Cranberry Granita

I think I saw this recipe one morning on one of Giada's Food Network shows. It seemed really simple so I gave it a shot. It turned out to be a big hit with Kim and just about anyone else who tries it. It's really light, full of flavor, and incredibly easy to make.

The recipe can be found here. Cranberry Granita.

I plan to try it with other fruit juices in the future. I think it would be pretty good with Ocean Spray's Blueberry juice cocktail and maybe with a flavored vodka.

Nick's Supermarket Kabobs

I came home from work the other day and decided to see what I could grab from Nick's Supermarket. If you're in Clinton, Waldorf, or Prince Frederick you should check Nick's out if you're looking for something to throw on the grill. They've got great cuts of meat and the prices are good. The one by us has beer too so that's one less stop I have to make.

I came home with a bunch of hamburgers and some kabobs. The kabobs had beef or chicken with onions, green peppers, and tomatoes. They had some light seasoning already on them but I decided to marinate them also. For the chicken, I went with Lawry's Baja Chipotle and for the beef I used A1 Chicago Steakhouse marinade.

I cooked everything over medium heat coals until it was all done and charred on the edges. Check it out.

S'more Brownies

While browsing my news feed on Facebook the other day, I saw that my friend Becky had shared a link to a recipe for S'mores Brownies by Food Network. Most of the time, the Food Network has pretty decent recipes so I thought I'd give this one a try. Besides, I'd never made brownies from scratch before and this seemed like a good opportunity.

Aside from being a COMPLETE mess, the brownies were great. They can't really be compared to s'mores though. While they have all the ingredients of s'mores, the flavor of s'mores just isn't there. I feel like the graham cracker flavor just wasn't as pronounced like it is in an actual s'more. Still, this was better than the s'mores cupcakes I'd had a couple months ago from a gourmet cupcake shop.

Red Robin. Yummmmm.

Last night, after shopping for dress clothes, doing yard work and taking a short bike ride, I didn't much feel like cooking. Also, it was a Monday and I like to take Kim out on her days off. She didn't have any ideas on what to eat so I suggested Red Robin. We hadn't been there in a while and a burger sounded really good. 

Started it off with a Black and Tan. 

On to the appetizers. Kim and I shared the double combo Jump Starters. She picked the fried clam strips and I got the jalapeno coins. 

Bring on the meat! X and I ordered our burgers with the extra patty. He also requested bacon. My burger came with bacon so I didn't have to worry about that. From left to right: Bleu Ribbon burger with bacon and an extra patty, Burnin Love burger, and A1 Peppercorn burger on the jalapeno cornmeal kaiser roll with an extra patty. 

We entertained the idea of splitting dessert but when X and I saw that there wasn't anything on the dessert menu with peanut butter, we gave up. 

Pancakes with a side of Spam tocino

Nothing too special with regards to the pancakes. Aunt Jemima pancake mix with the cinnamon and brown sugar add-in suggestion from the side of the box.

Spam tocino, on the other hand, is quite special. I was skeptical the first time I tried it. I'm not a huge fan of spam. The smell isn't all too appetizing and it honestly doesn't look tasty. But, you don't turn away food when Kim's grandma is cooking. It's just rude.

So here's the low down on tocino. It's thinly slice meat, usually pork, that's been marinated in anise wine, annatto water, and a couple other things. I've never looked for those things at the store but I imagine they're not easy to find at Safeway. Luckily, Mama Sita's makes a tocino mix. It's sold in a package similar to taco seasoning and should be easy to find at most international supermarkets.

Heat one tablespoon of oil over medium low heat in a medium skillet. Take your spam out of the can and cut it into 1/4" thick slices. Put the slices into a bowl and pour the tocino mix on top. Toss the spam in the bowl to combine it with the tocino mix. Fry the slices in the oil a few slices at a time. Be sure to watch the pan because the tocino mix has a lot of sugar in it. It's not hard to burn the sugar and stink up the whole kitchen. Your finished tocino should be sticky with a crunchy outside and a meaty center.

Breakfast is served!

Coconut Bread

Lack of sweets in the house is definitely a bad thing. For the past week, I've been milling around the kitchen in the evening looking for a sweet snack. I had a big bag of flaked coconut in the fridge and I didn't want it to go to waste.

After searching for sweets with coconut, I settled on a recipe for coconut bread from allrecipes. I added 1/2 teaspoon of coconut extract to the recipe for a little extra flavor. Some of the reviews recommend using coconut milk instead of whole milk but I couldn't find any coconut milk when I was at the store. I assume that Mega or Jumbo would probably have it though.

