Cereal Milk Panna Cotta

You may have read last week that Boyfriend and I spent Valentine's Day at a baking class in Brooklyn.  Not just any baking class, we spent two hours with the baking team at Momofuku Milk bar, learning the secrets of Crack pie and cereal milk from Christina Tosi.

A few weeks ago, BF sent me a link to the baking class.  How he found it, I have no idea.  He thinks it may have been on Twitter, not sure.  Even though BF isn't really a baker, or even likes to be in the kitchen, he agreed to come with me and bake.  I signed us up and we all of a sudden had Valentine's day plans!  (I later tried to sign up for a second class only to find that they had all sold out!)

If you haven't been to Momofuku Milk bar before, you should put it on your places to visit on your next trip to New York City.  Christina Tosi is the owner/head baker and evil baking genius at Milk bar.  The treats you will find on the menu are creative, mind-boggling and delicious.  Cereal milk ice cream, cornflake marshmallow cookies, kimchi & blue cheese croissants.  Everything I've had there is crazy delicious.

BF and I arrived in Brooklyn Thursday night, ready to bake!  Well, I was ready to bake, BF was ready to help me.  Just outside the door to the Milk bar storefront in Williamsburg was a huge sign, welcoming us to the "Bake the Book Series."  We were ushered inside of the commissary - the Milk bars main baking facility.  The walls are lined with ingredients that you might not traditionally find in a bakery - cases of Ovaltine and tons of cereal.  As well as the usual stuff - giant stand mixers, a wall of ovens and bakers decked out in their kitchen whites.

Our Valentine's day class was the inaugural Momofuku class and the Milk bar team was so welcoming and excited to have us in their kitchen.  I was so excited to hear that we were the first group to be joining the team at the mixers.  Christina Tosi hollered over the crowd, climbed onto a wheeled cart piled high with baking sheets, and gave us a brief history of Milk bar.  The entire baking staff was on hand to help us in the kitchen and answer any questions we had.  They were amazing.

The class was thirty students, fifteen Beville stand mixers and lots of sugar, butter, milk and cereal.  We started out with making the Milk bar classic - Crack pie.  It's super sweet, dense pie, with a mild cereal flavor.  The recipe is in the cookbook, but the secrets are straight from the bakers.  I'll re-run this recipe in a few weeks (after BF and I finish these two pies that we still have!) and see if I remember all the little tips.  The take home tip for making crack pie - don't overmix the filling!

While our pies were baking, we made our second recipe of the night - Cereal milk.  It's a Milk bar classic and it's so crazy simple tasty.  Soak corn flakes in milk for twenty minutes.  Strain off the corn flakes then season with brown sugar and salt.  It's the "milk at the bottom of the cereal bowl."  We bottled it up and tasted a few cereal milk products, including their amazing cereal milk soft serve with corn flake crunch.  The other thing we tried out was a panna cotta made with the milk and that's what I made with my cereal milk at home!

The class finished off with a totally informal question and answer session with the whole Milk bar team.  They were an amazing bunch of people who really seemed to take pride and joy in their work.  I packed up our Crack pies and cereal milk in a carrier bag, picked up a few items before we left (glucose, dehydrated corn powder & a cookie making kit) and got my Milk Bar cookbook signed by the pastry queen herself.  It was a great Valentine's day (topped off with a stop at Crif dogs for some hot dogs) spent with my favorite guy, doing something that I love.

Thanks Milk Bar!  I can't wait to come back!

Wilde Week #4

1. Has anyone seen this necklace on sale anywhere??? It's adorable and I totally want the solar system around my neck.

2. Apparently I've been such a good Verizon fios customer that I get free HBO for three months. Now I can see what the bit deal is with Girls, Game of Thrones and whatever else is on HBO these days. Don't be concerned if you don't hear from me for a while, I'll be in front of my DVR.

