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Share your favorite recipes!
I couldn't find a thread for a topic like this so I thought it would be fun to start one.
Does anyone here cook or bake? If so, what are some of your favorite recipes? I found myself with a little free time and the right ingredients around today so I made one of my favs. Alton Brown calls it "Cheesy Poof" in his cookbook, though truthfully it's nothing like the snack on South Park he alludes to. Instead, it's a recipe for a really delicious and very easy cheese bread.
As I type this, the loaf is currently cooling and smells awesome. Anyway, here's the recipe:
Ingredients:
270 g all-purpose flour
10 g baking powder
9 g dry mustard (1.5 teaspoons)
100 g eggs (2 large eggs)
43 g vegetable oil (3 Tbs)
227 g milk (1 cup)
15 g granulated sugar
4 g kosher salt
227 g shredded cheddar cheese (I like to use extra sharp yellow cheddar, the extra sharp gives you a good strong flavor, and the yellow gives your bread a nice color, but use whatever tastes best to you.)
Pre-heat the oven to 375 F
Mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, and mustard. Toss with the cheese to coat the cheese in the dry stuff.
Mix together the eggs, oil, milk, sugar.
Dump the wet stuff on top of the dry stuff, and mix. I like to use a spatula because you don't want to overwork the batter, just mix until you don't see any dry stuff left.
Pour the mixture into a loaf pan, (use non-stick spray on it first), and bake for 40 minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean. Cool on a rack, then wrap it up and store it in the fridge. It's delicious as it is, though its even better when toasted. Or, as the cookbook tells you, if you really don't care about your health but want something delicious, melt some butter in a frying pan and brown a slice of the cheese bread on both sides. Instant grilled cheese!
Enjoy! And I do hope others will share some of their favorites as well.
By the way, sorry about the metric weights, but Alton Brown is big into the belief that when baking, things should be done by weight not volume for greater accuracy.
EDIT: Fortunately, a quick search online found me the volumes of the ingredients in case you can't weigh them.
flour: 9.5 oz / 2 cups
baking powder: 2 teaspoons
mustard: 1.5 teaspoons
sugar: 1 tablespoon
salt: 1 teaspoon
cheese: 8 oz / 2 cups
Does anyone here cook or bake? If so, what are some of your favorite recipes? I found myself with a little free time and the right ingredients around today so I made one of my favs. Alton Brown calls it "Cheesy Poof" in his cookbook, though truthfully it's nothing like the snack on South Park he alludes to. Instead, it's a recipe for a really delicious and very easy cheese bread.
As I type this, the loaf is currently cooling and smells awesome. Anyway, here's the recipe:
Ingredients:
270 g all-purpose flour
10 g baking powder
9 g dry mustard (1.5 teaspoons)
100 g eggs (2 large eggs)
43 g vegetable oil (3 Tbs)
227 g milk (1 cup)
15 g granulated sugar
4 g kosher salt
227 g shredded cheddar cheese (I like to use extra sharp yellow cheddar, the extra sharp gives you a good strong flavor, and the yellow gives your bread a nice color, but use whatever tastes best to you.)
Pre-heat the oven to 375 F
Mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, and mustard. Toss with the cheese to coat the cheese in the dry stuff.
Mix together the eggs, oil, milk, sugar.
Dump the wet stuff on top of the dry stuff, and mix. I like to use a spatula because you don't want to overwork the batter, just mix until you don't see any dry stuff left.
Pour the mixture into a loaf pan, (use non-stick spray on it first), and bake for 40 minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean. Cool on a rack, then wrap it up and store it in the fridge. It's delicious as it is, though its even better when toasted. Or, as the cookbook tells you, if you really don't care about your health but want something delicious, melt some butter in a frying pan and brown a slice of the cheese bread on both sides. Instant grilled cheese!
Enjoy! And I do hope others will share some of their favorites as well.
By the way, sorry about the metric weights, but Alton Brown is big into the belief that when baking, things should be done by weight not volume for greater accuracy.
EDIT: Fortunately, a quick search online found me the volumes of the ingredients in case you can't weigh them.
flour: 9.5 oz / 2 cups
baking powder: 2 teaspoons
mustard: 1.5 teaspoons
sugar: 1 tablespoon
salt: 1 teaspoon
cheese: 8 oz / 2 cups
Comments
Start with a shit-ton of sauteed garlic and onions, and you can't go wrong.
