Catering for a Crowd

This is a modification on the cheezy tater-filled dog recipe that has been repurposed to serve as an hors d'oeuvre. The cheese and taters obviously stay the same, but go ahead and replace the dogs with cocktail weenies and the buns with crescent dough. Cocktail franks usually come in a package holding about 30 to 40 dogs so keep that in mind if you're entertaining guests. Slice the lil doggies lengthwise again, about halfway into them. You're going to want to boil them for about 10-15 minutes because the weenies will come uncooked and the baking process will be too short to actually cook the pork properly. This will also help puff out the sliver you made so it's easier to stuff the mashed taters in there. This time I cooked the taters with garlic and creole seasoning (I ran out of Tony Chachere's *tear* so I used some other name brand) to lend a mild spicy kick. A sliver of cheese is all you need, the size of which is up to you. It's best to use block cheese though to make it easier to handle when wrapping it up. When using the crescent dough to wrap up the dog, I have found it best to try stretching it out fairly tightly around the hot dog so it's a thinner crust. It may not cook evenly if it's thick, so making it thinner is best. You can always roll the dough out more with a pin prior to wrapping if you so desire. Each crescent piece should be enough to wrap 3 stuffed weenies. So if you're doing the math, 2 crescent dough rolls (each holding 8 crescent pieces) were enough for a bag of 40 weenies. The mashed taters were cooked for a serving of 2 and that was just enough for all of the dogs.

Once you have them assembled they only need to bake at 375 for 4 to 8 minutes until puffy and evenly golden brown. Really fast. Prep time is where most of the time is consumed. They're surprisingly lighter than I expected despite using fatty ingredients. Here's hoping they're a hit at the party!

Garden Fresh One Dish Meal

Hanging out with some of my buddies we wanted to make some grub using mostly fresh ingredients from the garden. My homie suggested an old family recipe mixing ground beef into a hollowed out summer squash. This is a one dish meal that can be modified around these two base ingredients. From the garden we used onion, garlic, habanero, bell pepper, arugula, and kale mixed in with the ground beef which was browned on medium heat in a skillet. We also added a healthy amount of bread crumbs to soak up all the greasy flavorings exuded from the meat.

Since this meal can be effectively baked for an extended time in the oven, it isn't an issue if you are dealing with an over-ripe squash, which we were dealing with. To prepare the squash, just slice it lenghtwise and scoop out the majority of the innards, but leave a decent amount of the flesh covering the rind. You will need that squash flesh later in the recipe. Go ahead and slather that bad boy with olive oil and place the beef/veggie mix into the core.

Sprinkle cheese over the top of the stuffed squash and bake at 350 for at least 20 minutes. You can always cook it for longer until the squash is tender if it's over-ripe. You may just need to lower the heat down to 300 or lower and bake for an extended period. You may also want to cover it in this case to prevent the meat from drying out too much, however the bread crumbs should prevent this from happening. When the dish is done you can scoop out that flesh you didn't remove along with all the stuffed ingredients and set them aside.

Just put all the scoopings back into the squash shell and enjoy! Removing more of the squash and mixing it in with the beef will make it more moist and add a nice stringy texture to the dish. It's very filling and has an outstanding savory flavor.

A Family Recipe - Re-invented

You're about to discover how classically midwest my cooking background is. In our household we often whipped together this simple, but mixed up recipe because it was cheap and had your basic meat/potatoes/cheese combo - the lifeblood of any Illinoisian. Or is it Illinoisite?

Take your run a da mill hot dog. If you have a favorite brand go for it. I do Bar S because it's cheap or Ball Park (turkey/beef/pork) - cuz they plump when they cook em (insert namebrand plug here!!). Or if you have a local butcher that serves a nice dog, go for that. It's preferable if you take one that has no casing, and is sealed together and pre-cooked. You could do a casing'd dog but you'd prolly haveta boil it first and then work with it. The reason I say that is that you want to cut the dog lengthwise about half way through and then cook it and allow the slice to puff out so you can stuff it later. An intestinal casing can't be cut before cooking unless you want all the porky guts to squidge out. Blegh.

The original recipe has you stuff that sliced dog with mashed potaters and top with chedda and broil it. Simple and sweet. But as my cooking skills evolved I played around with the recipe. One of the things I modified over time was boiling the dog in water seasoned with celery salt. If y'all don't use celery salt on yo dogs, start doing it! Something about that spice just blends so well with dogs. The major revision I added, however, was incorporating a bun. This does make it a LOT more bulkier and harder to eat a lot in one sitting, but it also makes it a finger food where as you kinda haveta eat a dog/tater/cheese combo with a fork/knife. Besides, I fucking love bread, so it only made it better in my book.

