Blackbeard's Hot Buttered Rum

I remember who first introduced me to hot buttered rum. Stephanie and I met when we were fourteen at the beginning of ninth grade. She was the new girl in school, and I remember when I first saw her in band. She looked mad and unhappy, but she was very pretty, so she was the talk among all the guys. Of course, all the girls hated her. Somewhere in the middle of the year we became best friends, and we saw eachother through many a tough time.

I started waitressing when I was eighteen. It was my next job after my summer as a security guard. I waitressed for about eight years. I started off working for ARA and Marriott foods doing banquets. Then I got a job at the Peking Chinese Restaurant. I worked for a summer at Griggs in El Paso while I was taking Microbiology and Anatomy & Physiology at UTEP. Stephanie worked for Chelsea Street Pub in El Paso. Back then Chelsea's was still pretty cool. They needed some Christmas help, so Stephanie got me a job while I was home for Christmas. I can't remember where we were or the circumstances, but she made me a hot buttered rum. She used light rum and white sugar. I remember it being almost clear. It's a comfort drink for sure.

When I moved to Houston, I got a job at Vargo's and I moonlighted at the Houston Racquet Club (I just found out this month that Mr. Vargo passed away in August). These jobs lent themselves to discovering other "comfort drinks", but hot buttered rum always held a special place in my heart.

It's a special occassion, so Puddleglum bought a good quality Puerto Rican rum. I decided to create a drink. I'm calling it Blackbeard's Hot Buttered Rum.

Blackbeard's Hot Buttered Rum

1 shot Puerto Rican rum
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
1 small drop blackstrap molasses
very hot water
1 pat of butter

Mix first four ingredients. Place pat of butter on top. One variation would be to use a black rum like Cruzan Blackstrap Rum, Gosling's Black Seal, or Maui Dark Rum.

Coffee Can Bread and Triple Hot Chocolate

I've been making coffee can bread on occasions for over ten years. I don't make it very often, but I enjoy making it when I can. I think there is something good and wholesome about homemade bread, and I have much respect for people who bake their own bread on a regular basis. The 1987 edition of the Best of Sunset has been one of my all time favorite cookbooks. It has several really good bread recipes. It even gives instructions on how to make your own outdoor adobe oven.

Coffee Can Bread is a batter bread, so it's a dense kind of cakey bread. A couple years ago there was a big thing in the foodie world about no knead bread , which is a technique to make artisan french style bread without all the kneading. You don't do any kneading with this recipe, but it is not at all an artisan bread. If you are looking for that, this is not it. It's still an easy way to make homemade bread, and it makes good sandwich bread, so you could make cute, round sandwiches. I used a Cafe Du Monde chickory coffee can.

For the picture I left the "muffin top" on top of the slices. Kind of reminds me of that Seinfeld episode... "It's not top of the muffin TO YOU..." I pulled out a bunch of things for the boys to put on their bread, but in the end everyone wanted butter and honey. It was good. You can kind of see two faint rings etched into our table. Puddleglum uses these as templates for when he makes pizza dough. We have two pizza pans, large and medium. Puddleglum makes the dough on the table and then transfers them onto the pans. He could probably just eyeball it, but he is kind of picky about his pizza.

I'd been wanting to make some really thick and rich Mexican chocolate, so I decided to make that tonight as well. I put an Abuelita chocolate "tablet" in a mini food processor to break it up. If you've never used Abuelita or Ibarra Mexican chocolate, you need to know that you have to use a blender or a food processor to break it up. I wanted something super chocolaty, so I then fortified it with some high quality cocoa powder. In a double boiler I melted dark, bitter sweet chocolate chips with a little bit of regular chocolate chips to give a little sweetness (and because I didn't have as much of the more expensive dark chocolate chips left as I thought I did). When the chocolate was melted, I added the Abuelita chocolate and cocoa powder. I heated this for a while to get rid of some of the graininess of the large sugar crystals that comes in the Abuelita chocolate. I slowly added some milk. After that had mixed well, I added some more milk. I didn't want it to be like regular hot chocolate. I wanted it really thick and rich, so I was careful not to "water" it down with too much milk. I really like chili powder in my hot chocolate, so added that as well. Nigella Lawson likes rum in her hot chocolate, so you could add some Captain Morgan's if that's your kind of thing.

