Fire Roasted Cornish Game Hens

Glorious wood fire grilled Cornish game hens. By the way, Frank Costanza was correct; it's just a small chicken. If you have a fire pit you are $20 away from being able to do this yourself. 

This is the $20 I was referring to. It's a tripod grill; 3 legs with a grill grate connected to a chain to make it adjustable. I've seen them at Mill's Fleet Farm and Lowe's, and I would assume you can find them at the other big box home improvement stores for the same price.

This is how it connects on top in case anyone's interested. 

Cooking the game hens:

Step one: procure some poultry and firewood. Cornish game hens are probably available at your local grocery store. If not chicken will suffice. Step two: build yourself a fire. If you cannot accomplish this simple task, find a boy scout because even small children are capable of building fires.

That looks like it'll be just fine. You'll want to start it at least two hours before you want to cook because you want the fire to be mostly smoldering coals and not too heavy on flame. Step three: spatchcock your birds. I swear it only sounds dirty, although you will need to wash your hands after. A spatchcocked chicken is one that has had its spine removed, so that it can sit flat, which makes it perfect for grilling. If you have a kitchen shears that works well otherwise a sharp knife is just as easy. Place the bird breast side down and you should feel a bone right in the center of the back. Cut along each side of that bone and you have the spine leftover. Don't forget to wash your hands. Save the spines for the next time you want to make chicken stock. 

This is what they look like when they're sitting flat. I also put them on a rack on top of a sheet tray so that the skin will dry out, which make it easier to get it nice and crispy. They are seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Step four: cook your birds. Hopefully at this point your fire has died down a bit, so that you only have a couple pieces of solid wood and lots of smoldering coals.

This is a perfect cooking fire. This is what you want. 

Finally, birds over a fire. This fire is HOT. Reeeaally hot. I start the chicken about 12 inches above the coals, skin side down with the legs and thighs towards the center of the fire because dark meat takes longer to cook. There's a lot of fat in chicken skin and it is going to start rendering out immediately once the chicken gets over the coals. Fat burns when it hits fire, so there's going to be some flare ups. If the flames start to get close to the chicken, adjust the height of the grill. The chicken is ready to be flipped when the skin looks golden brown. There's a lot more danger of the chicken burning on the skin side, so the majority of the cooking takes place on the other side. Step five: flip your birds.

This is how you want the chicken to look when you flip it. The skin has rendered out its fat and is golden brown and delicious. Since some of the coals will have burned down to ash and the chicken is harder to burn on this side, you can lower the grill to about 10 inches above the coals. Notice that I've put my digital thermometer into the thickest part of the breast. That's what I'm using to determine if they're done. I keep lowering the grill as the coals grow smaller. As long as you don't see any large flare ups, you should be alright.

Woah, it's a little smokey in this picture. That's one of the reasons this cooking method is so fantastic. It's also great because the hot fire makes the chicken really crispy and delicious as you can see in the picture. I flipped them back onto their skin side and pointed the thick part of the breast toward the center of the fire to finish them. I pull them off when they hit 160 degrees then put aluminum foil over them, and let them rest for 10 minutes. They'll continue cooking and reach 165 degrees, which is the final temp that you want chicken to cook to.

WWWWWHHAATT!!! THAT CHICKEN LOOKS SOOOO GOOOODD!!! Oh, it was. Take my word for it. Or just get off your butt, start a fire, and get grilling. Yeah I agree, that's a way better idea.

Corned Beef Hash with Poached Eggs and Toast Points

It's St. Patrick's Day and my parents always make corned beef and cabbage. I don't like corned beef and cabbage. Never have. It's too rich and I always feel sick after eating it. I do enjoy corned beef hash though, so for the past few years I've been trying different methods of making corned beef hash. The first year I tried it, I just took some of their cooked corned beef and shredded it. Then fried potatoes and combined the two. It was good, but not exactly what I was looking for. When I was growing up we'd occasionally have canned corn beef hash with eggs and toast as a weekend breakfast, which is surprisingly good considering it's a canned meat product. I realized that what I wanted was just a better version of that canned corned beef hash, and this year I finally nailed it. 

