Failed attempt 1 at Peach Nirvana

I am working on developing a recipe for "Peach Nirvana" as a sort of cobbler for a science fiction story my wife and I are writing. Long story. At least so far, but we aren't done writing it yet. The cook in the story makes a cobbler for the crew that is a hit.

My first attempt was to adapt the Lemon Wedges over Shortbread recipe with the peach syrup and peaches in place of the lemon juice and zest. I cut the sugar in half since there is a lot of sweetness in the syrup and peaches and none of the sour of the lemon to contend with.

Little known fact, peaches are bigger and juicier than shavings of lemon zest. Word.

FAIL

But there were some lessons learned.

Never give up. Never surrender. 

Another failed attempt at bacon jam. You may recall the first attempt at Bacon Butter FAIL which had almost the same outcome. I was much more diligent with the stirring, so I don't think it was inattention. I suspect I am applying much more heat in the early part. Also there isn't much mention of lids. I assumed that simmer implied lid off to allow reduction, but maybe it is simmer lid on?

I am going to have to schedule a time to make it with my friend who has made it successfully.

Anyway, the salami, pastrami, turkey quesadilla for dinner worked out.
And now I have some lumps of Bacon Coal to save for unsuspecting naughty girls and boys stockings this christmas.

Bacon Butter FAIL

I was camping with a buddy of mine and he pulled out some bacon butter. Wow. Just wow. So I sought out the recipe and here is my first attempt.

I made a couple of tweaks from the original ingredient list.

Creamed butter, sugar, and eggs.

So when I posted about the chocolate chip cookie fail, one thing I didn't get a picture of was how strange the caramel + brown sugar + butter + eggs looked. The butter clarified and didn't fully incorporate into the caramel.

This is what creamed butter, sugar, and eggs is supposed to look like ...

I wish I better understood the chemistry of what is going on with this magical concoction when making cookies.

Update: I got a great comment from donaleen about a Baking 911 blog post that goes into great detail about creaming butter and sugar and the considerations of the temperatures involved. Well worth a read.

Chocolate chip cookie FAIL

I am perhaps overly enamored by caramelization.

It just seems so magical. So why not caramelize sugar every time you use it? What could happen?

I'll tell you what could happen, you could pre-ruin your cookies. That's what could happen.

Chocolate Shortbread

While we have a number of cookie recipes we like, we were in the mood to try something new: Chocolate shortbread.

It was fine for what it was. But it basically seemed like brownies for people without chickens (or some other access to eggs).

If you get a hankering for chewy-free brownies, give the Bob's Red Mill recipe a try. But why not make some nice chewy brownies instead?

They were a little better with some peach caramel sauce over them.

Strange brown glop

Just a reminder, this blog is warts and all. So here is a failure I am sharing...

I had some roasted squash and some leftover mashed potatoes and some leftover caramelized apples and thought "what could happen" and pureed them all together in to this strange brown glop.

Vegetable Shepherd's Pie

Sharon found me a nice recipe for Shepherd's Pie at Cooking For Engineers. Evidently it originates in the Joy of Cooking. I have made this a couple times in the traditional form -- with ground beef. Today I wanted to keep the form of the dish but make it vegetarian. So in place of the beef I thought I would use roast squash, apples, nuts, and maybe some cooked greens. What could happen?!

Roasted Brussels Sprouts -- FAIL

I tried out a recipe for roasted brussels sprouts but something went horribly wrong.

I tossed them in olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted them at 400 for 40 minutes. Maybe they were a little smaller and more open than "traditional" brussels sprouts, but they ended up really charred.

I turned them when they still had 15 minutes left, I turned them and they were starting to show some color.