat the whole freaking bunch. Sometimes, it's fried chicken. Way too often it's fried chicken.

Lately though, it's been beans. And not just any beans. It has to be refried beans.

I freaking love refried beans.

Damn good thing too, because they're super cheap, unbelievably easy to make, and they're totally freezable, which means they're perfect for making into burritos to freeze and heat up in the (world's most disgustingly dirty) microwave at school. But we won't talk about that for now. I passed my exams. I've got 3.5 months of calculus-free bliss.

AKA: work.

Now I get to heat up my frozen burrito in a clean nuker.

But first, I had to make beans. Yes, I know, they come in a can. The ones in the can, more often than not, have sugar in them. Sugar. Why the hell do refried beans need sugar added to them? There are times when I'm glad I'm a compulsive label-reader. <>

Refried beans don't have sugar in them. At least these ones don't. So, as an alternative to the can in your cupboard I offer:

Refritos

What you need:

1 c dry pinto beans
1 small onion
3 cloves garlic
pinch of cumin
~4 c water or broth or stock
bacon fat
salt

Yes, I realize I'm ranting about added sugar in a post that advocates the use of bacon fat. This is not a question of "is it healthier." The sugar is likely in there to make the beans taste better, just like the bacon fat is. But, the bacon fat is drippings from the bacon I bought at a local butcher; they make their own bacon from local pigs. I can trace the bacon fat to the farm. It's less than 100 miles away. I can't say the same about that sugar. I know that food tastes better when it has fat and sugar in it. But I'm actively making a choice as a consumer. That's the difference.

What you gotta do:

Dump it all in the crock pot.

Well, kinda. Works best if you rinse the beans first, and chop the onion and garlic.

I'd been planning on using water, but remembered that I had some chicken broth in the freezer.

So I thawed it and dumped it in.

And waited.

I am not a patient person.

Particularly not when I have a craving.

Once the beans are soft, and you can mash one against the side of the crock pot (took mine about 4 hours on high), transfer the beans only to a bowl. I don't suggest draining the beans because some of that liquid is handy to have around when you're mashing. So, I fish mine out with the masher.

Mashing is a bit of a taste thing. Or, texture thing, I guess. Some people prefer the beans whole, some like them smashed to smithereens.

I a cake-and-eat-it-too kinda person, so I mash all but about a cup of beans and then just stir them in.

And then, I add the bacon fat. Feel free to leave this out if you'd like, but I don't recommend it.

Now, before you add the last ingredient, you need to taste them. Beans need salt. I like to add the bacon fat first because it is quite salty, and then add tiny amounts, stirring and tasting until they're just right.

Roll them up in a burrito with some guac (cover it with foil and it won't turn brown at all!)

or just dip your chips right in

What weird ingredient have you found by reading labels? Or, do you read labels?

strawberry short cookies

2012-05-11T08:00:12Z

So, while Taneasha may feel like making muffins too soon after I've posted a muffin recipe warrants calling her muffins "cupcakes," I have no qualms whatsoever about posting another berry recipe right after hers.

I wasn't exactly planning on doing this, but there were no macamadamia nuts in the grocery story so I couldn't make the requested white chocolate macamadamia nut cookies that had been requested. What I did find was strawberries.

Cookies aren't what most people think about when looking for strawberry recipies. But, I've been working on a bit of a theme lately. I've turned raspberry tarts, carrot cake, and rocky road ice cream into cookies. Strawberry shortcake anyone?

Strawberry Short Cookies

What you need:

2 c diced strawberries
1 tbsp of lemon or orange juice
1 tbsp sugar

1/3 c cold butter
2 c flour
1/2 c sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 salt (or none if your butter is salted)
2/3 c cream or slightly thinned yogurt

What you gotta do:

Rinse and dice your strawberries into small pieces. It took me 13 fair sized berries to get 2 cups diced. Sprinkle the juice and sugar over the berry pieces and give them a stir. Let these sit while you do the rest.

In a big bowl, combine the sugar, flour, baking powder, (salt) and sift them together well.

Chop the butter into chunks and dump them into the bowl.

With a pastry cutter, a pair of forks, or your hand, cut/crush the butter into the flour until it looks like crumbs. If you get bored or tired of doing it before you get there, don't worry. It won't totally ruin things if you have a few bigger butter bits.

I really think the cream is a better option, but I forgot to stop on the way home to get some. I had yogurt. It's a higher fat yogurt so it still tastes good, but it's much thicker than the cream.

Okay, so here, I kinda forgot all about the taking of the pictures... mix the cream/yogurt into the flour-butter crumbs. If you're using yogurt, you may need to add a tablespoon or two of water to get those last dry bits mixed in.

Dump in the strawberry pieces and stir them in gently. Hands work. Oh look! A picture.

