Sometimes I wish there were a Nobel Prize for flavor. My nominee this week (why wait a whole year?) would be the inventor of the cookie bowl, whoever they might have been. They got the bright idea of turning a muffin pan upside down and mashing cookie dough over it. The resulting cookie bowls look like they would be an awesome and potentially showy dessert, especially if filled with ice cream. I did a little looking for fun shaped pans, here’s what I found:

The one pictured above

This one with five fancy shapes

This elegantly fluted one

Shells

Bakerella has a great method if making cups and bowls out of chocolate. Just inflate a balloon, dip it in molten chocolate, and let it cool. Once you remove the balloon, you are left with an edible bowl that is great for serving desserts in. Each one comes out unique and not looking like it came out of some mass produced mold. You can decide what size and shape you want by what kind of balloon you use and how much you inflate it. It even makes its own little stand as the chocolate runs to the bottom.

You can even make other shapes. Amazon has a bunch of different balloons, like these:

Doughnut shaped balloons

Skinny ones for tall cups

I’ve seen this referred to as The King’s Dessert. This South Korean street vendor gives us an entertaining demo of  how he makes 16,000 strands of hair-thin honey in moments. He makes it look easy. I imagine it would take time to master, but in principle it shouldn’t be too tough, it’s like making noodles, only smaller. I might just have to go throw some honey in the freezer and give this a try.

This is a guest post from Gen at North Coast Gardening

This year for Halloween I tried something a little different. Instead of carving a cheap, fibrous jack-o-lantern pumpkin, I opted for a medium size sugar pumpkin instead so I could re-use it after carving for pumpkin curry!

This required that I carve my pumpkin on Halloween itself, and that I only leave it outside for the duration of trick-or-treating. Once the raiding marauders went home to eat candy, I brought my pumpkin inside and made curry.

This is one of the simplest dishes to make, and could totally be done in a slow-cooker if you prefer. The hardest part is carving the hard outer skin or shell off your pumpkin, the rest is just checking and tasting every so often.

You need:

a six-pound sugar pumpkin

2 cans coconut milk

Yellow curry (powder, paste, or fresh, to taste. If you want to make one from scratch, use the freshest (preferably whole) ingredients you can find. It goes something like this:

• 9 part turmeric
• 3 parts cumin
• 3 parts ginger
• 6 parts coriander
• 3 parts black pepper
• 1 part Cardamon
• 1 part nutmeg
• 1 part cinnamon (cassia)
• habanero to taste

Optional ingredients: (I love the simplicity of pumpkin curry with just pumpkins, but if you like a more chunky curry, go for it)

potatoes, carrots, Fresno peppers

What you do:

Get about a six-pound sugar pumpkin or other eating pumpkin (not the jack-o-lantern types that sit outside Safeway in huge boxes – they are fibrous and watery) and scrape out the guts just like you would if you were carving it for Halloween.

Then hack it in half so you can set the flat ends on your cutting board, and carefully cut the shiny outer shell off your pumpkin.  Take off the top and bottom stemmy bits, too, then cut it into chunks about 1-1.5 inches around. Don’t be too precise because it’s fun to have some of the pumpkin incorporate into the sauce and some stay chunky, so variety in size is great.

Put two cans of coconut milk into your pot or slow-cooker with half the spices.

If you want to add potatoes to your curry, add them now, and don’t add your pumpkin till you can slide a fork a tiny way into your potatoes.

Otherwise, add your pumpkin now along with any peppers you wish to use. When your pumpkin is still chunky but you can put a fork through the chunks, add sliced carrots if you want them. (If you’re using baby carrots instead of sliced, then add them earlier as they’ll need to cook longer.)

When everything’s generally soft and the pumpkin has fallen apart a bit, add the rest of your spices and simmer on low just a few more minutes.

I eat this dish on its own, no rice needed, but if you like rice with your curry, add some extra peppers or spices to the curry, so it will be bold next to the rice.

Gen is a landscape designer who loves to write about her favorite plants and the best organic gardening methods. Visit her website to learn how to control weeds organically and how to prune your garden plants with video tutorials.

I have done it! I have successfully melded two of the worlds greatest foods into a flavor the gods would surely decry as too decadent for mere mortal tongues, if they only knew (but I’m not sharing with them).

When the idea struck me to try and make truffles with bacon in them, I figured I’d just throw some things together and see if the idea had potential, but the first batch came out so perfect I can’t think of anything to change. I’m sure I will, because I never cook anything the same twice, and truffles are the kind of food that really thrives on an exotic ingredient or two.

This recipe takes some time, so don’t start it unless you have a few hours to spare waiting for things to heat and cool. The crucial ingredients:

• Chocolate
• Sweetened condensed milk
• bacon
• coarse salt (for garnish)

For the chocolate filling, I chose Galler 85% chocolate. Use something quite a bit darker than you want to have as the end result. I went with good quality ingredients for everything, and I think it makes a big difference to the end result.

