How To Cook Like Your Grandmother

Cheesy Poofs, Take 2

2009-07-09T22:27:00.000-04:00

When I did the original version of the cheesy poofs, I decided I should roll them in Parmesan before baking them.

Yup. Definitely a winner. Just look at those things.

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Directions

Go look up the previous version for the ingredients and directions. (Add the salt to the dough, like I said then.) The only change here is, after rolling them out, put some grated Parmesan in a shallow bowl and roll the poofs in it.

Bake the same way as before.

And that's it.

These things are so addictive.

How To Make Perfect Brownies

2009-07-07T12:14:00.004-04:00

I've tried lots of brownie recipes: Boxes, scratch, frosted, plain, nuts, chips, fudge ... Each of them has something to like, but depending on my mood I might want a change of pace.

Not any more. My wife found this recipe, and it's perfect. I'm done looking. This is the brownie recipe that I'll use from now on.

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Ingredients

1-1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder (see note below)
3 eggs
3/4 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (see note below)

Directions

A NOTE ON CHOCOLATE: You'll notice the list of ingredients is very short. That means the quality of the chocolate makes a huge difference. The chocolate flavor is front-and-center -- not the sugar, not the richness, the chocolate. I used Ghirardelli unsweetened cocoa powder, and Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips.

The assembly is about as easy as you can get. Combine the sugar, flour, cocoa, eggs and melted butter and mix.

Do this by hand, until the dry ingredients are just incorporated into the wet, and stop. You don't need to beat it, and in fact want to avoid producing gluten from the flour. (Kneading flour produces gluten, the springy protein that makes bread chewy.)

Stir in the chocolate chips.

Line a 9x13 baking dish with parchment. I over-did it a little bit here, because I wanted to be absolutely sure it didn't stick. As long as you cover the bottom you should be good, as it will pull away from the edges while baking.

Pour the batter and spread it out. Don't try to spread it like mayo on bread, or you'll move the parchment around. Poke at it with the tip of a rubber spatula.

Bake at 325° for 20-30 minutes. It's done when a toothpick inserted in the tallest part comes out clean. Keep in mind you've got chips in there. If you hit one with the toothpick it will have melted chocolate on it. You might need to poke a couple of spots to make sure you aren't hitting a chip.

Very carefully lift the parchment out of the baking dish. Get a spare set of hands if you can.

Peel the edges and let cool for a few minutes before slicing.

Pour yourself a glass of milk, and that's it.

How To Make Lemon Bars

2009-07-03T14:32:00.002-04:00

I like lemon bars. Always have. But they're usually made with Jello, or some other pre-packaged stuff that I really don't want to pay attention to or I won't want to eat it.

But these ... oh my goodness. All good ingredients, and the most perfect flavor ever. Not too tart, not cloyingly sweet. Just, well ... perfect.

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Ingredients

1 fruit bar crust
2 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons lemon juice (about 1 lemon)
2 teaspoons lemon rind (about 1 lemon)

Directions

This one's easy. Combine the sugar, baking powder, salt, eggs and flour.

Squeeze the lemon, strain out the seeds, and measure out what you need.

I usually don't recommend new hardware unless it really makes a difference, but if you're going to be doing a lot of recipes that use citrus rind, get yourself a good microplane. I don't have one, and this took forever to get the two teaspoons of rind I needed.

Make sure you don't get down into the white pulp. It's very bitter.

UPDATE: Down in the comments, Stephanie pointed out something blindingly obvious ... if I had bothered to think about what I was doing. Get the rind before squeezing the lemon. Otherwise you're rubbing a floppy, empty lemon peel against the grater/microplane.

Mix everything until it's well combined, but don't beat it. You don't want to fluff up the eggs. Pour into the prepared baking dish.

Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes until it just starts browning on top.

This will puff up while cooking, then deflate while it cools.

When you cut the lemon bars out, keep a towel handy to wipe the knife after every cut. This is very sticky. If you let it build up on the knife you'll end up just mashing it to bits.

You can dust them with powdered sugar, or just serve plain.

And that's it.

Oh, be sure to refrigerate any leftovers. And cut them before refrigerating; the crust gets pretty crunchy when it cools.

How To Make Fruit Bar Crust

2009-07-03T14:10:00.007-04:00

Now that summer is here, it's time to start thinking about desserts made with fresh fruit. Last summer it was all about cobbler at our house. This year it looks like we'll be doing fruit squares. And all of them are going to have pretty much this same exact crust.

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Ingredients

2 cups flour
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar

Directions

Melt the butter, then combine it with the flour and sugar and mix.

Using your hands, press the dough into an ungreased 9x13 baking dish.

This was a really hard step for me to watch, because I tend to be a perfectionist. I was trying to figure out what kind of tool I could use to make the top more smooth and even. But my wife was right: This dough is so thin that you need to feel it.

Bake at 350° for 20 minutes, until the edges start to turn golden brown. Don't go until the whole surface is browned, or it will start to pull away from the edges. And since you haven't added the topping yet, you don't want that.

And that's it.

Stick around to see what we put in this ... the best lemon bars I've ever had.

My Daughter, the Omnivore

2009-07-02T14:26:00.003-04:00

So I come downstairs for lunch, and there's this container of berries on the counter. I know we didn't have them yesterday, and no one has been to the store. So I ask where they came from.

"They were on the tree down by the beach."

Uhhh ... Excuse me?

"Yeah, the blackberry tree."

I'll skip the back-and-forth and get to the bottom line. They're not blackberries, they're actually mulberries. As in "Here we go 'round the mulberry bush ..."

Some very black.

Some, more red.

And after a good rinsing, they taste like tart red grapes.

Cool, my daughter is foraging now.

How To Make Cheesy Poofs

2009-07-01T06:00:00.003-04:00

This is a great "base" recipe for experimenting on top of. It's ridiculously easy to make the simple version, and mild enough to be a blank canvas for personalization. And with only four ingredients, there's a good chance you've already got what you need to make them.

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Ingredients

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 stick butter
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt (see below)

Directions

I figured out when I was doing baked macaroni and cheese that you're better off not using the pre-shredded cheese. It has "anti-caking agents" in it, which means powdered cornstarch to prevent the pieces from sticking to each other. It doesn't change the flavor enough to notice, but it doesn't melt together as well when that is what you want.

Same story here. Get a solid block of cheese you like and shred that.

