Jon's Sunnie Dried Eggs

 They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, well I don't know who "they" are but I like the way they think. This dish is fairly simple to put together. I was really getting into sundried tomatoes and started to get creative.

It's fairly simple.  

First Toast up some English muffins, butter them if your feeling sexy. (do not add butter before toasting in a traditional toaster. i use a toaster over where they lay flat)

While those are warming up get your favorite non-stick pan, you know the one I'm talking about.

Get a nice chunk of butter in the pan, melted and foamy.

then throw in some minced sun-dried tomatoes or a dollop of some sun-dried tomato paste. 

I typically put the minced sun-dried tomatoes into piles on the pan. This will be where I will aim the egg yolk, doesn't always work out perfectly but what can you do?

My personal recommendation for the sundried pesto is Filippo Berio, I can usually find this at stop and shop in the tomato sauce aisle.

While the minced piles of sundried tomatoes or pesto are cooking up. Hit the pan with some freshly chopped basil as well as some salt and pepper as you like.

once that has all at some time to warm up, about two minutes or so. behind crashing your egg onto the pile. To help better separate them I way for the first egg white to cook up a bit before dropping in the next egg.

Once the eggs are settled into the pan, drizzle the top of the eggs with some more basil and sun-dried tomatoes, I usually add just a little.

Once the whites of the eggs start to get cooked and no longer look goopy, I layer the top of the eggs with shredded mozzarella cheese. 

Cover and cook until the cheese is melted through

Grab your most agile spatula and slap those bad boys atop the English muffin slices

Consume with joy

Poppy's Pancakes

I hate pancakes.  I find them all to be tasteless, boring round cakes of disappointment, and for this, I blame my grandfather also known as Poppy. He ruined me, for his pancakes are pure bliss to my taste buds. The proverbial bar is set so high when it comes to pancakes, that simply no other will do.

Although I am sure I must have been served them earlier in life, the very first memory I have of eating these perfect pancakes were at their house in Florida. My siblings and I would sit along the counter while my grandfather began whipping up the batter. One of my aunts or my mother would always be off to the side cutting up strawberries into perfect, thin, little slices.  I remember my grandmother bopping around making sure everything was set out and ready. It truly was a team effort to get these pancakes just right.

They were served as they were ready, there was no waiting for others to get there or waiting for everyone to congregate, this meal was meant to be eaten right off the grill.. Waiting for others and thus letting the soft, toasty pancakes go cold was a travesty, neigh a mortal sin! Chef Eddy would man the griddle heating up these fantastic flapjacks to golden brown perfection. Once cooked thoroughly, he moved them from the grill to the serving plate, where room temperature butter was applied by one of the chef's assistants, also called children. Proceeding the application of the butter,  the plate is handed off to the next assistant to add strawberries, blueberries, or other fruit as well as a dusting of powdered sugar. No maple syrup for these bad boys, they will arrive at you looking like a delicious winter wonderland.

While I always remember them as "Poppy's Pancakes", I can't help but wonder if they were, actually my grandmother's recipe. She was and always will be the greatest cook in our family, also arises the fact that the original recipe is indeed in her handwriting. Nonetheless, in my memory, it was always Poopy who orchestrated the pancake preparation to perfection. 

Since my grandfather's passing, I have found myself making these pancakes more and more.  As I whisk the batter and hear the pancakes sizzle, I trail back to my childhood and think of these morning memories.  They keep him close to me while he rests up in heaven. I can feel him beside me as I flip them over to reveal their golden brown perfection, just as he did. I love you Poppy and I miss you aways.

The Recipe 

• 2 cup all-purpose flour ( gold medal preferred )
• 6 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoon sugar
• 2 egg
• 2 cup milk
• 4 tablespoon melted butter
• 1/2 cup sour cream

Pork tenderloin made with Nanny's love

What is it about Grandmas cooking that the mere suggestion of it provides me with a warm loving feeling? My grandmother, who we affectionately called Nanny, was probably the best cook I know. Any time my mother's side of the family would gather, mealtime would always be a production. My grandmother leading the way; dishing out tasks to all of her children and grandchildren if needed. Her meals consisted in large part of fresh non-processed foods; true it takes a little longer to make, but all that time and love being poured into the meal only enhances the flavor.

