Not Eggsactly Posting As Often As I Should

I have been remiss in my postings for the last few months. I got working for a friend on his food
truck and my cooking with him meant I wasn't cooking for us, at least as much. But I still chronicled what I did cook, but have nolt had the time to properly post it. Now I am going to try to make up for my lax behavior by posting several meals/dishes in this one post

Frying-Pan Steamed Eggs
The first is steamed egss. I placed 3 Pyrex glass prep bowls in a frying pan with about half an inch of water in the pan. I Sprayed the prep bowls with non stick spray and cracked an extra-large egg onto each cup and covered the pan. I heat the water to steaming. Soon I had lovely egg that resembles a poached egg - white set, yolk runny. Perfect for dipping, which is the perfect use of an egg. If you try this, use a paper towel to remove the condensed steam.

 Scrambled Egg Nachos
Yup, eggs again! My wife loves scrambled eggs and it may be my least favorite way to eat eggs. That being said, they are still eggs and I love them! But I do try new ways to prepare them, and this day, I made NACHOS! Simply a layer of corn chips, topped with light fluffy scrambled eggs followed by the nacho toppings of your choice. Today I used salsa and cherry tomatoes. 

Grilled Hot Dogs with Home-Pickled Onions & Tomatoes - CARB FREE
After Eggs, hot dogs may be the most perfect food. These were simply grilled (adter being sliced almost in half then covered with some pickled onions I had just made and garden freesh pear & cherry tomatoes, with a trail of Dijon mustard on the side 

Capt. Len's Smoked Chicken & Root Veggies in a Crock Pot 
As I have mentioned, I have been helping out on a Capt. Len's BBQ food truck since last summer. One of the great benefit's of working on The Captain's food truck is, well, THE FOOD. Smoked Baby Back Ribs, Smoked Brisket, Smoked Pork Butt and Smoked Chicken! I brought home a perfectly smoked chicken and wanted to do include it in a dish at home. I sliced some root veggies (carrots, turnips and onions), and put them in the bottom of a lined crock pot with a can of cream of celery soup, and let them cook until almost tender. I then cut the whole chicken into quarters (my wife gets the white quarters), and placed it on the veggies. When the chicken was heated through, the veggies were tender and everything was delicious. You could do this with a rotisserie chicken, but smoked is SO good, why would you?

Scrambled Eggs for Dinner? - Of Course!
I mentioned earlier in the post that my wife ("Turkey") prefers her eggs scrambled. And unlike me, she does not care for breakfast. How do we make it work? Breakfast becomes dinner! She likes hers with lots of cheese and green onions, and how can you not love that! I top mine with Chili Sauce, which is really just chunky ketchup, but sooo much better! A few garden tomatoes on the side and toast from "Turkey's" homemade bread and dinner is complete and ready to eat.

Earl Cooks Fires Up the Upright Barrel Smoker after Years of Disuse

Several years ago I thought I would try smoking some meats, so I bought a cheap smoker (pictured new on the left). I met with almost no success, because I had no Idea what I was doing. Now that I am cooking regularly I thought I would give this little guy another try. I had leftover charcoal and mesquite wood chips from when I first got the smioker, and I wanted to try smoking some things I thought would be good. But first, I set myself to cleaning up this smoker. Thanks to the lid, the inside was okay. It didn't look like the photo, and there were a of bunch spider webs inside, but that cleaned up quickly. What took a bit of time were the grates. This model has a charcoal pan, a water pan, and two grates. Not worried about the charcoal pan, but I do need to clean the rest...especially the grates.

I knew I wanted to start with some basics that are cheap, to experiment on. Yukon Gold potatoes, a sweet yellow onion, and some inexpensive franks would be ideal. I quartered the potatoes, quartered the onion and used bun length franks from Bar-S. I decided to add some peeled, hard cooked eggs later too!

Using my chimney starter and a brown paper sack sprayed with vegetable oil, I lit up the briquettes. It takes about 20 minutes to get them to the white ash stage. Alton Brown on the Food Network uses newspaper, but we have gone totally electronic for our news and I don't have any. But I do like to get  paper bags when I shop because they are not only recyclable, they made are from recycled paper. As you can see IT WORKS GREAT! Once the coals were ready, I put them in the coal rack on the bottom. Then I added mesquite wood chips. I should have added them wrapped in foil or in a smoking box, but I plain forgot! Oh well. I also forgot to add the water pan to create a moist heating environment.  I fixed that later, but for now, it was fine.

