Tag: ranch

Burgers with Bacon and Blue Cheese (The Great BBB)

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Everyone loves a burger…everyone (with the exception of my wife) loves it more when it has bacon and blue cheese on it.

There are only two cooking methods for a burger: flat top or grill. The both have their merits. Today we are cooking on the grill. Your George Foreman grill is not a grill. Return it.

Start with good ground beef.

Scratch that…start with a drink:

Then, move to the ground beef.

Season well with smoked paprika, some shots of cayenne, and Cavender’s Greek Seasoning.

Form a patty. I use this press for consistency.

Cook the bacon. Save the fat.

Fire up the grill. When the grill is hot, grill the buns. Use good buns…seriously. You need to put some fat on the buns beforehand. You can use butter or bacon fat (from the bacon you just made). As I am very health conscious, I use both.

When the buns are done grill the burgers. A little extra seasoning on the burgers at this point is a good idea.

Leave them alone on the grill…play with them too much and they will fall apart.

Get your blue cheese.

Remove the burgers from the grill (medium is perfect).

Turn on your oven’s broiler.

Assemble the burgers (bun, burger, bacon, blue cheese) on a baking sheet.

Place them under the broiler until the cheese is melted.

Garnish and consume with the beverage of your choice.

Strawberry Stuff

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When I was a kid, one of the greatest joys in life was the random family “get-together”. It could be a family reunion, a holiday, or just a random gathering of our clan of peeps. The best part of these gatherings was the food…OH THE FOOD…that would come out of the families who were from all over North/East Texas. I’ve joked often that I’m pedigree White Trash, but this might be the cherry on the top of the sundae, so to speak. I don’t even remember when this particular dish showed up the first time, but after it did it became a staple in our get-togetherin’. I distinctly remember heated conversations over whose favorite dessert this was as various family members tried to claim that it was their favorite over some other family member.

The original incarnation of this dish was made with peaches and was simply called “Peach Stuff”, and as far as I know has remained so in the family up until this point. I’ve often wondered outloud if this thing would be good with just about any different fruit you throw into it. However, your available ingredients will limit the type of fruit you use. I’m getting ahead of myself…let’s get this thing built and then go back and reassess.

Ingredients:

-Two tubes of Ritz crackers

-a stick and a half of unsalted butter (real butter…don’t you DARE use margarine)

-a large pack of strawberry jello (or two small packs)

-a tub of Cool Whip (full strength…not the lite crap)

-a stick of Philly cream cheese (full strength…no the lite crap)

-a cup of sugar

-2lbs of fresh strawberries

Take the two tubes of Ritz and crush them GENTLY so that you don’t bust open the packages. Trust me..it’s easier to do this inside the package. I tried using a food processor on it one time, but it made the crumbs too small. You want a varied sized crumble on this.

By rolling the crackers inside, you can crush them with your thumbs. Just make sure you don’t leave any big chucks. Even if you do, though, you can crunch them in just a bit.

In a 13×9 ungreased pan, dump your crumbs out.

You can see some of the bigger crumbs here…just squeeze them with your fingers to smash them.

Melt the butter (just so that it’s soft…don’t get it too hot or it will separate).

Pour the butter into the crumbs.

With a big metal spoon, mix the crumbs and butter together so that it’s evenly spread.

Turn the spoon over and start whacking the crumbs so that they even out all over the pan (you’ll notice the pan is suddenly a different color…I grabbed the bigger one on accident when I started out and had to change). Don’t whack too hard. You can use the weight of the spoon if your spoon is big enough. Smacking it will pack the crumbs in. It will take you a good 10min to do this, probably. You want the edges especially to be sealed up around the corners. Again, in just a bit this will make sense.

It should look something a-like so:

Packed in good.

In a preheated oven, put this on the middle rack and cook for 20-25 min @ 350deg. It may take a bit longer, but that should be about right. You are looking for it to be nice and golden brown.

In the meantime, prepare the Jello as per the instructions on the package.

Once you get it made, slip it in the fridge for 20 min, then into the freezer. We want it to get to where it’s JUST starting to set up, but not too set up.

Now then…let’s make the good part. Dump the Cool Whip, cream cheese, and sugar into your mixer and start whipping it up. It helps to leave the cream cheese and Cool Whip out for an hour or so to soften. Whip it on high. The sugar needs to be dissolved completely, and the mixture can use the extra fluff.

