Stuffed Fritos - March Madness Food

Stuffed Fritos....

Your argument is invalid.

I made a game grub menu for today's ACC Championship Basketball game featuring our beloved Tarheels against the Florida State Seminoles.   I'm not a huge sports fanatic, usually sports are just an excuse to grill and chill with friends.  But college basketball is my favorite sport and March Madness is MY favorite time of the year.  There is so much drama starting today with all of the underdogs, Cinderella stories, and upsets. 

Our menu was

Tip Off Course:  Armadillo Eggs (smoked cheese stuffed jalapenos wrapped in sausage and smoked)

Half Time Course:  Grilled Hot Wings

Crunch Time Course:  Stuffed Fritos

But first, funny story about last night.  Trevor spent the night at his buddy's house with a dozen other 12-13 year olds for a birthday party and the police ended up getting called.  It's not like it sounds though.  Apparently they were being rambunctious and playing hide and seek at 10pm (on a Saturday night).  A neighbor came down banging on the door to complain because it was making his dog bark.  He was so belligerent to the single mother that other neighbors ended up calling the police on him.  If he had complained to me I would have had to ask, "Were you ever a kid or did you come straight out of the womb as an @$$hole?"

Okay, back to the food.  I'll cover Armadillo Eggs in another post but the stuffed Fritos...yeah, they are as awesome as they sound.  They are kind of like a one bite taco, but even better.  I learned about these from Frank From Houma on the GreenEggers forum in 2009.  They are ri-donk-ulous as tailgating or party food but they don't hold for too long, so serve them right away.

And yes, you could do them in an oven.  But it's beautiful, get outside and grill, you know you want to.

Stuffed Fritos

Source:  Adapted from Frank From Houma 

Ingredients

2 bags Fritos Scoops*

1 lb ground beef 93% lean*

1 cup colby jack cheese, shredded

1 packet taco seasoning

1/4 cup salsa or Homemade enchilada sauce

2 Tbsp roasted red pepper, finely diced

2 Tbsp cilantro, finely diced

Southwestern Sauce*

Instructions

1. Preheat a charcoal grill set up for indirect heat to 350f*.
2. Mix the beef (yes, raw), cheese, enchilada sauce, taco seasoning, red pepper and cilantro thoroughly.
3. Pick out the 48 most perfectly formed Frito Scoops from the two bags.  
4. Stuff about 1 tablespoon of the meat mixture into each Frito Scoop.  
5. Roast on the grill until the meat registers an internal temperature of 165f which should be right at 20 minutes.  
6. Serve immediately topped with Southwestern Sauce

Notes

• Scoops.  First, it HAS to be Frito Scoops, not just Fritos.  You need the size.  In a perfect world, you would need only one bag, but a good bit of each bag will be broken or unevenly formed.  
•  Lean Beef.  This is the only time I ever use lean ground beef.   Anything else will render too much fat and soak the Scoops in grease, not good eats.  
• Southwestern Sauce.  I just used 2 parts homemade ranch dressing, 2 parts homemade enchilada sauce and 1 part sour cream. 

It was a 2 Egg day since cooking at different temps.  See all the Bradford pear blooms?  Achoo!

Wings were the half time course but I post too many wings already, so no post for them.

Photo Credit to Alexis.  Doing the "spin and toss in sauce"  in the last 10 minutes of the wing cook.

Wing Porn.

Stuffed and ready to go on the grill. 

Finishing on the grill.  Try to eat just one, just try it.

Hope you guys have all had a great weekend!  Guess what?  We lost an hour of sleep last night but we gained an extra hour of grilling time for the rest of the summer!

Burger Club Challenge: Bobby Flay

Think about a time when you have moved.

You know that feeling when everything has been packed and you are doing that last walk through, making sure you got everything. You look at the empty rooms and feel a bit melancholy because you realized that despite the barren floors and walls, they are not empty. The memories of times spent there flood the void.

So you'll excuse me feeling a bit sad as I cooked my last meal on our deck tonight. I had cleared everything off of the deck except the Big Green Egg, for tomorrow's demolition.

[Cue music: It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday]

I smoked my first pork butts, ribs, and brisket all on this deck. There are burn marks and grease stains on this deck and it has worn them as a badge of honor. The best meals I have ever eaten and some of my catastrophic failures were cooked on this deck. As much as I'm looking forward to my new deck, I'll be verklempt as it is torn down tomorrow night.

