"Spring Chicken" Cookies

Ah... Spring is in the air.

Even in New York, the weather is reaching the mid 60's this weekend. Let us rejoice!
Hopefully you're reading this blog on your phone while doing yogalates in Central Park (or something analogous to that).

Perhaps the most hateful expression related to Spring that I know of is "I'm no spring chicken". People always say this with such disdain. Sure, spring chickens might be naive. Maybe they were even born yesterday. But I'm sure they are perfectly friendly little birds that deserve some love.

Help me celebrate the joys of Spring and its chickens with these aptly named spring chicken cookies.

Ingredients
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp mint extract
4 tbsp lemon juice
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
Peeps!! (You choose the color)
Green food coloring (optional)

Yield: roughly two dozen
Estimated cost: about 12$ per batch
Time commitment: 30 mins

I know what you're thinking. Yes, you can eat some of the Peeps now.

Nothing says "Spring" like a fresh package of Peeps - the marshmallowy treat that makes you feel all warm and gooey and sick inside. Say "Spring!!" louder and prouder by placing them atop delicious sugar cookies.

Whisk the sugar, oil, mint extract and lemon juice together in a large bowl until it comes together. Crack the eggs into the bowl and combine thoroughly. In a separate bowl mix together the flour, salt and baking soda. Then, fold the flour mix into the wet ingredients, about 1/3 of the volume at a time. Fold with a spatula and avoid over mixing for softer cookies.

Place 1 inch blobs of dough onto a cookie sheet lined with greased tin foil. Bake the dough for 10 minutes at 350F.

While the cookies are in the oven you might be asking "what should I do with the few Peeps I haven't already consumed"? Get out a cutting board, channel your inner serial killer and chop those bad boys in half, either lengthwise or separating the head from the tail.

First, I tried baking the cookies with the Peeps already on top.

Hey, I'm not perfect. Tasty for the mouth, but not for the eyes. Ironically, they melted to look like fried eggs.

Here's a better idea:

After 10 minutes of baking, remove the cookies from the oven and immediately lay the slaughtered Peeps flat on top of each cookie. Press the Peep lightly into the dough. Leave the cookies to cool on the sheet for at least two minutes before moving them to a wire rack. The Peeps will fuse with the dough during the cooling process.

Want to get really fancy? Add a bit of green food coloring to your batter (maybe 4 drops) before baking to make those mallow chicks really pop.

While not legally allowed to say so, I like to think of these cookies as "reduced calorie" since I only used half a Peep per cookie. (This last sentence can also be found under the definition of wishful thinking).

If you want to have a truly low-cal cookie experience, I recommend just looking at the cookies instead of eating them.

Happy Spring Everyone!

Dyed Easter Eggs

Happy Easter everyone!

Getting tired of trying to search for those hidden Easter eggs? Then it's the perfect time to read this blog!

My recommendation: let the little kids find all the eggs and then just steal as many as you want from them.

My actual recommendation: forget the hidden eggs and dye some of your own!

Materials:

Eggs (white eggs, without farm stamps on them!)

Food coloring (gel or liquid)

Vinegar (white wine or apple cider)

Wire (a coat hanger will do nicely)

Solo cups (whatever you have leftover from Saturday night, beer removed)

Time commitment: about an hour

Estimated cost: quality time with your family in the other room

How do you like me now, Easter Bunny (rhetorical)?

Who's your daddy, Easter Bunny (somewhat rhetorical)?

Hard boil the eggs by gently placing them in a pot of warm water. Bring the water to a boil and then reduce to medium heat. Continue to cook for ten minutes. Carefully remove the eggs from the water with tongs and allow them to cool completely on a cutting board.

Prepare the egg dyes by adding a teaspoon or two of food coloring to a cup of warm water, plus a tablespoon of white wine or apple cider vinegar. Use more food coloring to get a darker color on your eggs.

To make clean-up a breeze, I cut solo cups in half and used the bottoms as individual dying troughs. (Trust me, you're not going to be playing beer pong on Easter Sunday anyway).

While the eggs are cooling, you can make wire egg holders that you can use to dip your eggs in different colors. Just twist an old coat hanger or spare wire into whatever shape you think is best.

