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By BakedOuttaMyMind, October 15, 2012 9:24 pm

I usually make these bad boys to go with some spaghetti or penne and my crockpot merlot marinara sauce(baked with whole milk mozzarella over the top), but they are really good to use as party appetizers as well! Quick and easy. Just how I like it. Well, for culinary adventures, that is This is what you’ll need:

•1lb ground meat (I usually use ground beef, but I have been known to use a mix of beef, veal, and pork, sometimes turkey, for the pseudo vegetarians)
•2 large eggs
•1 cup unseasoned breadcrumbs
•1 1/2 tsp Garlic powder
•1tsp each of the following spices:
• Italian seasoning
• Onion Salt
•1/2 tsp Nutmeg

1. In a food processor, add breadcrumbs and seasonings and pulse a few times to combine (or you could just whisk them in a bowl together.)

2. In a large bowl, knead the ground meat (I go bare handed on this. It’s the only way to ensure that everything is incorporated nicely) with the eggs until well combined.

3. Add breadcrumb mixture and knead until evenly distributed throughout the meat.

4. Using an ice cream scoop (I use the #50 Crate and Barrel scoop), scoop a ball of mixture and hand roll into little balls and place on wax paper.

5. Sear those suckers all around in a pan on medium high heat!! The #50 scoop makes mini meatballs, so they will cook faster. If you want larger meatballs, I would sear them and then bake in a sauce (or use a crockpot) to ensure thorough cooking and thus, less possibility of contracting a food borne illness. I, however, like my meatballs medium, which probably goes against standard procedure, but hey!! I’m eating them!!

6. Eat those little meat nuggets like its your job!! Or you could freeze them for a later date, for a quick weeknight dinner.

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By J.Ho, March 21, 2012 8:20 am

I’ve posted this before, but decided to revise it somewhat and it came out amazing.  I know what you’re thinking, why is someone who’s such a seafood snob using canned clams?  Well, I moved back to Las Vegas from coastal Massachusetts and fresh seafood is wicked expensive and it still sucks.  There’s nothing like going down to Rowand’s in Beverly, MA and grabbing some fresh seafood.  Most of what I bought there was swimming no more than 12 hours before I arrived.  Here in Vegas there are no good seafood markets. N-O-N-E !!!

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 dried oreagano
¼ teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
¼ cup freshly chopped Italian flat leaf parsley
6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
Tiny pinch of ground nutmeg
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 make a slurry by taking one tablespoon of flour and mix it in a small amount of wine or water.  Slowly pour the slurry 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 wicked 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 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 small amount of the 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, September 7, 2011 11:41 pm

Oh. My. Goooaahhd! This was hands down the best dish I made all summer.  Coming off back-to-back cooking disasters over the weekend I climbed back to the top of the charts with this zinger!  I rarely experience a cooking fail and I NEVER post two consecutive fails!  This dish was simple and good!  Wicked good!

This type of sauce isn’t revolutionary by any means, but people rarely make it at home.  Canned tomatoes make things a whole lot easier, but nothing can compare to a sauce that’s make with 100% fresh ingredients.

I’m a minimalist.  The fewer the ingredients, the better. My golden rule in the kitchen is utilize the best, freshest possible ingredients.  So there!

The Ingredients

• 4 pounds fresh Roma tomatoes .. peeled, seeded and chopped
• ¾ cup extra virgin olive oil
• 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• ½  cup chopped fresh basil, roughly chopped
• ¼ cup fresh oregano, finely chopped
• 1/3 cup dry red wine
• pinch or two crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 pound spaghetti, cooked
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Freshly grated Parmesan cheese

The Plan

First off, you have to hand pick the best Roma tomatoes you can.  Four pounds comes out to about two dozen regular sized Roma tomatoes.  When picking out tomatoes, as with all ripe fruits, a ripe tomato will seem heavy for its size. If you’re not sure what this feels like, you can get and idea by picking up several different tomatoes of a similar size and comparing their heft.  Once you’ve found a nice weighty tomato, hold it up to your nose and take a nice big sniff.  The best tomatoes will have an awesome garden fresh aroma.  Finally, how does the tomato feel? A ripe tomato will be soft when pressed, but not mushy. Again, as with other fruits, you’ll want to avoid tomatoes that are bruised or that have broken skin.

Prepare a large bot of boiling water as well as a large bowl of ice water. Give the tomatoes a good rinse and cut 1/2 inch criss-cross slits into the tips of each tomato.  Working in batches, drop the tomatoes in the boiling water and blanch for about one minute.  Remove the tomatoes and drop them into the bowl of ice water to cool.  The blanching process should have popped the skins of the tomatoes and make them very easy to peel.  Trim of the bottom stem part and peel off all the skin.  Slice each tomato in half and carve out the inner structure and remove all the seeds along with the slimy stuff.  What you’ll be left with is the rich, deep red meaty part of the tomato which should then be finely diced.

