A final lemonade for 2023

 

On this last day of 2023, I have added another new fruited lemonade to the menu.  This one is blueberry.  Like the last two recently-added lemonades, this one is made by reducing and liquifying berries until we have a very intense reduction. Then it's added in just the right proportions to lemon juice, and a few other things, until we have an amazing blueberry lemonade combination that is out of this world.  This is one my favorite refreshing drinks to have on hand.  And it looks beautiful, too.

This is the last blog post of 2023.  There are many things planned for 2024 on this blog starting with a hot chocolate mix about which I will post in a few days, chicken tetrazzini, chocolate ice cream, and chicken pot pie, all of which are scheduled to be added to the menu in January.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Another new lemonade

 

Here we are on December 24th.  It's rainy here in Kansas City.  But even chilly steady rain doesn't dampen my spirits for a cold refreshing drink.

A new lemonade has been added to the menu. This one is raspberry.  It is strong, and refreshing, and just like the strawberry lemonade discussed in my last post, this one is made using an intense reduction of berries.

That's all for now.

Have a great holiday week, everyone!

A new lemonade

A new drink has been added to the menu.  A strawberry lemonade seltzer was already on the menu.  Now a simple strawberry lemonade can also be ordered.  

This new lemonade is not merely the same as the strawberry lemonade soda without the carbonation.  This new drink is made by reducing down strawberries and sugar long and slow over medium heat until they become a highly intense strawberry liquid.  Strained through a fine-mesh, the liquid is then ready to become the most important part of this refreshing beverage.

It's simple and refreshing and very flavorful.

More beverages will be added in the next few days.

Stay tuned, and eat well during this holiday season!

A recipe

Here's a great recipe for double chocolate pudding.

 

If you're craving something creamy and chocolatey for this holiday season, give this a try. 

I guarantee you'll love it! 

Pans

As I get ready to prepare the first of many holiday foods, I print out the recipes from my database, I examine the needed ingredients and order what I need, and then I check my pans.

Pans?

Yes.  

I remember reading an article long ago in which people were complaining that the recipes they were trying from books weren't coming out as they should.  These were recipes from acclaimed chefs that they felt should have been foolproof.  In response, the article writer commented on a variety of things such as measuring techniques, quality of ingredients, and even slip-shop attention to detail on the part of the chef and details in the recipe.  What got my attention most, though, was when they said that a well-trained chef actually keeps in mind which pans are used for which foods, both in their restaurants, and in their own kitchen.  The chef knows exactly which pan he has used for a specific food and that helps in terms of consistency.  He knows exactly what to expect from a specific pan that is always used for the same food.

I know that in my own kitchen, there are specific pans that I use for certain things.  And, indeed, using the same pan every time helps immensely with consistency.  I have multiple skillets, multiple cake pans, multiple muffin pans, etc.  But I keep track of which pans I use for each food.  Pans may have the same shape, but they are different in other ways.  And how they cook your food can be be significantly different.

So as you prepare for your own holiday feasts, keep in mind which pans you always use.  If you change a pan because you had to replace it, watch your food carefully to see how the new pan works for it.

Eat some good food, everyone!

December has arrived

Well, here we are in December.  The final run toward the end of the year and the beginning of a new one is upon us.

This morning here in Kansas City it is dreary and wet and cold.  No snow, but we had plenty of rain overnight.  It's perfect weather for staying inside with a cup of hot cocoa and some brittle and a good Christmas movie.

In less than two weeks, my normal daily teaching activities come to an end for 2023. That means that I will break out my list of food projects, new foods, old recipe tweaks, etc., and try to work through some of that in those few weeks of free time.

I'm planning on chicken pot pie, perhaps some chili, final tweaks to a hazelnut cream cake and a strawberry cream cake before they go on the menu, hopefully finally finishing fruited lemonades (which I've been waiting to finalize for a few months now!), chocolate cream pie and chocolate ice cream, and some sandwiches.  

I know, I know, it's a huge list.  And that's not even all the list!  

The good thing is that one is never bored when it comes to working on food.  There's always something new to do.

A big food project this week

Good morning, and happy post-Thanksgiving weekend.

This week I had major project going on.  My wife asked me if I would provide some food treats for her workplace.  Of course, I agreed without hesitation.

So last week, I worked out the menu of treats.  Then I carefully planned out the logistics for the week, the timing of what doughs could be made ahead of time and what needed to be made on the last day, the balance of different types of treats, the timing of baking which would last a whole day, etc.

This project included 4 types of cookies, 3 types of brownies, gingerbread mini cakes with lemon zest, and several mini loaves of banana bread.  As always, when I am baking I am constantly looking for little tweaks to make either in recipes or in preparation protocols or even packaging.  And with this amount of food being made with an initial prep of doughs and batter ahead of time and then all being baked on the final day, there were plenty of opportunities to find tweaks and refine processes.  Large-scale batch baking can get easier and easier every time you do it if you use each attempt as a way to identify refinements.

This morning, I got up early, packaged everything in boxes, took them in with my wife as she went to work, and set them all out and unwrapped cakes and opened boxes.  It was a very satisfying thing, indeed, to see it all completed.  And of course my wife was all smiles.  And that alone is worth the effort.

Preparing for the next step

Good morning and welcome to Thanksgiving week!  

I've been doing weekly food orders for quite some now.  In doing that, I've been able to refine many processes, tweak and polish many foods, and work out scheduling routines for multiple food preps on the same day.  And now I have decided that it's time to prepare for the next step.

As a result, I'm on hiatus for a short while.  I won't be accepting weekly orders during this hiatus.  I will continue to post here on the blog.  I will continue to add new foods to the menu.  And occasionally I will text out to some of you that I have some experiments for you to try if you wish, a new cookie, a new stew, a new brownie, etc.

