Breaking out the new gifts!

Well like many of us, you have somehow survived the holiday gathers and if you got really lucky, you might have ended up with some new toys. If you were really lucky, unlike myself, you might have ended up with some new non-stick cookware.

Of course as excited as you might be for these new toys, there are a few tricks you should know about teflon-based cookware.

First, and most importantly, that wonderful non-stick coating on the pan means that cleaning up the pan is a hundred or so more times easier to clean. But this doesn't mean you can skip adding lubricants to the pan to cook things. Dry cooking in the pan is the quickest way to burn up the coating on the pan, aka ruining it. So at the very minimum you will need to add some non-stick spray or a little bit of oil to the pan when you use it.

Next thing is never rapidly cooling off the pan in the sink after getting it really hot. Time to play with basic science, materials have different properties when you heat and cool them. They expand and contract at different rates, which means when you layer non-stick coating on metal that the two properties expand and contract at different rates. This isn't noticeable with the naked eye, but when the pan is cooled at an accelerated rate the two materials will slowly begin to pull apart. This isn't going to happen by doing it just once or twice, but if you repeatedly do this with the pan you can cause damage. (The same can also apply to the really nice composite pans that use aluminum and copper together, the metals can slowly come apart as you use them.)

One of the most abusive environments you can place your new pan is the dishwasher. Seriously, it is highly abusive! Leave it out of there! Don't do it! Most major cleaning solutions used for the dishwasher are based around silica. If you don't know what silica is, it is the same stuff that sand is made from. So of course over multiple washings you will be scratching the coating literally off of your pan. Hand wash the pan in hot water with a soft wash cloth, never with a scratch pad or metal wire. If you do burn something onto the pan, just pour some water into the pan and let it soak. If the non-stick is working correctly, the burned food will lift out of the pan.

Why is it important to keep the coating on your new non-stick pan? Well for one thing, the stuff is toxic when it flakes off. The last thing we want is to add more poisons to our bodies than we can handle (and no comments about my coffee consumption here!) Also when the non-stick becomes damaged, food will start to stick to the pan, of course that defeats the entire purpose of getting a non-stick pan.

Anyways, until next time.

Bien Camino!

*Twitch...twitch*

So this week I became the customer of the week at my local coffee-shop, which means several things.

1) I get all of my beverages free. Including the specialty drinks.

2) I really like the specialty drinks.

3) I have replaced real food with specialty drinks because they have coffee in them.

Hmmm...coffee.

I would like to point out that I am not addicted to coffee. This would mean that I want to quit. That is the last thing I will ever do!

Granted, my blood is 99% coffee now and I can feel when those pesky red blood cells try to take back over. It is a horrible experience with a killer headache which can only be solved with more coffee. Hmmm...coffee.

I might not have been cooking much this week, due to the holiday season and friends visiting, but I did make a dinner for a friend who visited from Sweden the other day, and I will give it to you below.

Pan Seared Salmon with Oriental Veggies on Rice.

(Serves 2)

Tools

Skillet

Spatula

Pot with a Lid.

Ingredients for the Salmon

2 fillets of Salmon, about 5 oz. each

pepper

sesame seeds

1 tbsp olive oil

Ingredients for the Oriental Veggies

6 oz. of frozen mixed oriental veggies

2 tbsp sesame oil

4 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp red pepper flakes

1 tbsp chopped garlic

4 tbsp cooking sherry (or water if you don't want to cook with alcohol)

1 tbsp sugar

Ingredients for Rice

(seriously, if you can't do rice by now with this blog, go back to the first few posts and learn! You will want 1 cup of uncooked rice per two person)

Make the rice for this dish so it is done before you cook anything else. You want to serve this as soon as you are done cooking everything on the rice.

Begin with the oriental veggies, get the pan hot on medium-high heat, add the oil and then the garlic. Count to 10 before adding the veggies. Stir fry these in the pan until they are thawed and heated through, a little bit of browning tastes delicious with these. Add the rest of the ingredients to the pan quickly and turn off the heat, mixing everything quickly. This will make a delicious sauce.

