Pies

The pies I made for Thanksgiving turned out really well. The black bottom bourbon pecan pie was a hit and the other one seemed to tp be well received too. I didn't use that pie crust recipe and I used dark chocolate for the bottom.

Now I'm trying to figure out what cookies to make for turducken. My traditional chocolate chip are a given and I'm probably going to do a rolled sugar cookie since Rory gave me one of my Christmas presents early. But I would like one more and am stuck. Any ideas?

Thanksgiving

It may be cliche, but I do love Thanksgiving. Hanging out, eating and drinking, no expectations about gifts, just a good time. We head to the in laws and my family is also invited, which is great because we don't have to split up the holiday.

I'm doing something different this year, pies and bread. I'll be doing a black bottom pecan pie, a regular pecan pie, corn bread and some dinner rolls. The last couple of years I had been making a cauliflower gratin but I wasn't happy with it last year.


This year's recipes are a stretch for me, I've made one pie before in my life and have only made bread once before too, though I do have a bit of experience with pizza dough.

I'm planning on doing most of the prep tomorrow. I'll blind bake the pie shells, make the dough for the rolls and do everything with the cornbread.

The one point of contention is what to use for the pie crust, shortening or butter. There seems to be two camps on this so I'm splitting  the difference and using half butter and half shortening.

Thursday morning I'll make the fillings for the pies and bake them off. I'll have the rolls on sheet pans ready to go in the oven before dinner is served so they're nice and piping hot too.

Hopefully I'll remember to take pictures to post later. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

To do: Tiramisu cupcakes

Far and away, my favorite dessert is tiramisu. I have made a version of it a couple of times and an ice cream version, which is pretty awesome. Rory today sent me this link to tiramisu cupcakes. One day I will make them and they will be awesome.

Prep list

Rory and I are hosting a couple of friends for dinner Saturday. I'm not doing anything too complex, salad, pork tenderloin with with a couple of sides and dessert. The meal is taken mainly from the Ad Hoc cookbook.

And while this meal is pretty simple, I find myself, for the first time, writing a prep list. Now whenever I go to the grocery store I have a list, I can't think of a time in the last couple of years where I haven't had a list when I went to the store, it just makes me more efficient. But for this meal, because of some of the little complexities, I find myself making sure that I take care of some of the little things too.

Most of the recipes are pretty simple but there are a few things I need to do in advance. I'm doing this smashed roasted potatoes, which call for garlic confit, and these torn croutons, which need the oil from the confit but I need to do it ahead of time.

Then there's the brine for the pork and the custard for the ice cream and we can't forget the brownies, but should I make them the day before or the day of?

Today:
Shop
Make garlic confit
Make custard for ice cream
Make brine for pork

Friday:
Churn ice cream (maybe, I might wait till Saturday)
Make brownies

Saturday:
Brine pork
Do everything else

Ok, looking at it now maybe I didn't have to write it all out and I'm probably going to have to work on the last day a bit, but still interesting to see the process.

Cinnamon ice cream

The ice cream experiences are going extremely well and friends are making requests (mint chocolate chip and cookies and cream are the two most popular). I made my first custard-based ice cream last week, a cinnamon ice cream, this again is from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz.

1 cup of whole milk
3.4 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
Ten three-inch cinnamon sticks broken up
2 cups of heavy cream
5 large egg yolks

Warm the milk, sugar, salt, cinnamon and one cup of the cream in a saucepan. Once warm remove from heat and let steep for about an hour.

Rewarm the mixture and remove the cinnamon sticks. Add remaining cup of cream to a separate bowl in an ice bath.

In separate bowl whisk egg yolks. Add portion of warm milk mixture to eggs yolks whisking constantly. Add warm egg yolks to milk mixture and stir constantly until it coats the back of a spatula.

Pour through strainer into cup of cream in ice bath and stir until cool. Once cool store in fridge and make according to ice cream makers instructions.

