The Kitchen Monkey

I broke my promise, didn’t I? You know, that one where I promised to make regular updates to this here stagnant blog? Yea. That one. Sorry about that. I promise that I have cooked since October of last year and have not let myself or my sainted boyfriend starve to death. However, I can’t particularly remember an awesome meal that I’ve cooked that deserves great mention here.

I do have one particular back stock of pictures that I would like to write about. I’ve featured this particular recipe on my blog before, but I feel it deserves a second go with better and more detailed photographs of the process. Simply put, people love my caramel applebutter. I’ll admit, I like it a hell of a lot myself. It’s probably one of my most favorite things to smear all over my buttered toast in the mornings. It also makes a fantastic Holiday gift. It’s edible, it’s good, and it doesn’t cause clutter, assuming you’re a good person and return my jars so I can refill them.

I took a trip last October to our family cabin that is tucked away in the hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains near Crossnore, NC. Never heard of it? Don’t worry, you aren’t the only one. I assure you, the non-touristy nature of our little piece of land in the hills makes me so very happy, and I hope it stays that way for years to come. But, I digress. One of my favorite things to do while in the mountains is travel the Blue Ridge Parkway. The scenery of the mountains in the Fall is breath taking and makes for stellar photography. Not only that, it’s apple season. Along the Parkway is the beautiful Orchard at Altapass that every single one of you needs to venture to at least one in your life. After going down a particularly hair raising dirt road through some of the orchard, you come to a lovely visitor’s center were you can buy various mountain style crafts and gifts, as well as sample their many different varieties of apples. I don’t actually remember the variety of apples I ended up taking home, but they were a harder variety that lent themselves very well to pie making, and applebutter making. I also accidentally might have drank entirely too much hot apple cider while sampling the various apples.

Those people that love my applebutter would do well to understand how time intensive this process really is to fully appreciate what you’re getting. Anybody would has ever taken bushels of raw ingredients and transformed them from whole, to something different, and then canned them for preservation already understands what I am talking about. Simply put, making this stuff is an all day grueling affair. It’s hot, sweaty, messy, and sticky. It totally consumes you and your kitchen for hours. But obviously, it’s extremely rewarding or I wouldn’t keep doing it. Thanks to my dad’s generosity, he let me borrow his apple machine to quickly peel, core, and spiral slice the many apples that littered my kitchen. While not perfect, it did in fact, speed this process up 100 fold over peeling the damn things by hand. Three small cheers for technology!

One the apples are cut, I process them all in batches in my food processor to puree them. I don’t like to liquefy them honestly, as I like the end result of this process to yield and applebutter with texture and soul, not a homogeneous ominously dark brown spread we’ll all familiar with from our childhoods. Once they are in the pot, sugar and various spices are added to enhance their flavor, and the puree is simmered for most of the day. This is when I usually wipe down the counters and mop my floors to get rid of the gobs of dried sticky apple juice that inevitably gets everywhere. Oh, and I generally take a shower, too!

Then, the canning process begins. I have never had the pleasure(?) of playing with a pressure canner, but I’ve seen it done many times throughout my life by my darling mother. I take the easier road and use the hot water bath method. It is a much friendlier method for the novice canner to use for acidic foods such as apples and tomatoes. It also works for jams and jellies. This process isn’t hard to do, but rather dangerous with all the boiling water. I have one large pot of boiling water with clean jars, one medium pot with rings and lids, then another large pot to place the filled jars in for processing. The sequence is simple: remove a clean jar from the water, fill with applebutter leaving space at the top for expansion, retrieve a scalding hot lid and ring and tighten it with your fingers trying not to curse, then place the assembled jar into the water bath for processing. I usually process my jars between 15-20 minutes to make sure I’ve killed any germs that might be. I still have jars from 2006 that are still perfectly good, so I think that is a good sign I’ve done something right.

