Slough Roast

TopThisPlace.com & a status update

2011-10-13T09:17:00.000-07:00

I'm writing for TopThisPlace.com now. It's mainly restaurant reviews and it's been a great opportunity so far to make a bit of cash for doing things that I like. That's stuff like traveling, eating, and taking photographs...oh, and getting paid; I like getting paid.

You can check out my reviews over there. Of course, all my requests for reviews don't get approved so if I request an OK to review a place that I think is pretty special and it gets denied, I'll probably review it on my own dime and put it up here.

I haven't been doing a terrible amount of cooking now, but I have started beer production back up. Right now me and friend Wes have a Pumpkin Ale in the secondary and cream air that's on it's sixth day of fermentation. I'm going to pick up another fermentation bucket and hopefully another keg this weekend along with getting a CO2 refill and we should be ready for the kegging part and have enough supplies to make a 3rd batch. I also have a sanke keg I need to pick up to make a brew kettle out of. The only thing missing after that is a mash tun. With all of those supplies, we'll be doing larger batches of all grain. 15 gallons at a time? No problem.

Pork belly, the Momofuku way

2011-07-21T07:10:00.000-07:00

So I got some hankerin' for raw bacon and decide the next best thing and most sanitary way I could accomplish this was with pork belly. Now when people hear the words pork and belly together they get this strange almost disgusted look on their face. What they don't realize is that this wonderfully flavored and somewhat cheap cut of meat is pre-bacon. That's bacon before it became bacon. And if you haven't heard enough bacon about bacon I'm going to bacon your bacon and put some bacon on your bacon.

OK, I'm bacon.

I swear.

So thanks to the good butchers at J&D meats that's located in the Pennsylvania Dutch Market in Hagerstown, MD, I was able to request an order for a whole pork side. That's over 9 glorious pounds of tasty pig.

So shortly after procuring the pork, I had a recipe I desperately wanted to try. It's the Momofuku* way of roasting a pork belly that they use in their buns and just about every recipe that calls for it. The recipe is very simple; it calls for a half and half mixture of salt and sugar as a rub then to let the belly rest for about 6 hours in a fridge before cooking with high heat for about and hour and then finishing on low heat for about an hour.

There's two things I have to caution with this recipe though, if you don't let the belly cool and rest after cooking and before using it, it may be too salty for some. That, and your oven temperatures will probably vary from others. I had my oven set at 450 like the recipe directed and had to turn it down to about 400 20 minutes in as the sugar in the coating was starting to give off a burning smell. It had no effect on the flavor.

After the 2 hours of cooking I removed the belly and let it rest to cool towards room temperature before covering it and putting it in the fridge. The End. Pause. Not. This is just the beginning of something new I discovered and although I only used 1/3 of the belly and have 6 more pounds of super meat to fix, I probably won't be using the Momofuku recipe with them. However, I will be fixing it again in the future and this is why, I have found a combination of Momofuku style pork belly and another common breakfast ingredient that is so utterly delicious that it will make you want to throw up the entire contents of your stomach and that is no exaggeration.

So, what is this wonderful combination? Momofuku pork belly and eggs. I love eggs. In fact, I generally only eat them about 7 different ways: fried, poached, scrambled, in an omelet, hard boiled, soft boiled, or even raw depending on the type of egg. Generally though, breakfast eggs consist of fried eggs fixed in a cast iron skillet (arn for you fellow West Virginia fellers). So the other morning I decided to slice up two pieces of pork belly that were just over a 1/4 inch thick. I plopped them down into the skillet and let it each since anyone that calls themselves a cook should know that pork belly contains fat, fat seasons cast iron, and seasoned cast irons don't stick. So after I rewarmed the belly slices, I removed them from the skillet and and tossed in two eggs to make fried eggs. It's the usual style, salt & pepper, a bit o' time on one side and a bit less time on the other so that the yolks are nice and runny. After they were done I plated everything up and had breakfast.

After sitting, the pork belly lost the really salty flavor and had a nice reach creamy taste and the sugar mixed into the rub gave it a bit of a nice rich sweetness. Umami is about the only way to describe it. Pure motha' lickin' Umami. And then I moved onto the egg. Some people may find my way of eating a fried egg a bit weird. What I do is use a fork to remove the white from around the yolk and eat that. Frying the egg in the pork belly fat gave it a rich sweet flavor on top of the egg taste. After removing the white and eating that, I carefully slide a fork under the yolk until the entire weight is evenly supported and the entire thing is precariously balanced on the tines before shoving it into my pie hole.

