Plain old boring white rice- My favorite side dish.

My dad loved rice, so growing up, that's what we had a lot for dinner. I was always jealous of the few times I went out to eat at Asian restaurants and their rice was so good, not overcooked and mushy. I didn't know better, and the homemade rice I grew up on wasn't as bad as I'm making it sound. This is how I like it now.


My rice recipe is on my mind at the moment. I wonder if it'll change once Annie gets home... :D

This makes 16 servings, or enough for my 3 oldest boys.

Here's the formula if you want to make a smaller amount:

x cups rice + x Tbsp oil + 1/2x Tbsp salt + x*2 -1 cups water. Make sense? :P

4 cups dry jasmine rice
4 Tbsp vegetable oil
2 level Tbsp salt. (Yes, I said 2 Tablespoons. Deal with it. It won't kill you.)
7 cups hot-as-your-tap-can-get-it water

Put the rice, salt and oil in a pot. (4 quart at least. 6-8 is better) Turn it on high-as-your-stove-can-get heat. Fry the rice in the oil stirring frequently (but not obsessively,) until about half of the rice starts to turn whiter and more opaque. Don't leave the rice alone for 1 second or the burn gods will take it. There're really only a few colors on the rice scale: raw white, fried white, golden brown, golden black. Avoid the golden ones and the raw white one and you're good; fried white is what we're looking for.

Once the rice is sufficiently fried, add the water carefully but quickly. The rice and oil should be really hot, so it will bubble up like crazy. (This is why I use as big of a pot, that has a lid, as I have.) Stir it well and then cover it and cook it on medium low heat for 18-20 minutes.

Turning the heat down as soon as you put the water in means you only have to visit it again at 18 minutes instead of waiting for it to boil. If there is still a lot of water in the bottom, continue for another 4-5 minutes. Cooking it on medium low makes it so it won't burn for about 30 minutes.

I used to wait until the water was boiling and then turn it down to med-low and simmer for 15 minutes, but I like this way better because if you forget to turn it down to medium for some reason, say, because you went to yell at the kids to stop the damn fighting for the hundredth time or there'll be hell to pay, you end up with black burnt rice at about 19 minutes, on-fire rice at about 25 minutes, and burnt down kitchen at about 35 minutes. Don't ask me how I know such exact times for that.

Fluff it with a fork and eat it.

If you like your rice more stuck together and mushier, add more water. Like, a cup more. But-- Yuck. I like little separated firm rice, so I use less water. Use even less water for firmer, yet more independent rice.

Corn Chowder

Eleisha is really a good cook. She follows the recipe much more than I do. I'll add some (a lot) of garlic and parsley to pretty much anything, change the ratios of liquid and dry ingredients, or add ingredients to a basic recipe to make it completely different.

This corn chowder recipe is one time she varied the original a little and made it even better than it was. The change wasn't a big one, but it was definitely big enough to make a difference in the taste of the chowder.

Her Grandpa once gave her a couple of recipe books in the late 1990's and when she looked through them this recipe really stood out to her. I think it was the bacon. Everything tastes better with bacon, right? Well, in this chowder, it isn't the star, (the corn really is,) but the bacon adds just enough bacony goodness and smoky flavor to really make it a treat. I wouldn't call this health food, bit the only fat comes from a little bacon fat and the milk. I use 1% milk, so it doesn't add much fat, but it still tastes creamy and good.

That all said, this is really Eleisha's recipe that I also know how to make. I don't do anything to it other than what she has already changed, mainly because I can't think of how I could make it taste any better but also because it is her recipe. Here it is:

Corn Chowder

(We usually double this, but this makes about 9-10 cups as it is.)
1/2 lb bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1/2 cup celery, chopped
2 Tbsp flour
4 Cups milk
2 pinches of pepper (This is one thing you can add a little bit more of to give it a little kick)
1 can (17 oz) cream style corn
1 can (17 oz) sweet corn (we've used frozen corn for this too)
1 cup red potato, diced
1 cup russet potato, diced

1. Cook bacon in saucepan until crispy. Reserve 3 Tbsp of the fat in the pan. Remove bacon and set it aside.
2. Saute onion and celery in bacon fat about 2-4 minutes, until they start to go translucent, then add the flour and cook until it starts to brown into a roux and starts to bubble.
3. Stir in milk and heat until boiling, stirring constantly. Add the potatoes and pepper. Cook for 13-14 minutes or until the potatoes are just about tender. (You can use canned potatoes if you want and that way you don't have to cook it for the 13-14 minutes.) Stir in the corn and heat it until it's hot. It usually is hot enough right away, unless you used canned potatoes. You should heat it until it until it thickens up though. Stir in 1/2 of the bacon now and use the other 1/2 as a topping when you serve it.

