Lose 15 Lbs. Without Doing a Thing!

I feel like nobody will read this unless I lead with a picture.

Dear Oodblo readers, 

Elephant in the room: It's been awhile. I missed you terribly, you lovely bastards and lady bastards.

The culprit here was/is a colony of bacteria that have been having an orgy in my guts for a couple of weeks. It's bacterial Studio 54 down there; bacteria wearing sunglasses indoors and doing blow off of the asses of bacteria strippers doing blow off the asses of more bacteria strippers. Bacteria Mick Jagger is there, hanging out with (anybody famous in the late 70's). And the goddamn disco music...

Suffice it to say, thinking about food constantly hasn't been at the top of my list so much of late as, say, visualizing myself not throwing up all day and then acting that out in real life. Or visualizing that there's a reliable toilet nearby....

I know what you're thinking. Do you have to talk about gross stuff like that on a food blog? It's not very appetizing. I'm not making you read this blog, asshole. Although, if you were real and I knew where your house was, I'd come over to your house and I would, in fact, make you read this blog. Moot point, jerk.

The upside of all this: unintentional weight loss. And that's the real recipe here. Looking to lose that extra 15 pounds? Get your hands and then your mouth on some bacteria. Make sure you get it in your stomach.* (laugh track) I kid, I kid. 

Seriously though, it's amazing.  I just walk around naked all the time now. It's not all that different than before, except for the fact that my dog seems impressed now. My dog doesn't speak English**, but I read between the lines. When someone (or some mammal) watches your every move then occasionally licks their privates, you know you're doing something right. 

Well, that pretty much wraps it up... Oh wait. You want an actual recipe of food, eh? Fine. Just this once.*** 

This is another warmed-over SideDish recipe. Not that I'm dogging anything but the writing in the last SideDish recipe I rehashed here -- it was fantastic. This one is OK. It's just that there's some bad blood between me and this dish, because despite my stomach's protests, I had to choke it down several times on account of, how's that old saying go? Oh yeah, if you don't eat food, you'll fucking die. 

So... make this, don't make it. I absolutely do not give a shit. Never talk to me about it, please. It disgusts me.**** Hopefully, by the next time we have one of these little chats, it'll be the early 80's in my digestive tract and the pathogen FBI will have swooped in and shut down Studio 54 for good. Disco sucks motherfuckers. Enjoy.

Grilled Pork Chops with Peach Salsa
(serves three)

Ingredients:

Pork chops:
3 roughly 1" thick pork chops
1/3 cup olive oil
tbsp soy sauce
1 1/2 tsp cumin
tsp chipotle powder (or chili powder)

Peach Salsa:
2 peaches, diced
1 jalapeno, finely diced
1/2 a small red onion, finely diced
1/3 cup chopped cilantro
juice of 1 or 2 limes
splash of olive oil
salt to taste

Instructions:

1. Make the pork chop marinade. Mix the olive oil, soy sauce, cumin and chipotle powder together. Pour mixture over the chops and marinate in the fridge for several hours to overnight, flipping occasionally, if you can. You want the chops nicely coated.
2. In a bowl, mix all the ingredients for the peach salsa together, except 1/2 cup of the diced peaches, the lime juice and olive oil.
3. In a food processor or blender, puree the reserved peaches with the lime juice and olive oil until smooth, then mix with the other ingredients in the bowl. The salsa can be made the night before.
4. Preheat grill to medium-high and grill chops, flipping once, until the internal temperature has come up to 145, probably about 10-12 minutes total; grills vary.
5. Let the chops rest a few minutes (it's been a long day for them), then top with peach salsa and enjoy.

You can see my reflection in the fork. Nice photography, douche.

*really don't. Not because it's gross and horrible, which it is, but because you'd be copying me. Nobody likes a copy cat.

** immigrated from Finland.

***And forever.

**** You can talk to me about it if you want, but in an ironic twist, if you do, I'll pretend I don't speak English. Just like my dog does. Only, unlike with my dog, no one will be licking their balls in approval.

Charred Poblano Pesto

So, I do a weekly (Thursday) contribution to D magazine's food blog, Side Dish. Typically, it's a watered down for the masses version of a recipe already featured on oodblo. I take out all the salty (giggle, you see what I did there) language, and… well, it's basically just what you'd call a "recipe" at that point.

This week, for whatever reason, I gave Side Dish some new material first, leaving oodblo kinda out in the cold searing heat. Now, I'm too lazy to just make new shit up, rewrite this and make it funny. So here's what's gonna happen: I'm taking this week's Side Dish post, adding some random profanity (a fun game would be for you, the reader, to try and spot it) and calling it a day.


