Saturday, January 22, 2011

Its a fine day, people open windows...or snuggle upon waking and make ribs

Hey All,

Trying to quell the OCD that has me checking on the ribs every five minutes. It has been a glorious day! I awoke this morning to my favorite man in the world eating a cinnamon roll. None for me, I had to get myself woke up, then I went into the kitchen and did the microwave bacon trick, warmed up a cinnamon roll, and he came and chit and chatted while I woke up. That whole being awake thing just wasn't working for me so I crawled back in bed for my usual weekend dose of Food Network. OK, what is this, my bestest bearfriend came and curled up, put his head on my chest and we just sighed and watched my (and soon to be his too, I'm trying to convert him) favorite Anne Burrell. She was making these amazing looking ribs, he looked at me with those beautiful big blue eyes and said, "I want to make lasagne, but now I'm craving ribs." My reply was, "Hrm, wanna do the lasagne for our Worst Cooks in America date with Lushus tomorrow night and we can do the ribs today....those just look delicious." So that's the back story of this morning. It was one of those tender wonderful moments that we share that reminds me just how amazing and invincible we are when we are working together. It was a rough week, with work stress, colds, and a serious lack of either of us giving a shit about much of anything.....yeah, those are never fun. I'm glad we had that moment this morning that makes the world seem right again.

So I pulled the recipe and we put together the shopping list. I followed this one pretty close to the letter with ingredients. The only substitution has been paprika instead of the pimenton. Anne alluded to that being OK....I honestly have no idea WTF pimenton is or where to get it for that matter.

I also threw together a slow cooker of beans. Nothing fancy, beans, onion, garlic, bay leaf (you must have bay leaf in baked beans. Why? 'Cuz I said so!), rosemary, a healthy splash of red wine, and molasses.

So the meal isn't fully cooked yet, I'm only at the "beer jacuzzi" stage with the ribs, but the smells are just amazing!

And let's talk about that vinegar sauce for a minute. It just screams, "Take crappy overprocessed chicken product (chicken nuggets) and roll it in me!" I'm hoping for leftovers because that will make for a quick and easy one to prep later in the week.

I'm going to try and adapt this for camping and Burning Man. For the camping version, I think do the intial cook on the ribs, cool them and have them ready so they just need to reheat on the grill with the sauce. Burning Man may be a unique challenge for this recipe....I'm not quite sure how to make it a one shot meal, perhaps a family style affair but I hate to tie us all up as a group for dinner. Something to ponder, for sure.

OK, so I got all lost and distracted there for a bit. A friend in Vegas is roasting a pig over coals and just posted a picture. Made me drool and secretly wish I was out in the desert, well at least a warm desert!

One last link for Creole Mustard, doncha just love the intrawebs?

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

At home steakhouse burger....

Hey All,

What is it with this New Year? Can I be any more exhausted and frustrated? That's one great thing about MY kitchen and a bit of planning when I get that, "Oh boy, its gonna be a long week..." feeling.

One of my favorite quick and easy is a fancy burger done on the grill. So last night, I pulled out a pound of burger (92/8, I don't usually use stuff that lean, but it was hella on sale). I added about 4 oz of crumbled blue cheese, 4 Tblspish of diced onion...mixed it up and made patties. I let those sit overnight in the fridge.

Today, pulled them out and grilled them. On a lark, I decided to try putting some 57 sauce on. It was totally a steakhouse burger, I swear! Served with homecut and cooked fries, I had a much tastier version of a fast food meal, and fed 2 of us well for less than it would have cost for 1 combo meal at a burger joint.

A couple of notes: When shopping for blue cheese, I first check the super spensive cheese case for clearance bargains, and then check the packaged cheese section. You can usually find an 8oz block for less than $3, and it works beautifully in this kind of cooking. Its not pre crumbled, but c'mon, how hard is it to rub it between your fingers and get perfect crumbles?
To make my fries, I have one of those fancy potatoe slicer thingies that looks kinda like an apple slicer....you know the ones, right? Soak the potatoes in a bowl of water with about 3 Tblsp of rock salt and 1/4 cup of white vinegar added. Soak them for about 30 min (or longer) and then drain and fry. This doesn't give a perfectly crunchy exterior, more of a chewy texture, but its how I like 'em.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

An easy and tasty pasta dish

Hey All,

It would appear the weekends are for blogging. YAY! The weekday grind has been pretty wild, albeit productive, this past week. Things continue to look amazing in my world, but I don't think I should go into too much detail. I'll leave it at realizing once again how amazing, talented, and super smart my 9-to-5 is/are. It is a humbling honor to be a part of that scientific team.

