Culinary Concoctions by Peabody

My husband has this neat little trick whenever he wants to tell me something unpleasant or something I will not be in favor of. He likes to email me from work so that I have about 7 hours to chill out before he gets home. He knows that my annoyance will have subsided and all he will be left with is a rolling of the eyes and a stern shaking of my pointer finger(yes, pointer… not middle :P) at him.
So a couple weeks ago I get an email telling me that he bought a Nintendo Wii System. I had told him that if the Wii every came out with a hockey game then we could buy one…apparently he thought I meant air hockey. Since there was no ice hockey game for me to play he tried to bribe me with the next best thing, a game called Cooking Mama. For those unfamiliar with the Wii(like my mother), it is a video game system that is interactive….when you bowl,  you actually have to make the motion like you are bowling or it wont work. Anyway, so in Cooking Mama you have to make dishes(you chop, stir, pour, season…everything cooking involved) and eventually you compete against other chefs, kind of like in an Iron Chef way. Well I suck ass at this game. It is rather hard and the only recipe that I do well on is the crème caramel. I have made crème caramel so much in the game now that it got me wanting to make it in real, not virtual, life.
Spending most of my adult life in Arizona, I ate Flan, not crème caramel. They are not the exactly the same but darn close…kind of like the Patty Duke Show(for those of you who are super old like me), they are the identical cousins of the culinary world(though I feel Flan is more eggy). As usual, in order to try and will Fall to show up early, I made a Fall inspired crème caramel….a pear-nutmeg one(by the way, the ju-ju worked….it is 57F right now and raining!). The pear is not actually in the crème part but in the caramel. Instead of water you substitute the nectar or juice…it makes for one yummy caramel. Throw in a splash of my favorite spice, nutmeg, and Fall can’t help but want to come early(or so I hope).
For those of you wondering, the Wii is totally worth it’s cost….and I don’t like video games. It is truly addicting and I play it far more than my husband does! If my ankle was any better I would probably play it even more. I believe that is called irony?

If you would like another flavor other than pear, just use a nectar/juice of your choice.

Pear-Nutmeg Creme Caramel

Caramel
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup pear nectar/juice

Custard
1 cup whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
pinch salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp nutmeg(fresh)
2/3 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 egg yolk
 
Directions:
Caramel
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Combine the juice and sugar in a medium-sized, heavy-bottomed pot. Cook over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. Tilt pan to ensure that sugar is dissolved. Do not stir the mixture or the sugar will crystallize. Increase heat to high and cook until sugar turns amber in colour.
Pour liquid caramel into six 3-inch (6 ounce) ramekins, dividing equally and tilting ramekins to cover the bottoms with the caramel.
Custard
Over medium heat, bring milk and cream just to a boil in medium saucepan with salt, nutmeg and vanilla. Remove from heat and cover and let steep for 10 minutes. Add the sugar and stir with a wooden spoon until dissolved.
Stir together eggs and egg yolk in a medium bowl until well blended. Add warm milk and stir. Strain the mixture over a large measuring cup or clean bowl and pour or ladle over caramel-lined ramekins.
Transfer ramekins to a baking pan. Add enough hot water to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake in preheated oven until a tester comes out clean when inserted in the centers and the crème caramel jiggles as one, about 25 to 30 minutes. Remove ramekins from bath. Let cool to room temperature.

One more picture because it was just so pretty.

I used to be so good. I used to participate in  all the food blogging events  from SHF to HHDD. But something along the way happened. Life I suppose. And I am so out of the loop that I couldn’t tell you what things were going on…except one. ..La Festa Al Fresco. Co-hosted by two of my close food blogging buddies, Lis of La Mia Cucina and Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice. It would be in true bad form for me to miss out. I figured I would get going on it early(we have until September 3rd…but I didn’t want to press my luck lately). It’s quite simple really, prepare a dish(from appetizer to dessert doesn’t matter) using a fresh, seasonal ingredient(preferably from your region). I however, did not follow directions very well.
For my seasonal ingredient I chose dried cherries. Now those are not fresh I know but I really wanted some bread pudding and I didn’t want real cherries, I wanted dried(they were fresh at one time). Cherries are at the end of their season here in the Pacific Northwest, but dried cherries you can get year round(luckily). Bread pudding being my favorite dessert, oddly enough has only made it on my blog one other time(my favorite comfort version using croissants). This version uses Challah bread(from a local bakery…I don’t bake bread in 85F weather). This of course is really more of a Fall dish, but we all know that I have been willing for Fall to come early all Summer, so this should come as no surprise. Bread pudding to me is the ultimate comfort dessert, and with all that has been swirling around in my life lately, a big bowl of comfort sounded good to me.
If you didn’t participate in La Festa Al Fresco last year, I highly recommend that you do. Head on over to either Lis or Ivonne’s blogs to get the 411.

Dried Cherry Challah Bread Pudding

½ loaf of Challah bread(or more depending on what size dish you use)
1 cup heavy cream
¾  cup whole milk
4 egg yolks
1/3 cup of sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon nutmeg
½ tsp vanilla
½ tsp cinnamon
1 ½ cups dried cherries

Preheat oven to 350F.

1.Tear bread into pieces and place into baking dish. Sprinkle bread with the dried cherries. Make another layer of bread and sprinkle with dried cherries. Repeat as many times as you have indgredients and room.
2.Mix the egg yolks, sugars, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg together in a bowl. Then stir in the heavy cream.
3.Pour the custard over the bread. Press down the bread pieces until the bread is soaked with the custard. You will most likely have extra custard depending on how stale your bread is. Don’t feel like you have to use all the custard.
4.Place pan into another pan that will hold a water bath. Bake the bread pudding for 45-50 minutes until golden on top. Cool 10 minutes and serve warm.

