Common Sense and Wal-Mart Sucks

 (Warning: story from my childhood and learning a lesson at the end.  But first here's an anti Wal-Mart rant!)

Ask any guy if he is logical!  "Oh hell yeah!  I'm rational, sane, and logical like Spock!")  Yeah... sure we are... um hmmm...  Cooking can be like a logic puzzle.  The process goes like this:  What are you going to make?  Think about flavors: on the plate, working together, finished product.  Work backwards.  When does this need to come off the stove?  Okay, how long is it going to take to cook?  Fine, what time to start it then?  Good, now what goes into it?  Does that need to be chopped?  Big pieces or diced?

That's the process and it gets easier each time you do it.  You (and you alone) know the ins and outs of your pan thickness and BTU's of your grill and how that will affect cooking time.  What's the grilling time for a hamburger versus a chicken breast?

You've got to think a little about what you're doing.  Michael Ruhlman wrote an excellent book on technique - one of which is THINKING.  Not thinking can wreck your dinner.  Here's an example:  An actual recipe from the spawn of the Evil Empire that is Wal-Mart.  This recipe from Sam's Club for Roasted Garlic and Herb Steaks calls for grilling a strip steak over direct high heat for 15 to 20 minutes!  For medium-rare!

I am in no way disrespecting the chefs hired by the Wal-Mart clan who created and published this recipe...  Oh screw that!  Of course I am!  Wake up moron!  Gordon Ramsay would kick your ass!  15 to 20 minutes on direct high heat?  Strip steak?  WTF?  Unless you've got a steak like the Flintstones Brontosaurus Ribs, that steak is destined to be crap!.
Do you really want to spend good money for a steak and end up eating the culinary equivalent of shredded tire tread from a semi along the highway?  Even a raccoon would walk away from that.  So I guess Wal-Mart wants you to waste your money, not save your money.  Do yourself a favor - get to know your local butcher and support small business.  Think, plan, be prepared.

(Here's the story from my early cooking days wherein there was not much thinking going on...)
One of my first real cooking experiences with a friend - went to Illinois Beach State Lodge with John Galang.  He had the great idea that we were going to get up early and hang out on the beach of Lake Michigan.  Bring food, build small fire, do some fishing - hang out all day.

What would be better than blueberry pancakes on the beach first thing in the morning with the sun coming up?

Maybe a pan to cook them in.

Also a spatula.

Back packs?  Check.  Blueberries?  Check.  Matches?  Got 'em.  That was about it.  I'd like to tell you that I rose to the occasion and found a way to make something out of nothing.  I'd like to say that those were the best pancakes I ever ate.  Nah.  We did "cook" something but it in no way resembled a blueberry pancake.  Cooked them on aluminum fail - I mean foil.  Hanging out at the beach all day turned into, "God, this sucks."  Got back on our bikes and we were home eating a hot dog by 12:30.

Lesson learned.  Be prepared.  Wal-Mart sucks.

I Have Seen The Future

Glad Torsdag!  (That's Happy Thursday to my Swedish friends)

I have seen the future and it is aquaponics.  

This is a symbiotic system for growing plants and raising fish using 10% of the water used in traditional farming.  It uses no soil - allowing urban farms to feed people where traditional farming is non-existent.  Aquaponics can be small-scale for home growers or large-scale commercial farms with practically no pollution.

 Check out 312 Aquaponics  If you are familiar with 312 Urban Wheat beer, you know that 312 is the area code in Chicago.  We here at Chicks Dig Central love Goose Island Products (see the Matlida blog post here for a kick-ass tuna recipe)!

A perusal of other website information on the subject will yield anything from classy blogs like Sylvia Berstein's excellent resource Aquaponic Gardening to goofy-ass bunker-living, gun-toting "Planners" who see this technology as their survival plan for Armageddon-end of the world-Mayan Doomsday scenarios.  (This one is pretty funny though...)

Now if you know for a FACT that your chick would dig you being THAT GUY, then by all means...

