When my dear husband was helping with the last post, he first found the five minute video of Jacques deboning chicken and turkey with Julia, but as the day went on, he found the whole show which he then put on the site. I had read about the Cooking in Concert shows, but had thought I’d probably never be able to see even one. I’ve just finished watching, and it is absolutely delightful. The chemistry between Julia and Jacques is wonderful, and their banter hilarious.
Jacques came to prominence in my non-cooking years, and only in reading recently did I find that his teaching career was the result of a terrible accident which he was lucky to survive. The physical demands of restaurant cooking were too much for him afterward, and he decided to teach. He had been De Gaulle’s chef, and was later approached by Jackie Kennedy to be her White House chef, but he declined. Rene Verdun accepted the offer.
Yeah, I do love me some peanut butter. Not that icky Skippy, either, or, heaven forbid, that disgusting “natural” crap. Jif. Choosy moms choose Jif, and I’m a mom, and I’m obviously choosy.
How sad would it be to have one of those kill-you-dead-if-you’re-in-the-same-room peanut allergies? You know, I just might go for it anyway, because I’m not sure life would be worth living without my Jif. I love peanut butter that much.
Remember how much I loved the peanut butter pie we ended up taking to the family Thanksgiving? Well, I love peanut butter cookies even more – it’s peanut butter you can eat with your hands! Add to that the fact that we decided to build anti-Christmas cookie baskets this year, and, well, it’s almost a no-brainer, isn’t it?
How would you like to try a couple of Cook’s Illustrated Big, Super-Nutty Peanut Butter Cookies? While I can’t actually share the cookies themselves with you (they’re long gone!) I can share how much fun they were to bake. I made exactly 28 cookies from this recipe. (The original recipe said 3 dozen. I probably could have used a smaller scoop, but whatever.)
Start by preheating the oven to 350°. Sift together the dry ingredients:
12.5 oz. (2½ cups) flour
½ tsp. each baking soda and powder
1 tsp. table salt
Then beat, in a stand mixer, 2 sticks (or ½ pound) of unsalted butter until it’s creamy, then beat in 1 cup each of white death (granulated sugar) and dark brown sugar, then beat until fluffy. Add 1 cup of peanut butter. Good peanut butter. Extra-Crunchy Jif, if you love your ultimate cookie consumers. (I’m just saying – good peanut butter – peanut butter that tastes good – it shows your love.)
When the PB is fully incorporated, beat in an egg, then another, then 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract.
In the meantime (probably while your stuff is mixing in the stand mixer and you’re adding stuff one ingredient at a time), you’re going to want to haul out the food processor, too.
Hey, the number of appliances you use is a measure of how much you love your cookie recipients, right?
Grind 1 cup of roasted, salted peanuts (the snacking kind – get a big jar!) until they’re about the coarseness of bread crumbs – this will help add “super-nutty” flavor.
So back to the mixer. You’ve got your peanut butter-plus-other stuff mixture going on, and it’s smooth and incorporated and everything. You’ll want to gently stir in the flour mixture. We all know what happens when you just throw flour into a stand mixer, don’t we? Is there anyone here who doesn’t know what happens?
No, I didn’t think so.
Then gently stir in the chopped peanuts.
And step over the dog, who is lying in the middle of the floor waiting -intently- for you to drop some peanut butter. As if that’s going to happen.
Roll the dough into “large balls” – the original recipe says 2 Tablespoons at a time. Me, I used a #24 scoop, which may or may not be slightly larger than 2 Tablespoons.
Then, using a dinner fork, do your basic PB Cookie Indentation – the cross hatches that tell you, without tasting or smelling, that THIS is a peanut butter cookie.
Then just bake them, until puffy and slightly browned, about 12 minutes or so. Yes they look a little undercooked – but they will firm up on the cookie sheet – let them sit for about 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
‘Cuz if you’re the impatient sort, and you remove the cookies before they’ve completely set, they’re too soft. One or two might break while you’re trying to transfer them. THEN what would you do?
Cool completely before storing.
I wrapped each cookie individually in plastic and froze them. That works.
PS: If you have a habit of wiping your hands on your pants while you’re cooking, be warned. If you smell even faintly of peanut butter, the dog will lick your pants. All day. And into the evening. And even the next time you wear those same pants. It’s actually kind of weird.
