I'm boring.

Daring Bakers: Gingerbread

2009-12-27T20:47:00.001-05:00

I knew I'd have an issue with this month's challenge with my whole baking hiatus and all. When I saw what the challenge was, I groaned at the thought of it. There was no way I was gonna make one of those cheesy gingerbread houses

Then I started thinking about it. I read the rules over a couple times trying to think of a way around it. Then it came to me. I decided I was gonna do a gingerbread version of some sort of satanic cult type thing. See, that would be so much cooler. I started looking for assorted satanic symbolism when I found pics of the Jonestown mass suicide. I found gingerbread templates for the church. I figured I could use one of those chalk outlines to make my gingerbread people look dead. I had figured out how to make tubs of purple koolaid. I figured a river of blood would be good too.

However, in the end, my hatred for Christmas won. I didn't actually make anything and stuck with my baking hiatus. It might be my indifference that one. Just think how cool my gingerbread house would be if I had done it.

The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.

Barefoot Bloggers: Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms

2009-12-24T20:48:00.003-05:00

OK this is probably gonna seem weird but I actually liked the leftovers better than the stuffed mushrooms themselves. At first I made them and ate a few and they were decent. Decent enough to eat but not amazing enough to write home to mom about. I stuck the rest in the fridge, where they sat for several days.

At that point I didn't feel like reheating them and having them again. So I chopped them up. I added them to some sweated onions and olive oil, some spaghetti with a bit of pasta water and voila, a whole new dish! I am not entirely sure how this happened but it ended up tasting really creamy. I am thinking that's because of the pasta water emulsifying with some of the oil but so not intentional but it came out really good! Which is a good thing because I have about 6 meals worth of it left. At least I can put a few in the freezer and I can have them when I come back.

While I took pics, I am too lazy to find my card reader right now.

Here's the recipe for the mushrooms. Chosen by Michelle. Thanks for the tasty leftovers!

Barefoot Bloggers: Croissant Bread Pudding

2009-12-20T20:47:00.000-05:00

I'm late, I know. I have a good excuse. Like I usually do. I got some sort of nasty stomach virus. One that had me getting to know my bathroom waaaay too well. OK that was probably enough information to gross you out and not make you want to read the rest of this post.

Anyway, this is not a dessert for when your stomach is not feeling well. Especially if you are lactose intolerant. Not with all that cream and richness. So this had to wait until that passed. And the week after that... well.... so I'm slow.

I fudged the recipe a bit. I used 8 mini croissants. I used fat free half and half. I cut back the recipe, 4 cups 1/2 and 1/2, 6 yolks, 2 whole eggs, 1c sugar. I baked it in a few individual ramekins and a loaf pan. Oh and I added chocolate chips instead of raisins. So did I really follow the recipe at all? Not very well. Oh well.

I found it very eggy. I think it would have been better if I'd cut it back by an egg. Although I thought I had because I saw comments that said it was eggy. Oh well.

I have put off posting this because I keep meaning to put my pics in but alas I am lazy and I give up so these are getting posted now.

Here's the recipe. Thanks Peggy.

Turkey Pho

2009-12-08T08:01:00.000-05:00

I actually had really little food left from Thanksgiving. I had made a 13 lb turkey and a few sides. All I had left was a little bit of turkey, cranberry sauce and a couple asparagus spears. The biggest thing I had left was the turkey stock.

I used the carcass to make a big pot of turkey stock. I had brined my turkey so that made my stock super simple. If you don't brine it (but why wouldn't you, it's so easy!) then you might need to get some seasonings in there.

I used the chunks of meat that came off the bone during the broth making process for the meat in this dish. I suppose you could add other turkey meat if you don't have enough but mine had tons of meat left.

Now if you are looking for an authentic pho, you should probably go to the original recipe. Me, I'm trying to use leftovers and make something relatively healthy (relative to me so as long as it has less than 1 lb of butter it's healthy) and uses what I have.

