Category Archives: Recipes

Cinnamon Rolls

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Cinnamon Rolls.

Ingredients: (Dough)

  • 8 oz of warm water (Lukewarm)
  • 2-1/2 teaspoons of active yeast.
  • 12-3/4 oz of all purpose flour
  • 1-1/4 oz of sugar
  • 1-1/4 teaspoon of salt
  • 5/8 oz of nonfat dry milk
  • 1-1/2 oz of instant mashed potato flakes
  • 3 oz of room temperature butter (unsalted)

Dissolve the yeast into the luke warm water and let sit for about 5-10 minutes. Meanwhile whisk together all the dry ingredients together in a bowl. I use the bowl to my stand mixer. Now pour the water/yeast mixture into the dry ingredients and also add in the room temperature butter. Mix and kneed until a smooth cohesive dough forms. I use the stand mixer with a dough hook and it take about 7 minutes. You should have the following.

Cover the bowl and let dough rise for about an hour. It will puff up and about double in volume.

Ingredients: (Filling)

  • 3 oz of granulated sugar
  • 1-1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
  • 2 teaspoons of all purpose flour
  • 2-4 tablespoons milk

In a small bowl whisk together the sugar, cinnamon, and all purpose flour. Set aside the milk.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough you made previously that is rising in the covered bowl. You will want to roll the dough out into a rectangle about 12″X18″. You don’t have to be precise. Just roll the dough into a rectangle about 3/8″ thick. Should look like the following.

Now take the reserved milk and brush it all over the rolled out dough. Leave about an inch space around the perimeter. You can use a pastry brush, your hand, paint roller, airless sprayer, crop duster whatever you have handy.

Now spread the sugar and cinnamon mixture on the dough. Gently using your hand level it all out. Should look like the following.

Now just roll the dough up lengthwise into one long cylindrical log. Next take a serrated knife and cut the dough in half. Then cut the two halves in half. Continue cutting each half in half until you have 16 rolls.

Place 8 of the cut cinnamon rolls into a 9″ lightly greased pie pan. Put the other 8 rolls in another lightly greased pie pan. You will have two 9″ pie pans with cinnamon rolls.

The rolls need to rise again. Notice there is plenty of space and the rolls look smallish. Don’t worry. Yeast is magic and working. These rolls need to rise about another hour to an hour and a half. The best place for this to happen is in an UNHEATED oven with the light turned on. So turn on the oven light, put these pans in the oven and check them in an hour and fifteen minutes. The rolls will rise and double in size. See?!

Once the rolls have risen and doubled in size, remove from oven. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Now bake the rolls for 20-25 minutes.

While the rolls bake,make the glaze.

Ingredients: (Glaze)

  • 1/2 cup confectioners sugar
  • 3-4 tablespoons of milk
  • 1-1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Sift sugar into small bowl. Add milk and vanilla extract and stir well. You should end up with a smooth glaze. If its too loose, add sugar. If too thick add some milk. When its to the consistency you like, pour over the hot cinnamon rolls when they come out of the oven like below.

Cut one or ten out, and chow down. A little more work and pre-planning, but these will beat anything you buy in a tube at the grocery store. It also makes the house smell nice.

 

Turkey Pot Pie

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In this recipe we’ll explore a very simple and easy to make turkey pot pie.

While I show and make my turkey pot pies in a fancy little pot pie maker from Williams Sonoma, do not fear. You can use this exact recipe to make a normal sized pot pie in a pie plate/dish in a conventional oven.

This recipe is good for getting rid of a lot of leftovers in in the fridge. You can also use this exact same recipe for Chicken Pot Pie, if you want to replace the word turkey for chicken. Its the exact same thing. I had turkey to get rid in my case.

I have broken this recipe down into three parts. Stock, Pie Dough and Pie Filling. Divide and conquer then it all falls into place with very little work.

Stock

You need about 2-1/2 cups of chicken stock for this recipe. You can certainly buy chicken stock in the grocery store and use it. If you enjoy cooking you know most good recipes call for good stock. I like having stock on hand. It keeps just fine in the refrigerator and you can use it in anything. Rice, potatoes, anywhere you need water in a recipe you can substitute chicken stock to add or increase flavor. You like gravy? Then you know about stock. Its easy enough to buy stock in the store. Here is the problem. Its absolutely loaded with sodium. Even the lower sodium options are still full of salt. Its just a fact of life with store bought stock.

