Cheese

I got a wonderful Christmas present from Mama Fink (C's mom). It's beautiful. Glorious even.

A six-sided box grater. Just like Alton Brown has! It''s magnificent. I will never go back to regular plane graters again. This one has four grades of graters, from fine to extra large (which I bet would be great for hashbrowns),  plus two grades of zesters.

My first use of my new grater was to shred eight ounces of cheddar to make a Saturday afternoon snack of Welsh Rarebit.

It was all I could do to stop myself from sticking a fork in and eating it straight.

Here it is piled high in the pot:

As you can see, this is clearly enough cheese sauce to feed an army. I only needed about a quarter of a cup to go over my toast. Luckily, the sauce is easily refrigerated, and goes well with biscuits on Sunday morning.

Banana 'Ice Cream'

This is so simple, yet so tasty, and you won't believe it until you try it.

Ingredient
Bananas

(yep, that's it!)

Directions
Slice up a banana or two, then freeze it.

I've found it's easier to slice then freeze, since cutting a frozen banana isn't easy. It'll take a few hours for your slices to freeze. I usually let mine go overnight.

Whip out your trusty Magic Bullet or blender.

Toss in your bananas and blend.

You can dribble in a tiny bit of milk or vanilla or cream if you want, but your bananas, after a minute or so, will come out looking like this:

Unless, of course, your Magic Bullet dies. Which mine finally did, right in the middle of banana-ice-cream-making magic. The above picture is a screen shot from months ago when I first tried this recipe.

So what's a girl with a broken Magic Bullet and no blender and a serious craving for banana ice cream supposed to do?

She gets creative. And out comes the hand mixer. And guess what? It worked!

A blender is still ideal, to get the ultimate creaminess. Seriously, it gets to the exact texture of soft-serve ice cream.

You can even store it in the freezer, then later serve it to your guests at a dinner party and make them guess the ingredients. Or ingredient.

Or you can add some mini chocolate chips and gobble the whole thing. What? It's just bananas! It's good for you!

Homemade Vanilla Extract

Now that Christmas has come and gone (and then some), I can finally reveal a little project I've been working on: homemade vanilla extract. Back in November, I was searching for easy, homemade gifts to give at Christmas. Cookie mix, limoncello, granola ... vanilla seemed the easiest, the cheapest, and the prettiest.

Ingredients/Supplies

Vanilla Beans

Vodka

Containers

The ratio is 2-3 beans per 6-8 ounces vodka.

I found my beans at Beanilla.com. I ordered the variety pack, and received a bunch of different kinds - Indonesian, Mexican, Indian, etc. Cost: $25.

For the containers, I hit up an old favorite: American Science & Surplus! Cost: $15.

As for the liquor, I wanted something not too expensive but not tasting of gasoline - Skyy Vodka. Cost: $20. I read that you can substitute other liquors as well. I bet rum and bourbon would both work.

Directions

Places two beans in each container, and fill with vodka. Seal and let sit in a cool place for 8 weeks.

That's it!

I made 12 bottles to give away. They make good gifts for moms, aunts, and hostesses. Plus one for me.

(This picture is on day one. You want them to darken up a bit before using.)

Total cost: $60 / 12 bottles =  only $5 each!

I even went one step further and made labels. I went for an old-timey "Dr. Fantastik's Amazing Liquer" look.

I got a lot of compliments on this idea,  but don't know if anyone has used theirs yet (including me). At least they look good!

Tyler Durden Chicken

This recipe is from All Bower Power. It's called Tyler Durden Chicken because in their version, they make it super spicy. My version is less spicy, and kind of changes every time I make it.

Let's start off with this:

Normally, I would never be suckered into a product packaged in individualized portions. Why not just buy generic store-brand chicken breasts, then wrap them in plastic wrap myself? But this was on sale, you guys! And it was calling out to me and me single-mouth household. This is a serious issue around here, because when you are only feeding one person, you have to go through ingredients before they spoil. So while something could serve a family of four or five for one meal, at my house it means having the same thing for lunch and dinner every day for a week. With this 'perfect portions' chicken, I can pull out just one serving to defrost at a time, and the rest can stay frozen for weeks. Also it was on sale. Did I mention that already?

Back to Tyler Durden Chicken:

Ingredients
Chicken
Butter
Seasoning
Garlic (real or powdered)
Cayenne/Red Pepper/Chili Powder/What have you
Orange Juice

Directions

1. Toss some butter in a pan and get it going. Meanwhile, chop up your chicken into bite size pieces.

2. Add your chicken to the pan. I like to add my seasonings at this juncture - salt, pepper, chicken seasoning, garlic powder, cayenne, or whatever you like.

3. After the chicken cooks for a minute or so, pour in the OJ. I pour about 2/3rds of the way up the chicken.

4. Cook that sucker on medium high. Stir it occasionally.
5. Let the orange juice cook down until it's nice and goopey. This may take awhile. If you are impatient, start with orange juice concentrate instead of regular orange juice. I've found a good balance is partially watered-down concentrate, but either way will work. You're good to go when it looks like this:

You can serve it with rice, or a salad, or you can be lazy like me and eat it alone. Enjoy!

Candy Cane Cookies

It's that time of year - time for Christmas cookies.

