Modern BLT

Equipment:

Grill & Griddle

Oven

Cookie Sheet


Food:

Romain Heart
Olive Oil
Kosher Salt
Black Pepper
Turkey or Regular Bacon
Monterrey Jack Cheese (Shredded) 
Italian Bread Crumbs
Egg Yolk
Grape Seed Oil
Garlic Salt
Lemon Juice




Preparation

 1. Cut Romain Hearts lengthwise in half (keep the butt on). Brush with Olive Oil and sprinkle liberally with salt.

 2. Cook Bacon and set aside

 3. Grill the Romain hearts cut side down and grill to desired blackness.

 4. Turn Broil on High. Place grilled heart on cookies sheet cut side up and cover with bacon, sprinkle cheese, and breadcrumbs.

 5. Place cookie sheet in the middle of oven and cook until cheese it melted. Serve with or without garlic aioli.

Garlic Aioli Dressing

1. Put a few egg yolks and a pinch of salt in a container.

 2. Add just a splash of Lemon Juice and whisk until combined.

 3. While Whisking, slowly add about 2 tablespoons of Olive Oil until yolk is a syrupy light yellow.

 4. While Whisking, slowly add grape seed oil until the mixutre has the consistency of mayonnaise.

 5. Add Garlic Salt to Taste.

 6. Serve as dressing for BLT.  

Chocolate Scotch Muffins 1.6

This is a more advanced recipe on a previous muffin excursion. Preheat oven to 375°F and grease any muffins tins (no need to grease non-stick)

Dry Stuff

- Flour (300 grams)
- Baking Powder (2 tsp)
- Baking Soda (1 tsp)
- Kosher Salt (pinch)

Wet Stuff
- Sugar (150 grams)
- Vegetable Oil (2/3 cup)
- 1 Whole Egg
- 1 Egg Yolk
- Natural Plain Yogurt (1 cup)
- Vanilla Pudding Powder (1 small package)
- Vanilla Extract (1/2 tsp)

Other Stuff
- Chocolate Chips (1 cup)
- Butterscotch Chips (1 cup)


The Process:

- Sift or Food Process (15 seconds) the entire Dry Ingredients together and set aside in a large bowl.

- Whisk Eggs into another bowl until blended and then slowly whisk in the oil until well blended and you end up with a nice yellow consistent mixture.

- Add sugar to wet bowl and mix until dissolved.

- Add Yogurt to wet bowl until smooth

- Add Vanilla pudding a little at a time while mixing. If it becomes too much of a pudding consistency, stop adding the pudding.

- Add vanilla extract.

- Wait until oven is preheated and ready BEFORE putting dry and wet ingredients together.
(The reason being is when the baking soda/powder hits liquid it will start releasing bubbles and we want to save that gas for the oven, not your counter.)

- Make a well in the dry stuff and pour the wet ingredients into the center. Fold the wet over the dry with a spatula until all the dry ingredients are wet. Do not over mix.

- Add the chocolate and butterscotch chips

- Pour batter in muffin cups until 2/3 of cups are full. Place in oven on a rack that is in the middle of the oven.

- Raise the temperature to 400°F.(Many ovens cycle therefore you loose heat. This will ensure that you have plenty of heating power behind your muffins).

- Bake for 18-20 minutes or until the tops are a golden brown. Turn the muffin tray 180° 9-10 minutes into baking.

- When done, let cool in muffin tin for about 5 minutes. Turn upside down on cutting board and let the muffin bottoms cool for a few minutes to harden.

- Enjoy

Pizza Dough 1.0

This dough produced a slightly sweet and buttery compliment to tangy tomato sauce or the zing of prosciutto. It was a good enough base dough to add here. It will be experimented and improved upon but this is a nice dough nonetheless.

Dry Stuff:

2.5 cups of flour (if you have no starter)
50g of sugar (about 1/4 cup)
salt (just a pinch)
1/2t of bread machine yeast

Wet stuff:
1/2 c. of starter
1/2 c. of filtered warm water (105-115 degrees)
1/2 stick of butter
1 tb of olive oil (the tastier the oil, the tastier the dough)


Process:

Day 1

#1. Freeze the butter in the freezer and let become very hard.

#2. Put filtered warm water, sugar, and yeast in a mixing bowl (stand mixer is best) and let proof (let the water become foamy with yeast gas).

#3. When proofing is done (about 5 minutes) add the starter and let rest about 5-10 minutes. (if you don't have starter, add 1 cup of flour to the bowl and mix well)

#4. After letting the starter rest, add the olive oil and the rest of the flour and mix with a spoon until dough forms and moves away from the sides of the bowl. (If you used starter, only add 1.5 cups of flour).

