In which all recipes seem to end with "of doom"

I've decided to post my recipes from cheap eats to here as well

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:11:07 GMT

You'll need:

4 apples
Some onion
Sausage

Brown your sausage with chopped onion. Feel free to add thyme, sage, rosemary, or basil if you have some. A splash of balsamic or cider vinegar isn't bad either.

Core the apples. Cut an extra inch or so ring of the apple's meat out as well, so about half the apple is gone.

Keep the not-apple-core, it's still delicious apple!

Put the apples in a baking dish of some kind. Grease won't be necessary, sausage is full of grease.

Fill each of the apples with sausage mixture. Any left over sausage should be compbined with the leftover apple bits and wrapped in a bit of aluminum foil. Tuck the foil package in the side of your baking dish.

Bake at 375 for 30 minutes. The edges of the apple should start to curl, and the sausage should brown more. Blackening is a sign they're getting overdone.

Enjoy!

Thursday's foods

Wed, 28 May 2008 23:18:43 GMT

Breakfast started off easy, rolled outs mixed with a liberal dose of sugar and vanilla (real vanilla) to make a sweet porridge, and the accompanying bacon.

Lunch is your garden variety sandwich platter with precooked chicken legs. I have a multi step process for handling chicken legs when camping, so here it is:
- Firstly, legs are easier to eat. They are hand food. They actually taste of chicken.
- Boil your legs in lightly salted water first. If your chicken is still slightly frozen because of the insane quantity you purchased, this'd be the step where you can do something about it. I geenerally boil/simmer my chicken for 20 minutes, or until there are no apparent raw patches of flesh.
- Preheat your oven to 275. By the time we finish with the next step, the oven ought to be ready.
- Place your partially cooked legs into a series of corningware or pyrex baking dishes, in a single layer. If you are adding dry flavors(Like a combination of spicy flavors like cayenne, cumin, garlic powder, or a simple dry rub like lemon pepper and salt), remember to rub all the way around the legs, and to add a ladle or so of broth (You did keep all that tasty broth from your broiling, didn't you?)to coat the bottom of the pan. This will keep you from getting chicken jerky. If you're using a moist rub Use 1/2 to 1 full ladle of broth as a abase, and then add flavors to that.
- Bake for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Check every 20 minutes to make sure no pan has dried out.
- At this point, with all the chicken safely to temp, and tender, we can bag and refrigerate these bad boys, to be "finished" later by a high heat bake/broil, a quick trip to the grill, or a quick super high heat sear in an oiled pan.

The flavors of chicken were the two dry blends I'd mentioned above, a Hoisin/Soy/Wasabi mixture, and a simple bottle of italian dressing.

Dinner was a simple bechemel with cheese and bacon added, served over pasta, with more cheese added. We made slightly less than a gallon of bechemel (I won't post a recipe here, it's easy to make, and every recipe is about the same), 5 lbs of shredded cheddar, and 8 lbs of bacon. We changed up the standard bechemel slightly by using a coarser wheat flour in the roux stage, and bacon fat instead of melted butter. Still, we used the same proportions, and recieved the same end product.

In addition there were roasted potatos corn, and beets. Most of us have grilled a baked style potato in foil before, and beets are much similar. I suggest scrubbing the beets FEROCIOUSLY before wrapping them up, and halving or quartering them as well because of their increased size and toughness. After they're soft (like a baked potato) I like to top them with sea salt, olive oil, and a bit of lemon juice.

There's one day of pyrate cooking. Won't you join us tomorrow for the Friday night recap?

Outlandish menu

Wed, 28 May 2008 23:02:34 GMT

Thursday:
Thursday:
Breakfast
Vanilla breakfast porridge
BACON!
Fresh Bread

Lunch
Teriyaki, spicy, and citrus chicken legs
Cold sandwich platter

Dinner
Bacon and Cheese Bechemel Macaroni
Roasted corn, beets, and potatoes

Friday:
Breakfast
Ham, Sausage, and Meatless Breakfast Burritos
Fruit Platter

Lunch
Hot pork and beer soup, with oatmeal
Shredded Rosemary Pork Sandwiches

Dinner
Unca Mo's Taiwan chicken
Wilted Kale and Bacon Salad
Lo-mein with summer vegetables

SATURDAY:
Pancakes, but not for eating
Bacon
Sugared grapefruit and orange
Melon slices