When it’s good and whipped, it will look almost like Crisco. Appetizing.

And you get to pick who gets to lick the beater.

Pull your crust out and let it cool. Don’t try to put the cream cheese mixture on when it’s still hot or it will be a mess.

A close-up of the crust. You’ll be amazed at how good this will make your house smell.

Top the strawberries and slice them up. They need to be in pretty thin slices, which you can accomplish with either a knife:

Or an egg slicer, which will cut your work down by a ton. This is one of my favorite tools in the kitchen. I use it for eggs, mushrooms, and strawberries when I want them sliced. You have to go easy at first or you’ll smoosh the strawberries. Just go easy so you don’t end up with a mush.

I thought about macerating these with sugar, but that will drain them of water and you don’t want that. When they are sliced up, put them back in the fridge to keep them cold until your crumbs are cool and your Jello is ready to use.

When the crumbs are cool, dump the cream cheese on them and spread them out. Go EASY with this or you’ll f up your crumbs. You need them to be sealed off completely by the cream cheese, and if you push too hard you’ll move the crumbs. Bad. Just go easy.

Speaking of the Jello, by this point it should be ready to go. This is borderline too far…when it starts getting thick, pull it.

Spread the cream cheese and make the edges TIGHT. It needs to seal up the crumbs. Using a paper towel, clean up the sides. It doesn’t have to be too clean, but you’ll want a separate layer look for presentation. If that doesn’t matter to you, then don’t worry about it.

Arrange the first layer of strawberries evenly on the cream cheese.

Once you have the bottom layer covered, then take the rest and even spread them out. You put the first layer down one-by-one so you know that you get good coverage of the white stuff.

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With a ladle, carefully pour the Jello onto the strawberries. Go easy now…if you pour to fast or heavy, it will penetrate the crumb layer and make ’em soggy. Bad.

Pour it over evenly.

From the side, you can see the layers. Now then…how white trash is this thing? Ritz crackers, whipped cream, cream cheese, and Jello with fruit in it sounds like every recipe out of the local Baptist church cookbook, doesn’t it? I’m sure that’s where this thing came from. Doesn’t matter, though…we are 12 hours away from greatness.

Cover the pan and put it into the fridge overnight. The Jello needs a few hours to set up completely. Don’t pull it early. When you do, though, this is what you are treated to. Oh, man.

The first slice is always the hardest to get out, but when you do get it out you’ve got this crispy, crunchy crust, creamy sweet layer of goodness, then the tart and crisp strawberry/Jello layer.

Back to the original conversation…this was Peach Stuff when I was a kid. You use peach Jello instead of strawberry, and use canned peaches instead of strawberries. You can chill the cans of peaches and drain them, using the juice as the “cold water” on the instructions on the package. I’m sure you can use just about any fruit flavor that Jello makes outside of lemon or lime. Whatever fruit you choose, though, this will be a instant favorite at your family get-togethers or holidays.

Spring’s Fling: Chocolate Covered Strawberries

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Spring’s Fling: Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Strawberries and Chocolate ... Simple Goodness.

Spring is the season for strawberries.  I love berries of all kinds.  And now is the strawberry’s time to shine.  When you are making things with 3 to 5 ingredients, it’s really important to get the best available ingredients possible. This means using fresh produce. If you can get locally-grown produce, even better.

For me one of life’s simple pleasures is chocolate-covered strawberries. I’m a chocoholic and a lover of all berries. But this is simple and delicious.  There are three ingredients: strawberries, cream and chocolate.

Wash a package of fresh strawberries and pat dry.  I used a one-pound package for this recipe. Set them aside to continue drying.  You want them to be as dry as possible to dip into the chocolate.

Strawberries! These came from United Supermarkets!

Next, use a high-quality semi-sweet chocolate.  Scharffen Berger is my favorite … it’s happiness in a wrapper.

Happiness in a wrapper!

If you can’t find it in your local grocery store, Ghirardelli makes a good-quality chocolate and is readily available in most stores.  If you prefer, you can use a darker chocolate, which has a higher percentage of cacao. Kitchen Tip: sometimes you can find a good chocolate bar for melting and baking in the candy section instead of the baking section.

Put 3-4 ounces (one bar) of chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl.

Add 1/4 cup of heavy cream. (technically this is chocolate ganache, which is just the fancy way of saying: chocolate with cream.)

I love cream.
Cream makes everything better-- that and butter!

