Showing posts with label carnitas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label carnitas. Show all posts

Monday, January 27, 2020

Superbowl Recipes - Touchdown!

Head to the end zone for a long pass of recipes from The Culinary Quarterback. Are you ready for Superbowl LIV Sunday? The Fried Pig Skin Lovin' Chef has some tasty football food that will leave enough green in your wallet to buy an extra keg for your tailgate party.


Click on any recipe name to see the original recipe blogpost.

The NFC Conference Champions, San Francisco 49ers, are up against the AFC Conference Champs, Kansas City Chief for Superbowl 54. My recipe list below has local food spins according to both cities. The lineup for San Francisco 49ers features seafood, and for Kansas City Chiefs it all about the beef and pork!

So if you are looking for regular eats for your Superbowl Party, I got your halfback, I mean back. There are no fumbles in this recipe list! 99 Thanks go to my local 99c only Stores and Dollar Trees. Hey, I even find 99 cent deals at regular grocery stores and ethnic markets, so all the bases, I mean, the whole field is covered.

San Francisco 49ers fans are all about seafood in the City by the Bay. And boy do I have a cheap$kate sammie for you I call a Scallop Roll. This recipe is so scrumptious it was featured on the Huffington Post website! Click here to see the write-up. Lobster meat breaks the bank, while scallops are tender and a tasty cheap substitution I find in the frozen deli case. One small 4-ounce package is enough for a Scallop Roll or two.



  Scallop Roll

I love BBQ and so do Kansas City footballers. And the local BBQ sauce is tomato-based just the way I like it, too. If you have a fave BBQ sauce recipe then use it - Out here in L.A. we have Newman's Own that was carried in my local Dollar Tree - talk about a big score!


A baked Rack of Ribs is easy and extra succulent the 99 Cent Chef way. All I do is season them with a dry rub or coat in a fave BBQ sauce, wrap in foil then bake for 3 to 4 hours until fall-apart tender, that's it. You can smoke them your way once they are baked tender like I do right here. My recipe below uses Pork Spareribs, but meaty Beef Ribs can be used as well.



Serve the Rack of Ribs with a classic but simple Potato Salad or Coleslaw.



King crab rules in San Fran. Now I can't afford to use crab in my recipes, but I've found that imitation crab does the job for this Bottom Feeder Chef. Krab, or imitation crab, is a cooked fish blend that has the texture and taste of lump crabmeat. It may not be for the pescatarian purist, but I've grown to love it.


 Fake Crab

I offer to my 49er comrades the mighty Krab Louis Salad made with fantastic fake krab of course. Originating in San Francisco (or Oregon as some claim) this king of salads also has asparagus, plus cheap iceberg lettuce, tomato, a hard-boiled egg and topped with Thousand Island dressing. Of course, use real lump crab...if you can afford it!



This West Coast fan favorite is a California Roll. Like a stadium wave, this California spin on Japanese sushi has traveled to grocery deli cases all around the country. And I substitute cheap imitation crab so you will save big bucks on usually expensive crabmeat.



Another meaty meal is a big bowl of Kansas-style Chili. Simple is best and if a hot bowl of Homemade Chili and a mug of icy cold beer are what you crave on game day then you've come to the right place. What's great about Chili is it can be made a day or two ahead and stay on the stovetop on low heat the whole gameday! Go ahead and add a can or two of black, pinto or red beans to the chili pot at the end of cooking for a more filling chili bowl. I like to top mine with chopped onion, shredded cheese, and crunchy Fritos Corn Chips!


Anybody can make a Hot Dog right? If you have a fave Kansas City frankfurter, set out the toppings while the weenies steam or saute and let the grandstanders build their own. Here is a favorite of mine in the video below. I use chili from the can and sauerkraut from a jar -- use what you got or can easily get.



If game day is foggy and cold in San Francisco, then throw another log on the fire and gather in front of the big screen with a steaming bowl of my cheap$kate Clam Chowder. 49er fans will throw off their warming blankets, peel off their gloves, and line up for a big bowl. And serve it in a hollowed-out loaf of sourdough bread for extra points!


You gotta serve BBQ Pork if you are a Chiefs fan, right? I have the perfect recipe for you, a succulent and smoky BBQ Pulled Pork sandwich recipe. I usually just add pickle and sliced onion, but my Homemade Coleslaw goes on it, too or as a side dish. My recipe is easy and cheap to make, of course. Just check out the video below or click here to see all the tasty recipe details.