Watch how easy it is to make your own stock to have on hand when ever you want.

Do you eat chicken? What do you do with the leftover bones and carcasses and necks? You throw ’em away don’t you? Well stop. Every time you make chicken, save the bones and necks and wing tips and put them into a zip lock freezer bag and freeze them. I do this all the time. (If I remember) I’ll have a bag of chicken bones / part in the freezer for six months or more. Don’t even care about freezer burn. When I get a bag full of chicken bones and parts its time to make stock.

Ingredients:

  • 2 onions quartered
  • 3 carrots busted up
  • 3 celery stalks busted up
  • 1 gallon of water (or whatever your stock pot can hold)
  • 1 tablespoon salt
  • 1/2 tablespoon pepper
  • Chicken bones parts and pieces. (I don’t even know what the hell I had in the bag, I think there was a turkey breast from 2011, some chicken bones and wings etc)

You don’t have to peel the onions or carrots or cut up the celery. Just chop and or break it all up into chunks that will fit in pot with the chicken pieces. Put it all into a good sized stock pot or large pot and cover with tap water.

This is important. It all goes into the pot cold with just regular tap water. Then you turn on the heat to medium high. You want to start cold.

When the pot just begins to bubble, reduce the heat to medium / medium-low. You want the pot to just barely bubble along, NOT rapid boil. You do this for a couple reasons, but mostly to keep from getting a cloudy stock. You want your stock nice and clear.

You are going to simmer the water gently for about 2 -1/2 hours. The stock will reduce but thats ok. You are concentrating flavor. In the end you will wind out with about 2 to 3 quarts of stock.

After 2-1/2 hours turn off heat and let it cool on the stove for 20-30 minutes. After it has cooled off a bit, strain the stock into a container large enough to hold the liquid. Discard the bits and pieces of vegetable and bones.

 

Refrigerate the strained liquid. The fat in stock will solidify at the top when you refrigerate the liquid. You can then spoon this off before you using the stock. Look how easy this was to make. Fresh homemade chicken stock. You can keep this in fridge for a month or more. Use it in anything. Try it, I dare you.

Pie Dough

Pie dough is just like stock. You can buy it in the grocery store easy enough. You can also make your own any time you want with just a few basic ingredients. Pie dough isn’t hard to make. Don’t let a bunch of old ladies from church convince you that you need 300 hundred years of experience to make a good pie dough. Not true. If you follow a few steps you can make pie dough whenever you want. Good pie dough too.

You may think good pie dough is made with butter. Your grandmother may have taught you this over many years. I am going to tell you something right now. Your grandmother is wrong. Period the end. Pie dough is very simply made with Crisco shortening. Crisco shorting has two places in this world. The movie Caligula by Bob Guccione with Malcolm McDowell and pie dough. That is all plain and simple. Never forget!

I made a double batch of pie dough in this recipe. Enough to make two nine inch pies or in my case 8 mini pies. You can half this dough recipe to make one nine inch pie or four mini pies if you have a mini pie maker like mine.

Ingredients:

  • 4 cups of all purpose flour
  • 1-1/2 cup of VERY COLD Crisco shortening
  • 1 teaspoon of salt.
  • 8-10 tablespoons of  ice cold water

Flour salt and cold Crisco into a food processor or large bowl. Pulse in processor a few times just until the dough looks like a course corn meal. Crumbly like but still loose. It took me about 6-7 one second pulses. If you have no processor, you and use a pie dough cutter or even your hands to crush and break up the Crisco in the flour. Just remember to stop when you get to a course mealy texture.

Now, if you have a processor, while its running add the ice cold water tablespoon by tablespoon. Should get to about 8 tablespoons. The dough will all of a sudden come together into a ball. Turn off the processor. If your doing this in a bowl by hand, add the water, and combine with dough into a ball.

When the dough comes together, pour the dough out to a floured surface and knead gently together two or three times. Don’t handle too much. Divide dough into 2 or 4 equal parts depending on if you make the full double recipe of dough I show here or if you halved the recipe.

