Enjoy!

For more check out our flickr page.

Fear not though I have been a grilling fool who sometimes drags a camera out to shoot.  However, I have been very lacking in the photography department (as evident by a plating picture that has overexposed rice).  However, my personal goal is to at least shoot a couple times a week relax and unwind (beats my other vices which will eventually kill me).  I also know garden updates went over really well last year so hopefully the ground can actually dry out enough that I can drag the camera out there without needing waders or a kayak.

Hmmm well unless you want to be bored to tears with talk of Cisco, VLANs, EIGRP, and all other joys of networking I am going to lob the ball to you and simply ask what has everyone else been up to????

For this recipe you will need:

• 1/4 cup lime juice
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
• 1 habanero
• 1/2 white onion
• 2 shallots
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1/4 cup combined of chives/thyme/parsley
• 2 bay leaves
• Couple whole cloves
• 4 allspice berries (about 1/2 teaspoon in powder)

Steps to success:

1. Combine everything in a food pro (blender would work too)
2. Spin until a semi-chunky mess.
3. Pour over chicken.
4. Hmmmm….ok now it gets difficult….throw into the fridge for 4-6 hours and bake at 400 for 40 minutes or grill it up.

p.s. yes I know grammar and spelling still sucks and if it would have been perfect people would be calling foul……

BUT, and I don’t really want to point fingers here… buuuuttttttttt… some one else hasn’t posted in like 6,034,050 days… so if any flogging is going to happen it will be HIS heinie that get’s it NOT mine. I have a plethora of excuses. But only one way to make it up to you…

Another installment in the wonderful that is SCOOPAPALOOZA!

Yea another ice cream… I wish I had like oh I don’t know some juicy JERK PORK CHOPS or some GRILLED ONION CITRUS CHICKEN THIGHS to post but I am in a microscopic apartment at the moment, and making rice causes the inside temps to hit 90 in 3.4 seconds and I am afraid the heat will cause the lake to riptide. I wonder if anyone ELSE has some recipes for the aforementioned dishes to post… donno .

At least this ice cream… where not grill-able comes with some heat…

That, my friends is my newest warped creation, Mojo Mexican Ice Cream. And yea it is muy caliente y muy fría!

This ice cream is a brown sugar Ceylon cinnamon based cream, with swirls of dulce de leche and Mexican chocolate fudge which is flecked with bits of salted chipotle.

Yes. It is involved. But so very worth it. (Besides if you are like me – you already have cans of dulce in the fridge awaiting its calling so yea half done really…)

Lets start with the base:

2 cups of half and half
1 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 heaping tablespoon of Ceylon cinnamon (reserved)

(This cream and half & half base is my go to…)

Combine the half and half, the cream and the brown sugar in a medium sauce pan and cook over medium low heat. Stirring occasionally, bring this mixture to 170°. Remember – do not allow to boil… then remove from heat and let cool slightly. Pour into non reactive, air tight container and let cool in fridge overnight. (Must get to 40°)

Next the Dulce:

If I can teach Elle from Elle’s Kitchen to make Dulce de leche this way anyone can do it. Tho I think she stood just outside the kitchen door with blast shields up…

Take a can of sweetened condensed milk and peel the label off it.

Place the can in a deep pot and cover completely with water. Bring water to a boil and allow to boil, making sure that the can is completely covered at all times with water, for about 90 minutes. If you do it longer you will have a thicker dulce. About three hours produces a dulce that you can slice with a knife and eat like a chunk of cheese… (Gonna faint at the thought.) Regardless it is heaven and it is the easiest thing in the world to make. Albeit a little scary for the inexperienced.

Remove the can from the water and let cool. I HAVE opened the can after about 30 minutes when it was still a little hot to the touch (you do NOT need to in this instance…) I did it slowly. Nothing exploded or sprayed out like hot lava. Bottom line is this. I am not a kitchen safety expert, and definitely not following the OSHA guidelines for dulce surety. AND I KNOW damn well that a bunch of you are going to get all up in my ice cream because THIS IS SO NOT SAFE!!! Yea. Well. Neither is eating all of Jeff’s sour patch kids yet I do it…

So the dulce needs to be cool to add to the ice cream or it will melt. BUT you only want it room temperature. So. Leave the can closed on the counter top till you make the actual ice cream and move on to the fudge…

El Mexican Fudge

8 oz Mexican Chocolate (like Ibarra or Abuelita Marqueta, probably called Mexican hot chocolate so yes, this is NOT bitter chocolate)
1/3 cup butter
2 cups powder sugar
1 cup evaporated milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 large chipotle pepper, seeded and chopped into small dice.
Hot water to cover
1/2 t vanilla salt (just salt is fine too)

In a large saucepan, combine the chocolate and butter. Cook and stir over low heat until melted. Slowly add in the sugar and milk. Increase heat to a low boil and cook, stirring constantly, for about 8 – 10 minutes. Remove from heat and add the vanilla.

Take the diced chipotle and place in a small bowl or cup and just cover with hot water. Add salt and stir to dissolve. Let sit till needed.

