Quick Minestrone

My wife made this....it was good.....I wish I could get her to tell me how she made it.....she likes to hid things from me.

I hate mixing hot chocolate

Maybe I'm just a "we todd", but I have a hard time making sure my hot chocolate mix is all the way mixed.....is it just me?

Barry Whatilow?

OK...I haven't posted in a while. I've been busy....sorry. I could say the wampus has been closed for re-design...but it would only be polishing a turd.



My mother-in-law makes a dish that is tradition in her family that started out with the name Berry-Mallow Casserole. Then somehow it started sounding like, yes, you guessed it...."Barry Manilow". It's a pretty amazing dish, actually. My wife's jaw will be hurting from hitting the floor after reading this because it took me 3 years just to put that particular food to my lips. Can you imagine eating something called "Barry Manilow"? You take yams, cranberries, brown sugar, oatmeal and marshmallows and put them together. (I'm not allowed to divuldge the family recipe.) But that sounds like a decent dish, huh? "but it's called 'Barry Manilow'!" Stop arguing with yourself and try it, ya sissy.



Year three, I tasted it. Year four, I put a serving on my plate. Year 5, I had seconds and then stood over the dish picking at it. Well......I'm a convert........BRING ON THE MANILOW!

Enjoy the slideshow of all the food from this year's Thanksgiving!

Something new.....

Tonight I did something I had never tried before. First of all, I did this to my pork chops. (Repeat offender) and J had some potatoes out for the baking. (we microwave potatoes and call them "baked". does anyone else find that odd?) Then in need for something else that we thought we might get the kids to eat. HMMMMMMMMM, what do we have?

In the veggie drawer, there is a bag of butternut squash. ("I can't eat 'squash', it sounds like it's been sat on", George Carlin...pardon the language) I dusted it with a little bit of salt, some sugar and some cinnamon...oh...and a bit of olive oil. Then I put it in the toaster/convection oven at 425 Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes until it was pretty tender. Next, I dropped all that in the blender w/1 Tbspn of butter, maybe 1/4-1/3 Cup of milk, more sugar and cinnamon and pureed it.

It was good. Since I didn't make that much and it went on all the plates, I figured I would show a Carlin video. I love this one.

Thanks Kevin......this Friday was the best

I have quite a few blogs to which I subscribe, but none more anticipated than Fantastic Fridays at Massive Truth (Kevin Leggett). Well, today (Friday, October 19, 2007) may be his best one yet. All the links are fun and make you either say "wow" or laugh quite a bit. Check it out here!

Thanks Kevin....I especially was wowed by the Gruv site. My daughter will be so bummed that Boys Like Girls is playing and she's not going.

Everyone, enjoy your Fantastic Friday!

Mr. Bobby Que

He was before Bobby Flay and even offers an "activator" for your food once it's been cooked.

My favorite thing is the sound effects when the food is on the grill.




Anyone else get hungry watching this?

Birthday Dinner!

My wife left me this weekend. She came back, but left me all alone to go on a church retreat with her mom. It was also my mother-in-law's birthday this weekend and my wife asked if I could get a box of cake mix and maybe dinner. I got excited! Since I started my new job, I have not really been able to cook like I enjoy.

After church, I went to the Stater Brothers to pick up a few things. I found London Broil on sale....mmmmmmmmmmm, bought a couple of zucchinis, a box of cake mix, bag o' salad, a cucumber and tomatoes (for the salad), a tube of pizza dough, and 7 ears of corn. (I think that's all I bought)

Menu:
Appetizer;
grilled pesto pizza

Entree:
London Broil w/roasted garlic dry rub (salt, sugar, pepper, roasted garlic, a tad bit of orange juice)
Julienned Veggies (carrots/zucchini)
Grilled Corn on the Cob

Dessert:
Yellow cake w/chocolate frosting

I don't have any pictures, but the meat came out a little on the salty side...so I figured if I just sliced it as thin as possible, you wouldn't get that salt crust and I was right. Maybe a little too much salt. It was really fun to create in the kitchen and the kids were really good while I was getting things ready. It was wonderful to have my wife home! I would never want to be a single parent and my hats go off to those who are....especially with more than one child.

Since I don't have any photos, I'll just post some Bobby Flay.



Doesn't he look like he's ready to be kicked in the crotch when the lady answers the door?

Inspirational Music For Cooking/Eating:DC*B

Any of you who do not know me, do not know that I am an avid, maybe a little unhealthy, fan of the David Crowder* Band. (why does he do that *? If anyone knows...clue me in) At any rate, there is a new album by said band, Remedy, which was released yesterday on the 25th. If anyone wants to gift me this record on iTunes, I would be very appreciative. Otherwise, I'll wait until I can do it myself. No biggie. That was really just a joke.....mostly. Anyway, he also has one called Sunsets & Sushi that would be cool to listen as you either ate Sushi or made it.

So, everyone go get Remedy and enjoy the coolness that is the David Crowder* Band.

Get BENT-O!

Not only does my wife cook (see previous post)...she gets the two monsters' to be excited about PB&J...and CARROTS!?!?!?!?!

The message board that she subscribes (Baby Center) has been talking about these things called "Bento Boxes" as the new craze. Now we don't have everything needed, but being the daring one she is, she did it anyway. Check out the PB&J pinwheels. Cool, huh? And the 4 y.o....."I ate my carrots!" he exclaimed. "HOLY CRAP!" I didn't know the boy could say "ate" and "carrot" in the same sentence. I'm guessing that Godzilla ate his too...unless he was too busy eating a subway in Japan or something.

I'm not the only cook in the house

My wife, God Love Her.....tries anything and does it well right away. She ticks me off...in the best way possible. She challenges me to be better. It's unspoken.



I got home a little late the other day, but she didn't get home much earlier than I did and here's what she had ready when I walked in.



Beeaded Orange Roughy tacos...........YUMMY!

Home made pesto Farfalle w/Italian Sausage

Well, the farfalle and sausage was not home made, but the pesto was.

"How did you make it" you ask? Well, you need the following:

3-4 cloves of garlic (fresh is best)

at least 1 cup of fresh basil

1/4-1/3 cup of pine nuts

a bottle of EVOO. (not all of it, but you're going to need to eyeball it)

1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese

Peel the garlic by smashing it with the wide part of your chef's knife and toss them in the blender w/1/4 cup pre-poured EVOO and start the blender or food processor. Start tossing in the basil and pour (SLOWLY) EVOO. Once things begin to liquefy, drop in the pine nuts and Parmesan. Stop pouring....make sure you don't pour too much because then you'll need to add more basil and if you bought what I told you to buy, you won't have any more. I guess...just buy a little more than I told you to buy and then you can use it for garnish if you need it.

Now cook farfalle (bow ties, for people who haven't figured that out. or if you're like Monkey, you'll call them "butterflies") according to the package.

Grill the sausages until they're almost done and then slice them into 1/4" slices. Put the slices back in the skillet and brown a little more. Toss w/farfalle and mix in pesto until agreed upon taste.

Pesto is an interesting beast. A little can go a long way. Here's how it turned out.

Breakfast Sandwich....pastry style

You know you want some of this pastry so you can make one. Come on; admit it.



I was gifted a couple of these pastries from a friend and she suggested I put ham and Swiss in there (that would have been good, too. Instead I scrambled some eggs and put Muenster cheese; threw it into the toaster and voila! An egg 'n cheese breakfast pastry. And "my goodness" were they good.



Get you some!

the recipe MANAGER

I am doing some searching for ColdFusion Developers and found a guy on Virb that has a cool food blog. I'll have to link him up.

You can put the recipes you pick in a "shopping list" so you know what to buy at the grocery store. cool.

Mystery illness strikes after meteorite hits Peruvian village - Yahoo! News

Does anyone else find this freaky? I found this over at Raymond Camden's blog. A ColdFusion Jedi he is.


Mystery illness strikes after meteorite hits Peruvian village - Yahoo! News

Catering Confidential, The Food

So, I realized that my last post was way boring, so I thought I might talk about the food.


6 PM, TRAY PASSED HORS D'OEUVRES
Tomato Basil Tartelettes (Standard hors d'oeuvres)
Peppered RARE AHI TUNA w/Marinated Fennel on Small Crustini (now these are yum )
Mini Spanish Sausages (Passed w/Picks & Grain Mustard) (never had them, but I'm sure they were good)
1/2 Herbed Feta & 1/2 Tapenade on Same Toast Point (sounds too confusing on which side to eat first)
Dates Stuffed w/Gorgonzola & Wrapped in Prosciutto (now this is good, but you should try the figs replacing the dates)

7:45PM ~ Dinner ~ "Paris In The Fall" (we stayed on time with this...but maybe the last time the whole night)
1st Course: (Wine: Bandol) (didn't try it)
Seafood Mar mite w/Vanilla Broth (Oh MY! this was amazing. It was salmon, shrimp, scallops and mussles that were in a zip lock, poached in boiling water, then it had a boiling hot French Vanilla broth poured over it)
2nd Course:
Wine: Foley Syrah (didn't try it)
Traditional Cesar Salad (Cheese on the Side) & HOMEMADE Parmesan Croutons (didn't try it)
3rd Course:
Mixed Grill: Petite Fillet, Lamb Chop, Sausage & Chicken (now this was pretty damn awesome!)
Pascal's Gratin POTATO
Steamed Asparagus Spears
9:30PM****Cheese & Fruit STATION OPEN (Port & Dessert Wines - 4)
Dessert & Coffee Service
Croque en Bouche (all sorts of different fillings in the creme puffs)
Assortment of MINI Pastries (Petite Four Style)
10:15PM WEDDING CAKE by (CAKE STUDIO) (more like 11 p.m. and there was a "groom's cake" that looked like the groom's nasty old Georgetown hat.)
10:45PM Late NIGHT Nibblings (more like 12:15 p.m.)
French Onion Soup w/Crouton (didn't try it)

Outside of all the being late, the food was pretty dang good and chef did a bang up job.

Catering Confidential

WOW! This weekend wasn't even a weekend. A couple of months ago, I was asked to drive the van for a catering event (through the restaurant that does the weddings and parties at Sherman Gardens) at Saddlerock Ranch Winery off of Mulholland Drive in Malibu, CA. Now, I'm not sure if ya'll have ever read any of my other posts about the catering events that I have worked, but the restaurant itself is in Newport Beach, California. Let's look at the map. Riverside to Newport Beach (near John Wayne Airport) to Malibu. (see photo below.........not that close to home...about 40 miles)

Now.....let's move along from Newport to Malibu. (see below photo)

I am beginning to think I'm not so smart for agreeing to this driving the van thing until I get an emailing me the schedule. As you will see this was a HUGE event and it went late. This was where I was back to being smart. I, with the people in my van, get to leave at 10 p.m. and the rest of the crew was leaving at 1 a.m. ("I am so smart, S-M-R-T" -Homer Simpson)

In speaking with the events coordinator (aka "my boss"), I learn that someone called in sick at the last minute. Well, it wasn't really last minute. He called on Wednesday saying he thought he was coming down with the flu. At 1 a.m. the night before the party, he sent an email saying he wasn't going to be there. (when was the last time the flu took three days to put you down? it always just jumps up and hits me like a ton of bricks. I know the guy. He didn't want to work.) This is a bad omen.

New email from events coordinator. "can you come to the restaurant by 10 a.m. on Saturday to help me get one of the vans?" there are always perks included in this business and I knew that helping out on this one would be no different. On top of knowing the E.C. pretty well (worked with her for 6 years), I knew she would take care of me for helping out. That's not why I do it, of course; but it helps. HA$! That gives me a couple of hours to kill, but during my normal job (recruiter) I had arranged a couple of interviews on my down time. Then all hades broke loose.

The restaurant owner (and chef for the evening) needed something done, but none of his kitchen monkeys were doing anything. They were all just sitting around smoking cigarettes and avoiding working at all costs. He starts complaining to EC and she starts yelling back about it not being her job and I decide I'll help loading the 30 cases of wine 6 cases of champagne and 12 cases of beer on tot the refrigerated truck. Yes, you read those numbers correctly. This was a big ass party. Next, I found out that since things had not been going so great that the owner of the restaurant would be riding with me in my van. Oh boy! I get the guy who was just bossing everyone around because things weren't going right riding shotgun. Great! Dang...couldn't he go at 3 with the late crew? He was supposed to ride with EC in her nice Lexus SUV. (I really like it.) So......here we are, waiting for the truck to be loaded and we get all 9 of us in the van and we make it to Malibu in about an hour and a half. Not bad timing. (ADD moment: on the ride up, I got the call that Godzilla did #2 on the potty...YAY for him....he told mommy he needed to go, too. Good job, zilla)

We get there and there are Bison, Zebras, Ostrich and all sorts of cool animals on the property. It was rather breath taking. I wish I had pictures of that, but I cannot seem to locate any. The driveway is long and winding with forks all over the place. I can see how one may get lost between Mulholland HWY and the house. This is all by 2:30-ish and the whole time I'm thinking about EC and having to break the whole thing down with just 5 people, but hey...I gotta get home because like a dope I also agreed to work on Sunday night too after swearing I would never do a 7-day week.

So we're there and things are just odd. I work at Sherman Gardens most of the time and don't have to deal with all the rules the grounds security put on us and such a sprawling estate.

We had 4 wine tasting tables, New World, Old World, California and French wines, two bars, a cigar table, cheese table and a dining room to set. The wine tasting tables were with the other Maitre'd and I had 5 people to set the 185 person dining room. No problem.....two of the guys work at Sherman Gardens during the week, so they should be on top of their game, right? Three of the guys, I work with regularly at weddings so I know they'll work hard for me. The ones that work at the Gardens....slackers! One of the guys that I work with regularly throws his back out picking up his second crate of plates. (remember we were already short one person) So, we had a girl folding napkins, and one of the SG waiters starts helping her. My mistake for letting him, but he wasn't much help once I pulled him off it, so I may have left him where he was. There were 3 wine glasses per setting, a bread plate w/butter knife, three salad forks, a teaspoon, a soup spoon, and 2 table knives (185 people) I ended up using my 3.5 guys to get this done in about an hour an a half.

