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This month’s recipe had a lot going for it. After all it’s hard to go wrong with a chili cooked with beer ! What could go wrong ?

It wasn’t too hard to do, I started by cooking onions and bacon with some beef. Then I added all the ingredients and put it in the oven to cook. One of the best parts of a recipe like this is that it takes a while to cook. This gives you a chance to relax, clean-up and look forward to the meal. Here is the chili at the halfway point.  

After about an hour I added in the squash, and then waited another hour. The end result was great… the chili was a little on the spicy side but not overbearing. The beef brisket was great – it shows what a difference high quality meat makes.

My only complaints were it was a little too runny – I probably should have cooked this for longer, or drained the canned chiles/tomatoes before adding. The squash also didn’t seem to add a lot for the chili either ( perhaps because it’s still relatively early in the fall). If I was going to make it again – I’d probably cook for longer, and skip the squash. Still worth a try !

One of my ambitions this year was to make homemade pasta ( I’d asked for a pasta making attachment for my kitchen-aid for Christmas). This sunday I finally got around to it !

I chose to make Jamie Oliver’s ( the Naked Chef’s) ‘Lemon and Mint Caramela’, as it looked fun to do. To make it I mixed egg with flour – and then cranked it through my pasta roller. Fun ! Here’s what it looked like.

Next I combined Ricotta, Lemon, parmesan cheese and some fresh mint. The caramela ( italian for sweet) was made by cutting little squares, putting the ricotta inside and twisting it like a sweet.

It was really good… I might have made the ricotta a touch too lemony and I may have overcooked the pasta a little. But homemade pasta seems to have a lot of promise, very impressive and not too difficult. Worth a try !

The “family meal” theme of September’s issue was a nice touch. It made the restaurant issue very warm and approachable. This month’s recipe was Mario Batali’s “Chicken Parmesan“. I was determined to not like this but we’re in a “comfort food” groove at home right now and it fit in well.   

I really wanted to take the easy way out on the sauce, but my conscience had it’s way with me. The sauce was definitely fun to make and tasted quite good ( one tip – I used crushed tomatoes from the can, a lot less work than a masher). Onto the chicken ! There was a great tip in the magazine about using plastic wrap while flattening. Coating in breadcrumbs and frying was easy enough. It was a lot of fun to layer the chicken, cheese and sauce. Other tip – make sure to really flatten the chicken, I didn’t do it enough and it took a lot longer to bake the chicken.

The end result was absolutely great ! The cheese formed this wonderful outer crust around the sauce, with an inner crunchy breadcrumb crust. I’ve certainly had chicken parmesan before – but this made me see it in a whole new light. Sebastian loved it too. Definitely a keeper !

[ Other note - I just realized there are other cover recipes in this month's issue. Dandelion salad anyone ? I am still debating whether I will do that one. Stay tuned... ]

I’ve been eying buying a Bobby Flay cookbook for quite some time – and I finally broke down and bought Boy Gets Grill. Last night I did an all out Cuban combo – Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Guava Glaze and Orange Mojo, Black beans and Rice, Grilled plantain, Advocado and Tomato salad with Roasted Cumin and Lime Vinagrette. Phew !
How was it ? The guava glaze ( guava, dijon mustard and OJ) is a keeper ! This is simple to do, and tastes great. I’ve been trying to find a good recipe for grilling pork – this is what I’ve been looking for. With the Black beans and rice ( vigo mixture) and the plantains this was absolutely great !

I was underwhelmed with the Mojo however and probably won’t do it again. The Salad wasn’t bad but not quite worth the trouble. Quite a good meal… sorry no pix this time.

Just got done with cooking Caper-Rosemary Tuna from the August issue. This was amazingly good. The capers and lemon were a great complement to the rosemary ( I could have never imagined rosemary paired with fish), and everything went well with the Tuna. It was great…

Best of all – it wasn’t particularly hard. Just a simple marinade and a few mins on the grill. Definitely worth a try !

Back to the cherry-ice-cream and the August recipe. My valiant attempt at ice-cream froze into a congealed lump. I decided to bravely soldier on – and let it defrost for a little bit. I melted the chocolates and toasted the almonds.

The ice-cream was an utter disaster. It was way too watered down ( my fault) – and not really smooth enough ( again my fault). Worse I didn’t add the cherries before I froze the half-done slush last night, so perhaps the most promising part of the recipe wasn’t done. I even messed up the white chocolate (yes – embarassing I know).

On top of all this my wife was a little upset with me for buying an ice-cream maker that is now deemed less than useful. Can you feel sorry for an appliance ?  I don’t think it’s entirely to blame – much of the fault lies with me. I plan to give homemade ice-cream another try, and you’ll read about it here.

I think there’s a important conclusion here. I should have applied the “KISS” principle and kept the simple things simple. There was no need to make a recipe more complicated than it has to be. Bon Appetit thought store-bought ice-cream was good enough for their cover – it should have been good enough for me.

Now with this comes the honest question – is Bon Appetit still a serious cooking magazine ? It seems that since I started on this quest their recipes have become easier and easier. Part of their new layout and editorial focus seems to be emphasizing easy stuff that looks good on the cover. For that matter was it ever a serious magazine ? Hard to get worked up about stuff like this, but it is some Food for thought… ( pun intended).

