herb and cheese oh my gods

The real name of what I made today is herb and cheese biscuits, but they were too good to be called only that! Oh my gods it is!



What you've got there is a buttermilk dough with fresh herbs and cheddar kneaded lovingly into it. To my tongue, the fresh basil is what adds the strongest herb note, but there is also parsley, sage, and thyme. And after my mistake last week of bland, gooey mild cheddar, I actually did get a SHARP cheddar, which made all the difference!

These may be the most technically difficult baked good I've ever made-- right up there with my chocolate oreo layer cheesecake that took 12 hours-- but omg was it worth it. First, I had to grate frozen butter and rub it in to the dough mixture. This was labor intensive (and required me to remember to put the butter in the freezer last night) but it worked soooooo much better than dicing the butter because the huge surface area of the grated butter made it easy to blend in to the flour. I need to remember this technique in the future because it works about 100 times better than dicing the butter or cutting it in-- when I add butter to dough mixture that way I never am able to get it to actually blend.

Then 4 times I kneaded the dough out, added some of the cheese mixture, folded it over, and kneaded it again. This resulted in this amazing cheese layer cheese layer cheese consistency in the final product. I thought I was going to fail this step miserably but the consistency of the dough allowed it to happen much more easily than I anticipated. I used tons of flour and used my chef's knife to scrape the dough up each time to fold it over. That combo worked really well!

After my disastrously sticky turnovers last week, I buttered my baking sheets, topped that butter layer with parchment paper, buttered it again, and then dipped the bottom of the biscuits in flour before I sat them on the parchment paper. Some of them STILL stuck (the buttermilk dough is pretty sticky,) but most of them I was able to pull off pretty easily and the stuck ones I was able to separate with my paring knife. Also because of my disaster last week, I set my baking timer for 6 minutes (recipe called for 10) and that actually turned out to be enough. So, I lived and learned and only "had" to eat 8 or 9 slightly burnt turnovers to do it! I guess that takes some of the sting out of the disaster, if all my future baking benefits from that one sheet of burnt, sticky turnovers.

I will definitely, definitely, definitely make these again. The recipe was from my thanksgiving issue of bon appetit, and I think they would be amazing as a side at thanksgiving dinner, but probably also any other dinner or as an offering for a pot luck (if I didn't feel like making my old stand by potluck chicken pad thai hahah!)

I already know at least one thing I'm making next weekend: sugar cookies cut into rings and decorated like the stargate. Yeah. Ummm. Yeah. They're for my biweekly stargate universe marathon watching gathering with my lab mate. I'm going to serve them with sam adams black lager, which I got 24 bottles of yesterday at the beer distributor. I also got a 24 bottle blue moon winter brewmaster's sampler! Since the state of Pennsylvania makes it essentially impossible to buy beer, I thought I had better stock up! Black Lager yessssss! Maybe I'll have one right now. And watch football. And have another biscuit. Yesssssssss.

Here is another photo of the biscuits, because I couldn't decide which one to use, and so I don't have to end the post with talking about how I'm going to make stargate ring cookies. SHIT! I did it again! HAHAHA! I guess there's just no helping it.

Apple and cheddar turnovers

I haven't cooked really anything since I got back from Germany, because I've been prevented from eating (or even wanting to eat) by Disease. I got my December issue of bon appetit in the mail on thursday though, and I hadn't even made ANY of the recipes I cut out of the November issue (yes, I cut recipes out of my bon appetits like a little old lady. Mr. Monk helps.) That was a situation I brought to swift rectification by making Apple and Cheddar Turnovers with Maple and Dried Cranberries:



The filling is a mixture of golden delicious apples, cheddar cheese, cranberries, walnuts, and maple syrup.

I felt really rusty in the kitchen today since I hadn't cooked in so long, and accordingly I fucked this up in a number of ways, which I will now enumerate for my future reference. First, I didn't pick a sharp enough cheddar for the filling. The recipe told me "extra sharp" but I actually got a pretty mild cheddar, which turned out to be really detrimental to the flavor of the turnovers. The cheddar is pretty flavorless, just gooey, and doesn't really add the savory note that I was hoping for when I cut this recipe out.

Next, I didn't grease or flour my baking parchment. The recipe didn't tell me I needed to, but I knew that I probably needed to anyway and didn't do it because my rustiness had me ignoring my instincts and following the recipe too closely. This same error compounded when instead of setting my baking timer for 5-10 min less than the recipe called for like I usually do-- so I can check and see whether or not whatever I'm cooking actually needs to cook for the whole time given in the recipe-- I just sat around watching football until I actually started to smell the puff pastry burning. So not only did the turnovers on the top rack get a little burnt, because I hadn't greased or floured the parchment, they stuuucccckkkkkkkkkkk. I basically had to slice a tiny slice off the entire bottom of the turnovers to get them off the parchment.

I had some leftover dough and filling after I had made as many circular cutouts as I could, so I made the leftovers into a galette:



The galette turned out much better than the turnovers precisely because I wasn't working from the recipe on it. I DID flour the bottom of it really well before putting it on the parchment, and I put it in the oven about 5 minutes after the turnovers so it didn't burn at all.

