Spring Fling Sugar Cookies - REDUX

Anyone who has been a regular reader will know that I do not generally do re-dos of recipes that I have mangled. I mean, I might make recipes more than once if I like them, or if I am pretty sure I would like them had I not done something like put in the entire lemon rind than just shavings, for example.

But I don't post the re-dos, that's just, okay, I did it, I think it is/would be good, I want to try it again. Just for me as a normal human, not part of the project.

Today I break that rule, specifically with Dorothy Lewis's Spring Fling Sugar Cookies. Josh took a sucker's bet with our friend Todd in a Kansas v Iowa State game (basketball? maybe?). Josh knew ISU wasn't going to win, but he still had to defend. The loser had to bake the winner cookies of the winner's choice. In this case, Tilzer claimed he liked iced sugar cookies. Cue the retake on Dorothy's sugar cookies.

I baked the cookies, Josh frosted them. Looks better than last time. And yes, we know these aren't either the ISU or Kansas colors, they are just the only icing ones they had at the grocery.

Tilzer - the cookies are in the mail.

Konafa bi Jibn

Hello peeps. Sorry for the quiet days. Mike is in town, which means I am spending most of my time working with him on script brilliance. That, and supervising him rigorously, as every time I so much as turn my back for a minute he gets into something. And he's quick and quiet, too, like a cat. A weird, perverted, mischievous cat that likes to tell people I am a dying porn star and the like.

So far he has: hidden all my toilet paper (found many hours later in my underwear drawer), put tampons in the bathtub drain, changed all my Sirius presets to the gay station and the Christian station, put what I can only hope to be mouthwash into the toilet (the water was pink), changed my desktop to a rather...colorful...picture, and festooned my desk with scotch tape loaded with every office item he could find (mouse, stapler, pens, etc.). Not to mention the messages he routinely sends out informing people that I'm a racist pederast. Or something like that.

I retaliate by eating while I brainstorm, using too many vowels in my instant messages, and making my dog jump on him and hurt his already quite bad back. You do what you can.

I imagine that most people would kill him within about 10 minutes, but it appears that the hearty teasing I was treated to by my dad as a kid has primed me to find it amusing (thanks dad). And we actually get work done, so let's just call it our 'process' and move on.

Anyhow, all the writing/brainstorming/patrolling takes quite a lot of time and energy, so there hasn't been much cooking this week. There was, however, some cooking last weekend. Specifically, baking. Of a weird Sephardic recipe called Konafa bi Jibn that was given by my mom's cousin Leila and her husband Alan.

As my family is Ashkenazi, this is the first Jewish recipe we've gotten that is Sephardic. (Crib notes for the non-Jews: what I just said is my family is European and this recipe is Middle Eastern.) What this means on a practical level is that most of the Jewish food the Recipe Book has gotten is of the chicken-schmaltz-filled, heart-attack-inducing, liver and deli bagels variety rather than the honey/figs/nuts/goat legs variety. Or something.

I have been daunted by this recipe from the first time I laid eyes on it. First of all, it's called Konafa bi Jibn; there is nothing I can recognize in that, let alone pronounce. Second, it has a lot of weird ingredients that you can theoretically only get at specialty Middle Eastern groceries.

As a result, I have been basically avoiding this one as long as possible. But the witching hour is nearly here, so it's time to suck it up. Also, Josh's parents were here last weekend, and as Josh's dad was in Turkey in the Peace Corps and his mom was in Pakistan, I figured they would be prime candidates for a Middle Eastern style dessert. That, and they were planning on doing a ton of work helping us with DIY home projects, so I wanted to show them some gratitude.

Los Angeles has a sizable Middle Eastern population, so you would figure it would be easy enough to find the specialty ingredients (namely the rose water, the orange blossom water, and the pastry dough). You would figure wrong.

That is to say, I imagine there are a bunch of Middle Eastern groceries over on the west side in Westwood at the heart of the Persian population, but Westwood is a pain in the ass for me to get to. And given that I live in Los Angeles, and Los Angeles is all about the traffic, I try to avoid it. I googled 'Middle Eastern Grocery Los Angeles' and I Yelped it, in every permutation I could find. Still, I was only getting random, small looking places in Westwood--if that.

I tried a place that was supposed to be near me, on Santa Monica in Los Feliz. I went there, and found what amounted to an empty storefront with no signs. Josh and I tried a place in Burbank when we were out doing errands one day and basically wound up driving around in a vacant area by train tracks. Heroin or crack we might have found there. Konafa--not so much.

As Leila claimed the pastry can be found at 'Greek or Oriental' stores, I thought about going to Papa Cristos, this pretty great Greek restaurant & grocery down by USC (and therefore much nearer to me), or going to hunt around Chinatown. Or even sucking it up and going to fight traffic and the tight parking lot by Mashti Malone's Persian ice cream parlor in Hollywood. They have rose water ice cream; it only stands to reason they might sell some rose water, too, along with a couple of the other non-ice cream type things they sell.

But still, the traffic. I just didn't want to spend hours upon hours going to place after place only to strike out again. Finally, I got brilliant. I changed my search to something like 'Persian grocery' instead of Middle Eastern and voila, I found a couple of places close to my house. This makes sense - I live very close to Glendale, the epicenter of LA Armenian culture. But surprise! There was another one, a closer one, a bigger one, in Glassell Park. I've hit the motherload!

Except I put the address wrong into the GPS and wound up driving to Burbank in rush hour traffic and having to turn around again. But I eventually made it to Glendale. Huzzah!

Side note: I just tried this Google search again so I could say what the name of the store was. You will not be surprised to discover it is not showing up in the results. I think it must have been called Brigadoon.

Anyhow, I get there, to Brigadoon, and it looks from the outside like a tiny hole in the wall gas station type market, kind of like the LA equivalent of a NYC bodega, except only frequented by scary people since here everyone drives their cars to the Trader Joe's with the biggest parking lots. Inside, it had surprisingly a lot of space though. I found the rose water and the orange blossom water very quickly. The pastry, though, was another story.

