The Reckless Chef

No, I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth…it’s just midterm week.

Here’s a short list of things that will be coming soon:

• Porkfest. I know, I feature pork more than any other meat. It’s mostly because there was a giant sale on pork loin, and I’ve been trying to deplete the 10+ lbs of pork in my freezer before buying other meats. Anyways, I have a friend who really loves pork, and I agreed to make her a meal featuring no less than 4 kinds of pork (and perhaps more!) if she started a blahg about it. She did: Porkblogger. Read it. Love it.
• More Tiny Foods. I want to make another (different) Tiny Breakfast, as well as a Mini Lunch, a Little Dinner, and some Ittybitty Desserts.
• Soups. Once upon a time, I promised my friend FlyerAsh that I’d figure out how to make homemade Funyuns. That hasn’t happened yet (successfully, anyhow), but in the meantime, I’m going to feature some soup recipes that she recco’s.
• Armenian food. More shish, losh, sarma, and eech than your nene can shake a pabooj at!
• More Office Barista. I was about to abandon that idea because I cannot seem to take a decent photo of a cup of coffee, but you’d be amazed how many people search for office-kitchen beverage recipes. Or possibly just one person who really doesn’t know what to do with the fancy coffee maker, I’m not sure.
• Something really geeky that involves fondant. I’m still figuring out how to get the fondant to be the exact color I want, but once I finish that whole trial-and-error process, there’s something extra fun (and a little bit nerdy) in the works.

Oh yeah, and at some point I’m going to bake bread. I got a copy of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and I’m anxious to see how that will turn out. I suspect it will be either hilarious or tragic.

Plain sugar cookies are boring. Plus, I seem to really enjoy making two-toned foods. So…chocolate-striped sugar cookies!

Excuse the photo quality. My usual camera’s battery died this morning, so I had to resort to the backup, and I am sans photo-editing software at work.

The Recipe:
Striped Sugar Cookies

2 sticks unsalted butter
3 eggs
2 ½ cups sugar
3 ½ cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp cocoa powder

Do This
Cream butter, sugar, vanilla and eggs in a large mixing bowl. Gradually add in the flour and baking powder, until the resulting dough is thick and thoroughly blended. Divide the dough in half. Wrap one portion in plastic and set aside. Add 3 tbsp of cocoa powder to the other portion of dough, and knead until the cocoa is blended evenly into the dough. Wrap this portion in plastic as well, and place both the chocolate dough and the regular dough in the refrigerator. Allow the dough to chill for several hours, or just forget about it overnight.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Unwrap the cookie dough, and break off pieces of dough slightly smaller than your fist. I have a pretty average-sized fist, and I ended up with 8 pieces of chocolate dough and 9 pieces of plain. I was hoping for equal amounts, but it appears that I wasn’t too precise when I halved the dough in the first place.
Roll out each ball of dough to approximately ¼” thickness. If you chilled it overnight, it might be difficult to work with at first, but a little bit of kneading will bring the dough back to a workable temperature. Try to roll each piece to the same shape and dimensions – this will make the next step much easier.

Stack the dough, alternating chocolate and plain pieces. Use a knife to slice the dough vertically in segments of about ¼”. Pushing directly downward will cause the stripes to bend, so use a sawing motion.

Lightly roll out each segment. It helps to place a piece of plastic wrap between the rolling pin and the dough – less mess! Grab a cookie cutter (or the top of a glass, if you don’t have cookie cutters) and cut out as many cookies as you can for each slice of striped dough. Carefully place the cut out circles on a baking sheet, and bake for 8-10 minutes. You’ll want to watch the cookies while they’re baking (or at least for the final 3 minutes or so) to make sure that you remove them from the oven before the plain-dough stripes turn brown.

Some notes:

If you want perfect, straight stripes, there are two things (that I didn’t do) that you can do to make that happen. (1) Actually roll out each piece of dough to the same thickness. Mine were mostly consistent, but I didn’t measure or anything, and judging by the final result, there were some pieces that were rolled out a bit thicker than others. (2) Don’t press down on the stack of dough when you slice off the striped pieces. This makes the stripes bend a bit, and pushing down on the stack doesn’t really do much to help the slicing process, anyhow.

If you’re more creative than I am, you’ll probably be able to find something fun to do with the little bits of dough that are left after each cookie-cutting. I was feeling a little bit lazy, so I just mixed the dough very gently, rolled it out again, and made marble-y cookies. Per Amberance’s suggestion, I might make chessboard cookies in the future.