3. If you missed watching the Bachelor this week, here is the best recap I've ever read.  Sums the show up perfectly.

4. I have spent nearly the entire week at work trying to separate to identical seeming chemical compound.  Along the way I have had to explain the difference between enantiomers, diastereomers and cis and trans isomers.  I've also had to remember how to decipher proton NMR spectra of six membered rings and spent hours looking at things like this...

My brain is really enjoying this weekend.

5. I'm totally enjoying the Restaurant Wars challenge this year, because it means BF and I have a scheduled dinner date every other week.  We don't even have to think about where to go!  Though I don't know if I can call our trip to Chipotle a date.  It was delicious at least!

6. Can you say Taxicab colored nails?  It's called "Need Sunglasses" which seems appropriate, they're really bright.

7. I have a newly found obsession with cheap jewelry.  (See #1 above)  Keep me away from Baublebar and Charming Charlies or I'll spend my all my money on sparkly plastic necklaces.  My eyes glaze over and I get all crazed and I run around the store filling my basket with every color of the rainbow. 

 

8. And finally, this weeks book - Born to Run by Christopher McDougall.  I'm not really a runner, but this book has been totally fascinating.  Did you know there are races out there that are over 100 miles long?  These ultramarathons truely test the participants endurance as they race through the day and night to just get to the finish line.  This book also touts barefoot running as a valid method for changing the way you run and solving certain health issues.  While I don't want to go out an run 50 miles anytime soon, this book has made me want to lace up my shoes and hit the hills!

Restaurant Wars - Chipotle

I first stepped foot into a Chipotle restaurant over ten years ago in the city of Madison, Wisconsin. I was a first year grad student and had enough of my friend Bhavesh tell me how many burritos he'd eaten that week. I had to try it out for myself. There was only one problem, I'd never had a burrito quite like this before.

In Western New York we grew up eating Mighty taco. There were few other options when it came to quick tacos. Their menu consisted of soft and hard tacos, filled with beef, cheese, sour cream and "Mighty sauce." Whatever that was.

During my college years, at UB in WNY, a burrito place opened up boasting burritos the size of your head. Being of the female persuasion, that didn't really appeal to me. My guy friends were happy to go there and eat six pounds of runny beans, poorly cooked meat and scorched cheese but I begged off and stayed home those nights.

With grad school came a broadening of my palate and the introduction of healthy burrito options. Bhavesh dragged us all to Chipotle, where he really did eat five burritos a week, and introduced us to what would become a weekly treat. Sometimes twice weekly when we had late exams and only time for one meal.

Chipotle has really spread across the country since my first visit back in 2003. Even Amherst, NY now boasts a location and they're always the last to get anything good! I have gone from solely eating soft tacos, to only getting the spiciest fajita burrito. After the advent of the online calorie counter my order swiftly switched to the chicken salad and these days I'll go back and forth between a salad and a bowl. I'm sure your own ordering process has changed through the years too.

I was more than happy to have Chipotle as the first restaurant on my war list. bf and I go there a few times a month and my coworkers regularly visit for lunch. I could definitely go for a burrito bowl or salad without the long drive! I decided to try and recreate my two go-to dishes for this challenge. Here's the verdict.

First, it took forever to prepare everything that I needed to make these two dishes. I made three salsas, salad dressing, chicken marinade. I prepped and chopped lettuce, tomatoes, untold numbers of jalapeño pepper and squeezed more limes than I can count. I actually ran out of limes and had to go back to the store for more. I really could have used a staff to help me prep everything. I planned on making this meal for dinner Monday, so I spent two hours on sunday afternoon doing all the prep work.

Next, dinner came together really quickly Monday night, though I nearly drove us out of our apartment. The marinade for the chicken smelled wonderful, but when the chicken came in contact with the grill pan - it was like I set off a pepper bomb. BF and I were both coughing because of the spiciness in air. Maybe grill your chicken outside, or you'll this the police have sent the seat team to your house.