Between Leila's and the internet's description of konafa pastry, it sounded like it was sort of in the same realm as filo dough. So I headed to the freezer case, where I know filo is kept, and looked for it there. I found filo, and some other weird things, but no konafa. Great. I looked around the entire store. Maybe it isn't frozen, maybe it's a pastry they keep with the breads? No. With the baking things? No. With the crackers? No. I went back. It has to be in this damn freezer. I find something called kataifi, which, given that it is the only dough other than the filo and that it appears might fit Leila's description of konafa (i.e., 'vermicelli-like'), I deduce may be konafa. Or close enough to substitute after all the goddamn trouble I've gone to to get here.

I grab a box and head up to the charming, gas-station-like checkout counter, where I further push myself past my normal service industry person stoicism, point to the kataifi and say, 'Is this konafa?' The guy looks at me like I just spoke Hindi. 'Huh?' I repeat: 'This stuff. Is it like konafa?' He responds by fixing me with a look like I'm the world's biggest moron: 'It's the exact same thing.'

Okay, maybe his look wasn't that severe, but still. Note to Mr. Brigadoon: Don't expect the confused looking white girl to know that konafa and kataifi are the same thing. Although maybe he assumed that since I was buying konafa--an odd purchase for a consumer such as myself--that all bets were off?

Who knows. The point is I made it home, pleased as punch, pastry in tow. Oh, and I MADE THE RIGHT DECISION! I FIGURED IT OUT! FOR ONCE! I USED MY NOODLE AND THOUGHT, THIS HAS TO BE IT! INSTEAD OF LEAVING AND LEARNING LATER IT WAS IT! YEESSSS!!!!!

Never mind the fact that upon re-reading Leila's recipe she refers to it as kataifi in some places, a fact which I'd evidently missed before. Or that when I got home, I realized the pastry was going to have to thaw for an extended period of time, so it was going to have to be at least another day before I made it. We will not let either of these things overshadow the triumph of our narrative.

Making the actually Konafa bi Jibn was much easier than finding it--and I hadn't a clue what it was supposed to look like when it was done. The konafa pastry is, as Leila said, rather like spaghetti in appearance. It's nowhere near as delicate as filo, so you don't have to stress so much with it. And it basically just gets divided up into two buttery nest-like masses that you use for the top and the bottom.

Because I saw pastry and syrup and pistachio and filling in the recipe, I was busy billing Konafa bi Jibn as sort of a baklava meets cannoli type of dessert. I don't know if Ginny, Stu, Josh, and eventually Mike, who I gave some in between pranks, would necessarily agree with that description, but I'm not really sure what else to call it. Basically, it's like a ricotta pie. The weird pastry makes the crust, and then you shellac the top with the syrup and garnish with pistachios.

None of this made it sound like something I'd like. Although I do love Middle Eastern and Greek food, I do not generally love cannoli, baklava, or especially anything involving rose flavoring, which always tricks me (it smells so good, tastes so not). It turns out, however, I was pleasantly wrong; it was pretty nice. It's light, the pastry is crisp, the ricotta isn't too heavy. It isn't about to usurp cheesecake in my personal dessert hall of fame, but it was decent.

Namely the rose water wasn't too heavy, which is amazing, and that if you use a really light hand with it I don't mind it. While this recipe doesn't call for a light hand, the pie or whatever it was was overflowing with syrup after I poured only half of it on, so I had to stop. Lucky me. Josh and his parents clearly enjoyed it, as evidenced by the fact that they kept going back for more. Konafa bi Jibn. Indeed.

Konafa bi Jibn: It tastes all right. Just don't ask me to pronounce it.

Konafa bi Jibn, which is so hard to say I shouldn't add anything funny to the title
1 lb konafa pastry (aka Kataifi aka good God Damn luck finding it)
1/2 lb unsalted butter
2 lb ricotta
2 oz chopped pistachios

Syrup
1 lb sugar (which, if you are wondering, is a buttload of sugar)
1/2 pint water
squeeze of lemon juice (or a little more. you love your lemon juice.)
1 tbsp rose water
1 tbsp orange blossom water

Drive all over kingdom come looking for ingredients (see above). When you finally have them, ask someone to remind you to put the konafa into the refrigerator to defrost, because like filo, it comes frozen and needs to have about a day defrosting in the fridge before you can use it. Forget to then put it onto the counter for a final two hours of defrosting. Decide, 'God damn it, I am not stopping now,' and throw the damn stuff into the microwave for some final thawing. Bastard pastry.

Prepare the syrup by simmering the sugar water and lemon juice in a saucepan for 15 minutes until it is thick enough to coat a spoon. After 15 minutes, notice it does not appear much thicker, but at least you can taste some residue on the spoon. Good enough.

Add the flower waters towards the end and simmer for 30 seconds. Let it cool and then chill. In the fridge? In the freezer? Who knows? Put it into the fridge. When serving time comes around, you will learn you probably should have gone for the freezer as it is still warm. Readers: take note.

Melt the butter and let it cool a little before you pour it onto the pastry in a bowl. Or don't let it cool and burn your hands. Pull the pastry out (of the microwave--haha) and turn it until all the strands are well coated with butter.

Put half in a large round non-stick pan, or, in my case, a Pyrex bowl because why not? You have no idea what's going on anyhow. Spread the ricotta filling over it evenly and cover with the rest of the pastry. Flatten with the palm of your hand. Check.

Bake in a moderate 350-375 degree F oven for 45 minutes, then increase the heat to 450 degrees F for about 15 minutes until it is golden. Or discover it is mostly golden after the original 45 minutes (I used the 375 degree oven, and it shared with a pizza), so only put it in at 450 for a few and then shut off the oven and left it in to keep it warm while we ate said pizza.

