Eclairs

Look I'm writing a post!

So I made eclairs.  In case you couldn't tell from the title.  Though if you couldn't tell from the title then you probably aren't reading this.

Anyway.

Pastry cream.  Chocolate glaze.  Some sort of shell.  What's not to like?

So here are my not so glamorous glamor shots:

I followed this recipe.  Well, for the most part.  Because I'm mentally incapable of following a recipe.

I didn't have any cream and the eclairs were in the oven when I realized it.  So I used some butter with the chocolate for the glaze.
Oh and I used home made vanilla extract rather than steeping the vanilla bean.  And probably some other little things that I can't think of.

It's good to bake again, like from scratch.  It's been a while.  Well, I've done some savory stuff but baking pastries is just mentally different.  I should make some cookies.  Or pie.  mmmm I should make pie for Pi day.



On another note, I've started my first batch of seeds.  Tomatoes, tomatilloes, peppers, a few other random ones, I forget which else.  Right now they are seeds on a damp paper towel sitting on my heater.  I'll transfer them to seed starting soil in a few days assuming I have some sprouts going by then.  Hopefully I'll do better this year with seeds than the last few years.  And hopefully the snow will melt sometime.  My raised beds are 10" tall but I can barely tell where they are because they are still covered in snow.

Cheesecake Ice Cream

The bowl for my ice cream maker is in my freezer.  I put it there when I moved in.  As long as it's there, taking up precious freezer space, I figure it needs to be put to good use.  The first batch was cinnamon ice cream.  This was the 2nd.

This is actually what you should do, not what I did.  I threw everything in a bowl and mixed.  Then I got a whisk to break up the lumps as best I could but definitely still had some.  Oh well.  I guess I'll have to try again sometime.

Cheesecake Ice Cream
adapted from this recipe

8 oz cream cheese
8 oz plain yogurt
4 oz light cream
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp orange zest
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
pinch sea salt

Cream together cream cheese and sugar.  Gradually add the yogurt while stirring to get a smooth mixture.  Continue with the cream.  Stir in orange zest, vanilla bean paste and salt.  Chill in the fridge overnight.  Churn in ice cream maker.

No Knead Bread

OK so everyone else blogged this years ago but hey, I'm slow. I might be slow enough for this to be retro cool rather than just dated. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

So the reason I am actually baking the bread dough that was in my fridge is this. My coworker had egg salad for lunch yesterday. Suddenly I needed egg salad. Then I needed a carrier for the egg salad. I tried to dip some baby carrots in it and that worked kinda a little while the bread was rising but not terribly well.

If I were a more interesting person, this would be where I would insert a funny story. But hey, I don't claim to be exciting so it's your own fault for reading this.

My recipe is based off the Jim Lahey's recipe, published in the NYTimes. I added a little honey and upped the salt a hair because I can. At least right now, I am just keeping a batch of this dough in the fridge and baking it whenever I want bread.

The first time I made it, I made a big loaf in the dutch oven, like the recipe says. That always comes out with an amazing crust, perfect for slathering with butter or dip in garlic oil. This time I made some rolls in a muffin pan, uncovered. These are a bit softer but still with more of a crust than a lot of rolls that I've had at restaurants. At some point I thought the muffin pan size would be a good sandwich size but they are a bit small for that.

A batch made one big loaf. I used about half a batch to make a dozen mini rolls.

3 cups flour

1/4 tsp yeast

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp honey

1 1/2 cup water

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl.

Let it sit out on the counter for about 12 hours.

Refrigerate until you are ready to use.

The day you are going to bake, take dough out of the fridge and fold together into a ball or whatever shape you desire. Small dough balls in a muffin pan are also nice.

Place ball on floured towel, cover with another floured towel and allow to rise 2 1/2 hours.

During the last 30 mins of rising, preheat oven to 450.

Bake until you have a golden brown crust.

Hazelnut Shortbread Cookies

Hey look! Another post!

Here's another recipe that I've made a bunch of times but when I searched here to find it, it wasn't here. So I guess I'm writing a blog post about how I didn't write a blog post. Exciting stuff, I know.

