Author: John Fladd

Ooh, that recipe looks good; I wonder what’s in it.

click

OK, this looks like the right recipe.

Uh, huh. Yes, I’m sure your Uncle Oswald was very fond of this recipe. I might like to make it myself.

scroll, scroll

Yes, that’s a very nice photo of the finished dish—

scroll, scroll

and of your Uncle Oswald.

scroll, scroll

No, I don’t want to buy all the ingredients for the recipe. You haven’t even told me what they are yet.

scroll, scroll

Yes, I’m glad your family likes it, too. Especially your picky 8-year-old.

scroll, scroll

Yes, I’m sure he’s very precious to you, and I’m glad he’s gotten over his night terrors.

scroll, scroll

OH, COME ON!!!

This has happened to all of us. We want a recipe and end up having to wade through a lot of non-recipe exposition to get to it. It’s very frustrating.

Because it’s a couple of weeks before the holidays (possibly the most recipe-intensive time of year) here are 54 recipes — for breads, desserts, main dishes, feed-a-crowd food, tastiness for when you in this season just need tastiness — with virtually no (additional) exposition.

1) Sesame Crunch Ice Cream

• 1½ cups (190 grams) tahini paste. I like Krinos brand.
• 1 scant cup (180 grams) white sugar
• 3 cups (660 grams) half-and-half, or non-dairy cream
• large pinch coarse sea salt
• 1 Tablespoon dark sesame oil

Blend all ingredients in your blender.

Chill the mixture for several hours or overnight.

Churn according to your ice cream machine’s manufacturer’s instructions.

This is excellent and very sesame-y, but even better when you mix in:

2) Sesame Brittle

• ¾ cup (160 grams) white sugar
• ¼ cup (85 grams) rose jam
• pinch of coarse sea salt
• ½ teaspoon ground sumac
• 1 Tablespoon water
• 1 ¾ cups (125 grams) sesame seeds
• 1 Tablespoon coconut oil
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon rose water

Cook the sugar, jam, salt, sumac, water and sesame seeds over medium heat, stirring often. Everything should melt together. Cook until it reaches 305ºF.

Quickly stir in the remaining ingredients — the oil, baking soda and rose water.

Pour onto an oiled silicone baking mat or parchment paper. Smooth out so it’s very thin.

Let cool, then break into small pieces.

This is a delicious, nutty and floral hard candy that will last about one week in an airtight container. If you have one of those little “Do Not Eat” dehydration envelopes, put it in the container with the sesame brittle. It will help keep it from getting too sticky. Even better, break it into smaller pieces and mix it in with your sesame ice cream before hardening it in your freezer.

3) Totally Delicious, Yes-I’m-Serious, Cilantro Ice Cream for the Brave of Heart

• ¾ cup (188 grams) whole milk
• 1¾ cups (113 grams) white sugar
• 1½ cups (376 grams) heavy cream
• pinch of salt
• 1 bunch (about 90 grams) cilantro leaves and stems, roughly chopped
• 4 egg yolks

Heat the milk, salt, sugar and half the cream (¾ cup/188 grams) to just below boiling, about 175ºF.

Remove from heat. Steep the cilantro, covered, for 1 hour.

Strain to remove the spent cilantro.

Add the egg yolks to the now green mixture and, stirring constantly, bring back to 175º.

Or — Bring the mixture back to 175º, then temper in the egg yolks.

Strain the mixture into the remaining cream. Stir, then chill for several hours or overnight.

Churn according to your ice cream machine’s manufacturer’s instructions.

4) Fortune Cookie Brickle for Topping Ice Cream With

• 2 cups (106 grams) lightly crushed fortune cookies with the wrappers and fortunes removed
• 3 Tablespoons melted butter
• ¼ cup sugar

Mix all ingredients together.

Bake on a baking sheet for 20 to 25 minutes at 275º F.

Cool, and store in an airtight container for several days.

5) Rustic Basque Cheesecake

• 3 8-ounce packages of cream cheese, or 24 ounces of soft goat cheese
• 1 cup (200 grams) white sugar
• 5 whole eggs (minus, you know, the shells)
• ¾ cup (170 grams) heavy cream
• ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt

Preheat your oven to 500ºF.

Line a springform pan with parchment paper.

Blend all the ingredients in your blender for 5 minutes.

Pour into your lined springform pan, and bake for 45 to 50 minutes. It will be very brown. Don’t let that shake you.

Remove from oven and cool thoroughly before de-panning.

This is delicious, rustic and not too sweet. It is excellent with a large glass of very cold milk.

6) Marzipan Sorbet

• ⅔ cup (180 grams) almond butter
• ⅗ cup (180 grams) white sugar
• 3 cups (660 grams) unsweetened almond creamer. You could use half-and-half for this, but the almond-based creamer will make this even almondier.
• 4 Tablespoons/2 ounces (72 grams) orgeat (almond syrup)
• ½ loaf (99 grams) marzipan, cubed. (Marzipan is a sweetened almond paste. You can find it in the baking section of your supermarket, or online.)

Blend all the ingredients except the marzipan.

Chill for several hours or overnight.

Churn according to your ice cream machine’s manufacturer’s instructions.

During the final minute of churning, add the cubes of marzipan.

If you are not yet a fan of marzipan, you will be after trying this. It is especially good with a slice of banana bread.

7) Apple Bundt Cake

• 3 Granny Smith apples, peeled and diced (about 440 grams)
• 3 cups (360 grams) all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg. If you’ve never grated your own nutmeg, try it. You’ll never go back to pre-ground again.
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1½ cups (360 grams) sour cream
• 1½ cups (275 grams) white sugar
• ½ cup (64 grams) brown sugar
• 3 eggs

Heat your oven to 325ºF.

Butter and flour your Bundt pan.

Whisk together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.

In another bowl, mix the sugars and sour cream. Mix in eggs, one at a time.

Mix in the diced apples by hand.

Pour mixture into your pre-gunked Bundt pan. Lift the pan and bonk it on your counter 10 times.

Bake for 70 minutes or until it reaches an internal temperature of 200º F.

Remove from the oven. Let it cool for 20 minutes, then remove from the pan.

This is an outstanding Bundt cake. The apples are tart and still a tiny bit crunchy. The cake itself is rich but not too sweet. The nutmeg and cinnamon shine through. This is especially good with Custard Sauce.

8) Custard Sauce

• 1½ cups (340 grams) half-and-half
• 1/3 cup (56 grams) white sugar
• 7 egg yolks
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Combine the cream and sugar, then heat over medium heat until just before boiling (175ºF/80ºC), then temper in the egg yolks.

Or — Heat the cream, sugar and egg yolks to 175ºF, whisking constantly.

Strain, to make sure there aren’t any bits of cooked egg, then add the vanilla and chill.

This is delicious on anything British, or on Apple Bundt Cake.

9) Orange Crinkle Cookies (18 vegan cookies)

These are excellent, and especially good if you are baking for a classroom, Girl Scout troop, etc., and don’t know who is dairy-intolerant or allergic to eggs.

• 1 Tablespoon flax meal or egg replacer, mixed with 3 Tablespoons water
• 1 box orange cake mix
• ½ teaspoon orange extract
• ½ cup orange soda
• ½ cup (70 grams) chopped, candied orange slices. Trader Joe’s has excellent ones.
• powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

Prepare the egg substitute.

Mix all ingredients together.

Chill in the freezer for 30 minutes.

Roll 1-Tablespoon balls of dough in powdered sugar, and place six to a baking sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper.

Bake for 18 to 20 minutes.

Cool briefly, then transfer to a cooling rack.

Delicious. Orangey. Crinkly.

10) Cheese Crumb Pudding from an Obscure Antique Cookbook

• 2 cups (110 grams) bread crumbs (I feel like you could blitz Triscuits in the food processor in lieu of fresh bread crumbs)
• 2 cups (250 grams) shredded, smoked cheddar – I went with an Australian brand called Old Croc, and I was not disappointed
• ½ teaspoon dry mustard
• ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 3 Tablespoon jarred salsa (this is playing pinch hitter for pimientos)
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup (225 grams) whole milk
• ¼ teaspoon paprika

Heat oven to 375º.

Generously butter a 9×9” baking dish.

Mix the mustard, pepper and paprika together in a small dish.

Spread 1/3 of your crumbs over the bottom of the baking dish. Look at them critically. Do they look cold and lonely?

Cover them with a blanket of cheddar — half the cheddar. Sprinkle half the seasoning on top of the blanket. You know, like a blessing.

Repeat with another layer of crumbs, the rest of the cheddar and the rest of the seasoning. Top with a final layer of crumbs.

Mix the milk, eggs and salsa; gently pour over the top of the guys you already have in the baking dish.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Allow to cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Imagine very good macaroni and cheese, intensified, and with the macaroni mysteriously absent. This is extremely decadent, one of the few dishes that will satisfy everyone, including picky children and fathers-in-law.