Also, you can start with a reverse flea-flicker of a recipe called, Carnitas. Hours of braising reduce a pork shoulder to a tender and succulent Mexican-style taco filling. I even throw in the pigskin for extra flavor. Carnitas are what I order for late-night noshing at a taco truck. And it's a self-serve time saver when you set up a taco bar.



Weave through the living room backfield with a pile of Mexican Carnitas Tacos (slow-cooked pork) and you'll be lucky to make it through without being sacked!

And here are more recipes for Game Day, just read on and click on your faves, some familiar and some, like the next one, uniquely a 99 Cent Chef game changer.

Serve my most outrageous Hot Dog recipe, a the LA Street Dog -- a freeway pileup of flavors that make an end-run around any foot long out there.



Of course, simplest is best and I like a hot dog with just mustard and pickle relish. One trick I learned watching local wiener wranglers work and that is to steam the bun like I show below.



When your guests rush through the patio gate, have a bowl of Chips and Salsa to greet them. Now you can just set out a jar of cheap Pace Chunky Salsa or go for extra points with my Mango Salsa Recipe.



Make a simple chopped Pico de Gallo salsa or get a package of dried chilis for an intense Ancho and Red Chili Salsa. I also like a tangy Salsa Verde made with green tomatillos.


All football fans love Pizza on game day. You can avoid the long lines at Domino's or Shakey's Pizza and make your own cheaply with my recipe that uses pre-made cooked pizza crusts from the Dollar Tree store.


What's great about making Individual Pizzas, is everyone can add the ingredients they favor. I like anchovies and an egg on mine -- I know no one else would order that one!

Just set out a stack of individual store-bought pizza crusts and bowls of pepperoni, shredded cheese, black olives, fresh basil leaves, cooked Italian sausage, a fave jar of marinara sauce -- you get the picture. And it only takes 10 minutes or so in a hot oven and they are done! Click here to see how I make them.



Next to pizza and hot dogs, Fried Chicken is a favorite finger food and no one fries chicken better than this Cheap$kate Game Changer.

I've come up with a crunchy coating that will empty the bleachers and have fans storming the kitchen! Get Superbowl Sunday going with my Fried Chicken Sandwich Recipe, or use my special flour and spice mix for regular bone-in chicken pieces. Fry up a batch of chicken to handoff when the coin is tossed to start the game.



Bring more Southern flavor to your kitchen, no matter what State you are in. Fans will take a half-time break and huddle around your cast iron pot of my fragrant and spicy Chicken & Sausage Jambalaya and Cajun Gumbo.

 Mom's Chicken and Sausage Gumbo

In Louisiana, we put a dollop of Cajun Potato Salad on our Gumbo. If you don't believe me just check out the video below.



Or go straight up the middle with a tray of Teriyaki Spam Musubi. This Hawaiian specialty combines good old American canned spam with Japanese sushi. And does it really work? My easy-to-follow recipe will have your guests eating out of your hands...down!



While everyone's watching the pre-game show send in any of my delicious sideline sides and appetizers, including: Bacon Wrapped Dates and Brussels SproutsTomato & Basil BruschettaDeviled EggsPortabella Mushroom FriesSweet Fried PlantainsCeviche with Avocado and Black Beans, and Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce.



Football zealots are not just meat-eaters, but potato fanatics too. I like mine grilled, how about you? Well, I got Grilled Yellow and Orange Sweet Potato recipes for you to try.



And just click here to see my Veggie Frittata recipe that will feed all your hungry team players (go ahead and add some ham pieces to fill out the frittata.)


Start Superbowl Sunday with a couple of omelet recipes, including my French-style Cheese Omelette



And, everyone will huddle around sandwich plates of gooey, cheesy Patty Melts, hearty Meatball Subs, Homemade Deli PastramiFalafel Pitas, and steaming Sloppy Joe's.



If you're looking for one-pot meals, so you don't miss any action on the field, just check out my Pork BourguignonFrench CassouletChicken Tinga Stew,  Mr. Patti's Red Beans & RiceBaked Pasta with Cheese and CauliflowerBaked Lasagna with Ground ChickenShepherd's Pie, or Sausage & Sauerkraut with Beer recipes.

Baked Lasagna with Ground Chicken

 Looking for a sneak-play recipe? How about a different twist on Buffalo Wings with my African Spiced Water Buffalo Wings? This original recipe features chicken legs, but you can substitute wings.


