Norm Matthews

The second day of his soft food diet was chicken thighs baked with peaches, basil, dry sherry, garlic and fresh ginger. I didn't post the recipe on my blog because both of us agreed that is wasn't worth making again.

Thank you. Italian Wedding Soup ranks high with me too. If gumbo qualifies to be called a soup, then it's my favorite.

Charlie had dental work yesterday and the dentist put him on a soft food diet for the next couple of weeks. I decided to make Italian Wedding Soup for dinner. It isn't something you might think of making in the middle of August but the meat balls are small and soft, plus It's nutritional and tasty.

Charlie frequently mentions a program that he enjoys about food history. He has asked me to look at some of the shows and make some of the recipes. I intend to do it but always forget. But the other day he sent me an email containing a program about one of Napoleon's favorite dishes. Chicken Marengo. The program said it remained popular in French cuisine after his death. We tried the recipe, and he said it was really good and it reminded him of Chicken Adobo. The sides we had with it, most probably, were not ever eaten with this meal in France..rice and corn. Thomas Jefferson tried to interest the French in corn when he was ambassador to France during George Washington's presidency and they were not interested in eating food meant for animals.

Last month Charlie said he wanted to invite people over for his birthday. We had it last Saturday. He asked for Korean food mostly but would like it if I cooked something in the smoker too. I got , some thin sliced shoulder for pork bulgogi, some thin sliced ribeye for beef bulgogi and marinated them for three days. I got a 4 or 5 pound shoulder roast for pulled pork. I told Charlie that I was going to smoke a shoulder roast because I thought people were getting a little tired of ribs. He said the only person tired of your ribs is you, everybody else will want you to make some, so I got a couple slabs or loin back ribs and smoked them as well. I didn't take very many pictures. I did take a picture of the pork roast and a couple pictures of how I converted the smoker for a large grilling area. I have grill grates that fit the smoker. They are ridged on one side and smooth on the other side. I've had them since before there were Blackstone grills. I use them when I need a large flat grilling surface. They were expensive. I probably could have bought a Blackstone for about what they cost. Anyway, sorry I didn't take many pictures. We had, besides the meats, two kinds of kimchi, rice, vinegar based coleslaw, BBQ beans, and hamburger buns so people who wanted, could make sandwiches with the pulled pork.

Getting ready for Charles birthday, I thought I would do a little make-ahead stuff and also cooked some St. Louis ribs today for our dinner.

What do CFS pros do? I have been trying to figure that one out since I found out Charlie was looking for one like his school cafeteria days. One of the things I have tried is giving an already tender cut of meat a pounding for texture then cooking. The breading stays on a little better if I make them ahead and let the coating set on in the fridge.

