Off-Season Mallomars

This week Todd sent me a very intriguing link from the kitchn on "How To Make Homemade Mallomars." Since they looked delicious and we're always up for a challenge we decided to make them as soon as we had a chance.  We had to choose a graham cracker recipe.  There were two options the "DIY Graham Crackers" also from the kitchn and one from Martha Stewart.  Although the example mallomars included the Martha Stewart recipe we opted for the ones from the kitchn, which had more whole wheat flour in an effort to make a slightly healthier mallomar.  We can try, right? 

The recipe is broken into three big steps: 1. make graham crackers, 2. add marshmallow, 3. dip in chocolate.  The first step was deceptively easy.  Whip up graham cracker dough:

Roll out the dough.

Make cute little circles.

Bake until toasty brown.

Next was the tricky sticky part: the marsmallow.  Make no mistake—everything in your kitchen will be sticky by the time you're done.  And I think that maybe we could have whipped it a little less because we had a bit of a struggle getting the fluff into the bags we used to pipe it and on to the graham crackers.

As you can tell Todd and I had two different styles of applying the marshmallow fluff.  Guess which ones each of us did.

Hint: Todd says the left method is too hard.

Mine are the ones on the left that look a little like marshmallow peeps perched on the graham crackers.  I just applied the tip of my icing bag, with a fairly large opening, to one point in the middle of the cracker and then kept squeezing until I'd made a peep.  Todd on the other hand used a much smaller opening, started at the edge of the graham cracker and went around in a circle. 

The final part of the whole process involved some fondue.  Once the marshmallows set, you take them and dip them in melted chocolate.  We chose yummy dark chocolate and melted it up in our fondue pot and then started dipping.  In an effort to make this project even more complicated I insisted on making my half of the mallowmars with peppermint marshmallows and to designate them, in case the shape didn't give them away I put pieces of peppermint candy on top.

This project made for a long day, but the final product was delicious!  Unfortunately they have spoiled us for commercial mallomars.  Our homemade mallomars have a very thick, satisfying graham cracker, chewy flavorful marshmallow, and a generous but crackly coating of delicious dark chocolate.  I really liked my peppermint variation and I think I could have added even more of the peppermint extract. 

Todd's post-experiment edit:  I do not like commercial mallomars and only passed this along because I knew Olivia liked them. But after we ate all of these I started to have dreams about them. The graham crackers in these are absolutely delicious. I also don't like marshmallow very much, but this marshmallow was delicious. The quality of the ingredients is what makes this recipe and I'm anxious to make them again. I also preferred the vanilla to the peppermint. It overwhelmed the delicious graham cracker and marshmallow intermingling.

Hop Kee

Anyone who lived in NYC knows that there is good Chinese food. Anyone who has ordered Chinese food from the food court at a mall knows that there is not so good Chinese food. What most people do not realize is that there is such a thing as GREAT Chinese food. Hop Kee is where great Chinese food comes from.

Hop Kee doesn't look like much from the outside or once you get inside for that matter.  You go down a steep set of stairs and inside there is a small outer dining room and a larger inner dining room, which is where you want to get seated.  

We ordered lots of old favorites including Chinese broccoli, fried oysters, moo shu pork, and my personal favorite beef chow fun.  We choose some new dishes to try this time including peppers stuffed with shrimp paste, blackened sea bass and shrimp lo mein.  Everything is fresh and hot and, as always, the oysters were so tasty that they vanished before I remembered to take a picture of them.  The Chinese broccoli is also one of my favorites and I had to resist the urge to polish off all the perfectly tender sauce-covered spears even after I wasn't hungry any more.  The moo shu pork is always a fun dish because you get to assemble your own little tacos with a thin flour pancakes and then add shredded filling topped with hoisin sauce and at Hop Kee it is also delicious. 

Eating at Hop Kee is a Gutierrez family tradition dating back to when my parents didn't even have kids and they worked at a restaurant called Hisai's.  The way my parents tell it, Hisai, owner of Hisai's, used to take the whole staff out after a good night and order "one of everything."

Boat Basin

You're looking at the view from the terrace at the Boat Basin Cafe. We spent the late afternoon here with some friends before stuffing ourselves with the city's best Chinese food.

Although it is really just a stone landing with plastic lawn chairs in the massive stone stairways that surround Riverside Park and the West Side Highway, the view is great, the beer selection is small but decent, and the food is surprisingly good.  We enjoyed several pitchers of a Fire Island Lighthouse Ale, a tasty fruit and greens salad, and a bratwurst. It's a great place to hang on a warm summer day. Just make sure to pick a seat under the umbrellas for shade.

