Pork Chops & Chicken

BBQ Chicken Pizza With Homemade Crust

One of my favorites. Ever since I found this awesome recipe for pizza crust, I make homemade pizza a lot. This crust was done a little differently for me this time however. I rolled it out a bit more for my round pizza pans. Normally I roll it out minimally for thick crust square pizza. Like these images here:

As you will notice in this recipe, when it comes to the toppings for the pizza, The pictures do not show what the recipe calls for. That's because while I was making the toppings, I realized I should have doubled the ingredients. So the pictures will look scant compared to what I think you should be using.

I didn't use cilantro for my pizza. I cannot stand cilantro unless it's in small doses. It's alright in pico de gallo and other Mexican dishes, but only in small amounts. People either love cilantro or they hate it. I am not a fan at all. It tastes overwhelmingly like soap to me. It dominates my palate. Some people think this is one of the clues to being a supertaster. I quite possible could have that palate based on a lot of sensitivities. I haven't taken the test yet to find out if I am one. It would be weird to discover I am one though. Hops and extreme hops tend to be no no's for supertasters. I am a freak for hops and double IPA's. You never know.

I cooked my chicken in a skillet and sort of stewed the chicken in BBQ sauce. It's fast and easy and I did it this way because my grill is not ready yet for the spring and summer. So if you have a grill go ahead and grill that chicken in coat it in BBQ sauce and slice it up for your pizza.

Let's begin with the pizza dough.



Thick Pizza Crust by Linda Larsen

This recipe for thick, or deep dish pizza crust, is easy and classic. Make it in a Pizza Pan for best results.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 pkgs. active dry yeast (1/4 oz or 2 1/4 teaspoons per package)
  
• 4 cups flour
• 1/2 cup warm water (Between 105 and 115 degrees)
  
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 cup warm water

Preparation:

In large bowl, combine yeast, 1/2 cup flour, and warm water in a bowl and mix well.

Side Note: Make sure the water for the yeast activation is between 105 degrees and 115 degrees. If the water is too hot, it will kill the yeast. Also since I have a giant bag of yeast from Costco, I usually sneak in a little bit more active yeast to the mix than the recipe calls for. It makes the the dough puffier and you don't need to add more flour or water.



Cover and place in warm, draft-free place; let rise for 30 minutes.

Stir down batter.

Add 2 cups flour, salt, and 1 cup warm water and beat well.

Side note: At this point I switch out my whisk attachment for the Kitchenaid mixer and use the bread hook attachment.

Gradually add enough of the remaining flour to form a soft dough.

Turn down onto a lightly floured board and knead for 10 minutes.

Place dough in a greased bowl, turning to grease top. Cover and let rise until double, about 1 hour. 

Side Note: It is best to rise dough in a warm place. Some people do it in their ovens on a very low heat. I do it in the summer time, right on top of my stove. I open the door to the oven a crack and the let the heat rise up. Be careful with this technique on the stove. Make sure all knobs are off and nothing is hanging by the open stove. Be careful not to cause a fire.

In the winter time, I use my radiator in the kitchen. It's small and I place towels over the heater and place my bowl of dough right on top. Again make sure the radiator is not getting too hot or the dough won't raise, and make sure it's not too hot to put a towel on top of. Monitor both situations carefully.

 

Punch down dough and roll to 16" round. Place in greased 14" round deep dish pizza pan and form a raised edge.

Let dough rise for 30 minutes.

Side Note: As the dough is rising, you can begin prep on the pizza toppings. See below for ingredients and preparation.

 

[Onions will be darker than above image indicates when done caramelizing.]

Caramelized Onions

Two large red onions chopped

1/2 cup of white sugar

2 to 4 tbls. butter

Heat skillet to medium heat and put butter in the pan to melt.

Add in chopped onions and make sure all are coated in the melted butter. Toss onions in pan for a minute.

Then gradually add in of sugar.

Allow the onions to soak in the butter and sugar until soft. Then turn up the heat to about medium high. Cook until sugars begin to caramelize and brown. Do not over cook or leave onions to cook on one side for too long or they will burn.

