Cheese Waves

[I'm incredibly behind on updating, so the lovely Elizabeth Paulson has kindly offered to help out and fill in for me this week - with arty black and white photos to class up the joint! Check out her blog, her words smell like flowers! Her taste in music smells more like driving past a Wisconsin cow field, but I won't hold it against her...]

Ingredients:

• One thing of spreadable cheese, preferably Merkt's or Kaukauna
• One box of low-fat Wheat Thins (have to cut the calories somewhere)

Cooking Time: 5 minutes

Set List:

• The Packers Pregame Coverage

-or-

• Taylor Swift: Our Song
• Miley Cyrus: Party in the USA
• Toby Keith: Beer for My Horses

Uh-oh! Got fancy company coming and only minutes to create a high
class, high art appetizer? Or maybe you just invited everyone to your
house for the big game and you need snacks fast. Look no further than
your fridge and your cupboard! Everything you need for classy
entertaining is already there.

Take Wheat Thins, spread spreadable cheese unevenly and hastily on
cracker, scraping off cheese on edge of cracker with knife at a 45
degree angle. A proper technique will result in the snacks resembling
the wave in the painting "The Great Wave Off Kanagawa." Serve with
wine, beer, or whatever’s around.

Sherbert Shepherd's Pie?

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground beef
• 3 tablespoons diced onions
• 1 cup peas
• 1 cup carrots
• 12 Peruvian potatoes
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 tablespoon parsley
• 1 tablespoon oregano
• 1 tablespoon black pepper
• 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1/4 cup Lea and Perrins worchestershire sauce
• 3 tablespoons HP sauce
• 1 tablespoon A1 sauce
• 1 tablespoon Frank's Red Hot sauce
• cheddar cheese

Cooking time: 35 minutes

Set list:
Prince - Purple Rain, Raspberry Beret
Ravage - Grapes of Wrath...hell, play all of The End of Tomorrow

I'm dogsitting for a friend this week, and she's got some excellent fresh local produce access, the spoils of which included these odd, tiny, purple potatoes. Apparently they're from Peru (thanks, google!), and are the ancestors of modern potatoes (thanks, Beth!). They're also pretty good, barely distinguishable in taste from their fatter Idahoan (Idahonian? San DiegON?) descendants. When you use them to make mashed potatoes, the result looks oddly like Raspberry sherbert. Sherbet? Screw that, I'm an American man, I say sherbert.

First off, make mashed potatoes. This is where your Prince comes in...you need to FEEL the purple. Peel the potatoes (this is a huge asspain with these little jerks...I did ten and as you'll see, it wasn't enough, so definitely go for more if you're in doubt), and throw them in some boiling water. Look at those weird potatoes! They're so good, but they're overlooked outcasts, just like Prince! And they're tiny just like him! And Clarence Williams III is their father! Yes, Cuban B! Ahem. Once tender (about 10-15 minutes), drain most of the water, add the butter, milk, and a bit of salt, and mash away. Peel and your carrots and throw them in some water to boil while you're working on the next step.

Throw on some Ravage and get ready to filthy yourself with dead animal fun. Take your ground beef and throw it in a large bowl. Throw the onions, oregano, parsley, peppers, and salt on top. (I sometimes throw in some chives if I'm feeling randy.) Using your hands, thoroughly mix it all together so that the stuff you've added to the beef is pretty uniformly spread. Ignore Al Ravage's poor vocals and focus on his brother's sick, sick guitar work. In a large frying pan, flatten out the beef mixture until the pan is covered, flattening out the meat as best as you can.



Heat on medium high for about 5-7 minutes until there's bubbling on the edges, which should mean that the bottom of the beefy pancake has been cooked. Using a spatula, cut the beefcake into four equal size slices, and flip each one over.



Seriously, listen to Ravage. They're a really good band.

Once both sides are cooked through, stack the 'slices' on top of each other, use the spatula to hold them firmly against the pan, bring it all over the sink and drain off any fat. Return it to the heat and use the spatula to cut up the beef into little cubes. Raise the heat a little to brown the beef to your liking, then add all the sauces. Chop up your cooked carrots and throw them in the pan with the peas, and let them all cook for a few minutes, stirring occasionally.