Microwave for 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between, until the chocolate and cream have melted together.

Mix well!

Take your dry strawberries and dip into the chocolate and put on a chilled plate or pan covered with wax paper.

Dippidy-do, I love you, chocolate.

Stick in the refrigerator for 45 minutes so that the chocolate has time to set up.  Then serve it up and enjoy.

Mmmmm ... Chocolate and Strawberries!

(PS – my photos will improve, I promise.  I’m now motivated to learn how to use my camera much better!)

Bacon Chocolate and a Man-Date

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Bacon Chocolate and a Man-Date

Not so long ago my husband and his Runnin’ Buddy ran off to Ft. Worth under the guise of getting ingredients for a crab boil to have a special dinner for the four of us.  

Runnin’ Buddy’s wife and I are always jealous when our hubbies take off like this because they have wonderful “Man-Dates.” They go eat at nice restaurants, (Reata) go shopping and usually end the “Date” with a trip to the foo-foo grocery store, Central Market.

We are all foodies—Runnin’ Buddy’s wife even went to culinary school – she’s a chef! So for us, Central Market is good times. My hubby and Runnin’ Buddy come home from their Man-Date with a truck load of crab and other sundries. 

As parting gifts they brought us Bacon Chocolate Bars. Very interesting mix of sweet and salty.  Not sure I want to eat it every time I need a sweet fix, but it’s very good.  My favorite chocolate is Scharffen Berger.  That is happiness in a wrapper.

Give them chocolate before we tell them about the "Man-Date"

Anyway …After they gave us chocolate, they told us of how the Central Market Foodie was handing out chocolate samples and took a shine to them.  According to the husbands, the CM Foodie gave them about $45 each in chocolate samples.  After they left the area she, then had the audacity to track them down a few aisles over and give them more chocolate.  

Many other [female] shoppers were left standing in the aisles wondering where they got the samples.Apparently the Foodie wasn’t as generous to the ladies shopping for their households in the middle of the day as she was of the dudes on the Man-Date. 

 In all my single years, I don’t think I’ve ever had as good a time on a date as these two did on their Man-Date.

The Best Soup I’ve Ever Tasted

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I love soup, and when the weather starts turning cool I try to eat soup as often as possible. A lot of people will choose the salad when given the choice, but I often go with the soup as a first course, especially if it’s all made from scratch.

My three favorite soups:

3) Cream of Artichoke soup at  The Messina Hof Vintage House in Bryan, Texas. The restaurant there is hit or miss, but the cream of artichoke will change your life.

2) Red Chicken Curry at Samui Thai in Plano, Texas. I judge thai food joints based on their curry, and Samui always is rock solid.  The bamboo shoots and aubergine are incredible.  I’m not sure if you can really count this as a soup, but it’s my list so I make the rules.

1) Chicken and Mushroom soup. Right here, right now. Buckle up.

Here is the ingredient list (for the most part):

Make a classic mirepoix, which is diced onion, celery, and carrot. I cut these in random sizes for texture. Melt 3tblsn unsalted butter and then throw in the mirepoix and salt. Caution: you are going to add a lot of salt to this dish, but you want to do a little as you go. The salt will help reduce the vege.

Once the carrots start getting soft, add a bunch of garlic. I did four cloves here, but you could go with more if you are a garlic geek. Keep it moving so it doesn’t burn. We are going to use three types of mushrooms here: shitake, oyster, and plain ol’ white button mushrooms, all sliced in a rough chop. Clean the mushrooms WITHOUT water (rub them down w/a towel to remove the dirt). Once you get them sliced, toss them in. Shitake:

Oyster:

Button:

And into the pot with more salt. The shitake have this great beefy taste, the oyster a buttery chewy taste, and the buttons are just a great all around mushroom. If the vege start to look dry, add a little bit of olive oil. It should look like this:

When the mushrooms all start looking soft, add a tspn of red curry paste.

This is what I use. Now, it’s not a thai dish, but we do want a bit of the thai spice that it’s hard to combine with anything other than the paste.

Add the curry paste and toss the mixture to make sure it’s good and mixed in. Let it cook down for a few minutes, then add some white wine. How much? Hell, I don’t know. About that much:

Let that simmer for about five minutes and then add ½ chicken, chopped up. I just used one of those rotisserie chickens from the grocery store. I think the flavor was Garlic Herb. By “1/2 chicken”, I mean ½ breast, a leg, thigh, and then all the dark meat from the back. That’s some of the tastiest meat on the bird.