But when the hiatus is over, and I don't expect it to last long, the website will be open again for orders, and I will be somewhat along in developing plans to take this whole enterprise further. 

So please keep checking back here on the blog for updates and regular posts, and I will let everyone know when the ordering website will be open for orders again.

Have a great holiday week.  I will be back again in a day or two with a new post.

All-night baking

 

It has been a quite a while since I had an all-night baking session.  Today, I'm preparing ginger spice cookies and mac/cheese for orders this weekend.  However, next week, I'm doing a lot of baking for a special event that my wife asked me to help with.  I won't have to bake all night for this event, but I thought about it.  I have scheduled different doughs and foods to be done at different points in the week with a final burst of preparation on Friday night before the Saturday event.  With the schedule designed as it is, an all-night baking session won't be needed.

But all-night baking sessions are sort of fun.  To be awake in the middle of the night churning out tray after tray of cookies and rolls and muffins and cakes while the rest of the world is asleep .... there's something rather uniquely special about that. 

When I do an all-night session, I carefully plan out my ingredients and the order of items to be prepared and baked.  I select a few fun things to put on the TV as background, things that I'm already familiar with such as a favorite TV show, and in this way I have something going on that I'm listening to and which is engaging part of my mind to keep me fresh as I work in the kitchen.

As the hours pass and dawn draws closer, the food piles up, going into boxes as it cools, or being wrapped in appropriate wrappings and bags, and the work of the night becomes ever more evident.

Finally when first light is hitting and the work is almost done and almost ready to be picked up, there comes that moment of "what did I forget to make?" and other similar thoughts.  I always think about what else I could have made, even with no time left.  I always think big and then bigger at the end, I suppose.

When the food is out the door and the kitchen is empty, it is as though nothing had happened at all.  No evidence remains.  But when I hear about how everyone enjoyed the food, it makes the work all worthwhile.

The holidays are getting close

 

The holidays are getting close.  I can smell the spices.  I can feel the dough.  I can see the textures.  All before I even make the food that is being planned for next week.

This coming weekend we have a wonderful spiced cookie ready to order and also macaroni and cheese.  Mac and cheese is perfect for autumn weather, don't you think?

I have nothing earth-shattering to write about today.  I'm enjoying a relaxed morning.  I'm beginning to plan out the foods for Thanksgiving week.  As always, I will not do usual food orders for Thanksgiving week.  However, I have had a special request to provide some food for an event and I am happily fulfilling that request.

That means deciding on multiple cookies, brownies and muffins/cupcakes.  And that means a lot of planning to determine how to schedule it all throughout the week so that it doesn't all have to be done on a single day.

It's fun.  It will be busy.  But it will be fun.

Have a great week, everyone.  I'll be back with another more substantial post in a few days.

A recipe for everyone to try

 

Today I'm going to give you a recipe for strawberry lemonade.

This recipe makes 6 10-ounce servings.

You need:

2 cups of water

1 cup of sugar

Zest from 1 medium or large lemon

1 cup of lemon juice

325 grams of strawberries (measure the weight AFTER hulling)

2 cups of club soda.

1.  In a medium saucepan, bring the water and sugar to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally until the sugar is dissolved.  Add the lemon zest and juice, stir and remove from the heat and let it cool completely.  Then strain it into a pitcher.

2.  In a blender, place the strawberries and some of the lemon sugar water, and puree completely. 

3.  Add the rest of the water and the club soda.  Blend well.

4.  Pour into a pitcher and serve right away or chill.  Stir before serving if it sits for a while in the fridge.

That's all you need to do.  This is very easy.  The most work comes from hulling strawberries.  Everything is can be done in a matter of minutes and with minimal effort. 

Give it a try!

A new month

As we start this new month, I have had a chance to test out the new oven.  It maintains temperature very well, quite uniformly, and seems as good or better than the old one.  I don't think I will have any significant tweaking to do for any of the cooking times for items that I regularly bake.  

I have had a busy busy month (meaning October), and so today I decided to push off orders for one week so that I could take a few moments, breathe deeply, and enjoy unmeasured time off and on over the upcoming weekend.

But that doesn't mean I won't be making food.  I have a bunch of items on a list that I have been working on for a while.  For each of these, I simply need to do one final bake or preparation, take a good photo, and add them to my recipe database, and they'll be all set for addition to the ordering menu.  So I will hope do some of that this weekend, but I'm not going to pressure myself too much.  This weekend is about rebalancing after a busy month.

At the very least, I will eat a lot of good food, some of it my own, and some of it my wife's.  She makes amazing haleem and biryani and dal and seekh kebabs.

That's all for now.  I will post something more substantial this weekend, I hope.

Eat well!  And enjoy the day!

New oven

After several days of not having an oven to use, the new range was finally delivered and installed yesterday.  Hooray!!!

I haven't tested it yet, but it will get its first run this week with brownies.

Not baking for several days was hard.  I couldn't make breads or cookies or brownies or lasagna or so many other things that came to mind.  So now I'm eager to get back to a more normal baking routine.

Having this new appliance after several days without makes me want to do an all-night baking session.  I won't actually do it, but I'd love to fill the kitchen with a wide assortment of newly baked foods.

Tomorrow is November 1 which is, in my mind, the beginning of the end-of-year holiday season.  I am always excited by that.  There is nothing quite so fun as the holiday season full of great festivities, great decorations, and great food.

The first weekend in November

It is a cold Sunday morning here in Kansas City as October comes to a close.  On my mind are snow and windy blustery days and the approaching holidays.

This coming weekend we have roasted tomatoes and brownies ready to order.  And for the following weekend, you can select ginger spice cookies as well as macaroni and cheese.