Then add the butter, flour and salt.

You might have noticed that's not salt in the picture. Nope. It's paprika, which is what the recipe I was starting from said to use. Only 1/4 teaspoon, which I think wasn't enough to taste. And the whole time I was adding it, a little voice in the back of my head was telling me I should be adding some salt, too. But I figured I'd follow the recipe the first time. Mistake. I should have added a teaspoon.

So, once all your ingredients are together, cut the butter into the dry ingredients same way you would when making pie crust.

Once it resembles coarse meal, get in with your hands and mix everything together until it forms a ball of dough that holds together.

Pull off pieces of dough and roll them between your hands into balls about an inch across. You should get about 30 of them from this amount.

Now here's where I'll be adding another step next time. Roll the balls in grated Parmesan cheese. I can almost taste the difference now.

Extra cheese or not, place the balls on an un-greased baking sheet with a little room between them.

Bake at 350° for 15-20 minutes. They're done when the top starts to turn a little golden brown.

There is so much butter in these, I don't think even the extra dusting of Parmesan I'm planning for next time will make them stick. They popped right up with almost no effort.

And had a nice, crunchy bottom to them.

Since I didn't make them with salt, they were a little bland. So I hit them with a bit of popcorn salt and they were just right. My wife liked dipping them, still warm, in plain sour cream. The girls thought they tasted sort of like Goldfish crackers, but with a different texture. Everyone agreed they were a great quick snack.

But like I said -- about four or five times now, I think -- I'm going to roll them in Parmesan before baking next time. And I'll add salt before rolling them out. And maybe I'll try them with half cheddar and half feta. Maybe add a little chipotle powder next time.

Lots of seasonings to try, lots of cheeses to try. These are going to be showing up at lots of parties from here on out.

The Greatest Thing To Happen To Beer Since Ice

2009-06-30T09:34:00.003-04:00

Truly great ideas all provoke the same reaction: "Oh my God, that's perfect. Why didn't I think of that?" This is one of those ideas.

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My neighbor is a beer distributor. So he's around professional-grade hardware every day. He knows what it takes to serve beer. But until recently he had a choice. He could serve you at his house, which has a really nice setup. Or he could use exactly the same tub-of-ice-and-a-rented-tap you see at every frat party in the country.

That all changed in May, when he decided to go mobile.

He showed up down at the beach club with this contraption and started serving from it. Of course every guy there had to get a look under the hood.

It was like someone just brought home a new Hemi, and all the neighbors standing around oohing and aahing.

But of course you only look under the hood for so long. Then you have to fire it up and see how it runs.

Oh yeah. That's some fine American craftsmanship there.

So, what should he call it? The Keginator? Porta-keg? Keg Can? Please leave your suggestions below.

PS: If you'd like one of these, let me know in the comments below. I'm trying to talk my neighbor into offering a kit.

How To Make Pork Chop Salad

2009-06-25T14:42:00.001-04:00

During the fall and winter, I eat pork chops, baked potatoes and salad. But in the summer, that just feels to "heavy" for a hot night. So instead I grill the pork chops, slice them thin and put them on top of the salad, which is bigger, and put the potato on the side.

And somehow this tells my brain, "You're actually eating a salad. Nice and light for a hot summer night.It just happens to have an entire pork chop sitting on top of it."

It doesn't have to make sense. It just works.

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Ingredients

lettuce
tomato
green and red bell peppers
pork loin
salt and pepper
optional:
additional salad toppings

Directions

Not much to this one really. Chop up the lettuce into bite-size pieces. I find it easier to eat than having to cut everything up once it's in the salad bowl.

Peel and chop the cucumber into bite-size pieces. Use a fancy-shaped chopper if you have it.

Seed and chop the peppers into ... you guessed it, bite-sized pieces. Note that my wife likes to cut them in half through the core. Not how I do it, but it works for her.

And if the stem is short, it's more stable to do it upside-down.

Chop the tomato into ... oh, you know what's coming next.

And the onion, blah blah blah ...

Okay, now for the pork. Start with a pork loin and slice 3/4-inch thick pieces.

Lay them out on a hard, non-porous surface (yay, linoleum) with some space between them. Sprinkle a little water on top so they don't stick, and top with plastic wrap to prevent splattering. Then pound them as flat as you can get. Yes, a they do make meat mallets for this. But until my next trip to the restaurant supply store, a heavy frying pan works just as well.

Lay them out on a plate.

Season generously with salt and pepper.

Grill over high heat until all the pink is gone, and the edges are starting to get a little brown and crispy.

Slice very thin across the grain, and transfer to the top of your salad.

Some people will say you should never use a knife to move food like this. I do it all the time, and haven't cut myself yet. But officially, I'm telling you that you should probably use a spatula instead.

Now, once you've got the chop on top ...

Add your dressing. In my case, grated Parmesan cheese, extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

And that's it.

PS: I've been a little slow on the updates recently because of all the work on my big secret project. I'm just about ready to start telling people about it. If you absolutely have to hear it first, sign up for the free class at the top of the blog. I'll be announcing it there first.

Friday Cat Blogging

2009-06-19T14:49:00.001-04:00

I want to be a cat. More specifically, I want to be one of my wife's cats. You can see how hard it is to be them. We even put out patio furniture for them -- which they let us use when they aren't lounging.

Mostly why I want to be them is they don't have to deal with long-term planning. And deadlines. And, you know, work. They want the bird, they catch the bird, they eat the bird. That's about as much planning as they ever have to deal with.

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Ask a cat if he's finished that latest chapter and he'll look at you like you've just asked why the zebra is roller-skating.

Tell him he's on a deadline and he'll obviously jump right to it.

(By the way, these guys hang out together all the time.)

Start acting busy yourself, and cats will be right there in the middle of the action. Not necessarily helping with anything, but right in the middle of it.

Like I said, I want to be a cat.

I want to be this cat, right ...

... here.

This pointless diversion was brought to you by eyestrain, by works-in-progress, and by my big secret upcoming project. Which you might have heard a little bit about if you took the online course. (You can sign up at the top right of any page on the blog.)

Rotisserie Pork Loin

2009-06-18T11:54:00.003-04:00

By now I should know better than to criticize my grill behind its back. Yesterday Barb said that she was getting a new grill for her birthday to replace her "falling apart grill". I told her that mine was also not doing well, specifically mentioning that the splatter shield looked more like a screen.

