Cobbler #6

Okay, this recipe was adapted from Mad Coyote Joe:

Topping:
1/2 C flour
6 T sugar (although, in retrospect, I may have added double this, I can't remember)
pinch t salt
1/4 t baking powder
1/2 large egg, beaten
4 T butter, melted

Prepare filling, and fill a bread pan about half way. For this, I used cranberry sauce, and it was awesome (I would highly recommend it). It was about the amount of sauce that you get from ~1.5 lbs of cranberries.

Preheat oven to 375F. Mix the dry ingredients, then pour in the egg and crumble in. Sprinkle on top of the filling, then pour melted butter on top. Bake for 40-45 min.

Thoughts: This turned out spectacularly. I have never heard of cranberry cobbler before, and after this I wonder why. I'm not sure how this would be out of a can, but it's worth trying. The topping turned out crispy, even though I feel like in the past its been soft. It might have been that I accidentally used too much sugar. Or, it might be that this was a half recipe (I normally double it). I doubt it, but it might have been a difference in the filling (like, less water bubbling out to steam the crust). I kind of wonder why I needed melt the butter on top, and whether I'd get a similar effect if I cut the butter in with the egg.

Wings #8

I've finally got it! Opuwo! It's finished! And it's really really good!

Okay, here it is:

Buffalo Sauce:
3 T red chili flakes
1/2 t garlic powder
1/2 t paprika
1/2 t black pepper
1/2 t salt
cayenne pepper to taste
1/2 t honey
~1 c water
~1/4 c distilled vinegar
1/4 t dry mustard
1 t cornstarch
2 T butter

Place red chili, garlic, paprika, pepper, salt, cayenne, honey, and water in a pot. Bring the water to a boil uncovered, and boil until you have reduced it to about 1/4 of a cup. Remove from heat. Drain and reserve as much liquid as possible, and then add enough vinegar to bring the mixture to 1/2 c. Stir in dry mustard and cornstarch, and bring back to a simmer. It should thicken enough to lightly coat the back of a spoon. Mix in butter until it melts.

NOTE: The vinegar greatly decreases the heat of the sauce, keep this in mind when adding the cayenne.

Buffalo Wings:
12 wings
1 recipe buffalo sauce

Steam wings for 20 minutes. Take out, and refrigerate overnight. Put in a 450F oven (on parchment paper) for 30 minutes. It should be starting to brown, and the outside should be crispy. Toss the with the sauce.

Serve with carrots, celery, and ranch dressing.

Stuffing/Dressing #2

Okay, my new try:

1 onion
3 stalks celery
5 mushrooms
2 T chicken drippings
1.5 T butter
salt
about 1-2t each: black pepper, rosemary, thyme, sage
About half a loaf of cornbread, stale and somewhat crumbled
4 small slices of bread, stale and crumbled
~2 cups stock

Preheat an oven/toaster oven to 400F. Mince the onions and celery together in a food processor, and then mince the mushrooms separately. Heat the butter and drippings in a pan, and when it melts, add the onions, celery, and salt. After cooking for a few minutes, it should discolor slightly. Add the mushrooms, more salt, and herbs, and cook until the mushrooms let out their juices. Add in the breads, and stir it all together. Add enough stock so it forms a slightly runny paste. Adjust seasonings as needed. Scrape everything into a bread pan, and bake for 30 minutes.

This recipe was okay. It didn't look like the most appealing thing in the world, but tasted pretty good. It was a bit too moist, but when I ate the leftovers for lunch the next day it was the right consistency (so maybe it just needed to cool, or maybe it needed a night of evaporation in my fridge). Overall, I'm not sure if I like cornbread vs. wheat bread better. I would be curious if I could do a cornbread stuffing without completely mashing the cornbread (it turned into liquid pretty fast), because I think I wasn't a fan of it being so homogenous. I occasionally got chunks that were recognizably cornbread, and I kind of liked that. I also decided that completely mincing the onions and celery was unnecessary for something like this, and I actually would have preferred them whole.

I kind of wonder what would have happened if I took it out and stirred it several times during the cooking process?

Osh/Plov #2

Is it Plov or Palov? I've seen both online. Either way, tried it again, and it turned out much better:

1 c white long grain rice (Jasmine I think)
1/4 vegetable oil (or, if you've got it, I'm told animal fat works even better)
1 onion, sliced into thin semi-circles
~1/3 lb stewing beef, cut into ~1" chunks; lamb works too, as I think does goat
2 carrots, cut into match sticks
3 big cloves of garlic, still in the paper
salt
spices (black pepper, coriander, cumin, paprika)
small handful of raisins

Rinse the rice several times, until the water is clear (it took me 7 times, which I hear is what they say it should take). When clean, add 1 cup of warm water and let it soak.