11) Crumpets – Sort of Like a Cross Between English Muffins and Buttered Toast

• 1 cup + 1 Tablespoon (235 grams) warm water
• 1½ teaspoons (6 grams) white sugar
• 1 Tablespoon (4 grams) yeast
• 1½ cups (180 grams) all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon (4 grams) coarse sea salt
• 1 teaspoon (4 grams) baking powder
• lots of butter

Combine the water, sugar and yeast. Let sit for 5 to 10 minutes to give the yeast a head start.

Combine flour, salt and baking powder in a medium-sized bowl, preferably a metal one.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones and whisk thoroughly to combine.

Leave the batter to rise in a warm-water bath for 45 minutes.

Heat a frying pan or skillet to about 375º — about as hot as you would for pancakes.

Butter the inside of a pastry ring or a small can with the top and bottom removed. Place it on the hot skillet.

Add a dollop of butter, then three large spoonfuls of batter into the ring/can.

Using pancake-making skills, fry the proto-crumpet in the browning butter, until it is ready to flip over. I usually wait until there are a few non-popping bubbles on the surface.

Remove the ring/can — if you buttered it liberally enough, it should slide right off.

Flip your crumpet and cook in more butter, until it is golden brown on the other side.

Remove to a plate and cover with a tea towel, then rebutter your ring/can and make another. Once you have gotten good at this, you might cook two or more crumpets at a time, but because this recipe only makes six, you might want to focus on them individually.

These are buttery and salty and chewy. They make excellent Sunday morning treats, or housewarming gifts. Everyone you give them to will insist on putting butter and or jam on them, and they are delicious that way, but also a treat as is.

12) Sourdough Starter – Yes, for Sourdough Bread, But We’ll Worry About That Another Time

• Equal amounts, by weight or volume, of flour and yeast

In a large container — I use a 1-quart plastic takeout container — thoroughly mix the flour and water.

Cover it and set it aside for 24 hours.

As you do this, tiny yeast cells from the air in your kitchen and clinging to tiny flour particles will start to wake up and do what they do best: give off gas and multiply.

The mixture won’t look much different than it did the day before.

Pour out half the mixture, then add the same amount of flour and water as the previous day.

Stir thoroughly, then set aside for another day.

Repeat this every day for a week or so. You will start to notice a yeastiness to the mixture. At that point you can use it in sourdough-y recipes, like sourdough biscuits. The longer you keep your starter — feeding it regularly — the more sour and delicious it will get. Once it is thoroughly established, you can reduce the feedings to three per week. If you are going away on vacation, you can store it without feeding for several weeks in the refrigerator.

13) Sourdough Biscuits

• 1 teaspoon white sugar
• ¾ cup (130 grams) all-purpose flour
• 1½ teaspoons (7 grams) baking powder
• ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt
• ½ cup (1 stick) butter
• 1 cup (264 grams) sourdough starter

Freeze the butter in your freezer for at least 1 hour.

Preheat your oven to 425º.

Combine the sugar, flour, salt and baking powder.

Using a box grater, grate the butter into the flour mixture. If it starts getting melty on your hands, roll it around in the flour.

With your hands, toss the butter in the flour mixture until it is thoroughly combined. (This is the technique I’ve been using for my pie crusts lately, and it works very nicely.)

Add the sourdough starter, and mix to combine. You will end up with a very shaggy dough. Turn it out onto a floured countertop.

Pat the dough into a 5×7” rectangle, about the same size as a postcard. Flip it over so that both sides are floury and not too sticky.

Fold the dough in half, then pat it out to postcard-size. Flip it around in the flour as necessary.

Fold, pat and flip the dough a total of eight times. As you do this, you are building up layers in the dough. Each time you do this, it will become a little smoother and biscuit-doughy.

Pat the dough out into a 7×9” rectangle. Using a large knife or a bench scraper, cut the edges off. As you’ve been patting the dough out, you’ve been pinching the edges a little. Cutting the edges off will allow the biscuits to rise, with lots of layers.

Cut the dough to make six biscuits. Use the off-cuts to make spiral-shaped, wonky biscuits. These will not rise as well or look as pretty, but they will also be delicious.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes. This will vary, depending on how accurate your oven is. Watch very carefully the first time you do this to get your specific time. In my kitchen, it is 17 minutes.

Nobody from the South will believe you, but these might be the best biscuits you ever have.

14) Strawberry Ice Cream

• 2⅔ cups (450 grams) frozen strawberries, thawed (The freezing makes the berries give up more juice. Plus, the frozen ones are less expensive than fresh.)
• ½ cup (175 grams) strawberry preserves
• 1 generous cup (240 grams) heavy cream
• 1 Tablespoon (18 grams) lemon juice
• More strawberry preserves for layering in

Blend all the ingredients in your blender.

Strain — otherwise the ice cream might be a little too seedy.

Churn according to your ice cream machine’s manufacturer’s instructions.

Layer the soft ice cream with more strawberry preserves before freezing.

This is extra strawberry-y and not too sweet. It’s totally worth making once per week, especially in the winter, when you are feeling sun-deprived.

15) Potatoes au Gratin

• 12-ounce can evaporated milk
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 Tablespoons butter
• 1½ pounds (700 grams) potatoes – waxy red potatoes would work well for this, but there really are no wrong potatoes for this dish – peeled and sliced thin
• 2 cups (200 grams) grated cheese – I like the pre-grated, bagged cheese from the supermarket, but again, there really is no wrong cheese for this
• salt and pepper

Preheat your oven to 425º.

Warm the evaporated milk and one crushed clove of garlic, and leave it to steep for 30 minutes.

Rub the inside of a casserole dish with the other clove of garlic, then butter it thoroughly with 2 Tablespoons of the butter.

Put down the potatoes and cheese in three layers, salting and peppering each one.

Strain the warm milk mixture over the potatoes. Dot the top with the remaining Tablespoon butter.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes. The top should be golden brown.

You’ve got your french fries, your Tater Tots, even your mashed potatoes, but this may be the prince of potato dishes.

16) Coffee Ice Cream

• 2 cups (454 grams) heavy cream
• 1½ cups (375 grams) half-and-half
• ½ cup (100 grams) white sugar
• pinch of coarse sea salt
• ¾ cup (50 grams) ground coffee
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla

Set aside 1¼ cups of heavy cream, and the vanilla.

Combine the rest of the ingredients in a small saucepan, and heat to hot-but-not-boiling (about 150º).

Remove from heat and let it steep, covered, for about an hour.

Strain the coffee mixture into the rest of the cream. Add the vanilla.

Chill for several hours or overnight.

Churn according to your ice cream machine’s manufacturer’s instructions.

This is outstanding coffee ice cream, but be warned that two scoops of it before bed kept me awake until 4 a.m.

17) Corn Chowder

• 1 stick (8 ounces) butter
• 1 small or ½ large white or yellow onion, chopped
• 4 ears sweet corn, cut from the cob; alternatively, one small bag of frozen corn
• 1 hatch/poblano chili, chopped
• ½ gallon milk
• 1 large baking potato, peeled and diced
• salt, pepper and smoked paprika to taste

Melt the butter in a large soup pan. (If you are a bacon-eater, half a package of bacon, chopped, fried and rendered, will work well too.)

Add the onion and corn. Sauté until they have some color.

Add the pepper, potatoes and smoked paprika. If you are using bacon, you can skip the paprika at your discretion. You really want a rich, smoky flavor in the background, though. Cook for another five minutes or so.

Add the milk. If you are using fresh sweet corn, chop the cobs in half and use them, too. They will make the chowder extra-corny.

Bring to a simmer, then cook on low heat for 60 minutes.

Season to taste and serve with bread and butter.

This is probably the easiest soup you will ever make from scratch. If you wanted, you could make this entirely from frozen vegetables and still impress picky chowder purists.

18) Scallion Pancakes

• ½ cup (170 grams) sourdough starter
• 2 Tablespoons (28 grams) water
• ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 or 3 scallions, finely chopped
• a large handful of fresh herbs, chopped – I like chives and basil; cilantro is always good
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• oil for frying

Heat the oil in a frying pan until shimmering.

Combine all the ingredients, reserving half the scallions.

Fry the batter in 3 to 5 batches, sprinkling the reserved scallions on top.

Fry on both sides, drain and serve.

The more quickly you eat these, the crisper they will be.

19) Paneer – Fresh Indian Cheese

• 1 gallon whole milk
• ⅓ cup vinegar

Heat the milk in a large soup pot, stirring occasionally to keep it from bonding too firmly to the bottom.

Bring to a boil. Remove from heat immediately.

Stir in the vinegar. Stir for another minute or so, until the milk solids separate from the watery liquid. (This is whey, as in “Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet.”)

Line a large colander with a tea towel. Strain the clumpy milk mixture into the towel.

After a minute or so, squeeze some of the moisture out of the towel. Set the towel aside to drain for another hour or so.

