BEN I'M CALLING YOU OUT

today i made an apple pie. it was just ok. and i forgot to take a picture. there was cheese on it.

but this post isnt about my pie. it's about ben.

BEN.
I HEAR YOU ARE COOKING.
WONDERFUL THINGS.
AMAZING THINGS FULL OF EGGS.

where are all of your posts?
if you dont post soon, i'm going to stalk your kitchen, make your meals, and post them myself. THEN WE'LL SEE WHO DRANK WHOSE MILKSHAKE THEN.

le quiche du moi ooh la la

Pardon ma French, but I couldn't rehzeest..

I made this quiche two weeks ago, and am just posting the documentation of it now..

Elli and I took a lot of photos, and I was intimidated by the thought of having to organize them so it took this long... Anyways, here's what happened:

The crust:

I'd never made pastry dough before, so I thought I'd try it..

1st, the flour,

mix it with sliced, then chilled, butter until it's "grainy" (LOTS of butter):

Then take out some chilled vodka

and put in 2 tablespoons and then start mixing into the dough:

Then mix in a little water until it feels right, and mush it up with your hands.

It shouldn't be too sticky (too much water... mine had a little bit too much water, but it worked out okay.)

now listen to Sir Mixalot until you produce a nice pile of sweet buttery dough that scents the kitchen air.

Next, wrap it in cling-film/plastic wrap, place it on a plate, and make sure your wrap warps a little in the photo (I just got a new wide-angle lens for my camera that morning, maybe contributing to my obsessive pic-schtick)..

Stick the dough in a fridge for 30 mins (or, if you wanna use it much later, freeze it, then thaw it before using it).

Meanwhile, dust stuff with flour..

and roll!

I think the stickiness of my dough (excess water) combined with guessed thawing durations made it hard for the dough to be right in time for the photo shoot and rolling pin.

So I had to kind of club it with my rolling pin until it was flattish.

Then I used my fingers and patted it into the baking pan. The butter in the dough was a little melty by now, and the dough was heading towards being a paste.

The foil goes on, then usually pie weights, if you have that. I used my cast-iron pan. Then stick it in the oven (350F) for 12-15 mins to half-bake it.

At this moment in time, you have completed a major task, and may also half-bake yourself as a reward.

Now the filling:

This part is super easy after the last part cos now it feels like you'll be making an omelette without the completely making an omelette. They are in the same area of the spectrum of French cuisine.

So, start with five large eggs,

and for 5 eggs, you need 1 pint of half-and-half or cream/milk mix,

plus seasoning (white pepper, black pepper, salt, cayenne, etc.)

Mix it up well, and add whatever else you want to it. I put in little torn-up pieces of broccoli, mushrooms. I forgot to photograph that part, so you'll have to imagine it.

Before you get lost in your imaginations for too long, don't forget to take out the half-baked crust in time! You want it to look lightly toasted.

Pour your eggy mixture in to the crust, and top with a good sharp cheddar. Then in the oven it goes!

I had excess mixture. Eggstra. So I poured it in the little cast iron pan, added some onions, and designated it my scout.

Basically it was a tiny but creamy rich fritatta cooking alongside its quiche cousin.


Now smell the kitchen and wait...

Keep checking on it and keep an eye out for the color of the surface, the color of the crust, etc.. No burning allowed! Not after all this effort!

When you're feeling good about it, stick a toothpick in and see if it comes out dry.

Then take it out when it's done and let it cool for a good 10 mins.

Greed and gluttony overtook and all patience was lost for photos. So all we got are these two pics of the last remaining piece, the runt, that we took the next morning:

The dough could've been "better" (less personality?) but it was still a pretty damn good quiche.

Capiche?

well, there it is...

NY Times talks about bento boxes

failed failed failed

it was too juicy. so i tried to pour some of the excess liquid off off. it fell in the sink.
then i burned it.
it never recovered.

thin sliced plums (some too ripe, some not ripe at all)
honey with cardamom (too much), ginger (too much), and some hot sauce
filo dough slightly rolled out, folded around the edges with twisted corners.

yuk.

this is kind of a ben recipe

Savory Duck Fat Doughnuts

Polenta with parmesan, crimini mushrooms, white beans, olives, and broccoli rabe

Here I have some repurposed leftovers. I had the polenta and BR in the fridge from the previous night, so I thought I'd dress them up for lunch. The polenta was made by boiling and constantly stirring coarse cornmeal. I let it set up in a shallow round dish, then cut into triangles. I fried the leftover triangles on both sides in a hot pan, then garnished with some fresh parmesan cheese.

In the same pan, I threw in some mushrooms, chopped oil cured black olives, the leftover rabe (which had been sauteed with lemon juice), and some white beans, which I drizzled with olive oil and lots of black pepper.

Ashiq's first post

Hey everybody out there!

I'm blogging! And this is my first post for Milkshake Busters.
Something simple -- a simple delicious breakfast.
You can alter any of the ingredients to your liking.

Here's what Elli and I had this morning:
Prep time: 1 minute.

• 1. Fresh, ripe blueberries.
  Of course you can use raspberries, strawberries, or whatever. It's a nice summer Sunday, so we went with these.

• 2. Your favorite cereal.
  Here we used Dorset Muesli
  in Vanilla Almond Breeze.
  Yum!

• 3. Arrange and enjoy!

Fish N' Chips

Kyle and I were hungry the other night but didn't know what to make. We did know that we needed to go grocery shopping. We ran out to the store and realized we wanted fish. To our delight there was some delicious cod on sale and we knew we had a shitload of potatoes back home about to go bad. We took that cod home and got it ready. Above is some potatoes and a tool. Yes. Tools. We have evolved. This one is for fries. Below you can see what we did to those potatoes with that tool. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. That's a lot of fuckin' potatoes.
As you can see below its a good thing we had so many. Those bastards turned out golden awesome. Just look at those chips. Golden fuckin' goodness. Makes you jealous, don't it? Sea salt on those bitches too.
Here's the fish all prepped. We let it slip into something a bit more comfortable. Flour, then egg, then flour, then egg, then bread crumbs. The egg, as per house rule, was mixed with paprika.
And here they are golden delicious. Much like the chips, a source of envy. Perfectly juicy and flaky on the inside.
We finished cooking with just enough time for me to pack a lunchbox for work. I squeezed out some tartar sauce and ketchup in there cuz I wasn't sure what we had at work. Wonderful. Excellent lunchbox dinner. You should be so lucky.

Hot Day -- Lunch Sandwich

It has been really hot out. I just wanted a not hot thing to eat. Whole wheat bread, cold tofu, spinach leaves, hummus, avocado, cheddar, cucumbers. Olives and carrots on the side.

Giant Enchilada Fiesta

Omg, Enchilada Night at the Maxwell. We threw together the leftover steak from the other night and some veggies. Jenn cooked it up with like a whole fucking bottle of enchilada sauce. Amazing. Then we dumped an entire bag of cheese. Kraft may want us to use half a bag, but fuck them. I've never heard anyone say anything was too cheesy (except for maybe my karaoke but I still think I'm solid gold on the mic). Amazing dinner. I can't wait to do this again.
Here's an overhead view. These things were fuckin' huge! I don't know why we made so many and I know even less of why I ended up with two of them on my plate. I topped them with refried beans to start. The rice wasn't my best. I have to relearn my rice timing and ratios for this goddamn electric stove. I cooked it up with a bullion cube, peppers, onion, and some other shit I can't remember. Just the usual.
Here's a picture of the dinner table set for us to start. We put out chips with guacamole and lots of rice and refried beans.
The last bites with some guacamole. Excellent choice. I couldn't believe I made it through two of these bad boys. Kyle finished just after me. It was intense. Jenn wussed out and only had one. The second didn't last long in the fridge before someone snagged that bitch. The consensus at the Maxwell is that this was the largest and best dinner we've collectively made. They were so amazing. Gotta love enchilada night.

Zucchini Challange - Zuch and Peach Roulade

This zucchini and peach roulade was made with a cheddar souffle spread with a zucchini pesto with saturn peach slices layered on top, rolled up and chilled, then served with a soy-ginger orange sauce. yum!

Lauren tried it and said "um, i'm not hungry. but this is ok. i'd eat it again" - soooo yeah. but i liked it. and matt liked it! it was light and delicious and tasted like summer.

the roulade was basically a white roux which was salted, peppered, and with cheddar cheese melted in which was then folded into egg whites which had been beaten to smooth, stiff peaks. the mixture was then baked.

the zucchini pesto was created by cutting the skin of the zucchini off and some of the white and puree-ing it with a few leaves of basil.

the orange sauce was created by puree-ing a mandarine orange with some orange juice, flour, ginger, and soy sauce and reducing that until the consistancy was as you see here.

then we ate it! and we're going to eat it again for dinner tonight. YUM.