Zaro's Chocolate Babka

Mandy has wanted to get a chocolate babka for a while now. Last week after trying to go to the Rachel Ray Show, we stopped into Zaro's in Grand Central but they had no babka and Mandy was less than pleased with the store layout. I'm pretty sure she muttered "I will never ever ever step foot in NYC ever again" or something to that effect.

Much to my surprise, one day this week after class she stopped into the Zaro's and brought one home.

Now, while Zaro's website insists that they have been making their babka the same way as "the old days" I'm not sure I believe that. The top is heavily coated with powered sugar and chocolate drizzle. Mandy referred to it as "novelty" babka.

The bread portion was a little on the dry side for my tastes. Mandy thought that the chocolate wasn't distributed well throughout the babka.

I don't think we will be purchasing another one from Zaro's, but I'm sure this won't be the last babka review.

Pork

I haven't cooked pork in a few years. Mandy doesn't eat it (yet) and so I'm pretty much too lazy to cook it just for myself.

However, my parents gave me a package of thin sliced pork tenderloin so I had to do something with them.

I seared them, then made a sauce with a tomato, white wine, chicken stock, garlic and parsley. I cooked the pork for a few minutes more in the sauce.

It was pretty darn good. I still have four more pieces of pork in the freezer so I'll probably cook some more like this.

I also made some roasted potatoes to go along with the pork. They did not turn out too wonderful. I should have roasted them at a lower temperature as they were pretty crusty (i.e. burned) on the bottom. Oh well.

So Easy to Make

I wasn't interesting in cooking tonight. I had just gotten back from the laundromat and just wanted to not be hungry. Kraft Mac'n'Cheese it is.

Now, its not easy to mess up Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. This uber-difficult recipe contains only four steps: boil the macaroni; add some butter, milk and cheese packet; stir together; eat.

Unfortunately it is possible to mess up it somewhere in there. Are you a six year old and do not know how to boil water? Are you incapable of tearing open a cheese packet? Is your name "Joe Cooks Dinner and Stuff?"

I cooked the macaroni, no problems there. I added some butter and the cheese packet. Things are going smoothly at this point. I then pour in some milk. Uh oh. The milk looked rather "chunky" while pouring. I check the label "Good Until October 27." That's what I thought.

Wait a second, what does it say direct under that? "NYC Good Until October 25."

What the fuck. Seriously. The milk decides it is going to spoil two days earlier just because of where I live?

I toss the milk and "mac'n'cheese" and instead go to the taco truck.

Post Road Pumpkin Ale

I drink a lot of beer.

Not as much as I once did during my younger years (I still miss you, my dearest kegerator).

Anyway, I suppose I will occassionally review beers that I'm drinking, mainly so I remember to buy the good ones again (not that hard) and to not buy the bad ones again (this happens on occassion).

Unfortunately, this was one that I had bought in the past and couldn't quite remember how much I liked it (or didn't).

It's brewed by the folks at Brooklyn Brewery. The head quickly disappated. It had a good aroma of spices and such, as a pumpkin beer should. The taste was a little off for me though. I'm just not sure what its missing. I thought it had a little soapy (or metallic?) aftertaste. It's not as sweet as other pumpkin ales (Mandy liked this about this beer) so its drinkable with a meal.

I will not be purchasing again in the future. I'd stick to the Dogfish Head pumpkin ale if I could find it up here.

Official Joe Cooks Dinner and Stuff Beer Rating:
2.5/5

Beer Bread

Mandy was a little bored the other night, so she decided she was going to bake some bread. She found a "beer bread" recipe online and wanted to give it a shot. I'm not sure what exactly was in it besides a bottle of Sam Adams lager.

It came out pretty dense (I guess that's what happens when there's no yeast involved). The bread smelled like beer. It also had this weird bitter aftertaste which is attributable to the hops in the beer. I'm guessing something lighter, like a hefeweizen or fruit beer or something would work better and not impart the same bitterness. It really just made me want some irish soda bread.

