Cheese Dreams

This post is motivated by two things.



Three if you count I was hungry and it was lunch time.

The first is bacon. I feel like there are two types of food blogs. One type is for vegan, diabetics with lactose & gluten intolerances and a peanut allergy. Seeing as I love meat, Sprite, cheese, bread, and nuts (giggle), I aim to not be that type. The other type loves bacon. I mean seriously LOVES bacon, like bacon needs a restraining order creepy love. So I figure it was about time I post a recipe with it. Plus you know I do like bacon and all that jazz.

"And cheese daddy! Number four should be cheese!"

The second is cookbooks. I love cookbooks. While I have been called a pack rat and a hoarder over the years (thanks wifey), I prefer the term collector. Specifically I collect old cook books. My oldest (I think) is from 1932: Meals Tested, Tasted, and Approved. Today's recipe comes from it.

Seriously how awesome is that: this book has been exchanging hands since before my parents were born. How many kitchens has it sat in? How many owners? This baby has history.



Cooperative photo.



This photo was a nightmare to upload.
Appreciate it. Appreciate!!!

Resources:
2 tablespoon butter

1 egg beaten

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon mustard

2 teaspoons Worcestershire

2 cups grated cheese (cheddar)

8 slices of bread

8 slice of bacon, cut in half

1/8 teaspoon paprika

Method:

Preheat the oven to broil.

Combine the melted butter, egg, salt, mustard, paprika, and Worcestershire. Then mix in the cheese. Spread on the bread slices. Arrange two half piece of bacon on top.

Bake until the bacon is sufficiently cooked (about four minutes for me).

Commentary:

I halved the recipe since it was just lunch for me. Halving a scrambled egg isn't too bad BTW. I just scrambled it, counted tablespoons, and dumped half of them.

Mix, mix, mix! I definitely had a couple "chunks" of mustard. Mustard is a secondary / minor flavor so it was a bit jarring to bite into a blob.

Do better!

Type of bread is going to make a difference here. I've made it with Italian and generic white bread (Wonder I think). I actually think it turned out better with the white bread. Plus you need to size your bacon appropriately. More on that below.

The cheese mixture will overflow if too close to the edges. That might help avoid charring of the toast though. I encourage you all in internet land to experiment and report back to me.

Notice the time cheese free zone? Do not worry, it will fill in.

It was super-duper greasy. Between the bacon fat and oil from the cheese, some people just should not eat this recipe. Despite the edges of the toast being burnt, the toast was soggy from the greasiness. Next time I think I'll try putting the directly on the oven rack with some foil below to catch the drippings.

The bacon was borderline undercooked. To combat that next time I'd precook the bacon a bit (that should help with sogginess as well). Also the other time I this this I cut into even smaller pieces. The half pieces curled. I would do quarter next time. Cut to fix  your bread at least.

Cut off those crusts. Why eat char?

Five year old me is pleased.

Conclusion:
I love it. I can imagine my grandma making these (I am pretty sure she put a pinch of paprika in everything). That said I would classify this as super unhealthy.

Grilled Chicken with Lemon Soda Pop & Smashed Taters

I am not a big sweets guy, but there is something down right magical about Sprite. I freakin' love that shit. Hot sweaty? Drink a Sprite. Need a drink before bed? Drink a Sprite. Hung over? Drink a Sprite. There is no social / nutritional / spiritual value but I can not help myself. So when I bought 36 Delicious Chicken Breast Recipes the other day and I saw a Sprite based recipe, I got on it! Sadly, it is only mediocre. That said it was super easy. So I have included one of my few potato recipes (more on why so few another day), so hopefully this post will be worth while.



Served with a smile!

Grilled Chicken with Lemon Soda Pop (aka Sprite)

Resources:

 

4 chicken breasts

1/2 cup soy sauce

12 ounce can of Sprite

1/2 teaspoon horseradish

1/4 cup vegetable oil (I used canola, which I like to call rapeseed oil since it sounds HARD)

 

 

Method:

 

Marinate the chicken with all the ingredients for at least thirty minutes (I went about two hours).

 

Grill until cooked through, flipping once. Brush with sauce frequently (every 10-15 minutes).

 

Allow to rest a few minutes before eating (3-5 typically works for me).

 

Smashed Taters

Resources:

 

5-6 very small red potatoes per person (or more if hungry)

salt, coarse (sea salt, kosher, etc)

olive oil

 

Method:

 

Boil the potatoes 30-40 minutes (until tender when poked with a fork). Drain and cool them.

 

Move the over rack to a relatively high position in the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F.

 

On a foil covered baking sheet spread out the potatoes and smash with a potato smasher until the potatoes are about half as thick as they originally were. Generously coat with olive oil and salt (make sure to completely coat the skin with oil). Bake until golden and the skins are starting to look crispy about 30 minutes.

 

Put the oven on broil for about 5 minutes, until the slightest bit of brown / black starts tto form on the edge of the skins.

 

Commentary:

 

As always make sure our chicken is cooked through. Breasts vary in size (giggle) enough cooking times are hard to generalize, but I used about 15 minutes a size for each ~10 ounce breast.

