slow and... well... slow

soooooo, here's that blanket i'm working on for my daughter... progress has been made, yes. i thought for a minute there it'd be done in time for the offspring's birthday (two weeks from today) but...yeah not likely. i think we're back to hopefully finishing it by the time she graduates from high school... tho maybe, if i really apply myself, i can get it done in time for her 8th grade graduate instead... in 5 years... tho the optimist buried DEEEP inside me says if i really and TRULY apply myself, she could have it for Christmas... we shall see...

right edge is the bottom of the blanket

bbq _____________

- no picture... no clever title... so lame *hangs head in shame* yet so tasty!

it's been some time since i made bbq sauce from scratch. a shamefully long time really, so last week, or was it two weeks ago?  eh, who knows *shrug*. i made sure (or so i thought) i had everything when i went to the grocery store and that saturday, went to town. the daughter wanted to help, sure thing li'l lady. she was all excited. love it!

if you've been paying attention, you know by now that if you expect quantities you'll be disappointed... I tried and tried to come up with some approximations, but it just wasn't working. the general method to the madness goes like this:

1. start w/ enough ketchup to make the amt of sauce you want
2. add flavors that you like in quantities you think you'll like them
3. stir
4. taste
5. adjust

the beauty of the lack of measurement is that hey you can make it what you want, as sweet or as tangy or as whatever, just by tasting it and adding a li'l more this or that as you see fit. the beauty of this 'recipe' is that if you don't have all of them, no worries, the sauce will just have a different sort of vibe. the last time i made it, i didn't have onions or worcestershire, but it's still delish.

sauce ingredients

• ketchup 
• spicy mustard 
• soy sauce 
• lemon juice (fresh is ideal of course, but real lemon does the trick as well)
• garlic (either powder, minced (jar or fresh), they all work)
• onion (either powder, or fresh)
• worcestershire sauce
• honey
• brown sugar (light or dark works taste wise, dark will give you a darker color of course)
• apple cider vinegar

mix it all up

i typically make it on the stove on med/low heat. if you're going to end up cooking the meat in the sauce, you wouldn't necessarily need to. If you're going to end up just putting it as is on something cooked, I'd recommend it, just to make sure the sugar's all dissolved and all the various liquids come together. i'm no super culinarian so I don't actually KNOW that the heat is necessary to make that happen, but i'm ok w/ the logic and hey, it can't hurt it.

on the meat 

lately i only season the meat itself w/ salt and pepper and then don't put it in the sauce. also, this go around i also added mccormick smokehouse maple grill mate to the meat itself. added a smokey maple-y-ness to the final product. necessary? not at all, they didn't always make those, ya know. and this is a long standing 'recipe'  *grin*

And that's about it. use it in a pan... in a pot... on a grill... in a crock... whatever you're pleasure. when i made the bbq chicken, i cooked the chicken and then added the sauce and let it simmer in the sauce for a li'l bit before dinner. when i made ribs just yesterday, i added a li'l bit just to cover the meat when i put it in the crock (2 racks, maybe abt 2 lbs or so, hi for abt 4.5 hrs). then when they were done, i took them out of the crock, put them in  a cake pan, covered them w/ the rest of the sauce. I SHOULD have cut the ribs first THEN  poured the sauce over it, but it all worked out anyway. DEEE ELISH!

secret ingredient: GINGER - alle cuisine!

A few weeks ago I thought - hmmm I need to make the 1-2-3-4 cake again (the one that i didn't realize was to make 3 layers until too late...) and go ahead and make the 3 layers. Hmmm, what to fill it with... so mulled over that now and again, hadn't come up with anything... Untiiilll dinner at Buddakhan for my anniversary...in...July... yeah this post was a long time coming, lol. One of their desserts has "ginger cream cheese". Eureka! Ginger. I typically make cream cheese frosting so there ya go. So was birthed the notion of making a cake that involved ginger. What follows is the story of that notion come reality...

I decided that because I was (uh am) still obsessed w/ chocolate ganache, I'd make a ginger infused choc ganache for the filling. For this I wanted fresh ginger. I aimed for a root that was lengthy because I got it in my head that lengthy strips of ginger might be cool.