Coffee Can Batter Bread (from the Best of Sunset Magazine 1987)

1 pkg quick rise yeast
½ cup warm water (~110deg F)
1/8 tsp ground ginger
3 TBSP sugar
1 ½ cup mild
1 tsp salt
2 TBSP light olive oil
~4 ½ cup Gold Medal Better for Bread Flour
Melted Butter

Sprinkle yeast over the warm water in a large bowl. Stir in ginger and 1 tablespoon sugar. Let stand for about five minutes until bubbly. Stir in remaining sugar, milk, salt, and oil. Beat in 3 cups of flour, 1 cup at a time. Then add remaining flour ½ cup at a time until dough pulls from sides of bowl but is too soft to knead. The book says to use a heavy spoon, but I just used my hands. The dough should stick to your hands because it should be the consistency of a very thick batter. If it feels like you are kneading pizza dough, you’ve added too much flour.

Divide the dough in two. Put each half into a well greased 1-pound coffee can. Put the well greased plastic lids on (you can actually just stick them in the freezer at this point to bake at a later time. Let rise in a warm place until the batter pushes off the lids. Sometimes air pressure will pop the lids off before it’s finished rising. Just put the lids back on. It takes about 45-55 minutes to rise depending on the temperature in your kitchen. Start preheating the oven to 350deg F about thirty minutes in.

After they have finished rising, bake for about 45 minutes on the bottom rack. The tops should be very golden brown when you take them out. Brush the tops with the butter. Let cool on a wire rack for five minutes. Take a butter knife and loosen the bread from the sides and slide the loaf out. Let cool in an upright position on the rack. Serve warm with butter, honey, etc. You can modify this recipe to make English Muffins. If anyone is interested in that modification, just message me.

Pulled Pork Sandwiches and a Failed Attempt at Fried Pickles

The homemade kaiser rolls took a long time, but if you used store bought rolls, this is something you could put in the crock pot in the morning and have ready for dinner. The pork was fall apart tender, and Puddleglum and all the boys kept sampling the pork while I got everything ready.

There are probably a ton of recipes on the internet. I rubbed a pork should blade roast with brown sugar, paprika, onion powder, sea salt, and fresh ground

pepper. I put onion slices, carrots, and celery on the bottom of a crock pot, and put the roast (fat side up) on the vegetables.

You can roast all day on low. After you take your finished roast out, save and freeze the juice in the crock pot for soup stock. We put pan drippings in freezer bags and freeze them flat for easy thawing.

I wanted to give kudos to my friend, Christina. A few years ago she gave me the recipe for roasting a chicken in a crock pot with forty cloves of garlic, and that got me used to roasting meat in a crock pot. We've made that recipe so many times, and it is good every time. The drippings from that recipe make the best soup stock.

The kaiser rolls were tricky. I enjoyed making these, and I felt like it was worth it. If you want to try making these, click HERE to go to an excellent website with instructions and pictures. Instead of poppy seeds, I used sesame seeds since we always have a bunch of those (the boys like rice with soy sauce and sesame oil with sesame seeds sprinkled in). For my oven, the temperature in the instructions was a little high. If you are wondering what those yellow discs are, they are a pickled radish called oshingo. I tried making fried pickles with them (in addition to dill pickles), and it was a complete disaster.

I made carrot salad with asian apple pear, pineapples, and dried cranberries. It sounds good, and it was good, but truthfully I didn't feel it was a ton better than the kind of carrot salad that everyone's mom makes with plain old raisins and apples. I asked Puddleglum to pick up some of the good dill pickles in the refrigerated section, and he brought back those long flat sandwich sliced pickles. This was great for the sandwiches, but I actually wanted to make fried pickles. I did try cutting some of the sandwich slices and frying them, but it didn't turn out right. Several people commented about missing fried pickles. If I ever perfect a recipe that tastes like what I remember from Pass the Biscuits, I'll post it. If anyone tries a recipe that is close, please let me know. These were edible, and the batter might have been right, but because they were cut from sandwich slices, they weren't the right texture.

