Have you ever tried to polish silver? It’s hard work. It’s messy. It’s time consuming. The stuff that removes the tarnish smells horrible- it’s like somebody tried to make rotten egg cologne- it’s nasty!

Here’s a method that works like magic.

You will need:

1. a container that will hold water.

2. Baking Soda or Water Softener powder (Calgon, 20 Mule Team Borax, etc) 1 cup per gallon of hot water

3. Table sat

4. A piece of aluminum foil or a piece of aluminum

5. Tarnished silver items

Line the bottom of the container with aluminum foil. If you are lucky enough to have an aluminum pan you can forget about the foil.

Watch me clean my tarnished wedding ring using this method-

Put some HOT water in a container- it has to be hot for this to work.

Add your baking soda (1 cup per gallon of water).

Throw in a little salt. The salt helps the conductivity of the water since this is an electrochemical reaction.

Put your dirty silver items in the water in such a way that they make contact with the aluminum foil. The better the contact, the quicker it’s going to work.

Wait a minute or two- you will begin to see the silver become shiny again.

That’s it!

How does this work?

Over time you silver becomes tarnished because silver reacts to airborne sulfur and sulfur compounds. They are present in the air.

The silver and the silver react to create ‘silver sulfide”- that’s tarnish! When you contact the silver to aluminum in the baking soda solution a slight electrical current is created and electrons flow from the silver to the aluminum.

The sulfur transfers from your silver to the aluminum foil. If you clean a lot of silver this way you may see small pieces of a yellow substance around the foul or on the bottom of your container. That’s the sulfur!

I hope you can use this helpful tip he next time you have the in-laws over for Thanksgiving or something and have to break out Grandma’s old silver.

Samantha Novacek of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania sat down with us for a little “Tailgate Talk”. She was able to give us a step-by-step rundown of how she got “through to Hollywood” on American Idol and navigate the American Idol auditions. We were surprised at all of the steps and auditions a potential American Idol has to go through- even before singing for the real judges!

Sam auditioned in Pittsburgh for season 11 of American Idol. She made it through subsequent auditions and finally got to sing in front of Randy Jackson, Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler.

Her audition was memorable because Sam’s sister, “Patty The Pittsburgh Planker” was “planking” during Sam’s rendition of Faith Hill’s “Like We Never Loved At All”.

Sam made it through to Hollywood and continued through the preliminary eliminations and competed in the “group round”. I’s our  opinion that Sam just got into a bad group that cost her a chance to move on to the next round.

Check out our Tailgate Talk video. Sam takes us step-by step through the American Idol Process from open auditions  to Hollywood.

Here’s Sam’s audition for the American Idol judges with her sister, “Patty The Pittsburgh Planker”.

Check out Samantha Novacek online at her Facebook page and at www.TheKigerBand.com.

Hopefully “planking” will run it’s course, but we hope to see Sam Novacek singing and making music for a long time!

YouTube

Breaking news from Nashville –  Well it’s about dang time isn’t  it?

It was announced on Tuesday, March 6th that Garth Brooks will be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He joins the current calss of inductees including
singer Connie Smith (She’s married to Marty Stewart) and Hargis “Pig” Robbins. (I don’t know who he is either but I LOVE his nickname!)
For those of y’all who have Garth on your “Country Music Fantasy Team”

Here are his stats:
Member of the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriter’s Hall of fame (Yep, there’s 2 of them)
2 Grammy awards
16 American Music Awards
11 CMA Awards
18 ACM awards
Hw gat the very first ACM “Crystal Milestone Award” for being the top selling country music artist in history
He was the ACM Artist of the decade for the 1990s
1 CMT Award
5 World Music Awards
10 People’s Choice Awards
He was the RCAA Artist of the Century for the 1900s Yep- for a hundred year period!
24 Billboard awards
2 ASCAP Awards

Garth has sold over 128 million albums in a period of 15 years!

Garth Came out of retirement back in 2009 to do an ongoing engagement the Encore in Las Vegas. We’re sure glad he did too!

Here’s a clip of Garth and Steve Wynn making the announcement about the Vegas shows:

What’s scary is that I remember when he was a brand new artist back in 1989! (I’m much to young to feel this damn old!)   ; )

Big congratulations  Garth!

