kitchenmage

Epilogue: black bean brownies with some MINOR adjustments

...if you have not read the first part of black bean brownies with some MINOR adjustments, please go do so first...I'll wait...

When last we saw Lisa, she and the 6 year-old C had tried the brownies and she said, "C likes them, and I know R & S will eat them."

I asked her to post another update after everyone had a chance to try them out at dinner. Final results after the jump...

"black bean brownies with some MINOR adjustments"

My favorite mailing list has been having a hot and heavy discussion about the Amazing Black Bean brownie recipe that Heidi posted a couple of weeks ago. The thread culminated in one woman, the ever-brave Lisa Whipple, deciding that she was just going to make them and see how they turned out. The brownies are in the oven now just finished and her opinion is at the bottom of this post, but I had to share her email missive with you.

Martha Stewart's next Big Idea

I have just been over at Martha Stewart's site telling her what I think her next big project should be. The list is varied, including a lifestyle magazine for pet owners, which would have "pet crafts" (My cat won't hold still while I decoupage her.), Martha stores (Seriously, doesn't she have them?), and a merchandise line targeting a younger demographic (rolls eyes - isn't everything already?).

My choice? A magazine for people with food allergies. At the moment, this is running even with the pets. I'll make you a deal. You vote for the food allergies magazine and I'll draw you a pattern for the ring-bearer pillow for your dog, if that's really what you want at your wedding.

Martha wants your opinion. too. Stop by The Martha Blog and check out the list of contenders for the next Big Idea.

Menu for hope

Menu for Hope is a charity auction that benefits the UN World Food Programme. Led by Pim of Chez Pim, Menu for Hope raised over 60,000 last year. Here's a bit of how it works, from Pim:

Each year, food bloggers from all over the world join forces to host the Menu for Hope online raffle, offering an array of delectable culinary prizes.  For every US$10, the donor receive a virtual raffle ticket toward a prize of their choice.  This year, the prizes include once in a lifetime experiences such as touring the elBulli laboratory with Ferran Adrià, dining on a historic British meal prepared by Heston Blumenthal, or joining Harold McGee on a lunch date to satisfy a lifetime's worth of cooking curiosity.  You can also tag along with your favorite blogger on a tour of their favorite markets, restaurants, or even receive a care package fashioned especially for you from your favorite bloggers themselves.  All you need is $10 and a bit of luck.

This is my first year participating in the event, and seeing the sorts of prizes Pim lists above, I am thinking I will have to bid on a number of things as well. Coming up with a prize that will stand out just a smidge amongst the things that are likely to be up for bid - seriously, Adria, Blumenthal, and McGee - was a daunting task but I think I came up with something bid-worthy.

Are you ready for Menu for Hope?

If it's December, it's time to help feed the world!

Well, actually it's always time to feed the world but I am especially aware of it now, when the wind turns icy in the late afternoon dusk and the thought of sitting with a mug of hot tea and a warm laptop is downright inviting. How fortunate I am in that comfort. Many of you too, I am guessing.

Not everyone is quite so lucky, however, but we can help.

There are, of course, local food banks and shelters that can use your help now more than ever. America's Second Harvest is a great organization and can help you find a food bank in your area.

Think more local than even that too. Know a college student who could use a home-cooked meal with leftovers to go? Invite them over, and make extra food to be sure
there are leftovers. (Sure that's an old mom trick but I have yet to be refused when I innocently say, "How ever did I end up with two chickens for the four of us? Take one home...?")

Or you can go global...

Fall into Cooking with free recipes from new cookbooks

Just in time for the holiday shopping season, Amazon has had a wee bit of a tweak here and there - mostly flyout menus that behave more like you might expect software to act - but there are also some new featured sections. My personal favorite is, of course, food related: Fall into Cooking

At first, it looks like a lot of shiny new cookbooks, and it is, but scroll down a screen, past those cookbook titles, however tempting they may be, for just a moment. (I promise, you can go back later.) On the left sidebar, see where it says...

A Year in Bread in midsummer

It's too hot to bake!

Well, almost too hot to bake. This month at A Year in Bread we are focusing on quick breads, with Kevin's scrumptious Cheese Bread starting us out. My post is going up tomorrow, but there is a subtle hint here somewhere about the recipe. If I could just remember where I put it.

