April 2006 Archives

Desert Island Foods™ is happy to announce that we've formed a partnership with Amazon.com to sell selected products, starting with our "Six Pack" of Survival Spice™. It will sell for the same price as at our site, but you'll be able to add non- DIF products to your shopping cart as well. Our full product line, including individual tins, will always be available at Desert Island Foods™.com, but really, isn't it time to grab a six-pack for your summer grilling anyway? Because y'know, it's fun when your barbecue guests grovel at your feet and want your autograph... Just click the link above for more information.

Please remember, if you care to leave a review by following the link I'd appreciate it, but please, be totally honest and don't refer to our Desert Island Foods™.com website by name. That's kinda like taking your eggs to Denny's® and asking them to cook them for you, I think.

Thanks again for all your support, whatever you can do to help keep spreading the word is really appreciated!

Friday. Friday. It's just fun to type. Friday, Friday, Friday.

Of course Saturday is really fun to type, but I don't have to type on Saturdays! Okay, I don't usually blog on weekends, but I am in the office at least part of the day.

Too much information? Probably, sorry.

This week's Friday Funny comes from Casey, thank you very much, sir! If you have a joke or a food pic you can email me here. Have a great weekend, and cook something good, willya?

(Photo: Chris)

Chris, who won one of the first Food Fights, sends in this pic of some stuffed cornbread he made for Easter. It's his version of an Emeril recipe, so I won't post it here, but here's where you can find it.

I stumbled on this on foodnetwork.com while looking for a cornbread recipe to try out. I saw this one and said to myself "cheese..... bacon.... jalapenos.... this is a no brainer." When I made it for myself the first time, I err... kicked it up notch myself and used thick cut bacon, double the amount of cayenne, and added a little more jalapeno and didn't cut the seeds out. It had great flavor, nice heat, and so comforting with the melted cheese and bacon. It goes great with a tall cold beer in a frozen mug. If I remember right, the first time I made it, we had some poppers, wings, and brats with it too.

Thanks, Chris, this looks like something you could really customize if you wanted to. I love corn bread, and I like to make it in a cast iron skillet if I'm making it in family-sized batches.

Got a food pic you want to share? Email me!

... when you can have one of these babies?:

This project aims to introduce computing into traditional culinary utensils. It seeks to provide information, in an integrated manner, about any food the spoon is in contact with, and to offer suggestions to improve the food. The spoon is equipped with sensors that measure temperature, acidity, salinity, and viscosity, and is connected to a computer via a cable. The sensors evaluate the different properties of the food, and send them to the computer for further processing. Apart from consolidating measurements that are normally done by an array of equipments into a single spoon, the information obtained can be used to advise the users what their next step should be; for example, it tells the user if there is not enough salt in the brine prepared to make pickles.

The intelligent spoon was invented by Connie Cheng and Leonardo Bonanni, a couple of MIT students. I'm not sure why they're doing this, except because they can, but I guess it could have a practical application.

Can't it?

Thanks to Chuck for the tip.

Hard to believe, but yesterday was the one year anniversary of The Pragmatic Chef™. It's really been a fun and rewarding year, I hope you're having as good of a time reading as I do writing it! Special thanks to Biggles, Shauna, and Meg, whose blogs I'm proud to link to in the sidebar to the right, and to everyone who contributes comments, pictures, jokes and has entered in a Food Fight!

Thanks for reading, and for your support of Desert Island Foods™.com!

(Photo: Mary)

Here's some chicken I marinated and grilled over mesquite and a little pecan wood this weekend. The marinade was just lemon and oranges, olive oil, some Tibvrtini Aceto di Vino Bianco, lots of garlic and a sliced onion, fresh rosemary, kosher salt, and black pepper.

I really like to do this in one gallon plastic bags, because it makes it so easy to turn, but you might want to double bag it or put it on top of something in the fridge just in case you spring a leak.

I used breasts and thighs, but I cut the breasts in half because I grilled some tri-tips, too, which lets guests try a small piece without feeling wasteful, and you can see that I separated them as I took them off the grill to make it easy for them to choose what they wanted. It was juicy and packed with flavor.

