I make a neat little homemade chocolate cheese from scratch (heat the milk and cream, add lemon juice to curdle, strain, drain, and mix in cocoa and sugar... that easy). I was trying to think of a dessert I could make from it and came up with the following idea.

Make the cheese (possibly with some ground chocolate chips mixed in to make it a little more gooey when hot). Form the cheese into balls and then chill. Take a chilled ball, dip it in drop doughnut or funnel cake batter, and deep fry. Let drain, then skewer three or four balls together to make a kebab. Drizzle the kebab with a chocolate sauce that's been kicked up a notch with a little salt and some fresh ground pink peppercorn.

So, who dares me to actually make this (as my wife shakes her head and begs me to just say "no")?

For both, I tried the "fat washing" method. This is where you mix bacon grease into the alcoholic beverage in the belief that many of the fat-soluble flavor compounds are also alcohol-soluble and will transfer. Give them some time to transfer flavor, then strain out the fat. While most of the infusion recipes suggested putting slices of cooked bacon in a jar of alcohol and storing it in a dark cool place for a week or two, the fat washing recipes said to pour the fat in, let it sit a few hours, freeze to solidify the fat, and strain.

First I tried the bourbon and followed a recipe I'd seen that said to wash it for 4 hours, then freeze for 90 minutes. It also mentioned that keeping it at a slightly elevated temperature would help the fat get the most contact with the alcohol.

I tried this with a fifth of Jim Beam and 3 tablespoons of bacon fat from my bacon jar (yes, I save bacon grease in a jar for cooking), that turned out to be about 2 ounces when warmed up. I stirred it in with a spoon and let the booze and grease have 4 hours together, repeatedly giving the jar warm/hot water baths and occasionally shaking it. I froze it for 90 minutes, strained off the fat, and made a bourbon old fashioned (2 oz bourbon, 1 tsp maple syrup, 2 dashes bitters).

I'd read that the bacon flavor wouldn't hit you up front, but come in as a smoky note on the back end. It did that on the first sip, but then the bacon flavor dwindled and it just tasted like bourbon and maple syrup. In a later taste of the bourbon, I didn't get much bacon at all.

So, for the bacon vodka, I went "whole hog" (please excuse the pun). I oven baked a pound of Cloverfield hickory smoked bacon...

• line a baking pan with foil
• line that with bacon
• set oven to 400 degrees
• put bacon in while the oven preheats
• cook 20-30 minutes until done to your liking

Starting the bacon off in a cold pan in a cold oven ensures you'll render the maximum amount of fat.

After the bacon was cooked, I drained off the hot fat (about 2.5 ounces) and whisked it into my room-temperature Vodka, then sealed the jar. Periodically I would heat the mixture via either a hot water bath or 40 seconds in the microwave, then give it a good stirring with the whisk. But instead of letting it sit for 4 hours, I let it sit for 26, and I let it freeze overnight. The vodka that was produced had a much more pronounced bacon flavor and smell. This is what I expected bacon vodka to taste and smell like.

So, if you're planning to fat wash some booze, here are my tips.

1. Use fresh cooked bacon fat right from the oven.
2. Use the renderings from a pound of bacon per 750 ml of liquor
3. Whisk the fat and booze together rather than stirring.
4. Periodically warm and re-whisk
5. Let it sit at least 24 hours before freezing

I got a 2-roast pack, took it home, marinated it, oven-roasted it, and served it with sweet potato pancakes and a salad of chopped roma tomato and English cucumber tossed with a little olive oil and salt. But I ended up with a lot of leftover tri-tip.

It's been my experience that roasted meats don't re-heat well. They get an odd flavor. I tried steaming some thin-sliced tri-tip by wrapping it in a wet paper towel and nuking it for 30 seconds for a flatbread wrap, but the odd flavor was there.

Then I tried making French dip sandwiches, letting the tri-tip warm to room temperature for an hour and then dipping it in a simple beef broth jus before putting it on toasted french rolls with butter and swiss cheese. That was okay, but still far from "good".

So I'm putting out the question to my friends and readers: Do you have any tips for making something tasty with leftover tri-tip?

