Charlotte Russe with Strawberries

On a recent trip to my dentist (I needed a replacement for a tooth bond), I had to wait a few minutes before going in, and I started looking through the magazines in the waiting room.  I found a May 2010 issue of the Food Network Magazine and started to look at the recipes.  I immediately saw a recipe titled “Alex’s Mom: Charlotte Russe with Raspberries”.  This is a recipe provided by Alexandra Guarnaschelli and it looked delicious and decedent!  The receptionist at the dentist office was kind enough to copy the recipe for me before I left.

When I returned home, the copy of the recipe was dark, so I decided to check the FoodNetwork web site and see it the recipe was published.  The recipe is on the site, but I immediately noticed that it had five reviews and all of them bad.  I thought that was strange that a recipe published in the magazine would have all the documented problems.  The main complaints were about the use of the gelatin and how it hardened into an unusable mass.  I almost decided to pass on the recipe.

Another look and I saw that the recipe posted on the web site was different from the recipe in the magazine.  The website called for mixing two packets of gelatin with two tablespoons of water, the magazine specified three tablespoons.  I could see why the gelatin, without enough water was ruined.

This weekend some friends invited us over for a hike and dinner and asked if I would bring a dessert.  I though this would be the prefect time to try this recipe.  I would make it the night before and if it failed, I would make something else the next morning.

I reviewed all the steps of the recipe and realized that the first step of adding the gelatin to the water and letting it sit for five minutes should be near the end.  No wonder everyone had such problems.  The gelatin would sit way too long before it was added to the rest of the ingredients.  I decided to mix the gelatin later in the process.

I started by getting out two large saucepans, put about an inch of water inside and put top of the range to heat.  In a large metal bowl, I placed four ounces from a large bar of Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate finely chopped.  I placed that bowl on top of one of the saucepans to heat the chocolate.  I put the 2 1/2 cups of 2% milk in a glass measuring cup in the microwave for two minute to heat.

Into another large metal mixing bowl, I added the eight egg yolks, sugar, salt, and vanilla extract and whisked the contents.  I placed this bowl over the second saucepan to heat.  The recipe has both bowls heating while stirring for about five minute.  At this point I set the timer for five minute and in a small glass bowl, added the gelatin to the water and stirred.

Once the chocolate was melted I removed the bowl from the heat and slowly whisked in the warm milk, but it did not seem to fully mix together.  There were very small pieces of the chocolate that didn’t mix into the milk.  Maybe I needed to use a hand mixer to integrate the warm chocolate into the milk. 

At the end of the five minutes, the egg mixture was hot and the sugar had melted so the mixture was creamy.  I took a look at the gelatin and quickly saw that it would not last through the next step without turning rock hard, so I dumped the container and mixed another.

I slowly stirred the chocolate mixture to the yolk mixture and let this heat on the indirect heat for another five minute.  I removed the bowl from the heat, used a whisk to add the gelatin mixture, and made sure it was well mixed.  I covered the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator to cool for an hour.  After an hour I checked and it the mixture was still very runny, but around the edges it had started to become firm, so according to the recipe, it was time for adding the whipped cream. 

I made the whipped cream from a cup of heavy cream, powdered sugar and vanilla extract.  I was surprised by how quickly our hand wand whipped the cream to soft peaks.  The recipe said to fold 1 1/2 cups of the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture, but the chocolate was still so runny, I felt this step was more of a mixing of whipped cream into the chocolate.  Because the whipped cream didn’t fully integrate into the chocolate mixture it looked like there were chunks of cottage cheese floating in the chocolate.  I read in an Alton Brown mousse recipe, that when folding the whipped cream into the chocolate it is all right if the two parts don’t fully mix.  I had to tell that to my wife when she looked at the mixture and said it didn’t look right.

When I was at the store making sure I had all the ingredients for this recipe, I looked for ladyfinger cookies, but I didn’t find any at the two stores I tried, so I purchased some shortbread cookies that are similarly shaped.  When I went to line the inside of the spring form pan with the cookies, I found that I needed about three times as many cookies as I had purchased.  Fortunately, we had a can of Danish shortbread cookies in our pantry that we had not opened from last Christmas.  I opened the can and found they were still crisp, so I lined the pan with these cookies then poured in the Russe mixture.  I covered the pan and placed it in the refrigerator to (hopefully) set overnight.