About this pasta thing: Its crazy easy, and just perfect after a long day.

I think this is a take on a Rachael Ray recipe....I usually can't stand her, but she's usually the one on when I wake up and put on the TV on the weekend. Once in a great while she has a gem of a recipe....once in a great while. But I'll stop with the libel already, I've got enough links in here to get me into all sorts of trouble.

This uses the asparagus that I scored crazy on last week. First order of business is to clean and cut the asparagus into bite sized pieces. There's a trick I learned on Food Network, I can't remember which chef, to getting perfect non-woody asparagus. Take one of the medium diameter pieces from the bunch and bend it and see where it breaks. This is usually within the first 1/4 of the stem...compliments of some sort of crazy physics, this is the line between the woody and non-woody parts of the stem. Use this as the guide to cut it all up. I'm hoping to start taking more pictures in the future, right now, I'm just having fun sharing my food ideas.

In a saucepan, combine a jar of white pasta sauce and a can of whole baby clams. Gently heat that up. As for which pasta sauce, let your taste and budget be your guide. I've done this with just about every type of alfredo imaginable...with sundried tomatoes, with roasted garlic, extra parmesan, you name it....its always turned out well.

Bring a pot of water for pasta to a boil, don't forget to add salt. That's an Anne Burrell trick. I often poke fun at the amount of salt she uses, as I don't use a lot of added salt, but she's always right...Anne is always right! In case you hadn't noticed, I simply adore her and Ina Garten. That bit of extra salt adds flavor I've been missing out on for years. Add 6 servings of pasta and the asparagus. Cook until the pasta is done. Again, let your imagination and preference be your guide. I've done this with penne, plain old egg noodles, spaghetti, linguini, rotini...usually whatever is in the pantry. Drain the pasta.

Pour the pasta sauce over the pasta asparagus stuff. Mix it up. If you've got it a quick grate of parmesan or other good italian cheese over the top is perfect. Serve it with a salad and good bread....delicious!

Sunday, January 9, 2011

How Did I Miss Something THAT Big?!

Hey All,

So I was poking around the fridge and had a total, "Duh!", moment. Part of my shopping scores were amazing, HUGE cucumbers for $0.25 each. Oh yeah, they even beat my marital aids. These suckers are huge! I'll reserve one for lunch salads....the rest go into this:

So one of my favorites, and I may have written about it before, but it warrants a revisit, is cucmber salad. My parents have a take on this that uses sour cream to make a creamy salad with less sugar and no added vinegar. They think the addition of bacon is "funny" but this is how I like it.

In the bottom of a good sized bowl, you'll be putting at least 3 cucumbers in here, so it'll have to be pretty good sized, mix together:

1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup white vinegar (I've done it with wine vinegar but I like white best. Hrm, balsamic might look like hell but I bet it'd taste pretty good)
1 1/2 to 3 strips cooked and chopped bacon
Chopped onion to taste, probably 1/4 of a small onion....my experience is the onion just adds flavor and you can't really botch it unless you have more onions than you do cucumber.
A good sprinkle of dried oregano...probably 1 tps. I much prefer dried oregano to fresh. Fresh oregano (as beautiful as it is in my garden) tastes like perfume to me in food.

Peel and slice the cucumbers. I'm sure a mandolin would make easy work of this, but having sliced the better part of a fingernail and skin off the back of my hand with one I avoid the things. Put them in the bowl. Stir and let sit overnight. I just put the lid on and give it a good shake. The next day, when I want some of my lunch, I just stir it up and pull what I want. This keeps for a week or more in the fridge.

I've also done this with the addition of about 1/2 a cup of tomatoes. It adds a different flavor that I find wonderful in summer when the garden is going full tilt.

So another yummy and reasonably healthy dish that's easy to make and store.

