Some Ideas For Your Post Thanksgiving Turkey Leftovers

If you are reading this paper upon it’s arrival on your doorstep or as you pick one up at the store, tomorrow will be Thanksgiving. That means it’s probably a little late to help you with your big holiday spread. That’s ok though, because I probably wouldn’t be much help anyway. I’m pretty handy with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, yams and maybe a green bean casserole but that’s about it. Most of you have probably got all of that under control anyway. If not just call up Mom. That’s what I do when I need a little help with a certain culinary project.

What I may be able to help you with is the leftovers. This is where I excel. I love turkey leftovers. We always fix about a twenty five pound turkey so there will be plenty for the next several days. The first post turkey day we just warm everything up as is and dig in for another Thanksgiving meal that can’t be beat. After that I start to get creative.

Generally a turkey enchilada is first on the leftover agenda. It’s so easy. Just take some of the leftover turkey and cut or tear it up into about one inch chunks and then place in a sauce pan. Add a little bit of the leftover gravy to the turkey to make it goopy. Add some sautéed onions, and warm it all up somewhat on the stove. Then gently fold in some green chilies a little sour cream and cheddar cheese. Now don’t get it too goopy or it will be runny and don’t stir too vigorously or the turkey will shred. Now just roll it up in white or corn tortillas and place in a casserole or roasting pan. I always cram as many as I can in there. Now take a couple of cups of leftover gravy (you can use cream of chicken soup if you’re out of gravy already) and mix a can of enchilada sauce (equal amounts gravy and enchilada sauce) in with it. Now spread this sauce all over the rolled up turkey goop and tortillas generously. Top with grated cheddar cheese and bake for about 45 minutes at 325.

Another idea for leftover turkey fixings is too shred a bunch of turkey into a bowl add some leftover stuffing should be a 2-3 to one ratio turkey versus stuffing. Then add a couple of eggs some sautéed onions a handful of chopped and sautéed red bell pepper and enough turkey broth or leftover gravy to moisten everything up real good. Salt and pepper to taste and mold into a loaf and bake at 325 for about 45 minutes or until it is good and hot throughout. Slice and serve with leftover gravy and mashed potatoes.

Now by the third or fourth day and after several delicious turkey meals and several turkey sandwiches there should be nothing left except bones and scraps of meat and you are probably getting a bit tired of turkey. Take all the bones and turkey scraps and any leftover meat that may be left and freeze it. Then in two weeks or so, don’t wait too long or Christmas will be here, break out the turkey bones and scraps and place them in a large pot with a generous amount of water and a quartered onion and a clove of garlic. Simmer it all for several hours and strain. Cover the bottom of a sauce pan with oil and brown off a cup or three of rice. We cook up three large mugs of rice to feed our family of ten. After rice is warmed up add two cups of hot and strained turkey broth for every one cup of rice. Add some chopped red and green bell peppers and chopped onion. I use a whole red and green pepper and a large onion for 3 cups of rice. Stir in three rounded teaspoons of chili powder and a teaspoon of salt. Simmer for 30 minutes. While the rice is cooking take all the meat off the bones and set to one side. If you have leftover turkey meat place in a sauce pan with the 4 small cans of tomato sauce and 2 small cans of chopped chilies heat thoroughly. Salt to taste and when rice is done stir turkey and tomato sauce into the rice. Serve with sour cream, salsa and cheese. It’s delicious. I made a pot of it the other day with our leftover roasted chicken and the kids woofed it down.

So good luck with your turkey and have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Uncategorized ,

Hot Wings and Hot Biscuits and the World is All Right

It was one of those days. I had just got home from work and the kids were bouncing off the walls the house was a mess and the wife informs me she has a meeting in town and I will be in charge of dinner. I was planning on cooking some sticky chicken from a recipe that I had just got from a friend anyway so it really wasn’t that big of a deal except the chicken wings weren’t thawed all the way. So I put them in a very large pot with some water and went to see what the kids were destroying. I was thinking we could maybe whip the house into shape while the wings were thawing.