Turn out on a round serving dish. Does this mean tip it over? This sounds like a very bad idea. Or does this mean just put our lovely oven-safe round baker onto a serving dish? This sounds much better. Do it this way.

Pour the cold syrup all over, discovering that you have WAY more than you need and the pastry can't suck it up fast enough. Not sure what this is all about. Decide to keep pouring anyhow, but it starts to overflow the dish and syrup the counter. Well, that will be enough then. Perhaps this is why you should put the pie plate on the serving dish? Perhaps this is why you are supposed to turn it out onto the dish? The dish has more room to accommodate the syrup? Ah, whatevs.

Chop up your cutely named 'pistachio nutmeats' (which makes me imagine a pirate parrot chanting, 'Nutmeat! Nutmeat!') procured from TJ's into what surely is way more than 2 ozs, but screw that, you get the point and can use what you want. Sprinkle with pistachios. Serve hot. So this is what Konafa bi Jibn looks like. Huh.

Leila note: This crisp vermicelli-like pastry with a cheese filling eaten hot with a fragrant syrup poured over was an important party dish in Egypt and Syria. The pastry called kataifi is sold in oriental stores or Greek stores.

Heather note: Or Persian stores. Or Iranian stores. Or Armenian stores. Or Middle Eastern stores. Or something, whatever Google can give you to a place that actually exists and isn't a thousand miles away. God be with you on your attempt to find one.

Honolulu Soy Kabobs (aka Hawaiian Chicken)

This week was my old roommate Cathy's birthday, and as a fortuitous coincidence I happened to be cooking one of her recipes. Seriously, I didn't plan this.

Cathy and I first met at freshman orientation at college, at which point we discovered we would be living on the same floor of the same dorm. We became fast friends and lived together every year afterward, both of which facts are pretty interesting given that we are very different people.

Cathy, a well-behaved chemistry student, would routinely do things like wake up out of a dead sleep to come to the kitchen and make sure I didn't burn the house down should I decide at 2 AM that what I needed to do was boil eggs (why I was boiling eggs at 2 AM is another story). I would routinely go to her room and make fun of her for doing things like being anal enough to tweeze hairs out of her dustbuster (note: adding insult literally to injury, said hairs were most likely mine after I'd borrowed aforementioned dustbuster). Peas and carrots we were.

In the frightfully many ensuing years since college, Cathy has gone on to become a doctor of chemistry (dear lord) and lives with her husband and two boys in the Twin Cities. We do not get to see each other anywhere near enough (I've never met either of the boys, although I have at least visited after a week at a Unitarian family camp in Northern Minnesota with Josh's family--naturally). However, I do enjoy periodic emails from her which describe the most recent July snowstorm or winter mud-fly infestation or whatever other horror of nature they get up there, as well as photos of her ever-blonder brood.

Amongst other things, Cathy is an avid reader of this blog, and has been very concerned that she didn't send me a recipe. So concerned that she recently sent me an article on various ways to top/finish a pie, which I must say I am pretty excited to have. But that aside, I have tried to assure her that I knew her recipes were lurking, and now the day has come.

Cathy gave me a recipe for Honolulu Soy Kabobs (aka Hawaiian Chicken), i.e., a BBQ marinade that she and her husband Dave like to use on chicken kabobs. I will admit I had my reservations about this recipe. Well, okay, maybe not reservations, per se, but I didn't Expect the Best, as they say in Singles. Here are my reasons:

1. I do not really like chicken all that much. I don't dislike it, per se, I'm more neutral-to-eh on it. Let's just say that if being vegetarian only involved not eating chicken, I would totally do it and it wouldn't be very hard.

2. I have not had amazing experiences with marinades. Not that they all taste the same or are all terrible or whatever, but in general they just don't seem to do much, don't hold the flavor, blah blah. Have I not been marinating long enough? Have I used sucky marinades? I don't know. I just know my marinade experience to date has been underwhelming.

3. Cathy's taste in food (and I suppose most things) tended to be more conservative than mine did. This is based on four years in college, which was over 10 years ago. So obviously very current information.

Still, I figured this was more of an exercise in eh than anything else.

I am pleased--nay delighted--to inform you that I was gravely mistaken. As it turns out, Cathy's Soy Kabob marinade (and ensuing Soy Kabobs) were really, really good. Color me surprised. The marinade, for some inexplicable reason actually really stayed with the chicken, so even post-BBQing they were really tasty. And the taste was great--just tangy enough. I couldn't believe it. I ate my whole thing. And then I had the rest the next morning for breakfast. Oh yeah, you heard me. I have started eating dinner food for breakfast. It makes me much happier, so stick it.

Furthermore, Cathy's Kabobs have another distinguishing factor: they were my inaugural BBQ recipe. Throughout my marriage, and even before, I have stalwartly refused to learn to use the BBQ, on the auspices that if I learned how to use it that would be one more thing I would have to do. As long as I stayed unawares, BBQing is a chore I could slough off onto Josh. I think this was a good plan.

But the Recipe Book wanted me to BBQ, so a BBQing Heather it got. Josh stood out on the porch with me and coached me through my first grilling experience. And it couldn't have been with a nicer dish.

Jealous much? Oh yeah, it kicked ass.
(Gorgeous photo provided by the always awesome Josh Huntington)

Cathy's Surprise Soy Kabobs of Deliciousness

(for 1 1/2 cup of marinade sauce)
3/4 cup soy sauce (lite works well)
3/4 cup pineapple juice (6 oz can, which it turns out you have to get in a 6 pack, so you can do this lots more times, and drink pineapple juice while you make it)
1/2 cup cooking oil (canola--yes! i finished my old bottle and finally have space to put the weird new one, which looks like a liquid laundry detergent bottle, in the drawer)
1 1/2 tsp dry mustard
1 1/2 tbsp brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp ginger (ground)
1-2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper (so fresh you ground with your mill because you are out of ground pepper)

chicken and other things for kabobs (pineapple, onions*, green pepper, tomatoes, mushrooms)

Combine all ingredients for marinade (soy through pepper) in a saucepan and simmer 5 mins, whisking occasionally. Think, hum, this looks kind of foamy and separate and greasy and weird, as there appears to be two distinct colors in the liquids, but whatevs.