It's been a crazy week. Well, it'll be last week, by the time this post goes up. I like to schedule a few of them and space them out. You know, to have a post every few days rather than 3 in a day and then nothing for a few weeks.

Anyway... it's been a crazy week. I took the week off with the plan to relax, unpack some stuff, maybe buy a few things for the house, finish the built in shelving that I already posted. And that's how my vacation started.

But then Tuesday evening, I hear this tapping sound. I looked around and found out that water was coming down from my air conditioning vent into my living room. Not a lot, probably a quart of water total but enough to make me unhappy. So I contacted 3 roofers.

I spoke to the first one about 8:30 on Wednesday; he said he'd be there about 10-10:30 to check it out; I'm still waiting for him to show up.

The second guy came and looked at it and said it doesn't really look like it's a roof leak because the roof is in good shape, which I agreed with being that the roof is only 8 years old; he started looking at the siding and saw a gap where if the wind blows the right way might be able to get water in it and get to the duct.

The third guy came in, took a look at where the vent is, relative to the window, went outside to look at the roof, stepped 20 ft back and looked at it for a minute and said all he could do is replace the entire roof. Never actually looked at the roof or anything. Asshole.

So that's made my vacation fun.

And the fun continued. Friday I went down to my basement to fix something. My finished, carpeted basement. I sat down on the floor and when I got up I noticed my shorts were damp. Odd. I didn't think I'd pissed myself and if I was having bladder issues, that was news to me.

So I start checking the floor and I found a maybe 5 sq ft wet spot on the carpet. This is the line of thought that was going on in my head. 'shit. shit shit shit. shit fuck shit. shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit.' Very eloquent, I know.

So I raced to the garage and got my shop vac and started trying to suck up the water. I got probably a gallon up like that. You could barely feel the dampness in the carpet. I cranked up my box fan and dehumidifier, went back upstairs and sat down and let out a big sigh.

But then I started thinking about it a bit more and I started worrying about the carpet pad and subfloor. Ultimately, I ended up pulling up the carpet and carpet pad on about 1/3 of my basement. When it's on concrete, carpet pad is just glued down, which makes it not the easiest to get up. In case you were wondering.

Fortunately it wasn't raining so I took several of the carpet pads and let them dry outside and I got to work on drying out everything that was still inside. I used pretty much everything I have that can move air, one way or another. Box fan, space heater, blow dryer, dehumidifier and shop vac. All running on high. Can't wait to see that electric bill. At least I didn't trip anything out.

And yes, I sat there with the holding the blow dryer, blowing under the baseboard heater to try and get the concrete dried out. And in case you were wondering, you can burn carpet with a blow dryer if you hold it really close to the carpet. You know, if that was one of those things that you've always been wondering about.

I set up the space heater behind the box fan so the box fan was blowing hot dry air with a lot more fan speed than the space heater. When things got fairly dry, I just used the box fan and dehumidifier.

Every 3 hours, I'd go down, empty the dehumidifier (I moved it over to where the floor was wet and of course my hose isn't long enough to reach from there to the drain), move the fan, carpet pads and carpet around some to make sure everything gets really dry. 3 days of that. And yes, I set an alarm during the night to get up and do it every 3 hours. It's like I got a newborn infant dropped on me. At least I don't have to breast feed it or something.

At some point I started spraying everything with vinegar to help prevent mold growth. I used close to a half a gallon of vinegar. I'd spray, turn the fans off for 30 mins or so and then turn them back on. I'm sure the neighbors could smell it. But at least it's not as stinky as ammonia or bleach. And I don't see or smell any signs of mold.

Well between each of those 3 hour increments, I had some time to do other things, at least when things were pretty much dry. This was when I deemed the shelves done. Even though the finish isn't very smooth and I probably didn't give the polyurethane enough cure time. I also made some cookie dough. Sigh.

Anyway. Here's the cookie recipe. I'm done whining. At least for this post. You can stop scrolling now.

Hazelnut Shortbread Cookies

based on Dave Lieberman's recipe

1 cup hazelnuts

1 cup AP flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1 stick butter at room temperature

1/3 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

3 oz dark chocolate

Toast the nuts in a dry skillet until fragrant.

