Last year I reviewed the Doritos Burn flavored super-spicy tortilla chips on the Bullz-Eye blog. I haven’t seen those lately, but yesterday I was stopped in my tracks (as Mrs. Mikey will attest, snack foods have this effect on me) by a new flavor of Doritos–Fiery Fusion “Sizzlin’ Cayenne & Cheese” chips. Just like the Burn chips, these are wicked spicy–not wimpy spicy like many snack foods tend to be. And while there is a distinct cayenne pepper zing and tangy flavor, these chips have even more taste with a bold cheesy flavor courtesy of buttermilk, cheddar and sour cream solids. That’s the technical term, but it tastes like Nacho Cheese Doritos that are, well, wicked spicy. And overall, they are also wicked delicious. So if you see these chips in the store this weekend, grab a bag or two and don’t forget to buy extra beverages to wash them down with.
Category: Grocery stores (Page 16 of 18)
Like most guys, I have an affinity for cheese crackers, and in particular I’ve always been partial to Cheez-It brand crackers. And for some reason, I haven’t been able to look at a box of them lately without thinking that I need to use them in recipes. So I just figured this past weekend that I was going to do it. So I made fried chicken breast cutlets with crushed Cheez-Its as the breading. Do you think that sounds good? Yeah, me too, but they came out even better than I had anticipated. Here is how to do it…..
Gather a pound or two of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, and flatten them slightly with a mallet unless they are already on the thin side. Put a couple of tablespoons of vegetable or olive oil in a nonstick pan and set over low heat. Meanwhile, set up a station of plate-shallow bowl-plate leading up to the pan. Take about 2 cups of Cheez-Its and run them through a food processor until you have the consistency of bread crumbs. Put some flour on the first plate, crack two eggs in the shallow bowl and whisk together, and put the Cheez-It crumbs on the other plate. Season each station with salt and pepper. Then dip each chicken breast into the flour, egg and then crumbs before placing in the heated pan. Raise heat to medium and cook chicken about five minutes per side or until crispy on the outside and cooked through and no longer pink in the middle. Depending on how many you are making, it might be better to cook them in batches. Serve as is or with ranch dressing for dipping.
Last weekend I was caught by the smell of the rotisserie chickens in the grocery store. Sometimes I can walk right by them and sometimes I shop hungry, which is always bad for the wallet. And it’s especially bad when confronted with especially delicious smelling roasted chicken. I got home and we had chicken sandwiches for lunch and picked it all off the carcass to save for recipes or chicken salad. Sometimes I throw the bones away, but as you should do with a cooked chicken or turkey, I wrapped it up and made soup on Sunday.
Making homemade chicken soup is so easy, a monkey can do it, especially when you have grocery stores that roast the chicken for you. Anyway, here is how to do it…
Put the carcass in a large soup pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, while adding chopped carrots and celery and some parsley sprigs. Add some salt, pepper, poultry seasoning, thyme, a bay leaf, and pinches of onion powder and garlic powder. Lower heat and simmer for about two hours, adding more water as necessary and adding more salt and pepper to taste. When cool enough, remove bones, and make sure you leave the meat in the soup (or add in meat you may have taken off the bone earlier). Then cook some noodles or rice separately and add to the cooked soup or in individual bowls to serve. Nothing is better than homemade chicken soup. To me, canned soups are for some reason becoming more and more disgusting. I’m not sure if it’s the preservatives or the weird spices or thickening agents used, but blech. So yeah, make my soup instead!
On the surface, it sounds kind of funny and maybe not too appetizing–“fermented soda.” And maybe when you realize that CASCAL is a product endorsed by Andrew Zimmern of Bizarre Foods fame, you might think you’re about to taste something strange. Then again, what do you think wine is? Basically fermented grape juice, right? And it’s also worth noting that there are no odd things in this beverage like, oh I don’t know, Mediterranean bug juice or bull testicle extract. They are basically sodas with fruit flavors, but with a couple of twists. For one, some of the fruits are fermented, giving it a half-sour, on its way to being alcohol flavor; and also there are some flower flavors such as rose and magnolia.
The taste? They are actually really delicious and refreshing. I’m a big fan of flavored, unsweetened seltzer, and since these are not as sweet as soda or even fruit juice infused seltzers, it’s refreshing without coating your mouth with sugar. The brightness of the fermented aspect is nice too without being over the top. My favorites were the Bright Citrus–with flavors of lemongrass, tangerine and pineapple; and the Berry Cassis, with black currant, tangerine and lemon. I wasn’t as crazy about the Ripe Rouge. The cherry and chocolate flavors in that one were nice but were overpowered by the rose flavoring. The same goes for the magnolia in Crisp White, which took over the pear and apricot tastes.
Zimmern offers advice on which flavors go best with which fare–such as Crisp White going well with egg dishes; and Ripe Rouge a nice complement to barbecued ribs. Thankfully, he doesn’t suggest pairing any of them with some of the weird things he eats on the show. So go try CASCAL in confidence if you are intrigued, and I know you are. The stuff is really interesting and for the most part, mighty tasty.
I have to admit, by the time September hits, and there is a chill in the air, I’m ready to stop grilling and making salads and gazpacho and ready to start cooking stick-to-you-ribs meals like chili and stew and roasts. One of the reasons I was excited about moving to Wisconsin last year was for the earlier changing of the season from that of Nashville. Of course, there is the down side to that–i.e. early and lots-of-it snow. But we have some time before that happens (well, hopefully we do). And the warmer fall has been a mild bummer in a cooking sense, because who wants to make stew when it’s 80 degrees outside, as it was the first week to 10 days of the month here in Madison. Something is wrong with that picture, but I’m no climate scientist.
As I write this, however, it’s a brisk 60-ish with temps dropping into the low 40’s tonight. It’s stew time, and I’ve got a beef stew on the stove. I’m not making the one I posted here last year, but a new recipe I found in a magazine. But I have to tell you guys, I re-visited my chili recipe last week during a football Sunday (the beef one), and it came out way better than it ever has before. I think the key was just to let it thicken naturally, but either way I felt pretty good about that recipe, admittedly better than the first time I made it and created the recipe.
I’m also looking forward to re-visiting casseroles and mac & cheese like this one. I also want to give another go-round with this Buffalo chicken mac I saw in the Food Network magazine recently. Man, was that amazing. Oh, and don’t forget about soup. Maybe I need to make new soups a priority this year–dude soup. Yeah, that’s it.
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