Cool. Or forget to cool and wonder if, when you put the freshly very hot marinade into the plastic marinating bag with the chicken, you are going to melt the bag and cause a marinade explosion all over the kitchen/fridge. Decide to remedy this problem by putting the marinade bag in a large bowl to catch the juice should the worst occur.

Marinate 1 1/4" pieces of skinned & boneless chicken for 4-8 hours (2 will work, but more is better!). Opt for more like 3 hours because a girl's gotta eat. In retrospect, wonder of the deliciosity of an 8 hour marinade with this stuff. Yum.

When Josh gets home, have him give you instructions on how to use the BBQ, which involves picking up the grate and lighting it, which seems like you're just asking for trouble. Be thankful that the rain stopped, because otherwise this would be one soggy lesson.

Add chicken and other stuff listed above to skewers and grill (yes) or broil (cheating!). Spend way longer than you expected adorning (metal) skewers (that were a wedding present from ?? yay registry!) with onion, orange pepper, tomato, mushroom, pineapple, and chicken, making sure to sprinkle raw-chicken-infused marinade droplets all over the counter/into the pineapple tin (so much for those extra pieces)/on the dog's head. He should get a bath.

Learn that Josh says for skewer type things, you should turn the grill down to medium, put skewers on right next to each other, and then flip them after about 5 minutes. Do this. After 10 minutes (i.e., 5 per side) have Josh declare them done.

Serve with rice, or green beans and garlic bread because that is what you have so that is what you'll get.

Cathy notes: Much love on your wedding day and throughout your marriage. So happy you found each other.

Heather notes: Thanks! Me too.

*Cutting method: Squeaky Kitty, as kabob onions have to be cut in a specific shape, Mike Milch's method is DQed here. Note, I have no idea what that specific shape is.

Super Tasty BBQ Sauce

It's been raining all week here. Hardly cause for alarm, but in LA it is perfectly reasonable to think this is the end of the world/cancel your plans/call in sick to work. Partially I think this is because it is gorgeous 360 days of the year, so it actually isn't totally insane to just avoid it when it's bad. And partially it's because this city clearly isn't exactly built to withstand much rain - even moderate downpours result in massive streams running down the sides of the streets. And, you know, mudslides and all that.

Luckily, the mullet is fine. No leaks (yet). And there's enough good weather each day to get the dog emptied out and possibly walked, although I think he and the cat do have some degree of cabin fever. I think this because they both stare at me, willing me to open the door, and then they run to it with glee, only to stop when they see it is wet outside and look unbelievably depressed and look at me like, 'Can't you do something about this, lady?'

This sucks.

Mommy. Fix it.

Regardless, the weather outside finally matches the mood of the Recipe Book. My next recipe was for Super Tasty BBQ Sauce from Shauna and her then-boyfriend, Rob (versus her now-husband, Bryan). This initially gave me pause as I figured I was going to have to figure out what to put said BBQ Sauce on, but then I noticed at the bottom of the recipe Shauna recommends using it for pulled pork.

So pulled pork it was, which is fun, since pulled pork was basically a mystery to me. I am a Yankee; BBQ to me was some hamburgers or maybe chicken on the grill. The pulled pork/ribs type of stuff I only encountered much later in life, mostly when traveling. Josh, however, spent a good portion of his youth (and adulthood for that matter) going to (and at one point working at) a BBQ joint called Hickory Park--an Ames institution where you can glut yourself on things like fried cheese balls (delicious), an endless choice of ice cream sundaes, and sandwiches with names like "The Saucy Southerner."

As you can imagine, he was more than a little excited when he discovered pulled pork was on the menu. It went a little something like this:

Me: I'm making pulled pork for dinner.
Josh: PULLED PORK?!!!?!?!!?

(an hour goes by)

Josh: I want pulled pork.

(another hour goes by)

Josh: Is it pulled pork time yet?

(another hour)

Josh: Do you think I can leave work early for my PULLED PORK?!

Okay, I might be exaggerating; he didn't try to leave work early. But nonetheless, he was excited enough that by the time he got home for dinner he was basically reduced to a two word vocabulary. I'll let you guess what those words were.

This guy loves himself some pulled pork

For my part, the pulled pork demystification process was lovely. First, I got to discover how to use the slow cooker, which I have never used before and was afraid of. Josh bought one a few years ago in order to craft some chili for a workplace competition (which, I am pleased to report, he won). Periodically he hauls it out for some concoction or another (i.e., more chili), but I am content to leave it moldering in the back of a hard-to-reach cabinet.

Shauna's recipe basically says 'throw a pork roast in the pot and cook it and then add the sauce.' I figured I'd search the internet for some more instruction just to be on the safe side. For example, What temperature do I set it at? Turns out the crock pot only has Hi and Low, but still. Is all day 4 hours or 8 hours or...? Also, Do I just throw it in alone?

The sauce is another recipe like Sweet & Sour Meatballs - it seems more like you're throwing together everything in your refrigerator maybe to make something gross to feed to someone as a joke than anything else. Just, 'Hey, it's in the shelf, and it's red. Let's do it!'

Josh's first impression was that it was a little too salty, which I will attribute to the ample amount of soy sauce that goes in there. I didn't think so, though. I though it tasted tangy and tasty and good, like BBQ sauce should. Is it that much better than just using regular store-bought BBQ sauce? I don't know. I'm not exactly a BBQ sauce connoisseur; I think it's all awesome. But I'll believe it's better. And Josh is already requesting his left overs for dinner, so...

Double, double, toil and... oh, is that pulled pork? Why didn't you say so before!