Tired of stale, soggy stadium hot dogs? I have a great and easy Corn Dog Recipe made with Vienna sausages -- but you can use regular wieners. Your hungry guest will not be offsides dipping these crunchy coated pig skins into my tasty Honey-mustard Sauce.

Since you have the fryer going you might as well make a batch of my Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. They're as light and airy as the Goodyear blimp.

So get your backfield in motion and click on any of my tasty treat names above to watch an instant reply of recipes from my blog. Your guest will be cheering you on -- from their cheap seats!

Friday, October 25, 2019

Halloween Recipes- Creepy Cool Meat

Gory Halloween warning! Time to get squeamish with the Ghoulish Gourmet's creepy imagery of raw meat and viscera. I'm about to git medieval for Halloween and the following weeks Dia del los Muertos or Day of the Dead.

This Sinister Cheap$kate's ghastly recipes are laid out like a bloody scene from a Stephen King and Edgar Allen Poe story. Once you've digested this macrabe blog post, your taste buds may nevermore be the same.

And if you're a vegetarian, avert your gaze! Or peak through hand-covered eyes to read my queasy prose. I'm sure to be on Morrissey's #hit list if he ever sees this - he's pop music's most morose vegan. (And I'm a big fan of his songs with The Smiths.)

Some of my most spooky recipes may make your skin crawl, while others will have your taste buds baying at the moon with pleasure, mouthful after mouthful.

Witches Brew - a bubbling cauldron of Pozole.

So read on, and don't forget to click on any recipe name that will bring you kicking and screaming to my original blog post to see all the hair-raising details -- presented with gory gifs, bloodcurdling photos, grisly videos, and eerie text.

Right off the bat, I like my Chupacabra Carne Asada steak and hamburgers medium rare. Oozing is fine by me - E. coli be damned!


Grilling meat supercharges the flavor and brings out the knuckle-dragging Neanderthal in this Paleo Chef.

The Terminator T-bone

Raw bloody carcasses of meat have been disturbingly depicted in fine art. Rembrandt van Rijn is primarily known as a Dutch painter of moody portraits during the 17th Century, and I am especially influenced by his "Carcass of Beef" (flayed ox) study - just check out the audacious composition with gory details.


And here's the British artist Francis Bacon's 20th Century version, below.


The Chiaroscuro Chef photographs flesh against dark backgrounds lately (shot on a blackened cookie sheet) - usually lit from a single direction, with deep shadows, very much inspired by Caravaggio. An artfully dark and forbidding example is my recipe for Pasta alla Genovese, where I slice and dice cheap beef shank, slaughterous enough to make a zombie weep.


Offal is not so awful to this Carrion Chef. After watching a classic horror flick on the big screen, I cruise LA's fog-shrouded boulevards and alleyways during the midnight hour looking for ways to quell my ravenous appetites...for tacos, that is! 


Buche (stomach,) lengua (tongue,) and tripas (intestines) are on the menu at sidewalk taquerias and taco trucks throughout Los Angeles. Watch the shuddersome viscera-splattered video below to see what stops me in my tracks.



Get your hands dirty knawing on my Rosemary's Baby Back RibsYou'll need extra napkins to soak up the BBQ sauce smeared on your libs and dripping from your fingertips.



My Silence of the Lambs Curry is creepy-delicious. And my video cooking directions are as easy to follow as leading a lamb to the slaughter.



It can get messy cooking with meat. You have to have an iron stomach. Try breaking down a pork shoulder sometime, like I do below for my ghastly Texas Chainsaw Carnitas video recipe.


It's probably the most artistically nauseating footage I've ever shot - but, boy does it taste heavenly when you cradle a stuffed tortilla, plump with citrus and cola marinated, slow-cooked pork.



Ground chicken is mushy and wet, more so, than ground beef or pork.


Check out my ground poultry The Blob Patty Melt video to see what I mean -- yuk!



After chicken, pork is the cheapest flesh. When hacked, mangled, and minced into sausage, it's delicious for breakfast, or added to a stir fry like my Garroted Green Beans and Gruesome Ground Pork recipe below.


This may sound perverse but it's actually fun to animate with ground meat, it's like playing with Play-Doh, just greasier. Check out my video below to see the messiness.



Are you still with me? Man, are you are hardcore! I'm getting extra creeped-out just assembling this blog post.


