Spontanious Experimentation

a new year of experiments: 2010

2010-01-08T13:33:00.002-06:00

Hello All --

I apologize greatly for the extremely unreasonable wait, but Physics 211 had its own set of experiments that I had to deal with. It was a long and grueling semester.

This year brings new experiements: new and improved soapmaking, more ice cream recipes, breadbaking, drying vegetables, but most of all, things that abide by the name of the blog and cannot be forecasted -- spontanious experiments.

Happy new decade!

ICE CREAM.

2009-08-07T16:45:00.005-05:00

Hello All!

We all know this lovely substance -- peanut butter... creamy peanut goddess.

I love most foods, but peanut butter I find exceptional. The gluttonus, cafe au lait-colored, stick-to-your-ribs, luxurious, and most of all, its deep and complex flavor make it heaven every time I eat peanut butter straight out of the jar.

(I attribute it to my mother eating peanut butter while she was pregnant with me to fill the void that my relentless appetite was creating.)

A bit gruesome to eat straight out of the jar, I know, but I can't help it.

Whether you like chunky or smooth, I have a treat for you. It's a modified version of the Topping Shoppe's recipe, slightly lower fat and lower tech. It's...

David's Peanut Butter-Chocolate Wafer No-egg Ice Cream

Ingredient List:

1 cup creamy or chunky (I used chunky all natural) peanut butter
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 cup 1 - 2% milk
2 cups heavy cream
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

6-10 chocolate wafer cookies, or the tops and bottoms to Oreos, coarsely crumbled

Make sure the dairy products are cold, fresh from the refrigerator.

Mix the peanut butter with the sugar thoroughly with a wooden or plastic spoon.
Add the milk, and mix until mostly homogenized and the sugar is dissolved.
Add the cream and vanilla extract, and whip with a whisk until frothy and thickened. Make sure the whole mess is free of globs or clots of sugar.
Add to your ice cream maker and freeze according to its directions. It might take a while, but it's worth the wait...
Remove ice cream from the maker and add to a container you plan to keep in your freezer. Add the crumbled cookies and mix thoroughly.
Enjoy now, or later.

pumpkins and peaches

2009-07-31T22:26:00.002-05:00

Hello All!

This post will be mainly recipe... I made recently fried marinaded peaches and pumpkin pie frozen yogurt, both were delicious and both roughly based off of some online recipes.

David's Balsamic Peaches

Ingredients:

2 large, ripe peaches, peeled, pitted, and halved
a dozen Vanilla Wafers
1/3 C packed brown sugar
1/2 C balsamic vinegar, any combination white or dark
1/8 t nutmeg, cinnamon, and cardamom each
1 pint vanilla or peach frozen yogurt
(slivered almonds)
(amaretto)
1 T butter and canola oil each
A frypan/large skillet with a big lid

Take your peaches and put them in a gallon sized bag with all ingredients EXCEPT butter, frozen yogurt, almonds, and vanilla wafers. Mix thoroughly in the bag without damaging the peaches. Let sit at room temperature for one hour.

Remove peaches and place each one into a bowl. Reserve sauce. Melt butter with canola oil in the large skillet. Crumble one or two vanilla wafers on each peach half, coating each one. Add flat-side down to the skillet. Turn the heat on low and cover with lid, cooking peaches until very soft and brown on both sides. Remove peaches and place each in their bowl, crumbling another vanilla wafer on top. Add sauce to pan and reduce until quite thickened, like thin maple syrup consistancy. Pour two spoonfuls atop each peach half and put one scoop of frozen yogurt on top, while still hot. Add a dash of amaretto and/or slivered almonds on top.

---------

David's Pumpkin Pie Frozen Yogurt

1 C pumpkin puree or canned pumpkin puree
1.75 C lowfat yogurt
3/4 C packed dark brown sugar
3/4 t pumpkin pie spice
1.5 t vodka

Mix all ingredients together until sugar is dissolved. Add to ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer's instruction.

Peach sorbet!

2009-07-24T17:06:00.002-05:00

Hello All!

So I have decided to use my ice cream maker to its fullest while all this fresh fruit is everywhere. Peaches are in season, and we bought a half bushel of them. Albeit they were frozen -- they still were Georgia in-season peaches.

