Cookie Update

The cookie isn't bad, but it needs a bit of tweaking. It's more cakey than I want it to be--I'd like it to be more crisp rather than chewy. And it's not working very well in the spritz machine. I think this is because it doesn't have enough flour, even though I have a whopping six cups in it already.

Using egg yolks, instead of full eggs will firm up the texture, and adding one more cup of flour should do the trick. The final change I'm going to make is to add lime zest instead of just lime juice. The lime juice gives it a nice tart zing that's reminiscent of snickerdoodles and the cream of tartar that's used in them and I want to keep that, but there isn't much lime taste to speak of.

Maybe one more batch of these before I write a final recipe.

A New Cookie

I just took a break from watching a movie to whip a new cookie recipe. I kept mulling it over in my head while the movie was playing, and I just had to give it a go, so I took about 20 minutes or so to try my hand at something new.

I think it's going to be the consistency of a spritz cookie and I'll be able to use a spritz machine, which is a heck of a lot easier than rolling out dough. It's got some lime juice in it, along with some coconut, and just a hint of almond extract, since I thought that would add a nice counterpoint to the coconut, and if the dough is any indication, I'm right. I'm going to let it firm up over night in the fridge and then back a batch first thing in the morning.

I couldn't stop eating the dough, and that's always a good sign. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Culinary Adventures

I've been doing some experimenting in the kitchen. I'm on a mission: I'm trying to duplicate a bread that some monks make in the Keweenaw Peninsula in the U.P. I've been a fan of it for years and introduced it to my family on our recent vacation and they all raved about it too.

It's a sourdough spice bread. As I ate it last week, I really tried to decipher what the main flavors were. It has a unique taste for a spice bread, and I attributed that to nutmeg being the primary flavor. My second batch confirmed that when I used at least two teaspoons of nutmeg. So far, I think a close take on the spices for a batch that uses two or three cups of flour is 1/8 teaspoon of cloves, 1 tsp cinnamon, 2 or 2 1/2 tsp of nutmeg and 1/2 tsp of allspice, though I'm suspicious that cloves don't make an appearance. Beyond that, it has a dark texture, so I gathered that for a sweetener they used dark brown sugar, and based on my prototypes I believe I'm correct in that assumption.

It's a sourdough spice bread and there's a "sour" quality to it that's part of the flavor. This isn't a typical type of sourdough used in savory breads, but rather the Amish friendship bread variety. I don't want to mess around with that, so I simply added a 1/2 tsp of vinegar and it did bring a bit of a sour flavor. Where I'm still needing to tweak it is in the amount of eggs and oil. The second batch used a cup, and I think I need to go with the first batch which only used 3/4. Actually, I'll try 2/3 cup next time. I used 2 cups of flour and three eggs, and the first time used just baking powder, I think 2 tsp, and the second time used a mixture of baking powder and baking soda, though I used too much baking soda. I think just an 1/8 tsp of baking soda, which will help the bread brown a little more nicely.

I'm going to keep working on it, over time, and when I come up with the right recipe, you've got to try it! It's really very tasty, if I can reverse engineer it.
The other thing I did today is make my Irish Guinness Cake for my friend Ali, who sent me some prayer beads and a book on suffering that was greatly appreciated. She's a terrific artist, and you should check out her work. I've decided to commission something from her, and we'll be talking more about it in the fall.

Beyond that, I've got a cake in the oven right now that I think could really be a decadent entry for the Bundt competition. I won't say anything more about it until after I enter the competition though.

I love doing this stuff.

Three Berry Tart

One more thing...I need to record the fixin's for a tart I made for Memorial Day. I've had my eye on a massive bag of frozen berries at Costco for about a year. It has four pounds of blueberries, raspberries and marionberries and I figured that would be a nice ready-made pie filling. I decided to try my theory.

I'm a fan of tapioca as a pie thickener, which I've taken from my mom's many years of pie experience. Corn starch and the like creates a nasty sticky gooeyness that I don't like. It's always a question as to how much to use, but there's a rough guide on the side of the tapioca box and so I used their suggestion for blueberry pie. It calls for four cups of fruit, a cup of sugar and 1/4 cup of tapioca.