Chili Mac - Chile Con Carne + Macaroni

1 jalapeno seeded & finely chopped
2 yellow onions diced
2 tbs bacon grease
1 large carrot diced
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 small bunch cilantro chopped

2 tbs ground coriander
2 tbs ground cumin
1 tbs caldo de res (beef bullion)
1 tbs smoked paprika
1 tsp oregano
3/4 tsp ground sage
2 tsp salt
1 tsp white pepper
2 tsp madras curry powder
1 tsp cinnamon

2 lbs ground beef
2 7 ounce cans diced green chiles
1 quart water
1 28 ounce can crushed tomato
1/2 cup sour cream
2 cups shredded cheddar
22 ounce bag macaroni

Start sauteeing the onions, carrots, and jalapeno in the bacon fat. After a couple of minutes, add the garlic and cilantro and sautee about a minute more.

Add in the spice mixture (second bunch of ingredients) and cook the spices with the veggies until fragrant. Add the water and bring to a boil.

Put in the ground beef and mash everything up with a potato masher to break up the meat. Add the tomatoes and chiles, bring back to a low boil, and simmer covered for 30-45 minutes.

In another pot, bring salted water to a boil and cook the macaroni just a little underdone. Reserve 6-8 ounces of the pasta water and drain.

Put the macaroni pot back on the stove. Put in 6-8 ounces of the chili broth and the reserved pasta water, pour the drained pasta back in and mix everything together for about a minute over medium heat. Add the chili to the pasta pot and cook everything together for about 5 minutes.

Stir in the sour cream and cheese, mix well, remove from heat, and let cool for about 10 minutes. Scoop into bowls and serve.

Enjoy!

1. You never know when they'll have Triscuits (my wife's favorite cracker). Sometimes they do, most times not, and this drives us into the arms of WalMart because they have the best prices on Triscuits for normal consumer size packaging.
2. In 6 years, they haven't carried a decent brand of salami that didn't leave a bad taste in my mouth. I'm just not a fan of Italian salami and they seem bound and determined to keep expanding their selection of Italian lunch meats and Italian-branded lunch meats like turkey breast and pastrami from Columbus meats.

Why is it that they have like 8 types of Italian salami in the Everett Costco, but nothing simple and domestic? I get the worst aftertaste from Italian salami. I'd kill for them to simply carry Oscar Mayer hard salami or the same hard salami I can get in the deli case at Safeway.

I understand that products come and go, but on my last visit, in the premium lunch meat aisle there were the Kirkland lunch meats and then all the other lunch meat and salami were Italian or from Italian meats companies. Even their pastrami and turley breast were from Columbus. What gives?

I love Costco. My dad got me a membership when I went off to college 23 years ago and I've been a member ever since. But this obsessions with Italian meats in the deli section has got to stop. Give us some good old, plain old salami. No fancy imported stuff. I'd love some kosher chubs I could hang to dry in my kitchen, but failing that, just something along the lines of simple, domestic hard salami like Oscar Mayer.

Thanks Costco!

The one thing was, instead of potato chunks (like Taco Bell) or french fries (like just about everywhere else), they served tater tots (calling them "Mexi Fries"), and my older boy loved to get a kid-size quesadilla and tater tots from them. Since he could no longer have Taco Time tater tots, I thought I'd console him by trying my hand at a recipe I'd only heard of in hushed whispers, a dish that can drive a cardiologist to acts of violence... Tater Tot Casserole. It's the holy grail of fat and starch, and I was pretty sure my kid would love it.

Here are the components:

Equipment:

2.5 quart covered casserole dish
mixing bowl
spoon

Ingredients:

2 lb. bag of frozen tater tots
10 ounce can of condensed cream of potato soup
16 ounce tub of sour cream
6 oz can of french fried onions
2 cups of shredded cheese (packed)
3 bun length hotdogs
1 tablespoon canola oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
1/2 teaspoon onion powder

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Put the oil in the casserole dish and use a paper towel to spread it around the bottom and sides of the dish.

Quarter the hotdogs lengthwise and dice into 1/4 inch bits.

In a mixing bowl, combine the sour cream, soup, half the cheese, half the fried onions, the salt, the pepper, the onion powder, the rosemary, and the hotdog bits.

Create a single layer of tater tots in the bottom of the casserole, laying them lengthwise, and try to fit in as many as you can. Spoon the sour cream mixture over that, creating a fairly even layer.

Cover the sour cream layer with the remaining tots and press them in gently. Cover the tots with the remaining cheese in an even layer. Cover the cheese with the remaining french fried onions in an even layer.