When the chocolate is cooled, divide. Store half in fridge for future topping use. Rinse and drain the chipotle and then add to the reserved half of the chocolate fudge.

Quick note. The dulce and fudge need to be no hotter or colder then room temperature. So if you make them the day before and store in fridge you will need to them to room temperature before layering in the ice cream.

Are you exhausted yet because I am just typing all this…

Ok so – time to get that ice cream maker out of the freezer and the base out of the fridge. And following your manufacturers guidelines, process the cream base. NOW is when you add the Ceylon cinnamon to the cream. While it is slowly becoming ice cream, get out a 32 oz container in which you will store the ice cream for its final freeze. When the cream is finished becoming ice cream, pour a third of it into the storage container. Then pour in a thin (ish) layer of dulce. Add another third of the ice cream and then add the chocolate chipotle fudge in its own naughty layer. Finally top with the rest of the ice cream. Cover and put immediately in the freezer for a MINIMUM of 4 hours, or as I like to refer to it as… torture.

When serving be sure to scoop all the way down to get to the all the layers.

I accept all forms of flattery & thanks. Go ahead throw money I won’t be offended.

Maybe they should just change this to Less then 82 Words Wednesday.

ANYHOO – I already KNEW ice cream was in my future as I recently spied some vanilla beans that I had forgotten we had. Swirl in some of that delicate banana gooeyness with what was already going to be killer and you have PURE SEX on a SPOON. So we recruited Kathy at A Good Appetite Renee at Flamingo Musings and Barbara at Vino Luci (Who hasn’t posted her ice cream yet but DAMN THOSE BROWNIES!) to create banana debauchery along with us. If I were you I would FEAR clicking the previous links of my partners in bananadom because if you are no where NEAR ice cream, you may just PANIC. Then again mayhem may break out just from this photo alone:

And now, because that is the kind of girl I am, I will TEACH you how to cause said mayhem. ( Yea yea, I ROCK.)

You need this:

2 cups half-and-half
1 cup whipping cream
2/3 cup sugar
2 vanilla bean, split and scraped.

Pint o’ blackberries

4 Bananas

(Oh by the way. You ALSO need a thermometer, an ice cream maker and a food processor to pull this off flawlessly.)

Have everything? Ok…

Then you do this:

Combine the half and half, the cream, sugar and vanilla bean in a medium sauce pan and cook over medium low heat. Stirring occasionally, bring this mixture to 170°. DO NOT ALLOW TO BOIL FOR THE LOVE OF GAH!

Remove from heat and let cool slightly. Pour into non reactive, air tight container; throw in the scrapped vanilla bean pod and let cool in fridge overnight. (Must get to 40°)

About 2-3 hours before pulling out the ice cream maker, peel bananas, slice into chunks, and freeze. (If you go longer it is ok, just let them thaw a tad.)

Ok time to make the ice cream. Set up your ice cream maker (according to the manufacturers directions…) and pour in the cream and vanilla mixture. OH! Remove the pods first. (NOW rinse them and dry them and put in your sugar for yummy vanilla sugar!) Turn it on and let it run.

While the ice cream maker is doing its job, take the frozen bananas and process the bejezzus out of them in the food processor. You will need to scrape down the sides like 259,035 times, but it is worth it. Keep it up till you have what looks like ice cream.

During this time, your ice cream maker has probably done its magic and you now have some beautiful double vanilla bean ice cream forming. When you have about 5 minutes left on the ice cream. dump in the black berries. You CAN chop roughly if you like. I just tossed them in whole. While it is wrapping up it job, get out another non reactive air tight container.

Spoon some of the banana “ice cream” on the bottom of the container. Then layer with the vanilla black berry ice cream. More banana. More cream. More banana. More cream… I think you get my drift.

Then place in freezer till it sets. Sorry folks, this AGAIN may be over night.

However your patience will be paid off in SPADES because this is some of the most decadent ice cream you will ever lay your taste buds on.

Oh. You are VERY welcome.

L O V E.

MANY months ago, Jeff and I made the Bread Bakers Apprentice English Muffins. If I recall correctly, they took 68 days to ferment and proof and retard and proof again and punch down and degas and proof yet again and shape and pan fry and teach Spanish to and then bake… But they sure were good.

And that wild raspberry compote – Amazing… My idea by the way.

Of course now I can’t JUST BUY English Muffins in the grocery store anymore. I don’t know if it was the wonderful taste of the home made muffins that ruined it or the fact it was the first BBA bread I baked with my brand spanking new at the time baking assistant… Emphasis on the… well… never mind.

Bottom line is they are my do all – end all breakfast bread favorite, but I neither have the time, the patience nor the damn space in my little kitchen to whip up a batch whenever my lil’ ole heart desires. So I came up with the next best thing. I created the English Muffin – Muffin. And whoa… full of AWESOME!

So simple… so tasty… so full of all the little nooks and cranies that you have grown to love.

That, my friends. Is an English muffin – muffin. And what makes that particular English muffin – muffin even sexier, is that it is the toasted muffin top. Have MERCY!

