I believe this time you deserve a bit of explanation here. Uh, well this is a tough one. You see, we were supposed to have a family dinner this last Saturday. That didn’t work out and I forgot to cancel the turkey order. Which means we were going to have a load of turkey for the next few days. Fine, because I WANTED A TURKEY DINNER WITH GRAVY. Okay now, that all makes sense right? Right. Here is where it takes a bit of a turn. Most of last week I’ve been antsy to DO something. Either the floor or the kitchen cabinets were going to get it. Some way, some how.
It wasn’t until Saturday night that I had a load of dreams all about painting the kitchen cabinets blood red. So be it, I was going to paint the kitchen cabinets! Luckily I love my family so I decided to use paint instead of real blood.
However, our semi-local paint store doesn’t have interior gloss blood red. They had a semi-gloss “rocket red” (just a few shades short of hot pink). Hey, I’ll take what I can get. If I don’t like them I can always do a darker wash or just paint over the suckers.
That’s right, our lower kitchen cabinets are now very very very RED. With chrome handles and hinges.
The picture above is me getting the bird ready while the oil base primer is drying.
We ate on time and the kitchen was mostly back into place by the time we were ready for bed.
BAM.

It was so damn good.

Here’s something you don’t normally see on an August supper table. Beef Stew.
This week we’ve been having daily tempteratures at sixty degrees with overcast most of the day and maybe some sun in the late afternoon followed by fog. The Bay Area’s typical summer. So why the hell not?
I cut up some Niman Beef into really small bits, bite size. Floured them with flour and heavy seasonings (paprika, onion powder, pepper, celery seed and a few other goodies) and browned in peanut oil. Tossed in an onion and 7 cloves of garlic to sweat.
And here’s how I handle the liquid, 1 part red wine, 1 part beef broff, 1 part water.
Then toss in a few carrots and celery stalks. Yum.
Ground black pepper to taste with a few turkish bay leaves.
This was a quick stew so I got it boiling on the stove top, then tossed it into a 350 oven for 45 minutes.
Uncovered it for another 45.
Made up a little corn starch and water and added it to a rolling bubbling liquid.
Simmer for another 15 on the stove top.
While that was going I made white rice and steamed some brocolli.
However the shot you see had leftover homemade mashed taters (My oldest sone doesn’t like rice).
ps. I’ve noticed that most blogs don’t have a lot of feedback from people who visit the sites. For the most part it is a one sided spew. Please if any of you visitors have any questions as to my cooking methods, grilling or otherwise please feel free to send me email at drbiggles@cyberbilly.com.

I would like to preface this by saying, I love gravy. Meat gravy. Not vegie stock, not tofu gravy. Meat Gravy. This isn’t normal meat gravy either, read on …

At first glance it looks like a standard roast chicken. Sure take it at face value, AND LOSE OUT !!!! Lose out on something special. Lose out on the best damn gravy ever. And after all, isn’t that why we roast meat? Gravy? Yes.
You must start with a decent chicken, this one here is a Rosie Organic Chicken from Petaluma. As far as spices and herbs go, that’s up to you. Extra virgin olive oil and kosher salt is enough for me, but you deal spices and herbs. This baby is sportin’ something special under the hood. Lean in and I’ll tell you. That baby has several slices of bacon stuff under the skin, over the breast meat with fresh thyme and oregano. That’s right, bacon. Oh I know what you’re thinking, not bacon! It’s too strong and fatty. Yeah it’s fatty alright (keeps the breast meat happy), but it isn’t strong. It’s under the skin so it never gets brown. It has a nice flavor that winds up in the pan (that’s where you make gravy).
Please take another close look under the meat. That’s a cast iron trivet. Please use a trivet to keep your meat out of the liquid, you don’t want boiled meat do you? No.

Here it is, GRAVY. After the meat has been removed, I took out all but about 4 tbs of the fat/juice. Sauteed in a bit of garlic and finely diced onion (I was out of shallots), then some flour. Brown that a bit and add chicken broff. Simmer and you have GRAVY !!!!!!! Chicken and Pork GRAVY !!! Add salt and pepper and you done.
I had made mashed taters with steamed carrots, but you don’t need those to enjoy gravy. Meat and bread and gravy are all you need.

Lower your cooking time and add to the penetration of marinades by halving the chicken and putting some gashes into the thigh and leg. It looks as though I really gnashed one leg there, but it was just a little slice when I started. The breast meatses was quite juicy. And in the fashion of the doof Michael Chirarello, “use free range chickens PLUUHHHEEEEEZE!!!”

Here we see a flayed pork shoulder roast. Maybe six pounds or so. I removed the bone so I could slice most of the way through. Rub every surface with Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees, no more, maybe a tad under.