(picture from nationalgeographic.com)

 I personally will not be "Prepping" but this aquaponics should be on everyone's radar.  Particularly YOU - Guy who knows how to cook stuff.  You are going to be a superstar when all this delicious fish is being harvested.  (But Doug, how do I cook fish so it isn't dry and smelly?)

Glad you asked!  

Skillet Tilapia with Lemon-Cilantro Butter

4 Tablespoons softened butter

Juice of 1/2 lemon

fresh cilantro

2 thawed tilapia fillets

Combine first three ingredients in a bowl and mix well.  Set aside.

Heat non-stick skillet with one tablespoon olive oil over medium heat.  Add tilapia fillets and season lightly with salt and pepper.  Leave them the hell alone.  When the edges are white and the middle has only a little "pink" left, turn off the heat and cover.  Leave them the hell alone for about 4 minutes so they finish cooking.  I even have a photo for you!  (I know, it's crazy how much I care...)

Carefully slide them onto a plate and top with the lemon butter for an instant, yummy sauce.

Got it?  Serve with a crisp salad (grown aquaponically or not) and a nice Goose Island beer.  Watch out for prepping nut jobs.

More fish recipes in the book Chicks Dig Guys That Cook and some pretty funny stuff too...  Thanks for playing along!

Green Eggs - No Ham

What the hell is wrong with the chickens who laid these eggs?

I and She-Who-Digs me scored an invite to THE party of the season.  Bridget and Dave throw an amazing St. Patrick's Day party and Bridget makes some excellent corned-beef.  This party has all the Irish-ness befitting the day and none of the false-ness that marketing "experts" use to celebrate St. Patrick.

I'm talking to you SAB MillerCoors Brewing Company!

Yes I can and will look askew at green beer pretending to be Irish while I wear a green shirt despite the fact that I know of no Irish heritage of my own.  My thinking is if you're going to celebrate Ireland and things Irish then do that!  Green food coloring does not Irish beer make!

Well what about the Chicago River being dyed green?  Hmmm.  Okay that tradition goes way back and is cool as hell.  And the Irish population of Chicago is well deserving, so perhaps green food coloring does belong in the celebration discussion.

But, you will find no food coloring of any sort in my Not-At-All-Irish Deviled Eggs.  The green comes from avocado.  Yep, it's guacamole!

Most deviled egg recipes will call for mashing up the hard-boiled yolks and adding fat in the form of mayo.  I wanted all the protein, and none of the fat.  Check out the Hass Avocado website info!  
Here's an easy recipe for guacamole:
    4 ripe avocados
    juice of one half lime
    1 tablespoon minced garlic
    1/2 cup salsa
    salt and pepper to taste

Scoop the "meat" out of the avocados into a medium sized bowl.  Mash with a fork.  Add lime juice, garlic.  Drain a little juice out of the salsa so it doesn't make your guacamole too thin.  Add the chunky stuff from the salsa to the bowl and stir until smooth.  Add salt and pepper.  Refrigerate for a couple hours so the flavors get all happy together.

Meanwhile if you want to try the egg thing...  Put eggs into a pot of cold water.  When the water boils, cover the pan and turn off the heat.  Let it sit for 15 minutes.  Cool the eggs by running cold water over them.  When they are cool enough to touch, put them in the fridge for an hour or so.  Peel the hard boiled eggs, slice in half and toss the yolk out.

Put the guac into a ziploc-type bag and cut a little of the corner off so you can "pipe" the guac into the empty egg white halves.

Garnish with a little chopped cilantro if you like - OR a dab of Tabasco is fun too!  All the flavor - none of the fat.  Chicks Dig That!

The Meatloaf Atonement

My family has never been served meatloaf because I forebade it.  When my wife's birthday came around this year the long-standing joke of making meatloaf came up.  I offered to cook anything she would like for her birthday dinner.

My wife's fond childhood memories of meatloaf on the dinner table are in direct contrast to my childhood experiences with the baked beef dish.  My frustrated mother ordered her picky son to, "put that bite of food in your mouth and go to bed!" after I sat for about three hours refusing to eat my dinner.  

