Buy The Book #4: Cook's Illustrated 2003 Annual

Whenever I can knock out a killer breakfast, I am a happy camper. One of the things I do love for breakfast is cornmeal pancakes. Many a day I opened a box of Jiffy for pancakes and not cornbread. That is until I discovered lemon-cornmeal blueberry pancakes in 2003.

This was the year I bought my first CI Annual. If you haven't figured it out, I believe the folks at Cook's Illustrated author the best recipes. Perhaps a third or more of my cookbook collection is from CI. I think this recipe is the one I use most from the 2003 volume. It truly is a breakfast favorite.

Let's get started. This is all you need to make these wonderful pancakes. I would've preferred fresh blueberries, but it's winter. I'll make do with frozen. And yes, the use of prep bowls really does help.

Start by stirring your lemon zest and lemon juice into the milk. Yep. You're making buttermilk. Let it sit for a while to thicken. You can easily use buttermilk and just add the zest. I feel Sunday biscuits coming on, so I'm saving the real buttermilk for that.

Mix the egg and melted butter.

Now, mix all of your dry ingredients. I do this in two stages, cornmeal and flour and then the baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt into the cornmeal and flour.

Dump the egg mixture into the milk and give it a whisk. Next, make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and mix in the milk mixture. I start with a whisk and then switch to a spatula. Please don't overmix. Lumps are okay. Completely smooth batter means tough pancakes and who wants that?

I used a large scoop to portion the batter. I don't care about perfectly round pancakes. This is a good thing because I can't make them! I do have some egg rings that I could use if I needed to impress somebody. After the batter is in the pan, sprinkle the blueberries across each pancake.

I am pining for a Le Crueset double-burner reversible grill and griddle. Until then, a large skillet will have to do. I added a little more oil than I should have and the heat was up a touch higher than it needed to be. Therefore, the first batch fried a little. Once you see the edges of the pancakes start to dry out (you'll see the bubbles), give the pancakes a flip. On my stove, liquids tend to pool on one side, so one pancake got a lot of hot oil. Can you tell which one?

When the bottom side has set, remove the pancakes to a plate and work it out with some syrup and butter. I also had some maple glazed turkey bacon going on the side. Add some rich coffee made from freshly-ground beans and you'd think you're at a fancy restaurant.

A couple of things would've made this better -- breakfast in bed and breakfast before noon! No matter. All was right with the world after the first bite.

These also freeze well. I stack them between parchment paper. I intentionally undercook each batch after the first, so that the frozen ones will be a little more forgiving when reheated.

Tools of the trade:

• All-Clad 12" Nonstick Fry Pan
• Glass Prep Bowls
• OXO Food Scale
• French Whisk

Buy The Book #3: Baking Illustrated

So. You know of my lemon bar obsession. I almost threw a tantrum when I found out the McDonald's that sold me the best lemon bar I ever tasted no longer carries them. I was offended because there were Apple Dippers where the lemon bars should have been. When you want butter, flour and sugar, apple slices just won't do. This heightened the urgency for a good recipe. space You remember the previous lemon bar disaster. I now have an important announcement: People, I have found the lemon bar recipe of my dreams. Thank you Baking Illustrated. I wasn't ready to use Baking Illustrated in this series yet, but kick-butt lemon bars warrant you buying this book. The scone recipe is also wonderful, but let's focus on the lemon bars. I promise these will be some of the best you've ever had.

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Start by preparing your pan. Spray a little cooking spray into a square baking dish. Fold two sheets of parchment paper and place them perpendicular to each other. The papers makes a sling. It will be so easy to get the bars out of the pan.

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Let's move on to the crust. Take the dry ingredients for a spin.

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Press it evenly into the pan and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

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Put the crust into the oven and start working on the filling. The filling needs to go on a hot crust so mind your timing. You'll need lots of eggs, a total of nine. Yes, I too was thinking that for nine eggs, this better be the best damn lemon bars ever. They are.

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Lightly beat the eggs. Incorporate the sugar. Whisk in lemon zest and lemon juice. Add the butter and head for the stove top. Yes I said stove top. You are actually making a lemon curd.

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I managed to contain my mess; I'm so proud.

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Here is where the pics get sketchy because the curd required constant attention. Once the curd hits 170 degrees, strain it, add a little heavy cream and pour it over the hot crust. (Going after the pot with a spoon later was a special treat.)

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Note how I managed to splatter the lemon curd onto the parchment. I'm quite skilled like that.

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All done. The filling is opaque and the center is jiggly. Cool to room temperature. Remember the curd splatters? Now they're a problem because as I move the parchment, it flings the burnt curd onto my pretty square of sunshine.

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Grab a pizza cutter and slice your squares. Garnish with powdered sugar. I sprinkle sugar on the individual squares as I eat them.

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These were worth every cent, minute of cooking and the cleanup afterward. Please go buy this book for the lemon bar lover in you.

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Tools of the trade:

• Square Pyrex Baking Dish
• KitchenAid Food Processor
• Microplane Multi Citrus Tool
• 2-in-1 Citrus Juicer
• Glass Mixing Bowls
• Pyrex Measuring Cup
• All-Clad 2-Qt Saute Pan
• Taylor Thermometer
• All-Clad Strainer
• All-Clad Pizza Cutter

Thanksgiving #11: The Greatest Cake In The World

I know I'm very late with this post, but I'm backdating it to go with the Thanksgiving series. I just couldn't manage cooking and real-time blogging. Maybe for Christmas.

Now, what's Thanksgiving without dessert? Okay, I had two desserts, but who's counting? (You have to have at least one pie and one cake.) This year's cake was a coconut cake. Done right and it is one of my favorites. How do you do it right? Get rid of that 7-minute frosting.