This recipe yields a LOT of cookies. Well, a lot for me – at least 3 dozen. I’m not sure how this happened, because I halved my usual sugar cookie recipe. I suspect that it’s because I’ve only ever made sugar cookies in bulk.

I’m just testing out a new look for the site. I’m trying to decide if I prefer the white background or the darker one. White seems more standard, and looks very clean, but I feel like the dark grey makes the images “pop” a little more. At some point, I’ll get around to coding some custom CSS for this thing, but I’m going with default WordPress themes for now because I’m lazy.

Thoughts? Criticism? Bacon?

Update: back to the old layout for now.

Happy Cinco de Mayo, everyone!

Click to zoom in on the yummy frozen margarita. Ignore the salt on the rim…that was an accident.

The Recipe:
(Strawberry Frozen) Margaritas

6 oz tequila (we used Cuervo because that’s what we had, but if you have better tequila, go for it!)
4 oz Triple Sec
1 oz lime juice
1 oz lemon juice
coarse salt (optional)
1 bag (12 oz) frozen strawberries (optional)
ice

Do This
Set the ice, strawberries, and salt aside, and mix the liquids first - this way, if someone wants a plain margarita, you can accommodate them while taking minimal extra steps. More time to enjoy your margaritas! Pour a 3 : 2 : 1 ratio of tequila, triple sec, and lime/lemon juice (the amounts called for above yield 3 large frozen margaritas or 4-6 smaller ones) into a shaker, over ice. Go James Bond style and shake it, don’t stir (yeah, I know, it’s not a martini, but have some fun with it, eh?).
If you’re making standard margaritas, wet the top of a margarita glass and press it into a saucer full of coarse salt. If you’re feeling fancy schmancy and want to buy margarita salt in one of those special tins made expressly for salting the rim of a glass, that works too. Carefully pour the margarita into the glass, and add a few ice cubes if desired.
If you want the pretty, blended strawberry kind, fill your blender halfway with ice cubes and crush them on medium-low speed to make some room for the other ingredients. Add the entire bag of frozen strawberries, and pour the margarita mix from the shaker over the strawberries and ice. If your blender isn’t very big, you may have to take some intermediate steps, like blending down the ice and strawberries before adding the liquid. Hit the “puree” button (or your favorite blender setting) and blend until you have a nice, frozen treat. If you get overzealous and over-blend into a soupy liquid, just add a bit more ice to get the texture right. Serve in a margarita glass. Optional: rim the glass with coarse salt (like we did by accident) or sugar. Garnish with a lime.

Remember to enjoy your margaritas responsibly, and only if you’re of the appropriate age for adult beverages!

The Recipe:
Gringo Tacos

1 lb ground beef
1 package soft corn tortillas
2 medium-sized tomatoes
1 onion
lettuce
shredded cheese
chili powder
black pepper
garlic salt
2 tbsp cooking oil
1/4 cup sugar
Yucatan Sunshine hot sauce, or your favorite brand

Do This
Chop lettuce, onion, and tomatoes into small bits (for topping finished tacos) and set aside.
Lightly coat the bottom of a large frying pan with cooking oil, and place over medium heat. Put the ground beef in this pan, and cook until the meat is browned. Drain most of the liquid from the pan, and return to the stove. Gradually add in the sugar and hot sauce, and stir.
Add in the rest of the spices as follows: start with 1 tbsp of chili powder, 1 tbsp of garlic salt, and 2 tbsp of black pepper, and add in 1/2 tbsp increments to taste. I ended up with 3 tbsp black pepper, 2 tbsp chili powder, and 1 1/2 tbsp garlic salt, but your favorite combo may be different. The meat should be both sweet and spicy, but not overwhelmingly so - you want it to still taste like beef.
Warm the tortillas in the oven for a few minutes. Spoon beef into each tortilla, and top with shredded cheese and chopped veggies.

I have no idea how authentic this particular taco recipe is, but it tastes pretty good! Plus, it’s more fun to season the beef myself than to cheat and use the flavor packet that came with the tortillas.

I’m a huge fan of Arrested Development. I was very sad when the series ended, and I bought the dvd set because the show really never gets old for me. Recently, I’ve been watching it with my roommate (because it’s kind of wrong that she lives with me and hasn’t seen it yet. COME ON!), and the Bluth frozen bananas inspired me to make some cookies. I briefly considered making cornballs, but I didn’t want to suffer severe burns.

So…without further ado: chocolate covered banana shortbread cookies that won’t make you sick and kill you!

This is one of my favorite food photos yet. Click to zoom in on the cookies!

The Recipe:
Bluth Chocolate Banana Shortbread Cookies
2 cups flour
1 stick butter (I used salted because I ran out of unsalted, oops!)
1/2 cup Nanners Foster sauce or 1 more stick of butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup mashed bananas
semi-sweet chocolate chips
cocktail peanuts (optional)

Do This
Peel a banana and cut it up into small slices. Microwave it for about 30 seconds, then mash the now-soft bananas with a fork. Alternately, use a very ripe banana and skip the microwaving. I refuse to do this because I have an aversion to expired foods, and won’t let bananas last in my kitchen long enough to turn brown on the outside. This is why you will never see a banana bread recipe on this site.
Preheat the oven to 350.
Melt the butter and transfer it to a large mixing bowl. Add the vanilla extract and the ‘Nanners Foster sauce, and whisk in the powdered sugar until well-blended. Add the salt and baking powder, and gradually stir in the flour until you have a thick, caramel-colored dough. Use a fork to mash the bananas into the dough.
Grab two large pieces of plastic wrap, and sandwich the dough in between them. Roll it out to about 1/2″ thickness and place in the refrigerator to chill for about half an hour.
Remove the dough from the fridge. Place a piece of freezer paper over a cutting board, grab a hunk of dough, and cover it with a second piece of freezer paper. Roll the dough into a large rectangle-ish shape about 1/4″ thick. Remove the top piece of freezer paper, and use a knife to cut the dough into rectangles about one inch wide and two inches long. Place the rectangles onto a baking sheet.
Bake the cookies for 7-10 minutes, or until the dough is puffed up and the edges are a golden brown color. Overbaking (or rolling the dough too thin) will result in extra-crunchy (burnt) cookies that do not taste like shortbread. They resemble dried banana chips.
Repeat this process with the rest of the dough.
Allow the cookies to cool completely. They’re very soft fresh out of the oven, and soft cookies are not conducive to slathering with melty chocolate! You can taste-test a few when they’re still warm, though. Mmmm, bananas!

Steve Holt: Maybe we should work together. I mean, we don’t even know the recipe.
George Michael: Oh, there’s no recipe. You just freeze the bananas, and then dip them in the–
Steve Holt: Dip it in the what? Dip it in the what?

While the cookies are cooling, put a handful of cocktail peanuts in a plastic baggie (or two, if you’re feeling extra cautious) and crush them using the blunt object of your choice. If I owned a meat mallet, I probably would have used that, but I don’t, so I opted for the bottom of a saucepan.
Either using a double-boiler or the microwave, melt a handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips. Cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Grab a teaspoon and use it to spread the melty chocolate over the cookies, then place the cookies on the foil-covered baking sheet. Or, if you want more chocolate, dip the entire cookie instead of just coating the top. Sprinkle crushed peanuts onto the cookies while the chocolate is still warm.

Maeby: It tasted like a foot. Which I didn’t really mind, but I’m pretty sure I said “no nuts.”

Or don’t add nuts, they’re totally optional. When the baking sheet is full, move it to the fridge to allow the chocolate to harden.

The shortbread cookie recipe is loosely based on the Hearst Castle recipe I found over at 101 Cookbooks. I’ve never made shortbread before, so my modifications were totally a gamble. Lucky for me, they worked out!

The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of the sauce from my Bananas (Almost) Foster recipe, which means you have an excuse to make that. Just kidding! I actually ran out of butter while I was making this, and the banana sauce seemed to be a perfect substitute. If you don’t want to make the ‘Nanners Foster, substitute for 1 stick of butter, but you’ll lost a bit of that flavor. Plus, despite what kindergarten taught us, it’s a lot of fun to play with matches.

Gob: Give me a “GOB.”
George Michael: GOB!
Gob: No, I didn’t mean for you to yell my name at me. It’s what I call a double-dipped banana with everything on it.

I also made a “GOB special” (2 cookies, stacked and smothered in the remaining chocolate and nuts):

Click to zoom in on a banana cookie that GOB would approve of. It won’t chip your teeth like a candy apple.