Grub For Guys Beef Chili

When the weather began to turn cold my mother always seemed compelled to cook. Not that she didn’t cook when the weather was warm but summer months were filled with salads and fried chicken. Good foods but somewhat light and easy to prepare. The cold months always brought a change to the type of foods coming out of my mom’s kitchen. Warm hardy dishes full of deep flavor and texture.

One of my all time favorites was my mom’s beef chili. Full of big chunks of beef and tomatoes this dish would simmer all afternoon tempting a house full of us boys to try sneaking a bite when mom wasn’t looking. By the time supper rolled around that huge Dutch oven full of chili didn’t stand a chance, and for the next couple of days neither did our shorts!

Over the years whenever I had a craving for my mom’s beef chili I would go through all the traditional steps for preparation and wait hours for the results, mired in the knowledge that the flavor could never be duplicated Grub style.

News Flash! I finally overcame my fears and tread those hallowed culinary grounds to bring this fantastic dish to the Grub Nation! Just don’t tell my mommy………

1 pound ground beef
1 15 oz tomato sauce
2 15 oz can of water
2 15 oz cans of pinto beans in chili sauce
2 tablespoons Worchester sauce
2 tablespoons minced dried onions
2 tablespoons canned diced jalapenos
1 ½ tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon minced dried garlic
Salt and Pepper to taste

In a 5qt sauce pan brown the ground beef over medium heat, adding Worchester sauce and salt. When ground beef is nearly browned add the onions. Cover and cook for approx. five minutes. Drain off excess fat and return ground beef to the sauce pan.

Combine the rest of the ingredients in the pan and bring to a slow rolling boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes.

This hot and hardy dish feeds five sober guys and two chicks or six drunks.

Can do another review

I decided to try the B&M canned raisin bread today. The bagger at the store spotted it and was somewhat bemused. The cashier said it was good stuff. When I said it would be good for camping she said “heck, yeah!”

Crank open a nice can of bread

Today we have a field report from a fellow grubworm. Read about his experience with canned bread.

~

Bread in a can? You bet! And it’s good stuff.

B&M Canned Brown Bread. (http://www.bgfoods.com/bm/bm_products.asp)

I kept seeing this in the grocery stores in NY and MA. Finally, I broke down and bought a can. It’s fascinating stuff. It’s baked right in the can, so it’s very moist. It’s definitely not sandwich bread. Nothing light and fluffy here. It’s so moist, it’s almost like a cake. A very heave cake! And it’s a bit crumbly. Like European brown bread, it has a strong taste. If it’s possible for bread to have a faint black licorice smell, that’s what it reminded me of – but don’t worry, it dosen’t taste like licorice!

It goes very good with beanie weenies! Would be good with chili, or bean soup, too, in place of corn bread (you do like to crumble a piece of corn bread into your chili or bean soup, right? If not, what’s the matter with you?!).

This would be an excellent addition to camping or survival grub, as it has a long shelf life since it’s hermetically sealed even before it’s cooked! I can’t wait to try some fried up in a cast iron skillet over a bed of coals. Bliss!

If your store doesn’t stock it, you can get it here: http://mainegoodies.com/gourmet/cannedbrownbread.shtml

Grub out!

Ramen Chicken Piccata

Piccata, what’s Piccata? I couldn’t tell you what Piccata is but I can tell you how to cook it….Grub Style! That’s because it was Piccata that inspired me to take Ramen noodles to the next level. This in turn led me to develop Grub For Guys and eventually the Ramenation itself!

Back in the 70’s my family used to visit a small Italian diner in Littleton Colorado known as Romanos. Run by a large Italian family this unique little establishment featured an atmosphere that made you feel like you were part of the kitchen staff and offered a great view of the food as it was prepared.

My favorite Romanos dish just happened to be Chicken Piccata. Every time we visited I would order chicken piccata and watch as Papa Romano prepared it. I was always amazed that such a wonderful dish was so easy to prepare and I was inspired to try my hand at cooking it. Believe me when I say that the subtleties of a great dish eluded me for many years. But as my mother always said; practice makes perfect. And it did! By the time that Nobel Sysco truck delivered Top Ramen noodles to my mother’s pantry in the late 70’s (see “Ramen Recipes”) I was ready to put it all together!

