What I should have said months ago:
“Alton Brown’s ribs, meet my smoker”.

Alton Brown’s Baby Back Ribs recipe has been rocking my world lately and ushered our household into a meat phase. These baby back ribs come out meltingly tender, with a touch of sweet and spice.

A great feature to this recipe is how its steps can be easily broken down into elements:

• rub down ribs with dry rub
• slow cook ribs with braising liquid
• boil down cooked juices
• glaze ribs
• finish under the broiler

After making up AB’s recipe as written a couple of times, I encourage you to study those components, and then steal his recipe and make it yours.

You know what I mean…

Shake up the dry rub:

• add a pinch of ground up candied orange peel,
• massage in some pummeled cilantro,
• candy some cacao nibs, grind them up and apply liberally,
• try some Szechuan peppercorns

Change out the braising liquid:

• pineapple juice works well,
• I imagine cherry lambic will have us turning cartwheels,
• apple cider plays well with pork,
• did I mention sake has a wonderful skill set?

Kick up that glaze:

• I’ve become addicted to adding mango jelly in at this point
• a swirl of Sweet Hot Garlic Sauce is more than nice.
• do you have some tamarind or pomegranate paste lurking in your refrigerator?

Next time up, I’m going to take my own advice and cook these babies in the smoker. It’s high time they met.

More baby back ribs from food bloggers

• Chubby Hubby: do you have it in you to let your cooked pork rest 2-3 days before digging in? My household is now full of laughter- we are not so strong. Go check out these black sticky gems: Pork Riblets Braised in Vietnamese Caramel Sauce
• Baking Bites: honey, you had me at root beer (no not root) Slow Cooked Ribs and Root Beer BBQ Sauce
• haverchuk: I’ve seen it and now I can’t get it out of my mind… I’ve got a severe case of rack envy: cooking Recipes from ‘Peace Love and Barbecue‘
• Simply Recipes: Elise is going to convince me to brine my next batch of ribs. Make sure to check out her post to also get in the membrane removing habit. Grilled Spicy Citrus Ribs Recipe

I noticed this weekend that Just Tomatoes has new-to-me varieties at the grocery store: pomegranate, blackberry, and apricot. I splurged and bought a little tub of pomegranate. According to the packaging, one small 3oz tub is the equivalent of 8 pomegranates.

What do they taste like?

The freeze dried pomegranates look like dried rose hips, being the pretty shade of pink they are. They’re crunchy -still have their seeds inside. They are sweet with a little bit of tang at the end. Their taste is a bit more concentrated, more distinct. In this fruit form they taste a bit more floral than pomegranate juice does.

What can you do with them?

I’m eating them out of hand with almonds- which serve as a nice crunchy mix.
I can easily imagine these being mixed into:

• biscotti,
• homemade granola,
• chocolate bark,
• caramel corn.
• candied nuts
• and being ground up to coat pomegranate truffles!

Check out the recipes on the Just Tomatoes website for their dried pomegranates. From rice pudding, to cole slaw… I think these crunchies are going to find their way into my yogurt and salads.

These are morsels to spark the imagination,
ignite the taste buds,
and lick off the fingers.

• 
  Ginger Shortbread Hearts with Lemon Curd

  Lemon and ginger, two tangy flavors that are perfect cuddled up together. This post includes a recipe for ginger shortbread, which is cut into heart shapes perfect for teatime dunking with some special friends.




• 
  Customized Conversation Hearts

  A little sandpaper, some food coloring markers, and you are set! Take your favorite conversation hearts and whip them into shape with the perfect dirty words you’ve had floating through your head. These saucy hearts are prefect when slipped back into their original container and gifted to an unsuspecting Valentine… in public.




• 
  Pucker Up Pomegranate Truffles

  When placed on the tongue, your whole mouth can’t help but massage itself in a flavor reveling frenzy. The following recipe provides a luscious wet mouthed experience of pomegranate wedded with silky chocolate, and in a vegan (no dairy) way too. This flavor bomb will serve as a perfect appetizer for your next tongue bath…




• 
  Carbonated Fruit

  What would carbonated fruit have to do with Valentine’s Day? It’s a perfect palate cleansing zip on the tongue, kind of like Champagne, but just fruit! There are two ways to make homemade carbonated fruit. This post describes the frozen method that utilizes dry ice to freeze your chosen fruit. A second way makes use of an isi dispenser. The container of the isi is filled with the fruit of your choice, and then charged with two CO2 cartridges and refrigerated for 2 hours. I like to carbonate grapes, mandarin orange segments, and banana slices. This carbonating idea is especially suited for those who have cut back their sugar intake and use fruit as a sweet treat.