Once 15-20 minutes have passed, the jars come out and sit on a towel to cool. If you’ve done everything correctly, you’ll start hearing loud pops as the jars seal during the cooling phase (you’ll also notice the lids are now concave instead of convex). This is music to every canner’s ears. Once the jars have cooled, it is VERY important to check the seal of the jars, especially if you are going to be gifting these in a couple months for Christmas. I do this by gently pushing downward on the middle of the lid. If it stays, it’s sealed. If it pops down, you don’t have a seal. Most of your jars are going to seal, as this method is pretty darn simple not to screw up. If by chance something didn’t seal, just stick it in the fridge and eat it first. Otherwise, just store your jars in a dark cool place. By this point, it’s usually been about 12 hours since I started. Yea, it’s a snap!

But wait, there’s more! You didn’t think the ONLY thing I made with that pile of apples was applebutter, did you?? Ohhh no. See, I’m southern, you silly people. I have to make a pie, of course. And a damn good pie it was, that I do remember. But, what I don’t remember is where I got the recipe. I am relatively certain that I used a basic apple pie recipe from Mark Bittman’s cooking Bible, “How to Cook Everything.” There are tons of recipes for apple pies out there, and they are all fiercely personal things to each and every cook, so I won’t bother pushing my favorite on you.

I have at least one more posting to make, but after that, I make no promises as I am about to start graduate school. Posts will more than likely be few and far between as I spread my academic wings yet once again. Until then… happy eating.

A garden has been a part of my life every since I was a wee little tike. My parents never failed to plow our garden every spring and start wee seedlings. We’d double plant several 90-ft rows with beans and peas, then grow bunches of squash, egg plant, lettuce, cantaloupe, honey dew, zucchini, carrots, and tomatoes. I, of course, absolutely hated this as a child. I hated getting hot, dirty, and bug ridden picking various fruits and veggies. It was always a forced chore for me, needless to say. I didn’t mind the hours of shelling beans/peas or snapping green beans quit as much, though. What can I say… I was young and dumb! This outlook has changed though as I’ve grown to better appreciate what my parents were trying to do. I crave that fresh garden taste free of pesticides and fertilizers. If I could, I’d plow up the back yard of my apartment… but I don’t think they would appreciate such a thing.

One thing I’ve never actually been fond of is fresh tomatoes. Can’t stand them and will pretty much pick out a tomato that isn’t cooked to death or pureed still to this day. See, I have textural issues with them that I just can’t quite get over, and I am not sure why. But seriously, they gross me out. However, I don’t actually have issues with the taste. So, when I came across a video of Gordon Ramsay preparing a pureed fresh tomato sauce, my interest was peaked (this was back in the summer when tomatoes were in season). So, I bought myself a few roma tomatoes and went to town.

In the blender... sorry for the blur!

The process of making this sauce couldn’t be simpler, which is why I adore it so. Not to mention, it is extremely versatile and can be molded into whatever you want. There’s two different versions of this sauce floating around. The one on YouTube, or was as it seems to have disappeared, and one in Ramsay’s Fast Food cook book. The first version of this sauce I made as Ramsay did on the video - completely raw. The second time, I used the version found in Fast Food which is mostly the same method, but cooked a bit. I dare say the cooked version is a bit better, as it has time to develop the flavors a bit more.

The process of whipping up this sauce is dead simple. Blanch some tomatoes for a minute or so, then cut in half, and scoop out the seeds. Throw them in a blender with some olive oil, garlic, shallots, oil packed sun-dried tomatoes, salt, and pepper. Whiz around until completely smooth and uniform. At this point, you can serve, or put on the stove to simmer a few minutes. Totally your choice.

Fresh Tomato Sauce with Pappardelle... done.

This sauce is very light, and does well on most types of pasta. My personal favorite is pappardelle. You could also make this 100% vegan… but alas I guess I am evil. The pan seared Italian sausage really put this dish over the edge. A small addition of heavy cream right before serving also brings the sauce together nicely and adds richness. Top your dish with fresh chopped basil and shredded parmesan. And in the spirit of Gordon Ramsay… “now f**k off out of my kitchen”

Fresh Tomato Sauce with Pappardelle
by: Gordon Ramsay, Fast Food

6 ripe tomatoes (Ramsay suggested plum, but I like romas)
sea salt and black pepper
15 semi-dried tomatoes in oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped
3-4 shallots (adjust for your tastes)
3/4 cup olive oil
juice of 1/2 lemon

Approx. 1lb of pappardelle, prepared

1. Add the tomatoes to a large pan of boiling salted water and blanch for 2 minutes. Lift out with a slotted spoon to a bowl of iced water to cool, then remove and peel off the skins. Halve the tomatoes and squeeze out the seeds (I used a spoon for this).

