Todd made this awesome brisket for the Superbowl. It was a big piece of meat, I didn’t think we’d get through half of it. But by the 3rd quarter, it was all gone. I guess makes sense. It was so good.
He used Emeril Lagasse’s Passover Brisket recipe. For some reason, I thought it was Korean or Asian flavored.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/passover-brisket-recipe/index.html
I’m happy to have Tio Wally (long-time Me So Hungry reader) aboard to send in his eating adventures from across America. Here he is in Galena, Missouri.
Greetings from Galena, Missouri
N 36° 47.079’ W 093° 30.350’ Elev. 885 ft.
Having worked through the holidays the crew of the SS Me So Hungry was primed and ready for a little shore leave. And a fine one it is: It’s the Soul Food Shore Leave.
We always have great foods when we dock in Galena. The crew is able to request things and, more often than not, those wishes are fulfilled with great alacrity.
We’d heard that the Duke and Duchess of Earl had baked a ham for New Year’s Day. Naturally, we requested that they save the crew some ham. Unfortunately, the estate had been invaded by Chubb, Cam and Corty, three 15- to 18-year-old boys with teenaged appetites who will forever more be known collectively as The Three Mouthketeers.
I don’t know exactly how big the ham was but I’m guessing it was about 15-23 pounds. But by the time the SS Me So Hungry sailed in three days later the ham was all but gone. All was not lost however: The Three Mouthketeers hadn’t eaten the bone. So the Duchess made her famous Pinto Beans and Cornbread. And they were fabulous and soulful.
The beans are a simple preparation. First she brings the beans to a boil in water and baking soda and then, after removing them from the heat, lets them soak for an hour. This is known as two things: a quick soak (otherwise you have to soak the beans overnight) and — to use her technical term — “de-farting the beans.â€
After rinsing the beans, you bring them back to a boil, adding a little salt, about a half-tablespoon of sugar and half a chopped onion. After they boil a bit, add the ham bone and let them boil until the beans are tender. After the beans are tender, remove the ham bone and remove the meat from the bone. After putting the meat back in, let the beans simmer while you — and this is a very important step — make cornbread.
After the cornbread is done, enjoy the beans with a dash of Tobasco® or your favorite salsa. I like to toss a piece of cornbread in the bowl and cover it with beans. I’m telling you, this is soul food!
The next day the Duke made Oxtail Soup. Oxtail Soup is impossible to find out in the real world. The only places you’ll find is the odd soul food restaurant. It’s understandable, though. Oxtails cost a small fortune — $4.99 a pound! But it’s so simple to make and so awesome to eat.
The Oxtail Soup was made with oxtails, carrot, onion, bell pepper, potatoes, celery, a can of diced tomatoes, and then stewed in chicken broth and the juice of the tomatoes. It was seasoned very simply with salt, pepper, Mrs. Dash and garlic powder. Simply braise the oxtails and then throw the whole kit and kaboodle in a crackpot and let it simmer until the meat falls off the bone.
It, too, turned out seriously great and there was plenty to go around; the Duchess and The Three Mouthketeers were afraid of the oxtails. Sissies!
For the coup de grace, that night I made a sandwich of grilled ham and fresh pineapple with the few ham remnants the Duchess was somehow able to miraculously save for me.
When I was a kid my mom would make us both pineapple (canned) and banana sandwiches. Using only mayonnaise on the bread, they were seriously good. Heck, they still are.
Which reminds me of two things: First is that there are fingerling bananas here and, second, that life is pretty freakin’ good.
Here’s wishing y’all a Happy, Healthy and Lucrative New Year.
And so we roll.
Tio Wally pilots the 75-foot, 40-ton(max) land yacht SS Me So Hungry. He reports on road food from around the country whenever parking and InterTube connections permit.
Todd brought over some homemade Hoppin’ Johns last night for New Year’s Eve. It’s a pot of black-eyed peas for good luck, mixed with tomatoes, onions, bacon and other southern/soul spices. Really awesome. He used this recipe from Michael Ruhlman’s food blog.
…Too bad the black-eyed peas didn’t bring us luck. Rusty was trying to tie an onion to the ceiling light for the ball drop.