Imagine in just a short while you can have your very own fresh baked English muffin – muffins for breakfast! Lunch! OR Act now and have them for DINNER! The recipe is very simple…

You need the following:

2 1/2 t instant yeast
2 t sugar
1/4 cup warm water
1 t salt
1 C warm butter milk (I used 1% milk here also with success)
2 C AP flour (+ 1/4 more if needed)
1/4 t baking soda
cornmeal for dusting

The so so so hard steps to muffin greatness:

Add the yeast, sugar and warm water to your bowl and let proof for 10 minutes.

While proofing, heat the milk.

AND In a separate bowl combine the flour, salt and baking soda.

AND prepare your muffin pan by spraying with oil, and then dusting with corn meal.

When the yeast mixture is all foaming at the mouth, add the flour and milk, by alternating between the two. Ya know – add flour to the yeast mixture, then milk, then flour then milk till a heavy batter is formed. You will NOT have a typical bread dough for this. Think gut bomb pancakes.

Pour or spoon batter into prepared muffin pan about three quarters (plus) of the way full. DO not get over zealous here and fill it more. You will have a freaking mess on your hands.

Spray top with oil and cover with plastic wrap and let rise 30 to 45 minutes. You need to pay attention here or again – big freaking mess.

Preheat oven to 350°

Uncover the muffins gently. Dust lightly with corn meal and bake till golden, about 20 minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool before attempting to slice or toast.

BIG LOVE for these muffins as they are so easy to make and super delicious and if you slice it the right way you get an English Muffin Muffin Top *Gasp!*. How completely full of CRAZYis that?

I am also experimenting with adding cheeses and meats to the muffins, with GREAT success. The key is to NOT add it to the batter, but rather to the muffin tin AFTER you add the batter (Also add significantly less batter…) but before it rises. Any additions of herbs or spices however should be added to the batter while mixing.

But I digress… last trip there I found my oldest dearest addictions…… one I had not seen in about 2 years – as it is NOT easy to find. Moghrabieh. Or maybe better known to you as Lebanese cous cous. Or maybe not even known to you at all which kinda makes this THE COOLEST BLOG POST EVER!

The addiction started a long long time ago with simple Moroccan couscous – made from semolina wheat, it is about the size of a pin head. Super easy to prepare and versatile. I then moved on to the beautiful pearl variety – also known as Israeli couscous. This variety is made of hard baked wheat and are about the size of a peppercorn, and it is said is pretty close to orzo… I like to saute it in a little ghee / butter before adding my veggies and broth so it gets a nice golden color and nutty toasted taste. Then one day I happened upon the Lebanese couscous variety. So. Freaking. Good. Also known as Moghrabieh, and are about 1/4 ” in diameter. I like to treat it as if it were little dumplings, or even risotto. This couscous variety takes patience… and if you suffer even SLIGHTLY from shiny object syndrome – is not a dish for you to even attempt. YesIAmLookingAtYouJeff…

The typical Chicken Paprikash is browned and then simmered covered in wine and broth till very tender. Then a dollop of sour cream makes it the feel good meal of the century. But sometimes I want that spicy smoky paprika taste on some crispy & juicy chicken. Save the simmering for another cold and blustery day NEXT WINTER!

What came first? The chicken or the rub?

Combine the following:

3 T smoked paprika
1 T kosher salt
Zest of 1 lemon
2 t garlic powder
1 t cayenne powder
1/2 t pepper

You also need:

1 whole roasting chicken (3-4 #), but you can easily use quarters.

Preheat oven to 400°.

Rinse chicken under cold water and pat dry.

Gently loosen the skin from the chicken. Rub half the seasoning underneath the skin where possible. Rub the rest on the surface of the skin. Take any left over rub and sprinkle inside the cavity.

Place chicken in shallow roasting pan and place in oven.

While the chicken is roasting (which it will for about 45 minutes or until it is 165°) start the Moghrabieh. Which requires the following:

1 T olive oil
1 small sweet onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1.5 C Moghrabieh
3-4 cups chicken stock
juice of 1 lemon
2 T butter
1/2 cup fresh parsley (I used dried but it was all I had…)
Salt, pepper and crushed red pepper to taste.

Heat olive oil in saucepan and saute moghrabieh till slightly golden. Add the onions and garlic and continue to saute till soft.

Add 1/2 of the stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer about 10 minutes. Stir often. This is where your risotto skills will come into play so put down your blackberry, ignore the tv, stop playing video games… or guess what – MOGHRABIEH FAIL!

When you notice most of the broth has been absorbed, add about 1/2 c more. As I explained before – they have a bit of a dumpling texture to them… I did mention that right?… anyway… some people like mushy dumplings, some like them a little more firm. So in between adding the rest of the broth, be sure to taste and STOP when you like what you have. This can take up to 30 minutes… SO you there with the severe ADD – pop some fish oil before you attempt!

CHECK THAT CHICKEN! I bet it is done… Let sit for 10 minutes…

Okay… once you have achieved perfect moghrabieh status, stir in the butter, lemon juice, parsley, salt & pepper. Serve sprinkled with crushed red chili flakes, some more parsley and top with a nice big piece of chicken paprika. YUM!