Serious Buffalo Chicken Panini

This is going to be the first post in the Emeril #SeriousSandwich cookalong.

This is for those of you who like it hot. I tried this as a special where I work, and as usual “Its a bit spicy”. I have to remember my nick name for where I work is “The Blue Hair Cafe”. People here are regular customers who are used to the old head chef, who did not season food and did not like spice himself. I try new recipes in an attempt to get our restaurant talked about by the locals and to obtain new clientele.

Here is the recipe…….

5 Chicken breasts

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon paprika

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/4 teaspoon salt

oil for deep frying

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup hot sauce

1 dash ground black pepper

1 dash garlic powder

In a small bowl mix together the flour, paprika, cayenne pepper and salt. Place chicken breasts in a large bowl and sprinkle flour mixture over them until they are evenly coated. Cover bowl and refrigerate for 60 to 90 minutes.

Heat oil in a deep fryer to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). The oil should be just enough to cover wings entirely, an inch or so deep. Combine the butter, hot sauce, pepper and garlic powder in a small saucepan over low heat. Stir together and heat until butter is melted and mixture is well blended. Remove from heat and reserve for serving.

Fry coated breasts in hot oil for 10 to 15 minutes, or until parts of breasts begin to turn brown. Remove from heat, place breasts in serving bowl, add hot sauce mixture and stir together.

Butter two slices of bread and add garnish to the unbuttered side of bread, such as lettuce, tomato,onion. Place buttered side of garnished bread in your sandwich press, add chicken breast and other slice of buttered bread, butter up. Cook in press for a couple minutes till lightly toasted.

Slice in half and serve with some pickles and blue cheese dressing. For the special I also served with onion rings.

 

 

 

Highs and Lows

This post is a little off topic of what my blog is about, but I need a release. This week it was announced that I was accepted into the Emeril’s #SeriousSandwich cookalong. That made my day and I was all excited for the past couple days. The excitement of it still lingers, but I got some bad news last night. Mark A Miller of Elkhart, Indiana was one of my tattooists, best friend, room mate,boss and drinking and drugging buddies. I met Mark one year at the Indianapolis 500. We got to talking about tattoos. He claimed he was an artist and he did some of the work on himself. To be honest it was not that good, but you have to remember he had to do it one handed at times. Not easy. I told him I wanted to get my head tattooed and he freaked. He wanted the chance to do it. We partied all weekend and made plans for me to move from Ohio to Indiana. He came from Elkhart, Indiana to North Ridgeville, Ohio to pick me up and move in with him. I dropped everything and went with just my cloths. I lived with him on and off for 5 years and he did alot of work on me when he got bored. All I will say is we left on sort of bad terms about 7 years ago. Mark cleaned up his life, got married and had a couple kids, opened his own tattoo parlor after years of doing it illegally out of his own house. He became someone who did things for the community and needy.

Friday night I got word that Mark Miller was murdered. His body was found, after being reported missing on the 7th, stuffed in a 55 gallon drum and floating down the St Joe river in Elkhart, Indiana. I can only assume what did happen, and I am probably right. Its a damn shame that after he turned his life around, and truly starts living his life… He is murdered. What he showed me it can be done. So I have decided to finish my head tattoo, have a memorial tattoo fill in the last open space and have it entered in some contests like he and I had talked about doing so many times.

Mark, even though we left each other on not so good terms, the memories remain the same and you will be missed.

RIP

Emeril’s #SeriousSandwich Cookalong

With the upcoming release of Emeril Lagasse’s new cookbook KICKED UP SANDWICHES,  Emeril and Morrow Cookbooks have teamed together and selected 21 foodie bloggers to participate in cookalong to promote the book. Here you can find a full list of participants. I am excited to announce that I have been one of the lucky few to participate in this event. I am rather new to blogging, but not new to cooking. I will do my best to describe the experience of cooking Emerils Kicked-up sandwiches and attempt to get the flavor of each sandwich expressed to you through my words and photography. I most like getting to work with and getting to know my fellow bloggers who have been selected to participate. Best of luck to everyone.

Jalapeno Cheddar Hamburger buns

Mondays are my day off from work. But it seems work is my life. I say that because a co-worker, who was mad one day because we were short handed and we were working 7 days a week, once said…. “I don’t live to work.”  I happen to love what I do for a living, and will spend my time off of work doing something for work if it will help make my work day better. So on Tuesday I was going to run a Jalapeno Cheddar burger as a special. While looking for a way to jazz it up a little I ran a crossed this post at Homesick Texan’s blog. I thought this would be the perfect idea. So I spent my day off cooking at home for work.

