I have no intro to this recipe, really. I love cheese and garlic biscuits. I wanted some. Been on a bacon kick. Decided to add bacon. Made them. They rocked!
(As much as I love bacon, I don't think I'm ready to make this monster yet, though. Look, two recipes for the price of one!)
We both reeeeeeeeally liked these biscuits; they didn't last long at all.
Don't remember what I was listening to when making these - it was a while ago; I've been slacking with the posting. But as I wrote it up tonight, I was listening to a little Lars Frederiksen and The Bastards (and some Rancid, and some Choking Victim, and some Minor Threat...) But here's a little Lars and a little biscuits. -jen
GARLIC CHEESE AND BACON BISCUITS
10 strips bacon
2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons dill, dried (optional)
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
few grinds of fresh cracked black pepper
1 cup milk
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
1/2 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
1/2 cup monterey jack cheeese, shredded
Preheat oven to 425 F.
Chop uncooked bacon into small pieces. Cook over medium high heat until crispy. Drain and set aside.
In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, dill, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, and black pepper. Mix well. Make a well in the middle of the dry mixture and add milk, butter, bacon and cheese. Mix by hand just until dry ingredients are combined (mix as little as possible!) Using a 1/4 cup measurement, drop biscuits onto an ungreased baking sheet about an inch apart.
Bake until golden brown, 20-22 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool. I recommend removing them from the pan immediately (or at least flip them and let them rest on their tops). Otherwise the bottom of the biscuits continue to cook and can get too dark.
Makes about 8 biscuits.
Check out that fancy paper plating! Hey, I've got the rustic veggie thing going on behind it!
I decided to jump onto the Bacon Bandwagon. Since there's no donut shop in my nearby area that carries a bacon maple donut, I had to improvise. Pork and pineapple go together. Pineapple and maple go together. Maple and pork go together. It's rich, but it's sweet and salty and delicious! Loved it! And how many cakes do you know of that include a pound of bacon?! It's awesome.
It makes me think fondly of the Prodigal Son that used to be in Chicago. Irish pub in the front, angry, dirty punk music in the back, and bottomless free baskets of deep fried bacon on Wednesday nights. I think I actually saw more blood spilled in that venue than any other venue. That's just what happens when you get crazy and mix bacon and punk rock! Chaos and anarchy!
The last show I saw there was my friend Germ's band, The Rotten Fruits, shown in the video here! You can find Germ with his new band, Modern Day Rippers! If you're in the Chicago area, check 'em out! It's always a good show!
BACON MAPLE PINEAPPLE UPSIDE DOWN CAKE
1 pound bacon
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened and divided
2 tablespoons shortening
2 cups + 1/3 cup 100% pure maple syrup (Grade B if possible)
3 egg yolks
1 egg
1 & 1/4 cups whole milk
1 cup dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons bacon fat (rendered from bacon)
1 can pineapple slices
Maraschino cherries
non-stick cooking spray
Chop bacon into bits and cook until crisped over medium-high heat. Use a slotted spoon to remove bacon from pan and drain on papertowels. Save 2 tablespoons of the bacon fat and set aside.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees
Spray 9x13 cake pan with non-stick spray and then coat with flour.
In a medium bowl, combine flour, cinnamon, allspice, baking powder, and salt. Stir until mixed. In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 stick of butter and shortening and beat with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add 2 cups of maple syrup and beat until smooth, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl. Add egg yolks and egg, one at a time, blending thoroughly after each addition. Alternately add flour mixture and milk, 1/3 of each at a time. Set aside
Melt 1 stick of butter and 2 tablespoons bacon fat over low heat. Once melted, remove from heat and stir in 1/3 cup maple syrup. In floured pan, sprinkle 1 cup brown sugar evenly over bottom of pan. Pour butter and maple mixture over brown sugar. Place pineapple rings on top and cherries in the middle of the rings. Sprinkle bacon in even layer over everything. Then carefully pour in cake batter. Bake at 325F until a knife or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (40-45 minutes).
Cool cake over cooling rack for 10 minutes. Then invert onto serving platter and let cool another 20 minutes.