Lunch:
Captain Gargamont and First Mate Kid Conner's Green Chile Stew Bitch Slap Throwdown
Ms. Tynder's cucumber sauce that goes on EVERYTHING for the rest of the event

Dinner:
Mamma Flynt's Ratatouille
Boiled Root Vegetables, in 4 pounds of butter
Spinach, Daikon, and Citrus Salad
Apricot Almond Quinoa salad
Slow Cooked Beef Brisket
Ginger Glazed Pork Shoulder with Fruit Compote
Belgian Endive stuffed with herbed goat cheese
Antipasto

SUNDAY:
Breakfast:
Beer Waffles and Chef's Choice of various and Sundry Breakfast Items

Lunch:
6 kinds of homemade pickles
Hamburgers
Beer Brats

Dinner
Chef's Finest Selection of "Surprise, It's Dinner!"

Entries following will be the individual recipes

Several of the recipes are already listed in this journal

Shazaam, I'm back!

Sun, 02 Sep 2007 03:07:27 GMT

After a bit of hiatus, I return!

TAMAGO

Making your own tamago at home for sushi is damn easy (Omelet sushi)
2 eggs
1 Tablespoon of sugar
1 Tablespoon of flour
1/2 Teaspoon of soy sauce

Whisk the everliving hell out of it, then pur it into a small, hot lightly greased frying pan. Once you can see cooked potions of egg showing through the wetter bits, grab a plastic spatula or scraper and poke/peel the edges till it comes loose from the pan, like a crepe or pancake. Flip it over, turn the heat off and let residual heat do the rest(Should only take a couple minutes).

Slice into strips and either put into roll sushi, or slice into strips and make a 3 point fold along the length of the strip, and strap to nigiri.

German Style Pork Chops
This is sort of a variation of a family recipe (Though which member of the family I can't remember)

6 thawed pork loin cutlets
1/2 jar of salt brine sauerkraut (Just water and salt and cabbage)
1/2 jar of chunky plain apple sauce
1 heaping handful of dried brown raisins

Pile it all into a large casserole dish, slop about with your hands, and bake at 325 for about 40 minutes. You can add caraway seeds if you like before cooking.

This one's riotgrrlscout's

2 links spanish chorizo, sliced
2 cans of chicken broth
1 bunch of watercress

Chiffonade the watercress, or chop it. Whatever you like really. Then bring your broth to a simmer with the sliced chrizo and cook for 5-10 minutes. Add watercress and cook another couple minutes (Not too long or you'll have slimy watercress slufge)

You can serve this over noodles or rice, but we found actually cooking the starch in with the soup throws the delicateness and simplicity of the broth off some.

Also known as "[Bad username: cricketfighter"] wants mushrooms for his birthday"

Full pack of button mushroom caps (Reserve and rinse the stems)
The afformentioned stems, chopped but not finely.
1/2 - 1 cup of shredded romano or parmesan cheese (Depends on how much cheese you like)
2 lbs of bacon, you'll only need about 1 1/2 though, so eat some (Like you could resist)
Chopped or crushed garlic, maybe 1 heaping tablespoonish
1 bunch of stemmed and chopped green onions (Optional)

Start cooking the bacon. Use a big ass pan. Crispier is better.

Clean and de-stem your mushrooms while the bacon is cooking. Line your mushroom caps up in a couple baking dishes.

Get out your food processor, and add into it the washed stems, garlic, green onions, and bacon. Blend to past. Add your cheese (The bacon should've cooled off enough to not make a bizarre sticky mess by now) and plend to paste.

Spoon the mixture into the mushroom caps, allowing it to mound up at the top. Extra stuffing should be packed into a foil pouch and allowed to bake with the shrooms. It's a great dip/omelet filling.

Bake for approximately 15-20 minutes at 400 degrees, uncovered. When the mushrroms wrinkle and darken, and the filling browns and becomes slightly crispy, they're done.

Serve immediately.

Recipe can, and should be doubled for parties.

Iron Chef Green Base: Wonton Skins

Mon, 10 Apr 2006 05:22:09 GMT

So the final count of wontons: 360. Three Hundred and Sixty Wontons.

Some steamed, some sauted, some deep fried. Boiling went horribly awry. We shall not speak of it.

