A Challenge For Bakers

Posted on 21/04/2011 by Grumpa Joe
Monday is the day the agency I work for makes ...

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This special recipe for chocolate chip cookies is for the bakers in the world.  This flavorful cookie guarantees to make you the hit of any small town. The assembly of the recipe will present a challenge to even the most experienced baker, i.e. unless you cook for large groups. I discovered the recipe while touring on a vacation in Charleston, South Carolina. The ingredients are simple, and easily accessible from any grocery store.

These cookies will make your taste buds jump for joy. They will bring you satisfaction for  a long time, and they freeze well too. The chocolate speckled wafers make a wonderful treat for great grandfathers who served in the Navy during WWII. No doubt, the taste will awaken a memory cell tucked deep within the recesses of  a sailor’s brain.

If you decide to bake up a batch using this recipe, send me a few dozen, I love them

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CATALOG CHICKS

Posted on 01/04/2011 by Grumpa Joe

Grumpa Joe loves chickin’. He likes it roasted, broasted, grilled, fried, cooked in soup, and diced into a salad. All his life he had chickens to eat. His mom raised chickens for many years in the backyard coop.  She stopped when she finally discovered that it was cheaper, and easier, to buy a fresh chicken from the chicken store.  Until then, she raised chickens for our consumption.

Every spring, in March, the mail man arrived with a large, flat, box with holes all around the sides. The box made noise because inside there were two dozen newly hatched chicks ordered from the Sears catalog.

 

The chicks, squeezed into the box, were yellow, and furry. They hatched just a few days earlier. The cute fuzzy cheepers were fun to watch.  Outside, the temperature was still too cold to put the chicks into the coop, so Mom kept them in the house.

She got a large cardboard box with tall sides from the store, lined it with newspaper, then took it upstairs to my brother Will’s bedroom. The chick’s new home was near the window, and next to the heat vent.  Mom put a watering dish into the box with a feed tray.  She fed them finely chopped, boiled eggs. Figure that one out, which came first?

To keep them warm, she placed a light bulb over the box to give them more heat and light. As the chicks grew, she switched their diet to chicken feed. In a couple of weeks, the chicks doubled in size, and began to get their feathers.

When the weather got warmer, Mom moved them outside to the coop. There, they grew up to provide us with eggs. Eventually, they made it to our Sunday dinner table; yum, yum, yum.

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I Love My Nu-Wave

Posted on 13/03/2011 by Grumpa Joe

I Love My Nu-Wave Cooker

Cooking is something that eluded me until I was forced into it. Then, I wanted to be Emiril overnight. I began watching cooking shows on TV to learn. Between the Food Channel with Emiril, Rachel, Mario, Bobby, Paula, Julia, Martha (yes I confess I watched Martha), and the memories of watching my mother in the kitchen I learned the basics.

Hunger is the mother of all cooking, and it became necessary to reinvent myself as a chef to satisfy that basic drive.

Over the past ten years, my appreciation for cooking gadgets has become overwhelming. First it was a proper knife and cutting board, then a whisk, a thermometer, a timer, and a salad spinner. I learned to use olive oil to saute (fry). Peggy showed me a vertical rotisserie for roasting meat, and a electric roaster oven.

The challenge was to use them all to cook, not just good, but great meals. The rotisserie was the first adventure with a whole chicken. Man did it turn out juicy. The success with the chicken led me to try a beef roast; it became another juicy success.

Thanksgiving turned into a challenge. We invited the entire family; all twenty-four of us. The volume of items being brought to the house in combination with the turkey and stuffing put a strain on our oven. That’s when we broke out the roaster oven and used it to make the turkey.

Among the best cooking gadgets ever invented is the George Foreman Grill. What a great way to heat meat evenly. Our first Foreman grill is worn out. It still works, but the Teflon is gone. During our winter hiatus to Arizona, we missed the Foreman so much we bought a new one.  We used it daily. The new one has removable plates and is easier to clean.

Two years ago, we visited friends in Georgia. I chronicled the trip in a post called Needed Downtime. Our hosts, Lou and Lori made us a huge breakfast of bacon and eggs. They cooked a pound of bacon to perfection in a record time without a mess.

“How did you do that,” we asked?

“We used our Nu-Wave cooker,” said Lori.

“What is that?”

That started them raving about this really cool gadget. They told story after story of how they use this thing to cook chicken, steaks, and even vegetables. Of course, we got a demonstration on how easy it is to use, and to clean.

“I’ve got to get me one of those,” I told them.

Fast forward one year.

Peggy and I are tourist shopping in Branson, Missouri. I should restate that, Peggy was shopping, I was gawking at the young ladies behind the counter and trying not to look conspicuous. The next thing I see Peggy walking toward me with a huge box.
“I bought you a Nu-Wave.”

My reaction was that of a normal husband, “you did what?”

“I bought you a Nu-Wave cooker.”

“How much was it?”

“Never mind, just take it, this box is heavy.”

So began my love affair with the Nu-Wave. We’ve had it nearly one year, and I have used it to grill steaks, chicken, pork chops, pork roast, turkey breast, sirloin-tip roast, potatoes, and fish. The feature I love best is the cooking card that gives me cooking times for both defrosted and frozen items.

Very often, we make our menu decision on the spur of the moment. We can take rock-hard frozen pork chops and put them on the Nu-Wave. I set the timer for ten minutes, then turn them over for another ten minutes, and wallah, we have tasty tender pork chops. While the chops are grilling, we microwave a couple of small potatoes, and some broccoli.  In twenty minutes, we went from freezer to table and made a meal fit for a king.