Brazilian bbq chicken

Admittedly, I borrowed some (or most) of my ideas/ramblings from Alton Brown and Emeril and even Rachel Ray, but putting it all together is all me. :D

This recipe is called Amazon Brazilian chicken. I had it in Manaus, Brazil back in 1999. The flavor was so good and complex, I figured the chef had added some exotic spices, so I went and asked him what his secret was. He was a little old man about 65 years old, 5 foot nothing, so I towered over him. He smiled wider than the mouth of the amazon when I started talking to him in his native tongue.

I said "This chicken is delicious. What spices do you use?" He looked up a little sheepishly, laughed a little and said "Only salt." I couldn't believe it, so I asked him how he made it. The real trick was in how he made it, not what the spices were. He smoked it on an open smoke pit for like 3 or 4 hours. The fire was made out of some kind of mesquite or cedar type wood which penetrated the meat and gave it the complex flavor I was tasting. He used a salt similar to kosher. He generously salted the meat and then put it on the grill next to the coals, but not directly above them. When he put the lid on, it smoked the chicken at about 250 degrees. Oh, he also only used thighs and legs because they're more juicy. I haven't tried this with breast meat, but it might work. The reason you slow cook it is because it makes the fat and juice and connective tissue in the meat "gelatanize" inside the muscle, making it tender. When chicken is cooked too fast, it loses those yummy (at least to us carnivores) juices because you destroy the cell structure, and out comes the jucies. Slow cooking kind of tricks the cells and before they release the good stuff, they're all cooked.

Anyway, I now use mesquite chips in a smoker box on my gas grill. It's pretty close to the amazon version, but the ambiance isn't even close. :D

You soak the chips in hot hot water for about 30 minutes and then put them in the smoker or wrap them up in tin foil with a few holes poked in it. Put that directly on the fire and when it starts smoking lower the temp to as low as your grill can go, and put the chicken as far away from the fire as possible. This is called indirect cooking. Direct cooking is when the meat is directly licked by the flames. Indirect is where the flame heats the air and makes smoke from the mesquite and cooks the chicken with that heat. It's part of the cooking slow thing. I only light one side of the grill and put the chips on that part of the fire to make the temp go as low as possible. 225-250 degrees is about where we want it. 3.5 - 4 hours of cooking time is just right. I also have a basket in the lid of my grill that's supposed to be for holding hamburgers and hot dogs after they're done cooking to keep them warm. It's the perfect place to put the chicken. It's inside the smoke and heat, but far from the fire.

You may think the chicken looks dry and inedible when it's cooking, but the juices and fat are actually trapped inside now. I only use thighs for this recipe because they are the juiciest and fattest (like me). Put them on the grill skin side up. That way the fat from the skin bastes the chicken as it drips down. I usually put the skin side down for only 30 minutes of the entire cook time. You have to be careful with this though because if you cook it too hot, the bottom of the chicken will burn and it's tough to cut that part off. If you're in a hurry, it's best to cook chicken skin down, because if it burns, it's easy to peel off the burnt skin. I don't like to eat the skin usually anyway, so a little burned skin is ok. It should be ok underneath. You know it's done when it looks really dried out and is pink all around. The pink is from the smoke penetrating the meat. I sometimes put KC Masterpiece on the chicken about 30 minutes before it's done. That way the bbq sauce bakes onto the chicken and gives little burnt edges that are carmelized and delicious. Eleisha likes it just plain though, and I go back and forth between sauce and no sauce. Both are really tasty.

(edit: Last time I made this, I tried it with skin down to see if it would kind of catch all the juices and let the chicken kind of stew in them. It worked as well as cooking it skin side up, so don't fret which way the chicken is facing. The real trick is cooking it slow enough and far enough away from the flame that you don't burn it.)