Fillings included (Followed by who prepped em)

Seafood:

Salmon with teriyaki, ginger, soy, and wasabi. These were served steamed and also steamed then fried. (Me)

Crawfish in some sort of sauce. I don't remember precisely what D. put in it but it was good. It was only served fried, as is good and true in the eyes of the cooking and oil gods. (D to tha P)

Shrimp with slivered garlic and ginger. These were flash fried in the deep oil. (attutle)

Meat:
Green Curry Chicken. Chicken and green curry blended to a pate. (Me) Served both steamed and fried.

Pork with water chestnut and green onion. (herald_tim) Served steamed, sauted, deep fried, steamed then fried, and straight out of the prep bowl.

Veggie/non-meat:
Chive Cream Cheese
Seaweed and Champingon mushrooms in rice vinager, soy, and miso. (Me) Very savory.
Spinach-Cream Cheese with garlic. (bitchcandie) Gone before I could eat more than one.
Bleu Cheese (attutle) We only made four of these. They were powerful. Perhaps TOO powerful.

Dessert:
Bananna with cinnamon and raisin (bitchcandie)
Sweet Potato w/pumpkin pie style flavoring (Me!)

A big thank you to:

herald_tim and bitchcandie for prepping the spinach, pork, and bannanna fillings, and herald_tim for folding basically nonstop for four hours.
D to tha P for use of his steamer when we realized "we were gonna need a bigger boat", bringing adorable children, folding, frying, and bringing the crawfish.
riotgrrlscout for letting me filthy up the kitchen
cathyn and anda for bringing da vino
attutle For running and grabbing more wontons, and fixing the shrimp/ginger/garlic combo.

x-posted to sparky_cooks and djsparkydog

Cooking for fiends

Tue, 14 Feb 2006 04:00:10 GMT

3 am couscous (So named because you can cook it tipsy at 3 am)

2 cups uncooked couscous
1/2 c Olive or Vegetable oil
3 T minced garlic (More if you're me)
1 T Oregano
2.5 T Basil
Several pinches of black pepper

Frozen whole green beans
Lemon juice

Boil some water. While this is boiling, find a middling sized bowl. Put the oil in and mix the herbs and garlic into it with great vigor. By this time, your water is boiling. Remove it from the heat, and cook the couscous.

While the couscous is setting, nuke your green beans to a crisp but warm stage. Douse liberally with lemon juice. Drain away excess water and lemon.

Toss green beans and couscous into bowl full of oil and herbs. Mix as if attempting to foment rebellion amongst boiled grains.

Eat.

Stuffed Mushrooms (Doom variety)

6 pack of baby portabella caps
Feta cheese
Hummus (See my previous hummus recipe)
Artichoke paste (Roughly 90-some cents per bottle at Ta Lin)
Liberal quantity of crushed garlic.

Clean and de-stem your mushrooms. Put a thin layer of garlic along the inside of the cap. Crumble feta into this, and add roughly one heaping tablespoon of hummus to this. Then add a very small quantity of artichoke paste, and swirl this a bit with the tip of the spoon, so no one gets a mouthful of straight artichoke paste.

Broil for approximately 6 minutes. When the bits of cheese brown at the edges, you're done. The mushrooms, under no circumstance, should be allowed to crisp, char, or get stuck to the broiler pan.

Serve immediately, or they will taste of ass.

Casserole revolution!

Thu, 02 Feb 2006 05:23:00 GMT

1 lb of raw turkey, cut into inch long quarter inch wide strips
1 can crushed tomatos
1/4 bottle of cheap white wine
1/4 onion
2 T minced garlic
2 generous pinches of basil
2 generous pinches of oregano
Healthy pinch of pepper
Enough leftover pasta to fill a large rectangular casserole dish halfway
2 cans chopped asparagus (Though I'm guessing broccoli or spinach or something similar would work just fine)
Garnish for the top (I used french fried onions, but cheese or potato chips would be good too.)

Preheat your oven to 450

Heat up some oil in the bottom of a large saucepot. Add onions garlic and spices to this. One the onions are translucent, add your turkey strips. Stir vigourously every couple minutes until the turkry is white on all sides (The strips will really speed this up) At this point, add the wine and cook for 5 minutes over medium heat, uncovered. Then add your tomatos, stir briskly, and allow to simmer for 5 more minutes.

While this is happening, dump your pasta into the casserole dish, pour you vegetable layer down, and make sure itspreads evenly to all sides of the dish. Once the sauce component is done simmering, pour it all over the casserole. Spread the meaty bits around evenly, top with your garnish, and bake for about 20 - 25 minutes.

