stillsostrange

This is still experimental, since it hasn't come out of the oven yet, but after smelling the batter I'm not sure what could go wrong.

4 Hawaiian sweet rolls (mine are purple poi-flavored rolls, but any should do)
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup shredded coconut
4 eggs
1 cup coconut milk
1 cup almond milk
1/4 cup brown sugar (the recipe I based this on calls for 3/4 cup, but I figure the sweet bread and coconut should make up for it)
1 tablespoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon cardamom (or to taste)
orange zest to taste

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Chop or tear up the rolls and spread in an 8x8" pan.
Sprinkle cranberries and coconut into the pan.
Melt the butter and drizzle over the bread.

Mix together eggs, coconut milk, almond milk, vanilla, sugar, cardamom, and zest. (Do not plunge your head into the bowl, no matter what it smells like.)
Pour mixture evenly over the bread, and mash it with a fork till the bread is soaking up the liquid.

Cook for 45 minutes.

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And yes, I now have a very rough sketch of my cat Siggy dressed as Queen Victoria. Luckily for you (and me) I've misplaced my scanner cable, so the world will never know my shame.

I had the beets, I had the squishy bananas. I had to have the bread.

I found this whole wheat banana bread recipe and modified it. My version is vegan, but improved by a slather of butter.

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
.5 cup applesauce + a splash of almond milk (to replace the eggs)
.25+ cup vegetable oil (this was all I had in the bottle--I added an extra splash of almond milk to supplement)
1 cup brown sugar (if you prefer sweeter sweets, use a cup and a half)
3 bananas, smooshed
1 cup grated beets (approx 2 medium beets)
1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon (screw that "pinch" business)
A healthy dash of clove

Pour in a loaf pan and bake at 350 F for 1 hour 15 minutes. (I sprinkled more brown sugar on top for extra noms.)

It's dense and delicious and not dry, but a little more vegetable oil wouldn't hurt. Probably also the healthiest damn thing in the world. I meant to add a pinch of salt and forgot, but it's fine as is. Nuts would also be good, and probably blueberries or cranberries or orange zest, or chocolate, if that's your sort of thing.

What are whole wheat sourdough pancakes?

When I last visited matociquala, I brought home one of the late, lamented Eddie Elmerson's siblings. Today I finally used Edgar (Eddie II) in a modification of the top recipe here, and lo, these pancakes are delicious.

My version, which was pretty madlibbed, used a cup of starter (fed with all purpose flour), a cup of wheat flour and half a cup of white, a cup of distilled water, oil instead of butter, two tablespoons of brown sugar plus a generous drizzle of honey, and some extra milk when it came out a bit on the thick side.

I'm not--to my knowledge--Irish, and won't be joining the green-beer-swilling masses*, but the combination of Guinness, Baileys, chocolate, and cupcakes is too much for me to resist.

Car bomb cupcakes

They're in the oven right now, but I can give the batter two very enthusiastic thumbs up. (The rest of the bottle of Guinness isn't hurting the enthusiasm any.) The simmering pan of butter, chocolate and stout is truly terrifying to behold. Soon I'll start on the icing, (skipping the ganache) and combine still more booze with dairy fat. Then I will take a pan of these to work, because they certainly can't be allowed to stay in the house

I need a food porn icon.

ETA: The cupcakes are fabulous, but it's the icing that rocks socks. I think I gain a pound every time I look at it, though.

*But I am obnoxious enough to blare House of Pain all over the place.

I took Eddie Elmerson out of the fridge today intent on making shoggie friendship bread, only to discover tragedy had befallen. Eddie is green in spots, with a dark slimy patch. Gentle readers, I fear the worst.

Please join me in mourning a noble young shoggoth, taken from us before his time.

"Bone Garden"
Words today: 1531
Words total: 1531
Reason for stopping: scene, and need to figure out the next thing
Sustenance: pita and tzatziki and snausages and wine--nom nom nom
Darling: Gentian scanned the street, but it was empty: closed doors, windows shuttered against the cold, frost-slick cobbles glazed with lamplight.
Tyop: none I've caught yet
Mean things: hauling unconscious people up stairs
Quirks: This is another story I haven't worked on in nearly a year. Apparently all the boywhores wanted was some opera, and now they're ready to go fight the oracular demons. Once I figure out exactly what the oracular demons are doing. I guess the short-story section of my brain is back online now.
Interesting research: I was trying to figure out what a kitchen smelled like, and someone suggested vanilla. So I looked up vanilla to see if this part of the world would have it, but alas, native to Mexico, and my peoples have yet to discover the NotSoNew World. And then I started reading about vanilla pollination, and it's pretty darn cool. So now I need a vanilla plantation in the fauxMayan book somewhere. Maybe my intrepid Sue grows up on one.

In chat, I described this story as Snow White and the Seven Boywhores. Now I'm sad because it really isn't. Alas, no wicked queens or poisoned apples are showing up to remedy this.

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Sourdough Pita

1 cup intrepid shoggoth
2 cups flour
3/4 cup warm water
1/2 teaspoon yeast
1 tablespoon applesauce (I had none so I replaced this with a pat of butter)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 tablespoon olive oil

Mix the shoggie with the water, yeast, and sugar. Stir in the flour, salt, oil, and applesauce/butter. This will probably be a bit wet, so add more flour a tablespoon at a time until it's not too sticky and not too dry. Knead and cover to rise. When it's doubled in size, punch it down and roll it into a rope and divide into eighths. Smoosh the eighths into flat rounds.

