Recipe - - Page 143

by BS

Sows Gone Wild

I assume I’m ineligible for the prize winnings, but my competitive streak won’t let me pass up the gauntlet gansie threw done with the varmint cooking contest.

Unfortunately, the food co-op was sorely lacking in the squirrel, mole and chipmunk departments, so the craziest thing I could find was wild boar. I know, not exactly scurrying folk, but really, it might not be a wild boar, it might be a rodent of unusual size.

Anyways, it’s from D’artagnan, so I jumped. Aside: can we talk about how awesome the D’artagnan brand is? I’ve already told you about their duck bacon. But I’ve been stockpiling their other fancy-pants provisions too, like chicken truffle sausage, dried porcinis and more. Plus, they are apparently all earthy and sustainable to boot. I swear this is not paid promotion, I’m just blown away by their meat.

And, this particular wild boar mini-roast is made from the knuckle of animal, and while I’m not exactly sure what that means, it sounds pretty damn varmint-y to me.

Back to the boar…

by gansie

Log Cabin Epicurians

Happy President’s Day!

You might be wondering what the above photo has to do with POTUS Day, and if you are, blame it on your nursery school teacher. My mom manages 17 three year olds on a daily basis. And when I say manage I mean she sings with them, ties their shoes, leads circle time, helps them with crafts, feeds them snacks (NO PEANUTS!), and of course, teaches them. AKA – comes home with a headache every day.

Nursery school lessons are boiled down to the basics. (I won’t even get into the way they teach Thanksgiving.) Anyway, here is the tasty treat that the kiddies made to commemorate our very noble, very honest, very judicious country leaders.

And one note, every year dad gansie comes to my mom’s classroom to help out with this messiest and yummiest of crafts. I guess the children think my dad is the original G-Dubs.

Lincoln’s Log Cabin ~~Republicans~~

Place a shoe box open side down and cover with aluminum foil.

(dad gansie and unidentified pre-schooler)

With a plastic knife spread vanilla icing on all sides of a pretzel log. Stick on shoe box.

Bonus points: create windows and doors with broken pieces of pretzel.

in Desserts / Holiday / Recipe 9 comments

by BS

Brie My Valentine

Here’s a tasty last minute Valentine’s Day recipe for those of you who interpret “going all out” as using the top knob on your toaster oven. Hey, don’t judge, it’s a step up for some of us.

I made this the other night with my valentine, Alex (newish development – of course the ES community gets first word on these things). Anyway, here’s the shocking part – she’s a vegetarian. Clearly I’m not happy about this, but none other than the New York Times says it’s possible for us to coexist, even though, and I quote – from the paper of record:

“Meat eaters smell bad and have low energy.”

Well I can’t argue with that, but I do know that portobello mushrooms might not be filet mignon, but they are just about the tastiest things I’ve ever had that aren’t served bloody.

Navigate that hurdle for more on the toaster oven portobello and brie sandwich.

in Cheese / Personal / Recipe / Sandwich / Veggie 11 comments

by Tim

Grillin’ in [a small apartment in] Narnia

My girlfriend makes a pretty cool roommate. So after we moved in together last Spring, I came to realize that the most difficult adjustment I’d have to make to our new digs had nothing to do with co-habitation. Because we chose an apartment, I’d have to learn to live without a grill. Even typing that out makes me want to punch and curse. I HATE not having a grill. In my previous life with grills, I had exalted them to the highest status. They’re like slutty angels on Earth. Easy, social, fun, delicious, smoky, drippy, dynamic, versatile, outdoor goodness.

Since I began cooking, the grill has always been my favorite medium. When I was in High School, my ~~friends~~ ruthless gang and I would grill all of the time – every week, sometimes every day. We cooked hot dogs, burgers, steak, brats, kielbasa, italian sausage, pork roasts, chicken, ham, bread, tricked out civics, books, virgins, christians, everything. For a while I used to carry one of those cheap gas Coleman hibachis in my trunk, just in case. We grilled in the summer, the winter, at midnight (Midnight Steak Team Represent), in the snow, in the rain, at the beach, at the pool, at Burke Lake, damn; everywhere that Sam’s buddy, that furry goose looking thing, wouldn’t eat Green eggs, we grilled. That was about 10 years ago, and I never lost it. Since then, I’ve always lived with people that shared the love. In college we got stoned to the bejesus belt and grilled pizzas in donuts in the front yard. And they were f*n good. I love grills.

