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    Into the Fourth Year

    Saturday, April 30th, 2011

    Mister makes appearances more often than I thought he would, here at The Funky Kitchen. His hands show up in photos, volunteering to pour things for me in action shots, or taking pictures for me while I cook. Mostly he plays a part in the stories being told, or by giving his very important mister reviews, which give you all an additional opinion on the recipes I’ve been making.

    He’s a pretty special guy, my Mister. He’s more culinarily inclined on the eating side of things rather than the cooking side, but he’ll rarely miss the chance to get his hands dirty and help out with whatever it is that’s going on in the kitchen on a particular day. He’s the man who brings a portable spice wheel to the field with him when he goes out on exercises, to help make the IMPs more palatable and exciting. It really helped when they were up in the Arctic and made a moose stew. One person had a spice wheel, and it was my Mister!

    I’m talking about him today because on the 15th of the month, just about two weeks ago, we celebrated our relationship turning three! Three years! On one hand it feels like three years is a really long time, but on the other hand it feels like he’s been my best friend since, well, forever. We postponed the anniversary because the 15th happened to be a day sandwiched between two exams. When we finally got around to days where we had time to celebrate us a little bit, I baked for him something that combined some of his most favorite flavors: cinnamon, brown sugar, and bacon.

    Now he’s gone on an exercise, which has given me time to write about it. I’m missing him to death already, but he’s only going to be gone for a week and a bit. It’s so terrible when leaves, but there is little else in the world that feels as good as when he comes back home. I can’t wait until you come home Mister!

    Cinnamon Bacon Buns

    (recipe adapted from Whipped)
    Ingredients

    1 Cup of milk, warmed

    1/4 Cup warm water

    1 tsp vanilla

    1/2 Cup butter

    2 eggs

    1/2 tsp salt

    1/2 Cup sugar

    6 Cups flour

    3 tsp yeast

    15 slices of bacon

    1/2 Cup butter

    1 Cup brown sugar

    5 Tbsp cinnamon

    1/4 tsp nutmeg

    Directions
    • Combine the milk, water, vanilla, butter, eggs, salt, sugar, flour and yeast.
    • If using a mixer, mix with a dough hook for 10 minutes. If kneading by hand, combine the above ingredients in a bowl, mix them together until they form a ball, and then knead for about 10 minutes.
    • Cover the dough with a damp tea towel and let it stand for an additional 10 minutes.
    • Roll the dough out to about 1/4 inch thickness. Try to keep it relatively rectangular, but shape really doesn’t matter that much.
    • On a small cowl, combine the butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg, forming a paste. Spread this paste evenly over the rolled out dough, leaving the last 1/2 inch of one of the longer sides bare so that you can pinch the roll shut.
    • Cook the bacon in a pan until some of the fat is rendered, but the bacon is not overly crisp. You want the bacon to remain pliable. Cut each rasher into half longitudinally.
    • Roll the dough up into a roll, trying to keep it tightly coiled.
    • Cut the long roll into 1 1/2 inch slices, the individual cinnamon buns.
    • Unroll each bun by a couple of inches, so that you can thread in one of the longitudinally cut bacon slices and then roll it back up.
    • Place the cinnamon bacon buns into a baking tray or pie plate with a little bit of space between them.
    • Allow the buns to rise for 30-40 minutes.
    • Bake in a 350° oven for 20-25 minutes, until the cinnamon brown sugar filling is oozing and melted and the bun dough is golden brown.

    Serve warm to a happy mister (or other intended). Mister says these were: awesomely bacony, and a combination of many things he loves.

    Give them a try, they are almost sinfully good.

    When in Doubt, Fry an Onion: Potato and Bacon Soup

    Sunday, June 6th, 2010

    My mom’s side of the family is Ukrainian, and so I grew up on a lot of pierogi and kielbasa. Being the good little half-Ukrainian I am, I have absorbed into my repertoire a good number of dishes that are either Ukrainian in origin, or are Ukrainian-ized dishes made by my Baba.

