brainwagon

One of the more interesting online communities that has sprung up in recent years is Pinterest. It serves as a kind of Internet inspiration board: people clip pictures of projects that interest or inspire them, and post them as a sort of pin board that can be shared. I recently found several boards on ships […]

I have previously mentioned Jim Lahey’s no-knead bread (posts here and here and here. I’ve continued to make this at least once a week since those early days of experimentation. I thought I might include a few notes about how I’m makind and refining the process that I use. My early loaves kind of reminded […]

This morning I was in a rush to get out of the house, and didn’t have time to make a big breakfast, so while I was gathering my stuff, I cut a fairly thick slice of bread off the loaf I made last night and jammed it in the toaster. As I was about to […]

My early success with making tasty no knead bread has sent me off on the Internet looking for additional recipes. As a complete breadmaking newbie, I have a lot to learn, but luckily, there is lots of good websites to help me understand and extend my tiny skills in this vast topic. The best of […]

Tonight I baked up my second loaf of no knead bread. The first batch was promising, but was a bit dense. I used ordinary all purpose flour, and for whatever reason, I didn’t seem to get as high of a rise as I thought I should. This time, I decided to try some King Arthur […]

Frequent readers of this blog might be shocked to learn that I’m not entirely consumed by the usual geeky topics that I post about. Among other things, I also like to cook, and as the holidays approach, I like to try to find a few new recipes and techniques. This week’s experiment was one of […]

I have fond memories of In-N-Out. In fact, one is fairly near my house, so I don’t need to go deep into my past: I can simply go over there and get one whenever the mood strikes me. I recognize that the burgers themselves aren’t (to the truth be told) particularly all that good. I […]

If you are a long time reader of this blog, you know that it wasn’t always about ham radio. It’s really about whatever I happen to be thinking about and doing that I wish to share and talk about. Tonight’s topic was simply this: applesauce. I was watching America’s Test Kitchen, where they were making […]

Okay, I’ll admit it: I like cooking, and I’ve begun to read a bit upon the subject of so-called “molecular gastronomy”. I was also watching Iron Chef America, and saw (not for the first time) a chef use the “sous vide” technique of cooking: where a protein is sealed in a vacuum bag and placed […]

Carmen and I have reached the point in our lives where buying stuff for each other at Christmas is kind of superfluous. Stuff we need, we already buy, and stuff we don’t need aren’t the greatest gifts. What’s really valuable is the time we spend together. Toward that end, my wife Carmen used her own […]

ReadyMade Blog has a nice article on making your own butter, ricotta cheese, or cottage cheese.  I may give the ricotta a try sometime, fresh cheese like this have a mild creamy flavor that I really enjoy. [tags]Recipes,Butter,Cheese,Ricotta[/tags]

Have those little sirens of cookiedom (otherwise known as Girl Scouts) lured your diet onto the rocks with promises of Thin Mint cookies? Me too. Well, I’m probably preying on you when you are already in a state of weakened resolve, but check out the following recipe: 101 Cookbooks – Thin Mint Recipe – homemade […]

Courtesy of a Japanese TV show, learn how to peel a potato in one step.  Well, to be fair, it’s not really one step.  You do this by: Cutting the skin all around the middle of the potato. Boiling the potato. Immersing it in cold water to the count of ten. And then, just pull […]

What can I say?  Life sucks today, but there isn’t a day so bleak that isn’t improved by a massive plate of brownies.  Over at Cooking for Engineers, those kitchen elves whipped up a batch of “John’s Favorite Brownies”, made with none other than  the excellent Scharffen Berger chocolate.  Yum-mee. Cooking For Engineers – Recipe […]

Dan Lyke’s Flutterby! has an interesting article on cooking with sugar. I haven’t looked into this as closely as Dan apparently has, but I am aware that the addition of some corn syrup into sugar recipes can prevent crystallization as you heat sugar mixtures. I recently had some fun making my first real caramel for […]