Well my good intentions soon were replaced with reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond and Hannah Montana. Needless to say we didn’t get a lot done and next thing I know the wings are thawed and it’s after 7:00 and being a school night I had to hurry.

I cut up the wings into little sections and then I discovered I was missing one key ingredient for the sticky chicken. After a quick panic attack I decided I would just give the kids cereal.

What was I going to do with all those wings? I went ahead and fired up the deep fryer and whipped some super tasty hot wing/barbecue/sticky chicken wings sauce up.

I combined the sticky chicken recipe with the hot wing recipe and my barbecue sauce recipe and boy was it good. Just when I was thinking my barbecue sauce couldn’t get any better I pull this one out of my hat. It just goes to show you there is always room for improvement. Who knew?

It’s a funny thing about hot wings the boys really love them and graded the wings out with A plusses and the girls liked them pretty well and graded them B+ to a generous A-. I think it has to do with the sticky sauce that gets all over the place. The boys tear into the wings with wild abandon letting the sauce fly where it may and the girls are more inclined to slow down and use napkins and such which takes the edge off the whole experience. You can’t fully enjoy hot wings or ribs, or anything really, if you are inhibited. It’s like dancing. You are not going to enjoy dancing unless you let yourself go. Turn down the lights and turn up the music.

To make my delectable hot wings cut the wings into sections saving the end pieces for stock. pour 36 ounces of ketchup into a sauce pan on top of the stove add 3/4 cup white sugar, 1/2 cup molasses, 1/2 cup apple vinegar, one bottle of Frank’s (it has to be Frank’s for that unique hot wing flavor). A few dashes of Tabasco sauce to taste, 1 tsp onion powder, 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder, a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce, a few dashes of soy sauce, 1 tsp of salt 1 teaspoon of black pepper. Simmer ingredients on top of the stove for about twenty minutes or more. The longer you simmer the thicker and richer the sauce becomes.

Dip the wing sections into seasoned flour. I just use a little salt. The barbecue sauce has all the necessary flavor. Deep fry wings for about 7 minutes. Pull the wings from the fryer and dip them in the cooked barbecued sauce so as to coat them completely. Allow to set for a minute or two before serving.

I was able to coat about ten pounds of wings with this recipe. Now I know that may sound like a lot, but when it comes to hot wings you can’t hardly cook too many.

Boy did they turn out good. The wings were crispy from the deep frying and the sauce was simply outstanding. I had one of my older girls whip up some delicious biscuits while I was cooking the wings and seeing how it was so late and all that’s all we had for dinner, just wings and biscuits. Not a vegetable in sight.

My wife gets home from her meeting and the house was actually messier than when she left and the kitchen was a now a disaster as well but I just slid a plate full of my wings in front of her with a couple of hot biscuits and all was well.

Uncategorized

German Food-Not Just Franks and Sauerkraut and Beer

I get a call from work the other day and my wife tells me to be sure and get right home because we are going out for German food. German food? In Ashton?

As it turns out the Lutheran church in town was having its first annual German food fund raiser. At first I didn’t know what to think. What do Germans eat? Sauerkraut and beer, right? Germans drink a lot of beer to wash the sour taste from their mouth. Right?

We walk into the church’s dinning area and much to my surprise they had all kinds of tasty looking stuff and no beer in sight. They had German potato salad, sausages and sauerkraut, German meatballs in a nice rich red gravy, mashed potatoes and these delicious looking deep fried meat pies and a variety of homemade German breads and rolls and pies. Lots of pies.

I was more than pleasantly surprised. Who knew that Germans ate so well?

Anyhow I especially enjoyed the meat balls in the red sauce and the meat pies. I loaded up my plate with the meat pies and meatballs and poured that red gravy over everything. It was delicious.

The meat balls and the meat pies were special recipes of Cheryl Hogan who is Dan, the pastor’s wife. They were really nice people and Cheryl was nice enough to share her recipes with us. I only have room for one recipe. Maybe I’ll pass along the other ones another time.

