TRIFLE WITH THE BRITS? You must be crazy.

While I was in England earlier this summer, I was thoroughly unimpressed with the majority of the meals that I had, aside from the dinner I ate here, at Merton College's dining hall:

For some reason, the Brits just don't believe in salt or seasonings too much.  If they only knew how good Bangers and Mash could be...

They do get one thing right though nearly 100% of the time.  ANY DESSERT THAT HAS WHIPPED CREAM IN IT!  Their whipped cream rocks.  So in tribute to my British friends, behold my Trifle recipe.

Trifle is easy, three components: 1. Pound Cake, 2. Whipping Cream or Custard, and 3. Fruit.  I've listed them separately in the recipe.  Once you've prepared all three elements, start with a layer of pound cake, and then layer fruit, followed by cream, until you reach the top.

Pound Cake:
Buying is easiest, and possibly cheapest, or you can make it from scratch.  I go Sandra Lee style, semi-homemade.  Here's the recipe I use.

1 Yellow Cake Mix
3/4 c. Vegetable oil
1/2 c. sugar
4 large eggs, well beaten
1 c. Sour Cream (you can use fat free if you insist)
1 tsp. Almond Extract
1 tsp. Lemon Zest

Preheat oven to 350, Mix all ingredients and then pour into a 12 cup bundt or tube pan.  Bake for 45-50 minutes.  Let cool 10 minutes before taking cake out of pan, and cool completely.

*The reason you use a bundt pan is because it allows you to cut thin slices of pound cake that you'll use to layer the trifle.  You could use cake chunks or whatever, but I like the layers to be even.

Fruit
You can really use any fruit you like in your trifle, I just like to use something that will give off a little bit of juice.  The recipe above is Blackberries, Strawberries and Peaches.  This is your opportunity to color theme your dessert for 4th of July, Valentines day, etc.

4 medium peaches, sliced and peeled
6 oz. clamshell of blackberries
1/2 lb. strawberries, quartered

Place cut fruit in a bowl and cover with 2-3 tablespoons of sugar/artificial sweetener, stir.  This helps to draw the juice out of the fruit.

Whipped Cream:  I'm gonna let you in on a secret...Lemon Curd (you can find it in the jam or baking goods section)

Whip 2 cups of heavy whipping to a stiff peak, add 2 T sugar, and fold in 1/4 c. of lemon curd.

Got it all done?  Start layering.  This really is a recipe that you can tailor to your crowd.  I had a pumpkin trifle last fall that was to die for, and I've seen richer trifles made with chocolate cake.   Make it your own and let me know how it goes.

Total Cost: $12-15.  I know that's a bit on the spendy side, but it serves about 10-12, and it's more of a "special occasion dessert" due to the work that goes into it.

Peculiar Food for a Peculiar People: What's with Mormon Cuisine?

Before we get into all of the weird culinary combinations that Mormon's are renowned for, I'd like to give my fellow peasants something to think about.

Have you ever thought about how many of the foods you love are foods of necessity and convenience rather than foods of luxury.  Take, for example, tortillas.  Cheap enough to feed whole families without breaking the bank, easy, keep for a long time, no need for any leavening agent.  Yet we use them for recipe after recipe!  Chicken noodle soup is another example.  Most of us would rather eat a whole roasted chicken, I'm sure.  But what to do with the rest of that carcass...BAM...chicken noodle soup.  Cheap, convenient, wholesome foods have become staples of our culinary world, as well they should.

That's why I'm going to give my Mormon Forebears a pass.  I'm going to assume that many of the foods listed below were thought up out of convenience, necessity, or both.  I'm sure Utah mothers in the '40's were limited in their culinary options as their husbands were fighting for our freedom.  Make do or do without!!  So, without further delay, here are some of the Mormon recipes that I have always thought were a little bit crazy.  We'll move from less weird to more weird.

(Brief side note:  I really do like many of these foods, but that doesn't mean they're not weird.)

This first one isn't overly weird, I just think It's a disgrace to quality Mexican food:

THE CREAM OF CHICKEN/SOUR CREAM ENCHILADA.  

I'm all about fusion cuisine...but Campbell's Cream of Chicken soup does not fall into that category.   SORRY.

