Spiced Rum Mango BBQ Sauce

I had this flavor idea in my head, something with rum, mango, and molasses, but something was missing. I posted my thought on Facebook and god some suggestions. Soy sauce was the best suggestion. Last night I made this with shish kebob and ohmanohman was it good. It's a sweet-hot that slowly sneaks up on you. Yum.

Spiced Rum Mango Shish Kebab
Ingredients for the kebabs

• 1lb beef (nothing special...sirloin works great) chopped in 1" cubes
• 1 can whole water chestnuts (non-canned would be better but I was lazy and there were none to be found)
• 1 can pineapple chunks (once again, whole fresh pineapple is better, but I'm in Bel Fourche, South Dakota and I use what I can find)
• Red bell pepper, chunked
• Several jalapeños bite sized
• 1 mango, chopped
• 1 white onion, chunked
• handful brown mushrooms
• anything else that seems interesting
• Olive oil (I used California fresh extra virgin olive oil)

Ingredients for the sauce (warning: I am guesstimating, I didn't measure anything):

• 1 ripe mango 
• 1T cider vinegar
• 1T EVOO
• 1t cayenne pepper
• 1T molasses
• 2oz spiced rum for the sauce (I used Kraken)
• 3oz spiced rum + the juice from the canned pineapple on the rocks for the cook (YUM!)
• ~1T crushed red chilies (I used 3 whole dried Arbol Chili pods... why those? I dunno, they were on top and looked good)
• 1 t soy sauce

Directions
Put all BBQ sauce ingredients in food processor and blend. Take sip of rum and pineapple juice.
Skewer everything else. Brush skewers with EVOO so they don;t stick to the grill.  Take another sip of rum & pineapple juice.
Liberally brush BBQ sauce on meat. Grill everything until it looks right and keep adding BBQ sauce to meat. Maybe have another rum & juice.

Changes... next time I make this, I may add some allspice to the sauce. It seems to work good in jerk sauce and think it would be a god addition here.

Grilled pork smoked paprika spice rub... it has a kick

Hot Paprika Grilled Pork Chops

I was attempting to recreate a spice blend called Coho Mojo from Summit Spice & Tea Co. in Anchorage. Well, it was called Coho Mojo until some marketing nitwit decided Smokey Maple Fish Rub sounded better… whatever. Anyhow, in trying to recreate this and not bothering to actually read the ingredients of Coho Mojo, I came up with this recipe. I think mine is better. Mine has some kick to it.

Ingredients

2 pork chops

Olive oil spray

Spice blend

Spice blend

1 t smoked paprika

1 t celery seed

½ t black pepper

½ t white pepper

½ t cayenne pepper

½ t brown sugar

Dash onion powder

Dash garlic powder

Method (Super complicated)

Mix all spices and brown sugar together. Spray pork chops with olive oil. Rub spices into pork chops on both sides. Grill chops.

Don't touch my basil rabbit

There's a cute little rabbit that's been poking around my yard nibbling on the dandelions. He was sitting right outside my window looking at me. He can have all the dandelions he wants. BUT, if that little bugger touched my herb garden, he's Coniglio alla Cacciatora... in other words... he's dinner. I even have a recipe ready.

Coniglio alla Cacciatora (Hunter style rabbit)

Ingredients:
1 2 1/2-3 lb rabbit cleaned and cut into parts
Flour for dusting
Kosher salt & fresh ground pepper
2 T each Italian extra virgin olive oil and butter
1 medium sized white onion
1 clove garlic minced
1 large stalk celery diced
1 medium carrot peeled and diced
1/4 lb crimini mushrooms quartered
1 16oz canned tomatoes chopper or crushed
1/3 C each dry red wine and chopped Italian flat-leaf parsley
1/2 t chopped fresh rosemary
1/2 t each fresh basil and oregano

Dust rabbit with flour, salt and pepper. Add olive oil and butter in deep cast iron frying pan on medium heat until hot. Brown rabbit parts on all sides and set aside. Leave about 3T of oil in pan. Add onions, garlic, celery, mushrooms and carrots and cook until onions lightly browned (about 10 minutes). Put rabbit back in pan. Add tomatoes and liquid, wine, 1/2 the parsley, rosemary, basil and oregano. Stir well. Simmer 50-60 minutes until rabbit is tender. Remove rabbit and veggies. Simmer sauce until thickened. Pour sauce over rabbit and veggies and sprinkle with remaining parsley.

