Author: petebakes

giveaway! win a copy of “artisan bread in 5 minutes a day!”

Post author By petebakes
Post date February 2, 2009
93 Comments on giveaway! win a copy of “artisan bread in 5 minutes a day!”

i have a small library of cookbooks around the apartment, but i find myself only using a select few. i don’t know about you, but what draws me to cookbooks are the pictures, so even the ones i don’t use very often usually have beautiful spreads of cakes or closeups of golden brown seared scallops. i’ve also got a predisposition for vintage food stuff, as my parent’s house is chock full of antique butcher shop signage (among other cool fixtures like barber chairs!).

so imagine my delight when i stumbled upon copies of the woman’s day encyclopdia of cookery (1966) and the pillsbury treasury of bake-off favorites (1969) at the book thing in baltimore. for anyone not in the know, the book thing is a big book warehouse where you can grab anything for free (no limit on quantity) and donate books you’ve finished for others to enjoy. it’s a free bookstore with a constantly rotating stock of old and new, and if the world was perfect, there would be a book thing in every city.

anyway, these cookbooks are a treasure trove of forgotten recipes, a slice of history from a time when anything could be made into a casserole, despite its biological origin. they’re also a odd collection of grotesque photographs. most of them i couldn’t identify without the captions. i’ve included 3 below. which brings me to…

the giveaway
all you have to do win is comment with what you think is in the pictures below. bam.

now, the rules:

to enter, comment below with your guess at what dish is featured in each picture.
PLEASE comment only once (or risk disqualification!!!)
winner will be chosen at random, so have fun with your guesses! funniest entries will get a shoutout when i announce the winner.
entries will be accepted until 11:50 pm EST, february 6. winner will be announced february 9, right here. we have a winner!

but wait, there’s more! if the winner already has a copy of artisan bread in 5 minutes a day (as many of us do), i’d be willing to send them a copy of another cookbook on their wishlist (of equal monetary value).

so let’s get on with it, shall we? i present to you, selections from the woman’s day encyclopdia of cookery and the pillsbury treasury of bake-off favorites:

savory

sausage stuffed mushrooms

Post author By petebakes
Post date January 29, 2009
23 Comments on sausage stuffed mushrooms

you’ve probably noticed by now that i’ve got a bit of sweet tooth. cake over steak. i’m usually happy to let the girl do most of the cooking (she’s an amazing cook), but there are times when i have to break out ingredients other than butter and sugar. the results? indulgent. full of bacon.

another common theme: appetizers for dinner. i love making a bunch of little finger foods and just eating them as a meal. growing up, this was a treat reserved for new years eve, complete with mozzarella sticks, potato skins, nachos and *gasp* birch beer (best soda ever). since i’m still young enough that it’s a novelty to go to the grocery store and get whatever i want, if i want snacks for dinner now, that’s what i’m having.

these stuffed mushrooms are straight up indulgent and flavorful bites that work just as well as a main dish as they do party starters. the combination of sweet sausage and earthy mushrooms mixed with caramelized onions and hints of parmesan cheese will make you rethink how you do dinner too. and the way the sausage just crisps up in the oven – i could go on if you want…

the great thing about recipes like this is that you can mix and match any ingredients you like. try turkey or chicken sausage (just had this for the first time recently – surprisingly good!). throw in any spices or herbs you might like, or even mix in some wild mushrooms for a kick.

i don’t actually have any pictures of the mushrooms once they came out of the oven. there’s a perfectly good reason – we finished them off before i could break out the camera. seriously.

pastry

sticky buns

so we have a new president! since i live in washington dc, the center of all of last week’s inaugural commotion, you might think i’d take advantage of living up the street from the white house and haul my butt to the mall to witness history. don’t get me wrong – i love democracy and i’m incredibly excited about barack obama, but i was a little busy, um, making sticky buns. i mean, look at these things! i knew you’d understand.

while i can’t offer you photos of the millions who flocked to the capitol on tuesday, i can show you what i was doing while i watched all of the speeches and ceremonies on tv (i’ll be honest, i teared up a few times). and though it wasn’t quite as powerful as actually standing in the cold cheering on our new commander in chief, i could still feel the energy that permeated the city.

one more thing about the inauguration: the weekend before, i went to the hair cuttery for a trim. the woman snipping away casually remarked that earlier that morning, she cut john mccain’s mother’s hair. i was skeptical, not that she cut mrs. mccain’s hair, but that mrs. mccain was still alive at all. embarassingly, i had to check when i got home, and indeed, roberta mccain is still kicking (at 96 years young and with a great looking head of hair).

moving on…these sticky buns are awesome. the dough comes together quickly and easily, they come out of the oven looking beautiful and taste even better. my advice for the recipe below – don’t use all of the caramel glaze. i made the mistake of just pouring it all in (i used a 9-inch cake pan to bake them), and while the apartment smelled great for a few minutes, it quickly turned to the smell of burnt sugar as the glaze bubbled out of the pan and onto the oven floor.

before i knew it, the kitchen had filled with black smoke and the excess glaze had solidified into rock hard blackened tuiles. i had to crawl on my hands and knees to the oven so i could get a baking pan in there to catch the falling glaze. i couldn’t bring myself to turn off the oven while the sticky buns were only partially done, so i let them finish. the apartment still smells a little burnt, but the sticky buns came out perfect. the things i do for baked goods.

bonus sticky-bun-related headache: in the picture above, you can see a little sugar on the right bottom corner. shortly before this picture, i knocked over a giant tupperware container full of granulated sugar which quickly became a giant tupperware container full of nothing. i spent a few hours vacuuming and sweeping up tiny granules in my living room (note to self: make sure lid is actually on container next time). in the end though, the sticky buns were worth it. i’ve been eating them for breakfast each morning after a few seconds in the microwave.

one last thing – i have to apologize if i’ve been a little neglectful of comments or emails lately. i’ve actually just started going back to school part time (yay!), and i’m still figuring out how to balance work, class and baking. i’m enrolled in a program at the boston university center for digital imaging arts (they have a campus in dc), and in 18 months i’ll have a certificate in graphic design and web design. it’s a really incredible program, and i’m excited to be excited about school again. after years of self-taught trial and error in photoshop and html, i expect that finding out all the things i don’t know will be a totally humbling (and fun!) experience.