food

Portland – Unnoticed in Tv food competition?

So I want to get some more experience in culinary competition. At first I thought I would try to toss my hat in on Chopped or Top Chef and give it a try. While doing this I thought I would look up some notable competitors to try and talk to, and get some tips or at least talk strategy. Doing my little research I looked up the past contestant list of both shows ( Chopped and Top Chef ). Not masters or teen of something or other until I realized something.

Between the two shows from their inception to the end of 2013 there has not been one single winner from Portland, Oregon. Now I have also found out the reason for this. Between the start of both seasons to the end of 2013 there has not been a single competitor from my fair little slice of the world. More then seven hundred people have tried between the two shows without a single one being from Oregon.

If I seem to be mistaken then please let me know. When every other state is represented by at least a half dozen only for one state to not have one seems a bit odd and a mistake by people who have to pick the people to go on their shows. I cannot say whether it is on purpose or on accident. It does not really matter to me, but where it does is that you cannot really say that it is truly in the spirit of competition.

Just something to think about.

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Stuffed Chicken with cheddar and mustard sauce

So with this recipe your going to need the following for one plate

2 4oz portions of boned and skinned dark meat chicken, 2 oz cheddar, 3 slices of bacon, olive oil for pan frying. For the sauce add a tablespoon and a half of dijon mustard, a tsp of honey, and a quarter cup of heavy cream.

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So start out with your pan on medium heat and begin to cook your chicken after both sides have been flipped and cooked through. Stuff them with cheddar and let it sit for a moment while the bacon cooks. Drain the pan of your fry oil before dropping your bacon in to the pan. Cook your bacon through while making sure that it does not turn to glass. This will be the layer between your sauce and the chicken.

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While this recipe is very rich the sauce should have a very refreshing bite. Either from the horse radish and acidity in the mustard or from additional seasoning. Other ways you can roll it is using addition of chives or cayenne pepper for additional color. The light heat of the seasoning or the fresh aroma of the chopped chives adds anew dimension to this. When you make the sauce all you have to do is put it all in a clean pan let it simmer after whisking together until the volume decreases by a third to a half.

Layer your bacon on top of your chicken and pour the sauce on top of the bacon gently then enjoy. So hope you enjoy and hopefully after eating this you get one step closer.

 

 

 

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Guest Blogger: Broken on the orgasmacake

 

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I guess I have to do this something about guest blogging or whatever. I am Broken from the planet of gratuitous sarcasm. These are the cupcakes that the first taster named the orgasmacake. We did it for an anime convention and when we found out we could not sell it we decided to give a few out. These are an easy enough recipe and unlike Big T I don’t cook much so I use cake mix. Start off with your cake mix of choice and proceed with making the batter as it follows on the box with one major difference in this batch. 

I used some of Big T’s Cherry Dr. Pepper instead of the water. It adds a little bit of flavor. The big thing in this will be the hidden chunk of chocolate chip cookie dough in the center cupcake. I buy mine premade, your looking for a chunk the size of a d6 (6 sided die)

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Mix your eggs and oil and cut your cookie dough to the size needed and then add your cake mix. Make sure it is smooth. Oh and make sure you put papers in your cupcake pan. It is not fun to fish them out without papers. When you construct your cakes pour half your batter in it before dropping in the cookie dough ball, and cover with the remaining amount of batter. Bake the cakes until they are done. Cool them off and enjoy.

 

 

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Murphy’s law and cooking rules.

The law of whatever can go wrong will. This has been as close as a lover to the world of cooking. In my most recent work to finish the souffle I was buttering up the ramikin to bake in only to have it hit the corner perfectly against the floor. I being of the mind where I don’t need many copies of items and when I do not make souffles for many. So until I get a shopping trip in for new ramikins and plateware the souffle will be on hold. As well now I will just be dropping recipes at random.

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The earned sandwich

Hope you all had a fun month. So Valentine’s day has come and gone with much ado. This recipe is all about what you need after a harsh night of love day activities. Get some protein back in your system with the earned sandwich.
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Here are your items needed : 4 slices thick cut bacon, 2 slices wheat bread, 1-2 oz slices pastrami, one egg, some semi soft cheese of choice (In this case Gruyere), and sweet mustard.

Get some paper towels and begin with cooking your bacon. you want it crisp with some give. Let it drain and leave all the beautiful bacon grease. That grease will be what you fry your egg in do so on medium heat, and if your a little nervous you can lower the heat and let it go a little slower. The hard thing will be that when you try to flip it. When the outside is cooked through but the yolk Image

is just beginning to cook through that is when you should put it aside.

After this you should have a little bacon grease left in the pan. You can use this to toast the bread slightly or to warm up the pastrami. For mine below I used it for the pastrami. The wheat bread I get is nice and soft and combined with the semi crunchy bacon provides some contrast texture wise. If you want to cook your pastrami top it with a little bit of the cheese and try not to flip it just letting the heat come through to start it.

Building your sandwich because you earned it .

Get your sweet mustard and lightly dress one side of the bread with it . Then layer cheese, bacon, egg, pastrami, and bread.