There’s nothing in the world like a fuzzy, warm scarf blocking the bitter cold winter wind from your neck. And being broke and bored, I decided about a year ago to learn this time-honored tradition of the housewives who have cooked and cleaned before me. I am decidedly in my beginner phases, but over the Christmas break (well, break for my husband and baby girl who didn’t have school for a week and a half while the rest of us grunts had knuckle breaking work to do) I made about 4 scarves and 1 hat! Very productive and I finally used some of the yarn I got on major clearance at Hobby Lobby last May! (Apparently, when it’s no longer cold is the best time to buy warm fuzzy yarn.) So, here is a small sampling of my projects. For all scarves, modeled by my darling baby girl, check out my Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2049139&id=1322357918 I’m going to finish another scarf, using whats left of my hat yarn, to make a set, and then another hat to match a previous scarf…then hopefully move on to the wonderful world of socks! Whoo Hoo, exciting times all around…
I also recently discovered a website: www.thepioneerwoman.com. Ree Drummond is one of the best bloggers I’ve read, and her recipes look to be awesome. I’m asking for her cookbook for my birthday, if I can wait that long. I also want a Wii, so if anyone out there has an extra they’re not using, feel free to mail it to me!
I want to do this blogging thing more frequently. It seems like a nice release. And lawd knows I need a release! Between extended family drama, 3 jobs, a 4-year-old, 2 steps and a husband who at times is as neat as the 13-year-old boy in the house, I frequently want to bang my head against a brick wall until I’m babbling incoherently and drooling on myself.
So, here’s to a new year, new releases, new hobbies, new reads and hopefully new recipes!
I love cooking. And eating. That the two are intrinsically related to each other is a source of infinite joy. But what on earth does that have to do with IT training?
Well. IT trainers are often presented with random mix of ingredients and are then expected to put them together and produce an end result to suit everyone.
Take your average Excel Intermediate course. Despite all your best efforts as a trainer, you know damn well that you will end up with 8 delegates (usually at least 2 more than you were told to expect) of wildly differing skill levels, ability and enthusiasm.
They’ve all been supplied with a menu (course outline) which they have studiously gone through, picking up the items they each want from their training smorgasbord, with no idea of how they knit together.
You, as the trainer, now have to determine how to mix the following together:
The total beginner, who needs the basics firming up before being able to cope with anything more than simple calculations in Excel, let alone lookups and pivot tables.
The daily user, who uses 10% of the product 90% of the time, and needs to understand how formulas are put together, edited and combined before moving onto logical statements and custom charting.
The power user, who everyone asks for help, because ‘they know everything’, and is a bit resentful of having to attend anyway – even though you know there will be multiple topics they can use and improve on.
You reach into your store cupboard for your basic ingredients – formulas, charts, formatting, editing, and you start putting together a ‘menu’ in your head to suit everyone.
Not too much spice to scare off the beginners, but enough to keep the ‘experts’ interested. They are expecting beef consomme, and all you have is an Oxo cube to start things off.
You chop and mix your ingredients to provide them with a fabulous menu which covers as much of their smorgasbord items as you can, with flair, and great presentation.
So, do IT trainers deserve Michelin stars? Maybe not quite, but I think we’re pretty close.
COCHON Butcher
930 Tchoupitoulas Street
New Orleans, LA 70130
(504) 588-7675
Web Site: http://www.cochonbutcher.com
Click Here for a Hi-Res Slide Show
Donald Link’s COCHON Butcher is half butcher shop, half re-invented deli with a Cajun and New Orleans twist.
Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.
Right down the street from COCHON restaurant, Chef Donald Link’s fine-dining ode to all things oink, Link and his partners have opened Butcher, a small lunch place that focuses on unique deli sandwiches and also functions as a butcher shop selling fine artisinally-butchered meats. All the charcuterie for the sandwiches at Butcher is made in-house, and the meats and sausages used here are all sourced and made specifically for COCHON’s and Butcher’s use.
Chef Donald Link, proprietor of COCHON, Butcher and Herbsaint Restaurants in New Orleans.
Above the main counter area you can see much of the charcuterie that is used in Butcher’s sandwiches.
Here are some of the items in the front case you can take home (click on photo to enlarge)
As well as the fine meats you can buy to bring home and cook yourself (click to enlarge)
House cured salumi. I think this is a sorpressata of some kind.
Charcuterie platter.
Butcher also uses various artisinal breads for all of its sandwiches.
