Chocolate Drives Me Batty

Yes, Gentle Reader, it's that time of year again. The latest Taste of Home Halloween Food & Fun has hit the magazine rack.

Just like last year, the boy spied the issue at Wally World. Since last year's edition yielded the glory of Canadian Curry and Yummy Mummies and a barrel of laughs, how could we pass up this year's edition, even with its $4.99 cover price? (Yes, Gentle Reader, money's gotten so tight here at Chez Boeckman-Walker that $4.99 for a lousy magazine is a true splurge.)

This year's issue did not disappoint. We have a fun mix of fun Halloween-themed sweets and treats alongside a scary (and not because they have anything to do with ghouls and goblins) collection of stereotypical "hearty" Midwestern cookery--many of which are designed to be made in a slow cooker! Because nothing says Halloween and autumn like a hunk of red meat slow cooked for eight to ten hours....

I gave the issue to the boys and told them to pick something we could make this weekend. Although the husband, like me, was eyeballing the maple-ginger fudge, the pair decided on a recipe that they themselves could probably make and not royally screw up.

Batty Bark8 1-oz. milk chocolate squares
4 1-oz. semisweet chocolate squares
1 C crisp rice cereal
1/4 C unsalted sunflower kernels
1/4 C dried cherries, chopped

1. Line a baking sheet at least 9" x 12" in size with wax paper.
   
2. In a microwave, melt the chocolate together, stirring until smooth.
   
3. Stir in the cereal, sunflower kernels and cherries.
   
4. Spread the chocolate mixture onto the baking sheet so it measures 9" by 12", then refrigerate until firm.
   
5. Remove the chocolate from the refrigerator and let stand 10 min. at room temperature.
   
6. Cut the chocolate using a 3 1/2" bat-shaped cookie cutter.
   
7. Remelt scraps and cut more bats, if desired.

Yield: 18 bats

Nutritional Info
It's got chocolate in it. Twelve ounces of chocolate. Use your imagination, Gentle Reader.

The Faudie's Futzings
Because we were aiming for a recipe for which we already had most of the ingredients, I used dried cranberries instead of dried cherries. That was my only intentional futzing.

My choice of chocolate might be considered a futzing. I didn't use squares. No, I used regular 'ol chips and morsels. It's all chocolate, right?

I thought I had some Nestle milk chocolate morsels in the deep freezer, but instead I had an 11-ounce bag of milk chocolate chips combined with peanut butter chips, so I wound up having to buy a new bag of just milk chocolate chips. Comparing prices and ingredients while at HEB, I opted for a bag of Guittard real milk chocolate chips. Even though this brand is a little on the chichi side, it was cheaper than the Nestle and Hershey products, which I was leery of buying because.... Well, Gentle Reader, have you eaten a Hershey bar lately? It's chocolate-flavored wax. Badly flavored wax. Guittard's chips offered the most basic ingredients: milk chocolate (sugar, milk, cocoa butter, chocolate liquor), soya lecithin and real vanilla.

(To make up for my purchase of the chichi chips, I used Nestle mini morsels I had on hand for the semisweet chocolate required. Therefore you cannot, Gentle Reader, accuse me of becoming a foodie with my purchase of the chichi chips.)

In case you're wondering, Gentle Reader, how those chichi milk chocolate chips taste, they are delicious. If you've ever had Cadbury milk chocolate--not the stuff that enrobes the goo of a cream egg, but a straight-up milk chocolate bar--then you've tasted something very, very similar to the Guittard milk chocolate chips. It's a very different taste from the milk chocolate most of us know here in the States, where many chocolate makers have been quietly upping the amount of non-cocoa butter fats used, which helps yield that waxy flavor. Remember when Palmer was the brand for cheap-ass chocolate that was like eating candle wax? Well, now a lot of big chocolate manufacturers are churning out much the same stuff. Blorf!

Now as to why chocolate drives me batty....

I don't know how in the name of the FSM you're supposed to get a 9" by 12" rectangle out of this recipe. Here's what I got:

Yeah, that's nowhere near 9" by 12" in size.

I was perturbed that the recipe didn't say how thick the rectangle should be. Not that I might have achieved that thickness or thinness because this stuff was hard as hell to spread. Maybe I should have sprayed my silicon spatula with cooking spray to ease things along. I dunno. I just...I got the stuff out of the bowl, leaving behind a fair amount of chocolate for the husband to lick off, and in the process of trying to schmear the goo into a 9" by 12" rectangle without any holes or bald spots, I lost a fair amount of chocolate on the spatula. All that chocolate gone to waste....

Okay, it didn't go to waste entirely. The husband and I licked up as much as we could, but.... But that meant I didn't have more chocolate from which to cut bats. Disappointing.

I let the pan chill in the 'fridge for 90 minutes or so while I prepared supper and we all ate and then cleaned up. Before scrubbing up some supper dishes, I set the chocolate out to soften, as the recipe indicates, for cutting. Given that our thermostat was still set to 83 degrees, I figured I wouldn't have to wait the indicated 10 minutes for it to soften, so I started to press in the plastic Wilton bat cookie cutter, which I'd found to be problematic last year for making cookies, after the chocolate had set out about 4 or 5 minutes. Initially, I encountered some resistance pressing the cutter into the chocolate, so I waited another 7 minutes.

By that time, the chocolate had softened enough that it yielded a little more easily. However, the moment I started to pull the cutter out, the bat shape began to crumble. So I tried with the cat cookie cutter. It went in fairly easily, but it crumbled even worse when I took it out. Grrr...

The 5 or so minutes more I worked to get at least one good bat, the chocolate started to melt--and fast. Frustrated by the heat and the crappy cookie cutters, I gave up after my fourth bat attempt broke in half because the bottom of it had melted and stuck to the wax paper. Fuckaroo!

I wound up with two cutouts that could be recognized as bats:

And I wound up with a box full of chocolate chunks and pieces:

While the finessing of the recipe with the cookie cutters was a total pain in the ass, the finished food product is damn tasty. Think Nestle Crunch but with small bits of dried cranberry. It took a helluva lotta will power not to eat all the broken bits and chunks out of frustration because it was so delicious.

As I shared my woes with the husband, he offered two observations. First, he suggested the recipe might work better with metal cookie cutters. That's probably true because they'd probably have sharper, cleaner edges. Second, he hypothesized that this recipe might work best in a Midwestern kitchen, where it probably wouldn't be 80+ degrees, especially close to Halloween. Y'know, kitchens in homes in parts of the U.S. that actually experience autumn--and that sure as hell isn't Central Texas.

Battle of the Bread Machines, Day 5

Once again, here's the husband with the play-by play.

--The Faudie
Prepare yourself for the wildest day yet in the Battle of the Bread Machines!

