biscuits and gravy

This is the easiest thing to make- but I love it. I made an especially spicy batch yesterday.

Ingredients:

1 lb breakfast sausage
2-4 table spoons of flour
couple cups of milk
 pepper to taste

I eyeball all of this stuff so it's the right consistency and do it a piece at a time.

Yesterday I added some habenero powder, and some old bay powder.

Brown the meat, add the flour a bit at a time, and then milk the same way. Get to a thick mixture. Just like doing a quiche, it will thicken as it cools, so don't over do the cooking

Quick Risotto

I have posted a couple pressure cooker recipes, but this one is worth going for. I've done it a few times and it works pretty well.

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup shallots
1.5 cup arborio rice (or equivalent)
1/2 cup dry white wine
4 cups chicken broth (low sodium)
1 teaspoon salt (I always add this at the very end, or allow others to add at the table)
 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
freshly ground pepper
3 TBS chopped parsley

Heat the oil in a 4 quart or larger cooker. Add onions and soften. Stir in the rice coating thoroughly.

Stir in wine allowing to heat for 30 seconds. Add 3 1/2 cups of chicken broth. Mix thoroughly and add pressure cooker top. Set heat to high to get to highest pressure. Reduce temp to  keep pressure. Cook for 4-6 minutes, and then reduce temp under water.

Add remaining ingredients- at this point it will look a little soupy. Cheese, and veges will soften if added right away and it will thicken- we add peas, and asparagus. spinach is another option. Salt and pepper to taste and add parsley. Have the rest of the broth on hand just in case you need it.

Serves 4 as a main dish, and 6 as a side. This is from the Pressure Perfect cookbook that I have referenced before.

Simple Red Chili

This is a simple red chili that I made this weekend. I think a simple addition made a difference. It was a little spicy compared to what I usually make and more thick. I find that being loose with this recipe is best- if you look around the internet, everyone has a recipe. The one thing I really dislike is green bell pepper, but this time I threw in yellow bell pepper.

1.5 lb ground chuck
2-3 cloves garlic minced
1.5 cups chopped yellow onion
1 yellow bell pepper chopped into dice
1 28 oz can of whole tomato mashed by hand
1 16 oz can of chopped tomato
1 16 oz can of black beans drained
1 16 oz can of pinto beans drained
3 T chili powder
1 t cumin
1 t chipotle chili powder
1 t paprika

Start by softening the onion and garlic- add the bell pepper last. Add the chuck and brown to a medium state. Place into the crock pot. Crush the whole tomatoes by hand and add the chopped. Put in the spices and beans and cook on low temp for four hours. I would consider adding a bay leaf.

Smoked Ribs

My work place does a couple BBQ events in the summer. My boss asked if I could smoke some ribs for the event. I hadn't done this before, so I started looking around for recipes. I think I stumbled upon the expert.

Amazing Ribs

I used the Memphis Dust rub, (in the fridge, 12 hours) and then smoked them for 5 hours at 225 using alder hardwood. There are three people in my office that want to buy the same smoker now.

A few things I learned when cooking ribs:

First, you need to remove a skin that is on the back. I didn't know there was such a thing, but trust the expert cited above.

Second, trim the fat. When you do a roast you want that fat on there to flavor the meat and it's easy to remove after the cooking is done. For ribs, just cut it off first. I didn't do this step, and it was a mistake.

I'll go ahead and link the rub- there is a ton of information on his site.

Memphis Dust

Edit:
I cooked up some more this last weekend along with some garlic mashed potatoes. This time I remembered to snap a picture:

Pulled Pork

My B-Day present from my wife was a fancy smoker- We shopped for it last weekend, I put it together and I'm trying it for the first time today.

Traeger Grills

You load it with the hard wood pellets of your choice, and turn it to the temp you want.

Now if there is one kind of BBQ that I love, it's Carolina style pulled pork. My inlaws threw the best pig picking for an engagement party.

Well, I'm trying a relatively basic recipe for the first go-around. I've been an Alton Brown fan for a while now. I'm using his brine/rub on a Boston butt. (meaning it's bone in pork shoulder)

I also put together a vinegar type bbq sauce that you'd find in east NC. We have some sauces out of a jar that are tomato based if that turns out better, but the vinegar one is pretty good so far.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/pulled-pork-recipe/index.html

I started at 7:30 am for dinner. I used hickory- 250 degrees at first but then changed to 200 for a few hours.

Here is the bbq sauce.

1 cup white vinegar
1 cup cider vinegar
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon hot pepper sauce (e.g. Tabasco™), or to taste
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper

It got the perfect smoked pink ring. I'll be taking the leftovers to work Monday...

Croque Monsieur Bake

We just had some friends over for a brunch- this is a variation of Nigella Lawson's recipe.

6 slices of highly grained bread - think dark, texture-y with sunflower seeds
1/3 cup Dijon mustard
5 oz Gruyere cheese (4 oz sliced and 1 oz grated)
3 oz prosciutto
1/2 cup milk
9 eggs
Worcestershire sauce
Herbs
Salt

1. Spread mustard on the bread slices making sandwiches with ham and cheese. Cut the sandwiches into four triangles each.

2. Spray an 8x10 baking dish with cooking spray.

3. Put sandwich pieces into the dish such that they are tightly packed.

4. Beat 6 eggs together with 0.5 tsp salt and a third cup milk.

5. My wife added oregano, basil, black pepper, rosemary and thyme to the egg mixture... just to taste.

6. Pour the mixture over the sandwiches. Cover with plastic and refrigerate over night.

(aside: my wife pulled this out this morning, and needed to add three more eggs with milk- it was too dry already)

7. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Sprinkle the bake with the remaining cheese grated. Sprinkle with the Worcestershire sauce.

8. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes.

Serves 4-6


It was delish- I highly recommend it....

Failed Smoked Chicken

I bought a new grill and I tried to do some smoked chicken. The good part is that there was some very tender chicken that came out of it. The bad part is that it wasn't smoked.

First I put in a brine of sea salt and molasses for about four hours. I stuck it on a grill at the very lowest setting I could pull off- it ranged from 185 degrees and 210- I watched it constantly for 5 hours before I pulled it off.

The wood chips I put in never really smoked, so that is the failure part. The grill keeps a good temp, but it's not high enough in one spot to fire up the wood. You want between about 180 and 200 and constant for hours. Doing things like brisket and pork, I'd say at least 8 hours- and some people do days. It doesn't take as long to do a chicken.

It was still good, I recommend it. I used a $6 chicken, cut it out so it would lay flat. I can show how to do that if there are requests- it was just like my El Pollo Asada days. Now I just have to do it and do re-fried beans and chili rellenos at the same time.