Potato Soup, Nombre Dos

In preparation for my Super Bowl grilling, I figured I should post the soup I made two weeks ago. That way it isn't confused with my burgers.


So I have made this soup before, as those who have seen my facebook cooking album will know. But I loved it so much and hadn't had a blog post about it, so I figured I would make it again. So here is the recipe:

• 1 pound of potatoes - red-skinned potatoes are my absolute favorite cooking potatoes, but any small ones will do
• 4-5 slices of bacon, chopped
• 1 onion - while white is the "teariest," i like the flavor and the size
• 1/4 cup flour - I use organic because I'm an elitist
• 1 3/4 cup water
• 1 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 1/4 cup white wine - Chardonnay because it is useful only for cooking
• 8 ounces of sharp cheddar, grated
• 2 tablespoons chives - dried in my case
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 2 tsp basil
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• sea salt to taste

So here is the obligatory shot of all the ingredients. This time around I actually had a vegetable peeler instead of a knife, so peeling the potatoes was not too bad. You cook the bacon in your soup pot while you peel and chop the potatoes and onion into 1/4" cubes. Then remove the bacon, but leave the grease and add the onion. While you soften the onion in the grease over medium heat, mix flour, water and broth in a bowl.

After the onions have become tender, add the flour mixture and potatoes to the pot and slightly increase temperature so that it ever so slightly boils.

Once it has started to bubble, add all the spices but the salt and let simmer for about 5 minutes. Then add wine and simmer for about 5 minutes longer.

This is just a shot of bacon because it is the greatest ingredient to any dish. As the soup boils with the wine, throw this wondrous meat in.

Once the potatoes are nice and tender, lower heat to low and slowly stir in the grated cheese. Don't let it boil again or the cheese turns really nasty. Just so you know. I've never tried it, but I've heard.

Once the soup has melted the cheese, ladle out and enjoy. It was equally good the second time, despite my wife swearing a piece of cracked black pepper was a bug. Silly wife. She should know she'll never SEE the bugs I feed her. I'm too good.


So that's it for this post. I will probably post my Super Bowl cooking on Monday. Go Packers, I guess? Just don't let the Steelers win.

Far From a Food Entry this Week

I know this is supposed to be my food blog, but I figure it's my blog, so I'll post my journey for better sinuses here if I want to. And I do.


A little background: I have been sick with sinus infections since February of 2010. I have done about 7-8 rounds of various antibiotics, 2 steroid shots, and 3-4 steroid dose packs. I have also had a balloon sinuplasty in most of my sinuses in addition to a septoplasty to fix my deviated septum. I did another CT scan a week ago and my sinuses are all at least 50% full, most are 70-80%. All of my drainage ports in my sinus are clogged, and my septum still has a little wiggle to it. So, I am now seeing an allergist who has prescribed me a powerful antibiotic (clindamycin), a fairly powerful steroid (prednisone) and prilosec for acid reflux, which apparently furthers sinus problems. 


Under the care of my allergist, I am seeking to get allergy shots done, so I started off with an allergy test yesterday. This is that story.

They drew off on my forearms 56 different spots to do the first round of testing. This is before they got started. The first round is a series of pinpricks with specific allergens on them. 56 damn pinpricks.

It really did itch a lot, but less than I expected. Although #11 there (which turned out to be Johnson grass) really made it worse. By the way, notice that the positive control, #24 (which is supposed to react badly), is reacting less than the Johnson grass.

The left arm wasn't too bad after the first round.

I wanted to kill all Johnson grass on earth, though. That thing itched. After some hydrocortisone cream, I started the second round.


Round 2 takes a select group of those that did not react in the first one. I say select because many that did not react were not tested the second time. This round is now injected just below the skin on my upper arms.

She had to do most of them on my right arm because the left has a tattoo that would make seeing the reaction more difficult. Yes, all those needles hurt. There was a total of 27 done in the second round.

The left arm again seemed to skate by fairly easy compared to the right.

The right arm turned out pretty nasty. This is where it got really interesting.