Pesto Rolls

Over at A Year in Bread, one of my other playgrounds, I just posted my recipe for the current round of "summer breads": Pesto Rolls. Made like a savory cinnamon roll, but with baguette-ish dough, pesto and Parmesan, these are great for summer picnics where slicing and buttering is a hassle but plain bread is boring. I absolutely adore these things and start making them every summer as soon as I can get my hands on basil. Read the rest and get the recipe here. I also put up a flickr set of action photos taken while making them...and clutching a camera remote in my teeth. (yes, really)

revisiting Gastroblogia

In honor of International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, albeit a bit belatedly, I extend this bit of linky love to Miz D. of Belly-Timber who reminded me of this marvelously funny bit of writing: Mighty Cheese Warriors: An Historical Perspective

For anyone who was around during the Pete Wells cheese sandwich absurdity, here's a chance to revisit one of the sweetest pieces of writing to come out of that affair. Newcomers might want to read Kalyn's backgrounder (the link in this paragraph) before going on to Mighty Cheese Warriors.

I'd also like to welcome Miz D. back, she's been MIA for a bit while relocating and resettling and I've missed her and Chopper Dave's antics. She's one of my favorite pixel-stained technopeasant wretches.

A brief mash note to food blogs (in general and specific)

I just want to say that I love the Web in general, and food blogs in particular. They are a valuable, and marvelously fun, addition to the stacks of books and magazines that already clutter my life. While I'd like to say they are a great free source of recipes and such, I am not so sure. I am constantly going to someone's site and deciding to buy something. Like my new ice cream machine (thanks to David Lebovitz for the recommendation), which is wonderful and all, but not so free!

Naysayers, (you know who you are) who swear blogs are all dren run by people writing about their cheese sandwiches lunch and soooo not relevant to the serious media, listen up! There is a reason why food blogs occupy a favored spot in the hearts and minds of a vast readership. Let me tell you a story about why...

I have made marshmallows on a number of occasions including those lovely chocolate coated raspberry marshmallows right up there. What I have not made is chocolate marshmallows and, while that may seem simple, there is actually rather complex chemistry at work between the very few ingredients in marshmallows.

Boil the sugar syrup to a phase other than soft-ball and you get something different - although not necessarily bad, I want to experiment with making marshmallow fluff by boiling the sugar a bit less. Too much fruit puree seems to destabilize the sticky mass just enough that mine stayed a little too soft; too soft to roast on a fire, and that's no good! Worse, the merest hint of oil and the mixture can become totally undone, refusing to whip into a billow of wonderfulness and settling into an sullen, glutinous mass in the mixer bowl.

Fortunately for me, I know McAuliflower, just down the road at Brownie Points, is a bit of a mad scientist (and she's got the coolest toys!) and has done all sorts of marshmallow experimentation. Better yet, I know several things about McAuliflower's recipes:

• They are actually tested (I've yet to have one of hers fail) and she is open to corrections and enhancements when she finds a better way.
• If there is a technical reason for something, she explains it.
  
• There are likely to be variations for things she is really into - she has a category for marshmallows!

Knowing that marshmallows are one of those things she is seriously into, I knew this was a great source for what I needed. At her site, it took me two clicks to find this great post on chocolate marshmallows and am no off to make some of my own, secure in the knowledge that it will work and with a solid explanation for why I want to add the chocolate at the end of whipping them. (read it and see for yourself) I'm going to do it with a mixer, rather than by hand, as it seems McAuliflower did, but I know why she did it her way and how to make it work my way.

The entire process of finding the right post took me about 45 seconds. (Last time I needed a recipe for something semi-obscure and went to the cookbooks, I was still there twenty minutes later.)

It's damned hard to provide this sort of 'perfect for me right now' resource without a large pool of talented and passionate people who are free to write about what they love.

And at the moment I love Brownie Points. Thanks, McAuliflower!

Cooks and Bakers, we have a winner

Actually we have a number of winners. The winners of the Food Blog Awards have been posted over at Well Fed and I want to send a hearty congratulations to all of the winners. One in particular warms my little breadbaker's heart: Farmgirl Fare won the best rural blog category! That's right, my good friend and co-conspirator in the superSecretBreadBakingCabal is the best! I knew that already, but now the rest of the Internet does too.

btw, after you check out the winners, don't forget that the best part of the FBA is the list of nominees. This year's lists led me to a number of new (to me) blogs and I still have a few categories to go through. If you go to the collection of Food Blog Award posts, you can choose a category to  peruse. With any luck you can finish looking at this year's nominees by the time for next year's awards.

