Reposting something is not what I would normally do, but considering how many times I’ve made this recipe, I think I can repost it again without feeling guilty about new content. I am making these again today because my buddy Jonny from work specifically requested Peanut Butter Cookies. The conversation went something like this:

Jonny: so… I hear you cook?

Me: yes, yes I do.

Jonny: how much do I have to give you for peanut butter cookies?

Me: well, the first batch is free, but the next will cost you, a lot, because these cookies are like crack.

Oh Jonny, you have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into.

Another normal conversation with Jonny goes something like this:

Jonny: So, are you wearing pants today?

Me: Well, that’s kind of a personal question now isn’t it?

Enjoy the cookies Nerdery!! And thank Jonny for the request.

—–

ok to be fair, I’ve never tried crack cocaine, but I imagine it would be similar to these cookies. Stacy made them first and demanded that I make them, so I did.  I even made a double batch the day before thanksgiving, put all the cookies into 3 bags, and they were gone by Sunday.  Every single one.  How is this possible, about 60 cookies, gone in 3 days?  Because they are like crack cocaine.  You eat one, then you hide one in your pocket while eating another one, and after 10 minutes you’ve gained 10 lbs and lost 60 cookies.  My parents came over on Sunday, I wrapped 4 cookies in a plastic baggie for them to take home, my dad starts eating them and next thing I knew, they were all gone.  I go and grab the big bag of cookies I still had left, he eats 4 more, my mom yells at him (and she eats 4 more) and then they went home and took the bag with them.  THEY STOLE MY COOKIES!!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, copied from Little Blue Hen

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup peanut butter at room temperature (smuckers natural smooth)
3/4 cup sugar plus extra for rolling
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup peanut butter chips (reeses chips)
1/2 cup chocolate chips (ghirardelli)

Directions:
1.) Preheat oven to 350F. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Mix and set aside.

2.) Mix the butter and peanut butter together until fluffy. Add sugars and beat until smooth. Add egg and mix until combined, then add milk and vanilla extract. Add flour mixture and mix until combined. Stir in baking chips.

3.) Place a few tablespoons of sugar in a small bowl. Scoop dough by rounded teaspoonfuls and dip in sugar. Place on an un-greased baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Use a fork to press down gently and make a criss-cross pattern in the top.

4.) Bake 10-12 minutes at 350F. Let cool for one minute on the baking sheet, then remove to a wire rack to finish cooling.

The only thing I would change is use a slightly smaller chocolate chip, the ghirardelli brand, although super delicious, were oversized.  This prevented me from making the cookies any smaller, and I wish mine were smaller so I wouldn’t feel so guilty eating 5 or 10 cookies in 1 sitting.  I already purchased another bottle of smuckers peanut butter… I’m such a crack addict.  I blame this all on Stacy.

Hello friends!  I have finished Angry Birds so now here is the promised pancetta post.  So, Angry Birds, this game is so cool, I have beaten all 8 levels, now I have to get all the achievements. </OCD> I have it for my iPad which is infinitely better than the iPhone version imo, you can actually SEE it.  Man, talking about it makes me want to go back and play some more.  *chirp chirp WHEEEEE*

Oh right, pancetta.  If you know me, you know I love breakfast.  If we had a breakfast eating contest, I will kick your ass.  I can eat a lot of breakfast food, although eating it at breakfast time is so 1980s.  I also have a ton of veggies from my CSA, so a lot of my weekend breakfast dishes have involved potatoes.  This is super easy to make and totally delicious. Not a lot of seasoning is needed due to the saltiness of the pancetta.  I didn’t add any herbs because spring onions are so very tasty and its perfect in it’s simplicity.