My own cooking interests may have been inspired out of necessity to care for my younger siblings while my parents were at work, but my passion for it was in no doubt sparked by watching Nanny create delicious meals for us. I hope to one day be able to provide the family meal experience she provided for us all these years; hopefully with her recopies in my back pocket.

My experience eating this dish was always accompanied by a large group of people, with that in mind I had invited a few different friends to join me for the evening. unfortunately, life gets in the way at times and some guest could not attend. Micheal and Shannon, on the other hand, arrived with dessert in hand ready for a delicious meal. Once they arrived I began to wrap up the last few steps of cooking and served my guests my grandmothers Tangy Pork Tenderloin dish

The packaging said "whole pork loin" I bought two, I was lied to.

The table was set and the food has arrived, inviting aromas filling the air. As a side, I cooked up some egg noodles, roasted carrots and melody small potatoes. These all came out fine; the one area I was worried was with the pork. I cooked it just a tad too long, which tends to dry out the pork, luckily there was plenty of sauce and gravy to deal with that. The evening was enchanting, in both the delightful company and the ambrosial cuisine. If you enjoy a tangy treat I recommend the recipe below.

Once dinner had concluded, my brother and I and lovely guests started a board game of Mysterium. If you are a fan of the board game clue and or enjoy a who done it situation, you will enjoy this kind of game.

PORK ROAST WITH TANGY SAUCE

ACTIVE TIME

 30

TOTAL TIME

 3 hours

CATEGORIES

 dinner, pork

---

INGREDIENTS

• • 4 to 5 pound boneless pork loin roast
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
  • 1/2 cup apple jelly [For Marinade]
  • 1/2 cup catsup [For Marinade]
  • 1/2 teaspoon chili powder [For Marinade]
  • 1 tablespoon of vinegar [For Marinade]
  • 1/2 to 1 cup corn chips

---

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Place pork, fat side up on the rack in shallow roasting pan. Combine the salt, garlic salt, and the first 1/2 tsp of chili powder; rub into roast.
2. Roast in 325 degree oven for 2-2.5 hours or until meat thermometer registers 165 degrees.
3. In a small saucepan combine Jelly, Catsup, Vinegar, and the remaining Chili Powder.
4. Bring to boil
5. Reduce heat and let simmer uncovered for 2 min
6. Brush roast with glaze; sprinkle top with corn chips.
7. Continue roasting 10-15 min
8. Remove roast from oven let stand 10 min
9. measure pan drippings and add water until it reaches 1 cup, serve with meat.

I like to double down on the marinade.

Enjoy :)

Lets Tacobout Dip

When I was a wee lad,  my Aunt Kelly brought a taco dip to a family event. It was love at first bite. Since then I always looked forward to BBQs and other cookouts, as I knew my Aunt would whip together her delicious taco dip. I have attempted to make this on my own a few times, but it just never comes out the same as hers. Food is never as good, as when it is prepared by someone who loves you.

Recently I attempted this recipe for my friend Heather's birthday bash. I was rather excited to see how it would be received in a room full of people who didn't know me or what I was doing with all this cooking. A few hours before we had to leave, the cooking madness began. The recipe itself is fairly simple; a foundation of cream cheese and sour cream whipped together with some taco seasoning; blanketed by taco meat, shredded lettuce, and whatever other add-ons you prefer.  Arriving at the party with the meat dip in my hand the non-taco meat dip being carried by my brother, we squeezed through passing off our contributions to the party and saying our hellos to the hostess. The place was packed, which is usually the case of Heather's parties. She knows how to throw a mighty fine shindig. The party was excellent. I didn't really know anyone save for 2-3 people I had gone to college with. My brother and I quickly got a hold of a drink and found a place to hunker down for the evening.

