Clark's Chocolatey Cheesecake Parfait Cups

Ever have one of those cooking ideas that you just can't seem to bring together? Well, this is going to be a long-winded entry of the trials and tribulations that I faced before finally, after several days, putting together Christmas dessert to take to the family gathering.

A few days ago I decided to do a dessert, but realized that I was already behind the 8-ball without an oven, and very little freezer space. So I started looking at no bake recipes, and had in mind something like a no-bake cheesecake, or maybe some chocolate cheesecake balls or something. I had the idea of mini-tarts or parfait cups also bouncing around my head, when I finally hit the supermarket last night.

I fell into the classic trap of not having a game-plan already set out when I walked into the crowded supermarket. Especially when breaking new ground and embarking on mission you have never undertaken before. So there I was wandering up and down the baking aisle, confectioner's sugar, chocolate chips, condensed milk. Oh, look at those cute little pre-made mini-pie crusts! Yea right, not at that price, not with how many I have to make. Muffin cups, not strong enough to hold a no-bake dessert like a parfait. Butterscotch chip, apricot jam, cherry preserves. Gonna do a few different flavors of something. Dried fruit. Where are the cherry flavored cranberries, and the dried apricots? But I changed direction anyway and put all that stuff back when I hit the dairy aisle.

Rather than blocks of cream cheese, I decided to pick up two tubs of ready-made name-brand no-bake cheesecake mix. Cheating? Yeah, but heck, it was still cheaper than doing it from scratch, and would certainly take out a big step in the process of whatever I finally decide to put together I figured. But there I am wondering how good it really tastes, and more importantly, what the texture really is. I was tempted to rip the top open and stick a finger in right there, but was stuck gambling. Now where the heck are the dried fruits?

I can't find any small shells for individual desserts, so now I'm thinking maybe I'll go ahead and dice up some dried fruit into the cheesecake mix, and make cookie sandwiches with 'Nilla Wafer cookies. Or maybe pecan sandies, or some shortbread cookies? Decisions decisions. I'm on a tight budget, so I finally decide on the store-brand vanilla cookies. Which I already had in mind going into the store from one recipe I had seen. My Mom decides we should get some graham crackers too, maybe make a crumble or something, if we ever find some mini pie tins. At this point we had begun contemplating heading over to the dollar store too, in my quest for a way to make individual servings. Still can't find the damn dried fruit. Where do they keep the raisins? Gotta be with the raisins.

Bumped into an old co-worker of mine, walking around with a shopping cart full of stuff, undercover as the store detective. Chatted with him for a second. Oh darn! Should have asked him where the heck the dried fruit is. But he has disappeared. Back to the first aisle and start over, we must be missing it, or maybe it actually is over there in some corner of produce. Hmmm, kiwi's, mangoes, not a bad price either. Scratch the dried fruit idea. Never did find it either by the way. I'll put a squirt of cheesecake mix on each cookie, and top with a nice hunk of kiwi or mango, alternating down the platter.

On the way home, I stop and hit another supermarket for a bag of chocolate chips. An insurance policy of some sort I figured. Can use some melted chocolate as a glue or something if I have to. Chocolate is just a good option to have. Maybe I can even drizzle some wisps over the cookies.

So that's basically what I had in mind when I woke up today. Ha ha! Yea right Fatman. Get ready for more tribulations. The Nilla cookies are a lot smaller than the name brand, but okay, we'll make them bite sized. I get about ten of them smeared with with the cheesecake mix, and I'm not really liking the density, too loose, not thick enough. Really good flavor though, but there's an even more prevalent problem. I bump the tray and suddenly realize the round “bottoms” are going to make the tray impossible to transport in a car without these things winding upside down and tossed every which way. Put the flat size down? Just wont hold enough of the CC mix, and since it's not super-dense, it will probably just melt and run down all over the tray. New plan. Hey, good thing mom got those graham crackers!

So I start breaking them up, along the dotted lines, to finger-size rectangles. That will be much more stable and will actually hold a bigger slice of fruit too. So I go ahead and do that. A nice schmear of the CC mix, and a nice slice of kiwi, or mango on top, alternating on down the tray. Got one whole tray done, going to make a second. Grabbed a bite of one of those Nilla cookies I had put aside. Oh crap.

They're already getting stale, soggy. Those graham crackers are never going to hold up until tomorrow. They aren't even as dense, and get soggy far quicker even than those hard cookies. What the heck am I gonna do now?

Well, as I had gone rummaging through the cabinets looking for a piping bag or cookie-gun to squirt the CC mix, which I never did find, I had noticed something I wished I had noticed days earlier. Grandma has saved close to fifty little plastic cups that her single-serve fruit cocktails come in. Score! I can just put a spoonful of the CC mix in a cup, top with fruit, maybe some chocolate drizzled over. But by now I've already gone through more than half a tub of the CK mix already on failed attempts. Should have gotten those boxes of pudding after all.

Put the boots on Fatman, maybe the pharmacy up on the corner will have some chocolate pudding, and whipped cream. No cans of whipped cream, no heavy cream, but I scored the last box of chocolate pudding in the place. I snag another two boxes of vanilly, and think maybe I can melt in those chocolate chips to the vanilla pudding. Maybe even make a nice marble or something, but that sounds a little bit over my head at this point. It's getting dark, and I need to pull this together before it's time to start making dinner. So I head across the street to see if the kwiki-stop store has another box of pudding. One box might do it, but best to have two after all this. Plus I want whipped cream. Maybe they will have a can of it, or some heavy cream I can whip up my own if I have to.

Chocolate pudding, check. Only “light” whipped cream in the can left? There's heavy cream, do I make my own? Forget it, gonna have to be the light. Easy to squirt, and the CK mix and pudding should be rich enough anyway. 

Okay, so now we finally come to it. Named for the spirit of Clark W. Griswold who has been with me all the while, even as we finally pulled a success out of disaster, this is how to make Clark's Chocolatey Cheesecake Parfait Cups:

Prepare instant chocolate pudding according to package instructions. For two boxes it calls for four cups of milk, but o shave it down to 3.5 cups to make it a little denser, like you would do for a pudding pie. After whisking, allow to set as you go ahead and line up your plastic cups on a cookie sheet. I covered mine in foil do hide the beat-up pans a little. Each sheet fit three rows of five cups.

A heaping teaspoon or so of ready-made no-bake cheesecake mix for each cup. You want to fill maybe a little less than half the cup with the dollup. If you keep it super cold, it's easier to work with. I tossed a tub of it in the freezer for a bit at some point during this whole escapade, and yanked that out when I finally came to the end of the first tub I had been smearing all over the place. It wasn't frozen solid, but it was nice and dense.

Next we'll spoon in some chocolate pudding. The chocolate can easily overpower the flavor of the cheesecake mix, so you want a smaller teaspoon full of that. I also didn't try at all to set one directly on top of the other in strict flat levels. Getting the CC mix off the spoon and into the cup, I had to bang the spoon on the edge of the cup to get the stuff to come loose, which worked out well actually. It set up a sort of an angle in the cup where the the pudding could overlap the CC a bit, yet rest side by side. A bit of a nice yin-yang really.

Now we have the fruit. I was not really too happy with my mangoes, a little to hard, not sweet or ripe enough for my tastes. But that's pretty much what you should expect from supermarket mangoes. It's important to know how to cut a mango. There's a big flat pit inside. You want to cut the flesh off the mango along the two flat sides of that pit. If it doesn't come right loose after you have sliced down through, give it a little twist and it should come loose form the pit. I then skin the meat of the fruit like you would fillet a fish. Skin side down, and run your knife along, as close to the skin as you can. You can pick it up and trim the rest of the skin off a little better, until you are left with one flat-bottomed, sort of tear-drop shaped piece of fruit. Slice that in half lengthwise, and then each length into wedges.

Now we have kiwis. These little buggers are tasty, but a pain to work with too. The fuzzy skin is thin, yet just does not want to come off. I tried a peeler, but it really doesn't work well, the skin is just a bit too leathery. I just use a knife to skin it the best I can without cutting into that flesh too much and wasting too much of the bright green goodness. I was able to trim the last bits off with the peeler. Slice into discs, and then halve each disc.

If I had planned ahead well enough, I might have had some fresh strawberries or raspberries. Instead, I started thinking of maybe just a little dab of strawberry jam might give it the color I was looking for to do a nice fruit trifecta. Instead, I found a jar of whole strawberries in light syrup that I forgot I had. I poured out the juice, then halved each soft strawberry on my cutting board.

I kept going back and forth between cutting fruit and actually putting it in the cups. Try to lay each piece in nicely, so that it shows its widest face and isn't hidden by another piece. This is a bit of the artistry of food I suppose, applying a bit of a geometrical eye to the terrain of each different cup as you lay down each piece of fruit. Woops, leave enough room for one of those little Nilla cookies too. It's a little bit of a free-form puzzle I suppose, but use your eye to drop each piece in there in a way that it looks like some of those desserts you see on the cover of a magazine. Don't go too cray though. Once it's in and down, don't pull it back out to try again or you'll just start making a sloppy looking mess.

I was about to top each cup with whipped cream, but two thoughts struck me. First, I was going to have to cover each tray with foil to hold overnight in the fridge, and to transport tomorrow. So the whipped cream would wind up smearing all over. But more importantly, the canned stuff has so much air in it that it liquefies not too long after you have sprayed it. So, I will just take the can with me tomorrow, and leave it as an option to spray on right then and there.

So here's the list that I should have had when I first went to the store:

Single-serve cups or small dishes. (Good luck finding them at the last minute though.)

At least one tub of pre-made no-bake cheesecake mix. (I went through two tubs total, but more than one just for the cups.)

One box of chocolate instant pudding. (I only wound up using about half what I made with two boxes.)

For the fruit, I went through about four kiwis, and two mangoes for the cups. (Might be a good idea to have a bit extra on hand just in case you have trouble dissecting them.) You will also want some sort of strawberry. Fresh would certainly be best, but perhaps frozen, jarred, or maybe even some raspberries instead.

Store-brand vanilla wafer cookies. (The smaller rounds work better in the cups than the larger name brand would have.)

Whipped cream.

Easy Peasy Crabby Fettuccine

Imitation crab has a bit of a negative reputation as a cheap, un-authentic ingredient that culinary connoisseurs look down on with disdain. Of course, it doesn't really compare with some nice hot, fresh King Crab legs at your favorite seafood joint, but it's a very easy protein to work with, and keeps well for a long time in a vacuum sealed pack. Even longer in the freezer of course. Grab a few packages when it's on sale, and stick them in the freezer as a backup for when your groceries are getting low, or you feel in the mood for something other than the run-of-the mill beef, pork, and chicken routine. It's actually a pretty versatile ingredient, that you have probably enjoyed in Chinese food, in Sushi, or in the crab salad from your local deli. Imitation crab is actually a version of Surimi, a seafood product that is not looked down on in Asia any more than we would look down on ground beef or sausage here in the West. It can be a kid-friendly food too, is pre-cooked, and can be eaten hot or cold.

But let's cut to the chase now, and talk about what I did with it last night. We'll go ahead an put some water on to boil our pasta. The fettuccine worked great for this but you can always try out your own shapes of pasta of course, to your own preference. I do think that a wide, flat cut will work best though. I cooked a whole box, but only used about half of it in the final preparation, and put what was left in the fridge for another use. Normally, I like my pasta closer to the mushy side, especially for rich, heavy sauces, but for this I kept it a little more firm.