Then the dang wedding coordinator (not someone I've ever seen) starts re-arranging the place settings after we get the room pretty much done. "oh, we need two more over here and one more over here and blah, blah, blah!" Here's what we did before the glasses had gone down.

See, it's already getting crowded on the tables w/out the damned glasses. Here's a dark shot of the table....you can see most of what's going on the table.

Have you ever worked somewhere like a restaurant or somewhere you wouldn't expect to see someone you know? Well one of our good friends from church IN RIVERSIDE was in Malibu and their daughters were flower girls. How crazy was that? Next thing you know here's another one that had moved to Oregon. (they were both cousins of the bride)

Now...here's where I become stupid. Every time I see the EC she's telling me how worried she is about breakdown since we're now 2 guys down and because it's breakdown it is kind of like being 4 people down because people are going to be so dang tired by the end of the wedding. After beginning to worry about it myself and feeling bad that there won't be enough people...I (cannot believe that I) said "I will stay and help. Don't worry."

What? What did I just say? No, no....take it back, bring those words back to your mouth! HOLY CRAP WHAT DID I DO? It's too late, you said it......suck it up and be a man.

We didn't get out until 2 a.m. I got to bed in Riverside (see above maps.....) around 4:30 a.m. HOLY SMOKES, I have to get up and go to the gardens by 4 p.m. and work until 9 or 10 p.m. What was I thinking? I may be the dumbest human being.

Well, last nights gig was pretty easy. It was a 78th birthday party, and the most difficult thing was making sure no one crapped their pants. Kidding. It was actually these kids who thought the were going to drink on my shift. They tried...unsuccesfully...I might add. It was a team effort.....things went well and I came home with some nice parting gifts from the entire weekend.

Thanks to Monkey, I got to stay home today......that's a story for another day. Click here to see all the photos that EC took.

Bruschetta, it's easy and yummy

The other day I was making some Pasta Carbonera and decided I needed more carbs to go with it. So, I decided to make some bruschetta w/sour dough toast. It came out nice and yummy. (not so good a couple of days later.....the cheese was a little funky)

Here's a good picture.......it was good.........

One more Saturday.....

......maybe I should start doing a "Catering Confessional".....maybe I should just retire my apron and wine key.

Flat bread mania, continued........

"

I talked about flat bread pizzas here, so I won't bore you with the details about the "how to's". Anyway, what I will bore you with is that last time...they weren't so tasty......they looked pretty, but this time I used real pizza sauce and pepperoni on one, pizza sauce w/red onion and tomatoes on another, sauce and cheese on the third, then on the fourth....pesto w/red onion, tomatoes and cheese. Check out the photos...I got them made before we ate all of it up.

Try it...it's better than buying it.....only quite a bit more time consuming.

Would you care for a frosty beverage?

Epicurious

I have heard of bi-curious, but "epicurious"? It's probably the most popular food blog out there. Why am I so late to the boat? I don't like hype......but this one is worthy of its hype.

So....any of you other slackers out there that haven't been there.....check it out.

Later

Shrimp, it's what's for dinner (or was last night)

We had some scrimps that needed to be cooked since they had been thawed for a different dinner for someone else. Luckily J asked if that person liked shrimp. They're allergic......eat a shrimp, go meet your maker.....glad she asked, plus we got to eat this for dinner.



What you see on your left, is what I had. It's a grilled shrimp 'n cheese. I think my wife might classify it as "bachelor food", but it was good. J, my wife if you haven't guessed, had shrimp a la carte.

"What did you do to it?" J asks, as
I'm sure you're wondering.


Well, I took the wok, cranked the heat up to HIGH. (very shunned, unless you're cooking with a wok) Took a table spoon of mince garlic (we have a jar I need to use up so I can go back to the real stuff) some oil (put that in first and let it get hot). Drop the garlic in the oil, then the shrimp, toss some pepper, a little salt and some cayenne for some zing. OH! A dash of soy sauce is usually pretty good, too.


That's basically what I did and if I'd had some rice it would have been better, but I didn't get home until late and forgot to ask J to start the rice. She didn't know I wanted to cook the shrimp......my bad.


Hope ya'll enjoy.........................come back to the wampus.


Gotta give some love to my boy, Matt, for those dang chimichurri burgers. They looked great and I might have to run that truck down one of these days.

Good Dessert/Sharp Spoon

Sunday night....hungry for sweets.........whaddya got?

"I got vanilla ice cream"

what else?

"I got some peanut butter"

Now yer talkin'

So, I took a luvin' spoonful of loverly peanut butter, dropped it into about 3 or 4 scoops (depending on who is getting the bowl) of vanilla ice cream (probably the most underrated of ice creams). I used another spoon to make sure I got all of the peanut butter off the first spoon, a soup spoon. (we'll come back to that last statement) And it was good.

I decided to use the soup spoon as my own....to get the extra peanut butter. It's wider than the tea spoon and it rubbed against the inside of my mouth and was extremely uncomfortable. "ah, it's just wider than the teaspoon" I says to myself. It continued to be uncomfortable, almost hurt, but the peanut butter and the ice cream were so good, I didn't really pay attention until I saw a little bit of red mixed in with the vanilla. I grew concerned.

When I checked the mirror, sure enough there was about 1/2" cut on the inside corner of my mouth.

"HOLY SMOKES! Baby, I cut the inside of my mouth!" I yelled to J.

"OK, let's calm down and just get it to stop bleeding", I think,"but the ice cream is so good, can't I just handle it until I finish?"

I decide it's best to handle the loss of blood, which turned out to be minimal and I was able to finish my PB&IC (aka Peanut Butter and Ice Cream, if you can't follow along) after getting a tea spoon.

The soup spoon, in my opinion, had been sharpened by the tea spoon and that's what cut my mouth. J thinks I'm crazy, but I insist that's what happened. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

My lunch today (Salad and PB&J)

When you're in a hurry, what do you do? Let's look in the fridge...............................no, not that....no, no, not that either..........Here we go! Salad that we didn't touch from last night, but that won't cut it for all day. Oh, I bought jelly the other day! PB&J sandwich.....that sounds good.

Since I can't post anything without a photo, I thought I'd let you see the photographic artwork of a 4 year old.

Nutella...hey Kobe Bryant likes it!

Nutella is something I never I would have thought I would buy. That dang Giada De Laurentis had to go and show some crepes being made with it at the Fairfax Farmer's Market. Therefore, we bought some and I made a sad attempt at crepes, but I had no butter. It screwed me up pretty good and couldn't get more than 4 made. It was enough to satisfy the craving, but I was fairly disappointed in myself. I'll do better on the next go around. By the way Peanut Butter and Nutella sandwiches RAWK!

Monkey vs. Godzilla

Hey, can anyone cook for a 2 year old (Godzilla) and a 4 year old (Monkey)? I can't get them to eat anything I cook....unless it's french fries, which I'm not even that good at.


Here's Monkey taunting me with food he says he's going to eat. I think it took him about 2 hours to not eat this grilled cheese.

Now Godzilla will eat, most of his sandwich, but not without me threatening to throw it away if he gets up again about 12 times. I will throw it away on that 13th time, darn it!



Later!

How 'bout them 'crispy thighs'?

Chicken is really the quickest food to truly BBQ. I used indirect heating on this and the skin gets really nice and crispy. The risotto is from a bag, but it was good. Do you like my basil garnish? My photos aren't as good as Matt's, but the food is good and my wife said I can no longer put any posts without pictures. It's not as interesting, she says....I think she might be right.

Chickee Flied Lice.....fit-teen meenut!

I like to make chicken fried rice.....it's good.

I'll never be a "Top Chef"!

My wife bought some of those "snack size" microwave popcorn bags and the cooking time says one minute and a half or less. I took one to work on Wednesday and let it go for 1:30 exactly.

it burned

I took another one today and let it go for 1:20.................................IT BURNED AGAIN, DAGNABBIT!!!!!

Now, I'll never be able to get on one of those TV shows....unless maybe Food 911 gets revived....but I don't think they can get the fried chicken bucket away from that guy these days. He was my server at the Corona Applebee's the other day....no wait, he was just on my TV doing a commercial for them.....but I think he is a server at that Applebee's over on McKinley. Maybe he should read this post and get an application from the above link.

Well, hopefully you've learned from my mistakes and give Tyler a good tip at Applebee's.

Cooking with Country Crock

I know you're really not supposed to because there seems to be something like a water base, but I needed butter in a pinch as to make some crepes. I know I've used it before (in fact, I think last time I made crepes) but this time it just didn't come out quite right.

Could one of my foodies that check in from time to time let me know why one isn't supposed to cook with things like Country Crock? Can one use stick margarine? This is where my lack of training comes into play. I guess I could look it up to find out, but I get distracted when I start looking things like that up.

If I find the answer, I will come back and update.....but right now I have to go an recruit some Java developers...as opposed to coffee makers. (ha!)

Right now...

....I'm eating Potato Salad from a bucket.....directly from the bucket.

(I am so "Fleetwood".)

Flat Bread Mania

OK....so, don't ever watch Jack Bauer's hero, Bobby Flay. He'll make you want to try things that you really have no business trying. I did it and pulled it off.....barely.....none of the kids would eat it....well, the eldest did, but she may have just been nice to me about it.

I made Flat Bread dough and cooked "flat bread pizza" on the grill.......it was cool. I wish I had taken photos. I did meatball, garlic and tomato w/mozzarella and did a bbq chicken pizza w/homemade bbq mulberry honey bbq sauce.

Check out Chef Flay's recipes for it...it isn't really hard, just friggin time consuming. I swear I may have wasted my day just waiting on the stuff to rise. I think next time, I will add something to the dough to give it a little more flava-flav. (yeah, boi!) sorry...that was sad.

At any rate, I didn't turn on the Grill-master Flay today because I was running around like mad trying to get a bunch of stuff taken care of that I only got half done.

Top Chef: Howie???

OK...so I don't have time for a lot of links here, but if anyone watched Top Chef (my favorite show) Wednesday night....how in the heck can Howie keep going up and down each week? One week he's a mess and the next week he's winning. Also, since when did he and Joey kiss and make up from their fight a couple of weeks ago.

The worst part about this show is how long it is taking them to get rid of the dead weight.

CJ is hardly even there.
Sara (non-Asian) is consistently bad, but not as bad as others
Dale is a dimwit that some how thinks he has what it takes.
Asian Sara just doesn't do well under pressure and they should put her out of my misery.
Thanks to the Holy Chef that fool from Mississippi got the boot the first week as well as the Rainbow Warrior with a Mohawk two weeks ago.
I think they're making the right decisions on who to shoo away, but it's just taking so long.
Heck, I even think Hung needs to go. I think that leaves Tre, Howie and Joey.....oh and Casey....but who gives a rat's butt about her....she's consistently bad too.

I'm not saying I could do any better than these people, but they're the ones going on the show. I'm still practicing for The Next Food Network Star. HA! (I'm working on my cupcakes....I hate making desserts -unless it's a cobbler)

Food on TV: Top Chef 3

Does anyone else watch Top Chef on Bravo? I really enjoy watching, but they put it on at a time that makes me hungry late at night. I'm not sure who I like on there this season. I think it's going to have to be Tre because he likes to cook bbq. Dale is just a whiny little beeyotch! (IMHO) and most of the women on there just need to go. I couldn't be a judge on there because I'd send everyone home right away. Hung and Tre would be there the rest of the season getting in to food battles for the rest of the season.

Let me know what you think about it?

Top Food Searches that get people to the Caddywampus

Boysenberry Cobbler - wouldn't have thought that
Chicken Parmesean - has been beaten out by the cobbler

Insta-Lunch

So, on Sunday, I was hungry for something.....but not the usual, like a PB&J or anything. Julie (my food photographer) asked me if I wanted a quesadilla with the left over grilled chicken. That sounded good to me. So, I chopped up a chicken breast while the "carb smart" tortilla was grilling and melting cheese....tossed the chicken on there...added some more cheese another tortilla on top....FLIP the whole thing to let the other tortilla grill. (oh yeah....slather the tortillas in butter so they gets nice and crispy) The whole time my wife and I were also chopping tomatoes, avocados and some red onion for guacamole.

Anyway, we turned out a nice filling lunch..........I even have proof of me eating my own food.

Caddywampus in your home

This 4th of July was fun. We, the fam-damily, went to Oceanside to my in-laws' house. They have a place in a retirement community called Ocean Hills and is pretty nice. It's like a self contained town....pretty cool, actually, which is better than the "retirement homes" that I'm used to seeing in my home town. Well, I got to cook for my in-laws in their home. I did not prepare all the food, but I did BBQ the ribs and corn and I also made a cobbler.

I started out seasoning the ribs with garlic salt, chili powder and pepper (coarse ground). Then they went into a 275 degree oven for 2 hours. Next we went to play paddle tennis and drove the boys around in the golf cart. (hey, we had to keep them busy) Then we went home, removed the hair from the corn on the cob so they wouldn't get all burned and just threw the corn, husk and all, on the grill. (LOL, I almost typed "on the girl"....ha!) While those started, I brought out the ribs and tossed them on the grill for about 5 minutes before slathering them down with BBQ sauce. (keep turning your corn to make sure it cooks evenly) Now, flip your ribs slather more sauce. Close grill and let the sauce set for a few minutes. Remove corn. Flip ribs once more, and turn off the grill. Let the heat set the glaze and remove from grill.



Serve with some homemade potato salad (mother in-law makes this very yummy like) and watermelon and salad and you have yourself a plate that you're so hungry to eat, you'll forget to take a photo. (hence, no photo).



Once you're all stuffed from that, who can even think of dessert? Well, since we made a special trip to the store, I cannot forget about it. I made a boysenberry cobbler. (see previous entry) It was good and the boys even ate their food.

With that being said, we went to the Legoland parking lot and watched their fireworks for $2 worth of parking.

It was a good 4th and I look forward to next year...........I think.

Boysenberry Cobbler...........looks good don't it?

Over here at "the wampus" we love us some cobbler. Usually I make peach, but my wife brought home two cans of boysenberries and a thing of vanilla ice cream.

You can find the recipe with the Peach Cobbler. It's the same, but I used boysenberries.....simple as dat.

Ya'll come back now, ya hear!

Crepes..............when you must have something sweet

The other day, I got a wild hair and felt the need for something sweet. So, I took a recipe from the Good Home Cook Book (what a deal!....I got it gratis for testing the recipes)....this is the second time I've tried the crepes. I'm going to have to come back to this and post the recipe because I cannot remember it, nor can I find the dang blog for the author of the book.

Here it is from Cooks.com:

3 eggs

1 1/2 c. flour

2 tbsp. vegetable oil

1/8 tsp. salt

1 1/2 c. skim milk

24 crepes

I don't know why my formatting is acting up right now...but it is.

Anyway, the recipe I used was not this one. I'll post it later. It ended up tasting great and I had some linginberries for filling. They were very tasty and I hope ya'll enjoy

HEY! GET THAT FRUIT OFF MY GRILL!

I've been reading some foodie blogs recently and found Matt over at Mattbites! He has a delicious looking recipe for grilling fruit.

Now I've never tried grilling fruit, but I have always wanted to. This might get some flack for being a little more uppity than what my "wampus regulars" are used to, but sometimes you have to throw something out there and maybe it will stick.

Before you completely diss the idea of fruit on the grill....check out his Plumb Bar-B-Que sauce.

Coming to a UHF Channel near you.....Hell's Kitchen: Caddywampus Cafe edition

So, today, my 12 year old asked how to make a Grilled Egg & Cheese. It was a fun little treat on Father's Day for her to humor me in thinking I might be teaching her something for a minute.

She's awesome......here is a photo of me showing her how to flip an egg. Thanks, K!

Pot Luck Dessert.....Peach Cobbler

So, my work had a Father's Day Pot Luck on Friday. Unfortunately, I had to leave to get a sick Monkey; therefore I did not get to eat any of it.

I made a Peach Cobbler, which I posted a while back....here. It looked great and I wanted to put a picture of an entire finished cobbler...not just in a bowl w/Ice Cream. Check it out.

Seared Ahi w/Citrus Marinade

OK, now I should be doing some dishes, but I was really excited about making something that was pretty darn good for dinner. The seared ahi w/Citrus Marinade was pretty good. Just enough to taste, but to be honest, it could have used some soy sauce or some real ginger

What I used:

The Juice of 1 orange and 1 lemon

1 teaspoon of sugar

1 Tablespoon of EVOO

1Tablespoon of Balsamic

(truth be told on those last two ingredients, I eyeballed it)

1-2 sprays per side of Wishbone "Asian Silk-Sesame Ginger Vinaigrette" on each slice of fish

3 good size slices of yummy looking Ahi Tuna

We will not discuss the Mai fun Noodles as they did not turn out as good as I had wished. (they were still pretty good)

How I did it:

Begin heating grilling pan or if you're doing it outside, get your grill ready w/medium heat. In a cup, squeeze orange, then lemon, mix sugar then oil then vinegar. (remove citrus seeds) Whisk it all together really fast.(wow! that was easy!) Pour over Ahi, flipping to make sure fish is coated w/marinade. Then spray each slice of ahi w/salad dressing. Then place on grill and pay attention, because this stuff cooks quick. I like mine just barely seared, but my wife likes hers cooked a little more...so if you are cooking two different temperatures, put the more rare piece on last as that will ensure everything gets done about the same time.

Serve over some jasmine rice or some Mai fun or chow main. I bet if I had some bokchoy and other veggies this would have been a longer post.

Until next time.....thanks for stopping by the Wampus!

Angel Hair Carbonera ala West

I originally found the recipe for Spaghetti Carbonera in the April issue of Sunset magazine. I didn't have it near me, but I thought I knew what was in it. I was a little wrong. Go look at that link I just posted. (click here if you're lazy)

I used the following:

Half a box of angel hair

3 cloves of garlic

2-3 slices cooked bacon

about a handful of pine nuts

some olive oil

about a dozen shakes of crushed red pepper

about a handful of Parmesan cheese

Process:

while pasta was cooking, heat skillet w/olive oil, add pine nuts, then bacon and garlic, add pasta(drain it first!) toss to mix, add a little more olive oil, red pepper, cheese. It's really easy to burn the garlic, so be careful with that. Oh, right....the pine nuts take some care too, but over all, this is one of the easier dishes I've done. and it was so dang good.

Serve it up. Who has time for garnish with food this good?

What's your favorite cheese to grill?

My wife made a grilled cheese for breakfast. She used Muenster and it looked very yummy. I wish I had thought to make one of those.

Anyway, it got me thinking..........."if you're going to make a burger or any sandwich with cheese melted on it, what's your favorite cheese?"

Provolone is a personal favorite of mine, Swiss is good too. Any sort of stinky cheese bring a ton of flavor, but you want to make sure you don't mask the flavor of the meat/protein of the sandwich.

So....tell me what you think........

Cooking Tip: saran wrap when breading

Here's a little tip I learned from the always annoying, Rachel Ray. (I've actually learned a lot from her show, but it was before she became the face of the "foodie".)

When using flour, bread crumbs or corn meal for breading your food, cover your dish with saran wrap to keep from having to wash that extra plate.

Just a little tip for today.

Bachelor Breakfast Sandwich, good any time of the day!

My wife calls all of my concoctions "bachelor food". Once I made a breakfast quesadilla with eggs, chopped up hot dog and cheese. It was good....the best part of it was that, no one else wanted to eat it and it was all mine. I think I may have issues with sharing food. I don't REALLY have any problems sharing one bite, but it's when you lose your entire plate to some little moocher that wants what daddy has. (not to be confused with when you ask your spouse/significant other if they want something to eat/drink and they say "no", but when you sit down with whatever it is, they eat half of it.....that's included)

Now let's get started with the "bachelor sandwich". You can do this in a variety of methods. You can use almost any style bread and most sliced cheeses. You can use meat or just eggs.


You'll need:
2, slices of bread (your choice) For this, I used the "institutional bun"
1-2 eggs
2-3 slices of cheese (again, your choice)
optional:
2-3 slices of roast beast, turkey, ham or pastrami....maybe some salami or whatever meat you'd like to include

Directions:
heat skillet, butter bread while heating. Place on skillet butter side down, crack egg(s) on to medium heated skillet, break yolk, (at this point you'll want to season the egg with whatever you'd like. I used cayenne pepper and garlic salt.) flip. Place cheese on egg, flip bread and place cheese on bottom bun. Slip egg on top of cheese bun, close and remove from heat and serve.

You might want to serve with something cold to drink, like a Coke or Dr. Pepper because something this hot and greasy doesn't need to be served with a "good for you" drink. What's the point. Oh, it's also too hot to have coffee with....trust me...I did that the other day.

What you'll get is a yummy, but not all the appealing to the eye sandwich.....if anyone else tastes it, they'll ask you to make you one. (If you give a pig a pancake....)

Explanation to the non-SoCal folk

I feel the need to explain "Fontucky Fried Chicken".

There is this area in the Inland Empire called "Fontana" and it is well known for being a bit of a redneck, hick-ish kind of area. So, it has been dubbed "FONTUCKY". I never knew that it had its own website.....funny. Go get you a "Fontucky" shirt....they look cool!

At any rate, I'm originally from Mississippi and now I live in Riverside, California.......kind of close to Fontana.....I have nothing against the city or anything...don't really know that much about it. But I love to mix two words together...this just fits.

Later, ya'll!

New Look "Wampus"!

OK, let's all thank Brandi for the new banner, logo!

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

People who love photoshop are good in my book!
This is exactly what I was looking for and I love it. Who would be interested in a shirt with this on it?

Does anyone know how to turn this banner into a hyper-link so I can put it on my other blog? Now I'm just being pushy, I know.

New Look for the Wampus

I've been told I need a logo....can anyone help? You'll get a lifetime table at the Wampus.

Fontucky Fried Chicken

Do you think someone could get away with opening a chicken place called Fontucky Fried?

Just a thought.

I've decided that I still like the Caddywampus Cafe, so I'll just title it on the menu, "Fontucky Fried Chicken Fingers".

Have I done the chicken fingers/nuggets breaded in Italian bread crumbs before? Yes? OK...well, here goes. It's the same breading as the "Chicken Parmesan" (which seems to be pretty popular on the foodie searches).

Take a look!

Birthday Cake for Godzilla

OK, so my wife is awesome. She's so dang creative and I'm just not.....it is almost irritating, but how can such talent make you jealous? One should just stand in awe.

She worked very hard on this and even got discouraged at one point cursing me and the cake. I was just in the room. Don't judge. I would have done the same thing to her and the cake.

Godzilla turned 2 on the 9th and his party was today. We were busting our butts trying to get everything pulled together at the last minute (really? surprise!) and my wife busts out this bad ass cake. He is into dinosaurs and we like to enable the kids' habits.

Here's what she did. It's all box cake mix (why not...there's more work to it...why make it harder). She did a 9x13 pan of yellow cake, filled two Pyrex bowls with chocolate cake and carved them in to volcanoes. She took Oreo-type cookies and smashed them with a rolling pin and mixed them in chocolate frosting. With this frosting she thee wed...no really...she pressed against the side of the volcanoes making it look like a rocky surface. Impressed yet? I was/am.

Then she iced the sheet cake w/chocolate and used graham cracker crumbs for dirt and green tinted coconut for grass. Then here's the kicker. She made a pool.....with green J-E-L-L-O. A friggin' pool on the cake. How often do you see that? I'll tell you...."never, that's when!"

When she put the cake together she finally cut the corners off one side to assemble the volcanoes on either side of the cake. Eli loved it (of course, it was cake) and we all "ooh'd and ahh'd" as we saw it.

I love my wife and all the she puts in to her kids' birthday parties. Me...I would have bought a cake maybe had ribs for the adults and hot dogs for the kids. My wife does stuff better than me. I just hope she never takes up the drums.

Grilled BBQ Chicken Sandwiches

So, when you have defrosted meat in the fridge and you're not sure what to do with it. Just stick it on the grill, man. You can do it at 10 p.m. if you want....you don't have to eat it......until it's done and smells all good and stuff.

This was a last minute "what are we going to do with it?" situation. I put it on the grill with just some garlic salt and some pepper then at the last minute basted it with the BBQ sauce.....on a whim, right.

I don't know if we were planning on eating this or not, but I toasted an "institutional bun" with some pepper jack cheese (thanks to Costco). (is this what they use in prison?) More on this later...maybe. My, my, my.....that was some good food. (ever notice I don't talk about the "crap meals" that I make from time to time.....which is why there is sometimes a gap in my posting)

Anyway...short story long....I grilled food that I didn't want to go bad. Tip for the day.

Next will be the cakes for Godzilla's b-day party...the wife is outdoing herself this time. I might try to get her to blog about it instead of my paltry diatribes.

Grilling Series: Propane

Make sure you have it.

Need a logo

OK all you readers out there. All three of you!

I would love to have a logo for the Caddywampus......I just think it would be cool....and is something I have been thinking about for a while.

Anyone? Bueller?

Grilling Chops w/Caddywampus Green Beans and Roasted Red Potatoes w/Garlic & Pepper

When I did this, I had these very thin cut pork chops which are good to have when you're on a limited time frame because they cook so quickly.

What I used:
2-3 lbs. pork chops (bone in)
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (aka EVOO)
Balsamic Vinegar
Garlic Salt
Pepper
Season-All

What I did:
A couple of hours before I started cooking, I coated the chops with the EVOO and balsamic, sprinkle (to taste) dry ingredients (both sides), cover and put in fridge. (you can do this the night before if you want, but you at least want to do this an hour before cooking)

Have I told ya'll about the beans in any earlier posts? I think I did, but I haven't the time to look it up.

Caddywampus Green Beans
What you need:
1 - 1.5lbs of fresh Green Beans (rinsed and blanched-please remember to drop them in a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process...this will keep the crispness of the beans)
1 yellow onion, chopped
3-4 slices bacon
salt/pepper to taste

How to do it:
Heat skillet over medium heat (approx. 5 min.) cook bacon to crisp remove from skillet saving bacon drippings for cooking the rest of the food. Place onion in skillet and cook until the begin to sweat then place beans in skillet. Once they begin to get just a little soft, remove from heat, crumble bacon and mix in with beans and onions.......Damn! they're good

Roasted Red Potatoes w/Garlic & Pepper
What you need:
2-3 pounds of Red Potatoes, quartered
EVOO
2-3 cloves Garlic, minced
1/2 tspn pepper
season-all

What you need to do:
pre-heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, mix EVOO & dry ingredients in separate bowl. put potatoes in mixture and make sure to get all the potatoes coated in oil, pepper, garlic. place in oven for about 25 minutes or until tender w/fork. again, Damn! they were good.

One of these days I'll write a book.

Today's Lunch: Sausage, Egg & Cheese on Sourdough

This was good. I wish I'd have thought to take a picture, but I was only going to put up the "Grilling Series" and not post about anything else right now.

4 turkey breakfast sausages
2 eggs
2 slices American Cheese
2 slices of Sourdough bread (buttered on the outsides)
= one sandwich

Make sure you start the sausages first (in a separate pan) as they usually take the longest. I did the eggs fried, but mixed them up on the griddle. Set them aside, put the bread on the griddle, cheese on the bread then re-set the eggs on the melty cheese, place sausage on eggs, then place other slice of bread, smash together, then flip (carefully) to finish off. Remove from heat and enjoy. These make great brunch like meals.

Juicy Crispy Chicken Breasts

Now, I made this last year and it was very, very yummy. I have since done it with Chicken Thighs and BBQ sauce on numerous occasions with even better results. Indirect heat is a very interesting way to grill things; especially when you're someone used to cooking with high heat all the time.

Now when you try it, try it with the corriander marinade. I'm not sure if any of ya'll like middle eastern flavors, but that was dang good.

"Spice-rubbed. In step 1, sprinkle your favorite spice rub all over the chicken while you're letting it come to room temperature. We like the Indian flavors of 1 teaspoon ground cumin, 1 teaspoon ground coriander, 1/2 teaspoon turmeric, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, and 1/2 teaspoon cayenne."

There are two other ways to do it, which I haven't tried (unless you count doing it with BBQ sauce) that are good too. You'll see.

Anyway, Sunset is a great magazine with tons of fun stuff to cook.

Somebody try it and let me know which one you liked best. (Tony, since you're now the bar-b-queing fool....I expect you to try it.)

Grilling Conserves Water

"What the heck are you talking about?", you ask yourself.

So, the other day I asked for suggestions and 2 of my 3 commented back. I don't know much about organic stuff or trans fat business, but I do know (enjoy, rather) grilling. 'Tis the season to be jolly. No, not Christmas, but it's warm most of the time and time to get your grill tools together and your coals burning (or propane refilled).

Today will just be a tip on why grilling is good. There will be a few of these in this series. I found some recipies that I havne't trie and I'll re-post some of the things I have already discussed.

Now, let's get started:
Well, when you grill, you usually don't have to wash as many dishes. For example: The other night I grilled checken breasts and put corn on the cob (still in the husk) right on the grill. This meant, I didn't have to wash the corn, boil it, nor cut them in half (3 ears f/5 people) . It saved me time and water.....WOW! I'm a friggin' genius. I also threw some broccoli in some foil w/EVOO, S&P and set that on the back of the grill. Saved more water for steaming and another dish. Dang, I'm on a roll now.

I love being able to cook an entire meal right on the grill and not have to turn the oven or stove on. Hank Hill would be proud.

Now, last night, I did make burgers, but I made home made french fries in the oven. I would have done a separate post, but I don't want to interrupt the flow of the Grilling Series.

What you need:
3-4 good sized potatoes
2 TB EVOO
S&P to taste
Optional:
Hot Sauce or Cayenne Pepper

While your oven is pre-heating to 350F, cut potatoes in half, then in 1/4" slices. Mix EVOO and S&P (salt & pepper) and optional stuff then drop potato slices in making sure to get all slices covered w/mixture. Place on a cookie sheet and put in oven for about 20 minutes, but keep an eye on your fries so they don't get burned.

Serve while warm because cold fries are just bad.

Someone try it and get back to me!

Godzilla likes 'em!

What you'll need to make these tasty little morsels. My picky kids (well Godzilla did, at least) at an entire plate and asked for more. So, maybe this will work for your kids. We also gave them raw broccoli ("brockie", as Godzilla says) with ranch.

3 or 4 good sized chicken breasts, cubed
4 eggs, beaten
1 cup flour (maybe more)
1 cup Italian bread crumbs (or more)
cooking oil (enough to mostly cover nuggets in skillet)

heat oil in skillet while arranging your assembly line for dredging your chicken.
roll chicken in flour
dip in egg
roll in breadcrumbs
drop in oil
remember: don't get the oil too hot or breadcrumbs blacken and do not look appetizing. Be sure to flip chicken if you are using a skillet. Some people use what's called a "fry daddy", but I cannot justify having one. Because if I had it, I would use it and no one needs to deep fry everything in the house.

Fried Pickles (amongst other things)

I swore I wasn't going to eat fried stuff....this is why.

What you'll need:

1 box of tempura batter
1 jar of dill pickle chips
2 or 3 zucchini (good sized)
1 vidalia onion (or Maui) sliced
what ever veggie you would like to drop in tempura batter and fry.

in your wok (skillet, whatever) pour 1.5"-2" of cooking oil and get it hot.
dip desired piece of food to be fried into tempura batter, letting some drip off as you remove from batter
drop into oil until a golden crust forms.

I'll have a picture later. (it's of what was left after I finished plowing through the food)

Letter from Management

Hi Everyone!

I'm just wondering if anyone has tried any of these recipes? Tell me what you liked, didn't like, which were gave good or bad instructions, or just a simple comment on how we can make the Caddywampus Cafe a fun place for you customers. I have somewhat been throwing out what I like to make, because it's my place, but if any of ya'll have anything good, email me and I will try to get it on here. If you send me enough and would like to contribute, I would love to have some contributors.

Thanks,

Management of the Caddywampus

Dinner (not Breakfast) At Tiffany's

Can you find me? Well, I guess if you've never seen me.....you probably won't find me. I'm the closest guy serving dessert in the foreground of the picture. We actually got applause for serving food......I didn't know we were that good.

So, I said over at my general blog that this was a "Casino Royale" themed party for the top twenty-five patrons (contributors) to the Pacific Symphony Orchestra . They even had a fake Dr. No . That's my humble opinion anyways. He had a really, really bad accent and used every single British cliche in the book.

The food on the other hand, was awesome. It was a 5 course meal that Chef Pascal was asked to match with a fitting wine. The first course was the appetizer, "salmon timbales and tuna tar tar" (the tuna was in a sesame seed crepe with olive oil, lime juice and anchovies........it was probably one of the best things I've eaten in a long, long time.) paired with Pino Gris (some French name that I cannot remember, much less pronounce). Then there was a wild mushroom soup with a biscuit style crust on top (same wine). Next was the main course, beef tenderloin (fillet) with steamed lobster tail served with a Syrah (again, I don't read French very well, so I cannot remember it). (OK, now that looked amazing and the wine smelled just as good as the food looked.) Then there was a baby greens salad topped with a fried goat cheese on top. *sigh* why can't I eat like that all the time? because I'd have a heart attack if I did. The dessert served with some stinky French Port, was "Flawless" chocolate cake, pineapple upside down cake, and a (h)azelnut (leave out the "h" when pronouncing it in French)

We had to bust our butts all night long and then I got to drive home to Riverside at 11:15 p.m. Sunday was somewhat of an early day, but I had a good weekend anyway.........did anyone else have anything good to eat?

