Ingredient lists that look like chicken scratch

From the counter top to the fridge, from the notebook in my computer bag to the dashboard of my car, and on the back of my AT&T bill are ingredient lists for recipes.

My tiny kitchen in my tiny apartment is getting overworked. I am getting overworked. By the time I've eaten dinner and attacked my kitchen there's just not enough fuel left in the tank to formulate recipes or write concise sentences. Wait-- who am I kidding? I never write concise sentences.


Me having a blog is supposed to be a place to store all of these things but by the time I've written them down and eaten my meal and loaded my dishwasher and had a beer it's the farthest thing from my mind. I need someone that takes good dictation.  I need 2 more hours a day to spend compiling updates and writing my drunk cooking PSA's and coming up with all of the other one-off subjects I want to discuss here. The cooking isn't the issue. I cook all the time regardless of whether I write about it or not. I have cooked chili, curry, Mexican, vegan, vegetarian, Italian, and good old-fashioned American in the last week. There's no rhyme or reason for cooking specific types of food in my house. There's just a fridge that needs cleaning and a pan I just rinsed out.

Maybe I should photograph all of this chicken scratch and do a photo montage of various recipe ingredient lists. Or, I can show you how I cook what I cook. Put my recipe for what I cooked between the 2 or 3 dishes I used as ideas for my dinner.

Lets just suffice it to say that I need more time in the day. I'd love to tell you about chili and dinner rolls and cheesy corn stuffed cornbread but I need more time. More time Or a secretary. Alright I'm rehashing previous paragraphs so I'm moving on.

If there's something you'd like me to cook

If there's a cooking question you'd like to ask

If you want me to cook you dinner

If you want a recipe from a picture you saw on facebook


Don't be shy to ask me about it/for it. That might motivate me to get it posted and put it up here for you and a few other people to read.

and I sware, muh hand ta gawd... I'm posting more recipes this week.

Healthy living and my Vegan Kitchen Sink Panzanella Salad

           I get pretty pissed off when the iPad eats my posts. Blogger's new interface isn't too iPad friendly with the auto-save. Allow me to collect my rant and pick up where i left off.
          I've read Michael Pollan, I read Mark Bittman, and I've already watched all of those food documentaries on Netflix. I've even seen the one about the Buddhist hippie guy in Nor Cal who won't waste any food. I also follow some snout-hoof guys on twitter. Look, I'm all foodie-ed out. I know you know this. So when you guys get on Facebook or rent Food Inc. and start trying to tell me about how fucking great the current batch of food docs are and how we really need to change our habits you can hold your god damn tongue. I'm excited that you signed the petition to join Jamie Oliver's food revolution and I saw that you reposted the link to the 'schools taking chocolate milk out of cafeterias.' I'm happy you're starting to get it but when I see you at walmart and your cart is stacked full of lean cuisine I can't help but wonder if you see the irony. Wait, it's organic frozen dinner? That makes it better. You're winning. I guess irony is dead.

         Even I shop at the land 'o lard (Walmart). I'm not hating on overweight people. that's legitimate. Heart disease, diabetes, the western diet's effects on the Japanese... yeah, yeah, I know about all that shit too. Corporate corn? Yes. I once had a friend tell me that they had given up corn on the cob because of Cargill. Some people are totally missing the point. My point, I'll get back to it. There's a recipe in here I promise. I am the guy who has the basket but takes as long as the soccer mom with the cart because the checker is having to ask me what a Leek is and look up the code for ginger root. It takes forever. Everything I buy is perishable. I mean, I do a "U" shaped loop through the store hitting all of the fresh veg, some bread, some smart chicken, some Greek yogurt, and I'm out. It normally brings up a conversation with the checker about food or how expensive eating all fresh stuff is. Even when its on my scale. I like starting those conversations because I feel like I get to explain eating healthy and how I make it work. I strictly follow the kitchen sink method. Use it til its gone. Don't let your greens go bad. Waste not, want not. I buy small-ish scale because I only cook for me. I buy what looks freshest and whats in season so there's no method to my veggie shopping madness. That means that sometimes I get some weird leftovers or fridge lingerers. By the end of the week (or the start of the next week if I had a paticularly long weekend)  the fridge looks like I'm on some crazy fad diet or someone else does my shopping for me.
            So, the other night when i was feeling famished and looked into the fridge I was frightened by the sad array I had in front of me. Upon a quick inspection I found: 4 wrinkly romas that look like your grandpas testicles, 2 shallots starting to go south so (1 full shallot), half a thing of capers, some Trader Joe's kalamata olives, 2/3 of a roasted bell pepper, some basil from my dying basil plant, a bit of oregano from my mom's garden, and 1/3 of a loaf of stale ciabiatta that was starting to grow tiny stars of mold on the top. Other than some condiments and some eggs that was it. But I had a stroke of culinary genius.  I could throw a Panzanella salad together and the things i had on-hand would be perfect.