Broth

Get your biggest stock pot. Put all the remaining bones, skin, gristle, and I threw in all the herbs and whatnot. Pretty much slice off the meat you are gonna eat and throw everything else into the stock pot. You may want to break apart some of the bones to fit it into the pot. Add water until everything is just covered and cover the pot. Heat on medium high heat until you just start to see a bubble or 2. Then turn down to low. You are aiming for 190 so you should only see a bubble every once in a while. This helps keep the broth clear. Leave it on low for 8 hours. Skim the fat and foam off the top periodically. Strain out all the bones and gristle. Cool on the counter until it reaches room temp. Then portion out and refrigerate or freeze. When you refrigerate it, it will gel up.

Pho
based on this recipe from Steamy Kitchen

2 quarts turkey broth
2" piece of ginger
2 tbsp coriander
4 cloves
1 all spice berry
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp fish sauce

Simmer everything together for 1.5 hours. Remove the ginger, coriander, cloves and all spice. I put the spices in a strainer submerged in the broth for easy removal.

Serve with:
Dark meat turkey
rice noodles
roasted asparagus
Sriracha
Hoisin sauce
Green onion, cut into small rings

Daring Bakers: Cannoli (sorta)

2009-11-27T19:33:00.003-05:00

I'm sorry but getting out the deep fryer and dealing with the oil is too much work for me. And besides which, it's the daring bakers so I baked. OK I'm making excuses, so sue me.

Instead I decided to make cannoli cups. I made them in a mini muffin tin. I rolled the dough out really thin, cut circles and pressed them into the mini muffin pan and baked at 450 until they were brown. They did crisp up although they didn't have the bubbly texture that fried ones normally have.

I used some red wine instead of marsala so mine turned out a not so appetizing shade of purple. Oh well. I tried. And they still tasted good. I used the regular cannoli cream recipe and then i fudged my own pumpkin cream. They ended up a bit mushy when I took the rest to work the next day but that was expected. I ate them while they were fresh and that's all that matters.

The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.

'Tis the Season

2009-11-27T00:01:00.003-05:00

It's that time of year. If I cared enough I'd find some horrible Christmas music to play here. It's the time when people get especially stupid.

So, as with the tradition I started last year, no baking from now until New Years. While I do like cookies and all the rich flavors typically associated with this time of year, I don't like all the garbage people do. I'm still up in the air about posting any of the saved posts that I have.

Now that I live in the Bible Belt, it might be even worse. It's a pretty close contest because at least I don't live across the street from a church now.

With the way people behave, I don't even want to leave the house during this time of year. Even more than I usually am. If I do go out at all, I'll go at really odd hours just to avoid all the stupid people. All the people who claim to be good Christians but are really just doing it for the gifts. So that they can put themselves into debt and then go on welfare and bitch about tax6es.=

We have a plant wide dinner and meeting in December each year. They actually say a prayer at the start of it. A nice Christian prayer. Because obviously everyone should be a good Christian. Who are busy being completely disrespectful of everyone else because they need to get to Church. Am I the only one who finds this slightly offensive? How would the 'good Christians' feel we did a Muslim prayer?

And just think, I'm writing this on a Sunday where I'm relatively calm.

Barefoot Bloggers: Company Pot Roast

2009-11-26T07:36:00.000-05:00

This recipe was chosen by Lisa. She has a lot of fairly diverse recipes on her blog. It's a great place to look for ideas when you want to make something new.

It's a fairly simple pot roast. Perfect for a cold rainy day. Well, it was 75 and all sorts of sunny the weekend I decided to make it but no worries. It was still good.

I used a fairly small roast, about 2 lbs, because who wants to be eating the same pot roast for the rest of their lives? Even if it is good, it needs to go away at some point.

Initially when I added the wine, it smelled and tasted really wine-y. I was a bit concerned about this and thought I should have held back on the wine and added just a little. Fortunately, after a couple hours in the oven the wine mellowed out.

I didn't actually do the flour thickening thing because the sauce was pretty thick with the pureed veggies in there. It didn't seem to reheat all that well because the sauce separated but oh well.

