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Is there a less appetizingly named food than the ‘Hot Brown?’ Louisville, Kentucky’s culinary claim to fame doesn’t look like much either - an open-faced turkey sandwich topped with bacon and smothered in Sauce Mornay (Béchamel with cheese), it resembles nothing so much as a junkyard covered in a layer of dirty snow, bits of this and that sticking out from the off-colored drifts.
The inelegant Hot Brown was born at downtown Louisville’s thoroughly opulent Brown Hotel, supposedly whipped up from kitchen leftovers after a 1920s dinner dance, when hungry flappers fell upon the chef like a pack of wolves. If you’re looking for an easy treat for your pre-Derby lunch, check out the original recipe on the Brown Hotel website. Feel free to substitute ham for the bacon, or add tomatoes, onions, etc.
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Bourbon balls not your thing? Try a Derby Pie instead, a fudge-sweet chocolate and nut confection invented at Prospect, Kentucky’s Melrose Inn. Traditionally served around Derby time, the treat typically calls for walnuts or pecans and a splash of Kentucky bourbon. The Inn’s former owners, the Kerns, have been trying to protect its rights to the name “Derby Pie” by filing various lawsuits over the years - even Bon Appetit was no match for the Kerns, losing the right to print recipes using the name in 1987. So if you’re looking for a good recipe you may need to try searching “chocolate chess pie” or “Kentucky bourbon pie” or “Thoroughbred pie” instead.
Epicurious has a nice-looking one, for a “chocolate pecan chess pie.” I’m planning on making two a little later, to take to a Derby party this afternoon. Now, all I need is a giant hat…
Lisa, over at My Own Sweet Thyme, has a lovely post with a recipe about her aunt’s “brownie pie” - supposedly her aunt once worked for the Kerns and was afraid of being sued!

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I come from a long-line of Irish alcoholics. And although I myself hold my liquor like a ten-year-old, I have a special place in my heart for alcohol-flavored sweet things. Indeed, I have had a torrid love affair with the bourbon ball ever since my mom first let me try one during the holidays when I was a kid.

See, at my house, bourbon (or rum) balls were holiday fare. But I’m told they’re traditional at the Kentucky Derby as well. I’ve never been to Kentucky, and I know next to nothing about the event, which, I’m told, involves race horses and women in elaborate hats.

But in the spirit of this prestigious event, I offer you my family’s decidedly un-traditional recipe for bourbon balls.
One gallon-sized Ziploc bag
One cup chopped nuts
2 cups crushed Vanilla wafers (approx. 4 dozen)
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tsp. melted butter
1/2 cup bourbon (or rum if preferred)
2 tblsp. corn syrup (lite Karo)
2 tsp cocoa

Put all the ‘Nilla wafers into a gallon Ziploc bag and seal it well. Smash them to a fine crumble with a hammer and great satisfaction. Mix ingredients together and roll into little balls. Roll these through a dish of powdered sugar. Refrigerate for one hour or longer.

I suppose you could grind the Vanilla wafers in a food processor, but really, a hammer is more fun, especially if you’re nipping the bourbon as you go.

Too funky for you? You could try this recipe, which includes chocolate, from the Washington Post.

If you can’t find your hammer, or you’re just feeling a smidge more traditional, try and find some Rebecca Ruth bourbon balls. They’re hard to find outside of Kentucky, apparently, but in this age of the internets, you might have some luck.
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Most of us have had ice cream cakes, but have you have had ice cream cupcakes? If you haven’t had one yet, you probably will soon. Maggie Moos now sells them, as does Philly Swirl. However, they are really easy to make at home using any of your favorite cake and ice cream combinations.

On my blog, Cupcake Project, I’ve teamed up with Bethany and Tina from ice cream blog Scoopalicious to host an ice cream cupcake roundup in the month of May.

The idea is:

You make ice cream cupcakes. Check out Cupcake Project for a simple how to guide.
You tell us about it either on your blog or on email and include anything you learned along the way.
We compile all the entries in our roundup and you get to be a part of the ultimate guide for anyone wanting to make ice cream cupcakes!
I’ll post again here with some of the highlights and lessons learned when the entries are all in! We can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with!

To enter, visit Cupcake Project or Scoopalicious for the details. The deadline is May 30th.
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Most of the time, when I sit down in front of my shelf of cookbooks, I reach for smaller volumes that I can quickly page through in my search for the recipe that will satiate my hunger. However, on occasion, what I most want is a hefty cookbook, with lots of pictures and description that help me imagine just how good the food will taste when it’s on my plate.

Blue Eggs and Yellow Tomatoes by Jeanne Kelley, is one of those hefty, satisfying cookbooks (far more of a banquet than a snack) that you’ll want to keep out on the kitchen table, to flip through for inspiration and culinary motivation. Written with an eye towards seasonality (although what new cookbook doesn’t take local and seasonal foods into account these days), the recipes are written to best highlight foods that ripen and grow at the same times of year.

In addition to containing an abundance of tasty-looking recipes, this book also devotes several pages to instruction on how to start your own backyard garden. It is the perfect thing to get you excited for the spring and summer growing and cooking season.