Form the divided dough into small disk like shapes, place into individual quart size zip lock bags or wrap each in plastic wrap. Freeze the dough.

Here are the key items to remember to make great pie dough. Use very cold Crisco. Work quickly and do not over handle the dough. The less you pulse and knead the dough the better. Remember we want to keep the Crisco and dough cold. Make the dough, divide the dough, wrap the dough and get it back into the freezer ASAP with as little handling and kneading as possible.

Pie Filling

Where home free lets make the filling and get this over with. I am hungry.

Ingredients:

  • I onion diced
  • I small bag of frozen peas and carrots
  • 2-1/2 cups of your chicken stock
  • 3 cups diced up cooked turkey. I had some smoked turkey breast to get rid of but remember you can easily use chicken if you want.
  • 2 tablespoons flour
  • 1/4 cup of water
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Sauté the diced up onion in a pan over medium high heat with butter and olive oil.

Sauté the onion until it gets translucent about 4-5 minutes. Next throw in the small bag of frozen peas and carrots and continue to sauté and heat the frozen vegetables. 3 or 4 more minutes.

Now its time to add the stock. Pour it in there and deglaze the pan. Add your cooked turkey too. Heat it all through. It will start to boil again. While you’re waiting for the stock to return to a boil, whisk the 2 tablespoons of flour with 1/4 cup of water. When the stock in the pan has returned to a boil add the flour slurry to the pan of boiling stock and stir well to  combine. Bring this all to a boil one last time. Stock in the pan will thicken to a gravy. Season to taste with the salt and pepper. Kill the heat.

You have just made the filling. We’re in the home stretch now. Lets assemble the pot pies.

Heat your pie maker up if you’re using one or heat your oven to 350 degrees.

Get your dough from the freezer about 20 minutes before you want to use it. I took mine out when I started to make the pie filling. You can make this dough ahead of time and keep in the freezer for a week or more. Its up to you.

Roll the dough out on a floured surface to the size you need for your pie plate / dish or pie maker. If using a pie plate or glass dish spay with non-stick spray. Place dough in maker or plate and mold into place accordingly.

Fill the pie with the filling. Cover with another piece of dough and crimp the edges. If cooking in the oven, make a few slits in top of dough with a knife to allow steam to escape.

I used my pie maker and essentially do the same thing. Place into oven and cook about 30-35 minutes. You’re just cooking the dough here. Everything else is already cooked through. In the pie maker it takes me about 14 minutes. So keep your eyes on your pies no matter what method you choose to cook them in.

That’s all there is to it. You just made from scratch turkey pot pies. You know exactly whats in the pies and none of the commercial preservatives and yellow number 6 food color crap.

A little involved? Mmmm yeah. But the satisfaction of making something this good is worth it. I make the small pies in the pie maker and freeze a bunch of them. You can make one or two pies and even freeze the big ones to eat another day. Just reheat in the oven at 350 until heated through.

We don’t get much fall or winter here in Florida to enjoy this hearty type wintery food, but you northerners don’t lack any cold to bust these out. Try these. Just don’t eat one while watching the movie Caligula.

Beef Rouladen

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Beef Rouladen is a German dish that is simple to make and an excellent way to break up the monotony of a tired recipe rotation.

Ingredients:

  • 6 beef round steaks sliced thin
  • Stone ground mustard or Dijon
  • 6 slices of bacon cooked
  • 6 green onions or scallions trimmed
  • 2 carrots peeled and quartered lengthwise
  • 6 dill pickle spears
  • Olive oil
  • 3 medium cloves of garlic minced
  • 2-1/2 cups of chicken stock
  • 1/2 cup red wine
  • 1/4 cup of all purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup water

Procedures.

Assemble your ingredients together ready to go. (mise en place) Thats a fancy French term for “get all your shit together and ready in place”.

Heres the cast of characters. Meat, carrot, green onion, bacon, pickle, and mustard.

NOTE* Tradition indicates the roulades are tied with butchers twine and at first I was motivated but then when I started putting the roulades together I was like, “damn this” and pulled out the tooth picks to secure the meat. So use toothpicks.