Grapefruit Pith

2009-11-17T18:11:00.009-05:00

Imagine eating the pith of a grapefruit. Just the pith, no juice or zest at all. Eat the pith on the entire grapefruit, not just that bite. That's the mood I'm in.

Damn Southerners need to learn to drive.

Just because you put your turn signal on doesn't mean you have the right of way. So I am driving home from work today. There are 2 lanes each way and of course I am in the left. So this idiot in the right lane hauling a trailer realizes he needs to make a left turn. So he puts on his turn signal while I am next to the trailer. I am going about 10 mi/hr faster than him so I proceed to go past him. The car behind me left him a gap to move over. While I am passing him he starts honking like crazy like I should have stopped or something for him to move over. His turn wasn't even for another mile up the road.

Then I get into town so there's no passing areas. I ended up behind this car that was going 15. Literally. He started braking when he went down a hill and hit 20. I was stuck behind him for about 3 miles. At 15 mi/hr that's 12 excrutiatingly long minutes.

Damn Southerners. I need to move back north. Or at least somewhere where people know how to drive. Or where there are no people. That's probably the best solution.

And who in their right mind reads a book by someone who can't form a complete sentence (a book that is not all pictures, that is)? I am tired about hearing about her stupid book. While my blog is by no means grammatically perfect, at least there is one grammatically correct sentence somewhere in here. (And if you know what I'm talking about here, comment so I feel better)

Yes, I am a bitter, angry person.

Update: It does, however, make me happy that when i google 'grapefruit pith' this post comes up on the first page!

Barefoot Bloggers: Creme Brulee

2009-11-12T19:34:00.005-05:00

This recipe was fairly simple. I halved it because I really don't need to eat that much heavy cream and this would not transport well. Although I briefly thought about making a tray and using the real torch at work to caramelize it. Then I decided ramekins and broiler were probably a wiser approach. Only trouble with the broiler is, it's fairly easy to burn it.

I halved the recipe, left out the orange liquor and used vanilla paste rather than extract. By halving the recipe, I mean I used 1 egg, 2 yolks, 1.5 cups cream. The half batch made 4 almost full 8 oz ramekins. The little bits of vanilla bean are so good. I could see how the orange could be good in there but I didn't have any in the house.

Next time, I'd put it through a sieve. I got the chalaza in the one I ate. The custard was so smooth and creamy and mildly sweet and then there was that little nugget. Oh well.

This was mine pre sugar and brulee-ing. Haven't gotten an after brulee-ing picture. Yes, that is a word in my book. Do you always get a skin on it and then the brulee covers it? I had this the last time I made creme brulee as well.

This recipe was chosen by Suzie. I have way too many of her posts starred that I haven't made yet.

George's Belgian Waffles with Apple Cider Syrup

2009-11-06T19:14:00.000-05:00

The obvious question is, who is George? There are many George's in the world, although admittedly I know very few of them.

Could it be Curious George? Nope... he's a monkey so his logical waffles would involve bananas which these do not.

Could it be George Bush? (or for that matter, W) Nope... I can't really come up with anything because I don't really know what either of them eat.

Could it be George Washington? Well, he's got that whole apple tree thing and this has apple cider syrup so I guess we are getting closer....

Could it be George Jetson? Nope, his would probably be Eggo's.

Could it be George O'Malley (from Grey's Anatomy)? Nope because he's dead and I don't want to eat a dead man's waffles. Nevermind that he's fictional and a few of the previously mentioned people are also dead.

OK are you tired of me making up shit about every George I can think of (or google for)? The answer is George Foreman!

See, I went to make these in my waffle iron. Keep in mind this thing is not exactly new. I bought it used for $5. Almost 10 years ago. From a college student. So you know it's in great shape. Anyway, I took it out when I noticed some stuff on it. At first I thought I didn't clean it very well the last time I used it. Then I realized it was chunks missing of the waffle iron itself. Not the coating, but the metal underneath it. At which point I decided to look for something else in which to make my waffles.

