Lembas Bread Recipe

1 3/4 cups of whole wheat flour
1 3/4 cups of white flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 3/4 teaspoons ground cardamom
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 cup ground pecans (ground with an electric spice grinder)
8 Tablespoons cold butter
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup honey (local is best)
4-5 oz half and half
1/4 cup apple cider (apple juice is acceptable)

Place dry ingredients in food processor and pulse to mix. Add small chunks of butter in three portions and mix well. Transfer to large mixing bowl. Add sugar and honey, and mix with a wooden spoon. Add liquids. Start with 4 oz (1/2 cup) half and half and add a bit more if needed. Mix until a soft, sticky dough forms. Flour a worksurface and knead dough by hand briefly. Roll out the dough until a generous 1/2 inch thick. Cut into ~3" squares. Transfer to a greased cookie sheet, leaving a little space. Cut criss-crosses into each square with a knife. Bake at 425 °F for 14 minutes, until just browned. Ovens may vary.
This makes 1.5 sheets worth, so put them in the oven together and rotate the sheets (individually and between racks) halfway through.

1 lb (480 g) plain white flour

1 level teaspoon baking soda

1 level teaspoon cream of tartar

pinch salt

2 oz (60 g) butter

4 oz (120 g) sugar

4 oz (120 g) raisins

1 egg, beaten

1/2 pint (300 mL) buttermilk

Preheat oven to 200°C (400° F). In a bowl, sift the flour with the baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt, and rub in the butter until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add sugar and raisins and mix through. Add the egg and buttermilk, mixing well with a knife. Knead lightly and shape the dough into a round of about 3 in. thickness. Mark the top with a cross using a knife. Bake on a greased baking tray for 45 minutes or until golden brown—the base should sound hollow when tapped.

A Trifle, A Coddle, A Fry: An Irish Literary Cookbook by Veronica O’Mara and Fionnuala O’Reilly.

It's easy enough to leave out raisins if desired!

Their Black Onyx Pudding recipe fills 14 red solo cup small shotglasses. I used 1.25 c half&half and 1 c 2% milk. The pudding is not too sweet, but very good. I'd like to serve it with sweet whipped cream on top--too bad the Agora doesn't have a pressurized-gas dispenser.

BBQ Cheese Crackers made like seventy, using a 1.166-scale batch to use up the last of the MidAmeriCon II spice blend. So amazingly good. I will have to make these for a potluck.

Threw a bunch of Pearl St. Rub on some salmon, let it sit for 40 or so minutes, then threw under the broiler on low. The sugary rub burned after 7 minutes, but looks like the meat will be fine and I'll scrape off the crust and throw some extra spice blend in with the served version.

Meat
9:30 pm
5 tbl Planters Seed Co Brisket & Rib Rub, 2 tbl kosher salt, 1 tbl raw sugar; combine and use to cover 2x 2.5 lb brisket cuts. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
11:00 am
Remove meat from fridge & place in roasting pan on rack; preheat oven to 300 °F. Roast 1 hour; reduce heat to 245 °F, pour some red wine into pan, cover with aluminum foil, and roast another 5 hours. (I think)

BBQ Sauce
11:30 am
1 can diced tomatoes, in saucepan on high to start breaking down.
1 c ketchup; 1/2 c + 2 tbl brown sugar, 1/2 c + 2 tbl apple cider vinegar; 1/4 c molasses; 2 tsp liquid smoke; 1 tbl butter; 2.5 tsp Planters Seed Co Brisket & Rib Rub; black pepper. Simmered 25 minutes. Added more salt and some garlic powder to taste. Let simmer a while longer until delicious, then transfered to squeeze bottles. This amount exactly filled two plastic squeeze bottles of the size that is in the cabinet.

Sourdough Cornbread
10:00 pm
Start up sourdough starter, using some skim milk and some water.
9:00 am
add about 1/4 cup each flour and water; remove roughly 1/4 cup starter
12:30 pm
remove starter and differentiate with cornmeal, evap milk.

Honey Butter (thank you Alton!)
1:00 remove butter from fridge
1:30 whip butter with hand mixer; add honey, vanilla, cinnamon and mix. Transfer to small tupperware and refrigerate

Green Thing
1:00 pm
boil water; trim and chop green beans; boil for 10 min, then ice, drain, and hold.