So what did I do?

Peach sorbet! Almost. I like frozen yogurt much better than sorbet, but frozen yogurt requires a lot of yogurt. So I'm not quite sure what to call it, but it's a hybrid of frozen yogurt and sorbet. Whatever it is, it's delicious.

David's Peach Frozen Yogurt-Sorbet Hybrid

Ingredients:

4.5 C Peeled and chopped fresh peaches
2/3 C lemon juice + enough juice with fresh lemons to create 3/4 C
1 C lowfat yogurt
roughly 7/8 C sugar
5 tablespoons frozen orange juice concentrate
optional: 1 tablespoon amaretto

Begin by peeling and chopping 4.5 cups of fresh peaches into a pyrex measuring cup. I don't recall exactly how many peaches this was, but it was at least 8 medium sized peaches. Put the prepared peaches into a blender or food processor and puree. Pour the puree back into the measuring cup.

Add all other ingredients into a saucepan and heat just until all sugar is dissolved. Be sure to strain the lemon seeds out. Add peach puree to everything else and chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour.

Prepare your ice cream maker and add 1/2 of the chilled peach mixture to it. Wait 15-25 minutes, depending on your ambient temperature. Reserve the remaining mixture, and refreeze your ice cream maker. You can make the second batch tomorrow, when all the sorbet will probably be gone.

frozen yogurt

2009-07-13T18:33:00.008-05:00

Hello All!

I made frozen yogurt recently as my latest experiment! Compared with baking Pain A'l'ancienne, it's very basic. I used this recipe by Half Baked to the letter; I started with 1.5 lbs of strawberries, took out the bad ones and hulled them, then ended up with 1.1 lbs of strawberries. I also used the vodka. It turned out marvellously. Here are some pictures!

Start with fresh strawberries.

After chopping into small chunks and hulling them, rinse in a mesh strainer.

Then, add the sugar and vodka and stir until it dissolves. Wait 2 hours for the mix to mascerate. Then blend, and chill for an hour before sticking it in your electric ice cream maker.

Voila! you have frozen yogurt. It's almost like sorbet; however, it's a little richer, tangier, and less sweet. Almost like a frozen smoothie... refreshing.

So of course I got carried away and made my own recipe! I was hungry one night yet restless so I went and picked about a quart of wild raspberries and blackberries. I ate some fresh, but there were so many leftover that I needed to preserve them somehow. frozen yogurt!

David's wildberry frozen yogurt

2 cups wild blackberries and/or raspberries, in any combination

2.5 cups good full-fat yogurt

3/4 c sugar

1 t vodka

1 t vanilla extract

1/2 squeezed lemon

Start by measuring 2 cups wild berries into a large bowl. Add sugar, vanilla and vodka, and stir until the sugar mostly dissolves. Wait 30 minutes. Add berry mixture into a blender; pulse until pureed. Strain through a metal sieve, and this will take a while. Use a rubber spatula and scrape the bottom of the sieve.

Measure chilled yogurt into a large glass measuring cup. Add strained berry mixture into yogurt, along with the lemon juice. It should measure about 1 quart. Stir until combined, then add immediately into your ice cream maker. Hopefully you remembered to freeze it. Wait 20-30 minutes, or until desired thickness. If you wish, you may toss in a handful of extra berries 5 minutes before it finishes the freezing process. If you use 95% blackberries, like me, it should be a rich velvet color. This recipe makes for a rather lemony frozen yogurt, so if you want more of the berry flavor as opposed to a tart one, half the amount of lemon juice.

Good luck!

worm tea!

2009-04-27T08:48:00.002-05:00

Hello All!

I was with the Foodlums, one of my favorite groups on campus the other day, and we made WORM TEA!

It was great! It actually looked about this color and everything.

The way to make worm tea, if you have access to fresh worm castings, is very simple. Just put about a cubic foot of worm castings in a cheesecloth, burlap sack, scrap cloth sack or anything somewhat porous and permeable. After that, put this bag of worm poo in a 5-gallon pail for 48 hours. Save the worm castings and voila! Worm tea. Be sure to use distilled water though.

Worm tea is basically steroids for your plants. According to wikipedia...

