Super Easy Cheddar Crackers

A while back I happened upon a recipe for Cheese Nip-like cheese crackers. Today I actually tried this recipe out. And they are FANTASTIC.

I’ve included the recipe as I prepared it below, but you can find the recipe without adjustments as well as instructions to make a tiny goldfish shaped cookie cutter on the blog Miss Anthropist’s Kitchen.

 

Cheddar Crackers

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 8 ounces grated extra-sharp Cheddar cheese (around 2 cups). Note: you can experiment with other cheeses.
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon ground pepper 
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Directions

1. Pulse the flour,onion powder, salt, pepper, and baking powder together using a food processor.
2. Add the butter and cheese, and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse meal.
3. Pulse in 3 to 4 tablespoons of water, 1 tablespoon at a time, and only enough so that the dough forms a ball and rides the blade.
4. Remove dough, wrap in plastic, and chill for 20 minutes or up to 24 hours.
5. Heat oven to 350*F and line 2 or more baking pans with parchment paper, silicone baking mats, or aluminum foil sprayed with cooking spray. Set aside.
6. Roll the dough out to 1/8th-inch thickness, using flour if necessary to prevent stickiness. Cut out as many crackers as possible.
7. Place crackers on the prepared baking pans. Bake until golden and crisp (13-18 minutes). Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
8. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

Spreadable…… Bacon?

Bacon. One of nature’s most perfect creations. It’s good on its own, it’s good on sandwiches, it’s good sprinkled on things like salads or donuts, it’s good wrapped around other meats, it’s good chopped up and used in casseroles and as part of stuffings. Hell, it’s even good covered in chocolate. What other meat can boast that? A month ago I would have thought I’d just listed all the ways bacon can be prepared and eaten. I would have been wrong.

I recently came across a recipe for Bacon Jam. That’s right, bacon you can SPREAD on TOAST. 

I found this recipe on a blog called Not Quite Nigella, which is a pretty fun food/recipe blog. I’ve linked directly to the bacon jam recipe; but in case you don’t want to follow the link, here’s the recipe:

An Original Recipe by Not Quite Nigella

• 500grams/1 pound smoked bacon (or use regular bacon and liquid smoke)
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 medium brown onion sliced
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• Tabasco sauce (according to taste)
• 1 cup coffee
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• Black pepper to taste
• extra water

1. In a non stick pan, fry the bacon in batches until lightly browned and beginning to crisp. Using a pair of scissors cut into 1 inch pieces.
2. Fry the onion and garlic in the rendered bacon fat on medium heat until translucent.
3. Transfer the bacon, onion and garlic into a heavy based cast iron pot and add the rest of the ingredients except for the water. Simmer for 2 hours adding 1/4 of a cup of water every 25-30 minutes or so and stirring.
4. When ready, cool for about 15-20 minutes and then place in a food processor. Pulse for 2-3 seconds so that you leave some texture to the “jam” or of course you could keep whizzing and make it a smoother and more paste like.

If you’re going to attempt this recipe, I would suggest actually following my link because Nigella has some really helpful photos on her post. For the recipe itself there are a few things I would change/add/suggest. First, if you don’t have a heavy based cast iron pot, don’t worry. A large heavy based pot of any material will work, and even one that’s just cheap-o will work, you just might get a little stuck on burnt stuff in the middle at the bottom of the pot. Second, I’ve made this twice now and the first time I didn’t have any apple cider vinegar on hand. Instead, I used a mixture of about half and half plain distilled vinegar and balsamic vinegar. The difference I’m noticing is that the apple cider bacon jam is a bit sweeter, whereas when I used the balsamic it was more savory. Third, when you’re transferring the mixture from the pot to the food processor, do so with a slatted spoon and then add a little of the liquid from the pot. The first time I made this, it took a couple of tries to get the mixture to process because I had to keep stopping, opening the lid and smooshing things down. But, don’t add all of the liquid unless you want a very soupy consistency.

And the best part about this stuff is that it’s not just good on toast. I added bacon jam to grilled cheese and it was fantastic. Stirring a spoonful or two into alfredo is excellent. And there are probably many, many other ways to use it. You just need to get creative.