So yeah, enough fecking background. All of that rant for one simple reason – the other night, I decided to grill Christmas in July, or whatever. Click below to keep reading, sucka.

in Recipe / Red Meat 3 comments

by Russell Warnick

Let’s Not Choke on These Birds

My friend Tucker and I visited some friends in Manhattan a couple of weekends ago. It was a meeting of DC-transplants, as no one seems to settle in this transient city. So while we were all together, and with JH living so close to the Union Square farmers market, we decided to make dinner.

Most of our friends are students, including the gracious host, so we knew we didn’t need to impress — beans on toast would have done! But JH is a stickler for “etiquette” – it had to be seasonal fare with absolutely no repeat dishes. We started planning the menu a few days in advance, with a few options in mind (farmers markets can be unpredictable.)

Our key ingredients were onion, beets, leeks and pheasant. We cooked three pheasants, which we named Judy, Angela and Patrick. Yes, we’re a little loopy.

I mentioned in the comments of a previous posting that I wanted to cook a dish around Jerusalem Artichoke and up until this trip I had never even seen the damn vegetable. Clearly, it was going to be an interesting feat. We named this the “Challenge of the Chosen Choke!”

Dinner to feed ten… See menu after the jump.

in Fowl / Recipe / Veggie 5 comments

by gansie

We Are Taiwanese If You Please, We Are Taiwanese If You Don’t Please

Editors Note: Okay, so I can be pretty judgmental. For example, when women either (a) don’t have their nails painted, (b) have chipped nail polish or (c) only paint their toe nails in the summer, I immediately think less of them. Now of course, some of my best friends are negligent polishers, but that doesn’t mean I forgive them for being an absentee nail painter. See my point? I’m ridiculous.

When I first met Maidelitala all I knew was that she was a vegetarian and didn’t eat cheese (but, the cheese is no fault of her own – she’s a self-IDed “lactard.”) With the no meat, no cheese thing I thought I would have nothing to talk to her about. But, as I very soon learned, she loves to cook and makes really amazing veggie, cheese-less food. So as a part of my own learning process – learning to accept non-carnivores—here is Maidelitala. Oh, and she’s also a very exciting dancer. But that’s another story.

Since I was a wee tyke, one of my very favorite things to eat in the world has been a perfectly cooked plate of fresh broccoli (not raw, not overcooked.) Thus you must imagine my abject horror at Bush the Senior‘s shameful show of disdain for the cute little green trees and my chortles of delight when the Broccoli Farmers of America dumped a wheel barrel of the herbaceous crop on the White House lawn back in the day. Ahhh those were the days, when wheel barrel rolling terrorist farmers could get close enough to the White House to play practical jokes on the mouthy geezer who called himself Commander-in-Chief of this outfit…

Anyway, one of my very, very favorite ways to cook this veg-edible is Taiwanese style with sliced, slow cooked bean curd (a variation on a recipe taught to me by a not so dear roommate – not that she was bad… she was just a really, really loud talker and kept all sorts of pig products in every orifice of the fridge, which was super offensive to my veggie sensibilities. Regardless.)

Even if bean curd is something you really would rather avoid eating (it wasn’t so long ago that the word bean curd made me think of regurgitated legumes,) I promise this is a delicious, simple dish and the broccoli alone is worth making. Believe me, I’ve been a veg-head since I was 10 – I know what I’m talking about.

Read on for this special veggie edition of ES

in Recipe / Veggie 14 comments

by El

When Life Gives You Pineapples…

Obviously you have to make sweet and sour sauce to go with it. Not only was my boss headed out of town for the week, but she was kind enough to leave me with her leftover pineapple. Needing to come up with a way to use a large quantity of soon-to-spoil fruity goodness, I turned to my wok for inspiration.

Recipe and more inspiring photos just a click away…

in Fowl / Recipe 5 comments