My favorite way to have this is over polenta with mozzarella...Yum

Rabbit... careful. I have your number AND a recipe

Recipe stolen/adapted/borrowed from the Sunset Italian Cookbook

Pan-fried Yams with Carraway

This didn't make it to the plate. I ate it right out of the pan.As usual, I made it for one.I recommend being more patient than  was and actually put them on a plate. Eating them right out of the hot oil and butter is probably silly.

Pan-fried Yams with Caraway

Ingredients
1/2 yam or 1 small yam
2 T butter
2 T Italian extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp whole caraway seed
fresh ground white pepper to taste
pinch cayenne
salt to taste (I used coarse ground pink Himalayan salt)

Cut yam into 1/2 inch slices. Boil for 8-9 minutes. Don't overcook them. Drain yams.

Heat EVOO and butter in pan until butter stops bubbling. Place yam slices in pan and fry for about 5 minutes.Flip yams and sprinkle with caraway seed, pepper and cayenne. Fry for an additional 5 minutes.

Done.

Elk Steak Marinade

I grilled elk steak for the first time today. This recipe was stolen from mantestedrecipes.com and modified slightly. This is awesome. This was way more steak than I could eat. The only problem I had was that I ran out of propane and had to throw the steaks under a broiler for the last 5 minutes.

Elk Steak Marinade

Marinade for elk steak.

Ready in 12 hours 15 mins

Ingredients

Serves: 4

• 3 TbspItalian extra virgin olive oil
• Juice from 1/2 lemon
• 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 Tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 2 Tbsp minced onion
• 1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
• 1/4 tsp cayanne
• 1 1/2 lbs elk steak

Preparation method

Prep: 5 mins | Cook: 10 mins | Extra time: 12 hours, marinating

1.                  Mix all marinade ingredients in a small measuring cup. Place elk steaks in a large zip lock bag. Pour marinade over steaks and seal bag. Refrigerate and marinate at least 12 hours.

2.                  When ready to grill, drain marinade and grill on high heat to desired doneness.

Braised Chicken and Mushrooms in Red Wine Reduction

YAY! I finally achieved another OMFG dinner. Coq au Vin sounded good, but I didn't have time so I threw this together. As usual, my recipes are geared for one.

1 chicken breast pounded thin
2 cups red wine
1 garlic clove
2 T Italian parsley, crushed but NOT chopped
1/2 C sliced baby Bella mushrooms
2 T extra virgin (good Italian) olive oil
2T butter
Kosher salt
Fresh ground pepper

Add wine, garlic clove and parsley to a pot and reduce down to 1 C.
Melt butter in a pan and add olive oil, heat until bubbling

Fry mushrooms in oil and butter for 5-10 minutes. Remove mushrooms from pan with slotted spoon and set aside.

In pan with olive oil, butter and liquid from mushrooms, salt and pepper the chicken breast and fry 5 minutes on one side and 3 minutes on the other side.

Add wine reduction and mushrooms and braise for 10 minutes.

Done

I served this over steamed fresh spinach. It was tasty :)

Big, Fat, Chewey Chocolate Chip Cookies

I found this recipe on Allrecipes.com back in March but it disappeared from there so I stole it and blatantly plagiarized it here. This is currently my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe... not that I have tried cooking that many different ones. I made a full batch of cookie dough for these last night but set about 2/3 of the cookie dough aside. Cookie dough should freeze, right? Guess I find out.


Big, Fat, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, melted and slightly cooled

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 egg

1 egg yolk

1 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.

In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix the sifted ingredients until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon. Drop cookie dough 1/4 cup at a time onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart.

Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven or until the edges are slightly golden. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely. Makes approximately 12-14 very large cookies.