Well, that's just tempting fate, don't you think? Instead of heating up and vaporising grease as it dripped, like it's supposed to do, it just flared up and got all smoky. I wasn't trying for smoked pork, but that's what I got. Sort of. It's not the prettiest pork loin I've ever done, but it tasted good. Time to hit the Home Depot and get some new parts for the grill.

Oh, and here's how to make it. Make sure your grill is cleaner than mine and it'll be perfect.

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Start with one whole pork loin. This one was about 7-1/2 pounds.

Rinse it and pat it dry, then cut into two or three more-manageable pieces.

Run the probe from your digital thermometer through the sleeve for the rotisserie rod, and one of the forks, then put the rod through. Don't tighten up the screws yet.

This way you can have the probe in the meat while it's going around, and the wire will come out of the grill.

Hold the rod parallel to the table, and slide it all the way through the pork.

Insert the probe into the end of the pork, parallel to the rod, about a half-inch away from it. Make sure the tip of the probe isn't touching the rod.

Slide the fork up against the end of the pork, making sure you've taken up all the slack in the probe wire.

Now tighten the screws and add the fork on the other side.

Coat generously with salt and pepper.

Place the rod over the fire. It's best to have the meat centered over one of the burners, so you can turn the other burner up or down to control the heat. Attach the thermometer to the handle with a rubber band, and plug in the probe wire. Set it for 135°, though you don't want to pull it until it's about 140°. You want to give yourself a little heads-up that it's almost done.

You can see in the pictures above that the splatter shield is nearly disintegrated. So instead of vaporising the grease I got flareups.

Nothing I tried stopped the flareups and the smoking, so I ended up with a very smoky pork loin, with crispy edges where the fire kept licking at it.

Let it rest for 10 minutes before pulling out the probe or the rod. If you pull them right away, all the juice inside will run out through the holes. Once the temperature evens out -- it should top out at about 145° -- you can pull them and start slicing. The thinner you slice, the more tender it will be.

(If you're a home-ec teacher, don't tell me I shouldn't pick up the meat with my knife. I've been doing it for years and I'm not going to change now. I am a bad example for your children.)

And here is the somewhat-smoked, rotisserie-grilled, still-amazingly-tender pork loin with a delicious crispy crust.

And that's it.

My Name Is In The Freezer Section!

2009-06-15T16:03:00.000-04:00

This is quite possibly the coolest thing I've heard since starting the blog. Shortly after I did the ribs, Linda wrote to tell me:

BTW, have done your ribs and sauce (recent ones in foil) twice since you published the recipe. Last time was for our Memorial Day BBQ. Big hit. Major hit. We have packets of ribs and containers of sauce in the freezer labeled "Drew's Ribs" and "Drew's Sauce". You're a big hit in our kitchen. Thanks for doing your blog. It, and you, are awesome!

She ... has my name on the packages? SQEEEEE!

I told my wife about it, and she said I should ask for a picture. This is the first time anyone has ever called something "Drew's Ribs". (Okay, I suppose they wouldn't have called an apple pie "Drew's Ribs" no matter how good it was. You know what I meant.)

That, up top there, is what I got in my inbox today. Along with the note, "The sauce is history and we only have two packets of ribs left."

Do you have any idea how cool that is?

How To Read A Cake Recipe

2009-06-12T12:29:00.000-04:00

Have you ever had someone completely exceed your expectations? Jenni, the Online Pastry Chef just did. I asked your for your favorite "can't miss" birthday cake recipes, and posted the responses. Then I asked Jenni, "Hey, could you take a look at these and tell me how they would be different?"

She must really like analyzing recipes, because what I got back was amazing.

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You can click the chart above to see the full-size version of it. Then you've got to go look at the analysis on Jenni's site. Random selections:

The cakes that do not contain eggs use a lot of liquid fat -— Cake 1 uses 1 cup of oil, and Cake 6 uses 1 cup of Miracle Whip (basically oil and a little egg and sugar). Eggs are good for binding and tenderizing, so upping the fat ups the tenderness.

...

The deal with acidic ingredients is that you want a batter to be neutral in pH or only very slightly acidic in order for the batter to set up properly. If the pH is too high—the batter is too “basic,” or alkaline—the cake will never set up, and you’ll just end up with hot pudding.

...

If this cake bakes up how I think it will, just based on its ingredients, it looks like it would be ridiculously overleavened and then collapse in a heap.

...

Oh, if your batter is too alkaline, it will taste like soap. Trust me; this is not a Desired Flavor in a Baked Good.

When I asked what she thought, I was expecting something like, "Oh, the first one will be really rich, and the fourth one light and fluffy." Jenni seriously over-delivered. Go check out the rest of it even if you're not looking for a cake recipe just now. It's interesting to see how a pro reads a recipe.

How To Make Chicken Fajitas

2009-06-11T23:25:00.003-04:00

I seem to be a steak snob. The last time I made steak fajitas I finally got them "right". They had to have the cilantro and lime juice. That what I had been missing, that really made them taste like they do at all the Mexican restaurants.

Well, I forgot to get the lime. And I thought I had cilantro, but I didn't. So these chicken fajitas didn't get either. And you know what? I didn't miss it at all. Does that say more about the fajitas, or about me?

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Ingredients

2 pounds chicken thighs, with some skin and fat
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon Ancho chile powder
1 large onion
1 large red pepper
1 large green pepper
Not pictured
flour tortillas
shredded cheese
salsa

Directions

Always prep your veggies before your meat to avoid cross-contamination. Especially when preparing chicken. Slice the onion and pepper and set them aside.

Slice the thighs across the grain into quarter-inch strips.

NOTE: Don't make these with boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Please. The thighs have so much more flavor. And get them with a little skin and fat still on them, and you won't even need any oil in the pan.

Add the salt, pepper, cumin and Ancho.

Toss the chicken and let it rest for a few minutes for the salt to draw out a little moisture and hydrate the spices. (This is a good time to wash the cutting board and knife.) Then toss all the chicken into a skillet over medium heat.

Toss the chicken, or turn it over with tongs, and break it up to make sure everything gets well browned. Stir occasionally as you cook it for about 10 minutes, then remove to a bowl and set aside. Leave all the drippings in the pan.

Add the peppers and onion to the hot pan. Add a little more salt and pepper and toss to coat with chicken fat. Cover and cook, stirring every couple of minutes, until the peppers are tender but not mushy, about six to eight minutes.

