Tag: recipes

In which I achieve something, maybe, a little

On By Luther M. SilerIn Cooking

On the one hand, my dinner just now represents somewhat of a milestone. I wasn’t in the mood for anything we had premade and on hand, and I didn’t want to leave the house to go get something, so I looked in the pantry, found some ingredients, and put together a tasty thing to eat. On the other, what basically amounted to ramen tomato soup doesn’t really scream “creativity,” and it doesn’t look like much either, but here it is:

That’s butter, minced garlic, tomato paste, cream of chicken soup, a little bit of heavy cream, ramen, freshly-grated parmesan, and salt and pepper, and if I’d have been thinking I’d have thrown some Italian seasoning into the sauce as well. Yeah, it looks a little gross; I am not a food photographer, shut up. Yes, I could have achieved very similar results by simply throwing a block of ramen into a half-jar of Ragú, and if I’d done it that way I would have the balance of sauce to ramen much better than this, which had too much sauce. Oh, and next time I definitely need to cook the ramen separately, as the sauce didn’t have enough water in it to cook it with its normal speed. (It wasn’t undercooked, and I added water, but next time I need to just cook it separately.

I’m not going to start writing cookbooks or anything, but this still feels like a step of some sort, as I am very very reliant on and panicky about recipes whenever I actually cook anything. So … yay me? Sure. Yay me.

Soooooouuuuuuuuupppppp

On By Luther M. SilerIn Cooking

I think the general feeling is that the first experiment with Pepper Belly Pete’s recipes was a resounding success, although when I make this again I’m going to fiddle with it a little bit. I feel like it wants corn, for some reason, and both my wife and I prefer our soups a little creamier than anything with a chicken broth base is usually going to be, so there might be some experimentation to see what the best way to thicken the broth is. Maybe toss something in there to add a little heat, too. More experienced cooks than myself are welcome to leave suggestions.

The critical part, the “dumplings,” came out more or less exactly how we wanted them to, although next time we might cut them a little smaller than quartering the biscuits. That’s a minor complaint, of course.

This will be my next TikTok-related food creation– this is the same guy as the apple cider cookies from a few weeks ago– and then I’ll probably try something else of Pete’s:

@bdylanhollis

Christmas on another level? #baking #vintage #cooking #christmas

♬ original sound – B. Dylan Hollis

In which this is stupid and that is stupid and everything is stupid set it all on fire

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy6 Comments

An overstatement? Maybe. But probably not.

Today has been ridiculous; every time I’ve turned around all day it has been suddenly hours later than I thought it was. This odd temporal phenomenon started when my wife and I both woke up at the exact same second at 8:30 this morning, I said good morning to her, mumbled something about both of us waking up and reaching for our phones at the exact same moment, and then four seconds later it was 10:30 and I was still in bed. Then she went to the grocery, which she does every Saturday, and during that time I clean up the kitchen and do various and sundry things around the house, only today somehow that took an hour longer than usual, and by the time she got home it was somehow past 1:00.

Then it was 4:30.

Nothing happened in between. I mean, she took a shower, but I don’t think that shower took three and a half hours, and I spent some amount of time X bouncing back and forth between trying to figure out why several of the streaming apps on my office TV suddenly wouldn’t work (never try to solve TV tech support issues online; Googling these things properly is impossible) and then, moments later (or maybe it was an hour, who knows) realizing that I’d somehow uploaded the wrong video to YouTube for today, only the video that actually got uploaded shouldn’t have existed in the first place, and that’ll take longer to explain than it’s probably worth, just trust me that the video that got uploaded shouldn’t have been real and roll with it.

Anyway, I fixed the YouTube thing (follow me on YouTube!) but the TV thing still eludes me; the error message has changed since earlier today, so I’m currently suspecting something on LG’s end, but we’ll see.

Tomorrow I am making this:

@pepperbellypete

Chicken and Dumplings.#tiktokcooks #easyrecipe #soup #comfortfood #receta #southern #recipe #learnontiktok #foodie #foryoupage #yum #fypシ

♬ original sound – Pepper Belly Pete

I discovered this delightful man’s TikTok account this weekend, and he is my new favorite person– do not miss the fact that he wears an actual fucking wrist-mounted bandolier of hot sauces– and I not only want to make his food, I want him to be my dad. Now, understand something; my actual dad reads my blog, so he’s going to see that sentence. He’s also going to be here tomorrow to eat the chicken and dumplings, and I think once he watches a few of Pepper Belly Pete’s videos he will not only agree that Pepper Belly Pete should be my dad, he should also be my dad’s dad, and therefore also my grandfather. He’s just that delightful.

