cookbook – Page 2 – THE DUDE OF FOOD

Easy 1 pot Chicken with Mushroom Rice

Ingredients:

1 six pack of your favorite beer or 1 bottle of a favorite wine
1 cup rice
6 chicken thighs
8 oz tub of diced baby Portabella mushrooms 
1/4 onion
2 Tablespoons butter
1 Tablespoon minced garlic or 2 chopped garlic cloves
  Olive oil
2 cups chicken stock
1 cup heavy cream - optional
  chopped parsley - optional
1 cup peas - optional
  Salt and black pepper to preferred taste
  Herbs  (thyme, sage, tarragon, rosemary, paprika)

Preparation:

Pour your favorite beverage into a glass and collect your ingredients including pans and utensils. Remember to pick a pan large enough to hold everything at the end as we’re doing a 1 pot style.

Open the package of chicken and individually rinse each piece in cold water and pat dry with a paper towel.

Season your chicken with salt, black pepper, herb mix. Some folks put everything in a bag and shake the dried chicken in the bag. Dealers choice here but if your chicken isn’t dry it just makes a mess. I prefer the sprinkle on both sides method. Also don’t neglect your drink. Your beer might be getting warm.

Pour a little olive oil to barely cover surface of pan and heat on low-medium heat. When oil is warm, carefully place the chicken thighs bone down in the hot oil, cover and leave to fry for roughly 8 minutes. As the chicken heats more oils will be released. Flip and continue to fry on the skin side for about another 8 minutes. Both sides should be slightly crisped. I watch the heat process and if it looks too low or high I make adjustments. You want your be sure your chicken is cooked to at least 160′. I keep the heat on the low side and ride it as to not dry out the chicken. Keeping the pan covered traps the heat and cooks the chicken more thoroughly.

Remove seared chicken from oil, letting the grease drip back in pan, and set chicken aside for now. Do not refrigerate the chicken. Now is a good time to sip your drink or refill if needed. I always keep my beer close so I am easily reminded.

Keep the heat low and in the still hot and now empty oiled chicken pan add garlic, butter, parsley and onions and low simmer for 8 minutes or so. If adding peas add them now too. Still frozen is OK but I prefer if the peas have sat out on the counter for a bit and thawed. Once the peas have simmered for a couple minutes you can add the onions until they are nearly clear. Then toss in mushrooms.

When the veggie mix looks ready place already steamed rice in the pan and add chicken stock. Now would be when you would add the heavy cream if choosing to do so. The thing to do is de-glaze the pan as you stir in the added stock to the rice by giving it a gentle stir. Remember not to scrape metal spoons on non-stick pan bottoms when stirring. Use a flat wooden stirrer and don’t heavy hand the drag. I try not to use plastic utensils although I have a few good ones just in case. Let the whole thing simmer together for 5 minutes before adding the cooked chicken. Cover and simmer another 15 – 20 minutes or until it looks ready. Sprinkle some chopped parsley on top, cover and let sit for a couple more minutes while you top off your drinks.

Darned good.
Enjoy,
the Dude of Food

The Joy of Griesbrei

One of the memories I carry from when I was a little kid is of my grandmother preparing tapioca pudding from scratch. It was the best. I always loved it warm and freshly made. Grandma always made us stay out of the pool for 30 minutes after eating lunch. Anyways, the memory I have of those tapioca puddings is captured in a German dish known as Griesbrei from Dr. Oetker. I discovered this dish while curiously shopping in a Munich market. The flavor of Griesbrei reminds me of those early family days. My Bavarian friends always laugh at me and say that I like ‘baby food’ but it is what it is. If it tastes good maybe it’s worth overeating sometimes. Perhaps I will try to mix it with some grits, a couple eggs and a side of peppered bacon next to a buttered pancake splashed with maple syrup.

Dr. Oetker makes the package above and the one I originally brought home and fell in love with but you can prepare your own with the following recipe. I have some semolina left over from pasta making and will try this recipe soon.