A couple of weeks ago, Jen and I happened to be out of town near a little butcher that I know and he almost always has some goodies stashed away that you can't find at your local markets around here. So we picked up a mutton loin, bone in, complete with fat cap and skin still attached and hid it away in the freezer until I could decide what to do with it. After some consideration I decided to do a stew with it as I have never had mutton before and what could be more traditional than a mutton stew? Almost every culture across the globe, at one point or another, has developed a stew using sheep flesh so why not try my hand at that? Plus, I like stews and soups as they are usually simple to prepare, require little to no attention after starting, store well, get better with a couple of days in the fridge, and last but not least, they reheat easily. Folks are welcome to substitute lamb or beef for the mutton as I can't imagine many folks having access to it unless you live somewhere outside the US or happen to be, or know, a sheep farmer.
I did this in a 7 quart slow cooker and there was plenty of room for more to be added so if you've got a 3 or 4 qt slow cooker, you should be just fine. Alternatively, if you don't have a slow cooker you can simply follow the recipe as listed and add everything to a roasting pan. Cover tightly with foil and bake in the oven at 250F degrees for 3 hours.
As musical accompaniment to this dish, I decided to go with Face to Face's song "Ordinary" as it takes me back a good 15 yrs or so down memory lane to my teen years, just as a good homemade stew should take you back to childhood. Besides, this recipe is fairly, well... ordinary. A meat stew is usually savory and doesn't have a lot going on in the "Wow" department. It's homey, hearty, warm, and perfectly reliable as a good meal, especially in the winter months. Ordinary. - Justin
If you've acquired your roast at a grocer or butcher, chances are you won't have to prep it at all, so in an effort to save time describing how to butcher and skin a sheep, we'll assume you all have done the former and we'll skip right to the veggies. If your roast has rib bones, leave them in as they will exude the best tasting marrow into your broth while they cook! If your roast doesn't have ribs, you can either leave it whole or dice it into 2 inch cubes.
Wash the carrots, potatoes, and the rutabaga and leave the skins on them as that is where all the flavor and nutrients are. Dice them all, and the onion as well, into roughly similar sized chunks, approximately an inch to an inch and a half and add them to the bottom of the slow cooker. Add the kosher salt, black pepper, sage, parsley, chicken and beef broths, the sherry and the dry vermouth and stir everything to combine. You want to make sure that the liquid comes up to the top of the veggies. If you need to, add a little more broth or some water to raise the level. Add the roast to the top of the veggies, rib bones up if you have a bone-in roast, cover and cook on low for 6 hours.
After 6 hours pull the meat off the bones and cut it into 1"h to 1.5" chucks and add back to the slow cooker along with the sea salt, white pepper, tarragon, herbs de provence, chives and rice. Cook for another 2 hrs on low. Serve with some good bread for soaking up broth.
So, lately, I've been really into making spice/herb blends here at home in order to find flavor combos that I really like as Jen and I frequently do something simple like steaks or baked chicken thighs with a salad or soup for dinner. It's really nice to be able to grab a shaker and sprinkle some heaven on your meat and throw it on a grill or in the oven and be done with dinner! Or to rub it into some steaks or chops the night before a cookout and not have to mess with wet marinades and leaky plastic bags. Sometimes I like something herb-based for chicken or a hot chili rub for a beef roast or whatnot. I've narrowed down a few basic ones that can often be used alone or, more commonly, be used as a base for other flavors to be built on. The main rub I'll feature here was spread liberally over a tri-tip roast and actually has 3 other rubs as a base so I'll include recipes for those as well.
Making these three blends will provide you with a mildly spicy dry meat rub, a garlic herb sprinkle, and garam masala (an Indian "warming" spice blend), all of which will last far beyond this recipe and will provide you with an endless combination of flavors limited only by your tastes and imagination. I recently purchased a small electric coffee grinder that I am using exclusively for herbs and spices as the oils from said ingredients rarely wash out completely and will flavor your coffee if it does double duty for you. I picked one up for $15US and am very pleased so far as a mortar and pestle would take ages. Alternately, if you don't want to put out the cash for a grinder, dried ground spices can be used. They just won't pack the same punch in the flavor department but that won't matter if you just add a bit more of the finished rub to your meat than you normally would.
