13 posts tagged “cheese”
Diced green chilis, sliced black olives, minced garlic, and sharp cheddar cheese packed inside the burger patty.
I've heard it called an Inside-Out Burger.
To assemble, divide each portion of hamburger into a larger piece (5/8) and smaller piece (3/8).
Form the large piece into a bowl shape with a lip around the edge.
Fill with anything you find yummy on a burger, then seal the lid of the package with the smaller burger portion.
Place on hot grill until desired color. I went about 10 minutes on thick side and 5 minutes on thinner lid side.
Remove from heat and let rest for 3-4 minutes.
Slide it between a bun and enjoy.
Yesterday for lunch, the kids and I shared a Brie cheese wheel, sliced up on crackers, accompanied by apple slices.
Their milk, in crystal goblets.
Very continental.
Today, we had fried chicken.
Their milk cuppies snug in their NASCAR cozies.
Today was soundtracked for me by Mark Lanegan's "Whiskey for the Holy Ghost".
The wife gets back in from a D.C. business trip in a few hours.
One hour after that, the sitter will be here and we'll be off to a wine group Meetup.
In addition to vino, the wife had a recommendation for Peachy Canyon Paso robles Zinfadel which we'll look for, I'll be taking a tray of feta/beef rolls.
Since I'm all about the easy groove, I picked up a tube of pre-made croissant dough, a package of feta, and a small pouch of dried beef thinly sliced.
Roll out the dough triangles in pairs so that they form rectangles (one triangle inverted to the other).
Fill the long axis center line with crumbled feta, followed by bits of crumbled dried beef.
Roll up the dough into a long cigar shape.
A quick trip in the oven at 350 F for 12-20 minutes (depending on the instructions for your particular brand of refrigerated tube o' croissants) and Bob's your uncle. (no, really, he is.)
Then cut the rolls into app-size length bites (1/4" to 1/2") and pin them with a toothpick to aid the structural integrity (and to make them look like cute li'l bone fide apps.)
"We got apps!"
-Beautiful Girls
Last night I got down with Tilapia fillets.
The wife was headed out of town for a few days, so I wanted a good send-off dinner.
First step, thaw frozen Tilapia (purchased in a bulk bag but in individual packets.)
Preheat oven to 425 F.
Dredge fillets in a mix of seasoned bread crumbs (I used crushed bits of unused Thanksgiving stuffing mix), and grated Parmesan cheese until well coated.
Sprinkle dried cayenne powder, black pepper, rosemary, and Italian seasonings on top of each.
Bake for twelve minutes on a buttered, foil-lined cookie sheet.
Remove and drizzle lime juice on fillets before serving.
The coating, aside from adding flavor, will protect the fillets from scorching or drying out, keeping them moist and steamy.
I leaned just a tad heavy on the cayenne, hence the moniker, "Fire Fish" for this dish.
Thanksgiving this year was a country smoked ham.
Soaked that bad pig in water for two days, changing it out every 6 hours or so, before oven roasting.
Fantastic flavor but we could have done better with presentation had we obtained a mandolin slicer to shave it extra thin.
The sides were yummy and the biggest hit was the day after, sour-cream-chicken-enchiladas.
Friends flew in from out of town and stayed for a week.
Plans were made for next years event. We're consolidating around a consensus for somewhere on the "redneck-Riviera", possibly a beach-house rental in Alabama. Tentatively referred to as the Alabama-Slamma' Thanksgiving bash. The concept of Thanksgiving for friends and Christmas for family is beginning to catch on in the circle and our numbers grow each year.
Did a bit of shopping with the wife and kids.
Staples for us.
Diapers, wipes, Drano, frozen pizza, tacos, block cheese, and soft baked pretzels.
Since we have the two kids, it's just easier to have two carts to wheel them around in.
At checkout, there was, as is my luck, only one lane open and it was backed up with the folks who only go shopping once a month and overflow their carts.
So, I perk up when the post adolescent scrub (with a name tag of "Billy") who had been singing "White Wedding" to himself opens up the express checkout lane and calls out that he can help me.
Sure, we had more than 10 items, but he offered, right?
