Dinner at Don's

My buddy Don and I have been tight ever since we met in 9th grade band while learning to play the tuba. Well, congratulations to him, he recently purchased his first home. It is in Santa Rosa about 6 miles from where I live, and we have some great cookouts there.

Tonight my brother from another mother, Brandon, and I are going over to have dinner with him and his girlfriend, Nicole. Tonight we are keeping it pretty simple with Italian sausages and fresh pasta (I'll post photos later), but I got to thinking about our last meal, which was dyn-O-mite!!!

I'm about to make this plate of food disappear!!!

The meal:

• Grilled whole chicken
• Grilled corn on the cob
• Steamed broccoli with lemon

The broccoli and corn are obviously cooked the way we listed, but I gave the chicken a little more attention than the vegetables.

1. Using a whole chicken, I cut the spine out and laid the chicken flat on the cutting board. 

2. Once flat with the ribs down, I pressed down firmly on the breast bone, thereby breaking the sternum and some ribs, enabling the chicken to lay flat.

3. I seasoned the chicken both before and during cooking with a flavored oil of:

• lemon-infused olive oil
• fresh garlic, finely minced
• fresh rosemary, roughly chopped
• kosher salt
• fresh-cracked black pepper

4. I grilled the chicken skin side down until crispy, then I flipped it and grilled over medium heat until done. Boom.

Here are some chicken in-progress photos:

Killer Quick Carne Asada

 Weightlifting has been a big part of my life since I was about 15. Lately, my brother, Benjamin, and I have been lifting and eating for mass. It has been a great opportunity for us to endure something arduous together, which I feel is bringing us closer.

Me and Ben feasting on churros at a baseball game.

 One requirement of the mass-gain plan is an increased intake of calories. Hopefully an increased intake of healthy, or clean, calories. So over the next few weeks it will seem like I am eating a lot because I am. Just wanted to let you know.

 So today, after assaulting an upper back workout with Ben, I made carne asada bowls. In all, this meal took about 30 minutes, start to finish. To get it done fast like me, follow this sequence:

• Marinate meat in adobo sauce, canola oil, and southwestern/Mexican dry rub.

• Saute onion in canola oil until just soft, add rice. Once all the grains of rice have been sauteed, add one small (8 oz) can of tomato sauce and 1 cup of water. Heat to a boil, reduce to the lowest simmer possible for 16 minutes.
• Light the grill, set to a high heat. 
• Grill the jalapeno first, and when it is just about done, put the steaks on the grill.
• When you flip the steaks, pull the jalapeno and put it in a bowl with plastic wrap over it (to steam the charred skin off).
• Pull the steaks, set aside to rest.

• Peel skin off jalapeno, halve, remove seeds and pith, and chop.

• After slicing the steak and placing it on the rice, hit the dish with a few drops of hot sauce, some lime zest, and a little lime juice in addition to the roasted jalapenos.

Tonight, I served it as a carne asada bowl, as I try to keep breads out of my diet after lunch.

Restaurant-Quality Teriyaki Chicken (and Teriyaki Sauce)

 Teriyaki bowls are a great healthy eating option, especially if you're looking to get in a high amount of protein. The problem with restaurant teriyaki bowls is that they are often made with dark meat (which is higher in calories per gram that chicken breast is) and the sauce they put on it and marinate it in is probably full of high fructose corn syrup, a high amount of sodium, and preservatives up the wazoo.

 I really like "goopy" and sweet teriyaki sauce to finish my teriyaki bowls with, and I have been really disappointed by every grocery store brand I've tried, so I made my own. It rocks! It is a little sweet, has a little kick of vinegar, and great overall flavor. It can be used in any capacity you could think of, but I find it is best as a finishing sauce before serving or as a final glaze on the grill. Here are my tools for the day:

INGREDIENTS:

Teriyaki sauce ingredients.

For the rice, just to give it a little kick. I will saute finely
chopped onions in a bit of canola oil then add the rice.
After a quick saute on the rice/onion mixture, I will add
2 cups of water and a splash of seasoned rice vinegar.

For the teriyaki sauce, it is really easy:

• In a small to medium saucepan, dissolve 1 cup of white sugar into 1 cup of water. 
• Once dissolved, add 1cup of store-bought teriyaki sauce, 3/4 cup white vinegar, a drizzle of sesame oil, 1 tsp red pepper flakes, and several smashed garlic cloves. Heat until sauce is at a low boil.

Note: The following steps can be omitted if you would like don't want a "goopy" sauce or you want to avoid the cornstarch.

• Take one heaping forkful of cornstarch and put into a small cup. Add a tablespoon of water and mix into a slurry (use more water if necessary).
• Add the cornstarch slurry to the boiling sauce, and increase to a high boil. Boil until the sauce is at the desired thickness. 

My Favorite (Asian-style) Chicken Marinade Ever

Ingredients for chicken breast marinade.

The chicken marinade is also easy, but you have to butterfly or thin-slice the chicken for the best possible results. Here is a quick sequence to show it in case you haven't ever done it.

