The Gadget Chef

Simple Chili Shoutout

2015-12-03T08:39:00.003-05:00

Been a while, and while this isn't going to be a full on review or recipe. I hope to add that shortly as I try to get back to doing something more playing in the kitchen and writing on the blog.

I have to say I made only a few slight variations to her recipe(mostly because of what I had on hand), but I have to give some major thanks to The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, her recipe I found on Foodnetwork.com for Simple, Perfect Chili, turned out amazing for me and my guests after Thanksgiving, a wonderful break from leftovers.

I'm planning to make it again, and share my experiences with it.

Shipshewana, Indiana

2015-07-27T10:33:00.002-04:00

When talking about cooking, one thing a lot of people bring up is Amish made food. This past weekend I had a chance to visit Shipshewana, IN. While there I did get a chance to try some of the local places, and had some good food, and found some things to try.

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Tikka Masala

2015-02-14T21:05:00.001-05:00

I have yet to attempt to make Indian food myself, but my wife and I both enjoy it. So this is one time I'm going to recommend a jar of something from the grocery store.

A while back we decided to try this Kroger Private Selections Tikka Masala sauce. I sautéed some onions, and green peppers, emptied a jar of the Tikka masala sauce in there, along with a drained can of garbanzo beans. Since I wanted some sort of meat, that the wife did not want, I seared some chicken in another pan, then added some of the tikka masala from the other pan, and let both pans simmer for a while.

Served with some rice and some garlic naan, and you will have a nice little Indian dinner.

Hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Another New Addition

2015-01-13T07:47:00.003-05:00

Yesterday was a day for big news for our family. We found out that we will be having another little girl. It will be official. My son and I will be outnumbered.

It's going to be a girl!

So I will have another little line cook coming in a a few months. We will definitely have a kitchen full of a little helpers in a few years.

Post Christmas fun

2014-12-30T08:23:00.001-05:00

Christmas this year was a wonderful event, from some great gifts from all, to seeing my children light up as they opened their presents. Myself I got 2 things that I will be sharing in more detail soon, but have had some great fun this past week with them.

One of the first things I need to get a picture up of, my mother made an Apron with "The Gadget Chef" embroidered on it. I was so shocked, I was pretty much crying with laughter. I will definitely be putting a picture of it on here once I get a chance to.

Another item I got, was the Kitchenaid Food Processor attachment, and while I haven't had a chance to fully go over it, I did use it to dice up some toppings for a salad last night. My only thoughts were wow. I absolutely love the dicing the blade. The tomatoes didn't come out quite as well as I would have hoped, but the cucumbers, carrots, and celery looked like restaurant style toppings, absolutely beautiful. I also decided that if you want to dice up a mirepoix (onions, celery, and carrots for the rest of us) for a soup base or whatever, you would be able to dice them up into small bites in no time flat with this little beauty, my poor knives might get jealous.

Hopefully I will be able to get a review and some other details up soon.

For now I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas, and have a safe and flavorful New Year.

Some Thanksgiving Results

2014-11-07T08:26:00.002-05:00

Thanks everyone for taking the time to take my Thanksgiving Survey.

If you haven't taken it, just go to The Gadget Chef Thanksgiving Survey.

Or you can See the current results.
Please note, due to some compatibility with Google charts, there is a link to a popup that will let you see it, if you can't see it embedded in the page.

I will keep it going until Thanksgiving, so please participate.

So far it looks like the majority of people are looking forward to stuffing/dressing for Thanksgiving. I certainly can't blame them, thats my favorite as well. Looks like I'm going to have to find a good recipe to share with everyone. If anyone has any that they suggest, I welcome the comments and recommendations. I admit this would be my first time making it, I usually just get to enjoy my mother's dressing.

I think in the near future, I will have more polls, and let some of you decide what kind of recipe you want to see. Maybe we will put some Pinterest results to the test, and see if they are the real deal, or real fails.

What dish can't you wait for on Thanksgiving?

2014-11-06T09:58:00.000-05:00

Today let's take a look and see what everyone is most looking forward to on Thanksgiving.

See which dish is the most popular!

The Gadget Chef Thanksgiving Survey

See the current results

Super Mario Treats

2014-09-13T21:36:00.001-04:00

My son's birthday party was today, and my wife who goes above and beyond in decorating and themes, did it again with my son's Super Mario birthday party.

She had seen an idea on Pinterest, where they make an eight bit Mario from cupcakes. But since we were just having cake, that wasn't going to be an option to make. I gave her an idea which I thought would work out even better.

Mario made out of Rice Crispy Treats.

Super Mario in Rice Crispy Treats

It turned out remarkable, she made 4 batches of crispy treats colored black, blue, red, and normal.

For his hair she covered those pieces in chocolate, a little white chocolate colored yellow for his buttons.

She did an amazing job, and made a real impression on everyone. What can I say, my wife is pretty impressive in the kitchen, and very artistic.

Oster Pressure Cooker

2014-05-23T12:09:00.001-04:00

Many people think pressure cooker and the first word that comes to their mind is dangerous. I'm not going to say there isn't danger in using one, but isn't there danger in using a burner on your range, your oven, or even just your good knives? Mostly gone are the days of hearing about a bursting pressure cooker, but the returns on cooking tender and flavorful foods a bit quicker than other methods, its always nice to have that option.

Oster Pressure Cooker

Proofing Technique

2014-04-07T09:15:00.001-04:00

Most of us, do not have the luxury of having a all the pro tools for cooking, and like with most things out there, having the right tools makes the job that much easier. Bakeries usually have the convenience of having a proofer to let their dough rise, most people are like me and do not. If you are anything like me too, you really don't keep your kitchen or your house at a temperature that is conducive to the process either. In the winter, I keep the heat too low, and in the summer, I abuse my AC and still keep the temperature pretty low. While you can still proof bread like this, the time it takes and the results will vary dramatically. I'm not sure if it was something I saw on TV or something while browsing the internet, but I found a way that works amazingly and while I've only done it once, I imagine it will have pretty consistent results.

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General Tso's Tofu

2014-03-27T13:43:00.000-04:00

I am not nor could I ever be a pure vegetarian, however my wife is, and because of this, I will try vegetarian dishes every now and again. I admit some of them, with the right flavor combinations are acceptable substitutions. This dish was one of them, the sauce has so much flavor, you barely miss the meat.

General Tso's Tofu

Pampered Chef Mix 'N Chop Review

2014-03-17T14:07:00.000-04:00

I'm going to take this time to mention a little gadget that while small in composure can certainly make a difference in some of your meals. The Pampered Chef Mix 'N Chop, while it started out as a splurge purchase (not much of one as it's fairly reasonably priced), but has proven to be great at what it does.

