A little dessert food porn for you

Yeah, the Fourth of July calls for a new, special dessert, right? Of course it does. So get ready, people, because this will rock your world.

First, you will need to gather the ingredients. You'll need a stick of butter, an egg, some cinnamon, a cup of milk, 1/2 cup of flour, 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour, a cup of sugar, 2 teaspoons of baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, a cup of sliced strawberries, and a cup of sliced peaches.

Melt a stick of butter with a teaspoon or so of cinnamon. Pour that stuff into a 13x9 baking dish.

 Put the egg, milk, flour, wheat flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl, and mix it up right.

Like that.

Pour the flour mix into the baking dish you already poured the melted butter into.

Slice one cup of strawberries and one cup of peaches (peel the peaches, just like you would a potato) and layer those on top of the dough (batter?).

Bake for 45 minutes at 350 or until golden brown, much like the picture above, as this particular cobbler is perfectly done and tasted magnificent. Bon appetit.

Biscuits, baby. Serious biscuits

Mrs. Wolves is a big fan of "Fixer-Upper." Consequently, when some magazine did a profile of the couple that did the show -- Chip and Joanna Gaines -- she bought the magazine. She never does that. Anyway, on one episode, Jo Gaines made buttermilk biscuits, and Mrs. Wolves really wanted that recipe. It appeared in the magazine story, so I was told to make it. These are the kind of directives that you ignore at your peril. Just a word of warning for recently married men out there seeking the secret to a happy marriage. It is: shut the fuck up and do what she wants. Learn to enjoy it if you can.

Having resolved countless marital disputes with nine simple words, we move now to the recipe. You will assemble these ingredients:

 OK, so for those of you who are more verbal than visual, that is 4 cups of self-rising flour (yes, I used all-purpose. Sue me), 2 tablespoons of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, 3 sticks of cold butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces, 3 eggs, and 1-1/2 cups of buttermilk. Yes, I only showed two eggs. Like the p in "pseudo," the third egg is silent. Trust me, you'll need it.

 So cut up the butter.

Put the flour, baking powder and baking soda into a bowl and mix it up. Add the butter, and cut it into the flour with a pastry blender. Everybody has one, right? Use two knives if you don't.

Add the buttermilk:

And the two beaten eggs:

Mix that with a wooden spoon until it looks like its ready. Refrigerate it, preferably overnight, but for at least 30 minutes. Yeah, forgot to take a picture of that stage.

No matter how long you refrigerated the batter, get a tablespoon of butter and your third egg. Melt the butter, and beat that third egg like it is that asshole who constantly ragged on you in high school. Beat the motherfucker to death. Make it wish it had never been born. OK, it's an egg. It hasn't been born. But you get the picture. Then mix the cooled but still liquid butter into the beaten egg. Keep that shit ready.

 Meanwhile, get the batter (or is it dough? fuck if I know) out of the refrigerator and put it on a floured cutting board. Flour your hands and spread it out into a circle of dough (or batter) about a half-inch thick. Use a circular cookie cutter (2-3/4 inch) and cut out the biscuits. You should get 20, although you probably will have to roll the dough (batter?) out a couple times.

Put some parchment paper on a cookie sheet.

Put your biscuits on the cookie sheet.

Brush your biscuits with the egg-butter mixture.

Bake your biscuits at 400 degrees (Fahrenheit, not Celsius -- if you're in a Celsius country, do the conversion. I can't because I was told there would be no math involved.) for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown. Eat them now, dammit. So good.

Been busy in the kitchen lately

Yeah, took a break from food porn for a while. Actually, I took a break from pretty much all blogging for a while. But I'm back, damn it. Although I despise New York, so I am not "Back in the New York Groove:"

Certainly not the worst song that came out of the four Kiss solo albums. Anyway, I'm back in some sort of groove, just not a New York one. So on with the food porn.

Search your kitchen or grocery store and come up with a couple pounds of chicken thighs, 1-1/2 to 2 pounds of potatoes, about 6 half ears of corn, 5 or 6 medium carrots, a pound of green beans and a cup of barbecue sauce. Get your shit together. I'll wait.

Once you have these things, slather the inside of your crock pot with nonstick cooking spray. You can spray it on the outside, but I don't see that helping things much, and you'll probably drop your crock pot when you pick it up. Is crockpot one word? Never mind.

Having greased up your crock pot/crockpot, you will put the ingredients into the crock pot thusly:

Potatoes on the bottom.

Corn, beans, and carrots on top of that.

Chicken on top of that, and sauce that bad boy up. I make my own sauce, but you can use Sweet Baby Ray's or something until you, too, achieve badass status. Is bad ass one word? I digress.

Cook that sucker on low in your crock pot/crockpot for 5-8 hours. Six is probably a good guess, but check on it. It's ready when the chicken is done. Cooking longer won't hurt anything, so if you cook it eight hours, it's ready then, too.

Bon appetit.

