Culinary Disasters

How the heck do you people think of names for dishes?  I have resorted to basically just throwing the majority of ingredients into the title from here on out.  Apparently I lack massive amounts of creativity.

This marinade worked really well with pork loin.  Even though it has a lot of powerful ingredients behind it the loin is a dense piece of meat that is hard to overpower.

For this recipe you will need:

• 1 pork loin 2-3 lbs in size
• 2 jalapenos
• 1 shallot
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 2 inch piece of ginger peeled
• teaspoon of coriander
• 1/2 cup lime juice
• Dash of sesame oil
• TB of canola oil
• TB of soy sauce
• Dash of black pepper (Click here to read the rest…)

  Tags: pork, All // 9 Comments »

Got nothing new to update in my life or even to try and sell this dish.  Although I will say that this yogurt marinade was a pain in my butt.  Took a couple tries to find a flavor combination I really liked but definitely very happy with this marinade.

So without further typing here is the recipe…

For this recipe you will need:

• Chicken thighs
• 1 cup of Greek yogurt
• Thumbsize piece of ginger grated
• 3 cloves of garlic diced finely
• 1 teaspoon hot Hungarian paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon of whole chili powder (I used ground Aji Amarillo pepper)
• 1/2 teaspoon garam masala
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
• Salt and pepper
• Cayenne to taste
• Tablespoon of olive oil (Click here to read the rest…)

  Tags: chicken, All // 5 Comments »

Before you think I have flipped my lid, got insane, forgot my medication, and am back to running in traffic give me a second to explain the reasoning behind this dish.  I have a close friend who is a children librarian and every year she hosts a program which the theme is gross foods.  The normal kitty litter cake and other combination of food that tastes amazing but looks unappetizing always make an appearance.

The last couple of years she has asked if I mind participating.  I have to say yes because finally an audience to cook for who is at my maturity level and most importantly young kids are easily impressionable so I can add to my evil army hell bent on world domination.

Last year I wowed the kids with a beautiful rendition of candied bacon maple ice cream (http://www.culinarydisaster.com/wordpress/16/candied-bacon/ for the candied bacon and http://www.culinarydisaster.com/wordpress/13/maple-bacon-ice-cream/ for the bacon maple ice cream).  To her and the parent’s disgust the kids love it.

This year I decided I am keeping with the bacon theme and decided to dip the bacon in some chocolate and throw some sprinkles over it.  What kid does not like all three of those things?

According to her the kid’s absolutely loved it and devoured 3/4 lb of bacon in no time at all.  She was also nice enough to share a couple pictures of the kid’s enjoying chocolate covered bacon with sprinkles. (Click here to read the rest…)

Tags: Dessert, pork, All // 8 Comments »

Sorry for the slow posting here peeps but I ended up in South Carolina last week for a semi last minute vacation.  Of course I had the laptop and everything able to make posts but who really wants to write about food when you are in a city that has good food??

When I got back to Indiana it was mid 50s and sunny weather which is a good thing because the part of Indiana I live has areas still under flood watch from a couple massive storms.  Plus according to my parents the high was only in the 30s.  Eek!!!!

This also meant time to head outside for some grilling action.  The inspiration of this dish comes from something I like to do when I smoke chicken and that is brine it in orange juice (click here to read the post).  Since I was lacking time for brining but still wanted to try and get that orangey flavor into the meat I decided to try another trick.  Very happy with the result and the heat from the grill really pushed that orange flavor into the meat.

The rub I used has a ton of ingredients that not everyone probably has on hand however, this is also one of my favorite rubs for poultry and I usually have it floating around.  If you lack the ingredients and desire to buy them there is nothing wrong with some chopped herbs mixed with some extra virgin drizzled over top of the chicken or even simpler just salt and pepper the chicken.