Don't let the lack of curse words in the original post throw you; it's still good. Enjoy.

It’s July. Summer is real. Shit. Boner. The silver lining: fresh peppers abound.

Also, in spite of the heat, my (Thai) basil plants are thriving. Fart.

Poblano pesto was an easy call. Boobs.

This recipe is a summertime nod to the most basic pesto formula — basil or other herbs, nuts or seeds, oil, salty cheese and garlic — and, as such, is easily adapted to any taste or season.

Charred Poblano Pesto
(makes about 3/4 cup)

Ingredients:

Half a poblano pepper, charred (grilled, broiled or charred over the flame of a gas stove) and chopped
1 cup rinsed basil leaves
1/2 cup pine nuts
1/3 cup olive oil, or more
3 Tbsp cotija cheese*
Tbsp lemon or lime juice
1 clove peeled garlic
salt to taste

Instructions:

1. Combine all ingredients, except half of the olive oil, in food processor (a stick blender with a mini food processor attachment works perfect for this amount). Blend until the mixture is just starting to become smooth.
2. Add the rest of the olive oil. Blend until smooth, using less oil if you like a thick pesto, more oil if you like it runnier. Taste and adjust salt if needed.
3. That’s it. Have a cocktail and pretend this was exhausting. Serve with bread, rice, pizza, pasta or carb of your choice.

*I went with a less pungent alternative to Parmesan cheese here to give the pepper more of a starring role.

Grilled Ham Steaks with Grits and Red Eye Gravy. Sorta.

Red Eye Gravy huh?

Coffee and gravy, together at last!

I don't know, man. That sounds like a bottom of the barrel idea...

This blog is comfortable with the bottom of the barrel*. Let's make some red eye gravy (and grits and ham).

Chicharrones (nee Pork Rinds)

Americans, it seems, are eating a dangerously small amount of pork rinds.* Damn shame.

Most of us would eat pillow stuffing if it was covered in bacon, then politely demand more. Seconds with bacon on top is the American way. But the very same patriots just won't eat pork rinds**. Probably because pork rinds are exactly what the name suggests they are.

fries

it's hot. let's fry some shit.

Nothing says every day in the life of an American quite like fries. Except maybe exploiting poor people. But I don't have a recipe for that, other than to say if you find yourself in the proximity of a poor person, see what you can get out of him.

Why would you spend time & make a mess frying something at home that you can buy at nearly every sit down restaurant or bar & with processed reliability at every fast food chain, you ask*. 

I don't have a good answer for that.

tex benedict

I never make time for breakfast.

Breakfast.

The one between brunch & last night's dinner. It lasts until 10:30. I mean, I eat breakfast (a little parfait here, a little granola there, waffles in the toaster, breakfast tacos in my mouth...). But I don't have a real one often enough. 

It's not that I don't have time. I have a shitload of time. Are you kidding? Machines and gadgets do almost everything for me, so I don't have to do any real work; it's ideal. *

And the stuff that the machines refuse to help with, I just have my servants do.** Like driving me around & typing this blog entry (asshole). I saw that. You're fired. Turn in your tuxedo and get the hell out of here.

But despite my abundance of convenience based spare time, I rarely have a proper sit-down breakfast.

When I do, it's exciting. And this was a good one. And filling. A take on eggs benedict, at least in the sense of stacking starch/meat/white sauce/poached egg. Represented here as tostada, breakfast hash, poblano cream, poached egg. A way-the-fuck out there re-imagining of eggs benedict, I guess.

I licked the plate, smashed it on the ground in approval, had the staff pick up after me, tuck me into bed & then a solid 7 hour nap before polo in the evening. On youtube.

Note: I made this with a grilled corn relish in between the egg and hash. It was tasty, sweet from the corn & colorful. Also completely superfluous. I made it for something else and needed to get rid of it. It's an ear of grilled corn, a couple tbsp picante sauce and about a tbsp of cotija cheese.

Tex Benedict

(1)

for the tostada:

2 tostadas from fiesta (which you have to re-heat in the oven) or 2 fried tortillas (fry a tortilla in 1/2 inch of oil until crispy, drain on paper towel, repeat)

the hash:

1/4 lb breakfast sausage, crumbled

1 small potato

1 piece of bacon, cut into small pieces

about 1/8 of an onion. You heard me right, 1/8.

Tbsp bacon grease that you should be keeping in your fridge

spices: chili powder, cumin, mexican oregano

poblano cream (adapted from Steven Pyles Ancho Cream:

grilled or roasted poblano

couple tbsp milk

1/3 - 1/2 cup mexican sour cream or regular sour cream.

