“No offence, Joe, but that is not really a talent.” “That’s big talk coming from a tap-dancing jelly maker who may or may not have been a high school thespian.”

broderic on September 26, 2014

Link of the Day [9.26.2014]

On my trips out to Wisconsin, I bring home a block of cheese or two. The first time was two years ago. I bought the cheese at the airport in Milwaukee. This year on the trips up I bought cheese at this store. At the airport in Green Bay, they shake me down thinking this cheese is a block of C4. In reality, this cheese is the bomb. Pardon me while I go make a grilled cheese sandwich with 7 year old sharp cheddar.

http://www.seguinscheese.com

Link of the Day [7.1714]

broderic on July 17, 2014

I swore off eating ramen after coming home from the Philippine escapade earlier this year. Now that it's summer time, I feel like some. Ramen! I haven't tried the ramen shop that just opened up in Baltimore. I heard that it was only okay. I haven't cooked any cup noodle or made my own from the dehydrated noodle square. I would like to try the noodles from today's link. It would be easy to. They only service some of the hippest ramen shops in the US. I guess I should mosey on over to one of those and get a nice bowl of shoyu ramen.

http://sunnoodle.com/

Link of the Day [12.14.13]

broderic on December 14, 2013

Tried my hand again on Arroz Caldo, chicken rice porridge. I used the chicken stock recipe as the basis for the soup. Although I extended it by using one more clove of garlic, a couple of dashes of patis, some pepper corn, and small pinch of dried red pepper flakes. It came out slightly more garlicky than I wanted, but other than that its pretty rich.

I simmered it overnight in my slow cooker. I couldn’t get 3 quarts into my small slow cooker, but I ended up with close to 2 full quarts of stock. I used 1 quart in the Arroz Caldo before adding in another 2-3 cups of water into the mix. Let the Arroz Caldo cook for about an hour before serving with a garnish of fried garlic and patis.

http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2013/11/perfect-uncluttered-chicken-stock/

Link of the Day [11.13.13]

broderic on November 13, 2013

I was browsing the bookstore the other day when I decided to slow foot it to work and came across the Ivan Ramen recipe book. I bought it immediately. Then I read it. It was 2 books in one: an autobiography of the eponymous Ivan and how he came to be a ramen chef in Japan, and a recipe for his ramen, the one he serves in his ramen-ya. There are some other recipes in the book, but there is only one ramen recipe in it! It takes up a better part of the book, but there is only one recipe for ramen — Ivan Ramen!

Ivan breaks his ramen down into the parts, and he gives a recipe for making that one ingredient. He also gives you a recipe for the ramen noodles! If you make his ramen completely, damn, your hardcore!

http://ivanramen.com/

Chili Alpha Version

broderic on October 19, 2013

Chili alpha version

So I had chili for lunch. Was it any good? Yes, it’s edible, but it’s not great chili by any means. It’s good and I like it, but there’s somethings missing.

First off, I realized that the tomato paste I used was the one with Italian seasoning. So it almost (almost) tastes like spaghetti meat sauce. Almost because of the spices. Except that there may not have been enough spices to give it that true chili flavor.

Cooking it in a slow cooker was no different than on a stove. I wanted to leave it over night but the slow cooker boiled it even on low. I woke up at 5 in the morning to see that the chili was reduced down. Maybe I should’ve thrown in the can of diced tomatoes. They may have put more liquid in the pot and the boiling would not have been reduced as much.

Back to the flavor. It doesn’t have the bite of chili that I favor. It’s not that it’s missing salt. It’s just that the heat isn’t there when eating it. The green chiles I added and the roasted jalapeño was not enough. There’s some heat (my head sweated) just not enough off it.

One thing about this chile it tasted well with tortilla chips. This one is good on nachos or even hot dogs.

If I had to tinker, I would put more liquid and hotter chiles to get more kick.

#paellaonthe4th

broderic on July 6, 2013

#paellaonthe4th

If I had more real twitter followers, perhaps there would be more tweeting about or re-tweeting #paellaonth4th hash tag. The same can be said about followers of my blog, as well. Maybe more readers would be happy to talk about this yummy event. I know I want to.

Anyhow, this is our fourth try at paella. I think last year’s was better. When you’re pouring more water in because not all the rice is cooking, you have to know that there may be something wrong with the recipe. In this iteration, there was too much rice — 9 lbs of it! Also, there may have been too much chicken as well because there was not enough room for the rice. Perhaps for the next iteration we can cut out 1/3 of the rice and 1/3 of the chicken. Maybe we should add some vegetables to the mix; it’s sorely lacking something as you eat it. Still it’s enjoyable but missing something.

The batch I brought home is savory the day after. It needs more though because of the lack of vegetables. Maybe I should eat it with some canned sardines or break out the Spam and an egg or two…

Cheese Popcorn

broderic on November 21, 2012

When I went to Wisconsin late in August, we flew in and out through Chicago’s O’Hare. I bought some cheese popcorn from the Nuts On Clark kiosk. It was not the white cheddar, but the orange cheddar, and it was pretty good cheese popcorn. Smooth cheesy flavor. Big fluffy puffed popped corn. Delicious. I just paid a mint for a gallon.

Now I can’t get enough cheese popcorn. It must be from the delicious Karamel Korn kiosk in Security Square as I was growing up. I love it better than carmel corn. Don’t get me started on kettle corn. But anyway, I love cheese popcorn. The orange the better. The white isn’t so bad, but it’s boring. Give me orange cheddar.

So I need to find more orange cheddar cheese popcorn. Perhaps the holidays and their gift tins of popcorn maybe good or maybe they maybe mediocre. Usually they are nothing to write home about. Perhaps I’ll find some in some nut store around here. There’s one in the Greenspring Station if it’s still open. Perhaps, I’ll send away via internet for some: fischer’s? or some other boardwalk popcorn place.

I just need some cheese.