Drop spoonfuls onto a parchment lined cookie sheet.

Crap. Preheat the oven to 350. Go get the laundry while it heats.

Add more sugar!

If you have fancy turbinado sugar, the big crystal sugar that shows up on pastries sometimes, use it now. If you just have plain old sugar, use that. Sprinkle the cookies before you bake them. I used about half a teaspoon per dozen.

Bake the cookies for 20-22 minutes.

Yes, really that long. If you can get two sheets in the oven at once, do it. These are more of a mini scone or biscuit than cookie really, and they taste like scones with jam. But they're small like a cookie. And small things are cute. Because they're small. Because they're cute.

Name something cute that isn't small.

Moving Mayhem - Raspberry Cupcake Edition

2012-05-08T08:01:49Z

Call it prophecy or call it coincidence… either way, it’s somewhat humorous that I made this post one year ago and titled it Moving Mayhem – Bread Pudding Edition. It’s almost as if I was setting myself up for another edition. I just hope there isn’t another Moving Mayhem post in 2013. This move should go much more smoothly than last year’s, even though we’re basically just doing the second half of that move in reverse. If the weather forecasters are right, we at least won’t be dodging tornados. So, since this move is only 500 miles and we’ll be doing it in basically 2 days, I’m not getting rid of everything. That meant I could make whatever I wanted and didn’t have to worry about using up my good stuff. It will be going with me. With that in mind, I decided I wanted raspberry muffins, but since Seeley recently made muffins, I decided to change it to raspberry cupcakes, and the cupcakes vs. muffins discussion began.

Either way, here’s what you’ll need:

½ cup butter
¾ cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 eggs, separated
⅔ cup buttermilk
1 ½ cups flour
½ teaspoon soda
½ teaspoon powder
1 cup raspberries

So, I have to admit to not getting the best looking berries. One of the other brands had much bigger, prettier berries, but they didn’t smell at all. These ones, on the other hand, smelled amazing. In fruit, aroma almost always trumps appearance.

If you can’t find any that are good, you could probably use frozen ones. Just make sure they have thawed and come to room temperature. In fact, it’s important to note that everything in this recipe must be room temperature. So, on that note, throw your softened butter into the bowl of your mixer.

Add the sugar and beat on medium speed for about 2 minutes, or until it’s light and fluffy.

Next, separate your eggs and put the whites aside.

Add the yolks and vanilla to your butter mixture and beat until thoroughly incorporated.

In a separate bowl, whisk together your dry ingredients.

Add ⅓ of the dry mixture to the batter and mix to combine.

Follow that with half of the buttermilk.

Then another third of the dry, the other half of the wet, and finally the last of the dry. You should have a nice smooth batter. Obviously, everything needs to be scraped down.

Now back those egg whites you set aside.

Whip them until you have stiff peaks.

Now, rinse your raspberries and add them to the bowl.

You don’t want to totally decimate the raspberries, so just mix enough to break them up some. It will be more evenly distributed after you’ve finished folding in the egg whites.

Which you’re going to do now. Start with half of the egg whites. Just drop them on top.

Then fold them in. This will lighten up the batter some, which will makes the second edition easier to incorporate.

Fold that in now.

Um, somewhere in that process you should have preheated your oven to 350°. Scoop the batter, filling the cups almost to the top. I used a ¼ cup measuring cup for this process. Somehow I haven’t managed to buy a muffin scoop. At some point after I’ve moved, I’ll probably remedy that situation.

Just before you put the cupcakes into the oven, turn the temperature up to 425°. Place the cupcakes in the oven, leaving the temperature at 425° for 5 minutes, and then turn it back down to 350°. That extra heat helps to keep your cupcakes nicely rounded on top and stops them from sinking in the middle. Bake them for a total of 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean, or perhaps with a few crumbs on it.

Remove them from the pan as soon as you can and place them on a rack to cool.

Now it’s time for what I think makes a cupcake a cupcake… the frosting. I keep reading about this amazing flour/cornstarch based frosting that is the most amazing frosting ever made. I guess it’s time I gave it a try. After much research, I took the parts I liked from different sources and put them together to form my own version of said frosting.

Here’s what you’ll need:

¾ cup milk
¾ cup sugar
2 Tablespoons cornstarch
¼ teaspoon salt
1 ½ sticks (¾ cup) unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

When making frosting it’s important to use unsalted butter. Salty frosting… not such a good thing. Place your sugar, salt, and cornstarch into a medium saucepan.

Whisk them together until there are no more clumps of cornstarch.

Add the milk.

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture thickens. You don’t want it to reach a rolling boil. You’ll know it’s ready when you start to see the pan while you’re stirring.

