Thursday, February 21, 2008
Bacon is about sustained attention in a click-happy TV-remote-and-computer-mouse world. It must be forked, flipped, watched. It must not be under- or overdone. It must be honored.
-Mike Kilen, The Des Moines Register
Though we just got back from our most recent culinary adventure, the 2.0somethings crew is already gearing up for our spring break plans: The First Annual Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival in Des Moines, Iowa. The festival will be held at the High Life Lounge on March 1. According to The Register, “PBR will be offered for $1 a draw, paired with succulent dishes such as bacon-wrapped shrimp, little bacon cheeseburgers, a bacon-wrapped jalapeno and tater tot - all the gourmet bacon foods.” The festival will also include bacon-flavored craft beers, a “Blazin’ Bacon Bloody Mary, served with a slice of peppered bacon,” and maple bacon cheesecake. No word on whether EMTs will be standing by to provide on-the-spot bypasses.
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Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Blame childhood stereotypes and inept, though well-intentioned (love you, mommy!), mothers for broccoli’s bad rep amongst our generation. Steamed, boiled and, egad, microwaved, poor broccoli seems to be the lamb/cilantro of the vegetable world: people either love it or hate it. But here’s a recipe that will change the way you approach broccoli (not to mention every other colorful thing that grows out of the ground). By deeply caramelizing your broccoli, sans steaming or pre-cooking of any kind, the flavor profile changes from tepidly grassy to intensely earthy. The addition of the pasta rags, covered ever so slightly in the olive oil/broccoli business helps reinforce the idea that pasta should simply be dressed, not doused.
Full recipe after the jump.
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Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Many of us probably learned to cook from our parents, and living on your own for the first time often involves a lot of panicked phone calls home while you are cooking dinner. For me, that involved me wandering the supermarket aimlessly while on my cell phone asking, “How do I tell if a melon is fresh,” “What aisle would the hummus be in,” and “Can you send me money?” While parents are great, cooking as oral tradition can give you prejudices and practices that don’t have any basis in reality. The New York Times features six kitchen myths that need to be debunked. My favorite was:
“Never wash mushrooms; they’ll absorb the water.”
Here, it depends what you mean by “wash.” Mushrooms are made up mostly of water, and they are porous — but they’re also grown in dirt, which can stick to them, and you really don’t want to eat dirt. To clean mushrooms, rinse them - don’t soak them - and don’t worry about a little water.
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Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Aside from commies and tax collectors, who doesn’t love a good banana bread? One of the defining baked goods of our childhood (™, suckers), it ranks right up there with chocolate chip cookies, pound cake, and your Uncle Larry’s alcohol-laden birthday scotchka cake (recipe: combine scotch and vodka in bundt pan; call ex-wife). Tasty though it may be, the white flour and sugar based delectable has no place in the nutritionally sound 2.0er’s diet. Rather than cut it out of your life entirely, here’s a retooled version made with nourishing whole wheat flour and HDL-rich extra virgin olive oil. Plus, by using overripe bananas* that straddle the fine line between sugary ripe and compost, we cut the added sugar significantly.
* It really is important that you use ultra ripe bananas. Why, you ask? Because as bananas ripen, they convert their starches into sugar. So, the riper the banana, the less sugar you need to add. Plus, Dr. Obvious says that the more bananas you add, the healthier your bread.
Recipe follows after the jump:
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Friday, January 25, 2008
In honor of the #1 movie in the country depicting its destruction by a *spoiler* Giant Fucking Starfish. This week’s featured cocktail is the Manhattan. The Manhattan has been called the king of cocktails and it is everything a classic cocktail should be, simple, delicious, and sophisticated. This is a stronger cocktail, maybe not the best thing to try if your cocktail experience is limited to a Rum and Coke in a solo cup, but it is a great way to start branching out into pure alcohol cocktails. Additionally, it is a great way to stand out from a bunch of shmucks clustered at the bar ordering Gray Goose Martinis.
The recipe and more after the jump
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