Privateer Days Selling Cookies for the first time Parrot and Jolly Roger Cookies

I'm selling my cookies for the first time this weekend at Privateer Days in Fells Point.

I'm selling both Parrot cookies and Jolly Roger cookies at my friend the Sausage Barons' stand. Sausage Barons is selling two fantastic sausages one is a Caribbean sausage topped with pineapple rum chutney and the other is a Baltimore bratwurst topped with pickled onions. Both are amazing but the Latitude 18 Caribbean sausage is my favorite.

So come on down to Privateer Days have a sausage and a cookie and tell us a great pirate joke.

Recipe Review- Joy the Baker Tiny Strawberry Cream Scones

Yesterday, I saw on my RSS feed a delicious looking recipe for strawberry cream scones. They looked delicious ( as does just about everything Joy the Baker makes) Since I had all the ingredients in my house I decided to make then this morning. I followed her recipe with only three exceptions.

Exception 1- I had a few more strawberries left so I used 1.5 cups strawberries roughly chopped. Mmm Strawberries!

Exception 2- Since I keep vanilla sugar for my coffee ( basically stick your old scrapped vanilla beans into a sugar pour container and shake) I used vanilla sugar in these scones and on the top which was awesome.

Exception 3- These were just for me, because I was craving them, so I did not do the pretty round cutouts but instead used my bench scraper to cut and spread them apart into 20 pieces. Not nearly as cute but tasted great. I think the cookie cutter would be awesome for a brunch or even a heart cutter for valentines or a bridal shower brunch. But just for myself this worked.

My strawberry scones

Overall: 9 out of 10 forks

A very good recipe quick and easy and super tasty. I could taste a little of the basic aspect of the baking soda so I wonder if a smidge less would be good but delicious quick and easy to pull together on ingredients that were already in my house. I will be making these again and I suggest you do as well. 

Oh and if you do not already subscribe to Joy the Baker I recommend that you do so she is entertaining and comes up with delicious things frequently.

Painkiller Macarons

I've been on a macaron kick ever since I saw the basic recipe on Martha Stewart magazine. I've mainly been riffing off their basic recipe in terms of different flavors and colors. For various reasons I wanted to make Painkiller flavored macarons for a party this Friday. Painkillers are an amazing tropical drink made with orange juice, pineapple juice, coconut, rum and nutmeg.
Dry Mix
145g blanched almonds.
230g confectionery sugar
1g nutmeg
Grind these all together  in your cuisinart until very fine powder and then grind a bit more just in case. You want all the almonds fully powdered.

Egg Mix
4 egg whites
100 g sugar
1 teaspoon orange extract
1/4 teaspoon rum extract
a little orange and a bit of yellow food coloring
Whip together in your mixer until stiff peaks add food coloring until you think it is one shade darker then desired( dry mix will lighten just a bit)

Then dump the entire dry mix into the egg mix. Fold it over and over until all the dry mix is incorporated and everything looks smooth.

Put the macaron batter into a pastry bag fitted with a rather big round tip #804 or similar. Pipe quarter sized rounds on the silpat or parchment paper lined cookie sheet. ( the silver ones work better for me then the dark ones)

Smack the sheet down hard a few times against the table. This takes the bubbles out and prevents cracking later. ( all of these pictures are of the same sheet and same bunch of macaroons. )

See here how there are little divots where the air released well don't worry as they rest the divots will go away.
Let your trays rest 30 minutes

See divots are gone.
Bake in a preheated oven at 350 for 11-13 minutes. ( want the tops dry)

Let cool and then fill with filling.


Filling
1/4 cup cream of coconut
3 tablespoons coconut oil
1/4 cup pineapple juice
1/4 cup rum
1 teaspoon nutmeg
3 cups confectioner sugar
a little orange food color

Whip all ingredients together in mixer until smooth and fluffy and fully incorporated. Put into a pastry bad fitted with a medium tip and pipe between two of the shell cookies to create one sandwich cookie macaroons of awesomeness.

Bring to a boat party or any other party that would appreciate it( or just eat for dessert)
To store keep sealed airtight container in fridge. Macaroons actually are best a day or so after baking.

Go forth and make cookies!!!

Irish coffee macaroons

I have been on a macaroons kick lately and made irish coffee macaroons today.

Crab and Old Bay Cookies

So a good friend of mine was born here in Maryland and recently moved to Florida. She has been a bit home sick. So I made her some Christmas Cookies with a bit of a Maryland theme. Crab and Old Bay. To those of you who are not from Maryland Old Bay is sort of the unofficial state seasoning it is a delicious blend of spices that goes perfect on crabs or shrimp or sweet potato fries. People around here put it on everything from crabs to chips to cheese.

