Baking and Chocolate Goodness

In addition to everything else she did, Michelle sent me yummy vanilla and a brownie recipe for my birthday. Well, I had to try it, right?

I've misplaced my camera, so these pictures are being taken with my phone.


In the pan, with foil so I can wrap them up and send them with John to work tomorrow.



Carnage on the plate.

Yum. Thanks Michelle!

Geek of the Week - Alton Brown

I find geeks attractive. Ask anyone who's known me for a long time, they'll confirm it.

So, my first geek to fawn all over is . . .

Alton Brown.

Food Network personality, cookbook author, motorcycle enthusiast, humorist, Iron Chef judge, and most importantly - GEEK. Food Geek. Science Geek. Sexy Geek.

Oh, did I type that out loud? Well, apparently I'm not the only one to think of Alton that way.

Because I don't like to embed things (I'm ok with you doing it, don't worry), here's a lovely montage of Alton Brown pics set to I'm Too Sexy

Adventures in Cooking - Matzo Ball Soup

Passover/Pesach was recently observed. Being a person without a religion, I like to enjoy the variety of celebrations that religions supply us with. So, this year for Passover I decided to make - Matzo Ball Soup!

I used this recipe from the NY Times

Recipe: Matzo Ball Soup

Time: For broth, 2 hours plus chilling; for matzo balls, 2 hours

FOR THE BROTH:
1 3-to-4-pound chicken
Kosher salt
4 stalks celery with leaves, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 leeks, chopped and thoroughly rinsed
3 cloves garlic, peeled
4 sprigs flat-leaf parsley
3 sprigs dill
½ teaspoon black peppercorns
2 bay leaves
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

FOR THE MATZO BALLS:
1 cup matzo meal
4 large eggs
2 tablespoons schmaltz (rendered seasoned chicken fat, sold at butcher shops) at room temperature
1 tablespoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ cup seltzer

FOR GARNISH:
1 carrot, peeled, thinly sliced and blanched until soft
2 tablespoons chopped dill.

1. For broth: Rub chicken inside and out with about 2 tablespoons kosher salt. Allow to stand for 15 minutes, then rinse well under cold water. Place in a large stock pot and add cold water to cover by 3 inches. Place over high heat and bring to a boil. Skim off impurities that rise during the first 15 minutes of boiling, then add celery, carrots, onion, leeks, garlic, parsley, dill, peppercorns and bay leaves. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until chicken is cooked, about 45 more minutes.

2. Carefully remove chicken from pot and take meat from bones, reserving meat for another use. Return bones to pot of broth, and simmer for 1 hour more. Strain through a sieve lined with cheesecloth. Cool broth, then refrigerate until fat rises to top and solidifies, at least several hours. Skim off and discard fat.

3. For matzo balls: In a large mixing bowl, combine matzo meal, eggs, schmaltz, kosher salt and baking powder. Mix well. Add seltzer and mix again. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.

4. Fill a large pot with water and bring to a simmer. With wet hands, roll out 1-ounce balls (about the size of a walnut). Add balls to water and simmer until tender, light and fluffy in the center, 45 to 60 minutes. (To test centers, insert a toothpick, which should slide easily all the way through.) Drain, allow to cool, and transfer to a flat covered container. Refrigerate until needed.

5. To serve, place broth over medium-low heat. Add matzo balls, blanched carrot slices and chopped dill. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Simmer until matzo balls are thoroughly heated, and serve.

Yield: 10 to 12 servings.

Well, to start off with - have you ever looked for schmaltz in a store in Fairbanks? No luck. I bet the frozen chosen make there own - which is what I did using these instructions.

Here's my bowl of chicken fat, or as I call it "proto-schmaltz".









And here's the chicken in my pan, as I cook it down.











Which, when strained left me with this, my schmaltz.



Whew. Now that we're done with that, let's take a look at what it we did for the soup.

Soup in pot








Well, after we strained the broth and deboned the chicken, that meant it was time for - Chicken Enchiladas!








Ok, back to our real meal! (the enchiladas were yummy)

So, I had the broth chilled, skimmed, strained, and ready to go. Time to make the matzos.

Here's the ingredients, unmixed:







Matzo dough, mixed.








Alrighty. I rolled the dough into balls about 1 inch in diameter, and opted to cook them in the broth, knowing that John would likely devour the soup as soon as I was done.

Matzos right after being placed in the soup


Matzos cooked (look how much they've grown! Notice that John has eaten some of the soup before I could get the picture taken!)


All in all, a success. The matzos were not as dense as I would have liked, and a little salty, but still good. Of course, John thinks they were perfect, probably because they were so full of salt!

The real test - would I make it again? You bet. Even with the chicken enchilada interlude, though next time I might make it chicken mole.