Evie’s Breakfast Hash with Homemade Pancetta

Ingredients:

• 4 oz homemade pancetta, cubed
• 4 medium red potatoes, cubed (other potatoes are ok too)
• 1 spring onion, diced (regular onion will work as well)
• 1/2 cup grated pepper jack cheese
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 eggs
• sprig of dill for garnish

Directions:

1. Cut up the pancetta, potatoes, and onions.



2. Heat olive oil over medium heat in a skillet.  Add the pancetta and cook for about 3 minutes, stirring often.



3. Add potatoes, cook for another 5 minutes, stirring often.  Make sure they don’t stick to the bottom.
4. Add the onions, cook for about 8 minutes more until potatoes are soft, onions are translucent.  Salt and pepper to taste, I didn’t use any extra salt, the pancetta had enough saltiness.
5. Meanwhile in a separate pan, fry up some sunny side up eggs.
6. Plate the hash, sprinkle some cheese on top, place the egg, sprinkle more cheese and salt and pepper the eggs.  Garnish with a sprig of dill. Enjoy!!

If you have been paying attention to my twitter or Facebook or life in general, I just got married recently!  And of course, I had to pick up a set of all-clad pans, did you see the pan in the picture above?!  I splurged and got the copper core set and I’m totally loving it.  I did however accidentally cooked hash browns in one… that was not pleasant.  Note to self (and PSA for you readers), use a non stick pan for hash browns!

And to top off the wonderful set of pots and pans, my chef friend Travis got me the hottest knife ever.  It’s the Misono UX10 8″ hollow edge chef’s knife.  After you use Japanese steel, you won’t go back to the German crap.  It’s so incredibly sharp and thin.  That is one of the defining differences between Japanese and German knives.  Travis says the German knives have their uses, like butchering a pig.  Isn’t it so pretty?

One last shot of the pancetta… I am completely out now, I miss you pancetta…. *xoxo*

What’s a Scandihoovian?  I have no idea.  Anyhoo, this is the delicious salmon I made uh, 3 months ago maybe… and just getting around to posting because I kind of suck at this blogging thing.  I’m trying something new tho, I realized that the problem is that I don’t like sitting at my computer desk.  So what ends up happening is, I do all my photo editing on my PC, I get annoyed, then I leave my office and sit on the couch.  Yesterday I collected all 25 backlogged photos and uploaded them to flickr… now that my photos are accessible from the couch on my Macbook, I *should* blog more right?  Right?? …..

This whole curing thing is pretty awesome. I’ve used 3 boxes of kosher salt already!  I used Michael Ruhlman’s Fennel Cured Salmon recipe from Charcuterie except I didn’t have any fennel, pernod, or even lemon zest.  Laziness (do we see a theme here?) dictated that instead of going to the store to get said ingredients, I use what’s in my fridge, so I ended up making a Dill Cured Salmon with *orange zest*.  In hindsight, I think it would have been better with lemon zest, but the orange zest gave it a unique flavor, it was a bit more sweet and every once in a while you tasted the orange.

This is an easy recipe, no crazy chemicals, measuring pH levels, or animal intestines involved.  It’s a great entry recipe to get into the world of curing.  But I do have to warn you, the process of turning the fish over mid-cure is probably one of the grossest culinary experiences you will have – and it’s quite pungent.

Dill Cured Salmon
Adapted from Charcuterie

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup sugar (4 oz)
• 1 cup brown sugar (6 oz)
• 3/4 cup salt (6 oz)
• 1 2-3 pound salmon fillet, skin on, bones removed, no thicker than 1.5 inches and pretty uniform in thickness
• 1 bunch of dill
• 1/2 cup fennel seeds, toasted
• zest of 1 orange
• 2 tablespoons white peppercorns, toasted and cracked

Directions:

1. Mix the sugar, brown sugar, and salt together with a whisk.  Layer the bottom of a non reactive (I used glass) pan just large enough to hold the salmon with half the salt mixture. With all curing, pan size is very important.  Salmon will release a lot of liquid and it’s important for it to stew in its own brine and be covered as much as possible.
2. Sprinkle the salt mixture with half the dill and zest, lay the salmon on top, skin side down.
   
3. Cover the salmon with the rest of the salt mixture. Sprinkle the rest of the dill and zest, and last sprinkle the peppercorns.
   
4. Cover your salmon with saran wrap, then place another pan on top of the salmon and weigh it down with heavy things from your pantry.  (This is where I realized I have a total combined 94 oz of cream of chicken…what are you storing in case of a zombie apocalypse?)
   