Fleisch Kuechla (meat pies)

Dough:

1 cup cream,

2 cups milk,

1 Tbsp salt,

6 cups flour

Mix ingredients and knead until smooth. Divide into balls, approximately 18 equal portions. Cover and let rest for about 15 minutes. While dough rests mix meat mixture and divide into equal number of balls as the dough. Use about 1/3 cup of meat mixture for each ball.

Meat Mixture:

3 lbs ground beef,

1 medium chopped onion,

1 tsp salt,

2 tsp pepper.

Brown mixture and set to one side to cool somewhat.

Roll dough into 7 inch circles on a floured surface. Spread meat mixture onto one half of the rolled out dough surface. Cover the meat with the remaining half of the dough and seal and trim edges. Deep fry at 350 until golden brown and then turn over and brown the other side. Drain well.

I was talking with one of the other ladies at the dinner and she said they she likes to shred a little cabbage in with meat for her meat pies. So you might experiment a little bit I don’t think Cheryl will mind.

As soon as I can get around to it I’m going to fire up the deep fryer and start experimenting with this wonderful recipe for meat pies. Like I said earlier the red gravy that the meat balls were cooked in made an outstanding sauce to serve over the meat pies. You have to make the meatballs to get the sauce to turn out right so you’re gonna have to wait on that one unless you would like to e-mail me. I’ll send you a copy. In fact I think that might work out even better since it is a pretty long recipe.

Uncategorized

Cross Rib Roast VS Chuck Roast-The Dueling Pot Roasts

Me and the guys at work were talking about the perfect pot roast the other day. As it turns out we all agreed that the boneless chuck roast is hard to beat. They are cheap and very flavorful. I however, even though I agreed that the chuck was hard to beat, was not ready to crown them champion of all the pot roasts.

In the old days we used to have a pot roast that is rarely seen anymore. I remember it was very tasty and tender. As I recall it was the first choice of all the experienced shoppers. You couldn’t find a granny worth her salt that didn’t know all about them. We called it a round bone or arm roast.

Now a days they are all but forgotten. The younger generation has never even seen one let alone eaten one. What happened to them?

You see about twenty years ago the big wholesale beef processors started boning out the cross rib section of the chuck and breaking it down into more manageable cuts. They cut off the ribs for short ribs and cut the meaty section off and called them clods and shipped them out to us. The clod has the meaty portion that is left after all the bones are removed. It includes the boneless cross rib section where we get cross rib roasts and the flat iron.

To be honest I hadn’t tried the cross rib. Even though the cross rib is the meaty section of my generations, and generations before me favorite pot roast, I had lost interest. So after the guys and I were talking about what makes a good pot roast I decided to do a little experiment.

I cut myself a real nice boneless chuck roast and a real nice boneless cross rib roast. As it turns out they were both on sale for the same price.

I took them home and on my next day off I fixed them for dinner. I placed them both in my large new roasting pan. The old one developed a hole in it. Once every ten years or so I lay down about 13 bucks for one of those very large enamel covered roasting pans. They work great and I figured if I buy one those every ten years I still won’t have spent as much as one of those really nice multilayered stainless steel ones would set me back. Besides maybe someone will get me one for Christmas sometime.

So I placed the roasts in a large roasting pan with enough water to almost cover them completely and then I added a few shakes of worcestershire sauce a little Beef Bouquet, onion powder, garlic powder, a dash of vinegar, salt, pepper, an onion quartered, chunks of fresh carrots and small potatoes with the skins still on. I placed the lid on tight and shoved it into our oven at 325 for about five hours.

I drained off the liquids into a sauce pan, added my favorite beef gravy mix and thickened with corn starch for a very nice rich brown gravy. I had also prepared a large batch of mashed potatoes to keep the kids happy and one of my girls made up some nice rolls. Of course the carrots were outstanding cooked in all that good juice, as was the meat.