Here is the recipe I used as I did make some very small changes….

• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 packet dry active yeast
• 1/2 cup heated buttermilk
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 egg at room temperture
• 1/2 cup slice jalapenos
• 3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese

To begin with take the yeast and combine it with about 1/4 water heated to 110 and let it rest for about 15 minutes. While that sits mix together the flour,salt and sugar. In a seperate container mix the olive oil and egg together well. Heat the buttermilk up to just the point of separation. Add a little of the heated buttermilk to your egg and oil mix stirring rapidly as you add it. Do it slowly as to not cook your egg with the buttermilk. Stir your wet ingredients into the dry ingredients you just prepped.

Now go do something for the next 15 minutes while the dough rests. I suggest going to Homesick Texan’s blog and going over some of the recipes they have there. You will find some awesome recipes that are big on taste.

Now that the dough is rested, and you have a few new recipes to try later, dice the jalapeno slices and combine them and the cheddar cheese to the dough. You will need to get your hands in there to do this well, so be sure to dust them in flour. Once you have the cheese and jalapenos mixed in dust your prep table with flour and kneed dough for approximately 5 minutes. Dough will have a little stickiness to it.

Place the dough in a oiled bowl and flip till it is evenly coated with the oil. Cover with a warm damp cloth, not touching the dough ball with it, and place in a warm area to rise for about an hour and a half.

Remove dough and portion out into 6 balls. Place these dough balls on a greased cookie sheet leaving room to expand. The shape of the dough should be more like a disk then a ball so pat them down just a bit.

Cook in a 400 preheated oven for about 15 minutes or until golden brown.

   I took these to work with me and served them with a Jalapeno Cheddar Hamburger. Garnished with a leaf of Romaine lettuce, tomato and a slice of red onion. We were slammed that day so I apologize that I did not have the time to grab my camera and snap off a picture of it. The feedback from the customers was awesome. Everyone who had the special all said the same thing basically, the bun has just enough heat to it that the extra jalapenos I added to the hamburger was not needed. But it does go onto the list of recipes that make your taste buds do a happy dance.

 

 

Readers Choice

So I have all the specials lined out for this week. But I could use some help with planning out next weeks specials. I have decided to do a “Readers Choice Special’.  Every week I will be looking over blogs and using some very nice looking recipes as my main specials at Jordans Bar and Cafe in Valentine, NE. I will blog about the specials daily here and give proper credits where credits are due with link back to the original bloggers post. But I will also be looking for one great recipe submitted to me, through a link to your blogs recipe as a reply to this post. Each week I will be checking out these recipes, and I will pick one recipe to be chosen as the “Showcase” main entree on our Sunday Buffet.

Hope to get some great recipes.

Apple cranberry stuffed pork roast

   I found this recipe at simply recipes.  And I thought I would take my hand at it.  Even though I’ve never tried stuffing and rolling any type of meat before.  I must admit I failed miserably on my first attempt at stuffing and rolling meat.  But the end product was just as tasty as a successfully stuffed and rolled pork roast. So here’s a picture of their ending apple cranberry stuffed pork roast.

I must say this photo looks very tasty, makes my taste buds to a happy dance.

So let’s move on to the ingredients.

Ingredients

• • 1 cup apple cider
  • 1/2 cup cider vinegar
  • 3/4 cup  brown sugar
  • 1 large shallot, peeled, thinly sliced
  • 2 Green apples
  • 1/2 cup dried cranberries
  • 1 Tbsp ginger
  • 1 Tbsp yellow mustard seeds
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
  • 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 2 1/2 pound boneless center-cut pork loin roast

Before you begin any cooking on this recipe, you must place your pork roast in the freezer for approximately 25 to 30 minutes, just to get it firm enough to be able to slice with a knife more easily.

While you have pork roast in your freezer, you can combine all the other ingredients in a medium saucepan and heat at medium to high heat.  Cover the saucepan and continue to heat for approximately 20 minutes.  After the 20 minutes has elapsed remove from heat, drain juices from the saucepan and save.  With the remaining ingredients left in the saucepan use plastic spoon and press the juices out of the remaining ingredients.  Drain those juices and add those to the juices saved.  Add the remaining ingredients, still in the saucepan, to your blender.  Do 1 second pulses approximately 15 to 20 times.  In order to get my ingredients to mix well I had to shake the blender a few times.