Competitor #5: The Breadman Ultimate Model TR2200C

A late addition to this competition, the Breadman Ultimate model TR2200C seemed like a steal when we found it at Goodwill, particularly once we learned the replacement kneading paddle we'd bought for the TL555LC would also work with the TR2200C. Then I read some of the negative reviews for this particular appliance on Amazon:

Defective out of the box

You Better Hope It Works!

Noisy, unreliable machine

Doesn't work

Could have burned my house down

DON'T BUY IT, IT'S CRAP!

I think you get the picture. But we decided to give the TR2200C a chance to prove itself in competition despite the alleged fire risk. I chose the test recipe from The Bread Machine Cookbook.

Norwegian Rye Bread

3/4 C water
1/3 C molasses
2 T margarine or butter
1/4 t salt
2 t caraway seeds
1/4 C whole wheat flour
1 1/4 C rye flour
1 1/4 C bread flour
1 1/2 t yeast

1. Place ingredients into bread machine in the order suggested by the machine's manufacturer.
   
2. Select the Whole wheat, Sweet or Basic option on the machine, then start the cycle.
3. If the dough seems dry or the machine sounds like it is struggling, add 1-2 tablespoons water.
   

Yield: 1 lb. loaf

Nutritional Info
Not provided. Typical.

Shall we talk about futzings? (Oh, boy, where to begin?) The intentional changes to the recipe included a slightly decreased amount of water and the addition of one-fourth of a tablespoon of vital gluten. The unintentional changes I can only chalk up to the fact that it was a long week at work...or perhaps I wasn't focused because I'd just drawn both Simba and Scar for the boy (hey, those lions are hard to draw!)...maybe I was rushing because it was going to be supper time soon. Whatever the reason, I made a couple of stupid mistakes: I added the ingredients in the order listed in the recipe as opposed to the order recommended by the machine's manufacturer, and I used Promise Fat Free Spread instead of butter or margarine.

Maybe the "help" was distracting me?

Angela and I had plenty of time to ponder what kind of disaster, between the machine's bad reputation and my deviations from the recipe, we had in the making. That's because the TR2200C, on the Whole Wheat cycle with light crust selected, takes three and a half hours to produce a one-pound loaf of bread. Part of this time, according to the machine's manual, is "a rest period during which the flours or grains absorb the liquid ingredients." I'm assuming this rest period is part of the preheat stage the machine began in, something none of our other bread machines have. (Of course, we've made several perfectly fine loaves of bread in those other machines with out the benefit of a "rest period" or preheat stage.)

And while our TR2200C proved more reliable than some of the machines purchased by the reviewers on Amazon (that is to say, it actually worked), we did witness first-hand one common criticism: In the kneading stages, the machine is noisy and shakes quite a bit. It didn't rock itself off the counter the way one reviewer said his machine did, though I think it would have been interesting if it had. The Battle of the Bread Machines has been an fun competition, but I think it would be a lot more exciting if we had out-of-control appliances crashing to our kitchen's hard tile floor!

Official Results for Competitor #5
We didn't know what to expect from the TR2200C, as the machine's teeny-tiny window fogged up early in the bread-making process and stayed that way throughout. Imagine our surprise, then, when we found it had made a perfect little loaf.

Despite all the bad things we'd read about the machine (and my own inability to follow a simple recipe), the loaf of Norwegian rye bread came out just fine. The taste, the texture, the crust...all very good. No complaints here.

Sadly, the TR2200C was the last competitor we had waiting to participate in the Battle of the Bread Machines. We'll be visiting a Goodwill tomorrow, so there's at least a chance of us discovering a sixth competitor for this little contest. If not, I suppose the judges will have to review the results for our five competitors and finally declare one of them the bread-making champion!

Keen on Quinoa

Since discovering the goodness of couscous about a year ago, I've been curious to try other "ancient" grains that had been, until recently, written off as the favored fuel of the crunchy-granola types. These grains are experiencing a small surge of popularity as nutritionists, researchers and health-conscious folks realize their health benefits and recognize that such attributes as "white" and "bleached" do not equal healthful.

While trolling the buffet tables at the flagship Whole Paycheck in late June, the husband and I were looking for new flavors and food preparations to try in small, relatively inexpensive quantities. On the salads buffet was a quinoa concoction that combined the grain with chopped cranberries, chopped red onion, olive oil and, if memory serves, balsamic vinegar. All those things I know to be quite tasty, and the quinoa salad turned out to be damn tasty. Much like couscous and brown rice, I found quinoa to have a bit of a nutty flavor, and its texture made my mouth happy: I don't like mushy stuff, and quinoa, when prepared properly, isn't mushy slop.

After gobbling down the small portion of cranberry-quinoa salad, I vowed I'd make the stuff at home some time. Since we'd bought the stuff at Whole Paycheck, I went over to its Web site in hopes of finding the recipe. Sure enough, I came across one that seemed pretty similar, although I couldn't be sure since my memory of all the ingredients in the quinoa salad we'd bought.

Quinoa Pilaf With Cranberries and Almonds1 T olive oil
1 small red onion, chopped
1 C quinoa, rinsed
2 C chicken or vegetable broth
1/2 t salt
2/3 C chopped dried cranberries
2/3 C toasted, sliced almonds

1. Heat oil in a medium saucepan over high heat.
   
2. Add the onion and cook, stirring, 2 min.
   
3. Add the quinoa to pan and stir 1 min.
   
4. Stir in broth and salt.
   
5. Bring mixture to a boil, lower heat and simmer, covered, 10 min.
   
6. Sprinkle in the cranberries, then continue to cook, covered, until quinoa is tender, 8 to 9 min.
   
7. Toss with almonds and serve.

Yield: Six 5-oz. servings

Nutritional Info
Calories: 220
Fat: 9 g
Sat fat: 1 g
Protein: 6 g
Carbs: 32 g
Fiber: 4 g
Sodium: 420 mg

The Faudie's Futzings
As I mentioned before, Gentle Reader, some time passed between when I ate the Whole Paycheck quinoa salad and when I found the recipe, but much more time passed between when I ate the salad and when I made the recipe. For that reason, I couldn't remember with certainty that the salad had contained balsamic vinegar. The recipe didn't include it, but I had this feeling the salad I'd so enjoyed had gotten its hint of burgundy color and sweet-ish flavor with the help of balsamic vinegar.

So what's a Faudie with a crappy memory to do? When it was time to sprinkle in the cranberries, I added a dash of balsamic vinegar. How much I can't say, but it was probably no more than a quarter-cup. Yes, I know, I should have measured it, but I have a terrible time reconciling the quantity in a measuring device with its true amount. I mean, a quarter-cup of water in a measuring cup doesn't look like much to me, but if I were to add it to a dish for which keeping the water content in a certain balance with the rest of the ingredients, that quarter-cup of water can quickly spell disaster.