I served myself some of each roast. The first thing I noticed was how meaty and lean the cross rib was compared to the chuck. I remembered the old round bone roast were nice and meaty too. Then came the ultimate test. I tried a hunk of the chuck first and it was very flavorful but the meat was kind of stringy. The cross rib roast was much more tender. The meat is a finer textured than the chuck and it still had that great chuck flavor. You could cut it with a fork.

So there you have it. Our old round bone roast of the past in the shape of the modern day cross rib roast won going away.

Now the cross rib is usually priced somewhat higher than the chuck roast. I don’t know that I would purchase a cross rib over the chuck if I had to pay more for it. The chuck is still pretty darn good and if you would like it to be more tender just cook it a little longer.

Uncategorized

The Virtues of Deep Fat Frying

I love deep fried food. You can take anything, even stuff that isn’t very good, deep fry it, and wham you’ve got a culinary delight. For example, zucchini, although everyone grows it in their garden it really isn’t that great of a vegetable. I know it makes delicious brownies, cakes and bread. That’s only because you’ve added a ton of sugar and chocolate with it. You take away the zucchini and what do you have? Right, a very nice chocolate cake, brownies or bread without strands of weird green stuff. I know some of you pulverize the zucchini in your blender so that it will be undetected in your special recipe. But then what’s the point? Oh you want the kids to have something green and healthy in their diet. That’s where deep fat frying comes in.

Serve the kids breaded and deep fried zucchini with ketchup or a little ranch dressing and 9 times out of 10, or 9 out of 10 kids, as is the case in our house, they will love it. And you will not have to resort to trickery.

When I was in the Marine Corps cooking for our nations finest we deep fried everything, except for soup. Not only did deep frying put a nice crispy coat on the food but it was fast. We could do a couple of hundred pounds of bacon in just a few minutes. Have you ever fried donuts after cooking several hundred pounds of bacon? Well let me tell you, they do not need any glaze or frosting after that. They come out with this unique smoky, salty flavor that the troops used to just love.

Once you get the hang of cross contamination or what we liked to call cross seasoning you will be amazed at all the different tastes you can come up with.

The other day I purchased my first deep fryer. I don’t know how we got along without one all these years. Immediately we set about making donuts and scones, corn dogs, French fries, and I even dropped a wad of biscuit dough into it. Not good. Contrary to what I may have said earlier in this column not everything is better deep fried. The French fries were great as were the scones. We dipped the scones into some glaze and they were just like raised donuts. The corn dogs were a disaster. I think we just need to keep searching for the right recipe.

I did however have some success with deep fried beef strips. I took some chuck roast meat that was on sale and cut it up into small strips and marinated in 3 parts soy sauce to one part balsamic vinegar and seasoned with garlic and onion powder and pepper for about two days. The chuck meat can be a little chewy so I purchased a flatiron and cut it into strips as well for comparison. Both the cross ribs and chucks were on sale so I was able to get the flatiron as a cross rib roast really cheap. You can too, just ask the butcher for one when the cross rib roasts are on sale.

Anyhow after marinating for two days I drained the strips and coated with flour and then dipped them into the batter. For a suitable coating I usually root around in the fridge for leftover pancake batter and then add just a little more milk to thin it down a little bit. Of course if there isn’t any batter in the fridge then I’ll just make up a little bit from scratch. Any pancake recipe will do. Just thin it up a little bit. Once dipped into the batter I drop the strips into the 350 degree oil until they turn a nice light brown. Remove and drain and then dip into ketchup or ranch or bleu cheese or eat them plain they are delicious.

We made up a bunch of them and served them with my favorite potato dish- funeral potatoes, and of course biscuits. Talking about being in heaven.

Remember Our Marine Corps motto Semper Fi do or die. Or in our case down at the mess hall Semper Fi do or fry.

Uncategorized

Viva La Great Green Sauce! Enchilada Suizas!

I love Mexican food. Whenever I go out to eat Mexican I am always amazed at how deliciously unique it is. I have never had a Mexican dish that I have not liked. Most cultures have food items that are just not very tasty. For instance the Chinese have several items on their menu that I won’t even go near, one of them being fish head soup. Italian is pretty good. I can’t think of anything that they have that scares me but the English on the other hand have blood sausage, blood pudding and they will put just about anything into a pie. Then there are the bug eating cultures that I see on the Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmerman show. The host has a way of making the most disgusting thing seem like some sort of gourmet treat. But I’m not fooled.

