Just taking the time to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Stay safe, eat some good food, and have a good time.
Best,
Brian
Habanero Infused Vodka for The Molotov Mule
A “hot” new take on a classic cocktail
Sometimes you experiment in cooking, and the results are not so good. Other times, you experiment, and you make something fantastic. This is one of those latter examples.
For roughly a year now, I’ve been absolutely in love with the Moscow Mule. I discovered it in the Bartender manga and was entranced by the idea of ginger beer, having been used to ginger ale, which I do quite enjoy. The idea of an even more potent ginger beverage being used in a cocktail was quite appealing.
When I saw it on the menu at a classic bar, I had to order it immediately. I was quite impressed, and made it my drink of choice to make at home. But then I thought, what can I do to really make it my own?
I decided to bring the heat, and replaced the “plain” vodka with habanero infused vodka. With the spiciness of the ginger beer and the slow burn of the peppered up vodka, I dubbed it the Molotov Mule.
So are you sold yet? Well you’ll need some habanero vodka, so let’s get to that part first.
There are various suggested manners to infusing spirits with peppers. Some people simply prick the skin of the peppers with toothpicks before submerging them whole in the booze. Others remove the seeds and halve them, others go full barrel and cut up the peppers and leave the seeds in.
By the way, this is Crystal Head Vodka, in case that wasn’t obvious enough. Super thanks to my friend Mike for gifting it to me. 750 mils of vodka is in there. For this application, one habanero pepper.
Cauliflower and Yam Curry for Lunch!
Before getting to the food business, I wanted to plug the JP DasBrew Kickstarter. It’s met it’s goal, but getting some more help is always welcome! Now back to business.
I visited good friend Jeremy (of Mighty Nightgaunt fame) last weekend, and made a variety of tasty treats to celebrate hanging out with him. I’ve been in the mood for something vegetarian lately because of my watching of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s River Cottage Veg Every Day series, so it seemed like a great day to make some curry.
That and Essen23, my reddit Secret Santa, requested that I would make something Indian for the lunch week of 52 Weeks of Cooking. Well, better late than never. Unfortunately, the recipes from the book he bought me, while wonderful, involved lots of spices which I happened to have left at home, and I wasn’t going to buy duplicates, at least not from the supermarket. That gets expensive quick.
So I trolled my memory for a curry I’ve made a few times before, after learning the recipe from Addicted to Curry.
Yes, a manga about curry. It’s actually pretty good.
I omitted a number of ingredients such as fresh cilantro, and replaced the green chili peppers with some dried red ones I scooped up at the farmer’s market. The result was still quite delicious.
I served it up with some fresh naan, and everyone was happy.
Strawberry Basil Sorbet
I mentioned in an earlier post that I actually had the pleasure of performing my first “solo” catering gig, that is one where it was not part of some other promotion, and very much beyond simply cooking for friends, and as a bonus, it actually tied in pretty neatly with one of the purposes of this blog, that is being a cook for geeks.
I didn’t go too much into it last time, but I’ll rectify it with this post.
When my host, Steve, described the campaign, which placed a large focus on both human hegemony and an elven rebellion. While he wasn’t sure that I would be able to tie in the campaign content with the menu content, I think I did a pretty good matching up food to themes.
Between what I’d consider hearty human food and a slightly more exotic leanings from what I would surmise to be in elven cuisine I detailed the following menu (which admittedly pulls quite a bit from tried and true standards):
- Wild Mushroom Pancakes
- Serrano Pepper Hummus
- Two batches of No Knead Bread, one with dried cherries and roasted almonds
- Curried Lentil Soup
- Fry Bread Tacos, with fajita style beef or spicy marinated tofu and pico de gallo
- Sweet Yam Curry and Naan
To provide an interesting finish, I thought that a slightly exotic twist on a straightforward dessert would really do the trick, and so I opted to make a strawberry sorbet, augmented with basil from my garden.
Had I known Steve was such an aficionado of spicy things I might have went with the white pepper variant instead! But then again for some reason the thought of basil in dessert seemed to mesh better with my perception of “elven” sensibilities.
Maybe I’m totally wrong there.
After Thanksgiving Leftover Turkey Soup
Well, it is the eve of Thanksgiving, so I thought it would be appropriate to share one way I like to work with my leftovers. Don’t get me wrong, I love turkey sandwiches as much as the next person (with leftover gravy, cranberry sauce, and stuffing too) but sometimes you want something warm and filling. These are actually pictures from last year that I’ve been holding onto for precisely this occasion.
