cookbook – Page 2 – 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 and it was the best. I always loved it warm and freshly made. She 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. 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 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 & the Dude of Food.

Cooking With Grandma Gina

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

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. Their kitchen was the best. Something was always out on the table or on the stove top, warmed and ready to be eaten. Homemade pastas, sauces, pizzas, rapini and as we got older everything with onions in it so our lungs would stay healthier. This Italian mother even made liver taste good with thin slices 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.

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

This love of family and food has never left me and recently I began preparing homemade pasta noodles after a lesson from my friends father’s sister, 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 Angel is Grandma Gina Petitti. She has a food channel that you must see.

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.

Learn to make noodles, ravioli or whatever else you might be interested in preparing but be ready to get sucked in. You will learn to cook and have your heart warmed at the same time.

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

Grazie Nonna Gina. May 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.

October 25 – World Pasta Day
January 4 – National Spaghetti Day

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

La Tur cheese will mooove you, baaaaa.

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 easily melts 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 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? Give 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 Griessbrei. As you can see below the label is in German as were the directions for preparation. I had a heck of a time online trying to decipher exactly what the proper measures and times were when I decided to try and prepare it. Anyways to make an interesting story short, the stuff was like a cross between creamed wheat and tapioca pudding. I liked it and mentioned it to my Bavarian friends. They all said the same thing, “You like baby cereal?”

Well since the stigma is that this stuff is too sweet for a proper adult breakfast the Dude of Food decided to try mixing tapioca pudding with oatmeal. The tapioca pudding is easy to acquire. In the German market the small packet of Dr. Oetker Griessbrei was like .89 euro or about 93 cents. If you can find it in the states or online it is $3.99 a packet.

So the Dude of Food (www.facebook.com/dudeoffoodpage) prepared 1 cup of oatmeal. Just as it was time to turn it off and cool off I added a little bit of warm homemade tapioca pudding and stirred it together. I topped it with a little bit of strawberry preserves and put it to the taste test. The results = excellent.

Get ready America for a new little something good for breakfast.

The Dude of Food showcases Cee Gee Farm’s homemade goat milk cheese

Somewhere in the Tucson foothills a couple stones throw away from Arizona Wildcat stadium is located a small ranch that carries the brand name CG. On this small but productive ranch known as CeeGee Farms live a community of award winning European show goats that are hand kept, cared for and loved by the farm’s, Charlotte G. The Dude of Food recently had the opportunity to spend some time with Charlotte G and her fury Alpine buddies and learned some stuff.

Bred of good farm genes and with the energy of 2 energizer bunnies, Charlotte G breeds, feeds, tattoos, milks, cares for and shows this collection of goats and has been the recipient of more than a dozen Grand Prize and 1st Prize awards over the years for her top notch goats. These goats love to be fed the pods of the mesquite trees that are everywhere. Goats are funny animals and fun to play with for awhile.

Charlotte has learned to make goat milk cheese of various flavors as shown in the photo above and also creates a really nice and all natural goal milk soap that is great for gifting.

Baaasically, the Dude of Food can report that the goats located on this farm in Arizona are a happy bunch of kids.

The Dude of Food tries to infuse tequila

After a visit to the Border Grill in Santa Monica on Easter Sunday where I was introduced to this cool new flavor, the Dude of Food decided to try to recreate this awesome taste. Famous chef and restaurant owner, Susan Feniger, knows food and her staff impresses. The bartender on Sunday made us try this tequila infused with cucumber and jalapeno peppers and it was delightful.

Today I went to the store and bought some agave tequila, cucumbers and a pepper and put it all together. In a few days I look forward to a cool refreshing taste.

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 connoisseurship of Karen MacNeil. Award-winning author, lecturer, and television personality, Karen is a champion when it comes to knowledge of food and wine. Pair her zeal for the art of wine with more than 150 cooking light recipes and you have all the notes you need to reach new levels of gastronomical glory.

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

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s cookbook

toulouse-lautrec-et-maurice-joyant-l-art-de-la-cuisine-de-toulouse-lautrec-et-maurice-joyant-197-recettes-400-illustrations-livre-909538089_ML

/ Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was not only a patron and contributor to the arts but he also wrote a cookbook. It is titled L’art de la Cuisine and was published after his death by his friend Maurice Joyant. The book includes Lautrec sketches and interesting menu selections. Lautrec enjoyed culture and liked to cook, drink and celebrate. He liked to dress up as a samurai or flamenco dancer at his parties and once served a Degas painting for dessert. Lautrec also was known to add goldfish to the water pitchers encouraging his guests to imbibe alcohol fueled concoctions instead of water.

More can be read about this fascinating character and his life at the following sites and on wikipedia.

http://www.lautrec.info/

http://www.toulouse-lautrec-foundation.org/

FISH TACOS

These are easy and delicious. Crack open your favorite Mexican beer. Put the other 11 somewhere cold. At the cabin I stick them right in the snow outside the front door.

Next grate some cheese, chop onions, lettuce, tomato and avocado and put the piles into separate small bowls. Pan fry some red snapper, halibut or shrimp in light oil.

Bake some tortillas so they are warm and soft, but be mindful not to dry them out. I like them warm but not too steamy.

Once all the ingredients are laid out, create a conga line along the taco prep area and enjoy. Add salsa and a squeeze of lime per taste if so desired.

Fiesta y salud!