FNSC: Pony Bar

This week's adventure was at The Pony Bar where they specialize in craft beers and everything is on tap.  

This is only half the tasty choices.

And they have surprisingly good food. We were on the fence about whether or not to eat there since there was standing room only even after we'd been there for an hour and it had taken half an hour to even manage a standing spot at the bar. However there were lots of beers we still wanted to try and although they only have a one page food menu there were interesting things on it.

Here I am persuading Todd that there are tasty things on the
food menu that we should try.

Sofia and I had a pretzel to tide us over until Todd and Josh arrived.  We ordered it and then we thought they'd forgotten about us but when the fresh-out-of-the-oven, too-hot-to-eat pretzel with tasty whole grain mustard finally showed up it was delicious!    

Here are our nicely made-up baskets with the sandwiches divvied up.

For real food we ordered the sirloin burger, the short rib sandwich and a fried oyster and bacon sandwich.  It was the short rib sandwich and the fried oyster and bacon sandwich that made me want to order food despite the lack of seats, but the burger turned out to be even better than it looked.  We threw in the burger because the guy next to us ordered one and it looked good, but it tasted great too.  To make things even better all sandwiches came with yummy homemade potato chips and wasabi pickles (outrageously good!).  Needless to say the food lasted only about as long as it took to take the picture before we scarfed it down.  Conveniently, right about when the food showed up we were able to get two bar stools.

From the many choices we ended up ordering these beers:

• Founders Cerise (Olivia) - I liked this because I like fruit beers of any stripe. It had a slightly syrupy flavor of very ripe cherries; a sort of chewy, but not unpleasant mouthfeel.
• Uncommon Brewers, Siamese Twin Ale (Sofia)
• Ithaca, Cascazilla (Olivia) - Not as red as it could have been, but hoppy as promised.
• Stone, Cali-Belgique (Sofia) - Everybody was 'eh' on this but Todd; he really liked it.
• Harpoon, Leviathan Triticus (Josh)
• Harpoon, Potts Landbier (Todd) - flat and uninspired, unfortunately
• Victory, Donnybrook Stout (Olivia) - I'm a sucker for Guinness like beers and I liked this one a lot. The nitrogen gave it a nice creamy head and it was smooth and tasty as promised.
• Shipyard, Pumpkinhead Ale (Todd) - We hadn't had this one in a while and they go a little overboard on the cinnamon and nutmeg, but it's still one of the better pumpkins out there (keep an eye out for a future pumpkin ale shootout)
• Left Hand, Polestar Pilsner (Josh) - flat an uninspired as well
• Two Brothers, Hop Juice (Sofia) - Nobody really liked this except me. I think it would go well with dessert because it's kind of syrupy.

If you ask they'll even give you sheets where you can record your beers and rate them, so of course we did that too.  The only downside to the whole evening was really that the bar was so packed that there weren't any seats until about 7:30 when things eased up and you could actually see across the room.  Note to self: arrive late to Pony Bar.

Oscillating Owlets and Sleepy Snake

Back in March I finished making these little guys, but some how I never managed to make a post about them. I think I just put them on Ravelry and then got distracted.  In light of my recent acquisition of many more Mochimochi Land patterns I wanted to make sure that all of the Mochimochi Land projects were already up here so that I could refer to them.  This is actually two different projects the Oscillating Owlets and the Sleepy Snake and Mischievous Mouse but when I was putting them together I added the snake and the mouse to the frame the owlets were in and I liked it so much I left them there.

The owlets were super fun and easy to make and I whipped them up during a LBYS event after purchasing the yarn for them there.  I wasn't paying attention when I started the snake so I was surprised at how big it turned out to be, but that makes sense if you realize that the mouse will need to fit inside the snake.

Baby Kate!

This morning we had a fun visit from Todd's friends Rob and Melissa and their 6 month old baby Kate.

Kate seemed very interested in the dogs and Dakota was very interested in her too. A weird thing about Pyrs is that they don't generally lick much, so we didn't have to worry about that. But they do like to put their noses close enough to you that their whiskers tickle.

FNSC: Beer, Tacos, and Bahn Mi

Sofia is developing a knack for making the FNSC a multi-venue adventure.  As our most recent FNSC adventure we started at the East Village Tavern for beers, then stopped for a snack at a La Lucha, and then snagged a table at Baoguette, our final location. 

