Nick Tahou’s Meat Sauce Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 teaspoon oil
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 cup water
• 1/4 cup tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• salt to taste
• 1 clove garlic, diced or pressed through a garlic press

Start with a crock pot put the oil, onions and garlic in the crock and turn it on high start adding all of the spices.  Mix this up well and add the tomato paste.  Mix well.  By now everything should be warm and the onions softening.  Add the ground beef raw, yes raw, and add water until the beef is almost covered. Put the lid on the crock for about 10 minutes.  Open the crock and stir, stir , stir until the beef looks fine and re-cover. Leave the heat on High until the water comes to a boil and then reduce the heat to Low. Cook for at least 3 hours. Keep moist with water; most will cook away.  Add more water as needed but don’t flood it. If needed, ladle-out the extra water when time to serve. This flavor should remind you more of the real thing. OM NOM NOM!

Source: http://www.chow.com/recipes/28498-nick-tahous-meat-sauce

Chef Boy-R-Gee’s Mac & Cheese

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 pounds (or so) of cooked elbow macaroni
• 8-10 ounces (total) of Sharp Cheese and Extra Sharp Cheese
• 4 Eggs beaten in 1.5 cups milk

Cooking:

• Mix all ingredients in a large casserole dish and cover almost all the noodles with the egg/milk mixture
• Add salt and pepper
• Bake at 350 for 45 minutes (give or take)

Topping (optional):

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 cups Panko bread crumbs
• 1 cups extra sharp cheese

Melt butter and stir together with bread crumbs and cheese until combined well.

Twice baked potatoes on the grill

Start with two 6-7″ Russet (Idaho) potatoes.

Wash potatoes with cold water

Place 2 potatoes on a paper towel on a plate.

Using a fork, stab the top of the potatoes deep enough to simply pierce the skin and allow moisture/steam to escape.

To speed up the cooking process, place plate of potatoes into microwave.

Cook in microwave on High for 15 minutes, flipping the taters over every 5 mins.

After they have been in the micro for 15 mins, remove from microwave and allow to cool 5-10 mins or until they are cool enough to touch.  This is a good time to begin pre-heating your grill.  Heat to medium (400 degrees give or take)

Next, cut the potato length-wise, removing the top 1/3 of the tater.

Now, grab a spoon and gently begin scooping the “meat” out of the potato and place it into a medium size bowl, thus turning the potato into a tater boat.  Try to leave about 1/4″ of the potato against the skin for strength.

Tater boat

In the bowl that you scooped the innards into, add 1/2 cup sour cream, 2/3 cup cheddar cheese, 1 tbsp minced parsley (parsley flakes will work too), a little salt and pepper, and mix around.  Don’t over-mix the filling, leave it chunky.

Scoop the mixture back into the tater boats.  There should be a little too much mixture left over after filling the boats.  Om nom nom…

I like to add bacon pieces on top of my potatoes.  Any salad bacon toppers work fine for this.

Place the potatoes directly on the grill and cook for approximately 10-15 mins.  Try to keep the lid down so that the heat permeates all sides of the taters.

Tater 1

Tater 2 - with bacon pieces

Remove the potatoes once they start to become golden and you can see the cheese mixture starting to bubble out.

Twice baked potatoes, fresh off the grill!

Twice baked potato with thin-cut NY Strip steak (Montreal steak seasoning), both grilled.

Om nom nom!

Lunch at Bento Ya Masako

Though I have lived in Upstate NY most of my life, today was the first time I have ever eaten at Bento Ya Masako.  It would be easy to miss this little gem because the only identification that there is a restaurant is a small folding sign on the sidewalk.  Behind the sign is a green door that leads you to the second floor where the “restaurant” is located.  This, in itself, is unique because all other Corning restaurants are on the street-level.

The restaurant had approximately 6-10 tables and behind the counter was the small one-stove kitchen where every dish was made individually by the owners.

Not knowing what to order, I decided to try the Yakiniku Bento which was comprised of spicy beef stir-fried with cooked cabbage, carrot with hijiki, cucumber salad, and rice.

The price was $8 which included free, help yourself, tea.  The serving size was very generous.

Overall, I was very pleased with my lunch at Bento and will definitely be eating there again!  Om nom nom!

Yakiniku Bento

Chef Boy-r-Gee’s Chicken Alfredo

This is, by far, the easiest Alfredo sauce I have ever made and it was very tasty!  I cooked up some linguine as the pasta base and the entree was delicious!