Shauna's Super Tasty BBQ Sauce
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup ketchup
1/2 cup bottle taco sauce
1/2 cup bottle bbq sauce (I used Sweet Baby Ray's because, well, that's what we had)
1/2 cup light brown sugar (or regular brown sugar; I mean, I keep it in a canister, let's just be happy I have it at all)
6 tbsp lemon juice
3 garlic cloves - crushed
1 tsp garlic powder (really, after the cloves? wow. ok.)
1 tsp hot pepper sauce
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp dry mustard

Go to ghetto grocery, wondering things like, 'What the @#$ is taco sauce?' and 'Do I have enough ketchup/bbq sauce/etc. at home?' Get extra. Smart move.

Bring all ingredients to a boil in a sauce pan, whisking to blend. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Double the recipe (see below), which means you are carefully reminding yourself with every single ingredient you measure out that you must double it, all the while wondering which one you will forget to double. Answer: None. SURPRISE!

Also, 12 tbsp of lemon juice? There has to be a better measure than that. There is. It turns out it is 3/4 cup. Thank God.

Shauna note 1: We make a double batch of this recipe and use it to make pulled pork in the crock pot. All you do is buy a pork roast (about 4-8 lbs)* and put it in the crock pot and cook all day. Take out and shred and return to pot w/ sauce!

Shauna note 2: The pulled pork recipe is really incredibly easy to make and everyone loves it. It's better to let the pork cook with the sauce for another hour or two after returning shredded pork and sauce to the crock pot...

Google things like 'Pulled Pork Crock Pot Recipe,' and do a skim of the results, determining the following:

1. Indeed, you do not put the pork roast in dry. Recipes suggest a varying degree of other stuff, notably water. Put pork roast in with the crock pot filled 2/3s of the way with water.

2. Recipes suggest other things along with this, e.g., parsley, salt, etc. As Shauna's recipe doesn't suggest any seasoning for the pork itself, skip this, save for one thing: onions. Most recipes suggest an onion at the bottom and an onion at the top (chopped, natch). As you fear that is essential to the pork not burning on the bottom, chop up two onions--one for the pork's ass and one for the pork's hat--and chuck 'em in with it.**

3. It appears from the recipes you can either cook pork for 8-10 hours on low or 4-5 hours on high. This is nice as it sorts the Low/High quandary. This is not nice because between this info and re-reading Shauna's instructions, you are realizing you need to cook it for much longer than anticipated.

Decide you will do low for 8 hours, and then put the BBQ sauce and pork in the fridge overnight (separate, of course), and finish them off for the final 2 hour simmering together tomorrow night so you can eat at a normal time.

Tupperware up the sauce. Put pork in crock pot and go on with your life. At 9PM realize pork needs at least two more hours, so find crap to watch to keep you up late enough to not forget about it and give it the cooking it deserves.

Hit the kitchen around 11, planing on just putting the pork in the fridge for shredding at a decent hour (i.e., tmw) because you are not in the mood to tackle figuring out how to shred pork after a 2 hour movie on South American hermaphrodites. Dump roast, onions, and water into a giant strainer and discover to your surprise that the real magic of pulled pork isn't so much that it requires pulling; rather it quite gleefully hurls itself from the bone and falls into the perfect recognizable pulled pork type bits. So, take the next 30 seconds to finish the job for it. Thank you pork.

Go to bed. Get up. Go about next day, which is slightly slowed now that Josh knows he is having pulled pork for dinner. Throw pork and sauce into crock pot, which you are now an expert with, for the final go-round. Feed to a very happy husband.

*Four lbs. I mean, eight? Come on. This is just for Josh and me. Let's get real.

**Onion chopping method: Mike Milch's weird cutting, because you used the last of your lemons on the lemon juice part. Which is sad because that lemon juice is really the life saver of the onion chopping.

BBQed Hawaiian Chicken

So, I had written a whole entry about my mother's BBQed Hawaiian Chicken and was all set to go. I started with a lovely little bit about how we entered the final section: BBQs and blah blah blah.

Although the entry was fine, it was also missing the best story about it. You see, my mother's BBQed Hawaiian Chicken recipe is one of my favorites. It's tasty and tangy and probably coats your arteries with an inappropriate amount of goo. It also contains onions--in the form of Lipton Onion Soup Mix, but still, onions nonetheless.

The first time I learned this fact was probably when I was in college. I liked the recipe and asked for it. She started telling me how to make it. "Well, you mix in the Russian dressing and the preserves..." Then her voice got hushed and her eyes got shifty, "And you put in Lipton Onion Soup Mix."

"Yeah, okay," I said, not getting it. She looked me in the eyes. "Your father doesn't know."

"WHAT?!" I said.

"You can't tell him," she giggled desperately. "If he finds I've been feeding him onions all these years, he'll divorce me."

I quickly realized she was probably right and promised lifelong secrecy. You see, here's the thing: my father hates onions. Despises them. Not, like, in a childish way. If they, say, touch his salad, he will move them off and then still eat it. But he enjoys informing everyone within earshot that he will barf should he be forced to eat them. He also enjoys informing people that the best way to handle a snake in your house is to burn down your house, but I digress.

The point here is this: My mother's BBQed Hawaiian Chicken recipe contains onion soup mix. And my mother has been making this recipe for 40 years or something like that--and feeding it to my father. Without telling him about the onions.

When she realized I was embarking on this Recipe Book Project, at some point she said: I think that chicken recipe is in there. I quickly assured her that she shouldn't worry. I'd just skip it. She generously offered that it would be okay either way, but I promised to keep the onion secret and the onion secret I was going to keep.

Then when we found the recipe in the book--at the opening of the BBQ chapter--I told Josh I was going to skip it. He suggested I just list the onion soup mix as "secret ingredients redacted" or something like that, which it seemed was actually quite a sound idea. I took his advice, cooked the chicken wings, and wrote up my entry that way, figuring I could just offer to divulge the "secret," which is really only a secret from my father, to anyone who wanted to try them should they ask.