Ingredients:

2 C ground cooked corned beef brisket
3 red potatoes peeled and sliced
1 small onion chopped
1/2 red bell pepper chopped
2 tsp lemon juice
3 garlic cloves minced
2 eggs
1 tbsp vinegar
1 slice of bread for toast
1 slice of stale bread
salt and pepper to taste
chives for garnish

Alright I actually used smoked corned beef (because I have a smoker and brisket is great smoked so why not), but there's no reason why regular braised corned beef wouldn't taste almost as good. Side note: if you're smoking corned beef soak it in water for 2 hours before you smoke it because there is a TON of salt in corned beef and there's no liquid to leech out some of the salt like in a braise. Since I wanted to make this recipe super accessible for everyone you also need a meat grinder! It might be possible to take refrigerated corned beef and pulse it in a food processor to get something similar to ground. I didn't test this, but I think it could work. However, if it's in the food processor you need to be very careful to not let it get overly ground or you will end up with meat paste, which is just ew. Once you have confirmed that you have a source of ground corned beef everything else is very easy. First off chop that onion and pepper and mince the garlic.

You need to pre-cook the vegetables because they will burn if you add them at the same time as the potatoes.

This is how far you want the vegetables to cook; they should just be tender because they'll be reintroduced to heat later. I cooked them slow and prepared the potatoes while they cooked because there's a lot of slicing involved with the potatoes.

If you've ever had canned corn beef hash then you know that the potatoes are in pretty small pieces. There's not really anything to indicate scale in this photo, but those are approximately 1/4 inch cubes. Normally when I fry potatoes I par-boil them, but I was concerned that it would be difficult to cut potatoes that small if they were partially cooked. Once they're sliced, heat up a pan with a little bit of olive oil over medium heat then add the potatoes. They're small so they should cook in 5-10 minutes. I just started tasting them to check how they were doing after around 5 minutes. Add plenty of pepper and a little salt. As I mentioned earlier, corned beef is really salty, so just be careful how much you add.

That's what it looks like when you grind up corned beef. Weird beef pellets.

Alright that looks more like I was expecting. The best part about corned beef hash is that there is so much surface area you can get everything really caramelized and delicious. Just let it sit in the pan for a couple of minutes then flip it. Repeat this several times until you have beautiful, golden, caramelized corned beef and potatoes. This is why you didn't want to add the onion, red pepper, and garlic earlier. They would have burned during this process.

Mmmm corned beef hash just like out of a can (plus onion, red pepper, and garlic). I tasted it when I got this far and it was too salty and rich so I added lemon juice. Way better. Add some lemon juice. At this point it's time for some poached eggs. I have no pictures of this process because it's just an egg hanging out in a hot tub and nobody wants to see that. I can explain it though. Take a shallow pan and fill it with water and a tablespoon of vinegar. Distilled white or cider vinegar are fine. Bring that to a boil between a heavy boil and a simmer. Crack an egg into a small dish. Stir the boiling water in a small circle then add the egg to the swirling water. Cook it for 4-4.5 minutes. Drop some toast when you add your egg. Now you need a slotted spoon to remove the egg without taking a bunch of water with it. When it's out of the water make sure that none of the whites are still transparent, then place it on a piece of stale bread. You can use a paper towel in a pinch but the heel of a loaf of bread or a piece that's stale works even better. Butter your toast and cut it into strips if you want it to look fancy. Now plate your delicious hash, perfectly poached eggs and toast points.

A nice bed of the hash with poached eggs (don't forget to salt and pepper them) on top garnished with chives and toast points resting on the eggs. Lovely.