The addition of the balsamic vinegar wasn't my only futzing:

• I used maybe a teaspoon, maybe a teaspoon and a half of olive oil.
  
• The "small" red onion I had started looking too big as I was chopping half of it, so that's all I used. Again, I just have a hard time visually translating one quantity into another. (Ugh, that sentence made no sense.)
  
• I omitted the sliced, toasted almonds. I have whole, raw almonds--as always--for snacks for the boys and me, but I don't like adding them as garnish to dishes.
  
• I used about a quarter-teaspoon of kosher salt. It's right there on the counter by Lumpy in my pink salt pig, making it so much easier to toss in than digging into the spice/drug/storage container cabinet for the light salt.
  
• I used almost a cup of chicken broth, left over from another meal I'd made earlier in the week, and the rest was vegetable broth. Did that impact the flavor? Eh, doubtful. I've found when it comes to the low-sodium broths, chicken and vegetable broths pretty much taste the same.
  
• The recipe doesn't specify what type of dried cranberries to use, so I used the sweetened ones I have on hand. That probably upped the carb content and helped give the finished dish a sweeter flavor, but I'm not complaining!

We didn't eat the quinoa all by itself: I made ginger-lime mahimahi, so yet another hunk of that giant slab of mahimahi I bought before Easter is now out of the deep freezer. I thought the sweetness of the quinoa would be a nice counterpoint to the citrusy tang of the fish. Of course, I had to sell the side dish as "round rice" to the boy, who disavowed couscous before even trying it, and the presence of cranberries I also impressed upon him. "Did he eat it?" you ask, Gentle Reader? He did--under duress.

Ah well, the boy didn't know what he was missing! My finished quinoa pilaf didn't have quite the distinct burgundy color I recalled the Whole Paycheck salad having, but it seemed to capture the flavor that I remembered. The pain in the ass that was rinsing the quinoa (in a little tea strainer) paid off, for the grains were tender and nutty, not hard and teeth-breakingly crunchy or palate-turning mushy. The sweetened dried cranberries and the balsamic vinegar gave the dish a wonderful sweetness, and the red onions were a great counterpoint, saving the pilaf from being too sweet. This dish is nutritious and pleasing to the palate and so very contrary to the notion that healthful whole-grain foods have the taste, texture and appeal of boiled cardboard.

Curious About Indian Food?

If you've kept an eye on your local PBS listings, you might have been able to catch an episode or two of Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie. The show's been on somewhat sporadically here in Austin, but I've been able to watch almost all three seasons through iTunes. (I write almost because some episodes are still waiting to be viewed.)

One particular episode from the show's second season I think should be watched by anyone curious about or fostering a love for Indian food. Its focus is on South India cuisine, and watching it makes me want to hop on a plane and take a culinary tour. I dare you to watch it and not get hungry, Gentle Reader.

(The nifty picture included with this post I found on Turmeric Indian Restaurant and Bar's Web site. If you're ever in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Gentle Reader, stop in for a feast!)

Battle of the Bread Machines, Day 4

The saga continues!

--The Faudie
The Battle of the Bread Machines, in which Goodwill-bought bread machines compete for the honor of becoming a permanent fixture in our kitchen, continues!

Competitor #4: The Breadman Model TL555LC

Plucked from a life of obscurity when it was discovered at a nearby Goodwill back in July, the Breadman model TL555LC has been waiting for a replacement kneading paddle to be eligible for competition. For more than a month, the TL555LC has been waiting patiently at one end of the kitchen, quietly watching as its competitors, the Welbilt models ABM-3600 and ABM-100-3 and the Breadman model TR444, have been put to the test. With all that time to rest and study the competition, will the TL555LC be able to put on a dazzling display now that the paddle has arrived?

The recipe the TL555LC will be trying out in its big debut comes from The Bread Machine Cookbook II.

Maple Wheat Bread

3/4 C water
1 T margarine or butter
3 T maple syrup
1/2 t salt
1/2 C wheat flakes
1/2 C whole wheat flour
2 C bread flour
1 T nonfat dry milk
1 1/2 t yeast

1. Place ingredients into bread machine in the order suggested by the machine's manufacturer.
   
2. Select the Sweet, Wheat or Basic option on the machine, then start the cycle.

Yield: 1 lb. loaf

Nutritional Info
Not provided. You should be used to that by now.

For those readers who are interested in our futzings, Angela reduced the amount of water and added a half-tablespoon of vital gluten. Oh, and instead of maple syrup, we used Griffin's Original Waffle Syrup, the ingredients of which are sugar syrup, corn syrup, artificial maple flavor, salt, caramel color and potassium sorbate. It tastes great on pancakes, but it's not exactly, you know, real maple syrup.

The judges by now have spent many hours playing with bread machines, and as such, we're probably getting a little particular about what we like and don't like in a bread machine. During the TL555LC's trial run, we discovered that we did not like its lack of an indicator light to signal which stage of the bread-making process it's in, nor did we like the fact that it didn't even beep to let us know when it was done. Those are small issues, to be sure, but they're things we noticed.

And what of the bread, you ask?

Official Results for Competitor #4
What we got was a perfectly shaped loaf of bread, with a pleasantly light crust. Of all the bread machines we've tried thus far, the TL555LC seems to work the best when it comes to selecting the darkness of the crust.

Nice-lookin' loaf

And the bread tasted good too! The maple flavor was nonexistent (I'll pin the blame for that on the waffle syrup we used), so don't get any ideas that this bread came out tasting like a premade piece of French toast or anything like that. For a loaf of wheat bread, however, it came out quite well, and the wheat flakes gave it a nice texture. We may or may not have eaten half the loaf right then. (OK, we did.)

The Battle of the Bread Machines isn't over, though. We have a late entry to the competition, a Breadman Ultimate model TR2200C, that we picked up on during a visit to a Goodwill in South Austin last weekend. It didn't come with a kneading paddle, either, but the paddle for the TL555LC will also work with the TR2200C. Stay tuned for Day 5 of this epic competition!

Another Milestone

Yep, Gentle Reader, it's that time again. Hey, it's not like these posts are going to go away because it's not like I'm going to stop running unless, the FSM forbid, something were to happen to me that would force me to stop.

As fairly impressive as 2,100 miles is, it's kind of nothing compared to what one running Austinoid and a guy I used to work with, Russell Secker, recently accomplished. He recently put in 2,800 miles in 64 days running across Europe (starting south in Italy and heading north to end in the most northern point of Norway). Now that's impressive. Something I might aspire to? Eh, not likely. I'm sure if you too, Gentle Reader, were to read some of Russell's entries and see some of his photos, you wouldn't aspire to this feat of feet either.

