COOKING BACON IN A MICROWAVE

Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food

Are you the innovative type, the cook who marches to a different drummer -- used to expressing your creativity instead of just following recipes? Are you interested in the science behind what happens to food while it's cooking? Do you want to learn what makes a recipe work so you can improvise and create your own unique dish?
More than just a cookbook, Cooking for Geeks applies your curiosity to discovery, inspiration, and invention in the kitchen. Why is medium-rare steak so popular? Why do we bake some things at 350 F/175 C and others at 375 F/190 C? And how quickly does a pizza cook if we overclock an oven to 1,000 F/540 C? Author and cooking geek Jeff Potter provides the answers and offers a unique take on recipes -- from the sweet (a "mean" chocolate chip cookie) to the savory (duck confit sugo).
This book is an excellent and intriguing resource for anyone who wants to experiment with cooking, even if you don't consider yourself a geek.
Initialize your kitchen and calibrate your tools
Learn about the important reactions in cooking, such as protein denaturation, Maillard reactions, and caramelization, and how they impact the foods we cook
Play with your food using hydrocolloids and sous vide cooking
Gain firsthand insights from interviews with researchers, food scientists, knife experts, chefs, writers, and more, including author Harold McGee, TV personality Adam Savage, chemist Herve This, and xkcd


From Cooking for Geeks: Butternut Squash Soup
Puree in a food processor or with an immersion blender:
2 cups (660g) butternut squash, peeled, cubed, and roasted (about 1 medium squash)
2 cups (470g) chicken, turkey, or vegetable stock
1 small (130g) yellow onion, diced and sauteed
1/2 teaspoon (1g) salt (adjust to taste)
Notes
The weights are for the prepared ingredients and only rough suggestions. So, prepare each item individually. For example, for the squash, peel it, then coat it with olive oil, sprinkle it with salt, and roast it in the oven at a temperature around 400–425 F / 200–220 C until it begins to brown. When you go to puree the ingredients, hold back some of the squash and some of the stock, taste the puree, and see which you think it needs. Want it thicker? Add more squash. Thinner? Add more stock.
This soup by itself is very basic. Garnish with whatever else you have on hand that you think might go well, such as garlic croutons and bacon. Or top with a small dab of cream, some toasted walnuts, and dried cranberries to give it a feeling of Thanksgiving. How about a teaspoon of maple syrup, a few thin slices of beef, and some fresh oregano? Chives, sour cream, and cheddar cheese? Why not! Instead of purchasing items to follow a recipe exactly, try using leftover ingredients from other meals to complement the squash soup.
If you’re in a rush, you can “jump-start” the squash by microwaving it first. Peel and quarter the squash, using a spoon to scoop out the seeds. Then, cube it into 1–2” / 3–5 cm pieces, drop it into a glass baking pan that’s both oven and microwave safe, and nuke it for four to five minutes to partially heat the mass. Remove from microwave, coat the squash with olive oil and a light sprinkling of salt, and roast it in a preheated oven until done, about 20 to 30 minutes. If you’re not in a rush, you can skip the peeling step entirely: cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds, add oil and salt, roast it for about an hour (until the flesh is soft), and use a spoon to scoop it out.
Pumpkin Cake
There are two broad types of cake batters: high- ratio cakes--those that have more sugar and water than flour (or by some definitions, just a lot of sugar)--and low-ratio cakes—which tend to have coarser crumbs. For high-ratio cakes, there should be more sugar than flour (by weight) and more eggs than fats (again, by weight), and the liquid mass (eggs, milk, water) should be heavier than the sugar.
Consider this pumpkin cake, which is a high-ratio cake (245g of pumpkin contains 220g of water--you can look these sorts of things up in the USDA National Nutrient Database, available online at http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/).
In a mixing bowl, measure out and then mix with an electric mixer to thoroughly combine:
1 cup (245g) pumpkin (canned, or roast and puree your own)
1 cup (200g) sugar
3/4 cup (160g) canola oil
2 large (120g) eggs
1 1/2 cups (180g) flour
1/4 cup (40g) raisins
2 teaspoons (5g) cinnamon
1 teaspoon (5g) baking powder
1/2 teaspoon (5g) baking soda
1/2 teaspoon (3g) salt
1/2 teaspoon (2g) vanilla extract
Transfer to a greased cake pan or spring form and bake in an oven preheated to 350 F / 175 C until a toothpick comes out dry, about 20 minutes.
Notes
Try adding dried pears soaked in brandy. You can also hold back some of the raisins and sprinkle them on top.
One nice thing about high-ratio cakes is that they don’t have much gluten, so they won’t turn out like bread, even with excessive beating. With a total weight of 920 grams, of which only roughly 20 grams is gluten, there just isn’t enough gluten present in this cake to give it a bread-like texture. There’s also a fair amount of both sugar and fats to interfere with gluten development.

DESCRIPTION

Enjoy the cheesy-bacon-broccoli combo you love in a top-the-tater pizza.

