Easier Than Falling Off a Log
Archive for December, 2009
December 29, 2009 at 9:11 pm · Filed under food, meals, soup/stew
My chili! It’s a recipe I got on a non-food-related messageboard, oddly enough in a thread about slow-cooker recipes despite not being made in one. The guy whose recipe it was… I don’t know anything about him anymore. We weren’t friends; I don’t think I’d like to hang out with him – although if it involved him making the chili, you know, maybe. I’ve made some little changes to it, but really, not much. I even left the amounts the same, because even though it makes a ton, halving it would involve halving a can of tomatoes or something, so forget that. Chili’s better the next day, anyway, and it freezes well, so it’s ok to make way too much.
The main base for the liquid is canned enchilada sauce. I’m sure you all have excellent recipes for homemade enchilada sauce and would never dream of opening one of these cans. Knock yourselves out. I don’t know the first thing about making enchilada sauce and don’t need to learn, since we never make enchiladas anyway. I’m happy with using the cans here. Do what you like better, but I am getting pre-emptively defensive about the canned sauce because I suspect it would make a lot of food bloggers turn up their noses, and if there’s anything I hate, it’s having a nose turned up at me. You know what? I’m pretty sure no one who reads this regularly (like, all two of you) would do that, and if you just got here and can feel your nose edging up towards the ceiling, we’re not going to get along anyway, so you might as well just not bother with this blog in the first place… snob.
Chili
Ingredients
2 lbs ground beef
1 onion, diced
1 tbsp oil (or less, depending on what fat percentage your beef is… I didn’t need this much because I bought el cheapo 25/75 beef)
1 tbsp seasoning salt
1 tbsp garlic salt
1/2 tbsp chipotle powder
1/2 tbsp chili powder
1/2 tbsp pepper
1 can tomatoes with green chilies (the guy who gave me the original recipe is from the south, so naturally he specified Ro*Tel, but you can’t get that here, so I just used store brand and it was fine)
2 cans enchilada sauce
3 cans beans, whatever kind you like – I actually used 3 different kinds (the original recipe called for chili beans, but I think that’s, again, a southern thing… or at least a not-around-here thing)
1 26-oz can tomatoes
I happened to have some chipotles in adobo hanging around, so I smashed up one of them (took out the seeds, though, because we’re babies… whatever, leave them in if you need more heat in the chili) and added that as well as a spoonful of the adobo
Method
In a big skillet, heat the oil.
Brown the beef with the onion.
Drain, or just scoop the beef and onions up with a slotted spoon and plop them into your big pot (and you will need a big one – did I mention this makes a ton? It makes a ton)
Add in all the rest of the ingredients and give it a stir.
Simmer, uncovered, for at least an hour, preferably longer.
Serve with cheese, green onions, tortilla chips, and/or any other accoutrements you like.
The guy whose recipe it was originally also mentioned that if you can find and afford ground buffalo meat instead of beef, it is very excellent in this chili. I’ve never made it that way, though.
Oh, another P.S., the banner image across the top of the site? That’s from a previous time I made the chili. I had just thrown in all the spices, and it looked cool, so I took a picture of it. I wonder if I have the whole thing around here somewhere…
What do you know, I do! It’s in my old pot that I don’t have anymore.
December 22, 2009 at 10:05 pm · Filed under food, side dishes/appetizers
This is the other thing I brought to the party on Saturday, as well as the beer bread. Of course, I realized I was being “that guy” and bringing a vegetable dish… with meat in it. I made a meatless portion, with the vegetables sauteed in olive oil instead of bacon grease, for the one vegetarian present, though, so relax.
The recipe is from All That Splatters, and I pretty much just changed the pancetta to regular bacon and used regular white button mushrooms instead of creminis (which don’t even exist at our grocery store). Oh, and I think I substituted white wine vinegar for sherry vinegar, but once it’s in the sauce, who can tell? And Matt doesn’t like Dijon, so we just have regular grainy brown mustard around and I used that. I don’t think any of these changes made a big difference, although it’s pretty clear that in every case I went downmarket. Look, until very recently I was out of work, and anyway why spend more? Nobody at this party was doing a palate challenge or turning up their noses at anything in here, and it tasted great, so don’t break the bank.