Griesbrei –

Ingredients
3 ⅓ cups milk
½ cup soft wheat semolina
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 pinch of salt
1 large egg
1 tbsp. butter

Instructions
Add milk and sugar to a sauce pan, mix well and bring to a light simmer.
Gradually add the semolina while stirring.
Bring to a light simmer, cover with a lid, and remove from heat.
Allow to sit for about 5 min.
In the meantime, separate the egg.
Beat the egg white with a pinch of salt until stiff peaks form.
Add the egg yolk to the semolina pudding and mix well until fully incorporated.
Stir in butter and vanilla extract.
Fold in egg white.

You can purchase your Dr. Oetker’s Griesbrei on Amazon by clicking here.

Enjoy. Prost.

Pasta, Angels, Family & Grandma Gina.

Cooking With Grandma Gina.

The Dude of Food grew up as an only child with a working mom who disliked cooking. Her 3 motto’s in life were:

‘where there’s smoke, there’s dinner’
‘you can never be too rich or too thin’
‘go play on the freeway’

The refrigerator to me was something to go look in at someone else’s house. That is how I learned about food, by looking in other peoples fridges and lunch boxes to see what they ate like. It took me years to get over just casually opening and looking inside of someones fridge. Sometimes I still do.

On special Saturday mornings as a kid I used to make a can of Spaghettios or Franco American Macaroni with cheese sauce as a treat.

One of the places I would wander over to visit was the house of the Italian family down the street. They had 3 older girls and a boy my age and they always had food on the stove. Their kitchen was the best. Homemade pastas, sauces, pizzas, rapini and as we got older their mother made everything with red onions so our lungs would stay healthier. This Italian mother even made liver taste good. She used thin slices of liver and loads of onions.

When we would go back east to visit their Italian relatives I would be blown away that every Italian kitchen was the same, warm and full of food. We couldn’t go anywhere without eating a plate of food and sipping some homemade wine. By the third or fourth visit you’d be pretty full but the hosts would get offended if you didn’t eat their food and thought you liked the other family better so you had to eat, drink and be merry. It was great and nothing but love.

When I went to visit the youthful home of my Italian buddies father in Italy I was blown away at the genuine love, hospitality and meals shared with me.

I am forever grateful and extremely thankful. This love of family and sharing food has never left me. Recently I began preparing homemade pasta noodles after lessons from my friends uncle’s wife, Aunt Mary, whom I’ve known since I was in 5th grade. I’m now 56 years old. In researching how to make a better noodle I was directed to YouTube and discovered the next best thing since beer was created. The name of this Youtube Angel is Grandma Gina Petitti.

Grandma Gina is precious and I instantly fell in love with her. She speaks just like everyone in my buddies family and reminds me of the best of my childhood. If you are still reading this then you must go to visit Gina https://www.youtube.com/c/BuonAPetitti/videos and see for yourself.

Watch and learn to make noodles, ravioli or any other quality Italian dish you might be interested in preparing. You will learn to cook properly and have your heart warmed at the same time. She’s awesome.

You can also purchase Gina’s cookbook online as well. It’s titled, ‘Cooking With Grandma Gina’.

Grazie Nonna Gina. May the Lord God continue to bless you.

According to Buzzfeed Pasta Facts, https://www.buzzfeed.com/jesseszewczyk/pasta-facts , the average Italian eats 60 pounds of pasta a year while Americans average eating just 26 pounds per year.

Jan 4 – National Spaghetti Day
Feb 9 – World Pizza Day
Oct 25 – World Pasta Day

“Now I’ma gunna maykeh a pasta carbonarra.” the Dude of Food.

La Tur cheese will mooove you, baaah.

This blend of cow, sheep and goat milk from Italy made by the fine folks at Caseificio Dell’Alta Langa is absolutely delicious. Soft enough to spread on crackers and will easily melt into hot pasta. The flavor in this cheese is rich enough for cheese experts and lively enough to wake up a boring appetizer party.

The Dude of Food melted a good chunk of this cheese into some hot noodles the other day and was stoked I did. I can see myself craving this cheese in the near future.

Thank you Caseificio Dell’Alta Langa for your La Tur cheese. It is delicioso.

The Dude of Food creates a great new oatmeal-tapioca breakfast treat.