When the peppers are done, add the chicken back in. Toss everything together until the chicken is heated through again.

Put a layer of chicken, onion and peppers on a warm flour tortilla. Top with shredded cheese -- Monterrey jack is "traditional", but I like sharp cheddar -- and fresh salsa.

Fold it up and dig in.

And that's it.

How To Make Flour Tortillas

2009-06-10T12:15:00.003-04:00

You can go anywhere in the world and find some variation on flatbread: pita, naan, matzo, and of course tortillas. I've done pita, and I have to say tortillas are a bit easier. Since they don't use yeast it's just mix and fry, no rising needed. And I can see how a little practice will make them even easier. I see lots of wraps in my future.

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Ingredients

3 cups white flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
6 tablespoons bacon fat (see note below)
1-1/4 cups warm water (see other note below)

Directions

I love recipes with easy-to-remember proportions: 3-2-1 & 6. Scale it up, scale it down, easy. (By the way, I saw the same basic proportions all over when I was researching, but the one I had open when I wrote it down was Culinary Cory.)

Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl and whisk to combine.

Add the bacon fat, which should be a bit cooler than room temperature.

NOTE: Most recipes call for shortening. Shortening is evil, and shouldn't be called food. Use it if you want, I won't break into your kitchen and call you names. But have you heard of trans fats? Okay, that's all I'm going to say about that.

Cut it in with a pastry cutter.

It's ready when the flour looks like coarse meal instead of a powder, but there are no large lumps.

Add the water and mix until combined.

OTHER NOTE: Shortening is engineered (yes, engineered food, eww ... oops, I wasn't supposed to be saying anything more about that) to be solid at room temperature. Bacon fat is soft, close to liquid depending on how hot your kitchen is. You want the water to be warm enough to soften up your fat, but no so hot it makes it gooey. Sorry I can't be more specific about an exact temperature, you're just going to have to try it for yourself and practice.

If the dough is too wet -- it's sticking to the bowl -- keep adding flour and mixing until a dough ball forms. Then turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead until it is smooth and uniform.

Flour the surface again, and the top of the dough, and roll it out into a rough circle. You need the flour on top of the dough or it will stick to the roller. The more it warms up, the more sticky it will get.

Don't worry about being perfect, you just want to be able to measure uniform-sized pieces. Slice with a pizza cutter into 8-12 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a ball.

I did eight, but the tortillas were a little thicker than I planned. They worked great, but you can get a lot more out of one batch than I did. I'll go for ten next time, but I could easily get twelve, though they might not be as big around.

Flour your surface and the top of each ball and roll out to about 8-10 inches. Or do what I did: Don't bother with how many inches and just make them as big as your skillet will hold.

Preheat a dry pan over medium heat, and add one tortilla.

You should see bubbles within about 30 seconds if your pan is hot enough.

As soon as the bubbles are about as big as a quarter, flip it over and do the other side for the same length of time as the first side took.

And that's it.

I'll be back tomorrow to show you the chicken fajitas I made with these.

PS: You can do this in a food processor. Combine the dry ingredients, then add the fat and pulse several times. Then process on low speed while adding the water. Add more flour if needed until the dough pulls away from the sides.

How To Make Fried Green Beans (With Bacon!)

2009-06-08T16:46:00.003-04:00

This recipe is ridiculously simple, as long as you're already keeping your bacon grease. Oh, wait, bacon fat. Whatever.

Say it with me, kids: "Everything's Better With Bacon!"

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Ingredients

1 pound fresh green beans
2-3 tablespoons bacon fat
1 cup diced onion (this is great for using up leftovers from last night's hot dog cookout)
2 teaspoons kosher salt plus 2-3 tablespoons for the water
1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

Directions

Before I start, I would normally just dice and cook a half-pound of bacon and add the onion and green beans to it. But I didn't have any bacon, and still wanted the green beans. This isn't exactly as good, but it's real close. So ...

First trim the ends off all the beans. This is a bit tedious, but I don't know of a better way. If you've got really young beans you can just pull the stems off and cook them, since the ends are still pretty tender.

Cut into bite-size pieces. If you want to get "fancy" cut them at an angle.

Bring a couple of quarts of water with a few tablespoons of salt to a boil. (This isn't baking, you don't have to measure it out.)

Once the water is boiling, add the beans and bring it back to a boil.

Once the beans have boiled for about 7-10 minutes, test one to see if it's tender. Note that I said "tender", not "mushy enough for baby food". Overcook them at this step and you'll get bacony green paste when you try to fry them.

As soon as the beans are tender but still a little firm, drain and rinse them in cold water to stop the cooking process.

Melt the bacon fat over medium heat in a large skillet. It doesn't need to be non-stick, the fat will keep the beans from sticking. Add the diced onion.

Sauté the onions until they start to brown, then add the beans, salt and pepper.

Toss a few times to make sure all the beans are coated with fat, and keep stirring over medium heat until the beans are heated through again.

And that's it.

How To Make Chocolate Brownie Cake

2009-06-05T15:48:00.007-04:00

This cake is perfect for people who would rather be eating fudge brownies, but someone won't let them put candles in and call it a birthday cake. (And why not? I've seen cupcakes with candles.) It's denser than regular chocolate cake, more chocolaty and less sweet. Ooh, I just realized I have some lemon drops left. I'm going to go melt some and pour it on like frosting.

Hmm ... Last week blondies, this week brownie cake. I guess next week I have to do something red and call it a Charlie's Angels theme.

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Ingredients

1-1/4 cups sugar
3/4 cup butter
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (plus more for dusting baking dish)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
1 cup milk

Directions

Melt the butter in a large-ish sauce pan. (large-ish: adj Big enough to hold all the ingredients, not just the butter and sugar. Bigger than the small-ish sauce pan in the photo below.) Melt the butter at least halfway before adding the sugar and cocoa, then stir constantly over medium-low heat until everything is melted.

You can just add it all at once, like I did, but then you have to start stirring immediately to keep the sugar from burning. Once it's smooth and you don't see any graininess from the sugar, remove from heat and allow to cool.

In a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and baking soda and whisk together. If you don't get the dry ingredients well mixed -- especially the baking soda -- you'll end up with flat spots and huge bubbles in the finished product.

