Barbecue Sauce

As you could probably guess, the Curessa has been taking a little vacation from blogging (for good reason – apparently, this whole “dealing with an infant” thing is hard). Not wanting hers to fall to the petrified forest of dead blogs, she hired me to guest-post for a little while until the new-baby adventure starts winding down.

For a little background, I’m Micah. I’ve previously appeared in Curessa posts as Hungry Teenage Boy #2 and Train Carrier’s Assistant. I’m a 16-year-old boy, and, odd as it might sound, I really, really like cooking. Like anyone else who comes within a 5-mile radius of the Curessa, I’ve had occasion to try a few Ina Garten recipes. From what I can tell, Ina really likes butter and olive oil, but can write a darn good recipe. Like the Curessa, I’m known for “cooking by ear”, so to speak (much to my mother’s annoyance), but I rarely find the need to do that with Ina’s stuff. Unlike certain authors, she doesn’t use tons of unusual ingredients that can’t be found with a five-minute bike ride to the grocery store.

A few weeks ago, I started making Mark Bittman’s awesome/easy pizza dough, and I’ve always liked barbecue chicken pizza, so after a few tries with store-bought sauce, I decided to try to make a barbecue chicken pizza with homemade sauce.

After an aborted attempt involving Texas-style barbecue sauce that essentially firebombed the mouths of my entire family, I saw that Ina had a barbecue sauce recipe in her first cookbook. It accompanied a barbecued chicken recipe, but after my mom informed me that my dad would rather beat himself over the head with the Oxford English Dictionary than barbecue chicken, I opted for just doing the sauce.

I was skeptical at first, since the recipe called for an absurd number of ingredients:

Thankfully, though, they mixed together to a pleasant-looking sauce:

While the sauce cooked down, I let the dough rise:

Once the sauce was finished, I dressed the pizza before throwing it into a 500-degree (yup, 500-degree) oven:

If you look closely, you can see what the Curessa affectionately refers to as “Satan’s Herb”, or cilantro. At some point, I plan to make a cilantro, blue cheese, and raw onion salad when she comes over, just to see what happens.

Ten minutes later, this came out. It was pretty awesome, I have to say:

While the sauce was amazing on the pizza, it’s been great in the week or so after. The recipe says that the sauce can keep for “months” in the fridge, which I’m a bit skeptical of, but it certainly hasn’t lost any flavor in the last few days. The only way that I can describe the flavor is “intensely barbecue-y”. It tastes, really, how barbecue sauce should taste, with a little heat, a little sweetness, and an ability to enhance other flavors as well as assert itself.

Also, the recipe seems to make enough sauce to fill a small lake, so maybe cut it in half if you don’t think you’re going to use it quite so much. Trust me, though, you’ll probably end up using it more than you’d expect.

Honey Vanilla Pound Cake

The headnotes to this recipe (Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics), indicated that it was inspired by a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated, reportedly one of Ina Garten’s favorite magazines (and one of mine, too).  For me, learning that the dear Contessa loves one of my other favorite recipe sources was like finding out that a new best friend shares a love for a favorite author, or like introducing the love of my life to my dad and just knowing that they’d hit it off.  My heart sang to see the magazine mentioned on the hallowed pages of a Contessa cookbook.  The folks at Cook’s Illustrated are also responsible for the PBS series America’s Test Kitchen.  I’ve rarely been disappointed by a Cook’s Illustrated recipe, but I do find the instructions a little fussy, and the America’s Test Kitchen folks more than a little uppity.  Then again, if I tested as many recipes and tools as they do, I’d probably be plenty uppity.  I just find the Contessa series to be much more approachable and practical for most weeknight meals.  That said, when I’m not afraid of a time commitment and I want the absolute best results, I turn to Cook’s Illustrated.  In addition, I love it when they find that a less expensive gadget or tool works just as well or better than its pricier counterpart.  It’s like cheering for the underdog.