The grilling season is here! Life is good.

(Photo: Carl Juste, Miami Herald, of Val Prieto and ManCamp)

Val Prieto and Steve H. finally take their rightful places as the poster children of the Men's Leisure movement:

This is ManCamp, Prieto's answer to the Average Joe's age-old nemesis: lack of private, personal space at home. And ManCamp is enough to make Al Bundy and his fellow members of the Married . . . With Children's No Ma'am group cry tears of joy.

As crude as ManCamp's design may seem on the surface, trend experts say Prieto is ahead of the curve in a growing movement of guys -- mostly married men -- who want their privacy but not at the expense of their ''manly'' credentials.

Indeed ManCamp, which was built and ''furnished'' with donated materials, boasts storm-proof ''counter tops'' constructed of railroad ties secured to the ground with steel rods. And there are five barbecue grills of different sizes and styles. On this day, two of the grills are loaded with Polish sausages and bacon-wrapped prawns.

I've been following the adventures at ManCamp for a few years now, through the blog of a ManCamp regular, Steve H. Graham, who writes Hog on Ice, along with other humor and political humor sites. Lots of partisan politics if you look beyond the link I posted, so be warned if that stuff isn't your cup of tea.

Guys, do you have your own version of ManCamp? Ladies, do you have your own space, or just wish that he did?

Desert Island Foods™ is happy to announce that we've formed a partnership with Amazon.com to sell selected products, starting with our "Six Pack" of Survival Spice™. It will sell for the same price as at our site, but you'll be able to add non- DIF products to your shopping cart as well. Our full product line, including individual tins, will always be available at Desert Island Foods™.com, but really, isn't it time to grab a six-pack for your summer grilling anyway?

We've spent a lot of time looking for a web partner, and one of the biggest reasons we decided to proceed was the remarkable Amazon feedback and review system. We've built a great following just by word of mouth, and we believe that we can accelerate this by exposing our products to an even larger market. We aren't afraid to go toe to toe with anyone!!!!

If you care to leave a review by following the link I'd appreciate it, but please, be totally honest and don't refer to our Desert Island Foods™.com website by name. That's kinda like taking your eggs to Denny's® and asking them to cook them for you, I think.

Thanks again for all your support, whatever you can do to help keep spreading the word is really appreciated!

Update: We've gotten some great reviews, please feel free to add you own!!!

Happy Friday, everyone. Why is it that Thursday seems 4 hours longer than Wednesday, and Friday is 4 hours longer yet? At any rate, we've made it. We, of course, referring to the collective 'we', which I think is short for 'weary.'

Here's a great Friday Funny to make the rest of your workday somewhat bearable, at least. Thanks, Kathleen, for another great joke.

Have a great weekend! Cook something good, willya? Please email me pictures if you do.

Here's a great looking stew "gruel" sent in by Dennis. Flavored with amazing Hatch green chiles and Survival Spice™, it's a simple way to give a fantastic southwestern flavor to a traditional dish. Thanks for the idea, Dennis!:

This "gruel" is almost too easy. I just put some beef stock, onions, garlic and loads of hatch green chiles (hot), then brown some pork cubes coated in SS, hamburger, then add whatever vegetables -- I like to add potato, a little corn and green beans, celery, carrots and if I have any some red or yellow peppers. Trying to think of anything else but that's it, other than adding Survival Spice to the whole thing until it achieves the perfect flavor!!

Have a dish you're proud of? Email me!

Due to the increased traffic around here- (thanks!) we're in the process of moving The Pragmatic Chef™ to a new server. Thanks to those who have emailed me to point out that the last few posts have disappeared. It should all be resolved soon!

What a cool concept:

The company [Moo Bella] invented a computer-controlled vending machine that makes ice cream on demand from room temperature ingredients, flash freezing it in 10 seconds. ... On the machine's front is a computer screen running on a Linux operating system. It displays menus of possible flavors and allows the user to create any combination, such as low-fat coffee ice cream with Oreo cookies. If the machine runs out of a flavor, it stops putting it on the menu and sends a message to MooBella asking for a refill.

