Grilled Brisket with Applewood Smoked Bacon Mashed Potatoes topped with Chives & Au Jus

After my experience at Capt. Len's, my wife and I returned to the food truck park to sample some of the other delights offered by the trucks in the SoHo Food Park where I worked with Capt. Len and the crew. We tried a delicious Chicken/Bacon/Ranch pizza from Fiore Pizza's mobile, wood fired oven, cleverly made in a clear sided, wood covered truck. It was delicious and perfect for the two of us.
It was a great evening.

But I wanted some of Capt. Len's brisket, so I bought a half pound of it to eat later.

So the next day I took the brisket and placed it on my new stove-top grill that my wife gave me for Father's Day, to both heat it up anew and give it some nice markings to add to the smoke and rub, for which Len is famous.

As an appropriate side dish, I chose to make some applewood smoked bacon mashed potatoes to which we would add our home grown chives and REAL butter. No other accompaniment was needed, but I chose to make an Au Jus  from soup base & seasonings cooked down to a thin glaze.

We drizzled the Au Jus on both the potatoes and brisket, and ate very well indeed! 

I have said that I prefer the Ribs followed closely by the pulled pork from Capt. Len's, but after having this delicious dinner, they all are equally tasty and satisfying. No matter what you get, the smoke will bring you back!

Earl Cooks Gnocchi alla Sorrentina with Sausage

We love gnocchi. We have tried it in many forms, including my wife's homemade gnocchi made with her homemade ricotta. This is another version that took a bit of adjusting to get the seasoning right, but eventually "Turkey" (a.k.a. my wife), said it was a keeper. The genesis of this dish came while shopping, where I found some bulk mild Italian sausage at a terrific price (99￠/lb.). It was 2 lbs but I needed to use it rather quickly because it was nearing the sell-by date. Two lbs. is too much for the two of us for one meal, especially when added to pasta or something else, so my plan was simple. It would become two meals! Not two different meals but two of the same with tweaking taking it from okay to very good! I went to my pantry and my freezer to collect ideas.

What I found was 2 items I had never used from Trader Joe's. Frozen Gnocchi alla Sorrentina & their Traditional Marinara Sauce. I will admit that the differences between tomato sauce, marinara sauce, and other tomato based sauces is somewhat lost on me, so I buy what I think I will like. Gnocchi alla Sorentia literally means Gnocchi in the style of Sorrento.That is, gnocchi with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese.

Since I would be adding A LOT of Italian sausage, to the frozen product I would add MORE tomato sauce in the form of marinara, and more mozzarella cheese, which I grated from block mozzarella. [*HINT: America's Test Kitchen recommends block mozzarella when you want stringy, stretchy cheese, not the fresh stuff !]

I shredded the cheese ahead of time, and I think it takes quite a lot of cheese. My wife likes the cheese to take the spicy edge off of the sausage spices.

With the bulk sausage, start by breaking it up by hand into a LARGE skillet pre-heated on medium to medium high heat. We want to both lightly brown and render a bunch of the fat from the sausage. As it cooks, continue to break it up into smaller and smaller chunks. Take time with this, you don't want it to be crispy, just firm and cooked through. Once the sausage is cooked through, remove it to a colander in a bowl to allow the fat to drain away. Remove any excess fat from the pan with a paper towel, and return to the heat, lowered to medium.

The frozen gnocchi mix is a bit strange. The sauce is in frozen disks, and looks odd at first in the pan. Just continue to heat it in the pan until it becomes sauce and gnocchi. Because I was adding the sausage, I needed extra sauce. When I added the sauce, it looked much better.

I added half a jar (8 or 9 oz.) of Trader Joe's Traditional Marinara Sauce to the cooked gnocchi & sauce. Now I had a base to which I would add the sausage and cheese.

Take the cooked and drained sausage and and add it back to the pan with the sauce & gnocchi. This gives the sausage a chance to flavor the sauce, and for the sauce to flavor the sausage. The gnocchi will pick up flavors from both.