Then add 6oz of tomato sauce.

And about 6oz of chicken broth.

Simmer for 5 minutes or so, stirring regularly. We are looking for the liquid to reduce down quite a bit. Once you get it so that you can see the moisture but it’s not standing in broth, add 1c of heavy cream:

And 1c of half and half:

Of course, you’ll need to add more salt. Go ahead and grind some pepper in this as well. Let it simmer for 10 minutes or so, add chicken broth to keep the liquid at a soupy consistency. It should look like this:

Get some parmesan cheese (not the cheap powdered crap…get grated parm), and add a cup or so. How much? Hell, I don’t know. About this much:

Cut the heat down to low, and let it simmer for yet another 10 minutes.

The cheese should finish off the flavor. Toast up some French bread and sprinkle on some fresh parsley, and you have one of the most delicious things you’ve ever tasted.

That’s it. The best soup I’ve ever tasted.

Bob the Cook’s Pit

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One of my favorite things to do in life is to cozy up with a beer on a Texas afternoon and do some outdoor cooking. It’s what Arcadia is all about…sharing what you know and do well with your friends and neighbors. In my case, I love seeing the creations that my fellow Arcadians come up with and the crazy things we make different cookers out of. My buddy down in Madisonville made a smoker out of a barrel; my dad’s fish cooker is made from an old gas water heater; and one of my favorite outdoor cookers is my plowdisc wok. I can do fajitas and breakfast tacos on that thing to feed a small army and/or a group of tailgating Aggies.

Across the country, you’ll find cooking competitions of all sorts: chili, BBQ, steaks, or even full chuck wagon competitions where you have multiple dishes as part of the submission. One of the most well-known of the outdoor cooks in our neck of the woods is Bob the Cook out at Wildcatter Ranch. Bob is an incredible gastronomist. He knows his food and knows his wine. If you ever get a chance to make your way to Young County, Texas, make sure you stop by Wildcatter Ranch and let Bob pair up a bottle of his favorite wine from his extensive wine list with a slab of medium-rare Texas beef and then top it off with his banana pudding in a Mason jar.

Bob the Cook (or “BtC” as we like to refer to him) recently catered in ribeyes to a function in downtown Arcadia. Never passing up an opportunity to sidle up to a genuine Texas cooking rig built and used by someone I regard so highly, I got a chance to snap a few pics and talk to BtC a bit about how he goes about making ribeyes for so many people at once.

It starts with his pit. He made this out of a U-shaped pipe that he had bent to a box. Now, this thing has been used time and time again and had to sit out in the Texas weather, so some of the original features aren’t quite as functional as they once were, but the design is still awesome. BtC used a design idea from the great Joe Allen in Abilene, but put some proper modifications on it to increase efficiency for an outdoor unit.

Here this bad boy is with the lid up:

You’ll notice that the grill grates are on a slant. That’s key for a steak cooking pit so you can adjust the amount of heat on the meat. Steaks with less marbled fat are going to cook much faster than the ones that have tons of flavorful fat, so you want to put them in a cooler spot on the grill or pull them earlier. Also, notice the lip that folds over in the front. That has two functions: first of all, it allows for easy access to the cooking surface as well as for moving the grills to an angle. See the bar on the inside of the lip? You can put the grates on that for an even cooking surface when you are doing things like sausage. The other function it has is that it can be propped up from underneath so you can use it as a flat working surface for your tools or bins holding the meat you are putting on the grill.

The firebox has two entrances in for proper flow, and you can adjust the flow in on both sides. There is a chimney on the back side of the lid, but BtC admits that the design is somewhat flawed. Moreover, the chimney just acts as a stop for the lid so it doesn’t flop all the way back.

You can see how easy it is to get to the working surface from here. BtC puts the beef onto the grates before he seasons them so that the meat warms up and absorbs the seasoning all at once. Also, he keeps the meat that will cook faster on one side so he can properly tell how well done the meat is. The fire is well enough away from the meat so you don’t have crispy char on the steaks.

You can see from the backside that there was a pulley system at one time to raise and lower the fireplate, but years of use and weather rusted out the bottom. BtC had to have an additional plate welding in recently for repair, so the pulley system is non-functional now.

This is BtC’s trailer, specifically built for the cooker. He can haul and move this all by himself, which is remarkable because the cooker itself weighs hundreds of pounds. He took an old axle from a junk pile and made a long tongue on it for counterweight. Then, he welded a stinger that pins onto the cooker itself.