Ok so lets make some roulades. Take each one of your thin sliced round steaks and place between sheets of plastic wrap. Hammer the meat out flat with a meat mallet/tenderizer or a small frying pan. Hammer the meat flat like 1/4″ to 3/8″ thick. Not necessarily paper thin but thin.

Take the meat, and spread your spicy mustard all over it. Then very simply take a piece of each one of the following ingredients bacon, carrot, green onion, pickle and place on edge of mustard covered meat. Now simply roll up into a small cigar shaped roll.

Take your toothpicks and secure the end of the meat to itself so it stays together. One or two toothpicks is all you need. Continue the process until all the roulades have been assembled.

Heat a pan with some olive oil over medium high heat and brown the roulades on all sides. About six (6) minutes total. Season with salt and pepper.

Once you brown all the meat, add your chicken stock and wine. Reduce the heat to medium low, cover and simmer for about 1-1/2 hours.

After an hour and a half of simmering, carefully remove the roulades to a plate, and return the pan they came out of with cooking liquid to medium high heat.

Mix your flour and water together in a small bowl. Now pour the flour/water mixture into the pan with the cooking liquids. Stir together with a whisk and bring to a boil. The sauce will thicken to a gravy but bring it to a boil and continue to whisk for a couple minutes. Now you have gravy! Return the roulades to the pan with the gravy to heat through.

Heat through for about five minutes or so. You are ready to eat.

NOTE* Please remove the damn toothpicks! I know I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but really I don’t need any feedback about how one of you ate the freaking toothpicks and needed emergency surgery to get the thing out of your throat.

There you have it. Beef Rouladen is generally served with spaetzle, buttered noodles, mashed potatoes, boiled potatoes, red cabbage. Choices are endless.

Make this, its not hard and the time frame isn’t too bad. Probably not a weeknight meal, for the busy working and those with children but its so worth it. Don’t let the flavors of meat, gravy and pickles scare you. Its good.

When you eat this food, you’ll be compelled to making angry speeches, blitzkrieging your ass all over the house and wanting to bomb out the homeowners association with your Luftwaffe BMW and Volkswagens!

 

Belgian Waffles

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Ingredients

  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 3-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 2 eggs, separated
  • 1-1/2 cups milk
  • 1 cup of butter, melted
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

In a bowl whisk to combine the flour, sugar and baking powder.

In another bowl, beat the egg yolks. Add milk, melted butter, and vanilla extract. Mix well.

Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients in bowl number 1 until just combined.

Beat eggs whites until firm peaks form. Fold beaten egg whites into batter now in bowl number 1.

Batter will be very stiff and airy. Spoon batter into pre-heated waffle maker to manufactures specifications for amount per serving. My waffle maker makes rather deep eight inch waffles. This recipe makes enough batter to make about four complete waffles.

Eat and enjoy.

Buttermilk Pancakes

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The Best Darn Buttermilk Pancakes you’ll ever make or eat.

Makes about 8-8″ pancakes or about 16-4″ pancakes.

