Fire Bricks

This past summer I cooked pizza on our gas powered Weber grill and it was surprisingly delicious. I bought two, one lbs dough from Torino Bakery in Newburgh, NY, seven sliced Porcini mushrooms, and one green pepper diced and mozzarella cheese.

Basically, while the grill was warming up I cooked the mushrooms and peppers in a pan with a little olive oil inside the house. At the same time I took the dough and tried to spread it in a circular manner. The best way to do that is to place the dough on a lightly floured kitchen counter and use your fingers to force it to form an ever-expanding circle. Once you get it to be 7-8" in diameter, pick it up and begin to stretch it with your fists. The dough will stretch incredibly easy this way.

Carefully put some oil on a couple of squares of paper towels and rub them the grate with them. After the dough is stretched all you have to do is to drizzle some olive oil on it and place it on the oiled grate. It will take about a three minutes to cook the first side and you turn it over by simply picking it up with your hands. As soon as you turn it over have the mushrooms, peppers and mozzarella ready and arrange it on the dough. Close the grill cover and wait for about three minutes for the dough to cook. You can check if the dough is cooked by picking it up a little and peeking under it.

This method worked well but I want to try a different method now that I have the One Touch Gold 22.5" grill, a.k.a. Achilles. For this reason I called a few businesses that sell construction materials to builders and I found one business that sells fire bricks. The company name is Federal Block Corp. and they are located in Newburgh, NY.

The price was reasonable. They charged $1.46 per brick.

The physical dimensions are 9" x 4.5" x 1.5". Here are these bad boys on the floor of my car. As you can see I bought eight of them.

Thinking about eating toast?

What goes through your mind when you prepare to eat a piece of toast? Even before you begin to eat what process do you follow cutting your toast? Do you cut the bread at all? If you cut it do you cut it in squares, rectangles, triangles or do you... Well, keep reading.

To work with toast you will need a knife, some sort of toasting device (toaster, toaster oven, or just an oven), and bread. Toasting the bread is simple. 

Four triangles
Start with a slice of toasted bread.

then cut it once from one corner to the one opposite to it.

Dunkin Donuts Mystery Lid Design

I have been a Dunkin' Donuts fan and customer for 36 years, basically since I came to this country. I love their products, especially their coffee. I have been wondering, though, for several years already, about the functionality of their cup lids. Please keep reading and try to help me answer a question that has been bothering me for many years already.

Most people go to Dunkin' Donuts, buy coffee, consume their coffee and throw their cup away. Well, I don't do that. After having their coffee I hold on to the cup and I try to understand the mechanics of it by trying to get into the mind of the designer(s). What were they thinking when they were locked in a room designing the lid? What questions were formulating, their arguments, their counterarguments. their fears.

When I drive and I see a new Dunkin' Donuts store that I haven't visited before I always go in and buy a coffee and I try to mingle with the employees in an effort to learn more about the mystery behind the design of their coffee lids.

Here is a typical, traditional coffee cup with the lid attached to it available for customers that is simple and to the point. Please pay attention to the lid and the pull-back part that exposes a hole where you can sip the coffee. You pull back that part, push it onto the top surface of the lid and snap lock it there. The lid was designed to make the process easy by having perforations strategically placed along the pull-back part.

Here is that pull-back part locked onto the lid. The design is simple and to the point. You can drink your coffee time after time and you will not have any questions to grapple with. Period. 

Here is another coffee cup design from Dunkin' Donuts. Please note the pull-back part that is very different looking from the previous design.

This design is very similar but it is different. This lid has no perforations because it is separate from the lit itself. The floppy thing you can be pulled back AND pulled away form the lid! This is the lid that drives me nuts. The more I look at it, the more it bothers me and the more questions I generate.

Boston Pork Butt 101

A couple of weeks ago I made arrangements with my son Alexander to cook a Boston Pork Butt but the weather did not cooperate and we had to reschedule it. The request was puzzling to me but I think he was intrigued and drawn to it by the uniqueness of the name. Please view my blog entry titled Planning time! to read important introductory information.

