Lasagna Rolls
2008-04-06 01:09:37
Ah…ubiquity; allow me to perpetuate it. So perpetuate it I shall! It really isn’t copying, copy-cat-ing, or stealing, or whatever. What this is, is, depending on what your definition of is, is, is, cooking a dish that, in one way, shape, or form, has been spotted all over the blogosphere. It is, in my mind, similar to the eloquently described traffic reports on the radio by the late Keith Kalland, the “ubiquitous ladder in the road", for our Atlanta rush hour. No matter what day your are traveling, no matter where you are on the road, if it is morning in the ATL, there is a friggin’ ladder in the road somewhere! And, believe me, there was.
The thing is, about this dish, despite its appearance in many a blog, the dish itself was as uniquely created as the blog o
Read more: Lasagna
, Rolls
Pad Thai
2008-03-28 05:18:52
I have heard about it. Pad Thai. Traditionally it’s a street food. I’ve seen it in restaurants. I’ve eaten what seemed to be it, but was more of a sweet, brown, gloppy mess of it. Pad Thai. So I wondered, what does this dish really taste like. Is it a brown sugar, sour, gloppy mess of noodles and seafood or chicken? Actually after reading about it at Chez Pim’s blog, I thought better of this crappy dish that I had eaten at the cheap franchised restaurant. This dish can be elegant and quite the thing of beauty. Although, after I read Pim’s method and recipe, I again, got a bit intimidated. How was I going to do this.
You see, I have a wok, yes. My baby sister(well grown now, but still a baby to me), gave me a wok for Christmas several years ago and I was d
Roast Duck
2008-03-24 13:24:29
So I’m reading this post over at Blue Kitchen and as I was salivating over the duck fat roasted potatoes, I decided that I was going to have to have some. And since the pictures weren’t edible, I was going to have to make them myself. First, obtain duck fat! Well, of course, it isn’t to be found in the super market. I logged to Amazon.com and found a jar. Yeah, $14 for 8 ounces! Please! Of course there was a better way. Cook a duck. I mean, I like duck. I pan roast breasts all the time. How hard could roasting a whole duck be right?
Well…
I had to do some research. I bought the duck from Whole Foods. My WF only carries Pekin duck. So that’s what I went with. During my research, I found a lot of head spinning, confusing, methodologies and opinions about
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Maple Brined Pork Chops with Dijon Mustard Sauce
2008-03-21 06:19:03
Ranch Gordo Good Mother Stallards are the beans that you see there. They were unlike any beans I have ever eaten. The pot liquor alone was worth the price of admission. They were tender but not mushy and really, really buttery. I soaked them for about 4 hours and then let then simmer for 3 hours with a ham hock. These ain’t no ordinary bag’o beans from the supermarket. The folks over at Rancho Gordo call them their “come back” beans. Now I can see why. If you try any of the RG beans, let them be the these.
Oh yeah, and I made some pork chops…
I wanted to try the method that I read about at Cooks Illustrated. They illustrated the results of cooking the chop quickly starting with a hot pan and cooking the chop slowly starting with a cold pan. The hot - qu
Read more: Maple
Chicken Chimichanga
2008-03-19 06:04:50
There are plenty of items that I love on a Mexican retaurant’s menu, hard tacos de carne, burrito supremo, taco loco, queso fundido, and a bunch more. But there is nothing I like more than a chimichanga. It is really quite basic yet I understand that in Tuscon Arizona, the “chimi” has reached celebrity cult status. It is simply a burrito filled with beans, beef or chicken, and deep fried. Restaurant after restaurant in Tucson have their own variation of the chimi and naturally each claiming to have the best.
Where chimichangas were invented is impossible to pinpoint other than to say it was probably somewhere in a Tucson restaurant. Legend has it that either Monica Flin or Cameron Strukoff, circa 1922, accidentally dropped a burrito (some say pastry, but burrito fits
Read more: Chicken
Baked Eggs
2008-03-16 22:20:36
Baked
eggs with polenta, cheese, and bacon! Yes!
First, let me thank Robin at Caviar and Codfish, formerly known as Clumsy Cook who grew as a cook into a great cook, IMHO. She made this dish in her $10 or $12 dollar cast iron ramekins from Wal-Mart. I saw them on her blog and as I can get sometimes, I got enthralled. So much to the point that I just had to taste it. I HAD to! And alas, I did. And It was good.