Finishing
5:00 pm
check meat temps
remove to rest and cool (plenty of flexibility here)
D-30 minutes:
spike oven, heating pan and bacon grease
finish cornbread mixing, add grease, bake bread
melt butter, saute garlic, saute green beans
slice meat; serve with MACII tongs

1 package chicken breasts, removed from freezer around 9 am.
sometime mid-late morning, chopped semi-thawed chicken into small pieces. Placed in gallon ziploc bag. Added 3 oz each lemon juice (some lime included), apple cider vinegar, and vegetable oil, as per SSS suggestion. Added about 2 tablespoons Colorado Plateau Citrus Pepper blend from Savory Spice Shop. Allowed to marinate in fridge until 6:30 pm.

Dumped entire contents of ziploc into cast iron skillet over medium-high. Cooked until chicken was done through (didn't brown due to all the water-based liquids) and marinade reduced. Removed chicken to a bowl. Added 1 bag of lo mein stir fry mix (frozen veg and noodles). Added remainder of the 2 oz spice packet I started with (maybe another Tablespoon??). Cooked until veg seemed thawed and done. Returned chicken to pan and stirred. Added a bit of brown sugar to counteract the acidity. Allowed diners to season with as much Ghost Pepper Salt as they wanted. (Or regular salt, but nobody took that option.)

Ratio pretty good--could use a bit more veg, but not too bad. Spicy salt a good addition. Maybe orange would have been a better juice, but I don't stock it. ... son of a gun there is some in the fridge.

From Cook's Illustrated Sept/Oct 2009 issue, 1.5x

9/8 cup Everclear (instead of vodka, because we might drink our vodka)
1.5 vanilla beans, split and scraped as much as possible.

Vanilla into a clean empty lingonsylt jar, ethanol microwaved until boiling and poured over. (I am so not used to handling ethanol anymore. Density, viscosity, and boiling point are very different from water.) Mixture allowed to cool to room temperature. Jar sealed, shaken, and labeled "vanilla extract start 12-7-14".

Recipe says to shake gently every day for a week, then strain and store in a cool dark place.

Hm! A suggestion via Twitter is to dilute this all-ethanol extract with distilled water to get 65% water, 35% ethanol. I guess that is what is usually done. Now I am concerned about potency of this extract. There's only 5% water in the everclear. If some of the flavoring extracts into water, I won't be getting much of it. The recipe also doesn't call for diluting, since vodka is much more water-based. That means I might not have enough bean for the quantity of vodka present.
Best case, it won't matter, and I can just use this stuff straight. Worst case, I'll do a second extract with new beans into water, and then mix the two to get the right ethanol-water ratio.

Altered procedure after further discussion:

5.5 oz of above mixture was poured off, leaving behind solids and as much sediment as possible. An additional half of a vanilla bean was split, scraped, and added. 5.5 oz filtered water (brita pitcher) was heated to near-boiling in the microwave, then added. Solution is now cloudy. Allowed to cool to room temperature.

Smoking Bishop Recipe

This recipe will make enough for about 10 small glasses, double the ingredients to make a large punch bowl to serve around 20 people. It can also be re-corked in the wine bottles once cool and be re-heated and drunk in small batches over a few days.

You can use just oranges (older, bitter varieties) or just a few lemons (making it an Oxford University ‘Bishop’) although this recipe gives the right balance and authentic taste using 6 modern variety oranges and two lemons, which is then sweetened to taste with sugar.

Recipe Ingredients:

6 large oranges

2 large lemons

120g of brown sugar (demerara)

1 bottle (750ml) red wine

1 bottle (750ml) ruby port

8 cloves

3 cinnamon sticks

1/4 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground allspice

1/4 tsp ground mace

To serve:

1 or 2 lemons, cut into wedges to serve

1 or 2 oranges, cut into wedges to serve

a grating of nutmeg over the top

The day before: bake the large oranges and lemons in the oven on a shallow baking tray (with a lip to contain any leaking juice) on a low heat at 120°C until they are pale brown (after about an hour and a half). If any liquid leaks from the fruit when baking pour this from the tray into the bowl with the fruit and wine. After the fruit has baked in the oven stud the oranges and lemons with one of the cloves pricked into each, place into a large bowl, add the ground ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and mace. Add the sugar and pour in the wine – but not the port or the cinnamon sticks. Stir gently for a few minutes. Cover and leave in a warm place overnight or for 24 hours.

The next day: cut the baked oranges and lemons in half and squeeze all the juice into the spiced wine in the bowl. Do not worry about adding in the pulp and pips, this will be strained through a sieve next. Pour this wine, fruit and spice mix through a sieve into a large saucepan, use the back of a spoon to press out the juice from the pulp in the sieve. Then add the cinnamon sticks. Heat the wine to a high simmer for 5 minutes, then turn down the heat under the saucepan and add the port and heat for 20 minutes very gently (so as not to boil away the alcohol). In the last two minutes turn up the heat to a medium simmer and get the Bishop ‘smoking’ hot with vapors rising.