BOOM! Mother fucking explosion! My head was in a million little pieces plastering the walls, ceiling, table, dog, and everything else that happened to be standing nearby. It was a literal flavor explosion. It was like taking every little ounce of savoriness (if it's not a word, it is now!) that you've ever experienced in your life, every little bit that you will ever experience in the rest of your life and shoving it into one bite of food. My mouth twisted up and I swear a tear even fell. It was so much that I could barely withstand the barrage of the second egg. As I lay sprawled out on the ground in the aftermath, I contemplate if there was even a reason to continue living. Why should I get up and dress for work when the rest of my like would be a pale shadows of what I just experienced. I felt like I couldn't go on. Ever. Again.

But then I realized that I would possibly be late if I didn't get moving, so I stood up, wiped myself off and started getting ready for the rest of my taste deprived life.

*Momofuku - What's a Momofuku? It's Japanese for lucky peach and it's a collection of several restaurants started and owned by David Chang. I picked up the wonderful Momofuku book which is a book of more than just recipes, it the story of how David Change created the Noodle Bar and then the rest of the restaurants of Momofuku. The thing I really like about the included recipes is that one recipe can end up having 5 different recipes. What I mean by this is that the basic ramen recipe says that you need these ingredients. In the following pages, if those ingredients aren't just simple add ins like salt or pepper, it describes how to make the ingredients for the main recipe, like the pork shoulder, the noodles, the broth, and everything else that require preparation. It's pretty in depth and has some really amazing foods in it. I'd recommend picking it up to anyone that enjoys Asian American food and/or ramen.

And hopefully I'll be driving all the way up to New York to visit Momofuku Ko and the Noodle Bar in October. Unfortunately, they have a no photography policy from what I remember reading on their site, but it would really be awesome if I could go a review for TopThisPlace.com what I was there.

Southwestern Chipotle Chicken Corn Chowdah

2010-11-03T10:53:00.000-07:00

Ingredients:
8 cups chicken stock
2 cups milk
3 tbsp flour
8 pieces of bacon
2 red onions
3 stalks of celery
1 large can of corn
2 regular sized cans of cream of corn
6 red potatoes
2 red peppers
2-3 chicken breast
Pack of chipotle peppers (about 6)
About ½ cup fresh minced cilantro
Salt
Pepper
Cumen
Paprika
4 bay leaves
Cayenne pepper

In large pan, fry bacon until crisp
Remove bacon and set aside for garnish (or eat. It's tasty)
Add 2 chopped red onions to bacon fat and cook until soft
Reconstitute and mince chipotles
Cut up chicken into bit
Add chicken broth, chicken, celery, potatoes, red peppers, chipotles and cook til everything is done
Mince cilantro
Stir flour into milk and the add to the rest of the soup
Add spices and simmer for a little bit then serve

Pork Shoulders

2010-06-14T06:32:00.000-07:00

So Chef Butts got us two pork shoulders for this weekend. I picked them up Saturday afternoon at about 5 and started the process of cleaning and firing up the smoker. I figured these would take 12-14 hours so I ended up using the Minion Method for a long burn with steady temps.

The Minion Method consist of filling a chimney starter about 3/4 of the way full and then dumping pretty much the rest of the bag of charcoal, mixed with the variety and amount of whatever type of smoke would you choose, into the ring on a Weber Smokey Mountain smoker. I have the 22", so the 18" might not hold the rest of the entire bag. From there you light the coals in the chimney starter and when they're ready, you dump them on top of the coals in the smoker. The few coals that are lit will get the smoker up to about 250 degrees without getting it too hot and making it hard to bring the temperature down. They'll slowly light the coals underneath allowing for steady temps and a long cook time.

Now, onto the meat.

I trimmed the fat off the bottom then I did a basic dry rub on both; one with Weber's roasted garlic rub and one with McCormick's steak rub. I put the smaller one of the lower cooking rack since it has a lower temperature and then put the upper rack on and placed the larger shoulder on that. From there I let it eat...or heat you could say...(shut up, I like stupid puns.)

I only checked on it once and probably should have refilled the water pan at some point, but from starting cooking at 6:30 and closing the vents on the bottom just a little when it hit 250, I did nothing else until 8:30 the next morning. When I did check on them at about midnight the grill was still hover around 250. When I took them off in the morning with tongs, they literally fell apart on me from being so tender.

So the next morning I pulled them both apart with very little effort and created an Eastern North Carolina BBQ sauce for them.