Safety Warning: Do not touch your face once you have handled spices! All spices have oils that we will be working to release, oils that will irritate your tear ducts and sensitive membranes! I spent a good thirty minutes tearing up in the bathroom after rubbing my eye on the way to wash up. I would suggest washing immediately after you're done grinding spices or, even better, wearing nitrile gloves that can be removed and disposed of after use.
After rinsing my eye repeatedly with cold water, I decided it would only be appropriate for the song to go with this recipe to be NOFX's "Stickin In My Eye" - Justin
If you are foregoing the roasting and grinding of spices, simply substitute ground versions of these spice measurements and shake to mix in a ziplock bag.
Add everything but the nutmeg to a cast iron skillet and toast over medium-high heat for about 3minutes moving the pan constantly. Remove from heat and spread out on a tray or plate to cool for 5 minutes. Once cool, add everything, along with the nutmeg, to the grinder and grind for 1 full minute. Store in an airtight container and use as desired.
Garam masala is rarely used by itself as it has many sharp and pungent flavors. It has some sweetness from the cinnamon but has much more flavor from the clove and cardamom. By itself, it's not very spicy. It imparts a slow burn and tingle to the tongue and back of the throat and is literally translated as "warming spice" as it adds a savory (almost a ginger flavor), mild, warming sensation to dishes.
SPICY DRY MEAT RUB
2 tbsp kosher salt
1 tbsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp pasilla chili powder
1 tbsp ground white pepper
1 tsp ginger powder
1 tsp ground cumin
2 tbs onion powder
2 tbsp garlic powder
2 tbsp light brown sugar
1 tbsp seafood seasoning (Old Bay all the way!)
1 tbsp ground black pepper
2 tbsp dry yellow mustard
Add everything to a bag and shake until well combined. Simple as that.
This rub is good for any meats. I also like adding a little to soups to liven them up a bit.
THUDIUM'S HERB SEASONING
3 tbsp dried marjoram
3 tbsp dried savory
3 tbsp dried tarragon
2 tbsp dried basil
1 tbsp dried thyme
1 tbsp dried chives
2 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried sage
2 tbsp seasoned salt
4 tbsp garlic powder
Add all of the dried herbs to a grinder or mortar and pestle (you'll have to work in batches that way) and grind until fine. Add the herbs, salt, and garlic powder to a bag and shake well to mix.
This is a good blend to lightly dust over pork chops, chicken or seafood. Also good for soups and stews.
Cover the meat liberally on both sides and let sit in a plastic bag in your fridge overnight. Grill the next evening over high heat for 8 minutes per side, if you like medium rare.
This is not an overly spicy rub as the pasilla chili powder is not hot but rather tastes a lot like raisins in flavor. If you like spicier meat rubs add a little more of the Spicy Dry Meat Rub to it or substitute cayenne for the pasilla chili powder for some Cajun-style heat!
Justin's cousin Mike was visiting us from St. Louis and we'd had all these amazing things we wanted to cook for him, but it was his first visit to Northern California and we stayed busy (and lazy and purple hazy) and hadn't made anything after several days into his visit. So I brainstormed some things I'd been craving and was originally going to make stuffed chicken breasts with a pesto ricotta, cheese, sun dried tomatoes, and olives. Then Mike kindly reminded me how his mother's side of the family was Italian and his mom could make some mean Italian food. I'm going to admit it... I chickened out of the challenge, at least part of the way. What if after all the recipes he's seen, I try to make something "Italian", but really it comes off as a pathetic botched American version?! Could I stand for him to go back to St. Louis and tell his mom?! I wasn't sure. So I compromised and changed it up to a little coastal crab stuffing! Something he wouldn't get a lot of in the midwest, so it'd be both appropriate for his visit and it'd be something I'd been wanting to make for a while (crab stuffing). But I was bound and determined to show him that I wasn't too much of a slouch in the ethnic cooking arena, and I kept the Pesto-Alfredo sauce.