Cover the casserole with its lid and put it in the oven for 1 hour. After 1 hour, remove the lid and let bake for another 10 or so minutes to gently brown the french fried onions on top.

Remove from oven and allow to cool for a few minutes, then serve. It's best if you mash all the bits together once it's on the plate so all the flavors get distributed around. It also stands up well to reheating in the microwave.

Enjoy!

When I got there, the class instructor was shocked and joyed to have a "daddy" there. Seems men at these classes are a rare and wonderful thing. Out of 9 parents there, I was the only man, and my son was one of two boys out of ten kids. We had some food related games and then the kids helped spread pepperoni and cheese on a class pizza to eat there, then used various items to turn two pieces of naan into "pizza faces" while the class pizza cooked. We took the pizza faces home and cooked them for lunch afterward.

They put out chopped red cabbage for hair, but they also put out big leaves of basil for ears. I borrowed a knife from the instructor's assistant and cut some basil into strips to use as hair. Much cooler... and more flavorful.

Tonight, I defrosted some pork chops and let my son help me do some of the prep work. They're the super-thick chops you get at Costco, so I butterflied them into a more manageable thickness, then he helped me scoop spices to make a dry rub.

1/4 cup brown sugar
1 rounded tablespoon ground cumin
2 teaspoons granulated garlic
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1 teaspoon kosher salt

I sprinkled the rub onto the chops to make sure he didn't spill it all over or dump half the mix on one chop, but he helped me pat it into the meat. Then we washed our hands, covered the plate with plastic wrap, and let the rub do its magic in the fridge for 45 minutes.

I fried the chops in just enough butter to coat the bottom of the pan. I saw a thing on "America's Test Kitchen" where they said the secret to juicy pork chops it to cook them over lower heat. Bringing them up to the doneness you desire more slowly wrings less of the natural moisture out of them. I've found it works.

And doing it with my rub and some butter leaves this mixture of butter, sugar, pork fat, and just a little bit of pork juices in the pan that's a perfect medium for cooking up a couple of sliced onions while you let the chops rest. I defrosted and drained some frozen chopped spinach, then threw it in with the onions at the end to warm.

Served the chops on a bed of the onion/spinach mixture with a squeeze of lime. Mmmm. This is the second time I've done this rub on pork chops and my wife tells me it's a keeper. The boy likes it too and he likes being a part of the process.

So this weekend, while at Costco, I saw they had 2 quart tubs of a whole-milk yogurt for $4 (less than the cost of a 24-ounce tub of the Greek yogurt and WAY less than 4 or 5 of the smaller tubs). I bought it and decided to experiment.

The main difference between regular whole-milk yogurt and Greek-style yogurt is that Greek-style is strained to remove some of the excess moisture content. You can do this very easily in your own home with a clean cloth (I use a 30x30 flour sack dish towel, some people use tea towels, some use doubled/tripled cheesecloth), a collander, and a bowl the collander will sit in with a couple of inches of clearance between the bottom of the collander and the bottom of the bowl.

Line the collander with the cloth and dump in the yogurt. Bring up the corners of the cloth and twist the bolus of yogurt in the bottom until it's being lightly squeezed. You want some pressure being put on the yogurt, but not so much you're squeezing it through the cloth. You'll be surprised at how much water is going to come out.

Hold it over the sink, until the drainage slows to a drip, then put the wrapped yogurt into the collander and the collander into a bowl. Put the whole shebang in your refrigerator, and let drip for 2-3 hours.

After it's dripped in the fridge, you can unwrap your yogurt and put it in whatever you plan to store it in. Have a spatula or spoon handy, because you'll likely need to scrape down your cloth to get all the yogurt.

The resulting yogurt is going to be much thicker than what went in, almost like a sour cream or a soft cream cheese. You'll also have lost about 35-40% of the volume (which is one reason Greek-style yogurt is more expensive, because it takes 2 quarts or regular to make maybe 1.2 quarts of Greek-style).

I'm just starting to experiment with ways to sweeten the yogurt, but so far I've found that 3 ounces of grade A dark amber maple syrup (I used a jug of a low-cost Trader Joe's maple syrup that we've had forever) gives you a great balance of sweet with just a hint ot the cheesy tang of the yogurt, and you just cannot beat the thickness and creaminess of it.

