23rd recipe created by me: Carrots and Wild Rice!

So as we all are during this current pandemic, I'm staying home.

And due to the grocery shortages because of everyone hoarding, we get the groceries we can get; I've been eating whatever is in my pantry.

So I made a batch of Uncle Ben's Long Grain and Wild Rice, because I love that stuff.  I could eat it every day.

Today, I was craving carrots.

So I heated up a can of carrots, drained, stirred in butter and brown sugar, and then mixed it in with the wild rice.

It was quite delicious!

22nd recipe created by me: pickle juice baby back ribs

What?  Pickle juice?

Yes, Pickle juice.

I first prepared the baby back ribs by seasoning with seasoned salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder.  Roasted in the oven at 400 degrees.

When they were ready, they were terrific!

But on a whim, remembering that a certain chicken place uses pickle juice on their chicken, I decided to try pickle juice on the ribs.

So I poured some pickle juice on a sample.  Ehrmahgerd!

I poured more pickle juice on more ribs.  It's awesome!

21st recipe created by me: Green Beans turkey giblet gravy

As with all recipes "created by me", this recipe was created by accident.

I had made smothered fresh green beans for Thanksgiving.  I sauteed some "creole seasoning"** in olive oil in a cast iron skillet.  Added seasoned salt, black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder.  Then I transferred it to a crock pot, along with fresh green beans, and added some chicken broth.  Cooked down the green beans overnight.

** "creole" seasoning is in the refrigerated produce section; It's finely chopped onions, celery, green pepper, and garlic, in a container ready to use.  I hate green pepper, but in the creole seasoning, you don't really taste it.  

So when the green beans were all gone, I still had a bowl full of broth.  So I decided to use the broth to make my turkey giblet gravy.

Roast the neck and giblets in the oven at 350 degrees.  When they're done, chop the giblets and remove the meat from the neck.  

Make a roux with butter (or turkey drippings) and Wondra flour, then mix in the green bean broth.  Add more Wondra flour, and more green bean broth, until you have the amount of gravy you want.  Add the chopped giblets and neck meat.  Warm on low until it's ready.

I discovered that using the broth from the green beans made the giblet gravy taste like... green beans.

Which if you like green beans, is good.  If you don't like green beans, you won't like this.

20th recipe created by me: Mustard baby back ribs

Tonight I had a slab of baby back ribs that I had to do something with.

I've tried several different recipes for ribs, but tonight I decided I was going to try making one on my own.

First I put the following seasonings in a bowl:  Black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, brown sugar.**

**I also added seasoned salt, but due to the salt content in yellow mustard, you don't need the seasoned salt.  Paprika might have been good.

Then I rubbed the slab of ribs with yellow mustard.  Sprinkled the seasoning mixture on the ribs.

Into the oven at 400 degrees.  I put the ribs vertically, in a circle in a cast iron skillet.

Those ribs were the bomb!  They were a little salty, which is why next time I will omit the seasoned salt.  Yellow mustard contains salt.

Turkey in a can

This is an Orion Cooker.  It's a convection cooker, and it uses coals on the outside, while the food cooks on the inside.

I tried to make a cheap, makeshift "do it yourself" orion cooker, using the bottom of my charcoal grill and a steel metal bucket, turned upside down.  

Did it work?  Absolutely.  Would it have been much easier to use the Orion cooker?  Absolutely.

I used my makeshift "do it yourself" orion cooker to make what is known as "trash can turkey", or as I prefer to call it, "turkey in a can".

Thankfully, I only had a 10 pound turkey, because that 5 gallon steel bucket proved to be very small.  Not sure a bigger one would have fit.

You MUST use a turkey stand.  I used a ceramic "beer can turkey" stand, to make the turkey stand vertically.  Actually it's called a Sittin' Turkey Steamer.

I prepared the 10 pound turkey by injecting it with Tony Chachere's Creole Butter injectable marinade.  This is imperative.  You don't have to use that particular injectable marinade, but you do have to use some type of injectable marinade, or the turkey will be too dry.

After injecting generously, I brushed the outside of the turkey with what was left in the bottle, and poured the rest into the "beer can turkey" stand.

Placed some heavy duty aluminum foil on the bottom of my Old Smokey charcoal grill, and placed the "beer can turkey" stand on the foil.  Placed the prepared turkey vertically on top.

Put the stainless steel 5 gallon bucket upside down over the turkey.  Note that the bucket was NOT galvanized; you should not use galvanized metal for cooking food.

Put coals all around the bucket, and some coals on top.  Lit the coals and let them burn.

It only took about an hour and 20 minutes to roast the turkey.  I couldn't see the turkey to see if it was done; I smelled the very good roasted turkey coming from the bucket, and figured maybe it was time.

