Archive for category Foodities

Recipe: Zucchini Bread

Recipe coming tomorrow!

Recipe coming tomorrow!

Here it is!

As promised yesterday, here is the recipe for Zucchini bread passed down through my family. I don’t know the origin of this particular recipe, so it might be from a cookbook, or someone else, or it could be a variation.

Regardless, it’s YUMMY.

Step 1

Preheat your oven for 350 Fahrenheit.

In a mixing bowl, and you’ll probably want to use a stand mixer or electric beaters for this, blend: Read the rest of this entry »

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The Ginger Bug

I brew my own Ginger Ale.

I started doing this, I think, in February 2008. Melissa had bought a book called Wild Fermentation, which was about using bacterial/yeast cultures to brew drinks and make food through fermentation. I’ve made over a dozen batches, and although I’m still improving on my recipe, it tastes pretty good!

My Ginger Ale recipe is essentially three food ingredients + the micro-organism culture.

  • Ginger Root (grated)
  • Lemon (sometimes lime also, and I’m experimenting with other flavor additives)
  • Sugar (white)

That’s it.

The carbonation comes from the fermentation of sugar, via the Wild Yeast. This is the same kind of fermentation process that brewers use to make ethanol (drinking alcohol) although this particular process / yeast culture does not produce a substantial amount of alcohol. (If there is any, it is barely noticeable, and largely depends on how long you let it ferment). The main by-product is carbonation (CO2) and awesome. Read the rest of this entry »

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Homebrew Root Beer, version 1

Root BeerRoot Beer, version 1 (1 June 2008)

Boil the following ingredients:

6 oz Sassafrass tea extract (Saffrole free! This is important!)
1/4 oz Anise seeds, ground to a powder
2 cups white sugar
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
2 qts water
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg

Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature and add:

2 qts water
1 tbsp Vanilla Extract
4 drops Wintergreen Essential Oil (dissolve in 2 tsp of Honey first)
Ginger bug(*)

(* The ginger bug is a wild yeast culture grown with sugar and grated ginger root — I’ll do a separate post about growing that. It’s necessary for fermentation.)

I’ve let mine brew for 6 days so far, and cracked open my first bottle yesterday, and second bottle today. I have one last bottle in the fermenter (a cabinet) right now, which I’ll pull tomorrow, to see if 7 days makes a difference.

The flavor is pretty good – the molasses flavor is a little too heavy, but it carbonated well and had a nice foamy head. I’m going to try using half as much (1/8 cup) next batch. The wintergreen wasn’t prominent enough, so I’ll try increasing that by 50% (6 drops). The sassafrass flavor was very abundant as well, I can probably scale that back a little bit. Beyond those three alterations, this was remarkably good for a first batch — if I were to give it to someone without telling them what it was, they would surely know it was Root beer.

So changes for version 1.1:

  • 1/8 cup Molasses
  • 6 drops Wintergreen extract in 3 tsp of honey
  • 4 oz Sassafrass tea extract

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Pancake Pandemonium

Every now and then, usually on Saturdays or Sundays, I make Melissa and I some pancakes. It’s one of the few things that I am especially good at cooking. (Melissa cooks pretty much everything else, and she is a WONDERFUL cook)

But I’ve been cooking pancakes since I was very young. My mom taught me how. Over the years, especially recently, I think I’ve got it down to a science, and I’m sharing it here!

What you’ll need:

  • Jiffy baking mix (the general stuff — you don’t need to use the “pancake” mix)
  • milk
  • cinnamon
  • nutmeg
  • lemon juice (yes, lemon juice)
  • salt
  • a skillet and a heat source
  • a mixing bowl, a whisk or stirring device, and having a soup ladle is helpful

Put “some” jiffy mix into the bowl. I’m honestly not sure the exact measurement. A few cups is usually good, but don’t measure it, just pour it in. Add a pinch of cinnamon (two shakes), a dash of nutmeg (one shake), a pinch of salt, and a capful of lemon juice. Now add “some” milk. Pour a little bit in, stir it, then add some more if necessary. Right now, you want the consistency to be slightly less thick than a milkshake — you should be able to stir it easily, but you should feel a *little* resistance. It should be a little lumpy still, but make sure the big lumps are broken up. Add more milk or more jiffy mix until you get that consistency, but do it relatively quickly. Then let it set while you heat the skillet.

After a few minutes when your skillet is heated (if you are not using a non-stick skillet, be sure to use butter or oil to grease the pan first), the pancake batter should have thickened a little bit, and should have the consistency of a thick milkshake, but still pourable. Use the ladle to pour pancakes that are anywhere from 4″ to 6″ across into the skillet. Whatever size you want. Just make sure you get it all in one pour, or they won’t cook evenly.

Watch the top of the pancake — when it looks either porous or like it’s starting to dry out, check the pancakes. This just takes practice to know exactly when. You want a nice golden brown color. If they’re ready, then flip them. I can usually get about 3 pancakes in my 13″ skillet. When they’ve finished on the other side (it will take less time this side) remove it from the skillet and put it on a plate in the microwave or oven.

