Index:
Marshall's Amazing Butt Rub
BBQ Pig Marinade
"Homemade" Spicy Ketchup
Logan's Inside Stuffed Belly Bomb
Cheeseburgers
Kaleidoscope Salsa
Classic Salsa
Worlds Easiest Rice
Crab Boiled Peanuts
Sourdough Starter
Sourdough "Sponge"
Sourdough Pancakes
Sourdough Bread
Homemade White Bread
Best Damn French Toast I Ever Tasted
Fried Grits
Low Cal Mostly Vegetable Soup
| 5 Tbl | brown sugar |
| 5 Tbl | regular sugar |
| 6 Tbl | salt |
| 4 Tbl | paprika |
| 2 ½ Tbl | dry mustard |
| 2 ½ Tbl | onion powder |
| 2 ½ Tbl | garlic powder |
| 2 Tbl | dried basil |
| 1 ½ Tbl | ground coriander |
| 1 Tbl | thyme |
| 1 Tbl | black pepper |
| 1 Tbl | white pepper |
| 2 tsp | cumin |
This stuff is not just for Butts. Mix everything together. Shake on any piece of meat before grilling. Not to heavy.
| 4 Tbl | crushed garlic |
| 3 Tbl | oregano (crushed, not ground) |
| 1 Tbl | freshly ground black pepper |
| ¼ cup | salt |
| ½ cup | orange juice |
| 1 | lemon, juice only |
My folks got this recipe when we lived in Puerto Rico. Its sour and damn salty but tastes great on a dead porker. Dad uses it to cook a whole pig over a fire. If you happen to have a whole pig lying around, make a few cuts through the skin on the sides and hams when you put it on the spit. Most of it will run off as the pig heats up and the fat runs off, so keep reapplying the marinade often. A plastic soft drink bottle with a hole drilled in the top works well. This also works well on a large hunk of pork (ham, butt, etc) cooked on the grill.
Just mix it all together.
Tabasco® pepper sauce
Any store bought
ketchup
I like spicy ketchup, but the companies that make it charge way too much just because they added some hot sauce. Besides, by adding my own hot sauce I can adjust the heat however I want. Just add 1 Tablespoon of Tabasco® to each 12 ounces of store bought ketchup.
Mix it all together and squirt it all over everything!
| 2½ Lbs | ground round or chuck |
| 2 Tbl | Marshall's Amazing Butt Rub |
| ¼ cup | Dale's® Steak Seasoning |
| 1½ cups | coarsely shredded cheddar cheese |
This is one of my son Logan's favorite meals. The seasonings and cheese are already in the burger and they are big enough to choke a full grown horse. Don't try to cook them in a skillet. The cheese makes a mess. They must be cooked on a grill. Make sure you use coarsley shredded cheese. If individual pieces of cheese are not large enough, it just mixes in and looses the effect. You can also add diced onions or sliced mushrooms. Just mix everything together and form into 4 huge patties. Make the patties about half as thick in the middle as they are on the edges. This helps them cook evenly and keeps them from shrinking into large meatballs when you grill them.
| 2 cups | mixed fruit and mellons |
| 1 | medium tomato |
| ½ | medium onion |
| ¼ cup | cilantro |
| ½ | lime (juice only) |
| ½ tsp | salt |
| 1 tsp | sugar |
| 1½ tsp | Tabasco® Habanero Sauce (or to taste) |
This stuff is very colorful and really delicious on a hot summer afternoon. It's also fat free.
You can use any summer fruits or mellons. I like to use honeydews, cantaloupes, mangos, and papayas, but use what ever makes you happy. Finely chop everything. Add the salt, sugar, lime juice, and habanero pepper sauce and stir it all together. Chill in the fridge.