I guess that while I am being sad that I messed up my turnovers, I should be happy to know that my baking instincts are getting good enough that if I actually follow them they can lead me to improve on an already very good 4 forks rated bon appetit recipe.

I cut a few recipes out of my december bon appetit, but nothing is really jumping to mind for next weekend. There was an amazing looking recipe for spiced dough sweet rolls, but the recipe claimed it needed a stand mixer. I have an arm, so I should be able to do without a stand mixer, but the issue will need closer investigation before I buy ingredients. Stay Tuned!

An incomplete list of foods I ate in Berlin, vol 2

Man, what else did I eat in Berlin? How did I eat all this stuff and still lose weight? Answer: The Disease.

TAPAS
The best meal I had the entire trip was tapas at a place called Atame. EW and I had, in decreasing order of my favoritism: warm goat cheese with honey, lamb kebabs, fried potatoes with tomato sauce, BACON WRAPPED almond stuffed dates, and calamari (no tentacles.) EW even ate one of the bacon wrapped dates, in honor of KDF. I also had an amazing bloody mary (that was probably amazing because it had no alcohol in it.) Carcass of meal below:



Couscous
The most disappointing meal I probably had on the trip was moroccan food at a place called Kasbah. The restaurant was recommended by my guidebook, but it just wasn't that good. My soup and my couscous were both really bland! They brought us out a little dish of super spicy sauce, but it was too spicy for me to use effectively.

Doner (both sober and drunk)
When JG and CL went out to bring back some wodka gorbashev to the 2nd annual CABLab end of spr scotch drink, they also brought back some greasy, salty, amazing doners. Bless their hearts! Then when I woke up the next morning my room still smelled like fried lamb, so I had to have another, from the doner inn adjacent to my hotel. Cheap, greasy, spicy (and supposedly more popular in germany than in turkey).

Spaghetti Carbonara
I had to find out whether Germans make carbonara the italian way or the british way before my sister arrived, so I could report back. Answer: the british way, but with MUCH MORE BACON (at least at the place that I went.) So that was the only carbonara anyone had! I ate it in the hotel restaurant after my talk, along with the first cocktail on the menu that had gin as its first ingredient (I needed it!)

Moon Thai
I had thai food every day for the last 3 days. The first Thai I had was in savignyplatz at Moon Thai, where I got the best tom kha gai I've ever had in my life. I also had a sweet and sour duck that was not nearly as good-- the duck was sooooo fried it needed alot more sauce than it came with. The meat duck, that is. The carrot duck was not fried at all!



Thai Restaurant I don't remember the name of
The second thai I had was for lunch with EW and NWY right after NWY and my sister got in to germany. The Disease had set upon me in full by this meal, so all I managed to eat was about 2 bites of tom kha phak, which was nonetheless really good, even if it had broccoli in it.

Thai Inside
My tom kha gai at Thai Inside was not as good as the one I had at moon thai, it it was still better than any I had gotten to have in champaign in 5 years, so I guess that makes up for it! I was able to eat the entire portion even though I was still too beleaguered by The Disease to eat more than a couple of bites of my pumpkin curry. The pumpkin curry came with a carrot duck AND an ENTIRE GOURD. Very impressive presentation!



HARIBO Wall
Haribo makes my favorite gummy bear (Golden Bears hollah!) but they are never fresh in the US. Not so in the homeland! At the department store across the street from my hotel was an entire wall covered in all the varieties of haribo available for mix and match! I seriously ate like 3 lbs of gummy strawberries, peaches, coke bottles, berries, karmel puddings, and smurfs (they really had gummy smurfs, some with red hats!)

Burgers!
Because of the disease, I hardly left my hotel room for the last 2 days of the trip. For sustenance, my sister would venture out to the various american hamburger venues and obtain whoppers, big macs, etc during periods when I thought my stomach could actually contain food successfully. Hmmmmmmmm foreign whopper!

I think that is just about all the foods I ate in Germany! Thank you Disease, for preventing me from gaining any weight (in fact helping me to LOSE weight) despite this gluttony!

An incomplete list of foods I ate in Berlin!

Sushi
I had one sushi meal before The Disease hit me and one after. The one before was much less good (I got it in a fish market,) but I wasn't able to eat all of the one after because the orange roe was too fishy tasting for my Diseased stomach.

Giant German Pastries Covered in Various Fattening Toppings
Fattening toppings such as straight up butter, gouda cheese, and BACON. I ate bacon rolls two days in a row for breakfast. The first day it was so good I said I was going to do it every day for the rest of the trip, but by the second day either the precursors of The Disease, or slightly better judgment had set in and I couldn't keep it up. I stuck to orange juice and an apple (or a dunkin donut) for breakfast for the remainder of the trip.

Currywurst
I am such a jerk, the only place I got currywurst in berlin was in the conference center. Lame! But it was good. But probably not as good as it would have been if I had gotten it essentially anywhere else. But if I had gotten it essentially anywhere else it wouldn't have been free. Oh btw shout out here to Brain Products for sponsoring the free beer at the opening reception where I got said currywurst.