Pour the veggies/sauce onto the rice on each plate. Rinse the pan quickly in the sink and return to the stove. Turn the heat on high while you get the salmon ready.

Cover the tuna in pepper and sesame seeds, pushing in on the seeds so they stick to the fish. When the pan starts to get hot, add the oil and QUICKLY add the fish to the pan. At this point it is all about getting good color on the fish. I like my salmon done to a happy medium, which means I will wait for the fish to change color from red to white until about quarter of the way up the fillet before flipping. Whatever you do, don't touch the fish until you are ready to flip! Playing with your food as it is cooking in a pan like this will screw up the caramelization process, and that means it isn't nearly as tasty. If it seems like the fish is cooking too fast, feel free to turn down the heat, but like I said, I like my salmon to be cooked to a happy medium.

When my salmon changes color to the quarter mark on the other side, I will pull it off and serve it directly on the veggies and rice. And that is that! This will take about 6-7 minutes total once you start to cook (sans the rice), which is fast and easy cooking. And with that, have a happy holiday, I'll be hiding for a few days with my family.

Bien Camino!

Udon Noodles with Oriental Veggies and Chicken in a Spicy Peanut Sauce

Finishing up a statement of purpose for my PhD applications has been a fantastic diversion from the copy-editing job which sucked my soul out last week. With that said, I'm still working on it, so this should stay brief.

Udon Noodles with Oriental Veggies and Chicken in a Spicy Peanut Sauce (holy crap that is a mouthful!)

Tools:

Non-stick pot (If you value your sanity, this makes clean up sooooo much easier!)

Strainer

Plastic Spatula

Glass Serving Dish (because plastic is also a nightmare to get peanut butter off of)

Ingredients:

Udon Noodles (these can be found in the Oriental section of most mega-marts and well stocked smaller stores. When you open it you will see a cluster of noodles wrapped in a band, this is two servings of noodles.)

Water (you know where to get this, right? The sink!)

Cooked chicken breast or thigh (about .5 lb for every two servings)

1 tbsp chopped garlic

2 tbsp sesame oil

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce (seriously, get a good one, not one of the chemical monstrosities LaCrap makes)

1/4th cup of dry roasted peanuts (unsalted are the best for this)

10 oz bag of frozen oriental veggies, thawed.

red chili pepper flakes to taste (I use A LOT, like 4 tbsp, but I'm sadistic at times.)

Cook the noodles follow the directions, strain and cool in the strainer in the sink with cold water and several ice cubes. This might sound strange, but cooling the starches helps later on when you add this to your dish. It really works!

Once the noodles are cooling, add 1 tbsp of sesame oil to the bottom of the pan and heat it up on medium high. Careful not to burn this oil, you will regret it! Add the garlic and peanuts to the pan, count to 20 out loud, and then add the chicken. I also do this with seafood, like last night I used baby clams from a can and it was delicious, but since not everyone likes seafood I am going with the standard option here.

After cooking and sizzling away for a minute or so, add the veggies and cook them in the pan until warm all the way through. Pour the mixture into the serving dish and put the pan back on the heat.

Here comes the tricky part, add the rest of the oil and peanut butter to the pan and start to stir like a madman. The goal here is to heat up the oils in the peanut butter so the sauce is creamy. Pour in the pepper flakes and soy sauce while maintaining the heat, and once this is slightly bubbling in tasty goodness, add in the cold noodles. Continue to stir the pot, and add a splash of water if it seems the sauce is thickening up too much. Once the noodles are warm again (this takes like a minute) add in the meat/veggies. Mix together and then pour into the serving dish.

And YUM!

Anyways, back to work!

Bien Camino! :)

Tis' the Season...

...to go insane.

Its one of those weeks where having a mere 24 hours in a day is not enough to get everything done in a single day. Well everything that I need to get done and sleep. Because we have all seen what happens when I don't sleep...strange things happen.

Which usually adds to the list of things that my family will NEVER know.

Currently the list is a word file about 1.3 gigs in size....

