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By J.Ho, August 17, 2010 6:08 pm

Mozzarella Stuffed Garlic Bread … Or is it a wicked awesome Italian cheese sandwich?  Call it what you want, but this just oozes with flavor and texture.  I recently saw this recipe for Garlic Bread Revisited online and thought I would try it, with a few twists of course.

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Mix the butter, garlic, basil, parsley, paprika, lemon juice, salt and pepper together in a small bowl.  Make 1-inch thick slices into the bread, but do not go all the way through, just to the bottom crust. Put a teaspoon or two of the butter mixture between each slice along with a few slices of the fresh mozzarella.

Wrap the bread in aluminum foil and heat for 20 minutes in the oven.  Remove from the foil and place under the broiler for 2-4 minutes.  Just until it starts to brown and crisp.  Let cool for about five minutes and cut up and serve immediately.  Wicked, wicked, wicked good.  You can add any kind of seasoning you want.  Next time I’ll add a pinch or two of hot red pepper flakes to the butter mixture to spice things up a bit. Caio bella!!! Yankees suck!

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By J.Ho, August 16, 2010 11:19 am

So yesterday I needed some comfort food in a wicked bad way. I did a cursory Google search and immediately came up with an awesome simple beef stroganoff recipe from Simply Recipes.  This is an outstanding site with outstanding recipes. I’ve been following this site for a long, long time.

As usual, I added my on twists to the ingredient lineup and changed things up a bit.  This is my ingredient lineup:

See the original recipe here and follow the instructions.  I made a few changes … First off I chopped a slice of bacon and browned it in the pan before adding the butter. Instead of cutting the beef into thin slices I diced the it into ¾-inch cubes.  Mix the flour, garlic powder, salt, pepper and onion powder then dredge the steak in the seasoned flour and brown quickly in the butter.  Other than that and switching out the tarragon for thyme, my version is relatively the same.  I definitely needed to thin everything out after adding the sour cream.  I figure mine was too thick since I added flour to the beef.  Flour always makes things thicker.  I also added some fresh chopped Italian parsley.  Love that stuff.

Thank you Simply Recipes and never forget, Yankees suck!

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By J.Ho, June 23, 2010 8:39 am

Why use canned clams if you live in clam country, people ask me all the time.  Cause it’s cheap and easy!  This is a perfect mid-week, inexpensive, simple and amazingly delicious meal.

1 pound dried linguine
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
4 large garlic cloves, minced
2 (6-ounce) cans of chopped or minced clams with their juice
½ cup dry white wine
¼ teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
¼ cup freshly chopped Italian flat leaf parsley
6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
Juice of ½ a lemon
Salt & freshly ground pepper to taste

In a large sauté pan heat the oil over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and slowly cook, stirring, until slightly golden, about 5 minutes. Or sweat the garlic in the olive oil for about ten minutes.  Add the clams with their juice, wine, red pepper flakes, butter, lemon juice, salt and pepper (keep in mind that the clams are quite salty on their own). Stir, reduce the heat to a simmer, and simmer until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes. Sometimes I like it a tad thicker than usual and I take about level tablespoon of flour and mix it in a small amount of wine.  Add a small amount of the flour/wine mixture to the sauce and stir. till you get your desired thickness.

Now, when you add the wine, make sure you use a good quality dry wine such as a nice Chardonnay. Use something that you would actually drink. Don’t be stupid and use one of those “cooking wines” that you’ll find at the grocery store. They suck.  they suck bad. If you wouldn’t drink the wine out of a glass, why the hell would you cook with it?

Cook the linguine while reserving about ½ cup cooking water. Tip for cooking linguine: add 4-6 quarts of cold water to a large pot. Cover and bring to a boil. Add about ½ tablespoon of salt. Always wait till the water is boiling before adding the salt. If you add the salt before the water boils, the salt crystals will not dissolve immediately and can damage your pot. Stirring occasionally, cook for 8-10 minutes or so, no longer than 12 minutes.  I like my pasta sub-al dente, so 8 minutes is good for me.  Drain the pasta and immediately add it to the sauce along with the chopped parsley to the sauce and mix well, adding a few tablespoons of pasta cooking water if needed to coat the pasta evenly. Cover and cook for about a minute. Serve immediately. This dish is pairs perfectly with a bottle of Spanish Albariño.