While the egg and bacon is cooking you can cut your cheese. For mine I wanted it that it was just warm. placing on some on top of the hot egg when it began to rest and topping it with hot pastrami made the cheese a team player on this sandwich.

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Yes, I forgot to wipe my plate before taking the picture. It is always amazing how you never think of things until you see pictures of it.

In either case this is the earned sandwich. If you prefer your egg more cooked then just give it a little more time in the pan. Next blog post will be coming soon. Until then everyone, have a good one.

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Eggs Magda: Start by gathering the following ingredients. 2 Jumbo Eggs, 1/4 cup Green Onions, 1/4 cup grated Gruyere cheese, and 1 tablespoon Dijon Mustard. At the end of this recipe you should have a very smooth cheesy set of scrambled eggs that is very nice on a slice of toasted wheat bread.

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Start by cracking your eggs in a pan over medium low heat and whisk in your dijon mustard.Image

You will want to break up curds with a small whisk scraping gently from the bottom of the pan as it cooksImage.

After the color has changed you want to add the cheese and turn off the heat. Whisk it all together until it melts before finishing with the green onions. Whisk together and serve.

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Simple but delicious. Serve with toast and bacon for a breakfast of champions.This recipe was for one portion. When making multiple portions though there is not much change in the process to make it.

 

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Working in a national park

For those who have never had the experience of working in a park let me tell you what it is like. You and a group of people living, working, and hanging out together. I worked at Mount Rainier as a cook for a couple seasons. If you do not have a car then you will be stuck in one spot a lot or you will get really good at organizing car pools. If you want to work one to get a try of it be aware it is seasonal work, bu often time working the full season will allow you unemployment.

There are some good things about it though. I met a lot of people there that I would have never talked to otherwise. My friends list is beginning to look like a United Nations cast. You will to as for the most part people do not want to burn bridges here. I’m not that much of a social person, but I have gone drinking with Turks, ran obstacle courses with a blond Canadian, worked on cars with the Sengalese, and partied with the Jamaicans, not including the times I had with my British, Chinese, Thai, Czech, and other American friends I made here.

I got my camera working now and here are some of the pictures I took while I was on the Mountain for the 2013 season

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If you like the view then you will like working in parks. Many times they have things you can do provided you are not working. Writing or drawing pass the time quite well. You have to bring your own entertainment, but some areas in park have wi fi for workers only.

Hope your holidays went well. Just needed to put this up and get some nice pics on here.

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Hitting the books – What I want to write

As I may have alluded to I want to do some publishing somewhere before my funeral.

One is something called 100 Ingredients: Home Edition. This book would be just talking about how different ingredients are handled and common applications over different recipes. This is going to be for people who are not the most comfortable in the kitchen. I was hoping to do more books in this line of thought with different sets of ingredients. That’s putting things too far ahead though. People who know how to cook will have something to gain from reading it. It has recipes in it, but it will be more focusing on the ingredient so you ( the readers ) can come up with your own recipes a lot easier.

The second is called Life, Love and Cooking. It is set up so you can read one page for every day of the year and it goes over dishes, experiences I have had in the kitchen, Working in the industry and some of the adventures I have gone on. Other cooks can laugh at some of the mistakes. People who want to get in the industry know some of the goings on. People who burn water will hopefully not and every one wins.

The typing is done on both and I have gotten some good returns from agents just not good enough to be contract worthy. Yet.

So tell me what you think of my book ideas? Like? Hate? Let me know because I would like to know.

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Shop and project update. Random misadventure

Well I would have pictures here of my ganache for truffles except my old camera has finally went and died on me. Glad to see murphy’s law is in full effect still I almost thought chaos would rain if it ever left. Got another ten designs for the store done which you can see on the links page if i did it correctly or

zazzle.com/Spiritgamerware*

Ya that works too. So after the first few rounds of query letters sent in December I got a couple nibbles, but nothing for a publishing contract yet. So as soon as I can a new camera will be in my hot little hands and more pictures for all who read this humble little blog of mine. That food blog got pushed back because of equipment failure.

So I got back from a meeting and I saw some whatever you call it sprawled in paint in front of a max schedule kiosk. for those who are not from Oregon the max is like our subway. Seeing as I had nothing else to do for a few hours I took an eraser and began to very carefully erase the graffiti from the glass. All it takes is a random eraser when it comes to graffiti on plexiglass and glass. It takes a lot of time but does not smear or tint the glass at all. In full cook’s uniform I sat there trying to clean up the graffiti with no other reward other then I wanted to remove an eye sore and make the schedule visible again. I got stopped by four gang banger wannabes who were more like high school kids with an attitude problem a half dozen others who were so complacent that they called the cops on me because they thought I was marking it. The cops were actually quite nice though. A guy in a cook’s jacket and black slacks using a regular white eraser to get rid of graffiti on glass for free. It makes me wonder what kinds of things have we gotten so complacent with that really should change. Or it could be my lack of caffine talking. Anyway graffiti cleaned and + 2 on the counter of how many i have done.

Happy holidays

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