Ever gut a fish? Whoa, that is one freaky task! Slice the belly open, yank out the internal organs then chop off the head -- oh, I'm feeling faint just remembering the slimy viscera and the nauseating smell - barf!

If you want to scare the bejesus out of your dining guest, then serve them a Jaws Whole Grilled Fish - head on!


This tin-framed, bloody looking slaughter scene comprised of tomato-sauced fat fingers of sardines is one of my most visited food blog posts. And the morbid visitors are mostly from Europe (Translyvania?) - go figure. My pasta dish, Suspiria Sardines in Tomato Sauce with Olive Oil over Pasta, is a delicious mouthful worth sinking your incisors into.



Sushi is typically made with freshly butchered raw fish. It's so artfully presented that you miss the gore that goes into each delicate slice of aquatic flesh.

Here's one of my tastefully shot Sushi recipe videos, the simply presented, Mothra Tuna Sushi.



Shrimp would not seem spooky, right? But, buy head-on jumbo shrimp and try beheading, peeling and removing the spine/backbone sometime...ugh! But, man are they delicious when my Mom serves them up in her Stephen King Shrimp & Rice recipe.


Halloween has a dark streak of humor and some of my recipes do, too. Take my wacky Trump Orange Chicken Nightmare on K Street....please. It's the color and shape of a pumpkin, just like our Twit-in-Chief, and looks like a McDonald's Chicken McNugget, but my entree is made with real chicken pieces, not a pink slime composite.


How about a recipe where a slice of Bride of Frankenstein Turkey Bacon swallows up a Brussels sprout like a disembodied human tongue...yikes!


I like to cook whole chicken or leg quarters. There's nothing like the carnal pleasure of ripping apart a cooked poultry carcass and sucking every piece of succulent meat off the bones. My Tingler Chicken Tinga and Paranormal Poached Chicken are some saporous examples.


My brother from another daddy, the Swamp Chef, visited a butcher shop in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and was feted about behind the scenes. They use the whole hog at Iverstine Farms Butcher.


 Below is the Eviscerating Cuisinier's squishy butchering of a chicken breast and leg quarter. It's the cheapest flesh you can get and I have all kinds of poultry recipes, here.



So get out there and have an entertaining Halloween holiday. It's not all blood and guts! So, I'll leave you with an appallingly tasty ghost story.

Tuesday, October 1, 2019

National Taco Day - Recipes & Reviews

Today is National Taco Day, the most hallowed of culinary days in my cocina (kitchen.) I can have tacos morning, noon and night. So read on and you'll know what I mean - just click on any taco name, or highlighted text, to see all the tasty details from my blogpost recipe or review.


In the morning it's spicy Mexican chorizo with scrambled eggs and refried beans nestled into a warm corn tortilla.

Breakfast Tacos

And my Chorizo & Egg Taco is about as cheap as you can get. I get Mexican chorizo from the 99c only Store natch, and all kinds too, like beef, pork and even soy (which is a recent favorite.) Eggs still show up at my local Dollar Tree.



The simplest breakfast taco to make is one made of Scrambled Eggs & Refried Beans. You can used canned refried beans or make my Homemade Mexican-style Pinto Beans.




And for Breakfast Tacos, it all about the salsa toppings. I like salsa from a jar, but sometime I just gotta go for it and make my own Homemade Salsa, and it's easy to do.



My Mango Salsa recipe with yummy photos and tasty text is right here, but you can check out the video below:


I'm ready to party on this auspicious day, and when this cheap$kate does it you can bet pennies will be pinched without a sacrifice in flavor. For my backyard soirée it's my favorite taco: a slow-cooked pork Carnitas. Just check out my video below to see what I'm writing about.



I buy a 5 to 6 pound budget pork shoulder, and I can get a couple dozen tacos out of it, too.


 And boy it's the perfect budget recipe that your friends and neighbors will line up for. You let them do most of the work -- they get to build each taco to suit their taste. I like to set out some chopped onion and cilantro. You can make your taco bar any way you like, go ahead and add a bowl of shredded cheese, chopped lettuce and tomato, and a cheap jar of salsa, too.

Chicken is one cheap protein. My Chicken Tinga recipe will have your guest coming back for seconds...and thirds! Chicken Tinga is a stew simmered in tomato sauce with a can of spicy chipotle peppers, but you can make a mild version with a can of enchilada sauce.