In a large sauté pan add the olive oil over medium heat.  Toss in the garlic and red pepper flakes and sauté for a few minutes.  If you have time the best thing to do is let the garlic “sweat” over the lowest possible heat setting for about a half an hour.  This will bring out more flavor than you could possibly imagine.  Add the diced fresh tomatoes and red wine.  Stir well and simmer for about 20 minutes.  Add the chopped basil and oregano and simmer for another 10 minutes.  Toss in one pound of cooked spaghetti.

Bang-Bang … Done-Done!  Nice bum, where ya from?

Now I’m still no good at all when it comes to food photography, but I took a shot anyway.  This time I tossed in a little sweet Italian sausage, but next time I’ll probably prepare as described above!

Enjoy!  Yankees suck!

Fresh Tomato Sauce with Basil & Oregano

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By J.Ho, October 27, 2007 1:57 pm

I’m finally coming to the realization the Everyday Italian show on the Food Network really appeals to the masses. Seriously. Why? It features easy to prepare Italian dishes which are light and delicious. The host Giada De Laurentiis is a skilled chef with extensive formal culinary training and impressive resume. Oh yeah, and she’s way, way, way waaaay pretty. She reminds me of Natalie Portman, but with boobs.

I’ve gone back and forth being a fan of this show. Giada used to annoy the hell out of me. I never liked they way she pronounces Italian words. Not that I’m being a prick and saying she shouldn’t conform to her family culture, but when you’re talking to someone in plain English, then bust out with a word using a profound Italian accent, it just seems fake.

Like all the movie celebrities who talk about the Cannes Film Festival. They pronounce Cannes the proper French way, like saying Can. OK, I get it, that’s proper. But these same phonies pronounce Paris the way it’s spelled in English, you know, Paris. Why don’t they pronounce it the proper French way, ‘Pahree’ with a guttural French ‘r’ and a silent final -s. You get the point.

Anyway, I’m really starting to appreciate this show much more than I have in the past. Today I watched the episode Island Hopping on my TiVo. Giada made two dishes that looked wicked, wicked good. I can’t believe I’m typing this instead of running to the store to grab the goods needed to whip this stuff up. Maybe I’ll do it today. Maybe not. I need to clean my place up. It’s a wreck. I need to get ready top go out tonight. I might be dressing up early for Halloween. And Ace Combat 6 for my Xbox 360 was just delivered by Amazon last night. That might keep me busy for a while.

The two recipes that caught my eye were the fresh Ravioli Caprese and a fresh mushroom, celery and pecorino salad. They looked soooo good and soooo easy. I make my own fresh pasta noodles from scratch all the time. It’s so delish. You can’t beat it, but it can be such a pain in the ass. The way she made the pasta from scratch looked pretty easy. I need to go out and get a ravioli cookie cutter thingy so I can do it right though.

Take a look at this episode and these recipes. Try them. I know I will. By the way, the top she was wearing looked freakin AMAZING on her. Oooooooh-yeeaaaaah! Yankees suck!

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By J.Ho, February 21, 2007 3:57 pm

I absolutely love risotto. I’ve never tried to make it before. I wanted a delicious side to the Korean BBQ Chicken I made last weekend. I took a nose dive into some of my Italian cookbooks and cruised around the web a little for information on risotto ingredients and preparation techniques. Here’s what I found …

A quick read on risotto history and recipes can be found here. Most of my cookbooks really didn’t explain what risotto really was and the caveats on preparing it. One recipe I found in Lidia Bastianich’s cookbook Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen really caught my attention. It explained that once you understand how to prepare a basic risotto, you can parlay that skill into making any type of risotto you could imagine. The basics are the key to pretty much all cooking and just about everything else in life.

I followed Lidia’s “master plan” for preparing risotto and made a few of my own changes along the way. Nice!

4½ cups hot chicken stock
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium white onion, minced
1 leek, white parts only, trimmed, cleaned and chopped
6 scallions, white and green parts chopped separately
2 cups Italian Aborio rice
â…“ cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons butter, cut into four pieces
â…“ up freshly grated Parimigiano-Reggiano cheese
Salt & freshly ground black pepper

Pour the chicken stock in a small sauce pan and keep it hot over medium heat. In a large sauté pan, heat the oil over medium heat and stir in the onions. Sauté the onions until softened, about four minutes. Stir in the leeks and white parts of the scallions and sauté for another six minutes. The onions should start to brown. Stir in the rice making sure all of the grains get covered with the oil. Keep stirring often for the next two to three minutes until the edges of the grains become translucent. Pour in the wine and let it boil. Keep stirring the rice till the wine has evaporated.

Season the rice with salt and ladle enough of the hot chicken stock into the sauté pan until it barely covers the rice. Bring to a boil then lower the heat to maintain a lively simmer. Continue cooking while stirring constantly until all the stock has been absorbed and you can see the bottom of the pan when you stir. Continue cooking, pouring the remaining hot stock in small batches. Each addition of stock should be only enough to completely moisten the rice. Continue doing this until the stock has been absorbed. All this should take 15-20 minutes from the time you added the wine.

Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the butter and green parts of the scallions until the butter is completely melted. Stir in half the grated cheese. Taste the risotto and add more salt if you like and then add the freshly ground black pepper. Top with grated cheese and serve immediately.

I like a creamy risotto so I used another two cups of chicken stock. This also added to the cooking time since I had 50% more stock to absorb. I also squeezed a little lemon juice at the end. This basic recipe can be taken into an infinite number of directions. Try adding some smoked chicken at the end. I’d like to add some saffron to the chicken stock next time I make it. Shrimp risotto should be good. Maybe I’ll try making an asparagus risotto. I’m guessing all I would have to do is add some steamed & chopped asparagus tips to the risotto at the end of the cooking. Yeah, that’s the ticket! Arrivederci! Yankees suck!

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By J.Ho, May 24, 2006 2:34 pm

I lived off 29th Ave & Clement Street in San Francisco for three or so years. On the stretch of Clement between 26th & 22nd Aves reside some of San Francisco’s best neighborhood restaurants. Ernesto’s was one of my favorites. Everything I ever ate there was outstanding. Baked stuffed clams and sautéed calamari are excellent appetizers. The seafood pasta is a delicious dish: linguine with shrimp, scallops, garlic and green onions served with a butter-lemon sauce. Veal Saltimbocca, grilled veal chops, pizza, grilled swordfish, fettuccine alfredo … I can go on and on. If you’re lucky, the smoked chicken risotto and/or the filet mignon marsala may be on the list of daily specials.

The know-all, be-all of dishes at Ernesto’s is the Chicken Ernesto. Lightly sautéed chicken breasts smothered with a lemon-butter-wine mushroom sauce served with either the daily vegetable or a side of pasta. I live near Boston now, but I never stop thinking about Ernesto’s and all the great restaurants on Clement Street.

I tried for four years to reverse engineer this recipe since they would never tell me how to make it. I even considered getting a part-time job as a bus boy just so I could learn how it was done. I dropped that idea pretty quick. Eventually I got the recipe close enough to brag about it. As it turns out, it’s a lot like making veal or chicken piccata, just without the capers.

½ cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 boneless chicken breasts, about ¾ pound, pounded to a thickness of ½-inch
1½ tablespoons light olive oil
2 packages of white mushrooms, cleaned, stemmed and diced
5 tablespoons butter
1 cup dry white wine
½ cup chicken stock
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 lemon, juiced, or more to taste, (about 2 tablespoons)
1 tablespoon chopped flat leaf Italian parsley leaves

To pound the chicken thin, place one chicken breast in a large Zip-Lock bag, underskin/membrane side up and pound with the smooth side of a meat mallet. Don’t pound too hard because you can easily ruin the meat by breaking it all up.

In a shallow bowl or plate combine the flour, 1½ teaspoons of the salt and pepper and stir to combine thoroughly. Quickly dredge the pounded chicken in the seasoned flour mixture, shaking to remove any excess flour. That’s something I do differently. Ernesto’s doesn’t dredge the chicken in flour first. I like the taste and texture of a bit of crusted flour on sautéed chicken.

Heat the oil in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat until very hot but not smoking. Add 1½ tablespoons of the butter and, working quickly and in batches if necessary, cook the chicken until light golden brown on both sides, about 1 minute per side. Transfer to a warm plate and set aside. increase the heat to high and sprinkle about two tablespoons of the seasoned flour into the oil and whisk rapidly till it’s dissolved. Add the wine and bring to a boil. De-glaze the pan with the wine by scraping to remove any browned bits from the bottom of the pan.

When the wine has reduced by half, add the mushrooms, chicken stock, chopped garlic and lemon juice and cook for about five minutes, or until the sauce has thickened slightly. Whisk in the remaining ½ teaspoon of salt, remaining 3½ tablespoons of butter and the chopped parsley. When the butter has melted, return the chicken to the pan and cook until heated through and the sauce has thickened, about 1 minute. Serve immediately. Yankees suck!

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By J.Ho, May 11, 2006 7:38 pm

I love, love, love Fettuccine Alfredo. Very few restaurants make it well. Some of the best Fettuccine Alfredo dishes I’ve had are at Ernesto’s in San Francisco and the Spaghetti Bender in Newport Beach, CA. I’ve tried several different variations of this recipe and I think I finally have it. I usually make more sauce than I need because I’m one of those crazy bastards who like my pasta swimming in sauce. I have a very, very funny story about the last time I made this dish for my friend Shawna! Try it and let me know what you think. Yankees suck!

6 tablespoons butter
1 pint + 3 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
Few pinches ground nutmeg
1 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese
2 egg yolks
Small handful fresh Italian flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
1 pound of fettuccine
Sea salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper