Piña Colada

Folks-

Today is my daughter's birthday, and I knew it would be hot, so I decided to make something cold that I could serve in a coconut.

I mean, why not?

The obvious thing was the Piña Colada.

This is a two-stage recipe, cobbled together from multiple other recipes. You have to make a bartender's Coconut Cream first, and you may have some leftover unless you multiply the recipe a fair amount.

Here are the two recipes!

Coconut Cream Ingredients:

1 400ml can of Coconut Milk

375g Granulated Sugar

Pour the contents of the can of Coconut Milk into a small saucepan, whisk in the sugar, and stir continuously over a low heat until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is a uniform translucent whitish liquid. It probably will happen soon after the temperature rises above room temp. Don't even boil it.

Piña Colada Ingredients:

1 cup frozen pineapple chunks

3/4 cups Coconut Cream

Juice of 1 lime

2 cups ice

Place in a blender and pulse until ice is broken up, then blend at high until you have a nice blend. Serves 2.

Quick Breadsticks (work in progress)

Folks-

I needed a quick recipe for a side dish with the pasta I was making, and the Google AI auto completed a link to a homemade soft breadstick recipe at a recipe site that I thought I should try.

Of course I modified it.

I recommend brushing my garlic butter on them as they come out of the oven (melt it first) for the best flavor.

Here's my version of a light, fluffy, quick (less than an hour) breadstick recipe!

Ingredients:

1 package (2 1/4 tsp) Active Dry or Rapid Rise Yeast

2 Tablespoons Granulated Sugar or Honey

1 1/2 cups warm water (110-120 degrees F)

3/4 Teaspoon Salt

3 1/2 Cups All Purpose Flour (approx, roughly 3-4 cups)

2 Teaspoons Powdered Garlic (optional)

1 Tablespoon Italian Seasoning  (optional)

3 Tablespoons melted butter or Garlic Butter or olive oil

If you're using active dry yeast, add the sugar or honey to the warm water and sprinkle the yeast on top and let it sit about 5 minutes until it foams. If you're using Rapid Rise or Instant yeast, skip proofing the yeast. In a bowl (I recommend a stand mixer with a dough hook here) pour in the proofed yeast or water and sugar, add 2 cups of the flour, salt, and optional seasonings and mix on low. Add a tablespoon of the melted butter or olive oil. Add flour a heaping tablespoon at a time until you have a slightly sticky dough and knead for about 5 minutes. Start preheating the oven at 375-400 degrees F. Put a sheet of parchment paper in the bottom of a baking sheet or grease the sheet. This recipe makes about a dozen Breadsticks, so weigh the dough and use that calculator your teacher told you wouldn't be available to figure out how much each should weigh (probably 68-75 grams each) and roll each into a snek of about 8-10" and space them on the baking sheet about 1/4" apart (almost touching.) Allow them to rise for about 15-30 minutes (long enough to start making pasta and homemade sauce), then bake for about 12-15 minutes or until light brown. Brush them with the melted butter/garlic butter as soon as they're out of the oven. Allow to cool a bit, but serve while warm.

Speculoos (Work in Progress)

Folks-

I've been looking for a good recipe for the Dutch spice cookie known variously as Speculoos, Speculaas, or even Biscoff.

I didn't find it, but I found one I could start working on over at AllRecipes.

The problems with the AllRecipes recipe is that it's just not spice forward enough, and it honestly needs a touch of salt.

So here's my latest version of the recipe for Speculoos.

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 cups packed dark brown sugar

1 egg

3 tsp cinnamon 

2 tsp ground ginger

1 1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 1/2 tsp cardamom 

1 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp baking powder 

1/4 tsp salt

2 1/2 to 3 cups all purpose flour 

Preheat over to 350 degrees. Cream together butter and sugar until light brown. Mix in egg, salt, baking powder, and spices. Mix in flour half a cup at a time until a stiff dough forms. Press dough into cookie molds or roll out to 1/8" and cut out using cookie cutters or a pizza cutter or similar roller. Bake on a parchment lined cookie sheet until firm but not hard (about 10 minutes). Remove from oven and cool on a cooling rack.

Note: I can't help thinking a tablespoon of molasses would be a good addition, added in with the egg.

Steak pie

Folks-

After our trip to Europe a few weeks back, I decided to make something good for a winter evening that's more inspired by the food we had there. Tonight I fixed a Steak Pie and School Cake with Custard for dessert. I'm not ready to post the recipe for the School Cake with Custard yet... that's going to take work (it's basically a wide, flat pound cake with a frosting made of powdered sugar and water and covered in sprinkles. That's...kinda not impressive). The Steak Pie though was a hit.

I started with a recipe from Taming Twins (which crashed my Kindle, thank you) and - you guessed it - modified it.

Here's my non-crashy version of a Steak Pie recipe!

Ingredients:

1.5 lbs beef stew meat

1-2 tbsp vegetable oil 

1/4 cup flour

4 carrots, peeled and cut into large chunks

3-4 celery sticks cut into smaller chunks (but still chunks, not thin slices)

1 large onion chopped into large chunks (are you seeing a pattern here?)

2 1/2 cups beef stock or broth

2 tbsp Worstershire Sauce 

2 tbsp Tomato Ketchup 

Salt and pepper to taste

A pie crust rolled flat or puff pastry 

In an electric pressure cooker, sauteed the stew meat in the vegetable oil until nicely seared. Stir the flour into the meat drippings and use some of the beef stock to degraze the pot. Add in the vegetables and the other ingredients and make sure they are evenly distributed in the bottom of the pot. Seal the pressure cooker and cook on high for 20 minutes. Allow to depressurize naturally and cool to warm, not hot. Prepare the crust in a 9x13 casserole dish or two 9" deep dish pie pans, then fill with the beef stew, top with another crust, then bake at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes.

Notes: If you don't have a pressure cooker you can make the filling in a slow cooker taking at least 2 hours to cook on high, or on a stovetop simmering slowly for a similar time. The pressure cooker just takes a lot less time, and happens to be the method I used. If I made it without the pressure cooker, I probably would add a bay leaf and maybe a few other savory herbs. I don't think a pressure cooker would allow the flavor of the herbs to properly integrate into the stew/filling. For the beef stock, it's okay to use cheap Boullion cubes or Better Than Bouillon. You don't have to use a boxed stock or make your own. I used Better Than Boullion the first time and it was just fine.