Next: TATER TOT CASSEROLE

I feel like the picture here says it all, but I have to make one more observation.  THIS HAS TO HAVE BEEN MADE FOR PEOPLE WITHOUT TEETH!  Everything in it is already ground up for you, all you have to do is gum it, swallow, and digest!  Ground beef, ground (and then put back together) potatoes, shredded (almost ground) cheese!

This is the last one that I'm going to share, becuase I want you to comment below and share your favorite weird Mormon guilty pleasure.

The world famous Jello Salad?/Somethingthatisthecolorandtextureofvomit

Specimen #1

Specimen #2

Specimen #3

I really don't know what to say. . . Seriously. . . there are no words to describe what I feel about jello "salads." Help me out with your comments.

Speaking of comments, let me know what your favorite, or most repulsive, Mormon food guilty pleasure is.  The commenter that leaves what I, at my sole discretion, deem the oddest concoction, will be the beneficiary of the Key Lime pie recipe post coming later this week!  The only rule is that you have to have actually seen the concoction at a pot-luck or ward event.

Ready, set, GO PEASANTS!

One of VERY FEW reasons to get up early on Saturday!

Since the demise of the Saturday Morning Cartoon I haven't had much reason to get up early on Saturday mornings.  Maybe for a trip to the lake or a longer bike ride that would be intolerable in the heat...maybe.

There is one other "best part of waking up" that I get excited for though, and it's not Folgers.

BOUNTIFUL BASKETS!

Bountiful Baskets is a co-op (that's right, nobody is benefitting except everyone that participates) that, for now, is mostly in the western United States.  Through a series of regional growers, volunteers, etc., BB has created a network that enables you to get fresh quality produce for a good price.  I've found it to be a step above your average grocery store produce.

How much?  The above spread is a typical example of what you would get in a weekly basket, and it cost $15.  The price is the same every week, although the produce may vary.  BB's website states that each basket typically contains around $50 of grocery store priced produce, and I don't think that's a stretch at all.  I was at Albertson's and Gala apples like the ones above were $1.99/lb.  I estimate that the apples alone above would cost $6.  Throw in grocery store prices of $3 cantaloupe, $3 grapes, and $3 combined for celery and lettuce, and you've got a slew of free apricots, beans, bananas, tomatoes, and broccoli.

While I still feel farmers markets are the best way to get great produce, Bountiful Baskets has more locations and is a great price for great produce.  Give it a try if you don't have fresh fruit and vegetable markets in your city.

Fwd:

Sent from my mobile. Enjoy.
_____________________________________________________________

Yogurt marinated chicken, rosemary-garlic roasted potatoes, and bruschetta with tomatoes and fresh mozzarella. Good way to end the work week!

Weekly Outdoor Cooking Info: RIBS!

Welcome to the Weekly Outdoor Cooking Post.  It's summer, and nothing is better than cooking on the grill!  Later in the summer we'll try other methods of outdoor cooking like dutch oven, tin foil dinners, and maybe even smoking!

Baby Back Ribs are one of those Catch 22's in cooking.  They're really not a great cut of meat, full of connective tissue and all sorts of membrane, yet they're one of the most expensive things on the menu at many restaurants.  This all comes down to how time consuming and difficult they are to prepare.  Do you know anyone who has a smoker?  Yeah, me either.

Last year, after watching someone on the foodnetwork pressure cook beef short ribs, I decided to try the same for baby backs, with great success.  The only special equipment you'll need is a pressure cooker and any type of grill (in a very worst case scenario, you could use the broiler in your oven).  They're not quite the smokey ribs you get from smoking for 6 hours, BUT YOU WON'T HAVE TO SPEND 6 HOURS, or buy a smoker, or chop wood for your smoker, or smell like smoke, or...

Here's my recipe for ribs done easy in less than an hour:

Ribs (depending on the size of your pressure cooker, you may be able to fit in two racks cut into thirds, but may have to do this in two batches if you've got a big crowd.)

Cooking Liquid (I recommend something sweet like apple juice, you can use anything.  you'll need enough to have about an inch of liquid in the bottom of the pressure cooker.

1 Onion

BBQ Sauce (I recommend Sweet Baby Ray's, available at most stores, and definitely at Wal-Mart).