Lastly, adobo seasoning is not the same as adobo sauce. I looked everywhere for a jar of adobo seasoning. I knew it existed because my grocery list app had it programmed into its memory. However, after six different grocery stores I had to give up. Maybe I need to locate a well stocked Hispanic grocery in my area? I wound up buying a jar or chipotle peppers in adobo sauce and fishing out he sauce I needed.

You can totally cheat on the prep work and buy your favorite mild salsa or salsa verde. I even shredded my own cheese mixture, which you could skip and buy a pre-shredded Mexican-style cheese blend. For the Chipotle flavor though, you can't skip marinating your chicken, making your own fresh corn salsa, tossing your rice with lime juice and blending up a batch of their salad dressing. At least make the salad dressing, after a bit of tweaking of some other recipes I found - it's almost like being there.

One year ago: Chocolate-Peppermint Marshmallows
Two years ago: Homemade Butterfinger Bars

Chipotle recipes - These have all been adapted from so many different "Copy-cat" recipes online. I changed them all a little to try and get as close as possible to the real thing. Be sure to go out and get yourself a bottle of green Tabasco sauce too, because it isn't complete without a dash of heat!

Salsa verde

4 tomatillos, husks removed
1 small white onion, peeled and quartered
3 cloves garlic
2 Cubanelle peppers
2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
1/4 cup fresh cilantro
Juice from 1/2 lime

Turn on your oven broiler.  Place tomatillos, onion quarters, garlic cloves and peppers 4-5 inches below the broiler.  Broil for 5 minutes, turn the vegetable over and broil for another 5 minutes.  Remove from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes.

Peel the charred skin from the peppers, chop in half and remove the seeds.  Combine all of the ingredients except the salt in a food processor or blender.  Pulse to combine, leave the salsa a little chunky.  Give the salsa a taste, season with salt if you desire.  Transfer to an air-tight jar and keep in the fridge.


Mild tomato salsa

4 Roma tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1/4 red onion, chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
Juice from 1/2 lime

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and toss to combine.  Transfer to an air-tight jar and store in the fridge.
Cheese blend

8 ounces Monterey Jack cheese
8 ounces Mild white cheddar cheese
Place cheese blocks in the freezer for 10-20 minutes.  This will make it easier to shred.  Shred and combine both cheeses.  So simple!

Chipotle brown rice

1 cup brown rice
2 cups water
Juice from 1 lime
Juice for 1/2 lime
1/3 cup fresh cilantro, chopped

Pour 1 cup brown rice into 2 cups water.  Bring to a boil then lower heat to low.  Let simmer for 40 minutes.  Once the rice is tender and the water is absorbed, add citrus juice and cilantro.  Toss to combine.
Fresh Corn salsa

2 cups corn kernals (fresh or frozen)
1 jalapeno pepper, diced small
1/4 red onion, chopped
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
Juice from 1/2 lime

Combine all ingredients and transfer to an air-tight container.  Store in the fridge for 1-2 hours before serving.

Chipotle Chicken marinade

1 ounce dried ancho chilies
3 ounces chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 teaspoons cumin powder
2 tablespoons fresh oregano, chopped
6 cloves garlic
2 teaspoons salt
1 red onion, quartered
1/4 cup oil (canola/vegetable/olive)
4 chicken breasts

Add boiling water to dried ancho chilies and let hydrate for 2 hours or up to overnight.

Combine all ingredients in food processor or blender and transfer to a large bowl.  Poke chicken breasts with a fork and pierce all over.  Add chicken to the marinade and toss to coat.  Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let sit in the fridge overnight.

When ready to cook.  Remove chicken from the marinade and shake off excess bits of pepper.  Grill in a well-ventilated area!

Honey-Chipotle salad dressing

1/2 cup red wine vinegar

1/3 cup honey

1 tablespoon adobo sauce

1 tablespoon Kosher salt

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 tablespoon fresh oregano

1 1/2 cups extra virgin olive oil

Combine first six ingredients in a blender.  Pulse to combine.  With blender running, slowly stream in olive oil.  Serve over any salad for a tangy and sweet take on your usual salad.

Yum, delicious.