Here's what I learned for next time: 1/4 cup of tapioca is too much. I think an 1/8 of a cup plus a tablespoon should be enough. You don't want a pie filling to be thick like pudding, and this was just a tad too thick for my taste. I dropped the sugar back to 3/4 cup, since I've never liked an overly sweet pie. It was just about right.

I improvised a little bit too, and I think I'll continue doing this the next time around. I added a little each of blueberry, raspberry and blackberry port wines that I have at home. Alcohol brings out certain flavor compounds in food that can only be released by alcohol and adding some alcohol made from the berries included in the pie can't be a bad idea. The blackberry is closely related to the marionberry, so I figured adding all three would be a good idea. I added just a dash of salt too to bring out the flavor some more, as well as a bit of vanilla to add some roundness and a hint of black pepper which you can't really taste but that I think makes it have an extra something. The one thing that I'm going to increase next time is the orange extract I added. The last time I made a blackberry pie, I added lemon zest but it was way too much. I like a little citrus kick with berries, so I thought the orange extract would be a nice note. I only added an 1/8 of a teaspoon though, so next time I'll add a 1/4 teaspoon and see where that takes the filling. I think I'll also add a dash of raspberry wine vinegar for a little raspberry tang.

All in all it was a success, except for the crust. I still have a dickens of a time with pie crusts. This time it was so unwieldy I turned it into a tart by stuffing the crust into my tart pan and using the remaining dough to make a crumb topping with some added brown sugar, regular sugar and cinnamon. It's a heck of a lot easier than a pie crust and looks and tastes just as good.

I'll be making a few more of these three berry pies/tarts this summer.

Dinner, two days hence

I'm getting excited about dinner two nights from now. That's the way I operate often. I'll see a recipe, and then figure out when I'll have time to fix it, then pick up all the ingredients. I don't have time to cook it until Tuesday, but I think it will be worth the wait. And the bonus is that it's naturally low carb.

It's from a James Beard award winning cookbook I bought at the bargain bookstore that's all about using food processors. A food processor could be the most useful tool in anyone's kitchen but few people tap into its full utility. If a cookbook gets the stamp of approval from the James Beard Foundation, you know that it will feature great recipes and that the techniques will be ones you can bank on. As I thumbed through it, a recipe for a sweet red pepper and leek flan caught my eye and that's what I'll be cooking for dinner Tuesday.

It calls for slow roasting the peppers and leeks for at least an hour, adding some garlic, chicken broth and cream, then combining all of that with eggs and cooking it like you would a custard. I think it will be very tasty, and I'm going to be testing this out as a starter for any dinner parties I might be having sometime soon.

Since I'm thinking about eggs, I might make a cheese souffle for dinner tonight.

Dinner Tonight

You gotta love salmon, right? I was at one of my favorite places in town, a great grocery story that recently came to town called the Fresh Market. It's sort of in the Trader Joe's/Whole Foods Market camp of grocery stores. Bottom line it's a food lovers paradise. I walked in there this afternoon and unconsciously started humming, a surefire sign that I'm having a good old time.

I hadn't planned to buy dinner there, but then I saw some wild Alaskan salmon on sale that was calling out to be in my belly. I've made salmon with a lemon/thyme cream sauce a couple of times before and I think it's delicious, so I decided to buy some and try it again. Since they have Meyer lemons, I knew dinner would be even tastier than before. I also bought the shallots and fresh thyme the recipe calls for, and everything else I needed beyond that were things I had at home already: white wine, cream and butter.

I find as written the recipe is a bit too tart for my taste. It calls for a dry white wine and I think a sweeter wine, like a Riesling, would be much better. It also calls for a tablespoon of white wine vinegar--that's a lot of acidity, especially when it gets reduced down and concentrated. When you add the lemon juice it takes it even further into the acid range, which I feel is a mistake. I had to add a bit of sugar to tame down the acidity and balance out the flavors, along with a bit more cream to help mellow things down. (For next time, I need to remember that I should use some lemon zest instead of the white wine vinegar. That will bring lemon flavor without bringing an overwhelming tartness.)

