World's Best Ever (FIGHT ME) Deluxe Super Special Pasta Salad (with extra hyperbole!)

We're back from a long hiatus due to the world being a fundamentally nonstop torrent of shit. I won't go into it, but 2022 is shaping up to be one slobberknocker of a shitty year. Last weekend we decided we needed to distract ourselves and spent an entire Saturday in the kitchen. This culinary masterpiece is one of the many things we made. This is made from ingredients you're probably going to have around the house or at the very least, can get easily. The Spanish chorizo might be a small challenge. We have to order ours on Amazon as culinary tastes around here largely center on Natural Light or Horseshoes. That said, this is a Taste Delight and received rave reviews from The Wife. Naturally, the Spud stared in horror and refused to go anywhere near it. As always, notes are in blue.

 World's Best Ever (FIGHT ME)
Deluxe Super Special Pasta Salad

Ingredients

• 1 pound elbow macaroni
• 1 can garbanzo beans (15.5 ounces), drained and rinsed
• 1 can black olives (6 ounces), drained and sliced
• 1 can diced tomatoes (14.5 ounces), drained
• 1 jar marinated artichoke hearts (12 ounces) (DO NOT DRAIN)
• 1 Spanish chorizo (about 8 ounces), chopped
• 1 small red onion, chopped
• 4 ounces crumbled feta cheese

For the Dressing

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon hot sauce (we went with a carrot/habanero sauce)
• 1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Cook pasta to al dente. Or according to directions if you don't know what al dente is. Drain the pasta.
2. While the pasta is cooking, in a small bowl, whisk all the dressing ingredients until emulsified (the dressing, not you.)
3. In a HUGE bowl (not kidding here. This makes an alarming amount of pasta salad. You're going to have a hard time tossing it if the bowl isn't big enough.) dump in the pasta. 
4. Dump in everything else (including the dressing) but not the cheese. If you put in the cheese while the pasta is still hot, it's going to break down and you don't want that. 
5. Without sending the pasta salad flying all over the kitchen, carefully mix up the salad so the dressing and artichoke marinate coats everything. 
6. Put the salad in the fridge for an hour or two to let it cool off.
7. Add the cheese and give it one more toss. 

Good Times!

Clam Chowder

     I loves me some clam chowder. I fondly remember ordering at family restaurants and getting that sickly white, ultra-thick concoction that smelled faintly of a fire on a fishing boat. I couldn't get enough of that stuff. Then I grew up and realized that it wasn't really supposed to look or taste like that and I'm very lucky I didn't get food poisoning and die from dysentery.

Or snakebite. Always the damned snakebite.

     I was glad to find a recipe for clam chowder that I feel is a bit closer to the intended look and taste. I can't say for sure as I've never had clam chowder in New England. I imagine it would taste just like this, but everyone would be talking with funny accents about how they're going "to wahk theah dahg in Havahd Pahk aftah dahk." This soup was fantastic and will enter the regular rotation. As always, notes and changes are in blue.

Clam Chowder
via Best-Ever Soups

Ingredients

• 3-3/4 oz salt pork or thinly sliced unsmoked bacon (let's just derail right away and use a half pound of bacon. BACON FTW!)
• 1 large onion, chopped (we used a Vidalia, figuring the sweetness would work well here)
• 2 potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes
• 1 bay leaf (remember to remove bay leaves before serving! Leave that bay leaf in there and you'll choke like the St. Louis Blues in a Stanley Cup Playoff)
• 1 fresh thyme sprig (none on hand. I used about 1/8 tsp. dried thyme)
• 1-1/4 cups milk
• 14 oz cooked clams, cooking liquid reserved (we used 3 cans at 6.5 oz each. Go big or go home. Unless you're already at home. Then maybe go outside)
• 2/3 cup heavy cream
• salt (I used pink Himalayan. Not even kidding), ground white pepper (a scant 1/8 tsp) and cayenne pepper (1/4 tsp)
• Finely chopped parsley, to garnish

Directions

1. Put the bacon (who are you fooling with the salt pork? We know you're using bacon) in a pan (we used the trusty enameled Dutch oven) and heat gently, stirring frequently, until the fat runs and the meat is starting to brown.
2. Add the chopped onion and fry over a low heat until softened but not brown.
3. Add the potato, bay leaf and thyme. Stir well to coat with fat, then pour in the milk and clam liquid; bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes or until the potatoes are tender but still firm. Lift out the bay leaf (OR CHOKE AND DIE) and the thyme sprig (if you used it) and discard them.
4. Remove the shells from most of the clams (AHAHAHA, no. My butler was too busy synchronizing all of my Rolex watches. As previously stated, I used canned clams). Add all the clams to the pot and season to taste with salt, pepper and cayenne.
5. Simmer gently for 5 minutes more, then stir in the cream. Heat until the soup is very hot, but do not allow it to boil. Pour into a tureen (the butler knows where the tureen is kept, but as mentioned, he was busy with my Rolexes. I used regular bowls). Garnish with chopped parsley and serve. 

Good Times!

Erica's "Best Ever" Brownies aka Chocolate Pancreas Destroyers

  A while back I ranted a bit on calling recipes "Best Ever." I feel that if you're going to do that, you'd better have your research done. You'd better be damned sure that no better recipe exists on this planet, in all of recorded history, or I will call you out on it. One of my friends from Way Back threw down the gauntlet. She sang the praises of her brownies. "Best Ever," she crowed proudly. I told her to put her money where her mouth is and send me the recipe.

Come at me, bro.

The verdict? Well, "Best Ever" is subjective. What may be the best ever for me might not be the best ever for you. I will say this. These are some of the best damned brownies I've had in a long, long time. A little bit of a crunch on the outside gives way to a chewy, alarmingly rich center.

Erica's "Best Ever" Brownies
aka
Chocolate Pancreas Destroyers

Ingredients

• 4 oz. Bakers's unsweetened chocolate
• 2 sticks butter (salted) or margarine (you might as well just use butter at this point. If you're making these, you're probably not watching fat and calorie intake)
• 4 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp real vanilla extract or other flavoring
• 1 12 ounce package semi-sweet chocolate morsels or other flavor if desired

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to °350F
2. Spray a 8x10 pan (glass/Pyrex is recommended) with cooking spray or butter and dust with flour
3. Melt baker's chocolate in a double boiler OR melt butter and chocolate in a microwavable bowl stirring frequently to prevent burning. Melt till completely smooth and combined
4. Add sugar and mix thoroughly
5. In a separate bowl beat eggs well
6. Add eggs to chocolate mixture tempering to prevent scrambled eggs
7. Add flour in small batches till well combined and there are no streaks or lumps of flour
8. Pour complete batter into pan evenly
9. Take chocolate morsels and cover the top of the batter evenly
10. Bake at °350 for 35 minutes or until the edges just pull away and a toothpick comes out of the center still with moist crumbs

Notes: These, for whatever reason, took me a bit longer than the recipe called for. I cooked them for closer to 50 minutes. It's quite possible I goofed somewhere, but no harm seemed to be done. The result was the outside pieces had a bit of a crunch to the outside. The wife loves a brownie with a crunchy outside, so it was a win. Try the recipe as-is, then see where you end up on cooking time. Under-cooked is much easier to fix than over.

Good times!