You just made cheese. Cut it into cubes, and store it in your refrigerator to make curries with, like a Paneer-Pistachio Curry.

20) Paneer-Pistachio Curry

• ½ cup (75 grams) cashews
• 1 bag frozen onions and peppers
• 8 to 10 cardamom pods, crushed and placed in a tea strainer
• 2 or 3 serrano chilies, stemmed, seeded and chopped
• 1½ teaspoons coarse sea salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
• ½ cup (75 grams) salted, roasted, shelled pistachios
• 8 ounces paneer cubes
• 1 bunch of cilantro leaves and stems, rinsed and chopped

Boil the cashews, peppers/onions, serranos and cardamom in 2 cups of water for 10 minutes.

Remove the tea strainer, then puree the mixture with an immersion blender or in your regular blender. Return to the pot.

Stir in the pistachios, paneer, salt and cayenne. Warm for five minutes.

Stir in the cilantro and serve with naan.

This is spicy, nutty, hearty curry. If you think you don’t like curries because you don’t like curry powder, this may change your mind. This is a gateway drug to Indian cooking.

21) Granola

• 2½ cups (225 grams) rolled oats
• ¼ to ½ cup (75 grams) coarsely chopped nuts
• ¼ to ½ cup (70 grams) poppy seeds, sesame seeds, or a mixture of both
• 3 Tablespoons brown sugar
• ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon black pepper
• ¼ teaspoon cayenne
• ¼ cup (50 grams) vegetable oil
• ⅓ cup (112 grams) honey
• 2 Tablespoons vanilla

Preheat your oven to 305º.

Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.

Add the wet ingredients and mix thoroughly. You might be able to do this with a spatula; you will probably end up using your hands.

Drop the mixture onto a silicone sheet or parchment paper on a large baking sheet.

Bake for 15 minutes.

Remove from oven and stir with a wooden spoon or spatula. Press the mixture down, especially in the corners of the pan.

Return to oven and bake for another 15 minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool before breaking into clumps.

This is a salty, spicy, lightly sweet granola that will make itself remembered.

22) Peppermint Stick Ice Cream

• 3 cups (680 grams) half-and-half
• pinch of salt
• ⅓ cup (65 grams) white sugar
• 4 crushed candy canes (about 70 grams)
• 1 Tablespoons cornstarch
• Another 4 (70 grams) crushed candy canes

Combine cream, salt, sugar, the first batch of candy canes, and cornstarch in a medium saucepan. Heat until the candy canes have completely melted and the mixture has thickened. It should look like pink hot chocolate.

Chill for several hours or overnight.

Churn according to your ice cream machine’s manufacturer’s instructions.

About five minutes before the mixture is done churning, add the second batch of peppermint candy.

This is an outstandingly pepperminty ice cream and an excellent way to use up late-season leftover candy canes.

23) Peanut Butter and Jelly Bundt Cake

Butter for generously greasing your Bundt pan

• ⅓ cup (75 grams) finely chopped dry-roasted peanuts
• ½ cup (114 grams) sour cream
• 1¼ cup (213 grams) brown sugar
• ½ cup (135 grams) peanut butter
• 1¾ cup (210 grams) all-purpose flour
• ¾ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• 3 eggs
• ⅓ cup (76 grams) half-and-half
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla
• ¾ cup (255 grams) strawberry jam
• 11 (60 grams) maraschino cherries, stems removed

Preheat your oven to 350°.

Prepare a Bundt pan — lavishly butter the inside surface with butter, then dust it with crushed peanuts.

Measure or weigh out the sour cream, brown sugar and peanut butter in the bowl of your stand mixer, or the bowl that you’re going to finish the cake batter in. Now leave it alone until you are ready for it.

Combine all your dry ingredients in a separate bowl. If you worry about such things, go ahead and sift them together; otherwise just stir them together with a spoon.

Beat the sour cream, sugar and peanut butter together into a fine goop.

When your goop is as light and fluffy as it is going to get, continue beating, adding the eggs one at a time, followed by a glug of vanilla.

At this point your mixture is pretty soupy. You’ll be happy to know that it’s time to add the dry ingredients, alternating with the half-and-half.

Scrape the sides of your bowl down to make sure that everything has gotten mixed together, then pour a little more than half of your batter into your Bundt pan.

Bonk the Bundt pan firmly on the top of the counter twice. This is to make sure that there are no air pockets. If you want to, you could wait until you’ve added all the ingredients. In this particular recipe it might also drive your jam and cherries downward, to what will be the top of the cake, and make visible jam inclusions. In any other cake this would be a bug. In this cake it would be a feature.

Gently spoon the jam in a ring around the Bundt pan, on top of the batter you just poured in. Place the cherries in a ring on top of the jam.

Pour the rest of the batter into your pan, making sure to cover the jam and cherries. Don’t worry about being particularly neat; the batter will level itself out.

Bake at 350° for about half an hour. If you are worried about whether it is completely baked, stab it with a probe thermometer. If it reads over 200° F, you’re fine. Don’t worry about it being overbaked; that’s what the sour cream is there for. It has your back.

Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 to 20 minutes, then invert it onto a plate. I find that I rise up onto my toes as I make the flip, then come down hard on my heels. I don’t know if that does anything productive, but I like to think that it lets the finished cake know that I mean business.

This is a moist, not too sweet snack cake, ideal for sharing with a special friend over coffee.

24) Roasted Banana Sorbet

• 3 tired bananas, the type you might find in the sale rack at a supermarket or by the cash register at a convenience store, the type that has seen too much of life – these are the sweet, flavorful ones
• ⅓ cup (70 grams) brown sugar
• 1 Tablespoon coconut oil
• 1⅔ cups (375 grams) non-dairy half-and-half
• 2 Tablespoons white sugar
• 1 Tablespoon créme de banana
• 1½ teaspoons lemon juice
• ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt

Preheat your oven to 400º.

Slice your bananas, and mix with brown sugar and coconut oil.

Transfer to an oven-proof pan or dish, and roast for 40 minutes, stirring halfway through.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Combine all ingredients, including the banana mixture, in your blender and blend thoroughly.

Chill for several hours or overnight.

Churn according to your ice cream machine’s manufacturer’s instructions.

Your kitchen will smell amazing while you roast the bananas. If you have a child who complains about not liking bananas, sympathize with them and eat it all yourself.

25) Blackberry Syrup

• 1 bag frozen blackberries
• An equal amount (by weight) of white sugar
• 1 Tablespoon lemon juice

Combine the sugar and frozen berries in a medium saucepan over medium heat. At this point you will be extremely skeptical: This mixture looks far too dry to ever turn into syrup. Have patience.

Keep stirring the mixture occasionally. As the berries thaw, they are going to give up a surprising amount of liquid. When they froze, ice crystals pierced all the cell walls, and now you get all that juice, with very little work.

Keep stirring, crushing berries wherever possible. Bring to a boil.

Let the syrup boil for five or six seconds to make sure that the sugar has all been dissolved, then remove from the heat.

Pour the hot syrup through a fine-mesh strainer to remove all the seeds. There will be a lot of them.

Stir in the lemon juice.

Let the syrup cool, bottle it and store it in your refrigerator for a month or so.

This is an excellent topping for ice cream or pancakes, but also a surprisingly wonderful ingredient for cocktails.

26) Rich and Decadent Peanut Butter Soufflé

• 2 large eggs, separated
• ½ cup + 1 Tablespoon (120 grams) brown sugar
• ¼ cup minus 1 teaspoon (55 grams) peanut butter
• Small glug of vanilla, about 1 teaspoon
• pinch of salt

Preheat your oven to 350°.

Separate your eggs. Do this over the bowl of your stand mixer, or the bowl you will be beating the egg whites in. Everyone has their own method for separating eggs. My preference is to break the shell on a flat surface, like a countertop. (This pretty much eliminates small pieces of shell in the bowl that I have to fish out.) I crack the egg open and pour it into my open hand. I keep my fingers just far apart enough that the egg white will eventually release its hold on the yolk and slip through them into the bowl. Remember to wash your hands before and after doing this.

Place the egg yolks in a separate large bowl. Add the brown sugar and peanut butter. Mix well with a spoon. The mixture will be really stiff, so it will be more a matter of mashing than mixing.

Add the salt and vanilla to the egg whites, then whisk them to medium peaks. Have you ever seen a cooking show or competition where a baker beats their egg whites, then holds the bowl over their (or a competitor’s) head to show that they are stiff enough? This is what bakers call stiff peaks. That’s a little stiffer than we want for this recipe. We want them to be the consistency where the TV baker starts giggling and it is just enough to make the egg whites slowly glop onto somebody’s head.

With a silicone spatula, scoop out about a third of your egg whites and mix them into the peanut butter mixture. This is what professionals call loosening up a stiff base. Go ahead and mix everything together. As the mixture becomes more liquidy and stir-able, the doubt you’ve been feeling about your ability to pull this whole soufflé off will ease up by about 15 percent.