The Best Egg Sammich Ever

Since I’ve been unemployed, lunch just hasn’t seemed very important. Half the time I don’t eat anything until lunchtime, either because I get caught up with something in the morning or because I sleep until 11am, so my lunches tend to be more like breakfasts. For those kind of breakfast-at-noon lunches I love the egg sandwich. Here’s how I make mine:

2 eggs, whisked
grated Parmesan cheese to taste (for me, usually two or three handfuls)
mayonnaise
sliced tomato

Heat frying pan on medium setting while whisking eggs. Spray pan with nonstick spray (or coat with butter), unless you’re using cast iron. Pour whisked eggs into pan and cook until the outside edge is just barely wet looking. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top of cooking eggs, concentrating on the middle. Fold two sides of the egg in to the middle so as to resemble a soft taco, then flip so the overlapping edged are face down on the pan. Cook to desired consistency and cut ends so that you have a roughly sandwich sized square of Parmesan filled egg. Spread mayo on two sliced of bread, add egg, tomato slices and a little salt and you have the perfect egg sandwich.

Chicken Pot Pie

I don’t really like to cook chicken. It seems like no matter what I do to it, it’s just not very good. I season, I marinade, I bread, but unless I’m making some sort of casserole with it my chicken just never seems to be all that great. In casserole dishes, the chicken doesn’t have to be impressive. It just has to be cooked. Which is one reason that I love chicken pot pie. I also love it because it’s easy to make. And, most importantly, it’s delicious. Here’s how I make my chicken pot pie:

2 boneless chicken breast halves
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup frozen corn
~ 3 or 4 medium size red potatoes
1 can cream of chicken soup
2 pie crusts

Boil the chicken and potatoes for about 15-20 minutes. While waiting for chicken and potatoes to cook, prepare 2 pie crusts. Once chicken is cooked through, remove pot from heat. Shred chicken and chop potatoes into cubes. Combine chicken, peas, corn, potatoes and cream of chicken soup in large bowl and toss/stir until meat and veg are coated in the soup. Pour chicken goop into pie shell, cover with second crust , perforate and bake at 375F for 45 minutes or until crust is golden.

This recipe allows for a lot of playing with the ingredients. Really, the measurements are kind of arbitrary, I just estimated them. What you basically want to do is make sure you have enough to fill your pie pan, and you can do that with these ingredients or anything you like. Carrots, onion, or celery could easily be added or substituted for other ingredients. If you want more gravy in your pie, you could use more than one can of the cream of chicken soup. And if you want a different meat or a vegetarian pie, just take out the chicken and add whatever you’d like.

Pancakes, Or, The Laziest Hot Breakfast In The US Besides Instant Oatmeal

I don’t think I have a favorite breakfast (unless you count “anything with bacon”), but I like pancakes quite a bit. Recently, I ran out of the boxed mix I had been using for pancakes and decided to try a recipe for them that I’d seen on the recipe app on my phone. This led me to discover two things. First, forgetting the baking powder makes for very, very dense not-fluffy-at-all pancakes. And second, making pancakes without a boxed mix is ridiculously easy. Seriously, I cannot fathom now why my mother, or I, ever spent any money on boxed pancake mix when this is all you need for making pancakes:

1 cup flour
2 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
3/4 cup milk
2 teaspoons melted butter

Combine the eggs, milk and butter, then add the dry ingredients and whisk until the dry ingredients are no longer dry. Spoon or pour into pan, flip when tops start to bubble, remove from pan when both sides are browned.

It. Is. That. Easy.

I also recently discovered Almond Meal and I’ve been substituting it for 1/3-1/2 of the flour in this recipe, which has been delicious.

Campbell’s Noodle Soup

Best. Sick. Food. Ever.

Seriously, this stuff is amazing for when you’re sick. Way better than normal chicken noodle soup. And it’s pretty damn good when you’re not sick too.

Food In Fayetteville

The Keeper and I were in Fayetteville, NC this weekend with his family celebrating a birthday. I could write an entire post about how much I wish I had just stayed home, but I’d rather focus on the food rather than the drama.

The majority of the cuisine on this trip was nothing to really rave about, but there were a few highlights.

First, there was The Mash House.

The Mash House is a microbrewery as well as a restaurant, so obviously The Keeper had to go there to try their beer, because he is a beer snob. He was able to get his first Hefeweizen of the summer, and I got a taster of their fruit beer.

They said it was strawberry, but I couldn’t really tell. I wasn’t overly fond of it, but then again I don’t really like beer.

Dinner was much better though. I got a dish called Steak Oscar. It was flatiron steak topped with a crab cake and Hollandaise with asparagus and garlic mashed potatoes.
 

