Been doing that for years. Easy to make, and as long as you have REAL Canadian maple syrup, and not that other shit, it's a glorious way to start your day.
I love to BBQ and considering the cuts of meat necessary for BBQ'n usually feed a small army, I've always had the neighbors over for dinner. I've always considered opening a restaurant, but I enjoy my current job and think doing it full time may ruin my enjoyment. Now I'm looking into catering part-time on the weekends for fun. Anyone ever operate a catering business?
I've never operated one, but I've helped some friends on occasion. It's difficult and expensive work, but possible if you can get a good reputation. Just understand that getting into that business requires a significant financial investment, and good logistics skills because if you cook too much, it goes to waste and you lose money, and if you cook too little, your clients are pissed. You also have to be able to adapt to a client's needs, and events like weddings can be hell in this department because a lot of people want a say in things and things get muddled pretty quick. If you're serious about giving this a shot, then pick up this book: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.amazon.com/How-Start-Home-Based-Catering-Business/dp/0762724803" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.amazon.com/How-Start-Home-Ba ... 0762724803</a> I got it from my mother for Christmas one year and it's a pretty good tool. Some other advice is to hit up local auctions held by closed down restaurants to get some equipment on the cheap. Buffet places are a goldmine for chafing dishes and equipment designed to prepare lots of food all at once, assuming you can find one that's closed down. Additionally, understand that you need to be licensed for this kind of thing, which means all sorts of hoops to jump through. In any case, good luck. A BBQ-style catering business would be pretty sweet, especially if you have a good local butcher around to supply you.
I did a BBQ catering business as a side business with some friends and I wouldn't recommend it unless you're willing to give up a lot of your free time. Shopping, prep, cook, setup, serve, teardown, cleanup. Sure, it's nice to get validation and compliments from others of how good your cooking is, but after a while, that's not enough to justify the time sacrifice. It's additional time away from the family. I'd rather just invite friends over and cook for them on occasion.
Made Mozarella Chicken tonight, kind of a cross between Chicken Cordon Bleu and Chicken Parmesean Ingredients: -4 Chicken Cutlets -Ball of fresh Moz. cheese -Salt, basil, pepper -2 cups Garlic breadcrumbs -2 eggs -1 cup flour -tooth picks 1. Put the cutlets between wax paper and pound them until theyre pretty thin. Season with salt and pepper. 2. Cut slices of mozzarella and put them in the middle of each cutlet. Roll the cutlet up with the cheese inside and hold in place with a few toothpicks each 3. Season again. Then cover the cutlets in flour, dip in egg, and cover in breadcrumbs, and put basil on the top. 4. Cook in the oven for 45 minutes at 350 degrees, 35 minutes in a gas oven. Theres an optional sauce you can make with this, although i rarely do. But here ya go, Ingredients: -1 cup dry white wine -2 teaspoons of minced garlic -1/4 cup butter In a saucepan, melt 1/4 cup butter and add garlic. Add wine and simmer all together. Pour sauce over chicken and bake in the oven on top. You can also use regular marinara.
I am doing up a mexican meal for my girlfriend for her birthday and was looking for some ideas for more refined/different ideas that I could do. I am proficient in the kitchen so pretty much any ideas you throw my way are up for consideration. Any help is greatly appreciated.
I was frying up some bacon recently and one of my roommates had left ingredients for s'mores out. There's a spot of Nutella on the top half. Christ. Go try this- now! It's sweet, salty, chocolately, crunchy, nutty, and worlds better than the standard s'more. I'm going to try this again with some apple cinnamon bacon.
Yes. Chocolate and bacon is one of the most underrated flavor combinations in history. And nutella? fucking aye man.
