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.

Spinach and Artichoke Bisque

Reprinted from my guest post at Our Krazy Kitchen.


Nibble Me This Spinach & Artichoke Bisque

Ingredients
4 teaspoons flour
8 ounces butter
3 cups beef stock
1 stalk celery finely diced
1 1/2 ea onion diced
1/2 bunch green onion chopped
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon thyme
2 cloves of roasted garlic
1 can artichoke hearts with juices (about 2 cups)
1 cup spinach fresh, rinsed and chopped
salt to taste
1/8 teaspoon Tabasco
1/2 cup white wine
1 cup heavy cream

Instructions
Melt the butter in a sauce pan. Whisk in flour over low heat and whisk constantly for 5 minutes. Slowly whisk in beef stock after that. Then add celery, onions, green onions, bay leaf, thyme and garlic. Simmer for 45 minutes.

Finely chop artichoke hearts, chop the spinach and add to the mixture, continue simmering another 30 minutes. Remove from heat, let cool slightly and then puree it in a blender, food processor, or with an immersion blender.

Add cream, wine, Tabasco, and salt & pepper to taste. Bring back just to a simmer, garnish with whatever you like (croutons, fried leeks, sour cream, etc), and serve. Pictured today garnished with fried leeks and thyme.

Guest Posts and Poach Pods

I'm guest posting today (Saturday) and Valentines' Day over at OuR KrAzy kItChEn . Please hop over and check it out. There's always something going in OuR KrAzy kItChEn.

Today's post over there is a Valentines' Day Brunch and I had to poach some eggs for Eggs Benedict. I took this opportunity to try out some of those silicon poach pods and compare them to normal poaching.

I poached two eggs the normal way - carefully sliding an egg into 200f water for about 8 minutes (for a firm yolk) and then fishing them out with a slotted spoon.

Then I poached two eggs using the poach pods - floating them in 200f water for 4-6 minutes.

Then I had to throw that batch out because I didn't read the part that the pot is supposed to be COVERED so I had a partially poached pair of eggs.

I did another two eggs, covered this time and I cooked them for 8 minutes since they didn't look quite set at 6 minutes.

Side by side comparison:


My overall impressions are:

• The poach pods are more efficient in that you retain 100% of the egg while in free hand poaching, you loose some of the whites.
• The poach pods were not any easier, in my opinion, than normal poaching. In fact it adds a few steps to the process (lubing the pods, having to work the cooked egg's edges off of the pod with a spoon, etc).
• I preferred the normal poached eggs over the poach pod eggs in appearance and texture. The poach pod eggs looked too much like a McDonald's egg mcmuffin processed egg and the edges were a bit rubbery (overcooked) yet the center still wasn't firm as I wanted.
  

I know that some people have tried these and said that they really like them, but they just aren't for me. I'll stick with the normal way of poaching eggs.

Don't forget to see my guest post at Our Krazy Kitchen.

Standard review disclaimer: Unless otherwise stated, I have no affiliation with and received no compensation from restaurants or product manufacturers reviewed and paid full retail price for the item reviewed.

Fire Roasted Herb Chicken

This one isn't a recipe, just a quick dinner we made tonight.

I took a free range chicken and.....well, it apparently wasn't a FREE range chicken, the store employees chased me when I left without paying for it. I should sue them for false advertising. Plus that cavity search was totally unnecessary, what do they think I am, a free range chicken?

Anyway, I made a compound butter with basil & thyme. I stuck tablespoon sized pieces up under the skin of the bird. Then I microwaved a few leftover pieces and brushed it on top of the bird. A little S&P, placed on a preheated cast iron skillet and onto the Big Green Egg at 400f (indirect heat w/ the plate setter in).

After the bird hit 120f in the thigh, I added some aromatics and 1/4 cup of white wine.

Sure, you COULD do this in an oven, but you'd miss out on this. Why oven baked chicken sucks.....

Once the chicken hit 180f in the thigh and 160f in the breast, I removed it to a plate. I kept all of the veggies and one to two tablespoons of the rendered juices. I added a few cups of cooked rice and mixed it together, then returned the chicken to the skillet.

Plated a little dark meat with some sliced breast.

It was very good, but it wasn't as good as my smoked chicken recipe with crispy skin. On the other hand, it didn't take 3 hours to make either and this dish comes with rice....WIN!

Chasing Demons

Russ at Inner and Outer Demons 2 has been a blogger friend of mine for years. He is an artist by trade and I was privileged to have him draw my avatar last year, a brilliant version of the Big Green Egg.


His disturbingly funny cartoons have made me laugh so many times that I can't ever thank him enough. He is far more talented than he admits and is way under-appreciated as a creative genius. I loved this post from Friday.

A Message From The Onion You Forgot You Had

So if you like the occasional, "Wow, I really shouldn't be laughing at that!" kind of guffaw, throw Russ' blog into your feed reader. It will make your day one day when you need it.

Southwestern Chicken Cacciatore

You may have noticed a lot of visual weirdness at Nibble Me This since this weekend. I ran into some bandwidth issues on the hosting site for the header and background. My good friend & template guru, Brandi, is fixing it for me this week but there might be some speed bumps along the way.

I'm pretty proud of this dish because not only did I make it up on my own, I did it on the fly using what I had with what I thought would work and the whole family loved it.