Batard Chef Kitchen Sink Panzanella Salad:

1 Shallot peeled and cut coarse,
2 large cloves garlic
1 tbls capers
4 (I had 3 good) roma tomatoes ripe or roasted
1 tp crushed red pepper
1 1/2 tp brown mustard
1/4 C extra virgin olive oil (it's all i had left) + 1 tbls
1/4 C Kalamata olives
1/2 tp sugar
1/4 C red wine vinegar
1/2 C mixed or your favorite salad greens
bunch fresh oregano
bunch fresh basil
1 roasted red bell pepper

first things first, you need to cut the hard crust and random mold off of the bread. Your bread not crusty or moldy? You're better off than I was.

 1. Preheat oven to 325 and cut hard crust from bread and tear into small pieces, put into oven safe pan and drizzle w/ 1 tbls oil.
2. toast bread crumbs for 10-15 minutes until starting to get crisp
3. combine vinegar, capers, garlic, basil, oregano, mustard, sugar, into a food processor. Pulse  as you slowly drizzle in the 1/4 of oil to emulsify. set aside
4. chop bell pepper, tomato, and olives coarsely
5. pull bread from oven and allow to cool slightly
6. Combine bread crumbs, tomato, olives, and dressing into a serving bowl. Mix.
7. place in fridge and let rest until cool so the flavors can marry. about 20 minutes


To Plate: arrange the greens in the center of the plate and using a serving cup arrange a portion of the panzanella on top. garinsh with kosher salt and fresh pepper.

Panzanella Salad Awesomeness

I didn't have quite enough olive oil so I added some canola. you want the bread to be breaking down and very soft.

I know this is surprising because there's no bacon, duck fat, or cheese and if you can guess where I'm going... this shit is straight up vegan. that's right. I just gave you an awesome vegan recipe. the bread is satisfying, it's got that good briny flavor from the capers and olives and the roasted tomato and pepper makes it pretty fantastic.

The Ultimate Hangover Cure = The Bastard's BLT

There are nights when I tend to drink a little then there are most nights when I drink a lot. If those nights correspond with a weekend I am going to cook something that makes me feel better and wallow. This is a stark contrast to the typical weekday bender which leaves me forced to crawl out of my door in a button up, nursing a thermos full of coffee, and crunching ibuprofen before 740 AM. Clearly the former is a better alternative to the latter.  One of my favorite cures and the image that made all things pork-able and gave me the idea to pursue a week full of my unholy love for pork is a BLT. There are many iterations of BLT’s and there is a colorful history of versions, upgrades, and modifications to my personal favorite.

My Classic BLT is served on lightly toasted soft white sandwich bread, slathered with Mayo,  topped with butter lettuce, and thick salt & pepper hot house tomatoes. I like freshly cut thin sliced cheddar cheese and 3 pieces of hot bacon fresh from the skillet with its grease mixing into the cheese as it melts. That when combined with the right amount of greasy bagged potato chips and a correctly paired carbonated beverage normally means I can leave my house fully functional regardless of if I’d been bathing in bourbon or sipping free Cristal from a titty fountain.

This past few weeks has been an exceptional drinking experience even for me. The amounts and combinations of liquors and the hallucination inducing sleep deprivation finally steered me to my hangover food true north. My Mecca of BLT goodness. A BLTCOE if you will. A smoked bacon, heirloom tomato,  2  cheesed, caramelized onions, bacon grease fried egg, drenched w/ homemade chipotle mayo,  on a bed of mixed greens, and sandwiched between Parmesan crusted Ciabatta. 

 

Hangover averted!

  It's a fairly simple setup and you immediately use the bacon grease to make the fried egg. It's a win-win kinda deal. 

I'm not gonna give you a recipe for the mayo. I use the Joy of Cooking or the Julia Child version. If I use some leftover oil from my garlic confit I'm halfway to a bitching aioli. 

