Halloween Pumpkin Carving 2012 - Jack Skellington

Baked Alaska

Ingredients:
- one large bowl
- some different kinds of ice creams, the more colour the better!
- for the base I used some home made brownies

for the Merinque:
- 4 egg whites
- 200g caster sugar
- a squeeze lemon juice

Directions:
First I baked the brownies and let it cool off.
Then I took the icecream out of the freezer and put it in the bowl, layer for layer.
The last layer are the brownies, which is actually the bottom of the baked alaska.
Then put the whole bowl back in the freezer.
You can take it out the freezer when the merinque is ready to put on.

Making the Meringue:
This is a variation on Italian meringue, traditionally this means pouring a hot sugar syrup onto whisked egg whites but this way is a lot simpler and a lot less tricky.
Heat the oven to 180C. Put the sugar on a baking tray and heat in the oven for 10 minutes.
Wait 5 minutes then whisk the egg whites with a squeeze of lemon juice until they are almost stiff peaks then throw in all of the hot sugar and continue whisking until stiff and shiny. This will help stabilise the meringue and make it easier to pipe.

Finishing the dish:
Now, using a blowtorch, brown all over the outside of the meringue so it catches on all the peaks. Done!!

Now, take a look at my result:

Apple Moonshine

Now here is a basic recipe for the legendary Apple Moonshine.
This is really easy to make and tastes delicious!
Don't drink to many of it, before you even know it you are walking backsides :-)

Ingredients:
- 1 liter 40% clear alcohol (for example grain alcohol, wodka or grappa)
- 1 liter apple cider
- 1 liter apple juice
- 3/4 cups white sugar
- 2 cinnamon sticks


Directions:
In a large jar, combine the apple cider, apple juice, sugar and cinnamon sticks.
Then add the liter of high proof liquor.
Put the lid on and let it mellow out. You can drink it right away, but it does get better after a couple of weeks.
My Apple Moonshine now is about 3 months old, yummie!!

Cheers!

Baked Apples stuffed with candybars

This is my First BBQ dessert ever!!
This recipe is so delicious and really easy to make.
I got this recipe from the Virtual Weber Bullet website.

What you need are some apples, some kind of candybars (I used Milky Way),
brown sugar, cinnamon and aluminum foil.

Ok, now let’s get started!
Cut off the top off the apple, just enough to flatten it.

Using a teaspoon or melon baller, scoop out the stem and seeds
to within 1/2" of the bottom, leaving the bottom intact,
creating a hole for filling.

Peel the top 2/3 of the apple.
(I used a specific tool for removing the stem, don’t know the English word for it)

Now cut a piece of candy bar and stick it into the hole.
Top off the apple with 2-3 heaping teaspoons of dark brown sugar packed
on the flat top of the apple.

Wrap each apple separately in heavy duty aluminum foil.
Make sure the foil closes at the top of the apple, since a lot of juice will collect in the bottom of the foil.

Place the apples upright in the WSM at 225-250°F and bake for about 2 hours.
Take them off the cooker and allow them to cool for 5-10 minutes.
Transfer carefully to individual serving bowls.
Serve with the juice that collected in the bottom of the foil, if desired.

Next time I will use some snickers or M&M’s!

Honey-Sriracha Glazed Buffalo Wings

New Years Eve we spend with our friends and neighbours.
Everyone was supposed to bring some home-made food.
There was plenty of food and we all had a blast!
I made some Honey-Sriracha Glazed Buffalo Wings, I got the recipe from the Sriracha Cookbook.

What you need:
- 1,5 kilo Chicken Wings or drumsticks
- 225g unsalted Butter
- 100ml Sriracha
- 120ml Honey
- a bit of salt
- a bit of lemonjuice
- sesame seeds for garnish
- flour for dredging chicken wings
- oil for deep frying

Preparation:
Fill a wide thick-bottomed pan with the oil.
On med-high, heat to 350°F (if dip a wooden chopstick in oil, bubbles should come off of it).
While oil heats, put flour in a medium bowl and toss the chicken wings in the flour to coat them.



When oil is hot, fry chicken wings in batches.
Fry the chicken wings for about 5 minutes, flip them, then fry for another 5 minutes or until golden and crispy.

While frying the chicken wings, melt butter in a medium saucepan over low heat. Add sriracha, honey, salt and lemonjuice, then stir to combine.
Keep warm over low heat.

When ready to serve, toss chicken wings with sriracha-honey sauce, plate, and garnish with some sesame seeds.

Happy New Year all!!!

My first Challenge: On Our Grills: 4 Ingredient Challenge

On Our Grills: 4 Ingredient Challenge:

The “On Our Grills:4 Ingredient Challenge”began in the Fall of 2010 with four BBQ friends who were looking for a way to challenge themselves with ingredients they might not normally cook with. 
And if they did cook with the ingredients it was never in the combination with them all.

It is not a contest, the meaning is to challenge each other and ourselves to come up with creative and unique ways to incorporate all the ingredients into one meal.
Larry Gaian is founder of the Challenge, and also founder of the great site www.thebbqgrail.com.
(also he invented the MOINK Ball, that man deserves a statue :-))

Each month Larry provides the Challenge members with 4 new basis ingredients for that month.
Then the brainstorming begins!!