I didn’t stray from her recipe at all except for the fact that I bake my bacon and I couldn’t find those cast iron ramekins. I did find some similar ramekins though; they were considerably more expensive, but like my blogging friend Erin from Erin Cooks will tell you, it’s okay to have a little All Clad in your collection. Isn’t it?
My baked eggs came
Thai Red Curry Seafood
2008-03-14 12:22:58
I made this dish last month and it came out pretty good. I used big sprouts in it then, but I didn’t really like the way they came out; kind of limp and squishy. No one likes a limp sprout.
This dish, though inspired by a half a dozen recipes that I’ve seen on the web, is my entry in the Royal Foodie Joust. I was going to use the dish I made last month in the contest, I decided to make it again. Becky was very pleased with that idea.
The ingredients for this month are:
Seafood
Lemon or lime
Coconut
I chose lobster, mussels, bay scallops, prawns, and a coconut-lime curry. I have been venturing into the Asian aile at the market looking to prepare some Asian inspired dishes over the next couple of weeks. Hopefully this dish is a winner!
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Read more: Curry
My Gyros
2008-03-12 05:39:58
These sandwiches are definitely a crowd pleaser in my book. Can they even be called sandwiches? I read somewhere that the taco is actually a variation of the gyro. Whatever, they are tasty and without a doubt the great taste is a combination of the garlicky tzatziki sauce with the roasted lamb and mint. In this preparation, I think i minced up 12 cloves of garlic. We like garlic. We simply did not breathe after eating the gyros. Actually, it wasn’t anything that a few Listerine strips couldn’t handle, but oh did they sting!
I remember my first gyro was in a mall in Willow Grove Pennsylvania, oh some 1375 moons ago. Naturally I, as did most everyone else, called them “jy-rows". It wasn’t until later when my stepfather, who was Greek, corrected me. I think I actu
Shrimp En Brochette with Dirty Rice
2008-03-07 09:39:47
I’m pretty sure that I read somewhere that the term en brochette refers to food that is cooked and/or served on “brochettes” or skewers.
**** Wait a minute… Googling now ****
Yup that’s what it is. Gotta love the interweb.
I haven’t got a large French vocabulary. As a matter of fact, it mostly consists of coq a vin, oui, and the lyrics to Labelle’s “Lady Marmalade". Well, maybe a few more. Nevertheless, these are tasty terms, shrimp en brochette. For sure!
This dish is another in my arsenal that came about from a restaurant dish that I could not get enough of, Pappadeaux’s shrimp en brochette. I think Pappasitos may make it as well, I am not sure. In any case, I asked the waiter how the dish was made and of course, he danced aro
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My ISP Has Gone Dark!
2008-04-14 06:42:48
Greetings readers. I try to post at least twice a week, hopefully delivering something worth while in the process. I really appreciate all of you who stop by and offer your thoughts and critiques; I really mean that.
No, I am not signing off; however, my what-used-to-be-wonderful Internet service provider has gone dark with no explanation. All of the sudden, last week, while Beck, who works from home, was working, there was nothing. “Page cannot be displayed.” It has been that way for several days. The company is local and their doors are locked! No explanation! We cannot get through to their support line because they have VoIP. Needless to say, I am a bit miffed at this business practice.
I have been reading a thread at DSLReports, and it seems that SpeedFactory.com, my
Spaghetti alla Carbonara
2008-04-16 17:18:04
Well, we’ve dumped our ISP. They came back on line on Tuesday with a really, really weak apology, something to the affect of “we’re sorry for any inconvenience the outage has caused…” What?! They went dark with no notice and there was no way to contact anyone. Their business office is about a mile from my house and there was no one in the office, the doors were locked, and no communications, even to their parent company’s home office in California. Oh, the irony of that was, their parent company, Next Phase Wireless, answered the sales extension with a human who had no information, but the technical support extension was greeted with, “all circuits are busy"!!!!
In any case I am able to post again. My blog is hosted elsewhere which is why the
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Stir Fry Chicken
2008-04-25 07:10:46
I want to be very clear about this, I don’t know a thing about Asian cuisine. Not one thing. I do know that when I spoke to a coworker who went to China for a graduate school trip, she told me that the food that we are used to eating at our local take-out is not what she experienced in country. Wow! No General Tso’s chicken? Um, no… She told me that it was really different.
