March, 2011 - - Page 5

by bakersroyale

101st Guinness Recipe: Irish Cheesecake Bombs

Irish car bombs, re-imagined as cheesecake, made in individual sizes, fork required. All you have to do is mix your Guinness in some chocolate cheesecake batter, spike the classic cheesecake with some Baileys, throw the whiskey in the Oreo cookie crust and you have yourself an Irish car bomb that won’t require a designated driver.

Alright, now that St. Patty’s will be over in two days, I promise to ease up on the beer desserts. Uh, maybe not…I’m so invoking the two-second rule on that food statement. I’m on a beer and cocktail/dessert mashup kick. If anyone has a cocktail they want to see in a dessert, let me know in the comment section and I’ll make it happen!

Individual Irish Cheesecake Bombs

by gansie

Desperate for a Garnish

It’s tough goings for the garnish industry in the winter. Fresh herbs refuse to pop up until the weather warms so I’m left with spices, sauces and dried herbs to lay that finishing touch on a dish.

Earlier this year I wrote about a different type of garnish issue – I used an ingredient foreign from the dish to decorate it. I thought the beautiful black pellets of mustard seeds would contrast nicely to the orange sweet potato soup splattered with bright, white yogurt. And in fact, I think it looked lovely. I decided it didn’t matter that I hadn’t used mustard seed in the soup. I’d use it to enhance the look of the dish, without compromising the taste.

I used the opposite approach this weekend in my bean and cabbage dish. This was a simple, hearty dish combining tiger eye beans, slashed cabbage, onion and garlic, flavored with chipotle and cumin. The cabbage, onion and garlic adapted the brick color of the chipotle and adobo sauce and the tiger beans lost their stripes in the long cooking process, turning into a similar hue as the rest of the dish.

It needed some contrast. It needed some brightness. And I didn’t have a goddamn fresh herb in sight.

in Recipe / Veggie 3 comments

by forkitude

How to Sop Up Guinness: Cast Iron Irish Soda Bread

Believe it or not, the Irish are serious about their soda bread. I absolutely love the Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread’s website. You really shouldn’t mess around with Irish soda bread wanna-be’s. It’s the real deal or nothing. Go traditional or go home. As an Irish girl and a lover of beer, shamrock tattoos, Irish music, and leprechauns, I can appreciate that. Don’t call something soda bread if it’s not soda bread!

So I think I have done my Irish roots justice in this recipe. Ok, aside from the yogurt, which was not available in Ireland in the 19th century. But, there are no raisins in this bread, nor orange zest, nuts, eggs, baking powder or yeast.

Let me explain. Irish soda bread doesn’t contain yeast. The whole point of the bicarbonate soda was that it was used in place of the yeast as a leavening agent. I even used cast iron like they did back in the day. Plus, I love any excuse to bust out my cute little cast iron skillets.

They are cute. Don’t laugh.

This is a basic, delicious, easy, pretty damn traditional Irish soda bread to sop up the beer that you will drink on St. Paddy’s Day.

Slainte!

in Holiday / Recipe 5 comments

by tvff

Be on the Lookout: Douchemobile

I know that it’s bad karma to make fun of the misfortunes of others, but…

Someone stole Guy Fieri’s $200,000 Lamborghini! And this is not one of your run of the mill smash-and-grab jobs, either. This was a full-on Mission: Impossible operation

Police say a thief using climbing gear rappelled into a San Francisco exotic car dealership and stole television celebrity chef Guy Fieri’s $200,000-plus Lamborghini sports car. The bright yellow Gallardo owned by the star of the Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” was taken Tuesday.

So, whose fault is this? Blaming the criminal himself seems unfair, especially after he exhibited some serious ingenuity. Maybe it was the fault of the dealer and his failure to mountainclimber-proof his shop.

No. I’m going to blame you, the American Public, for somehow making this knucklehead rich and famous enough to be able to afford a car worth almost a quarter of a million dollars.

(Photo: Kiki Maraschino)

in Celebs / TV 1 comments

by BS

Feed Us Back: Comments of the Week

– Everyone seems to like this week’s food chart meme, although not my name has a problem with the guide to eggs:

Really great collection. I liked it except for the bit on the cage-free/organic egg thing. Organic farms don’t necessarily treat their hens any better, and the certification “cage-free” is really misleading. The hens can still be in awful conditions (cramped, gravel yard with no grass, beaks clipped when chicks, males killed at birth, etc.) Just thought you’d like to know.

– Aussie EMD offers some updates to the Top 10 Foods Only Australia Invented:

in Breakfast / Eggs 1 comments

by Russell Warnick

Top Chef All-Stars Exit Interview: Episode 13

After last week’s no-knife-packing episode our chefs are in the Bahamas! Keep reading to to see which of the remaining five chefs was sent packing from the first final of Top Chef All-Stars.

in TV 1 comments

by BS

100 Ways to Cook With Guinness

St. Patrick’s Day raises a lot of questions: How is every person in America suddenly Irish-American on this one day only? Is green beer really safe to drink? Where did I leave my car/friends/clothes? But mostly, St. Patrick’s Day makes us wonder: why don’t we cook with Guinness every day of the year? Sure, there are the standard Guinness brownies and Guinness steak pie, but Ireland’s signature brew can also spruce up everything from Guinness risotto to Guinness cornbread and Guinness milkshakes. We scoured the web for 100 delectable recipes that take cooking with Guinness to the next level, on St. Patrick’s or any other day of the year.

Click on the photos for full recipes.