Big City Barbeques

Ok so I know I never blog, or bake, or do anything like this, however, I really wanted to win a cookbook (just kidding). Actually I had this very sad story to write about how I should win, it was a tearjerker that was bound to have me win. However… After baking my cookies, letting them cool while I ate some Brie and then tasting them about 20 minutes later, I had an awaking.




Ok, so I’m being a little dramatic, but before I get to all that, let's start with the basics. I have this peanut butter that I really like, and you can only get it in America to my knowledge. Its GOOBERS Peanut butter and Jelly mixed into one jar. Something about the stuff makes me happy. Its like when the PB&J get together in a single jar they just marinate each other to produce beautiful tasting results. Now living in Canada I’ve not been able to get the stuff for a while, and on a recent trip, well not so recent anymore, trip to Disneyworld I went into a local (to the hotel) grocery store, where I picked up 5 jars of the stuff (if you think that’s weird, Emily picked up 3 boxes of chocolate rice crispy cereal just so she could make them into those marshmallow treats). Anyway, let's fast forward a bit, 3.5 jars left (I don’t really eat peanut butter, in fact I don’t like the stuff, unless its goobers).

I was told about this cookie contest, and about how I could win a book, now its not like I really want a recipe book (this is where the sad story was suppose to go, to win my prize). However, after making a huge mess in the kitchen that I had to clean, after wasting half a jar of my precious gooey goodness, I decided not to write a sad story, but instead become a sort of Sheppard in some weird food related way or another. Confused, so am I, I really haven’t thought this through, give me a minute while I get another cookie…

Hmmm…. NOW I REMEMBER, yes it's all clear, these cookies are so great I have to share them with the world, now I don’t even care about the cook book, in fact I’d rather my girlfriend win it, that way she can cook stuff for me in celebration (I really don’t want to have to take up the post of chef because I won a contest and she’s bitter). Anyway, back to the cookies, they’re so great that ALL I want you people to do is make them, just make them and try them out. They’re so good that you’ll thank me a million times over. Now here’s the secret, make sure you use GOOBER PB&J it has a distinct taste, also make sure you leave the peanut butter jam content to mystery, don’t worry about it, just scoop what the recipe calls for into the bowl without trying to equally measure the PB and JAM…. Just go with it…

Anyway, if you guys really love your families you’ll make them these cookies, and not only will you make these cookies for them, but if any of you own a restaurant, you should sell these there. Ok enough of that, thanks for reading my rant about cookies… Here is the recipe:

1/2 cup shortening
1 1/4 cups packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup GOOBER PBJAM MIX
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt

----------
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
In a medium bowl, cream together shortening, brown sugar, and peanut butter until smooth. Stir in egg, milk, and vanilla. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt; stir into the peanut butter mixture until well blended. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Click below to read on!The End.

Read on!

I've been racking my brain all week while Emily was away trying to think of something pink. I went to the grocery store, last minute, to buy a turkey for thanks giving, (Canadian holiday today (american holiday in a month)) while there I picked up a few things for Emily's arrival, one was some pate, the other salmon mousse. Thats when it hit me! I love Lingonberrys which are red. And I've always wanted to make mousse which is white, I hope. Thinking this, I could mix the two together and get a perfectly pink dessert. However, I've not made the dessert yet, and its 10:30 the deadline is an hour and a half away. If this thing doesn't turn pink, I'm in trouble. Its time to find a recipe, then test it out... So I'll be back by 11:00pm.

So after a lot of NOT following the recipe, and a little bit of following the recipe, I ended up with something that didn't quite resemble the pink I had imagined. There was a lot of clinking and clanging, and I really felt like a chef for about 10 minutes, but in the end, I knew I had done something right, when I tasted the delicious thing before it was chilled, and boy did it taste good. Thats when I realized that there were raw eggs in it. Which made me toss it on the heat to make sure the eggs were cooked, then toss in some more gelatin because I didn't think it would firm up. Which caused a big chain reaction with an end result being tasty, yet it probably wont harden. I'll get back to you in about 1 hour.. Say 12:00...