"Vermicompost can be mixed directly into the soil, or leached in water and made into a worm tea by mixing some vermicompost in water and steeping for a number of hours or days.
The microbial activity of the compost is greater if it is aerated during this period. The resulting liquid is used as a fertilizer or sprayed on the plants."

Have fun!

far too long

2009-04-03T09:29:00.004-05:00

It has been WAY too long since I've done a spontanious experiment, not to mention spontanious anything!

Recently I made a bunch of Pain a'l'ancienne baguettes, but more or less the ciabatta form. Above is really what they look like -- mine turned out very similarly.

Well, here is the recipe! Take care in making sure that the bread dough, formed/shaped, sits out for an hour or two undisturbed if you want those big air bubbles.

Pain al’Ancienne
The bread bakers apprentice

6 cups (27 ounces) flour

2 1/4 tsp (.56 ounce) salt

1 3/4 tsp (.19 ounce) instant yeast

2 1/4 cups plus 2 T to 3 cups (19 to 24 ounces) water, ice cold

Semolina flour or cornmeal for dusting

Combine the flour, salt, yeast, and 19 ounces of water in the bowl of the electric mixer with the paddle attachment and mix for 2 minutes on low speed. Switch to the dough hook and mix for 5 to 6 minutes on medium speed. The dough should be sticky on the bottom of the bowl but it should release from the sides of the bowl. If not, sprinkle in a small amount of flour until this occurs (or dribble in water if the dough seems to stiff and clears the bottom as well as the sides of the bowl). Lightly oil a large bowl and immediately transfer the dough with a spatula or bowl scraper dipped in water into the bowl. Mist the top of the dough with spray oil and cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Immediately place the bowl in the refrigerator and retard overnight.

The next day, check the dough to see if it has risen. It will probably be partially risen but not doubled in size. Leave the bowl of dough out at room temperature for 2 to 3 hours (or longer if necessary) to allow the dough to wake up, lose its chill, and continue fermenting.When the dough has doubled from its original prerefrigerated size, liberally sprinkle the counter with bread flour (about 1/2 cup). Gently transfer the dough to the floured counter with a plastic dough scraper that has been dipped in cold water, dipping your hands as well to keep the dough from sticking to you. Try to degas the dough as little as possible as you transfer it. If the dough is very wet, sprinkle more flour over the top as well as under it. Dry your hand thoroughly and then dip them in flour. Roll the dough gently in the sprinkled flour to coat it thoroughly, simultaneously stretching it into an oblong about 8 inches long and 6 inches wide. If it is too sticky to handle, continue sprinkling flour over it. Dip a metal pastry scraper into cool water to keep it from sticking to the dough, and cut the dough in half widthwise with the pastry scraper by pressing it down through the dough until it severs its, then dipping it again in the water and repeating this action until you have cut down the full length of the dough. Let the dough relax for 5 minutes.

Now, place a baking stone in the bottom of your oven and preheat it to 500 degrees F. Also, place a baking pan or a cast iron skillet on the top rack of your oven. Cover the backs of two half sheet pans with parchment paper and dust with semolina or cornmeal.Cut the dough into 6 roughly equal strips using the dough cutter. Using floured hands, gently transfer the dough to the prepared baking sheets (3 to a pan). Be careful to space them as you do not want them to touch. Using a very sharp knife or kitchen scissors, make three incisions on the top of each loaf. Spray with oil and then cover with plastic wrap and let them rest until the oven is ready, roughly an hour. *** or several, if you want those big holes! ***

Heat about 3 cups of water to a simmer. Measure out 1 cup of it. Have a spray bottle full of room temperature water at the ready. Open the oven and slide the parchment paper (with the bread, of course) directly onto the baking stone. Then pour in the 1 cup of water into the baking pan or cast iron skillet. Close the oven door and wait 30 seconds. Then spray the walls of the oven with water. Repeat two more times. Then reduce the heat to 475 degrees F. Bake for 15-20 minutes, rotating midway through the baking time if the loaves are baking unevenly. When golden brown and the internal temperature is at least 205 degrees, transfer the loaves directly to a cooling rack. Repeat the baking process with the remaining loaves, remembering to increase the oven temperature to 500 degrees.

00000000000

Good luck!

I have not given up

2009-02-14T19:44:00.003-06:00

Hey all!

It looks nasty, but smells amazing. What is it? It's KAHLUA, baby.

I decided to give my amature-bartending friend Jared a very belated christmas present that involved alcohol. I also had all the ingredients available for Kahlua -- coffee, sugar, vodka, water, and vanilla in relatively large amounts. Still, I made a half recipe, but it was plenty. And let me tell you, the mudslides this thing can make are terrific.

KAHLUA BASICS

Be patient.

Let the syrup cool.... I repeat, do NOT put the coffee in hot water!

THE RECIPE

(adopted from http://noplastic365.blogspot.com/)

2 cups water
2 cups sugar
1 cups alcohol (vodka for Kahlua, rum for Tia Maria)
1/4 cup fresh ground coffee (dark brew provides stronger coffee flavor)

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

-Boil the water and sugar in large pot, until sugar is completely dissolved. Stir.
-Remove from heat, cool for half an hour.
-Slowly add in the dry instant or fresh ground coffee, stirring continuously.
-Add vanilla to the alcohol (vodka or rum), pour into gallon jug.
-Combine cooled sugar syrup and coffee mixture with the vodka or rum in gallon jug.
-Cover tightly, and shake every day for three weeks. Store in cool, dark place.
After three weeks, remove vanilla bean (if used) and strain coffee grounds (if fresh ground coffee was used). Discard vanilla bean and coffee grounds.

To remove either the coffee grounds or vanilla bean, use a french press coffee maker.

chocolate milk

2009-01-28T15:05:00.002-06:00

Hello All!

I think chocolate milk is underrated. I wish I could drink it every day. And it's good for you -- better than sports drinks apperantly. So -- give it a chance.

out of context

2009-01-23T21:05:00.004-06:00

Hello All!

This has nothing to do with a random project or recipe.

I would just like to commemorate this day to be the possible end of any math class in my lifetime.

The final math was (possibly) college-grade trigonometry.

That is all.

stuffed peppers and mashed sweet potato cassarole!

2009-01-17T20:44:00.000-06:00

Hey everybody!

I decided on a whim to cook dinner tonight and it was quite the project. I'll skip the explanation and get right to the recipe for the sake of time.

I will introduce two new things on the site: ETA and Difficulty. ETA is how long the recipe would take for me, an average chef, and Difficulty levels range as follows:

Beyond Easy
Easy
Mild
Moderate
Involved
Difficult
Grueling
Break-neck

Stuffed Peppers and Craisin Carrot-Mashed Sweet Potatoes

ETA: 1.5-2 hours
Difficulty: Involved

Serves 3 with leftovers, or 4.

Ingredients:

2 large chicken breasts, boneless/skinless, or not
1 small onion
1 cup uncooked rice
1.75 cups water
3 large red peppers, thoroughly washed
4 medium-sized sweet potatoes, peeled
2 large carrots, peeled
1 small handful raisins
1 small sliced apple [optional]
1 medium handful pine nuts (preferred) or slivered almonds
1 medium handful craisins
A bottle of olive oil, milk, salt, and butter, on hand
2 teaspoons curry powder
1/2 teaspoon each sage, black pepper and paprika
A trusty, high quality knife
Cassarole dish, with glass lid + fry pan, or cast-iron skillet
Saucepot, with lid
Stockpot, with lid
Potato masher

Start by peeling the sweet potatoes and carrots, and chopping them up into chunks. Throw them in a large stockpot with enough water to cover them. Reserve the now full pot.

Cut the tops of the peppers off, removing most, if not all, of the membranous white foam and seeds. Set peppers in saucepot. Fill saucepot with enough water to completely cover and fill the peppers. Bring the water to a boil and boil for 4-5 minutes. Reserve about 1.5 cups of liquid and set the peppers, with no excess liquid, on a plate open end up to dry. Pour the liquid into the stockpot.

Bring the sweet potato-carrot mixture to a boil, then add about 1/2 teaspoon salt to the pot. Stir and reduce the heat to a gentle boil. Boil for about 20 minutes, or until very soft.