One of those 1.20 E wursts from the walking grill dudes in alexanderplatz
These dudes walk around alexanderplatz with grills strapped to their chests selling bratwurst to tourists for 1.20 E. The bratwurst is like a foot long and comes in a bun that is seriously like 2 inches long. More fun than eating it is watching all the dudes walk around eating these comically large sausages from these comically small buns.

Curry Udon, Duck Udon
For dinner after charlene and eddie had their posters, charlene, eddie, josh and I tried to go to shiro i shiro, the sushi restaurant unanimously acclaimed by every guidebook to be the best in berlin. And it was closed. Not closed like "sorry, it's 9PM, we're closed," closed like "shit, there is no floor in there anymore." We were set on having japanese food, so we went to a nearby noodle house instead. EW and I ordered a curry udon and duck udon, and split them. And I had a kirin and then a hot sake, and EW had the same hot sake and then a kirin. Symmetry! The feng shui in that noodle house must have been very good, because the meal was extremely peaceful. Or maybe that was the hot sake! I preferred the duck udon to the curry-- the broth in the duck was divine and the curry one just tasted like curry, which I like, but which was not actually divine in this preparation.

Black sesame pudding
This was my dessert at the noodle house! It was amazing. Either it had some kind of chocolate glaze on the top, or it was a MIRACLE what they had made that sesame paste taste like. This was probably my favorite sweet that I had in germany, which comes as a huge shock to me now that I realize it.



Wow, I haven't even made it to the tapas EW and I had (best meal of the trip) OR any of the tom khas I ate (including the best one I've ever had in my life), and I'm already too tired of writing and to jealous of this food as I look over my bowl of blue box to continue. I guess that means that there are going to be Incomplete List of Foods I ate in Berlin vols. 2+!

Fried Doughs I ate in New Mexico: Vol. 1 (of ???)

1. Sopapillas. I think these were the most nicely prepared food that I ate the whole time I was on vacation. We got them when they were still nice and warm, and LM taught me how to fill them with honey instead of just dribbling honey all over the top where it would attach itself to my fingers and never let go.

2. Funnel Cake. I ate a funnel cake while we walked around the State Fair! Today, I am fasting.

3. Navajo Taco. Yeah, so about 2 hours after I ate the funnel cake, I ate a medium pizza sized fry bread covered in beef, cheese, tomatoes, onions, and pinto beans. Testimonial from my still fried-dough tasting mouth "My brain kind of wants a caramel apple, but my body wishes I was dead." The fair stand we got the Navajo taco included meat for FREE instead of charging extra unlike abot 49 of the other 50 Navajo taco stands around it-- knowledge of Navajo taco prices is power!

Pumpkin Cheesecake

True to my plan, this week I made "something pumpkin-based." Specifically, a pumpkin cheesecake with pecan praline:

Some important facts about this cheesecake:

--The reason there is a huge slice taken out of the photo is that I had to wait for the cheesecake to cool overnight before I could top it with the praline-- and take the completed photo-- but I couldn't wait overnight to try it so I took out a big slice.

--I took the rest of it in to work, and emailed my lab mates immediately when I set it out so as to be sure they would get a piece. In the time it took for them to GET DOWN 1 FLIGHT OF STAIRS they ended up getting almost the last 2 pieces.

--A diabetic member of another lab on my floor took a piece home in a ziploc bag so he could eat it when he was able to deal with the sugar.

All this despite the fact that, to be honest, I think I fucked up the praline. It's not quite smooth enough. It tastes good, but the texture is not right. The sugar / butter mixture just never quite got thin enough when it was boiling, and consequently it kind of clumped up when I put the pecans in instead of coating them evenly. I'm really not sure what to do about that. It might be yet another consequence of the shitty, uneven warming characteristics of my shitty candy pan. I need to trot on over to williams sonoma and buy a fucking heavy bottomed copper candy pan and settle this shit once and for all.

The cheesecake itself is about perfect, I don't think I'd change anything. It tastes like pumpkin, and is rich and sweet and heavy and perfect. In general I'm not really wild about pecans as a topping, so if I made this again I'd probably do it up with a caramel sauce instead. Which I would probably burn because I / my pan always fucking burn(s) my caramel. Dude, maybe I'll just fucking melt some fucking brach's caramel squares with some vanilla in there (like I did for the BEARamel apples a couple of years ago at LEM and DEW's superbowl party) and drizzle it on there with my contraband-from-the-lab syringe and call it good. That sounds pretty awesome, actually.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

I'm in a tortilla soup phase! This week I tried a variation with chicken, but still lots of veggies:

I'm not as crazy about this one as the one from last week, for some reason. It's kind of bland. I should have realized that would happen-- this recipe has about the same amount of spice as the one I made last week but makes 2x as much soup. It still has a nice fall look to it, with the corn and black beans, and it's still pretty nutritious. I doubt I'll make it again though.

It might have killed my tortilla soup phase. I think next week I might make something, anything, whose main ingredient is pumpkin. Because it is fall! Yum, fall flavors!