For the "last dance" tonight, I did my entry for the Burger Club Challenge at Cinnamon, Spice and Everything Nice. This month's challenge is rather flexible - any burger by Bobby Flay.

I decided to make Bobby's Sante Fe Burger. You can view the recipe here. This is basically a chili verde burger with a cheese sauce and blue corn tortilla chips crumbled on top to "crunchify" it in Bobby's terms.

I charred the pepper on all sides... (Tip: Don't be bashful about getting it extra charred when grilling or broiling your peppers. If you only get spots here and there, you are going to have a harder time peeling it even after resting it in a bag.)

Grilled the burgers....

And while the burgers rested I made the queso sauce. A part of the challenge is to do the recipe AS EXACTLY AS POSSIBLE so your rating will be of the dish as written. I did vary one tiny bit with the sauce. Instead of salt and pepper, I used a bit of my homemade chili powder from last week.

My Rating (based on the challenges 4 point system)
3 Stars = Liked and will make again
I probably would have gone with a 4 Stars = Loved! Will make often rating but I made a similar sauce on my own last year that uses my smoked pepper jack cheese and that sauce outshines this one. The crunchiness of the tortilla chips didn't distract like I thought they might and Alexis just LOVED them.

OK all you grillers and Eggheads. Get over to Reeni's blog and enter this challenge. I'm interested to see which Flay burger you make and what you think of it.

Market Square Farmers' Market Burger

The July theme for the Outdoor Cooking Guild is .....

Farmers Markets. Farmers markets and farm markets are different things, so keep that in mind... A farm market is a market at a farm, with one cash register, etc. A farmers market is where several farmers set up booths, usually in a community based market and usually 1-3 days a week to sell the stuff they produce. So the challenge is to get stuff at a farmers market and cook with it outside! Pretty simple, really.

Alexis and I headed to Knoxville's Market Square Farmers' Market about a quarter til "holy BLEEP it's hot out there". I wasn't sure what we were going to make so we just bought stuff I knew we would use this week including a variety of peppers, tomatoes, summer squash, beef, pork, brauts, corn, and eggs.


We also had to stop by Strawberry Fields Market to supplement our supplies with Benton bacon, homemade pimento cheese, and green leaf lettuce.

I decided to go simple yesterday and made two versions of a stuffed cheese burger. These are basic, nothing earth shaking which is why you HAVE to use quality ingredients. There's nothing to hide inferior quality.

Market Square Farmers' Market Burger
Source: Nibble Me This

2 1/2 lbs ground beef (grass fed) from River Ridge Farms
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
1 Tbsp black pepper
2 tsp kosher salt
1 large clove garlic, finely minced
1/4 cup steak sauce (used the Habanero Steak Sauce I made yesterday)
2 eggs from Spring Creek Farm
3 slices Cumberland Cheese from Locust Grove Farms
3 Tbsp homemade pimento cheese from Yoder's Country Market
2 ea Better Boy tomatoes, sliced from Crosswind Farm
3 slices Benton Bacon
Leaf lettuce
6 hamburger rolls

Mix the first 7 ingredients together in a large bowl, mixing thoroughly but try not to smash it all together. Divide into 12 even portions. Form each portion into a thin 4" patty.

Top 3 of the patties with the Cumberland Cheese. This is the best cheese in the world. It is their manchego cheese with green peppercorns, sweet red chili’s, onion, garlic, and ginger added. I have to warn you, it is hard to cook with.....only because you can't quit snacking on it instead of using it.

Top 3 of the patties with 1 Tbsp each of the pimento cheese. This is not yucky store bought stuff. If you don't have access to quality handmade pimento cheese, make your own, it's easy.

Cap those six patties with the remaining 6 patties and seal the edges.


Put in the fridge for 30 minutes to allow the patties to firm up. This will HELP keep them from rupturing a cheese leak during the cooking.

Meanwhile, cook the bacon and preheat your grill to 450f.

Grill the burgers for 8 minutes, flipping and turning 90 degrees every 2 minutes.

For the record...I said it HELPS prevent cheese leaks. Don't panic if you get a leaker.

Serve on toasted rolls with bacon, lettuce and tomato.
I have a hard time picking which of these two I liked better. I think it would be more of a "which am I in the mood for today" kind of thing.

I'll post a link to Curt's site when the round up of the challenge is posted.

Not Really Food Related - Meme Catch Up

I've been remiss about answering a few memes with which I have been tagged. But if you are looking for something food related...


