Cooking Palooza: Pickle Cheesecake

Now don't all y'all be haters! 

Have an open mind, for goodness sake! Just because a recipe has the word "cake," or "cheesecake," in its name doesn't mean that it's strictly delegated to the dessert table. After all, have y'all heard of anyone serving crab cakes as a fine finish to a really amazing prime rib dinner?

No, Pickle Cheesecake is a savory treat that makes a wonderful first course when served with rustic crackers or toasted coarse grain bread. It would make a fine addition to a charcuterie board.

So, let's get started!

First of all, I had crush some pretzels and combine them with melted butter, and then press them into a springform pan (which I specifically bought for this recipe, as I've never made a cheesecake before). I had no idea no small the pretzel crumbs were supposed to be. But I did not want to pulverize them to the point where they were fine crumbs.

The next thing was to chop up the pickles. Because there is no such thing as a simple, ordinary pickle, I wanted to choose something that I knew to have a good taste, such as these Half Sours Fresh Deli Pickles that I picked up from Aldi. When it comes to choosing pickles, my first choice is something from the refrigerated deli section, as those pickles are of a much better quality, and don't contain the additives and artificial coloring in regular jar pickles in the supermarket aisle. 

The recipe called for two cups of chopped pickles, and I had no idea how many pickles that was going to take. After I finished chopping, there were only two pickles left in the plastic tub.

The next order of business was to mince up the garlic and finely chop the fresh dill.

I let the garlic remain in the curved chopping bowl, while I put the dill in a separate bowl, to which I added the rest of the seasoning ingredients: salt, red pepper flakes, and onion powder (which was hard as a rock, and which had to be broken up). And dammit! I forgot to added the Timut black pepper!

Now that everything was chopped, minced, and otherwise prepped, it was time to get down to business. I combined the cream cheese, goat cheese, sour cream, and a little bit of pickle juice in a large bowl, using a hand mixer.

Once those ingredients were thoroughly blended, I started adding the eggs, one by one. Next came the grated Parmesan cheese, half a cup of chopped pickles, the garlic, and the rest of the seasonings I had in that little bowl.

After the whole kit and kaboodle was mixed, I added half of it into the pan, on top of the crushed pretzels. Next came a layer of one cup of chopped pickles. Then that was topped by the rest of the cheese mixture. And into the oven it went.

The recipe specified to bake at 325 degrees F for forty five minutes to an hour. But I had to keep it in the oven an extra eleven and a half minutes in order to get the center of the cheesecake to set. (OK, OK. It was actually an extra nine minutes and ninety-nine seconds ~ 9:99 ~ as I'm obsessed with pressing identical repeating numbers on the timer keypad. That's just one of my weird quirks.)

When it came out of the oven, the cheesecake was already quite fluffy that it reached nearly to the top of the pan.

But as it cooled, it contracted. (Not typically being a baker, this was a new learning experience for me.)

After the cheesecake cooled down enough, I covered it with foil and placed it in the fridge to chill overnight.

The next morning, I uncovered the beast, released it from the springform pan, and topped it with the rest of the chopped pickles and dried dill. (I would have preferred to have used fresh dill, but didn't feel like running out to the store again.)

Now comes the moment of truth.

I spread a bit of the Pickle Cheesecake on top of a small piece of toasted Food for Life Genesis 1:29 Sprouted Whole Grain and Seed Bread.

The verdict?

It was pretty damn tasty! And that's a very good thing, because I still have the rest of that cheesecake to finish!

Cooking Palooza: Chili Con Carne ~ AKA Old School Chili

 

While it may be August and in the midst of the dog days of summer (at least in this hemisphere), my taste buds were hankering for some chili ~ not some ground beef chili that's easy to stuff into a can and then heat up, but some honest to goodness chili con carne. And the best place to go for a recipe that's guaranteed to be the bomb is Chili Pepper Madness. I've never had a single fail with Mike Hultquist's recipes!

Whenever preparing a dish with multiple steps, it's always a good thing to do your prep first. (It's all part of what the French call "mise en place.") After all, you don't want to be at a critical point in the recipe, where timing is important, only to realize that you need to finely mince ten cloves of garlic.

(I still had my gloves on from chopping up the hot peppers earlier.)

(Dang it! I didn't have any ground pepper! So I had to go "old school" with a mortar and pestle.)

The beauty of this recipe is that it gets its flavor not from chili powder, but from actual peppers. The key to flavor lies in the dried guarillo and ancho peppers that have been lightly toasted, then soaked in hot water, and then processed in the food processor with some of the soaking water.

While the peppers were soaking, I cut up the boneless chuck into small bite-sized pieces, and added the seasoning as per the recipe. However, instead of adding regular paprika, I decided to use smoked paprika instead, as I love its smoky flavor, and I thought that would work well with this recipe. I also omitted the brown sugar, as I try to avoid any kind of sweeteners (though I am not always successful).

In addition to the jalapenos and onion, I also included a couple of habaneros (because I like to make it rain) and three hatch pepper (because it's hatch season in these here parts). 

All the meat, onions, and peppers get thrown into a large pot and browned for six or seven minutes, after which I add the garlic and cook a minute more.

Remember those dried peppers that I toasted, soaked, and processed? Well, this is where they come in! 

Bring on the flavor!

After cooking this mix for five minute comes the next step ~ adding the beef broth. In this case, I used my own homemade and heavily collagenated bone broth that I made from the collection of beef and pork bones that had been taking up space in the freezer. I only added about half a quart, as I did not want this chili to be too soupy.

At this point, reduce the heat and allow this beast to simmer for a couple of hours. 

Believe me, once you give this a taste, you'll never want to go back to ground beef chili in a can!