This was an excellent ice cream, good flavor and a texture like I've never tasted before. I may be ruined for store bought ice cream.

Ice Cream

As I mentioned, we received the ice cream maker attachment to the KitchenAid mixer so last Friday I stared looking online for recipes, which I found a bit frustrating.

The base for many ice creams is called a creme anglaise, which is basically different types of dairy, sugar and eggs heated and mixed, of what some may call a custard. There are many, many different version as I found out. I was getting annoyed so I decided to spend some of the $50 in Borders gift cards I had and bought The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz. I read his blog quite a bit and find his recipes pretty easy to follow and the book is no different.

So, on tap this week is a chocolate, rasberry ice cream along with a orange popsicle ice cream. These are both "Philadelphia-style" ice creams, no egg yolks and no creme anglaise, trying to start slowly and see then step it up. I'll let you know how they turn out.

Guiness cupcakes with a twist

I'm on a bit of a cupcake making jag and did some again, this time for John's 30th birthday. When I asked Rory which ones I should make she said Guinness cupcakes because they have beer in them and we'll be drinking beer at John and Ruth's.

I had made them once before, a recipe from my sister, but I couldn't find that one so I just did a quick Yahoo search. I thought this recipe looked good so I went with it. I went with sour cream over yogurt and I used the cream cheese frosting from Paula Dean that I had made for the red velvet cupcakes, though I halved the recipe.

I also did one other little thing. I had some chocolate ganache left over from when I did the vanilla cupcakes. I had been meaning to make truffles, but instead I took some of the ganache and put it in the center of each of the cupcakes.

The end results were really, really good. Nice moist cake with good texture and a nice pop of dark chocolate. I would say they're the best cupcakes I've ever made.

Vanilla cupcakes

It was my buddy Ben's birthday this past weekend and he asked someone to make a cake. I obliged with some cupcakes.

I asked my sister, the cupcake queen, if she could recommend a yellow cupcake recipe and she referred to the Amy Sedaris recipe that I found on Epicurious. The only change I made was cooking them at 350 instead of 375 to avoid the "hockey puck" issue that was discussed in the comments.

I also did a ganache instead of butter cream. I'm a big fan of the ganache and it's a whole lot easier to work with than anything else.

9 ounces dark chocolate chips
1 cup of heavy cream
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon dark rum

Place cream in a saucepan over medium heat, add sugra and rum, mix until sugar is disolved. Bring to just about a boil and pour hot cream over chcolcate and whisk the two together until smooth.

Let cool for abot 30 to 45 minutes and dip the top of the cupcakes into the ganache and set aside.

Everybody at the party seemed to enjoy them. They were moist and had a good texture but not a lot of flavor, but then again yellow cake doesn't taste like a whole lot anyway.

Red velvet cupcakes

Did some baking this weekend, first time I had done any since the holidays. It was Sarah's birthday and she requested baked goods

I did make Paula Deen's red velvet cupcakes and frosting, though with a couple of changes. When I saw this recipe I noticed the 334 comments and reviews. This seemed like a lot to me. I look at recipes all the time online and often look at the comments to see if the recipe needs to be tweaked in any way.

The comments for the recipe were so different, people either loved or hated the recipe. There were also a couple of modifications that I incorporated into the recipe I made.

Instead of using one teaspoon of coco powder I used two tablespoons, one teaspoon didn't seem like nearly enough, and in reality they still could have used more. I also only used one cup of vegetable oil and upped the buttermilk to 1.5 cups.

The frosting concerned me (see post below) but it was really good. By far it was the best frosting I've ever made. The only problem was I could have easily halved the recipe and still had plenty of frosting for the cupcakes. I ended up tossing a lot of it.

Rory and people at the party said the cupcakes were really good, though I was a little disapointed. I didn't think they had a really good flavor and I they were a little dry.

Frosting

I still consider myself new to the whole baking experience, but I'm getting the hang of it. The one area where I have had numerous issues though is frosting for cupcakes and cakes (ganache being the one expception but that's also idiot proof). I've probably tried to make half a dozen and every time I tossed them.