Pampered Chef Mix 'N Chop

Creamy Onion Soup, a copy cat recipe from Outback

2013-12-17T09:39:00.002-05:00

I don't know about you, but it seems every time I find something I love at a restaurant, it ends up going away or becoming a special that if you are lucky it happens to be on the menu when you go there for dinner. One of those was the Creamy Onion Soup from the Outback Steakhouse. A friend and I both love that soup so much, that we began to get teased after we both did a small cheer after finding out they had it that evening.

Well I decided to do a search and see what I could come up with as far as trying to make it at home. Thanks to this recipe, I found a copy cat that was so close, it was remarkable. In fact, if I had a small loaf of bread buttered with a huge steak knife, I might have just have stood up and shouted "G'Day!".

My attempt at the Creamy Onion Soup

Now while this recipe seems a bit involved and the first time you make it, you might find yourself running around to get things done. But relax while it does take a while, if done in the proper order, should be no problem at all. Oh and yes I was running around for about half the time on this, even though I had no real reason to. So let's see if I can help you avoid that.

Ingredients:

2 cups yellow sweet onions, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons butter
1 (15 ounce) can chicken broth (2 cups if you are like me and have a larger box of your favorite)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon fresh pepper, ground
2 chicken bouillon cubes
1/4 cup Velveeta cheese, cubes, diced (compressed in measuring cup)
1 1/2-1 3/4 cups white sauce (below)
cheddar cheese, shredded (for garnish)

Thick white sauce ingredients:

3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups whole milk

In a 2 quart pan melt the butter and begin to sauté your onions on low heat. You want to cook them to where they are quite soft and pretty transparent. Don't worry this will take quite a while, because you don't want to caramelize them, so you don't want them to brown. Occasionally stir them and let them go while you begin the other steps.

While your onions are cooking, now it's time to make the white sauce. In a small 1 quart sauce pan, melt the butter on medium heat to medium low. Add the flour and stir constantly till it begins to thicken some and come away from the sides.

Next while string constantly add the milk a little at a time, then add the salt. I admit I added it all at once, and you can do this, but it will take a little while longer and it probably took a bit more stirring so the bottom didn't burn, but it can be done.

While continuing to stir the mixture so it doesn't get lumps or burn, cook it till it thickens up to the about the consistency of pudding. It can take a while, especially if you are like me, and added it all at once.

Another note as well, I used 1% milk for this instead of whole milk, so I'm sure my white sauce did not get quite as thick, and the final result wasn't quite as creamy either, but it was still quite tasty and maybe a pinch liter than using whole milk.

Once you have reached that consistency, set aside off the heat until ready for the soup.

Hopefully by now your onions are pretty transparent and soft. Remember also, if you like a little crunch to your onions you don't have to cook them quite as long at this stage.

Now you can add your chicken broth, the chicken bouillon cubes, salt, pepper, and stir completely until completely heated.

Next you add the Velveeta and the white sauce, stirring constantly until all ingredients are melted and blended together.

**hint: I tasted it at this point and decided to add quite a bit more pepper, because I always liked it to have a good peppery bite, so season to taste now.

Now that you have it all together, turn the temp down to warm and let cook for about another 30-45 minutes. Personally I stirred it occasionally, and couldn't help but have some more tastings.

Serve it with a garnish of shredded cheddar cheese, and voila you have your very own Creamy Onion Soup.

I have decided that this is a wonderful creamy base, and personally plan on trying it with potatoes, broccoli, or any other cheesy type soup you might enjoy.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Sodastream

2013-12-11T10:51:00.004-05:00

By now unless you do not watch TV and have someone else do your shopping for you, I'm sure you have seen and/or heard of the Sodastream. A home option to carbonate water, and a multitude of syrups to add to it, to make your own soda at home.

My Sodastream

The internet is a abuzz with all kinds of messages about it, whether it saves you money, just saves plastic, or is it even worth it at all.

Personally I just got mine a few weeks ago, found a deal on Black Friday for it, and decided to give it a try. Granted it was still not cheap at $50 (although I did get 3 free syrup bottles with it), it was the best deal I had found with it since my gadget addiction kept looking at it.

My kit came with the plastic body, a carbonator, a 1 liter bottle, 6 sample syrups, and like I mentioned I was able to get 3 free syrup bottles with it.

The short and sweet of it, for this model, I can honestly say I would not pay over $50, had I known exactly the build of this one, I'm not sure I would have gotten it at that. The entire thing is completely made of plastic, and it's not that I'm against a lightweight plastic gadget, I can't say that from a quick glance at it, that I'm getting much for my money, although if you include the cost of a new carbonator at around $30 in reality I'm probably getting about what I pay for. If it lasts long enough, I guess I won't be too upset, but time will tell, if it is good plastic, or the cheap stuff.

The directions are simple enough for it thats for sure, fill a bottle up to the line, screw it into the Sodastream, and give it 3 good presses to carbonate the water. There you have soda water in no time flat(no pun intended) and for practically nothing. Although via some experimentation, if you use really cold water like leaving a bottle in the fridge before you carbonate, it doesn't seem to carbonate as well, but this was far from a scientific test, just one that worked and and one that worked less.

The flavor's I've tried thus far have been, Diet Orange, Orange Mango, and Dr. Pete. The best by far is the Orange Mango, and I know the reason why. I am just not a fan of Splenda or sucralose, and while even the regular versions that use Sugar, still use a certain amount of sucralose(if you look at the ingredients), the diet versions use all sucralose. Hence why if you try the Diet cola, it isn't even close to Diet Coke, it's much closer to Coke Zero. If you are like my wife and I, that difference is huge, and was a big deterrent from getting the Sodastream originally. I really thought it was just the difference between Diet Coke and Coke Zero, that made me not like it, but now after trying a couple other diet drinks versus a regular one in the Sodastream, I'm pretty certain I just don't care for the Splenda factor.

One of the nice things about the Sodastream is the play factor. If you are like me, there is something about drinking a carbonated beverage that just beats plain flat old drinks. Well I decided I would try something out, a way that could potentially actually make the Sodastream a money saver. I took a Crystal Light packet and made my own concentrate, and added it to the carbonated water. Raspberry Ice flavor.

Ok, so on this attempt I took a packet that made 2 quarts and mixed it with 2 tablespoons of water. Mixed that up real good, and added it to the carbonated water. My first lesson from this, way too strong for my tastes. Going to have to try it with much less, we shall see, but it was a bit over strong, needed to be diluted quite a bit more. Aside from being overly strong, it was quite delicious and worked very well. A crisp carbonated raspberry soda, ahhhhh. So I will try some more things down the road.

All in all, this one is a fun toy with some possibilities, but if you are looking at it for a cost saver, don't bet on it. There are many sites that calculate the costs savings, and basically say you will save the $100 price tag after about 1500 liters of soda (ends up costing around .45 cents a liter if memory serves from what I have read, so a 2 liter on sale would be about the same or could be less, but don't take my word on it, google it and you will find many pages that discuss it,). Now the savings on Soda water alone, I'm sure you would see much quicker returns.