My family doesn't really have any family recipes, but this is one of the few. My mom made these cookies with her family when she was a kid, and then made them with my brothers and me when we were kids. And here's where the cookies become infamous: one year, my youngest brother Jeff got a bit overzealous with the raw cookie dough. Let's just say the now, years later, he still gets a bit green around the gills when he smells almond extract. I still love them, though. They're easy to make, pretty to look at, and mildly sweet. Why we use almond extract and not peppermint I don't know, but trust me, they taste delicious.

Ingredients

1 c. shortening

1 c. sifted confectioner's sugar

1 egg

1 ½  tsp almond extract

1 tsp vanilla

2 ½ cups flour

1 tsp salt

Red food coloring

Directions

1. Mix together your wet ingredients - shortening, egg, vanilla, almond, and sugar. I recommend an extra-large egg, because the dough can be a bit dry. 

2.  Sift in the flour and salt.

If your dough is a little crumbly, you can mix in a smidge of water. You want your dough to have the consistency of playdough. I added water because mine came out like this:

3. Once your dough is mixed, remove half and place in plastic wrap in the fridge (make a giant dough ball). Take your remaining half and add red food dye until you get a nice pink color. Put this in plastic in the fridge as well.

4. Clean up the red food dye you invariably got all over your hands, counter, and the cat.

5. After at least one hour or overnight, break out your dough balls (heh).

6. Roll out some 'worms' the thickness of your pinky.

7. Twist them together, the roll a bit to get them joined.

Then place on a cookie sheet and shape like a candy cane.

7a. Alternate method - the marble. Roll two pieces of dough into a ball, then roll into your worm shape.

8. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

9. Bake at 375 degrees for 9-12 minutes. These cookies don't really puff, so you can place them fairly close to each other on your cookie sheet. They also don't brown too much, and will come out looking pretty much how they looked when you put them in.

Yields about 4 dozen. Last approx. 4 hours until they're hoovered.

Easy As Chicken Pie

Here's a great throw-it-together recipe that I came up with. I even entered it into a recipe contest. A few of the commenters there despaired that it was 'not cooking' and that 'you might as well just buy a frozen chicken pot pie from the supermarket and call it a day.' But then others chimed in that they appreciated the easiness of the recipe, and while it may not be health food, it's damned delicious!

Ingredients
1 deli rotisserie chicken
1 can condensed chicken soup
1 can condensed potato soup
1 bag frozen vegetables (optional)
1 can refrigerated biscuits or puff pastry or pie shell

Directions
1. Shred the chicken from the deli and place into pie pan. Save the carcass for stock and make chicken stock!
2. Combine both cans of soup with one cup of milk or water, then pour over chicken. If you want to add thawed frozen vegetables, go for it.
3. Place biscuit dough/puff pastry on top of the pie mixture.
4. Bake until the biscuits/puff pastry are ready (about 20 minutes at 375 degrees)
5. Eat!

Milk Foam UPDATE #2

I followed the directions. The results were meh. Microwaved milk ≠ steamed milk. This took a lot of effort and two extra dirty dishes, so I'm sticking with plain cold milk. I like it to cool down my coffee anyway.

Milk Foam UPDATE

Last night I posted this tutorial on how to make milk foam for your morning beverage of choice.

The results were a disaster! My milk barely foamed. It also squirted milk all over my microwave. And counter. And walls. It took a ton of effort for only middling results. And you know why? Because I didn't read the directions correctly and microwaved my milk with the lid on. Always follow the recipe, kids!

Take 2 tomorrow morning.

How to Make Milk Foam (Without a Frother or a Machine!)

Just read about this over at The Kitchn, and I'm gonna try it tomorrow morning! Though I'll go more lowbrow than a mason jar and use a trusty Magic Bullet cup.

1. Find a jar with a lid and fill it with as much milk as you normally like in your coffee (or other hot beverage!). The milk should fill the jar no more than half way to allow room for the foam.

2. Shake the jar with the lid on as hard as you can until the milk has become frothy and doubled in size. This takes us about 30 seconds.

3. Take the lid off and microwave for another 30 seconds. The foam will rise to the top of the milk and the heat from the microwave will help stabilize it.

4. Pour the milk into your coffee using a spoon to hold back the foam. Then scoop the foam on top!

We first heard about this technique in Harold McGee's book On Food and Cooking, but didn't believe it would work until we tried it. Now we're hooked and make a little warm milk and foam every morning while our coffee is brewing. We usually use 2% milk, but cream and half-and-half make even better foam!

Recipe and photo from The Kitchn.

Grilled Cheese Sandwich with Bacon and Pear (Apple) Recipe

Ingredients and instructions are probably not necessary, but let’s stick with tradition.

Ingredients
French or Italian loaf bread, sliced
Bacon, cooked
Bartlett pear
Sharp white cheddar cheese (high quality)
Butter, softened and spreadable

Instructions

1. Heat a cast iron skillet to medium high heat. Layer your sandwich - bread slice, cheese, pear slices, bacon, bread slice. Spread butter over the top of the sandwich. Place the sandwich top side down (butter side down) on the hot pan. Butter the exposed side of the sandwich. Let cook for a minute and then use a metal spatula to turn the sandwich over to its other side.

2 While you are toasting the sandwich on the remaining side, press down on the sandwich with a spatula. Alternatively, you can mimic a panini press (albeit without the ridges) by heating a smaller cast iron pan on a separate burner. Use the weight of this pan to press down on the sandwich from above. The sandwich is done when the sides are toasted and the cheese is melted. Cut in half and serve

recipe from Simply Recipes

Notes
I don’t really like pears, so I made mine with granny smith apples. I bet pineapple would be good too.