  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1 teaspoon baking power
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 cups of buttermilk
  • 1/4 cup of sour cream
  • 2 eggs
  • 3 tablespoons of butter melted, cooled slightly
  • Vegetable oil for frying pan
  1. In a bowl mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together to incorporate.
  2. In a second bowl mix together the buttermilk, sour cream, eggs and melted but not hot butter until combined.
  3. Combine the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients in bowl 1. Stir until combined. Batter will be lumpy, do not worry. Let batter sit on counter for about 10-15 minutes. The wet ingredients will hydrate the dry ingredients in this time. Secondly the leavening properties of the backing soda and power will kick into gear. Notice small bubbles in batter.
  4. Heat a non-stick or a finely tuned cast iron frying pan over medium heat. Pour about a tablespoon of vegetable oil in the pan. Take a couple clean wadded up paper towels and wipe the oil around in the frying pan. You want just a slight oily film in the hot pan.
  5. Check batter. It should still be thick but just loose enough to scoop and pour with a ladle or measuring cup. If batter is still a little thick add a tablespoon or two of additional buttermilk and stir to combine.
  6. Make a decision. Big or small pancakes. I go for the bigger ones myself. I am a pancake pig, about 8 inches across. I hate trying to flip a bunch of pancakes in the same frying pan. So I pour in about a 1/3-1/2 cup of batter into the pan. You want smaller pancakes decrease the batter to about 1/4 cup.
  7. Shake pan on stove slightly when you pour in the batter, it will move and flow out into the traditional round shape.
  8. Pay attention here. This is where I screw up all the time. Pancakes cook fast! You have a small window of opportunity to catch a pancake between perfect and burnt shit. Pay particular attention if using cast iron. When you pour the batter into the pan and shake the pan to flow the pancake batter into the round circle, you have about a minute to a minute and twenty seconds. You will notice the bubbles on the top of the batter appear. The outside diameter of the pancake will start to dry. Get your spatula under that pancake and loosen it from the pan and flip. You will think to yourself the center of the top of the pancake is still wet and very few bubbles it cant be ready to turn. Ignore those thoughts and logic, you’re almost too late and on your way to burnt pancakes. I make the mistake all the time. Its tricky but you’ll overcome this and get the hang of it.
  9. When the pancake is turned you have even less time. The second side of the pancake cooks even faster. You have about 30-45 seconds here.
  10. Take same paper towel you used earlier and re-wipe out the frying pan and re-coat with vegetable oil. There is probably enough oil on the paper towel from the first time you wiped the pan out so you may not need to add more. You just want a slight film of oil in pan.
  11. Repeat steps 6 to 10 and keep making pancakes till the batter is gone.

Don’t be discouraged if he first pancake is a little more done then you like. The first pancake is always a test. Your next pancakes in the batch get better and better. Everyone knows the first pancake is always for the dog anyway. Right?

You can hold the pancakes on a plate in the microwave while you cook the entire batch, or  on an oven safe plate in the oven turned to its lowest setting to keep the pancakes warm while you cook the batch or wait to eat.

These pancakes will beat anything you buy in the store that comes in a box or a plastic jug you add milk to and shake. I promise.

They are a little tricky at first they cook fast. You will get the hang of these pancakes though. Super simple.

Guys pay attention here. You screwed up, forgot her birthday, bought her a vacuum for Valentines day, told your girl she was turning into her mother. You get your ass up early and make your woman a batch of these pancakes on a Sunday or while she is still asleep. You will get that boys weekend in Vegas and the new Harley. Serious. If you make these for your girl, you have punk card credit in the bank. Granted its not a happy ending from the bimbo at the strip club get out of jail free but this gets you out of washing her car on Sunday football all season. Do it. She deserves it.

 

Monster Meatloaf

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The best damn meatloaf you ever ate or made right here. Adapted from Cooks Illustrated.

  • 2 Tablespoons butter
  • 1 onion chopped fine
  • 1 pint white mushrooms sliced
  • 1 tablespoon tomato paste
  • 3 tablespoons plus 1/2 cup of low sodium chicken stock
  • 2 garlic cloves minced
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 tablespoons of soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon unflavored powered gelatin
  • 1 1/2 slice of white bread
  • Bunch of fresh parsley
  • 2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
  • 3/4 teaspoon pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
  • 1 pound ground pork
  • 1 pound of ground beef (chuck)

 

There are probably a thousand recipes for meatloaf. Everyone has their favorite. I think the whole point of meatloaf is just throwing together some ground meat, and every other thing you may have in the fridge and its meatloaf.

Have you ever had good meatloaf? I mean damn good. Not dried out, bland drywall flavored crap to carry catchup to your mouth. Well take it from me this is damn good meatloaf. Tastes like meat, not dried out or tough. Takes a little more work but worth it.

 

 

 

 

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Get your miss en place ready.  Sliced mushrooms, chopped onion, minced garlic, Chicken stock.

Over Medium heat, melt the butter and add the mushrooms and onion. Sauté  for about 12 minutes.

After 12 minutes add the garlic and tomato paste. Stir and cook for another 2 minutes. Add the 2 tablespoons of chicken stock and turn off heat. Stir and scrap up the fond in the pan. Pour the mushrooms off into a bowl to cool for a few minutes.

 

Now, get another bowl and whisk the eggs, soy sauce, and the 1/2 cup of the chicken stock together. Now pour in the powdered gelatin and stir up. Let sit for 5 minutes for gelatin to dissolve.

