Tag: baking

By Posted on Posted in Grilled Goodness, Recipes, What's for dinner No Comments

Well, its been a while but things have finally started to slow down around here to the point where we can creatively cook again, just in the nick of time too.  Our annual fourth of July camping trip is coming up quickly and just like years past we are in charge of one meal.  In preparation for this year I thought I would get ahead of the game and actually try cooking something at home before we head out.  In addition to the meat and dessert, which you will likely find on here at the end of the week I am making Bacon Cheddar Cheese Scones on the fire, nothing like tending an all day fire for the meat in 100°F weather.  So to practice I got a bag of lump charcoal and fired up the grill.  If you were making these at home in the oven you could form the scones by hand and bake them on a cookie sheet, but in trying to keep it as real as possible to our trip I broke out the Lodge Cornbread Wedge Pan, cleaned it up and dried it out.  Because I was cooking over a fire (on the grill) I did grease the pan with some leftover bacon grease, which I think was a must.

To get started I cooked my bacon, chopped it up finely with my Pampered Chef Chopper, its like the Slap Chop but way better, it allows me to easily chop the bacon extremely fine.  Once my bacon was ready, I got a chimney of lump charcoal fired up and completed the recipe as outlined below.  I then formed the scones into the wedges in the pan, brushed the top with cream and finished getting the grill ready.  Then it was onto the grill on the cooler side, the side away from the coals.

Scones on the grill

While the scones were cooking, being the meat eater I am, I plopped a steak on there as well.  It took about 15 minutes for the scones to cook, which I judged by when the tops began to brown, once they were browned, using heavy gloves, I removed the skillet and promptly removed the scones.

Bacon Cheddar Cheese Scones ready to be eaten

Then came the taste test, now I am not experienced in the likes of scones but what resulted was delicious, they we tasty and well rounded.  No one taste jumped out more than another, the outside was a bit crispy on the bottom but the inside as flaky and delicious.  I have had two since pulling them off and will likely get a third once I am done writing this.

[dc_getRecipe id=”22″]

In keeping with the camping theme the recipe calls for the dough to be turned out onto a floured surface, well I don’t foresee myself using the picnic table so I practiced doing it all in the bowl and it worked out quite well.  I can’t wait to make these later this week at camp, nothing quite like a little campfire gourmet to take a break from hobo pies and burgers.  Happy Independence Day and eat well!

Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

By Posted on Posted in Misc Food, Recipes No Comments

In a sad but true realization I am separated from my smoker this week, even though I have 3 racks of ribs in the freezer, the smoker is a city away and I will not be smoking anything this week.  So not wanting to let anything go to waste and in true Digital Chef style, we had some pears and it was not until I got into baking the muffins that I realized I did not have any ginger, so let the substitutions begin.

I started out with a recipe I found at Recipe Girl for Pear and Ginger Muffins, but like I said once I got started I realized we have no ginger here.  I debated running home and getting some but decided to wing it and use some cinnamon, nutmeg and ground cloves.  So as precise as I can recall here is the recipe I used.

Ingredients
1 3/4 c flour
3/4 c white sugar
1/2 c brown sugar plus extra
2 tsp baking powder
2/3 c sour cream
1/2 c vegetable oil
1 tbsp honey
2 eggs
3 pears peeled, cored and cubed
ground nutmeg
ground cinnamon
ground cloves

Instructions 
Preheat oven to 400°F.  Put paper muffin cups in a 12 cup muffin pan.  Mix together flour, sugar, 1/2 c brown sugar, baking powder, 1/4 tsp ground cloves, 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg, 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon in a large bowl.  In a separate bowl mix together oil, sour cream, eggs and honey.  Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients and stir in pears.  Pout into muffin cups.  Mix a small amount of ground cloves, ground cinnamon and ground nutmeg with a couple tablespoons of brown sugar and sprinkle over muffins.  Bake for about 20 minutes.

Sadly along with my smoker, I do not have my camera so you are going to have to take my word.  They are fine looking muffins, something even a coffee shop would be eager to sell.  And well they kinda fall apart right out of the oven not like a bad fall apart but like you would want from a fresh out of the oven muffin.  Besides having an incredible texture they were moist and the fruit was just right.

Now for the real question, the question of the hour, how did they taste?  Well they taste like muffins, when I make them again I will probably add a little more seasoning but they were good.  The pears had a great flavor and were complimented nicely by the muffin.

I can’t wait to make these again.  Next time I will do a batch like this and one with ginger like the original recipe called for.  There is something about ginger and pears that just belongs, so I can’t wait to try that.

Tagged with: , ,

By Posted on Posted in Recipes No Comments

As I was paging through the ads for the grocery store this week I noticed that Pomegranates were 5 for $5 so I decided, I had best find some recipes to make something with Pomegrantes.  And while scouring the web I found several recipes for pomegranate muffins some of which included ginger, digging through my cupboard I found I had some crystallized ginger tucked away and began to look the recipes and again create one uber recipes from the wealth of recipes available on the web.  And it delivered on really tasty batch of muffins.

Pomegranate Ginger Muffins

In fact these muffins were so tasty my wife was the first to try one, before I even got a chance once they had cooled down.

Here is the recipe I used to create these gems.

Ingredients
2 c flour
2/3 c sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 pinch salt
1/3 minced crystallized ginger
1 tsp grated lemon peel (approx)
1 c milk
1 large egg beaten
1/4 c melted butter
1 1/4 c pomegranate seeds

Instructions
Mix dry ingredients well, adding in ginger, lemon peel and pomegranate seeds

In a separate container mix wet ingredients

Combine wet ingredients with dry ingrediants until just mixed together well.

Pour into 12 greased muffin cups evenly

Bake at 425 for approximentaly 16 minutes until done.

The one complication I did have was getting the seeds from the pomegrantes, as they were unwilling to give them up without a fight.  So I ended up quartering the fruit and in a bowl of water using my hands to tear apart the husk and massage the seeds off.  It worked quite well and in the water the husk floated and the seeds sank so it was easy to seperate them.

This went well and with any luck I will be making pomegranate rice for lunch so check back later for that posting.

Tagged with: , , , ,