#5. Knead the dough with a dough hook (spray with cooking spray) for 5 minutes. Add the pinch of salt in this step. Lightly flour a surface while the dough is kneading. You will do some kneading by hand.

#6. Take the dough out of the bowl and put on floured surface. Stretch the dough away from you while holding one end of the dough and then fold it back and press the whole dough with the palm of your hand. Do this several times. Then fold the dough in on itself until you get a nice round "roll" look to the dough and roll it around on the counter between your hands to form a nice ball. Cover with kitchen towel and let rest for 5 minutes. This will allow the gluten to strengthen.

Put the dough back in the mixer and get out your frozen butter and a cheese grater. You are just going to knead the dough with the hook just enough to incorporate the butter. So while kneading on low speed, slowly grate the frozen butter into the bowl and let the dough soak it up. Grate about half of the stick of butter and put back into the fridge for other purposes.


#7. Form dough into a ball again. Lightly oil a clean bowl, put the dough ball in the bowl and swirl around covering the doughball with oil. Lightly place some plastic wrap on top of the ball to prevent air from getting to the surface. Place a towel over the bowl and place the bowl in a warm area until the dough doubles in size. (This will take about an hour so go watch some tv, have a drink, or mow the lawn.) Make sure it is not too warm. Nothing over 85-90 degrees please.

#8. After the dough doubles in size, DO NOT PUNCH THE DOUGH. We want all that carbon dioxide from the yeast in the dough. Otherwise, the dough won't rise well. So instead, carefully fold the dough on itself again and roll it out so it become a ball once again. You will loose some gas but not as much if you treated it like you were Mike Tyson. Put the dough ball back into the oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Cover bowl with towel and place in the refrigerator over night.




Day 2

#1. About an hour before you are ready to cook the dough, place the dough on a floured surface or cutting board and cover with a towel. Allow the dough to rise to room temperature.

#2. Preheat the oven to 475-525 degrees. If you have a pizza stone, the hotter the better. Form the dough into any shape (flatbread or pizza). Add your toppings and cheese at this point. Bake 5-10 minutes depending on the amount of heat you chose. Keep an eye on it.

#3. When pizza is baked, take out and let rest for about 3-5 minutes. This will harden the bottom crust and allow for a more thorough cut. Cut pizza/flatbread however you like.

(if you use a metal pizza pan, put corn meal on the pan before putting the dough on the pan. This will help keep it from sticking).

Result

You should have a nice buttery, chewy dough with a flaky under crust.

Double Chocolate Chip Muffins - Alton Brown Style

Preheat oven to 375F

Dry Stuff

Flour - 300 grams (weigh)

Dutch Cocoa Powder - 100 grams (weigh)

Baking Soda - 1/2 tsp

Baking Powder - 1 Tablespoon

Salt - 1/2 tsp

Process - Measure and Mix all ingredients into sifter (food processor) and blend until cocoa powder color is uniformly distributed. If sifting, you may want to sift 2 to 3 times. Put dry stuff in large bowl.

Wet Stuff

Sugar - 275g (weigh)

Sweet Cream Butter (means unsalted) - 1 stick (melt and slightly cooled so you don't cook the eggs)

Eggs - 2 Large

Buttermilk - 8oz (1 cup)

Vanilla Ext - 2 tsp

1 10-12oz bag of Chocolate chips

Process - Break 2 eggs into a separate mixing bowl (from the dry) and beat egg with whisk until egg yolks and whites are blended a little. Slowly beat in the melted butter until mixed with the eggs. Slowly mix sugar into batter with spatula. Then add the buttermilk and mix. Finally, add the vanilla and chocolate chips until incorporated.

Procedure - Make a well in the dry stuff and pour the wet stuff into it. Mix with a spatula until all dry ingredients are wet. DO NOT mix until smooth, it needs the lumps. Pour batter via ice cream spring scoop into oil sprayed muffin pans.

Put Muffin tin on middle rack in oven and raise the temp to 400F. Bake 18-22 minutes or until knife comes out clean of batter (melted chocolate will probably be on the knife).


To Learn the Muffin Method Match This:

Good Eats S7E4P1: The Muffin Method Man

Good Eats S7E4P2: The Muffin Method Man

Chocolate Chip Cookie Bran Muffins

These are delicious! You can hardly tell they have 25% of your required daily fiber. Let's get to this easy to make recipe (the batter is just as good as cookie dough too ). Makes about 7-9 big muffins.

