Ham 15 Bean Soup

Ham 15 Bean Soup

Just Jeremy here with a recipe I'd like to share.  This is a nostalgic piece for me, as it is one treasured from my childhood.  Growing up I called this "Ham Fart Bean Soup" (for the obvious reason).  I even remember angering the bus driver the day after with the after effects of this delicious dish while sitting in one of the front bus seats.  Anywho, back to the story.  We had ham for Christmas this year and I was like, "holy crap! We have so much ham leftover!"  So I remembered ham fart bean soup and gave mom a call.  I put my own spin on it of course with the fancy pantsness of fresh herbs and garlic.  Beware if you venture into this dish.  Take the Beano if you need to.

You will need:

-         Ham bone and 2lbs of leftover Christmas ham chopped (more if you want more).

-         2 bags of 15 bean dry mix

-         1 cup of fresh oregano finely chopped

-         1 cup of fresh basil finely chopped

-         5 fresh cloves of garlic finely chopped

-         ¼ cup of Lawry’s season salt

First you will need place the dry mix in a 6 quart stock pot with 2 quarts of water and soak the beans overnight.

The next day, rinse the beans and return them to the pot.

Add the ham bone, chopped ham, herbs, garlic, and season salt and cover the entire contents in the pot with water.

Place on the stove on low heat, covered, stirring occasionally for at least 4 hours.

Serve and enjoy.

Taste analysis:

Deeeeeeeeeeeelicious!

Shrimp Po Boy with Hand Cut Steak Fries

Lance and Jeremy are back in the kitchen together.  We began tonight's adventure as we always do with a trip to Publix, where shopping is a pleasure.  We got our essentials, and returned to Lance's place to prepare this amazing dish.  It's been over 6 months since the two of us got together in the kitchen, but it was well worth the wait.  We learned tonight that both of us have grown tremendously as cooks.  Lance has exquisite knife skills and tastes everything as he prepares.  It was like poetry.  I would say it almost flowed like a professional kitchen.  So tonight's menu was shrimp po boy with hand cut steak fries.  Here it is folks.  Enjoy.

Shrimp Po Boy and Hand Cut Steak Fries

You will need:

- About 6 large potatoes

- 2 lemons

- 4 cloves of fresh garlic

- 1 shallot

- 2 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley

- ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

- ¾ cup mayonnaise

- 1 tablespoon of your favorite hot sauce

- 2 tablespoons of yellow mustard

- 1 head of romaine lettuce

- 2 large tomatoes

- 1lb fresh shrimp (we used local never frozen)

- 1 stick of butter

- Vegetable oil

- Fresh baked hoagie rolls

Sandwich Prep

- Slice the two tomatoes and then slice those slices in half (half moon style)

- Wash the lettuce and prepare about 4 leafs

- Slice your hoagies sub sandwich style, like they do after they ask you what bread you want at subway

- Make some delicious Remoulade

Remoulade (Do this before you start cooking)

- Chop that shallot really fine and put it in a bowl

- Finely chop that fresh parsley and scoop 2 tablespoons into the same bowl

- Add ½ teaspoon ground cayenne pepper to that bowl
- Add ¾ cup mayonnaise to that bowl
- Add 2 tablespoons Plain mustard to the bowl
- Add 1 tablespoon of your favorite hot sauce to the bowl
- Add juice of ½ lemon to the bowl

- Mix it all up

- Put it in the fridge

Shrimp, Scampi style (We recommend starting the shrimp after the first batch of fries are done)

- Begin by deveining and shelling your shrimp. 

- Get a large skillet.  In that skillet begin melting one stick of salted butter on medium high heat. 

- While your butter is melting, finely chop 4 cloves of fresh garlic. 

- Now add the garlic to the butter. 

- Slice in half one of the lemons and squeeze the juice into the skillet.

- Add the shrimp to the skillet

- Cook on each side for about 4 minutes

Steak Fries (We recommend making fries about 10 minutes before you start cooking the shrimp)

- Then slice your potatoes long ways. 

- Then, divide those long halves in to 4 long pieces. 