BBQ Chicken

4 chicken breasts

1/2 cup to 1 cup of favorite BBQ sauce

3 to 4 tbls of oil

Salt and Pepper

 

Wash chicken breasts in cold water. Slice the breasts into thin strips. Salt and pepper the pieces.

Heat oil in a skillet on medium heat. Add chicken to the skillet and cook for a few minutes on each side.

Add BBQ sauce to the pan and let the chicken sort of stew in the sauce.

Once done remove chicken and dice in the small cubes. You want to cook them in larger pieces so the chicken doesn't dry out. Smaller pieces will cook in half the time and could over cook. Place the chopped pieces back in the skillet in the bbq sauce until ready to top the pizza with.

Now that your pizza crust has been rising, it's time to top the pizza.

2 8oz. packages of shredded mozzarella

2 8oz. packages of shredded cheddar cheese

1/2 cup give or take of BBQ sauce for each pizza

Caramelized onions

BBQ Chicken

Cilantro (optional)

Using about 1/2 cup of BBQ sauce, spread it around on the dough as the base.

Cover the base of the pizza with shredded mozzarella. One package per pizza.

Top with onions and chicken.

Cover pizzas with remaining cheddar cheese. One package per pizza. If you do use cilantro, take some washed and chopped cilantro and sprinkle it on the pizza at this point.

Bake at 425 degrees for 20-30 minutes until crust is deep golden brown.

Beer suggestions for this particular pizza: I am going to go with a darker lager or a brown ale. I use brown ales all the time as my so called "default beer." But with BBQ, brown ales are perfect. Avery's Ellie's Brown Ale, Smuttynose Old Brown Dog, and even rich porters like Mayflower Porter. If you go with a lager, something like Old Dominion will work. I say something like Old Dominion because the brewery has closed and they brewed their final batch of beer recently so you might not be able to get it after a while. But the taste of OD lager is preferable. Darker in color, rich bread-y or buscuity notes. Or a good German Dunkel or doppelbock like Celebrator.

Peanut Butter Cookies And Mayflower Porter

 

This ain't yo mama's plate of cookies and milk!

If you are a lover of fine beers, then you probably already know how awesome peanut butter cookies and porters are.

If you don't know how good it is, please allow me to break it all down for you.


So last week on Twitter, Logochannel posted a recipe for their favorite peanut butter cookies. I decided to give them a day in court. I also had some delicious Mayflower Porter on hand.

Side Note: I meant to post this recipe and pairing last week as well, but haven't been able to get around to until now. Also sadly I didn't realize that the quality of my images this time around are very poor. I snapped my pics quickly and they looked okay on my image screen, but low and behold they came out in poor quality.

Whole Jar Peanut Butter Cookies 

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 (18 ounce) jar peanut butter (or 2 1/4 cups)
  
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup chopped peanuts (optional)
  

Directions:

 

In a large bowl, cream butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth.



Add the eggs, yolks, and vanilla; mix until fluffy.



Stir in peanut butter.

 

Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt; stir into the peanut butter mixture.

Finally, stir in the peanuts. Refrigerate the dough for at least 2 hours.

Side Note: I didn't use peanuts. For some reason I do not like chunky peanut butter or peanuts in peanut butter cookies. Plus I only had walnuts and pecans, but no peanuts anyway.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a cookie sheet.

Roll dough into walnut sized balls. (Mine were a little bit bigger than walnut size.)

Place on the prepared cookie sheet and flatten slightly with a fork.

Side Note: I always sprinkle sugar on the tops of my peanut butter cookies. I also use a wet fork to press my cookies with a fork. After the cookies are done baking. I add a touch more sugar to the tops for a nice appearance. I do it while they are still hot and cooling so the sugar sets on top.

Bake for 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Cookies should look dry on top. Allow to cool for a few minutes on the cookie sheet before removing to cool completely on a rack. These cookies taste great when slightly undercooked.

 

[These two should have been my money shots and they ended up blurry. I am super pissed about it.]

Mayflower Porter

This a wonderful porter brewed by my friend Matt Steinberg at Mayflower Brewing Company. He was the brewer for Offshore Ales for quite some time, but then he left to come back to the mainland in 2007 to start up Mayflower Brewing Company.

Since then, one of my favorite session beers has been Mayflower Porter.