I emailed the 'secret ingredients' text to my mother for her approval and waited. This is the response I got:

'Thank you for not wanting to blow my cover with the chicken wing recipe. I always felt bad about serving it to Dad, but a funny thing happened on my way to reading your email...Dad needed to get into my hotmail account, we saw your email and opened it together. Dad read the first sentence and said,"What the hell is she talking about?"

So, I told him and he said he already knew that and used to scrape most of it off! I never saw him do that. In any case,the "secret ingredients" are no longer a secret, Dad and I are still married, and you can write your blog without worrying about my going to the poor house. :)
Love,
Mom
p.s...not to worry, Dad was smiling.'

Which, frankly, makes sense. I mean, it's not like those onion bits are subtle. You can totally see them. Still, hilarious.

The worst part about this is, I actually contemplated the possibility that he would for some reason or another see her email and therefore resisted the urge to refer to it even by 'onion soup mix' and was just alluding to it (until the very end, at which point I broke down and called it by it's proper name just for clarity's sake). I mean, after all it is her email; there is only so much I can do. If she is going to let other people read it, that's her prerogative.

So goes the caper of the Onion Soup Mix.

Almost worth getting divorced over

Rechelle's Not So Secret Hawaiian BBQed Chicken

1 12 oz jar apricot preserves
1 8 oz bottle Wishbone Russian salad dressing (red)
1 envelope Lipton Onion Soup Mix
1 lg package chicken wings

Go to grocery store for ingredients, where you notice that not only is your mother specifying sizes of preserves & dressing, but that she is specifying sizes that do not appear to exist. Go with the sizes you usually use/can find, which is 16 oz dressing and 18 oz preserves. NB: You would tease your mother about her usual brand-loyalty in specifying Wishbone dressing, but in this case it makes sense--most other Russian dressing is that creamy orange kind (like Thousand Island with relish). This recipe calls for the red kind (like Catalina with an extra twang), which is, you must say, Wishbone's brand.

Enjoy the hilarity of 'one lg package chicken wings' because that is just not specific at all. Since there are only small packages of 'party wings' at the ghetto grocery, get two of those, and determine party wings are delightfully petite wings. Cute.

Cover bottom of large baking pan with aluminum foil. Place two wire racks on top of aluminum foil to take up entire length of pan. Wonder what the hell your mother is talking about, as A. you have always just made this by putting the wings directly onto the pan, B. can't figure out the benefit of doing the aluminum foil/wire rack method, and C. what size racks is she talking about? One of my wire racks, which are cookie/cake cooling racks, is more than enough.

Seriously, where would the second one go?

Combine everything but the chicken in a large bowl. Rinse chicken wings thoroughly under very hot water (because my mother is certain that 'chicken comes dirty,' which I suppose it does, and only the best scalding will prevent inevitable death) and add them to the mixture, covering them completely with the mixture. Cover bowl and refrigerate at least one hour while you and Josh go for a walk with the dog to fight the fat asses this Recipe Book Project appears to have summoned.

Place chicken wings on wire rack in baking pan because this is the Recipe Book and you will do it the Recipe Book Way if you can, but really, it's fine sans rack and tinfoil. Leave room at edges so that sauce doesn't drip onto interior of oven, or ignore that because that's what oven cleaning is for. Using a spoon, cover each chicken wing with sauce. Place in pre-heated 350 degree oven. Cook for approx 1 hour or until chicken wings are browned (45 minutes), it turns out. Eat, undoing all the good you did on that walk.

Write blog, referring to onion soup mix as 'secret ingredients.' Mail said blog to your mother for approval before going live. Have mother out herself. Rewrite blog. She would not be a good spy.

Rechelle note: You can also grill these on the gas or charcoal grill if you prefer. To do this, cook chicken wings until nearly tender, turning occasionally. Brush with sauce. Cook 15 minutes more, basting occasionally. I always used the oven baking process.

Heather note: Hmm, does sound good on the grill...

No-Knead Food Processor Challah

As I said last week, Tilzer, in some sort of psychic attunement, sent me a recipe for Challah at the very second I was pointing out how many (or rather how few) recipes I had left. No-Knead Food Processor Challah, to be exact.

I have not made Challah before. In fact, I'm not sure I have made bread before. Usually I buy bread, but if you want to make bread in my house, you do it like this:

Me: "Josh!"
Josh: "Yes."
Me: "Will you make bread please?"
Josh: "Yes."

Then clink clink clunk clunk, "Heather, where is the--never mind, I found it," buzz, buzz, whir, beeep, feet happily running up the stairs, "Bread's ready!"

These are the perks of marrying a man so excited about bread making that he actually came into the relationship with his own bread maker. And also explains why we have about 300 packages of active dry yeast in the pantry. However, yesterday Josh's tenure as the sole bread-maker in the house was up. Fitting, I guess, that I cut my teeth on Challah. I mean, Josh might know how to make normal bread, but leave it to the Jewess wife to weave the ropes of the chosen people.

Being wet behind the ears, bread-making-wise, Tilzer obviously chose to send me the lowest fuss No Knead Food Processor Challah recipe, which I am sure is magnificent--if you have a food processor big enough to fit more than half a carrot. I, however, have mini-processor, so accommodations had to be made. Thankfully, this is not the first time I have had this issue, so I knew I could just sub out to the mixer. And amazingly at some point in the past few months Josh pointed out that one of the other two mystery attachments to the mixer (i.e., the non-beater ones), which have dwelt in ignominy so long at the bottom of my baking drawer that I didn't even remember they were actually mixer attachments, is the 'dough arm' or something like that. So I even pulled that baby out and used it.

Long story short, here are the things you want to know:

1. The Challah is slightly labor-intensive. This is because of all the do a little bit of work, then let it rise, then do some more work, then let it rise some more bullshit involved in making it. And possibly all non-bread maker bread? It's not so much labor-intensive, I guess, as you just have to allot a good portion of time during which you will be home. We were home all night, but I still had to stop playing Beatles Rock Band more than once to go attend to bread needs. Get it? Kneads? Hahaha. Ahem.