At this point, you can either fry the pitas or bake them. I tried both, and both are delicious. To fry, coat a pan with olive oil and heat very hot. Cook the pitas for a couple minutes on each side, until they're done but not burned.

To bake, preheat the oven to 500. (The original recipe said bake for three minutes on a rack. I used a cookie sheet and it took me more like 10-12 minutes. I suggest just keeping an eye on them till they look right.) When they come out of the oven, smoosh them flat.

Nom nom nom.

Rosemary ciabatta, guest starring the bread robot

Ingredients:
1 cup sourdough starter
7/8 cup non-chlorinated water
1/4 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon yeast
rosemary to taste

Put everything in the robot and set it to the dough cycle.
Let the dough rise, either in the robot or some other suitable place, for 1 hour, or until it's big enough. (I used chlorinated water, which lengthens the rising time, apparently.)
Divide the dough and shape it into inch-high rectangles. Ish. Don't punch the dough down--you're trying not to release the air bubbles. (It will be a wet sticky dough.)
Sprinkle the loaves with flour (and perhaps sea salt) and let rise again for half an hour or so.
Bake 25 - 30 minutes at 425 degrees.
Nom.

The texture isn't entirely perfect. I suspect either the water, or that I let too much air out when I was shaping the loaves. But still quite tasty. Especially with olive oil and sea salt.

Or spicy chicken stew, for those of you who ain't from around here.

(You will more often find carne or puerco guisada, and these are in fact tastier, but I'm on a no-cute-animal diet for a while.)

Ingredients:
1.5 lbs chicken, or meat of your choice, cubed
.25 cup flour, (at least)
.5 - 1 onion, as you prefer - I used two cloves of a shallot
1.5 cloves garlic
2 chopped tomatoes
1 can (14 oz) stewed or diced tomatoes
2 jalapenos (I used one jalapeno and one serrano, and the remains of a can of hot Rotel)
.5 tspn cumin, or to taste
1 cup (at least) chicken broth, or beef broth if you're cooking with cow
chili powder to taste
salt and pepper to taste
cilantro to taste (If you're getting the idea that I don't measure much, you're right)
optional - carrots, corn, potatoes, or whatever veggies you like

Chop up the meat and toss it with the flour and a little salt (I just used a big ziploc bag).
Chop up everything else choppable and dump it in the crock pot.
Dump in the meat.
Add the broth .
Add anything else not already in the pot.
Cook on low for 6 - 8 hours, until the chicken is totally cooked and the vegetables are as soft as you want them.

It's especially good served with avocado, queso asadero and fresh cilantro. Great on Spanish rice, or as burrito filling if it's thick enough. Corn bread would probably be nice too.

You can use less broth/more flour or vice versa, depending on how thick you want it. More broth would make it a pretty good tortilla soup. If you use chicken, you may also want to add a little olive oil, or fatty substance of your choice. The whole thing is easy to vary, and may involve lots of tasting and poking and hmming.

Or, Blueberry Cheesecake Brownies

(These have an origin story. At a friend's birthday last weekend, we were playing No More Heroes--which is awesome--and at one point the MC shouts something at an opponent that we couldn't understand. Two of us heard "blueberry cheese brownie!" This must be wrong, but that sounded so awesome I had to make them.)

Brownies:
5 tablespoons butter
2 ounces semisweet chocolate (I used unsweetened because that was what I had)
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2/3 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Cheesecake:
8 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 healthy glug of amaretto (optional)

Blueberries

Grease a square baking pan.
Preheat oven to 350.
Melt butter and chocolate, stir. Marvel at the molten substance in the bowl.
Beat in eggs, sugar, and vanilla.
Marvel some more. Taste batter. Mmm.
Mix in flour and baking powder.
Pour into the pan.

Melt the cream cheese. Stir in egg, sugar, vanilla, and booze. Marvel. Eat all the batter.

Pour the cheesey goodness on top of brownie goodness. Cut with a knife to marble. Add blueberries.

Bake for 25 - 30 minutes.

Let cool for a bit. Nom nom nom!

Since I used unsweetened chocolate, and a little less than half a cup of sugar in the cheesecake, mine came out not as sweet as might be desired. If you do use unsweet chocolate, don't cut the sugar.

The blueberries are kind of lost in the tastebud devastation that is BROWNIE CHEESECAKE, sadly. Not that you need them when you have BROWNIE CHEESECAKE. I may try some other ingredient next time I make these.

I was going to try orange chocolate chip scones, but I was too lazy to zest the orange and the Frangelico was right there.

2/3 cup whipping cream
1 egg
1 tspn vanilla
2 tspns Frangelico
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 tspns baking powder
1/4 tspn salt
1/3 cup butter
1/2 - 2/3 cup chocolate chips
cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg, as seem good to you

Preheat the oven to 375. Mix the egg, cream, vanilla and booze in a small bowl and set aside.

Whisk together the flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder and salt. Cut in the butter until the mixture is coarse and crumbly. Stir in the chocolate chips. Add the liquids and stir until the dough comes together. (I needed extra cream, so keep some at hand.)

Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface, just a few times. (It's sticky, but not as bad as Guinness gingerbread batter.) Shape the dough into a flattish circle and cut into 8 triangles. The original recipe included a wash a one well-beaten egg and a tablespoon of milk, but I didn't make that.

Bake for 15 minutes. Toothpick testing is harder with chocolate chip things.

Nom nom nom.