Crack Dip

Okay, so maybe it's not the best name, but the effects are accurate.  Once you start eating it, you just can't stop.  It's a really simple dip to make and you can easily adjust it to your palate for heat.

16oz        Sour Cream
8ox          Finely shredded cheddar cheese (sharp or mild to your taste)
1 pkg       Hidden Valley Ranch dip mix (Fiesta or Spicy)
1/4 cup    Diced jalapenos (to taste, more or less as you like it), reserve juice to add later if desired

Combine sour cream and ranch mix in a bowl until well mixed.  Add jalapenos and mix well.  Add cheese (this will add volume to the dip).  Add more jalapenos or jalapeno juice for more heat as desired.

Serve with Lay's regular potato chips.

Wild Kingdom Dinner

I've had several cooking adventures over the past month and just didn't get around to posting something for them. Here's a shot of some mushrooms simmering in red wine to make up for that...

Among our cooking misadventures came a book cake that looked very little like what I was trying for (baking good, decorating bad), homemade sushi (inspired by the Machtolff's), and last night we grilled some elk steaks. While I wasn't 100% sure on prepping them, I figured "how different from beef can they be?" So, I put them on a cutting board with some foil on top of them and beat the tar out of them. It definitely flattened them, but not sure if I got them tender enough. I messed up on seasoning them however. In an additional attempt at tenderizing them, I coated them in kosher salt and put them in the fridge for a few hours. Well, they pretty much soaked up all the salt and so we had salty elk steaks that were a little tough. You live and you learn, right?

Luckily, I decided to make an appetizer too and make something very sinful: prosciutto wrapped around asparagus and cream cheese. Quite simple to make, quite yummy to eat.

So the elk was okay, but the asparagus was excellent! But thanks to my in-laws, I have more elk to experiment with later.

Cajun Meatloaf

First let me say how invaluable prep bowls are. While in the past I did manage to cook without having any, having them now makes everything so much easier. Being able to pre-measure and set everything up to be added when needed is priceless. Now, on to the meatloaf.

As with the bread that I baked earlier today, I have never made a meatloaf. Now I've made the equivalent of three. I only made one, it just turned out to be huge. I started with a recipe from my most favorite cooking site The Pioneer Woman. She had posted someone else's meatloaf recipe, but I didn't want to go too spicy and also felt I should throw in some mushrooms. After a quick survey of the pantry and fridge I was off to Publix. Which I definitely want to brag on the meat cutter, when I told him I was looking for ground pork, he said to give him a few minutes and promptly went back and ground a pound of it for me. I love customer service, at least proper customer service.

Now I had the appropriate cast for my attempt:

2 Large Bell Peppers

2 Medium Onions

1 bunch Celery (5-6 Ribs)

1 cup sliced Mushrooms

8 cloves Of Garlic

6 Tablespoons Butter

1 teaspoon Salt

1 teaspoon Black Pepper

1 Tablespoon Worcestershire

1 teaspoon Ground Nutmeg

1 teaspoon Chili Powder

2 cups Ketchup

½ cups Whole Milk

1 cup (to 2 Cups) Breadcrumbs

2 pounds Of Lean Ground Beef (92% Lean)

1 pound Ground Pork

3 whole Eggs

2 Tablespoons Honey

I always forget how slow I am at cutting, chopping, dicing and mincing. I don't mind being slow seeing that I still have all my fingers, but it can mean dinner is about an hour later than I intended. Once everything needing cutting was cut, I melted the butter and started cooking the veggies.

After they had cooked a bit I added the milk, salt, Worcestershire, pepper, chili powder and nutmeg and let it cook five or so more minutes. While that was cooling I put the beef and pork into a large bowl (not nearly large enough it turned out) along with the eggs. Next I started working the veggie mixture into the meat, very carefully. And just to be clear, I wasn't being carefully due to the recipe or any particular technique, I was being careful because the bowl was no where near large enough and the last thing I needed was my volunteer clean up assistant to get into raw meat.

Finally I formed the "loaf" on a baking sheet and put it in a 400 degree oven for about 50 mins. Voila!

Oh, and this makes a LOT of meatloaf.

Katherine and I will be eating this till the end of the world in 2012.

Basic Bread

I have never made anything requiring yeast, at least before today. Having a free afternoon, I figured why not try. Now that I've got a Kitchen Aid stand mixer at my disposal this should be pretty easy.

Firsts I measured out all my ingredients so that I'd be ready to add whatever, whenever.

However, I got a little overzealous about working with yeast and spend 5 minutes trying to make sure my water was the right temperature for activating the yeast before I realized I needed to combine my milk, butter, salt and sugar over low heat and then let it cool to lukewarm. Luckily I hadn't dumped the yeast in yet. Here's the milk and butter mixture...

Now I finally get to dissolve the yeast.

Next I just combined all the ingredients and let the mixer do all the work. Then came the part I was nervous about, whether or not the dough would rise. Being my first attempt I was fairly confident (that I could follow the recipe, but not that it would work). See the results for yourself though.

It lives!

I let it rise for an hour, punched it down and divided it. Goofed on rolling out the first loaf, corrected for the second. Placed them in the bread pans and let it rise another hour and then baked them for 30 minutes while Ayda and I took a stroll around the neighborhood and got some ideas about the steps leading down to the lake.

After they baked I was left with one very nice looking (and smelling) loaf and one misfit. Though I'm sure the misfit will taste just fine!

Now I'm off to the store to get ingredients for my second cooking adventure of the day: meatloaf!

Dan

Welcome to my misadventures in cooking!

I like to experiment, especially in the kitchen. Sometimes it works, but almost never quite like how I wanted it to. So why not share that with everyone who wants to laugh at my blunders? Enjoy!

Dan