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Abandoned Blogs

abandoned blogs are not all the same, you know. some are like pieces of lovely driftwood; floating into and out of the life of the writer with peaceful ease. others are like an old pair of socks, pushed to the back of the internet dresser by newer concerns, eventually forgotten but still there. then there are the ones that are like an old dirty jacket on the side of the freeway; who knows how they got there, but when you see them, there's a sort of embarrassed pathos surrounding them.

Hadashi

The Encrustables, Part 1

What's that? I promised in MAY(!!) to write about the best grilled cheese sandwich I'd ever made, as well as sugar & honey encrusted pancakes? Huh. Sorry! At least it's within the same year. At the time of said post, I had actually tumbled the needed link for the grilled cheese, so let's start there.

Here's the jist: what's the best part of a grilled cheese sandwich? Perhaps it's the toasty, buttery bread for you. But for me, it's the crusty, crunchy, oh-so-delicious cheese that gets a little extra pan time.

Well, grilled cheese artisans Alex Brown and Evan George said to themselves, "If that's the best part, why not cover the sammy in it?" And with that, they've gone on to dominate the Grilled Cheese invitational for years. I heard them interviewed on Kevin & Bean, immediately tracked them down, and did as they commanded.

Basically, you throw shredded cheese on the pan, then grill your sammy on top of it, pressing down firmly. Then throw more cheese down and flip the sammy onto that to encrust both sides.

I did this. It was delicious.

Now, there was one hurdle I had to overcome. They called for Taleggio & Mimolette, two cheeses I had never heard of, nor could I track down in stores around my house. I did find a cheesemonger on the other side of town (always good to know where your mongers are), but they only had one of them.

So I wrote the Hot Knives (that's Alex & Evan's biz name) and asked for substitutes. Their (quick and friendly) response:

A good Parmesan could easily replace Mimolette. But Taleggio is relatively easy to find and perfect for this sandwich, don't sub anything.

Honestly, at this point, I don't remember what I did. I know I used parm, but I don't think I ever got Taleggio. I also used regular white bread. Whatever. Experiment. Have fun. Enjoy.

The Perfect Grilled Cheese by Hot Knives


Equipment

• Cast iron skillet

• Clean dish towel

• Metal spatula
• 
Serrated knife
• 
Microplane grater

• Grill brush

Ingredients

• 2 slices Sourdough Ciabatta style bread

• 2 oz. Taleggio

• 1 oz. Mimolette
• 1 Tbs. French-style butter


Instructions

1. Bake a loaf of bread (optional, but highly suggested).
2. Take butter out of fridge and store near the stove to get it soft and spreadable.
3. Slice your Taleggio with a thin knife.
4. Grate the Mimolette with the microplane.
5. Store the cheeses on a cutting board or in bowls while you prepare the rest of the fixings. Cheese should be room temp before hitting the pan.
6. Slice your bread into 2-centimeter thick pieces, just a tad fatter than store bought bread. Butter the outer side of each piece, from tip to tip.
7. Place your pan on high heat for a couple minutes. Reduce heat to medium, and start lubing with butter. Gauge how hot the pan is by whether the butter burns (too hot) or just quickly sizzles (perfect). Heavily butter the center of the pan and immediately hit with a large pinch of Mimolette, distributing the cheese roughly in the shape of a piece of bread. Quickly follow it up by placing the bread slice on top, butter-side down obviously. Top with Tallegio slices (just enough to cover bread completely) and the second bread slice butter-side up.
8. Press sandwich by balancing a medium-sized pot on top. Let cook for 2-3 minutes, or until Taleggio shows the earliest signs of melting. Confidently slide spatula under sammy, and flip (onto a new pile of Mimolette) once you're sure that Mimolette is fully removed from the pan's surface. It should be golden-orange and crisped without being burnt.
9. Repeat on second side. Remove once Taleggio is oozing onto pan. Let sit for 30-45 seconds before cutting with a serrated knife. DO NOT ruin your perfect sandwich by applying too much pressure: gently saw through the crunchy crisped cheese crust and let that knife do all the work.

