Chicken Salad

Once again, I have Sams Club to thank. Wife brought home these extra yummy chicken salad wraps and by golly, you know me. I just HAVE to see if I can make it myself. As it turns out, I can. Four chicken cutlets (which we have a lot more of frozen in a bag) got cooked and made friends with the food processor. So did four stalks of celery, which I did for Wife's sake. I don't mind big chunks of crunch at all though. Next, because I'm so daring, in went a packet of onion soup mix. Mayo next obviously but I eye-balled it as I so often do. If I had to guess.... maybe a third of a jar? Quarter? I dunno. Looked like a cup or so. And, now this was Wife's idea, finally went in ranch dressing. Added a tang and a zip I greatly appreciated.

All this made its way into a wrap again. Wife is skilled with tortilla wrapping. I added lettuce to mine. Yum.

This is also lap band friendly, kiddies. So go nuts. I think I'll have some now.

More alchemy

On sale, Wife got this big ole hung of turkey sausage. Yay! I didn't know what to do with it. Not yay. Time for research and time to BS. After skimming around in some cookbooks at my store for research, I stumbled upon this one casserole book that thankfully contained some stews. They got chopped and charred a little, as did a nice platter of peppers we got for two bucks. Contained all the colors of the traffic light. Added were my typical onions cooked soft and sweet in margarine. One can of about 30 oz diced tomatoes. None of the liquid though. Finally, some secret ingredients. First was a chicken broth mixed with white wine and herbs, made by College Inn. Damn good. Next, my sole spice was curry powder. I used a fair amount, wanting to experiment. Wife enjoyed and so do I, now that it's cool enough to eat. Wife also says it's Lap Band friendly so enjoy.

Sonic

There are none in New York. There are, however, some in New Jersey. About 40 minutes away. Worth the drive. VERY worth it. Juicy patties mix well with mayonazed burgers, as well it should. Chili cheese fries were heaven, but the portions could maybe have been bigger. However, the large cherry slush with grape.

ULTIMATE FLAVOR.

I now have a reason to not hate New Jersey.

Pantry Raid

Sometimes, we run out of food. It happens. There's this downtime in our kitchen that happens right before another trip to Walmart or Sams. It is during these times that my title as Food Alchemist shines through: my competence, my knowledge and my ability to completely and utterly BS my way through a recipe.

I had little available, so it was time to scavenge. And, since I had so little available, as casserole was in order. Plenty of ground beef was ready to go, so that was no issue. Neither were the onions I still had. Cream of mushroom soup was plentiful. But that was it at first glance. At second glance, I found some cornbread stuffing mix. Hello yummy crust for casserole. More scavenging revealed a few carrots left. They were sprouting a little but some quick surgery removed any gross parts. Aha! A teeny can of mushroom heads and stems. Wife would enjoy those. My aromatics were complete. Those were given a cooking in a teaspoon of butter and a pinch of kosher salt, which we're running out of. After a bit, they picked up some nice color and the whole kitchen smelled wonderful so off the heat.

Cooking the beef, which is about 1.75 pounds of the stuff (as it's half of a roughly 3 pound package), was easy. At this stage, I was trying to figure out how to stack everything. Adding the soup to the veggies I thought might thin things out too much and defeat the purpose of a binder. As I'm busy stirring, I think, "Boy am I stupid" and dump the veggies into the beef for a second quick simmer. More mingling flavors, including Adobo.

Speaking of the binder, CoM Soup I thought lacked a smidge in the flavor department. There was also not enough room for adding cream of celery soup. More thinking, and as a nod to Salisbury Steak, Worchestershire sauce went in, along with some Cumin and more Adobo.

The crust was too easy. Follow instructions on the box. Except... oops. No milk. Half and Half tagged in. The goo went on the bottom. Then the meat and veggie mix. Then soup. Then a bag of hash browns we had left over.

But uh oh! How long do I cook this for? Both Wife and mother of friend agreed a half hour on 350. I topped it with shredded cheddar 25 minutes in. Then poof.

Wife inhaled it, despite my protests. And now we have a reasonably stocked fridge. So all is well.

Wok you like a hurricane

For the second time in my life, yesterday, I tried to make fried rice. For the first time though, it worked. Four cups of long grain brown rice and... some oil. I'm not sure how much. It was more than two tablespoons, which is what the recipe demanded. I just felt very nervous tossing all that rice around in Wife's nice big pan. I was so scared of it sticking.

In the rice went some soy sauce, three lightly scrambled eggs, some cooked onions, two big ole slabs of chicken cut into chunks (and adoboed) and maybe... a third of a bag of broccoli, all cooked in oil as well. I figure that way, I can do things faster. Wife insists it came out okay. I think now they could have been cooked longer. Maybe. I dunno. I've never done this before. But now we have it reheated with more of those pot stickers some few posts back.

Who needs Yummy yummy?

Backlog

I have a lot to write about. I however, do not want to write about it all tonight. Meh. So I'll start off easy. Carvel. I grew up with these guys as my main ice cream supply store. I even worked for them one summer as a lad. Tonight, I went there with a hankering for a frozen dairy treat. I see something called an Iceberg, which was apparently a blended root beer float. I think 'sweet!". And boy, I couldn't have been more right. Too sweet, in fact. I couldn't finish it. I could barely finish a quarter. So I left that Carvel six dollars poorer but six dollars wiser. Me have heap big buyers remorse.

The good news though, I went to this local bar and grill with my aunt today. Naturally, I ordered wings. Extra hot was on the menu so extra hot would be on my plate. This time, I certainly did not regret it! Mmmm, were they good! Meat fell right off the bone and the sauce was rich and flavorful and still with plenty of
Capsaicin

to knock me off my seat. Finger licking good and with no blue cheese. A little sad and they could have used a cooling agent besides celery but hey, they were superb.

Coachmen's, if you're ever on Katona Avenue in Woodlawn NY.

This Afternoon

The Nickleback song, by the way. Don't ask.

But anyway, we have some nice big hunks of pork in the oven right now for a little less than an hour now. What first I did, technically, was steal some latex gloves from my job just for this job. THEN I remade my rub. Alton Brown recipe again, folks. Eight parts brown sugar, three parts kosher salt, one part chili powder. That last one part (From Pork Fiction) I cooked up myself with Cumin, Onion and Garlic Powder, Cayenne, Adobo and Black Pepper. The braising liquid I kinda BSed and now I hope for the best. A cup of Red Wine vinegar, some hefty shots of honey and Worcestershire sauce, and finally a single shot of hot sauce. Hopefully, nothing too terrible will happen with the added acidity and it'll reduce to a glaze still. I also realize as I type this that I forgot to add the cloves of garlic.

Rats.

More later when things come out of the oven.