But less about me, more about trying to feed you wonderful food. Earlier this week I was gifted a bag of pre-packaged frozen salmon, which in my world = woo hoo! I love seafood, and my friend who gifted it to me couldn't keep it cool enough when she was moving to her new home. So I'll give a simple recipe which I taught my friend several years back, a nice and simple way to cook the salmon and have a healthy meal.

Foil Wrapped Salmon

Tools

Aluminum Foil

Ingredients

Salmon Fillet

1 cup of frozen oriental veggies

2 tbsp of soy sauce

1 tsp pepper

1 tsp chopped garlic

1 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tsp of ginger powder

1 tbsp of sesame seeds

Place the fish on the center of the foil and pull the sides of the foil into a 'cup' shape. Pour in the rest of the ingredients and then fold the top closed. Place on the oven at 400 degrees for 25-35 minutes, until everything is cooked in the foil. Remove from the oven and serve either on rice or plain pasta, sauce and all!

Make a foil packet for each person wanting dinner, remember that rice and pasta are a filler, so if you don't eat enough of the filler you won't feel full!

Seriously, this is all there is to this! It is EASY! Anyways, enjoy dinner!

Bien Camino!

Sunday "Blah"

I don't know if it is today, or the sun glaring in my eye the entire time, or the old women next to me jabbering away on ridiculous rumors and other BS that's now slowly draining my mental resolve and increasing the odds of a coffee inspired accident blinding these women for life; but today has been one of those days where I just don't want to 'do' anything productive. And if I hear another "O-kay" set at a pitch which bores directly into my skull, I will go psychotic (well more psychotic...hehehehe).

It also didn't help I had to go to Wally-world today and resist adding a 'boot to the ass' of a large number of highly rude individuals who felt it was their God-granted right to be jerks as they buy Christmas gifts. I just needed shaving cream! Ah well, I am safe now and my body-hiding hole didn't get any more volunteers.

Well the final act before doing my favorite living role-playing campaign a favor tonight will be making dinner, and today seems the perfect day for 'Taco-Stuff'. This recipe was taught to me by my youngest brother and I've of course modified it. This is the perfect mix to add to taco salads, traditional tacos, soft shell tacos, or even use as a dip. The only warning is that this dish is 'uglier than sin', it doesn't look very good until you actually eat it.

Taco Stuff

Tools:

Pot with a lid.

Cutting Board

Knife

Ingredients:

10 oz. chorizo (Ok, I get the cheapest chorizo ever from Wally-world, found usually near the tortillas that are stored in the refrigerated section of the store. I think I spend less than $1.20 here for it, but it adds a little bit of flavor to the meal.)

1 can of refried beans (I go the cans I can get at my local hispanic grocery, which is far superior than the major name brands, and usually cheaper.)

1 jalapeno pepper (flavor packed into a small package, this is a delicious addition to any meal)

1 cup of uncooked white rice

1 large onion, chopped

1 tbsp of red pepper flakes

1 tbsp of chopped garlic

1 can of chopped tomatoes, drained (I get the kind that have extra peppers in them....mostly cause I'm sadistic)

1 taco seasoning packet

Brown the chorizo in the pan over medium heat, and then drain off the excess fat. Normally I would slap you for throwing this away, but the cheaper chorizo has A LOT of flavor already and you don't need the extra fat in this dish. Once the chorizo is browned, add in the onion, garlic, pepper flakes, and tomatoes into the pan. mix them together over medium heat until the onions start to sweat a little bit.

While this is going on, on a rear burner of the stove, take the jalapeno pepper and place it onto a hot burner. What we are doing here is charring the pepper on the direct heat a bit to release all the flavors. On the back burner, what you are trying to do is 'char' the outside skin of the pepper before you chop it up and add it to the dish. Continually turn it as the skin blisters, remove it totally from the heat if it starts to crack. When it is done, take it off the heat, chop up, and add to the pot.

Pour the spice packet into the mix, followed by the rice, and then a single cup of water. Normally I'd tell you to add more, but remember that you already have excess moisture from the other ingredients, and rice sucks when it is soggy.

