hp's blog

Thanks, I'll pass

nobody@vox.com(hp) — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 09:18:59 -0800

Browsing through some recipes this morning, I encountered a recipe for "light" German Chocolate Cake. They lost me in the first paragraph:

"We replaced a portion of the butter with prune baby food."

Prune baby food? Instead of butter? Oh dear. I'll gladly keep the calories, thank you.

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Fall cooking

nobody@vox.com(hp) — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 13:43:22 -0700

Prep for brine-cured pork roast:

Getting the brine ready

From my all-time favorite cookbook:

PATRICIA WELLS AT HOME IN PROVENCE: Recipes Inspired By Her Farmhouse In France

Patricia Wells

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Left to my own devices...

nobody@vox.com(hp) — Fri, 04 May 2007 09:05:31 -0700

Food Network

...I could spend way too much time watching the Food Network and knitting. Not having TV at home, when I am away, it's tempting to gorge myself on the Food Network. I don't think I could watch it much on its own, but with some knitting in my hands the combination is perfect. For other types of TV (reality shows, dramas), I lack previous viewing experience so don't always get what's going on. But the Food Network... no previous experience required!

Tomorrow night, I am making a nice dinner for my Dad and Carol, but it needs to be easy-to-swallow foods. After watching my Dad eat for the past week--what works and what doesn't--I think I've got a menu figured out. In searching around the Internet I came across quite a number of cookbooks for people who have swallowing problems. The key with my Dad is small pieces of tender items that have some type of smooth/slick coating or texture. Ground beef for example, is a complete no-go because of the rough, dry texture. Chicken salad works great. He lost some weight with his latest hospital episode; he needs to pack in as many calories as possible. So I'm looking forward tomorrow to spending some time in the kitchen with this bit of a culinary challenge.

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Pot roast

nobody@vox.com(hp) — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 07:16:45 -0700

Our neighborhood grocery runs weekly "get one free" specials. Sometimes, you don't have to buy anything to get something free. Last Easter, for example, you could walk in with your coupon and get a free pineapple, which I imagine lead to our entire neighborhood having pineapple-based desserts. (I made this brown sugar ginger ice cream topped with broiled pineapple slices.)

The "get one free" specials occasionally bring food into our home that we don't normally eat (I mean, who can resist FREE?). This week, the special is a buy-one-get-one-free on chuck roast. We put one in the freezer and made pot roast with the other one.

Pot roast

I don't think I've ever actually made a pot roast: it's just not one of those things that jumps into my mind to make. It was, however, absolutely delicious. I cooked the thing for three hours at 300F in a mix of broth, red wine, shallots, carrots, celery and a large quantity of quartered mushrooms. Chuck roast is hardly a lean cut, so this is not exactly health food, but the meat turned out meltingly tender (aided no doubt by the fat content).

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A Rhubarb Fool

nobody@vox.com(hp) — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 18:08:17 -0700

On Sunday, we had my cousin Elise and her husband Gordon over for dinner. We traditionally have them over for Easter dinner, but they will be out of town this year. So we did it instead on Palm Sunday, which of course also happened to be April Fools.

Rhubarb

In a nod to the Fools "holiday" I made this Rhubarb Fool for dessert. Really, I made it as sort of a joke, but it was fantastic--raves all around. I'll definitely make it again, especially since it was uber-easy.

But, the dessert lead to a discussion of the origins of "Fool." I knew the dessert was British, but Drake won the prize in guessing that the term "fool" might be a bastardization of something French:

The mind races through the numerous allusions made to fools, from the fool that accompanied King Lear on his howling journey across the moors to the more modern blunderer plaintively asking "What Kind of Fool Am I." But the name of this gossamer dessert comes from the French word foulé meaning pressed or crushed, and refers to the combination of crushed fruits and thick cream. It is a dish that is sublime in its simplicity.

The British countryside is a paradise for berry lovers. It offers gooseberries, red currants, strawberries, raspberries. One can even sing "here we go round the mulberry tree" while plucking the small, blackberry-like fruit. Any of these fruits might have been used to make fools.

This simple dish, so refreshing on a summer's day, might find its modern equivalent in popularity to the omnipresent 'yogurt with fruit on bottom,' though no artificially sweetened yogurt can compare to fresh crushed fruit and cream. The fool is also the beginning of ice cream, a dish that required refrigeration to arrive at the status it holds today as summer's favorite dessert.

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Where's the beef?

nobody@vox.com(hp) — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 09:25:29 -0700

The beef is what we were missing last night. Drake's home-corned beef that is.

