Day of hell finishes with Love, meat love. In fact, it was far better than I had expected. Fatted Calf delivered to us a Rabbit Boudin sausage that I played over the top of a green salad, this was shaved with fancy hard cheese of crazy tasty.
Go in to detail? No. This is what it is, just have a gander.
A kind end to a day, share the love.
Biggles
Category Archives: supper
Tiny E’s Burger Dog – The Boy Got His Bun
I rolled home the other day with a pound of freshly gound beef chuck under my arm, ready to make the boys some burgers, they love burgers. After putting my things down I checked the food stuffs for hamburger buns, no buns. See, personally I can take or leave buns for home made burgers. We didn’t have them when I was growing up, just didn’t seem to matter either way. But our boys care, they love their burgers & dogs on buns. This of course, in no way means they’ll EAT the buns, but they’re there just in case. What to do? Hmm, we had hamburger meat and I found some hot dog buns. Hamburger meat and hot dog buns, oh dear.
My Blog is Burning and it smells VEGAN !!!
Holy cow, what a month. And here we are at the end and the Is My Blog Burning – Vegan thingy is due, tonight.
It wasn’t too long ago that Sam called me out on this one. She specifically nailed Meathenge, which makes sense actually. I’ve ditched ALL but the Grilling IMBB years ago, just don’t have the time. I know everyone is praising the lovely Sam, “oh isn’t she JUST THE BEST???” Grrrr.
When she first posted the theme, I wasn’t phased. Some of the best meals I’ve been served have been at least vegetarian, maybe vegan. I don’t remember cause it was 15 years ago. In any case, what made me crazy was that I’ve never intentionally made a vegetarian or vegan meal. And what put me in to a mood swing last week was that I didn’t have a slammin’ vegan recipe or 3 to make people swoon. Dr. Biggles was in a rut without a jeep or shovel. What to do?
John Bell’s Southern Fried Chicken or Drunken Chicken Orgy #1
Today’s images brought to you by the camera I used when I started Meathenge over 2 years ago. A sturdy little Nikon Coolpix 950 (2 megapixels) with a Nikon SB-50DX Speedlite held together cool lookin’ flash bracket. It was tough going back to framing images by looking at the lcd screen on the back, but after a bit it was okay.
The day? Saturday after the farmer’s market. I’d picked up my rabbit pate with chives and an olive tapanade stuffed lamb leg roast from Fatted Calf, but had to stop off at El Nat grocery for some milk. That’s when the inspiration hit, it was time to once again (5 or 6 tries, I forget now) to attempt John Bell’s Southern Fried Chicken. My previous attempt was some of the worse food I’ve ever produced. But this time I had all my ducks in a row and was sure success was in my near future. Man, I love duck fat.
Steak à la Bordelaise circa 1909
The genisis for digging up this old cookbook and preparing a dish came from Meg at I Heart Bacon. She’s hosting a Virtual 40’s-70’s Party, neat huh? In true Biggles tradition, I found a cookbook I liked from 1909, not anywhere close to the 1940s or the 1970s. This is how I follow directions, only to a point. I opened it up right to the meat section and found something that interested me, Steak à la Bordelaise. I read through the ingredients and in typical boy fashion, figured I knew how it all went together. The way I figured, the steak was to simmer in the sauce, nope. I had it wrong, a good wrong though.
Cotechino & Lentils – A tasty pork sausage comes to town
This entry came about late last week when the Fatted Calf newsletter rolled in. One of their specials for the week was a new sausage, Cotechino (kotehkeeno). I was interested to see, I wanted to know a bit more. So I did what any wild eyed hillbilly would do, google it. Here’s what I found:
“This hearty and satisfying dish is traditionally eaten on New Year’s to bring abundance and fortune. Cotechino is an Italian fresh pork sausage. It is creamy and delicate in flavor. It is sometimes sold precooked or boiled but the best ones are fresh. If you can’t find cotechino a high quality fresh pork sausage flavored with nutmeg, cloves and pepper will suffice.”
Yeah, I dunno. Boiled clove flavored meat wasn’t what I was interested in at that moment. I might try it, but surely wouldn’t enjoy it, no sir. Later on that same day, Amy stopped by and offered up a recipe she thought would get me close to how it was supposed to be. That was the inspiration I was looking for. Holy cow, I am so glad I did. This meal turned out to be one of the best meat surprises in probably 6 months or more. Meat Surprises can be a really good thing.
John Bell’s Southern Fried Chicken #5
Chuck Wagon in background compliments of Mr. & Mrs. Meathead. Thank you!
Here it is, attempt #5 at John Bell’s Southern Fried Chicken. Before I go on, let’s recap for a moment. Not too long ago a friend visited from Alabama to give us some razamataz and cook a load of fried chicken. Not bad for someone on vacation, eh? Since that warm, fun filled day I’ve spent my afternoons attempting to figure out how come his chicken is legendary and mine sucks. I have to say though, I’ve learned a lot over the year and it’s getting better. The last attempt I made (while at work) I found out my fryer wasn’t hot enough, only 320 degrees. Other than the oil not being hot enough, I was THIS close. Really.
