The Lazy Gourmet

[Unorthodox]

While we're discussing corn...

If you're only cooking for one or two, you can use the microwave to cook an ear of sweet corn in the husk. 1 ear, 4 minutes. 2 ears, 8 minutes.

Use a glove or oven mitt to remove it, it will be hot. 
Use a knife to cut of the butt end of the ear ( cut so as to remove the first ring of kernels )
Squeezing from the silk end, you can push the ear out through the cut.

Gourmet because it tastes great, Lazy because it's the easiest way to completely de-silk an ear of corn. As you probably know, cooked corn silk tastes like lawn clippings smell.

*sigh*

It's not that hard to get the silk off people.  Use a toothbrush or vegetable brush.  DRY, don't put water on the corn. 

Microwave...may as well just throw the corn out....people should try it raw anyway...

...We did an experiment with grilling unshucked corn about a month ago.  Not setting fire to it is tricky, but leaving it laying on the upper shelf on some aluminum foil while the ribs grill was too slow.  Mylochka pronounced the end-result definitely worth further research.  Not that lazy, and likely nothing grilled counts as gourmet, but M sez delicious...

Did you soak it first? 

So, "THE" way to do this is to peel the husk back to the base, remove the silk, and replace the husk.  Soak in a bucket of water for 20 minutes, then place directly on the grill for ~20 minutes, rolling every 5. 


There's a street vendor in ogden here that serves "Mexican corn on the cob".  I haven't decided if the name is offensive or not yet. 

Anyhow, he has a big steam cart full of cooked corn.  When you order, he takes the corn cob and removes the kernels into a cup (so, it's not on a cob anymore, and thus I'm uncertain of the offense...), then mixes cheese, guacamole, sour cream, and hot sauce into it.  Stuff is FANTASTIC.  Remember offering it at one of our pumpkin carves and no one knew what I was talking about.   

[Buster's Uncle]

It was a first try, and not my idea.  I was surprised the grilled flavor did anything for corn.  Our biggest error was leaving ALL the husks on.  It needed to be stripped down to one or two layers; the whole shebang left on for most of the cook time insulated it too much from the heat and smoke alike.  I'll remember the soaking trick if we get ahold of anymore unshucked corn to try with this season.

That was interesting. There's something about the early stages of social organization that I find appealing..

Perhaps it's uniting the wandering tribes into a CIVILISATION!   

Anyway, While it could have taken years to build, if it was the site of an annual gathering/festival ( reminds me of the mountain men's annual Rendezvous in the American Rockies in the early to mid 1800s ) , they could agree to build it, and have everyone carry one river stone up the hill while they are there. That would be very symbolic. Or turn it into a strong man's contest, to see who could carry the most head sized stones up the hill in an afternoon. Same kind of thing with digging. With prizes and libation, that could be fun. Much the same as a barn raising.

Extended families are able to do massive amounts of work in a single day, like replacing a roof or butchering.  Communities can clean up a river.  If it's something done by and for a community, it wouldn't have to take years to build.

HEY, I think you have good insight, there.  That just has that ring of a thing that when you hear it, you know it's true/right.

[Buster's Uncle]

I repeated this talk of corn, Rusty's microwave trick and Uno's soaking advice for grilling, to my wimminz the other day, and of course that meant Mylochka voted ribs, soonest, and today I had to grill supper.

Uno, the soaking seemed to work.  Mom put two ears in a deep pan of water a couple hours in advance, turning them a few times.  She peeled the husks until the corn was almost uncovered, and I put the corn on the upper grill shelf on a piece of aluminum foil as before -this time with the edges crumbled upwards and a touch of water in the bottom, which mostly just kept the corn from trying to roll off until the heat flattened the foil.  Up on the shelf, soaked and not quite completely shucked seemed to do the trick.  Mylochka said it was done enough, not too much, and had a good smokiness.  (Mom don't care about it smoked, and I don't eat corn due to far too many childhood force-feedings.  I wish I'd thrown up while Daddy was doing it far sooner than age 14, since it seemed to break him of that charming parental habit.  Protip: do that too much, and someday when they're too big to force, they will never eat whatever again; you saw to that.)


If anyone uses that idea of making up for the low smokiness on a gas grill with some wood in the bottom?  1.) Little broken off sticks of whatever long-dead branchlets off the brush pile at the edge of the yard seem to make no difference from store-bought bags of applewood chips.  Also, free.  A pecan tree is right over my grilling place, so I know old dead pecan wood works.  2.) I don't know why damp wood smokes more -I'd assumed it was just more visible because steam, but you can smell the difference, even old, dead, not-green wood- but if you can prepare/plan ahead a little, see that your wood will be damp in advance to give it time to soak in a little.  I seem to get better smokiness results even when I forget and have to spray the wood thoroughly right before I light the grill.  Surely, it causes the wood to burn out a bit slower and gives you a little better control of the initial heat...

My working theory now is that the expanding steam carries more particulate matter into the air in the smoke.  Uno?

[Buster's Uncle]

Note on my previous advice to dampen deadwood/brush in a gas grill for smoke flavor:  for once, I bothered to wet the wood by immersion far in advance, and you can definitely overdo this.  I grilled chicken two days ago and threw leftover wood in a bucket; today, it was burgers for supper, and I had left the wood in there and only took it out at grill time - in 20 minutes, half of it didn't dry enough to light.  I didn't really think that was possible, the way the gas flame comes disproportionately out the back in our worn old grill, but wood too wet to burn smokes even less than super-dry wood.  We did get less burning of the food, though, and I can now confirm that a couple (2) charcoal briquettes makes a non-trivial difference in flavor.

[Buster's Uncle]

I just got drafted to grill bratwurst and dogs; be back when I'm back.  Y'all try not to wreck up the place too bad while I'm afk...

[Buster's Uncle]

I didn't think anyone would obey.  Y'all suck at wrecking up a place.

The brats were delicious.

[Rusty Edge]

Life is getting interesting. My MIL is losing her mind due to mixed dementia. So sometimes she double salts cookies, for example, or leaves an iron skillet full of grease from last week's meal in the oven while she makes other stuff in the oven...

That and the recent inlaw blow-up means that I'm doing more of the cooking, often on short notice and with dynamic head counts. I'm geared to cooking for two. Recipes, pot and pan sizes, inventory of fresh and frozen foods.

In the last year since the god-daughter moved in, that has been two ( plus one after work sometimes ). So that meant preparing a serving to be either warmed up or completed later that evening depending on the demands of her work. )

So my wife volunteers for me to cook dinner when her cousin came to visit. Great! I like this cousin. Wife figures a beef stew, because she's talking about having MIL over, maybe her husband later, and eventually a variable number of nieces.

Well, I have a blood donation scheduled that afternoon, and most of the stew work is done in the afternoon. But, cooking dinner for more than four on the stove top means repeating recipes, because  my stuff isn't big enough to do my popular meals for say 5+ 2 , or however many the variable head count was . So, I settled on two  options- 1) The beef stew, but that meant that the wife would have to do some things while I was away, including monitoring the temp.. 2) Grilled chicken with corn and mashed potatoes, which meant her watching the stove top for that one.

She chose #2 . I had some frozen chicken filets from COSTCO in the freezer. They'd been there too long, and were a little icy and dried, being the bottom of the bag. I defrosted/drained/rinsed them and marinated them in some Lemon/Ginger/sesame salad dressing.  I had done this once before, and it was a hit with wife and goddaughter, because they like Asian flavors. 

More importantly, it was a major hit with the guest of honor. She wanted to know why the chicken was so moist... Also she said it was the best frozen corn she'd ever had. I gave her some from the freezer to take home. I figured she could eat what my brother in law wasn't going to get. Also, we made plans for me to teach her how to process corn this summer. She has a co-worker corn source.

I would like to credit Bill Clinton, who I once read liked steak marinated in bottled salad dressing, maybe it was Ranch. I could never bring myself to do that to a steak...but a chicken, why not?

[vonbach]

My brother makes a chicken breast dish stuffed with olives and seasoned with paprika and lemon zest thats nice.

[Unorthodox]

My latest seems to be Enchiladas.  Since my first time trying to make them, I've found everyone else's sauce to be inadequate. 

Melt a cube of butter, brown onions and garlic in it, make a roux with the resulting mix, pour in a can of chicken broth, 2 cans of tomato sauce, and season to taste with chili powder and cumin, simmer to desired consistency.   

I like to take half that sauce, and cook the meat with it in the crock pot for 6+ hours, and use the other half to pour over the top after making the enchiladas. 

[abc123]

I'm fairly non specific -- whatever looks like it would spoil first goes into the pot. Sometimes it becomes a decent meat & vege stew.

If I buy Rotini, I get the three color kind. 

[Rusty Edge]

I'm fairly non specific -- whatever looks like it would spoil first goes into the pot. Sometimes it becomes a decent meat & vege stew.

If I buy Rotini, I get the three color kind. 

That's my favorite pasta! It holds sauce so well, and it's not messy to eat like spaghetti and angel hair.

[Elok]

I invented "ugly chicken" a while back.  You make a roux (butter and flour), add chicken broth (I use homemade stuff from our pressure cooker), garlic, thyme, lemon juice and/or white wine, pepper, and pre-cooked chicken (generally produced as a byproduct of the broth, or vice-versa).  Usually I add some frozen spinach too.  The result looks like vomit, hence the name.  But it's sublimely tasty when served over noodles.

[Elok]

If you have never tried unstabilized ricotta, you should.  Check the ingredients list; most of the stuff in groceries is loaded down with guar gum or what-have-you, and has a weird texture and/or gross aftertaste.  If it's just milk, vinegar, and salt, though . . . hoo boy!  Light, fluffy, creamy, and faintly sweet.  I just eat it with a spoon, like ice cream.

Cabot's full-fat Greek yogurt is a roughly similar sort of pleasure, but heavier and pricier.  Ten percent milkfat, no added flavor, beats that sugary Yoplait junk hollow.  But at some point you have to put down the spoon and confront the fact that you aren't all that far removed from just biting hunks straight off a stick of butter.

[Unorthodox]

Attempting a crock pot chicken curry today.  Made last night, cooking all day, will taste tonight. 

Something of an offshoot of the enchiladas above in some ways.  Differing spices, but similar methods. 

[Unorthodox]

Attempting a crock pot chicken curry today.  Made last night, cooking all day, will taste tonight. 

Turned into a passable Murgh Mahkani (spelling) Indian butter chicken. 

Well, everyone else loved it, so I guess it was a success in that way.  In fact, it's the boss's favorite now.  (it tasted fine, but has enough dairy to bother my digestion)  I still prefer my Tikka Masala, but do at the restaurants as well. 

Mostly just annoyed at a couple minor mistakes I made:

I totally underestimated the amount of liquid the frozen chicken was going to add to the thing as it cooked.  This meant I had to take it out of the crock pot and add flower to thicken the sauce on the stove.  Better planning would have avoided that.  Heck.  REALLY advanced planning and I would have the more authentic ground cashews on hand to thicken the sauce instead of flour. 

It was on the spicy end for the kids because I underestimated how much the cayenne was going to strengthen overnight. 

Anyhow:

2 cubes butter
5 cloves garlic
3 T ground ginger
large onion diced
sautee all that together till the onion is clear. 
Then make a thin roux out of the results. 

Add 4 cups chicken broth, 1 can diced tomatoes, 1 can tomato sauce. 

Bring to a simmer. 
Add 3 T tandoori blend
3 T curry powder
1 T cayenne
Salt to taste

Separately, roughly 26 frozen boneless/skinless chicken tenderloin strips, cubed.

Throw it all in the crock pot overnight, and put it on low the next morning for 10+ hours. 

30 minutes before serving, add heavy cream to the desired consistency. 

(Next time, I'll cut the broth in half, as I had to add flour here to thicken it further)

So more of a work today to be lazy all week thing, as it cooks enough for 3 meals for us (though the 'other' meals are more lunches for hEt as she works, and dinners for the kids cause I'm lazy)