Culinary Disasters

I am no longer a bread virgin and I would like to thank Nicole from Pinch My Salt for this glorious occasion.  Wait…that does not sound right so hmm…let me explain.  A couple weeks ago Nicole tweeted about wanting to bake all the formulas in Bread Baker’s Apprentice and wanted equally insane individuals to help her.  I still do not know if it was the booze or high hope that made me commit (sometimes what is the difference) to this massive undertaking. (Click here to read the rest…)

Tags: chicken, All // 32 Comments »

You ever have a “what in the $%*@$ was I thinking” moment?  I am going through one right now and it is all thanks to Nicole from Pinch My Salt.  Last week on Twitter she asked if people wanted to join her in her quest to bake all the formulas in the Bread Baker’s Apprentice (click here to read more).  I do not know if it was blind ambition or the booze that made me enthusiastically agree to her plan and offer to join in.

I bought the Bread Baker’s Apprentice well over a year ago and the only action the book has seen was a cat deciding to knock over a glass of water all over it.  Until being soaked the book sat open at the pizza dough recipe for a couple of weeks mocking me with a sinister no fing way you can do this so do not even try smirk.  Hell even the front cover mocks me with the girl holding the beautifully baked loaf of bread with a no way this will be yours smirk on her face.

My other oh crap moment is reading the e-mails with people introducing themselves and realizing I may be the only baking virgin in the group.  Great just flipping great.  Nothing against baking but if I make a whole batch of cookies you better believe I am eating the whole batch of cookies.  Stupid living alone and lack of self-control.  Thanks to this challenge I am now joining a racquetball league to offset the large quantity of baked goods I will be consuming.

However, a deal is a deal and my fellow readers will be blessed with a colorful weekly blog post chronicling my trip down the rabbit hole of insanity.  My close friends who read my blog if you have not heard from me in over a week, please call the paramedics and do not come into the house.  I do not want you to see me covered in flour, sobbing uncontrollably, drunk, and between sobs yelling at a blob of flour screaming why will you not rise.  It is not that I do not think you can handle the sight but I do not think I could ever look you in the eyes knowing you saw me at my weakest moment.  If you could do me another huge favor and while I am institutionalized once a week pick me up a gyro platter with extra tzatziki and chicken souvlaki from Friends (Greek restaurant on Lima).  The favor would be greatly appreciated and it will drastically help me regain my sanity return to a comfortable level of insanity.

Besides the cases of whiskey, straight jacket, and spare mattresses to pad my middle bedroom is there any must have items for bread making?  I already own a digital scale, KitchenAid stand mixer, scraper, thermometers, and some bowls.

Let us return the subject matter to grilling before I have another panic attack…

Summer grilling to me is all about burgers, bratwurst, and other assorted sausage family members that can be grilled and shoved in a bun for easy consumption.  One of my favorite ways to grill brats are to first cook them in a pan of beer and sauerkraut and then quickly grill them over a hot grate so they can get some wonderful grill color and smoke.  When I have a cookout there is a good chance that in the corner of the grill there is a foil pan full of this goodness ready to accept any sausages that want a dip in the jacuzzi of love.

For this recipe you will need:

• Bratwurst (I am using a jalapeno bratwurst that my favorite butcher makes)
• 1 onion thinly sliced
• 1 green pepper thinly sliced
• 2 cloves of garlic finely diced
• 1 bottle of good beer
• 1 28 ounce jar of sauerkraut
• 1 teaspoon hot Hungarian paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds
• 2 tablespoons stone ground mustard
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• Kosher salt and black pepper
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter (Click here to read the rest…)

  Tags: pork, All // 27 Comments »

Next to a grill my second preferred cooking vessel has to be the smoker.  There is something magical about a smoker slowly chugging away with wispy streams of smoke coming out of the smokestack and filling up the neighborhood with the wonderful smells of hickory, fruit wood, and slowly cooking meat.  I have also noticed the only time my neighbors ever talk to me is when the smoker is chugging away in the driveway.

Today we are going to talk all about BBQ ribs.  There are two major cuts of ribs, spare and baby back.

Spare ribs are cut from the belly and breast bone area and are usually 11-13 bones in length.  They also contain the skirt and rib tips.  Spare ribs are meatier and fattier than baby back ribs.

Baby back ribs (for some reason the annoying Chilis’ baby back ribs song always pops in my head when I hear this even though right now I have loud annoying music blasting in my ears) are cut from the top of the rib cage between the spine and the spare rib and below the loin muscle.  The ribs are smaller and tender than spare ribs.

If you take a slab of spare ribs and trim off the breast bone and skirt you will have St. Louis style spare ribs.  Make sure to save the scraps that are trimmed off because they work great in baked beans or tossed with a some rub and placed on the smoker for a couple hours as a cook’s snack.

