Today, hundreds of Daring Bakers are posting August’s challenge: the Chocolate Eclairs found in Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé.

The challenge required making cream puff dough, pastry cream, chocolate glaze and chocolate sauce (created so seven tablespoons of sauce could be used to make the glaze); piping and baking the dough; naming a vice presidential nominee; learning the Yes Dance; and assembling the eclairs. Separately, the components aren’t difficult, but the overall process requires some coordination. Like an orgy.

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The first time I tried to make this Peach, Apricot and Cherry Pie, part of the lattice hadn’t browned. So, I popped it back into the oven, forgot to set the timer, and burned it black.

Pie requires attention.

Yesterday, I hit the road with my ingredients and my rolling pin for a do-over at my grandmother’s house. I figured she could help me figure out the whole lattice-browning issue and avert another disaster.

While the dough was chilling, I said, “Mommaw, when I baked the first pie, the bottom strips were too light. What do I need to do this time?”

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I signed up for Barefoot Bloggers, because I’d always had good luck with Ina Garten’s recipes. They are rarely complicated but always delicious. Unfortunately, this makes for bad blog content.

Seriously, Ina, every once in a while, you should pull a Rachael Ray and throw one ingredient into a recipe that turns it into an abomination. RR has been banned from our home thanks to an unfortunate pan of chicken enchiladas with CINNAMON. Jeff loves chicken, but when he saw the leftovers on his plate, he looked at me like I was Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest. Like I was intentionally torturing him. The world’s supply of cheese and sour cream couldn’t save those enchiladas.

But you, Ina, you give us Butterflied Chicken. Something that requires shears, knives AND the grill. I made the lemon-rosemary paste while Jeff prepped the bird. Then we rolled it up with a few lemon slices and rosemary sprigs, and an hour later, we were grilling. Delicious? Of course, Ina. The chicken was juicy, and the lemon and rosemary flavors really came through.

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A lot of people don’t get grits. There’s the name. Then there’s the unfortunate way some people insist on preparing them, adding too much water and dressing them like Cream of Rice. When I see someone spooning sugar onto their grits, it gives me the same sick feeling as those photos of Hulk Hogan rubbing suntan lotion onto his daughter’s thighs. Oh, the undeniable wrongness.

Here is the key to grits: dress them like a baked potato. Only stir in cream instead of sour cream. Salt and pepper? Yes. Different kinds of cheeses? Yes. Ham? Bacon? Shrimp? Oh, yes. Roasted veggies work. Fresh herbs work. Hot sauce, definitely. And all this versatility means grits are great for any meal, as an entrée or side dish. My mom makes shrimp and grits for our holiday meals. I make grits as comfort food.

Yesterday, Plumber No. 3 finally fixed the plumbing in the kitchen. The repairs required opening the basement ceiling to access the old pipes, which had been leaking some sort of sludge (surprise!), so the house smells like a body farm. But we can use the sink! We can run the dishwasher! And for these things I am truly thankful.

To celebrate, I made myself some Summertime Cheesy Grits inspired by a recipe in Sara Foster’s Fresh Every Day. Grits stirred with grated pepper jack and corn kernels and topped with sautéed zucchini and red bell pepper, fresh basil and bacon. I fully intend on eating these grits for every meal until they are gone.

And then I’m going to wash my dishes INSIDE the house.

Life is good.

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Last week, the kitchen sink stopped draining. The first plumber asked if I’d used Drano and then said we’d have to hire a crew to break through the brick outside and replace our pipes. We got a second opinion. The second plumber had a brain aneurysm.

In the meantime, I took the dishes outside to hose them off and wound up with a shoe full of field peas.

So, I called my momma, who asked why I wasn’t washing them in the bathtub, and I’m like, BECAUSE THAT’S WHERE WE KEEP THE GIN. But really, it’s because we just moved here, and I’m not at a Place of Trust with the bathtub yet. I’m not going to scrub our utensils where strangers have warrrshed theirs, if you know what I mean.