Going to a Mexican restaurant on the other hand for me is like going to Costco. I want everything. Tamales, enchiladas, tacos, burritos, chili rellenos, chimichangas, pollo fundidos, rice and refried beans all piled up on a large platter smothered in rich tasty sauces and covered with cheese, guacamole and sour cream. Nothing scary about that.

When I do go out to eat Mexican food I usually find myself trying to figure out how they make some of that stuff. I have figured out how they make those nice red sauces they serve over chicken and beef enchiladas but the green suiza sauce has been a bit of a challenge until now.

There is a little Mexican restaurant right here in Ashton that makes a delicious chicken enchilada suiza and yesterday I successfully duplicated it. Well I don’t know if I actually duplicated it but I came real close and it tasted good. No complaints from the family and my kindergarten boy who eats hot dogs and peanut butter sandwiches exclusively actually ate some of it too.

I put two whole chickens in a large pot of water with an onion and a couple of cloves of garlic and some black pepper and simmered real slowly while we were at church (about 3 1/2 hours. When we got home I pulled out the chicken and stripped the meat from the bones and placed it in a large bowl. I added salt and pepper to taste and then two cans of cream of chicken soup and about 10 ounces of sour cream and about 8 ounces of Monterey Jack cheese and 4 ounces of medium cheddar cheese. I folded it all together carefully so as not to shred the chicken.

Then I made the green suiza sauce. I took one can of green enchilada sauce and placed it into a 2 quart sauce pan. I added 1 can cream of chicken soup, about 6 ounces of sour cream, 4 small cans of green chilies that I pureed in the blender, a little garlic powder and salt to taste. I placed it on low as I got the enchiladas ready. Later I realized that the green sauce turned out a little creamier than the restaurants but it was still really good. For more of a green chili flavor and less creamy I would drop the cream of chicken soup from the sauce recipe.

Next the wife warmed up flour tortillas on our Teflon griddle so they would be flexible and I slopped a dollop or two of the chicken mixture on the tortilla and rolled them up and placed them in our large roasting pan. Once I had them all rolled up and crammed into the pan I spread a generous amount of the green sauce over all of them making sure that they were all covered with, but not swimming in the sauce. Then I lightly covered the enchiladas with cheddar cheese and placed them uncovered in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes.

They turned out great. The wife and I just loved them but the kids were thrown off by the green sauce. When they see anything green they a get bit skeptical. They ate it though without any complaints.

I used the outstanding chicken stock from the boiled chickens to make some nice Spanish rice and we opened up a couple of cans of refried beans to complete a very delicious meal.

This recipe of mine may not be authentic but like most Mexican food it sure is good.

Uncategorized

Favorite Fun Foods For Football Fanatics

Football season is here! That means we need to turn our culinary attention to food items that go well in front of the TV. Now as far as I’m concerned just about anything this side of fondue is acceptable. However there are those of you that are more discriminating than I.

I am but a simple man with simple tastes. Just toss me a sandwich with some chips, a two liter bottle of ice cold root beer and I’m good until halftime. But for those of you who want more I do have a few ideas.

Thinly sliced flatiron purchased when cross rib roasts are on sale makes delicious, and economical, beef steak sandwiches or French dip. Ask the butcher if you can have a chunk of flat iron priced as cross rib roast. It shouldn’t be a problem since they will have a bunch of them when the cross ribs are on sale. Then slice it thin (about a half inch) and fry it quickly. Serve in a hoagie bun or make some nice homemade rolls or French bread. Yummy! Or take that same flatiron and slice it as thin as possible, fry or grill it quickly and roll it up in large flour tortillas with cheddar cheese, sour cream and salsa. I wouldn’t even mind a big plate of beef stroganoff on rice made with the same cheap, tender and tasty flatiron slices. However that probably wouldn’t qualify as a game time entrée.