Which rib cut, spare or baby back, makes a better rib for smoking?  This is a matter of preference.  I love the meatiness and fattiness of a good slab of St. Louis style spare ribs.  If you prefer baby back ribs they will cook quicker than a slab of spare ribs so adjust for that.

It would not be a ribs post without the dreaded membrane discussion which is probably one of the most debated subjects in BBQ history only closely followed by brisket fat cap up or down.  If you do not know the membrane is on the bone side of the ribs and a thin clear layer.  Some people swear by removing it and others swear it causes no harm being there.  Those for removal claim it allows for more smoke penetration and those against removal claim it is harmless.

If I have time I will remove it.  Removing the membrane is easy and just take a pair of pliers and slowly pull it up.  The membrane can be slippery and has caused me to yell a few choice words at a slab before it finally came off.

I like to use a combination of hickory and apple wood for smoking pork.  Whatever wood you use always remember wispy barely visible smoke is perfect.  If you have nuclear reactor style you could impart a very bitter taste to the meat because the smoke is not getting out of the chamber fast enough.

One final point and that is dry rub only or BBQ sauce.  I prefer dry rub ribs with the BBQ sauce on the side and a little rub tossed on them at service.  This way guests can add some BBQ sauce if they would like.  Only apply sauce to the ribs about 30 minutes before you pull the ribs off the smoker so the sugars in the sauce do not burn.

For this recipe you will need:

• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup papriaka (I used a Hungarian)
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 tablespoon pure ground chili (I used a mixture of ancho, guajillo, and chipotle peppers).
• 2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon coriander
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• Cayenne pepper to taste (mix everything first and then add in the cayenne if needed)
• Yellow mustard (Click here to read the rest…)

  Tags: BBQ, pork, All // 38 Comments »

My buddy Mike over at Mike’s Table did a teriyaki chicken (click here to read the recipe) and I had been dying to do something similar.  Thankfully the opportunity arose in chicken wings.

Most people when they think chicken wings instantly think deep fried.  Not that I am health conscious but deep fried wings have never held a candle to grilled wings (I can already see some typing out nasty comments calling me an idiot).  There is just something magical about wings that have been hit with charcoal and have grill marks over them.  The other advantages to grilling wings is at the end I do not have to drain and dispose of oil or have that fried smell in the house that brings back bad flashbacks of my 6 month stint in a Burger King when I was 16 (by the way is anyone else freaked out by their commercials now?).

I also dare anyone think of a better evening than staring at a grill with a beer in one hand in a zen like state of relaxation?  Especially if you have friends who can stand around the grill and stoke your ego as you perfectly flip the burger or give that steak those killer diamond grill marks.  Speaking of killer diamond grill marks check out Peter over at Kaloagas.ca’s steak (click here to see the pictures and his amazing recipes).

On one final note a friend sent me another horrible joke that has to be shared.

Who  made a pig out of a pound of bacon and a canned ham?

Dr. Frankenswine

For this recipe you will need:

• 1 pound chicken wings
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup mirin
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 thumb size piece of ginger finely diced
• 1-2 hot peppers diced (I used finger hot peppers but a jalapeno would work too)
• 1 shallot finely diced
• 2 cloves of garlic finely diced
• dash of toasted sesame seed oil
• pinch of coriander
• pinch of black pepper (Click here to read the rest…)

  Tags: chicken, All // 21 Comments »

Before I start this post I must say a quick prayer to the coffee gods.  I am running on lack of sleep and my level of insanity is not all there.  This post could have the world’s worst introduction so bear with me.  I will try to bring it together near the end or at least go down in a brilliant display of flames.

How many out there in blogville are going to stop eating pork because of swine flu fears?  It has not slowed me down and it reminded me I need to put my order in for my fall hog pick up from my favorite farmer.

Holy crap this is horrible and reminds me of a joke.

What do you call a judge with no thumbs?  Justice fingers

I really do not think I am going to save this introduction.  I know a normal person would just delete this draft, walk away, regroup, and come back.  Anyone who knows me will tell you I lack that ability and instead prefer constantly running into the brick wall until the brick wall gives in or I fall over in pain.

One last ditch attempt…

In Cuban cooking a mojo sauce is any sauce made with citrus juice, garlic, and oil.  Not a whole heck of a lot of ingredients but does everyone really need a 20 page ingredient list to make a good dish?  I believe the key to any good dish is using the best possible ingredients and combining them in a proper way.

The amazing thing about a mojo marinade is that the citrus plays perfectly with the pork and imparts a light flavor throughout the meat.  Bonus points are awarded for using a charcoal grill because then the meat not only has that great citrus flavor but a great smokey flavor too.