This next step is the closest thing to tricky. Use the spatula to scoop out about half the remaining egg whites and put them in the peanut butter bowl. Run the edge of the spatula through the middle of the mess, then sweep it around the edge of the bowl. A tiny bit of the whites will mix together with the base. This is called folding in the egg whites. Even though you can’t see it easily with the naked eye, beaten egg whites are made up of a gazillion tiny bubbles, held together by the sticky proteins in the egg white itself. Remember when your hands felt sticky and gross after separating the eggs? That stickiness is what’s holding those tiny bubbles together. Those bubbles are what’s going to lighten your soufflé and give it lift. By folding the egg whites into the mixture, instead of just stirring it, you are preserving as many of the bubbles as possible. Keep folding until the whites are mostly incorporated with the base.

At this point, your peanut butter mixture should be looking a lot lighter. Your soufflé stress will also lighten up, probably another 15 percent. Fold the rest of the egg whites into the mixture.

Gently spoon the mixture into two large ramekins and put them into your preheated oven.

Bake for approximately 30 minutes. Your oven and mine are probably different by a few degrees, so you might have to make this recipe a couple of times before you perfect the timing. The good news is that even sub-optimal soufflés are awfully good.

Pull the puffed-up soufflés from the oven and serve immediately. The now-baked bubble matrix is proud and puffy, but it will collapse within the next 10 minutes. Serve with something fruity, like Rhubarb Compote.

27) Rhubarb Compote and Rhubarb Syrup

This recipe is very much like the one for Blackberry Syrup, but at the end of the process you get syrup and compote.

• rhubarb – cleaned and chopped
• the same amount of white sugar, by weight
• juice of half a lemon

Freeze the chopped rhubarb for several hours or overnight. This will allow ice crystals to pierce all the cell walls.

Heat the frozen rhubarb and sugar in a saucepan. As it thaws, the rhubarb will give off quite a bit of liquid. If you want to help the process along, you can crush the rhubarb with a potato masher.

Bring the mixture to a boil to ensure that the sugar has dissolved completely.

Remove from heat. Stir in the lemon juice.

Strain the mixture with a fine-meshed strainer.

The liquid is your rhubarb syrup, which makes a delightful Rhubarb Margarita, and the solids are a very nice compote that is delicious on toast or with a Peanut Butter Soufflé. Both will last for two or three weeks in your refrigerator.

28) Rhubarb Margarita

• 2 ounces blanco tequila – I like Hornitos
• 1 ounce rhubarb syrup
• ¾ ounce fresh squeezed lime juice
• Combine all three ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker.
• Shake until the shaker becomes painful to hold.
• Strain into a cocktail glass, and drink while listening to flamenco music.
• 29) Carrot Pie
• purée of two large carrots – about 1½ cups, or 300 grams
• ½ teaspoon ground ginger
• ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon kosher salt
• ½ cup (99 grams) sugar
• 2 whole eggs
• ½ cups (1 can) evaporated milk
• zest of 1 large orange
• 1 pie crust

Preheat the oven to 450º F.

Whisk all ingredients together in a medium-sized bowl.

Pour into the pie crust. Much as with a pumpkin pie, the crust does not need to be blind-baked.

Bake at 450º for 15 minutes, then lower the temperature to 325º and bake for a further 50 to 55 minutes or until the blade of a knife comes out more or less clean.

30) Sweet Lemon Buns

• 1 cup (227 grams) whole milk
• 1½ Tablespoons butter
• ¼ cup (50 grams) white sugar
• 1 Tablespoon yeast
• zest of 2 lemons (about 7 grams)
• juice of ½ lemon (40 grams)
• ½ cup (85 grams) golden raisins
• 1 egg
• 3 cups (360 grams) all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt

In a small saucepan, heat the milk, butter and sugar, until the sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from heat.

Stir in the yeast, then leave the mixture to proof for 10 to 15 minutes.

In a large bowl, combine the yeast mixture, lemon rind, lemon juice, raisins and egg. This will make a gloppy mess.

Add the flour and salt. Knead with the bread hook on your stand mixer, or by hand for five to 10 minutes.

Pull the still-sticky dough into a tight ball, then place in an oiled bowl to rise.

Let the dough rise for one to two hours, until it has doubled in size.

Preheat your oven to 350º.

With a large knife or bench scraper, divide the dough into 12 portions.

Form the portions into proto-buns and leave to rise a second time on parchment paper or a silicone baking sheet, about 20 minutes.

Bake for 20 minutes.

Eat, warm from the oven, with too much butter, or with Egg Foo Yung Salad.

31) Egg Foo Yung Salad

I am passionately fond of eggs, but not hard-boiled ones, or, as I like to call them, “sulfur-flavored Jell-O.” This is an excellent work-around egg salad.

• 1 order takeout egg foo yung, minus the sauce
• mayonnaise
• pickled red onion
• pickled jalapeños
• canned water chestnuts
• roasted, salted pecans
• a tiny amount of sesame oil
• salt and pepper

Chop the egg, onion, jalapeños and water chestnuts. Place in a medium-sized bowl.

Add the mayo, sesame oil and pecans to taste.

Season to taste.

There are no specific amounts of any ingredient in this recipe, because egg salad, like tuna or potato salad, is entirely dependent on individual preferences. About once per month I stop for takeout egg foo yung just to make this.

32) Boston Brown Bread

• generous ½ cup (60 grams) whole wheat flour
• generous ½ cup (67 grams) rye flour
• generous ½ cup (75 grams) fine corn flour or masa harina
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon ground allspice
• ½ cup (85 grams) golden raisins or dried blueberries
• 1 cup (227 grams) buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ½ cup (170 grams) molasses

Heat your oven to 325º.

Generously butter a loaf pan or large coffee can.

Combine all dry ingredients in one bowl, and the wet ingredients in another.

Combine the contents of the two bowls.

Pour the batter into the loaf pan or coffee can. Cover the top with foil and tie it with twine.

Put the pan or can in a large roasting pan or Dutch oven, and fill 1/3 of the way up with boiling water.

Cover the roasting pan or Dutch oven, and bake for two hours and 15 minutes. Check in on the water level from time to time, and refill as necessary. The bread will be ready when a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool for 10 minutes before serving with a truly inordinate amount of butter.

Use any leftovers the next day for Brown Bread French Toast.

33) Boston Brown Bread French Toast

Make French toast from your leftover Boston Brown Bread.

34) Flame-Grilled Vegetables

• 2 red potatoes, peeled and diced
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 yellow or red bell pepper, diced
• 1 can artichoke bottoms, diced – artichoke hearts are fine, but if you can find the bottoms, they will be a revelation; they taste the same, but with a meaty texture
• 1 can jumbo black olives, strained
• 1 package haloumi cheese, diced
• ½ bottle balsamic vinaigrette salad dressing
• salt and pepper

Several hours before you want to eat, boil the potatoes until they are just al dente — maybe five minutes from being perfectly cooked.

Add the potatoes and all the other ingredients to a gallon-sized zip-lock bag. Squeeze as much air out as possible. Leave the bag on the kitchen counter to let the vegetables marinate for two to three hours.

Half an hour before dinner, start the charcoal in your grill.

When you have a good set of coals, march outside with a determined expression, a grill pan, a pair of tongs and a cold beer.

Place the grill pan — it looks like a metal basket with a lot of holes in it — over the coals, then pour the contents of the bag into it.

There will be a huge hiss, but don’t worry, the coals have not gone out.

Grill the vegetables until the onions and haloumi have some good color. Move them around with the tongs from time to time. You will probably have to change position from time to time to escape the worst of the smoke. This is the price you pay for delicious grilled vegetables.

Sneak a piece of potato or pepper occasionally. You will know when everything has cooked.

Finish your beer, then make way too big a production of bringing the hot grill pan back into the kitchen for service.

35) Homemade Hummus

• 2 15.5-ounce cans of chickpeas, sometimes labeled as garbanzo beans
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 clove fresh garlic
• ½ cup (117 grams) tahini paste, sort of like a peanut butter made from sesame seeds
• 1 lemon, squeezed
• olive oil and paprika to garnish (optional)

Using a colander, drain and rinse the chickpeas to wash away any metallic taste from the cans.

In a blender or food processor, combine the chickpeas, salt, garlic and a generous cup of water. Blend or process on low speed for two minutes or so. The mixture will be a tan color and look a little grainy.

Add the tahini and lemon juice, then blend or process again for three to four minutes.

Pour into a serving dish. Garnish with a splash of olive oil and a sprinkling of paprika, then surround the bowl with olives, pickled turnips and torn or sliced pieces of flatbread.

36) Homemade Chocolates

You’ve probably watched a cooking competition and been scared off from ever trying to mold your own chocolates because the judges kept going on about properly “tempering” your chocolate and made it seem like glass-blowing or something.

Buy some silicone chocolate molds, or soap molds, or even ice cube trays from a craft store, or online.

