Some good insulation..

It is a long story and so, here we go:

I was at home yesterday watching the house while we had some workers work on it.  Our house is about 5 and 1/2 years old, but that didn't stop the bad construction job from being noticed.  A large list of problems and issues has befallen every home owner in our subdivision and while C.A. Jones doesn't seem to care or worry, we get foot with the bill.  So, our house was made with hardly any insulation in the attic so while we had the house set to 70 degrees, if it was 100 degrees outside, like it has been recently, the house would be as much as 83 degrees inside when we get home from work, around 6:30pm.  It also is worth mentioning that we have two extra AC portable units running 24hours a day to keep that temperature at that golden 80 something.  After having loads of advice and suggestions, even a horrible suggestion from Dr. Energy Saver who suggested a plan costing no less than $5,300, we took care of the whole mistake for a measly $1,500. 

So, I am at home thinking of creative brownie flavors while the construction workers we hired fixed all of our attic, insulation and heating/cooling issues for that lower amount, when I think of some great ideas.  I make the first one: sweet potato brownies.  I am told that it tastes like a sweet potato pie, which is a great idea for a brownie. 

The second flavor I came up with is sage.  I used a handful of fresh sage, chopped it up, and threw it into the batter.  The resulting brownie was a very herby flavor that was a strong sage flavor.  (Although it was suggested to me to make it a chocolate brownie with sage inside.)  Both brownies were important as the construction workers thought both of them were cool.  Which makes me think that the reason why they did such a good job on our house was the fact that I had offered them freshly cooked, albeit strange flavored, brownies.

A battle with the Devil...

Just earlier this week, a friend of mine had met the Devil and it had placed upon my friend the most ultimate sin: he didn't like bacon anymore.  What fool what sorcery is that in which a human could be stripped of that God-given love of the most heavenly of all foods: bacon?  How can one lose the taste for bacon?  Bacon is what makes the world go round and probably 4 our of 5 people would rather take a freshly and perfectly cooked pound of bacon over $100.  So, how did it happen?

My friend picked these up before a trip and had one.  They are the worst tasting things and if they were meant to taste like bacon, then they were likely designed by PETA to prevent people from eating more pork products.  They took one of the defining flavors of bacon: the smokiness, and made a candy out of it.  I tried one and spit it out.  It tasted like I put a BBQ charcoal in my mouth.  I tasted pure smoke and char and nothing that would even remotely strike me to swallow the bean.

My friend was put off and didn't want anything to do with bacon so I pulled out my secret recipe: bacon brownies.  What was that?  Wait, you mean regular chocolate brownies with bacon?  No, I mean bacon brownies.  I did these before and are easily accomplished with just a tad bit of molecular gastronomy.

So, you cook the bacon and render the fat out, then add the fat with some things and make some brownies.  They lightly taste like bacon and sugar and vanilla and are perfect. 

The result: my friend said that the brownies may have turned him good again, in that he would soon be able to eat a couple of them, had he not eaten any of those beans.  Likely though, I think he said over time, he could enjoy bacon more, if it tasted nothing like the candy and more sweet.  I did my good deed for the week.

An ode to Mr. Bourdain...

Many chefs, like Mr. Anthony Bourdain have said that everything tastes better with bacon, and he is correct in that statement.  While thinking upon an idea like that, new ideas fill my head.  Through the theories of molecular gastronomy, one is able to change and alter the texture of our already beloved food items.  In this case, what I did was alter the texture of one of my favorite food items and then do something new with it.

All over the Internet, bacon lovers race to get their recipe of bacon brownies out first, to be the one who invented the bacon brownie, before all else.  The problem is that many of these people make regular chocolate brownies and then add bacon to them.  In that case, it is not a bacon brownie, but a bacon/chocolate brownies.  I wanted to do something different and make pure bacon brownies.

Using about a cup of maltidextrin, I was able to powder some bacon grease and then add it in the brownies batter instead of the cocoa powder and the vanilla extract.  What came out, when finished, were sweet sugary brownies that had an aftertaste of bacon.  Even though I had little pieces of bacon crumbled and mixed in, the sugar still took over with the absence of a strong sour flavor and made the whole thing sweet.

What was pulled out of the oven, was this.  It was a perfectly cooked and textured brownie, but with a hint of bacon within its sugary cell.  People loved it as it tasted like bacon while others just stared at it while eating and muttering the word "interesting".

Mr. Bourdain, wherever you are, or whoever wants to try this for yourself, let me know.