While you’re waiting for the mushroom mixture to cool and egg/gelatin to dissolve get your pan for the meatloaf ready. If you don’t have a sheet pan and grate for it, use what you have in a similar fashion. (broiler pan) The tin foil is folded in about a 5″X9″ rectangle then with a skewer or fork push holes in the tin foil for the meat to drain while it cooks.

Ok, now were ready to start assembling the meatloaf.

We, should have our dried thyme, mustard, egg/gelatin mixture, mushroom mixture, fresh parsley, and the slice and half bread in processor ground up to fine crumb. If you don’t have a food processor I imagine you can use a blender. Who doesn’t have a food processor? They’re like microwaves right? Everyone has one!

Everything into the food processor with the bread crumbs. Mushroom mixture, egg/gelatin/chicken stock mixture, mustard, thyme, and the leave of the fresh parsley. Fire it up and let it run about  a minute.

This is what you should wind up with. Its rather wet. Don’t be alarmed.

 

 

 

 

Now we combine the mushroom/bread/egg mixture to the meat. Mix the pork and beef and mushroom mixture by hand. It will start off very wet, its ok, keep mixing. Once its all incorporated get your meatloaf pan with the tin foil square you punched holes in.

 

You are going to place and form the meat mixture into a loaf like shape on the tin foil you made on the sheet pan. Or your broiler pan. Like shown.

 

 

Send that masterpiece into the oven. It takes about an hour and a half. You want inside temperature of meatloaf to be about 155 degrees.

Lets make the glaze.

  • 1/2 cup of catchup
  • 1/4 cup cider vinegar
  • 3 tablespoons of brown sugar
  • Dash or two of hot sauce.
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

Combine all the glaze ingredients in a small sauce pan. Over medium heat stir and cook till sugar is dissolved. About 5 minutes.

 

 

 

When meatloaf has reached an internal temperature of 155 degrees about an hour and a half later, turn the broiler on to high.

Brush half the glaze on the meatloaf and place under the broiler for 2-3 minutes until the glaze starts to caramelize and bubble. Brush second half of glaze on meatloaf and back under the broiler again. Another 2-3 minutes and let it bubble and caramelize again.

Remove meatloaf from oven/broiler and let cool down and rest for about 10 to 15 minutes. Slice, serve, eat.

Its damn good, for a meatloaf.

 

 

Steak Melt Sandwiches

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Steak Melt sandwiches are just like your typical patty melts the only exceptions being instead of using some kind of ground beef patty, you use shaved steak slices, regular white bread and a tablespoon of ghetto.

Here’s your cast of characters. (Please don’t mind the 70’s counter tops, it really brings out the color of my eyes!)

  • Cheap sliced Swiss cheese and if you cant get it free on a government food line then Walmart is your next best bet. Except at Walmart be sure to show a little butt crack when checking out.
  • Sliced steak like product. Could you use actual sliced rib-eye? Sure you could but what the hell are you some kind of aristocrat? You’re already at Walmart getting that cheap assed Swiss cheese with your plumbers crack, and needing a shave. Go over to those big open freezers everyone sneezes into after scratching their ass and pick up a box or two of the classic Steak-ums.
  • Bread. Decide how many sandwiches you want then multiply by a factor of 2. Three sandwiches? No problem. Your bread slice formula will look like this 3 X 2 = 6 slices of bread. See you just got some math learnin’ in for the day. We’ll clean that Walmart trip off you yet smartypants. Spread a little margarine or butter on each of those bread slices champ.
  • Two sliced yellow onions. Walmart these babies too. They’re over in the produce section in the big bins. Look for the ones grown in some south American country and cultivated by twelve year old slave labor. Walmart knows cheap food. Take advantage. Fan away the fruit flies and gnats at the onion bin and pick out two that look salmonella free.

Sauté up those sliced onions in a pan. A little olive oil salt medium heat 5-7 minutes and proper caramelization you’re good to go. Pour off into container.

Now in the same pan you just cooked the onions in, fry up the Steak-Um mechanically separated beef product slices. Now don’t worry. Steak-Um is 100% beef. It says so right on the package. Beef eyes, ass, lips, pecker its all beef 100%. Its good for you. Carnivores unite! The fond left over from the sautéed onions adds a rather nice piquant flavor to the Steak-Um.