Sure, I can assume that he has assumed that the wife and I are each managing our own shopping expedition and aren't together.
He thinks he's got two shoppers, each with a cart of around 10 items.
Am I an asshole for not correcting his misplaced assumptions.
I consider this for a nanosecond and push the cart into the express lane and unload.
The wife follows and does the same.
Which is about the time he gets suspicious that we might actually be together.
"Wow, sure loading up the express there aren't we?" He passive-aggressively asks as he continues to scan items for which he is woefully ill-equipped to stack up. See, this being the express lane of 10 items or less, they saved a few pennies by not building a full counter past the cash register to bag items.
So I smile vacantly in my not so passable spaced out Paris Hilton impersonation as he assembles the leaning tower of pizza, tacos, and Huggies.
While inside my head I'm posing the question to myself; what the hell else would he be doing?
What is it exactly that I'm keeping you from getting to? The bridge? The chorus?
And isn't it a more efficient to the express checkout to scan all the items and deal with one total and payment instead of two transactions, as was his assumption that the wife's cart and mine were not a unit?
So, this was actually faster. Didn't slow down the non-existent flow one bit. I knew it was wrong.
But inside, I felt happily dirty, because I knew and he knew that I had broken the express checkout law.
It's a nice day to start again.
From the long lost pilot-episode of my life:
(Still shopping it around for a network)
Sub-Dude
The car, here, is out of place
Bicycles far more the pace.
Fried potato starch stains
We'd trade the use of Daniel's lion pack
For one flat wooden toothpick seat
Button-fly or zipper today?
We're shod with iron horshoes firm
To evict their cuckoos from his nest.
Light Emitting Diodes, all systems green on zeppelin.
A pizza in my pocket, nuked
The dog was hot and bunned
Frozen fruit hookah pipe-sicle treat
The burger's cow hammed the town
This cheese, it is not yours dear nun.
Pale cow, the rider is hooded
I sat all day and nigh fortnight
Before we came upon ourselves again
Hang-nail, torn, bleeding, quick
You were there and so was I
The future played us fair
A ring repaired, but not the One Ring.
Three sets to one we were not done
So in the car you rode uphill
Mmm, Buffalo-style onion rings, crispy
Duh dizzy bunny hopped limply
Fried out from the sun
Sister fingers, sister hand, close crate door again
But your car there was out of place
so pinched me I did do
Thought in head and key in lock
In a crowd that stank with sweat
On the bus did bounce.
Expunged, expelled, the sponge that failed
And bunny, she hobbled a corner round
There under wheels was flattened.
Well, wet my nose and wag my tail
Bicycles far more the pace.
I propose a new named sandwich.
The "Neutered Groove"
Apologies if this list of arranged ingredients already exists under another sandwich moniker.
It's not that I will desist, mind you.
I just want to be clear that it has now been dispossessed of its ingredients and will need to find new ones should it wish to go forward as a named sandwich, or risk being de-listed from the sandwich board exchange.
A "Neutered Groove" consists of:
Two slices of bread, any bread, I usually go wholewheat.
Onions slices and tomato slices, one or two of each.
A spring mix of various salad leafy greens and reds.
Two slices of pepper jack cheese, otherwise known as Monterey Jack with Jalapeno bits incorporated.
Seven deli-thin slices of hickory smoked ham.
Two slices of hard salami.
Point zero eight ounce, approximately, crushed ripe black olives.
One squirt ketchup.
One squirt mustard.
One shot glass.
One bottle of tequila.
One bottle of vodka.
4 albums of music:
A) Gas Huffer - "One Inch Masters"
B) Claw Hammer - "Thank The Holder Uppers"
C) Mercury Rev - "Boces"
D) Col. Bruce Hampton & The Aquarium Rescue Unit - "Self-titled"
Assembly instructions required to qualify as an official "Neutered Groove":
Begin playing the music in the order listed from albums A - D.
Do not shuffle.
Play straight through.
Drizzle the bread with Jose Quervo Black Medallion Tequila.
Butter one side liberally and place in a pan on medium heat (butter-side down.)
Place the one of the two cheese slices on top of the bread.
Simmer the onion/tomato slices in vodka until soft.
