Spanish Siesta

When asking a Spanish friend of mine when they'd usually eat a hearty meal like paella they told me usually in the late afternoon on Sunday with their friends and family. Since I have no family out here and my friends are all the family I got out here, I invited some of mis amigos cercanos over. If you're unfamiliar with paella, as I became aware of as I asked dozens about it this past week, it's a Spanish one dish meal consisting of saffron-flavored rice, meat/poultry and seafood. Saffron is one of the most expensive spices as the flowers it comes from, a crocus, only produces 3 threads. It is very hard to describe the flavor as it is so complex but many describe it as either bitter to semi-sweet and earthy. You'll want to buy it as threads, but it also comes powdered and if you live near a Cost Plus World Market, buy them there because that store sells insanely cheap spices that are of very high quality. (Also, when there pick up some smoked paprika, you'll need that as well.) Do not use a wooden spoon as it will absorb the flavor of the saffron. The dish calls for Spanish Valencia (Valencia is the region paella was born) rice which is a high starch short grain rice that I couldn't find so I replaced it with a sweet chinese rice which met those requirements. A short grain with high starch will make a mushy, sticky consistency. Since saffron is pricey, you may opt to use little (a couple of pinches), but since I was cooking a large serving of rice and I wanted it to taste extra scrumptious I used quite a bit.
For my recipes I would be using red bell pepper, tomatoes, and a jalapeno pepper which I sliced open and mixed with chopped basil and thyme, all fresh from my garden, and dredged with extra virgin olive oil, which I then marinated together overnight in my fridge. After dicing up the tomaters I sauteed them 

with fresh oil and the marinated basil. Make sure all the juice of the tomaters are used because you wanna cook the whole thang until all the liquid burns off and you get a syrupy collaboration of flavors. That will be added to the dish later.

Go ahead and saute a medium sized onion with shallots, all diced, in oil (the oil I marinaded in before, with the bits of thyme still in it and some of the basil) and add your water which will be used for the rice and bring it to a boil. This will make a broth for the rice to soak up all the flavors. If you were using chicken (which is a very traditional ingredient), I didn't, you'd want to cook the chicken in the oil as well to make it a chicken broth. I wanted to make sure I had a lot of food for everyone and leftovers so I made 6 cups of rice to 12 cups water. As long as you do a 1:2, w/v (rice:water) ratio you should be fine. The rice can cook for a long ass time because it's so starchy which is good because I had to cook it forever to tenderize the chorizo. Chorizo is something I haven't cooked before and apparently the good stuff, like I bought, is very tough and uncooked. If I do this again, I'm going to cook the chorizo on the side first and then add it to the rice after it's well cooked. 

Now, traditionally you're supposed to use a paellera, a round shallow cooking pan designed specifically for paella. They range from 25 to 100 bucks depending on quality. But I'm a college student so, yeah, fuck that. However if you're a purist, go for it and serve your guests out of it.
For seafood I steamed mussels which should come closed (denoting their alive) and open (denoting their fully cooked/dead) when steamed. Just steam them in a covered skillet with water for about 5 minutes. I recommend cutting them free from their shells and drizzling some fresh lime over them. There is a lot to consider with mussels so you may want to do your research on them. Speaking of which I have a side note. Although they're supposed to be closed, I bought them at a respectable market where I got all my seafood (99 ranch market, an asian market) and they were sold in a water bath and they were all fully open. Which struck me as odd but even after sitting in my fridge overnight (make sure to put them in a collander covered with a wet paper towel or in the bag w/ a hole cut in it so they can breath) they still smelled one hundred percent fresh. And after cooking them, they tasted - again - fresh. So I guess if they were dead they weren't for too long and kept for a good time, which I hear is what 99 Ranch Market is known for. So I highly recommend them. 
Also, for seafood, I was recommended red snapper. A friend I was cooking for wanted a whole fish in the dish so the fish's essential oils and flavors would soak into the rice. I rarely cook with fish, but fortunately the fishmonger knew that snapper was the right choice - it was by the way - very light and creamy, perfect for this dish. They took care of the gill situation, degutted, descaled and removed the tail. I kept the head though because with most seafood that's where all the flavor is and also the cheeks are the best part. I placed the fish, whole in, into the rice when all the top water disappeared (which should be when it's pretty hot). (This is also when I added the smoked paprika - which was from Spain! (a couple of tablespoons), saffron, and the tomatoe mixture) Apparently it was hot because the sucker was fully cooked in about 10 minutes. 