Avgolemono - Easy, Fast, Filling, Tasty

Two of which a prospective date should be. Unless you're a zombie/vampire/cannibal and then you might be looking for all four in a potential mate. But I digress...

On a Sunday afternoon while doing laundry and other domestic things, I found myself full of a fearsome hunger. We've been cleaning the freezer (salmon will be smoked tonight!), and I've been rotating stock. Dinner tonight is falafel, because I have garbanzos/ceci/chickpeas that need used. But I digress again.

Avgolemono is a great soup to whip up on a busy afternoon. If you have homemade stock and lemons on hand - Yay! If you have canned stock and lemon/lime simulcra on hand - Yay!

Avgolemono

1 large can low-salt Chicken Broth or 1.5 qts Chicken Stock
1.5 C leftover rice/1 C uncooked rice/1 C uncooked orzo/stars/other itty bitty pasta
2 eggs
3 T lemon or lime juice
salt and pepper to taste

Put your stock in a medium sized pan, and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer. If using uncooked rice or pasta, add and cook as appropriate. If using cooked rice, toss it in and go to the next step.

In a bowl or a measuring cup or some other appropriate container whisk together the eggs and lemon juice. Slowly pour in 2 cups of hot broth, 1 cup at a time, whisking as you add. This tempers the egg and keeps it from being cooked immediately when added to the soup. If you mess this up and end up with something more like Egg Drop rather than a cream soup, that's ok. It still tastes good, and I won't report you to the food police. Add the tempered egg mixture back into the simmering pot of broth and starch, stirring all the while. Bring up to temperature, the egg will thicken the soup. Salt and pepper to taste before serving. I usually only add pepper, as the soup doesn't seem to need any salt flavoring.

Scrapple - Fried Food of Champions?

We made our scrapple based on a venison scrapple recipe found in multiple places online. We had a small "no, don't delete those pictures!!" incident with the camera, so no Bonus! photos. Sorry.

Here's the recipe from Cooks.com:

Venison Scrapple

1 med. onion, chopped fine
2 lbs. venison, bones and some beef suet
1 c. cornmeal
1 tsp. salt and dash of pepper

Brown onion in suet until delicate color. Into 2 quarts of salted cold water, add the browned onion with the fat and the meat and bones and cook until the meat is tender. Cool.

Skim off the fat and remove the bones. Chop the meat fine. To the remaining liquid add enough water to make 1 quart. Add the cornmeal, salt, pepper, and meat. Cook 1 hour, stirring frequently to prevent lumping. Turn into mold. Cool. Cut in slices and fry until brown

I used 2 pounds of venison, some soup bones from the freezer, and used moose fat since I have it. We boiled it with the browned onions. John kept referring to it as "stew" while it bubbled away on the stovetop.

We put the pot on the porch to cool. Removed the bones as soon as we could, so we wouldn't disturb the fat layer later. Once the fat set up, removed it. Then, we warmed up the broth, that had jellied up because of the bones, and John pulled out the meat and sorted through it to make sure we only put in stuff we'd actually want to chew. That took awhile. He can be very thorough when motivated, and this was one of those situations. The cleaned meat was put back in the broth, which I had run through a sieve because I don't like running into bone chips and mystery things in my food. Call me picky that way...

So, I added the cornmeal and cooked as directed. I used loaf pans for the mold, it took four of them to accommodate my slurry of stuff. Reminded me of polenta laced with stewed moose.

Well, I never got to eat any of the creation. John ran off with the pans so he and his moose hunting buddies could try it. Apparently it was ok, they fried it up and had it with beer. I never got to try it, and I have four loaf pans that are AWOL.

I'm intrigued enough to try it again, because I don't mind polenta, and I like tamales very very very much. So, bits of meat in cornmeal sounds attractive, especially since I'm keeping an eye on what meat is going in there.

I'm not sure that John is that interested in me making it again, but I want to give it another try. I'm tempted to try making scrapple with a pork shoulder, because that sounds good. Then again, with pork shoulder I'd probably make tamales or pozole. We'll see.

I feel rather let down by the whole thing, so that's why I'll try it again.

Scrapple Update On Friday Night!

John takes his journeyman exam tomorrow, so we've been very focused on that. Look for a scrapple update with BONUS! pictures on Friday. Promise.

Adventures In Cooking

I love to cook. I love to cook interesting things.

Tonight's adventure - Moose Scrapple. We'll see how it goes, and I'll be reporting back on how it goes.

Personal Note to CHW - if you're interested in trying some, give me a call or drop me an email. I'll only share if it turns out to be not disgusting. Promise. I made bumbleberry crisp for dessert tonight, and if it turns out well I'll make one and drop it by the clinic.