...I finally posted the Valentine's Dinner over at Our Krazy Kitchen (a follow up to the Brunch post from Saturday). Click on the link for your foodie fix.

Creative Writer
Back to the memes. Tamy (3 Sides of Crazy) tagged me with the Creative Liar...err..Writer meme that a lot of you have been doing.

Rules
1.Thank the person who gave this to you. (Thanks Tamy!)
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog. (Done)
3. Link to the person who nominated you. (see above)
4. Tell us up to six outrageous lies about yourself, and at least one outrageous truth.
5. Allow your readers to guess which one or more are true.
5. Nominate seven "Creative Writers" who might have fun coming up with outrageous lies.
6. Post links to the seven blogs you nominate.
7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know you nominated them.

Okay, here are my entries. Some are outright lies, some are partially true, and only one is entirely true.

1. I've never been out of the United States but I keep my passport handy because you never know when "legal entanglements" may arise.
2. I have a blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
3. I fractured my skull while surfing on my mother's 50th birthday & it was also Mother's day that year.
4. I love fish. I love it grilled, fried, smoked, and baked, I just can't stand sushi.
5. I surfed in Hurricane Hugo for some of the biggest surf of my life.
6. You can see me in the background in one of the bowling alley scenes in The Big Lebowski.
   
7. I was once arrested wearing nothing but a towel.

So you figure it out, which one is true?

Over The Top!
I also was tagged with the Over The Top! meme over at Mommy Gourmet's My Original Recipes. I have to answer the following with one word answers. I might cheat and use a lot of hyphens to sneak in more than one word.

Your Cell Phone? Annoying
Your Hair? Thinning
Your Mother? Nursing
Your Father? Recuperating
Your Favorite Food? BBQ
Your Dream Last Night? none
Your Favorite Drink? Water
Your Dream/Goal? Quixote
What Room Are You In? Study
Your Hobby? Food!
Your Fear? Heights
Where Do You See Yourself In Six Years? Content
Where Were You Last Night? Home
Something That You Aren't? Short
Muffins? Pancakes!
Wish List Item? stand mixer
Where Did You Grow Up? Florida
Last Thing You Did? (last night was valentines....pleading the fifth)
What Are You Wearing? Bathrobe
Your TV? off
Your Pets? chinchillas
Friends? far away
Your Life? satisfactory
Your Mood? peaceful
Missing Someone? sure
Vehicle? basic sedan
Something You Aren't Wearing? a leather teddy with thigh highs and heels
Your Favorite Store? Fresh Market
Your Favorite Color? Blue...wait, no yellow (aaaaeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiii!) Monty Python fans get it.
When Was The Last Time You Laughed? last night
Last Time You Cried? can't recall
Your Best Friend? asleep
One Place You Go To Over And Over Again? work
Facebook? a bit
Favorite Place To Eat? Puleo's Grille

I'm supposed to tag others with these Meme's but you know how that goes. They always say they'll get right on it, then they forget or take forever (like me). So if you want to do this, consider yourself tagged.

Chickamauga Chicken and Spanish Rice

I was asked to host Guess Who's Coming To Dinner over at Welcome to Our KrAzy KiTcHeN this week. It was fun getting to vandalize...errr...deface....errr...POST on someone else's blog.

I chose to go with a recipe that Trevor and I made up two years ago, Chickamauga Chicken. It's basically a grilled chicken breast topped with fried corn tortilla strips, black olives, green onion, cheese, and a bbq/ranch sauce. Go over there to see the full details.

But I needed a good side to go with the Chickamauga Chicken and decided to make a Spanish Rice. I decided to go with South Texas Spanish Rice by Carey Starzinger.

South Texas Spanish Rice
posted to the BBQ List by Carey Starzinger on Aug 5, 1996

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups long grain rice
1 ea onion, medium, chopped fine 1 ea jalapeno, chopped fine
2 cups chicken stock
1 cup tomato sauce
1/2 tablespoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 cup frozen sweet peas
3 tablespoons vegetable oil

Instructions
Brown rice in oil until just starting to brown. Add onion and jalapeno and brown 1 minute more. Add all remaining ingredients and stir only the top (not the rice!) boil 20 seconds, cover and reduce heat to med low for 20 minutes (do not remove lid). Leave covered for at least 30 minutes (the longer the better). Fluff with fork.

I gathered up the ingredients, except the frozen peas, as I had none. I ended up subbing some corn, made sense to me.