Old Bay canister and cookie

The Old Bay Cookie is made with a square cookie cutter the Joy of Cooking's rich roll cookie dough and royal icing made the way that Sweetopia instructs. Everything is piped except the seasonings part is written using something called food writers. Food writers are basically markers of food coloring that you can use on well dried royal icing

Old Bay Cookie, canister and Crab cookie

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Old Bay Crab cookie and Old Bay Canister

Crab is made with the same recipe for roll cookies and royal icing but the add of red disco dust and red edible glitter added while the red was wet. 

Sock Monkey Saturday with Sock Monkey and Tree cookies

This Saturday I went with friends to an annual tradition in my group of friends Sock Monkey Saturday at the American Visionary Arts Museum. Every year it is a blast kookie and charming all in one.
Since it is a four hour event I am always getting the munchies. This year for my friends and I I made some sock monkey cookies and a few trees.

Here they are with my sock kitten. 

And all of our sock critters all together. 

Next year I will have to get a real sock monkey cookie cutter MONKEY FACE cookie cutter

Rice Pudding using leftover rice from Chinese takeout

So last week was Thanksgiving and I was visiting at my sisters house for a few days. In the house were 12 people including 5 kids under six. I was doing a lot of the cooking for all 12 of us including a good portion of the Thanksgiving feast.  Because I was not at my house for a few days I had eaten down the fresh produce in my house and thus when I got home ordered in some Chinese food instead of cooking the first night back. Lazy, tasty, easy, and containing lots of vegetables and no turkey and requiring no more effort then a phone call. However, when it comes to Chinese food I love fried rice and thus almost always have a thing of that plain white rice they give you to go with the Hunan Beef leftover. What to do with the leftover rice when all the hunan beef is gone? Something festive to go with decorating the house for Christmas perhaps.  Yup Rice pudding. It is creamy cinnamon and nutmeg deliciousness.

Recipe ( this is the ratio per cup of leftover rice but it scales up and down with ease just measure your rice and adjust accordingly)

1 cup leftover takeout rice
1 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon(plus more for dusting top)
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg ( please use fresh ground will taste so much better also plan on some more for dusting top )
Optional 1/4 cup raisins or craisins

Directions
1. Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan ( or if scaling bigger use bigger saucepan of course but you as my reader are aware of that) break up the leftiover rice block with a fork
2. Bring to a simmer and cook about 15-20 minutes until most of liquid is absorbed and pudding is thickened
3. Decant into your planned serving bowls or ramikins.
4. Dust with ground cinnamon and nutmeg
5. Chill at least 2 hours or up to several days.

Thanksgiving Cookies: Turkeys and Mayflowers

     A friend of mine from sailing loved loved loved the J22 cookies I made for the Thursday  sailboat racing end of season party. She had not known how to do cutout cookies and decorate them but wanted to learn. So she came over my place on Sunday afternoon and we had some awesome pumpkin chilli she made, made dough, cut out cookies, made icing, and iced the cookies. With thanksgiving coming up we decided to make turkeys and mayflowers. 

     Despite both of us being sailors ( she is one of the best sailors I know) I think the turkeys looked better then the mayflowers. I found out that trying to draw in icing the yardarms of a square rigged sailing vessel is difficult. I'm still not sure we did the best way of icing those square rigged sails however I think they will pass as mayflowers.

     Upon looking at the Mayflower again, I think one of the mistakes was doing too many square sails and that it would have looked better with fewer yardarms. Oh well next thanksgiving. 

As usual for my cutout cookies I follow the recipe from the old Joy of Cooking

and the royal icing recipe halved from Sweetopia.

     It was  a lot of fun to hang out doing this with a friend who I really do not hang out with all that often outside of sailing. You know when you get friends where you really only see them at a certain activity how it can be great and nice to see them outside of that context. So better then cookies was just a really nice afternoon evening of hanging out. 

Cheddar Butternut Squash Ravioli in a Sage Pasta

So two nights ago I had roasted a butternut squash and eaten a bunch with my dinner. I was left with about 2 cups of roasted butternut squash leftovers and was inspired to make this fantastic pasta to use up the left overs create a yummy dinner for myself and  some to freeze back for quick healthy meals for the next month or so of hectic holiday stuff.
This is also the time of year that I am cutting back my sage so that it does well over the winter. So I went outside to gather the sage and use it to make the pasta even more special.