Proof of yolk! This dish was absolutely fantastic. It was the corned beef hash I'd been searching for. It's a little involved since you have to grind corned beef, but it's totally worth it. Much better than the canned version and a lot of corned beef hash I've had in restaurants, which is probably also canned most of the time. If you like corned beef hash you need to try this. Just LOOK at that yolk glistening in the light. If that doesn't convince you, nothing will.

Cabbage Rolls

For probably 20 years of my life, I thought I didn't like cabbage. I was a fool. Cabbage is a fantastic vegetable. It is especially fantastic when you use it as a vehicle for ground meats and rice, also known as a cabbage roll. They are basically the reason I decided that I'd finally give cabbage a try. I watched my mom make them, and realized that everything about them seemed delicious except the cabbage. It turns out that was true, and even the cabbage tasted better than I expected and way better than it smelled. I've been making cabbage rolls since that day. They taste great, they're really easy, and you can make them ahead and cook them all day in a slow cooker. They also taste even better the next day, so if you make them you've already got tomorrow's lunch.

Ingredients:

1 head of green cabbage

1.5 lbs ground beef

1 lb sausage

2 C rice

1 large onion chopped

1 red bell pepper chopped

2 jalapeños diced and separated (I hope you appreciate the tilde;it took forever to figure that out)

2 tbsp salt

1 tbsp ground pepper

2 tbsp dried basil

2 bay leaves

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp crush red pepper (optional)

1 28 oz can whole tomatoes

1 14.5 oz can stewed tomatoes

1 10 oz can tomato sauce

Making these isn't difficult, but it's a bit of a process. If you have someone there to help you, it makes it go way faster. The first part is the worst. Unless you don't like touching ground meet because then the second part is the worst. Neither is difficult, but the first is tedious and you have to stand over a hot pot of water. Which reminds me, you should put a pot of water on to boil.

Cabbage is basically a big ball of large greenish-white leaves connected to a core. To be able to roll the leaves you need them separated, so cut the core out which will allow the leaves to come apart. If you try to remove them as is, they tear too easily because they're pretty stiff. Oh wait, you've got water boiling. That was a wonderful idea. Throw the whole thing into the water (don't actually throw it). Cabbage floats so I like to take a tongs and shove it under the water until air bubbles stop coming out of it. You can also turn the temperature down now that the cabbage is in the water. Now just take that tongs and start peeling each layer off by grabbing a single leaf at the core end and pulling. Once it's free, put it on a plate. I like to take one of the huge forks usually used for holding meat while it gets sliced and use it to hold the cabbage. It also wouldn't be a terrible idea to put a paper towel on the plate where you're putting the leaves. I usually take about 15 leaves off the cabbage. It should look approximately half as large as when you first started.

Ideally you have someone helping you who can take care of this part while you get the cabbage leaves ready, but if not take care of as much of this as you can while you wait for the water to boil. You need to chop the onion, pepper, and dice the jalapeños. Now mix together the meat, onions, red pepper, one of the jalapeños, rice, basil, salt, and ground pepper. You need to seriously get all up in there and mix that stuff because if you don't there will be pockets of rice or basil or whatever and that's not a pleasant bite.

Before you roll them you need to cut out the thick part of the stem. I didn't get a before picture, but it should be pretty clear what you need to cut out. The picture above shows the amount of meat mixture you need for each cabbage roll. It's equivalent to two meatballs slightly larger than golf balls. As for actually rolling, you can see there are two "wings" on the bottom. The first step is to bring those up and cross them over each other.

Above is a picture of that first step. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the next step, but it's pretty simple. The sides that stick out wider than the meat need to be tucked in so that it will roll into a consistent package. Then just roll it up.

Well those look lovely. They can be set off to the side at this point because there's a couple of things that need to happen before they're needed.

This is the cabbage that's leftover after removing the leaves for the rolls. Chop it up into fairly large pieces. If you put this in the bottom of the pan you get delicious cabbage that has soaked up tons of flavor from the juices of the meat and tomatoes as they drip down. Put the cabbage either in a five quart or larger pot, dutch oven, or equivalent size slow cooker.