What you need:
Apple Cider Vinegar
White Vinegar
Garlic (I used powder)
Crushed Red Pepper
Brown Sugar
Water

I'm horrible with measurements, so I used half and half cider and white vinegar then added the garlic, pepper, and brown sugar to taste. From there I cut it with just enough water to take the seriously bitter bite from the vinegar. After that, put it on a stove and bring it to a boil for about 10 minutes to get everything to meld together and then you should be good to go.

Steak Roll Up

2010-06-02T09:44:00.000-07:00

What you need:
Steak (Flank, hopefully)
Asparagus
Baby portabella mushrooms
BBQ saws (WV slang)
Provolone cheese
Garlic
Salt
Pepper
Popeye's wife

The mix is chopped asparagus, chopped baby portabellas, minced garlic, salt & pepper sauteed in some olive oil to soften it up a bit.

Usually I use flank steak sliced in half to make a long thin piece to roll up, but the local podunk grocery store didn't have any so I ended up with one of there "Flat Iron Grillers". I sliced the top 1/3 almost all the way through leaving just enough to henge open. Then from the top hinge, I sliced another 1/3 back to other way doing the same for a nice long thing sliced piece of steak.

Layered with Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ, provolone, and then the mixture and rolled it, skewered it, then cooked it to a medium rare/medium. I don't have any finished photos, but it didn't survive the onslaught of the 5 people that were in the kitchen when it came out of the oven.

Spare parts from spare ribs

2010-06-01T10:43:00.000-07:00

So Sunday night was an easy night. All the left over trimmings from the ribs went into a put with BBQ sauce and a cup of water at a time. It was simmered for about an hour or two, adding water when needed.

After it was cooked long enough, the leftovers were pulled and more BBQ sauce was added for some very tender pulled pork. So I think I lived off of those ribs for a little over a week.

More ribs

2010-05-24T10:09:00.001-07:00

So I got to test out my 22.5" WSM on Sunday and smoked 7 racks of ribs. I know I could have at least fixed 12 with the two racks on there. Unfortunately, my camera decide to transform itself from a camera into a paper weight, so I don't have any photos.

Peanut Butter Burgers

2010-05-20T10:01:00.000-07:00

Sorry, pictureless. That's ok though, they weren't very picture worthy...but man did they taste amazing.

Stuff:
2lbs 80/20 ground beef
Smooth peanut butter
Extra sharp cheddar

Optional:
Sweet Baby Ray's bbq sauce
Garlic powder
Onion powder
Chipotle pepper powder
Salt

I like adding stuff to my beef before cooking burgers. I'm guessing if you were to measure, you'd find that the two large squirts of Sweet Baby Ray's I used was equal to 6-8 Tbsp. The rest was about 1 tsp each of garlic powder, onion powder, and chipotle pepper powder. You could substitute cayenne for that. The salt was just added to taste. Stir it up, and throw it in with the 2lbs of ground beef.

Mix all that up and make patties. I like making mine extra large and thing, so when they cook, you don't end up with burger balls like at all the cookouts you've probably ever been to. 5 Guys has this cool way of taking a large iron press type device and smashing the hell out of them when they're on the grill.

So at about the 85% done phase, toss on a slice of extra sharp cheddar and top with a spoonful of peanut butter. When both start to melt to an exceptional gooey mess, toss it on a bun and each.

Warning: If you're allergic to peanuts, it may be worth dying to experience this amazing combination at least once in your life...right before you die. But I didn't tell you to try it and if you do, I'm not liable for it what so ever.

I finally did it

2010-05-17T09:47:00.000-07:00

I ordered the Weber Smokey Mountain smoker that I've been debating on for a while now. I ended up going with th 22". If I get it by this weekend, I'll have photos and a report of it in use.

The worst part about a diet...

2010-05-06T07:17:00.000-07:00

...is missing all the good food. So after riding 10-20 miles after work, I don't have much of an appetite and it would really be a waste to fix something. I guess maybe I'll pig out next week some time. Future projects planned include:

More ribs, smoked - Really can't go wrong with these.
A McGanbang - Just sounds mutha f'in delicious.
Stuffed flank steak - Sliced and used for sandwiches with a oil, vinegar, basil, etc topping.
Soup - I bought a new cook book with nothing but soups.

What happens on opposite day, stays in opposite day

2010-04-23T07:51:00.000-07:00

So on Thursday, 4/20, I was going to buy a brisket and smoke it. Unfortunately my extreme lack of unplanning had once again foiled my plans; non of the local butcher shops were open...go figure.

So instead of having a nice juicy hunk of undercooked and flavorful cow flesh, I ended up with veggies. Talk about a let down...

