Friday, March 19, 2010

Cornbread

J's Super Special Cornbread Recipe:

2/3 c melted butter
3 eggs
1 2/3 c milk
1/2 c white granulated sugar
1/2 c brown sugar
2 c flour
1 1/3 c cornmeal
1 1/4 tbs baking powder

Mix all wet ingredients and all dry ingredients, then mix them together.

Preheat both the oven and your pan. Put a tablespoon of butter in each pan and let it melt. This will help give your bread an awesome crust. This recipe makes one 9 1/2 in round pan of cornbread, but I usually double it. Because it's that good.

Bake at 400 degrees for 20 min or until browned.

Pi Day

Sunday, March 14th: 3/14, or Pi Day.
I had my friend N over and together, she, A, and I made 6 pies of deliciousness.


This was an apple pie that we added a couple strips of bacon to... while a good concept (I think) it just kind of tasted smoky. If we ever do this again, I won't burn the bacon and we'll see how this works. On the bright side, the rest of the bacon went to the BLT sushi.



This was a lemon meringue, which is one of the pies that I make most regularly.
It was good, as always, but we didn't have a zester, so I had to dice the peel, and the chunks were a little big.


This is a key lime pie, which none of us had ever made. Judging by A's enthusiastic acceptance of the results, however, we'll probably start making it more often.

A says: squeezing limes is annoying. I want to get some lime juice next time, rather than "fresh lime juice." I'm a lime philistine, and wouldn't be able to taste the difference. Does anyone else?

J rebuttal: I squeezed the lemons for the LM pie, and while lemons are bigger and therefore more juicy, it only took me about 45 seconds to get what I needed. (The key is to microwave them for 15 seconds, roll them on the table, and then juice them.)

N's apple pie. It was really good. She complained a little about not being able to make her own crust, but all in all not a bad effort. (We made two of these.)

A says: N is hardcore.

J says: She's really hardcore. A very talented baker, and next year when we live together, she is going to make me rotund.

What is the sixth pie?, careful counters will ask. Well, A liked that one soooo much that we'll make it again soon. And it will get its own little post.



Briton Roll


This sushi was so special, it needed its own post. We ran out of traditional sushi things and I still had rice, so A had the great idea of using summer sausage. I combined that with some Branston Pickle that we had, and some cream cheese. While it sounds weird, it was really good. The pickle and the rice went well together, and after that immediate vinegar taste the Yard-o-Beef came into play. The cream cheese helped smooth everything out.

The only thing I'd change in the future is making the sausage into narrower slices. It was kind of hard to roll, especially without a mat like I've been doing. But I was lazy and I didn't want to have to dice up the rest of our sausage just to get long thin strips.

Smoked Salmon and Tuna Salad Rolls

This is a standard tuna salad (mayo, spicy brown mustard, onion/garlic powder) that I added some sesame oil to and rolled with some cucumber. Untoasted sesame seeds on top. All the colors are really light so I feel like the toasted would have looked funny.

Wild-caught Alaskan Smoked Salmon, avacado, cream cheese roll with toasted sesame on top. I tried it again later with cucumber, and I think I like that better. It gives it more crunch.



Monday, March 15, 2010

S'more Cheesecake


This was the first attempt...
Store-bought graham cracker crust coasted with melted Hershey's Special Dark chocolate
Cheesecake filling made of 1/2 tub of pre-made Philidelphia Cheesecake Filling and more melted Hershey's Special Dark.
Topping comprised of marshmallow fluff that we browned with a pastry torch.

The next pie we added more of the marshmallow fluff and it balanced out better. Hint: the fluff will glop evenly on its own, so it's not even worth fighting to spread it out.

BLT Sushi


Made this tonight- each roll has:
3 slices of bacon
1/2 an avocado
toasted sesame seeds
a mixture of 1/2 tbs tomato paste + 1 tbs mayo (to be fiddled with as tomatoes come back into season)
and of course the usual sushi rice.

Where does the L come into it? Garnish. Maybe. Avo is how we do it in CA.

A says: Salt. We used low-sodium bacon on this first attempt, and both avocado and tomato LOVE salt. I sprinkled some on top, and personally felt it was super-er. J say that salt isn't appropriate to add onto sushi. I say: go for it. It is great.