This year, the kitchen appliance-replacement project disrupted getting the beef started the required ~4 weeks ahead of time.

And so we got a nitrate-free corned beef from Whole Foods. Drake even talked to the actual person at Whole Foods who did their corned beefs this year.

But, the Whole Foods corned beef was just blah.

[We don't shop much at Whole Foods, but when I do go I always feel some cognitive dissonance between the pricey, over-the-top feel of the place and their supposed progressive/environmental mission.]

We still had a nice time visiting with friends. The Whiskey Bread Pudding turned out great. It was from Cooking Light and I am normally dubious about "light" versions of desserts but after a beef-laden dinner I didn't want to serve a calorie-bomb dessert.

Today, however, I am heads-down working on my presentations for this week and next.

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My Desert Isle Cooking Magazine

nobody@vox.com(hp) — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 17:31:52 -0800

Eating Well

Of course, ingredients might be limited on the desert isle, but if I could only take one cooking magazine it would be Eating Well. The recipes are consistently creative, delicious, and healthy without relying on a lot of "low fat" ingredients (which I generally abhor). The magazine is laid out beautifully and isn't stuffed with tacky "special advertising sections" that are just a pain in the butt to page through.

This week, I made this wonderful Creamy Porcini Mushroom Barley Soup.

Soup

It calls for a King's ransom worth of dried Porcini mushrooms, a fact I tried in vain to conceal from Mr. Thrifty, who saw the packages on the kitchen counter. ("Really, Dear, it's just pennies a day..."). But I think even Mr. Thrifty would admit this soup is worth it.

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Raspberry Streusel Bars

nobody@vox.com(hp) — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 19:08:37 -0800

Raspberry Struesel Bars

I am loving my web subscription to CooksIllustrated.com - much handier (and less paper) than subscribing to the magazine.

Today was cold, rainy, and windy. A perfect day for making these Raspberry Streusel Bars.

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These are the cookies I wanted to make

nobody@vox.com(hp) — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 07:15:27 -0800

Toffee Butter Cookies

The Chocolate-Oatmeal cookies were fantastic, but what I really wanted to make were these Chocolate Toffee Butter Cookies, which call for Heath Bits o' Brickle Toffee Bits. I somewhat foolishly burned time going to four different stores in search of Toffee Bits with no luck.

Now, I've become fixated on getting a hold of Toffee Bits so I can try the recipe. I can get them online but the smallest order I can place is for six bags. That seems ridiculous, though if the recipe works out I could always give a few of the bags away, along with the recipe.

However, I am imaging Mr. Thifty's (aka Drake's) reaction when I open up a package containing six bags of Toffee Bits. Or his face when he sees six bags sitting in the pantry. Maybe I'll keep looking locally.

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Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

nobody@vox.com(hp) — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 19:32:06 -0800

Cookies!

I am a terrible sucker for cooking magazines. I recently accepted a "trial" subscription to Cooks Country magazine, but of course wound up just keeping it. Cooks Country is kind of cross between Cook's Illustrated (which publishes it) and Taste of Home (which, by the way is the top-selling cooking mag in the U.S.).

This recipe is from Cooks Country web site. The only substitution I made was using chopped bittersweet chocolate instead of semisweet chips. The "secret ingredients" here are using ground oats in place of some of the flour and mixing in melted milk chocolate into the dough. These were fantastic. These are the cookies mentioned here.

1 3/4 cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon table salt
10 tablespoons unsalted butter , softened but still cool
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 ounces milk chocolate , melted and cooled
1 cup coarsely chopped bittersweet chocolate
1 cup toasted* pecans, chopped

1. Adjust oven racks to upper-middle and lower- middle positions and heat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Place 1 cup oats in food processor or blender and process until well ground, about 30 seconds. Transfer to large bowl and stir in flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

2. With electric mixer, beat butter and brown sugar together on medium-high speed until well blended and lumps are gone, about 1 minute. Scrape down sides of bowl. Add egg and vanilla and beat until light and fluffy, about 30 seconds. Add melted chocolate and beat until incorporated, about 20 seconds. Add flour mixture and beat on low speed until just incorporated, about 15 seconds. Add remaining 3/4 cup oats, chocolate chips, and nuts and beat on low speed until evenly distributed, about 10 seconds.

3. Roll 2 tablespoons of dough into balls and space 2 inches apart on baking sheets. Bake, rotating and switching position of pans halfway through baking time, until cookies are cracked and set on top but look moist within cracks, 14 to 16 minutes. Cool cookies on baking sheets on wire racks for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

* Toast pecans in a 350F oven for 5 to 7 minutes.

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