Easy Elegance

Sometimes a lovely meal doesn't mean a whole lot of trouble.

You know those little rounds of brie and camembert you see contained in balsa wood boxes in the "specialty cheese" section of the supermarket? Pick one of those up, sometime. Grab a loaf of french bread and an apple or pear, while you're at it.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Discard the top of the cheese box, and remove the wheel of cheese from its protective plastic. Put the wheel back in the bottom of its box, place the container on a baking sheet, and shove the whole thing in the preheated oven for half an hour. This should be enough time to adequately melt the cheese, but you can check for meltiness by piercing the top horizontally with a knife, and cook longer if necessary. You want it to be of cheesy "dip" consistency. (If cooking longer is necessary, I suggest going at 5 minute intervals.)

In the meantime, slice up your apple/pear, rip up your bread, and put on some coffee or open some wine.

Slice off the top of the cheese when it's done, season the inside with garlic powder and fresh cracked pepper, and serve.

This is a perfect meal for a couple - I might even say a light meal for a couple, depending on your appetites and the weather. Everything besides the balsa wood box is edible. Devour that cheese rind like there's no tomorrow.

(Btw, may I recommend Ida Red apples? They are delightfully red on the outside, bright white on the inside, firm and crisp, the perfect balance between tart and sweet, and unbelievably juicy. I and other fans will fight to the death anyone who claims they're just for cooking.)

Par-Tay!!!

Happy Memorial Day 2010, everybuddy!!

Here, my eldest nieces knock back a couple of cold ones:

(I'm KIDDING. I'd never waste Newcastles on toddlers.)

This was our first time hosting a warm-weather Occasion for the fam, and it was fantastic! I'm rather peeved that I took a few very staged pics of the whole buffet spread and they have since disappeared from my camera, but they have been replaced with ones like this:

So, I can't really complain.

The menu included grilled veggies (asparagus, summer squash, zucchini, red onion, garlic, and corn), which I had never really attempted over an open flame before. We sort of freaked and did this step way ahead of time, because storm clouds were threatening and we had no idea what we were doing.

In addition, there were burgers and beer brats (and hot dogs for the kids), three kinds of cheeses - american, colby jack, and bleu, green leaf lettuce, fresh sliced tomato, assorted condiments that go without saying including two kinds of brown sauce, and deviled eggs. Veggie burgers and maccaroni salad were present, as well, but didn't make it out of the fridge.

And for dessert, as made evident by the empty bowl below, a lovely creation by my sister-in-law, which my niece proclaimed "Strawberry Shortcake Jello." It was truly delicious, and I'm sorry I don't have an actual picture of the thing. As you might suspect, it involved fresh strawberries, shortcake, and jello:

(it's all gone)

Although the rain occasionally chased us inside, it did nothing to dampen (haha) our spirits, and a good time was had by all. Before everyone left for the evening, we managed to make it outside to enjoy the back yard, and even staged a small game of Red Rover.

After company departed, taking most of the left-overs along (the better to be eaten), Matt and I lingered on the deck to bask in our garden. A lovely evening. We are truly blessed.

The More You Know... (ding ding ding Ding)

Did you know that chiles cross-pollinate? Professional farmers will plant differing chile species miles apart, to prevent the bee population from contaminating the next season's seeds. Here's how we planted ours:

The one in back is Cayenne, the front one is Serrano. This should make for some interesting experimentation next season.

Other pics from tonight's garden -

Jalapenos:


















Beans:


















Also took pics of lettuce and radishes, but they suck, so you'll just have to wait in rapt anticipation 'til a later time.

Moonshining 101

Hey, kids!
Wanna make a still??
It's super easy!

Step 1) Get yourself a LARGE pot with a domed lid. Like one you'd use for canning.

Step 2) Put something in the center to elevate the receptacle for your distillate. I used a brick wrapped in cling wrap.

Step 3) Pour whatever you want to distill around the platform. In this case, it was a couple of quarts of rose petals barely covered with some tap water.



Step 4) Put a receptacle on the elevator (pyrex measuring cup, ftw) .