Congratulations to Susan and the rest of the winners!

Come to think of it, congratulations to everyone who has a food blog. These puppies are a lot of work and putting yourself out there for the public (and the trolls) is never easy.

GingerbreadScapes

I always like watching people stretch their comfort zone in the kitchen, so I had to share this. Picture one of those "make candy/pastry/gingerbread house" competitions except that, instead of 2-3 person teams with a few hours, you let the teams take as long as they needed and use as many people as they wanted. Then, just to keep it interesting, and since it's Gingerbread houses and such, ask architectural firms to do the design and building.

Ah, the possibilities!

Well, the Toronto Star did just that and they are auctioning off the results. If you happen to live in Toronto, maybe you'll get a chance to see them. For the rest of us, Gingerbread Cities has galleries of the creations.

It's been absolutely forever since I made a gingerbread house. At this point, I'd have to build something a bit less Victorianish and a lot more designer.

New blogger in the 'hood

When you live in a place like evenTinierTown, you get used to being the only person around doing a particular thing. After all, if there are only 200 people in town, there are only going to be a few folk who bake bread, for example, or have blogs. Very few.

So you might imagine my delight at discovering a new food blog that is, if not in evenTinierTown, just upriver a bit. In a town that's close enough that she might even have heard of evenTinierTown. Now to get to her quickly and swear her to semi-secrecy...it's not like the identity of the place is secret, it's more Voldemort (Where-That-Will-Not-Be-Named) than CIA (If I tell you, I have to kill you).

Experimentation Of Taste is chrispy's space to explore what to do with the bounty from her CSA. So far, she's explored chard and kale (neither of which I've seen in my CSA box, are we on different growing seasons?) Plus, she seems to have a turtle. Pretty cool.

Shop 'til the rain stops.

Rain sheets dance the length of the valley, sending all but the elk scurrying for cover. 'Tis a good day to be inside and dry, pulled close to the techno-fire of a glowing computer screen, still warm cookie in hand, melty chocolate chips and all. It's enough to make one grateful for online shopping.

Does 50% off Godiva sound good? How about 50% off gift certificates at Restaurant.com? Or, because I know there's a candy freak lurking out there, 40 Pounds of Lemonheads for about 50 bucks?

All that and more at dealnews.com, a site I stumbled across recently. They scan a number of online shopping sites for the best prices on a range of somewhat random, yet interesting, items. It's not comprehensive (as if anything could be) but there are probably a few things there that could part you from your credit card. Kitchen deals here, food and drink deals here.

Did I mention that their slogan is how to go broke saving money? Well, at least they warn you.

More food. Less whine.

By popular request (who knew?) and with Rand's generosity, I offer more shirts and stuff.

Having fought with Cafe Press's upload system (is resumable FTP really too much to ask for?) and a flaky satellite linkfor too many hours this evening, I'm now beat and must turn in before dawn, but I do have to say one thing: I put this on a toddler shirt and it sheds a whole new light on it. A whole new light. Because most parents of an active, growing, and eternally hungry toddler would agree: More food truly does often equal less whine.

Cookbook for Doctors Without Borders

Kathy at What Do I Know? and Ginger of The Hackenblog are creating a book to benefit Doctors Without Borders, which is a most worthy organization. They are looking for recipes, short essays, some artwork, poetry, and so on. (note to writers: I even read the legal stuff and it's fine, you retain copyright, etc) I've offered my Fish Tail Soup recipe as a sort of cross between humor and cooking. Check out the idea and see if you've got something to contribute to this great project.

International food blogging made easy

When you ask a food blogger — or a reader (food blogee? that so needs an accent mark!) — what they like best about blogs they will often launch into an involved rhapsodic dissertation on all the other food blogs. And they're totally right, there are many amazing food blogs out there. There's one for every taste: bakers, breadBakers, cakeBakers,    carnivores, vegans, celiacs, vicarous world travelers, chocoholics, dessert-lovers, bacontarians, breakfast-lovers, sandwich eaters, cheese devotees, farmers, caterers, adventurers, heck there's even one for when you totally lose it and go nuts!
 