 

The smallest red potatoes are the best. I actually pay a small premium for Ruby Sensation potatoes because they are so small!

 

Here is my corporate plug of the day and I expect sponsorship damnit!

I just want one mouth full baby. No more. No less.

 

One use tools: the bane of a small kitchen. That said a potato smasher is absolutely a must in my opinion.

 

Ever smashed potatoes with a fork? It is time consuming. This baby smashes efficiently!

Conclusion:

 

Grilled Chicken with Lemon Soda Pop is a quick easy fix, but nothing special. It tasted like it was marinated in sugar and soy sauce. There was a little citrus, but not much.

 

As an aside, is there such a thing as marinated chicken breasts that is exceptional though? I have tried countless marinates and unless there something extra (a cream sauce, onions & peppers, a premeditated side dish, etc), I am never thrilled.

 

Smashed Taters is a keeper. I make it frequently.

 

California Sherry Chicken

Do you like your food to look pretty? Well move along then Mr./Mrs./Ms. unrealistic beauty standards. Ugly food needs love too.

California Sherry Chicken is one of those. It almost always comes out delicious (see the pepper discussion in the commentary for the exception), but the breading has a wrinkled look that vaguely reminds me of old man skin. Plus half the time you lose parts of it, which just makes it look weird.



Mmm. Old man flesh.

Resources:

2 large skinless, boneless skinless chicken breast halves cut in half thick wise (4 pieces)

1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon(ish) olive oil
1/2 cup cooking sherry
1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Method:

1. Mix the flour, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Drag each chicken piece through the flour mix and press to adhere. Remove chicken from bag, shaking off excess flour. Alternately put it all in a big bag and shake until coated (it is more fun this way, just sayin').

2. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Brown chicken on each side (about 3 minutes) until golden. Do not worry if the chicken is cooked through yet, that is happening in step three. Remove from skillet and set aside.

3. Reduce the heat to medium-low and remove skillet. In the same skillet combine sherry, broth, garlic and lemon juice and bring to a boil. Return skillet to heat, return chicken to skillet, and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes flipping once, or until chicken is cooked through and no longer pink inside and sauce is thick and viscous. Serve with the sauce drizzled over the chicken. Buttered corn is an excellent side for this dish by the way

Commentary:

I used ultra-mega chicken breasts. Seriously I do not know what steroids Tyson is giving their chickens for the frozen skinless boneless breasts I buy, but damn son! The thickness makes it a nightmare to pan fire. Hence I cut them in half along the thickness.

Yes I tared out the plate, geez. No faith.

Go slowly. I will not be held responsible for lost fingers.

Speaking of big breasts <giggle>, if the breasts are particularly large you will need more of the flour mix. Just keep the same ratio of ingredients (1 tablespoon flour, 1/4 teaspoons each of the salt and pepper should probably be enough extra).

Be careful with the pepper! The pepper flavor really comes through on this. If you do not like pepper or have particular strong pepper (hey, not all black peppers are the same) reduce as appropriate.

Actually be careful with the salt too. Sherry is salted, as is chicken broth. If you are not using reduced sodium broth cut back on the salt in the flour mix. As an aside sherry is one of the few alcohols I cook with that I do not have split between myself and the recipe. Stupid salt!

I say one tablespoon(ish) of olive oil because you need a decent coat on your pan. Smaller pans and smaller chicken breasts need less.

Jackson Pollock is my inspiration.

If you want to skip the whole sherry broth step three part, up through step two is even simpler and still tasty. Just make sure you actually cook the chicken through.

Finally be careful when flipping the chicken or you'll lose some of that precious, precious withered breading as we have previously discussed.



Even uglier than his brothers.

Conclusion:

Fantastic as usual, I made it last night and countless time before. It is just not the best recipe to make when I am cooking to impress others because it is so damn ugly!

Toaster Oven Grilled Cheese

So about a year ago I got talked into leaving my newly remodeled kitchen for important things like professional development or some such nonsense. That is my wife got a job offer in some far flung land (by which I mean five hours & one state away). We were off to adventure!

Instead of adventure, I have been unemployed and my "new" kitchen does not even have a built in wine rack or garbage disposal! During this time I have started holding lengthy conversations with the dog, cooked lots of new recipes, and played lots of Diablo III and Skyrim. I am pretty sure my friends are tired of hearing about it on facebook, so I was told to start a blog and here we are.

Well, onto the material for today. Like all sane rational people, I like grilled cheese sandwiches. I am not a huge fan of making them however. It is a high attention level process and makes a mess of the pan. In my morning haze today I said "Let us try the toaster over!"

Method:

I threw two slices of Italian bread in with chucks of butter (one tablespoon total). Once the butter was melty, I spread it evenly, flipped the toast and added some colby (two or three slices, until both slices of bread were well covered). Once the cheese was melty, I put the two pieces together and toasted about a minute more.

Conclusion:

It tasted pretty good, but not as good as pan grilled. The cheese was plenty melty, but the toast did not really have that pan grilled butter flavor. Also the toast was less evenly cooked. This eliminated the cleanup but was still high maintenance. In the future, I will stick with the pan.