(from FranksRedHot.com)
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup blue cheese dressing
1/2 cup Frank’s RedHot Original Cayenne Pepper Sauce
1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
2 cups cooked shredded chicken (or turkey) white meat
Heat oven to 350. Mix everything together. Bake for a half hour. Serve with celery sticks and tortilla chips.
1.5 cups AP flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp table salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
5 Tbsp butter
3/4 cup (packed) brown sugar
2 large eggs
1/3 cup canola oil
Grated zest of 1 lemon
1.5 tsp vanilla extract
8 small plums, halved and pitted
Heat oven to 350. Butter and flour an 8×8 baking dish. In a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until homogenized, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time. Continue beating, adding the oil, zest, and vanilla. Reduce mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients, mixing until just combined.
Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the surface. Arrange the plum halves cut side up on top of the batter in a 4×4 grid. Press the plums into the batter.
Bake, and start checking for doneness at the 30 minute mark. Cake is done when the top has browned and puffed up around the plums, and when a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Cool on rack for 15 minutes, then de-pan. Cake may be stored for up to 2 days at room temperature.
I think I’ve finally hit the edge of what is too much salt in my snickerdoodles. I made a batch on Saturday. I doubled the salt (1 teaspoon table salt), added a dash of kosher salt to the cinnamon-sugar mix, sprinkled the baking sheet with kosher salt, and finally put a few crystals on top of each sphere. I’m not even sure these are cookies anymore. They’re totally my division when it comes to sweets, but I think they won’t be finding many champions in the general populace. I’ve also added an additional step to my baking of them. When rotating the baking sheets, make sure to whack the bottom of the sheet on the open oven door. This makes them collapse more quickly. Salty and crispy. I like to call them “cookie chips” in the same tone that the ad announcer says “coooooooooookie crisp.”
In other news, man is it a pain to remove infinite scrolling from one’s blog. =/
1 Tbsp active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
2 tsp honey
4 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp table salt
4 Tbsp butter, melted
2 quarts water
1/2 cup baking soda
salt (Pretzel or Kosher salt for sprinkling)
In a mixer bowl, add yeast and 1 1/2 cups warm water and let stand for about 5 minutes until it foams and smells yeasty.
Add honey, flour, salt, and melted butter. Mix with the dough hook until it forms a dough ball, about a couple minutes.
Cover and let rise about 1 hour. Punch down and turn ball out onto a lightly floured counter.
Roll dough into a “rope” and cut into the approximate sizes you want your rolls—about 12-16 rolls. Shape into rolls.
Put the rolls on 2 parchment lined cookie sheet or two. Cover and let rise another 30 minutes.
Heat oven to 425 (use the convection setting if you’ve got it) and set 2 quarts of water to boiling.
When water is boiling, slowly (carefully!) pour baking soda into the water.
2 or 3 at a time (don’t crowd the pot), poach the rolls in the baking soda bath. About 30 seconds in the water, then remove with a slotted spoon or spider. Place back on cookie sheets.
Sprinkle with pretzel or kosher salt while still damp. Score tops with an X. (As you’ll see below, this really only attempts to persuade the pretzels—they basically expand whichever way they want to.)
Bake at 425 for 15-20 minutes. Rotate cookie sheets top to bottom and back to front halfway through baking.
I went to a housewarming party this weekend held by my friends Sylvie and Chris. They made a lot of great food—cheesesteaks, short rib sliders, Brussels sprouts—but the absolute best thing I ate was kimchi hot dogs. There’s not really a strict recipe for this, but it’s along the lines of:
soft hot dog rolls
hot dogs (preferably Nathan’s)
kimchi, chopped
green onions, chopped
bacon, chopped and cooked
mayonnaise (Kewpie)
sriracha
Mix the mayo and sriracha together. I don’t have proportions, just taste as you go until you have something spicy and smooth and delicious. Grill the hot dogs, do not toast the rolls. Top the dogs with everything and cram it in your mouth.
(adapted from Bon Appetit)
2 Tbsp olive oil, divided
1.5 cups shredded poultry (BA sears + poaches + shreds 2 skinless, boneless chicken thighs)
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 garlic clove, minced
1 Tbsp ground cumin
1 Tbsp tomato paste
1/4 to 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1 bay leaves
1 15 oz. can chickpeas, rinsed, drained
1/4 cup chopped drained roasted red peppers from a jar
2 tablespoons (or more) fresh lemon juice
Pinch paprika
Pinch ground chipotle pepper
Salt and pepper, to taste
(BA serves over bread cubes [1/2 c per bowl] and with chopped parsley)
Heat 1 Tbsp oil in a 2 or 3-qt. pot over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook until soft. Turn heat down to low and add the garlic, stirring for 30-60 seconds or until fragrant. Add the cumin, red pepper flakes, and tomato paste; stir until a smooth paste forms, about 1 minute. Add 2 cups water, a bay leaf, and the shredded poultry to the pot. Raise the heat to high and bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer for 20 minutes.
Add chickpeas to pot; bring to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes. Shred chicken; add to stew. Add red peppers. Stir in remaining tablespoon of oil and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Add salt and pepper to taste, as well as a pinch of paprika and chipotle pepper. Simmer until stew is the thickness you want. (BA says 1 minute, but I simmered it for like 20 minutes. Then again, they suggest serving it over cubes of bread, which would soak up a lot of the extra liquid.) Taste again before serving, add more salt or lemon juice if needed.
(I used shredded turkey, in case you were curious.)
Potatoes
Garlic cloves, sliced very thin
Butter
Olive oil
Salt and pepper, to taste
Heat oven to 425.
Scrub potatoes. Make a series of parallel cuts in the potato that nearly go through, every 4mm or so. Shove a sliver of garlic in each cut. Smear some butter over top of the potato. Drizzle olive oil on top. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for 50-75 minutes or until cooked through (internal temp 210 F, according to Wikipedia).
2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup dried cherries (or raisins)
1 stick butter
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp each: cardamom, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, ginger
3/4 cups AP flour
Heat oven to 350.
Toast the oats in a pan over medium heat. Set aside to cool. Chop up the raisins or cherries (optional, I just sometimes like to have smaller bits of fruit throughout a cookie).
Cream the butter and sugars together. Add the egg and vanilla and mix to combine. Add the salt, baking soda, spices, and flour. Mix to combine. Stir in by hand the cooled oats and fruit.
Drop rounded teaspoonfuls of dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake at 350 for 8 minutes, rotating halfway through.
Makes about this many.
4 Tbsp butter
1 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk (or 1 cup vinegar+milk substitution)
2 cups flour
2 Tbsp butter
1 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbsp brown sugar
Heat oven to 350. Spray a 9×5 loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray. (Optional: put some extra sugar and cinnamon in the bottom and up the sides of the loaf pan.)
Cream butter and sugar together in a stand mixer. Add baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt and mix together. Add vanilla and eggs and mix. Pour the buttermilk in slowly while mixer is running. Add flour 1 cup at a time and mix until you have a smooth batter. Pour into loaf pan.
In empty mixer, combine butter, sugar, and cinnamon into a paste. Dot the loaf with bits of the paste and push them down into the pan.
Bake on a sheet pan (just in case there’s any overflow) in the middle of the oven. Start checking on it after 45 minutes, but it will probably take closer to an hour.