Category: Cooking

Mayo-free Deviled Eggs

Mix into the egg yolks:

  • 2 tsp tahini
  • 1 tsp dijon mustard
  • 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
  • 1 tsp olive oil
  • 1 tsp maple syrup (skip this next time)
  • 1/4 tsp chili garlic sauce
  • 1/4 tsp smoked paprika
  • 1/4 tsp salt

Sprinkle with a little salt and smoked paprika to serve.

17 April 2021: I made these again without the maple syrup — Anya was bummed not to get sugared up at lunch, and they were really salty this time. I used a different mustard! Next time, I’ll make them un-salted and add the salt “to taste” at the end (or, more likely add the salt to Scott’s taste since I am quickly overwhelmed by salt).

55 Days of Grilling: April 7 – Naan and Hummus

Today, I made naan on the grill.

The bread recipe is:

  • 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
  • 1/2 cup warm water
  • 2 tsp sugar
  • 2 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 c Greek yogurt
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 T oil

The yeast and sugar were placed in the warm water and allowed to sit for ten minutes. All ingredients were combined and kneaded until a soft dough formed. The bowl was covered with a wet cloth and allowed to rise for four hours. Once the dough was ready, I placed a cast iron pan into the grill and set the grill to 600F.

The dough ball was split into four pieces and rolled out into rounds about 1/3″ thick. The rounds were sprinkled with salt and rubbed with additional oil (to keep them from sticking to the pan).

Once the grill and cast iron pan reached 600F, two naan were placed on the pan.

They cooked for 2 minutes on each side. They didn’t bubble and blister like naan is meant to — I think that’s a combination of thickly rolled dough and a temp way under the 900 or so recipes usually specify.

But they were quite tasty! I buttered each one when it came out of the grill, so we had soft, salty naan with our hummus.

Stuffed Crust Pizza Redux

I tried making another stuffed crust pizza. I rolled the crust out into a rectangle a few inches larger than the pan. We had picked up a block of mozzarella that’s not the soft, watery fresh mozzarella. We cut it into rectangular prism and lined the inside of the pan rim with cheese. This worked a lot better than shredded cheese. I then folded the excess crust over the cheese and pressed the edge together to seal it up.

Topped with tomato sauce, cheese, and way too much pepperoni. Baked at 550F for about 14 minutes

The crust was cheesy, but it was still too much bread. I’m thinking the crust would be rolled out to the pan size and then cut laterally with a bread lame. Then the crust wouldn’t be doubly thick.

But I’ve also thought it would make sense to add sauce to the cheese inside the crust. But … that’s kind of silly. It’s a pizza roll surrounding a pizza. A lot of effort without any real benefit. Pizza is cheesy and doughy already. I think that’s the end of the stuffed crust experiment. But, if we do it one more time, I’m trying the lame.

Maple Cinnamon Rolls

I made an enriched bread (4c flour, 3/4c milk, 1/4c maple syrup, 1T yeast, 1 double-yolk egg, 1/4c butter, and 1t salt). Let it rise overnight, then rolled it out into a sheet about 1/4″ thick.

Then spread about 1/3c of softened butter across the entire thing.

Sprinkled 1T of cinnamon over it.

Then sprinkled 2/3c of maple sugar over it.

Then rolled it to form a log.

I pressed the seam to seal the log.

Then sliced rounds from the roll.

Each round is placed into an orange shell. They’re going to rise in the fridge overnight, and tomorrow we’ll cook them on the grill. 400F for about 15 minutes.

Maple Sugar

I made maple sugar for cinnamon rolls — pour a bunch of maple syrup (a pint, in this case) into a pot. Preferably a pot with high walls so the whole thing doesn’t bubble over in a hot, sticky mess. Over medium heat, boil for 15-20 minutes. It’ll foam up a lot, and all of a sudden it will crystalize on top. Pull it off the heat and stir to break up the hardened maple.