So on the way home from work, I picked up Chef Butts and Droo and we hit up the local Food Dog to pick up ingredients. I was thinking about grilled portabella sandwiches with stuffed peppers. I also ended up with artichokes to toss on the grill. Oh...and don't forget the mint Oreos and milk for desert.

So $35 (our Food Dog is expensive...it sucks) we were headed to the house. So I ended up fixing a batch of the SJB&BSL for Maria's before preparing the goods for the meal.

It's all pretty straight forward; remove the portabellas from the package, cut the stem and top 1/4 from the atrichokes, slice in half, remove the purple leaves, scrape out the hair, slice the peppers in 1/2, remove the stems and seeds, mix up the spicy jack cheese with oil, corn, juice from a lime, salt, pepper, thyme, ground chipotle pepper, and stuff the mixture into the peppers.

It probably be a lot more convenient if I listed it out as an actual recipe, right?

So then the cooking process is pretty easy. Charcoal on the grill, light it, and then put all the food on there. I got it going at about 350F - 400F and put the cover on it and then headed inside to watch some crappy Christian documentary on Netflix. Defintely no what we were expecting.

So after a little bit I checked on the food, and then put the lid back on and headed back inside. That's when Chef Butts shared a bit of knowledge with me. I asked him how long he though it would take to finish and he said 4 more minutes. He then told me that everything only takes 4 minutes to cook, so when some one asks how much longer it's going to be, you just have to tell them 4 more minutes.

So about 4 more, 4 more minutes later, everything was ready to go. I tooke everything off the grill and took it back upstairs to finish.

We ended up taking a loaf of ciabatta bread that we toasted and made sandwiches. They were simple, but delicious. Portabella, extra sharp cheddar, and chipotle mayo sauce finished off the internals and we got down to eating.

I think the biggest thing that added to the meal was the inital seasoning of the grill. The last thing I fixed on it were the smoked jalapenos for the SJB&BSL that I originally mentioned in this post. All the food off the grill had a slight smoky flavor to it with a bit of spice. I'll have to remember to smoke jalapenos before the next meal I'm planning on grilling.

The sad tale of the only child Kronk

2010-04-20T11:28:00.000-07:00

This is the tale (what I remember, have seen on Facebook, and have collected from friends), of my 28th Birthday on the 17th day of March.

I have finally gained the courage to revisit this foul day and hope that next year fares even better.
I woke up fairly early that morning, early enough to drive down to Winchester Motorsports in Clearbrook, VA. I did some haggling and managed to secure a motorcycle. The owner Carl asked me if I wanted to pick it up later that day; little did he know that I wouldn't have remember what a motorcycle was at that point in time. So I headed back to Shepherdstown, a little late on the schedule, to meet up with the group of people undoubtably gathering at my house.

By the time I got there, Goose, Kingsburry, and Droo were alreay in the basement. This first non-surprise of the day was Goose playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. He seems to have an unsatiable craving for that game and cannot help but get his grubby little hands all over it the moment he sets foot in the basement. I've seen hardcore herocracocaine addicts that pale in comparison to him. Moments later we got the status update from the war room, 212 and Janal were on their way back to the DMV to get 212's ID which he neglected to do the whole month prior to my birthday. Francesconi was on her way and The Tender would be waiting for us across the bridge.

So fast forward to about 1:00 (we had planned on leaving at about 11:00) and we finally left the house and were on our way, one pitstop at Sheetz and one pitstop at Bender's to pick up The Tender and we were finally headed to Hagerstown.

1:30 - Arrive at the Broadaxe, start drinking. One, maybe two carbombs and possibly two shots of turk, and maybe a beer or two.

??? - Arrive at Bennies. Drink more. Order 6 rocks glass sampler of the strongest imports on tap. At that point Droo turns around and says that I should really just chug all 6 of those down. I was one step ahead of him. He turns back around and they're gone.

??? - Barefoot Bernies. I was drinking with a friend who is an undercover migrant worker and I ended up playing to stupidest game of quarters in the world. I think the guy sitting next to me was gay. I got creeped out and went to drink more with my friends.

5:30 - The Corner Pub. I don't remember what I drank there, or anything after we left.

??? - Photo of The Tender's ass as she's climbing into some random convertible. I don't remember this.

7:30 - Wake up at the house. It was not AM like I originally thought. Got a phone call, got a shower, got dressed, got the Maker's Mark bottle that looked like a rooster and headed to Anna and Dana's.

