Turkey Day

Happy Holidays, guys! I love Thanksgiving, always have. Something about extended family members coming together over a distance to feast on an abundant fall harvest spread has captivated me since childhood. I'm admittedly sentimental about traditional celebration, to be totally honest with you.

Holidays surface so many memories, many of them food related, all of them meaningful in some aspect to me, however slight. There is a pin-trigger on end-of-the-year nostalgia for me. The sound of the lions or the cowboys playing on a front room television overlapping with the silky narration of 'a christmas story', marathoned every year on some cable channel, for instance, or the smell of each slow-baked dish as it comes out of the oven, resting on a long clothed table in my Grandma's back room.

I remember watching my mom and Aunt Barb pulling each section of that serving table apart, revealing two insertable panels underneath the surface, effectively doubling the surface (and seating) area once set into place. I can't see a handheld electric meat slicer without thinking of my Uncle Bob wielding it at my Grandma's kitchen table, carving thin slices of turkey and ham with butcheresque precision. The slices always reminded me of the fanned pages of  a meat book. Disturbing, right? I was a weird kid.

These recollections inspire me to recreate moments passed in my present life; as a result, I cook for the holidays. And I cherish this responsibility, readily embracing the role of sole purveyor of celebratory fare for my family.

Not only am I trusted to capably and effectively obtain, organize and execute a formidable dinner (not an easy feat, as many familiar with the seeping dread triggered by "holiday" and "kitchen" within the same sentence can readily attest), I have the opportunity every year share my passion with my loved ones, to execute these timeless standards in an enthusiastic way bordering upon the artistic.

As an added and essential bonus, I give myself the chance to reflect upon my culinary planning and preparation process later in writing, as I'm doing now, typing it all up the day after, dishes languishing in the sink, intentionally ignored for the time being. I'll tackle them tonight, though. I've developed something of a kitchen tic as I age, and cleanliness becomes all the more an important and essential standard to adhere to. Plus I've been taking more food photos, and filthy surfaces are less than photogenic (or hygienic, really). Such a dirty girl in the kitchen!

Now that I'm older and have a family of my own, I keep up the tradition, though on a smaller-scale. Instead of embarking on some three-hour car ride down to the more rural and less populated parts of Missouri, my kitchen has become the epicenter of November celebration.

My father sits in his living room chair with my fella and his father, each oscillating between cursing and cheering and casually comparing stats at a staggering rate as they focus on whatever game happens to be airing on his flatscreen.

My father has a couple of my sisters over, as well, and they pace about his house across the street from mine, sending my daughter over here and there with inquiries of Turkey ETA. Seven hours, I always say with a sarcastic smirk, to watch my kid's thick brown eyebrows furrow in disbelief. I see why people fuck with me; her face is too cute all scrunched up like that.

I woke up at ten or so in the morning yesterday, and sent Fish across the street for my coffee as I drug myself out of bed. She comes back empty-handed: no coffee made, Mama. No, my waking mind decides, that won't do. I had been meaning to acquire my own coffee pot for a while now, and having to wait on my dad's frozen porch each morning as he unlocked his door so I could pour myself some strong folgers in my to-go cup for my commute, scrunching my nose up as I sipped the thick black stuff, strong and soured with age, pressured me to make the purchase. No coffee at all, though, that sealed the deal for me.

Gabe volunteered to pick one up for me, he had to pick up his father, anyway. Both Detroit natives, they were more than excited for the 11:30 kickoff, and within what seemed like minutes, he was back with a $20 Black and Decker model (that you can program to automatically brew! ...somehow!), filters and a bag of Dunkin Donuts. Goodbye, Folgers Classic! Hellooooo morning java experimentation.

I put a pot on and change out of my silky pajama pants, bind and cover my hair with a bandanna, brush my teeth and wash my face, and get a huge bottle of water. I pour myself a cup of coffee, Gabe hands me a PBR can, I readily accept and open up my recipe binder -- a pink and purple tie dye three-ring binder with recipes sandwiched between sheet protectors -- to the thanksgiving section.

I took a couple days to plan my menu. First, I decided what to serve, then I looked up recipes for them. I don't just click the first one I see, I like to browse around until I can really grip the template of the recipe. What is the base recipe? What is commonly substituted? What would I/my guests prefer? Even mashed potatoes had me looking at three different recipes before deciding on an adapted Alton Brown instruction with no butter. Or pepper. Changed that shit quick. Potatoes and black pepper belong together when mashed. Likely the best squished spuds I've ever made, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Once the menu is planned and the recipes written down somewhat sequentially, I write up my shopping list. This one was huge, and nearly $150 for everything. My dad threw me $50 for it, though, Gabe's dad had $30, so it all evened out, considering I keep all the leftovers. My favorite part. I'm racing here, I need to slow down and focus on each step. Leftovers get me so goddamn EXCITED though!