It was pretty fabulous. The crab cake was really good, and I’m usually kind of ‘meh’ about crab cakes. The steak I maybe could have done medium rare instead of medium, but overall it was very tasty. I didn’t realize Hollandaise was so yummy. And the potatoes and asparagus were pretty much perfect. I was pleased.

Another highlight, which I unfortunately was not able to get pictures of, was a coffee shop called The Coffee Scene. The place was beautiful. Two stories with a little partially enclosed seating area out front, couches and comfy chairs on the first floor where the register and ordering counter is and then more seating upstairs. The decoration was nice and low key, the staff was friendly and fun, the muffins we had were awesome and the coffee was pretty good too. I really wish I could find something similar up here near my apartment.

Lastly, to leave you with a picture, we treated the birthday girl to Applebee’s the night before we left and I had this Kiwi- Melon "Sangria".

It tasted like a jolly rancher! Mmmmmm…

Anniversary Dinner

March 28th is The Keeper’s and my anniversary. Last year we were both broke and living 4 hours apart, so we didn’t really go out. This year though, despite my being unemployed, we could afford to have a nice dinner.

The Keeper had chosen PF Chang’s because I’d never been there and he’d enjoyed it the one time he’d been with people from work. He made a reservation and everything.

I thought the decor was pretty. They have statues of Chinese generals strewn about and little clusters of wooden lanterns.

The Keeper was driving because he didn’t want me to have to deal with the busted car, so he only had one drink. PF Chang’s has Kirin Ichiban on tap.

I, on the other hand, had three glasses of Kinsen Plum Wine. I had never tried plum wine before, though I had been told it was very, very tasty. And it was. It was so tasty that on Thursday when we dropped the broken car off to be repaired and then went and had breakfast in a strip mall with a wine shop, I went and bought two bottles of it. Good stuff.

We had some dumplings as an appetizer, but devoured them before I thought to take a picture. I liked the pot sticker sauce that came with them almost as much as the sauce that comes from the place we order from during D&D every week.

Then came the main courses. I got honey shrimp on a bed of what appeared to be Styrofoam but was probably some kind of rice noodle.

And The Keeper got some sort of noodly dish, the name of which I do not remember. It was tasty though, I tried a chopstick full.

And at the end The Keeper had been counseled by a colleague to get The Great Wall of Chocolate.

Ridiculously huge slice of cake with fresh berries and raspberry sauce. Probably enough for 3 or 4 people to comfortably and easily share. It was too much for the two of us, so we’ve decided to make sure we have friends with us next time we go.

Subject To Moods

It’s been a week since the last post here, and I feel I should explain the reason. It’s not a very good reason, in my opinion, but here it is. I have been somewhat depressed. This particular depression has been far more mild and short lived that others I’ve had in the past, but it had settled over me like a little cloud and only recently has begun to dissipate. It came to a head on Thursday last week when I tried a second time to make the ravioli I mentioned in the previous post. I didn’t exactly fail in my second attempt, I got the dough to do mostly what I thought it was supposed to do and I rolled it out and was going to try to proceed despite the fact that there didn’t appear to actually be enough dough to make a meal for two people. Then The Keeper came in after I’d asked him to go check something about the recipe on my computer and made a joking little comment about how the sheets looked right although he didn’t think he’d be able to read newspaper through it (which is something the recipe mentioned as a somewhat lofty goal when rolling out the dough). Then, when I started fretting a little over it, because I could try to roll it thinner but I’d already hurt my wrists getting it as thin as I’d managed to, he was trying to calm me down and he accidentally knocked the carton of eggs that I had out on the counter off onto the floor. It was at that point that I pretty much just gave up and sank into a despairing little haze while I cleaned up the eggs.

As tends to be the case when I get into these dark moods, I was caught in a circular conundrum. I felt worse than I might otherwise have because I knew I was worrying The Keeper and that I was relying on him for something that he isn’t naturally inclined to understand and render. But at the same time I couldn’t bring myself to do anything about it except mumble and murmur that I was sorry. And this was in addition to the stresses which had caused the mood to begin with. It wasn’t the ravioli or the eggs, that was just sort of the last straw. I’ve been unemployed longer than I was hoping, so I was feeling bad about that. And the depression seemed to be making it very difficult to motivate myself to do anything besides read, including getting on the computer and typing up interesting blog posts. Unfortunately it also included things around the house like cleaning, and I sank further under my little cloud because I was sitting and reading all day while The Keeper was out at work. I felt bad for being so lazy, but circularly again, couldn’t seem to get myself to not be lazy. And things just kept piling up until Thursday when the eggs got knocked over and I just snapped.
 