My wife and my 4-year-old went nuts over this mix, and the baby really seems to be loving it too. I made it on Saturday and it was gone by Monday morning. I had to make more yesterday and I'll probably end up hitting Costco in the next day or two to get supplies for making a double batch. I'm thinking I'll get some frozen berries, defrost and macerate a handful with some sort of sweetener to get a few ounces of a sweetened berry juice, then add in a cup or two of whole berries, and mix that in.

If you like yogurt, this is a must-try recipe. It's simple as all get out, the resulting yogurt has a taste and texture to die for, and all the goodness is concentrated. Because of the lower moisture content, it has more protein, more calcium, and more probiotics per serving than regular yogurt. It's good and good for you. Eat it up, yum.

Today as I was driving home, I had an interesting chat with him.

Son: Daddy, who drawed all of this?

Me: Who drew all of this? Like here, where we live?

Son: Yeah.

Me: Well, I guess God drew it.

Son: God drew it on a piece of paper and then made it real.

Me: That's an interesting idea.

Son: Yeah, that's what He did.

This recipe makes a rich, hearty, flavorful ground beef chili (with NO beans), that is not too spicy for the palates of my wife and four-year-old, but tastes good as it is. A chili lover could eat it grudgingly without losing their faith in mankind. But the best part is that the flavors are balanced so it makes a great starting point for creating your own bowl of heaven.

Imagine throwing a chili party with a "Doctor Your Own Chili" bar. You don't just put out onions, crackers, and cheese. You put out a selection of hot sauces for people to stir in, some sour cream, some sliced pickled jalapenos, maybe some carrots pickled in the jalapeno pickling liquid, and definitely some chicharrones (pork cracklins - like pork rinds, but smaller, denser, and fattier). Let everyone mix up a bowl to their tastes, and you'll find that your gueests all along the spice spectrum will enjoy themselves.

Personally, tonight I mixed up a bowl with some Sriracha and some chicharrones. I was in heaven.

Beware, this recipe is on the large size. I like to cook big pots of chili. You can cut it down.

Blank Canvas Chile

5 large red onions, diced
5 pounds lean ground beef
28 ounce can tomatillos, drained
2 quarts chicken or beef stock (beef is better, but chicken works)
4 slices thick-cut bacon
3 fresh jalapeno peppers
3 tbs cider vinegar
3 tbs ground cumin
2 tbs granulated garlic
2 tbs ground coriander
2 tbs ground chile california
1 tbs black pepper
1 tbs salt
1 tbs granulated onion
2 tsp dried oregano

1 bunch cilantro, stemmed and chopped
1/2 cup masa (corn flour used for tortillas and tamales)

A little achiote powder if you're using chicken stock.

Chop all the onions. Make sure to crack a window or turn on the exhaust fan in the kitchen or everyone in the house will start tearing up by the time you're done.

Halve your jalapenos, remove the seeds and ribs. Dice one half and toss it in with the onions. The other 2.5 jalapenos get a rough chop and go in the blender/processor with the drained tomatillos the three ounces of cider vinegar, and a pinch of kosher salt to make a very piquant salsa verde.

Chop your 4 slices of bacon and render them in the cook pot over medium heat until crispy. Remove the bacon and reserve for later. Begin sauteeing the 5 onions and diced half-jalapeno in the lovely, tasty bacon grease.

Once the onions have softened a bit, toss in your spices and stir in with the onions, cooking for another minute or two until everything gets fragrant. Pour in the tomatillo salsa you made and stir it in, letting it help deglaze the pot a bit. Add your stock.

Bring this mixture up to a low boil and then add the raw ground beef. Instead of stirring it in with a spoon, spend the next couple of minutes attacking it with a potato masher. This distributes the meat throughout the broth, giving it maximum broth contact and vice versa, so they can marry their flavors. Just be gentle. You're trying to break up the meat so you get a great ground beef texture with no big clumps, not mash it into a paste.

Bring the mixture up to a boil, lower the heat, cover, and simmer for 40 minutes, stirring once or twice.

Uncover, sprinkle in the masa, stirring as you go. This will tighten up the chili, like adding corn starch, but it gives it a much more authentic flavor and texture. Throw the chopped bacon back in, throw in the cilantro, stir it all, and let it cook another 5 minutes uncovered. If you used beef stock, you've probably got a good brown color, but if you used chicken stock, it may look a little gray. You can hit it with a teaspoon or two of the achiote powder to add a little red to the color and make it more appetizing.

