left top, cast iron skillet:
Left side cooked potato
right side raw potato
right bottom,non stick pan:
Left side cooked potato
right side raw potato
veg oil and a bit of butter in each pan
I cooked the tater in the microwave for 4 mins. It was pretty much baked. Easy to shred, but came out a bit smooshed
The pan really did not matter. The cast iron cooked the taters much faster and resulted in a crispier texture. I used a bit too much oil, but if I made a whole batch of hash browns it would of been about right.
so besides the pan they were cooked in, the raw potatoes were the favorite of both of us.
First try at making a vid. Old post, just added vid. Learned a bit from this one
Our very first date I took Theresa to Spaghetti works. I might still have the matchbook from that date. Sure it was awesome to hang with her, but the garlic bread. Oh, that garlic bread. It is to die for. I have heard stories of some old lady that comes in every day and all she does is make garlic bread. I wish to meet her someday. Something about the slight goldenness and flecks of parsley encased in that crispy garlic cheese crust.
We garlic bread a bunch and have gone through many styles over the years. I have tried to recreate SW garlic bread many times and never came close, till tonight. It was so simple I am amazed. Butter, parm cheese, parsley, and fresh ground garlic. The fresh garlic was key. I used a microplane to turn it into liquid mush. We have used raw garlic before, but only the minced stuff in the jar. Powders just do not cut it. Spread it, let it brown, done. The garlic is sweet and the cheese flavorful. We have made it a few times and I think I still need to cut back on the butter, more cheese.
Theresa honed her cake ball skills up a few notches this weekend. We were invited over to my brothers house for some grub. I brought two loaves of no knead bread and Theresa made cupcakes and coated cake balls.
So it is the vanilla and chocolate cake crumbles, but way lighter on the frosting mixed in to make them lighter and more cake like. A core ball of one kind of cake surrounded by the other kind. Then dipped in the opposite almond bark and covered with coconut, cake crumbs, and colored sugar. They were the best batch yet. Not overly sweet or dense. My fave was the coconut ones.
When it comes to garlic we use a ton. I have tried the minced crap in a jar which really has no power. I have bought fresh with hit or miss results. If it is green on the inside it is past its prime. Then at Russ’s on 17th and Washington I saw Melissa’s peeled grliac. It is the best garlic product I have ever used. I plan on buying fresh at the farmers market and growing my own, but for now this it awesome. The bag is filled with smaller bags of peeled garlic containing 2-5 cloves. It is moist, cleaned well, and not a bit of growth in the core. Consistent and severely flavorful. Love it.
The idea came from seeing sauces in these squeezy bottles on cooking shows and I knew I needed them for the hash browns. I have hash brown making down to a science, will post about it soon. A vid post
When I am ready to flip them for the first time I used to put little bits of butter on the top before the flip. It made my hands all greasy and wanted a bit of oil in there as well. Bottle to the rescue. I mixed it 1/2 butter 1/2 veg oil and 20 seconds in the microwave and I am good to go. Works wonders for eggs and prob any other thing I need some lube for.
I made one up full of clarified butter as well for the peppercorn steaks I keep them barely filled so they nuke warm quick and I can keep it fresh. Stored in the fridge of course.
At the Haymarket beerfest I talked with the Le Quartier guy about some issues I was having. My biggest problem is during the second rising I get issues with the dough sticking to anything it touches. The no knead bread is very wet. I tried a very floured up tea towel with flour on top. When it rose gooey bits stuck to the towel. I heard wheat bran works, but did not like the taste. I just ended up using a bunch of flour which would build up a white crust that took a bit of work to scrape off. Pic below.
I hoped to get some good info from the Le Quartier guy and waited a bit to ask. He was glad to share the secrets I needed. First on the second rising no cling wrap. It needs to breathe a bit since it is so wet. But the real trick is to use rice flour to keep it from sticking to stuff. I got some white rice flour and it seemed like a really fine sand. When the loaf came out it was not crusted with the flour and you can hear the crust crackling while it cooled down. When it cooled enough I was able to wipe the little bit of flour sticking to it off with my hand. It was good.
We have been kicking the peppercorn steaks almost every weekend for about 5 months now. It gets pricey buying fillets of loin roasts. I kinda said we need to do something different since we have it so often, but Sam’s club had the PSMO (Peeled Side Meat On tenderloin) for $5 a pound for choice which goes for $24 a pound at Ideal. I simply had to try it.
If you watch the first clip it will show how to carve one of these up. We got the side meat roast, 2 big chunks of the loin for Chateaubriand (how we do the recipe lately), two fillets, two mini end cuts I butterflied for a snack some day, and the chain meat I will make an awesome cheese steak from some time. The savings were absolutely unbelievable. I think I will be chopping a bunch of these up for years to come.
I picked up a brinkman bullet smoker from an auction near my house about 5 years ago. This would be my second time using the thing in that whole span. It will get used a lot more after grubbing down last night. Theresa is not a big fan of smoked meat, but I dig it. I smoked some baby back ribs and two pork shoulder steaks. 7 hours with a stoking of the coals 1/2 way through and many additions of hickory and mesquite wood chips did wonders. I did not season them all that much so the pure flavor could shine through.
I posted about the red velvet cake balls a day or so ago. We figured if we used Theresa’s checkerboard cake to make dual filled cake balls. We made ours from scratch the whole way. Man are they good.
The cake was pretty easy since we did not have to carefully mix the batters. Just made one of each.
Crumbled the cake up and split some fresh made cream cheese frosting which we mixed in with the bread crumbs.
It took a darn long time to roll all those balls up.
Used chocolate almond bark in our fancy chocolate melter and got to dippin.
and of course sprinkles to decorate.
They are rich. I was a bit worried about using the bark, but the sweetness of regular chocolate would of made these already too sweet balls too much I bet. The cream cheese mixed in really carries the flavor. They are gooooooooooood. We have a ton and Theresa is gonna share them with her coworkers tomorrow. I plan on brining some to work for my birfday later in the month.