Now top with the shredded mozzarella and cover the pan to melt the cheese

It is now covered with yummy white gooey-ness and was super stringy as you can see from the bowl sides which are covered in cheese strings.

This was delicious, but the sausage was a bit spicy for my wife's delicate palate. But I have a fix for that! As I said, this would be enough for 2 meals. Here is the adjustments I made to accommodate "Turkey's" palate.

ADJUSTMENTS:
To make the flavor more mild I simply made adjustments to the quantities of 2 ingredients: Cheese and tomato sauce. I added 4 oz. of cheese and another cup of marinara sauce to the second batch. The cheese I added to the sauce and let the dairy moderate the spice of the sausage, again topping the whole dish with another 4 oz. of cheese and allowing it to melt. My wife liked it and said it is a keeper with the added dairy and sauce! So my sausage bargain made 2 dinners and a lunch!
 

Free Roasted Corn at the Local Farmer's Market - Such a TREAT

Recently, I discovered that our local Farmer's Market, was offering FREE roasted fresh corn every Tuesday. I love shopping there because the produce is both fresh and local, along with local sauces and jams and even fresh artisan breads.

My first experience was a surprise. I was buying fresh peas but they made sure I got some corn if I wanted, and boy did I want! It was so delicious, I forgot to even take a picture before eating most of it! It was beautiful corn although is was a bit under roasted because I didn't want to wait and there were many people wanting it. The following week I took my lovely wife (a.k.a. "Turkey"), because she wanted to try it. Just a few bites...or so she thought. She wolfed it down almost as fast as I did. We left pleased AND with some Rainier Cherries from Utah and some local apricot jam and some smokey bacon sauce from a local, veteran owned business. All in all a great summer evening!

If you want to checkout the Facebook page of the farmers market it is: Sandy Farmers Market

Earl Reviews Carl's Jr. - Taking My Mouth To Memphis...MAYBE - A Review

Carl's Jr.™ has a storied past in our neck of the woods. A few years ago, Carl's Jr., a west coast success story, effected a purchase/merger of the bigger east coast chain by the name of Hardee's®. How does that have anything to do with my area, one might ask? Well, a few years earlier, Hardee's took over an institution here in Utah, Dee's Hamburgers, famous for CHEAP burgers and lots of locations...oh and their animated clowns on their sign. So Dee's became Hardee's and then Hardee's became Carl's Jr. here.

There are still remnants of Dee's in the form of their Denny's style family dining restaurants around the valley. The bright clown is gone, as are the nickle burgers. But the story doesn't end there. My beloved aunt was outraged when Carl's Jr. began to advertise their Six Dollar Burger. She exclaimed that she would NEVER pay for a Six Dollar Burger at a fast food place through a drive through. What she didn't know was that the Six Dollar burger was actually a six dollar value, for under four dollars at the time. Enough of the storied past, now for the review.

My errands today took me near a Carl's Jr. and my eyes went to their ThickBurger® menu offerings, particularly the Memphis Barbecue. I ordered the single patty version. My photo to the left shows their ad inviting us to take our mouths to Memphis, and as you can see, I did! Mine didn't quite look like their ad. As I unwrapped mine, for some reason the bun had a cut in it. Very shallow and very strange. As I removed the top bun you could see the components: A ground beef patty, American cheese slice, fried onion slices and BBQ sauce. The BBQ sauce was just right, but I don't know why this is a Memphis BBQ ThickBurger® . It was definitely a burger, but it was not thick, and didn't have any discernible BBQ except for the little bit of sauce, which was good, but not what I felt was advertised. Let me show you in the next photo

Their Ad (Top) As Delivered (Bottom)

While it tasted fine, it was not what one would expect based on the photos and description. It was supposed to include pulled pork and if there was any it was so small it couldn't be seen or tasted. The price was about $5 bucks, which would have been a great price if it looked like the ad, but it looks more like a McDouble, only it's not double. I hope it was just the location I visited. I will have to try another and see what I get.