Wow, those last few paragraphs are really disjointed, have no time flow, and I need to edit it to flow better, but you get the idea.

I love to grill zucchini to go with this recipe too. Get some pretty good sized zucchini. Cut it into long strips about 1/4 inch thick, or make medallions 1/4 inch thick, brush with olive oil and salt and pepper. Grill it over direct medium flame for about 3 minutes on each side. It's a perfect compliment to the above chicken. :)

Steaks of Zion

Summertime really is the best time for male-type cooking. There are few male instincts deeper than cooking meat over a fire. But what to do when the weather turns a balmy 30 degrees and the wind and snow pushes any thoughts of bar-b-que literally out the window? What's a male-type cook to do?

Luckily, there's a perfect substitute right under your stove. It's the little-used broiler. This part of the oven is perfect for cooking a steak. You'll see why shortly.

There are only a few things you need to make a great steak. First, and probably most importantly, is to get a good steak. For this recipe, we're going to use the tried and true ribeye. I like the bone-in kind because it gives a little more flavor to the meat. I won't get into what other steaks you could use here, but I probably will in a future post.

So the first thing about picking out a good steak is the marbling. That's the white, fatty tissue you can see running throughout the steak that makes it look like marble. Hidden within that fat is a ton of flavor, juiciness, and tenderness. You want to pick a steak that has good marbling, but there is such a thing as *too much* marbling. If there's too much fat, it will be hard to find a good piece of meat on the steak. It's not a common problem, but I've seen a few ribeye's that were too fatty to be any good.

So after you've picked a good steak, the next thing you need to do is season it. If you're looking for some super-secret ingredient here, you're going to be a little disappointed. The reason is because I only use 2 seasonings for a steak. Freshly ground pepper and kosher or sea salt. The reason for using freshly ground pepper is because pepper looses its flavor the longer it's been ground. That's because the heat of pepper is in the oil. Once you release that oil by grinding it, it starts to deteriorate and loose its flavor. Freshly ground pepper is actually not as spicy hot as pre-ground pepper, (because it releases more flavor, not just heat, right when you grind it. The other kind of pepper just has heat, most of the flavor is lost,) so you can let loose on the steak with the freshly ground peppercorns. It also makes it easier to scrape off the steak for those who don't like so much pepper, once it's done, because the pepper is in bigger chunks than the store-bought pepper.


The next thing you want to add is salt. The reason I use sea salt or kosher salt is twofold. First, I think it tastes "saltier" than tale salt. I mean it's a little stronger or more flavorful than table salt. The second reason is because salt soaks up moisture, or juiciness, from the steak. If you put table salt on it, it will draw more of the juice out of the steak, which makes the steak dryer. The big crystals of kosher salt are spread out farther apart than the fine crystals of table salt are, so there is less wicking of the moisture out of the steak. I know this sounds like a small problem, and most people can't tell the difference, but we're not most people, now are we?

So you want to be generous in the pepper and salt. If I had to measure it, I'd say at least a teaspoon per side of the steak of both spices. Probably more. It's ok if you cover it up too much, because you can scrape it off when it's done, if it's too hot or salty. The bigger chunks make it easy to do that.

Now comes the part you've been waiting for. Cooking the steak under the broiler. One of the keys to a good steak is heat. Not just a little heat, but hot, hot, heat. You want to start the broiler before you do anything else-- even before pulling the steaks out of the fridge. You need it to get as hot as it possibly can before trying to use it to cook. Again, it's all about the moisture. The hotter you can cook it, the juicier it is inside the steak. This is because the outside of the steak sears shut and the moisture can't escape as easily. Another thing a good steak has is carmelized blackened bits on the outside, and a nice pink center. You can't get that without having the heat hot enough. If the temp is too low, either the center will be pink, but the outside won't sear and blacken a little, or the outside will be blackened, (but won't sear the juice in) and the center won't be pink. I "ruined" a good set of steaks just thing week because of this. I cooked it super hot, alright, but left the steaks in the oven to stay warm, while I finished the pasta I was making. Bad idea. They just kept right on cooking and loosing juice, and getting tougher, and drying out. Don't start the steaks untill everything else is almost done. I hadn't even started the pasta sauce when I put the steaks in. That was my first misteak. Or mistake. Whatever. :)

