Our Version of Guy Fieri's Mozzarella Sticks

I can't find the recipe for this but we saw it a couple of weeks ago. Guy Fieri made these with his son Hunter, who has long hair like DB. Husband and DB made these a few days later.

Guy adds a slice of prosciutto to his, inside the wonton and wrapped around the cheese, but we left that out -- and they're still awesome. So awesome, I've had them for dinner, for lunch, and for breakfast. And I can't wait to have a party to make tons more. And I'll try to get a picture, too.

Ingredients:

• Panko bread crumbs
• Regular bread crumbs (Guy used Italian but we used plain because that's what we already had)
• Mozzarella sticks (or block of mozz.)
• Egg
• Milk
• Wonton wrappers (hint: they were in the vegetables aile at our supermarket, with the tofu and the precut veggies and the veggie juice drinks and all that stuff)
• Oil for frying
  

Instructions:
1. Cut the sticks in half or cut the block of cheese into 1/2-ounce sticks.
2. Mix 1/2 of each kind of bread crumb in a shallow bowl. Mix 1 egg with 1/4 cup or so of milk in a shallow bowl.
3. On a cutting board or other flat surface, lay out a wonton wrapper.
4. Place 1 piece of your mozzarella at one side edge of the wonton, and roll it around once. Fold in the sides, then roll the rest of the way.
5. Dip the wrapped cheese in egg mix, then breadcrumbs.
6. Heat oil to 350 degrees F.
7. Fry your wrapped cheese sticks for about 2 minutes or until golden brown.
8. Drain and serve.

Calories: We figured about 160 calories apiece.

A Real American Winner

I'm very excited that Rick Bayless won the first season of Top Chef Masters. His video is adorable. What a low-key guy!

It was interesting to have watched the series and root for the finalists; I would have been OK with either Bayless or Hubert Keller winning, but the previous couple of episodes Michael Chiarello came off like, well, a jerk, so I wasn't rooting for him. Particularly in the episode where the finalists had to interview former Top Chef contestants, he made them scramble to chop stuff for him, and asked everyone how to pronounce his name. Degrading interivew questions! The other 2 chefs treated the TC-ers more respectfully, both in the interviews and during the ensuing challenge.

Oh, and in the video Bravo calls his "exit interview" he says he "could have manipulated the outcome" of the finale by choosing a different dish! What an egomaniac. He's a good-looking guy but did not deserve to win.

I also think it was fitting Bayless won because his is a true American cuisine; Keller cooks from a French background; Chiarello from Italian roots; but Bayless has Oklahome BBQ roots and specilizes in Mexican cuisine, which is also North American.

I also want to say that I like that Kelly Choi hosted the Masters episodes; we watched her on her NYC-cable channel days and it's nice to see her on a bigger stage.

Lamb Burgers

This is adapted from this Lamb Burgers recipe, but of course, we made it our own using what we had.


* 3/4-1 lb. lamb shoulder, chopped fine (we used our Oscar mini chopper, which had the advantage over hand chopping in that we were able to pull the sinewy strings out whole)
* 2 TB chopped fresh parsley
* 1 TB dried oregano
* 1 TB garlic, chopped
* 1 tsp. white vinegar
* 1 tsp. honey
* 1 tsp. ground cumin
* 1/4 tsp. ground allspice
* 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
* 1/2 tsp. salt
* 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

Place the lamb in a large bowl and mix with the parsley, oregano, garlic, vinegar, and honey.
Season with cumin, allspice, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper.

Shape into 3 or 4 patties.

Coat the bottom of a large saute pan with olive oil and heat. Add lamb burgers and cook until well done. Place on rolls and eat!

Oh, and we had a raita/tzaziki sauce: Mix together 1 c. plain yogurt, 1/2 finely shredded cucumber (without the seedy inside part), 1 tsp. garlic, 1/2 tsp. salt, pepper to taste.

Husband and I think these would be even better with some tomato and lettuce on top; as it were, with the rosemary ciabbata rolls we put them on, it was really filling. But tasty!

Shrimp in Veggie Broth, a la CSA

This is adapted from a recipe in the Feb 2009 issue of Bon Appetit, which did not have zucchini or broccoli stems.

Serves 4:

2 TB EVOO
4 Cippolini onions, chopped
Broccoli stems, peeled, and small leaves from 2 or 3 bunches, chopped
2 medium zucchini, peeled and halved and cut into 1/8-inch rounds
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 TB paprika
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes, we used with jalapeno
2 tsp. fresh rosemary, chopped
1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 8-oz bottle clam juice
3 c water
4 small red potatoes, scrubbed and cut in 1/8 inch slices; I cut the bigger ones in half so the size would be similar.
1 lb. peeled, deveined medium shrimp

1. Heat oil in large heavy pot over medium heat. Add onions and saute until almost tender. Add broccoli, zucchini and saute until just tender.

2. Add garlic and paprika; stir 2 minutes.

3. Stir in tomatoes and juice and cook until liquid has evaporated, stirring frequently (about 15 minutes). Toward the end, stir in rosemary and red pepper.

4. Stir in clam juice, then water, and bring to a boil.

5. Add potatoes; simmer until they are almost tender, about 5 minutes.

6. Add shrimp; simmer until just cooked through, about 5 minutes.

7. Remove from heat and cooking pan immediately (to avoid overcooking the shrimp). Season with salt and pepper.

Blue Bear's BlogHer '09 Experience

I had a great time at BlogHer in Chicago.

