What I'd Give For a Well-Cooked...

This is likely to be one of the most neglected sections of my website for one simple reason: the cookbooks and scribbled recipe notes are never with me when I'm finally somewhere where I can modify my webpages. So expect slowness.

Cooking is another one of those things I fell into through necessity and discovered I liked. Growing up, I was a member of the TV Dinner Generation, more skilled in the use of the microwave than in putting together a good meal. Once I moved to the UK, however, I found myself having to deal with the actual ingredients that go into food - and found myself having to find a way to turn that into food. Needless to say, the learning curve is steep when faced with starvation.

I'm still somewhat unadventurous - my sense of smell is somewhat lacking, which makes it hard for me to distinguish smells and tastes with any delicacy. Still, I manage. My preferred area of cooking is to make Mexican food, as they've not a clue how to do it in the UK and as a former southern California native, such food is a necessity for survival. I literally start getting the shakes and tremors after a certain period of denial if I can't find someway to sit down and make enchiladas or something similar.

If I'm good at anything, it's baking. I've been experimenting a bunch, and hopefully some of the recipes I'll include here in time will pique your interest. Some of them, like the 'dive bombs' (double chocolate chunk cookies), are rather popular in Durham - I use them liberally as bribes. Oddly, those I bribe don't seem to mind...

Some links I use on occasion -

Bachelor Cooking - I'm a bachelor, and I cook. Ergo...
Arielle's Recipe Archives - All sorts of fun stuff.

Note: I've not given the metric conversions yet, as I don't think in metric when cooking - I'll get them up soon as I can.

Cooking Recipes:

• Enchiladas

Baking Recipes:

• Dive Bombs
• Pinwheels
• Banana Bread

Enchiladas - Mmmm, Mexican!

Now, we'll be honest - this one is actually a friend of mine's by the name of Janet Maughan. Still darned good.
Makes about 18 enchiladas - have plenty of dishes on hand

Sauce:
3 T. oil
2 T. flour
1/4 c. chili powder
1/4 t. cumin (I usually don't have any, don't use it, no loss)
1/4 t. oregano
1/2 t. garlic powder (NOT garlic salt)
2 c. beef broth (beef stock, as known here. About 16 oz.)
11 oz. tomato puree (about 6 oz. of the 'double strength' they have 2 c. beef broth (beef stock, as known here. About 16 oz.)

Heat oil; add flour and cook one minute. Add other ingredients slowly and
bring to a simmer; cook 15 minutes.

Main Dish:

8-12 oz. Monterey Jack (250-350 grams; a mild cheddar will work, too.)
8-12 oz. cheddar (250-350 grams; I use a nice strong cheddar for this.)
1-2 bunches green onion (spring onion)
3/4 lb. hamburger, browned (400-500 grams; I've been using lamb mince)
1 c. refried beans (just use a tin - who cares if there's extra?)
14-20 flour tortillas

Mix together the browned meat, the cheeses, the onion, and the refried
beans, reserving enough cheese to sprinkle over the top.

Place a bit of the sauce in the bottom of the baking pan and spread it
around, as this will help keep the tortillas from sticking later. One at a
time, dip the tortillas in the warm sauce to soften. (Though as this isn't
usually a big problem, I usually just spread some sauce on one side, and put
the ingredients on the other.) Spread the filling just under the center
point. Roll, then put them in the pan, edge down.

Pour the remaining sauce over the top of the enchiladas, and sprinkle the
remaining cheese over the top of that. Bake at 350 degrees F. (or about 175
degrees C., or gas mark 4-5) for 15-20 minutes or until thoroughly heated.

Dive Bombs - Double Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Makes about 24 3-inch cookies

1. Cream together the butter, both types of sugar
2. Beat in the egg and vanilla
3. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt, adding it to the creamed mixture and mixing well. I use a dash of hot water to get the cocoa powder/flour mixture started to be absorbed into the creamed butter. The aim is a batter that will have some solidity, but will be soft when baked.
4. Break up or chop the chocolate into small chunks, stirring it into the mix
5. Drop in spoonfuls on greased cookie sheets, bake at 375 degrees F for about ten minutes - I look for the liquid surface to start to fade. The cookies will still look slightly undercooked when they come out, if you want them soft.

Pinwheels - vanilla/chocolate dough mix

These were something I'd read about, so I just whacked something together. What came out was an odd cross between cookie and cake loaf, but it works quite well.

I've gotten up to 50 cookies out of this recipe - you may want to half it.

Basically, this recipe is making two batches of cookie dough and combining them in layers before rolling them up like a scroll.

The Doughs:

1. Cream the sugar and butter together. Beat in the egg and vanilla
2. Sift in the flour, salt, and baking powder. If making the chocolate dough with cocoa powder, use only 1 cup of flour and sift in the cocoa powder here as well.
3. Put each of the doughs aside in the refridgerator for an hour or two - the idea is to stiffen it up for when you attack it with a rolling pin

Creating the Pinwheels:

1. Knead one of the doughs so that it gets back some flexibility - it likely will seem unusable when you first get it out of the refigerator for being crumbly.
2. Once it is moldable, take a rolling pin and roll it out flat in a roughly rectangular sheet. Keep in mind how big you want the cookies - the longer the length that you intend to eventually roll, the larger the cookie. Note: you may need a slight bit of flour on the board and on the rolling pin to keep the dough from sticking. Practice - it's worth it.
3. Either move the flattened dough - carefully! - or have a second board handy. I usually roll out the vanilla first on a sheet of waxed paper, so that I just pick up the waxed paper and move it off my board. Roll out the second batch of dough in the exact same manner as the first.
4. Take the first batch of dough, then carefully put it on top of the second, so that the rectangles basically match up. Roll it smooth so that the two are pretty solidly layered together
5. Carefully roll the two together into logs. I usually have a knife or thin spatula in hand to help the rolling process. The outer dough may attempt to split or crumble as you roll, especially if it's the chocolate dough - careful rolling and using the knife to help lift the dough off the board helps here. The idea is to get a dough log, with the pinwheel obvious if you look at the end or a cross-section.
6. Hand-form the log a bit, making sure there are no splits or cracks and so it is a solid dough - otherwise it will crumble on you.
7. Taking a knife or cutter, slice cross-sections to the desired thickness of the cookie. The dough will likely try to deform - just take it easy. Put them on a greased cookie sheet, cook for about 10 minutes at 400 degrees F.

Banana Bread - What it says on the tin.

Makes one loaf or 8x8 inch pan.

1. Cream together shortening and sugar; beat in the egg
2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda, stir well into creamed mixture
3. In another bowl, mash the bananas thoroughly and add the water and vanilla. I find the riper the bananas the better - in fact, this recipe gets used every time I forget to eat my bananas and need to use them before feeling guilty about letting them go to waste.
4. Mix in the banana mixture to the rest. It should form a thick dough that can be slowly poured.
5. Place in greased loaf tin or 8x8 pan - I line a 8x8 Pyrex pan with greased wax paper. It allows me to just lift the paper out wholesale with the loaf and saves a tremendous amount of cleanup.
6. Cook at 350 degrees F for an hour.