Heat oil. Saute onions until they turn brown (my one big change would be here, I'd cook only until it turns translucent). Add beef and a good shake of salt, and cook until the meat begins to brown. Add carrots, garlic, and a good shake of each spice. Cook until the carrots start to become soft. Pour in 1 cup of water (should just cover everything), and more salt. Lower the heat to medium, cover, and cook for 15 minutes (it should be boiling by the end of this). At the end of the 15 minutes, fish the garlic out, and try to smooth out the meat/veggie mixture. Pour the rice and it's water on top of the mixture, and try to smooth out. Push garlic cloves into the rice, and top with a handful of raisins. There should be just a little more water than needed to cover. Cook for about 7-10 uncovered. Poke small holes in the top of the rice (to let the steam through), cover, and continue to cook for a total of about 20 minutes. All of the water should be cooked out. Remove from heat. If needed, and a little bit of water to scrape down the bottom of the pan. Mix everything, and serve. For a nicer presentation, you can pull the meat and garlic out of the rice/carrot mixture, and place them on top.

Overall, I think this turned out really good. I had two changes: first I think I'll need more salt next time, and second, I think it would be better to cook the onions a little less, so that you have time to brown the meat a little more. I didn't get the meat as brown as I would have wanted because I was afraid of burning the onions. Overall though I thought this was really good. I wish someone who knew what it was supposed to taste like could comment on it. Otherwise, that was easier than I expected.

Stuffing (or dressing?) #1

(Before I start, to the title, if you make this and put it into a turkey and bake it, it's called "stuffing." What is it called if you skip the turkey and bake it in a casserole dish? My family always called it "out-of-the-bird stuffing," or just "stuffing," but I've since heard it called "dressing." Is that what everyone calls it, or is that just a southern thing? Either way, that's what this is)

Okay, this isn't really #1, it might be more like #3 or #4, but it's been so long that I can't give specifics of my earlier suffings, with a few exceptions:
1) Ovens are much better than stovetops (which leave it mushy).
2) Bullion instead of stock is terrible.
3) Carrots give a sweet flavor that just doesn't taste good.
4) Good stuffing contains: bread, butter, onions, celery, mushrooms, sage, thyme, and rosemary.

This time, I decided to try adding apple. Here was my recipe:

~2 T chicken fat (strained from stock I had made and left in the fridge)
1 T butter
2 celery stocks, diced
2/3 onion, diced
1/2 granny-smith apple, cut into small-ish pieces (a little bigger than 1 cm cubes, but less than 2cm)
1 1/4 c mushrooms, roughly diced (yes, I measured this, it was like 4 or 5 button mushrooms)
7 slices of stale, semi-decent whole wheat bread (each piece about 2"x4"), cut roughly into 1"-2" squares
chicken/veggie stock
pepper, salt, thyme, sage, rosemary

Melt fat and butter in a frying pan, and sweat the celery and onion. Add salt and pepper. Once the onions begin to become translucent, add apple, mushrooms, and more salt and pepper. Stir for a couple minutes, and add a dash of each herb. Once the mushrooms have released their juices, and most of them have evaporated, add the bread. Toss several times to mix. Then, add a couple ladles of stock, until all of the bread is pretty moist, but not falling apart. Pour the mixture into a bread pan, and bake in a toaster oven at 350F for 25 minutes.

My thoughts: Turned out really great. Next time I might want to cook it at either a lower temperature or for less time, since some of the bread on the top was just on the edge of burning. I might want to use a richer chicken stock (right now the stock I'm using is home-made, basically of the parts of veggies and chickens that I would otherwise throw away; this batch is good, but not rich in chickeny flavor). In terms of the apples, I'm not sure, but I don't think I like them. They kind of contrast with everything else a lot. Like, you could really tell if you got an apple in your bite or not, whereas the other parts had more subtle differences. I'm not sure if there is a good way to make the apples taste more like everything else, and everything else taste slightly more of apples, but unless I can they're out.

A few possible ideas for next time: try mincing everything small and see if I like the texture better; try adding dry cranberries; maybe try cornbread; maybe try browning the onions; search for other mystery ingredients (nuts? other veggies?).

Oh, last thing, unrelated: I discovered that you can make mashed potatoes out of steamed potatoes, rather than boiled potatoes. This is really good, because I'm sure they tend to be more nutritious, since not all of the vitamins drain into the water. I don't think I can go back.

Palov #1

Inspired by my recent travels, I have decided to add a new dish to my "To Learn" list: Palov (also known as Osh). Palov is a traditional Usbek dish, which is essentially a meat-rice-carrot stew. I was given basic instructions for how to make this dish while I was traveling, and tried it a couple times, and now thought I'd have a go of it myself.