??? - Chef Butts' abode. A little anecdote from the Chef: So I asked him if we could take a shot of Maker's and he pulled out two shot glasses. I then asked him if he had anything to chase it with and he said no. He then said I went into his fridge, retreived the milk, and poured a glass. He then happened to mention that I tipped the bottle back and chugged for a good six seconds, then chased it with tasty milke.

??? - Twon's. I asked Butts later that week if I drank anything there. I remember brief flashes but that's about it. I figured I hadn't drank anything since I was apparently already tanked. Butts happened to remark that we did nothing but take shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, for the rest of the night. Thanks Butts

I then saw a friend the next week who said he drove me home. After trying to get into the wrong house, I found the right one and then 212 said I was playing human pinball bouncing from wall to wall on my way in.

So as of now, that's my recollection of St. Patrick's Day.

Names and job titles were changed to protect the innocent.

C Bass

2010-04-20T06:50:00.000-07:00

Not much to this here post. Chef Butts brought over some sea bass filets last week. They were cooked simple enough, oil salt & pepper. The bed of edible matter underneath is sliced small red 'taters, savoy cabbage, onion, garlic, and baby portabellas.

Yep, kinda boring. It's OK though. Tonight I'm probably smoking ribs and a brisket with some kind of weird side and fixing the SJB&BSL. Be prepared...

Thai Soup: or There and Back Again

2010-03-26T10:35:00.000-07:00

So the soup of Mordor, er...yeah.

Chef Brad made red Thai curry coconut soup last week. He used a large chicken and made stock then made the soup. It lasted all of one night. There was still a ton of stock left over...

So Monday I made creamieish chicken noodle soup. I cut up a couple of potatoes, three leeks, two containers of sliced baby portabellas and some celery and tossed it all in the stock. After that, I added a pint of whipping cream and some egg noodles and we had chicken soup. One of the two bowls I had that night I decided to add curry powder and crushed red peppers. I'm smrt.

Well, what a coincidence. The next time it was reheated it had the rest of the red Thai curry paste added and was almost back to it's original iteration. Is it true what they try to instill into us from Lost? You can't change the future. No matter how many times you try to make chicken noodle soup out of curry soup, it'll always end up curry soup?

I survived St. Patrick's day

2010-03-21T06:45:00.000-07:00

Barely. But it was all in all a good birthday. I bought myself a motorcycle the morning of the 17th. I think I made it until at least 11PM. I know my friends had a good time.

The art of shamrocks and being shit faced

2010-03-16T07:25:00.000-07:00

My dear reader (singular tense is not a mistake), I embark on this suicidal journey to the mouth of hell to face my demons and conquer my fears. Corned beef & cabbage be damned! Guiness & Baileys be cast aside to the hungering mouths of those less deserving! Tomorrow is the day of my creation and the day of my undoing. Tomorrow is the day when we separate the boys from the men. Let us forever hold that in our hearts as we set out knowing that none of us shall ever return the same. Let us say a prayer to old Saint Pat, thanking him for this gift that he has bestowed upon us and let none ever be able to say that we let humanity down.

Go forth into this gentle night so that tomorrow we may rise and let loose the dogs of war!

Holy crap, chef tables are impossible to get reservations at!!!

2010-03-12T11:02:00.000-08:00

Well, it's 5 more days until my birthday and no chef table reservations. I tried Jose Andres's Mini Bar in Cafe Atlantico several times. It's impossible to get a Friday or Saturday reservation. I almost feel like I'm calling into DC101 trying to win tickets or something. Maybe I could call up Anthony Bourdain and ask for a favor for my birthday. Better yet, I could make a fake Anthony Bourdain Facebook acoount and friend a fake Jose Andres for a fake Mini Bar reservation. That sounds like a more appatizing plan.

Anyways, I've already made dinner plans for the day after St. Pat's and regardless of the fact that I'm going to be smash bag hungerover, I'm fixing food. Well, helping Chef Butts anyways. We're fixing some variation of Tom Kha and a steak curry. I'm looking forward to getting some photos of that.

I'll be in Baltimore for a Brunswick Photographer's Guild meet at the aquarium and walkabout through the inner harbor. I'm probably going to end up in Towson and if I do, I'll be at Kyodai. Maybe I'll buy myself a Canon G11 for my birthday and I'll take some photos of the sushi. Kyodai has one of the rotating conveyer belts that travels around the sushi bar. I always like stopping there when I'm in Towson.

