A Thing-A-Week Part 40: Rocky Road Bread Pudding

This recipe also came from the same magazine as the Harvest soup. This was a weekend of trying foods I normally don't like but was intrigued by high quality recipes. Again, this is not mine so I will give you the ingredients and my instructions. If you know the source, please let me know as I want to give credit where due.

It turned out really well and was excellent served warm with vanilla ice cream.

Rocky Road Bread Pudding

1 cup salted nuts (I used a blend of cashews, almonds, macadamia nuts)
1 lb. brioche or challah with crusts removed (I could find neither so I used 1lb. croissants) cut/torn into one inch cubes
3 cups whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
¾ cups sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract (or 1 vanilla bean)
8 oz bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate chopped
½ tsp kosher salt
4 large eggs + 2 egg yolks
1 1/3 cups mini marshmallows

(You can toast bread and nuts if you wish. I opted not to.)

*Grease a 13x9 inch baking dish. Seriously...need to grease your dish. This stuff sticks.

*Coarsely chop nuts.

*Bring milk, cream, and sugar to a boil. Add vanilla, chocolate, and salt. Remove from heat and let stand for 5 minutes. Whisk until smooth.

*Whisk eggs and yolks in a large bowl. Gradually (don't curdle your eggs) pour hot chocolate mixture into eggs whisking until blended. Pour over bread cubes in baking dish making sure all are coated. Let stand for a bit (the recipe recommended 45 minutes but I was in a hurry and did about 20. No adverse affects but it would probably be more pudding like if left longer). Heat oven to 350 degrees. Fill a kettle with water and boil.

*Put 1 cup of the marshmallows and 3/4 cup of the nuts into soaked bread and mix in. Place baking dish into a larger roasting pan. Fill with roasting pan with enough hot water to come halfway up the sides of the dish with the bread mixture. Bake 50 minutes.

*Scatter remaining nuts and marshmallows over top and bake another 10 minutes. Cool on a rack and serve warm (with ice cream…okay so that is optional but really really good)

A Thing-A-Week Part 39: Harvest Soup

At my part time job there is usually a ragged collection of magazines for folks to browse through between calls that have been donated by other co-workers. I don't remember where on earth I found this recipe but it looked really good and I don't even like squash. Since it is not mine I am not including the complete recipe just the ingredients and general outline of instructions. If anyone has the source I would love to have it.

I made this for the Greyfeathre gathering last week and it went over fairly well. I really enjoyed it and I think it will be included in my "someday" Thanksgiving menu when I finally am able to host Thanksgiving dinner in my own home. This was not originally a vegetarian recipe but I converted it to one by using a good quality vegetable broth and it worked really well.

4lb. pumpkin or squash of your choice, peeled, seeded, and cut into 2 inch chunks.
3 tbsps olive oil
1 onion, chopped (about 1 cup)
2 small leeks, sliced (about 1 cup)
About 8 oz of russet potato, diced (I added a lot more but I like potatoes which may be why I liked this)
1 stalk celery, diced
2 large garlic cloves, chopped
6 cups of broth (whatever kind you like)
2 tsp kosher salt
½ tsp freshly ground pepper

*Roast the squash or pumpkin at about 425 for 45 minutes. I used acorn squash because I couldn't find any pumpkins. I couldn't get the peel off easy enough to fuss with it ahead of time so I just halved the squash, scooped out seed goo, and put some butter and salt and pepper in the core.

*Saute the diced veggies with a little olive oil until tender. It takes a bit so it is a good way to kill time while the squash is roasting. I added a little season salt as well but that is optional.

*(I put this all in a crock pot and cooked it on low as I didn't have a lot of pots and stove space for the party. You can also make on the stove). I scooped out the roasted squash and added the vegetables to a the crockpot. I added the broth and let cook. When everything was soft, I pureed it with a stick blender and seasoned with salt/pepper to taste.

I didn't get a chance to make this because I ran out of time but it looked like a really nice addition. It is sprinkled on top of each individual serving)

Mushroom Topping
Saute:
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 Tbsp buter
• 1 Tbsp minced shallot
• 3 cups assorted mushrooms (whatever you like)
Toss this together with:
• 2 Tbsp fresh chives
• 1 tsp fresh thyme
• Kosher salt and ground pepper to taste.

A Thing-A-Week Part 38: Cake in a Mug

So I found online the following recipe:

4 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
a small splash of vanilla extract

Essentially, you mix all those ingredients in that order in a large coffee mug and microwave it for about 3 minutes and you get cake...theoretically. I tried it and what you get is a large brown lump of slightly burnt cocoa with a sort of waxy rubbery texture. It is cake if you squint really really hard. I wasn't really surprised but a little disappointed. There has to be a way to manage the science to get something more cake like. I think chocolate is right out unless it is a white cake with chocolate chips because the temperature is too hot and too fast for cocoa which burns fairly easily.

I didn't take pictures but this website is almost exactly what it looks like. Although their's looks more like cake so perhaps the wattage on my microwave is too high. It could have been that my cocoa was too good as well. I have noticed some recipes only really work with a more generic cocoa.