2. Put the tomatoes into a food processor (or blender) along with the semi-dried tomatoes, garlic, shallots, olive oil, and lemon juice. Whiz to a smooth sauce and season with salt and pepper to taste. Pour the sauce into a pan and war, through over medium-high heat while the pasta cooks. Add any additions you want, and serve.

Every once win a while, I get a while creative hair and actually make something totally from scratch without a recipe. I’d like to do this more often really, but seeing as I don’t posses some of the most fundamental cooking skills yet, it’s hard to get creative when you don’t know how to start. But, one night (I must confess this was months ago) when I had some left over ricotta that I didn’t want to waste and some fresh basil in my planters, I had a vision. Stuffed chicken breasts…with ricotta and basil… wrapped in prosciutto. Sounded good.

Laying out the basil.

There’s nothing in this world that’s more fun that beating a nice thick chicken breast until it’s thin. It doesn’t seem possible that you could do this to food without destroying it. But alas, this step was crucial to the over all dish. Be sure to pound your chicken out as much as possible. Once that’s done, take a few basil leaves and line the breast with them. You can overlap some if you would like to suit your basil tastes.

The filling was nothing more than me experimenting with various flavors. I used ricotta cheese as the base. To it, I added things like salt, fresh ground black petter, lemon juice, lemon zest, etc. Use your creativity here, as you could go many ways with this stuffing. One thing I really wish I would have added was Parmesan cheese.

The next step was a bit tricky. Fold your chicken over and secure it with a tooth pick. This helps hold the stuffing in while you wrap it in a nice prosciutto blanket. Once you have the chicken covered in prosciutto, you can secure where ever is needed with tooth picks for the initial pan frying. Place the chicken into the pan so that the tooth picks are all facing upward and lightly sear. Once it begins to brown a bit, remove the tooth picks and GENTLY turn your chicken over without unwrapping. Place chicken in the oven and pan roast until done at 350.

Done and out of the oven

Overall, I was rather proud of this dish. It turned out pretty good for something I made up completely off the cuff. There are a few tweaks I would make next time though. The largest of those being replacing the proscuitto with pancetta. Because really… everything is better with bacon. And butter.

Ever since I was a child, I have had an undying love with those small, round, fuzzy fruits called peaches. I remember vividly riding in the backseat of my mom’s old brown Bonneville up to the mountains during the later part of the summer. We would stop off at a roadside stand near a peach orchard located along NC Hwy 18 between Lincolnton and Moganton. I loved stopping here as it usually meant that I got to spend the next few days with peach juice running from my chin down to my elbow. One time, I didn’t bother to wait until we got home. I just dug in and ate half the peaches in the car without my mom knowing it. I’m not sure she appreciated the sticky backseat. Oops.

Living in the south has its advantages when it comes to loving some fruits… strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, apples…and peaches. I’ve yet to taste a peach that surpasses the sweetness and tenderness of peaches that you can find grown in the mountain and piedmont regions of North Carolina. Georgia, you are close, but no where near the winner.

A couple weeks back, I was heading to my grandmother’s house to pick up some furniture and I happened to come across one of those beloved roadside stands. Luckily, my mom was a bit behind me and I managed to get her on the phone before she passed it. I don’t think suddenly flipping a U-Haul around in the middle of the median would have been a swell idea. She picked us each up a bag of beautiful almost ripe peaches. And the peasants rejoiced.