Now here in the Atlanta area, we have an area which is predominantly culturally Asian. For those who are familiar with this area, I am speaking of the Buford highway area; or at least a small part of it. That area also has a rather large Latin community as well. It isn’t like it was for me when I lived back home in Philly where we had a Chinatown. I guess this area is similar, just not near
Read more: Chicken
, Stir Fry
Raspberry-Mango Crisp
2008-05-13 06:24:53
Normally I leave the sweets to my sweet. But every once in a while I venture down the avenue toward a dessert. This one turned out pretty tasty. I was sort of flying by the seat of my pants, as I often do, and I managed to turn out a tart-like crisp that I could be proud of. I had planned to make this for the Royal Foodie Joust, but I had not been feeling very well over the past few weeks and
Read more: Crisp
, Mango
, Raspberry
A True Philly Breakfast
2008-05-19 07:57:07
Well…now that I am literally back on my feet, Beck and I are about to make the obligatory journey to Philadelphia. We usually travel there at least twice a year. It is my home town, whereas Beck is originally from Knoxville Tennessee, having spent most of her formative years right here in Roswell, Georgia.
I love going back home. Mostly because I get to spend some good quality face tim
Read more: Breakfast
, Philly
Rustic Risotto
2008-06-02 05:58:36
As rustic as an elegant risotto can be, I makes it!
I mean, I love the creamy, cheesy, buttery, morsels that make up a decent risotto. How can one not? It has only been about four years now that I have been eating this creamy rice dish and I wonder how I could have been missing out. I dated an Italian girl for 10 years, some moons ago, and I never manged to have risotto. Well, maybe I did and
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Saltimbocca alla Romana
2008-06-06 06:21:25
I first had veal saltimbocca (translation: “jump in the mouth") at Lucia’s restaurant which is literally “around the corner” from our house. I cannot tell you how excellent the combination of succulent veal, spinach, ham, and provolone cheese, in lemon butter sauce is. It made me a believer.
I did a little research and found that veal saltimbocca is really a variation
Beef and (Rancho Gordo) Bean Burrito
2008-06-13 09:13:53
What are we to do when we have purchased so many $5/lb beans from Rancho
Gordo? I mean, with gas prices at close to $5 a gallon, that $5 a pound for beans seems, well, I dunno, relative? Well, I just can’t eat the mega-mart beans anymore.
You know it is almost a shame. I got my life together at 25. Up until that time, I was pretty much a Robert Downey, Jr., I don’t stand in line a
Chipotle Chicken Pasta Salad with Avocado
2008-06-17 15:12:49
The pasta salad can be a thing of beauty or a complete failure. I have made both and I have had both. The pasta salads that are served at the cafeteria where I work are consistently bland, dry, and with overcooked mushy noodles. What’s worse is that they charge for them by the ounce!!! So I pay $5 for what amounts to little more than a side dish serving of what masquerades as pasta sala
Read more: Chicken
, Chipotle
, Pasta
, Salad
Grilled Chicken with Artichoke Panzanella
2008-07-09 05:46:33
Okay…with all this talk about salmonella poisoning, and the fact that I don’t think that the CDC, the FDA, the WHO (no…not Daltrey and company), nor the CIA has a clue as to what is causing it, I think eating produce now flies in the face of danger. First it’s the tomatoes, Roma’s and red plum not Heirloom or grape. Really? How can they be sure? Did they test EVER
Read more: Chicken
, Grilled
Jagerschnitzel
2008-06-27 06:03:35
No, not Jagermeister! Thank you very much. Not that I haven’t had my fill of that uber-sweet spirit on occasion, this is a “Jager” of a different sort. This dish is one of my most favorite dishes, “of all time.” When I was stationed at my first and only permanent duty station in the Army, I had my first there. My first experience with schnitzel, what did you think
Dear Cook's Illustrated, STFU!!!!
2008-07-24 14:21:20
Have you used a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated
or ATK? Did you change or modify an ingredient or two or four? Well, ahem, you are a recipe pirate in their eyes. They have a team of enforcers who comb the foddie blogosphere in search of you dastardly recipe poachers and soon the jack-booted nanny-state enforcers are coming to a blog near you! Scared yet?
