Cookies! (meh)

Okay, so I made these peanut butter chocolate chip cookies today.  The recipe's pretty simple, and we all know how to make cookies, so I won't spend much time on them.  Basically, it's a simple chocolate chip cookie recipe with some extra peanut butter. 

My only change from the recipe is that I didn't have any chocolate chips, so I chopped up some Green & Black's Dark Cooks' Chocolate and used that instead.  The chocolate itself is pretty good, probably too good for these cookies, in fact.  I'm going to have to buy some more for hot chocolate some day.

In the end, the cookies look like normal cookies, but in my opinion, they're not as good.  Maybe it was my peanut butter or something, but these were just a bit too dry.  Also, the chocolate was just a bit too dark for this recipe, maybe it'd be better with some milk chocolate or semi-sweet.  Oh well, next internet recipe is for Lemon Melting Moments--some kind of lemon-frosting cookies.

A Failed Attmept

Well, I finally got around to making the Roasted Garlic and Aubergine Custards with Red Pepper Dressing from the cookbook. This was a long and challenging recipe. I don't know why they'd put it in a book of appetizers and party recipes, because it's too complicate for a party. Basically, you have to roast the garlic, grill the peppers, fry the aubergine (eggplant), and finally mix it all together to make the custard. Then, to top it all off, you have to make the dressing, which isn't that hard, but it's still another thing to have to do. Frankly, I think it takes too long to make, and there are too many things that could go wrong. I don't mind making it for myself, or with a bit of help, but if I were having a party, this is not something I'd make for my guests. Also, it's got loads of garlic in it, so even though it tastes good, it'll make your breath reek for the rest of the night and into the morning.

First, here's a picture of the dish from the book:

Now, here's a picture of my completed dish:

Notice a difference?

There are two things that went wrong here. 

1) Too much cream and not enough egg.  I didn't want to make six custards, so I cut the recipe in half.  I made sure to cut everything in half, except maybe the amount of aubergine, but in the end, I don't think that mattered.  The recipe calls for 1/2 pint of cream and 2 large eggs.  I used 1/4 pint cream, and 1 medium egg.  Okay, so I used an egg that may be a couple ounces lighter, but I don't think that made a lot of difference.  I think I should have used two eggs, and probably a little less cream.  I mean, I cooked these things for 10 minutes longer than the recipe calls for, and they still didn't firm up.  I finally gave up because the top was looking all right:

but when I flipped it over, the bottom still needed cooking:

More egg and less cream would have fixed this problem.

2) Look at that picture at the top again.  See how it's all browned and crispy?  Do you know how you make custards?  Do you know what the recipe says?  The way you make custards, and the way the recipe says, is by baking them in a water bath.  This is to ensure that the custard doesn't dry out, and that the custard is cooked at a constant, low temperature.  Do you know what doesn't happen in a water bath?  Crispy, brown edges, that's what.  I don't know how they made what's in the picture, but it wasn't the way they said in the recipe. 

Anyway, I still ate it, and you can't go wrong with cream and garlic, so it was pretty tasty.  Actually, I quite liked the dressing.  It's just roasted pepper, tomato, red onion, roasted ground cumin, olive oil and vinegar.  So it's nothing surprising, but it's still pretty tasty.  I might make that again.

Next recipes: Number 189 from the book: Grilled Scallops with Brown Butter (Where am I going to get unshelled scallops?), and The Yummiest Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies.

French Bread Pizza

So, I've finally gotten a chance to cook again.  The computers are shut off at work for half the week, so I've got time at home.  Technically, I'm working on my thesis, but I can't spend all day doing that.  No, no, I need to do some cooking between pages or writing.

Anyway, I finally got to make some Chicken, Bacon, and Ranch French Bread Pizza.  That link has two recipes in it, actually, and I made both of them.  First, there's a recipe for French bread.  I made that on Sunday, and it looked like this:

Not terrible.  I think it could have used a little more sugar for the yeast and a little less kneading from me because it's pretty dense in there.  I followed the recipe to the letter, but in the end, it's not much like French bread at all.  Still, it's passable bread for general consumption.