Following the advice given in 1836, “sweeten it to your taste, and serve it up with the lemon and spice floating in it” – taste the Bishop and add in a little more sugar if it is needed.

When the Bishop is hot through and ‘smoking’ pour into a heat-proof punch bowl or serving jug (including the cinnamon sticks) with fresh cut wedges of lemon and orange, and serve in goblets, or heat-proof glasses, and drink warm – optional, take the advice from Eliza Acton in 1845, either grate a little nutmeg on top of the Bishop in the serving jug or bowl, or as I do, grate it individually on top of the Bishop in the glasses if people request it.

I heated for 20 minutes, then transferred back to the wine/port bottles and stored overnight at room temp. An excellent drink; I described it as mulled sangria.

It being time for The Desolation of Smaug, I came back to the Lembas recipe from last year and made the suggested changes.

a generous 1.75 tsp cardamom
1/8 tsp ground cloves
a generous 1/4 cup ground pecans, because we had them and did not have almonds
used cider from the Dockrey orchard
used half and half instead of milk

Kneaded dough by hand for a couple of minutes before rolling it out.

Let's see how it does!
*time passes*
Ohh, very nice. The pecans and the half & half add just the right extra fat to soften the flavor and texture. This batch is less crumbly than before, and the flavor is excellent. Sticking with this recipe from now on.

Rhubarb Sorbet Recipe

Prep time: 3 hours
Also makes great popsicles! Just pour mixture into popsicle molds and freeze.

Ingredients

3 1/2 cups of chopped fresh rhubarb (4-5 stalks)
2 1/2 cups of water
1 2/3 cups of sugar
1/4 teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons of orange zest [can use a generous half teaspoon of dried zest)
2 teaspoons of chopped fresh ginger [can grate a generous half tsp of dried whole ginger]
2 tablespoons of corn syrup

1 Place rhubarb, sugar, water, salt, orange zest, and ginger in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 5 minutes, or until the rhubarb easily falls apart and the sugar has dissolved.

2 Cool for 10 minutes. Working in batches, purée in a blender until smooth. Press through a fine mesh strainer to remove the pulp; discard the pulp. [I did this but I don't actually think it made a difference.] Stir in corn syrup. Cover and refrigerate [in 1 gal ziploc bag] until totally chilled, several hours or overnight.

3 Process in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. The sorbet will have a soft texture right out of the ice cream maker. If you would like a firmer consistency, transfer the sorbet to an airtight container and place in freezer for several hours. Once frozen, you may need to let it sit for a few minutes at room temperature to soften before serving.

I'm just leaving this here until certain bacon-eating parties return from Points Abroad. It would be a terrible idea to make these without help around to eat them.

http://jenni-the-cook.livejournal.com/6107.html

Hot and Tangy Mustard
Recipe fro

1/2 cup Colman's dry mustard
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
1 large egg
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Whisk together dry mustard and vinegar in a medium metal bowl until smooth. Chill, covered, overnight.
Bring a medium saucepan filled with 1 inch water to a simmer. To bowl of vinegary mustard, whisk in 1/4 cup water, egg, sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Set bowl over simmering water and cook, whisking constantly, until mustard thickens, 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from heat, whisk for a minute, and then let cool.

http://www.savoryspiceshop.com/recipes/ghost-pepper-salted-guinness-pretzels.html
Salted with kosher salt, and some additionally sprinkled with a very small amount of Ghost Chile Salt.

Guinness Chocolate Mousse

8 oz semi sweet chocolate
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp Baker's Brew Coffee Spice
3/4 cup Guinness stout
3 x large eggs, separated
1 cup heavy whipping cream

In a small bowl set over a pot of simmering water, or a double-boiler, combine the chocolate, butter, sugar, and Baker’s Brew Coffee Spice. Stir until the chocolate has melted and the mixture is smooth. Stir in the Guinness and whisk in the egg yolks. Remove from heat.

In a small bowl, whip the cream with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Fold the cream, into the chocolate mixture. With clean beaters,in a medium bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Fold the whites into the chocolate mixture. Fill wine or shot glasses, parfait bowls, or ramekins and refrigerate. Serve with freshly whipped cream, containing 1 c heavy whipping cream, 1.5 tbls powdered sugar, and a pinch of Baker’s Brew Coffee Spice.
Yields: 8 servings

this is good on pretty much any sort of bread.