Sauce Ingredients:

• 1/3-1/2 cup butter (I use Country Crock instead of butter)
• 1 8oz package of light cream cheese
• 2/3 cup milk
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 1/3 cup Parmesan sprinkle-cheese

Chicken Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 boneless/skinless chicken breasts
• 2 tsp Italian seasoning (contains the following)
  • Thyme
  • Basil
  • Oregano
  • Marjoram
  • Rosemary
  • Savory
  • Parsley
  • Red pepper
  • Garlic

Sauce:

1. Melt the butter in a medium sauce pan over medium-low heat.
2. Once melted, add the package of light cream cheese.
   1. Cutting the cream cheese into smaller chunks will help it mix faster.
3. Once the butter and cream cheese have been blended together (will look thick and creamy), add 2/3 cup milk to the mixture.
4. Add 1/3 cup Parmesan (sprinkle) cheese.
5. Add 1 tsp minced garlic
6. Stir with whisk until everything is blended and smooth
   1. I also added a dash of Parsley to the sauce to give it a bit  color
7. Remove from heat to thicken, stir occasionally

Chicken:

1. Cut the chicken breast into thin (approximately 1/4″) slices.
2. Add 1 tsp (per chicken breast) extra virgin olive oil to pan and warm the oil to medium heat.
3. Place slices of chicken breast into the heated/oiled pan and sprinkle 1 tsp (per chicken breast) Italian seasoning mixture over the slices.
4. Cook both sides of each chicken breast slice for approximately 2 minutes (or until fully cooked).

Place a serving size of linguine (or other pasta) on a plate and spin/twist the pasta to form a nest.  Add chicken on top of the nest of pasta and lightly cover with sauce.

Enjoy!  Om nom nom!

Chicken Alfredo

How to eat a chicken wing

In case you didn’t already know, there is a proper (and clean) way to eat a chicken wing.

Enjoy!

Lunch at O.I.P.

Today I had lunch at Original Italian Pizza.  If you have never had the privilege of munching down some char-grilled chicken wings before, I highly recommend you give them a try! Also, their white garlic pizza is phenomenal!  It’s very thin and not tough to bite through.  Aniello’s used to be my favorite, but they’ve been very disappointing lately.  Anyhoo…  Nom nom!

Char-grilled wings

White garlic pizza

Meat Lasagna

I made two large meat lasagnas for my mother-in-law’s birthday a couple weeks ago.  They were a major hit the night of the party and I thoroughly enjoyed the leftovers for the following few days.

INGREDIENTS (1 lasagna):

• 1 lb. ground turkey (I prefer ground turkey over ground beef because of how lean it can be – I use 93/7)
• 15 oz. Ricotta cheese
• Sauce (I prefer to make my own using crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, water, garlic, onion powder, basil, oregano, and parsley)
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1 box lasagna noodles
• Mozzarella cheese (at least 2 cups worth)
• Parmesan/Romano (sprinkle) cheese

DIRECTIONS:

1. If making your own sauce, start simmering the sauce a few hours ahead of time for the flavors to blend
   1. If using sauce from the grocery store, you can wait to cook the sauce until after the ground turkey is cooked
2. Brown the ground turkey in a large sauce pan/skillet
   1. There is hardly any grease/oil in the pan after cooking 93/7 turkey, so I choose not to drain
3. Add spaghetti sauce to the meat
4. Let it simmer
   1. Flavor with oregano, parsley, garlic, and onion powder as needed
5. In a medium size bowl, combine the 15 oz. ricotta cheese, 1 egg, 1/2 tsp of salt, and 1/4 tsp pepper
   1. Mixture should be fluffy
6. In a 9×13″ pan, spread 1 1/2 cups sauce across the bottom of the dish
7. Line 1 layer of lasagna noodles over the sauce
8. Add all of the ricotta mixture on top of the uncooked noodles
   1. I like to add parsley flakes on top of the ricotta cheese for a little more color
9. Cover the ricotta mixture with 1 cup mozzarella cheese
10. Cover the mozzarella with 1/2 cup Parmesan/Romano (sprinkle) cheese
11. Add 1 1/2 cups sauce
12. Line another layer of lasagna noodles over the sauce
13. Top with remaining sauce, mozzarella, and Parmesan/Romano cheeses (use your own discretion – I prefer a bunch of cheese)

BAKE:

• Bake at 350 covered with foil for 45 minutes.  I usually leave the sides open and just close it on the ends.
• Take off foil and bake for 15 more minutes or until cheese is completely melted/golden.

ENJOY!

Meat sauce application

Lasagna Prep

Finished lasagnas