So now you have the hot, hot, heat of the broiler all ready to go. You know that gray, rectangle pan that's in the bottom drawer of your stove that hasn't seen the light of day since, well, ever? It's called a broiler pan. It's specifically made to broil things like steak. See how there's a bottom and a top to it? The top of the pan is bumpy, or has little hills and valleys, and has long, rectangle holes in the bottom of little valleys. This is to allow hot air to circulate around the meat as it cooks. As the meat sits on the pan, it's only touching at the "peaks of the little hills," which leaves a little space of air under the meat in the "valleys". This helps the meat to cook faster, and dryer, because the slots in the valleys allows the juice it does release to drain into the pan below. This dry cooking style allows the black bits to carmelize instead of stew in the juice, making tasty blask bits all over the steak, which is what we're looking for. This does create a little problem because the bottom pan is hot too, and when hot juice hits a hot pan, it makes a mess to clean up. So I just put a sheet of aluminum foil on the bottom pan to catch the juice and you can just throw it away later.

So now we have our seasoned steak resting on top of the broiler pan. You want to put the oven rack at the very top level, or the second to highest level, before you start the oven. You don't want the steak so close to the fire or heating element that it's touching it, but you want it to be close. That's because we want it to be as hot as possible, and the closer you are to the fire, the hotter it is. So put the steak on the broiler pan, and slide the broiler pan onto the top rack of the oven. You can leave the door to the oven open just a little so you can see what's happening. Almost immediately, the steak starts to sizzle and complain about the heat. That's good. If it doesn't start sizzling right away, your fire isn't hot enough and next time you need to let it preheat a little longer. The steak will cook with the oven door open or shut, because it's so close to the fire, so leave it open so you can see when it's time to turn it over. Usually it's about 7 minutes for the first side, and 5 minutes for the second. You can tell it's ready to turn over when there are a lot of black bits forming and the entire top and sides of the steak are brown. Grab an oven mitt or hotpad and quickly pull out the oven rack, flip the steak with tongs, NOT A FORK, and shove the rack back into the oven. You should have already salt and peppered the back side, and we want to keep the steak cooking and not loose it's temperature, so that's why you need to flip it fast. We dont' use a fork because if we poke a hole in the steak, it will start to loose juice, even if it's just a little.

After the flip you only need to broil it for about 5 minutes on this side. That's because this side has already been cooking a little bit because of the hill/valley thing in the broiler pan we talked about already. If you ate this steak right now, it would be as good as any you've ever had on a bbq grill, or nearly any restaurant. BUT, there's still one thing more you can do.

You know that part I said earlier about only seasoning the steak with salt and pepper? That there aren't any secret ingredients? Well, that's not entirely true. It's mostly true, because the secret ingredient isn't a spice or herb. It's an oil. Extra virgin olive oil to be precise. So after the 5 minutes is up, and the steak is all done and piping hot, you're going to cover the steak in olive oil. Not so much that it's dripping all over the place. Just enough to completely cover the meat and then just a touch more. Put it back under the heat for another 30 seconds to heat up the oil. Now you're done. Serve it with garlic herb pasta and steamed green beans or broccoli. It will bring out the beast in you.

Cheese and Herb pasta

Here is my next recipe. It's a creation I made that was influenced by Pasta-roni, and a basil chicken recipe I found on the internet. At its heart, it's macaroni and cheese. But it's kicked up about 20 notches from KD's* version. It goes GREAT with broiled steak, fried or grilled chicken, salmon, or crab legs. You can adjust the garlic to be as much or as little as you like-- experiment with a couple different versions to suit your taste. This is also the recipe that got my dear wife to start liking garlic more in my cooking. If you have someone who doesn't like garlic much, start out with just a little, and add more and more until it's the way you like it. They'll catch on at some point. :)

Here's the recipe.

