Ingredients

• 4 — 10oz bottles of maraschino cherries
• 1 — 750 ml bottle of vanilla vodka²
• 24 oz chocolate chips

Directions

1. Drain all the juice from the jars of cherries.
2. Pour in the vodka over the cherries.
3. Allow cherries to soak overnight or up to a week³.
4. Drain the vodka.
5. Pat the cherries down with a paper towel to dry them completely.
6. Melt the chocolate chips over low heat in a medium sauce pan. Take care not to burn the chocolate.
7. Once the chocolate is fully melted, dip the cherries into the chocolate.
8. Swirl the cherries in the chocolate to get a good coating.
9. Place the covered cherries onto a wax-paper covered cookie sheet.
10. Refrigerate until the chocolate sets.
11. Share and enjoy!

¹ Portal rocks!
² We used Smirnoff’s Twisted Vanilla.
³ Our cherries soaked in the vodka for approximately 12 hours and had a nice zing to them when we ate them.

Chocolate Covered Cherries Plus! © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Indian-spiced Braised Chicken

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lbs of boneless, skinless chicken thighs (I use white meat)
• 1 medium onion, halved and thinly sliced
• 1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes drained
• 2 Tablespoons of tomato paste
• 1 Tablespoon grated ginger
• 2 minced garlic cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• course salt and ground pepper
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt (8 oz)
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 1/2 teaspoon garam masala (optional)
• cooked white rice for serving

Directions

1. In a 5– to 6-quart slow cooker, stir together chicken, onion, tomatoes, tomato paste, ginger, garlic, coriander and cayenne; season with salt and pepper.
2. Cook on high 4 hours (or on low 8 hours) until fork-tender.
3. Stir in yogurt, cilantro, and if using, garam masala.
4. Serve with rice.

Alternative Oven Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Follow step 1, using a 5-quart lidded heavy pot.
3. Stir in 2 cups of water.
4. Cover; bake until tender, about 2 hours.
5. Stir in yogurt, cilantro, and if using garam masala.

Notes

• Serves 4
• Prep time 15 minutes
• Total time is 4 hours and 15 minutes

This rated a 10 out of 10 with Mark. If you can’t take spiciness then lessen the cayene pepper. I will have more recipes appear at Ariesna at live journal. Since I plan on more experimenting with new recipes. :)

Indian-Spiced Braised Chicken © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Parmesan-Crusted Tilapia

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 teaspooons paprika
• 1 tablespoon chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 4 tilapia fillets (about 1 pound total)
• 1 lemon, cut into wedges
• Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling
• Salt
• Freshly ground pepper

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400º.
2. In a shallow dish, combine the cheese with the paprika and parsley and season with salt and pepper.
3. Drizzle the fish with olive oil and dredge in the cheese mixture.
4. Place on a foil-lined baking sheet and bake until the fish is opaque in the thickest part, 10 to 12 minutes.
5. Serve the fish with the lemon wedges.

© 2007 The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc.

¹ I’ve even installed plugins specifically to try correcting this, without much luck.

Recipe: Parmesan-Crusted Tilapia © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Chocolate Brunch Waffles

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup NESTLE® TOLL HOUSE® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
• 3/4 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• Toppings (whipped cream, chocolate shavings, sifted powdered sugar, fresh fruit, ice cream)

Directions

1. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in large bowl.
2. Microwave morsels and butter in medium, microwave-safe bowl on HIGH (100 percent) power for 1 minute; stir.
3. Microwave at additional 10– to 20-second intervals, stirring until smooth.
4. Cool to room temperature. Stir in milk, eggs and vanilla extract.
5. Add chocolate mixture to flour mixture; stir (batter will be thick).
6. Cook in Belgian waffle maker* according to manufacturer’s directions. Serve warm with your choice of toppings.

[Editor’s Note:] As a child one of my favorite things to have for breakfast was waffles. Unfortunately, we didn’t own a waffle iron so I almost never got to have them. Ariesna and I have had a waffle iron for a while now but our attempts at making waffles have been… less than entirely successful. We had been buying those box mixes at the store but the waffles made from them always sat like lead in our stomachs. Yesterday, we were talking about trying to make waffles again. Since I’ve had such good luck with AllRecipes.com; I went to their site to search for waffle recipes and found bunches of them. I copied several into an email and forwarded them to Ariesna. This morning she went through them and decided to make these Chocolate Brunch Waffles. They turned out scrumptious. Though I do have a couple of caveats about this recipe.

• Be very careful not to overcook them or they come out crunchy.
• The recipe makes a great many of the waffles. Come hungry or have something you can freeze them in.
• While very tasty, these waffles are still have something of a bread-like texture and aren’t as light/fluffy as the ideal waffle should be.

Chocolate Belgian Waffles © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Beef Peach Pie

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup chopped onion
• 1 cup soft bread crumbs
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 pinch pepper
• 1 (15 ounce) can sliced peaches, drained
• 1 tablespoon vinegar
• 1 tablespoon ketchup
• 1/4 cup brown sugar

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl, mix together the ground beef, egg, milk, onion, bread crumbs, salt and pepper. Press into a 9 inch pie pan like a crust.
3. Prick meat all over using a fork.
4. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven.
5. Remove from the oven, and pour off any excess fat.
6. Arrange the sliced peaches over the beef.
7. Mix together the vinegar, ketchup and brown sugar, and spoon over the top of the peaches.
8. Bake for an additional 20 minutes.
9. Let stand for at least 10 minutes before serving.

NOTE: This recipe is copyright 2006 Allrecipes.com and not CC licensed like all of my works on this site.