So, what’s a southern girl to do with a couple pounds of peaches? I sat on this question for a couple days… rolling over ideas in my head. Peach cobbler, peaches and cottage cheese, sliced peaches… peach pie! DUH! Perfect. So, to the cookbook shelf I went to see if my normal cooking saviors would again cast their wisdom down upon me. Looking through the Joy of Cooking, I didn’t find anything there that suited what I wanted. And to be truthful with you dear readers, I am becoming less and less impressed with that book. Especially after the biscuit incident the other night (how DO you screw up a biscuit recipe!?). On to Bittman. Yup. There on page 689 was exactly what I needed. Thank again, Bittman!

So, I roll out a trusty pie crust, slice some peaches, mix in a few things, and the rest is history. Bittman’s recipe was fantastic. But, you know what? I screwed it up. And of all the possible things to leave out of a recipe… of all the coveted ingredients us dear cooks love so much… I left out the damn butter. HOW THE HELL CAN YOU LEAVE OUT BUTTER!?!?!? I am clearly NOT a real cook. It is obvious now! But regardless, the pie came out simply fantastic. I can’t wait for next peach season.

Peach pie, ready for the top crust!

Peach and Other Stone Fruit Pies
By: Mark Bittman, How to Cook Everything

About 2 pounds peaches, or a little more (6-10 peaches, depending on their size)
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
About 1/2 cup sugar, more if the peaches are not quite ripe, plus a little for the top crust
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into bits
Milk as needed

2 9-inch Pie shells - you can make your own here, or use a store bought crust. Just have enough for the top and bottom! Go ahead and put the bottom shell into your pie dish.

Preheat oven to 450F
1. Peel the peaches: Bring a pot of water to the boil and drop the peaches into it, a couple at a time, for 10 to 30 seconds, or until the skins loosen. Plunge into a bowl of ice water. Slip the peels off, using a paring knife to ease the process. Pit, slice, and toss with the lemon juice.

2. Mix together the dry ingredients, and toss the peaches with this mixture. Pile peach mixture into the bottom shell, making the pile a little higher in the center than the sides. Dot with butter. Cover with the top crust. Decorate the edges with a fork or your fingers.

3. Place the pie on a baking sheet and brush the top lightly with milk; sprinkle with sugar. Use a sharp paring knife to cut two or three 2-inch long vent holes in the top of the crust; this will allow steam to escape.

4. Place in the oven at bake for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350F and bake another 40 to 50 minutes, or until the pie is golden brown. Do not underbake. Cool on a rack before serving warm or at room temp.

This week has been filled with not only making a promise to myself to update this dear blog, but reading food blogs of all types I’d long forgotten. From Indian, desert, vegan, home style, to French, I’ve read it. I’d gotten out of the habit of actually checking out all the food blogs that I have loaded into my RSS reader during that final push to finish my degree. Many of even my most favorite blogs, like Smitten Kitchen, were pushed aside in favor of other things. But have no fear, I’m back in the swing of things and have cooked a few dishes already that are worthy of posting here.

I’m a huge fan of Mark Bittman’s Minimalist column over at the New York Times Dining & Wine section. Have been for at least a couple years now. And let’s not forget his wickedly awesome cookbook How to Cook Everything. Quite often, his recipes captivate my interest, get printed out, and filed in the “to cook” portion of my recipe binder. I’m ashamed to say that many times I completely forget about them until much after they have made their way through the internet food blog circuits.

The other day at work, I randomly decided to check out the NY Times and see if there was anything interesting and easy that I might want to cook for dinner. Oddly enough, Bittman comes to the rescue yet once again, but with curiosity and a mild suspicion that he is completely nuts. Seems that Bittman had been exploring the wonderful world of peanut butter on his minimalist column last week. He very boldly asserted that peanut butter has more use than just the typical American peanut butter and jelly sandwich. While I agree with him, I never thought I’d be putting together peanut butter, basil, and pork in the same dish.

I quickly printed out the recipe for Grilled Pork Skewers with Peanut Basil Sauce and tucked it in my pocket. There’s been a pork tenderloin in my freezer that I’ve been meaning to use for quite a while anyway, so why not? I took a short detour to Harris Teeter on the way home, only to find out the twits were out of fresh basil AND fresh ginger. So, a long trek to Fresh Market was necessary at the WRONG time of day. What should have taken 10 minutes, ended up taking close to an hour. But hey, I’m young right? Right.