Add one of the two slices of hard salami on top of the cheese and bread.
Add all seven deli slices of ham on top of the salami, cheese, and bread.
Add squirt of mustard on ham, salami, cheese, and bread.
Add the leafy greens on top of the mustard, ham, salami, cheese, and bread.
Add the onions/tomato on top of the leafy greeens, mustard, ham, salami, cheese, and bread.
Add the second slice of hard salami on top of the onion/tomato, leafy greens, mustard, ham, other salami, cheese and bread.
Add squirt of ketchup on second slice of hard salami, onion/tomato, leafy greens, mustard, ham, other salami, cheese, and bread.
Add the second slice of cheese on top of the ketchup, second salami, onion/tomato, leafy greens, mustard, ham, other salami, other cheese, and bread.
Add the crushed olives on the second cheese slice, ketchup, second salami, onion/tomato, leafy greens, mustard, ham, other salami, other cheese, and bread.
Add second slice of tequila drizzled bread on second slice of cheese, ketchup, second salami, onion/tomato slices, leafy greens, mustard, ham, other salami, other cheese slice, and bread.
Compress the stack with a large spatula flipper, butter the top slice of bread, and flip the arrangement, ass over tea kettle.
Now, and this bit is truely make or break, do exactly three shots of vodka, and three shots of tequila.
By the time you're done, the bottom side of the sandwich will be golden buttery brown and you'll be in a state fully capable of appreciating this culinary delinquent.
Now, sit in a comfy chair, turn down the lights, eat the sandwich, and let what remains of the play list finish out.
Your groove will be neutered.
First the recipe, then the back-story.
Begin with boxed mac and cheese.
Prepare according to the directions on the box.
Don't worry that's just the shortcut, the magic in the recipe happens next, although it is equally sneaky/lazy.
Once the mix is hot and saucy in the pan,
add one handful of pre-shredded sharp cheddar cheese.
Add a handful of pre-shredded Colby Jack cheese.
Add a handful of pre-shredded Mozzarella cheese.
Stir the additional cheese into the mix until it is melted and incorporated.
Spoon the mac and cheese out onto serving plates, and dust with a handful of seasoned breadcrumbs to give the illusion of a crust (mine come in a carton from the store.)
It's still so easy that a fifth-grader could do it, but it's oh so more gourmet than the box mix by itself.
Now, for the inspirational back-story.
My wife's parents bought a birthday present for our recently one-year-old daughter on Amazon.
They also bought themselves a book travel guide covering the sights to see in Hawaii for their upcoming trip.
Their order was enough for free shipping, IF they sent both items to one address, OURS.
This was followed by a request to then mail their book back to them after we received the present.
Nice.
They get free shipping on their book.
And we get to pay to mail it back to them.
So, I admit, I dawdled a bit in making the trip to stand in line at the post office, this being tax-return mailing line from hell season there.
However, since their trip is in a week, we began getting pressure to get their travel guide back to them post-haste.
So, I trek down and stand in an absolutely awful line and send the thing back to them.
Priority was only a few cents more than the book rate, so I went for it, to make sure it got to them before their trip.
Which leads to today, when the In-Laws received the book and noticed how much the postage cost.
We get an email telling us that really, that was unnecessary and that we should have used book-rate instead of priority and to keep that in mind for next time.
NEXT TIME?
Sneaky and cheesy.
They get free shipping, that we have to stand in line and pay for, and then they scold us for how much we spent of our own money to send them their free book in time for their vacation.
Which is where the breadcrumbs come in.
I'm feeling fairly crusty at the moment myself.
Sonic Youth's "dirty" effort
coupled with
Not the year.
The hooch.
Ridgemont Reserve Small Batch Barrel Select Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey.
Aged 8 years to 93.7 Proof, or 46.85% alc/vol.
A perfect pairing before bed on the night before the wife comes home from the latest all-week business trip.
I didn't even mope at all this time, except for, like, those 30 or so times.
And the kids, the girls, are getting sophisticated.
Eldest, upon my asking if she would like a hot dog for dinner says, "well, I still have three slices of cheese left, and when I finish them I'll be full, so no thank you."
She's three at the end of the month.