For my first trial, I used the following ingredients:
Enough vegetable oil to cover the bottom of the pan ~1cm, maybe a little more
3/4 onion, cut into strips
1 pork chop, cut into small pieces
2 carrots, cut into match sticks
~1 c rice
~2 c water
Salt & Pepper

I heated the oil in the bottom of the pan, then added the onion. Once the onion started to turn translucent, I added the pork and a good shake of salt. Once the pork looked fairly cooked, I added the carrots, about 5 minutes later, I added the water, along with pepper and more salt. I cooked the mixture for 15 minutes (by the end it had come to a boil), then stirred the rice in and cooked for 20 minutes.

The result was pretty bad. There was way too much oil in this dish, to the point that it ran off the rice and pooled on my plate. Also, this is a dish traditionally made with beef or lamb (though I'm told one can use chicken). I thought that I could get away with pork (even if this is a dish from a traditional Muslim area), but it really didn't mesh well with the dish. Also, after watching several videos and looking up several recipes, I realized I made several other mistakes. I forgot to add in garlic and other spices. I did not cut the onions correctly (they should be cut into semi-circles). Also, apparently the rice is not to be mixed in, but rather just placed on top of everything else.

There is a lot of disagreement online about exact amounts of each ingredient, and about what to do. The video I found that looks the most legit is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_71Q1pOKMnM&feature=related. It makes me regret sleeping through Russian lessons (if that's what they're speaking). Still, it gives me hope for next time.

Cobbler #5

Hey all. Sorry it's been so long since I've posted, I've been off traveling the world (and will hopefully have some recipes from that which I will post).

Last night I tried making cobbler again, using a recipe basically identical to #2 (with the exception that now I've added almonds). I really measured out the filling this time, and it was:
2 overflowing cups of frozen whole (tops removed) strawberries
1/4 c water
3 T cornstarch
1/2 c sugar
one big squeeze (~2 T) lime juice (lemon juice would work too, lime juice is what I had)

Put all the ingredients on a stove and bring to a boil, cook until strawberries are thawed through.

For the cobbler topping, I used the same technique as before:
3/4 c flour
1/2 c sugar
3/4 c milk
1 t baking powder
pinch of salt
4 T butter
Mix dry ingredients, add milk and mix until smooth. Pour melted butter on the bottom of the bread pan, then add topping, then add strawberries, then bake for 40 min at 350F.

However, I've said before I wanted to give this more texture, so this time I tried adding slivered almonds to the top. I sprinkled them on top of the strawberry mixture.

I had three problems with this result:
-First, I think the strawberries did not get evenly distributed. I noticed that the fist piece was pretty much all dough. I think in the future I need to be more careful about spreading them out so that the edges of the bread pan get some too.
-Second, the almonds didn't stay on the top, but instead sank into the dough, just above where the strawberries were (though they were integrated into the crust slightly).
-Last, and most important, the almonds actually gave too much texture. When you bit into it, you expected this really soft filling, but instead occasionally got these sharp almonds sticking you in the top of the mouth. So, I think I'm going to scrap the almond idea, and possibly try the Mad Coyote Joe recipe for texture.

Wings #7

Oh man, just tried a new batch of wings, and I've got them. I didn't measure the ingredients though, so I'm going to need to make this one more time (or so) to get the proportions down. But, for 4 wings (a test size):

Steam 4 wings for 20 minutes. Put them in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes, then put in a 450F toaster oven on parchment paper for 25 minutes.

While the chicken is cooking, make the sauce:
Put ~2 T of crushed red chilies, and a dash of paprika, garlic powder, and (if desired) crushed hot chilies and/or thai red pepper into a pan with about a cup water and about a shot of gin, and boil medium-slowly. When most of the water has been cooked off, turn off the heat and add vinegar, and a dash of salt. Add paprika or black pepper as needed. When the mixture cools somewhat, strain off the peppers. You should have about 1/4 c of liquid (adjust with vinegar as needed). Add a dash of cornstarch and dry mustard powder, and mix well. When the wings are almost done, add about 1-1.5 t butter, and heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture coats the back of a spoon. If too thick, add more vinegar.

When the wings come out of the oven, drain off as much fat as possible, and pat them dry with a paper towel. Throw them in the pot with the sauce, and toss to cook.

Hooray! That's #2!!!

