For almost a year, I've been looking for a way to cook tip roast that doesn't end up overly chewy- for some reason, it seems even a long bath in the crock-pot is too much for one's round tip roast. Tonight, I was determined to come up with a solution, and I am disturbingly pleased by the result.

It started with a small round tip roast, which I tried to murder horribly with a fork before dredging in flour, onion powder, and garlic powder. Then, I heated a 10-inch calphalon pan with a small amount of canola and added a pinch of cumin seed and three cloves of garlic. I browned the tip roast quickly, then just as quickly burned off a shot of cognac.

After this, I added one can of chicken broth, a pound of celery hearts (halved), and a can of tomato sauce; one dash of hot sauce and a pinch of freshly ground chiles and it was ready to go in the oven at 350 degrees.

An hour later, I pulled out the roast and celery and covered them with foil; added a little more flour to thicken as well as a shot of soy sauce and a dash of worcestershire. I whisked this down, mounted the sauce with half a stick of butter (for shine), and then served it over the sliced roast and the celery.

It turned out pretty fantastic. I used a very small roast, so there was an overabundance of sauce this time around; I think I'll make a little more next time.

I have never in my life liked egg salad sandwiches.  Not that I ever had many of them.  I think part of it was probably my association of egg salad sandwiches with convalescent homes (senior citizen care centers).  I understand why it would be a popular dish in that setting.  It is a food that is soft and easy to chew, and aside from some base ingredients, one can make it as bland or flavorful as they wish.  I think the problem that I had with these sandwiches is that they never seemed to have much flavor.  Therefore, I stopped even attempting to eat them before the age of 12.

Now I have to take you back to last summer.  I live in Vegas, so it gets hot, and yes, it really does get hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk.  My sisters and I tested that theory as kids when we used to spend the summers here visiting relatives.  Well, the heat does strange things to my appetite, aside from sometimes just killing it completely.  Last summer, I suddenly had the oddest craving for an egg salad sandwich.  This was completely out of the blue, as I have already explained that I had written them off as unpalatable.  Alas, I know that if I don't give in to one of my spontaneous food cravings, it will haunt me until I do, even going on for months, so I knew that I had to try an egg salad sandwich as an adult.

I try to completely avoid red and white onions in food, although I love them, but I'm allergic and it took me years to really figure it out.  Because of that, I thought it was going to be hard to find egg salad sandwiches premade at the store without onions in them, since I thought that they were usually made with onions or onion salt for flavoring.  I guess I might have been confusing the mixture with potato salad, because I found a sandwich all wrapped and ready to go at the local supermarket that was sans onion products.  I got home and hesitatingly took the first bite, not sure what to expect.  Well, this particular sandwich had basically no flavor at all.  No salt or anything.  Sure, I could add salt, but the bread was already fused to the egg salad.  I ate the whole sandwich anyway.  It did nothing for my craving.  it just so happens that my cravings are not just for a certain dish, but for the ULTIMATE version of that dish.

There was only one thing I could do.  I had to make my own egg salad sandwiches at home from scratch.  I got out two of my many general cookbooks and decided to try each version at the same time.  I made both batches and found that neither one was all that great, but definitely better than the grocery store deli version.  After storing the mixtures in the fridge in their separate bowls, and telling one of my sisters to have at them, a day later we had a little of each left, but still in bowls much too large for the new portions.  I thought, "to heck with it", and tossed them in a bowl together.  I later decided to finish off my egg salad experiments, now combined, and it turned out that when mixed together, I actually had my ULTIMATE EGG SALAD SANDWICH that I had somehow daydreamed of.  I have since started craving this occasionally, so I have made it several times.  The amount of salt you use, which is the case for any food product, is up to your own taste buds.  A helpful hint for you, though, is that the mixture will taste saltier after it is allowed to sit for awhile.  I guess that's more of a warning, as you may think you've salted it to perfection, only to find that it is much too salty after 6 hours in the fridge. 