• 
  Raspberry Cordial with Chocolate Mousse Kiss

  This sweet pairing is a perfect dessert to keep small in serving size. It’s homemade sweet raspberry vodka cordial (easily made the same day you want it) floating around a piping of chocolate mousse. Additionally, this uses a vegan mousse recipe for those who don’t want dairy in their mousse. Using your prettiest small glasses to serve this up helps make this small taste extra special.




• 
  Fudgy Framboise Lambic Brownies

  This recipe utilizes a fun way to add flavor to brownies: by drizzling a flavorful liquid to their hot freshly baked surface. Putting bright sparkly raspberry lambic in a small spray bottle makes it even easier to distribute the flavor onto the brownies. You’ll soon find yourself wanting to spritz everything around you.. wink wink, nudge nudge!

Here’s the dream that’s on my mind. A glass with jumbled layers of warm chipotle gingerbread, pomegranate gems, pear sorbet, caramel ice cream, and salty candied lemon almonds.

A melange of textures makes my mouth happy: soft cake, crunchy pomegranate, snappy nuts, frosty sorbet and creamy ice cream. Perhaps I can stand to endure the groundhog’s proclamation after all.

Recipes perfect for assembling a winter parfait

• Use this praline technique to candy the almonds. I tossed in with my almonds and sugar a handful of diced candied lemon peel and a good grating of pepper.
• Gluten-Free Girl features a wonderful apple sorbet recipe from David Lebovitz’s book The Perfect Scoop. Pears can be substituted for the apples, and water can be substituted for the wine.
• From the master himself, David Lebovitz’s recipe for Salted Butter Caramel Ice Cream. I can’t think of a more beautiful string of words.
• Lucky for us, 101 Cookbooks features the recipe for Black Sticky Gingerbread in her spotlight on Regan Daley’s encyclopedic book In the Sweet Kitchen.

Wanting the flavors of ceviche with out actually making ceviche is what inspired this jazzed up guacamole. Creamy avocado and mango, with a slight touch of shrimp, and the occasional spark of crunchy pomegranate. All brought together with the sweet tang of rice wine vinegar. Scooping this up with spicy wasabi chips sends my taste buds over the moon.

Fruity Pomegranate Guacamole with Shrimp

Like the best of guacamole recipes, this is a rather free form process. Don’t get hung up on measuring out ingredients. Instead make sure to abide by the chef’s prerogative and sample small bits frequently to see how your flavor develops and progresses.

Add to a pot of salted water:

• shrimp: peel on, one handful

Boil just until pink and drain. Remove the peels and tails (save in the freezer for making shrimp stock) and add to a food processor with:

• sweet onion: roughly chopped, 1/3 – 1/2 cup
• cilantro leaves: 1/4 cup

Briefly process, just until the shrimp are cut up into finger tip sized chunks.

Scoop out the processed shrimp mixture into a mixing bowl. Add to this mixture:

• avocados: large dice, 2
• mango: chunks, 1/3 – 1/2 cup
• pomegranate fruits: 1/3 – 1/2 cup
• mayonnaise: 1-2 Tbs
• lime juice: 1-2 Tbs
• rice wine vinegar: 1/2 -1 1/2 Tbs
• salt: large chunky gourmet salts work wonderful here
• pepper

Stir to combine and adjust the seasoning to taste. Serve with spicy wasabi cracker for an extra spicy sweet kick.

This dip would be wonderful as the base of a sandwich: top with larger wedges of fresh mango, slices of grilled shrimp, large grilled shrimp…
Enjoy!

In a twist of great timing, the Dec Bon Appetit issue has an inspiring article on truffle making featuring Katrina Markoff of Vosges Chocolates. Not only does she have some fun flavor combinations, but she is pictured coating her truffles in tempered chocolate, rolling them around in her hand to coat them with just the thinnest layer of chocolate. It looks very do able (and with hindsight- she looks alot cleaner in the process than I felt).

Holding a new tub of crunchy dehydrated strawberries, I was excited to see her balsamic vinegar truffle variation. A dish of strawberries drizzled with sweet thick balsamic vinegar is on my culinary to-taste list… what a fun flavor idea to roll into a chocolate truffle.