Do some shit to your dough. Then cover it in a damp tea towel.
Then do more shit to the dough.
Then cover it again in another wet tea towel.
Thank God I have an inappropriate amount of tea towels.

2. I am picky about bread. Not so much about type as about freshness. This is my recent realization that good, fresh bread makes all the difference in the world. Dead, preservative-filled crap that you keep in the fridge for 6 months doesn't make me want to eat a sandwich. Fresh, crusty stuff of nearly any variety, however, is lovely.

3. I like Challah. Of all types of bread, however, challah tops my own personal charts. This challah turned out pretty good. I know this because I kept nibbling pieces off it after it came out of the oven. And then had it again for breakfast and will use it for lunch. I could even taste the honey in it, and even though it was orange blossom honey it worked well. It was a little dense, but that is probably my fault and not the recipe's. Also the loaves came out a little long and thin, but that is undoubtedly because I rolled the ropes too long and thin and should better appreciate this next time so as to make stouter, plumper loaves.

Ultimately: Tilzer's Challah gets the thumbs up. I am sure this will improve with time/experience/a proper sized food processor.

Shalom Aleichem

Todd Tilzer's No-Knead Food Processor Challah for the Mixing Bowl Because Your Food Processor is Too Small

One (1/4 oz) pkg active dry yeast
1 tsp sugar
1/4 cup warm water
4 1/2 cups flour, unbleached all-purpose or bread flour
2 tsp salt (Kosher!)
3 egg yolks, plus 1 egg yolk beaten with 2 tsp water
1 cup hot water
1/3 cup honey (+ more to taste)
2 tbsp oil (canola)
sesame or poppy seeds (hell no)

1. Dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. Stir and frown because yeast is not dissolving. Set aside until bubbly. Frown more because it is not bubbling. Stare at it a lot worriedly while you measure out other things as it refuses to either dissolve or bubble. Decide it must be a dud and throw it away, thanking heaven (or Josh) for the fact that you have 3400 packages of yeast in your pantry.

Try again, this time with warmer water (It may be possible that you had measured out the water and then let it sit for too long and thus is got too cool before. Maybe. Probably.). Yeast and sugar immediately dissolve and bubble. Still fret that the bubble isn't bubbly enough. Get Josh's knowledgeable sign off: "Yes, that yeast is active." Score.

With metal blade in place add flour and salt to processor; pulse four times. Or rather, try to dump a fraction of the flour into the processor, confirm that there is no way in Hell you are going to get it all in there, and dump the whole thing into the mixer. Experience the joy of attaching the pastry arm and set it to mix at medium for what you think approximates four pulses. God knows.

Add 3 egg yolks, the hot water, (orange blossom) honey (that you had to thaw in a bowl of hot water for a while because it had solidified in the refrigerator where you'd put it last summer to hide it from the kitchen ants) and oil. Notice that the honey is still quite condensed, so lord knows how much you are actually using, but it is probably quite a bit more than what would be the 1/3+ cup were it not still kind of a paste. Pulse four times (or whatever).

Add yeast. Process until ball forms and/or Josh comes by and says, "Don't knead the shit out of it," which is unfortunate because there are still some hunks of unmixed honey peeking out. If too sticky (yes), add flour by the tbsp (or just a little and then pretend it's good enough). Process 1 minute more.

2. Place dough in greased bowl; turn to grease top, which is difficult as the ball is still a little too sticky and therefore somewhat unruly. Cover with a damp tea towel (oh tea towels) and let rise in warm place until doubled, 1-2 hours, which is hilarious because it is never noticeably that much bigger to you so what the hell? Go downstairs and eat dinner and attempt to play Beatles Rock Band drums on hard (you are amazing). *Meanwhile, lightly grease two 8x4" loaf pans (no).

3. Begrudgingly abandon your drumming. Punch down dough. Divide in half. Divide one half into three balls. Roll each ball into a rope with palms of hands, which becomes increasingly difficult as more dough sticks to your hands making them stickier. Dump some flour on the balls to tame them.

Braid 3 ropes to form challah. Repeat with second half of dough. Place loaves in prepared pans (no), or on greased cookie sheet (yes) or ungreased cookie sheet with parchment paper (no), and cover with a towel (shocker). Let rise in warm spot until doubled, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Watch season premiere of Big Love. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

4. Brush egg yolk and water onto challah and sprinkle with seeds (or not--definitely not! who does this?! sacrilege!!). Run bath water, which you then let overflow slightly and leak onto the bathroom floor. Woops. Bake 25-30 minutes, until nicely browned, which it is, and bottom of challah sounds hollow when tapped, which it doesn't, probably because it is too dense. Let cool on wire rack.

*Optional.

Tamale Pie

Matt and Elisabeth's other contribution (on the flip side of Matt's Spicy Tuna Pasta) is Elisabeth's Tamale Pie, which, as near as I can tell, is like a baked version of chili with the cornbread included. Of course it is. Why would you guys give me a recipe that isn't chili? I mean, that would be silly.

All chili jokes aside, Elisabeth's recipe is a monumental one. That is because it is the last of the official Main Dishes. There is only one more section (aside from the ubiquitous desserts) left - the Barbecue section. As I have been nearing the end of the Recipe Book, I think I have been making fewer and fewer recipes per week, perhaps in a subconscious effort to stretch it out. Or because the pressure of a zillion recipes waiting to be done wasn't there. Or because of the holidays. Anyhow.

The fact is I have been jealously combing the remaining recipes, staring at each precious little one that I have left. Which at this point totals six--no, wait, seven--Tilzer, in some sort of fit of ESP just IMed me and announced he wanted to give me a challah recipe, so I guess that one's on the slate now, too.