That is honestly the best I think I can do today.  I give up and the bloody wall wins again.

If you are still reading this train wreck I commend you and will leave you with another bad joke for your time.

What happens when two snails fight?  They slug it out.

For this marinade you will need:

• 1/2 cup of orange juice
• 1/4 cup of lime juice
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1/4 cup of fresh cilantro
• 4 cloves of garlic
• Pinch of dried oregano
• Pinch of salt and pepper
• 2 tablespoons of oil (Click here to read the rest…)

  Tags: pork, All // 41 Comments »

I was happy when I got out of work and the sun was shining.  Only thing I could think of was getting home and firing up the charcoal grill for grilled chicken.  However, my dreams were soon crushed when I got home and the sun decided time to go away.  Instead of the sun I was faced with this: (Click here to read the rest…)

Tags: chicken, All // 26 Comments »

I love free stuff and pomegranate juice (the 100% pomegranate juice not the ohh there is a couple of drops of pomegranate juice but the rest is just fillers and artificial crap “juice”).  It was a natural reaction that when I arrived home to see a case of pomegranate juice on my front porch to start doing my happy dance.  Unfortunately my neighbors do not know this and I understand why they gave me weird looks.

One of my favorite things to do with POM juice is just a simple drink consisting of squirt of simple syrup (optional), 3/4 pineapple juice,  1/4 pomegranate juice poured over top of the pineapple juice, and topped with mint leaves.  The beautiful part is the pomegranate juice bleeds into the pineapple juice making for a cool presentation.

I did not want to blow my mini POM bottle army on a single drink and I started thinking of all the things that I could do with them.  With spring slowly coming into full swing I instantly start thinking of BBQ sauce and the smoker going.  However, the weather has not been fully cooperating so instead of making a POM BBQ sauce I chose to braise a pork shoulder in POM juice.

Pomegranate juice is tart and to offset that tartness I added a chipotle pepper and some brown sugar.  The heat from the chipotle was not present in the final dish but definitely helped take some of the edge off.  However, after I pulled the pork shoulder out I did add in a squirt of honey because the sauce was still a little to tart for my liking.

For this recipe you will need:

• 2.5 lb pork shoulder
• 1 onion finely diced
• 3 cloves of garlic finely diced
• Thumb size piece of ginger finely diced
• 8 ounces of POM
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 dried chipotle pepper ground or 1 chipotle in adobo
• Kosher salt and black pepper
• Canola oil (Click here to read the rest…)

  Tags: pork, All // 27 Comments »

I will never be able to give up eating winter dishes all year round.  There is just something therapeutic about a pot of soup boiling or some beef ribs braising on the stove.  Plus the way it makes the house smell beats any fragrance that Febreeze can ever make.  However, if they could somehow manage to duplicate that wonderful bacon smell I would never leave the house.

Thankfully Saturday was the perfect sunny low 70s degree day and I was able to start on some outdoor tasks.  I rented a power thatcher and just beat the living hell out of my yard.  There is something else that is therapeutic about tools that require gas to operate and could put you in a hospital.  I was more shocked by the amount of thatch that it pulled up and it filled a 3×3 compost bin more than halfway.  If you do not know thatch is that nasty dead grass layer that gets matted down.  Every couple of years it is good to remove it so the soil can be exposed and also makes it easier for fertilizer to get to the roots.  On a side note does anyone have any good recipes for organic fertilizer?

Sunday we once again were faced with a large amount of rain.  The best part was softball practice was canceled but I was stuck inside all day long.  My mind started gravitating towards beef stew so time to visit the fridge and freezer to see what do I have available.

Beef Bourguignon is a classic French dish.  The core of Beef Bourguignon is beef braised in red wine and garnished with pearl onions and mushrooms.  I took a few liberties from the core dish such as I was to lazy to seperatly braise the pearl onions and the mushrooms in beef stock.

I am still amazed daily as I read other blogs how many people live in fear of changing around a recipe especially a classic.  Recipes are meant to be adapted to your tastes!  Heck the reason why some of the classic dishes did not include other ingredients is because the ingredient was unavailable.  Unlike today where I can get avocado all year round even though I have never seen an avocado tree.

Do not fear people a ruler wielding nun is not going to break through your front door and start smacking your knuckles because you did not put exactly 223.5 grams of egg noodles in your dish.

