recipe

millionaire's chex bars

in ,

i sincerely hope you are looking at my breakfast. i can't find a single chex bar in this house, but i am out of oats and pretty sure i've clogged my aorta with chunky peanut butter, and the thought of these bars are all i have left. molly's been gone, what, five days, and things are dire here. ba(t)ching has become less about kicking back with a cucumber, and more about shaking out the almond jar to see if one got caught in a seam. i've seen barney lose his bullet 50 times since sunday and if i have to eat popcorn again for supper tonight, i just, holy smoke, the deep freeze!!!

pistachio bakewell pop-tarts

in ,

every day, i wake up, boil water for my oatmeal, grab the oats jar from the shelf, pour the oats in the water, and find myself well with the world. but last week molly decided that she needed to buy the massive, only-buy-if-you-own-a-bakery container of sprinkles, and then didn't have anywhere to put them except inside of my oats jar. so, i reached for my oats the next morning and came frighteningly close to melting $50 worth of naturally dyed sugar pellets. this is all coming back to me as i look at those sprinkles on today's pop-tarts. 

i used to love pop-tarts. during every track meet in high school, i would eat a brown sugar cinnamon frosted two-pack to get jacked up for the triple jump. i moved on to other things, though, cuz nobody's ever wanted to be pop-tart boy.

...until these guys popped out of the oven. take it from someone who has only eaten oats and peanut butter for the past 36 hours: these are the real deal. you know when you try to reinvent a favorite childhood food, but with better ingredients and an advanced culinary insight? you think you want somebody to say "holy cow, these are better than dunkaroos!" but what you are actually, secretly, deeply hoping, is that somebody will say "these taste JUST LIKE DUNKAROOS!" and because nothing can compete with childhood nostalgia, if you can bake something that "tastes JUST LIKE DUNKAROOS" today, well, my friend, you have made it.

ba(t)ching update: i was watching the episode where aunt bee leaves andy and opie alone for a few days, and i wished i could relate to their father-son antics, but unfortunately i don't have a mini ron howard around to yell "pa! the chicken's burning!"

-eggboy

pistachio bakewell pop-tarts

makes 8-10

ingredients

1 stick butter, softened

1/4 c sugar

1/4 c pistachio paste

2 large eggs

1 tsp lemon juice

1/4 tsp almond extract

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 c flour

1 lb pie dough

1/4 c jam

1 1/2 c powdered

about 2 tb milk

crushed toasted pistachios and sprinkles

clues

preheat oven to 400. line a baking sheet with parchment and set it aside.

in a large bowl or bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the butter, sugar, and pistachio paste. add 1 egg (reserving the other for an egg wash), followed by the lemon juice and extracts.

mix in the salt and flour until just combined.

cut out 8 2-inch by 3-inch squares of pie dough and place them on your baking sheet. spread each with about a teaspoon of jam and top with a healthy blob of pistachio batter. you could also spoon the batter into a piping bag and pipe it on. 

from the remaining pie dough, cut out rectangles that are about 1/4-inch longer on all sides, so that they fit over the filling.

whip up the remaining egg with a splash of water and brush the edges of the tarts. place a layer of pie dough over the top and crimp the edges with a fork. seal the edges well!

poke the tops with a fork a few times and bake for 10-15 minutes, until slightly browned.

let cool.

whisk together the powdered sugar and milk, adding more or less milk to achieve your desired consistency. spread this on the tarts and top with crushed nuts and sprinkles.

enjoy!

eggs benedict cumberbatch

in ,

when arya sailed away and the hound lay bleeding on the rocks, we sat on granny's green plushy couch with an empty bowl of popcorn wondering what to do next. i googled "best shows on netflix." (where's andy griffith??!! credibility is dead!!!) sherlock had slipped past our notice all the way to #2 on the list, but it only took a few days before i started lowering the pitch of my voice and trying to wear coats well. molly and i couldn't stop talking about sherlock and watson, but eventually it was just molly going on about how wonderful benedict cumberbatch is and she started creating recipes to honor his wonderfulness. the whole thing's a sham, though, cuz where's the hollandaise sauce? and how dare he intrude on eggs?! i am the original eggboy.

does anybody else think that batching it should be spelled baching it? that's what i'm doing this week and molly didn't turn her computer off.