Skewers waiting for the grill

So, after thawing the pork tenderloin and whipping up the sauce in my trusty food processor, I was still skeptical over how good this meal could possibly turn out to be. I mean think about it. Peanut butter… and basil. And not to mention throwing coconut milk into that mix as well. I tell myself to trust the Almighty Bittman, stick my finger in the not so appealing looking marinade, squint my eyes and take a daring taste. Oh. My. God. This is good. This is REALLY good. I simply couldn’t believe it. I swipe another quick taste for seasoning, adjust, reserve some of the sauce for dipping, and dump the pork cubes in to marinade a while before sticking them on skewers.

Skewers in the pan

Into the pan they went. I’ll have to admit, that cast iron grill pan looks really pretty. However, it did NOT work well for this application. Actually, I’ve never gotten that pan to do anything but smoke up the house and have food stick to it. After the first batch, I ended up finishing the rest in my nonstick skillet as I didn’t have the energy at 9pm to go outside and fire up the grill. Sue me. Regardless, these little darlings turned out fantastic despite my pan’s best effort to ruin them. As a side, I decided to make rice made with sauteed onions and left over coconut milk from the skewers to kind of go with the whole Thai flair of the evening. It, quite frankly, was simply divine.

Finally... complete!

The picture above is the finished product unattractively put together. We decided to eat the skewers that stuck to the grill pan first because they weren’t as pretty (not to mention done first and we were starving). Although practical, this doesn’t make for very food photography. You’ll just have to believe me when I say they were excellent and highly recommended.

Next up: Peach Pie

Grilled Pork Skewers with Peanut-Basil Sauce Time: 30 minutes
By: Mark Bittman, New York Times

Ingredients:

20 to 30 fresh basil leaves
1/2 cup peanut butter, preferably chunky
3/4 cup coconut milk
2 tablespoons soy sauce, more to taste
1 clove garlic, peeled
1 inchlong piece of ginger, peeled
1/2 teaspoon red chili flakes
Juice of 1 lime, plus lime wedges for garnish
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 pound boneless pork shoulder or loin.

Method:

1. In a blender, combine all ingredients except pork and process until you have a smooth paste. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed: mixture should be salty, spicy and hot. Set about 1/2 cup of marinade aside to use as dipping sauce.

2. Slice pork into 1-inch cubes and toss with rest of marinade until it is all well coated. Thread meat onto skewers, without crowding.

3. Heat a grill, grill pan or broiler until quite hot; cook pork until brown all over, turning once, about 5 to 8 minutes total. Serve with reserved dipping sauce and garnish with lime wedges.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings.

This blog has remained idle for over a year. I feel it is time to fix this ridiculous problem. I am sorry, dear internet, that I have abandoned you in favor of studying to finish my degree, working, my social/home life, and my pets. However, there are times when such drastic measures are necessary. Rest assured, I plan to update this fool thing every once in a while with the yumminess that passes through my kitchen. I will not however promise you daily updates. I’m not that daft.

So what is it that I have been so busy with for the past year? Well… I’ll tell you. There comes a time in your life where you just want to get done with a particular phase. That phase for me was school. I love school. I really do. But by my senior year, I was completely bored with it. New classes felt like repeats of things I had heard in previous classes. It became very unchallenging (with the exception of one class - ahem - anthropological theory). I literally spent two semesters WITHOUT CRACKING A SINGLE BOOK… and making all A’s. I am not exactly proud of that, but hey, it got the job done, right?

This summer has been absolutely amazing for me. It was quite literally one of the best summers of my life. And I spent it hot, sweaty, tired, sore, sunburned, filthy, dirty, mosquito bitten, spider bitten, and tick ridden in the woods of Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson digging away diligently at Test Unit 8 during archaeology field school. For a month, over 20 students dug at the Civil War site looking for evidence and clues of past occupations. We found some really cool stuff and probably generated more question that we answered. I made some fantastic friends that I hope to keep in touch with for the rest of my life. I met one of the legends of historical archaeology (Stanley South). I will never forget my experience and all the wonderful people I met along the way.