For the chicken marinade, 

1. Smash several cloves of garlic in a zipper-close bag. 
2. Mix 2 tablespoons hoisin sauce with 1 tsp each red pepper flakes and sesame oil.
3. Rub hoisin mix onto both sides of the thin-sliced chicken pieces, place into bag.
4. Add 1-2 cups of store bought teriyaki sauce, marinate at least 30 min and up to four hours.

To prepare, grill the marinated chicken over a medium-high fire (to get great grill marks), and put the sauce on it as the chicken is almost done, allowing the sugar in it to carmelize and get sticky. Serve with rice and a vegetable that is in your fridge. Tonight I had some leftover grilled veggies and some broccoli:

Keep Nighttime Calories Low With Grilled Veggies at Dinner

We all want to be fit/in shape/healthy, right? Right.

As an experienced personal trainer, I can tell you that in order to have a slim waste you have to control your calories, and one of the easiest ways to do that is to serve grilled vegetables and a salad with your lean protein, especially at dinner (i.e. late in the day).

Tonight, I had two bunches of fairly thick green onions, two orange bell peppers, a yellow squash and a zucchini.  After prepping, I splashed them with some white balsamic and olive oil and seasoned them with kosher salt and fresh-cracked black pepper.

As for grilling, I simply started the peppers and squash (which I sliced thick) first, and when they were almost ready to pull of the grill I put the green onions on! Too easy.

Now you can get your healthy on! (Combine this with Beer Butt Chicken for a dynamite dinner.)

Easiest Chicken EVER!!!

Roasted chicken is one of those dishes that always seems to be soooooooo delicious. Whether it is done in the oven or outside on a barbecue or grill, roasted chicken is a staple in my home year-round.

However one thing that can happen when roasting poultry is that the white meat can dry out. Basting and stuffing your bird both can help avoid drying the meat out, but I've been using an "oldie but goodie" so frequently that I just had to talk about it. (I have roasted four chickens this way in the last month.)

Behold, the Beer Butt Chicken. This is how tough this meal is:

1. Rub chicken with seasoned salt.

2. Put an open beer up the backside opening to the cavity.

3. Roast vertically in an oven, barbecue or grill until the juices run clear (about an hour).

And here is what the dinner ended up looking like:

TIP: Whatever your method of cooking, start with a high temperature and finish low. For example, I did mine at about 375 for half an hour to get the skin crispy, then I dropped it to 325 or so to finish.

Pulled Pork

Originally posted Tuesday, June 5, 2011:

Independence Day Pulled Pork

While camping and boating at the California Delta this past holiday weekend, I made smoked pork butt (which I used for pulled pork) for the second time, trying to get it more tender than my first attempt, which was a month or so ago.

The pork was great!!! I definitely still have room for improvement, as I didn't do a couple of the great things from my first go-round last month.

So let's break it down:

1. On the meat front I used two, 7 lb pork butts without the bone.
2. For heat I used a vertical propane smoker with Mesquite chips, and a bath of apple juice, apple cider vinegar, and some dry rub. I kept the smoker between 225 and 250 degrees, with the smoker finding its natural sweet spot at at around 240.
3. In the morning at around 7am I scored the top of the each butt, coated the them first in a mixture of Louisiana style hot sauce and yellow mustard, then in my dry rub (I'll cover that in another post with mop sauce).
4. After getting the smoker preheated, I put the butts in it, placing them directly on the rack.
5. I set it, kept a loose eye on the temperature gauge, and let it go all day with no attention!!!
6. In all, the pork sat in the smoker for 10 or so hours, however the last two hours the smoker was off.

My first smoked pork butt, before Sean MacRae and I pulled it.

Here's what I could have done better:

• I didn't make a mop sauce like I did the first time, and after having eaten both types, I definitely think the mop sauce adds a significant amount of moisture. Here's how I used it on Round 1:
• Let the butt smoke for 2 hours without opening the smoker door.
• After the first two hours, baste the butt with mop sauce every hour on the hour. That's it!
• If for some reason I couldn't use a mop sauce, I would definitely make sure I mixed in some with the pork once it had been pulled. Then I would cover it and let it stay warm in the smoker until ready to eat.

Incredible Edible Journey, First Post

Originally posted Wednesday, June 29, 2011 at 12:01 am:

My Incredible Edible Journey, First Post

This is exciting to finally begin chronicling what has been my transformation from a novice cook with a culinary range of cheeseburgers to white rice and baked chicken into a darn good cook who is ready expand on my knowledge of a more exotic selection of ingredients as well as increase my emphasis on cooking as cleanly as possible, getting local, seasonal fruits and vegetables into my diet along with lean proteins and whole grains.

For a few months now I've been wondering exactly what my culinary viewpoint is, and I think I can finally define it in a term I created, "Cooking by the Numbers." This means that I bring some form of process, or systematic progression, to everything I cook, taste, or evaluate in any way.

In this blog I plan to share my restaurant experiences, from taco trucks to white linen tablecloths, as well as my healthy approaches to the various dishes and experiences I have. I'll also include my other cooking inspirations and draw attention to the funny, quirky, and smart things going on in the food community, with an emphasis on health, fitness, and dispelling myths.

Me, JG, at Thirsty Bear in San Francisco, CA, doing research for a class project. Gotta love electives!