Happy Hectic Friday!!! The day has flown by, but I have to deliver the funny. Steve has sent in a good 'un, it's the best advice I've had in quite a while.
Have a great weekend. Cook something good, please? There's nothing wrong with sending me an email if you'd like to do a little cyber bragging.
Thanks for reading, and as always, thanks for your continued support of Desert Island Foods®.com.
Julie introduced me to the concept of a Veggie Reuben. I was, of course, incredulous. "You mean, just Swiss Cheese, sauerkraut and Thousand Island dressing on rye?" She maintained that you don't need Thousand Island, either.
So, what the hey. The other night I prepped a few, adding some sauteed red onions to the sauerkraut, and I fired up the cast iron griddle, serving them along with some organic tomato soup.
It was good, I have to say. I did have some organic Thousand Island on the side, and I think it's better with it. It's also better with some corned beef or pastrami, but that's another post...
I do need to try my hand at a Southwestern Tomato Soup. One of these days.
Well, the weather has dipped below 90º here, so soups and stews are on my mind again. To get the party started I made traditional beef stew, with some Hatch green chiles added to give it a little zip.
This was really, really basic stuff- all natural beef, Yukon Gold potatoes, red onion and organic carrots, along with Survival Spice®, some extra garlic, and some red wine.
Maybe we should have a Soup and Stew Food Fight.
Happy Friday, everyone! Kathleen has hooked us directly up to the funny this week, thanks!
Have a great weekend, and make me proud with some great food!
(Photo: JB, of his "Neighbor Killer" Lamb Kabobs)
John in Chicago is killing his neighbors:
"time enough to live, time enough to cook"I took a costco boneless leg o lamb and cut it up into grande cubes for brochette. I marinated 1/2 for 24 hrs in : olive oil , zest of 4 oranges , 6 lg garlic cloves smushed into a paste, fresh mint and rosemary minced, 1 nice pinch of saffron mixed w/ 3 parts survival spice - 1 part madras curry - and 1 part smoky paprika (el ray de la vera - delevera.com) I grilled these babies off, and as you can see I had more smoke than my faux fan could handle.
(Photo: JB)
Man, you're looking at a textbook sear right thar, folks.
I opened the winders and the big doors leading out of the loft and the smoke wafted out and up the stairwell 4 floors and within 10 minutes people were gathering outside the door like pod people , muttering "Carmelization"! I almost had to sic the dogs on em ! well here's a few pics just before they hit the plates and disappeared before I could take a pic, served w/ a mideastern rice dish and triple chocolate dove bars. I took the other 1/2 of the leg and ground it w/ pork shoulder and pancetta to make sausage and pot stickers to freeze.
I really like the way that John used Survival Spice® as a base, then Currified it up by adding saffron, curry powder, and some smoked paprika. That's really what Survival Spice® is all about. I developed it as a stand alone seasoning, but left plenty of room in the recipe for using it as a starting point for customization. I'm always flattered when I get an email from someone apologizing for adding other flavors, but really, it's totally cool, and it's gratifying as hell.
Fricking awesome, John. And triple chocolate Dove bars? Yer killing me.
Been cooking? Email me some pictures!
(Team Chilebrown- Mark, James, Ms. Goofy and Paul "Chile" Brown- holding the $300 check, of course...)
WHOO HOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Team Chilebrown kick some major butt this past weekend, winning the Rodeo Chili Cookoff this past weekend. They used Survival Spice® as part of their prize winning Tri Tip Chile:
UPDATE: I think we'll run a secret "Team Chilebrown" Survival Spice™ Sale. If you leave a comment here, and place an order, I'll double your tins for the next week or so!
Dr. Biggles has lots more pics, and he actually got to taste it. I'm jealous. So did this guy, and he seems to be enjoying it, notice the cool little Desert Island Foods®.com plug we got on the sign on the wall:
Congratulations to Chile and his team. When Paul lets me know the names of the other team members, I'll update this.
I hate to sound like a lame Lover Boy song, but we're working for the weekend, and it's almost upon us! Here's a Texas sized joke from Jerry, thank you very much, sir.
Good luck to Chilebrown on his cookoff this weekend, and here's hoping he sends us leftovers...