This porter is a rich brew and chock full of flavor. Rich coffee and chocolate notes. To me  however, it is not very English like the style suggests, but is very much a robust American style porter. What that means is, the roasted malts are much more apparent in American style porters. They are much more rich and flavorful. They tend to be thicker and slightly heavier. It's not always the case with American versions of English porters, but in some of the best porters and brown ales coming out America right now, nearly all of them have these characteristics. English Porters tend to be a little thinner, and a tad lower in ABV.

I personally love it. So when you think of roasted coffee and chocolate flavors with a just a hint of bitterness, paired with a sweet and warm peanut butter cookie, it's absolutely to die for. This is how pairings should be. Each flavor stands up and marries each other without being trounced by one and other. This allows for the richness in the beer to come out even more, and the cookies help tame it to be a smooth drinking beer.

What I mean is, it's all flavor with this pairing, but not over bearing. The peanut butter allows the roasted malts and chocolate notes to stand out without being too much, and in fact makes it much easier to drink. If that's even possible on an already smooth and drinkable porter that's only 5.5% ABV.

I prefer the beer very cold. It will open up even more as it warms to room temp. I prefer it to be cold like a nice glass of milk with cookies, and then I want the beer to warm up by my own hands. I dislike cellar temp. beers. I need them to warm in my hands so that I can taste the progression and taste the beer open up. It's a quite an experience and you can learn a lot about a beers flavors this way. If they start out already opened up, a lot of times the beers become cloying and hard to choke down as they get warm and flat. The only time I find cellar temp. beer acceptable is with Real Ale/English Cask Ale. They are meant to be drunk and not sipped on. They are some true session beers. Have a couple of pints, they are not too strong and quite delicious.

The temperature issue is my own personal thoughts. You should enjoy beer however you want and at whatever temp. you prefer. I am sure many will disagree with me about what temp to serve a beer at, but this is how I like it, and this is how I learn about it.

Heavy Cream Yellow Cake With Hot Fudge Frosting

I had a real bad hankering for yellow cake with chocolate frosting. So I looked around the net and found some good recipes. One was for basic yellow cake, but I didn't have any milk, so I substituted the milk with heavy cream. I had a lot of cream left over from when I recently made a batch of ice cream. Then I found an awesome recipe for hot fudge frosting. It's every bit as good as it sounds. Let's jump into this recipe shall we?

Side Note: Look at how manky my vanilla bottle looks? That was a huge bottle from Costco. It only cost $7 bucks and has lasted me forever, but it's messy to use.

The recipe for this cake comes courtesy of Allrecipes.com.

Four Egg Yellow Cake

INGREDIENTS 

• 1 cup shortening
• 2 cups white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 3/4 cups milk

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour one 9 x 13 inch pan.
2. Cream together shortening and sugar. Beat in eggs and vanilla.
3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to creamed mixture alternately with milk. Mix well. Pour batter into prepared pan.
4. Bake for 45 minutes, or until cake tests done. Cool.

Start by creaming the shorting and sugar together. Beat in the eggs and vanilla.


I didn't mix my powders in a separate bowl. The recipe calls for that, but with my mixer, I just put the ingredients in one at a time. Some recipes are a very explicit that you follow it step by step. I generally recommend that, but since it's simple cake it's not necessary.

 

Flour, baking soda, salt (no picture of the salt), and heavy cream.

I mixed in the flour one cup at a time and added some cream in to the mix in parts as well. Keeps it blended well through out.



How to properly grease your cake pans. I am using two 9' rounds. There is only one real way to grease your pans. Soft butter or shortening and flour. Though I am a fan of cooking sprays with flour added. I use those mostly for intricate bundt pans.



Use a paper towel and get a good wipe of the shortening. That's what I used in this case. Coat the pans really well making sure to coat the sides of the pan and into the creases of the pan.



Take a small handful of flour and toss it into the greased pan. Lightly tap the flour around the pan to make sure it coats all of the greased areas including the sides. You can do this over your sink or trash can. Dump out the excess flour.



Take half of the batter and spread it into one of the cake pans. The batter will be thick based on using heavy cream. This is okay.

Make sure you have even amounts in both pans. I use a scale to make sure the batter weights the same in each. If you don't have a scale, make sure you eyeball it as accurately as you can.