In a skillet, cook the all of the hash ingredients on medium-ish until brown and cooked through. 15 minutes or so. Try not to flip it so much, so it'll get a nice crust. Also, bacon cooks s,lower, so nuking the pieces for 30 seconds, to give it a head start, is a good idea.

Blend the milk & poblano in a food processor*** until smooth. It takes a couple of minutes.

Press poblano-milk mixture through a fine strainer or sieve into the cream. 

Fold the milk & poblano mixture into the cream. The cream is runny & you want it to kinda stay that way-- mix it together gently, so you don't add more air to the mixture.

When this is done and you have warmed tostadas, poach your egg.

Layer thusly: tostada, hash, poblano cream, tostada, hash, poblano cream, poached egg. Garnish as if it was your last day on earth. Go to town.

*They even keep me entertained 100% of the time I'm awake. Me bored -- the stimulus my mind gets when I'm bored as shit -- would have been the most exciting day in someone's life in the 1700's. I do not envy you, forefather.

**that's right: servants. It's like downton fuckin' abbey in my apartment.

***I have one of these, which changed my life.

tamales

A tamale looks nothing like what the name sounded like to me as a kid.

Same thing with sweet breads, Candlestick Park, and anyone with the name Carmen. I'm not entirely sure what I thought a tamale would look like based on name-sound alone, but the sound of "tamale" was exotic to me. Exotic in a "no way I'm eating that" 8 year old's kind of way. Like guacamole. "why the fuck*" kid me wondered "would would anybody eat guacamole? It looks weird, and that name..." ** Sight, smell, name, or just because-- I was a picky kid & nothing was going to stand in the way of me not trying new things. I could handle a lot-- baths, not being allowed to drive or make most of the family decisions, but not progress.

But with tamales it took a long time before I saw one & someone was like "no dummy, that's a tamale". I knew only that it sounded like more than I was up for. So when I finally really saw one, I was pissed off....

Why didn't anybody tell me tamales looked like this? I'll eat that shit. They should really change the name to something that doesn't sound challenging to an eight year old's palate. This looks like a wet, shiny, meat & cornbread bar. That sounds good. Why didn't they call it that? I'm going to pull Bernadette's hair & blame it on someone else.

etc

What did I know? Children are dumb, everyone knows that.

Anyway, not to hyperbolize, but tamales are good. This was my first stab at making them, so I looked around & followed the basic concept here . I was very happy with the result. Not pinche bad for a gringo.
Oh and this is a sweet potato tamale. About that. Stay with me, weiners. The sweet potato flavor was mild and the texture was strictly tamale. No funny business (maybe second base). The sweet potato was a great ingredient, because I just mixed it into the tamale dough. In a meat or bean tamale, you've got separate layers to roll together. Easier. good.

sweet potato tamales

(8 or 10 large ones)

corn husks

1 sweet potato, cooked & mixed with cumin, cinnamon, chili powder & mexican oregano

1 3/4 cup instant masa

1 cup hot water

1/2 cup lard (don't use lois for this)

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup chicken broth

salt

soak the corn husks in water for a few hours before you start your dough.

play the waiting game, or better, yahtzee. if you play yahtzee, you wanna get that 35 point upper bonus. trust me.

pour the water in the masa in a bowl & mix it together until it gets the consistency of moist brown sugar.

in another bowl, beat together the lard, baking powder & cooked sweet potato.

add the masa mixture, a bit at a time, to the sweet potato mixture.

when the masa is fully mixed with the sweet potato mixture, add in the chicken stock and BEAT. go to town. you want to get some air into the mixture.

when the mixture is light enough that a pinch will float in a glass of water, it's ready.

spoon about 2 tbsp of the mixture onto a corn husk & roll up the husk, folding in one end.

stack the tamales on end in a steamer***

steam for 2 hours with the lid on. check it every 15 minutes & add more water if needed. it will be needed.

after two hours, take one out and check it. If it looks like canned pumpkin, put it back in and check in 15 minutes. repeat until you have a firmer texture that resembles, oh i don't know, a tamale. I had to do this a couple of times, so don't get discouraged-- you will lose your tamale virginity with grace. The end.

*yup, even as a kid I liked working the blue. Who knew kid me & adult me would have something in common? Small world.
**Amazingly, it didn't taste like a cat's asshole when I finally tried it 15 years later.

***or as much on end as you can get them. I have a regular basket steamer, so it was hard to get them to not lay on one side. The result was that one side looked prettier than the other, but the texture and taste wasn't affected.