Repost: Molten Chocolate Cakes

I feel bad. I promised things that didn't happen. So here is a repost of one of the best things I've ever done. It doesn't matter that the girlfriend I'm referring to is no longer someone whose tastes are relevant, nor does it matter that Valentines Day was some time ago. The cake speaks for itself. Chocolate usually does. Enjoy.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

So I got an email a while ago from Kate of Serendipity. She wanted to know if I wanted to take part in a Valentines Day roundup where she would send me some chocolate, I would do something with it and post about it.

At first I was kind of dubious, seeing as how I'm really not a big V-Day person. I get my girlfriend flowers (which I do periodically anyway), a card, I cook her a dinner she enjoys (which I do all the time regardless), probably some champagne in there and yeah, that's it really. I didn't even do a post about it last year.

But then I remembered where Kate lives.

She lives in Belgium.

So, to recap, she offered to send me Belgian chocolate and all I had to do was make something with it? Yeah, I'm down. Completely. Always happy to take part in activities with my fellow bloggers. Heh.When the package came it was like Christmas. I opened up the envelope and let out a most undignified (not to mention unmanly) squeal of delight. Four bars of chocolate, two in foil and two in plastic with a sticker declaring they were artisan. Or that's what I'm guessing "artisanale" means. Because I'm clever like that. I don't have pictures of all of them, some of it mysteriously (and rapidly) disappeared. Mostly the big bar from that artisan place. Yeah, no idea what happened that. Heh. The question was, what to do with it? What to do with it, indeed.

But the answer, really, was simple. When you have awesome chocolate you have to make an awesome chocolate cake. That's it. So, molten chocolate cakes it was. Because really, is there a more awesome chocolate cake? I'm not convinced that there is. Plus it's so ridiculously easy. I didn't use the same recipe from last time I posted about them, I used this one from Tasty Kitchen. It used all bar chocolate, instead of some cocoa powder, so the cakes weren't so dark. Which means my girlfriend likes them more, too. Which is good, for Valentines Day.

So thanks Kate! This was a lot of fun. Now, have you kids all been to her blog? If not you should, she takes wicked good pictures. And I'm not just saying that because she sends me chocolate. Heh.

Oh and since it is Sunday, here's Noodles. Wanting what she can't have.
Check out what the other folks did with their chocolate, here is a link to the roundup.

Repost: Quick Chicken and Sweet Potato Stew

I'm still sick so I figured I would repost something that I would like to be eating. This is also a perfect stew for winter, so that's even better. Enjoy!
---

1.5 lbs cooked chicken, cut into pieces
1 cup carrot chunks
2 cloves minced garlic
1/2 cup diced onion
3 cups chicken broth or stock
1 baked sweet potato
1 tsp fresh basil
1 tsp tarragon
1/2 tsp sage
1 bay leaf
3-4 tbls flour
salt and pepper

Brown the onion in some oil over medium heat in a large pot. Add the carrots and saute until slightly brown. Add garlic and saute until flavorful. Add the chicken and saute until slightly browned. Sprinkle on the flour and cook for just another minute. Add the broth, sage, tarragon and bay leaf and bring to a simmer, cover and let cook for about a half hour so the flavors mingle. Peel and mash the sweet potato and add it to the stew, along with the basil. Let it simmer for about 10-15 more minutes and add salt and pepper to taste.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I know what you're thinking. "Stew? In July?" Well, I don't think it's been over 80 degrees here yet this year and the sun didn't come out at all last month. So it's been fall foods for fall weather. Personally, I love it (the weather and the stew). I'm really not into sun or heat, I like cold and cloudy. I want to move to Scandinavia wicked bad, but my girlfriend isn't having any of it. Ah well. Heh.

Anyway, I wasn't sure exactly how I should post this recipe. It is a fail, but the end result was still really good. And while I do think you should try this, I don't recommend going about it the way I did, it's way more work than is needed. But what started it all? Well, I had wanted to make sweet potato dumplings.

First I needed a vehicle for them. Chicken stew seemed appropriate and fitting with the weather. I had some braised chicken that needed using, so it would be a quick stew too. So, bacon fat. Because I can. Then I browned up some onion, nice and dark. Then, since it's a quick stew and I didn't need to worry about them getting too squishy, I tossed in some carrot chunks. I wanted to get some browning on them too. Then, of course, garlic (but no picture, sorry). Then the cooked chicken. I let them sit for a bit to try to get more browning, then mixed it all up. At this point I added a bunch of flour. I like adding the flour here better than coating the meat with it because this way the meat browns instead of just the flour. You don't want to just add the broth right now though, that would make it taste like raw flour. You need to let it cook for a minute or so. Then I added the chicken broth and the dry herbs (sage, bay leaf and tarragon). Covered it and let it cook for a while. As that simmered I took a baked sweet potato, cut it in half, scooped out the goodies and mashed it all up. Added an egg and some flour and such and mixed it up (there was a recipe, but I can't find it right now). Still looked really wet. I added a little more flour and then decided to just move along. This was a mistake, I should have used more flour. Oh well, live and learn. Scooped big ol' tablespoons of "dumpling" batter into the stew, covered it and let it cook for a while. Took off the lid, made a face and covered it to see if the dumplings would set. They didn't. I pulled them out of the pot and racked my brain. I was left with a bowl full of goop and a watery chicken and carrot stew. Great. Something was going to be wasted. Well, unless... I could put some of the sweet potato goop into the thin stew. That might thicken it and give it some richness too. Hmmm, yes. Maybe a little basil to brighten it. Uhm, yeah. That'll do. In fact, it's wicked good. So, win was snatched from the jaws of fail, but next time I'm not going to bother with trying to make the dumplings. I'm just going to add the mashed sweet potato to the stew and call it done. And that's the recipe I'm going to share. Let us never speak of the dumplings again.