Take it off the heat, give it a stir, and let it sit uncovered, cooling, for 20-30 minutes.

After that, eat it straight, or play mad scientist with various condiments. When you start with a chili this basically good, there are all sorts of great ways you can jazz it up.

I thought about how one might cook a whole cow, and for some reason, my thought went to Turducken. If you're not familiar with Turducken, it's a turkey, stuffed with a duck, that's stuffed with a chicken. I thought if you started with a cow, where would you go from there? Most likely you'd stuff a pig inside the cow, then stuff a lamb inside the pig.

But how would you cook it? Where would you find an oven big enough? You couldn't spit roast it because by the time the lamb cooked, the cow would be beef jerky. I realized that pit roasting (dig a pit, line it with hot rocks, put the animal in, cover it, then bury it, then dig it up 8-12 hours later) it would be the only way. Low and slow from sunup to sundown, with the right aromatics strategically placed in and around the animals.

It could work. I'm not the man for the job. Just no expertise in pit roasting a single animal, much less three. I think the closest I might come would be to make a meat loaf of ground beef and lamb, then wrap it in bacon. That wouldn't be too bad.

Hmmmm....

8 pounds of meat (5 of stew meat, 3 of kielbasa)
8 pound bag of red onions
8 cups of beef stock
8 ounces dark rum
8 ounces Coca Cola or Coke Zero
8 rounded tablespoons of flour
8 teaspoons of Old Bay seasoning mix
8 tablespoons of spice mix

• 2 parts madras curry powder
• 2 parts ground coriander
• 1 part ground black pepper
• 1 part ground cumin
• 1 part ground smoked paprika
• 1 part celery seed

8 cloves of garlic - crushed
8 slices of thick-sliced bacon

Take all but two of your red onions, cut off the ends, halve them, peel them, and cut them into 1/4-3/8 inch slices. Set aside.

Put the stock, rum, and Coke in your stew pot over low heat and let warm up.

Cut the bacon into small strips and begin sauteeing it in a large skillet over medium heat. Medium heat will help it render out a lot of grease while becoming crispy without burning.

While the bacon sautees (this will take a while), mix the flour and Old Bay seasoning. Take your chunks of stew meat and lightly coat them in the flour, making sure to tap off excess. Save any leftover flour mixture for later. We'll use some to thicken the stew near the end.

When the bacon is crispy, remove it from the pan with a slotted spoon. Reserve most of the drippings in a bowl off to the side, leaving enough to coat the bottom of the pan. Raise the heat to high and when the grease starts smoking, start browning off the floured meat. There's a lot of meat and you don't want to overload the pan, so it will take around 4-5 batches depending on the size of your pan.

As each batch finishes, put it in the stew pot with the hot liquid. After each batch, spoon in enough of the reserved drippings to coat the pan and bring the pan back up to smoking hot before browning the next batch.

When all the meat has been browned, pour the remaining bacon drippings back into the pan and add the onions (all of them). They'll nearly overflow the pan, but as the heat does its magic and softens them, they'll become a lot more manageable.

Toss a bit to spread the bacon drippings around, and cover the pan for 3 minutes. After three minutes, remove the cover, use a pair of tongs to move the onions around (bringing the ones from the bottom up to the top) and cover again. Repeat this process 4-5 times until all the onions have softened. They will release a good amount of liquid which will pick up any good flavors left on the bottom of the pan from the cooking of the meats.

While the onions are cooking down, get out your 8 cloves of garlic, crush them with a garlic press, and add to the stew pot.

Transfer the onions and all the liquid in the pan into the stew pot, bring to a simmer, cover, and let stew for about 3-and-a-quarter hours, stirring periodically.

Around 3 hours into the 3-and-a-quarter, rough chop the remaining two red onions and put aside. Cut your kielbasa lengths in half, then cut half moons about 1/2-5/8 inches thick. Bring out your sautee pan, and begin browning the kielbasa in batches over a medium high heat. As they brown, transfer into the stew pot.

Bring the stew back to a low boil. In the sautee pan where you browned the sausage, you should have about 1-2 tablespoons of rendered grease from browning the sausage. Add enough butter to bring it to about three tablespoons, melt it, and then add three tablespoons of the leftover flour mixture, cooking it into a roux. Add about a cup of the stew broth. Stir the mixture to combine, then pour into the stew pot. Stir well, then cover and let cook for another 20 minutes. Remove from heat and add the diced onion. Stir, cover, and let the residual heat cook the stew for another 30 minutes.