I whirled the dehydrated strawberries into a powder to coat the truffles (an excellent way to color code your flavors! Even strawberry and raspberry powder can be distinguished from one another) and went to town making a bittersweet ganache for my truffle base with a splash of vinegar. The resulting truffles are pretty in their blushing pink coating, tangy, and smooth with just a slight crunch from their thin chocolate shell. The vinegar blends in with the bittersweet chocolate so seamlessly. If anything it accentuates the peaks of flavor found in bittersweet chocolate. The strawberry plays a similar flavor role- holding the vinegar’s hand and skipping off to jump on my taste buds, inducing another drooled chocolate smile.

Listing of SHF truffle participants at Passionate Cook.

Strawberry Balsamic Truffles

After a Thanksgiving weekend of toting these truffles around, its been discovered that the strawberry powdered coating will absorb moisture from the environment and get gummy the next day.

I now recommend rolling in powdered strawberry for consumption that same day.
I’m looking to test out truffle textures with including strawberry puree or powdered strawberry in the cream step.

In a food processor, whirl into fine bits:

• 11 oz of 70% chocolate

Bring 1 cup of cream or half and half to a simmer. Remove from the heat and add 1 Tbs of balsamic vinegar to the hot cream. Don’t be alarmed as the vinegar will immediately cause the cream to curdle. Pour this hot cream into the food processor of chocolate bits and pulse for 15 seconds.

Pour the resulting ganache into a glass loaf pan, cover with plastic wrap and allow to cool at room temperature for several hours.

The truffle ganache will set up to a nice firm consistency. Scoop out portions with a small ice cream scooper so that you have thumb tip sized pieces. I found my scoop to be too big, so i cut each portion in half. With your finger tips, round down the corners of your ganche pieces, making smoothish lumps.

Prepare for coating your truffles by grinding 1/4 cup of dehydrated strawberries in a coffee grinder. These berries can be ground down to a fine powder. To keep the fruit powder nice and loose, add 1 tsp of corn starch and stir. Place this powder in a small bowl.

To coat the truffles in a thin layer of chocolate:

In a double boiler, melt finely chopped chocolate until just barely melted. Remove from the heat and stir. Add a couple tablespoons of finely chopped chocolate and continue stirring till the second addition of chocolate is melted. It should be just smooth and barely warm, not hot.

Place a spoonful of melted chocolate in the palm of your hand. Place one of your truffle bits in the puddle of chocolate and swirl it around to coat entirely. The resulting shell of chocolate can be quite thin. Drop the coated truffle into the bowl of strawberry powder and shake to coat. Allow the outer shell to set up before spooning the powdered truffle out of the powdered strawberry and onto a surface to finish firming up.

Makes about 40 fat thumb tip sized truffles.

Other Brownie Points Truffle creations:

• Pomegranate Truffles (non dairy)
• Spicy Aphrodite Truffles with Kava Kava
• Chili Orange Truffles (non dairy)
• And of course, cute little pyramid boxes to put them in for gifting.

Passion Flower started carrying Kitchen Witch chocolates a little bit before Valentine’s Day. Sundance Natural Foods also carries them (currently in the sale area!).

Kitchen Witch has two variety boxes being offered.
Cocktail Assortment:

• Brandy Alexander: Double-chocolate ganache infused with creme de cacao & Clear Creek Distillery Oregon-made brandy.
• Black Russian: Espresso ganache infused with kahlua & vodka.
• Grasshoper: Mint chocolate ganache infused with Irish cream liqueur.
• Lemon Drop: Dark chocolate lemon ganache infused with Uncle Ray’s Private Reserve Limoncello.

Fruit Assortment:

• Blood Orange: 70% cocoa content chocolate ganache infused with organic orange & zest.
• Pomegranate: 70% cocoa content chocolate ganache infused with pomegranate syrup.
• Meyer Lemon: 70% cocoa content chocolate ganache infused with organic Meyer Lemon & lemon zest.
• Pineapple Grapefruit: 70% cocoa content chocolate ganache infused with juices of organic pineapple & grapefruit.

But wait, tomato! Don’t go… this doesn’t mean that you can’t hang around here! I mean, we can work something out. You can wear disguises, get a tan, do some contortionist yoga… I’ll let you tag along.

