I pity the blackcurrant fool!

this blog post, too, like the one below it is an update on some of our summer weekend adventures. picture, if you will, a bucolic hike through the mountains of (slightly) upstate new york. here -- this picture should help you picture it.

this is claire and me hiking around storm king. we'd just finished a couple round-offs and back-hand springs. it was an amazing day and there were literally dozens of wild blueberries along the path for us to gobble up. after the hike, we made our way to fish kill orchard which has a number of delicious fruits for the picking. matt had called ahead to ensure blueberries were ready, but upon arriving we were told that "they're not ripe yet." being the renegades that they are, the veligdans said "balls to that!" and picked them anyway. me, being a helmick, dutifully obeyed the fish kill staff and stuck to the fully-ripened blackcurrants.

i'm glad i did, because blackcurrants are a curious fruit. this was a magical new adventure for my taste buds. these little dark blue bulbs are tart, sweet and meaty all at the same time. they start out with a flavor similar to...mushrooms? or perhaps a well cooked pork chop. then come in for a zing of tartness, followed by a mellow sweetness that is not overpowering the way some other berries can be.

i scoured the internet for recipes using fresh blackcurrants, and only came up with a couple. in the end, i went with a recipe for blackcurrant fool. "fool," i'm told by mr. webster is "a cold dessert of pureed fruit mixed with whipped cream or custard." it couldn't have been simpler.

1. boil the currants with a smidgen of water until they're juicy and broken down

2. puree them in the blender with some super fine sugar

3. let them cool, whilst you whip up some cream and a egg white

4. combine and refrigerate for a few hours

i took this blackcurrant fool over to our dear friend shengning's new apartment for a rooftop bbq. i had brought along the ingredients for s'mores, but the gang quickly discovered that the marshmallows (toasted or not) were delicious dipped in the blackcurrant fool.

everything was a smashing success. and while this isn't directly a recipe that could be used for the p-bury competition, i've started thinking up ways we could append it. wouldn't a layered blackcurrant fool and marshmallow pie be delicious? happy tiers of bright purple and pristine white would be inviting for any dessert lover.

Weekends' Updates

Points on Kitchen-Counter Counterpoint

Since she is unfortunately allergic to posting on this blog, I will attempt to describe Tracy's recent-hit cupcakes from last weekend's 5th Annual 3rd of July Party. The dainty darlings were fairy-charming, as if perfectly designed by that mythical figure to tempt you with perfected confections until your teeth fall out one by one, and she whisks them away to her lair, leaving you with sugary dreams and perhaps a half-dollar. The cupcakes were golden, a combination (if I remember correctly) of cake mix, corn muffin mix, and banana, which actually formed a democratic union of flavor. The beauties were pink strawberry frosting blushed across their tops, and a bulbous blueberry reigned in roly-poly kingship at the very center.

Mealy?!

Not at all, in fact. The stuffed peppers, that is. This dish has the potential to satisfy moms' desire for familial vegetable intake as well as kids' requirement of potato-based sustenance. Skip the chips, let fly the fries, toss the tots -- these taters are tasty and almost luminous with their own seemingly-industrial-but-really-beneficial veneer of neon yellow. But let's begin and the beginning. Core some bell peppers, or slice in half and remove stem, veins, and seeds. Dunk in boiling water for about 5 minutes, then drain. Boil potatoes until just tender. Saute onion, garlic, and many spices -- tumeric gives the yellow glow, we also use cumin, coriander, a decent amount of salt, a little cloves and cinnamon -- for about ten minutes. Then add the potatoes and some raisins. Stuff this mess into the peppers, and bake.

Is this too exotic for your average Pils home-baker? Aren't we all searching for more outlets for the mysterious spices that stock the racks and rotators and wedding-gift-packs that end up huddling forlorn, scootching their way ever backward in the cupboard? Throw them all in here. Fennel seed. Cardamom. Why not a bit of paprika? Will this humble vessel of pepper and potato serve as transport for new cuisine into standard kitchens, and across borders for those hands that add them to the pan?

It's my chocolate attack

I'll keep this brief, but I wanted to share a semi-recent discovery about those hot chocolate packets my office supplies in our kitchen.

Should you find yourself in desperate need of something chocolaty, and with only an empty pocketbook or vending machine, here is a simple solution:

1. Empty 1 packet of Nestle or Swiss Miss hot chocolate into a disposable cup.

2. Pour in approximately 1/4 cup milk.

3. Mix like hell. (It won't want to mix at first, but it will eventually acquiesce.)

4. Microwave for about 35-40 seconds.

The result is an extremely molten brownie milkshake thing. It is so good. And if I've done my math right, only about 110 calories. Mmmmmm.

