Anthony Bourdain on Rachael Ray

Another Tony Quote:

Complain all you want. It’s like railing against the pounding surf. She only grows stronger and more powerful. Her ear-shattering tones louder and louder. We KNOW she can’t cook. She shrewdly tells us so. So…what is she selling us? Really? She’s selling us satisfaction, the smug reassurance that mediocrity is quite enough. She’s a friendly, familiar face who appears regularly on our screens to tell us that “Even your dumb, lazy *** can cook this!” Wallowing in your own crapulence on your Cheeto-littered couch you watch her and think, “Hell…I could do that. I ain’t gonna…but I could–if I wanted! Now where’s my damn jug a Diet Pepsi?” Where the saintly Julia Child sought to raise expectations, to enlighten us, make us better–teach us–and in fact, did, Rachael uses her strange and terrible powers to narcotize her public with her hypnotic mantra of Yummo and Evoo and Sammys. “You’re doing just fine. You don’t even have to chop an onion–you can buy it already chopped. Aspire to nothing…Just sit there. Have another Triscuit…Sleep….sleep….”

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The One Week $25 Challenge

I’ll be conducting several challenges this year, the first is to cook and eat on less than $25 dollars from Monday to Friday. Normally, I only have coffee for breakfast and eat out for lunch two or three times a week. But for the purpose of this challenge, I will eat three meals a day. I will not be counting beverages or staples that I have on hand at all times, such as salt, pepper, butter, sugar, flour, garlic, seasonings, oil, etc.

I went to the store for the first shopping trip today (Sunday) and stocked up for breakfast and lunch for all five days plus dinner (mostly) for the first three days. I took a strategy of using products more than once such as bread, eggs, rice and potatoes. Each day I will update this post with my meals and recipes.

Here is the grocery list and the prices.

Day 1

• Breakfast: Scrambled egg and buttered toast.
• Lunch: BLT
• Dinner: Chicken and Broccoli Casserole

I needed some cheese for the casserole so I had to pick up an 8 oz block of Monterey Jack ($1.67). Even though I tried to cut the recipe amounts back so I would not have leftovers, I still had enough for lunch the next day plus some.

Dinner recipe ingredients: 1/2 pound chicken, 1/2 cup rice, 2 medium broccoli crowns, 1 can of cream of chicken)

Day 2

• Breakfast: Poached egg with toast
• Lunch: Leftover Chicken and Broccoli Casserole
• Dinner: Red Beans and Rice with Chorizo

Leftovers AGAIN. I am finding it very hard to cook a single serving, but then again how can you cook 1/8th cup of rice? I guess I could have pre-cooked the rice yesterday and reserved 1/2 for tonights meal. If I try a challenge similar to this in the future, I will definately precook rice. Supplies are holding out well. I expect that when the challenge is over I will still have at least 1/2 of the rice and beans left and probably most of the pasta.

Dinner recipe ingredients: 1/2 pound Chorizo, 2/3 cup rice, 1/2 cup red beans, 1/2 medium white onion, 3 cloves garlic, Cajun seasoning.

Day 3

• Breakfast: Fried egg toasted Sandwich
• Lunch: Leftover Red Beans and Rice
• Dinner: Chicken Fajitas with Spanish Rice

Ok, leftovers have become a strategy at this point, however, I do not plan to have the same dish more than twice. Once for dinner then again as leftovers for lunch the next day. I’m going to have plenty of bacon, tomatoes, lettuce and bread to work with since I have abandoned the daily BLT for lunch.

Dinner recipe ingredients: 1 pound chicken, 1/2 cup rice, 1/2 medium white onion, 1 green bell pepper, 1 Roma tomato

Day 4

• Breakfast: Cinnamon toast with bacon
• Lunch: Leftover Chicken Fajitas and Spanish Rice
• Dinner: Linguine with Red Meat Sauce

Dinner turned out alright, but I do think that the Cavatappi would have been the better pasta to use.

Dinner recipe ingredients: 6 oz Linguine, 1/2 pound Chorizo, 1/2 medium white onion, 1 green bell pepper, 1 can tomato sauce, 2 oz Monterey Jack cheese, 4 oz Calamata olives, 2 cloves garlic, 2 slices of bacon, 1 egg, almost a full head of lettuce

Day 5

• Breakfast: 2 egg omelet with bacon
• Lunch: Leftover Linguine with Red Meat Sauce
• Dinner: Rib-eye with Roasted Red Potatoes

Well I was able to save enough money to treat myself to a Rib-eye on day 5! Smaller than I normally have and choice not prime, but a Rib-eye none the less. I also had enough bacon left to add a few slices to the potatoes as a topping.