If you can get a container of beans that's sealed (I was told "costco's beans" but I'm not sure what other people have), pop a few holes in the plastic covering, put water and salt in, and throw it in the microwave.
Neither I've tried, but I really really want to.. I just haven't gotten around to it. A friend just told me to try them. I might get to the carrots tonight.
I have to make those molasses cookies at some point.
I'll post a couple of recipes at some point. Most of my cooking is off-the-cuff, though, so I can only give some general guidelines as to what to do. Baking is a different story.
1. Fry bacon.
2. Let grease drip off bacon.
3. Melt chocolate
4. Dip bacon in chocolate.
5. Let chocolate dry.
6. Consume.
Also, this was very tasty.
2 lbs of stew meat,
1 large onion
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon tomato paste
Low Sodium Beef Broth (the amount is hard to say, but usually one box of it plus a can or two)
6-8 medium sized red potatoes.
1 small bag of baby carrots
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon water
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
Ok, first prep the meat. You really don't have to use stew meat. Most of the time I go to Costco and I'll buy a duel pack of London Broils. 2lbs of that gets cut up into 1 inch cubes (give or take in size, don't go nuts for accuracy) and the other is saved for the grill.
Dice up your onion, I like to use a mandolin to cut it razor thin then run my knife over the slices to give me smaller pieces, but however you like to do it works just fine.
Mince your garlic, I use so much garlic in my cooking that I just keep a jar of minced garlic on hand in the fridge. One can argue that its not 100% as great as real freshly minced garlic, but I really hate mincing garlic so I don't mind if its only 95% as good as the freshly minced stuff.
Take the beef cubes and toss them in flour just to coat. In a deep non-stick pot add a tablespoon of olive oil (though you can use any oil you prefer), and get it hot over medium high heat. Add the floured beef, hit it with a good pinch of salt, and brown it. This usually takes about 6 minutes or so for me. Remove the meat but leave the fat left over in the pot because in goes the onions. Toss them in the oil, sauteing them for about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and toss for another minute.
Then add the beef back into pot and toss to combine. Add the tomato paste and toss to combine again. Now add enough broth to cover completely, and bring the whole thing to a boil. Once it boils, drop the heat and lower it to a simmer, and leave it uncovered for one hour and 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, dice your potatoes up into one inch cubes. I like to leave the skins on because I like the way the skins taste, plus it adds color. If you don't like the skins, peel them first, the recipe works fine either way, just make sure you clean them off either way. Oh, and please make sure you don't use big ol' russets for this recipe, they just fall apart in the stew and you get mush. Use the medium sized/medium starch potatoes because they'll hold up better and you'll have nice firm al dente' potatoes on your spoon instead of mashed potatoes.
Open the baby carrots up and give them a quick rinse. Then cut each baby carrot in half. I like using baby carrots because I find it faster then peeling and cutting carrots, but you can use whole carrots and cut them up instead if you wish. Add the potatoes and the carrots to the stew and let simmer for about 30 minutes.
Basically you're cooking them to the doneness you like. You can do the knife or fork trick to feel the resistance the veggies give, but I just prefer to run a piece under cold water until edible and eat it.
Once the carrots and potatoes are the doneness you like, kick the heat back up to a light boil. Mix the cornstarch with the water to get a slurry and add that to the stew. Stir often while boiling for about a minute. Check the thickness of the stew. If you like it thicker, add more cornstarch/water slurry, and go for another minute. If its the right thickness for you, kill the heat.
Since everyone's tastes are different, I don't add as much salt to the stew as I would if it was just me cooking for myself. Ditto for the pepper. I let people add that themselves because people here disagree greatly about how much salt and pepper is correctly so I just let them add it themselves.
I like to serve my stew with a loaf of Italian Bread, but biscuits are nice as well.
The only reason why I posted my beef stew recipe is because I noticed a few things I disagreed with about that website's recipe. No cornstarch to thicken it, water instead of broth (water is ok, but doesn't add any flavor), no garlic, large white potatoes which will just fall apart, if not the first eating then definitely when you re-heat it for leftovers, cooking the carrots and potatoes separately instead of letting them absorb the flavors of the broth/stew, and cooking the potatoes and carrots for an hour which isn't cooking them its slaughtering them! Plus I cook my meat in the same pot as the stew will be cooked in cause I hate doing dishes and I don't want to have to clean a separate pan.
Although it's all subjective, I'm sure there's probably tons of people who will say that the other recipe is better, its all a matter of personal tastes, but I figured I'd throw out my own recipe for it.