Onions= Check!
Steak-Um= Check!
Buttered slices of bread= Check!
Swiss cheese slices= Check!

Now you have your miss en place ready to go.

If you’re like me and have a handy dandy panini grill set the temp to high and get ready to assemble your Steak Melts. Otherwise use the same pan you sautéed the onions and fried the Steak-Um in to make your sandwiches.

Assemble the sandwiches in the pan or on the grill. Don’t try and put them together on the counter or a plate or your hand. The bread is buttered numb nuts! Last thing we need is a bunch of lubricated slippery hands making a mess in the kitchen. This isn’t that kind of a movie.

So, place a slice of buttered bread on the pan or grill buttered side down. Put your Steak-Um beef product on the slice of bread, spoon on some of the sautéed onions, then cover with a slice or two of the Swiss cheese followed up by placing the other piece of buttered bread on top of the Swiss cheese. Only this time the buttered side of the bread is facing up. You get all that?

If you’re cooking in a panini press, just close it up and let it go. 5-7 minutes worked for me. Keep peeking till its done to your satisfaction. If you’re cooking in pan on the stove, 3-4 minutes, flip the sandwich over and let it go again for 3-4 minutes. Again just keep your eye on it and take it off when its done the way you like it.

Slice ’em diagonal. Why? Why not?

Not too bad for Ghetto Walmart eats and hey we didn’t even wind up on any web sites like this woman did.

There you have it. Steak Melt sandwiches.

 

 

Oreo Cake

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Recipe posted by Yvonne Ruperti via Serious Eats.

Ingredients for the cake:

  • 3/4 cup all purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup cocoa powder
  • 1/2 plus 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/8 teaspoon of salt
  • 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sour cream
  • 1/3 cup vegetable oil
  • 1 large egg
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a nine (9) inch cake pan with non-stick spray. Sift flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt into bowl, set aside. In another bowl or bowl of stand mixer whisk together the sugar, sour cream, oil, egg, and vanilla extract until smooth.

Now whisk in the flour and cocoa mixture  to the wet ingredients in step above until smooth. Pour this batter into the cake pan you sprayed with the non-stick above. Cook in oven for 25-30 minutes until a tooth pick inserted into middle of cake comes out clean. Cool cake in pan 15 minutes, then turn out and cool cake on wire rack for about an hour or until its room temp.

Cut six (6) Oreo cookies in half and set aside. Be careful and watch your fingers, ask me how I know! Then take the rest of the Oreo cookies from the package and chop them up to  something like 1/4 inch chunks. I said to hell with that and put them in the food processor and pulled the trigger about a dozen times for a second or two each time. You wind up with a course Oreo crumbly mixture. Resist urge to shove face in bowl and inhale like Tony Montana in Scarface. Set these Oreo crumbs aside.

Ingredients for Oreo whipped cream:

  • 50 Oreo cookies. I just used a complete package of regular Oreo cookies. Who has time to count?
  • I quart of heavy cream.
  • 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar
  • I tablespoon of vanilla extract

Make the whipped cream in two (2) batches. Pour half the quart into a bowl and with a blender or a stand mixer with the wire whip, whip the cream until light peaks form. Scoop this first batch of whipped cream into a large bowl and put in fridge.

Make second batch of whipped cream with second half of quart of heavy cream. This time add the sugar and vanilla extract and whip to soft peaks again. Now add this batch of whipped cream to the fist batch of whipped cream sitting in the fridge. Fold and mix the two batches together. You should now have a full quart of heavy cream turned into whipped cream in a big old bowl.

Now of all that whipped cream, take and spoon out about a cup of it and put in the fridge.

Take all those crushed up Oreo cookies you didn’t try and snort like Scarface, and pour into the whipped cream. Fold it all together and mix well.

Take your cooled off chocolate cake sitting on your wire rack. Cut it in half with a long knife horizontally.  Put the bottom slice of cake on your serving plate. Scoop out about 1/3 to almost a 1/2 of the Oreo whipped cream mixture onto the first cake layer. Spread it out on that first layer. It will be about an inch or two thick.