Biscuits #5 and Wings #6

Before I start, had a funny experience with Pandora tonight as I was cooking. I'm listening to one of my stations that has a few random bands I like as seeds. As I'm listening, I think, "You know what I'd really love to heard right now, 'Stairway to Heaven.' That would go really well with this mix, I'd almost like to seed it, except I'm not sure what else it would bring up." And then, like 2 songs later, it starts playing 'Stairway to Heaven.' Life just works out sometimes. And it's amazing how even a good song by Modest Mouse sounds pretty crummy when it has to follow that. Anyways, on to fooding...

Last night I attempted to make Buttermilk Biscuits using half whole grain flour, and half all purpose flour. Otherwise, the recipe was exactly the same as before. The results were pretty bad. The whole wheat just gave the biscuits a raw grain flavor to it. So, that settles it, recipe #3 (the one that they put on the bag of flour) is the best. This would feel really anti-climactic, except for the fact that biscuits are as much about technique as they are ingredients, and I feel like I have that down now.

Tonight, I made another attempt at Buffalo Wings. I had run out of the frozen wings, however, last time I bought a chicken I cut it into bits and froze the wings separately. They actually were much better that way than before, I think I'm going to need to try avoiding the frozen bag of wings in the future.

The wings were cooked the same as previous recipes (except I accidentally cooked them at 400 for about the first 15 minutes, then 450 for the last 10 or so). This time, as I was steaming the wings, I put about 2 tablespoons of dried red chili flakes into boiling water, and essentially cooked it until the water turned really red (I accidentally cooked it dry, then added more water). I then added salt, pepper, vinegar, paprika, garlic powder, and a small dab of honey. I let it soak for a while, then strained out the skins. The liquid I was left with was a deep, dark red. I added just a pinch of cornstarch, and stirred that in. I then melted in what felt like just under equal parts butter, and cooked it on the stove, until it started to boil and look slightly syrupy. I let it cook (although, I ended up adding more vinegar and Thai hot pepper powder, because I thought it needed more of a kick).

Tasting the wings, they were amazing. They aren't quite your classic Buffalo Wings, but they're good enough that I don't care. These taste better, and they don't overpower the chicken flavor. I did have two big problems though, which are probably related. First, I added too much butter, and you could really taste it in the sauce. It added a good, slightly sweet and fatty flavor, but I think I'd rather have had more of the red sauce. Second, the butter managed to create a bit of an oil-slick on the sauce, which made it not always stick super well. I'm thinking next time, I'll use less butter (maybe 50%), and add a shake of dry mustard powder into the mix as an emulsifier. Still, I'm getting close, this is really exciting!

Buttermilk Biscuits #4 & Cobbler #4

Tonight I tried the previous recipe for Biscuits, except using buttermilk instead of normal milk. I'm not sure if it was the buttermilk, or something I did, but the bottoms burnt pretty badly. Otherwise, the texture and taste turned out perfectly, but not really any different than before (using milk). So, given that I got basically the same results either way, I'm going to go with the method that required the non-specialty ingredient. Okay, one more change to go (half whole wheat flour), then I think I'm pretty much done.

Tonight I also made a cherry cobbler. I was thinking about my previous recipe, and had a thought: in evolutionary biology (my day-job), there is this concept called an "adaptive peak." It's a situation where you have evolved to the best you can be, and no small changes will bring improvement. You are not necessarily the best you can be, just the best in that template. How does that involve cooking? Well, lately I've been making tinkering and tinkering with one recipe for cobbler. I'm convinced that within a couple more iterations, I'll have the best possible version of that recipe (if I don't have it already). But, it could be that there is a radically different cobbler out there, that is even better. So, I thought I'd try something radically different, just to give it a test.

Tonight's cobbler was made of the standard cobbler filling (except cherries this time, which turned out really well), with biscuit dough as a topping. Literally, I made extra biscuit dough, and then dropped a lot of half-sized biscuits on top of an already cooked filling. I then put this concoction in a 500F oven, and baked it for 9 minutes (the same as the biscuits). The result: a cobbler that tasted like biscuits sitting on top of fruit filling, rather than a well-integrated desert. The bottoms of the biscuits soaked up a little of the juice, but for the most part, it was pretty separate, and tasted pretty distinct. I could maybe try adding sugar to the biscuit dough if I really wanted to try this again, but at this point, I feel like it's probably not worth continuing down this avenue.