Make sure the butter / sugar / chocolate mixture is cool enough that you can dip a finger in without burning yourself. ("And how am I supposed to do that?" Very carefully.) Mix in the vanilla, eggs and salt.

Add the dry ingredients and the milk to the chocolate in alternating amounts. A little dry, a little milk, etc., stirring after each addition. How much is a little? About a quarter cup.

Last month when I showed what it means to flour a pan, a couple of people mentioned in the comments that you can do this with cocoa powder when you're doing a chocolate cake. That's what I did here.

Pour the batter into the "floured" 9 x 13 baking dish.

Bake at 375° for 15-20 minutes. It's done when a toothpick stuck into the tallest part comes out clean.

If you're in a hurry to get it cut and served, you can pop it out of the dish right away. If you leave it in the dish, as it cools it will pull away from the edges, making it easier to remove.

Put a cutting board on top of the dish and flip it over. This took a little persuasion to pop out, bit it all came out without breaking.

The one way this is slightly better than brownies -- aside from being allowed to use it as a birthday cake -- is that it doesn't stick to the knife as you're cutting it. And it's better than cake, because you can cut really small pieces without having it crumble on you.

In fact, I cut it so small that after we took out the two dozen we needed to provide for Ana's kindergarten graduation, there were still a few left.

You can frost it if you want. I'd prefer to add nuts. And I'm going down right now to try the lemon glaze. Let's see how that goes ...

UPDATE: And now I've done the glaze.

Chocolate and citrus are ... ummm ... I've got no words for this. All I can say is ... mmmmmmmmnnnnnnn.

And that's it.

How To Make (and Can) Spaghetti Sauce In Bulk -- Take 2

2009-06-04T13:27:00.001-04:00

I'd love to have fresh tomatoes available year-round. I'd love to be able to make my tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes. I'd also love to have a pony for my birthday. You think I'm getting what I want?

So, just like last fall, I made another big batch from canned tomatoes. And tweaked the recipe a bit.

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Ingredients

giant can crushed tomatoes (106 ounces)
7 heads garlic
2 large onions (between baseball and softball size)
10 tablespoons (2/3 cup) basil pesto
2 tablespoons dry oregano
2 tablespoons dry marjoram
1 tablespoon salt
1 cup sugar
extra virgin olive oil

Directions

Peel all the garlic. You can use the method I showed last time I did a big batch of sauce, or the method below. (If you can't see the video in your email, come see it at the blog.)

Once it's all peeled, mince it in a food processor.

Coat the bottom of a large pot with olive oil over medium heat and add the garlic. While the garlic starts to cook, dice the onions and add them to the pot.

Stir frequently until the onions are translucent and the garlic starts to get a little darker. Then add the tomatoes, and stir the onion and garlic up from the bottom.

Add the pesto, oregano and marjoram and stir.

This doesn't look very appetizing just now. But don't worry, we'll fix that.

Put the lid on the pot and simmer over low heat for at least an hour, stirring occasionally.

Oops, forgot to add the sugar.

Once the sauce is thoroughly heated through, process it with an immersion blender (also know as a stick blender).

I've seen people scoop their sauce into regular blenders and process it in multiple batches. What a pain in the neck. You can get a stick blender for under $20, and it's totally worth it.

Until you've processed it, you won't know if you've reduced the sauce too much. If it's too thick, add water and heat it through again. After an hour of simmering, I needed to add 3-4 cups of water. (No, I don't have a rust problem. I used the empty tomato can to get the water.)

Once you're done cooking and ready to start canning, arrange the sterilized jars as close as you can to the pot with the sauce.

Using your canning funnel -- and seriously, don't try this without one -- fill all the jars to the bottom of the threads. (Technically it's supposed to be 1/2-inch to 3/4-inch, but I'm not getting out a ruler for this.)

Wipe the rims to make sure there's no sauce on them, and add the lids and rings.

Fill your canning pot with water and lower the jars in. You can do this without a special pot, like I did last time. But the right stuff makes it so much easier.

Put the lid on and bring to a boil for 35-40 minutes. Check every so often to make sure the water is an inch deep over the lids. Add more if you need it.

Remove the jars from the pot. There's a special tool that makes this really easy, even if the jars are down in the water. I don't have one. But now that I have this handy-dandy rack that lifts up and hangs on the rim of the pot, I don't need it.

Set the jars on a towel to cool overnight.

Now, that should be the end of this. But it's not. I had more sauce left. Enough for two more pints and a quart. (Yes, that would be four pints, but I ran out of pint jars.)

I loaded up another batch and started boiling them. Then sat down in front of the TV. And fell asleep. Oops.

I woke up three hours later to the smell of tomato sauce. "Hmm, that's odd. Why does it still smell like ... uh oh."

There was still enough water to cover the pint jars, but the quart jar was sticking out and sauce was oozing out from under the rim. I got everything off the heat and out of the water and left it to deal with in the morning.

Next day, all the jars had sealed just fine. Even the quart jar with the overflow. But just to be safe, I opened it that night and made pasta.

So that's the last lesson for today: When you've got something on the stove, always set a timer.

Jerky.com Buffalo Jerky

2009-06-02T14:19:00.001-04:00

Jerky ain't pretty. Okay, the pineapple jerky I showed you a couple of weeks ago looked pretty cool. But usually it looks more like shoe leather.

But jerky isn't about looks. It's ... No, you know what? If you don't already know why you love jerky, I'm not going to try to convince you. As soon as you saw the headline on this post and saw that picture, you either said, "Eww, why would anyone eat that?" or, "Yumm! Where can I get some?"

Read on, and I'll tell you.

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The folks at Jerky.com sent me a pack of their buffalo jerky.

Once again, the ingredients are about as minimal as I've ever seen on a packaged product. (That's a compliment, by the way.)

I don't think buffalo are significantly larger than beef cattle, so I don't know what's going on here, but these were the biggest hunks of jerky I've ever seen.

Tear off some smaller pieces and it's pretty much like "normal" jerky.

I wouldn't say the flavor is radically different from other jerkies I've had. I'd have to do a blind taste test to say for sure, but it is one of the better ones I've had. As a point of reference, my uncle is a hunter, and I've sampled literally dozens of jerkies made by friends of his from game they caught.

Hmm, a jerky tasting event. What an interesting idea ...