First thing in the morning I checked the pan in the refrigerator, the Russe had set and was quite firm – Hurray.  There were still white lumps on top, but we decided to spread the rest of the whipped cream over the top and our friends would never know!  I didn’t have enough raspberries in my garden to place on top, so we used some of the fresh strawberries I purchased at our farmers market.

When I released the sides of the spring form pan, the Russe was stuck to the sides in a few places, but I found that by pushed down on the cookies while I removed the pan sides that the Russe remained intact.  It was difficult to cut even pieces of the Russe for serving with the strawberries on top.  In hindsight, I should have left a division in the berries where I would cut each piece.

The four of us enjoyed eating the Russe, while I was expecting more of a mousse texture; this had a gelatinous texture like eating chocolate Jell-O.  The cookies had absorbed some of the liquid and had softened to make a nice crust around the outside edge of the pieces.  This is not a recipe I will make again, but I was very pleased that after all the problems that other people had, I was able to complete the recipe and serve a descent dessert to our friends.

Find the recipe here (if you dare): http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alexandra-guarnaschelli/charlotte-russe-with-raspberries-recipe/index.html

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell

Chocolate Lava Muffins

While our kitchen was undergoing the remodel, I would read myself to sleep at night with the Alton Brown cookbook: Good Eats. Before falling asleep, I would use post-it notes to mark recipes that I wanted to make once the kitchen was operational. One of those recipes was Chocolate Lava Muffins.

Since the kitchen became functional, I have made this dessert several times, usually when we had guests over for dinner. This dessert is very easy to make, the hardest parts are: 1-Getting the muffin out of the pan intact (more on that later), 2-Not eating them all in one sitting.

To make the muffin mix, I make a double boiler with the bowl from our KitchenAid stand mixer (without a handle) placed over a large saucepan with about of inch of water inside. I set the heat to medium and put the eight ounces of bittersweet chocolate (usually two bars) inside to melt with the four ounces of butter. While that is melting, I use my postage scale to measure the flour and sugar into another bowl and add the cocoa powder and salt. I just mix all the dry ingredients together with a large spoon.

Once the chocolate and butter melt, I added the vanilla extract (a homemade gift from our son and his wife), and stir the vanilla into the chocolate. Removing the mixing bowl from the saucepan, I dry the bottom and place it on the stand mixer and using the whisk attachment start mixing on medium speed.

The next step is adding the four eggs, one at a time into the chocolate. Once one egg is fully integrated, then adding the next egg. Once all the eggs are added to the mixture, the speed is set to low to add the dry ingredients. Alton recommends using a paper plate to add the dry ingredients, I just spoon the flour mixture into the mixer bowl with a tablespoon at little at a time until all the dry stuff is added.

Now comes the fun, set the mixer speed on high and let it mix for five or six minutes until the mixture lightens in color. This time it took the full six minute, but I could see quite a difference in the color. Once this was finished, I covered the bowl with plastic and put the mixture in the refrigerator until I was ready to bake the muffins.

Setting the oven to 350 degrees on convention mode (375 degrees conventional), I used a paper towel dipped in margarine to give the inside of each hole in a muffin pan a very even margarine coating. Then I spooned about 1 /4 teaspoon of cocoa powder into each buttered hole and took it outside to rotate the pan so that the inside of each hole is completely covered with cocoa. Getting a good coating is essential to releasing the finished muffins.

I spoon enough of the muffin mixture to fill each hole about half way, and then place it in the oven for eleven minutes to bake. Once the muffins are baked (though they don’t look baked as the centers are still runny) I remove them from the oven and let them rest for about two minutes before removing. I use a plastic knife and go around the side of each muffin to make sure the muffins are not sticking to the sides of the muffin pan.

Getting the muffins out intact is the biggest problem, I have tried directly lifting them out, but you have to wait until they cool quite a bit, I have turned them over on a plate which does work, but the tops may stick to the plate. Don’t turn them over onto a paper towel like I did this time, a little bit of the top of each muffin stuck to the towel. The best luck I have had is using two plastic knifes and prying on one side while lifting on the other. Let me know what works for you.