I spent most of the next day sleeping because I’d developed a really terrible headache, which didn’t really enhance my mood much. But then Saturday the cloud began to dissipate a bit and I think things are much better now. I’m still having trouble tearing myself away from the book I’m reading (which currently is Edward Rutherfurd’s The Rebels of Ireland), and I haven’t really been very productive yet this week, but hopefully my spirits will continue to rise and I can get some things done soon. I’ll be forced to, at least, on Thursday this week because of another of the things that had piled up and caused my little breakdown last week- The Keeper got into a traffic altercation. Someone ran a red light and struck him as he was making a left turn on his way to work last Thursday. The offending driver’s insurance should be paying for the repairs to my Element, but unfortunately the asshole is saying that The Keeper is the one who ran the light and since the police weren’t called and there were no witnesses who stopped to give their contact information, we are at an impasse. So, The Keeper and I will be driving to the closest Progressive repair center on Thursday morning to drop off the Element and acquire a rental car. I have to be there for that because the rental car requires a major credit card and I have one of those while The Keeper doesn’t. We are currently kicking ourselves for not electing to get the rental coverage Progressive offers.

Anyhow, I’m hoping to get back into a habit of posting here. The Keeper and my two year anniversary was on Sunday and he took me out to PF Chang’s where I was able to take some wonderful food porn pictures, so that will probably be my next entry.

Ravioli: First Try

Tonight I tried for the first time to make pasta from scratch with the intent of using it to make ravioli. It started out prettily enough, with the little volcano mound of flour. I filled the little mound with the eggs, olive oil and salt just as the directions I’d found online said to do.

My first mistake came after I added the eggs to the flour. It looked like the whole thing might overflow if I put the olive oil in, so I took a fork and tried to open the mound up a little bit. That caused it to spring a leak and the egg white began pouring out the side and bottom of my little mountain of flour. I plugged it as best I could and then continued following the directions, which said to whisk the eggs while slowly bringing in flour from around the sides of the mound. I think my second mistake was that I was using the fork to "whisk" the eggs. I probably should have taken out an actual whisk to use, or used my fingers as I’d seen suggested on a different recipe site which I’d decided not to use.

Soon the leak re-sprung at the side and bottom of my mound of flour and the egg was also escaping from the top of the other side. Panicking slightly, I put my hands into the mess and tried to pull the egg back toward the flour. Eventually I just started kneading it all haphazardly. It was not pretty at all. I ended up with a somewhat crumbly ball of dough with a bunch of little crumbly bits that had either fallen off the ball of dough or had come off my hands as I rubbed them together. And there was a lot of flour-egg-not-quite-dough stuck underneath it all to the counter.

Now, The Keeper and I are waiting on pizza to show up and I’m contemplating what to do differently on Thursday when I try this again. If anyone has any suggestions, please suggest away.

Nameless Cocktail

The Keeper and I had reason to be in beautiful Roanoke, Virginia this weekend.

While we were there we had dinner in this lovely little Mediterranean restaurant called Arzu in downtown Roanoke.

I was too hungry to get pictures of everything, but we started off with an appetizer called Borek, filo dough stuffed with feta and then baked in butter. They were very tasty. I may have to find a recipe and make them myself the next time The Keeper and I throw a party. For our meals I believe The Keeper got lamb kabobs, but I didn’t get a picture of that. I got veal saltimbocca.

Mmmmmm, baby cow…

Everything was delicious, but I think that what I was most impressed with is the cocktail I had. I had taken a look at the wine list and hadn’t seen anything I was interested in so I was just going to stick with water. The server said that they also serve cocktails, but there wasn’t a menu of house cocktails. He said that if I told him what kind of alcohol and flavors I liked, he would make something for me. I was feeling adventurous enough to go ahead and take the bait, so I told him that I like rum and berries.

This is what he brought me (except a little fuller, because I didn’t think to take the picture until after I’d drunk half of it)

He pretty much ignored what I said about berries, but it was incredible so I didn’t really hold that against him. If I remember correctly, he said that it contained spiced rum, peach schnapps, cranberry juice and pineapple juice. He also said he couldn’t give a proper cocktail name for it because it was just something he made up. I need to know if this is a real cocktail so I can order it from other places and make it myself. It was fantastic!

