Bacon Jam!!!!

A couple weeks ago I decided that I'd be ambitious and try to make some bacon jam.  Bacon jam you ask?  Yeah, it's basically a spread consisting of bacon, onion, and spices.  I thought that it would make good Christmas gifts for the foodies I know. I decided to only make a small batch before cooking down 3 POUNDS of bacon.

"Good Quality Bacon."  I'm not a big bacon eater-unless it is really crispy and a lot of the fat has rendered off, so I had to ask Mike for help on what constitutes "Good Quality Bacon."  I settled on Hormel's Black Label Bacon from Sam's Club because Mike said, "That's higher quality than the bacon we usually buy." *I'm not sure if Mike was referring to the turkey bacon that I buy for myself. 


I also bought a huge container of real maple syrup from Sam's Club.

Here's a secret...when I want to experiment in the kitchen, I search online for recipes. I scour the Internet (okay for about 5-10 minutes) and then compile the recipes that sound good based on the ingredients and how they match in my mind.

I then compile them, omit ingredients that I:
 1) do not like; 2) do not have in the house; 3) am not willing to purchase
In regards to the cooking technique I choose:
1) the quickest and easiest method, unless there is a apparent reason why the extra time is a necessity
2) use the technique that involves equipment and gadgets that I have in the house
If I realize that I do not have enough of an ingredient while I am cooking
1) Omit the ingredients
2) Substitute it with ingredient(s) that I think will work.  (i.e. I used some brown sugar once in a lemon bar recipe because I ran out of granulated sugar). 

Putting the cooked bacon back into the pot with the caramelized onions and other goodies.



Stirring all the ingredients in a crock pot.

Bacon Jam-My Version (an amalgamation of all the recipes I liked online)
Ingredients
1 pound good quality smoked bacon (cut into 1" pieces)
2 cups of thinly sliced onion
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4-1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 tablespoons Sriracha sauce
1/4 t of chili flakes
1 cup coffee
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 t black pepper

Directions
Cook the bacon in batches over medium high heat until the fat is rendered off the bacon and it is just starting to crisp. Set the bacon on the side. Pour out the bacon grease (you can use it for something else).

Keep 1-2 tablespoons of the bacon fat in the pan/pot and then dd the onion and garlic and cook over medium heat until the onions have caramelized.

Return the bacon to the pan/pot and add all the remaining ingredients (sugar, coffee, spices, etc). Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer.

*For the next step, I decided to transfer the mixture from the pot into a crock pot.
Simmer over low heat for 3-4 hours until you can no longer tell the onion from the bacon and it has a thick, jam-like consistency and deep rich brown color. Occasionally stir the mixture and add water if it looks like it is becoming to dry.

Cool the mixture and then transfer it to a food processor. Chop/blend the mixture until the desired texture that you would like. I like the slightly rustic look of chunks of bacon in my jam, so I did not puree my mixture.

Let cool and place in a glass jars, the refrigerate. Take out of fridge ~1 hr before serving, so jam will be at room temperature.  I haven't tested this out, but I'm sure you could heat the jam in the microwave before serving too. Serve with crackers.

Some of the other websites I viewed said to add a splash of vanilla extract to round out the flavor.  Mike wanted to add some smokey notes to the jam. I did not want to ruin the jam, so we tested out these extra flavoring in small containers. We're glad to report that the addition of either flavor creates an edible tasty jam.  Although when I make the jam again for gifts I do plan on adding the liquid smoke....and I'm still teetering on the addition of vanilla extract. 

I brought it to a friend's house for a party and it was well received. That's enough of a seal of approval before I start making it for gifts. 

Mock Nothing Bundt Cake Lemon Cakes

My version of a lemon bundt cake

  A few years ago, my sister introduced me to Nothing Bundt Cakes sells moist flavored bundt cakes with yummy cream cheese frosting. I am not a big cake eater, but I really enjoyed these cakes.  I decided to try to make them myself. 

Nothing Bundt Cake-Lemon Bundt Cake

So, the first thing I did was search the Internet for copycat recipes. I found this recipe and modified it to make a lemon cake. I used a box of instant lemon cake mix, sour cream, and sour cream for a moist base. I also omitted the chocolate chips.

My little lemon bundt cakes.

I just bought a spray can of Wilton's Bake Easy spray, so hopefully next time Mike will not have to clean really dirty pans. Mike doesn't seem to mind washing some of my baking dishes because sometimes likes to sample the batter and the misshapen and deformed treats.