I tucked that meatloaf between my cheek and gums, put on my pajamas and went to bed.  The next morning, it was still there.  (The horror - the horror)

Having learned a thing or two about cooking all these years later, I figured it was time to end the deprivation.  I needed to design a meatloaf recipe that would conjure the happy memories of her youth, while making something palatable enough to erase my past indiscretion.  

I am happy to announce this recipe will be served at our table again.  The kitchen laboratory at Chicks Dig Central was all smiles!  The dish was juicy and flavorful.  This was based on a recipe for mini cheeseburgers from the Morton's Steak Bible (http://www.amazon.com/Mortons-Steak-Bible-Legendary-Steakhouse/dp/1400097940)  .

photo from Morton's website http://www.mortons.com/menu/barbites/

I give you:  The Meatloaf Atonement...

1 1/4 lb ground sirloin

1/2 lb ground pork

1/2 med onion, diced

4-5 white mushrooms, sliced

1 tbs minced garlic

2 eggs

6 tbs tomato juice

1/4 cup each: grated parmesan, panko bread crumbs

1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp fresh pepper

Heat oven to 375 degrees, and saute onion, garlic, mushrooms 5 - 6 minutes, let cool.

Add onion mixture and all other ingredients to large bowl and gently mix using your hands.

Place in loaf pan and bake 45 minutes.

Pour off fat and let sit for 5 minutes before slicing and serving.

Serve with a juicy shiraz.  Then put on your pajamas and go to bed, you good boy!

Affligem Tripel - Like Raiders of the Lost Ark

(photo from http://greatbrewers.com/product/affligem-tripel)

This is a beer for adventurous types - guys can channel their inner Indiana Jones and ladies, their inner Marion Ravenwood.  Stay with me here...

First, the beer - the bottle is caged and corked (like a champagne - cool!) and the pour is somewhat cloudy.  For a tripel (meaning three times the malt is used in the brewing process) my expectation was a chocolate-dark color.  Silly me; it's only a couple shades darker than Blahblahblah Light.  The aroma is chalky pear, and circus taffy.  The sweetness surprises, and while the balanced bitterness of the hops is present initially, it fades quickly to be follow by the aggressive alcohol pushing its way to the front of the line.

Pair this delicious, sweet, boozy brew with spicy chili for contrast and balance and you've got all the makings of a fun adventure worthy of Raiders of the Lost Ark.  Indiana Jones is going to love the chili's heat and Marion will be enticed by the sweetness (but you'll recall she can handle her alcohol!)

Chili needs meat and lots of it.  So put a pound of skirt steak and a pound of pork sausage in a big pot with 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil and brown the meat on medium high.  Stir often.  Drain most of the fat out and add a whole bunch of stuff: 4 or 5 Tablespoons minced garlic, one chopped onion, 2 chopped jalapeno peppers, 2 cans of crushed tomatoes, 1 can tomato sauce, a handful of chopped black olives, 2 stalks of chopped celery, one can pinto beans, one small can roasted chiles (chopped).

See, the cool thing about this is you can add a ton of stuff and make it any way you like it.  Olives suck in your book, screw ‘em; want some red onion instead, toss it in.  Notice I said 4 or 5 tablespoons of garlic.  Not precise measurements, cuz it’s YOUR thing, not mine.

Moving on to some spices.  Gotta have some of this good stuff in there and people freak out about this part, so I’ll be a little more exact, but feel free to screw around with it. 

Add in 3 Tablespoons chili powder, 1 Tablespoon paprika, 1 Tablespoon cumin, 1 Tablespoon oregano, 1 bay leaf, salt and pepper to taste, oh yeah, and one can beer.

Turn the heat down to low and put the cover on.  You want to simmer this stuff for a couple hours, so some back and stir it every once in a while.  If you like your chili a little thicker, you can add a little corn meal (like a half teaspoon at a time) stir it around and check the thickness.  I saw the corn meal trick on TV once.  It actually works well.

You can serve the chili in big bowls with some chopped raw onion, grated cheese, sour cream, Tabasco sauce, all on the side.  Lots of cold beer, too.  Don’t forget the beer.