Well, it's Sarah's birthday Saturday and I was asked to bake. I'm going to make the double chocolate chip cookies with the sea salt and some red velvet cupcakes. My sister, a cupcake goddess, suggested I look at Paula Dean's recipe for red velvet cupcakes.

The recipe for the cupcakes seems pretty straightforward, though I am going to maake some of the substitutions recommended in the comments.

But then I looked at the recipe for the frosting and I was blown away. One pound of cream cheese, two sticks of butter and FOUR CUPS of powdered sugar. Holy crap, that's a lot of fat and sugar. When I was making frosting before I wasn't putting anywhere near that much powdered sugar in them, maybe that was my problem all along.

Simple, but delicious

Sunday evening we had Kate, Jay and their two boys over for dinner. Hanks is four-years old and Charlie is about seven-month old. While I knew I didn't have to worry about Charlie I wanted something that Hank would be able to enjoy as well as the adults.

I opted for roast chicken, asparagus and mashed potatoes and a very simple but nice dessert. I've made all the meals before and have posted on them, except for the dessert, though I did a couple of things differently.

For the chicken I did a really nice compound butter. I diced two medium shallots along with about a teaspoon of thyme, a tablespoon of ground sage and freshly ground black pepper and probably two tablespoons of salt. I know it sounds like a lot of salt but you need it. I combined all those with about a stick and a half of room-temperature butter.

I took the butter and rubbed it under the skin of the chicken along with some in the cavity and on top. I then took some sea salt and pepper and put that on the skin as well.

The mashed potatoes I make are simple. Peeled red potatoes cooked in boiling water. drain and add butter, salt, pepper and fat-free sour cream and mash.

The asparagus was cooked in a frying pan with some olive oil, salt and pepper.

The meal was good, even Hank seemed to enjoy eating a fair amount of asparagus, which surprised me.

The dessert was fun and easy. The recipe was based off a recipe from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food. I used fresh berries instead of frozen and added a couple of other changes. Here's what I did.

6 oz Blueberries
6 oz Blackberries
6 oz Raspberries
1 TBL fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup water
6 TBL sugar
1 cup of AP flour
1 TSP baking powder
1/2 TSP baking soda
1/8 TSP salt
2 TBL unsalted butter melted
1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk
1/8 TSP ground cinanamon
1/2 TSP ground nutmeg

In a frying pan over medium heat cook berries, water, lemon juice, 4 tablespoons of sugar until thick.

In a bowl combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, butter and buttermilk until thick dough forms. After berries have reduced make dicide dough into six dumplings and place over cooked berries.

In a small container cmbine one tablespoon sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg and sprinkle over dumplings. Lower heat to medium low, cover pan and cook for about 15 minutes. Serve warm over vanilla ice cream.

Apple Pie

I realized one of my bad cooking habits this week. When looking for a recipe I tend to look at the ingredients and not read the instructions. It's a habit I need to get out of because it sometimes gets me in trouble, such as with the apple pie recipe.

My main criteria when looking for this recipe were simple ingredients. I didn't want to half a dozen obscure spices or liquids (Sorry Alton, your apple pie recipe looked great, but I didn't feel like buying Apple Jack, four different type of apples and other ingredients I would have a hard time using in the future).

So when I saw the recipe at Savuer I was psyched, seemed pretty simple, and since I was making my first pie simple is what I wanted. I went out and bought all the ingredients and was exited at the prospect of putting it all together.

Saturday morning I look at the recipe and realize that I'm making a hell of a big pie. instead of using your typical pie plate I was using a 9 by 13 inch pan. Don't ask me why the dozen apples and six lemons didn't tip me off, but they didn't. I can be a bit slow sometimes. The main problem being that I was cooking this for five and thought it would mostly be gone and now I still half a pan of apple pie.