When I started teaching, I became friends with a teacher who became sort of a mentor in non school things. He made wine, smoked meats and threw great parties. One annual party was his birthday party and he smoked a whole pig for that occasion. About as often as not I was the bartender. At one party, I overheard two other teachers tell him that their years long quest was to find the restaurant that made the best Country Fried Steak. I can't describe what I thought about that but Don Quixote and Sanjo Panza who set out on a quests with little chance of reward came to mind. Now decades later my son has started that same search for the Chicken Fried Steak they had at the high school cafeteria and I am old enough to understand why people crave food they had while growing up. I found a reciipe that had the right taste but still something was not just right. Charlie found a school cafeteria cookbook with Country Fried Steak in it. The revelation was that instead of using a cheap, tough but tenderized piece of meat, they used seasoned ground beef pressed out on sheet pans and baked, then cut into individual sizes. It was seasoned with salt, pepper, dehydrated onions and some flour. I am baking hamburger paddies and then treating them like the recipe below. Probably the last thing to do is find the right thickness for the meat. So far it has been too thick for his liking, but otherwise it seemsllike we are on the right track. Chicken Fried Steak recipe from Threadgills - Recipe By : Threadgill's - The Cookbook ISBN 1-56352-277-2 Threadgill's meat seasoning mix 1/2 cup kosher salt 4 tablespoons black pepper 2 tablespoons white pepper 1 1/2 teaspoons cayenne pepper 2 tablespoons granulated onion 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin 4 tablespoons granulated garlic 2 tablespoons paprika Mix ingredients well. Store in a glass jar or plastic container. Keep tightly sealed. Shake before each use to prevent settling. 8 6 ounce tenderized beef cutlets -- at room temperature 2 eggs 2 cups milk -- at room temperature 3 cups flour 2 teaspoons Threadgill's Meat Seasoning 2 cups frying oil -- preferably canola Whisk eggs and milk together in a bowl and set this egg wash aside. Combine the flour and meat seasoning in another bowl and set aside. Heat the oil in a heavy 14-inch cast-iron skillet over medium heat to 350 degrees F. Use a 550 degree thermometer to check temperature. The oil should pop loudly when a drop of egg wash is dropped in. Dip each of the first 4 cutlets in the egg wash mixture. Dredge them in the flour, then dip them back into the egg wash, and very gently place them in the hot oil. As you carry them one at a time from the egg wash to the skillet, hold a plate under them to catch the dripping egg wash. There'll be a regular explosion of noisy oil a-popping. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes, until breading is set and golden brown. Gently turn them with a long-handled meat fork or long metal tongs. Be careful. Cook another 3 minutes. Carefully remove them from the skillet and drain on a platter lined with paper towels. Let oil reheat and repeat process for other 4 cutlets. Serve with White Cream Gravy and Mashed Potatoes.

Charlie has been painting the living room and dining area so the table is covered with a tarp, rollers, buckets, etc., so we have been eating wherever we find the space. I have done nearly nothing with the smoker this summer. I feel like I need to experiment with different foods and recipes. I did a chicken today and got some ideas for where to go next. I just seasoned it with a rub and sprayed it with a fat for the last hour to help crisp the skin. it took two hours.

Charlie wondered if we could have chislic today. I said that would entail getting some lamb and the only place I know that has it are the Mexican groceries and they only sell it by the quarter, like a whole leg or shoulder and it would be frozen. So he said how about some marinaded steak then. I said I saw a Kabob recipe a few days ago that was grilled and basted with a compound butter. That is what we decided to do. The recipe is just for the meat. I added the vegetables and cooked them on the gas grill for 30 minutes and the steak in the smoker firebox for about ten minutes over charcoal. Charlie really liked it and wondered of it was an Asian recipe. I didn't know. He looked at the recipe and the last line identified it as coming from a Viet Phu Inc. cookbook. That is the Red Boat Fish Sauce company in California.

We had Mongolian Beef tonight.

We had Korean fried chicken wings. This recipe is easier to make than the one I used to use but it still is as messy to eat. We had it with rice and kim chi.

This chicken recipe said Ina Garten liked to make this when she was too tired to cook. Well I felt too lazy to cook so I tried the it. She peels back the skin, brushes it with olive oil, salts and peppers it, spreads goat cheese on, tops it with a fresh basil leaf, replaces the skin and bakes it at 375º for 30-40 minutes. Then she covers it with foil to rest 10 minutes. She said her kids were not crazy about goat cheese but they liked it in this dish. I kinda feel the same way about goat cheese. It was good. Charlie said he liked it too even though he also was skeptical at first. The mushrooms were cooked in sesame oil with some salt and pepper. The tomato was halved, salted, dotted with butter and topped with bread crumbs and broiled until it was browned and bubbly on top. Corn was cooked on the cob and cut off. The broccoli was from a frozen package.

We had Korean food today. Charlie found out that the grocery only has japchae for sale on the weekend so we went and got that and fish cake and some sliced pork shoulder. He heated the tofu and made the rice. I made spicy bulgogi with the pork and cooked the mixed vegetables.

I have ordered three or four things that took a month or more to get here. I wonder what is going on? Anyway, yesterday a long awaited bread pan that holds three hoagie size buns finally came. Today I used them to make some sub sandwiches. The recipe makes eight buns so I froze half of it for another time. I forgot to score them, so maybe that is why they are higher in the middle. The middle loaf was 186º when the other two were 194º but it came out OK anyway.