In retrospect, I should have used a remote thermometer.

I had to use welding gloves to take the hot bucket off the turkey, and rotisserie gloves to remove the hot turkey and put it in the pan for carving.

It was a beautiful golden brown turkey.

You can do this with a small turkey.  If you want a bigger turkey, you either need to find a bigger non galvanized metal bucket, which I could not, or maybe an empty beer keg... or just buy an Orion cooker.

Stuffed pepper stuffing without the peppers

Someone requested that I make the following recipe for stuffed pepper stuffing, without actually stuffing the peppers:

Brown 2 pounds of ground chuck in a cast iron skillet.

Now, the recipe says to saute chopped onions, celery, and green pepper in butter, until they are soft.  I don't like green peppers, so I was going to omit the green pepper.  However, I found a prepackaged mix in the produce section, called "Louisiana's Choice Creole Seasoning Mix", which contained finely chopped onions, celery, green pepper, shallots, parsley, and garlic, already mixed together.  I wanted to save some time, so I used that.

So, in a separate skillet, I sauteed the chopped veggie mix in butter, until they were soft.

In a bowl, I shredded some hamburger buns; The recipe called for hamburger buns, but personally, if I were to do this again, I would shred saltine crackers instead.

Then poured in just enough milk to make the bread moist, but not wet.  

Added parmesan cheese to everything.

Then mixed it all together in a casserole dish.  Crushed some saltine crackers and sprinkled the crumbs on top.  Added more parmesan cheese, and put some dots of butter on top.

Into the oven at 325 degrees, until done.

It tasted good, but I definitely would like it better if it were all cracker crumbs, instead of the soft bread.  

Something about ground beef on soft bread doesn't sit well with me.  That's why I never eat the bottom bun of a hamburger.

Nineteenth recipe created by me: Double D sausage beanie weenies!

Someone suggested to me that I try a sausage local to the area, called "Double D sausage."  It's made and sold by the Double D sausage company in Bogalusa, Louisiana.

I was assured that it was the best sausage in the world.  Well, I don't know about in the world, but it is VERY good sausage!

I fried up the smoked sausage in a cast iron skillet, and it was amazing.  I decided to cut the sausage into slices, brown the slices in the skillet, and put them in beans to make beanie weenies out of them.

I put the browned sausage slices in with a can of Maple Bacon flavored Bush's Best canned beans.

There are lots of things you can put in beanie weenies, such as worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, yellow mustard, and such.  But if you use a variety of Bush's Best beans, you don't need to add anything, because those beans are already flavored.

Although you can, if you want to.

The sausage is divine, and cooked in with beans were also very divine!!!

My first beanie weenies

I never realized how much I like Beanie Weenies, because I have seldom ever eaten them.

Apparently, I like them very much.

There are many different ways to make them, and I intend to try a lot of different ways.

Here is how I made them:

I cut up some Oscar Meyer Select Turkey franks (that's my favorite kind of hot dogs; You can use whatever kind you want).  Fried them in a cast iron skillet.

Put a can of baked beans in the crock pot.  Put the browned cut up weenies in.  Added some BBQ sauce.

Turned on the crock pot, heated it up, and enjoyed.

I think next time I will toast the hot dogs in the toaster oven, because I love toasted hot dogs.

And I will use a really good flavor of baked beans.  I just used what I had on hand this time.  My favorite is Bush's Best varieties.

Other recipes call for ketchup, worcestershire sauce, and brown sugar, instead of BBQ sauce.

I was once told that Orleans Parish Prison serves the best beanie weenies ever.  I will just believe that; I don't want to go there to find out.

Eighteenth recipe created by me: Lazy Spaghetti Sauce.

Spaghetti sauce is very easy to make.  But this particular sauce is easier than easy, so I called it Lazy Spaghetti Sauce.

I wanted spaghetti sauce, but I was too lazy to brown and drain any ground beef, or chop anything.

So I put a jar of spaghetti sauce in a crock pot.  Added a drained can of carrots, a drained can of mushrooms, onion flakes, dried minced garlic, onion powder, and garlic powder.

No browning required, no chopping required.  Lazy!

I always love meat sauce, so I didn't know if this meatless sauce would be very good.   Yeah, it was pretty good.

I wanted to add some protein to it, so I cut some hard boiled eggs into quarters and added.  Ew, eggs in spaghetti sauce?  Yep!  Italians do it, why not?  It was great!

If eggs are not for you, some drained kidney beans would also add some protein.

London Broil with Mushrooms

I decided to make London Broil again.

I don't know what exact cut of meat I used; The label said "London Broil".  But that refers to the way it's cooked, not the cut of meat itself.  Probably flank steak.

I marinated the meat for about 24 hours in Worcestershire sauce, and a grill seasoning called "molasses bacon".