Buttermilk Biscuits #3

Tonight I made a third attempt at buttermilk biscuits, and they essentially turned out perfectly. Here is the recipe I used:

2 c unbleached, all-purpose flour
1 T baking powder
1/2 t salt
4 T lard, cold (straight from the fridge)
milk (see below)

Preheat the oven to 500F. Sift the dry ingredients together. Add the lard, and squish into the dough with your fingers for a couple minutes. It is done when there are still lots of small (pea-sized or smaller, maybe a few larger) lumps in the flour, but flour looks like corn meal, and if you take a handful of any amount of flour and squish it in your hands, it will somewhat hold its shape. Add milk, not much at a time, and stir with a spoon, until you have just enough for the dough to hold together. It should not at all be sticky or tacky, and even feels a little dry on the outside. Pat the ball of dough together with your hands, but don't really kneed it. Let it rest for a few minutes on the counter. When the oven is ready, tear pieces of dough into about 1/4 or 1/3 c lumps, shape them into half-circles, and place them on an ungreased pan. Bake them for ~9 minutes.

This turned out really well. They were easy and fast to make. The texture was perfect (not too gummy like #1). The lard added a nice subtle flavor, without being overpowering like butter. Overall, I'm really happy with this. In the future, when I'm cooking for vegetarian or Jewish friends, I'll use shortening as a substitute, rather than butter.

As I said, this might turn out to be the finished "master" recipe, however I have two small variations I really want to try. First, I don't actually use buttermilk in this recipe, and want to see how that would alter the flavor. Second, I would like to try the same recipe, except substituting half of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour. However, in both cases I will use the same proportions and techniques as before.

But yay, this might mean 1 down and 6 to go!

Refried Beans

Okay, this is a recipe I've made recently for the Fry Bread. It's really good. Something I developed when I was in the Peace Corps and couldn't buy refried beans:

1 lb dry pinto beans (black beans work in a pinch)
2-3 T lard
1 large onion, dice into small (1/4”) pieces
2-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 T chili powder
Salt
Handful of shredded cheese (optional)
Small cup of milk (optional)
2-4 diced chipotle chilies in adobo sauce (optional)

Soak beans in water for 8 hours, and then boil until they are soft. Mash the beans, and the bean water, until they are mostly broken up. This can be done in a food processor, or with a fork or potato masher. Add water if needed, it should be slightly more wet than you want the final product to be. Heat lard in a frying pan, and fry onions and garlic until they are translucent. Add chili powder, and salt to taste. When onions are cooked through, add beans. Fry for a couple minutes. Add in cheese, milk, and chopped chipotle peppers, if desired.

Cobbler #3

I actually made strawberry cobbler about a week ago as my contribution to a potluck party. The recipe was exactly Paula Deen’s recipe, except with lots of corn starch in the sauce, and strawberries. I didn’t get a chance to each much (and was a little drunk when I did), so I’m not really counting that as an attempt. That said, everyone that tried it seemed to really like it.

Tonight, I wanted to try something a little different. One thing I thought eating the topping last time was that it felt too homogenous, so I decided to try to fix that using oats. Here is the recipe (it’s nice, it’s finally different enough that I feel like I should type it all up):

Topping-
½ c unbleached all-purpose flour
½ c white sugar
¼ c oatmeal
1 t baking powder
pinch of salt
¾ c milk
4 T butter

Filling- (this part was less well measured)
~2 c frozen strawberries
~¼ c water
~¼ c sugar
~½ c sugar
~2 T minced fresh ginger (I wanted to try this combo)
pinch of salt

Preheat toaster oven to 350F. Throw everything in the filling in a pot, and boil it until the sauce thickens. Combine the dry ingredients in the topping. Stir in the milk until it is as homogeneous as possible (the oats will provide some lumps). It should be very liquidy. Melt your butter, and pour it in the bottom of a bread pan. Pour flour mixture on top of that. Pour your strawberry filling on top of that. Put in the over for 40 minutes. Remove, and let cool slightly.

So, how did it turn out? Well, I like the heat that ginger adds, but 2T was too much. Next time I think I’ll try 1. Also, the cobbler lacked structural support, and was really gooey. Like, too gooey. Next time, I think I’m going to try adding another ¼ c of flour. The recipe had originally be for ¾ c, but I replaced it with the oats. Bad idea. Next time, I just add the oats directly in (or possibly almonds).

NEXT DAY EDIT: Okay, I tried it the next morning. The ginger actually wasn't too bad, unless you bit into a piece of it. I think it was just that I hadn't let the cobbler properly cool. Maybe next time I'll just boil the ginger for a while, and then remove it. Also, trying the topping a second time, I had a few thoughts. It was kind still kind of gooey, but I really liked that it had integrated in with the fruit. It really didn't feel like they were separate things. Also, despite my attempt with the oats, I couldn't actually notice any textural differences. So, next time, if I want to add texture, I use nuts.

I'm seriously thinking that next time, instead of making the dough like Yorkshire Pudding (completely homogeneous, slightly runny, and with all the fat on the outside), I might try the same thing, except making it more like biscuits (rubbing cold butter into the dough, and maybe not adding quite so much milk). I wonder if that will still expand out over top of the fruit? Hopefully it will give the topping a real crumb texture, rather than the fairly homogeneous cakey texture it has.