Is a Raised by Wolves cookbook on the horizon?

Over the years, I have posted I don't know how many food porn posts. Between game food porn, comfort food porn, shit-my-wife-wanted food porn, dessert food porn and God knows what else, I have posted a metric shit ton of food porn posts. Usually, but not always, I made it pretty easy to turn the post into a recipe, with ingredients lists, instructions and, usually, pictures. Never really thought about it much, and haven't done much of that lately.

Well, it has come to my attention that a loyal reader is compiling all of my food porn posts and putting each of them into recipe form. This sounds like a lot of work. I have no damn idea how many food porn posts I have, but it has to approach hundreds. Anyone interested in a cookbook?

Mmmmmm, key lime cheesecake

Mrs. Wolves found a recipe for key lime cheesecake that I just had to try. Glad I did. You start with a cup of graham crackers (about nine) ground up into crumbs, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 5 tablespoons of melted butter, 1/3 cup of lime juice, 1/2 cup of heavy cream, 3 tablespoons of sugar, 16 ounces of cream cheese, softened, 1 can of sweetened condensed milk, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla and six limes. The limes should provide the juice, zest and lime slices.

So first we make the crust. Turn the graham crackers into crumbs in a blender, add the sugar and salt:

Soften the cream cheese in a separate bowl:

Melt the butter:

Mix the butter with the crumbs mixture:

Spray some cooking spray into a 9-inch springform pan:

Spread the graham cracker crumbs evenly across the bottom of the pan:

Put the pan in the freezer for 15 minutes so it will set. Meanwhile, add the sweetened condensed milk to the cream cheese:

Squeeze enough limes to get 1/3 cup of juice:

Like this:

Add that to the cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk:

Beat the shit out of that stuff:

No, seriously. Beat the shit out of it:

 Take the whipping cream and beat it:

Looks beat to me:

Mix the whipped cream into the beaten cream cheese:

Pour the mixture over the chilled crust, cover with plastic film and refrigerate for at least 12 hours. At this point, you will pretend that I didn't forget to take a picture of the finished product and you will enjoy the fuck out of a delicious cheesecake. No, seriously. Just do that.

Oh my God! Food Porn!

I haven't done food porn in a while, but, dammit, it's about time. So let's get started.

You will need a 3 to 4 pound whole fryer, 2 tablespoons of butter, melted, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon of pepper, 3/4 cup of honey, 2 tablespoons of tarragon, 1 cup of sliced shallots (I used green onions because I had no shallots), 1 cup of champagne or chicken broth (yeah, used the broth), plus another 1/2 cup of chicken broth, 1-1/2 cups of frozen or fresh peas -- I had fresh peas from the garden, so suck it, bitches! -- and a lemon.

Preheat your oven to 375. Just do it. Then put your chicken in a shallow roasting pan, brush it with the melted butter, salt and pepper, then slap that sucker in there for about an hour and 15 minutes.

Did I mention the salt and pepper? I thought so:

Take the chicken out, baste with half of the honey and sprinkle half of the tarragon on the chicken:

Back in the oven for 5 minutes or so. Should look something like this:

Slap the other half of the honey and tarragon on the chicken and give it another 5 minutes or so:

Take the chicken out of the pan, put it on a cutting board and cover it with foil. Add the chicken broth to the roasting pan:

Add the peas:

Toss in the shallots (or, in my case, green onions):

Simmer until the mixture thickens, 10-15 minutes at medium heat:

Serve with rice and garlic bread, or whatever:

Bon appetit, bitches.

Got a little bit of pork chops food porn for you

A couple weekends ago -- sorry, but the project I am on is eating pretty much every minute of my time, so there might be some delay in certain things -- I fixed what I considered to be some truly magnificent smothered pork chops. Nothing difficult here. You start with, of course, a couple thick-cut pork chops, a cup of all-purpose flour, 2 tbs of onion powder, 2 tbs of garlic powder, 1 tsp of cayenne, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1 cup chicken broth and 1/2 cup buttermilk:

Got all that? Good. Put the flour in a shallow dish, add the onion powder, garlic powder, cayenne, salt and pepper, then mix it up right with a fork:

Dredge those pork chops in the flour mixture:

Heat up a good old-fashioned iron skillet -- what? get one, damn it --and put the olive oil in to heat:

Once the oil is hot, drop those dredged chops into the pan, fry for three minutes on each side:

They're going to look pretty tasty already:

Remove the pork chops from the pan and sprinkle a little of the remaining seasoned flour in the drippings. Mix it up right until smoothly blended, then add the chicken broth:

Cook on medium-high heat until the mix starts to thicken:

Stir in the buttermilk to make a delectable, creamy gravy:

Mix it up right:

Put the chops in the pan, cover them with sauce and cook about 5 minutes, until cooked through:

Season with salt and pepper, throw in the sides of your choice and dig in:

Bon appetit, y'all. It don't get much more southern than that.