I remember my family had a different opinion on the subject. I've been living away from home for several years now and visited last year. When I did, I decided to cook the family recipe - completely forgeting that they never included the bun. Hell, when I started boiling with the celery salt the groans were already coming out, "Why are you boiling it with celery salt!? Celery salt is only on a regular hot dog, not in this style of dog!" Then I started steaming some buns. Now, I've never seen steamed buns outside of my household so I figured it was common place to do this at our place. You basically can steam it in a double boiler or wrap the dog in a damp paper towel and microwave for 15-40 sec; depending on time constraints. So when I started double boiling the buns I was freaking out when my family started dividing into factions. One side was willing to try new things but the others refused to have the recipe on a bun. It was quite comical as I had to stop cooking and find out who was fine with a bun or wanted the original. A Protein-Carbohydrate line was clearly drawn in the sand. Good times.

Now, I've been cooking the bun variation for some time, but I had a lady friend over and wanted to explore some new options. One of the primary differences is that I didn't boil the dog, but grilled instead. Which isn't a suprise to my fans as most of my recipes are bbq'd. So I came up with a damn good plan...

I sprinkled the dogs with celery salt, after slicing them lengthwise and throwing them on the grill. That way the celery salt will be toasted into the skin of the dog. Nom nom, right!?

There really isn't any trick to cooking pre-cooked dogs, just that you prolly shouldn't close the lid and just watch them like a hawk. I'm not a huge fan of blacked out dogs that are mainly flaky burnedness. Blegh. So I like to turn them often and make sure they get the plumpiness and brownness they deserve.

Components that will come into play that I never used before: grill a jalapeno and a yellow onion. The jalapeno will be sliced up and placed in the doggy's trough.

Whilst cooking the dogs you could be making the mashed potaters. Since I'm a poor hungry doctor (PhD student) I do instant, but by all means do home cooked if that's your thing. Follow the box's recipe of course or follow your own mashed potaters recipe. As you guessed, I toss in some Tony Chachere's. And as a modification, I toss in chopped grilled onion which makes a very unique flavor. At this point you can throw in anything you wish into the taters. One thing I've done that makes a nice zing is sliced up pepperoni.

Once the taters are ready, go ahead and scoop those bad boys into the dogs that have already been planted into the buns and stuffed with jalapeno. Then it's pretty easy as you layer cheese atop and broil it. Pull it out in 3-8 mins and you should have a golden brown cheese topping with slightly burnt bun.

If you can, enjoy it with a handsome man or beautiful lady

and of course a bottle of beer

It's pizza time, bitches!

Nothing quite like having a slice of pizza pie and a nice cold glass of beer after a long day. It's so fucking American. It's kismet that 4th o' July is right around the corner. But I also love pizza because there are so many ways you can improvise with it. The dough, the sauce, the cheese, the toppings; hell, even how you cook the damn thing!

This time I decided to get a little inventive. I had some potatoes that I really needed to dip into and what I like to do with them is slice them into thin oval slices and dredge them in Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning. I Need To Capitalize Every Word In This Seasoning. Because I Fucking Love It.

Seriously. When my heart gives up from all the sodium I pump through it. It'll be because of this glorious bastard.

I used about three-fourths of a stick of butter in a cast iron and sauteed up half of a finely diced onion and about a teaspoon of chopped garlic. I like to layer the Chachere-coated potato slivers over the onion/garlic like a sheet. I then tossed in some sliced chinese style sausages, which tend to be dried, hard, have a high fat content (a running theme in my dishes) and are sweet in flavor. They really go well with garlic; trust me! I had it on medium heat and covered for about 8 to 10 minutes and then turned the potatoes and lowered to a simmer. I then drizzled with an italian pizza blend and just turned it every 5 minutes until it was cooked through and the potatoes were tender. If you want crispy, you'll want to have the potatoes directly touching the pan with the butter which would require you to remove the sauteed onion/garlic or push them suckers to the side. I usually crisp them, but I went for something more mushy.