Just after reducing the heat, chop the onion into fine slices. Add enough olive oil to either the frypan or skillet to coat the bottom with about 1 cm of oil. Heat the oil until it ripples slightly (medium high). Add the onions and optional apple, curry powder, sage, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, paprika, and black pepper. Cook the onions until golden. Add the chicken, whole -- be sure to remove as much skin and fat as possible, if there is any -- and fry until the outer layer looks cooked. Either transfer the whole mass to a cassarole dish, lid on, if using a frypan, or stick a similarly sized lid on the skillet, and put either in a 400 degree F oven for 20 minutes. Do not open the oven.

Removing any excess moisture and/or rice particles, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to the now empty sauce pot. Add the rice, and stir. Bring heat to medium high, and fry the uncooked rice for about 1 minute. Add water carefully. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes.

By this time, if the carrots and potato slices are soft, strain carrot and potato slices. Transfer everything to a large ceramic or hard plastic bowl. Add craisins and 1 T of melted butter (or simply add butter and wait for it to melt on the hot taters). Mash thoroughly. Add milk and pine nuts or almonds along with a pinch of salt. Combine. [Potatoes: DONE]

If the rice is done, uncover. If the chicken is done, remove from oven and uncover. There should be at least 1/4" of liquid on the bottom. Cut chicken into small slices, then add the chicken-onion mixture to the rice. Add raisins and mix. [Stuffing: DONE]

Fill hollowed and now blanched peppers with stuffing. Preheat oven to a broil setting. Rinse either cassarole dish or skillet and dry, and top with stuffed peppers, uncovered. Add peppers to oven and broil until the top of the stuffing browns slightly. Remove from oven.

Serve and enjoy.

vermicomposting!

2009-01-10T14:55:00.001-06:00

Hello All!

My next experiment will be vermicomposting, which is composting with worms! yes, worms... little red beauties that can eat their own weight in food. It seems pretty simple, and constantly throwing away food scraps into basically into landfills, which are an anaerobic environment -- no air, no decomposition, and it smells like crap! -- seems pretty idiotic. I'm thinking about a worm bin that would consist of 1 pound of worms, which would eat 1/2 of a pound of food/day, which is not a lot, but can easily be expanded.

Hopefully this will work! Maybe I can even build one for Governors Hall... and then grow plants from the compost and sell them for a fundraiser?

Ad Hoc Rye

2009-01-09T12:56:00.000-06:00

-------------------------Dave's Ad-Hoc Rye:

Sponge: 2 C Whole Wheat Rye Flour
.5 C AP Flour
2 t Instant yeast
1.25 C Cold 2% Milk

Bridge:1 and 2/3 C AP Flour
1 T salt
1 T caraway seeds
.25 C any type of liquid fat (e.g. melted butter, canola oil)

Dough:1 C AP flour
1 T instant yeast
1 C water
1 egg yolk, preferably room temperature
About 1 C extra AP flour

Sponge: Mix instant yeast and flours together completely, then add the 2%. Let sit out 1 hour or stick in the refrigerator overnight.

Bridge: Add the flour, caraway seeds and salt to the sponge, adding liquid if needed. Mix completely. Add fats. Mix completely. Knead 5-10 minutes, or until tacky but not sticky. Let rise 30 minutes.

Dough: In a seperate bowl, mix AP flour and yeast together, then add water, mixing until the three create a white, silky mixture. Tear off chunks of the bridge into the silky mixture, add egg yolk, and combine completely. Knead until tacky and passes the windowpane test, with high development. Though feel free to experiment with medium gluten development if you want those weird holes. Cut into two peices. Form into boules, and set on a parchment-lined airbake pan. Spray profusely with spray oil, and cover with plastic wrap. Let proof 2 hours, or until it rises 50% from its current state.

Baking: Preheat oven to 365 F. Throw those balls o' dough on the middle rack. Wait 20-30 minutes, until they just start to brown, and rotate the pan 180 degrees. Wait another 10-15 minutes, until the whole boule is a deep brown, but not burnt. Take the bread out and take a whiff.... yum. Wait at least 15 minutes before slicing, but if bread needs to be preserved, wait until they are room temperature.

If you're daring enough to try this, props!

David

candy candy candy!

