Rye-Pumpkin Truffles

And by Rye, I mean Rye Whiskey.  

So last Friday night I was killing time and had the bright idea to put some Smooth Ambler Old Scout Rye Whiskey in some truffles.  I hadn't made any truffles in awhile, and I had been craving them.  I figured all the alcohol would cook out and I would be left with some delicious whiskey-tasting truffles.  

I combined 1/2 cup of the whiskey with a giant spoonful of pumpkin and 3.5 oz of 60% dark chocolate.  I cooked it for awhile in a small saucepan, poured the mixture into a glass measuring cup, and stuck it in the 

fridge to cool.  I didn't get around to taking it out of the fridge until this evening.  

The ganache was super soft, but I formed it into rough balls, laid them on wax paper, and stuck them in the freezer to harden.  I got a little taste from the ganache clinging to the sides of the cup, and it was super delicious.  

While the ganache was hardening in the freezer, I melted 3.5 oz of 72% dark chocolate.  Then I dropped the ganache balls in one at a time, turned them til coated, and dropped them on a new sheet of wax paper.  I had to make the coated truffles in batches because the ganache got soft pretty quick and it would melt into the cup of coating chocolate if it wasn't hard enough.  I ended up needing to melt a second 3.5 oz of the 72% to coat all of the truffles.  (although that left me with quite a bit of leftover coating at the end)

Once the first batch of truffles was hardened, I had a taste-test.  At first, it was super delicious.  Chocolate and whiskey, yum.  But then...I was slammed with a big, overpowering alcohol-ness.  Apparently, the alcohol DID NOT cook out of the ganache.  Apparently, it was condensed instead.  Wow that was strong.  These truffles are not for children.  Unfortunately, the taste of alcohol is so potent, the truffles aren't actually as epic-ly delicious as I had hoped.  They don't taste like whiskey, they taste like alcohol.  I guess I should have cooked the ganache longer...

Cider-Whiskey Pot Roast

2 large gold potatoes, chopped

3 medium carrots, chopped

1/2 c chopped cabbage

1/2 c mushrooms

2.5 lb pot roast

1/2 c Jameson Irish Whiskey

1 c apple cider

1 tbsp finely chopped ginger

flour

cinnamon

Spread the potatoes on the bottom of a crock pot.  Layer the carrots on top, then the cabbage, then the ginger.  Coat the roast with flour and cinnamon, then place it on top of the vegetables.  Scatter the mushrooms around the roast.  Mix the cider and whiskey and pour it over the roast.  

Cook on high for 7 hours.

When done, shred the roast to be used in various dishes throughout the week. 

I think it will make a nice pulled-beef sandwich.  

I think I will also use some of it for home-made lo mein later this week.

Here's tomorrow's lunch.

Whiskey & Cider Chicken

The Marinade

1 shot Jack Daniels Whiskey

1 squirt of Jack Daniels Mustard

apple cider

olive oil

1 tsp rice vinegar

garlic powder

Add enough olive oil and apple cider to cover the chicken.  

Marinate for an hour or more.

Then, lay the chicken in a baking dish and pour some of the marinade on top. 

Bake at 425 for 50 minutes.

The Gravy

Use the rest of the marinade to make apple-cider gravy. 

(Bring to a boil on the stove.  Mix 2 tbsp corn starch with 1/2 cup cold water.  Slowly pour the corn starch/water into the boiling marinade.  Stir until desired thickness is reached.

The Mashed Potatoes

Peel and chop 4-5 large yukon gold potatoes.

Mash with 1/2 stick butter, garlic powder, salt, oregano, milk, and shredded colby/monterey cheese.

The Kale

Saute/Steam in a skillet with bacon grease.

Don't forget the beer!  This one went quite nicely with the meal.

Apple Cider and Pumpkin Beer...must be fall!

Peach-Basil Yogurt Cake

       I'm not a huge yogurt fan, but every now and then when it's on sale I will buy a whole bunch and make myself eat them with breakfast cause I don't completely dislike them, and yogurt is good for you.  I never ever buy the "lite" yogurt though, it's got aspartame in it.  That stuff is way worse for you than the couple of extra calories in the regular yogurt.  Anyway, yogurt was on sale 10 for $6 last week, and for some strange reason I actually bought 10.  Don't know why I didn't just buy 5.  So I ended up with all this yogurt in my fridge, and I just have not been in the mood for yogurt lately.  I've been too obsessed with my bacon pancakes to even think about eating yogurt and granola for breakfast. I mean seriously, who would want to eat boring yogurt when they could eat a bacon pancake?!
     Today, I'm looking at a whole 2 days off in a row (super exciting).  It's muggy and cloudy out, so there's nothing I want to do outside, and I decided it was a perfect day to play in the kitchen.  I've been dying to try something new, and just haven't had time or energy to figure out what.  Until this morning.  I decided I needed to bake something with yogurt in it so I could use up some of the yogurt without actually having to eat it by itself.  I was thinking that it might be a good way to flavor a cake.  So I went to google and typed in "yogurt cake" and found this gem of a recipe.  I meant to use raspberry yogurt, but upon inspection of my fridge, I discovered I had actually eaten all of the raspberry yogurt.  But I had 2 peach yogurts, and I usually don't even buy peach because although I love peaches, I'm really not a huge fan of peach yogurt.  Clearly, I was not in my right mind when I went grocery shopping last week.  I was probably half asleep and thinking about all the work I needed to get done, instead of thinking about the groceries I was putting in my cart.
    So I decided to make a cake with peach yogurt.  And then I had to come up with an herb that would taste good with peaches.  For some reason I feel the need to put herbs in everything lately.  Rosemary has ended up in the last several batches of chocolate chip cookies I've made.  (recipe here...they're amazing)  Lately I've been loving using fresh herbs instead of dried.  The only fresh herbs I have are basil and oregano.  I decided basil would go great with peach.

The Original Recipe

My Adapted Recipe

The Wet Ingredients...and the Basil

*for the whiskey, I used Tullamore Dew

smells sooooo good!

The Dry Ingredients

fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients

grease a 9x9 cake pan with butter

pour the batter into the pan

bake at 350 for 30 minutes

cake is done if a toothpick comes out clean

Let the cake sit in the pan for 10 minutes, then loosen the sides from the pan with a knife, and transfer the cake from the pan to a wire rack to cool. 

THE ICING

Yogurt comes in 6 oz cups, and the cake recipe called for 8 oz, so I used the remaining 4 ounces to make the icing.  I don't know exactly how much confectioners sugar it took, but it seemed like an awful lot.  Probably because I started out using a tablespoon to measure it out.  After about 7 heaping tbsps I switched to a 1/3 c measure.  I used about 3 of those.  Then I just started pouring the sugar straight into the bowl. 

 I added some grated ginger and a tbsp of Tullamore Dew in an attempt to cut the sweetness of the yogurt and sugar. 

Once the cake was cool, I transferred it to a glass cutting board (the only flat thing I have that is large enough to hold this cake...) and poured the icing on top. 

one of the corners made its way into my belly

yum

Whiskey Corn

Caramel Corn with a Kick

Brought to you by GMcD's Kitchen...where crazy new food ideas are always welcomed and encouraged.

pop enough popcorn to fill a large bowl

in a saucepan, melt/combine 1 stick of butter, 1/2 c brown sugar, 1/4 c sugar, 1/4 c whiskey, 1/2 tsp salt

pour the sauce over the popcorn and gently stir to coat as evenly as possible

spread coated popcorn on a baking sheet and bake at 350 for 20 minutes, stirring halfway through.

Merry Christmas!