I loaded the dishes into two laundry baskets and a very large Rubbermaid and drove them the 45 minutes to Mom’s house, where I tapped my toes to the rhythmic whoosh of the dishwasher and talked celebrity news with my grandmother. (Once we were watching an entertainment roundup, and my mom asked, “Who’s 50 Cent?” Mommaw looks over and says, “It’s ‘Fiddy,’ Sherry. Fiddy.”)

This morning, I’m waiting for Plumber No. 3. Thankfully, this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie challenge – the Chocolate-Banded Ice Cream Torte – didn’t require many pots, pans … or utensils. Basically, you layer ganache and store-bought ice cream in a springform pan and freeze it. I didn’t alter Dorie’s recipe much, except for making the ganache with semisweet chocolate (instead of bittersweet) and mixing strawberry ice cream in the food processor instead of raspberry. The resulting torte tastes like Neapolitan ice cream for grown-ups. A nice way to end the summer. Not indoor plumbing-nice, but nice.

For the recipe, visit Amy at Food, Family, and Fun.

When I was a kid, one of the high points of the summer came at the end of Revival Week, when seven days of hellfire and brimstone led to one night of vanilla, strawberry and banana at the church’s annual Ice Cream Supper. Every family would bring at least one flavor, lining up canister after canister on the banquet tables pushed together in the Fellowship Hall. No infusions, no reductions, no lychees. Just homemade ice cream in exotic flavors like “peach” and “Oreo.”

With one exception.

My best friend’s dad would spend weeks planning, executing and concealing a gross-out flavor. Something that looked like vanilla but tasted like garlic or onion. Punishment for kids who fell prey to the inevitable ice cream-induced sugar high and started shoveling it in indiscriminately.

He was good.

I can’t imagine ending the summer without a batch of homemade ice cream, and I had all of these new ideas, thanks to the Best Lick! Ice Cream Contest entries that pop up every morning in my Google Reader. Flavors like Pink Lemonade, Coconut Peach, and Peach Goat Cheese Ice Cream with Salted, Roasted Pistachios and a Balsamic Bay Leaf Reduction.

I asked Jeff what flavor he wanted.

Chocolate.

My pet peeve about most chocolate ice creams is that if you close your eyes, you can’t guess the flavor. That is not a problem with John Scharffenberger’s recipe for Dark Chocolate Ice Cream. You start with semisweet chocolate, add unsweetened cocoa powder (I went with Scharffen-Berger), and stir in a final unexpected ingredient: caramel. It’s not chocolate ice cream with a caramel swirl, ribbon or ripple. It’s chocolate with a caramel undertone. When you close your eyes and take a bite, you KNOW this isn’t vanilla or garlic or lychee: it’s undeniably, unapologetically chocolate.

Can I get an amen?

Dark Chocolate Ice Cream

From John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg’s The Essence of Chocolate

• 3 1/2 ounces 62% semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 4 large egg yolks
• 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 cups whole milk
• 2 teaspoons water

Place the chocolate in a large bowl. Set a fine-mesh strainer over the bowl, and set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk the yolks and 3/4 cup of the sugar until slightly paler in color. Add the cocoa and whisk until a paste forms.

In a medium saucepan, bring the milk to a boil over medium heat. Whisking constantly, slowly pour the milk into the cocoa mixture, and whisk until smooth. Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon, about 3 minutes.

Strain the hot mixture onto the chocolate. Stir until the chocolate is completely melted.

Place the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar and the water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Continue to cook, without stirring, until the caramel is dark brown, swirling the pan occasionally so the caramel colors evenly. Remove the pan from the heat. Immediately pour the caramel into the chocolate mixture, whisking constantly. If any of the caramel solidifies into small chunks, strain the mixture.

Let cool, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for several hours, or overnight.

Place the ice cream base in an ice cream maker and freeze following the manufacturer’s instructions. For a firmer texture, transfer to a covered container and freeze for at least 2 hours before serving.

Makes about 2 cups; serves 4.

Jeff has three grills. Once I asked him why, and the short version is that they are all different, but he loves them the same. Like children. Smoky, gassy, highly-flammable children. My interaction with them has largely consisted of admiring Jeff’s grill marks whilst handing him the Holy Meat Thermometer.

Not anymore.

