Obligatory bacon repost

Having already linked to bacon salad bowls and bacon truffles, I would be remiss if I didn't point you folks at this recipe for bacon cupcakes.

Enjoy.

I'll be back later with part two of the Friday Night Food Fight recipes, the sweet corn hash.

Blueberry Mousse

Now, by some definitions, this is not really a mousse because it lacks eggs. You don't have to tell anyone.

You also don't have to tell anyone how absurdly simple this is -- just let them think you are some sort of a genius.

I served this atop hunks of angelfood cake. You can use it to top all sorts of things, or just eat it out of the bowl.

Blueberry Mousse

• 1 pint of heavy whipping cream (What's the difference between heavy cream and heavy whipping cream? An near as I can tell from reading the labels, about a dollar pint.)
• 1 cup fresh blueberries
• 1 tablespoon sugar

Combine all ingredients and mix with a hand blender.

(No hand blender? Well, this just got a wee bit harder. Mash up the blueberries with a fork or a potato masher or maybe a mortar and pestle, then combine the ingredients and whip with a whisk until your arm goes dead. Meanwhile, think about getting a hand blender.)

Keep blending until the cream thickens up enough to form small mounds. You don't want to overwhip this because then you'll get blueberry-flavored butter, which might not be the worst thing ever but isn't what we're going for, either.

Refrigerate for at least an hour -- it'll firm up more as it chills -- and serve.

Take note of this and hang on to it for Halloween

Are you a "Game of Thrones" fan? If so, definitely read on. If not, you should really watch "Game of Thrones." You may still enjoy this, but there will be a big honkin' spoiler for the first season in it.

Do you have a taste for the macabre? If so, read on. If not, well, this post might not be for you. Continue at your own risk...

Still with me?

Cool!

I have recently discovered Not Your Momma's Cookie, where I could easily waste an entire afternoon. What brought me there, though, and what I cannot resist sharing with all of you, is the Ned Stark's severed head impaled on a spike cake pops.

Still with me?

Now, even if you don't give two hoots about "Game of Thrones," I see here the concept for the most awesome Halloween party treats ever. I can picture it now, the severed heads of my enemies distributed around my living room as a delicious warning to my party guests. Who's laughing, now, eh? BWAHAHAHA-

Er, um, anyway. I thought it was cool. Check out the rest of the blog, too.

Cranberry-walnut muffins

Remember those pistachio-topped fig muffins? I wound up writing them for the print edition's food page last week, and wrote there that the same approach could be taken with cranberries and walnuts.

About five second after typing those words, I thought to myself, "I've got to do that." Well, I did, adding a couple improvements, and they were a big hit at Christmas dinner:

• 8 ounces flour
• 4 ounces sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 stick butter, melted
• 8 ounces milk
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon (roughly) orange zest
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• 2 dashes cardamom

Preheat oven to 350.

Beat the eggs together with the milk and whisk in the butter. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and combine them with the wet ingredients, whisking until it forms a batter. Stir in the cranberries, zest and cardamom.

Pour into a greased muffin pan and crumble the walnuts on top of the muffins. I went with whole walnuts and broke them up as I went because I wanted bigger chunks than I saw in the bags of crushed walnuts I could find.

Bake 30 minutes, remove from oven and let cool a few minutes before popping out of the tray.

 

Last-minute holiday tips

I haven't paid much attention to the impending holiday here. Heck, I haven't even posted for the last three days. I do, however, have a few ideas to offer.

If you are making goose, first, good for you. Second, if you weren't already planning to, save the carcass, chop it into several hunks and make it into stock. Third, save the fat. I'm going to rewrite that sentence bolded and in all-caps with multiple exclamation points at the end, because I feel that strongly on this issue. SAVE THE FAT!!! You can use it to cook omelets, or potato latkes, or savory pancakes, or fritters. You could make some of the best glazed carrots* you've ever had.

Want an all-purpose dessert topping that will carry you into the new year? Gather up dried fruit of the leathery variety -- raisins, cranberries, figs, apricots, pineapples, etc. -- and throw it in a jar with enough rum or some good (but not crazy expensive) cream sherry to barely cover it. My wife prefers the rum, I say the sherry is the way to go.

This can go on vanilla ice cream, angelfood cake, plain cheesecake or waffles. You can even eat it straight from the jar if you want. I won't tell.

Want a warming adult beverage for when people come over? Mulled cider is my go-to. Take a fifth of Jack Daniels and a gallon of whatever cider you like -- I'm partial to Brown's -- and mix them together in a pot. Throw in a cinnamon stick, a couple cloves, a couple cardamon pods and maybe some mace. If you've got a hunk of ginger, you can peel that and toss it in. If you don't have any of that, a generous spoonful or two of commercial apple pie spice will do the job. Stir it while you heat it on the stove and serve by ladling out cupfuls.

You can scale this down if you want some but can't justify making that much. A ration of one part bourbon to four parts cider will give you a satisfying, wine-strength drink.

I've got a couple recipe experiments planned for the weekend, so hopefully I'll have something to report on come Monday. Until then, Merry Christmas!

 

 

*Not familiar with glazed carrots? They probably deserve their own entry, but here's the short-short version. Peel some carrots and roughly chop them -- you want large chunks. Throw them in a deep pan or pot, add just enough water to cover, along with a splash of stock (did you boil down that goose carcass?) and/or wine and a good hunk of butter and/or animal fat. Boil until the liquid is almost completely gone and the carrots are covered in a thick goo. Pay attention because the water disappears real sudden-like at the end and you can easily end up scorching them.

This may be the coolest thing you see all week.

A couple years back, I had what I was sure was the most brilliant idea of my life: chocolate-covered bacon.

Everybody loves bacon. Everybody loves chocolate. Everybody loves salty-sweet snacks. How had no one thought of this?

Vosges had, as I discovered a short time later. I sighed. I had been beaten to it, but at least I had thought of it on my own.

What hadn't occured to me, until I saw this guest post on Michael Ruhlman's blog, was bacon truffles. Don't even pretend you don't want one.