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Piment d’Espelette grown in just a handful of villages in the Basque country of southern France, is as beloved in their region as paprika is in Hungary. The small red peppers can be used fresh, or hung up in bouquets to dry then ground into powder similar to hot paprika. First introduced to France by returning New World missionaries in the 1500s, the Espelette is now an essential feature of Basque cuisine. The village of Espelette holds a Celebration of Peppers each October, with Espelette-infused dishes, banners made from hundreds of red and green peppers, and street performers painted red to resemble the pepper itself.

Espelette goes especially well with seafood, mild cheeses, and hearty vegetable dishes. In Paris, I ate monkfish over white beans in an Espelette cream sauce. It was divine, silky and smoky with just a teeny-tiny kick. You could substitute hot paprika, but it wouldn’t be quite the same. You can find ground Espelette in some gourmet markets or online at Amazon.com. There’s a trove of Espelette recipes at Epicurien, which is in French but can be translated by Google to decidedly mixed results. I’m especially keen to try the sauteed shrimp with Espelette and Bayonne ham.
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I love Japanese food. And I love Monty Python. But the two can never blend.

So when one blogger sent a URL describing Spam onigiri, I naturally launched into Monty Python’s immortal “Spam Sketch” (Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam!….) while simultaneously dreaming about the taste of those glorious triangles of rice Japanese eat for lunch…until I stopped short.

Onigiri, in case you don’t already know, are balls of sushi rice shaped into triangles, often with a little fish or sour plum tucked inside. They’re home food - not something you’re likely to find in restaurants — A Japanese equivalent of the peanut butter & jelly sandwich. I got hooked as a Japanese exchange student back in high school, and my kids clamor for them today.

Spam, however. Not such positive association there. Canned meat products just don’t elicit the same mouth-watering memories, for some reason.

Which is not to say that Spam onigiri might not be tasty. I mean if I’m going to salivate at the thought of a fermented plum in the middle of my rice balls, why not a salty slab o’ Spam?

And apparently, Spam onigiri has its devoted followers. I’m told that Spam is popular in Hawaii. Among the Islanders or the huge Japanese population I’m not told, so it’s anyone’s guess where this unusual hybrid arose. But if it’s good enough for them, maybe I should give it a try. And maybe the kids will eat it. If they don’t see the can from whence the filling comes. Or the website.

What say you all? Should I expand my palate to include Spam onigiri?

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Are pretzels a “healthy” snack? Probably depends on what you mean by “healthy.” They’re certainly better than chips and they’re low-fat, but they’re also carb-heavy and have a lot of salt.

But if there’s one day you should go crazy and eat lots of pretzels, let it be this one. It’s National Pretzel Day! I like all kinds of pretzels. When I was a kid I loved the little pretzel sticks, and then when I got older I liked the pretzel rods (you can put them in your mouth like a cigar!). I like the twists too, and all the incredible flavored pretzels (mustard

Here’s a recipe for Soft Pretzels from Alton Brown, and here’s one for New York Pretzels, from Gourmet. If you like your pretzels sweet, here are recipes for Pretzel Turtles, from Rachael Ray, and one for Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Stuffed Pretzels from RecipeZaar.

Tags: alton brown, chocolate covered pretzels, national pretzel day, pretzel rods, pretzels, soft pretzels

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Are pretzels a “healthy” snack? Probably depends on what you mean by “healthy.” They’re certainly better than chips and they’re low-fat, but they’re also carb-heavy and have a lot of salt.

But if there’s one day you should go crazy and eat lots of pretzels, let it be this one. It’s National Pretzel Day! I like all kinds of pretzels. When I was a kid I loved the little pretzel sticks, and then when I got older I liked the pretzel rods (you can put them in your mouth like a cigar!). I like the twists too, and all the incredible flavored pretzels (mustard

Here’s a recipe for Soft Pretzels from Alton Brown, and here’s one for New York Pretzels, from Gourmet. If you like your pretzels sweet, here are recipes for Pretzel Turtles, from Rachael Ray, and one for Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Stuffed Pretzels from RecipeZaar.

Tags: alton brown, chocolate covered pretzels, national pretzel day, pretzel rods, pretzels, soft pretzels

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I’m not sure if these would be considered to be something you eat for breakfast or a snack. I’m going to go with both.

These Jam Sandwich Cookies come from Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food. You make them with Martha’s “Everyday Baking Mix” (I link to that recipe after the jump), and you can use this mix for other cookies and desserts as well. This recipe makes 18 Jam Sandwich Cookies, and they look rather large.

Jam Sandwich Cookies

4 cups Everyday Baking Mix (recipe here), spooned and leveled
1 cup (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/2 cup whole milk
3/4 cup seedless jam or jelly
Everyday Baking Mix

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. In a food processor, pulse baking mix and butter until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add milk; pulse until a dough forms.

Drop dough by heaping tablespoons onto sheets, 4 inches apart. (You will fit about 9 cookies to a sheet; bake in two batches to make a total of 36 cookies.) Bake until cookies begin to turn golden but center is still pale, 12 to 14 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Spread flat side of half the cookies with 2 teaspoons jam each; sandwich with remaining cookies.
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