Finely chop the nuts.

Cream butter and sugar together.

Beat in egg and vanilla.

Mix together nuts, flour, baking powder, salt.

Add dry ingredients to wet and mix until combined.

Form into a log and chill for at least 2 hours.

Slice cookies and bake at 350. How long to bake will depend on how big you make the cookies. I did 16 cookies and baked about 15 minutes.

While the cookies are baking, melt the chocolate in the microwave.

Dip part of the cookies in the chocolate and drizzle top with the remainder after they've cooled for a couple minutes.

Cinnamon Ice Cream

I just realized I never posted this recipe. Apparently I haven't posted a bunch of my basic recipes. Because I keep coming here to find my recipes and can't find them. And I'm too lazy to go through my recipe 'file' to find them. Sigh. Well, fortunately I remember this one enough to do it/make it up.

This recipe comes out pretty cinnamony. If you are a normal person, you may want to cut back the amount of cinnamon, like in half. When I tested it after it had steeped I thought it was way too cinnamony and that I should've checked the recipe rather than going off memory from probably 2 years ago. Whoops. But after it's frozen, the flavor isn't as strong so I think this is a pretty good amount.

It also has a pretty high fat content so it coats your mouth like a premium ice cream should but if you have a different ice cream base that you like better, you can of course use that but this is the one I chose today.

I like it drizzled with honey but it's also good straight up.

Cinnamon Ice Cream

2 cinnamon sticks

1 tbsp ground cinnamon

1 cup sugar

a pinch of salt

4 cups light cream (or 3 cups cream and 1 cup milk, or 2 cups half and half and 2 cups milk or whatever other combination you like)

5 egg yolks

Put the cinnamon sticks, ground cinnamon, sugar, salt and cream in a pot and heat over medium until it comes to a simmer. Turn down to low and allow to steep for 30 minutes. Slowly the egg yolks with the cream mixture and then return to the pot. Cook on low, stirring occasionally, until it coats the back of a spoon. Strain mixture into a bowl and chill overnight. Churn in your ice cream maker. Freeze.

Broiled Grapefruit

I had seen the episode of Good Eats were Alton Brown made Grapefruit Brulee. It's a fairly simple recipe. Cut in half. Sprinkle with sugar. Brulee. Sprinkle with salt. Eat. So naturally I had to mess with it.

Well the reason I didn't follow the recipe is I don't have a torch. I've thought about getting one but haven't yet. One of these days.... but then I'll brulee everything. Creme brulee, bread pudding, pumpkin pie, gratins, steak.... So maybe I shouldn't.

Anyway. Broiling didn't come out exactly as his did. I didn't get a nice crunchy brulee top. Instead the sugar melted down a bit and really seeped into the grapefruit. I thought it was pretty good anyway. And it's really easy. And you can call it healthy. It only has a 1/2 tsp sugar on each half.


Broiled Grapefruit

Cut a grapefruit in half, across the equator.
Cut off a small slice off each of the poles so that the grapefruit sits up on its own.
Place the halves on a baking sheet with the center of the grapefruit up.
Using a paring knife, cut along the edges to loosen the fruit from the peel.
Sprinkle about 1/2 tsp of sugar on each half of the grapefruit.
Put it under the broiler until the top starts to brown. The juices will probably start to boil up too.
Remove from the oven and sprinkle a touch of sea salt on top.
Eat immediately.

Roasted Sunflower Seeds

I was told that you need flowers to attract bees to pollinate your stuff so that you get fruits/veggies. Naturally, I opted for flowers that I could eat. So I chose sunflowers. I decided to grow Mammoth Russian sunflowers. Then, when they didn't sprout after a few days, I got seeds for a couple others as well.

Well, the sunflowers grew in a couple weeks later and I had a lot of sunflowers. They are actually shading some of my other plants, which is probably not good, but a bunch of them are at least 9 ft tall.

Well, since I chose a flower I could eat, I figured I better figure out how I could eat them. Let me tell you, getting the seeds out of the flower takes FOREVER. One flower (and probably 2 hours of picking seeds out) gave me about a quart of seeds.