Green Beans with Bacon, Shallots, and Mushrooms
Ingredients
1 1/2 lbs green beans
5 slices bacon
8 oz sliced mushrooms (I used one of those little containers from the grocery store… I’m pretty sure it was 8 oz; otherwise, however much that is, that’s how much you should use)
2 shallots, sliced thinly
1/4 cup sage leaves, sliced thinly
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1/2 tsp grainy brown mustard
salt
Method
Set a pot of water on to boil.
When it’s boiling, dump the beans in and continue to boil for 4 – 6 minutes, or until tender.
While they’re cooking, get an ice bath ready – a bowl of cold water, big enough to hold all the beans, with ice cubes in it.
When the beans are ready, drain them and plunge them into the ice bath.
The idea is to drain them after 2 minutes, but I kind of forgot about them for more like 5 minutes and they were still fine. Anyway, drain them and set them aside.
While you’re cooking/draining the beans, have the bacon cooking.
When it’s done, take it out to drain on a paper towel. Don’t drain the pan, though – you’re going to use that bacon grease.
Whenever you have a minute, crumble the bacon into small pieces. Doesn’t have to be right this second.
Throw the mushrooms and shallots into the bacon grease and salt them appropriately, or not at all – they are in bacon grease, after all.
Saute them for about 5 minutes.
Add the sage and continue sauteeing for another 30 seconds or so.
Remove the pan from the heat.
Stir in the vinegar and mustard.
Add the green beans and bacon back in and stir to coat everything fully.
Turn the heat back on under the pan to heat everything through.
I thought the beans would be cold by the time we got to the party, since it was about minus a million degrees outside and windy – plus my friend lives down by the beach, so it’s even windier and colder, and it takes around an hour of T-riding to get there – but they managed to stay warm. They were only protected by a tupperware inside a plastic bag inside my backpack, so who knows. Magical beans!
December 21, 2009 at 12:00 am · Filed under breads, food
Look! I’m one of those people who does ingredients photos!
Actually, I have nothing against them, I just don’t usually do it because I don’t usually have such a nice clean countertop to do it on. I usually can’t get all the ingredients in a group like that – they’re fitted in wherever there’s space. But earlier on the day I made this, the coffee machine – aka the coffier (pronounced like copier!) had a bit of an accident. You know how they’re not supposed to let out coffee when the pitcher isn’t present? Well, ours forgot about that part, and so there was quite a bit of coffee all over the counter. So Matt took everything off the counter to clean it. Then I just went ahead and made bread. So there was practically nothing left on the counter other than my ingredients and the one bowl required. In case you didn’t catch that, this is SUPER EASY.
I got the recipe from Erin’s Food Files, and she, in turn, got it from other people. It’s the kind of obviously good recipe that everyone wants to make, I guess. I omitted greasing the pan, because let’s be honest, you’re filling it with melted butter. And I didn’t get a photo of it sliced, because I made it to take to a party and didn’t slice it beforehand, but it was actually nearly identical to the one in that link. I’d have thought mine would be a little redder, since I used a red beer and she used a pumpkin ale, but nope… pretty much the same. P.S., I couldn’t hoard any slices since it was a party, but I really wanted to toast one and butter it. I bet it would’ve been heavenly.
Beer Bread
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
3 tbsp sugar (that’s what’s in the big tupperware)
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 12-oz bottle of whatever kind of beer you like or have on hand or want to get rid of – I used Sam Adams’ Irish Red, as you can see from the photo – and by 12 oz, I mean 12 oz minus one sip for the baker
4 tbsp butter, melted, and divided – just melt 2 tbsp at a time, it’s easier
Method
Preheat the oven to 350.
Whisk together everything but the butter and beer.
Stir the beer in slowly.
You have two bowls of melted butter, right? 2 tbsp each? Well, pour one of them into a loaf pan.
Spoon the batter into the loaf pan.
Now pour the other melted butter overtop.
Bake for 50 minutes or until golden brown, and it’s a good idea to put a baking sheet on the rack below the one with your loaf pan, because a little butter might overflow. I understand some people had small fire-type emergencies. Let’s not have this happen if we can avoid it.
December 16, 2009 at 10:57 pm · Filed under food, meals
Matt’s working late again tonight – the perils of working in a business that gets busier around the holidays – so it was time to make something just for me again. And then he just called and told me he’s actually about half a mile from our apartment right now, but his car has broken down in the middle of the street and he’s waiting for AAA. Fantastic. So I guess “late” really means late today. If I didn’t know he’s already eaten pizza at work, I’d feel bad about not having something he loves waiting for him when he finally walks in. I mean, it’s pretty freezing cold out there too.