If you are one of those "green" type people, yes you save a lot of plastic using this, (although you still have quite a few small plastic syrup bottles too).

The best reason I could see for this in reality, is city living. If you live in a place where you walk to and from the grocery or take public transportation, it most certainly is easier on you to carry a small bottle of syrup than it is to cart 2 liters or cases of cans home.

But I will continue to play around with it, and maybe figure out a great alternative that will make it more cost effective.

If you have ideas or experiences with it, let me know.

Best of luck in the kitchen!

KitchenAid Hand Blender

2013-12-06T08:37:00.001-05:00

Today I received an early Christmas gift to myself, and one of my post Black Friday shopping deals. The KitchenAid 5 speed hand blender. Right out of the box it is impressive, it comes with a nice case to keep all the pieces together, a chopping base, and a pitcher.

KitchenAid Hand Blender

I have to say just pulling it out of the case, it has a well built feel to it, and the 3 different blades are nice additions for an immersion blender. An S-blade for blending, a multi-purpose blade, and a frothing/batter mixing blade are an excellent assortment to include with the whisk and the chopping bowl. With all these attachments and 5 speeds of power, it certainly has the ability to replace several things in your kitchen, which is a good thing as one of the downsides of this set, is that it takes up a decent amount of space with this case and the bowls.

Not having an immediate need for this, but still wanting to get it out and try it, I was forced to send my wife out for some ice-cream, so I could at least make milk shakes for everyone. Let me tell you this was the EASIEST request I have ever made. Short and sweet version, "Hun will you get some ice-cr...", "Ok". Is it her love for me, or her love of ice cream? I am just going to assume it's for me and not ponder too long about it.

Anyway I loaded up the pitcher with ice-cream , tossed in some milk, and put the S-blade and went to town. It made easy work of it, and it wasn't long before I had enough made up for 2 glasses one for each kid. Refilling I made enough for 2 more, filled my glass, then proceeded to add some bananas and finish it off for my wife. Again, no problem at all.

Now while this hasn't been an exceptionally intense test, I have to say I am still impressed with the feel of it, and the attachments. Oh and taking off the bar and blade and not having to try to avoid getting water all over the electrical portion...big plus in my book. While if they would have made those portions dishwasher safe, it would have been a plus, just being able to clean them without fumbling around the motor is a big help.

Hopefully I will get a chance to try it out more and update on it, but for now, I think this might have been a pretty good purchase. Only time tells with kitchen gadgets, if they are fads or forevers.

Dutch Cocoa Cookies Copycat

2013-11-18T09:31:00.001-05:00

I have been very remised in my blogging duties. To be fair though, I haven't really had a chance to try anything new, so I didn't think you would want to read about something rehashed. This week though I got to try something totally new for me, a copy cat recipe for Dutch Cocoa Cookies.
And while it's not an exact copy, they are extremely good and very easy to make.

Dutch Cocoa Cookies

This recipe is not my own at all, so I have to give credit for to thebadpenguin.

Recipe:
2 cups All Purpose Flour
3/4 cups Dutch Processed cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

2 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter at room temp
2 cups of sugar (will need more to roll the cookies)
2 eggs
2 teaspoons of vanilla

Sift the first 4 ingredients together, I cheat a bit and put it into a mixing bowl and use a whisk to lighten it up, very similar result to sifting without dealing with a sifter, since most of your flour is pre sifted anymore.

With my handy dandy KitchenAid mixer I mixed the butter and sugar together, then added the vanilla, and the eggs one at a time. Then gradually add the flour mixture to it so that it gets well incorporated.

Now I removed the dough, wrapped it in plastic, and placed it into the fridge to chill and set up some. I let it go about an hour, although a little longer might have been better, but it worked for me.

Once the dough had set some, I took a paper plate and added some sugar to it, now I tried it 2 different ways, one with plain sugar and another with sanding sugar. For the look the sanding sugar came out with a look much closer to the classic Archway cookies, although the regular sugar tasted great too. The sugar just wasn't as noticeable on the finished product.

All you have to do is roll the dough into balls about 1" in size, then roll it to coat it in sugar, and place them on a prepped cookie sheet. I used vegetable oil from a oil sprayer, but Pam would work just as well I'm sure. Be sure to give them plenty of room, as you can see by the picture they spread out pretty good size.

Bake them in a 350 degree oven for about 12 minutes, until the center is set.

Take them out and place them on a rack to cool, be careful as they are very soft at this point and very delicate. But they cool and become a chocolate lover's delight.

These were also great fun for the kids to watch as they slowly "melt" into their cookie shape.

Best of luck in the kitchen!

Cheescake Puffs

2013-04-23T14:55:00.000-04:00

This past weekend I decided to play around in the kitchen. Got an idea and decided to give it a try. I ended up creating what I have decided to call Cheesecake Puffs.

Cheesecake Puff

Here's the kicker aside from maybe the blueberries (and potentially cream cheese), you probably already have everything you need to make this little beauty, because the main ingredient...Pancake mix. Thats right I started with nothing more than "just add water" pancake mix.

Ingredients

Pancake batter
Butter
1 8oz softened cream cheese
1 egg
1/2 cup of sugar
1/4 tsp of vanilla

Topping

Blueberries
Sugar to taste (I tend to error on the more for a sweeter product)

Before we begin, go ahead and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

First let's mix up our cheesecake filling, if you planned ahead and your cream cheese is at about room temp good for you, if you are like me and decided to do this and are impatient you can soften the cream cheese up in the microwave for a short time(doesn't take long, you don't want to cook it....and PLEASE don't do it in the aluminum wrapper, just put it in a microwave safe bowl). In your mixing bowl add the cream cheese, sugar, egg, and vanilla, and mix it up real well. Till you have a nice creamy consistency. Now with that ready, you can set it aside and mix up your pancake batter.

I know I didn't put amounts on the batter, well a lot depends on the mix, and your own preferences, but you don't want to make it too thin.

With all this ready, I buttered my muffin pan up real well, I suppose you could use oil, or shortening, but I am one who thinks a little butter makes everything better. I'm not advocating a lifestyle of butter, but as with everything, it's all about moderation, and food should be enjoyed, not just eaten. I did use a large muffin pan, so these are decent size, I was going for fork food, not finger foods( although a small version in a mini muffin pan, would be delectable, but dangerously easy to eat). My pan was still pretty new and nonstick, so that was all I used. Removing the finished product was pretty easy.

Fill each section about 1/3 of the way, although you could add more just adjust cooking time, this is all about playing, not perfecting. In the middle of each add a scoop of the cheesecake mixture, you can add as much or as little as you'd like, I didn't use all of mine in one batch, but these were experimental, maybe someday I will perfect the recipe and put something a bit more precise.