Dry Stuff

Flour - 300 grams (weigh please)

Bran - 100 grams (weigh please)

Baking Soda - 1 tsp

Baking Powder - 2 tsp

Salt - 1 to 2 pinches


Wet Stuff

Sugar - 150 grams (weigh please)

2 Whole Large Eggs

Vegetable oil - 1/2 cup

Plain Yogurt - 1 cup

Vanilla extract - 1 tsp


Extra

1 11-12 oz bag of Chocolate Chips


Procedure

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit

Spray Muffin Pans with oil spray

Measure, weigh, and assemble dry goods in food processor and blend until bran flakes are evenly distributed

Measure and weigh all wet ingredients.

Break eggs into bowl and beat until whites and yolk are opaque yellow and you can't see them as separate parts.

Beat oil into eggs until mixed

Add sugar, yogurt and vanilla with a spatula until mixed

Pour dry stuff over wet stuff and mix with spatula until all the dry stuff is wet. Batter will be a little like cookie dough

Add the bag of chocolate chips and mix until evenly distributed

Fill muffin cups with batter until 3/4 full.

Put in oven and raise temp to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Bake for 17-20 minutes or until muffins are 21o degrees internal temp or knife comes out clean (except for melted chocolate)

Take out of oven, let cool in pan for 4 minutes. Then turn upside down on cooling surface and lay muffins on their side so the bottom can cool and harden unless you like gooey muffin bottoms.

Share and Enjoy.

Pumpkin Toffee Muffins - Experiment 2

This is another experiment on Pumpkin Muffins. This recipe is WAY more moist and flavorful. It is very good eatin'. Preheat oven to 375 and PAM your muffin pans. Weigh any ingredients that you can (stuff that has the gram measurement)

Dry Stuff:

Flour - 303(g) / 11oz / 2.25 cups

Baking powder - 2 tsp

Baking soda - 1 tsp

Salt - Pinch

Ground Cinnamon - 1 T.

Ground Ginger - 2 tsp

Ground Cloves - 2 tsp

Ground Nutmeg - 2 tsp

*Put all dry ingredients into a food processor and blend on high until color is uniform (10-15 seconds). Then transfer to large mixing bowl.

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Wet Stuff:

Sugar - 105g / 3.75oz / 1/2c

Vegetable oil - 1/2 c

1 Whole egg

1 Egg Yolk

Plain Yogurt - 1/2 c

Pumpkin Puree' - 1 c

Put oil and egg and egg yolk and beat together until smooth. Then add the rest of the wet ingredients.

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With a spatula, pour the wet on the dry and mix until the flour is all wet. Fold in a bag of Heath Toffee bits. Scoop batter into muffin tin until half way full.

Put muffin tin in oven and increase the oven temp to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Bake for 17-20 minutes or until a clean knife comes out of the test muffin.

Take out of the oven and let cool for 3 minutes in pan.

Scrape the edges of muffin away from tin in case there are toffee bits that melted.

turn tin upside down on a cooling pad and then turn muffins on their side so that the bottom of the muffin can harden and become stable.

Let cool for at least 7 minutes.

Butter the top and enjoy!

Pumpkin Spice Muffins #1

This was my first try at the Muffin Method of baking. It tastes pretty good but more experiments for this seasonal treat are to come!


The Dry Stuff

All Purpose Flour - 303(g) / 11oz or 2 1/4 cups

Baking Powder (Double Action) - 10(g) / 1/3oz or 2 tsp

Baking Soda - 1 tsp

Salt - pinch

Ginger - 1-2 Tbs ( or to taste )

Cinnamon - 2 Tbs ( or to taste )

Nutmeg - 1 Tbs ( or to taste )

Clover - 1 Tbs ( or to taste )


The Wet Stuff

Sugar - 105(g) or 1/2 cup

Vegetable Oil - 1/2 cup

Whole Egg - 1 Large

Egg Yolk - 1 Large

Plain Yogurt - 1/2 cup

Pumpkin Puree' - 1/2 cup

The Process

Weigh EVERYTHING if you can, do not rely on measurements.

Put rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Spray Muffin Tin with Oil Spray

Put Dry Stuff in Food Processor and mix for 5-10 seconds until color is consistent. Put in Bowl #1

Put Oil and Eggs together first in bowl #2. Then add the rest of the wet stuff and mix thoroughly.

Put contents of bowl #2 into bowl #1 and stir until everything is wet and lumpy

Put batter into muffin tins, fill tins 2/3 - 3/4 full only.

Put tins in oven and increase heat to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake to 18-20 or until knife comes out of muffin clean.

Remove from oven and let cool in pan for 3 minutes.

Remove muffins from tin and set on side or upside down so bottoms can cool.

Serve immediately or store in air tight container