I peeled and julienned some ginger. Oh about...that much. I didn't measure it. I'm bad that way... I should probably work on that... I can tell you that it was a cup of heavy cream tho (but only b/c that's what the ganache recipe I used said). I also need to work on my julienning skills. They could have been thinner I think. I didn't want a dice or shred b/c I just wanted to flavor the ganache. I didn't actually want to have pieces of ginger in the filling.

I put some of the ginger in the cream. Looked at it. Thought about it for a minute and then added some more. And let it heat up.

I didn't think it was quite gingery enough by the time it was ready to add the chocolate so I opted to leave it in there once I added the chocolate. Whisk...whisk...whisk... ymmm yumm yumm...

Eventually, it tasted gingery enough and given that I didn't want chunks of ginger in the filling, I now had to take all that ginger out. I had the bright idea that perhaps I could use it as a garnish on the cake, so I actually painstakingly took out each piece and laid it on a piece of parchment, uh I mean wax paper (the amateur foodie's parchment). Hadn't seemed like THAT much ginger when I was dumping it in by the handful... But there it is. Chocolate Covered Ginger. Sounds delish doesn't it? It did to me, so I had a taste. the first few bites were great...then it hit me that really I hadn't heated it for but so long and even tho there was a decent bit of it's flavor still in the pan this was still all but raw ginger. WHEW! Tasty? Yes. Strong? DEFinitely. At which point it was determined that this would not go all over the top of the cake. If I were to do it again, I think I'd have to make more of an effort to kill more of the gingeryness to make it more palatable to the average palate.

We now interrupt the more interesting sections of this entry to say that in spite of my willingness to go 3 layers, I just put the cake batter into 2 cake pans...whiiich we'll see later, may have been my uh... well not a good idea... Meanwhile back at the ranch...

Icing time. We start with a basic (I guess) cream cheese frosting recipe (I'd love to put a link but I can't remember where it was, I think I find a new one every time. It involved cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar and vanilla if that helps...) I added 1 tbsp of minced ginger to start. Tasted it and then added another. What? She measured something!?!? She did. You can see the jar, I needed to get it out w/ something, a measuring spoon was the best fit. 

And now to assemble this madness! Aww don't the cakes look purdy?? And high, right? Right. Since  my cakes almost always have that lovely bump on top, I already had a plan for that. (I guess the lesson in that 'always' is - don't put so much darn batter in the pan, lady! ok ok, next time...) So, I go to turn cake number 1 out of the pan and... and... it doesn't move. This has NEVER EVER happened to me before. EVER. I greased & floured like you're sposta and everytying. Ok took a butter knife around the edge... Still no motion.. WAH!!!!!

Ok ok, just get the darn thing out of the pan... and so I did. It ain't pretty but it's out. Got it out however it would come, then got the rest out... so sad my cake. But OH SO YUMMY!!! 

Ok, recall me saying I'd had a contingency plan for the bump on the cakes? I was already planning to use what I sliced off the top to level it in some sort of crumb 'topping' for the sides of the cake. Soooo... I still ended up with cake to crumble, just via a different method. I shall spare you the ugly details of the second layer, but suffice it to say - more of the same. *hangs head* I'm so ashamed. But anyway... onward.

Add the ganache to layer 1. So mad that I forgot to take a picture. And topped it with the second layer. Yes it looks like the lower layer is smaller. We'll just pretend I was intentionally making a topsy turvy cake... Ok not really, just still part of the former removal from pan debacle. But again the cake is DARN TASTY! 

Ok, so while the icing is still setting up some in the fridge, I start working on the crumb stuff that's supposed to go around sides of the cake. Mind you at this point I really just know that that's where I want it. I considered how I was going to get it on there but figured I wouldn't stress about it until the time actually came... To the food processor! We have cake crumbs, of course, and then... more ginger - this time ground. (You know better than to ask how much right? Good. *grin*) Even tho there's sugar in the cake, I felt that I needed to add some sugar to the mixture. I considered powdered at first, but then opted for granulated for some texture and crunch. I remembered that I had a few squares of baking chocolate in the fridge, and thought hmmm, so far, there's only chocolate in the filling, I should bring that back in for the outside. Pulsed it up some... Then spotted the few oz of semi-sweet chips I hadn't used in the ganache and figured, why not? I tossed that in there as well. 

