Aside from the salami and some Mexican Chorizo, Fatted Calf’s Rosso Sausage was another yummy yum yum that I picked up yesterday morning. Imagine this treat at your dinner table. It was quite tasty, a lot like a traditional Italian Sausage. I didn’t find any fennel (I don’t care either way, I just noticed it is all) and you could taste a bit of the red wine.
All in all is was a very nice sausage experience. My wife found them a bit salty and yet both plates were cleaned.

Okay, so sometimes I may get a little carried away with the whole meat thing. I’ll be the first one to admit it. I enjoy lighting fires and cooking meat, get over it. The problem with Meat Blinders securely fastened to your head is that you forget other yummy things. It’s been many years since I whipped up a frittata (Italian Broiled Omelette Thing) and while leafing through one of Jeff Smith’s cookbooks I ran across a recipe for one. Not that it amounted to much, but it reached out to me. Off I went …

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For this holiday’s meal my wife was kind enough to offer a few of these tourti

Against most everyone’s advice (especially my doctor’s), I still like to fry food. OH sure, using less oil in the pan is better for you, but can you possibly get a decent crispy brown pork chop without much oil? Mebe.

A month ago, give or take, I purchased some fancy Calphalon commerical 11″ fry pan (non-stick). I figured I should have at least 1 or 2 non-stick rigs in my arsenal. Well, I was wrong. My pork chops looked as though they’d been microwaved. Nasty to say the least. So I gave it to my uncle, he’s not a snob.
Since I feel right at home cooking with cast iron, I had no problem going back to using it for my chops. I can also say that my cast iron is pretty damned well seasoned, by that I mean I can fry an egg with no added fat and NOT have it stick. Anyhoo, I’ve been playing with getting an even brown crust on my chops with very little fat. And by taking a look at the picture above, you’ll see it’s pretty darned close. I melted just a little bit of Lard in the pre-heated cast iron and wiped it with a paper towel. Truly, not much fat in pan. I turned up the heat a bit more, tossed in the chop with a bacon press on top. I left the press on top for the full cooking time, maybe 6 minutes a side or so. Look! That’s nice lookin’ and not all greasy!
Not enough leavenings for gravy, but this is supposed to be somewhat healthier for you, eh? This and a vegie or salad is well worth the price of admission.

Nope, nothing special here. This right here is THE standard ol’ Spaghetti. It’s exactly what everyone makes more than a few times a month and for us maybe once a week. Every batch is different from the last but always just as tasty. Yum.

Come check out this Danish Viking Smoked Salt Pan Sauce I made last night …

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Juicy inside & Crispy Outside

Are you tired of receiving this (see below) when you ask for Chili? Are you thinking that just possibly you could do better? You can. You will. You must.
And if you’ve done any research for chili recipes you know that there are as many variances as there are home remedies for the common cold. Just ask anyone. Some people don’t like beans, some do. Or add tequila or whole tomatoes, or no tomatoes. You just need to find what you like and do that. I found that using coarse ground beef and real chilies help with the final product. All the rest is just for fun.

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Egads man, it’s been a long time since I last entered. Sorry about that, nothing personal. The last month has been chocked full of chores around the house getting ready for winter. I’ve also been stricken with a nasty case of a head cold, not to mention my boys and my wife. This means I have no time for goodies or for entering it into the site. So with this in mind, here we go.
One of our favorite meals, either for lunch or dinner is the Easy Taco. What you need is one of those dumb rotisserie chickens or leftover meat. Pretty much anything will do. Dice it up small and moosh it a bit.
Sautee maybe 1/4 of an onion along with a few cloves of garlic. Something simple. Maybe 3/4’s the way through toss in the meat. At that point add your dry spice mix. What you’re looking for is mostly cumin, then chili powder, onion powder, salt and pepper. Of course this is variable and only meant as a guide.
Once you’ve done this, about fifteen minutes, go ahead and start dicing up tomatoes, raw white onions, cilantro and anything else you can find to toss into the mix. Here it is.

Welcome to MeatHenge’s New Mexican Chili Beef Stew. Within the following article you will find a stewed chili beef recipe sure to make your mouth water and your tortillas swell. Clearly it can be used for a handful of different applications, but our favorite IS the tortilla platter.
I will do my best to lay out what I did. Mostly because this is a combination of maybe two or three different recipes (I made it up). I can’t stress enough, if you have any questions please email the lab staff of MeatHenge.

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I found myself over at Robert’s food blog early Tuesday morning, around 9am. His last entry was for Red Beans and Rice. Since he’s in New Orleans and likes food I figured he’d have a decent recipe. I was inspired enough to spend my day going to three different grocery stores to find what I needed. You’d think Red Beans and Rice, how tough could that be? Well, decent sausage isn’t all that readily available in this part of The Bay Area. By 3pm I had everything I needed, including being at home.
Robert’s recipe will be posted at the end of this article so you can have it for your very own, or go to his blog and kahsnatch it directly.

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A slighly modified recipe for “Macaroni & Cheese” from “Louisiana’s
Fabulous Foods, and how to cook them” 1960’s maybe?
16oz package of macaroni
3 quarts boiling water
1/4 cup of butter (recipe called for 1/2!!!)
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 cups milk
2 tblsp minced onion
16oz grated sharp cheddar
Cook macaroni in boiling water until done. Drain. Melt butter in double
boiler, add flour and cook until butter and flour bubble, then add
milk. Cook slowly until it thickens. Then add rest of ingredients–Mix
with with cooked macaroni and put in baking dish. Bake at 350 for 30
minutes.

We usually reserve flour tortillas for quick lunches grabbed at a taqueria filled with burrito stuff. If you’re lucky they grill them first, but usually they have those steamers that soften/warm them up. Yum, warm doughy crap.

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What is the bastard child of Pork ribs? Pork chops.
And what is the cute older sister of Pork chops? Cajun Pork chops.
And thanks to Justin Wilson’s 1986 magnum opus, that is what we had tonight.
But due to the recipe stating “Let them cook until the gravy is done.” they did come out a little overdone.
But yeeehaw! Thems good eats.

When one starts with dried chili peppers you know it’s just got to be a tasty dish no matter how it’s served. This one was no different. I’m not sure why we used turkey, considering we just went through an entire 14 roast turkey. Oh well.
This dinner came out very nicely. I believe all we’d change would be the addition of raisins. The dish was too sweet. Look at those chilis! I used mostly the New Mexian Red chilis with maybe 4 dried pasillas tossed for the fun of it.

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