At the East Village Tavern we had a really fantastic cask ale (Heavy Seas Loose Cannon), an intriguingly named ale (Keegan Ales Four Philosophers) and a couple of others I can't remember.

La Lucha had not originally been on the itinerary, but as we headed out of the bar, Sofia goes "let's stop for tacos!"  So we did and it was a very tasty idea in deed. 

In the tradition of all of our foodie adventures we got four different tacos and split them. We decided to eat and run so we got our tacos to go and headed over to a park bench to enjoy them. They came with little containers of very spicy and tasty sauce - one made with raw tomatillos - and of course, slices of lime. So we dressed our tacos and then dug in.  The pulled pork taco, was good, but a little incongruous as a taco. The grilled steak taco was a great example of the standard taco. The mushroom taco was ok, but a little weird. My personal second favorite was the chile ancho taco which was cheesy chili goodness.

Our final destination was Baoguette where we managed to find space for a Classic Bahn Mi (Pork, Terine, Pate, Fresh Herbs), a Cat Fish sandwich (Cucumber Relish, Pickled Red Onion, Honey Mustard Sauce), and a Sloppy Bao (Spicy Curry Beef, Green Mango, Basil, Lemongrass).  All were very good, but I was glad that was with people who were adventurous enough to try the Cat Fish and Sloppy Bao because I would never have chosen them but they were delicious; perhaps even better than the than the Classic.  To round things out we also got a seafood crepe and on a whim, a sesame milkshake and coffee milkshake.  After all those tasty treats we waddled on home to rest before our next adventure...

More Momofuku cooking and shopping at H Mart

Ah....a table filled with bizarre ingredients and exotic spices. It's Momofuku time!

We've been wanting to make a few recipes from the Momofuku cookbook that require ingredients you can't find in a regular grocery store. Luckily a friend told us about a giant Korean grocery store in Palisades Park called Super H Mart. And it had everything!

A few of the ingredients we couldn't find elsewhere are shown above:  rice cakes, usukuchi (light soy sauce), the proper red chili flakes, and most importantly ssamjong, fermented soybean paste.  It's quite delicious and a major ingredient in the spicy pork sausage & rice cakes we wanted to make (page 178 in the Momofuku cookbook).  The finished product came out super-duper spicy and amazing. 

Rice cakes are a great texture and work well as a flavor sponge. Definitely recommended.

The rice cake dish has quite a few steps, so we got some snacks to tide us over while we worked. This assortment of kimchi-style cucumbers, tuna carapacchio, and pickled radish did the trick.

We also wanted to try the scallion noodles that David Chang raves about so much and their really simple.  We just needed to get the actual noodles. The ginger scallion sauce for these noodles is mind-blowingly good.  And so simple! Lots of ginger, lots of scallion, and a bit of vinegary tang.

This will definitely be on the menu again in the very near future.

We picked up some king oyster mushrooms for some soy-based pickling.  Can't wait to see how these come out.

Ginger Peach Beer

Another weekend, another batch of beer.  This one I'm excited about because it uses some new flavors.  I wanted to make a beer with lots of ginger for a spicy kick and a refreshing summer flavor. While looking for recipes on homebrewtalk I found this recipe for a Ginger Peach Wheat, which is the base for our batch.  I'm not that into wheat beers and decided to make an neutral American Pale Ale with the ginger and peach flavoring of the wheat recipe.

The two unusual ingredients are fresh ginger and whole package of Republic of Tea Ginger-Peach Tea.

Bust most exciting of all we got to play with some new brewing tools, including our new high-output Blichmanm propane burner. It makes good fire.

Ready to  brew! The actual grated ginger doesn't go in until secondary fermentation, but it should keep until then.

Like a brew dog, Buddy guards the equipment when I'm not around.  This is right after assembling our new burner.

Ooooooooh.........Ahhhhhhhh..........

Brewing in the jungle. I put pot right on that crazy flame from above before turning it down to a reasonable temperature.  It did that to the pot in seconds. Ooops.

While the wort was boiling we took the opportunity to bottle our baby sour. Sofia and Stella helped (more Sofia than Stella, actually—she mostly tried to lick the bottles before we could cap them).

I decided to just throw the tea packets in there for the few minutes of boiling rather than put them in a grain bag or something. No big deal because they float, right? Wrong.  All but a few sank to the bottom.  I had to make a cyclone to get them in the middle of the pot and then pull them blindly from the center.  It worked really well.

