Too Much of a Good Thing
Last night a friend sent me this photo of the latest food extravaganza to add to the list of creations, such as the tofurkey and Chermpumple, namely food that is too much of a good thing. This food extravagance comes courtesy of Friendly’s Restaurant, who I suppose would be considered friendly to your neighborhood heart surgeon for the amount of business it sends her way. As my friend said when he sent this photo, “Is there any wonder why obesity is a problem?… Maybe it should comes with a side of Plavix.” Perhaps he’s right since this monster weighs in at 1500 calories, 97 grams of fat, and 2090mg of sodium – let the buyer beware!
Maybe it’s just me, but when I want to enjoy a grilled cheese sandwich, I want a grilled cheese sandwich. When I want a burger, it means I want a burger. By the logic of the companies that create these terrifying food creations, we should just think up all the things we like to eat and slap them all together. Do you like hot dogs, ice cream sundaes and french fries? Sure, why not do a riff on the banana split and substitute a hot dog for the banana, top with ice cream and sprinkle on the fries? Are you more interested in Italiano cuisine? Do you like spaghetti, meatballs and cheesecake? Okay, we’ll take your basic Italian cheesecake, swirl spaghetti on the top and finish with baby meatballs. Don’t forget the plate garnish of swirled tomato sauce.
On the other hand, maybe I shouldn’t single out restaurants alone for this obsession with piling together too many good things. Have you seen the latest commercial for Abilify? Apparently if your antidepressants don’t work well enough, you should consider adding Abilify to your daily medicine lineup. After you swallow those pills, you can chase it down with a slice of Cherpumple.
When Good Recipes Go Bad
Dale cut his cookies into rounds, but that seemed too wasteful to me.
I’m a big fan of the Top Chef series on Bravo, it’s probably my favorite cooking show at this point. The contestants are engaging and the challenges are always different. And they really put the contestants through their paces such as the middle of the night Target challenge they had last week. I was exhausted watching them run through a giant Target and create a makeshift kitchen and prepare a meal to feed 100 employees, all in three hours!
I also loved the Quick Fire challenge this week where they had to create a cookie for Sesame Street characters, including the Cookie Monster himself. Awesome! Over many seasons of watching this series, I’ve managed to convince Joe to watch along with me. That’s where I made my first mistake this week. The winning cookie was created by chef Dale Talde, one of the more aggressive competitors. He admitted his lack of cookie skills, but that didn’t stop him. He created a shortbread base using potato chips and pretzels which was topped with a chocolate ganache. Joe immediately told me that I had to get the recipe and make it.
Dutifully I went to the store on Thursday and purchased the necessary ingredients. I decided to make only a half of the recipe because it was so high in calories and low in nutrition (2 bags of potato chips, 2 pounds of butter, 2 pounds of chocolate and 2 quarts of cream among other ingredients.) I’m so glad I did. Even half of a recipe made a huge sheet of cookies. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I’ve concluded that the Bravo site manager must have cornered Dale right after the challenge and asked him for the recipe. Dale spouted out the ingredients and process without any attention to detail. It would have been nice if they told me how big the potato chip and pretzel bags should be or how I should caramelize the sugar. It’s not an everyday kitchen task for most people. How about telling me there should be some water added to the sugar to caramelize it? I was left to go with my instincts from previous experience in caramelizing sugar, but it was far from correct. Finally, as instructed, I added cream and chocolate to make the ganache. The proportions were completely wrong and it wasn’t thick enough. It made a tasty drinking chocolate but not a thick chocolate cookie topping. I ended up putting the mixture into my AGA’s baking oven (350 degrees) to let it cook down for a few hours until it was thick enough to spread without running. The end result wasn’t the correct texture for a ganache. But with the hungry hordes asking me when the cookies would be ready, it was time to go with what we had.
The recipe turned out okay, and it is addictive in a butter, sugar, salt combination kind of way. But it wasn’t a winning recipe. I just hope that Bravo is more careful the next time they post a cookie recipe so I don’t have to waste the time I did in trying to make this bad recipe work. I was very tempted to toss the whole thing out, but the hordes would have been so disappointed, and it would have been a pretty expensive mistake.
Epic Fail Zucchini Bread
Out of nowhere the other day Annie asked me to make my recipe for Chocolate Zucchini Bread. A child doesn’t need to ask twice for a recipe involving zucchini for me to rush to the store to procure the loathed green vegetable. I believe she became nostalgic for it because I hadn’t baked it this summer, with my zucchini supplier running a little low (ahem, you know who you are).
I didn’t notice when I ran out for the zucchini that we didn’t have any canola oil. But since I’m so comfortable adapting things in the kitchen, la di da, I decided to substitute peanut oil. And then continuing on my confident way, I replaced one cup of the 3 cups of flour with whole wheat flour, la di da. This recipe makes two loaves, but I decided to make cupcakes instead since they would be easier to freeze for a future amazing treat.
Immediately upon tasting the muffins I realized something was wrong. They weren’t as moist or chocolatey as the bread usually turns out. Bad mommy. That stupid oil and whole wheat flour spoiled both the texture and the flavor.
I knew their welcome would be short lived, so I poured the rest of the batter into a loaf pan to bake, freeze, and toss out way in the future after it had become freezer burned because nobody wanted to eat it. But my kitchen timer had other plans. After I put the timer on for the final fifteen minutes, it decided not to ring. I was so involved with dinner that I completely forgot about the bread. I knew there would be trouble when at last I remembered, opened the oven door and caught a whiff of the bread. Epic fail. My bread didn’t need to hit the freezer to burn, it morphed into an inedible burned brick before my eyes, la di da.