5. Refrigerate for 24 hours, and turn the salmon upside down (skin side up). This part is gross.  Like really gross.  But suck it up, this is delicious.
6. Refrigerate for another 24 hours and then check the texture of the salmon, it should be firm to the touch at the thickest part.  If it’s still squishy, cure for another 24 hours.
7. When the salmon is finished curing, rinse under cold water and pat it dry. (This part is kind of gross too, with all the salmon juices… suck it up you hear?!) The Salmon should store in the fridge for 3 weeks.

I sliced up the salmon and served it with a bit of cream cheese on a bagel with some capers and fried salmon skin.

Many thanks to Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn’s book Charcuterie, it’s kind of like my bible at the moment.  Next I will show you the pancetta I made!

Usually my blog entries are a few days behind (because I’m lazy and/or too busy eating something), but this gem has to be shared right away.  I ate this entire slab of duck prosciutto because it was so delicious and I couldn’t help myself.  Honestly this recipe probably needs a category of it’s own, stupid easy doesn’t really quite describe it, it’s more like stupid stupid easy.   If I would have known making your own prosciutto (and pancetta, or any salt cured meats) was so easy, I would be doing this years ago!  Why am I paying $5.00 for 3oz of cured meat when I can do this myself, why didn’t anybody tell me this!!!  Even though none of my existing “friends” told me about this, my new twitter BFF Michael Ruhlman did via his book Charcuterie.  He is a good friend indeed, if I ever meet him I will buy him a pint and a sausage.  Coming soon will be a post about curing your own salmon.  (p.s. I am running out of salt, and probably ingesting way too much of it.)

Duck Prosciutto
ad-libbed from Charcuterie because this recipe is way too simple to go into the other room to get the book

Using a non reactive pan (glass) that will fit 2 duck breasts snugly, line the bottom with a layer of kosher salt.  On top, place 2 duck breasts.  Then using another cup of kosher salt, cover the duck breasts completely.  Cover with saran wrap, put it in your fridge for 24 hours.

Take it out after 24 hours, wash off the salt, pat dry.  Sprinkle white pepper on both sides.  Wrap it in cheese cloth.  String it up, hang it in your basement for 5-7 days depending on the size of the breast.  Wrap it up in saran wrap if you don’t eat the whole thing and keep it in the fridge.

Thank goodness I made 2, because I can eat the other one tomorrow.

This recipe probably seems a bit on the fancy side, but it is super easy and fast to make.  This is from the April issue of Food and Wine magazine, recipe is by my man Mario Batali.  You know what Mario Batali loves?  Cured salty fatty meat.  You know what I love?  Cured salty fatty meat recipes from charcuterie.  Speaking of which, I am curing duck prosciutto right now and it’s hanging to dry in the basement for the next 5 to 7 days.  Anyhoo, for this recipe, I got the pancetta from Target, and a bag of frozen artichoke hearts from Trader Joe’s – perfect for a quick dinner on a busy night.

Spaghetti with Artichokes and Pancetta

6 servings, adapted from Food & Wine Magazine

Ingredients:

• 1 12 oz bag of artichokes
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 3 oz diced pancetta
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• kosher salt and pepper to taste
• 1 pound spaghetti
• 1/2 cup freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese

Directions:

1. In a saucepan, heat the oil.  Add the onion, garlic, and pancetta and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until softened, about 10 minutes.  Add the artichokes to the saucepan,  cook over moderately low heat, stirring, for 5 minutes.  Add the white wine, cover and simmer over low heat for another 5 minutes, season with salt and pepper.
2. In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the spaghetti until al dente.  Drain the pasta, reserving 1/4 cup of the pasta cooking water.  Add the pasta and the reserved cooking water to the artichokes and toss over moderate heat for 1 minute.  Remove from heat, stir in the 1/4 cup of cheese.  Serve the pasta, with sprinklings of cheese.

Special shout out to Jamie who got me the awesome bowls pictured.  They are supposed to be for ramen, the holes are for your chopsticks you see, but they work for any kind of pasta imo!  Plus they fit great in your hand!

I have this amazing recipe for bangers and mash.  [Sausages and Potatoes for you non-Irish-speaking].   I will have you know, the government contacted me and said “we need to keep this recipe top secret, it’s a matter of national security.”  I replied “no way man, you can’t keep me from sharing this, HACK THE PLANET!  HACK THE PLANET!!” as they dragged me away.  I have escaped with the aid of a paper clip, a mouse pad, and a toothbrush, so are you ready for the best bangers EVER?