This is the perfect weather for comfort foods like mac and cheese.  I feel like making a pot today because it's cold and dreary out, but I have other plans.  For the next few days, both my wife and I have no obligations and we are planning a variety of activities that will keep us busy.

Tomorrow the new stove/oven arrives.  That means I can bake again for the first time since the element burned out several days ago.  And as I mentioned in a previous blog post, that means I get to acquaint myself with this new oven and see how it maintains temperature.  I may have to do a few tweaks to my baking times of some of my menu items.  We'll see how it goes.

Enjoy this final weekend of October.  Get ready for the holidays!

Back on track

 

Well, after having a couple weeks off, things are back on track here now.  This upcoming weekend you can order chili.  And the menu also shows brownies.  However, if you read my last blog post, you will recall that I am waiting for a new oven to arrive.  It won't arrive in time for this weekend, so brownies have been put on the menu for next weekend.  And you can also order roasted tomatoes for next weekend as well.

I will have some significant time off in the upcoming weeks as we head towards the end of the year.  I'm hoping to utilize that time to add some new things to the menu that I've been working on for the last few months.

Some of those include new fruited lemonades, a couple new cakes, a new ice cream, and a few other new things as well.  

That's all for now.  Have a great week and enjoy the cool autumn weather.

Oven temperatures

Good morning and Happy Thursday to everyone!

After many years of service and thousands of hours of use, my oven lost it's heating element -- burnt completely through.  It's the second element to go in the life of this oven.  After having this appliance for many long years, after having replaced the element once before, after seeing the control panel on top start to develop a few cracks from constant pushing of fingertips on the controls, it was decided that it's time to get a new one.

So my wife and I went out on Monday and selected a brand new range/oven which will soon be delivered.  

This means that I will have to carefully check my existing baking times for all the different things I create in the kitchen.  A different oven may have a different warm-up time, a more efficient or less efficient thermostatic temperature constancy, and other similar things.

I will carefully monitor times and temperatures for several items during the first few weeks of usage to see how it works.  I knew the old one so well.  I knew exactly what to expect from it.  Now I will enjoy getting to know this new one.

Looking forward next week to making chili for everyone since I can use the still-working stovetop.  However, the brownies that are one the menu will be pushed back to the next week since the new oven won't arrive until October 30. 

Chili ready to order

 

Well, it has been an eventful October, and I took a few weeks off.  But the menu has been filled again for the final weekend of October.

Ready for order are double chocolate brownies with a dark chocolate ganache and a favorite of everyone's, mole chorizo chili.  People are always asking to have this on the menu, so I thought being autumn and temperatures starting to fall a bit, well, this seemed like a perfect food to offer after I took these few weeks off.

You will see the menu filled on the first weeks of November, and then I will take off the weekend after Thanksgiving.  Then menus filled again for the first weeks of December, before I take a bit of time off after Christmas again.

That's it for now.  I'll be back in a few days with another post.

An innkeeper's story

 

I heard a story the other day.  It was a good story.  Here it is.

Many years ago, in the days of kings and queens and knights and noblemen, an innkeeper and his wife had run their inn for many years.  A small group of customers had been there from the very beginning.  But one of them had gone on a long trip, and had not returned.  The innkeeper hadn't heard from this one for many years.   Finally, the innkeeper learned that he was in trouble.  So the innkeeper went on a long journey to find him.  And he found him, and brought him back to the town.  A gathering was held with this original group and the innkeeper prepared some foods.  But he was not able to prepare the foods most wanted.  And the other customers were disappointed that the returning customer did not receive the most desired foods.  They were unhappy with the innkeeper.  And they left, although they remained polite and cordial.  The innkeeper was very sad.

But then through the windows of his inn in the coming days, he often saw the returning customer with the others of this group and they all were happy.  Once again, the innkeeper could see that this group was connected as before.  And that turned his sadness to joy.  The innkeeper wondered if things would ever be as they were for him.  But his joy at seeing this group of customers, this group of comrades, together again was most important to him.  

So as each day passed, he continued making cakes and cookies and bread and stews, and he ran his inn as before.  And he watched through the windows of his inn every day as his favorite group of customers walked through the streets of the town.  His wife stood with him as he watched through the windows, worried about him sometimes.  But every time he smiled, she smiled, too, knowing that he was happy to see this group reunited and safe together.  

A late start to October

Good morning and Happy Monday!  October is getting a late start.  During the past week, I involved myself in a lot of projects in the kitchen, especially with new flavored lemonades that I have been experimenting with which use fresh fruit purees.  As a result, I badly estimated the time I would need for orders over this weekend, and had to postpone to next week.

My apologies to everyone.  As I noted in my texts, all orders are simply pushed to next weekend.  I have already updated the website to show the new correct dates.

It's fall, and it's going to start to feel like it this week according to the weather forecasts.  So it's time for yummy warm comfort foods such as the banana bread in the picture above.  Hot chocolates, custards, pumpkin pies, and many other things are on my mind.

This is just a short post today.  But I will be back in a day or two if all goes well, and I'll post something more substantial.  

In the meantime, eat well and enjoy the fall colors that are starting to make themselves known.

Shaping doughs

It's late in the evening here.  The night is dark.  The solar lights are lit in strategically placed spots in the various landscaped beds in the yard, illuminating paths and plants in the darkness.  The neighborhood is quiet.  I almost feel like doing some late-night cooking in the peace of the night.

This coming weekend, we have carrot bisque and chocolate chip cookies ready for ordering.  And the next weekend's menu has now been posted and it includes roasted tomatoes and savory egg salad.  Although it's still a little warm in the daytime, the evenings are cool enough that I'm ready for wholesome autumn foods such as these, especially the bisque and the roasted tomatoes which I think are perfect for autumn.