I started by putting the potatoes on the bottom grate and the eggs, which I had hard cooked and peeled, on the top. My reasoning was the eggs would not need much time, and the potatoes could use the extra smoke. This turned out to be slightly faulty reasoning, which I will explain later.*

The first thing off the smoker are the eggs. As you can see, they had a lovely smokey color. The problem became that the smoke and heat on an already-cooked egg created a bit of a rubbery exterior. The egg was perfect inside, with no green ring around the yolk, and you could taste the smokiness. Next I removed the potatoes which were smoky, but again the skin was a bit tough. I had no idea what I was doing with these items going in. I now know what went wrong.

The last thing I took off the smoker was the last to go on...the HOT DOGS! They were the one thing I had confidence in. I have cooked many many hot dogs...but I have never smoked them!

They were PERFECT! Especially when I put them on some toasted buns, with Dijon mustard and a pickle slice.






*Some footnotes:

•  I said I would tell you why putting potatoes on the bottom and eggs on the top didn't work. I needed to cover the potatoes to protect them from the heat. The bottom rack was too hot.
•  The eggs were cooked and peeled, but the added heat  caused them to split. They too needed protection. I tried leaving the shell on in another batch, and they cooked, but no noticeable smoke penetrated the shell. I will have to find another way.
• I didn't write much about the onion. It turned out very smoky and I added some to my hot dog, but it was too big to stay in the bun, so it isn't shown, but tasted great.

Conclusions:
This was a qualified success. The hot dogs were well worth it and I will be doing them again - soon! I also realized that I had the components for a smoked potato salad, which sounds very good and I will post how it turns out! I also gained a new tool in my cooking arsenal, well an old tool revived, my smoker! I will be using it as a smoker and a small charcoal grill well into the Fall!

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 Eats at Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers

As so often happens, I was on my way to discover somewhere else, and got a bonus discovery! I had never eaten or even heard of them, in fact I thought it might be a gas station of a similar name or a car wash, also the same name. With steakburgers prominently displayed in the the name I thought I should give them a try. As I pulled up to the drive-through, I almost gave them a pass because it was quite busy even though it was past the lunch hour, but as I watched the line moved quickly so decided to go ahead and try it. And the line moved very quickly.

 I wanted a Steakburger, but my approach trying someplace new is order their basics. Their menu says they serve Vienna Beef  hot dogs and they use what has become known as the "Top Slice" or "New England" style bun often associated with lobster rolls, so I ordered their Chicago Style Hot Dog and to try their burger, I ordered their basic.  I also ordered fries and a drink. They serve Pepsi Products, but not a great selection. Their fries are like shoestring potatoes almost but they do offer fry sauce!

Their burger was not as good as I paid for so that is a negative.

Freddy's #4 Combo

Conclusion

Their Hot dog was okay with a nicely toasted bun but when compared to their competition, not as good as other Chicago Dogs at fast food restaurants. The help was courteous and friendly and as mentioned, the line moved rather well. I won't be trying these 2 items there again, so next time, it will be their steakburger, if there is a next time.

Earl Cooks Chili Cheese Dogs in a Slow Cooker

Hamilton Beach Sous Vide/Slow Cooker

I really started this as a test of my newest gadget/appliance. Several months ago, I discovered Sous Vide (/suːˈviːd/; French for "under vacuum") cooking, especially for Steaks. I couldn't justify an immersion circulator, running a couple of hundred dollars, so after researching on You Tube and other sites, I was ready to try it with my Crock Pot, a thermometer and the steaks. It turns out that my wife much preferred this method which left the meat thoroughly cooked but not leather-like as she nomally would get it.  Move ahead 3 months or so and and I notice a Sous Vide appliance from Hamilton Beach that is under $60, that can be used as a Slow Cooker too! Well my birthday was coming soon, and my wife hates to shop for me so I told her I would get my own gift this year and she was ecstatic.

Well, moving on... I had used it to Sous Vide Steaks and Chicken and it worked very well, so the time had come to test it as a slow cooker. It doesn't have a "crock", rather a non stick metal liner. but it is rectangular rather than oval, which will be great for large roasts, brisket or corned beef and perfect for this recipe"

Slow Cooker Chili Cheese Dogs

Slow Cooker Chili Cheese Dogs

Ingredients

Jumbo Hot Dogs
Nalley's Hot Dog Chili Sauce (no bean chili will work too)
Mild Cheddar Cheese-shredded
Hot Dog Buns
1 Onion-chopped

Instructions

Set slow cooker to LOW
Spray with Pan Spray
Place Buns in bottom of cooker
Place Hot Dogs on top of buns
Allow to cook for 1 hour with lid on
Add Chili and onion
Allow to cook for 1 to 2 hours more
Top with cheese and allow to melt
Serve them up!

Results

I now know that as a Slow Cooker, this is not as gook as my Crock Pot, because of the lack of a crock. It is not intended to to absorb heat and release it later, so i would probably not use it again for this recipe. The Chili Dogs were very tasty and I would use a slow cooker to do it again