Waffle Iron Cooking

 I went on a LARP weekend event where I was cooking.  I brought my waffle iron.  Turns out that was a really good idea as there were few cooking options and it was a primitive situation despite having running water and electricity!  I learned that you can make delicious bacon using a waffle iron and that got the ball rolling on Waffle Iron Cooking.

There is another blog out there called The Waffleizer and it is the definitive place to go for info on this topic.  But I've tried out some of the recipes and here are some that work surprisingly well - and even better than the regular way of doing things.

Cinnamon Rolls - the kind in the tube that you buy at the store.  These are better in a waffle iron!  They cook faster and the divets created by the waffle iron hold icing!  Seriously - you must try this!

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches - a waffle iron is a pannini press with squares instead of lines!  You don't need to spend $50 on a pannini press, you can pannini with your waffle iron.  Fast, delicious!

Bacon.  Nuff' said.

homemade pasta with embedded italian parsley

 A few months ago, I got a kitchen-aid stand mixer and all the attachments and I have been going to town making pasta and sausage and other things you can make with a stand mixer.   Here is what you can do when you have a pasta roller -- Italian parsley is embedded into these pasta sheets.  Beautiful!

FRESH PASTA FTW!

Once you make fresh pasta, you never ever want to go back to the dry stuff.  

3 cups flour

1 t salt

4 eggs

1 T olive oil

• Mix all that up.  I do it in my stand mixer and use the dough hook.  It takes about 5 minutes to get to a great consistency.  The dough will look shiny and naturally wad up into a ball.   
• Wrap in a piece of waxed paper for about 20-30 minutes to rest.
• Roll out dough.  (I use my pasta attachment - but you can do it by hand using a floured surface and a rolling pin.)
• Cut in any way you like.
• This stuff is the best and cooks very quickly.  About 3-4 minutes in boiling salted water.

Below is a pic of a strawberry pie I made for a friend.  Pie is easy - like the phrase - if you keep it simple and not worry too much.  Also - a tip that will make it easy to handle the rolled out dough:  roll the dough between two pieces of waxed paper.  When it is flat enough, pull the top piece off and invert your pie pan onto the dough.  Flip it over and pull the other piece of paper off.  Voila - dough in pan with very little fuss!

Chili and Corn Bread

When there are a lot of people coming over, chili and cornbread is a big hit.

I made this last fall.

I try to use the crockpot as that frees up space on the stove for other things. 

Here's how I do it:

OMG Chili!

I make chili fairly often.  I have some secrets to impart.  Pay attention!  Use Cocoa powder!  It gives it a slight mole taste and it is more delicious this way!  Vegetarians - remove ground beef and add ½ cup oil.

1 pound Ground Beef

1 large Onion - diced

1 large Green Pepper - diced

2 Hot Peppers - Jalapeno or Serrano - finely chopped - seeds and insides removed

3 cloves diced Garlic

1 t Oregano

1 T Cumin

1 T Chili Powder

1 T Salt

1 t Pepper

¼ c Cocoa

1 large Can Tomatoes

1 Can Black Beans

1 Can Pinto Beans

1 Can Kidney Beans

Water as needed

• Saute ground beef.  
• When it is no longer pink, add onion, green pepper, peppers, garlic.
• When vegetables are wilted, add everything else.
• Cook covered for at least 1 hour.  When I use a crock pot I cook it much longer.

 Cornbread should be cooked in a hot cast-iron skillet.  That makes the edges crunchy and delicious!

Fruit!

Aprium Cobbler

My yard has 12 fruit trees.
3 cherry trees
1 lemon tree
1 apple tree
1 plum tree
1 aprium tree
4 plum/pluot trees

(does that add up to 12?)

Okay - my yard has 12 trees - 11 are fruit trees.

This past week or so the Aprium tree has been gifting us with a lot of fruit.  I have made use of it the following ways:
Aprium Cobbler
Sugar Free Aprium Jam
Aprium Tarts

Sugar Free Aprium Jam

And the tree isn't done yet.

A month ago, the plum tree was plummeting me with plums.  I made Plum Jam and Plum Wine.  The wine is still a work in progress and will not be completed til December.  So far it looks better than it tastes.  I'm hoping with the addition of stabilizer and sugar and some brandy (it is port which is a fortified wine) it will be good.  Either way some people will get a bottle as a christmas present.

Since the next question is what's the recipe?  I'll post that below:

A promise to myself

After a week of vacation wherein I did practically nothing productive or that *I* actually wanted to do I was driving to work on my ridiculously long commute and thinking.

I do a lot of thinking in my car because I have between 2-3 hours a day there and nobody can interrupt my thoughts except maybe a bad driver or a horrendous accident. 

I made a list of promises to myself of things that *I* want to do.  One of them was to resume this blog and really dig in and do it right.

I can do it!  If you -my one and only follower- have faith in me then so do I!

In order to put some content up - I'll be posting pics of some of my more recent creations and I have a promise to myself to take more pics...