From a Bowl and Into a Loaf

Did you grow up eating oatmeal for breakfast, Gentle Reader? I didn't. Mum always had a paperboard cannister of Quaker Oats in the cabinet, but those she used for cookies primarily. If I ate oatmeal as I baby, it's in the same class as scrambled eggs: those foods I ate as a baby but haven't touched since then.

However, like the Quaker Oats Mum used in baking, I've used rolled oats and quick oats in a variety of baked goods and an a hard-core oatmeal raisin cookie freak. I'm always on the lookout for new, tasty combinations of oatmeal and raisins, so imagine my delight when the husband and I found such a recipe in Donna Rathmell German's The Bread Machine Cookbook II.

Whole Wheat Raisin Oatmeal Bread1 C water
1 1/2 T vegetable oil
1 1/2 T honey
1/2 t salt
3/4 C oats
3/4 C whole wheat flour
1 1/2 C bread flour
1 1/2 t yeast
1/2 C raisins
1/2 C chopped nuts (optional)

1. Add ingredients, except for the raisins and nuts (if using), in the order suggested by the bread machine's manufacturer.
   
2. Select the Wheat, Raisin, Sweet or Basic option, then start the cycle.
   
3. At the beep or at the beginning of the second kneading period or when the machine's manufacturer suggests, add the raisins and nuts (if using).

Yield: One 1-pound loaf

Nutritional Info
The fat content for this loaf is probably fairly low if you omit the optional nuts. The carb count will probably be a bit higher since the raisins are probably going to add some form of sugar in addition to the honey. But all in all, this isn't the worst loaf of bread you could make.

The Faudie's Futzings
Do I have to tell you, Gentle Reader, that I didn't futz much with the recipe? If you've assumed that, then you've proved true that old saying about making assumptions. Here's what I did:

• I used canola oil since I don't have straight up veggie oil. Does that count as a futz?
  
• I added three-fourths of a tablespoon of vital gluten since I used whole wheat flour. I know from experience that if a recipe calls for whole wheat flour, I have to add vital gluten.
  
• The recipe doesn't specify rolled oats or quick oats or steel-cut oats or whatnot, so I just used rolled oats. I couldn't imagine that quick oats would work too well, but what do I know?
  
• I didn't include the chopped nuts. I didn't have any readily on hand, and even if I did, I'm not a fan of added nuts.

This recipe is far more flavorful than the raisin bread recipe we made as our very first experiment with bread-making. I'd thought about throwing some cinnamon in with the rest of the ingredients, but did I remember to do that when I put the ingredients in the bucket? Hell no. Oy, me and my lame brain!

My only concern about this loaf is that it came out a little dark even though I'd set the Welbilt on the Light crust setting. I'm not sure if the added sugar from the raisins caused that darkening or just what happened. I even ended the baking cycle 10 minutes early because the top was looking a bit darker than what I like. Hmm.

That said, the darker crust wasn't overly bitter, at least to my taste buds. Warm and naked, the bread is damn tasty. Even with the wheat flour and the rolled oats and the honey and the raisins, the texture is pretty light, not dense as one might expect by combining those ingredients. The boy had a slice for breakfast the follow morning and declared it enough to fill him up.

If you too fail to add some cinnamon before baking (a teaspoon, maybe a teaspoon and a half should do, I think) the loaf, a great way to get that flavor and get the experience of fresh-from-the-oven warmth, toast a slice of this bread, schmear it with a little bit of butter, then sprinkle it with sugar and cinnamon. Yeah, I know, Gentle Reader, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that serving option, but it's an option I highly endorse. I served the bread thusly this morning to the boys, and they both loved it.

And no sticky oatmeal bowls to wash afterwards!

I Conquer the King

Today, I did something for the very first time that I've been told kids do easily and without trepidation--although I was not one of those kids. I did something today for the very first time that I've struggled to do, sworn off, sworn to achieve, been indifferent to and made excuses about for the past six, seven years.

I finally did sirsana, the king of asanas, all by myself today.

Okay, sure, I had a wall for support, but I didn't need Madame Guillotine or a Swiss ball to help be invert. I got my hips stacked over my head and shoulders and then got my legs up all by myself. Without excuses.

Yeah, excuses. I've had a load of them to explain my tempestuous relationship with this pose. Lack of experience (hey, I wasn't one of those kids who readily stood on her head, as so many of my teachers suggested all kids did). Injury (certain muscles in my back would certainly not cooperate to help me sustain the pose even when assisted into it). Fear.

As you can guess, Gentle Reader, that last one's a biggie. I wasn't afraid so much of going upside down. That doesn't bother me. I don't get disoriented as some folks do in inversions, and I don't freak out at the loss of control the pose can represent--even though I am certainly a control freak when I'm standing on my own two feet. No, I was afraid of getting injured while getting into or out of (more like falling out of due to a muscle crapping out on me) the pose. An injury would mean downtime, and I hate downtime. Because I was afraid of the prospect of an injury, I avoided it.

But then I started working on it almost daily at the gym with the help of a Swiss ball. I got my back muscles comfortable with supporting me when I had my hips stacked over my head and shoulders (with my legs supported by the ball). Then I got my back comfortable with supporting me with one leg up and one leg on the ball. From that point, getting both legs up was no problem.

Of course, inverting sans Swiss ball was the big, final goal. Gentle Reader, would you be shocked to know I was perfectly fine with never working to achieve that goal? I was content with the progress I made, but I was curious if I could invert on my own power. And quite by accident today, it happened. The damn ball I was using kept rolling away once I was inverted. Sick of chasing after it, I just tried to go upside down on my own--and f'in did it.

Hooray for me!

What's next for me? Dunno. Probably not niralamba sirsana:

But Mr. Iyengar looks pretty cool doing it!

Sweet, Sweet Dal

The night that I made my first real masala, I also tried a new dal dish, also found in Suneeta Vaswani's Complete Book of Indian Cooking. I'm a dal lover, and this book seems chock full of dal recipes. Now if only I could get the boys to eat them along with me, I'd be far more willing to make them more often. However, cooking for one isn't terribly economical, so I must temper my enthusiasm for all things dal.

Bengali Special Dal

1 C channa dal (split yellow peas)
1/2 t turmeric
1 t salt
1 T ghee or butter, divided
1/4 C dried coconut chips
2 dried Indian red chiles
1/2 t cumin seeds
1 cinnamon stick, 1" long
3 green cardamom pods, cracked open
3 whole cloves
2 bay leaves
1 green chile (preferably serrano), cut in half
2 t minced peeled ginger or ginger paste
1 T raisins

1. Clean and pick through the dal for any small stones and grit, then rinse several times in cold water until the water is fairly clear.
   
2. Soak the dal in a saucepan with 3 cups of water for 30 min.
   
3. Bring the dal to a boil over medium-high heat, skimming off any froth.
   
4. Reduce heat to medium, stir in turmeric and boil gently, partially covered, until dal is tender and about half a cup water remains in the pan (35-40 min.).
   