Wow, it actually hardened, but its way past twelve, lucky Im so charming and will be able to convince the host to let my late entry slide... Charming hahah... I'm just lucky the host is my significant other. And if she wants any yummy mousse she'd better be nice (we wont tell her it has eggs in it).



Here is the recipe, but just remember to screw up a bunch then add about 1 and a half tablespoons more gelatin then required.

2 1/4 teaspoons unflavored gelatin (from a 1/4-oz envelope)
1/4 cup cold water
10 large egg yolks
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons brandy
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 cups chilled heavy cream
2 cups lingonberry sauce or preserves* (from two 14-oz jars), stirred
Special equipment: an instant-read thermometer
Garnish: whipped cream and lingonberry sauce or preserves

Prep.

Sprinkle gelatin over cold water in a small saucepan and let soften 1 minute. Cook over low heat, stirring, until gelatin is dissolved, about 1 minute, then remove from heat.
Beat together yolks, sugar, brandy, salt, and 1/4 cup cream in a metal bowl with a handheld electric mixer at medium-high speed until combined well. Set bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and cook mixture, beating constantly at medium-high speed, until very thick and registers 160°F on thermometer, 10 to 12 minutes. Remove bowl from heat, then beat in gelatin mixture until just combined. Cool sabayon 5 minutes.
Beat remaining 2 cups cream with cleaned beaters until it just holds stiff peaks. Stir one fourth of whipped cream into sabayon to lighten, then fold in remaining cream gently but thoroughly.
Spoon layers of mousse and lingonberry sauce alternately into 8 (6- to 8-ounce) stemmed glasses and chill, covered, until set, at least 2 hours.Click below to read on!The End.

Read on!

Canada has been my home for a long time. Since I can remember, which was when I was two. Considering that, I have a pretty good idea of what I ate throughout my life. My mom being of European background, believed that one should eat good, and there children are held in high esteem, therefore there children should eat good too. This meant weekly dinners at seafood restaurants, where I was able to sample the good life; Shrimp, Lobster, Crab, Snails, Octopus, Oysters, the list goes on! Thinking back now, I ate better as a child then I did in high school and college. Wow the good old days, escargot mmmMMMM…
Well anyway, other then our weekly trips to nice restaurants, there was one thing I loved doing as a kid. Going to Chucky Cheeses (where a kid can be a kid). At Chucky Cheeses, I ate the most awesome pizza, it was big full of sauce and surrounded by video games. Who could ask for anything better? Well pizza quickly became my food of choice as a kid, it was a hell of a lot easier to tell the class your favorite food was pizza, then to see the look of terror when you mentioned you eat snails.

Well pizza it was, for a good long while. I would come home everyday after school, and my mom would ask what I wanted, some times my pizza request wouldn’t be denied, however, there was still weekly outings to seafood restaurants, or indoor European stew cooking. Pizza was the popular choice up until I hit grade 7, where we actually had a cafeteria, a new experience for me. The cafeteria replaced my pizza craving, partly because coming home and asking for a pizza wouldn’t fly with my mother, due to the fact that I was eating fries with gravy all lunch hour. So the asking stopped, and I turned to French fries to subside my junk cravings.

After a year of French fries, I moved to another town, one where I would be able to go home for lunch. Which meant cordon blue, schnitzel, and N.Y. Strip steaks. Yeah I know, for an 8th grader, I had a pretty good life. Well it all went down hill from their. Grade 9 came around, which meant, high school, which meant a new building/location. Going to high school wasn’t the high light of my life, the school was far from home, meaning I had to eat local food, be it from the cafeteria, or down into town. Town food is what I choose, or rather one place, a pizza store, which I won’t name, due to the nature of my next paragraph.