But what I made wasn’t particularly warming – in fact, the primary thought that ran through my mind when I took my first bite was “fresh!” Don’t get the wrong idea here – I’m sitting in our nice cozy apartment. My point is only that even if Matt felt like relaxing his stance on tuna for the evening, it would taste good and fill his tummy, but it wouldn’t cure his half-an-hour-in-the-car-at-30-degrees-Fahrenheit chill.
The recipe is from the famed Technicolor Kitchen, and I am pleased to be able to say that mine came out looking pretty much just like hers in her photo! Well, except mine was inside the pita instead of sitting on top of it, but that was an executive decision that I made (and a good call if you want my opinion – these pitas are too small to wrap around food and not have it fall out all over the place). The only real change I made from the recipe she posted was to use up my leftover dry chickpeas instead of canned ones, but it turns out that she did that as well. At any rate, here’s the amount I made. It was to her recipe that said it served 2, but a portion was much less than half the amount I made. It’s fine, though – Matt has another late night tomorrow, so I’ll just have it for dinner again then. And the next day for lunch.
Chickpea and Tuna Salad
Ingredients
~1 cup dry chickpeas, soaked (you can soak them in 3 cups of cold water overnight, or do like I did and add 3 cups of hot water, bring to a boil for 2 minutes, and then turn off the heat and let them sit for an hour), drained, and rinsed
2 cans tuna
1/4 cup mayonnaise
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 green onion, sliced
2 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
a handful of arugula leaves
pitas, to serve it in – I used mini-pitas, the ones about the size of your hand, not the size of a dinner plate
salt and pepper
Method
In a large enough bowl to hold everything, mix together the mayonnaise, lemon juice, and salt and pepper until smooth.
Stir in the chickpeas, tuna, parsley, and green onions until everything is evenly coated.
Pop a handful of arugula into a pita and top with the tuna mixture. Voila! Dinner achieved! Could it get any easier than 3 steps?
The peppery flavour of the arugula is awesome with this, I have to say. Maybe I should have been having my tuna sandwiches – the old-fashioned chickpealess kind – with arugula all along.
December 16, 2009 at 12:28 am · Filed under food, meals
This is diner food in Hong Kong. I’ve been to Hong Kong a bunch of times – sometimes on its own merits, more times because back in the day when we lived in Jakarta for a couple of years, to fly between Vancouver and Jakarta involved an overnight in Hong Kong. But I’ve never had this there. I suspect that my dad wouldn’t think of it as legitimate Hong Kong food, because it seems, on the surface, to be kind of western – all that delicious melted cheese! So when I was a kid, he wouldn’t have been about to get this for me. But maybe I’m not giving him enough credit; maybe he recognizes that it’s the Hong Kong take on some signifiers, to the Hong Kong palate, of western food. After all, the rice that forms the base layer of this dish is fried rice with peas and shreds of egg (well, they’re supposed to be shreds if you do it right, unlike me), and the pork chops are marinated in a soy sauce-based concoction that also involves ginger and rice wine. Even the fact that there’s ketchup in it makes it less “western,” counterintuitively. After all, ketchup isn’t normally used as a tomato sauce (in North American cooking, anyway – not sure about elsewhere), just as a condiment. So using it as a component of the sauce says, to me, “you Americans eat ketchup, right? On all your hamburgers that are all you eat? Thought so.” At any rate, we’re very much in favour of diners and diner food in this house. So now if I ever drag Matt to Hong Kong, we could totally hit up a diner and get this. Of course, there it’ll be made correctly.
I saw this on my new stalkee addition to my blogroll, Gourmet Traveller – seriously, this is the second recipe I’ve made from there, and I’ve saved at least 3 more – although I wound up making a few changes and substitutions. Some were on purpose, some were… born of necessity. I actually used rice wine vinegar instead of rice wine, but it didn’t taste vinegary at all. The original served one; I sort of doubled it, but not in every regard. Also, I had to fry things a little differently, because I realized, after starting, that I didn’t have regular canola oil on hand, only olive oil. Since olive oil has a higher smoke point than many other oils, you’re not supposed to use it, for instance, to stir-fry with. I have an electric wok, and its instructions specifically warn against using olive oil in it. So I didn’t use it; I made do with pans and less oil, but it heated weirdly and the pork chops wound up needing more time in the oven to cook fully after their initial pan-frying. I don’t think this is an insurmountable problem; if I had known in advance, I’d have used even less oil – like a regular sauteeing amount, not a semi-deep-frying amount – and a lower temperature, and I’m pretty sure it would’ve been just fine. Or I could just do it the correct way with the correct oil. Either way.
