Experiment 24 - The Selection

It's after Labor Day, so in addition to putting away my seersucker and white shoes, I figure it's time to get back to this blog full-time.  Not that the weather where I live isn't still conducive to outdoor chores, but I've still got a jillion recipes to choose from.

But for this week, I'm going to go with something I saw posted by a friend on Facebook.  I guess I can just go ahead and post the link, and then I won't even have to transcribe the ingredients.

I'll just make it short and sweet then, with this link to Puerto Rican pork and beans --

Come back in a few days to see how it turns out.

Experiment 23 - Tex-Mex Mini Ravioli Soup

Ingredients list

Taking a month off made me forget that I was supposed to take pictures along the way as I prepared my recipe.  Also, the whole working outside in the blistering heat made my brain soft.  So there's a photo of the soup cooking, and one of the soup served.  Most everything came in cans and packages anyway, so there wasn't much to see.

As hinted at by the title of the column I had saved - "Desperation Dinners" - the emphasis was on easy and quick.  So here we go.

Heat the oil over medium heat in a soup pot or Dutch oven.  The recipe says to use a 4 1/2 qt pot, but I had a relatively new 3 1/2 qt Dutch oven, so that's what I used.  Not like I was going to go out and buy yet another one.  Peel and chop the onion and add it to the pot.  Stir for a couple minutes until the onion starts to soften up, then add the broth, salsa, corn and ravioli.  Turn up the heat and bring to a boil.  In the meantime, rinse and drain the beans, then add them to the pot.  Boil for about five minutes until the ravioli is cooked, then take off the heat and let it sit for five minutes.

Serve in a bowl with a dollop of sour cream, if desired.

Verdict - Desperation dinner indeed.  I'd have to be desperate to make this again.  The soup part was alright, but I couldn't get past the ravioli,  It just tasted like ravioli, and therefore was out of place.  Another problem for me was the lack of seasoning.  I suppose the writers figured that using salsa would take care of most of that, but I needed more.  I even added some ground chipotles that I had in the cabinet, but that wasn't enough.  The fast cooking time didn't help either, and I purposefully waited until I'd had leftovers twice before posting this, hoping that maybe the flavors would meld as the pot sat in the refrigerator - like chili the day after  No such luck.
Lessons Learned - go ahead and add spices and seasoning, even if not explicitly called for..
Tools needed - nothing new this week.
Skills needed - nothing at all.

Experiment 23 - The Selection

Hey, I'm back.  Summer, busy, yada yada yada.

I found today's recipe selection in a pile of papers in my home office. I'm trying desperately to get that room spotless for when my family visits in a few weeks, and I'm finding all kinds of stuff.  I'm also throwing out a lot of stuff, so that's the good part.  I just need a whole lot of extra days between now and then.

In my non-blogged about cooking over the last few weeks, I seem to have been eating a lot of "Mexican" type foods.  Partially because I bought two packages of tortillas that I was determined to use instead of throw away, and partially because it's generally a pretty easy meal one way or another.  So it's fairly amusing that the clipping I found has a headline "Ravioli goes south of border".  This one, for once, is not from the Hartford Courant, it's from the Richmond Times-Disgrace, Sunday October 19, 2003, a column called "Desperation Dinners".

And what I'll desparately be making this weekend is ...

Tex-Mex Mini Ravioli Soup

Here are the ingredients:

1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 large onion (for about 1 cup chopped)
2 (14 1/2 ounce) cans fat-free chicken broth
1 cup bottled salsa, mild or hot
1 cup frozen corn kernels
1 9 ounce package refrigerated cheese mini ravioli
1 15 ounce can black beans
reduced-fat sour cream, optional garnish.

Serves 4.  "Start to finish: 20 minutes".

Experiment 22 - 24-Hour Omelet

Ingredients list

This is not actually an omelet.  I believe technically it is a type of strata.

A few things to notice about my ingredients - I used skim milk, because I don't ever have whole milk in the house.  I used the "Mexican blend" shredded cheese that I had on hand, because hey, why not?  And if you look close you'll see the bag of mustard seeds there.  I don't have any dry mustard, but I have the seeds and the infamous "motar" and pestle, so it's all good.

The preparation was very simple.  First, grease a small casserole or baking dish (approx 3 cup or 5" x 7").  I ended up using a dish that was too big, which may have presented a problem (more about that later) Butter the bread, then cut into 1" squares.

Scatter half the bread and half the cheese into the baking dish.  Then do it again with the other half of the bread and the cheese. Whisk together the rest of the ingredients,

 and pour over the bread.  Press down on the bread to help it soak up the egg mixture, then cover the dish with plastic wrap and stick it into the refrigerator for at least eight hours, up to 24 (see also: name of recipe).

When it's time to cook, just stick it into a 350 degree oven for an hour.

Mine came out a little well-done.  I think that's a combination of using a dish that was too big and having an oven that's not well-calibrated.

Verdict - meh.  Maybe if I had used the proper sized baking dish, it would have been better.  As it was, this just seemed like eggs and toast, all mixed together.  If I wanted a breakfast bowl, I'd go to Bob Evans.  Which reminds me, I had bought sausage to have with this, and I completely forgot to cook it.  D'oh!
Lessons Learned - pay attention to the instructions on the size of the baking dish!.
Tools needed - I really need some measuring spoons that can help me with the 1/8 and 1/4 tsp measures that many of these recipes have called for.
Skills needed - nothing at all.