This past weekend I made a lot of pecan ice box cookies.  I love making these.  They are lightly sweet, full of flavor and have a wonderful texture.  But I also love the physical aspect of making the dough.  It doesn't take long to mix up, but it is the shaping afterwards that I especially love.  Once the dough is mixed, I empty it onto a tray with a raised edge and then I mold it slowly into a rough rectangle.  Then I bring out my bench scraper and, bit by bit, I start straightening the sides, packing the edges, pressing the top.  Eventually I have a block about four inches by ten inches and it's ready to go into the freezer.

That transformation from a rough pile of cookie dough into a nicely shaped rectangle is an aesthetic reward that I find quite satisfying.  I never make the top completely flat, but everything else is flat and straight (for the most part) so that the cookies, once sliced into quarter-inch-thick slices, bake into a shape that I find very pleasing.  That transformation is like sculpting, I suppose.  I'll never sculpt a piece of marble, but I'm quite happy sculpting cookie dough blocks.

This sculpting is part art and science, part whimsy and part precision.  It is creative and mechanical at once.  And it is satisfying.  Making food should be satisfying.  It's all part of the pleasure of enjoying what we eat.

The aroma of brownies

It is a beautiful and peaceful rainy morning here in Kansas City.  The sky is dark, the rain is coming down steadily, a little thunder punctuates from time to time...  It is a beautiful and peaceful rainy morning.

I am baking this morning, preparing food for weekend orders.  Yesterday I made pecan ice box cookie dough.  As the name suggests, it is in the freezer.  It stays there until time for slicing and baking.  The dough isn't even warmed up one tiny bit.  It stays frozen until it goes into the oven.

On the other hand, the brownie batter is made and cooked immediately.  I portion it into a Twinkie mold pan.  And the first tray is about to come out of the oven as I write this post.  The house is filled with the aroma of warm brownies.  And on a rainy morning like today, it is a perfect aroma.

The comforts of food and home are meant to be relished.  So make some food.  Fill your home with wonderful aromas.  And enjoy whatever weather happens to be in your neighborhood today. 

Lots of sweets and a little savory

Well, I didn't get around to my customary Sunday post yesterday.  Better late than never?

This upcoming weekend, pecan cookies and brownies are available for order.  I have several different varieties of brownies that I like to make.  These are baked in Twinkie-shaped molds and they are delicious.

The next weekend we have chocolate chips cookies and something savory, carrot bisque.

There you go:  lots of sweets and a little savory.

I meant to get around to doing final tweaks on some lemonades with fruit this weekend, but it didn't happen.  I will try again this week.  

I always have so many things that I'm working on and sometimes that means my plans don't come to fruition in the time-frame that I hoped.  I don't know if that's good or bad, but it's the way it is.  

Well, no matter what else happens, the cooking and baking continues constantly.  

Have a great day, everyone!  Later on this week, I think I'll post a recipe here.  So be on the watch.

A week off and then more food

 

Good morning.  It's a lightly rainy Monday morning and the high today is only forecast to be in the upper 60s.  I guess that means fall is about to start.

This coming weekend, I'm taking the week off to work on some new foods.  But the following weekend's menu has been posted.  You can order pecan ice box cookies or double chocolate fudge brownies.

This week I will be working on the final touches on some flavored lemonades, and maybe a little chicken tetrazzini, and perhaps some new ice creams.  Hopefully some of  those will make it onto the menu very soon.

With fall starting, cooler and cloudier days will happen more frequently, and I think those are great days to be inside cooking up a feast with a good movie or some good music.  That's exactly what I feel like doing this morning with our cool cloudy start to the week. I won't get to do that quite yet as I have other obligations today.  But it's nice to think about anyway.

Have a great day, everyone!

Don't crowd the cookie dough balls

Baking, cooking, proofing bread dough, anything done in the kitchen has so many subtleties.  

Over the past few weeks, I've made a number of cookies including snickerdoodles.  And the cooking of the snickerdoodles illustrates one of those subtleties.

In the photo above, I have spaced 6 chilled snickerdoodle balls, slightly flattened, on a baking sheet.  When they are spaced in this way, they come out looking as they appear on the cooling racks in this photo, slightly thick with edges that hold and define the cookie.

However, if instead of 6, I place 8 on the baking sheet, with the other two placed in the centers of the squares created by the placement above, the cookies spread more, coming out flatter.

Since the cookie dough is chilled, the placement density is crucial.  If there are too many dough balls on the tray, that cools the tray down and makes it take longer to heat up which in turn means that as the heat of the oven affects the dough on the top, the same effect on the bottom takes longer since the tray has to absorb more heat to counteract the chill of the extra dough balls.  Additionally, around each dough ball is a little pocket of cold air.  More dough balls means more cold air.  It's not much, but it's enough to, in combination with the colder tray as just mentioned, allow the cookie to spread more before the edges cook enough to firm up and hold the cookie into it's shape.  Too many dough balls, flatter cookies, less chewy, larger.  Just the right amount, slightly thicker cookies, a little smaller and a crisper outside to with a chewier inside.

At least that's my theory, a theory that has evolved from evidence over countless bakes over many years.

A well-known chef once said, "Don't crowd the mushrooms."  So we will paraphrase that here to say, "Don't crowd the cookie dough balls!"

September is here

 

September is here.  This morning I saw small leaves gently falling from a few trees.  Time to start thinking about gingerbreads, fruit tarts, and other good autumn foods.

This weekend, you can order double chocolate in two forms: as a cookie or as a pudding, or get them both!  The following weekend I will be taking the time off to work on some new foods. 

I made a lot of cookies this past weekend.  And my wife made tons of haleem and keema.  We shredded cheeses, and cut watermelons, and so many other things.  The fridge is full of many wonderful foods.  There is always a satisfying feeling when you know your fridge is well-stocked so that no matter what you are craving, you can always find something that sounds great to eat.  And this is especially good as we head into the traditional harvest time of year.  Of course, most of us don't actually harvest anything.  But somehow it still seems like a harvest season even in the middle of the city.  And that means a time of feasting and enjoying the fruits of one's labor from the spring and summer.  

