I know I know it has been like 20000 days since I last posted…

BUT, and I don’t really want to point fingers here but… someone else hasn’t posted in like 6000000 days… so if any flogging is going to happen it will be HIS patootie that get’s it NOT mine. I have a plethora of excuses. But only one way to make it up to you…

Bacon.

This is one of my all time favorite sandwiches of awesome to make. The only problem is that once I start making them, I don’t stop. It takes an amazing amount of will power to just say no. Or ok I’ll stop at 13…

The Apple Bacon and Brie Swammich. Oh HOLY HELL now I want one for dinner…

And yes, I know what you are thinking – Apple on a sandwich???

Effin YEA!

Start out with some really good, nutty bread. My favorite for this is a whole grain bakery bread with flax and sesame seeds and oats and M&M’s and poppy seeds and sunflower seeds…

Just checking to see if you are paying attention…

Ok – now the hard part…

Cook up some delicious thick cut fresh smoked bacon and try not to eat it all before you assemble the swammich…

Thinly slice up a tart apple. Granny Smiths are perfect, and my favorite.

Slice up that yummy brie.

Heat up your grill pan / panini pan / press / etc.

Spread a very thin layer of butter on one side of each slice of bread…

Spread some stone ground mustard on the other side of one slice and top with a few (about 17) slices of brie. Then top with the bacon slices. Use as many as your taste buds or your cholesterol will allow. (Um… 47 seems about right. NO! 48…) And then add the apple slices.

On the other slice of bread, add some more mustard if you like… and butter side UP finish the sandwich.

Lay that sandwich of cheesey bacony goodness on the hot grill / paninininini pan (Cheese side down) and press. Oh yea momma – hear that sizzle?

This is almost NSW!

When the cheese begins to melt and squish out of the swammich, take it off the pan and eat before anyone else gets home.

Ah yes… you can thank me now, and curse me later when you suffer from addiction.

I have a confession when Heather told me that she bought firewire skewers I laughed at her.  I told her why would you buy more gimicky kitchen #%@$)**( that we obviously have no room for and wow like we ever freaking use skewers.  This to me was just another stupid thing that was going to end up stabbing me when I stuck my hand in the unknown drawer where kitchen gadgets go to die (bad enough I have to worry about 4 old knives in this stupid drawer).

In typical Jeff fashion I run my mouth and end up having to eat those stupid words and admit yeah I was a little harsh but she is use to it so it is expected.

So in case you care yes firewire skewers are probably the best creation for kettle grillers or grillers in general.  They are awesome bendable skewers that you can wrap around the inside of the kettle grill giving you more precious room to cram more meat on the grill (no they are not paying us, giving us anything free, or anything at all and in exchange for nothing they get free publicity for all 5 readers).

So now that my apology is done with and my sales pitch over this is really a good and simple straightforward beef kabob recipe.  The wonderful thing about this recipe is a lot of acid so going to tenderize the heck out of the cheapest cut of steak you can find so grab for that top sirloin that is 99 cents a pound.

For this recipe you will need:

1. Couple lbs of top sirloin or some cheap cut of steak (lot of acid in this dish which helps tenderize it). Cut the steak into a couple inch cubes.
2. 1/2 c vegetable oil
3. 1/2 cup soy sauce
4. 1/2 cup lemon juice
5. 1/4 cup worcestershire sauce
6. 1/4 cup stone ground mustard
7. 2 t cracked black pepper
8. 4 big ole cloves garlic, minced
9. 1 shallot diced (It was a LARGE one…)
10. 1 t cayenne pepper (I just took one from the garden and sliced it up thin.)
11. 1/2 teaspoon coriander

Combine everything and let it set overnight.  Fire up your grill and grill away.

Not that freaking hard is it?

Oh yeah here is a marinade picture of the dish because apparently I had shaky hand syndrome when trying to take action pictures of the meat on the grill.

Again here I am contributing to Wordless Wednesday and yet adding WORDS. Either A) I do not follow directions well, or B) I like to buck the system as much as possible… I think I am going to go with C.

Enjoy!

For more check out our flickr page.

Yes you read this right…..this is Jeff posting.  I know it has been over three months but let us face it when Spring hits you have to take some time off and enjoy it.  Ok that is a load of b.s. truth be told I have been getting slaughtered at work between more responsibility and moving to a larger department (ok not much bigger people wise but a larger footprint which equates to cooler toys with same pay).

Fear not though I have been a grilling fool who sometimes drags a camera out to shoot.  However, I have been very lacking in the photography department (as evident by a plating picture that has overexposed rice).  However, my personal goal is to at least shoot a couple times a week relax and unwind (beats my other vices which will eventually kill me).  I also know garden updates went over really well last year so hopefully the ground can actually dry out enough that I can drag the camera out there without needing waders or a kayak.