55 Days of Grilling: March 28

Tonight, Scott grilled up some burgers. I didn’t mix cheddar cheese into the burgers this time, but they still ended up mushy. Not oily and mushy, but still not what I expect a burger to feel like. One thing I’ve read is that you shouldn’t add salt until the burgers are on the grill. Also seems that freezing the ground beef can produce mushy burgers. In both cases, the problem is water being drawn out of the meat. We’ll have to try with not-frozen beef to see if that makes a difference.

Pineapple Upside-down Cake

This is my mom’s mom’s pineapple upside-down cake recipe — translated from her normal unmeasured recipe and complete with what I’ve always assumed has been a smudge on the paper because cooking at 360 is really odd. It works fine at 350, although I’m sure 360 would work too.

  • 2 cups flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 can of pineapple rings
  • 2 additional tablespoons of butter
  • 1 generous cup of brown sugar (and by generous I mean go nuts)

 

Preheat oven to 360 degrees f. Drain pineapple.   Measure 2 cups of pre-sifted flour; sift again with baking powder. Cream butter; gradually add sugar and cream well. Separate eggs. Beat the yolks and blend into the creamed butter mixture. Add the flour and milk alternately into the creamed mixture. Beat the egg whites until soft peaks  form. Fold the egg whites and the vanilla into the batter. Melt the remaining butter in cast iron pan; spread the brown sugar over the molten butter. Lay in pineapple rings, and pour the batter over the fruit.   Bake for about 45 minutes.

Turn upside-down onto a serving dish before the sugar hardens and scrape out the pan.

 

55 Days of Grilling: March 27 — Apple Upside-down (Pan)Cake

We made apple upside-down pancake for breakfast using the buttermilk pancake mix I’d put together a few weeks ago:

2c flour
1t baking powder
1t baking soda
1/2t salt
2c buttermilk
1/4c maple syrup
1 egg
2T oil
1T vanilla

Anya sliced two apples into fairly thick rings. Scott melted about a tablespoon of butter in the bottom of a cast iron skillet. He added the apples, sprinkled cinnamon on both sides of the apples, browned them up in the butter, then added about a third of a cup of maple syrup (we want to add a lot more syrup next time — my mom’s mom’s pineapple upside down cake has a cup of sugar in the pan … so there’s a lot of increasing that could be done here).

He poured the pancake batter on top of the apples. Closed the lid of the grill and cooked it for about 15 minutes — until the edges solidified — around 450F. Thin slices of butter were added between the edge of the cake and the skillet, and the cake was cooked for another 5 minutes.

We then buttered a half-sheet tray and flipped the cake onto the tray. The cake was cooked for about five more minutes on the half-sheet. The cake was cooked well; but, to ensure both sides have a chance to caramelize, we might want to flip at fifteen minutes and cook for ten minutes on the other side.

Served with a drizzle of maple syrup — it was delicious.

This could easily be a dessert — especially with bit of ice cream (we’ve got a maple walnut ice cream that sounded superb). Needs more apple next time! Maybe apples cut in half so there’s substantial section of apple embedded in the cake.

55 Days of Grilling: March 26

Tonight, we’re grilling some pork ribs. I’ve got them in the pressure cooker right now, and we’ll coat them with sauce and crisp them up this evening. The ribs still had silverskin on, so I removed that. Then I mixed up a rub: 1/4 c maple syrup, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper, 1 tsp garlic powder, 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes, and 1/2 tsp smoked paprika.

The ribs were coated in this spice mix. I added a cup of water and 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar to the pressure cooker. The ribs were curled into the pot and pressure cooked on high pressure for 25 minutes.

Served with garlic corn and mashed potatoes. Next time, we’re going to try cooking the ribs on the grill the entire time — basted occasionally with sauce. Pressure cooking first means the ribs are well cooked before we even started grilling them. And “fall off the bone” isn’t a good state if you’re trying to place it on the grill!