Mike's Monkey Bread

The first time my friend John told me about his fabulous boyfriend Mike, it was in a picture text message.  The image: Monkey Bread.  The subject: Mike's badass cooking skills.

The text had me hooked--I knew, just KNEW that Mike had to be fabulous (who else makes Monkey Bread that delicious?), and I've been bugging him for this recipe ever since.  I bugged him so much that he was pretty much obligated to make it the first time we met.  There were no leftovers.

The thing I love best about Mike's monkey bread is the incredible presentation it makes versus the short amount of time required to make it.  Just take canned biscuits, chopped pecans, some cinnamon, melted butter, and brown sugar in a bundt pan, bake and VOILA: the most decadent dessert you've ever had.  This monkey bread is not for those on diets.  It's for those who just ran ten miles and deserve a clearly delicious treat.

Mike's Monkey Bread
Mike got this recipe from the Pillsbury website (the original can be found here), but really, he's been eating it since he was a little kid.  The recipe below has some variations from the original as Mike has doubled the cinnamon for an earthier, spicier kick, added pecans instead of walnuts, and called for raw instead of processed white sugar.  I highly suggest following these substitutions!


Ingredients:
* 1/2 cup raw sugar
* 2 teaspoons cinnamon
* 2 cans (16.3 oz each) Pillsbury Grands! Homestyle Biscuits
* 1 cup chopped pecans, or walnuts
* 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
* 3/4 cup butter, melted

1.) Preheat oven to 350F.  Lightly grease 12-cup fluted tube pan/bundt pan.

2.) Mix sugar and cinnamon.

3.) Open 2 cans of biscuits.

4.) Cut biscuits into 4 pieces each.

5.) Place cut up biscuits in sugar/cinnamon mixture and flip until fully coated.

6.) Toss coated biscuits into well-greased bundt pan making sure to add pecans among the biscuits.

7.) Pack 1 cup of brown sugar.

8.) Add brown sugar to 3/4 cup melted butter and stir to combine.

9.) Drizzle/pour melted butter/sugar mixture over bundt of biscuits.

10.) Bake for 30-35 minutes in 350F oven or until golden brown and no longer doughy in the center.  Allow to cool for 10 minutes in the pan.  Turn upside down onto a serving plate and enjoy! Makes...well...a lot: 8-10 servings.

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Bourbon Glazed & Cookie Encrusted Ham

In the midst of making Sam's birthday cake and frying a 15 pound turkey (recipe forthcoming), I made sure to put even more meat on the table: HAM.  I've never actually roasted a ham before and this is the first one.  Yet, I have fabulous memories of family cooking ham during the holidays, and I always wanted to try cooking a giant loaf of well, pig's meat.

So, when you've never done anything in the kitchen before, who do you turn to? EASY.  Alton Brown. Alton is like the father of cooking--he explains how everything works, the science behind "everything," and couples some fantastic recipes with his didactic-style cooking show.  I caught the episode he did on hams--"Ham I Am"--a few months ago and this particular recipe stood out: not only was a delicious city ham packed with brown sugar and mustard, but a ham spritzed with Bourbon and graham cracker cookies on top. What's not to love? If you buy the ham pre-cooked, in natural juices, and yes, spiral cut, the below recipe is easy, fast, and clearly delicious.






Bourbon Glazed & Cookie Encrusted Ham 
This recipe comes from Alton Brown over at Food Network and can be found here.  Alton's recipe is brilliant--take a fantastic roast of ham, cover it in a brown mustard, brown sugar, bourbon, and graham crackers and OH MY GOD.  It's soo good.  I've made no changes to the recipe below and I can promise that it is a huge hit.  One important note though: this calls for a "city" ham and after preparing this recipe, I've discovered that not all hams are the same.  Some have water added, some are cooked in natural juices, and some are just processed meat packed on a bone.  To insure that you don't fall into the latter category, check out Alton's episode "Ham I Am" from Good Eats to clarify that you're getting the best ham for your dinner table.

* 1 city style ham (brined, hock end)
* brown sugar, enough for sprinkling over ham (about 2 cups)
* Bourbon bottle & spray spout, 1 ounce
* 2 cups crushed ginger snap cookies

NOTE: The following recipe is part II of Alton's recipe.  Why? Well, I bought a pre-cooked ham (saves you A LOT OF TIME).  For an uncooked ham, check Alton's direct recipe for the first few steps.

1.) Preheat oven to 350F.  Remove ham from packaging, rinse, and dab with a paper towel to remove excess water, oil, or fat.  Place on a roasting pan and brush with a liberal coat of brown mustard.

2.) Sprinkle on brown sugar and press in to stick as much as possible.

3.) Spritz this layer lightly with bourbon.  Laugh at your Jim Beam spritzer bottle.  Proceed....