Right by the door on the side cooker, you’ll see a halfpipe. Also, on the trailer you’ll see bars that go across. BtC engineered this so the bars on the trailer go into the halfpipes on the cooker as a latch. With the trailer tongue up in the air, he latches the pin in place on the stinger and can pull the tongue down and attach it to his truck. The tongue is counterweighted perfectly so you have a zero balance right on the axle.

Using rebar and pipe, he engineered a hinge system as well as a poking bar all in one. You can see the bar there…he’ll use that to close the doors on the fire box as well as to reach up with the hook to pull the lid down during the cooking.

Secure pins are chained to the side so you don’t lose them. This is a great shot of that lip in the front.

There you have it…a Texas steak pit, fully mobile and as efficient as you can get for outdoor cooking.

The Smoker Project – Rehabilitating a Backyard Cooker

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When you decide that you want to get into cooking as more than just sustenance and more of a hobby, one of the things you have to do is evaluate your gear. You don’t have to have the best gear and you may not have the money to spend on the most expensive equipment, but you need to have the right tools for the job. One of the things I love to do most is to smoke on a good smoker. The flavor of smoke combined with the caramelized flavors from your rubs and the “bark” of the meat is an art. Competitions around the country for smoked meats begin and end with the competitors trying to outdo each other on their rigs, and quite often they rip ideas off from each other to make the most complete cooker possible.

The question I get most from my friends who I cook for and are interested in getting into the hobby is, “What kind of ____ should I get?” People will try to skip a few steps in the learning process and go straight to overbuying for their skill of cooking. You have to spend time learning how things are cooked to really understand what kind of gear to get, although you never want to go with the cheapest thing you can find.

It’s like playing guitar. Sure, you can go out and buy the most expensive guitar you can find, but you won’t really appreciate it if you have no idea how to play a guitar. Most teachers will tell you to get as much as you can afford when you are starting out, then upgrade as you begin to know the difference. Always try different pieces, but most important is to get as good as you can get on your own, then try out other people’s instruments when you can and figure out what you like more/less about yours compared to theirs.

Now then…with all that out of the way, there is something that you should know: despite what hobby you are getting into, you should always try to minimize the amount of work you have to do in order to get the best results.  That goes double for cooking food.  Furthermore, if you don’t mind being a little bit creative and once you get your feet under you, then you should take the opportunity to use what you’ve learned and put it to practice. In regards to any smoker, these are the things you need to have as a constant:

-regulated temperature that’s not hard to control

-good airflow from intake (where the air comes in) thru flue/chimney (the “exhaust pipe”) and out the vent (where the smoke comes out)

-no flames directly on the meat

I don’t care how big or small your smoker is, if you don’t have those three things you won’t have a good experience. There are many other things you need to do, but those three are constants.

In regards to our backyard smoker project, we’ll keep those same things in mind. I had a smoker that was about five years old. I mainly kept it at my house for quick meals and I can use it as a pit because the firebox (where you build the fire) has an area for me to put a grill rack in for direct grilling. However, like any smoker off the rack, it’s not exactly built for heavy-duty use. After a few years, the paint was gone and rust sat in. Sometimes meals turned out good, sometimes they didn’t, mainly because it’s hard to control temperature on a smaller rig.  If you are handy with a welding rod, you can do some amazing things.  So, off to the Arcadian Ranch we go to do some metal fabrication.

This is what we are working with:

It’s just your standard smoker. This one is manufactured by a company called New Braunfels, and I think it came from Academy for $150. Nothing expensive…just a typical little smoker that definitely has its place in the world.  When you open it up:

You have decent access to the grill, which is actually pretty good sized. You can put a whole brisket in there and probably a rack or two of ribs at one time. That’s crowding it, though because:

The hole that goes to the firebox lends itself to direct flames on the meat. Direct flames create carbon, which is NOT GOOD TO EAT. A closer look at the firebox and the hole that goes to the smoking chamber (where you put the meat) shows the inefficiency of the design:

I took one of the grill grates off so you can see. The hole is so big that once you get a fire going, there’s nothing to stop the fire from attacking your food. Also, note that ash and cinders that are picked up in the airflow will be carried directly into the smoking chamber without anything to slow it down. Ash on food is NOT GOOD TO EAT.