Repost: Rolo Cookies

Well, the holidays are almost done, but I bet some of you still need to make cookies and since these are wicked good I thought I'd share the recipe again. Plus it's quicker than writing a whole new post so I can go right back to playing Civilization V. Heh.

---

1 cup butter
1 ¼ cups sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
¾ cup cocoa
2 ¼ cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 packages Rolos (40)

In a large bowl mix butter, 1 cup of sugar, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla. In medium bowl mix flour, coco, and baking soda. Add to butter mixture. Roll 1 tablespoon cookie dough into a ball; flatten into palm of your hand. Place 1 Rolo in the center; bring sides together and roll into ball. Roll ball in the remaining ¼ white sugar. Bake at 350° for 8-10 minutes.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First off, these cookies rule. The cookie part tastes almost like brownies and has a great chewy/fudgy texture. And then there's a Rolo in the middle, so how can you lose? I saw this recipe on Bakespace some time ago and was intrigued. So I copied it down for making in the future. I had forgotten that Spryte has a Rolo cookie recipe too and it looks like it's easier to work with. The recipe I made has very sticky dough that was very hard (as in, impossible) to roll into a ball. But I found that it was less sticky after it sat for a bit. So next time I make these I'm going to let the dough rest for 15-20 minutes before I bake them. Still, next time I make them I'll be using Sprytes recipe, they have a little more flour so shouldn't be quite so bad. She recommends using cooking spray on your hands, but I didn't. I should have.

The recipe I used says to mix together the sugars, butter, eggs and vanilla as the first step. I just couldn't do that, I had to mix the sugars and the butter together first. Is that a bad sign? Am I getting snooty? Anyway, that's what I did. I took the sugars and butter and mixed them together. I didn't really cream them, but I mixed them together pretty well. Then I added the egg and vanilla and mixed it all up. Them came the dry mixture. The recipe didn't call for any salt, which always tweaks me out. So I added a little bit. Forgot to get a picture of the dough. Sorry. Then I took big tablespoons, rolled them into a ball and squished them flat in my palm, like the recipe said. Put a Rolo in the middle and brought the sides up. Well, I tried to. It didn't really work like that, the dough was way too sticky. So I wound up just taking big chunks of dough, stuffing a Rolo in the middle and squishing it around till the candy was covered. Then I rolled them in sugar and plopped them onto a parchment lined sheet. Baked them at 350 and there you go. They looked lovely, nice and dark and chocolaty. And tasted even better. These are my new second favorite cookies. First being chocolate chip, of course. Here are a couple more pictures of the middle. I liked this one because it's a good gooey caramel shot. And this is after sitting for an hour, so the caramel is totally set. So I highly recommend these, they are wicked good. They've got me thinking of what other kinds of candy I can fill cookies with. This is a dangerous path folks. Heh.

Repost: Bacon Tunnels

I'm crazy busy today, so here's a repost of one of my favorite things. It combines bacon, cheese and bread, what more do you want?

***



pizza dough
cooked, crumbled bacon
cheese
onion

Preheat oven to 475. Slice the onion either in thin half moons or a small dice. Roll out the dough fairly thin, into about a 20" long, 7-8" wide oblong. Put bacon, cheese and onion all along the long side closest to you. Roll the dough away from you, into a cylinder. Pinch the seam closed. Top with some shredded cheese and bake for 10-15 minutes, till golden brown.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I know, the name sounds kind of dirty. But I really couldn't resist. Heh. Anyway, the whole thing with these is I had about a half a batch of pizza dough leftover from the meatloaf braid and needed something to do with it.

I wanted to do something a little different, maybe breakfasty. I had really wanted to find some way to work egg into it, but the only thing I could think to do at the time was hard boiled, and that wasn't quite what I was looking for. Next time I think what I'm going to do is cook the bread just like this and then afterward fill it up with scrambled eggs or chopped up fried egg.

Hm, I suppose you could just roll the fried egg up and stuff it in like that... More experiments are clearly needed.

But, back to the tunnels. They're basically just a big, stuffed breadstick. When I baked them they got a large, hollow center. I think it's because the cheese I used was big cubes so it held up the dough while the outside baked. That's just a guess though. No matter why it happens though, it's really just screaming for some kind of filling.

