The Bitten Word

Chocolate Stout Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting

Happybirthdaytoyou.

Happybirthdaytoyou.

HappybirthdaydearZach.

Happybirthdaytoyou!

It's Zach's birthday this week and on Friday evening we threw a party for friends at our apartment. It was a fun evening, spent in the backyard (at least, when it wasn't raining). 

Here's a look at the food we made for the party, along with what may now be our all-time favorite cake.  If you're thinking of holding a gathering this fall, hopefully you'll find some inspiration here.

Roasted Chicken with Sauce Fines Herbes

Recipe from Ratio by Michael Ruhlman

We're on a never-ending search for the perfect roast chicken recipe. Actually, that's not exactly accurate. In truth, we're on a never-ending search for a recipe that beats the Barefoot Contessa's Lemon and Garlic Roast Chicken.

We've written about this quest a couple times already, but so far nothing has been able to top Contessa's recipe for its ease, simplicity and delicious flavors. But we're always game to try!

As we mentioned last week, we just finished reading Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking by Michael Ruhlman.  In his chapter about stocks, which includes ratios for thickening stocks with starch, Ruhlman introduced us to beurre manié, or butter into which flour has been kneaded.

Beurre manié can be used to thicken any sauce into which you would place butter.  As Ruhlman says, that's pretty much every sauce.  As an example of how to use this ratio, he gives a recipe for roasted chicken with sauce fines herbes.

Could the Ratio chicken beat our beloved Contessa? 

Pickled Watermelon Rind

As we've mentioned many times before, we both grew up in the South, and we're familiar with just about all the Southern staples you can think of.

But there's one Dixie delicacy we'd never tried: pickled watermelon rind.

After we cut up a melon for our Tequila-Soaked Watermelon Wedges, we hated to throw the rind away. So we decided it would be the perfect chance to try our hand at pickling it.

Juicy Buttermilk Pork Chops with Turnip Greens and Herbed Grit Cakes

Food & Wine (July 2009)

In searching for the right main course for Clay's backyard birthday dinner, we knew we wanted to cook something on the grill and to keep it relatively simple.

After a Chilled Pea and Buttermilk Soup and a trio of small summer salads, Juicy Buttermilk Pork Chops seemed destined for our menu.

Freezer Jam

As regular readers of The Bitten Word know well, we're both from the South. We  grew up with mothers or grandmothers who would "put up" (as in, preserve) all kinds of food in the grand Southern tradition, from beans and squash and tomatoes to all manner of fruit preserves and jellies.

But it took a trip to Maine before we had freezer jam.

It was the summer of 2007, and the two of us took a little trip to Maine to visit our friends Dan and Wendy, a terrific couple that Clay had known from college. We flew into Boston, rented a car, and leisurely made our way up the New England coast, stopping frequently for all kinds of culinary treats -- lobster rolls, Whoopee pies, Moxie cola.

Dan and Wendy's house, outside the adorable town of Belfast, is a picturesque place -- long and low, covered in white clapboard, with a large barn just off the house.  The broad green lawn behind the house stretches down to a small, cold swimming pond before getting lost in a tangle of Maine woods. 

Our first morning there, we sat on Dan and Wendy's back deck, drinking coffee and basking in the warm morning sun. Wendy brought out a lovely, simple breakfast: English muffins and a jar of bright red strawberry freezer jam.

The idyllic setting already felt like a dream. The jam made it feel like Heaven.

Ultimate Mac and Cheese Guide

Quick!  Name three comfort foods! 

We bet you can't do it without mentioning macaroni and cheese. And for good reason. Gooey, creamy, hot, rich and satisfying, mac and cheese is the very definition of classic comfort food.

After our recent disappointing experience with Carrot Macaroni and Cheese, we were inundated by comments and emails from people sending us their absolute favorite mac and cheese recipes.

Because of all your terrific responses, we decided to publish all the recipes here as a sort of go-to guide for mac and cheese. Sorry in advance, but we haven't taken the time to cook and sample each of these recipes ourselves. Our appetites -- and waistlines -- couldn't handle it.

