Monday, June 18, 2012
The Zombie's Diary
The Zombie's Diary is now live!!!! Help support your favorite author, buy my book today! I like to buy food so I can write more articles!
Friday, June 15, 2012
Sin and Debauchery. . .
. . .will keep you looking young. Alright, not really, but they are really fun together. Anyways, tossing up a quick butter based pasta sauce that's perfect for this summer heat. Nothing very hard as my computer runs the conversion program for my next book.
Pasta Butter Sauce:
Tools:
Cutting Board
Knife
Skillet
Heat Resistant Spoon
Ingredients:
Whatever pasta you want to use (about 2 cups cooked and drained)
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon dried Italian seasoning (I like the Aldi's brand a lot)
Pepper to taste
1 small onion, sliced thin
1 clove of garlic, diced
Get the pan up to medium heat and add the butter and oil. Once the butter has melted, add in the onion and garlic, stirring until the onions are heated up, about three minutes if you added them to the hot oil/butter. Add the seasoning, and let cook an additional minute before adding the drained pasta. Flip the pasta until it's coated in the butter sauce.
Well the book is done with the current formatting, have a fantastic day!
Bien Camino!
Pasta Butter Sauce:
Tools:
Cutting Board
Knife
Skillet
Heat Resistant Spoon
Ingredients:
Whatever pasta you want to use (about 2 cups cooked and drained)
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon dried Italian seasoning (I like the Aldi's brand a lot)
Pepper to taste
1 small onion, sliced thin
1 clove of garlic, diced
Get the pan up to medium heat and add the butter and oil. Once the butter has melted, add in the onion and garlic, stirring until the onions are heated up, about three minutes if you added them to the hot oil/butter. Add the seasoning, and let cook an additional minute before adding the drained pasta. Flip the pasta until it's coated in the butter sauce.
Well the book is done with the current formatting, have a fantastic day!
Bien Camino!
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Some of the old recipes are the best!
I was going through my file of old recipes I got from Granny Miller a long time ago, I found a classic recipe I hadn't done in forever, German Potato Salad. Granted, there's a thousand German Potato Salad recipes on the web, it's fantastic when I can go back to the one which I loved as a kid when being babysat.
Granny M's German Potato Salad
Tools:
Large Pot to boil potatoes in.
A VERY Large Skillet for the Bacon and to construct the salad. (and a lid helps as well to keep the messes down)
Strainer for the taters.
A large bowl (with lid) that you can put all the ingredients into.
Cutting Board.
Knife.
A heavy duty mixing spoon.
Measuring Cups
Ingredients:
6 cups of red potatoes, cut into 1 inch cubes.
1 lb of bacon (cut into small chunks, about an inch long, and none of this sugar cured crap either)
1 large yellow onion, diced
2 tablespoons parsley
1/2 cup of white vinegar
6 tablespoons of white sugar
4 tablespoons of water
2 tablespoons of salt
1 tablespoon of ground black pepper
1 tablespoon celery seeds.
Alright, first thing you should know, this isn't one of those weight watching potato salads, we are going for FLAVOR, which means a decent bacon is a must for the dish.
First, dice up the potatoes to the appropriate size, I leave the skin on because I like the texture. I tend to chop potatoes like this with my 2 cup measuring cup next to my cutting board. As I chop the taters, I'll add them to the measuring cup until it's past the two cup line. This isn't exact or an art form, but a useful approximation for how many potatoes = a cup. If I have to guess looking at how many lbs of potatoes I use with what's left in the 5 lb bags of taters I buy, I usually use about 3 lbs.
Add the potatoes to the tater pot and fill it up to just above the potatoes. Your mother might fill a large pot with water to the very top, but you don't need to waste both time and heat trying to boil extra water that won't cook your taters any better than just adding water to the potato line. Turn the heat onto high and let it boil ten minutes after the water comes to a rapid boil (or to the point you can stick a fork easily into the potatoes). Drain in the sink once they are done.
In the large skillet, cook the bacon on medium heat to help render out all the tasty bacon grease. Cook the bacon until it's crisp, and then pull it out of the pan and place it into your large serving bowl. (A trick to help the bacon cook faster is add a tablespoon of oil to the hot pan before you add the bacon, it will help the bacon to keep from sticking and to promote the bacon to give up its tasty flavoring.)
Add the diced onion into the bacon grease and cook on medium heat until the onions start to brown. This will take at least ten minutes, more if the pan is uncovered. Do NOT cook on higher heat! Burning the onions or the oil is very bad and will lead to a very disappointing potato salad. (If you do burn the grease or onions, just make mashed potatoes instead and get rid of the grease and onion. You won't like the flavor.) Continually mix the onions as they cook.
Once the onions are browned, which should be about the time the taters have been sitting in the sink draining out, add the sugar, salt, vinegar, and water to the pan, stirring the entire time. Keep stirring until the sugar melts in the bacon grease/liquids. Add the celery seed, pepper, bacon, and parsley to the pan right before adding the potatoes.
The trick now for the next minute is gently turning the potatoes over in the pan, coating all the potatoes in this wonderful bacon dressing that you've made. Once the potatoes are coated in the dressing, transfer them to their final serving dish.
This, my friends, is how you make potato salad. This salad is fantastic both warm and cold (although I think its the best warm) you can let this salad speak for itself. And really, what dish isn't awesome when it involves a pound of bacon?
Bien Camino!