Back to the big ol' pile of rolls. On top of the chopped up cabbage add the stewed tomatoes. Honestly you can really use whatever tomato products you want, although you will want the can of sauce to get the appropriate amount of liquid. In general I like whole tomatoes that I tear apart myself and I had stewed tomatoes on hand, so that's what I used. I also sprinkle a little more basil, crushed red pepper and salt on the tomatoes. Now get all of those cabbage rolls in there.

I probably should have used a larger pot, but everything worked out. Now crush the whole tomatoes and add them and the sauce along with the other jalapeño, more basil, the bay leaves, sugar, and crushed red pepper. If you don't want it spicy just omit the jalapeño and crushed red pepper throughout. Everything is ready to go. Turn your slow cooker on high, or put a lid on your pot and put it in a 250 degree oven. I let them cook for six to seven hours, so that the cabbage is nice and tender and the rice is fully cooked. The rice is also why you need to have enough liquid. If you're doing it in the oven make sure you put a sheet tray under the pot if it's anywhere close to the level that I had mine. If I hadn't there would have been a huge mess in my oven.

Well that just looks like a big pot of red stuff with some green mixed in.

That looks better. A delicious meat mixture packaged in a cabbage leaf. If you don't like cabbage after this then you are not me; I told you earlier this is why I like cabbage now. By the way, good luck not destroying your mouth on these because they are molten on the inside and stay that way for a super long time.

Chicken, Shrimp, and Sausage Jambalaya

I didn't bother with a garnish BECAUSE THIS JAMBALAYA DOESN'T EVEN NEED ONE. It already looks delicious with the beautiful brown sausage and plump, juicy shrimp, so why bother with some parsley.

Time to get technical for a second. This is a cross between Cajun and Creole jambalaya. Creole jambalaya gets its color from tomatoes rather than from browned meat. It's sometimes referred to as red jambalaya. Cajun doesn't have tomatoes and requires browning the meat. It's sometimes referred to as brown jambalaya. Since I'm not from Louisiana and don't care about their silly distinctions, I enjoy the best of both worlds by browning the meat and adding tomatoes. 

Ingredients:

3 boneless skinless chicken thighs cut into large chunks
1 ring spicy sausage (andouille is traditional but not available everywhere) cut in large pieces
1 lb fresh shrimp peeled and de-veined with tails removed
1 large onion chopped 
1 red bell pepper chopped 
3 stalks of celery chopped 
5 cloves of garlic minced
1 14.5oz can of whole peeled tomatoes
1 C long-grain rice
3 C chicken stock
1 bay leaf
5 sprigs of thyme
Cajun seasoning

Don't bother buying Cajun seasoning because you probably have everything you need to make it.

Combine equal parts:

dried thyme
onion powder
garlic powder
paprika
cayenne pepper
black pepper
white pepper

You're going to need a large skillet with a teaspoon of olive oil over medium high heat. That skillet is also going to need a lid for later on. Throw the sausage in and let it get nice and brown. As they brown, take the chicken thighs and cut them into two inch chunks. Season them with salt, pepper, and Cajun seasoning. 

Well this is already looking tasty. Take the sausage out of the pan and try not to eat them all as you prepare the rest of the ingredients. Start browning the chicken. You want it nice and brown because these two steps are going to add tons of flavor to the jambalaya. While the chicken cooks, chop the onion, celery, and red pepper, and mince the garlic. Fun fact: in Louisiana onion, peppers, and celery are known as the holy trinity.

The chicken is nice and brown as promised. Don't snack on the chicken; it's probably not fully cooked yet. Time to cook the veg, so add the holy trinity to the same pan along with a pinch of salt.

Beautiful colors here, but those vegetables are still very raw.