To be quite honest, I was a little confused about whether we were at BlogHer or BagHer.

And I wished Mommy let me go to the foodbloggers session but oh, well.












Here I am at LaGuardia Airport waiting the 3 hours our flight was delayed. Although we thought it was a bum steer to have to pay for Internet access, it was worth it. We got all the hot dog recipes posted and did some other stuff too.




When we finally arrived at Midway at 1 am, we had to take a cab. We took this picture for DuckyBoy so he could compare to NYC taxis.









Friday's Newbie Breakfast was fun, we hooked up with Sara and everyone was nice. We did our first of many business-card shuffles.










Next we attended our first session, on Owning Your Expertise.

Lemme see: "Hi, my name is Blue Bear, and I'm an expert in Holt-Wright Family Recipes, because I'm the coordinator and mascot of their recipe blog." Sound good?







I didn't drive this Camaro but it was cool to see it at the Expo.. DuckyBoy says it's the kind of car Bumblebee is.










I was really hoping to win the full set of McDonald's Teeny Beanies!

If you look closely you'll see that one space is empty and guess what, we know which one it is -- it's the little guinea pig, FluffBall!








BowlHer sounded like fun. The feather boa was too big for me, but I liked the chocolate Goldfish and the bag.










Mommy tried to explain how fun CheeseburgHer was, but I didn't quite get it. Guess I'da had to have been there.










I do like this cool T-shirt I got, even though it's from Build-a-Bear and I'm not!










Did I mention how hard it was to get up every morning? I was up waaaay past my bedtime every night! And the bed was very soft and comfy.







We met one more BlogHer in the shuttle to the airport (she's in front of me to the left), and got the scoop on the AlphaMoms bloggers' conference in September in Asheville, NC!




Since we hadn't been able to FedEx anything, we repacked the carry-ons at the airport to condense from 3 to 2, and ate our swag Stacy's Parmesan chips in case security wouldn't let us carry them through. They were delish!








Bye, Chicago! Bye, fellow BlogHers! Hope to see you next year in NYC!

Displaced Wall Street Executive Dog

Right now I'm waiting for my flight to Chicago to attend BlogHer with Mommy. Our flight is delayed like 2 hours so I thought I'd post the recipes for and assorted minutiae about our WINNING hot dog in the 4th Annual Great Hot Dog Cookoff! Yes, we won "Toy Dog" category, meaning the best rich-tasting dog.

Buns: We found a great price at the Entenmann's outlet on QB: 3 packages of 16 buns for $3!

Dogs: After much back-and-forth with a Stop & Shop employee about whether the dogs we had were weiners or franks, and what exactly was supposed to be on sale and where it was (turns out that store doesn't even carry that item, but the sign was up anyway), we got all-beef Oscar Mayer dogs for BOGO-- that's buy one get one free for the uninitiated -- which means about $2.30 per pack of 10.

Bacon
Another BOGO special, we got Plumrose bacon on sale the day before the sale ended, also at Stop & Shop. Scott spent about 5 hours cooking all 14 pounds in the oven so each piece stayed nice and straight.

Prime Rib Chili
We made modifications to the original Chili recipe as follows:
* Instead of deer meat, use well trimmed, finely diced prime rib.
* Use 2 lbs prime rib and 1 lb ground chuck.
* Sautee the veggies in bacon fat instead of olive oil.
* Deglaze the pan with some white wine before dumping everything back in.
* Cook on low in crock pot 6-8 hours.
* We also added 1 tsp. cumin.

Ski Weekend in Vermont Cheddar
Scott was tempted to use any-old Cheddar but I insisted on Vermont, since that's what we said. Right? So we got Stop Shop brand on sale, 10 ounces for $2.50 (technically it was 2 packages for $5, but since we bought 10 that was no problem.)

We got both the Mexican Riviera Crema recipe and the In-the-red Onion Relish recipe from a Bobby Flay Food Network page from an episode of Boy Meets Grill. We get a lot of our recipes from the Food Network site.
* We used sour cream, Daisy brand, because it, of course, was on sale.
* We left the serrano chili out of the Relish because we just didn't have one. I'm sure it would be good with it as well, just have more kick to balance the sweetness of the cooked red onions. (Who knew?)

Chicken Stock

This is loosely based on Alton Brown's chicken stock recipe from, of course, foodnetwork.com.

The good thing about something like stock is you can use whatever you've got. This is what I had:

• Raw bones from 8 thighs
• 2/3 of a large onion, quartered
• 8 baby carrots
• Celery (I didn't have any celery so I threw in maybe a scant tsp of celery seed)
• Thyme (yay, CSA from last year!)
• Bay leaf
• Peppercorns
• Garlic (didn't have a clove so I put in a heaping tsp. of the jarred chopped stuff)

Cover with water. Boil for about an hour, adding water to keep covered, until you re-read the recipe and realize you're supposed to turn it down to a simmer.

Simmer for 6 hours, or until it's finally DB's bedtime and you have time to strain and cool it off and put it in jars and refrigerate.

I actually did put the hot stock into 2 different containers and put it in an ice bath in cold water in the sink as the original suggests. I couldn't find my thermometer (even though it was right in front of me), so couldn't check if it got to 40 degrees, but I did cool it off.

Yield this time: 7 cups.