Chicken Stir Fry

two chicken breasts, diced
hand full of snow peas
hand full of asparagus
hand full of chopped carrots
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
2T of Oyster Sauce
2T oil (peanut preferred)

throw in chicken and garlic, when chicken begins to brown toss in veggies (you don't have to use those vegetables, but they were yummy last night) serve over rice or udon noodles and enjoy!

I want my baby back, baby back, baby back...and I forgot to take pictures

DANG! Ya'll missed a good one last night. Easter is usually a boring ol' ham, right? Well, I'm tired of ham for the holidays. My wife asked me if we should get a ham and I said, "Nope, we should get some ribs." I served them with my special green beans, baked potatoes and salad. I'll let you prep your own starches and salads, but we'll talk about the ribs and green beans now.

You're saying, "mmmmmm, ribs.....how did you make them?" Well get a pin or some paper for the printer. I'll wait.......................................................................................... done? good...let's get started.

For Ribs you'll need:
2-4 racks of ribs (I did 2 racks)
Olive Oil
Lawry's Season Salt
Coarse Ground Pepper
Whatever Bar-b-que sauce is on sale (I like Chris 'n Pitts', but I used Bullseye yesterday)

1. pre-heat oven to around 275 Fahrenheit.
2. place the ribs on some aluminum foil, rub them down with olive oil, Lawry's season salt, coarse ground pepper, and minced garlic
3. place in oven for about 2 hours
4. when the 2 hours is almost done, get your grill nice and hot......lower heat right before you put them on (or use indirect heat if you have a large grill)
5. place on grill meat side down for about 5 minutes brush with bar-b-que sauce, flip (be careful because they should be nice and "fall off the bone" moist) and brush the inside with the sauce. let cook for about 3-4 minutes (don't let the sauce burn on your ribs.....)
6. Then make sure you call your mama to let her know she can't cook as good as you.

Caddywampus Green Beans:

You'll need:
1-1 1/2 lbs of fresh green beans
3 slices of bacon
1 yellow (or vidalia) onion sliced
salt and pepper to taste

1. rinse and clean beans (they have these stem like pieces you'll want to pick off....not fun to eat)
2. cook bacon to where they're crispy but not burned
3. remove bacon from skillet and drain, then put in the beans
4. toss them around in the bacon grease for about 2 minutes then add the onion
5. once onions begin to soften, remove from heat and crumble bacon over beans.
6. call your mama again and make her come to your house so you can prove that you're a better cook.

We were so hungry that I didn't have time to take pictures after plating up. Trust me, they looked amazing and tasted even better.

Variations on a theme

The past 7 days have been interesting food wise. We're in a spot where we need "fillers" so, we've had potatoes and rice and such, but the two nights I cooked, I noticed that I actually cooked two versions of Chicken, Rice and Broccoli.

Last Thursday night, I did two boneless, skinless chicken breasts diced stir-fry style with broccoli and oyster sauce over jasmine rice. (sorry, no pictures) This went quick, I defrosted a couple of breasts in the microwave while prepping the rice, chopping the broccoli and garlic. It's good to chop the veggies first so you can use that board to cut up the chicken. While you're chopping your chicken heat a skillet with some oil over medium heat. Throw in the chicken and garlic until chicken begins to cook through, then add the broccoli. Once the broccoli starts to sweat, add oyster sauce until it spreads all around, remove from heat and serve over rice.

Last night, Monday, I grilled the chicken with a "jerk/teryiaki" marinade. And because I'm lazy, I put the broccoli in aluminum foil...then drizzled olive oil, sprinkled salt & pepper....put it on the grill with the chicken. (I don't want to wash any more dishes than I have to.) I cooked the jasmine rice according to directions (or memory...whichever).

Again, Chicken, Rice and Broccoli

2500 points to the first person who tells me how many times I mentioned broccoli.

Lately

it's been quite here at the "wampus". I've not done anything good in a while. My wife has been stealing the cooking thunder from me. She made an amazing casserole (Enchilada) as well as some spaghetti sauce that RAWKED!!!!!

I did, however, make another Peach Cobbler that was better than the last one.....I think anyway.

I'm too lazy to link the Cobbler, Enchilada Casserole and sauce, but go back in my archives and check 'em out. .....really easy and really good.

One of these days I'll get inspired to cook again. Maybe I'll get some ribs and YouTube it.....

Ikea for food?

Yes, Ikea (yes, the furniture store) has some yummy food. Ikea is a Swedish owned furniture store for those of you not in the know and they know you'll be there for a while...or at least they plan on you being there for a while and they have a restaurant upstairs.

The best is their Swedish meatballs with steamed red potatoes and lingenberries. (I guess I'm going to have to give you this definition because I cannot find it on the esteemed "W".) Linginberries are like cranberries, but not as tart. You can usually get the Swedish pancakes w/linginberries at IHOP (a good place for pancakes). My favorite part is that once they get you hooked on these yummy little morsels covered in gravy, they have them in little freezers at the register with the gravy packets next to it..........."you mean? I can? HONEY! We can make them there meatballs at home...we ain't gotta go tuh IKEA just fer thu food any more!" (Insert redneck accent here....sorry...this is The Caddywampus Cafe afterall.)

I wish I had some right now....they make great leftovers......become a good Swede and take this test.......I got a couple of them wrong.....I figured them out though.

Peach Cobbler.....the comfiest of comfort food

Is there a dessert that you did not like as a child because it looked funny? Well, for me that was my mom's peach cobbler. (right) Anyway, I made one once after just an odd craving and OH MY! It was djummy (that's pronounced "jummy" for those of you who do not know what a djembe is....there's a little dorky drummer humor for you......yes, I am that much of a dork.)



Anyway, you need the following:

1 Cup Sugar
1 stick of butter, melted
1 Cup of Milk
1 Cup of Self-rising Flour
1 Can sliced peaches in heavy syrup

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, mix first four ingredients in non-metal bowl with a whisk or fork, pour batter into a square Pyrex pan (or foil if you're taking it somewhere). Pour peaches over batter; put in oven for about 20-25 minutes until top begins to brown and it's bubbling around the edges. Top with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream........then let the sweet heaven begin.

We ate this about 9 p.m. last night and watched School of Rock.

Repeat Offender...Bolognese

So, this time, I used zuccini, carrots and a can of tomato sauce. It added a lot and I wanted to share a photo of the new creation.

Taco Shells "Guerro" Style

So, this is where you start. Corn tortillas from the store...not the uncooked ones, but the soft ones.....heat a skillet pretty hot with a bit of oil. Then do this........................

Once you have this started, maybe you can settle this (monkey #4 likes to have our full attention as soon as we get home)................

OK, so I got that problem settled, well distracted to say the least....and then you have to fold your taco shell so it makes that little cup thing.........once you hold it there for approximately 20-30 seconds it will get all nice and brown then do drop it on to a paper towel to drain.....and you'll get this. (below)

Anyway, fill with whatever taco meat you have prepared, with some cheese, avacado, lettuce, green (or red) onion, sour cream and of course Tapatio. (I'm currently out)

Enjoy!