I vaugely remember that Miso & Rice is somehow wrong, or not a proper meal or taboo, but it is GOOD. Toss a dose of miso into a rice pot & eat it when ready! If I’m lacking in time/effort but need to eat a meal that is both tasty & hot, this is always a good beginning.

If you wish to refrigerate creme brulee for a few days, do not sugar & torch the top yet. The caramelized sugar will begin to dissolve into the cream. Fear not, gentle reader, for all is not lost! Your dessert will still be delicious, but with much sugar dissolved, you will rarely get the satisfying *crack* as you break the topping with a spoon. With this is in your belly, you will no longer care about studying for your upcoming flight or doing any sort of work whatsoever. (Desserts are dangerous.)

On Tuesday night, I set “Crème Brûlée Experiment 1″ (CBE1) in motion. The first step to making crème brûlée is, of course, the crème, which is just a simple custard of egg yolks, sugar, vanilla, and heavy cream. I used Alton Brown’s recipe, but substituted vanilla bean paste because even the fancy grocery store I went to didn’t have vanilla beans (so far as I could tell without communicating with another human). I also purchased blackberries, because I love them. These were ultimately the downfall of CBE1, but it was a delicious downfall, and so I submit to you, dear readers,

Pot de crème aux mûres (6 servings)

Ingredients:

• 1 quart heavy cream
• 1/2 tbsp vanilla bean paste (I used more but the vanilla kind of overwhelmed the other flavors a little. the Law of Vanilla Conversion is 1 bean to 1 tbsp paste)
• about 1 cup sugar, probably a little more
• 6 egg yolks
• “some” blackberries!
• 1-2 tsp rubbed sage (optional)
• water

Custard!

• Preheat oven to 325˚F.
• In a small saucepan bring the cream and vanilla to a boil over medium heat, then remove from heat, cover, and allow to steep for 15-20 minutes.
• In a bowl, whisk together egg yolks and 1/2 cup of sugar.
• Whisking the egg-sugar mixture continuously, add the vanilla-cream in a slow, continuous stream.
• Place desired number of blackberries in each ramekin, pour custard mixture into ramekins. The berries need not be submerged, and it is cuter with them “peeking out” anyway. :v
• Place custards on an oven-safe tray or dish with warm/hot water reaching up the sides of the ramekins half way
• Bake until sides of custards are firm, but the center is still “very slightly jiggly.” This took mine around 35 minutes, but my ramekins are shallower than most.
• Refrigerate custards over night, or for at least 2 hours.
• Bring the custards to just below room temp before serving.

Now we are going to make a blackberry-sage syrup to pour over these mofos. This was pretty ad hoc.

• Heat a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, and, when the pan is hot, add remaining blackberries.
• When the berries begin to hiss and their little sub-berries start to explode, bring the heat to medium and add enough water to make it 1/8 inch deep (do not submerge the berries, we are making syrup, not boiling them).
• Add the sage, if you want it. I think it adds a nice herbal freshness to the syrup, but that’s me.
• Add sugar in stages (tablespoons here and there), and keep enough water in the pan so that you can’t see the bottom of the pan through the bubbles.
• When all the sugar is gone, and the syrup coats the back of a spoon, you are done.
• Strain and pour syrup over the pots de crème.
• Serve pots de crème to your friends so that you can dream of someday looking svelte by comparison.

The finished product:

I will definitely keep you all apprised of future crème brûlée experiments. :9

*Reportedly, you can burn the sugar using a broiler. It is less awesome or precise than a culinary torch, but it is certainly safer, and I already own a broiler. Also, here’s a sad story: The ramekins I purchased are made by a company called Corningware, whose ramekins used to be flame-safe. However, Corningware was bought out by “World Kitchen, Inc.” (of Reston) who decided to replace Corningware’s stoneware with cheap knockoffs and (I can only assume) charge the same price. Great!

Our casserole dish was a gift from Henry's mom. It has served us with honor in many culinary battles.

Michael, being from that cultural wasteland we call “The Midwest,” has long conspired to fill his arteries with as much cholesterol as possible, mainly by filling our refrigerator with as much grated cheese as possible. Every grocery trip, another bag of cheddar, monterey jack, or “mexican cheese” sneaks itself into our cart. Shocked and skeptical faces are met with ominous warnings: “Are you sure we’re not out of cheese? What if I want nachos, &c.? Why are you so mean to Michael?” So when our landlady finally replaced our old (and hilariously malfunctioning) oven, there was a whole shelf in our refrigerator devoted entirely to cheese. Please don’t laugh, I’m really not joking.

Four-cheese sauce, in all its glory.

 
Easy n’ cheesy chicken and broccoli casserole

• 2 1/2 cups dry short pasta (we had rainbow rotini)
• 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed
• salt and thyme
• olive oil
• 2 medium heads of broccoli, florets ONLY. screw the stalks.
• 1 cup leftover cheese sauce (algorithm follows)
• 1/2 cup shredded cheese (we had monterey jack)
• 2/3 cup milk

Before popping it into the oven, enlarged to show texture.

 
Sprinkle salt and a generous amount of thyme on chicken and brown the outside in olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. It does not need to cook through.

Heat cheese sauce until melted, toss with broccoli in a bowl, then toss that with the pasta in a casserole dish. Toss chicken with monterey jack cheese, then fold that into the casserole dish. Pour milk over top, and bake the casserole, covered, for 35 minutes. Eat and be merry.

Eat me, you sexy fool.

 
Cheese sauce algorithm
You will need 1 stick of butter (theoretically you can substitute olive oil, though I’ve never tried this), an equal amount of flour, milk (preferably warm), salt and spices (black pepper, cayenne, and nutmeg are what I usually use for mac n’ cheese), and as much shredded cheese as you can possibly imagine.

Melt the butter on medium in a saucepan, and add the flour in small portions, mixing between additions until thick. This is what is called a roux. Now add milk in small portions, mixing between additions until smooth; thickening will occur, this is what you want. When all the milk is added, you have bechamel (French for “generic white sauce”). Add salt and spices to taste, and then add cheese in handfuls, constantly stirring until the cheese has melted through. When the desired consistency/taste have been achieved, remove from heat and pour the liquid happiness over things you would like to eat.