I’m not sure how I invited myself over, but I got some good comfort home cooking at Elisa’s. She made some really good Korean Spicy Yukaejang Soup. It amazes me that people can cook food in their home. I always think that something like this needs to be made at a restaurant. I need to invite myself over to other people’s suppers more often.
I was wearing a keyboard tie on Halloween, so I felt the need to do something. I went out with Anthony and Susie for a few drinks in Carroll Gardens. I got buzzed and angry from the bartender serving me $3 happy hour beers and talking shit about Tebow. So it was very welcoming to have Susie make us Peanut Noodles and Apple Crisp. So stuffed. I hadn’t had Apple Crisp since elementary school. It was awesome.
Susie has a great food blog called Cookies and Lipstick. I hope you check it out.
Shonali made an Indian feast, trying out her parents’ recipes for the first time. I love her parents cooking and Shonali did an amazing job. The food was so good. I ate two and a half plates.
Got to meet Joachim and Liesl’s new baby. And Shonali also got Ike a birthday cake.
…and then he got really wired up.
Day 8 of the Shonali tour: Made it into Nashville and Shonali’s parents made all this food for us. Probably the best food I had on tour. It got me afterwards though.
Family portrait…
After our meal, Shonali’s dad came out of his office and starting singing “Ching Ching Chu”. We thought he was directing it at me. I asked him to sing it again to the camera.
I’m happy to have Tio Wally (long-time Me So Hungry reader) aboard to send in his eating adventures from across America. Here’s his introduction.
Greetings from Galena, Missouri!
N 36° 47.079’ W 093° 30.350’ Elev. 885’
By way of introduction I am Tio Wally and I am a truck driver. While some may call the vehicle a semi, a tractor-trailer, a big rig or an 18-wheeler, I like to think of it as a land yacht. Jason is graciously allowing me to contribute to his blog and, better yet, has granted me the privilege of piloting the SS Me So Hungry around the country and file road-food reports. (Those of you with some nautical knowledge know “SS†is the universally recognized abbreviation for Steamship. In this case, however, it stands for Street Scow as this craft has a flat bottom and is used for transferring goods from Point A to Point B.)
As this is my maiden Me So Hungry entry it’s only fitting that I tell how I stock the stores for a cruise. I always start with homey things that I just can’t get “out there†like I like them, homemade comfort foods. Lately it’s been Egg Salad and Tuna Salad. It’s hard-to-virtually impossible to find these things on the road that are any good.
If I’m lucky enough to find Egg Salad I usually have to beef it up with mustard (deviled) or dill weed, depending on how I feel. The only Egg Salad I’ve ever found that I don’t have to “enhance†has been the Amish Deviled Egg Salad from Dierdorf’s(?), a St. Louis-area grocery store chain. Tuna Salad is more difficult still as I like it mixed fairly dry with Mayo, red onion, hard-boiled egg and canned peas. Tuna Salad is a pain to beef up as it requires a knife, a can opener, a bowl big enough to mix it in, hard-boiled eggs (good luck finding them), etc. As the galley is rather small in the land yacht, I don’t screw with that stuff anymore. In both cases, when mixing for the road drier always travels better — you can always make it wetter.
Rather than to take up too much of Jason’s space, let’s get right to the pre-roll check list:
Coleman Thermo-Electric Cooler working? Check.
Apple Juice? Check. Unsweetened, generic store brands travel best as sweetening tends to turn quickly;
Water? Three gallons. Running out of drinking water is a serious, serious crisis;
Lay’s Classic Potato Chips? Check.
Orowheat/Brownberry 100% Whole Wheat Bread? Check.
Homemade sandwich fixins? Check.
Baby Wipes? Check. Ah, baby wipes. A miracle product. When you get really tired you can pull one out and wipe your face and neck and … instant refreshment, you’re good for another 50 miles! Also, it’s a little known fact: Those puppies will take grease off of anything! ANYTHING!!
Empty half-gallon plastic jug? Check.
Okay. Let’s go for a cruise.
Tio Wally pilots the 75-foot, 40-ton(max) land yacht *SS Me So Hungry. He reports on road-food from around the country whenever parking and **InterTube connections permit. *Street Scow and **InterTube (aka “the Internet as memorably explained by Sen. Ted Stevens, R-AKâ€) are his terminology, not mine.