Toffee Sauce

3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup unsalted butter
1/3 cup whipping cream
1.Stir brown sugar and butter in heavy medium saucepan over medium heat until melted and smooth, about 2 minutes.
2. Add cream bring to a simmer. Simmer for about 5 minutes and then serve on top of pudding.

Boy if some days you just need a stiff drink. Well I have needed one for the last 10 days. One of these days I will break down and give you all the 411 but for now let us just say that there is much stress in my life. I being not that much of a home drinker, have no real hard alcohol at home, just liqueur used for baking. Grand Marnier shots anymore(ew)?
So needless to say the only liquor I was having was going into a baked good. These brownies can be used with any type of liqueur you would like. I chose Kahlua. This recipe makes a huge batch as I originally made it for a school picnic(for teachers not students). This time around I made a half batch and had to bake them longer since I used a thicker pan.
That’s it, that is all you are getting, just a drive by post.

Liqueured Brownies

(serves 24-36…a ton of brownies)

1 cup cocoa powder
1 cup plus 2 TBSP unsalted butter
5 large eggs
1 ½ tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups sugar
½ cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup Kahlua
½ cup all-purpose flour
2 cups chocolate chips/chunks

Preheat oven to 350.
Grease and flour a jelly roll pan. If you are halving the batch you can use a 9 by 13 inch pan. Melt butter and stir in cocoa powder. Set aside.
In a mixing bowl combine eggs, sugars and vanilla. Beat for 5 minutes on medium-high speed.
Add flour and chocolate/butter mixture, stirring until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips/chunks.
Pour into pan and bake 25-30 minutes(if you are making the half batch in the 9 by 13 inch pan baking time increased to about 40 minutes).
Brush hot brownies with liqueur, cover with plastic wrap and let set for 30 minutes before frosting.

Chocolate Buttercream Liqueured Frosting

3 cups powdered sugar
½ cup cocoa powder
6 TBSP butter, at room temperature
¼ cup heavy cream
¼ cup Kahlua

Beat butter and powdered sugar together on medium high for about 3 minutes. Add cocoa powder and beat another 2 minutes. Add liqueur slowly until mixture is creamy. Spread on cooled brownies.

 In 7th grade I took Home Economics. The old school way was half a year was sewing(I still can not sew on a button) and the other half was cooking. We had to fly solo in sewing class(which was taught by the math teacher…again, perhaps why I can’t even sew on a button). But in cooking class we had a partner. Little did I know that my partner D and I would be partners in class all the way through our undergrad degrees. Oddly enough only two of those times we selected each other. The other 9 times were random. Yes, I had the same cooking partner and lab partner 11 times. D was not someone I would have chosen. For starters, D is a guy. He took Home EC to scam on chics, and well, I was so not someone he wanted to scam on. So we didn’t start off the best. We so did not get along in Home EC. He never paid attention and I ended up doing all the cooking. Luckily by the time we got to high school, that all changed. We learned to draw on each others strengths to get each other through the class. In Biology, he did all the dissecting. In Chem class I did all the calculations and so on. We didn’t hang out together, we ran in very different crowds, but he did become someone I ended up depending on time and time again. He was even nice enough to get suspended for 3 days for telling our Physics teacher to go fuck himself for saying that girls were too stupid to take physics(on our first day of class….and by the way I carried the highest grade the whole year and scored a perfect score on my AP exam).
Anyway, back to our Home EC days. So like I had said, D was of little help. Oh he would stir stuff and what not to look busy but that was about it. One day we were making pumpkin pie. I had to use the rest room and I told him to go gather our ingredients. For some stupid reason all of our ingredients were put into bowls. And right next to each other was the salt and the sugar. I’m sure you know where this story is going. D, had grabbed us a cup and a half of salt. This of course did not become apparent till it started to bake, and curdle a little. Unfortunately for us, the main rule in class was, whatever you bake/cook(allergies excluded) you had to take a bite of. So that was the day I threw up in class. Salt pie is not something that tastes all that good.
These bar cookies come from our 7th grade Home Economics cookbook that we made at the end of the year. It had every recipe that we made. I have to say, we made quite a bit. And I must have gone to a pretty rich school, because there is no way there would be funding for all that food nowadays. It’s fun to thumb through it. I have little glitter sticker stars next to the things I liked. My name and some boy named John, who I can’t seem to remember, captured in a little heart with swirls all around it.
I’m pretty sure that this cookbook is the only useful thing I got out of junior high.

Rocky Road Cookie Bars 

1/2 cup sifted flour
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 TBSP butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups mini marshmallows
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 12oz package chocolate chips

Beat with mixer first 7 ingredients, EXCEPT for the nuts. Add nuts and stir, pour into greased 9×12-inch pan(I used 8×8 because there seemed to be sooo little batter I didn’t even think it would spread out. But it does puff up quite a bit so perhaps you should stick with the original plan). Bake for 15-20 minutes. Immediately layer with 3 last ingredients(since I used and 8×8 pan I used half the amount of the toppings).
Bake for another 5-7 minutes. Remove and swirl topping with knife. Cool and cut into squares.

These turn out very gooey and not so fun to cut. But considering the fact that they are from a home economics cookbook, they are pretty good. I would like to go back and try it in the 9×13 inch pan to see what kind of difference it would make.

Source: A piece of cake…the cookbook from my home ec class, 1984(yes, I’m old :P)