Cooking
Coconut cookies
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009
Bakers coconut and a hint of white chocolate make for a moist, adult cookie.
Whipped together 2oz sugar and 4oz of unsalted room temperature butter until light and fluffy.
Combine in 6oz of flour, mix until a proper dough
Add 1/3rd cup white chocolate chips and 2/3rd cup bakers coconut.
Bake flattened 1 1/2 inch spheres of dough for 15 minutes at 350 until slightly browned.
One more shot for extra food porn goodness:
Noodles
Saturday, April 18th, 2009
I love pasta. I love pasta in almost all it’s forms! Having experimented with several types of factory made pastas in the last month I decided to give it a go at creating my own. After having both the King and Queen of the Weekly Geek impress upon me how much better a handle-free rolling pin was I made a detour to <fancy cooking store> in the U-Village to pick up a french style Vic Firth maple rolling pin.
Following the 3:2 flour to egg ratio recommended in Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio I set out on my quest. Things got a little messy at first until I figured out how to properly dust down everything with flour. In the spirit of experimentation I kneaded half of the dough for a few minutes longer than the other half to get different textures. Once the kneading was done each half was let to rest for 15 minutes before being halved again as below.
I obviously could benefit from a little practice in rolling and cutting technique to make each individual noodle a more uniform length, but I am actually pretty pleased with how well they came out. The thick cut reminds me a lot of some of the egg noodles my grandparents would put in their Mennonite soups every day for lunch.
Once cooked in lightly salted water for 6 minutes the results were delicious. The more-kneaded dough came out to my favorite – much thicker and more substantive, a hearty egg noodle.
Check out more photos of the process and finished noodles on Flickr.
Experimentation and mixing flavor
Friday, April 17th, 2009I was in the mood to experiment tonight so dropped by the store and picked some things up on my way home to try putting together a few combination I hadn’t used before. An hour later this was the result:
The chicken is marinated in olive oil and sun dried tomatoes and was served over a bed of sauteed garlic, onion, and apples with crisp lemon asparagus in the background. I’m still perfecting the grill technique on the asparagus – a little bit of charred blackness is fantastic, but it’s really easy to do.
The biggest experiment for me was the garlic, onion, and apples. I reduced a little lemon juice with the mix after caramelizing the onions to help bring out the sweetness in the onion. The end result came out sweet yet savory and filling. Next time I’m going to put the cloves of garlic in a few minutes early in the hopes of further softening it to better match the cooked apples.
Dessert was reheated from last night – a pureed pear and lime syrup baked over pear and apple slices with a crisp style top served ala mode with vanilla bean ice cream. This is certainly the tastiest thing I’ve ever made and possibly one of the best things I’ve ever tasted. NOM!
Egg-free oatmeal cookies
Friday, April 10th, 2009
Ingredients:
- 2 cups quick cooking oats
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup melted butter
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/2 cup raisins (optional)
- 1/4 cup water
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Directions:
Beat melted butter, sugars and vanilla until light and fluffy.
Add flour and salt, mix well.
Dissolve baking soda in water and add to the mixture.
Add rolled oats, raisins – mix well a final time.
Form into tablespoonful sized mounds onto cookie sheet sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.
Bake at 350F for 10 minutes.
Cool and enjoy some massive nom .