When you’ve reached that stage, remove it from the heat and allow it to cool. It’s important that it is room temperature, and not even a little bit warm when you start the next part. Place the softened butter into your mixing bowl. You’ll want to use the whisk attachment this time. Whip the butter until it’s nice and fluffy.

Pour in the cooled milk mixture and add the vanilla.

Then just start mixing. At first you’re going to have a curdled mess.

But just keep mixing. We’re talking like high speed for at least 5 minutes. I actually had to walk away from mine for a bit so it could do its thing without me panicking and hovering. Eventually, you’ll have this. A smooth, creamy, and quite frankly, perfect frosting.

I think the reviews I’ve read were right. Not only is the flavor and texture of this frosting seriously amazing, but it pipes beautifully.

Pipe it on or spread it, whichever you prefer, then just top with a fresh raspberry, and you have cupcake perfection.

These cupcakes are moist and tender, and the slightly tart berries pair perfectly with the sweet frosting. Seriously divine.

So what’s the difference between a cupcake and a muffin to you?

And so begins the Mayhem!

2012-05-04T09:00:51Z

Last May, we had a wee bit o' the crazy going on. Taneasha was eating nothing but road food as she was being chased across the country by tornadoes, I was posting about ice cream and toads (and dumb fuck june bugs) and neighbours with guns and really, we barely made it out alive.

So, this year, we decided to do it all over again.

Of course the first thing that happens is I get locked out of the website while Taneasha is trapped in a car crossing 5 different state lines in 12 hours. And so, No Post For You! (today? yes, Tuesday? no)

We're pretty sure she's not going to be homeless in the middle of the month, but I'm evicting her from Fridays for a while.

Carrot Cake Cookies with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing

(Yes, that whole thing is the name of the recipe. Yes, I'm a freaking genius to mix white chocolate and cream cheese)

What you need:

2-3 carrots (~1 1/2 c once grated)
1 c butter
1 1/2 csugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cardamom
2 1/2 c flour
1 tsp baking powder

not shown, but also worth adding

1/2 tsp allspice
1 tbsp orange zest

What you gotta do:

Preheat your oven to 350.

Grate the carrots. If you do this by hand, you are insane and you probably have no skin left on your knuckles.

Since you've already got the food processor dirtied, may as well go all the way. Switch from the grater blade to the regular blade.

Dump in the butter and sugar and let the sharp things do all the work.

I was going to continue the whole recipe in the food processor, thinking I could save dishes that way, but I wasn't convinced that it would be able to hold the whole recipe's worth. Cut this recipe in half and do the whole thing in the food processor. It makes a lot of cookies anyway and you can save a few dishes.

If you're doing the full recipe, dump the sweet carrot butter into a bowl and add the egg, vanilla, and spices (and orange zest).

Mash this all together then start adding flour. I did a cup at a time and mixed well after each one.

This gradual-addition-and-lots-of-mixing method will result in a cookie with a cakier texture.

You should have a stiff, but sticky dough.

And you also should have added the baking powder with the flour... dammit.

I sprinkled about half a teaspoon of baking powder over the dough and mixed it for a couple more minutes. Seemed to work.

There are a couple ways you can make these cookies.

You can just drop spoonfuls of dough onto the cookie sheet and bake them, but they don't spread like most drop cookies. They hold their shape. So you'll probably end up patting the tops down a bit so they aren't so blobby.

You can also chill the dough for about half an hour and then roll it into balls and poke them until they're shaped like eythrocytes. (word of the day, bonus points if you know it, google it if you don't)

Bake them at 350 for about 14-16 minutes. They should be barely browning on the bottom and look dry on top.

This recipe makes 5 dozen cookies! I really recommend cutting it in half. Good luck with the egg.

Now, you could eat these as is. But no one eats carrot cake because they like it. They're all after the icing.

1 c cream cheese
1 c icing sugar
4 oz white chocolate

Cream the cream cheese and icing sugar together.

Melt the chocolate in the microwave on 50% power 30 seconds at a time until you can stir the last of the lumps out of it.

(yes there are only 3 oz in the bowl. I added the fourth after I decided I wanted it)

Pour the melted chocolate into the sugary cream cheese and mix well.

Making the icing is never the hard part. Icing 61 cookies with what I'm pretty sure is the world's stickiest icing is the hard part. It never really sets, and it stays sticky, even after an hour in the fridge.

But they taste damn good.

Did you know what an erythrocyte was??

Strawberry Mockaritas

2012-04-27T08:02:02Z

No, that isn’t the Boston accent wearing off on me. I’m calling these mock-aritas because I didn’t put any alcohol in them. You’re welcome, of course, to add any kind of booze you like. I just don’t partake of the spirits. That being said, I’m in Virginia looking for a house right now (that’s right, it looks like we’re headed for May-hem!!! again this year) so I’m going to keep this post short and sweet.