Next, the pizza part.  I waited until Monday to make the pizza, but I marinated the chicken over night.  Toppings-wise, I went to three stores, and couldn't find any ranch dressing (What's your deal, Glasgow?), so I had to use some "garlic sauce".  It tastes like ranch dressing without any extra spices.  The rest of the ingredients were basically what it says on the recipe, except I through some mushrooms on that baby too.  Before cooking, it looked like this:

Baked, it looked like this:

Looks tasty.

But really, it only tastes kind of 'blah'.  I think all the flavors here are just kind of plain, and there are no sharp, interesting notes here to really enjoy.  It tastes like garlic, oil, and salt on a whole lot of bread.  Well, I guess that's what pizza generally tastes like, but I'm not into that.  My chicken was marinated with salt, pepper, cumin, cayenne, and hot sauce.  Maybe it should have been barbecue. I think instead of ranch, or 'garlic sauce', I should have used something like the white sauce at Pizza Hut.  Sure, it's more fat, but that stuff has flavor.  In the end, I'd say this pizza's a lot more work than it's worth.

Tasty Salad

Feeling in the mood for something healthy today and inspired by my recent stay in Italy, I thought I'd make some kind of refreshing salad today.  I went through my cupboards and found some black-eyed beans and decided I needed a bean salad.  I didn't have much else, so I had to go shopping for some of the other ingredients, but I present you to the recipe I invented:

Tasty Salad:
1 red bell pepper
1 can black-eyed beans (mine were in salt water, but I drained them, so maybe it doesn't matter)
4 spring onions
2 tsp baby capers
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp coarsely ground cumin seeds
1/4 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
1/2 tsp coarse sea salt

Chop the bell pepper and spring onions and mix with the beans and capers in a bowl.  In a separate small bowl, mix the lemon juice, olive oil, cumin, pepper, and salt until they are well combined.  Pour the olive oil mixture over the bean mixture and stir with a wooden spoon.  Enjoy immediately or let sit for a more mixed flavor.

I ate about half of it right away, and it is delicious.  I like the taste of cumin in a salad.  Until recently, I only had cumin in cooked dishes, but a nearby restaurant, The Two Figs, puts it in everything, and while their food isn't that good, the cumin is.  I'm letting the rest set until after dinner, or perhaps I'll have it for lunch tomorrow.  I can't wait!

Extra-thick Pancakes for Breakfast

Just a quick post today. I've spent some time this morning experimenting with making extra-thick pancakes.  Here's the recipe I invented for this purpose:

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp coarse sea salt

3 Tbsp golden syrup
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup melted unsalted butter
1-2 tsp vanilla extract (I like vanilla)

Instructions:
Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl and stir until well mixed.
Combine the wet ingredients in a smaller bowl and stir until well mixed.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until just combined, clumps are okay and preferred.  If there are no clumps, you have over-mixed; good luck with your chewy pancakes, loser.  Seriously though, it's not a big deal, just don't stir too much.

Pour the batter onto a pre-heated pan in whatever size you would like.  I used my 12-in cast-iron frying pan, it's pretty well-used, so I didn't need to butter it or anything.  Keep the heat around medium-low, lower than you would usually use for pancakes, since you want to cook these through without burning the bottom.

I also tried to pipe the batter into the pan by filling a plastic bag with the batter and cutting off a corner.  I cut too much corner off, so I wasn't really happy with this method, but maybe I'll try it again sometime to see if I can do better.

Basically, I made the pancakes this thick by adding extra baking powder and using less milk.  I'd say it turned out pretty well.  Even without any toppings, these are delicious.  Once again, I'll stress the magic of course sea salt: In cookies, cupcakes, or even pancakes, that tiny fleck of salt in every other bite makes a good food into an amazing food.

Top these babies with some salted butter (the salted kind is imperative, unsalted butter just won't do here) and some maple syrup, and you've got yourself one delicious breakfast.

Now, feast your eyes on this:

That's almost the entire batch, so if you want to feed more than just yourself, I'd suggest doubling or tripling the recipe.

Quick Cupcake Post

Today, I made cupcakes!

