ROADTRIP!!!

Dim Sum Sunday - Bread

I am not a baker. Kneading does nothing for me. Truth be told, I don't eat that much bread. It doesn't have to accompany every meal I eat. Still, every once in a while I get the urge to bake some sort of bread. Usually that means biscuits, a fairly quick and easy bread to throw together. So you know when Jim Lahey's no knead bread cookbook popped up on my radar I had to check it out.

It's a simple concept. Measure, mix and let rise. A long rise, 12 to 20 hours. Then a second rise after which the bread is baked in a pot for an hour. You can see why this appealed to me aside from the no kneading. As long as you time it right it's very non-work intensive. The dough does all the work.

It gets all bubbly which is exactly what you want. But as you can see it's a very wet dough. I actually made two different methods of recipe. The first directly from the book...

...was beautiful on the outside but gummy on the inside which means it had rise problems. Worried that my second rise was not as robust as described in the book I went googling to see I was the only one with this problem. I was not. That lead me to a couple of websites that were helpful where the cookbook was not. The first is a post from the good folks at Breadtopia who have good suggestions if you find yourself running off the no knead track. The actual recipe I used for the second loaf is from The Steamy Kitchen.

Better than the first loaf I made but still not perfect. I'd love little denser interior and I baked it just a bit too long because the exterior is a little tougher than I like. Still it's wonderfully hearty bread that would be great with soup, stew or big hunk of cheese.

The Cray Cray Train

Hi, I'm Seth and Welcome to my Kitchen.



Today in my Kitchen, we'll be making Penny Candy desserts, inspired by my mother.



I've allowed Elizabeth Falkner to come to my Kitchen to judge all the other desserts because a dessert inspired by my mother has will never lose.






My concept behind this dessert is my love for my mother and really, my love of all people.

I really love people and the person I love the most....



...is me. I love myself so much it's like an ice pick to the temple.

My Dessert Tribute to my Mother involves a lot of aimless running.

And nitrogen. However someone has sabotaged the tank and now I don't have enough to complete my vision.



Who would hate me and my mother so much?



I cannot go on.....I must collect my tears to send to my mother.


Bro, you need to stop crying....the women are watching!


Oh my God Seth, do you realize just how jealous Tom is going to be when he sees the ratings for this episode? I mean yeah, your dessert was a puddle of baby puke but who cares as long as you're tapping that obviously huge reserve of crazy.

Thank you Gail, I knew you would understand my vision.

Understand? Oh I understand I'm on the fast track back to Emmy gold baby!

Choppy First Impressions

Prima Donna: Doofus Wainwright Does Just Desserts

Gail Simmons
Woman on a Mission

Man knows his Disco Dust
(I couldn't decide which outfit he'd like better?)

Top Desserts

Oh...stop, I know it's called Just Desserts but you might as well call it Top Desserts. Producers of the massively popular Top Chef series add another knife to their block of shows. If you like Top Chef but think it needed more of a snarky gay vibe, Just Desserts is the show for you. Let's review how it differs from Top Chef.

Top Chef

• Hostess - Padma Lakshmi
  
• Number of Chefs - 17
• Head Judge - Tom Colicchio
• All chefs live together in the same house
• Two challenges per show, Quick Fire & Elimination
• Numerous Guest Judges
• Rotating Permanent Judge (Gail Simmons or Eric Ripert)
• Typically one chef eliminated per episode, on occasion, two
• Basic formula, Chefs at the living space waking up, missing the eliminated, trash talk, leaving in Pimp Mobile, Quickfire, eating of the Quickfire, judging of the Quickfire, explanation of the Elimination Challenge, shopping at Whole Foods, cooking the Elim, serving the Elim, judging the Elim, Stew Room, Removal of the Eliminated
• Extensive use of One on One interviews to extract as much snarky commentary as possible
• Head Judge walking through the cooking of the Elim Challenge food but not as a mentor or an adviser
• Use of both single contestant challenges and team challenges
• Quickfire win - immunity until later rounds
  
• Prizes - $125,000 (other seasons $100,000), feature in Food & Wine, a showcase at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, and Title of Top Chef
• High Stakes Challenge - cash prizes sometimes for Quickfires
• Show location - changes every season
• Shopping Location of Choice - Whole Foods
  
• Elimination Catch Phrase - Pack your knives and go (PYKAG)
  
• Rules - There are no rules

Just Desserts

• Hostess - Gail Simmons
• Number of chefs - 12
• Head Judge - Johnny Iuzzini
• All chefs live together in the same house
• Two challenges per show, Quick Fire & Elimination
• Numerous Guest Judges
• Rotating Permanent Judge (Hubert Keller or Dannielle Kyrillos)
• Typically one chef eliminated but with only 12 chefs, highly doubtful they'd auf two
  
• Basic formula, Chefs at the living space waking up, missing the eliminated, trash talk, leaving in Pimp Mobile, Quickfire, eating of the Quickfire, judging of the Quickfire, explanation of the Elimination Challenge, (possibly shopping at Whole Foods,) cooking the Elim, serving the Elim, judging the Elim, Stew Room, Removal of the Eliminated
• Extensive use of One on One interviews to extract as much snarky commentary as possible
• Head Judge walking through the cooking of the Elim Challenge food but not as a mentor or an adviser
• Use of both single contestant challenges and team challenges
• Quickfire win - Immunity (probably until later rounds)
  
• Prizes - $100,000, feature in Food & Wine, a showcase at the Pebble Beach Food & Wine Festival, a German engineered, sport injected Buick (snort) and undetermined winner's title
• Undetermined if there are High Stake challenges with cash prizes
• Show location - this season, LA
• Shopping Location of Choice - ?
  