That's when I remembered what else I had seen while I was digging out the waffle iron. My George Foreman. Also purchased almost 10 years ago, but it was bought new and hasn't had much use. I figured the coating was in good shape and it's supposed to get really hot so I should get some nice browning on the outside. Only thing is you don't get those thin crisp spots like you do in a waffle iron.

Here is the recipe. The only modification is cooking it on the George Foreman rather than a waffle iron. I suppose you could use a waffle iron if you have one readily available.

Wanna know the real secret? They are best reheated. Toast them up the next day and they get super crisp. Powdered sugar would be more traditional but I went with apple cider syrup. Also because I bought a gallon of apple cider and needed to start finding uses for it.

Apple Cider Syrup

2 cups apple cider
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground clove

Combine all ingredients in a jar that holds at least 3 cups. Microwave on high in 2 minute increments, stirring in between until it comes to a boil. Stir to make sure all the cornstarch is dissolved and evenly dispersed. Cool to room temp.

Barefoot Bloggers BRC: Caramelized Butternut Squash

2009-11-02T17:50:00.002-05:00

This came out really good. Something like candy except it's got butternut squash so it's gotta be good for you, right? While the amount of sugar in it is not exactly good for you, it's not THAT much sugar.

Wanna know my secret ingredient? Bacon grease. I put about 2 tbsp bacon grease and 2 tbsp butter rather than the 6 tbsp butter. So I actually cut back the fat a bit.

The toughest part of this recipe is peeling the squash. All I can say is make sure to sharpen your knife before you start. I did it twice while in the process just in case. I also broke a peeler (who does that, how do you even manage to do that?) at which point I decided to peel with the chef's knife. Once you get it peeled, it only takes a couple minutes. Note to self: next time look to see if they sell it peeled.

Here is the recipe.

Daring Bakers: Macaroons FAIL

2009-10-27T11:47:00.003-04:00

This one did not work out for me. The first weekend that I was planning on making them I ended up at work on Saturday and sick as a dog on Sunday. I ended up making it the next weekend, barely making it in time. The breaking point was when I stupidly decided to do it straight on the pan rather than putting parchment paper down. I was using a nonstick pan so I thought I was OK. Once I took it out of the oven I knew otherwise.

Since I had already used 5 egg whites and had 5 yolks waiting for me to figure out what to do with them, there was no way going to do it again. I used a plastic spatula and scraped them up the best I could, used the yolks to make a lemon curd and made a lemon mixed berry parfait.

Oh well. Not exactly my first failure. At least it was still edible.

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

Barefoot Bloggers: Blue Cheese Souffle

2009-10-22T20:45:00.001-04:00

This month's recipe for Blue Cheese Souffle was chosen by Summer.

So here's the dilemma. What was I gonna do with a full 8" souffle? it's not like it would keep well in the fridge once it was baked. And I don't have an 8" souffle dish. So I decided to make single serving size souffles.

Then I got tied up with work stuff. 14 hour days were so much more tolerable when I had a 6 minute commute.

And then I got this nasty cough from my flu shot.

Anyway, I still managed to make it on time. Barely. But it's here.

The blue cheese flavor is pretty strong. I would probably cut it back and add some other cheese for future reference. That or actually use the amount called for in the recipe, not just dump some in and figure that should be good. I made it in my toaster oven because the front is clean and I could watch it without opening the door. Otherwise I'd have no idea how long to bake it for. That worked out pretty well.

Is it sad that I've never had a savory souffle before? I've had plenty of chocolate souffles but never savory. Anyway, here it is. It is a hold on and tweak it recipe.

The Pleasure is All Mine

2009-10-20T18:54:00.002-04:00

I went to the library today. As usual, I spent a few minutes browsing the cook books. I knew I needed this one when I started reading the introduction.

"I'm not sure why eating alone has gotten such a bad rap. With the number of singles, loners, and suicide bombers out there, you'd think it would be fairly acceptable."

The Pleasure is All Mine
by Suzanne Pirret

Barefoot Bloggers: Cheddar Corn Chowder

2009-10-08T11:43:00.007-04:00

This recipe Cheddar Corn Chowder was chosen by Jill. When I first saw what this months recipes were, my first thought was ugh. See, I had just made a large pot of soup. By large pot, I mean 12 quarts. And I had just eaten 2 bowls and was starting to get sick of it.