1 tblsp butter or Canola oil

1/4 C fresh grated Parm

1 Egg

3 slices bacon

spring mix

1 med heirloom tomato 

salt & pepper 

3 slices smoked bacon
2 tblsp carmelized onion goodness

2 slices artisan break preferably a sourdough or a Ciabatta 

Steps:

1. Fry bacon in a non-stick skillet over med heat 

2. In a second skillet warm to med add the bread and start it toasting

3. Slice the tomato and slat & pepper to taste

4. After the bread has warmed on one side, flip and add the parm evenly between the two pieces on the heated side. After a minute warming the unheated side return parm side down to toast

5.  Once bacon is finished fry your egg in the bacon grease. 

6. Combine everything once the parm is browned, your egg on top is the absolute last thing to go on the sandwich. I like to go: Mayo, greens, tomato, cheese, bacon, egg.

this one was even luckier because I just happened to have some caramelized onions sitting around to go on top of the egg. Pretty much best ever. 

not a bad start to a sandwich

You've got to love and respect the BLT. I'm upset that it gets diminished to being some subpar sandwich. This is the pinnacle of sandwichery. So, next time you're head feels like some stoned out hippie's old bongo drum and you've got a charlie horse in your calf cause the closed thing you came to drinking water was pounding back whiskey shots give the good  'ole BLT a go. You won't regret it. Bacon and Grease and other fried goodness make everything better.

Here's the final product with some okra I paired it with. If I'm hungover you can be damn sure that where's there's water and ibuprofen there's going to be something fried as soon as I can make it to the kitchen. 

I also made some fried Okra. It was a pretty fantastic recovery meal. 

Now with proof! Telegraph article says bacon sandwich cures hangovers! Okay, it's not definitive proof but it's good enough for me. Next time you're going out binge drinking don't forget to pick up some bread and some bacon for the morning after. You'll thank me for it.

Cooking the Book Rant

What's up with all of these unimaginative mediocre writers picking up some celeb(rated) Chef's cookbook and devoting a blog to cooking everything in it?  I saw Julie and Julia too guys. It's a good thing they're just blogs and you haven't quit your god damned day jobs to pursue a creative life or anhything. For fuck's sake Mario Batali's Babbo cookbook? The French Laundry cookbook? Momofuku at home. You guys are killing me. It's the pursuit of sameness that I despise most. Someone picks up a cookbook and does it and now every hack who fancies himself a writer is salivating about how Universal is going to option his blog. Then someone much better looking will take on the mantle of being a better you than you could ever be. So you'll meet all your food gods and jerk yourself off with duck fat onto the napkin Grant Achatz used at the dinner you were invited to. Meanwhile the movie comes out and everyone yawns. Your life story staring Topher Grace as a struggling design intern trying to write the great American novel but struggling with debilitating writer's block fell flat. That big montage about how you dug yourself out of it by cooking every single recipe from the one and only cookbook you owned only garnered an 11% on Rotten Tomatoes. Big Surprise.


It's an epidemic. Food Blogs are an epidemic. But cooking the book? That's should Sacrilegious. It's not some book review you're writing. Learn something, find a good recipe that interests you and move on. There is not one cookbook on the planet that would hold my attention for every recipe. I don't like Chicken mousse so I guess  I can't cook through White Heat. Keller's French Laundry cookbook? I want to have time to drink and get laid in my life. Those recipes require lots of prep work. That's not a task for the home chef to be taken lightly let alone in some self-congratulatory blog devoted to cooking through it. There are so many amazing cook books that contain recipes that I would destroy because the technique and style of the subject is so different from my own.  I'm the first to admit that I'm good with a few things and I'll stick to it. Practice it. Get better. Hone that shit til its straight. Ya feel me  dawg?

I can't imagine devoting myself like that to one cookbook. let's just get this out of the way now: I use at least two different cookbooks at a time. You might walk into my kitchen wave yourself through  a mushroom cloud of flour and trip over 3 or 4 cookbooks.  I want to take bits and pieces from the different styles and techniques and make them mine. I am not a recipe guy. A recipe is a nice guideline to follow when dealing with something new. Once I'm savvy to the basics I'll improvise and make it mine. That's what I'm about. That's why the recipe collecting cookbook following hordes annoy me. It's blasphemy. Really.

Unless it's Paula Deen's cookbook. Take a Year and cook through all of Paula Deen's recipes and I'll option your blog and finance a movie about some squeamish geek that we put into a slowly inflating fat suit and watch it inflate. Really. Do it. It'd be like Supersize me on crack. . Shit, nevermind. I'll start the screenplay later tonight I already know how that story and it ends with gastric bypass surgery and therapy. Bam.


So for the love of god and all things that are holy, man the fuck up. Do something original. Strive for something other than the lard-covered blanket of numbing mediocrity and sameness...


love,

your friendly neighborhood Bastard Chef