Next step, figuring out what to do with the seeds. I had gotten a couple of the smaller flowers a few days before. They sat in a plastic container for a couple days and got moldy. So I figured I needed to dry the seeds. I left them spread out on 2 sheet pans for a few days. Also, it was during the week and I had other stuff to do.

Last weekend I got back to them. I kept them simple. I just wanted a light coating of salt so they would make a good snack. Google led me to a few recipes. Then I didn't follow them. Based very loosely on this post. Most people probably want more salt on them than this. I snack on them randomly. I hear they make a good long car ride snack.


Sunflower seeds

1 large sunflower (1 quart of seeds)
1/2 tsp kosher salt

Dry the sunflower seeds.
Rinse the sunflower seeds and drain off the excess water. Let them be damp but let anything that drains away go.
Sprinkle with the salt and toss until the salt is dissolved.
Toast in a single layer of a skillet until they dry and turn light brown. This could also (probably more easily) be done in an oven. 350 probably 20 mins but check regularly until slightly browned.

Apple Cider Donut Hole Mini Muffin Puffs

So I saw all those posts on donut muffins probably last summer or so. I starred them and meant to make them. That didn't happen.

Then in the fall when apples started coming into season I started seeing posts about the Apple Cider Donuts at assorted places, which made me think of the ones at Delicious Orchards in NJ. mmmm. So I starred a couple recipes and never made those either.

So now, several months later I have finally decided to combine the two and make something that vaguely resembles them.

They were good when they were hot. They were a little rubbery the next day. I suspect I overmixed so be careful about that.


PS I finally stopped being lazy and uploaded pics to a bunch of my old posts.


Apple Cider Donut Hole Mini Muffin Puffs
based on a combination of these three recipes

2 cups apple cider
3 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup applesauce
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs

2 tbsp butter, melted
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon


Boil the apple cider down to 1 cup. Cool to room temp. Mix together the applesauce and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time. Sift together the dry ingredients. Alternate adding the dry ingredients and apple cider to the applesauce mix so that you have 3 additions of dry and 2 additions of cider. Pour into a greased mini muffin pan. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes until done. Brush with melted butter. Mix together cinnamon and sugar and toss the buttered mini muffins in the sugar.

Key Lime Curd

So I was out of town over the holidays. I did my roadtrip where I visited assorted people everywhere along the way and burned through way too much gas. I was gone for 12 days. 12 whole days, my poor house missed me. See, I'm a bit of a homebody. That's the nice way to put it. Hermit might be more accurate. I like puttering around the house and not really doing anything. So 12 days away is a lot.

Before I had gone, I had bought some key limes. They were on sale so I couldn't resist. Had no plans for what I was gonna do with them but the bag was $1. How could I resist? Then they sat in the fridge for almost 3 weeks. By the time I got back, they were not at their prime. Still juicable but not in their prime.

So it's the weekend after I got back. I have a million things around the house that I should do. Clean, laundry, pay bills, you know how that goes. Instead I decided to make lime curd.

First off, juicing key limes is a pain. The whole bag of them made about 1/3 cup of juice. But each one gives you what seems like 2 drops. But after I went through the whole bag (you know what I'm talking about, you see them at all grocery stores at some point) I had 1/3 cup of juice.

This recipe requires a lot of whisking. Be prepared to whisk for 15 minutes straight. On the plus side, if you are pathetic like me, you can consider that a work out for the day :) Which makes it justified to eat spoonfuls of this stuff when it's done.

Let me just say this is delicious. So far, I've just been eating it off a spoon. Or a spatula. Or the bowl. Any suggestions on how to use it? I want something that will highlight the absolute amazingness of this stuff. Yes, that is a word. Never mind the red underline under it.

Oh and this recipe makes just enough to fill a small jelly jar and have a little taste. I used a Smuckers jar, I think it's 18 oz. but I ripped the label (partially) off and didn't bother to look first.

