My Pledge: To My Young Guy Readers

I know that sounds presumptuous. I have like four readers total; however, I am now pledging to the four of you is to make sure I start a survival guide (or "guy-d") for good food with no kitchen. I pledge the recipes will be cheap, fail safe (at least, mostly,) tasty, and will impress the chicks.

(Que A-Team theme song.) This is for you, Westie.

Here's the thing: Girls like food. Girls don't want to cook as much as ads from the '50s will lead you to believe. As much as girls like to complain about calories and carbs, they like to eat them, occasionally and like YOU to cook them even more.

Also: Pre-made cookies, chips, burgers, muffins, scones, and all the like are NOT necessary. Even peanut butter can be made by you, in your bedroom if need be, with minimal tools and almost no technical ability.

RISE ABOVE RAMEN!

Not to say that you shouldn't keep the stuff around for the occasional salad topping, though. Oh, that reminds me:

VEGGIES ARE YOUR FRIEND!

You're out of the house! Your mom isn't making you clean your plate anymore. I get it. But trust me: your bowels will like you a lot more if your tummy gets some green in it, and I don't mean JELLO.

CHEESE SHALL NOT COME INDIVIDUALLY WRAPPED!

Seriously. Read the ingredients list of that stuff. Know where everything comes from? Are you a chem major dinking around with a mass spec machine? If you answered no to both of those, make friends with the cheese person at the local grocery store. They know way more about what cheese is tasty with what, and they WILL make you a better cook.

CHEESE ALSO DOES NOT COME IN A CAN, BACON FLAVORED, OR IN POWDER FORM!

Want cheese crackers? Buy yourself a silicone baking mat, grate some cheese onto it, bake it, and serve. That's a cracker. Cheese flavored potato chips? Okay, maybe cheese is sometimes okay in powder form. I love Kettle Chips.

BURRITOS SHALL NOT EVER BE FROZEN

Lemme let you in on a little something: If you live in California, you've probably driven by a Taco Truck. You can look up their health and sanitation scores somewhere on your local Health and Safety Board website. Make those people your friends. It's WAY tastier than Taco Bell, and way more exciting.

COFFEE SHALL NOT COST 4 BUCKS A CUP

Spend 4 bucks on a single cup drip coffee maker, and snicker at your friends when they utter the phrase "MAN Starbucks sounds good right now, but they already have all my student lone money!" Starbucks is a summer job, not a daily habit. Trust me; I'm a professional. Or rather, I was a professional.

Okay, rant over. In the interest of uniformity, I'll give you a recipe, now. In the interest of theme, it'll be cheap, easy, and doable in a dorm room.

What you'll need: (Things to buy at the hardware/Bed, Bath, and Beyond/Grocery store:)

1 hotplate. I think they have these at OSH, and maybe even CVS.

1 big ol' pot. Aluminum is fine for this. If there's a Cash 'n Carry near you, go there.

1 Microplaner. This is your new best friend. It's awesome for cheese, whole spices, chocolate, truffles, coconut, and if you're careless, a nasty series of cuts.

1 REALLY good quality 8 inch chef's knife. You WILL hone it every time you touch it. You WILL always hand wash it. It will be sharp enough to shave with, heavy enough to crack seafood shells with, stout enough to do some occasional prying with, ergonomic enough to carve whole chickens with, and cheap enough to justify spending money on. Calphalon makes some awesome ones, and so does Kitchen Aid. Ask the knife guy in Bed, Bath, and Beyond. You'll spend about $25 on it, and another $7-8 on a good honing steel. This just might be the only chef's knife you ever buy if you chose wisely.

1 cutting board. IKEA. They're 1/4" thick, flexible, and plastic. Label them with a sharpie as follows: CHICKEN, RED MEAT, VEGGIES, MISC.

Yes, you will need 4, lest you want to get violently ill.

1 10 inch nonstick aluminum pan. Once again, at the restaurant supply. This has to be cheap, unless you're spending someone else's money. if that's the case, go nuts.

1 10 inch CAST IRON skillet. Not necessary right now, but more on that one later.

1 1 lb box of KOSHER salt. I list this in the "hardware" section for the reason that you should NEVER be without kosher salt, ever. Got it?

1 Herb garden starter kit. They keep well on window sills. They take some watering. They will save you a bunch of money in the long run. Think of them as GEICO for your kitchen.

1 pepper mill. Don't buy the pre ground stuff; you might as well try to flavor your food with sawdust.

2 pairs spring loaded tongs. Yes, 2. One for raw stuff, one for cooked. Once again: Salmonella is the ENEMY.

1 Strainer. They make collapsible ones that fit in the sink, or clever bracket devices outside your window, if you're man enough.

4 plates, 4 bowls, and silverware. Plastic is fine.

FOOD: Grocery store time!

Spaghetti.

Olive oil. Not the extra virgin stuff. This is going to be cheap, remember?

Baby spinach.

A hunk of Parmesan cheese

2 chicken breasts, WITH skin. With or without bone; I don't care.

Red wine vinnegar

a handfull of sun dried tomatoes. WINCO. Bulk section. Gaze upon your new cooking Valhalla.

Now...

Break out that nifty hotplate. Put your pot on it, with about 3 quarts of water. I know, it's a lot. It has to do with carry over, and...just trust me, okay? Now add enough salt to make it taste just a little less salty than sea water. Now some of that olive oil.

Let that come to a boil.

Meanwhile:

Take some of that spinach from before, about a hand full, and rinse it really well. Now stack some of the leaves up on your cutting board and roll them parallel with the stem like a burrito. Now cut that burrito into little tiny cinnamon roll type shapes. They'll unfurl. CONGRATULATIONS, you've just made a chiffonade cut! Fancy.

Cut the tomatoes in little tint strips.

Put some herbage down, (Rosemary and Thyme would be good, as would some basil. Rinsed, of course.) and go nuts with the knife on this stuff. The smaller the pieces, the better.

Put all that aside in three separate little piles of goodness to be, and turn your attention to the chicken.

Rub 'em down with some olive oil, then a BUNCH of salt, (Like about 1 Tbsp each side,) and a little pepper.

Water boiling? Good. Add 1/2 lb of pasta. Let it cook 'till it sticks to the 'fridge, or the ceiling, or your room mate's face. Firm, but tender. That's Al Dente.

Strain. Put it back in the pot. Add some olive oil, a touch of that red wine vinegar, and some minced offerings from your cute little herb garden, and toss with your hand to combine. It will be hot, so be careful. Or man up. Your call.

Put your new nonstick pan on the hotplate with about 2 Tbsp of that olive oil in it, on MED heat. When the oil ripples a little, put the chicken in it, SKIN SIDE DOWN, please, and let it cook for about 4 minutes. Flip with the RAW tongs, and cook for about 5 more minutes, or until the internal temp is about 155 degrees.

Plating:

Pile some of the noodles on a plate. Grind pepper over it. Put half of the spinach down. Now half of the tomatoes. When you're done with this part on both plates, it should have been about 3 minutes since the chicken came out of the pan.

Put that chicken on a clean cutting board, and cut it on the bias, in 1/4" thick chunks. Put it on top of your pasta. Now use your microplaner on the cheese to dust it with Italian goodness.

Serve.

Easy, eh? More later.

Update: Cheese Ice Cream / Beverage Post #1.5

On the ice cream: I've decided that it will land somewhere between cheesecake, cannoli filling, and vanilla bean ice cream with a dash of cinnamon. I've been studying custard making for all of these things, and have been too meek to actually fire up the range and do it. It'll happen, I promise.

So today I've made some green tea soda. It's good, I promise.

Take 16 oz. of water that you'd drink and heat it to 190 degrees.

Now take 5 green tea bags, (They can be cheap) and let steep for 3-4 minutes.

Fill a pitcher with about three cups of ice. Add the tea, and about 1/4 cup of honey, and about the same amount of sugar, with a pinch of salt. Stir 'till everything is dissolved.

Now add the mixture to your favorite soda charger. Charge with CO2 and chill.

Enjoy.

Mexico: The food

So I just went to Mexico on a missions trip with the youth group at Big Valley Grace church in Modesto. It was amazing. It was life changing. The food in Mexico was great.

Things I want to make now:

Flame grilled clams
Cheese ice cream
Fish tacos

The first thing I'm going to try is the cheese ice cream. As far as I can tell, it uses a ricotta like cheese called requeson. I'm trying to put together a custard recipe that would churn up well using the cheese. I have no clue what it's supposed to taste like, but Armando, a student in my van, says it's awesome.

The clams were AMAZING. I had some at La Bufadora in Baja, the day we let the students do some shopping. The guy had these fresh clams that he scored with a knife, then he stuck some minced onion, cilantro, and some sort of sweet red thing I couldn't figure out in them and put them over a charcoal grill until the cheese melted and the liquid boiled.