Please don’t hate me for being a hater. Or for wearing shirts proclaiming your evilness…

Waking up this morning to windows streaming in cold winter sun, I set about to looking up recipes and found this easy peasy one on about.com. Sure enough, just grate apples into your spiced up batter! This recipe is lowfat too.

Even better, this recipe lists an accompanying apple cider syrup recipe too. However, only after I measured out my ingredients into the saucepan did I realize I don’t have apple cider-opps. Substituting in the only fruit juice I have, pomegranate juice, made a wonderful variation: spiced pomegranate pancake syrup, that goes wonderfully with these pancakes.

Happy discoveries and a bright shiny breakfast…

Apple Spice Pancakes with Pomegranate Syrup

Pomegranate Syrup
In a saucepan, mix together:

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 Tbs cornstarch
• 1/8 tsp cinnamon
• pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
• pinch of salt

Pour in 1 cup of pomegranate juice and whisk over heat till the mixture comes to a boil. Simmer for 1 minute then remove from the heat and add: 1 Tbs butter and 1 Tbs lemon juice.

Apple Spice Pancakes

This recipe is based on dry pancake mix. I like having a batch of Alton Brown’s Pancake Mix around. My last bulk batch of it I made also has 5 vanilla bean pods ground up and added- a flavor addition I highly recommend. The ground up whole beans add color to the resulting batter, making your pancakes look like they are buckwheat based. However, during long term storage of the vanilla’ed pancake mix, the beans have a bit of moisture that is released into the mix and causes it to clump slightly. Just sift out your mix into your mixing bowl and break up the clumps when measuring for recipes.

In a bowl combine

• 2 cups of pancake mix
• 1 tsp cinnamon

In a measuring cup whisk together 1 1/2 cups of milk and 1 whole egg.

Pour this whisked mixture into the pancake mix and stir together for only 5-8 seconds. Grate in one large apple, enough to yield 3/4 cup of shredded apple, and briefly stir. Let the mixture sit while you heat up your pan.

Now’s a good time to size up your batter consistency. I found I had to add more milk to the batter to give it a slight bit of run, to help it spread when added to a hot pan. Gently laddle in pancake batter to your hot skillet or griddle pan and cook pancakes on one side till bubbles form and break open. Flip and cook just 1 minute more.

Garnish with pomegrate syrup, and sliced apples and toasted walnuts for extra credit. Enjoy!

I tasted my first pomegranate chocolate this winter upon visiting the Kitchen Witch at the Eugene Holiday Market. She presented a beautiful display of fruit flavored, and cocktail inspired truffle centered chocolates, each priced for $2. My Mom and I spent some time in front of the booth, nibbling our way through a number of flavors and in the process snaring innocent by-standers into this lair of chocolate.

Kitchen Witch’s Pomegranate Truffle was such a wonderful taste bud surprise… it was tart and distinctly juicy! This was my first introduction to the highly engaging combination of dark chocolate and pomegranate. When placed on the tongue, your whole mouth can’t help but massage itself in a flavor reveling frenzy.

The following recipe attempts to replicate this luscious wet mouthed experience of pomegranate wedded with silky chocolate, and in a vegan (no dairy) way to boot. This flavor bomb would sit awfully pretty in a handmade truffle box, and would serve as a perfect appetizer for your next tongue bath…

Pucker Up Pomegranate Truffles

In a small saucepan heat:

• 3/4 cup pomegranate juice

simmer the juice until its reduced to 1/2 cup.

When mixture is reduced and still hot, remove from heat and add:

• 6 ounces of finely chopped bittersweet chocolate
• 1 tsp of vanilla
• 1-2 drops of orange essential oil, optional

Allow the mixture to sit for 2 minutes, then whisk till the chocolate is fully melted.

Refrigerate till the chocolate mixture is solid, then portion out into balls. I like to use a small one ounce cookie scooper to portion out the chocolate and then cut each ball into thirds or fourths yielding truffles the size of the tip of your thumb. Roll these around in unsweetened cocoa powder for the smoothest truffle or roll them around in crushed dried raspberry or cherry powder.

An extra credit move would be to coat the chilled truffles in a thin layer of tempered chocolate. The chefs notes of Melissa’s recipe for Luscious Thai Curry Chocolate Truffles at gilded fork gives an easy to follow procedure for tempering chocolate.

Tagged with: SHF # 16 + vegan