After cleaning me up and more hydrocortisone cream, I went back into the exam room to await the doctor. The nurse came and checked in on me, so I told her my eyes were itching like crazy. She went to get some children's Benadryl and when she came back I told her they were watering now, with the itching getting unbearable. So I took the Benadryl and sat to wait.

She kept checking in on me, and the itching finally seemed to be subsiding by the time the doctor came in with the results. He asked about my eyes and I told him they itched less, but they felt a little swollen. He told me to take off my glasses and said that my eyes were swelling shut.

So I got a shot of epinephrine in my thigh and a shot of a steroid (dextramethasone) to reduce the swelling and he talked to me about the results.

Turns out I am not allergic to cats, mildly allergic to dogs and severely allergic to many pollens and molds. Shots are in order when I am able to start doing them.

So that's all I have for you. Sorry it's not delicious food today, but soon there will be another cooking piece. I'll leave with you with a picture of my swollen face for you to share with your grandchildren.

A BCS National Championship Means Pizza

The game means I wanted to cook something. I had already decided I wanted to make a pizza, so I figured tonight would be good. 

• 1 pizza crust flour package thing
• 1/2 cup hot water
• 1-2 tsp garlic salt
• 1 cup pizza sauce
• 1-2 cup mozzarella cheese
• pepperonis

 

I used a premade pizza crust flour thing because I really didn't feel like jumping into making pizza dough. Add the garlic salt and water to this mixture and stir the tacky mess it becomes as best you can. It will try to suck you in like a living blob, but you just have to be a man and stir the shit out of it for about 10 minutes.

Covering your fingers in flour, flatten out the dough into a rough pizza-shaped crust. If you do not use flour, you will have to cut your wrists and hope for reincarnation because there's no way you are getting your hands out of the dough.

These are the toppings I used. I went simple for this first pizza, which is actually odd for me, as you will begin to notice. I used the premade sauce again because I didn't want to mess with the production. Anyway, throw that stuff together like a normal pizza should be and toss it in a 400 degree oven for about 10 minutes.

Take that sucker out and eat it like you live on the Drag. That's an Austin joke. Expect stupid references like that.

Verdict: Pretty damn delicious for cheap, premade ingredients. The wife seemed to like it too. Will I make it again? Probably not like this. I want more of a challenge the next pizza I make, so I will probably buy a better premade crust and make my own sauce. But it made a nice start to the gorging that is likely to occur tonight.

Side Note: I will talk about football here as well. So as I watch Auburn intercept the ball, I'll end this post with "Go Tigers! Fuck the Ducks!"

First Post Isn't Hard

I have many previous cooking experiences that I have posted on Facebook in the form of a photo album. I will post those in the future, likely as a single post looking back at what I have done. For now, here is something I made recently.


Now, this blog is going to be picture-heavy 90% of the time, but this first one is only text because I simply forgot to take pictures.


So I made chili in my little crock pot a few days ago, but I changed it up a bit from the norm. The recipe:

• 1 can mild Wolf chili - mild simply because I put a shitload of chili powder in myself
• 1 can regular Ranch Style Beans - the best beans ever
• 1 pound ground beef, cooked and drained - I use grass-fed because I have access to it
• 1-3 tsp chili powder - I used 3 teaspoons. You could go more, you could go less. Just depends on how much you like it
• 1-2 tsp oregano - my favorite herb. I probably use it more than is healthy
• 1 tsp ground sea salt - I'm a salt snob. I hate iodized salt and use it rarely

And the kicker ingredient that really made this worth posting:

• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

I know, it is weird to think of a Christmas spice being used in a meaty dish, but many Asian foods use cinnamon in spicy food to give a depth to it, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

Verdict: The cinnamon was brilliant. I am going to try cinnamon in other spicy foods I make just to see what I can play around with. I do think I could do with half a pound of beef instead of a whole one. It, combined with the can of chili, is just too meaty for one dish. Plus less meat means a more explosive flavor for the remaining ingredients. This got a thumbs-up from my wife and my mother-in-law.