Alton recommends making a sauce of vanilla ice cream and espresso powder. We just serve them with vanilla ice cream on the side and everyone loves them. This is a very easy recipe to make, but guests are always surprised when we serve them.

Find the recipe at: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/chocolate-lava-muffins-recipe2/index.html

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell

Freezer Marinated Steak

The last time I purchased  a package containing four pieces of top sirloin steak from our mega-supermarket,  I filleted the one inch thick pieces into pieces one half inch thick so I could make sure they were cooked medium well for my wife.  That night I cooked one-half of the pieces and decided to freeze the remainder for another time.

Into a sealable bag I placed the pieces of steak, 1/4-cup of apple vinegar, 1-tablespoon of lemon juice, two tablespoons of grape seed oil, a pinch of salt and pepper, and one sprig of fresh rosemary.  This made a nice marinade that contains the three necessary ingredients: acid, oil, and seasoning.  Before I sealed the bag, I got as much air out as I could, and then I sealed the bag.  Next, I kneaded the marinade into the meat through the bag, making sure the marinade was covering the steak.  I popped the bag of steak into the freezer until the next time the weather would allow grilling.

This week I saw in the paper that we would finally have a few days of sunshine, so I removed the package of steak from the freezer and let it thaw for two days in the refrigerator.  The day I went to cook the steak, I found that it was still just a little frozen, so I let it soak for about fifteen minutes in a pan of cold water while I waited for the briquettes to get hot.

I split the briquettes and moved them off to each side of the bottom of the barbeque so there was an area in the center of the grill that had no briquettes below it.  I watched an Alton Brown Good Eats TV show where he said that when the fat cooking out of the meat and lands on the briquettes, it creates carcinogens that coat the meat (bad for you), but when you use indirect heat, the meat would still cook, but without the carcinogens.

I opened the bag of steak and drained off the marinade, and then I placed the steak pieces on the center of the grill and put the lid on the barbeque.  I grilled the steak for eight minutes on each side until they were just cooked a little beyond medium.  I placed all the pieces in a glass Pyrex pan, covered with foil and let the steaks rest for five minutes before serving.

I accompanied the steak with brown rice, sautéed mushrooms, steamed broccoli, and a green salad.  Unlike my normal direct heat cooking of the steak, this steak was very moist and tender.  The marinade added just a little extra flavor that really complemented the meat.  The marinade and the indirect heat had made a fairly inexpensive pieces of meat into quite a meal.  I just have to remember to do this the next time.

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell

House of the Rising Bun

There is a house in Hillsboro, they call the rising bun.  At least I called it that this morning while finishing our cinnamon buns.  House of the Rising Bun is the name of an Alton Brown TV program where he demonstrated the making of three kinds of overnight buns: cinnamon rolls, monkey bread, and citrus ginger ring.  My wife and I watched the program and then I went to the Foodnetwork.com site and printed all three recipes.

Last night I made mixed the dough and formed the Overnight Cinnamon Rolls, which took about thirty minutes of preparation time.  Earlier in the day, I had stopped at the store on the way home from exercising and picked up the necessary buttermilk and eggs.  When I arrived  home, I set out five of the eggs, six-ounces of buttermilk, three-ounces of unsalted butter, and 2 1/4-tablespoons of yeast to warm to room temperature.

After dinner, I started by separating the yolks from four of the eggs (I used the whites for scrambled eggs).  I mixed the four egg yolks, one full egg, and two ounces of sugar in our KitchenAid stand mixer for several minutes using the whisk attachment.  Then I added two cups of the flour, yeast, and salt and then mixed until everything was wet.

I removed the whisk from the mixer and installed the dough hook, then added all but 3/4-cup of the remaining flour to the mixing bowl.  Mixing on low speed, I had to stop and scrape the dough hook several times as the dough kept climbing the hook and not mixing.  After five minutes, I checked and the dough was still a sticky, so I added about another 1/2-cup of the flour and mixed for another five minutes.