Step 5) Put the lid on upside down (handle facing downward), and let the liquid come to a boil. As soon as it boils, reduce the heat to a simmer, and - here's a key point - dump some ice on the "top" of the lid. This is majorly important. The simmering liquid vaporizes and hits the top of the closed container. The ice cools the vapor, which runs down to the inverse dome's tip and drips into the waiting receptacle.


Keep an eye on it, replacing the ice as needed. Taste it every twenty minutes or so, for quality/quantity control.

At the end of an hour, I had about three cups of distillate (otherwise known as rosewater). You can use this on your face as an astringent, on your hair for a perfume, or as an ingredient in cooking.

For example, this gorgeous snack of orange slices with rosewater and pistachios:

Necessity's a Mother.

It may come as a surprise to some people, but when I was young I was considered a picky eater.

I'm not sure why. I think it may have had something to do with being a ballerina since age three, thereby being peripherally raised in a culture where eating was discouraged. And/Or being stuck in an eight-year peanut-butter-&-jelly rut during my elementary/middle school years.

Nowadays, I'll eat anything not related to cognitive, digestive, or reproductive functioning. Although I might eat fois gras if it was put it front of me. And hot dogs in natural casings are awesome. Has anyone had a brain sandwich? I hear there's some fest around here that specializes in them...

I'm getting off track.

My point is that if I weren't now an adventurous eater, I would have never co-invented bacon-topped, peanut-butter-iced, dark chocolate cupcakes (hella good), nor would it occur to me to try herbed goat cheese on top of brownies (rather like a chocolate cream cheese danish - also yummy), or even blackberry jam on garlic texas toast (what would my life be like without you??).

In that vein, I happened upon:

Black Bean, Banana Quesadillas

C'est tres yummy.

Building on the Caribbean combo of plantains and black beans, I fashioned this combo out of laziness and hunger a few years ago, having nothing in the house to eat but some left-over black beans (cooked as mentioned in "Huevos Whatevers"), a banana, a few flour tortillas, some hot sauce, and a slice of provolone cheese.

It has since become a favorite dish.
It's possibly the best thing ever.


Smear some prepared beans on a medium flour tortilla, and top with one half of a banana, sliced. On top of that, sprinkle a light portion of shredded mild, white cheese, and top it off with another tortilla, also smeared with beans. Fry in a well heated skillet prepped with butter or oil until crispy on both sides and the cheese is melted (about five mintes per side). Served sliced and topped with a hot sauce that's not too vinegary (I use Hot Cock Sauce. For visual reference, check out my hot sauce cabinet).

^
Too much hot sauce, perhaps?
...Never!!

Strawberry

Yesterday I had a strawberry for the first time in my life.

Straight off the plant, perfectly red-ripe all the way through, and one of the most flavorful things I have ever put in my mouth. It was a little explosion of sweet-tart utter strawberriness.

Why didn't anyone tell me these things weren't supposed to taste like cardboard?

Candied Bacon

Hey.
See that up there?
It's candied bacon.

I can't stop eating it.

It's like I've done something wrong and against nature, and I'm being rewarded for it.

This concept is nothing new for fans of bacon or for adventurous cooks, but this is the first time I've attempted it. What you do is, you take half a pound of bacon and a bowl containing a cup or so of brown sugar. One at a time, you put the pieces of bacon into the bowl, and you press the brown sugar onto each side of the meat. (This is rather like trying to make a pancake out of moist sand at the beach, except in this case the sand is brown sugar, and it doesn't quite work because there's bacon in there somewhere.)

Then you place the strips of bacon side by side on a cooling rack, set the cooling rack on top of a cookie sheet, and put the whole thing in an oven preheated to 350 (fahrenheit) for around forty minutes. (Rotate halfway through cooking and keep an eye out for burnation.)

Take it out of the oven, pry it off the rack with a crow bar, and let it cool on wax paper. The result is rather like those sugared almonds you get at state fairs and such, but with more bacon-y goodness.

And, you know... It's BACON.
So you can't just let it sit around forever...