4.) Pack on as many of the crushed cookies as you can manage.  Make sure to cover the whole surface area.

5.) Tent the ham with tin foil (don't wrap fully, but "tent" loosely, and cook for 1 hour, or until the inside temperature is 140F.

6.) Let roast rest for 15 minutes until serving.  If cooking an uncarved roast that was not pre-cooked, allow to rest for 30 minutes before carving.  Enjoy!


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Dump Cookies Courtesy of My New Kitchenaid Mixer

Have I told anyone it's my birthday? Happy Birthday me! Well, actually, it's not until Monday (Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday too), but I made sure to celebrate early this year.  What did I give myself? New pens? No, that's what I gave myself last year.  Some iTunes credits? Nope.  Moleskins? Already bought some for the new semester.  A Kitchenaid Mixer? YES!!! Everyone, I'd like to introduce you to my very first kitchenaid mixer.  I have yet to name him/her, much less assign its gender, but after years and years of pining after one, I finally bought the real deal--the industrial strength Kitchenaid Mixer that is essential to any real chef's kitchen (see an upcoming post on Kitchen Essentials in which I discuss the value of a real Kitchenaid Mixer in detail).

After spending an afternoon with Laura today, she casually said, "I could use dessert."  After humming and hawing about possible options--the begnet place around the corner (Coffee Call, hollah!)?, ice cream from the drug store?, a brownie from somewhere, or Sonic for chocolatey goodness? No, we decided that homemade cookies were necessary since I needed to break in the new mixer.

The below recipe is an adaptation of what is often referred to as a "Dump Cookie," a "Monster Cookie," or even a "Compost Cookie" although each of these carries its own variance in the ingredients list.  For this recipe, I'd like to refer to this as a "Dump Cookie a la Recession."  Basically, the concept is very simple--you mix a combination of what you have in the pantry cabinet for baking (chocolate/vanilla/butterscotch/peanut butter chips, nuts, candies, and really anything else you want in this recipe.  Through a combination of whole wheat flour instead of all purpose flour mixed with peanut butter, and almond extract, the resulting cookie is so flavorful that it really takes several bites to taste all of what's going on in there.  This batch yielded about 30 medium-to-large cookies and originally comes from Elise Bauer over at Simply Recipes.  However, my version substitutes the wheat flour, adds almond extract to the vanilla extract combination, and really plays with what the filling ingredients are.  Welcome to Clearly Delicious Dump Cookies a la Recession.

Dump Cookies, Monster Cookies, Cookies a la Recession
One of the truly great things about this kind of cookie is that you can include any ingredient and it will still taste good.  Elise Bauer smartly noted on her food blog that there are certain combinations of Monster Cookies that please adults, others that are popular with children, and so on and so forth.  Below is my own version of this recipe, but I highly suggest looking into Elise's variances here.

*1/2 cup of unsalted butter, room temperature
*1/2 cup of peanut butter, creamy or crunchy
*3/4 cup of granulated sugar
*3/4 cup of brown sugar, packed
*2 eggs, room temperature
*1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
*1 teaspoon almond extract
*1 teaspoon of baking soda
*1 teaspoon of salt
*2 1/4 cups of wheat flour

 Filling:
*1/2 cup of butterscotch chips, optional*
*1/2 cup walnuts, chopped, optional*
*1 cup of White Chocolate Chips, optional*

*Note: all of these ingredients can easily be substituted or played with.  However, you want to keep a 2 cup filling average when substituting.

1.) Preheat oven to 375F.  Add butter and peanut butter to mixer and mix on low speed until fully integrated and creamy.
2.) Add sugars 1/4 a cup at a time on medium speed.  Mix all sugars until light and fluffy.
3.) Add vanilla and almond extract and eggs.  Mix to integrate.
4.) Now add the dry ingredients.  Add baking soda until fully integrated.  Then, add the flour/salt mixture slowly.  Remember, every cook knows that the wet-to-dry ingredient combination is a delicate process and needs to be done the right way.  So, take your time sifting in the dry ingredients to your wet ingredients.  In the words of Alton Brown, "Remember Kids, Speed Kills!" So behave here.
5.) Once you've added your wet and dry ingredients, you should have a basic dough.  Now, add the filling ingredients--chocolate chips, nuts, etc. and mix on low speed to properly integrate.
6.) Lift mixer's head and scrape down bowl and mixing attachment.  Cover metal mixing bowl with seran wrap and refrigerate for about an hour if you have the time.  If you don't, this dough moves easily from fresh batter to pan, so cooking it instantly won't sacrifice the shape or texture of the cookie (probably because of the sturdyness of the wheat flour addition).
7.) Bake on a greased/sprayed cooking sheet for 8-10 minutes or until cookies' edges are light brown.  Cookies should be about an inch apart, and 6 medium-to-large cookies will fit on a standard cookie sheet. Transfer immediately to cooling rack or parchment paper to stop the cooking process.  Enjoy!