-eggboy

eggs benedict cumberbatch

from bottom to top:

a slice of pre-cooked polenta, fried in a bit of butter, salted

two slices of canadian bacon, lightly browned

one egg, fried in a greased heat-safe biscuit cutter, salted and peppered

three leaves of fresh arugula

a few shavings of parmesan

optional tabasco 

 

 

fettuccine carbonara with green beans

in

our yard is bursting with glee at the moment: there are adolescent popcorn stalks, herbs that are putting up a good fight, enough squash blossoms to feed your extended family, endless leaves of lettuce, chode-ish cucumbers, kale, almost-red tomatoes, and a crap ton of the prettiest wildflowers i ever did see.

can i tell you something though?

i have never been more afraid of vegetables.

in the past month, i've eaten more bread and cheese and less vegetables than i'm really at liberty to say without cringing and patting my belly. i've just been such a sissy about the bugs and the whole washing/salad-spinning process, and of course i refuse to buy any salad greens at the grocery store because there are so many in our garden. 

oy veyzmir!

i think i know why they invented triple washed spring mix.

(it's ok. baby steps..?)

so, my salad intake has been at an all time low, but i've had spurts of courage that help me go out and pick some things that are easy to inspect for bugs. you know, vegetables that don't hide secrets: green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers... and i thought that onions were fine, but then a small friend crawled out of one earlier this week and i did a little nervous dance for all of my imaginary friends to see before placing it down the drain, followed by a drizzle of bacon fat.

i feel guilty now...

this pasta showcases our green beans, which have been very good to us. it's a variation on a simple carbonara that i've made tons and tons of times and grown extremely partial to. i typically refrain from ordering carbonara at restaurants because i've had one too many versions with lots of heavy creamy that make me feel like a roly poly after just a few bites. in its bare bones form, my favorite carbonara is bacon (or other salty meat), a heavy dose of pepper, some parmesan, and a beaten egg, cooked by the heat of fresh pasta. ad lib onions and other vegetables.

i like carbonara like i like my men: eggie, comforting, and difficult to get sick of.

fettuccine carbonara with green beans

makes about 4 servings

ingredients

salt

4 strips thick cut bacon

1 medium onion, chopped

1 heaping cup of chopped green beans (or peas)

8-9 ounces fettuccine*

2 large eggs

black pepper

parmesan, to taste

 

*to make this gluten free (for a certain mr. eggboy), i've been using and loving cappello's almond flour pasta

clues

set a large pot of salted water on the stove so that it can come to a boil while you cook the bacon.

in a large skillet, crisp up your bacon. transfer it to a cutting board, let it cool slightly, and chop it into 1/2-inch pieces. set it aside. meanwhile, drain off all but about 2 tablespoons of the bacon fat from the pan and then set it back on the stove, over medium heat. cook the onion in the fat until it's soft, about 5 minutes. (if your water is boiling by now, it's probably best to add the pasta at this point.) add the beans and a pinch of salt to the pan with the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 3 minutes, or until desired doneness.

crack your eggs into a small bowl or measuring cup and beat them up with a healthy dose of black pepper. i use around 15 turns of the grinder. keep this mixture standing by.

turn the heat under your onion/green bean skillet down to low. (if the pasta still needs to cook more, you can let the onions and green beans hang out, stirring occasionally.) when the pasta is ready, use tongs to transfer it directly into the skillet. it's ok (good, in fact) if some of the pasta water sneaks in there.

fold together the pasta, onion/green beans, bacon, eggs, and parmesan. add pasta water as desired. adjust seasonings.

enjoy!!!!

-yeh!