The unnamed pizza store sold excellent pizza, it was better then the pizza at the other pizza store which was conveniently located across the street from the first. This pizza wasn’t anything special to look at, nor did it taste all that great while you were eating it, in fact most the time you had to mask the lack of flavor with blue cheese dressing which was available for 50 cents. However, something kept me, and everyone else in my school coming back for more. Word on the street was the owner of the store was also a drug dealer, which turned out to be true. In fact that would explain a whole lot. I’ve always suspected one of my teachers as being a coke addict, and when she organized a field trip year after year to go watch how pizza was made, I sort of got self-conformation, that my suspicions were correct. And yeah, I would be suspicious of the pizza as well, if it weren’t for the fact that the pizza is reasonably cheap, and drugs are not. Well I’ll let you decide, the pizza was $3.25 for a slice that would hold me off till I got home where I would be greeted with the smells of sizzling N.Y. strip steak.

I continued to eat pizza up until grade 12 where I would drive to school every day. Which meant I could go home for lunch, and enjoy one of a few things my mother regularly made me. Pizza I found has been a large part of my childhood, which would be why I felt it so perfect to write about. And also to cook on this fine sunny day (Canada Day!). I made bbq chicken pizza, with a tomato bbq sauce and gouta mozzerella cheese, I would have used Canadian Geese to mark this fabulous day, however, I think its illegal in Canada to harass the geese, and china town was out!

BBQ Chicken Pizza, CPK-style
Ingredients:
0. 1 tablespoon honey
0. 1 cup warm water
0. 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
0. 3 cups all-purpose flour
0. 1 teaspoon salt
0. 10 ounces chicken breast - boned and skinned
0. 1 tablespoon olive oil
0. 2 tablespoons barbecue sauce
0. 1/2 cup barbecue sauce
0. 2 cups Gouda cheese
0. 1/4 small red onion - sliced into rings
0. 2 tablespoons cilantro
Directions:
To make the dough
In a small bowl, dissolve the honey in the warm water. Sprinkle the yeast over the water and stir until it dissolves. Let the yeast mixture stand for 5 minutes, until a layer of foam forms on the surface. In a large bowl, combine the flour and the salt. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour the olive oil and the yeast mixture. Stir the flour into the wet ingredients, until all the flour is incorporated. If its too dry, add more water. On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough for 15 minutes, until it is smooth and elastic. Shape the dough into a ball and put in in a well-oiled bowl. Cover with a moist towel and let rise in a warm place until double in bulk (about 1 1/2 hours).
One hour before baking the pizzas, start preheating the oven with pizza stones inside at 500 degrees F.
For the Chicken
In a large frying pan, heat the olive oil on medium high heat. add chicken pieces. saute until cooked (6 minutes). Chill. Coat chicken with 2 tablespoons barbecue sauce. Set aside in the refrigerator.
For the Pizza
Punch the dough down, and divide into 4 equal portions. Roll out each portion into an 6-8 inch flat circle. Spread 1/4 cup barbecue sauce over the surface of the dough. Distribute 1/2 of the cheese over the sauce. Distribute 1/2 of the chicken over the cheese. Place half of the onion rings over the chicken pieces. Place the pizza in the oven (on top of pizza stones). Bake until crust is crispy and cheese is bubbling (8-10 minutes). Remove pizzas from the oven and sprinkle each with 1/2 of the cilantro.

Click below to read on!The End.

Read on!

I made awesome Char siew, which is basically caramelized pork loin, in a red dye of sorts... hehe its an Asian dish, found at most decently respectable Chinese restaurants. Anyway, it turned out pretty well I think. Its not the first time i've done it, however, its the first time i didn't use something from a jar, which is good, because it turned out much better. It actually tastes better then at most restaurants around here (down town Toronto has a China town). Anyway, since Emily said we couldn't just have Char siew, I decided i wanted yellow squiggle noodles, with a thick soy, oyster, chicken broth, spicy, mushroom sauce. So Emily made that... which turned out good, well I liked it, it went well with the Char siew... anyway, thats about all the cooking that was done today.. if you wanted to read more about it, check out http://dogdesserts.blogspot.com (Emily's site)Click below to read on!The End.

Read on!