Ingredients
Regular Pasta 
4 eggs
200g semolina flour
200g all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

Sage pasta 
1/5th the regular pasta dough
2 cups sage leaves
2 tablespoons olive oil
50g semolina flour

Cheddar Butternut Squash Filling 
2 cups leftover roasted butternut squash ( if starting from uncooked squash about 1/2 a large butternut squash roast till soft in 400 degree oven and then mash )
4 oz shredded cheddar cheese
1 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt

How to make regular pasta
1. Weigh out semolina and all purpose flour for regular pasta.Then mix together in a bowl.
2. In food processor with dough blades put the four eggs and pulse just 2 or 3 pulses just enough to mix the yolks and eggs.
3. In three or four batches add in flour and then mix to combine.
4. Add in salt. Process until dough has incorporated all the flour and is a ball rolling on side.
5. Put in ziploc bag and allow to rest.

How to make sage pasta
1. Boil the sage leaves for 5 minutes  to soften.
2. Drain and add to food processor with chopping blade.
3. Add olive oil and process until very fine chopped will almost look like pesto about 1 min
4. Add in 1/5th the regular pasta and process  30 seconds pulsing to mix
5. Add in extra flour and process again until fully incorporated and dough is ball rolling along sides of processor
6. Put in ziploc bag to rest

How to make Cheddar Butternut Squash filling
1. In food processor mix together all ingredients
2. Pulse repeatedly to combine

Putting it all together.
1. Using your pasta rolling attachment roll out your pasta on the #1 setting and then fold in thirds and reroll five or six times until the pastry is smooth.
2. Repeat with the sage pasta

3. Cut strips of sage pasta and place on regular pasta in a nice pattern push down lightly

4. Run through the #1 setting again twice
5. Run through the #2 setting twice
6. Run through the #3 setting twice and the #4 setting twice.
7. Put on ravioli mold pretty side down add a teaspoon of filling and then brush water in between the raviolis and place the top layer of pastry on (pretty side up)
8. Remove from ravioli from mold and cut using pastry cutter.

9. Boil 7 minutes or freeze in single layer and then ziploc and keep in freezer for up to 3 months.
10. Enjoy!!

Sea Salt Caramel Sauce

Fall has hit and this means apples are at their peak. Nothing is better on cut up apples then sea salt caramel sauce. Not to mention it is tasty on coffee, ice cream, and anything that needs a bit of fall awesomeness even just a spoon.

You need

1 large (3 or 4 quart) saucepan

1 small saucepan

2 wooden or silicone spoons ( not metal)

Measuring cups

Ingredients

For butter mix

1/2 stick butter

1 1/2 cup half and half or heavy cream

1 tablespoon sea salt

For sugar mix

1 1/2 cups white sugar 

1/4 cup light corn syrup

1/4 cup water

How to:

1.Put all the butter mix ingredients into small saucepan and heat on medium until butter is fully melted. Make sure to stir frequently as you do not want the half and half to burn. Once butter is melted remove from heat. 

2. Place the sugar and corn syrup into the large saucepan and then put in the warm water using some of the warm water to make sure any sugar or syrup that you got on the sides of your pan is washed down. Gently mix things together until makes a paste making sure once again to not get sugar up on sides. Put on stove on medium.

3.Wait at least 5 more likely 10 min occasionally looking at the pan. 

4. When the sugar mix begins to turn color start paying close attention when it is light brown (about the color of a lager like Sam Adams but no where near a Guinness in color nor as light as a Miller light)turn off the heat and pour in the butter mix slowly and while stirring( use a wooden spoon or a silicone spoon) It will bubble up and look impressive. Keep stiring it will seem solid for a minute and then turn liquid again keep stiring. 

5. Place back on medium heat. Stirring frequently for one to two minutes. The caramel will start to thicken and you can see this thickening as you stir. Everything will seem smooth and thick enough to coat the spoon or spatula

6. Remove from heat and once no longer bubbling pour into clean ball jars. Place lids on and bands. Allow to cool on counter and then move into fridge. This recipe makes about 20oz. In theory the sugar levels should keep safe at room temp for a few months but I tend to keep in fridge just to be safe. 