Here are some photos of a whole 5.5 pound chicken fully defrosted and the Nu-Wave. The cooking time is 15 minutes per pound. In seventy-five minutes the meat temperature is right on.

My Nu-Wave is now the favored appliance in the kitchen. At Thanksgiving, the turkey is in the roaster oven and a turkey breast is in the Nu-Wave.

We still use the grillerator, but steaks, roasts, and whole chickens are better on the Nu-Wave.

ANALOG Model Nu-Wave Infrared Cooler

 

Fully Defrosted Chicken

Chicken Rubbed in Season Salt and Emiril's Essence

Chicken Rubbed With Season Salt and Emiril's Essence in NuWave

NuWave Cooking Chart

Cook Times for Poultry

Control Panel With the Power Locked on FULL, and the Timer Setting

Fully Roasted Chicken With the Meat Thermometer

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Hungarian Comfort Food

Posted on 18/01/2011 by Grumpa Joe

Today was a day that chilled my bones. The temperature was relatively mild, but the dampness was gross. It started with a meeting of Lions this morning, and moved to an appointment with a doctor, then on to the grocery store for provisions. My plan was to come home and cook up a batch of chicken paprikas. By the time we got home, I was so chilled, the act of cooking warmed me over. The anticipation for the meal was building and I recalled memories of when I helped my mother make the same dish.

The recipe is so simple anyone who knows how to read and turn on a gas stove can make this stuff. The ingredients are spelled out in a photos below. The main ones are chicken, onion, sour cream, and some simple spices. Combine them in the right order and you get a dish to die for.

When I began cooking I was not hungry. By the time the dish was completed, I was ravenous. Between the aroma, and the flavor, my stomach sent signals to my brain that shouted “Feed me.”

I had to have a wine to go with it, so I went down to the wine rack and picked out a bottle of red. The wine turned out to be as great a winner as the meal.

I had problems making the spatzle. It certainly wasn’t as good as Mom’s. This is the fourth time I have made spatzle as an adult, and I need more practice doing it. Mother’s was uniform in size, and firm in texture. My dumplings were rather random in size, shape, and texture. Oh well, another day, another dollar. If I don’t wait another seven years between attempts, I should be able to improve.

The paprikas smelled great, looked great, and tasted great. The spatzle tasted great but looked like hell. The appearance did not deter me from attacking it with appetite.

The chosen wine  was accidental. It was the last bottle in the rack. I love Cabernet Sauvignon which is full bodied and flavorful. This one called “Dynamite.” was exactly all of that. It made a great pairing with the colorful red and rich paprikas.

If I were in a restaurant and had to rate this meal, I would give it four stars. If the dumplings were uniform in size and texture I would have rated the meal a five.

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WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF

Posted on 17/01/2011 by Grumpa Joe
Chicago River @ night

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Last night was make up night for our theater subscription. Normally, we go to Steppenwolf with  friends, but when Grandma Peggy and I got the flu we had to reschedule. So, it was solo date night for the old folks.  We bundled up and drove the thirty-five miles to North Halstead Street in Chicago to the Steppenwolf theater. We left early because sometimes we get into a traffic jam that takes thirty to forty minutes to get through. This evening we sailed without any jams and made it from our door to the theater in forty-eight minutes flat.

I pulled up in front of Trattoria Gianni’s and valet parked the Death Star. Gianni’s is across the street and four houses down from the theater. We enjoyed a four-star meal. I would have given it five stars except for the ambiance. The place was cold, and a bus load of women came in for dinner. They made the place so noisy that I had to shut my “state of the art” electronic ears off.

The play was “Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf.” I had never seen it before, but Peggy  saw the movie with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. This production of Edward Albee’s work starred Steppenwolf’s ensemble members. Directed by Amy Morton who also starred as Martha. Her husband, Tracy Letts played the part of George.

The story is a riot at times, but also filled with dialogue reminiscent of a marital fencing match. It is obvious that this wife is totally disappointed in her husband’s ambition, and he in turn feels she is a nag. They drink copiously to numb their brains from the ho-hum of their lives.

The characters became real, and I couldn’t picture the actors as anybody but George and Martha. They left me wondering if they were as screwed up in real life as they portrayed on stage. This is a very long play and we almost left when the second intermission arrived. I thought the last scene was rather a strange ending. It turned out that there was another act.

I took the opportunity to run out and retrieve my car from the valet. The valet service ends at eleven, and I had visions of my car being towed by some aggressive towing company for being in a place it didn’t belong with me wondering where the hell it was and how was I going to get home. The valet was right there. My car was parked on the street immediately across from the theater doors. I paid him, got my keys, and made it back to my seat before anyone knew I was gone.

The final act started out being just as conflicted as the first two. The plot had us believing that George and Martha had a son. At the very end George plays one of his games and reveals to Martha that the son is dead. She keeps screaming “why did you have to make it end this way?” That got me to wondering if the son was real or did they just create him to make their lives more fulfilled, or was he a character in one of George’s novels. I left wondering if the couple was nuts, or were they in deep grief over the loss of their only son. Now, I have to do some reading to determine if the son was real. Maybe someone will tell me.

Grandma Peggy and I gave the performance five stars, but next time we will wear long underwear so we can give Gianni’s the fifth star.

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