But in the meantime, if you like jerky -- and I assume that's why you're still reading -- and if you want to try one that's made the way you would make it, you can find the buffalo jerky, as well as Beef Jerky, Turkey Jerky, Ostrich Jerky, Alligator Jerky, and plenty more at Jerky.com.

PS: Yes, I make a few cents if you order using one of those links above.

Would You Eat This?

2009-06-02T13:21:00.002-04:00

No, that's not a mosquito. It's a midge -- CHAOBORUS Spp. Unlike mosquitoes they don't bite people. And believe it or not, people eat them.

I saw this on a nature program several decades ago. One line I remember quite distinctly was a local saying that it wasn't just about having a convenient source of food. It was their way of showing dominance over this plague that caused them so much grief each year: "They may annoy us, but we eat them."

There's a reason I bring this up now.

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Each year the midges hatch from eggs in Lake Victoria, Kenya. They swarm out of the water in such huge numbers that they look like smoke rising from the lake.

I remember thinking how absolutely mind boggling that was when I saw the footage. I just couldn't grasp the sheer numbers. Now ... I can grasp it.

That's my garage. Midges also come out of Lake Erie every spring. I live pretty close to Lake Erie.

At night, around sunset, you can hear this angry buzzing sound overhead. Look up and there's a cloud above the treetops. Which is odd, because each midge is so small you can't hear the wings beating at all. But put [cue Carl Sagan voice] millions and millions of them together and it sounds like a leaf blower.

Now here's the funny thing. I'd rather eat a midgeburger than one of these.

Midges are gross ... that's just creepy.

How To Grill London Broil

2009-05-28T23:12:00.005-04:00

London Broil didn't come from London. You probably wouldn't find it there. And in fact it doesn't really refer to a specific cut of meat, but to a technique for cooking ordinarily tough cuts: Top Round Steak, Chuck Shoulder Steak, Flank Steak, Sirloin Tip, etc. So the term "London Broil" should be used like "pot roast" -- a technique, not a cut.

But if you're in the U.S., you'll probably see plenty of "London Broil" in the meat counter or at the butcher's. Whichever cut it actually is, here's the basic process to turn it into a great summer dinner. (Oh, and great leftovers.)

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Ingredients

4-5 pounds "London Broil"
1 head garlic
1 cup chive vinegar (or white wine)
1-2 tablespoons ground ginger
1/2 large onion
salt and pepper

Directions

Marinade

Peel the garlic and cut the stems off. If you've got a mini-chopper handy, throw them in and process until they're a fine mince. (Or mince by hand, and don't blame me for how you'll smell.)

Season the beef generously on both sides with kosher salt and coarse ground black pepper.

If you have really large zip-top bags that will fit your cuts of beef, mix everything in there. Add the garlic, vinegar (or wine) and ginger. To get all the garlic juice left in the chopper, I poured the vinegar in there first.

What should be happening here is adding the beef and diced onions to the bag. But it wasn't as big as I thought it was. Or the meat was bigger. Either way, it didn't fit. So I poured the marinade over the beef in a baking dish before adding the onions.

You want the marinade to come into contact with as much of the meat as possible. Since I wasn't doing this in a bag -- where you can squeeze out all the air and keep the marinade right up against the whole cut -- I added a beer to the baking dish. If I had white wine on hand I'd have used that. (If you're starting to think this is not an exact science, you're right.)

Turn each piece over several times as you let it rest for two hours or more. Some people insist on overnight, or up to 24 hours. Someday I'll plan that far ahead. Make sure the last two hours are not in the fridge, so it comes to room temperature before you start cooking.

When you're ready to cook, pour off all the marinade and pat the beef dry. Don't worry that it's not red any more. The vinegar (or wine) actually starts to cook the meat.

Grilling

Pre-heat the grill so the bars are hot, and make sure they are clean and well lubed with bacon fat, lard or olive oil. Cook over a medium flame for two or three minutes, then turn each piece 45 degrees. This will give you the nice grill marks, but it's more about cooking evenly. Flip it over when the bottom is well browned.

Once the second side is browned, turn the flame down low and flip it again. Cook over low heat until some juice starts to rise to the top of the beef, then turn it over again and repeat for the other side.

If you can't get the flame down low enough, the edges could burn before you get any juice on top. Don't just let it sit there and turn into charcoal, move it off to the side so it's not directly over the flame.

When it's done, transfer the meat to a clean plate. Don't use the same one you carried it out to the grill with, unless you wash it first. Or unless you like food poisoning.

Serving

The thicker a cut of meat is, the longer it should rest after you cook it. While cooking, the heat creates a lot of pressure. If you cut into it, all the juice will run out onto the plate and you'll end up with dry meat no matter how perfectly it's cooked. I like to cover it with a piece of aluminum foil. This helps the temperature equalize from the outside to the inside.

After letting it rest for about 15 minutes, the heat will have pushed lots of juice out.

The cuts used for London Broil are typically large cuts of large muscles, with the fibers running the length of the cut. The shorter you cut these fibers the more tender the meat will be. So slice as thin as you can across the fibers.

Return the sliced beef to the plate with all the juice, and spoon it over the top.

Serve family style, so everyone can dip their slices in the juice as they serve themselves.

If you did everything right, you should have a super-flavorful crust around a warm, medium-rare center.

And that's it.

How To Feed The Masses

2009-05-27T13:32:00.000-04:00

Because we didn't have enough going on for the holiday weekend already, my wife and I agreed to do the food for our church's pre-cana class. As in "wedding feast of Cana" ... as in wedding preparation class. Which really doesn't matter, except that we did breakfast, lunch and dinner for 40.

No new recipes today, just a look at what it looks like to scale a couple of familiar recipes up a lot.

(It was at a church. So "feed the masses". Get it? Church ... masses ... )

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You'd think working in a big institutional kitchen would be a joy compared to the tiny space I usually work with. You'd be mostly right ... but just mostly.

Lots of counter space is nice.

But that's not real butcher block, it's Formica. So I can't cut on it, can't put hot pans on it. And it's too close to the convection ovens.

But it was enough counter space to prep 20 pounds of asparagus.

They also had this neat little razor tool for opening plastic bags.

I've got to get me one of those for my kitchen.

I've never seen asparagus that had such a wide variety of sizes in one package before. As we snapped the cut ends off we sorted them into thin, medium and thick.

We got a great deal on this asparagus, but it was the sandiest I've ever had. We had to wash everything very carefully, then spread it out on sheet pans to dry.

