The McNamara Cooking Dialogue

Sunday morning I made waffles for breakfast. Not that exciting, I know, but I made them from scratch, and I made piles of them.

The Good Eats! episode on waffles pointed out that if you have extra waffles you can freeze them and then just pop them in the toaster some other day and you have a nice, quick breakfast. I tried this not long ago and found that frozen homemade waffles are way better than the frozen Eggos you pick up at the grocery store. Since we're normally in a rush to get out of the apartment in the morning, I decided to make a whole pile of waffles and freeze them.

Waffles take a little while, but they're pretty easy. In a large mixing bowl I whisked together all this dry stuff:

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups whole-wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
6 tablespoons sugar

Then I mixed together all this wet stuff:

6 whole eggs, beaten
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 quart buttermilk, room temperature

Once those things were all well combined (it's okay if the wet stuff gets a little clumpy) I poured the wet stuff into the dry stuff and mixed until just combined then I walked away. Alton Brown made it clear that you shouldn't over mix waffle batter. Just wait until it's combined completely but still clumpy and walk away for five minutes. Once five minutes has passed you can start making waffles.

I set my waffle iron all the way to high and made piles and piles of waffles. I let the waffles Jen and I weren't eating on Sunday sit for about an hour to cool completely, then I bagged them and put them all in the freezer.

Jen and I stopped at the "The Cheese Steak Shop" in San Francisco:

Cheese Steak Shop Inc

(415) 346-3712 1716 Divisadero St San Francisco, CA 94115

MAP HERE

The neighborhood where this place is located isn't the best, but going there was well worth it. As soon as you step inside it's clear that these guys are trying to create a small shrine to Philly in San Francisco. All the pictures are of Philadelphia, one wall is covered with PA license plates, and everything on the menu is classic Philly.

Jen and I ordered a 15" long cheesesteak with fried onions and an order of cheese fries. The cheesesteak was very authentic. The style was similar to Jim's or Billybob's, with the only real problem being the fact that there wasn't enough meat. The Cheese Steak Shop uses only white american cheese, and Jen was a little disappointed by the lack of Cheese Whiz as an option. The white american turned out to be just fine.

The twisty fries were excellent, with the cheese in a separate container so you could dip. The dipping cheese seemed quite a bit like cheese whiz. The normal fries are large steak fries, but we didn't try those.

Next time I'd try to get them to put double meat or extra meat on my cheesesteak. Otherwise I'd order the same thing again. Being able to get a real cheesesteak in San Francisco was awesome.

I purchased a frozen pack of four fairly thin buffalo patties from Whole Foods and tried making buffalo burgers.

The first thing I did was fry some onions in olive oil. Near the end I added salt and pepper and transferred the onions to the oven, setting it to warm.

Next I added smooshed garlic to the pan, fried that for a while, and then threw in two buffalo patties. To properly cook the meat it took four minutes on each side. At three minutes for the second side I put a slice of cheddar and a slice of provolone on each of the patties and put a top on the pan.

Once the patties were finished I places each between two pieces of toasted bread. I used garlic aioli on the bread and added onions, tomato , and lettuce. With the second two pieces I tried making a double cheeseburger, but the bread wasn't right. I used crumpets, which tasted great but weren't big enough to accommodate a double cheeseburger.

Next time I want to do everything the same except I'll cook all four patties at once on the large griddle pan, and buy real buns large enough to accommodate double buffalo burgers. We'll see how that goes.

So, after Sunday I still had quite a bit of sweet crepe batter left to use. Jen and I ended up with sweet crepes for dessert on Monday and Tuesday night. I didn't want to make exactly the same thing both nights, so I tried a couple of different options.

Monday night I substituted stawberries for banana, but otherwise left everything the same. The stawberries were thinly sliced, and I ate the ends and used mostly the "meat" in the crepes. As expected, this classic turned out quite well. Once again, the hardest part was spreading the Loacker (or Nutella) on the crepe while it was still cooking.

Tuesday night we were in the mood for something a little lighter, so I made sweet crepes with lemon curd. A while back I tried experimenting with lemon and sugar crepes and found that lemon and lemon curd was the best option. We didn't have any lemon, so I just used the lemon curd on the crepes.

I did experiment a little with when I put the lemon curd on the crepes. First I tried cooking the crepe and spreading the curd on it as it cooled on a plate. Then I tried spreading the curd on the crepe while the second side was cooking and then folding and serving. Lastly, I tried cooking it the last way and then folding the crepe and cooking it a little more on both sides. I found the last approach to be best -- the crepe was warmest and crispest, and the lemon curd caramelized a little bit.

The crepes were good, but a little too sweet. They would have been better if we had a little lemon juice to drizzle over the lemon curd.

On Saturday Jimmy found lime curd at Oakville Grocer. I'll have to try that the next time I make sweet crepes.

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Tonight, I took another crack at making sweet crepes with Nutella and banana. I started with Alton Brown's recipe from the Food Network and modified it as follows:

2 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1 cup flour
3 tablespoons melted butter
2 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons Chambord

In a blender, combine all of the ingredients and pulse for 10 seconds. Place the crepe batter in the refrigerator for 1 hour. This allows the bubbles to subside so the crepes will be less likely to tear during cooking. The batter will keep for up to 48 hours.

Heat a small (I used a normal/large) non-stick pan. Add butter to coat. Pour 1 ounce (I used 1/4 cup) of batter into the center of the pan and swirl to spread evenly. Cook for 30 seconds (in my case 2 minutes was correct) and flip. Cook for another 10 seconds (minute and a half) .

I actually only used about a third of the batter tonight -- the rest is in the 'fridge and will be used over the next few days.

I hate reading recipes where certain details are assumed, so whenever I post I'm going to list out all the detail that I think is missing from the above. To begin with, when blending the ingredients I found that after ten seconds of pulsing I needed to scrape some of the flower from the sides of the blender and then blend again to get it all mixed together.

On my current electric stove, I cooked all of the above at a "7," and it was important that I got the pan good and hot between each crepe.

Just after flipping the crepes, while the other side was cooking, I'd spread a thin layer of Nutella on the entire crepe. I'd then take thinly sliced pieces of banana and place them over half the crepe just before folding it in half, pushing down on the half crepe, and removing from the pan.

Interestingly, I didn't use Nutella, but instead used Loacker, which appears to be the organic equivalent. They don't sell Nutella at Whole Foods, but they do have this stuff. If anything, it was a better Nutella, but I wouldn't say the difference is worth going out of your way to find it. The other difference between Nutella and Loacker is in thickness -- Loacker is noticeably thicker.

The crepes came out really well -- very similar to what I've eaten at the French crepe places that serve this classic sweet crepe. Jen and I enjoyed these with some 2004 Dashe Late Harvest Zinfandel that paired quite well with the chocolate flavor that dominated the dessert.

Have you ever had peanut butter and eggs on toast before? I was really skeptical the first time Jen and I made this -- peanut butter on eggs? It seemed crazy. Jen swore it was really good, and it is. Trust me.

Scramble some eggs and toast some bread. Spread peanut butter on the toast, and then spread the scrambled eggs over the top of the peanut butter and eat. It couldn't be any simpler or faster to prepare.

I would avoid putting salt or pepper in the eggs as you scramble them. The peanut butter has enough salt, and pepper just tastes odd with peanut butter. I've found that the slower I cook scrambled eggs, the better they turn out. Further, I like this dish best with eggs that are more on the undercooked side.

Jen and I enjoyed this for breakfast just yesterday morning.