By The Numbers:
Service: ⭐(Drive Up Was Quite Slow)
Food:   ⭐ (Tasty but disappointing)
Price: 💲💲💲💲 (Expensive for what I got)

Waffle Iron Grilled Ham & Swiss

This week I have been reviving our old Belgian Waffle Iron to use in new and unique ways, motivated by the fact that I am trying not to heat-up the house to much. It has been around 20℉ HOTTER than the seasonal average. Today, I decided to try making waffle iron grilled ham & cheese. The picture to the left shows the result after cutting in half diagonally. It looks a little rough around the edges because my wife's delicious homemade bread didn't quite fit on the smallish waffle iron.

We can't remember where or why we have a Betty Crocker Belgian Waffle maker, but I am sure there was some kind of deal. It is more than 20 years old and probably one of the reasons I don't like to make waffles. It is simple to use. Plug it in and wait for the ready light and go! No moving parts except the hinge and that's one of the problems...no removable parts either.Very tough to clean. But to keep the kitchen cool, I was willing to give it a go.

I started with 4 slices of my wife's homemade bread, sliced rather thin. In addition, I had some deli sliced Black Forest Ham (3 thin slices per sandwich); Sliced Swiss cheese (2 per sandwich); and shredded cheddar or cheddar jack cheese.

On the bread, start with the Swiss Cheese Slices, Then the 3 slices of ham, two of which will be folded in half and the third flat on top of the 2 folded slices, to this with the shredded cheese. Swiss isn't as good as the cheddar for that melty goodness one expects from a grilled cheese, but Swiss is a natural ham.

Next, butter both sides of your sandwich liberally. The butter helps keep the sandwich from sticking, enhances the browning and crunch, and of course, adds so much flavor.

As I mentioned, my bread was a bit too big and my sandwich a little thick for this ancient appliance which doesn't expand, so when I pressed the lid down, it crushed the sandwich but it made a great crisp sandwich that, when trimmed and cut in half, looked and tasted very good.

Results & Conclusions:
I was very impressed with the crispy meltiness of this sandwich. My wife took hers to work the next day and said it retained the buttery crisp crust. I will make this again, but with a tool that better adjusts to my needs. We have a more modern waffle iron that may be called into service next time.

Birthday Boy's Birthday Super Slam is a Home Run - A Review

My Granboys and I have a long standing relationship with Denny's. It started when my daughter (#1) would take the day off for her son's birthday. For years we would go to breakfast for grandboy #1's birthday, and for many years Denny's was our go to. Then 2 things happened. The first was the opening of of "The Original Pancake House" nearby, the second was the closing of the Denny's nearby. My grandboys and I have eaten in many Denny's in Utah, Idaho & Nevada. Their prices are good and our favorite meal, breakfast, always hit the spot. So it has been quite awhile since we ate at a Denny's for a birthday breakfast, but this year they are offering their Super Slam Breakfast for just 6 bucks! I stole their site ad just to show you how good it looks and we loved it.

2 Eggs, 2 sausage links, 2 slices of bacon, 2 pancakes and hash browns! It was as good as good as it sounds.

Daughter #1 went a bit lighter with the Value Slam. A good value, if you don't want as much  food as we MEN wanted! She also scrambled her eggs but we got ours runny, as eggs should be cooked and eaten, but she likes to use them to absorb ketchup.

Our server was excellent. She was friendly and funny. The only thing was she couldn't find a Chewbacca cup. They were sold out.

We arrived hungry and left full and fulfilled. Happy Birthday to My Grandboy #1

Earl Cooks Grilled Dogs - Hot Doggity!

Hot Dogs Looking Good but Onions a bit raw

It's no secret that my wife and I LOVE hot dogs. They are a nearly perfect food! They can be grilled, fried, baked, deep fried and on and on. Why then is it getting hard to find places that sell them? My favorite used to be Arctic Circle restaurants' foot long, which they cooked until a bit crisp, cut in half, on a griddle (flat-top). Sonic has a great selection and theirs is pretty good and we have a dedicated hot dog restaurant called the "Dog Haus", what they call a craft, casual restaurant. And while I think they have a wide selection, it is about the price of steak dinner!