For the rub you will need:

• 1 TB Kosher salt
• 1 TB paprika (I used 1/2 hot Hungarian and1/2 Spanish)
• 1 teaspoon ancho chili powder
• 1/2 TB  black pepper
• 1/2 TB dried basil
• 1/2 TB dried oregano
• 1/2 TB dried thyme
• 1/2 TB dried bay leaf
• 1/2 TB dried rosemary
• 1/2 TB dried marjoram
• 1/2 TB dried savory
• 1/2 TB garlic powder
• 1/2 TB onion powder
• Dash of cayenne
• Dash of celery seed (Click here to read the rest…)

  Tags: chicken, All // 5 Comments »

Coffee is another one of those underutilized ingredients that loves red meat but never really gets a good chance to show that love.  I have already done it as a dry rub in a steak so why not dump some leftover joe from the morning into a braise dish at the night time (waste not want not)?  In essence wake up that boring beef and noodles (ok even I have to admit that was a horrible attempt at humor).

To those who are freaked out by the idea of using coffee in this dish just relax it does not leave a strong coffee taste that would be reminiscent of a bad steak and eggs breakfast at your local greasy hole.  Instead the coffee adds a nice earthy flavor (not dirt flavor) and brings a heavier bold flavor that compliments the wonderful beef flavor left in the sauce from hours of connective tissue and fat breaking down.

For this recipe you will need:

• Couple lbs of chuck roast cut into 1 inch cubes
• 2 cups of coffee
• 2 cups of chicken or veal stock (I tried to avoid beef just because I did not want to overpower the dish with a heavy stock)
• 2 bay leaves
• Couple sprigs of fresh thyme
• Pinch of crushed red pepper
• TB of tomato paste
• 1 onion finely diced
• 1 carrot finely diced
• 1 stalk of celery finely diced
• 3 cloves of garlic finely diced
• Kosher salt and black pepper
• All purpose flour
• High temp oil (canola is your friend) (Click here to read the rest…)

  Tags: beef, All // 11 Comments »

Being a Romanian we tend to live in fear of Dracula everyday.  Since this blog acts as my therapy I should share that the idea that some mythical bat or one of his minions could still be haunting me the same way he haunted my great grandparents years ago does keep me up at night.  In order to combat this I tend to surround myself with garlic in every way possible.  From garlic in the garden year round, bulbs of garlic in the kitchen, garlic powder, olive oil infused with garlic in squeeze bottles, and in the bedroom on the nightstand garlic water in a spritzer bottle.  However, every now and then I feel it as my duty to not only protect my house but even my neighbor’s house and no better way to accomplish this than with making the neighborhood smell of roasted garlic.

Before you freak out, run for the hills, unsubscribe from my feed, or whatever crazy insane thing you do when scared let me tell you take a deep breath and relax.  Even though there is the equivalent of two whole bulbs of garlic in this dish the dish does not have a heavy garlic taste (I see the skepticism in your face and quit rolling your eyes at me).  Roasting garlic removes a lot of the bitterness that garlic normally has and makes it very buttery.  In this dish that buttery garlic flavor is carried into the chicken and the best part is you are left with about 40 bulbs of roasted garlic that can be spread on the chicken or some crusty bread that is laying around.

For this dish you will need:

• 1 whole chicken cut up
• 40 cloves of unpeeled garlic (about 2 heads).  Don’t worry if some of the excess garlic paper that surrounds the bulb ends up in the pot.
• 1 onion diced
• 1 stalk of celery diced
• 1/2 cup white wine
• Kosher salt and black pepper
• high temperature oil (Click here to read the rest…)

  Tags: chicken, All // 6 Comments »

I did a very similar recipe to this a couple months ago that instead of using pork it used chicken thighs.  However, I will reiterate again pork and sauerkraut belong together.  I like to think that chicken thighs were just the evil mistress who swayed sauerkraut away for one night in a desperate attempt to create passion in thigh’s lonely life.  However, having seen the light sauerkraut has returned to her true love the wonderful and ever caring pig.

I used country style ribs for this however, country style ribs is just a fancy name for sliced shoulder roast (picnic ham and Boston Butt).  If you want to dive a little deeper into this the Boston Butt cut is the top part of the shoulder and the picnic is the bottom of the shoulder.  So if you can’t find country style ribs feel free to grab a couple pounds of shoulder and brown away.

The nice thing about using a shoulder roast is that it makes perfect pulled pork so a couple hours in the braising liquid will render out the fat, muscle fibers, sinewy gunk, etc leaving behind great flavored sauce and easily shredded pork.

