#list1 / Principal Chef

Prik King (Green Beans with Thai Red Curry)

This is always one of my favorite dishes to order in Thai restaurants. Spicy red curry and green beans, mixed with some kind of protein. I got the recipe from the New York Times cooking site – it’s fantastic. You have to get red curry paste. While you can buy the Thai Kitchens brand in most grocery stores, I order the Maesri brand from Amazon. This can be a side dish or a main course.

Ingredients

Sauce Ingredients

3 tbsp Red Curry Paste(I prefer Maesri from Amazon, but there are many good ones)

2 tbsp Oyster Sauce

10 cloves Minced Garlic(Cut it in half if you're not a garlic fiend like I am)

2 tsp Corn Starch mixed well into 3/4 cup water

2 tsp Brown Sugar

½ tsp Salt

2 tsp Neutral Oil (Avocado, Canola)

Vegetables and Protein

12 oz Green Beans, cut into 1-inch pieces

1 lb Protein (Tofu, Chicken, and Shrimp all work well)Cut into bite size pieces. If using tofu, wrap in clean dish towel with a pan on top for 30 minutes to drain)

Last Minute

1 Zest of one Lime

3 Green onions, finely sliced

Directions

Making the Sauce

Saute the green beans in a little bit of neutral oil until they are the way you like them. I recommend at least five minutes, but basically you want to pull them off when you think they’re perfect. Remove from pan and set aside.

In a little bit of neutral oil, cook protein until browned and cooked through. You can add a little spice to it, but the sauce will more than spice these babies up. Remove from pan and set aside.

Saute garlic for 30 seconds in oil, then add curry paste, press and crush for 2 minutes, letting it toast a little. This may make the air a little spicy, so I recommend turning the fan on.

Add the remaining sauce ingredients into pan, stir frequently, and cook until you have a nice thick sauce.

Add vegetables and protein. All you need to do is mix the sauce so that all ingredients are coated with red curry sauce goodness, and so that all veggies and proteins are reheated properly.

Add lime zest and stir in for 30 seconds and turn heat off.

Serving

Serve with our without rice, sprinkle with green onions and you have a beautiful dish!

Disneyland Turkey Legs (aka Caveman Pops)

My family loves Disneyland. They go several times a year, and if we lived closer, they’d go more. I go once a year and enjoy myself immensely. But . . . I don’t need or want more than that. What I do love about Disneyland, and if I lived closer might be worth the price of an annual passport, is their high quality turkey legs. Caveman Pops. I love a good meal on a stick, and this is the mountaintop of such meals. This is my attempt at reaching the Caveman Pop Summit. Enjoy!

Ingredients

4 Turkey Legs – Medium Sized to Large. These are easy to find at Thanksgiving, but you may have to ask your butcher ahead of time other times of the year.

¼ cup Arkibu Rub , or other BBQ Rub

½ cup Honey

Directions

The night before you want to cook these, rub them with Arkibu BBQ Rub.

Fire up the Big Green Egg, or your favorite indirect heat smoker. I put it to 300 degrees. Prepare some apple or pecan wood chips by soaking them in water.

Add chips, lay turkey legs on the grill, and smoke until they are done. Time will depend on the size. 40 minutes to a little over an hour. Use your Thermapen. Take it off when the bottom thinner meat starts to separate from the bone, and when the meat is 180 degrees.

Place in a casserole pan or something and cover with foil until you close to being ready serve. Remember – for food to be safe, don’t let it sit if it’s under 140 degrees.

When you are ready to serve, coat each leg with a lot of honey, brushing it all over the meat.

Fire up a direct heat grill (I use my Weber Genesis Grill), spray some cooking spray on it, and sear the honey-coated goodness in, about five minutes per side.

Caveman Heaven

Wrap each leg in foil, and serve when you are ready!

Cheese Grits

Growing up in the South, you didn’t ask for grits at a breakfast restaurant. They just came with the bacon and eggs. They are a cheap and filling food, and have just been part of southern menus for a long time. I do not crave grits. But cheese grits, that’s a different story. My mom always made cheese grits. They’re way better than just grits, far beyond ordinary, and deserving of a special place at the table.

