Shepherds Pie

This being St. Patty's week I had already been making and planning Irish-themed meals. I couldn't remember if Alton Brown had done a recipe for this dish or not. A quick trip to the Food Network site proved he did, in fact, have a recipe for Shepherd's Pie.

Now, the reality is, since I used beef and not lamb, this would technically be a cottage pie and not a Shepherds Pie. But, no matter what you want to call it, I call it Good Eats.

I will try this with lamb. And I will update.

Recipe Link

Cocoa Brownies

By my standard, a brownie is not a brownie if it is cake-like. As far as I am concerned, a brownie should have a consistency more like fudge than like a baked good. Actually, you cannot legally call it a brownie if it's cake like. That would be chocolate cake sans frosting. 

I like Alton Brown's brownies. Though the show recipe and the recipe on Food Network are slightly different (he has you sift all the dry ingredients together on the show while he has you add the sugars only to the eggs at first, then add the rest of the dry goods in the printed version) I went with the one from the show. And, while chocolaty, I think they would be even tastier using dutched chocolate rather than regular cocoa. And honestly, I don't mind testing out a few theories on building the best brownie. Not at all.

Recipe Link

Buttermilk Pancakes

Eat your heart out, IHOP.

Yesterday was "Free Pancake Day" at IHOP. While I did not go, I decided to make some at home instead.

Since having first tried Good Eats pancakes, I have found no other recipe that turns out pancakes that taste as good.



Recipe Link

Avocado Ice Cream

I've been hesitant to try this. Avocado ice cream? Really? But the avocados were cheap at the local megamart, so I figured what the heck. This is your basic premium-styled ice cream, except were substituting avocados for the eggs. And to quote Alton Brown, "it tastes oddly like avocado and that's a good thing."
Would I make it again? I might. But, if I did I'd add a handful of pig candy. But, that's for another blog.

Recipe Link

Sugared Sugar Cookies

So, in following suit with the previous post ( Jam Sammies ) and using Alton Brown's Sugar Cookie recipe as a multipurpose  holiday cookie recipe, I whipped up another batch. This time I used the drop method. I dropped scoops of dough into colored sugar (homemade by my dear daughter), rolled them to coat,  and then placed on a cookie sheet and baked.

AB's recipe has the oven temp at 375° for 7 - 9 minutes, so that's what I did here.  Afterwards, I read a few other sugar cookie recipes and I think the oven temp is too high for this type of cookie. Next time, I'll lower the temp to 350° and bake a bit longer.

Again, a complaint I've found in reviews of Alton Brown's recipe is that the cookies produced are a bit dry. My remedy for that is using superfine sugar. This is easily made by processing the sugar in a food processor.

And that is the final cookie posting of this season.

Jam Sammies

In "The Cookie Clause" episode of Good Eats, the topic is sugar cookies. Alton Brown notes that this is a sort of multipurpose recipe.

The thing about Christmas cookies is you want to come up with just one kind of batter that can make a whole bunch of cookies, okay?

That way you can roll 'em and cut 'em, or make little balls, drop cookies, icebox cookies, make 'em a log and then saw 'em into pieces. And the most versatile cookie dough I know of is sugar cookie dough.

I pondered whether or not I should post these. Technically, they are not listed as an 'official' Good Eats recipe. That being said, I followed the official recipe and only veered by adding the jam filling and sandwiching two cookies together.

For the jam filling, I found a new jam I'd not seen before at Costco: Cherry-Raspberry-Rhubarb. I took a cup of the jam and reduced it for about 20 minutes. I that ran it through a strainer and let it cool.  And there you go.

Classic Sugar Cookies

Sugar cookies are a staple of holiday baking. And, since I'm attempting most all of the Good Eats recipes I decided to add Alton Brown's sugar cookies to my 12 Cookies of Christmas list. Having made these in the past and not being a huge fan of how they turned out I made one small change. I took the sugar and ran it through the food processor. The superfine sugar made the cookies much more tender.

The royal icing also had a modification. The icing ended up being too thick to do much of anything with. I couldn't spread it or pipe it. I added a small amount of milk and that made all the difference. Also, while AB suggests using powdered food coloring, I could find none. At least not locally. But, Wintons has a set of gel colors that worked out quite well.

I do need to add a few more cookie cutters to the mix to get some variation. Not pictured are: Christmas Trees, sleigh, reindeer, man, woman, snowman







Recipe Link - cookies

Recipe Link - royal icing