On top of the rice, pour the refried beans and then cover the pot on the lowest setting of heat you can do. Don't worry, the beans and rice will blend with everything else throughout the dish as it cooks. Let it cook for 20 -30 minutes, then begin checking every 5 minutes. The taco-stuff is done when the rice is cooked.

And there you have it, taco-stuff. easy filler that has all those things in tacos you love. Well time to enjoy my dinner before some more work!

Bien Camino!

Mainlining mashed taters....

Well if I'm going to taunt you about the taters, I should probably give the recipe.

Doctoring Instant Taters

Tools

Pot with a lid that you made bacon in this morning.

Ingredients

Bacon Grease (if you aren't saving your bacon grease after making bacon, then your Grandmother should slap you. You only need as much bacon grease as what's left in the pan after you drain it off.)

3 tbsp of butter

1 tbsp of chopped garlic

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp onion powder

1 tbsp red pepper flakes

2 tbsp parsley flakes

1 1/3 cup of water

1 1/3 cup of crappy mashed potato flakes

Alright, real easy, heat the pan to get the bacon grease and butter to melt, then add the garlic, all the powders, and herbs to the pan (everything but the water and potato flakes).

When the garlic softens, add the water and bring to a boil. Once that happens, take it off the heat and add the flakes while mixing. And potatoes that you will want to mainline.

Bien Camino!

Well I am a Transient Scholar

Part of the focus on this blog is my travels, so I probably should include the occasional tidbit of my adventures. This one was taken in Spain in 2008 on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage.

Damn, I miss Spain.

I'm such a 'slacker'.

So I'm not a slacker. Its been joked I'm the "busiest unemployed, employed man" most people know. But I sometimes bemoan the fact that days only have 24 hours, I could really used a dozen or so more hours in a given day. I know, I'm a masochist most days, but lets face it, that is part of my charm and a good 29% of the reason my mother wants to strangle me. The other 71% involves my propinquity to pull elaborate pranks resulting in prying someone's fingers from around my throat. The other 81% of the time its my overwhelming wanderlust which takes me around the world.

Yes, that is 181%, I have my degrees in liberal arts, not math! Loosen up, it's a joke! Shesh, everyone is a critic. And no, that isn't a kind of lizard either, but if you get that joke you just might be a bigger dork than me. Just barely. I'm going to stop now before I hurt myself.

Anyways, I have spent the last two days feasting on left over soup and bread as I've cranked out a editing job on a Ph.D thesis for a high school classmate of mine, which means that I've stared at 60+ pages of documentation in less than a week on top of my normal work. The thesis is good, but being the editorial smuck that I am, I have been going over the thesis with a fine toothed comb forged of my twisted brain matter. Hmmm...brains.....

Bad Zombie! Back in your book! (This has also meant that my normal work on my next book, The Zombie's Diary, has been pushed to a back burner for a week as I get this rush job done.)

Well back to the purpose of this blog: food. Glorious food. This morning I pulled out a classic from my grandmother's cookbook again (that and I found bacon on sale at my local supermarket....bacon....drool), and made green beans.

Yes! Green beans! What? Don't like green beans? Tough, these are good!

Granny's Green Beans

Tools:

Pot with a lid or a slow cooker.

Knife

Cutting Board

Whatever tool you use to get into canned food (Not a hammer!)

Ingredients:

2 cans of green beans (drained: because I don't want to drink the crap that they use to can the beans!)

1 can of white potatoes or one large tater cut up into cubes (drain these too! you might need to cut the canned taters in half if they are bigger than bite size)

1 medium onion, chopped

1 tbsp chopped garlic

1/4th pound of bacon, diced into inch size pieces (what? I said these are good, what do you think makes them good? pixie dust?)

High quality tap water (once you travel to a country with low quality tap water, you will REALLY appreciate the water we have in the States.)

A dash of red pepper flakes (not much, just to give a little bite to the beans and make people wonder why they don't eat more green beans!)