This is all I can say: it was lick-the-plate-clean tasty. I do love to cook, and a good meal is hard to beat in my book. Life was very good tonight.

An experiment in the kitchen

I'm doing a low carb bootcamp for a week or so. I've been circling around the 50 lb. mark since the middle of December and I'm determined to break through. When I jump into Atkins, I like to great a bit creative so I'm not just eating grilled or sauteed meat all the time.

Things I like to have at the ready are prosciutto, mozzarella cheese sticks, "hot shot" sausages from the local meat market, and boiled eggs. They're all at the ready when I get hungry, and they're all pretty low carb and fairly low calorie. A great snack is a cheese stick wrapped with prosciutto. Tasty!

While I was working out today at the Y, I started thinking about what I should make for lunch. I knew I had the prosciutto and the boiled eggs at home, and so I began thinking about what I could do with them, sort of in a tapas style. I decided I'd make some cheesy egg and prosciutto sandwiches.

I stopped at the Mexican market on the way home and picked up some queso fresco cheese. Have you ever heard of this amazing stuff? It doesn't really melt, so you can season a piece and throw it directly on a hot skillet and it will brown quite nicely without oozing all over the place. I cut out some two inch rounds, seasoned them and set them aside.

I then pulled out the prosciutto and an egg. I cut up the egg, then put a tiny dollop of mayo in the prosciutto, then a little bit of egg. I wrapped it up into a little ball, then wrapped that again with another slice of the prosciutto and skewered it with a toothpick.

I then turned on the heat, put some oil in the frying pan and went to town. First in went the two discs of cheese, seasoned side down. When I flipped them over, I put the prosciutto/egg bundles in and tossed them around to brown a bit and warm up.

When everything was done, I placed the two cheese circles on a plate, then placed the prosciutto/egg skewers on top and dug in.

It was very tasty.

It made me think that I want a deep fryer. What I think would be an amazing appetizer would be a take on an egg sandwich, my favorite breakfast food. What I would do is this: boil an egg until it was still very soft in the middle--probably with some of the egg white still soft. Pull it out while it was still hot, then wrap it with prosciutto. I think the heat in the egg would ensure that the prosciutto would adhere to the egg. I'd then dip that in an egg wash and batter it, and drop it into the hot oil. The heat from the oil would finish cooking the egg, though I'd want to make sure that the yolk stayed soft. Meanwhile, you'd be grilling up some of these cheese discs and when everything was done, you'd put the egg prosciutto croquette on top of the disc of browned cheese, and then have some sort of tasty cream sauce on the side.

You'd have the crunchiness of the batter, the taste of great ham, an egg that's got a soft yolk that oozes all over the place, and then to top it all off, great grilled cheese. I don't think you could go wrong.

Yum.

Fun In the Kitchen

I really enjoy cooking with cider. A month or so ago, I brined some pork tenderloins in a mixture with cider as its base and put a couple of them in the freezer surrounded by the brine. A few weeks ago I thawed one out and decided to experiment. I bought a skillet that can go in the oven at that time (the first time I've ever owned one) and so I decided to start out on top of the stove. I put a great dry rub on the pork and then browned it all over in some olive oil. I looked around my kitchen to see what I had that might work well and so I added some sliced red onions and the surprise ingredient: some orange slices.

Once everything was nicely browned, I added the cider brine to the pan and then popped it in the oven for about 20 minutes or so. I then pulled it out, removed the pork and then boiled the remaining liquid down until it was reduced to a thick syrup. I strained out the onions and the orange slices then put the liquid back in the pan. I added some more cider, some cream, some spicy ground mustard, a couple tablespoons of butter, a squeeze of orange juice, a dash of apple brandy and let it simmer until it was nicely thickened. I sliced the tenderloin and poured some sauce over top and was grinning from ear to ear from how tasty it was. I think it's the best improvisation I've ever come up with, and so I tried to recreate it last night. I've decided it's my signature dish. It's got one of those sauces that you want to lick clean. I derive a lot of pleasure from whipping up something tasty from the top of my head like this. It's a good diversion from thinking about a certain woman.

