Juicy Lucia Burgers

We've been making the same ol' normal burgers lately, so it was time to get fancy again. Opened up Adam Richman's Straight Up Tasty and found the "Juicy Lucia".

Mix a pound of sausage with a pound of ground beef, salt, pepper, and garlic. The recipe calls for liquid smoke (I'm giving a very judgmental stare right now).

Roast a red pepper.

On the side I made the grilled fingerling potatoes from Melissa Cookston's Smokin' Hot in the South. Slice the potatoes and then add salt, pepper, olive oil, tarragon, and garlic and mix up.

I added a little tinfoil pack of pecan wood chips and then threw them on the grill.

Once the patties are made add basil, mozzarella, and the chopped roasted peppers before adding the top layer of meat to seal in the goody.

Looking back, maybe I should have made the patties and filling a little thinner.

I'm not a big pepper fan because I don't feel they add a whole lot to most things. I was picking up pieces of the roasted red pepper that would fall out and stuck them back in/on by burger to eat. They added a little sweetness kick to all of the flavors from the beef and sausage patties. I did cook them a little further than I would have liked. Being as thick as they are, it was really hard to get a good idea on the cook. Even with that, I would say this is a top 5 burger that I've ever cooked. The flavor is amazing.

As for the fingerling potatoes, they were absolutely delicious. I wish I would have stirred them while they were cooking. Some potatoes got more smoke than the others, so it would have been better to even that out.

Second cookbook creation of the year, and second meal that will be created again.

Happy Lasagna

For Christmas the wifey asked for The Happy Cookbook by Steve and Kathy Doocy. We really hadn't been cooking that many new things lately so that's part of the reason I haven't been posting, but with the new cookbook I thought it was time to get back to both. First up is what's called "Engagement Lasagna".

I'm obviously out of practice of taking pictures for posts since I didn't do a full ingredients picture, but we'll just have to explain on the way through.

Preheat the oven to 350.

In a skillet add EVOO, garlic, and diced onion. The recipe calls for an entire onion I believe, but I only went with half. I may have also intentionally not cleaned out all of the bacon fat from breakfast. Cook on medium-high head until the onions are cooked (translucent).

Once the onions are done they go into a stockpot (see below), and the sausage and beef goes into the skillet to cook.

In the stockpot add 4 more cloves of garlic, tomato paste, red wine, basil, can of crushed tomatoes, tablespoon of sugar and Italian seasoning, and salt and pepper.

Add the yummy delicious meat, stir, bring to a boil, and then reduce heat and let simmer for 30 minutes.

In a separate bowl combine ricotta, Parmesan, parsley, mozzarella, salt, and a quarter of the meat sauce.

Start with a light base layer of sauce on the bottom before adding a layer of noodles. Then spread meat sauce and top with ricotta mixture before adding another layer of noodle. Repeat and top the final layer of noodles with mozzarella.

Cover with a sheet of tin foil and bake for 45 minutes.

Let it sit for 10 minutes, and then chow down.

We made our Mexican Lasagna for years now, but I believe this is the first time I've ever made real lasagna. Heck, it may be the first time I've ever eaten real lasagna. I do know one thing, it won't be the last. This stuff was good. 

Drunk Banana French Toast

For the New Year, I felt like we needed a breakfast that'd help numb that hangover everyone has today.

We have brioche french toast with a loaded banana sauce.

Whisk together 3 large eggs, 4 large egg yolks, and 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar until it's smooth.

Then whisk in a cup of milk, half cup of heavy cream, and 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon and vanilla extract.

Make 1/2 inch thick slices of your bread. Notice my fancy new ceramic knife I got for Christmas.

To cook the french toast, melt 2 tablespoons of butter with 2 tablespoons of canola oil in a saute pan over medium heat. Once melted, place your bread into the batter on both sides until it's soaked. Then move the bread to the saute pan and cook for about 2 minutes on each side, or until golden brown.

(If you need to keep some slices warm, put them on a baking sheet in your oven at 250 degree)

The sauce is really easy, and can be done at the same time as the toast.

First, melt 4 tablespoons of butter over high heat. Once it is melted, whisk in 1 cup of light brown sugar and  a pinch of ground cinnamon until the sugar has melted and it has thickened, approximately 5 minutes.

Add 2 sliced ripe bananas and cook until slightly softened ... a minute.

Remove from the heat and add 2 tablespoons of banana liqueur and 1/2 cup of dark rum or whisky if you don't have rum (mini bottles work as perfect substitutions). Add the sauce back to the heat for about 2 more minutes (your choice) to cook the alcohol off.

This was sweet, but the alcohol helped cut the sweetness and give you that kick to get your day going.

New York Strips with Tequila-Chipotle Butter Sauce and Loaded Smashed Potatoes

Checked out the BBQ-Brethern Thursday to see if there were any throwdowns that were interesting and would give me some ideas for dinners. I saw that the Steak and Potatoes throwdown was expiring on Monday, so did some searches and found a couple of new recipes to give a shot.

The first thing to do is to make the tequila-chipotle butter. To do this take 1/2 cup of unsalted butter, 1/8 cup of parsley, 1/2 banana pepper seeded, 1 tablespoons of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, 1 tablespoons of silver tequila, and 1 1/2 teaspoons of brown sugar.

All all of the ingredients into a blender and puree until smooth.

Lay out a sheet of plastic wrap and place the butter in the middle and roll tightly creating a log. Once it's rolled and the wrap is sealed, place the log in the freezer while you're making the rest. If you want to make this the night before, you can just put this straight in the fridge.

For the loaded smashed potatoes, I cooked an entire pack of bacon (ended up not needing that much, so I just ate the extra bacon while I was grilling the steaks). Then sliced and boiled 12 small red potatoes till three quarters done. Brush the potatoes with olive oil and place them in a baking dish and bake in a 425 degree over until fully cooked. Once ready, smash the potatoes and top with crumbled bacon, fried onions, and cheese. Throw it all back in the oven for about 5 more minutes to melt the cheese. Add a little sour cream and chives on top.

Grill the steak to perfection and create some sexy grill marks.

Every now and then I got a hit of spice from the butter, but it was absolutely delicious. We will definitely be saving the butter for steaks in the future.

Low Country Shrimp and Bacon Bog with Bacon Cornbread

We were trying to find something new and different to eat for dinner, so I grabbed my Bacon Cookbook and started flipping.

I was calling out some of the dishes that I thought sounded good and would grade on the loudness of the wifey's "mmmmm" whether that meant we would be making it or not. Lets just say the "mmmm" I got when I read "Low Country Shrimp and Bacon Bog" was far bigger than any of the others.

It has a lot of ingredients, but is fairly simple to make.

You'll need bacon, onion, long-grain rice (we used brown rice), chicken broth, medium tomato, lemon, worcestershire sauce, salt, ground black pepper (we used smoked salt and pepper), cayenne pepper, nutmeg, shrimp, and parsley leaves.

Get your frying pan and cook 1/2lb of bacon. (pictured with black pepper bacon for cornbread below)

Once the bacon is finished, removed all but about 3 tablespoons of the fat from the pan (or more, or less) add 1 diced onion and stir for 3 minutes.

Add 1 1/2 cups of your rice and stir till it's mixed well.

Then add 2 1/4 cups of chicken broth, a medium tomato and it's juices, chopped, 2 teaspoons of fresh lemon juice, 1 1/2 teaspoons of worcestershire sauce, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1/4 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper, 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne, 1/4 teaspoon of grated nutmeg and bring to a low simmer.

Cover that and let it cook for 20 minutes.

Uncover and add your precooked bacon and 2 lbs of shrimp, and let cook, uncovered, for 10 minutes. If the rice appears to start drying out, you can add more chicken broth.

To go with it, I also found a recipe for Bacon Cornbread.

For this you'll need, bacon, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, eggs, milk, and vegetable oil (or EVOO).

As I mentioned above, I did the black pepper bacon first, because we needed it for this, but then I did the regular thick cut bacon in that grease, and cooked everything for the bog in the black pepper bacon fat (just to give it a little more flavor).

Preheat the over to 425 degrees and grease a 12x8x2 baking pan. Mix 4 cups of cornmeal, 4 teaspoons of baking powder, and 1 teaspoon of salt. Add 4 large beaten eggs, 4 cups of milk, and 1/4 cup of vegetable oil or EVOO and stir with a wooden spoon until it's blended and smooth. Once that's ready, add the delicious bacon, and stir again to make sure it's evenly distributed. Scrap that into your pan and let bake for 25-30 minutes, or until you can put a knife in the center and it comes out clean.

Once everything is ready and you make your portions, sprinkle a little minced parsley leaves on top and serve.

I prefer sweet cornbread over "regular" cornbread, so it was a little on the dryer side for me. Dawn loved it, so if it sounds good to you, take her opinion over mine here. As for the bog part, honestly, we under cooked the rice a hair, and by a hair I mean a good bit. Apparently brown rice takes a good bit longer to cook than long-grain rice does ... or either we suck as cooks.

Either way, it was absolutely delicious, and we will be making this again.

A Southerner's Dream Come True: Whiskey & Bacon

Guess what, New York Strips were on sale ... so guess what this guy got ...

We tried a new recipe on these. We went to Pepper Palace on vacation and picked up this "American Blend" rub. It smelled good and I'm a patriotic person so we got it. Sprinkled some veggie oil on, then garlic, and topped it off with the rub.

Let it marinate for about 15 minutes and then threw it on the grill (make sure to pat it dry before placing on the grill. The "juice" will cause it to flare up) and sprinkled on a whiskey and worcestershire sauce mix as I rotated.

On the side, we made a bacon "confetti cream corn". It sounds fancy, but is pretty simple. Take your corn and cut it off the cob ...

dice 1/2 a cup of sweet onion, green pepper, and red pepper ....

and cook it all together on med-high for 6 minutes or till it's soft. Then add 8oz cream cheese, 1/2 cup of half and half, and 1 tsp of sugar, salt, and black pepper.

To continue with the whiskey theme, we decided to make a special drink. Now, Georgia may be named "The Peach State", but South Carolina produces more peaches than Georgia. To put it simple, even at their claim to fame, South Carolina is still better than they are.

The drink is simple, you mix half of a chopped up peach (doesn't have to be as chopped as pictured), 1 1/2 turbinado sugar, and 3 oz whiskey, shake it up and poor into a glass, and then add 1/4 cup of "lemon-lime soft drink" (Dawn made me get the "zero" ... stupid trying to get in shape), or however much for your preference.

As the drinks are being made, the steaks come off the grill. For some reason, I didn't get the marks I usually do, but they were cooked to perfection.

Oh yeah, don't forget the bacon to go on top of the corn, because bacon makes everything better.

The Georgia jabs and peach comments were solely made in honor of this weekends game. You see, my Gamecocks may have taken a little lump in week 1, and we may not have played the best against ECU, but the Jawja Mutts are coming to town, and here in the south, we believe in our teams till the bitter sweet end. So, with that said, LET'S GO COCKS!!!!!