I was GOING to make a knock off of Ruby Tuesdays' Sonora Chicken or Aubrey Cafe's Rattlesnake Pasta, but I realized that the chicken thighs I had were not boneless, but bone in. So I opened the fridge and changed gears...

Nibble Me This Southwestern Chicken Cacciatore

Ingredients
5 ea chicken thighs, bone in, skin on
1-2 tablespoon oil
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon salt
1 ea serrano chili, seeded and finely diced
3 ea mini sweet bell pepper, seeded, diced (substitute 1 sweet bell pepper)
1 ea vidalia onion, diced
1 ea jalapeno, seeded and diced
4 cloves garlic, peeled (kept whole)
2 oz Tequila
14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 ea beef steak tomato, cut into wedges
cilantro or parsley for garnish

Instructions
Put an oven proof skillet in the oven and allow to preheat to 350f.

Make a rub with the chili powder, pepper, cumin and salt. Season both sides of the chicken thighs.

Place the heated skillet on the stove top burner over medium-high heat and add oil. Add thighs skin side down and sear for 5 minutes. Flip and sear the other side for 5 minutes.

Remove chicken to a plate. Reserve one tablespoon of oil in the pan and pour the rest into a glass measuring cup. Add chicken broth to measure 1/2 cup and keep for later in the recipe.

Add the onions, peppers, and garlic to the pan and saute until the onions begin to soften, about 4-5 minutes.

Deglaze the pan with the Tequila. Most of it will evaporate off in just 1 minute. Return the chicken to the pan. Pour the broth/drippings mixture and the diced tomatoes over the chicken. Top with the tomato wedges.

Put back into the 350f oven until the thighs reach an internal temperature of 180f (relax....they're bone in thighs, they can take the heat without getting dry). This took about 30 minutes in the oven. Top with cilantro or for those of you cilantro-phobes, parsley.

We served it with rice topped with the veggie mixture and some quickie "non-refried refried beans"(one link chorizo crumbled and browned, mixed with one can of Bush Mixed Beans [pinto & northern] topped with cheese).

I was kind of worried that this would be too spicy hot but it wasn't. Even the 10 y/o loved this and he doesn't like much heat. Now that we made this out of the blue, just based on what we had on hand....I'll definitely be making this again on purpose.

Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. Maybe tonight was a bit of both.

Jalapeno Potato Salad & Raspberry Chipolte Ribs

I'm usually a traditionalist when it comes to potato salad. I like your basic "Southern, after church, covered dish, yellow mustard potato salad".

However, a few years ago, Robert at White Trash BBQ got me to try this Jalapeno Potato Salad recipe for something different. Before I go into the details, you have to go look at his blog to see the ridiculous picture of me that he included in his post. Trust me, it's worth the extra few clicks.

Jalapeno Potato Salad
adapted from the White Trash BBQ adaptation of Beverly Bundy's recipe

4 ea large potatoes, peeled and cubed into 3/4" pieces
1/4 cup coarse grain mustard
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoon of roasted garlic
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 cup olive oil
3 ounces black olives, pitted and drained, halved
4 ounces feta cheese
1/4 cup green onion, sliced thin
1 to 2 ea jalapeno peppers, seeded and finely diced

Cook the potato in boiling water until it just starts to turn "fork tender".

Mix the mustard, vinegar, garlic, salt and pepper in a mixing bowl. Slowly add the oil while rapidly whisking so you get a good emulsification (not separating).

Drain the cooked potatoes and while still hot, add to the mustard mixture. Fold in the black olives, green onions & chili peppers.

While Bundy likes to serve her's chilled, I followed Robert's lead and like to serve this dish warm.

The jalapenos give a nice crisp texture and really aren't very hot when they have been seeded and finely diced.

This potato salad is quite a departure from the same ol', same old potato salad. I still enjoy a basic southern potato salad but this jalapeno version is now our favorite. The bold flavors of the feta, vinaigrette, and jalapenos bring it together.

Speaking of different, several months ago, I receive a care package of free samples from the folks at Fischer and Wieser. One of the samples was their Roasted Raspberry & Chipolte Sauce. It has been neglected for one reason or the other until now.

I had a very nice spare rib that I had trimmed St. Louis style (squared off). Actually, I had three, but froze two for later use.

I seasoned the rack with a rub...

Smoked it with lump charcoal and a blend of cherry and hickory woods in the Big Green Egg at 250f (put them on bone side up, I just flipped them for the picture) for 4 hours....

At 4 hours, the ribs were just starting to be done. I use the "bend test" to test for doneness (lift one end with tongs, the ribs should bend at almost a 90 degree angle). So I liberally brushed some of Fischer & Weisner's Roasted Raspberry Chipolte sauce....

At 4 1/2 hours, the ribs were done. I used to do spares using the well known 3-2-1 method (3 hours naked, 2 hours in foil, 1 hour naked & glazed). But since I quit using foil, they are almost always done at 4 1/2 hours. Not sure why that is, but it's been consistent.

I'll be honest, I was not sure what to expect from the raspberry chipolte sauce. In fact I was skeptical. I'm happy with just "naked" or dry ribs but the rest of the family prefers sweet glazed ribs. All four of us thought these ribs had a pleasing blend of sweet and savory tastes. We eat a lot of ribs here so it takes something different to catch our attention and this finishing sauce did it. I liked them and they LOVED them.

We'll definitely use this sauce on ribs again.

Now that lunch is over, it's time to start thinking about dinner.