Grocery list planning is a composite effort, one I do not take lightly. Proper list planning requires a chef to analyze each recipe's ingredients, substituting when necessary, accounting for how each item is sold (cost, size, brand quality, availability, etc). Failing to account for each item on your menu can lead to the nightmarish situation of being out of X the day of Y, so you can't make Z and fucked it all up. Panic mode ensues, and that's not a good look (not to mention cliche as hell. I mean, really. It's fucking flour. Get it together.).

If you're rhythmically precise, you can read your recipes and write each ingredient down, with parantheses around items you may have in your cabinets or fridge already. You will want to physically check before turning over your ignition, though. I do not have Fish do this because sometimes she is lazy and tells me we have something, then we get back from shopping and do NOT have it, to which she says, "weeeeell, I thought we had it..." Same thing with being out of something. "Ohhh, I didn't seeeee it there!" Move shit around, goddamnit! >sigh< She tries her hardest, that's all I care about, effort over ability and all that.

Knowing your ingredients is essential to planning, as well. How many cups of flour total, for all recipes? How much butter? Sticks or cups or tablespoons or what? How many eggs? Keep a tally near the ingredient as you read. I needed 4 cups of half and half, 8oz each, so a 15oz carton will do two. There's a little wiggle room. Unless you're baking. That shit's like chemistry, do not alter those without extreme confidence in your substitution expertise (I am still developing mine). 12 vs 18 eggs, always get more, as eggs are easy to fuck up. Butter is 8 tablespoons = 1/2 cup = 1/4 pound = 1 stick. There are four sticks in a one-pound box of butter. I get unsalted, you do you, though, and get what you like. I used every bit of the two pounds of butter I bought. My god.

Once everything is counted, compared, and cabinet-checked, get to the store and buy as much of it as you can. Fish, my shopping buddy, helps me out with this. I let her push the cart, tossing items at the basket as she shrieks with happiness. She finds empty aisles and races down them, grinning maniacally. I make her stop if I see someone else, they don't need to deal with that shit and all that. Still, she is good to me, and I give her a little little-kid leeway when I can. We pass a kid half her age throwing a screaming fit stemming from generic brand substitution, or an inconsolable infant or loudly indignant toddler in the cereal aisle. I lean over into Fish's ear after we pass and thank her for being on her best behavior. She knows impulse control is both incredibly difficult and immensely effective. So considerate!

We get it all purchased and back to the car, my list more blue scratches than legible items now, and head on home. Her father and her bring in the bags, I get them in the fridge and displayed on my kitchen table, grouped into recipes as much as possible. This is every Saturday for me, only less elaborate and for seven meals versus one. Even this meal will be eaten over multiple upcoming evenings. I can eat for a week or more on these leftovers. Don't take my word for it, though! I'll show you.

So, it's nearly noon on Thanksgiving. I load the live stream of MST3K Turkey Day on my laptop, setting it on my microwave for viewing as I work, crack open another beer, warm up my coffee, and get to work.

First up, the turkey.I bought a 20 pounder last week, so it had time to thaw out in the fridge. I did not brine it, though I am interested in trying this for Christmas dinner. I wanna do duck sometime, too, but that's not the point. I use Coolio's Game Day Turkey Marinade. Coolio cooks? Why, yes he does! And this marinade is incredible. I use the big Pulp Fiction-ey injector for it, too.

I smoke my turkey under a trashcan. Odd as hell, right? I saw this on the news the first year I moved to STL and my dad tried it. It's become tradition, with Fish requesting it every year as "tradition turkey, TRASH CAN TURKEY MOM *giggles ferociously*" It's a charcoal smoked turkey, very easy to do. I think our turkey was too big? Or something went fucky, because we ended up having to finish it in the oven. No worries, turned out beautifully, and will be even better in pot pies and croquettes but we're not there yet omg hang on. 

Next was the stuffing. I did not use a recipe for this, nor did I use a box of Stove Top, and fuck you for even insinuating I ever would! I used a loaf of French bread leftover from my potato leek soup (blog post upcoming), as well as some frozen bread heels I throw in my freezer for breadcrumbs. I cubed them up and baked them until they were crispy.

As they baked, I cooked some onion, celery and green apples in some turkey sausage before adding some parsley, sage and thyme. I threw the bread in, tossed it all up until each piece was nice and coated, then added some homemade vegetable broth to it. I put this into a pan and baked it for a half hour. It was not a fan favorite, but I've got tasty leftover experimentation plans for it, just you wait. Maybe waffles, or a savory bread pudding...

Next, I made green bean casserole. From scratch! I know! I used Alton Brown's recipe, and be warned, it is somewhat elaborate. I cut a couple onions and coated them in flour and breadcrumbs and a little salt and throw them on a pan in the oven, tossing a couple times before pulling them out all crispy and perfect.