Seared tuna, for a photo

2010-03-12T10:36:00.000-08:00

I bought some tuna steaks from a local seafood place, Season's Best Seafood, in Martinsburg, WV. They have a pretty good selection of Seafood and they're always friendly and offer good service.

And by the way, I did this entirely for the photo...

So there wasn't much to cooking this one and infact, my friend Brad cooked the tuna steaks. They were thawed earlier in the day and took no time at all. The one I used for the picture was cooked for maybe a minute on each side. All four steaks were lightly seasoned with kosher salt and pepper and seared in a pan with a little bit of oil.

The rest of the photo consist of the light pink Super Special Sauce in the back ground, wasabi, and soy sauce in the fore. The Super Special Sauce is mayo mixed with Sriracha brand chili garlic sauce. Now that you know my secret, I may have to kill you.

I sliced the tuna into thin strips taking what I needed for the photo. I laid one strip down then another with the end on top of the first and at a slight angle. From there, I folded the end of the first onto the end of the second and repeated the process to get a half flower looking design. A toothpick held it together and Photo Shop removed the toothpick.

All in all, I think it turned out fairly well. The little pile of wasabi looks like a turd from some one who's drank too much green beer on St. Patrick's day though.

Holy mutha licka Volt!

2010-02-03T09:24:00.000-08:00

Well not much to report here. I called Volt about Table 21 figuring that I could at least get a reservation for some where close to my birthday. On their answering machine it stated that table 21 was booked until February (Hells yeah! Table 21 here I come!) of 2011 (...maybe for my birthday next year...).

What a let down. There's a restaurant in DC that does something similar that I've know about for quite a while. Maybe I'll contact them...

Hot saws...

2010-01-13T09:02:00.000-08:00

So I started making hot sauce for Maria's Taqueria in Shepherdstown, WV. They're just samples now as we (I have a not so silent partner) are working perfecting recipes that we could have bottled and sold. Right now the Dr. Kronk & Mr. Butts brand hot sauce has three recipes certified as tasty by Maria's staff and patrons.

The Chipotle Bacon & Brown Sugar Hot Sauce
The Habamatoe
The Serranamo!

Maria is going to start supplying us with peppers, so you'll have to keep your eyes open for any new concoctions. A word of warning; if you find a sauce with the name of "DO NOT PUSH", taste at your own risk.

Volt!

2010-01-13T09:01:00.001-08:00

www.voltrestaurant.com

Planning on visiting this place in February or March some time. Sounds like it'll be a very expensive, fun time.

I have not forgot you dear blog!

2009-05-05T09:14:00.000-07:00

So I just haven't fixed anything lately. I'm thinking about making something this week containing some gnocchi and some seafood.

And note to self. Glasses (most often high ball variety) stuck together usually break. When breaking they like to cut deep, long, and hard. Kind of like my ex wife.

P.S. I was never married.

P.P.S. I would kick have a prenup so it wouldn't hurt so bad.

P.P.P.S. I don't own anything so a prenup wouldn't do any good.

Racks O' Ribs™

2009-04-09T06:26:00.000-07:00

This was my first try at making ribs. All in all, they turned out fairly well and I couldn't complain too much. OK, so on to the important part.

What you need:
Pork ribs. Sam's club has three rack for about $20.
Mustard
Seasonings/rubs of whatever type you desire.
BBQ sauce
Pans
Aluminum foil
Oven, grill, charcoal, and wood for smoke if you so choose.

First things first, trim them bad boys up. Start by removing the membrane on the underside of the ribs, then cut the excess meet from what I was told is the "diaphragm", the cartilage line, and the flap on the other side.

When you're finished you should end up with a pretty large pile of pork. I stuck it in a container to marinate. It's going in the crock pot to make pulled pork for sandwiches.

Next it's time for the rub. I used a very thin coat of spicy mustard on the ribs and then used three separate rubs on the racks. One was McCormick's steak rub, one was Uncle Yammie's, and one was something I threw together with spices at the house.

Then you're going to want to line the pans with aluminum. After that, fill them with about 1/4" water and place the ribs in the pans. Put the pans into an oven preheated to about 200-225 degrees and let the ribs cook.

I cooked mine for about 3 1/2 hours. You want to take them out when they hit about 150 on the meat thermometer. After that, you're almost done.

Fire up your grill. I got mine going at about 400 or so. If you want some smoke, put the wood on there. Lather up the ribs with BBQ sauce if you like wet ribs or leave them without if you like dry. I did half and half. Put them on the grill for about another 10-15 minutes until they're darkened up on the outside and then take them off and enjoy.

Why I hate Mcdonalds...