Hot Wings #5

I had this funny conversation with friends recently. Apparently the chicken wings are now so in demand that they're having trouble selling the rest of the chicken. My dad had actually commented that they're sold for like $4/lb (I don't remember how much I paid for my bag, in part because when I bought it the exact weight wasn't clearly displayed). And to think, I used to throw them in the stock pots...

Okay, tonight I decided to finally give the cheating method a chance. I steamed the chicken for 20 minutes, put it in the fridge for like 15 minutes, and then cooked them in a 450F oven for 25 minutes. The sauce was made of 1 part hot sauce to 1 part butter.

The skin turned out just perfectly, and it was still moist inside, but not slimy. And the sauce, tasted perfect (but burned a bit). I can see now why everyone just does it this way. The sauce was still a little thin though.

I did eventually try to add a little corn starch into the sauce. The problem is, I added too much, and it turned out more like a roux, or a paste.

So, I don't know, there is a part of me that doesn't want to rely on having hot sauce. Like, I'd really like to be able to make it FROM SCRATCH. So, we'll see. I'm going to keep trying to make it without relying on bottles of hot sauce.

Navajo Fry Bread #1

Before I start, I've decided to add koeksisters to my list of recipes to learn. Koeksisters are kind of like a South African donut, in that they are fried bread in syrup.

Navajo fry bread was one of the recipes I tried to perfect last summer and failed at, so I'm trying again. I've looked up several recipes on the internet, and all of them basically have the following ingredients list:

1 cup unbleached flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon powdered milk

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup water

Vegetable oil for frying (enough to fill a pot 1")

I'm a little hesitant to change anything, because I'm told there is some tradition behind these. From what I understand, in the mid 1800s, the Navajo were forced into camps that were crowded, and where provisions were very short. The government supplied them with basically the above ingredients, and fry bread was developed as a way of eating it. The original recipe (and history) was obtained from http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/NavajoFryBread.htm.

For attempt #1, I mixed the dry ingredients, and then poured in the water. I tried to mix it as little as possible, just until it came together. I then cut the above into 4 balls, and rolled them out really thin, and fried them for 40-60 seconds per side in deep frying oil.

My first attempt went decently. I live in Arizona, so usually I'm used to the air (and flour) being so dry that you need to add more water, although in this recipe it turned out just right. The dough was really sticky difficult to work with though, and often tore when I was rolling it out. In the end, it was really thin, and kind of crunchy in some places. Also, in the first two pieces I tried to fry, a giant bubble formed at the bottom of the frybread, lifting it out of the oil, so there were big white spots.

Next time, I'm going to try one of two things: either I'm going to really kneed the dough (so it becomes more ball like), or I am going to let the dough rest for several minutes, so that the flour can absorb the water and not be so sticky. Additionally, I think I'm going to try making only 3 balls, so that I don't feel like I need to roll them so thin to make them a good size.

Hot Wings #4

Okay, this time, I essentially repeated attempt #3, but with a few exceptions. First, instead of using a food processor, I tried to grind the skins with the bottom of a spice jar (since I don't have a mortar and pestle). Second, I steamed the wings for 10 minutes, then baked them at 400 for 25 minutes. Last, I added a big spoonful of cornstarch to the sauce.

Here were my thoughts:
-It still tastes pretty good.
-The sauce stuck really well to the wings, in part because of how sticky the wings felt when they came out of the oven (I wiped them off with a paper towel, and in once case might have peeled a tiny bit off).
-The sauce was much thicker than before, but still had a translucent and slightly runny look to it.
-The sauce still had chunks in it.
-The wings weren't very crispy.

My thoughts for next time:
-Next time, I think I will put more butter in the sauce. Also, I will let it cool a bit before adding the wings in.
-Before adding the cornstarch and butter to the wing sauce, I will strain the chili skins out.
-Alton Brown's recipe called for refrigerating the wings before roasting them in the oven. I thought I could skip that step and put them directly in the toaster-oven, but I'm really starting to think I can't. Next time, I will put the wings in the fridge while the oven pre-heats.

Buttermilk Biscuits #2

Tonight I took my second shot at buttermilk biscuits.

For my first try, I used a recipe out of "I'm Just Here For More Food" by Alton Brown (which is the best cookbook I think I've ever seen, I've started recommending it to anyone who mentions wanting to learn more about baking). He printed a famous old recipe, which I believe was what came on the back of shortening packages. He added in a story about how his good ol' Southern grandmother would argue with other Southern grandmothers about whether it was better to use shortening or lard, but how if any yankee mentioned using butter they would gang up on them. So, I tried shortening.