A weekend re-cap...especially for Alice

Hey All,

So I've reverted back to using the raw HTML editor. The fancy "Compose" UI on blogger makes my poor old linux box slug out big time. Hopefully this continues to look right, and since I'm a big nerd and know basic HTML, this will be a lot easier.

Alice requested I find a way to make this link directly to FaceBook so it'll pop right up for her. Anyone know how to do that? For now I'll stick to the good ol' share button.

I suppose I'll start with Friday night. We had a friend over. He's a bit of a garbage disposal when it comes to food, but I was pretty pleased with how the meal turned out. You'll notice that my food has taken a bit of a convienence turn. I'm not 100% sure what that's all about, but I've done lots of thinking and I'm not really saving any money by slaving over a hot stove for hours. I think about all I'm accomplishing is making myself nutty about the budget. We are very fortunately that there are tons of grocery retailers around here and if you know how to shop at places like NPS you can do amazing things on a shoestring budget....my Mother, yes, my Mother the bargain hunting diva, is always impressed with what I can do. That aside, we had pan fried tilapia, Au Gratin (or in these parts, "Funeral") potatoes, and green beans with almonds.

I'll start with the potatoes since they take about 45 min.

In a square (9x9, 8x8, I've learned their are different sizes, but whatever, you get the gist) baking dish:

1 (20 oz.) pkg. prepared hash browns...I got a steal on Reser's a while back.
1 (11 oz.) can Cheddar Cheese Soup
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Just mix it all together and bake in a 350F oven for 45 min. I had this ready to go the night before....just throw some plastic wrap over the dish, pull it out and bake it up when you are ready.

The Tilapia was pretty straight forward. Thaw it out, dredge it in herbed bread crumbs (no egg, no nothing, just bread crumbs), and fry it up in hot (and I do mean hot, otherwise it sticks and makes a mess) oil. I ended up putting it in the oven for about 15min while the potatoes finished, but it was still perfect.

The green beans were another easy inexpensive score. It was one of those boxes from Bird's Eye...a light butter sauce with the almonds. Empty it into a bowl, put the almonds on top, cover and press the frozen veg button on the microwave....takes all the guess work out of it!

The next noteworthy was breakfast this morning. Super duper easy, in a microwave safe bowl, 4 eggs, a couple tablespoons of leftover taco meat, some diced onion, and a healthy smattering of cheddar. Mix it pretty healthily and microwave until done. I usually do 2 min, stir, then another minute....perfect tight eggs just like I like every time. I served that with toast and Chipotle Plum Jam. I leave the orange out of the jam when I make it... This recipe right here is the reason I can't bring myself to cut down the old plum tree out back. Its an eyesore, makes a mess, the fruit aren't really good for anything beyond making jam, and hangs precipitously over the neighbors' porch, but the flavor I get out of those plums is something I'm not sure I could live without. Its almost like a cherry Jolly Rancher. I'm not sure why or how, but I can't live without it.

Tonight is another great one. Occasionally, NPS gets deli leftovers. In this case cajun roast beef. I know its not intended to eat like a roast, but sometime ago, I figured why the hell not? And Oh yeah....think prime rib, but at a cat food price! Tonight we'll heat up a good sized roast, make some mashed taters, and serve that with steam in the bag green beans. Those were another amazing score, what you pay $3/$4 for them at the grocery store? $0.50 a bag....scored 2 to throw in the freezer for a later date. I also made some mozarella, try this recipe for top level guidance. Mozarella is one I struggled with forever....I could make Jack, I could make cheddar, I even made some really tasty moldy (blues, blacks (black can be good or bad, intitially test it knowing you may very well end up in the hospital, reds) cheese, but mozarella took a long time to get the hang of. 1% was on clearance (was going to outdate in 2 days) for $1 a gallon....score me :) My parents' also brought some Elk Jalapeno Sausage from my brother's big elk this past season....and I had a bit of leftover pepperoni, so that's the appetizer plate. This might be one of my more expensive meals at around $15 to feed three.

I'm also hoping we have some leftover roast. One of my favorite sandwiches is good roast beef and seafood salad on a good roll. Again, I thank my local discount retailers....the seafood salad was 3 days from outdate for $0.50/lb, so I scored 4 lbs and froze it. Yeah, the freezing denatures the creamy aspect, but its still damn good on a sandwich with some lettuce. Bread is another one that I score like crazy on...Usually $1 to $1.50 for local atrisinal bread. Granted its seconds or day-olds, but it freezes just fine and I'll never go back to Wonder bread. We freeze our bread because we can never seem to get through it before it goes bad.

