Guilty Conscience: A Post-Thanksgiving Mindcrime

      It was fully my intention to post today. Most likely something inspired by the warmth of yesterday's family feasting. Maybe a few recipes or an explanation of my Violet Tendencies cake. All perfectly sane, perfectly rational things to do.

As sane as this can be...

     But as I approached the kitchen this morning, something happened. Something....strange. The voices started again. The siren song of deep-fried food, of melted cheese,crunchy exteriors...what was I to do? I'm only one Man. It wasn't my fault

    Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to condone my actions, I don't want anyone else following my dark path. This weakness is in me, some genetic flaw, some cosmic joke that blinds me to the consequences of fried food, the pain of upcoming cardio. It was the voices, it wasn't me.

     This has happened to me before. I know. How could I forget the Fried Apple pie debacle? Luther-gate? Or the caloric nightmare that was the Pastrami and egg topped Chili-Bacon Jucy Lucy burger......
Don't judge me.

Will anyone ever love me again?

     But this isn't about past mistakes. I have to face what happened today. Black Friday 2011. Oh, the irony. In retrospect, I can see the cracks forming weeks ago. Take a look at my post about mac&cheese (here). The signs were there if you look. All that talk about "slicability". Why would you need to worry about slicing mac&cheese?! Who serves it by the freakin' slice?! I'm sorry. I just get so upset. But you saw it didn't you? Why didn't you stop it?! Why didn't you help me?

You work for the voices don't you?!

     I don't remember much.  The mac and cheese was there and the stuffing. The knife was there, but these days it's never far away. The next thing that I clearly remember is the cold macaroni slices. (Slices?! Who does that?!) And now, I make never be warm again.

The face of madness....

     Then darkness again. The faint sound of running water, a hint of flour rising in air warmed by and fragrant with heating oil.....  Sorry, I'm OK now, really. My memory is just so foggy. It's just a series of sensations. Spoon on glass scooping stuffing; whisk against plastic bowl, mixing batter: the coolness of dipping: the sharp hiss of battered starches in hot oil. All leading up to one inevitable, dark conclusion:

Cheesy, salty, savory, crunchy evil. Unmitigated evil.

     Don't judge me. I'm feeling much better now. I think I may need those pill again though. I'll have to call my doctor after I finish this bottle of chardonnay. Don't judge me. Hey this oil is still hot. And don't we have some cream cheese and some sweet potato souffle left? Oh no...GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!!!!

Lemon/Dill Salmon

• 1 pound salmon fillets
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 1 Lemon, sliced thin
• 1 tablespoon dried dill weed
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• Kosher salt or Sea salt to taste
• Ground black pepper to taste

Heat Oven to 350F

• Combine butter, dill, black pepper and garlic powder in small bowl. Set aside.
• Lightly grease a small baking dish with cooking spray or olive oil.
• Place half of the lemon slices in the bottom of the baking dish
• Coat salmon with butter mixture. Place salmon on top of lemon slices in dish.
• Sprinkle salmon with Kosher or Sea salt. Top with remaining lemon slices.
• Bake 22-25 mins.

 Enjoy.

Macaroni & Also Cheese

• 1 pound (16 oz) elbow macaroni
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 3 cups milk
• 1 large egg
• 12 ounces sharp cheddar, shredded
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• Fresh black pepper
• 1 cup Monterrey Jack cheese, shredded
• 2 tbsp Spicy Brown Mustard
• 1 cuo grated parmesan
• 2 cups Mozzarella chesse, fresh (if you can), cubed
• Black Pepper
• Cooking Spray

Heat oven to 400F.

Flour and Butter

• Cook noodles. Make sure that you aggressively salt the water!! Stir to make sure pasta does not stick to bottom of pot.
• While pasta is cooking, melt butter in separate pan. Add flour and whisk together, making sure that all flour is coated in butter. Keep it moving for around pan for 3 mins to cook the raw taste out of the flour.
• Slowly add 2 1/2 cups of milk, while whisking sauce to prevent lumps. Add black pepper and 1 tbsp mustard. Whisk to combine, remove from heat. Add 3/4 of the cheddar and stir until melted.
• Pour cooked pasta into sprayed 3qt casserole. Add Monterrey Jack and stir. If using shredded Mozzarella, add it here as well.
• Whisk together egg, mustard and remaining milk. Pour over pasta mix. Stir.
• Pour Mornay sauce over pasta mix, stir to combine. Add cubes of Mozzarella throughout mix.
• Sprinkle Parmesan and remaining Cheddar cheeses over the top. Top with Black Pepper to taste.
• Bake 25-30 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes before serving.

Enjoy!!!