Let rest for at LEAST a couple of minutes so there's some cohesion within the cass=erole, then scoop it out and eat it.

I had originally intended to put a layer of cottage chees or ricotta into this, our even sour cream, but we had none of those things in the house. Oh well, next time.

Cold Cucumber Soup

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 20:42:27 GMT

Cold Cucumber Soup

2 regular cucumbers, peeled
1 large container of plain yogurt
1 bunch chopped and washed green onions
2 big pinches of sea salt
6 or 7 pepper mill grinds
1/2 container of fresh dill

Mix all ingredients in blender. Blend till frothy. Pour into pitcher. Drink cold from mug or glass. Also delicious with falafal.

Ridiculously easy hummus recipe

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 20:36:31 GMT

First folks, I'd like to point out a container of tahini will last forever, that cans of chick peas cost like 39 cents, and that hummus is good on everything, including girlfriends and door-to-door solicitors. Stop buying 4 ounces of hummus for 3 dollars, and make your own.

2 Cans of chick peas, rinsed and drained
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
4 T lemon juice
4 T tahini
2 T olive oil
little less than 1/2 c of water
Seasonings (See below)

You will need a blender, food processor, or a lot of patience.

Put your chick peas, garlic, tahini, oil, and lemon juice in the blender with HALF of your water. Blend till smooth. If it gets stuck or seems too thick add a little water, then blend some more.

Add black pepper and salt to taste if so desired.

Ta da, you're done. Pu it in a jar, throw it in the fridge,, this stuff will keep till the end of the apocalypse as far as I can tell.

Now that you understand the basics, here's what make my hummus particularly good: Extra Crap.

All of these recipes require that their ingredients be added in the final minute or so of blending.

Soy Wasabi Hummus: Add 1 T of super super dark soy sauce to the hummus. Add healthy lump of dried wasabi. Blend. May become a darker brown color.

Dill n Green: 1/2 package of fresh dill. One bunch green onions diced. Blend.

Sun dried tomato: I cheat for this one now. I just spoon 2 T of sun dried tomato basil pesto in and blend.
Before, it involved:
1/2 c sun dried tomatos
1/4 package fresh basil
some pine nuts
little more olive oil (Maybe 1 T or less)
THEN blend.
I have noticed no difference in the two recipes, so HA! EAT THAT SCRATCH MADE FOOD!

I've tried other varients, such as the "I'll just put a pinch of every green herb/spice in the cabinet in" (That worked pretty well), as well as "Dump in red pepper flakes till no one but Sparky will eat it" and "Crumble in feta till it becomes a cheese spread instead of hummus" (Good on sammiches with cucumbers!)

Enjoy!

So I got lazy, sue me!

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 20:19:52 GMT

Okay, so I've failed to update as often as I'd like.

I will now make up for this tragic failure by posting some of the recipes I've cooked recently:

Ratatouille

This is probably my favorite vegetable related recipe of all time. I will warn you though, this is WAY WAY better after sitting in the fridge for a day. I also find that it's better when made in epic proportions. (That's what this recipe calls for. Like 10 quart stockpot sized recipe) The other nice thing is, it freezes well.

3 medium sized eggplants (Cut into one inch or so chunks, do not use slices, these will just disintigrate)
2 Green, 2 Yellow, and 2 Red bell peppers (Rough chunks, about the size you would cut for Shish Ka Bob)
4 Zucchini, sliced about 1/2 inch or so
4 Summer Squash, sliced as above
3 Large onions (Preferably white, but red works too)
One full bulb of garlic, massacred
25 Roma Tomatos, quartered (Or about 8 or so regular tomatos chopped into chunks. But roma makes it better)
About 1/3 or so of a bottle of super frickin' dry white wine
Roughly 1 cup olive oil
2 1/2 tsp of fresh thyme (Or enough to fit snugly in the bottom of the palm of a cupped hand)
SUPER IMPORTANT :1 package FRESH BASIL Chopped (Dry just doesn't cut it, sorry guys, I've monkied with this before, and it always goes badly)
5 bay leaves
Several pinches of salt
14 or so grinds of the pepper mill
1/2 - 1 lb of romano cheese grated

Okay, first of all, pre prepping all this helps. Or having a chopping buddy.