Much better. They've cooked a little and they soaked up some the fond from the chicken and sausage. At this point I'd added the garlic and let that cook for a minute as well. Now the broth that the rice cooks in gets made. Take a can of whole tomatoes and drain the liquid into the pan. Then crush the tomatoes with your hands and add them to the pan as well. Warning: the tomatoes will shoot juice all over your kitchen if you're not careful. Make sure to gently puncture them and squeeze out the juice before you get too crazy with your crushing. You can use a can of crushed tomatoes if you want, but you actually get chunks of tomato if you crush them yourself. Once the tomatoes are crushed add three cups of chicken stock, the bay leaf, and the thyme sprigs, which you should wrap with butcher's twine. Taste the broth and if it needs it add salt and pepper. If you'd like it spicier add cajun seasoning.

Ooooh now we're getting somewhere. When you've added the liquid make sure to scrape up any fond left on the pan after you've cooked your vegetables. Now I just let this simmer for about 30 minutes. If you're rushed, skip that, but it will help your broth develop. Then you bring the mixture to a boil, add the rice, and take it back down to low. Cover the pan. Now here's where things get a little wacky. The rice is regular long-grain rice, but it doesn't cook the same way that regular white rice does. This is actually going to cook for about an hour, which is like 40 minutes longer than traditional white rice. There's also more liquid here than regular white rice. Good news though, you're actually supposed to stir it very minimally, so you can mostly forget it at this point. Stir it every 15 minutes or close to it.

This is after an hour. Yum. Now the shrimp are already cooked in this picture, but this about the level of liquid you should have after an hour, which is why I wanted to show it now. There should be a little visible liquid bubbling in the center, but when you stir it should disappear. If the jambalaya starts to look like there isn't enough liquid while it cooks, just add some more chicken stock. If after an hour you have a whole lot of liquid still, just let it simmer for a while longer. Anyway, when you have about this level of liquid throw some salt and pepper on the shrimp, and put them in the pan to cook for about 5 minutes. 

Soooo delicious. Since everything is cooking together in the same pan all of the flavors meld into every ingredient. And that is a good thing. The starch in the rice also makes it weirdly creamy, and I mean that in a positive way. It makes the jambalaya have a wonderful texture. I just realized today is Mardi Gras. What a completely random and totally genuine coincidence! Well I guess that gives you a reason to try this! 

Wine Braised Short Ribs

Yes, it absolutely tastes as good as it looks. A pillow of creamy, fluffy mashed potatoes with a tender beef short rib nestled on top with fresh herbs and a beefy red wine sauce coating it. Feel free to shed a tear over its beauty. Then head to the grocery store to buy some short ribs so that you can make this.

Short rib ingredients:
4 large short ribs, about 4 lbs
5 carrots
3 celery stalks
1 large onion
4 cloves of garlic
1 lb cremini mushrooms
8 sprigs of thyme
3 sprigs of rosemary
1 bottle dry red wine
2 cans beef consomme
salt and pepper to taste

Mashed potato ingredients:
5-6 medium potatoes
4 tbsp butter
1/2 cup fat free sour cream
splash of 2% milk
salt and pepper to taste

Mmmm delicious golden brown seared short ribs. That's step number one. Sear these bad boys and get some flavor going in your pan. I used a five quart dutch oven to make this, but if you don't have one you can use a stockpot or a large skillet. A five quart skillet would probably actually be the best option because more surface are and less depth is beneficial here. I'm really glad I thought of this now instead of when I made these short ribs. Anyway, while your short ribs are browning, chop up one onion, three carrots, and three celery stalks. You can leave them in fairly big pieces because they're pretty much going to dissolve into the sauce. That will be fixed later. Add them to the pan when the ribs are brown.

Add a pinch of salt when you add the vegetables to help them start releasing their liquids, which will help the brown fond stuck to the bottom of the pan begin to release. Fond is the good stuff. You want it in your sauce. While your veg cooks, finely chop the garlic and quarter the larger mushrooms. If they're pretty small, just leave them whole.

The mushrooms and garlic really only need to cook until the garlic becomes fragrant. Then comes the fun part. Add an entire bottle of red wine. It always smells incredible when you add wine to a hot pan, so just take time and enjoy that for second. 

