StarDestroyer.Net BBS

We don't eat much of anything by way of grains (wheat, corn, oats, rice, et all) since we tend to feel much better without them, but we -do- like us some pancakes...

Grainless Pancakes

1 Cup Almond Meal
2 Eggs
1/4 Cup Carbonated Water
2 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
1 Tablespoon Sweetener
1/4 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1/8 Teaspoon Fresh Grated Nutmeg
1/8 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon

Separate Eggs

Combine Almond Meal, Salt, Sweetener, Nutmeg, and Cinnamon in a medium mixing bowl. Add egg yolks, water, oil and vanilla extract and gently whisk until well-combined. Beat egg whites to stiff peaks and immediately fold into almond meal mixture, gently using a spatula just until mixed. Drop by 1/3 cup on a medium-hot pan or griddle and brown +/- 1 minute per side, Makes six small pancakes.

For chocolate pancakes add 2oz grated bittersweet or unsweetened baking chocolate, to taste.

The fish thread reminded me that I had two quick and simple fish recipes:

"Baked Italian Fish"
2 fish fillet
pepper
1/2 cup tomato sauce
parmesan cheese (grated)

Pre-heat oven to 400* F
Butter a baking dish.
Put the fish in the baking dish.
Sprinkle fish with pepper.
Pour tomato sauce over fish so that it covers them.
Sprinkle fish with cheese.
Bake fish at 400* F for 15 minutes OR microwave for ~4 minutes.

Garlic Sauce Fish
Note: This one tends to make the kitchen smell funny, in my experience.

Some milk (enough to cover the bottom of a ceramic casserole dish)
fish
pepper
garlic sauce (you know the ones for Papa John's pizza? Those work great!)

Cover the bottom of the ceramic dish with milk.
Lay the fish in the milk.
Add pepper.
Pour the garlic sauce over the fish.
Cook 3-4 minutes in the microwave or until the fish flakes.

Baffalo's Cheesy Potato Cassarole

Ingredients:

• 2 lb. bag of Southern Style (cubed) hashbrowns, thawed
  8 oz. of Cheese Whiz
  8 oz. of Sour Cream
  1 can (condensed) Cream of Chicken soup
  1 tablespoon of salt
  1 half stick (2 oz. or 4 tablespoons) butter
  2 cups Unsweetened Corn Flakes, crushed

Prep:

• Preheat oven to 350oF (175oC).
  Grease the bottom of a 9" x 13" baking pan.

Cooking:

• Mix in a bowl the Cheese Whiz, Sour Cream and Cream of Chicken soup.
  Mix in hash browns and stir until even and consistent.
  Pour mix into pan, bake for 30 to 45 minutes until center bubbles.
  Melt butter and mix with crushed corn flakes, sprinkle over top of cassarole.
  Bake additional 15 minutes.
  Let sit for at least 10 minutes due to extreme heat!

Enjoy!

Too Many People (Thanksgiving 2013 Edition):

Well, this year, there will be nearly 50 people at the annual gathering, since a lot of the west coast crowd have flown in. Therefore, I'm having to ramp up my smoking game. This year: 25 pounds of smoked beef brisket instead of 10.

Rub recipe:
6 parts (tbs) Mustard powder
4 parts """" Packed Dark Brown Sugar
2 parts """" Garlic Powder
2 parts """" Kosher Salt
2 parts """" Ground Black Pepper
Rinse and repeat 'till all the meat is coated (turns out that this is double the rub recipe above).

This year, I have oak (of course) and apple wood (a couple of younger trees didn't survive the drought this year).

Coat all meat in the aforementioned rub, start the oak fire - once it's started. add the dried apple-wood, then the briskets, fat-side on top. Keep the fire at 175 degrees@9 inches above the grill (cast-iron, of course). Keep adding dry apple-wood for 1.5 hours, along with enough oak to maintain the temperature. Baste with beer (Modelo Especiale. in this case), and wrap in foil to steam-grill after six hours.

Result - extremely tasty meat; very tired whackadoodle.

StarSword's Apple Pie

I've been making this recipe for about four years and am constantly on the hook for making pies at Thanksgiving and Christmas (six in the last month alone). I started with the apple pie recipe from the Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook and progressively tweaked it. All measurements are US.

You'll need:

• 9-inch pie plate, Pyrex or equivalent
• deep mixing bowl (at least a couple gallons' capacity) and large, flat mixing spoon
• 2 pie crusts. I use Pillsbury roll-out crusts, and I find it helps to buy an extra box, just in case.
• 6-8 cups apples, half Granny Smith, half red Rome, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced. A hand-cranked peeler/corer does the job beautifully, then cut the apple spiral into quarters lengthwise.
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar, and extra.
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, and extra.
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 egg, scrambled with a fork
• sauce brush
• aluminum foil