Next, spoon the mixture into a baking pan, and spread it out along the bottom. Take your mashed potatoes and gently layer it on top with a spoon. If you're having trouble, try to imagine it's 1989...that makes Ravage easier to take seriously. A good move with the mashed potatoes, though, is to start at the edges like you would with a puzzle, making a sort of border, and then carefully filling in the middle. I, of course, screwed up and didn't make enough, so mine ended up looking a little lame. Using the underside of your fork, gently make little trenches - this makes it so the potatoes will crisp nicely.



Finally, throw it in the oven, set it to broil, and scorch the hell out of it for about 5-10 minutes. Ovens vary, so be sure to constantly check on it every minute or so - a burnt pie is no fun. One the potato ridges have browned nicely, remove and let cool. Shred some cheddar cheese over the pie (I didn't have any this time because I am a fool...a DAMN FOOL).



Mine obviously looks weird because I didn't have enough potatoes, and the uncovered mixture burnt a little, but i have many varying excuses! I was using different weird potatoes in a foreign kitchen! I was laughing too hard during 'In Shattered Dreams' when you know Al Ravage wanted to deliver a triumphant wail, but barely mustered a tepid "WHOA oh whoa YEAH oh!" instead!

Buffalo Buffalo Cheeseburger

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground buffalo
• 4 tablespoons chopped onion
• 1 teaspoon parsley
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup bread crumbs
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 4 tablespoons Frank's Red Hot sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Cooking time: 30 minutes

Set List:
Snapcase - Caboose (...I never knew they were from Buffalo!)

I'm not sure where the idea for this came from, but I think it was in part a dream I had, and probably some of the feedback I've gotten about the sort of 'food' I've been spotlighting here. I realize that I've never really put out much of a mission statement in terms of what foods I share, and why - basically I'll just put up staples that I like to cook often, like stew and brisket, and things that I want to try because it seems a bit crazy, like Buffalo poutine and today's recipe. Will my experimenting pay off, like Queensryche's Operation: Mindcrime? Or will the gamble fail, like pretty much anything they did after Empire? Will this burger come out so badly as to make me go back to my roots and just cook the musical equivalent of Operation: Mindcrime 2 all the time? Should music even HAVE sequels?!?

For the record, I love Buffalo ANYTHING. That guy Frank, with the sauce? He does sick work. So it occurred to me that I could batter and fry a Buffalo burger and bathe it in sauce. Would it be good? Probably not, but I had an idea take hold and refuse to let go. Of course, if it works, I'll be putting everything in Buffalo sauce - sushi, ice cream, spinach...

NOTE - Like the Buffalo poutine recipe, this is one dish where a deep fryer would come in really handy. Fortunately for my heart and arteries, I still can't bring myself to buy one (otherwise I'd do stupid experiments like this all the damn time), but unfortunately for my counter top, I still wanted to make this, so it can get a little messy.



Chop your onion up as finely as you can, and in a large bowl, mix it and some parsley in with your Buffalo meat. Divide the meat in half, ball up each one, and roll into patties. Whisk an egg in a bowl, then combine the flour and bread crumbs in a ziploc (I was lazy and used a paper plate this time). Coat the burgers in egg, and then the flour/bread crumb mix. In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat for about 3-4 minutes, then carefully place the burgers in and raise the heat a little more.

I was very paranoid about frying hamburgers like this, because I like my burgers to be well cooked, and since these were big patties cooking on the stove and not a fryer, I was extra careful to make sure they cooked through. To that end, let the burgers cook for 4-5 minutes on each side, carefully flip them, and repeat. I FACE MY FEAR, BURGERS! Mmm...fearburgers. I let each side cook four times for 4-5 minutes a shot, because again, super paranoid. Remove the burgers from heat and let them sit on some paper towels for a minute or two.

In a small frying pan, heat the butter until it melts, mix in the hot sauce and garlic powder, then coat the burgers.

This came out INSANE! I was really apprehensive about how tasty this would be, and I was completely blown away. The sauce complimented the meat perfectly, it was cooked through just the way I like it, and little touches like the cheddar (I don't like bleu cheese), toasted bun, fresh fries, HP sauce and pickle just wrapped the whole experience up nicely. I can't see myself making this a staple, but I know that once or twice a year I'll cave in and whip another one up - it's a great variation on the burger theme if you want something a little different, like Dio-era Sabbath, or watching the original Degrassi High without pants.