Getting it out is tricky because the heat will practically dissolve it and you'll probably be fishing out fish bones. Scrap out all the meaty bits including what you can scrounge from the head, as the paella keeps cooking. Now I didn't do this because I was kinda in a flurry from all the millions of things I was doing at once, but you can serve a guest(s) the eyeballs and cheeks.
I also bought a pound of large shrimp (technically not prawns, but you can get those instead if you want something really big). There are tons of ways to prepare shrimp. I like to remove the shells by pinching off the tail at the tip and peeling off the 2-3 panels that remain. Then I devein the poop, only because some get squeamish about that shit. But in their defense that shit can get pretty murky/sedimenty tasting and throw off the dish's flavor so it's probably best to just remove it. Then I gently pop off the head shell, but keep all the head gunk because like I said that's where all the flavor is. Yummy! I marinaded that for about 2 to 3 hours in chili garlic sauce (rooster sauce) and 

oil. Yeah, there's a LOT of oil in this recipe. Sautee for about 5 mins or until the shrimp are fully cooked. Set aside the cooked shrimp, fish and mussels. Add them when the rice is to your liking and the chorizo is just right. Then just add all the seafood, mix it up a spell and you're ready to serve. I recommend a peppery or fruity red wine that has a bold flavor to compete with the dish. Many recommend Spanish wines from the Rioja region. But no one seemed to care about the wines (me neither). Everyone was pretty syked about the sangria concotion I invented. So here's the recipe for that fan favorite:
1 part Madria Sangria 
2 part Hawaii's Own Paradise Punch (follow the instructions on the can)
1/2 part Perrier Lemon
I kept that in the freezer for several hours to make it into a slushie which I *highly* recommend.

Serve with french baguettes to soak up all the juicy flavors. I refuse to slice bread so my friends can break bread with me.


I served this with a side dish commonly used in Spain: ham, veggies and oil. Yeah they like their oil and meats in case you haven't figured that out yet. I marinaded a cubed Virginia ham (Serrano is prefered) in oil and garlic. 

VIRGINIA HAM!!!!!

I also marinaded the sliced red bells mentioned earlier with sugar snap peas and thrice sliced asparagus. 

Apparently it's common to steam and then skillet cook veggies in Spain so I did that. I have good days and bad with asparagus because the tip cooks so readily and the fat part takes forever and has a hard, waxy, slivery texture when uncooked. And I don't want to overcook the tips just to get the fat parts edible. So let me know if you have a special way to cook these bastards. I think the ham was smoked (even though it wasn't labeled as such) because it cooked super quick so be very careful if you use Virginia *smoked* ham. It will be super salty, fatty in parts, but oh Lordy so flavorful. I added the water from the steaming part of the recipe because as I mentioned the asparagus butts were being stubborn and I was afraid of overcooking the ham. That way the ham would stay moist and the asparagus could boil. No one seemed to notice and it came out nice. I debated about adding walnuts to the dish, so that may be a consideration.

For dessert I did something very light because everyone's gonna be exhausted and super full from the food. I had a bowl of strawberries, sour cream, and brown sugar. You dip a strawberry in the cream and then dip it in sugar. My family used to do this alot. I'm glad I did that. I almost served blueberries in milk with sugar. A friend recommended nuking the brown sugar for like 15 secs if it gets clumpy. So that's a pro tip.


I wanna thank all my friends that I invited. I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to post your thoughts, questions, advice/pointers. You can post as Anonymous if you so desire.

¡Buen provecho!

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

Taco Pizza

After having a similar pizza at CPK, I've been gagging to attempt making a taco pizza. To get in the right frame when cooking this be sure to be drinking a Mexican beer or maybe a margarita although I think pizza and beer go well together. I had Corona with lime and salt.

As always with my pizzas, have your oven pre-heated to 425. Make the dough according to my previous instructions, with Tony Chachere's of course. I made the salsa with chopped serrano pepper, freshly squeezed lime juice, diced tomatillos, diced red onion all mixed in with diced tomatoes and green chiles (I used a canned tomatoes/chiles that worked just fine). You can add whatever you wish to the salsa to customize it like corn or spicier peppers.

For the red sauce I used the same Ragu I used before but added freshly chopped basil, sea salt and sugar this time. The basil and sugar add a nice sweetness that will tame the spicyness.

I always use 80/20 ground beef, so go ahead and mix that with pork chorizo. I used about 1 part chorizo to 2 parts beef. Toss that in a very hot skillet on medium heat and add fresh lime juice and after stirring every so often add some taco seasoning. This will heat for about 10 to 15 mins and it may be hard to tell when the meat is done because the chorizo masks the browning of the beef.

Spread the sauce on the pizza crust and layer the meat generously and sprinkle cheese over it (I used the same combo as last time, colby jack and mozzarella). Cook in the oven for about 5 to 8 mins before adding the salsa. Take it out when the dough is golden brown. Cover it with chopped greens and flat noodle chow mein noodles that replicate the crispy taco shell. Also dallop some hefty amounts of sour cream and you have yourself a sexy taco pizza.

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