When the five minutes were up, I checked and the dough was soft but not sticky, so I turned it out onto our floured rolling mat.  It was kind of fun to kneed the dough for about thirty seconds so it was an integrated mass of dough.  I formed it into a ball and placed it into my lightly oiled metal bowl to rise.  A quick check of the recipe and I saw that I was to lightly oil the top of the dough ball, so I poured a small amount of oil in my hand and rubbed the oil over the top of the ball.

I took the covered bowl of dough to our upstairs where it was a nice 71.5 degrees and left it for 2 1/2 hours to rise.  My wife and I went for a nice hour-long walk and returned in plenty of time for me to finish this recipe for the night.

I prepared the filling for the cinnamon buns by measuring one-cup packed brown sugar, one-tablespoon of cinnamon, a pinch of salt and 1 1/2-tablespoons of melted butter into a medium sized bowl and mixing it all together.  Oops, the melted butter was supposed to be spread directly on the dough and then the sugar/cinnamon mixture spread on that.  Oh well, I decided to proceed with my sugar/cinnamon/butter mixture.

I also placed about a cup of raisins in a small saucepan on the stovetop to boil for a few minutes.  This helps to hydrate the raisins so they don’t burn during baking.  Once the raisins started to plump, I drained them and let them cool for their next step.

The dough had just about doubled in size when I punched it down and turned it back onto our floured rolling mat.  I used my fingers to shape the dough into a rectangle then started to roll it with the rolling pin.  The desired size for the dough was to be 18 x 12 inches and I got mine pretty close to that size.  I realized that I had rolled out the dough the wrong direction on the mat and it was now extending over the edges of the sides.

My cinnamon/sugar/butter mixture worked just fine when I spread it over dough.  I did leave a 3/4-inch edge across the top for finishing the log once it is rolled.  I spread the raisins over the dough and then started to roll from the bottom of the dough.  I rolled it up and then used the bare dough area at the top end to fold into the log and make a seam all the way across the log.  I was surprised that it actually worked very well and didn’t release.

Now I had to pull and stretch to even out the log so it is the same thickness all the way across.  That worked well and I had a (fairly) even log of dough.  I buttered my large glass Pyrex baking pan and then sliced the log into twelve (roughly) even pieces with my serrated bread knife.  I placed the cut rolls into the baking pan, covered it with plastic wrap, and slipped the pan into the refrigerator for the night.

In the morning, I removed the pan from the refrigerator and was surprise at how much the rolls had risen even in the refrigerator.  I used our hot pot to boil about five cups of water, which I poured into a roasting pan and placed it on the bottom rack our oven.  On the rack just above the roasting pan, I placed the pan of cinnamon rolls, closed the door, and let the buns rise for thirty minutes.  The kitchen has a nice warm yeast smell.

At the end of the thirty minutes, I removed both pans and turned the oven on to preheat to 350 degrees.  When the oven was hot, I placed the pan of rolls inside and set my timer for 20 minutes.  When the timer went off, I inserted our oven temperature probe into the center of one of the rolls and set the oven shutoff temperature to 190 degrees.  It only took about another five minutes to achieve the desired temperature, the oven shut off and I removed the pan of rolls to cool.  They look and smell wonderful.

I mixed the icing that consists of cream cheese, milk, and powdered sugar and spread it over the top of all the rolls.  The only thing left to do was to eat one – well ok, one and a half rolls.

These rolls are very light and fluffy inside.  They taste better than most of the cinnamon rolls available in stores.  We surprised a neighbor when she came over later that day and sent her home with a couple of the cinnamon rolls she could share with her husband.

I was thinking that if I rolled out the dough in a little different shape that is narrower and would make a thicker roll, I could cut it into six slices, still use the same pan, and have monster cinnamon rolls.  Hmmm.

Find the recipe at: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/overnight-cinnamon-rolls-recipe/index.html

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell

Favorite Implements - Tongs

For the last thirty years, whenever I needed to BBQ or grab corn from hot water I always used my trusty wire tongs.  I had two pairs of them so when one got contaminated with raw meat, I could switch to the other pair.  These worked very well even if they are starting to get a little rusty, and one came apart at the joint to I riveted it back together.