Improvin' The Groovin': Thoughts on Macaroni and Cheese

Chewy, cheesy, gooey goodness.

     Macaroni and cheese, hereafter referred to as mac&cheese, is a classic that they say Jefferson brought home from France.  Considering what the French refer to as cheese, it was probably glad to go. All brie-jokes aside, did I mention that I hate brie?, the intervening centuries have made m&c a truly American dish.  There are as many ways to make it as there are cheeses to include in it. There are shells, elbows and rotini. You can put tomato in or mushrooms or meatballs or pepperoni. All of which, by definition, are not macaroni and cheese and therefore we won't be discussing today.

     One of my favorite mac&cheese recipes, before I developed my own, was from Patti La Belle's first cookbook: here. My oldest son's mother, a good cook in her own right, took that recipe, added her own touches and made it even better. So, when we were on speaking terms around the holidays, I didn't need to make it myself, just put in a request so to speak. Good while it lasted, but it didn't last long. And then I was on my own. Sure did miss that mac and cheese....

     In my experience, there are two major schools of thought when it comes to baked mac&cheese. (That stove top, store bought boxed crap isn't a school, it's a remedial class.)  School one is the custard school, where eggs and milk or cream are mixed with cooked noodles and cubed or shredded cheese then baked. School numero B is the sauce school, where a Mornay Sauce is mixed with cooked noodles, then baked. Each has it's merits and it's adherents.

     Most of the people that I know are members of the custard tribe. My grandmother was, my wife's grandmother was, even that aforementioned Patti La Belle-inspired recipe was just an over the top 6-cheese version of the same thing. And that is fine. Most likely, when most people think of mac&cheese, this is what they think of. For me, the best thing about this style is it's stability/slicability as contrasted with the Mornay style. (More on that later.) That makes portion control easier, for those counting calories; for everyone else, it makes deep-fried mac&cheese possible. You also get the deeper, toasty flavors of cooked cheese this way. The only drawback is that, for all gains made in stability and depth of flavor, the custard just doesn't carry that creamy cheesiness that stove-top mac&cheese struts in your face like the tawdry side dish it is.

     To maximize gooey, melty cheesiness, a Mornay sauce is the way to go. Every bite is full of that rich, cheesy goodness that keeps those Kraft blue boxes flying off the shelves. This style is luscious and creamy, with a rich sauce surrounding some very happy noodles, eminently spoon-able. This is not my Grandmother's mac&cheese. And that's not surprising. It's the whole roux-milk process. I can only imagine the look on Alice Martin's face if, while she was busy making cake, pies, veg and whatever else she had going on, I had ever asked her "Hey Gramma, when you gonna hook up that Mornay sauce? Did you get the Bechamel started yet, Slacker?" I can only hope that I would have been back on solid foods before X-mas vacation was over.      

     Anywho, I see no reason why I should have to miss out on creaminess just to get deep, toasty cheesiness. Or why I should trade luxuriousness for stability. So, I don't. My recipe is a combination of the two, combing baked cheese flavor with the smoothness of a Mornay. I also add brown mustard which I feel adds subtle counterpoint to the richness of the dish. I also don't recommend using more than 4 cheeses. I mean Patti's original recipe has 5 cheeses (Velveeta is only a "cheese" in the most loose definition of the word, so I don't count it). At that point, any definitive quality a certain cheese might add is lost to the general dairy background. General Dairy...sounds like an 80's farm-based action figure. Anyway, I recommend a 4 cheese mix that I feel balances the overall end result: Extra-Sharp Cheddar, Mozzarella, Monterrey Jack and Parmesan. The Cheddar is classic and it's sharpness makes it stand out. The Mozzarella is creamy and adds gooey strechiness and mouthfeel. The MJ melts smoothly and provides a mild background. And the Parmesan gives a salty, chewy finish.

     My recipe is posted for your experimentation. Enjoy.

Cheesy, gooey, chewy goodness.  Dig it.

Chipotle Barbecue Sauce

     I have a thing about Barbecue sauce. I remember my Grandmother, may she rest in peace, used to get some homemade sauce from some church friend. Now what you have to know is that my Grandmother was to chicken what Michelangelo was to marble, she transformed the ordinary into something wonderful with what seemed to be very little effort. I miss her. Oh, but back to the sauce... Her friend, probably one of the Trustee's Wives, made a tomato based barbecue sauce, not too sweet, with a lot of black pepper. Now this is back before there were 60,000 different types of sauce on the shelves of your local Kroger, so it really stood out to me. And added to Mrs. Martin's chicken? SAY WHAAATTT?? We're talking tasty pudding people!!  Not to mention that those were good days, DFA days, when I thought that I was, or at least should be, immortal and thought that she was too. I was wrong, but BBQ sauce always takes me back to those days. Is it stupid that I' m crying over a BBQ sauce recipe? So anyway, even though this isn't her sauce, this is for Mrs. Alice S. Martin.