And those are all in English!

Ch...ch...ch...changes

Maybe it's New Year's Resolutions, maybe it's in response to a recent LA Times article that slagged pretty much all non-niche food-bloggers, maybe it's mid-winter doldrums, or the start of a calendar year for business. Whatever the reason, this month is bringing all sorts of changes in the online food community.

12 days of christmas

You really should go read this. You need the laugh. Really.

Useful, time suck, or both...?

Oh my, this could be trouble. Google has a blog searching interface.

My first few searches show a fair amount of noise-to-signal, some duplication, and lots of hits. Some results also show "related blogs" at the top; apparently matches based on blog title since a search for "kitchenmage" shows mine and "pim" shows Pim's, but "Clotilde" doesn't show hers while "chocolate" does. Along with almost three-quarters of a million hits! 

Indexing the blog title for use like this is an interesting aspect of this search feature--particularly for new bloggers. Bets on how long until someone puts up a blog called something like "I want to be Pim!" to take advantage of this?

I am not sure what's up with the duplicated results, and there are quite a few on some searches, but it's still fairly new so maybe this will sort out soon. Also available: RSS and Atom feeds for your searches; sort of like Google Alerts for blogs. (which reminds me, I am still looking for a feed reader I like, anyone got one they recommend?)

I think I'm voting for useful time suck...and now I must go figure out how to tweak my searches and work on that signal-to-noise ratio.

Blog Day: it's not midnight yet is it?

If I am going to slide this in before midnight, it's going to have be a quick list.

Oswego Tea: A Canadian roaming Europe; Germany, Belgium, and she just moved to Paris. Some people live rough lives.

zarzamora: "is it possible to learn how to cook simply by being married to a cook and loitering in the kitchen? " Yes, apparently it is. The best part is that he's a geek, with science and tables and  references and everything! (note to self: get your apprentice a blog)

Seven Spoons: If little tiny Icewine strawberries in sweet wonton cones weren't enough, she's also read one of my favorite books.

The Novato Experiment: A San Franciscan moves to the deep 'burbs of Marin, although I want to see pictures of the plastic garden gnomes--they seem so anti-Marin. Plus, I once lived in Bolinas so this is almost nostalgic.

she craves: she who craves describes it as food life and anxiety from the jello belt, which is good because it's got seven words posted. I like her sense of humor already and if you go now you can discover it before everyone else. Bonus: remember how lonely it is when you have a brand new blog and nobody came by or commented? So go ahead, make her day.

Go, read, enjoy.

quote (and picture) of the day

In my meanderings today I found what may be my new motto on Three Tarts, a self-described collaboration between one cook, one eater, and one cheese smuggler.

Someone gave chocolate fondue to a two-year old and luckily for us someone brought a camera. You really must go here and get your day's dose of cuteness. If you're not convinced of this, how about a quote to make you click the link?

"After all, nothing says "good party" like chocolate up one's nose."

A is for Apple, and April...even in August

Today's post is brought to you by the letters A, B, C, and a few of their friends. (I'm not sure because I am winging this and then posting whatever I end up with — call it a writing exercise — and I only have the first half-dozen letters covered at the moment) It's not really my fault, I had several random small things I wanted to write about and the first one was so elementary — some might say abecederian — that I couldn't get beyond the oh-so-obvious start. Some days, the muse walks up, whacks you in the head and says, "duh, do it that way"...so I did. Wish me luck.

Wizards of Oz (the one with 'roos)

Saffron over at The Food Palate has the latest installment of Omnivoribus Australis up, and I have spent the last hour (or two...okay, maybe three) clicking and reading and planning what to make first. Omnivoribus Australis, for those of you who, like me, have missed it until now, showcases the writing and photography of Australian food blogs — and do they ever have things to showcase!

Apparently I have been wandering around with a delusion that Australian food ran the gamut from shrimp on the barbie to vegemite. Okay, flog me with wet noodles ouch for willful ignorance, I can only say I am making up for it.

let them drool over cake!

Few things make me wish I was closer to a city, but this might be an exception. It as least makes me wish for a transporter so I could beam myself to New York tomorrow. Even stranger than my desire to go to one of the biggest cities around, I just want to go to Grand Central Station, walk around for a few hours and leave. How weird is that?

What, you might wonder, is sufficient to draw the country mage's thoughts into the city.