Hot Salt

Hot Salt is something I make every fall when the hot pepper plants are producing millions of hot peppers. It can actually be made with both green and red hot peppers but I always use green as the result looks electric. 
Ingredients
Salt about 1/4 cup
Hot peppers 3-4 depending on spice and size

How to
Mince the hot peppers.  Put into mortar and add salt. Grind with pestle until salt is colored and you can no longer see large pieces of peppers.   Let sit out in mortar occasionally grinding with pestle for hour or two so any excess moisture can evaporate.  Put into ziploc or salt shaker.

How to use
Sprinkle on fresh garden tomatoes
Sprinkle on black bean quesadilla
It is nice on eggs

Rim a bloody mary glass
Really anywhere you need salt and heat.

Creamy Butternut Squash and Carmelized Onion Soup

Last weekend I made this soup for some friends as an appetizer and it overshadowed the rest of my dinner party. Everyone was asking for seconds and thirds so much so that I did not have any left to take pictures. Instead, I had to make some more today(Such an easy soup that this is not a hard task)
Ingredients
1 medium butternut squash
3 large or 5 medium onions
4 cups stock( chicken or vegetable )
salt
1 cup greek yogurt
Pam
Parmesan rind

1. Cover a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and them pam the aluminum foil
2. Cut the top and bottom off a butternut squash and then cut in half and remove the seeds with a spoon.

3. Cut onions into 1/8th pieces.
4. Put the squash cut side down on cookie sheet and onions in middle.

5. Bake in over at 350 degree for about 90 minutes until the squash is soft occasionally mixing around the onions with tongs ( about every 30 min)

6. Once squash is soft all over remove the sheet from the oven and allow to cool.
7. Once cool add onions to soup pot and then remove flesh of squash from skin and add squash to soup pot.
8. Add 4-5 cups of stock and add in 1 inch piece of Parmesan rind
9. Blend with immersion blender until smooth and add salt to taste
10. Heat back up over medium
11. Once hot blend again with immersion blender while adding 1 cup of plain greek yogurt.
12. Serve to friends, have friends ask for recipe

Concord Grape Jelly

A few years ago my gate to my fence going from the driveway to the backyard broke. Replacing the whole fence was out fiscally and doing just the gate was going to look odd and not match I decided to put in an arbor and planted Concord grapes and Niagara grapes. Well the Concord grapes are ripe and purple.
I had 1.8 lbs of grapes.
Ingredients
1.8lbs concord grapes
1.8 cups sugar
juice of 1/2 lemon

Prep
Cover Jars with 2 inches of water and boil 10 minutes to sterilize.
Put a plate or two in freezer to test jam later


Recipe
1. Remove the skins for the grapes .
2. combine the skins and 1 cup sugar together in a blender or food processor till skins pureed
3. Over medium heat combine grape insides, remaining 0.8 cup sugar, juice of 1/2 lemon, and skin sugar mix. Simmer until grapes are broken down about 15 minutes
4.Strain through a fine mesh sieve or food mill
5. Return jam to pan to simmer 15 minutes
6.Start testing by putting a dollop on the cold plate and then see if it runs.When not running jam is done may take up to anther 25 minutes of simmering
7. Pour Jam into jars and place lids on  finger tip tight
8. Place under water and boil 10 minutes remove from water and allow to cool

Painkiller Sorbet- Pineapple orange coconut rum sorbet

As many if not all of you know Painkillers are a delicious rum drink made up of Rum( often and classically  Pussers but I occasionally use Mt Gay) OJ, Pineapple, coconut milk and topped with a dusting of fresh ground nutmeg. In other words the most delicious things in a glass possible.
Now a good friend of mine challenged me to make it into a delicious sorbet or ice cream, Adding milk was problematic so we need to talk sorbet which is based on fruit juice.

Ingredients
3/4 cup Pineapple juice
1 1/4 cup Orange juice
1/2 cup simple syrup ( dissolve two cups sugar in one cup water over low heat and then store)
2 tablespoons molasses
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon fresh ground nutmeg
2 oz rum (pussers or mt gay)

Combine everything except the rum and pour into ice cream machine. I use this one. Depending on machine stir for 20-40 minutes. Half way through add the rum. Stir until mostly iced up and transfer to plastic ice cream container. Allow to continue to harden until fully set another 2-4 hours. Serve. As a delicious serving suggestion try a shot of rum over the whole thing.

Sugar sheets and making a Mr Yuk cake

So a friend of mine asked me to make her a Mr Yuk cake. Yes a cake that looked like the symbol of poison that you remember from the 80's. Odd I know.

