Bake Sales for World Domination (Lacquered Bacon)

Every year my dad and I go to a convention called WisCon. Among other things WisCon is the original home of the Tiptree Award, which was founded by a group that made their motto "Bake Sales for World Domination". They do hold a bake sale every year as part of the fundraising for the Tiptree Award. I have been contributing to the bake sale for many years; highlights include the year I sent the Quick-After-Battle-Triple-Chocolate Cake from the Book of Enchantments*, the year I sent the Root Beer Float Cake**, and now Lacquered Bacon.

Bacon Before Baking

I did have to make an adaption to make the bacon. The recipe calls for Muscovado sugar, which neither my local megamart or yuppie co-op had on their shelves. After some googling (as I stood in front of the collection of stuff at the store, bless mobile internet) I determined that Sucanat was a close enough cousin that I subbed that rather than keep chasing the Muscovado.

Piggy Candy

I had intended to get a picture of the bacon in with all the other baked goods at the bake sale, but by the time I actually got there I was informed that A) it was long gone & B) they would like more next year. Among carnivores this is a definite crowd-pleaser.

Difficulty Level: Easyish
Will It Get Made Again? I already have two requests to make it again (one from a family friend who did not manage to snag any of it at the bake sale) so yes.

*This cake recipe is related to short story in the book. The recipe is both hilarious to read and tasty when made. Directions include "Hack up a chunk of chocolate with your second best sword" among other gems.
** I had three separate people track me down to get this recipe the year I sent it to the bake sale. However my best brand of root beer extract was discontinued and it's been on hiatus from the rotation while I try to come up with a comparable product to reproduce it with the right depth of root beer flavor.

What Are You Going To Do With Oxtails? (Onion Oxtail Soup)

When I walked into my local butcher and asked for oxtails the new guy blinked, this is not the most common request (his boss had tell him which freezer they were tucked in). When I was checking out the question I got was "What are you going to do with oxtails?" Answer, turn them into soup.

Oxtails

The soup though, is a Project. You pull out a mandolin (not this kind of mandolin) and slice several pounds of onions super thin. Then you try to squeeze as much liquid as possible out them after macerating them in salt.

This kind of mandolin.

Eventually, you stick the soup in the oven. According to the recipe, it should take 3-4 hours to get the meat to come easily off the bone. I finally got it off the bone after 5 hours, the last 1/2 hour of which I'd upped the heat on the oven to try and speed it up (if I ever cook oxtails again, I'm looking for pressure cooker versions).

Dinner, later than planned.

Then I made the Groovy Gruyere Sticks to go with it.  Not as pretty as in the book, but tasty nonetheless.

The soup is really rich and fatty, even without the Gruyere sticks. It's decent enough, but I can do better stews for less effort.

Difficulty Level: Complex
Will It Get Made Again? No, the work to reward ratios do not come out in its favor.

Always Perfect Oatmeal and Rantings on Salt

The oatmeal in EveryDayCook is actually the first recipe I tried from the book after I got it. I was pleasantly surprised by how much adding some quinoa to it improves it; the quinoa gives a nutty flavor and a bit of textural contrast to oatmeal that got me to up my oatmeal consumption from virtually never to occasionally. Especially on cold, rainy weekend mornings.
That being said, salt. This recipe as written in the first edition of EveryDayCook calls for 7 grams of salt for 2 servings. I sanity checked that before making it and am not alone, it's one of the corrections listed here and still has more salt than I'm using. Seriously people, salt is good, but not this much in this dish.

7 grams

Since I blithely added way to much salt the Buttermilk Lassi by following the directions I'm wondering if Alton has had too much salt over the years and his taste buds are dulled to it in some cases.
This is how much I actually used.

<1 gram

Perfect for my house.

Difficulty Level: Easy
Will It Get Made Again? Yes

Stress Baking (Blueberry Pound Cake)

After one especially frustrating day in college I went home and crankily whipped up a batch of my aunt Susan's Pecan Sandies because I wanted a cookie. Later, as I was sitting down with warm cookies and hot tea I was trying to figure out why I felt so much better. The first thing I realized was that the smell mattered, there's nothing quite like having your kitchen smell like freshly baked treats. The second component for me is concrete creation, a kind of magic in transforming raw ingredients into something wonderful. All of which make baking a tasty form of therapy on a bad day. Which brings me to Blueberry Pound Cake.
I made this on a not particularity awesome day which had been part of a depressing week. If I could share the glory of the smell of it baking in oven on a stormy night I would. Since I can't there's just a standard picture. This cake made me feel a bit better about the world.

I took several pieces into work with me the next day to share as a team treat where it met with universal praise. It has an excellent flavor and texture, with the blueberries scattered throughout the dough and slight crunchy layer on the outside that is coming from the sugar the recipe has you sprinkle in the pan as part of the pan prep.

Difficulty Level: Medium
Will It Get Made Again? Yes (possibly by request of some of the people I fed the first one to)

Death & Meatballs (Chicken Parmesan Balls)

The first time I made Chicken Parmesan Balls I decided they were delicious and I'd be making them again. The second time I made them I doubled the recipe. The third time I made them I paused partway though because my uncle called to tell me that my grandmother had died. It turned out to be a good day to be making comfort food, which these meatballs most definitely are. They're loaded with cheese and panko and served with pasta (or use them for homemade meatball subs). I have also learned that they freeze just fine, because life happens and you have to keep rolling.

Difficulty Level: Medium
Will It Get Made Again? Yes

Alton Brown's Chilaquiles

This is a recipe that calls for another recipe, in this case the Roasted Chile Salsa from another section of the book. So I made the salsa the day before, and then fired up the broiler for the second time.
It also calls for cotija cheese which is one of the rare cheeses not found at my local megamart (in Wisconsin, not finding the cheese you're looking for on the first try is rare); Pan y Pan to the rescue. Ah, breakfast.

Difficulty Level: Medium
Will It Get Made Again?
High probability of yes. They come together pretty easily and give you bites full of crispy tortillas, salsa, and just set eggs. I suspect further batches would be even more delicious. Plus, I have more salsa and cheese to use up...

Alton Brown's Roasted Chili Salsa

Confession: I had never used the broiler on my oven. Since one of the main goals of a project like this is pushing boundaries and trying new things... into the broiler the veggies went.

Then into the food processor with some spices and voila, salsa. Maybe one notch spicier than my ideal, but definitely something I can put on the Chilaquiles that are next up on my recipe list.

Difficulty Level: Easyish

Will It Get Made Again? 
Maybe. This definitely proved to me that making salsa isn't hard, but buying it is so easy...