As a rule football food has to be eaten without the use of utensils. The only exception that I am aware of would be chili. Then the chili would have to be dumped onto a large plate of French fries, deep fried tatter tots and or onion rings topped with shredded cheddar cheese, sour cream, green onions and jalapeno slices.

Of course the ultimate in football food, next to ribs, has to be hot wings. Man I could eat a five gallon bucket full. Just put me in front of the tube on college football Saturday with a mess of wings and a bucket for the bones and get out of the way.

I made some the other day for the first time. They were easy and boy were they good. I got a bunch of fresh wings at work that were close to going out of code and reduced to sell. Normally I don’t buy wings because they can be quite expensive when you consider that over half of them is bone and that it takes about five pounds per person per game.

Anyhow I got a bunch of wings that were priced right and cut them into three pieces. Just take a sharp knife and cut through the joints. Save the little end pieces for stock. Season up some flour with salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder. Then coat the wing pieces in flour and deep fry until they begin to turn brown then pull from the fryer and drain. You can use a large frying pan with about an inch of oil, on top of the stove on medium high heat. Mix a stick of melted butter into a medium size bottle of Franks Original Red Hot Sauce. Then dip the partially browned chicken in the sauce and butter mixture and place on a large sheet pan. Bake in a 375-400 degree oven for about fifteen minutes or until done. Makes about five pounds. I tell you what those are some good wings.

I ran out of hot wing sauce before I got all my wings coated. I mixed up some ketchup, molasses, Tabasco sauce, garlic and onion powder, salt and pepper to make a little barbecue sauce and then coated the rest of the floured up partially cooked wings. I then placed them on a sheet pan and finished cooking them same as the hot wings. They turned out really good too!

My kids whipped up some potato salad made with beautiful Idaho red potatoes and baked beans and some nice tender biscuits. Man we ate good that night and there wasn’t even a game on. We will be ready.

Uncategorized

Great People Great Potatoes and Grilled Chicken Thighs

I love my wife. We are completely compatible, pretty much. She doesn’t mind me spending time on the computer checking out all my favorite college football teams and watching them on TV, including classic games from the past as well as my many video tapes of games that I watch over and over. She is also always, mostly, gracious about me and the boys taking off to go fishing whenever we get the urge, and not least of her many attributes is the fact that she prefers white meat over dark.

I am a dark meat lover, and because my wife prefers white I rest easy at night knowing that when we go down to the local grocery store for an eight piece bag of fried chicken there will be plenty of thighs and drums for me. Unless the kids are around. Those little buggers just reach right into the bag and grab whatever is handy without any regard to which is a thigh and which one is a breast. If I had my druthers they would all get wings but there are only two to an eight piece order of fried chicken and somehow that’s usually what’s left in the bag when it finally makes its way over to me.

The other day, just to try and out smart them, I brought home several packages of boneless skinless thighs that were on sale. Of course they were on sale, that’s the only way I buy meat. Chicken thighs with the bone and skin intact are usually a dollar a pound or less than the boneless thighs which makes usually makes them the better value. Just remember that bone in thighs have about 50 percent waste in the form of bone and fat. Anyhow I marinated them in a little soy sauce, olive oil and seasonings and then threw them on a medium hot grill for about five minutes on each side. They were really good and for once there was enough dark meat for me.

We also fixed up some new potatoes with milk and peas to go along with the grilled chicken thighs. Talking about good. Man we were in heaven.

When I lived in Oregon we used to hear all the time about Idaho potatoes and how good they were, like Idaho had some kind of monopoly on growing good potatoes or something. What, we don’t grow good potatoes in Oregon?

After living here for about five years now I have admit that Idaho does grow a pretty good potato. I guess you can’t always go on assumptions. Like I always assumed that Idaho potatoes weren’t any better than ours in Oregon and I assumed that all the people in Idaho were just like those people in the Napoleon Dynamite movie. Well I’m glad to say that I was wrong. The potatoes are great!