EDIT: I almost forgot! Two additions can be made to the stew if you like. One is sliced mushrooms. Personally, I do not like mushrooms so they never go in my stew, but many say they like them in it, so if you are one of those people, add a cup of sliced mushrooms when you cook the onions.
Another addition is fresh green beans. Clean the beans and cut them in half and throw them in 15 minutes after the potatoes and carrots as they don't take as long to cook. Usually I leave the green beans out as well, but again, thats all personal tastes.
Cookies:
3 c. all-purpose white flour (NOT SIFTED)
1 c. confectioner’s sugar
¾ lb (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
other flavorings as desired (I use cinnamon myself)
Filling and Topping:
more confectioner’s sugar (for dusting)
fruit jam or fruit preserves (I lean towards berries: strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, etc)
Mix the butter and confectioner’s sugar together in a bowl until smooth. Add the vanilla extract and other flavorings and mix. Slowly add the flour and mix until you have a smooth dough. Roll the dough out on a floured surface and cut out cookies into desired shape. For filled cookies, cut out circular cookies approx. 3†in diameter. Cut the center out of half of the cookies. Bake cookies at 350° for approx. 8 – 12 minutes, until a light golden color. You can bake them slightly longer, until a darker golden brown if desired. Once the cookies are done, allow them to cool. Place one whole cookie and one cookie with its center missing face-down. Smear some jam on the whole cookie and top with the ring cookie. Dust the entire assembly with powdered sugar. Try not to eat them all.
You can get a better result if you microwave the jam briefly and make the cookie sandwiches while the jam is warm. As the jam cools, it’ll bind the cookies together much better than if you used room-temperature jam.
If the dough is too sticky, add more flour. It should come away from the work surface without sticking. Chilling the dough for an hour can also help.
EDIT: Oh man, beef stew. Personally, I don't use ANY water, beef broth, or bouillon. Instead, I use 2 bottles of Guinness Extra Stout, and crock the stuff on Low for 10-ish hours. Damn flavorful. I use full-sized carrots as opposed to baby carrots, and I also like to throw in about 6 slices of good bacon, cut up finely. Adds a very nice richness to the stew.
Personally, I'm a fan of using beef short ribs as opposed to stew meat. You'll need about 3 pounds of ribs to get about 2 pounds of meat. I cut the meat away from the bone and cube it myself, then dredge it in some flour and spices (usually salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika, a bit of oregano, whatever else I feel like throwing in), and briefly sear them. I'll also separately dredge and briefly sear the connective tissue on the bones as well. Throw the bones in with the meat, and make sure to cook it over low low heat for a good while (10 hours on Low in my crock pot). It's really damn good.
Zombie
* 1/2 ounce unsweetened pineapple juice
* 1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice
* 1/2 ounce fresh lime juice
* 1/2 ounce passion fruit syrup
* 1/2 teaspoon brown sugar
* dash Angostura bitters
* 1/2 ounce gold Puerto Rican rum
* 1/2 ounce 151 Demerara rum
* 1/2 ounce white Puerto Rican rum
Dissolve sugar in lemon juice. Shake everything well with crushed ice and pour into a Collins glass. Garnish with a mint sprig.
I don't think I've eaten anything consisting of anything more than five major ingredients for a long time.
Ingredients:
- Chilled pudding snack of your choice. I prefer chocolate-vanilla swirl.
- Graham crackers
Steps:
1) Open pudding.
2) Break apart graham crackers into pieces that are approximately half as long as they are wide.
3) Use said graham cracker piece to scoop pudding.
4) Insert cracker-pudding combination into mouth.
5) Foodgasm.
6) Repeat step 4 and 5 until fully satisfied.
Ingredients:
Good dry gin
A martini glass
France
Pour the gin into the martini glass. Nod towards France. Drink. Repeat until stress and troubles disappear.
6 shot glasses
5 filled with your standard vodka
1 filled with 190 proof Everclear
Place them in a circle on a Lazy Susan and spin. Each player takes turn spinning and choosing a glass. Hilarity ensues.
Probably good that we never did.
- Microwave or boil oatmeal with butter, sugar and maybe cinnamon.
Yeah, it's simply oatmeal with stuff added. It tastes good and has a different texture. The name came from an inside joke with friends.put in bowl.
Add any yogurt and apple sauce and stir.
Eat.
My favorite breakfast: Oatmeal with pineapple (usually frozen), banana, and coconut milk.
Good stuff.
Or sawmill gravy.