Ingredients:

• chocolate

That’s it. You can, of course add pretzel pieces or crushed peppermint, or white chocolate chips, but all you really need is chocolate. Dark chocolate chips do very nicely.

Fill a small, microwave-safe bowl with chunks of chocolate. Microwave for 20 to 30 seconds.

Stir. At this point the chunks are probably just a little melted around the edges.

Microwave for 15 more seconds. Stir. More melty…

Let’s go 10 more seconds, then really stir. The warm chocolate will melt the rest of the pieces.

When you have a bowlful of melted chocolate, pour it into the molds. Make sure that you jab at it with your spoon or craft stick a little to get into any crevices.

Cool for an hour or so in your refrigerator, then de-mold.

Bask in the admiration of friends and co-workers.

And as long as you’re melting chocolate, you might as well make some Chocolate-Covered Cherries.

37) Chocolate-Covered Cherries

• melted chocolate (see above)
• maraschino cherries, stems removed.

One at a time, drop cherries into the melted chocolate, and roll them around with a fork until they are completely covered.

Transfer to wax paper or parchment paper to set.

Eat them, or use them to woo an attractive, dark-eyed stranger.

38) World’s Greatest Breakfast Sandwich

• 1 slice of ordinary sandwich bread (seriously, don’t try to get fancy with this), toasted
• peanut butter
• pickled jalapeños
• 1 egg, scrambled (I cook mine in the microwave oven for 67 seconds)
• salt and pepper to taste

OK, go ahead. Be skeptical, but once you’ve tried this you will make it again: Toast, peanut butter, jalapeños, scrambled egg, salt and pepper.

39) Taco Variations – Which Absolutely Should Be the Title of a Piece of Classical Music

So, the key to an extended family get-together, like on Christmas Eve, or Eid al Fitr, is feeding everyone generously, and keeping grumbling to a minimum. One of the best ways to do that is with tacos. Everyone likes some sort of tacos, so set up a taco bar in the kitchen with crispy shells, traditional grilled tortillas, and a variety of different ingredients. Here are a few ingredients that you probably haven’t thought of:

Pan-Fried Hominy – Drain a couple cans of hominy (alkali-treated corn that you can find in the canned vegetable section of the supermarket, near the beans), and fry them in butter until they are golden brown. They have a chewy texture and carb-y flavor that adds a whole new dimension to a taco.

Pulled Chicken – Buy a rotisserie chicken at the supermarket and pull it apart into taco-sized chunks. Half the work, all the flavor. You can set some golden-brown skin aside for a relative you actually like.

Plant-Based Hamburger Substitute – It is highly likely that you have at least one member of your extended family who is vegetarian or vegan and generally sulky about being left out at family gatherings. It is just as easy to make hamburger taco filling from Impossible or Beyond Burger. You wouldn’t even need to tell any of the huffier members of the family; just whisper in the ear of your relative-arian, and let them know that you have their back.

40) Another Cocktail – A Cranberry Cobra, Made with Cranberry Syrup

The Cranberry Cobra

• ½ ounce lemon juice
• ¾ ounce golden rum
• ½ serrano chile
• 1½ ounces blisteringly cold vodka
• 1 ounce cranberry syrup (see below)
• ½ ounce unsweetened cranberry juice
• 1 bottle Fever Tree Aromatic Tonic

Muddle the serrano in the bottom of a cocktail shaker.

Add the rum and vodka, and dry-shake (without ice). Capsaicin, the fiery chemical in chiles, is alcohol-soluble, so dry-shaking it will allow the rum and vodka to strip out more heat and flavor from the serrano.

Add the lemon juice, cranberry syrup, cranberry juice and ice, then shake again, as vigorously as you see fit.

Strain into a tall Collins glass, over fresh ice.

Top with tonic and stir gently.

41) Cranberry Syrup

• 1 part sugar
• 1 part 100% cranberry juice – NOT cranberry juice cocktail

Bring both ingredients to a boil in a small saucepan and cook until the sugar dissolves completely, about two minutes.

Actually that’s it. You will probably want to let it cool before actually using it in a cocktail.

So, right now, if you are a thoughtful reader, you are asking why you can’t just use cranberry juice and simple syrup in the Cranberry Cobra and skip the syrup-making altogether. Seven words for you: Apple. Pie. Ala. Mode. With. Cranberry. Syrup.

42) Thumbprint Cookies

• 1½ cups (3 sticks) butter, softened
• 1 cup (198 grams) white sugar
• 2 whole eggs
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 3½ cups (163 grams) all-purpose flour
• 1 cup fruit preserves, any flavor – the key here is to find some sort of really unusual jam that people won’t be expecting: ginger preserves, hot pepper jelly, rose jam, lime marmalade — these are all excellent choices

Preheat your oven to 350º

In a medium bowl, cream together the butter, white sugar, then the eggs.

Mix in flour a little bit at a time until a soft dough forms.

Roll dough into 1-inch balls. Place balls 2 inches apart on parchment paper or a silicone baking sheet.

Use your finger or an instrument of similar size to make a well in the center of each cookie. Fill the hole with 1/2 teaspoon of jam.

Bake for 14 minutes in the preheated oven, until golden brown on the bottom. Remove from cookie sheets to cool on wire racks.

43) Failure Cookies, aka Blank Canvas Cookies

This recipe was adapted from another 100-year-old newspaper clipping, and something was definitely lost in the translation. The filling burned and the dough turned out to be impossible to roll out. And yet — think of this as a Blank Canvas cookie. It has a mild, shortcake-like flavor that lends itself to modification. Add some peppermint oil? It would work beautifully. Lemon zest and lemon oil? Please. Bourbon? Why not?

1 cup (227 grams) whole milk

• 1 cup (198 grams) sugar
• ½ cup (1 stick) butter
• 3½ cups (420 grams) all-purpose flour
• 1 egg
• pinch salt
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder

Preheat your oven to 375º

In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, salt and baking powder together. Set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar in your stand mixer until light and fluffy.

Add the milk and the egg.

Gradually add the flour mixture and mix until it has been incorporated.

Drop 1-Tablespoon dollops of the batter onto parchment paper or a silicone baking sheet, six at a time.

Bake for 10 minutes. Cool briefly before eating, or making a Trifle.

44) Failure Cookie Trifle

The amount of each ingredient will be determined by the size of your trifle dish.

• Failure Cookies
• heavy cream
• maple syrup
• frozen cherries
• amaretto

Thaw and drain frozen cherries. Soak overnight in amaretto.

Whip the cream until stiff with maple syrup as a sweetener.

In a large, or whatever size you have, glass dish, layer Failure Cookies, maple whipped cream, and marinated cherries.

Repeat as many times as you have ingredients and room in the bowl.

Dust the top with nutmeg or chocolate shavings.

45) Chocolate-Orange Cookies, Also From a 1923 Newspaper Clipping

• 2 egg whites
• 1 cup (114 grams) powdered sugar
• 6 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
• 4 teaspoons melted butter
• ¾ teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup (about 1½ slices, 68 grams) fresh soft bread crumbs – a food processor or blender will crumb bread very nicely
• ½ cup (85 grams) chopped candied orange slices – Trader Joe’s has very good ones
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Mix the cocoa and butter into a stiff paste. Set aside.

Beat the egg whites to medium peaks.

Slowly mix in the powdered sugar…

Then the salt and cocoa paste…

Mix in the cinnamon, bread crumbs, chopped orange pieces and vanilla, until combined.

Chill the dough for 30 minutes.

Heat your oven to 350º.

Bake 1-Tablespoon balls for 10 minutes.

Cool and eat.

46) Browned Butter Cookie Bars

• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter
• 1 cup (213 grams) packed brown sugar
• ½ cup (99 grams) white sugar
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ⅓ cup (76 grams) whole milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2½ cups (300 grams) all-purpose flour
• 1 cup (170 grams) chocolate chips
• 4 ounces (about 1 large bar) dark chocolate, chopped
• 2 Tablespoons heavy cream
• 2 teaspoons light corn syrup
• sea salt flakes

Grease and line a 13×9” baking pan with parchment paper.

In a small saucepan, melt the butter, and cook until it turns light brown and smells nutty. Pour into a bowl to cool.

Add both sugars and the salt to the browned butter until completely combined.

Beat in the milk and vanilla, then the flour and chocolate chips.

When this has turned into cookie dough, transfer it to the baking dish and smash it down flat with a spatula, making sure to fill the corners. Put this in the refrigerator to chill while you play with melted chocolate.

In a small saucepan, maybe the one you used to brown the butter, heat the dark chocolate, cream and corn syrup. When it has turned to a melted saucy consistency, take the cookie dough from the refrigerator and pour the chocolate onto it. Tilt the pan to completely cover the dough. Sprinkle the top with sea salt.

Chill overnight, then cut into bars.

47) Gooey Butter Rum Bars

• ¾ cup (1½ sticks) butter
• ½ cup (99 grams) white sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 3 eggs
• 2 Tablespoons dark rum
• 1¼ cups (150 grams) all-purpose flour
• 1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
• 2½ cups (284 grams) powdered sugar

Heat your oven to 350º.