So, I baked the bread, let it cool, chopped off the end and sampled my work. Pretty tasty. The bread was medium density, had a light coconut flavor, and wasn't overly sweet. I think the next time I make it, I'll throw in some chocolate chips

I don't know what speaks more for how great this bread was, that I put it on my grandma's china or that I ate three slices before I put it away. Don' blame me though. I cut two slices to take a picture and I couldn't let them sit there until Kim got home. It was either me or the cats.

Burgers, Bacon Weave, and Soy Garlic Wings

Taking advantage of a nice day (and Kim's day off), I decided to fire up the grill and make some nice, flame charred goodies. At the store, I picked up some 80/20 ground beef for the burgers, some bacon for weaving, chicken breasts, italian sausages, and some wings.

Why so much? Well, I don't like firing up the grill to cook 4 burgers. If I cook all this stuff, I'll have a variety of things to eat through the week. Burgers one night, wings for lunch, a buffalo chicken sandwich another night, and slice up the sausage and make a calzone when you think you've had enough grilled sandwiches.

For the burgers, I just splash some Worcestershire sauce onto the ground beef and smoosh it up real good. Grab it by the handful and start forming patties. Once you have the patties made up, season each side of the patties with whatever seasoning you like. I opted for the McCormick's Fiery Five Pepper.

If you've got a brother like mine (he likes to tie his shoe laces up real crazy like) then you'll have no problem pawning off the responsibility of weaving the bacon. It's really not that hard, but I just didn't feel like doing it. When he's on his game, the bacon weave looks like this.

Throw it in the oven at 375 until it's nice a crispy. Finished product serves as a burger topping or an edible coaster for you and your perspiring beverage.

Mike, Carol, and Fredo have been talking about Bon Chon for about a week now. I've never had Bon Chon but they're going to enlighten me this weekend. But, in the mean time, I decided to try a copycat of their soy garlic wings. Bon Chon is known for their crispy chicken more than the soy garlic sauce but I wasn't in a frying mood. With the grill set up for indirect heat, I crunchified the skin on the chicken and then moved the pieces away from the heat to finish slow cooking.

Once the chicken wings were done cooking, I coated them in the copycat sauce and returned them to the grill for a quick roll on the hot side. I did this because there's sugar in the sauce and I was hoping it would add a little crunch when the sugar melted down. And because the sauce was room temperature and I didn't want the wings to lose any heat being tossed in the sauce. Looks pretty good to me.

Oh yeah. I almost forgot about the burger. Toast the bun for a few seconds, toss a slice of pepper jack onto the patty, throw the bacon weave on top and crack open a beer.

Beefy Mexican Lasagna

The people have spoken. Well, not too many people spoke but whatever. Mexican Lasagna will make nice leftovers for Kim and I on Cinco de Mayo.

To make Mexican Lasagna, you'll need the following things:

1.5 lbs of ground beef
6 flour tortillas (I like the jalapeno cheddar ones)
1 package of taco seasoning
1 can refried beans
1 can enchilada sauce
1 can diced green chiles
2 big handfuls of Mexican cheese
Pickled jalapeno slices

Start by preheating the oven to 375*F and browning your ground beef and seasoning it with the taco seasoning per the instructions on the package.

When the ground beef is done, remove it from the heat and set it aside. Get a cookie sheet and hit it with some non-stick spray. Lay down your first tortilla and spread on a thin layer of refried beans.

Now add about 1 cup of the ground beef to the tortilla and spread it out evenly.

When my mom makes this, she usually only puts the jalapenos on the top of the lasagna. Kim and I like spicy so I put jalapenos in place of green chiles on a couple of layers. If you don't like spicy, you can omit the jalapenos all together.

Next, you want to drizzle the enchilada sauce over the layered ingredients. I just punch a hole in the lid of the can and another hole for air and pour away. Don't go too crazy with it though. You don't want soggy lasagna. With the sauce out of the way, take the shredded cheese and sprinkle it over the tortilla. Make sure you get good coverage.

Repeat this step about 4 more times or until you run out of ground beef and you should have something that looks like this. Now, for the top layer, I don't usually use ground beef or refried beans. I just put a thin layer of cheese, a little enchilada sauce, and some jalapenos. I think my mom might use diced spring onions on hers.

By now, you should have something that looks like this.

Toss it in the oven for 30-40 minutes. When it comes out, the cheese on top should be really melty and golden brown.

Crack open a Dos Equis and grab a slice!