The biscuits turned out really well. Like, I wasn't sure what improvements could be made. Instead of rolling the biscuits out and cutting them (like the recipe said), I just kind of dropped them onto a baking sheet. They weren't pretty and round, but tasted great. They were a little gummy the first time I ate them (which according to the instructions means I put in too much milk), but after a day of sitting in the refrigerator, were wonderful. They had a great flavor, and a great flaky crumb.

Oh, and one thing worth pointing out, the recipe didn't actually call for buttermilk, so I just used normal milk.

Tonight, for the sake of something different, I decided to try a recipe out of "The Best Recipe: Soups & Stews." The biggest differences seemed to be: a) they used butter, instead of shortening, b) everything was done in a food processor (whereas before it was done by hand), c) I used an ungreased baking sheet, d) this time I used milk+vinegar to simulate buttermilk, and e) the recipe included 1t sugar. Overall, the biscuits weren't as good. I think I actually liked the butter flavor less. Also, the biscuits were too crumbly. Like, the outside was crispy and crunchy, a bit more than I would have liked. The biscuits always felt like they were on the edge of falling apart. The big benefits of this recipe, however, were how easy it was to make (literally, the slowest part was heating the oven).

So, next time, I think I'm going to try to see if I can do the Brown recipe in a food processor (like the Best Recipe one). I might also give lard a shot, and see how it does.

Cobbler #2

Boy, it's been so long that I've now made biscuits. I should really do this.

There is an old recipe that I have always used for cobbler by Mad Coyote Joe (a local guy who had a cooking show when I was young). It's amazing enough that I've been wondering why I'm trying to improve it. I guess it's just so different than what most TV shows do for cobbler. Basically, for the filling, you use blackberries. You put 3/4 of them in whole (mixed with cornstarch, lemon juice, and sugar), and the other 1/4 you blend, add water to, and boil into a sauce. You put all this into a baking dish, and top it with a slightly crumbly topping (sugar, eggs, flour, salt, & baking powder), and then pour a melted stick of butter on top of this, and bake it.

If nothing else, a summer of trying to improve on Mad Coyote Joe's recipe might just end in me admitting that it is indeed the best dessert on Earth (something I've always kind of suspected).

So, my first new cobbler recipe was by Alton Brown (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/rhubarb-peach-cobbler-recipe/index.html). I used this, except instead of peaches and rhubarb, I used strawberries. Taking after Mad Coyote Joe, I blended some of the berries in a bit of water. I used frozen strawberries, because that's what I have. Also, because I didn't have lemon, I used a little bit of red wine vinegar. Overall, this was a little disappointing. The filling tasted just fine, but it was really runny. In the future I think I should avoid adding water. I also might need to start adding more cornstarch. As for the crust, it tasted too separate from the filling. It tasted okay, but wasn't, like, incredible. Also, the bits of topping that were cooked inside the strawberry mixture turned out gummy.

Next, #2. Before attempting #2, I read though "The Best Recipe." It said that cobblers could be classified into 3 types of crust (shortbread/biscuit, pie, and cookie), and also had recipes for probably a dozen possible fruits that could be used. One such fruit was mangos. So, because they were 2/$1 at Fry's, I decided I'd try that. For the crust, I used a half recipe Paula Deen's recipe (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/peach-cobbler-recipe/index.html), except using 2 sliced mangos, and cooking it all in a bread pan. Instead of self-rising flour, I added 1 t of baking powder. It actually turned out really amazingly, for the most part. I'd actually say it gives Mad Coyote Joe a run for his money. In this recipe, you put the fruit on top of the dough, so when it bakes, it rises up and covers it (basically consuming it). The crust, well, it is smoother than Mad Coyote Joe's, I'm not sure which one I like better. My one disappointment: mango makes for a really really bad cobbler filling. Next time I'm switching back to strawberries (or maybe even blackberries) and trying it again.

I actually have a BBQ I'm going to on Friday, I might use that as an excuse to try this again.

Chicken Pot Pie #1

Made two dishes tonight, Chicken Pot Pie and Mango Cobbler. I'll talk about the Pot Pie now (too tired to do both, I'll write it tomorrow).

So, when I say "Pennsylvania Pot Pie," this is something my dad described, that sounded a lot more like what some people call "Chicken & Dumplings." Basically, stewed soup with slices of a thick noodles. For try #1, I used a Cat Cora recipe (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/cat-cora/chicken-and-dumplings-recipe/index.html) with a couple exceptions: First, the chicken part just chicken, salt, pepper, and water. Also, I only used a chicken breast (since it was just for me). I did a 1/3rd recipe for the "Dumpling" part, except I didn't measure the amount of milk (just added it until it all came together). Last, when I finished cooking the chicken, I removed the bones and shredded it.