- As you slice your potatoes put them in a large bowl of cold water. Doing this will prevent browning.

- Now, get a medium sauce pot going with vegetable oil about half way full.  Turn that on medium heat. 

- Put about 6-8 fries in the pot at each time for about 8 minutes.  Cook longer for crispness desired.

- Place the fries on a plate lined with paper towels and season with garlic salt, or whatever you like.

Sandwich Assembly

We started with a generous portion of remoulade on the hoagie.  Follow that with a leaf of romaine.  Next, add the shrimp.  Following the shrimp add the tomatoes.  If you loved the sauce as much as we did, then add some more sauce on top of the shrimp.  Enjoy it.  We sure did. 

Savory Cheddar Garlic Cornbread

This is a little something I made for the office last week.  It was goooooooooood.  Try it folks.  Simple, savory, delicious and great with chili.

Savory Cheddar Garlic Cornbread

You will need:

- 2 eggs

- 1 cup of all purpose flour (gluten free sub with gluten free Bisquick)

- 1 cup of cornmeal

- 1 stick of salted butter

- 1 cup buttermilk

- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

- cup shredded cheddar cheese

- 3-4 cloves fresh garlic

- ½ can of cream corn

- cooking spray

MMMMM Cornbread

- Begin by preheating your oven to 375

- Now finely chop your garlic cloves

- Next, melt the stick of butter in the microwave in a mixing bowl

- Now beat the two eggs in with the butter

- Add the rest of the contents and whisk well (order doesn’t really matter) Just whist until there are no clumps

- Now grease a loaf pan or muffin pan, whichever you like

- Pour in your batter, and bake for 30-40 minutes

- Check your dish at the 30 minute mark with a butter knife into the center.  If it comes out clean, it is ready.

Enjoy.

Bacon Wrapped Quail with Quail Gravy and Simple Risotto

Hello friends.  Just Jeremy again.  Nothing much bro about this bromantic episode.  But I want to share what is probably the best dish I've ever made.  My father in law gave me about 6 quail this weekend and this is what I did with it.  I'd never had quail before, so this was definitely an adventure.  I decided to make a bacon wrapped quail with simple risotto.  The gravy was a last minute decision, but a wise one.

Here it is...

You will need:

- About 6 Quail

- 8-10 sprigs of fresh rosemary

- About 7 cloves of fresh garlic

- 1 cup Arborio rice

- 1 and ½ sticks of butter

- Salt

- Fresh ground pepper

- Red pepper flakes

- 2 cups chicken broth

- Flour

- 1 pack thick cut bacon

- 1 small yellow onion

- About a handful of fresh basil

- 1 cup fresh or frozen peas

Let’s get started.  First we are working on the quail. 

- Preheat your oven to 325

- Finely chop 4 cloves of garlic

- Finely chop 5 sprigs of rosemary

- Melt 1 stick of butter in a mixing bowl (I used the microwave)

- Add the garlic, rosemary, salt to taste, about 5 grinds of the pepper mill, and about a tablespoon of red pepper flakes to the mixing bowl and whisk well

- Now clean your quail

- Now toss your quail in the butter bath, toss it good, real good

- Now get a large casserole dish

- Line it with bacon

- Wrap one quail for every two pieces of bacon

- If you are using a standard pack of bacon you will end up having one extra piece.  I just wrapped the 6^th quail in 3 pieces.

- Now put it in the oven

- Set the kitchen timer for 45 minutes

Now it’s risotto time!!!!

- Get your chicken broth warming in a small sauce pot, about medium heat, then reduce to low when it’s cooking time.

- Chop the rest of that garlic, rosemary, basil, and the little onion.

- Chopped?  Good.  Put that ½ stick of butter in a large skillet.

- Add the onion, rosemary, basil, and garlic.

- Get that business simmering on medium high.

- Let this simmer until the onion is translucent.

- Translucent now?  Add the cup of Arborio.

- Using a ladle scoop out one ladle of broth and add it to the skillet.

- Stir constantly (I like to risotto with a wooden spoon).

- Continue to stir, when it appears that the Arborio has absorbed that ladle of broth, add another and continue the process.