The Great Southern Bloody Brisket Trendkill

Ingredients:

• 3-4 pound beef brisket
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 3 tablespoons oil
  
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 1 tablespoon parsley
  
• 1 tablespoon oregano
• 2 cups beef broth
• 1 cup chili sauce
• 1 cup HP sauce
• 1 cup brown sugar

Cooking time:
Prep - 20 minutes
Cooking - 10 hours
Resting/reheating - 3-10 hours

Set list:
Pantera - Floods

Slow cooker time! I adore my crock pot. Not a week goes by where I don't use it, usually to whip up some fresh chili. I just let it cook while I go out and pursue my active lifestyle, and have five quarts of chili ready to chug down after a long, hot summer's day.

This brisket, however, is complicated in theory, but simple in practice. You might look at the cooking times listed and think to yourself "This man is CRAZY. I'm FAR TOO ACTIVE to make this recipe work! Let's get him! Into to the slave pit!" First off, you need to calm. Down. Secondly, making this brisket requires about a half hour of your time, total. The rest is just cooking and resting.

It's a very sweet recipe, and one that my mother adores, because if you omit the cayenne and black peppers, it has absolutely no kick to it in the slightest. Old people love that! Mom finds challenging things to be difficult. I've adapted this recipe from two others I've seen so that it produces a tangier sauce (thanks, HP!), and much more of it. I tend to serve this with mashed potatoes and use the sauce on them, but I've also replaced the potatoes with egg noodles - both come out great!

First, chop up the garlic and onions. Then heat your oil in a frying pan for about a minute on medium low. Add the garlic and onions and heat until you see tiny bubbles form around them. Stir then every few minutes, for about 10-15 minutes total, until they're nice and soft and cooked. While this is happening, get a big mixing bowl and combine the broth, HP sauce, chili sauce, and brown sugar. Stir the whole gross mix well - don't worry if the sugar doesn't combine well at first, it might need to sit for a minute or three first.

Add your remaining spices to the onion garlic mixture in the pan. Stir it all in well. I try to use fresh ingredients whenever I can, especially parsley, but if you don't have any, it's fine. I would say, though, a great tip is to grind dried herbs like oregano and parsley in your hands, over the pan - it makes a subtle difference in unlocking some of the flavor.

Set your slow cooker to low and place your brisket on the bottom. Don't worry if it seems a bit on the fatty side - we'll handle that bastard later. Cover the brisket with the pan contents in a nice layer. Take your gross sauce mix and gently pour it on top of the onion/garlic layer, taking care to not knock the layer off the brisket. Then cover.

Take a small speaker combo and keep it by the slow cooker. Play Pantera - Floods at a low volume on repeat, low enough that you only hear it when you're within a few feet of the cooker. This slow Texas groove will now stand guard over the pot, and help remind you to not open the cooker for any reason over the next ten hours - you have to let Dimebag rest in peace. If you do all this before you go to bed at night, you'll be ready for the next, quite simple stage in the morning.

Ten hours later, your house should smell amazing, and the brisket will be cooked. Using a spatula and wooden spoon, carefully remove the brisket from the cooker, leaving the remaining sauce. It should be so juicy, so artfully cooked that you could pull it apart with a fork. I love you, crock pot! MY LIFE FOR YOU!

Place the brisket on a cutting board and use a spoon or knife to gently scrape off, along the grain of the meat, any fat that you may had noticed earlier. Place the brisket in an oven safe dish, add the sauce, and cover. Place it in the refrigerator for several hours - if you put it in before work, you'll be set for when you get home, though that probably depends on your occupation. Who even knows what sort of hours a chimney sweep works these days. What have they ever done for US? Not jack shit, probably.

An hour or so before you want to serve, preheat your oven for 350 degrees. Take the dish out of the fridge and spoon out any fat that has pooled around the edges. Place the brisket back on the cutting board and cut it to your liking - one inch slices work for me. Whisk the remaining sauce, place the brisket slices back in the dish, and heat for about a half hour, until the edges are boiling. Remove and serve!



We did it!

Disco Stew

Ingredients:

• 4 potatoes
• 2 lbs. carrots
• 1 small onion
• 1 lb. stew beef
• 1 teaspoon oil
• 15 oz. corn
• 15 oz. peas
• 15 oz. string beans
• 20 oz. tomato paste (approx.)
• 4 tablespoons A1 sauce
• 4 tablespoons HP sauce
• 8 tablespoons Lee and Perrins Worchestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon Frank's Red Hot
• 1/2 bottle Guinness extra stout
• 1 teaspoon parsley
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 dash red pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2-3 dashes savory

Cooking time:
Prep - 45 minutes
Cooking - 3+ hours

Set List:

• Anthrax - Spreading the Disease
• Tool - Aenima (optional)
  
• Mastodon - Remission (optional)
  

THIS IS THE BIG ONE. If you've ever been to a Hockey Day in Canada celebration with me in the past decade, then you know - this...is the GOOD shit.