 

Ultimate Egg Salad Sandwiches

Ingredients:

10 eggs

5 tablespoons mayonnaise

1/4 cup drained pickle relish (or chop up some pickles yourself)

1/3 cup celery (I think celery is nutritionally useless; although it does add a fun crunch, I usually omit it)

2 tablespoons finely chopped green onion

1 tablespoon diced pimiento

1 tablespoon mustard (yellow, dijon, etc. - whatever you'd like best)

1/2 teaspoon salt

Loaf of sliced bread (the heartier the better - adds more variety to the texture)

 

Instructions:

Place whole eggs (shells intact) in a large saucepan with enough cold water to completely cover them.  Bring to boil on stove.  After boiling starts, continue to boil for 15-20 minutes.  When time is up, run cold water over them until cool enough to handle.  Crack each egg and peel off the shells (I believe that I read somewhere that egg shells make excellent fertilizer for some plants, but you'll have to research that one yourself).  On a cutting board, use your favorite knife to chop the eggs up.  I prefer the egg whites to be as big as quarter-inch cubes, but it all depends on how smooth you want to mixture.  Really, this sandwich is all about you and your preferences.  How else could it be the ULTIMATE for you as well as me?  Toss the chopped eggs into a medium-sized bowl and add all of the other ingredients, in whichever order you please.  Stir well.  Spread between two slices of bread, preferably toasted first.  Cut diagonally, and enjoy.  Refrigerate the leftover mixture immediately - never take your chances with heat and anything containing mayo.  Makes about 6 sandwiches.

 

So as we all know the dollar just doesn't quite buy us what it used to.  Everyone is making adjustments of some kind.  Some people are standing around whining about the situation and others are doing something to deal with it rationally.  One such rational approach is being taken by Susanne over at Hillbilly Housewife.  This woman has mastered stretching the food budget to the max. She offers a $45 Emergency Menu that feeds a family of 4 for a week. How crazy is that?  Really it is amazing. She gives you a complete shopping list, the recipes, the entire week's meal plan, and the step by step daily work.  

The more I time I spend on her site the more little gems of insight I find. Reading her site has inspired me to make some wiser choices with my own food budget.  I am looking forward to eating healthier for less money.

After looking online and not finding a chicken and dumplings recipe I liked, I tried this:

 

1. Saute an almost-mirepoix of shallots, celery, and carrots in olive oil; add three cubed chicken thighs and chicken stock.

2. Mix 1 1/4 cup flour with 1 tsp salt, 1 tbsp baking powder, and one egg; slowly add milk until it becomes a dough and loses its stickiness.

3. Season your chicken with pepper, tarragon, onion powder, garlic powder, soy sauce, and worcestershire. Add one can cream of celery soup and a bay leaf.

4. Add the dough in teaspoonfuls; cover. After five minutes, remove cover and flip.

 

Simple, no? This turned out really, really awesome.

So tart-on wanted me to make her enchiladas, out of Mexicans, for eating. Not having any idea how to make them, I read four or five recipes online for common ingredients (this is how I research all recipes), then promptly forgot everything I read and just started cooking.

I started with some canola oil and about four cloves of garlic, minced. To this I added about two tablespoons of ground chiles (dried red, ancho, and california pods), paprika, chili powder (a lot), cumin, and onion powder. After this started to smell like enchiladas, I browned two chicken thighs on both sides, then poured in two cups of chicken broth and put on the cover for about fifteen minutes (on medium high).

After the chicken was cooked, I shredded it with a fork while the chicken broth reduced on high. Then I pulled the tortillas out of the oven (what? Where did the tortillas come from? I forgot to mention, I put some in the oven at 170 so they wouldn't break when I tried to roll them) and rolled them around the chicken before I put them in a square glass baking dish.

By the time I filled the dish and set the oven for 350 degrees, the chicken broth was reduced to the point where I could start making a sauce. I added two cans of tomato sauce, some garlic powder, some more chili powder, some dried parsley, about two tablespoons of cocoa powder (heck yes), and a little pepper. The chicken broth was salty enough so that I didn't need to add any salt.

After the sauce all came together, I poured it into the baking dish, covered the top with cheddar, and put it into the oven for half an hour. This is awesome. Eat enchiladas. Every day, until you die.