Dip eggs for 30 seconds or longer into the desired color, with increased time leading to a darker hue. Between colors, rest eggs on wax paper or egg holders to let the coloring dry. Dab excess dye off the egg with a paper towel, being careful not to smear the dye.

Remember those solo cup tops your threw away about five minutes ago? Dig them out of the recycling. If you cut off the very top of the cup (the hard rim) you can bend the plastic into nice egg holders. Apply duct tape liberally.

Be creative! Dye eggs in layers, at different angles. Mix prepared colors to generate new colors. If you're really getting into it, you can even use a paintbrush for a more delicate approach. Just make sure to have fun!

This is what J and I were able to come up with. Not too shabby!

Once you have completed your masterpieces, keep them in the fridge until you wish to display them.

While the eggs are on display, make sure to brag about how awesome you are to friends and family. If you wanted to plug this blog while you're at it, I wouldn't complain!

Have a great holiday!

Handmade Gourmet Chocolates

It's rich, dark, smooth, and just the right amount of sweet.

No, it's not me. It's actually dark chocolate. But your flattery has been duly noted ;).

Not many foods are better than chocolate. What do I mean by "better"? I mean greater than in awesomeness. Don't over think it. Your tongue knows what I'm talking about.

Take your chocolate game to the next level, and make your own at home!

1 cup of high quality dark chocolate pieces

Double boiler

Silicone chocolate mold (or silicone ice cube tray!)

Ingredients for making the chocolates fancy (see end notes)

Time commitment: Does it matter?? (40min)

Estimate cost: Who cares it's chocolate!! (7-15$)

I suppose saying "make your own" is a bit of a lie, because we're really just re-molding pre-made chocolate and inserting what we like in the middle. I mean I have free time, but not that much free time. Maybe "re-purpose your own" is more accurate.

Forming these gourmet chocolates is analogous to smelting a sword. We'll heat up the material to liquefy it, pour it into a mold, and then insert what we like into it before it cools. 

Make chocolate, not war. 

By which I mean to say re-purpose chocolate, not war.

First, we'll need a double boiler. This contraption consists of one pot resting above boiling water inside another larger pot below (shown in the cartoon). The idea here is that the upper pot is heated by the boiling water vapor (steam) and not by the stove top, and thus will never reach a temperature hotter than the boiling point of water (i.e. 100C, or 212F for non-scientists) no matter how high the heat is set on the stove. This is critical to avoid burning the chocolate while you melt it.

Sure, you could buy a double boiler on Amazon. Or you could do what I did and set a saucier on top of a traditional sauce pot filled with about one inch of water set to boil. Save the extra cash to spend on more chocolate!

The best chocolate for this food craft is high quality dark chocolate, such as Ghriradelli, Lindt or Scharffen berger with greater than 60% cocoa content. Chocolate bars, chunks or chips will work fine. Avoid Nestle and Hershey chocolates if possible; in a pinch they're fine, but the resulting sludge is very viscous and gritty. I know this because I mixed some into the first batch (data not shown)!

Place about a cup of chocolate bits into the top of the double boiler and melt into a smooth liquid, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon. Ladle the liquid into the chocolate mold, filling it about halfway up. Then insert the fancy ingredient of your choice (see below). After inserting your filling of choice, cover to the top of the mold with chocolate.

Once all of the chocolates have been constructed, place the mold in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. After this time, gently invert the mold onto wax paper to procure your delicious looking chocolates. Remove the extra chocolate fringe leftover from the mold before serving.

Finally, pat yourself on the back. I'm sure you did a great job!

If you broke some of the chocolates in removing them from the mold, eat them quickly to destroy the evidence.

I broke that one for dramatic effect, I swear!

A few suggestions about crafting your dream chocolates:

(1) Want the top of your chocolate to be coated in your ingredient? Add the ingredient first, then fill all the way with chocolate. This works best with powdered ingredients (cinnamon, cocoa, powdered sugar), as well as salt, finely chopped nuts, etc.

(2) You can layer in other sticky or viscous liquid ingredients between chocolate layers, such as peanut butter, fondant, maple syrup or other types of chocolate (white or milk). If your ingredient is more dense than the liquid chocolate (i.e. it sinks to the bottom), cool the first chocolate layer in the mold, add your layer, and then top with more liquefied chocolate before cooling a second time.