I spend more than $5 a slice for coconut cake from Bloomingdale's. I was determined to recreate it myself and do it better than they did. Tall order. I couldn't find one recipe that did exactly what I wanted, but I could steal bits and pieces from other recipes. The cake and pastry cream come from Cook's Illustrated. The simple syrup is from Bobby Flay and the frosting is from Rosy Levy Beranbaum. It was time consuming, expensive and worth all of it. What really worked out is that the frosting was all yolks and the cake was mostly whites, so there was no waste with the eggs.

I tackled the pastry cream the night before so that it would be fully chilled and the flavors would meld. Boy was it good. So good that I almost came up short because I kept thieving random spoonfuls until I made the cake.

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Here are the humble beginnings of pastry cream:

Cook on the stove.

Refrigerate. It's not hard at all.

Let's move to the cake. I don't have any "making of" pics. I was itching to use my new Williams-Sonoma cake pans. These babies did not disappoint!

I don't have any pics of it, but I also made a coconut simple syrup. Let's assemble. We know I suck at torting cakes. I actually got it right this time!

After brushing on the simple syrup, reach for the pastry cream.

Cover this with another layer and repeat the process. Your top layer should be a bottom.

Let's get to the icing. I made a half batch of icing, which was almost enough to cover the whole cake. Because I used pastry cream between the layers, I just couldn't see wasting all that butter and eggs for a full batch of icing.

Believe it or not, this was the start of the icing.

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Now the application wasn't pretty, so there aren't any photos of that. Hey, I was covering it with toasted coconut anyway.

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This cake was the cause of the five pounds I picked up over Thanksgiving. (Okay, well the dressing, rolls and sweet potato pie helped too.) A bite is heavenly. It was moist and full of coconut flavor. I loved how the different textures worked together. If you don't think you can deal with the temptation, it freezes beautifully.

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Thanksgiving #10: After The Fact

I know I'm very late with this post, but I'm backdating it to go with the Thanksgiving series. I just couldn't manage cooking and real-time blogging. Maybe for Christmas.

Anyhoo. Let's finish up the greens. In the last post, we'd gotten up to the boiling. After a 40 minute simmer, drain the greens and try to get as much water out of them as possible. Give 'em a good chop.

Make your cream mixture. This was a recipe departure. I added minced garlic, nutmeg and crushed red pepper flakes in addition to the required salt and pepper. Whoever heard of creamed anything without nutmeg?

I then poured this over the greens. Two things bothered me:

A) Was I messing up some good damn greens? As I poured the cream over the greens, I kept thinking, "This is so wrong."

B) I can't really explain it, but something about the pattern created by the greens in the cream (like the upper right of the pic below) freaks me out. I also don't like the site of dry, cracked earth. I'm sure that I'll one day pay somebody a lot of money to figure that out.

It's important to note that there isn't really a lot of cream in this dish.

I chose to use individual ramekins for this dish. It makes the leftovers so much easier. And yes, I skipped the breadcrumbs the recipe called for.

I baked them at 350 degrees. I'll share the finished pic later.

What else can I show you? The Pioneer Woman's squash. Isn't it pretty? The next time I make this, I won't go for the syrup. The brown sugar adds enough sweetness.

Let's knock out the rolls. I just didn't have the heart or time for my usual yeast rolls. I decided to go with Williams-Sonoma's Sally Lunn Herbed Rolls. No kneading? I'm all for it. The dough was very sticky. It was also more like a batter.

Check out all the herbs that went into these. What else can you expect from an herbed roll recipe?

Here's the dough after the first rise and a push down with a wooden spoon:

Now you have to get all of this goodness into a muffin tin. I used a large scoop to portion. Cover with plastic wrap and let them rise. The tops aren't perfectly smooth because I didn't do the greatest job of greasing the plastic wrap before I covered the rolls.

Brush the top with an egg wash and bake. You're supposed to put a whole herb leaf on the top of every roll. Maybe next time.

The winners this year were really the creamed collard greens, cranberry sauce and coconut cake. The disappointment was the turkey, but I'm blaming that on truffle butter that wasn't what it was supposed to be. I'll do separate posts for finishing the turkey and the coconut cake.

Thanksgiving #9: Turkey & Gravy

I know I'm very late with this post, but I'm backdating it to go with the Thanksgiving series. I just couldn't manage cooking and real-time blogging. Maybe for Christmas.

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Y'all know I was stressing over the turkey. Don't get me wrong, I was really excited about turkey with truffle, but I was trying to figure out if I could brine and air dry it too, blah, blah, blah.

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I made a killer Crock-Pot stock for the white wine gravy.

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The cool thing about this recipe is that you browned the turkey parts before making the stock.

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Isn't it all golden and beautiful?

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Switching back to the turkey. After the brine, I patted Mr. Turkey dry and placed truffle butter under the skin. In hindsight, I don't think my truffle butter was fresh, so I didn't get the flavor I wanted. I'll be buying it locally next year.

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Here's the turkey right before the flip -- I roasted it breast side down first and then breast side up.

Here's the finished bird. Look at that crispy skin! Wow.

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Now for the gravy. I just don't like gravy. I make it every year because I know it's a requirement, but yuck. I did have better hopes for this year's gravy because of the white wine. I have to admit it was better than most gravies.space

Here's what was left in the pan after I took the bird out.

You need a ton of shallots needed for the recipe.

I browned these in a little of the turkey fat.

Next, I deglazed the pan with the wine and brought the wine to a boil.

After the wine reduced, I added the wonderful turkey stock.

After I got this to a boil, I strained it and put it in a saucepan.

I made a past with flour and truffle butter and added it to the then boiling sauce.

Not bad, huh?

I made gravy! I get excited every time I do it correctly. It's such a challenge to cook stuff you don't like.