Memorial Day Yummies

Let me start this off by saying that I ate WAY too much tonight.....The main course is what we call Hillbilly BBQ. It utilizes a rather unconventional cooking utensil - it's the ultimate in recycling of old items which would have otherwise been headed for the junk pile, and then the land fill.

1 50 gallon drum, top removed. Drill some holes around the bottom and top it off with an old Webber BBQ lid. The only other thing you need are metal rods - such as rebar - to hang the meat from. Now, meat is not the only thing you can cook in these puppies - you can cook whole meals in here, everything from sides to desserts. Here you can see the smoke coming from the top of the barrel as well as off the sides - they get REALLY hot and even the painted outside smokes.

Today's menu was barrel cooked chickens, corn on the cob, dill pickle and olive potato salad, super garlic bread and dessert of fresh blackberry cobbler.

The chickens are easy - pour a whole large bag of charcoal into the barrel, give it a good dousing of lighter fluid and set it aflame until it's all gray. While that's happening, rinse your whole chickens, hang them with wire hangers (see, they are still good for something!!) and liberally coat with season salt or your choice of other seasonings - today I did one with Lawry's Season Salt and the other with Garlic Salt. Hang them over the hot coals, cover with the lid and walk away.

After 2 hours or so, they look like this:

Remarkably, this chicken is super moist, even though it's cooked hanging over the hot coals. You know they're done when the skin over the legs is nearly translucent. And, when you lay them in a pan to serve, the legs will usually pull this number: 

The potato salad is a little different than the typical - it has NO acidic flavor and is really yummy - you'll need potatoes, whole kosher baby dills (I opted for garlic ones), sliced olives, mayo, hard boiled eggs, celery and salt & pepper. I mix the egg yolks with the mayo before adding it to the rest of the ingredients. The pickles and celery should be diced up pretty small - including some of the celery leaves as well.

The bread was an experiment that went rather well - pick your choice of soft bread rolls - these were some "un-named" rolls in a bin at Save Mart. The key is to look for SOFT bread. I'm sure crusty bread would work as well, but I've always made oven broiled stuff with soft breads. I mixed "spread" (Country Crock) with several tablespoons of garlic - you can either mince up your own, or use the stuff in the jar - I didn't feel like mincing up several tablespoons of garlic. Add an amount of granulated Cotija cheese (or Parmesan in the green container) equal to the spread and some parsley for color. Mix well and spread thickly over the bread. Place under the broiler and watch carefully - you want them golden and just crispy on the top but not burned. I got a little impatient and didn't quite let them cook long enough. The garlic flavor was intense and there wasn't much bread left after dinner.

Corn.... well, that's pretty simple - boil water, add corn, boil some more. Serve with lots of butter, salt & pepper.

And finally, the blackberry cobbler. I followed PW's recipe for the fruit, but was out of eggs for the topping so I sort of winged it....

While this was a good cobbler, I wasn't a big fan of the lemon taste. Though, I'm still searching for something comparable to the cobbler we had several years back at the Trinidad Bay Eatery... Oh man... THAT was amazing stuff.

Good thing we didn't have to go do anything else, cause this meal was a food coma waiting to happen!

Cinnamon Toast

Like most people, I'd never given cinnamon toast much thought... You toast bread, smear it with butter (or spread) and sprinkle the melted butter with a cinnamon/sugar mixture.... It's one of the first foods many kids learn how to make - that's WARM.

Well PW has, once again, shown me the "error of my ways" with her cinnamon toast recipe. Let me clarify... I really try not to use "right" and "wrong" as terms - a lot of what people think of as right or wrong is subjective.. oh heck, MOST if not ALL of it is subjective..... here it's "wrong" to belch loudly in public... elsewhere, it's a compliment.

Anyway, I learned a NEW way of making cinnamon toast today. Granted it takes a little longer, but does make 8 times the quantity that you make at once when you use the old toaster method. You can read her full recipe here.... but I thought I'd just leave you with a few pictures and my own comments.