Today, February 23, 2013, 4:11am, I am beginning to write this new post because Alexander is coming today to visit and have lunch here with us. As I write this entry I will be checking the grill and report here the progress. Look at the time. It is 3:04am, Saturday and I am up and ready to begin the process.

There was a lot of preparation that took place because this is a major cooking event and there were several purchases that had to be made. For this reason I went to ShopRite and purchased the following:

• 8 1/3 lb Boston pork butt, 
• a variety of canned, cooked beans
• anchovies, 
• romaine lettuce, 
• bread,
• a spray bottle,
• heavy duty aluminum foil,
• and apple cider.

I also want to cook bbq beans to go with the pork butt. Since the Boston pork butt takes about nine to ten hours to cook I will use my cast-iron pan to slow cook the beans. The can to the right with the butter beans is for an appetizer that I am planning for.

I purchased the bread to make melba toast. Be on the lookout for this recipe too.

Anchovies. Yum! I will use them to make a modified Caesar salad. I will exclude the croutons and egg from it but I do like the taste of the salt in the anchovies.

I will use this heavy duty foil to wrap the Boston pork butt after it's cooked. You need to let it sit for about one hour for the juices to redistribute and allow the meat to be nice and moist. If you cut is immediately you'll end up with dry meat.

I use apple cider vinegar for the mopping sauce and for wet rubs. Be on the lookout for a recent bbq recipe where I used apple cider vinegar on chicken.

Here is the Boston pork butt, at the supermarket shelf waiting to be purchased by Evan. There were several decent looking Boston pork butts but this one was the right weight and had the cutest, nicest fat on its side. The butchers at the supermarket probably see me coming and they roll their eyes because I usually have a lot of weird questions to ask them. In this case I was asking about the amount of time this particular Boston pork butt was on the shelf, if the meat was butchered locally or if it was shipped from New Jersey, and if the meat had any type of special handling done to it. So, I chose this Boston pork butt and gently placed it in my shopping cart.

Easy to Impress, Loaded Salad

Easy to Impress, Loaded Salad

Last night I stayed up late working on a programming project and I went to bed very late. Today I continued working on that project and I finally got freed up around 2pm and I started to think about dinner. I was too tired and wanted to "cook" something simple, light and easy.  Drove to the supermarket and bought whatever I thought looked good and fresh.

This is what I bought:

• the very large black olives that Eileen likes,
• a ready-made rotisserie chicken breast, just cooked, hot and juicy,
• just a few shallots.  

I had to go "fishing" to get the black olives from the self-help olive bar but I got all of them. 

At home I had the following ingredients that was going to complete the list of ingredients:

• kalamata olives that I like,
• two celery stalks,
• tomato juice, (I like the juice. The juice is good.)
• two small tomatoes, 
• romaine lettuce,
• goat cheese, a.k.a. feta cheese, 
• one large yellow pepper, 
• a few more shallots, 
• roasted peppers, 
• capers,
• olive oil,
• three cloves garlic,  
• parsley, 
• salt and pepper.

Let me just level with you people and say the following. The word celery is derived from the Greek word σέλινον, sehlinon. Also, romaine lettuce is also known as Cos lettuce. The word Cos is the name of a Greek island, Κως, where this type of lettuce was introduced. You come to this blog and you not only read about my cooking but you also receive a healthy dose of word origins and Greek history.

At home I had to deal with Raspy, our cat, who controls everything at home and in our lives and that is why I immediately hid the chicken in the oven.

Easy grilled steaks

We haven't had a good steak at home in awhile. So, I got in the car and drove to my favorite supermarket, Adams Fairacre Farms, to buy two handsome steaks. I was very happy with the idea. I turned the radio on and chose 97.9, La Mega, my most favorite latino station and it was playing "salsa classico!"

At the super market after several minutes of talking and arguing with one of the butchers I finally decided to buy two handsome strip steaks. I looked for  a substantial amount of evenly distributed  specks of fat in the meat.

Planning time!