Ingredients:

• 1 pkg of stew meat, browned.
• 2 california chile pods
• 6-10 small red peppers.
• 2 pasilla (dried ancho) chile pods.
• 6-10 small arbol chili pods.
• 3 jalapenos
• 1 can tomato sauce
• white pepper, to taste
• 1 tbsp chili powder
• garlic salt
• onion powder
• celery seed
• cumin
• 2 cans beef consomme
• 1 can chicken broth
• 1 bottle newcastle
• 1 cup ground tortilla strips

After browning the stew meat, I threw it in a crock pot along with all the dried peppers (ground), the tomato sauce, the beef consomme, the chicken broth, and the beer. I ran the jalapenos through the blender, and added them as well as the remainder of the ingredients. Easy, right? Other than running everything through the blender, the only work is browning the stew meat and occasionally stirring (I used a whisk as well). After that, I left it to cook all day- with the occasional taste and spice/salt adjustment. How will it turn out? We'll see, after tonight.

And set yourself on fire you shall. Particularly after eating this atrocity I invented last night.

Software:
1/2 lb. Ground Beef
1/2 yellow onion, diced.
1 med. Red Bell Pepper diced (this is a chile too, btw)
3 Habanero Chiles diced fine (fresh)
3 Thai Chiles diced fine (fresh)
1 Random Chile diced fine (Seriously. I bought a fresh "Hungarian" Chile from Vons. 
                                       Who the hell knows what subspecies of capsicum it is.)
2 Jalapenos diced fine (fresh)
3 tsp. Cayenne Chile (powder)
4 tsp. Naga Jolokia Chile (powder)
1 can Chipotles in Adobo (only use 5 of the chiles or so, diced)
1 14.5oz can Ranch Style beans
5 tsp. chili powder (I use homemade, store bought is sawdust)
1 cup beer (I used Peroni, because thats what I had)
Garlic Salt
Salt and Pepper

1. Brown the ground beef in a skillet, once browned, throw in onion and bell pepper. Season with Garlic Salt and Pepper to taste.
2. Done! (just kidding.)
3. Or am I?
4. No, I am. Drain the fat from the skillet. Throw in all diced chiles except the Chipotles. Soften.
5. In a soup pot, stock pot, pot of some kind, combine meat mixture, and rest of the ingredients.
6. Cook until it tastes good. Or until you can't taste anything because the chiles have beaten your
    tastebuds into submission/mass suicide.

 

On a side note: I wish the preview pane hadn't gone away, but I do like the new post editor Tele.

After seeing this completely and totally awesome page for minestrone linked off of wikipedia, I felt it was my patriotic duty to make minestrone. After all, I do live in Las Vegas, and anybody who lives here knows that italian restaurants outnumber any other kind of restaurant by a factor of approximately thirty-seven to three. I especially liked the basic assumption- that you can pretty much just buy seasonal vegetables, completely at random, throw them all together, and make some soup. I mean, you basically don't need to know how to do anything. How could this possibly go wrong?

So I went to Sunflower Market, since they sell local produce, and bought twelve of every vegetable they had. If you could screw up minestrone, I was going to figure out how. I came home, got a big stock pot out, and started my soffrito- a fancy word to say I rendered the fat out of some bacon and then threw in some onions, leeks, and shallots.

I also didn't have pig trotters or marrow bones or anything like that, so for thickening I waited until my 'soffrito' was pretty much sweated, then threw in some flour, like a roux. Then I spent TWO. HOURS. cutting up vegetables and throwing them in. I cubed the turnips. I chopped up the zucchini, summer squash, celery root, spinach leaves, potatoes, and carrots. It looked like I was carving up the grisly aftermath of a war against the vegetables, a war which I handily won. All of it drowning in six cans of chicken broth and a pitcher of water, with a sprig of rosemary (I fished that out after everything started smelling like rosemary), a bay leaf, and a parmesan crust. Then, because I was pretty much throwing in everything I had, I put in two cans of kidney beans and a cup of orzo. By this point I was in such a rut that I might have diced my children and thrown them in, had they wandered into the kitchen.