A couple of winners

The winners of the two competitions I entered this year have been announced.

The Mrs. Fields contest was won by a cookie called the Oatmeal Peanut Butter Scotchy. I was at the mall the other day and stopped by the Mrs. Fields store to see if it had been announced and when they told me it had, I decided I needed to give it a try.

Here's my take: it's a tasty cookie. I'll definitely grant it that, but from a purely subjective standpoint, it's not the kind of cookie I like that much. I think these competitions are really a lot about personal preference and are pretty subjective. The main drawback for me is that I've never liked butterscotch chips that much because they taste incredibly artificial. On the positive side of things, it has a nice texture--a crunchy bite and a slightly chewy center. I like the pecans in the cookie as well, and overall, I think it fits well with the Mrs. Fields lineup. But I don't think it's a cookie I'll make very often, since it's not the kind of cookie I go for. And besides, I like my cookie more, but I suppose that's no surprise.

If you're curious what the winning cookie of a national search tastes like, you can make it for yourself. Incidentally, it's a gluten-free recipe too, so it's perfect for anyone who's allergic to flour.

Here's the recipe:

Oatmeal Peanut Butter Scotchies

1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups chunky peanut butter (not the sugar free kind)
4 1/2 cups rolled oats (can do all old fashioned or do half old fashioned and half instant depending on your texture preferences)
2 tsp. vanilla extract
3 whole eggs
2 tsp baking soda
1 bag of butterscotch chips
3/4 cup chopped pecans

Cream butter, peanut butter and sugars. Add eggs and vanilla. Stir in oats, soda, butterscotch chips and nuts until combined. Drop by spoonful on a greased cookie sheet or use parchment paper. Bake 350 degrees for 12 minutes (brown on bottom and some browning on top). Cool on cookie sheet 5 minutes before removing to cooling rack. Makes 72 cookies.



The Bundt competition winner was announced as well. It's a mint chocolate cake called Mint Mountains. I haven't tried it yet, but plan to this Christmas season. I'm anxious to try this recipe and the other nine finalists, especially for the holidays that I entered. My only beef with this one, at least from a first glance, is it's use of instant pudding mix. That sticks in my craw.


Mint Mountains

Shortening for greasing the pan
2 tablespoons flour, preferably Wondra
3/4 cup shortening
1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs, separated
1 (3.9 ounces) package instant white chocolate pudding mix
1 teaspoon peppermint extract
3/4 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup milk, divided
4 ounces white chocolate chips or chunks
1/3 cup cocoa
1 (3.9 oz) package chocolate fudge instant pudding mix
8 ounces chocolate chips
Confectioners’ sugar
Mint sprigs or plastic holly sprigs (do not use real holly since holly berries are poisonous)
Crushed peppermint candies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare holiday tree pan. Use pastry brush to thoroughly coat all parts of pan with shortening. Sprinkle flour evenly over top of shortening; invert pan and shake out excess.

Cream shortening and sugar in large mixing bowl until thoroughly blended. Separate eggs and reserve yolks. Add whites to shortening mixture and beat an additional two minutes or until light and fluffy. Beat in white chocolate instant pudding mix, peppermint extract, yogurt or sour cream (mixture may look curdled).

Sift flour, salt and baking powder together. Slowly beat in about half of flour mixture, then 3/4 cup milk, then last of flour mixture, scraping bowl after each addition. Increase speed and beat until thoroughly combined, 2 to 3 minutes.

