Everything is better with chocolate

Omnivore's 100

2009-03-20T12:17:00.004-06:00

I haven't posted in nearly a year. I need to get back to this blog. I'm currently suffering from some unknown food allergies. Once I figure them out, hopefully at the allergist's next week, this may evolve into figuring out how to cook and deal with them. Until then, the Omnivore's 100 list:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at http://www.verygoodtaste.co.uk/uncategorised/the-omnivores-hundred/ linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile (hmm, I've had alligator, but not crocodile. 1/2 point maybe)
6. ~~Black pudding~~ (no blood for me)
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac ~~with a fat cigar~~ (don't smoke, but I do like cognac)
37. Clotted cream tea (unofficially, I love clotted cream on scones and tea)
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat (I've had goat meat, but never curried. Sounds tasty, though)
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more (I wish, sadly, never any that expensive)
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake (all of the above)
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Hmm, only 51 that I've had. I'm willing to try most anything but blood and smoking, though.

From dinner to breakfast....

2008-04-20T20:13:00.006-06:00

I love Swiss chard. It's just a delicious green to cook with. Rick Bayless has a recipe for tacos in his Mexican Everyday book that uses chard. This is one of my favorite tacos to make. It's quick, easy and fairly healthful. If you happen to have his book, it's on page 205. The Swiss Chard Tacos with Caramelized Onion, Fresh Cheese and Red Chile. Sometimes I add mushrooms to the greens. I topped these with feta cheese and a taquera salsa. If you don't have this book, I highly recommend it. It has many quick, deliciouse recipes for Mexican fare.

After I made the filling, I put the leftover cooked greens in the fridge to use for breakfast the next day. I found this recipe on the blog Eggs on Sunday and it just looked so delicious, I had to try it. I reheated the chard and used some pancetta for this recipe. So good. Try it one morning...

Chocolatey goodness...

2008-01-26T10:18:00.000-06:00

I have some family coming to visit. They are going to be going to my parents' house and we are all having dinner there. My mom is making the dinner; Giada's Cheesy Baked Tortellini, roasted peppers and Asiago Cheese bread. Since she is doing all that she asked me to make dessert. I didn't want to do cheesecake since we were having all that cheese with dinner so I decided on some kind of fudgey brownies. We don't get to see the family often and usually, when we do, we are going to visit them. Because of that I wanted brownies with something just a little more. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing better than a perfectly fudgey brownies. Nice and rich inside with a crackley, thin crust on top. Mmmm, mmm.

This time, hoever, I wanted to add something to it. I had this taste in mind of some cherries, almost like a chocolate covered cherry but in brownie form. I almost always have a package of dried cherries on hand that I get at Target. It's the Archer Farm brand. They are so good, plump and soft, not leathery some dried fruits can be. I thought those would be good so I started hunting through recipes online for brownies with dried cherries in them. I found a few but none exactly like wahst I wanted. This Nestlé one was close and so was this one from Epicurious.

I like the idea from the Nestle one of heating them with some kind of liquor, but I didn't want to best the brownies batter. I was afraid they would end up too cakey.

The Epicurious one was really close, I added the chocolate chips to the brownies after reading that, but I didn't really want the cinnamon in it. Cinnamon in brownies is good, just not what I was imagining with this brownie.

Whle looking for the recipes, I saw that someone really liked the Dorie Greenspan Classic Brownie recipe so I stopped at the library and picked up her book (which I really must buy since this is the second time I have gotten it from the library). I doubled her recipe since there would be som many people eating it. So, combining all three recipes, this is what I came up with:

Chocolate Cherry Brownies

10 Tbs. unsalted butter + 1 Tbs .for greasing pan

8 ozs. bittersweet chocolate

4 0zs. unsweetened chocolate

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

4 large eggs

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 tsp. almond extract

1/2 tsp. salt

2/3 cups all-pupose flour

2/3 cup dried cherries

2 Tbs. Wilderberry schnapps

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325° F.

Cover a 9" x 13" pan with foil. Melt 1 tbs. of butter in the microwave. Brush on the foil on the bottom and sides and set aside.

Coarsely chop the cherries. Add them to a small saucepan with the Wilderberry schnapps and heat over medium heat until most of the schanapps have been absrobed.

While the cherries are heating, add the 10 Tbs. of butter and all the chocolate to a large saucepan and heat over low heat until the chocolate is almost melted. stirring occasionaly. When the chocolate is almost melted, turn off the heat and continue to stir until all the chocolate is heated.

Whisk in the sugar. This will turn your mixture grainy. Next, add the eggs, one at a time, whisking after each addition. Once the eggs have been incorporated, add the vanilla and almond extracts, whisking well after.

By this time your cherries should be well heated and most of the liquid evaporated. Remove the pan from the heat and set aside.

To the chocolate mixture, add the flour, stirring just until it is incorporated. Using a spatula, fold in the cherries with the remaining schanpps and the chocolate chips. When these have been evely distributed, add the mixture to the baking pan, smoothing it out with the spatula.

Bake in the middle of the oven 30-35 minutes. The brownies are done when the top is dull but a thin kinfie comes out of the middle almost clean. DO NOT OVERBAKE! It is always better to have slightly underbaked brownies than to overbake them.

Cool the brownies in the pan on a rack. When they are cool, lift them out of the pan with the foil and cut them.

I cut mine into 20 brownies.

Enjoy!

Mmmmm, heavy cream and cheese

2008-01-18T19:45:00.000-06:00

Is it wrong to want to drink the pasta sauce you made for dinner?