Hmmm well unless you want to be bored to tears with talk of Cisco, VLANs, EIGRP, and all other joys of networking I am going to lob the ball to you and simply ask what has everyone else been up to????

For this recipe you will need:

• 1/4 cup lime juice
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
• 1 habanero
• 1/2 white onion
• 2 shallots
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1/4 cup combined of chives/thyme/parsley
• 2 bay leaves
• Couple whole cloves
• 4 allspice berries (about 1/2 teaspoon in powder)

Steps to success:

1. Combine everything in a food pro (blender would work too)
2. Spin until a semi-chunky mess.
3. Pour over chicken.
4. Hmmmm….ok now it gets difficult….throw into the fridge for 4-6 hours and bake at 400 for 40 minutes or grill it up.

p.s. yes I know grammar and spelling still sucks and if it would have been perfect people would be calling foul……

I know I know it has been like 33 days since I last posted…

BUT, and I don’t really want to point fingers here… buuuuttttttttt… some one else hasn’t posted in like 6,034,050 days… so if any flogging is going to happen it will be HIS heinie that get’s it NOT mine. I have a plethora of excuses. But only one way to make it up to you…

Another installment in the wonderful that is SCOOPAPALOOZA!

Yea another ice cream… I wish I had like oh I don’t know some juicy JERK PORK CHOPS or some GRILLED ONION CITRUS CHICKEN THIGHS to post but I am in a microscopic apartment at the moment, and making rice causes the inside temps to hit 90 in 3.4 seconds and I am afraid the heat will cause the lake to riptide. I wonder if anyone ELSE has some recipes for the aforementioned dishes to post… donno :donno:.

At least this ice cream… where not grill-able comes with some heat…

That, my friends is my newest warped creation, Mojo Mexican Ice Cream. And yea it is muy caliente y muy fría!

This ice cream is a brown sugar Ceylon cinnamon based cream, with swirls of dulce de leche and Mexican chocolate fudge which is flecked with bits of salted chipotle.

Yes. It is involved. But so very worth it. (Besides if you are like me – you already have cans of dulce in the fridge awaiting its calling so yea half done really…)

Lets start with the base:

2 cups of half and half
1 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 heaping tablespoon of Ceylon cinnamon (reserved)

(This cream and half & half base is my go to…)

Combine the half and half, the cream and the brown sugar in a medium sauce pan and cook over medium low heat. Stirring occasionally, bring this mixture to 170°. Remember – do not allow to boil… then remove from heat and let cool slightly. Pour into non reactive, air tight container and let cool in fridge overnight. (Must get to 40°)

Next the Dulce:

If I can teach Elle from Elle’s Kitchen to make Dulce de leche this way anyone can do it. Tho I think she stood just outside the kitchen door with blast shields up…

Take a can of sweetened condensed milk and peel the label off it.

Place the can in a deep pot and cover completely with water. Bring water to a boil and allow to boil, making sure that the can is completely covered at all times with water, for about 90 minutes. If you do it longer you will have a thicker dulce. About three hours produces a dulce that you can slice with a knife and eat like a chunk of cheese… (Gonna faint at the thought.) Regardless it is heaven and it is the easiest thing in the world to make. Albeit a little scary for the inexperienced.

Remove the can from the water and let cool. I HAVE opened the can after about 30 minutes when it was still a little hot to the touch (you do NOT need to in this instance…) I did it slowly. Nothing exploded or sprayed out like hot lava. Bottom line is this. I am not a kitchen safety expert, and definitely not following the OSHA guidelines for dulce surety. AND I KNOW damn well that a bunch of you are going to get all up in my ice cream because THIS IS SO NOT SAFE!!! Yea. Well. Neither is eating all of Jeff’s sour patch kids yet I do it…

So the dulce needs to be cool to add to the ice cream or it will melt. BUT you only want it room temperature. So. Leave the can closed on the counter top till you make the actual ice cream and move on to the fudge…

El Mexican Fudge

8 oz Mexican Chocolate (like Ibarra or Abuelita Marqueta, probably called Mexican hot chocolate so yes, this is NOT bitter chocolate)
1/3 cup butter
2 cups powder sugar
1 cup evaporated milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 large chipotle pepper, seeded and chopped into small dice.
Hot water to cover
1/2 t vanilla salt (just salt is fine too)

In a large saucepan, combine the chocolate and butter. Cook and stir over low heat until melted. Slowly add in the sugar and milk. Increase heat to a low boil and cook, stirring constantly, for about 8 – 10 minutes. Remove from heat and add the vanilla.

Take the diced chipotle and place in a small bowl or cup and just cover with hot water. Add salt and stir to dissolve. Let sit till needed.

When the chocolate is cooled, divide. Store half in fridge for future topping use. Rinse and drain the chipotle and then add to the reserved half of the chocolate fudge.