5. Mash a little dal with the back of a spoon.
   
6. Add 1 and a half cups of water to the pan, along with the salt.
   
7. Return the dal to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover and simmer until the dal is very soft (6-8 min.).
   
8. Meanwhile, heat 1 teaspoon of ghee in a skillet over medium heat.
   
9. Add the coconut chips to the skillet, saute until golden (2-3 min.), transfer to a bowl and set aside.
   
10. Heat the remaining ghee in the same skillet over medium heat.
    
11. Add the dried red chiles, cumin seeds, cardamom pods, cinnamon stick, cloves, bay leaves and green chile halves, saute until fragrant (1 min.), then pour into the dal.
    
12. Stir in the ginger, raisins and coconut chips into the dal, then cover and simmer until the dal thickens to the consistency of oatmeal (6-8 min.). (If the dal gets too thick, add a little hot water to return it to the desired consistency.)

Nutritional Info
None to provide! This dish is sweet without being teeth-rotting sugary, so just enjoy it and not worry for once about the nutritional content.

The Faudie's Futzings
When it comes to dal dishes, my experience is largely limited to those recipes I've made. Because of that relative lack of experience, I'm often hesitant to go radically changing things up. But I wouldn't be The Faudie if I didn't futz a little!

• I used perhaps a total of two teaspoons of ghee, or maybe just 1 and a half teaspoons total. I find a little ghee goes a long way and don't like the sometimes cloyingly heavy result of using a lot of the stuff.
  
• The serrano chile I used had matured enough on the vine to be red. It was a lovely contrast to the yellow dal.
  
• While I had ginger I could have peeled and minced, I opted to use ginger paste.

One ingredient you might be surprised to learn that I didn't futz with, Gentle Reader, was the coconut chips. I'd never heard of coconut chips until recently, when I encountered a recipe in Gourmet, I believe, that used them and included convoluted instructions for roasting coconut halves in your oven and then chipping away at the insides to make the chips with a particular tool. Umm, no, I'll pass. Or, rather, I'll just stop by Central Market and pick some up from the bulk foods playland.

But let me tell you something about those coconut chips, Gentle Reader: They smelled heavenly toasting in a wee bit of ghee! And the flavor they added to the dal--enlightening!

And that's the wonderful thing about this dal dish, you see. It's sweet without being, well, that kind of sugary sweet so many people in the U.S. are accustomed to. The combination of the cardamom and cinnamon--and the cloves, really--with the coconut imparted that dessert-like flavor many of us are used to, while the cumin and the hint of heat given by the chiles prevented the finished dal from rendering this dish something you'd relegate to the dessert table.

I think Ms. Vaswani's direction to let the dal simmer until it's the consistency of oatmeal is very appropriate because this dish would be a great breakfast item. Warm and filling but still sweet--because let's face it, a good many of us here in the U.S. want some sweetness at breakfast because we grew up on sugary cereals or sweetened pancakes doused in sugary sweet maple (or maple-flavored) syrup or sugary, fatty donuts or sugary sweet pastries or sweetened cornbread or coffeecake or sugary chocolate milk or sugary fruit-flavored yogurt. Gah! It's frightening and sad how sugary breakfast can be, especially for a meal dubbed the most important of the day.

Makin' Masala

Believe it or not, Gentle Reader, for all my misadventures in Indian cookery, I've yet to make a true masala. Sure, I've made a chicken tikka masala dish, but I've not made a real masala.

"So what is an authentic masala?" you ask, Gentle Reader?

A masala is simply a blend of spices, often toasted and ground together or sometimes combined with some form of moisture and ground into a paste. In traditional Indian cookery, the making 'o the masala was the first step for curries and many other dishes, and a mortar and pestle or some kind of grinding apparatus was, in a way, the heart of an Indian kitchen.

While I have a mortar and pestle, I've never employed it for the purpose of making a masala. Until now--and not even for a chicken tikka masala dish, which the husband and boy love mightily. However, I did employ my mortar and pestle for a dish that the husband selected (solely for its off-beat name) from Suneeta Vaswani's Complete Book of Indian Cooking, a fun find at Half-Price Books I'd intended for my mother but so far haven't given her and probably won't (Sorry, Mum!) because Ms. Vaswani's arranged the contents first by primary ingredient, (e.g., poultry, vegetables, fish) and then by the region of Indian from which each dish originated. It's a very informative book in addition to being chocked full of tasty-sounding recipes.

Preeti's Chicken FrankiesMasala
5 to 6 dried Indian red chiles, broken into pieces, some seeds removed
1/4 C white vinegar
2 T cumin seeds
4 black peppercorns
8 to 10 garlic cloves

1. Soak chiles in vinegar in a small bowl for 15 min.
2. In a dry skillet over medium-high heat, toast the cumin seeds until fragrant (2-3 min.).
   
3. Combine the cumin seeds and peppercorns in a blender, then blend until a powder.
   
4. Add the garlic and chile mixture to the spice powder, then blend into a smooth paste.

Topping
3/4 C chopped red onion
1/2 C white vinegar
1/4 C cilantro leaves, chopped
1 T minced green chiles (preferably serranos)

1. Combine the onions, vinegar, cilantro and chiles in a small bowl.
   
2. Cover and marinate in the refrigerator from 1 hour or up 2 days.

Chicken
2 lb. chicken breast tenders or filets
3 T oil, divided
1 1/2 medium onions, pureed
1/3 C tomato paste
2 T white vinegar
1 t salt
1/4 t cayenne pepper (optional)
1/2 C cilantro leaves
16 10" flour tortillas
3 eggs, beaten

1. Marinate the chicken in 1 tablespoon of masala for 15 min.
2. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a large skillet over medium heat.
3. Add the pureed onion, saute until the onion puree is well-browned (6-8 min.), then set aside.
   
4. Reheat the skillet with the remaining oil, add the chicken mixture and saute 2 min.
   
5. Add the browned onion puree back to the skillet along with 1 tablespoon of masala, then saute 2-3 min.
   
6. Add the tomato paste, vinegar, salt and cayenne, mix well, then simmer until the chicken is no longer pink inside (about 5 min.).
   
7. Spray a clean skillet with vegetable spray, then heat over medium or low heat.
   
8. Add a tortilla, brushing the top with beaten egg, and allow to heat for 30 sec.
   
9. Flip the tortilla and allow to heat 30 more sec.
   
10. Repeat steps 8 and 9 for remaining tortillas.
    
11. On each heated tortilla, place some chicken, top with some onion-vinegar topping, then fold over, burrito-style.

Nutritional Info
As with her other book I own, Easy Indian Cooking, Ms. Vaswani does not include nutritional info. I can't imagine that this dish is all that bad for you, so long as you're careful with the amount of oil you use and the nutritional content of the flour tortillas you select. If you're keeping an eye on all things healthful, you certainly don't want to be using tortillas made with any kind of lard involvement.