That's all for today.  Place your orders and enjoy some good chocolate desserts.

Breakfast

 

Scones, muffins, omelets, French toast.... I love breakfast foods, especially those that are freshly made.

So why is it that I like the occasional boxed cereal, processed in all its modern-day glory to the nth degree.  

As a kid, boxed cereals, especially the sweet ones that are seemingly pure sugar and therefore the utmost in luxury for a 9-year old, were only rarely to be found on our breakfast table.  I remember when I got to college and discovered the all-you-can-eat buffets that were part of every meal at my particular university.  At last this meant that I could have breakfast cereal every morning, and even for lunch and dinner as well.  Captain Crunch, here I come.

Well, as an post-college adult, I have at least learned that all those sugary cereals aren't really what I want.  But I still have a craving for them sometimes.  And I still will eat the occasional boxed cereal, but now it's something a little less unhealthy -- perhaps a Quaker granola cereal, or my favorite brand of corn flakes (which is an off-brand, Best Choice).   

Still, though, when I eat one of those less-unhealthy cereals, I'm eating highly processed food that has gone through the wringer and is undoubtedly simply not as good for me as fresh made-from-scratch foods.  

So why is it I still love to eat them from time to time.  I will probably never know the exact reason.  

Summer's end and new foods

Here we are at the end of August, summer soon to end, the heat soon to leave, but I'm still thinking about cold beverages.  Soon we'll see some new varieties of lemonade added to the menu.  But for now, let's get on to the upcoming two weekends of menus.

As a result of a lower back muscle strain which took a while to heal, I didn't do any food order prep this weekend.  Everything was pushed ahead to next weekend.  Menus haven't changed.  Just pushed ahead.  But rest assured, I'm completely mended and ready to work in the kitchen again.

Now back to lemonades.  Soon you will see three new lemonades added to the menu.  Each of them is infused with another fruit to make a blend.

Also I will soon add chicken tetrazzini on the menu.  I know, I know, turkey tetrazzini is more customary, but I have found that it doesn't have nearly as much flavor as the chicken, so that's what I'm going with.

Final versions of hazelnut cream cake and strawberry cream cake will soon be completed as well.

And chocolate ice cream and a special chocolate cream pie will also soon be added.

These are just a few things that are upcoming.  Adding new items to the menu is one of my favorite things.  So watch for them soon.  

Have a great evening!

New cookie dip flavors

 

I am happy to announce that I have expanded the available flavors of Bruce Bakery and Bistro's sweet and creamy cookie dip.

In addition to the original vanilla, now you can order caramel and ...

chocolate chocolate chip and ...

raspberry and ...

almond.

So now there are a total of 5 different flavors of this dip.  Will I do more new flavors?  Probably, sometime, maybe, we'll see.

I certainly had fun developing these flavors.  And I have found that many people who enjoy these simply eat the dip all by itself rather than dipping cookies or spreading it on sweet rolls, etc.  You can do whatever you want with it.  As long as it is enjoyed, then I'm happy.

I'll put these on the weekly menu soon and you can all try them for yourself.

Have a great day, everyone!

A late Sunday email on Monday

Good Monday morning.  I almost always get a new post out on Sundays.  But yesterday I had a bit of an issue with a lower back muscle that I strained, and by the end of the day it was best for me to simply lie  down and relax and let it start to heal.  Today it's tender, but on the mend.  I am carefully going about my normal routine, being very careful that I don't disturb the healing process.  I managed to cut a watermelon today and that might be the only thing I do in the kitchen, all in the interest of recuperating.

This coming weekend we have lemon snickerdoodles and ginger spice cookies ready for ordering.  And the following weekend we have double chocolate pudding and double chocolate cookies.  Yes, double chocolate for both.

Today as I stay calm and relaxed, I will perhaps try to get caught up on some new additions to the menu.  That's the task that is foremost in my mind.  

That's all for now.  I will be back again soon this week with more updates.

Taste tests

I love to compare things, especially in the kitchen.  So taste tests are something I really have fun doing.  Sometimes you try something new, compare it to the old way you used to it, and you are really amazed at the difference.  Then you have to try to decide which way you want to do it from then on.

These past few weeks, I've been experimenting with lemonades with different companion fruits.  I've come up with three great things that will be added to the menu as soon as I get the chance on a day when I don't feel like vegging all day.  I tweaked the balance of flavors and sweetness until I had them just the way I wanted them.  But then I wanted to try one final thing.  So today I made two separate batches of raspberry lemonade, one with regular water and one with carbonated water.

And the winner is ...

Regular water!

I love carbonated water.  Who doesn't, right?  It's fizzy and light and just plain fun.  But in these lemonades, the balance of the fruit and the lemonade was upset just a bit by the presence of carbonated water.  And additionally, after whirling this in my blender for a long time, it seemed that the carbonation wasn't quite a pronounced, which I supposed would be expected considering the nature of carbonation.

So these lemonades will be made with simply plain water.  That doesn't mean I might not deign to make a batch that is carbonated just for fun on a hot summer day when I think that visiting friends and family might enjoy it.  I certainly will.  But I will personally stay with the non-carbonated version for myself, most likely.

I have a couple recipe books on the making of artisanal sodas from past generations, things with names like "purple cow", and other such fun names.  I haven't delved too deeply into the art of specialty sodas, but occasionally I will test out a recipe and tweak it a little bit.  It's the combination of carbonation and really smooth flavors that I find most intriguing.