Time to finish up this project. Out comes the icing and I ice away. Then it's time to add the lovely mixture in the processor. Hmmm... It's kinda warm in the kitchen...icing's kinda soft... uhhh how bout I just put it on the TOP of the cake. Great idea. But once I did that it looked a li'l odd especially since some of it sorta ending up on the sides was unavoidable. 

I added more but aimed more for the side from above...kinda? I don't know but I ended up getting a nice li'l some on the sides and then around the bottom edge. (and all over the table... but that was just bonus.)

Time to dig in. If I had been thinking, I would NOT have taken a picture that would remind us of the imperfections in the cake itself...but imperfections...something something about character? Yeah, let's go with that... And you'll see that I did end up throwing in some of the choc covered ginger (which incidentally had been put in the refrigerator to cool and harden). Some might say I need to work on presentation/plating... And so I shall. 

And here we can see just how much of the bottom layer uh ended up in the topping... (or in our bellies, cuz trust there was a LOT of snacking on the cake 'scraps') during this process.

And there ends the story of the very yummy Ginger 3 Ways (working title) cake. Not sure I like it as a name but it'll work for now. It was tres yummerlicious - If I do say so myself. The rest of the household enjoyed it so that's gonna count for something. 

But wait... there's more...

There was a decent amount of icing and topping left over that I had to find something to do with... So I made some quick and dirty cupcakes ("quick and dirty" here meaning "from a box" - I know I know, perish the thought...). I only have a hand mixer so I can' only make real cakes but so often cuz it's terribly trying with the whole add this then that then this w/ nowhere to put down the mixer and trying to hold and scape the bowl... aaaa oh how I need a stand mixer... But I digress. So, I made the cupcakes, adding some ground ginger to the filling (coulda added more actually). And when they were done I iced them w/ my icing and added the topping. Again - delicious. Believe it or not there was STILL some topping left...in fact... well umm yeah there was still some left, but figure hey next time hopefully I won't have so much available (read: cakes will come out of pans in tact. And there is hope, I got a handy dandy tip: line the bottom of the pan with parchment or brown paper. Will do, will do.)

rub-a-dub-dub

About a year ago, my husband was introduced to the notion of a rub - for meat typically going to be grilled. It's come up a few times, but a couple of weeks ago, he was ready to give it a go. There are recipes out there, but he wanted to make one up. Works for me. Love a good recipe but sometimes ya just wanna try your hand at it and see what happens. Now me - I'm all about just throw stuff in there and make it work. We'll worry about replication later. He, ever the chemist *smile* wanted to go ahead and use actual measurements and get it on paper. Cool. I served as the scribe. 

He went thru the spices and we talked about what we want, don't want, might want... blah blah blah until we settled on our rub would consist of. Next - quantity... Umm... not sure how much we had, call it a pound or so of boneless, skinless chicken breast cutlets I think. So to make sure there was enough, we settled on 1/2tbsp of each. Figured we could taste and tweak as necessary. Went ok, one thing accidentally got a whole tbsp, a couple things we doubled on purpose. Mixed it on up and applied it. Messy process - good thing I was just the scribe hee hee.

Part of his inspiration came from something I'd made with pork a while back. It was actually with one of the McCormick's recipe inspriations things. It was Apple Sage Pork Chops or something like that. It involved apple and  he dug that, so he wanted to incorporate that into what we did. Sooooo, when it came time to let the meat sit for a few hrs before cooking it, we put thinly sliced apple in along with. It gave me an opportunity to test out the apple slicing skills I'd hones up on watching Master Chef. 

