What's "Cooking" in Tiki Central?

Here ya go Amy. The purple is Sterno, not any sort of dipping sauce :)

MadDog Mike: Culinary Savant - I'm not afraid to experiment with your food :D

Wow, MDM - I'll have to keep my eyes out for those coconut marshmallows. Have never seen them anywhere!

I was down with a sore throat yesterday, so slept and read about Momofuku all day.

http://www.amazon.com/Momofuku-David-Chang/dp/030745195X

When I got around to eating in the eve, I made a rice noodle miso soup with scallops, edamame, and tater tots.
(Cuz that's what I had in the freezer)

The grungy lookin' bits around the edge are bonito flakes.

TATER TOTS!!! :o :lol:

They sell the toasted coconut marshmallows at my WalMart. The San Diego Chop has been canceled, so I have a lot of Jambalaya to eat :) I think I'll bag and freeze the Banana Pineapple Gingersnaps for a later occasion.

also ATP exclaims "TaterTots!"

To bad about the Chop, MDM oh well more for you....

Dinner is served....

Here is my Island Burger...
BBQ Burger, Pepperjack cheese,Teryaki sauce, Grilled Pineapples & all the trimmings w/Red Potato Salad.

mmmmmm.

Once you try pepper Jack cheese, you never go back to plain ol' Jack

Truer words may never have been spoken. Pepper Jack Rules!

Hope you are feeling better Amy.
Pepperjack & Pineapple, sweet & spicy!

Thanks ATP! I know what I'm (planning on) making for dinner tonight. I may post pics if it works out.

I decided to make pasta salad out of the leftover Greek Chicken and I got a little carried away with the ingredients :lol:

Chicken
Veggie Rotini
Celery
Grape Tomatoes
PEPPER JACK CHEESE
Avocado
Zucchini
Broccoli
Black Olives
Italian Salad Dressing

That's some One Stop Shopping there, Mad Dog!
I bet you eat a few forkfuls and you're done for the night :wink:

Feeling much better, ATP, thanks!

PS- PEPPER JACK!

Now thats a Pasta Salad MDM!

I picked up some gourmet Hotdogs from our local butcher last night when I got Hambuger meat for yesterdays meal
I have been eyeballing them for some months, thinking how much better can they be? at $10 a pound they better be something special, right?

So we splurged out of pure curiosity, I don't know if they will be picture worthy? if so I will post a pic.

All Hail the Pepperjack!

$10 "gourmet" hotdogs? I think you've been BAMBOOZLED!!! Are they made from "gourmet" floor sweepings? Are they marketed by the same people that sell bottled water for $20 per gallon? :lol: JUST KIDDING, let us know how they are :)

Well they may cost to much, but they sure did taste good.
Made Fancy Chili Cheese Dogs....

Looks good, is that a nice crusty roll?

Well? How were they, we need a review. Compare and contrast with Oscar Meyer or Hebrew National :)

MadDog,
They had a very good meaty flavor, you could taste the beef & pork with a light flavor of spices, I grilled them
to get that crunch the best hot dogs have.
I normally get Nathan's from the market which we like,These were very good, no funny after taste like many store bought dogs.

I used fresh baked french rolls, overall really good dogs, but expensive.

Hey Dinners on!
Tonight's Menu.....

Traditional Danish Pea Soup in Sourdough bread bowls,Topped with Applewood Smoked Bacon

The traditional means I used Yellow Peas instead of Green ones.
This is one of my wifes favorite dishes.

[ Edited by: Atomic Tiki Punk 2010-01-31 20:47 ]

ATP I missed the soup in the breadbowl, luscious! I'm supposed to make yellow pea soup for our Canadian themed opening Olympics ceremony dinner next week.

There's an old story about a guy who was tired of living in a border town. He was going to put a tortilla on his antenna and drive north until someone asked "What the hell is that?" And that's where he would stop and settle down.

I'm not sure how far north Carne Asada reaches. It's a flap meat marinated in lemon juice, garlic, oregano, and cilantro - really good BBQ'd and made into burritos or tacos with guacamole. I picked some up today and asked the butcher if he could grind it up for me - he looked at me a little funny. I shaped it into 1/2 pound burgers, grilled them, and made guacamole burgers with PEPPER JACK CHEESE. It was a fun little experiment and they taste pretty good, but it would have made better burritos :D

MadDog Mike: Culinary Savant - I'm not afraid to experiment with YOUR food

Hi MDM,
I was wondering where everyone went to?
All hail the Pepperjack!

I like to experiment to, Those remind me of a place we had here years ago by the Newport FunZone
it was called Papagayo's they had the best tacos & a Mexican mini burger they called Hamburgercitas
they were just outstanding! alas now we have no good Mexican food here in our village now, not since the banditos
came.