A (M)orning With Mae

Absent a label, Mae decided to try something new. Lots of bands have gone direct-to-fans with websites. But they added a humanitarian twist on it. They promised a song a month, every month throughout 2009, with the proceeds going to help folks out. From their site:

Our promise to you is to commit all of the profits from digital downloads to fund humanitarian projects that Mae and you will be a part of all year long. Like a fire that spreads without boundaries, we can ignite a change in this world if we work together. As we tie our voices, our resources, our minds, and most importantly our actions together, we will see the world change for the better over the course of this year and beyond. Take this music and this mission and run with it.

Glossing over the youth-group rally cry (jaded? me? what?), it's a lot better than lining one's pockets or spending profits on whores and ale. So kudoes for them having their hearts in the right place.

The EP (M)orning, featuring the January through August tracks, is now available for mass consumption on iTunes. It definitely has the more free, experimental feel of their earlier work as opposed to Singularity, their most recent (labeled) release. The songs are pretty varied—I imagine due to the recording/writing calender—but they're all well composed, of course. Because Mae is a great band.

Get it on iTunes or a special CD/DVD version (or MP3 downloads) at Amazon. I'm surprised the DVD version isn't available as a download on iTunes in conjunction with its recently touted "iTunes EP" program. Growing pains, I suppose.

For more info on the mission or to just download individual songs, visit Mae's website.

Mad Props To TeeFury Customer Service

I bought my first shirt from TeeFury last month. I went to put it on for the first time and noticed the stitching on the sleeve was coming undone. Long story short, they did me a solid and are sending me a replacement, even though I had washed the shirt first. It was definitely an exception, but as the kind customer service rep said, "I hate to have your first experience be a bad one."

It only seems right to pimp them for being so cool, especially considering how much I dig their business model (a new shirt every 24 hours, on sale for only 24 hours).

Now if they could only decide if they want to be "TeeFury" (website window title bar), "Tee Fury" (webpage graphical header & email subject line), or "Teefury" (email .sig and reply-to name)...

Chocolate Chip Cookie Brownie Cupcakes

This dessert meets the requirement of tasting yummy, while simultaneously delivering high on the "That looks so cool! How did you do that?" scale. And to top it off, it's stupid easy.

While the original recipe that I saw at Bakerella is quite good, it's just that good, ol' Momma Necessity helped make this dessert the hit that it is. The basic jist is this: Make a brownie box mix. Make a cookie dough box mix. Combine. Bake. Add ganache. Cool. Eat.

The rub was that I made the mixes... only to discover that I didn't have a dish to make it all cake/brownie style! In a fit of improvisation (and a need to take something to the party I was going to in, oh, and hour), I thought, "Cupcakes!"

Long story short, you pour the brownie batter into the cupcake molds, push a small ball of cookie dough into the middle, then bake. Pick a temp somewhere in the middle of the two mixes, and start checking it on the short end of whatever the brownie mix lists.

The end result is a brownie with a nifty cookie center and marbling. Big hit with the kids. Surprise, surprise.

A couple of hints:

• Since cookies aren't designed to be as structurally sound baking vertically as brownies are, the more cookie dough you put in the middle, the more your cupcake will collapse upon cooling. The size ball you'd use for a small cookie works great.
• An alternative is to cover the whole top of the brownie with cookie dough, which gives you a cookie center and cookie top. This looks cool, but you don't taste as much of the brownie.
• And you lose the yummy crispy brownie top bits.
• I later made the recipe as originally written. I found it to be a bit too sweet for my tastes with the ganache. I know, crazy. And it becomes pretty messy, which works great to go along with, say, a bowl of ice cream, but I think the cupcake approach works better for parties, what with their handy single-servingness.
• And not making ganache=less work!

Enjoy! Experiment! Eat!

Is This Thing On?

For the first time in months, I am caught up at work. And due to no procrastination on my part*. It has been nutty busy and the other copywriter has been on a special project since May. That = all the normal jobs coming to yours truly.

How to celebrate? How about some posts!!

*Fine, some procrastination on my part. Shut up.