    If the recipe in question is a savory preparation, it is almost guaranteed to begin with the phrase, “First, fry an onion.” I’m not sure if the strong love of onion is Ukrainian or something that just pertains to my Baba, but the connection is very strong in my mind. Ukrainian food, at least for my family, almost always includes an onion.

    Looking back, I feel a little sorry for childhood me because it took me a very long time to come to appreciate the flavor of onion. That doesn’t jive well with a family who is onion-happy.  Let’s just say it was common for me to sit at the table for quite a while contemplating taking that dreaded first bite.  I didn’t know what I was missing though.

    This soup probably has very little Ukrainian basis, if at all, I don’t truly know it’s origins. All I know is that we’ve been eating it for years. Due to it’s reminiscent of pierogi flavors and the ubiquitous instruction to fry an onion, I’ve always credited it to my Baba.

    Potato and Bacon Soup

    (origins unknown, maybe from my Baba’s kitchen)
    Ingredients

    8 slices of bacon, cut into lardons

    1 large onion

    1/3 C white wine

    8 or 9 small russet potatoes, diced

    1 tsp thyme

    5 C milk

    salt and pepper to taste (be prepared to use more salt than you expect to, it is a lot of potato)

    Directions
    • Fry your lardons until crispy and the fat has been rendered. Remove them from the pot with a slotted spoon.
    • Fry your onion!
    • Deglaze with the white wine.
    • Add the diced potatoes to the pot, giving them a minute to warm through.
    • Pour in the milk and bring to a boil, then reduce heat.
    • Add in thyme, salt and pepper. Check a few times to see that the soup is properly seasoned.
    • Boil until the potatoes have gone soft. By boiling them in the milk, they lend starch to thicken the soup.
    • Add the crispy bacon back to the pot, stirring until it is evenly distributed.
    • Serve!

    Just for fun, here’s the fact of the day: fry an onion in Ukrainian is смажити цибулю.

    Grilled Skewers on May Long Weekend

    Monday, May 24th, 2010

    This weekend was crazy. The Mister and I went up to his cabin with some friends and had a lot of fun in the sun. Between the guitars, the beach and a nap or two, we found some time for meals.

    What does one eat at the cabin? Whatever it is that’s coming off of the three barbecues. You heard it, three barbecues.

    Which is all well to do, grilling is a great way to prepare and cook food, but up until this weekend I had never used a barbecue by myself before. Sure, I’d cooked on a grill before but always under the watchful eye of some other more experienced barbecue user. I didn’t know how to turn a barbecue on (thank you Mister for being patient and directing me) and it took a little bit of trial and error to get my cooking temperatures to where I wanted them to be, but I think I’ll make a barbecue expert yet.

    And these, these lovely little skewers of smoky sweet savoriness, were the fruit of my labour. The interplay between the flavors and textures is what really makes them spectacular. The sweet of the peaches versus the salt of the bacon. Juiciness versus smokiness, crunch versus soft.

    Bacon, Peach and Chicken Skewers

    Ingredients

    3 peaches

    3 chicken breasts, cubed to bite sized pieces

    ~10 slices of bacon, cut in half

    1/4 tsp black pepper

    barbecue sauce, for brushing

    Directions
    • Soak your skewers if you are using wood ones, for at least half an hour (or else they will burn, like mine did).
    • Remove the pits from the peaches, and cut each peach into eight pieces.
    • Take half a slice of bacon, and wrap it around a piece of chicken.
    • Thread it onto the skewer, positioned so that the bacon doesn’t come loose.
    • Then thread on a peach piece.
    • Repeat steps 3-5 until all of your pieces are threaded onto skewers (you should get 5 or 6).
    • Sprinkle with pepper.
    • Put your skewers on the grill over medium-high heat, turning once during cooking, brushing the skewers with barbecue sauce after turning.
    • The skewers are done when the chicken is cooked through, the bacon is crispy and the peaches are grill marked.

    Serve to friends on Royal Chinet, the finest of paper plates! Ha ha ha. I hope you all had a good weekend!