But we wanted to share our readers' favorite recipes. So just think of this as a roadmap for gooey, cheesy deliciousness.

Tres Cocoas Leches Cake

Like other pioneers before her, our friend Sue had a dream.

In this dream, there was delicious Tres Leches cake, moist and rich. 

But unlike a traditional Tres Leches, there was an ingredient that made made the cake even better.

That ingredient?  Chocolate.

¡Hola, Tres Cocoas Leches!

Ultimate Super Bowl Meatfest Menu: Buffalo Chicken Dip, Simple Ribs & Cheater BBQ Pork

This may not come as a total surprise, but we're not exactly sporty.  But just because we can't tell you who's in this year's Super Bowl, doesn't mean we don't have some great ideas for food this Super Bowl Sunday.

KICK OFF: BUFFALO CHICKEN DIP

In case you haven't heard, there's a chicken wing shortage right now. 

Even if you can get your hands on some wings, we suggest you skip them and kick off your Super Bowl festivities with some Buffalo Chicken Dip.  We've raved about this dip before.  It's different, easy to make, and a sure-fire crowd pleaser. 

Just check out our friend the last time we served this dip. By the end of the party, she was eating the stuff by the forkful:

Get the recipe for Buffalo Chicken Dip here.

More recipes after the jump!

Braised Hoisin Beer Short Ribs with Rosemary White-Bean Purée

Dave Lieberman (Food Network) | Gourmet (October 2008)

Let's kick off the new year with one of our absolute favorite dishes:  braised short ribs.

Truman Capote wrote of the start of winter, "It's fruitcake weather."

But not in this house. For us, cold weather means short ribs weather. 

And we've resolved to eat more of them in 2009.

Thanksgiving Recap | Triple Chocolate Pumpkin Pie and Ritz Mock Apple Pie

We've done the starters, the main event, and the sides. Time for dessert!

Triple-Chocolate Pumpkin Pie (Martha Stewart Living November 2008)

Zach's sister Cassidy was in charge of desserts for our Thanksgiving dinner. We didn't give her any direction other than "BRING US PIE!" Turns out, she knocked it out of the park!

We had initially planned on making an additional dessert -- a spiced cranberry bread pudding. But when Cassidy showed up with these two decadent pies, we tossed our plans our the window.

We had actually considered making this Triple Chocolate Pumpkin Pie ourselves after seeing it in the November issue of Martha Stewart Living. But Zach was a little unsure about the combination of chocolate and pumpkin -- might it be too weird?

Suffice it to say, we've all seen the light. This pie is a smooth, creamy treat. And the chocolate and flavors actually play off each other extremely well. The pumpkin taste doesn't compete, really. It just adds an amazing depth to the chocolate flavor -- almost an earthy, husky, semisweet taste that balances the chocolate and keeps it from being too sweet.

Ritz Mock Apple Pie (from the Kraft website via Pete Bakes)

The other pie that Cassidy brought also happened to be one we'd been curious to try. Earlier this year, our fellow DC food blogger Pete Bakes did a blind taste test of his mom's apple pie recipe vs. a "mock" apple pie that doesn't actually contain any apples. (Pete's blog is great, by the way, although we feel like we gain weight just by reading about all his delicious baked goods.)

Anyway, when Pete failed his own taste test and picked the mock pie as the real deal, our curiosity was piqued: How in the world could this recipe transform Ritz crackers, butter, lemon and cinnamon into a convincing apple pie?

Well, we still don't know how, but we can tell you it's true.  This dish tastes exactly like a classic apple pie. Eating it is like experimenting with culinary illusion -- you know it shouldn't taste anything like apples, and yet it does. It's almost disconcerting.

Truth be told, in the future we'd probably rather just make a pie with actual apples (this mock pie may have the taste down, but there's something to be said for the texture of a traditional apple pie).

But if you're in a pinch for time, this recipe could be Heaven-sent -- you can crush a stack of Ritz crackers a heckuva lot faster than you can peel, core and chop a half-dozen apples.

Keep reading for the recipes for these pies.