Put it on the cast iron grill pan, put some raw mushrooms in the pan, and put it under the broiler.

It was under the broiler until the smoke alarm went off.  The top was a little too done for my liking, but it was still pink on the inside, making it "medium well".  

I prefer medium rare.

I made fried green tomatoes

One of my all time favorite movies is Fried Green Tomatoes.

Today I made them for the first time.

Someone gave me a green tomato.  So I sliced it up, dipped each slice in egg and cornmeal mix, and pan fried in corn oil.

That's it!

They were good!

Coca Cola Baby Back Ribs, finally done right

A few months ago, I tried my hand at coca cola baby back ribs, and I did it wrong.

So I tried making them again, the right way.

I used a rack of baby back ribs, cut in half.

Seasoned the baby back ribs with salt and pepper.  Put them in a crock pot.

Mixed a can of coca cola and a bottle of Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce in a bowl.  

Poured half of the sauce mixture in the crock pot with the ribs, and set aside the other half.

Cooked on high for 4 hours.  Poured the rest of the sauce mixture over the ribs, and turned off the crock pot.

Good recipe!

I made poor man's prime rib

I love prime rib, but as you know, it can be very expensive.

I found a recipe online for "poor man's prime rib".  It's not exactly the same as prime rib, but if you put au jus and horseradish sauce on it, you can't tell the difference.

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.

Take an "eye of round" roast.  Rub it on all sides with sea salt, cracked black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, and thyme.  

Put it in a cast iron skillet with the fat side up.

I also coated it with corn oil, but the recipe I found did not say to do that.

Once the oven is preheated, put the meat in the oven and reduce the temperature to 475.

Cook 7 minutes a pound.

After the time is up, turn the oven off, but do not open the doors.  Leave the roast in the oven for another 2 1/2 hours.

Slice and serve.  Awesome!

My first fresh black eyed peas

Black eyed peas are easy.  This was my first time making fresh black eyed peas.

You need 6 cups chicken broth, 1 pound of dried black eyed peas, 1 vidalia onion, some cubed ham, a few strips of bacon, 3 teaspoons minced garlic, salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder.

Cut up the onion and the strips of bacon.  Put all of the ingredients in a crock pot.  Cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.

Yes, it was that easy.  Fresh black eyed peas are much better than canned.

My first turkey in the Char Broil Big Easy

Today I made my first turkey using the Char Broil Big Easy. 

It's marketed as an "oil less turkey fryer", but it's actually an outdoor roasting oven.  There's no such thing as an "oil less fryer".  That's a marketing gimmick.

It was also the first turkey I cooked, using an injectable marinade.  I used Tony Chachere's Creole Butter flavor.

And let me say, that I will NEVER make another turkey, without using an injectable marinade.  That turkey was incredible.  JUICY turkey-- even the breast, and I don't even like turkey breast.  

Because I used the injectable marinade, I didn't think I needed to rub butter on the surface of the turkey.  Actually, I should have, but it was still a great turkey.

You could also brush the turkey with olive oil or corn oil, if you'd rather not use butter.

I also seasoned the turkey, inside the cavity and out, with my usual turkey seasoning blend -- poultry seasoning, black pepper, seasoned salt, and chicken granules. 

Because this was going in the outdoor roaster, which roasts the turkey vertically, I did not put a stick of butter in the cavity, like I usually do.

As far as how the turkey cooks in the roaster, I was impressed with how the skin got really crispy, while the inside (credited to the injectable marinade) stayed juicy.  

The major downside to using the Big Easy is, I don't have a covered patio, so it entirely depends on the weather.  And it rains a lot where I live!  

Also, cleaning up the Big Easy afterwards is a chore.

Although the Big Easy does NOT produce a "fried" turkey, I will give it points for producing a great crispy skin all over.

Most definitely use an injectable marinade when you cook a turkey in the Big Easy.  And even if you don't!

Shrimp mirliton casserole, for the second time in my entire life

Years ago, I made a shrimp mirliton casserole that was very close to my grandmother's secret recipe.

Mirlitons are also known as "chayote squash".

She always made shrimp mirliton casserole for thanksgiving and christmas-- it wasn't the holidays without those mirlitons!

So I decided to make some for christmas.  I had to do it differently, since someone who will be eating it is allergic to butter; I had to use cooking oil and Parkay margarine, instead of butter.

Also, this time instead of boiling the mirlitons, I smothered them in a covered pot on the stove, with onions and a small amount of cooking oil.

I thought that cooking the mirlitons this way would make them taste better.  I haven't decided if it made them taste better or not-- I really like fresh green beans cooked this way, but it made some of the mirlitons overcook.  Also, it was more work, because I had to pick out the pieces that overcooked, and cut off the burnt part.

