Recipes

Buerre Monté

i am about to bestow upon you the secret butter technique. i am sorry, but it is french. i am sorry again, this only works with cow butter. i am certain plant based butters wouldn't work, and alternative animal butters may or may not work

has this ever been you: you have a nicely steamed vegetable, or maybe you want to make the best butter noodles, but you know that if you put butter on those it'll just melt and you end with kind of greasy noodles or vegetables? don't you wish it was instead a luscious buttery glaze?

introducing: beurre monté

you will take a small sauce pan, and begin heating it with 1-2 tablespoons of water (use very little water) and bring it to a hard simmer or boil

turn the heat down slightly, and add Butter. how much? however much you dare. (start with 3-4 tablespoons and go from there)

you are going to either whisk Aggressively or you can pick up the saucepan, still holding it over the heat, and swirl aggressively so the butter is skating around the sides of the pan

done correctly, you will have liquid butter that is still emulsified. you have made Butter Sauce. season it with a little salt, and toss whatever you want in it.

if you're butter splits, i'm sorry. you didn't agitate it enough to maintain the emulsion, and now you have melted butter.

you can use this knowledge to make other sauces by swapping out the water for another liquid. white wine becomes beurre blanc. red wine is beurre rogue.

you want to CUM? sweat minced shallot in a tiny bit of butter, add white wine and cook it out until it's reduced by about half. then whisk butter in hard. a few flecks of minced thyme or fennel frond stirred thru, and you eat that with a nice seared fish? or scallop? or even shrimp? wow. you will Nut.

your boxed mac and cheese game can also be elevated by cooking your pasta and making a beurre monté first, tossing your pasta in that and adding the cheese packet. wow. hey; you'll cum

go forth now with this butter secret

By tumblr user the-jellicle-duelist

Garlic and Rosemary Chicken

My personal basic garlic and rosemary chicken or tofu marinade for two or three blocks of sliced firm tofu or eight boneless chicken thighs or the rough equivalent is:

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 2-3 tsp kosher/flaky salt
• 4-5 minced cloves of garlic
• 2 tsp chopped fresh rosemary leaves
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/2 tsp black pepper

I usually shake it in a container to combine and put the chicken or tofu in a ziplock bag with the marinade for 3-4 hours before cooking it. Adjust for the amounts you're cooking and your own personal taste obviously.

Also if I'm low on garlic I'll use like two cloves of garlic and half a teaspoon or more of garlic powder. Dried rosemary also tastes good in this but it doesn't taste the same as the fresh stuff.

By tumblr user what-even-is-thiss

Hidden Muffin Recipe from a 1995 Dungeon Crawler

This originates from Stonekeep for Windows and MS-DOS, lovingly added by Tim Cain. They're the Shadowking's favorites!

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup flour
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp cloves
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup pumpkin (half of a 16 oz. can)
• 1/2 cup butter (1 stick), melted

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F or use baking cups.
2. Grease muffin tins (one dozen regular-sized).
3. Mix flour, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.
4. Break eggs into another bowl.
5. Add pumpkin and melted butter to the eggs and whisk until blended.
6. Stir in chocolate chips.
7. Pour wet ingredients over dry ingredients and stir until just blended. Do NOT overstir!
8. Scoop batter into tins and bake 20–25 minutes.
9. After cooling, keep muffins wrapped in plastic to prevent drying.

Lavender Tea Bread

Ingredients

Lavender Cake

• ¾ cup milk
• 3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh lavender
• 6 tablespoons butter, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt

Lavender Glaze

• ½ cup milk
• 1 tablespoon dried lavender buds
• 1 cup confectioner's sugar

Preparation

Cake

Preheat the oven to 325°F (165°C). Grease and flour a 9x5 inch loaf pan.

Combine the milk and lavender in a small saucepan over medium heat. Heat to a simmer, then remove from heat, and allow to cool slightly.

In a medium bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in the egg until the mixture is light and fluffy. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt; stir into the creamed mixture alternately with the milk and lavender until just blended. Pour into the prepared pan. Bake for 50 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a wooden pick inserted into the crown of the loaf comes out clean. Cool in the pan on a wire rack.

Lavender Glaze

Place the milk in a saucepan over medium heat. When it starts to boil, take the pan off the heat and add the dried lavender buds. Let the mixture steep for 5–8 minutes, then strain the milk. Whisk it into the sugar, a tablespoon at a time, until you get a smooth and opaque glaze. Pour or spoon over the cooled loaf.

Norwegian Christmas Butter Squares

A few years ago, when I was living in the housing co-op and looking for a quick cookie recipe, I came across a blog post for something called "Norwegian Christmas butter squares." I'd never found anything like it before: it created rich, buttery and chewy cookies, like a vastly superior version of the holiday sugar cookies I'd eaten growing up. About a year ago I went looking for the recipe again, and failed to find it. The blog had been taken down, and it sent me into momentary panic.