Now stuff it with slices of lemons (remove most of the skin), onions, garlic and some bay leaves. The bay leaves I soak in Extra Virgin Olive Oil for a few minutes to loosen them up a bit. Unless you have fresh, then to hell with me. Before you tie it up you need to make your own dry rub. Every dry rub needs a base component, I use paprika. You can start with 4 tbls of paprika. I wanted a mexicanny rub so I went heavy on the chili powders, 2 tbls of 2 different kinds of chilis (ancho and something else). 2 tbls of onion powder, 2 of salt (sea salt), and I pounded some cumin seeds up in mortar for maybe 3 tbls worth. I really wanted some cinnamon, but found quickly that I was OUT. Dang. I tossed in some cayenne and some old bay. note: make more than you require, you’ll need some later on.
As you can see, it’s really up to you for the rub.
Next get your butchers twine and truss the sucker up tight. UNNGH! There. At this point you can toss it into the oven and please use a roaster with a rack of some kind. Get the meat OFF the bottom of the dish for roasting. You can, at this time, drizzle more olive oil over the meat. Or not. I don’t believe I did, however I did pull it out a few times and drizzle some on after some roasting.
Toss it into the slow oven for maybe 6 hours. No less, mebe more.

Once out, let it sit for a bit. Remove the twine and go through to pull out the bay leaves. Shred the sucker. Cut and shred into bits. Even the onions, garlic and lemons. Once you have done that, pull out what you think you’ll use that night and put the rest into a container for the fridge.
Heat up a skillet and put in maybe a tsp of lard (made fresh from the recipe below) and dump in your meat. Add some salt and your dry rub (generous amounts). Brown the mixture until it’s a bit crispy, you want little crunchy bits on the tender shreds.
Git your warmed tortillas (we make our own, but you can get by with grocery store ones. Just make sure they only have 3 ingredients listed), cilantro, sliced limes, sliced sweet onions and some maters. Uh, you’re ready for food. Hugs.
p.s. I found after doing this maybe 3 or 4 times in the last six months, that the real eye popping flavor comes from the frying at the end. Of couse you could use any thing you want to grease the skillet, I recommended the lard because it’s the best. Hell, don’t use anything at all. There’s probably enough greasin’ residue in the pork already.

Here we see an all week long marinated beef ball-tip roast sliced and ready. The marinade is a teriyaki, the knife and old carbon slicer and the meat was tender tender tender.

Oh my. That right there is comfort food. I know many of you may be experiencing a heat wave, but it hasn’t gotten above 63 degrees here for quite some time. And since our very own potatoes, that we grew, need to be used up in a variety of fashions, Shepherds Pie seemed an obvious choice. In the past, I’ve had it with ground beef, but this time my wife made it with a beef stew. Chuck roast, carrots and onions and bay leaf simmered for HOURS until insanely juicy and wonderful. Then popped it into the fridge for later. Later happened, warm the meat fixins a bit to loosen the juices, strain out the juices and reduce. Pour the reduced gravy and meat into a pie dish, smoosh left over mashed taters over all. Brush with melted butter and cook at 350 for an hour or so. We served it with The Bears Lair Cabernet 2000. I took pictures, they’ll be ready some time next week …

Another fine crock pot meal put together by Mama. Browned lamb then simmered all night with middle eastern spices (and a few vegies of course). Expect pictures sometime next week, why? BECAUSE MY DIGITAL CAMERA BROKED !!!! That’s right it’s dead. Dammit, so now I’m back to using film. Which is fine for quality, but timing is tough. Cause the meals and pictures will be about a week apart !!!!!!!!! Gargh.

Here we see a Rosie organic chicken split and set atop a bed of baby bok choy, carrots, onions, celery and whole mushrooms. The chicken was rubbed down with extra virgin olive oil, kosher salt, fresh ground black pepper, cayenne, oregano and some crushed celery seed. The liquid was a bit of organic chicken broth, port wine, plumb wine and a tad of water. Then roasted in a 375 degree oven for an hour with foil over the roaster, then 30 minutes without the foil. Deelightful.

Okay so it all started out innocently enough. It is the third of july and I have a refridgerator filled with meat. I figure, let’s eat light and make our way into the 4th of July with ease. What menu did I choose?

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Oh my. I’ve found, over time, that’s it tough to write about food four minutes after you’ve finished. But this 2 hour marinated yummie chick chick couldn’t wait. Sure the rich organic russet taters with european butter and cream smashed into love was terrific. Sure the steamed brocolli was amazing. But the organic free range chicken marinated in teriyaki, sesame, ginger and pineable was absolutely satisfying. I cheated though, I basted it with marinade and extra virgin olive oil throughout. Crispy love chick with parts and buttery taters with brock. Perfection of a Saturday dinner.

Wowzers, now if that doesn’t look as though someone cares for meat other than myself.

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Here is Secret Organisenamalous and Kallisti’s Beef Meat for a special Saturday night feast.

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Okay sure, everyone can make a nice roasted chicken. But I care enough about you to bring it to you on a daily basis. That, people is LOVE. Love of the Meat Degree.

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Have you ever grabbed a healthy looking chicken from the butcher …

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