Very early this year, I decided to get some new tongs.  I watched Alton Brown use his service grade tongs and I wanted to have some like them.  So, on a trip to a kitchen store one day I purchased a pair.  After I got home and used them, I found that I liked them so well that on our next trip, I purchased another pair.

Now I have two pairs of heavy-duty tongs to use.  I have two different lengths with two different grabbing ends and I like them both for different uses.  The long pair with the plastic ends are great for when I BBQ and for when I use a non-stick pan.  The shorter pair with the metal ends is perfect for close in work on top of the range.

The feature that I really like is that these new tongs are spring loaded to open, but they have a locking mechanism in the back so you can lock them closed for storage and when running them through the dishwasher.  To lock the tongs closed you simply squeeze the tongs together, and then pull out the little tab at the back of the tongs.  To open, you push the tab in.  What is really nice is you can open the tongs with one hand, grab the tongs and then push the back down on the counter top to push the tab in, and the tongs open.

My wife and I were at a kitchen store one day, I saw a woman trying to pry open a pair of these tongs, and I was able to share with her the “little trick” of getting them open.  I’m not sure she really appreciated me telling her.

I still have my old wire tongs; they are great for moving the hot briquettes around in the bottom of the BBQ and I never have to wash them.

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell

Pan Fried Chicken

While our kitchen was going though a remodel, I found an Alton Brown recipe for Pan Fried Chicken that I could make in our garage using our camp stove and Dutch oven.  I watched Alton’s program on pan-fried chicken and I found the recipe in his book: Good Eats on page 212.

I made a trip to the store and purchased a whole fryer, low-fat buttermilk, a can of shortening, and some cayenne pepper.  I noticed that Alton must get chickens about the size of pigeons because he specifies 3 1 /2 pounds and the smallest I could find was about six pounds.

I set to work the day before I was to cook to octo-sect (Alton’s word) the chicken.  As we had no usable kitchen, I setup in the garage on our newspaper-covered workbench.  I followed the seven instructions in the book on how to properly dismember a whole chicken into eight pieces.  Once the chicken was cut up, I placed it in a gallon Ziploc bag and poured in two-cups of the low-fat buttermilk.  Into the refrigerator went the bag of chicken to chill for about twenty-four hours.

When I went to start cooking, I retrieved our twelve-inch cast-iron Dutch over from the attic (stored with the camping gear) and set it on the propane camp stove with enough shortening to reach 1 /4 of an inch up the side of the Dutch oven.  I turned on the heat and inserted our digital meat thermometer into the oil to monitor when the temperature reached the desired 325 degrees.

I retrieved the bag of chicken parts, drained off the buttermilk in our laundry room sink and took the chicken back to the garage workbench.  I mixed the spice mixture; kosher slat, paprika, garlic powder, and cayenne pepper in a small container and sprinkled it over the chicken pieces.  I place one-cup of flour in a plastic bag, and one at a time I placed the chicken pieces into the bag and gave it a shake to coat the chicken with the flour, then set the coated chicken pieces aside for two minutes.

The oil was hot, so I followed the directions and added the thighs (skin side down) into the center of the pan, and followed with the rest of the pieces around the outside.  I quickly found the problem of having too large a chicken, the breast pieces would not fit in the pan.  The other parts completely filled the bottom of the Dutch oven.  Ok, I will just cook in two batches.

I immediately noticed I the temperature of the oil dropped, I had a very hard time regulating the temperature to keep it at 325 degrees.  When the first batch of chicken was cooked, the coating was very dark in color due to the paprika and was not very appetizing.  I added the chicken breasts and cooked them and they came out even darker.

I thought the chicken tasted fine, but my wife was not that thrilled about eating it, mainly due to the very dark color.  Overall, this was a disappointing recipe that I probably will not make again.  I will try frying chicken again, just not this recipe.

After reading about frying foods in oil, I realized that I tried to cook too many pieces at one time, which lowered the oil temperature; I also should have cleaned the oil between batches to get up the extra flour and spice bits.  I could have done that by cooking some potato slices as the starch in the potato grabs all the extra stuff in the oil.