Now let's add these to the oven and watch the magic. It will take about 15-20 minutes, and the tops won't brown much, so keep a watchful eye on the edges.

While they cook you can make the fruit topping, anything you'd like would work, but I have an abundance of frozen blueberries from my in-laws, so they won in our household. All I did was simply put some in a pan on medium heat, and added some sugar and cook them down. This is where the fun of taste testing comes in as well, as you always have to taste to see if you need to add more sugar or not.

You will start to notice the middles rising on your puffs, with any luck they are pulling away from the edges of your pan as well, and you can get a good idea of how done they are by how brown the edges get, at least that is what I did. The cheesecake centers should also be pretty well set at this point too.

Using a rubber spatula you should be able to scoop them right out. This is where you test your nonstick pan and your butter job, both of which hopefully worked well. Once you take them out, you can put a little of your fruit topping on the top, and there you go, instant sweet bliss.

Serving to a crowd, a beautiful display of them on a serving platter each individually topped would look marvelous.

Good luck, hope you enjoy them!

Cheater Peanut Butter Pie

2013-04-13T12:32:00.000-04:00

If you are like my family, you can go through some peanut butter, whether it's peanut butter toast, peanut butter sandwiches, or peanut butter on pancakes. Oh and if you haven't tried peanut butter on your pancakes, give it a try before you knock it, my wife thought I was a little off the first time she saw me do it, now she won't hardly eat pancakes without it. I am also going to throw out my little endorsement for my favorite PB, if you haven't tried it, give Jiff Natural a try. We thought we would give it a chance, and have never looked back, in fact it's the only kind we use now.

Now on to my goodie experiment., Here was the final product. A simple peanut butter pie, perfect for anyone, even those that aren't big into cooking, but love peanut butter pie, especially since this is a no bake option.

This is the version I made, and although I think next time I am going to double the peanut butter, like I said my family is crazy about peanut butter, and I am also going to use just a standard graham cracker crust, as I think it has more flavor than the chocolate crust I used.

Here goes with what I did this time.

1 Crust (I used a chocolate crust, but I think a graham cracker crust will taste better)

Filling:
1 cup Heavy whipping cream
1 cup milk
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 box vanilla instant pudding

Put all the ingredients in your mixer, using the whisk attachment mix everything together good till it somewhat sets, it doesn't set quite as well as pudding alone. IN about 5 minutes though it will be all mixed together well. Then pour into the crust, cover, and place in the fridge. The next day you have a wonderful peanut butter pie. It probably would be ready in a couple hours, but it was late when I made it, so I didn't get to try it till the next day.

Top with some Cool Whip and you are ready to server.

Enjoy

Quick vegetable Lo Mein

2012-12-03T15:28:00.000-05:00

Lo Mein is probably one of the things I like the most when I pick up Chinese carryout. After many tries I finally found one that I make at home that I like just as much, and can easily be made just about any night, assuming you have some good egg noodles handy.

My Vegetable Lo Mein

To start with this recipe, let me say I've tried making lo mein at home many times, with some less than stellar results. Most of the time I started with some linguine noodles. Unfortunately after all those attempts I found that the problem with them all was just that, the noodles. Most pasta you get from the store has a high percentage of semolina flour, if not completely made from that. While semolina gives you a wonderful pasta for italian foods, the results for lo mein are just not right.

Now in my previous post I mentioned my new pasta roller, this was the key to my lo mein. I made some basic egg noodles straight off the recipe book that came with the roller. It makes a wonderful egg noodle, that is just perfect for this chinese dish. Now if you don't want to make your own noodles, which I warn you, once you start, going back to some store bought box of noodles becomes very tough to do, you can buy some egg noodles, just try to avoid typical boxed pasta that has semolina and go for a basic egg noodle, for me I like something sized around the same as linguini.

As far as a recipe goes, this is going to be the most imprecise recipe you might ever read, but that's because I think lo mein is something that is cooked very much to taste, so I could say 2 tbsp of this and 1 tsp of that, but yours and mine tastes might disagree highly, so play around and find what you like. The other beauty of this recipe is that with only some minor differences, you can turn it into a wonderful fried rice which I will talk about as well soon.

The basic ingredients that I start with are as follows:

egg Noodles
eggs
butter
wok oil
garlic
cabbage
carrots
green onions
oyster sauce
fish sauce
soy sauce
sugar
salt and pepper
and sometimes I even add some frozen peas

Cook your noodles as per your directions, now me sometimes I will cook them a little longer, as I like a pretty soft noodle for lo mein, however you need to be careful, too long, and you will have lo mush, and not lo mein.

While your noodles are cooking, melt some butter in your wok, it doesn't take much just enough to coat the bottom of your wok, so your eggs won't stick too much, if you have a good non stick wok you can cut way back on it if you like. Then scramble up your eggs, at our house we like a good bit of egg in ours, so I tend to use 3 to 4 eggs, it's also how I sneak in some extra protein into my vegetarian wife's diet. Once you have your eggs scrambled, take them out and set them into a bowl for later.

Next I have to clean out the bit of egg that is left in the pan, my wok is not the most non stick item I have, and I don't want a ton of burnt egg in my lo mein. Then I add some wok oil and a clove or 2 of minced garlic, depending on the size of the clove and how many vampires I want to keep away, but a lot of this is purely to your taste, if you like a lot of garlic go for 2 or more, but if you don't want to be over the top, keep it to one.

While thats sautéing, chop up some cabbage, now how much you like and how you like it cut is entirely up to you, I've made it chopped pretty fine and also as shown in the picture above cut much larger. I do like a good bit in there, I used about half of a small head of cabbage, however if I got one of the heads of cabbage I get from my in-laws, it would be probably no more than a quarter if not less. I have to say they have sent down some of the biggest heads of cabbages I have ever seen.

One the cabbage has started to cook a bit, I toss in some julienned carrots, I wait on them a bit because I prefer them to be less than completely cooked where as I like the cabbage to be cooked through much more. I also cut the onions and place them in there now to cook. I dice up the green portions as well, but save those as garnish for serving.

By now you have probably cooked your noodles, so let's strain them and rinse them well with some cold water, this prevents them from continuing to cook and keeps them from sticking together.

As your veggies continue to cook you start making your sauce. Even for a large batch of noodles, which is probably almost a pound, it doesn't take as much as you might think. I use about a tbsp of fish sauce, a couple tsp of oyster sauce, maybe 1/2 tsp of sugar and probably about 1-2 tsp of soy sauce. Again I say this is all to taste, so play around a bit and find what you like, it's not rocket science, its cooking. You can always add a little more while you toss the noodles. Because of this I really try to go light on the soy sauce, and add a little more while it's cooking. Mix this all up and here's where your hard work is about to pay off.

Make a bit of a well with your veggies and toss in the sauce, followed by the noodles, tossing everything together well, trying to coat everything with a bit of sauce. Next add your eggs back into pan continuing to toss everything together. Now add a little salt and pepper to taste and a little more soy sauce if you so desire as well.