My wife and I used to go to Sonic for dogs EVERY week as a sort of "date night", but their menu changed and we got out of the routine we seemed to be in, skipping going out for hot dogs.

The new indoor grill/griddle my wife (a.k.a. "Turkey") gave me for Father's Day may change all of that! The first thing I wanted to cook is Hot Dogs. I buy some Bar S Classic Bun Length Franks. These may not be as good as the ones we had as a kid, since they are now loaded with cheaper cuts of meat (mostly chicken), but I am going to bring the best out of them I can. They do make a beef version, but "Turkey says she doesn't think it is as good. A word of caution here: DON'T BUY the 12oz. package! They are not going to feed your family and they are maybe 10% cheaper but 33% less meat in the package!

Here is the low-carb version of hot dogs. I topped mine with a pickle, tomato wedges, and onion chunks. Getting used to this new grill/griddle will take some experimenting, but with experiments like this, who cares! The hot dogs were great but I didn't time the onion right. It tasted fine, as onion always does, but was a bit on the raw side except for one wedge, which was perfect and my wife left it for me!

This shows that even cheap foods can taste good when properly prepared and cooked and that bargain "franks" can be good! Thanks "Turkey" for the great Father's Day gift you let me pick out!

Earl Reviews KFC Pot Pie $5 Fill-Up

Were you aware that the first Kentucky Fried Chicken Restaurant was not in Kentucky? It was near my home in Salt Lake City. It is one of my first memories of chain restaurants. My picture here represents my memories of the place, with Colonel Sanders' picture on every bucket, bag & box...the REAL Colonel. Well today after running several long errands, I felt a bit peckish, and was near home, but not wanting to prepare lunch. I decide it would be a great time to review what is now only known as KFC and their $5 fill-ups. Recently my wife and I have totally stopped eating at KFC, because it just hasn't been as good. We used to eat there quite regularly, but that stopped when their food & service stopped being good!

But since their $5 fill-ups are all over the TV, I thought this would be a good time to see what it was all about. 

As I pulled up to the drive-up menu and looked at the $5 offerings, only one seemed appealing...one of our old favorites, the Chicken Pot Pie! We used to get these whenever they were on special for four bucks, add to that a drink (med.) and a chocolate chip cookie and it would be a good deal...if the pie was as good as it was in the past...AND IT WAS!

The minute your fork pierces the crust, you know it is good. The crust is crunchy and you would eat it by itself. The thing that makes the pie's taste is the sauce. It is the perfect consistency and clings to the chicken and the veggies (carrots, peas & potatoes), and gives a chicken-y taste to each bite. What you are left with is a pie tin you feel like licking clean.

In addition, their cookie is LOADED with chocolate chips. The drink is, well, a drink.

I have tried several of the $5 meals that seem to be the craze right now and this is the best BY FAR!

Another benefit of this meal is that these are baked in a HOT oven. If you live within 20 minutes of the KFC, you will still get home with hot food. If you don't wait your tongue will let you know and you may not taste anything for awhile.

By the Numbers:
Service ⭐⭐⭐ (it was drive up, what can I say)
Price 💲💲 (A very good product a a good price)
Taste ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (much better than the price would suggest)

Earl Cooks Artichoke Hearts With Zucchini & Yellow Squash

This is a dish where the preparation takes longer than actual cooking time, which is  a nice change. For this dish you will need:

 —Artichoke Hearts

 —Zucchini

 —Yellow Squash

 —Butter

 —Salt & Pepper

 —A Veggetti Pro or other other spiralizer. What is a SPIRALIZER you ask? 

It is a kitchen tool that turns firm vegetables into spirals, like the zoodles you find in the grocery stores. There are several versions including professional versions, or attachments to your stand mixer. But for under $15 you can have one and save yourself the cost of buying the store made zoodles for 3 to 4 times the price of the ones you make. 