I also made some cupcakes

I tried to dress them up with cream cheese frosting and a sprinkle top.

As you can see there is much room for improvement on the appearance of the cakes. The cakes turned out moist and delicious, so I think I've got the basic cake recipe down.  My next step it make a firmer cream cheese frosting and pipe out a thicker frosting.  I think the last step is to become focused on "pretty-fying" my creations. I think I do not have the patience to make things pretty and focus on the taste and flavor of food.

Lettuce Stems

Have you ever heard of a vegetable called "lettuce stems"? I saw this vegetable at the Asian grocery store the other day and they looked like mini trees. I was also intrigued by the fact that these vegetables were called "lettuce stems" because I never thought that lettuce had stems.  I once had to stir-fry iceberg lettuce in a class once and ever since then I have had the mentality that lettuce should not be cooked. 

I just chopped the lettuce stems up and stir-fried them in a little bit of oil and garlic.  I am not sure if I cooked it correctly because some of the pieces had a strong bitter taste to it.  The majority of the other pieces reminded me of a cross between broccoli and celery.  It was interesting. Would I buy it again? Probably not. 

Cooking Experiment~Loosey Goosey

Here's Mike's Experiment. This experiment was all Mike's doing.  For the longest time he has wanted to make a  "loosy goosey" "juicy lucy"  burger, which is essentially placing and sealing cheese into raw hamburger meat, and then cooking it.

Mike filled the burger with shredded sharp cheese.

We grilled onions and burgers after grilling that frozen pixzza. 

Here's the makeshift burger. I think we need to buy larger buns.

Here's a cross section cut of Mike's burger.  Look at all that oozing cheese!

Mike really enjoyed his burger and said he that he would definitely make it again. Too bad we do not cook burgers very often at home.  I think about 50% of the meals we eat at home are vegetarian. 

Cooking Experiment~Grilling Frozen Pizza

This is a cooking experiment that Michael wanted to try. Most of the experiments conducted in our kitchen are done because of my curiosity.  Okay, I take this back, I was like an older child and  planted the thought in Mike's head and convinced him that it would work.  Just like how my sister told me that if I stuck kimi balls  in my ears, it would block out sound. Or when she taught me that if I break my crayons in half, I'd have more.   
On a lazy weekend afternoon, we decided to grill a frozen self-rising pizza.  You've heard of grilling home-made pizza on a grill, but we decided, "hey, why not grill a frozen pizza on the grill?"

Think about it, a grill is essentially an outdoor oven.  Once you close the grill cover, you have an enclosed chamber of  heat.  The difference between an oven and a grill is that in an oven the heat is sourced from the roof of the oven, in a grill, the heat comes from the bottom. Hot air rises, making it a vessel to cook a pizza in.
The main difference I thought we would see is that we would not burn the top of the pizza because the grill did not contain a direct heat source above the pizza.  There was a greater chance for us to burn the crust because of the direct heat coming from the bottom of the grill.

We had to make sure that the pizza was not above a direct flame (this was Mike's brilliant thought). So we started up the grill (with the lid closed) and tried to get it as hot as possible. Once the grill was heated, we quickly placed the pizza on the side of the grill that did not have a direct flame underneath it. We shut the lid and did not open it, even to peek at the pizza. 
I think the directions on the box said to preheat the oven to 400F and bake for 22-25 minutes. We ended up grilling the pizza in about 15 minutes (that's when there was a faint burnt odor coming from the grill). 

Here's a picture of the uncooked pizza.

Here's the final product. Not bad, huh? (part of the bottom crust is burnt, but you cannot see that in the picture). Mike said that he would make this again because he liked the grilled flavor on the pizza. I liked it because 1) it prevented our apartment from heating up because of the oven heat; 2)the cook time for the pizza was faster than in our oven.

Beef Bourguignon

Watching "Julie and Julia" made me curious about this dish called beef bourguignon.  It sounded wonderful and I had to try it.  I searched online for a recipe and saw that Julia Child's original recipe required over 4 hours of cooking! I searched until I found a modified recipe which required only 2 hours of cook time and then modified it even more. I went grocery shopping and was going to purchase pearl onions and then thought, "I don't like pearl onions" so I didn't buy them.  If I had used this same philosophy with the wine, my beef bourguignon might have ended up as a stir-fry. 
I don't want to bore you with all the details, so long story short; I bought my ingredients and went home to cook the beef.