• Elimination Catch Phrase - Pack your pastry bag and go (PYPBAG)
  
• Rules - I'm guessing, just like Top Chef, there are no rules

So....not so much different from 7 seasons of Top Chef. However it has the potential to be much more interesting than the most recent seasons of TC. For all of Top Chef's attempts to connect with all food lovers, there are many challenges that involve items that are just not universally known or consumed. Not everyone has tasted wild boar or eel. With Just Desserts you are better able to connect with so many more viewers. Yes, not everyone has tasted high end chocolate but I challenge you to find an American who has not at least tasted chocolate in some form. Americans consume on average, 12 pounds of chocolate a year (although 16 European countries are kicking our asses in that category) so when they linger lovingly on a luscious chunk of chocolate, you know quite a few mouths start to water.
Another reason for optimism? Call it the Project Runway Butterfly Effect. Gay men are quick witted, snarky and highly entertaining. Put them in a high pressure reality show competition and you've got TV gold and my little crack monkeys, Just Desserts is packed chock full of the gay chips.


Yes Zac is cuter than a bug's ear. Let's review - Pros of Just Desserts: Gail Simmons, my favorite judge looking yummier than ever, a whole show about desserts with enough food porn to make the network censors blush, Gay Drama, and the first season of any new Bravo show is always the best. Cons? Well it's a carbon copy of Top Chef and we all know how sick I am of that format, Johnny's sideburns, and the constant reminders that pastry chefs and regular chefs are different. Here's hoping that one of those three gets severely shaved as the season goes along. Let's hear what you thought of episode one and what sort of challenges you hope to see down the road.

Top Chef Season 7 Finale

So. The finale. Who was I rooting for?


That's right. This guy. He could have smoked all three Season 7 finalists. He would pound Ilan into the dust. It's pretty sad when it's the season finale and the show you really want to see is a head to head match up between Hung and Michael V, two of the sous chefs.

Dim Sum Sunday - The Return

So who feels like cooking? Apparently Elizabeth of Gardening Under the Florida Sun does because she called me out on starting up Dim Sum Sunday again. So she gets the pleasure of naming the item we'll be cooking. Elizabeth is feeling a bit yeasty so get your kneading muscles warmed up because we'll be making bread.

Bread is a pretty large category so take your pick, fresh bread, biscuits, rolls or maybe a sourdough. An old fav or possibly a recipe you've been waiting to try. Take pictures of your lovely creation and then come back here on September 26 and share what you've baked in the comments and we'll all come visit your blog, hopefully in time to get a slice before everyone else grabs your loaf.

Bonus points if you bake your bread in your own backyard brick oven. See how Robert Downing of Cranston, RI built this one.

Ladies

Does Top Chef have a female problem?

Ricotta Gnudi

With all the amazing suggestions our commentators made of what to do with my homemade ricotta, I see quite a bit of cheese making in my future. However I decided to try my hand at making gnudi. Gnudi is Italian for nude and basically what you're making is ravoli filling without the ravoli pasta envelope. Again I used a recipe from the cookbook Stir which calls for the pasta to be edged either with a fork or a gnocci board.

Making these were kinda fun but my research is divided on whether to go with the little ridges or just gnudi balls. Then there's a whole nother version of gnudi a la the Spotted Pig in NY of gnudi balls that are a bit larger and creamy in the middle. You know what that means....more homemade CHEESE.

Labor Day Cheese

It seems that I misconstrued what Labor Day means...apparently I've cleared out the kitchen cob webs all in one day and it all starts with the cheese.
I've got this new cookbook, Stir by Barbara Lynch, that has a recipe for Easy Homemade Ricotta that I've been waiting to try. Only three ingredients, whole milk, vinegar and salt. Time to get cooking. The basic method is to heat the milk and acid to a high enough heat that the the milk will separate into curds and whey. Except my first attempt didn't really produce the kind of curds that seemed like they would produce a nice creamy ricotta cheese. Luckily I had stocked up on half gallons of milk so I decided to try again. However a little a little internet research was needed first. Turns out white vinegar wasn't not the most popular acid used when making homemade ricotta, lemon juice seemed to be the fav. The second thing I learned was that, unlike the recipe in the cookbook, most recipes call for adding the acid once the milk has reached 175 to 180 degrees. Armed with this new information, I hit the stove again. This was more like it.

Here's my bag 'o cheese, draining out the excess whey.

Beautiful creamy ricotta.

Now that I've got all this cheese, what should I do with it?