Rhyming Cutlets

Sing a song of kitchens full of girls so spry,
Four and twenty flour sacks baked rising high.
When their goods were tasted the girls began to sing,
'Our sweet treats should win grand prize -- the Dough Boy crown us king!'
The girls picked through their cupboards, oils and sauce so runny,
The boys helped chop and drink and fart and tell jokes fairly funny,
They seared and boiled, grilled and broiled, but still they have not chose,
The recipe to rule them all, wow every eye and mouth and nose!

Spice President

So, it's been a while. You're probably thinking, "Man, I wish Rachel or Claire would write about something they've recently baked to make me oh-so-jealous of their wicked Pillsbury skillz." Well, my friend, your wait is over. Because this 4-day weekend wasn't just about hanging off the back of a Hobie Cat by a boogie board. No no, it also served as an opportunity for me to finally go ahead and try to rip-off Tom Colicchio's mind-blowing cookies from 'wich craft.

These cookies are seriously the best cookies in the whole world. 'Wich Craft has a variety of cookie sandwiches filled with delicious ganache. When these show up in my office, I have no qualms about taking 4 back to my desk. The one I'm absolutely gaga about has peanut butter in the middle, and some kind of ginger snap cookie on the outside. I love those spicy cookies, so I just couldn't resist trying them out myself.

Ingredients for cookies:

1 tube Pillsbury chocolate chip cookies doctored up with --

approx. 1 tbsp cinnamon, 1 tsp ground cloves, 1 tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp ground ginger, 1 tbsp cocoa powder 1tbsp powdered sugar

Ingredients for ganache:

some peanut butter, heavy cream, and powdered sugar. No measuring, just mixed until I had a happy consistency and the taste was creamy and sweet.

I baked up the cookies, making sure to keep them all fairly small and the same size. Once completely cooled, I spooned about a teaspoon of the ganache onto one cookie, and topped it with a match.

They were awesome!!! Jenny did suggest that the filling could be a pumpkin ganache. I thought this was an excellent idea, and would make for easy marketing. Who wouldn't want to whip up a batch of Pillsbury Harvest Cookie Sandwiches? Yum!!

Savory New World

This blog is a savior! Just this weekend, whilst eating some delicious Vietnamese sandwiches on the roof of the church, and discussing the P-Bury bake-off, I was presented with the question "so, do they tend to favor sweet or savory recipes?" Well, as you can probably imagine, I was able to speak quite knowledgeably on the subject given my last blog entry. Of course the conversation took a turn when another friend chimed in, "What does savory mean?"

Hanging up Christmas lights on the roof

The genesis of our topic was when I pulled out what I'm calling "cheesy spicy surprise biscuit bombs." I'd recently had what I can only assume is a normal desire to bread something in crushed-up Cheez-Its. The victim of this urge ended up being some p-bury biscuits. And to spice things up (literally and figuratively) I used the Cheez-Its with Tabasco, and tucked a wee bit of queso de papa in the middle of each one.

The result was a little odd. Ok, a lot odd. (Why is that a running theme in my experiments?) Frankly, I thought they tasted like...bleh. Some of the Cheez-Its burned, and when the biscuits returned to room temp, the queso inside re-hardened into an unsavory block.

However, it was decided that in the future, Cheez-Its would make a suitable substitute for cornflakes as a chicken breader.

Upside-Down Uprising

What a stellar statistical circumnavigation of bake-off winners past, Rachel! You have such a way with numerals.

We inhabitants at the red castle have been preoccupied with a new neighbor, who is still adjusting to his home and scratching post/box. St. George (the mouse-slayer) is not inspiring us in a culinary fashion, as his palate favors meaty-but-odd variations on brown, in "wet" and dry variety. Now that the mice have returned, we can assume, to hiding in the walls and feasting on the fall-out shelter crackers, we can again face our pantries courageously.

Last Sunday, I shared an old favorite and considered ways to fashion him for the modern age: pineapple upside-down cake. Not that I don't love him just the way he is, but he's just so retro. So McCarthy-era conscious of trying to please and fit in. Nothing untoward here, just us canned, culturally bland chunks. Dear Mr. Upside, let's get down. You are soaked with sweet. You are weighty in that ponderous Brezhnev/Yeltsin way.

While I like the density of the cake (it contains much less egg and much less flour than the standard ratio), it is one-dimensional. It could be enriched with extra yolks, or officially soaked with fruit juice (and rum?) after baking. The one standard that must be perfected is the crispy caramel topping that goes into the pan first. I let the brown sugar and butter commingle, slowly and luxuriantly bubbling, for a few minutes, but cut down the over-all baking time as the cake appeared to be brown about 15 minutes early. A fatal error, as far as the caramel was concerned. Everything tasted great, but was of mushier-than-desired consistency.

To make Mr. Upside into a Pils winner, we will have to revolutionize. I call for perestroika: abandon your out of date identity, sir! I'm imagining cardamom, cloves, a merangue topping -- or rather, bottoming, once flipped, and of course fresh pineapple, cut into practicable bite-size triangles -- a banishment of the alien-rounded donuts from the can. Are you with me, comrades?