The other day my wife and I journeyed up to Weston which is about 40 minutes from Kansas City, and we had lunch at a charming and fun restaurant there.  And they had red cream soda which I rarely see.  It was a great soda, not heavy on the carbonation, very smooth flavor, not overly sweet, and it had the most brilliant red color.  There are many places around here where one can find unusual sodas from small artisanal makers, and I always love to try them.    

Well, for today, though, I won't turn my raspberry lemonade into a soda.  Soon you will see it on the menu along with two other lemonade combinations.

I hope you will all give them a try when they appear on an upcoming weekly menu.

Brownies, creams, cookies

It has been an enormously rainy day here in Kansas City.  A perfect day to stay inside and cook and eat and watch movies.

This coming weekend we have brownies and a raspberry cream both available for ordering.  And the following weekend, we have two different cookies ready to be ordered.

As you can see, I am in a cookie mood.  Cookies are always nice to have around.  And many cookie doughs chill or freeze easily so that a lot can be made and put aside for cooking later.  You can't do that with a cake batter or a pasta dish, but cookie doughs handle that chilling and freezing just fine.

I wish brownie batter could be frozen and cooked later, but I have never dared to try that.  Does anyone know if that is workable?  Perhaps I'll give it a whirl sometime.  I've never even bothered to look it up online to see what others think because I've simply assumed that it wouldn't work well.  But I'm sure sometime I will do that.  Why don't I do that right now?  Well, I'm about ready to make some cookie dough so that my wife can take cookies in to pass out to her colleagues tomorrow.  So looking up that info will have to wait.  The mixer is calling my name.

This week I will make a variety of cookies, so those of you who order may get a few extra things in your bags to try.   

Eat well, stay dry, and enjoy the cooling days that seem to here (at least for part of this week). 

Cookies for the weekend

 

Happy Monday to everyone.

This coming weekend we have two different cookies available for ordering:  chocolate chip pecan and butterscotch pecan.  Yes, I like pecans.  They are a wonderful lightly sweet nut that is perfect in baked goods.

For the next weekend, you can order brownies and raspberry sweet cream.  While I am not a fan of chocolate covered strawberries, I am more accepting of raspberry combined with chocolate.  While these two items weren't selected to be eaten together, I would not be surprised to find that some of you who orders these might put the cream on top of the brownie.  I've done that, and it tastes pretty darn good.

That's all for now.  Just this quick update regarding the upcoming two weekend menu offerings.

I will be back soon again with a few more items that are being added to the menu.

July is just about over

 

Here we are in the last bits of July.  The heat has abated somewhat, meaning it's no longer triple digits, but the humidity is still high.  However, the darkness is coming earlier each night and as August gets set to begin, I can already see summer beginning to show signs of losing steam.  We are technically not quite half-way through with the season, but its ending has already begun.

That also means that my month-long break in teaching is about over.  I have spent much of the month in cooking, yes, even in the hottest days when no one wants to turn on an oven.  I made cakes, and cookie dips, and ice creams, and berry fools, and pasta dishes, and many other things.  A couple new items have already been added to the menu, and I have a handful more to do as I make the time, the recipes for which are sitting in a pile with handwritten notes of tweaks and improvement updates.  These include a couple cakes, four new cookie dip flavors, a new ice cream, and a pasta dish.

I made great inroads into my cooking to-do list, but as always there seems to be no end to the list as I am always adding things I want to create or improve or explore.  Cooking and baking are never-ending tasks, at least in my case.  

I had great fun passing out all sorts of food to people besides the foods that were passed out as part of the weekend menu offerings.  It's always nice to hear when a food is enjoyed, and I had lots of those moments this month. 

As August begins in a couple days, I will continue working on that to-do list.  And I will continue adding new foods to the menu and tweaking old foods as I am inspired or as I recognize the necessity.

As I said, never-ending.... and I wouldn't have it any other way.  

Hazelnut cake

 

It is a hot late July day.  And the week will only get hotter.  I'm spending the day in the kitchen despite the heat.  Before I get to that, here's what's up for the next weekly offering.

This coming weekend we have berry fools and chocolate fudge cake available for ordering.  The following weekend, the first weekend in August, I will take off the time to do some other things.

Today, I made a hazelnut cake.  Technically, I started yesterday and finished today.  This is a three-layer cake with a German hazelnut buttercream frosting, a chocolate hazelnut filling between layers, and garnished with Ferrero Rocher hazelnut milk chocolate bar pieces and also roasted hazelnuts.

It was a very fun cake to make.  I've been working on various hazelnut items for a while, and I think this is ready to go on the menu in a smaller version.  

I'll be back in a day or two with a few more updated new items on the menu.  For now, have a great Sunday afternoon.  Stay cool.  And as always, eat some fun food.

Macaroni and cheese

 

Happy Friday to everyone.

Today we have a new item added to the menu.

At long last, I have finished all my tweaks and tests on a number of mac and cheese variations.  And I have selected this one in the photo above.

It is creamy and satisfying.  It is made with a blend of three different cheeses.  And best of all, it reheats beautifully.  Any pasta with a cheese sauce can be problematic when it comes to reheating.  So to have this ready for addition to the menu is especially rewarding.  

I'll put it on a weekly offering sometime soon so that everyone can try it out.

Coming up next for addition to the menu:  some new flavors of cookie dips.

Other projects in the works:  sandwiches with special sauces, a strawberry cream cake, and a hazelnut cream cake.

Talk to you all soon again.  Back into the kitchen I go.

July is half over

 

July is about half over now.  And while we have had a bit of summer heat on a few days, it hasn't really been too bad.  Typically I don't like to make a lot of foods that require the oven during the hot afternoons of summer, but so far this year, the heat has not been enough to dissuade me.  So it has been a productive month so far in in terms of tweaking old recipes and working on new ones.