I made homemade barbecue sauce using a recipe from Emeril. It is from this WEBPAGE where he makes pulled pork sandwiches with cole slaw and fried pickles. I didn't use his fried pickle recipe because he fried them whole. I think sliced pickle slices have to work better. Anyway, the barbecue sauce turned out really well. We happened to use the very last bit of ketchup for the recipe, so when I finished mixing it, I just poured it back into the ketchup container so we could just squeeze it onto our sandwiches. We were out of apple cider vinegar, so I used 1/2 a cup of white vinegar and 1/2 a cup of peach flavored grape juice (I know, but this is actually a good substitution). I know it doesn't sound very culinary, but neither do fried pickles. I also didn't have dried crushed red pepper, so I used cayenne pepper instead. It was darn good barbecue sauce.

Emeril's Barbecue Sauce

• 1 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup ketchup
• 3 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon yellow mustard
• 1 tablespoon molasses
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper

In a bowl, combine all the ingredients and whisk well to dissolve the sugar. Place in a squeeze bottle and dress the pulled pork sandwiches to taste. This recipe is great as a condiment, but for baking or grilling, it is too bland. Add some Worcestershire, onion powder, soy sauce, honey or whatever to taste.

DBSK Taste vs. Taste

This is 2 of 9 parts. You can watch the other eight by going to youtube.com. Skip ahead to 2:00 to see a neat fish dish being made. I don't get the entire game show. If someone understands the premise, please explain in a comment. I don't get it...

Kimchi Jigae II

I loosely based this on the recipe by Maangchi. You can watch her video for kimchi jigae on Youtube. I changed some things. Kimchi jigae is one of those dishes that can be a little different every time. Greg saw some shitake mushrooms at the grocery store that looked good, so I had those on hand. We also had a red bell pepper that we wound up not using for the Christmas dinner, so I used that too. I bought a 5 pound pork shoulder blade roast that we are having tomorrow, so I cut about half a pound off of it for this soup. Really, I think there are only a few things that you have to have for kimchi jigae- kimchi, gochujang (Korean red pepper paste), water, and onion. You could make a basic soup with just that. It would be simple, but you could do it. Pork would really add to it as would the tofu, sesame oil, and garlic. Maangchi doesn't use egg in her recipe, but my other favorite Youtube Korean cook is aeriskitchen, and she puts egg in her Korean Kimchi Ramon. I tried it, and I liked it.

I don't think this dish photographs well. If I had been thinking about it, I would have sprinkled some green onion on the top to make it look prettier. Well, it is what it is. I must say the end product was delicious. I used firm tofu, but Maangchi likes soft tofu. Also, I've seen many Koreans who slice the tofu in large flat squares not in small cubes like I did. The kimchi that I buy from the Korean store here in town already is coarsely chopped. I did chop some of the larger sections of cabbage into bite sized pieces. In most cooking onion is finely chopped for soup and then sauteed in butter or some kind of oil (except onion soup where the onion is left in rings). Maangchi chops her onion in large strips. Korean cooking is different from what you typically think of. I remember thinking my mom was not very culinary when she boiled soup on the stove, but that is what you do with kimchi jigae. You don't bring it up to a boil, and then turn down the heat to a simmer which is how most cooking is done. You keep it on high heat at a good boil for ten minutes, and then turn it down to medium low, and you still pretty much keep it at a boil.

My mom had a refrigerator in the garage that was dedicated to Korean food. I remember being a little afraid of it. I seldom had to open the door, but when I did, it was always with a little trepidation. I remember always being revolted by a bag of dead, dried up little fish. Now I know what they are for, and I even have a bag of my own. They are boiled and dried anchovies. You use them to make dashi (fish stock). I bought them to make dukboki (see my previous note on that) which is a popular street food in Korea. Since I had some, I thought instead of just adding water to the kimchi jigae, that I would make dashi and use that. It did give a very subtle and enjoyable fish flavor to the soup, so if you have it, great. If not, just use water. If you have guests coming over, I would forgo the dashi. It really smells up the house.

Tae obviously didn't like it (haha!). Thumbs up or thumbs down? Big thumbs up! He really liked the tofu. Baby is a brave one. I told him it was very spicy, but he wanted to try it anyway. He said, "Here goes." He liked it! He drank quite a bit of our special family heavily watered down peach flavored white grape juice to cool his mouth, but he did pretty good with it eating about a third of his bowl before giving up. The pork was very tender. I seared the pork pieces before adding the liquid. Maangchi uses pork belly. One time I did not have any pork, but I did have some bacon drippings in the fridge, so I added some to the soup for flavoring.