So I started out making the pie dough and it went well at the start. I cut the shortening into the dough and added the milk. All seemed well as I put it in the fridge to rest.

Next up were the apples. Since I am forbidden to buy any kitchen gear until after the wedding I was on my own peeling, slicing and coring the apples. This was quite a bit of work.

I let the dough rest for about 90 minutes. I started rolling it out and had some issued, it was too dry and crumbly. Rory suggested adding milk, which worked perfectly. Since I don't own a rolling pin I used a wine bottle to roll the dough. Again, kind of a pain in the ass. Also, getting the dough into the big pan was a challenge, but with Rory's help we got through it.

The end result was good, a bit too lemony, so the vanilla ice cream worked well at cutting the acidity. I will make this recipe again, but not until after I have the proper equipment. A real rolling pin and apple corer/slicer would have cut the prep time in half.

Short ribs redux

Rory and I decided to have some people over for dinner on Friday. Thad, Erika, Loraine and Alex were two couples we were long overdue in having over, especially since Erika is a frequent reader of the blog. I pretty much stuck to thing I knew here, other than with dessert.

I actually made the very first recipe I ever posted here. And while it was good the first time around, this time it was much, much better. Three major difference: better browning, dried mushrooms, more reduction.

I wasn't able to buy the flanken style short ribs that I like, so I had to go with something smaller, but I really got a good sear on them. The last few months have really taught me the importance of getting a good crust on the meat.

The first time around I didn't think the dried mushrooms were that important, I was wrong. They added an earthiness that really gave the flavor some extra depth. I won't skip this again.

Reduction: I didn't do this right last time. Basically a half hour before we sat down I took the meat out of the pot and cranked up the heat and let it cook down for a little more than a half hour. The results was this thick, rich sauce that was awesome.

I roasted the asparagus and made the usual mashed potatoes. The only thing I may do differently is not cook it for as long as I did in the future. The meat cooked for about six and a half hours and was pretty much falling apart. I could probably get just as goof flavor with the meat holding together if I cooked it for three hours.

But overall, the entree was great, the dessert, well, it tasted good.

I attempted to make my first ever souffle, a dark chocolate and lime souffle in individual ramekins. The recipe isn't very complex, but I wanted to do as much as possible beforehand so I wasn't in the kitchen after dinner. I decided to make the chocolate portion of the dessert before any one arrived and then after dinner whip the egg whites and finish the job.

It didn't work. By the time I got to the chocolate mixture it was all crumbly. I tried adding some of the whipped egg whites but it wasn't taking. I added a little water mixed it and then added the egg whites and it still seemed too heavy. I put the batter in the ramekins and baked for about 15 minutes. The result: individual brownies. They were good, but they weren't souffle. At least I know what I did wrong.

Deadlines and other excuses

I have been remiss from updating the blog and my only real excuse is work. Rory and I have been tremendously busy as well, but my failure to update here has been purely work related.

I can't believe how quickly the summer has passed. It's been a lot of fun, we're less than a year out from the wedding now, the White Sox are in first place and I'm enjoying the job I started at the beginning of the year quite a bit.

I've also been enjoying cooking as well, having done a few different things lately. This past Sunday I was hankering for some comfort food and wanted to make the pork roast my mom used to make when I was growing up.

I couldn't find an actual pork roast like she would use so I bought a pork shoulder. I seared the shoulder on all side and then made a paste with about six cloves of garlic and a couple of teaspoons of dried rosemary and salt and pepper. I cooked it at 325 degrees for about three hours. I was worried about it drying out but it turned out really well, very moist.

A little more than a week ago my mom had gone up to Michigan and brought back a bunch of blueberries. Last week I made some muffins and then yesterday I used the rest to make a cobbler.

And yes, I know it's a Rachel Ray recipe and I'm not proud of it but it was damn tasty. Served with a bit of vanilla ice cream it turned out quite well and was pretty simple.

And I have also forgotten to take picture of my latest food porn, sorry about that. I'll try to be better in the future.

