CleverDonkey.com …Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel

I was never able to find the spaghetti sauce that I wanted, so I decided to figure out making it for myself.  You see, I wanted a combination of a meat sauce and a vegetable sauce, and could not find a restaurant or a recipe that fit the bill.  Note that this is ‘homemade’ only in part, as it includes marinara from a jar.  I have made it completely from scratch, and it’s good, but it’s wayyyy too much work and it takes wayyyy too much time, and it’s only slightly better/different, so the marinara from a jar is simply a nod to the realities of a hectic lifestyle.

This recipe makes enough for four people, plus a healthy helping of leftovers – as with all spaghetti sauces, it’s better reheated the next day.  Ingredients as follows:

3 jars Newman’s Own Marinara sauce
2 lbs. lean hamburger
1 sweet onion
8 cloves garlic
1 bunch asparagus
2

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The preparation and the finished product

I’ve always been partial to McDonald’s Sausage McMuffin with Egg, but I prefer to avoid fast food whenever possible, and I prefer to eat healthy ingredients.  For the sake of this article, “healthy” refers to the ingredients being as natural and pure as possible, and as free of chemicals, hormones, pesticides, preservatives, cruelty, and “modified” ingredients as possible (and not necessarily “food pyramid” healthy).

So, over the years I have learned to make breakfast muffins at home, and have refined the recipe to the point where I can barely eat fast-food muffins any longer, since they pale by comparison (if I do say so myself).

The recipe below is for three muffins, the ingredients are:

3 farm eggs

1/3 lb of natural pork breakfast sausage

3 tbs butter

3 slices Kraft

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Sweet Texas Iced Tea

When I was a young teenager, my family would always tell me, “You make the *best* iced tea!”.  I was quite proud of my iced tea, and would make it regularly for the whole family, and I always made sure we had iced tea available in the summer.

However, as I got older and wiser, I realized that while I was quite competent at making iced tea, my family had most assuredly been overstating its superiority because they knew that such praise would keep me in the kitchen slaving over a hot pot of boiling water.

Their behaviors (you know who you are!) were right on the border between encouraging and exploitative, but one of the side-effects is that years spent making iced tea has led me to a recipe and method that has become quite good, if I

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Sweet, spicy, and tasty!

We’ve been on a fish taco kick lately, trying various combinations of fish, salsa, toppings, and preparation methods.  Yesterday we cooked up a grilled pineapple salsa that was really tasty, and was great on the fish tacos, recipe as follows:

Ingredients
3 tbsp sugar
1 tsp chipotle chili powder
1 tbsp salt
1 tsp garlic powder
1 fresh garlic clove
1 fresh jalepeno
2 cans pineapple rings in juice
1 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 cup chopped purple onion
2 limes
2 tbsp sesame oil

Combine the four dry ingredients (sugar, chili powder, salt, garlic powder) in a bowl and mix thoroughly.  Drain and spread the pineapple rings out on plates or a cookie sheet and sprinkle one side with the powder mixture, flip the rings and sprinkle the other side.

Heat a skillet on medium-high until hot, then add the sesame oil.  Swirl the oil around to coat

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Look Out, Teeth!

So for that last few weeks I’ve been having a craving for some nice, tasty caramel corn.  Now, when it comes to this confection I’m a purist – I don’t like anything in it but the popcorn and the coating, no nuts, no nothing else.  And that’s really hard to find at a store.  So I finally broke down tonight and made some at home, for the very first time, too.

The recipe is a mash-up of several recipes I found on the tubernets, and it goes like this:

Ingredients
6-7 quarts of air-popped popcorn
1 1/2 sticks of butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup honey
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Salt to taste

Process
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.  Make the popcorn in an air popper, then put it into a large roasting pan

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I have a low-end little gas grill (Sunbeam Grillmaster 660) that we use for our weekend barbequing.  I used to be strictly a charcoal kind of guy, but I’ve been won over by the convenience and predictable heating of a gas barbeque grill.  There are some Texans who claim that *real* brisket can only be made over coals and/or wood, but I beg to differ.  I’ve been eating barbequed brisket my whole life, starting when we moved to a small Texas town in the 60′s, where my uncles would make brisket (along with ribs, chicken, and homemade venison sausage) for family gatherings.  Since then I’ve eaten brisket from just about every kind of barbeque joint and backyard cook you could think

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I’m an old hand at “juking” up recipes on the fly — sometimes the results are good, sometimes the results are.. well, edible. In rare cases, I come up with something that tastes REALLY good. This, I humbly submit, is one of those.

Bourbon Chicken and Dumplings

Ingredients

Organic Chicken Broth
Organic Beef Broth (optional)
Chicken breasts, boneless
Chicken thighs, boneless
Fresh thyme, parsley and sage
Fresh carrots
Fresh celery
Bourbon (I used Maker’s Mark)
Half-and-half or cream or milk
Bisquick
Milk
Paprika
Salt (I used a Garlic Sea Salt Grinder… yum)

Directions
In a big pot combine:

chicken broth (and beef broth if you want — I didn’t have enough chicken so I used beef as well)
the chicken breasts and thighs
carrots (I use whole carrots, skins and all, cut into 4″ lengths)
celery (I use stalks about 4″ long and leave the leaves on 1-2 stalks)
fresh thyme, parsley, and sage (don’t chop any of it up)
many splashes of bourbon

Let cook on med-low for a while until the chicken

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Ingredients

Portabella mushrooms, chopped
Red Onion, chopped
Montreal Chicken Seasoning (contains no chicken)
Canned chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
Cooked brown rice
butter (can substitute olive oil)
ginger sesame marinade (optional)

Directions

Pre-heat a cast-iron skillet, frying pan, or wok on medium heat.
When wok is hot, add butter, and portabellas and red onion. Add a dash of Montreal seasoning.
Stir-fry until onions are carmelized.
Then add chickpeas, drained, and more butter. Add another dash of seasoning.
Stir-fry until chickpeas are browned.
Then add more butter and the cooked brown rice (cold from the fridge is ok). Add another dash of seasoning.
Stir-fry for another 5 – 8 minutes (add a Tbsp or so of ginger marinade if desired) until everything is nice and sizzling hot.

Editor’s note: When I first posted this recipe, I commented that I usually pair this dish with cheese to get some protein. But my great friend Darla clued me in the wonder food that is chickpeas: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=58. Check out the

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First off, to make good smoothies, you need a good blender. Being the Consumer Reports dork-heads we are, we picked the Braun MX2050, a steal at $50, and so far we have zero complaints:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004S9H3/104-4355104-1337505?v=glance&n=284507&v=glance

Second of all, no ice. Ice is grody in a smoothie. One makes a good frozen smoothie with frozen ingredients. Here’s my recipe that I’ve put together with some trial and error.

Marie’s Favorite Smoothie Recipe
Note: put the ingredients in the blender in this order for best mixing results.

A handful of frozen strawberries — you can do ones from the freezer section, or once every couple weeks I buy organic ones and cut ‘em up and freeze ‘em in a big bag
A good slosh of Kefir probiotic milk (enough to almost cover the strawberries) — it’s like yogurt but has a more liquid texture. You can use regular yogurt (plain or vanilla) but it will take

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My favorite food is popcorn. I have loved it since I was young, and I have spent a large portion of my adult lifetime refining my recipe to the point where it is perfect to me, and it seems to be popular with those to whom I serve it. There is nothing magical or difficult about the making of this popcorn, nor are the ingredients exotic or hard to find. Any reasonably handy kitchen person should be able to make it with no problem. However, the exact combination of process and ingredients has been perfected through almost 20 years of refinement, and I wanted to share it with my fellow popcorn lovers (and also maybe win a few converts to the manual process).

FYI, this is posted here in the Rant section rather than the Recipe section because I feel very strongly about the proper preparation

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