Once you master kimchi jigae, you can use the concepts in all kinds of dishes. I made this "Asian Leek Soup" when Puddleglum decided to buy some leeks. He was going to make this one particular dish, but then he changed his mind, and then we had all these great leeks. I started the way you would most soups. I put a tablespoon (or two) of butter into a saute pan, then I added the leeks (which I had washed and chopped). I sauted them until they started to get soft. I think we had some store bought chicken broth in the refrigerator or maybe I just added water (I can't remember now- I took a picture to do a blog post, and then I forgot to type everything out). We had some leftover pan drippings from a roast and also some homemade chicken stock in the freezer, so I threw both bags in. I added a little bit of gochujang and some soy sauce, and I think I put in a little brown sugar for some sweetness. Then I broke a couple of eggs into it like aeriskitchen does. When I plated it, I sprinkled some green onion and cilantro on top, and I served it with lime wedges to squeeze over the soup. Puddleglum really liked it, and I made it completely on the fly with ingredients on hand and things that I learned from Maangchi and aeriskitchen.

Puddleglum's Kimchi Jigae

1 TBSP pure sesame oil
1/2 onion chopped into "strips"
3 cloves of garlic finely chopped or minced
1/2 pound pork (I used shoulder blade roast)
2 TBSP red bell pepper chopped
5 shitake mushrooms sliced
3 green onions sliced thin
2 cups kimchi coarsely chopped (pressed down to 2 cups)
1 TBSP sugar
5 cups dashi* (you can just use water)
1 heaping TBPS of gochujang (Korean red pepper paste)
1/2 pkg tofu cut into cubes
1-2 eggs
another drizzle of pure sesame oil (make sure it is brown and not the light colored stuff)

In a large saute pan or small stock pot add the 1 TBSP of sesame oil, onion, and garlic. Saute over high heat. After a couple of minutes add the pork. Stir to sear the outside of the pork for maybe a minute, but don't cook through. Add the red bell pepper, the mushrooms, and the green onion. Stir for a minute or two. Add the kimchi. Stir for another minute or so. Add the dashi (or water) and then the sugar *(to make dashi boil 5 cups of water with eight anchovies for several minutes. Remove and discard the anchovies). You may need to add a little more water to the kimchi jigae depending on how big your saute pan or stock pot is and how "liquidy" you want your soup. Boil on high heat covered for about ten minutes. Turn the heat down to medium/medium low and stir a couple of times. Cook for another ten minutes or so stirring occasionally. Add your eggs. You can beat them in a bowl and then slowly pour into the soup in a circle to form strings or you can break the eggs directly into the soup. If you do that, let the whites cook a little first, and then break your yolks and gently stir. Add your tofu. Cover and cook for another five minutes. Uncover and drizzle a little more sesame oil on top and gently stir. I felt like I wanted to add a little soy sauce at this point. Heck. It's my soup. Why not? I added a little soy sauce and gently stirred.

I made a pot of rice so that if the boys did not like it, they could have rice with soy sauce, sesame oil, and sesame seeds. Jax tasted it, and he liked it all right but not enough to have a whole bowl. He had the rice. I wanted to put a big spoonful of rice in my soup, but I chose to abstain to reduce my carb intake. Who am I trying to kid? I ate Pringles today with the boys. I should have had some rice...

One last note here. For kids who are not used to spice, you could reduce the gochujang to 1 tsp instead of 1 heaping TBSP. You could also "rinse" the kimchi in a strainer under the tap to reduce some of the spice before you add it to the pan. This would make it less spicy.

Huevos a la Flamenca

Some of my closest friends know that TJ Maxx is my favorite store. I found a beautiful casserole handmade in Poland for $14! I don't know why exactly, but it makes me happy to look at it. It is perfect for a dish from Spain called Huevos a la Flamenca. It is different from Huevos Rancheros in that the tomato mixture is smooth, the eggs are baked not poached or fried, and it is customarily made with peas and jamon and/or chorizo.