A few hours later we took it out and threw it on our foil lined cast iron grill. Foil? Cuz that joker can be tough to clean. The chicken still had pretty grill marks...tho it's a li'l tough to see that on the picture, but whatever. So, how'd it turn out? Spiiiiicy!! What isn't necessarily baaad. It made for a really great sandwich if your tolerance is a li'l lower for the heat. I thought it'd be tasty with some pasta & alfredo, so I'll be trying that experiment at some point. Two of the boys liked it a lot which is cool. Hubs was a li'l disappointed at first b/c it didn't ome out like he'd wanted it, but once the 10 & 11  year old were fans he felt better. Then when he made a sandwich of it later, he was hooked. In retrospect, brown plate not the best for photo opp but we almost neglected to take one at all, so it is what it is.

Next time? Tweak the recipe so it has a li'l less fire. Or keep the fire and make alfredo. Probably would also help if it the meat was thicker... All in all, pretty decent first go at it. Can't wait to try again. I haven't done ribs in a while... Hmmm... Take 2 perhaps... We shall see...

ingredients by the pound

Finally! I made this joker over a week ago but hadn't managed to get the pics on the computer...then once I did, I hadn't uploaded them... finally did that this morning. So my first attempt at a pound cake went deliciously well. YAY! I mean it wasn't that tough - put a bunch of stuff in a bowl (and by that i mean a BUNCH of stuff. It was a 'classic' pound cake, so a pound of this, a pound of that, a pound of the other) and mix, put in pan and bake. But then again, I tend to believe that at the very least, if you can read you can cook, but I'm told that ain't so...


But I digress. So here it be.At first I did think hmm was there something I should have done to ensure flatness of what would become the bottom... But that was fleeting. I know it's really just a matter of needing to slice off the excess, but as you can see that's a good hunk of excess, so I just left it. It was stable enough. When I need to do it for an event, I'll likely reconsider and come up with a way to repurpose the part that I have to cut off.

I had purchased white chocolate chips a while back for use in another project, but ended up not going that route. I also had some frozen mango in the freezer... so i decided that for icing/glaze/sauce I'd make a white chocolate mango something. I figured that I could work the chips like a ganache and work in the mango. It seemed like a reasonable combination... I did get a li'l chicken the day of and googled "white chocolate mango" just to see if anything came up and it did. Which just confirmed that it was indeed decent combination. I didn't keep digging for a recipe, just went w/ my plan. Essentially make a white choc ganache (tho it's not quite the same consistency as w/ the semi sweet choc chips) and add pureed mango. Yum-mmy!


I didn't put the sauce on the cake itself but added it to the plate. My plating skills need work before I head to Chopped or Iron Chef, lol. Tho I can't believe I neglected to take a SINGLE pic of a slice w/ the sauce *hangs head in shame*. I'll do better next time. Next time... so not sure what's next on my overall agenda but i did hear about brown sugar pound cake which I'm likely to try. And I'm also envisioning a lemon lb cake with a citrus berry glaze... or mixed berry compote... or... who knows!

blanket ambition

i've got two babies due at the end of this year... ok not ME per se, but two people near and dear to me. i just put out there today that if i finish my daughter's blanket, i'll knock out a few for the new cherubs... i even rationalized it - see the amt that i have done now on the one i'm working on is certainly big enough for a baby, so knocking out two of those will be far eaasier than the behemoth i'm working on now... and as long as we don't discuss how long it's taken me to do that much then the logic works ;)

excited abt pound cake

is that weird - be excited about pound cake? the making of it to be exact. i'm going to make a pound cake this weekend. i've been wanting to make one, like a for real for real old school pound cake, like with a pound of this and a pound of that (or so). so i found a recipe and this weekend imma make it happen. i know the lb cake is to speak for itself but i'm also gonna make some sort of glaze/icing/topping/whatever to go with it, even if just to have it avail on the side, cuz i do, of course want to just taste the lb cake alone, so we'll see. but i'm excited! i do have a plan for the glaze/icing/topping/whatever i just hope it works like i want it to... hmmm yummm i can taste it already. field trip to Target this afternoon for a pan, among other things, then the groc store for ingredients. i think the fam is going out tonight, so i'll save the baking adventure for tomorrow... mmm... caaaaaaaake...