Today I met with my son, and he told me that he wants to eat Boston pork butt. As soon as I heard that I literally froze for a short period of time because I knew I had a challenge at hand. He wants to come this Saturday for lunch and today is Tuesday. OMG!!!!!! WHAT AM I GONNA DO?????? I NEED MORE TIME! Shiver my timbers! So much to plan, buy and prepare. My reputation as a grill master is jeopardized.

My wife and I went to our favorite supermarket, Adams Fairacre Farms, because I wanted to see the size of their Boston pork butts. Here is some history that explains the strange name, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Some pork cuts were packed into barrels (also known as "butts") for storage and shipment. In the Boston area the way the hog shoulder was cut became known in other regions as "Boston butt".

The pork butt was about 6.5 lbs but it looked rather large to me. I have seen pork buts the size of New Jersey but 6.5 lbs seem very large to me.

Rasputin

I would like to introduce myself. My name is Raspy, short for Rasputin, and I am a female cat living in Walden, NY.

In the beginning I lived solely outside. I had my own little house and I loved it. But the winter came and because I was cold and lonely I decided to move in with a nice family in Walden. I made sure, though, that it was going to be my rules or nothing.
During the day I like to lay on the floor in the living room, especially when it's sunny. I don't like being touched and I hate it when people try to pet me. When that happens, I pretend that I like it but then as they appear to relax I bite them. I have been successful in biting them many times but unfortunately they don't get it. But, I digress.

This is what I like:

• laying around and doing nothing,
• to clean myself,
• scratch every piece of furniture and wait to hear people scream "NOOOOOO RASPY, NOOOOOO,"
• to eat: freshly cooked chicken or ground beef, Alaskan salmon, and cream cheese,
• to drink water directly from the faucet, 
• to walk on the counter tops in the kitchen when I am all alone at home.

Here I am stretching on the carpet, yawning from boredom. 

Grilled Chicken and Vegetables

Grilled Chicken and Vegetables 

I have been planning/thinking about this meal for a few days already because I wanted to grill the chicken and at the same time put a little twist to it and cook the vegetables under the chicken. This way the drippings from the chicken would add nice flavoring in the vegetables. Sweet! 

I got up early this glorious Saturday morning and went to ShopRite in Montgomery NY to buy three vegetables for the meal. I was going to buy brussels sprouts, zucchini, and baby pearl onions. The day was starting out rather well. The coffee I was drinking was hot, WVKR was playing hot Pennsylvania polka music

and I had a lot of things on my mind.

The onions at ShopRite were fresh, looked great and I bought 1.5 lbs of them. Much to my surprise they were only $.99/lb. Usually these go for $1.99/lb.

I wasn't too thrilled with the sprouts but don't forget that it's January and I am in New York. The sprouts came in a ice cream-type of cup and I found the packaging very strange.

Assembling a Weber

Today, January 30, 2013 I went to the hardware store to pick up the Weber. On the way there I was thinking about a name for the grill. I wanted to give it a Greek name and finally I picked Achilles. You see the grill has three legs, two of which have wheels and the third doesn't because it provides stability. Achilles was invulnerable in all of his body except for his heel. The term Achilles' heel has come to mean one's point of weakness, hence the weakness of the grill? But I digress.

When I arrived at the hardware store I saw Achilles. He was sitting sideways waiting for me.

What a beautiful box. Look at it. This is a site for sore eyes, I tell ya. Well, I went in the store and yelled at the manager because the box should have been placed right side up and not sideways. Any way. I also picked up Weber a charcoal fire starter. I read many blogs where people were raving about it. So, heeeeeeere is the fire starter.

Let's not forget the charcoal. Can't have a fire with out it. Ha ha. I am joking. The clerk went in the back and brought a small bag of charcoal. Now that got me angry. He saw me coming. Tall, bearded, bald, with a heavy Greek accent, taking lots of stupid pictures and he thought I was an average grill shopping dude. No sir! Not me. I sent him back to get the biggest baddest bag of charcoal they had. Here is the proof.

The bag to the right has the bottles to be returned at the super market.