Spice Rub:  Buy one, or mix the following:
1/2 c. Brown Sugar
2 T. salt or seasoned salt
1 T  garlic powder
1 t.  black pepper
1 T  Chili Powder (That's Chili, not Chile.  If you don't know the difference leave me a comment and I'll respond)
1 t.  paprika


Got all of the ingredients?  Ok, here we go:

1.  Lay the ribs meat side down.  You'll see the membrane covering the underside of the rack.  To remove this, insert a small knife, ice pick, or any sharp object underneath the membrane between any two of the ribs.  Once you can grip the membrane, pull back the membrane and further separate with the sharp object until you have removed the entire membrane.  This can be a tough ordeal sometime, but it's absolutely necessary!  If it's too slippery, try using a paper towel to help you grip the membrane.

2.  Once the membrane is removed, rub both sides of the ribs with the spice rub, working it in with your fingers.  Then cut the rack into manageable size portions of ribs that will fit in your cooker.

3.  Place in the cooker with the cooking liquid and quartered onion.  Once you've sealed your pressure cooker, cook on medium high until it comes to pressure.  Once you've reached pressure cook an additional 30 minutes.  At this point remove from heat and let cool down slightly before removing the lid.
*Here's a pressure cooker safety guide in case you've never used one.  Don't blow yourself up.

4.  Now the fun part that is gonig to make your ribs tangy and slightly charred.  Make sure you have your grill on medium high, and spray the cooking surface with non-stick cooking spray before using.  When you remove your ribs from the cooker they won't look very appetizing.  We're gonna change that!  Using a pastry brush, rub one side of your ribs with a coating of BBQ sauce.  Place the ribs sauce side down on the grill, and let the sauce caramelize for a few minutes.  In the meantime, baste the other side with sauce.  When the sauce is just starting to char, flip the ribs. You'll repeat this process, basting and flipping every few minutes so that your ribs will form a juicy caramelized BBQ sauce crust on the outside, as the bbq sauce will adhere to and build up on the ribs with every basting and flipping.  I usually do this about 4 times.

Enjoy!  I'll admit ribs can be an intimidating task, but you can do it.  With ribs usually running between 2.99 and 4.99 a pound, this recipe will allow you to comfortably provide a rib dinner for 4 at around $15, or roughly the cost for one of you at a restaurant.

I love me some St. George! Check out the St. George Daily Deal.

I love Groupon, Living Social, City Deals, and all of the other discount sites out there.  I've had many a fine meal on a peasant's salary thanks to their offers.  However, the lack of services these sites provide to beautiful St. George is unacceptable.

Check out stgeorgeutah.com!  It's essentially a groupon with a daily deal just for St. George.  Yesterday I bought an $8 gift certificate to the Bombay Cafe on 7th East for $4.  Can't wait to see if St. George is finally home to some decent Indian Food.

Enjoy! And remember, eating like a king doesn't have to be pricey!

Smart Phones and Smart Cooking

Have you ever gone to the grocery store and spent a bunch of money on food Wednesday, and by Friday, "There's nothing to eat in this house?"  Me too!  I don't think it's because of an actual lack of food, but simply because our culinary creativity is gone by the end of a day at work or school.

Well check out Recipe Search.  It's an app that allows you to type in a few ingredients that you have on hand, and returns recipes you can make with those ingredients.

I entered "celery" and "gravy,"  and the first results were Beef Roulade, and Shepherd's Pie.  If you really want to dip your celery in gravy, go ahead, but I think I'd prefer the Roulade!

There are lots of other features too, like forums and a place to store your recipes.  Best of all it's free and helps you cut down on your wasted food.  Let me know how it works for you by commenting below.

Mayonnaise Doesn't Suck! I promise!

Best Foods mayonnaise sucks.  So does Kraft.  I'd even go so far as to say that Hellman's is mediocre, and I hope that Jimmy John's will forgive me for that statement.  But Mayonnaise done right ROCKS!  If you don't believe me, go to Bruges Waffles and Frites in SLC and then get back to me.  You'll love it.

Europeans know what's up, and any good French chef will tell you that knowing how to make a good Mayonnaise is the basis for literally thousands of recipes.  When I was in Romania recently I made Salata de Beouf with my favorite Romanian Grandma.  It's essentially potato salad but with a crazy tangy mayonnaise for the base.  And yes, yours truly made the Mayo.

Two weeks later when I got home I tried to make it for a 4th of July BBQ.  Epic Fail.  So in honoring the ever important Mayonnaise, here is a video with old Gordon Ramsay himself (I think he was on crack when he filmed this) teaching us how to make Mayonnaise our friend!