The Faudie's Futzings
The idea of what amounts to Indian burritos had me somewhat skeptical. I mean, how authentic can a recipe be if it uses flour tortillas? I also felt some trepidation at making my own masala. All that grinding and mashing...how was I to know if I was doing it right or ruining it--and, consequently, the finished dish--completely? And then there was the white vinegar.... For all these reasons, I therefore tried not to stray far from Ms. Vaswani's recipe:

• I only made about half-batch of the topping because I knew for sure the boy wouldn't touch it and doubted that the husband and I wouldn't use much of it. Sorry, but I too strongly associate white vinegar with Easter eggs and cat piss, so my desire to consume it isn't very strong.
  
• Instead of 10" tortillas, I used 6" ones, and only five or six total, if that.
  
• I didn't add the cilantro to the chicken because I had to feed it to the boy and didn't need to give him another reason (the first being this dish was foreign to him and therefore immediately objectionable) to reject it.
  
• I used a bit of canned diced green chiles from HEB for the topping, and I don't think they're serranos. The list of ingredients on the label only states that they're "green chiles." So very helpful.
• I didn't fold my up like a burrito. I think I might have just folded the tortilla in half to make a soft taco-style frankie. Perhaps using larger tortillas would allow me to execute a proper burrito fold.
  

Although it hardly looks like any Indian food I've ever eaten or seen, the end result is wonderfully delicious. My concerns about the vinegar were unfounded, for I couldn't taste it at all, not even in the topping. I honestly don't know much about the culinary wonders of vinegar, so perhaps it toned down some ingredient (such as the onions or chiles) or gave the other ingredients a nice medium in which to blend together. I dunno.

If you're curious, Gentle Reader, about the recipe's back story, here it is from Ms. Vaswani:

Frankies are a popular Bombay wrap made with boneless pieces of baby goat meat. They tend to be rather greasy, but they are nevertheless delicious! This is my daughter-in-law Preeti's cleaned-up version, one that was an instant winner with the family.

I suppose if you wanted to go more authentic, you could use roti or chapati in lieu of tortillas, but the ingredients for all those breads are very similar.

By the way, if you follow the recipe for the masala, you end up with more than you need. The author recommends using the leftover masala on fish. I recommend making another batch of the chicken filling and serving it atop some fluffy basmati rice.

What a Grind
"So how was making your first masala?" you ask, Gentle Reader? Well, quite simply, it was some fun, somewhat labor-intensive work.

You may have noticed that Ms. Vaswani does not tell readers to use a mortar and pestle to make the masala. Her direction to use a blender is, if you ask me, overkill--or, really, useless. I don't know about your blender, Gentle Reader, but the design of my blender would never have ground the cumin seeds into powder because they'd have collected below the blades. The size of my mortar and pestle was perfect for grinding the spices and then mushing into a paste that powder along with the vinegar, chiles and garlic. See for yourself:

This paste tastes better than Elmer's!

I think, Gentle Reader, you can't be afraid of having to exert a little umphf! if you're going to make this or any other masala. Let's face it--you need some muscle to crush black peppercorns or mush dried chiles into something more than sticky particles that stink of vinegar. Or maybe my black peppercorns are old. But if you're all about convenience and ease in the kitchen, then by all means whip out your blender, Gentle Reader.

Coked-up Bread

The last week has been a busy one at Chez Boeckman-Walker as we prepare for the start of another school year. As a result, I'm a bit behind in posting some culinary misadventures. While I take a few (hours? days?) to recoup, enjoy one from the husband.

--The Faudie
Angela's already shed light upon the many abuses and uses of Coca-Cola, and while I'm still keen on making some cola marsh sherbet, Angela suggested I get my cola fix from one of the recipes in The Bread Machine Cookbook II:

Cola Bread3/4 C cola
1 1/2 T margarine or butter
2 C bread flour
1 t yeast

1. "Flatten" the cola by arming it in the microwave to remove some of the bubbles.
   
2. Place ingredients into bread machine in the order suggested by the machine's manufacturer.
   
3. Select the Normal, Basic or Sweet option on the machine, then start the cycle.

Yield: One 1-pound loaf

Nutritional Info
Not provided, but bear in mind that the key ingredient has been rumored to be an effective toilet cleaner.

The Bread Machine Cookbook II gave us permission to substitute "any flavor soda, diet or regular," as desired. Since Coca-Cola only tastes good to me when it comes out of a fountain (and Pepsi, IMHO, just plain sucks), I used an HEB Original Cola. If you can't get to HEB to pick up one of their colas...well, consider moving to Texas!

The boy helped out with this fairly simple recipe, gleefully microwaving the cola to remove the bubbles. We used the Breadman model TR444, which I was curious to try using again after making that tasty but flat loaf of pumpernickel.

Unlike the pumpernickel, the cola bread rose nicely in the bread machine. It came out looking good, if oddly lumpy (a side effect of the remaining carbonation in the soda, maybe?):


And as for the flavor...well, Angela thought it tasted a little sour. If someone were to sample the bread without knowing that cola was an ingredient, I'd imagine they'd just assume we were trying to make a slightly sour bread. Knowing what went into the bread, though, the slight cola flavor is pretty unmistakable, which poses a problem: What kind of sandwich, exactly, can you make with bread that tastes like cola? (I'm guessing it's not going to make a great tuna sandwich.) Yet the flavor is so underwhelming that the bread alone seems like it needs something more...but what?


The best serving suggestion I've been able to come up with is a slice of plain coke bread with a glass of whatever soda you have after making the bread. Just be sure to save a little bit of the cola for the next time you need your toilet cleaned.

Everybody's a Chef Now

This evening the boys and I watched yet another moronic cake-decorating battle on Food Network Challenge this evening while noshing on leftovers. (I swear, if I could give Food Network a huge chunk of money, I too could have a cake-decorating battle all about me.) While fast forwarding through the commercials, I did a double take I did not ever expect to do while watching (or fast forwarding through commercials on) Food Network:

Was that Brian Boitano cooking?

After a quick rewind 'o the DVR, I discovered that, sure enough, 'twas indeed 1988 men's figure skating Olympic gold medalist Brian Boitano cooking. He wasn't just cooking. He was pitching his upcoming new show on Food Network, What Would Brian Boitano Cook? (If you're a fan of South Park, Gentle Reader, you will get the joke immediately.)

Oh, so that's what he's doing now, I thought. Guess it beats the hell out of other things he could be doing.

Because I was somewhat of a fan back in the day, I bopped over to FoodNetwork.com to see what I could see about this new show and, in some small way, confirm that I wasn't hallucinating. Brian Boitano cooking? That's just...yeah. Okay. Not much is available yet, except for this incredibly disgusting clip from the show (I'm guessing) in which Mr. Olympic Gold Medalist and a guy who probably spends a fair amount of time on his hair make a bacone.