Baked Pork Chop Rice
Ingredients
2 pork chops
cold, cooked rice from 1 cup of dry rice
2 tbsp frozen peas
grated cheese to cover – I had mozzarella hanging around from the mushrooms, so that’s what I used, but whatever you have or like
corn starch
vegetable oil for frying, if you have it – otherwise, if it’s olive oil you’re using, use less and saute instead of doing what this recipe says later on
for the marinade
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp corn starch
2 tsp rice wine vinegar
1/2 tsp grated ginger – about a half-inch, I think it was
pinch of pepper
for the tomato sauce
4 tomatoes, chopped
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
4 tbsp ketchup – this is about 3 of the little packets, if you’re like us and have a bunch of them sitting around in the bottom of your fridge
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce – ok, pet peeve time: there is only ONE H in worcestershire! It’s not pronounced “wurr-chester-shire” but “wuss-ter-sure”!
1 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 cup water
2 tbsp oil
Method
Preheat the oven to 400.
Mix all the marinade ingredients together in whatever you’re going to marinate in.
Throw the pork chops into the marination receptacle and leave them in the fridge for 30 – 45 minutes.
In the meantime, make the tomato sauce.
Heat the oil in a pan over medium heat.
Add the garlic and onions and sweat them until translucent.
Add the tomatoes and saute another 5 – 6 minutes.
Stir in the rest of the sauce ingredients and let simmer for 10 – 12 minutes.
It should be just about time to take the pork chops out now, right? Especially if you didn’t do the chopping beforehand. So take them out if it’s time.
If you’ve got regular oil, heat about an inch of it in a small pan over high heat. If you’ve got olive oil, just a little splash will do.
Coat the pork chops in cornstarch.
Fry for 2 – 3 minutes per side or until golden. This is where you’d have problems using too hot an oil – the outside would be golden, or even burnt, and the inside wouldn’t be cooked.
Take them out and leave them to rest while you deal with the rice.
Heat the oil from the rice department in a wok or large pan.
Add the peas and pour in the beaten egg and fry until nearly set.
Add the rice and stir-fry until heated through. I think your egg is supposed to be in little cooked shreds by the end, but mine was just combined with the rice. It didn’t taste weird or eggy, though. Maybe this is actually correct and it’s a binding agent. Can’t tell. The point is, don’t freak out if this is how your rice appears.
Season with salt and pepper.
Spread the fried rice in the bottom of a casserole dish of appropriate size.
Slice the pork chops into strips or bite-sized pieces.
Layer these pork pieces on top of the rice.
Pour the tomato sauce over the top.
Cover with your cheese of choice.
Throw it in the oven for 20 minutes or until the cheese is getting all bubbly and browned and fantastic – be sure to check that the pork is cooked, though, particularly if it wasn’t all the way there after the frying. Mine wasn’t and required extra time.
December 14, 2009 at 10:06 pm · Filed under dessert, food
Last week, Matt went out after work one day with all his work friends. I was actually just getting ready to make those mushrooms for myself, because all I knew was that he was working late, but then he called right as I was heating the oil in the pan – hadn’t cooked anything yet, just chopped – and said they were at the bar (I was going to provide a link to it, because it’s a pretty good bar, but the picture on their website makes it look like a horrible meathead frat bar, which it isn’t – at least not on weeknights – and also crowded, which, again, not on weeknights) and did I want to come meet them? Of course, my answer was “of course,” so I put everything away and ran out the door. Only to realize, as soon as I’d crossed the street, that I’d forgotten something, so I ran back in. Now, I don’t drive, and I don’t have a driver’s license or a Massachusetts liquor ID (non-driver’s ID card for booze purposes), so I have to tote my passport around when I’m going to do something that will require proof of age. It was in my pocket. When I went back in and pulled my keys out of my pocket to unlock the door, I must have knocked it out without noticing, because when I got to the bar and was carded – I’m 27 – I couldn’t find it. The bartender was cool about it – after all, I’ve got wrinkles and I’m not wearing sweatpants and Uggs – but I was a little nervous that it had fallen out at the bus stop. But when we got home that night, it was under the door with a note. Our neighbour across the hall had found it and returned it. What a nice guy! So, naturally, I baked brownies and delivered half the pan to his door with another note (seen above). That photo is kind of a lie, though – they weren’t stacked on a plate, they were puzzle-pieced into a tupperware. Which he returned immediately. Captain Considerate over here.
