Tag Archives: Foodie

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.

 

 

Its so safe floating in the glass

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While above all your troubles pass.

Worked from home today on some programming issues for some clients, so I figured what better then to make a cake. Well sort of. Let me explain.

In my family anything and everything dessert pretty much revolves around the Italian pastry Baba rum cakes. Over the years “Baba” has pretty much become an adjective for any dessert of any kind. Often my father would reply in regards to someone asking about what was for dinner,  “To hell with dinner do we even have any Baba?” Roughly translated to who cares about dinner do we have dessert?

What does this have to do with what I am about to show and tell today? Nothing, other then I found myself in the kitchen this morning wondering about what I was going to eat for dinner. I caught myself thinking to hell with dinner, what do I have for dessert or more accurately “shit I have no Baba!”

I have become my father.

Now some people may not want to admit to becoming one of their parents. I think we all start out this way. Maybe some people have bad parents and truly never want to become what they are or were, but I think some genetic material is going to flow through and good or bad you’re going to display some of the same traits as your parents.

I am not too worried about it. My father was tough on me and my brothers growing up, and certainly not perfect. He showed us it was ok to make mistakes or wrong decisions, but you stand up and take it like a man and move on. So becoming like my father isn’t so bad, I could do a hell of a lot worse.

Folks, I made some “Baba” as it were. Oreo Cake.

I found this recipe on Serious Eats by a rather neat woman named Yvonne Ruperti. I had everything on hand and it was easy. You need a couple hours start to finish between cooking, cooling, and then chilling it down but I am convinced if you can follow the simplest instructions or say crop dust the sales department in the cube farm without ruining your shorts you can make this cake.

I stayed true to the recipe (provided in the recipe section) as published and what you see here is the end result. This is nothing more then a simple chocolate cake, crushed up Oreo cookies, and whipped cream.

Now I have some Baba for tonight. What I am eating for dinner is still a damn mystery. As I think about it, screw it. This is dinner. Diabetic shock and comma here I come.

 

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.

Stuffed Bread

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3 cups (12 3/4 oz) All purpose flour. I use King Arthur for all baking period the end.
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 cup Non-fat dry milk powder
2 tablespoons of potato flour. If you cant find it, you can substitute instant mashed potatoes
1 1/4 teaspoons of salt
2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 1/2 teaspoons of instant yeast. I use SAF yeast for all baking period the end.
I cup (8 oz) of warm water.

Put all dough ingredients into a mixer with dough hook or a bowl and mix/knead until cohesive dough forms. 5 minutes mixer

Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rise for an hour.

Place dough on lightly floured surface, roll out into a rectangle 12″X18″

Now here you can do what you want for filling. Spread with mustard or not. Leave about an inch space around perimeter. Layer with ham, cheese, Salami, whatever you like.

Roll the dough lengthwise into a roll. Tuck ends underneath and try and pinch the seams to close.

Place roll/loaf on baking sheet with parchment or silpat, cover with plastic again and let rise for another 1.5 to 2 hours. Loaf will puff up. Take scissors and cut about a 1 or 2 inch long slit across the top every few inches.

375 degree oven for 35 minutes.

Let cool for 5-10 minutes, slice and eat.