Once everything is mixed together, you can add the green portion of your onions to make it look like something you got from your local take-out. you should end up with pan full of something like this:

Now you can scoop onto your plate and serve, although if you really want an unbiased opinion of your new creation, get yourself some of those little containers, and tell everyone you tried out a new Chinese take-out and see what they think.

Good luck in the kitchen and enjoy!

KitchenAid Pasta Roller and Cutters

2012-11-07T12:55:00.000-05:00

Lately it's been more recipes than gadgets. Today I get to talk about a brand new gadget that I got. Yes I am worse than a kid with a credit card in a candy store when it comes to gadgets, admittedly that's kitchen gadgets and just about any other kind of gadget as well. Ask my wife she will tell you how bad I could be.

Every once in a while I have to say I am more than shocked at what something can do, and this is one of those moments. Yesterday I received a package, this one I have been pondering over for well over a month. As I escalate my list of culinary creations at home, a couple months ago I decided it was time to try to make some fresh pasta. I decided on a light wheat pasta, and found a recipe from KitchenAid that looked pretty good. This was going to be by hand, well except for the mixing part. This should be no problem right? I certainly didn't know what I was getting into, and now I know why the mob was so rough, their momma's were tough gals after rolling out all that pasta by hand. I mean it's a good workout rolling out that dough, trying to get it thin enough, especially if you have minimal countertop space to work on. Then to cut it I used a pizza cutter with a cookie sheet as a guide, my noodle sizes were no where near consistent, but it worked. The end results were very good, albeit I gave up and the noodles were a little thicker than I would have liked.

It was then I decided if I was going to make pasta it was time for a new gadget. Now here was decision time, my immediate first instinct was the KitchenAid attachment for my mixer, it's what I have seen the most and I've had great luck with my mixer as well. However the pasta maker attachment sets are not cheap by any means, MSRP being $249 for the basic set of roller, and 2 cutters, then they also have the Pasta press for $189. Both options seemed a bit pricy for something I wasn't sure how often I would use, I mean how much easier was this going to be than hand rolling? Was it really going to be something that I would use often? Would my days of boxes of dried pasta be over? These were serious questions to which i had no answers at all.

Starting to look at the KitchenAid attachments I had to do some thinking, one was a roller and was an extruder. Personally I like fettuccine and linguini better than spaghetti, but is there a real difference, I mean pasta is pasta right? Well doing some research online I came across people saying that the biggest difference in pasta is whether it's rolled or extruded. Being pushed through those tiny holes to make the pasta causes it to be kind of dense and heavy, whereas rolled pasta is supposed to be lighter and more porous causing it to hold sauce better. While pondering this thought, it made a lot of sense, and I'd say I have to agree with it, which is why I probably tend to like the flatter noodles, more surface area to hold onto that delicious sauce, whether it be marinara or alfredo. At this point the KitchenAid press was nixed, while the idea of making my own macaroni was nice, I'd much rather make my own fettuccine, which would definitely lead to more use, and not something else to pack in the pantry. A roller was definitely the way to go, but that doesn't mean to say I narrowed down the decision any more.

So I got to thinking, and yes this is a very dangerous moment when I do. A manual pasta maker, they aren't too expensive, maybe I could get one of them and test the waters. I began doing a lot of strolling along the web reading up on these classic devices. What did I find? Many articles saying don't waste your money on a cheap manual rollers, statements like the handle wouldn't stay in, to not staying clamped down, to metal coming off into your pasta. From that point the reviews pointed to 2 main contenders, Marcato Atlas, and Imperia Pasta Machines, both of which run right around $69. I had a hard time swallowing that price for a manual pasta machine. Manual pasta makers just seem like they are either made for two people or someone with three hands, and since I'm neither, the KitchenAid roller won out, and I couldn't be more pleased with that decision.

For my first attempt I stayed simple, standard egg pasta straight from the recipe book that came with it. With this attachment it couldn't be easier. I will post the recipe and some pictures the next time I get it out, which I plan on being real soon.

Making the dough in the mixer is a breeze, then let it rest covered for about 20-30 minutes, then you can actually knead it by running it through the roller on it's highest setting quite a few times, just folding it over and re-running it through, this works twofold, one by kneading the pasta, and two by helping you to create a more uniform sheet before you start thinning it out.

KitchenAid is changing their package right now, so the package will contain the roller, fettuccine cutter, and a linguini cutter, however if you look right now you can save a good bit and get their original package on clearance. The only difference is instead of a linguini cutter you get a spaghetti cutter, this was the package I was able to get, for only $139. The cutters on the spaghetti cutters are rounded so you get the rounded spaghetti shape, but if you are so inclined, you can still use it to make a thin linguini. So the difference in my mind is minor. In fact when I placed the order I wasn't entirely sure which one I would get, and I'm still not sure I care enough to spend an extra $70-$80 for the different cutter. I think the next time I make pasta I'm going to try a thin linguini and see what I think, I can't imagine I will be be disappointed.

This attachment has now lead me to stock up on all purpose flour and I'm sure will lead to the purchase of some semolina flour to experiment with as well. I see a good bit of pasta in my future, but very little if any from those little boxes in the grocery store, thanks primarily to my KitchenAid pasta rollers. If you want to make fresh pasta and have a KitchenAid mixer, this in my mind is almost a must have. I can't even imagine hand rolling pasta now.

Best of luck in the kitchen....Ciao!

Cinnamon Rolls similar to Cinnabon

2012-10-21T23:08:00.000-04:00

Copycat recipes are out there all over the internet for just about anything, sometimes they are good sometimes they aren't even close. The one thing you can't always find or confirm are the brands they use to get that exact taste. When I made this version of the Cinnabon copycat, I used a couple generic branded items, and I would say that if I used a couple alternative brands, my results would have been practically indistinguishable from Cinnabon, or at least taste so good as to be a wonderful alternative. Even the generics I used resulted in delicious rolls.

Cinnamon Rolls (Cinnabon Copycat Recipe)

Let's start with the ingredients:

Dough:
1 Cup warm Milk
2 Eggs at room temp
1/3 cup melted butter
4 1/2 cup flour (I used bread flour)
1 tsp salt (as normal for me I use Kosher salt)
1/2 cup sugar
1 package active yeast

Filling:
1 cup brown sugar
2 1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup melted butter
another 1/4 cup butter to spread on the dough

Cream cheese icing:
3 oz cream cheese
1/4 cup softened butter
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt
1 1/2 cup of powdered sugar

Let's begin to make these wonderfully rich treats.

Warm up the milk, you can microwave it for about 45-50 seconds, you want it warm but not hot. I used my Kitchenaid bowl and dissolved the yeast in the milk, then added the eggs, butter, salt, sugar, and flour. Using the dough hook, I started it slow until it was mixed then raised the speed a bit until it combined everything and pulled most of the dough off the bowl and gathered on the hook.