A few things I've made lately that I've been particularly pleased with: Baked squash soup: -cut up and bake ~ 1 pound of squash, drizzled with olive oil and with a few sprigs of rosemary and thyme in the baking pan -fry a few slices of bacon in the bottom of a stock pot -throw on diced onion and cook until it starts to turn transparent -throw on the squash (without the herbs), add chicken stock to cover, and blend -add in a bit of milk or cream for flavour and texture Serve with the left over bacon bits in the bowl Apple and pear compote, courtesy of Gordon Ramsey -throw1/3 cup of sugar into a hot pan until it starts to melt, then add 2 tablespoons of butter -add in a few sticks of cinnamon, star anise, and other such spices as you see fit -reduce heat to medium, add on halved pears and quartered apples (peeled) -after cooking for a few minutes, add apple juice and a few splashes of brandy / calvados, and cook until it reduces; total time on the stove is 10-15 minutes -nom away. It's fucking delicious, and pretty darn easy. Only suggestion I have is to not use baking pears. I used baking pears for the recipe and they were still way too tough, even though my golden delicious apples were mostly mush. Tomato sauce: -get a jar of canned tomatoes. I've heard San Marzano tomatoes are a good brand to use, but anyways. -chop up an onion, a few cloves of garlic, thyme -blend up the previous in a pot so they're nice and smooth -quickly brown chunks of stewing beef in a frying pan, deglaze with red wine and add to pot -simmer for a few hours, add tomato paste to thicken if necessary No shit - I haven't tasted sauce like this since my very Italian grandmother died, and it was shit simple to make. I've also been making oatmeal in my rice cooker overnight. You can just leave it on low overnight and by the time you wake up it's ready to eat, although I like to let it sit on the "cook" setting for a few minutes to get it up to temperature if you're pulling a late night (i.e. less cooking time). For the love of Christ do not put it on the "cook" setting and leave it, because it will boil over like nobody's business. I just throw in a stick of cinnamon and some dried fruit and then some maple syrup and brown sugar in the morning. A 1 to 4 ratio of steel cut oats to water comes out perfect. In cooking equipment news, I picked me up one of these knives: Spoiler and have been pretty pleased. Henckels twin master yellow, 9 1/2" chef's knife. I think it cost $30-35, so pretty reasonably priced, esp compared to the fancy-handled competition. I guess I'll see how it holds its edge. Also, does anyone have any advice about buying cookware? I've sort of had an eye to expanding my collection lately (something like a good stainless steel frying pan). I was already referred to an article here but if anyone else has any advice as to good brands or things to avoid, I'm all ears.
This place is awesome for spices and seasonings. You can order online, but if you live in the DFW area and like to cook, you owe it to yourself to go. You'll be overwhelmed. I recommend the Tandoori seasoning. Stupidly simple and so delicious.
I went out for southwestern food last night and had some amazing mole poblano sauce; does anybody know if you can buy mole sauce in supermarkets? I saw a food network show last week where one of the guys made mole and there were like 20 ingredients in it, including 3 kinds of dried peppers, cinnamon, and a ton of other things and there's no way I'm making something that complicated.
I've seen it in a few supermarkets where I live but have never tried it so I can't speak to it's quality. Look in the Mexican food section (duh) but it doesnt seem to be that hard to find.
Just bought myself a crock pot for the first time so I can cook good stuff all winter like chile, roast, etc. Anyone have any good recipes? Like, stuff I can stick in before work and have it ready by the time I get home at 5? Thanks for any help.
I'm fond of Alton Brown's recipe myself: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/pressure-cooker-chili-recipe/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alto ... index.html</a> It says it's for a pressure cooker, but you can easily modify it for stovetop or crock pot use. The one thing I would insist upon is that you at least brown the meat in a frying pan, rather than just throwing everything into the crock pot. If anyone else wants to know, I just made some beef bourguignon, kinda sorta based on Julia Child's recipe. Oh my fuck is it delicious. Go make it, now.
This sauce is awesome, recipe's from gourmet. I figured I should share because the sauce itself takes all of 7 minutes to make and the only way I can see to fuck it up is to overcook the shrimp. I just made it the other night and went to the trouble to make fresh pasta with it too, pretty fucking delicious. The recipe calls for capellini, but when I make it with fresh pasta I make fettuccine so use whatever noodle you like. Also, as far as messing around with the recipe, I add a bit more tomatoes/garlic/seasoning to taste and get shrimp on the larger side so I can simmer the sauce longer to thicken without overcooking them. Shrimp and Creamy Tomato Sauce: * 3 tablespoons olive oil * 1 lb peeled large shrimp * 3 large garlic cloves, forced through a garlic press * 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano * 1/2 cup sweet (red) vermouth * 1 (14- to 15-oz) can diced tomatoes, drained * 3/4 cup heavy cream * 1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice * 1/2 lb capellini (angel-hair pasta) Heat oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium-high heat until it shimmers, then cook shrimp and garlic with oregano, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper, turning once, until golden, about 2 minutes total. Stir in vermouth and tomatoes, scraping up any brown bits from bottom of skillet. Add cream and briskly simmer until sauce has thickened slightly, about 1 minute. Stir in lemon juice. Cook whatever pasta separately and top it with shrimp and sauce.