It’s pretty hard to mess up a desert like ice-cream with melted chocolate – but somehow I managed. I did have one admirer though… Sebastian loved it. Admittedly this is his second ice-cream *ever* and his first ice-cream cone, so he was easy to impress.

With a frozen rock of ice-cream waiting for me in the fridge, it was time to move onto the July cover and attempt cheddar burgers with balsamic onions and chipotle ketchup. First off I made an executive decision and decided to buy store-bought burgers. I’m really partial to the “Angus Burgers” sold at Fred Meyer/Safeway – they’re great. For cheese I was going to go with a Havarti Dill.

I think the real star of this combination is the Chipotle ketchup. I’ve never bought chipotle chiles or adobo before – this was a real first. It was super easy to make, and tasted great. This ketchup is definitely a keeper for the bag of tricks.

Next onto the onions. I’ve done numerous versions of carmelized onions before – but this was a new wrinkle by doing it directly on the grill. This was super easy to do and the balsamic gives it a great twist. Superb !

So how was it ? This was pretty good – the chipotle ketchup and the onions gave this a nice zing, and something a little different from a regular burger. I think the biggest dissapointment was the english muffin however – it seemed a little crumbly and didn’t quite hold-up. I think this was the weak-point in the overall recipe. If I was going to do it again – I’d try a bit harder for a quality ciabatta roll or a sourdough bun. Still not a bad burger !!!

I’m now officially out of panic-mode – with at least one of my four recipes behind me.

Well the September issue has arrived – and with it an onset of Panic. This issue officially puts me 4 issues behind ( raspberry cupcakes, chipoltle ketchup hamburger, dark-chocolate ice-cream, and now chicken parmesan). I resolve to end the week with at least 2 out of 4 done ! I quickly embark on a trip to the grocery store determined to master the ice-cream and chiplotle hamburger.

For whatever reason – I decided that it was too uninteresting to just buy store-bought cherry ice-cream, so I bought my own homemade ice-cream maker. Word to the wise – keep easy things easy. It is now the 21st century – so I expected dramatic breakthroughs in homemade ice-cream technology by now. Unfortunately this doesn’t seem to be the case – it still involves appliances that grind away with frozen bowls creating frozen semi-slush.

To start making the ice-cream – I bought a bunch of rainier cherries, pitted them, and then mixed with sugar and lemon in the fridge to macerate. I then combined sugar, milk, cream and vanilla extract in a bowl. First mistake – I didn’t buy enough cream at the store so I substituted milk. Second mistake – I didn’t let the freezer bowl freeze for a complete 6 hours. Third mistake - I didn’t read the directions so I didn’t put the stirrer in the bowl ( this was critical).

As I stand typing this – I have my half processed ice-cream in the freezer, and I’m waiting for it to freeze enough to try again in my homemade ice-cream maker. Things are touch and go at this point – not sure if the night will end with success or a trip to the grocery and the purchase of a pint of cherry-garcia !

Yes – I realize I’m way behind at this point. Funny how a resolution always starts to slide after the first six months ? Anyway – June’s recipe was a sour-cherry pie with a lattice crust.

It was a bit of a stretch to find sour-cherries in the Pacific Northwest in early May ( when the magazine came out). Our spring was pretty chilly – and I just couldn’t find any decent ones. So I used regular cherries and cut-down on the sugar.

The crust was fun to make, and it was also fun to pit the cherries myself ( what Northwest home would be complete without a cherry-pitter?). Here is the crust and cherry mix before assembly.

The final pie was a breeze… it turned out quite good. Unfortunately I didn’t get a tool to do the lattice properly. It’s a little jagged but has that great home-made look.

So how was this ? The pastry was great – I will definitely use this again. I think the Pie on the whole was a bit dissappointing. I don’t think I’d bother with doing this again. Reading through some of the raves/comments on Bon Appetit – I think I’ll try harder next time to get sour cherries. Perhaps that would have made a difference! Maybe next time….

I was so excited when I saw this cover. I *love* steak frites. I remember having this several years ago in a psuedo-bistro in NYC ( “lucky-strike” was the name ?). Anyway what could be better than this ?

The hardest part here was the french-fries. I bought a fry-cutter, and a deep-fryer at Target. However it was still pretty tedious. The cutter didn’t work that well, the last 10% of the potato alwasys seemed to get stuck. Clearly there’s some trick here. Then the frying and refrying was a bit of a pain as well. If I was going to do it all again – I would probably do frozen french-fries, that’s an easy cheat on this recipe.

The steak was very straight-forward. I bought some NYC strip and fried in a pan. The sauce was wonderfully easy. I did a side salad with orange, radish, advocado and a apricot vinagrette ( 2 tbsp lime juice, 2 tbsp o.j., 2 tbsp olive oil and salt and pepper in a blender, then add 2 tbsp hot water in the blender to emulsify). This is a great salad that I make all the time.

The verdict ? The sauce and the steak were absolutely fabulous. As Sebastian would say – “So good!”

The fries were good, but I’m not sure they were worth the trouble. I’d definitely do this recipe again but take a shortcut on the fries.