Fresh Noodles with Butter & Salt – Biggles attempts another recipe calling for flour, oh dear.
This last week found me at a food blog I hadn’t visited before, Kitchen Monkey. I like the name of the blog and he’s got a picture of a chimp on his banner, I’ll read.
He’s got a post on there about making his own noodles for a Ramen Soup thing with tender bits of meat & vegies & egg. I wasn’t interested in the soup, but making my own pasta needed to be done. You see, Mama purchased a pasta machine years ago and never really got to using it. It’s cold here, been raining a lot, what the hell else do I have to do?
When Flat Burgers wind up at the station waiting for a train to Gravyville
Last night started out innocently enough. It’s Tuesday night, family is hungry, time to start cooking. The last few times I’ve been using a tortilla press to make Flat Burgers for the kids. I know many of you have probably done this more than a few times over the years, but I thought it was worth a mention here. See, usually when one makes burgers, they puff up a bit in the center, then don’t get browned on the edges. Plus, since they aren’t uniform one part is over cooked and the other is just right. Then, if you do have children you’re probably not paying real attention and over cook them anyways. Yeah so, if you make them about a 1/4″ thick, they cook entirely in about 3 minutes. Big time score. Alright, so I figured I’d do the flat burgers. And since Z loves mashed potatoes, I’d do that as well. Besides I’m a big fan of the spud myself, no problem. I hadn’t planned on making gravy, but after watching the taters loll around in the hot water, they spoke to me. “Make gravy for me, if you love me. If you love me you’ll make gravy.” Who am I to not listen to a spud?
Robert Crumb’s Favorite Macaroni Casserole
Yeesh, what a long and winding road it’s been over the last day. On Thursday (yesterday) I stayed home to look after one of the chillins, which made sense because I had and have a nasty head cold. Okay, so Senior Biggles is home, what should he do? Cook.
This sounded like a perfect day to try something out of Dana Crumb & Shery Cohen’s Cookbook. And I have to say, some of the recipes are a bit dated, but the content is right there. From diet advice to offering really nice vegetarian alternatives to the main recipe, very thoughtful.
OH crap, who am I trying to kid, it’s just a really cool book by a really cool group of people and the pictures are fun to look at. That being said, I wanted to try, “Robert Crumb’s Favorite Macaroni Casserole.”
John Bell’s Southern Fried Chicken – Attempt #3
Earlier this year, March 15th’s Entry to be exact, marked my quest to reproduce John Bell’s Southern Fried Chicken. This is a specific piece of chicken I’m looking for. I can sharpen my own blades, when I’m not busy and I can fry chicken with the best of them. But I am unable to make fried chicken like John’s. This is the 3rd episode within a string of however many it takes to get it done. And brother, (or sister, sorry)I got darned close this time.
Sugo Di Carne
Yahoo !!! Meat Sauce. Good meat sauce, tasty meat sauce. Lovely happy wonderful meat sauce. The kind of meat sauce you add tomatoes to and nothing else. The kind of meat sauce you don’t have to add tomatoes to. Nor do you have to add salt and/or pepper. The kind of meat sauce that gives you smiles from your tummy to your mouth and back again. This my good people, is Sugo Di Carne.
Now that I have your hopes up, here comes the truth. I didn’t make it. I picked it up from The Fatted Calf last Saturday. Speaking of which, they won’t be there for the next two Saturdays. Good thing I have ONE LAST container of Sugo. However, when they return you’ll be able to do this for yourself …
Experiment – Destination Simmered Bean
There they are, cans of ‘food’. You know the ones, I’m talking about. Those cans that just don’t get used. Those bastard cans you have to move out of your way every time you reach for the pasta, tomatoes or what-have-you. This week my wife had enough of it and as I pushed the cans of beans out of the way so I could get some fresh dried beans (I planned to soak them over night) she said, “use these you foo!” In my mind I cringed, canned beans? Simmered for hours? Wretch.
The ‘clear’ decision was to use the canned beans for my concoction.
Impromptu Bread Meal
Last night we all arrived home a little later than normal. We had about an hour or so to put something together, no big deal. Well, it turns out that my wife met someone at the boy scouts summer camp that had a minivan FILLED with artisan day old loaves of bread. SCORE.
As you can probably guess, we don’t abide by the Atkins ‘eat no fuel’ diet and had no problem devouring a entire loaf of bread for dinner. What made it easier to choke down was a layer of read butter, fresh ‘maters, fresh parsely, some pesto, fresh crushed purply garlic, pebrella, fresh mozzarella, fresh parmesan, salt & pepper to finish. Make melty & toasty in oven. Serve.
Spinach-Rice Casserole with Ham
Brought to you by Mama! Biggles sliced up and heated the ham, that’s meat and it is my department.
What does one do with that great big leftover leg o’ ham? You make a lot of dishes with ham of course. Last night, it was corn chowder with ham which was very good indeed and inmouth. Tonight, it was spinach-rice casserole with ham. A very tasty dish, even if it is spinach.
I pulled the recipe for Spinach-Rice Casserole outta Mollie Katzen’s Moosewood Cookbook (New Revised Edition); hacked it up, and called it my own.