No really, CI and ATK are the rec
Farro Salad with Grilled Veggies
2008-07-22 05:55:50
Another salad added to my repertoire is this farro salad with grilled vegetables. I got the inspiration for this from one of Bobby Flay’s shows. It’s been a while, so I don’t remember which show it was; probably “Boy Meets Grill” since there is plenty of grilling going on for this dish. There is grilled eggplant, which yields an incredible flavor, grilled red onio
Read more: Grilled
, Salad
, Veggies
Black Bean Mozzarella Bowl
2008-07-18 10:03:59
So I get on the scale. Why, I know. The scale’s LCD registers a reading. It reads, “get the hell off of me!” Yeah, I’ve had a bit of a set back. I got myself down to 217 lbs by accident when I had my last gout attack. I vowed to stay low and to actually get lower. Yeeeeaahh. Not so much. I’m back in the 240 plus club.
So the wife and I agree to go back to a regi
Read more: Black
The Cheddar House Burger
2008-07-16 15:19:24
Some of you may remember, back in the mid eighties, Eddie Murphy’s shtick about the “house burger.” Well that piece really resonated with me because everything he talked about was exactly how it was in my house. McDonald’s or, as was my preference back when I was a sub 5 footer, Ginos. The now defunct Ginos made a Gino Giant that put the Big Mac to shame. Hell, now Krys
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, House
Mississippi Mud Cake
2008-07-14 07:01:03
Do you see it? I know your do. Look at the picture. There is 24.6 extra pounds in that picture that have attached themselves to me in such a sinful way, I’ll never be forgiven. Any yet, I don’t seem to really care. I mean, look at that picture again. Would you care? Didn’t think so.
I’ve seen several recipes for homemade marshmallow popping up in several areas of the b
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Quinoa Salad with Pickled Radish and Feta
2008-08-07 06:08:46
“Quin-who? Quin-what?” That’s pretty much the reaction I got from my wife when I told here what I was making. “I don’t like radishes!” she proclaims. Yeah, well, all that skepticism ceased when she took a fork full.
Up until this day, when this dish was made, I had never eaten quinoa pronounced KEEN-wah or KEE-no-uh for those of you who don’t know. M
Read more: Radish
, Salad
Fish Tacos, Strawberry Flan, Sangria, Four Spicy Sauces , Oh...and An Evening With Bren!
2008-08-01 15:52:07
You may want to sit down for this one. Oh, you probably are… Well this is a long piece, but worth the read, I promise…
As I have read about foodie connections happening all across the blogosphere, I personally got to experience one. When I began blogging last year, I never thought that foodies were such beautiful people. The experience that I have had cooking and blogging has been
Read more: Spicy
, Strawberry
, Tacos
Smoked Spare Ribs with Baked Beans
2008-07-28 05:31:06
To me, nothing says summer more than barbecue and smoked ribs is a staple in my barbecue arsenal. Stay tuned for a 16 hour smoked brisket coming soon as well.
Ever since I can recollect, there has been a hot-topic debate over what barbecuing actually is. When I was growing up, we had “barbecues” and that meant anything being put on a hot grill, i.e. hot dogs, burgers, ribs, chick
Read more: Baked
, Baked Beans
, Beans
, Smoked
, Spare
The Very Good Taste Omnivore’s Hundred
2008-08-23 06:07:13
Mmmkay…I’ve seen this floating amongst the blogosphere and I decided to participate. It really is an introspection as well as a meme. I may not want to try the items in the list that I have not already eaten, but then again, I may. Eating is what I love to do. And when something is prepared well and is delicious, well I may not care what it is, I’m indulging. Whatever the case, m
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What To Do With Leftover Grilled Lamb?
2008-08-19 08:57:54
Waste not, want not, right? I will say that I am very much a fan of leftovers. It is just Beck and me here, but I usually cook enough for 4 or more servings. If it’s a weeknight, after we eat, we’ll pack up the leftovers for lunch the next day. Or sometimes I’ll try and get a little creative and cook an excess of a component specifically to use in another dish that I planned
Read more: Grilled
, Leftover
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