Norm Matthews

I accidentally posted this in the breakfast thread. Cassie tripped and fell down a short flight of carpeted stairs and stayed home from work today. She is sore and bruised but I think she will be fine. Since all three of us were home together tonight, I made Breaded chicken cutlets, Romano cheese sauce, linguine and green beans.

OOPS. Sorry, I meant to post this in the dinner thread. I made breaded chicken filets, green beans, and linguine with a Béchamel and Romano cheese sauce

Thanks for the Crepes Cassie, my DIL, made chili rellenos with Anaheim peppers once when she could not get poblanos. They were good. Making the bacon rolls with them instead of poblanos is a good idea. I may try those with the ones I make next month.

It actually snowed night before last. It was just a light dusting and was gone by sun-up. It was fairly cold this morning but daffodils are blooming and is supposed to start warming up some more. I am really ready for winter to be gone. Host's note: this topic continues in the topic Dinner 2015 (Part 2).

The probe was at 175 when I took it out of the bacon roll and laid it down. By the time I took the picture, it had cooled down to 91. Outside temperature today is in the 50's.

Green grass is good, especially when I have a son who mows it.

My nephew is having a Bacon N Bourbon party next month and I have been trying to think of something to take. I have seen BBQers make something called Fatties before but never tried one myself until today. I tried a couple of ideas and have settled on one with some variations on the next ones. A Fattie is often meatloaf sized sausage with cheese and other stuff on the inside and a bacon weave on the outside. I roasted a couple of poblanos first. Then i rolled out some hamburger between two sheets of plastic for one and some pineapple bratwrust for the second. Wove some bacon on top. Another sheet of plastic then a sushi roller on top of that and then inverted it so the roller is on the bottom. After it was turned over so the hamburger was on top, I sprinkled it with a BBQ rub. For the bratwurst, I didn't add any additional seasoning. I put cheese and poblano in the middle of each one. I used string cheese for the beef and queso quesadilla for the second. This is the first one I did and it was a little messier than the second one They got rolled up after taking a knife and scraping off excess meat. After it was rolled up. I trimmed the bacon. No one I know ties these things up but I felt better with some string on them which I did right after this picture. They went in the smoker @ 225 with apple wood for a little over an hour... until they reached 165 in the center. They were basted with BBQ sauce and bourbon. Here they are out of the smoker. I sprinkled onion rings on the hamburger one. And here they are sliced up. You could call them bacon sushi rolls if you don't want to call them fatties, I guess. We decided we liked the pineapple bratwurst ones better. Perhaps next time I'll use a sweet bbq sauce instead of the spicy one I used this time. Also plan to use more chili peppers and cheese.

Shelby, once at our restaurant, when the Asian market delivered a crate of crabs and I remember one that 'escaped' and ran across the floor and it took a little while to catch it.

chimichurri sauce with chicken is something I think I'd like to try sometime soon. We've only had it with beef so far.

I have been wanting to try a corned beef-to-pastrami recipe but didn't dare try it for the annual corned beef day dinner. Cassie likes it too much for me to mess with that day's dinner. The pastrami came out really well. There was practically nothing left over. Next time I think I'll try it in my smoker. This one was in heavy duty foil in a slow oven for 7 1/2 hours. With it we had store-bought pretzel buns, Irish Whiskey Butter, sweet potatoes and a salad with dried fruit and toasted nuts.

I grew up on Strawberry Hill in Kansas City. Many of the people there were of Croatian descent and every Easter someone in the neighborhood would give us a loaf of Povitica bread, a traditional holiday nut bread. The closest way describe it is that it's like baklava but is a nut paste in a sweet yeast bread instead of phylo. It was a real treat that I have always associated with Easter. Mom always made a ham. i don't remember real eggs playing a large part of our family tradition.

First let me say I am not familiar with these and I've never made any, but rice cakes are made with a steamed rice that is sticky when it is cool enough to handle. If you roll it in some non stick foil and let it finish cooling, it will stay like that. If you want something sweet, perhaps you might have some success if you think about how rice crispy treats are made.

Cassie's favorite meal of the year is the corned beef one I make from scratch. She has to work tomorrow so we had ours today. Along with the corned beef was butter softened with Irish Whiskey and sugar beat in with the mixer, carrots, rutabagas, cabbage, soda bread, smashed potatoes, and some store bought rye bread. I put some Guinness in the cooking liquid and divided what was left between us. Fortunately for me, neither of them drank any and I was forced to finish off the bottle by myself. We also had a couple of Irish cheeses with dinner.

Your mention of mirepoix and roast make me wonder if you are confusing 'roast' with 'pot roast' which is also called braising. With a pot roast, the crust, if it is there at all, is done by browning the meat first.

I made some tacos the other night and put half a jalapeno in some guacamole and a little or the remainder in the meat as it was cooking. It didn't taste hot at all when it was raw but the meat had some real spice to it when I tasted it. I don't know if it was the jalapeno or something else I added but I never noticed it being that spicy before.

I made tacos tonight.

FYI I just noticed the heading on this thread also mentions spare ribs. Here is a video on how to do a St. Louis trim on spare ribs to prep them for BBQ.

Apple juice spritz on the ribs is a good idea. I do it quite often. If you are interested in a good BBQ rub for baby back ribs, here is one everyone seems to like. I put it on the ribs, wrap them up and leave them in the refrigerator overnight. 2 tablespoons sugar 1 tablespoon packed brown sugar 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder 1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder 1 1/2 teaspoons paprika 1 1/2 teaspoons cumin 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon onion powder 1 teaspoon white pepper 1 teaspoon black pepper The ribs and kraut is also classic but I would prefer country style ribs instead of baby backs for them.

Seeing this thread was started over 14 years ago, I didn't see much use in saying anything since the ribs would be dust by now but since it is still alive, I might as well put in my 2¢. Forgive me if I repeat something already said. As per the original post, re indirect heat on a gas grill: with pork baby backs, indirect heat is OK but isn't necessary. Low heat (upper rack) on a gas grill will work fine. We always do a dry rub. I have never considered a wet brine. Baby backs don't need as long a cooking time as other ribs. It's possible to over-cook them. My son is 1/2 Korean and that country's traditional flavors do go well with pork and beef. When we make kalbi though, we use short ribs cut thin and grill them. Baby backs in the oven is an interesting variation.

Braised Boston pork roast, home made fries that tasted like McD's, salad, carrots, and store bought stuffed crab.

Looks really good. Back as in spine (loin or shoulder) or back as in rear (leg)?

I felt guilty about not having fish in a while. I didn't crave fish, I just thought I should make some, so I made some chili roasted cod along with steak fries, green beans and stuffed tomatoes.

We had Buffalo wings (actually used Picante Bufalo sauce) and because Cassie does not like food with bones, I also made some Chicken Parm. with pasta and Alfredo sauce, Italian tomato soup -Giada De Laurentis recipe-and Italian bread made with sour dough starter.

I have a relatively small house and small kitchen to go with it. We moved in less than three years ago. One of the first things the kids did for me was to add some storage space. Here it is under construction The first things I did was replace the refrigerator and stove. I would have liked a gas stove but didn't want to spend the money on putting in a gas line. I needed an oven that worked for Cassie's cakes. Maybe the gas stove is a couple years in the future. This is the side with the sink. The door window now has matching curtains. This is the last of the swing around the kitchen. This one was taken this morning. In good weather- and some not so good weather- we do some cooking outside. Here is a gas and charcoal grill and the smoker. The smoker was probably the first cooking thing I got after we moved.

After dinner Charlie made kimbob.