As for choosing a wine, if you watch a lot of cooking shows or read a lot about food like I do, you've probably heard that you should only cook with wine you'd want to drink or to only use good wine or some such advice. Personally I think that's a load of crap. If you can tell the difference between the cheapest wine you can find and an expensive wine after they've cooked with all of these other flavors for several hours and you can genuinely say that one is noticeably better (I doubt it), then good for you. Use the cheap stuff folks. It doesn't make a difference. 

Now take some butcher's twine and wrap it several times around the rosemary and thyme. You don't even need to tie a knot. If you don't have butcher's twine, go and buy butcher's twine because you should have some as it's super useful. Add your herb bundle and consomme and put the short ribs on top of this mixture.

I've got four short ribs in that pan. I really should have thought of that large skillet idea earlier. It actually was a very legitimate issue that caused problems later on. Don't do this. Use a large skillet. Anyway, after they're in the liquid your work is pretty much done. Simmer them on low for four or five hours until they're nice and tender and the sauce has reduced. It should become thick like a gravy, but if it doesn't take a tablespoon of flour and add water to form a slurry. Add the slurry to the sauce and it should thicken up almost immediately. You can use cornstarch instead of flour, but just be aware that cornstarch thickened sauce will have a different consistency than flour. At this point you should taste it and add more salt and pepper as needed.

When there was about an hour left I cut the two remaining carrots into about one inch chunks and threw them in. I add the extra carrots because the celery, onions, and carrots that flavored the sauce will literally dissolve into it. This way you have delicious mushrooms and carrots that still have texture.

When the beef is tender and the carrots have softened slice the potatoes into large chunks and put them in a pot with cold water to boil. Once they're soft, strain them then put them back in the pot with the butter and sour cream. I make mashed potatoes with an actual potato masher because it leaves some chunks of potato, which I prefer over a super creamy mash. I add a little milk if the potatoes seem too dry then I season with salt and pepper until they're tasty.

I could stare at that all day. But then I wouldn't be able to eat delicious things like braised short ribs for dinner. Garnish it with fresh thyme and rosemary, and you've got a dish that will impress any sane person. Also, just so you know how tender these get, the meat on this rib was barely connected to the bone. This was actually the only one where the meat hadn't completely fallen off. 

I had leftover short ribs and sauce, and since there's a good chance you will too I'll share a little tip. This is equally delicious with noodles. I had some leftover dumpling noodles in my fridge from when I made chicken noodle soup, so I heated this up in the microwave with the noodles. It's really good and it's a slight alteration so that you don't get bored with your leftovers.

If you've never had short ribs braised in wine you need to make these immediately. I cannot explain how fantastic they are. I could go on and on about how good they are. They are absolutely incredible. Seriously they are just amazing. You'll taste them and and you won't be able to get them out of your head. You'll probably make them again the next day. You're definitely going to want to make enough to have leftovers. Sorry about that, I got a little too excited. These are good though, so you should make them.

The Cure for the Common Cold

I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure that this will in fact cure colds and probably other diseases. I do know for sure that this soup is better than your mother's, or at least as good as hers. I know it's true because my mom trusted me to make it and she even liked it. The secret to extremely simple, intensely flavorful chicken noodle soup is your oven. Yes, you will need your stove as well, but roasting is the most important part as I've mentioned before.

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken plus 4  drumsticks
3 onions
6 carrots
6 celery stalks
1/2 bag of dumpling egg noodles

This is the color of the stock. This is what you want. Light stock will make you an extremely okay soup. This dark stock will make you the best chicken noodle soup you've ever tasted, and it couldn't be easier to make. Step one: preheat your oven to 425 degrees. I'm confident there will be no problems with that. Add the whole chicken and the drumsticks to a large stockpot (the extra drumsticks are optional, but they'll help boost the chicken flavor). Next quarter two onions, cut three carrots and three stocks of celery into thirds, and add that to the stockpot. Place all of that goodness in the oven, and let it get deliciously golden brown. It will take awhile, but you want to make sure the chicken, and all of the vegetables are golden. The onions may turn  black in some spots; don't worry about that. Also here's a free tip I just learned: if you leave the onion skins on your stock will be even darker.