I measured out the ingredients to have a little more sauce than most people would use. I like my pasta swimming in sauce. If you would like to regulate it better, add drained pasta to your serving dishes and spoon sauce over the top to get the volume you like.  I could eat this three or four times a week.

Yankees suck!

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By J.Ho, November 24, 2009 8:08 am

‘Tis the season to be hammered … I can’t get enough Coquito during the holidays.  Actually, two glasses is enough for me at one sitting.  It packs a serious Latin punch.  J.Ho tested … J.Ho approved !!!

1 cup Coco Lopez cream of coconut
1 cup Carnation sweetened condensed milk
1 cup Carnation evaporated milk
1 cup white rum
1 cup water
3 cinnamon sticks
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
4 egg yolks, well beaten
ground cinnamon and nutmeg

Combine the coconut, condensed and evaporated milks and the rum in a blender or a food processor.  Set aside.  Boil the water with the cinnamon sticks for about five minutes.  Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature.  Discard the cinnamon sticks.

Combine all of the ingredients except the ground cinnamon and nutmeg and beat well in a blender or food processor in batches.  Pour eggnog into bottles and refrigerate until ready to use. Serve in your favorite glasses sprinkled with nutmeg and cinnamon … with a dash of Yankees Suck!

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By J.Ho, October 26, 2009 1:04 pm

I know, no updates in a while and no new recipes for well over a year or so.  The past two years have been pretty hectic.  Anyway, yesterday while watching the Pats game I decided to make some beef stew.  Perfect for a crisp autumn day in New England.  Recipe is HERE.  Check it out!

Yankees suck.

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By Muffin, August 6, 2009 3:32 pm

The homepage almost makes the Starboard Galley look enticing…almost. Yes, they do have outdoor dining, which fortunately the hostess was kind enough to let us know that it was “buggy” outside. As a table of four relocated to inside due to the buggy-ness, that is when I saw that their outdoor dining doesn’t actually look out on the water, it looks out on a parking lot. Very romantic.

In a state of hunger that was so great (and a tight budget) we opted for the Starboard Galley. Having never been there before (nor will I ever return) we should have been tipped off by the fact that there were no cars parked out front and no diners waiting to be seated. When we sat at our table I mentioned to my date that the restaurant smelled funny…”yeah, it smells like urine”. That should have been our second clue, but we were ravenous.

We perused the menu and decided to try the steak tips…it’s virtually impossible to make bad steak tips…that’s what I thought anyway. Our waitress, who was actually very nice, brought us our water (which tasted like dirt, but the lemon slice garnish helped mask that) and bread and butter. Nothing fancy, but it was enough to tide us over until our meals arrived. The steak tips were little brown chunks of meat that in no way were cooked medium rare and tasted like they had been sitting on the grill for hours. The chicken wings weren’t any better unless you prefer chicken wings overcooked to the point that they shrivel and dry out. The baked potato wasn’t even hot enough to melt room temperature butter and the brown spot, that was just gross. The veggies (zucchini and summer squash) weren’t hot either and barely resembled anything edible.

Bottom line, if you’re thinking of going to the Starboard Galley just go to Crapplebee’s instead.

Thanks for reading,

Muffin

P.S – Yankees suck!

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By J.Ho, April 14, 2008 12:34 am

Reader Amanda writes in and asks how to make ceviche. I’m not a fan. That’s me. Anyway, she says she’s intimidated to make it. I say don’t ever be intimidated to make anything in the kitchen. Don’t ever be intimidated by anything in life. Your decisions are half chance. So are everyone else’s.

Click here for a brief overview of ceviche.

Yankees suck!