Hot Corned Beef Sandwich with Sauteed Onion and Melty Cheese

I have new glasses and they make me dizzy. I still want to put a post up, but I'm sure as hell not spending a lot of time writing until I'm used to seeing clearly again. So in the interest of sharing something and also keeping it brief allow me to introduce you to this sandwich. It's wicked simple, just a nice soft sub roll, fried corned beef from the deli and onions sauteed in the fat leftover from the corned beef. Oh and the cheese. The cheese is a burnt cheese puddle, which is something I first saw at Confessions of a Serial Baker. It makes the sandwich extra awesome, you should go check out how to make it and then do so. Also I think there was mustard, there usually is when I eat corned beef. I even put lettuce on it to make it healthy, which means I could technically have had two. Tremendous.

Hawaiian Baked Rice

1 cup sliced ham, chopped
1 cup pineapple chunks
1 cup rice
1 cup pineapple juice
1 cup water/broth
1 cup pizza sauce
mozzarella, to taste
salt and pepper

Lightly brown the ham in an oven safe pot (wide/shallow is best), transfer it to a bowl then add the juice/water or broth. Cook the rice, then add the pineapple, ham and stir, reserving some of the ham and pineapple for topping if you want. Spread the pizza sauce on top. Put the cheese on top, as much as you like, and the toppings. Bake at 425 until just browned. Eat.

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Love this, it's so easy and spectacular. I got the idea when I read this post from Noob Cook (got idea=stole idea). It couldn't be simpler and it's wicked good. Wiffy uses cream of mushroom soup instead of pizza sauce, which I'm sure is lovely, but I wanted to make it more pizza-y so I used sauce. I don't see any reason that you couldn't use other things instead. You could use gravy and make it like Hawaiian haystacks, I bet that would be good. Or maybe a garlicky white sauce. Whatever floats your boat. So, shall we? Lets.

First, I took my ham and fried it up a bit. Gives it a little color and also adds some fond for extra flavor to the rice. Then I added the juice and water and let it come to a boil. Then the rice. Wiffy used a rice cooker, but I don't have one. Plus this way it's all done in one pot which makes for easier clean up, which is always good. Then reduce the heat, cover and simmer until done. Mix in most of the ham and pineapple, leave some out for topping if you like. Next, sauce. Spread that stuff around. Then cheese and toppings. Mmm, cheese. I don't care for bagged shredded mozzarella but I also hate shredding it myself. So I don't usually bother, I just chop it up. Much easier and it works just fine. Now into the hot oven until brown and delightful. Doesn't it look good? Yes it does.

Now another part of the recipe that I changed from Wiffy's is she added garlic to the rice. I didn't because my pizza sauce is pretty garlicky, but there's nothing stopping you from doing it. Hell, there's nothing stopping you from changing it up however you like. This here is a concept, not an absolute and don't let anyone tell you not to experiment. If you need ideas, stay tuned. I'm going to be making more baked rice, I enjoyed it very much.

I Know, I Promised

I made a shrimp related promise and after several days there isn't any shrimp to be seen. But you see, there's a reason. That's going to be a big post with one real recipe and a smaller, side dishy kind of recipe so when I do write it up I want to be in better form than I've been the last few days. I need to wait until the muse strikes me, which now that it's on the screen instead of in my head sounds more painful than inspiring (not to mention pretentious, heh.). So while I'm waiting for that to happen, here is a piece of pizza. It's meatball, bbq sauce and onion. It was quite good. Here is the same flavors, except with Swiss instead of mozzarella and cheddar, in a calzone. It too was quite good. Hopefully that will at least slightly make up for my grievous miscarriage of shrimpitude.

Rachel Pizza

It's one of the great debates. Like Democrat vs Republican, Coke vs Pepsi, fries vs onion rings, light beer vs good beer. Reuben vs Rachel. I'm guessing most people are familiar with the Reuben, a hot sandwich with corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and Russian dressing. A Rachel is similar only instead of sauerkraut you put cole slaw on it and sometimes swap pastrami for the corned beef. Personally, I'm on the Rachel side, mostly because I'm not a big sauerkraut fan. I do, however, love cole slaw. So, as I have a want to do, I decided to make a pizza version.

I figured I'd use the cole slaw and dressing as the "sauce" part of the pizza. Seemed fitting plus I thought this might help the slaw from getting too soft. Then some Swiss cheese, I decided to skip mozzarella since Swiss melts fine and has more flavor anyway. Now, corned beef. You could also do pastrami of course, it's also really good on pizza. But I had corned beef, so.

But how was it? Well, you know I like to be honest, I've admitted recipe failures in the past. Which is why I'm glad this was so fricking awesome. The cole slaw didn't get too soft, the corned beef didn't get dry and Swiss is a great melting cheese. And if anyone sells the idea I expect a cut. Now, if I were going to pair a wine with this I would suggest beer. Because it's pizza. I mean, really.

Barbecue, Bacon Cheeseburger with Chipotle Onions

Yeah baby. Devastating isn't it? Great for breakfast too. Heh.