Test Unit 8

The final few needed hours of my adventures as an undergraduate were spent helping out with UNCW’s Summer Ventures in Science and Math program. Several students from around the state came to UNCW for a month to learn about archaeology, do archaeology, and prepare presentations about what they learned. I won’t lie. At first, I was kind of dreading this experience. As much as the college kids half my age drove me nuts, how was I going to cope with a classroom full of hormonal immature high schoolers without killing either myself or them before the month was out? Much to my pleasant surprise, these kids were phenomenal. In many ways, they were more mature and hungry for knowledge than the majority of my college age peers. Again, I met people that I will never forget and hope to remain friends with forever. It pleases me to no end that I helped these kids satisfy a thirst for knowledge that they will carry throughout their lives. Long live the Dead Baby Hunters. That’s an inside joke… you know who you are.

Amongst all the school stuff, I’ve also been working as much as possible. As my former boss would say, “us big girls gotta eat hunny.” While my job is not always the most satisfying or rewarding experience, it does in fact provide a pay check for this girl who loves to cook great food. And great food is what life is all about.

My social life has also been rather demanding lately. See, I’ve never been the type to have many friends. I usually have one, maybe two, that I bond closely with and spend the majority of my time. Seems lately that the boy and I are getting popular and people are figuring out that this Jenn person is pretty friggin sweet. Many weekends have been spent with guests in the house, parties being thrown, etc. This, obviously, chewed up what little free time I had left.

So where am I now you ask? I’m done with school. Finally. I got my diploma in the mail a few days ago. I’ve now officially obtained a MA in Anthropology, Minor in IT, summa cum laude. I’ve waited for this day for years. And now that it’s happened I can breathe a sigh of relief and move on to the next major phase of my life. Graduate school. But, when and where that will be is still yet to be decided.

Am I still cooking, you ask? Yes. I am. Although, I haven’t been as adventurous as I have been in the past due to lack of time, my need for new and better things is coming back. This is partly due to my own needs for creativity, as well as my recent viewing of Julie & Julia. if you haven’t seen this movie, I couldn’t recommend it to the aspiring cook highly enough. It’s heart warming, witty, and will keep you smiling as you watch. It’s like Ratatouille. Only with real people and a more realistic plot, but equally as satisfying.

My next update will follow soon, when I write up a rather odd Bittman recipe that I stumbled upon on his New York Times column.

Oh. And there will be peach pie soon, too. Stay tuned.

Hello Internet. Yes, my blog has yet once again become idle. The school semester started back in January, and I’m now entering midterm time. Between reading, noting, testing, and all the other crap, I haven’t had time to cook. The photo above is actually from last semester, but hell, the same applies for this semester! When I’m not doing the school thing, I’m trying to keep healthy by riding the bike, skating, and doing yoga. Yoga is doing wonderful things for my tense neck. I highly recommend it! I did have some dishes such as a variation on Mark Bittman’s tomato paella to share with you, but the pictures were not worthy of your viewership. When I cook this dish again, I will give the rave review on how simple Mark makes the wonderful world of paellas.

In other news, I finally bought myself a copy of the Joy of Cooking a couple weeks ago. I have only had time to try one recipe out of it. A friend is learning how to cook and we decided that we were going to cook jambalaya from my book. I really wish that I would have been smart enough to get shots of this dish, because damn, it was amazing. I was seriously shocked at how good it turned out. I absolutely MUST make it again to get pictures and share the result with my 1 or 2 readers.

I’m also a bit frustrated with my blog lately. I’m having theme issues and I’m also have issues with getting my text to display correctly. I have hit a bug in Wordpress that doesn’t show the white space between paragraphs for whatever reason. This has quite frankly been driving me bonkers and making me not want to post. I’ve thought about migrating all by posts back to my previous blog software, but I think I’ve somewhat solved the issue for now. Seems the theme that I was using was causing the problem. The bad thing about that is, I really liked that theme, and I really dislike the one I’m currently using. Hopefully I’ll get around to making my own theme one of these days. Until then, I am going to go back to sticking my nose in database books, Mesoamerican archaeology books, Shamanism books, and Islamic film. Ack.

