Friday, June 29, 2007

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!

Thursday, June 28, 2007

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

Friday, June 22, 2007

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.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

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.


Tuesday, June 12, 2007

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!

Sunday, June 10, 2007

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?

Friday, June 08, 2007

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........

Monday, June 04, 2007

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.

Friday, June 01, 2007

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!