Tired of the same old thing for breakfast? Gave up on your quest to eat healthier 10 days after your New Years resolution? Perhaps you are a hockey player and have no front teeth to bite a burrito with. What ever the case may be, the Dude of Food has created an awesome new way for people of all ages to enjoy a pretty healthy breakfast.

The Dude of Food decided that he wanted to try a German packaged cereal thing he saw on a market shelf in Munich. The package was made by a guy named Dr. Oetker and was called Griesbrei. As you can see below the label is in German as were the directions for preparation. I had a heck of a time trying to decipher exactly what the proper measurements and times were when it came to try and prepare it. I only know like 5 Bavarian words; prost, liebe, obatzda, steckerl fische und Oida! Anyways to make an interesting long story short, the stuff was like a cross between creamed wheat and tapioca pudding. I liked it and mentioned it to my Bavarian friends. Oddly, they all said the same thing, “You like baby cereal?”

Well since the stigma is that this griesbrei stuff is too sweet for a proper adult breakfast the Dude of Food had another idea and decided to try mixing tapioca pudding with oatmeal.

Now, in the German market the small packet of Dr. Oetker Griesbrei was like .89 euro or about 93 cents at the time. If you can find it in the states or online it is $3.99 a packet or more!

So the Dude of Food prepared 1 cup of oatmeal. Separately I made tapioca pudding. Just as it was time to turn off the oatmeal to cool down I added a little bit of warm homemade tapioca pudding and stirred it all together. Ratio was something like 2/3 oatmeal to 1/3 tapioca. there is no rule here, so mix to desire. Spooned into a bowl, I topped the mix off with a little bit of cherry preserves as seen in the photo above and put it to the taste test. The results = excellent.

Get ready world, a brand new and delicious little some-some for breakfast is here. Get some.

The Dude of Food infuses tequila

On a visit to the Border Grill in Santa Monica, on an Easter Sunday morning, I was introduced to a cool new flavor. The Dude of Food was intrigued and decided to try to recreate this awesome taste at home. The famous chef and restaurant owner, Susan Feniger, knows about food and her staff impresses. The bartender on Sunday made us try this tequila infused with cucumber and jalapeno peppers and it was delightful. This was the flavor I needed to try an re-create.

So I went to the store and bought some agave tequila, cucumbers and a jalapeno pepper and put it all together in a mason jar. In a few days I looked forward to a cool refreshing taste.

A few days later I had created a spicy tequila that didn’t have quite enough cucumber flavor, but was still really good. The Dude of Food says ‘try this at home’.

teq — click photo to see what Elaine @ Dishes Delish says

The Dude of Food is curious to experience your food product.

After years of independent merchandising for surf companies and the Hawaiian Tropic brand, the Dude of Food is switching gears and working on a list of quality food and beverage products to offer in his upcoming market.

If your company is looking to get in other markets, whether domestic or international, then please by all means let’s talk.

The Dude of Food can be emailed at- weallgottaeat (at) g mail (dot) com

Eat well and be happy.

The Dude of Food

The Dude of Food made yummy stuffed grapes.

The Dude of Food made these stuffed grapes and it was easy. Just crush raisins, dates, dried apricot, prunes, honey, Nutella, peanut butter, a little good jam and some oats all together into a paste and you’ll get a rough wet version of a Cliff bar. Then take some large washed grapes and slice them in half. Smash a small spoonful of the Cliff bar type mixture on top of the grape halves and enjoy a tasty treat. It’s yummy.

The Dude of Food’s cool cookbook review

The Dude of Food knows wine and cooking enthusiasts will immediately realize that they have uncorked something truly magical with Karen MacNeil’s food book “Wine, Food & Friends”. This book sizzles with the culinary expertise of cooking light with the wine under the knowing connoisseurship of Karen MacNeil herself. Karen, an award-winning author, lecturer and television personality, knows food and wine. Pair her wine knowledge with more than 150 cooking light recipes and you have all the notes you need to reach new levels of cooking glory. Find a copy and give it a chance to make your chef skills shine.

“I like the simplicity and knowledge this food book retains” says the Dude of Food.

Follow The Dude of Food on Yelp

Curious about the more than 500 restaurants the Dude of Food has reviewed?

Ride your mouse over to Yelp logo and click to find out more. Dude Food G on Yelp.

Bon appetit!