1. Heat up your olive oil. Throw in the onions and cook to translucent, NOT brown. After that add all your spices (Including bay leaves) and garlic. Cook this for a couple of minutes.
2. Throw in tomatos and wine. Let this simmer for a while, let's say, half an hour, stirring occasionally to prevent scorching.
3. Add in all vegetables. Toss to coat properly with tomato/wine mixture. Throw on a lid. Let cook over low heat for 1 hour, stirring every 5 -10 minutes. If this is done properly, the vegetable should slowly cook down and leave you with a vegetable slurry.
4.Mix in the romano a bit at a time, stirring as you go. My mom does this with cheddar, they're both pretty good. When it's good and stringy, turn off the heat and let it rest for 10 minutes or so.

Serve on rice, or eat plain. The other nice thing about this recipe is that it's equally good warm, or cold, and tastes better after a night in the fridge.

Which I had served with

BEER MEATBALLS OF BACONIC DOOM

Crockpot meatballs GOOD!
You will need
2 lb of ground beef
1 lb bacon, cooked, and powdered in a food processor (Save that bacon fat!)
2 eggs
1/4 cup of cracker crumbs
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 splashes of worchestire sauce or soy sauce
1/4 onion, pre cooked

So, step one:
Mix above ingredients thouroughly. Make balls about 1 inch in size.

Heat up your bacon fat along with some vegetable oil. Make sure your pan has about 1/2 inch of frying grease available in the bottom. Brown meatballs four or five at a time on all sides. Set aside to rest when done.

Now, get out your Mighty Crockpot (Or local equivalent). Pour into this crockpot:
One bottle of semi-dark beer (I used some honey brown, and a few splashes of red stripe for good measure)
1 1/2 cup catsup
2 T mustard
several splashes of worchestire sauce
several grinds of black pepper
1/4 cup brown sugar
pinch of red pepper flakes, splash of tabasco, or splash of mongolian fire oil (optional)

Mix this goo, heat a bit, then dump in your balls. Then put in the meatballs. Should be ready in about 30 minutes, but also good for the long haul.

Ta Da!

Per request of doomfrog

Thu, 24 Nov 2005 19:17:50 GMT

Hot German Style Potato Salad

Ingredients:
6 decent sized potatos, sliced and boiled, or two cans of pre sliced canned new potatos
1 lb. of bacon, preferably not flavored with anything
1 bag of fresh spinach, or just about 1 1/2 cups frozen spinach
Several splashes of super dark soy sauce
1/4 cup rice vinager or regular white vinager
1 T of garlic
1/2 red onion

Cut bacon into 1 inch squares with scissors and seperate. Fry bacon until very very crispy. Remove bacon from pan, reserving bacon fat. Adjust heat to medium-high/medium on electric stoves.

Add vinager and soy sauce to bacon fat, wix well.

Add onion and garlic to bacon fat, allowing to cook for a couple minutes.

Add boiled sliced potatos to bacon fat, allow to brown on both sides. Try not to move them too much, or they will fall apart.

As both sides of the potatos brown, add your spinach placing it atop the potatos and waiting a couple minutes will allow the spinach to wilt and soak up some of the flavors steaming up from below.

Following this, add your bacon back in, and stir vigourously. Allow to heat for a few more minutes, turn off heat, let rest for 2 or three minutes, and serve.

Suggestions:
Adding a can of green chile and tomato is a good way to make the dish a bit spicier.
Cheddar cheese is a good topping
Use the biggest flattest pan you can find. The first time I made this I used an electric griddle, it helped immensely.

Pour Thanksgiving

Thu, 24 Nov 2005 18:55:58 GMT

GRANDMA'S SPINACH SOUFFLE

2 10 oz. boxes frozen chopped spinach
2 c. milk
1 t. salt
4 T. butter
1/2 lb. sharp cheese
4 T. flour
2 eggs

~cook spinach, drain well and set aside

~make a white sauce of butter, flour, milk & salt. Add cheese to white sauce; stir till melted. Remove from heat. Add eggs one at a time, beating to blend.

~combine sauce with spinach and pour into a greased casserole dish. Cover and bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until firm.

GREAT GRANDMA SCHUMAN'S CORN SOUFFLE

1 Qt. drained corn
1/4 c. brown sugar
2 eggs
2 T. butter or margarine
1/2 c. milk

Mix together and bake at 325 for 40 min
OR-microwave until set (I would say start with 10 minutes, then add 5 minute increments until set)

Sat, 19 Nov 2005 05:18:40 GMT

This first post will be an open forum for anyone who wants to post a request for something I have made before.