A winning lotto ticket that you will mail you favorite food blogger (you can't say I didn't try)

After cutting everything up, take the bacon and place it into the bottom of the slowcooker or pot on medium heat (this will be on high for the slow cooker). Toss the bacon into the cooking dish, cover, and cooked the bacon through, releasing all the fat (the magical pixie dust that makes food tasty) and crisps up the bacon. This will happen a lot faster on the stove than in the crock pot, so pay attention (some of the crappier models of crock pots will take up to an hour to do this right, but that is alright).

Take the onions and add it directly to the pot, stirring it in with the bacon. Follow this up with the garlic, red pepper flakes, potatoes, and green beans. Once they are all mixed together, pour in enough water to cover them and then about an inch more. Turn the heat down to low on the stove and leave it alone.

This is one of those dishes that just gets better the longer you cook it. On the stove top you will need a minimum of an hour too cook this properly, the crock pot will need 4 hours, but as long as you are willing to check on the mixture every 30 minutes and add hot water when the water levels begin to lower, you can cook this all day long.

Seriously, cook it all day long! Do it! You won't hurt anything in that pot with a long, slow cooking! It will turn into veggie crack, you'll be mainlining this into your arm as you try to ask the man for "one more hit of taters, just one more". Then you will discover you will do things that you never thought you would just for some veggies. Naughty and wrong things. (You have a sick mind, do you realize that? I was just thinking about spending time home with the family....but nooooo, you took it to an entirely wrong place. Shame on you!)

Well tonight's meal option will include sitting with my slow cooker on the floor in front of me in the study, watching my favorite christmas movie: Die Hard. Until then!

Bien Camino.

Gyros + Coffee + Pollo a la Diabla: oh my....

Yesterday was one of those days which my diet was sabotaged by people wanting to feed me tasty, tasty food. This of course has resulted in my belly feeling like someone decided to bore a hole through it with acid, but hey, this is a price I was more willing to pay for a really tasty day. With that said, I didn't even touch any leftover soup last night, although I did eat a huge chunk of crusty bread just so my stomach didn't feel like it was producing hell-fire on its own (for those who don't know, pollo a la diabla can translate to chicken from hell, which means it is supersaturated in tasty peppers so hot that they will eat the take-home container on the way home).

Of course after having the chicken dinner I started to think about how I could easily break the recipe down to make at home, but that is an experiment for another day. Tonight is bean soup! (I mean it! If any of you sick jerks decides to feed me more I will fight back by going limp as a wet noodle and whining the entire time about how 'horrible it is to be me' as I gorge myself on spice.)

Bien Camino!

Meat is murder. . . tasty, tasty murder.

If you find offense with this title, well, this recipe wasn't for you to begin with. My ancestors didn't evolve to sit on the top of the food chain to feel bad for the animals we selectively breed (genetically modified over a long period of time to taste good when roasted over fire, I swear I'm not becoming aroused thinking about it....) to be feasted upon. Don't discount our friendly animals that we didn't selectively breed to be delicious, they are tasty as well, but we should begin with the animals we have created to be a food source.

Bring out your dead!

Well I knew it was coming, but I finally hit the plague. Alright, so it was a little less worse than the plague, but this recent 48 hour flu that has been going around the campus was a little meaner than the last few. This of course has killed my appetite the last few days as I've slept the illness away. Have I mentioned how horrible this flu is yet? It sucked!

This of course means that my normal witty commentary is on hiatus until tomorrow, which will might cause unprecedented suffering in a population relying on my voice of sanity for daily amusement (wow, even I can't stop but laugh at that load of crap), but I'll return to normal tomorrow with the bean soup recipe I'm making tonight (because slow cookers are awesome!) Good night all and bien camino!

Not going to eat at home: Part 2

Well another day goes by and I'm not going to have enough time to make dinner for myself again tonight. The nice part is that I should have just enough oyster stuffing left over to make a decent dinner. It isn't even like I have enough time to do a proper update today, but when everyone you know is ill with the flu, you sometimes have to do what you have to do. Well back to the grind.

Bien Camino.