So I decided to quarter the recipe. I figured that'd give me probably 2 servings. Well, it gave me significantly more than 2 servings. But that's OK because this soup is really good. I used whole milk instead of half and half (although I used more than called for, I just took the bottle and poured) but it still is so creamy and has a really nice mouthfeel.

I ate a small bowl (about a cup worth) and it was so rich tasting that I was actually pretty much full at that point. Even though I had made a grilled cheese sandwich and some roasted veggies to go with it, I had most of it left because the soup is so rich. Although if you look at the ingredients, it's not all cream. I guess the bacon fat gives it all that richness. I only used 2 strips of bacon that I had in the freezer. Which is no where near the 2 oz the recipe called for. I even left out (aka forgot) the butter. I can't imagine how rich this would be if I had all the fat that was supposed to be in it.

Thanks Jill, this was an awesome choice! This one is definitely getting saved.

Homemade Candy Bars

2009-10-04T21:13:00.000-04:00

I was lying in bed one morning watching food network. Wasn't ready to get up so I just kept watching. When I saw this I knew I needed to make it.

These were good enough for me to keep for myself. They didn't get brought into work like just about everything I make does. I have them stashed in the freezer so I can grab one anytime I need a sugar fix. Or I don't feel like making/eating a real dinner. Which is fairly often.

Homemade Candy Bars
based on this recipe by Sunny Anderson

For the cookie bar
2 cup AP flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 stick butter, room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
5 oz bittersweet chocolate, melted
1/4 cup finely chopped cashews
a pinch of salt

Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the egg and mix in. Stir in the chocolate. Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt. Mix dry ingredients and pecans into the wet mixture. Press into the bottom of a greased 9x9 baking pan. Bake at 325 for about 25 minutes or until cooked through. Cool completely.

Caramel topping
1 1/2 sticks butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp corn syrup
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup cashews, chopped

Combine everything except the cashews in a pan and cook over medium heat until it browns slightly. Pour over the cookie base and spread evenly. Sprinkle the pecans on top of the caramel while it is still hot. Chill and cut into bars.

Barefoot Bloggers: Beatty's Chocolate Cake

2009-09-30T20:26:00.002-04:00

The second recipe for the month was Beatty's Chocolate Cake. This is a really dark chocolate cake.

OK ready for baking/decorating tip from me? Try to contain your laughter. This is how I do most of my cakes if I am going to take them out of the house, which I almost always do. Bake it in the pan you are going to carry it in. Line the pan with foil and grease it or whatever. Take the cake out with the foil to cool. Then return the cake to the pan to be frosted and transported. This makes sure the cake doesn't stick to the pan and it fits perfectly. I have 4 pyrex pans with lids. 2 9x13's, a 9x9 and a 8x10. I do it with brownies and lots of other stuff too.

Mary of Passionate Perseverance chose this recipe. Thanks Mary!

Daring Bakers: Vols au Vent

2009-09-27T03:23:00.000-04:00

So this month's recipe was Vols au Vent. This is pretty much a puff pastry cup for assorted fillings. The real thing for this challenge was the puff pastry.

The way puff pastry works is you have a dough with thin layers of butter in between. The dough needs to stay cool so that the butter stays solid. You start with a layer of dough surrounding a thick layer of butter. Then you roll it out and fold it over so the layers of dough/butter get progressively thinner. Each time you fold it into 3rds. With 6 turns, you get 3^6 or 729 layers of butter. Then when you bake it, the moisture in the butter (butter is about 20% water) evaporates and forms steam, which causes the dough to puff.

I was a little worried how it would come out when I made the dough. I guess I added way too much water so the dough was really sticky. As in almost batter type sticky. So then I had to add flour.

Then the recipe said very cold butter so I took the butter from the freezer. That was a bad idea. When I went to roll it out, the dough was soft and the butter was hard so then the butter tore right through the dough. So I let it warm up a bit to let the butter soften and tried to fold the dough around it.