We Need To Talk

<Insert "crazy busy at work" excuse for poor not blogging in so long>

Ok, this post is as much a reminder for me as it is to knock the dust off my RSS feed. I've been cooking a bit lately, and there are things I have heated and eaten that I think you'd like to know about. Over the coming days, I am planning on blogging about:

• The (Not Quite) Best Sheet Cake Ever
• Chocolate Chip Cookie Brownie Cupcakes
• The Best Grilled Cheese Sandwich I've Ever Made
• Sugar and Honey-Encrusted Pancakes

And I think there's one other thing I'm forgetting about. You'll find out when I remember. Prepare thy arteries!!

UPDATE: The fifth thing was another use of Kerrygold Herb & Garlic butter. Slather up!

I Heart Tim Wakefield

"I understand the circumstances of today," Red Sox starting pitcher Tim Wakefield told his manager before yesterday's game.

"No matter what, don't take me out."

The previous game's starter had headed to the showers after one inning. The bullpen pitched 11 innings after that. All but ONE relief pitcher was leaned upon hard, with Javy Lopez throwing for the third straight day and eventually taking the hard luck loss.

Things were bleak for my beloved Red Sox. Looking at a potential four-game losing streak, already down 2-6 to start the season, they needed something. Thursday was an off day, so if they could just get through Wednesday's game intact, they could take a breather, recuperate, and regroup to start pushing again. They needed a stopper. They got Tim Wakefield.

And vintage Timmy they got, in some of his most beautiful, fluttering, knuckleball glory. Wake took a no-hitter into the eighth inning and went home with a complete game, 8-2 win under his belt.

People may question his age (he would have been the 2nd oldest pitcher to throw a no-no), his unorthodox (and often maddening) pitch, his back or shoulder ailments that have slowed him down at the end of the last two seasons... but you can never doubt his heart.

"No matter what, don't take me out."

With the masterful performance he put on yesterday afternoon, we never even thought about it.

Picture via YFSF

Preparing For The End

Well, looks like our beloved dog Buddy is running his last few laps around the dog park. After noticing some strange behavior Wednesday night and Thursday morning, I carried him in to the vet yesterday. Most likely scenario is that he has a brain tumor.

Doc put him on some meds to help stabilize some internal stuff that showed up in the blood and urine tests, but really it's just a matter of time at this point. Could be a day, could be months. We'll keep an eye on him, and watch for signs that his condition is worsening.

If you met Buddy, you know what a sweet, soft dog he was. Laura often said she wishes we could get his coat made into a pelt when he died so we could pet him forever, he was so soft.

I offered yesterday (there have got to be tons of taxidermists up here with all the hunters!), but she declined. I think a little Buddy Throw might have been nice, but I deferred.

Our biggest concern is, of course, the girls. We've talked with them about it and they seem to be taking it in stride for now. Grandma's two dogs just "died" (ahem) a few weeks ago, so they kinda got broken into the idea with that.

And after Ali asked if we could go in to get the tumor our, Kaylee gleefully suggested, "We could cut open his brain!"

Looks like letting them hear all those songs about vampires and zombies are paying off!

Garlic Cheddar Biscuits

Jeri asked if there was a recipe for these delicious items. There is. And it is C-R-A-Z-Y easy.

Garlic Cheddar Biscuits
2 cups Bisquick baking mix
2/3 cup milk
1/2 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1. Heat oven to 450.
2. Mix Bisquick, milk & cheese until a soft, sticky dough forms (I like to use a fork).
3. Drop dough onto an ungreased cooking sheet (I like to line mine with parchment paper for easy cleanup).
4. Bake 8–10 minutes or until golden brown.
5. Mix butter & garlic powder. Brush mixture over warm biscuits before removing from cookie sheet.
6. Serve warm. Makes about a dozen, depending on how big you want them.

I amped these up a bit this last time because I had a stick of Kerrygold Garlic & Herb Butter (look in your regular supermarket). I just melted that instead of doing a butter/garlic powder mixture. So delicious and the smell is AMAZING while you're bushing them. Mmmm...