Key Lime Curd
based on Alton Brown's recipe for Lemon Curd

1/3 cup key lime juice
1 tbsp zest (i used a mix of lemon and lime that I had in the freezer)
5 egg yolks
1 cup sugar
1 stick butter

Whisk eggs and sugar together until it is pale yellow. Put bowl over a pot of boiling water. Add lemon juice and whisk constantly until thickened. Take off heat and strain through a very fine mesh strainer. Mix in the butter, a pat at a time, letting each pat dissolve before the next addition. Pour into a jar or other vessel for storage. Store in the refrigerator.

Turkey Pho

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

George's Belgian Waffles with Apple Cider Syrup

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.

Homemade Candy Bars

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.

Cha Siu Bou Filling

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

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.

Century Eggs and Tofu

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.

Bagels

J sent me this article about what foods were worth making at home and what should be bought. One of the items that the said you should make is bagels.

I did something that was a combination of Smitten Kitchen's bagels and Alton Brown's pretzels.

69 g bagels are about the same size as Lenders bagels. I think it's a better size than the big New York style bagels. I know, I'm not a very good New Yorker. But the smaller bagels are a much better portion size. If you are one of those healthy types then having one bagel is a nice healthy size portion. If you are not, it means it's small enough you can have a couple with different flavors. Your choice how you want to look at it.

Pineapple Zucchini Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

This recipe is all over the place. You can thank Pioneer Woman, Ree, for creating Tasty Kitchen. I know, you are thinking everyone else blogged about it so I'm gonna skip this one. And maybe you should. I tend to ramble someone incoherently and my pictures aren't anywhere near as pretty as PW's. Your choice. I was intending to give you a reason to read my post but then I couldn't really think of one. Oh well.

Anyway. This recipe is practically health food in my book. Lots of zucchini, only 3 tbsp oil, a couple eggs and a few other things. All that sugar? Psssh don't worry about it. Just look at that huge pile of zucchini.


I upped the zucchini a bit because I bought 5 of them and this was the only recipe I had picked out for them so far. I only used 2. Better get thinking on the other 3 before they go bad. Or I'll make this again. Either way.

I sliced mine with the julienne blade on my mandoline. Me and the hand guard don't get along, especially with long, relatively skinny stuff so I ditch the hand guard and wear a cut glove to do it. Safety first kiddies! Also, those blades are SHARP. And the little ones for the julienne, they are slightly hooked for extra grab. Dig one into your palm once and you won't do it again. Trust me on this one. I know.


Here's the wets. 2 eggs, 3 tbsp oil, a splash of vanilla and a couple slices of zucchini that I didn't bother getting out of the bowl when I dumped them out because I realized I needed a bowl for my wet ingredients. Yup. You can tell, I should be a professional chef. Look how healthy it is. You can't even see the oil!


It's pretty much a standard cake recipe, combine the dry's, combine the wets, mix together, bake. For some reason the sugar is in the dry's for this recipe. Not sure why or if it matters but I actually followed it this time.

My approach when baking most things is line the pan. There's nothing worse than making a tray of brownies and then not being able to get them out of the pan or mutilating them so you lose all the nice crusty bits to the pan.

Don't even get me started on the crusty bits. I have a friend, we'll call her D, who would cut the edges off of her brownies and throw them away, thinking who would want those. I was always suspicious as to why I could never get an edge piece but I figured someone beat me to them or something. When D told me she cut them off I was aghast. Absolute horror. Who could do such a terrible thing?

Wait, this is supposed to be about zucchini cake. Right, back to the cake. Focus on the cake. Because it is a good cake. A very good cake. But it sticks. It sticks bad. I guess because it's so healthy and low in fat there isn't much to help keep it from sticking. I don't know how anyone got it out of the pan if they didn't line the pan. I baked mine in a 9x13 pyrex pan lined with foil and greased. By greased I used a very liberal spraying of cooking spray. Up the sides too. And this is what the cake looked like coming out.

Look at all the deliciousness stuck to the foil! It was somewhat upsetting. It may have gone better if I had let it cool all the way before lifting out of the pan but there is no way around all that sticking. Line and liberally grease the pan and get over it. And everything that is stuck to the foil is a chef's snack.

Just look at that tastiness.


ok I'm done rambling. Here's the recipe with my changes.