Bake for around 45 minutes. Make sure you do a clean knife test before pulling out of the oven to cool. Once the cake is done. let it cool for around 15 minutes in the pan, and then remove from pan and cool on a rack upside down. The cake will be heavy, do not over handle or it will break apart.

Chocolate Fudge Butter Cream Frosting

INGREDIENTS 

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/4 cup shortening
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 cup hot fudge topping
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS

1. Cream together the butter or margarine with the shortening.
2. Sift the cocoa with the confectioners' sugar and add to the creamed mixture. Mix together adding 1 tablespoon at a time of milk to keep mixture smooth. Don't add more than 1/4 cup of milk.
3. Add the hot fudge topping and the vanilla extract. Blend until smooth and creamy.

I had to double this recipe. So what you will see in my pictures is exactly this recipe but doubled. I will explain later why I doubled this recipe.



Cream together the butter and shortening.



Sift powdered sugar and cocoa powders together. I have a marvelous hand sifter. I simply tossed the powdered sugar in and the cocoa together and sifted it out onto a plate.



Mix in half of the sugar mixture with half of the milk and mix for a few seconds. And then repeat with the remaining milk and sugar. Some of the pictures came out blurry but I am putting them up just in case. The last picture is what you want your mixture to look like. A very thick butter cream.



And last but not least, add the vanilla and hot fudge and whip this sucker on high speed. You should have a nice and smooth frosting.

On frosting a cake, I happen to be awful at frosting a cake. I get the job done, but it's never fancy or pretty. I will understand if you have a better method for frosting a cake.

Why I needed more frosting than the recipe called for. Sadly my oven was uneven. So when I baked my cakes, the one that sat on the top rack wasn't cooked all the way through. It passed the clean knife test, but when I came in to the kitchen to check on their cooling, it had collapsed in the pan. So I had to whip up more cake. I decided since I had one layer, and the recipe yields me two cakes, I would make a triple decker cake. It's a freaking monster cake.

   

 

 

Just to give you an idea of just how big this cake is. This is my portable cake carrier, but I use it for storage. These are kind of odd pictures but it shows you that the cake goes to the very top. Nearly too big for the damn thing.



And there you have it. Heavy Cream Yellow Cake with Hot Fudge Frosting.

Chocolate Truffle Pie

Yeah you heard me right. Chocolate truffle pie. I have been promising the good people following me on Twitter that I would put this recipe up. I got sick and had to take a few days off. This is not my recipe, but I think I did it some justice. I served this pie at Christmas.

This recipe comes from the blog How To Cook Like Your Grandmother.

*Note that this is their recipe with my own images mixed in.

Ingredients

12 ounces bitter sweet or semi sweet chocolate
1-1/2 sticks butter
6 large egg whites
4 large egg yolks
3 tablespoons cocoa
1/3 cup sugar
pinch of salt
pinch cream of tartar
pre-baked pie crust

Directions

Make a double boiler by bringing a half pan of water to a boil, turning the heat to low, and setting a large stainless bowl over it.

Even if you already have a double boiler, do it this way. You'll be able to mix everything in this one bowl and save on clean-up.

Put the butter in the bowl, and once it's melted add the chocolate, cocoa, sugar and salt.

 

Ingredient notes: I used half bittersweet and half semi-sweet chips, both Ghirardelli. You can find them in the baking section at some grocery stores. They're the best domestic chocolate I've tried. (And I'm not saying that just because I'm a chocolate snob. Try them for yourself.)

And for the sugar, I decided to use raw instead of white. Just because I saw it in the cupboard and decided to give it a shot. More on this below.

(Candice: I used regular white sugar and the pie turned out fine.)

While the chocolate melts, separate the eggs (see here for tips). If you're thinking ahead, you'll set aside the two extra yolks to make mayonnaise once you're done with this. If you're distracted, or just don't feel like it, don't feel bad about dumping them. Eggs are cheap. They'll make more.

(Candice: I separated the egg whites at the beginning. You want your egg whites to be at room temperature for beating them or they won't peak.)

Start mixing the chocolate and butter together as soon as you see the chips start to melt.

