culinary experiments and explorations

A while back I made me some chocolate mint brownies, which turned out reasonably well. However, after making them I still had quite a bit in the way of creme-du-menthe liqueur left over. Ever since, I've been looking for minty recipes to use it up on. I decided, what the heck, why not try cupcakes? And as it happens, they turned out pretty damn well!

( Vanilla Cupcaks with Minty-Green Cream Cheese Frosting )

Tasty cupcakes, with just enough mint flavoring to add some zing. Alternatively, substitute in 2 teaspoons Triple Sec (or other orange-flavored liqueur), 2 teaspoons grated orange zest, and 1/8 teaspoon each of red and yellow food coloring to swap it from minty-green to orange-flavored frosting.

Being home and not feeling too well, I returned to old habits and decided to make myself some comfort food. I paged through Emeril's Potluck until I came across something that looked tasty (and that I had most of the ingredients for), on page 55: ( Helen's Sausage-Stuffed French Bread. )

As mentioned above, I ended up with a bit of leftover sausage-cheese mixture. Not wanting to entirely spoil my appetite, I tried a little bit with a chip or two -- excellent all on its own! It's got quite a bit of heat to it, though; right now my lower lip and mouth have the vague feeling of sunburn that comes from spicy food which isn't necessarily temperature-hot. The loaves'll be out in about 45 minutes; I'll post my reactions and picture then.

Overall, quite tasty -- meaty, with plenty of molten-cheese goodness and plenty of spicy heat. The picture above really doesn't do it justice; I'd definitely make this again for a party or get-together.