So I'm not sure this was full of much in the way of recipes, but maybe some shopping ideas. Other major scores, asparagus for $0.99/lb...that will likely go in with penne or twisty noodles for a pork scallopini, and some yellow squash for $0.33/lb...that'll likely get grilled to go over a rice dish.

I'll try and update more with some of the creative and money saving stuff we do.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Horny Bastard MuShu....

Hey All,

I hope the holidays treated you well.  Work was full of anxiety with the painful process of budgeting, having budget after budget slashed, etc, et al...carry on, one cross and out the door on the left.  Despite having a super tight budget, 2011 is looking like a good year.  Unfortunately for me, that meant severing a few ties (OK, a lot of ties) and regaining my confidence that I'm an OK dude.  But enough about me already....you're reading this because you want FOOD!

So tonight I was without any amazing ideas.  I scrounged the pantry and decided I was in the mood for some sort of chinese affair.  I only had half a bunch of celery, about half an onion, and some frozen spinach.  Hrm, sounds to me like the start of a really simple stir fry.  OK, so I had to ask the husbear, "Do you want chicken, shrimp, or veg?".  The answer came back, "Shrimp!".  Lo and behold, I had a few holdover tortillas from tacos the other night.  Good, local, tortillas, you know those kind that are almost see through....

So the pain of thawing, deveining, and shelling the shrimp.  Then they went into a bowl that had:
2 Tblsp soy sauce
2 Tblsp cooking sherry
2 Tblsp soybean oil (check the label on your oil, likely your vegetable oil is soybean)
1/2 tsp diced garlic from the jar
1 Tblsp honey
2 drops ginger essential oil
2 drops orange essential oil 

I need to go on aside here and remind you that essential oils are potent stuff!  Be careful with them!  They are also amazing companions in the kitchen....orange, peppermint, lemon, lime, lavender, almost any oil that is GRAS (generally regarded as safe).  If you do decide to start cooking with essential oils, get a good reference book.  I got my start with The Complete Book of Essential Oils & Aromatherapy.  Also, don't be afraid to take your time and get to know the oils, their origins, and what does and doesn't work.  I'm a huge fan of Liberty Natural for lots of variety in oils.  For cooking, I use a high altitude brazillian orange oil, much better flavor in my opinion.  For soapmaking, I use a distilled orange oil that is basically a waste product of the juice industry....smells great, tastes like hell!

I let that sit for about an hour....nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more.  OK, we're a houseful of bears, food makes us hot, get over it!  Anyway, I drained the shrimp, letting the sauce drip into the bowl of veggies and added a bit of salt and pepper to the veggie bowl.  Then I heated up some oil in a skillet until it started to smoke, turned the heat down just a tiche and then flash cooked the shrimp.  Shrimp out of the skillet and back into the original marinading bowl (probably not cool in a proper kitchen, but my house, my rules!).  Let the pan cool down a bit and then threw in the veggies, stirred them a bit until they stopped searing and a nice simmer was to be had.  Covered that for a bit until the celery had just that little bit of crisp left.

Heated the tortillas up in the microwave....put a few shrimp on, a smattering of the veggies, rolled it up and viola!  YUM!  I think this would be amazing with a proper duck sauce.

Also, its that time of year.  Everyone at work is sick from spending the holidays with their favorite bioligical warfare units (children, grandchildren, etc.).  So far, I've escaped the dreaded weapons of mass destruction (flu)....but started getting that tickle in my throat this evening and my sinuses have been cranky all day.  I'm hoping its just this crap city air, but better safe than sorry.

So, time for tea, nothing fancy, a couple of tea bags of a green tea that was given to me as a gift a while back, and a small handful of dried ginger.  Dried ginger (and most herbs in general), at least in the this part of the world, is obtained for cheaps at the local asian markets....so I'm always checking for what might make a good tea.

HAPPY 2011 to you all.  I'm going to try to continue to keep my spirits high and my inspired cooking going.

Got any great "love" stories about food to share?  I'd love to hear them.