Here's the beef bourguignon simmering in my new dutch oven!  After it simmered for a total of 4 hours (the meat was tough after 2 hours, so I left it in the oven), I drained the liquid and made a sauce by reducing the liquids and adding a flour-butter paste. 

My final assessment, I do not think I would make it again.  Why? It took a lot more time (and dishes) than I expected, I do not care for the taste of wine, and I do not like stewed meat.   Mike rolled his eyes when I told him that.  He was like, "Hello, if you make a recipe named 'beef bourguignon' there will be beef and wine in it." I knew that, I just was curious if I could make it or not. 
Mike enjoyed the dish.  He said it was a bit more gourmet than the beef burgundy that he makes at home in which its more like a stew and there isn't a sauce to pour over the meat and vegetables. 

Deep, Dark Chocolate Cake

One of my favorite types of cake is a moist chocolaty cake. The problem I find with cakes made from scratch is that they are not as moist as cake mix cakes. But this recipe resulted in a super moist chocolate cake!I just followed Shirley O. Corriher's Deep, Dark Chocolate Cake recipe in "Bakewise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking." The book is kind of neat and provides a scientific explanation of baking certain types of cakes or cookies. It's a bit Alton Brown-esque, and I think Shirley's made some appearances on "Good Eats."
Typically chocolate cakes have a slight red tinge to them. This cake, on the other hand, is as dark as oreo cookies! The secret? You have to use dutch process cocoa powder. I used Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa for this recipe.

Here's the science behind the deep dark color of the cake:
Dutch process cocoa and baking soda make the chocolate so alkaline (more basic, less acidic) that the cake is almost black. Alkalized chocolate is less bitter and has a more uniform dark color.
The addition of the extra baking soda, also made the batter more alkaline, which helped darken the cake's color.

I decided to dub this cake the, "Oreo Cake."I would definitely make this cake again.

I think it would be cuter and more manageable as cupcakes. I think it would be the perfect color for whoopie pies which are supposedly the next trend following the cupcake craze.

Curiosity Challenge~Squash Blossoms

I've always wanted to cook with squash blossoms. When I was back home in Hawaii I was able to get my hands on some squash blossoms from Chinatown for $2. I didn't know how to prepare or cook them so they ended up sitting in the fridge for a couple of days before I decided to cook them.
I've heard of "stuffed squash blossoms" before, so decided to stuff the flowers with random ingredients I found around my parents house. I wasn't very creative and decided to stuff the blossoms with raw garlic and mozzarella cheese.
I filled the blossoms with my garlic cheese concoction and gently twisted the petals together.
Then I quickly battered the blossoms with an egg dip followed by a cornstarch coating.

I pan fried the blossoms are here are the results. My mom really liked the final result. She thought that the cooked blossoms had almost a meat-like texture. Personally, I thought the texture was more like a meat-substitute texture (almost mushroomy).
With the broken blossoms, I chopped them up and quickly stir-fried them in garlic and made a squash blossom and mozzarella cheese quesadilla.
Would I purchase and cook squash blossoms again? Probably not, unless I was trying to impress someone. They tasted good, but were definitely not worth the effort to clean, cook, and stuff.

Curiosity Challenge~Farmer's Market Tomatoes

Every time I visit the Urbana Farmer's Market I glance over at the booth selling tomatoes and think, "Self, I wonder what all those different tomatoes taste like." The tomatoes were reasonably priced; the romas were $1.50/lb while all the other varieties were $2.50/lb. I had no idea what I was planning to do with them all, but I scooped them up and tried to remember all the varieties names. I forgot the names, so you'll have to just enjoy the pictures. The green striped tomato is called a "green zebra" tomato, one of the medium red ones is called a beefsteak, there is a Japanese tomato, Brandywine, golden, Chocolate ????
My favorite tomato had to be one of the red ones (yeah, that's so descriptive), but it was super sweet and almost like I was eating a dessert fruit.

So were these Farmer's Market tomatoes much better than the ones from the grocery store? Unfortunately, flavor-wise, most of the tomatoes tasted the same like the ones I purchase at Meijer. But I am assuming that since the tomatoes are farm fresh, there are more nutrients in the Farmer's Market tomatoes.
My farm fresh dinner. Pan-fried slices of zucchini, topped with a homemade marinara sauce consisting of multiple varieties of locally-grown tomatoes, onions, garlic, and bell pepper.