When Tara from Barefoot Bloggers told me I was the group’s August Bonus Recipe Challenge winner, I knew exactly what recipe I would pick: Grilled California Pizzas. I thought it’d be the perfect opportunity to learn how to grill using something besides a.) an expensive piece of meat or b.) a hot dog. And I wanted to try the Barefoot Contessa’s pizza crust.

First, the crust. Basically, you combine the ingredients with your Kitchen-Aid, knead the dough a little, let it rest 30 minutes, and divide it into six balls. The recipe says you can refrigerate the dough for up to four hours, but I’m here to testify that, should company come and offer to pay for a delicious steak dinner, you can store it in the fridge overnight.

So, while I was waiting for the refrigerated dough to come to room temperature, it was time for the Grilling Tutorial. Jeff had already cleaned the grill, so all I had to do was pour the charcoal inside, stack the briquettes into a pyramid shape to control the heat (BABY! I LISTENED!), poured on the lighter fluid, and lit the charcoal. Then it went out, and I lit it again. And again. And one more time. And I MADE FIRE!!!

Once the coals are lit, it takes 30 to 45 minutes to heat the grill. In the meantime, you stand there with the tongs, looking cool, moving the ashy coals to the outside of the pyramid and bringing the still-black coals closer to the fire. Or, if you’re like me, you do that for about 90 seconds and then pass the mic to your husband while you run to the kitchen to prep the dough and pizza toppings.

To prep the dough, you roll and stretch each ball into an 8-inch circle and place the crusts on baking sheets sprinkled with cornmeal.

I didn’t go Contessa-crazy with the toppings. I grabbed some small prep bowls and filled them with odds-and-ends we had in the fridge from the Barefoot Contessa Panzanella – tomato slices, red pepper, yellow pepper, red onion, and basil – plus pepperoni, fresh mozzarella and grilled chicken.

Then, it was Business Time.

The pizza-grilling process moves very quickly, so you want to have everything nearby: crusts, toppings, plates, a fresh set of tongs, pastry brush and olive oil.

The trick is to slide the crusts onto the grill using the baking sheets like pizza peels. It took me two crusts to realize that. The dough looks like it would sink through the metal grid, but the heat sets it up quickly. Grill the crusts for one minute, then turn them over, brush them with olive oil, pile on the toppings, and cook them with the lid down for five minutes.

I went skimpy with the toppings on the first few pizzas, because I was afraid of weighing down the crust and making a hot mess. Trust me, PILE THEM ON. Don’t be afraid to add sauce, either. Once the dough has cooked on the grill for that first minute, the consistency is like flatbread. Load it up.

The recipe makes A LOT of dough, so you might want to scale it back or invite some people over to make their own pizzas. Coming up with different combinations is pretty addictive. While I was grilling, Jeff and I were talking about what we want to try on the pizzas the next time around: homemade pizza sauce; grilled fruit, walnuts and mascarpone; hot sausage and grilled peppers; chicken, onions and barbecue sauce; grilled veggies and goat cheese; chocolate.

And one more thing … I made the full amount of dough, because I was afraid of scorching a few crusts into oblivion, but this recipe is a beginning griller’s dream. Even when I threw two rolled-up crusts onto the grill, they cooked perfectly and tasted delicious. Ina Garten must have a deal with the devil. Or three grills for practicing.

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I’ve never been accused of being particularly domestic.

When I was in college, I moved into my first apartment with my friend Amy. One night, I saw her hurl a piece of bad fruit out the back door onto the gravel alley. A few weeks later, I burned a pan of lasagna. What do you think I did with it?

Oh, yes.

As if I thought some great claw would drop down from the sky and sift away the trash. Like our alley was a gigantic, motorized litter box.

I’ve come a long way since then.

But then there are weeks like this one, when you feed the dog scraps and have to Google “brisket barf AND bamboo.” When you have smoke detectors installed, and the next day, when you slip out of bed to make breakfast and get an A+ in being the Best Wife Ever!, the delicious bacon sets them all off, and THEY ALL SOUND DIFFERENT. And you can’t reach them! Because you just moved in, and you CAN’T FIND A CHAIR!