Evie’s Top Secret Bangers and Mash Recipe

Step 1: Get in your car.

Step 2: Drive to the nearest Trader Joe’s.

Step 3: Purchase the IRISH BANGERS, in the sausage and meats aisle.

Step 4: Drive home.

Step 5: Follow the rest of this recipe.  Hahaha you thought I was going to make sausages by hand?  Not until I have this I’m afraid.

Evie’s Less Secret Bangers and Mash Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 package of Trader Joe’s Irish bangers
• 1 onion, sliced
• 7 or 8 small red and/or yellow potatoes
• 4 cloves of minced garlic
• sprigs of thyme/rosemary/oregano/dill whatever you have on hand
• salt and pepper
• olive oil

Directions:

1. Boil the potatoes with a pinch of salt until they are tender, 20-30 minutes depending on the size of your potatoes.  Preheat your oven to 450 F.
2. On a cookie sheet, place a potato on top, smash it with a potato masher thingey, you know, one of these.  You can usually arrange all 8 potatoes on one cookie sheet.
3. Brush every potato with liberal amounts of olive oil.  Sprinkle with a decent amount of salt and pepper on each.  Also sprinkle on your herb, and minced garlic.
4. Put them in the oven on the top rack, bake for 15 – 20 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, start off with 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a skillet over medium heat.  Add the sliced onions and all the bangers.  Brown the bangers on each side, takes about 6 minutes total.
6. Serve the bangers on a bed of onions, with a side of potatoes!

Can I tell you how good they are?  They are SOOOO good.  The potatoes I’ve made a ton as a side, originally founded on the pioneer woman’s blog.  She doesn’t use any garlic on hers which is a shame, because they are sooo much better with garlic.  Traditional bangers and mash are not usually served with caramelized onions, and uses mashed potatoes, but I’m Asian so I don’t follow those silly Irish rules!

There’s a little restaurant in Minneapolis called Maria’s Cafe.  They serve the most amazing corn pancakes in the world.  I won’t dare replicate their recipe because I know how much extra butter I’d have to put into it… plus it’s a respect thing yo.  If I ate buttery creamy corn pancakes all day, I wouldn’t appreciate going to Maria’s, and I’d probably be 500 lbs.  This recipe however, is a great alternative to the oh so creamy and buttery pancakes at Maria’s Cafe.  I googled a bit for recipes on the interwebs mainly to see proportions, and ended up with this.  Many recipes use variations of frozen corn, canned corn, and fresh corn.  I only had frozen on hand.  I also need a new skillet/griddle, because mine doesn’t heat very evenly.  *sigh*.

Evie’s Almost as Good as Maria’s Corn Pancakes

Ingredients:

• 1  cup milk
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cups frozen sweet corn
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• butter spray

Directions:

1. Using a food processor, break up the frozen corn a little, a few pulses will do.  Combine corn and water and cook in the microwave for 2 minutes.  Do not drain.
2. combine 1 cup milk, butter, and corn mixture in small saucepan over medium heat. Let the butter melt, while stirring occasionally.  Milk boils over very easily.  When butter is melted, cool the mixture, lukewarm is good enough.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
4. In large bowl, beat the eggs. Add the milk and corn mixture, then gently stir the dry mixture, mixing until it is moistened and thoroughly combined.  Do not overmix!  The batter should be a little thinner than a cake batter, adjust with milk/flour as needed – Maria’s pancakes are thinner, and not as voluminous.
5. Let the mixture sit for about 10 – 15 minutes.
6. Spray a skillet with the butter spray, and place it over medium-high heat.  Pour the batter and cook the pancakes like you normally would.  I like mine super big ala Maria’s, so my pancakes are the size of a whole plate!
7. You can melt more butter over the pancakes here but I chose to omit it, I rather stuff my face with bacon.