It's been taking me a while to post this blog, so I ended up going back to the Farmer's Market to purchase more tomatoes. This past Friday I purchased the garden peach tomatoes. They were yummy and had a fuzzy skin to them.

Curiosity Challenge~Figs-Update

Here's an update. I washed, cut, and then ate a fig. I guess I was expecting this magical "AHA" moment or a moment of pure bliss....but nope. The figs have a mild flavor and the closest fruit that I could compare it to is a cross between a mild flavored guava with the outer texture of an apricot. My guess is that the figs I bought were probably not at their peak.

So this is what I ended up doing with my figs...

1. Thinly sliced them, drizzled honey, and broiled them. Toasted thin slices of bread, spread cream cheese on them, placed the fig slices on them, and then drizzled more honey on them. Not bad.

2. Diced up some figs, cooked it on a pan with sugar, water, and honey to make a jammy syrup concoction.

3. I hear about panna cotta all the time. Especially when those chefs on Top Chef are suddenly surprised they have to make a dessert (hello, note to future contestants, watch previous episodes of the show. You are gonna have to make a dessert eventually).

So I decided to attempt to make a buttermilk panna cotta with a dollop of my fig jam. It was pretty good. The buttermilk adds a bit of tang to the dessert and the fig jam adds a sweet contrast.
*On to other news. Get excited, today the season premerie of "Heroes" is on NBC! Whoo-hoo! Hopefully this season is better than the last season! I'm plopping myself down in front of the TV for 3 hours. So if you call me between the hours of 7-10pm (CST) I will most likely NOT answer my phone.

Curiosity Challenge~Figs!

I've been searching for figs for a weeks now. After first reading about figs on Anita's blog Dessert First and then on Kat's "Our Adventures in Japan", I've been keeping my eye out for figs. I was talking to my foodie food science friends and we were discussing what we would do with them if we by chance found them in the market.

Here's how the conversation went:

L: I just want to buy them, cut 'em in half and eat them fresh

A: Broil them, put honey from the Urbana's Farmer's market on it and serve them with prosciutto or goat cheese. Isn't that what the foodies do?

E: Do figs have some kind of cult following? It seems like it's the trendy food of the moment.

L: I dunno, but everyone blogs about them. They must be good.

E: I think I've only tried figs in Fig Newtons
While at Meijer this morning, I found those elusive figs! It was $2 for an 8 oz container of figs. I grabbed a container of the brown turkish ones and then panicked. There were black ones there too. I didn't know there were two kinds of figs, the container of black ones were heavier (even though the package said 8 oz), but I ended up buying the brown ones because the black ones looked like they were overripe and smashed.

I don't know what to do with them, but I have to figure it out in the next few days. I just found the California Figs site, so we'll see what I can find there. Wish me luck!

Curiosity Challenge 2~Fruit Cake/Bread

*I'm quickly typing out this blog as my wardon (a.k.a as mike) is making sure that I am completing work in my lab. He wants me to hurry up and graduate so he's making sure that I focus on my research*


Did you ever notice that banana bread, carrot cake, zuchinni bread, and pumpkin bread all have similar ingredients and spices?

Okay, so I was partially bored in the kitchen and was trying to clean out my fridge before I left Champaign for Hawaii and didn't know what to do with all this food in my apartment.

My base recipe was a carrot cake recipe. I don't like nuts in cakes (because of the soggy texture they acquire in moist desserts, so i omitted the 1 cup of walnuts). I also ran out of white sugar, so I ended up using some dark brown sugar to make up the difference.
I had whole wheat flour and no all purpose flour, so i ended up using a combination of whole wheat flour and cake flour.

Fruit and veggies I added to the cake recipe.
1 c. grated carrots
3/4 c. grated zuchinni
1/4 c. mashed previously frozen banana
1/4 c. pumpkin puree
1/2 c. crushed canned pineapple slightly drained

The final result. The cake was pretty good. i couldn't even tell that the cake was made out of whole wheat. I couldn't really taste all of the fruit, but it was a moist cake and the most dominate flavor was the pineapple. C. didn't care for it that much, and my mom didn't thought it was okay. I guess it's one of those foods that when you tell someone it's healthy, it increases the liking score.