Here’s what you’ll need:

2 cups chopped strawberries
¼ cup lime juice (probably 2 limes)
½ cup simple syrup
(½ cup sugar + ⅓ cup water)
1 cup ice

To make the simple syrup, combine ½ cup sugar and ⅓ cup water. Stir them over medium heat until the sugar is completely dissolved and the mixture comes to a full boil.

Turn off the heat, and with a vegetable peeler, cut a strip of peel from one of your limes.

Then drop it into the hot syrup.

Allow that to cool, and then refrigerate it so that it’s nice and cold. When you’re ready to make the drinks, hull your strawberries. Chopping really isn’t necessary, but I wanted to get a measurement, and you can’t do that if they’re whole. It was about a half pound of strawberries.

Throw the strawberries into the blender along with the lime juice, simple syrup, and ice.

And let ‘er rip!

Now for the rim. Run a lime wedge around the top of the glass. (Yes, this is a cheap plastic one. It’s all I could find on short notice so I had to make due)

I know most restaurants serve strawberry margaritas with sugar on the rim, but trust me, salt is WAY better. If you haven’t tried it, you must, and if you still insist on using sugar, you can follow the same steps. Just don’t tell me about it. So, make yourself a nice ring of salt on a plate then turn the glass over and place the rim into the salt.

See? Perfect rim job.

Pour the strawberry mixture into the glass.

Garnish with a slice of lime, and enjoy. Sweet, salty, fruity, tangy, these strawberry mockaritas are seriously fabulous.

So, what’s your favorite drink?

Rocky Road Cookies

2012-04-24T08:01:05Z

All right, we're on a cookie spree. And this time, I'm turning ice cream into cookies.

I'm kinda liking this as a theme, and I think maybe next time I'll try a mint chocolate chip. I also thing that the next time I'm at Recipe Guy's place, I need to try making ice cream again.

Rocky Road Cookies

What you need:

1 1/2 cups sliced almonds
6 tablespoons butter
6 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup mini marshmallows

What you gotta do:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Spread the mini-marshmallows on a baking sheet and put them in the freezer.

They only take about 10 minutes to freeze. You can do this ahead of time and store the frozen marshmallows in a container in the freezer until you need them... which makes me wonder what else I can do with frozen mini marshmallows.

Spread the sliced almonds on a baking sheet and put them in the oven for about 5 minutes.They should be getting just golden and toasty.

You can do this with whole almonds and chop them afterward if you want chunkier bits of nuts.

Put the butter, bittersweet chocolate, and unsweetened chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl and nuke for 45 seconds on half power.

Stir and repeat until you've got a bowl of smooth, melty buttery chocolate.

In a big bowl, beat the sugar and eggs until they're pale and frothy.

Add the vanilla and melted chocolate mixture and beat until shiney.

Mix the flour and baking powder together in a small blow. If you used unsalted butter (I didn't) add a scant 1/4 tsp of salt too.

Stir the flour into the shiney chocolate mixture.

Fold in the toasted almonds, frozen marshmallows, and chocolate chips.

This is going to be a pretty soft cookie dough. It's really more of a brownie batter, but I don't recommend trying to bake it in a pan as brownies. The marshmallows can only handle being inthe oven for a little while. If you want to make this into brownies, leave the marshmallows out, and put them on top for the last 5-7 minutes of baking.

You could actually do that with the cookies too if you felt like bothering.

Since this is soft, and we don't want the marshmallows to thaw too quickly, put the bowl in the fridge for 5-10 minutes. It will firm up so that you can scoop it nicely.

Or, you could just drop the dough by the spoonful onto a baking sheet, and put the baking sheet in the freezer for 5-10 minutes. I tried baking a set after just a few minutes in the fridge and the marshmallows couldn't take it. They just turned to goo and left holes in the cookies where they'd one been. The lacey sugary stuff that spewed out of them totally tasted like toasted marshmallows, but that's really not the intent here.

Even after time in the freezer, the marshmallows are going to nearly disintegrate. But they won't do it as fast or as completely.

You know, if you didn't put the marshmallows in the batter, you could chill it until you can handle it, then roll bits of batter around a marshmallow or two. That way, you'd be guaranteed to have no marshmallows on the edges. It's the edge ones that turn into goo and disappear.

I didn't do that this time, and I'm not sure I'd have the patience for it some other time, but you could always give it a shot...

Bake them for 10 minutes and give them a minute to cool on the parchment before tranferring them to a cooling rack.

They are soft and holy freaking chocolatey, and have these fun gooey spots inside them.

I would ask what else has fun gooey spots inside, but we already know the answer to that: "your mom".

So instead, I'm going to ask: "What else can I do with frozen mini marshmallows?"