The recipe is from Une Gamine Dans la Cuisine – excellent name by the way – and hers involved a cinnamon icing that I opted not to make. Partly it was because I thought they’d be rich and delicious enough without it (they were), but also because I didn’t have the time. I was actually making the mushrooms that same night, so I wanted to get done with the brownies so I could move on to mushrooms. So if you want some cinnamon icing on them, which is probably ridiculously delicious, click that link and go find out all about it. Otherwise, here’s the just-the-brownie recipe. What did I change? Let’s see. Maybe just leaving off the icing and also using my 9×9 pan, which made them kind of taller, but that is not what I call a problem.
Mocha Spice Brownies
Ingredients
1 1/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp paprika
1 1/2 tsp instant espresso powder
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2/3 cup butter, divided in half and melted (I melted the two halves in two separate bowls)
1/2 cup boiling water (or just very hot water – I didn’t boil mine, but our hot water out of the sink tap is ridiculously hot, so I just used that)
2 cups sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup dark chocolate chips (oh yes, these exist, happiness in my mouth)
Method
Preheat the oven to 350.
Line a brownie pan – whatever size you choose! – with tinfoil, and if it’s not the nonstick kind, maybe grease it. P.S., let the edges of the tinfoil come over the edges of the pan so you can take the brownies out easily later.
Whisk together the first 7 ingredients – flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, espresso powder, paprika, and salt.
In a large bowl, combine the cocoa powder and one of the things of melted butter.
Stir in the hot water until thickened.
Add the sugar, eggs, vanilla, and the other thing of butter and stir to combine.
Fold the bowl of dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, stirring no more than is necessary to get rid of all the signs of flour.
Stir in the chocolate chips.
Pour into the pan.
Bake for 30 – 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Take them out with the tinfoil – easy pease! – and let cool. On a rack or whatever.
December 13, 2009 at 10:15 pm · Filed under food, meals, side dishes/appetizers
Last week, Matt had to work late a few times. I made myself these stuffed mushrooms one of the nights. I realize they’re supposed to be an appetizer, but eating half a dozen of them is a meal, isn’t it? Plus, they left us with salami, great for sandwiches – and we even made a pizza with it last night!
The recipe is from My Gourmet Connection. I halved it, but I still had a little extra filling, which I just ate straight out of the pan. Delicious.
Stuffed Mushrooms
Ingredients
8 oz white mushrooms
1 tbsp olive oil
3 slices Genoa salami, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 small onion, diced
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 cup breadcrumbs (I used Italian seasoned ones, and while of course I have nothing against which to compare it, I’d say this is a great choice)
a little shake of crushed red pepper flakes
a little handful of flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1 tbsp parmesan
shredded mozzarella to top
salt and pepper
Method
Preheat the oven to 350.
Clean the mushrooms and dig the stems out.
Throw the stems in a food processor and cause them to become tiny bits. Or, y’know, just chop them finely.
Heat the olive oil in a pan over medium heat.
Add the chopped mushroom stems, garlic, onion, and salami, and saute for 5 – 6 minutes.
Add the butter and let it melt.
Once it’s melted, add the lemon juice and breadcrumbs and stir to combine.
Add the red pepper flakes and salt and pepper to taste.
Now add the parsley and parmesan and remove from the heat.
Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray.
Pack the crumb mixture into the upturned mushrooms (and your mouth).
Sprinkle the top of each mushroom with mozzarella.
Bake for 15 minutes.
December 13, 2009 at 12:10 am · Filed under dessert, food, side dishes/appetizers
For that same party where I brought the failbuns, I also (mercifully) brought chocolate almonds. Mercifully, because then when people asked me what I brought, I could say “Chocolate almonds!” and not be lying. Although I’d rather have lied and said “nothing” than to have to own up to the buns. They’re made more or less to the recipe found here, although he’s a chef and I’m a schmo, and I just melted regular baking chocolate to dip them in, instead of tempering a bunch of couverture chocolate. My results were fine, contrary to what he says on his site (that not only will it not be glossy, which is moot since it’s covered with cocoa powder, but it’ll also flake off and come apart – this didn’t happen, and anyway this was not the kind of party where people care about these details).