2009-03-27T13:08:00.001-07:00

It's sooooo damn convenient. That's it. The foods OK. I mean, it is fast food. I know it's not healthy. You can't complain about something you've know for years and you still choose to go back to. It's just fast and less than 1/4 of a mile from my house.

Those mornings when you just don't want to get out of bed are the worst. When you finally get up and realize that you don't have time for breakfast and making it work some what close to on time, you know there's only one place that can help you.

Fortunately my work has had business come in to work the cafeteria. Unfortunately, they have sausage gravy. Isn't McDonald's the healthier alternative in this instance?

Beer can chicken with the soda on the side...

2009-03-26T06:17:00.000-07:00

Everyone has undoubtedly heard of this mythical beast. El Beercanachickacabra. The legendary easiest and bestest way to flip a bird. Any who, depending on your cooking temp, time will vary. I'm not good at providing exact times and temps to cook food with. I just go by the USDA's recommendation and do 170 in the chest and 180 in the thigh. I'll take my bird out about 3-5 degrees before and let it set for a few minutes before I pick it apart. I'll provide guidelines for the cooking impaired. On to the list of things you need ©.

Things You Need:
One chicken. I usually get a 7-8 pound chicken. Moar meat please.
Beer!
Large pan for the chicken.
A rack (optional)
Mushrooms, baby portabella
Asparagus
Herbs
Very sharp knife™ that will cut through aluminum and that you don't mind f'ing up.

For this attempt, I forgot to purchase beer at the grocery store, so I ran to sheetz and ended up with a Labatt Blue 24oz. That ended up being a pain. So note to everyone else, regular sized beer cans work best. First things first. Pop the beer can. Drink/pour out all but 3" of beer or so. You want about 1/2-3/4 of a 12oz can remaining in said 12oz can. Then take that very sharp knife™ and cut the top off the can. This very well may turn very sharp knife™ into very dull knife™. Set aside can.

Remove the wrapping from the chicken & remove inside gunk. Done.

Ha ha. Right. Use a knife to cut slits in the skin. Stick your finger in there and move it back and forth to separate the skin from the meat. Then pour whatever seasoning you want in there and rub. This time I used Soy sauce, fish sauce, sriracha, honey, and random herbs like basil and more basil. Make sure you make extra. The rest of this concoction goes in your beer. Just pour slowly as it may cause a big foamy mess.

Now it's time to put the chicken and the beer together to make, beer can chicken! The rack is an amazing device. After the last time I tried to fix one without and ended up burning myself while trying to upright and not so upright chicken in the oven (and 4-5 beers later of course...) I decided that that was the final straw. I still have a nice big scar to remind myself of that night. The rack makes it simple. Insert can into center rack, insert chicken onto rack over can. This can be done without a rack by putting your bird on the can and using the legs for a make shift tripod. This does make it difficult to test the temperatures though as it's very easy to upset an unstable bird. My friend says that all women are crazy after all...and she's one of them.

Ok. Put it in a preheated oven. I'd say 300 degrees. It took about 2 hours for my last one and I kept cranking up the heat.

So when your bird reaches the appropriate doneness; 170 in the chest and 180 in the thigh according to the FDA, remove it.

Here's the tricky part. It's hot. Very hot. I usually burn myself because I'm impatient. You need to remove the bird from the rack and put it some place to cook. The cut the asparagus and clean the mushrooms. Toss them all in a large skillet. Pour the remaining beer and chicken juices into the skillet. It should be a good bit of liquid. Cook it. I put it almost on high and get it boiling and cook until the asparagus and mushrooms are nice and tender. After that's done, drain the juice and save it. I normally pull the meat from the bird then pour and remaining juice onto the pulled meat. This keeps it moist and usually helps prevent the meat from drying, even when reheated in the microwave.

After everything is prepared, stuff your pie hole and enjoy.

That's my version and I'm sticking to it.

The Press Room

2009-03-24T09:09:00.000-07:00

I'll post a picture one day. I swear....

The Press Room
129 W German St
Shepherdstown, WV 25443
(304) 876-8777

Anywho, I went to The Press Room (which doesn't have a website if my searching skills haven't failed me) Monday, 3/24/09. My adventure started as such: My friend Tabitha O'Smiley sent me an email at work at 4:17PM with the following interesting bit of information:

"hey gill just texted me, wanted to know if i wanted to grab dinner or a drink after work... do you wanna come grab dinner??"

So like any dutiful person, I shoved off my other obligations of getting a haircut (rescheduled and unscheduled appointment) and going to Wal Mart for things I needed.