By bringing in the sausage near the end, it stays firm, and the onions added in right after the stew is removed from the heat get a little mellowed by the residual heat, but retain some texture and a little bite (while the sliced onions that stewed for 4 hours are extremely soft and mellow).

Serve sprinkled with some of the crispy bacon (if you haven't nibbled it all while waiting for the stew).

For an experiment, it came out well. It's a hearty stew with good flavor. I might add more vegetables next time (perhaps 8 large carrots and 8 tablespoons of tomato paste), and go with some cream sherry instead of the rum and coke.

It makes 20-25 hearty servings with a lot of meat in them at a cost of about $2 a serving. Add a couple of pieces of good bread, some rice or some pasta, and you can cut down the portion to stretch it even farther while keeping it a comforting stick-to-your-ribs meal.

I have to give some credit to Dave Lieberman because earlier in the day I'd seen him do a "Moroccan" chick pea and spinach stew on Food Network. All I remembered though was chick peas, sugar, cinnamon, cumin, tomatoes, and hitting it with a potato masher at the end. And thinking of mashed sweet potatoes made me think of the masher which made me remember that we had some canned chick peas in the pantry.

I had a sweet potato, an onion, a couple of cans of chick peas, a can of crushed tomato, chicken broth... I could do something with this, and I did, and it was delicious. Unfortunately, I eyeballed everything, measuring nothing, so when I was done and it turned out totally yummy, I knew the ingredients, but I didn't have a recipe.

So, today, I decided to try to replicate the recipe, measuring things and writing stuff down. The result was awesome. Not exactly like Friday's, but possibly better. It's rich and hearty, has a little bit of heat from the white and black pepper, has sweetness from the honey and the tomatoes, and the cinnamon really does work excellently with the sweetness and spice.

So here's the official recipe and a link to Dave Lieberman's recipe (in case you want to compare).

African-Style Chick Pea and Sweet Potato Stew

1 medium sweet potato, diced into 1/4 inch cubes (approx 1 1/4 cups)
1 medium yellow onion, diced into 1/4 inch pieces (approx 1 1/4 cups)
2 fifteen-ounce cans of chickpeas / garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 fourteen-ounce can fire roasted crushed tomatoes, I prefer Muir Glen organic
1 fourteen-ounce can chicken broth

1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground white pepper
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
3 Knorr garlic minicubes

2.5 tbs honey
2 tbs rendered bacon grease or olive oil

Two notes worth mentioning: One, I like my stew peppery. You might want to cut the white pepper down by half if you don't want things too spicy. Two, I used the minicubes because I didn't feel like messing with fresh garlic. Each cube is supposedly equivalent to one clove of garlic, plus a little MSG. I get them in the Hispanic foods aisle at Walmart.

Melt the bacon grease (or olive oil if you've got a problem with bacon grease) in a large sauce pan over medium-high heat and give it a minute to warm, then toss in the sweet potatoes and let them cook in the fat while you give the onion a quick dice. If you're a slow dicer, pre-dice the onion, but wait a minute or two after putting in the potatoes. Then toss in the onion.

Let the onion and sweet potato cook in the bacon fat for 4-5 minutes, tossing once or twice during the process, allowing them to get some color and soften. Once they're just beginning to brown, toss in your spices. I put all the spices in a bowl and crush the garlic minicubes into them so it's easy to toss everything in at once.

Stir the spices in with the onion and potato mixture, letting them heat through and become fragrant. During this time, you can measure in the honey. Give it all a stir, then pour in the can of chicken broth, the can of crushed tomato, and the chickpeas (which you drained and rinsed well). Bring it all to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer for about 40-45 minutes. Stir once or twice during the process, but generally just let everything bubble away happily while your kitchen begins to smell amazing.

After 40-45 minutes, take off the heat, uncover, stir, and let sit for a minute or two to make sure there are no hidden pockets of steam that might try to blorp on you when you begin mashing. Take a potato masher and just go around the pot, mashing until about 1/2 of the chickpeas are mashed up and the other 1/2 are mostly whole. The mashed potatoes and beans will thicken this stew and make it really hearty.

Serve hot, maybe garnished with a little fresh mint.