This coming weekend we have roulades with raspberries on the menu, a perfect warm weather food.  And we also have a soft brittle with 3 different nuts.  I'm a sucker for hazelnuts in particular, but I especially love the combination of three different nuts in this brittle.  And I love that this is a soft brittle, meaning that it breaks easy on the tooth rather than the tooth breaking easily on the brittle.  

Next weekend we have a new item appearing for the first time on the weekly menu: chocolate fudge sandwich cakes.  Also, we are doing another round of berry fools, offered for the second time this summer.  I had multiple requests to put them back on the menu again during the heat of summer, so here they are.

In the next day or two I'll be posting of another new item being added to the menu, so stay tuned, keep reading, and feel free to leave comments.

A new cake

 

It's 96 F outside right now.  But I'm inside and staying cool while working on food.  Today's kitchen work is mint chocolate chip ice cream and vanilla macarons for this weekend's orders.  Everything is almost completed.  Later today I will make a baked Italian breaded chicken dish.  

This week I've done a lot of kitchen work, I mean a lot, a whole lot, tons and tons.  And one of the things that I did was finish the final tweaks on a new cake for the menu.

As of today, you can find chocolate fudge sandwich cakes.  This is a small rich chocolate cake that is split in half and filled with a chocolate cream.  Then the whole thing has rich fudgy icing poured over it which sets and gives it a very pleasant look.

Each of these square cakes is a bit over 4 inches across, so they are perfect for one or two people.  

Lots and lots of chocolate in this makes it truly delicious.

I promise to put on a weekly menu offering sometime soon.

Fun food items coming up

 

Hello, hello.

We have some fun food items coming up.  This coming weekend you can order vanilla macarons and mint chocolate chip ice cream.  And the following weekend you can order a mixed nut brittle and mascarpone cream roulades with raspberries.

This weekend saw gougeres and Swedish visiting cakes come out of the kitchen, and also multiple chocolate snack cakes, and a potato dish, and a third batch of mac and cheese, and even more than that.  It was a busy weekend for cooking.

I wanted to do a little more, but I also spent a lot of time slicing up melons, and preparing other various things.  A fun weekend.  A busy weekend.

And then I ran out of my 4-inch snack cake baking cups (see pic above).   I wanted to do another batch of a different cake, and realized as I prepped for it that I was already out.  I have more on order, but they haven't arrived yet.  So I decided to bake it as a large 13x9 inch cake.  It will slice up nicely but I really wanted the little baking cups.

I have plenty more food prep to do this week as I work through my to-do list which has grown quite a bit over the past while.  But this month a lot of those items are being worked through.  My wife has passed out some food at her workplace, too, so I am taking enjoyment seeing more people enjoying what comes out of my kitchen.

One of the cakes that I made this weekend was a very delicious chocolate cake flavored with melted milk chocolate and also dark chocolate cocoa powder.  When I make this, I always melt butter and then drop in the chunks of chocolate and the cocoa powder and let it simmer for a while.  I mention this because I had a question recently about how this comes out so rich and chocolatey.  Well, that's how.  A high quality milk chocolate and very high quality cocoa powder are both very important. But melted butter and adding those to the butter before mixing up the cake makes a huge difference.  Don't just toss everything in to the mixing bowl on it's own.  And you can always add actual melted chocolate to cocoa powder when making a chocolate cake.  It's well worth it.

Stay cool, and have a great start to your new week.

Reheatability

 

This week has been filled with lots of cooking.  And that means it has been a good week!

I have made two of three planned batches of mac and cheese.  I'm pretty certain the first one will go on the menu.  The second one was good, but it doesn't reheat as well, and that's a primary quality I am looking for, reheatability.  I don't think that's a word, but I'll use it anyway.  I have a third batch to make tomorrow.  But I'm very happy with the first batch and I don't think the new one will change my mind.  As I said recently said in another post, I've made all three of these multiple times in the past, so they are all good, in fact, they are excellent mac and cheeses.  But only one will go on the menu.

I have also completed final testing on another couple new items.  One is a small chocolate fudge cake with a smooth creamy filling and a wonderful set frosting that wraps itself around the small cake.  This is ready to be added to the menu and hopefully that will happen in the next few days as soon as I make the time to do it.

Another item that has been tweaked is something called sitta, which is corn-on-the-cob with lemon juice and spices.  It is very flavorful.  However, while it reheats well on the same day, it doesn't come up to the level I want it to be if it has been chilled overnight and then reheated after chilling.  So this one won't go on the menu unless I can somehow in the future find a way to allow it be chilled and reheated without dropping below a certain level of quality both in taste and appearance.  

I make a lot of things that are hot and ready to eat.  But when I make those, they are items for which I have full confidence that if someone takes them home and puts them in the fridge they will reheat beautifully the next day and still be very delicious with a beautiful texture or appearance.  So the sitta is excellent, but it doesn't pass that test.  However, when, in the future, I decide to open up a food establishment, then this will definitely be on the menu to be made and served fresh.  

Everything that I make that is hot is tested to see if it passes that reheatability test.  I know not everyone will eat my food on the same day.  So this quality test is very important to me.

Today I also made gougere dough.  The dough has been portioned and is freezing and will be ready to go out the door tomorrow to be baked at home.  And Swedish visiting cakes have been baked and are sitting on the counter now.  They will be wrapped as soon as they are cool enough and will be ready to go out in the morning as well.

That's all for today.  I have more things to make during the month of July, and I will report on them all here. 

Making food

 

Yesterday I made a very delicious stovetop mac and cheese.  It used three different cheeses and had a fantastic texture.  And best of all, it reheated exceptionally well.  As you might remember from my last post, I am making three different mac and cheeses this week.  And one of them is meant to go on the menu. Not only does it have to taste great, but it has to reheat well.  I've used these three recipes before, many times, in fact.  But they rarely are around long enough to test the reheating.  So that is the task this week.  