Grease and line a 9×13” baking pan with parchment paper.

Beat ½ cup (1 stick) of the butter with your mixer. Add the white sugar, baking powder, and half the salt. Beat until light and fluffy.

Add one egg and 1 Tablespoon of the rum. Keep mixing.

Beat in the flour until everything is combined.

Smush this dough into the bottom of the baking pan. Make an even layer, including the corners.

Clean out the mixing bowl, then beat the remaining butter and the cream cheese until light and fluffy.

Add the rest of the ingredients, being careful to add the eggs one at a time.

Pour the batter on top of the crust in the baking pan.

Bake 30 to 35 minutes.

Cool, cut and eat gleefully.

48) 1970s-era Nuts & Bolts (Chex Mix)

• ½ cup salted butter (1 stick)
• 2 Tablespoons full-sodium soy sauce
• 1¼ teaspoons seasoned salt
• ¼ teaspoon garlic salt (if there was any way to cram more salt into this, we didn’t know about it in the ’70s)
• 2¾ cups Corn Chex
• 2¾ cups Rice Chex
• 2¾ cups Wheat Chex
• 1½ cups cocktail peanuts (oh, wait – apparently there is a way)
• 1½ cups sesame sticks

Preheat oven to 275 degrees F.

Melt butter in a shallow pan. Stir in soy sauce, seasoned salt and garlic salt.

Add cereal, peanuts and sesame sticks. Mix until all pieces are coated.

Place on a shallow baking pan with sides.

Bake for 40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.

49) Switches and Coal, a Krampus-Themed Holiday Drink

This is a take on a classic drink called a Black Satin, but boilermaker-y:

• 3 ounces very dark beer – stout or porter
• 3 ounces Brut Champagne
• 2 ounces of the darkest rum you can get your hands on – I like Cruzan Black Strap

Gently pour the very dark beer into a tall glass.

Float the Champagne on top of it. Pour it over the back of a spoon. It will not make visibly separate layers, but it makes a difference.

Pour a shot of very dark rum, then drop it into the mixture.

Drink, while complaining to your husband about your day.

50) Greyhound – A Retro Cocktail that Will Make You Feel Better About Things in General

• 2 2-inch slices of grapefruit rind (just the thin outer layer – the grapefruit will bring enough bitterness without using any of the white pith under the surface)
• 1½ ounces good gin – I like Death’s Door
• 1 ounce St. Germain, an elderflower liqueur
• 2 ounces unsweetened ruby grapefruit juice

Muddle the grapefruit peel thoroughly in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. This will release citrus oil and add an extra layer of grapefruitiness to the finished drink. Feel free to really smash the peel.

Add the other ingredients and four or five ice cubes to the shaker, and shake thoroughly.

Strain over ice in a rocks glass.

Sip while thinking about that one time when you met that guy with that crazy idea. What would have happened if you’d thrown caution into the wind?

51) Lady In Blue – A Classic Cocktail With a Touch of Sophistication

• 1½ ounces very cold gin
• ¼ ounce créme de violette
• ¾ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
• ½ ounce simple syrup
• 3 drops orange blossom water

A “slip” of blue curaçao

Combine all ingredients except the blue curaçao with ice in a cocktail shaker.

Shake until frost forms on the shaker and your hands become uncomfortably cold.

Strain into a martini glass. This is one occasion where you should not frost the glass first; you will want to show this cocktail off. The frosted glass would mess with that.

Pour a small slip of blue curaçao down one side of the glass. It is denser than the rest of the drink and will pool in the bottom of the glass.

52) Existential Luau – A Tiki Drink That Brings Up Difficult Questions

• 1 ounce lime syrup (see below)
• 1 ounce Campari
• 2 ounces gin (I like Death’s Door)
• 4 ounces pineapple juice

cracked ice or tiny ice cubes

Fill a tall glass — a pint glass or a Collins glass — with ice.

Add lime syrup, Campari and gin.

Top off with pineapple juice.

Stir with a bar spoon.

Drink while thinking what you would name your boat, and then the bar you would run when you got to a tropical island, sold the boat and opened a bar.

53) Lime Syrup

• juice of 3 or 4 limes
• An equal amount (by weight) of white sugar
• zest of 2 limes

In a small saucepan, bring the lime juice and sugar to a boil. Stir until the sugar is completely dissolved, about 10 to 15 seconds, once it’s boiling.

Remove from heat and add lime zest. Let it steep for 30 minutes.

Strain the zest from the syrup, so it doesn’t get bitter.

Label your jar so you won’t have an awkward moment a week from now, when your wife wants to know what’s in that jar in the door of the fridge.

54) Navy Grog

• 1 ounce black rum, the darker the better – I like Cruzan’s Black Strap for this
• 1 ounce golden rum – I’ve got a bottle of Kirk and Sweeney that I save for special occasions like this
• 1 ounce white rum – Bacardi is fine for this; the white rum in this recipe is like the friend who is seriously underdressed to get into a club but is able to brazen her way through because of her fancy friends
• 1 ounce honey syrup
• ¾ ounce grapefruit juice
• ¾ ounce fresh-squeezed lime juice, plus half a lime for garnish
• 1 ounce aggressively bubbly seltzer – I like Topo Chico
• 1 sprig fresh mint for garnish

Fill the large half of a cocktail shaker to the top with ice.

Pour the ice into a clean tea towel. Wrap the ice in the towel, then beat it brutally with something heavy (I use the billy-club-sized pestle from my largest mortar and pestle for this). Beat the towel until you have a variety of ice shards, from half cubes to pebbles to legitimate snow. Pour this ice back into your cocktail shaker. It will take up significantly less room than before.

Add the rums, honey syrup and citrus juices to the shaker, and shake thoroughly.

Add the carbonated water, then stir gently with a bar spoon.

Pour the entire contents into a glass. Does it have to be a Tiki mug? It could be; again, who’s going to judge you? But frankly, any large-ish glass, mug or mason jar will do.

Squeeze the remaining half lime into the glass, then drop the carcass in to class the joint up a little. Finish it off with the fresh mint.

Featured Photo: Courtesy photo.

Exciting new adventures in graham cracker, marshmallow and chocolate

S’mores seem like a good bet.

They only have three ingredients. You have access to sticks. And even though the leaves have turned and the nights are cold, s’mores, with their accompanying campfire, give you a good reason to keep the deck furniture out a few more weeks. What could possibly go wrong?

Aw, jeez, I just jinxed it, didn’t I? Now even roasting marshmallows seems like too much to wrap your head around. OK, let’s break this down to its essential components: graham crackers, marshmallows, chocolate and fire. We’ll ease into it.

The Graham Crackers

Graham crackers are a good place to start. They were designed to be non-threatening. They were invented by the followers of Sylvester Graham, a 19th-century preacher and nutritionist, who was convinced that white flour, sugar and meat of any kind led to poor health and impure thoughts. If you think that you wouldn’t have been likely to get along with him, an angry mob of bakers and butchers in 1837 Boston would agree with you. They laid siege to his hotel while he was on a speaking tour, and were only dispersed when Graham and his followers dropped bags of cement on them from the hotel roof.

Commercial graham crackers, the ones we remember from kindergarten, are delicious, inexpensive and easily available, so who would make them from scratch?

You would. As long as you don’t expect perfection.

Lindsey Bangs, the baker of I Whisked It, a homestead bakery in Raymond, says that the secret is rolling the dough to a consistent thickness.

“If you don’t get the dough completely even, the edges will be a little crispy while the center isn’t done yet.”

This isn’t a huge problem for home bakers but would be a logistical headache for a commercial baker, which is why you don’t see house-baked graham crackers in bakeries very often, she says. But making them yourself also allows you to take some liberties in how you flavor them — adding cardamom, or even a little black pepper.

“Adding more cinnamon would really bump the flavor profile up,” Bangs says.

She likes her marshmallows gently toasted and golden brown.

Homemade Graham Crackers

Lindsey isn’t kidding about how fiddly graham crackers can be. They are straightforward enough to make at home, but making them professionally would be like juggling ice cubes. If you follow each step, though, you will be very pleased with the result.

A note on substitutions:

When making comfort foods, it is very tempting to jazz up a recipe. By their nature, comfort foods are basic; they are there to comfort, not to inspire or excite or intrigue the eater. This is why there are so many recipes and articles about mashed potatoes. Everyone wants to mess with them, but when someone is burned out from work or nursing a broken heart or feeling homesick, they do not want blue cheese in their mashed potatoes.

Most of the ingredients in this recipe lend themselves to intriguing substitutions. I would recommend restraint; feel free to change one ingredient. More than that will muddle the flavor of your graham crackers. Even one substitution will probably get you a pointed comment from a graham cracker purist.