In a sauté pan melt down about a half stick of butter. Keep a bottle of olive oil handy and don't be shy with it as we move along here, since it will really be what makes up the “sauce” for this recipe, along with the melted butter of course. I use a middle of the road cold-pressed olive oil, but some folks may prefer something more top-shelf since, as I said, this is the prime liquid component that will dress the pasta when we are finished. Throw in your package of chunk crab meat, about a pound, for some sizzle. Next we'll throw in a few handfuls of sugar snap peas. These are basically peas still in the pods. I used frozen ones, about a quarter of the bag, and it brought down the temp of the pan a lot, so you might want to thaw first, but I just kept the heat on high to bring it all back up to temp. Keep it all drenched with olive oil and throw in a few big spoonfuls of chopped garlic, but not too early or it will burn. I used jarred to keep it quick and easy, but you can use fresh of course if you prefer. Season pretty well with fresh cracked black pepper. Sauté thoroughly, letting the crab chunks loosen up and fall apart. I beat up those chunks with my spoon a little to to help them break apart some more.

A quick side note here on the imitation crab meat again. You may find that you like some brands better than others, as I have, but I always try to find a twofer or bogo deal. The chunks I find are the most versatile, but you could always chop up some crab sticks too and I'm sure it would work out fine.

Now the finishing touch to the sauté, I gave it a nice dusting with dried parsley. Make sure there is plenty of oil in there so that it will coat all of your pasta. Depending on how you pull off the timing, you may have to cover and hold for a bit until your pasta is finished. Once it is, pour your sauté over it and toss. Alternately, you might plate individually, pasta, topped with a portion of your crab sauté. Top it all of with a good dusting of nice salty grated Parmesan and Romano blend. I was stuck with the cheap store-brand stuff in the canister, but it worked fine. I actually prefer it to the name brand actually, but I can be a cheese snob too, and do like the real, fresh grated stuff when I can afford it. But overall this is a good recipe to keep cheap, easy peasy, and done in a snap. As quick as it takes to cook pasta is about how quick you can have this dish done.

Since it's not drowning in a thick, heavy sauce, and you can actually taste the pasta, some might call this a “light” tasting dish. The snap peas add to the freshness, and their sweetness pairs with the sweetness of the crab meat. Those flavors pop against the saltiness of the cheese and we get a little zing from the black pepper. The flavor profile rounds out nicely then with savory garlic throughout and the richness of lip-moistening oils bringing us back full circle to the semolina platform.

Here's your shopping list:

Fettuccine, imitation crab meat, snap peas, olive oil, butter, garlic, black pepper, parsley, grated cheese.

Spinach Fettuccine alla Chicken Carbonara

I made this for the first time tonight. It was a bit of work, but came out absolutely fantastic. It is a very rich, delicious, and very filling dish. The original versions of Carbonara first appeared during World War II, so it is a relatively new dish in the pantheon of Italian cuisine. The authentic Italian version is somewhat different though, than how it is made throughout the rest of the world today. One key difference is the use of cream outside of Italy, creating more of a sauce We will be making a more popularized, counterfeit version this time rather than the authentic Roman one. But don't worry, authenticity is only subjective. Just ask any pizza-maker outside of NY, lol.

Bacon. I used a nice big electric frying pan to fry a package of smoked bacon. Different variations may use panchetta, or any sort of cured pork, but we Americans do have a certain love affair with bacon and it has become the standard for how most folks recognize the dish here in the States. Guanciale is the authentic meat if you want to give that a shot. Fry the bacon pretty well so that it will be easy to crumble later, but no need to burn it or shrink it to shoelaces. Let the strips drain on a paper towel. It took me about three rounds to cook the whole package. Do not drain the bacon grease from the pan.

Instead, we are going to use that grease to pan fry our chicken. Chicken actually has nothing to do with a Carbonara recipe, but it has become a pairing as ubiquitous as bacon. I had, oh, six or eight breast halves I guess it was. First I separated out the tenderloin from each breast, then sliced both pieces across into chunks the width of my pinky or so. Try to maintain some continuity in the size of the chunks you slice so that it will cook evenly. There was enough chicken to fill my electric fry pan. Cook through, but I left it just a tad underdone, to keep it juicy, since it will be resting for a bit. We don't want it dried out when it's time to finally serve. Remove the chicken from the pan and put in a covered container to keep warm for now.

Now the pan is filled with bacon grease and chicken juices. Go ahead and use that to fry some onion in. I chopped up a white onion into fairly small bits, but later only used about half the onion for this recipe. Cook on high heat then let it stick and blacken just a tad as it caramelizes a bit too. I squeezed it against the side of the pan to drain some of the juices off, before putting the fried onion in a small container and covered it.

Next, in the same pan, we will fry a package of sliced Baby Bella mushrooms. Not a necessary or authentic component, but a variation which is common, especially in America, and a tasty variation it is. Let them sear a little in what is left of the grease and the little pieces left in the pan of all that came before, but don't over cook. The mushrooms sucked up most of the fluid left in the pan at that point. Scrape them on out of the pan and put them in another covered dish.

Now we are going to make our sauce. This is really where authentic and popularized Carbonara go their separate ways. The only “sauce” in the authentic version is beaten egg yolk. Instead, we are making what amounts to an Alfredo sauce. Egg yolk is a primary component in a Carbonara recipe, yet is often omitted entirely in these cream versions, as it takes some flair to execute properly. The yolk must remain raw so that it does not turn to lumps of scrambled egg in the sauce. I too was a bit intimidated, and decided to cheat this first time out as well. So here we go.

In my fondue pot I poured in a medium container of heavy cream. The next size up from the pint size, so I guess maybe two pints it was. Add a half stick of butter to slowly melt. You don't want much heat, don't let it burn at all. I added some whole milk as well, knowing that the incoming cheese was going to thicken it all up.

Yup, go ahead and pour the cheese into the cream now. Pecorino or Parmesan are both traditional and the standard of the westernized version. You can spend a fortune on real good cheese, but I just used store brand shredded Parmesan, which is all you really need. Expensive stuff would be a waste of money here I think. Save the good stuff to dust the dish at the end. Keep stirring and allow two packages to melt into the cream and butter. Season the sauce with parsley, garlic powder, and fresh cracked pepper. I didn't go too crazy with the seasoning, you can always add more later to taste.

Next I added a few spoonfuls of the fried onion bits. They have a lot of flavor and are sweet, so don't go too crazy with those either. I didn't think I used all that much, but it nearly overpowered the sauce. My restraint paid off.

Go ahead and mix in your mushrooms and chicken. Any juices too, left in the holding dishes, go right in. I was worried that the sauce might have been a little too thin, but it was perfect in the end product. Make sure you have kept stirring all the while, not letting the sauce stick or burn. Again, keep the heat low, just enough so that everything melts, and then turn it off. It will stay warm enough for a few minutes while you attend to other steps now.

Crumble your bacon, but don't add it to the sauce. We want it to stay as crispy as possible.

While I was making the sauce, I brought a pot of water up to boil for the pasta. People have all sorts of preferences, any pasta will do really. Spaghetti is actually the traditional cut for the authentic version. I wanted to use fettuccine, since the broad, flat noodle plays well with heavy sauces. At the last minute I saw a box of spinach fettuccine and guessed right that it would play off the richness of the dish so very well. It really grounded the richness of the dish, but you can use a regular semolina pasta as most folks do, if that's all you have or really can't stand spinach. I am not really a big fan of spinach at all, but as I said, it brought a fantastic counterpoint to the richness and widened the taste profile considerably. Once it is cooked, go ahead and drain, then return to the pan.

Pour some sauce over the pasta. Don't drown it. You will have more than enough sauce too. I used less than half of what I had made for one box of fettuccine. Stir, so that the sauce coats all of the pasta, maybe wuth a little low heat under the pan. Dish into a shallow pasta bowl. You won't need a huge portion at all, it is very filling. I took a few more pieces of chicken and mushroom to top the pasta for an eye-appealing presentation. Throw on some crumbled bacon and give a few good shakes of grated cheese. I used a Parmesan-Romano blend that had just enough saltiness that I didn't need to add salt. We're almost there now, but cover your serving for just a moment to keep them warm or hold them in a warm oven perhaps.

Now this is how I got around having to separate eggs and worrying about them overcooking, while being somewhat true to a real carbonara. I decided to do a bit of a “de-contsruct.” Fry an egg in a non-stick pan for each dish you plan to serve. Me and Mom eating tonight, so I put two eggs in the pan and covered. Do not over cook. You want to warm them up enough, but that yolk you want to keep as runny as possible without the egg being slimy. Now we are going to trim the eggs, using a cookie cutter if you have one the right size. I used a small glass. Trim the yolk out with a band of egg white around the outside being careful not to break the yolk.

Set each trimmed yolk right on top of your plated pasta, and serve immediately, with some garlic bread on the side. Break the yolk when you dig in, so that it oozes out into your pasta. Magnifico!

From the grocery store you may need: Spinach fettuccine, chicken breast, bacon, mushrooms, onion, shredded Parmesan as well as grated cheese, heavy cream, butter, eggs, parsley, garlic powder, black pepper, bread.

EDIT for NOTE:

The sauce does not keep well, breaks and turns oily. Only make enough for what you are serving. But your chicken, mushrooms, onion and bacon can have portions reserved for later use when you make another batch of cheeses sauce.

Karmelized Kielbasa on Stuffing with Fresh Apple

Kielbasa is a Polish smoked sausage, found pre-cooked and vacuum wrapped at the supermarket. Most folks have it grilled in the summertime, or with sauerkraut in the winter, but can't really think of much else to do with it. I've gotten a little more creative with it, since it is an easy meat to keep on hand, It keeps well in the freezer and even refrigerated has a long shelf-life. So it's a really good back-up to keep on hand for those nights when the groceries in the house have gotten low, or a winter storm is keeping you in. It's on sale just about every other week, usually as a buy one get one, or last week as a buy one get two free. Yay! So it's great for a cheap, easy meal.

Another item I keep on hand is stuffing, or “dressing” as some folks call it. It keeps forever in the pantry cabinet and makes a quick, tasty, filling side dish for just about any meal. Today though, it will play a more central role. I used pork stuffing for this recipe, but if you only have on hand a box or two of herb stuffing, maybe cornbread stuffing, I would still give it a whirl. Heck, even chicken stuffing might work. I'm a stuffing junkie, as most people are, so I made two boxes. Prepare according to package instructions, which are simple as can be. Stick of butter, measure of water, bring to a boil, fold in the stuffing mix, remove from heat, and cover.

Let's do a little box redux here though. When you add in the stuffing mix, we are also going to add in a big handful or two of raisins, and crushed nuts. The only nuts I had on hand were almonds, but I would really like to try this again with pecans, or walnuts. I busted up the almonds myself, but not too small, you don't really want them crushed too fine at all. You want nice big broken pieces. Sliced almonds would work too. Standard raisins were great, but if you have some golden raisins or dried cranberries to throw in, that could be tasty too.

Now we come to the kielbasa. It is pre-cooked, but we're still going to go ahead and toss it in a pan, with just a little bit of butter to keep it from sticking as we brown the skin. You should have it cut into segments, maybe about three inches or so. Once it is browned, deglaze the pan with some water, then add a nice big squirt of barbecue sauce. A hickory or mesquite perhaps, I used some Jack Daniels barbecue sauce. Cover and allow to simmer for a minute or two, so that the steam can finish heating the sausage all the way through and really get all the juices going. It will be smelling nice and smokey, perfect for a chilly Autumn evening. Continue cooking, reducing the sauce until finally it has turned into a sticky, caramelized glaze, smothering the skin of the kielbasa.

Serve on a bed of stuffing, alongside fresh sliced apple. Dig in with a spoon in one hand to shovel in the stuffing, and a fork in the other to stab a hunk of meat or apple, and alternate the bites. Quick and easy with a real medieval feasting appeal. As with most meals, I usually serve a green-leafy salad beforehand, and did the same here.

At the store you should pick up: Kielbasa, boxed stuffing (pork flavor), raisins, nuts, barbecue sauce, butter

REVISION:

I made this again the other night and had only enough butter for the stuffing. So, rather than browning the sausage at the start, I put some water in the pan, covered, brought the meat up to temp, then let the water steam off uncovered. I let the meat keep cooking in the pan and browned without any butter to keep it from sticking, but some fats from the sausage had already come out into the pan. Again though, I deglazed with a little water, and added the BBQ sauce. Cooked until the sauce became a glaze over the meat.

Grilled Cheese Pizzaiola

I recently went on a kick making a variety of different grilled cheese sandwiches after finding myself with more bread on hand that I would normally ever eat in a week. Cheese is obviously a big part of Italian cuisine, and being such a fan of Italian food, of course I had to come up with an Italian version of the grilled cheese sandwhich. This version is inspired by a dish from Naples called steak pizzaiola, which is basically a cut of beef simmered in a “pizza” sauce.

We start with two pieces of sliced Italian bread, seeded or unseeded at your pleasure. A nice sourdough bread would also be tasty no doubt. Each slice is going to get a smear of tomato sauce.

You should choose a thick, robust sauce for this, not a watery or plain sauce. Jarred or canned pizza sauces would work, as pizza sauces tend to be more robustly seasoned and thicker in consistency than some other tomato sauces for pasta. I had a jar of Emeril's kicked-up garlic that I used a bit of this last time, but any bold sauce like a fra diavolo should be just fine. Consider reducing the sauce in a pan for a while to make it thicker. If all you have is a plain sauce on hand, simmer and reduce, adding extra seasonings, oregano, heavy on the garlic, some black and crushed red pepper. You won't need much sauce for this though, so you can refrigerate the rest for use some other time.

Now lay down a nice thick slice of provolone cheese onto a slice of bread. Mild rather than a sharp or “picante” would be best, nice and creamy. At the deli I ask them to always slice the cheese thick, as it stays in one piece better when you try to peel a slice off the top, and is better for sandwiches such as this one. Meats on the other hand, I always like as thin as possible. A regular sandwich I would sort of “ripple” or “fluff” several slices of meat for a thicker sandwich, but for this application, one thin slice of roast beef will be plenty. The cheese is really the star of the show, and the beef an accent. I used regular rare roast beef, but some delis have Italian-style roast beef that might be put to good use here with its bold flavor. Again though, one thin slice should do. Now top with one more thick round of provolone.

I tried this sandwich using store-bought packaged mozzarella, and it did not work out well at all. Far too rubbery, the whole chunk of cheese just came sliding out when I bit into it. Some fresh mozzarella might work out though, as it is creamier but not as dense as the packaged stuff. I have yet to give that a try myself though. Besides, a nice provolone will really give you a lot of flavor anyhow.

Now go ahead and lay the other slice of bread on top, sauced side down, to complete the assembly. But on the top side, we will put a nice smear of softened butter all the way to the edges. Not too thick, but cover the slice completely.

In a pan, melt another pat of butter so that it is coated nicely. Keep the heat low. When the butter is melted and bubbling some, lay the sandwich in dry side down, and let it sop up the butter in the pan. Keep the heat low. You can't rush a good grilled cheese. We don't want it to burn before the cheese has had a chance to melt. Keeping an eye on the edges of the bread, the residue in the pan, and by sense of smell, I can usually guess when it has gotten to be a perfect golden brown. I lift it and take a peek through a slotted turner. If it is perfect, go ahead and flip it onto the other side that was buttered beforehand.

When it is done, you should be left with a crispy, buttery crust on the outside, with a gooey, cheesy, robustly flavored filling.

Serve with a crisp, cool, green leafy salad for a light meal.

A more standard but still Italian flavored version of the grilled cheese sandwich could also be made by omitting the sauce and slice of roast beef. Instead, just use a slice or two of the cheese and sprinkle the inside with a bit of garlic powder and oregano. Cook the same way, to a nice golden brown with the cheese melted well. Serve as a sandwich, or perhaps in place of plain or regular garlic bread with your favorite Italian meal. It would also go well with a number of soups. You could also cut the sandwich into strips with a pizza wheel and serve the zesty sauce on the side for dipping, as an appetizer, or fun snack for kids.

Olive oil is not usually used when cooking in a pan, because of its low boiling temperature, it begins to smoke and burn rather quickly. But a good grilled cheese should be made at very low heat anyway so it might be worth a try here in place of the butter. It would be in keeping with traditional Italian flavors and just a bit more healthy, if one could really consider a grilled cheese sandwich healthy, lol.

The shopping list is simple: Sliced Italian-style bread, provolone cheese sliced thick, roast beef sliced thin, pizza sauce, butter.

Classic Grilled Cheese

Sometimes it's the simple things, done to perfection, that give us the most pleasure. A grilled cheese sandwich is one of those things. So let's make it a double shall we?

We'll start with four pieces of white bread. The sliced "old-fashioned" sort works excellent, a little thicker, and a little drier than a standard loaf, which will make for great texture when it is done. Lighter and crispier rather than pasty and flimsy. "Day old" bread works great too, being a bit dried out.

Cheese. Nothing more classic than yellow American cheese of course, but Double Gloucester is a similar but tasty alternative.The choice is yours of course. What you should do though, is get it fresh sliced from your local deli rather than using the more plastic-like plastic-wrapped slices in the cooler section. Ask them to slice it extra thick. American cheese is a rather soft cheese which tends to break easily when trying to pull a slice off, especially when sliced thin. Thick slices will help make it easier to handle, and perfect for sandwiches. Slap down a nice thick slab onto two of your four slices of bread, or perhaps two slices if you are stuck with thinner sliced or packaged cheese. Top with the other slices of bread, so that you now have two assembled  sandwiches.

Put a frying pan on the burner and turn on the heat very low. Melt about a tablespoon of butter in the pan. While the butter is melting there, smear the topside of your two sandwiches with softened butter completely, but just a thin coating.

When the butter in the pan is melted, go ahead and lay your sandwiches in, dry side down. The key here is to get just the right temperature in the pan, and maintain that temp. Most folks make the mistake of using too much heat and cooking the sandwich too fast. Low and slow is how to do it best. Just a very little bit of bubbling and crackling as the bread soaks up the melted butter in the pan. Watch the edges of the bread and the color of the butter in the pan, use your sense of smell to help guide you to the perfect crispy golden-brown crust, the color of caramel. Use a slotted spatula to so that you can pick up the sandwich out of the pan and have a look at the color. If it's not quite there yet, lay it back in. When it's perfect, go ahead and flip to do the same to the other side, already lightly buttered.

Cooked slowly, the outside of the sandwich will have the perfect, crispy, deep golden crust. Buttery but not greasy. While inside, that rich golden cheese has melted into a gooey sauce poached in fluffy bread. That contrast is why a drier, thicker, less doughy bread works best.

Now let's go ahead and make a meal out of it shall we? A basic tossed salad, cool green and leafy on one side. And on the other, the most classic accessory to a grilled cheese, Campbell's tomato soup. Simplicity, perfect for dipping and slurping. Of course, you could go with a more hearty, complex, tomato soup, but there is nothing more classic than that red and white can of simple goodness we all grew up with.

Here is your simple shopping list:

Bread, cheese, butter

Can of tomato soup.

Lettuce, cucumber, tomato, dressing. (Avoid a thick creamy dressing, to keep the contrast of your meal.)

Southwest Beef

Now some folks might just call this chili. But real authentic Texas chili only has meat and sauce, and on the opposite end mainstream chili is more like a soup or a stew. Both are slow cooked for hours usually. This recipe is a bit different from either, cooks much faster, and can be used in several different applications. I first used it for home-made sloppy joes that blew the doors off the canned stuff. It has become my regular filling for tacos and burritos, tastes great in a grilled cheese melt, I even used it as a topping for pizza last night. Try it on hotdogs, as a topper for a bowl of mac n' cheese or Spanish rice. And of course, you could even use it as a stand-alone quick chili bowl. Depending on your intended use though, some slight variations might be in order for consistency.

I usually cook this in my electric frying pan, but my flat bottomed wok would probably work too. For this batch, we'll set the ratio mark for the ingredients based on about three pounds of ground beef. 85% lean beef is probably best. 80% you will have to drain a bit, but you don't want to go too lean either, you should have some fats in there for rich flavor and consistency. Of course, if you want your final product a little more “dry,” a leaner mix isn't going to hurt anyone. You might want it drier for taco filling, or more “soupy” for a bowl of chili. But more on that later.

Let's start with some chopped onion. I use about half of a large onion, or one smaller onion, well chopped. Toss that in the pan to fry a little with some cooking oil. I'm a canola guy these days for general use. Little healthier and more buttery tasting than vegetable oil. While the onion is getting some sizzle, I go ahead and chop up some red and green pepper. About half of each pepper. Slice into thin strips by halving the half, halve those again, and one more time or two. Then dice those strips off lengthwise so you have nice well chopped little squares. Of course, if you have a food processor, that would make quick work of it. I like the onion cooked more than the peppers, but you could get away with throwing them all in together then giving them some high heat sizzle.

They don't need to be thoroughly cooked, but get them softened up a little and then throw the meat in to brown. I slide all the peppers and onion off to one side, then incorporate into the meat a little each time I give it a stir. If you are going to drain off any of the fats, do it now that the meat is browned, and bring it down to a simmer.

Now we are going to season, and season well. Big spoonful of minced garlic. You could throw this in earlier, but I wait so as not to overpower the other flavors or burn the garlic. Next we are going to really go at it with dried seasonings. A thorough dusting of garlic powder and onion powder, like a little snowstorm just popped up over the pan. Don't go too insane though. You can always add more if you need it but the only way to fix over seasoning is to add more meat. We're going to do a second round of seasoning in a moment anyway. Finish off this first round with a thorough dusting of chili powder, and a bit of fresh ground black pepper. Go easy on the black pepper though, it can be bitter if you use too much, and there is no need for salt in this recipe. Store brand chili powder is just fine but you could use your own personal blend if you prefer, of course.

Incorporate all of that seasoning into the meat as you continue to mix on simmer. For most applications, I like the meat broken up well rather than in big chunks. Continue simmering and break out a big bottle of ketchup. For this, I really do recommend Heinz. Sometimes you can get away with generic stuff, but here, the Heinz really does make a good show. Give the meat a nice squirt and coat it from one side of the pan to the other, up and down, back and forth. Mix it all in, continue to simmer for a few more minutes.

Now we are going to fold in some small red beans. Half a can to a can, depending on your preferred bean to meat ration. Be careful stirring now though, don't want to break up the beans too much, and canned beans can be pretty soft. We're almost done now, so give it a taste. Wow, careful, dont burn yourself. Let the spoonful cool down enough, so you can taste it properly. Chances are, you are going to need a second good round of seasoning. Use all the same as above. If you want to add some herbs, like parsley or cilantro, now would be the time. Adding herbs too early only burns them and loses the potency of their flavors.

And with that, once you have it fine-tuned the seasoning it's all set to be used in whatever preparation you have in mind.

On a few occasions I have been without fresh garlic or onion and got away with just the powdered seasoning just fine. In fact, in competition chili cook-offs, many competitors prefer powdered. It's easier to keep on hand and easier to measure in order to get an exact flavor each time. The red and green peppers though, I won't bother to make this if I don't have them. You could skip the small red beans, but they do add a nice flavor and texture element, and help to stretch your protein dollar, being a lot cheaper than ground beef. Some folks prefer larger kidney beans, or milder pinto beans. Black beans might work well for a south of the border version, maybe with some shoepeg corn tossed in for added sweetness.

If you want to really put the sloppy in sloppy joe, use more ketchup. For a taco, you probably want a little less sloppy and more meaty, so ease back on the ketchup. Adjusting the ketchup levels will affect your seasoning though too, keep that in mind. If you're going to serve it as a bowl of chili, maybe with a little melted shredded cheese on top, you might add some hand crushed canned tomatoes to make it a little more soupy, and go with a more course chop on your veggies for rustic heartiness.

If you come up with any variations or uses that you think others might enjoy, go ahead and drop me an email, or post right here below in the comments box.


Here's your shopping list:

Ground beef, red beans, red and green pepper, onion, garlic, ketchup, chili powder, onion powder, garlic powder, black pepper, and a wee bit of cooking oil.

(Revised, 2/2011)

Easy Italian Dinner

There's nothing quite as good as “Sunday Gravy,” the nice slow simmered meat-sauce that has made Italian cuisine famous the world over. Unfortunately, I am like most people today and rarely have six to eight hours in a single day to stand in the kitchen stirring a pot of sauce. So tonight we will take a big shortcut. Traditional Italian folk would see it as a culinary sin to have jarred sauce violating their pantry shelf, but I usually keep a few jars on hand for this dinner idea.

Let's chop up a small onion, or half of a larger onion. I like white onions for their milder, cleaner flavor. Take out some mushrooms, rinse. If you don't buy them sliced, go ahead and slice them up now. Smash and mince enough garlic for about a tablespoon's worth, unless you have a jar of minced already on hand.

We'll start to fry the onions on high heat with a little butter. Next we'll throw some ground beef in the pan. A pound or so of 80-85% is best, you don't want it to be too lean. If you only have very lean ground beef, make sure you have some extra butter on hand to toss in there in a bit. Once the meat is mostly browned, go ahead and toss your mushrooms in there, along with your garlic. A little salt and pepper too. Once the meat is browned, and the mushrooms have taken in some of the juices, go ahead and add your tomato sauce.

Tonight I had two 16 oz. Jars of some expensive stuff that I got on clearance at half price. But here's the trick with jarred sauce. You don't have to buy the expensive small-batch private-label stuff, but don't go middle of the road either with the corporate name-brand ones that wind up in the circular every other week. Mainline jarred sauces are usually too salty and way over-seasoned. Go right for a generic. Try a few different ones until you find one you like, but the nice thing about the generic labels is that they are mostly tomato and rather bland. That's what you want, so it will take on the flavors of the meat you now have simmering.

Kick the heat back up a little and keep stirring, so that the sauce actually begins to fry a little in the meat fats. You didn't drain that meat now did you? Don't be scared of a little fat, that's the flavor, and that's what gives it the velvety texture of gravy. If you only had lean meat, go ahead and toss in a chunk of butter now. Keep on stirring. I can still hear Ray Liotta in everyone's favorite gangster movie, “Don't let the sauce stick.” You're gonna be stirring for a good ten minutes or so, but it beats six hours of it. You want all the fats to really incorporate into the sauce and for the tomato to “ripen” a little more in the pan. The sauce will have a nice sheen but the fats should not be pooled on the top.

Go ahead and pull the sauce off the heat and cover or keep on a very low simmer, while we cook the pasta. I prefer ziti or penne, but small shells, orecchiette, or elbows work nice too. Go with what you like. I usually stay away from long cuts of pasta for this though, like spaghetti or fettuccine. Don't fully cook the pasta. Drain, but reserve some of the starchy water, or don't fully drain.

Return the pasta to the pan and pour in your meatsauce, along with your starchy water if you held some aside. It will help the sauce stick to the pasta now. Bring up the heat and stir it all together. The pasta should finish cooking right there in the sauce, so it absorbs some of the tomato. This works better with smaller cuts of pasta, which is why I don't use the long cuts like spaghetti. Much easier to stir and incorporate with the sauce. If I only have spaghetti on hand, I usually fully cook it, and serve the sauce on top. That also works better with fresh, good quality pasta rather than the box stuff.

So that's your main course. Serve the pasta in a nice deep dish plate or wide shallow bowl. Sprinkle with some grated parmesan and/or romano. If you like, maybe a little dried oregano or crushed hot red pepper. Some also like a dollup of ricotta cheese. 

But we did say this was gonna be a meal. So before you serve the pasta, you should serve a salad, which can be made up ahead of time. Tear up the lettuce by hand. Chopping it will cause the edges to brown and that really is just not attractive. Next we'll go ahead and peel the skin from some cucumber. Then I cut down into it lengthwise about a third of the way, one way and then intersecting, so there is a cross pattern if you look at it from the end. Now go ahead and slice it so that each slice falls out into four wedges. Of course, you can go ahead and chop it up any way you like. Some prefer to leave the skin on for added nutrition. Slice up some radish nice and thin. Then we need some tomato. Don't buy garbage tomatos. Spend the extra money, get at least some middle of the road tomatos. I usually get a pint of some cherry tomats, and then halve them or slice into rounds. Toss with a few green and/or black pitted olives. Nice simple green salad, dress with Italian dressing, or your own favorite. I actually like a nice Vermont honey-French that you can find in the supermarket.

And of course to round out an Italian meal like this you need garlic bread. Italian bread is obviously first choice, but you can use rolls, sliced bread, whatever ya got. Smear the face with butter. Of course you want it softened to room temperature, if you pull it right out of the fridge you'll rip the bread apart. Now a lot of people have gotten into using fresh garlic on their garlic bread. Frankly, I don't like it that way. I still prefer to sprinkle it over nicely with garlic powder. Sprinkle with just a bit of grated cheese too if you like, but keep your guests in mind too. Some folks have an aversion to grated cheese. Throw it in the oven or toaster oven, and keep an eye right on it. You want to get it nice and toasty, golden brown, but in a flash it will go too far and burn, so really keep an eye on it. Finish with a dash of dried oregano or herb blend. Serve with your main course, and maybe a small piece alongside your salad.

Now to top it all off, go ahead and serve some ice cream or sorbet for dessert. I Like a little dish of mint chocolate chip ice cream. After a heavy meal like this, the mint is nice and refreshing, not too heavy like some other flavors. I don't bother with any heavy topping either, but a few maraschino cherries and a little bit of the juice over the ice cream seem to really hit well with the chocolate in there. I don't like to go endorsing brands too much, but the Turkey Hill brand really is the best mint ice cream, because they sort of shave the chocolate in so it melts in your mouth right along with the ice cream. Other mint ice cream the chips are almost like plastic in your mouth, I don't like that much. Edy's is putting out limited quantities of Spumoni ice cream lately, an Italian favorite. A scoop of lemon sorbet served in a martini glass with a sprig of fresh mint would also be really classy and refreshing, without much fuss.

So there ya go, a nice Italian meal that you can serve any night of the week without too much fuss or hassle.

Here is your grocery list:

For the salad you will need lettuce, tomato, cucumber, radish, olives, and dressing.

For your main course you will need pasta, jarred sauce, ground beef, onion, garlic, butter, bread, herbs/spices and cheeses.

 And don't forget dessert!

Spanish Rice

This dish is real easy to make and doesn't take a whole lot of time, but it is far superior to the Spanish rice you find in a box or pouch. Taking a nod from a few TV cooking shows, I was inspired by their talk of paella. Now I don't have a paella pan, I cook just about everything in a flat-bottomed wok, but I liked the idea of adding a whole bunch of ingredients to a rice dish to make it a complete meal in a single dish, just like a real paella.  

We'll start by chopping up a white onion. White onions have a more subtle flavor, but regular onions would be fine I'm sure, vidalia, or even red onions might be interesting. Throw the chopped onion in the pan to fry with some pork lard on high heat. Don't be scared of lard, it is actually healthier than many cooking oils out there.

Cube a pound or more of ham, add to pan for some sizzle action. I had some leftover from a small store-bought ham of fair quality, and used up what I had here. Now ham is the traditional meat in a Spanish rice dish, but I've made this dish before using non-cured pork, chicken, ground beef, spam, and even Nathan's hotdogs. I prefer the ham, and the hotdogs really work good too, but go with what you have, or even a combo of meats if you have little bits of this and that hanging out in the fridge. Turkey ham would work too.

Next we will  slice 3 or 4 carrots into thin rounds. The rounds are a good bite size, but we don't want them too thick or they won't cook fast enough and be too crunchy in the final product. Not too much of a big deal, but my teeth are a little sensitive. Don't go paper thin either though, don't want them turning to mush. Maybe as thick as a few nickels stuck together, quarter inch I guess, but don't worry too much about precision. Just want to get more than a few pieces out of each stick so it distributes nicely in the final dish.

Chop up two stalks of celery and add them to the pan with along with the carrots to play with the ham and onion that should be starting to brown a little now.

Chop a half pepper each of red and green. Add to pan last since they cook the quickest. If your peppers are small, go ahead and use the whole peppers. I kept the remaining halves of two large peppers aside for another dish I'm planning tomorrow.  The peppers are really the only "traditional" veggie in a basic Spanish rice, but again, work with what you have. You can add just about anything really, though I do recommend you add at least some green and red peppers. On other occasions I have added fresh chopped green beans, corn could lend itself to a more Mexican version, go with what you like.

Add some olive oil and get it all up to temperature, stirring occasionally while the smells start blending together nicely. The mix should begin to soften a bit, but you don't want it fully cooked yet. 

Add a heaping tablespoon of chopped or minced garlic then season generously with sazon completa, or your own favorite Spanish-inspired spice blend. Your own spice blend should be well salted. Black pepper, oregano, garlic powder, onion powder, parsley, and dried citrus are some ingredients of the sazon completa.  Some nice smoked paprika might work too, I might have to try that next time. Some traditional paella use saffron.

Add water to your mixture, at a ratio of 3 to 1 for most rice. My white rice called for 2 to 1, but I increased the ratio because of all the other ingredients in the pan. You will need more water than is called for in the package directions because of that. In this recipe I used 3 cups of rice and 9 cups of water. At this point I also added some frozen green peas as well when the water came up to a boil. Once you have a rolling boil, add your rice, cover, and lower heat. Give it a stir after a half minute or a minute to keep the rice loose from the bottom of the pan. 

Try not to keep peeking too much, it should stay covered as much as possible but after the rice is about half cooked, add a few real big squirts of ketchup. Probably about a cup and a half, maybe two cups. Most recipes just call for tomato sauce or tomato paste, but I find that ketchup really gives it a bit more flavor in the end.

Add a can of beans. Stir. I use pink beans for their mild flavor, and because they are not as chalky as some others. Kidney beans are popular, but go ahead and use your favorite sort of bean. If you added corn to make it a more Mexican rice, perhaps black beans would keep in with that theme.

Put the cover back on and kill the heat, or at least bring it down to very low. Allow to sit for a while as the rice absorbs all the rest of the water. Once the water has all simmered away and been absorbed by the rice, your dish is ready to be served.

Now if you're real daring, you could try to get a bit of that traditional paella crust in the bottom of the pan. It does give a subtle smoky flavor to the dish, but you have to be very careful not to burn it. In fact, this was how I came to discover the flavor quality, I almost burned a batch of it, but gave it a quick stir as it was sticking to the bottom of the pan and just about to burn, saving the dish, and learning something new. If you do happen to burn it, see if you can dump the whole pan out upside-down into another dish and pick off the burnt crust. You could also practice the intentional "scorching" with smaller portions in the pan, rather than risking the whole batch.

Although meat does add a lot of flavor to the dish, a strictly veggie version would probably be enjoyable to vegetarian friends, or as a hearty side dish to a meat entree, such as roast or fried chicken, BBQ ribs perhaps, or even alongside an authentic Texas chili made with steak rather than ground beef.

For a very basic version to be served as a side dish, omit meats and extra veggies. A standard Spanish rice recipe calls for oregano rather than a full seasoning blend, but you should still be sure to use at least a little bit of garlic, onion, and diced peppers along with either the ketchup or some tomato paste.

Here is your shopping list:

Rice, ham, onion, green and red pepper, garlic, peas, carrots, celery, ketchup, olive oil, seasoning,