2 sticks butter
2 tblsp honey
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

(use the good stuff--local honey and Tahitian vanilla--if you've got it, which i do.)

Put the softened butter in a bowl and whip briefly with a handmixer. When it doesn't look like sticks anymore, add the flavorings. Continue whipping until it's all mixed together and the butter's light and fluffy. Transfer to tupperware and put in the fridge. Feel free to lick the beaters, meanwhile ignoring your cardiologist. You don't have one? You will if you keep licking butter off of beaters.

Tasty stirfry!

2x chicken breasts, chunked up
sauted in some canola oil until cooked through and just barely starting to brown
set aside
mixed tamari sauce, rice vinegar, about 1.5 tsp cornstarch, generous 1/2 tsp Chinese five-spice powder in a small bowl--added enough cornstarch for a color about matching how I like my tea with milk
heated more oil
threw in chopped garlic and (ideally) chopped ginger
added a mixed bag of frozen asian veggies (broccoli, carrots, bell peppers, snow peas, water chestnuts)
cooked those 5 minutes
added sauce mix and cooked; tossed to coat
added chicken back in and mixed well

served over rice (1 cup rice, 2 cups water, some salt, boil then cover and cook until meat&veg are done)

om nom nom nom nom nom

I am conducting an Experiment in literary baking.

Here's the best, most faithful lembas recipe I found:
http://wastedlandsfantasy.blogspot.com/2010/12/lembas-elvish-waybread-real-world.html

And here's what I've done.
1 3/4 cups of whole wheat flour
1 3/4 cups of white flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
scant 2 teaspoons ground cardamom
1/4 cup ground sliced almonds (ground with an electric spice grinder)
8 Tablespoons cold butter
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup honey
4-5 oz milk
1/4 cup apple juice or apple cider

Place dry ingredients in food processor and pulse to mix. Add small chunks of butter in three portions and mix well. Transfer to large mixing bowl. Add sugar and honey [I used local raw meadowsweet], and mix with a wooden spoon. Add milk [whole, in this case] and cider [spiced]. Start with 4 oz (1/2 cup) milk and add a bit more if needed. Mix until a soft, sticky dough forms. Flour a worksurface and roll out the dough until a generous 1/2 inch thick. Cut into ~3" squares, using my wooden-handled metal spatula as a guide. Transfer to a greased cookie sheet, leaving a little space. Cut criss-crosses into each square with a knife. Bake at 440 °F for 14 minutes, until just browned.
My batch made 1.5 sheets worth, so I put them in the oven together and rotated the sheets halfway through.

End result: good texture, a little more breadlike than a scone, but similar. The cardamom is a nice taste. The other flavors aren't distinct, but the whole ensemble is delicious. These would be really good with orange marmalade.

I might try kneading a bit more to develop some gluten, but not by much. I might try adding a hint of clove, maybe, or a bit less cardamom.

Cranberry Ice Cream Recipe

Ingredients

2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries
1/2 cup water
4 cups milk
4 cups sugar
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 cup orange juice
1/2 cup lemon juice

Directions

In a large saucepan, cook cranberries and water over medium heat until berries pop, about 15 minutes. Strain; discard seeds and skins. Cool completely. Meanwhile, in a large saucepan, heat milk to 175°; stir in sugar until dissolved. Cool. Stir in the cream, juices and cranberry mixture.
Fill cylinder of ice cream freezer; freeze according to manufacturer's directions. Refrigerate remaining mixture until ready to freeze. Allow to ripen in ice cream freezer or firm up in the refrigerator freezer for 2-4 hours before serving. Yield: 3 quarts.

I did a half recipe and substituted lemon juice for orange and lime juice for lemon. After the cranberries were cooked, I added the juices and let that mixture sit while I dealt with the dairy. Next time, I'll heat the milk, sugar, and cream together to a higher temperature until it starts to thicken a bit. I transferred it to a bag in the fridge and let it cool; I hesitated to add acid to milk until just before churning. When I did churn it, after straining the cranberry-citrus mixture in, it didn't quite thicken up. I put the ice cream freezer back in the large freezer for a few hours, then rechurned it. It still ended up like soft-serve. The flavor was excellent. Next time I think I'll do 1.5 cups of cranberries, just so it's a bit more intense, but I really liked the citrus addition. A bit like a Cosmo, and a bit like rainbow sherbet.