So...while I was doing all that business. It's a good idea to have your oven already preheating to 425 degrees. There are obviously tons of way to do you dough, but my cheap ass does Jiffy's pizza crust which is like 50 cents a box. I use two of those mixed up thoroughly with a cup of warm water and you'll get a damn good sized medium pizza that serves 8 large slices of pizzas. Of course, I mix Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning into the dough. You can add whatever you're little heart desires. Fucking go nuts, yo! I like to keep the mixed up dough in the bowl covered with damp paper towels and let it sit on the now hot oven for 10 mins or so to let the dough rise for a spell.

When the dough is ready to roll out, I make sure to bombard an empty table with flour and flop the dough onto it and toss a retarded amount of flour onto the dough ball. Surprisingly, I've never had too much flour. There always seems to be sticky spots later on, especially when your rolling it out. I like to massage the dough really well to get all the knots out and then start playing with it until it's pretty flexible. I find it best to make it into a ball and then starting rolling it out with a pin in alternating directions to get it into an even thickness all the way across.

You can do so many things with the sauce. I usually make my own with tomato paste and tomato sauce blended with chopped basil and seasoned with sugar, salt and Tony Chachere's (of course!), but I've been working with Ragu sauce lately to mix thangs up. So I did their tomato (really, they needed to clarify that ingredient?), basil and onion sauce.

I'll spread it out with curled fingers or a large tablespoon or a spatula. Whatever you feel like rawking, y'know? Just as long as it's a decent layer throughout, really to your preference. I then added a pound of mixed cheeses: colby jack and mozzarrella. I have in the past exclusively made pizza with buffalo cheese, which is absolutely fucking phenomenal (although pricey), but if you go that route be aware that it sweats a lot and you'll be dabbing the pizza with paper towels alot. I then spread the potato/sausage goodness over the cheese and finished it off with pepperoni.

I have a convection oven, so it was done in about 10 to 15 minutes, but it depends on your oven and of course how you like it cooked. I like it golden brown on top, fairly crispy crust but fairly soft dough under the bread, but still cooked through. I haveta say, it turned out pretty sexy and the potatoes definetely added a nice mix to it. That's what I love about pizza, there really isn't a wrong ingredient so long as you accompany it with other appropriate ingredients.

As a side note, my roomie was so inspired by this cooking endeavor of mine that he's buying us fire stones 

to line in our convection oven so we can cook pizzas on it. So look forward to more inventive pizza updates! 

a sans ricotta lasagna

I've never cooked lasagna so this recipe was entirely improved. I just glanced at the oven temp and the suggested ingredients and went from there. Turned out great, surprisingly. Haha!

I used a 9 x 13 glass casserole dish that I buttered up

Boil plenty of lasagna noodles in water (I add a little salt to water when I cook pasta). In a 9 x 13 you should be able to fit about 3 noodles lengthwise. I did 3-4 layers of noodles, but plan accordingly to how many noodles you want to work with. I cooked mine almost to completion, so when they baked, they cooked the rest of the way.

Meat sauce
1.5-2 lb ground beef
2/3-1 cup Ragu pasta sauce
10-14 oz diced tomatoes w/ chilies
diced garlic
chopped yellow onion
a pizza/pasta seasoning mixture that has your standard italian herbs like basil, oregano, fennel, etc (you can   use whatever hearthy seasonings you prefer)
cayenne, salt and pepper to taste

In butter I sauted the onions for a spell and then added garlic. Added dried ground beef to start browning it and added the pasta sauce, tomatoes and the seasonings. I like a little spice in my meals and love enhancing those flavors with salt so I usually use a lot of both.

Cheeses:
Obviously ricotta is the traditional cheese in lasagna, but I fucking hate ricotta, so I replaced it with about a cup each of mozzarella and colby jack.
I also used about a cup of those hard cheese blends you get in the supermarket made with parmesan and romano.

Make sure you're oven is preheated to 375
I don't know if there's a rule as to how to layer, but I started with the meat sauce, then cheese, then lasagna noodles and then went willy nilly from there. I ended with noodles on top. You can end with cheese to get that nice gooey topping, but I didn't only because I ran outta cheese. I don't think the layering makes a damn difference though since it's held in by a casserole anyways. I think as long as it looks consistentish from the side, you're all good.

I cooked it covered for 20 mins and then uncovered for 20 mins. I have a convection oven that cooks pretty fucking fast so you may wanna up that to 25 mins each if you have an oven that doesn't cook as fast.

I let it cool for about 10 mins before hacking into it.
I felt mine had a little too much parmesan, but other than that it was pretty damn good. Who says you need ricotta!? haha