You could put some vegetables in there... I guess. Broccoli would be good. Potato, zucchini, peppers, spinach, whatever you like. So, here is what you do.

First, roll out the dough into a big oblong. How big? However big you like. I made it about twenty inches by seven or so. I think. Then I just put on the bacon, some thin sliced red onion and cubes of mozzarella. Cheddar would be good too or Gruyere. Hell, any cheese would be good, it's bacon, bread and cheese for crying out loud. Next I rolled it up. I didn't make to too tight, but I didn't try to keep it loose either. I sealed the seam with a little water (didn't work out that well, unfortunately) then topped it with some olive oil and a little more cheese. Baked it on a baking stone at 475 for about thirteen minutes, or so. I love the little browned bits of cheese on the outside, it gives a great taste and texture. Sometimes I do it on pizza too, around the edge of the crust. So the verdict is, they are wicked good. But next time I'm going to put more stuff in there.

Repost: Red Potato Salad with Bacon and Duck Eggs

This one is a no brainer for a cookout and of course you can use chicken eggs instead of duck. According to my girlfriend this was "the best potato salad ever". Can't ask for a better review than that!

***

All measurements are estimates I'm afraid, this was whipped up on the fly. Just adjust everything to taste.

2 lbs new red potatoes
1/2 cup diced sweet onion
2 hard boiled duck eggs
3 cloves of garlic
4 slices of thick cut bacon
2-3 tbls jarred pickle brine
1 tbl dijon mustard
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tsp dried tarragon
salt and pepper to taste

Cook the bacon and cut into 1/2" pieces. Peel the garlic and boil it and the potatoes until they potatoes are cooked. Pull out the garlic and mash it into a paste. Cut the potatoes into 1" cubes. Sprinkle the pickle juice evenly over the potatoes while they are still hot then let them cool completely. Mix together the garlic paste, onion, mayonnaise, mustard, tarragon, salt and pepper. Chop the eggs and fold them, the bacon, the potatoes and the dressing gently together until everything is coated. Let chill for at least an hour, overnight is best.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's a weird thing: I think this is the first potato salad I've ever made. How does a dude who has been cooking for virtually his entire life and loves barbecue manage to go this long without making potato salad? I'm not really sure and I was there for most of it. Part of it, certainly, is that my sister in law makes a kick ass one, which limits my need to make my own. But as for the rest... I just don't know.

So when my girlfriend comes home with some duck eggs (which are a post by themselves, they are from the same source as the fresh chicken eggs I got some time ago) and a request for potato salad I was kind of at a loss. She wanted me to make a recipe from America's Test Kitchen, but I couldn't find the magazine it was in and I'm not paying for a website that has the same recipes as the magazines I already have subscriptions to.

But that's a rant for another time.

What we could remember is that they sprinkled some pickle brine on the hot potatoes. And my girlfriend is a bit nutty about pickles. So I took that idea and made this.

First, of course, potatoes. I took a page from my moms mashed potato method and boiled some garlic cloves with them. This softens and mellows them and makes it easy to mash them into a paste. Mixing a little kosher salt in there helps the mashing too.In fact, it mellows the garlic a great deal so if you do it this way use at least twice as much as you would if it were raw (you can use roasted garlic instead, but not twice as much, this way just saves that step). Once the garlic was soft enough to mash and while the potatoes were finishing cooking I made the dressing. It was a bunch of mayo, that garlic paste, diced sweet onion, mustard, salt, pepper and tarragon. I love tarragon in mayonnaise based salad dressings, it's such a great combination. I also like sweet onions the best for these things, but use whatever you like.I also didn't measure anything. Again. And it sucks because the proportions came out perfect. Anyway, I chopped up the egg. Look at that. See how much yolk there is? Duck eggs are my new favorite. I pulled the yolk out of the white and chopped them separately. I wanted the yolk in bigger pieces so they wouldn't break up all the way when I mixed it up. But before I could get to mixing I had to chop up the potatoes. And then sprinkle them, while they were still hot, with pickle brine. You could use vinegar if you wanted, but the sweet zinginess (I used some from bread and butter pickles) from the brine was really good. Putting it on the potatoes hot makes it soak right in and not water down the dressing. Which is good. Then you need to let the potatoes cool completely before you mix it all together. Oh, I also made bacon. It doesn't really matter when it's made for stuff like this, you could make it the day before if you wanted. Since it's going to be soaking up the dressing for several hours the texture isn't going to be perfect no matter what. So why stress it? Anyway, once the potatoes have cooled, you want to mix it all up. Well, fold it gently so everything doesn't get all mushed. Unless you like it like that, then mush away. I briefly toyed with completely mixing the egg yolk into the dressing, but decided not to. I bet it would have been good, but I wanted chunks. Maybe next time I'll do half and half. Then it was chilled for several hours and that's that.Simple and awesome. My girlfriend said it was the best potato salad ever. She might be biased because of the bacon though.