Italian Bao, or what to do when you have enough Bolognese sauce for one and need to feed two.

I wasn't going for fusion, but that's what I ended up with.  If you have leftover sauce that is heavy on the meat, this will work rather well.

You'll need:
One packet garlic herb pizza dough, or one batch of homemade if you feel adventurous
Mozzarella cheese, grated
Meat sauce
Ricotta cheese
One egg
Parmesan or Asiago

Amounts will vary depending on how many you want to make.

Pinch off golf-ball sized bits of dough, and flatten to about 1/8 inch thick.  Put a tablespoon of sauce in the middle, top with a bit of each cheese, bring up the sides and pinch.  Place on a cooking sheet lined with parchment.  Repeat until you're out of dough or sauce or both.  When done, brush each bun with egg and sprinkle with Parmesan or Asiago.  Bake per directions for the dough.  This is what they should look like when you put them in the oven:

Serve with a small salad, and you have dinner fast and pretty cheap too!

Crab cakes!

You know you want some.  Not my best effort to be sure, but if you have access to decent canned crab they make a great dinner!

Not the best photo, but it is what it is.


For the cakes:
1 lb lump crabmeat, picked over for shells and such
2 tsp Old Bay or similar
1/4 cup mayo
1/2 cup panko
Tops of 4 green onions
1 egg, beaten
Ground pepper
Mix the seasonings with the crab gently.  Fold in panko then mayo and the egg.  Form into balls the size of golf balls and refrigerate for about an hour.  Pan fry in a mix of a couple tablespoons olive oil and a couple tablespoons butter.


For the sauce:

One cup mayo
2 Tbsp Dijon or Mustard with seeds
Dash Worchestershire
Dash hot sauce
1 garlic clove, minced
2 Tbsp capers, chopped
1 Green onion, minced
2-3 Tbsp white wine vinegar
Salt and pepper
Mix well, refrigerate until ready to serve.

Wish I could remember where I got these recipes, but I've tweaked them a bit anyway.  Don't mix the crab too much!  These make a great simple dinner or a great appetizer too.

Product Review: Himalayan Salt Plate

This year for Christmas I received (among other food/cooking stuff) a Himalayan salt plate from SaltWorks.  (I'll wait while you go peruse the site.  You back?  Good.)  I've seen the device used on a couple of cooking shows and was fascinated, but never got around to getting one myself.

Boy, am I glad this arrived among my goodies.  Heated in the oven, it made for a dramatic table-side presentation on New Year's Eve when I cooked the fish course directly on the plate.  There is little salt transfer if you heat the plate properly, just enough to season the food.  While I would cut the original pieces a bit thinner so they cook more quickly, I can easily see using this for cooking over and over again.  You can also use it cold or room temperature as a presentation platter, and trust me when I say anything served on it is a conversation starter and just darned pretty.

Oh, this company also sells bath and spa salts along with their gourmet salt selection.  Perfect for DIY gifts and party favors!

Coming back to the page

It's been over a year.  Yikes!  In that time BabyTooth has become a full-fledged toddler, complete with toothy grins, massive hugs, and temper tantrums.

I've meant to keep up with this, but the whirlwind that was the last year plus swept me away.  Today, I begin anew.  I'm going to aim for once a week updates.  Maybe a new recipe, maybe a shout out for something I've found and love.  Hope everyone enjoys the new stuff!

Beer for BabyTooth...

Hi all.

Mrs. Tooth has been trying to get me to post for a while now, so I guess I'll give it a go. As you can see from the previous post, we're expecting a new addition to the family. BabyTooth should be arriving in July and we're trying to get as much done in advance as we can. To that end, I figured I'd think WAY in advance and make her a beer for when she's old enough to drink.

The picture below is said beer in fermenters. I ferment in 5 gallon kegs. The two kegs are each holding 2.5 gallons of fermenting beer with plenty of head space for the foaming kraussen that this big beer should produce. There was an extra 2/3 gallon left over that I poured into the gallon jug you see in the center. I pitched a packet of wine yeast in with it as a control to make sure the English Ale yeast in the full batch reaches it's terminal gravity. You can see why I needed the extra head space in the fermentation kegs given how the kraussen is overflowing the gallon jug.


The beer itself is an Imperial Oaked Bourbon Stout that should come in around 12-13% abv, after the infusion of Bourbon. The high alcohol level and tannins from the oak will hopefully help it last until BabyTooth is ready to drink it. I'll just "lose" the keg with an oak spiral in the back of the cellar for a decade. Then I'll start considering bottling options.

If this brewing stuff is interesting to you or if you have any questions, please add a comment to let me know. I'll try to post more often if people are interested.

Why I've been away from this for ages!

Hi all, sorry I've been the worst food blogger ever. I do have a fair number of partially completed posts, but nothing finished. This is due to my forced teetotaling the last few months, not feeling well enough to cook anything interesting, and spending way too much time on some message boards. So what caused all this change? Here she is:




She will hopefully arrive in late July. We're both beyond excited! So, now that I'm feeling a bit better, I swear I'm going to catch up. Looking things over, I realize that not only do I have some work to do here, I need to make some more braised short ribs this weekend!

Barolo is a lovely thing

I've been away for ages I know, but work has kept me swamped. Hopefully things have calmed down a bit so I can spend more time in the kitchen and more time sharing recipes!




Some time ago, TheTooth was given a rather lovely bottle of Barolo: a 1990 Castiglione Falletto from the castle vineyards. We never managed to find out much about the wine, but were able to visit the castle village last summer. The castle is still a private residence, so we didn't get to get too close, but the tower is in this image. The region was one of the highlights of our trip -- incredible scenery, no crowds, great hidden art and architecture, and by far the best food and wine in northern Italy. (I'll have to share the place we stayed at some point.)


Knowing that the wine was about to enter it's peak period, and that it had a few periods of uncertain storage, we decided to enjoy it a bit early just in case. What a wonderful decision. To keep the focus on the wine, I kept the menu simple: gnocchi in a pesto cream, and a pan-seared steak. I'm still working on the whole gnocchi idea. While I was fairly happy with the results, I still need to tweak the recipe a bit before sharing. So far I'm keeping the potatoes baked and using a mix of cake flour and all-purpose. When I tried before with boiled potatoes I ended up with a heavy mess.

As for the wine, it was absolutely all that we had hoped for and more. It was seductive in the glass, a deep brick red with a nose that had hints of dark fruits and just a bit of leather. The flavor was full and lingered, and while the tannins were mellow there was still enough structure to cut through the fat of the steak. Our only regret is that we don't have another bottle to enjoy further down the road.