There are actually 3 different kinds. Two chocolate ones – one that’s just rolled in cocoa powder and sugar, and one that’s dipped in chocolate and then rolled in the cocoa powder mixture – and one that’s rolled in ground cardamom. I didn’t get to try any of those. I didn’t see anyone eating any at the party, but that was probably because they were kind of hidden… and then at one point there was a jar of mayonnaise sitting on top of one of them. But I’m sure our friend got to enjoy them eventually, when everyone had left.
Chocolate Almonds
Ingredients
2 cups almonds
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch salt
a few squares of baking chocolate, melted, whatever sweetness level you like (I used 3 squares and it wasn’t enough for all of the almonds, but I don’t know how many more it would have taken… or you could do like me and just dip some of them)
3 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp icing sugar
Method
Lightly toast the almonds – not too much, they’ll go back over the heat in a bit, just enough to get a little colour in the middle.
Put the sugar, water, salt, and vanilla in a pot and bring to a boil.
Allow to boil for 1 minute.
Add the almonds and stir until the liquid is almost completely gone.
Remove from the heat and keep stirring until a sandy coating forms on the almonds.
Put them back on the heat and keep stirring until this sandy coating starts to caramelize, but before it all gets completely caramelized. I don’t know if that’s a “don’t worry about it” thing or an “it’s not possible to caramelize them completely” thing, but either way, once the nuts start to go, you’re done.
Pour them out onto a swath of tinfoil – the nonstick kind is ideal – and let cool while you take care of the toppings.
If you’re going to coat them with the cocoa powder mixture, mix together the cocoa powder and icing sugar. Or you could use different spices.
If you want to dip them in the chocolate and then the powder, that’s cool, dunk them into the chocolate, then fish them out and drop them in the powder, then fish them out of that. The hardest part about this is the fishing out, honestly.
Otherwise, just roll them in the cocoa mixture and call it a day. Or, honestly, you don’t have to roll them in anything. They’re pretty good all by themselves.
December 11, 2009 at 1:53 pm · Filed under breads, food
Well, this was a depressing failure. The worst part is that I didn’t do anything wrong! I didn’t change proportions, didn’t make substitutions, didn’t bake fewer at a time than the recipe said, didn’t go rogue on the oven temperature. They smelled amazing. And then, 2 minutes before it was time to take them out of the oven, I started smelling some burniness. So I whipped them out, and they were kind of dark, but I was hoping they’d just have a crunchy crust and still be pretty good on the inside. I tried to get them to soften up by putting them in a tupperware before they were done, so the condensation might soften them. But here’s the thing. I made them to take to a party, and nobody would touch them. Everyone was talking about them – my favourite quote of the evening, and by favourite I mean most likely to make me laugh instead of cry, was “Who brought these weapons?” I also overheard someone telling her boyfriend that she had picked one up expecting it to be soft, but after being unpleasantly surprised, she couldn’t put it back because she’d already touched it, so she stashed it in her purse. Needless to say, I didn’t own up to having made them. I hope nobody connects them with me – among a few of these people, I have a good reputation because of my churros. In fact, the same guy that made the “weapons” comment said, upon trying the churros, “Oh my GOD! These are, like, from the Tibetan Book of the Dead! The good part!” I can’t let these people down! So I just shushed about it.
The recipe came from Dulcis In Furno, and obviously it worked for her! And it’s not even a translating measurements thing – she does that for her readers, and from the looks of things, it’s not a mistake on her part. I don’t knowwww! I wanted to cry when I pulled them out of the oven. I kind of want to cry now just thinking about it! So why am I posting the recipe? Because I don’t know what went wrong. It’s obviously not an inherently flawed recipe – the original looks perfect, and the smell was beautiful until shortly before I took it out – and if someone else makes it, it might work for them, who knows.
Herb and Bacon Buns
Ingredients
2 3/4 cups flour
2 tbsp butter, melted
2/3 cup warm water, divided
4 slices bacon
1 1/2 tbsp yeast
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp chopped fresh herbs – I used mostly sage, and then also some thyme, because I had them hanging around, but use whatever you like or need to use up
milk to brush the tops with
Method
Dissolve the yeast in 1/4 cup of the warm water with the sugar.
