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.