It cooked for HOURS. Three and a half hours. I felt like a witch, sitting there and stirring my massive cauldron of stuff. And then something magical happened. It started to smell like delicious.

So, basically, you'd have to try way harder than I did to screw up minestrone.

Disclaimer: The below contains cynicism. If you think this is a kind of disease, I suggest you go beat yourself over the head with an iron.

It was Indian night, and I've never so much as had a curry.

Nevertheless, I had a great evil plan in the works: I was going to cook Indian food pretty much the same way as I cook all food, by sort of looking at a recipe on the internet and then adapting it for my own evil purposes. I was going to do this because I had zero idea what kind of spices I was going to be using, what the end result was supposed to be, and whether or not what I cooked could be considered as poison in the right jurisdictions.

The recipe starts with a cup of masoor daal, which the internet tells me is some magical, rare variety of lentil. Since I wasn't about to go on a Fancy Steve style treasure hunt just to find a lentil that probably tastes exactly the same as normal lentils, I used mealworms. Okay. Fine. I used lentils. But if the original dish was supposed to be all squirmy, everybody was going to be totally disappointed.

The instructions were to wash the lentils. I sighed heavily and hoped somebody would notice how I was pretty much martyring myself just so I could cook food invented by people who don't even eat prime rib. Unfortunately, there really wasn't anybody paying attention to me, not even me, so I finally gave up and washed the lentils. The tremendous sacrifices I make for these parties, right?

The next instructions from the supreme commander, aka The Interwebtubes, was to mix the lentils with water, cooking oil, turmeric, red chili powder, salt, onion, and tomato in some sort of pot. Whoa. That's a lot to process all at once. I'd be posting the amount of the ingredients here, but I wasn't really paying attention anyways. I finely chopped a massive onion and three tomatoes (I was making a triple-size recipe, for the gathering) and added these to the pot. Turmeric? I had that, because everything indian ever apparently needs it. For those of you wondering, it tastes yellow. The mexitexans probably say it tastes amarillo, which is a gay Texan way to say yellow. And what's this "red chili powder"? I judiciously decided this meant both red pepper and chili powder, both of which I have, because I am a man. So I dumped a lot of those in there.

Basically, after that point, I let everything cook for an hour and a half. Then I went and played video games. When the smoke alarm went off, I looked for a save point, saved my totally awesome robot ninja, and then went back to the kitchen. I was supposed to melt some ghee, which is Indian for "butter of the gods". I am not kidding. It smelled like delicious, and it comes in what looks like a Folger's can. After it was melted, I threw in some cumin seeds ("Hiss," said the seeds). In went a gallon of garlic and a metric buttload of dried chilies, which I crushed in my hands like beer cans. After everything smelled fried enough, I threw it into the lentils, mixed them all up, and was done with it.

I should mention that I was supposed to add something called asafoetida, which kills unborn babies, smells horrible, and attracts wolves. Since I know some unborn babies and not many wolves, I was going to add it, but that would have involved wandering around the smelly part of the international market, so I refrained. Instead I added saffron, which is expensive, in the hopes that it would make all the food taste like magic. Instead, it made everything smell like flowers.

Okay, I gave it a taste. But after I spit that out and gargled with bleach, I figured everything was alright. I put it in a bowl, drove over to Fancy's, and pre-dialed the ambulance. 

 

Last night, I decided to do away with a bunch of leeks by whipping up some sort of soup with them, mostly because I'd wanted to try vichysoisse for months. I can now say that, whatever it is I made last night, I ate it and it was fantastic.

 

• 3 leeks, chopped fine
• 6 red potatoes, cut thinly
• 2 cans of chicken broth
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped fine
• 4 pieces bacon
• 1 pint cream
• garlic salt
• pepper to taste
• 1/4 tsp celery seed
• 1/4 cup mild cheddar, shredded
• 1/2 cup romano, grated
• 1/4 cup portobello mushrooms, chopped
• 1/4 cup butter