1. I started a pot of water lightly simmering on the stove and floated a smaller pot inside of it, which I filled with the chocolate. This is known as a double boiler.
2. Add in the sweetened condensed milk. I found some made with cane sugar instead of gross stuff. Use about an equal portion to the chocolate, and stir it in until it smooths out.  I also added some liquor at this point. I don’t think it is necessary, but I think it added to the richness and softened things a bit. I didn’t want to make things soupy, so I used some potent 151 proof rum and a bit of home made spiced liquor.
3. Set the mixture in the refrigerator until it firms up to playdough consistency.
4. Scoop out the chocolate and roll it into little balls about 2/3 the size you want the end result.
5. Make some bacon. I prefer the microwave for this, since it will make the bacon extra light and crispy. It will retain its crunch better. If you are too much of a purist for this, I’m sure it will still work. Once the bacon was cooked, I tossed it in the coffee grinder and made bacon bits. I bet any similar appliance, like a Magic Bullet would do the trick.
6. Roll the chocolate balls in the bacon bits and get a good coating of bacon on the outside.
7. The cores are done. Put them in the freezer while you work on the next step.
8. Melt some more chocolate as above. For this I used Dove milk chocolate. There are other chocolates out there that melt better, but most of them will drag the quality down. The Dove came out great.
9. Once the chocolate is melted, take the cores out of the freezer and one by one, drop them in the melted chocolate, roll them around until coated, and then lift them out with a fork. Put them on something non-stick like wax paper or Teflon. As you finish each one, garnish it with a bit of coarse salt on top.
10. Put them back in the fridge until the cool, which doesn’t take long, and they are ready to serve.

I made a bit over a dozen. Due to the amount of time involved compared to the work, I think they are probably better made in larger quantity. I gave most of them away to friends, and they were universally loved. The comment I heard from every single person who tried them was that the salt on top was a really perfect addition. I used Black Pyramid Salt, which you can see in the detail of the above photo. It was the perfect combination, being both exotic with its crystals looking like Mayan pyramids, and coarse without being hard.

If you’ve ever wanted your kids to be excited to eat radishes, here is your answer. The Super Mario themed Bento above is the awesome work of Anna The Red. Complete instructions here.

Japan has had a wonderfully fun, light hearted, and healthy impact on the world of food. A couple more examples of work by Anna The Red:

Manga Meat Bento, for the cave man in your life.

Inarizushi Totoro Bento, and Totoro Cream Puffs definitely fall into the category of too cute to eat…well, almost, they are cream puffs after all.

This is the greatest turkey sandwich ever.

Food doesn’t always have to be pretty. I’m sure we’ve all have a recipe that looks horribly unappetizing but more than makes up for it, but there are times when making your cooking look great can be a big part of the reward of cooking; on the other hand, there is really no excuse for things like fondant. Just because it is ‘edible’, doesn’t mean you should sculpt things out of it and eat it. Thank you Japan for making cute food edible again.

I leave you with a somewhat related clip, via geeksaresexy:

Salsa has too long been a bastion for the onion, but it’s totally unnecessary. Unless you want your salsa to taste like armpit, toss out the onion and go back to the core elements that make a salsa great.

If you’re really not into the DIY thing, there is one commercially available salsa with no onions, and it’s excellent. I’ve posted a review here: Salsa With No Onions

What does salsa absolutely have to have for it to be valid? Chili peppers. You need other stuff too, but that is the only ingredient I’m calling non-negotiable. One of the things to think about before you begin is appearance. If you mix red ingredients and green, you end up with brown salsa; not that there’s anything wrong with that, but if you are big on appearances, either pick one or the other, or keep the chunks big. I’ll put up a list of things I’ve found to be good salsa ingredients. Pick and choose what you like or have on hand. I’d recommend at least one item from each section:

Chilies (mandatory):

• Habanero. Great flavor, but deadly hot (orange).
• Fresno peppers: Excellent and quite hot (red).
• Jalepeno: Boring, but easily available, hot (green).
• Poblano and Anaheim: Mild, and they taste pretty green (green).
• Bell Peppers: Mild, but they make a decent base for those who can’t handle any heat.

Base:

• Tomatoes: Highly recommended, any variety will do.
• Tomatillos: Those little green paper lantern looking things.
• Mild Peppers.
• Corn.
• Mangoes.

Herb and Spice:

• Cilantro
• Lime
• Cumin
• Black Pepper
• Salt
• Vinegar

Preparation: In a pinch, you can just cut things up by hand or use a blender, but I prefer to use either my magic bullet or an auger style juicer. The magic bullet stops everything from just bouncing up and dwn above the blender blades, and I run the juicer with the sorbet attachment that is standard on such machines. It essentially just crushes all of the ingredients rather than chopping them, and I use the mesh catch to separate the excess liquid from the salsa as I make it. I save this liquid for other cooking. It makes a great addition to taco meat while it cooks, or for soup stock.

This is one of the easiest foods ever to make, just guess how much of everything you need, throw it in a blender-like appliance, blend to desired consistency, taste it, and make any adjustments. I recommend you make it too hot to eat. You aren’t likely to just eat it plain, so it will be toned down by the food, sour cream, etc. If you use cumin, it’s best if you toast it up a bit first; it makes it taste less green. Go light on vinegar if you use it, it doesn’t take much. If you want to go the extra mile, roast or smoke the peppers.

When I first saw this Batter Blaster can of spray on pancakes, I was a bit horrified. There is just something about food in a spray can that screams artificial, but check out these ingredients:

1. Filtered water
2. Organic unbleached wheat flour
3. Organic cane sugar
4. Organic whole egg solids
5. Organic soybean powder
6. Sodium Lactate (from beet sugar)
7. Dicalcium phosphate and Baking Soda (for leavening)
8. Organic rice bran extract
9. propellant

Nothing scary in there. The beauty of this product is that it makes pancakes into such a quick and clean operation, that you really can just make one or two without being late for work or making cleanup for yourself. It has been getting good reviews, including the below video review from CrunchGear.