1 package of about 8 servings of pasta. (Butterfly, rotini, spirulina, elbow macaroni, or other small pasta)
1 stick of butter (don't use that M word CRAP. It will kill you.)
8-12 cloves of garlic, or 1 bulb of garlic.
2 1/2 Tbsp dried parsley (or about 1/2 cup fresh)
1 tsp basil (or 1 Tbsp fresh. You can use up to 1 Tbsp, find out how much you like. It's kinda strong so go easy on it)
1 tsp Rosemary (or about 1Tbsp fresh. This one adds some great kick without overpowering the whole thing, like basil can do)
1 tsp Italian herbs.
3/4 cup milk or (if you're needing to gain a couple pounds,) whipping cream or 1/2 and 1/2.
3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
salt
pepper

Cook the pasta in about 5 or 6 quarts of water, drain it and either put it in another bowl, so you can use the pot for the sauce, or leave it in the pot and use a frying pan to make the sauce. I guess it depends on whether you want to wash a pot and a bowl, or a pot and a frying pan. I prefer the pot and the bowl method myself. You can just leave the pasta in the colander you drained it in too, if you're a sissy and use a colander. I prefer to just drain it from the pot, using the side of the sink to hold the pasta in the pot. It takes practice, and you'll get 2nd degree burns the first couple of times you try it, but no pain, no gain. That trick works great for Kraft dinner*, because you'll only have 1 pot to clean.

Anyway, when it comes to cooking the pasta, the more water the merrier. Don't skimp on how much water you use. If you do, the pasta will stick together and it's not fun to eat glued together pasta. Also, make sure the water is Boiling, or rather, at a rolling boil when you put the pasta in. I like to use the hottest tap water to fill the pot, because then you don't have to wait as long for the water to boil. Little bubbles on the bottom of the pan != boiling. Big bubbles, even after you've stirred the water == boiling. Don't skimp on this part either. (!= means does not equal.)

Now, most packages will say "add a pinch of salt to the water before boiling" I can agree if the pinch is being done by an elephant, or in reality, if the pinch is about 2 1/2 to 3 heaping tablespoons. I'm of the same opinion as the little old Italian ladies who say the perfect pasta-boiling water is taken from about 10 feet off the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. That's a SALTY water. This is because the salt seeps into the pasta and makes the whole piece of pasta taste good. (The same thing goes for rice too, btw. Adding salt after the fact isn't as good as properly salted water.) Doing that also makes it so you don't have to salt the pasta a lot at the end. If you use a really good pasta from Italy (Costco sells some great pasta from Italy) it'll take about 12 or 13 minutes to cook. Don't stop boiling until it's done. You want it to be done enough that it still holds its shape, but also is easy to bite. It's called al dente. Just try a piece of pasta every 30 seconds or so after 12 minutes have passed. If you get pasta stuck in the crevices in your teeth, cook it another 30 seconds to 1 minute. Test until it's just barely past the point of leaving some pasta in the crevices. You'll figure it out after ruining about 20 boxes of pasta like I have. Cheap American pasta will take less time to cook, but doesn't have as much protein in it, so it's not as filling. This technique is also good for spaghetti and pretty much any other pasta.

As you can see, it's not like you just boil some water and throw the pasta in. You have to actually COOK it. If you want 8-minute, 1-pan pasta, go get some *Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. It's pretty good if you use butter instead of the dreaded M word, and it's easy, but you'll have almost ZERO satisfaction of a job well done, unless you're a 12-year old..

Next is the sauce. Judging from the amount of time you put into boiling the pasta, you're probably thinking that this isn't going to be worth all the trouble, but this part is actually not that hard. Anyway, here's what you do for the sauce.

Put the butter in the now-semi-clean pot (remember that we put the pasta into another bowl or the colander, for sissies. You don't have to clean the pot out, just make sure that there isn't any pasta pieces in it still,) or make it in a frying pan. You can also melt the butter in the microwave for 20 seconds and just put it in the pan. Put the pan on medium heat. Then use a garlic press to press about 4 cloves of garlic. There's a difference between a clove and a bulb of garlic. A bulb of garlic is the biggest form of garlic. It's the form it's in when they harvest it from the ground. There are about 8-12 cloves of garlic in an average bulb of garlic. It looks, surprisingly, like a flower bulb. It's about 1/4 the size of an average onion. So take your bulb of garlic and peel it and press 4 cloves into the butter. Then put the remaining whole cloves into the butter. You're going to cook them for about 7 minutes, or until you can see the garlic turning dark brown. That means the sugar is caramelizing and is turning the garlic sweet. If you don't do this part, the garlic will be really strong. This might be what you want, but your significant other will appreciate you cooking it a little more, because then, your breath won't be as strong later when they want to thank you for making such delicious pasta.