Fish loves green beans but hates fresh ones, simply for the fact that it's her job, as it is EVERY child's job, to trim the ends. I set her up in front of the TV for this task, and she executes it quicker than she anticipated, presenting the bowl of trimmed beans to me, beaming with pride as she does. She also gives me the trimmings instead of throwing them away. "For broth!" she exclaims. She knows what the deal is!

I boil the beans and food process a package of mushrooms, then cook them in broth and cream with some roasted garlic before tossing the beans in with them. I add the onions and bake them brown.

Gabe requested mac and cheese , another AB classic I adore. Boil the noodles, make a bechamel with mustard powder, paprika, onions and sriracha, combine them in a casserole and coat with buttery panko before baking for a bit. Lots of compliments from this one. I used sharp cheddar, you can use anything you like.

My personal favorite is the sweet potato casserole. So bright and fragrant and dessert-like! It's a cinch, too: roast the potatoes in oil until soft, then slice them long-wise and scoop out their insides. The skin comes right off, it's incredible. Mash up the flesh before adding sugar and egg, then transfer to a casserole. Top with a quick streusel (flour, butter, sugar, vanilla) and bake until brownish. Absolutely to die for. Use marshmallows if so inclined, I never do. I saw a photo from last year's Turkey Day where I put shredded coconut on mine. Don't know what the hell I was thinking with that one.

Oh man. Seriously, oh man. These mashed potatoes. They have potato boil water in them, salt and pepper, parmesan and half-and-half. Dead, man. I added roasted garlic to it to really make it pop, and boy, did it ever. These were superb, likely the best batch I've ever been behind, without even a smear of butter. Will be making them this way again, no question.

The gravy  was nothing special, just onion, carrot, celery and garlic simmered with the turkey neck and some sprigs of thyme in some broth I had boiling on the stove as I cooked the aforementioned items. Really drove it home when Gabe brought the bird in for additional oven roasting and poured some drippings into the pot. Good lord. Pureed the broth and strained it, then thickened it with a quick roux and served it in a large mason jar. I have a lot left, which is great, I'm gonna add it to my pot pies this weekend, but I'm getting ahead of myself here, as always.

The cranberry relish I made was also a freestyle dish, a bag of fresh berries simmered in a can of crushed pineapple with lime juice and a little brown sugar and cinnamon. I whirred it all in my food processor for use in leftovers and perhaps ambrosia salad, a sort of fruity mousse that's easy to throw together on a whim. Throw some grapes or something in there. Awesome. Nobody but me eats this, it is my selfish dish that I absolutely adore and refuse to omit from my prep process. Takes two seconds on a back burner!

We arrive, at last, to dessert. Two pies scream Thanksgiving to me, pumpkin and pecan. I outright refuse to buy pie crust, it is easier, cheaper and tastier to make at home. Both pies turned out amazing. The pumpkin was made with cream cheese, very silky and springy once chilled. The pecan was baked in a cast iron (ran out of pie pans) and was the more expensive item served, as pecans are damn expensive, always have been. My god, that pie, though. Will make it again come Christmas, I think. Maybe as bars? A full slice is almost too much.

The finished plate looked like this:




Regarding leftovers, I am thinking personal pot pies for the dads, croquettes for Fish and I with oozing cranberry or gravy centers. Both freeze crazy well. I also may consider these jarred leftovers, purely to recreate the layered image. I am so taken with it, visually, but conceptually, this falls flat, as not many eaters mush all the food on their plate together into one amorphous bolus before consuming. Some experience unease at the mere mention of different items coming into physical contact. Meh. I may do it for the photo. I wanna save a plate for a friend of mine. HE'd eat a mason jar full of em, I bet. Then again, you never know!

Look forward to a separate post for leftovers coming up sometime this weekend, when I have a moment to execute them. I'm thinking Saturday. Tonight, I'm going home and doing absolutely nothing. Maybe some reading or non-Turkey Day blogging. I'm trying to get these idea drafts typed up and posted for you. I can do it, honest! You'll see! Just like I did today!

slow cooked mexican chicken

I am in love with slow cooking. The crock pot I received as a christmas gift from my sister-in-law a couple years ago -- a large dark-green ceramic dish nested within a camouflage heating base -- gets used more than any other corded item in my kitchen.

Each Saturday, I plan a couple crock pot meals, at least. On Sunday, I assemble these dishes and stick them in the fridge, then dump them into my crock pot before leaving for work. Sticking a pot of anything on low at 8am makes for a ready-to-eat home-cooked dinner by the time I get home around 7pm.

By incorporating slow cooked recipes into my weekly meal plans, I take a lot of the hassle out of end of the day culinary efforts, which seem doable all day until the moment I'm standing in my kitchen come evening, and I just cannot bring myself to execute tasks less simple than pour into pan, shove into oven, scoop into bowl, spoon into mouth (repeat until full).