So I'm finally home from work and already through one load of laundry and waiting on the detergent to do a third (Wal Mart anyone?) and working on some photos and generally slacking off, I finally get a phone call. I meet up with Tabitha and we drive down to The Press Room. We get there and the bar is packed, so we head back out to wait for her friend Gill.

Once Gill shows up, indecision rears it's ugly head. The Press Room? Busy.... Tony's? Meh.... OK, time to break out the hard core decision maker. I'm The Press Room, Tabitha is Tony's. Rock, Paper, Scissors and we end up at Tony's.

Not even two minutes later and I hear, "I'm not eating."
"Me either."
"I just wanted a Martini."

ALL RIGHT ALREADY!!!! We left Tony's and walked back to The Press Room.

So the only time I've been there previously was for a drink or two at the bar. Tonight, we dine on the flesh of vegetables, fruits, and dairy products (hell no, I'm definitely a carnivore at heart). I just had an appetizer special and a dessert. The Appetizer was grilled artichokes. I though it was hearts. It wasn't. It was just a giant artichoke cut in half and grilled. Not bad, but not a lot there to eat and it's something I could have fixed at the house.

Next was the desert. I ordered one of their desert specials. It was blue cheese with pears, candied walnuts, something that I thought was dates, and honey from some foreign land. That was good. Not too sweet and just enough. Gill had the creme brulee and Tabitha had something that resembled and ice cream heart.

Any ways, that was an amazing review. You can praise my writing skills any time you want. Hey, what can I say? I'm better at cooking food and telling you what I did than eating at a restaurant and trying to remember it.

Soup. Thai Stylez, Yo!

2009-03-19T09:26:00.000-07:00

So I don't forget. And no, there's no pictures or witty commentary.

Ingredients:
8 cups o' chicken broth
2 cans of coconut milk
1/2 cup fresh cilantro
1/2 cup asian basil
Sriracha
Crushed red peppers
Bok Choy
Shiiiiiiiiiitake! (2 packs)
Leeks
Salt

I think that's it.

Directions:
Cut everything up, toss it in a pot, turn on the heat. Add spices. Don't burn mouth testing flavor. Ingest.

Reminder: It's better if it sits over night. Add chicken if you want. Maybe shrimps or mussels.

Asparagus Stuffed Chicken

2009-03-13T09:42:00.000-07:00

So I got ambitious a while back and decided to skip the Ramen noodles. I saw something about stuffing chicken breast a while ago and figured that it couldn't be that hard; just fill it with your favorite foods. Unfortunately bacon & scotch stuffed chicken breast wrapped in bacon and marinated in scotch would work since I didn't have any bacon at the time and by the time I did, there wasn't any scotch.

What you'll need:
3 chicken boobs
Olive oil
Asparagus, lots & lots of
A block of mozzarella cheese
Bacon - extra is always good to much on, since it's the most important food group ever.
Spinach. On second thought, skip this.
Mushrooms. Little itty bitty baby portabellas. Lots.
Garlic cloves. 2, specifically
Tooth picks

Directions, in some sort of way:
First you need a cutting board. Bigger than mine. Stop laughing. Do the usual. Remove the bottom parts of the asparagus, chop and clean the mushrooms, chop the garlic cloves, and cut the block of mozzarella into slices.
Next you need to place a chicken breast on the cutting board. trim the fat, get it how you like. Once that's done, lay about three slices of bacon length wise on the chicken. Place a few pieces of asparagus across the bacon on the chicken. Brush the asparagus with olive oil. Lay three slices of cheese on the asparagus, that's on the bacon, that's on the chicken. Then you roll the chicken up, starting from the left or right side as in the picture. Shove a bunch of tooth picks in and take out some of that aggression. Repeat with the others and toss the chicken in an oiled pan.

Remember that oven I forgot to tell you to preheat? Well if you read directions like me, you're not going to find out until about....now. Turn it up to chicken cooking temp. I cook everything low and for a while. I think you can manage 300 for an hour? That might sound right. I cooked mine for two but I think I was at 250ish. I don't remember. Just don't overcook the chicken. You want juicy. The bacon helps with that.

OK. Take the rest of the "asparagus, lots and lots o'" and put it in a large skillet with the mushrooms and two cloves of chopped garlic. Cook until done.

That's it. Take the chicken out when it's done, shove it in your pie hole, and enjoy.

Welcome to Slough Roast

2009-03-13T09:31:00.000-07:00

Welcome to yet another food blog. I'm going to put stuff here. You can read it. Sounds like fun, no?