A Bittman-inspired meal

As I said, I was ready to cook last week and I was happy when I finally got around to it. The main things I cooked were a basic tomato sauce and a no bake cheesecake, both from Mark Bittman's blog last week.

I did a couple of things different with the sauce, though I followed the basic premise. I bought some fresh basil and added that as well as some garlic and shallots. Also, After it had cooked down for awhile and was still a little chunky I took the immersion blender to it to make it a nice puree. It turned out really well and had a great fresh flavor.

The cheesecake was pretty easy as well. I followed the recipe pretty strictly on this one, though I did add a bit of sugar to the ricotta/cream cheese mix because I didn't think it was sweet enough, not much though, a couple of tablespoons at most.

I have a few other things up my sleeve this week too. I have the smell of garlic, shallots going through the apartment right now as I'm braising a beef round roast in a mirepoix and red wine. It will eventually be a different type of Bolognese, but that's a few hours away. Not exactly seasonal cooking, but the beef was on sale.

Chocolate panna cotta layer cake

(photo by: Con Poulos, courtesy of Bon Appetit)

When I saw this recipe my mouth started to water. I had been wanting to make a panna cotta for awhile and this recipe looked great. I had a feeling it was going to push my baking skills and it did, but the results were fantastic.

I made if for Mother's Day to bring to my parents house. The cake came together pretty simply, it was the panna cotta that was a bit trickier. Even as it cooled it was still pretty thin. After pouring the mixture over the first layer of the cake I put it in the freezer for about an hour. The I put the second layer and covered again in the panna cotta. I let it sit for another couple of hours in the freezer and then covered and kept in the freezer until Sunday morning (I made the cake on Friday).

Since I didn't have a good way to transport the cake to the suburbs I didn't do the chocolate bands so my cake didn't look as nice as the one posted above. But it was quite tasty. Everything was very light and it had a great flavor to it. Next time, as long as I don't have to transport, I'll make the chocolate bands.

Lemon Cheesecake

On Saturday my buddy Mark and his wife Chris had a Derby Party. They asked me to make a dessert so I opted for this lemon cheesecake that I had made before. It's a Bittman recipe from How to Cook Everything. Mark's coworker asked for the recipe so I typed it out and figured I would include it here as well with my comments.

Here you go. It's a bit more complicated than your
traditional cheesecake recipes, but I really like it
because of the light texture. This is from Mark
Bittman's How to Cook Everything.

Graham Cracker Crust

12 tablespoons unsalted butter
12 ounces broken graham crackers
6 tablespoons of sugar.

Melt butter over low heat in saucepan. Combine sugar
with graham cracker crumbs. Slowly add the butter and
combine. Press the crumbs into the bottom of a
well-greased nine-inch spring form pan. (You can
probably go with a bit thinner of a crust and use only
nine or ten ounces of graham cracker crumbs.)

Lemon Cheesecake recipe
4 eggs separated
24 ounces of cream cheese
Grated zest and juice of one lemon
1 cup of sugar
1 tablespoon of all-purpose flour

Sour cream topping (I didn't do this for the one I
made Saturday)
2 cups of sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees

Using an electric mixer beat the egg yolks until
light; add the cheese, lemon zest and juice, and 1 cup
of the sugar and beat until smooth (you'll want too
leave the cream cheese out at room temperature for a
couple of hours to soften before making the
cheesecake). Stir in the flour.

Beat the egg whites until the hold soft peaks (I use
an electric mixer). With a rubber spatula gently fold
the egg whites into the yolk cheese mixture until
combined thoroughly. Add the batter to the prepared
spring form pan.

Bittman now suggests cooking the cheesecake in a water
bath. I've made this a couple of times, once with and
once without. You use a water bath to prevent the eggs
from curdling, but the chances of this happening are
slim.

If you don't want to take any chances, place a
roasting pan or another large pan in your preheated
oven. Place the cheese cake in the center of the pan
and fill the larger pan with warm water until it comes
within an inch of the top of the spring form pan.