The fish tacos are made from strips of cod. One of the men on the trip says he got a recipe for the batter they use. What I'd do is this: Salt the cod strips. Dip in mayonaise. Roll in seasoned flour. dip in mayonaise. roll in seasoned flour. Fry at 360 until golden brown. Serve with cabbage, pico de gallo, cilantro, and lime on a white corn tortilla. Mmm...

Coffee

A tiny bit of salt in your pot of coffee is a good idea.

I'm sure I'll post more about my favorite thing about mornings (Other than the smiling or drooling face of my beloved next to me) later.

For now, I'll just say that. Half a pinch of salt makes coffee taste more...coffee-like, I guess. It just makes it taste MORE. Mmm...

Guiness cake

With this recipe, I made cupcakes. I think it would be even better as a layer cake with some white chocolate ganache in between the layers with the Irish Cream mousse on top. Mmmmmm...

1 1/4 cup sugar
1 stick unsalted butter

4 egg yolks
1 Tbsp white vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract

8 oz (Or thereabouts...if ya get me drift!)

6 Tbsp cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 cup AP flour
pinch kosher salt

Oven: 365ish

Cream together the butter and sugar. Make sure the butter is chilled, but not hard. You can't punch wee little holes in ice with sugar, you know. When it's light and fluffy looking, but you can still feel the sugar in it, you're done.

Meanwhile, sift the dry stuff, (Cocoa and baking powder, with the flour and the salt,) in your very favorite food processor by pulsing five or six times.

Put the yolks, vanilla and vinegar in a wee bowl. When the creaming is done, add the contents of the wee bowl to the mixer, one yolk at a time, waiting in between each 'till you can't tell it's there anymore. When all that's in and mixed up, add 1/3 of the dry mix.

Now 1/2 the beer.

Now 1/3 the dry mix.

Now 1/2 the beer.

Now the final third of the dry mix.

Dose into a muffin pan with wee paper cups in them. You know the ones.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, till a toothpick inserted in the center one comes out clean.

Makes 1 1/2 dozen wee cupcakes.

Top with the Irish Cream white chocolate mousse from the last post. Looks like a properly poured pint of stout at the pub, eh? Happy St. Patrick's day.

Success!

The cake is not a lie.

Pictures soon, I promise. Before I forget, here's how to top the best chocolate cake in existance.

1/4 cup purified water
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup Torani's Irish Cream syrup
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup heavy cream

put the sugar, water, and syrup in a small nonstick sauce pan on medium heat. Heat 'till the sugar disolves. Stir in the white chocolate chips and whisk 'till melted. Chill completely in the fridge.

Beat the cream to stiff peaks. Put 1/3 in the chocolate mix and stir 'till it's loose. Fold in the second third. When that's completely incorporated, fold in the third third. Put on the cupcakes. It's like the head on a good pint of stout.

First Attempt: FAIL

So I've decided that if I only post my complete successes in this blog, it's not helpful for anyone who, like me, is just learning how to cook. (Or in this case, bake.)

I tried my cake recipe last night for cupcakes. I think it's the right texture for rolls, but for cupcakes, I've failed in a big way. They didn't rise very much, which tells me three things: Not enough leavening, oven temp wasn't hot enough, and the pH wasn't right.

The flavor, on the other hand, was amazing. Extremely chocolaty with the earthy tinge of dark ale. So, while the recipe, which follows, was a disaster, the ingredients will not go to waste.

Here's the recipe, v. 1.0, that will probably be kept as the basis for the rolls, which are to come.

Stout Chocolate Cake

• 1 bottle stout beer
• 4 egg yolks
• 3/4 cup sugar
• ½ cup semisweet chocolate chips, melted in a double boiler.
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• pinch kosher salt
• 6 tablespoons Dutch-processed cocoa powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 cup butter

Oven: 350

sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

Cream sugar and butter together. Add egg yolks, melted chocolate, and vanilla and mix ‘till light and fluffy, (2x volume.) add the flour mixture in 3 installments, alternating with ½ the beer. (Flour, beer, flour, beer, flour. Stir a bit, and pour into prepped pans or cupcake paper. Bake 15-20 mins.

The changes for next time are these: Addition of 1 1/2 Tbsp white vinnegar to the eggs, 50% more flour, and a whole teaspoon of baking powder. The beer does fine as far as baking soda is concerned.

I took pictures. They are to come.