Chef Link cures his own pastrami, although I would tend to say that they are closer to the original basturma than pastrami. To the left is a duck pastrami and to the upper right is his regular beef pastrami, which is thinly sliced and heavily smoked rather having the peppery/garlicky/mustardy and briny characteristics of a New York Jewish Pastrami or a Montreal smoke meat. Both are excellent for what they are, although I don’t think Katz or Schwartz’s has much to worry about. Yet.
Another charcuterie glory shot.
A view down the counter.
Butcher also makes its own Boudin sausage, which is probably the best I have ever tasted — not at all livery, but very peppery.
The carte de Sandwiches (click to enlarge)
A pastrami sandwich, ordered by another customer.
The “Gambino” ordered by another customer.
The “All the way Hot Dog” ordered by another customer.
A bowl of Chicken and Sausage dark roux gumbo that Rachel and I agree was the best bowl of gumbo we’ve had during our entire New Orleans trip. This is saying a lot as I’m quite partial to Upperline’s gumbo, but you can only have it a cup at a time.
Rachel’s hot roast beef sandwich with gravy and melted cheese. This isn’t by any means a traditional New Orleans roast beef Po-Boy, but something else entirely. And it was magnificent.
Wanting to sample some of the charcuterie, I opted for the Muffuletta, served hot.
Muffuletta cross-section.
Cochon’s muffuletta is appropriately lunch-sized as opposed to the monsters that Central Grocery or the Godzilla-sized ones at Nor-Joe’s (my personal favorite for bringing home). It is also very light on the olive salad, which is treated as more of a condiment than an integral component but the charcuterie in it is absolutely top notch.
If your sandwich or Gumbo needs that little extra something, the house-made Habanero Sweet Potato Hot Sauce really hits the spot.
A patron enjoys a Roast Pork sandwich.
Two ladies await their take-out order. What’s this, cupcakes?
Cupakes or Chicken… Cupcakes or Chicken… what a dilemma
Red Velvet Cupcake and Chocolate Cookie. A nice ending to a perfect lunch downtown.
I combined two of my favorite Christmas gifts into this yummy pot of soup the other day. The recipe was from the book Love Soup. It was so incredibly stellar. I’m not sure why I chose that soup to make first with my new book, but it seemed to call to me. I’m not normally fond of cooked cabbage, but roasting the cabbage first made a huge difference. I can’t wait to try more soup recipes from this book! We are looking to eat less meat and more fish and vegetable dishes, and I thought soup would be a good way to do this. The soup plus a loaf of the hubby’s homemade bread made a great dinner. Unfortunately, the kids don’t really like soup, but I’ll keep giving it to them and hopefully their taste buds will develop. I’m impressed by the progress my 7yo has made with trying new food (he says his favorite foods are “pink fish” i.e., salmon, shrimp, and “critters”, i.e., mussels) in the last year, so maybe soup will be next!
I also got hubby some vital wheat gluten and diastatic malt powder for Christmas and he added them to his standard “almost no knead” bread recipe (that we cook in a preheated dutch oven). Check out the rise on that baby! The addition of the vital wheat gluten made a huge difference. He says he’s a convert!
Not sure why anyone would want to look like the village mayor, but if bushy white eyebrows and a blue top hat are your thing, here’s a hack for impersonating him. The same hack also allows you to purchase the Cheesy Mayor for just 20 coins.
This explains those suspicious Cheesy Mayors that some of you found two weeks ago in the trading forums. We knew something smelled fishy!
Disclaimer: Pet Society Anonymous does not recommend installing any hacks. Not only do we think cheating ruins the spirit of Pet Society, but it could have negative consequences for your computer’s operating system. Play well; play safe.
And step over the dog, who is lying in the middle of the floor waiting -intently- for you to drop some peanut butter. As if that’s going to happen.
of soup the other day. The recipe was from the book Love Soup
. It was so incredibly stellar. I’m not sure why I chose that soup to make first with my new book, but it seemed to call to me. I’m not normally fond of cooked cabbage, but roasting the cabbage first made a huge difference. I can’t wait to try more soup recipes from this book! We are looking to eat less meat and more fish and vegetable dishes, and I thought soup would be a good way to do this. The soup plus a loaf of the hubby’s homemade bread made a great dinner. Unfortunately, the kids don’t really like soup, but I’ll keep giving it to them and hopefully their taste buds will develop. I’m impressed by the progress my 7yo has made with trying new food (he says his favorite foods are “pink fish” i.e., salmon, shrimp, and “critters”, i.e., mussels) in the last year, so maybe soup will be next!