• 1 cup (113 g) Whole wheat flour – You could use stone-ground whole wheat flour for this, but that would be your one substitution.
• 1 cup (120 g) all-purpose flour – Don’t experiment with this; you don’t want to toughen or soften the texture of your graham crackers by using bread or pastry flour.
• ¼ cup (50 g) white sugar – or brown sugar, or maple syrup, but that would be your one substitution.
• ½ teaspoon salt – I like kosher salt, but again, well, you know.
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon – I like smoked cinnamon.
• 1 teaspoon baking powder – There isn’t really a substitution here, but did you know that you should replace your baking powder every six months? Weird.
• 1 large egg
• ¼ cup (50 g) vegetable oil – or hazelnut oil
• ¼ cup (85 g) honey – or hot honey
• 2-3 Tablespoons (28-43 g) milk
• more milk to make cinnamon sugar cling to the top of your crackers
• cinnamon sugar for topping (optional)

In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients – the flours, salt, cinnamon, and baking powder.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients – the sugar, egg, oil, honey, and milk. I don’t know why sugar is considered a wet ingredient, but it is, and it works better when you treat it that way. Chemistry is weird.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones, then stir to combine. You might have to knead the dough a little to bring it together.

Wrap the dough, and chill it for at least an hour.

Preheat your oven to 300º (150º C).

Divide the graham cracker dough in half.

Roll each batch of dough to 1/16 inch thick. It is important that the dough is consistently thick. Is there an easy way to do that? And how thick is 1/16 inch, anyway?

Here’s how you’re going to preserve your sanity. Lay down a sheet of parchment paper, and weigh it down with half your dough. Flatten it out a little with the heels of your hands. It turns out that the wire in most clothes hangers is made of 12-gauge steel, 1/16 of an inch thick. Place a clothes hanger on either side of your dough, then cover everything with another layer of parchment paper.

Using the wire as a guide, roll the dough out as thick as the hangers. As you get your dough thinner and thinner, each end of your rolling pin will rest on one of the hangers.

Peel the top layer of parchment paper from each batch, then slide the bottom layer onto a baking sheet, then repeat the whole process with the other half of the dough.

If you are going the cinnamon-sugar route, brush each sheet of dough with milk, and sprinkle it with the cinnamon-sugar.

Bake the sheets of dough for five minutes, rotate them, then bake them for another five minutes.

Remove each sheet from the oven and cut to shape with a bench scraper or a pizza cutter.

Return the dough to the oven, and bake for another 20 minutes or so.

This is the part that seems really fiddly, but it’s important if you want your graham crackers to be crisp and not bendy:

Turn off the heat, and open the oven door all the way. Let it cool for five minutes, then close the door again, and let the crackers cool in the oven for another 20 minutes.

Transfer the graham crackers to a cooling rack. At this point they are exquisitely crispy. They should stay crispy, though not crunchy, for a couple of days, depending on how humid the air is. If you have any of those “Do Not Eat” dehydration packets saved, put those with the crackers in an air-tight container, and maybe store them in your refrigerator, which is the driest place in your kitchen.

So, the natural question: Is making your own graham crackers worth the trouble?

First of all, the number of steps involved is misleading. Tying your shoes or organizing your sock drawer would probably involve 72 separate steps if you broke it down. None of these graham cracker steps is very complicated. I know that there are days when you feel like opening an oven door is at the outer limit of your ability, but you can totally do this.

Secondly, these are delicious. Most of us have never had a thoroughly crisp graham cracker, warm from the oven. It is warm, but crunchy, gently sweet, but with tiny bursts of salt, and — depending on how well you were able to restrain yourself — with a little something extra.

This recipe is based on one from King Arthur Flour, my first stop when looking for any baking recipe. Their recipes are pretty much bullet-proof, but here’s something that even they won’t tell you: Flip a warm-from-the-oven graham cracker upside-down, and smear the bottom with butter. It is the most decadent legal experience you are ever likely to have.

The Marshmallows

When it comes to marshmallows, Sherrie Paltrineri knows what she’s talking about. She runs Sweet & Sassy, a small candy company specializing in pre-made s’mores. It’s fair to say that she’s not a s’more purist.

“Right now we’re making s’mores with up to 12 flavor profiles per week,” she says. “As we get into the fall season, we have pumpkin spice, of course, but we play around with Dark Chocolate with Raspberries, Orange Cranberry, and even Mochaccino.” According to Paltrineri, the surprise sleeper hit of this past summer was made with root beer flavored marshmallows.

She likes her marshmallows completely torched. “I love them burned; I want them to go up in flames,” she says.

Cooking with Marshmallows

There are a lot of people who will assure you that making your own marshmallows from scratch is relatively easy and very rewarding. I am not saying that those people are wrong, but my most recent attempt at home marshmallowing went badly. The term “fiasco” is too kind to describe it accurately.

I am not saying not to try it. There are many very nice instructors who can walk you step-by-step through the process — Martha Stewart springs to mind — but they could speak to this much more authoritatively than I can.

But is there a marshmallow-forward recipe that we can tackle that will help guide you toward s’morehood?

As it turns out, there is:

Toasted Marshmallow Ice Cream

• 1 10-ounce bag of mini marshmallows
• 4 egg yolks
• pinch of kosher salt
• ½ cup (99 g) white sugar
• 3 cups (735 ml) half and half
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Toast the marshmallows under the broiler in your oven, or with a blowtorch, either one of the tiny kitchen ones or a regular no-pretense plumber’s blowtorch from a home center. (I like the one with a pistol grip; it has a great sound. Hissssssss, click, WHUMP!) The torch will allow you to get a little more variety in how dark you toast the marshmallows, but in any case, if you prefer them toasted a gentle golden brown, cook them a little darker than you might otherwise do. The ice cream base will dilute the flavor slightly, and a darker marshmallow will bring more marshmallow flavor.

Combine egg yolks, salt, sugar and cream in a small saucepan.

Heat, whisking, until the mixture reaches 175ºF/80ºC.

Strain the hot mixture over 2/3 of the toasted marshmallows. Add the vanilla, and whisk the mixture until it is as smooth as it’s going to get. Do not let this step worry you; clumps of semi-melted marshmallows in this ice cream is not a bad thing.

Chill the mixture for at least three hours or overnight, then churn according to your ice cream maker’s manufacturer’s instructions.

When spooning the soft-serve-textured ice cream into containers, layer with the remaining toasted marshmallows, before hardening it off in the freezer.

Even die-hard marshmallow fans will admit that they can be a little (unrelentingly) sweet. This ice cream carries the toasted marshmallow flavor gently, in a just-sweet-enough base. The flavor is delicate enough that you will probably not want to eat this with any topping that might overpower it.

This is a definite winner.

The Chocolate

Let’s face it: It’s the chocolate that makes or breaks a s’more. The graham cracker provides texture, and the marshmallow provides sweet stickiness, but it is the chocolate that sets the tone for the whole enterprise.

Should you go with a classic milk chocolate, or something darker? Should you let it melt completely, or let your marshmallow cool a little so you still have some resistance to your teeth? Should you use a classic American candy bar or something a little shmancy?

According to Jeffrey Bart, the owner of the Granite State Candy Shoppe in Concord and Manchester, most people don’t put enough thought into this.

“Many times, someone will just break up a chocolate bar and hope for the best,” he says. His suggestion is to either use two types of chocolate or to finely chop some, but not all, of the chocolate, and use both in a s’more. The little pieces, having more surface area, will melt easily. “That hits the perfect ratio of totally melted and fused with the graham cracker,” he says, “and something to still bite into.”

He prefers his marshmallow gently toasted.

“I’m of the Low and Slow camp,” Bart says.

Rob Delaney and Maggie Pritty of Worldwide Chocolate in Brentwood agree that texture is important but stress the importance of picking the right flavor profile.

“Personally I’d go with a dark milk chocolate,” Delaney says, “which is not a thing that a lot of people are even aware exists.” He says that some dark milk chocolate can have as high a cocoa percentage as 55 to 70 percent, as opposed to the usual 35 percent or so for a typical grocery store chocolate bar. “That would have that milky, caramelly character, without being so sweet.”

Pritty stresses the importance of reading the label on a bar of chocolate. “Make sure to look at the ingredients,” she says. “You want to see that it’s made with cocoa butter and sugar, not hydrogenated palm oil or anything like that.”

She likes her marshmallows dark brown but not quite burnt.

So is there something chocolate-forward and s’moresy that will build your confidence back up?

Yes. Yes, there is.

Dark Chocolate Cheesecake with Graham Cracker Crust and Toasted Marshmallow

Crust

• 403 g graham cracker crumbs – this is almost exactly equal to one box of graham crackers
• 4 Tablespoons (56 g) butter, melted – this is half a stick

Cheesecake Filling

• 24 ounces (678 g) cream cheese, room temperature – this is three 8-ounce packages
• 1 cup (207 g) sugar
• 6 Tablespoons (43 g) dark cocoa powder
• 1 cup (230 g) sour cream, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 8 ounces (227 g) dark chocolate, melted and slightly cooled
• 4 eggs, room temperature

Marshmallow Topping

• 1 7.5-ounce jar of marshmallow cream

Preheat oven to 325°F (163°C). Line a 9-inch (23 cm) springform pan with parchment paper in the bottom and grease the sides.