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Oatmeal with Fruit & Walnuts

Practically every morning, I make myself a bowl of oatmeal.  I love oatmeal--it's so much heftier than a regular bowl of cereal and you can really customize how you prepare it.  What do you mean? Customize oatmeal? Isn't oatmeal a brown blob of gross that was only eaten by pilgrims and prairie people before we had processed sugary treats like Captain Crunch and Lucky Charms? Well, no.  Actually, it's a complex carb that is GOOD for you, keeps you fuller longer and is indeed, quite tasty, if you know how to prepare it correctly.  Like all dishes in cooking, oatmeal can be clearly delicious with the right ingredients, combinations, and preparational techniques.

Knowing how to make oatmeal can be a challenge, however--do you make it with milk? water? what is the proper oats to liquid ratio? how long do you cook it? is it supposed to be milky like cream of wheat? 

For me, these answers are simple: always prepare oatmeal with water, but feel free to add splashes of milk to the oats in the final dish; the ratio is usually 2:1 (1 cup water to one half cup oats; or 2 cups water to 1 cup oats), and the consistency should never be milky unless you add some milk during the cooking process.  Also, I need to point out I'm talking about steel-cut oats, or regular oats here, not that instant crap that is pre-sugared, processed, etc.

Essentially, what this recipe calls you to do is very simple (heat up water, cook the oats, etc.), and then it makes a judgment call on what I like to add to the oats--fruits and nuts, brown sugar, and spices.  However, you can practically substitute anything for the fruit and nut combo here that you like, you'll just have to tweak the recipe to your preferences.  I've known people to add cocoa powder when cooking oatmeal ("chocolate oatmeal") and even to make the dish into a kind of loaf and bake it in the oven.  However you prepare oatmeal, the right ingredients and techniques will always be clearly delicious!

Oatmeal with Fruit & Walnuts
You can really add any fruit or nut here.  My recipe calls for bananas and walnuts, but apples, craisins, raisins, berries (blueberries! raspberries! blackberries!) as well as pecans and almonds can all be substituted.

*1 cup water
*1/2 cup steel cut oats
* 2 tablespoons brown sugar
*1 teaspoon nutmeg
*1-2 teaspoons cinnamon
*1 banana, cut into circular pieces, optional
*1/4 cup walnuts, optional
*1 teaspoon vanilla/almond extract, optional

1.) Bring 1 cup of water to a boil and add 1/2 cup steel cut oats.  Cook for one minute, stirring occassionally, and remove from heat.
2.) Now, fix the oatmeal with your favorite ingredients: add brown sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg, nuts, and fruit.  Stir to integrate.
3.) Pour into a bowl and splash with milk (optional).  Serve immediately and enjoy!

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Sweet Potato Souffle

I've been sitting in front of my laptop typing papers for about 3 days now. AND, this week is going to be exactly the same--between grading for the LSU ENGL 1001 semester assessment and finishing my last 20 page paper, I made sure to cook foods ahead of time so that I could eat healthy and not have to cook with my writing schedule.

Well...we'll pretend the below post is healthy. In between my writing this weekend, my friends Joe and Lydia came over in the hopes of distracting me from homeworking. Part of that distraction involved converting 2 baked sweet potatos into a souffle.

What I love about this recipe is how easy, fast, and tasty it is. Lydia and I ate so much of the souffle that I had to go for a run right after dinner because the souffle tasted too good to be true!

Sweet Potato Souffle
The below recipe is my own version of a basic sweet potato souffle only minus the butter and extra calories.  Thus, this recipe is pretty low in calories and nutritional (protein and fiber anyone?!) depending on how heavy you make the brown sugar-pecan-marshmallow crust.

Ingredients:
* 3 sweet potatoes, cooked
* 1/2-to-1 cup sugar (depending on your sweet tooth, or calorie preferences)
* 1/2 cup carnation milk
* 1 tablespoon cinnamon
* 1 tablespoon nutmeg
* 1 egg, beaten
* 1/2 cup brown sugar
* 1/2-to-1 cup marshmallows
* 1/2 cup pecans

1.) Preheat oven at 350 degrees F. Peel potatoes and add to a mixing bowl.
2.) Add sugars, milk, egg, and spices to the potatoes. Mash thoroughly.
3.) Add ingredients to a souffle pan and sprinkle with with brown sugar, pecans, and marshmallows.
4.) Cook in oven for 20-30 minutes, or until marshmallows are dark gold.
5.) Let cool for a few minutes, and enjoy!