I managed to get it together but between the wet dough and the over kneading, the dough ended up getting overworked. My puff pastry actually had some chewiness to it. I am not sure how I feel about this. The flavor was decent.

I am not convinced it was worth the effort and all the cleaning of flour off every surface of my kitchen. Oh well. Maybe I will make it again just to say I can do it right.

These were the toppings I chose:
Caramelized Mushrooms and Onions
Smoked salmon cream cheese
caramelized apples

The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

Mushrooms

2009-09-26T14:17:00.002-04:00

I looked at my front lawn today. I know, I don't do it very often. I just drive past it. Only reason I looked was because as I was pulling out of the driveway, I noticed something at the edge. I thought it was trash. So I decided to go take a look and found it was these mushrooms. They are growing all along the the edge of the driveway.

Anyone know what kind of mushrooms these are, or more importantly, are they edible?

Barefoot Bloggers: Birthday Sheet Cake

2009-09-24T19:26:00.000-04:00

I don't know how it got to the end of the month without me posting either recipe. I was checking some other blogs and I saw some posts for the second cake and I thought, 'I wonder why everyone is posting early'. And then I realized. It's the end of the month. Oops.

So here's the first one.

I know I'm late. I was on vacation. And now I'm back.

Susy of Everyday Gourmet chose this recipe. Happy birthday Susy.

I didn't love this cake. It wasn't bad but it was a little dry and nondescript. But most stuff I make is nondescript. Oh well. Probably won't make this one again. Maybe the next one will be better.

Cha Siu Bou Filling

2009-09-22T19:00:00.001-04:00

So Kate sent me The Shangri-La Cookbook because she is so cool. I was excited. I knew it was coming so I was checking my mail more often than normal. Because that's real tough, with my once a week or so check. Ha! When it came in the mail the package was relatively nondescript. But I knew what it was. And I wanted to check it out. So I opened it while I was walking back to the house from my mailbox. Despite the fact that it was raining. I never claimed to be smart. Fortunately it wasn't raining very hard and the book only got a couple drops on it.

So the table of contents has 5 sections, openers, the principles, the supporting cast, forbidden sweets, and the epilogue. obviously I went straight to forbidden sweets. If you even paused to think about that one then you don't know me at all. Sadly, nothing there really inspired me.

Fortunately I flipped through the rest of the book and a number of other things did! This is the first one I am making, though there will be plenty more to come. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to make anything before I went on vacation. I was here, can you blame me? Which is, by the way, why I haven't posted anything in a while.

Anyway, back to this book. It touches on a lot of different ethnic foods, chinese, korean, japanese, indian, etc. Initially I wanted to make samosas. But just coming back from vacation and wanting to make other stuff, I didn't feel like dealing with deep frying. It will be saved for a later date.

The first recipe I decided to make was for Cha Siu Bou. These are steamed breads with a sweet salty meaty filling. I didn't make the bread because I had a lot of other starches in the works. I made the filling and put it on top of a pastry crust.

I have always wondered about asian flavors. I have tried a number of times but the flavors never came out quite right. Now I have come to realize it is the sugar. I never knew to add sugar to savory asian recipes. At least not that much sugar. I had added a touch of honey here and there but never this much sugar relative to the other ingredients. Woohoo I know how to make something now.

This recipe is so easy. At least the filling is. And the flavor is right. I had some cooked chicken in the fridge so I just chopped that up for this. This is the filling. I ate half of it before putting it on anything.

Everybody say thank you Kate!

Cha Siu Bou
from Shangri-La Cookbook by Helen Dorsey

1 1/2 cup cooked chicken, chopped
1/2 cup green onion, chopped
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp sugar

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. Fill each bread with about 1 tbsp of filling

Cheesy crescent rolls

2009-09-04T10:21:00.000-04:00

Bad things happen when my sleep schedule gets disrupted. I can't quite explain how it happened but somehow I ended up awake and sitting in my kitchen at 4AM and hungry but not wanting anything that was in my fridge. I was craving junk food, plain and simple.