- Keep going until you are almost out of broth.

- Keep stirring.

- On the last ladle (by this time your quail should be about 2 minutes away from being done), add the peas.

- Stir it in really well and turn off the heat.

- Take the quail out of the oven.

- Empty the broth pot.

It’s GRAVY TIME!!!!

- Add the drippings to the broth pot.

- Turn burner on medium low.

- Add about ¼ cup of flour at a time to the pot and whisk.

- Continue until the gravy is either as thick or thin as you like it.

Now plate it up and enjoy.

The Southern Gentleman

Just Jeremy here.  So I tried Gruyere cheese for the first time this week and was inspired.  Gruyere is a sharp Swiss cheese, tangy with a bite.  So that got me thinking about a simple ham and Swiss.  Then I thought, how can I fancy pants a simple ham and Swiss?  Then it hit me, prosciutto.  Prosciutto is a dry cured Italian ham.  So there we have it a fancy pants ham and Swiss.  But I didn't stop there.  I wanted to put a southern twist on this.  Enter, the fried green tomato.  In college I worked at a restaurant that had a fried green tomato sandwich on the menu.  It was amazing.  I think what really set it off was the aioli.  So here we have it, assembled together is the Southern Gentleman.  It is a toasted prosciutto and gruyere on sourdough with fried green tomato and aioli.

Gruyere and Prosciutto Toasted Sandwich with Fried green tomato

Thick sliced Gruyere cheese

¼ lb slice Prosciutto

Firm green tomatoes

Sourdough bread

Breading

1/3 cup Corn meal

1 cup flour

1 egg

½ cup buttermilk

Salt and pepper to taste

Prepare in one bowl the corn meal and flour with salt and pepper mixed.

In another bowl the egg and buttermilk.

In a frying pan heat a shallow bath of oil on medium.

Slice tomatoes and first in buttermilk bath then the flour/cornmeal, then fry

Flip the tomatoes in the oil about a minute on each side.

In another pan butter one side of the sourdough slice and brown.

In another pan heat 1/4 lb of prosciutto topped with grated Gruyere.

Remove bread from pan and generously spread aioli on each untoasted side.

Now top the prosciutto and Gruyere, then tomato and serve.

Aioli

2 egg yolks

½ juice of lemon (or white wine vin)

1 cup olive oil

Tbsp Dijon

2 Cloves garlic

Salt to taste

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

Fresh basil

Fresh oregano

Follow the link here to prepare: http://youtu.be/MgqIlFlYLxc

Taste analysis:

Best sandwich ever!

Q Competition Practice

Thomas and I (Jeremy) will be entering an amateur BBQ competition August 18 in Jacksonville, FL.  This will be each of our first competition.  The grand prize is $100 and a custom built smoker.  We will be competing with ribs and chicken leg quarters.  Today we practiced.

We began yesterday by making a brine for the chicken and brined the chicken overnight.  For those of you who don't know what a brine is, it is an acid free marinate composed mostly of water and salt.  We used apple juice, chardonay, rosemary, thyme, fresh garlic cloves, salt, and water.  I will not release the recipe yet because the competition is watching.  So here it goes.

First we got the charcoal chimney going.  While the chimney was going we prepared the ribs and chicken to be put on the smoker.  First we removed the sausage casing like membrane from the back of the ribs and rubbed it down with our rub.  Once again, I'm not releasing the rub recipe yet.  Then we rubbed the chicken leg quarters.

Once the meat was rubbed the charcoal was ready to go in the firebox.  Then we added 2 logs of firewood to the firebox.  I like to let the dampers wide open until the temp is right.  I like to smoke between 225 and 275 degrees.  Once the temp is ready the meat goes on.

I usually smoke both chicken and ribs for 4 hours on this temp.  About halfway through the smoke I wrapped the meat in foil.  Then I added some extra ingredients (not telling), and let it smoke for another 2 hours or until its reached an internal temp of 180 degrees.  

Here's the final product:

Ribs!

Chicken!

Till next time....

Introducing Thomas

Dinner Bromantic is getting a little more bromantic.  Introducing Chef Thomas (for real, he's a chef).