It’s been one of those weeks when you’re out with your husband and realize you’re wearing a black bra under a very light, white shirt, and you remember the girl who used to come into your philosophy class wearing a bright teal bra under an eyelet lace blouse, talking about how the ham sandwiches her husband made her were an aphrodisiac, because they were “made with the hands of love.” And when you ask your husband why he didn’t say anything, he acts like he was butting out of your fashion statement.

He was probably just thankful I wasn’t wearing the Rocky T-shirt.

But things are looking up. I’ve got chairs posted near the smoke detectors. Henry is under a strict no-brisket policy. I’ve got the bra situation in headlock. And I upped my domestic mojo by MAKING the granola that went into this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe: Granola Grabbers, chosen by Michelle of Bad Girl Baking. Extra credit!

The nice thing about these granola cookies is that they’re easy to customize. Simply take out the offending ingredient (aka “raisins”) and replace it with something delicious (i.e. dried cherries, chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, dried apricots). Trade the peanuts for cashews. Trade the wheat germ for anything but wheat germ. Or add more of an ingredient you really love, like coconut. Or pepperoni.

The resulting cookie is a crazy mix of granola, fruits, and nuts–just like a party at Elton John’s!

Enjoy the recipe after the jump. And if you’re domestically-challenged, please stand up in the Comments section, and TESTIFY!

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A few months ago, Jeff ordered a new wireless controller for the PlayStation. Then the old one started working. For me, this meant we should return the new controller or sell one on eBay. For Jeff, this meant that we had a backup.

Did we really need a backup?

Friends, did America really need to declare its independence?

So, we kept both.

During the course of our first move together, I realized we had backups for many, many things. Music. Movies. Ponchos. Silverware. Part of me feels very loved and secure when I see my computer-geek husband backing up the hard drives and making sure I don’t lose my entire iTunes collection. Again. But the other part of me – the part with a Shaker-like hatred of clutter – sees duplicates and wants to exterminate them. Thank God, twins don’t run in the family.

Before we move, I ask Jeff one more time if he’s going to sell the extra controller.

No, it’s still good to have a backup.

Why? Is one going to be raptured? Get trapped under a tree? Run off with a poncho?

Sunday night, the dog started trying to play with the cat by barking in his face and pouncing at him. So, the cat responded by baring his claws and lunging at the dog … who ran into the table and knocked over a stack of magazines … which slid into a glass of water … which spilled onto the new PlayStation controller.

And Jeff looks at me, like, NOW, aren’t you glad we have a backup?

Somewhere, he’s got a petri dish full of my stem cells. I just know it.

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream, chosen by Dolores of Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity. I’m allergic to blueberries, but fortunately TWD offered a backup plan: doing a recipe from the archives. So, I finally completed the Almost-Fudge Gateau chosen by Nikki of Crazy Delicious Food. (You’ll find the recipe here.)

When the cake comes out of the oven, it isn’t much to look at. Plain. A little dumpy. Schlumpadinka. But the flavor … It’s almost flourless, so the chocolate flavor is intense, and the cake stays moist for days. Glam it up with Dorie Greenspan’s optional chocolate glaze, or top it with a scoop of ice cream.

In fact, do both. It’s nice to have backup.

1. Prep this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe–The Black and White Banana Loaf–and lovingly place it in the oven.

2. Lock the front door before you go downstairs to check on the laundry.

3. Step into the laundry room, and close the door behind you. Realize it just locked.

4. Remember the banana bread.

5. Open the garage door, and run to the neighbors’ house. Try to forget that you’re wearing a Rocky T-shirt and workout pants.

6. Arrive as the entire extended family is gathered to welcome someone home from hospice care.

7. Ask to use the phone. Realize you’re trying to call your husband during his office’s weekly production meeting.

8. Call your mother.

So, my Black and White Banana Loaf was a bust. Attractiveness-impaired and flavor-challenged. But, I did learn that I have very good, very gracious neighbors. That the Rocky T-shirt has to go. And that our new house is very, very secure.

To try the Black and White Banana Loaf, check out the recipe at Ashlee’s A Year in the Kitchen.