This reminds me of an e-mail I received a couple weeks ago:

“Did you ever hear about the Mom who always cut the end off the ham prior to cooking her famous ham dinner?  Her kids asked her why exactly she did that and she replied, “that is the way my Mom always prepared it”.  After 20 minutes or so, as she reflected, she phoned her Mom and asked why exactly the ham got cut prior to putting in the pan for baking?  Her Mom chuckled on the other line and then explained that often the hams she bought just didn’t fit into the pan quite right, and so she cut the end off to make it fit”

For this recipe you will need:

• 2 lbs of chuck roast cut into bite size pieces
•  1 bottle of wine
• 5 cloves of garlic diced
• 2 cups of chicken, beef, or veal stock  (I used veal stock)
• 1 tablespoon Hungarian paprika
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon fresh thyme
• 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary
• 1 tablespoon fresh oregano
• heavy pinch of crushed red pepper
• Couple good handfuls of peeled pearl or cipollini onions cut into bite size pieces
• 3 carrots cut into bite size pieces
• 2 stalks of celery cut into bite size pieces
• 1/2 cup of sun dried tomatoes cut into bite size pieces
• Package of mushrooms cut into bite size pieces
• Couple potatoes cut into bite size pieces
• 1/2 cup of frozen peas
• Kosher salt and black pepper
• High temperature oil and butter or leftover bacon grease
• All purpose flour (Click here to read the rest…)

  Tags: beef, All // 27 Comments »

I use to religiously participate in Taste and Create but end of last year abruptly stopped.  The reason was not because the program sucked but I missed one month and then slowly I kept forgetting to send my name as the months passed by.

For those who do not know Taste and Create is an awesome program that once a month pairs you up with another blog.  You find a recipe you like on their blog, create it, and ramble on about it.  It has exposed me to a couple new blogs that I still try to religiously follow.

This month I got paired up with Jen from Piccante Dolce.  One dish on her blog that really stood out was maple whiskey pulled chicken.  How can you go wrong with a dish that has maple, booze, and chili peppers?  Another bonus is that this recipe gave me a chance to relax in the kitchen and use my overpriced crock pot that is nothing more than a glorified food warmer.  Also, after the stuffed manicotti my overworked dishwasher smiled at me.  However, that could have been a result of the whiskey (had to taste to make sure the whiskey was still good).

The recipe did call for liquid smoke which surprisingly for my vast selection of random stuff I did not have.  I do have my trusty hand held smoker called the Smoking Gun.  It is made by Polyscience and a valuable resource if you are obsessed with smoking especially quick smoked cheeses.  Another advantage of the smoking gun is during winter when I miss the smell of smoke from my smoker filling up the house I will fire up the smoking gun and run around.  I went ahead and ran a couple handfuls of cherry and hickory wood chips through the smoking gun to try and impart some smokey flavor.  In the spirit of honesty the smokey flavor was not really present in the final product which bummed me out. (Click here to read the rest…)

Tags: BBQ, chicken, All // 22 Comments »

You ever have one of those nights where you just want to hide?  That was my Monday night when I made this dish.  The joy and joyness of Spring in Indiana is one day the weather can go from a pleasant and sunny 60 degrees all the way down to a cold and wet 30 degrees.  I had expected to do some grilling on Monday night but the idea of standing in the garage watching it rain did not sound remotely fun.  Well what to do what to do?

Even though I live alone I try to buy whole animals as much as possible.  The advantages of buying whole animals is cheaper cost and you get to form a great relationship with your farmer so you know how the animal was raised.  The major disadvantage (beside needing a small army of freezers in your garage that would convince your nosy neighbor you are hiding dead bodies) is you acquire a large quantity of ground meat.  I am not saying ground meat is a bad thing but I never really know what to do with it (especially when you are staring at ten pounds of ground pork).

One use I have found and fell in love is mixing ground with some spinach and cheese, shoving it into some sort of pasta, covering it in sauce,  and baking till golden delicious.  Another one of my favorite uses I reserve for when the guys are over for poker or video games (yes I am still a geek at heart and see no problem spending an entire Friday night trying to beat a video game) are sausage rolls.

Well Monday night I decided that this was just the perfect night to use enough pots and pans that I would have to do three loads in the dishwasher.  I mean heck what else I was going to do???

For this recipe you will need:

• 1 lb ground sausage
• 1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika (I used hot Hungarian)
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 onion finely diced
• 3 cloves of garlic finely diced
• 1 package of frozen spinach thawed, drained, and diced or 1 bunch of spinach blanched and diced
• 1 15 ounce container of ricotta cheese
• 4 cups of tomato sauce
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 4 cups of whole milk
• Couple grater swipes of nutmeg
• Enough Parmesan cheese to clog your left ventricle
• Couple good handfuls of mozzarella cheese
• 1 box of manicotti shells that have been boiled til ale dente (Click here to read the rest…)

  Tags: Random (not recipe), pork, All // 24 Comments »