Once your dough is completed, take another bowl and either spread some oil or nonstick spray over the entire bowl. Now roll the dough to cover the entire ball of dough in the oil or nonstick spray. Next cover the bowl and let sit for in a warm area till it's about doubled in size. Should take about an hour or two.

As you are approaching the end of your rising period, it's time to prep the cinnamon sugar mixture for the filling. This one is easy, take the 1 cup of brown sugar, 2 1/2 tbsp of cinnamon and 1/4 cup of melted butter, mix them together making a nice little sugary mixture.

Once your dough has doubled in size, take it out onto a well floured surface. Roll your dough out to a fairly uniform thickness, size and thickness I think are a personal preferences, I made my dough just under a 1/4" thick or so.

Next spread the 1/4 cup of melted butter over your dough, following the butter spread your cinnamon and brown sugar mixture over the dough, then roll up the and cut your rolls and place them into a well greased pan. Give them some space between each roll, because now you are going to cover them up and let them raise a bit more.

While your rolls are rising again, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Once your oven is up to temp and you are satisfied with the rising of your rolls, I wouldn't go much more than 30-40 minutes on rising time, bake the rolls at 350 for about 20-25 minutes. Now is also your chance to begin making the icing.

For the icing, I used my KitchenAid with the whisk attachment, creaming the butter, cream cheese, vanilla, and salt. Next I added the powdered sugar and slowly brought the mixer up to speed as it incorporated the powdered sugar. Just in case you are impatient like me, take your time with this and start out very slow, or you might have a cloud of sugar all over your counter and you. Once the powdered sugar is incorporated into the mixture, you can run it at high speed for a bit to really whip up the icing.

Once your rolls are done, I let them cool just a bit, but still very warm so the icing melts all over and into the rolls. Enjoy fresh out or wrap them up and save for later. A batch of these made on Friday evening could give you breakfasts for the weekend, or shorter depending on the number of sweet teeth you are satisfying.

Now I had mentioned at the beginning that I used some generics in this recipe, and I do believe certain brands would have made the taste impact on these to make them so close to an actual Cinnabon roll that you might find yourself believing you picked up a pack on your way home. So the 2 generics that I used that I will swap next time for some name brands are the cinnamon and the cream cheese. Cinnamon should be no surprise, go for the Cinnabon brand if you want that authentic taste. The cream cheese I would go for Philadelphia brand, the off brand I used was fine, but it still doesn't have that same taste that Philadelphia has.

Whether you consider this a copycat recipe or just another cinnamon roll recipe, these are some very fine cinnamon rolls, hope you enjoy them as much as my family has.

Good luck in the kitchen!

Easiest bread yet

2012-10-18T11:02:00.000-04:00

Ok, so I definitely have been derelict in my blogging duties. Unfortunately work gets in the way with way too much, one of these days perhaps I will figure out the solution to that, thus far the only thing I have come up with is to win the lottery, but unfortunately I keep forgetting to buy a ticket.

Anyway, I've had a request from my sister to write about an easy way to bake bread, so this is for her, but should also help others, I hope anyway. Her big problem with my the dutch oven bread was she lacked a dutch oven. Well, she also lacks any loaf pans as well. The one thing she does have, a pizza stone, which shouldn't surprise me, as her husband loves pizza probably more than my wife, and thats saying a lot.

Now I came across a couple references online for the worlds simplest recipe for bread to remember, and I cannot argue with it at all. Just remember 6-3-3-13. So what is 6-3-3-13 you might ask, here goes:

6 cups of warm water
3 tbsp of Yeast
3 tbsp of salt
13 cups of bread flour

Now before you look at that and say "How much bread are you planning on making?" I personally have NEVER utilized this recipe in its entirety. I cut it in half and make 2 nice loaves, but remembering 3-1.5-1.5-6.5 just isn't as easy, so I remember the larger batch size and cut it in half. And in case you are wondering 3tsp = 1 tbsp so to halve the recipe it's 4 1/2 tsp of yeast and salt. If you ever have issues with conversions I highly suggest WolframAlpha, it's absolutely wonderful for math issues and conversions.

First thing we do is start out with the water and salt, and mix it up, remember this water needs to be warm, but not hot, then add the salt, I stir it up to dissolve all the salt into the water. Next we add the yeast to this WARM salt water mixture. I want to stress it a lot that this is to be warm not hot water. Yeast is a living thing, so you have to be nice to it, throw it into a scorching hot bath and it's not going to work for you, give it a just a warm bath, and they will wake up and be ready and willing to go.

Once you have the salt and yeast mixture, let it sit for a little bit, 5-10 minutes, give those guys a chance to wake up from their dried sleep. Next we can add the flour.

Now let's talk a little bit about flour for a minute, if you notice I specified bread flour, thats because bread flour contains higher proteins which will create more gluten, gluten is important for bread, that stringy gluten is what holds it together while the CO2 given off by the yeast expands it, you can make bread with all purpose flour, but it will not rise near to the point of a batch with bread flour, it's well worth the extra effort to keep some bread flour on hand for your bread. Another thing I've done with this, is mixed it up a bit, I have made batches with 3 cups of wheat flour and 3 1/2 cups of bread flour for a wonderful light wheat. If you choose to use all wheat flour, it's more than likely going to turn out much denser and not rise near as much as if you use a mixture of the 2 flours. But play around with it and find what you like, I think I might try a few alternatives and see what I can get to come out in the future.

I guess I should take a step back, you can most certainly do this all by hand, but I utilize my Kitchenaid with my bread hook to mix it up and knead it all in the bowl. let it go until it's practically cleaned the edge of the bowl of any residual dough and attached itself all onto the hook. Next you see a lot of bread recipes that say oil a bowl, then be sure to get all the dough completely covered in oil then let it rise, and I can certainly understand that methodology, it keeps the dough together and let's it rise nice and not stick to the bowl when you are ready to get it out, but we are talking easy, so my method, take a plate and stick it over the mixer bowl and walk away for a couple hours to let it rise. Just be sure it's in a relatively warm place, if it's too cold your bread isn't going to rise near as good or as fast, so be weary of drafty areas.

Once it's doubled in size, which like I said, takes about 1.5-2 hours, you are ready for the next step. Now I don't have a lot of counter space and cleaning up a well floured surface is just an absolute pain to me, so what I do is take my cutting board and flip it over to a nice smooth side and throw some flour on it. Flour your surface well, and get plenty of flour on your hands as well. Take your dough from the bowl onto your floured work area, it's going to be sticky and soft, but be gentle with it, we don't want to overly deflate it, we aren't kneading it again, just preparing to bake.

