Grilled Cheese For Breakfast

The other night, following supper, I began craving a grilled cheese sandwich so I put it on the menu for breakfast.  But what about the egg you asked – not to worry.  Since my go-to breakfast is a fried egg atop a piece of cheese toast, I decided two pieces of grilled bread made just as must sense.

I started with the sandwich by spreading a little mayo on the bread and adding Cabot sharp cheddar and the thinly sliced white part of some green onions. 

The bread outside was buttered and into a skillet it went over medium-low heat.  After flipping I added a lid to aid with cheese melting and started a sunny-side-up egg frying in another pan, also with a lid and a little water.

For the final dish, I just topped the sandwich with the egg, added the green part of the onion and this is the result – sided with some grapes and fresh raspberries that Bev had assigned me to eat while she was gone.

Since bread grilled-in-butter is up a notch from toasted bread, you know it had to be delicious, and since it's just a little more effort, this may be my new go-to meal.  I would have added some sliced tomato and/or crispy bacon to the sandwich but we were out – I’m trying to use up what we have on-hand.

Chris over at Nibble Me This is givng away this great tailgating package from Bush's Beans.  Please head over to his blog for the details.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago: November’s Barbecue Day

Two years ago:  None

Larry

Panko Crusted Pork Chop And Onions

I’ve been saving recipes to try and decided tonight was the night to try a couple of them (sorta) – pork chops & onions, using my usual recipe book – your blogs.

From the freezer, I got a couple of 1” thick boneless pork chops that I’d cut from a whole loin and brined them in basic brine for four hours. The brine was:

1 ½ cups water

½ cup orange juice (had no apple)

1/8 cup Kosher salt

1/8 cup Raw sugar

My plan was to use Pam's recipe for Mustard Herb Crusted Pork Tenderloin and her recipe for Roasted Sweet Onion with Herbed Bread from For The Love Of Cooking, but I’d been gone most of the afternoon, was cooking just for me, and my knees were hurting.  I had picked up a box of Parmesan Herb Panko breadcrumbs that contained most of the ingredients in Pam’s recipes so I decided to take the easy way out and use them for both the pork and the onion.  Check out Pam's site for her recipes and good photos.

For this meal, I brushed a light coating of Dijon mustard on one chop and then added the Panko to the top, bottom, and edges.

I did the onions per Pam’s recipe by coating with olive oil and roasting at 450* for 15 minutes, tuning at the 5 minute marks.  Then I added 2 tbsp of the panko that was mixed with ½ tbsp. of melted butter.  The chops (with an external probe thermometer) and the topped onions went into the 450* oven together - I flipped the chops at the halfway point (about 105*).

I pulled the chops at an internal temp of 137* knowing it would go up to around 145* (slightly pink), which is right where I like them.  Here’s my plate.

While I believe following Pam’s recipe with fresh herbs would have been better, I was very pleased with the Panko and will sure use them in the future as I really enjoyed both the chop and the onions.  I needed to cook the chop on a rack as turning it caused most of the coating to come off.

Here’s a shot of the other chop which was grilled the next day with the Mike Mills treatment – rubbed with his Magic Dust and finished with Apple City BBQ Sauce.

It was also very good.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  Winterizing At Almost Heaven South

Two years ago:  Still A Kid At Heart - And Glad Of It

Larry

Just Another Blah-Blah Breakfast From Leftovers

If you were to look at this and comment that it’s just another of those meals where I slice off some good leftover mac & cheese and sauté it in olive oil to reheat, add a couple slices of crispy fried smoked country bacon from Benton’sCountry Ham, then top it off with an over easy egg and some chopped green onions.

I’d have to respond that when you’re right, you’re right, but that didn’t keep it from being delicious J.  This post has been in the queue for several days and last night on the Cooking Channel, a restaurant made a breakfast meal of mac & cheese, topped with bacon, a fried egg, and green onion - the primary difference being their M&C was a rolled up and thin sliced crepe tossed fresh with cheese sauce.  Guess I'm not so off the wall after all J

Here's a few more fall photos from Almost Heaven South.

The knockout roses are still working hard.

And the greenhouse is full of the plants Bev likes to over-winter - most need a little pruning.

And the best news of the day is that Bev got home safely yesterday from her 13 day trip to Ft. Bragg.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago: Lt. Colonel Walker

Two years ago: Poor Guy - He Leads A Dogs Life

Larry

Riding A Dead Horse

I picked this up from an RV forum and had to post it. 

The tribal wisdom of the Lakota Sioux, passed on from generation to generation, says that, "When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount."

However, in government, education, and corporate America, more advanced strategies are often employed, such as:

1. Buying a stronger whip.

2. Changing riders.

3. Appointing a committee to study the horse.

4. Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride dead horses.

5. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.

6. Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired.

7. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.

8. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.

9. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase dead horses performance.

10. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance.

11. Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do some other horses.

12. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.

13. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position (I love this one)

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  Cajun Leftovers for Breakfast

Two years ago:  Otto's Beer Cheese Soup

Larry

Almost Year Old Beef Ribs

We have a bad habit of putting things in the freezer to save for a special occasion, then not get around to eating them, and this is another example.  For dinner last Christmas, I smoked a whole bone-in standing rib roast and prior to adding the final crust in the oven, I removed the bones. 

Bev doesn’t much care for beef ribs and since she had abandoned me again for a couple of weeks to look after a set of grandkids, I decided now was the time to break them out.