For this recipe you will need:

• 3 lb of pork shoulder or country style ribs
• 1/4 lb of bacon
• 1/2 lb of smoked pork neck bones (optional but will add a nice smokey flavor to the meat for next to nothing)
• 1/4 lb of bacon cut up
• 1 onion diced
• 1 green pepper diced
• 2 carrots diced
• 3 cloves of garlic diced
• 1 bottle of pale ale
• 1 28 ounce jar of sauerkraut
• bouquet garni consisting of 4 stems of parsley, 4 sprigs of thyme, 1 bay leaf, 10 peppercorns crushed, and 10 juniper berries crushed.  If you need a refresher of what a bouquet is take a piece of cheesecloth, add ingredients, close up, and tie off with string.
• Kosher salt and black pepper
• Oil (keeping with pork fat is god’s gift to humanity I used lard) (Click here to read the rest…)

  Tags: pork, All // 7 Comments »

Well it is another Monday and dear god how I still hate them.  This weekend I finally got some time to get into the kitchen and cook for once.  Yeah!!  You would think winter would be hibernation mode and that I would be lazy.  However, I feel that I always have a million things going on and by the end of the weekend I got nothing accomplished. *sniff*

Of course it is almost March which means in another month or so I will be getting ready to get spring vegetables into the garden so need to start kicking into gear on getting that done.  In a desperate attempt to try and get a start on the season I have planted some mesclun, spinach, and radishes in a planter by a window.  So we will see how this works out.

Ancho chili is one of my favorite chili to cook with.  They are the dried version of the poblano pepper and can be found at the local Mexican market.  A bag of them is like 2 bucks and they last years.  All I do is rip off the stem, dump out the seeds, and take them for a spin my cheapy coffee grinder till they are a powder.

For this recipe you will need:

• 4 chicken thighs
• 1 red pepper diced
• 1 onion diced
• 1 celery diced
• 1 jalapeno diced
• 3 cloves of garlic diced
• 1.5 teaspoon ancho chili powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
•  1 small can of tomatoes
• 2 cups of chicken stock
• 2 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 cup rice
• High temperature oil
• Kosher salt and black pepper
• pinch of cayenne pepper (Click here to read the rest…)

  Tags: chicken, All // 5 Comments »

I have decided that this introduction is going to be done all in cavemanese.

Tiny flappy thing with wings tasty and easy to club.  Stuff on outside that make flappy thing pretty not taste good.

Cousin Ugh head to far away place that name sound like what I feel when I have not ate.  He bring me back powder that make tongue feel like fire.

I put them together and add stuff that makes Ms. Caveman look hot after drinking.  Also, add white thing that make me cry.

It taste good.

For this recipe you will need:

• Chicken thighs
• 1 onion diced
• 1 bell pepper diced
• 2-3 cloves of garlic diced
• 1/2 cup of white wine
• 1 cup of chicken stock
• 1 small can of tomatoes
• leaves from 4 sprigs of thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• Pinch of crushed red pepper
• Pinch of cayenne
• 1-2 TB of paprika
• 2 TB creme fraiche/sour cream
• Kosher salt and black pepper
• All purpose flour
• Olive oil
• 1-2 TB of butter (Click here to read the rest…)

  Tags: chicken, All // 6 Comments »

Last week I started planning what I was going to cook during the week and paging through the latest Food and Wine I noticed ohh…Greek food was being featured and *gasp* pastitsio was one of the recipes.  Holy crap how could I have forgotten about the joy and joyness that is pastitsio?? This definitely had to get added to the todo list for the week.

The true joy came when I opened up Peter the Greek’s Blog (Kalofagas) and noticed a post about pastitsio being featured for Tony’s Taste of the Mediterranean and I thought this is just that extra little bit of push I need to make pastitsio.

I tried to stick a little bit more to the traditional side and since my last trip to the meat market I picked up some ground lamb I figured why the heck not.  Also, I have been slacking on give the piggy its love so this dish definitely needed some ground pork in it. (Click here to read the rest…)

Tags: lamb, pork, All // 5 Comments »