a BRUTAL night in the kitchen

My dear friend Beth also loves to cook. Back in November when she helped me move into my apartment, she said that we should get together and cook in my big, sunny kitchen.

In January she came over on a Saturday evening and, after collecting all of our ingredients and a few bottles of wine, we made these delicious lemon ricotta cookies (even though we both despise Giada), some gruyere cheese puffs, and the ever-popular giant chipotle white beans. We had to buy four different kinds of cheese, and it was wonderful! We drank wine and listened to music and split all the creations at the end of the night.

Last night Beth came over again, and we took the cooking to a whole new level. Our pal, Quentin J. Bono, posted a recipe for his "Burly Man Chili" on Google Reader a few weeks ago, and Beth immediately suggested that we make up a batch. Reformed vegan that she is, I think Beth deserves a huge round of applause for embracing a stew that requires not only three pounds of pork butt, three pounds of beef chuck, 1/2 pound of bacon, but marrow bones! There was only one package of shin bones left at the grocery store, so we also tossed in a lovely set of NECK BONES! Serious stuff.

As we were leaving the grocery store, I exclaimed, "Shit Beth! This is supposed to cook in the crock pot for 6 1/2 hours! If we had it all together right this minute, it wouldn't be done till 1 AM!" We had a good laugh and agreed that the cheese and crackers that we got for a snack wouldn't be enough to hold us over. "WWDD?" I asked... "GYROS", was the answer. Beth picked up our gyro sandwiches (with tahini and cucumber sauce) from Holy Land, while I ran across the street to get some tasty Point Einbock.

While we were cubing and de-gristling the roasts (me) and rendering the bacon and chopping the vegetables (Beth), we watched "Opeth: Lamentations: Live at Shepherd's Bush Empire 2003" on Netflix and commented what a deliciously bad-ass evening this was turning out to be.

Because I knew that the Burly Man chili was a slow-cooker affair, I also wanted to make some kind of dessert. I was in the mood to challenge myself and stray away from the oatmeal and dried fruit creations that I usually make. I found a recipe on one of my favorite blogs for a "Chocolate Whiskey Cake" (full recipe is HERE), and immediately added unsalted butter and bitter chocolate to the shopping list. When we got back and I read through the recipe completely (always do this, folks), I realized that the method was this: Get 12 fat prunes and chop them up. Put them in a small sauce pan and simmer them in whiskey (I used black cherry bourbon). When the liquid is almost gone, LIGHT THEM ON FIRE. This all gets mixed with egg yolks, 1/4 cup of flour, 2/3 cup of ground walnuts, some sugar, some butter and 7 ounces of bitter, black chocolate. It. Looked. AWESOME!

Unfortunately, the cake turned out kind of dry. And bitter. Go figure, right? The chili, as of this morning, was still not thoroughly done (the beans are hard and there's a lot of liquid.) The process was fun, and Beth and I got some really good laughs.

This afternoon I whipped up this white bean dip with roasted garlic, balsamic vinegar and sun-dried tomatoes. Beth and I had intended to make this last night, but didn't get to it. It is SO good! I have been eating it on warm pieces of wheat pita bread (also from Holyland) and I almost never want to eat anything else.

Feel free to give us some suggestions for next month's cooking night!