Give it a try, and mix in some chipotle, or roasted garlic and red peppers, or whatever your heart desires.
Total cost for this recipe: LESS THAN $2.00.  Peasants Unite!

What's for dessert?

Ok peasants!  For our first dessert, I'm going to let you decide what we're having.  Leave a comment letting me know which of the following you'd like to try.

1.  Homemade Ice Cream Sundaes in Crepe Cones

or...

2.  Cool Raspberry Sour Cream Pie

The choice is yours.  Don't blow it.

All you can eat* amazing Mexican for $6.99! Me Gusta El Amate!!!

A few weeks ago my girlfriend and I went on a great adventure...DINNER WITH MY FAMILY!  While it may sound more like a nice night out than a Lewis and Clark-esque foray into the world of high adventure, you have to understand that with 8 very opinionated persons arguing over where to dine (think of your favorite Always Sunny in Philadelphia argument and magnify it by a few additional people), coming to a concensus on the hosting restaurant was beyond difficult.  After the common suggestions - Applebee's, OG (that's Olive Garden, not Original Gangster), etc. - we settled on Paula's cazuela, an old family favorite that really shouldn't be.  It's bad.  Gringo Mex at it's worst.  That's right, I won't even give it the title of Tex-mex.

I could go on, but i won't.  Sadly, I remember somebody mentioning on that outing, and everyone shooting down the idea, of going to what I now consider the newly crowned "Best Mexican Food in Southen Utah."  EL AMATE,  Located at 974 w. Sunset, next to Papa Murphy's Pizza.  If only we had listened...

Since I'm working this summer for the 7th largest law firm in Utah that has revenues in the multi-multi millions of dollars per year for somewhere in the range of ZERO DOLLARS PER HOUR, I jumped at my Mom's text yesterday offering to take me to lunch.  We headed over to El Amate, her having been there once over a year ago, and I never having visited.  Best decision either of us have made in at least the last eleven days.

The restaurant is small, with only about 10 or 12 tables.  After being seated, my eyes were immediately drawn to the white board listing the day's specials, each at $6.99 and served with frijoles y arroz.  Chile Rojo, Chile Verde, or crispy Fish Tacos...option #1 for me, and fish tacos for mi madre.

Let's start with the fish tacos.  Crispy and flaky is a wonderful combination that I don't know that I've tried before yesterday.  Rather than the typical corn tortilla, El Amate served up their fish tacos in Freshly Fried crisp taco shells, and then topped them with cabbage and crema.  That's right, Mexican crema, not American sour cream.  Yes, there is a difference.  While I'm not usually a fan of Tilapia, it worked here.  Well done.  On to the Chile Rojo.

I'd never had Chile Rojo before, most likely due to the fact that nobody else in St. George makes it!  It was amazing.  Think Chile Verde, but with a richer red sauce and beef lending it's flavor to the already amazing sauce.  It was perfect in every way, and just what I was hoping for.  The spice level was spot on as well, which means, as you'll know if you've ever eaten with me, that my forehead and face were just starting to glisten with sweat. (unlike runners and perpetual gym rats, "It's a good sweat" for me means that the spice was perfect, not that my spin class almost killed me.)  To top it off, THEY MAKE ALL THE TORTILLAS IN HOUSE!!! My dish was served with 4 piping hot corn tortillas that were somewher in the range of twice as thick as anything you can buy anywere else.  So good were the tortillas, that my Mom bought a dozen to take home for $3.50.

The beans and rice with both dishes were above average, which I think is about as much as you can expect from beans and rice.  Is it really every going to be the most memorable thing on your plate?  I've always believed that you can identify a good Mexican restaurant by its frijoles, and that holds true here: above average beans definitely equaled an above average restaurant as a whole.

If you don't want to take my word for it, here are the yelp and urbanspoon reviews for El Amate (yes, one of them on each is mine.  It was just so dang good I couldn't resist.)

<a href="http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/312/1449239/restaurant/Utah/El-Amate-St-George"><img alt="El Amate on Urbanspoon" src="http://www.urbanspoon.com/b/link/1449239/biglink.gif" style="border:none;width:200px;height:146px" /></a>
El Amate Yelp

Yesterday, July 27, 2011, Paula's permanently lost a customer.  And I won't miss you (except maybe the fried ice cream).

*Disclaimer:  It's not really all you can eat, but I really think that my plate ended up being just about all that anyone could eat.  You shouldn't eat at buffets anyways, or you'll end up like me.