This weekend will be my first time running a 6ft smoker at a BBQ. I'm planning on rather simple/easy fare, baby back ribs & brisket. The owner of the smoker is going to be there but this is my BBQ so I'm planning on doing most of the work. I've already read up on the Texas crutch, seasoning, and plan on having the smoker up to temp nice and early in the day so the food is ready by mid-afternoon. Any tips, trade secrets, and/or advice that'll make my life easier? Thanks.
Cold Weather = Soup Season Cabbage and Potato Soup I had most of what I needed lying around so, I just improvised the rest of the way: 3/4 head of green cabbage, sliced thin 1 pound red potatoes, also sliced thin 1 large onion, roughly chopped 1/2 lb thick-cut bacon 1/4 cup dry vermouth 6 cups of chicken stock 5 oz. can, evaporated milk 1 tbsp, olive oil Celery seed, a pinch Caraway seeds, a pinch Briefly fry bacon in olive oil at the bottom of a large soup pot or dutch oven before adding the onion. Continue cooking until onion is somewhat translucent and then add the vermouth. Give the booze a couple minutes to cook down, then add sliced potatoes, caraway seeds and celery seed and toss with bacon and onions for a couple minutes before adding the chicken stock. I brought it to a rolling boil and let it go for about 5 minutes before throwing in the cabbage. Covered the pot, but allowed it to vent and simmered on medium-low for roughly 20 minutes. Then added the can of evaporated milk, stirred and recovered for another 6-7 minutes. Add freshly ground black pepper to taste, and you're good to go. I wouldn't add salt to the pot directly, because both the broth and the bacon contained quite a bit already. Switching to low-sodium broth would give you more leeway with this. Otherwise, it's filling, it's cheap and it doesn't taste half bad.
I brought about 5 lbs. of ground bison home last night. It was free! They're already formed into patties (for burgers), but I have never cooked bison before and after my experiences cooking wild game, know that this stuff will be very lean and get dry/tough fast. Any suggestions on what to do with it? Thanks. Oh- I had some BBQ catered today from a local place and the owner was hanging around for awhile. I started chatting with him and has agreed to experiment some with wood chips I can supply. I'm going to visit his place with sacks of Jack Daniels barrel chips (used aging barrels hacked up), hickory, mesquite, and apple wood later next week. I love both grilled meat and BBQ meat and while I can grill like hell, I don't have any in-depth experience with smoking meats. This is going to be awesome!
Some bison recipes from Hell's Kitchen: Maple-Glazed Bison Sausage 1 lb ground bison ¼ cup minced shallots ¼ cup maple syrup 2 tbsp minced garlic 2 tsp ground sage 2 tsp red pepper flakes 2 tsp fennel seed 1 tsp dried thyme 1 tsp white pepper 1 tsp salt Slowly blend all ingredients together until just mixed. Do not over-mix because this will compact the sausage and make for a drier, tougher product. Form the sausage mixture into 3 oz portions. Saute the patties about 4 minutes per side in a lightly oiled skillet over high heat. Bison Sausage Bread 10 oz maple-glazed bison sausage (Italian sausage can be substituted) ¾ cup dried blueberries ¾ cup dark coffee 4 eggs ¾ cup walnut pieces, toasted ¾ cup sugar ½ lb dark brown sugar 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp baking soda 1 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp ground ginger ¼ tsp nutmeg 1/8 tsp ground cloves Preheat oven to 350 F. Mix sausage, blueberries, and coffee slowly until well blended. Add the eggs one at a time, slowly mixing. Add the remaining ingredients. Slowly beat together for 3 to 4 minutes, or until well blended. Butter and flour a 5”x9” loaf pan. Scrape the batter into the pan and bake for about 1 ½ hours on the center rack of the oven. The bread sounds a little weird, but it's awesome.
friend just posted this on Facebook. http://whatthefuckshouldimakefordinner.com/index.php Probably been around forever, but fuck it, I laughed. And found something I'm gonna make for dinner this week.