Collard greens are a traditional Southern favorite side dish. They are much maligned and misunderstood in certain circles. The detractors do come around and change their opinion on greens when they have an opportunity to taste greens that are well prepared and seasoned (kinda like grits).

Here’s a method for cooking collards I picked up when I lived in Laurel Mississippi.There are a lot of green recipes out there but this one is pretty easy and the results are fantastic!

The general idea is to great flavor infused water, or “pot likker” before adding any greens to the cooking pot

. I add a little sugar and vinegar to the pot likker too cut down on the bitterness that greens sometimes have.

Watch the video for step by step instructions and cooking tips.

Cook time: 3 hours

Serves: 4-6

2 lbs collard greens

1 yellow onion, chopped

1 or 2 smoked ham hocks

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup cider vinegar

1 or 2 dashes cayenne pepper

salt and pepper to taste

Place your ham hocks in a large stew pot. Add water to the pot until it just covers the ham hocks and bring to a boil.

Add in your onion, sugar, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper and vinegar.

Bring to a boil then reduce to medium heat. Cook for an hour or so. The idea is to let the flavor of the ham hocks, onions, etc infuse into the water so that the water will flavor the greens.

Wash, de-stem, Roll 3 or 4 leaves together like a burrito. Cut you collards into 1/2″ strips and then again to make bite size pieces.

Drop the collards in the pot, cover and let ‘em go on low heat for at least 2 hours. Taste them along the way to make sure you got your seasoning right,

When the meat starts to pull away from the ham hock bone cleanly, they are done. I will take a knife and spoon and separate the ham hock meat and stir it into the  cooked collards before serving.

Serve with pepper vinegar and cornbread.

We have an excellent recipe for Mexican cornbread that is pictured in the video.

Enjoy,

Zeke and a big bunch of North Carolina collards.

So, I found this old recipe for Mexican cornbread while cleaning up some boxes in the garage. It was on a dogeared piece of paper from a long defunct plumbing supply company in Savannah Georgia.

I don’t know where this recipe came from or how it came into my possession. It has been my experience though, that old, handwritten recipes on worn, yellowed scraps of paper are the good ones.

Here’s what I found-

Here’ the deal though-  I have a pretty good recipe for cornbread that I’ve been making for a long time. I have a hard time deviating from this recipe because I’ve been working to improve it for years and more importantly, its good!

I decided to merge the mysterious Mexican Cornbread recipe with my own, kind of a hybrid kind of thing. Mixing the known with the unknown seemed like a safe way to maybe come up with a new and maybe better recipe.

We ended up with some REALLY good cornbread!

Here’s the hybrid recipe-

1 1/4 Southern Biscuit Mix Formula L (or self-rising flour)

3/4 cup cornmeal

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

3/4 cup sour cream

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 egg

3 jalapeno peppers grated or finely diced

1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

(I omitted the can of creamed corn from the original because my family wouldn’t eat it if it were in there. It would have overflowed my skillet too)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Mix everything together in a except for the jalapenos and the cheese.

When the ingredients are blended well stir in the jalapenos.

Pour half of your batter into an 8″, oiled, cast iron skillet.  Sprinkle half of the shredded cheese onto the batter in the skillet. Pour the rest of the batter over the cheese, this creates kind of a “cheese layer” which is cool. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top of this batter layer.

Bake for 45 minutes. If you poke a toothpick in the center of your cornbread, pull it out and no batter sticks to it, it’s done.

I like to use Southern Biscuit Mix Formula L

It’s got butter flavored chunks of shortening in it that not only makes for great biscuits, it’s great for cornbread too. I’ve been using it for a really long time. By the way, I’m not selling this product on this site but if I found a way, I would!

Give it a shot! Let us know how you like it.

If anyone is bold enough to try the original recipe on the scrap of paper, let us know how it turned out.

zeke@zekeland.com

YouTube

I’m a big fan of The Voice.

Has anyone noticed that  there seems to be a “guys club” on the show? Adam, Blake and Cee Lo seem to have a certain rapport and Christina is a bit of an outsider?

It appears that Blake and Adam have a bit of a good natured rivalry. They trade insults. They try to “one up” each other but as a viewer, I get the feeling that there is some respect an comradery.