Experiment 22 - The Selection

Another break in the action, courtesy of good weather and an attempt to have one of those things, ummmm, a "social life" I think it's called.  I'm not going to go nuts trying to do too many things in a week, and cooking is, for better or worse, lower on the priority list than some other things.  I'll see how the summer goes.  I'll post as often as I can, that's all I can say.

For this week I decided to search through a great cookbook I'd gotten for Christmas - Cooking for Two, 2010 from America's Test Kitchen.  I searched the ATK site  for a copy of the recipe that I could link to, but didn't even find their "full-size" version of the recipe.  There are other sites out there that seem to have no qualms with posting verbatim copies of ATK's work, but we don't do that here.  I might have trouble keeping up with the schedule I initially set up for myself, but one thing I won't compromise on is my avoidance of copyright issues.

So I was flipping through this cookbook and landed in the breakfast section.  I got tempted by a recipe for a 24-Hour "Omelet".  The quotes are because this isn't really an omelet as you'd normally think of one.  More details on that in the next post.  One advantage to this one is that the prep work is done the night before the cooking, and even though I'll be using the oven, it will be early in the day, before the heat gets too crazy.  (First day of summer here and suddenly the temperature hit 98 F)

24-Hour "Omelet"
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
2 slices high-quality white sandwich bread
3 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded (about 3/4 cup)
3/4 cup whole milk
2 large eggs
1/4 cup grated onion
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/8 teaspoon hot sauce

I will not even have to shop for this, I have everything I need on hand.

Experiment 21 - Irish Whiskey Cake with Dark Chocolate

Ingredients list

A few years ago, I spent most of the spring and summer unemployed, but still getting paid, thanks to a relatively decent severance package.  An intelligent, frugal person would have saved every extra penny during that time.  Me, I bought things from eBay and Amazon, including a refurbished KitchenAid stand mixer.  The reason I mention that is that I got to use my mixer for this week's recipe; I haven't used it much since that summer of leisure, I guess I was just preparing for the time I'd start a recipe blog and randomly choose a recipe that called for it.

I usually don't just copy and paste the instructions, due to possible copyright issues, but I'm going to go out on a limb here.  I can't find anything with this exact recipe name in my searches, so I hope there's no problem. I'm surely not making any money from this.  And I did throw in a couple photos and notes in between the steps.

But first, here are all the ingredients --

Directions:
0. Preheat your oven to 350°
1. Butter and flour a bundt cake pan
I used some Pam made for baking, that has both the oily stuff and the flour, because I'm lazy like that.
2. In a bowl, stir together flour, salt, and baking powder.
3. In a separate bowl, stir together whiskey, oil, and milk. Set bowls aside.
Since you've got the whiskey bottle open anyway, now would be a good time to have a wee glass o' the good stuff.
4. In a stand mixer, using paddle attachment, beat butter until smooth.
According to the label, one stick of butter is 113 grams.  Since the recipe called for 110g, I got crazy and used the whole stick.
5. Add sugar and vanilla and beat well.
Measuring the vanilla is the only time I had to check online for a conversion.  Turns out that 10 ml is just a tad over 2 teaspoons.
6. Add eggs and egg whites 1 at a time, beating after each addition.
7. Add liquid and dry alternately to butter mixture stirring just to incorporate.
8. Gently stir chocolate through batter.
9. Pour finished batter into prepared pan

(I took this photo mostly so you could see how much of a mess I generally make when doing these recipes)

 and bake in a preheated 350° oven 45-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean or with just a few crumbs
10. Remove from pan to cooling rack and cool completely.
Completely?  But it smells so good, and warm cake is yummy.

Verdict: Oh my, yes.  Now bear in mind, this is not a "chocolate" cake.  This is a cake with small bits of chocolate in it.  And it's very very good.

Lessons Learned - nothing new this week.
Tools needed - I didn't have to buy anything this week, as I'd bought the KitchenAid mixer several years ago, just for this moment.
Skills needed - nothing new this week, although I used my relatively new skill of egg separating that I taught myself several recipes ago.

Experiment 21 - The Selection

Instead of reaching into the big box of recipes this week, I picked a file from one of the many disks I have files on.  Packrattery by electronics still is a terrible thing.

I did make a tasty chocolate pie not all that long ago, but the recipe I chose sounded really good to me.  I also liked the measurements being all presented in metric.  I don't know how useful that will make it to anybody else who might stumble upon this blog and try to make the recipe.  If possible, I'll try to jot down the conversions as I go when I prepare this on Saturday or Sunday.  I also liked that the actual preparation calls for using my stand mixer, but let's not get ahead of things!                                              

Irish Whiskey Cake with Dark Chocolate 
Ingredients:
340 g all-purpose flour
5 g salt
15 g baking powder
110 g unsalted butter
365 g sugar
10 ml vanilla
3 eggs
2 egg whites
100 ml Irish whiskey (Jameson recommended)
80 ml canola oil
125 ml milk
50 g good quality chopped chocolate