Didn't take too long to cook for as "fancy" as it might have sounded, and it was delicious! And we ate the hell out of it! Oh! And got some crab cakes out of it, too, the next night! Sadly, we were too busy enjoying our company and food to take some nicer plated pictures. :)
I don't even remember what we were listening to when we made this. But I love the band Against Me!, and this song is so great, albeit the acoustic version. No matter how many times I hear this line, "...and we'll dance like no one was watching... with one fist in the air," I get chills. Actually the whole damn song gives me chills. Though I'm still trying to get behind their more recent sound, I really love their earlier years. Good band. Good song. Good food. -jen
CRAB-STUFFED CHICKEN THIGHS
8-10 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup shallots, diced fine
1 cup mushrooms, diced fine
1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes, diced fine
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1 pound crab meat
3/4 cup green onions, chopped
1.5 cups panko bread crumbs
1/2 cup finely shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup finely shredded parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large skillet, heat olive oil on a medium-high heat. Add shallots, mushrooms, sun dried tomatoes, thyme, and Italian seasoning. Cook until shallots and mushrooms are tender, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and crab meat and cook for another 3 minutes. Turn off heat and stir in bread crumbs and cheeses. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Set aside.
Place chicken thighs between two sheets of plastic wrap and pound until 1/4" thick. Place 1/4-1/3 cup stuffing into each thigh and fold over like a taco. Place in a lightly oiled baking dish and bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes, or until chicken is thoroughly cooked.
PESTO ALFREDO SAUCE
12 tablespoons (1.5 sticks) butter
1/3 cup shallots, diced finely
2.5 cups heavy cream
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup grated Asiago cheese
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese, finely shredded
3 heaping tablespoons pesto
In a medium-sized sauce pan, melt butter on medium-high heat. Add shallots and cook for 3-5 minutes, until tender. Add heavy cream and bring to a boil. Turn heat to a simmer and cook, stirring constantly, until cream becomes to thicken. Add a small handful of the cheeses and stir until cheese is entirely blended in before adding another small handful. Continue until all the cheese is incorporated. Then stir in the pesto and remove from heat.
I'm walking out of work one day last week, around six o'clock, and in the parking lot is a coworker, standing at the back of his pickup. He asks me if I'd like some fresh-caught salmon... as if anybody would say no. Even if you didn't like salmon, you would take fresh salmon, when offered, and then gift it to a friend, who will then think you are probably the most amazing friend they've ever had. So of course I wanted some of his salmon! And so on a piece of cardboard on his tailgate, he proceeded to fillet a three foot salmon that he just caught five miles off the coast, and I came home with a giant slab of salmon tail!
We eat a lot of fish, but for some reason, not a lot of salmon. Justin had a few ideas for cooking it, but I was looking for something just a little different. I'm not going to lie - I didn't make this recipe up off the top of my head. I've never even cooked with miso before this (but I will be cooking with it again soon!) I found a recipe by an infamously evil woman, and though it nearly shamed me to use it... well, it just sounded damn good, and who am I to let morals and ethics stand in the way of delicious grub? I changed the recipe up a little, so it's not an exact duplicate. I can't say if my way is better or not, because I've never tried the recipe in its original form. But mine was delicious... so why even bother with the Mistress of All That Is Dark and Crafty's version? The cilantro-ginger sauce alone was so delicious that we've already begun to come up with other uses!
For some reason, when I was trying to think of some good nautical themed music for this dish, the first song that popped into my head seemed perfect! Jawbreaker's, "The Boat Dreams From The Hill". Fell in love with this song the first time I heard it, but the lyrics also depress the hell out of me, even if they sing "fishy flutter on its rudder". Maybe the song is apropos. It's upbeat, but also depressing. And this dish is delicious, albeit stolen from a villain! And so I give you salmon and Jawbreaker. -jen
MISO SALMON WITH CILANTRO-GINGER SAUCE
1 cup white miso
1/3 cup rice vinegar
1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed, plus one 1 teaspoon
4-6 large salmon fillets
1.5 cups fresh cilantro, chopped
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
1 large shallot, peeled and quartered
1 serrano chili, seeded
1 tablespoon minced garlic (or 2 cloves)
1 piece fresh ginger (about 2" in length), peeled and quartered
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
In a medium saucepan combine miso, vinegar, 1/2 cup brown sugar, and 1/3 cup water. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until miso and sugar have dissolved; cool to room temperature. Marinate salmon in the miso sauce, refrigerated for at least 2 hours.