2009-01-07T22:31:00.000-06:00

hello all -

this post is about candy! I had a hankerin' for some peanuts, something crunchy and delicious. so i made some candy bars! i had the recipe in a brochure that I got at the farmer's market, and proceeded to use it. but oh no...! not enough sorghum? not to fear, for honey and blackstrap molasses made an even better candy!

Ingredients:
1/6 C sorghum
1/6 C honey
1/6 C blackstrap molasses
(or any combination of the above to equal 1/2 C)
1/3 C white sugar
SECTION 2
1 C corn flakes
1 C rice krispies
1/2 C peanut butter (chunky or smooth)
6 oz. roasted peanuts
1/2 C any dried fruit (I used raisins)
(potential for 1/2 C crushed pretzels)

1 large glass pan, sprayed with oil.

double the recipe for about 2 dozen bars.

HOW?
Be sure to measure out everything beforehand, and mix only section 2 together at this stage. Next combine the honey, sorghum, molasses, and sugar in a sauce pot; set to medium - high. stir until dissolved.

reduce heat to low. add peanut butter and stir until mostly combined. add section 2 and stir until completely combined. scrape gooey mixture into glass pan. cover with plastic wrap or wax paper and chill in fridge for 30 minutes, or until solid. enjoy.

Spontanious Experimentation: What?

2008-12-20T18:11:00.000-06:00

Hello All.

This will mark the first post of SE. In this blog there will be mentions of soapmaking, bread baking, sourdough culturing, plant growing, composting, and how I have accomplished them. Everyone enjoys little projects now and again, but I'm going to take it to a whole new level.

About 36 hours ago, I spent much of the day making food. Rye bread and soup. I'm going to cover the bread, since it was a complete accident and I have made the soup many times before.

I was examining a version of white bread from the Breadbaker's Apprentice and I noted that one version uses a sponge. I wanted to actually make rye bread, but only in one day. Here's the Apprentice's recipe (page 269):

Sponge:
2.5 C unbleached bread flour
2 t instant yeast
1.25 C whole milk, lukewarm

Dough:
1 and 2/3 C unbleached white flour
1.5 t salt
3 T sugar
1 large egg yolk, slightly beaten, room temperature (72 F)
1/4 C butter, margarine, or shortening, melted; or, vegetable oil

At first I simply substitute whole wheat rye flour for 2 C along with .5 C white flour in the starter. But I screwed up. I added cold milk to the flour and forgot the yeast. So I mixed the yeast in anyway, and left it sit for about an hour. It didn't rise much, to my disappointment.

I then figured that I might as well make the darn stuff into dough. I added the 1 and 2/3 C white flour, salt, and some water, since the air was rather dry. I skipped the sugar and egg yolk for now. I mixed it up and added the oil. Then I kneaded the crap out of it. At this point, it was a nice, tacky mass, so I added some caraway seeds too. But again, after 30 minutes, it didn't rise much at all. AT ALL!

From a different part of the book I learned about cold fermentation. Since my house was at about 60 degrees I figured it was so cold that the yeast hadn't gotten a chance to eat up the flour yet, but the ensymatic reactions between the liquid and flour might be doing something. So, I took the doughy mass and covered it with plastic and filled the same mixing bowl (after a half-ass scraping) with 1 C regular AP flour and 1 tablespoon instant yeast. I added enough water so that it was basically the consistency of melted ice cream. I then tore off chunks of the old dough and threw them in the gunky flour mixture. I added the egg yolk and mixed this in the bowl until it was no longer a liquid and the old dough and new gunk were combined.

After this, I added enough AP flour to compensate for the excess moisture, and kneaded the dough for about 5 minutes, or until it passed my tests for gluten development. I covered it with plastic wrap and let it rise for 1 hour. Then I cut it in two pieces and shaped them into boules and covered them with spray oil and plastic wrap on a parchment-lined airbake pan. I waited another 2 hours.

Soon enough the dough was nice and puffy and obese, so I pre-heated the oven to 365 F and chucked those babies onto the middle rack, rotating after 25 minutes. I waited another 10-15 minutes and they were cracked on the bottom and golden brown. Ohhh was that a lovely sight. I cut right into the first loaf and we ate it within an hour. The second is still being eaten to this day. A success!

Recipe coming soon.