If you've never melted chocolate before, you might want to separate the eggs first so you aren't distracted. When the chocolate is completely melted, and the sugar and cocoa are incorporated, remove it from the heat and mix the yolks in one at a time.

Set the chocolate mixture aside and let it cool to room temperature. While it's cooling, add the cream of tartar to the egg whites and beat until it forms stiff peaks.

For the first minute the egg whites will just foam up a little. Then all at once they'll turn pure white and look like a whole different food.

 

Congratulations, you just made meringue. Add about a third of the meringue to the chocolate and mix it in. Then add the rest and fold it in gently.

Try not to deflate the eggs while folding. Once the meringue is completely incorporated, pour the mixture into a pre-baked pie crust.

Spread the chocolate evenly. If you're fussy about this stuff (like I am), make sure the top looks nice. 

Remember when I mentioned the raw sugar? You can see a little bit of a speckled texture on the surface. Because raw sugar isn't ground as fine as refined white, it didn't completely dissolve in the melted chocolate. Once it's frozen, you'll barely notice the difference. As it thaws you'll notice a slight crispy granularity. Personally, I liked it, but if you're expecting silky-smoothness you'd be better off using powdered sugar. I heard in a comment below that even refined white sugar still left a bit of graininess.

Freeze for at least two hours, four would be better. Cut with a very sharp knife, not a pie spatula. Serve with fresh whipped cream.

(Candice: Don't serve this pie right out of the freezer. Some of you may think that that would make perfect sense, but the recipe doesn't say that. If you serve it right out of the freezer, it's impossible to cut, serve, and eat. This pie does fine once it's set, in the refrigerator.)

Beer Pairing Suggestion: Berkshire Brewing Company's Imperial Stout.

In my honest opinion, one of the best and most underrated stouts, or in this case Imperial Stouts is from Berkshire Brewing Company. This stout is nearly perfect for it's definition of style. Balance is the key to this beer. It's not too bitter or robust, it's not too weak or too thin either. It is one of my favorite beers and as this blog progesses you will notice me talk about it frequently. Especially with chocolate. This the beer that I think will compliment this pie the best.

This is a sweet chocolate pie, but the chocolate is still very robust. Be careful when pairing big stouts with this pie. Beers like Southern Tier's Choklat, Great Divide's Yeti, Rogue's Chocolate Stout are all very bitter and robust Stout's. For me personally I think they may be too big. But that's not to say it would be a wrong pairing. I just find it might be too bitter. But if you really appreciate a strong bitter flavors, these beers could be right on track for you. Sometimes it's okay to pair similar flavors. A really sweet stout and a sweet dessert have this effect of canceling each other out. The sugars at like interference and when they are slapped with another similar element, it allows the other flavors to come out and shine. I don't always rely on that tactic for marrying flavors. I used to be strongly against it.

I recently paired Southern Tier's Creme Brulee (Milk Stout) with a buttery, bourbon pecan pie. Anyone familiar with this beer, knows how big and sweet it is. It's almost hard to drink because it's that sweet, but it does taste exactly like creme brulee. The pecan pie is nothing but sugar, and as per requested, it was made with so much butter, it nearly disintegrated upon serving. Not in a gross way, but in a decadent, there-is-so-much-butter-it's-sinful-to-eat-this kind of way. The sugars knocked each other out and allowed the vanilla burnt sugar tastes to marry in to the bourbon and pecan flavors. It was absolutely tremendous. That is one of the better examples I have of pitting similar flavors against one and other to get the less dominant flavors of a pairing to come out and play.

Mexican Hot Chocolate Truffles

While Stumbling on the net for food blogs and food related posts, I came across an awesome recipe for Mexican Chocolate Truffles.

In the past I have made some pretty excellent truffles. I have some that I called "Dark Souls" which were made with a dark, bitter chocolate (70%) and espresso rolled in unsweetened cocoa powder. They were so rich and had a lovely roasted coffee flavor. They longer they sat the more intense the flavors got for those particular truffles. I also made some fun ones which I lovingly called "Ghetto Fabulous." They were made with semisweet chocolate and Courvoisier cognac rolled in powdered sugar. They were fun and delicious.

This was my attempt at these hot and spicy Mexican chocolate truffles.