I am glad that I cooked this in the garage as the cooking smells would have been overpowering and lingering in the house.  Next time I fry chicken, it will be outside where the odors are free to escape into the wild - free-range odors!

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell

Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies - Revisited

Yesterday morning I decided to make more of “The Chewy” chocolate chip cookies that I discussed in my earlier post: Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies.

I again followed the Alton Brown recipe found on page 167 of the Alton Brown Good Eats book.  It took me about 15 minutes to mix the dough and unlike the first time I made the cookies, this time I took photos of the process.

The photo to the left was taken after I had creamed the butter and sugars together and added the egg mixture.  The batter became very creamy and seemed to double in volume.


After refrigerating the dough for an hour, I rolled the dough into 1.5-inch balls and place 6 balls on each cookie sheet for baking.  Using convection cooking mode, I cooked two cookie sheets at a time for 12 minutes.  The cookies were cooked to perfection.

This batch made almost three dozen cookies.  We could have made a full three dozen, but I made the first six cookies a little larger than the rest and then we ate some of the raw dough (yes, even with the raw eggs).


My wife let me know that these are still her favorite and that they taste as good as the first batch.  Thank you Alton!

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell

Brussels Sprouts with Pecans and Cranberries

Mmmm who doesn’t like Brussels sprouts!  It turns out quite a few people!  I really enjoy eating them but struggle with under or overcooking them. 

Just before Christmas last year, we were going to have some friends over for some Alton Brown inspired pot roast and I had some Brussels sprouts in the refrigerator and decided to look on-line to see what kinds of recipes are available to vary my single cooking style of steaming Brussels sprouts.  A quick check of the Food Network web site yielded several recipes; the best sounding was Brussels Sprouts with Pecans and Cranberries by Alton Brown.

This was easy to make as we had all the ingredients, Pecan, Brussels sprouts, butter and dried cranberries.  Once I cleaned the Brussels sprouts, I sliced them by hand into narrow slices.  Alton says you can use a food processor, but I didn’t want to mess it up and have to clean it.

About this time our guests arrived and let us know that they didn’t really like Brussels sprouts, but they would try them.

I used a twelve-inch frying pan to make this dish; it works really well for the volume of the Brussels sprouts.  The pecans browned nicely and had a wonderful smell.  I added the butter and then the sliced Brussels sprouts.  The five-minute cooking time seems to be just right to cook the sprouts.  I mixed in a little salt and pepper then removed the pan from the heat and added the cranberries.

We served this dish in a colorful bowl and it looked as great as it tasted.  This couple so liked this way of preparing the Brussels sprouts that I sent my printed recipe home with them.

I made the dish again at Christmas for our family, and the green of the Brussels sprouts with the red of the dried cranberries was very festive.  Some of our family professed not to like Brussels sprouts, but really enjoyed these.

I made it again last night to go with our spagetti dinner and so that I could take photos of the process, and it was just as good as before.

One caution is to make sure the ratio of Brussels sprouts to cranberries is correct.  One time I was a little low on the sprouts, but still used the same amount of cranberries and the results was a dish that was a little too sweet.

This is now on my list of “guest” dishes, that when someone is coming over for dinner, this will likely be on the menu.

Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies

Until I saw this chocolate chip cookie recipe, I always made the standard toll-house cookie recipe.  However, while I was waiting to get an oven back during the remodel, I came across "The Chewy" recipe in the Alton Brown Good Eats book on page 167.  This was one of several recipes that I marked to make once our kitchen was again operational.  We had the appliances installed about Thanksgiving and then I had a great time making cookies for Christmas (see post: My Favorite Cookies), and this recipe was one of many types of cookies that I made.

The only ingredient that I might have had to go purchase was the bread flour, but I even had some of that so I could make bread.  I did augment the recipe by adding additional chocolate chips, I also added about half a bag of the mini-chocolate chips just to make sure it was chocolaty enough.

Once I mixed all the ingredients, I used our Bakers Secret cookies sheets covered with parchment paper and set the oven to convection bake at 350 degrees.  I made sure that I measured out a large ball of dough when forming the cookies, Alton recommends 1 1/2 ounce portions.  I baked two cookies sheets at once and because I used convection bake mode, I didn’t need to rotate the cookies sheets half way through the bake time as Alton recommends.  The cookies baked for twelve minutes until done, and then I moved the cookies to a cooling rack.