Next up was 20 pounds of Russet potatoes, rinsed and diced to bite-size.

In that last shot, I'm using a spatula to move the diced potatoes. Usually I'd use the knife I just cut it with. Usually I'd be cutting four potatoes. Even the tools you use change when you're making this much.

Early in the day I was still smiling.

All those potatoes went into a couple of large pots with about a quarter-cup of salt in each.

I could have fit them all in one really enormous pot, and was actually about to do that. Then I realized that I'd have to carry it, full of 40 pounds boiling water and potatoes, around the prep table and to the sink. Yeah, I'll use two merely large pots instead of the ginormous one.

By this time Jenn was asking if she could please do something to help besides getting me pots and pans and saying, "Yes, chef!" (She thinks that's hilarious on Hell's Kitchen.) So she prepped the cucumbers and tomatoes for the salad.

I've never used that squiggly cutter thing she used on the cukes. I forgot we had it. And I don't understand how she can work sitting down like that. It hurts my back just watching.

Next up, two heads of garlic.

I wasn't in a hurry, so I just peeled them by hand. All you have to do is twist until you hear the papery skin pop, then peel it off. (If you can't see this video in email, come check it out on the blog.)

Once it was all peeled, mince and toss it in a little sauce pan with about two cups of extra virgin olive oil.

That went over low heat to infuse the oil while I worked on other things.

Entrée was pan fried pork loin chops. Start with two whole pork loins.

Trim the excess fat.

Cut into one-inch chops.

Then ... well, I don't have pictures of this part. Jenn was off cleaning up from lunch and setting up the dining room for dinner. But the process was the same as the pan fried pork tenderloin chops. Pound them flat, season well with salt and pepper, then fry in a little fat. I tossed some of the trimmed fat in the frying pans to render out a little bit. I could have used butter, but it's got a lower smoke point.

In between rounds of pork, I did the asparagus. A little garlic infused olive oil, more plain olive oil, salt and pepper.

Then roast them in the convection oven at 350° until the tips just start to turn brown.

By this time it was getting pretty hectic and I completely forgot to take any pictures of the pork or potatoes as I was working on them. The pork was pan fried with salt and pepper, and the potatoes got butter, parsley, and garlic infused olive oil

By the way, this is what counts as "fine dining" when you're setting it up in the cafeteria of a grade school.

I've never seen this much cooked asparagus at one time before.

Last year we had four people helping out assembling plates. This year we had ...

Jenn came over to help, and I snapped at her to put down the freakin' camera and help me here!

Yes, I apologized afterwards. I'm glad she even got those shots. I'm really disappointed that I didn't get any pictures of the pork chops or the pan sauce I made.

After frying 54 chops in two large pans, I threw a pound of diced fresh mushrooms in each pan and cooked them down until they released their liquid and deglazed the pan. Then a dusting of flour for thickener, a couple of tablespoons of butter, and cooked for a few minutes until the flour had lost the chalky taste.

Finally, a cup of heavy cream, plus more salt and pepper and a tablespoon of marjoram to each. A few cups of water, and bring to a boil for one minute. I can't tell you how good that sauce was.

The asparagus was pretty popular, too. When we were done, one of the guys on staff grabbed a spoon and ate up the rest of the olive oil and asparagus juice from the bottom of the pan.

The timing was perfect. The food was great. (Though the potatoes could have used a little more butter. Even the portion estimate was pretty close. But I am so out of shape for this kind of stuff. I burned my hands four times and my arm twice. My back and feet were sore all the next day.

Did I mention there was no air conditioning or exhaust fans in the kitchen? Yeah, that was fun.

All in all, I had a good time doing it. And I am not planning on doing it solo again any time soon.

How To Make Blondies

2009-05-26T11:11:00.003-04:00

I'm sitting here trying to think of what to say about blondies, and the only thing going through my head is Call Me on infinite repeat. (Is it stuck in your head, too, now? You're welcome.)

Wait, that helped a little. While my mental sound track is on "Pause" I should tell you that blondies are similar to brownies, but without the chocolate. This version is not nearly as sweet as you would suspect from the amount of sugar in it. You can do them completely plain, with no nuts or chips or topping of any kind, or add: dark chocolate, white chocolate, butterscotch chips, caramel, walnuts, pecans. They're a great blank canvas for you to add your own favorites.

Oh no, the song is fading in again ...

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Ingredients

1-1/2 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
1 cup unsalted butter
2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup dark bittersweet chocolate chips (optional, not shown)

Directions

Mixing

You'll need two bowls for this, the first one large enough to hold everything with room left for mixing, the second one large enough for just the dry ingredients. Once you have everything together, preheat the oven to 375°.

Melt the butter. I used a glass measuring cup in the microwave. You can also use a small pan on the stovetop.

Put the brown sugar into the larger bowl and add the melted butter.

Mix thoroughly until there are no lumps.

Instead of getting a mixer dirty -- or if you don't have one -- you can make do with a whisk, as long as it has a round handle. Check out this video for how. (If you can't see the video in your email, come see it on the blog.

Set that bowl aside to cool to room temperature.

In the second bowl, combine the flour, salt and baking soda and whisk to combine.

Don't try to whisk dry ingredients the same way you did the wet ones or it will go everywhere. The whisk should be going down along the inside of the bowl and come up out of the middle. Like this. (Again, if you can't see the video in your email, come see it on the blog.)

Once the sugar / butter mixture is cooled to room temperature, add the eggs and vanilla and stir.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet a little bit at a time, stirring after each scoop until it is well combined. When it's all added you should have a thick batter.

Not greasing the pan

Usually with blondies (and brownies) you flour a pan and pray that everything comes out without breaking up too much. Praying is fine, we can all use all the help we can get. But in this case there's something more direct you can do to help yourself: Line the 9 x 13 dish with parchment paper.

Yes, this is actually wax paper. Parchment is better but this works, too. The big difference is that the wax paper will smoke a bit as it cooks. It's disconcerting at first, but I have a couple of friends who have done this for years and it's never caused any problems.

You might wonder about the wax melting and getting into the food. If you've ever covered leftovers with wax paper to reheat in the microwave, you've already had this happen. And if you've ever bitten into a nice shiny apple from the grocery store without scrubbing it first, you've eaten the same food grade wax as what's on the paper. (Yes, grocery stores wax their fruit. You didn't think cucumbers were that shiny in nature, did you?)