Herb Steinman our farmer buddy across the street and a local native Idahoan that doesn’t resemble Napoleon Dynamite in anyway brought us a bucket full of little new cal whites and russet potatoes. Vickie, my wonderful and longsuffering wife, boiled them up nice and tender and set them to the side. She then placed enough milk in a different sauce pan to cover the potatoes. Then she warmed up the milk until good and hot. Then she added corn starch that she premixed in cold milk to the heated milk, heating and stirring, until the milk was nice and thick. Then she added fresh peas from the garden (frozen peas work just fine) and the tender new boiled potatoes. Then she seasoned with salt and pepper to taste and that’s it.

Simple and delicious. Those Idaho new potatoes were so good that they were actually sweet and they complimented the boneless skinless grilled thighs nicely.

Normally I purchase boneless skinless breasts over boneless skinless thighs because as a rule the thighs are more expensive since they are rarely on sale. Boneless skinless breasts are on sale all the time at really good prices and are a great value. There aren’t very many cuts of meat of any kind that will get you the kind of value that boneless chicken breast do.

Uncategorized ,

Kabobs- Fancy Frilly Food For Fairly Fussy Finicky Folks

My wife’s birthday was the other day and that meant she got to choose whatever she wanted for her birthday dinner and it was up to me and the kids to make it happen. Normally this is not a problem. If she wants chicken enchiladas no problem. If she wants a nice little fillet and a pasta salad I’m on it. I remember one year I fixed her a big batch of Chicken Alfredo without as much as a grimace, but this year was different. This year for her birthday she wanted kabobs.

I don’t know why I have a problem with kabobs. But whenever I even start to think about all the frilly steps involved in fixing them, just to make them nice and pretty, I start fueling this tiny knot of anger deep in my belly until it is a roaring inferno. I don’t like to put on airs and to me kabobs are the ultimate in wasted time and energy just to be showy. If you want a hunk of grilled meat with vegetables then grill up a big chunk of meat and cook some veggies. Why do we have to put it all on a stick when we are just going to take it off and eat it?

Any how I was having bit of a personal crisis. The closer I got to my wife’s birthday the more out of sorts I became. I don’t know what my problem is. Even with College Psychology 101 through 103 under my belt I had no clue as to why I get so angry about kabobs. Maybe it was my teacher in the Marine Corps Cooking School who messed me up. He was a big brut of a staff sergeant who had cooked hot meals on the front lines of Viet Nam and Korea. He told me one day that my relish tray, that I had put my heart and soul into, looked like (expletive)! They have a way with words in the Corps. From then on I don’t think I paid much attention to presentation.

Her birthday arrived and she had a big leg of lamb thawed out and about a pound of shrimp shelled and ready to go when I got home from a hard day of cutting up meat for the masses. I pushed the anger down, got complete control of my emotions and went to work. I boned and trimmed and cubed the lamb for kabobs, making cute little one and a half inch chunks. Then I had one of my big girls cut the red and green peppers and purple onions into 2 inch squares. I then placed the cute little lamb cubes into 2 cups of soy sauce, 1/2 cup of balsamic vinegar, 1/4 cup olive oil, one level teaspoon of garlic powder, one teaspoon of onion powder, 1 teaspoon of curry and a generous amount of black pepper (to taste).

I allowed the cute little chunks of lamb to soak up the goodness of my tried and true marinade while we skewered the shrimp and veggies. One piece of pepper and then one shrimp and then another square of pepper of another color and then another piece of shrimp and then a wonderful purple piece of onion and so on until we had several beautiful sticks full of colorful goodness. We shook a little salt and pepper over the shrimp kabobs.

Once the shrimp kabobs were laid out in a pan we began to skewer the lamb. One little square of pepper and then purple onion and then more lamb and more peppers until we had about 20 large skewers full of colorful veggies and lamb cubes. I had to admit they were pretty.

I fired up the grill and cooked them on low to medium heat with the lid closed. I turned them several times and they were done in a bout ten minutes.