I look forward to discovering he’s a milkshake duck in a couple of days, now that I’ve pronounced my affection for him, but the time in between now and then will be full of good food.

Apple Cider Cookies!

On By Luther M. SilerIn Cooking

Okay, so the icing is … evocative, and you can tell exactly which cookies were iced by my wife, she of I Might Not Want A Lot of Icing, and which ones were re-iced by me, of Fuck Diabetes More Icing, but the house smells Goddamned delicious and I have actually managed to successfully bake something.

Credit to @bdylanhollis over at TikTok, who found the recipe (he cooks vintage foods, and his account is fantastic,) baked better-looking cookies than mine and is also more entertaining.

The recipe: in a large bowl, combine 3/4 cup of softened butter, 1 cup of brown sugar, 1/2 cup of regular sugar, and mix. Add an egg. Mix again.

In a second bowl, combine 2 cups of flour, a pinch of salt, a teaspoon of baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoons each of nutmeg, allspice, ginger, and cardamom, along with 2 teaspoons of cinnamon. Mix.

In yet another bowl, chop the hell out of an apple (I used a Fuji, and probably could have used one and a half or two of them, since they were small) and add a quarter cup of apple cider. Note that in the video he appears to be using way more than that; I assume that’s just for filming purposes.

Add the bowl with the flour to the first bowl, mix, then pour in the apples and mix more. Mix forever. The dough will be super sticky, which is fun.

Chill. He doesn’t say how long; I gave it 25 minutes and called it good. Get ’em onto a baking sheet (this was enough for 26 cookies using one of those dough-baller-thingies) or two and bake at 350 for “at least” seventeen minutes; I gave them 18 1/2 and they were still super soft out of the oven but I don’t think they were underbaked. They’re just soft cookies.

For the icing, mix 3 tablespoons of melted butter, a third of a cup of cider, and powdered sugar. Lots of powdered sugar. Just dump a whole bag in there. It’ll be fine. (Directions are “until it’s thick.” This will produce way more icing than you need and probably not as much as you want.)

Ice and eat. Then lick the icing bowl. My God.

#Recipe: Hawaiian Ham & Swiss sliders

On By Luther M. SilerIn Cooking1 Comment

I haven’t posted a recipe in forever; this one is going up because I originally found it on TikTok, of all places, where it is destined to disappear, and I want to make them again:

Line a pan with aluminum foil; apply a light coat of cooking spray. Melt a stick of butter; to the butter add a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce, a tablespoon of minced garlic, half a tablespoon of Dijon mustard, and a half tablespoon of Italian seasoning. Mix well. Cut a … loaf? batch? Let’s go with batch– cut a batch of King’s Hawaiian dinner rolls in half and put the bottom half in the tray. Use a brush or a spoon and lightly brush the butter over the bottom half.

I used a full pound of honey ham; that was probably a bit too much, insofar as “too much ham” can actually be a thing, and I think you could get away with 3/4 of a pound or so. Fold the slices over and arrange them evenly over the bottom half of the bread. On top of the bread, add a double layer of Swiss cheese; half a pound was about right for us. Put the top layer of the rolls on top of the bread and cheese and evenly distribute the rest of the butter-garlic mixture over the tops of the rolls. Cover the whole shebang with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes; after 15 minutes remove the foil and continue baking for five additional minutes.

Upon removal from the oven, add a liberal coating of Parmesan cheese. Cut and separate.

These were really good; the only thing I’d change is either going with a bit less ham or baking them for a little bit longer, as while everything was plenty warm the cheese in the middle wasn’t completely melted– you can see individual slices in that picture– and I felt like they could be a bit hotter and gooier. The best part was the bread on the bottom which I was expecting to be a bit soggy and toasted up really nicely. We’ll have these again.

How to make delicious sheet cake

On By Luther M. SilerIn Cooking7 Comments
Pictured: the remaining 1/5 of a delicious sheet cake.

My mother’s birthday was a couple of weeks ago, and she made it known that she wanted a sheet cake for her birthday. Sheet cake is something that, in my head, she used to make all the time and we’ve had a few times in the last couple of years but not as often as we used to, and then I mentioned it to my wife and it quickly became clear that she had no idea what I was talking about, meaning we had somehow not had sheet cake once in the nearly twelve years that we’ve been married.