Using non-instant grits is critical. If you are an oatmeal fan, then you should not be a fan of instant oatmeal. Instant oatmeal is a bunch of nothing. Steel cut or the whole grain oatmeal, the stuff that takes at least 10 minutes to cook, is the way to go. Same thing with grits. Get yourself some good stone ground grits (my favorite brand is Bob’s Red Mill), and you are ready to go. We serve this for dinners, pot lucks, and it’s even a staple on our Thanksgiving table.

Ingredients

1.50 cups Stone Ground Grits*We love Bob's Red Mill brand for all of our grains. See amount note in the directions. You want the right amount of grits to mix into six cups of water.

6 cups Boiling Water with 1 tsp saltYou can use a vegetable or chicken stock if you want more flavor.

4 cups Sharp Cheddar Cheese, grated

3 Eggs, beaten

8 tbsp Butter (1 stick)

2 tsp Kosher Salt

2 tsp Pepper, Black

1 tbsp Chili Garlic Sauce (Optional)

Directions

Cook the grits in boiling water until they reach a consistency where they won’t run off your plate and turn off heat.

Note: different grits have different measurements. Choose the right amount of grits to cook in 6 cups of water. Use some Common Core math skills here!

Add butter, and stir in until it is melted and blended.

Beat eggs in a small bowl, then spoon in some of the hot grits into the eggs and mix together (this keeps the eggs from cooking into scrambled eggs). Add back to grits and stir.

Mix in all but one cup of the shredded cheese.

Stir in salt, pepper, and if you want some spice (and you should!), the chili-garlic Sauce or your favorite hot sauce.

Prepare a nice casserole dish. A 13″ x 9″ size (3 quarts) is right. If you are using a deeper dish, you will need to bake a little longer. Use some butter or cooking spray and you’re set.

Pour the grits into the dish. You can refrigerate overnight at this point, or just go right to the next step.

When you are ready to bake, sprinkle cheese on the top. Bake at 350 degrees (325 convection) for 1 hour and 15 minutes, until just barely browned and the grits are set. 75 Minutes

Jilly’s Mini Pumpkin Pies

Once the Halloween Tree goes up, it’s time for Jilly’s Mini Pumpkin Pies! My wife Jill is an inventor. She has invented so many things over her life, the smartphone for example. She was way ahead of Steve Jobs. In 2003, long before the first iPhone in 2007, when she was holding her Treo 300 Palm Pilot in one hand, and her cell phone in the other, she knew they should be merged as one. We don’t make a lot of money off of her inventions, but we enjoy it when someone else finally figures it out.

These mini-pumpkin pies may be one of her greatest inventions. A friend of ours published the recipe in a cookbook, but did not give Jill credit. She’s OK with that, but come on! I bet we make five or six batches of this every fall. They’re a great dessert, breakfast, snack, or whatever you want them to be.

And here’s how I eat them. I peel away the muffin liner, hold the mini-pie in my hand, put whipped cream on top of that, and eat it in three bites. Let us know what style works best for you!

Oh! And that picture below? That’s Jill getting the honor of putting the witch on top of the old Halloween Tree! Wait. You don’t all do that? Our holiday tree comes out in October and becomes a Halloween Tree, then a Thanksgiving Tree, then a Christmas Tree. And if I had it my way, it would stay up the whole year long, arborally celebrating the different holidays. Alas, like many things in my home, I don’t get it my way, and I live with nine, sad, holiday treeless months. But I can’t wait for October!

Ingredients

1 14.5 oz Can Pumpkin – We Like Libby’s

1 Can, Sweetened Condensed Milk

2 tsp Pumpkin Pie SpiceWe think McCormick's is the best brand for this

2 Eggs

28 Ginger SnapsThe Nabisco Ginger Snaps are perfect.

Whipped CreamI usually like homemade, but the spray can works so well here.