Place second layer of the split cake on top of this whipped cream layer. Scoop the rest of the Oreo whipped cream mixture onto this second cake layer. Spread it out all over the top and sides of cake. Make neat, take your time. Its easy. Honest

Now you’re almost there. Put the cake in the fridge for a couple hours. It will chill and the cookies in the whipped cream will soften up a bit and the whipped cream with stiffen up a bit.

Last step.

Get that last cup of plain non-Oreo whipped cream that you set aside and put in fridge. You want to pipe this whipped cream out with a pastry bag into rosettes (12) of them around the perimeter of the chilled cake. I know I know. Who the hell besides foodie maniacs or baking enthusiasts has a piping bag? In that case, just scoop the whipped cream into a zip lock bag. Cut the corner off the bag and waa-laa you have a pipping bag on the cheap. Pipe 12 little puffs of whipped cream around the top of the cakes edge and then take a piece of the six Oreos you cut in half and place a piece on each little whipped cream puff, or rosette if you had a pipping bag and correct tip.

Look at your masterpiece! Told you it was easy.

Pork Fried Rice.

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Ingredients:

  • 10-12oz of cooked pork (ribs, roast, pork chops whatever)
  • 1 green bell pepper
  • 1 yellow onion
  • 1 small habanero pepper
  • 3 small stalks of celery
  • 1 cup shredded lettuce
  • 2 eggs beaten
  • 4 cups cooked rice
  • 2 tablespoons garlic powder
  • 2-4 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 2-4 tablespoons Sriracha chili Sauce
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • Vegetable oil
  • A pinch of just pure personally you can do anything awesomeness.

I chopped up some pork, and then diced up some onion, bell pepper, lettuce, celery, a habanero, a couple beaten eggs and broke out the wok. Some soy sauce, a load or two of Sriracha chili sauce, garlic power, salt, pepper and you pretty much have the ingredients for greatness.

Onions, bell pepper, habanero, celery, meat into a hot wok with some oil. Stir, shake, stir, shake repeat until translucent and soft.

Add in your seasoning, chili sauce, soy sauce, and continue to cook and let liquid evaporate off.

Another good shot of oil then stir, shake, stir, shake repeat.

Spoon/shovel all the vegetables and meat up the sides of the wok leaving the hot center bare. Should have enough oil here if not hit it with a teaspoon or two more. Pour in beaten eggs and scramble eggs in center of wok.

Eggs scrambled, meat heated, vegetables nice and sautéed, dump in four cups of cooked rice.

Stir, shake, stir, shake, repeat. Add a couple tablespoons of soy sauce. Stir, shake, stir, shake, repeat.

Dump in lettuce. Stir, shake, stir, shake, repeat until lettuce just begins to wilt. Remove wok from heat, bowl up some of that greatness and enjoy.

Pork fried rice, kicked up a notch with the chili sauce.

 

Chicken Sandwiches

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Its pretty simple to make an accurate representation of the famous sandwich at home for a fraction of the cost. The trick is the chicken needs to be brined for six hours or overnight is even better.

1.Dissolve 1/2 cup salt and 1/4 cup of sugar in a quart of cold water. Place skinless, boneless chicken breasts in brine. Cover and refrigerate for at least six hours or like I mentioned above over night.

2.Remove chicken from brine and rinse with cold water. Dry breasts with paper towel.

3.Mix two eggs with a cup of milk in container.

4.Make spice mixture of 2 tablespoon pepper, 1 tablespoon paprika, 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper, 1 teaspoon MSG

5.Mix 1 1/2 cups flour, with 2 tablespoons dry milk, 1 tablespoon of baking powder,1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon sugar and half the spice mixture in step 4. listed above.

6.Season chicken breast with spice mixture, then dredge in milk/egg solution then place in flour mixture and cover with and pat down with the seasoned flour. Shake off excess flour.

7.Fry the chicken breasts in 350 degree peanut oil for about 4-6 minutes based on breast size.

8.Toast hamburger buns in melted butter in a non-stick frying pan.

You assemble the sandwiches by placing a few dill pickles slices on the bottom of butter toasted buns. Then simply place the fried chicken on the bun with the pickles and top with the other bun half.