I have been wanting to try Jamon Iberica or Jamon Serrano. They are cured hams from Spain similar to Prociutto Ham from Italy. The Jamon Iberica is the most expensive. The pigs are a special breed called Iberian, and they are given a special diet that includes acorns. I couldn't find this kind of ham, and even if I could, I couldn't afford it. I did find the Jamon Serrano for about $20/pound! I asked for $4 worth which is actually a good amount. I have plenty leftover to make this for my sister when she comes to visit.

Some of the other ingredients include Manchego cheese which is made in the La Mancha region of Spain. It is fairly expensive here in our town. I asked for $4 worth which was plenty, and again, I have enough for my sister when she gets in town. It is a yummy cheese, and you could eat it with the jamon and some crackers for a nice snack.
I found a video on Youtube with a guy making Huevos a la Flamenca. He made it very simply using Tomate Frito which is made with fried tomatoes that have been strained. I couldn't find it, but I did find a product from Italy that is similar. You could make your own sauce with roasted tomatoes and a blender, or you can just use tomato paste or tomato sauce.

I found some pork chorizo. If you decide to use chorizo, don't read the ingredients. Just don't.
Whenever I hear the word chorizo, I think of a play I was in. I think it was called the Marvelous Playbill. David Velasco, who was actually from Spain, was the lead. I can hardly remember the storyline (early Alzheimers?), but the setting was in Spain a couple of centuries ago. One of the characters had a one liner where he said "chorizo", and it got a few laughs from the audience.
The Jamon Serrano is much tastier after it has been fried kind of like bacon. I thought I would like it raw, but I couldn't palate the flavor. Maybe I just haven't developed a taste for it. I would like to try Jamon Iberica someday. When the Jamon Serrano is nice a crispy, it is like a sophisticated bacon. It is smoother and has a different flavor. I recommend cooking the chorizo very, very well. Very well. When you first start frying it, it doesn't smell very good. Just give it a chance. It really adds to the flavor of the dish.
Be very careful not to overcook the eggs. You want the yolks to be runny. About 12 minutes in a 375 degree oven is about all you'll need. I overcooked this batch a little. It was still good though. When you plate it, make sure you put a little bit of everything on the plate. I grated the manchego over the entire casserole when it came out of the oven, and then I added even more after I plated it. Serve with bread. I used a French baguette. Your kitchen will smell like a gourmet restaurant if you make this. It is totally worth it.

I love nice hot coffee when I have eggs. If you had this as a dinner entree, you could serve it with a white wine or even a red wine. My favorite coffee is Ruta Maya from Chiapas, Mexico. My sister used to live in Hyde Park in Austin right next to an organic supermarket. They carried this coffee, and the first time I tried it, I thought,"this is the best coffee ever!" I was excited when Puddleglum found it at our local grocery store. It is distributed out of Austin.

Puddleglum's Huevos a la Flameca

several strips Jamon Serrano (can substitute 2-3 strips bacon)
5 TBSP chorizo (can substitute sausage)
1 TBSP olive oil
1/4 onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp oregano
1 cup Tomate Frito (or strained tomatoes, pureed tomatoes, sauce, or thinned paste)
1 TBSP Alessi roasted red pepper, chopped
3-4 eggs
2 TBSP peas
manchego cheese

Preheat oven to 400deg F. Cook the Jamon Serrano and the chorizo in their own saute pans until the jamon is crispy and the chorizo is very well done. Place the oil, onion, garlic, and spices in a large saute pan. Saute until the onions just start to soften. Pour in the Tomate Frito or whatever tomato mixture you have (in my case the Pomi Strained Tomatoes). Cook until the mixture has been bubbly for several minutes stirring constantly. Add your roated red peppers at the end. Pour the tomato mixture into a shallow baking dish. Break your eggs carefully on top of the tomato mixture. Place your cooked jamon, chorizo, and peas in any way you like. Bake for about 14 minutes until the whites are cooked but the yolks are runny. Generously sprinkle with manchego cheese. Serve with good bread and nice hot coffee.

¡Buen provecho!

*

Green Tea and Red Rice Swirl Bread

Apple Pie, Patis, & Pate made an imaginative loaf of bread. He used ground green tea leaves and ground red rice. I like the idea, plus red rice has cholesterol lowering properties and green tea contains antioxidants. I think I may try this one.