Quick note. The dulce and fudge need to be no hotter or colder then room temperature. So if you make them the day before and store in fridge you will need to them to room temperature before layering in the ice cream.

Are you exhausted yet because I am just typing all this…

Ok so – time to get that ice cream maker out of the freezer and the base out of the fridge. And following your manufacturers guidelines, process the cream base. NOW is when you add the Ceylon cinnamon to the cream. While it is slowly becoming ice cream, get out a 32 oz container in which you will store the ice cream for its final freeze. When the cream is finished becoming ice cream, pour a third of it into the storage container. Then pour in a thin (ish) layer of dulce. Add another third of the ice cream and then add the chocolate chipotle fudge in its own naughty layer. Finally top with the rest of the ice cream. Cover and put immediately in the freezer for a MINIMUM of 4 hours, or as I like to refer to it as… torture.

When serving be sure to scoop all the way down to get to the all the layers.

I accept all forms of flattery & thanks. Go ahead throw money I won’t be offended.

I often used to partake in Wordless Wednesday, but I also often broke the rules. Ya know. By adding… WORDS. So in true Heather (Translated: Full of PURE AWESOME) fashion, here is my contribution this week. Yes I promise more garden photos to come. There are a few more on our flickr if you click on the chive flower. NOT on the actual chive. That pulls up a page on baked potato porn.

Maybe they should just change this to Less then 82 Words Wednesday.

Last week while goofing off on twitter taking a break from working very very hard , I got into a conversation with my friend Elle over at Elle’s New England Kitchen about the finer aspects of ice cream. (Like it tastes much better when eaten directly from the carton while standing in front of the open freezer door.) It all started because I was getting ready for a weekend of vanilla bean and creamy goodness and making up a “I NEED / WANT” list. So she says hey you know you can just freeze bananas and process the crap out of them and Waaaa laaaa – banana ice cream. Of course she SAID this to me on a MONDAY and the ice cream maker was 3 hours AWAY. Grr. So I made up for THAT tease with nachos and beer.

ANYHOO – I already KNEW ice cream was in my future as I recently spied some vanilla beans that I had forgotten we had. Swirl in some of that delicate banana gooeyness with what was already going to be killer and you have PURE SEX on a SPOON. So we recruited Kathy at A Good Appetite Renee at Flamingo Musings and Barbara at Vino Luci (Who hasn’t posted her ice cream yet but DAMN THOSE BROWNIES!) to create banana debauchery along with us. If I were you I would FEAR clicking the previous links of my partners in bananadom because if you are no where NEAR ice cream, you may just PANIC. Then again mayhem may break out just from this photo alone:

And now, because that is the kind of girl I am, I will TEACH you how to cause said mayhem. ( Yea yea, I ROCK.)

You need this:

2 cups half-and-half
1 cup whipping cream
2/3 cup sugar
2 vanilla bean, split and scraped.

Pint o’ blackberries

4 Bananas

(Oh by the way. You ALSO need a thermometer, an ice cream maker and a food processor to pull this off flawlessly.)

Have everything? Ok…

Then you do this:

Combine the half and half, the cream, sugar and vanilla bean in a medium sauce pan and cook over medium low heat. Stirring occasionally, bring this mixture to 170°. DO NOT ALLOW TO BOIL FOR THE LOVE OF GAH!

Remove from heat and let cool slightly. Pour into non reactive, air tight container; throw in the scrapped vanilla bean pod and let cool in fridge overnight. (Must get to 40°)

About 2-3 hours before pulling out the ice cream maker, peel bananas, slice into chunks, and freeze. (If you go longer it is ok, just let them thaw a tad.)

Ok time to make the ice cream. Set up your ice cream maker (according to the manufacturers directions…) and pour in the cream and vanilla mixture. OH! Remove the pods first. (NOW rinse them and dry them and put in your sugar for yummy vanilla sugar!) Turn it on and let it run.

While the ice cream maker is doing its job, take the frozen bananas and process the bejezzus out of them in the food processor. You will need to scrape down the sides like 259,035 times, but it is worth it. Keep it up till you have what looks like ice cream.

During this time, your ice cream maker has probably done its magic and you now have some beautiful double vanilla bean ice cream forming. When you have about 5 minutes left on the ice cream. dump in the black berries. You CAN chop roughly if you like. I just tossed them in whole. While it is wrapping up it job, get out another non reactive air tight container.

Spoon some of the banana “ice cream” on the bottom of the container. Then layer with the vanilla black berry ice cream. More banana. More cream. More banana. More cream… I think you get my drift.

Then place in freezer till it sets. Sorry folks, this AGAIN may be over night.

However your patience will be paid off in SPADES because this is some of the most decadent ice cream you will ever lay your taste buds on.

Oh. You are VERY welcome.