If You Like Chinese

I had dim sum for the first time today. I would totally recommend it, just not right after the Chinese New Year. Yea, that holiday fell on Wednesday last week, then on Friday when I was out with friends they suggested we do dim sum today without really thinking about how the holiday might effect things.

Apparently the restaurant- China Garden in Arlington- is pretty popular for their dim sum anyway, but it’s just crazy right after the Chinese New Year. My friend Dungeon Master, after realizing we’d chosen to try this at an inopportune time, suggested in email that we try to get there at 11:30am right when they open. We were cool with that, so we headed out intending to get off the metro a few minutes before the appointed time and then walk over to the place and meet everybody. Well, we stepped out on the street and things seemed a little different from what the map had shown so I called Tony to see if he could give us a little guidance. That turned out to be completely pointless though because as I was talking to him I was walking in the direction I thought we needed to go and I saw the sign for the restaurant. That call did illuminate Tony’s whereabouts for us though, which came in useful later.

When The Keeper and I entered the office building this restaurant is in, we looked up toward the escalator and our jaws dropped. There was a HUGE line. Thankfully, we found that Dungeon Master and his wife and gotten there early enough that they had got our name down and been told that when the rest of the group showed up we could be seated. So now we just had to wait for Tony.

So we wait.

And we wait.

We tried to figure out if we needed to call him or not by sort of comparing notes. When I had called him upon exiting the metro it was about 11:30 on the dot and he’d said he was at the Van Dorn station. Since I thought he had been catching the train at a station before that, I figured he had been on the train and not waiting for a train. So, I was figuring that meant he should be getting off the train about 20-25 minutes after I talked to him and then about a 5 minute walk to get to us. Turns out, I was mostly right. He’d been catching the train at Van Dorn, but it had just pulled up and he was boarding as I spoke to him. Somehow he still didn’t end up getting to us until I think 5 or 10 minutes after noon. It was all good though.

We got in and got seated at a table that was a little too small, but it wasn’t too bad because they were PACKED and that’s saying something considering how big their dining room is. Then the carts with food started trickling over to us. There were various dumplings, buns, and noodles. We saw bowls of shrimp that would have looked tasty if they didn’t still have eyes… I love shrimp, but something about their eyes just creep me out. There were these weird wedge shaped, jelly lookin white things that I have never seen before and I have no idea what they were. There were little custard tart things. All kinds of stuff. And I liked almost everything I tried. My only real complaint is that a lot of what made it’s way over to us seemed to be kinda spicy. Otherwise, awesome. I think The Keeper and I may have to go back and we’ll have to keep it in mind for when friends and family visit.

Crabzilla

I came across a news story today about a Japanese Spider Crab which has been sent to Britain’s National Sea Life Centre for display. This thing is HUGE. And apparently this type of crab is a delicacy in Japan.

I know what I wanna try if I ever get a chance to travel to Japan. Mmmm, nom nom nom.

Tres Leches Cake

Last weekend The Keeper and I headed over to the apartment of some friends of ours. The were cooking dinner, so dessert was our responsibility. After having recently uploaded a gorgeous bit of food porn to my DeviantArt account, I decided I wanted to try making Tres Leches Cake for our friends.
Tres leches cake is a sponge or butter cake which is soaked in a mixture of evaporated, condensed and whole milk (or, according the Wikipedia, heavy cream). Every time I’ve ever had it there has also been whipped cream slathered on top and usually there’s some kind of fruit involved too. The milks that soak into the cake make it sort of taste like ice cream while the cake gives it a slightly grainy texture. It’s very sweet but very light. Here is the recipe I used:

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 5 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 2 cups whole milk
• 1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 (12 fluid ounce) can evaporated milk
• 1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour one 9×13 inch baking pan.
2. Sift flour and baking powder together and set aside.
3. Cream butter or margarine and the 1 cup sugar together until fluffy. Add eggs and the 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract; beat well.
4. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture 2 tablespoons at a time; mix until well blended. Pour batter into prepared pan.
5. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 minutes. Pierce cake several times with a fork.
6. Combine the whole milk, condensed milk, and evaporated milk together. Pour over the top of the cooled cake.
7. Whip whipping cream, the remaining 1 cup of the sugar, and the remaining 1 teaspoon vanilla together until thick. Spread over the top of cake. Be sure and keep cake refrigerated, enjoy!

I think that if and when I make this again I will probably use powdered sugar for the whipped cream rather than granulated because the whipped cream turned out just slightly gritty, but otherwise this cake turned out wonderfully.