Remove two cups of batter, stir in white chocolate chips or chunks.
Dollop white chocolate batter into pan. Do not try to make it smooth and even. Keep it unevenly distributed in peaks and on sides. Push gently up against sides. Add reserved yolks, cocoa; fudge pudding mix and additional 1/4 cup milk to rest of batter in bowl. Beat until completely combined. Stir in chocolate chips.

Layer chocolate batter over top of white batter; push gently up against sides. Gently tap the filled pan on the counter a few times to remove air bubbles and pockets.

Place pan on cookie sheet. Bake in preheated 350-degree oven for 50 to 60 minutes or until wooden skewer inserted in center of cake comes out clean (do not use a metal skewer). Cool in pan ten minutes, shake pan from side to side to check for thumping or loosening from sides of pan. If needed, use a plastic knife to carefully loosen the cake from center and sides, if stuck. Invert onto cooling rack.

When completely cooled, dust tops with confectioner’s sugar. Place on platter and arrange sprigs and crushed candies around edge of platter at bottom of cake.

This recipe and those of the other nine national finalists can be found here.

Pork Tenderloin

I really am finding that the one place where I can be happiest these days is in the kitchen, creating something new. It's the one area right now where I can get so caught up in the creative process that I can momentarily forget about everything else. I believe that when we're going through something difficult, hobbies and interests can be a gift to us since they help ameliorate the pain we might be going through without resorting to something that is self-destructive or a historic crutch we've clung to in the past. I suspect that for awhile, the only non-depressing posts in my blog will be related to food, so I'll try to keep a smattering of these throughout my entries.

Because it's fall, I really like cooking with apple cider. I bought some pork tenderloins the other day from Costco and since brining's on my mind, I put them in a brine with about a half gallon apple cider, a half gallon of water, a cup of salt, 1/2 cup of smashed garlic cloves, a bunch of fresh thyme, about a dozen bay leaves and a couple tablespoons of peppercorns. It's a modified recipe I use from Thomas Keller's Bouchon Cookbook.

I popped the pork in the brine before I left for work yesterday and let the brine work it's magic. A brine is much more than marinating. With the large amounts of salt included in a brine, a chemical imbalance is created between the moisture in the meat and the high salinity of the brine liquid. The imbalance forces the salted water into the pores of the meat, bringing with it all the flavor you've introduced into your brine. Given enough time, the flavors will permeate the meat and also make the meat much more moist when it's done cooking. That's why people recommend brining turkeys at Thanksgiving. In this case, six hours was enough time and so when I got home, I fired up the grill and then made a dry rub to put on the pork. I started with some paprika, then added some ancho chili powder, some chipotle powder, a little smoked paprika, a boatload of cracked black pepper, kosher salt, then some dried onion and garlic, a little ground mustard, thyme, dried sage and the surprise ingredient that took it to a different level, and made it very tasty: about a teaspoon of cinnamon. This rub is a keeper and I'm going to try it again and actually come up with measurements so I can have a recipe for it when I need it.

I rubbed that all over the tenderloin, oiled the grill and got it grilling. I saw that it was getting a little more charred than I hoped, so I bopped into the kitchen and mixed up a little quick sauce with apple cider and a lot of spicy ground mustard. I threw a bit of my spice mixture in for good measure, and then added some oil. I started basting the pork with the sauce until it was done.

It was tasty, and one of the easiest meals in the world! This one's a keeper, and it made me happy. When I grin from ear to ear with the first bite, it doesn't matter what cards life deals me--I forget about anything but the food. This is a recipe I'm going to try and recreate sometime, and the addition of the apple cider mustard sauce made it better, so I'm keeping that one. Besides the pork, I fixed a little broccoli to go alongside which made for a happy camper.

I grilled two tenderloins last night which will be dinner for the rest of the week. I had two others that were in the brine. I put them each in a ziploc bag, covered them completely with cider, and placed them in the freezer. I think when I pull them out in about a month or so they're going to be even tastier.

A new competition

I've decided I'm going to become a competitive cook.

Next up is a $10,000 grand prize for creating a cake that best represents one of these Holidays:

Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Independence Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah and Christmas.

The creative juices are flowing.