I had some cans of crescent dough and pizza dough in the fridge. These were from when I decided to enter the Pillsbury Bake Off. That I never actually entered. Even though I went and wrote up several recipes and even tested them a bit. And sadly I have done this with more than one recipe contest.

The best part of these is definitely the edges where the cheese leaked out and browned on the pan. crispy browned cheese. yum.

Cheesy crescent rolls

1 can crescent roll dough
several sticks of cheese sticks (I used Colby jack but a chunk of any cheese you find in your fridge will work)

Unroll the can of crescent dough.
At the fat end of the dough lay a piece of cheese, just the width of the dough.
Roll up the crescent around the cheese.
Bake per the instructions on the can.

Barefoot Bloggers: White Pizza with Arugula

2009-08-27T21:45:00.000-04:00

This month's second recipe was chosen by Andrea of Nummy Kitchen. She chose white pizza with arugula. mmmm I liked this recipe and it's pretty damn easy too.

I suck at reading recipes. I saw the garlic, thyme and red pepper flake in the ingredient list but didn't see where they were being used so I kneaded them into the dough. I thought it was a little weird but that's OK. Then I see the instructions for the garlic oil. Oops. Oh well.

Oh and I used my fancy unbleached bread flour. I can definitely taste the difference in the crust. It's good. You should try it. Unless you already use it and I am just slow to the party. Which is a definite possibility.

These came out pretty good. What I did was I put the entire ball of dough in the fridge and then I pull off a chunk for a personal pizza when I want one. Then I cooked it on a skillet, kinda the way you grill a pizza except in a pan. I still have some dough left but I am figuring it'll make about 6 9" pizzas.

Hopefully I'll get around to posting these pics too.

Daring Bakers: Dobos Torte

2009-08-27T21:15:00.001-04:00

I really had the intention of trying to make it pretty at some point. Or least to make it decent looking. But that didn't work out so well.

My buttercream definitely came out more like a ganache. I probably should have chilled it a bit before trying to put it on the cake. That would have helped thicken it up so there wouldn't be a pool of it running off the cake in every possible direction. Oh well.

I poured the extra caramel onto the pan and let it cool with the cake layer. When it was still somewhat warm and sticky I pulled off some of the extra stuff and pulled it around and tried to make some random stringy shaped caramel things. So those went on instead of hazelnuts.

I made it but I don't think I will be making it again. You don't get a good cakey texture because they are so thin and there is so much frosting. I guess it's interesting looking although that's never really been my thing. Oh well. Maybe I'll like next month's pick better.

I have been meaning to upload my pics but so far that hasn't happened yet.

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful
of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos
Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite
Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

Century Eggs and Tofu

2009-08-21T06:59:00.000-04:00

This is one of those things I had a bunch when I was growing up. It was one of those easy throw on the table, no heat, good for hot days dishes. It's usually served as one of a number of dishes family style with rice.

The picture is... maybe not the most appetizing. And this might be a bit of an acquired taste. Century eggs are a bit pungent and rich and musky. I don't know how else to describe it. It's one of those you just have to try to understand things. I bought a box of 6 for $4 and they are a pantry item. As far as I know of, they don't go bad like ever. It doesn't cost much to try it and it's definitely authentic. You won't find this at any sort of takeout place. At least not around here.

The sauce is definitely an eyeball thing. Just don't go too heavy with the fish sauce or sesame oil. Probably could use more soy sauce but I'm not big on a lot of salt. Could also throw in anything you want, teriyaki sauce, oyster sauce, sweet chili sauce come to mind.

Century Eggs and Tofu

2 century eggs (preserved duck eggs)
1 block silken tofu
a small bunch finely chopped chives
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp rice wine vinegar
a couple drops fish sauce

Drain and chop up the silken tofu into chunks.
Peel the century eggs and cut into small pieces, about 1/4-1/8" cubes, and sprinkle on top of the tofu.
Sprinkle with chives
Drizzle all the sauces over.
Serve chilled.