The firebox design is pretty good, all things considered. You have a hinged door, a nice long handle to move the smoker, and a way to control your airflow.

Speaking of airflow, let’s go ahead and look at the basic design flaws that we are trying to remedy. First of all, airflow is key when you are trying to smoke. One of the basic principles that people fail to learn early on when taking on the hobby is how to make the damn thing work. You have to open up the vent (where the smoke comes out) and adjust the intake (where the air goes in) to regulate the temperature. Never, ever, evereverevereverevereverEVER close down the vent on the top. Creating an area that has stagnant airflow will result in building up a creosote, and creosote is NOT GOOD TO EAT. This particular smoker is originally designed so the air flows like this:

That’s a great design if you want to be able to get this thing fire engine red and cook the ever living shit out of anything within about a five foot radius. The suction from the intake is so strong you can actually feel it if you put your hand down there. As well, the air almost feels like it’s being propelled by a fan coming out of the vent. That’s just not what we are looking for if we want to keep our temp around 225-250® for 6-20 hours at a time. What we want to do is keep the good airflow but minimize the exposure to flame. To do this, we are going to need to put a plate inside the smoking chamber right under the grills over that giant hole. We want the airflow to be more like this:

This will:

-allow us to keep the temperature down (much lower than before)

-keep good airflow to reduce the risk of creosote

-eliminate the food in the smoking chamber from direct flames

Boom. That’s our design. It’s the design that any smoker should have. You can add on modular pieces, like a warming box or even another stack so that it’s easier to get the fire started to begin with, but we want the smoke to travel under the grill for heat and then across the meat for flavor and then out as soon as possible.

Let’s start with the plate running across the bottom. I didn’t take pictures of the welding itself, but you could imagine how hard it is to weld on thin metal that’s rusty, especially when you are welding it to brand new sheet metal. There are actually two pieces of sheet metal here that we’ve overlapped for strength. By placing the sheets directly under the lip of the smoker, we’ll have built in stability. As well, we need to tack a few spots along the side to keep it up. You could put in a brace underneath for stability, but once the weld should hold them in place. There won’t be any weight on them other than the drippings from the meat.

As well, we need to put a level on the plate and make sure that it’s tilted down towards the hole where grease falls out. Otherwise, you’ll have excess buildup that could create a flame.

Once we get the first plate on, we’ll slide the other one on and attach it both to the smoker body itself as well as the first plate we put down.

It doesn’t have to be air tight, but it does need to direct the airflow down the chamber as well as keep flames from licking the bottom of the food.

I have to move that chimney over to the other side of the smoker chamber. I stuck a piece of cardboard up to the hole from the inside and traced the hole with a pencil. Then, I cut the hole out and cut a hole into the chamber on the exact same spot on the opposite side of the back of the smoke chamber.

Now, I need to seal up the original chimeny hole.  I just took another piece of sheet metal and cut it into halves, putting one section on the outside and one on the inside, making sure they covered the hole completely.  Using the same bolt holes as before, I bolted the sheets on.

That creates the perfect path for smoke/air to flow so that I achieve my three constants of not being able to control my heat easily, not having stagnant air, and not having flame ups.  Once it’s all finished, I took a product called Ospho and coated the outside.  That kills the rust and it’s now ready for high heat paint.  (The two pictures above are post-Ospho)

After the paint cures for a couple of days, then go ahead and fire it up and get it hot.  With a spray bottle of oil, cover the outside and let it season.  Same on the inside…you need to spray it down when it’s hot with oil from time to time to make sure it keeps its season.  Once it’s seasoned, you can go ahead and cook on it.

There she is…my little backyard smoker.  I will add some other modifications down the road, like a more stable brace and bigger wheels, but as for now it’s ready and functional.  As they say in the Army and in prison:  smoke ’em if you got ’em.

Trav’s Corner: Blog Lasagna

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11:30 Decide to make lasagna for dinner. Do a quick inventory and realize I no longer have a good pan for lasagna. This will need to be purchased. I can make the sauce now, but lunch first: pinto beans over spring greens with chopped roma tomatoes and hot sauce.

12:22 Assemble ingredients for sauce: 1 lb ground beef, 1 pkg Johnsonville Sweet Italian sausage (removed from casing), 1 onion (chopped), 8 cloves of garlic (peeled and chopped), dried basil, & oregano, ½ a bottle of 2003 Terrazas Malbec Reserva, V-8 low sodium, 1 regular size can of diced tomatoes, 4 large cans of crushed tomatoes. Grabbed a small stockpot.