For the grains I did use a grain bag. I'm excited about this beer. It smells great!

Baking (kinda)

One of my favorite new things to make, I'm not sure if I could call it baking, is rice krispie treats with Nature's Path EnviroKidz Organic Koala Crisp Cereal.  All it takes is half a stick of butter, a whole box of cereal, a bag of marshmallows and patience.  I'm not sure that I would call them healthy, but the organic brown rice flour makes me feel better. 

Ever since we visited Bob's Red Mill I've been on a whole wheat pastry flour kick and I've been putting it in everything.  So when we had some extra cherries from the pints and pints of cherries we used to make pies and Sofia suggested a sour cherry scone recipe I gave sour cherry scones with whole wheat pastry flour a try. I took some liberties with the recipe and added some oats and accidentally added more liquid than I really should have so they turned into more muffin than scone, but they were still tasty especially when toasted with butter. Unfortunately they are a little on the small side so I had an adventure getting them out of the toaster at work which involved two plastic forks and two plastic knives.

Cedar Plank Salmon

Inspired by our trip to Spitzer's Corner we decided to try replicating the salmon dish.  Todd had previously randomly picked up cedar planks at Costco (where else) so we added salmon smothered in capers and a couple of lemons and we were off!

Using low heat on the grill it only took a little while before the salmon was tender (and the plank was charred).

As an accompaniment we went with asparagus and campanara tomatoes tossed in lemon artichoke bruchetta and then broiled the old fashioned way in the oven. 

Both the veggies and the salmon came out well, but surprisingly the grilled lemons made the dish.  I wouldn't have bothered to grill them, except that I checked the description of the dish on the Spitzer's Corner menu which includes "grilled Meyer lemon", so I threw them on to the cedar plank too.  I'm glad I did because the lemons came out warm and fragrant and went well on the salmon and the veggies.

This pairing went well with a bottle of Prosecco.
We wanted something light to pair with the fragrance of the lemons.

FNSC: Beer Table

For Sofia's birthday she chose to have dinner at Beer Table in Brooklyn.  We pulled up at the address to find a parking space right out side (Todd was ecstatic) and then realized that we'd already been there on the park slope bar crawl in 2008.  Since it was several bars into the crawl we mostly remembered that it had had good beer and that we'd picked up a bright green pistachio muffin on the way there that had been surprisingly good. (side note: Todd, slightly tipsy, simply ran off without saying anything and returned with the muffin. He apparently saw it in the window and ran back a few blocks to get it. Good decision.)

As we were siting in the car trying to decide if she should go in and get a table or wander around the neighborhood for a bit while we waited for Sofia, the table in the front opened up and we decided to grab it.  Although it was Sofia's birthday dinner and we'd beaten her there we figured we should pick out a few things to get started so we started off with a Hog's Back Old Tongham's Tasty (cask ale) and a Great Divide 16th Anniversary ale (both on tap).  Both of these turned out to be superb.  Then Todd had already checked out the menu and had his eye on the pickled eggs with jalapeno powder, so when our neighbors order the pickled eggs we quickly followed suit and also ordered the spicy pickle plate. 
We managed not to inhale the fantastic pickles before Sofia arrived but it was a near thing.

Once Sofia arrived the first order of business was to get her a drink and after a long discussion the waiter suggested this terrific beer:

Also among the waiter's suggestions was this beer:

This was my favorite beer of the evening and one of the best beer's I've ever had. It is a very subtle and rich sour beer, complex and interesting without being

We thought about getting the three course meal but since we'd had the pickles and we had a tasty dessert waiting for us we decided to go light, getting just the pickled watermelon and roasted beets from the first course choices and the meatloaf and the butter beans from the second. 

The meatloaf was tasty and spicy as promised, but the butter beans were a really delicious surprise.  I had not voted for the butter beans but Sofia and Todd out-voted me and I'm glad that they did.  Neither of them like mayonnaise, but the whole dish worked really well including the creamy dollop of mayo on top of what looked like semolina bread smothered in beans that were tender to the point of disintegration. (Todd's note:  The watermelon was unusual in that the red parts hadn't absorbed much heat or vinegar and were mostly sweet, but the rind was completely spicy and picked. It totally worked.)  The staff were really nice and even let us have the cake at the table, as well as bring us an unlisted sour ale from the cellar. This venue is highly recommended and a new favorite.

Happy Birthday Fif!