Ok, who else loves chipotle? I'm assuming most hands went up. This isn't really a recipe, more of a serving suggestion. I'm also assuming that you kids all know how to make a burger so I won't hold your hand through the whole thing, just what I managed to get pics of. So. I made the burger just like I would any other. Note that for me "any other" almost invariably includes sauteed onions. Because they are the bomb. But after I sauteed the onions for a bit I splashed some chipotle hot sauce on them. Then I stirred them around a bit more and let them sit until the sauce had evaporated or been absorbed or whatever happened. While they were doing that I put some bbq sauce on the burger which was almost done (used the fat that come off it to saute the onions. It's awesome.) and a slice of cheese. It's not a cheeseburger without cheese, you know. Pro-tip: putting something like a bowl or lid over the burger after you put cheese on it helps it melt faster.

Then came assembly: toasted rollcheesy burgery goodnessbaconchipotle onionsthen to finish it off, a little lettuce. Now it's healthy. Heh.

My, but there's a difference between the light in my kitchen (all but the first and last pics above) and the light in my living room. Maybe I should get a hot plate so I can cook in there. Hell, there's more prep space than in my kitchen. Anyway, I'm sure you could flavor up onions with any kind of hot sauce that isn't too thick. I think if you used something tomato based like bbq sauce it wouldn't coat right and might burn and stick. Or it might caramelize and be awesome. Hm. Next time. In the meantime, I strongly urge you to try this. It's wicked good.

Less Greasy Steak and Cheese Sub

Ok, first off, I'm not in or from or even been to Philadelphia. This isn't pretending to be a Philly cheese steak. All right? All right. So.

I love steak and cheese subs. They are the awesome. The biggest problem I have with them is if you get them delivered, by the time they get to you the bread is soggy with grease. As is the wrapper, the bag, the driver and the seat that it was sitting on. Even if you get take out, a similar problem is had only with you instead of a driver.

There are two ways to avoid this: eat in the shop (not my favorite) or make your own (clearly my choice). Also, if you make you own it doesn't have to be quite so greasy because you don't need to use that weird ass shaved steak that sub shops use. I use cube steak, cut into... er, cubes. I don't feel like writing a recipe, so I'm just going to show you what I do. It's not hard, there's only six ingredients and it takes but moments.

First, chop up a bunch of onion, your cube steak and anything else you want in there like peppers, mushrooms, pepperoni or what have you. I have no picture, just close your eyes and use your imagination. Done? Ok.

Then heat up a skillet nice and hot. Here's part of the trick to less greasy, I use anodized aluminum. If I used steel I'd need tons of oil, you can use non stick too but you don't get as good browning with it, although cast iron is best of course. But I love anodized aluminum. Now, toss the steak on there and let it sit for a minute. Some salt and pepper at this point would be a good idea.You want it to start to brown before you put the onions in because the onions (and whatever else) are going to put out juices that might stop it from browning more. And brown is beautiful folks. So once the onions are in there, toss that stuff around, let it sit and... well, that's pretty much it. Stir it a couple times, maybe, but it's going to cook real fast so you might not even need to. Once it's done form it into a sub shape, put some cheese on top (whatever kind you like, I'm from Boston so it's American all the way) and let it melt a bit. Then plop it on a roll. You have now completed a less greasy steak and cheese. I strongly suggest you eat it.

Homemade Spicy BBQ Deep Dish Pizza

Sorry I haven't been posting much, since I don't have any prep space right now most of the stuff I've been cooking really isn't very exciting. But I did make deep dish pizza recently with my 8" cake pan. Looks good, huh? It's the simplest one I make I think, it's pretty much my go-to pizza when I'm just cooking for me. It has bbq sauce, hot sauce and onion. Got a good crust on the bottom, too. I used store bought dough, but if I had had someplace to knead I would have made my own recipe. Man, I want one now. 8:30 in the morning isn't too early for spicy pizza, right? Heh.

My Favorite Tuna Melt

So my brothers house is a mixed bag, lighting wise. Sometimes the lighting is awesome, sometimes it sucks. The problem is the lighting is best in the morning, when I'm not really doing much cooking. So that's why these pictures of this kick ass tuna melt are kind of crappy. But it was still wicked good, doesn't it look it? Instead of doing it grilled cheese style I took a roll and put the tuna on one half and the cheese on the other. Then I popped it into the toaster oven until browned and delightful.
When you do it this way the tuna gets some browning too and it's just lovely. Hm, I just realized I don't think I've shared my tuna salad recipe here. Well, that's a post for another day. I'm tired and need more coffee.

Mega Nachos

Ok, I know what you're thinking, is he really back this time? Well, I'm not telling. I'm a man of mystery and I like to keep things mysterious. But since I'm back, I figure I'll share these nachos with you.

Yeah. It started with a big chunk of chorizo, some hamburger, onions and garlic getting browned up. Then we added some salsa, black beans... uhm, other stuff too. I don't really remember. Cumin, that went in there. Cheese. And we heated the whole thing up in the oven. It seemed the perfect time to try out the hot sauces I got from Cholula. They were all good (and free in exchange for a review. That's adequate disclaimer, right?), but the best one was definitely the chipotle. I'll definitely be keeping my eye out for that in stores. At some point I'm going to remake the nachos and write down a recipe, they were wicked good. We topped them with sour cream and more salsa, but other toppings would be good too. Anything you'd put on nachos, really...