12:29 Heated up pan over high heat with a little olive oil. Threw in ground beef and sausage. Stirred it around with a wooden spoon, breaking up meat until finely crumbled. Threw in 2 tbsp basil and one tbsp oregano. Let the water cook off, then stirred occasionally, letting the meat brown and caramelization develop on the bottom of the pan. Poured off some of the grease, and then threw in the onions. Sweated the onions some, threw in the garlic and stirred for about a minute. Poured in the red wine and brought to a boil while scraping the bottom of the pan with a spoon. Added about 1 ½ cups of V-8, brought back to a boil. Added all the tomatoes, brought back to a boil, tasted and added 1/2 cup of sugar. Covered and set aside to cool. Done at 1:10.

3:59 Purchased 9 x 11 Pyrex pan w/silicone lid. However, realizing that I have a lot of sauce, also purchase two “deep lasagna pan” foil containers. 

4:52 Begin assembly. Preheated oven to 350. In each pan, put the following layers, bottom to top: sauce, uncooked noodles (4 across, then one broken noodle going sideways (alternate sides of sideways noodle)), sauce, mozz, noodles, sauce, mozz, a 24 oz container of small curd cottage cheese mixed with an egg, noodles, sauce, mozz, noodles, sauce mozz. I regret not getting parm to mix with the mozz. I have to open a 26 oz can of Del Monte “Traditional” spaghetti sauce to finish the last layer and a half of the second lasagna. Covered with plastic wrap, then aluminum foil. Thought about how every time I tell someone about this, they ask “won’t it melt?” To which I have always bit my tongue and said “no, it won’t. Seriously.” Put the lasagnas in the oven at 5:27. Set timer for 1 hour and twenty minutes. 

6:47 Looked at lasagnas. Noting that there was no overspill from the pans, decided on another 15 minutes. 

7:01 Took off covers and set timer for 30 minutes. 

7:30 Took out of oven to rest and cool. 

7:40 Couldn’t wait any longer. Cut a piece. Mmm…

 

Texas Prairie Martini

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There’s a part of me…a rather LARGE part of me…that loves a nice cold glass of liquor. The best alcoholics choose vodka as their boisson de choix, and who am I to argue with the experts?

There’s nothing like an ice-cold martini. Some prefer the Xmas tree lingering taste of gin, some like a little bit of vermouth; it all depends on the mood and most importantly depends on the drinker. That being said, there’s an equal if not greater part of me that’s North Texas white trash pedigree with a palatte for food that is hard to describe to most normal humans. We like our taco burgers, our Pittsburg Hot Links, and our pickled eggs. You put the two together and you have this incredibly dynamic mix of either delicious cocktail greatness or just a country washboard glass of goodness.

Up north of the Blackland Prairie where I grew up is the beautiful town of Muenster, Texas. If you want to throwback to the best of anything north of Dallas, you’ll find that this little town has it all. It’s a German town of about 1,500, and these people keep their town as clean as they can. There are two schools, one 2A school and one Catholic school (Sacred Heart ISD). The two schools are literally across the street from each other. Muenster hosts their annual Germanfest celebration, a half-concert/half-food festival in the last week of April every year. We don’t miss it in our family…I think we look forward to it more than we do Christmas. If you get a chance, you should make a day or even a weekend out of Germanfest in Muenster, Texas.

In downtown Muenster, there’s my favorite grocery store on the planet: Fischer’s Meat Market. Not only do they have a great selection of beer, wine, and Affiliated Foods groceries (the gears in any white trash family in north Texas), they have an incredible butcher counter (the back part of the store is also a slaughterhouse where you can take your beef to be dressed out), fresh German bakery items, and an entire row of canned/jarred food items that any north Texan would fall all over him/herself over. You can get apple butter, Hot N Spicy mustard, pecan pie in a jar, or any type of jelly you can think of including jalapeno jelly, muscadine jelly, or peach preserves. Right in the middle of this goodness is one of my favorite things in the world…pickled eggs. And not just any type of regular old pickled chicken egg; they have pickled quail eggs. This is the inspiration to this drink: leaning back on Lake Nocona on the Texas Prairie and sucking one of these down is as close to nirvana as possible (without the heroin).

First of all, to make a proper martini, you’ve got to chill the glass. Fill a martini glass with ice and then water and let it sit for a few minutes.