I think Ariesna mostly made this dish to humour me. She hates peaches. But from the moment she pulled it from the oven, I was sure we had a winner. The scents coming off the pie were mouthwatering. Then I got myself a plate, a fork and took a bite.

Oh. My. Gawd. It was GOOD! The brown sugar mixture carmelized over the meat creating a heavenly glaze. And the juices of the peaches soaked throughout the meat, every bite was delectable.

AWelkin, does this dish sound good to you? We’re thinking about making it again when you and Bryon come over on Friday.

Recipe: Beef Peach Pie © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

From Pukka:

• Jack Thompson whimps out and P.A. steps up to the plate.

Not from Pukka:

• Pumpkin Apple Bread
• Ubuntu No Sound Troubleshooting [Editor] I recently installed Ubuntu 5.10 on my ancient laptop and I plan to get KDE up & running on it. I’ve had problems before getting the sound to work with this laptop. So I’m making a note of this page as the Ubuntu forums link to it for help with sound issues.
• Backlink Checker [Editor] You can use this site to see who’s linking to you.
• Anti-game activist Jack Thompson under investigation
• Transparent aluminum [Editor] Makes you wonder if Scottie stopped by and gave ‘em a tip. :)
• Official Site for gDesklet Sensors & Displays [Editor] I recently wiped out my laptop and loaded the Ubuntu Breezy (5.10) on it. One of the things I added to it was gDesklets (KDE users should think SuperKaramba, Windows/Apple users should think Konfabulator).

Pukka’s Links of the Week © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Ingredients

• 1 Pound cake
• 3/4 c Strawberry jam
• 1 cn Pitted apricots (1 lb,14 oz) — drained and pureed
• 11 oz Mandarin oranges — drained
• 1/2 c Marsala or cream sherry
• 2 c Vanilla custard
• 1 c Heavy cream
• 1/4 c Superfine sugar

Directions

1. Split cake into thin layers, spread with jam and half the apricot puree, and sandwich back together.
2. Cut into bars, about 1-by-2-inches, and pack into a 2-quart serving dish, arranging oranges in and around cake.
3. Pour Marsala over top, spread with remaining apricot puree and cover with custard.
4. Cover and chill 2 hours.
5. Whip cream with sugar until stiff.
6. Frost on top of trifle and decorate with candied fruits, if desired.

This recipie should yield about 10 servings.

[Editor] This is a recipe Ariesna found online someplace and wants to try making sometime.

Fruit Trifle © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

• Things Hagrid the Half-Giant Would Say If He Served Jesus Instead of Harry Potter.
• Con as in Convention!
• Ding!
• Regarding New Orleans
• Badger Badger Badger
• Coffee So Strong.….…. [Editor] I don’t know seems like it’s kind of weak coffee to me if you actually have to drink it to wake up from the Matrix. With truly coffee, smelling the aroma of it should be enough to do that.
• Exploring Communities, Questions and Concerns of Lesbian Video Gamers

Not from Pukka

• Scone recipe: how to make/bake/cook fruit scones
• President Bush: Sell the Ranch
• Reader² [Editor] It’s kind of like del.ico.us or Flickr but for books.
• iTunes Tip: The “Perfect” equalizer setting [Editor] On the off chance that this blog is your sole source of news; Apple released a new version of iTunes this week. Along with the first iTunes enabled cellphone from Cingular/Motorola and more importantly, the iPod Mini replacement.… the iPod nano. Yum!
• Escape Key
• The Signal [Editor] This is a podcast by fans of the cult favorite TV show, Firefly. Firefly came out back in 2002, quickly gained a devote following but the dorks in charge of FOX killed it after showing only 11 of the 14 produced episodes had been made. The Singal’s goal is to pump up support for the movie follow-up to the tv show, Serenity. I just started listening to it this week and have nearly caught up to the current shows. Probably my favorite one so far is the one where they interview Gina Torres. Although the interviews are cool my favorite segements are the “learning chinese” bits; they lend a whole new insight into various scenes in the series. All the more I have to say about that is 易爆的大象腹泻 ¹.

Oh and in case you’re wondering about almost total lack of posts this week… We’re going into our next beta at work (much extra crudola to deal with). Additionally, I’ve been trying (and pretty much failing) to write an online, registration form for a local sci-fi con² that captures the data we need and accepts payments via PayPal. *sigh*

¹ Explosive elephant diarrhea (chinese translation obtained via Babelfish).
² ICON 30

Pukka’s Links of the Week © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup corn syrup
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 pkg. chocolate chips
• 1 cup sugar
• 6 cups Rice Krispies
• 1 pkg. butterscotch chips

Directions:

1. In large saucepan, cook corn syrup and sugar over medium heat, stirring frequently, until mixture begins to boil.
2. Remove from heat.
3. Stir in peanut butter.
4. Mix in cereal.
5. Press in buttered 9x13 pan.
6. Melt over hot (not boiling) water chocolate chips and butterscotch chips, stirring constantly until smooth.
7. Spread over cereal mixture.
8. Chill until firm, about 15 minutes.

Chocolate Butterscotch Scotcheroos © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Spinach and Egg Pancakes

Ingredients:
• 8 oz spinach
• 1 small leek
• a few sprigs of parsley
• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 cup flour
• oil for cooking
• 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
• salt, black pepper and nutmeg for taste
• 3 tbsp water

Directions:
1. Chop or finely shred the parsley, leek, and spinach. Add eggs and seasonings to the chopped vegetables. Blend in the flour, cheese, and add in the water. Leave to stand for about 20 minutes.
2. Cook pancake mix in a lightly oiled frying pan. Cook until golden brown underneath then flip and lightly cook on the other side.
3. When removing the pancakes and drain on kitchen towel and keep warm until finished with mixture.

Spinach and Egg Pancakes © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.