"What the hell's a bacone?" you ask, Gentle Reader?

It's.... No, I can't do it. I just can't describe it. It's too nauseating to contemplate. You just...you just have to watch it for yourself.

Blorf!

I Am America's Test Kitchen

A few months ago, I signed up to be a "friend" of Cook's Illustrated. No, it's not the kind of "friendship" made popular by Facebook or MySpace or some other social network B.S. site. This "friendship" entitles me to receive recipes the folks at America's Test Kitchen are testing and perfecting. As a friend, I can try the recipes out myself and give the fine folks at ATK feedback on them.

Perhaps this'll get me one step closer to having Charles Kimball over for supper one night and give him a taste of what real Tex-Mex is like, not that watered-down, cajone-less stuff he's used to in New England. After all...

I Heart Christopher Kimball

Sorry, I digress.

The first two recipes I received were nothing I would ever attempt to make. One, I seem to recall, involved bacon--and you're already well aware, I'm sure, Gentle Reader, of how I feel about bacon. The other was just...well, I don't have an inkling about what the recipe was for, but I do recall that it had no appeal for me. How can I judge the quality of a recipe if it's not for a food item that I want to eat?

A week or so ago, I finally got an email from Cook's Illustrated inviting me to test a recipe that I could actually see myself making for some uber-special occasion. The recipe's for soft and chewy brownies. Normally I pass on any kind of brownie recipe because they're loaded with fat and sugar--stuff I try my damnedest to avoid. I also tend to pass on such recipes because, hey, I can buy a box of Krusteaz fat-free brownie mix, toss in some water, stir, pour into a pan, bake and have brownies. I don't trust myself to competently mix together flour, sugar, cocoa, eggs and whatever else a recipe might call for and bake the goo the right way.

However, since it's been a long time since I've had the chance to really play in the kitchen (damn this summer heat!), I thought I'd give this recipe a whirl. I had most of the ingredients already on hand, the steps didn't seem overly difficult, and I thought perhaps I couldn't screw it up too badly thanks to the experience I've gained over the last 18 or more months. If I did the recipe right and I wound up with an edible batch of soft and chewy brownies, I could give share them with others and quickly get them out of my house. If they weren't edible, well...that's why I have a husband and a son.

Soft and Chewy BrowniesUnfortunately, Gentle Reader, my friendship with Cook's Illustrated prohibits me from sharing this recipe-in-progress with you. I don't know when the final version will be published or when it might be featured in an episode of America's Test Kitchen. But here's an overview of the ingredients, listed in no particular order:

• Dutch-processed cocoa
  
• Unsweetened chocolate
  
• Instant espresso powder
  
• Sugar
  
• Flour
  
• Eggs (whole and just yolks)
  
• Bittersweet chocolate
  
• Vanilla extract
  
• Vegetable oil
  
• Salt
  
• Boiling water

As you can see, Gentle Reader, there's nothing too terribly out of the ordinary in the recipe. You might say the espresso powder is a bit out of the ordinary, but understand that it's there to help bring out the flavor of the chocolate. That's a little something I learned from either Cook's Illustrated or America's Test Kitchen--or maybe from a copy of the King Arthur Flour Company's catalog, which is always full of fun recipes and baking tips. So while, for example, Mum in Bumblefuck, Okiemolah, can't readily find espresso powder at her local Wally World (which has, by and large, put all the other grocery stores in the area out of business with its price margins while simultaneously limiting the variety of merchandise available to consumers), I can find it easily at my local HEB.

The Faudie's Futzings
Because I'm testing a recipe-in-progress, I didn't feel I should futz with it at all because that would obviously defeat the purpose of the experiment and render my feedback useless. However, I might have inadvertently futzed with it just a tad bit due to my own ignorance or skinflintedness. Allow me to explain.

I have a container of Nestle cocoa powder. I have no idea for certain that it's Dutch-processed cocoa, but I have a vague memory of reading somewhere or hearing on some show that either it is or that most cocoa powders available in U.S. supermarkets are Dutch-processed--or the exact opposite. Could I have used Google to confirm that Nestle's cocoa powder is or is not Dutch-processed? Sure. But when I started making this recipe just after 6 a.m. on a Sunday morning and knew I needed to make a quick run to HEB to pick up more sugar and didn't want to have to buy another container of cocoa powder that would linger in the cabinet for years and years (as the Nestle's product has), I just didn't want to take the time or set myself up to spend the additional money.

Taking that time now that it's all said and done, I realize I was right: Most readily available cocoa powders are not Dutch-processed, but some of the larger makers do make Dutch-processed products. That said, when I was at HEB at the butt-crack of dawn this morning, I checked all the available cocoa powder products, and none of them stated specifically on their labels that they were Dutch-processed. Woohoo! I got to save some money!

Even before my shopping/research trip to HEB, I was thinking about this dilemma over whether Nestle's cocoa powder is Dutch-processed or not and developed this...justification for using what I had on hand: Your average baker is more likely to have a cannister of Nestle or Hershey cocoa powder in a kitchen cabinet than a cannister of Dutch-processed stuff. Considering my local HEB didn't offer a Dutch-processed product on its shelves--and this HEB is no stranger to offering a variety of unusual or "exotic" ingredients--I figured there's a high degree of probability that your average baker in, say, your typical Midwestern city isn't going to have ready access to Dutch-processed chocolate and will, like me, use whatever cocoa powder she or he has on hand.

Seems like a reasonable thing to think, wouldn't you agree, Gentle Reader?

That's just one example of my inadvertent futzing. Here's another one: The recipe calls for table salt. I don't have any regular table salt. I have reduced-sodium table salt, I have sea salt, I have kosher salt, and I have a small quantity of higher-end larger-crystal sea salt I bought for an Indian recipe and haven't used yet. Now I know from reading Cook's Illustrated or watching America's Test Kitchen that kosher salt and table salt cannot be substituted measure for measure. I seem to recall that less kosher salt is required to achieve the same effect of regular table salt. Since I (again) was too lazy to confirm how to competently substitute kosher for table salt, I just used my reduced-sodium table salt. I figured it probably wouldn't matter too much since salt is just used to help differentiate the various flavors--and there aren't too many flavors in this recipe that need differentiating!

The only other potentially result-altering futz I did involved the bittersweet chocolate. I was supposed to use a bar of the stuff that I was to cut into a certain size of smallish chunks that I was to then put into the batter before putting it into the pan. I instead used an equivalent amount of bittersweet, 60% cacoa chocolate chips. The chips were slightly larger and flatter than your typical Nestle Tollhouse chips, they with their perfect little curly q peaks, but they were not the same size as the specified size of chunks the recipe calls for.