Oh, and happy Valentines Day!

I am a regular reader of the NY Times Dining section in hopes of obtaining fantastic recipies, as well as the quality entertainment Mark Bittman puts on every Tuesday. A lot of recipes from the site get printed out and filed in the "to bake" category, and one day I’ll actually get around to doing that………….maybe (I lie. I have another Bittman recipe to review here soon).

This particular recipe came out quite some time ago, and truth be told, I made these almost a year ago and neglected to actually put them on the blog. Why? School is why, but I digress. I made these for my Geology lab group during the last week of school. My super cool lab instructor urged us to show a little fellowship and bring in food for a small informal end of semester party. Of course I, being the cook that I am, jumped right on this. That week, the NY Times just happened to be reviewing a few brownie recipes. Perfect! So, I looked for the one that had the highest lipid and chocolate ratio I could find, cause everybody knows lipids and chocolate are a girl’s best friend.

I’m happy to report that these brownies served what they promised. They were super moist like brownies should be, and not a slight hint of cakiness. I am not very fond of cake style brownies. I’m much more fond of a brownie that is about 3 steps removed from fudge. Much to my surprise even with the butter and chocolate content, these babies weren’t very heavy. They were light and fluffy, which I and my classmates found delightful.

Unfortunately the top on my cracked during the cooling phase. While it looks kinda unsightly, I can guarantee you without a doubt that the big huge canyon running across the top did nothing to impact the taste of these babies. Why? Because it’s Dorie Greenspan, that’s why.

French Chocolate Brownies

NY Times, Adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking From My Home To Yours

Time: 11/4 hours

12 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces, plus 1 teaspoon melted butter for brushing pan
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, in pieces
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup lightly toasted walnuts or hazelnuts (optional).

1. Place a rack just below center of oven and preheat to 300 degrees. Line an 8-inch-square pan with foil and brush with melted butter.
2. In a bowl, whisk flour and salt together. In top of a double boiler set over barely simmering water, or on low power in a microwave, melt remaining butter and chocolate together. Stir often and remove from heat when a few lumps remain. Stir until smooth.
3. In a mixer, beat eggs and sugar together until thick and pale yellow. Add chocolate mixture and vanilla and mix at low speed until smooth. Add dry ingredients and mix 30 seconds, then finish mixing by hand, adding nuts if using. Pour into prepared pan and bake 50 to 60 minutes, until top is dry. Let cool in pan, then lift out and cut into bars or wrap in foil.
Yield: 12 to 16 brownies.

The awesome guys over at Slashfood featured my whole wheat sourdough on their home page today. I’d like to say thanks for the recognition and thanks for stopping by.
-The Kitchen Monkey

There are many things that a person should learn to do in their life time, and making bread is one of them. I’m not talking about the entirely too easy, lazy way of doing it in a bread machine. I’m talking about get your elbows into it hardcore kneading with flour strung from one end of your kitchen to the other kind of bread making.

Sourdough bread making is an art form. It’s very different than making regular rapid rise yeast bread. Sourdough starter is a pet that must be cared for and nurtured, or it simply fails to preform. I began my quest to learn the art of making sourdough about a year ago when my dad passed on some Russian starter to me at Christmas. You may remember this loaf of white sourdough. However, I’ve been searching for a more healthy way to use my starter in a whole wheat version.

I found the end to my quest when I came across this page. Really? You mean a 100% whole wheat sourdough bread that will actually rise and bake up light and fluffy? Hell, surely you’re mistaken. There’s GOT to be some white/bread flour in there somewhere! But, much to my surprise, they were right. This recipe yields a fantastic loaf of whole wheat bread. I cheated and didn’t convert my starter to whole wheat flour though. I can’t see why that really matters all that much in the long run though!

So, if you are looking for a good whole wheat sourdough, look no further and follow the link above. I’ll be using this recipe for years to come unless I come across a no-knead version. But that’s another post.