Foods you have personally improved

[mutepointe]

I buy off the counter peanut butter. I think it's too sweet. I've always made peanut butter and butter sandwiches. Recently, I started blending the peanut butter and butter together first. About 3/4 peanut butter to 1/4 butter. This makes for an incredibly rich tasting peanut butter. I only blend enough for immediate use.

[dwest]

All seriousness aside I have too many to name but currently there are just over eighty restaurants worldwide that get their three stars due to the things I have taught them.

[Innocent Bystander]

Everything I eat I improve by turning it into me.

It's a very strange thing
- As strange as can be -
That whatever Miss P eats
Turns into Miss P.

(I suspect there may be a deliberate omission there.)

[HDSarah]

I didn't personally improve this classic, but my nephew did. He was about 10 years old at the time.

To make classic "S'mores" you toast a marshmallow on a stick over a campfire. When it's puffy and golden brown, you take a whole graham cracker, break it half into two squares, put a piece of chocolate bar on one half, and use the other half to scrape the hot marshmallow off onto the chocolate. The graham cracker square you used as a scraper is then squashed down on top of the marshmallow, making it a sandwich. If the marshmallow is toasted slowly enough to be properly heated through, it will soften or even melt the chocolate under it. Hershey's milk chocolate (blah) is traditional; dark chocolate is my own small improvement.

My nephew's improvement was to pick some wild raspberries to make a layer over the chocolate before adding the marshmallow. The raspberries transform the s'more from a ho-hum thing you eat for the memories and because the kids love it into a gourmet delight. You really must try this if you have the chance. Because raspberries are one of the very few fruits that are better in the domestic version than wild, domestic raspberries would be great too if you had them.

[mutepointe]

I hear I am going camping in February. I am so going to impress the sh*t out of everyone. Thank you.

[Dale]

I buy off the counter peanut butter. I think it's too sweet. I've always made peanut butter and butter sandwiches. Recently, I started blending the peanut butter and butter together first. About 3/4 peanut butter to 1/4 butter. This makes for an incredibly rich tasting peanut butter. I only blend enough for immediate use.

Seriously? 1 parts in 3 are butter and it makes it "rich-tasting"? That's like recipe magic!

I love peanut butter entirely too much. I buy it at the local Whole Foods where it's ground from one ingredient, peanuts. I'm spoiled now. All the usual PBs are too...something or other...too sweet, too gooey, or whatever.

[Denny]

I buy off the counter peanut butter. I think it's too sweet. I've always made peanut butter and butter sandwiches. Recently, I started blending the peanut butter and butter together first. About 3/4 peanut butter to 1/4 butter. This makes for an incredibly rich tasting peanut butter. I only blend enough for immediate use.

Seriously? 1 parts in 3 are butter and it makes it "rich-tasting"? That's like recipe magic!

shhh! That was a shoe-in for one o'dem C&F annual awards!

I love peanut butter entirely too much.

I don't think that you should start a topic with a bad concept.

[mutepointe]

Let me know what you think after you've actually tried this.

[mutepointe]

Dove chocolates are good. I like taking one milk chocolate piece and one dark chocolate piece, stacking them, and placing them both in my mouth at the same time. The milk chocolate goes on the bottom, dark chocolate on the top. This places everything correctly for optimal tastebud enjoyment. I then let them melt. No chewing, no talking, no interruptions.

[I.D.10-t]

Started making corn bread with oats instead. Oats and oat flour (oatmeal that has been run through the blender). I have added fruit of every color to it and it is all good for breakfast. Haven't made french toast with the apple version yet...
8" Apple Nut Cake
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In bowl mix
1/2 C Oat flour*
1/2 C all purpose flour
1 Tsp. baking powder
1 Tsp. baking soda
1/3 C crushed walnuts
1 Tsp. Cinnamon
1-3 Tbs Brown Sugar
1-2 Apples (Peeled and cubed)
Separately mix
1/4-1/3 C milk
1/4-1/3 C yogurt, or sour cream
1-2 Tbs. oil
1 large egg (Add last, don't overbeat)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Heat oven to 425°F

Pour liquid into dry ingredients and stir until ingredients are moist. Pour into greased 8" ovenproof skillet (or equivalent pan) and bake. Check at 20-25 minutes with tooth pick until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out dry.
~~~~~~~~~~
Double recipe to fit a 10 1/2" skillet.



Then there is my version of "fruit cake".


Molasses Bread
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1/2-2/3 C Warm water
1 Tbs Yeast
1 1/2 C Bread Flour
1/2 C Thick Oats
2 Tbs Brown Sugar (optional)
2Tbs Molasses (lowest grade)
2 Tbs Oil
1/2 C Currents/raisins
1/2 C Date Pieces
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mix warm water and yeast and let sit for 10 minutes.
Add and mix the other ingredients except for the currents, dates and walnuts. Knead and add additional flour until bread sticks to itself when needed.

Let rest and rise until doubled in volume.

Grease a cookie sheet and dust with oat flour

Knead the dough and roll out to about 1/2 inch and cover with the currents. Roll the dough over the currents and fold and knead dough until well distributed. Roll into a 3X8 log and, place on greased cookie sheet, and allow doubling in size.
Heat oven to 450°F
Bake for 25-30 min


To be frank, I don't know if I improve foods, or just modify them beyond recognition.

[Innocent Bystander]

There is an American Bread Recipe book which adds 1/4 lb soy flour and 1/4 lb froment to every recipe.
This book was published in the early seventies when people were fixated on protein. I've improved every recipe in the book by leaving these out.

[Nanohedron]

There is an American Bread Recipe book which adds 1/4 lb soy flour and 1/4 lb froment to every recipe.

Froment? What is this "froment"? Yer book can't have been an American book, or at least written by Yanks, because no Yank I know uses the word. Ever. Some of us may know the word "frumenty" (I take it to be related somehow?), but such as us are also few, and most nerdly indeed.

The only Froment I know of is a deceased pipemaker. Not breadmaking material, IMHO.

[fearfaoin]

Froment? What is this "froment"? Yer book can't have been an American book, or at least written by Yanks, because no Yank I know uses the word. Ever. Some of us may know the word "frumenty" (I take it to be related somehow?), but such as us are also few, and most nerdly indeed.

The definition I got from google was "wheat",
from Latin frumentum (grain). So, yeah,
that doesn't make much sense... "You know
the problem with this bread? Too much wheat."

Though, Nano, I must note that any book that
revels in the title "American Bread Recipes" is
likely to have been published outside these
frumenty plains.

[I.D.10-t]

Though, Nano, I must note that any book that
revels in the title "American Bread Recipes" is
likely to have been published outside these
frumenty plains.

Kinda like American fried rice?

[fearfaoin]

Kinda like American fried rice?

Precisely. Or French Toast. Or Canadian Bacon.
Or English Breakfast Tea. Or Swedish Meatballs.