I've decided I'm not going to say much more than this:  If you click on the cupcake link, you see that they're Cherry Coke Cupcakes, and if you scroll all the way into the comments, you'll find a recipe for buttercream frosting.

I thought that Cherry Coke flavored cupcakes was a pretty good idea.  It probably is, but these cupcakes, while still tasty, don't really taste anything like Cherry Coke.

There is one thing I really liked about the recipe, and I'm just going to quote the recipe here:

In a saucepan, boil the Coca-Cola, and cherry syrup gently for five minutes. Melt in the butter and cocoa powder.

Do that, just that, and drink it.  That shit tastes fantastic.  I'm definitely going to use that as the basis of a hot chocolate some day.

I guess the next recipe I make will be the crazy aubergine custards from the recipe book, and after that, maybe some Chicken, Bacon, and Ranch French Bread Pizza.

Saturday Evening Skewers

Hello again.

I've finally gotten some more cooking done.  Well, sort of, this wasn't much of a feat.  You see, I finally got around to making recipe number 14, Mozzarella and Tomato Skewers, from the "400 Appetizers & Party Recipes" book.  It's a pretty simple recipe, and only calls for about 4 ingredients, bread, tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil.  What's had me putting it off for so long was my lack of skewers.  You see, they don't sell them at my local Sainsbury's.  Of course, now that I've gotten some from Sea Woo, the Asian supermarket, a new store has opened up right next to Sainsbury's that does carry skewers; just my luck. 

Well, I went out this morning and spent entirely too much on groceries, which I've been doing far too often, I'm afraid, and among those groceries were the requisite ingredients.  First, you cut the crusts off the bread, cut into quarters, cover with olive oil, and bake.

Look at all those slices of bread!  It takes three breads for each skewer, and here I have forty two pieces, which will eventually make fourteen skewers.  Since each skewer also gets two pieces of mozzarella and two slices of tomato, I'll need twenty eight of each.

Once the bread is baked, you just stack them up: bread, cheese, tomato, basil, bread, cheese, tomato, basil, bread, and put a skewer through them.  I took fresh basil leaves off my basil plant.  I thought the poor thing would be stripped bare by this recipe, but it turns out these plants are dense with leaves.  I hardly made a mark. 

If you're making these, I suggest you stop at this point.  This is basically a stacked Caprese salad, and it's delicious.  However, the recipe says to drizzle it all with olive oil, add some salt and pepper, and put it all back in the oven until the cheese starts to melt.

Fresh out of the oven, they've all shrunk a little bit, so you've got to push them down so they stay together, and be sure to let them cool before you try one, unless you want a mouth full of lava-hot molten tomato juice.  Once they've been baked, the top piece of bread becomes scratch-the-top-of-your-mouth crispy, and the other two pieces are soggy.  That's not to say that they're not still delicious.  I've already finished about ten of these things for my dinner.

After all that, I was left with the problem of what to do with all the crusts I had cut off the bread.  I've heard that people around here like to eat their bread pudding, so I thought I'd give it a try.  I read some recipes online and from "The Joy of Cooking", but none of those were really what I was looking for, so I made my own recipe.

Ingredients:

Crusts and Heels from 1 small bag of white bread, chopped into sticks
3 eggs
~3/4 cup double cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp mixed spices
1/4 cup white wine (I'm trying to get rid of the stuff)
~3 tbsp butter
handful of pine nuts
~3 tbsp golden syrup

I basically just raided my cupboard for some things I could use to make it.  You put the pine nuts in with the bread and chop the butter up to place on top.  Then, mix together the remaining ingredients and pour them over the bread.  Let it sit for a while and press the bread down so that it soaks everything up.  I put it in a 350℉ oven for about 30 minutes.  In the end, it was a little dry, but not bad.  It tastes a lot like French bread, but it's in the shape of a pie.  I kind of like it.

If I've ever got a bunch of bread sitting around, I might make this again.

All right, next on the list are, Cherry Coke Cupcakes, from the internet and, Roasted Garlic and Aubergine Custards with Red Pepper Dressing, from the book.  Maybe I'll get to that someday.