Today I make a second mac and cheese.  And in addition to that I will make a chocolate snack cake.  Yesterday I also made my orange vanilla froth, mostly because I wanted a new picture for the website, but since it was so hot, it made for a great evening drink in the heat.

Today is mostly devoted to making food.  I did a little work on my landscaped beds outside and a few small tasks in the house.  But at the moment I am writing this, those things are all done and the rest of the day will be spent with food.

Days making food are great days.  There is nothing like making something yummy and passing it out to people.  There's something very satisfying about doing that.  

Well, here I go, into the kitchen now.  

July's first weekend

 

Happy Sunday to everyone.

I am in the first week of my long July break.  And it has been full of fun activities and good food so far.

This coming weekend we have Swedish visiting cakes and gougeres available for ordering.  And the following weekend we have vanilla macarons and mint chocolate chip ice cream.

A couple days ago I made something new for a family event:  a chocolate hazelnut torte.  This torte uses ground hazelnuts in place of the flour typically found in cakes.  It's a very simple recipe that combines sugar and cocoa with the ground hazelnuts, which is then gently folded into meringue and then baked.  And in this case I topped it with a sweet chocolate sauce, vanilla whipped cream and hazelnut candies.  I had planned to do a hazelnut cake, but with only a few days left before the event for which it was needed, I determined that I couldn't source hazelnut flour anywhere close by and it would have to be ordered.  I didn't trust that it would come on time.  So I opted to make a torte instead.  

The torte was nice, very nutty, mildly sweet, and filling.  But it wasn't something that I think I would make again.  So now I'm taking the time to source some hazelnut flour, get it ordered and delivered, and then make a cake that I hope will be much more to my liking.  I don't think the torte was a favorite part of the event, but that's OK.  It was experiment.  We tried it and determined it's not something to pursue again.  

That doesn't mean I won't try another hazelnut torte.  I love hazelnuts so I most certainly will.  But I will design a new recipe.

Today I'm shopping for the first of three mac and cheeses that I will make this week.  I have made all of these before, so this really a new trial run to compare all three and see if I want to add one of them to the menu.  My wife is a big fan of mac and cheese so she will serve as taste tester in addition to me.

These mac and cheeses each use a blend of different cheeses and each uses a different preparation method: one on stovetop, one in the oven, and one that combines both.  I love to do comparison cooking like this, so it will be a fun week.

That's all for now.  Enjoy the final day of your weekend and eat some good food that makes you smile and feel satisfied.

Tweaks and tortes

 

It's a hot day here in Kansas City and it's going to get hotter as the day progresses.  I am staying inside and doing odds and ends around the house and also working on recording recipe tweaks that I've notated over the past while for rolls and breads (such as the pain au lait dough balls in the photo above).  

I love the process of tweaking recipes.  Every time I cook something, I'm liable to have some tiny insight that comes to mind or I identify some small detail in the process that I want to adjust.  I make a note on my recipe sheet, and let them pile up for a while, usually, and finally record them all at once.  I suppose it's a way of constantly making progress, of thinking that nothing is ever quite perfect yet.  Of course, does everything need to be perfect?  I think not.

I'm also reviewing cake and torte recipes.  Tomorrow morning, I will make a chocolate hazelnut torte for a special food event.  It's something new I'm making so I hope it works out well.

This entire coming month of July, I'm hoping to take a lot of free time and put it into updating old foods and also working on new foods to be added to the menu.

Eat some good food and enjoy the day, everyone!

Gougeres and visiting cakes

Hello, all!

This coming weekend I'm taking time off to enjoy some things with family.  But next weekend we have Swedish visiting cakes and gougeres on the menu.

I'm getting ready to start a month-long break from teaching in July.  And that means I hopefully will be doing a lot of cooking.  I've got a list of several things I want to work on, some will be new, some will be decidedly experimental, and some will be tweaks of older things.

I'm hoping the summer heat won't be too bad.  We all know how much hot stovetops and ovens contribute to in-house heat during summer months.

It will be a good time to work on breads since the temps will be very conducive to great yeast action.

And I will definitely be making some ice creams.  We can't have summer heat without ice creams.

That's all for now.  Have a great day everyone and stay cool.

Cheeses

 

Good afternoon.  This coming weekend we have a cheddar horseradish dip and oatmeal candy cookies ready for ordering.  For the first weekend of July, I will be taking a few days off so there is nothing on the menu.  But more items will be available on the weekend after that.

I was recently given an assortment of cheeses (for Father's Day).  In the photo above, you can see English Cotswold cheese with chives, a strong Parmigiano-Reggiano, a very flavorful Swiss gruyere with a floral hint, a California habanero dry Monterey jack, and one of my favorites, a 10-year aged white cheddar.

It is a wonderful thing to try so many excellent cheeses all at once.  Comparing, contrasting, analyzing .... OK, what I really mean is it's great to eat them all.  LOL

Cheeses are amazing.  And there are so many different kinds.  The subtleties of each when compared to another are fascinating.  

Of the five above, my favorite for just plain eating is the 10-year aged cheddar, but the English Cotwold with chives is excellent as well.  The others I like best shredded and grated and put on top of something or into something.

The Parmigiano-Reggiano is a type of Parmesan that comes from a specific region and only that region and has to be aged at least 1 year and up to 3 years.  Often other parmesans are aged as little as 10 months.

There are all sorts of interesting facts one can uncover about each of these.  Cheeses are so unique, a lot of like wines in that way, I think.  But I won't go into all those now.  Suffice it to say that some people are experts at this and know a lot more than I do.

What I do know, though, is that I love eating them.  So I'm off to get another slice of the 10-year aged cheddar and maybe make a salad with sprinkling of a blend of the others.  

Bon appetit, everyone!