   Preheat your oven to 350. After your pork roast has firmed up in the freezer, remove ties strings and butterfly your pork roast.  Place the butterfly pork roast between two sheets of Saran wrap and tenderize.

Remove the top sheet Saran wrap and evenly spread the ingredients from your blender.  After ingredients are spread evenly begin to roll your pork roast.  Using new ties strings, I used dental floss, securely tie the pork roast role together.  Place your pork roast roll into a roasting pan and place in the oven for approximately 45 to 60 minutes.  Once your pork roast has reached a temperature of 130-140° Spread juices that you set aside evenly on top of your roast.  Replace roast back in the oven for another 5 minutes.  Remove from oven and tent with aluminum foil for 15 minutes.  Slice and serve with your favorite side dishes.  Tonight we simply used mashed potatoes and pork gravy.  I topped mine with some sliced onions and cilantro.

   I’ve decided that next time I attempt to this recipe I’m not going to even try to roll mine, I believe all I will do is butterfly it and stuff it.  Also make a little extra stuffing and serve it on top of the apple cranberry stuffed pork roast.

I hope you try this recipe for the apple cranberry stuffed pork roast, and I hope that i you do roll it, you roll it well.  And I hope you will agree with me upon a eating this dish….
Your taste buds do a happy dance.
Happy eating,
Chef R3llik.

Green chili cheese steak

Today while going through other food blogs a ran a crossed this recipe for green chili cheese steak and had to make it for dinner. The original blog I found it at was a blog called “Homesick Texan” . I encourage anyone who likes a Southwest spin on food to check out this blog. Also check out her cookbook “The Homesick Texan” available for purchase here.

OK on with the production of the green chili cheese steak.

   I made a few changes in the recipe only for the simple fact living in such a small area all the ingredients were not available to me. But this is what I used.

   Green chili cheese sauce

• 15 Vine Sweet Mini Peppers
• 2 Jalapeno Peppers
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/4 yellow onion diced
• 2 cloves of garlic minced
• 8 ounces cubed cream cheese
• 8 ounces shredded Munster cheese
• 8 ounces shredded Monterrey Jack Cheese
• 1/2 cup of half and half
• 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
• salt to taste

 

For the meat

• 2 pounds sirlion tip steak
• 1/2 yellow onion cut into slivers
• 1 tablespoon butter
• salt and pepper

 

Direction

Place the Jalapenos and peppers in a cast iron skillet in the broiler the char the skins. In my oven it took 10 minutes then flipped and blackened the other side for 5 minutes. Remove the peppers and jalapenos from the broiler and place in a plastic container with a tight fitting lid to steam for about 20 minutes. After 20 minutes remove the skins from the Jalapenos and the peppers. Remove stems and seeds and dice .

Preheat your oven to 350. Clean your cast iron skillet and over medium heat melt 1 tablespoon of butter. Add the onions cook till translucent. Remove skillet from heat and add the peppers and jalapenos and mix. After you have it mixed evenly add to the top your cream cheese then your Monterrey Jack and Munster cheeses. Drizzle the half and half all over the top of the mixture. Place the cast iron skillet in your preheated oven for about 20 minutes or until the cheese sauce has become bubbly and browned on top. Sprinkle the cilantro evenly on top and mix thoroughly.

Meat directions

In a skillet melt 1 tablespoon of butter. Add the slivered onion and cook till translucent. Add your seasoned meat and cook till evenly browned.

I put some buttered hoagie buns directly on to my oven rack and let those brown. Add the meat then the cheese and the top bun and enjoy with your favorite side dish. For this dish my wife made some wonderful coleslaw and I added a few pickle slices on the side as well.

We all have different ways of eating things so I had mine like this. My wife had hers with no bun…..

My youngest daughter had hers with no meat. Go figure, kids…..

And my 16 year old daughter had hers open faced.

Any way you eat your Green chili cheese steak I am sure it will become a family favorite meal. As with any meal you cook with passion the reward is taste buds doing a happy dance..

Chef R3llik Blogs

I am Chef R3llik of Jordans Sports Bar and Cafe in Valentine, Nebraska. I have been in and out of the food industry for 15+ years now. I have come to the point in my career where I have decided that cooking is what I truly want to do. I have an extreme passion for cooking and love to try out new recipes as I find them. I have no culinary school experience. Everything I have learned I have either picked up by watching it done or just being tossed into the frying pan and trying it on my own. And now I am going to combine my passion for cooking and add blogging to it. My hope in doing this is to be able to share things I learn along the way with other cooks who are just learning and hope they will be encouraged to continue to cook with passion.