There are some obvious flavors that pop into mind for certain holidays, e.g., pumpkin for Halloween, but what about Father's Day? And Hanukkah I have no clue. I'm thinking of zeroing in on Easter, Mother's Day, Independence Day and Christmas. Though maybe St. Patrick's day would be a good choice, using Guinness Stout, or maybe Bailey's Irish Creme, or perhaps creme de menthe and chocolate. Though I have to say I've grown tired of mint chocolate anything.

I have until September 1 to come up with a recipe to submit.

Hmm...a rich chocolatey cake, with Guinness and Bailey's Irish Creme could be very tasty.

The final push...

Well, right now, what's in the oven marks the third batch of cookies I've baked today. I tried two new changes, one which entailed changing the way I added the cocoa, including it with the dry ingredients instead of with the melted butter and sugar as my best recipe so far entails, and the second recipe was one where I decided to try Ghirardelli cocoa, as well as the addition of a 1/4 cup more flour, to see what those changes would bring.

Both exercises are proof that the recipe I came up with late last week is still the best I've come up with, and tonight, I decided to do one more batch, since I was going to write up the instructions and have some friends (read: Alison, Torey and Meg) try baking the recipe for me for feedback, to see if my directions are clear, and if they have the same result as me.

Two things I learned: first, it's amazing how changing the technique of how you use the exact same ingredients can dramatically impact the finished product. By adding the cocoa with the dry ingredients, instead of with the melted butter, I ended up with something that was much more a batter, rather than a dough--I almost made brownies out of it, but added a little more flour to thicken it up. Creaming the butter makes a different cookie--less fudgy and more cakey, and one that doesn't spread as readily. That's fascinating to me.

The second thing I learned: sometimes, the fanciest cocoas aren't always the best. I wouldn't recommend Ghirardelli cocoa to anyone. Blech!

A few more batches tomorrow, to come up with a great picture, and then I need to write a little blurb about the cookie, and then I'll send it in on Thursday--maybe late Wednesday, to make sure it gets in by the deadline on Friday.

The Competition

So you can see other people's creations for the competition here at the Mrs. Field's website. There are some good looking cookies, and some that cause you to just scratch your head. I think the first rule for a competition like this should be the following: don't list a cake mix as an ingredient.

You have to post a story about your creation too, so I'm thinking about this right now...I've got a sentimental story about my grandmother, and the Kitchen Aid mixer I inherited from her, but it could easily become too maudlin.

I think the Cranberry Cabanadoodle sounds kinda tasty. And yes, that's the title of the cookie.

I'm just digging the photo for the Fiesta Cookie. Worth a look.

Not really sure what to think of the Snapperdoodles.

Best story so far can be found at the Fruit d'Loop recipe.

This one's just out there, but I'd definitely give it a whirl. I like these people who think up these concoctions. We're cut from the same cloth.

The Minted Chocolate Cookies are the closest to what I've concocted. But with a whopping tablespoon of peppermint extract--that'd clear your sinuses in a heartbeat. I think he/she must have meant a teaspoon.

Chicken Pox Cookies don't sound too appetizing, but the story's endearing.

OK, that's enough time wasting for one morning.

Something I find kinda humorous:

I get nervous looking at the competition.

Dialing it in...

Well, after about 10 or so batches of cookies, I think I've arrived at the best cookie I'm going to be able to create. Whether or not it's a winner ultimately, I don't know, but it's the best I can reach with my skills. So far, everyone who's tried it has liked it, so now I just need to make it a few more times to hone the technique, and then have a few people make it, following my directions, to see if there's anything confusing about it.

Torey's going to do a test run of baking the cookies, and I'm hoping Alison will too, and then I'm going to have my sisters in law make up a batch too, if they're willing.

I think it's a darn tasty cookie, though here's the bottom line: I'm pretty sick of mint chocolate anything now.

Perseverance

I'm going fast and furious on trying to create the perfect cookie. The skeleton is there, and so is the concept, but tweaking it and getting it just where I want to is a bit maddening, but enjoyable at the same time.