I wanted something kind of quick for dinner so I made some penne with a gorgonzola cream sauce. The sauce was really simple, I just cooked about half a samll, white onion in some olive oil with a couple cloves of garlic, added some chicken stock and a splash of white wine, let it reduce, then added heavy cream. After the pasta was done cooking I took the pan of sauce off the heat, added some crumbled gorgonzola, stirred until melted, then dumped the pasta in. Mmmm, mmm.

I don't buy gorgonzola that often so I kind of forget how tasty it is, but I stopped at Aldi's this week to buy their enameled, cast iron dutch oven and picked up some gorgonzola crumbles while I was there.

I need to go get some more...

Ok, so the sauce isn't very heathful with all that cream and cheese but I did fill over half my plate with salad so it wasn't that bad.

While cooking I was thinking about this appetier a local restaurant has, Gorgonzola chips. They are so good. So simple yet so tasty. The menu there changes seasonally but they always have those chips.

Gorgonzola, yum.

Confused by Food Network

2007-10-03T08:07:00.000-06:00

I was just looking for a recipe from Good Eats on the Food Network site and they have a quiz on fall food on the first page. It asks people to vote from the following choices as to what fall-friendly meal they will prepare this season:

Macaroni & cheese
Lasagna
Butternut squash soup
Roasted root vegetables
Casserole

There is no option for all of the above. Now, Fall, Autumn, whatever you call it, is three months long. It is not unreasonable to think that someone could make all of the above, more than once, during the season. This is the Food Network, after all. People who are on their site are interested in food and likely to cook. Why must I pick just one item? I make different forms of macaroni and cheese things every couple months. Just a few weeks ago, when I had some greens from my CSA, I did a version that had the greens in it. Casseroles? Super easy, quick meal. And roasted root vegetable? That is a good side for many meals. I just don't understand how a channel dedicated to food can think their audience will only make one of these items this season. Are their viewers only eating once every three months? In the 90 days of the season, even if someone doesn't cook all the time, they are going to have to cook a few times. I don't know...it just seems an odd question to me.

Busy, Busy

2007-09-20T07:49:00.000-06:00

OK, really, I had planned on posting those pictures of the cake...way before now. Sadly, they will never get posted. My hard drive crashed. It was in the midst of dying and I replaced it but wasn't able to get everything off of it. I lost all my email, some MP3s, and the folder I had all my food pictures in. *sigh* I know I need to back up information and, while none of it is critical, it's sad and annoying to lose the information. Such is my week though. In the past week the timeclokc at work stopped working so, being that I do the payroll, I had to replace that. The first clock they sent didn't work right either. Neither did the new new clock. We finally figured out that all the templates from ADP they were trying to send to the clock must be corrupted so the HR rep and I have been working to re-enroll 130 people in the clock. One day last week our entire system at work was down for 4 hours, my tire on my car started leaking so I took it to be fixed. It turns out, the rim is cracked so I have to replace that. Now my hard drive died. I think I am jinxed. I am afraid to touch anything electronic for fear it will stop working.

I will post...I promise

2007-07-30T08:40:00.001-06:00

I am planning on posting this week. I just made my parents a chocolate cake for their anniversary so I will post pictures later.

MIA

2007-05-01T10:56:00.000-06:00

Ok, even though no one is reading this yet, I feel bad for not posting. Between work, school, a term paper and finals, I haven't had time. Now that I am done for the semester, I hope to get to posting on here, preferably with pictures of food.

I can chew!!

2007-01-26T12:27:00.000-06:00

I haven't posted anything for a couple weeks, but no one is reading this yet. I had to get my wisdom teeth out, all 5 since I had an extra one, so I haven't been eating much lately. I can chew again now and am getting back to cooking. I did get a new mixer, a beautiful tangerine-colored, 5 Qt. KitchenAid Artisan mixer. *sigh* So pretty. I need to make something with it. Perhaps something for the next SHF?

Overkill or just a food obsession?

2007-01-05T10:26:00.000-06:00

I freely admit to being a Food Network addict. It's not a bad addiction, as addictions go...it's just a time suck. On New Year's Day, I ended up watching the "Throwdown with Bobby Flay" marathon that was on there. Bobby Flay has a tendency to get on my nerves but he does make some tasty food. The marathon included shows about things such as doughnuts, pizza and Philly cheesesteaks and during every show I was like, "Oooo, I want that, ooo, I want that." The pizza show was the worst one for that. It had six different pizzas on it. I wanted them all so I decided I would make one this week. That one actually became two pizzas that I made, from scratch...dough and all. Keep in mind, I live alone so this was about 1 1/2 - 2 hours of cooking...for myself. I still can't decide which one I like better either. They were both too tasty. I made the Lemon pizza (sounds much weirder than it is, really) and the Roasted Red Pepper Tomato and Goat cheese pizza with Red Chili Oil. Oh yeah, I made the sauce for that one too, and let me tell you, I love my handheld stick blender for making sauces. So much easier than pouring bubbling hot tomato sauce in a blender.

For the crust, I used a recipe in a cookbook I have but if you make them, I think you could use any recipe you like. I really recommend either one of them. Now I just need to try the other four from the show sometime.

Really, though, is it bad to make two pizzas just for yourself? I promise I didn't sit down and eat both of them that night, I still have two pieces of the Lemon and one of the other left.

2007-01-04T11:38:00.000-06:00

I am now entering the blogging world for the first time (so I'm a little behind the times). Most of the posts will be about food and cooking. I've spent the last couple months discovering food blogs and obsessively reading them. I decided that I could post about my love of cooking and experiments in the kitchen. So to anyone reading this, welcome!