Rourke's Random Musings

I love french toast. French toast has far more flavor to it than pancakes, and yet it still soaks up maple syrup just as well. Beyond plain french toast, you can make cinnamon raison french toast, stuffed french toast, and a variety of other variations. What’s not to like?

I’ve always enjoyed french toast, so when I saw the Toast Modern episode of Good Eats I figured I’d give making it a shot. The very first time I made Alton’s recipe, though, I was shocked at just how well it turned out. It was so good, in fact, that I poked around and looked at other recipes to see what made my amateur rendition of Alton’s french toast so good.

The very notion of eating Spam rubs you the wrong way, doesn’t it? Put that aside for a night, and this dish will make you reconsider how you feel about canned meat. For a healthier version, substitute milk for the heavy cream and Spam Lite for the Spam. I recommend trying it without the sauteed onions first and adding them a second time. Opinions are mixed as to whether or not onions add anything to this dish.

To serve two hungry people you’ll need:

• small can of Spam
• half pint of heavy cream
• two cloves of garlic

Yogurt smoothies can have a pretty wide range of flavor and consistency. The yogurt is always the same, so the variety comes from the fruit and the liquids. The liquid is often overlooked, but it shouldn’t be; there’s a huge variety of flavors you can buy as a juice or a nectar but can’t easily find as fresh or frozen fruit. Adding only a small amount of such a liquid to a smoothie can enhance the flavor considerably without impacting the texture. After all, you want to drink your smoothie and not eat it with a spoon, right?

A friend of Jen’s showed me this page, which lists the ten most expensive chocolates in the world. Jen has … good taste in chocolate, so I was familiar with some of the companies listed towards the bottom of the page. I was amused and alarmed to see that there are people selling chocolates for $250 a piece ($2,600 a pound). Even more surprising, the company is based in Norwalk, Connecticut.

What sort of chocolate will people pay $250 for?

I found another recipe for buckwheat crepes at Chocolate and Zucchini, an excellent food blog. This recipe calls for four parts buckwheat flour for every one part all purpose flour. That seemed more promising, so I gave it a try over the course of two nights last week.

To make batter for six crepes, use:

• 100g buckwheat flour
• 25g all-purpose flour
• 1 egg
• 25cl milk
• 25cl water

I followed the below instructions to prepare the batter, substituting my blender for the author’s food processor. I made twice as much batter and used the first half three hours later and the second half the next day. The batter did hold together much better the second day.

The partial success of my attempt to reproduce the Sunflower Inn’s raised Belgian waffles prompted to me upgrade my four year old waffler. The Villaware waffler I’ve been using was a gift from Jen that I’ve been using with reasonable success for just about four years now. Jen and I both started lusting after a new waffle iron after staying at a Best Western that allows guests to make their own waffles using a commercial waffler that rotated the waffles 180 degrees. Gravity pushes the batter against all surfaces of the waffle iron and you end up with a crisper, more even waffle. On top of the rotation, I’ve read reviews that seem to indicate that the Villaware irons just don’t get as hot as higher quality waffle irons. When making waffles, heat is everything.