 

In the meantime, let’s review the ingredients list:

In that Aggie pub glass, we’re gonna throw in a few cubes of ice, three fingers of vodka, and another finger of the olive juice. That’s a pretty dirty martini…you can cut down on the olive juice if you prefer it to be sweeter and less olivey. What is a finger? Hold your finger up to the side of the glass and fill it up to the top of your finger. Then dump it all into the silver shaker, cap with the pub glass and shake three or four times to get it all mixed together. Dump out the ice water in the martini glass and clean out the extra water. Strain the vodka into the glass.  If it’s short, pour a bit more vodka into the glass, but don’t worry about stirring…that will come later.

Now comes the fun part. At Central Market, you can find a white cheddar called Isle of Mull. It’s incredibly sharp, but absolutely delicious. Take a bamboo skewer and run a couple of pickled eggs onto it. Then break off a hunk of cheese, and then top it off with a single olive. Break off the extra part of the skewer, but leave just enough to be able to hang onto it. Holding the broken end of the skewer, swirl the cocktail swizzle around in the vodka a couple of times to mix in the extra vodka (if necessary) and then serve with it across the rim of the glass (so the cheese doesn’t fall apart).

Voila…a Texas Prairie Martini, the perfect white trash cocktail and an awesome way to enjoy your cold liquor.

Trav’s Corner: Speckled Trout Tacos

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One of the great things about being a food junkie is you get to find other food junkies and learn how to really cook things right.  Our S. Texas buddy, Travis, is a REAL foodie; a bona fide professional chef who left the trade for a normal job.  We’ve invited him to share some of his favorites from time to time here on AE.

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My corner of Arcadia is on the beach at South Padre Island. We’ve got a little place on the bay in Port Isabel with a dock and we keep an underwater light there that comes on at night to attract speckled sea trout. Not only are these fun to catch, but they’re also real good eating. My 7 year old son likes to catch a couple every night. We keep them for trout tacos. Here’s how I do it.

First, you’ve got to filet the fish. Start by laying the fish on the cleaning station with his back towards you.

 

Lift up the side fin and position your filet knife right next to the fin with the back of the knife at a diagonal towards the head:

 

Cut straight down to the backbone, and then turn the knife so that it cuts along the backbone.

 It’ll be tough at first as you’ll have to cut through some ribs, but after you get through that, it’ll go real easy all the way to the tail. Some people like to leave a piece at the end attached to the tail to make it easier to skin, but I prefer to cut it all the way off. Next you’ll want to remove the ribs. Place your knife right along the rib line and cut down at an angle, following the rib bones.

 

 

To get the skin off, lay the filet flat against your cutting surface, skin side down. Holding your knife flat, start at the tail end and cut through a little piece of meat to the skin.

 

Hold onto this piece with one hand and move the knife back and forth with the other. Let the knife do the work. Don’t try to push the knife along, and don’t pull the skin. This takes practice, but you can just trim off any skin you miss. Now turn the fish over and repeat.

 After you wash them off, you’ve got two nice filets. The next step is seasoning. I could put together some bad ass blend, but Tony Chachere already did:

 

 

Sprinkle this stuff on liberally, and then the filets go into a hot nonstick pan with canola oil. Cook over high heat until browned and then turn over and do the other side:

Note: searing with Tony’s can result in some pretty caustic fumes. Make sure your vent hood is on (assuming it vents to the outside) or make sure your kitchen is well ventilated. Once the filets are browned on both sides, remove from the pan and place on a paper towel or rack to drain.

While they’re draining, heat a tortilla in a dry pan until warmed through. I like Mission multigrain tortillas with this for health reasons (and cause they’re really good), but you can use corn or flour or whatever.

Once you’ve got all the tortillas warmed up (two filets makes about 6 tacos) you can start assembly. Break off a piece of filet long enough to cover the tortilla lengthwise. Next, spoon on some Greek yogurt:

 

 

This is some good stuff, and you can use it like sour cream. Next, squeeze some lime juice on there and start adding toppings. Here’s one with tomato, avocado and sprouts, but you can go with what you like here, including cabbage, peppers, onion, lettuce, cheese, cilantro, etc.

 

 

Now sprinkle on your favorite hot sauce and go to town. I usually serve with rice and beans.

Special note: you inland types can sub bass or catfish for the trout. Tilapia will do in a pinch. Just go with white fleshed fish and you should be fine.