So here is what I did differently:

Heated up a small amount of cooking oil in a pot on the stove.  Added chopped onions and cut up mirlitons.  Covered the pot and let the vegetables cook down in the oil.  Drained and set aside.

Heated up a small amount of cooking oil (instead of butter) in a skillet.  Added chopped onions, minced garlic, and raw shrimp; Sauteed in the skillet.  Added black pepper, oregano, thyme, onion powder, and garlic powder.

When that was cooked, I added the mirlitons, then added parmesan cheese and italian bread crumbs.  

I mixed the bread crumbs and parmesan cheese all through, then added more of both on top.  

Sliced up a stick of Parkay margarine (instead of butter), and put the slices on top.  Into the oven at 350 degrees.

This recipe was good, but not as much like my grandmother used to make, as the previous recipe.

So I'll just boil the mirlitons next time... 

My first prime rib roast, on the rotisserie

I have a rotisserie, and wanted to use it for something.  Since I am not the biggest fan of chicken and pork, I used it for something I rave about:  Prime Rib Roast.

It was really quite easy.

My roast aged in the refrigerator for a couple of days.  

I coated the rib roast with olive oil, sea salt, and pepper.  Let it sit for a couple of hours.  

Put it on the rotisserie for an hour and 15 minutes.  It was a six pound roast, so that's about 12 minutes a pound, and it turned out medium rare.

Sliced it, and had it with horseradish sauce.  It was divine.

After 7 years, I finally tried toasting real pumpkin seeds.

I've had every intention of toasting my own pumpkin seeds, for the past 7 years.

This year, I finally did it... and I did it wrong.

Unfortunately, none of the grocery stores had any more pumpkins.  So I guess I will have to wait till next year to try again.

What you are supposed to do, is get the seeds out of the pumpkin-- and don't bother with those flimsy pumpkin cutting kits that bend and break on the first use.  Use a serrated knife.

Don't worry about rinsing the bits of pumpkin off-- that adds flavor.

Let the seeds dry on a flat pan.

Coat the seeds in Olive oil.

Add salt, or seasoned salt if you want.

Into the oven at 300 degrees.

That's how you're supposed to do it.  Never mind how I actually did it, since I did it all wrong... 

I'll try to remember next year.  I'm not waiting another 7 years.

Mock "prime rib" and Au Jus

I love prime rib.  It's my favorite "steak", but it's not actually "steak".  It's a rib roast that has been sliced, and is usually served with horseradish sauce and "Au Jus".

Au Jus is a dipping juice made from beef broth.  

There are several ways to make Au Jus; I made some by heating up some beef broth with Worcestershire sauce on the stove to a boil, then reducing the heat to a simmer, and allowing the broth to "reduce".

So when I went to the store to get a "prime rib" roast, the butcher suggested to me that bone-in ribeye was the same cut of meat, only sliced into steaks, and was two dollars a pound cheaper.

I don't know if that was correct or not, but, that was what he told me.  And, it was two dollars a pound cheaper.

So I got the bone in ribeye steaks.  Now, steaks definitely cook differently than roast, so I did not expect it to be exactly the same as the prime rib I love to order from a restaurant.

But I cooked it similarly.  I stacked the two steaks on top of each other in an open roasting pan, and roasted them in the oven at 250 degrees until they were pink.

When I first tasted it, I decided it needed more flavor, so I put Worcestershire sauce directly on it.

I read later that it would have been more flavorful had I seasoned the meat with garlic cloves and black peppercorns before putting it in the oven.

Other than that, it wasn't exactly the same as in a restaurant (and it wouldn't be, since steaks indeed cook differently from roast), but it was just about.  

Especially with the horseradish sauce!

Chili with no beans

One of the oldest arguments in the world is, should chili have beans in it or not?

Some people insist that real chili does not have beans in it.  Some people insist that chili is made with beans.  Who is right?

Well, in my honest opinion, neither is "right."  It's just a personal preference.

I have always made my chili with beans, whether it's red kidney beans, or pinto beans.  I actually prefer the pinto beans.

But for grins, I decided to try making my own chili recipe, without the beans.

1 pound of ground chuck, browned in a skillet with chopped onions and minced garlic.  Drain.

Add 1 8 ounce can of tomato sauce, 1 can of diced tomatoes (undrained), and a packet of chili seasoning.

Because I didn't add beans, I also added a bit of beef broth.

Simmer for a couple of hours.

It was good chili.  I'm used to beans since I always make it with beans, but even without the beans, it was good chili.

I will say that adding beans makes the chili have more servings, since the beans stretch it out.  Without the beans, there are fewer servings in the pot, but the chili is "meatier".

So.  Beans or no beans?  Do whatever you want.