Mexican Hot Chocolate Truffles by Art Of Dessert.

(Note this is the entire recipe from the Art Of Dessert, with my own pictures mixed in.)

Allergy Note: contains dairy ingredients

truffle filling:
16 oz. semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate chips (I used 1# of Callebaut bitter sweet chocolate chopped up)
1 cup heavy cream
4 Tbs. butter
1 oz. honey
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground cayenne pepper *
1/4 tsp. almond extract
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

coating chocolate:
1 cup semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate chips (I used a .63 oz bar of bitter sweet chocolate from Scharffenberger.)
2 tsp. vegetable shortening (Because I used more chocolate than called for, I used two heaping tablespoons of shortening.)

ground cayenne pepper
ground cinnamon

*For a little kick , start with 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper and see if that's enough. If you really want to knock your socks off, add 2 teaspoons or more.

For the truffle filling, place the chocolate chips in a medium bowl and set aside.



Combine heavy cream, butter, honey, cinnamon and cayenne pepper in a saucepan and cook over low heat until it starts to simmer.



Remove from heat and pour over the bowl of chocolate chips. Wait for a few minutes for the chocolate to soften. Add almond extract and vanilla extract. Using a wooden spoon or rubber spatula, slowly stir the mixture until it becomes smooth and shiny. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour or until the mixture is slightly firm.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or waxed paper. (I used a super slick non-stick jellyroll sheet pan.) Measure out teaspoonfuls of the truffle filling and drop them onto the cookie sheet. ( I used to a small cookie dough or truffle scoop.) Freeze them for 15 to 20 and then roll them into balls. Freeze them again for 10 to 15 minutes more or until firm.

For the coating chocolate, combine the chocolate chips and vegetable shortening in a bowl and melt over hot water. Stir until smooth. Drop the truffles into the chocolate coating one at a time, quickly coat them and remove with a fork. Gently shake off any extra chocolate and place the truffle onto the cookie sheet. Sprinkle cayenne pepper and cinnamon on top before the chocolate sets up.

 

You can store the truffles in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

My personal notes for this truffle are that these are very hot. It's a slow heat that will take a second to register with you that it is going to be very hot. I happen to be a bit of a wuss for these truffles, but if you like heat, you will love these truffles. I like the almond extract and honey added to this recipe. It really brings out unique flavors for this truffle. Basically you don't just taste rich, bitter chocolate and cayenne pepper.

I also took these truffles to one of my favorite bars in Boston called Deep Ellum, to do a little bit of a test run with these truffles on some unsuspecting friends. And to find a beer pairing suitable for this "kick you in the face" kind of truffle.

We tried a couple of beers, but honestly we didn't put too much focus into an exact match for this. I didn't think what we were tasting were the best possible matches anyway. They were good pairings, but not the best, therefore not worth mentioning.

A while ago when I used to work at Formaggio Kitchen in Cambridge, I accidentally found a pairing that would be one of the oddest pairings I have found, but also one of the best. We took small bite size pieces of Venchi pure 75% Cuor di cocao, with chili peppers in it, and were sampling at the same time Avery Brewing Company's Samaels. An oaked, strong, English ale that is 14.5% ABV%. Really strong.

Why did that pairing work? It worked because the huge sweet malts and sugars that give this beer a high ABV and oaked wood flavors really took on the strength of the chocolate. The bitterness of the dark chocolate was complimented with the sweet and malts of the high alcohol content of this beer. The oak also helped tame the heat of the chili. Oak can give a buttery, wood flavor that happens to be a good match for hot chilies. This chocolate has the same effect of a slow heat and the beer gets to invade the palate first allowing notes of the chocolate to stand out that might have otherwise be taken out by the heat of the chocolate. It's usually only after the heat subsides or right before it takes hold of the palate that you can fully taste the richness of the chocolate. This beer allowed the flavors to all sort of dance around.

So after tasting a few beers and not really giving it full attention at Deep Ellum, which was fully equipped with a very big beer list and more than capable of finding a good match, I am still going to stick with Samael's as tasted in the other chili pepper chocolate pairing. I think it's ideal for this kind of chocolate. I think the honey and almond extract as mentioned above would play wonderfully with the oaked flavors.