First, I didn't really follow her directions to the letter... I put all the ingredients in the bowl & then mixed them up - as opposed to her recommendation to mush up the butter first... what can I say, sometimes I just can't handle following directions precisely. I also halved the recipe because it was just me and LD:

Once it's mixed up, this is what it looks like... and I am here to say, I could eat this straight from the bowl...

Pretty straightforward recipe, mix it all up, spread it on the bread

Bake and then broil briefly till it's bubbly

Then, cut and serve

Just LOOK at that - it's crispy yet chewy but not tough... and has amazing flavor... must be the vanilla!

Dear Mandolin, I love you.

Even though much of today was spent lounging round, watching movies & eating popcorn, I did need to come up with a "real" meal for dinner. We'd just finished up the rest of the left overs last night and it was time to have something new. The result was apricot glazed chicken, baked potatoes and steamed Mexican Squash.

First though, I want to introduce you to one of my most favorite kitchen tools. The Mandolin. You don't have to spend a wad of dough to get one either - this is a Martha Stewart one from Kmart - I bought it a few years ago for less than $10.

A mandolin will completely change the way you think about slicing veggies - particularly when you want nice, even thin slices. This is PERFECT for slicing carrots for stir fry, potatoes for au gratin dishes, and in this case, squash for steaming. A word of caution though, this puppy is crazy sharp. You're slicing along and all of a sudden you've reached the end of your item and the next thing you know you're slicing your finger tips off. But, if you are paying attention, the mandolin is an invaluable tool.

Just look what it did - I started with two of these little Mexican Squash - about 5" long:

I sliced off the blossom end - to use the stem end as a handle of sorts, and these perfectly even slices are what you end up with:

These perfect slices of squash made my inner perfectionist sing. As did this pan with steamer insert. These were some that my grandma bought before she passed away. I have no idea what they cost her but I bet it was a pretty penny.

But, it was really the chicken that was the star of tonight's dinner - here's the recipe of sorts:

Place 8 frozen chicken thighs, skin & all, into a crock pot with some salt & pepper.
Cook on high for a few hours, until they are almost, but not quite falling off the bones.
Remove the skin, take the meat off the bones and place it in a 9x13 pan.
Return the skin and the bones to the crock pot - add 3 cups of water and leave on high - this makes great chicken stock. Cook until the meat falls off the bones, strain & refrigerate for later use.

In a mixing bowl, combine the following - and I apologize in advance, I was too lazy today to get exact measurements so you'll have to wing it:

Most of a jar of apricot preserves
A generous splash of Worstershire
Add some dijon mustard
Finally, throw in several shots of Tabasco sauce

A lot of this is dependent upon your individual tastes, so add a little, mix and taste, adjust as needed.

Once the sauce is mixed up, pour over the chicken.

Bake for 20-30 minutes at 400 degrees. After that, it looks like this:

Serve with some yummy sides - like baked potatoes and steamed squash. Don't forget to top your potatoes with plenty of butter, sour cream and chives.

Hope you enjoy!!

Comfort Meatballs

I ran across this recipe in PW's cookbook. And I was relieved to find that they are also on her website! If you don't have her cookbook, you can get the recipe for these amazing little morsels right here.

Normally, when people think meatballs there's two types - Swedish Meatballs and those with Pasta. Not being a huge fan of either I am always interested in finding new ways to serve meatballs. After all, they're just plain fun. Kids like 'em too, which is always a bonus around here.

I read though the recipe and thought, mmmmmm this sounds delightful!

So I made them.... with LD's help, of course. I'm so grateful that he is in the helpful phase of childhood right now, because soon I know it'll be like pulling teeth to get him to pick up his own socks, let alone help me cook or clean up.

And let me tell you, they were good. SO good, So good that LD had SECONDS

Instead of waxing poetic about HOW good they were, I'll just leave you with these pictures. And my recommendation that you make them. SOON.

YUM....and that's all I have to say about that!