The press has spanked MooBella for one serious glitch: a failure so far to offer chocolate ice cream. Which is like opening a bar without beer. "Chocolate is a challenging flavor," Ginsberg says. "It's not ready yet. One of our overriding principles is whatever we bring out will be delicious."

Me, I'm into chocolate chip and Cherry Garcia®, but you can keep the mint stuff.

What's your favorite flavor?

It's nice to have all day to put together a meal with great sauces and creative garnishes, but here in the real world it just doesn't happen during the week very often.

This was a simple dinner that took only 45 minutes to put together. I started with some thick cut pork chops, which were rubbed with Survival Spice™, then grilled over pecan wood. The potatoes were microwaved until tender, oiled and rubbed with kosher salt and were grilled along with the chops, which really gives them a nice smokey flavor.

The romaine salad had a simple Tibvrtini Olio Extra Virgene di Oliva and Tibvrtini Aceto di Vino Bianco dressing that is still my favorite combination of these two extraordinary flavors, bar none.

What did you have for dinner last night? Email me a picture and a description!

By request for Carin, who pointed out that I only have 3 salads in the archives so far. Thanks!

I don't remember where this idea came from originally, but I've been making it for years. It's light and healthy, and great for serving all year 'round. I particularly like to serve this at barbecues, it's a nice counterpart to bigger flavors like smoked meats and baked beans. It was also a terrific accompianment to a traditional Easter dinner.

Happy Easter to all our Christian friends and customers, from everyone at Desert Island Foods.com.

(Photo: Joe, of Culinary in the Desert's Barbecue Meat Loaf)

I recently added Culinary in the Desert to the blogroll in the sidebar. Joe, who's also here in Phoenix, does a terrific job of turning out great weekday meals in a seriously prolific way. Check it out and bookmark this when you get a chance.

Uh, Joe, the meatloaf looks really, really good, but it might be even better with Survival Spice™!

Happy Friday, everyone. Congratulations on making it through another work week!

We've got a Friday Funny sent in by Kathleen, who must walk around her town with a sign on her back that says "Email Me Jokes", along with her email address.

Enjoy your Easter weekend, if you observe Easter, and cook something good! Email me your Easter Dinner pics and some jokes, we love to get them!

(Photo: Mary, of TPC's Easy Orange Survival Glaze)

I've revised this slightly, just because the orange color was so over the top. The picture is of the first version, with 6 ounces of orange juice concentrate. The old recipe was delicious, but I think this will work better on an Easter Ham. Let me know if you try it!

Update: Rob reports that for a Texas ham, he rubbed his ham with Survival Spice™, and put it in a crock pot with a liter of Dr. Pepper for 8 hours. Unfortunately, it didn't last long enough for him to take some pictures!

Here's a great picture sent in by Janella of some Tilapia filets she grilled recently with Survival Spice™:

Well, since everyone takes pictures of their creations, I took one of mine. These are talapia filets, rubbed with EVOO and then coated with Survival Spice!!! These were grilled for 5 minutes on one side and 2 minutes on the other and they were goot! AND we usually don't like fish!!! All we could taste was the Survival Spice!!

That does look really 'goot', Janella! And for those who do like the taste of fish, you can cut back on the Survival Spice™ a bit. When using SS on fish, or anything really, you should vary the seasoning to suit the amount of flavor in the fish. Oily fish like salmon can really take a lot of seasoning, but subtle fish like halibut and tilapia don't need as much.

For more fish ideas and grilling tips, visit our archive here.

What did you have for dinner last night? Email me if you've got pictures!

(I should have let this cool a bit before I sliced it, but hunger conquers photographic excellence nearly every time around here.)

Sunday morning I made breakfast for some friends, and I was in the mood for a fritatta. For those who don't know, a fritatta is basically an open faced omelet baked in the oven. One of the nice things about them is that they rise a bit while cooking, which results in something much lighter than you would expect. The ingredients can include just about anything, but here's how I made this one.

I guess it's really a form of dulce de leche with chocolate, but somehow 'chocolate crack' seems to describe my addiction to it. I learned to make it from a Brazilian friend, so whenever I come across a can of sweetened condensed milk, I find myself making this without being aware of it. It's so decadent, it makes an easy sort of fondue for dipping fruit, crackers or whatever you come up with!

