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.