As my four-year-old son is a bit of a cheese fanatic anyway and I want to get him excited about cooking, I decided that we'd try to make cheese today. I'd read that it was really easy to make ricotta at home, and my research bore that out. The recipe is basically...

8:1 ratio of whole milk to heavy cream, a pinch of salt, and around 2 tablespoons of lemon juice per quart of milk. You can also use vinegar instead of lemon juice. Bring the milk, cream, and salt to a near boil in a non-reactive pot over low heat. Toss in the lemon juice, stir, and remove from the heat, letting the curds (cheese) and the whey (watery non-cheese) separate. After a few minutes, pour into a collander lined with a cheesecloth and let it drain for a couple of hours to ensure the water drains out.

I brought 2 quarts of milk and a cup of cream to the near boil and let my son pour in the lemon juice and watch as the curds formed. Then I drained it and showed him the nascent cheese. Since we were going to visit some friends and I wanted a firmer cheese (more like "ricotta salata" than like the creamy, pudding-like stuff you buy in tubs), I propped the collander on a bowl with room to drain, folded the cheesecloth over the top, then put a bowl of water on top of the cheese to help press it, then put it all in the refrigerator to drain and firm up.

After the long visit with friends, we were a bit pooped and just got fast food for dinner because we still had to feed, bathe, and put to bed a baby and a four-year old. But after the boys were put to bed, my wife asked if I was going to make the chocolate cheese, because she was jonesing for a little chocolate.

Because the cheese was so firm, I had no idea how I was going to incorporate the chocolate. I put about half of it in a bowl, took a regular teaspoon from the silverware drawer, and measured out maybe 1.5 or so spoonfuls of Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder, then 3 spoonfuls of organic sugar. I started trying to mash it in with a fork, but it was slow going. I don't remember why, but the thought occurred to me to try to knead it. That worked beautifully. Once some finger pressure was applied, the cheese took on a consistency almost like Play-doh. It wasn't too wet, wasn't too dry; I could squeeze it, fold it, mold it, and really get the cocoa and sugar well-incorporated without leaving a sticky mess all over my hands.

I had no idea if the chocolate and sugar balance was right, so we tasted it. It was amazingly good for just eyeballing it, especially when I'd never done this before. Everything balanced, so we tasted the chocolate, the sugar, and the fresh mild cheese without any of them bashing you over the head. The only problem was that the organic granulated table sugar I used gave it a bit of a gritty texture.

I knew that the grittiness would disappear after I baked it, but my wife couldn't wait. I divided the cheese ball approximately in half. One half filled most of a 5-ounce ramekin which was put into a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes (YMMV -- I put it in while pre-heating, so it spent 10 minutes in the oven while coming up to 350 and 10 minutes at 350). The other half stayed in a bowl and went to the couch so my wife could nibble something during the baking and cooling periods. When the baked cheese came out of the oven the chocolate smell was to die for. It was like the smell of fresh-baked chocolate brownies, right out of the oven. I let it cool for 20 minutes, then slid a knife around the edge of the ramekin and tapped it out onto a cutting board.

I forgot to grease the ramekin before putting the cheese in, so a smidge stayed in, but most came out. I made little amuse bouche portions for us with spoons, cutting through the mass from top to bottom, getting a little of the softer innards and a little of the slightly crisped top on each spoon. It was as good as, if not better than, the small loaves I'd picked up at the supermarket (at a cost of $7 for a 5-ounce portion). The flavors were more complex, and of-course, it was all freshly made. 12 hours earlier, that cheese had been milk and cream.

We saved the lion's share of it for my son (since my wife had eaten a whole ball of approximately similar weight), but those spoonfuls were awesome.

Besides the lesson learned about kneading the cocoa into the cheese, I realized that if I used a powdered or confectioner's sugar, or a more finely granulated sugar substitute, that would remove the gritty texture of the unbaked product, so baking would be optional. But I also learned that the baking added a new depth and complexity, sort of the difference between eating cookie dough and eating a fresh-baked cookie. Each one is very nice, but each one has its place.

I wondered if using tequila in a Bloody Mary was legit. Turns out it is. Some people call it a Bloody Maria or a Bloody Mariachi.

So, HotD Wake-Up Juice with Tabasco infused tequila... mmmm. My mouth is watering. But since I'm trying to lose 100 pounds, I've pretty much sworn off alcohol. So if any of you out there try this hot, spicy concept drink, please drop me a line so I can live vicariously through you.