Tender Chicken Starts With Salt Water

Yet another good tip I received from my mother has resulted in fantastic taste!

I have been doing this little trick for awhile now. However, now that it is pretty much 'officially' grilling season here is what you do.

Get a big bowl (big enough to fit your chicken into, with extra space for water).

Place your chicken in the bowl and fill the bowl with just enough water to cover the chicken.

Shake a decent amount of salt over the chicken and in the water.

Then let the chicken stand in the bowl for at least 45 minutes, I usually leave it in longer.

Once you are ready to throw them onto the grill be sure to bring some all purpose seasoning.

After you have put the chicken on the grill (or before you take them outside) shake a generous amount of all purpose seasoning directly on the chicken and cook until the chicken is finished. You will have some of the best tasting, tender and awesome chicken EVER!

As a matter of fact, I think I know what I am doing for dinner tonight!

I also enjoy having steamed vegetables (broccoli or zucchini) with it as well.

Chili Makes Everything Better

DIDN'T YOU ALREADY POST A CHILI RECIPE?!?!?!?!

Yes, and it is so good that I am posting it again.

Every time I make chili on Sundays in the fall there is always a guarantee of winning. Sure, I am a Browns fan and my team is horrible. However, when you get a chance to cook up some chili on a cold day in October - it doesn't matter how bad your team is.

Here's the recipe,

1lb ground beef (cook until browned)
1 cup Green Bell Pepper chopped small
1 cup red onion chopped small
1-2 TBS Garlic Minced

Cook ingriedients together until onions and green peppers become tender then put into large pot.

28-30 of red kidney beans OR chili beans
28-30 oz of diced tomatoes
32 oz of tomato sauce
5-6 TBS Chili powder

pour above ingriedients into large pot with ground beef, peppers and onions.

Cook at medium heat for 40 minutes.

Add hot chili pepper sauce or any of you favorite spicey ingriedients to give it more heat.

Potato Soup - My Saturday Football Tradition

I don't make it every Saturday in the fall, but once college football starts and the temperature starts to dip into the 50s - you will see my favorite soup simmering on the stove.



Here's the recipe -

• 5-7 medium/large potatoes (peeled and cut into small, cookable pieces)


• 1 medium onion (red or white) - diced


• Combine potato and onion in one pot


• Fill pot with water only until potatos are just covered


• 6-9 Regular Chicken Boulion cubes (Drop in potato pot)

Rue/Cream (KEY TO THE SOUP)

• 2 Tablespoons Butter


• 2 Tablespoons Flour


• 2 Cups Milk

• I usually melt the butter first and then add the milk and flour. Make sure you use a small whisk to stir the cream until it thickens. Be careful not to burn the flour onto the bottom of the pan (constant slow stirring should prevent this).

Pour the cream into the soup pot and stir occasionally until potatoes are soft (this usually takes 45 minutes).

Add some shreded cojack cheese or pieces of french bread for more delicious caloric beauty.

Roast Beef Sandwich Is Better Coach Than Mangini

As a Browns fan, you can usually bet on finding my screaming at my television on Sunday afternoons in the fall. However, yesterday during a 31 point loss to Baltimore (34-3) I found myself laughing at the futility of my favorite team. I knew we were going to lose, it wasn't really a surprise... but 34-3?! For the first time in a long time (something like 19 years) I envy Bengals fans.

Cleveland's new coach, Eric Mangini has proven to be a disciplinarian without any proven positive result from said discipline. He has fined players thousands of dollars for parking in the wrong spot or having a phone ring during team meetings. How can anyone think that fining a professional athlete for that type of conduct will result in anything but animosity? His players make millions of dollars a year and he thinks that fining them for stupid things like this will make a difference? They probably give him a gratuity on top of their fine - I would. Then I would ask for a trade.

I wanted the Browns to hire Jon Gruden since they fired Romeo "I'm thinkin' Arbys' Crennel" after last season. Now I just want Mangini gone - replace him with a roast beef sandwich and the Browns will win more games.

*Rant Over*

Can't wait to talk about food next time.

Wheat Flour = More Water

Last night I made pizza from scratch. I decided early on in the process, "If I have wheat flour I am going to use it... why not?"

When I put the dry ingredients together (flour, salt, sugar and non-dissolving yeast) I started to wonder if 1.5 cups of water would be enough with 1 TBSP of olive oil to get the dough into pizza form.

Nope.

While I imagine white flour would have been fine with 1.5 cups, the wheat flour was simply too heavy. I have a feeling this is a universal quality of wheat flour, so next time you bake with it keep in mind that you may need to use a bit more water to get the desired consistency.

The special part about this pizza was that it wasn't just that it looked tasty. The pizza was downright delicious and good for you to boot! What were the toppings?

Sliced artichoke hearts, sliced tomatoes and black olives on mozzarella cheese and red sauce.

I wish I had taken a picture, simply because it looked that awesome.

Oh, and apparently there is a new type of yeast that doesn't require reacting/dissolving in water in order to make rising dough. It blew my mind.

And for the record, the pizza tasted great!

Football Fans Unite - 'Tis The Season!

After seeing both my Browns and Buckeyes go down in flames this weekend I realized one thing. I love football.

Not that I didn't know this before, but damn... the fans, the noise, the intensity, joy and pain all come together for a few hours every weekend during the fall.

The Browns and Buckeyes were both supposed to lose their respective games this weekend. So I wasn't really too disappointed when they performed as predicted.

My favorite play of Week 1 (of the NFL season) has to be the end of the Bengals/Broncos game.

After taking the lead with 38 seconds left in the game - Cincinnati pinned the Broncos 80 yards from the endzone and 40 yards from field goal range. This is what happened:

Even if you don't like football, you have to admit... This is amazing.

The Secret to Great Chili

Like every other person that cooks chili, I think mine is the best. Granted, it is an adaptation from a cookbook - this is what I do every couple weeks during the football season.

For the record, chili is for NFL Games (Sundays). College games (Saturdays) are specifically reserved for potato soup. You will all get a glimpse of that golden jewel of a recipe in one of my next entries.

My Gameday Chili

Part 1

1. Ground Beef - 1 lb
2. Red Onion - 1 medium/large minced
3. Green Pepper - 1 large minced
4. Garlic - 2 Tbsp minced

COOK THE ABOVE IN A LARGE PAN AFTER BROWNING THE MEAT

Part 2

1. Diced Tomatoes - 1 (one) 28 oz can
2. Chili/Kidney Beans - 2 (two)14 oz cans
3. Tomato Sauce - 2 (two) 14 oz cans
4. Chili Powder - 4 Tbsp (add more to your taste... I tend to add more) make sure it's enough to make your chili a shade darker.
   

Cook all of this to a quick boil and turn down the heat to simmer until you are ready to eat it.

If you are a big football fan, you should start this process around 11:30 am (EST) and it should be ready by 1 pm (kickoff).

Otherwise, just plan on about 60-90 minutes more or less if your meat is frozen.