Now as most bakers know getting true dark black is a challenge and getting really crisp lines in frosting is also a challenge. So I made a basic chocolate chocolate chip cake and added a dirty icing layer nutella using the nutella in place of icing. Then I used lime green fondant to cover the whole cake round. Then here is the new part to me at least . I used Wilton Sugar sheets in black and simply cut the pieces I wanted out using scissors . You can cut whatever pieces you want and they you peel off the backing. Now they say it sticks great to buttercream but was a smidgen too dry to stick to fondant so I used a small kitchen paintbrush and brushed on corn syrup to back of pieces and then placed them with my kitchen tweezers where I wanted them to be. The result was pretty darn great. Now my picture quality was awful but still.

Overall much sharper black lines then I would have gotten otherwise and the friend I made the cake for was over the moon. Additionally this used up less then a third of a sugar sheet so I still have a ton for some future project.

Lobster on a Race boat and why memorable meals are not always the fancy ones

Sorry for my blog absence, but I have been off racing the Annapolis to Newport Race and then hanging out in Newport. However , I did have what I am certain will go down in my personal great meals of all time while in Newport. It was not the hardest preparation but the environment that made it great.

While at the dock in Newport we decided to have a lobster boil on the boat. Corn on the cob, lobsters, butter, wine or beer. One pier over was where the lobstermen sold their lobsters.

So we got 1 1/4 lb lobsters for everyone who was staying on the boat at the dock and I boiled them along with corn and melted some butter. Served alongside cold beer and wine and sunset on a fast raceboat it was the perfect dinner.

Now I should stop showing you pictures of the live lobsters posed all over the boat and instead tell you how to make this happen for yourself. Ok first you sail from Annapolis to Newport in the tropical depression Andrea. Humm you say that is a little to hard. Ok then how easy are these instructions

Boiled lobster dinner

Ingredients

1 lobster per person 

1-2 ears of corn per person 

butter 

1. Obtain live lobsters you want them about 1 1/4 lbs per person. 

2. In largest pot bring water to a rolling boil

3. Put lobsters in head first one at a time prepared to put the lid on top of them so they do not snap out and boil for 18 minutes. 

4. During this 18 minutes at some point stick the husked corn on cob into the boiling water for 5-8 minutes

5. In separate pot melt the butter.

6. Using tongs remove the corn and then the lobsters from the water allowing as much as possible water to drain off. 

7. Serve with melted butter. 

8.Ideally with lobster tools but should you be on a boat not stocked with such items you may find your sailors eating it with the help on a good clean multitool 

Strawberries

Sorry for the delay in posting I have been visiting my folks down NC and some family things. I will be back posting again. In the mean time I harvested my first strawberries of the season this morning. Just a few and simply rinsed and eaten.

Mustache Cookies with Nutella Frosting

So tonight I am helping organize the first monthly social of the year at one of the sailing clubs I am involved with. We are having a Cinco de Mayo theme and one of the other guys on the social committee made a joke about getting those hipster mustaches on sticks.  So this led to my thinking of cookies because cookies are always better then cardboard. I had a mustache cookie cutter from honestly I have no idea where. But you can get one here. I used the rich roll cookie dough from Joy of Cooking. This is my go to recipe for cut out cookies I follow it exactly except triple the vanilla. Roll the cookies out thick and then put on parchment lined cookie sheet and stick a lollipop stick in the middle. Make sure stick is not exposed. Bake as normal 350 degree 10-12 min till barely gold on edges and dry in center.
Now comes the awesome part. Normally I decorate cookies with a royal icing but honestly royal icing does not taste the best and I wanted brown and black so I could start with a darker colored icing and much more tasty. Enter Nutella cookie icing !!!!

Nutella Cookie icing recipe
1 cup nutella
1 cup powdered sugar
2 oz frangellico

How to
In your stand mixer mix together the nutella and powdered sugar. Scrape down the bowl a few times so everything mixed in. Should now look like this.

Then add in 2oz of frangelico (a tasty hazelnut liquor) while blending. Keep blending and scrapping down the sides until smooth. It will be a bit thicker then normally used for royal icing decorating but you want that in this case since you want the frosting to look like facial hair. Put in a piping bag with a grass tip. Pipe on mustaches.  I found piping in symmetry hard so they are not fantastic but still look really cute.

Then when piped about half  your cookies put frosting back in bowl and add black food coloring and mi. It takes much more black food coloring then you may expect.
Frost more cookies now with black. Let all the cookies dry flat to harden the icing.

Someone a bit more artistic could probably done a better job with the piping. But the frosting tastes so so good and is a tasty change from royal icing.
Bring to sailor party.