The bulk of the people hung out around the food table and most; which is to be expected at any party with delicious treats. Eventually, I found myself struggling through the crowd to get to some food and I noticed everyone was just standing around going to town on some Taco Dip. I grabbed my snacks and threw them on a plate and sauntered back to my chair feeling might proud of myself. The night rolled on; drinks were invented, snacks were consumed, conversations were had with new friends. Eventually, I found myself back at the food table only to realize that someone else had also brought a plate of taco dip and mine had barely been touched. My pride morphed into a seance of melancholy. In walks the silver lining. As the night came to a close and the good hugs were given; my brother and I ventured back to my car with most of the dip I arrived with as well as the chips in hand. It made for excellent midnight driving snacks on our way back home

• 8 oz cream cheese
• 8 oz reduced-fat sour cream
• 16 oz jar mild salsa
• 1.5 packet taco seasoning
• 2 cups iceberg lettuce, shredded fine
• 2 large tomatoes, seeds removed and diced
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 2.25 oz sliced black olives
• 1lb if ground beef or turkey

INSTRUCTIONS

• In a large bowl combine cream cheese, sour cream, salsa, and half a pack of taco seasoning and mix well with an electric mixer.
• Spread on the bottom of a large shallow glass dish.
• Cook the meat with the other pack of taco season as the pack instructs and layer it on top of the mixture.
• Top with shredded lettuce, tomatoes, shredded cheese, and black olives; as you see fit
• Serve with baked tortilla chips.

Sure Thing Chicken

We all find ourselves in a position where we either need or want to impress someone, whether it be your new boss,  a potential love interest, reconnecting with an old friend, what have you. Cooking for other people is a great way to put your best foot forward and/or show off a little. Not all of us have an affinity for cooking, however, I believe this is the easiest time to learn how.

Most of my time on social media these days have switched (somewhat) from posting bullshit nonsense to looking up tasty cooking videos and saving them to my profile. True while I have about 100 videos saved, I have only actually made about 4-5 of them. Which brings me to this past weekends dinner.

The recipe originated from a Tasty/Buzz-feed video I stumbled upon on Facebook. Essentially it consisted of a chicken breast cut in such a way that you could stuff it with Sun-dried tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil. I admit the dish wasn't bad as it was presented in the video and simple enough for anyone to make. 

I can recall the first time I tried this stuffed chicken recipe I absolutely fell in love the with the sun-dried tomato. The robust explosion of flavor blew my mind. One of those meals that makes my jaw tingle a little when I think about it. Once the daydream of running off and marrying an anthropomorphized Sun Dried tomato named Tammy Tomate, I soon began to come up with a way of improving the dish.

My biggest issue was the chicken to tomato ratio. There were some parts that were bursting with tomato and very little chicken and others that were just straight up chicken. I have evolved from the Pocket stuffed chicken to a more of a roll-up design, first, I would butterfly the chicken breast and pound it flat as best I could. Then layer the chicken with sun-dried tomato paste, cheese and fresh basil topped with chunks of sun-dried tomato bits. Once all the fixings were prepared I rolled it up best I could try to keep it all in place. Season to taste and topped with sun-dried dressing, more shredded cheese and a few whole sun-dried tomatoes to be burned in the oven.

FYI: BURNT SUN-DRIED TOMATOES ARE DELICIOUS!

To accompany the chicken I decided to mash up the leftover potato I had from a previous family dinner. 5 lb of Yukon gold potatoes cubed and boiling on the stove until soft for mashing were well underway. In addition to the potatoes, I decided on roasted carrots. Many moons ago while experimenting with season sticks (sticks of seasonings that you insert into your meat for inner seasoning) I cut up some carrots and threw them on the pan with the various chicken breast. To this day I have no idea how but those carrots came out next to divine.  I have tried again and again to replicate but have not yet succeeded...the quest continues.

It was around the time I was mashing the potato when my Dinner guest arrived, the requested bottle of wine in hand. This evenings meal would be for an old friend and classmate of mine, Kylie. It had been a few years since I last saw her, which is why I chose my Sure Thing Chicken; a kind of "I'm sorry for being a crappy friend" meal. Staying socially connected has never been one of my strengths I am more of a socially awkward kind of guy. Upon her arrival I felt a bit like a chicken with his head cut off, running around half mad in the kitchen trying to remember what I had just forgotten that I was going to tell myself to do. Once the cooking wrapped up we began our evening, it was decided we would watch Kingsman: The Golden Circle. Overall the evening was rather enjoyable. There were a few hiccups, namely her chicken being slightly undercooked..oops. but overall it was a good time. We ate, drank wine, watched a kick-ass movie and reminisced about our younger years. I look forward to having her over for future dishes.

If you can take anything away from this, I hope it is the desire to find a recipe you can master. Everyone should have a go do dish to impress.

Mantova Sundried Tomato

Tasty Sun-Dried Tomato Stuffed Chicken

Apricot Turkey

If I am going to start a blog about my culinary journey, it seems only fitting that the first entry is about the recipe that introduced me to the effect an amazing meal can have. I started doing the majority of the household cooking in my teen years, Mom and Dad both worked and I was the eldest, it just made sense for our family. Mostly it consisted of pasta dinners or hamburger helper. Those kinds of meals where you just follow the directions on the box and you're done. To be honest, it felt more like a chore, I didn't receive much joy from it but it was obviously better than starving.

Until I was introduced to Apricot Turkey.

I was about 14 or 15 years old, attending merit badge college at Quinnipiac University; this was a multi-weekend event to earn merit badges during the winter months; let me tell you how exciting it was to give up my weekends to take merit badge classes.😣 As I walked into the classroom for Indian Lore merit badge, I was excited to discover that my summer camp counselor Jim C was, in fact, teaching the course. You ever have one of those teachers that were just really passionate about the subject matter? That was Jim. One of the requirements for the badge was to make a Native American dish and bring it to class next week to discuss the meal and share with one another. The recipes were passed around and we each got one at random; the one I ended up with was, of course, Apricot Turkey.

A few days later my father took me to Stop and Shop where I began collecting all the things needed for the dish. Turkey was the hardest thing to find. The recipe called for 4-6 pounds of it, best thing I could think of was to get inch thick slabs of deli turkey from the deli counter. The deli guy looked at me like I had two heard but essentially shrugged it off and began slicing.

Friday night arrived and I started with the first part of the recipe, which called for the marinading of the turkey overnight; a marinade comprised of vinegar, molasses, and onions. The smell was real. No one in the house dared to enter the kitchen for fear that the fumes would take residents within their nostrils. My only companion was my dog Dusty...she smelled the turkey and kneI i would toss her some if my eyes caught hers.

Try as I might, my hands still smelled of vinegar the next day. Saturday morning I began part two of the recipe and started to fry the turkey cubes up a few at a time with a few other ingredients; as bad as the smell was last night, this new smell was equally amazing. I couldn't believe something that smelled so vile yesterday was now making my mouth water. My family smelling the seductive aroma of the turkey began checking in to see how my cooking is going, hoping to steal a sample for themselves of course. My dish was a hit at the merit badge class, unfortunately, that meant there were no leftovers for me.

Over the years the dish has evolved with adjustments and substitutions. Rice Pilaf in the place of white rice, small adjustments to the quantity of some ingredients. The dish has only really been made for people I want to impress; family, girlfriends, etc. I have only ever known one person to not like the dish...we don't speak any longer.

In my most recent rendition of my self-proclaimed world famous dish, I offered it to my dear friend Lee with the understanding that she would be required to come up with the entertainment for the evening. On my trip to stop and shop I was pleasantly surprised to find actual Turkey Breast in the meat section. No longer would I have to awkwardly ask for 6 lbs of inch thick turkey breast! I was excited to try my method with minimally processed turkey meat. everything else was running smoothly until after I removed the casserole dish from the oven and tasted my meal. I tasted nothing. It tasted like watered meat. Confusion surrounded me, I didn't understand what had happened. After some serious contemplation, it was determined that the meat being much fresher than previous renditions, it must have added additional moisture to the marinade concoction. A quick reduction of the liquids brought it back to its remembered glory. Lee also put together a little treat for me, some chocolate delights including chocolate covered bananas position and decorated to resemble a penis. She can be hilariously rude sometimes.

The delicious cock deserts made by Lee

All in all, I deemed the evening an excellent start to this years project. The hunt continues for old recipes and even some new ones to fill my recipe book to be printed and distributed, but for now, I will relax with a full belly and happy memories.

If you are wondering why I cross out the Apricot portion in Apricot Turkey, it is because dried apricots are gross and I removed them from the dish altogether.




Apricot Turkey Recipe