Cee Lo seems to garner a bit of respect from the other guys on he show as well. He doesn’t engage the other members in friendly insults like Blake and Adam do but the respect seems to be there.

There are a lot of reports out there that paint Christina as a bit of a Diva. Is it speculation? Comment below.

Anyway, I don’t want to get off topic. We can go on all day about Christina and her relationship with the guys.

Back to the guys-

Blake Shelton tipped his hat to Cee Lo at a recent show on his Well Lit & Amplified tour performing Forget You live on stage.

“Baby” Joe Sadler, raconteur and grill aficionado, has been developing and perfecting his quick grilling method for cooking ribs over direct heat.

When you don’t have time to slow smoke your ribs all day, Joe’s technique may be just the  thing to get succulent juicy ribs from the grill to your table. When you are pressed for time, this just may be the trick.

Joe wraps his pre-marinated ribs in foil, and puts them bone side down on a hot grill. The ribs, retain their juices and steam a little bit. I know, you purists are cringing at the word “steam” but watch the video and think about cooking for guests on short notice.

Watch The Video on YouTube

 Let your ribs cook for 30 minutes. Flip them to bone side up and let them cook another 30 minutes.

Unwrap the foil and brown your ribs, for 5-10 minutes each side. We are just trying to color the ribs a little to give them the “grilled” look and texture. Use your own judgment at this point.

Joe recommends basting your ribs with Italian salad dressing during the browning process.

Give Joe’s method a try. I like his idea to “dip” the ribs in sauce rather than painting them with it.

Enjoy!

Here’s a little video we made a few of years ago while visiting South Boston and Halifax County Virginia.

My wife and her family are from South Boston and we make the trip a couple of times a year. This time was just before Christmas and you will see the holiday decorations in downtown SoBo.

South Boston is located on the historic Dan River in the Southern part of the state. It’s East of Danvile and North West of Raleigh, North Carolina.

South Boston is home to NASCAR drivers Ward Burton and Jeff Burton and Ward’s son Jeb Burton who raced in the Camping World Truck series.

You can check out hometown racing action at  South Boston Speedway .

When we’re in town we like to get our down-home comfort food fix at Ollie’s Southern Cafe and hit Bistro 1888 for cold one.

Look for the Berry Hill Mansion that dates back to 1728. It’s now the Berry Hill Resort and Conference Center . It’s a pretty popular spot for weddings and getaway weekends.

Anyway, enjoy the video. If you like, subscribe to our video channel, ZekelandVideo on YouTube. Please feel free to share.

Thanks for watching!

Here’s a recipe and instructional video on how to cook authentic Cajun gumbo and a roux with catfish and locally sourced andouille sausage.

We were invited to an annual event in Pittsburgh called Recipe for Hope. Recipe for Hope is an event created by our good friend Bonny Diver to benefit Hair Peace Charities. Bonny is a cancer survivor and started the charity to but wigs  for women going through chemotherapy. Learn more at www.hairpeace.org.

To participate in Recipe for Hope, you have to cook something and serve it to a LOT of people who will sample your food in front of you and let you know if it is good or not. (no pressure huh?)

We decided to try a traditional Cajun gumbo recipe with andouille sausage and catfish.

Step one is making a roux. What’s that? It’s made by heating cooking oil to just below the point of smoking and then slowly whisking in flour.

Use a good quality Dutch Oven to cook the roux. A cast iron skillet or low sided pan could allow the oil to spill over the sides and cause a fire!

The roux then cooks for about 45 minutes until it is slightly more brown than peanut butter. The finished product on the video seemed thinner than the roux the TV chefs on the cooking channel make but it thickened the gumbo just fine.

The Roux

2 cups vegetable oil

3 or more cups all purpose flour

Heat the oil over medium heat in a Dutch oven or pot. Don’t use a skillet or pan with low sides that would allow the oil to spill over onto your stove and start a fire.

Whisk in the flour slowly, a little at a time until the roux starts to thicken. Cook the roux for 30 to 45 minutes over medium heat until the desired color is achieved. We wanted ours to be a little darker than peanut butter.

The Gumbo

Yield – 1 gallon

1 1/2 lb. Diced andouille sausage

1 1/2 lbs cooked boneless catfish filets (retain stock or substitute chicken stock)

4 cups chopped okra

1 cup diced onion

1 cup diced green pepper

1 cup diced celery

3 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

1 dash cayenne pepper (or more if you’re brave)

2 Tbls Old Bay seasoning or similar product

salt and pepper to taste

Brown your andouille sausage in your cooking pot. You may need a bit of olive oil to prevent sticking.

Add onions, celery and green peppers. cook until the onions start to become transparent.

Stir in your roux. Prepare ahead of time and make sure the roux is the desired color, a little more brown than peanut butter.

Stir in enough of your fish stock to make a gallon or so of finished product. Make sure the stock blends with the roux. As the stock cooks the roux will thicken it.

Add in the okra and spices and simmer for at least 35- 45 minutes. Make sure that the roux and fish stock have blended well and that the okra has cooked thoroughly.

Serve over cooked white rice. Enjoy!

Download a PDF of the recipe -CatfishandAndouilleGumboRecipe.pdf

Hair Peace Charities -www.HairPeace.org

Robert Wholey & Company – www.wholey.com

Parma Sausage Products – www.ParmaSausage.com

Enjoy!

 Here’s a transcript of the video in case you want to use it as a reference-

Hey it’s Zeke. Welcome to my kitchen. Today we’re going to cook some Cajun gumbo with locally sourced Andouille sausage and catfish. Don’t miss it.

We were lucky enough to be invited to a charity event. It’s called Recipe For Hope our friend Bonny Diver does this every year. It makes money for ladies with cancer to buy wigs. Here’s the thing, every person who participates has to cook something, so I’m going to try authentic Cajun,  AHYEEEE! Gumbo with catfish, okra and locally sourced Andouille sausage. Let’s give it a try!

I wanted to find the best ingredients I could for my gumbo, that means the freshest fish, the best vegetables and the best sausage so I so I started out at Wholey’s Fish Market in Pittsburgh. In my opinion, they’ve got the freshest fish around, and right across the street, as luck would have it, is the Parma Sausage Company. They make all their own sausage right there and their Andouille is smoky and spicy and perfect for our gumbo. Alright, the next step to the gumbo is making a roux. That’s the basis for a lot of Cajun cooking. A roux is made by heating up some oil and slowly whisking in some flour until it thickens up. Roux making is an art all by itself and we’ll have the instructions at zekeland.com if you’re interested. What we’re going to do is let it cook slowly over medium heat until it’s about the color of, uh, a little darker that peanut butter. We’ll use this roux to thicken up our gumbo.

The next step is, we ad our catfish to some boiling water. Get your fish market to filet your catfish for you. We spent a lot of time getting the bones out of this but we got some great fish stock to use in the gumbo. Next up, we’re going to cook our diced Andouille sausage. We went ahead and started cooking it in the big pot we’re going to use for the gumbo. Once it’s cooked through we’re going to add some celery, onion and green pepper and let it all cook together. Next we’re going to stir in our roux, our fish stock, the cooked catfish, some okra, cayenne pepper, Worcestershire sauce and a few other things. The complete recipe is at zekeland.com. And then we’re going to let our gumbo cook low and slow on the stove until it’s time to go to our event.

Alright, so far, so good. Now all we have to do is go to Recipe For Hope and see hoe everyone likes our gumbo.

[crowd noise]

>>So Zeke’s gumbo was awesome. It was delicious!

>>Well good! Thank you!

>>Thank you so much.

>>I’m glad you liked it!

[crowd noise]

Put that on his bill!

[laughing]

Join us this Saturday, February 11th for Recipe for Hope 2011,at the Mayernic Center on Camp Horn Rd. in Pittsburgh.

Local media personalities, community leaders and celebrities try their hand at cooking their favorite dishes and serving them to you. Zeke will be there with his homemade Catfish Gumbo! (Check back here after the event for the recipe).

Hair Peace Charities raises money to help women buy wigs while undergoing chemotherapy treatment.

Watch this video from Bonny Diver-Hall, the founder of Hair Peace Charities and find out more about Hair Peace and how to get tickets to Recipe for Hope 2011.

Find out more and buy tickets at HairPeace.org

See you there!