Ham Sandwich Indicted!

This weekend I had the privilege of making cupcakes for a friend's birthday party. Having been informed that she was a fan of vanilla cupcakes, I busted out a Bon Appetit recipe that I used last Spring. That recipe, however, is fairly coconut-centric, and I wasn't sure how the party guests would feel about it...coconut seems to be rather polarizing, you either love it, or loathe it. The recipe calls for reduced coconut milk to keep the cupcakes moist and add flavor to the batter and icing, but I felt that the concentrated coconut milk might be too much. Having read about the wonders of mayonnaise as a useful ingredient in keeping baked goods moist and delicious, I thought that maybe I could combine some un-reduced coconut milk and some mayo and get the same effect as using straight, condensed coconut milk. Yes, mayo is well, mayo, and the thought of it in a baked good sounds somewhat bizarre. Turns out, however, mayo is pretty fantastic and keeping your cupcakes from drying ou...

Earlier this week, Mark Bittman had a recipe for Coconut-Braised Beef on his blog. Maybe I was hungry because I had nothing for lunch on Friday but a sweet potato, but when I saw that recipe, I made the executive decision that I would make it this weekend. I had pretty much everything I needed except coconut milk, and being obsessed, I of course went to the grocery at 9:30 on a Friday night in the middle of a snowstorm after drinking Miller Lites all evening at happy hour. Then, when I got home I realized that I did not have a beef chuck roast in my freezer, I had a pork shoulder. Since I was not about to venture back into the not-quite Class 3 killstorm for some beef, I decided pork would have to do. And let me tell you, it did just fine. In fact, it was pretty spectacular, and was a delicious dish on a cold, snowy night. Coconut Braised Pork Shoulder a la Mark Bittman 2-3 hot dried red chilies (remove some of the seeds to lessen the heat) 4 garlic cloves, peeled 2 inch piece o...