Combine the graham cracker crumbs and melted butter in a small bowl. Press the mixture into the bottom and up the sides of the springform pan. It will seem like too much crust, until it doesn’t.

Bake the crust for 10 minutes, then set aside to cool

Put your chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl, and heat, 15 seconds at a time, to melt it. Stop when it still has a few lumps. If you stir it at that point, everything will melt without getting too hot.

Cover the outside of the pan with aluminum foil. This is to more-or-less waterproof it, when it goes into a water bath. (Yes, there will be a water bath. Don’t panic. As the Winter Warlock® once put it, put one foot in front of the other.)

Reduce the oven temperature to 300°F (148°C).

In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese, sugar and cocoa until completely combined. If you use an electric mixer, use your lowest speed for this. Because Reasons.

Add the sour cream and vanilla, then mix to incorporate them.

Add the melted chocolate in three parts, stirring to combine each time.

Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing after each addition.

When everything is completely combined, pour the cheesecake batter into your foiled-up springform pan.

This is where the water bath comes in. In old recipes, it will be called a bain marie. Put your foiled-up pan inside a larger pan, maybe a turkey-roasting pan. (If, like me, you don’t have a pan that big, use your largest non-melty mixing bowl.) Gently fill the larger pan or bowl with hot water that reaches about halfway up the side of your springform pan.

Bake for about 70 minutes. Don’t panic and open the door too much. The whole reason for the water bath is to provide gentle steady heat to your cheesecake. It will have your back for one or two viewings, but try to exercise some restraint. Set a timer, and go clean out your refrigerator. You will not believe what there is in there.

After your timer goes off, check on your cheesecake. It shouldn’t be ready yet, but it will have a nice skin on top of it and be a little wiggly in the middle. Turn the oven off, but leave the cheesecake inside with the door closed, to finish cooking gently. Leave it for another hour.

When the oven is much cooler and your cheesecake has an internal temperature of 150º-175º F (65º-80º C), remove it from the oven, and let it cool on your countertop, then refrigerate for three to five hours or overnight.

When your cheesecake is completely cooled and firm, take it out of the refrigerator and de-pan it. You will rightfully feel proud.

But you’re not done yet.

Coat the top of the cheesecake with marshmallow cream. Use your own judgment as to how much you want to use.

Toast the marshmallow layer. Yes, you could do this under your broiler, but I prefer to use a blowtorch, either one of the mini ones designed for kitchen use or a plumber’s torch from the hardware store.

Serve immediately. If you aren’t serving a dozen people — though if you aren’t, why aren’t you? — wait until service before topping each slice with Fluff individually, then torch it in front of your guests, which is probably more dramatic anyway.

Much like a s’more, this is a very rich, deeply chocolatey treat. Even if you are a “more is more”-type person, you might want to start with a small slice of this. Its intense chocolateness is balanced by the sour tang of the cream cheese and sour cream, but it is still very, very rich. If you wanted to freeze this (and why wouldn’t you?) small slices might be even better.

The Fire

The only element left to discuss is the fire.

Yes, you could toast your marshmallow over the last coals in a charcoal grill, or even a gas one. In an emergency, you could toast it over one of the front burners in your kitchen, especially if you have a gas stove.

But half the experience of making s’mores is navigating actual flames — flirting with disaster, if you are a gently-toasted-golden-brown person, or plunging your marshmallow into the heart of the flame if you belong to the go-for-broke, fully-torched school of marshmallow toasting.

The key to a good marshmallow fire, according to 15-year-old Eagle Scout candidate Hailey Hansen, is starting small: “When I make a fire, I like to make a log-cabin fire, with sticks stacked like walls to a house, but you have to start from the bottom first, with tinder, then kindling, and larger and larger sticks, before you get to that stage.”

She says that coals are better for any campfire cooking, as they provide a steady, dependable heat, which lets a marshmallow roaster confidently choose how done they want to roast their marshmallow, but it’s not a binary situation:

“Your fire doesn’t have to be all coals. You can have half with flames, but let the other half burn down to safer” — by this, she clearly means “old person” — “coals,” she says.

Hailey likes her marshmallows golden brown and crispy but thoroughly melted inside.

At this point you must be feeling pretty confident s’mores-wise. If you can handle that cheesecake, you can host a s’mores party with one hand tied behind your back. But maybe you would like one more easy recipe to keep you bucked up until then. Is there an easy recipe that you can make to keep everyone on a short leash until it’s actually S’mores Time?

As a matter of fact, yes, there is.

S’mores Candy

• Some marshmallows — the big ones, the mini ones, whatever you have around
• Some graham crackers — you know you’re going to have to buy a new box, anyway, so you might as well use up what you have handy at the moment
• Some peanut butter — all natural, or the kind that children actually like, it’s up to you.
• Some chocolate — any chocolate: white, milk, dark, whatever you have stashed away in that cupboard that the kids can’t reach.

Crush the graham crackers into crumbs. A food processor is good for this.

Mix the crumbs with peanut butter — however much it takes to make a nice, stiff dough. You will almost certainly start doing this with a spoon, but almost as certainly end up mushing it altogether with your hands. You decide when it is the right consistency; this is one final exercise to get in touch with your s’mores instincts.

Melt the chocolate in your microwave. (See cheesecake recipe, above)

If you are using large marshmallows, cut them into quarters or eighths. If you are using mini-marshmallows, just let them be themselves.

Coat the marshmallows with the peanut butter dough you just made. You will probably need to play with it in your hands a little, before it reaches the consistency you want, and more-or-less covers the marshmallow. This doesn’t have to be perfect (because of the next step).

Drop the marshmallow/graham cracker/peanut butter ball into the melted chocolate, and then roll it around with a fork, until it is completely coated.

Remove the candy from the melted chocolate with your fork, then gently place it on a plate covered with a piece of waxed or parchment paper.

Repeat this until you run out of an ingredient. Don’t worry if you have some left over; any extra will mysteriously disappear.

Refrigerate the candies for at least 20 minutes. They are very good with tea.

Putting It All Together

At this point you might expect step-by-step instructions on how to make s’mores, but that would be silly. You have known how to make a s’more since you were 5 years old. It was probably the first food you learned to cook. It is less complicated to put together than toast.

Step 1: Toast a marshmallow

Step 2: Put a piece of chocolate on half a graham cracker, then sandwich the marshmallow between the two cracker halves.

(I do have a preference for Mexican chocolate — the gritty stone-ground kind — but when I mentioned this to our three chocolate experts, they stared at me in shock, then started to speak to me in very small words, so use whatever kind suits you personally.)

However, I do have one final recipe:

S’mores Martini

Graham Cracker Vodka

• 1 sleeve (135 g) graham crackers
• 3 cups 80-proof inexpensive vodka

Combine graham crackers and vodka in a blender. Blend at whatever speed pleases you for about one minute. Feel free to chuckle evilly as the graham crackers meet their fate.

Pour into a wide-mouthed, air-tight jar.

Store in a warm, dark place for a week, shaking twice daily.

This is really important: On Day 7, DO NOT SHAKE THE JAR.

Gently pour the clear liquid through a fine-meshed strainer, let it settle, then pour it through a coffee filter, into a labeled bottle.

Chocolate Vodka

This is very similar to the previous recipe.

• ¼ cup/1 ounce/30 g cocoa nibs. Cocoa nibs are the raw ingredient for chocolate-making. You can find them in an upmarket grocery store or online. I like ones from Guittard. They come with this warning: “May contain shell, kernel, plant material or other material from the growing process. Inspect or re-clean before using. This is not a Ready-to-eat food.” In other words, just exactly what we’re looking for in this application.
• 2 cups middle-shelf vodka

Combine the cocoa nibs and vodka in a large wide-mouthed jar, seal, shake vigorously, then place in the basement or under the sink, with the graham cracker vodka.

Shake twice per day for four days.

Strain, filter, and bottle, as above.

S’mores Martini

• 1 ounces crème de cacao
• 2 ounces chocolate vodka
• 2 ounces graham cracker vodka
• a toasted marshmallow, for garnish

In a mixing glass, rinse several ice cubes with crème de cacao, then pour it off.

Pour equal amounts of chocolate and graham cracker vodka over the liqueur-rinsed ice.

Stir gently but thoroughly.

Pour off, into a chilled martini glass.

Garnish with toasted marshmallow, much like you would a conventional martini, with an olive.

The surprising thing about this martini is how well the flavor of graham crackers comes through. Make no mistake; this is a strong, fully adult cocktail. It is not nearly as sweet as you might be tempted to think. This is a s’more to drink in small sips.

Featured Photo: Courtesy photo.