Pineapple Zucchini Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Based on this recipe on Tasty Kitchen, that was made by Linda of Linda's Country Kitchen

1-1/2 cup All-purpose Flour
1-1/4 cup Granulated Sugar
1/2 Cup Sweetened Flaked Coconut
2 teaspoons Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Salt
2 teaspoons Ground Cinnamon
1 teasupoon Freshly Grated Nutmeg, To Taste
1 teaspoon fresh grated Ginger
3 tablespoons Canola Oil
2 whole Large Eggs
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
3 Cups Grated (unpeeled) Zucchini
1 (20 Oz.) Can Crushed Pineapple In Juice, Drained (reserve In Case You Need It For The Cake Batter Or The Frosting)

8 oz cream cheese, room temp
3 tbsp butter
1 to 1.5 cups powdered sugar, to taste
3 tbsp pineapple juice reserved from the canned pineapple, adjust for consistency

1 cup chopped walnuts

Shred the zucchini on a box grater or mandoline. You should let it sit for about an hour and squeeze out the excess moisture but I didn't and it didn't seem to hurt anything. Sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and spices. Stir the the coconut. Combine the eggs, oil and vanilla and whisk. Toss the zucchini in the dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients and the crushed pineapple. Stir to combine. Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes. Cool completely before frosting.

Combine all the ingredients for the frosting and stir together until smooth. Taste and adjust sweetness and add more pineapple juice if necessary. Spread frosting over the cake. Lightly toast the walnuts and sprinkle over the frosting.

Bacon and Tomato Pasta

I haven't cooked much lately. It's too hot. It seems wrong to crank up the A/C and the stove/oven at the same time. But I am getting hungry. And you can only eat so many peaches and cantelope before you need some real food.

My tomato plant is doing really well. I get a couple tomatoes off of it pretty much every day. I've had way too many caprese salads. I'm actually getting sick of them to the point where the tomatoes were just piling up. I needed to figure out something else.

I have recently gotten a copy of Pasta Sauces from the Williams Sonoma Kitchen Library. It's a good book to flip through for some ideas. It's got lots of pretty pictures though I think we all know I don't have the ability to follow a recipe. Anyway it's got a bacon and tomato puttanesca that was a good starting point for using up my tomatoes and having some real food.

Thank Kate for introducing me to PBS. That's where I got this and a number of my recent cook books. I swap paperbacks for cookbooks. And then never swap them back. I'm not sure how long this system will last. But I have a few new random cookbooks now.

Look, I actually got the pics off my camera! I've even gone back and added pics to a number of old posts that I didn't get around to.

It starts with bacon and onion cooked together in a skillet. As Ina would put it, 'how bad can that be?'
Then you add the tomatoes.
Followed by the pasta and a sprinkle of parsley. How much simpler can it be? I even used whole wheat pasta so it's healthy!
Try not to eat the whole batch at once.


Bacon and Tomato Pasta
Based on Tomatoes and Bacon Puttanesca, from Pasta Sauces from the Williams Sonoma Kitchen Library

1/4 lb bacon strips, cut into squares
1 onion, diced
3 ripe tomatoes, peeled and seeded, large dice
a pinch red pepper flakes
1/2 lb short cut pasta
a sprinkle of fresh parsley, finely chopped

Put bacon pieces and red pepper flake in a cold skillet and heat over medium low heat. When pan is warm and bacon starts to cook add the onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, until bacon is crisp and onion is just starting to brown. Add the tomatoes. Cook so until it starts to thicken.

Meanwhile, boil pasta until slightly undercooked. Strain pasta and add to the skillet with the sauce. Stir to coat and cook for several minutes to finish cooking the pasta. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.

Strawberry Tart

I know. I'm a horrible blogger. I haven't posted in ages. Like 2 weeks. You only had the few in between because they had been scheduled. And I have a long list of posts that I have started but can't seem to finish. This being one of them.