If you prefer, go ahead with the butter and flour routine.

So anyway ... scoop the batter into the lined dish. It will be too thick to pour. You'll have to manually spread it out to fill the dish evenly.

Bake at 375° for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Now is where you see the magic of the paper liner. Place a cooling rack upside-down on top of the baking dish and flip it over.

Then all you have to do is peel the paper off and let it cool.

When it has cooled for about 10 minutes, place a cutting board on top of the blondie and flip the whole thing over again.

As a bonus, you'll have lines from the cooling rack that make it really easy to cut even pieces.

Serve by itself or, like my wife had it at a restaurant recently, topped with ice cream and caramel sauce. Or pretty much anything you want to top it with.

And that's it.

How To Make Lemon Drops

2009-05-21T12:53:00.002-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I made lemon glaze to go on my cinnamon rolls. After we finished off the rolls, there was some glaze left that had dripped onto the plate. It was like little sweet / tart pieces of candy. I thought to myself,

"You know what, Self? I'll bet you could make a whole batch of candy like that and skip the cinnamon rolls altogether."

But I like cinnamon rolls.

"Dood! Candy!"

(Sometimes my internal monologue turns into a dialogue. And then an argument.)

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Ingredients

1 cup powdered sugar
juice of 1 small lemon

Directions

Until I make this again and measure how much lemon juice I got, you'll have to wing it a little bit. Don't worry, it's hard to screw up so bad you can't recover. You want to use the least amount of juice it takes to dissolve the sugar. The hotter the sugar gets the less juice you'll need, so it's not an exact science anyway. (Unless you work in a climate-controlled factory. In which case what are you doing reading this?)

Squeeze the juice into a small pan, being sure to keep the seeds out. Add the sugar and stir.

Stir over medium-low heat until smooth. You don't want to caramelize the sugar, just melt it. Lift out the whisk, fork. or whatever you're stirring with and see if the sugar starts to set up or if it all runs off. If it just runs off, add more sugar and stir some more.

You can get away with adding more sugar a little at a time and it will keep melting. But the more sugar you add without adding more liquid, the faster it will solidify when you remove it from heat. Be prepared to work fast once it's ready. You can see in this next picture that the sugar is solidifying on the inside of the pan.

When you think you're ready to start, take the pan off the heat and line a baking sheet with wax paper.

Using a spoon, scoop the sugar out and make quarter-size dots on the wax paper.

Here, like this.

(If you don't see the video above, come see it on the blog.)

I ran out of pan before I ran out of sugar, so I put a second layer on some of the larger dots.

Put the pan in the freezer overnight. Then lift the pieces up off the paper by pushing from underneath.

And that's it.

Oh, wait ... what are they good for. Well, they're a great little snack all by themselves. But if you like lemon in your tea, put these out instead of sugar cubes. I'm a guy, so of course I just handle them by hand. Girls seem to like spoons.

Add some biscuits and have a party.

Fruit Snacks For Grown-ups

2009-05-18T12:01:00.009-04:00

Basketball plus trampolines equals Slamball. Chess plus boxing equals Chess Boxing. (I'm not kidding. Go follow that link.) Yogurt plus archery equals ... Okay, you can't just put any two terms together and get something great.

How about "tropical fruit" and "jerky"? I know. It sounds wrong, doesn't it? But the people at Jerky.com emailed me a couple of weeks ago to see if I wanted to try some of their new pineapple jerky. I had to say yes, if for no other reason than curiosity.

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That's what I told them when I wrote back: Sure, I'll try it, but I've got to tell you it doesn't sound like an obvious winner. That's okay, they said. We're confident you'll like it.

A couple of weeks go by and no package. I wrote to make sure they had my right mailing address, and they told me orders were so strong they couldn't keep up with demand. That's a good problem to have with a new product.

So production finally caught up and I got my shipment. Two packs of pineapple jerky.

(These are sample packs. The packs you get when you order them have about four times as much in them.)

Check out the ingredients listed on that package. (Click on the picture for a larger view if you're having trouble reading it.) Pineapple and honey. That's it. Made in Maui. Well okay, this is promising.

And you can see from the shape of it that each piece is a slice of pineapple. They look surprisingly like flowers, which suggests some interesting possibilities in terms of presentation.

Unlike meat jerky, which can be hard, dry and stiff, these are flexible and chewy.

Like meat jerky, though, you might not want to try this with braces or bridgework. I don't know if something happens to the pineapple when they dehydrate it, or if it's the honey, but these things take a pretty strong bite to get through. And they chew a lot like meat jerky.

The flavor was amazing. The pineapple was concentrated and tart, with just enough honey to balance it without making it taste like candy. I've been trying to think of something to make with this so I can take advantage of the flower-like appearance. But I can't think of anything that I'd want covering up the flavor straight from the package. Yes, I thought of dipping it in chocolate, and I don't think that would improve it.

Packs of pineapple jerky definitely cost more than the fruit snacks you might give your kids. But they're real food that you can feel good about giving them, and they're good enough that you might just keep them for yourself.

This is the first product I've tried from Jerky.com, but the ingredients look just as good on the rest of their stuff, Beef Jerky, Turkey Jerky, Ostrich Jerky, Alligator Jerky ... I'm starting to think they'll make jerky out of just about anything.

How To make A Pomegranate Highball

2009-05-15T01:32:00.000-04:00

You probably shouldn't drink. Lots of religions prohibit it ... It's bad for your liver ... It makes you stupid ... But hey, if you're going to do it anyway, might as well drink something tasty.

Today is my take on the pomegranatini. I don't like martinis, or gin, and don't have any martini glasses. So this really isn't very much like a martini at all. It's a highball.

(Full disclosure: POM Wonderful sent me a couple of bottles of juice to try. They hoped I would publish a review, of which today is part 2, but they have no editorial control over what I write.)

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Ingredients

equal parts

vodka
pomegranate juice
simple syrup

crushed ice

Directions

Fill a highball class with crushed ice. If you don't have a crushed ice dispenser on your fridge, put some ice in a heavy zip-top bag and whack it with a pan or a meat mallet. (Did I just give directions for making crushed ice? Wow, it seems I just can't stop myself.)

Add a shot each of pomegranate, simple syrup and vodka.

Give it a good stir and enjoy.

And that's it. Happy Friday.