From that moment to this I have dedicated a good portion my time daydreaming or developing recipe’s that build complicated culinary master pieces into easy to prepare Grub. This was my first and still remains my favorite.

Ingredients:

1 Package Chicken Ramen Noodles
1 12-13 oz Can white chicken breast (Drained)
1 1/2 cup water
1/4 cup dry white wine
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 cup drained capers
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Prep:

In a 10 inch skillet melt 1 tablespoon of butter over medium high heat then add drained chicken breast. Let the chicken brown stirring carefully so you don’t break up the chicken, about 5-8 minutes.

Push the chicken to one side and stir in the the wine, scraping the bottom of the pan. Now add the remaining tablespoon of butter and capers to the skillet and let heat this heat for about 5 minutes. Once this mixture is reduced slightly add water, lemon juice and the contents of the Ramen package. Bring to a boil and cook for 5 minutes.

Remove the skillet from the heat, add the parsley, give it a quick stir and Grub!

Ramen Recipes

Ramen Noodles. What can I say? Never in the history of packaged foods has there been a product developed that more fits the “Grub For Guys” lifestyle. Remember that line, and quote it often because someday it will be synonymous with a great new movement in contemporary cooking!

I know. I get carried away sometimes. But if you remember from the introduction, a spur of the moment Ramen recipe is what inspired me to seek the real meaning of grub. And that in turn is what led to the development of Grub For Guys, the next great culinary experience. But to get to the beginning of my love affair with Ramen noodles we have to go back to my teenage years.

I still remember as if it where yesterday. One morning, fresh off an outing of breaking curfew and substance abuse laws, my good friend Sonny and I decided to raid my mother’s legendary pantry. Now when I say legendary I mean it. My mom’s pantry was the size of a small bedroom. And if you took the time to dig around you could find anything from pickled eggs to fancy preserves. Don’t get the wrong idea here. We were far from well off but my mom came from a German farming family and from what I can gather these folks could put away some grub. Looking back I’m sure that my mother would stock the pantry before she paid the electric bill. And with a house full of eight or ten boys I suppose that was the only way she maintained order (full bellies do take the edge off?).

As it turned out the Nobel Foods man had just made a delivery the day before and much to our surprise it included little packages of something called Ramen Noodles. Like true dedicated “Grubbers” we checked the directions to make sure it was quick and easy to prepare. Talk about surprised! I was beside myself! And you could have knocked sonny over with a weak left jab (as usual!) Right there on the label the cooking time was estimated as 5 minutes. 5 minutes!? Wow! This was too good to be true! So we cooked up a couple bags of Chicken Ramen Noodles. The experience was unbelievable. In just five minutes we had two bowls soup that were second only to home cooking! It was so good we had to try the Beef Ramen. We cooked up a couple of bags and it was even better! We decided right then and there that this Ramen phenomenon had to be explored further. So vowing to resume the carnage in the morning, or afternoon as it were, we stumbled off, bellies full for a sound nights sleep.

Looking back now, I realize that this was the beginning of a lifelong passion for me. That wonderful chicken soup taste! In 5 freakin’ minutes! From that moment on I was driven to take every traditional recipe I enjoyed and transform it into a Grub dish. Many of the great dishes my mother and aunts fed me while I was growing up have found their way to my Grub cookbooks, many in the form of Ramen recipes.

I have over 250 Ramen recipes in my personal collection. 250! And those are just the one’s I wrote down. I have never found a recipe that could not be adapted to include or be built around Ramen noodles. From Beef Bourguignon to Pollo Picatta you can enjoy the best of dishes Grub For Guys Ramen style.

Be sure to visit often because I have decided to dedicate the next few weeks on the “Grublog” to some of my favorite Ramen stories and favorite Ramen recipes.

To kick off this tour of my World of Ramen, my Ramenation, I give you: Ramen Chicken Piccata!

~ Grubmaster