Baileys Chocolate Buttermilk Squares

So I decided that perhaps another problem with the Baileys bread from the previous post was not just that it was too alcoholic, but it was something more basic than that. Perhaps I threw in too much baking soda, and there were no acidic ingredients to counter that soda (I doubt the Irish cream would have sufficed). So I decided to crumble the bread and mix it with eggs, buttermilk, and chocolate chips, and threw it in the oven as a sort of bread pudding in hopes of salvaging the spent Baileys. The oven blasted at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes before I had to go to the in laws'. It was rather runny and eggy when I left, but upon return, the bread pudding had set very firmly. In fact it was so firm I wouldn't call it a pudding anymore. The prominent flavors were buttermilk and chocolate, with the Baileys in the background and no more sharp burn of alcohol or baking soda or whatever it was that had prompted the redemption of this bread from its former self. These are now sitting as squares wrapped in foil in the freezer, waiting to be consumed at a later date. I've had enough of chocolate, Baileys, buttermilk, and the like for the time being. I'm craving some vegetable juice...

Baileys Oat and Corn Flour Loaf

I recently bought The Cornbread Gospels from Amazon and tried out one of their methods, which is to fill my slow cooker with water halfway and place an ovensafe container inside, above a trivet-like device, which could be a wadded up ball of foil just to prevent the bottom of the container from coming in direct contact with the bottom of the slow cooker. So we're essentially steaming the bread. I think the method turned out a success! I didn't have to watch for burns, and the bread was moist and evenly heated! So score on the method!

But the actual bread of my choosing was a semi disaster. I promise promise promise... next bread I make will be that cornbread mix where I can't possibly mess up! This one, I felt like being adventurous, since sometimes you strike gold when you experiment. Alas, this proved to be one of the failures. I mixed whole grain oat and corn flours with baking soda and vital wheat gluten, and then used Baileys Irish Cream as a sort of heavy cream substitute, and some of that praline liqueur just for kicks. Those were the sole liquids binding this dough. All looked well at the end of the 4 hour setting. The loaf released cleanly from my stainless steel container, and there was nothing odd about the aroma. Even the texture looked fine as I broke off a piece... But let me tell you that one bite of this will have you crying for a chaser! I thought the alcohol would have cooked off but I guess not, because this was basically alcoholic bread! I tried smearing on some Kerrygold salted butter but the Baileys/praline kick completely overwhelmed the butter. Finally I found that topping the bread with gobs of chocolate chips helped to tone down and mitigate the burn. This was almost reminiscent of my oatmeal cooked in beer, except that was not as strong, bitter, or fragrant as this one.

So anyway, as a default plan, I had originally settled on just slicing this loaf and making chocolate chip sandwiches with them to stick them in the freezer for a rainy day. But then I got another potentially wise or disastrous idea (see next post)...

Sumac Veggie Spaghetti

Yay for the deep red color and refreshing tang imparted by the sprinkling of sumac onto an otherwise unnoteworthy meal.

Praline Pecan Spiked Coffee

So I was at Bevmo the other day and this New Orleans Pecan Praline Liqueur really caught my eye. Candied pecans and walnuts are among my favorite things to eat, with pralines not far behind. So anyway I had this liqueur straight the other day and also over ice cream, both of which were fairly disappointing (too strong, not sweet). But in coffee, this liqueur really shines! Somehow, it becomes sweet and lends a nutty, rich taste to my coffee without the cream and sugar. I had almost resigned myself to figuring out how to bake with this liqueur before discovering the happiness of pecan praline spiked coffee! I have this in my cK cup (it says "Live long and prosper" in hand-painted Star Trek font on the other side) with the pine trees reflected on the coffee's surface. One sip of this warm, divine beverage can whisk you away to the deep south, down to the French Quarter of New Awlins or to the banks of the mighty Mississippi, steeped in rich history and romantic ruggedness...

Nyåkers Swedish Marzipan Biscuits

I saw these at World Market and thought they looked really cute. They come all the way from Sweden. If I were less lazy, I would make my own marzipan cookies or biscuits, and drop all the preservatives that allow these sorts of products to last until like next April. These have seriously no nutritional value, but they are a bit fun due to their extremely soft and springy texture. It's amazing how long a shelf life some of these holiday baked goods can have-- stuff like panettone, stollen, and these biscuits. So yeah this purchase was more of an impulsive mini splurge than anything.

Mop Passed Out

This is Mop, my baby Maltese, or one of them anyway (Mop has a younger, less wild brother named Andrew who's elsewhere in the studio). Somehow, Mop got himself in this odd-looking position. Maybe he drank too many pints of Guinness while we were away, or just got too sleepy while perusing some of my books? Either way, this was too adorable for me to pass up. For a real dog, I wouldn't get a Maltese though. They are super cute as puppies but would inevitably grow up into mops, without regular grooming. I'm leaning towards the West Highland White Terrier, but we'll see...

Chicken Rice Soup

If you read the previous post, that will set the context for this bowl of chicken soup, which is essentially chicken soup with spinach rice porridge thrown in. Yay for permutations of chicken soup. First I had whole wheat penne, and here we have jasmine long rice... What's next? How long will K be sick for?