Mix in the flour, melted butter, salt, and the rest of the water until the dough is elastic.
Cover with plastic wrap and leave in a warm place to rise for about an hour and a half, or until about doubled in volume.
Meanwhile, cook the bacon.
Drain it on paper towels and break it up into little bits.
Punch down the dough.
Knead in the bacon pieces and herbs.
Pull it apart into 12 equal pieces and roll each piece into a ball.
Arrange them on a greased baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap.
Leave to rise for another hour.
Sometime during the hour, turn on the oven to preheat to 425.
When the hour is up, brush the tops of the buns with milk.
Bake for 40 minutes, but it would not hurt to keep checking on them, and take them out if they look done, because apparently 40 minutes might make them into rock-hard little projectiles.
Of course, if they turn out like mine, you could always just throw them at people you don’t like, so it’s not a total loss.
December 8, 2009 at 12:04 am · Filed under food, meals
We came home from Thanksgiving with leftovers, of course, because that’s what you do. Most of the leftovers were things Matt was not interested in, either because he didn’t want to eat them in the first place (vegetables, stuffing), or because he doesn’t like them as leftovers (mashed potatoes). He loves mashed potatoes the first time around, but in his opinion, the leftovers get an unpleasant texture when reheated. I may have mentioned this before; I think I have, with the ham and cheese croquettes, and I’ll probably forget that I’ve already mentioned it and do it again the next time we have leftover mashed potatoes hanging around and I cook something with them. Sorry in advance.
The thing I cooked with them this time was shepherd’s pie, except it’s actually cottage pie when you use beef instead of lamb. There are people who are quite picky about this, so I’m making it known: this was a cottage pie, as it did not use the fruits of any shepherd’s labour. Maybe people used to keep their beef cattle in the cottage with them. And furthermore, we had been watching an episode of The F Word at Matt’s mom’s house – she gets BBC America – and it had featured Gordon Ramsay’s recipe for shepherd’s pie, presented in that show’s typical dramatic style (“Potatoes. Mashed. Mince. Seasoned. Red wine. DONE.”), so I was inspired to see if I could find an actual recipe. I found a few, cut them down to 2-person size, and mixed and matched from them to make something I could live with. I also omitted the part where he made the mashed potatoes, since obviously I had that already made. The man himself would probably yell at me and call me a donkey. I’m sure I ruined it horribly, as far as his standards go. We don’t know any better, though, and Matt ate 3/4 of it, so obviously it wasn’t totally inedible, Gordon.
Shepherd’s Pie/Cottage Pie, After Gordon Ramsay
Ingredients
~1 lb ground beef (or use ground lamb to make it a real shepherd’s pie, if you fear the wrath of Ramsay)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, diced (the recipe I was following here had it grated, but that turned into wet onion mush for me, and you know the more liquid that comes out of an onion the more tears, so I gave up and just diced it, and I recommend you do the same)
1 small carrot, grated
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tbsp tomato paste
1 sprig thyme (well, the leaves from it, I mean… you knew that)
1/2 sprig rosemary
1/2 cup red wine
3/4 cup chicken stock
about 2 potatoes worth of mashed potatoes – I’m guessing here, because I actually made another potato after realizing the leftovers weren’t going to be enough, and I think I wound up doubling the amount I had
3 tbsp parmesan
salt and pepper
Method
Preheat the oven to 350.
Heat the oil over medium-high heat in a large skillet.
Add the beef and salt and pepper it to your liking.
Cook it, breaking up into small pieces, for 2 – 3 minutes. No, it won’t be done yet.
Stir in onion, carrot, and garlic.
Add worcestershire sauce, tomato paste, thyme, and rosemary, and cook, stirring constantly, for another 2 minutes.
Now pour in the chicken stock and stir until thickened. For me, this ultimately required the addition of a pinch of corn starch… otherwise it was just not going to happen.
Get your mashed potatoes and stir the parmesan into them.
Spread the meat mixture into the bottom of an appropriately-sized ovenproof casserole dish.
Spread the potatoes overtop, fluffing up little points because that’s cool.
Sprinkle a little more parmesan, salt, and pepper on top.
Bake for 20 minutes, or until golden brown.