So, needless to say, I was excited to try this recipe, where my two favorite recipe sources married on one page.  Unfortunately, as soon as I got started, I realized that my cake flour had expired, and I wasn’t sure it should be used.  I was already too far into the recipe to turn back, so I substituted all-purpose flour.  This turned out to be an ill-advised decision on my part.  I baked it for 50 minutes (the low end of the suggested time), and tested it with a toothpick.  The toothpick came out clean in most places, but the cake looked like it needed a little more time in one place.  Five minutes later, the toothpick came out clean everywhere.  I followed the instructions to let the cake cool before removing it from the pan, and then cooled it further on a cooling rack.  Then, at the moment of truth, cutting into the cake, it was mostly doughy on the inside.  I blame the all-purpose flour.  Bummer.  Because of all the cooling time, it was too late to put the cake back into the oven.

Still, the slices that we were able to salvage were absolutely delicious, and we’ve become somewhat experienced at tasting pound cake over the years.  I find that pound cake recipes work well with Nordic Ware bundt/molded pans, as they have enough fat and bulk to slide right out of the pan.  (Incidentally, the Nordic Ware factory is less than 2 miles from my house.  I scour the want ads for a taste-testing position, but alas, they’re only hiring metal workers.  Bah.)  Also, pound cake seems to be a Southern staple, so I practiced the art of baking it from Junior League and church cookbooks over the years.  As far as pound cake recipes go, this one tasted fantastic, but next time I’ll be sure to have fresh cake flour on hand.

Indonesian Ginger Chicken

This recipe (The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, p. 125) calls for two whole chickens, but I just use whatever bone-in, skin-on chicken I happen to have on hand (usually whatever is in the freezer from the last grocery store sale).  It makes quite a bit of marinade, so if you’re only cooking for a few people, you could freeze some uncooked chicken in the marinade for another time (although I wouldn’t recommend re-freezing previously frozen, thawed chicken).  This time, I used a package of chicken thighs, and it was delicious.  I’d made this years ago, but had forgotten how easy (and good) it was.  The picky toddler even ate some, and as you can see, we ate it with rice and green beans on the side.

Challah French Toast

Like so many other things, I’ve never used a recipe for French Toast.  My mom made it on Saturday mornings when we had surplus milk, eggs, and bread to use up.  When making it for a crowd, I’ve made Baked French Toast Casserole, which is a little bit like a breakfast bread pudding.  I had some leftover challah in the freezer from Rosh Hashanah, and the first snowy day of the season (in October!) seemed as good of a day as any to try out Challah French Toast (Barefoot Contessa Family Style, p. 187).  You may be thinking, “Wait.  She’s an Episcopalian.  Why does she celebrate Rosh Hashanah?  And who in her right mind has leftover challah?”  You’re right.  I’m an Episcopalian, in the upper  Midwest, no less, and had never formally celebrated Rosh Hashanah before in my life.  Some dear friends invited us over for their family celebration, and I volunteered to bring the challah.  I was going to make it from scratch, but ended up ordering (way too much of) it from a bakery.  I think I showed up with six loaves, just because I couldn’t possibly decide between the egg raisin, vanilla raisin, plain vanilla, plain egg… you get the idea.  Our hosts were gracious about the extra loaves, but of course sent some home with me for the freezer.  (I learned that night that challah, while usually oblong, is round for the Rosh Hashanah celebration, to acknowledge the circle of life and to celebrate the cycle of the new year.)  I have to say, I think leftover/stale/day-old/formerly frozen bread is probably actually better than fresh challah for this recipe, since a little bit of dryness allows the custard of the egg and milk mixture to soak in.  There’s orange zest in the custard mixture, which makes it oh-so-good.  Unlike the french toast of my youth (and most recipes I’ve seen), this recipe did not call for cinnamon.  As much as I love cinnamon, I think it would have competed too much here with the other flavors, especially the orange zest, so I didn’t miss it.  This was a big hit all around, including with the picky toddler.  Thankfully, there’s more challah in the freezer to make this again!  

Sweet and Crunchy

Orange Honey Glazed Carrots (Barefoot Contessa at Home, p. 133) taste like the cooked carrots you know, but better.  They are still slightly crunchy, and the orange and honey bring out the natural sweetness in the carrots.  This is probably my husband’s favorite way to eat carrots, with the possible exception of carrot cake slathered in cream cheese icing.  We’ve gotten quite a few carrots in our CSA boxes this summer, and this has been a fun way to use them.  This dish is different without being too different.