When that happens, be smart. Don't be like me. Take the chicken out and cut off both breasts. If you leave them on, they will get completely dried out while simmer in the stock, which, I know, sounds weird. How does something become dry while sitting in liquid? I don't know, but that's what happens. Whether you use the meat in the soup is completely up to you. With the added drumsticks, I had plenty of meat, so I used the breast meat for other things. I'm talking to you, Chicken Salad. After the breasts have been removed, fill the pot with water and let it simmer for around four hours. 

After four hours, we have pure gold. Strain everything and keep only the chicken. Aromatics are cheap and we don't want mushy vegetables in our soup. Do not try to pick the chicken from the bones. You'll burn your fingers. Trust me. I've made that mistake once or twice or way too many, so that you don't have to. Put the chicken somewhere cold, and while you wait for it to cool chop an onion, three carrots, and three stalks of celery.

Let the vegetables simmer in the stock for an hour, or until they're nice and tender but not mushy. At that point you can cook your pasta. Cook it separately. That way everyone can have as many noodles as they want, and the stock and vegetable mixture can be used for something else if you get tired of leftover soup. When the noodles are done, put them in a bowl and add the liquid to get THIS!!

Okay that looks like a big bowl of broth with noodles in it. I SWEAR I put vegetables in. If you look at the picture up top there's even evidence of vegetables.

Make this. There's like a whole series of books about why you should. Or maybe that's not what they're about. I don't actually know. I mentioned leftovers. Do you like pot pies? Because I made a pot pie with the leftovers. You can add roux, peas, corn, and potatoes and have perfect pot pie filling. I've just given you two meal suggestions, so I think we're done here.

BBQ Popcorn

I brought some BBQ popcorn to a party last night and it was a hit, so I thought I'd explain how to make it because it's really easy. It's basically just regular popcorn with my BBQ rub that I use on pork and chicken. And popcorn I guess.

Ingredients for Gabe's Smoky BBQ Rub:

1/2 C brown sugar
3 tbsp garlic powder
2 tbsp onion powder
2 tbsp chipotle powder
2 tbsp smoked paprika
2 tbsp ancho chile powder
1 tbsp dry mustard

Haha I made you eat mustard last night Ryan.

Anyway, mix all of those together and you've got the rub. You can sprinkle this on any kind of popcorn you want as long as there is butter or oil for the rub to stick to and it will be delicious.

If you want to make it like I did then you start with air popped popcorn. While corn explodes in the background, melt some butter. You want enough butter so that each kernel will have at least a little bit on it because it's our glue. One batch in my air popper needs about 3 tablespoons, but it makes quite a bit of popcorn. Once the corn is popped and the butter is melted, you add them together, but you need to be tossing the popcorn while you add the butter. That helps make sure butter gets on all of the kernels.

You may have noticed there isn't salt in the rub, that is intentional. It's hard to tell how much salt you're putting on your food when it's in a spice mix like the BBQ rub, so I always season with salt first then add the spice mix. I avoid premixed spice blends for the same reason. They usually have salt in them, but you don't know how much. Salt rant over.

After you coat the popcorn with butter, add popcorn salt to until it is sufficiently salty to your taste, and toss the popcorn as you add the salt. Popcorn salt is just really fine salt. You can buy it at the grocery store, or you can pulse some kosher, iodized, or sea salt in a food processor.

When it's salty, sprinkle on the rub. Again how much you add is totally up to your taste buds. Now you're ready to enjoy this tasty treat. I had one person think it was bacon flavored...so yeah it's pretty delicious.