Granny M's German Potato Salad
Tools:
Large Pot to boil potatoes in.
A VERY Large Skillet for the Bacon and to construct the salad. (and a lid helps as well to keep the messes down)
Strainer for the taters.
A large bowl (with lid) that you can put all the ingredients into.
Cutting Board.
Knife.
A heavy duty mixing spoon.
Measuring Cups
Ingredients:
6 cups of red potatoes, cut into 1 inch cubes.
1 lb of bacon (cut into small chunks, about an inch long, and none of this sugar cured crap either)
1 large yellow onion, diced
2 tablespoons parsley
1/2 cup of white vinegar
6 tablespoons of white sugar
4 tablespoons of water
2 tablespoons of salt
1 tablespoon of ground black pepper
1 tablespoon celery seeds.
Alright, first thing you should know, this isn't one of those weight watching potato salads, we are going for FLAVOR, which means a decent bacon is a must for the dish.
First, dice up the potatoes to the appropriate size, I leave the skin on because I like the texture. I tend to chop potatoes like this with my 2 cup measuring cup next to my cutting board. As I chop the taters, I'll add them to the measuring cup until it's past the two cup line. This isn't exact or an art form, but a useful approximation for how many potatoes = a cup. If I have to guess looking at how many lbs of potatoes I use with what's left in the 5 lb bags of taters I buy, I usually use about 3 lbs.
Add the potatoes to the tater pot and fill it up to just above the potatoes. Your mother might fill a large pot with water to the very top, but you don't need to waste both time and heat trying to boil extra water that won't cook your taters any better than just adding water to the potato line. Turn the heat onto high and let it boil ten minutes after the water comes to a rapid boil (or to the point you can stick a fork easily into the potatoes). Drain in the sink once they are done.
In the large skillet, cook the bacon on medium heat to help render out all the tasty bacon grease. Cook the bacon until it's crisp, and then pull it out of the pan and place it into your large serving bowl. (A trick to help the bacon cook faster is add a tablespoon of oil to the hot pan before you add the bacon, it will help the bacon to keep from sticking and to promote the bacon to give up its tasty flavoring.)
Add the diced onion into the bacon grease and cook on medium heat until the onions start to brown. This will take at least ten minutes, more if the pan is uncovered. Do NOT cook on higher heat! Burning the onions or the oil is very bad and will lead to a very disappointing potato salad. (If you do burn the grease or onions, just make mashed potatoes instead and get rid of the grease and onion. You won't like the flavor.) Continually mix the onions as they cook.
Once the onions are browned, which should be about the time the taters have been sitting in the sink draining out, add the sugar, salt, vinegar, and water to the pan, stirring the entire time. Keep stirring until the sugar melts in the bacon grease/liquids. Add the celery seed, pepper, bacon, and parsley to the pan right before adding the potatoes.
The trick now for the next minute is gently turning the potatoes over in the pan, coating all the potatoes in this wonderful bacon dressing that you've made. Once the potatoes are coated in the dressing, transfer them to their final serving dish.
This, my friends, is how you make potato salad. This salad is fantastic both warm and cold (although I think its the best warm) you can let this salad speak for itself. And really, what dish isn't awesome when it involves a pound of bacon?
Bien Camino!
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Tis' the season for hotdogs!
Well I'm finally done with the second edit of my book and have only added 25 pages. A word to the wise, adding pages during the editing process isn't exactly the goal you should have when preparing anything for publication, let alone a first-person jaunt through the mind of a time-traveling zombie. But it is done and I'm now mentally preparing myself for the third and final edit before upload to Amazon.
In other news, this last weekend's potluck was fantastic thanks to my Granny, who graciously gave me a three pound package of Honeywell hotdogs for pulling weeds last Friday. We grilled those suckers up and ate far too many hotdogs each.
Something about grilling hotdogs just makes them taste fantastic. I'm a fan of good dirty-water dogs, but grilling is the far superior method to prepare these childhood classics. Along with the dogs we had the standard assortment of chili sauce (Skyline), shredded cheese (I didn't eat it), homemade dill relish my granny sent me home with, mustard, ketchup, and a fantastic pickle that I made for the dogs: onion and pepper pickles. This relish goes VERY well with mustard and is perfect compliment to a fully loaded hotdog.
Onion and Pepper Relish
Tools:
Cutting board.
Knife.
Quart jar with a tight fitting lid (I still use canning jars for this)
Ingredients:
2 Large Yellow Onions, diced finely
1 Large Mature (red) Anaheim Pepper or a red bell pepper, diced finely.
2 dried Pasilla Peppers (for heat).
2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons white vinegar
Dice the onions and the Anaheim peppers into small chunks, something that will be easy to load into a hotdog bun. Place the two dried Pasilla Peppers into the jar and pour the vinegar onto them. Mix the onions and Anaheim peppers together and add into the jar. Top with the sugar and salt, seal the jar, and shake it vigorously. Place it on the counter top overnight, shaking occasionally, so all of the flavors can mingle together. Then store it in the refrigerator for later.
Variants of this dish can be made with red and white onions, but I'd avoid an overly sweet onion if you are making this dish. Likewise you can make the pickle a LOT spicier if you chop up a habenaro and add it to the bottom of the jar instead of the dried Pasilla Peppers.
Well with that done I should consider biking home, I have a belly full of coffee and a hankering for that jar of pickles waiting for me in my fridge. Until next time!
Bien Camino!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)