(3) Ingredients that will melt (bacon fat!) can be mixed into the melted chocolate before pouring. Just remember that ingredients with too much moisture (even honey) will cause the chocolate to seize (become hard) if mixed in. Moist ingredients are best left as fillings.

(4) The crazier the ingredient sounds, the better!

I'm sure I'll have a part two of this craft in the future. Stay tuned!

DIY Slide Projector

Remember that scene early on in Mad Men when Don is making his pitch for the Kodak slide projector? It was so warm, so touching. I cried during that scene; don't pretend like you didn't too!

Aside from tugging at my heart strings, that scene made me want to make a slide projector. Real bad.

So I set to work while I watched Don continue to womanize, day drink, and (in this author's opinion) essentially never say anything that compelling ever again. By around the fiftieth time Betty told the kids to go watch TV, I was done.

But let me go back and tell you the details. I'll try and be quick about it.

Scrap wood (for the base)
Flat and bi-convex lens (student's optics kit; Amazon)
Plumbing braces
PVC pipe joiner
Binder clips
1' shelving rod
Foam board (and/or cork)
Indoor spotlight
Door magnet closure
Flat brace
3/4" wood screws
Slides

Time commitment: probably about 3-4 hours... in exchange for hours of entertainment
Expected cost: I can't remember but probably around 50$

Let me address something right off the bat. This thing is not winning any beauty contests. It's more than likely going to the prom alone. Or with a close friend who likes it for its personality.

But it works!

I started by constructing the wooden base for the projector, screwing together leftover pieces from another project. Then, I began to assemble the lens unit separately on top of a shelving rod.

I mounted the first lens (flat) at the near end of the shelving rod, adjacent to where the light source would be placed, to focus the light along the path length of the projector. The second lens (bi-convex) was attached to the far end of the rod to expand the picture from slide-sized to wall-sized. I was able to attach the lenses to the projector by shaping plumbing braces (used to hold pipes in place) around each lens and then inserting the leftover metal tab into the shelving rod with the aid of a binder clip. This made it easy to adjust the lens positions after the light source was added by further bending the metal plumbing brace.

After lens attachment, the rod was screwed onto the wodden base. Next I attached a foam board and some leftover cork (with pre-cut holes to allow light through) at either end of the shelving piece with screws inserted directly into the base. Then I used a larger plumbing brace and wrapped it around the base of the spot light. Maintaining this shape, I attached the larger plumbing brace to the wooden projector base using more L brackets. This formed a perfect slot for the light source to fit into, ensuring it wouldn't move during the slide show.

I modified the spotlight itself with a PVC pipe joiner to funnel the light onto the first lens. I'm pretty sure those plumbing department guys know my first name now!

Finally, I super MacGuyver'd a slide holder out of a door magnet, a flat brace, and a small piece of wood. I taped over the magnet itself to avoid scratching the side of the shelving rod while focusing the slide.

After a lot of lens repositioning and liberal use of duct tape, I finally got the (expletive) thing to work. Hooray!

Note that because I only used a flat and bi-convex lens system, I had to mount the slide upside down to correct for how the bi-convex lens flips the image. Fun fact: this is similar to how the human eye corrects its images too! Second fun fact: the eye phenomenon is what Ben Gibbard is refering to at the beginning of the Death Cab for Cutie song "A Lack of Color".

Science is like so totally awesome. For realsies.

This was a lot of work. And all to view some slides that I got on the cheap at a rummage sale. Looks like someone likes exotic flowers!

But hey, there are worse ways to spend your time. And I'm sure I'll be posting many of them very soon.

Blackstrap Molasses Cookie Sandwich

Bakers, this one's for you. Eaters of cookies, this one is also for you.

Every time I find myself baking something, what I plan to bake and what I actually end up baking are two completely different things. Maybe that means I have a short attention span. Or maybe I just have a need to continuously take things to the next level of sugar and fat content?

What was I saying again? Oh, right. Cookies.

This is a perfect example. It was a Sunday night, and I thought "I really feel like making a batch of sugar cookies". While looking for ingredients I found my bottle of blackstrap molasses tucked away behind a large bag of brown sugar. About an hour later? A monstrosity the likes of which the molasses-loving community will be talking about for... probably a couple of minutes. But really solid minutes.