There are a lot of variables, and every recipe I'm trying is slightly different. I'm varying the amount of ingredients, the brand and type of ingredient (such as Dutch processed cocoa, vs. normal cocoa, and baking soda as opposed to baking powder), as well as varying technique. The perfect cookie is eluding me, but I am learning as I go, studying the science behind every element that goes into a recipe, and discovering how each ingredient impacts the final product.

My guides in learning are two excellent books: On Food and Cooking, by Harold McGee, and Understanding Baking: The Art and Science of Baking by Joseph Amendola and Nicole Rees. The McGee is the standard text on the science of food. His book covers all facets of cooking, while the latter book deals solely with the science involved in baking. There's an entire chapter dedicated to cookies, and how the standard ingredients in cookies work together. When I'm done, I'll tell you what I've learned. (Not that anyone gets as geeked about this as I do!)

I'm not there yet, but I hope to be. I think I'm at around my sixth batch, with the two batches I made tonight. I suspect I'll be making at least two recipes tomorrow, and maybe one Sunday evening. I've got two weeks left to figure it out.

I'm going to have a lot of cookies floating around in the freezer. Any takers?

A new kitchen?

So after I made these cookies the other day, a friend of mine told me about a cookie competition in Frankenmuth, with a grand prize of $500. I decided to google "cookie competition," and lo and behold, Mrs. Field's is having a 3oth Anniversary Cookie Competition. The Grand Prize? New GE Profile appliances for your kitchen, the complete works: fridge, range, microwave and a dishwasher. GE Profile are exactly what I was hoping to have in my kitchen after the remodel.

I'm going for it!

I've got until the end of the month to develop and tweak my recipe. I know I have some willing taste testers in Torey and Ren, and I'll be corralling Paul and Alison too.

The website says, "You too can become a Queen of the Kitchen." Well, I'm planning on a palace coup. Shock and awe, baby!

Culinary Experiments

I did a little mad scientist routine in the kitchen today. Two things on tap: ribs and mint chocolate cookies.

I think I've stumbled upon a quick and easy rib method that I'll use from now on, with a few modifications here and there. Here's my rib technique: rinse the ribs, then pat them dry with paper towel. Sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper, and a dry rub of your choice. I used Penzey's Southwest Seasoning, which I think will become my standby rub.

Then it's easy: just throw 'em on a grill set on low, flip every 20 minutes or so, and cook them like that for at least an hour and a half. At that point, you can start basting every ten minutes or so with the BBQ sauce of your choice, being sure to flip them each time you baste. A store bought sauce works just fine, but today, I cooked up a quick and easy BBQ sauce, simply because I love making something up. This one was pretty tasty, so I want to remember what I put in it this time around. (This is one of those blog entries that's more for me than anything else.)

Ingredients for the sauce:

1/2 of a red onion, minced
minced garlic--about four cloves
Can of diced tomatoes
Ketchup--probably 1/3 of a cup or so
Gulden's mustard--probably two or three tablespoons
chipotle pepper--maybe 1 and 1/2 tsp
ancho chile pepper--probably 1/2 tsp
cumin--probably a teaspoon
smoked Spanish paprika--about 1/2 tsp
cherry wine vinegar
raspberry wine vinegar
(enough of both to give it a nice zing, though could've used red wine vinegar)
liquid smoke--probably 2 tsp or so
brown sugar--probably 1/4 cup, maybe less
maple syrup--probably a tablespoon
plenty of black pepper
juice of half a lemon

Method: saute onions and garlic, then mix in the rest. Let simmer for awhile, then season with salt. Blend it all together to form a thick sauce.

The second experiment was to create some Mint Chocolate Mint Chip Cookies.

I made up a tasty recipe, but decided to delete here, since I'm going to be entering a contest. Don't want anyone using Google to stumble upon the winning recipe! :-)


It was immensely satisfying for me to make these today. Experimenting in the kitchen could just be my favorite hobby.