 Chicken Tinga


One of my most unique tacos came about one summer while on vacation at our spectacular national parks in Utah. I stopped to eat and had an Indian Frybread Taco. Frybread is flour dough that's rolled out and deep fried. You top the frybread with chili beans, lettuce, tomato and cheese.

Frybread Taco

Carne Asada, or grilled steak, is a favorite taco of mine. Just make my marinade for thin sliced steak, let it set for an hour, then slap it on the grill. After the Carne Asada is done you chop it up and serve on a corn tortilla


Carne Asada Taco

The marinade is a simple mix of lime juice, oil, cilantro, cumin, garlic, salt and pepper.

Drive anywhere in Los Angeles and you will see taco trucks, sidewalk taco vendors, and taquerias on almost every street. And I've stopped at most of them. What follows are a few of my faves - with a few recipes I cribbed from them, too.



When I moved to Los Angeles over 40 years ago, I discovered the taco truck. Boy, have they evolved over the years. In the beginning it was just hamburgers and tacos made with ground beef. Well, that all changed about 9 years ago when a hotel chef named Roy Choi, who was down but not out, rebounded from couch surfing to start Kogi Taco Truck.

A fellow co-conspirator came up with the idea of a Korean taco, and Roy Choi assembled the taco ingredients of Korean barbecue short ribs with an kimchi-style coleslaw, served on corn tortillas. His truck was an instant hit, and Kogi jump-started the ongoing nouveau taco truck renaissance.


Kogi is still around and I still love them. Check out my video below, where I hang out night and day, for L.A.'s most uniquely mouthwatering taco.



Inspired by Kogi's mashup of Korean BBQ and Mexican Tacos, I came up with the Loxaco, that combines Jewish and Mexican cuisines.


Loxaco is comprised of homemade lox (cured salmon) in a fast food crunchy taco shell topped with cream cheese and thin sliced red onion. I introduced this preposterous concoction at a book signing in Libros Schmibros, a lending library in East Los Angeles. How did it go over with book lovers? The following video is a twofer, you get a recipe plus a literary happening scene.



After a double feature at my fave art house cinematheque like the Egyptian or New Beverly Theater, on the way home I swing by Leo's Taco for a few al pastor pork tacos. They just cost a $1.25, and the line can be long, now that the word is out.


This is porcine perfection on a paper plate. It's tender and flavorful grilled marinated pork, that's cooked in front of a gas grill called a trompo. A cook manning the grill slices off thin slivers, finishing the taco with flare: a flying slice of pineapple. Check out the yummy action below.



I've followed the Two Hot Tamales from the beginning, when the Border Grill was in a storefront with half a dozen tables on Melrose Avenue. Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken are fixtures on the L.A. dining scene who jumped on the taco truck train, bringing their neuvo take on Mexican cuisine to four wheels. They primarily park their taco truck in the environs of Silicon Valley West Coast, Santa Monica.



My Tacos El Primo video review has gone viral. That means this YouTube video gets thousands of views per month - right now it is pushing half a million. Why? I'm not sure. Let's see... in this video I review Buche and Tripas tacos, or tacos made from slow-cooked stomach and intestine. Gross right? One thing I noticed is half my visitors are from Mexico, so maybe half my audience is curious how gringos react to offal.


That doesn't seem interesting enough really, but hey, what do I know, I'll take it. I did the taco review because Tacos El Primo was a midnight munchies stop on my return home from various Hollywood treks.

When you have a neighborhood food stop, you eventually dive deeper and try eats you would not normally taste.

Tripas (intestine) Taco

Well, join the multitudes and check out my Cheap$kate video review of Tacos El Primo.



Deep fried Fish Tacos are one of L.A.'s great culinary contributions. These battered depth charges of crunchy perfection are based on the street food of Baja Mexico and other coastal communities. If you like British Fish & Chips, you will love Fried Fish Tacos.

Fish Taco

The battered fillets of fish are typically served on corn tortillas and topped with a white crema and chopped cabbage. I have my own recipe for Fish Tacos you can see by clicking on the recipe name.

And this is the best taco deal in town: Today (Wednesdays) is $1 Fish Taco day at Tacos Baja! Yeah, that's what you heard - don't believe me? Just watch the video below and see it for yourself.



Celebrate National Taco Day with me today. Hey, celebrate it any day now that I've shown you a slew of taco recipes you can make easily and cheaply.

And I'll end with a queasy taco review, from of all places, Jack In The Box's 2 for 99 cent tacos...ugh, watch it with a barf bag.



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