[ Edited by: Atomic Tiki Punk 2010-02-03 20:20 ]

There is (or was?) a Papagayo's at Seaport Village in San Diego (it may be spelled Papagallos) I wonder if it was a chain or if that's just a cool name for a Mexican restaurant?

It was the only one, the family that ran it cashed out & moved to mexico, they will forever be damned, damned to hell I say!
It was one of those great Tacos Joints, the closest thing that has come to it is the Santana's chain out of San Diego

We do have a few places around like Hank's, Supermex etc. but not great, I have hit alot of the little real mexican joints in Santa Ana etc
They are authentic, which means cheap fatty meat. I have yet to try one of those gourmet roach coach trucks.

So what is everyone else's favorite Taco Joint?

Can i ask what PEPPERJACK CHEESE is? Is that a brand name or a type of cheese? Never heard of that here in Aus.

Hi Swizzle,

From Wikipedia: Pepper jack cheese is a derivative of Monterey Jack that includes spicy hot peppers for flavor. Spicy, delicate and buttery, pepper jack cheese is semi-soft and open textured with a slightly tart flavor.

Pepper jack is often used as an alternative cheese in dishes such as quesadillas, and also eaten with bread or crackers. The name was made popular by the Rumiano Cheese Company.

A variation of pepper jack cheese involves using specific peppers. The most common varieties of this specific-pepper jack cheese are jalapeño jack and habanero jack, but other varieties are available.

From ATP: "it is a bit spicy & all cheese-O-licious" next to swiss cheese (i.e. Jarlsberg) it's the bees knees! but hey you can't go wrong with CHEESE!

All Hail the PEPPER JACK! I'm thinking aboput making some stickers.
Like everything else, not all brands are good. I've found the organic ones to be the worst.
Trader Joe's has a decent one packaged in round slices. (fear not the pre-slice)

You were asking about tacos- here's a site for the "other" food photos you're taking (eating out)
and a picture from the other day's taco fest:

http://www.foodspotting.com/reviews/9039

This particular truck in East Oakland has amazing carnitas. The city made them remove the picnic table
from their parking lot location, so we decided to bring our own l'il table and chairs for a stealth picnic
(You gotta eat em right away or they leak like crazy all over your car) This truck is one of many,
parked daily all over Oakland, CA 94602.

well I have not had the chance to cook in the last couple of days
Sooooo....All Hail The Pepperjack!

That is all for now.

Eaten so quickly, I forgot to take the picture:
meatballs in a garlicky tomato sauce on a 1/2 crusty bun with melted mozzarella.

Sounds Good!

Something in my pantry has been catching my eye lately...

...way in the back - old friend SPAM!

I had all the necessary accoutrement, so it's time to make some Musubi! I've made this a bunch of times, but this is my favorite method so far.

...ahh, can't you smell that lovely aroma?

Proper extraction technique

Don't slice 'em too thin - this isn't health food now.

Fry 'em up - no need for additional oil... I think the spam itself has that covered :wink:

Don't cook 'em too long either (or else they'll dry out)

...mmmm

Drain the oil...

Meanwhile, I cooked about 5 cups of sushi rice - I always let mine sit covered for about an hour to get proper moisture distribution.

Now it's time to make a glaze - here's the ingredients. (ignore the Hello Kitty furikake, I'll get to that later)

Simmer the glaze to reduce

I added a corn starch slurry for extra thickness

...oh yeah, I think the glaze is thick enough

I almost forgot... make sure to drink beer throughout this entire process

Put the delectable Spam in the glaze to sit and soak it up for a while.

Now grab the nori for the musubi wrapping

too big...

just right!! (I'm a genius)

Use your fancy-schmancy musubi maker, or the spam can itself to mold the rice

...looking good, looking good

...on goes le Spam en glaze

...oops I forgot the furikake - pull the spam off and sprinkle on your Hello Kitty furikake.

now isn't that just the cutest thing you've ever seen?!

...back to the musubi - hey look, we're done! I moistened the edge of the nori so it sticks when you roll it.

I individually wrap mine, both for freshness sake, and also cuz it softens the nori nicely.

I wanted to use up the last of my garlic chili paste, so I made a couple of musubis with this inside.

awww, yeah...

tell me that doesn't look good!

Musubi for days!! (at least a couple days that is)

Cheers!
Trad'r Bill

Hi Bill,
Thanks for joining in, I used to live in Hawaii, so I am very familiar with the local cuisine.
But I gota say I don't miss the Spam Rolls!

Nice job of posting and you made it just like I remember them.

When I visited Hawaii, I remember them selling Spam Musubi at the 7-11, but I never tried it with garlic-chili sauce - yeah baby!

Tonight I made Italian Pesto Dumplings, inspired by a Rachael Ray recipe. Gnochi dumplings pan fried in butter and lemon juice & zest. I made this every month or so. Served with zucchini & flame roasted tomatoes, 7 grain Italian bread with oil & balsalmic vinegar dipping sauce.