Real dulce de leche is made from milk and sugar and takes hours. This technique is far faster, and is way easier.

Here's the latest of a series of pizzas I've come up with, and I think it's a winner.

White pizzas are a great change from the typical pizza, and one of the easiest ways to make a pizza unique. It really pays to think in terms of removing items from a dish, as opposed to thinking about what you can add, this gives you discipline as a cook.

Instead of sauce I used Tibvrtini Olio Extra Virgene di Oliva and quite a bit of grated Grana Padano cheese. I chopped and rendered crispy 4 or 5 slices of thick cut bacon, a large onion sliced thinly and some asparagus, all separately, then let them cool before topping the oil and cheese. It was baked at 500 on a pizza pan, then slid onto a stone to brown the bottom.

It's an amazing combination of ingredients- salty, sweet, crisp and chewy. Try it!

Happy Friday! This week's Friday Funny is quick time waster sent in by Silvia. Draw a pig and learn a little bit about yourself.

My answers are below the fold, but don't read them until you've drawn your pig. Unless you're way to cool to draw your own, that is. The main thing I've learned is that I'm much better at cooking pork than drawing it!

If you have a Friday Funny to share, please email me. Have a great weekend, everyone. Cook something good, wouldja?

A growing trend in the restaurant biz is to create two dining spaces, each with their own ambience and price point, with a common kitchen, as a way to provide diners with a way to match their appetites to their mood, as a recent NY Times article sent to me by John (thanks!) explains:

Faced with a choice of giving diners a formal or casual experience, the restaurateurs behind these projects have elected both, creating multilevel, multifaceted enterprises.

And they have expanded the city's population of multiple personality restaurants, which have a cunning, a chemistry and a set of confusions all their own.

These restaurants reflect chefs' big ambitions, restaurateurs' hedged bets and diners' divergent appetites. And sometimes they represent riddles, their components inviting different responses.

Does this make sense to you? As a diner that's generally more food than fashion conscious myself, I like the idea of great food in an informal setting, but it dilutes the identity and the branding of the concept somewhat.

(TPCs Smoked Spare Ribs, photo by Mary)

... But certainly not the last. These were rubbed with Survival Spice™, indirectly smoked with pecan wood for 4 hours, then finished over a charcoal fire. Although I'll occasionally do an indirect-only smoke for 7 or 8 hours, I like how a medium direct fire crisps up the meat, and the higher temperature completes the last step towards 'falling of the bone' goodness.

What's your favorite way of cooking ribs? Or eating them, for that matter!

Great email from an E-Z Hook® fan:

Put me down as a huge fan of the ezhook! It works great, it cleans up easily, and it's amazing how many other utensils are relegated to the 'seldom use anymore' drawer.

Thanks! Dennis

Have you ever eaten or cooked with truffles? Pricey, sure, but there's nothing quite like them.

I got a series of emails from Paul, aka Chilebrown a few weekends ago that I'm just getting around to posting, where he used truffles for the first time. I gave him a few tips, but the main one regarding truffles is the importance of pairing it with fat, be it oil, butter or even foix gras to help carry the flavor. Truffles are tricky devils, the flavor is usually just about gone by the time you've swallowed it, so one of the things that fat does in a dish is to help hold flavor to the tongue, and to both spread flavor across more taste buds and hold it there longer. Paul also infused our Tibvrtini Olio Extra Virgine di Oliva, which you can see in the picture, with his left over truffles. I can only imagine how good that is, Mmmmm....

If you have pictures of a dish you're made, share them!

DIF Newswire April 1, 2006 --New Orleans, LA --

Celebrity Chef Emeril Lagasse raved today about Survival Spice™, after one of his employees gave him a tin:

WOW!!! All I can say is BAM!!! BAM BAM BAM!!!!! This stuff is fantastic!!! It puts my Essence blends to shame! You'd be crazy not to go to Desert Island Foods™.com and order some!

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Please check out Emeril's complete review by clicking here.