Have a great weekend, everyone. Cook something good, willya? Thanks for your support of Desert Island Foods®.com.
(Photo: Paul Brown, of his Grilled Tri Tip)
The aptly named Paul "Chile" Brown has entered a chile cookoff:
Well I am waiting for my trial batch to finish. I made over a gallon of chili. I am going to use Survival Spice... I will spike it with a little salt. I hope you do not mind.
I don't mind at all! I spent a lot of time developing Survival Spice™ to be great all by itself, or as a base for whatever fresh flavors you'd like to add- lemon/orange zest, toasted cumin seeds, etc. I put as little kosher salt in the blend as I could, and people on reduced sodium diets have thanked me for that. Also, I think it's a ripoff that most blends have so much salt in them, I'd much prefer that you added extra salt 'to taste' as Paul does.
Sorry to hear about your partner flaking out, Chile. I'd have been proud to be your sous chef.
JB just put in a nice plug for Survival Spice™ over at Slashfood. It's an interesting post, check it out. And if you were to echo his sentiments, if you were feeling that way, we'd appreciate it!
Well, the football season got off to a good start- my Pittsburgh Steelers beat up on the Cleveland Browns until they couldn't take it any more. And no, I'm not a fair weather fan; during the 60s I was a fan when they were far and away the worst team in football.
What's football without hot wings? Nothin'.
I like to grill my wings, but I was getting over some kind of bug, so I had to content myself with seasoning them well with Survival Spice®, then roasting them on a parchment lined sheet pan until they were crispy:
As they were in the oven, I mixed some hot sauce, butter, more Survival Spice®, and a bit of chipotle BBQ sauce in a sauce pan, got it all melted and bubbly, poured the sauce into a work bowl, then tossed the crispy wings with the sauce. Taking a fine suggestion from Julie, I plated them on a Steelers platter.
Mmmmm... spicy, crispy and full of flavor. They tasted great with a few cold beers.
Happy Friday, everyone! I hope everyone's saddled up and ready to ride off into the weekend.
Mary has sent in a great Friday Funny, I hope it makes you laugh as much as I did.
Cook something great this weekend, you deserve it. And email me some pictures, so we can share. We deserve it! If you're cooking with some of our great Desert Island Foods®.com products, we really appreciate it!
I still have some really good Labor Day pics to share next week, too.
I'm mentioning this again because we've had a comment from Richard Martin, the designer:
It is so refreshing to hear people are still saying positive things about the barbecue that I designed: Yes you heard right, it was and is my baby. As for the trading status bit, don't write me off completely because when I get the opportunity, I intend to come right back at the market.
The original post can be found here. It sounds like a great design, I hope Richard can make it available again some day.
(Photo: Diana)
Diana grilled a kick ass porterhouse and some grilled veggies recently, and posted it for us to drool over. Man, if you think they don't grill it up north of the border, you've got another think coming! Click on the link to check out the whole meal, but here's a teaser:
Then I slap the steaks on for about 5 minutes per side, leaving the hood open. The timing, of course, depends on the thickness of the meat.Forgive me ... I carved out the filet(fr.) for myself. Nice 'n spicy.
Lots of nice pics, so check it out!
(Photo: Paul "Chile" Brown)
Paul "Chile" Brown is excited about a new dish:
Man I am alive!!!!!!!!!!!!! Zukerman potatoes and Three Twisted Sister's Bacon from Chandler. Going to fire up the smoker with some beef ribs and beef loin. I got some applewood chunks off of E-bay. The kroppkakor is a Swedish Potato and Bacon Dumpling. I have a new book called "A World of Dumplings "
The book looks interesting, making dumplings is something I've had decent success with, but I've never really taken the time to really make the effort to perfect my technique.
Here's Paul's finished dish, sadly he didn't invite me over... I got a lot of good emails, y'all have been cooking up a storm!!!
Whatever you're grilling, it's better with Survival Spice™ on it! We've got our buy two, get one free promotion that's been extended until September 15th, so stock up now and save!!!
Whether you need to work or not, thanks for your support of Desert Island Foods™.com.
Have a safe and happy holiday. Email me your food pics, we love to see them.