If they even read this blog.

Ingredients:

1 cup canola oil

2 large eggs

1 cup light brown sugar

1/3 cup granulated sugar

3 tbsp blackstrap molasses

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 tsp vanilla extract

Lindt dark chocolate squares (70%)

Time commitment: 30 minutes, including baking and licking raw cookie dough from the bowl

Yield: About 20 sandwiches

Preheat your oven to 350F before starting. Combine the sugars, molasses, oil, vanilla and eggs into a large bowl, and mix by hand until combined. Mix the flour, salt and baking soda in a separate bowl and then fold into the wet ingredients with a spatula, about a third of the dry ingredients at a time. Use a 1/2 tbsp scoop to place balls of dough (which should be dark brown and sticky) about an inch apart on a cookie sheet lined with greased tin foil. (Don't have cooking spray? Pour some canola oil on a paper towel and spread around the foil in a light layer to grease. Voila!)

Bake for 8-10 minutes at 350F. The cookies will look brown and delicious. If they look a bit underdone, that's great. Trust me, it's the way you want it. As long as they hold together for the next part, you're good.

Let the cookies rest on the cookie sheet for about 2 minutes. Then, use a spatula to dislodge the cookies. Open up the Lindt chocolate and place one square (or two, you sly devil you) on an overturned cookie. Top the chocolate with a second cookie. Remove unused cookies (to be eaten while you wait for the sandwiches) and bake for an additional 3 minutes at 350F. Let them cool for about 5 minutes before you put them on a wire rack to cool.

The result? Pure molasses decadence with a chocolate filling.

It looks like a chocolate and molasses post-Vesuvius Pompeii that was crushed by a giant molasses cookie. Or a sweet version of a slider. Or just two cookies with some chocolate in the middle.

What's that you say? Something about leftover dough? No problem: place it in a Ziploc, press the air out and stick it in the freezer. When you want more cookies, take the Ziploc out and thaw the bag in room temperature water for about 10min before using. Frozen dough is especially handy for those nights when you were so busy crafting that you forgot to make something for dinner #smartlifechoices.

Until next time, enjoy!

Chicken Parm Bites

Did I mention that crafting food definitely falls within the scope of this blog? I mean c'mon... did you really expect me to make a pun on the word "aftertaste" and not include edible crafts? It's like you don't even know me. (Well, maybe you don't so I forgive you).

For my first food crafting post, I'll show you what I made for dinner last night.

No matter how much of it I eat, I always end up with a lot of leftover chicken sausage in my fridge / freezer. It's easy to handle, keeps for a long time, and is healthier than pork sausage. It's also delicious. Maybe that's why I keep buying three packs at a time?

Like I said, it's delicious. But by pack number three, you're ready for something else.

Solution? Make it into something more delicious... like chicken parm. 

First off, if you're wondering what those green and white streaks are in my chicken sausage, those are herbs and cheese. Aside from adding an element of realism to the otherwise cartoony drawing, they distract from the odd fleshy color I chose for the chicken sausage.

Making these chicken parmesan bites is simple. You'll need:


At least two chicken sausages (pre-cooked; might I recommend these?)
One large egg
1/3 cup of flour
Parmesan cheese (fresh is best)
4 tbsp frying oil, such as canola or extra virgin olive oil
Kitchen shears

Cut the chicken sausage into 1/4" thick medallions in a bowl. In a separate bowl, beat one egg with one tbsp of water until homogenized. On a separate large plate, spread the flour around to make a thin layer.

Next, dredge (fancy for "dip") the medallions in the egg wash, and then move them to the flour plate. Turn them over gently on the plate to coat them completely.

In a frying pan, add the frying oil and heat over medium heat. Make sure the oil is hot before you add the medallions; you can place your hand above the pan to help determine this (but probably about 3-5min). After you add the medallions to the heated pan, saute about 5 minutes per side or until golden brown. Since the chicken is fully cooked you're good to go whenever the bites look appetizing.

Serving suggestion: put on top of linguine pomodoro and cover with parmesan cheese. Or just inhale them immediately. No judgement here!

I was kidding about the inhaling thing. Please wait until they cool down. And remember to chew. I don't want to get sued!


Note to self: stop buying so much chicken sausage.