COPYCAT H.V. RANCH DRESSING MIX

1/2 cup dry buttermilk (can use regular powdered milk, but I'm not sure how that would affect taste/texture)
1 T. dried parsley flakes
1 tsp. instant minced onions
1 tsp. dill weed
1 tsp. garlic salt
1 tsp. onion powder
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper

Throw ingredients in a blender or food processor and mix until it's finely 'powdered'.

(For 1 batch of Oyster Crackers, start with 3 tbls powdered buttermilk, and scale everything to about 0.38)

For Seasoned Crackers:
Dump 16 oz oyster crackers into a gallon ziplock bag, along with 1/4 cup vegetable oil. Close bag and toss to coat. Dump in dressing mix, to which you may add a little more pepper, garlic salt, or dill as desired. Seal and toss to coat. Spread on ungreased baking sheet and bake 23 minutes at 250 °F.

Cape Fear Punch, Good Eats: Feeling Punchy

750 mL Bulleit Rye Whiskey
750 mL water
0.5 cup demerara sugar (or turbinado, brown, and white sugars mixed)
3 bags green tea, steeped about 4 minutes in sugar water
375 mL Courvoisier cognac
375 mL Myers rum, original dark
zest of 5 small lemons

mix and store in fridge.

mix with 2 bottles champagne and 1 L sparkling water. Ice it.

Double the quick cheeseburger pie recipe. Skip the crust. Fry up as much bacon as will fit in your cast iron skillet and set aside. Saute the onions and garlic, then add the meat. Season with chili powder, cumin, pepper, and Lawry's Seasoned Salt. Swap cornstarch in for flour, using less than half as much. Add probably more than 2 c cheese, and add the now-crumbled bacon back in along with the pickles. Bake in a 9x13 casserole dish. Put the rest of the cheese on 15-20 minutes in, and then bake until melted and bubbly.

Chai concentrate, after Cedars Restaurant with some tips from <lj user="damianaswan">

27 c H2O (about as much as an 8-quart stockpot will comfortably hold)
9 bags decaf orange pekoe tea
9 bags decaf Market Spice tea
1 tablespoon ground cardamom
2.5 tablespoons whole cloves
2 generous teaspoons fennel seed
a smidgen of ginger

Place teabags in water. Place spices in two small fillable tea bags and place those in water. Bring to a boil and keep somewhere above a simmer but below a properly rolling boil for 20 minutes. This will reduce the volume somewhat. Add 3 cups sugar or sugar-equivalent sweetener. Turn off the heat, remove the teabags, and squeeze the liquid out with chompers. Transfer to pitchers and store in fridge. Mix about 1:1 or 1:2 with milk.
Makes 5 quarts, based on the measurements on the sides of the pitchers.

Chai Ice Cream
based on a fusion of two recipes online, plus Cedars' chai.

In a medium saucepan, heat 1 cup heavy cream, 3/4 cup sugar, a pinch kosher salt, and a 4x batch of Cedars chai spices (1 tbl cardamom, 32 cloves, 1 tsp fennel seed). When it bubbles gently, add 1 cup milk and 8 orange pekoe tea bags. Bring back to bubbling and let steep for 10 minutes or so. Strain into a small bowl. Press the teabags to extract all the liquid. Set up a small bowl with 1 cup heavy cream over an ice bath. In a separate bowl, whisk 6 egg yolks. Pour in the flavored cream very slowly, whisking constantly to temper the eggs. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and heat over low to medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Strain the custard into the chilled cream and stir to stop the cooking. Once thoroughly mixed, cover and refrigerate until chilled.

Assemble ice cream on the kitchenaid: install the drive converter (which removes the orbital motion) and affix the bowl and dasher. Turn the mixer on to STIR and pour in the ice cream custard. Allow to mix for 24 minutes, or until the dasher slips and clicks. Transfer to plastic container and chill for some quantity of hours.

The soft-serve state is a little too warm for perfection, alas.

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Recent Entries

Lembas Bread, final version

Irish Soda Bread

Savory Spice Shop Notes

Kitchen BBQ (AKA Birthday Dinner)

A thing like stir fry

Mad Science: Vanilla

Smoking Bishop

Smoking Bishop Recipe

Recipe Ingredients:

Lembas Bread: the next generation

Rhubarb Sorbet

Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies

Recipes to accompany bratwurst

Honey Butter

Improvised dinner!

Lembas Bread!

(no subject)

Cranberry Ice Cream Recipe

Directions

Oyster Crackers

punch!

Quick Cheeseburger Casserole