For some weeks, my good BBQ Buddy Marc v.d. Wouw (Broadcastmarc) who was allready member introduced me to Larry.
One condition is too have an active food blog in english.
I allready had a foodblog in dutch and since recently I created this blog in english.

So here is my first Challenge!

The Challenge for the month october was to create something with pumpkin, appel, brown rice and chicken.

My mind was going crazy, what the hell am I gonna make with those ingredients!?
After a lot of brainstorming I ended up with a Suriname dish.











I used:
- 250gr brown rice, cooked
- a pumpkin, approx. 250gr
- 1/4 cup dried shrimps
- 4 chicken thighs
- 1 apple
- 1 tomato
- 1 onion
- 1 clove of garlic, minced
- 1 spoon soy sauce
- 1 spoon tomato puree
- chicken broth
- salt & pepper

I first soaked the dried shrimps in some hot water.

Carved in the chicken thighs and rubbed them with the soy sauce and seasoned them with some salt & pepper.
Then I grilled the chicken directly.

In the meantime I cut the pumpkin, the tomato, the apple and the onion in little pieces.
I put a pan on the grill and fried the minced garlic, the sliced onion and the sliced tomato in some olive oil.
Added the chicken broth after everything was fried well and then put in the shrimps, tomato puree and at last the pieces of pumpkin.
Seasoned it with some salt and pepper and let it stay on the fire untill the pumpkin went soft, stirring every now and then.

The chicken was great, the pumpkin mash was surprisingly tasty!!
Strangely enough the dried shrimp was the best ingredient and brought all the flavour to it.
Served it with the brown rice.

So that was my first Challenge!
I like the concept very much, you never know what ingredients to use, a sort of mystery cookbox :-)

Curious what the other Challenge members made?? Have a look:

The BBQ Grail
The BBQ Grail website was created in 2007, initially to document the author’s quest to find the perfect backyard BBQ experience. Since that time The BBQ Grail has become one of the more popular BBQ blogs on the internet and is listed on Alltop.com as one of the top BBQ blogs.

Grill Adventures by Broadcast Marc
Grill Adventures by broadcastmarc was started in March of 2010. According to the author, he started the BBQ thing when he was 30, before that they ate a lot outside and had fun, but when kids came into their life they started serious cooking. Most of it is really healthy. The grill has a special place in his heart because they love to do things outside. Everything he makes is an adventure, and sometimes they use the books. They try to grill as much as they can year round.

The Dutchess Cooks
I’m Hanneke Eerden, from The Netherlands, and I love to cook, bake and grill. Cooking and baking I’ve loved since I was a teenager (oh that was some time ago, hmm never mind!) and grilling has come into my life in the summer of 2009. It all changed when I bought a Weber OTS, and from that moment on a new passion in cooking, outdoor cooking, has started.

Better Recipes “The Daily Dish”
Kristina has been writing “The Daily Dish” for www.BetterRecipes.com for the past two years. The blog covers a wide variety of recipes, but firing up the grill truly lights up her passion for food! She was named “America’s Next Pork Personality” by Guy Fieri for one of her grilled pork dishes, won the outdoor grilling division of the National Beef Cook-Off, and her winning grilled lamb-burger took her all the way to the land Down Under with Meat and Livestock Australia. The “4-Ingredient Challenge” is a fun and exciting way to get creative on the grill!

Livefire
Livefire cooking is about taking ordinary cooking and adding the flavor of fire to it, whether in high heat grilling, low heat smoking or indirect heat for baking. It’s about taking the primitive element of fire and harnessing it to make great food.

No Excuses BBQ
Paul Haight started his blog in January,2009 as a way to record the author’s goal of cooking outdoors at least once a week throughout the year and showing the results to the world. Somewhere along the way things got out of control.

I wish all a happy and scary Halloween!!
Here is my pumpkin:

3-way Chicken

Yesterday there was 3-way chicken on the menu!
Tex Mex seasoned chicken, sweet chicken and chicken with a hot wing sauce.

1. Sweet chicken:
The sweet chicken I made for my wife, she doesn't like hot and spicy flavours.
I used my hot & sweet rub for it, but then without the "hot" part :-)

What you need for this rub:
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 spoon seasalt
- 2 teaspoons garlic powder
- 2 teaspoons union powder
(- 2 teaspoons chili powder for those who like it hot)

I covered some chicken drumsticks with this rub and put it indirect on the grill.





2. Tex Mex chicken:
I found this seasoning at our local grocery store and couldn't wait to try it!
I covered some pieces of chickenbreast together with 2 spoons of olive oil with the seasoning.
Grilled the pieces indirect and sprayed a bit of olive oil on it several times, this makes the outside of the chicken crispy.
The chicken was very tender and juicy inside, on the outside it was crispy and had a real tex mex flavour.
My children loved it!!

3. Chicken with Hot Wing Sauce:
I still had a bottle of Jim Beam Hot Wing Sauce and this was the perfect time to try it.
I covered some drumsticks with the Sauce and refridgerated it a few hours.
Also grilled this pieces indirect.
Those drumsticks were really hot and looked pink, wow!

Overall we had a great time and a great meal, together with some baked potatoes and some broccoli!