Note: some of those spices may not be in your pantry, but you should be able to find them in the bulk spices section of your grocery store. Bulk spices are usually in the produce section in bags rather than in the spice aisle.

Smoked Turkey Wild Rice Soup

I should really work on my photography skills. Also food styling skills because those green onions are a sad, sad garnish. It may not be the most appealing visually, but I promise it is worth every second it takes to make. I love soup. Basically all of them, and this is probably my favorite. Earlier in the week I smoked a whole turkey and had the leftover carcass to work with, but it is as delicious with a roasted turkey or chicken. Just do whatever you need to do to eat this soup. I seriously ate it for two meals one day.

6 tbsp butter
1 large chopped onion
3 stalks of chopped celery
3 chopped carrots
6 qts poultry stock
1 1\2 tsp dried thyme
1 tbsp salt
1tsp ground pepper
1/4 C flour
1 C uncooked wild rice
3 C water or stock
1 C heavy cream
a pinch of green onion if you want a sad, sad garnish

The most important part of this soup (or any soup really) is the stock. Don't bother using store bought stock, broth, or base. If you're going to make soup, you're going to have to roast some bones. Even if you have an already roasted (or smoked) turkey or chicken, I still roast the carcass before making stock. You want to make sure most of the meat is removed first because it will get pretty dried out after roasting and simmering for a few hours, but after that just roast them in a 400 degree oven until they're really golden brown; about an hour. It's going to add tons of flavor.

After roasting I add a whole bunch of water, scrape up any delicious bits stuck to the pan, and let it simmer for at least four hours. I always add pepper to my stock, but never salt. I season the dish that it goes into as needed because if you season the stock before adding it to the dish you have to worry about how much the liquid reduces. Enough talk of stock; let's get into soup making.

First you need to chop your veg. I try to keep the chunks at maybe 3/16 of an inch. That sounds specific, but in my head an 1/8th is too small and 1/4 is too big. This soup also requires a roux, which means I start by browning some butter. Butter is delicious. Brown butter is like gilding the lily that is butter. If I'm frying something in butter, I almost always brown it first. It is possible to burn the butter, but if you watch carefully, it's pretty easy to tell when the butter is browned. Don't keep cooking it past that point. When your butter is browned, add the veg and let it sweat until the celery and onion are translucent. A little longer than the picture above. Next add the flour and let it cook for a minute. Some might stick to the bottom of the pot. Don't worry about it. After the minute has passed, add a few cups of stock. You don't want to add all of the liquid at once or it can get lumpy. Add a few cups. Stir. Add some more. Stir. Add the rest. Hope you didn't screw it up because if you did there's no way to fix it.

Now you can just let this simmer for a couple hours on low. Add salt and pepper to taste along with thyme. It's too hard to give estimates. I tend to prefer dishes saltier, I love lots of herbs, my mom adds crazy amounts of pepper to everything. The numbers I gave are a guide. Just taste it and add more salt, pepper, or herbs as you desire. Stir it every once in a while, and make sure it doesn't stick. While this is simmering, you can cook the wild rice. Add one cup wild rice to three cups water or stock. Let it boil then add a cover and reduce to a simmer. The rice will sort of pop inside out kind of like popcorn. It takes around 30-40 minutes. I didn't take pictures of it, but the change should be obvious. One minute, you have dark, riced shaped grain. The next, you have a weird, grayish, arched grain.

When the rice is done, drain any remaining water and add the rice to your soup pot along with the meat from the turkey or chicken carcass. Let that simmer for another 30 minutes. Adjust seasoning if necessary, then add cream and let the soup heat to a satisfactory temperature.

Even with the pathetic garnish, I wish I was eating a bowl of this right now. It is unbelievably delicious. If you've never had wild rice, make an effort to try some. The texture is completely different from traditional rice, and it is much more satisfying. You can also add different vegetables if you like. I know some people like mushrooms and some like red pepper. You can also add bacon and chipotle powder if you want something a little smoky and spicy. I can't say it enough, make this it's amazing.