Oooo I love gnocchi!

Here's some spaghetti and meatballs from tonite:

That's looking great you guys, Pesto yea! Mike, Amy pasta is just a classic dish, sometimes I go all out for hours making something special
but sometimes you just toss some pasta in butter & garlic, chopped fresh Basil & shaved parmesan all of 10 minutes cooking
and it just rocks.

I am sorry I am not cooking tonight as we are off to Don the Beachcomber's to meetup with some TCers (not rubbing it in, no really I am not)
wish you guys could make it.

Just noticed the Balsamic & Olive oil Mike! Hella-Yea!

I really wasn't a fan of gnochi, I had tried it a few times and found it to be bland and gummy. Then I saw this recipe that called for gnochi fried in BUTTER! How could that NOT be good? :lol:

Chapulines

Grasshoppers

grasshoppers Zeta?

Looks yummy Zeta but my shrimp allergy extends to all arthropods, sorry but no grasshoppers for me :D

Wikipedia said:*
Chapulines are grasshoppers of the genus Sphenarium. They are collected only at certain times of year (from their hatching in early May through the late summer/early autumn). After being thoroughly cleaned and washed, they are toasted on a comal (clay cooking surface) with garlic and lemon juice and sal de gusano*, lending a sour-spicy-salty taste to the finished product. Some people will toast their chapulines with chiles, but some vendors and cooks feel that chiles are used to cover for stale chapulines and only show up in the poorest quality grasshoppers. Chapulines are available only in certain parts of Mexico, the state and city of Oaxaca being one of the better known regions. There is debate over how long Chapulines have been a food source in Oaxaca. There is one reference to grasshoppers that are eaten in early records of the conquest. Today, Chapuline are harvested throughout the summer and enjoyed largely in and around Oaxaca City, Oaxaca. They are sold as snacks at local baseball games and are enjoying something of a revival among foodies

*sal de gusano is made of salt, chiles, and roasted agave worms *

[ Edited by: MadDogMike 2010-02-07 07:20 ]

Zeta , , , those hoppers look rather puny to me . . . hardly enough there to qualify as a "meal".

Oh, I get it, Zeta was on a TC Sweep quest. You know Zeta, if you didn't actually "make" those Chapulines then your whole sweep is invalidated :lol:

Thanks Zeta for mixing it up on this thread, now I am beginning to feel like ANTHONY BOURDAIN
And that's pretty cool.

"I don't do karaoke"

Hey everyone this thread is now over 5000 views in under 3 months!!!!
Thanks to all who made it worth checking out, now why more people are not posting here WTF!
Join in all you lurkers!

:tiki: I think it is time for a contest of sorts, Everyone Vote for their favorite meal posted here! :tiki:

We will start the voting next Sunday Feb. 14th at midnight til the following Sunday Feb. 21st midnight

That gives anyone interested a week to post a meal/picture.
I exclude myself from voting as I will tally the votes & all voting should be posted right here for all to see.

So get to cooking! & the contest starts here next Sunday at Midnight!

[ Edited by: Atomic Tiki Punk 2010-02-07 18:09 ]

[ Edited by: Atomic Tiki Punk 2010-02-07 18:09 ]

On 2010-02-07 18:08, Atomic Tiki Punk wrote:
I think it is time for a contest of sorts, Everyone Vote for their favorite meal posted here!

Winner, winner, chicken dinner! :lol:

Chicken Paella with red & yellow peppers, onions, tomatoes, and artichoke hearts. Garnished with lemons, olives, and parsley. Carmelized on the bottom and served in the classic Spanish style - in the pan. Chilled Spanish Sangria. Note the colors of the Spanish flag; red, black, and yellow. What you can't hear is the classic Flamenco sounds of Armik playing softly in the background.

MadDog Mike: future recipient of the "What Did You Make for Dinner" Award :)

That look great! MDM I wish I could have some tonight for dinner? your 3 hours away? right? damn storm!
Do you put spanish chorizo in yours?

Great job and a possible winner next week!

OMG! I think you're ready for that foodporn.com site. (they send me a photo every day of something amazing.)

Now my friend is afraid to post her "poor" roasted potatoes!

ATP, I don't find Spanish chorizo down here - only the local Mexican chorizo which is very different.

Amy, tell her I want to see roasted potatoes :) Foodporn.com? :o Scared of that!

MadDogMike wins tonights dinner hands down, I just made rainy day food.

Grilled Cheese on Sourdough & a bowl of Spicy Pho

I forgot to photograph :(

Steamed collards, kale, carrots and broccolini over polenta refried with mushrooms and garlic.

GOOD JOB, you guys! I'll have to set a photo alarm tomorrow.