Overall, everything came together and tasted really great. I suppose chicken soup like that is hard to screw up. The pot-pie/dumpling part tasted great. Not too soft, not tough, my only problem was in how to keep it layered right as I'm spooning it out. My one problem is that I'm not quite sure if this is "right." I think I'm going to need to make it for my dad (or someone else from central Pennsylvania) to get a review. Overall though I'm not sure if there's anything I need to change.

Chicken wings attempt #3

I'm starting this recipe in the middle of several attempts. My goal was to make basically good, classic, buffalo style chicken wings. For my first attempt, I tried a Bobby Flay recipe for sauce (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/hot-wings-with-blue-cheese-yogurt-sauce-recipe/index.html), except instead of deep-frying them, I steamed them for 10 minutes and then roasted them in a 400F oven for about 25 minutes (a la Alton Brown, http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/alton-browns-buffalo-wings-recipe/index.html). They turned out decently. I liked how the wings cooked. The sauce was really really good, but it just wasn't buffalo style. I'm not sure what was wrong with it, maybe the chipotle peppers in adobo made it too sour. All I can say is that something wasn't quite right. Also, I couldn't get the chipotles to grind up (even in a food processor), so there were big chunks that didn't stick to the wings. Plus, even the parts that were liquid didn't stick very well.

Take #2, I tried a recipe my sister had recommended (http://steamykitchen.com/7217-bbq-central-smokey-sweet-chicken-wings.html). This time, I skipped the steaming process and just cooked them at 400F for 35 minutes. Instead of making a sauce, it uses a rub, that seems like a pretty standard BBQ rub. They tasted good again, they had a really crispy skin, and on the inside they just tasted like chicken. But in the end, they weren't even close to buffalo wings, so I decided to abandon it.

Take #3 was tonight. This time, I used basically my own recipe. I used the 400F oven for 35 minutes again. For the sauce, I took some dried red chiles, and attempted to reconstitute them in boiling water. Once they had softened up, and I had cooked most of the water out, I added garlic powder, salt, pepper, vinegar, and dry mustard (so it would act as an emulsifier when I added the butter). I ran it though a food processor to the best of my ability, although there were still plenty of skin flakes that didn't grind. I then melted butter in. This time, when I took the chicken out of the oven, I wiped them off with a towel before tossing them in the sauce.

The taste turned out just right on the sauce, but I had a few problems. First, the wings were really greasy (and slightly slimy) when you bit into them. I think I might switch back to the Alton Brown method of steaming first, or maybe even deep frying them. Second, there wasn't much sauce that stuck. I think of really good wing places where I grew up, and they practically had a layer of sauce covering them. These, well, it was a very thin coating. In part this is because of how much chile skin did not grind up, but I think it goes beyond that. I'm not sure what to do here. Maybe a flour coating before the oven.

Thanks for listening. I wanted to say, if anyone out there in internet-land has any ideas, I'd love to hear them. And I have seen lots of recipes that are just hot sauce+butter, I feel like I want to do better than that (even if that sounds kind of snobby).

Also, I promise that when I get the recipes more solid, I will start posting measurements. This time, however, nothing was measured (just a pinch of this and a dash of that, and I think 1 T of butter for 4 wings).

First Post

I have been an avid cook since about high school. I went from simple Home Ec.-type recipes, to complex cookbook recipes, to "just wing it," recipes, and lately I have been working on developing my own. A year ago I really started fusing recipes together, taking them from different sources and trying to create my own. A good friend tried to talk me into starting a cooking blog, so that others could read my recipes, and very recently he's managed to succeed.

I guess the purpose of this blog is two-fold. First, (the selfish reason) it is to force me to organize my thoughts as I try to develop my recipes, and record what went right or wrong. Second, (the magnanimous reason) it is to share successful recipes with the world. I figure I use the internet enough to find recipes, why not provide recipes for others to use?

So, this summer I set as my goal to master the following recipes:
Buffalo Wings
Stuffing
Frybread
Cobbler
Buttermilk Biscuits
Pot pie (Pennsylvania Dutch style)

When I say, "master," I don't mean learn how to make. I mean tinker and toy with the recipes until I don't think there is any way of improving them. I mean get better and better until I can make them blindfolded. I had a very similar task last summer (recipes different of course), and succeeded with some. I figured out the tricks to making risotto, and got decent at omelets and tamales (though am not quite to the "blindfold" stage). Others, such as fry-bread and tortilla soup, I didn't figure out by the end of the summer. I'm kind of curious how many of these I'll be able to do.