This is easy to make and tastes great. Its gets better after a few hours on the fridge.
| 3 | medium tomatoes, diced (the fresher the better) |
| 1 | medium onion, diced |
| ¼ ot ½ cup | cilantro, finely chopped |
| 1 | lime (juice only) |
| 2 Tbl | tequila |
| 2 tsp | salt |
| 2 tsp | sugar |
| 2 tsp | garlic powder |
| 1 tsp | Tabasco® Habanero Sauce |
| 2 cups | Uncle Ben’s rice (must be Uncle Ben’s or other converted rice) |
| 2 ½ cups | water |
| 1 Tbl | margarine |
Put everything in a small glass bowl (I use a meatloaf pan) and cover tightly with aluminum foil. Put in a 350o oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes. That’s it!
| 1 gallon | water |
| ¾ cup | salt |
| 1 cup | Zatarain's® liquid crab boil (total) |
| 2 Lbs | raw peanuts (in the shell) |
Mix the salt and ¼ to ½ cup of crab boil (¼ cup if you want mild peanuts, ½ cup for stronger peanuts) with the water and bring to a boil. Add the peanuts; reduce to a simmer and cover. Stir occasionally. For the next 2 ½ to 4 hours add 1 Tbl of crab boil every half-hour. Check the peanuts after 2 ½ hours to see if they are done. It may take as long as 4 hours to cook some peanuts. Drain.
| 2 cups | all purpose flour |
| 2 cups | warm water |
| 1 package | yeast |
Sourdough is very popular now. When I was a child we lived in Alaska for almost five years. Mom made sourdough bread and pancakes. I loved them. You can make your own but you'll need to make a starter first. Here's how.
Mix the flour water and yeast and put in a plastic, glass, or pottery bowl. Cover the starter with saran wrap and put it in the oven. Turn the oven light on to keep the oven warm. Leave this overnight. In the morning it should be bubbling slowly. Put 1 cup of starter in a clean crock, seal it and put it the back of the refrigerator. Use the rest for hotcakes or bread.
Use glass or pottery crock to hold the starter. (Pottery is best because it doesn’t transmit light) The starter should only contain flour, water, and yeast. Never sugar. It can be kept in the refrigerator for many months but will separate. If this happens, stir the starter with a stainless steel spoon (never use any kind of metal other than stainless steel). It should have a slight, clean, sour milk odor. If it smells bad throw it out.
| Sourdough starter | |
| 2 cups | warm water |
| 2 cups | all purpose flour |
All sourdough recipes require a sourdough sponge.
Start the night before. Let the starter come to room temp in a plastic, glass, or crockery medium mixing bowl (Don’t use metal, even stainless steel, for the sponge bowl). Add the flour and water. Cover it and put it in the oven with the light on. The light will keep the oven warm, but not hot. Leave in the oven overnight.
The next morning the mixture should have doubled in size. It will have a pleasant yeasty odor and be covered with bubbles. Blend it together with a fork. Before using in a recipe, take 1 cup of this mixture and set it aside in your refrigerator crock for the next time.
| 1 | egg |
| 1 tsp | baking soda |
| 1 tsp | salt |
| 1 Tbl | sugar |
My favorite breakfast as a kid was when Mom made these. They are thin, light and best made about 4” in diameter.
Make a sourdough sponge the night before. In the morning, add the egg, soda, salt, and sugar and blend well. Cook on a hot griddle.
| 4 cups | all purpose flour |
| 2 Tbl | sugar |
| 1 tsp | salt |
| 2 Tbl | vegetable oil |
| ½ tsp | baking soda |
Make a sourdough sponge. Set aside 1 cup for the crock. Add the oil to the sponge and mix well. Put ½ all of the ingredients except the baking soda in a large food processor. Using the dough blade, blend everything. Slowly pour in ½ half of the sponge-oil mixture. When the dough is ready, form it into a ball and rub vegetable or olive oil on the outside of the ball. Place it in a greased bowl, cover with a towel and put it in the oven with the light on again. Repeat to make a second dough ball. Let the dough balls rise for 2-4 hours or until at least doubled.
Mix ¼ tsp of the baking soda in a tablespoon of warm water. Work it thoroughly in to the dough. Shape into a loaf. Place in a greased bread pan. Repeat for the second dough ball. Put in the oven to rise. When the dough is the right size for the pan, pull them out and heat the oven to 375o. Bake for 50-60 minutes. Take it out of the pan and let it cool on a wire rack.
| 1 package | Fleishmann's® rapid rise yeast |
| ¼ cup | warm water (105o to 115o) |
| 3¾ cups | all purpose flour |
| 2 Tbl | sugar |
| 1 tsp | salt |
| ¼ stick | butter, cut into thin slices |
| 1 cup | cold milk |
Mix the yeast and water together and set aside for 5 minutes. Mix the four, sugar, and salt together. Put half of the flour mixture in a food processor with a bread blade. Put the butter on top of the flour. Put the rest of the flour mixture on top of the butter. Let the food processor run nonstop for 30 seconds. Scrape the flour mixture down on to the blade and run the processor for 30 more seconds. The butter should now be mixed in and the flour will be somewhat "grainy".
With the food processor running, slowly pour in the milk and the yeast mixture. Run the processor for 1 minute without stopping. Open the processor and look at the dough. Add flour or milk if the dough needs adjusting.
Spray a bowl with cooking spray ( Pam®). Spray the outside of the dough with cooking spray. Drop the dough into the bowl, cover with a paper towel and put it in a warm place for an hour.
The dough should now be double the original size. Knead the dough 15 or 20 times on a floured cutting board. Shape the dough into a loaf and place it in a bread pan sprayed with cooking spray. Cover it with a paper towel and let it rise for an hour again.
Bake at 325o for approximately 40 minutes. Take it out of the pan and let it cool on a wire rack.
When I was a kid, my mother made French toast with slices of bread soaked in milk and eggs. Then she cooked them on a griddle and we put butter and cinnamon and sugar on them. That’s the way I remember French toast and never thought much about it.
I’m not much of a bed & breakfast kind of guy, but for our 5th wedding anniversary I took Susan to the Magnolia Springs Bed & Breakfast . She loved it. We met some very nice people, had a nice time, and they served the best damn french toast I ever tasted.
It was different. Made with real sized pieces of bread and delicious. I have stolen their recipe right from their website. Check them out . The property is located in a beautiful little corner of Alabama and David, the owner, is justifiably proud of his home.
| 5 | eggs |
| 2/3cup | orange juice |
| 1/3 cup | milk |
| 1/4 tsp | ground nutmeg |
| 1/4 cup | sugar |
| ½ tsp | vanilla extract |
| ½ loaf | italian bread (one of those big loaves you get at the bakery department) |
| ½ stick | butter |
| pecan halves (these are more for presentation than taste) |
Using a wire whisk beat together the first 6 ingredients. Place the bread in a casserole that just fits the slices. Pour the mixture over the bread slices. Cover and refrigerate overnight turning once. In a separate pan melt butter to form a thin layer in the bottom (approx. ½ stick). Arrange soaked slices on top of the layer of butter and top with pecans. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes or just until the bread “puff’s up”.
As Joe Peschi said in My Cousin Vinnie “What’s a grit?”
There’s something about grits. Southerners love grits. Northerners can’t understand us. This is an odd twist to a southern breakfast. It’s a very simple dish but you have to start it the day before. It reminds me of a northern breakfast dish called scrapple.
| 1 Lb | breakfast sausage |
| 1 ¼ cups | quick cooking grits (not instant) |
| 5 cups | water |
| 1 Tbl | Creole seasoning |
Brown the sausage, crumbling it as it cooks. Drain the sausage well when done. Boil the water, add the creole seaaoning, and slowly add the grits. Simmer for five minutes. Add the sausage and stir in well. Pour this mixture into a lightly greased meatloaf pan. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Slice the grits mixture into ¾” meatloaf style pieces. (It’s a lot easier to slice if you plop it out of the meatloaf pan on to a cutting board.) Heat a frying pan on medium high, add a little butter or Pam® and slices of grits. Cook for a few minutes turning occasionally until it starts to brown on the outside. Turn the heat down to medium-low. Continue cooking until the grits are heated throughout. Serve it straight from the frying pan. (I like to sprinkle on some Tony’s or Louisiana style hot sauce.)
Here's a soup that's low cal (if you rinse the sausage) and still tastes good.
| 2 Lbs | mild breakfast sausage |
| 5 | medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch slices |
| 3 | medium celery stalks, sliced |
| 3 | large onions, chopped |
| 1 tsp | granulated garlic |
| 1 28oz can | tomatoes in juice |
| 1 head | savoy cabbage (about 1½ pounds), thinly sliced |
| 2 | parsnips, peeled and cut into 1-inch slices |
| 1 10oz package | frozen spinach |
| ½ cup | fresh parsley, chopped |
| 2 | chicken bouillon cubes |
| 1 tsp | salt |
| t tsp | coarse ground black pepper |