     Ok, first things first. Yes, I'm on kind of a chipotle kick. I love the smokiness and spice that they add to any dish or sauce. Now, if for some reason you don't like chipotle peppers, omit them here. I don't know, maybe there's some poultry in your family tree....;^) Anyway, in that case, this becomes a rather sweet sauce that you can either leave as is or balance with 2 tsp of brown mustard. Ok, I apologize for the chicken reference, occasionally I omit the Chipotle to appease the palate of my 3yr old. Otherwise, this is a very straight forward, one pot recipe.

• 2 tsp Garlic Powder
• 2 tsp Chili Powder
• 2 tsp Black Pepper
• 1/2 med onion diced
• 2 tsp Smoked Paprika 
• 2 tsp Red Wine Vinegar
• 1/3 cup Dark Brown Sugar, packed
• 1 can diced or petite diced tomatoes
• 1 Chipotle pepper
• 1 tsp Kosher Salt
• 1/2 cup white Sugar
• 1 cup Ketchup
• 2 tsp Worcestershire Sauce

Add everything in a pot, heat over low heat, stirring often for 25 mins. Allow to cool for 10 minutes, mix in blender, food processor or with immersion blender until smooth. Or leave chunky if you like.  Alternately, add    1/2 can of your favorite soda or beer for a different flavor profile. You'll have to cook the sauce down an additional 10-15 mins.  Enjoy!!

Southern Buttermilk Biscuits

This is a variation on a number of recipes that I have tried over the years.  The two main things to remember with biscuits are: 1) Don't beat them up! There is no need for kneading as gluten is the enemy of tender biscuits; and 2) Freeze your fats! It is important that the fats (butter and/or shortening) don't melt during to mixing phase. All in all, biscuits are relatively easy to make from scratch, plus you can stop buying those pre-made tube things.  Although I do have a recipe that uses those too...

2 cups Flour (Cake or White Lily is best, but All Purpose will work)
4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp butter (cut into small cubes)
3 tbsp shortening (cut into small cubes)
1 cup chilled buttermilk

Heat oven to 420F.

• Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in lager bowl.
• Add fats to dry mix, pinching fats into dry mix until mixture looks like crumbs, or holds together when squeezed in your palm. Again the faster you do this the better. 
• Make a well in the center of flour mix. Pour buttermilk in to center, mix until dough comes together. Should be a wet, sticky dough.
• Turn dough out onto floured surface, dust top with flour.Gently fold over 3 or 4 times.
• Press or roll into about a 1 inch round. Rolling Pin optional.
• Cut with biscuit cutter, a handy water glass or scoop out with ice cream disher. If cutting biscuits, take care to cut straight down all the way through the dough, then twist. Place onto a baking sheet so that biscuits just touch. Press centers of biscuits down with thumb to ensure an even rise.
• Bake 18-20 minutes.

Enjoy!

Southwest Turkey Burgers/Sliders

  We tend to like big flavors in our house, be they hot or savory.  Chipotle has really become a favorite of late and garlic, pepper-jack and red pepper have been on the menu for as long as I can remember, so the idea behind this recipe has kinda been floating around my head for a while.  Add to that, the fact that I have been trying to reduce my red meat intake, and here you go.  Enjoy.

1 loaf french bread, cut into 1" slices                          
16 oz Ground Turkey                                  
3 Chipotle peppers, diced (from can)                
1 tbsp Black Pepper                                        
11/2 tsp Red Pepper Flakes                                
4-8 slices Turkey Bacon, cut in half            
Iceberg Lettuce

Colby or Pepper-jack Cheese
3 Roma tomatoes, sliced
1/2 med onion, diced
2 tbsp. Chili Powder
2 tsp Adobo sauce from Chipotles
1 tbsp Garlic Power
1/2 tsp Ground Cumin
1 tbsp Kosher Salt
2 egg yolks
1-2 tbsp Olive Oil

• Heat oven to 250F
• Cook bacon until done. Set aside. Reserve any drippings.
• Mix everything except cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, oil, bread and bacon in bowl. Mix well.
• Form into 4-6 patties for burgers, 6-8 for sliders.
• Add olive oil to drippings in pan. Heat oil.
• Add burgers to pan making sure not to overcrowd. Cook until well browned on both sides and 165F.
• Remove patties from pan, place on baking sheet, top with sliced cheese, place in oven until cheese melts.
• Top bread with mayo, lettuce, tomato, bacon and burger.
• Enjoy!!!