Don't buy the Veggetti, buy the
Veggetti Pro

A note here. The "Veggetti", a cheaper version is too much work and often doesn't work. Buy the pro version. You get more blades and less wrist work. You will thank me later.


On with the dish...
...as my picture shows, I turned a zucchini and a yellow squash into ribbons. This was just for fun. If you don't have a spiralizer, chop them or slice them to your liking. 

Now for the artichoke hearts. We have found Trader Joe's frozen artichoke hearts a winner. They do not have the bad texture and preservative taste of canned or bottled. I recommend keeping several bags on hand for quick and easy side dishes. 

Place the artichokes in a good sized sauce pan with a stick of butter. Our favorite way to eat artichokes is by dipping them in melted butter, so I was trying to mimic that experience with this dish. (My wife also like hers with lemon, but I don't like to interfere with the buttery goodness). Once the artichokes are heated to temperature, add the 2 kinds of squash. This will certainly need some fresh cracked pepper, and maybe salt. The squash is a blank canvas in a way, and can be seasoned as you like, but I did not want to coverup the artichoke in mine. Alfredo would go well, as would Parmesan, so make it your own!

"Turkey" Bakes Homeade Bread but Asks me to NOT post it

Before you think I went against my wife's (a.k.a. "Turkey") wishes, I got her permission to take a couple of pictures. Each week or two I am treated to her marvelous bread and mostly banished from our kitchen, until the miracle emerges from the oven piping hot and ready for butter. This week, a minor mistake was made with the recipe. I say minor because it tasted fine but my wife felt it didn't look good enough because a problem with the temperature in the oven,  (probably due to something I did). 

As you can see, it looks great, at least to me, and it tastes even better! If you have never had fresh baked bread slathered with butter, almost too hot to handle, you are missing one of the great taste treats in life.

I managed to catch a slice before the heat melted the butter. As you can see, it appears perfect and tastes even more perfect. I think for the first several slices, nothing more is needed but butter. "Turkey" likes hers with some creamed honey too. It turned out great and she gave me permission to post these lovely images which she was worried were not going to turn out right, but from dough to buttered slice everything tastes perfect.

Earl Cooks Penne Alfredo with Smoked Sausage & Brie

This recipe really created itself. I always have the ingredients on hand, and it requires little time and less talent than most weeknight dinners...but it is SO good! It only has 4 ingredients and can be made in a single pan!

 
The ingredients are: smoked sausage, penne pasta, Alfredo sauce and cheese (I used brie, but mozzarella would work well too). You could also use another another type of pasta, elbows or bow ties or shells would be nice choices. My choice of Great Value Classic Alfredo is for 2 reasons. First and foremost is flavor. I find that of the bottled sauces, it tastes best, plus it has less fat and it is less expensive. You may have a favorite, and I suggest you go with that. As for the brie, since you are not eating it plain, so the double cream is not needed, but you will want to remove the rind because it doesn't melt well. I just snack on it!

The most labor intensive part of the whole process is cutting the smoked sausage into bite-size pieces. Simply cut it in half then cut the curved sections off for ease of cutting. My wife (a.k.a. "Turkey") likes small pieces for easy combining with pasta on the fork, so I cut the sausage in half, lengthwise, then again, and finally, I slice the quartered rope into a small dice. I also slightly brown the sausage, because she prefers the flavor and texture of smoked sausage when browned, but since the smoked sausage I used is fully cooked, you can skip this step. 

In a large skillet, I add sausage and lightly brown and warm it.

I then add the sauce to the sausage

To the skillet, I add the pasta, (partially cooked so it will finish in the sauce, absorbing flavor as it finishes).

Lastly, the brie. It melts pretty quickly so stir it in thoroughly.

 Suggestions:
 Add some spice to your life with Italian, or other seasonings of your choice. If you are just two (as we are) you can also use a new product I recently discovered on my store shelves—Ready Pasta. Much like Ready Rice, it is mostly cooked and packaged so it only takes 60 seconds in the microwave to finish off!