One winter in the mid-90s, my mom decided to actually cook something from scratch. This was a huge deal in our apartment, because she was a horrible cook. She would make 'sloppy joe', and it would just be beef and a can of tomato sauce. So among the many memories I have of that winter of 1995 - epic cold/snow, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, watching too much NewsRadio - rests the taste of that bitter, awful stew she made for us. I'm sure it somewhat resembled the stew my grandmother brought over from Ireland, maybe in appearance, but wow. Not good. Beef, tomato paste, carrots, potatoes, water. MAYBE a little salt. Over the years, I started taking a stab at the stew, adding ingredients and experimenting, and, as I started to learn to cook for myself, common sense. It's better now. That bad man's* gone now.
*Stew can be a bad, bad man. Don't argue with me.

Start by finding a cassette copy of Anthrax's 1985 breakout thrash classic, Spreading the Disease. Blast it. Finely chop an onion to Charlie Benante's sick, sick drumming - welcome to your nightmare, onion! Hopefully by the breakdown (which you are compelled to shout back at) you should be ready to sort out the meat situation. I find that the stew beef I get from the butcher or supermarket tends to be a bit too large, so I suggest you chop it down to one inch cubes or so, slicing off excess fat as you go.

Get out your biggest sauce pot, preferably one with a thick bottom (snicker), throw some oil in, heat on low, and add the onion. When you see little bubbles appear around the onion bits, increase the heat and add the meat. You're looking to brown the meat here without burning the onion, so be sure to keep an eye on it, stirring occasionally, while you tend to the veggies.



(Of course, I was too lazy to heed my own advice, and not only used a frying pan, but also simply left the giant chunks of beef as they were...It's just a matter of preference. I've had stews where the cook decided to simply quarter or even just halve the potato, so the chunk proportions are all up to you.)

While the beef's doing its thing, peel and chop up your potatoes and carrots. Fun!



You should get some bubbling from the onion/meat combo, but once that subsides and you're left with browned beef like above, you'll want to crank the heat up high, and really brown the sides of the beef, like in the bottommost chunk in the picture. Once that's done, throw enough water in your pot to cover the beef/onion mixture, then stir it up well with a wooden spoon, making sure to thoroughly scrape the bottom of the pot so nothing sticks. Add the potatoes and carrots and bring it all to a boil. Add the peas, string beans, and corn as well. If you're using canned goods, make sure to drain them first. Add the parsley, oregano, savory, salt, and peppers. It should look something like this:



At this point you'll probably have hit track five, The Enemy. This is not a good song. Every great album has that one song that almost ruins the party, and this one is it. If your hands aren't too dirty, definitely skip it. Anthrax has since done much better songs about the evils of Nazi Germany, and the first track on Side 2, Aftershock, wails. IT. WAILS.

Once the stew is boiling, turn the heat down low, and add your liquid ingredients - A1, HP (maybe the best sauce ever), Guinness (drink half of it first), Frank's Red Hot, and the Lee and Perrins. That last one is crucial - the flavor of the stew is really enhanced by the Worchestershire sauce. I find that if the stew's ever a little off, some tweaking with the Lee and Perrins will fix things. Also, make sure to stir every few minutes from here on out to keep anything from sticking to the bottom and burning.

Next, add the tomato paste. The rest of this adventure hinges on how thick you want your stew. The thicker the stew, the more tomato paste you add. If the whole thing gets too watery for you, then don't panic, because it will just cook down into a thicker mix eventually, especially since you want this to cook for hours. If it's too watery, simply let it cook without a lid and you'll be okay.

If the stew is at your preferred consistency, cover, reduce heat, and let it simmer. Ideally, you want to leave it like this for at least three hours, but you can have at it once the vegetables are tender if you're in a hurry for some odd reason. Maybe that's Anthrax's fault! They did get you worked up, I know. Now would be a good time to switch to something heavy but slower, like Tool, or Mastodon if it's snowing.