INGREDIENTS

1 can (13.8 oz) Pillsbury® refrigerated classic pizza crust
1 medium white potato
1 tablespoon CRISCO® Pure Olive Oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 box (10 oz) Green Giant® frozen broccoli and cheese sauce
2/3 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon ranch dressing
1 cup shredded Colby-Monterey Jack cheese blend (4 oz)
5 slices cooked bacon, coarsely chopped
1 small tomato, seeded, chopped (1/2 cup)
2 medium green onions, chopped (2 tablespoons)

DIRECTIONS

1.Heat oven to 375°F. Spray large cookie sheet with CRISCO® Original No-Stick Cooking Spray. Unroll pizza crust dough on cookie sheet; press dough into 13x9-inch rectangle. Bake 10 to 13 minutes or until crust is light golden brown. Remove from oven; set aside.

2.Meanwhile, pierce potato with fork; place on microwavable paper towel in microwave oven. Microwave 4 to 5 minutes, turning once, until tender. Cover; let stand 5 minutes. When potato is cool enough to handle, peel potato and cut into 1/4-inch cubes (1 cup). In small bowl, mix potato, oil, salt and pepper; set aside.

3.Cook broccoli in microwave as directed on box. Empty from pouch into another small bowl to cool slightly; set aside.

4.In another small bowl, mix sour cream and ranch dressing. Spread mixture over pizza crust to within 1/2 inch of edges of crust. Sprinkle 1/2 cup of the cheese evenly over sour cream mixture. Sprinkle with bacon.

5.Spread broccoli mixture and potato mixture evenly over bacon. Sprinkle tomato, onions and remaining 1/2 cup cheese evenly over potato mixture.

6.Bake 15 to 22 minutes longer or until crust is golden brown and cheese is melted. Let stand 5 minutes before cutting.

High Altitude (3500-6500 ft): No change.

One quart chicken stock.
Three quarts heavy whipping cream.
3 cups grated parmesan
1 cups grated asiago cheese.
4 cups grated Cheddar.
1 cup grated Monterey Jack.
2 cups grated Gruyere

Thinly sliced deli ham. 2 slices for lunch size, 3 for dinner
Sliced Mushroom
Chopped, cooked bacon. 3 strips for lunch size, 4 for dinner

Cook the chicken broth and heavy whipping cream, and add some white pepper to taste. Also add 23tablespoons onion powder and two tablespoons garlic powder. When hot, add all the cheese and cook until melted. Thicken with a mixture of cold water and cornstarch mixed together.

Cook penne noodles.

Saute the crumbled bacon, mushrooms, and ham together, and add to the noodles and sauce.

At TipTop, we mix it all toether, and microwave for 1:45.

At work we heat all this to order, and then top with a mixture of breadcrumbs, butter and parm cheese, and place under the broiler to brown.

Breadcrumb mixure.
Melt 2 sticks butter or a half pound. Mix the melted butter with 3 quarts panko breadcrumbs. Add one cup shredded parmesan cheese. Place in salamander to brown, and spinkle with chopped parsley.

After I had by-pass surgery in 2008 my doctor gave me a list of things I shouldn't eat and a list of things I should eat. Everything I like is on the "no no" list and everything on the "good" list is tasteless. So I went digging around the internet looking for low-fat, low-cholesterol recipes that might taste good.

Now that I have a Kindle I decided to format my set of recipes into a Kindle book - and after doing that I decided to share it. So here it is, 132 low-fat, low-cholesterol, heart-healthy, easy-to-make recipes that taste good. There are soups, stews, main dishes, side dishes, beef, chicken, fish, pasta, vegetarian, desserts, etc.

The book is formatted to work well on the Kindle with a working table of contents that's broken down into several subsections. I've also included a small metric conversion section for those of you that are not used to working with cups, teaspoons, ounces, etc. Most recipes also include detailed information on calories, fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, carbohydrates, protein, fiber, sodium, and potassium, as well as serving sizes.

I prefer using a cookbook on the Kindle because I can easily bookmark recipes I want to try, insert notes, and if I want to give a copy of a recipe to a friend all I have to do is highlight the entire recipe then copy the "My Clippings" file to my computer for printing.

After I had by-pass surgery in 2008 my doctor gave me a list of things I shouldn't eat and a list of things I should eat. Everything I like is on the "no no" list and everything on the "good" list is tasteless. So I went digging around the internet looking for low-fat, low-cholesterol recipes that might taste good.

Now that I have a Kindle I decided to format my set of recipes into a Kindle book - and after doing that I decided to share it. So here it is, 132 low-fat, low-cholesterol, heart-healthy, easy-to-make recipes that taste good. There are soups, stews, main dishes, side dishes, beef, chicken, fish, pasta, vegetarian, desserts, etc.

The book is formatted to work well on the Kindle with a working table of contents that's broken down into several subsections. I've also included a small metric conversion section for those of you that are not used to working with cups, teaspoons, ounces, etc. Most recipes also include detailed information on calories, fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, carbohydrates, protein, fiber, sodium, and potassium, as well as serving sizes.

I prefer using a cookbook on the Kindle because I can easily bookmark recipes I want to try, insert notes, and if I want to give a copy of a recipe to a friend all I have to do is highlight the entire recipe then copy the "My Clippings" file to my computer for printing.