1. Allow your pie crusts to warm up to about room temperature. In my experience this takes about as long as peeling and slicing the apples, conveniently enough.
2. Preheat the oven to 375ºF (or according to the manufacturer recommendation if it has a convection fan; mine calls for 350º). Put the shelves at the middle slot and below.
3. In the mixing bowl, blend together the dry ingredients, minus the extra sugar and cinnamon.
4. Pour the lemon juice over the apple slices and wait about thirty seconds.
5. Pour the apples into the mixing bowl and stir them until they're good and coated in the sugar mixture.
6. Roll one crust out into the pie plate. You want to have about half an inch of crust on the lip of the pie plate; this'll probably require gently stretching the crust by pressing it against the plate with your fingertips. Be sure to get any air pockets out.
7. Scrape the apple mixture out of the mixing bowl into the crust and mound them up as rounded as you can get them.
8. Roll the other crust onto the pie. Seal the edges with the fork you scrambled the egg with, and if the crust is sticking out over the edge of the pan cut off the excess with a knife.
9. Take the sauce brush and brush a thin layer of egg over the top crust. Take a spoonful of white sugar and shake it out over the top crust to produce a decent dusting. It's easy to get too much in places; watch yourself. Do the same with the extra cinnamon.
10. Make six incisions in the top crust in an asterisk shape. Wrap the edges of the crust in aluminum foil and put it on the middle shelf of the oven. Put a large plate or baking dish on the next shelf down to catch drips.
11. Bake for 25 minutes, then take the foil off the edges and bake for 20 minutes more.

This isn't my recipie, but it looks so cute and fun and it really IS Easy Mode:



She's got a bunch of other "Nerdie Nummies".

That is definitely an easy mode way to make a Lego cake. It's not the way I'd make the cake but of course I'm cake maker expert. I would prepped pan different by greasing and flouring it and placing a sheet of parchment on the bottom of the pan for extra insurance.

I also prefer to make my own frosting, crumb coat, and cake batter from scratch.

One of the appeals of the "easy mode" is that it is just that - easy mode that even someone with little experience can do successfully. In fact, I was imagining doing that with an 8 year old or two (though for the latter I also imagined a food fight erupting) as an assistant. It would be a fun way to introduce cooking to kids. If you are an expert baker, though, you can easily elaborate it, like making everything from scratch or using a different type of cake, making larger or smaller blocks, and so forth

I agree the only part I had any real issue was using Pam to prep the pan with because that isn't always going to work right as the very middle of the cake might stick.

Edit: I thought about what you posted a bit more and yes with more experience you can do things like stack the blocks and write the details on the blocks using a piping bag to add things like the lego in the middle of each button and more fun like that.

I'm a big fan of oil and flour myself, not the least because if you miss a spot you can see that you missed it.

A simple savoury sandwich spread:

Ingredients
A dozen eggs, hard-boiled and peeled
2/3 cup vinegar (approx)
Herbs and Spices added to taste, eg curry, chilli, tomato paste (not a spice, so sue me), salt, sugar, thyme, whatever you want, it's your spread.

Method
Stick in a blender
Blend
Stick in a jar (makes a little less than 2 x 500g jars).

With the vinegar and spices, I reckon it'll keep nearly forever in the fridge.

Potato Soup for Crockpot
I have a relatively small crockpot, so adjust as needed for your use. This makes 6 portions.

Ingredients
2 strips bacon
2 kg potatoes
1 leek
4 stalks celery
1 liter chicken broth
1/2 liter cream

Fry bacon crispy. Crumble/chop bacon into small bits. Add bacon bits and bacon grease to crockpot (yes, I said add the grease, it's OK). Add chicken broth. Peel and dice potatoes, add to pot. Chop/dice white and pale green part of leek (not where the leaves start to separate), chop celery, and add to pot.

Cook 3-4 hours on high, or 5-6 hours on low.

With 1/2 to 1 hour to go on cooking, add cream and mash diced vegetables with a potato masher. Finish cooking

If not sufficiently thick I use instant mashed potatoes/potato flakes for thickening.

Suggested condiments/toppings: salt, pepper, dill, shredded cheese, more crumbled bacon, diced ham, chives, diced mushrooms, and probably a lot of other things you can think of.

I like to serve with rolls or biscuits for a filling meal.

Really easy vegan dish:

Okra and veggies

1/2 lb of okra (frozen okay) cut into pieces
1/2 onion (white or yellow)
1/2 red bell pepper
1 can diced tomatoes (fresh can work, too)
vegetable oil
1 tbsp or so cumin
1 tbsp turmeric
~1/2 tsp garlic, minced
couple dashes pepper (fresh ground, ideally)
pinch of salt, if you feel it needs it after cooking or you use fresh tomatoes.

Slice the red pepper and onion into thin strips. No thicker than a pencil's width, but you don't want them too fine, either. They'll soften up a lot as they cook. Set them aside.

In a high-walled skillet or a wok heat the oil on medium heat until it shimmers. Just enough to give everything something to spread heat properly instead of burning. Add the pepper and onion, stirring intermittently so they don't burn. Otherwise, keep them covered to they cook more quickly. If you purchased fresh okra or the frozen okra has not been chopped into pieces, you can do this while the onion and peppers cook. Pinkie width should do nicely. The okra will cook faster than the onions and peppers, even from a frozen state. Once the onions are getting a little more pliable, add the okra. Once the okra has softened a little, you can add the turmeric, cumin, and pepper. Quantities are a very rough estimate, as I didn't measure any of them. The turmeric and cumin should be in about the same quantities. After stirring the first spices thoroughly, you want there to be a noticeable yellow tinge to the slime the okra releases as it cooks. It'll be sticky and not immediately appetizing looking, but the acid in the tomato fixes that. Pepper can go in too, now.

Once the peppers are soft, add the garlic and tomato. If you're using fresh tomatoes, add the salt at this time as well. Stir well, cover, and let it come back up to temperature. After it's done cooking, all the vegetables should be soft. The "slime" will be gone, thanks to the acid from the tomatoes. Turmeric is commonly used in Indian food, so this will go well as a side for other Indian dishes, such as curry.