It does take a bit of time to make this turkey soup, which calls on you to make stock from the bones of your roasted turkey. So you’ll want to get started early, and maybe have a piece of pie for breakfast, or make one of those leftover sandwiches to tide you over.
And yeah, a great way to use up those bones, and this approach to leftovers really appeals to my holistic approach to using ingredients and stuff in the kitchen.
This won’t precisely be a recipe, but more of guidelines really.
Man, I’ve really been stuck on soup lately haven’t I? Don’t worry, I’ll make other things soon.
Curried Lentil Soup
A hearty vegetarian soup that’ll satisfy even the stoutest of adventurers
This last weekend I had the pleasure of catering a Dungeons and Dragons Meet & Greet which happened to have a rather large portion of vegetarian adventurers. Among my other offerings, I knew I needed to have a really great soup as a bridge between the appetizers and the exciting mains.
Something simple, yet exciting. Enter Curried Lentil Soup. I looked for a base recipe to modify and epicurious definitely delivered with this one.
I upped the quantity of various items to serve a larger party, and replaced the chicken broth with vegetable broth. Had I more time I would have loved to have made my own veggie stock, but it was not meant to be. Still, absolutely no complaints about how this dish turned out.
Balsamic Vinegar Chocolate Truffles Recipe
Add a touch of class to a gaming night with these elegant and rich bites of chocolate, with the fruity finish of balsamic vinegar and cherries.
At the request from the splendid and wonderful Tiffany Simmons, writer of the soon to be published +5 Food of Eating, I have boldly completed a quest on her behalf, testing a new recipe for some chocolate truffles!
These chocolate truffles are great for both geeky and nongeeky affairs. Why? Well it’s chocolate! And most people like chocolate. Unless you’re a supertaster perhaps, in which case other options need to be explored.
As for the straight gaming applications there are at least a few ways they could add immersion to a game. Given their origin they fit in quite well with settings placed in the late 19th or 20th century, or perhaps in a French inspired setting as well. Their rich sweetness lend themselves to the image of high society balls and intrigues. And the small but generous portions of chocolate truffles make fantastic dessert finger food.
Cinnamon Mocha for Cinnamon Week
A splendid sweet drink for the morning
With this year’s sudden onslaught of projects, classes, and all the like, one of those things which has unfortunately fallen by the wayside was my participation on the 52 Weeks of Cooking subreddit challenge.
While I’m not going to be able to make up all the weeks that I’ve missed, I’ll do my best to jog along with the more diligent posters until the end of the year. Thankfully this week’s theme, cinnamon, requires a bit less planning and grand productions!
Cinnamon has been quite a versatile spice that has found its way into so many different cuisines for uses both savory and sweet.
Growing up, cinnamon was primarily featured in my mother’s pho broth along with star anise and black cardamom. As I grew older I discovered it has its place in things like hot cider, cake, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch (I preferred Golden Grahams though.) One of the more exotic things I’ve done with cinnamon was actually making a cinnamon ice cream.
This morning I decided to go the hot drink route however, and found that a cinnamon mocha would be a splendid way to start the morning, quite a bit different than my usual black coffee.
Pickled Red Beet Eggs: Made with Fresh Beets!
Wherein A Cook & A Geek Dresses Up an Egg for Halloween
Or beeting off your huevos in time for the holidays
So I guess this is a thinly veiled attempt at making some food seasonal given the upcoming spooky holiday. Because shortcuts and multi purposing are beautiful things.
It’s actually a bit of a coincidence really. Dad came back and brought home some beautiful fresh beets because he wanted to have some of these naturally dyed beauties after seeing some in the Amish country on his most recent excursion. I’ve actually seen these before but I’ve never realized they were a Pennsylvania Dutch tradition before my dad told me he saw these there.
The more you know I guess!
5 Tips for a Geeky Dining Event
I recently posted on Machine Age Productions some advice on how to throw an event involving food and gaming without getting in over your head.
The five tips are as follows:
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Know your limits
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Prep as much as possible
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Know how to delegate simple activities
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Have a schedule
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Avoid experimentation
For exactly what that means, head over to Machine Age Productions and take a look!