Dinner recipe ingredients: 8 oz Rib-eye, 3/4 pound red potatoes, 3 slices of bacon

Bonus Food

I had all of the Cavatappi and cinnimon rolls left, 1/2 pound chicken, 2/3 of the Linguine, 3/4 of the red beans, 1/4 of the rice, 1/2 of the Monterey Jack, a couple of tomatoes and potatoes, 1/2 white onion and a couple of slices of bacon. I was able to go ahead and use most of the ingredients in the next few days. I still have all of the pasta, it will keep, but I did have to throw the chicken out.

So there you have it 3 meals a day for the work week without using any processed packaged food — with food left over. Of course on Saturday I cooked a very nice mushroom risotto that probably cost me $15-20 in ingredients.

-Chef Stacy

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Anthony Bourdain on Sandra Lee

If you are reading this, you must know I’m a Bourdain fan, amongst others. Come on “Hungry 4 More”? Tony captures my thoughts on several subjects; one is the lazy lackadaisical cooking of many TV food stars. Here’s what he has to say about Semi-Homemade Cooking With Sandra Lee:

She makes her audience feel good about themselves. You watch her on that show and you think, “I can do that. That’s not intimidating.” All you have to do is waddle into the kitchen, open a can of crap and spread it on some other crap that you bought at the supermarket. And then you’ve done something really special. The most terrifying thing I’ve seen is her making a Kwanzaa cake. Watch that clip and tell me your eyeballs don’t burst into flames. It’s a war crime on television. You’ll scream.

– Anthony Bourdain

Popularity: 4% [?]

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Slow Cooker HOT Texas Chili

HOT Texas Chili

I love a great chili. I have participated in many chili cook-offs, but rarely place because I like my chili HOT. If you can’t take the heat stay out of the kitchen. The following is my basic chili recipe minus my 3 secret ingredients. When you make chili you always need to have a secret ingredient or three. I have different recipes based on the method of cooking, this one is for a 6 hour slow cooker. Of course you can substitute different chili’s and spices to taste.

I find that adding sweet tends to allow people to take the heat.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound ground chuck (80/20), large grind preferred
• 1 pound chorizo, large grind preferred
• 1/2 pound diced chuck (1/4 inch cubes)
• Chilies
  • 3 Serrano chilies, chopped
  • 4 Thai chilies, chopped
  • 2 Red Habanero, chopped
  • 3 Red Hot Holland chilies, chopped
  • 3 Red Fresno chilies, chopped
  • 1 Poblano chili, chopped
  • 2 Red Dulce Mediteraneo chilies, chopped
  • 3 Jalapeño chilies, chopped
  • 2 dried New Mexico chilies, whole
  • 2 dried Cascabel chilies, whole
• Spices
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons Kosher or Sea Salt
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons fresh ground pepper
  • 1 1/2 tablespoon chili powder (I use my own blend)
  • 1 1/2 tablespoon ground cumin
  • 1 1/2 tablespoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 tablespoon paprika
  • 3/4 tablespoon fennel seed
  • 1/2 tablespoon ground cayenne
• 1 medium red onion, diced
• 1 fennel bulb, chopped
• 8 clove garlic, minced
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar
• 2 cups red wine
• 28 ounce can diced tomatoes, undrained
• Secret ingredients 1 (H), 2 (O) and 3 (T)

Directions:

Add wine and tomatoes to slow cooker set on low. Brown chuck, chorizo and diced chuck. Add to slow cooker undrained. Mix well. Prepare onion, fennel, garlic and chilies, add and stir in to slow cooker. Add spices and mix well. At about the 2 hour mark add brown sugar and mix well. Slow cook for 6 hours on low.

Serve in deep bowl with crackers and beer.

A nice spin to this dish is to add 1/2 to 3/4 pound of diced peeled deviened shrimp in the last hour of cooking.

Popularity: 10% [?]

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Call for Contributing Authors

Hungry 4 More is looking for two or three Contributing Authors.

We are looking for authors that can contribute one to three articles per week. Articles can cover any food or food industry related topic. For example, recipes, informative articles or photo journalism. Authors can choose to specialize in a particular area such as vegetarian, French cuisine or  Southern cooking recipes or generalize. Interested applicants should submit one example article by email to chef_stacy@hungry-4-more.com.

Currently, this is a non-paying position. Selected authors will be asked to provide a bio for inclusion on the main navigation bar. Authors will receive a hungry-4-more.com email address. Email can be forwarded to an external address.

Send any questions or inquiries to chef_stacy@hungry-4-more.com.

Popularity: 1% [?]

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