After two days on the counter, we still haven't had any more slices since that first night. So yeah. You be the judge.

Pig Parts or Potpourri

Since I haven't been a particularly prolific blogger in the first two weeks or so here, I have some random photos that I need to unload.

My mother and father brought some great cherry tomatoes from their home garden when they visited for my birthday. We had some mozzarella around from when we made pizza so I tossed it all together with some olive oil, salt and pepper for a nice little snack. It was scrum-didly-decious.
Also courtesy of my mother and father were some sorta prepared meals that they bought at various stores. The chicken scarpariello that they brought from the italian place in their town was amazing for being frozen. My dad asked if I split it with Mandy because there was a lot to eat. I just devoured the whole thing in about 5 minutes. I'll have to try making some on my own soon.

They also brought some meals/meats from Stew Leonard's. The flank steak stuffed with cheddar cheese and bacon looked phenomenal while uncooked, but looked pretty average after I seared it and threw it in the oven for a bit. It tasted pretty decent, but I wouldn't go out of my way to make it or even buy it again.
And finally some more stuff courtesy of dear mom and dad. They brought some Hatfield ham along with the bacon from the previous breakfast post. They'd been sitting in the fridge a bit longer than they probably should've, so I fried them up along with some eggs and had a quite good breakfast at 3pm the other day. The bacon was still phenomenal even though one piece didn't really want to stay together anymore. Also making guest appearances are some cheddar cheese and a plum tomato.

Pie!

Mandy pointed out that every entry so far has started with a "P" so I'm not going to stop now.

Unfortunately, I didn't actually cook (or more precisely, bake) anything for this entry. All credit goes to Mandy. Except you might see her secret ingredient in one of the pictures.

Mandy baked me this cherry pie for my birthday using my grandmother's recipe. It was pretty darn delicious and didn't last very long in the apartment.

Pancakes and bacon and stuff

Mandy and I made up a nice breakfast for ourselves this past Sunday. My parents had brought us a bunch of apples and bacon from the awesomest smoke house in the Adirondacks, Oscar's.

I used a pancake batter recipe that was in the Sunday New York Times Magazine. It called for three eggs. I was skeptical but went along anyway. They ended up tasting a little too eggy for me. This may be partially my fault for not mixing the batter well enough. Then again, it's probably not my fault because I'm an awesome cook (amirite?).

We cooked up an apple with some sugar and cinnamon to put on top as well. They were pretty tasty, but a little too crisp. We only cooked them for 10 minutes or so as we weren't feeling patient.

Please note that my bacon is cooked perfectly while I have burnt Mandy's to her exacting standards.

Pepper Vodka

So in September, I won a bottle of vodka in a 1 mile race in Silver Beach, NY (I was lightning quick in my polo shirt and khaki shorts). They have this crazy labor day block party celebration, complete with swimming and foot races.

I don't really drink unflavored vodkas, so I decided to turn this bottle into pepper vodka for bloody mary's.

Just two tablespoons of black peppercorns turned it into this ungodly color (if you look closely you can still see them on the bottom as I haven't yet strained them out).

I'll take a picture of the bloody mary's at some other point, but they were quite tasty.

Pizza!

So this was try number two at pizza in the apartment.

A few things we desperately need before we make pizza again:

1. Corn Meal - We've been dusting the pan with flour. It's just not the same. The bottom tastes, well, like uncooked flour.
2. A pizza stone (or an unglazed stone from home depot) - The dough doesn't get crispy on the bottom, just kind of chewy.

The tomato sauce was still great though, and it only took 10 minutes or so to make.

We also enjoyed the finest French wine $7 would buy us:


It honestly doesn't have that much flavor, but was a perfectly drinkable table wine. It gets a 1 on the Joe Cooks Dinner and Stuff Binary Wine Grading Scale.