The only other suggestion that might be fun to play with would be Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier Urbock. A deep rich brown ale with heavy smoked flavors. The smoke is so intense on this beer, but the brown ale is actually quite sweet. I think the smoke would go perfectly with the chilies to make a forced chipotle-like flavor. And the sweet urbock beer would round out the chocolate. It could be fun, but I have to go back to Deep Ellum to find out for sure. They currently have it on their line up.

EDIT: I should note that strong, flowery, IPA's were suggested both by the bartender Joel, and my husband Todd. I happen to agree, but the malt profile should be big enough to handle the strength of the chocolate. So think DIPA's for this recipe as a possibility for a beer pairing. They have the malt backbones to tackle this recipe. Otherwise you will get bitter hops and bitter chocolate with hardly any residual sweetness. It could be over kill, but the hops and spices are a good match for one other.

Breakfast Egg Bake

 

I recently Stumbled Upon a recipe for this awesome and easy idea for a breakfast bake. I sadly cannot find the recipe anymore so I thought I would recreate it with my own flair.

Breakfast Egg Bake (Serves 2)

16 oz Bag Frozen Hash Browns
8 Strips Bacon Cooked (More if you are a bacon lover)
4 Eggs
Grape or cherry tomatoes halved
Shredded Monterey Jack Cheese
Garlic Powder
Onion Powder
Salt
Pepper
Paprika

You will need:
2 individual baking dishes or 2 large, deep set ramekins
Frying pan
Cookie sheet pan (jelly roll pan)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

  

Fry Bacon in pan until crispy. Set aside on small plate with paper towel to drain the excess grease. Drain grease from frying pan, but leave enough to cook has browns in.

Add hash browns to the pan and sprinkle with garlic salt, onion salt, salt, and pepper. Fry until golden brown.

Once cooked, line the bottom of each baking dish with the hash browns, then cover with bacon, and line the edges with tomatoes.

 

Cover with cheese and make an indentation in the middle for the eggs so they don't spill over. Crack the eggs right in the center and sprinkle paprika on top of the eggs.



Place baking dishes on cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes. If the center of the eggs are still too runny or not cooked enough, turn the heat up to 400 degrees and cook until the egg whites are more solid.



Place dishes on plates and serve.

Food Porn Extravaganza

This is a massive post about all the things I have taken pictures of recently but didn't do a step by step preparation pictorial for. Basically it's just pictures of awesome things I have made and felt like sharing. Let's jump in shall we?

Click the images to enlarge.

Homemade Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Frosting.

 

Brownies. Regular and Puffy Applesauce Brownies.

 


Pizza. Peppers and Pepperoni, Cheese and Mushrooms.



Deep Dish.

My Famous Honey, Buttermilk White Loaf.


 

Truffles. Dark Souls: Espresso and Bittersweet chocolate truffles rolled in unsweetened cocoa powder. Ghetto Fabulous: Courvoisier, Semisweet chocolate, rolled in powdered sugar.



German Chocolate Cake.






Turkish Coffee Pudding With Khalua Whipped Cream.




Cookies. Pecan Sandies.



Chocolate Chip with dried cranberries and almond extract.




Sugar and Snickerdoodles.





Chocolate Chip and Pecan.




Spaghetti and Meat Sauce. And yes I make it so big I have to cook it in a wok.


  



Pies. Bourbon Apple




Sweet Potato Pie with Streusel topping and Caramel Drizzle.




Mississippi Mud Cake with Bourbon Espresso Glaze.




Pumpkin Pie with Toffee and Walnut topping.




Fig Jam and Mascarpone Cookies.




Double Layer 7 Layer Bars.




Okay this post is big enough now. I hope you enjoyed scrolling through some of my past baking and cooking experiences.

Welcome To Pork Chops & Chicken

Welcome to Pork Chops & Chicken is my latest adventure in blogging. The focus is on recipes, beer dinners/pairings, travel, and restaurants.

The name of this blog Pork Chops & Chicken is dedicated to my children Pork-Chops Applesauce (right) and Chicken von Waffles (left).

I don't want to forget about my other children whom are bowl babies. Siouxsie Sioux and Bruiser. All 4 are girls and grown up now.