In a blender, combine cilantro, lime juice, shallot, chili, garlic, ginger, oil, and remaining teaspoon of brown sugar. Blend until mixture is smooth.
Heat broiler with the rack in the highest position. Place salmon skin-side down on a lightly oiled baking sheet and broil until cooked through, about 10 minutes. Salmon will flake from skin easily. Serve with cilantro-ginger sauce.
Biscuits and gravy is not entirely uncommon in our house. It was one of my favourite meals that we had when I was a kid. My mom's father was from Tennessee and she spent summers there as a kid, watching the women cook giant Southern meals from morning until night. When I was younger and there were four of us kids to feed, money was tight, so we had a version of Shit On A Shingle that was made with Buddig's beef lunch meat all chopped up in it, over Bisquick drop biscuits. I loved it. Once I got older and the older boys had moved out, my dad started making his gravy with sausage, which needless to say, was much better. Growing up in California, Justin says he never even heard of "biscuits and gravy" as a kid until he'd joined the army at 17 and was introduced to their version of S.O.S. But once I moved in with him, it became a more regular meal in our home... breakfast, dinner, it didn't matter.
Today, we decided to change it up. Instead of our regular, quick Bisquick drop biscuits, Justin the Mighty and Awesome Baker I made some old school Southern biscuits... made with lard and rolled out on the counter top. They came out so-so. I'll post how I did the recipe, and though they weren't bad, they were kind of small and needed something else, so it's a work in progress until I get it right. And instead of making my basic sausage gravy, I tried a few new things and am definitely happy with the results! I always just ground the breakfast sausage up and no matter how much I tried chopping it up with the wooden spoon in the pan, or adding water while cooking, it stayed pretty chunky and I just wanted to get it a little finer for the gravy. So I threw it into the food processor after it was cooked. Perfect! Also, been on a bit of a shallot kick, so added that to the gravy, as well as some Gruyere cheese just to be experimental. It kicks ass! I really wanted to make my own breakfast sausage, but it was getting late when I started cooking, so I just bought some Jimmy Dean sausage and spiced it up. Here it is... guaranteed to cause a heart attack... our version of Biscuits and Gravy!
For music, well... that was pretty easy. B&G make me think of my mom's family, from Tennessee. Tennessee makes me think of Nashville and Memphis. Those towns make me think of rockabilly music, which led me straight to psychobilly and The Reverend. -jen
SAUSAGE GRAVY
2 pounds breakfast sausage
2 teaspoons rubbed sage
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
1/2 teaspoon celery salt
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
couple dashes Worcestershire sauce
2 large shallots, diced fine
2 sticks (1 cup) butter
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon Caldo de Pollo (or chicken bouillon)
1/4-1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (depending on taste)
dash of hot sauce
1/2 gallon of whole milk
1.5 cups Gruyere cheese, shredded fine
In a bowl, mix sausage with sage, 1 teaspoon thyme, marjoram, celery salt, red pepper flakes and Worcestershire sauce. In a large skillet on medium-high heat, cook sausage until all pink is gone. Set aside to cool. Once cool, place in food processor and pulse until crumbled to desire size.
In a large skillet, on medium-high heat, sautee shallots and butter until shallots are tender. Add flour and whisk until smooth, making a roux. Cook, stirring constantly, for about 5 minutes. While whisking, add milk and bring to a boil while continuing to whisk to break up any lumps. Once boiling, turn heat to medium and add Gruyere in small handfuls, whisking until cheese is fully incorporated in sauce before adding next handful. When cheese is fully melted in sauce, stir in the sausage and serve.
For the biscuits, I used Paula Deen's recipe, only I switched up the butter with lard, and the milk with buttermilk. Like I said... they were definitely edible! But I think I rolled out the dough a little thin and the flavour was missing something. So I'm going to tweek it a few times and see what I can come up with.