Directions

Mix pumpkin, sweetened condensed milk, pumpkin pie spice, and eggs in a mixer or with a spoon.

(Note: If you want to make a big pie, just pour this into a pie crust and bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, then 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes, until a knife/toothpick comes out cleanly.)

Put a Gingersnap in the bottom of 28 foil cupcake cups arranged on 8.5 x 13 casserole dishes. Put 1/4 cup mix in each cupcake cup.

Bake at 425 for 15 minutes, then at 350 for 20 minutes.

Let cool. Then serve with whipped cream!

Smoked Turkey

It’s easier than ever to add smoking to your outdoor cooking abilities. And with the right equipment, you don’t have to devote a whole day to the effort. I used to have to tend my $100 offset smoker every 30 minutes. It was tricky to keep the temperature right and the results were inconsistent. If you know this site, you know that I love my XL Big Green Egg. It holds the temperature like a champ, but it takes a little work to get it going, but once you do, it’s a rock and needs little to no attention. And the results are fantastic. But there are easier versions – the Traeger and its copycats are even easier. Plug it in, flip a switch, and you’re smoking. If you like smoke flavor, find your right fit and make it happen.

This is just like the Roasted Turkey recipe, but better. A real smoker is just like an oven. A lot of people believe in “low and slow,” where the temperature is 225 or 250, and it takes a long time. That’s a great strategy, but I like to smoke a turkey just like I do it in the oven. Same temp, same time, but a way different flavor.

Ingredients

Everything from the Roasted Turkey Page Make sure the turkey will fit in your smoker!

1 cup BBQ Rub. Choose your favorite or go with my Arkibu Rub .

Directions

Instead of dry brining the turkey, rub the turkey with the BBQ rub. There’s plenty of salt in that to do the work. Let sit for 24 hours.

Instead of preparing the oven, prepare the smoker. For me – it’s the Big Green Egg. Use the same temp as the Roasted Turkey Recipe – 320 degrees. Apple wood chips are outstanding.

Add apple wood chips, and Smoke until the breast temperature reaches 165. There’s no basting.

Granny Catlett’s Dressing

Granny Catlett was my cousins’ grandmother. I would see her quite often, as we lived just two doors down from our cousins, Kathy, James, Joe, and Helen. My brothers and sister (there were four of us too) were always at their house getting into some kind of mischief. Granny Catlett was kind and wonderful, always quick to smile, and she was a great cook. This recipe came out every Thanksgiving. Actually, there were two versions – this one, and the one with oysters mixed in. It was a bad day when you chose poorly. Everyone in my family who cooks uses this recipe – and this recipe makes no mention of oysters.

I think this is one of the many powers of cooking for people. These recipes are way more than chemistry. They are stories, they are memories of friends and loved ones, and they make us slow down and remember. That, my friends, is a good way to live.

Ingredients

7 cups Cornbread (Make the night before if you want)

7 cups White Bread, slightly toasted

1 Bunch of Celery

1 Onion (Small – Use half if you’re not a big onion person)

4 cups Organic Chicken Broth

½ cup Butter (1 Stick)

4 tsp Salt

2 tsp Pepper

1 tsp Poultry Seasoning

2 tbsp Sage

2 Eggs (Beaten)

1 cup Milk

Directions

Make cornbread the night before. Crumble 7 cups of cornbread and place into large bowl.

Slightly toast 1/2 loaf of white bread. I use my oven for this. Just put the bread right on the racks and heat for 3 minutes at 350. This dries it out. Crumble 7 cups (just break and tear) and add to large bowl.

Sauté chopped Celery and Onion in the butter. Get it nice and soft.

Add all of the seasonings. Give the whole mixture a few gentle stirs to mix it up.

Add onion and celery, and everything else into the large bowl! It should be thick, pouring in large globs. Add broth if it’s too thick. Add cornbread if it’s too runny.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes, or until it’s slightly brown on the top and a little crispy.

Note: You can prepare this the day before (no baking) and refrigerate it overnight. Take out of the fridge one hour before baking.