I cut off a couple of bones, very lightly dusted them with the same rub they got originally, and allowed them to set on the counter for an hour to warm up some.

I got the gas grill as hot as it would go and put them over direct heat for about 5 minutes per side to get a crust and warm through.  Since they were already fully cooked I just took them to an internal temp of 125* and pulled and rested for about 5 minutes before cutting them apart – I wanted them to be more steak like than fall off the bone.

I sided them with some leftover mac & cheese.

Conclusion – tasty but too fatty for this low internal temperature and they needed more pre-cook warm up time on the counter.

The next meal, I nuked them to an internal temperature of 150* then took them to the grill and used the same procedure as before and I pulled them off at a temp of about 175*.

I sided them this time with mac and some sweet red peppers that had been marinated in Caesar Dressing.

The ribs were much better this time as more of the fat had been rendered, but I’ve about decided Bev is right.  While beef brisket is my favorite BBQ, beef ribs are way down on the list and hardly worth the effort for me – I have one more rack of them in the freezer that I removed from a roast and it could be my last.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  Feeding The Calf 

Two years ago:  Chicken Schnitzel 

Larry

The Garden Is Finally Done

With some pretty cold weather predicted, I harvested the remainder of my peppers and I'm glad the garden is done for the year but I had a banner year for peppers.  In addition to the shots below, we ate all we wanted and I probably gave away 10 plastic supermarket bags full.  This shot was from my post for early August which was from those that set on in the spring.

Then last week, I posted these shots.

And finally this week, I got the last harvest and still left a lot of little ones on the plants.  These are sweet on the left, various chiles in the center, and pasilla chilles on the right.

I'd never grown these before, but notice many recipes use pasilla peppers and while looking around at a plant sale this spring, I decided to try one of theirs.  They languished around the garden with odd shaped leaves, like a mutants, with no blooms or peppers, then mid summer, they took off.  In doing a little research, it seems the pasilla is really the dried version of a chilaca pepper, just as the ancho is a dried poblano.  My understanding is they ripen to brown and a few of them had started, but most were green - not sure how they will turn out, but I dried them and will see what happens.

For the chiles, I roasted, peeled, and froze them whole providing the option of stuffing for rellenos or other dishes.  Here are some of the anaheims roasting and frozen - the poblanos were already bagged.

I'm sure it would be much easier to go buy canned or fresh chiles for roasting at time of need, but there's just something special about growing and preserving my own.  Since we plan to travel rather than garden next summer, we are putting up more than normal this year - the frozen peppers will easily last two seasons if vacuum sealed. 

This is the last of the sweet peppers headed for the freezer.
 

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago: A Little Touch Of NOLA At Almost Heaven South

Two years ago:  It’s Fall And Time For A Fire At The Lake

Larry

A Little BBQ Catering Gig

A few weeks ago, Wende (youngest daughter and only nearby kid) asked if I’d be interested in providing BBQ for a lunch for 30 at her work in Oak Ridge.  After a few discussions with her, I offered to provide all of the food, so long as it was picked up and I didn’t have to deliver it and the deal was sealed.

She advised this was a rib heavy group of eaters, so the meal was 7 slabs of baby back ribs, 8 lbs of pulled pork, 30 pieces of mixed chicken, 1 ½ gallons of mac & cheese, a gallon of ranch beans, and ¾ gallon of slaw (Bev's special recipe).

Since I got so pressed for time, I got just a couple of shots, so I considered not posting this but wanted to provide the bean recipe as they are easy and so good  - reconfirmed by these folks.  I wish I'd gotten a shot of the ribs as they were some of my best - moist, tasty, and pull off the bone tender (not fall off the bone, which is over-cooked).    This is the chicken and part of the pork as it was pulled.

Here’s the bean recipe and I’m not sure where I got it.

RANCH BEANS – Makes about 15 cups

1 lb.                 Hamburger

1/2 lb.            Bacon, diced

1/2 cup.          Onion, diced

1 med             Green pepper

28 oz can       “Bush’s” baked beans

16 oz can       Red beans

16 oz can       “Glory” butter beans, southern style seasoned

16 oz can       Black beans, drained and liquid replaced with water

10 oz can       Rotel

1/2 cup           Catsup

1/8 cup           Brown Sugar (packed)

2 Tbsp.           Vinegar

1 Tbsp.           Mustard

1 tsp.               Salt

1 ½ tsp           Chili powder

Brown hamburger, bacon, pepper and onion together, then drain fat. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well. Cook in slow cooker on high for 2 1/2 hours.

Unlike many similar dishes that get better with more cooking, this one does not and the flavor degrades.  Since the beans are all canned, all it needs is to be well warmed.  I’m confident the burger could be replaced with smoked meat, such as rib tips, with good results. 

According to Wende, the food got rave reviews and the company owner stuffed himself.  While BBQ can be reheated with good results, it’s still best right off the smoker and I wanted it to be special for this group, so I cooked the pork overnight and got up around 4am to get the other items going - ribs on at 6am.  Note to self after doing this – no more full catering jobs and no more lunch catering. 

As an aside, son Rhett is in Leavenworth,Ks for some Army training and called me from the original Arthur Bryant's to tell me he was eating ribs and thought mine were better.  Whether or not they are, I appreciated the call and it was a feel good, and it just so happened that I had already sent him two slabs via Bev that very morning - she went over to watch the grandkids.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  Cajun White Bean And Ditalini Soup With Kale

Two years ago:  What Time Change

Larry