Bits Of Dust

Archive for October, 2007

Okay, so I go away for a little over a week, and all hell breaks lose.

Oh sure, for you it might not be such a big deal, but while I was gone, Chef John revealed the secret to getting the seeds out of my favorite fruit, pomegranates. I first fell in love with pomegranates when I was a small child. My grandmother had a huge pomegranate tree in her backyard, and I would gorge myself every chance I got…

Chef John isn’t the only one with big things happening while I was gone either.

It seems Chef Tom has gone and totally re-designed his site. WOW. I hardly recognized the place. Not only that, but he has a cookbook coming out. Oh yeah, and at his other site, The Secret Recipe Blog, he has a copycat recipe for Cracker Jacks. Yum!

You’d think I had been gone a month or more with all the stuff going on…

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So last night I got the idea I wanted some beer battered shrimp. Everytime I have tried this in the past, it sucked. This time was different. I made the most awesome beer battered shrimp ever, and then I added the one touch I love so much. Buffalo sauce! Woot! I cheated this time and just used a pre-packaged buffalo sauce, but damn it was good.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cup flour
1 tbsp paprika
1/2 tsp salt
12 oz bottle of beer
3/4 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/4 tsp Tabasco sauce
Vegetable oil
2 lb shrimp
Buffalo sauce
flour for dredging

Preparation:

In medium bowl combine 1 cup flour, paprika, and salt.
Whisk in beer, Worcestershire sauce, and Tabasco sauce.
Cover and let stand at room temperature for 1 hour.

Heat oil to 375 degrees.
Dredge shrimp in flour then dip in batter.
Fry shrimp until golden Drain on paper towels.

Toss shrimp in buffalo sauce, and serve.

I really cannot stand About.com’s embedded video options. It’s too wide for my site, and if I change the code, it messes it up.

Click here to see a good fried chicken recipe. Just think, if they were cool like YouTube or I’m Cooked, you could have been watching that video here, on my site.

Oh.My.Goodness.

The people who brought you the Monster Thickburger and the 1,100-calorie salad are at it again — this time for breakfast.

Hardee’s on Monday rolled out its new Country Breakfast Burrito — two egg omelets filled with bacon, sausage, diced ham, cheddar cheese, hash browns and sausage gravy, all wrapped inside a flour tortilla. The burrito contains 920 calories and 60 grams of fat.

Brad Haley, marketing chief for the St. Louis-based fast-food chain, said the burrito offers the sort of big breakfast item normally found in sit-down restaurants with an added advantage.

“It makes this big country breakfast portable,” he said.

I suppose, once your done lugging that thing around while you eat it, you can lug around your fat ass for days to come. 920 calories? Yum.

I was searching for a video that showed how I make my homemade chicken gravy. How funny is it that the one I found on I’m Cooked was one from Chef John? He’s everywhere now, isn’t he? Next thing you know, we’ll be seeing Chef John bobble-heads at the store.

Anyway, this is exactly how I make my chicken gravy, except we use our own home-canned chicken stock.

The weather is turning colder here in North Georgia, and when that happens I start craving hot chocolate, a warm blanket and delicious, warm Chocolate Chip Cookies.

I don’t like those cheap cookies you find at the grocery store or at Wal-Mart. I love all-natural, chocolatey, delicious cookies, like the ones from the San Francisco Cookie Company. They have a great selection of cookies to choose from and lots of gift ideas (hint, hint) when you’re searching for the perfect cookie gift for someone.

The cookies from the San Francisco Cookie Company are made with all-natural ingredients, including whole grains, healty oats, organic dairy and lots of delicious, creamy, chocolate. Orders can be gift-wrapped and customized ribbons can be added to match the occasion for your order. Sometimes I wonder if they have a “I just really, really, want some Chocolate Chip Cookies” ribbon.

Stop by the San Francisco Cookie Company and check out their selection. And remember, no matter the occasion, you can’t go wrong with cookies.

Here’s another delicious recipe from diet.com

On Monday, Chef Tom posted a recipe for Saltimbocca Alla Romana.

This dish sounds delicious, and since I am a prosciutto fanatic I know it won’t be long until I am preparing this in our kitchen.

Things are slowing down here for the season. We have over 250 cans of food in our pantry, and we really don’t have room for much more anyway. I do want to take the wife to the farmer’s market again this weekend, to see if any more fall fruits and vegetables have come in.

Now that things are caught up with the canning, we can start preparing the new garden location for next year’s bounty.

Through BlogCatalog, I discovered a new site today.

Healthy Snack Box is a really kewl blog, even if the recipes are all good for you.

The Fruit Crumble sounds mighty tasty, and since we get wild blackberries around here each year, I am sure we’ll have plenty of fruit to make it.