Luckily, I remembered enough to find it on the Wayback Machine, and quickly copied it into a file that I've saved ever since. I probably make these cookies about once a month, and they last about five days around my voracious husband - they're fantastic with a cup of bitter coffee or tea. I'm skeptical that there is something distinctively Norwegian about these cookies, but they do seem like the perfect thing to eat on a cold day.

• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 egg
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp vanilla
• ½ tsp salt
• Turbinado/ Raw Sugar for dusting
• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Chill a 9x13" baking pan in the freezer.
• Do not grease the pan.

Using a mixer, blend the butter, egg, sugar, and salt together until it is creamy. Add the flour and vanilla and mix using your hands until the mixture holds together in large clumps. If it seems overly soft, add a little extra flour.

Using your hands, press the dough out onto the chilled and ungreased baking sheet until it is even and ¼ inch thick. Dust the top of the cookies evenly with raw sugar. Bake at 400 degrees until the edges turn a golden brown, about 12-15 minutes. Remove from the oven. Let cool for about five minutes before cutting the cooked dough into squares. Remove the squares from the warm pan using a spatula.

It basically makes the platonic ideal of commercial sugar cookies, only in bar form. When I give them to people (which i do a lot, because this is one of those simple recipes where the results seem very impressive), I just tell them they're sugar cookie bars.

By locusimperium

Scientifically Proven Perfect Extremely Easy Grilled Cheese

Ingredients — Seasonings

• Butter — usually 2 or 3 tablespoons per sandwich
• Garlic cloves — usually 3
• A source of heat, like red pepper flakes or szechuan peppers
• A source of spice OR sweetness, such as dijon mustard or honey — slather that motherfucker on a slice of your bread
• A source of herbiness, such as oregano, thyme, sage, rosemary, etc. in any combination or on its own. If someone tries to tell you that you need it fresh, they're fucking lying — the $2 crushed powdered sage is fucking great. Experiment with other spices such as ground turmeric if you're spicy.

Ingredients — The Metaphorical Meat of the Sandwich

• Two slices of bread per sandwich. This is actually a massive influence on your sandwich's taste and texture as a whole. A basic white or wheat will still be fucking delicious. However, if you CAN — getting bread like brioche, texas toast, brown bread, rye, or sourdough will easily elevate your sandwich to "pay $23 at a fancy restaurant" level.
• One to three types of cheese per sandwich. You can get away with one type but really try for two or three if you can swing it.

What matters isn't the SPECIES of cheese, it's the TYPE of cheese. Getting the deli at your local Safeway or Walmart or whatever and asking for the cheese they gotta cut (or just the fancier, better-quality cheeses in general) is literally the only major requirement that I ask of you. If you are on SNAP/EBT programs, me too, and I promise you: please do this. Please trust me when I say do not get the cheap Kraft-type cheese because it's less money.

I know it's a bit extra but it's only a bit to get like ¼ or ⅓lb — and you have no idea how much I'm actually getting a little emotional about this, because the "rice with butter and beans or top ramen every single day" life is soulsucking and sickening and it is genuinely one of the greatest sources of suffering to human beings I can imagine, I'm serious. Following this formula will genuinely change your life/mental health just a bit, because you know that you have one meal that is super delicious, super filling, pretty damn cheap, and super easy to make on days where the idea of doing more than 15 minutes MAX is gonna make you wanna die.

Super sorry for that paragraph btw — I just really cannot overstate how this is a lifechanger especially when you're poor/low spoons/depressed. Delicious food makes me not be as depressed. This is that.

Method

1. Take garlic cloves and crush them either with the meat of your palm, the flat of a knife, or literally anything that would crush them. Take bread slices and apply a source of spice or sweetness if you are using one. Take a pan and put it on the stove on low-medium heat (a 2 out of 10).
2. Place the butter in the pan, as well as the garlic cloves, the source of heat, and the source of herbiness. Congratulations — you have now literally done ALL the extra effort that you need to make a grilled cheese like this. That's it. No extra dishes. No fussing with amounts or chopping or whatever. That's it.
3. The butter will melt in the pan and soak up the delicious ingredients. Take each slice of bread and place it in the pan to butter it, OR just take one slice, place the cheese on it, and put the other bread on top. It's really just a matter of extra effort.
4. When the bread is in the pan, turn it up to medium heat (5 out of 10) and let it sit for a bit. When you can see the cheese start to get visibly melty — or when you vibecheck it — flip it once and do the same thing.
5. When you've grilled your cheese on both sides, take it out of the pan and put it on a plate (or just a paper towel to save on dish spoons — paper plates and plastic utensils are a fucking godsend if you hate dishes and/or can't do them very easily).

By tumblr user Flagellant, 2023