Three tablespoons of oil sounded excessive, so I figured if I was going to be excessive, then I was going to be excessively excessive! French have the mirepoix. Cajuns have the trinity. I went with the menage-a-fat. One tablespoon each of bacon fat, butter, and canola oil.

This seems just like a pilaf so far....

It turned out great!

Trevor ate three helpings (he did just come home from football practice) and everyone else loved it too. For such an easy dish, this one is a keeper!

When you knew you were a foodie

When did you first realize that you were a foodie?Maybe you didn't even realize it at that time, it wasn't until later.

Here's mine. It was February 1973. I was 5 and 1/2 years old.I'd stolen the entire basket of corn bread from the dinner table and slunk off to the den, where I sat on the magazine rack and proceeded to begin eating said corn bread. In the picture I am wearing the devil suit that was part of my Halloween costume in 1972 and some bad ass sunglasses.

So. When DID you first realize that you were a foodie?

Idea for Food Meme/Throwdown

I was kicking around ideas of what to cook for dinner tonight when I had a thought. I should (not tonight, but sometime soon) make a full menu comprised solely of recipes from other blogs.

Then I took that idea one step further. There are so many great foodies blogging out there. How many times have you commented, "Looks great...I have GOT to try making that" yet never get around to doing it?

All of us food bloggers should designate one weekend in a few weeks, when we all do this.
1) Select a a full menu using recipes from other food bloggers' posts. (Trying to use as many different blogs as possible.)
2) Cook the menu, take pictures, etc
3) On the designated date, post the menu (linking to the original posts), your alterations and your results.

Anyone interested?
What would we call the meme?

25 Culinary Things About Me

It seems that everyone this past week has been doing that 25 things about me on Facebook and their blogs. I did one on Facebook but while making french toast for the family this morning I thought that I should do one from a culinary standpoint. I have no idea how this will go but I'm going to give it a shot.

1. My full knife set is Henckles but my favorite knife to use has become a Caphalon santako.
2. I miss my wife working at Williams and Sonoma for the amazing discount that employees get. I can't afford to shop there much these days.
3. I probably cook 3-4 meals a week on my Big Green Egg.
4. I am disciplined in all the exercise that I do because I have zero discipline around heavy cream, bacon, and butter. I have a 21 BMI that I don't plan on going up.
5. I like to wear my mp3 player and dance around while cooking.
6. I have Kitchenaide and Cuisinart sets of pans and pots. However, my work horse is a pair of el cheapo industrial skillets from Sam's (Bakers and Chef's brand).
7. I don't have a wooden cutting board.
8. I love summer because of all the herbs that my wife grows in the front yard. There is something comforting about strolling your front yard for ingredients. Maybe it's because of being on my grandparents farm in North Carolina as a child and loving to pick dinner from their private stock garden.
9. God knew what he was doing when he made artichokes.
10. He kind of blew it on brussels sprouts though.
11. I'm a carnivore, I rarely have a meal without meat. I've been known to have meat as a side dish to meat;)
12. Cooking is theraputic for me. It is my way of relieving stress.
13. I have catered three events. That was NOT theraputic and did NOT relieve stress.
14. My mother is my inspiration for learning to cook although I took a different path and we rarely cook the same.
15. I'm not real experienced at cooking Fried Chicken of all things. I just don't like dealing with all the oil. I'd rather just spatchcock the bird and throw in on the smoker.
16. Fire! Fire! I'm Beavis and Butthead when it comes to cooking. I'd flambe ice cream if it were possible.
    
17. Sometimes I can't eat what I've cooked until the next day, especially when it's been a several hour long cook. Everyone can be wolfing it down and saying how good it is, but something just makes me loose my appetite. The next day, it's delicious.
    
18. I will cry if I ever have to give up my gas oven & range.
19. I always have a tea towel over my right shoulder while cooking.
20. I have absolutely zero culinary training other than Food Network and before that PBS.
21. If I won the lottery, I'd immediately enroll in the CIA or similar school.
22. My wife is my sous chef.
    
23. I miss Emeril Lagasse. Not the caricature from Emeril Live. I'm talking about the dude that he was in his first show. He was great then.
    
24. I have a man crush on Alton Brown. Brandi actually stood in line for hours to get him to sign a copy of his most recent book, for me.
    
25. I'm a firm believer that if a recipe calls for milk, they meant half and half. If it calls for half and half, they meant heavy cream :)

Wow, that was harder than I thought. I dare you to give it a shot if you have a food blog.