Some other things to watch out for:

  • Do not use egg in the batter. Egg makes the pancakes really heavy and dense. Save the eggs for french toast or scrambling.
  • If you make the batter too thick initially, the pancakes will be heavy and may not cook all the way through. If you make the mix too thin, it won’t maintain it’s shape in the pan.
  • Don’t compulsively check your pancakes. In fact, when you get good, you shouldn’t check them at all, you should just know by look and smell when they’re ready. It’s just not good to interrupt the browning process.
  • If you decide to use human organs in your pancake batter, make sure you drain the blood out first, otherwise the pancakes will taste weird.

Some other things you can try:

  • Instead of milk, try half-and-half or cream. It tends to give the pancakes a smoother, creamier taste to them.
  • You can add things like fruit bits (blueberries, apple pieces, strawberries, etc.).

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“Making Fudge”

Melissa and I have this inside joke about “making fudge.” It can either mean making actual candied fudge (the kind normal people eat), or it can be a euphemism for “making butt” aka “pooping.” I think it’s awesome that I can make poop jokes with my wife and we both giggle.

However, the context here is about the former.

The recipe is simple:

    In bowl 1 (set aside): 

  • 1/2 C Cocoa Powder (unsweetened)
  • 1/2 Stick melted butter/margarine
  • 1/2 bag PB Chips
  • 1 tsp Vanilla extract
    In LARGE saucePOT 

  • 1/2 stick butter
  • 4-1/2 C sugar
  • 1 can
    evaporated condensed milk (12oz)
  • 1 jar marshmallow creme (7oz)

Bring saucePOT to slow boil (low to med-low heat) stirring slowly, when it reaches boiling, boil for 5 minutes still stirring, then remove from heat. Pour half of mixture into Bowl 1, and slowly mix. Add remaining 1/2 bag of PB chips to saucePOT and slowly mix. Pour PB half into greased & foiled 9×13″ pan, then pour Choc half into pan. Even it out with a wooden spoon. Let cool off on countertop, store in refrigerator.

Easy enough.

A few things about the recipe though:

  1. The original recipe said “medium saucePAN”. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried microwaving or heating marshmallows…but imagine heating a whole jar of it. Expect the contents in the pan to at LEAST double in size. I used a pasta pot for the second batch.
  2. This is really important: because we’re talking candy, which means we’re talking crystallization, it’s really important that you don’t interrupt the heating process! If you must switch pans, do it VERY EARLY on, because if you reach boiling, back down, and go back to boiling again, the fudge won’t turn out right, because the crystals form incorrectly.
  3. Cooling: I’m still experimenting with this, but I think you need to let it cool to room temperature on your countertop, and THEN put it in the refrigerator. I think if you put it right in your fridge it (a) heats up your fridge, and (b) causes the crystals to form too quickly. Jury’s still out on this one though, but I’m pretty sure I’m right.
  4. If you have a ceramic glass cook-top, as many modern stoves do, and your saucePOT mixture starts to spill over, make sure you IMMEDIATELY wipe the stuff off the hot burner onto a cool burner, using a wet warm washcloth. If you let it cook on there, when you go to clean it off, you may cause damage to the cooktop!

Yes, there were indeed some minor catastrophes. This is only the 3rd or fourth time I’ve tried making it on my own. I usually try once or twice every xmas. It’s kind of a family tradition. My mom’s been making it for xmas (along with her other xmas confections) for as long as I can remember. First off, I forgot about the pan-size initially. But I remembered early on and put it into a pan that was slightly larger than the contents. Not good enough. When it hit boiling it was SPILLING over the sides and onto the cooktop. I immediately moved the saucepan over to another burner (indirectly ruining the fudge by interrupting the heating process) while the marshmallow/milk/sugar mixture burnt onto the cooktop. It made SOOOO much smoke. We had to open the window, and you couldn’t see further than 5 or 6 feet away! It smelled like a campfire.

When I went to clean off the cooktop, I had to literally scrape some of that marshmallow mixture off of the burner, and it caused pitting in the cooktop. I asked my mom about it and she said it should be ok to use if the pits aren’t too deep (they aren’t). I felt like an ass though. The fudge cooled off, but didn’t firm up enough. I think the heat change screwed it up.

The second batch went a lot better. We used a pasta pot. There was no spillage at all. The only problem I had was that some of the condensed milk had burnt to the bottom, but I’m pretty sure that’s typical. I may have had the heat up too high (it was only at 3 or 4). When it hit boil, it was a nice soft rolling boil, and I stirred it slowly. It had a good color and everything. This batch is still cooling and I just put it in the fridge, so I won’t know about it until tomorrow! I was a little concerned about the burning, but I sampled it off the spoon after pouring, and it tasted alright.
I can never seem to get the layers to pour right! It’s *supposed* to be a layer of PB with a layer of chocolate on top, pretty even all the way across. Mine always ends up being uneven or mixed layers.

UPDATE: After speaking with a friend of mine, we determined that the likely cause for my fudge failures is due to my usage of EVAPORATED milk rather than CONDENSED milk. They are apparently “night and day,” and that would likely explain the poor texture of my confectionary catastrophe. I must remember this for next year!

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