Here's a slideshow of my morning's work for your titillation, Gentle Reader:

I Get Judgmental
So how are the finished brownies, sliced and served after two hours of cooling, as specified by the recipe? Well, I would not describe them as chewy so much. Yes, some slightly more vigorous mastication is required, but it's not the sort of mastication needed for something that's chewy; it's not quite the mandible workout I'd put in to something that is chewy. Or perhaps my sense of chewiness is skewed because I chew sugar-free gum all day to alleviate my chronic dry mouth.

I tried first a piece that had one edge from the pan. There's a bit of chewiness to that outer rim edge, but the texture away from the crust is more gooey, but not gummy and slightly runny as you experience with undercooked brownie batter. There's cohesion developed from exposure to heat and the chemical processes engendered by the heat.

Also, there's more gooeyness at those places where you encounter one of the bittersweet chocolate chips, which are like pockets of molten lava, except that they're chocolate and not red-hot mixtures of minerals and whatnot. (What the hell does comprise lava? Guess I should ask the boy since he's all into volcanoes.) If you don't stir in the chips/chunks well enough and wind up with pockets of them throughout your pan, you could have a slightly sticky, gooey mess that's damn tasty but a bit of a brownie loss nevertheless.

Next I tried a corner piece and observed that because more of it had been exposed to the baking conditions that ensue from its close contact to the pan, it had more chewiness. But away from that outer edge, the "guts" of the brownie were still more gooey but cohesive.

Finally, I had a small piece from deeper inside the brownie pan. I must not have sprayed the aluminum foil in that spot with enough baker's cooking spray (the stuff that has flour to help ensure easy release of baked goods) because some of the bottom crust stuck to the foil. Eh, no big loss in all reality--ya just swiped it off with yer fingertip and lick it off! However, did that "leave behind" signal a failure of the recipe or of the baking time (two minutes longer than specified by the recipe) or of something else? I can't say for sure. I suspect if I just made sure the foil was well-coated with the spray before pouring in the batter, I wouldn't have the problem again. But I'll know more as I cut into and attempt to remove more pieces from the center of the brownies.

As for the flavor and texture of my third piece, it was very similar to the "guts" of the other pieces: gooey but cohesive. It was perhaps a bit more gooey, but it did not, fortunately, have the texture of raw or barely cooked brownie batter. I don't know about you, Gentle Reader, but I've had more than a few pans of box-mix brownies come out of the oven with burnt-crispy edges and raw-batter-gooey centers. Not that I find the goo off-putting. No, I'm more upset by the burnt-crispy edges because I just don't like baked goods with dry, crisp, crumbly crusts and edges. They taste bitter to me and often have an icky aftertaste.

To make this culinary experiment (read: misadventure) a bit more objective, I asked the boys to sample the finished product and share with me (and you, Gentle Reader) their observations about the taste and texture of the brownies. While the boy only got an outer edge piece, the husband tried the same types of pieces I did: a corner piece, a piece from the outer edge and a piece with no outer edge. Here are the husband's notes:

overall--pretty good brownie

good brownie texture--firm on the outside, almost gooey on the inside

flavor OK, but could be more chocolatey--some bites seemed to have more flavor than others--seemed as though flavor was less intense (less chocolately) near edges, more chocolately (sometimes overpoweringly, but not in a bad way) near center

liked finding the gooey, melted chips

I suspect his desire for a "more chocolatey" flavor stems from a preference for a sweeter chocolate. Let's face it: Most folks in America are used to milk chocolate that, in the past few years, has become more filled with wax and other icky stuff than ever before. Growing up, I was experienced with two sorts of chocolate: milk chocolate in candy bars (before government regulations loosened to allow more wax and other fillers, much to the outrage of chocolatiers in the E.U.) and semisweet chocolate in the bags of Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chips Mum used in her cookies and in the bars she used occasionally for other sweets. I recall not liking dark chocolate all that much, but my only experience with it back then was the Hershey Special Dark miniature bars I got occasionally at Halloween or other holidays.

Now, however, I find I prefer dark chocolate--the more cacao, the better! Perhaps it's a reaction to all those fillers that have radically altered, in my estimation, the flavor of milk chocolate. Perhaps I don't have quite the sweet-chocolate sweet tooth I once had (that's doubtful). More than likely, though, I think I find the flavor of a higher-cacao chocolate more satisfying because, hey, the flavor sticks around a lot longer on the taste buds. Or at least it seems that way to me.

For some folks--perhaps including the husband, that higher cacao content strikes them as more bitter than sweet when their taste buds are expecting a sweeter flavor from chocolate after years of consuming milk chocolate or other forms of chocolate that don't have as much cacao. So I suppose, Gentle Reader, you can take the husband's observation about the brownies lacking a certain level of chocolatey flavor as a warning that if you prefer sweeter chocolate, then these brownies may leave you wanting.

As for the boy...well, how sophisticated of observations can you expect from a six-and-a-half-year-old little boy who really doesn't have the yen for chocolate that a lot of other people have? For your amusement, here are the boy's thoughts, as captured by the husband:

mmm--it's good

it tastes more chocolatey on the inside

texture--just perfect

the best thing of all is that it is yummy

it has a good aftertaste--tastes chocolatey

it's chocolately and its crumby

Heh, crumby. I hope he means crumby as in "in the state of having crumbs," not as in "lousy, awful, no good, wretched" and so on and so forth. I'm not sure how he came to observe the brownie's quality of having crumbs since I didn't think his piece crumbled much. Then again, considering the slovenly way the boy eats, perhaps he mistook the crumbs left behind after his open-mouth chewing as a sign that the brownie itself was given to having excess crumbs.

The Final Verdict
After consuming some test brownies and talking over our findings with the boys, I filled out a survey for Cook's Illustrated about my baking and eating experience of the recipe. We gave the recipe a 9 out of 10, and I noted that I might make the recipe again (although I didn't get to note on a scale of likely I was to make it again, which I think is a relevant question to ask).

Fortunately, the survey gave me an opportunity to share exactly how I strayed from the recipe--although I spared them my ruminations on Dutch-processed cocoa versus other types of cocoa--and other specifics about my experience with the recipe. I wish the recipe had stated somewhere that its goal: "A soft and chewy brownie with great chocolate flavor and the chewiness found in box-mix brownies." Knowing that would have given me some context in which to frame my observations because honestly, these brownies blew away anything I've ever made from a box (which admittedly is limited to Krusteaz fat-free mixes, No Pudge Fudge fat-free mixes and Betty Crocker's regular and reduced-fat mixes--not exactly a broad experience of boxed mixes, right?)

Now that I've filled out the survey, how soon can I expect that call from dear Christopher Kimball about when he'll be coming to Chez Boeckman-Walker for a taste of real Tex-Mex?