When you're ready to serve, slice up some Italian bread, dole the stew out to bowls, and enjoy. Sometimes I'll put some in a thermos so I can spray some in my face while bike riding, it really gets the blood pumping. You could also just carve out the end of the bread and pour the stew in there like a badass medieval warrior, but then you better have a lot of Blind Guardian on your iPod.

Buffalo Chicken Disco Fries

Ingredients:

• 2 potatoes
• 1 chicken breast
• 2 tablespoons butter (1 for the gravy, 1 for the buffalo sauce)
• 1 cup - 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
• 1 cup Frank's Red Hot sauce
• 1 cup beef broth
• 1/2 cup -1 cup bread crumbs
• 1 teaspoon flour (for the chicken)
• 1 tablespoon flour (for the gravy)
• 1 tablespoon dried parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• salt and pepper to taste

Cooking time:
40 minutes

Set List:

• Goo Goo Dolls - A Boy Named Goo (Buffalo)
• Chromeo - She's In Control (Montreal)

This dish is quite possibly the worst thing a person can eat. Stuff like this is why I can't bring myself to purchase a deep fryer - in the few months my friend left his at my house, I found myself spiraling deeper and deeper down a dark greasy road. Where did that road lead? Let's just say it involved chicken, bacon, hot sauce, and an abandonment of all hope. I was glad to see that device returned to its rightful owner - never before had I proved myself so unworthy of anything.

These fries, while not as horrible for you as those bacony fireballs I made with the deep fryer, are still not going to do your arteries any favors. But this is delicious food, so if your arteries ever step out of line, smack them in their stupid life-channeling faces with some fries.

In a large non stick frying pan, pour in a layer of oil about 1/2 inch thick, and heat it on a medium low setting. Peel the potatoes and cut them into fry-like shapes, which you may recognize from fast food joints, diners, or the lining of John Candy's casket. I like them thinner for this, but whatever, it's your life. By the time you've got your potatoes cut up, the oil should be heated enough, so just dump them all in - try to make an even layer of it all. Of course, you can use the aforementioned deep fryer, and all of this will come out better and in less time, but that's a path towards the dark side. First it's fish and chips, then one day you find yourself at the petting zoo trying to figure out if you could fit Baah-ba O'Riley into your fryer. You fucked up!

Next, take your chicken breast and dice it up into little half inch chunks. Get a Ziploc bag and mix up the bread crumbs, flour, and parsley. Whisk an egg in a bowl, coat the chicken in it, then throw the chicken in the bag. Make sure all the chicken gets a nice coat on it.

At this point, you should check on the fries, stir them up, break them apart if they're sticking, flip them over if one side's getting brown. You = Kasparov; keep those bitches in CHECK.

While waiting for the fries to fully brown, you should get started on the gravy. In a small nonstick frying pan, throw in a tablespoon of flour, and put it on a high heat. This step demands your attention - I like to get the flour itself a little brown before adding the butter, as it gives the gravy a slightly smoky taste, but you have to be really careful and make sure that it doesn't burn. This is why I use a nonstick pan instead of a pot - I keep stirring the flour to make sure it doesn't burn to the pan in one spot. Once the flour's slightly brown, add a tablespoon of butter, and mix it all in until you get a good roux. Immediately after this is done, stir in the beef broth. If yours is a little thick, add some water and let it cook down to a consistency you're comfortable with.

By now the fries should be done, so remove them (I use a metal spatula) to a plate with some paper towels, and season with salt and pepper. Next, add the chicken to the frying pan. Same rules as the fries - keep them in check while you prepare the Buffalo sauce.

In a small pot on a low heat, melt down the butter. Then stir in the Frank's Red Hot, garlic powder, and a little black pepper to taste. Add the chicken once it's fully browned on all sides, and stir it up good. It's probably not a good idea to breathe any of this stuff in, unless you have some serious sinus problems.

Put the fries on a plate, add the gravy, add the chicken, and you're done. You could also get some coffee cups and serve it in those if you're having a party, or want to take them jogging. I make this murderous treat fit into my active lifestyle.

NOTE - I originally wanted to make Buffalo Chicken Poutine, but I didn't have any cheese, and besides, I'd rather try that the next time I get my hands on some authentic Wisconsin cheddar curds. You, however, should totally throw your favorite cheese in the mix, as it's awesome - just throw it in between the gravy and chicken when you're stacking it all up, let it melt a little, and you're set.