Although in doing a web search there are all sorts of variations online so perhaps it could just have been a bad example. I am not sure whether or not it warrants further investigation though because at the end of it, I know that mixing all of the same ingredients and just baking it an oven will yield good cake as opposed to sub standard cake. And no one deserves sub standard cake.

A Thing-A-Week Part 37: Stew

It's a very Hobbit dinner Charlie Brown!

So I have never been much for stew. My father always made gallons of it whenever my mom was out of town and my brother and I grew up hating the stuff. But I wanted something hearty and autumn-like that I could cook all day in the crock pot. I thought I would give it a try.

I have learned from my limited cooking experience that it is time and attention to detail that makes simple food so wonderful. So I decided to put a little energy into everything rather than just dumping it all in the pot. I did a little research and looked at a few recipes on line and this is what I came up with:

1. Mix flour, paprika, salt, and pepper. Roll cubed beef in the seasoning mixture and then place in a frying pan with hot olive oil. Sear/fry until brown on the outside. Transfer meat to crockpot.

2. Dice an onion and place in same frying pan to absorb the flavors of the meat drippings and olive oil. Add diced garlic. Saute until slightly brown. Transfer to crockpot. Deglaze the pan with a little port and add to the rest.

3. Dice 4 potatoes and about 2 cups of carrots and add.

4. Add broth (beef would have been better but I had some chicken that I needed to use up) and add Worcestershire sauce and a bay leaf. Let cook for 4 hours on high.

5. Mix 1 tbsp each of flour and cornstarch with about a cup of water. Whisk vigoursly until there are no lumps and add to put. Then I seasoned with some seasoned salt, pepper, nutmeg, and mustard powder. Remove bay leaf.

I served with buttermilk biscuits I had made from scratch (I need to remember not to roll those so thing when I am making them or they don't puff), chedder cheese, and apple cider. It was very hearty and not bad. I thought the base needed more flavor but I think I might try making the thickner on the stove with a little port and using beef broth next time.

A Thing-A-Week Part 36: Soap!

I made soap! I have always really wanted to make soap...ever since I joined the SCA really. All the reading I did said "Oh my god! Soap is so dangerous. We don't even know why we make it!" And not having any chemistry background I sort of gave up hope.

Recently someone in the local group has been experimenting with soap and was gracious enough to allow me to play too! So we made a hot process soap using vegetable ingredients. The bonus of the hot process method is the lye is no longer caustic by the end of the night so it could be used the next day. It is also a more period method (though these ingredients were not). It is kinda ugly as it is hard to mold with the consistency it is at. Cold process soap requires about 6 weeks before it is non-caustic but it takes a mold much better.

This is what I got from the process. I am certainly not the expert and there are far better resources online. Essentially, it was Crisco, canola oil, water and lye. The fasts are softened so that they can interact with the lye. The lye is added to water and then allowed to cool while the fats are warmed until they reach a temperature within about 10 degrees of each other and then they are added together and mixed until they reach trace - a sort of thick pudding like stage. With cold process it is then poured into molds and left to sit for a while. With hot process, it is heated some more and goes through a couple of stages of something I am not quite sure how to describe.

When the lye is all reacted out, it is mixed with scents and then poured in molds and allowed to set. The two lighter colored bars were frozen to get them out of the mold. They were also in smaller molds so they are set up a little more.

I am going to try them tomorrow. I am not sure I added enough scent so hopefully I don't smell like crisco tomorrow.

Stuff I have been up to...

I haven't been terribly productive lately. I am not sure that I will make my 52 things before the end of the year but I have some time. Griffin's Needle ate a lot of my August and I haven't been feeling terribly motivated for getting much else done. I never could get the hang of Augusts but we are well into September and I am starting to feel more antsy to do things.

My kitchen experiments have been full of fail recently so I haven't been sharing those. I had made some Fruity Oaty bars for needle arts but they were a little dry. I had also tried making flour tortillas but couldn't get the temperature regulated so they weren't turning out as well as I would have liked. I like the recipe but I need to get some better equipment.

Upcoming Projects:
*Halloween party planning (need to make my costume and some decorations)
*Finish some scroll banks
*Try making cold process soap
*Make jam
*Do some candle experimentation
*Finish my underdress
*Use up my beads. I haven't been doing much beading so I have a ton that I need to figure out something to do with them. I thought I might try making some ornaments or something. Need to do some research online
*Continue slogging through my knitting projects. I am ready to turn the heal on the second sock of the first pair. I still have the other pair to go, my gigantic technicolor blanket, and I want to start making a felted bag for myself and some baby gifts for a co-worker.
*Re-do my class notes for KWB&C and register for the event
*Do some research on Tudor feasts

And probably a bunch of others I am forgetting

A Thing-A-Week Part 35: Lentil Salad

No pictures of this....It turned out well but lentils are not...photogenic.

Essentially I used the following recipe:
http://www.ummah.net/family/recipes/lentil.html

It smells kinda odd (I think it is the cumin) and it is not visually attractive but it tastes really good. I am someone who never thought they would like lentils until I helped out with making lunch for 35 year and I was corrupted.

I think it is a definite win. I just hope it is a fair vegetarian option. I am not sure about quantity though. According to the bag the amount I made was 14 servings. I didn't measure final volume.