Instead of being shameful of this work-induced laziness, I account for it with prepared meals: the slow cookables, the marinated chicken and precut veg, the packets of sauce and tins of staples that can be opened and heated and mixed to satisfaction.

I based this slow cooker mexican chicken off of this recipe  from The Kitchn, one of my standby food blogs. I absolutely adore this site, and this recipe is effortless and adaptable to any discerning palate. The prep is ridiculously straightforward: shove in some raw chicken, rinsed black beans, a large tin each of green chiles and crushed tomatoes, some frozen cubes of homemade chicken stock (or water, whatever I have on hand).

I season this dish with chili powder, cumin, oregano, some onion and garlic I chopped up real quick, and some cayenne pepper. If the pot is more solid than liquid, add more water/broth before setting on low and walking away for a few hours. Come dinner, I rinse and cook up some rice in my rice cooker (basmati pictured here), and ladle some of the chicken mixture on top. A bowl of this is fragrant and flavorful and leaves you feeling full, three things that are an absolute joy to come home to.

I recommend adding this dish to your easy weeknight meal circuit. I could even precook some rice and freeze it flat, then just nuke a bag before serving the chicken, to make this process all the more receptive to bouts of that day-end laziness I seem to be so prone to.

Are you also too lazy to cook some evenings? How do you manage feeding yourself on nights like these? Do you rely on the modern standard of quick corporate takeout or premade delivery? Do you eat cereal or corn right out of the can? Let me know how you handle these i-can't-bring-myself-to-cook evenings. I'd love to learn more about how you eat when you're REALLY not feeling getting in the kitchen at the end of the day.

Stay Hungry!
~HMW

SPFD FOODOLOGUE

Here's a list of everything I orally consumed on my weeklong trip down to my hometown of Springfield, MO, a town known for homelessness, religious zealots, cyclists, college kids, and chinese food. Seriously, I heard once that there's more asian chicken and rice shacks here than anywhere else in america, per capita.

Per friendly suggestion (thanks, Jay Dee), I will turn each of these items into a blog post, either by day or by dish, I haven't decided yet. I may even do a recipe zine for this trip, as well, as a follow up to Broke Kitchen Cooking. That way, I can have both the recipes and the essays without sacrificing content for either.

Will likely follow the blog format of mentally meandering over each meal for the essays, ending with the recipe post. The zine will be like BKC, straight colloquial renditions of how-to-make versus poetic riffing. I'm unwilling to forego the quarter-page format, and essays on sentimental food experiences (like those listed below) are a logistical nightmare to translate into zine-size, both in content and coherence.

Lots of ideas. ALSO, learned about M.F.K. Fisher after picking up an anthology of her culinary musings at bookmarx over the weekend, so I'll be researching her quite a bit in my overarching mission to write regularly about food and how outright giddy and gleeful I get about it. Lots to look forward to! Also, Thanksgiving is next week! Gotta power through these drafts I have on my list so I can tackle those for a timely post containing original food photos. Freaking swoon, dude.

Without much more ado, I eagerly present to you:

SPFD FOODOLOGUE

THURSDAY

hardees low-carb breakfast bowl with gravy
sugar free red bull
blue cream soda
taffy
potato soup and french bread
30 pack pbr


FRIDAY

starbucks at the bistro
mustard powder, 1/2 gal 2%
au gratin potatoes with leftover ham from last time
grad school cubans
steak n shake milkshakes (bday cake and wchoc)
Kum n Go: pb choc rice crispy, lg diet coke, thinking of fish with the pink milk and green juice


SATURDAY

canton inn
grocery plan and shop (borscht, spaghetti and meatballs, tamales and chocolate tres leches cake, pierogis)
borscht and kielbasa with saeurkraut
wasabi peas
whiskey sours
waffle house hashbrowns and coffee, cedars, mamma mary's


SUNDAY

Kum n Go coffee, diet mtn dew
pb rice crispy cubes
salami and goat cheese and hawaiian rolls and green olives
biscuits and gravy with glaze, no choc gravy
tainted pink in places from borscht splatter the night before
same gas station attendant, chip-pottle, love language
dillons deli selection:
dillons leaving spfd, eel sushi, meat counter, cara dinners
singing to-do riffs
accidentally 450
watch sister make gumbo, import makes best authentic
amber dinner: fizzy tonic and mason jars of sink water
tomato and chickpeas with yard egg
curried kale and carrot and onion
stone cutting board
corgie, foil
cornbread muffins with round tops
sharpie in the bathroom, borges,
table conversation about focus and facebook (inspired vs drained by feed)
mother's beer too yeasty, "pizza beer"
b&g stack story, snes game (bought), read junky aloud to me, no wifi
"freestyle cocktail": rum and sour tonic and orange fanta and maraschinos
tomato paste tube
i mention hummus, he says he prefers baba ganoush better
didn't make pierogis due to podcast, ordered dominos: philly with white sauce, pepperoni (untouched), bbq wings, parm bites (crust chunks), lava cakes


MONDAY

virgin cocktails for fish, realizing a knack for mixing
must eats in spfd: canton, caspers, taylor's, gem of india, grad sch, andy's
pierogis, leftover cabbage plate
to-go sour mix


TUESDAY

double americano from mudhouse
navajo taco, yelp half off deal
tamales
choc tres leches cake


WEDNESDAY

double americano and choc espresso beans
took leftover tamales and unused beef with me
stuckey's before rolla, got rainbow poncho, faygo for gabe, bud light tall can, sf red bull
made navajo tacos for fish and gabe at home

caramel apple cheesecake

Fall is all about apples and pumpkin and sweet potatoes to me. I broke down and bought a couple cans of pumpkin to make gnocchi with ricotta. I may also try a second batch with sweet potato, and do a comparative analysis post for you? Things to consider! I planned one for jasmine v basmati, but haven't gotten around to turning that draft into a published post as of yet. I'm working on it, though! Captured the idea and images, anyway, and that's step one, isn't it?

Definitely gonna make this recipe  for sweet potato fries and sriracha sour cream at some point this month, as well. Caught the local produce stand on its last day open for the season, scored some lemons and peppers (3 for $1! None of this buck a piece bullshit!) and apples and sweet potatoes for pennies. Seriously, three plastic bags crammed full of produce for ten bucks. You can't beat that!

I grated all the lemons (nearly a dozen of them) into a quart mason jar and filled it with vodka, screwed on the lid and gave it a good shake before sticking it in my kitchen cabinet. This is phase one of the limoncello I'm making for a friend of mine for the holidays. He digs vodka. Here's hoping he digs lemons.

Regarding apples, I kept seeing this recipe  pop up on my Facebook feed, as trending recipes tend to do, and couldn't take it anymore. I had to have it. Looking at it, it's super straightforward, and I was surprised at how fast this dish was executed, from first apple slice to first serving slice.

Always start your recipes with preheating the oven, or you'll hate yourself when it's time to bake and you're stuck waiting for 20 minutes for the machine to temp. Inefficient and amateurish, if you ask me. Were you to ask my eight year old what step one is for any recipe, she will not hesitate. "Preheat the oven," she will say, "then get out all your ingredients and bowls and measuring stuff." The little miss grips miz already! So freaking proud of you, Fishers :)

Once you're set up and warming, mix the flour and sugar and cut in the butter. This is your crust, press it into a pan lined with aluminum foil so none of your crust sticks to the pan (note: i did not foil my pan, and they came out fine, but it's better with the foil) and bake for 15m, until nice and browned.

As the crust bakes, beat the cream cheese with some sugar and eggs and a little vanilla. Use an electric mixer and room-temp cheese and eggs. I did this by hand. I do not recommend it, but make sure your cream cheese is soft but not warm, or you will scramble your eggs and your cake will suck city with big chunks of cooked egg in it. This has happened to me before, when I made Gabe a new york-style cheesecake for his birthday (with cherry pie filling, as I do every year, it's a fucking two day cake) and I was devastated.

Pour your filling over your warm crust and set aside. Chop some apples and mix with sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. I add allspice, as well, because it's MAGIC. Spread this over the filling. Mix equal parts brown sugar and flour with some oatmeal and a stick of butter and sprinkle over the apples. This is streusel, and it's ridiculously delicious, I promise. Bake for a half an hour and drizzle caramel over it before letting it set in the fridge. Caramel is easy, sugar and heavy cream, that's it.

Be sure to let it chill, or you'll get mushy slices versus clean-cut ones. I would likely make this again, it was stupid fast and was a big hit with the kiddo. Making this dish made me want to make lemon bars again, though, which were NUTS, and I loved them obscenely. I'll do a post on those sooner or later (have I already? What's happening here? Who are you? Get out of my house! No? Well, shit. You want some cake and coffee? Yes? Great! Pull up a chair! Happy to have you, stranger!)

salmon and zucchini cakes

I surf Allrecipes pretty frequently during the week for meal planning and general brainstorming purposes. It's likely my favorite website right now. I love that any recipe I think of is there, from old-world foreign dishes to three-ingredient throw it in a pot and heat it for a bit meals, all overflowing with user photos and notes of experience. Unpretentious, user-friendly, and infinitely inspiring to my kitchen efforts.

Anything you can think of is on there, like some sort of user-generated encyclopedia of edibility. All over the world, these strangers virtually congregate, passionately pouring over each recipe, referencing their ancestors and homelands as they build and share their catalogues of must-try snacks and apps and dinner ideas. It excites me so!

I'm particularly fond of the viewer suggestions accompanying the recipe. I always check the site-specific comments for spice addition or omission advice or suggested variations in preparation. Many readers express their annoyance at the mere mention of culinary diversion, but I enjoy it. It's a genuine response to the recipe. Cooking is so much more than an equationesque, stepwise procedure for me. It's a living creative process, with recipes resembling templates more than they do rigid regulations.

Do you experience anxiety, watching me cook? Does my foregoing of measuring spoons make you nervous? Does watching me eyeball ratios and substitute seasonings make you uncomfortable? Do you insist upon adhering to every letter of the recipe like holy gospel, no more or less? Have you abandoned the urge to experiment with staple and spice?

You poor unadventurous bastards.

I kept running into these zucchini cake recipes. I love zucchini, it's pretty and makes a neat springy thud sound when you flick it with your index finger that i find oddly satisfying. I wanted to pair it with something equally patty-like, and saw a recipe for salmon cakes, though I couldn't tell you where, so I researched it and found this recipe for them, and it worked beautifully.

I started with the fish cakes. Picked up a can of salmon, which smelled SO GROSS at first. I shouldn't say "gross," more like strong and fishy and unappealing to me. Drained and dumped it in a bowl to flake it up with a fork as I cooked an onion in some bacon grease. Added the onions to the fish once it cooled, along with some mayo, an egg, some dijon mustard, a bunch of lemon juice, and a sprinkle of sugar. I didn't have a baked potato, so I picked out all the potato cubes left in my kapusnaik that was sitting in my fridge and tossed em on in there. Mix that shit up real good.

The mix looked damp, so I added some breadcrumbs, powdered parmesan and pepper, mixed it until it was tacky, and formed a dozen patties. Fried them in bacon grease until they were all crispy on each side. They stayed together in and out of the pan, and tasted incredible! Not foul or fishy at all! Very cheesy and lemony, to be totally honest with you.

The zucchini patties weren't nothing, just some shredded veg I squeezed the water out of with my potato ricer before adding egg, onion, a little flour and some parmesan and salt and pepper. Fried them just like I did the salmon, but used a spoon to get the mix in there, as it was much stickier than the fish was.

Ate both with sriracha and horseradish and lemon. Very light and tasty with low prep time. Cheap, too! Definitely give it a try, it's a handful of cheap ingredients and gets some fish and veg in your diet. Let me know what you think! Shoot me your dinner photos or ideas on Facebook. I love seeing what you're up to in your kitchen, you know.

indian chickpea chicken

Bon Appetit is killing it this week! First the pornographic looking patty melt, then this indian-spiced chicken and chickpeas  begging me to make it. I'm a fan of Indian, it smells so exotic and aromatic to my traditionally mid-american flavor palate. I have a deep affection for cumin, and i love the bright yellow turmeric, the handfuls of garlic. I also enjoy working with big hunks of meat like these chicken legs, which are unseparated thighs and legs. They look rustic as fuck! and the leg breaks right off of the thigh. I made this the night before, that way I could just shove it into my oven on a lazy weeknight and eat. 

I DID burn the shit outta my left forearm, near my wrist?I baked this in my large cast iron deep round pan on the third rack, and when I went to geab it out of the oven an hour after putting it in, I had drank a couple beers and was pretty exhausted at that point, and got too lazy and my forearm hit one of the upper oven racks. It didn't hurt a bit, no burn or sting or irritation at all, but I can see a big red line on my forearm now from where it burnt me. I hope it scars over. My chickpea chicken scar. I love food-related injuries. I have knuckle scars from hand graters and sharp can lids, a wrist scar from the shake machine at the steakburger shack i worked at years ago, oven burns, grease sears, grill scalds, you name it, I love them all. 

This recipe is easy enough, though imma marinate the legs overnight next time to really drive the flavors deep into the meat. Peel the skin off the chicken and salt the meat before frying it in oil, 10 minutes on each side, until they're a nice golden brown color. I saved the skin for rendering later on, i just throw it in the pan like I would oil or bacon. Very tasty! Jewish chefs call it "schmaltz." There's a cook book I'd like to try with a bunch of chicken fat recipes in it. Reminds me of the other kosher cookbook I want real bad. Add it to the wishlist!  

Remove the chicken and rest it in a dish. Fry some onion in the schmaltz left in the pan, add a shitload of garlic and cook them soft, 10 minutes or so. Add some indian spices next: thinly sliced ginger (buy the fresh shit, the knotty ugly little root next to the jalapenos in the produce aisle? infinitely better than the powder version), coriander, cumin (omg add a handful, do it, dump it in there), turmeric (bright yellow), and cayenne pepper (or hot sauce). Add a can of rinsed chickpeas and some broth, i threw some frozen broth cubes in and topped it off with a couple cans of half-spent room-temp pbr. Scrape the brown bits off the bottom of the pan before returning the meat to the pan. If any juice accumulated in the bottom of the dish you were resting the chicken in, pour that tasty shit back in the pan. 

Nearly cover the chicken with beer or broth and simmer it, then stick the whole thing in the oven for a little under an hour. Cover it if you can, i didn't have a big enough lid. I could have used an oven pan, but I wasn't too worried about it at the time and it turned out fine. I stuck the pot in the fridge and reheated it in the oven a couple days later, it was very good! I meant to put spinach in there, but I was so lazy I skipped it. And skipped the yogurt. Next time I'll do it proper. I have some tikki masala that's been marinating in seasoned yogurt since Sunday, I think I'll make that tonight and post an update on how yogurt marinades work. I did not fuck around with the spice, either. I shoveled it on in there! It's a pretty red color already. Can't wait to show it to you!

This was an easy dish, very cheap, too! $4 for over 3 pounds of chicken, garlic and ginger are cheap, cents a piece. Indian spices are cheapish, but you can buy rock-bottom priced ones of comparable quality from any foreign market near you. They come in little plastic packets for around a buck a piece. Beats McCormick's $4 for an ounce bullshit. Yogurt's a buck, chickpeas are less than that. Ta da! Looks good, smells good, leftovers aplenty, too. "Your coworkers are gonna be so jealous," my homie says when I make a really nice meal. I didn't bring any in today, though. Today was company catering Wednesday! Cheese bread and toasted ravioli and supreme pizza! Margherita pizza is apparently not inspired by the tequila lime drink? Inspired me to do a series of mixed-drink inspired pizzas. Stay tuned for that idea to develop. 

Patty Melt

I get a great deal of my inspiration from my Facebook feed. At any given time, I can scroll past half a dozen recipes, all insanely appealing, all future inhabitants in my browser bookmark folder aptly titled FOOD, yes in all-caps, you KNOW it's in all caps, dude. I've began printing out my favorites and saving them in a dedicated three-ring binder, stuffed with page protectors so my pages don't tear from ingredients or bleed the ink away, which is what usually happens when i hastily scrawl the basics of a recipe on a grid piece of paper and leave it on my prep counter. It's gross, better just to write it once and save it. Or print it, in this case.

I didn't print this one as I scrolled by it, though. Didn't even jot notes down. Patty melt, so what? I wore a bright-red bowtie and ugly ass stiff black apron when I worked on either sides of the counter at Steak n Shake in my late teens and into my early 20s. The paper hats. The plastic gloves. The ugly work safe shoes. The cumbersome waist-clip headset on overnight shifts, or the pockets overflowing with pens and straws and sometimes ice, so i'd have to stop and dump everything out so my tips and server pad wouldn't soak through. I don't miss it. That's where I first heard of a patty melt. Back then, to me it was just a gross ass sandwich older folks bought. It was a double with american on rye with pickles and mustard and carmelized onions. No thanks, buddy. Not nearly as popular (or as delicious) as the Frisco Melt, a double with swiss and american on sourdough with lettuce, tomato and thousand island on the side.

We moved more two ounce black plastic portion cups of that neon orange sauce than we did fries, I say this without exaggeration. Those skinny fries dipped in thousand island? Forget about it! I found a recipe  for the stuff, in case you want to unironically make yourself a gallon batch of it, and slather it to literally everything. Like reubens! Or, realistically, frozen bag fries, you disgraceful sack of human garbage. Set your kitchen of fire. But first, be sure to mention it on your medical history forms when you check into the hospital for heart failure. There should be a field for that right there on the form.

So I was never very impressed with the sandwich, myself. I assumed they were a restaurant-specific thing, like the Frisco, as I didn't hit up many burger shacks at the time and didn't think to look it up in my free time. It's a freaking PATTY MELT, who caaaares!

I remember it being mentioned in a rap song way back in the day, and I cannot for the life of me find the song by googling "car full of white women," the hook, the only part of the song I can remember except for the line, "take em to Waffle House, I need a paaaaatty  melt." I didn't know Waffle House sold patty melts!

I've only ever ordered their hashbrowns all the way, after stumbling into a booth after 2am drunk as fuck with my crew after bar close. I'd use the bathroom (you always gotta pee like crazy at that time of night in that condition, never freaking fails), take my heels off, stick my legs across to the other booth/lap, light up a menthol and order black coffee and iced water and a plate of this with well-done spuds and white gravy on top, eyeing the tableside condiments for ample napkins and a bottle of pickled pepper sauce as the waitress jotted down my order. Holy shit, what a plate of god-awesome.

I like to fold it all over on itself with a fork, soak it in black pepper and hot sauce and eat until my freaking heart stops, stopping only to sip my water or hold up my cup for a refill (waffle house coffee forever, dude, not even kidding, fresh ground for the win). I usually have enough to take home with me, but it's not really edible once you sober up. You become acutely aware that your one-true-drunken-love looks like vomit in the sunlight. I mean that honestly, it looks like someone held their head over a styrofoam clamshell and retched into it, but with less liquid.

Now that I'm older, I don't play the wait-in-public restaurant game as often as I used to, unless there's a bunch of us or I don't wanna stop chatting with the person and can't relocate to a more private environment (with a television and a bed/sofa/floor) for the evening. I'd much rather take a drunken walk through Walmart, delegating a cart pusher as I wander inebriated through the aisles in an attempt to perceive my wasted cravings non-intellectually, relying mainly on my peripheral vision at this point and vain attempts to cue soberer memories of foods that won't put me at risk of burning my goddamn house down in a liquored wave of edible intentions.

One of these days, I'll try making the Garbage Plate, another hashbrowns all-the-way idea that's supposed to be out of this world. Late-night hash forever, man.

Why would I make such a boring, plain ass sandwich like this here patty melt, you ask yourself? It all comes back to the Facebook, I guess, when I saw this photo alonside this patty melt recipe:

Sweet Steak-Patty Virgin Mary, look at that oozing thing. It's borderline pornographic! I almost had to turn away! "Culinerotica," my homie called it once. Mmm, buddy, what a dirty, sassy little burger.

Speaking of Dirty Burgers, I am absolutely obsessed with Trailer Park Boys. It's been on of my favorite shows since I first saw it all those years ago. Think Cops from a criminal's perspective. In one of the later seasons, two of the actors, notorious for cheeseburger eating and big, sweaty guts, partner up in an RV restaurant called The Dirty Burger. It's pretty much just two sweaty fat guys grilling burgers and screaming at each other, what's not to love? I always wanted a food truck, or a restaurant or catering business, to be totally honest. Not practically, it was little more than an idle fantasy of mine, but I often wonder about it, logistics aside, what it'd be like to own my own food shack, make my own menus and recipes and price it all out, etc. I'd have a cafe-bookstore, with zines and buttons and tea and take out options and a stage for poetry and rap battles and small batch beers or whatever. It's fun to think about. My daughter's in on the dream, too! Feels good to fantasize about food.

Thinking about patty melts and dirty burgers and Steak n Shake reminded me of Winstead's, this KC-based steakburger and milkshake restaurant with tissue paper-wrapped cheeseburgers and butterscotch milkshakes. I used to eat there as a kid in KC, and thought of them out of nowhere as I was writing this. Freaking Winstead's! I'm in half a mind to take a road trip up there one of these days, purely for tissue paper cheeseburgers and butterscotch milkshakes. I'd get a hotel room with a swimming pool on the roof, or something. A motel 6, more than likely. Bet I could get a good deal on one that the methy transients can't afford, though? Beats debating the cleanliness of my bedspread and turning up crackled Law and Order reruns on local stations to drown up the domestic noise all around me. I could go to that Barnes and Noble on the Plaza that I used to walk to with my sisters from our apartment just up the street. I could go to the Nelson-Atkins and see the choice exhibitions again. There's not too much nostalgia attached to that city for me, save for the gallery and bookstore and Winstead's, I suppose. Still, might be worth the trip? What's wrong with a little impulsive travel, as long as it's affordable?

The patty melt was the easiest thing ever to execute: slice two onions thin and sautee them in butter or oil for a half hour or so, until they're brown and gooey. Mix a pound of beef with ketchup and garlic+onion powder, salt and pepper. Quarter and press thin, like the size of the rye bread you're using, and grill for a couple minutes on each side. Place sharp cheddar on the bread, then the burger, and top with onions and swiss. Cover with the second bun, and paint the outside of it with mayo. I used my kewpie japanese mayo, but you can use whatever's in your fridge. Yes mayo, stop being such a puss canoe and swipe a big ole glob of the white stuff right on there. Clean the pan or use a new one, lower the heat and put the sandwich on there, mayo-side down. Press it down with a weighted pan, cook a couple minutes until the bun is brown, then mayo the other side, flip and press. Cut lengthwise and serve with pickles and mustard. I had neither, sriracha was all I needed to scarf this sucker down in under two seconds.

I was so wrong about you, patty melt, from the bottom of my heart, I apologize. Will definitely be making again, eventually, when I spring for ground beef again, which I do not do often, as it is expensive and I usually don't do burgers for dinner. Very happy I did, though. Holy cow, that oozing cheese, those onions, that meat, the mayo, amazing. Definitely try this one, takes two seconds and is obscenely delicious for how simple the ingredients are.