So now you have a lump of dough on the counter, divide it into 2 (as evenly as you can get it) portions. Now cover them with flour and try to nice and easily form them into pretty little round flour covered upside down bowls. I always fold it over so the bottom is where it all comes together since you won't really see that. Once you have your lovely little bowls of dough, cover them up, as it's time to let them rise just a bit more.

At this point you can heat your oven up with your Pizza stone in it to 400 degrees. The time it takes to it to warm up is usually good amount of time to let your dough rise again, thats my usual guestimating timer, and it really hasn't failed me yet, but you could have some super heated oven that only takes 2 minutes to get up to temp, ok ok ok, wait about 10-15 minutes, sheesh. This should allow your bread to raise a bit more and the pizza stone to heat up.

Now comes the tricky part. Open your oven up, and pull out the rack a bit (it's easier with 2 people so you don't cool down your oven too much with the time it takes to get the dough in there and close the door, but eventually you get pretty quick on your own too), once you have easy access to your stone, GENTLY pick up your dough trying not to screw up your shaping job or deflating it, and drop it on your stone. No it's not going to be perfectly round or beautifully shaped at this point, but this is homemade bread, you are going for taste, and that little bit of difference of shape assures everyone that you made this from scratch!

Now once you have it on your stone close it up in the oven and bake it at 400 for about 30 minutes. This is the best time if you haven't already to go back and at least rinse off your mixing bowl, because if you let that dough dry on there, it's going to take some major soaking and scrubbing to get it off, believe me I know from experience.

After you have enjoyed those 30 minutes of bakery quality smells wafting through your household, it's time to remove it from the oven. Take a couple of clean towels or clean oven mitts and just grab the bread from the stone, don't worry about being too careful with, it's going to have a nice crispy crust and be pretty firm. Now let it cool on a wire rack, and whenever you are ready you have a delicious bread for whatever your heart desires, and on a side note, if you have some pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, and some pepperoni if you like, it can make wonderful little pizzas.

Don't forget to repeat the cooking for your second loaf, it's still sitting on your counter ready, and probably a little bit larger than your first loaf since you let it rise while you baked your first. Thats just a bonus!

Now I like a firmer crust on my homemade bread, but some people I know don't, and this trick works with bread from a bread maker as well. If you want a softer bread, after it's cooled down to almost room temp place it into a bag, this lets the moisture soften up the crust. Personally we usually let it cool overnight before placing it into any type of container be it a bag or a large tupperware, whatever is handy at the time.

There you have it, my easiest method for bread, hope you enjoy it as much as we have, we have went through a lot of loaves in our household, but after buying a 50 lbs bag of bread flour at Costco, we have plenty of ingredients. And if you look at what an artisan bread loaf costs you at the grocer's bakery or a place like Panera, you can save a fortune and still have that wonderful quality bread, and maybe once or twice a week spend a few hours to make your bread for the week. You really won't be disappointed!

Best of luck in the Kitchen!

Easy Dutch Baby Pancakes

2012-09-02T21:30:00.000-04:00

Ok, I have been lapsing on my blogging responsibility, but tonight I made something that I feel the need to share. Tonight I made a Dutch Baby pancake, and yes I meant tonight, my wife and I both agree that breakfast foods are too good to be only for the mornings.

This was my finished Dutch Baby pancake, topped off with some blueberries and powdered sugar. I had seen these beautifully delicious items at the Original Pancake House just about every time I have went, but I never could get myself to try one. But then I decided it was time to make one, and I'm not sure yet whether it's good or not, because it was not difficult, but the results were wonderful, so it could be one of those dishes that finds its way into our household more often that it should.

Now I can't take all the credit for the recipe and I believe in giving credit where credit is due. I found the recipe at German Pancake Recipe. For ease I will give my abbreviated version here.

If you've ever looked up recipes for dutch babies, you will notice one thing that most of them mention, they all talk about cooking in either a cast iron pan, or some other pan that is capable of taking the heat from the oven. Well I took a totally different route, and just used a small 9" round cake pan, and it worked perfectly.

Let's start with our shopping list:

3 Eggs
1/2 cup of Bread Flour
1/2 cup of milk
1/8 teaspoon of vanilla
1/8 teaspoon of cinnamon
Enough butter to cover your pan.

To start with, preheat your oven to 425 degrees. While your oven is heating up, now you can start to mix up your batter. First take your eggs and whip them up to a nice smooth consistency. You can then add the rest of the ingredients, mixing until you have smooth creamy batter, it is quite a bit thinner than your normal pancake batter, it will take a few minutes to make sure you get it smooth and no lumps.

Now, if you are only using a cake pan, you don't need to do this for too long, but you will want to preheat your pan. Once your pan is good and hot, and your batter is smooth, the next step is quick and easy. Take your pan out and throw in some butter and let it coat the pan good, be sure to try to get it all over, butter is not just for flavor but also to avoid sticking.

Once your pan is good and coated with butter, pour your batter into the pan, and return it to the oven. Try not to take too long with this, so your pan doesn't get too cool in the mean time. Next just set your timer for 20 minutes. Now while your dish is baking this is where it gets cool. Be sure to look through your oven window every now and then so you can see your the sides of your creation creeping up.

After 20 minutes your dish should be complete. and it will probably look something like this

And as you will notice it's just your standard cake pan that I used and still got excellent results. Serve right away while it's still warm and at it's peak so it's at it's most impressive.

I think this dish is one you could serve in so many ways that your end results could vary from day to day. Tonight I added some blueberries that I cooked up and added some sugar, simple but tasty. But I could see any type of fruit from apples to strawberries. Or you could do it up just like normal pancakes and some butter (or peanut butter as the case may be) and syrup.

Enjoy your new dish, and best of luck in the kitchen.

Easy Cooking with the Crockpot!

2012-08-20T12:17:00.001-04:00

This weekend I took it pretty easy and when I really want to cook easily, I usually pull out my crockpot. There is no item in a kitchen that is more simplistic with such consistent results. While I love to smoke meats low and slow in my smoker out back, sometimes doing that is hard to manage, since you have to babysit the fire. So when I'm looking for that smoky flavor with no fuss, I turn to my liquid smoke.

Now don't get me wrong liquid smoke is no substitute for the real thing, but it still adds a nice flavor with ease. This weekend it was an attempt at recreating Kalua Pig, which to this day I've never been able to do. This time unfortunately it was still not quite there still, but much closer than any previous attempt to date.

To start with I choose a decent size Picnic roast and toss it in the crock pot, then I liberally poured Mesquite liquid smoke on both sides of it. I used mesquite flavor because it is closer to the natural woods they use to smoke the pig in Hawaii, however for just a nice smoky pulled pork, hickory works well. Next thing I do is sprinkle kosher salt on all sides of meat, this always adds a nice flavor, even without adding liquid smoke. The one thing I have learned with crockpot pork though, is to be sure and set it in there with the fat side up, this allows the fats to "melt" into the meat and keeps things from drying out. This may not be the healthiest way to cook it, but it does help it from drying out, of course if your pork does come a bit too dry, this can be easily remedied and without anyone knowing. Instead of just having pulled pork, now you add some barbecue sauce and you have plenty of barbecue pork for sandwiches, and only you will know that it wasn't planned.

Then comes the hardest part of all! You have to wait for 8-10 hours on low for it to cook, all this time if you are home, you have to deal with that delicious smell permeating throughout your entire household. To me this is second only to the smell of fresh bread, which is another smell that has a tendency to be around our place.

Once the meat is cooked, I remove the fat I can from the meat as much as I can, and shred it with 2 forks. Then you have enough meat for a large party or for meals for the next week. When the meat comes out, my favorite way to eat it is just as it is, a mound of shredded meat on my plate, which is quite contrary to my vegetarian wife, without whom I'd probably not have any sides to speak of with my meals.

The beauty of doing this though is that you almost always will have plenty of leftovers. One of my favorite ways to enjoy my leftover pulled pork is in quesadillas, some pork and cheese in a tortilla a side of some salsa and sour cream, and I am a happy camper!

Don't forget your crockpot for parties either, a 6 quart crockpot will cook up enough meat for even the hungriest of crews. And while it's cooking you still have your oven for other goodies and time to spare. With a crockpot and a little prepping ahead of time(since it does take hours to cook) you can have plenty of food for all your guests. One of my other common practices is making shredded chicken adding some taco seasoning, and you have a great start to a taco bar for everyone, and it keeps it nice and warm while everyone serves themselves.

Best of luck in the kitchen! Good eats and great treats for all!

Maverick ET732 BBQ Thermometer

2012-08-15T08:01:00.000-04:00

Today I think it's time to head out of the kitchen to the back yard. Yes even though the end of summer is fast approaching I think there is more than enough time to work on our skill on the grill! On that note I'm going to talk about what I feel to be one of the most important additions to your grilling and smoking arsenal. A good thermometer makes grilling easy and beyond rewarding.

My best friend while cooking on the grill is my Maverick wireless thermometer. This little beauty has 2 temperature probes, one for the cooking chamber and one for the meat. Let me start out by saying that little thermometer on the outside of your grill is probably little more than a cute decoration as far as the temperature of the cooking chamber, the accuracy of it if you are lucky is probably as much as 50 degrees off. Would you think of baking something in your oven at an unknown temperature? Then why would you in your outdoor oven? With the Maverick you can clip the probe so that it sits just above the grates of your grill and get a good accurate temperature of the area where you are cooking your meal. It also has another probe that you can put into your meats, so you know right when your favorite dish at the proper temp. Then the best part, is you can walk away and keep tabs on the progress right from your pocket with the wireless monitor. So for that low and slow smoking you will know when to add more coals, or turn up the heat from the comfort of your favorite chair. I always joke that my secret to grilling is doing as little as possible and drinking as much beer as possible. So being able to keep tabs on it without sitting right by the grill, or opening it up to check on it and having temperature fluctuations constantly is an absolute must.

They claim the range is about 300 feet for the wireless monitor, and I can't really tell you for sure, as I have a pretty small place and probably haven't traveled much more than 50 feet from it, but we don't really want to let our secret out, so we have to stay near the grill at all times anyway right? At least thats what I tell my wife so she will help cook the sides and get the table ready. So let's keep the fact that we can walk away from the grill our little secret.

My favorite thing to use this for is chicken. In the past I had a tendency to avoid cooking chicken on the grill, as I almost always ended up with something that was more dry than the Las Vegas desert. Because we all know you have to be sure and cook your chicken thoroughly, but without a thermometer, how are you really to know when it's done and not over done? The answer simply is you can't.

Let me start by saying I owe a lot to a man that goes by the name "Meathead" over at amazingribs.com. He turned me on to the Maverick and is an excellent resource for grilling recipes and tips.

I don't have a huge fancy grill(maybe one day), but I do have a decent size barrel grill, a CharGriller Pro barrel grill, and for me it's got to be charcoal. I also have the side firebox but I'll save the details of the grill for another time. Starting out, I get my coals going in my chimney, while thats going I prep my grill. First thing I do is add an aluminum pan filled with water on one side of my grill. I always put that on the side with the exhaust, so if I want to add some wood chips for that smokey flavor it has to travel over the meat to leave. I also put the BBQ probe on that side of the grill, that way it's in the same general vicinity of the meat, where the cooking will take place.

Once I have my probe and water pan in place, my coals should be getting good and hot in the chimney, at this point I can add them to the other side of the grill. If you are using a smaller charcoal grill you can do this by adding the water in the center and splitting your coals up around each side of your water pan.

The next thing I do is clean up the grates and prep them. Now here comes a little tip I saw on TV one time. I used to use cooking spray to help oil the grates, but this was always a little bit of a trick, because you had to avoid turning it into a flame thrower. The other problem that occurs is that most of it burns up before it ever even gets on the grates. So my new technique that I absolutely love, take some oil in a cup, then fold over a paper towel a few times, then with a pair of tongs hold the paper towel dip it in the oil and then spread it over the grates. Works like a charm and will help with things sticking to your grates.

I guess I kind of glazed over a step, and thats the prep of your chicken. I've tried a couple different ways, and you can go from simple to whatever you like, whether it's just some salt, or a fantastic rub. For this I'm going to try for a bit healthy and something I was quite impressed with. Mrs. Dash has a poultry seasoning mix, that I've used a few times. It's no salt so if you are on a low sodium diet it's a great alternative, and it turned out a quite tasty dish. So all I did was cover the chicken in some of Mrs. Dash poultry seasoning, and I used boneless, skinless chicken breasts too, so the end results were actually quite healthy.

Once your grill and chicken are ready, simply place the meat probe into the thickest portion of the meat, if you are cooking something with bones, be sure not to touch the bone with the probe as this won't give you accurate results as to when your chicken is done. Now place your meat on your grill over the water tray, and close your lid. Now for the hard part!!!! Take your wireless monitor with you, grab a beer, and sit down! When your chicken gets to about 165 as is the minimum temp your are supposed to cook it to, then you can go get it, put it on a plate and serve. Because you monitored the temperature and took it off before it was over done, it will be some of the most moist chicken you will ever have. And because you had a wireless monitor to oversee this, you've probably had the easiest time grilling you ever had.

This is one of those items that I think is a must, now the price tag is a bit high for a grilling accessory I admit, but I tried a cheaper thermometer and it lacked a probe for the cooking chamber, and it didn't last either. However I will give you this bit of advice too, this isn't just for grilling. Want to have the juiciest Thanksgiving day turkey too? Just use the meat probe while you are cooking your turkey in the oven, no need to check on it constantly either, and rely on the little pop up piece of plastic that lets you know when your turkey is dry enough for you!

Hope your grilling is a success!