shiz.ca

Fa la la la la, la la la (urp).

I have for years planned to make homemade Irish cream for the holidays. Tonight I finally did it.

There are many a recipe out there, but I settled on this one from Jeffrey Morgenthaler; for this I wanted one by a bartender, not some AllRecipes housewife. It is good. It is strong. I ended up halving the whisky. I also cut the almond extract down to 1/4 because I find almond extract to be strong, and I multiplied the espresso by 1.5.

Two thumbs up; we'll see how my other peeps weigh in when they try it. I always drink my store-bought Irish cream with milk, so I wasn't surprised that I wanted to do that when I poured myself a drink, but again I like it.

A note to other non-Americans: I could only find sweetened condensed milk in 300 ml cans; they equal 10 ounces each, not 14.

Chili vs. Chile

So I've been hearing for a while that chili powder contains all kinds of stuff in it besides chile peppers. I've also been hearing that real chile powder, the powder of crushed chiles, is delicious and wonderful.

I made chili on Saturday with some chile powder I picked up on my trip to Delhi. The thing is, though, that chile powder is about 6 times hotter than chili powder, but I wasn't aware of that when I added the three and a half tablespoons my awesome chili recipe calls for.

The chili, it be HOT. I have diluted a scant cup of it into a new 8-cup batch, and I have mounds left to go.

I'll be eating chili for the rest of my life.

Homemade pancake syrup

1 cup each of:
white sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup & water

1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix. Cook gently for 3 minutes.
Store in refrigerator.

From Aroostook. I used 1/3 cup of each to make a smaller batch. Good.

** When chilled, this was too gel-ey; next time I'll use more water and less corn syrup, maybe 1 Tb less syrup and 2-3 Tb more of water for the smaller 1/3 cup-size batch. And I may look to add butter flavour.

Brownie-Mix Cookies

Make cookies out of brownie mix:

Preheat oven to 325°F

1 box brownie mix
1 large egg
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup water *
3/4 cup flour **

Mix ingredients, drop small drops from 1/4 tsp measure *** onto parchment-lined cookie sheet. Bake 5-7 minutes. Cool. Eat.

* I might try 1 TB of almond or vanilla extract or butter flavoring AND 2 TB water
** I'm interested in using 1/4 c of cocoa and 1/2 c of flour instead
*** For small bite-sized cookies

Cooking Lesson

From Amalah:

I'm pretty sure that lasagna is not supposed to contain elbow macaroni and Velveeta.

Two Random Fun Facts

1. Drinking Guinness can raise one's iron levels. My doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine recommends it.

2. A great, easy, awesome, delicious recipe is here, for Wolfgang Puck's wonderful dal.