Corn Rice Porridge

I had intended to make a rice porridge to go alongside chicken soup. To change things up, I decided to throw in spinach in the rice porridge, and use chicken broth instead of water for the porridge. All this went into the rice cooker while I made soup with chicken drumlettes/wings plus corn plus random dried veggies on the stovetop. When the porridge was done, it was apparent that I had not only made too much of it, but also that I had thrown in too much spinach. K would not have eaten that porridge, with all that green. So I ended up mixing the porridge into the chicken soup for him, to downplay all that spinach (see next post). However, I was perfectly fine with all the spinach so this here is a combination of the solids from the soup (corn and dates) and the extra rice porridge. It's not shown here but I eventually added tofu for protein, since I let K have all the chicken. Not too pretty but I actually liked it.

Chicken Noodle Soup

Nothing spectacular here. I made chicken soup since K somehow got sick. It's super convenient to just use frozen chicken wings and drumlettes for this type of thing. I threw in penne, mixed frozen veggies, goji berries, and dates. Yay for serving in the cute handled soup bowl, from the Ballydoughan poppy range.

Pomegranate Chicken Pilaf

I forgot how this one worked, but somehow I mixed together rice with diced rotisserie chicken, mixed frozen veggies, and topped that off with pomegranate seeds. This one looks colorful and arguably pretty, but I didn't actually think the pomegranate matched the rotisserie chicken taste. Oh well at least I dispositioned the white meat from the chicken.

Pomegranate Persimmon Guava Fruit Salad

You can't see the greens but here I have TJ's herb salad mix, which has the usual greens plus a nice twist with organic parsley, cilantro, and dill! I scooped out some Hachiya persimmon flesh and topped that with pomegranate seeds, sliced guavas, halved Feijoa (pineapple guava), and sliced Fuyu persimmons. All the fruit came from my parents' backyard. This was a lovely and refreshing salad, especially with the fresh dill. The soft Hachiya persimmons served as a pseudo dressing, due to its consistency and strong, sweet flavor.

Raspberries & Crème Fraîche

The name says it all... The crème fraîche was so much more interesting and delicious than whipped cream, in my opinion. I never was a fan of berries and cream, but this crème fraîche takes it to a whole other level. Cream cheese is also good with berries but it's harder to eat that straight and is usually mixed with sugar of some sort. This is still very rich though... Will probably have to get yogurt next time to compensate for this...

Lamb "Stroganoff"

Bought lamb shoulder and put it in the rice cooker with mixed mushrooms (crimini, shimeiji, field, abalone, shiitake), carrots, and whole wheat rotelle pasta. For flavor, I had paprika, Kerrygold butter, salt, and pepper. I dumped in a lot of the rotelle pasta, dry, so I had to add SOME kind of liquid, and settled on half a bottle of Reggiano Lambrusco, which is a very affordable ($5) Italian soft red wine from Trader Joes. It's actually very drinkable so I didn't really have to cook with it but it's been sitting around so why not? It's basically a bubbly sweet red, but not cloyingly sweet.

So the trick to using the rice cooker for tender meat is to cook the dish for several rounds in the rice cooker. Embarrassingly, I can't advise on how to do this using the modern rice cookers. For the trusty old school Tatung ones, all you do is just keep pressing the simple lever down, giving it about 20 minutes in between the time the lever pops up and the next time you press it down, and possibly adding some water if the lever pops up too quickly after starting the second round.

Anyway I personally thought the lamb was tender (probably due to the multiple tablespoons of butter), and the pasta fluffed up nicely with the wine and with the butter giving it an extra smooth texture. I was going to add some nonfat yogurt and call it a stroganoff, but when the dish came out of the rice cooker, it didn't look like it wanted to be tampered with, so I left it alone and served it without the yogurt. Again, I really liked this dish, although it was definitely on the rich side, even without any dairy (so rich, in fact, that I actually needed tea afterwards to balance it out). Kevin, however, was not a fan. He liked the lamb but not the pasta, citing excess sauce as his reason.

Lambrusco Braised Lamb with Juniper Berries, Tarragon, and Sage

I used the rest of the lamb shoulder, mixed mushrooms, carrots, whole wheat rotelle pasta, red wine for this slow cooked dish. The spices are different from the rice cooker pseudo-stroganoff dish. This time, I used juniper berries, tarragon, sage, garlic, salt, and pepper, along with olive oil instead of butter. According to Williams Sonoma, juniper berries are "blue-black berries [that] come from an evergreen tree in the cypress family. A favorite in Scandinavian cookery and Europe's alpine cuisines, they're prized for their refreshing pine aroma and spicy, astringent flavor... balanced by floral and woodsy notes." Yay for pretty spices with a pretty name.

So anyhow, I turned the slow cooker off shortly before the 6-hour setting had completed, since it looked like most of the liquid had boiled off. The rotelle noodles did not hold up as well in the slow cooker as they had in the rice cooker... They became incredibly soggy and failed to retain their distinctive spiral shape. The lamb itself was very tender, albeit somewhat bitter due to my probable overdoing of the juniper berries. That's what I get for casually eyeballing the amount thrown in rather than actually counting out the berries. I also did not fill the entire slow cooker with meat, so that probably made a difference, as the relatively strong sage and the 20 or so juniper berries probably overwhelmed my 4 or 5 pieces of lamb shoulder. Furthermore, I might have to consider getting those herb infusion bags so as to impart the flavor of the berries on the food without having to pick out them out individually afterwards (the juniper berries did not taste that great and are harder to pick out than something like a bay leaf or star anise). I couldn't really make out the tarragon taste-wise, but it definitely added pretty little specks in the meat and noodles. 

Overall, the flavor was definitely reminiscent of a rustic autumn meal, and I enjoyed the novelty of the taste. As expected, Kevin wasn't a fan, but I still made him help me eat some.