I'm not certain what I'm going to do when I'm done with this. Am I going to open the bidding to recipes from all readers? Am I going to give the Recipe Book treatment to another (normal) cook book? I don't know that I'm in the mood to go through another appetizers and breakfasts for dinner section again so soon. Well, I've got some time yet to work it out.

In the meantime: Tamale Pie, which as I said is basically chili pie with cornbread in. I'm not sure why it is called 'Tamale Pie' per se, as I think tamales are those things wrapped in corn husks (which, it must be said, also mystify me: why wrap your food in something you can't eat it in? All very confusing). But I don't have to name it, I just have to eat it. So.

I made the Tamale Pie last night, at the end of one of my very favorite types of days. I did a few solid hours of script writing work in the morning, so I got to spend the afternoon getting some chores sorted - namely putting a coat of primer on the ceiling in Josh's forever under-construction office. I got into this pattern for a time last winter/spring - writing (and finishing my writing) in the morning, and then getting to do some house-demo work in the afternoon. It suits me marvelously.

By 5, I was changing out of my painting clothes into my pajamas. I'm a messy painter at the best of times (as my friend Karen and I say, our painting company would be called Fast 'N Sloppy), and painting the ceiling exacerbates things, so my face, hands, and hair were thoroughly coated in little dots of white. At least I got the giant glob that dropped right on my nose ring off. That was a moment of unfair panic.

There's not much to be said about the Tamale Pie-making process. It's about medium effort - enough ingredients to feel like you're doing something, but not enough to make it a huge hassle. Which, as we know, I think is mostly anything that involves repeatedly cutting pastry.

But anyhow, some beans, some cumin and chili powder, onions, garlic and green peppers. The usual chili routine. But this time you dump it into the baking dish (which, I admit, I found amusing) and cover it with the spiced up cornbread mix and bake for a bit while you drink wine and make salad and forbid Josh from playing Little Big Planet until you can join him.

As for the pie, it tasted as it should - like chili with cornbread. Josh first proclaimed his standard, 'It's good,' but then a minute later upped the ante with, 'It's really good,' and started eating with greater verve. I will say that I found myself much more excited about the cornbread part of this, if only because I think we can safely say at this point I have had more than enough chili to last a lifetime. For it's part, the cornbread was actually pretty spectacular. I just used the usual jiffy cornbread mix, which in general I have found underwhelming on the cornbread front. But the cheese and the cilantro mixed in somehow made it much sweeter than usual, I think. So that was fun.

Anyhow, ding dong, Main Dishes are done. To BBQ and victory!

I think we can all agree that the orange silicone baking square
wasn't the most aesthetically pleasing option for this dish

Elisabeth's Tamale AKA Chili+Cornbread Pie

1 cup chopped green pepper (aka 1 green pepper)
1/2 cup chopped onion (aka 1 medium red onion)*
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp cooking oil (canola)
1 15 oz can kidney beans, rinsed, drained, slightly mashed
1 15 oz can pinto beans, rinsed, drained, slightly mashed
1 6 oz (2/3 cup) vegetable juice
1 4 oz can diced green chile peppers, undrained
1 tsp chili powder and 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 8 1/2 oz package corn muffin mix (Jiffy, if you must know)
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese (2 oz)
1/4 cup fresh cilantro

Grease a 2 qt square baking dish. Set aside. Wonder if your orange silicone baking dish is 2 qts. Well, it is the only really square one you have, so there's that.

Anally measure out chopped onion and green pepper, swiftly realizing that it was basically one green pepper and one onion. Okay, don't measure it anally--that's bad grammar usage. But measure it out because you are being anal-retentive. Or with your butt. Okay, I measured it with my butt. Surprise!

In medium skillet cook sweet pepper, onion, and garlic in hot oil until tender. Realize you are going to let this happen while you measure out the rest of the stuff, which would make Josh insane if he were in the kitchen seeing these things not being tended every second. Put out lid in case you decide to set another fire, and also because it will be one less thing Josh will ask you about when he inevitably comes in and sees said vegetables on the stove and not being watched constantly.

Suck it up and actually rinse, drain, and mash the beans this time. Which is odd. I mean, first of all, you have to drain them before you can rinse them, so you are going to have to go out of order on Elisabeth's instructions. Also, they don't so much mash up very well, especially the kidney beans. It's more like you are breaking off the outside on a couple of them. Is this what you are supposed to do? And is the potato masher really the tool for this? God only knows.

Stir in now slightly mangled kidney and pinto beans, vegetable juice, chile peppers, chili powder and cumin, heat through. Wonder who on earth likes vegetable juice, and more to the point, why did you even have any lying around in your fridge in the first place? Remember being five and informing your dad it was gross that he drank tomato/vegetable juice back then. Suspect now it was actually a Bloody Mary in disguise. That disguise being, 'I am drinking tomato juice. Go play in traffic.'

Side note: Did anyone else's father tell them to go play in traffic? And then giggle maniacally? This is clearly why I can tolerate my writing partner signing onto IM, telling me everyone in Australia hates me, and then signing off. And by tolerate I mean find extremely amusing. Thank you Dad.

Spoon bean mixture into baking dish.

Prepare corn muffin mix according to package (which, FYI, involves and egg and some milk, which it turns out we once again only have Lactaid left, and it worked very well Thank You Very Much); add cheese and cilantro, which it turns out is a very good idea Thank You Very Much. Stir until combined.

Spoon cornbread mix evenly over top of bean mixture. Or just dump it in the center and then spread it out with a spatula, desperately trying to stretch it so it reaches the corners.

Bake, uncovered, at 400 for 25 minutes or until golden brown. Serve with salsa (who else loves TJ's peach salsa? YUM.) and sour cream. Congratulate Elisabeth on being the first known person to get me to ingest vegetable juice in any permutation. And probably do it again when I have the leftovers for lunch.

*Onion vapor containment method: Mike Milch + squeakykitty, i.e., weird cutting + lemons = survival