This is the part where you have to experiment with how many cloves of garlic you want to press and how many you want to leave whole. The more you press, the more garlicky the pasta will be. If your Sig-O doesn't really like garlic a lot, just press 2 cloves and leave the others whole. You can then save the whole cloves to eat yourself, just make sure they don't get any whole ones, or you and they will be in for an awful surprise. No one likes to chomp into a clove of garlic when they're not expecting it. :) If you're careful, your Sig-O will not even know there's garlic in the pasta, and you can casually slip it into later conversation that the great-tasting pasta you had last night actually had a little garlic in it. Then the next time you make it, press 3 cloves. The next, 4. Pretty soon, they'll be saying things like "it could use some more garlic," or "I could stand more garlic." It's then you'll know that it's true love.

Back at the pan, your garlic should be plenty cooked by now. It will be a little frothy, or foamy when it's ready. That means the garlic is releasing its delicious elixirs into the butter, making the rest of the sauce garlicky. You can now add all the spices. I know that the italian herbs duplicate some of the other herbs you put in, but it's supposed to do that.

It's known that garlic and parsley are the best of friends. In the culinary world, it's the equivalent of peanut butter and jelly, macaroni and cheese, or peanut butter and chocolate. Oh, wait, those are in the culinary world too. But still, the analogy fits. It's like they were made to go together. Somewhere in our ancient past, our ancestors combined these 2 tastes and saw that it was good. Really good. It became embedded into our DNA and now when you taste it, your ancestors are happy. :)

This garlic/parsley/butter mix is the base for the whole taste experience. Garlic and parsley. The other herbs really just round out the flavor and add a little kick to the whole thing, but this is the base. You'll want to fry the herbs for a couple of minutes in the butter/garlic sauce you already have going before adding the Parmesan cheese and milk. After you've mixed together the butter, herbs, cheese and milk, it will be a nice, slightly runny sauce. Simmer it for about 2 minutes. Then put the pasta back into the pot, or pour the sauce from the frying pan back into the pot, depending on where you made the sauce. Mix it together, making sure every piece of pasta gets a little bit of sauce on it. If you use the right kind of pasta, it will soak up all the sauce. This is where you can add a liiiiiittle bit of salt and some pepper to taste. Try it before you add any. It might be good as it is.

See? The sauce wasn't really that hard, now was it? You're done, and the more you make it, the more you'll be able to adjust the herbs and garlic to be just how you like it, which is the whole point of making your own food in the first place.

Serve with a grilled steak or chicken, or some seafood. Most seafood also loves the garlic, butter, and parsley combo, so you can't go wrong. Write me and let me know if this isn't the BEST pasta side you've ever had.

Awesome Meatballs

Here's a recipe I've been working on for a few years. It's a meatball recipe that is perfect for spaghetti, or bbq sauce over rice.

2 lbs ground beef. (I like to use costco beef, it's the best)
3 slices of white bread dehydrated in an oven at 200 degrees for about 30 minutes diced into very small crumbs. Or 1 cup dried bread crumbs.
1 Tbsp Italian herbs mix
2 tsp dried parsley, or 2 Tbsp fresh
1 Tbsp garlic
1 1/2 Tbsp dried minced onion or about 1/2 cup fresh grated onion.
1/2 cup ketchup
2 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup milk
2 tsp salt
1 tsp cajun seasoning, or a couple pinches cayenne pepper or red pepper and a couple pinches paprika.

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. You can use your hands to mush it all together, or use a spoon to combine it together.

After you have a nice mixture, take heaping tablespoons full of the mixture and roll it into a ball. This should make quite a few meatballs-- 30 or 40. Don't make them too big. They should be just a little smaller than a golf ball.

There are a couple of ways to cook the meatballs when they're done. The first, and easiest, is to brown the meatballs in a frying pan and then cook them in the sauce you're going to be using. For example, if you are making spaghetti sauce, brown the meatballs, then pour the sauce over them and then cook for about 10 minutes. Then put the sauce over spaghetti.

Another way to cook them is to boil them in a pot for about 10 minutes. You can then freeze them or use them right away.

The last way is to bake them in the oven at 350 degrees for about 25-30 minutes, depending on how big the balls are.