As I was making quite a few cookies for Christmas, I placed these in a gallon Ziploc bag and popped them in the freezer.  My wife and I would take one (yes-just one) cookie out and eat it still frozen.  My wife has told me that this makes the best chocolate chip cookies and is now the only type of chocolate chip cookie that she ever wants me to make!

I wish I had taken some pictures to post, but at the time, I didn’t take any photos.  I may just have to make some more…

Cracking the Case of the Coconut

The Olympic Games are in process and we really enjoy watching them on TV every night.  We use our Digital Video Recorder to record the nightly four hour program, and then we usually will start watching the recorded portion about an hour after it starts.  This allows us to skip the commercials and the silly time wasting segments the network inserts.  Why do we need to watch ice skaters when they have finished skating and waiting for their scores for five minutes? 

One of the problems is that we often fast forward so much of the programming and catch-up our recorded viewing with real-time, so we are forced to watch every single competitor in every single event; snore!


To overcome this problem, we will watch another program that we recorded at an earlier time while the Olympics slowly keep recording.  One of the programs we recently watched was an Alton Brown Good Eats where he discussed how to milk and open a coconut.  We thought that was interesting, so earlier this week while we were at the store, we bought a coconut to enjoy.


Today was the day that we cracked the case!  We took the coconut for a quick trip to the garage workbench.  There I used my cordless drill with a 3/8 inch drill bit to drill holes into two of the eyes and down into the center of the coconut.  Using the two holes, we drained the coconut of the liquid (milk) and then strained the liquid to remove the drilling residue.

The filtered milk didn’t last long as we quickly drank it right from the bowl. 

Next we heated the Electrolux oven to 375 degrees.  Once the oven was at temperature, I put the coconut on a cookie sheet and place it in the oven to bake for fifteen minutes.  The shell is supposed to crack making it easier to remove the meat.

After 15 minutes I checked the coconut, no cracks.  Hmmm, OK back into the oven for another 7 minutes.  This time when I checked, there is a crack running around the shell of the coconut.  I removed the coconut from the oven and let it cool for a few minutes, then took the coconut back to the garage (my wife won’t let me hammer on our new countertops) for a few whacks with my trusty hammer to crack the shell the rest of the way.

Alton calls for an oyster knife to remove the meat from the shell.  I don’t have an oyster knife and after the other day, I really didn’t want to use a knife that would slip and send me after another Band-Aid.  I found that a heavy duty spoon works very well.  I slid the spoon between the shell and the meat and just popped the meat out.

Next I have to remove the thin brown husk that covers the outside of the meat.  Thanks to Alton for the information on this, I just used a vegetable peeler and quickly removed all of the husk.  A quick rinse in cold water and we have a nice quantity of coconut meat ready to use.  Or, in our case start eating with a little sugar.

We do have a little left that is in the refrigerator, and I have to find a recipe to use it.  Hmmm, maybe cake!

My Inspiration

My inspiration has come from the Food Network. We really enjoy watching Alton Brown's Good Eats. The scientific approach he takes and explains appeals to my engineering side. I also enjoy Paula Deen's shows, I like the way she makes cooking fun and an enjoyable adventure.

I have two Alton Brown books: Good Eats and I'm Just Here for More Food - baking. The second book is more of a chemistry book on how food + mixing + heat = baking. I purchased the Good Eats book with some of my birthday money in October so I could plan on what to cook when our kitchen remodel was completed.
I also have several Paula Deen magazines specifically on cookies and desserts as well as her The Dean Family Cookbook that I received from my wife for Christmas. I have prepared meals from all these sources over the last few months.

My wife is just fine with me performing all the cooking. We have an arrangement, I cook, she cleans up the dishes.

These cookbooks as well as a few others in our library including the ubiquitous Betty Crocker Cookbook make up our cooking library. I augment this with specific recipes that I print from the internet typically found at www.foodnetwork.com

Dinner tonight is BBQ steak with potato and veggies.

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell