That's a Good Question

While we wait for Netflix to air season 2 of The Worse Witch, Char and Daphne have been watching Just Add Magic on Amazon Prime. It's currently Charlotte's favorite program.

Just Add Magic is about three 'tween girls who discover a magical cookbook that contains recipes which cast spells. 

The girls lose a dog they had been pet sitting in the third episode. They cast the "Lost and Found-ue" spell to help find him.

That gave us the idea to make cheese fondue for our Super Bowl Sunday Snack. There's a fan-created Wiki page that has recipes from the show, and we thought Char would get a kick of making "Lost and Found-ue". Daphne checked; HyVee doesn't stock "Night-Blooming" fennel. 

I have an old fondue set, but I have no idea where it came from. Daphne says I had it before I met her. I don't know if it belonged to my parents or if I picked it up at a thrift store. Like most fondue sets, it has hardly ever been used.

Maggie wants to know what color her fondue fork is.

Gooey. Cheesy. Two words that sound great together.

We thought Char would have a lot of fun dipping bread and veggies into the melted cheese, but she didn't feel well, and she spent the evening wrapped up in a blanket watching TV.

The best laid plans of Mom and Dad...

Daphne and I enjoyed it, though. After a few bites, she waved her fork in the air and asked, "Why don't we fondue more often?"

Sauced and Found

Making dinner on the grill is a family tradition. I have memories of my dad lighting charcoal with a coffee can chimney when I was Charlotte's age.

I was in fourth grade when we moved to Rock Valley, and the house we bought already had a gas grill permanently installed in the backyard. It was connected to an underground gas line. That allowed Dad to grill all year round. It wasn't uncommon for me to come home late after a football game, a wrestling tournament, or a track meet and be greeted by my folks and a grilled steak.

My first grill was a used gas unit fed by a propane tank. It worked fine, but keeping track of the propane was a pain.

I discovered how much better it is to grill with charcoal in the late nineties. A vintage Weber grill was an impulse buy at Goodwill, but when I got it home I discovered that I had no clue how it worked. There were no instructions.

 My first Weber looked like this one.

My house didn't have the internet, so I did a lot of research at the library. "They're called books, kids!"

I read as many cookbooks as I could get my hands on (books on camping have a lot of grilling recipes, too). In June you can't throw a stick at a magazine rack without hitting a "Summer Grilling!" issue. I still flip through those, but back in the day I would buy one or two every season. They were tools that were as valuable as my meat thermometer.

I'll admit that grilling with charcoal is less convenient than grilling with gas. I'd compared it to listening to a LP on a home stereo versus streaming a YouTube song on your computer. You arguably get the same product, but one experience is much more satisfying than the other.

I now have quite a few outdoor cookbooks at home, but I didn't toss those old magazines - they are full of great recipes and memories. That is why the past nine months have been so frustrating. I've been wanting to make beer-can chicken on the grill since May, but I can't find the magazine with the recipe I use for white BBQ sauce. I know I made the white sauce at our old house, but we haven't lived there for four years. A lot of things can get lost in four years.

I can't even tell you the magazine's title. All I know is that it contained a reprint of an old recipe that was easy to make and had simple ingredients.

Is having the white BBQ sauce that big of a deal? I suppose not, but have you ever lost something you really liked, and you can't stop thinking about your loss? I'll get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, and when I get back in bed I can't get back to sleep because I can't remember where I put that dang magazine.

I have looked through all the magazines on our cookbook shelves at least once a month during the past summer and fall. I checked our recipe box, and our family cookbooks several times, as well. I know the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So yes, searching for this thing is driving me a little crazy.

Where are you?

We have great BBQ in Des Moines. If you believe the results of the National BBQ Circuit, we have some the best BBQ in the nation, if not the world. I know the local joints have their own white BBQ sauces, but I want to make mine.

So, I did what you would do, I googled "white BBQ sauce recipe".  I found a slew of recipes. Sadly, none of the them looked right. They listed ingredients like lemon juice, corn syrup, garlic, hot sauce, creole mustard, sugar, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, and even hickory smoke powder. I don't recall using any of those.

Each time I read through a new recipe's ingredients list, I think, Nope. It just wasn't this complicated. 

An online article about white sauce on Southernliving.com confirmed my thinking:

"As for the ingredients, well, purists such as Myra Grissom, owner of Miss Myra’s Pit Bar-B-Q in Birmingham, insists there are only four: mayonnaise, vinegar, salt, and coarsely ground pepper. 'Everyone says they have a special recipe, but there’s really no secret. You start with the basics, and you can’t go wrong,' recommends Myra."

There was a recipe link on the bottom of the Southern Living page, but that recipe listed also garlic, spicy brown mustard, and sugar. Cue buzzer sound here.

Last week, while I was thinking about motorcycles, I remembered a stack of car magazines that were stored in the basement. I ran downstairs, flipped through those, and taa-daa!, tucked between Old Skool Rodz and Hot Rod Deluxe was Food & Wine's "Grilling in the U.S.A." June 2000 issue!

The recipe is on page 152. My greasy fingerprints in the left margin are now old enough to vote.

The "Grilling in the U.S.A" feature was written by BBQ Guru Steven Raichlen, "White barbecue sauce is served throughout northern Alabama. It sounds weird. It is weird. But one taste of the chicken at Big Bob Gibson Barb-B-Q in Decatur - smoked to the color of mahogany, then tossed with a creamy, peppery white sauce - will make you a believer. Don McLemore, the third-generation owner of Big Bob's, says his grandfather came up with the recipe in 1925, using [only] vinegar, mayonnaise and black pepper. My own contribution is spoonful of prepared horseradish."

I knew it! The recipe isn't complicated! I'm writing this recipe down in case I misplace my magazine again.

White BBQ Sauce

MAKES ABOUT 1 1/2 CUPS

1 cup mayonnaise

2 to 4 tablespoons cider vinegar

2 tablespoons freshly grated or prepared horseradish

2 tablespoons water

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Combine all of the ingredients in a bowl and whisk until smooth. 

Make Ahead - The sauce can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to one week.

Since I haven't been to Alabama, and couldn't buy a bottle of authentic Big Bob's sauce in 2000, this is the white sauce  I "grew up on". I'm pumped to use it again.

If it wasn't going to be so cold on Super Bowl Sunday, then I'd have a chicken thawing in the fridge and my hickory chips soaking in water, but I'll have to wait a bit more before firing up the grill.

Now that I found Food & Wine, June 2000, I can breathe easy again. Waiting will be a snap.

Crusty Tot Pizza

The quest to make fun dinners at home continues.

I got the idea for last night's dinner from a feature on tater tots in All Recipes magazine.

Since tater tots are like French fries, I decided to make a cheese burger pizza for Daphne and I. Picky Charlotte gets just cheese on hers.

Here's our old school waffle iron. 

I thawed the frozen tots in the microwave and then lined them up on the waffle iron.

I used the back of a large spoon to press the tots down. I hoped that would help them stick together. It took about ten minutes in the old iron for the tots to get crispy.

Here's pizza crust number one. I was afraid it would fall apart when I took it out of the waffle iron, but the tot-crust came out as one piece. Yea! I employed our toaster oven for baking the pizzas. I wrapped some tin foil around a rack for easy cleanup.

For the cheese burger pizza sauce, I mixed ketchup and yellow mustard. I topped the sauce with browned hamburger, dill pickle relish and mild cheddar cheese. I forgot to buy an onion or that would have been on there, too.

It took about four minutes at 400 degrees to melt the cheese. I was too stingy with the cheese the first time around, so I added more on top of this.

I halved the cheese burger pizza, and then quartered each half.

Was it any good? Yes! This pizza tasted like a cheese burger and french fries rolled into one. The pizza was also comforting in a tater tot casserole kind of way. Char really liked the cheesy tots strips that I cut for her.

I know this isn't healthy food, but each small pizza used twenty tots, so that's about 320 calories in the crust. There are worst things in life, that's for sure. Best of all, this dinner was fun to make.

It's time to find another new recipe...

Daphne's Favorite Turkey (No, it's Not Me)

We had our first Thanksgiving in St. Louis last week. Daphne's dad lives on the outskirts of St. Charles, and his house is situated along the banks of the mighty Mississippi. Daphne cringes when I say, "the mighty Mississippi", so I typed that twice for her. The snowy roads and a quick visit with Great Grandma Ruth made a six-hour drive a nine-hour trip, but we made it in one piece.

On Thanksgiving morning we jumped in Andy’s (my father-in-law) vehicle and drove about a block to a neighbor’s machine shop. He has every tool a guy could possibly want, and that includes a turkey fryer. Frying a turkey for Thanksgiving isn’t anything new, but I hadn’t watched one prepared like that. 

Check it out, he lowers the bird in with a chain hoist. Genius.

Andy’s neighbor has got it down to a science, and there wasn’t much for us to do except watch the TVs mounted on the walls, listen to the oil sizzle, and covet the racks of equipment. He uses Bob and Tom’s Original Fried Turkey recipe, but thinks 4 minutes per pound is too long. He set his timer for 3 1/2 minutes per pound, and our first turkey was done in 47 minutes. That is fast.

Once you get it home and in the kitchen, no one would ever know you made this in the garage. 

Honestly, Daph isn't a fan of whole bird turkey, but she loved this, and this is the first year she has actually been excited about Thanksgiving leftovers. We trucked a large, take-home box back to our place.

While we were busy watching our birds fry, Char was "working" on the computer with the hat she stole from her mom.

After dinner Char hung out with her grandparents.

I've got this thing for wearing offbeat, thrift store t-shirts on holidays. Here's this year's selection.

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving!

recipe link

Waffle Eggs: A Breakfast By Any Other Name...

One of my favorite breakfast dishes is an egg fried in a hole in a slice of bread. The combination of eggs and toast might not be health food, but it's sure comforting. Growing up, we called it "Eggs in Bread", but I think the more common name is "Egg-in-a-Hole". It must be a pretty popular dish, because it goes by several other names, too:

Egg-in-a-Basket
Chicken-in-a-Basket
Frog-in-a-Hole
Toad-in-a-Hole
Egg Basket
Bird’s Nest Egg
Toad Hole
Egg Hole
Pop Eyes
Egg Toast
Private Eyes

I'd like to add another name to that list. I'm not what you'd call a creative cook. I usually follow a recipe by the letter, but here's my take on "Egg-in-a-Hole": "Waffle-Eggs!" (I also considered "Egg-in-an Eggo".)

Instead of bread, I use frozen waffles. Any brand will work, but here I'm working with the frozen waffles that are sold in bulk at Costco. 

First I drop two waffles in the toaster for one round on the lowest setting. I think it's easier to cut a hole in a waffle that's been warmed a bit. Then I spread butter (or margarine) on each side before making the hole. If you don't have a cookie cutter handy, then a small juice glass works fine.

Once the pan reaches medium heat - I turn the control knob to 6 - slide in the waffles and the "rounds" you cut out. I put a drop of butter in each hole, and then I crack an egg into the hole. Salt and pepper each egg as desired. (Hey, that kinda looks like WALL-E.)

I use the little waffle rounds to tell me when I can flip the Waffle-Eggs. The rounds are easy to flip, and when they're brown, so are their big brothers.

You can use the same trick with this side. For this dish I'm a fan of using yoke like syrup, so I like the yolk to be a bit runny. You can cook them to any degree you want. Just tap the top cooked side of the egg with your spatula to see how soft the yolk is underneath.

Time to plate it.

To quote Daphne, "Yum!"

If you want to see another idea I had for frozen waffles, you can click here.

You Can Get A Black Eye At Quick Trip.

A few years ago Quick Trip give away these booklets, and I thought the fountain drink recipes were pretty clever.

My favorite QT mixed drink recipe is the "Zip Code". It's just too bad it has the lamest name. Why can't I make a "Code Red", or a "Frozen Cherry" or a "White Out"? It's embarrassing to say,  "I could really go for a Zip Code right about now."

Check how QT wants you to add Gummy Worms to the "Fear Factor" recipe. How are you suppose to suck a Gummy Worm through a straw? You'd have to use a garden hose. I guess that would give you the full effect, though.

Despite what Mom said, you can eat yellow snow.

I really didn't write this post so I could make fun of these recipes. I think they're cool, and since they're not on the QT website anymore, I thought I'd share. 

Now it's time to hop into the car and get myself a "Zip Code"!

sigh.

Hot Buttered Cholesterios

Back in '82, salt and butter were considered honest staples in everyone's diet. I sure miss those days.

For years I was greeted by the smell of Hot Buttered O's when I got home after school. My sister was always making these. To speed up the process, she melted the butter over the Cheerios in the microwave. I wouldn't recommend that. Cheerios can get funky in the microwave, and strangely they can get really small. Like ten times smaller than their regular size.

It's the opposite of what happens to you when you eat them buttered and salted.

Take a Food Tour of the Iowa State Fair...

...circa 1973. Here.
I'm a sucker for loose meat sandwich recipes (called a "Made Right" in this clip), and I'm gonna try to scale her recipe down for my family.
Verbal recipe from the clip:

Combine:
10 pounds of ground beef
1/4 cup of vinegar
1/4 cup of sugar
1/4 cup of salt
1 cup of minced onion
1 cup of water
In a large pot, heat mixture until it's all "cooked up", and then stir in:
1 and 1/3 cup oatmeal to absorb the extra juice for a few minutes more.

If it was good enough for the Iowa State Fair, then it's good enough for me. I'm really curious about using the oatmeal.

Tales from Community Cookbooks: Copycat Edition

My brother-in-law Chris says that if you eat any other peanut butter cup than a Reese's, then you are going to be severely disappointed.

I agree.

BUT, if you ever wanted to eat a square yard of Reese Peanut Butter Cups (and who doesn't dream of that?), then you'd have to resort to a copycat recipe.

While shopping in a local bread store, I saw a sign on their bookshelves marked, "Vintage Cookbooks Make Great Gifts - One Dollar Each." They had a few books for sale, and as I thumbed through one, I spotted his recipe:

Sold.

It didn't take much pleading to get Daphne to agree to make these for me. I have to say, there are many other things in this world that do not taste this good. 

It's not a Reese's, but sometimes close is good enough. 

Tales from Commercial Cookbooks: Sausage Party Edition

Here's Good Housekeeping's Ten P.M. Cook Book from 1958.

There are seven recipe sections in this cook book, but this is the section that caught my attention.

If I was invited to this gathering, this dish might make me think twice about sticking around past ten p.m.

Frankly, I'd be worried that this party was supposed to be a sleepover.

Just to prove that I didn't pull these images from different cook books.

Tales from Community Cookbooks: Manly Edition

"The manly art of knife-throwing"? That's an awesome example. 

By far, this is the manliest cookbook I have ever found. I feel like I should do ten push-ups before I even open it. 

"The Storz Brewing Company was located at 1807 North 16th Street in North Omaha, Nebraska. Established from a company started in 1863, Storz Brewing began in 1876 by Gottlieb Storz and was owned by the Storz family until Arthur C. Storz Sr. sold the company in 1966. It went out of business in 1972. According to the Omaha World-Herald, "The Storz brewery pumped out 43 million gallons of beer a year and produced one-third of all the beer sold in Nebraska in 1960." wikipedia

Here's Arthur. 

Let's zoom in for a closer look.

Mr. Storz is drinking a beer, holding a smoke, grilling steaks over an open fire, and wearing an apron featuring a cook trying to kill farm animals. Storz even makes that chef hat look kinda cool. And let's not forget that he also owns his own brewery. In 1949 you couldn't get manlier. 

Health risks aside, I want to be that guy. Sadly, I can't. But thanks to Arthur C. Storz, I know how to properly serve a beer. 

 Again, let's zoom in for  closer look.

Finally, someone has given me permission to NOT do the dishes: Just rinse the damn thing, and put it back on the shelf. Soap is for sissies. 

I have no clue who Shelton is, but I like any man who puts two bacon layers in his baked beans. 

So, what does this cookbook suggest I eat with Shelton's baked beans?

Thanks, dude. I'll take two.

After dinner I'll practice my knife-throwing skills.