So I got the recipe from my mom and … uh, well, my wife made the cake, actually, because every time I try to bake it goes very poorly, but as you’ll see this is a really simple recipe and I totally could make sheet cake on my own and it’s completely Goddamned delicious and go make a sheet cake right now.

This will fill an 11 x 17 cookie sheet. Yes, a cookie sheet. Sheet cakes, as you might guess from the name, are flat.

Obtain two sticks of margarine, a quarter cup of cocoa, and a cup of water. Melt the margarine and bring everything to a boil. Mix two cups of sugar and two cups of flour in a mixing bowl (ideally, glass, as it’ll heat up less readily than metal) and pour the boiling mix over the dry ingredients. Then mix in two eggs, a teaspoon of vanilla, a teaspoon of baking soda and a third of a cup of either buttermilk or “sour milk,” meaning milk mixed with some quantity of vinegar that Mom wasn’t certain about, so we used buttermilk.

Bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes.

In the meantime, take another stick of margarine (yes, we’re up to three sticks, dammit, and don’t you complain about it,) another quarter cup of cocoa, an entire fucking box of powdered sugar (that’s what the recipe says; I assume the boxes are standardized, but who the hell knows) and a quarter-cup of hot water, melt the whole mess over a low flame, and beat the hell out of it with a wire whisk until it’s melted and no longer lumpy.

Give the cake five minutes after it comes out of the oven to cool off a little bit, then pour the icing over it. Optionally, sprinkle crushed walnuts over the top; we used to always do it this way when I was a kid but the boy has allergies so no longer.

Let it cool to room temperature and then eat the hell out of it. Eat the corners first; they’re the best parts. Ideally sheet cake is accompanied by a tall, cold glass of milk.

Mmmmmmmm.

Because I haven’t done a #cooking post in a while…

On By Luther M. SilerIn Cooking3 Comments

CNxHYtLUcAESoz1I made blueberry risotto for dinner tonight, using a Facebook post from an old friend and this recipe as inspiration.  Changes were minor, mostly involving using more blueberries than the recipe called for (a full pint initially and then another half-cup or so as garnish afterwards; I don’t think you can really overdo the blueberries in this dish) and using heavy cream instead of light cream, since no grocery store in Indiana knows what the hell light cream is.  After tasting it, I endorse this change; I don’t think it would have been creamy enough without the extra fat content.

Basically: melt 3 tablespoons of butter and sauté a diced onion in it at medium or medium-low heat for a couple of minutes.  Meanwhile, have 6-7 cups of vegetable stock (chicken would be fine too) at a boil in a nearby pot.  Add 2 cups of arborio rice and stir until golden-brown, which shouldn’t take more than another couple of minutes.  Add 3/4 cup of white wine, stir again until the liquid is gone, then add the blueberries.  Start adding stock about half a cup or 3/4 of a cup at a time, and don’t worry too much about the amounts.  You’re basically stirring in between each dose of stock until the majority of the liquid is gone– the rule of thumb I use is that if I can split the rice in half with the spoon and it takes more than 2-3 seconds to merge back together again it’s time for another dose of liquid.  Once all the liquid is absorbed– which means 25 minutes or so of constant stirring, probably– taste the rice to make sure it’s done.  Actually, you should probably be tasting it along the way so you don’t overcook.  Don’t worry about adding more stock or even water if you’re out.

Once the rice is done, add some more blueberries, half a cup of heavy cream, and half a cup of parmesan, and then whip the hell out of it, trying to spill as little of the cream as possible, for at least a couple of minutes.  Then?  Done.  I may fiddle with extra ingredients next time, as both my wife and I thought it needed something, but weren’t quite sure what, and add salt, pepper, and extra parmesan to taste.

Delish.

In which om nom nom buy books

On By Luther M. SilerIn Cooking, Writing5 Comments

unnamedI baked!  And I did not bake failure for once!

For the next three hours or so, both of my novels will be $1.99.  For the rest of the day after that, Skylights and The Sanctum of the Sphere will be $2.99.  That’s still 40% off! The Benevolence Archives, Vol. 1 will remain 99 cents all day.

If you buy one, I will think fondly upon you while I eat cheesecake.  I may even say your name, if you tell me what it is.

skylights  ba-cover-tiny  Sanctum_72dpi