So back to strawberries. That gallon of strawberries I had bought and had to find things to use it in. I know, I'm slow. Get over it. I may or may not post any more strawberry recipes. Maybe I'll leave the rest and post them early in strawberry season next year. Because I hate how I read blogs where people are using all this really pretty produce but the season just finished here so I can't make it until next year. I'm doing it on purpose. I'm saving them to inspire people next year. Really I am. I swear.

This tart is a pie shell, strawberries and pastry cream. Mmmm I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. I just used a frozen pie crust. You can make your own. Or buy one. Whatever makes you happy.

Pastry cream is so good. This makes a bit more than you need. I'm sure you can find something to do with it. A spoon works well. Or if you have a ridiculous number of strawberries dip them in and eat. Mine was all gone by the time the tart went into the fridge. And it's not that hard to make. Yes there is a bowl, and pan to be cleaned but it's worth it. Trust me.

I made it in a 10" tart pan. You can use whatever size you have. Or individual serving size tarts. I like having a whole tart to myself. Of course that's the 10" tart. These are very light (relatively speaking) so you can eat a pretty good size piece.



Strawberry Tart
based on this recipe from Anne Strawberry

1 pie crust
1 batch pastry cream, recipe below
fresh strawberries, halved
several tablespoons simple syrup

Press pie crust into a 10" tart pan. Make sure edges are pressed into the grooves. Bake for 15 minutes until lightly browned. Cool completely.
Put down a layer of halved strawberries.
Pour pastry cream over the berries and spread so it is smooth.
Drizzle simple syrup over berries to make them shiny and keep them from browning.
Chill in the refrigerator for 4 hours to let the pastry cream set.



Pastry Cream
from the European Breakfast Pastries class I took months ago

640 g milk
2 egg yolks
150 g sugar
55 g cornstarch
32 g butter

Bring milk, some of sugar and butter to a simmer.
Blend yolks, remaining sugar and cornstarch until light.
Temper egg yolks.
Return to low heat, stirring constantly until it thickens.
Put pan in ice bath and stir constantly to cool.
Cool completely.

Creamy Garlicky Lemony Shrimp and Asparagus Pasta

I really need to work on my naming of food. While it's definitely accurate, it's a little long and boring. I need to call it something cool.

This recipe is based on this recipe from the Pioneer Woman. It just looked so creamy and yummy I needed to try it. And of course change it a bit because I am mentally incapable of following a recipe start to finish. And because I was hungry and didn't want to wait to bake it, seeing as how I hadn't even unpacked the rest of my groceries.

Sour cream to thicken a cream sauce is new to me. It is wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. It gives it such a nice body and just a little tang that compliments the lemon juice. I can't overemphasize how good and easy this sauce is. And it lends itself well to all sorts of flavors. It would be really good with ham or bacon and peas or almost any sort of cheese. Whatever you've got on hand, or whatever is seasonal, however you want to think about it. I made it at the start of spring when the asparagus just came in (and yes, I am just getting around to posting it now). The sauce works well with everything. Well not everything. I can't see bananas working in this, and probably not soy sauce but just about anything else will.


Creamy Garlicky Lemony Shrimp and Asparagus Pasta
The Creamiest Best Pasta Dish Ever

4 large cloves garlic, chopped finely
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp olive oil
2 lbs raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 bunch asparagus, tips cut into 1" sections and base cut into thin circles
1 container grape tomatoes, halved
1 lb thin spaghetti
16 oz light sour cream (this is a healthy dish afterall, haha)
a handful parsley, chopped
1 lemon, zest and juice

Put the garlic, butter and olive oil in a large pan over medium low heat. Allow to cook until butter is melted and the garlic becomes fragrant but does not develop any color.
Sprinkle the shrimp with salt and pepper and add to the pan and cook until they turn pink.
Set the shrimp aside.
Add the zest, 1/2 the juice of the lemon and the sour cream. Stir until boiling then drop the heat to low.
Add the tomatoes.
Meanwhile boil a large pot of salted water for the pasta.
Cook the pasta for 6 minutes or just under what the box recommends, adding the asparagus in the last 2 minutes of cooking.
Dump the asparagus and pasta into the sauce.
Sprinkle with parmesan cheese and stir into sauce.
Add the shrimp back and stir to combine.
Top with parsley.