Heart Attack!

So there are a small number of dishes I came up with one day on a bit of a challenge for myself. With many dishes taking on the challenge of being cheap, delicious, and satisfying, I got a few great things I make when money is tight. Something even more of a challenge is coming up with vegan dishes from scratch that are edible. I am tough to please without meat, so being the toughest critic, I thought it was the perfect challenge, and even had some success... but that isn't what this post is planning on covering.

I have generally tried to balance cost and staying healthy. Among the challenges previously set one day, it finally occurred to me one day: What is the most insanely delicious entrée conceivable?

There was a lot of thought involved, and it eventually result in my first experiment of this series.

Heart Attack Burger

• 1lb lean ground beef

• 1lb uncooked bacon (not smoked bacon)

• 1 lb white mushrooms sliced

• 1 large white or yellow onion sliced

• 2 tsp coarse ground Peppercorn

• 2 tsp Salt

• 2 tbsp Worcestershire

• 1 tbsp Cornstarch

• 2 slices each Munster and Swiss cheese

• Choice of bun (large)

Separate bacon slices and place in large frying pan. Cook at medium heat on stove, covered, for 20 minutes. Remove bacon and set aside. Form burger to patty shape and cook medium well to well in bacon grease , and set aside. Add mushrooms and onion to bacon grease. Add Salt, Pepper, and Worcestershire. Stir uncovered till cooked thoroughly. Sift in Cornstarch and stir till thoroughly dissolved.

bun, meat, cheese, onions/mushrooms, cheese, bacon, cheese, bacon, cheese, bun.

Enjoy!

Out of time. Next entry: Heart Attack Steak. I am sure you can already guess part of it. :)

Jalapeño Burgers

Same evening as the Three Alarm Chicken, finally tried a recipe I have desired to try for a long time. Minced Jalapeño mixed right into the burger. I wasn't too interested in making several kinds of burgers to accommodate for people that like different levels of spice. Before I go into everything, I should list the recipe:

Burger-

• 2 lbs ground beef (Extra Lean)
• 1 Onion (Small White, Minced)
• 1 Jalapeño (Minced)
• 2 Tbs Worcestershire Sauce
• 2 Tbs Corn Starch
  
• 1 Tbs Tabasco Sauce
  
• 1 Tbs Black pepper
• 1 Tbs Salt

Extras-

• Potato Hamburger Buns (Albertson's Brand)
• Apple smoked Bacon, Peppered (Albertson's special)
• Swiss Cheese (Albertson's Mild Nutty)
• Lettuce
• Mayonnaise
• Ketchup
• Mustard

To reduce the spice in the Jalapeños, once minced placed them in a small dish and heated in the microwave for 1 minute, then took all the ingredients and combined in mixer on low speed. They did not form as well as I would have liked, but by the time they were cooked, they were perfectly firm. Burgers were grilled in a high flame for about a minute before barbecue was covered and burgers were allowed to smoke. Bacon was barbecued for a shorter period of time till lightly crispy and then placed on burgers with swiss cheese over the top. Burgers were smoked till cheese was melted, which wasn't long. :) Buns were also toasted for a few seconds

People picked their extras as they desired. Burgers were EXCELLENT. Mild spice and lots of flavor. I think next time I'll opt for two two kinds of burgers, mine without cooking the Jalapeño beforehand.

Maybe some Habanero next time?

On a side note, there was an intention of white mushroom slices under the cheese with the bacon, but was overlooked at the key time.

Happy Grilling!

Barbecuing Precautions - Three Alarm Chicken

So some advice I received and a lesson. When Barbecuing in general; or particularly later in the evening & when marinates are heavy on oil; give the fire department a friendly warning before they show up to your house inquiring about the smoke.

I asked around and supposedly this is much too common. I am thinking there must have been a car that drove by whose headlights lit up some of the smoke in the street (it kinda goes everywhere) and grabbed for the cell phone. What ever happened to nosy people trying to get a view of the excitement, or at least some rubber-necking.

I will say that the chicken had a particularly delicious smokey flavor, and the somewhat crispy burgers had the perfect texture once given a little ketchup.

As for recipes:

Chicken: I like tender chicken. I understand why restaurants need to burn the hell out of it, but why do that at home? Risks with home cooking are much fewer than with day long line-cooking.

But many people are wary when the chicken has a little pink in the middle, or even thoroughly cooked with some signs of blood, so decided to do something a little different.

The trick with deep frying chicken is to boil it first, flash fry, and get crispy but not over-cooked batter. I opted for something a little different. Marinate the chicken in spicy oil at medium-low heat for an hour.

This was a quick fix that maybe should have had some more thought put into it, but this was an idea I had after I realized I had allowed the chicken to freeze in the freezer. (It was supposed to have gone in the refrigerator.)

So the chicken cooked well in the oil on the stove before giving them a high-flame on the barbecue to burn off the oil and give it the great flavor that only comes from barbecue.

The marinate came out weird and burned on the bottom of the pan. Also, when I went to remove the chicken from the pot to take to the barbecue, all the meat fell off. I am going to assume it got stuck to the bottom of the pan. But by the time it was dried out, relatively, on the barbecue, it was excellent.

Pancakes!

I am certain lots of people are very familiar with pancakes and their simplicity, but for myself, I have recently gotten into it. A few weeks ago I was asked to make some pancakes. For a variation took a shot at using:

• Banana (over ripe)
• Strawberry (Hershey's syrup)
• Orange (juice)
• Vanilla (extract)

After that, it was the usual eggs, flour, sugar, and baking soda. Not too much extra sugar, and only enough flour to make a batter think enough that it left coarse lines in the surface when stirred / mixed.

This past weekend, morning of one of the barbecues, tried something different...

• Egg Nog
• Chocolate Chips
• Barbados Rum
• Vanilla Extract

In hind sight, despite being DELICIOUS, I am going to need to try the recipe again without the chocolate, since it was quite overwhelming. The batter was scary wonderful.

And guess what! They really didn't need syrup. Believe that?

Anyone else come up with bizarre pancake ideas? Leave a comment.

Anyway, enjoy! More to come tomorrow.

Barbecue

Wow, best barbecue ever! Thank you for everybodies contribution this weekend. I look forward to the next.

This is a bit of a test post. The link above will give a lot more detail of what went into the barbecue in terms of the art of cooking, I just look forward to using this blog to track culinary adventures separate from academic adventures / curiosities that can be found on my main page @ http://www.nakedpenguins.net/.

Certain more will be added in the future, from Jello Shots to Adventures in Sourdough, just as soon as I remember where some of the better web sites I used for research.

Enjoy. Please feel free to ask questions or suggestions for recipes, favorites, or ideally any science in cooking.