They were delicious. I think something significant happened to me that day. It was like some kind of break thru. Like I went through some kind of intervention. I was cured. I could eat kabobs every day I could eat kabobs in anyway. I could eat kabobs here or I could eat kabobs there I could eat kabobs anywhere. I could eat kabobs in a tree I could eat kabobs by the sea I could eat kabobs in may chair I could eat kabobs everywhere….

Yes I’m cured. No longer do I feel anger for unnecessary and frilly, pretentious, labor intensive entrees whose only purpose is to impress. Yep I’m a new a man.

One fairly important note, my wife loved them. So It was, after all, worth all the trouble.

Uncategorized

Great Steaks, Great Price, and Even Better Leftovers

Last Sunday I threw several full cut boneless chuck steaks on the grill. We had them on sale at my store for a pretty good price. For some reason there are still some good deals out there. I keep waiting for the effects of the high fuel prices to kick in. So far so good.

Anyhow I picked out a very large boneless chuck primal (a large hunk of beef) and cut four steaks off the front which is connected to the prime rib. You see the loin and the rib are connected and that is where all the high end steaks come from. The loin is connected to the top sirloin which is connected to the round on the hind quarter and the rib is connected to the chuck on the front quarter and both the rib and the loin meet in the middle.

Now that I got you thoroughly confused let me just say that where the chuck meets the prime rib is where the eye of the chuck can be found. You see the chuck eye is part of the same muscle as the prime rib. The rib meat extends up into the chuck about 4-6 inches getting smaller as it goes. That chuck eye eats just like a rib eye only it has a lot of regular chuck meat around it that isn’t nearly as tender.

So what I did at work was cut four nice big boneless chuck steaks off the front of the chuck They each had a very nice large chuck eye.

I took the steaks home and placed them in my special secret marinade that keeps evolving. How do you improve on perfection? I don’t know but it seems to be happening. I now squeeze several limes into my soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, garlic, onion powder, pepper blend. Boy is it good. Even Ben, my “hates everything” 6 year old, loves it. For those of you that haven’t been paying attention I use about 6 parts soy sauce to 1-2 parts balsamic vinegar to 1-2 parts olive oil, 5-6 little limes and season to taste.

I soaked the steaks overnight and grilled them after church last Sunday and they were great. The wife and kids whipped up a quick potato salad some baked beans and potato rolls and I was in heaven.

We ate up all the chuck eyes and saved a good portion of the chewier parts. Vickie, my wife, is going to put the leftovers in a crock pot to get it tender for some very flavorful beef stroganoff for tonight’s dinner.

We make a simple beef stroganoff. We will take the leftover meat and cut it into strips. Then I’ll chop up an onion and a clove of garlic, place it in the crock pot with the meat and just enough water to cover and cook until tender. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours once the water begins to simmer. Once it is tender I add some instant beef gravy mix to the meat and water solution to thicken, brown and flavor it up some.

Then we take a couple of cans of mushroom soup and a cup or so of sour cream and add to the meat and water, season with salt and pepper and Worcestershire sauce to taste. You can slice up some mushrooms if you like but I can’t get my kids to eat them so I don’t bother anymore. Serve over rice or egg noodles or maybe some nice homemade biscuits.

Another thing I like to do with the leftover steak is to cut it into strips and cook until tender, same as above. Add some gravy packets or instant beef gravy mix to the broth and meat (make sure you mix the gravy thoroughly with water before adding to the hot broth to avoid lumping) and maybe 1 can of mushroom soup. Thicken with corn starch, and season with salt, pepper and Worcestershire sauce to taste and serve over mashed potatoes or rice. Very tasty and hearty.

You should be able to get your butcher to cut you some steaks off the front of the chuck or have him cut you a 5 inch roast off the front then you can peel the chuck eye out, slice into steaks and grill them up just like you would a rib eye. If you have trouble distinguishing the chuck eye from the rest of the chuck your butcher can show you. Chuck eyes are a favorite steak of many of us butchers because it’s cheap and very good.

Uncategorized