If you are Asian, you know exactly what I’m talking about.  The big bowl of steaming liquid, little wire mesh spoons to cook your food with, eating a bunch of vegetables at the end and die to the amount of spices.  I wish I had some better pictures from the restaurant, but I don’t.  This post however, is not about hot pot, not really.  It’s about what to do with all that leftover you got because the hot pot is intended to feed 4, and you went there with 2 because you just had to have it.

We came home with a metric ton of raw fish, beef, chicken, pork meatballs, fried tofu, egg noodles, and spinach.  It was like going to the grocery store.  I suppose I could have had them pack up the hot pot broth, and used a bit of it in this ramen, but I didn’t think that far ahead.  You can of course make this ramen without having hot pot the night before, but that’s just not as fun now is it?

Evie’s Ramen #154

Ingredients:

• 5 slices of beef
• 5 slices of chicken
• 5 slices of fish
• 5 shrimp, cleaned and deveined
• 2 pork balls
• 2 pieces of fried tofu
• 1 cup cooked thin egg noodles
• 1/2 cup spinach
• 2 cups beef broth
• 1/2 tablespoon veal demi glace
• salt to taste

Directions:

1. Heat a pot of water over your stove for boiling the protein.
2. In a second pot, bring the beef broth to a boil and add the veal demi glace for extra flavoring.  Add the pork balls and let boil for about 2 minutes.  Then add the egg noodles and spinach and boil for an additional 3 minutes.
3. In the first pot of water, boil the beef, chicken, fish, and shrimp for 3 minutes.  Do this in a separate pot because we don’t want the nasties from boiling meat and fish to be in the ramen.  Turn off the heat and skim off the nasties from the top and discard.
4. In a large bowl, add the broth and noodle mixture.  Top with the drained protein.  Serve and enjoy!

After making this, believe it or not, I still had a bunch of leftovers but it was mostly the chicken and spinach.  I made a quick stir fry dish with the chicken, a whole onion, black bean sauce, and the spinach.  Totally delicious, but no pictures sorry.

This is the official I’m-Starving-What-Can-I-Make-In-30-Minutes-ala-Rachel-Ray meal.  I steamed some green beans from a bag, cooked some fish in parchment, and rubbed down a pork tenderloin with a the Walkerswood Jamaican Jerk Seasoning that’s insanely good.  I mean seriously, if you love spicy food, especially a peppery spicy, you need to get this.  A little of it goes a long way too, it is THAT spicy.

For the pork, I basically took 2 tablespoons of this stuff, rubbed it all over, and cooked according to package directions.  This does not mean that you should use 2 tablespoons.  We have a very very high spice tolerance, and I almost cried a little from the spiciness at the end, but man was it ever worth it.

For the fish, I took a bowl and laid down my parchment paper.  This makes adding the wet ingredients a lot easier and mess-free.  Put in the center your fish of choice – I used a sea bass.  Then throw in there 1 slice of ginger, 1 stalk of green onion, chopped up.  In a separate bowl, mix a tablespoon of soy sauce, a tablespoon of Chinese cooking wine, maybe a dash of seasame oil, and a pinch of sugar.  Drizzle the sauce on top of the fish.  Tie together with food-save thread, place on a cookie sheet and bake according to directions for your fish.  Sea Bass is thicker, so it took about 25 minutes at 350.  A smaller thinner cut of fish should only take about 10 minutes.

And voila, a somewhat non traditional surf and turf in 30 minutes.

So lately, I’ve been on this giant egg-on-a-sandwich kick.  When I made this BLT last week, I couldn’t help frying up an egg and putting it on top.  I wish I would have taken a cross-section photo because let me tell you, it was gorgeous – but the sandwich was too good to stop eating it and sorry to say, food comes before photos.  There is also a slice of pepper jack cheese under the lettuce.  Man, what a great sandwich that was.  I want to eat another one after looking at this photo but I ran out of focaccia bread.  The bread, oh hey, I made the bread!  It’s super good.  Let me show you the recipe.  It is here, at King Arthur.  I didn’t have any pizza dough flavor, so I added 1/2 tablespoon of garlic powder, 1/2 tablespoon of dried minced onions, and a few sprinkles of basil.  The recipe is in the egg post below as well, because bread you see, is multipurpose.

Hmm… would it be wrong of me to whip up a few slices of bacon for an afternoon snack right now?