Cook for about an hour or until the top of the cake is
very lightly brown.

If you want to add the sour cream top, after removing
the cake from oven crank the heat up to 450 degrees.
Add the topping and place back in the oven, without
the water bath, for 10 minutes. Turn off the oven and
let cake rest in the oven for about 30 minutes. Remove
from oven and let rest for another 30 minutes and then
place in the fridge. 

Zack recommends: Saveur

For my birthday this year my parents got me a subscription to Saveur. My buddy Jay recommended it and said it was better than most of the other ones out there and more up my alley.

And he was right, it's blowing me away. The theme of the first issue I received was butter. The Second issue was pasta, more specifically Bolognese, a sauce I love to cook. Some of the recipes are very complex, other are simple, but it's the writing that blows me away.

The feature on the City of Ragu and Bologna was some of the best food writing I've seen. Sadly, it's not online, but I felt as if I could almost smell the city and the foods. At some point I will make all the Bolognese recipes feature in the issue, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

The one recipe I did make is this pound cake recipe, which was a bit of an adventure. It just looked too good to pass up. Now I don't own a tube pan and when I went to buy one all they had were silicon bundt pans. I know silicon is supposed to be great to bake with, but I wasn't feeling good about it.

The assembling of ingredients went fine. I places the bundt pan on a cookie sheet I let it cook for an hour and it wasn't done. Ten minutes late I checked it again and the toothpick came out clean. I let it rest for 15 or 20 minutes and removed it without an issue.

The pound cake was going to be the case for strawberry shortcake, which I soaked in a little balsamic. Time was growing short and we needed to be out the door in a bit so I was trying to figure out how to transport it when I noticed the center was all gooey. The middle hadn't cooked all the way. I blamed placing it on the cookie sheet because the heat didn't have a chance to cook through the center of the pan.

So what did I do? I cut it out. I took a knife and cut out the portion that was gooey and sliced up the rest of the cake. It worked and what we had was quite excellent. Though I didn't tell my friends what happened. I told them I had trouble getting it out of the pan.

Chocolate cupcakes

My sister has long been considered the baker in the family. The fact that I even started baking has caused her some consternation. But this post will probably send her over the edge as I clearly cross the line into her territory: cupcake land. My sister has made a wide variety of cupcakes for different family events and they all have been excellent.

This was my first foray into making cupcakes. Rory was co hosting a surprise birthday party for one of her very close friends. The party was being held at a bar, but we were able to bring in some of our own food. She was going to buy cupcakes, but then I offered to step in to bake some myself.

I found Ina Gartner's Chocolate Ganache Cupcake recipe and knew they would be good. I tripled the recipe and they turned out excellent. Just dipping the tops of the cupcakes into the ganache was a nice touch as well and they looked great.

Though never having made cupcakes before I ran into a couple of problems. I overfilled some of the cups and didn't grease the tops of pan so some of the tops stuck. Also, I wasn't very careful when pouring some of the batter and some liners and it got on the outside of them. This cause the cupcakes to stick to the pan. Overall not too bad for my first try and now I know what to watch out for.

Been sick ...

So I haven't been cooking. And with the holiday upon us I don't know if I'll be doing much between now and then. Though I do have to make a cake or Christmas Eve at my folks house. Rory and I are going to make the same cake we did for Thanksgiving. I would like to find a different cake recipe though. We used Bittman's, and it was fine, but there has to be something better. But alas, I have grown tired of looking through the Food Network site for another recipe.

Last night I thawed some beef stew I made awhile back. When I first made it I wasn't impressed. I under seasoned it and the sour cream/horseradish topping didn't work. But last night with a little added salt and pepper I was impressed. It tasted pretty good, but then again anything hot that helped clear up my sinuses would have probably been great.

Anyway, it might be a few days before my next post. If you have a chocolate cake recipe you like let me know. Otherwise I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday.