Pumpkin Soup with Mole Sauce

This was kind of made up, but it worked.

Ingredients

• Soup
• 1 small pumpkin, peeled, insides scooped, chopped
• 1 apple, peeled and chopped
• 4c chicken stock
• pepper
• a couple of small, hot peppers, chopped
• Mole Sauce 
• pumpkin seeds from the pumpkin
• one onion, chopped
• garlic
• about 1tbsp dutch processed cocoa
• 1/4c raisins
• 1/4tsp cumin, coriander, cinnamon, cayenne, ancho chili powder, oregano, anise seed
• 2 dried chilies, seeds included
• 1-2 tomatoes (in our case, actually, about 3tbsp tomato paste)
• 1c chicken stock
• salt to taste
• water as necessary
• Some honey (optional - I like my mole a little sweeter)
• olive oil

First, scoop the seeds out of the pumpkin. Peel and chop the pumpkin. Toss with olive oil and some pepper and roast for about 30 minutes at 350, until soft.

Meanwhile, toast the pumpkin seeds in a pan with some olive oil until lightly toasted. Add onions and saute until translucent. Throw in the garlic and cook until fragrant. Put the onion, garlic, and pumpkin seeds in a blender with all the other ingredients, and blend until mostly smooth. At this point, I put the sauce on the stove and boiled for 15 minutes or so with some extra water, but I don't know if this is necessary? Anyway, press through a sieve into a bowl. Season to taste. DONE WITH MOLE.

The soup is so easy, it hardly counts as cooking. Add the pumpkin, apples, stock, and peppers to a pot. Cook until the apples are soft (about 20 minutes?) and blend (we used an immersion blender). Season to taste.

Serve soup with mole drizzled on top.

Thoughts: The soup was easy, but the mole took a while. Next time I would use almonds instead of pumpkin seeds, since I failed to hull the pumpkin seeds, I guess, and they were very tough. Anyway, the flavor combination worked, which I think we were all a little surprised about, since this was completely made up. But awesome! Claire says "interesting texture on the soup" - it's true, it was pretty thick, but velvety.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Black Bean and Espresso Chili

Ingredients

• olive oil
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 1 large, dried, hot pepper (we don't know what kind. It was in a bag of miscellaneous dried hot peppers)
  
• 1/8 cup instant espresso powder
• 1 tbsp cayenne powder
• 1 tbsp ancho chili powder
• 1/8 cup ground cumin
• 1/8 cup dried oregano leaves
• 1 28-oz can crushed tomatoes
• 1/6 cup honey
• lots of garlic
• 1lb dried black beans
  
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 1 cup beef stock
• 1/4 lb ground beef
  
• salt
• 1 tbsp cinnamon

Do a quick soak on the black beans, and then also let them sit for several hours. You'll see why.
Heat oil in large, thick-bottomed pot over medium-high heat. Add onions and garlic and cook until onions are tender.
Mix in espresso powder, chili powders, cumin, and oregano. Cook 1 minute.
Add tomatoes, honey, and the dried pepper.
Bring to a simmer, and let cook for 10 minutes.
Add beans, stock, beef, and cinnamon. Bring to a boil over high heat.
Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer uncovered until the mixture thickens. Sorry, you'll have to stir constantly. Theoretically, this should take 30 minutes.
Before you eat this, you'll probably need to remove the dried pepper skins. You don't want to eat that.
Eat the rest.

Thoughts: this didn't really go well at all. The worst part was that I guess we didn't soak the black beans ahead of time enough. Like, we soaked them for 8 hours, which is the recommended time, but even after three hours of cooking the chili, they weren't soft. I'm not sure how to prevent this in the future. I guess what we recommended above (a quick soak followed by a normal soak) would be a good place to start. Also, it was just a pain in the ass to cook. If you don't stir it 24/7, it sticks to the bottom of your pan. But you can't really stir it 24/7 because the tomato sauce spits all over you. Seriously, our stove looked like a war zone. Dan thought the flavor was good, but I was just so disappointed by the texture of the beans that I don't even care. Next time, I think we'll try doing it in the slow cooker or something. AND I couldn't really taste the espresso powder, which was supposed to be the most exciting thing about this recipe. Dan says he would make it again with a slow-cooker. I would rather just find a new recipe. I don't know. It's pretty good with cornbread though.

Disaster Index: 4.5/10

Rosh Hashana Challah

We noticed we didn't have even ONE challah recipe up.  If you leave out the raisins (and just braid it like normal) this is practically the same as my father's recipe for the best challah ever, I think.

Ingredients

• 1c warm water
• 2.25tsp yeast
• 1tsp sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 egg white
• 3tbsp oil
• 1/3c honey
• 4 to 4.5c flour
• 1.5tsp salt
• about 1/2c raisins, plumped in boiling water
• poppy seeds

In a mixing bowl (or, in our case, in the bowl of your kitchenaid) add the water, yeast, and sugar and stir.  Let that sit for 10 minutes or so to proof and make sure the yeast isn't dead.  Now add the yolks, oil, honey, and salt and about 2c of flour.  Using the dough hook (or your hands or whatever) mix to combine, then add flour by the half cup until the dough pulls away from the sides after kneading for a few minutes.  We wound up using about 4c of flour total.  You'll have to scrape the sides of the bowl down with a spatula a few times.

Now set the dough aside to rise in a warm and humid environment until doubled, about 2 hours.  Make sure you give it the full rise.  When it's done, either braid as usual or, for Rosh Hashana, divide the dough in half.  Working with one half at a time, roll the dough out (on a well floured surface) into a long strip - about 24" long by 6-8" wide.  Lay half the raisins along the middle of the strip.  Working on a long side of the strip, roll the dough up into a single long snake with the raisins trapped in the middle.  Pinch the ends of the dough shut and fold the long strip into a U shape, then twist the two dangling arms together.  It will look kind of like a cruller, I guess?  Do the same with the other piece of dough and the rest of the raisins.  Now place the two twists in a pie pan.  You want to arrange them like two interlocking C's - the idea is to have the bulky fold in the center and the tails twisting around in the same direction.  Like a yin-yang, if that makes more sense.

Set the dough back in a humid environment to rise for another hour.  Just before the hour is up, preheat the oven to 350.  Mix the egg white with some water (about 1:1) and whisk together.  When the hour is up and the oven preheated, brush the challah with the egg wash and sprinkle liberally with poppy seeds.  Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes until it's done (and sounds slightly hollow when tapped, etc).

Thoughts: the dough was very easy to work with.  Despite using the kitchenaid and kneading the hell out of the dough, the gluten really relaxed.  I think this may have to do with two things: 1) we mixed all the wet ingredients before adding the flour.  This meant that the fat was allowed to coat the flour particles when it was mixed together, so less gluten was allowed to develop.  2) we let it rise for a full 2 hours rather than just an hour or whatever, so that probably helped.  Arranging the dough was actually pretty easy.  The final texture was perfectly cakey, and the flavor was fantastic.  This was wildly successful.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Fresh Lime Custard Berry Tart

This was a little complicated.

Ingredients

• Crust
  
  
  • 1 stick butter
    
  • 2tbsp neutral oil
    
  • 1.75c flour
    
  • 0.25c sugar
    
  • generous pinch of salt
    
  • 1 egg yolk
    
  • 2-3tbsp milk
    
• Filling
  
  
  • 1/3c sugar
    
  • 2tbsp corn starch
    
  • 1c milk
    
  • 2tbsp butter
    
  • zest of one lime
    
  • juice of half a lime
  • 3 egg yolks
  • berries - I used about 2/3 a pint of blueberries, 6oz of blackberries, and about 8 strawberries
    
• Glaze
  
  
  • Juice of two limes
    
  • 2tbsp jam - I used guava
    
  • Honey to taste
    
  • 2tsp corn starch
    

First the dough. Whisk together the dry ingredients. Then chop the butter up into small pieces and cut it into the flour. Next time I'm using the cuisinart like I usually do for making a pastry dough. Whatever. Then add the milk and combine, being careful not to overwork the dough or heat it too much with your hands. When it JUST sticks together (it will have the consistency of wet sand), wrap it in plastic wrap and form into a disk. Stick it in the fridge for 4 hours to chill.



When that's done, take it out and, on a well floured surface, roll it out. Fit it into a springform pan or tart pan, if you have one (I didn't). I lined my springform with a little waxed paper. Make sure the dough goes up the side a little bit. I had to actually press it into the pan with a well-floured drinking glass. It works. Anyway, put some more waxed paper or parchment paper in the middle and weight down with dry peas (classic) or the change from your change jar (my way), being careful that it doesn't actually touch the dough. Bake at 375 for 15 minutes, remove currency, and bake for another 15 minutes. This is called "blind baking". I'm just saying.



Now the filling. Set the crust aside to cool. In a bowl, combine the egg yolks, sugar, lime zest, and corn starch, whisking thoroughly. In a sauce pan, bring the milk to a simmer. When it's simmering, take it off the heat and (TEMPERING FIRST), whisk into the egg/sugar mixture. Tempering means you add just a LITTLE, stir it together, add a little more, whisk thoroughly, and then add the rest. This is so it doesn't scramble the eggs.



Now return the mixture to the sauce pan and set over low heat, whisking constantly. In about a minute, the mixture will seize up (it's really sudden) probably because of the corn starch. Ok. Take it off the heat and stir a little more, then add the butter and stir until it's melted. Now pour it into the cooled crust. Dot with the berries. Actually mine had ridiculous piles of berries. Anyway, try to arrange them radially. It looks nicer. People will appreciate that.



FINALLY, the glaze. Juice those limes you used - mine were the driest limes I've ever used, so I needed two of them, but you could conceivably use one. Mix in the jam and whisk thoroughly. Then add honey until the sweetness is well balanced. Add the corn starch and whisk together, then pour it into a sauce pan and cook over low heat until it thickens. Take it off the heat and spoon it liberally over the tart. Cover the tart and fridge it until completely cooled - at least four hours, though I just made mine like two days ahead of time, so that's possibly a better option.



Thoughts: difficult to make alone. Especially in the B-more heat and humidity. I've NEVER had that much difficulty with pastry dough. It was ridiculous. I think that if I had a tart pan, that would have simplified things a LITTLE, though also the pastry dough recipe is not my usual pastry dough recipe OR method, so next time I'll try my usual and see how that works out. There were confounding factors here, is what I guess I'm saying. Berries were super cheap at Giant Foods this week, so that is the origin of that. By the time I got to the glaze, I had no sauce pans left so I actually microwaved it for 30 seconds at time (stirring in between) until it thickened. It got a little weird - corn starch does that - but it thickened well and the whole thing was pretty amazing.



Disaster Index: 1/10

Honey Wheat Bread

One of the best breads we've made.
Ingredients

• 3/4c skim milk
  
• 1/2c half-and-half (or, anyway, use something of equivalent milk-fat to these proportions)
  
• 1/4c honey
  
• 3tsp yeast (one packet plus a little)
  
• 1/2tsp salt
  
• 1tbsp butter, melted
  
• 1 egg, beaten
  
• 1c unbleached all-purpose white flour
  
• 2 or 2.5c wheat flour
  

In a bowl, combine the dry ingredients. In a saucepan, combine the milk and half and half and proceed to scald the milk (wait until it starts to really froth up as it boils). Let it cool until you can stick a finger in it for about 3 seconds without jerking your hand away in pain. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir together, then turn out onto a well-floured counter and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, adding wheat flour as necessary so that the dough is JUST sticky enough that it doesn't QUITE stick to your hands / the counter. Spray with PAM and let it rise in a warm place for an hour. It will about double (or else your yeast was dead). Again on a floured surface, press dough down, dimpling it with your fingers, into a thick sheet, then fold in thirds. Dimple again with your fingers, then fold in thirds the other way. Do this one more time. Now pull all the edges of the dough into the top center and pinch together. Turn dough ball upside-down, so you have a really smooth surface on top and so the bottom is all pinched. Put on a baking sheet, spray with some PAM, and cover, letting rise in a warm place for another hour. Preheat oven to 375 (we let our dough rise on top of the warm stove as it preheated). Bake until the loaf sounds hollow when tapped and the color is a deep chocolate brown, about 40-45 min.

Thoughts: First of all, the crust on this bread was fantastic. Not too thick, not too thin, and just the right amount of resistance. The flavor was rich without being too heavy. In fact, the dough had a lot of rise and had a really nice texture. In addition to being some of the best TASTING bread we've made, it was also among the best LOOKING loaves. We'll definitely make this one again.

As a note of some interest: why do we scald the milk? I read in the Tasajara Bread Book (the bible of bread making) that milk contains enzymes that impede the action of yeast, and that you should scald milk before using it in bread to denature the enzymes. I had never done this before, and I don't exactly have a comparison of this bread WITH and WITHOUT scalded milk to see whether this is true. But this bread was so good, why risk it? The recipe on which this is based has powdered milk (in fact, a lot of bread recipes do) which would already have denatured the enzymes. So maybe there's something to this. Unfortunately, I don't actually OWN the Tasajara Bread Book, so I can't check my facts. I was just reading a copy in the bookstore. Hm.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Wine-braised Red Cabbage

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp butter
• 2.5 cups thinly-sliced red cabbage
• 1/2 cup chopped and peeled Granny Smith apple
• 1/4 cup chopped red onion
• 2 bacon slices (uncooked), chopped
• 1/4 cup dry red wine (we used a Cabernet Sauvignon)
  
• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1/2 cup diced yukon gold potato
  
• 1 tbsp honey
• gorgonzola, to your liking.
  
• salt, pepper
  

Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat. Add cabbage, apple, onion, and bacon. Saute until cabbage is sort of tender (around 6 minutes?). Add wine and vinegar. Cover and cook until liquid evaporates and cabbage is completely tender (around 10 minutes?). Add the potato and the honey. Cover and cook until potato is tender, about 3 minutes.
Season with salt and pepper and garnish with blue cheese, if desired.

Thoughts: Pretty delicious. In the future, I would crisp the bacon, crumble it, and then add it to the cabbage at the very end. There's no point in using bacon unless it's crispy. It's also more flavorful this way. The original recipe did not call for blue cheese, but after I tried the cabbage, I thought something should be added to cut the acidity a little bit, and the only thing we had was gorgonzola. But it's delicious. And highly recommended.

Disaster Index: 2/10

Melon lassi

Okay, hardly a "recipe" but it was something I tried out today. I was originally thinking "smoothie" but it pretty much tasted like lassi. So there you go.

Ingredients

(roughly)

• 1c honeydew melon
  
• 1/2c vanilla ice cream
  
• 1/2c plain yogurt
  
• 1/4c milk
  
• 1tbsp honey
  
• 1/4tsp cinnamon
  

Throw everything in a blender. Enjoy.

Thoughts: Pretty delicious. It's like lassi, but with a subtle melon-y taste (go figure). I was mainly trying to get rid of a not-so-great honeydew melon, and this worked. My only gripe is that the melon doesn't blend TERRIBLY well - it takes a lot of blending to get it into small enough bits to be enjoyable. But the melon in question wasn't completely ripe - otherwise I wouldn't have been blending it in the first place. Catch-22. It could use to be thicker, too. Maybe some quick oats next time, no added milk, and a banana. That would make it a little more smoothie-like and probably the desired density.

Disaster Index: 2/10

UPDATE:

Ingredients

(roughly)

• 2c honeydew melon or honeydew-cantaloupe hybrid OR whatever you want
  
• 1/4c vanilla ice cream
  
• 1/2c plain yogurt
  
• 1/3c quick oats
  
• Any additional flavors you want - other fruit, cinnamon, etc
  

Throw everything in a blender (make sure you add the oats last or it'll be tough to get it started blending). Blend for 20 or 30 seconds, until it looks pretty smooth. Refrigerate for 1-2 hours. I just throw in the whole blender bowl and leave the base on the counter. During this time, the oatmeal (now more like oat flour) will plump up and thicken the smoothie, also enhancing the oat flavors, but it gets kind of lumpy. Take it out and re-blend it for 10-20 seconds on high speed after it's done. Enjoy.

Thoughts: Much improved. The oats actually add a little extra sweetness to the smoothie, and the texture is much thicker & richer. This works great if you have some melon that isn't quite sweet or flavorful enough to motivate you to eat it straight OR if you just bought way more melon that you needed and Claire won't help you eat it.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Brioche

Yes.

Ingredients

• 2tbsp honey
  
• 2.25tsp yeast
  
• 1c whole milk
  
• 4tbsp olive oil
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 2tsp salt
  
• about 4.5c flour, plus or minus.
  
• 2tbsp lavender
  
• Chocolate chips
  
• Glaze:
  
  
  
  • 1 egg yolk
    
  • 1tbsp milk
    
  • 1tbsp sugar
    
  
  

Mix together the dough ingredients (including the lavender) but exclude the chocolate chips. When it's starting to come together, turn it out onto a WELL floured counter and knead for about 5 minutes. Put it back into a bowl and toss together with some olive oil. Cover and set in a warm, humid place to rise (a microwave with a cup of boiling water makes a great rising chamber). Rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

Take out the dough and punch down. Divide into twelfths (I cut it in half twice to get fourths, and then divided each of those fourths in three to get twelfths). For each ball of dough, press your thumbs into one side and pull taught the other side (so you get a nice rounded surface), folding the edges into the center. Once one side is nice and taught, take a few chocolate chips (8-12) and put them together on the non-taught side. Pull the dough from the edges of the disc and pinch over the chocolate. The idea is basically to have a nice round ball enclosing a pouch of chocolate chips. The bottom of the dough (the non-taught side) doesn't need to look pretty.

Do this with each ball of dough and set on a baking sheet. Cover with a towel to rise for another 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 400 while you wait. Also, mix together all the glaze ingredients.

When the final rise is done, brush each bun with the glaze. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until nice and golden brown on top.

Thoughts: Claire was unsure about the olive oil, but I really liked the interesting flavor it imparted. Maybe - MAYBE next time we'll use a neutral oil. The chocolate we used was Guittard, and it was pretty great. Very vanilla-y, which complemented the aromatic qualities of the lavender and olive oil. The original recipe used only 1tsp of yeast and had an initial rise of 12-20 hours. I'll be honest - I think I like my way better. Anyway, these were JUST delicious. They don't require anything else. Just eat them plain. As a note: the recipe says to reheat them you should bake them at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Sounds kind of excessive to me, but we might find out.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Bran Muffins II

The ultimate bran muffins
Ingredients

• 1.5c wheat flour
  
• 1c white flour
  
• 1/2c honey
  
• 1/2c brown sugar
  
• 2.5tsp baking soda
  
• .75tsp baking powder
  
• 2c buttermilk or soured whole milk
  
• 1tsp salt
  
• 1tbsp cinnamon
  
• 3.5c All Bran cereal
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 1/2tsp ground nutmeg
  
• 1/2c vegetable oil
  
• 1/2c raisins
  

This is ridiculously easy. Preheat oven to 375. Mix all of the ingredients in a big bowl. It will be liquidy, but don't worry. Also don't worry about the whole All Bran cereal kicking around. It works. Trust me. Anyway, fill up a bunch of 1/2c muffin tins and bake for ~25-30 minutes.

Thoughts: These are SUPER delicious, very moist, not too sweet, and have a great crumb texture. The one thing is that they're hard to get out of the muffin tins, so you have to grease the tins really well. Otherwise, delicious.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Chinese BBQ ribs with jasmine rice

Ingredients

• 2 lbs baby back ribs
• 1.5 tbsp peeled chopped ginger
• 1 tbsp chopped garlic
• 1/6 cup soy sauce
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup hoisin sauce
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1.5 cups rice
• 2 cups jasmine tea
• 1 cup water
  

Preheat oven to 400 F. Put rack in middle position.
Puree the marinade ingredients together in a food processor.
Reserve 1/4 cup sauce and coat the ribs with the remainder.
Arrange ribs, meaty side down, in a broiler pan or a baking pan (lined with foil), and bake, turning the ribs and basting them with some of the reserved sauce about half way though. Bake for 30 minutes.
In the meantime, make the rice. This isn't difficult. Just make normal rice but instead of cooking the rice with water, do it with 2 parts jasmine tea and 1 part water.
Remove from oven. Turn on the broiler. Brush ribs, meaty side up, with the remaining sauce and put them under the broiler for 3 minutes, until there is char.
Eat.

Thoughts: Pretty damn good. This was the first time we attempted to make ribs, so we were pretty impressed with the outcome. I was worried they would be too dry, but they were not. I liked the chinese marinade, but in the future I would probably stick with traditional American BBQ sauce because I am a huge fan. Part of the ribs didn't cook all the way through the first time, so we can to throw those in for another 10 minutes, but they came out fine. The meat pulled away from the ribs pretty well, which was good. The jasmine rice was also pretty good. Not overpowering.

Disaster Index: 2/10

Bao

Ingredients

• Bread dough
• 2 packages yeast
• 1/2 cup lukewarm water
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 cup milk, heated to lukewarm
• 4.25 cups regular flour
  
• Filling
• 1 lb ground beef
• 2 green onions
• 1/2 tsp sesame oil
• pinch of salt
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1tbsp cornstarch dissolved in 1 tbsp cold water
• 2 tbsp liquid chicken stock (for the beef)
  
• 2 more tbsp dark soy sauce (for the beef)
  
• 1 tbsp dry sherry (for the beef)
  
• 1/5 tsp honey (for the beef)
  
• 3/4 tsp salt (for the beef)
  
• 1 large garlic clover, crushed or chopped (for the beef)

To make the dough:
Mix yeast into water and then add the sugar. Allow to stand for a while. Heat the milk up for about 30 seconds in the microwave, or until it feels warm. Add the milk to the water and yeast.
Make sure the milk is not too hot. This is very important.
Stir in the flour and knead until smooth. Place the dough on the counter and cover with a greased mixing bowl (make sure it's a pretty big one). Allow to rise until the dough has doubled in bulk, about thirty minutes. When done rising, punch the dough down and let rise for another 20 minutes until the bowl.
To make the filling:
While the dough is rising, prepare the filling. Put the beef (make sure it's either fresh or thawed) in a frying pan with all the ingredients labeled (for the beef). Cook until the beef is looking close to done. Add the other filling ingredients. Add more cornstarch as needed. Allow to cool.
To put them together:
Punch the dough down and knead for 1 minute. Pinch off a piece of dough about half the size of your fist. Press them into 4-5" rounds. Put an appropriate amount of filling in the center of the round of dough. With your fingers, gather the edges of the dough and pinch them together in the middle as best you can. Pinch the dough so it will hold. Place the filled bun pinched side down on a square piece of wax paper. Put in a bamboo steamer. Place buns a few inches apart, because they will expand during the steaming. If they stick together, it's no big deal. When steamer basket is full, cover the steamer with a lid and allow the buns to rise until not quite doubled in size (30 minutes). Steam the buns for 15 minutes.

Thoughts: This was hella complicated. The original recipe balls for barbecued pork, but we used ground beef instead. The original wants you to marinate the pork for several hours before cooking it up and putting it in the bao. That would have given them more flavor, which Dan says the bao definitely needed. The beef was still good, but not as good as BBQ pork would have been.
Next time we would let the dough rise for the full time. We cut the first rise short by half and hour. The dough was a little dense. We also overcooked the beef a little bit. Next time we should stop short of the full cook time because they cook a little extra in the steamer. Dan also thinks the dough could use a little more salt. Dan thinks that chicken would also be a good filler. You can always do this with vegetables too, if you WANT. Cabbage would be a good addition.

Disaster Index: 2/10

Fried Plantains

Plantains are good for you. Who knew?

Based on a recipe by Aaron McCargo Jr.

Ingredients

• One medium yellow-skinned plantain
  
• 2 tbsp neutral oil (I used peanut oil)
  
• 2-4 tbsp honey
  
• A little margarine (apparently optional)
  

Cut the plantain on a diagonal, with slices about 3/4" apart to create... a series of elipses, I guess. Anyway, heat the oil in a sautee pan or frying pan over high heat. When it's good and hot, drop the plantains in - make sure they don't stick together. Turn the heat down to medium-low and continue to let cook for about 3 minutes, until lightly browned on both sides. Add honey and margarine (actually, I think I added a little more oil) and stir to coat, cooking continually. Remove from heat and serve.

Thoughts: Plantains have this interesting flavor that's like a banana with a hint of lemon. And the texture is really unique, too. This was delicious served over french toast, and it's incredibly filling. One of my favorite new ingredients after this recipe.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Latin American Peanut and Potato Soup

Ingredients

• 4 tbsp peanut oil
• 1 yellow onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves crushed garlic
• 1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
• about 6 red potatoes, peeled and chopped
• 1 can chopped tomatoes (about 7 oz)
• 1.25 cups of unsalted peanuts
• 6.25 cups of beef stock (or veg)
  
• salt and pepper
• fresh cilantro, chopped
• honey
• cayenne pepper

Heat the oil in a large heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and cook for about 5 minutes, until onion starts to soften.
Add the garlic, potatoes, pepper, and tomatoes. Stir well to coat everything evenly, then cover and cook for 5 minutes until softened.
Meanwhile, toast the peanuts by cooking them in a large dry frying pan over medium heat. Make sure they don't burn. Move them around often. You don't want burned peanuts.
Set a 1/4 cup of the toasted peanuts aside to use as a garnish. Put the rest in a food processor and grind them up. Add them to the vegetables.
When vegetables are done cooking, remove them from heat and transfer to a blender and blend until smooth.
Return mixture to the pot and stir in the beef stock. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
Serve, garnished with the chopped cilantro and toasted peanuts.

Thoughts: This wasn't too difficult to make, and it was pretty delicious. I had the thought of adding some cayenne pepper, and Dan had the thought of adding honey. They make lovely additions to this dish, so by all means, add them both (probably just before serving). Also, I had the idea that buying fresh, in-the-shell peanuts would be a good idea because they would taste more fresh. This is probably not true, and they were a pain in the ass to shuck. So just go ahead and buy the canned ones (as long as they aren't salted! Christ!). We're having a little bit of difficulty coming to a consensus about the rating on this one. It was an unobjectionable soup, but it wasn't particularly striking. I would probably make it again.

Disaster Index: 1-2/10

Update!
only use 3c water,
4 cups worth of beef bouillon
about 2-3 tbsp honey (until you can JUST taste the sweetness)
juice of 1/3 to 1/2 a lemon
pinch of salt
pepper
cayenne to taste

Proceed as usual. About half way through the vegetables being cooked, throw HALF of them in a blender with the 3c of water. Blend smooth and re-add to the other vegetables with the 4 cups of beef bouillon. Bring to a boil and cook until the chunks of potato are tender - 10 minutes or so. Take off the heat and add remaining ingredients, tasting after each addition.

Disaster Index: 1/10

banana bread pancakes

Ingredients

• 1 banana, frozen and thawed
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup whole wheat flower
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/8 cup honey
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips
  
• pinch of cinnamon
• milk, until the batter is the right consistency

Peel the thawed banana and mash it into a bowl. Add eggs, baking powder, salt, vanilla, flour, honey, chips, and cinnamon. Don't use a whisk for this. The batter will just get all stuck up in the whisk. You don't want that.
Once it's mixed, start adding milk until the mixture is about the right consistency.
Make them on the griddle.

Thoughts: Delicious. Although we could have added a pinch more salt and like, WAY less chocolate chips. The pancakes were soooo chocolate-y. Tooooo chocolate-y. But using whole wheat flour is a good idea because it makes the texture very satisfying. These really taste like banana bread.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Peanut Butter Pancakes

Ingredients

• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• milk, until it looks right

Stir together flour, salt, and baking powder.
In a separate bowl, combine eggs, honey, vanilla, and peanut butter.
Add the liquid mixture into the dry mixture and stir well. Slowly start adding milk until it looks right. Stir until smooth.
Make pancakes.

Thoughts: Rather than serving these with syrup, I recommend serving them with jam. What you can do is this: scoop out as much jam as you need, put it in a saucepan, and add a little water (a few tablespoons). Cook on medium heat until the jam starts to break down and get more liquid-y. You will need to stir constantly because it will be sticky. Once most of the lumps are out of the jam, remove it from heat and pour it over the pancakes. Nom nom nom.
I could personally use more peanut butter in these things, but Dan seems pretty happy with the flavor.

Disaster Index: 1-2/10

Bread from a Sponge

This is Alton Brown's recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 lb flour
  
• 10oz water
  
• 1tsp yeast
  
• 2tsp honey
  
• 2tsp salt
  
• 1tbsp cornstarch mixed with 1/6c water
  

Mix 5oz flour, all the water, .25tsp yeast, and all the honey in a container. This is called a sponge. Cover it and refrigerate for 8 to 12 hours (or, for a stronger flavor, as far as I can tell, DON'T refrigerate for 8-12 hours). At the end of this period, mix the flour, salt, and remaining yeast in the bowl of a kitchen aid. Add the sponge and, using a dough hook, mix until combined. Cover with a towel and let it rest for 20 minutes, then start mixing the dough again with the dough hook to knead the dough, alternating between low and high speed for about 10 minutes - until you can pull the dough into a thin sheet you can almost see through without it breaking.

Now set the dough in a humid environment to rise until doubled, about an hour. I like to boil water in the microwave and then set the bowl in there. When it's doubled, turn the dough out onto a floured surface. Press into a rectangle with your fingers and fold in three, like a letter. Press it out again and fold it in the other direction (again, in three parts). Now draw the corners into the middle and turn it over in your hand. Now there are four "new" corners (what were previously the middle of each edge before you drew the corners the first time). Draw each of those into your hand to tighten the smooth side of the dough. Now, on a lightly floured surface pass the ball around in a circle between your hands, keeping it upright, to tighten the top and smooth out the bottom (as far as I can tell).

Set the dough on a surface well floured with cornmeal and cover for another hour. Preheat oven for 400. After the hour, paint the dough with the corn starch mixture, and then slash the dough a couple of times using a serrated knife. Place the dough on a pizza stone (or if you don't have it, a baking dish, I guess) and bake for 50 minutes, until brown. Let sit 30 minutes before slicing.

Thoughts: This recipe is amazing. I've had some difficulty with "kneading" the bread in the kitchen aid, but this may be related to the age of my appliance. Is it from the 1970s? Appearances say yes. Anyway, next time I make it I may knead it with my hands after combined. The hardest part so far has been transferring the completed bread to the pizza stone, which needs to be hot. Not sure what to do there. Suggestions?

One of our favorite breads after making it only twice.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Sweet Tomato Sauce with Cinnamon

Ingredients

• ~6oz crushed tomatoes
  
• 1/4 red onion, chopped
  
• 1/4 yellow onion, chopped
  
• 1/4 to 1/2tsp cinnamon
  
• salt, pepper, honey
  

Sautee the onions in a sauce pan with a little olive oil. When the onions are translucent, add the crushed tomatoes, the cinnamon, salt, and pepper. Taste. My crushed tomatoes were a little too sour, so I added a little honey. The idea was to accent the sweetness of the sweet potato in the gnocchi I served these with. I added about 1 tsp.

Thoughts: You can really taste the cinnamon. It was kind of a Moroccan inspiration, I guess. It worked really well with the sweetness of the sweet potatoes.

Disaster Index: 2/10 - it was good, but I wouldn't say it rated a 1.

Greek Honey Cookies - Melomakarona

Ingredients

• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• grated rind and juice of 1 large orange
• 2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 6 tbsp superfine sugar
• 1.5 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1.75 tsp baking powder + 3.5 cups flour (combine these)
• pinch of salt
• 1 cup shelled walnuts, chopped

for the syrup

• 1 cup honey
• .5 cup superfine sugar

Preheat the oven to 350F.
Mix baking soda and orange juice (not the rind).
Mix the olive oil and sugar together until well-blended. Beat in the cinnamon, then add the orange juice mixture.
Mix the salt and flour into the mixture and add the orange rind. Knead for 10 minutes.
Pinch off small pieces of the dough and shape them into 2.5 inch-long ovals and place on ungreased baking sheets.
Using a fork dipped in water, flatten each oval a little bit.
Bake for 25 minutes. Cool slightly and then let harden.
To make syrup, place honey, sugar, and 2/3 cup water in a small pan.
Gently bring it to a boil, stirring continuously. Try to skim off any surface foam, lower heat and simmer for 5 minutes.
Immerse the cold cookies, about six at a time, in the hot syrup and leave them to cook for 1-2 minutes. If the syrup doesn't completely cover the cookies, turn them every so often to coat both sides.
Lift them out with a slotted spoon and place on a platter in a single layer.
Sprinkle with cinnamon and chopped walnuts.

Thoughts: This is a pretty complex recipe and it is also very dangerous. When boiling the syrup, BE VERY CAREFUL. As it nears the boiling point, the mixture will start to rise rapidly. When this happens, REMOVE THE POT FROM THE HEAT AS QUICKLY AS YOU CAN. Otherwise you risk getting honey and sugar ALL OVER your kitchen. CHRIST. I don't even think you need to boil the mixture. Just get it hot enough to dissolve the majority of the sugar. Dan would recommend mixing the cinnamon and chopped walnuts into the dough rather than topping the cookies. I personally disagree. He would also use butter instead of olive oil and would use one more egg because he wants them to be more like regular cookies. I also disagree there. He would also use the kitchen aid. I've got nothing against the kitchen aid.

Disaster index: 1/10 - delicious

Espresso Miel

A quick recipe, if you can call it that.

I added a little Penzy's China Cassia cinnamon to the coffee grounds before I brewed them (in my Bialetti espresso maker). You have to be careful with this stuff. I probably added 1/6 tsp, but it was almost (almost) overpowering.

Anyway, add honey and milk and you have an "espresso miel" (it's what they call a similar concoction at Electric Earth Café).

Disaster Index: 3/10 - it had a nice flavor, but it's nothing special. If you want something different, it's good.